Month: December 2020

Just as expected, Lenovo announced its K12 series in China and to no surprise the two are just rebranded Motorola phones for the Chinese market. The K12 is identical to the Moto E7 Plus while the K12 Pro is simply a rebadged Moto G9 Power which was announced in Europe last month.

The Lenovo K12 comes with a 6.5-inch HD+ LCD with a waterdrop notch for its 8MP selfie cam. It’s powered by the Snapdragon 460 chipset paired with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage.

You get a 48MP primary camera next to a 2MP depth sensor. The battery comes in at 5,000 mAh while the software side is covered by Android 10.

Pricing for the Lenovo K12 is set at CNY 799 ($122) though initial sales get it down to CNY 699 ($107).

The K12 Pro comes with a 6.8-inch LCD with the same HD+ resolution and a punch-hole cutout in the left corner for its 16MP selfie shooter. There’s a 64MP primary module around the back alongside two 2MP sensors for macro shots and depth data. The phone is powered by the Snapdragon 662 alongside 4GB RAM and 128GB storage. There’s a massive 6,000 mAh battery here too which can be topped up at 20W speeds.

The K12 Pro retails for CNY 999 ($153) though the first wave of sales gets it down to CNY 899 ($137).

Cyberpunk 2077 is launching soon, but that hasn’t stopped one person from already messing with the game on an Aya Neo gaming tablet equipped with a Ryzen 5 4500U with Vega integrated graphics. Shockingly the gamer is able to play Cyberpunk at an 800P resolution at 30 FPS at the lowest settings. Sure it’s not the prettiest experience and its way below the minimum Cyberpunk 2077 system requirements, but the fact that it runs is amazing in and of itself.

The Aya Neo is a gaming tablet made in China that is very similar in form factor to a Nintendo Switch — but unlike a Switch, it runs on Windows 10 with a Ryzen 5 4500U APU, 16GB of LPDDR4X running at 4266Mhz, a 512GB NVMe SSD, a 1280×800 IPS screen and a 47W hr battery.

While the spec sheet isn’t great for playing PC games, the fact that this tablet has enough horsepower to run the latest PC titles shows how good it is. Tablets have almost always been limited to mobile games due to their small sizes, so this is a huge win for the Aya Neo and the gaming-tablet market overall. 

Unfortunately, if you want to buy this tablet in the States, you cannot at this time. The device is only being sold to Chinese markets, but the creator is tempted to start an Indiegogo campaign to see if the device will be worth selling overseas. So there is hope for international buyers.

The Dell 32-inch Curved 4K S3221QS (catchy, I know) is a versatile monitor, enough for a variety of use cases including gaming. Yet it probably won’t blow you away for any one of them. It’s a great choice if you want something that can give you solid experiences across the board, but if your aim is high quality, high refresh gaming then it might not be the right fit for you.

First off, I was immediately surprised by how heavy the Dell S3221QS is. Most of the weight is in the stand, which feels great. Despite a relatively small footprint, the monitor stands solidly with practically no wobble, even if you try to give it one. It is a bit limited in motion: You can’t swivel it to portrait mode, and while it angles a fair way up you’re mostly out of luck when it comes to tilting downwards. 

Thankfully the viewing angles are really quite good so none of this was a real problem for me. Sometimes curved monitors don’t feel right unless you find the perfect position, but the S3221QS seems to avoid that and comes through clear from most angles. 

I also haven’t had any difficulty with reflections thanks to the matte screen, and the thin side bezels are a nice touch. The curve also adds a nice sense of encompassing immersion, which is great for movies and atmospheric games, especially on the large 32-inch screen. It also has quite rich blacks and decent contrast, which can look impressively beautiful, especially with 4K content.

When it comes to gaming, the S3221QS is a bit hit and miss. That’s largely because the max refresh rate is only 60Hz. Obviously, if you’re choosing to buy a 60hz monitor that’s a decision you’ve already made, and it’s an admirable goal for anything but the best graphics cards today anyways. But as someone who’s coming from a higher refresh rate, I definitely noticed the drop. The FreeSync variable refresh rate did seem to help as I didn’t notice any real tearing at least. 

The Dell is quite good as far as a 60Hz monitor goes, but if gaming is your main use then I’d usually recommend going for something with a higher refresh rate, even if you lose the 4K resolution.

FPS Games especially are a bit more jagged and aiming can feel sluggish on a slower panel, especially when you’re used to a higher rate. Little things like stuttering when moving the camera quickly, even during RPGs can be a bit jarring too. It just lacks the smoothness, and you’d expect it to. It’s not a fault of this monitor specifically, though, just something to be aware of with 60Hz in general. You will notice the lower framerate if you’ve come to expect anything better. If not, play ball because, again, the depth and clarity of image do make up a lot of ground if you’re more after the fidelity side of things.

The panel itself, while rich and having really good contrast, is side lit, and noticeably so at times. At first I was having trouble with flickering sides during some games on dark screens. Disabling HDR in the windows settings did help, and I didn’t see any flickering while playing console games at least through the monitor. However, there were still occasions where I noticed it from the corner of my eye, though it remains fairly minimal.

If it’s work rather than play you’re after, the S3221QS won’t let you down. The 32-inch curved screen is pretty huge, especially when you’re up close. There’s more than enough room to have multiple tasks on the go. I’m not used to working on a curved screen so it’s a bit odd. Things on the edges feel very close to you and it gives you a level of focus that you’ll either love or hate. There’s something about feeling literally engulfed with a monitor while you’re working. It’s great for immersive experiences but can be a little intimidating for things like word documents and tables.

It’s one of those things that’s perfectly fine once you get used to it. Then going back to a regular monitor feels weird. All those aspects that started off feeling too close suddenly feel too far away. Things look flat, because they are. I wouldn’t say either was inherently better than the other, but the viewing angles on the S3221QS are good enough that it works well from all distances. So as far as curved monitors for work go, it’s a solid choice so long as you don’t mind only landscape positioning.

There’s definitely a lot to like about the S3221QS. The solid build and versatility make it a great choice as a jack of all trades monitor. It can swing nicely from work to play, and video content looks especially good. It’s just not the right choice if your main purpose is gaming and you want a high refresh rate, but again, it was never going to be. 

Overall, the S3221QS is a solid choice for an all-rounder with a curved screen. It looks great with the rich 4K display and saves some cash on forking out the big bucks for a high refresh rate monitor, if that’s not your thing.

Almost half a decade since news first leaked about Google’s Fuchsia OS, the company has announced that it is expanding the Fuchsia open source community and opening it up to contributions from the public.

Google’s Fuchsia OS is a bit of an enigma, and the company rarely talks about it, despite its code living on GitHub since 2016. 

It’s an open secret that Fuchsia is Google’s long-term project to create a general-purpose operating system, built from the kernel up, but this is the first time the company is engaging with it in the public.

Proper open source

Google has been sharing its work on Fuchsia in the public repositories for several years now. 

With the new announcement, it has added in all the missing ingredients to turn the project into a full-fledged open source effort. 

“Starting today, we are expanding Fuchsia‘s open source model to make it easier for the public to engage with the project,” shares Google in a blog post.

Specifically, Google has now made the operating system’s bug tracker available to the public and there are mailing lists through which developers can receive alerts about various updates. The company has also outlined the process to become a member to submit patches or a committer with full write access. 

For developers only

Fuchsia also now has a governance model through which Google explains how strategic decisions in the project are made. 

Importantly, the project now has a publicly accessible technical roadmap for anyone to track its progress.

The OS is far from being in a usable state, though if you are interested in working on it, Google has also put out a detailed guide to help you setup a Fuchsia emulator on your Mac or Linux computer.

Now that Google is willing to engage with the public on Fuchsia, we’re hoping the company also shares more details about where the OS fits in its portfolio and how it plans to use it going forward.

Chuwi is back with a new slim and light 13.3-incher that weighs just under 1 Kg (2.2 lbs) and is only 11.9 mm thick (under 0.5 inches). The Chinese company is notorious for including rather outdated specs for most of its products to keep production costs as low as possible, and the LarkBook clearly proves this point. At least you do not need to sell a kidney to afford this fancy piece of hardware as the estimated AliExpress price is around $450.

Speaking of outdated specs, the LarkBook is powered by a quad-core / quad-thread Intel Celeron N4100 ULV CPU with 6 W TDP, which is still decent for office work, while the UHD Graphics 600 iGPU can handle 4K decoding and output. You also get 8 GB of LPDDR4x of RAM and a 256 GB SSD that can be upgraded. The Wi-Fi 5 + Bluetooth 4.2 support feels dated too, and the included battery is quite small, limited to 34.8 Wh capacity, but at least it features fast charging.

There are, however, some pretty good features included with this model, as well. For instance, the stylish chassis is made of light aluminum and magnesium alloy and has a premium finish. The 13.3-inch IPS screen features FHD resolution, slim bezels and has 220 nits peak luminance. Interestingly enough, Chuwi offers quad DTS speakers and dual-array mics, which are usually featured on more expensive laptops. Port selection includes 1x USB-A 3.1 Gen 1, 1x USB-A 2.0 and a USB-C 3.1 with DisplayPort and charging capabilities, plus a headphone jack and a microSD card reader.

The new LarkBook will be available for purchase on AliExpress starting December 15 and customers can now sign up for a $50 discount, lowering the final price to only $394.99.