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The Samsung Galaxy S11 series are phones that we are looking forward to thanks to the different leaks we have seen about them. We have already learned that the distribution of cameras on the Galaxy S11+ will not be as messy as we saw in its first renderings, but there is still more information about it. Samsung’s next flagships are changing the key sections that users look for in the latest phones. This year, the camera will undergo a breakthrough.

Among other things, we know that these phones will have a 120 Hz refresh rate display. Which will allow you to enjoy a much more fluid user experience than what we find in its current catalog. Another aspect that caught our attention was its 108-megapixel camera, which we confirmed by the source code of the OneUI 2.0 camera app and that it would be an exclusive sensor, not the same as that of the Mi Note 10. This camera will be capable of doing something unique in the market.

SAMSUNG GALAXY S11 CAMERA

For a couple of years, the cameras of the Samsung Galaxy phones have not lived up to its competition, both in hardware and software. This year the thing could change radically with the new 108-megapixel camera that we will see on these phones. The resolution has high importance in photos if it was used correctly. Also, it seems that the next Samsung high-end phones will have pixel fusion technology that will allow combining physical pixels to work as a single larger one.

Until now, that fusion in the high-resolution cameras was 4 in 1. But Samsung will go even further with the Samsung Galaxy S11+ camera, the South Korean firm will merge 9 pixels in 1. Obtaining a huge simulated pixel size, the largest to date, of 2.4 μm. This will make the captured photograph 12 megapixels (108/9) and pixels of that size will allow or should allow, a low-light camera behavior much higher than what Samsung has accustomed us.

In a separate tweet, the leaker UniverseIce showcased the back design of the phone. The Galaxy S series is going to adopt the design of the A and M lineups. With a huge rectangle in the upper left corner.

Now we will have to see if the firm also decides to maintain the variable focal aperture with this camera. Or if having pixels of such a large size it prefers to opt for a fixed focal aperture. Anyway, we expect great things from the photographic section of the Samsung Galaxy S11.

Smartphone cameras have exponentially increased in size within a year. The 48MP camera smartphones crowded the first part of 2019. Soon after, we saw phones with 64MP cameras which were eventually followed by smartphones like the brilliant concept Mi MIX Alpha and the commercially available Mi Note 10 with 108MP cameras. And now, according to one of the popular leakers, Ice Universe, Samsung is rumoured to introduce a 144MP camera manufactured using 14nm FinFET process.

In case you are aware of, though Sony jump-started the megapixels game with a 48MP sensor, it was Samsung who outpaced the former company by soon introducing 64MP and 108MP smartphone camera sensors. Although Sony has a 64MP sensor now, the company is yet to make a 108MP camera. On the other hand, Samsung is all set to manufacture 144MP camera sensors using 14nm FinFET process if the information shared by Ice Universe on Twitter happens to be true.

The infographic posted on Twitter by Ice Universe showcases the market trend of mobile CMOS sensors which incorporates over 100 million pixels to sub-10 million pixels. It also adds 14nm manufacturing technology is essential to make sensors above 100 million pixels density. Coincidently, just last week, Samsung exhibited a 14nm FinFET manufacturing process optimized for imaging applications. Which kind of suggests Samsung could be really working to introduce 144MP mobile CMOS sensors to the market. Note that Qualcomm’s recently-introduced Snapdragon 865 SoC already has support for 200MP sensors, so the writing is on the wall.

The Galaxy S11 series is unlikely to feature this sensor. On the other hand, the Galaxy Note 11 looks a very likely candidate for this new piece of camera. However, it would be interesting to see if Xiaomi can snatch the cake once again as it did this year from Samsung.

As of now, there is no information available about this purported upcoming sensor from Samsung, apart from this rumour.

Just a few weeks back, a post went up on Reddit from a Lenovo employee asking for testers to partake in an early trial of an upcoming Chrome OS tablet from the company. We’d seen this type of thing before with the Lenovo Smart Clock and that testing request showed up just weeks before the Smart clock was officially announced. Though there was a bit of back-and-forth around this new tablet post on Reddit, it ended up coming out that the whole thing was legit and truly from Lenovo.

We can only assume some folks have since been contacted by Lenovo about the test device, but we have no firm evidence of that at this point. What we do have, however, is a pretty clear connection between a tablet device referenced in the Chromium Bug Tracker named ‘Kodama’ and a Bitland employee with a tight time frame. If all those words didn’t quite make sense together, let me catch you up.

‘Kodama’ is one of around 10 separate Chrome devices we’re tracking that will use the new MediaTek 8183 ARM processor. Most of these devices look to be tablets and/or detachable devices and we’d expect to see them start arriving early in 2020 from all the things we’ve learned about them so far. These devices are in the ‘Kukui’ family (the name of the unibuild baseboard they are all based on) and ‘Kodama’ is one of those devices we’ve been tracking that we are certain will be made as a detachable with a dedicated keyboard accessory.

The Bitland piece of this isn’t quite as straightforward, but you just need to know that Bitland is a Chinese laptop/tablet producer that has built laptops and tablets for Lenovo for years among other companies. An individual with a Bitland email was spotted in the Chromium Bug Tracker by Kevin Tofel of About Chromebooks making a request for a screen rotation bug to be fixed for ‘Kodama’. His request not only included the name of the device, but a bit of a timeline as well.

Now, that timeline could be anything, but it all sounds pretty pressing. Given that this comment is about ‘Kodama’ from a Bitland employee right around the same time as Lenovo started looking for testers for a new Chrome OS tablet tells me that they are connected. The timing is just to coincidental for these events not to be connected.

Kevin also found an FCC approval for a Lenovo tablet that passed through the FCC back in the end of November. However, the model number (Lenovo TB-8705F) on this filing does match up with a previously announced device in the Lenovo Tab M8. Could this be a rehashed device? Perhaps, but it is highly unlikely. I’d bet the Tab M8 FCC filing is just the new Smart Tab from Lenovo and ‘Kodama’ is or will be something different.

Either way, we are getting very close to seeing some of these new MediaTek 8183 devices and we are feeling more and more confident by the day that we’ll see at least one of them at CES in just 3 weeks from now. The early parts of 2020 are going to be absolutely crazy with new Chrome OS devices, and we can’t wait to try them all. Be sure you are subscribed to our newsletter so you don’t miss a beat!

On the Club Huawei forums, the company confirmed the latest batch of devices to receive the EMUI 10 Beta. The list includes several Huawei smartphones intended for the Chines market. Currently, the Public Beta is only announced for Chinese variants of the following device.

Even with Huawei blacklisted from doing business with the US, it has still managed to keep up sales globally and pushed the latest Android 10-based EMUI update to much of its portfolio.

Huawei has already updated most of its other flagships to EMUI 10 including the Mate 20 series, the Honor 9X, the P30 series, Huawei MediaPad M6 series, and the Huawei Mate X already has a Beta program. Late-last month, Huawei announced that EMUI was running on over 1 million devices across 26 different models.

T here’sThere’s really just one thing you need to know about the latest Spectre x360 13 from HP: the trackpad doesn’t suck. For years, HP has built excellent laptops under the Spectre branding that have all been let down by terrible trackpads. The company insisted on sticking with poor performing Synaptics drivers, even while the rest of the Windows laptop industry (including HP’s own business laptops) switched to the far superior Precision drivers provided by Microsoft.

But HP has seen the error of its ways (or it got tired of reading reviews bemoaning its trackpads), and the new Spectre x360 13 finally uses Microsoft’s Precision drivers. Combined with a smooth glass surface and large size, it is now a good trackpad. The latest x360 also has an updated chassis with slimmer bezels, Intel’s 10th Gen processors, and an aggressive starting price of $1,099 ($1,299, as reviewed).

The Spectre x360 has long been a strong contender in the world of premium 2-in-1 convertible Windows laptops, with the aforementioned trackpad issues being the main thing that held it back. But this year, it has some serious competition from Dell, with its latest XPS 13 2-in-1, including similar internal components and an updated design, not to mention an excellent trackpad.

Still, HP holds its own, and choosing between the two will really come down to personal preference and how much you’re willing to spend on a new laptop.

The newest Spectre x360 looks very similar to the prior models, but HP has made some crucial tweaks and improvements to the design. The most important one is smaller bezels all around the screen, which not only look more modern and bring HP in line with what Dell has offered for years, but they also allow the machine to have a smaller footprint than before. The x360 is now nearly a full inch shorter than the prior model, but it has the same 13.3-inch display. HP boasts that the x360 13 is now the “world’s smallest convertible with 90 percent screen-to-body ratio,” which is such a hilariously heavily qualified claim that I had to share it with you.

Even with those shrunken bezels, HP still managed to include a Windows Hello-compatible webcam above the display, something Dell doesn’t offer. There’s even a hardware kill switch on the side of the computer for privacy protection, though I’d have preferred a physical shutter like the one found on HP’s Elite Dragonfly business laptop. If you don’t want to use facial recognition to log in, there’s a Windows Hello fingerprint scanner just below the keyboard that works exactly as you’d expect.

As part of the shrinking, HP moved the speakers from just above the keyboard to the underside of the laptop where most 2-in-1 computers have them. I didn’t really notice a huge difference in the speaker performance with the change — they are still loud and clear and sounded quite nice when watching the latest season of The Expanse or in video calls.

Sadly, despite offering three different display configurations, including a 4K OLED option, HP is still using a 16:9 aspect ratio, which isn’t as comfortable to use for productivity work as a 3:2 or even 16:10 screen. That cramped feeling is magnified on a 13.3-inch screen, and it just feels so much smaller than the XPS 13 2-in-1’s or Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 3 when browsing the web or working in documents.

The review unit I’ve been testing has HP’s low-power 1W 1080p display, which is bright and vibrant and works well for both everyday work and media consumption. It’s not as punchy and jaw-dropping as the OLED screen would be, but it has better battery life and a much lower price tag so it’s likely the best option for most people. The Dell XPS 13 2-in-1’s display beats this one in max brightness and aspect ratio, however.

The new x360 has the same sharp-to-touch and sharp-to-look-at beveled sides as the last few iterations. It also has the same port selection: two Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports and a microSD card slot on the right and a 3.5mm audio jack and USB-A port on the left. The USB-A port is now half-covered by a trap door that I assume allows HP to fit it in a thinner chassis. Despite the trap door, I was still able to plug USB cables into the port with one hand, though it does take a little more deliberate action than before. Either way, Dell’s computer doesn’t even have a USB-A port, so this is a win for HP.

The backlit keyboard is unchanged from prior models, save for the addition of a microphone mute key in the function row. It’s a perfectly fine keyboard, with good spacing and travel, though the column of cursor control keys on the right side makes the whole thing feel a little off-center, which takes some getting used to. HP’s keycaps are a little slippery as well, but overall, the keyboard is much more traditional-feeling than Dell’s polarizing low-profile keyboard on the XPS.

As I mentioned earlier, the trackpad on the x360 is much better than before, even though it has the same dimensions and glass construction as prior models. The upgraded drivers mean everything from single finger tracking to two-finger scrolling to multifinger Windows 10 gestures are much more reliable and easier to use than on prior models. Perhaps the most significant change is the improved palm rejection; my cursor doesn’t jump erratically across the screen nearly as often when I’m typing in a document.

Like many other recent laptops, the Spectre x360 has Intel’s latest 10th Gen Core processors, in either i5 or i7 options. They are paired with the much-improved Iris Plus integrated graphics, which don’t exactly turn the x360 into a gaming computer but do help a ton with creativity workflows in apps like Photoshop and Premiere Pro.

My review unit has the Core i7-1065G7 chip with 8GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD storage (boosted by 32GB of Intel’s high-speed Optane storage). It performs very similarly to other computers with this platform and has no issues handling everyday workflows of dozens of Chrome tabs, writing in Word, communicating in Slack, and keeping up with Twitter and email. It can also handle streaming 4K video from YouTube without any issue, as you’d expect.

The x360 supports Wi-Fi 6 and has an option for integrated gigabit LTE, though my review unit was not equipped with the latter. Few consumer-focused laptops even provide the option for LTE at this point, so it’s nice to see HP ahead of the curve here.

HP loves to make huge battery life claims based on local video or audio playback loops, but in mixed usage, the x360 is no different than every other modern thin-and-light laptop or 2-in-1. With my usual workflow and the brightness set to 50 percent, I averaged just under seven hours between charges, which is right in line with every other 13-inch 10th Gen laptop I’ve tested. That’s not quite a full day of use (and not nearly as impressive as the double-digit battery life I saw from prior x360 models), but unfortunately, it seems to be about all we’re going to get with current options.

AGREE TO CONTINUE: HP SPECTRE X360 13 (LATE 2019)

Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it — contracts that no one actually reads. It’s impossible for us to read and analyze every single one of these agreements. But we started counting exactly how many times you have to hit “agree” to use devices when we review them since these are agreements most people don’t read and definitely can’t negotiate.

As with other Windows 10 computers, the HP Spectre x360 13 presents you with multiple things to agree to or decline upon setup.

The mandatory policies, for which an agreement is required, are:

Windows 10 License Agreement

A Microsoft account for sign-in (this can be bypassed if you don’t connect the computer to the internet during setup)

In addition, there is a slew of optional things to agree to:

Activity History

OneDrive back up

Office 365

Cortana (which allows Microsoft to access your location, location history, contacts, voice input, speech and handwriting patterns, typing history, search history, calendar details, messages, apps, and Edge browsing history)

Device privacy settings: online speech recognition, Find My Device, Inking and Typing, Advertising ID, Location, Diag data, Tailored experiences

Add it all up, and you have two mandatory agreements and 11 optional ones.

Finally, while I didn’t encounter any notable bugs or software issues on the x360 in my week or so of testing, I have to note that HP still includes annoying bloatware like McAfee trials on all of its consumer laptops, even ones that cost well north of $1,000. It’s an annoying and frustrating thing to deal with on an otherwise excellent laptop, and HP should give it up.

If you’re in the market for a new thin-and-light laptop or 2-in-1 right now, the top options are this Spectre x360, Dell’s XPS 13 2-in-1, or Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 3. All three have sleek, modern designs, similar performance and battery life, excellent keyboards and trackpads, and bright, sharp displays.

The Spectre gives you the smallest footprint of all of them, plus both Thunderbolt 3 (which is not found on the Surface Laptop 3) and USB-A ports (which are lacking on the XPS 13 2-in-1), and it comes in at a lower price when similarly configured. The main thing you give up with the Spectre is the better screen ratios found on the Dell or Microsoft computers, which may be a deal-breaker for some. Frankly, it is for me. I much prefer a taller aspect ratio for everyday work. But if you don’t mind using a 16:9 display, then the Spectre x360 is an excellent thin-and-light 2-in-1 laptop.

The forthcoming Samsung Galaxy S11 is going to be more powerful than the Apple’s iPhone 11 Pro, at least according to our benchmarks of the Snapdragon 865 chipset.

Qualcomm, the chipmaker behind the Snapdragon 865, gave TechRadar the chance to test out an 865-loaded reference device, and with that, we ran all of the usual benchmarking applications: Geekbench, GFxBench and AnTutu to name a few.

What’s important are these two things:

The Samsung Galaxy S11 is likely to be powered by the Snapdragon 865 chipset in some countries where Samsung doesn’t use its own Exynos chipset. In the US, the Galaxy S10 series had the Snapdragon 855, the Galaxy S9 series used the Snapdragon 845, and so on. The 865 will be the chipset at the heart of a majority of Android flagship phones in 2020.

The Snapdragon 865 benchmark results proved to outpace Apple’s A13 Bonic chipset (found in the iPhone 11 series) in some key areas. You may think that’s a given since the iPhone is a bit older, but last year the Snapdragon 855 trailed the A12 Bionic chipset. So this is an important distinction for 2020 Android phones.

Without further ado, let’s check out Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865 reference device, its specs and the benchmarks that come from it.

Snapdragon 865 reference device and specs

Technically, this is the first Snapdragon 865-powered smartphone, although you’ll never be able to buy it. It’s just a reference device that Qualcomm uses to demo the capabilities of its brand-new chipset.

It’s also perforated with holes on the back, but other than that, the partially-visible guts of the handset are exactly what you’d want from a phone in 2020: a Quad HD+ 2880 x 1440 resolution, 12GB of LP5 dual rank RAM, an octa-core CPU (4xA77 + 4xA55) and 128GB of internal storage.

Before we set out to benchmark the Snapdragon 865 and gain insight into what the Samsung Galaxy S11 could be capable of, Qualcomm reps did note that there’s a “performance mode,” which speeds up the chipset while draining the battery a bit faster. That did make a difference in some of our tests, as you’ll notice.

Snapdragon 865 raise hopes for the Galaxy S11

When we test smartphones at TechRadar, we often rely on benchmark apps like Geekbench 5, and it has some good news for the Galaxy S11 thanks to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865: its multi-core score assessment shows that Android phones will be able to outpace Apple’s A13 Bionic chipset when it comes to complex workloads.

With a multi-core score of solid 3,450, the Snapdragon 865 reference phone pulled ahead of our iPhone 11 Pro Max, which had a multi-core score of 3,337. Large tasks like video rendering, 3D gaming and image processing benefit from higher scores.

The single-core score, however, told a different story with a 931 Geekbench 5 score on Qualcomm’s reference device. The iPhone 11 Pro Max got a rather appropriate 1331 when we re-ran tests today using the latest version of iOS 13.

The single-core compute score is better for simple tasks, like mobile web browsing, which can’t be broken up to take advantage of eight cores at once. Single cores are becoming less important, and Qualcomm is putting emphasis on the multi-core score, GPU and AI chips within its multi-fanged Snapdragon 865 chipset.

For these tests, we turned to tools like GFxBench and AnTuTU for GPU benchmarks and AITutu and Ludashi AI Mark for newer AI tests. All four met or exceeded the scores that Qualcomm had in its ‘expected’ score range. The pre-installed GFxBench Manhattan offscreen test gave us a score of 89, AnTuTU’s GPU test ran topped 221,435, Ludashi AI Mark went above 100K at 105,072 and AITuTu went to 455,235 after three consecutive tests on each app.

Translation? We’re expecting powerful graphics and AI performance from Android phones in 2020, and the heavy tasks run by multi-core processors will catch up to and slightly exceed what Apple is capable of doing on its iPhones right now. Qualcomm’s chipsets still lag behind when it comes to simpler tasks, but as app developers spread workloads to more cores, the single-core score is becoming less important than the combined effort of an eight-core mobile chipset.

A good sign for Android phones in 2020

Speed and processing power aren’t everything. But there were so many close calls on our best phones list in 2019 that any edge could shake up our rankings in 2020.

The iPhone 11 was in many ways more capable than the many, many Galaxy phones in 2019, but the value of Samsung’s devices were a win when it came to storage and price – that’s what swayed us in the end. Little factors can make a big difference.

We’re seeing a powerful yet efficient 5G-capable chipset from Qualcomm, so even if you’re a fan of iPhone series, it’s going to push Apple, Huawei and other non-Snapdragon-using smartphone manufacturers to compete. And that’s a win-win for consumers no matter how they shop for phones.

Beginning January 15, 2020, Microsoft will be delivering its new Chromium-based Edge browser automatically to Windows 10 users via Windows Update, unless its Edge Blocker Toolkit is applied.

Microsoft officials have said the new Chromium-based Edge browser will be generally available starting January 15, 2020. They also said in early November that the new Edge will be bundled with Windows 10 right after the general availability date, though this will happen in a staggered/staged manner. This week, the Redmondians are providing links to more details about the coming Edge rollout for Windows 10.

The Chromium-based version of Edge will not be tied to Windows operating system releases moving forward, as officials have said. Microsoft will be making the new Edge available automatically via Windows Update for all PCs already running Windows 10 1709 or newer.

Microsoft’s Edge documentation notes:

“The next version of Microsoft Edge features more frequent and more flexible updating capabilities. Because browser releases aren’t bound to the Windows major releases, changes will be made to the operating system to ensure that the next version of Microsoft Edge fits seamlessly into Windows. As a result, feature updates will be released on a 6-week cycle (approximately.) Security and compatibility updates will be shipped as needed.”

Once the new Edge is installed and updates — which are available already and detailed in the Edge documentation for each feature update — are made to the Windows 10 variants, automatic migration of menu pins, tiles and shortcuts will migrate from Legacy Edge to the new Edge.

Microsoft also is making available a Blocker Toolkit for the new Edge for companies wishing to block the automatic deployment of the new Edge, as reported by ghacks.net. (The toolkit also can be run on Windows 10 Home systems by administrators.) The Blocker Toolkit won’t block the manual installation of the new Chromium-based Edge.

Microsoft officially opened the new Microsoft Edge Addons store to submissions to all developers on December 16. Devs can submit extensions via the Partner Center Developer Dashboard.

As Microsoft execs have said previously, in most cases, extensions built for Chromium should work without any modifications in the new Edge. Microsoft will no longer be accepting new extensions for the existing Microsoft Legacy Edge after December 17, 2019, but will continue to accept updates for existing Microsoft Edge Legacy extensions. The company is committing to migrate users’ extensions from Legacy Edge when they update to the new Edge starting January 15, but extensions will only be migrated if they’re already available in the Microsoft Edge Addons store at the time of switching to the new browser.

Microsoft announced in late 2018 that it was creating a new version of Edge by using Chromium combined with some components currently in Edge, all in the name of providing greater browsing compatibility across the web. Microsoft is using the underlying Chromium Blink rendering technology, but is replacing quite a few Chromium services with Microsoft equivalents.

Chromium is an open-source browser implementation that is used as a base by a number of browser developers, including Google (with its proprietary Chrome browser), Vivaldi, Opera, Yandex, Brave, and more. Simultaneous with the launch of Chrome in 2008, Google released the bulk of Chrome’s code as open source, birthing Chromium in the process.

In the ensuing months, Microsoft made Canary, Developer and Beta test versions of the new Edge available to users on Windows 7, 8.1, 10 and macOS. Microsoft also is working on an ARM 64-enabled version of Chromium Edge and a Linux version is likely, as well.

When Lenovo announced its new Yoga C940 at IFA this year, it was a sure winner. It takes the best of last year’s Yoga C930 and combines it with the best of this year’s S940 clamshell.

It keeps those features that I really loved last year, like the rotating Dolby Atmos soundbar in the hinge, and the built-in pen. And it shares the design language of the IdeaPad S940, packing the reverse notch, which doesn’t really serve a purpose anymore other than to provide an easier way of lifting the lid.

This is also the first 15-inch convertible to come out of the Yoga 900 series, and it packs a punch. This machine has a 45W Intel H-series processor, along with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 GPU. Indeed, it’s the rare powerful convertible, something that’s also seen in the HP Spectre x360 15, and in very few other places.

It’s worth noting that you can actually configure this PC with a Core i9-9880H, which is kind of wild. Even HP’s Spectre x360 15 doesn’t have that kind of offering, and I’m not sure there are any convertibles that do.

Design

The Lenovo Yoga C940 looks pretty much the same as the C930 did, being built out of aluminum and coming in the Iron Gray color. Of course, the 15-inch model is a bit bigger, a bit thicker, and a bit heavier. This thing weighs 4.41 pounds, and that’s what you get with powerful internals like this, which also require better thermals and a bigger battery. Note that the 14-inch model is almost a pound and a half lighter, although it has a 15W quad-core processor and no discrete graphics.

The lid has a black Yoga logo stamped on the top-left, and there isn’t anything else, even a Lenovo logo. Not that this matters at all, but I’d rather see at least a silver Yoga logo, something to add a bit of sexy to it. I also really like the design of the ThinkPad X1 Yoga, so Lenovo can do aluminum laptops that look pretty on the outside. I just feel like the design could use a bit more spice.

On the back of the device, you’ll see the rotating soundbar on the hinge. The other sides are flat with angled edges.

On the left side, there’s a power port, a 3.5mm audio jack, and two Thunderbolt 3 ports. Indeed, it does not come with a USB Type-C charger. Being that this is a powerful machine, it takes a 135W charger, and that’s too much for USB Type-C. Dell does make a 130W USB Type-C charger, but it’s the only one that does it. Luckily, if you buy that charger from Dell, you can use it to charge the C940.

On the other side, you’ll find the power button all the way toward the back, and a single USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A port. It’s a bit strange that it uses the 5Gbps USB 3.1 Gen 1, as the 14-inch model has a USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A port, which gets 10Gbps. What’s also strange is that Lenovo.com lists this machine as using USB 3.1 Gen 2; however, both the reviewer’s guide and the marking on the port itself show it as Gen 1.

Another thing that you’ll find on the right side of the PC is the pen garage. Yes, like last year’s C930, this year’s model has a pen that’s built right into the device. There’s no worrying about a magnetically attached pen falling off in your bag, or a pen loop getting in your way. It’s just there when you need it, and it charges while you’re not using it. Naturally, this does mean that the pen will be a bit smaller than a standard one, but you can always pick up a Wacom pen if you need to.

Display and audio

The model that Lenovo sent me includes a 15.6-inch 1080p display, although it’s offered at 4K resolution. Other than the resolution, the screens are the same, both supporting Dolby Vision HDR400 at 500 nits.

Dolby Vision is one of those things that you want in a display. In fact, with any screen, HDR, color, and contrast are way more important then the resolution. Dolby Vision decodes the 12-bit PQ signal from a supported video, producing the content in the widest range of color possible, providing the most accurate colors, as long as you’re playing supported content.

But while that’s all more important than the resolution, I do think that you’ll want the 4K model. 1080p just doesn’t cut it for me on a 15.6-inch laptop. There’s definitely a fair bit of pixelation when using it. Naturally, that means that you’ll be sacrificing battery life.

I’m also a bit disappointed that there’s no OLED option. 15.6-inch OLED panels are becoming increasingly common, and they’ve recently been introduced in Lenovo’s entire range of 15.6-inch ThinkPads. The main reason I point this out though is because this PC is pretty much the ultimate media machine.

Aside from the Dolby Vision display, it has a Dolby Atmos soundbar. If this isn’t the best audio on a laptop, it’s easily close. It’s a rare combination of a speaker that gets super loud, but it’s also crystal clear. If you’re streaming media on it, you get a great display and killer speakers, and it makes for a phenomenal experience.

As mentioned above, it follows the same design as the Yoga S940 (IdeaPad S940 in the U.S.), and it has a reverse notch above the screen. What’s strange here is that it only seems to serve as a way to more easily open the lid. The Yoga S940 had that area packed with sensors and an IR camera. Those aren’t included in this PC. And I don’t think that the top bezel is small enough to where that reverse notch is needed to fit it.

Another thing that the C940 doesn’t borrow from the S940 is the curved-edge glass. This was a really nice touch on the S940, so I was sad to see it omitted from the C940.

Keyboard and trackpad

Like many 15.6-inch laptops, the Yoga C940 includes a number pad to the right of the alphabetical keys. The keys are shallower than what you’d find on a ThinkPad. Indeed, Lenovo’s consumer laptop keyboards are a more modern approach.

I really think that this is the best approach these days. The keyboard feels very comfortable to type on, and it’s comfortable to type on. Lenovo is really good at making keyboards, and I’ve never had a truly bad experience with one as I have with pretty much every other manufacturer.

I’ve typed a lot of articles on this machine, and I never got tired of it. Aside from the great keyboard, the big screen makes it great for productivity. And of course, it’s a convertible with pen support, so there’s a wide range of use cases.

The trackpad uses Microsoft Precision drivers, so it’s responsive and accurate. It’s aligned to the left, rather than in the center. Again, this is common for devices like this. You’ll also find a fingerprint sensor to the right of it, and that’s your only method for Windows Hello biometric authentication, since there’s no IR camera.

Performance and battery life

The performance on the Lenovo Yoga C940 15 is awesome, possibly the best of any consumer convertible. As I noted above, it’s the only one I know of that offers a Core i9-9880H, a vPro chip with a 45W TDP, eight cores, and 16 threads.

This one includes a Core i7-9750H, also a 45W chip but with six cores and 12 threads. The H-series is what you’ll find in gaming laptops and mobile workstations, so it’s pretty powerful. And of course, there’s the dedicated GPU, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650, which is built on the Turing architecture.

You can use the Lenovo Yoga C940 15 for just about anything. You can play games on it, edit video on it, or use it for general productivity tasks. Since it’s a convertible, you can use it as a tablet, and use the pen to draw, take handwritten notes, and so on. It’s powerful enough to handle Adobe CC, using tablet-centric interfaces in the various apps that support it.

That power affects the battery life, of course, but the battery life on this machine was weirdly good. I got a solid six hours of general use out of it, and in some cases, I could stretch it to eight hours. Lenovo lists the 4K UHD model as getting about three quarters the battery life of this, which is still pretty good. But make no mistake, the higher resolution will affect battery life.

I did have a few strange software issues, which I assume will eventually be fixed with software updates. I was completely unable to install Nvidia GeForce driver updates. Lenovo ended up sending me a new model because I had a touchscreen issue with the first one, and I still couldn’t install an Nvidia update on the new one. Windows 10 cumulative updates wouldn’t install either, oddly enough.

For benchmarks, I ran PCMark 8, PCMark 10, 3DMark, and VRMark. There’s only one VRMark test since it didn’t hit the minimum frame rate, so there wasn’t much sense in running the more advanced tests.

As I noted above, this is a powerful machine. That’s why I ran 3DMark and VRMark, which I don’t run on ultrabooks as they always come in at the 1% mark. It’s not a VR machine though. If you’re serious about gaming, you’ll still want a gaming PC. If you’re serious about video editing, you should look for more powerful dedicated graphics. This is better for an all-around solution.

Conclusion

The Lenovo Yoga C940 15 is sort of the ultimate PC. It’s great for streaming media, with a solid display and amazing speakers. It has the power to do what you need to do, from productivity, to editing video, to gaming. And it’s a convertible, meaning that you can use it in a wide range of form factors, such as as a tablet, where you can use the pen to draw, take handwritten notes, mark up photos, and more.

That’s not to say that I don’t have any issues with it though. Software issues were one thing, but I look at that as a temporary problem. I do find it irritating that a premium PC in 2019 could ship without an IR camera for facial recognition, and of course, I’m disappointed that there’s no OLED option in a market where 15.6-inch OLED displays are becoming common and when this is already such an amazing media consumption machine. When something gets to be so good at consuming media, the lack of an OLED option becomes a blemish.

But again, this PC is amazing all-around. Just the sheer versatility of it is fantastic. It has this diversity of things that it’s good at that make it a delight to use. It gets the job done, no matter what the job is.

On October 23rd, Huawei officially launched the HUAWEI VR Glass which – as the name suggests – is a pair of VR glasses. The product was announced with a price tag of 2999 Yuan, around $430 at the current exchange rates. Today, we learn that the headset is finally hitting the market on Thursday, December 19th; while also acquiring further details.

So, let’s start with a very important factor when talking about virtual reality glasses: the weight. Huawei‘s VR Glass come weighing just 166 grams, for a thickness of the lens system of about 26.6mm. According to the company, this is a huge leap over current VR headsets (in terms of lightness) and it’s also what got Huawei a World VR Industry Conference Innovation Gold Award in 2019.

The HUAWEI VR Glass uses an ultra-short focus optical system, a three-stage folding optical path and a 5-pixel high-precision calibration. The glasses can be adjusted for those who suffer of myopia in a range that goes from 0 to 700 degrees; meanwhile the adaptive pupillary distance goes from 55 to 71 mm. The headset also features a breathable shading mask, making it more comfortable to wear and to enjoy the content.

Other important specs include a screen resolution of 3200×160 for a PPI of up to 1058. We then have a 90-degree field of view and 70 / 90Hz variable refresh rate.

The headset also supports 3D sound effects, IMAX giant screen mode and VR mobile phone projection screen mode. Meanwhile on the content side, Huawei will provide 30,000 hours of VR video, over 100 Mobile VR games and thousands of computer VR games (6DoF games).

So, the Huawei VR Glass appears to be a solid device in a market (VR) that’s rapidly picking up. In the first quarter of 2019, global shipments of AR / VR headsets have indeed increased by 27.2% year-on-year. Will it continue to grow in 2020? Well, we’re going to find out very soon!

Dell’s XPS 13 is widely-regarded as the pinnacle of ultrabook excellence. This 13-inch notebook weighs just 2.7 pounds and lasts over 12 hours on a charge when you have its default, 1080p non-touch screen. It also has a slew of attractive features such as a nearly-bezel free display and a luxurious soft-touch deck (on the silver / gold models).

While the XPS 13 typically starts at less than $900 for a stripped-down model with a Core i3 CPU, 4GB of RAM and a paltry 128GB SSD, you usually have to pay a lot more than $1,200 to get it with a decent processor, RAM and storage. However, right now, B&H has a configuration of the XPS 13 with a Core i7-8565U “Whiskey Lake” CPU, 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD for just $1,049, reduced from $1,649. This model is in the silver color and has the bright, 1080p screen which, in Laptop Mag’s tests, hit a brilliant 375 nits.

If 256GB of storage sounds like too little for you, you can get the same configuration in Rose Gold or Frost White, but with a 512GB SSD, for just $1,143 on Dell.com by using code 12AWXPS at checkout. If you prefer Dell to B&H or B&H is out of stock, you can get the 256GB model at Dell.com at the same URL and with the same coupon code for just $1,100.

Because these Dell XPS 13s have “Whiskey Lake” Core i7-8565U CPUs, they are not the quite as fast as the brand-new Dell XPS 13 with a Comet Lake, Core i7-10710U CPU that we recently reviewed. And they still have the webcam in their bottom bezels (a problem that was finally fixed on the brand new model).

However, this generation of the Dell XPS 13, model 9380, is still plenty fast and power-efficient. The Dell XPS 13 is also one of the thinnest laptops on the market, at just 0.6 inches thick.

If the Dell XPS 13 isn’t for you and you’re looking for a different kind of laptop sale, check out our list of best holiday tech deals.