Tag: Electronics industry

The OnePlus 12 could be one of 2024’s best Android phones | Digital Trends

tech FranklinWilbur

The OnePlus 12 could be one of 2024’s best Android phones | Digital Trends

Prakhar Khanna / Digital Trends

OnePlus has had a brilliant year thanks to some great devices. The OnePlus 11 emerged as a comeback in terms of value for money, with high-end features for just $699. It offered a big and bright display, good-quality cameras, excellent performance with clean software, and all-day battery life.

But it still had two omissions, which seem to be fixed by the OnePlus 12 that was unveiled in China today. If the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is anything similar to the Gen 2 in terms of efficiency, the OnePlus 12 could be one of 2024’s best Android phones.

A truly impressive camera system

OnePlus 12 camera module in green.
OnePlus

I used the OnePlus 11 as my daily driver for a while, and I was impressed with the overall performance and design. While the OnePlus 12 doesn’t offer a complete overhaul in terms of looks, it’s been upgraded under the hood to offer two key features – one that I dearly missed having, plus one that appeals to the U.S. market, in particular.

Despite the presence of three cameras on the OnePlus 11, I missed having 3x optical zoom. The OnePlus 12 sports a new triple camera setup, which not only adds a better telephoto sensor, but also shares the overall camera DNA with the OnePlus Open. The OnePlus 12’s triple rear camera setup is led by a 50MP Sony LYT-808 primary camera with optical image stabilization (OIS). It is accompanied by a 48MP Sony IMX581 ultrawide angle camera and a 64MP OV64B periscope lens with 3x optical zoom.

It’s the exact configuration of the lenses as the OnePlus Open, which houses the most versatile camera setup on a foldable phone. I’ve been using the OnePlus foldable phone since its launch, and it has only improved the cameras with each update.

The 50MP Sony LYT-808 sensor is impressive on the OnePlus Open. As you can see from the above images, the skin tone is good and there’s ample dynamic range, with no overblown highlights in the cloud — the overall image looks pleasing. The camera wasn’t very well-tuned for lowlight at launch, but OnePlus has fixed that, too, to some extent.

While the 50MP primary camera captures detailed photos, I was more impressed with the 64MP periscope camera. And that’s because it not only takes good 3x shots, but also performs well up to 15x digital zoom, with great 6x zoom images. When compared to the digital zoom on my iPhone 15 Pro, the OnePlus Open performed better on 6x and up to 15x.

The above images show great details and good dynamic range on 3x as well as 6x zoom. Those are some big expectations to have after experiencing the OnePlus Open. But with it having the same camera setup (now tuned with “4th Gen Hasselblad Camera for Mobile”), I’m pretty confident that the OnePlus 12 will be a step up from the OnePlus 11 in terms of camera quality.

OnePlus brought back wireless charging

A photo of someone holding the white/silver OnePlus 12.
OnePlus

Both the OnePlus 11 and OnePlus Open had one glaring omission – no wireless charging. While I didn’t have an issue (because I mostly work remotely in cafes or from sofas), I get the argument of how convenient wireless charging can be for some people. It’s also beneficial when you have several wireless charging pads set up in various places inside your home.

The OnePlus 12 brings 50-watt wireless charging to the table. It’s reminiscent of the OnePlus 10 Pro, which was the fastest wireless charging phone in the U.S. at the time of launch. The OnePlus 12 will soon take that mantle as it’s rumored to launch in the U.S.in January.

The addition of better cameras and wireless charging makes the OnePlus 12 a complete phone. You should expect a price bump, for sure, but I expect it to be one of the phones to look out for in 2024 given the company’s recent track record and my experience with OnePlus Open’s camera system. The OnePlus 11 was already a great phone, and the 2024 flagship seems to take it up a notch.

What else does the OnePlus 12 offer?

OnePlus 12 in Black.
OnePlus

The OnePlus 12 features a 6.82-inch QHD+ 2K OLED LTPO display that supports a 120Hz refresh rate. The screen is rated to reach 4,500 nits of peak brightness, which is one of the highest numbers we’ve ever seen. You’ll normally see the phone reach around 1,600 nits, but it can get a lot brighter when it needs to. The 4,500 nits level is meant for HDR content; some areas of the screen can go up to that number when required in HDR videos. Like the OnePlus Open, the OnePlus 12 display supports Dolby Vision, 10Bit Color Depth, and ProXDR.

The OnePlus 12 is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, which I’ve yet to test, but I hope it’s at least as efficient as the Snapdragon Gen 2. The OnePlus 12 now starts at 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM instead of 8GB and comes equipped with the same base 256GB of UFS 4.0 storage. It goes up to 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.

The 2024 OnePlus flagship packs a 5,400mAh battery that supports 100W wired and 50W wireless fast charging. To prevent it from overheating, it sports Oppo’s SuperVOOC S power management chip, which was first introduced on the OnePlus 11R. The OnePlus 12 is rated IP65 for dust and water resistance, which is a step up from the IP64-rated predecessor.

In terms of design, the OnePlus 12 doesn’t feature an overhaul, but still has some noticeable changes. First, the alert slider is now on the other side of the phone, so you now get the volume rockers and power button on one side and the alert slider on the other. Second, the green color variant features a wavy pattern on the back. It sure looks good in pictures. The OnePlus 12 comes in three color options — white, green, and black.

OnePlus 12 price and availability

OnePlus 12 in green and white.
OnePlus

The OnePlus 12 price starts at 4,299 yuan ($607) in China for the base 12GB/256GB variant, whereas the top-end 24GB/1TB model will sell for 5,799 yuan ($818). It’s a 300 yuan increase from the OnePlus 11, and you should expect a price bump on the OnePlus 12 when it goes global in “early 2024.” As per previously leaked information, the device is expected to be launched in other markets by the end of January.

It’s unclear how much the OnePlus 12 will cost when it eventually comes to the U.S., but if it’s China pricing is anything to go by, it should be quite competitive.

Editors’ Recommendations






Something amazing happened to folding phones in 2023 | Digital Trends

tech FranklinWilbur

Something amazing happened to folding phones in 2023 | Digital Trends

Prakhar Khanna / Digital Trends

Samsung has been in charge of leading the foldable segment for too long. For years, Samsung dominated the foldable landscape with little to no competition. But that changed in 2023.

While the company put in the work to improve the Galaxy Z Flip 5 with a bigger cover display, the Galaxy Z Fold 5 seemed to remain an afterthought. Fortunately, other smartphone manufacturers started rolling out more foldable phones globally this year, and now, Samsung’s aren’t the go-to choice anymore. There’s finally healthy competition and choice for folding phones, and I’m so here for it.

Finally, some real competition

OnePlus Open and Google Pixel Fold camera modules.
Christine Romero-Chan / Digital Trends

Samsung started facing the heat from Google in June with the rollout of the Google Pixel Fold. It introduced a new form factor with a wide cover display and a horizontal aspect ratio on the inside. In my opinion, it isn’t an ideal form factor, especially with the weight and not having a vertical display on the inside. But it brought actual competition for the foldable phone market in the U.S. — a critically important task.

Honor showcased the slimmest and lightest foldable with the Honor Magic V2 in September, and it was a turning point for me. It lies in the middle of the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Pixel Fold in terms of form factor. It solved the major design issues that were a norm for book-style foldables.

The Honor Magic V2 is closer to a slab phone in more than one way. It is thin enough to feel like a regular slab phone and weighs less than my then-primary phone, the iPhone 14 Pro Max. In fact, Honor made a whole new slim 5,000mAh battery for its foldable. Plus, It has a crease less than the other two Folds and packs a 20:9 cover screen, which is close to what you’d find on the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra or the iPhone 15 Pro Max.

While the Honor Magic V2’s global availability hasn’t been announced, it is slated to launch sometime in Q1 2024. It showcased what a book-style foldable can be and became a benchmark for design – at least for me. And it remains one even after the launch of the OnePlus Open (more on that below).

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 next to the Motorola Razr Plus, both showing their cover screens.
Joe Maring / Digital Trends

Additionally, we saw the return of Motorola Razr with the Motorola Razr (2023) and Motorola Razr Plus. The latter was arguably better than the Galaxy Z Flip 5, with a bigger cover screen and better battery life. Globally, Oppo had already rolled out the Find N2 Flip, which introduced a new vertical cover screen on the outside.

Samsung made a good comeback with the Galaxy Z Flip 5 in Q3, which brought a solid hinge and new cover screen but with the same dual camera setup and gutter-like crease in the middle. The Oppo Find N3 Flip solved both concerns with a triple rear camera setup that included a dedicated telephoto lens on a flip phone for the first time. Plus, the crease situation was much better than Samsung’s phones.

One phone beat Samsung at its own game

OnePlus Open from the back, in hand and less than half folded.
Prakhar Khanna / Digital Trends

If the Honor Magic V2 had been released outside of China, it’d be my go-to recommendation for a book-style foldable. But OnePlus did what Honor couldn’t with its first big foldable, the OnePlus Open. It not only challenged Samsung but beat it in almost every way — despite undercutting it on the price.

Similar to the Honor Magic V2, the OnePlus Open features a 20:9 aspect ratio, which I consider ideal for this type of foldable. As a result of the slab-like cover screen, apps don’t misbehave, which is an issue on the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Pixel Fold – whether with black borders or the app not being comfortable and displaying zoomed-in text on an irregular aspect ratio. But the OnePlus Open did two other things that no other folding phone has done yet.

First, It offered a camera setup that’s better and more versatile than any big foldable phone. At launch, it had some issues with tuning for the new Sony sensor, but it has only gotten better with updates. Plus, the 6x zoom feels straight out of a more traditional flagship phone.

Two games running simultaneously on OnePlus Open held in hands.
Botworld (top) and Whiteout Survival running on OnePlus Open simultaneously. Tushar Mehta / Digital Trends

Second, the crease is almost negligible. You can still feel it, but it’s notably less than the Samsung, Google, Honor, or Tecno foldables. You can’t see it 99% of the time, and for that 1% you can, you have to view it at a specific angle. It’s a non-issue.

The OnePlus Open also took multitasking to the next level with its Open Canvas feature. For the first time, you can now have three apps simultaneously on your screen, with each interaction just a tap away. When you use it, you realize how much you can accomplish on the big inner display. I can plan for my next story or my next trip with Chrome, YouTube, and Google Keep all open simultaneously.

The OnePlus Open is easily my favorite phone of the year that’s available globally.

2023 did something else for foldables

Tecno Phantom V Fold and Tecno Phantom V Flip.
Prakhar Khanna / Digital Trends

It’s no secret that folding phones come at an expensive price tag, and oftentimes, it’s the price that keeps consumers from jumping on the foldable bandwagon. But Tecno democratized the market by launching a book-style foldable and a flip phone at unbelievable prices.

The Tecno Phantom V Fold was launched at 79,999 Indian Rupees (INR), which translates to $960, less than most regular flagship phones. YouTuber Michael Fisher famously called it the “a fold at the price of a flip” – something Tecno used at its launch event.

The Tecno Phantom V Fold's open screen.
Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

The Phantom V Fold isn’t a bad foldable by any means. It offers a more useable cover screen and a lesser crease on the inner screen than the Galaxy Z Fold 5. There were obviously instances where Tecno had to cut corners. For example, the hinge is either at 90 degrees or 180 degrees flat, and the cameras aren’t something to boast about, but they’re workable.

As if that wasn’t enough, Tecno also launched a flip phone at 49,999 INR ($600), which brings it to a mid-range phone category, similar to the Motorola Razr launch price in the US. It is selling for 54,999 INR ($660) and still remains the cheapest flip phone on the market, slightly cheaper than the $700 Motorola Razr.

You might not get the fastest performance or the best cameras on these two flip phones, but they are democratizing foldables, which have long remained a novel pursuit. In 2023, folding phones aren’t something you have to splurge on, and that’s a big win for the form factor.

Folding phones are here to stay

Honor Magic V2 and OnePlus Open in hand.
Prakhar Khanna / Digital Trends

In short, 2023 was an outstanding year for folding phones.

Samsung faced more competition than ever, which exposed its lazy approach with the Fold 5. Google entered the segment. Honor showed you can make foldables as slim and light as a slab phone. OnePlus led the form factor with great cameras, a near-creaseless display, and next-level multitasking. Oppo introduced a dedicated telephoto camera on a flip phone for the first time. Motorola and Tecno brought foldables to the masses.

That’s more activity in the global foldable market than we’ve seen in the last four years combined — since the launch of the first Galaxy Fold in 2019. I’m still amazed by having a 7.6-inch tablet-like display right inside my pocket that enables me to do so much more than a regular, non-folding phone.

I hope 2024 continues to be amazing for foldables and that Samsung pushes itself to make the Galaxy Z Fold 6 more than an iterative upgrade. This is the best year we’ve had yet for folding phones, and I can’t wait to see where the niche is another year from now.

Editors’ Recommendations






1More’s PistonBuds Pro Q30 look like great budget buds at $50 | Digital Trends

tech FranklinWilbur

1More’s PistonBuds Pro Q30 look like great budget buds at $50 | Digital Trends

1More

The new PistonBuds Pro Q30 from 1More boast AirPods-like looks along with active noise cancellation (ANC) and spatial audio, but it’s their rock-bottom $50 price that stands out. As part of the launch, 1More has dropped the price to $40 for a limited time, making these wireless earbuds even more attractive. The PistonBuds Pro Q30 are available in white/gold or black/gold combos.

In the past, 1More has favored a stemless design for its PistonBuds lineup, but this time the company has opted for a stem-based approach. If you’ve ever tried PistonBuds in the past and found them a poor fit, this new shape might be a better option.

Man wearing 1More PistonBuds Pro Q30.
1More

Inside the buds are 10mm diamond-like carbon (DLC) drivers that 1More claims will deliver “powerful bass and vibrant vocals” and three microphones per side. The mics power the earbuds’ ANC modes, which include transparency, wind noise resistance mode, and an adaptive mode. With the help of an AI-enabled voice recognition algorithm, 1More promises the new PistonBuds will deliver clear calls.

Though not intended as sports wireless earbuds per se, the PistonBuds Pro Q30 have an IPX5 rating for water resistance, which will keep them very adequately protected from sweat and the occasional splash if you clean and dry them after each use.

1More PistonBuds Pro Q30 in white/gold.
1More

Battery life is rated at 7.5 hours with ANC off, and the charging case’s supply can extend this to 30 hours. A fast-charging system can top up the earbuds with an extra two hours after just 10 minutes in the case. Unfortunately, wireless charging is one feature that didn’t make the cut at this price.

There’s an optional low-latency mode for gaming applications, and the 1More Music app can enable a spatial audio feature for “360-degree listening.” Bluetooth 5.3 is supported, along with Bluetooth Multipoint for simultaneous connections to two devices.

As soon as we get a chance to try them, we’ll let you know if they belong on our best budget wireless earbuds and headphones list.

Editors’ Recommendations






This is the best Lenovo gaming PC you can buy | Digital Trends

tech FranklinWilbur

This is the best Lenovo gaming PC you can buy | Digital Trends

Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

Lenovo’s Legion series is known for its solid lineup of gaming notebooks, but it also includes gaming tower PCs. With an elegant design and standard-size components, the Legion Tower 7i is currently the best Lenovo gaming PC you can buy. In our testing, we concluded it delivers strong performance alongside an appealing and subtle design.

Unlike most prebuilt gaming desktops, it comes with a standard mid-tower chassis. This allows for comprehensive upgrades in the future, meaning you can easily swap out or add parts if or when required. All the parts installed inside the Tower 7i are standard, including the motherboard and power supply.

It also looks elegant with subtle curving around the edges, a sandblasted finish, and a tempered glass side panel so you can show off your internals. While our review unit didn’t include any RGB fans, the retail unit comes with a total of six RGB fans, along with RGB lighting for the Legion logo on the front and the GPU.

Lenovo Legion Tower 7i gaming PC sitting on a table.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

Thanks to the perforated front panel, the case gets plenty of airflow. There’s a 360mm AiO liquid cooler on the front that pulls in fresh air and keeps the CPU well under limits, while two 120mm fans are placed on top and one in the rear to exhaust hot air.

The Legion Tower 7i offers some of the best performance thanks to the top-of-the-line hardware offerings from Intel and Nvidia. Lenovo has notably bumped up the processor class to Intel’s Core i9 series, andit’s paired with an RTX 4080 graphics card. Currently, you can only configure this machine with the Intel Core i9-13900KF processor, with 32GB of DDR5-5600 memory and a 1TB NVMe SSD. Other important components include an 850-watt power supply, 2.5G Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6E, and Bluetooth 5.1 support.

Inside the Lenovo Legion Tower 7i.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends / Digital Trends

In terms of performance, the Legion Tower 7i is exceptional. The Core i9-13900KF is one of the most powerful processors on the market today, which was evident in our benchmark testing. However, there is a concern that restricts the performance of the CPU– the out-of-the-box memory speeds. Thankfully, there’s an easy fix where all you need to do is head into the BIOS and switch to the correct frequencies.

CPU cooler on the Lenovo Legion Tower 7i.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends / Digital Trends

On top of that, you get the full potential of Nvidia’s RTX 4080 graphics. It might not be as powerful as the 4090, but it is still a 4K capable GPU, with Cyberpunk 2077 averaging above 60 frames per second (fps) at 4K with everything maxed out. Additionally, you get all the benefits of DLSS, including the latest generation that offers impressive frame generation technologies. Essentially, you have all the power at your disposal to play almost any AAA gaming title at the highest graphics settings.

While all of this costs close to $3,200, it is important to know that a similarly configured desktop from Alienware is going to cost you at least $600 more. On the other hand, there’s the MSI Aegis RS 13, which is close to $300 cheaper, but comes with a lower-tier processor. Lenovo also offers the Legion Tower 5i, which starts at $799 and is available in various configurations, including with Intel’s 13th-gen desktop processors paired with RTX 30 and 40 series GPUs. If you prefer AMD, then there’s also the Legion Tower 5 series.

Editors’ Recommendations






This Lenovo 2-in-1 laptop is discounted from $860 to $500 | Digital Trends

tech FranklinWilbur

This Lenovo 2-in-1 laptop is discounted from $860 to $500 | Digital Trends

Lenovo

Lenovo continues its reign of offering some of the best laptop deals at the moment with the Lenovo Yoga 6 13-inch AMD model down to $600 from $860. A saving of 30% or $260 sounds pretty great although it’s always good to be a little cautious of Lenovo’s overly optimistic estimated value system. Still, what we do know for sure is that $600 for a stylish 2-in-1 laptop is a pretty sweet deal. If that immediately sounds like your kind of thing then hit the buy button otherwise, take a look below at what else we have to say about it.

Why you should buy the Lenovo Yoga 6

Lenovo is one of the best laptop brands out there with that reputation particularly extending to its 2-in-1 range. This particular model has an AMD Ryzen 5 7530U processor along with 8GB of memory and 512GB of SSD storage. As with the other best 2-in-1 laptops, it also has a great touchscreen. The display is a 13.3-inch WUXGA IPS panel with 1920 x 1200 resolution, 100% sRGB color, and 300 nits of brightness.

Above the display is a full HD IR Hybrid webcam with dual microphones and a privacy shutter. The Lenovo Yoga 6 13-inch AMD also comes with a Lenovo digital pen so you can be more accurate with your movements on screen while the backlit keyboard has a fingerprint reader for added security.

Adding to the useful features, the Lenovo Yoga 6 13-inch AMD also promises an all-day battery life like the best laptops along with rapid charge technology. There’s also support for Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos so you get vibrant colors and great audio, whether you’re watching a movie or calling someone. Combined with the laptop’s 360-degree hinge, it’s perfectly versatile for work or pleasure. Think of it as the ideal addition if you can’t decide if you need a tablet or a laptop.

Packed with more features than you’d expect at this price, the Lenovo Yoga 6 13-inch AMD is normally $860 at Lenovo. Right now, you can buy it for $600 so you save $260 off the regular price. A great 2-in-1 laptop for many different purposes, check out this doorbuster deal before it ends very soon.

Editors’ Recommendations






Intel says AMD’s Ryzen 7000 is snake oil | Digital Trends

tech FranklinWilbur

Intel says AMD’s Ryzen 7000 is snake oil | Digital Trends

Intel

In what is one of the most bizarrely aggressive pieces of marketing material I’ve seen, Intel is comparing AMD’s Ryzen 7000 mobile chips to snake oil. Over the weekend, Intel posted its Core Truths playbook, which lays out how AMD’s mobile processor naming scheme misleads customers.

There’s an element of truth to that, which I’ll get to in a moment, but first, the playbook. Intel starts with claiming that there’s a “long history of selling half-truths to unsuspecting customers” alongside images of a snake oil salesman and a suspicious used car seller. This sets up a comparison between the Ryzen 5 7520U and the Core i5-1335U. Intel’s chip is 83% faster, according to the presentation, due to the older architecture that AMD’s part uses.

AMD's 2023 naming scheme for mobile processors.
AMD

Intel has a point here. Last year, AMD changed its mobile naming convention, which obfuscated underpowered parts using an older architecture. Instead of matching architecture with generation, as Intel and AMD have done for years, AMD now says all of its mobile processors are part of the latest Ryzen 7000 generation regardless of the architecture they use.

Now, the third number in the name shows the architecture the CPU uses. For example, the Ryzen 5 7640U uses the Zen 4 architecture, while the Ryzen 5 7520U uses the Zen 2 architecture. It’s clear how this can be misleading when a chip using an older architecture is shown alongside the latest generation of CPUs.

It’s a little ironic coming from Intel, though. This was a few years ago, but it’s hard to forget that Intel sat behind its 14nm node introduced with Skylake on desktop for years, making incremental performance improvements with each generation that followed.

Some of that still applies today. Intel just released its 14th-gen processors for desktop, which are basically rebranded versions of its 13th-gen Raptor Lake processors. There are some performance improvements, but they aren’t very large. Similarly, we’re about to get 14th-gen Meteor Lake processors for laptops, but we aren’t seeing those chips on desktop, creating a mismatch for what “14th-gen” means for Intel across its product stack.

An Acer Aspire 3 laptop listing at Best Buy.
Digital Trends

Still, Intel’s shuffling with naming shouldn’t distract from AMD’s fault here. The Ryzen 7000 naming scheme is confusing on mobile, and it can mislead buyers into buying a processor that’s older than what the name implies. There are laptops using these chips, too. For instance, the Ryzen 7 7520U is featured in the Acer Aspire 3, which is an affordable laptop

.

Thankfully, AMD’s chips aren’t available in a ton of laptops, at least not compared to Intel. Otherwise, the naming scheme would be a much bigger issue.

Intel’s playbook holds some truth, even if it is a little aggressive. Regardless, it’s proof that it’s always important to read up on a product your interested in buying, no matter if it comes from AMD or Intel.

Editors’ Recommendations






Need a new laptop? Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 is $400 off | Digital Trends

tech FranklinWilbur

Need a new laptop? Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 is $400 off | Digital Trends

Mark Coppock / Digital Trends

If you’ve been waiting for great laptop deals on the Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 range, you’re in luck. Best Buy currently has $400 off the Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 so you can buy it for $900 instead of $1,300. A great option for students who want to look stylish or anyone who wants a laptop a little different from the rest, here’s a deeper look at what to expect before you buy it.

Why you should buy the Microsoft Surface Laptop 5

The Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 is a pretty sleek option even if Microsoft has yet to break the best laptop brands world. It has an Intel Evo Platform Core i5 processor paired up with 8GB of memory and 512GB of SSD storage. Those are all the essentials you could need from this kind of laptop.

Even more of a highlight is the 13.5-inch PixelSense touchscreen. Looking good and offering a great resolution of 2,256 x 1,504, its 3:2 aspect ratio stands out from the crowd. As a touchscreen, you can always choose to be more hands-on with your work too if you prefer that over using conventional controls. The screen also has Dolby Vision IQ support for better visuals while there’s Dolby Atmos support for the speakers so it’s a good system for streaming movies on.

The Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 is also focused on portability as demonstrated by its 18 hour battery life, super sleek design, and lightweight build. It’s that laptop you can take to class or a coffee shop without worrying about it taking up too much room in your bag. Not needing the charger so often is a huge advantage too.

Available in a variety of colors at this price, the Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 is suitably personal to you. It’s neat to be able to veer away from the standard black exterior that we usually see from laptops with the Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 feeling like it’s rivalling the likes of Apple’s range in terms of style. Speed wise, it won’t compete with most of the best laptops but as a general all-rounder, it’s still pretty appealing.

Usually priced at $1,300, you can currently buy the Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 for $900 at Best Buy. A considerable saving of $400, this could be the perfect gift for a loved one this holiday season. Check it out now before the deal ends very soon.

Editors’ Recommendations






Alienware Gaming Laptop with an RTX 4090 is $700 off Today | Digital Trends

tech FranklinWilbur

Alienware Gaming Laptop with an RTX 4090 is $700 off Today | Digital Trends

Digital Trends

One of the best gaming laptop deals comes, predictably, from Dell. Today, you can buy the Alienware m16 gaming laptop for $2,800 thereby saving $700 off the usual price of $3,500. A high-end gaming laptop, this is one that will prove to be a fantastic investment for your gaming future. If you’re keen to learn more, take a look below at what we have to say about it or simply hit the buy button to get straight to the specs and making a purchase.

Why you should buy the Alienware m16 gaming laptop

Alienware is responsible for many of the best gaming laptops with a penchant for offering high-end hardware. This particular model boasts a 13th-generation Intel Core i9 processor teamed up with a huge 32GB of memory and 2TB of SSD storage. Continuing its powerhouse reputation, it also has an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card with 16GB of dedicated VRAM. That’s a fantastic set of specs to ensure that you won’t have any trouble playing the latest games for a long time to come. If you’re looking ahead and want to make sure you can play games in style for a while to come, this is the solution for you. It won’t become out of date any time soon.

The Alienware m16 gaming laptop also has a great display with a 16-inch QHD+ panel with 2560 x 1600 resolution, 240Hz refresh rate, 2ms response time, and 100% DCI-P3 support. Alongside that is Nvidia G-Sync + DDS support to ensure your games will always look fantastic. Above it is a full HD IR camera for taking video calls or recording reaction videos.

You might notice that Alienware isn’t listed among the best laptop brands but that’s because these days, it’s part of Dell, so you’re getting a ton of reliability here. The Alienware m16 gaming laptop uses Alienware Cryo-tech, an advanced cooling technology, to keep things ticking along nicely. There are also four fans with ultra-thin fan blades while seven heat pipes keep the internal temperature regulated. You also get exceptional audio thanks to Dolby Atmos support while even the keyboard is great thanks to being an Alienware M Series 1-Zone AlienFX keyboard.

Packed with all the features possible to make gamers excited, the Alienware m16 gaming laptop is currently down to $2,800 from $3,500 at Dell. A considerable saving of $700, this is your chance to grab a fantastically high-end laptop for less. Check it out now before it sells out.

Editors’ Recommendations






Last Chance to Get the Dell XPS 17 Laptop at $500 Off | Digital Trends

tech FranklinWilbur

Last Chance to Get the Dell XPS 17 Laptop at $500 Off | Digital Trends

Mark Coppock / Digital Trends

If you want to buy a thin and light laptop but don’t want to go for something like the MacBook Air, which is both expensive and puts you into the Apple ecosystem, the Dell XPS lineup is a great alternative. The XPS laptops are Dell’s answer to the need for thin laptops that aren’t from Apple, and, even better, there are a lot more configurations and sizes you can pick from. While this XPS 17 is bigger than a MacBook Air, there’s a great deal on it from Dell that brings it down to $1,699 from $2,199, which is a significant $500 discount and well worth grabbing if you want a thin and light laptop with a large screen.

Why you should buy the Dell XPS 17

This configuration of the Dell XPS 17 has a lot of standout features, the most interesting of which is likely the inclusion of the RTX 4050 graphics card. While the XPS 17 is not really meant as a thin gaming laptop, the fact that it includes an entry-level GPU means you can certainly get a bit of gaming out of it, although don’t expect to be playing the latest AAA games. More importantly, it comes with a mid-to-high end 13th Gen Intel Core i7-13700H processor, which will easily handle most productivity and day-to-day tasks without an issue, and you might even be able to get some editing done.

The screen is 17 inches big and runs an FHD+ resolution, which is perfectly fine for this price tag and size of the screen, while the 500nits of peak brightness means you can essentially use this anywhere there isn’t direct sunlight. The 16GB of DDR5 RAM also gives you a lot of leeway when having open apps and tabs on your computer, so it’s a great quality-of-life addition. As for storage, you get 512GB which should be more than enough for most folks, even when taking gaming into account since you’ll mostly be playing smaller casual and indie games.

All in all, the Dell XPS 17 is a versatile thin, and light laptop that doesn’t require you to enter Apple’s ecosystem, and for the $1,699 price tag from Dell, it’s a lot cheaper too. If that doesn’t tickle your fancy, then check out some of these other excellent laptop deals for alternatives.

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How the M3 Max compares to the most powerful Windows laptops | Digital Trends

tech FranklinWilbur

How the M3 Max compares to the most powerful Windows laptops | Digital Trends

Luke Larsen / Digital Trends

Apple’s M3 Max is an incredibly powerful chip, significantly increasing Apple Silicon’s CPU and GPU performance. It’s gotten a ton of press, but is it necessarily faster than the fastest Windows laptops?

To find out, we pitted it against the Lenovo Legion 9i, a gaming laptop equipped with the ultrafast Intel Core i9-13980HX and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090, and the Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 with the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX and the RTX 4090. We can’t compare the MacBook Pro 14 with the M3 Max directly to the Lenovo and Asus in that many benchmarks, particularly gaming, due to limits in testing and cross-platform compatibility. But we could compare enough to get an idea of how these various chips stack up against each other.

A brief look at architectures

The Apple M3 Max is an ARM-based system on a chip (SoC) currently at the high end of Apple Silicon’s lineup. It represents the first chips made using a 3nm process and redesigned GPU architecture. On the CPU side, Apple increased the speed of its performance cores by 15% and its efficiency cores by 30% over the M2. Overall, Apple is promising a 20% to 25% improvement in performance. On the GPU side, Dynamic Caching is one technology that speeds up a variety of GPU processes, while gamers will benefit from mesh shading and hardware-accelerated ray tracing.

The M3 Max has up to 16 CPU cores and 40 GPU cores with up to 400GB/s memory bandwidth. That’s mated with up to 128GB of RAM, a boost from a maximum of 96GB. We reviewed the MacBook Pro 14 with the 16-core CPU/40-core GPU M3 Max.

The Intel Core i9-13980HX is a 55-watt processor with 24 cores (eight Performance cores and 16 Efficient cores) and 32 threads. The Performance cores run at up to 5.60GHz while the Efficient cores run at up to 4.0GHz. It stands at the top of the Intel mobile Raptor Lake lineup and focuses on providing high clock speeds and more cores for performance gains over its 12th-gen predecessor.

The AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX is a 55-watt CPU with 16 cores and 32 threads running at up to 5.4GHz. It’s at the top of AMD’s mobile CPU lineup and based on the company’s Zen 4 architecture. It can ramp up to 75 watts and even higher clock speeds, promising incredibly fast performance.

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 is the fastest mobile GPU available today, utilizing an array of new technologies such as Shader Execution Reordering and DLSS 3 to provide potent gaming performance. It can also speed up various tasks in creative, design, and engineering applications, making it a popular choice in high-end performance-oriented laptops.

Synthetic benchmarks

Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 sitting on a table.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

In the Geekbench 6 synthetic benchmark, which runs through a litany of CPU-intensive processes, the M3 Max is the fastest laptop CPU we’ve tested. The Core i9-13980HX does well, but it can’t keep up. I’ve included several other laptops to give an idea of the significant increase in performance represented by Apple’s fastest mobile chip.

The results are more mixed in the Cinebench R24 benchmark, which tests both the CPU and GPU rendering a complex image. The Core i9-19380HX was faster in the multi-core test, but slower in the single-core test, showing the brute strength of the chip’s 24 CPU cores. The RTX 4090 was also incredibly fast in the GPU test, almost double that of the M3 Max.

We didn’t test the ROG Strix Scar 17 in the latest versions of these benchmarks and so its results aren’t included here. But it’s likely to be competitive with the Legion 9i.

Geekebench 6
single / multi		 Cinebench R24
single-core		 Cinebench R24
multi-core		 Cinebench R24
GPU
MacBook Pro
(M3 Max)		 3,174 / 21,137 139 1522 12765
Lenovo Legion 9i
(Core i9-19380HX/RTX 4090)		 2,959 / 17,367 125 1665 23212
MacBook Pro
(M2 Max)		 2,668 / 14,422 121 1032 5592
iMac
(M3)		 3,075 / 11,994 140 657 3728
Dell XPS 15
(Core i7-13700H/RTX 4070)		 2,448 / 12,367 87 647 8601

Real-life benchmarks

Cyberpunk 2077 running on the Lenovo Legion 9i.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

Adobe’s Premiere Pro is an excellent example of the kind of applications that appeal to the creator market that Apple is targeting with the MacBook Pro. It’s an intensive application that benefits from a fast CPU and GPU and tons of RAM.

The PugetBench Premiere Pro benchmark runs in a live version of Premiere Pro and therefore provides a legitimate indication of a real-world laptop’s performance. The latest version tests a variety of video encoding, decoding, and GPU-accelerated effects to provide a realistic and comprehensive idea of real-world performance.

The ROG Strix Scar 17 scored the fastest result we’ve seen in this benchmark, with an overall score of 928. The M3 Max is in second place in our database at 889, while the Legion 9i comes in at third at 838. By comparison, the Dell XPS 17 with a Core i7-13700H and an RTX 4070 scored 568, while the MacBook Pro 14 with the M1 Pro managed just 467.

These results are most impressive for the M3 Max given the sheer brute force of the RTX 4090 in the other two machines. Clearly, Apple has optimized the M3 Max to speed up precisely the kinds of tasks that will keep professional creators working efficiently.

The M3 Max is a beast, and so are the others, but …

The keyboard of the MacBook Pro 14-inch on a wood surface.
Luke Larsen / Digital Trends

There’s an elephant in the room in all these comparisons, which is that the MacBook Pro is completely unlike the Legion 9i and ROG Strix Scar 17 in terms of product category. It’s not a loud, thick, gaming laptop. It’s not meant to be purchased exclusively for gaming, which is why I focused more on the synthetic and content creation benchmarks. Obviously, the extra power of the RTX 4090 is going to produce much faster frame rates in games, but as we’ve seen, that doesn’t always result in better performance in the kinds of things the MacBook Pro is for.

And suffice it to say that these two gaming laptops are thick, heavy, and get atrocious battery life. They’re fantastic choices for gamers looking for the ultimate gaming portable gaming experience — but these aren’t real competitors to the MacBook Pro. And I guess that’s the real thing that doing this comparison showed me.

The M3 Max really is a game-changer. We’ll have to wait and see what Intel, AMD, Nvidia, and laptop manufacturers are able to do next year, but in the meantime, the M3 Max MacBook Pro remains in a class of its own.

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