Category: Article

It seems that Sony has at least two new Xperia smartphones in the works. According to some sleuthing by @NodSikharulidze, the Japanese company is developing one smartphone with an SM6350 chipset and another with the SM8350. Qualcomm has already confirmed that the SM6350 is the model number of the Snapdragon 690, while the company is thought to have assigned SM8350 to the Snapdragon 875.

Android Next and GSMArena believe that Sony is preparing an Xperia 10 III with the Snapdragon 690, along with an Xperia 1 III using the Snapdragon 875. This belief seemingly stems from Sony having released the Xperia 10 II and Xperia 1 II in February, so the thinking goes that successors should be arriving sometime around February 2021.

Either way, the Snapdragon 690 seems like an odd choice when other OEMs are using the Snapdragon 750G for their mid-range smartphones. The Snapdragon 750G has a 10% higher clock speed than the Snapdragon 690 does, for example, along with a 14% higher memory bandwidth. The Snapdragon 750G also has a slightly faster modem than the Snapdragon 690 does, along with an improved instruction set.

The appearance of the Snapdragon 875 in a flagship Xperia smartphone should not raise any eyebrows, though. We would expect Sony to release a successor to the Xperia L4 too, if it plans to repeat its 2020 roadmap.

Intel’s upcoming Rocket Lake CPUs prove it is in a crisis of existential proportions. The next six months will decide both its fate and the future direction of the PC as a whole. Hyperbolic? Much? Actually, no.

It’s a somewhat speculative interpretation, to be sure. But tales of Intel’s woes have become so routine of late that the very existence of Rocket Lake and what it implies has been largely overlooked. Rocket Lake says very, very bad things about the viability of Intel’s entire business model. And that, in turn, makes it very significant for the PC as a whole.

Rocket Lake, of course, is Intel’s next desktop CPU architecture. It’s essentially a 14nm backport of Intel’s 10nm Sunny Cove CPU core architecture, as seen in 10th Gen Ice Lake notebook chips. Rocket Lake won’t be released until next year, which means Intel will be launching a new CPU design in 2021 on the ancient 14nm node. Intel’s original plan was to move to 10nm in 2016. Yes, really.

Intel has sold the whole ‘backporting’ thing as a positive, a sort of groovy and inclusive approach to CPU manufacturing. “Hey guys, relax. We’re flexible, we can port from node to node. It’s freestyle. It’s all good,” Intel seems to be saying.

The reality is that there’s really no such thing as a node-agnostic CPU architecture. It’s going to cost a huge amount of money to port those Sunny Cove cores, PCI Express 4.0 I/O and Xe-based graphics to 14nm for Rocket Lake.

So, it’s not groovy or flexible. It’s a move made out of desperation because Intel’s 10nm production node still isn’t good enough for the prime time. Let’s repeat that. Rocket Lake will be launched in 2021 in 14nm because Intel’s 10nm still won’t be good enough for a desktop CPU launch.

That’s going to come at a cost. For Rocket Lake, Intel is regressing from 10 cores, as seen in the current Core i9-10900K, back to eight cores. Because those Sunny Cove cores were never intended for 14nm. And they’re big and fat and power hungry when ported to 14nm.

There are further factors that make Rocket Lake look plain odd. In September, Intel officially confirmed an eight-core ‘H’ version of its latest 10nm Tiger Lake laptop chips exists. It’s a CPU that would make Rocket Lake totally redundant. So why doesn’t Intel launch that chip on the desktop instead of Rocket Lake? The only plausible reason is that 10nm remains fundamentally broken.

As a short term stop gap, Rocket Lake probably just about makes sense, even if Intel’s marketing pitch for the step back to eight cores is almost certainly going to make your ears bleed. But further out, this ‘backporting’ shizzle surely isn’t a goer. 

Currently, Intel says its first 10nm desktop CPU will be Alder Lake, due in the second half of next year. That’s the one with the new big.LITTLE hybrid architecture and up to eight performance cores and eight efficiency cores. If backporting Ice Lake to 14nm came with compromises, backporting Alder Lake to 14nm would surely be even less appealing.

In short, Alder Lake probably has to be on 10nm to be viable. But there are no signs at all that Intel’s 10nm is going to be good enough in a little over six months. It’s worth remembering that, to date, Intel is still only selling quad-core mobile CPUs on 10nm. The launch of the 10nm Ice Lake-SP server chip, once due in 2019, has been delayed once again into early 2021. And you’d be brave to assume it’ll hit that deadline.

What’s more, earlier this summer Intel conceded that its 7nm node, once touted as the solution to all its 10nm woes, was behind schedule by what it characterised as a full year. 7nm won’t be on stream until at least late 2022. Being realistic, then, 2023 is the earliest you’ll see Intel 7nm processors. And if you had to bet, you probably wouldn’t fancy 2023 much.

Meanwhile, the Taiwanese chip foundry that powers many of Intel’s competitors, TSMC, seems to be going from strength to strength. Admittedly, direct comparisons of production nodes are tricky. Most observers agree that Intel’s 10nm node is equivalent to TSMC’s 7nm for transistor density. But you can, today, buy actual shipping consumer products powered by fairly large, complex chips built on not only TSMC 7nm but TSMC 5nm.

Fair to say, then, that TSMC 5nm looks healthier than Intel 10nm right now. Which puts TSMC not just one but two full nodes ahead. That is an awful indictment of Intel’s predicament.

Anyway, the long and short of it is that Intel is rapidly approaching a crunch point of existential proportions. It can probably just about get away with Rocket Lake. But if it can’t bend 10nm into some kind of shape in time for Alder Lake in the second half of 2021 then it’s entire future roadmap becomes non-viable and Intel will surely have to seriously consider the previously unthinkable. Namely, giving up on making its own chips and farming them out to a third party foundry. At which point it’s no longer Intel as we knew it.

Indeed, there’s a good chance Intel has either already made that call or is right in the thick of thrashing it out. It’s just possible Intel has already decided to make that fundamental strategic shift, to not invest the billions required to make 7nm happen, but to spend that money turning itself into an IP-based business like AMD rather than what it is today—a manufacturing business that needs in-house chip designs to keep those billion-dollar fabs fed.

Of course, speculation about future events is often a mug’s game. It can take years for events to unfold. But this time it’s different. Intel is approaching that existential crunch point and fast. Six months from now, we’ll know if Intel has turned things around. Or if the fundamental technological landscape that underpins the PC we love is about to go through a dramatic change.

ASRock has announced its custom-cooled Radeon RX 6800 series graphics cards. The four cards announced by ASRock are the flagship Radeon RX 6800 XT Taichi X 16G OC, the mid-range Radeon RX 6800 XT and Radeon RX 6800 Phantom Gaming D 16G OC, and the entry-level Radeon RX 6800 Challenger Pro 16G OC.

Featuring AMD RDNA 2 GPU architecture, the new ASRock Radeon RX 6800 series support the DirectX 12 Ultimate standard and hardware-accelerated raytracing. All cards have 16GB of GDDR6 memory and support PCIe 4.0. The cooling solutions of these cards use ASRock’s Striped Axial fan design for improved cooling performance, allowing them to come overclocked out-of-the-box. Additionally, all cards feature Polychrome Sync ARGB LEDs to synchronise with other compatible products.

The Radeon RX 6800 XT Taichi X 16G OC uses a triple-fan design, with the middle-fan featuring a unique ARGB Taichi halo. Besides the halo, the card also has ARGB LEDs on the side and on the metal backplate. This card features a Dual-BIOS button, allowing users to easily change between the OC and Silent mode.

The ASRock Radeon RX 6800 series Phantom Gaming cards also feature a similar triple fan design with a middle RGB fan. Just like the Taichi model, it features a reinforced metal frame and backplate to avoid bending on the PCB. The RGB LEDs of the fan and on the side can be adjusted and synchronised through ASRock Polychrome Sync.

The ASRock Radeon RX 6800 Challenger Pro 16G OC features a low-key design, with side RGB LED lighting, and an all-black design. Just like the other ASRock Radeon RX 6800 series cards, it also has three fans to handle the cooling.

Although Insiders in the Dev Channel do occasionally get to try out upcoming features in Windows 10, more often than not the new builds Microsoft rolls out focus on fixing problems and tweaking settings.

That’s certainly been the case with the previous two flights, and today’s new release, Build 20262 (FE_RELEASE) is no different.

Fixes in this release include:

Fixed an issue resulting in certain apps launching unexpectedly transparent in recent builds, with no content visible.

Fixed an issue where old SleepStudy etls were unexpectedly not being cleaned up.

Fixed an issue resulting in no response the first time a pen was clicked after being paired due to an underlying crash.

Fixed an issue resulting in touchpad scrolling no longer working on the tab in focus after closing a browser tab using CTRL+W while scrolling on a touchpad.

Fixed an issue where the some of the notifications related to block at first sight weren’t being localized.

Fixed an issue where when using Narrator in scan mode, it wasn’t possible to activate the “Sign in with pin or smart card” buttons in the authentication dialog using space or the enter key.

Fixed a recent issue where when both Wi-Fi and cellular were connected, if Wi-Fi disconnected the network flyout would say cellular was still connected, but apps wouldn’t actually be able to use the internet.

Fixed a high hitting DWM crash impacting some Insiders in the last few flights.

Fixed an issue that could result in Settings crashing when navigating to Storage Sense.

Fixed an issue resulting in app registration issues for some of the in-box apps with the previous flight after upgrading.

Known issues are:

Microsoft is looking into reports of the update process hanging for extended periods of time when attempting to install a new build.

Live previews for pinned sites aren’t enabled for all Insiders yet, so you may see a grey window when hovering over the thumbnail in the taskbar. Microsoft is continuing to work on polishing this experience.

Microsoft is working on enabling the new taskbar experience for existing pinned sites. In the meantime, you can unpin the site from the taskbar, remove it from the edge://apps page, and then re-pin the site.

Microsoft is working on a fix for an issue resulting in some users seeing error 0x80070426 when using their Microsoft account to sign into various apps. If you encounter it, rebooting your PC may resolve this.

Microsoft is investigating an issue where, in recent Dev Channel builds, no drives appear under Settings > System > Storage > Manage Disks and Volumes. As a workaround, you can manage your disks in the classic Disk Management tool.

Microsoft is investigating reports that some screens incorrectly have black text on dark backgrounds when dark theme is enabled.

EVGA is not letting a little thing like a shortfall of GPUs (compared to demand) stop it from launching more cards around those very GPUs that are proving so elusive. Just the opposite, EVGA has launched a combined eight new liquid cooled GeForce RTX 3090 and 3080 graphics cards, plus a couple of do-it-yourself kits for those who already managed to score certain EVGA models.

Like every other 3090 and 3080 on the planet, these new models are out of stock. So they have launched in the sense that EVGA has unveiled them and erected products pages, with pricing information.

The eight new models are split evenly between Hydro Copper variants that slot into custom liquid cooling loops, and Hybrid series cards that have an all-in-one liquid cooler attached.

Here’s how the pricing shakes out:

GeForce RTX 3090 FTW3 Ultra Hydro Copper—$1,850

GeForce RTX 3090 FTW3 Ultra Hybrid Gaming—$1,800

GeForce RTX 3090 XC3 Ultra Hydro Copper—$1,650

GeForce RTX 3090 XC3 Ultra Hybrid Gaming—$1,620

GeForce RTX 3080 FTW3 Ultra Hydro Copper—$850

GeForce RTX 3080 FTW3 Ultra Hybrid Gaming—$820

GeForce RTX 3080 XC3 Ultra Hydro Copper—$810

GeForce RTX 3080 XC3 Ultra Hybrid Gaming—$780

For reference, the 3090 Founders Edition runs $1,500 and the 3080 Founders Edition costs $700. So for the 3090, you’re looking at a $120+ premium for the Hybrid models and $150+ for the Hydro Copper versions, and $80+ and $110+ for the 3080 in Hybrid and Hydro Copper form, respectively.

That’s not too bad, if you’re interested in liquid cooling. EVGA is also offering a couple of DIY Hybrid kits. One is compatible with both 3090 and 3080 FTW3 cards and costs $120, and the other fits EVGA’s 3090 and 3080 XC3 models, and costs $110.

The Hydro Copper models sport full-coverage water blocks. A nickel-plated copper block makes contact with all the important parts, those being the GPU, memory, and VRM. According to EVGA, the 3090 versions sees a 27 percent reduction in GPU temps compared to a standard air cooler, and a 33 percent reduction in memory temps. And for the Hybrid model, EVGA claims GPU temps improve by 21.6 percent and memory temps drop by 11 percent.

Not that any of this really matters, since Nvidia’s RTX 30 series flies off store shelves just as fast as vendors can stock them. That said, EVGA has adopted a queue-based ordering system. All you have to do is sign up to be notified when a specific card is in stock, which essentially puts you in line. When it’s your turn, you’ll have eight hours to place your order. It’s as fair of a system as I can think of.

iPhone users have discovered a ‘mind-blowing’ trick to save time when taking a screenshot.

The little-known hack involves changing the settings to allow screen grabs to be taken quickly by simply double tapping the back of the phone. 

But the setting is only available on iPhone X and above with iOS 14.

The feature was revealed on both Facebook and TikTok where thousands raved about the new find. 

To activate the feature, click on ‘accessibility’ in settings followed by ‘touch’ before turning on the ‘back tap’ button.

Once the double or triple tap has been selected, click on the ‘screenshot’ option to complete the activation.

While the setting may seem beneficial, some iPhone users weren’t convinced. 

‘It’s all fun and games until you accidentally take 50 screenshots in one day,’ one person said on Facebook. 

‘I had it on and it’s that sensitive that it took a screenshot randomly,’ another said. 

iPhone users have also discovered other distinctive features to make the most out of the device, including how to sign documents on the go, how to swipe and delete the last digit in the calculator as well as a built-in tape measure.

iPhone tricks that will enable you to get the most out of your device

Spotlight math: Instead of using the Calculator app, simply swipe down on your screen to open Spotlight and type in the math problem right there

Reachability: If you double touch, (not tap), the home button twice, it brings the entire screen down. By bringing the screen down, it allows your fingers can touch manoeuvre the phone without reaching

Say goodbye to pop-ups: The iPhone allows you to disable in-app pop-ups for ratings and reviews and frustrating feedback requests. It’s as easy as one two three: Settings, iTunes and App Store, turn off In-App Ratings and Reviews – that’s all

Windows 10 users may soon be targeted by a barrage of full-screen adverts unless they ditch Google Chrome and switch to Microsoft’s Edge browser instead. It’s no secret that Microsoft wants more Windows users to move over to its internet-browsing software but this latest drive could be its most aggressive to date.

According to the team at Windows Latest, it appears that Microsoft could be planning to target Chrome users with adverts. That may not sound like anything new except this time, in a bid to make sure you don’t miss it, the message could take over the whole screen.

These adverts are aimed at tempting Chrome fans into changing their default browser to the Redmond firm’s latest version of Edge. Windows Latest says these annoying alerts will pop up when setting up a PC for the first time or after installing major Windows 10 updates.

Once you switch to Edge it seems the adverts then stop filling up your screen.

It’s unclear how successful this new campaign will be but Microsoft’s previous attempts at getting users to switch certainly appears to be working.

The very latest stats from NetMarketShare show that Edge is now being used by 10 percent of all web users across the globe.

That puts Edge firmly in second place with it now beating Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari.

Of course, Edge is still far behind Chrome’s 69.25 percent share of the worldwide browser market but storming into second place is a sizeable achievement for a web browser that is less than a year old.

This software has almost doubled its user base since last year and this new campaign could boost those numbers even further.

Edge is now the default option in Windows 10 which will certainly be helping to increase those numbers but another reason people are choosing this software could be due to Microsoft’s decision to switch Edge to a Chromium-based application earlier this year.

For those who haven’t been following the changes to Edge, Microsoft made a huge gamble by transitioning the app onto the same open-source Chromium codebase used by Google for its Chrome browser.

It was clearly a good decision with users liking the clean interface and ease of use and improved battery life.

Samsung’s battery-centric Galaxy M12 phone might just exist as more than rumors and an empty case. OnLeaks and Voice have posted what they say are accurate design renders for the M12, indicating just what will house that claimed 7,000mAh battery.

The leak appears to corroborate reports that it’s a no-frills design with a plastic unibody back, a flat 6.5-inch screen, a fingerprint sensor in the power button and a teardrop notch for the selfie camera. A two-tone finish helps distinguish the M12 from the Galaxy A42 5G. The standout is a quad rear camera array, although we wouldn’t expect it to rival better camera phones.

In other words, Samsung would pitch the Galaxy M12 based on its longevity rather than its style. Not that buyers are likely to complain, if reports are accurate. A 7,000mAh battery would let Samsung’s phone run for days on a charge. That could be crucial in countries with unreliable power, not to mention anyone camping or otherwise expecting to unplug for long periods.

It’s not certain what kind of performance the device would offer. The Galaxy M series is aimed squarely at budget users, though, and the M11 was a modest phone with a Snapdragon 450, three cameras and a 5,000mAh battery.

Samsung is reportedly on track to launch the Galaxy M12 sometime in early 2021. It wouldn’t be your only option for a phone with a giant battery pack, including from Samsung — the Galaxy F41 already has a 6,000mAh battery. The added capacity could give the M12 an edge in a crowded field, though, and it may undercut the prices of some competitors in the process.

We all know the glory of an extravagant gaming rig – the lights, the tubing, the sheer unadulterated power. And you probably already know that building a PC yourself is cheaper than buying a pre-built gaming PC. But that’s not all that makes a hand-crafted rig so special. Those of you with an affinity for all things that buzz and whirr, from ginormous Nvidia RTX 3080 cards to dinky NVMe SSDs, should know there’s nothing quite like putting all the pieces together with your own hands.

But let’s go back in time for a moment. During the 1980s the world experienced the home computer boom. No longer were computers the sole property of gaudy science labs on TV – now you could get your very own VIC-20 or Commodore 64 and do your own clickety-clacking into a terminal screen from home. And at the same time, Hollywood gave us a glimpse of the technical wizardry that could now be cast from anyone’s fingertips. 

Hacker movies presented stunning multi-monitor setups with scrolling green code and more beeps and boops than could have possibly been necessary, the product of some lone genius’ hardware tinkering. The eyes of every young techie lit up as they realised this magic could be performed in their own homes, by their own hands. All it took was a little know-how and a willingness to get down and dirty with their hardware and software, and they could brave unknown virtual territories to the awe of all who had the honour of witnessing it.

Fast-forward to today, and there’s more technology crammed into a coin-sized CPU than there was in thousands of those chunky C64s put together. Throw in some RGB lighting, sleek hardware design, and a streamlined building process, and you have the makings of what your non-techy friends will probably think of as downright wizardry.

But it really isn’t as hard as it might seem to build your own PC. Over the years, PC parts have become so incredibly modular, and PC building so systematic, that the old saying, ‘LEGO for adults’, while a bit of an exaggeration, isn’t actually too far from the truth. So here we have one serious advantage of building a gaming PC yourself: you get to feel like an ’80s Hollywood hacker while actually engaging in glorified LEGO building—win-win.

On the other hand, it’s not really LEGO, is it? And, in fact, maybe by building a gaming PC you’re more of a tech wizard than you give yourself credit for. 

First of all, you’re not just building a computer. You’re also figuring out which parts to buy that will fit together and fulfil your own specific gaming needs. Do you need PCIe 4.0, or is PCIe 3.0 just fine? An NVMe SSD, or SATA drive? And how much wattage do you really need from your power supply? The list goes on.

It’s not that figuring this stuff out is difficult, it’s just that it takes a bit of diligence. And once you give the process some diligence you come out the other end with a rather substantial body of knowledge.

But it’s not just about being able to impress your friends with the million-and-one hardware acronyms you’ve learnt, it’s also about the hard skills developed during the process. Installing a CPU is easy on paper, but a skilled hand makes the whole process much less risky. The seasoned PC builder’s hand is far less likely to bend processor pins or spill thermal paste.

Developing these seasoned hands is incredibly useful throughout your gaming PC’s lifetime. It’s quite likely that, at some point, you’ll want to reapply some thermal paste, or upgrade your RAM or graphics card. If you’ve built your PC yourself, this won’t feel so much like stepping into uncharted territories as it will revisiting familiar ones.

So, at the end of this building process, not only will you be able to show off to your friends and family, you’ll also feel secure in the knowledge that you have a solid understanding of how your PC works, and can fix it or upgrade it at the drop of a hat. 

But perhaps more importantly, you’ll get to press that power button for the first time and watch your own little Frankenstein’s monster come to life, and feel the satisfaction of knowing that all those components you spent so much time with are now doing the work you set for them. 

Anyone who has built a gaming PC themselves knows there’s nothing quite like this feeling. Forget how much cheaper building a PC yourself is, this feeling is priceless.

The Pixel 4a 5G is the largest Pixel smartphone, thanks to its 6.2-inch screen. With the 6-inch Pixel 5, Google goes against the current trend by not considerably increasing the screen size.

The 499-Euro (~$590) Pixel 4a 5G shares a lot of features with the 630-Euro (~$743) Pixel 5. Both smartphones have very restrained design. However, the polycarbonate housing of the Pixel 4a 5G does not provide as much grip as the housing of the Pixel 5. Nonetheless, the Pixel 4a 5G still feels very good in the hand. And there are surprises: The Pixel 4a 5G comes with a 3.5-mm headphone jack unlike the more expensive Pixel 5. 

Unofficial successor to the Pixel 4a

There are not many differences in terms of the screen, performance, cameras and battery life between the Pixel 4a 5G and the Pixel 5. Both Pixel smartphones have an OLED display with HDR support and an octa-core Snapdragon 765G. Both smartphones have the same dual-camera system with a 12.2-MP main sensor, which produces very good photographs in daylight and can record 4K video at 60 frames per second. Despite a slightly smaller battery (3880 vs 4080 mAh), the Pixel 4a 5G comes very close to the exceptional battery life of the Pixel 5.

At the end of the day, it is not things of utmost import that separate from the Pixel 4a 5G from the Pixel 5. The Pixel 4a 5G has 6 GB of RAM instead of 8, a 60-Hz screen instead of a 90-Hz display. When compared to the Pixel 5, it also supports fewer 5G frequency bands and lacks wireless charging and an IP certification.

While the Pixel 4a 5G is very similar in terms of hardware to the Pixel 5, it is well ahead of the smaller 5.8-inch Pixel 4a in some areas: Better performance, better camera, 5G support as indicated by the name. This makes the Pixel 4a 5G a sort of unofficial XL variant of the Pixel 4a.