The issue I’ve been coming across recently seems to be mostly with Dell’s XPS line of laptops, though it can certainly affect others: My new XPS 13 9370, XPS 15 9575, and XPS 15 9570 showed 8, 14.5, and 10% battery wear out-of-the-box, respectively...
Apple has now admitted to a design problem with the ‘butterfly mechanism’ keyboard of the MacBook and MacBook Pro in its current form by initiating a repair program for those experiencing issues for up to four years after purchase. Apple’s butterfly switch keyboard design...
If you’re shopping for a mid-range everyday computer in the $600 to $700 price-range, you’ve surely came across a few Asus VivoBooks options. As of the second half of 2018 Asus offers an updated model in this niche, the VivoBook S15 S530, also known...
When AMD launched the Ryzen 5 2500U and Ryzen 7 2700U it marked their return to competitiveness in the ultra-low voltage (ULV) processor market. Performance is similar to Intel’s quadcore ultrabook processors, the i5-8350U and i7-8550U. The ace up AMD’s sleeve was the more...
I used to play a lot of games in a previous life, and back then I was much into titles like World of Warcraft, Age of Empires, Starcraft, Red Alert, Diablo and many others. These days I rarely launch a Civ 6 session and...
Lenovo has announced their new 2018 Legion Y530 and Y730 gaming laptops at E3 2018, which impress with sleek redesigned exterior to complement the hardware upgrades made inside. The Legion brand became the home of the Y-series gaming laptops that used to sit under...
As this is a “live” review, sections will be updated as I complete testing. Placeholder photos will be updated along with each section. Update Log: 06/13/2018: added battery life benchmarks, issues, and conclusion. Review complete; photos to be added. 06/11/2018: added cinebench single, multi,...
Gigabyte first launched the Sabre series of gaming laptops in 2017. Prior to this, they produced the premium and expensive Aorus and Aero laptops, or plain looking multimedia models that just sat under the Gigabyte brand. The Sabre series was their budget-friendly option with proper...
Today at Computex 2018, HP announced the ProBook x360 440 G1, a 14-inch touchscreen convertible with an awkward name. The ProBook series is a cheaper alternative to the EliteBook and is targeted towards general business users. The design language here fits this ethos, with...
The Asus Zenbook Pro is a series of thin-and-light 15-inch laptops with premium builds and aesthetics, but also powerful hardware and good screen options. We’ve covered the UX550 lines in depth here on the site in previous articles (UX550VD, UX550VE and the updated UX550GD/GE), but...
When thinking of laptops produced by MSI, their black and red gaming notebooks are likely to be what comes to mind. However, MSI has been producing white and silver business-and-café-friendly models under their Prestige brand for a little over three years now. Normally the...
Last week I wrote about the supposed 40% speed boost seen in an always-connected PC powered by an overclocked Snapdragon 845. While the Snapdragon 835 has delivered tepid performance (at best) in the current crop of Windows-on-Arm (WoA) PCs such as the Asus NovaGo,...
This article is about the Asus Zenbook S UX391UA, Asus’s new flagship clamshell thin-and-light ultraportable for the first half of 2018. It’s meant to compete with the top contenders out there, like the Dell XPS 13 9370 or the Huawei MateBook X, with whom...
The ROG Strix is Asus’s line of mid-range gaming laptops with solid specs and features, but also fairly aggressive prices. As of June 2018 Asus launched an update of the Strix family and the new Strix II GL504 laptops don’t just get the newer hardware, but...
It’s been a while since the release of the Nvidia Pascal architecture that’s used in the vast majority of notebooks and desktop builds available in stores today, but a new generation based on the Volta architecture is scheduled for release this summer. We’ve seen rumors...
Best Ultrabooks of 2018: Lenovo X1 Carbon vs. Dell XPS 13
Disclaimer: All laptops (including both black and white XPS 13 SKUs) were purchased with my own funds for this review. Going by most accounts, the best ultrabook of 2018...
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