Month: October 2018

It’s also introducing the Z Club subscription service for creatives.
It wasn’t that long ago when HP launched the ZBook x360, but it’s already giving the convertible and the other devices in the lineup a hardware refresh. The Studio x360, along with its non-bendy siblings, the ZBook Studio, ZBook 15 and ZBook 17, will now come with eight-gen six-core Intel i9 processors and mirrored SSD storage. HP says the new chip will make the laptops more suited for heavy workloads, such as video editing and 3D rendering.
HP has also given the Studio’s and the Studio x360’s graphics performance a boost by replacing their old graphics cards with the NVIDIA Quadro P2000. The bendable x360 will have an optional anti-glare touchscreen, as well, which HP says is “20 percent brighter than the Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch Retina display and 50 percent brighter than the Dell XPS UltraSharp 4K display.” Meanwhile, the ZBook 15 and 17 will be available in configurations with up to 128GB of RAM starting in December. Xavier Garcia, VP and general manager of Z by HP, said they listened to the needs of creative pros who need to “increase their productivity and create whenever and wherever inspiration strikes.”
HP has also announced Z Club, a subscription-based hardware and services bundle aimed at creatives looking to upgrade their setup. The tech giant will choose 100 creative professionals to receive custom-made bundles, including not just PCs, but also displays, printers, accessories and applications, for its pilot. Z Club subscribers can enjoy their bundles for three months free of charge, after which they can choose to send it back or pay a monthly subscription fee.
Those who’d like to try the Z Club subscription service can apply to become one of the 100 through HP’s website. But those who’d rather buy the individual ZBooks can check HP’s website and retailers: all four variants are now available. The Studio x360 has a starting price of $1,499, while prices for the ZBook Studio, ZBook 15 and ZBook 17 start at $1,349.

One of today’s announcements threw up an interesting footnote worthy of further investigation. With its latest products, HP announced that their mainstream desktop platforms would be shipped with up to 32GB of memory, which was further expandable up to 128GB. Intel has confirmed to us, based on new memory entering the market, that there will be an adjustment to the memory support of the latest processors.

State of Play

Normally mainstream processors only support 64GB, by virtue of two memory channels, two DIMMs per memory channel (2DPC), and the maximum size of a standard consumer UDIMM being 16GB of DDR4, meaning 4x16GB = 64GB. However the launch of two different technologies, both double height double capacity 32GB DDR4 modules from Zadak and G.Skill, as well as new 16Gb DDR4 chips coming from Samsung, means that technically in a consumer system with four memory slots, up to 128GB might be possible.
With AMD, the company has previously stated that its memory controller can support future memory that comes to market (with qualification), however Intel has been steadfast in limiting its memory support on its chips specifically within the specification. HP is now pre-empting the change it its latest launch with the following footnote:
This has forced Intel into a statement, which reads as the following:

The new 9th Gen Intel Core processors memory controller is capable of supporting DDR4 16Gb die density DIMMs which will allow the processors to support a total system memory capacity of up to 128GB when populating both motherboard memory channels with 2 DIMMs per Channel (2DPC) using these DIMMs.  As DDR4 16Gb die density DIMMs have only recently become available, we are now validating them, targeting an update in a few months’ time.

At present Intel is only talking about the new Core 9th Gen processors that are set to hit the market on October 19th, which are the Core i9-9900K, the Core i7-9700K, and the Core i5-9600K. There has been no statement on previous generations of processors that support DDR4, or if there is any change on the high-end desktop platform for 256GB support.
Pricing for the newest 32GB memory modules is not expected to be cheap. A current 4x16GB kit comes in at around $550 for DDR4-2666, which is a ‘maximum supported’ memory kit, so a 4x32GB kit could easily run double plus a bit extra, perhaps in the $1200-$1600 range. That would put a single memory module at $300-$400, essentially costing more than most DDR4-capable processors.
Pricing aside, the main reason for the memory modules is likely not for changing peak memory capacity, but for enabling 2x32GB configurations, for prosumers that need 64GB in a small volume system. This is perhaps why Samsung’s first DDR4 32GB modules were SO-DIMM modules, to enable mobile workstations.
We will be monitoring the situation if more processors will be supporting these modules. G.Skill is sending us a sample and Zadak has stated we should be on the list, as ASUS ROG will be the first motherboard vendor to support both. Once we get a motherboard in to test we will see how well they perform.

It’ll be available in Word and OneNote in the near future.
Microsoft has made voice dictation available for desktop Office users for months. Now, though, it’s making the feature available to web users in the name of aiding those with dyslexia. The browser versions of both Word and OneNote will enable dictation sometime in the “coming weeks” so that dyslexic students can write more effectively than they would by typing. This should also help for dysgraphia (a condition that makes it difficult to write coherently) and people with mobility issues, Microsoft added.
Dictation should spread to Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint sometime in 2019.
More accessibility improvements are coming in the near future. Microsoft is bringing Immersive Reader to its Flipgrid social education communities, and upgrading the tool with both real-time translation as well as support for reading math problems. The feature is now available in Office Lens on Android, too. You’ll have to wait until later in the fall to use the translation features, but the other additions are rolling out this week.

Subscription-based applications have become incredibly popular on iOS over recent years, and TechCrunch is out today with a look at how “sneaking subscriptions” are plaguing some App Store offerings. The report explores the various tactics employed by some developers to seemingly trick users into agreeing to App Store subscription pricing.
In its research, TechCrunch found that the most-often offending applications are certain utilities, which offer functionality that can generally be found for free, yet rank as some of the top-grossing apps on the App Store.
One such app is simply called “Scanner App,” which SensorTower data suggests earns some $14.3 million per year from App Store subscription revenue:

Tap around in the app and you’ll be constantly prompted to subscribe to a subscription ranging from $3.99 a week to $4.99 per month, or start a free trial. But the subscription following the free trial kicks in after only 3 days — something that’s detailed in the fine print, but often missed. Consumers clearly don’t understand what they’re agreeing to, based on their complaints. And many of the negative reviews indicate customers feel they got duped into paying.

Perhaps the most egregious offender was Weather Alarms, an app that was removed from the App Store this weekend by Apple, after TechCrunch tipped the company off on its practices. The app utilized what is known as a “dark pattern” to trick users into agreeing to a free trial, which then converts to a subscription of up to $20 per month.
Here it is in action:
As TechCrunch notes, many of these issues stem from consumers not reading the fine print, but many legitimate developers say these type of tactics are degrading the quality of the App Store as a whole.
David Barnard, developer of Weather Atlas and Launch Center Pro, for instance, says it’s “incredibly frustrating” to see Apple doing so little to prevent these scams:
“It’s incredibly frustrating how little has been done to thwart these scams,” he told TechCrunch. “It erodes trust in the App Store, which ultimately hurts Apple and conscientious developers who use subscriptions.”
Readdle VP Denys Zhadanov echoed those comments, saying, “I firmly believe this is not the future we should be aspiring for in terms of user experience.”
What do you think of these sort of App Store subscription tactics? Let us know down in the comments.

In an interesting turn of events, the iPhone XS Max battery life has bested the Samsung Note 9 and Google Pixel 3 XL in a new test. This comes after the Note 9 crushed the XS Max in a battery lifeshowdown last week. So what gives? Here’s the variable that changed…
YouTuber PhoneBuff shared his first ever battery life test that uses a robotic setup to keep everything as even between the compared phones as possible. He kept all settings the same, except for one difference. Many readers mentioned that the Note 9 had an unfair advantage with its default screen resolution being at 1920 x 1080, with the XS Max coming in at 2688 x 1242. Although the flip side of that is that many users may stick with the default 1080 setting of the Note 9. In any case, last week’s test saw the Galaxy Note 9 with 37% battery life remaining when the XS Max died.
Today, we’re getting a look at another test that sees the iPhone XS Max beat out the Note 9, Google Pixel 3 XL, and Sony Xperia XZ3. Notably, the XS Max has the smallest battery capacity of all four phones and was still able to come out on top.
YouTuber Mrwhosetheboss ran the smartphones through many of the same tests that PhoneBuff used like social media, video content, gaming and more. But this time around, he set the Note 9’s display to the full 2960 x 1440 resolution. The Pixel 3 XL natively runs at the same resolution, with the Xperia using a 2880 x 1400 panel.
The XS max lasted just over six hours during the intense testing, with the Note 9 shutting down just about 12 minutes before that. The Pixel 3 XL came in third as it powered down after about five hours of testing.
No matter how they continue to stack up in comparison tests, iPhone XS, XS Max and Android flagships likely provide most users with at least full day battery life for most use cases. However, it is impressive that with a smaller battery capacity the XS Max was able to perform so well with the largest display of the bunch, even if it has a bit lower resolution.