2017-06-20

NEW

 Are you ready for everything the Galaxy Note 8 is going to bring with it? You can get yourself in the mood for the flagship phablet's upcoming launch by casting your eyes over the latest unofficial video and picture leaks to hit the web, showing what's claimed to be the front panel of the device.

 Posted to Chinese social network Weibo and picked up by Phandroid, the images and clips show the now-familiar bezel-crushing curves of the Infinity Display, though in this case the size goes beyond even what the Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus can offer. The Note 8 is expected to show up with a 6.3-inch or 6.4-inch display, to beat the 6.2-inch one on the Plus.

We don't know too much about the leaker in this case, so adjust your expectations accordingly, but the front display panels seem authentic enough to be real. It's no surprise that the Note 8 would follow the path of the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus, and it hints that the fingerprint sensor will once again be on the back of the device.
From the same source we have what purports to be an official press image showing a rendered Galaxy Note 8, though in these Photoshop-enlightened times it's even more difficult to be certain about this one than the front panel leak. By all means check it out, but don't be shocked if it doesn't turn out to be genuine.

 It's also worth bearing in mind that the front panels you see in the videos and images above may be of a prototype design that Samsung has since modified or discarded. The company usually tests multiple versions of its handsets before deciding on a final design to take to the manufacturing process.

 We're expecting the Galaxy Note 8 to arrive in August or September, to try and steal some of the thunder of the iPhone 8. The 6.3-inch or 6.4-inch screen is rumored to be rocking a full 4K resolution, while previous leaks have pointed to the phablet having display corners that are slightly less rounded than this year's flagship Galaxy smartphones.

                                                                               
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Galaxy Note 8's Infinity Display shown off in leaked images

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2017-06-18


 The Xbox One X represents this brave new world for Microsoft, and it represents a pretty significant departure from what’s come before. Put simply, there will be no Xbox One X exclusives, only Xbox One games. 

 This means that while developers will be free to make games that only run on the original Xbox One (more on this later), any games developed for the One X will also need to be playable on the older hardware. 

 Think of the One X as the iPhone 7 to the original Xbox One’s iPhone 6. It’s powerful, much more powerful, but it runs the same apps and services, and these are all also available on the older hardware. 
So why make the upgrade? Because the Xbox One X offers a significant boost in power over the original console, allowing it to boost its maximum resolution to Ultra HD, four times that of the old hardware’s Full HD. It’s a big jump, and it means that for the first time console games are really able to go toe-to-toe with the PC in offering the best looking games around.

The downside, of course, is that all this extra horsepower is going to cost you. The new machine will retail for $499 (£449 / AU$649), which is around double that of what the Xbox One S costs. Read on to find out what bang you can expect from your significantly increased buck. 

 Design:

 Starting with the exterior, the Xbox One X follows a very similar design blueprint to the Xbox One S. That’s no bad thing, the One S was a breath of fresh are after the hulking VHS-player inspired Xbox One, and we’re completely content for Microsoft to continue this design trend. 

 Size-wise the new console is a touch smaller than the old one, although you’re unlikely to notice unless you put the two next to each other. 
The biggest change is the color. Whereas the One S came with a clean white color scheme by default, the new console is more of a space gray. Obviously the hardware needs to look different from its predecessor to avoid confusion, but we’d be lying if we said we didn’t prefer the white that had preceded it. 

 One the front of the machine there’s a subtle slot-loading disc slot, a single USB port, an ‘on’ button disguised as an Xbox logo, a controller sync button and an IR receiver. It’s very similar to the Xbox One S, although the disc slot has been moved down to the dividing line between the top and bottom of the console. 
Round the back the similarities to the One S continue. From left to right you’ve got a power connector, HDMI out, HDMI in, two USB ports, an IR out, an Optical Audio port and an Ethernet port. 

 Controller-wise the new machine is packing a new space gray themed gamepad which, for all intents and purposes is exactly the same as the one that currently ships with the Xbox One S. 
So far, so standard. The real difference with the console comes when you look at what it’s packing inside. 
Specs:

 We already knew a great deal about the Xbox One X’s specs before we came into this event. 
We knew, for example, that the console would come equipped with an eight core CPU clocked at 2.3GHz, alongside 12GB of GDDR5 RAM. We knew the console would feature a GPU clocked at 1172MHz and we knew that this would leave the console with 6 teraflops of graphical computing power. 

 We even knew more trivial details, such as the fact that the machine would come equipped with a 1TB hard drive, and that the Ultra HD Blu-ray player found in the Xbox One S would be making a return. 

 On paper, then, this is a powerful machine. It doesn’t quite have the GPU horsepower of the latest high-end cards from Nvidia and AMD, but thanks to the combination of Blu-ray player and Dolby Atmos it has a breadth of capabilities that’s wider than most modern gaming PCs. 
Microsoft may have taken a step back from its original ambitions for the Xbox One to be the centre of your media center, but that doesn’t mean One X isn’t a competent media player in its own right. 
Gaming performance:

 When it comes to consoles it’s very difficult to translate the specs on paper into what the machine will actually be capable of. We can compare two PC graphics cards because we have the ability to keep the rest of the equation, the operating system, CPU and games for instance, the same. 

 Comparing the PS4 and Xbox One based on raw specs, meanwhile, is almost meaningless. These are two completely separate machines, running completely different code. As such, while we know that on paper that Xbox One X is more powerful than the PS4 Pro, Sony’s own 4K competitor, its gaming performance will ultimately come down to how well its games and APIs are optamised for its hardware. 
We’d been given tantalising hints as to what the hardware would be capable of, such as the Forza engine running in Ultra HD with a framerate of 60fps, but this information was the result of just two days of work by a team porting over an engine developed for what is now the last generation of Microsoft’s console hardware. 

Early Verdict:

 At double the price of the Xbox One S, the Xbox One X feels like a premium piece of hardware for anyone that’s invested in a 4K TV and is just dying to find a machine to make the most out of it. 

 Sure, the PS4 Pro offers similar functionality, but upscaling can never beat the raw detail that native 4K on the One X offers. 
This is a machine that offers best-in-class graphical performance that comes tantalisingly close to what a PC can achieve at a much lower price point. 

 But while it might be a lot cheaper than a similarly specced PC, there’s no escaping the fact that the One X is significantly more expensive than its two closest relatives, the Xbox One S and the PS4 Pro. Yes, its graphics do seem to have the edge based on the demos we’ve seen so far, but whether the extra eye-candy is worth the extra money is still a very subjective topic.

Xbox One X review

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2017-05-27

The Samsung Galaxy is a phone that's unlike anything you'll have seen on the market. It's just stunning.
It's incredibly expensive in a world where mid-range phones are more than good enough to handle most tasks people like... but the second you pick it up it's easy to see why.

The screen is just brilliant - the clearest, sharpest and offers lovely color reproduction to make movie watching a dream, and that's before you've even got to the fact it's wrapped into the chassis so hugely that it has a screen larger than the iPhone 7 Plus in a chassis that feels more like the iPhone 7.
The Galaxy S8 isn't perfect - in the search to squeeze the screen in so completely, other factors were overlooked: namely, the placement of the fingerprint reader. If you want this phone, you'll need to answer this question: are you OK using an iris scanner?
And if you're looking for something even bigger, and with a much-improved battery life to boot, then the Galaxy S8 Plus is easily the way to go 

But the Galaxy S8 is firmly a phone that rises above those points to combine everything into a handset that really impresses in the hand, fitting seamlessly into day-to-day life (as long as you can get over the dizzying price). 

 The Samsung Galaxy S8 isn’t the cheapest phone on the market by any stretch of the imagination; in fact, it’s one of the most expensive. You’re really paying for that screen.
In the UK, you’re going to be looking at between £40-£45 per month to get this phone without an upfront cost and with a few gigabytes of data, or you can purchase it SIM-free for a whopping £689.
In the US you're going to pay between  $30 to $31.25 a month for this phone with a 24-month contract through American carriers like Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile. Their contract pricing isn't cheap.
For $724.99, there will be an unlocked Samsung Galaxy S8 in the US that's now available for pre-order from Samsung and set to deliver (in black) on May 31. If you want to go SIM-free right away or want any other unlocked color, you'll have to pay off one of the carriers first.
In Australia, you’re looking at a shade under AU$1,200 to get your hands on this phone. 
The slightly good news is that you’re at least getting a 64GB version of this phone in all territories; the presence of a microSD slot means Samsung won’t be launching multiple variants of the phone in different regions, instead offering a decent amount of storage as standard and giving users the option to add to that if they so wish.
PROS

  • Awesome display
  • A phone that feels like the future
  • Stunning camera
  • It’s actually innovative

CONS

  • Awfully placed fingerprint sensor
  • Bixby is a bit of a dud

KEY FEATURES

  • 5.8-inch quad-HD Infinity Display (AMOLED)
  • Samsung Exynos 8895 (Europe and Asia) or Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 (USA)
  • 4GB RAM, 64GB storage (microSD up to 256GB)
  • 3000mAh battery with wireless and fast charging
  • Rear camera: 12 megapixels, f/1.7 aperture and Dual Pixel sensor
  • Front camera: 8 megapixels, f/1.7 and autofocus
  • Iris and fingerprint scanner
  • Samsung Bixby personal assistant
  • Android 7 Nougat with Google Assistant
  • Manufacturer: Samsung
in the next blog post I'll put the s8 and s8+ specs 

Samsung Galaxy S8 review

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2017-03-04

LG’s flagship phones have, for the last few years, pinned their success on standout features. The LG G3 introduced quad-HD displays, the G4 shipped with quirky leather backs, and last year’s G5 went with a modular design. For the G6, LG is focusing on cramming a large display in a small body.
And from my first impressions, it appears that the LG G6 is likely to be far more successful than those failed modules.
The first thing you’ll notice about the LG G6 is its peculiar display. Like the Xiaomi MiMix – a China-only phone released in late 2016 – the screen here is stretched to nearly every corner of the device.
Rather than the typical 16:9 aspect ratio almost every smartphone since the original iPhone has opted for, LG has switched to an 18:9 ratio display (basically 2:1) that provides more screen in a smaller body.

The 5.7-inch display – a sizeable increase from the 5.2-inch panel used for the G5 – sits inside a body that's barely bigger than its predecessor and noticeably smaller than the 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus and Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge.
One side effect of cramming a bigger screen into a shell of this size is that the corners of the panel are now rounded, rather than right angles. It’s an odd jolt from normality and I'm not sure I like it. Although it matches the general curviness of the phone, it looks strange and is particularly off-putting on both the silver and white models. Hopefully, it’s something I'll get used to.
To match the stretched display, the resolution here sits at 2,880 x 1,440 – and it’s a lovely panel. Even though it isn't AMOLED, it delivers vivid colours and deep blacks. It’s the first phone with Dolby Vision support and, like the dearly departed Note 7, it’s HDR10-enabled too.

There were a few demo HDR (high dynamic range) videos on my review sample, which looked noticeably brighter and darker scenes were more detailed too. LG says HDR content from Amazon and Netflix will work, but you’ll probably have to wait for an app update.
Remember when Apple switched the iPhone from a 4-inch to a 5-inch screen? Well, that lead to months (and years) of apps not fitting the display properly, requiring thick black bars at the top and bottom to work. Something similar is happening here, but not to quite the same level of annoyance.
For instance, videos from YouTube and Netflix will display natively at 16:9 with bars making up the rest of the space. LG says there will be an option to stretch the content out, but I can’t yet vouch for just how good that looks.

While the LG G6 is a nice phone to look at, once you get over the screen – and once it becomes more common, which I'm sure it will this year – there isn’t much else to help it stand out from the crowd. The black, white and silvery-blue colours lack imagination, and the glass-backed design with metal sides has become almost cliché. You’ll find it on everything from budget Honor and Alcatel phones to higher-end devices.
There also hasn’t been a whole heap of improvements on the inside. As was heavily rumoured, the LG G6 uses last year’s Snapdragon 821 CPU – looks like Samsung did snap up those initial runs of the 835 – with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of basic storage. There is a microSD slot, but I'd have much preferred to see 64GB as the starting point.
The 821 is a great processor, with plenty of oomph and good efficiency, and we don’t really yet know all the benefits of the 835 in day-to-day use, but it’s still a shame not to see the latest silicon here.

The cameras haven’t seen a huge improvement either, but there have been a few tweaks to the already impressive setup.
Just like the G5, the G6 has two sensors sitting next to each on the back of the device. One is your typical camera; 13 megapixels, OIS, f/1.8 aperture, while the other has a much wider field of view.
It offers that GoPro-like wide-angle shot that looks great. Surprisingly, LG told me it has found that almost 50% of people tend to use just the wide-angle camera, so it’s bumped that from an 8-megapixel sensor to a 13-megapixel version. It lacks OIS, though, and has a much narrower f/2.4 aperture, so low-light snaps won’t be quite as good. It doesn’t have autofocus, either – but since that focal point is so wide, it shouldn’t make a difference.
LG has worked with Qualcomm to pluck some of the dual-camera smarts from the 835 CPU and implemented them in the 821 here. This results in a much smoother process when switching sensors and it’s meant to feel like it’s just one camera. It works, too, but there’s still a noticeable change in colour temperature when you switch.
I didn’t have much time to really test the camera, but LG said it should be much faster than previous versions – and I have to agree. Opening the app was quick, as was the shutter, and thanks to the long display you can have a constant view of your photo library, even when shooting a picture.
There’s a fairly standard 5-megapixel camera for selfies – and, of course, 4K video recording is supported.

Key Features:

  • 18:9 quad-HD display
  • HDR10 and Dolby Vision
  • Android 7.0
  • 2 x 13-megapixel rear cameras
  • Very thin bezel
  • Snapdragon 821, 4GB RAM
  • 32GB storage, microSD
  • 3,300mAh battery, USB-C
  • Wireless charging (US-only)
  • Quad-DAC (Korea-only)
  • Dual-SIM (select Eastern European countries)
  • Manufacturer: LG

LG G6 review

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The GTX 1080 Ti has been a long time coming; the original GTX 1080 launched way back in May 2016, followed in order by cheaper alternatives the 1070, 1060, 1050 Ti and 1050. What the range has been missing is a top-end showstopper. And you can’t really blame Nvidia for that; the GTX 1080 was so far ahead of any other graphics card launched in the previous 12 months, Nvidia was under no pressure to launch a bigger product. Why waste a ridiculously powerful product when there’s no competition?
With the arrival of AMD’s RX Vega GPU later this year, Nvidia is covering its bases with a graphics card that should go toe-to-toe with whatever AMD ends up offering at the top-end of the market.
The 1080 Ti looks set to be the first graphics card to truly master 4K gaming at maximum settings, something the GTX 1080 couldn’t quite manage under harsh benchmarking circumstances. The new card shouldn’t break a sweat under the same circumstances.

GTX 1080 TI UK PRICE

The 1080 Ti is going to launch next week for $699 or £699. That UK price tag is slighly higher than expected, which puts some clear air between the 1080 Ti and the regular 1080 and might make you think twice about shelling out the better part of £700.
Still, that's around £300 cheaper than the Titan X.

GTX 1080 TI SPECS AND TECHNOLOGY

What’s new? The 1080 Ti is based on the same GP102 chip as last year’s ultra-high-end Titan X GPU, with a slightly slimmed down specification to make its pricing slightly more reasonable. However, this isn’t just a Titan X Lite and, perversely, it's going to end up being faster.
Card1080 TiTitan X (Pascal)1080
Transistors12bn12bn7.2bn
CUDA cores358435842560
Boost clock1.6GHz1.53Ghz1.73GHz
Memory capacity11GB12GB8GB
Memory speed11Gbps10Gbps10Gbps
TDP250W250W180W
The GP102 chip is built on Nvidia’s ultra-efficient “Pascal” architecture, which powers all the other 10-series GPUs released in 2016.
You get the full 12 billion transistors found on the regular card and the same number of CUDA cores, 3584. There’ll be 11GB of GDDR5X memory (versus 12Gb on the Titan X) running at a massive 11Gbps (11GHz). Nvidia says this is the fastest GDDR5X memory ever manufactured and has worked alongside chipmaker Micron to boost memory speeds well beyond what we’ve seen before from an unmodified, production-ready graphics card.
Even better, the chip’s boost clock speed is rated at 1.6GHz and can be overclocked to 2GHz and beyond. Again, this is slightly faster than the Titan X, which had a boost clock speed of 1.53GHz.
As is now customary, Nvidia will launch a “Founders Edition” card first for early adopters, using it as a way to make a design statement. Generally, Founders Edition cards end up being cheaper than high-end third-party cards, but also slightly slower once the market shakes out.
In terms of physical design, on the outside it’s more or less the same as the GTX 1080 and 1070. Internally, Nvidia says they’ve shaken things up a bit, with a quieter fan on the Founders Edition. There’s also a smoother power delivery system for much more efficient power output, making the chip run cooler and thereby faster.
You get three DisplayPort connectors alongside a HDMI port, but for the first time Nvidia has dropped the DVI connector. This isn’t hugely surprising given DVI does not have the bandwidth to deliver the sorts of high-resolution gameplay the 1080 Ti is designed for. With that being said, gamers with a cheaper or older secondary monitor that only has DVI connections might miss it.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti

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2016-12-13


 Microsoft has unbroken a good lid on cargo numbers for its Surface-branded devices. however on Mon, the technical school big provided a couple of information points around demand, particularly for its Surface Hub conferencing systems.

 The Surface Hub -- a large touchscreen show equipped with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and constitutional microphones and cameras -- launched in late March 2016, when months of delays and a increase.

 In the subsequent  months, demand outstripped offer for the device, on the market in 84-inch and 55-inch versions. Customers reported  backlogs of months, if not longer, before they might take cargo of their Surface Hubs. (Again, we do not apprehend what the provision or the demand were, exactly, as Microsoft does not unleash those figures publically.)
 Microsoft aforementioned it's shipped Surface Hubs to over a pair of,000 customers in twenty four markets, with the common deal size being roughly fifty units. One giant automotive maker ordered one,500 units, in line with Microsoft. A Microsoft advocate later notified American state the corporate had processed its statement, adding the words "in the pipeline" to mirror that not all of units within the average deal are sold-out through/shipped nevertheless.

 The company's statement currently says: "The average deal size we tend to see within the pipeline is roughly fifty units however we have seen orders as giant as one,500 units to an oversized automaker."

 Officials additionally told American state the merchandise isn't any longer out of stock.

 "Regarding shipping, Microsoft is at scale and inventory is prepared to ship Surface Hub currently," aforementioned Julia Atalla, senior director for Microsoft Windows and Devices, in associate emailed statement.

 Microsoft officers aforementioned they're going to be adding a Surface Hub Try-and-Buy program "this winter" within the US and Europe, and "later" in Asia Pacific. These re-sellers, the list of that isn't nevertheless on the market as so much as I will tell, are going to be approved to supply customers with Hubs for thirty days before they'll decide whether or not or to not get.

 Surface Hub is Microsoft's successor to its large-screen Perceptive element displays. The Surface Hub systems, that run a custom version of Windows ten, area unit pre-assembled, custom-built multitouch, digital-ink-enabled collaboration systems. Microsoft 1st unveiled  its Surface Hub systems in Jan 2015, with convenience ab initio slated for Sep one, 2015.

 Google is reaching to unleash its own Surface Hub rival, the Google Jamboard, within the half of 2017.

 Microsoft officers additionally aforementioned Mon that November was the company's "best month ever for client Surface sales." Again, we do not acumen that interprets into units. officers aforementioned the company's material possession program for MacBooks for Surface devices "was our greatest ever," citing "the disappointment of the new MacBook professional -- particularly among professionals," because the impetus.

Microsoft Surface Hub

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2016-11-10


 In August, Microsoft kickstarted the second wave of this current console generation, releasing its acclaimed Xbox One S to a largely receptive audience. Now, Sony is returning fire with the PlayStation 4 Pro, an updated version of the standard PS4, which – like Microsoft’s machine – is designed to get the most out of the coming era of 4K televisions. Here’s how the new instalment stacks up.

 Looks
Unlike the Xbox One S, this is no radical aesthetic departure. PS4 Pro looks like a vertically elongated version of the regular PS4, with slightly curved edges giving it a smoother outline. At 295 x 327 x 55mm, it is, of course, bigger and heavier than both the new PS4 Slim and the original model. It’s sort of brutalist in design – resembling what a multistorey car park might look like in Bladerunner. The power and eject buttons are now at separate ends of the front fascia, so you’re less likely to keep pressing the wrong one.
The PS4 Pro offers a considerably more powerful version of the basic PS4 architecture, and a higher spec than the Xbox One S. The central processing unit has had a 30% speed boost from 1.6GHz to 2.1GHz, while the graphics processing unit has leapt from 1.84 TFLOPs (trillion floating-point operations per second) in the original machine to 4.2 TFLOPs, a substantial lift in performance. This is all necessary to render game visuals – and run streaming video – at ultra HD 4K resolution, rather than the 1080p HD resolution supported by older models. This is basically what PS4 Pro is all about – improved graphics fidelity.

 The Pro also offers an extra USB port at the rear (handy for the PlayStation VR headset) and brings back the Optical Digital port for connection to certain headsets and AV receivers. Finally, the addition of support for 802.11ac wi-fi (also offered in the slimline PS4), may well improve your broadband connection speed.

 Unlike the Xbox One S and doubtless the Xbox Project Scorpio, the optical drive has no support for UHD Blu-ray discs. However, the system does support streaming UHD video from services like Netflix and Amazon. This has annoyed a lot of movie fans, and if you imagined building a large library of 4K Blu-rays alongside your console, it maybe something you’ll have to think about.
It’s up to developers to decide how they implement the capabilities of PS4 Pro, and it’s going to vary a lot from studio to studio. Sony has released a list of current and forthcoming titles that support 4K and HDR visuals and it’s quite impressive with big blockbusters like Fifa, Battlefield and Rise of the Tomb Raider onboard as well as all the major in-house Sony titles. Some games will require a download to support the capabilities of Pro, some will have them built in. It’s likely that all future PS4 releases will offer a choice of standard and Pro modes, the latter offering either smoother frame rates or higher resolutions, or a bit of both.
So far, we’ve seen some impressive results. Rise of the Tomb Raider, Titanfall 2 and Last of Us: Remastered all shine, with greater-than-1080p rendering adding finer detail and slicker animation, while the titles that support HDR are using the increased luminosity range to add real depth to well-lit environments. Titanfall 2 particularly benefits from ultra smooth frame rates that give those swirling parkour moments extra zip and dynamism.

 It’s worth pointing out however, that very few PS4 Pro-compatible games are likely to offer full native 4K resolution, especially not at high frame rates – the hardware just isn’t powerful enough. Most will employ an advanced form of upscaling known as checkerboard rendering which extrapolates twice as many pixels from the standard output. This can get very close to native 4K performance, though – Rise of the Tomb Raider is perhaps the best example at the moment, but the upcoming zombie adventure Days Gone looks truly astonishing on Pro, its huge undead armies and blinding explosion effects making the most of the extra power.

 Controller
The PS4 DualShock is largely unchanged. There’s a tweak to the light bar, which now makes its colour visible from the front face – handy for multiplayer titles where players need to know which character they’re controlling. The new controller also offers both Bluetooth communication with the console and wired communication via a USB cable. The latter potentially cuts down on latency between button presses and on-screen movement, which could make all the difference in, say, fighting games.

 Price
The PlayStation 4 Pro retails at £349 ($399, Euros 399, AU$559) with a 1TB hard drive. A few retailers are offering bundle deals with one or more games. This compares to around £240 for a standard slimline PS4 with 500GB hard drive.

 Pros: solid 4K and HDR performance; encouraging support from developers; small but important tweaks to controller; potential to improve PlayStation VR experience
Cons: Most games will not achieve full native 4K rendering; no 4K Blu-ray player; lacklustre design; variable support from current titles

 source

PlayStation 4 Pro review

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