Technology - Google News

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 review: AMD has rewritten the rules - The Verge
This flagship phone hints how OnePlus 8 Pro will shame Galaxy S20 Ultra's 120Hz display - PhoneArena
The Morning After: FDA clears five-minute lab-in-a-box COVID-19 test - Engadget

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 review: AMD has rewritten the rules - The Verge

Posted: 30 Mar 2020 06:20 AM PDT

In their early years, gaming laptops were meant to be desktop replacements. The first Razer Blade, released in 2011, was almost seven pounds; the 2012 Blade was 6.6. Battery life was a laughing matter. (The 2017 Zephyrus had just over two hours.) Gaming laptops were bulky and garish. They were designed for gaming on a budget, not for gaming on the go.

But the age of the ultraportable is here. There's now a 2.01-pound laptop with six cores, there's a 3.3-pound laptop with a discrete GPU, and a 5-pound laptop is considered to be on the heavy side. Each year, we're expecting lighter notebooks that can do more — and as productivity laptops move in that direction, so are the gaming machines.

That's where the AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS comes in. For the past decade, the main argument for a Ryzen chip over an Intel chip centered on price rather than performance. But AMD has released a CPU that could, for the first time in recent memory, compete with Intel's top-of-the-line model. The 35W 4900HS, with 8 cores, 16 threads, and 3.0 GHz clock speeds that can boost up to 4.4 GHz, goes head to head with Intel's Core i9-9880H; it's meant to power desktop-class gaming and productivity in portable laptops.

We're getting our first look at the 4900HS in its quintessential use case: the $1,449 Asus ROG Zephyrus G14. Somehow, Asus crammed a 4900HS and an Nvidia RTX 2060 Max-Q into a 14-inch notebook that weighs just over 3.5 pounds. It also has 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and a 120Hz display. It's unusual to see such powerful hardware in such a small chassis: the G14 is the smallest Zephyrus gaming laptop AMD has ever made, and it's also one of the few 14-inch laptops to pair an H-series processor with a discrete GPU.

(You can get the same model with a Ryzen 7 4800HS, 16GB RAM, 512GB storage, and the less-powerful GTX 1660 TI Max-Q for $1,299, or go down to 8GB of RAM, a GTX 1650, and a 60Hz screen for $1,049.)

I'm happy to say that the G14 delivers. The laptop is fantastic for productivity, and it's a lot of fun to use. The 4900HS and 2060 Max-Q duo can handle demanding games like Red Dead Redemption II and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. As with any gaming rig, you'll make some trade-offs for that performance. But in the grand scheme of things, the sacrifices that the G14 asks are small.

I'll start by talking about the gaming experience since that's probably what you care most about if you clicked on this review. Fear not: it's good. It's as good as you'd expect from an H-Series processor, a 2060 Max-Q, and a 120Hz screen.

CS:GO averaged 216fps on maximum settings, with a low of 49. Motion was smooth, and I could see individual dust particles and sparks flying from various things I shot. The more graphically intensive Shadow of the Tomb Raider was also playable on the highest settings (with ray tracing off), averaging around 74fps with a minimum of 58. The play was also quite smooth and scenery, from bright towns to dark jungles, looked great.

On the ultimate test, Red Dead Redemption II cranked up to Ultra (with fast and multisample anti-aliasing off), the G14 delivered more of a console-like experience, achieving an average of 31fps and a low of 14. Rows of stores and trees were a bit blurry as I galloped past them on horseback, and there was some stuttering in flurries of dust and snow. But the game was functional. Most people will have a better time on High settings, however, where the G14 hovered around 50fps.

I suspect cooling is holding the G14 back somewhat. The 4900HS got pretty hot under demanding titles; it hit 98 degrees Celsius during my 80-minute session of Red Dead, and 97 during my hour-long session of Tomb Raider. That's not unexpected from a 14-inch laptop running AAA titles, but a laptop with the same hardware but better cooling would probably see better results.

Now, for all the other stuff.

Asus has nicely refined its retro aesthetic. If there were laptops in Battlestar Galactica, they would look like the G14. A dot matrix covers half of the lid — these can function as an LED display that can show GIFS, the time, and other neat effects, but that model won't be available for a few more weeks. On the non-LED model, they're still a cool design.

Like many thinner laptops, the G14's screen folds under the deck when you open it, lifting the keyboard a bit above the ground. This, in theory, helps with cooling by allowing air to better circulate, and it also hides a chunk of the screen's enormous bottom bezel. Some people find these types of hinge uncomfortable in their laps, but I had no problem with this one, which is blunt and rounded.

The port selection is serviceable: two USB-C, two USB-A, an HDMI, and a 3.5mm audio jack. The G14 can charge via USB-C, but there's also a jack for Asus' 180W adaptor if you don't want to take up a port. There's no Thunderbolt 3, unsurprisingly, since that's Intel's proprietary standard. This is an unfortunate downside of using an AMD system for the time being, though the G14's HDMI and DisplayPort capabilities give you other options for connecting to peripherals.

This probably won't surprise you if you've owned a smaller gaming laptop before, but if you plan to use the G14 for browsing and productivity, the largest trade-off you're making is screen quality. The notebook has a 1920 x 1080 screen with a 16:9 aspect ratio, which is par for the course with smaller gaming machines. You're not likely to see many 14-inch 120Hz panels at any higher resolution, and a 4K panel would be a big ask of the 2060 Max-Q.

That means the G14's screen is excellent for gaming, and it's not bad for video-watching either. It's matte and kicks back almost no glare. Dark scenes from Altered Carbon looked great, even in bright rooms. Some lighter tones (such as a wedding dress and Joel Kinnaman's skin) had a greenish tint to them, but it's not noticeable if you're not looking for it. (The screen covers 100 percent of the SRGB spectrum and 75.35 percent of Adobe RGB.) I saw a lot more glare outdoors, but it's usable there in a pinch.

The downside is that if you plan on doing a lot of browsing or productivity work, you'll be more cramped than you would on a 3:2 display such as that of Huawei's MateBook 13. I had to zoom out to 70 to 80 percent to comfortably work two windows side by side.

The second drawback is the fans. The G14 does an impressive job keeping itself cool, given the power of the hardware it's packing into a 3.5-pound chassis. If you're using this machine on its default fan settings for multitasking, you're likely to hear a constant whine. It's loud enough that your office neighbors will hear it. I got used to this fairly quickly, but it's a fact worth noting if you're picky about fan noise.

You can also switch to Asus' "Silent" profile, which makes the fans inaudible. I was worried that muffling the fans would cause the 4900HS to fry itself, but browsing in this profile was still very doable. You won't want to use this mode for intensive gaming, of course, but even while running several Chrome tabs and a number of other programs, including Slack, Spotify, and a couple of benchmarks, the G14 was downright cold in my lap, and the CPU didn't pass 35 degrees Celsius.

14-inch non-touchscreen (1920 x 1080 resolution)
AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS
16GB DDR4 3200MHz SDRAM
1TB NVMe PCIe 3.0 SSD
No webcam
Intel Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5
4-cell 76WHr battery
180W AC adapter

Speaking of the touchpad and keyboard, they are both great. The Windows Precision Trackpad is a good size and very easy to press. The keys are clicky with decent travel, without being loud enough to annoy officemates. The deck is sturdy, with very little flex. The labels do retain Asus' sci-fi font that looks like it belongs in a Johnny Rockets restaurant; you can take your own view on that design choice. I also like that the G14 has a separate panel containing the volume controls and a key that mutes or unmutes the microphone, as well as a slightly less helpful button that opens Asus' control panel.

I never thought I'd be saying this about a gaming laptop, but the battery life is also very good. During my normal workday of swapping between a dozen Chrome tabs, running Slack, and occasionally streaming Netflix or Spotify at 50 percent brightness and a balanced battery profile, I got around 8 hours and 50 minutes of juice. That means the G14 can make it through a workday on battery and can handle a long bus or plane ride as well. The device took 41 minutes to charge up to 60 percent on Asus' plug and 53 minutes to do the same via USB-C.

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 Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 presents you with multiple things to agree to or decline upon setup.

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

A request for your region, and keyboard layout
Windows 10 License Agreement and Asus privacy agreement
A Microsoft account for sign-in (this can be bypassed if you don't connect the computer to the internet during setup)
A PIN

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

Wi-Fi network
Windows Hello fingerprint sensor authentication
Activity History (which syncs your activity across Windows devices)
Link your Android smartphone
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, Diagnostic data, Tailored experiences

Add it all up, and there are five mandatory agreements and 13 optional ones.

Of course, don't expect to be doing much gaming on battery. Red Dead on high settings ran around 18 to 20fps when the G14 wasn't plugged in, dropping down to the low teens at around 40 percent, and the low single digits at 10 percent. I got an hour and 38 minutes of gaming on a charge.

At the end of the day, the Zephyrus G14 can handle the multitasking you need it to. The keyboard, touchpad, and battery life are superb. If you don't mind a low-resolution screen and fans that you can hear, you'll be happy with the G14 as your primary device. (If those are deal-breakers for you, though, you'll need something else for browsing and work.)

But mainly, Asus and AMD have successfully put Intel on notice. Last year's Core i7-powered Blade Stealth 13 was the first 13-inch machine that came with a GTX 1650 Max-Q GPU. The most demanding game it could handle was what Engadget called "a stuttery Destiny 2 experience." Still, many gamers hailed it as a triumph for being a 3.24-pound laptop that could run that title at all.

The Ryzen-powered G14 weighs just a bit more than the Stealth GTX and it games better. I see no reason to buy the Stealth GTX or any pricier gaming ultraportable when this laptop exists. AMD has rewritten the rules of what a gaming laptop can be.

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This flagship phone hints how OnePlus 8 Pro will shame Galaxy S20 Ultra's 120Hz display - PhoneArena

Posted: 30 Mar 2020 04:49 AM PDT

By now, we know almost everything there is to know about the upcoming OnePlus 8 family of handsets, thanks to a profusion of leaks and official teasers. One of those teasers details "unseen" high refresh rate display that, unlike most of what we've had so far in that department, will be intelligent and adaptive, or so OnePlus blurb says in its 120 Hz Fluid Display deep dive.

Among promises that the "OnePlus's new 120 Hz Fluid Display will be the best you'll lay eyes on in 2020," there are hints what will make the OnePlus 8 Pro panel so great. Besides 1000+ nits of peak brightness, and excellent color calibration, the screen package adds hardware components that allow variable refresh rate based on what you are doing.

Since video is usually shot at 24fps or 30fps, the 120Hz refresh can go to waste, but OnePlus has added a custom motion estimation-motion compensation (MEMC) solution that can upscale lower frame rates to match the higher display refresh. What if we tell you that we already know how this display will look like and behave?

The 120 Hz Fluid Display technology of OnePlus 8 Pro is already here

We've been playing with Oppo's Find X2 Pro over the weekend, and noticed that its 6.7"120Hz "Ultra Vision" screen can already do exactly what OnePlus is promising for the 6.7"120 Hz Fluid Display technology. Variable refresh rate based on the content you are currently viewing? Check.

120Hz at the full 1440p screen resolution? Check. Upscaling content frame rate to match the one of the display? Yep, it's called Ultra Vision engine, able to upscale video to 60fps, and, whaddaya know, the short video demoing this feature in the settings menu is with a... dude on a skate board.

Adaptive 120Hz display refresh and video frame rate

Now, do you remember this January teaser from Pete Lau, the OnePlus CEO?

If you've seen high-quality TVs, you're no stranger to MEMC. We've created a custom MEMC chip that can push ordinary 30fps video up to 120, so any video gets the full advantage of our 120Hz Fluid Display. pic.twitter.com/YPD3fw5uOn
— Pete Lau (@PeteLau) January 16, 2020

OK, you catch the drift. Oppo, Vivo and OnePlus are part of one parent company - BBK Holding - so it is not surprising when what looks like similar technologies pop up in phones from the three companies under different marketing names.

Not only does the flagship Oppo X2 Pro that costs as much as the Galaxy S20+, offer a Snapdragon 865 chipset with 5G modem that can be used on, say, the T-Mobile network, and 12GB RAM/512GB storage memory count, or 65W charging, but it also includes components rumored to be in the OnePlus 8 series as well.

Besides the aforementioned 6.7" adaptive 120Hz Ultra Vision display, the X2 Pro also has the 48MP Sony IMX689 and IMX586 sensors - you know, the ones that are said to be in the OnePlus 8 Pro as well.

OnePlus 8 Pro vs Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 120Hz display specs

Long story short, one needs to look no further than the excellent Oppo X2 Pro to gauge how the OnePlus 8 Pro will perform when it gets announced, perhaps as soon as this week.

We list the main OnePlus 8 Pro vs Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 120Hz display specs differences to expect:

Battery life: 120Hz refresh impact should be better with adaptive (OnePlus) than frozen (S20) rate.
120 Hz at full 1440p resolution: yes for OnePlus 8 Pro, no for Galaxy S20 Ultra.
Content frame rate: OnePlus 8 Pro would be able to upscale video to higher frame rates.

To wit, the OnePlus 8 Pro should be gentler on its battery in 120Hz mode than the S20 Ultra thanks to the auto refresh rate pick that the software will do, whereas the S20 runs the phone's display on 120Hz at all times. Just look at the ~30% difference in power consumption between 60Hz and 120Hz in the most basic of scenarios - screen on showing just black - and you'll see why a variable refresh rate is the smarter choice.

Galaxy S20 Ultra's 656mW (120Hz) vs 472mW (60Hz) display power consumption difference

According to AnandTech, Samsung didn't splurge on hardware components like "additional MIPI interfaces between the SoC and the display controller IC," and that is why the S20 series is unable to run its display at 120Hz in full QHD+ resolution, unlike the Oppo, and, tangentially, the upcoming OnePlus 8 Pro. Moreover, while Samsung has apparently placed a software stack that references various refresh rate levels - from 48Hz to 120Hz - an automatic refresh rate solution hasn't been implemented for some reason, so the S20 stays on 120Hz at all times.

The moral of the story? The upcoming OnePlus 8 Pro is likely to land with a better display than the Galaxy S20 Ultra. Now the only thing left to know is what will be the actual price difference, as something tells us that the OnePlus gear won't be half-price compared to Samsung's flagships any more, top-shelf hardware and all that.

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The Morning After: FDA clears five-minute lab-in-a-box COVID-19 test - Engadget

Posted: 30 Mar 2020 04:51 AM PDT

It's been a long seven days of lockdown for some of us, and it looks like the situation won't change for a while. The US Food and Drug Administration is rushing to get a handle on testing people for the coronavirus, and former events venues are being turned into field hospitals. It's one hell of a year, and it's only the end of March.

-Mat

It's been cleared for use during the pandemic.
FDA approves lab-in-a-box test that can detect COVID-19 in 5 minutes

The FDA has scrambled to allow numerous COVID-19 tests in a bid to control the pandemic, but one of the latest may represent a big step forward in technology fighting the disease. Abbott has received emergency use authorization for its toaster-sized ID NOW lab-in-a-box, which can provide positive results in five minutes, and all-clear results in 13 minutes.

Abbott is ramping up production and expects to deliver 50,000 tests per day in the US as of next week. However, one of its greatest advantages may be its existing footprint. The ID NOW platform is apparently the "largest" molecular testing presence in the US.

Please state the nature of your upscaling emergency.
'Star Trek: Voyager' gets an unofficial 4K remaster thanks to AI

As with Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager is unlikely to ever get an official high-resolution remaster. The effects were shot on video rather than added to film after the fact, making it much harder to upgrade the quality than it was for The Next Generation, which launched on Blu-ray with recomposed special effects. However, an unofficial project is tackling the issue. Series fan Billy Reichard has started processing Voyager with a machine learning program that upgrades that '90s era image quality as much as possible. It won't fix the old-school aspect ratio, but it produces something a little more watchable.

The software needed to do it is both expensive and tricky to work with. Worse still, Voyager had variable frame rates that make audio sync a pain. It's still an unofficial work-in-progress.

It offers 5G capability and a physical keyboard.
Planet Computers' Astro Slide is a smartphone and PDA in one

If you long for a return to the world of PDAs, pocketable keyboards and landscape-oriented business efficiency, say hello to the Astro Slide. You can use it either as a standard 6.53-inch touchscreen smartphone or as a PDA, thanks to the sliding hinge mechanism.

The screen can slide off the keyboard then flip up so you can use it like a mini-laptop, with a full (but tiny) physical QWERTY keyboard. The Astro Slide launched today on Indiegogo for an early-bird starting price of $491, with shipping estimated for March 2021.

The automotive showcase won't return until June 2021.
2020 Detroit Auto Show canceled as venue becomes a field hospital

Yet another major 2020 auto show has been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic; although, now it's less about timing and more about supporting the current fight. Organizers have canceled the Detroit Auto Show (officially the North American International Auto Show) as its venue, the TCF Center, is to become a field hospital for coronavirus patients. The next show now won't take place until June 2021 -- more than two and a half years after the last event.

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