Author: batteryforpc

ADATA is currently known for its high-performance DRAM and solid-state storage options, and with this existing stance, The ADATA XPG product stack is set to include monitors, gaming PCs, and laptops as of 2020.

ADATA XPG – Xtreme Performance Gear Lineup Broadens

ADATA has announced plans to expand its Xtreme Performance Gear gaming products, specifically in the form of the Xenia for laptops, Gaia for gaming PCs, and Photon for monitors. As of this moment, ADATA is set to introduce more details on these upcoming products at CES 2020, though, in the meantime, some information is available on ADATA’s upcoming XPG gaming gear.

XPG Xenia – 15.6″ Gaming Laptop

Currently, the upcoming laptop offering from ADATA is known as the XPG Xenia and will feature a 1080p IPS display along with a 9th Generation Intel Core i9 CPU. Positioned at the higher end of the gaming laptop spectrum, the XPG Xenia will take on the likes of MSI, ASUS’ ROG, and Acer’s Predator lineups.

XPG Gaia & DIY Chassis – Small Form Factor Gaming PC & Full-Size Chassis

Entering the gaming PC space, ADATA will introduce the XPG Gaia, a small form factor gaming PC, only 5 liters in size and will accommodate graphics cards up to 8 inches in length. The XPG Gaia is set to compete against the likes of systems such as the Corsair One. Along with the prebuilt XPG Gaia, ADATA will introduce a chassis under the name of XPG Volta. The XPG Volta will accommodate motherboards up to the E-ATX form factor and will include multiple features found on alternate high-end computer chassis such as tempered glass panels and metal construction, as well as various design inclusions for enthusiasts interested in liquid cooling their build.

XPG Photon – 27″ Gaming Monitor & RGB Memory Offerings

The XPG Photon will mark ADATA’s entry into the monitor space and will include PixelDisplay’s Vivid Color Eye-Safe Display technology which is a method of reducing blue light expelled from the monitor to reduce eye strain. ADATA has jumped onboard the RGB bandwagon with two new RGB DDR4 memory module designs, each featuring speedy RAM clocks of up to 4800 MHz with high capacities of up to 32GB per DIMM.

The holiday season is winding down, but there are a number of great after-Christmas sales on laptops going on, including this one. Walmart has the HP Omen 15 with a GTX 1660 Ti GPU, 144 Hz display, Core i7-9750H CPU, 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD for just $999.

With these specs, the Omen 15 should provide smooth gaming at demanding settings and 1080p resolution. The 144 Hz screen will allow you to have tear-free gaming even at extremely-high settings.

While we haven’t reviewed the HP Omen 15, we’ve had great experiences with members of the HP Omen lineup. Our sister site, Laptop Mag, reviewed a slightly different configuration of the Omen 15 and praised its strong performance, stunning design and colorful screen.

One small drawback to this configuration is its 256GB SSD. With the size of modern games, even a 512GB SSD is a bit paltry. Fortunately, the Omen 15 has user-upgradeable storage and provides both SATA and M.2 slots so you can add an inexpensive secondary drive after you buy.

Lenovo’s ThinkPad P73 is a classic mobile workstation, which does not use the slimmest chassis, but has a focus on good thermals and numerous ports instead. This is why we were surprised by the comparatively bad performance utilization of the Nvidia Quadro RTX 3000, especially under sustained workloads. The fans were very restrained at the same time; it appeared as if Lenovo favored a quiet operating noise.

Lenovo was also surprised by our results and contacted us. However, we were able to confirm our findings with an additional test sample of the ThinkPad P73, this time with the more powerful Nvidia Quadro RTX 4000. The maximum fan noise was once again ~33 dB(A), so we started to investigate (BIOS and drivers were up to date).

Our first suspicion was the BIOS setting, where you can deactivate the integrated graphics unit of the processor. However, this was not successful, the fans just did not want to spin faster. A change of the Windows power profile did not improve the situation, either. After a lot of communication with Lenovo, the manufacturer now confirmed the problem and is already working on a solution via BIOS update. The CPU performance is not affected, we are only talking about the dedicated graphics card.

Until then, we can offer a workaround with the tool TPFancontrol, which is probably already familiar for many ThinkPad users anyway. The fans now reach around 39 dB(A) with the Auto-profile, which is pretty much the target value that was communicated to us by Lenovo. We have some results with and without TPFancontrol in the tables below. The GPU performance, especially under sustained workloads, is much better with the tool running.

The results clearly show that the GPU now runs at a much higher clock, but also stays cooler at the same time. The CPU temperature is also a bit lower, but the clock is identical. We noticed one more thing during our tests: The benchmark results for the CPU are lower when you select the Hybrid Graphics mode in the BIOS. You should therefore use the BIOS mode dGPU for the best performance, even though this will obviously affect the battery runtimes. However, we believe most P73 users will prefer the performance over stamina.

We are still in contact with Lenovo and are eager to test the new BIOS version. We will update this article as soon as we have new information.

It has been a full 9 months since Gabriel unearthed the first signs of an AMD-powered Chromebook beginning development with the newer, more powerful Picasso chipset inside. That device was revealed to have the codename ‘Zork’ and all we knew about it at the time was the fact that it looked to be the first Chromebook packing a truly competitive APU from AMD inside.

Last year at CES, quite a few education-focused AMD-powered Chromebooks made their debuts. We had announcements from Acer and devices on-hand from HP, but these Chromebooks were 100% in either the super-affordable category or aimed at EDU. While I’m not saying we don’t need those types of devices in the mix, I was a bit sad about their overall build quality and lack of speed. This was not the entrance I was hoping for from AMD into the Chromebook market.

When ‘Zork’ did surface in early spring of 2019, I was again excited by the prospect of an AMD-powered Chromebook because this time, the processors getting included were newer and much more powerful. As AMD is starting to make a real dent in other markets, I was excited by the prospect of their excellent silicon becoming available in Chromebooks. In general, AMD devices have similar performance to Intel-based devices at a lower cost. With Chrome OS’ low overhead, a decent AMD chip could do wonders for both performance and price.

As the months have worn on, we’ve not seen anything firm on a manufacturer for ‘Zork’ nor have we had any real clues as to where we might finally see this new device come from. Not long ago, however, I did come across another board being developed in tandem with ‘Zork’ that goes by the name of ‘Trembyle’. Then, just today, I came across another board that has been in the works for a couple months at this point and it possesses the same AMD Picasso APU: ‘Mandolin’.

So now we have 3 boards in the works that could spawn countless Chromebooks. Even if we only get three base models out of this, that would be a solid entry into the Chromebook ecosystem at a time when all the focus is on the new ‘Hatch’ devices with Intel inside. That’s to say nothing of the slew of ‘Kukui’ devices we’re expecting with the MediaTek 8183 and whatever comes of Qualcomm’s efforts with the 7c, 8c, and 8x Snapdragon processors. You can check out our post and video about all these devices if you are interested.

WHY CES 2020 COULD BE THE TIME

Let me put together a few thougths as to why I believe we may see one or all of these devices at least get a debut at CES this year. First, we have simple timing. The AMD Chromebooks we saw at CES last year began development mid-2018 and were announced at CES and began shipping in the few months after. Of these new AMD device, ‘Zork’ was discovered in April of 2019, ‘Trembyle’ began development shortly after in May of 2019, and ‘Mandolin’ began showing up in April. That alone gives us enough of a hint as to when we could possibly see some of these Chromebooks break cover.

Further, I found a commit speaking to the development needed for the Picasso AMD chips and the underlying frameworks already in place from the current AMD Chromebooks on the market. In this commit, it is clear that there is enough IP shared with Stoney Ridge (the internal name for the A4 and A6 processors in use in AMD-powered Chromebooks available since early 2019) to use the underlying framework with some additional tweaks. This only solidifies the fact that development for Picasso chips in Chromebooks can move along even faster than it did with the older devices already available.

All of this timing together with the existing development for AMD-based Chromebooks tells me that we’re getting very, very close to seeing a few of these new Chromebooks in the wild. It is unclear if they will be completely unique devices or simply variants of new Chromebooks based on the ‘Hatch’ baseboard we’re expecting early in 2020. Only time will be able to tell us whether we’ll get unique Chromebooks from this new chipset, but I’d put money on the appearance of a few of them showing up at CES in just under 2 weeks from now. Added to our highly-anticipated device list for early 2020, these new AMD Chromebooks could get in the game at a time when new Chromebooks are as intriguing as ever. Stay tuned.

Reports have been trickling in for the last couple of hours that the stable Android 10 update for the OnePlus 6T has been rolling out — apparently without any fanfare or an associated announcement at the OnePlus forums, as is customary. In addition to bringing all the Android 10 features you can expect, the OxygenOS 10 update for the 6T also includes the company’s Game Space feature and the “Contextual display” ambient display feature.

This timing corresponds to the best-case scenario for the company’s initially projected roadmap, which claimed the OnePlus 6T and 6 would get Android 10 sometime in November. Today, being the first of the month, would be the earliest that could happen. It also follows the Open Beta release late last month.

The full changelog for this update (which mostly matches the previous Open Beta) is just below:

System

Upgraded to Android 10

Brand new UI design

Enhanced location permissions for privacy

New customization feature in Settings allowing you to choose icon shapes to be displayed in the Quick Settings

General bug fixes and improvements

Full Screen Gestures

Added inward swipes from the left or right edge of the screen to go back

Added a bottom navigation bar to allow switching left or right for recent apps

Game Space

New Game Space feature now joins all your favorite games in one place for easier access and better gaming experience

Contextual display

Intelligent info based on specific times, locations, and events for Ambient Display (Settings – Display – Ambient Display – Smart Display)

Message

Now possible to block spam by keywords for Message (Messages – Spam – Settings – Blocking settings)

About half of the log, by volume, corresponds to general Android 10-related changes like the new gesture navigation system, enhanced permissions model, and icon shape customization. A few of the features are OnePlus/OxygenOS-specific and new to the 6T, like the keyword blocking in the OnePlus Messages app and the contextual display feature (previously called smart display), which was one of my favorite features our recent OnePlus 7T review.

As usual, the update is rolling out in a limited fashion for the time being. None of my own devices see it on their own. Some have had luck pulling it down using a VPN to connect to one of OnePlus’ test markets, like Germany. You can also grab the update for the 6T right now via the third-party Oxygen Updater app (also available on APK Mirror). Note that there are a few reports of image verification failing upon download, though I didn’t have an issue, myself.

It’s a pretty big update in size, too, clocking in at around 1.8GB for what we assume is the full image. You might want to get on Wi-Fi before you pull it down.

At the time of writing, the update doesn’t appear to be rolling out for the older OnePlus 6 just yet, though historically updates come to the pair of phones at around the same time. More anecdotally, my OnePlus 6 doesn’t see any available update in either settings or Oxygen Updater, and reports online appear to be limited to the 6T for the time being.

We’ll be sure to let you know when the update is spotted in the wild on that device, or if an official announcement lands for the update.