Desktop PC, Laptop and tablet news and discussions

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Color ePaper display ditches batteries for wireless power
By Paul Ridden
August 21, 2024

E Ink screens are not only kinder to your eyes, but offer great battery life due to their low power draw. But a new display from Digital View doesn't have a battery at all, and gets the juice it needs from an overhead Wi-Charge wireless power module.

Before all you digital bookworms get too excited, this development will have limited appeal for e-reader devices – as screens won't refresh and pages won't turn when out of power transmission range. But it could be a good shout for advertising panels in retail stores, information points in museums or art galleries, timetables at transport hubs or dynamic notices in meeting rooms.

The onboard Wi-Fi can receive remote updates for the always-on display while an overhead Wi-Charge module wirelessly powers a number of units simultaneously – with full draw for each display reported to be around 500 mW for Wi-Fi connection, image/info retrieval and write, though a standby mode needs significantly less.

https://newatlas.com/technology/color-e ... ess-power/

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Lenovo: Intel Lunar Lake Laptops Will Beat Apple M2, M3 in Battery Life
Lunar Lake could be much more competitive than Meteor Lake, at least in endurance.
By Josh Norem September 18, 2024

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/l ... ttery-life

Intel first announced its next-generation Lunar Lake mobile architecture in June and followed up with a paper launch on Sept. 3. Now we're just waiting for actual laptops to arrive, which should be happening soon. Now, Lenovo has released a video to build hype for Lunar Lake, as the video shows a Lunar Lake laptop handily beating Apple's M2 and M3 laptops in battery life.

The 18-second video below is live on the Lenovo PC YouTube channel and was flagged by Wccftech. It shows a time-lapse of a battery rundown test using three laptops: a Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition with Lunar Lake and MacBooks with M2 and M3 processors. The video shows the Lunar Lake laptop lasting a whopping 23 hours and 54 minutes, almost five and a half hours longer than the MacBooks, making for a decisive victory. The video notes the battery test consisted of local video playback at 150 nits using an H.264 video file at 1080p/24fps.

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Apple M4-Powered MacBook Pro Appears in Geekbench
The unannounced machine is noticeably speedier than its predecessor.
By Ryan Whitwam October 7, 2024

Apple revealed a new generation of its custom Arm-based silicon earlier this year, but it took the unusual step of releasing the M4 first in a new iPad Pro model. This move was emblematic of Apple's shift to mobile and touch computing versus its legacy laptop business, but the MacBook Pro isn't being left in the lurch. The upcoming M4-powered machine has made an appearance on Geekbench, and yes, it's very fast.

The M4 is built on TSMC's 3nm process node, which is still the most advanced currently available. The chip has a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU, which is the same design as the M3. However, the updated instruction set and more power-efficient design should make it moderately faster. There's also an enhanced neural processing unit (NPU) as one would expect in the age of AI. Apple says the NPU can manage an impressive 38 TOPS.

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/a ... -geekbench

[Tadasuke]

Some might like this modular Pilet cyberdeck with 7" screen, 7 hours of uptime and Raspberry Pi 5 inside:

https://www.yankodesign.com/2024/08/23/ ... -get-soon/

https://soulscircuit.com/pilet







I personally like this. Probably more than the more mainstream tablets and things like that.

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25.3-inch color E Ink monitor gets a screen refresh boost
By Paul Ridden
October 11, 2024
https://newatlas.com/technology/dasung- ... ike-color/

Last year, Dasung launched what was claimed to be the world's first color E Ink monitor, whcih was available with curved or flat panels. Now the company has updated the formula for a similar-sized model boasting a super-fast (for E Ink) refresh rate of 33 Hz.

Generally speaking, the faster the image on a screen refreshes, the more fluid the moving pictures and the better the visual experience for the user.

For E Ink displays, watching videos on an e-note or larger screen can be a frustrating experience due to relatively low refresh rates when compared to many of the LCD/LED panels on sale today – which will refresh at least 60 times per second, or at 60 Hz. Some gaming monitors can manage four times that.

So although 33 Hz still won't compete directly with more widespread tech, it's still pretty good for E Ink and should significantly reduce image ghosting and motion blur. Dasung has released a video showing a LCD panel and the new Paperlike Color screen going head to head to help potential buyers get a feel for the new technology's capabilities.

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Apple Announces New iPad Mini for the AI Era
It has a faster processor with AI acceleration but is not as capable as other iPads.
By Ryan Whitwam October 15, 2024

https://www.extremetech.com/electronics ... the-ai-era
You can hardly blink without Apple announcing a new iPad, which sometimes sports the most advanced silicon in the world—no big deal. Apple's Pro tablets might get most of the attention, but more slates are in the lineup, including the oft-forgotten iPad Mini. Apple has just announced a new version of its littlest tablet, the first upgrade in three years. Naturally, Apple says this is the most powerful iPad Mini ever, but it won't hold a candle to the M4-powered iPad Pro.

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Amazon Finally Unveils First-Ever Kindle With Color Screen
Priced at $279.99, there are three other products in the lineup.
By Devesh Beri October 16, 2024

Kindle users have been asking Amazon for a color Kindle for years—not just a touch-screen tablet like the Kindle Fire—and now Amazon has finally delivered. Amazon has unveiled an all-new lineup of Kindle e-readers, including its first-ever color E Ink device, the Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition. Amazon promises a rich, paper-like color experience for book covers, highlighted text, and images in the books (the best bit if you ask me).

The Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition has a custom display with a new light guide using nitride LEDs, which improves color and increases brightness without messing up the detail. Users can zoom into images without deteriorating the image quality and choose among different color styles. Amazon says the device is waterproof and supports wireless charging. It has 32GB storage and offers up to eight weeks of battery life.

https://www.extremetech.com/electronics ... lor-screen

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M4 MacBook Air to Arrive In Early 2025: Gurman
Apple is set to unveil a bunch of new Macs next week—but the M4 MacBook Air won't be among them.
By Adrianna Nine October 24, 2024

Apple fans have been anticipating the M4 since spring, and now that we're in the throes of fall, it's expected that Macs containing the new chip will arrive any time. But according to a reliable rumor, the M4 MacBook Air won't be an autumn baby. The newest and most powerful version of the Air will arrive in early 2025, bearing virtually the same chassis it has since 2022.

In a report for Bloomberg, leaker Mark Gurman said Apple will soon begin manufacturing 13-inch and 15-inch versions of the M4 MacBook Air, codenamed J713 and J715. Unnamed insiders familiar with the company's production schedule told Gurman that the updated Air will look similar to the current design, which has been in place since Apple did away with the wedge chassis in 2022.

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/m ... 025-gurman

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Apple's week of Mac announcements continues today, and as expected, we're getting a substantial new update to the Mac mini. Apple's least-expensive Mac, the mini, is being updated with new M4 processors, plus a smaller design that looks like a cross between an Apple TV box and a Mac Studio—this is the mini's first major design change since the original aluminum version was released in 2010. The mini is also Apple's first device to ship with the M4 Pro processor, a beefed-up version of the M4 with more CPU and GPU cores, and it's also the Mac mini's first update since the M2 models came out in early 2023.

The new Mac mini is larger than the Apple TV by a bit—5×5 inches, instead of 3.66×3.66 inches—but its proportions are roughly similar. That makes its footprint significantly smaller than the old mini (and the current Studio), which was 7.75×7.75 inches. But it's also a fair bit taller: 2 inches, up from 1.4 inches.

Like the Studio, it’s made primarily of aluminum and has a pair of 10 Gbps USB-C ports on the front, plus an indicator light and a headphone jack for connecting headphones or speakers. On the back, it sheds all of its remaining USB-A ports in favor of Thunderbolt/USB-C ports (note that, like some Mac Studio models, the ports on the back have Thunderbolt capabilities and the ones on the front don't). Compared to the old M2 mini, this is a net gain of one rear Thunderbolt port, but you're giving one up compared to the M2 Pro Mac mini—the extra ports on the front should make up for this, but it's worth noting if you have something connected to every single Thunderbolt port on your current box. All Mac mini models still include a gigabit Ethernet port and a full-size HDMI port, so USB-A is the only port you'll need a dongle for that you didn't need one for before.

Despite the smaller footprint, it still has an internal power supply and an active cooling fan and heatsink. The fan and heatsink should be the same in both the M4 and M4 Pro versions of the mini, unlike the Mac Studio where the faster version uses a heavier copper heatsink.

https://arstechnica.com/apple/2024/10/a ... -apple-tv/

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LG flexes its display muscle with stretchable micro-LED screen
By Paul Ridden
November 17, 2024

LG Display has built on the technology powering its flexible screen prototype that stretched by 20% in 2022, announcing what's claimed to be the world's first stretchable display capable of expanding up to 50%.

For more than a decade, LG Display has been developing flexible screens that not only show bright, colorful visuals but can also be bent and twisted into different shapes to suit different applications. These could include fashion-focused wearables, uneven interactive surfaces and roll-up TVs and tablets.

A couple of years ago, the company added another dimension to the already impressive capabilities of its prototype displays – in the shape of a 12-inch flexible film that could be stretched as well as bent or folded. The transparent display featured micro-LEDs as its light source, and could be pulled out to increase its length by 20%.

https://newatlas.com/technology/lg-disp ... 0-percent/

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Acer Unveils New Predator Helios 18 AI Gaming Laptop With Swappable Keyboard Switches
The new Predator lets users customize parts of the keyboard for precise gaming control.
By Devesh Beri January 7, 2025

Acer has announced its latest member to the Predator gaming lineup, the Helios 18 AI, set for release in 2025. While Nvidia's new RTX 50-Series is currently limited to desktops, the Helios 18 AI still has the most powerful 40-Series GPU and more CPU cores than you usually see in laptops.

The new Predator comes with an 18-inch MiniLED display with WQXGA resolution (2,560 x 1,600), 250Hz refresh rate, and up to 1000 nits brightness. Inside, it has Intel Core i9-14900HX (14th Gen) with 24 cores and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU, delivering 686 TOPS for better AI performance. It also supports DLSS 3.5 upscaling—not that you'll need it right now because the super-powerful RTX 4090 can render any game at native 1600p resolution.

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/a ... e-keyboard

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Samsung Unveils AI-Powered Galaxy Book5 Pro and Galaxy Book5 360 at CES 2025
These devices will run on Intel's Arrow Lake Core Ultra processors.
By Devesh Beri January 7, 2025

Samsung has revealed its latest lineup of Galaxy Book laptops at CES 2025, in the form of the Galaxy Book5 Pro and Galaxy Book5 360 models. These devices will run on Intel's Arrow Lake Core Ultra processors. That means they'll support all of Microsoft's Copilot+ features.

The Galaxy Book5 Pro comes in 16-inch and 14-inch variants, both with a 2,880 x 1,800 OLED touchscreen at a 120Hz variable refresh rate. Inside, you get Intel Core Ultra 7 "Evo" processors (standard in 16-inch model), options for 16GB or 32GB of RAM, and storage options of 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB.

The 16-inch model is 0.49 inches (12.5mm) thick and weighs 3.44 pounds, offering an estimated 25 hours of video playback battery life. The 14-inch version is slightly thinner at 0.46 inches (11.7mm), weighs 2.71 pounds, and provides an estimated 21 hours of video playback.

The Galaxy Book5 360 will come with a 15.6-inch OLED touch display with 1,920 x 1,080 resolution and 60Hz refresh rate, an Intel Core Ultra 5 "Evo" chip in its base configuration, 16GB of RAM, 256GB or 512GB storage options, and an estimated 31 hours of video playback.

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/s ... k5-360-ces

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Roll up! Roll up! Lenovo launches first laptop with rollable screen
By Paul Ridden
January 14, 2025

Back in 2022, Lenovo previewed a novel laptop sporting a display that expanded upward to offer the user more screen real estate. At CES 2025 last week, the company took concept into reality with the launch of the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6.

The laptop concept was introduced at Lenovo's Tech World 2022 event along with a Motorola handset featuring a screen that grew to 6.5 inches on demand. A few more ThinkBook concepts followed – including one with a transparent display and another rocking a color E Ink top – but the rollable idea seemed to have been forgotten.

Until now. Later this year the concept becomes a reality as the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 goes on sale with an eye-watering price tag. It's being aimed at business professionals but will also be useful for anyone needing more vertical screen space – such as coders, spreadsheet masters and content creators.

https://newatlas.com/laptops/lenovo-thi ... le-screen/

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Monochrome e-note grows E Ink productivity to 13 inches
By Paul Ridden
January 21, 2025

If you like to scribble thoughts on paper but are looking for something less wasteful and more modern, an e-note can be a great option. BOOX has just launched its 13.3-inch Note Max, an ePaper tablet featuring E Ink Carta 1300 for sharp visuals.

Though e-notes are starting to offer color E Ink jotting possibilities, many users outside of artistic and creative spaces will likely employ simple black on white for much of their scribbling endeavors. It might make more sense for such people to opt for a monochrome device, particularly when there's this much screen space on offer.

https://newatlas.com/mobile-technology/ ... arta-1300/

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Hybrid monitor boasts fastest paper-like display, color-rich visuals
https://newatlas.com/technology/hanspre ... sflective/
E Ink is a good shout for reading text on a small screen for long periods, but if you want to work on larger displays with moving imagery, technologies like LCD and OLED are a better way to go. Taiwan's Hannspree is aiming for the middle ground.

Though E Ink is kinder on the old peepers than other digital panels, it's not particularly good at handling non-static visuals. We've seen a few device manufacturers managing to boost refresh rates on ePaper gadgets – including Super Refresh from Onyx Boox and God-Level High Refresh from Dasung – but other display technologies still tend to have the edge.

Modus Tech launched a 60-Hz Paper Monitor on Crowd Supply late last year, and Dasung has a similarly refreshing model in the wind too. But Hannspree has opted for a hybrid approach that makes use of Transflective LCD technology.

https://assets.newatlas.com/dims4/defau ... adable.jpg

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3-in-1 color e-note combines fast refresh with eye-friendly scribbling
By Paul Ridden
March 20, 2025

Reading and writing on regular tablets can be tiring for your eyes, which is where E Ink can help. But colors often appear washed out and page refresh isn't exactly smooth. XPPen has launched an ePaper note device with three color levels and fast refresh.

The Magic Note Pad doesn't use E Ink technology, but is rather a modified 10.9-inch LCD panel in a similar vein to TCL's NXTPAPER technology. XPPen is calling its display solution 3-in1 X-Paper.

This offers a sunlight-readable Paper Mode for a monochrome user experience, a low-saturation Light Color Mode for a similar effect to using color E Ink, and a Nature Color Mode for full-fat vivid onscreen colors just like you'd see on a regular tablet.

https://newatlas.com/mobile-technology/ ... 1-x-paper/

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Samsung Unveils 2025 Odyssey Gaming Monitors and ViewFinity S8
The 2025 Odyssey lineup includes the Odyssey 3D, the Odyssey OLED G8, and the Odyssey G9.
By Devesh Beri March 24, 2025

Samsung has announced the release of its newest Odyssey gaming monitor, the ViewFinity S8. The 2025 Odyssey lineup includes the Odyssey 3D, the Odyssey OLED G8, and the Odyssey G9.

The Odyssey 3D (G90XF model) is a 27-inch monitor that allows you to play glasses-free 3D games. It uses eye-tracking technology and a lenticular lens to create 3D images. The monitor has a 4K resolution, 165Hz refresh rate, and 1 ms Gray-to-Gray response time. It also has AI video conversion, which can transform compatible content into 3D.

The Odyssey OLED G8 (G81SF model) comes in 27-inch and 32-inch sizes. The 27-inch model is the first 4K monitor with a 240Hz refresh rate and has the highest pixel density for a screen of its size. It uses QD-OLED technology and has a 0.03ms gray-to-gray response time. The monitor also has Samsung's OLED Safeguard+ and a dynamic cooling system to protect against burn-in.

https://www.extremetech.com/electronics ... wfinity-s8

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Innovative "eternal notebook" hits sweet spot between digital and paper
By Bronwyn Thompson
April 02, 2025

https://newatlas.com/consumer-tech/heyf ... -notebook/
A clever startup that turns "unconventional ideas into practical and unique products" has created a lightweight and convenient notebook that lets you write, erase and write again, bridging the gap between traditional paper pads and digital note-taking apps.

The HEYfold "eternal notebook" by HEYii instantly got our attention, and on closer inspection it may be even cooler than at first look. Personally, I love and prefer an actual notebook – to jot down to-do lists, important information like booking references, and plans while traveling. Yet it always gets increasingly more difficult finding newer entries, and there's some information or brainstorms you'd rather not stay permanent. And, let's just say, my notebook graveyard could probably keep a fire going for some time, which is not particularly eco-friendly even if the paper is recycled.