Month: May 2020

AMD Ryzen 4000 “Renoir” desktop APUs are having quite a month in the Twitterverse. First, an unidentified desktop Renoir APU was spotted by TUM_APISAK on UserBenchmark touting 8 cores, 16 threads and a base clock of 3GHz. And now, tipster @_rogame has leaked another chip bearing the Ryzen 7 4700G moniker.

Spotted from an Ashes of the Singularity benchmark, the Ryzen 7 4700G is shown to have the same 8 cores and 16 threads as the previous APU, though we urge you to take this with a grain of salt. 

If this processor is real, it’s expected to utilize the same Zen 2 architecture and 7nm process that made the mobile Renoir chips a staggering success. More importantly, it could double the core count of the current Ryzen 3000 APU line and its flagship, the Ryzen 5 3400G, which only has four cores.

UserBenchmark has seen fake submissions before, so this is hardly proof that a 8-core, 16-thread Renoir desktop APU is definitely coming. However, it’s worth noting that AMD’s Ryzen 7 chips typically sport 8 cores, so if this rumored APU does in fact have 8 cores, the name is certainly fitting. 

If the AMD Ryzen 7 4700G is real and on its way, it would be the very first APU to carry the Ryzen 7 branding.

Here’s what Ryzen 7 4700G could look like

Not much else is revealed about the Ryzen 7 4700G in this leak, unfortunately. But, that hasn’t stopped anyone from speculating before.

As reported by Tom’s Hardware, if this chip and the previously leaked desktop Renoir APU are actually one and the same, then the Ryzen 7 4700G will have a base clock of 3GHz, with 3.95GHz boost. On the other hand, _rogame did argue that there are currently two 8-core Renoir APUs being tested, one with a 3GHz base, the other running at 3.5GHz. 

In any case, these are decent numbers that could potentially be higher in the final production units.

Tom’s Hardware expects the processor to support DDR4-3200 memory modules out of the box, though perhaps not PCIe 4.0 as the mobile Renoir processors only offer PCIe 3.0 support. Still, the Ryzen 3000 desktop chips are on the PCIe 4.0 interface, which means that it’s also possible for the desktop Renoir APUs to take after them.

It further speculates that the Ryzen 7 4700G could take after the Ryzen 9 4900H’s iGPU design, which will give it eight Compute Units (CUs) and up to 512 Stream Processors (SPs). Since current flagship Ryzen 5 3400G has up to 11 CUs, this could be a downgrade. However, AMD may offset that with a higher graphics clock.

Obviously, there’s no word yet on the pricing. But seeing as the Ryzen 5 3400G sells for $149 (£139, AU$240), the price tag on Ryzen 7 4700G – again, if it does exist – is expected to stay competitive, especially with AMD’s ethos of offering powerful components for less than the price of the competition.

Late last week, I attended a private briefing regarding the Lenovo Duet Chromebook. My review unit arrived that same day: I have the $299 model which is priced $20 higher than the base model and doubles the amount of local storage from 64 GB to 128 GB.

As of Monday this week, you can officially purchase your own Lenovo Duet Chromebook, which comes with the keyboard and fabric back cover, which is also a kickstand. And as of Monday, reviews were allowed to go live.

Regular readers know I don’t like to review a device over just two or three days solely to meet an artificial deadline. I ran into this same situation with the Pixelbook Go, only getting the device shortly before the review embargo.

Having said that, I can share some first impressions on the Lenovo Duet Chromebook from using it over the past few days. Expect a full review when I’m satisfied that I’ve tested it enough in the coming days. Also: If there are specific things you’d like to see tested, let me know in the comments and I’ll do my best to address them.

Build quality and display are excellent

The first Chrome OS tablet, the Acer Chromebook Tab 10, was very plasticy and felt like a low end device. That’s not the case with the Lenovo Duet Chromebook: This is a well-designed and built piece of hardware, complete with an aluminum frame.

The form-factor and build reminds me of my iPad Pro 11, with similar materials and nicely rounded corners. Put another way, some tablets look cheaply made. This isn’t one of them. It’s the kind of device that looks more expensive than it costs.

The 1920 x 1200 display is also a standout so far. It’s sharp, although a little blueish, and plenty bright enough, topping out at 400 nits on the spec sheet. I’m perfectly fine using this device with brightness between 40 and 60 percent in most cases.

The full package is chunkier than I expected

The Lenovo Duet Chromebook is 7.35 millimeters (0.29-inches) thick by itself and easy to tote around. Once you add the keyboard and the fabric backed kickstand though, you’re up to 18.2 millimeters thick (0.71-inches). That’s pretty thick and more than I anticipated. Indeed, it’s slightly thicker than the Google Pixel Slate with its keyboard:

You could reduce the thickness by not attaching the magnetic fiber backing but then the physical keyboard becomes useless. Why? Because the kickstand needed to hold up the display when using the keyboard built in to the tablet; it’s part of the fabric attachment. So you’re really looking at just a thin tablet alone without a keyboard or the full, thick package.

You also go from a 0.99 pound tablet to a 2.03 pound device with the keyboard and kickstand part. It feels dense in the latter case because that roughly two pounds isn’t spread out over a wide area: This is a 10.1-inch tablet with relatively small screen bezels.

Early performance indicators are what I’d expect at this price

So far, this $300 Chrome OS tablet performs as I’d expect: Like most other Chromebooks in this price range. That is to say the MediaTek Helio P60T Octa-Core behaves to me like a recent Intel Celeron processor. Perhaps like a new Pentium. That’s not a bad thing because my expectations were set early on: I didn’t think we’d see Intel Core i3-like performance from this device.

I’ve said many times in the past that I’m not a fan of benchmarks, or at least not as the “end-all, be-all” metric to look at.

However, people always ask for them and as long as you see them as an indicator of general performance, they can be a useful data point. So here you go, with all tests run after a reboot and in Guest Mode. In all cases, higher numbers are better.

Again, these aren’t performance numbers that can compete with a Chromebook powered by an Intel Core m3 or better processor and double the memory. But again, this is a $300 package, so you can’t expect to perform like a Chromebook that costs $500 or more.

For example, benchmarks from various devices that cost nearly triple illustrate my point: Triple the cost can mean triple the performance. Keep that in mind as you think about purchasing the Lenovo Duet Chromebook: This may be better suited for most people as a secondary device instead of a primary Chromebook, depending on your needs.

For general browsing, the Lenovo Duet Chromebook performs fine. I do see the occasional lag from time to time, which I suspect is partly due to the 4 GB of memory. But I think I’d be happy using this as a small browser or part-time productivity device based on the performance.

I haven’t yet tested any Android apps, so I’ll focus on them during my full review. The new pinned tabs for Chrome OS tablets that arrived in Chrome OS 81 are useful and I don’t see any performance issues with them.

About that keyboard

On the briefing call, Lenovo said that most $300 devices have some compromise. You might get good performance but bad battery life. Or you might sacrifice on the display or not get a keyboard. So the company says this is a tablet that can also be a laptop, hence the included keyboard and the inclusion of the word “Chromebook” in the product name.

First up, I’m thrilled that Lenovo is including the keyboard at no extra cost. A USI stylus is optional and will cost you; Lenovo plans to debut one in the coming months but any USI stylus will work with the Lenovo Duet Chromebook.

Having said that, there is some compromise in this keyboard. It’s not backlit, for starters. I’m actually OK with that but others may not be. And there are some keys that aren’t full-sized. That’s a design challenge when you only have so much space to work with on a keyboard to fit a 10.1-inch display so it’s not unique to Lenovo.

For perspective, being around 5′ 5″ tall, I have relatively small hands. Here’s what one looks like with this keyboard.

Aside from those two observations, the keyboard is good, provided you can get used to the overall size and spacing. Even after a few days of use, I feel a bit cramped when typing. That’s why I don’t think I could use this as a full-time device for productivity. Give me an hour of productivity tasks though and the experience is good. The same can be said for the trackpad: It’s small but that’s a design constraint in a device with this size. However, it’s very responsive so far.

I should note that the Lenovo Duet Chromebook keyboard suffers in a fashion similar to the Google Pixel Slate Keyboard: It twists and flops a little when using the Duet on your lap. That’s because the top end of the keyboard has flexible fabric between it and the magnetic base that attaches to the screen. It’s actually not as a bad as the Pixel Slate keyboard because this device isn’t as a wide. But, you’ll likely notice it.

Overall first impressions are favorable

For $300, I’m generally impressed by the Lenovo Duet Chromebook, although I kept my expectations in check based on the specification sheet. Battery life so far seems to be what Lenovo has claimed, the screen is really nice while the speakers are adequate but not outstanding. Performance seems to be on par with other devices at this price point.

Obviously, I have more to test such as the aforementioned Android apps. And I’m sure folks will want to see how Linux works on this device although I don’t see that being a primary use case for a 10.1-inch tablet, even when connected to an external monitor. You’re limited to Linux apps compiled for ARM processors to begin with and you’re still looking at running Linux on what’s essentially a smartphone processor.

On that note, let me know what you’d like to see tested or if you have any specific questions. Again, I’ll address as many of them as I can.

Microsoft has officially ended the support for Windows 7 on January 14, 2020, and you can still upgrade to Windows 10 for free. The original free upgrade offer to Windows 10 officially expired years ago, but the loophole is still working in May 2020, according to our testing.

It means that if you own a valid license of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, you can get Windows 10 without paying $120 for the upgrade. It also appears that Microsoft knows of the loophole and the company will not block users from upgrading to Windows 10 even if that means it wouldn’t make money from the upgrades.

To get Windows 10 for free, you need to download and run Windows Media Creation Tool on Windows 10. Once downloaded, you need to choose the upgrade path where you keep your files.

In the Windows Media Creation Tool, you just need to follow the prompts and complete the upgrade. When the upgrade is complete and the device is connected to the Internet, the digital license of Windows 10 would be activated.

You can verify the activation status by going to Settings > Update and Security > Activation.

We have also heard from users that a fresh install will work with the free Windows 10 upgrade, but you’ll be asked to enter your Windows 7. However, an alleged Microsoft employee said that you may lose the ability to upgrade to Windows 10 for free if you choose to do a fresh install.

Windows 10 is also available for free if you’re a student or you have an alumni email account. If you can prove it, you might be able to score a free copy of Windows 10 Education, which is very similar to Windows 10 Enterprise.

According to the latest market share report, Windows 10’s desktop share is 56%, down from 57.34% and Windows 7 market share is 25.59, which also dropped from 26.3%.

Intel was poised to be bravo six, going dark. Their covert GPU development program was confirmed. It took one burst for them to capture nearly a dozen industry specialists from other companies. They hunkered down. They went radio silent for a year. Then, they hired a marketing team.

That marketing team flipped the paradigm and introduced an unprecedented level of transparency into the development process. (I’m personally grateful to Intel’s marketing team for giving me so much to write about.) Their ploy has often worked. Early promises of ray tracing and a 10nm production node extinguished concerns based on Intel’s CPU strife. An early leak promising a GPU with 4096 cores quickly impressed; only last week photos of the largest GPU in development sparked a wave of new curiosity. But promises made years ago are quickly forgotten and intangible specifications raise concerns over accuracy.

It’s been five months since their last press event. In that period, we’ve seen only one Intel GPU make the rounds. Designed with software developers in mind, the Xe DG1 SDV won’t impress consumers. As the only visible product, however, and given that it has plenty of RGB, that role has fallen upon it. Yesterday’s SiSoftware leak dispelled rumors suggesting it would have 128 EUs, but rather 96 EUs (the difference was an error in counting the CPU’s integrated graphics as part of the discrete solution). That’s a mediocre 768 shaders/cores. The database entry also showed that it was operating at 1.5 GHz, and that it was paired with 3GB of memory.

That’s by no means an insufficient performance bracket for a device intended for developers. Released as the right consumer-oriented product, in laptops, say, as Intel demonstrated back in January, it may be perfectly competitive. But I will pose this question to Intel’s marketing team: why should anyone care?

A year ago, when this device was leaked alongside three Xe HP (high performance) GPUs with stunningly beautiful core counts, the leak as a whole was a good sign. That only the least impressive of the products has manifested is not a great sign. I’d almost say that last week’s photo of what turned out to be the largest of the previously leaked GPUs was an attempt to distract from that fact. What was very promising five months ago doesn’t look so rosy anymore.

Intel, choose: stop putting RGB on your developer cards and pretending gamers have something to look forward to soon, or outright give us something to be hopeful for.