Month: April 2020

The Kirin 985 is an upcoming chipset from HiSilicon that will feature a 5G modem and may be at the heart of the Honor 30 instead of the Kirin 990 5G. Little was known about the chip, but newly surfaced results from AI Benchmark show the composition of the CPU and NPU.

The 985 will be similar to the Kirin 820 in that it will have only one prime core, plus three big and four small cores. For comparison, the flagship Kirin 990 (4G and 5G) have a 2+2+4 configuration.

All three chips use the same CPU cores, though, Cortex-A76 and A55. Check the table below for a more detailed look.

Next up is the NPU, which uses the Huawei-designed Da Vinci cores. The Kirin 985 will have a dual-core NPU, doubling its AI computational resources compared to the 820 chip.

Note the higher clock speeds of the CPU, they may hint at newer process – 7nm+ EUV, just like the Kirin 990 5G. The 820 chip and 990 4G are manufactured using the older 7nm DUV process.

Whatever the process and clock speeds, the Kirin 985 was outperformed by the MediaTek Dimensity 1000 in the AI Benchmark (which also has four Cortex-A77 cores, thus faster CPU performance).

This benchmark doesn’t use the GPU, which remains shrouded in mystery for now.

AMD announced its Ryzen 4000 U-series chips for laptops in January, but the lineup doesn’t include any Ryzen 9 models. However, a Ryzen 9 4900U was spotted on UserBenchmark by hardware leaker @TUM_APISAK, pointing to a future CPU for thin-and-light laptops.

The chip should be based on the Zen 2 microarchitecture and take advantage of TSMC’s 7nm FinFET manufacturing process. Like any other U-series part, the Ryzen 9 4900U is shown rated with a 15W, but it also features a cTDP (configurable thermal design power) between 10W and 25W.

This Ryzen 9 4900U in question shares the same configuration as the already announced Ryzen 7 4800U. You can expect the upcoming flagship to arrive with eight cores, 16 threads and 12MB of total cache. At the end of the day, the higher clock speeds on the Ryzen 9 4900U will ultimately set it apart from the Ryzen 7 4800U.

The scores from the UserBenchmark submission suggest that the leaked Ryzen 9 4900U is very likely an engineering sample. The Ryzen 7 4800U outscores the unreleased chip’s numbers by a fairly substantial margin. Only the Ryzen 9 4900U’s single-core result is closer to expectations.

Engineering samples aren’t true indicators for final specifications. Furthermore, software typically has a hard time reporting unreleased hardware correctly. For what it’s worth, UserBenchmark detected the Ryzen 9 4900U with a 1.8 GHz base clock and 2.35 GHz average boost clock; however, the Ryzen 7 4800U has a 4.2 GHz boost clock, so the Ryzen 9 4900U is expected to come with an even higher boost clock, such as 4.3 GHz or more. 

The UserBenchmark entry doesn’t give any hints on the Ryzen 9 4900U’s integrated graphics solution, but there shouldn’t be any surprises here. The Ryzen 7 4800U is equipped with eight Vega cores ticking up to 1,750 MHz. The setup will probably transfer over to the Ryzen 9 4900U, unless AMD decides to beef up the clock speed a little.

In Intel’s camp, there’s the Intel Core i7-10710U hexa-core Comet Lake-U part and i7-1065G7 quad-core Ice Lake chip, which are the respective flagships of their lineups. On paper, the Ryzen 9 4900U has the advantage over the two Intel chips, based on core count alone. However, we won’t understand the octa-core chip’s real performance until AMD confirms it and it starts showing up in laptops — which, considering the appearance of these benchmark results, shouldn’t be far off.

In 2018, Google Fit received a big redesign that introduced Move Minutes and Heart Points as an easy to digest health metric. After coming to iOS last year, the mobile and Wear OS apps are getting a redesign today that emphasizes step count.

This redesign for Google Fit starts with the activity circle at the top of the app shrinking in size as your profile image is no longer at the center. To make things more “viewable at a glance,” Google is using bolder text and brighter visuals.

Of course, the biggest change sees Move Minutes de-emphasized in favor of “Steps.” The former metric is not going away and still visible, but Google listened to feedback that users prefer the familiar metric.

Many users track steps daily in Google Fit and in other apps, and it’s an important goal for them. We listened closely to our users and now both Heart Points and step count will be paired together as goals at the center of our app. This change allows users to keep track of their general movement with steps, while also knowing when to increase their intensity to earn more Heart Points.

Steps now go hand-in-hand with Heart Points to track intensity and match WHO and American Heart Association weekly guidelines. Google is adding a new progress card underneath the activity circle to show when you’re close to hitting a goal.

Today’s updates are also reflected on Wear OS. The Google Fit app on the wearable platform adds two new Tiles. The first lets you quickly start a workout, as well as see “progress toward your goal through the day or week at a glance.”

Google Fit’s step-focused redesign is already available on iOS, and rolling out now to Android and Wear OS.

Dell is running into a real issue with the XPS 13, though in this case, it’s a good problem. Over the past couple of years, Dell has tweaked and refined its flagship 13-inch laptop to the point that we thought last year’s model was practically perfect. And now, Dell has released the new XPS 13 9300 with a more useful 16:10 screen, a larger touchpad and keycaps, slimmer bezels, and even better performance. At this point, the new XPS 13’s only significant shortcoming is that it has just two USB-C ports instead of three, though in return you do get a built-in microSD card reader. Pretty soon, Dell isn’t going to have anything left to improve, and even though this new XPS 13 isn’t completely flawless, there’s no doubt it’s the best ultraportable on the market.

In terms of design, the XPS 13 9300 is actually a tiny bit heavier and slightly smaller than the previous model, but the differences are so minute that even when holding both at the same time, it’s hard to tell. Around the edges of the laptop, Dell has opted for a shinier anodized finish that adds a bit of sparkle to the system without crossing the border into “Look at me!” territory.

You also get two USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 3 (one on each side) for transferring data and power, along with a headphone jack on the right and a new microSD card slot on the left. Typically, I like when laptops makers add built SD card readers on laptops, though on something like the XPS 13 whose main duty probably won’t be editing photos and videos, I think most people would prefer a third USB-C port instead—especially considering one USB-C port will usually be reserved for charging.

Speaking of charging, I appreciate that Dell includes two different plugs for the XPS 13’s 45-watt power brick: one is a compact plug that you can jam right into the wall, while the other is a three-foot extension for when you need a little extra reach. However, with a battery life that lasted 9 hours and 59 minutes on our video rundown test, there’s a good chance you can make it through most or maybe all of your workday without actually needing to plug in. That time is half an hour better than what we got from the previous XPS 13 (9:26) and nearly three hours better than HP’s Envy 13.

Up top, Dell has also stepped up to a new 16:10 display (from the 16:9 panel it was previously using) which might not sound like much, but gives the XPS 13 a much-needed boost in vertical screen real estate. At the same time, Dell kept the XPS 13’s tiny webcams (which includes an IR camera for Windows Hello face login) while also decreasing the bezels around its 13.4-screen to the point that they are practically non-existent. Actual web cam image quality could be a tiny bit better, but it’ll more than suffice for all everyone stuck working from home right now.

For years, Dell has been talking about its Infinity Edge displays, but until now, there was always one side that was way fatter than the others which served as a strange disconnect between promise and reality. But for 2020, Dell has really delivered and the pay off is an extremely thin and sleek system with a screen that’s seven percent larger than before.

On our $1,750 review model sporting a Core i7-1065G7 CPU, 16GB of RAM and 512GB m.2 NVMeSSD, we also got a lovely 1920 x 1200 touch display (with a peak brightness of 429 nits), but depending on your budget you can go for a less expensive non-touch FHD+ display or a more premium 3840 x 2400 UHD+ panel. That said, I would probably stick with the FHD+ touch display, as the increase in resolution doesn’t have as big of an impact on a 13-inch display as it would on a larger 15-inch system.

And despite the 2020 XPS 13 having smaller dimensions than before, it also has a 17 percent larger touchpad and slightly larger keycaps that deliver excellent bounce and key travel. And in light of Apple recently switching back to scissor switches on its new MacBooks, Dell not messing with the typing experience is something I’ve come to appreciate even more. One small critique I have though—and I realize I may be reaching a bit— is that the backlighting on the XPS 13’s keyboard appears a bit uneven. Normally, something like that would barely even register as a complaint, but when there’s so little to nitpick and after seeing what a lot of gaming laptops makers are doing (including Alienware), I know there’s room for improvement.

For performance, the XPS 13 ain’t no slouch either, as pretty much across the board, the XPS 13 beat out its competitors on both benchmarks and real-world tests including WebXPRT 2015 for measuring browser performance, Handbrake for video editing, and Geekbench 4 for overall metrics. And even when you’re really pushing it, the XPS 13 generally delivers stable performance, with the fans only whining a bit under full load.

Admittedly, there are a couple of more enterprisey options that you won’t find on the XPS 13 like the built-in privacy screen found on some Lenovo and HP laptops or optional vPro CPUs, but for everything else, the XPS 13 is simply the best 13-inch ultraportable laptop you can get right now. Yes, depending on the config it can be a bit pricey and I wish it had just one more USB-C port. But the XPS 13’s excellent build, iconic design, and strong performance is the result of years of polish, and now like its anodized aluminum sides, Dell’s 13-inch flagship laptop is really shining.

README

The XPS 13 supports both face and fingerprint login via Windows Hello (its power button doubles as a fingerprint reader).

Dell includes a handy USB-C to USB-A adapter in the box, along with two adapters for its power brick that allow you to adjust its length.

The XPS 13 9300 only has two USB-C ports (down from three on the previous model), but in exchange you get a built-in microSD card slot.

If you’re not down with the white fiberglass deck, the XPS 13 is still available in classic carbon fiber too.

We just got an email from a reader overseas alerting us to a new model of the Acer Chromebook Spin 13 that we’ve never seen before. The reason? It’s never been officially announced and it is powered by the same 10th Gen Intel Comet Lake processors found in the newly released Samsung Galaxy Chromebook and ASUS Chromebook Flip C436. While it’s no surprise to see Acer launching a new flagship, the timing and method for launching the new Spin 13 seems a bit odd but more on that in a minute.

First, let’s take a look at the new Chromebook that is currently listed on a handful of websites in the UK and Germany. At first glance, you wouldn’t be at fault if you thought the images below were simply the original Spin 13 but there are some subtle differences. For starters, the trackpad is a lot taller. That was one of the minor gripes we had about the first-gen Spin 13. There was all that extra space between the keys and the front of the device and yet, they chose to make the trackpad quite short from front to back. Next, this model has a full-size HDMI port. That seems like a step back from the first Spin but perhaps it’s a regional thing or because it is aimed at the enterprise sector. Who knows?

Another change that’s not so slight if it’s true is the fact that this new model appears to be missing the stowable stylus that was so popular with many users of the first Spin 13. Along with the missing pen, you may notice that this Chromebook is without a fingerprint scanner which seems very peculiar considering Acer was one of the first to equip an enterprise Chromebook with biometrics. At first, I thought this could be a case of bad photo mock-ups but then I found the actual spec sheet for the new Acer Spin 13 and under the Fingerprint Sensor section, there is simply a strikethrough. Again, this could change when the device makes its way to the U.S. but I’m not holding my breath.

Two models of the new Acer Spin 13 are showing up at the moment. One is the same Core i5-10210U found in the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook. It’s matched with a whopping 16GB of RAM and 256GB of PCIe storage. Those specs make the lack of fingerprint sensors even more confusing. It has all the makings of a Project Athena laptop but I was under the impression that biometrics were a must to make that qualification. Then again, I could be wrong. The other model is the Core i3-10110U that powers the $799 version of the ASUS Flip C436. It gets 8GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. The chassis looks nearly identical to the original Spin 13 and it comes with that sweet 3:2, 13.5″ display that I love so much. The price point for the Core i5 is roughly € 969.00 which is a little over $1,000 USD.

We have reached out to our contact at Acer to see if there is an official announcement coming for this new Spin 13. As of late, Acer has held off on outing these premium Chromebooks until they have their annual even in spring. Sadly, given the current state of affairs, I don’t expect Acer to have an on-site event any time soon. Perhaps that’s why this Chromebook is already peeping its head up in Europe. We could be on the cusp of the device coming to the states and Acer is just foregoing the formalities. If you’re in or around Germany or the UK, you can check out the listings and I suppose go ahead and get your hands on a 10th Gen Acer Chromebook Spin 13.