Update: Walmart’s restock of the PS5 and Xbox Series X seems to be over. If you’re looking for some accessories to go with a console, we have some picks below.
Due to the global electronic component shortage, getting your hands on a PS5 or Xbox Series X has been challenging. Fortunately, if you want another shot at getting either next-gen console, Walmart has done a surprise drop right now for both systems, while supplies last.
As seen on Walmart’s website, the PS5 digital edition and Xbox Series X gaming consoles are available for purchase. We’re noticing that stock is coming in and out, so stick with the page for a few minutes and keep refreshing to see if you can add one to your cart.
Once you get your PS5, if you are looking to buy some games, some of the hottest titles such as Returnaland Spider-Man: Miles Morales are available on the console. Resident Evil Village is releasing tomorrow, May 7th.
If you are worried about not having a ton of storage available to store all of your games, the latest PS5 update allows you to store PS5 games on an external hard drive. Although you cannot play these games on an external HDD, this is still good to help manage which games are currently stored on your SSD.
Xbox fans, once you have secured Microsoft’s next-gen console, if you are unsure what type of games to buy, a subscription to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate might be the best option for you. It includes a robust library of first- and third-party titles for you to download and play. And unlike the PS5, you can purchase a 1TB SSD expansion to add to the Xbox’s base storage (512GB on the Series S, 1TB on the X), though it is not cheap.
Xbox Series X
$500
Prices taken at time of publishing.
The Xbox Series X is Microsoft’s flagship console, serving as its most powerful (and biggest) option that costs $499.99. While the Series S is aimed at smooth 1440p performance, the Series X is focused on fast 4K gameplay.
$500
at Walmart
Xbox Series S
$300
Prices taken at time of publishing.
The Xbox Series S costs $299.99. Compared to the Series X, it’s far smaller, less powerful, and it has half the amount of SSD storage built in. It also lacks a disc drive.
Android TV has rolled out a home screen update for Freeview Play designed to make it easier for viewers to explore content relevant to their tastes.
Users will now have access to a new ‘Discover’ tab that offers personalised suggestions based on viewing history, interests and Google trends. A forthcoming update will add recommendations from the 30,000 hours of on-demand content on Freeview Play.
Additionally, the main interface’s ‘On Now’ row has been simplified to give clearer programme information with a new tile providing quick access to the live TV guide.
To make it easy for viewers to watch Freeview Play’s on-demand programmes, content rows have been updated with player tiles that will link viewers straight to the app they are interested in.
Previously the integration of Android TV and Freeview Play hasn’t always made for the easiest of combinations, resulting in an interface that felt convoluted. Speaking about the changes Ed Corn, Head of Android TV Partnerships, said: “People in Britain cherish a helpful and smart TV experience.
“We are glad that through our work with Freeview Play, more UK viewers will profit from an updated Android TV experience that makes it easy for them to find and watch their favourite shows.”
MORE
Freeview Play: what is it? How can you get it?
See all our Freeview digital TV box reviews
Read our Humax Aura review: Android TV, Freeview Play and 4K HDR
(Pocket-lint) – Samsung’s 2020 flagship phones came in the form of the Galaxy S20 Ultra, Galaxy S20+ and the Galaxy S20 – now succeeded by the Galaxy S21, S21+ and S21 Ultra.
The Galaxy S20+ sits in the sweet spot of the three 2020 devices, offering a big display, lovely design and some great specifications but how does it compare to its predecessor?
This is the Samsung Galaxy S20+ against 2019’s Galaxy S10+ to help you work out what the differences are. You can also find out how the Galaxy S21 devices compare to the Galaxy S20 devices in our separate feature.
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Design
S20+: 161.9 x 73.7 x 7.8mm, 186g
S10+: 157.6 x 74.1 x 7.8mm, 175g
It is clear the Samsung Galaxy S20+ and the Galaxy S10+ are part of the same family, both offering premium, solid finishes made up of a combination of metal and glass. The Galaxy S20+ offers a refreshed design compared to the S10 though, opting for a vertical rectangular camera housing in the top left of its rear over the horizontal rectangular housing found in the centre of the S10+’s rear.
On the front, the punch hole cameras positioned in the top right corner of the S10+’s display have been replaced with a centralised singular punch hole camera on the S20+, resulting in a much neater and more symmetrical design. It takes up less screen space so it’s a nicer effect.
The Galaxy S20+ adjusts the aspect ratio slightly too compared to the S10+, meaning a slightly narrower, taller device. Both are IP68 water and dust resistant and both have an under display fingerprint sensor on board, which is very much the same in terms of performance.
The S20+ also loses the “Bixby button” on the side.
Display
S20+: 6.7-inch, Infinity-O, 120Hz
S10+: 6.4-inch, Infinity-O, 60Hz
Despite offering only a slight increase in height, the Samsung Galaxy S20+ has a 0.3-inch larger display than its predecessor – which is a result of the slightly adjusted aspect ratio we mentioned and a further reduction in bezels.
Both the S20+ and the S10+ have Quad HD resolutions, which Samsung has been offering on its flagship devices for some time now. The Infinity-O display on both devices offers virtually bezel-free edges and a punch hole camera cut out. Thanks to the repositioning and switch to one camera on the S20+ though, this cut out is much less intrusive compared to the S10+.
The S20+ and S10+ both have Super AMOLED screens, offering plenty of vibrancy and deep blacks and both support HDR10+. The S20+ offers a 120Hz refresh rate at Full HD+ however – though not variable like the S21 – while the S10+ operates at 60Hz. That means the S20+ will give you smoother animations around the device, although you might not actually notice much difference in practice unless you have the devices side-by-side.
The Samsung Galaxy S20+ is a powerful device, offering 2020’s Exynos 990 processor in the UK and Europe, or the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor in the US and elsewhere. Supporting these chipsets is 12GB of RAM as standard, coupled with 128GB or 512GB of storage, both of which offer microSD support for storage expansion.
The Galaxy S10+ also comes with a powerful processor in 2019’s Exynos 9820 or Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855, depending on the region, but it offers 8GB of RAM as standard. To get the 12GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, you’d have to opt for the ceramic model. The S10+ is also only 4G compatible, while the S20+ is 5G enabled.
Both the Galaxy S20+ and the Galaxy S10+ offer fast charging, wireless charging and reverse wireless charging. The S20+ has a 400mAh larger battery capacity though, which should mean it lasts a little longer than the S10+, although in practise we don’t think there’s much of a difference.
S10+: 16MP ultra wide, 12MP main, 12MP telephoto, 3D Depth; 10MP + 3D Depth front
The Samsung Galaxy S20+ changed things up quite a bit in the camera department compared to its predecessor. Both offer quad rear cameras, but the S20+ has a new 12-megapixel main camera that features larger pixels and a fixed aperture, while the S10+ had Dual Aperture.
The S20+’s ultra wide camera also gets a 12-megapixel sensor, but with smaller pixels and a narrower aperture, while on the telephoto lens, Samsung goes for resolution in the S20+, with a 64-megapixel sensor compared to the S10+’s 12-megapixel offering. The zoom is a little more complicated on the S20+ than the S10+, with what Samsung calls “Hybrid Optic Zoom” out to 3x optical and Super Resolution Zoom taking you out to 30x. This latter option is basically zoom with AI to try and clean things up.
On the front things change too. The S10+ offers a dual front camera, while the S20+ only has one single camera.
There are several new features with the S20 device though, including Single Take that allows you to capture from all cameras at once, as well as 8K video capture capabilities – which the S20+ uses that 64-megapixel sensor for. The S10+ meanwhile, also has a number of great features, but only 4K video capture.
Price
S20+: From £999 (5G)
S10+: From £899 (4G)
The Samsung Galaxy S20+ started at £100 more than the S10+ when it first arrived as it was only available as a 5G handset in the UK.
The Samsung Galaxy S10+ started at £899 when it arrived in March 2019.
Both models should be available cheaper now though given they have been succeeded by the Galaxy S21 series.
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Conclusion
The Samsung Galaxy S20+ not only offers a nicer design than the Galaxy S10+, but it offers numerous improvements, including a larger and faster display, more camera capabilities and better hardware, such as more RAM as standard and a larger battery capacity.
The Galaxy S10+ is still a great phone however, and is quite a bit cheaper following the availability of the S20+ and S21+, which might make it a better choice for those on a budget. For those wondering whether to upgrade, the S20+ has some great potential, but it’s still pretty close in experience to the Galaxy S10+ so you might want to consider the S21+ instead.
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Reviews for Capcom’s Resident Evil Village have gone live, and we’re taking the opportunity to look at how the game runs on the best graphics cards. We’re running the PC version on Steam, and while patches and future driver updates could change things a bit, both AMD and Nvidia have provided Game Ready drivers for REV.
This installment in the Resident Evil series adds DirectX Raytracing (DXR) support for AMD’s RX 6000 RDNA2 architecture, or Nvidia’s RTX cards — both the Ampere architecture and Turing architecture. AMD’s promoting Resident Evil Village, and it’s on the latest gen consoles as well, so there’s no support of Nvidia’s DLSS technology. We’ll look at image quality in a moment, but first let’s hit the official system requirements.
Capcom notes that in either case, the game targets 1080p at 60 fps, using the “Prioritize Performance” and presumably “Recommended” presets. Capcom does state that the framerate “might drop in graphics-intensive scenes,” but most mid-range and higher GPUs should be okay. We didn’t check lower settings, but we can confirm that 60 fps at 1080p will certainly be within reach of a lot of graphics cards.
The main pain point for anyone running a lesser graphics card will be VRAM, particularly at higher resolutions. With AMD pushing 12GB and 16GB on its latest RX 6000-series cards, it’s not too surprising that the Max preset uses 12GB VRAM. It’s possible to run 1080p Max on a 6GB card, and 1440p Max on an 8GB card, but 4K Max definitely wants more than 8GB VRAM — we experienced inconsistent frametimes in our testing. We’ve omitted results on cards where performance wasn’t reliable in the charts.
Anyway, let’s hit the benchmarks. Due to time constraints, we’re not going to run every GPU under the sun in these benchmarks, but will instead focus on the latest gen GPUs, plus the top and bottom RTX 20-series GPUs and a few others as we see fit. We used the ‘Max’ preset, with and without ray tracing, and most of the cards we tested broke 60 fps. Turning on ray tracing disables Ambient Occlusion, because that’s handled by the ray-traced GI and Reflection options, but every other setting is on the highest quality option (which means variable-rate shading is off for our testing).
Our test system consists of a Core i9-9900K CPU, 32GB VRAM and a 2TB SSD — the same PC we’ve been using for our graphics card and gaming benchmarks for about two years now, because it continues to work well. With the current graphics card shortages, acquiring a new high-end GPU will be difficult — our GPU pricing index covers the details. Hopefully, you already have a capable GPU from pre-2021, back in the halcyon days when graphics cards were available at and often below MSRP. [Wistful sigh]
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Granted, these are mostly high-end cards, but even the RTX 2060 still posted an impressive 114 fps in our test sequence — and it also nearly managed 60 fps with ray tracing enabled (see below). Everything else runs more than fast enough as well, with the old GTX 1070 bringing up the caboose with a still more than acceptable 85 fps. Based off what we’ve seen with these GPUs and other games, it’s a safe bet that cards like the GTX 1660, RX 5600 XT, and anything faster than those will do just fine in Resident Evil Village.
AMD’s RDNA2 cards all run smack into an apparent CPU limit at around 195 fps for our test sequence, while Nvidia’s fastest GPUs (2080 Ti and above) end up with a lower 177 fps limit. At 1080p, VRAM doesn’t appear to matter too much, provided your GPU has at least 6GB.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Turning on ray tracing drops performance, but the drop isn’t too painful on many of the cards. Actually, that’s not quite true — the penalty for DXR depends greatly on your GPU. The RTX 3090 only lost about 13% of its performance, and the RTX 3080 performance dropped by 20%. AMD’s RX 6900 XT and RX 6800 XT both lost about 30-35% of their non-RT performance, while the RTX 2080 Ti, RX 6800, RTX 3070, RTX 3060 Ti, and RTX 3060 plummeted by 40–45%. Meanwhile, the RX 6700 XT ended up running at less than half its non-DXR rate, and the RTX 2060 also saw performance chopped in half.
Memory and memory bandwidth seem to be major factors with ray tracing enabled, and the 8GB and lower cards were hit particularly hard. Turning down a few settings should help a lot, but for these initial results we wanted to focus on maxed-out graphics quality. Let us know in the comments what other tests you’d like to see us run.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The performance trends we saw at 1080p become more pronounced at higher resolutions. At 1440p Max, more VRAM and memory bandwidth definitely helped. The RX 6900 XT, RX 6800 XT, RTX 3090, and RTX 3080 only lost a few fps in performance compared to 1080p when running without DXR enabled, and the RX 6800 dipped by 10%. All of the other GPUs drop by around 20–30%, but the 6GB RTX 2060 plummeted by 55%. Only the RTX 2060 and GTX 1070 failed to average 60 fps or more.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
1440p and ray tracing with max settings really needs more than 8GB VRAM — which probably explains why the Ray Tracing preset (which we didn’t use) opts for modest settings everywhere else. Anyway, the RTX 2060, 3060 Ti, and 3070 all started having problems at 1440p with DXR, which you can see in the numbers. Some runs were much better than we show here, others much worse, and after repeating each test a bunch of times, we still aren’t confident those three cards will consistently deliver a good experience without further tweaking the graphics settings.
On the other hand, cards with 10GB or more VRAM don’t show nearly the drop that we saw without ray tracing when moving from 1080p to 1440p. The RTX 3060 only lost 18% of its 1080p performance, and chugs along happily at just shy of 60 fps. The higher-end AMD and Nvidia cards were all around the 15% drop mark as well.
But enough dawdling. Let’s just kill everything with some 4K testing…
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Well, ‘kill’ is probably too strong of a word. Without ray tracing, most of the GPUs we tested still broke 60 fps. But of those that came up short, they’re very short. RTX 3060 is still generally playable, but Resident Evil Village appears to expect 30 fps or more, as dropping below that tends to cause the game to slow down. The RX 5700 XT should suffice in a pinch, even though it lost 67% of its 1440p performance, but the 1070 and 2060 would need lower settings to even take a crack at 4K.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Even with DXR, the RTX 2080 Ti and RX 6800 and above continue to deliver 60 fps or more. The RTX 3060 also still manages a playable 41 fps — this isn’t a twitch action game, so sub-60 frame rates aren’t the end of the world. Of course, we’re not showing the cards that dropped into the teens or worse — which is basically all the RTX cards with 8GB or less VRAM.
The point isn’t how badly some of the cards did at 4K Max (with or without DXR), but rather how fast a lot of the cards still remained. The DXR switch often imposed a massive performance hit at 1080p, but at 4K the Nvidia cards with at least 10GB VRAM only lost about 15% of their non-DXR performance. AMD’s GPUs took a larger 25% hit, but it was very consistent across all four GPUs.
Resident Evil Village Graphics Settings
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You can see the various advanced settings available in the above gallery. Besides the usual resolution, refresh rate, vsync, and scaling options, there are 18 individual graphics settings, plus two more settings for ray tracing. Screen space reflections, volumetric lighting and shadow quality are likely to cause the biggest impact on performance, though the sum of the others can add up as well. For anyone with a reasonably high-end GPU, though, you should be able to play at close to max quality (minus ray tracing if you don’t have an appropriate GPU, naturally).
But how does the game look? Capturing screenshots with the various settings on and off is a pain, since there are only scattered save points (typewriters), and some settings appear to require a restart to take effect. Instead of worrying about all of the settings, let’s just look at how ray tracing improves things.
Resident Evil Village Image Quality: Ray Tracing On / Off
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Or doesn’t, I guess. Seriously, the effect is subtle at the best of times, and in many scenes, I couldn’t even tell you whether RT was on or off. If there’s a strong light source, it can make a difference. Sometimes a window or glass surface will change with RT enabled, but even then (e.g., in the images of the truck and van) it’s not always clearly better.
The above gallery should be ordered with RT off and RT on for each pair of images. You can click (on a PC) to get the full images, which I’ve compressed to JPGs (and they look visually almost the same as the original PNG files). Indoor areas tend to show the subtle lighting effects more than outside, but unless a patch dramatically changes the way RT looks, Resident Evil Village will be another entry in the growing list of ray tracing games where you could skip it and not really miss anything.
Resident Evil Village will release to the public on May 7. So far, reviews are quite favorable, and if you enjoyed Resident Evil 7, it’s an easy recommendation. Just don’t go in expecting ray tracing to make a big difference in the way the game looks or feels.
Nintendo told investors today it expects sales of the Switch, which has been the best-selling console for over two straight years even though it’s a last-gen product, to decline in fiscal year 2022 at least partly because of global component shortages.
The company said in its fiscal year 2021 earnings report that “the production of products might be affected by obstacles to the procurement of parts, including the increase in global demand for semiconductor components.” Note that chips aren’t the only thing Nintendo’s worried about—it’s also warning about parts.
That’s likely because chips aren’t the only components in short supply. They might not even be the biggest factor for the Switch, which features an Nvidia Tegra X1 system-on-a-chip made using TSMC’s 20nm and 16nm processes, depending on the iteration of the X1. (The original Switch used the T210; new models use the T214.)
Those trailing-edge processes are also in short supply, sure, but they aren‘t seeing as much demand as TSMC’s leading-edge processes. Nintendo isn’t fighting over the coveted sub-10nm processes found in the latest CPUs, GPUs, and SoCs; it’s using a two-year-old-at-best SoC that’s pretty much exclusively used by Nintendo and Nvidia.
Instead the company might be constrained by the availability of display panels, networking chips, and other Switch components affected by the semiconductor shortage. An abundance of X1s doesn’t mean much to Nintendo if they aren’t accompanied by every other part on which its hybrid game console relies.
Nintendo based its expectations for 2022 on the assumption that it could procure all those parts, however, which means it’s likely worried the Switch will finally lose steam now that it has increased competition from the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S and won’t benefit from the pandemic-induced need to play Animal Crossing.
Here’s the good news: Nintendo’s almost certainly planning to release a followup to the Switch in the near future. Reports have indicated that the new console will offer 4K gaming support, boast a 7-inch OLED display, and feature a new SoC from Nvidia that enables the company’s DLSS technology for improved graphics performance.
The world’s first HDMI-equipped smartphone is coming to Europe. The Sony Xperia Pro – which has an HDMI input – launched in the US and Japan in January, and is now available to preorder in the UK, Germany and the Nordic countries.
It’s aimed at creative professionals looking to “streamline their workflow”. In other words, you can hook it up to your pro-grade camera or video camera and use it as an external monitor. And because it has 5G connectivity, you can livestream or upload snaps and vids straight to a website or social network of your choosing, wherever you are (as long as you have signal).
Just keep an eye on your data usage, as big file sizes will eat through it in no time.
(Image credit: Sony)
The dedicated External Monitor mode gives you a screen lock function, screen brightness adjustment, zoom capabilities, adjustable grid lines and more. The 6.5in display is a lot bigger than most camera’s screens, and because it’s a 4K OLED it should be nice and bright and clear, so it should provide lots more detail.
The Xperia Pro has the same cameras as the awesome Xperia 1 II – currently sitting pretty atop our list of best smartphones for movies and music. And you know what they say, the best camera is the one that’s always with you.
Its screen also has the same 21:9 aspect ratio, making it better for watching movies. Fire up its creator mode and you’ll have a specially calibrated D65 white point, referencing the colour reproduction of Sony’s professional colour monitors. So colours should be on point.
And it should last you out in the field, with IP65/68 water- and dust-resistance and Corning Gorilla Glass 6 on the front.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 chip will keep things moving nicely, and the 4000mAh battery is equipped for fast charging.
But such power and connectivity doesn’t come cheap. In the UK, the Xperia Pro costs £2299 – that’s over twice the price of the Xperia 1 II. It goes on sale next week
MORE:
These are the best smartphones for movies and music
Here’s what’s new with the Sony Xperia 1 III
Take a look at the best Android phones around right now
Nintendo Switch sales were up 44 percent percent from January to March compared to the same pandemic-impaired quarter from a year earlier. Today’s numbers bring total Switch sales to 28.83 million for the fiscal year, up 37 percent compared to the 21 million Switch consoles the company shipped the year prior, and beating the company’s own revised forecast.
In February, Nintendo raised its annual forecast to 26.5 million Switch units for the fiscal year ending March 31st on the strength of increased demand during the COVID-19 pandemic, a number that had already been raised from 19 million units at the start of the year. The lifetime-to-date sales figure now stands at 84.59 million Switch units shipped worldwide since its launch in 2017, creeping up on the Wii console’s 101.63 million lifetime sales mark.
Game sales for the year also spiked by 37 percent, selling 230.88 million units compared to 168.72 million units in the previous fiscal year, led by Animal Crossing: New Horizons with 20.85 million units sold. Other notables were Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (10.62 million units), Super Mario 3D All-Star (9.01 million units), and Ring Fit Adventure (7.38 million units). Nintendo claimed 36 million-seller titles during the fiscal year, 22 from Nintendo and 14 by other publishers. Newly released Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury sold5.59 million units.
Looking forward, Nintendo is planning to release a blue Switch Lite in May. The company is also preparing global launches for additional first-party software titles, including Miitopia in May, Mario Golf: Super Rush in June, and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD in July. Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Pokémon Shining Pearl are planned for late 2021. Nintendo says that it’s working with Niantic “to develop a new application featuring Pikmin for smart devices” that will be released in the second half of 2021.
Nintendo’s full-year revenue increased to 1.76 trillion yen, up 35 percent compared to the 1.3 trillion yen earned last year, netting a full-year profit of 480.3 billion yen (about $4.4 billion). The company is forecasting sales of 1.6 trillion yen against 25.5 million Switch consoles for the year ending March 2022.
Nintendo is rumored to be working on a new Switch with 4K output that will better compete with more powerful Xbox and PlayStation consoles. It’s said to have a larger 7-inch 720p OLED panel built by Samsung that’s set to enter mass production in June for July assembly.
The Oppo Reno5 lineup launched at the beginning of this year, but it’s only now that it’s getting a European release. Now, the most affordable of the bunch – the Reno5 is here and looks well-equipped too. An OLED panel with a high refresh rate, fast charging, capable SoC, lightweight build and plenty of base storage and memory.
And in a (not so) surprising move, Oppo is releasing this one under two names in Europe. The Reno5 is launching in Eastern Europe, whereas Western Europe is getting it as the Find X3 Lite. The two models are identical in specs as you can see.
Oppo Reno5 5G • Oppo Find X3 Lite
So even though we got specifically the Reno5 model for review, our review findings should apply to both devices in equal parts.
While the Oppo brand is well-known in Asia, and even though it’s yet to make a name for itself in Europe, it’s positioned as a premium brand elsewhere. So it’s no wonder that the company avoids undercutting the competition price-wise and yet focuses on making well-executed handsets with a premium look and feel.
The Reno5 (or Find X3 Lite, if you prefer) uses a bright, 90Hz OLED panel and a 64MP main camera and it also offers one of the fastest charging technologies. It’s also nicely compact and pocketable.
Probably the biggest selling point of this one is its size and ergonomics. In a market where behemoths rule, the Reno5 5G is a breath of fresh air with its compact 6.43-inch display and a weight of 172g.
Oppo Reno5 5G specs at a glance:
Body: 159.1×73.4×7.9mm, 172g; Gorilla Glass 5 front, plastic back and frame.
Display: 6.43″ AMOLED, 90Hz, 430 nits (typ), 750 nits (peak), 1080x2400px resolution, 20:9 aspect ratio, 410ppi.
Chipset: Qualcomm SM7250 Snapdragon 765G 5G (7 nm): Octa-core (1×2.4 GHz Kryo 475 Prime & 1×2.2 GHz Kryo 475 Gold & 6×1.8 GHz Kryo 475 Silver); Adreno 620.
Memory: 128GB 8GB RAM, 256GB 12GB RAM; UFS 2.1.
OS/Software: Android 11, ColorOS 11.1.
Rear camera: Wide (main): 64 MP, f/1.7, 26mm, 1/1.73″, 0.8µm, PDAF; Ultra wide angle: 8 MP, f/2.2, 119˚, 1/4.0″, 1.12µm; Macro: 2 MP, f/2.4; Depth: 2 MP, f/2.4.
Front camera: 32 MP, f/2.4, 24mm (wide), 1/2.8″, 0.8µm.
Video capture: Rear camera: 4K@30fps, 1080p@30/60/120fps; gyro-EIS, HDR; Front camera: 1080p@30fps, gyro-EIS.
Battery: 4300mAh; Fast charging 65W, 100% in 35 min (advertised), Reverse charging, SuperVOOC 2.0.
Misc: Fingerprint reader (under display, optical); 3.5mm jack, The phone also comes with 128GB of base storage, and the Snapdragon 765G 5G is nothing to scoff at.
What we can scoff at is the phone’s current pricing. The launch price of €450 is quite optimistic considering that the competition in the midrange is quite heated and this phone comes with a plastic back and frame.
But let’s not rush to any conclusions as this phone might offer more than what meets the eye at first glance. First, time for an unboxing.
Unboxing the Oppo Reno5 5G
The phone comes in a premium-looking box and fresh mint color. It contains the usual user manuals and the 65W-capable wall charger with a USB-A to USB-C cable.
Oppo has also thrown in a bonus case, too, along with a pair of 3.5mm headphones.
Resident Evil Village is the latest addition to the long-running horror series, and just like last year’s Resident Evil 3 remake, it is built on Capcom’s RE Engine. We test over 25 GPUs at 1080p, 1440p and 4K to find out what sort of hardware you need to run this game at maximum settings, while also looking at the performance and visual quality of the game’s ray tracing options.
Watch via our Vimeo channel (below) or over on YouTube at 2160p HERE
In terms of visual settings, there are a number of options in the display menu. Texture and texture filtering settings are on offer, as well as variable rate shading, resolution, shadows, and so on. There’s also selection of quick presets, and for our benchmarking today we opted for the Max preset, but with V-Sync and CAS disabled.
One interesting thing about the Max preset is the default ambient occlusion setting – FidelityFX CACAO, which stands for Combined Adaptive Compute Ambient Occlusion, a technology optimised for RDNA-based GPUs. To make sure this setting wouldn’t unfairly penalise Nvidia GPUs, we tested CACAO vs SSAO with both the RX 6800 and RTX 3070:
Both GPUs only lost 3% performance when using CACAO instead of SSAO, so we were happy to use the former setting for our benchmarking today.
Driver Notes
AMD GPUs were benchmarked with a pre-release driver provided by AMD for Resident Evil Village.
Nvidia GPUs were benchmarked with the 466.27 driver.
Test System
We test using the a custom built system from PCSpecialist, based on Intel’s Comet Lake-S platform. You can read more about it over HERE, and configure your own system from PCSpecialist HERE.
CPU
Intel Core i9-10900K
Overclocked to 5.1GHz on all cores
Motherboard
ASUS ROG Maximus XII Hero Wi-Fi
Memory
Corsair Vengeance DDR4 3600MHz (4 X 8GB)
CL 18-22-22-42
Graphics Card
Varies
System Drive
500GB Samsung 970 Evo Plus M.2
Games Drive
2TB Samsung 860 QVO 2.5″ SSD
Chassis
Fractal Meshify S2 Blackout Tempered Glass
CPU Cooler
Corsair H115i RGB Platinum Hydro Series
Power Supply
Corsair 1200W HX Series Modular 80 Plus Platinum
Operating System
Windows 10 2004
Our 1-minute benchmark pass came from quite early on in the game, as the player descends down into the village for the first time. Over the hour or so that I played, the results do seem representative of wider gameplay, with the exception of intense combat scenes which can be a bit more demanding. Those are much harder to benchmark accurately though, as there’s more variation from run to run, so I stuck with this outdoor scene.
1080p Benchmarks
1440p Benchmarks
2160p (4K) Benchmarks
Closing Thoughts
After previously looking at the Resident Evil 3 remake last year, a game which is also built on Capcom’s RE Engine, I wasn’t too surprised to see that overall performance is pretty similar between both games.
That’s certainly a good thing though, as the game plays very well across a wide range of hardware. At the lower end, weaker GPUs like the GTX 1650, or older cards like the GTX 1060 6GB, still deliver a very playable experience at 1080p max settings. Village also scales very well, so if you have a higher-end GPU, you will be rewarded with significantly higher frame rates.
AMD does see the benefit to its partnership with Capcom for this one, as RDNA-based GPUs do over-perform here compared to the average performance we’d expect from those cards. The RX 6700 XT is matching the RX 3070 for instance – when we’d typically expect it to be slower – while the RX 6900 XT is 7% faster than the RTX 3090 at 1440p.
In terms of visual fidelity, I don’t think the RE Engine delivers a cutting edge experience like you’d get from Cyberpunk 2077 or Red Dead Redemption 2 when using Ultra settings, but it still looks good and I am particularly impressed with the detailed character models.
The only negative point for me is that the ray tracing is pretty underwhelming. As we demonstrate in the video above, it doesn’t really deliver much extra from a visual perspective, at least in my opinion. Overall though, Resident Evil Village looks good and runs well on pretty much any GPU, so it definitely gets a thumbs up from me.
Discuss on our Facebook page HERE.
KitGuru says: Capcom’s newest game built on the RE Engine delivers impressive performance and looks good while doing so.
João Silva 15 hours ago Featured Tech News, Software & Gaming
UL Benchmarks has recently announced the Wild Life Extreme benchmark, a more demanding version of the Wild Life benchmark. Unlike Wild Life, the Extreme version won’t be limited to smartphones and tablets, allowing users to run it on Apple computers with M1 CPUs and Windows 10 PCs, including those powered by Arm processors.
The new Wild Life Extreme benchmark is three times more demanding than the original Wild Life benchmark thanks to the addition of new effects, enhanced geometry, and more particles. Moreover, Wild Life Extreme can run at up to 4K resolution, making it even more demanding. On Windows and Android, the Wild Life Extreme benchmark uses the Vulkan API, but Windows 10 on Arm devices use DirectX 12. On Apple devices, the benchmark uses the Metal API.
With the Wild Life Extreme benchmark, users may compare the GPU performance across most of their devices. The higher the score, the better it performs. Users may choose the quick benchmark to measure peak performance or a longer one for testing sustained performance. Besides showing how your GPU performs against other machines and devices, the 3DMark Wild Life Extreme score can also predict the framerate your system will output in some games.
3DMark Advanced Edition includes the Wild Life Extreme as a free update. Customers with a valid annual license of 3DMark Professional Edition also have free access to the Wild Life Extreme benchmark.
Android users can now download Wild Life Extreme as a free update for the 3DMark Android benchmark app. To run it, your mobile device has to run Android 10 or later and support the Anisotropy feature level 16 and above.
As for Apple users, the Wild Life Extreme benchmark is available on the free 3DMark Wild Life iOS benchmark app. The iOS device compatibility list starts with the iPhone 7 Plus and beyond. Only Apple Mac computers powered by the M1 CPU are compatible with the benchmark.
KitGuru says: Have you already tried the Wild Life Extreme benchmark? What score did you get on your device?
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2020 saw many of the industries biggest events either get cancelled outright, or translated into …
Home/Tech News/Intel ‘Atlas Canyon’ NUC 11 Essential to feature Jasper Lake processors
João Silva 15 hours ago Tech News
A new leak shows that Intel is working on a new affordable NUC powered by Jasper Lake processors. Codenamed ‘Atlas Canyon’, the NUC 11 Essential leak details its specifications and a possible release date, which might be as late as Q1 2022 due to the ongoing chip shortage.
The leak, which was shared by FanlessTech, shows Intel has apparently removed the 2.5-inch drive from its predecessor and replaced it with an M.2 slot. The small and compact casing includes an active cooling system, but a fanless system seems doable given the low TDP.
The slide below shows that there will be three CPU options: the 4C/4T Pentium Silver J6005 (up to 3.3GHz), the 4C/4T Celeron J5105 (up to 2.9 GHz), and the 2C/2T Celeron J4505 (up to 2.7 GHz). The NUC 11 Essential support up to 16GB of DDR4-2933 memory in dual-channel configuration and up to 2x 4K displays. Some models include 64GB of eMMC storage.
Image credit: FanlessTech
Featuring a vast set of connectivity ports and features, the NUC 11 Essential supports Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, and 1Gbps Ethernet connectivity. As for the ports, there’s an HDMI 2.0b port, a DisplayPort 1.4, 2x front USB-A 3.1 ports, 2x rear USB-A 3.1 ports, 2x rear USB-A 2.0 ports, an audio-in 3.5mm jack, and an audio-out 3.5mm jack.
The NUC 11 Essential will be reportedly available as a mini PC, a barebone kit, and as a board only. All should feature a 3-year warranty.
KitGuru says: Despite its entry-level specs, the NUC 11 Essential is very useful as a media PC for the living room or as a work computer that can be mounted on the back of a mid-size monitor to save some desk space.
Home/Peripheral/Monitors/Philips latest gaming monitor boasts a 240Hz IPS panel and HDR
João Silva 2 days ago Monitors
Philips has recently announced a new monitor, expanding its ever-growing portfolio of gaming displays. The latest addition is the 272M1RPE, an IPS gaming monitor with a 240Hz refresh rate that delivers smooth gameplay without sacrificing image quality.
The 27-inch IPS panel has a 1ms response time (G2G), FullHD resolution, and AMD Freesync Premium support for stutter-free gaming. The panel’s typical brightness hovers around 400nits and the contrast ratio at 1000:1, allowing the monitor to cover 119% of the sRGB colour space, 95% of the NTSC spectrum, and 93.4% of the Adobe RGB gamut. Moreover, the monitor comes factory-calibrated with a ΔE < 2 (sRGB).
The 272M1RPE features Philips’ Ambiglow technology, providing a colourful glow around the edges of the monitor, and flicker-free and low-blue light technologies to prevent eye strain. This monitor is VESA DisplayHDR certified and features SmartImage HDR presets, including ‘HDR Gaming’ and ‘HDR Movies’.
The included SmartErgo Base offers a full set of ergonomic features, allowing the user to adjust the tilt, swivel, pivot, and height, but users may also use the monitor with a VESA 100x100mm bracket. For I/O, this monitor comes equipped with 2x HDMI 2.0, a DisplayPort 1.1, a USB-B upstream port, 4x USB 3.2 ports, and a 3.5mm audio jack.
Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru says: A 27-inch FHD/240Hz monitor might not suit everyone due to the low pixel density, but some users prefer the high refresh rate instead of the higher resolution of the QHD/144Hz or 165Hz monitors out there. Which do you prefer for your gaming setup?
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Matthew Wilson 2 days ago General Tech, Professional
Synology has a new pair of professional-grade storage racks launching this week. The 12-bay RackStation RS2421+ and RS2421RP+, and 16-bay RS2821RP+ will be available starting this month, built to excel in large-scale infrastructure backups, business-level file serving and private cloud services.
Speaking on the new racks, Julien Chen, product manager at Synology, explained that both new RackStation products support “essential remote work applications” and well as offering a path for mass storage upgrades with redundant power to ensure file servers are protected in the event of a surge or outage.
In the table below, you can see the specs and features for both new RackStations:
RS2421+ RS2421RP+
RS2821RP+
CPU
Quad-core AMD V1500B
Memory
4 GB ECC DDR4 (max. 32 GB)
Form Factor
2U
3U
Drive Bays6
12 (max. 24)
16 (max. 28)
iSCSI 4K random read IOPS
106K
105K
iSCSI 4K random write IOPS
59K
59K
SMB Seq. 64K read
2200 MB/s
2200 MB/s
SMB Seq. 64K write
1154 MB/s
1164 MB/s
Network Interface
4 x Gigabit RJ-45
PCIe Slots
1 x Gen 3.0 8x slot
Redundant Power Supply
RP+ model only
Yes
Warranty7
5-year limited warranty
Both new RackStation units boast higher performance than their predecessors. The RS2421(RP)+ gets a 103% and 161% boost to random write and read IOPS speeds, while the RS2821(RP)+ delivers 115% and 162% higher random write/read IOPS.
Both devices can be fitted with a dual-port Synology 10GbE or 25GbE NIC for better throughput, or a Synology M.2 adapter card and NVMe SSDs to create a speedy cache. Each rackmount also comes with a three year warranty, which can be extended to five years.
Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru Says: Are you considering a server upgrade for your business? Will you be considering an upgrade to a Synology RackStation for storage?
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Microsoft will begin removing Adobe Flash from Windows next month
Microsoft has revealed plans to start removing Adobe Flash from Windows 10 this year. Flash …
Twitter is finally rolling out a long-awaited feature: bigger images that don’t crop in so darn much. Now, image previews should show way more of the image, giving you a better idea of what you’re actually looking at, and avoiding embarrassing situations where Twitter’s cropping algorithm picks the absolute wrong thing to focus on (sometimes with apparent racial bias).
Twitter announced it would be testing the improvement on iOS and Android back in March, and it should now be making its way to everyone.
Those pictures should also be clearer, given Twitter’s recent update to 4K images — because some art just needs to be seen as clear as possible.
Of course, Twitter giveth and Twitter taketh away — the change will, for the most part, make the “open for a surprise” tweets not so surprising. I suppose it’s a fair trade-off to avoid the sometimes wildly embarrassing crops that used to plague the platform. (Or at least it is for me, someone who follows a ton of artists and is tired of scrolling past poorly cropped drawings that actually end up being really good.)
And hey, if you want to see those memes, it seems like the web version of Twitter on desktops is still susceptible. Hide on, tiny cat.
I’m on my phone, you can’t fool me.Tweet: @ademYz_
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