Battery for PC Blog

Microsoft is working on a Windows 10 update that will introduce a range of new font management facilities and further expand customization options.

Windows 10 users can already select a default font from a long list of pre-sets and install new ones via a simple drag-and-drop mechanism, but the upgrade is set to introduce further granularity.

The new features, which include the ability to fiddle with the way fonts render on-screen, are expected to arrive via open source application PowerToys, built by a small group of Microsoft developers.

According to the product roadmap, an upcoming build of the freeware – designed to give Windows 10 “power users” a greater pool of settings to play with – will allow users to optimize text rendering and force symmetric smoothing, which could be especially useful for owners of high resolution monitors.

Windows 10 customization

With previous builds, PowerToys has allowed Windows 10 users to make tweaks that further personalize their operating system, including building new layouts for multi-monitor rigs, modifying keyboard shortcuts and remapping keys.

Now, the tool’s designers have turned their attention to addressing choppy text rendering – a problem that arises as a result of the way the OS translates font design into pixels. With the upcoming font rendering feature, text should appear smooth in all sizes and on monitors of varying resolutions.

On top of the new font rendering options, PowerToys is also set to introduce the second generation of its Color Picker tool, which allows users to identify the hexadecimal value of any color that appears on screen.

The second iteration will let users refine their color selection more easily, and will also align with Windows 10 theme selection.

Although no definitive release date has been set for the arrival of the new font rendering system and Color Picker, the features are expected to land as part of a sizable PowerToys update next year. 

AMD’s Big Navi Big Boi, the 6800XT, will eventually hail from third-party manufacturers, but that’s a little way away yet. That hasn’t stopped Sapphire from revealing its plans for such boards, and they’re looking good, with the GPU manufacturer getting to flex its high-end muscles for the first time in an age.

There are actually two in fact: Sapphire’s RX 6800-series line is split into PULSE (why the caps?) and Nitro+. Those PULSE boards (honestly, it makes it sound like a backwater nightclub) fill 2.7 slots and are a classy black and red, with a heartbeat motif on the back. Its three fans have nine blades each, and there’s a dual eight-pin power connector. Output is handled by three HDMIs and a DisplayPort, all capable of 8K.

The Nitro+ version, however, gets the full treatment, with 12-blade fans, possibly an extra heatpipe or two, and a walled-in 2.5-slot design that looks much neater than its PULSATING brother.

Again, there are two eight-pin power sockets, and the same HDMI/DP arrangement. You get a little RGB too, but not nearly as much as the Nitro+ SE variant, which slaps swirling yellow and green all over its fans, and shakes things up at the back with one HDMI, two DisplayPort, and a USB-C—AMD clearly having not received the memo about VirtualLink’s death—all rocking 8K output.

You’ll need a 750-watt power supply to handle these cards, says Sapphire, and they’re both PCIe 4.0, with 16GB GDDR6 on board. Final clock and memory speeds haven’t been released yet.

Sapphire is the world’s largest supplier of AMD video cards, and it’s been at it since 2001. It’s produced some fine-looking cards in its time—as well as some boxart horrors—but with AMD GPUs being slightly off the boil recently it hasn’t been able to shine in the way it deserves. 

AMD has touted Big Navi performance besting Nvidia’s already impressive RTX 3080, so perhaps the RX 6800-series launch will be its chance for glory.

Windows 10 now has a strange specification named “Experience.” Standard desktop versions of Windows 10 say you have the “Windows Feature Experience Pack” installed. What does that mean? Microsoft is being secretive as always, but here’s what we know.

Another Windows 10 Mystery

If you head to Settings > System > About and scroll down to “Windows specifications,” you’ll see a line named “Experience.” It likely says you have the “Windows Feature Experience Pack” installed.

This section also tells you what edition of Windows 10 you have installed, which update version you have installed, when it was installed, and your OS build number.

We know what all those mean—but what is a “Windows Feature Experience Pack?”

Unfortunately, Microsoft won’t explain it! Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley asked Microsoft about it and got a “no comment” from Microsoft. We think we can explain a lot of this anyway.

Some Windows 10 Features Are Part of the Pack

As Foley points out, the Windows Feature Experience Pack is listed as one of many “Features on Demand” in Windows 10. For example, Microsoft Paint is now a “feature on demand.”

This particular feature comes preinstalled with Windows. Microsoft says it “Includes features critical to Windows functionality” and says you should “not remove this package.”

The same documentation says the Windows Feature Experience Pack was first introduced in Windows 10 version 2004—that’s the May 2020 Update.

According to Foley, the pack currently includes features like a snipping tool for taking screenshots and a text input panel. Rather than being part of the base version of Windows 10 itself, these features are part of this “pack” that is preinstalled. Microsoft may move more features from Windows 10 itself to this “features on demand” pack.

Most of these “features on demand” are listed under Settings > Apps > Apps & features > Optional features, but the installed “Experience Pack” doesn’t appear here.

Tracking Down Clues in the Windows Store

So, why does this Feature Experience Pack even exist? Why not just leave these features in Windows 10 proper?

Well, Microsoft won’t say, but we definitely have some ideas. Take a look at this: The Microsoft Store has a listing for a “Windows Feature Experience Pack” and a separate “Windows 10X Feature Experience Pack.” This suggests two things.

Faster Updates for Windows Components?

As of the October 2020 Update, there’s no indication this feature experience pack is being updated through the Store yet. However, it could be!

If Microsoft were updating the feature experience pack through the Store, the company could update the software inside the pack more often than once every six months.

Anything moved from Windows to the pack—perhaps a built-in application like File Explorer or a component like the Windows taskbar or Start menu—could be updated much more quickly.

A Single OS For All Microsoft’s Devices?

Microsoft is working hard on Windows 10X, which was going to be designed for dual-screen devices, but now looks like it will initially just be a more “modern” version of Windows that confines traditional desktop applications to containers.

These different versions of Windows could have the same underlying operating system and differ only in their “Feature Experience Pack.”

In other words, this could help advance Microsoft’s Windows Core OS goals: Having a single Windows core operating system that powers all devices, with different experiences installed on top of them. Imagine if a future Xbox could run Windows 10 with the “Xbox Feature Experience Pack,” or a future Windows Phone could run Windows 10 with the “Windows Phone Experience Pack.”

Hints About a Future, But No Use in the Present

As of Windows 10’s October 2020 Update at the end of 2020, you should ignore the “Experience” line in the Settings screen and forget about the “Windows Feature Experience” for now. It doesn’t really mean anything.

Its presence is an artifact of Microsoft’s development process: The company is always experimenting internally, and signs of that experimentation are appearing in the released versions of Windows 10. This information may be important for Microsoft engineers who are experimenting and troubleshooting, but it doesn’t mean anything to Windows users outside Microsoft.

When we reviewed the new Surface Go 2 tablet from Microsoft, we found it to be “an excellent affordable Windows 10 tablet that features a premium design found in the company’s more expensive devices”. 

However, if you want something even more affordable, you should check out the Pipo W11, which retails for about half the price of Microsoft’s diminutive tablet.

Pipo is not a household name, but we’ve known about the company since 2014 when it unveiled the Pipo W2 tablet. The W11 follows in the footsteps of its 6-year old predecessor, which back then ran on a little-known OS called Windows 8.1.

The W11 also comes with a keyboard cover and stylus, all for the princely sum of $274.99 (about £208, AU$377). Use the code BGpipo2 at checkout to get this price. For comparison, the equivalent Surface Go 2 configuration with pen and keyboard cover retails for $695.97 – more than twice the price.

The W11 wins out when it comes to performance, with its Celeron N4100 CPU trouncing the Surface Go 2’s Pentium 4425Y, according to CPUBenchmark. It’s also superior when it comes to storage (Pipo’s candidate has 64GB eMMC plus a dedicated 180GB SSD) and connectivity (the W11 has three more ports than its rival).

On the other hand, the Surface Go 2 has a smaller screen with a higher resolution, which produces sharper pictures, plus a bigger battery capacity, higher resolution cameras, and faster Wi-Fi/Bluetooth. 

Businesses looking for a cheap business tablet are also likely to side with Microsoft’s device because of the return policy, the free technical support and in-store assistance.

Bear in mind

If this product is shipped from mainland China, it will take a month to arrive in the UK or US (and potentially more). You may be levied an additional tax, either directly or through the courier.

If you’ve managed to get hold of a cheaper product with an equivalent specification, in stock and brand new, let us know and we’ll tip our hat to you.

IN 2021 Huawei will be introducing a massive change – dropping Android for their in-house HarmonyOS software. But the P40 Pro and P30 Pro makers aren’t the only tech giant that looks set to shun a Google-made operating system.

Rumours are circulating that OnePlus could be about to drop a Google-made operating system on an upcoming device. But Nord fans who are worried about seeing a massive Android shake-up like their Huawei counterparts are getting needn’t be concerned. According to the rumour mill, OnePlus won’t be switching things around on their Android devices – it will be on their upcoming OnePlus Watch.

As reported on in a post by 9to5Google, OnePlus surprisingly won’t be using Google’s Wear OS platform on their upcoming OnePlus Watch.

Wear OS is the typical go-to choice for smartwatch makers who don’t have the resources to make their own operating system for their wearables.

Exceptions to this is the Samsung’s Tizen OS which runs on Samsung Galaxy Watch devices, while Huawei are designing HarmomyOS to be used on a wide range of devices – including watches and smartphones.

So the latest rumours come as a big surprise, with it unclear what platform the Shenzhen-based tech giant will be using on their OnePlus Watch.

The rumour comes courtesy of reliable OnePlus insider Max Jambor who on Twitter posted: “OnePlus Watch does not run Googles WearOS”.

It remains to be seen what operating system the OnePlus Watch could run – are OnePlus looking to build their own bespoke platform, or could the Nord makers even pivot to Huawei’s HarmonyOS?

The latter would be a big boost for Huawei and a major blow to Google, but we’ll have to sit tight and wait for official confirmation one way or the other.

Rumours of a OnePlus Watch have been circulating for some time now, and recently it had looked like the highly talked about wearable could at last launch in 2020.

It had been thought the OnePlus Watch would launch in October 2020, but it later was claimed that the device had been put on hold.

This rumour came once again for Jambor, who in a post on Voice said “the OnePlus Watch announcement has been postponed without any new date”.

The insider wrote: “In 2016 first rumors about a OnePlus Smartwach surfaced. At the beginning of this month, OnePlus itself gave a hint at the OnePlus 8T Launch Event that a smartwatch could be launched in the near future that might bear the name OnePlus Watch.

“A few weeks ago, I announced that the OnePlus Watch would be presented in October, but according to latest information from multiple sources, there are some changes regarding the launch.

“According to my information, the OnePlus Watch announcement has been postponed without any new date. Now I don’t know the reasons for this step, but my guess is that there are some complications with the production or software development.”

In other OnePlus news, November will see the launch of two new OnePlus handsets – including the cheapest phone the firm has ever released.

OnePlus is expanding its OnePlus Nord line-up with the upcoming release of two new devices in this range, known as OnePlus N10 5G and N100.

Both of these new Nord phones sit below the inaugural Nord device in terms of specs and price.

The OnePlus N10 5G starts at £50 less than the original Nord, setting you back £329, and is powered by a Snapdragon 690, and boasts 6GB of RAM and 128GB of expandable storage.

While the N100 is priced at just £179 – making it the cheapest handset that OnePlus has ever launched.

As to be expected, to help get to that price tag the N100 is down on specs when compared to the original Nord and the upcoming N10 5G.

Both devices will be running Android 10 straight out of the box, and their release dates are fast approaching.

The OnePlus N100 is first up, launching in the UK on Tuesday November 10 with the N10 5G arriving later on in November.