(Pocket-lint) – Samsung has announced a new family of Galaxy Books for 2021. But with three different models in the line-up, how are you to choose one from the other?
We’re diving through the details to help you figure out which is the best laptop for you.
Price and availability
Galaxy Book: From £699
Galaxy Book Pro: From £1099 (13.3in), £1199 (15.6in)
Galaxy Book Pro 360: From £1199 (13.3in), £1249 (15.6in)
The Galaxy Book is the most accessible with the 8/256GB Core i5 model starting at £699 in the UK – internationally with the Core i3 model you’ll likely find a cheaper starting price.
There’s a jump to the Galaxy Book Pro starting at £1099 for the Core i5 8/512GB or Core i5 8/256GB LTE model 13.3-inch.
The Galaxy Book Pro 360 is the most expensive, starting at £1199 for the Core i5 8/512GB 13.3-inch.
All models will be available to pre-order from 28 April, with general availability from 14 May.
Design and build
Galaxy Book (15.6in): 356.6 x 229.1 x 15.4mm, 1.55kg
Galaxy Book Pro:
13.3in: 304.4 x 199.8 x 11.2mm, 0.87kg
15.6in: 355.4 x 225.8 x 11.7mm, 1.05kg
Galaxy Book Pro 360:
13.3in: 302.5 x 202.0 x 11.5mm, 1.04kg
15.6in: 354.85 x 227.97 x 11.9mm, 1.39kg
All of the new Galaxy Book models sport a similar design: they are thin and light, finished with matte colours spanning Mystic Blue/Navy and Mystic Silver, with other colours available in other regions.
They all use premium materials for a solid finish, with the Galaxy Book and the Galaxy Book Pro 360 both finished in aluminium bodywork, while the lightest of the lot – the Galaxy Book Pro – also uses magnesium alloy to keep the weight down.
The Galaxy Book Pro 360 has a slight twist on the format, with a display that’s a lot more flexible, able to laid flat or folded into tablet mode for more versatile working.
The Galaxy Book is the cheapest model, but is noticeably thicker than the others, and heavier too.
There’s reasonable physical connectivity across these notebooks, each having at least two USB-C connections with the Pro models also offering Thunderbolt 4 through one of these ports.
The Galaxy Book Pro 360 misses out on USB-A, while both other models offer this older port for convenience – as well as HDMI for external displays.
All models also support microSD, some offering SIM slots for LTE versions.
Display
Galaxy Book: 15.6in, LED, FHD
Galaxy Book Pro: 13.3 or 15.6in, AMOLED, FHD
Galaxy Book Pro 360: 13.3 in 15.6in, Super AMOLED, FHD
There Pro models take a step ahead of the regular Galaxy Book in offering AMOLED displays, while the entry-level device is an LED display.
That means the two Pro models will offer the better quality display with richer visuals, also offering better calibrated displays for more accurate colour representation.
All offer the same full HD resolution – 1920 x 1080 pixels – but it’s the Galaxy Book Pro 360 that then goes a little further.
We’ve already mentioned that the Pro 360 has a more flexible display, but it’s also the only touchscreen in the range – and it supports the S Pen, meaning you can do a lot more with it.
Unfortunately, there’s no where to store the S Pen in the chassis of the Pro 360, so you’ll just have to tuck that into your pocket.
Galaxy Book Pro 360: 11-gen Intel Core i5/i7, Iris Xe, 8-16GB RAM, 256-512GB storage, 63/68Wh battery
All the new Galaxy Book models are based around 11-gen Intel Core hardware, offering i3, i5 or i7 models depending on the region. In the UK, only i5 and i7 models will be offered, so check local availability.
RAM starts at 8GB with 16GB an option, while SSD storage starts at 256GB with 512GB the step-up.
All have onboard Intel Iris Xe graphics.
The Galaxy Book has the smallest battery at 54Wh, while the Pro models move to 63Wh for the 13.3-inch model, or 68Wh for the 15.6-inch models.
All models will charge through USB-C, with a 65W charger meaning you can charge all your Samsung devices with just the one charger.
Summing up
Samsung is offering good-looking laptops in the Galaxy Book range, all with a quality finish and reasonable power on offer.
The real differences lie in the display, with the Galaxy Book Pro 360 offering functions that the others don’t – while the Galaxy Book is likely to be the premium workhorse of the trio, offering a lighter body for those on the move and a great looking display.
All run Windows 10 Home, all offer 720p front camera and dual array mics and all offer Dolby Atmos sound – with the Pro models getting AKG tuned speakers. Samsung is keen for these notebooks to work within the Samsung ecosystem efficiently, with easy switching for products like your Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro and syncing with your phone.
Samsung will be among the first with a laptop featuring Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3050 and RTX 3050 Ti, as announced during its Galaxy Unpacked event today. This further confirms additional graphics cards that Nvidia has yet to formally announce.
The two are listed as Max-Q variants of the graphics cards in an infographic Samsung has put up on its website. It also lists 11th Gen Intel Core processors (it’s unclear if it’s existing 35W parts or upcoming 45W parts), as well as up to 32GB of RAM, up to 1TB of NVMe SSD storage and an 83 Wh battery. It charges over a 135W USB Type-C charger, so this may not be the most powerful gaming laptop out there.
(Image credit: Samsung)
The 15.6-inch laptop is set to release in August starting at $1,399, though Samsung wasn’t specific on which markets it will release in.
Just a few days ago, Lenovo briefly listed laptops with the RTX 3050 and 3050 Ti, so it was clear these were coming soon.
Samsung also announced the Galaxy Book Pro lineup today, with OLED displays, Intel Tiger Lake-U processors and extremely thin designs.
with two new Windows laptops: the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro and Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360. Both the clamshell and the convertible options were announced at today’s Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event. They are available for pre-order now and will hit retail stores on May 14.
Both the Book Pro and Book Pro 360 will come in 13.3-inch and 15.6-inch versions, all of which will rely on intel’s Core i5 or Core i7 “Tiger Lake” processors and Iris Xe integrated graphics, and they will carry
Intel Evo
branding.
Samsung Galaxy Book Pro
Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360
CPU
Up to 11th Gen Intel Core i7
Up to 11th Gen Intel Core i7
Graphics
Intel Iris Xe (Integrated)
Intel Iris Xe (Integrated)
RAM
Up to 16GB LPDDR4x
Up to 16GB LPDDR4x
Storage
Up to 512GB NVMe SSD
Up to 1TB NVMe SSD on 15.6-inch inch, Up to 512GB on 13.3-inch
Display
13.3 or 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080, AMOLED
13.3 or 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080, Super AMOLED touch
Networking
LTE (only in some countries, not the US, 13-inch), Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.1
5G (optional, 13-inch), Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.1
Battery
63 Wh (13-inch) / 68 Wh (15-inch)
63 Wh (13-inch) / 68 Wh (15-inch)
Starting Price
13.3-inch: $999, 15.6-inch: $1,099
13.3-inch: $1,199, 15.6-inch: $1,299
There are a number of other similarities between both laptops across the sizes. The whole line is using 1920 x 1080 AMOLED displays (though the Galaxy Book Pro 360’s Super AMOLED also incorporates touch), and they’re made of what Samsung calls 6000-series aluminum. Samsung is also bringing a “secret screen” technology to the laptops, which hampers viewing angles from sides when you are working on private documents. HP has included similar functionality in many of its business laptops for a few years under the name SureView.
Image 1 of 2
(Image credit: Samsung)
Image 2 of 2
(Image credit: Samsung)
The biggest differences between the two models are the networking options and ports. The Galaxy Book Pro will offer Wi-Fi 6E and, in the 13.3-inch option, LTE in some territories. But the Galaxy Book Pro 360’s 13.3-inch configuration will have optional 5G. The Book Pro has Thunderbolt 4, USB Type-C, USB Type-A 3.2, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a microSD card slot and a SIM card slot, while the Book PRo 360 ditches the USB 3.2 in favor of another Type-C port. Both use 65W gallium nitride (GaN) chargers for fast charging. The 15.6-inch Galaxy Book Pro 360 has the largest storage option at 1TB.
There are also differences in color. The Book Pro uses matte colors called mystic blue and mystic silver while the Book Pro 360 opts for a more metallic mystic navy and mystic bronze.
(Image credit: Samsung)
Samsung is touting how thin the laptops are. The Book Pro is 11.2 mm thin on the 13-incher and 11.7 mm on the 15.6-incher, while the Galaxy Book Pro 360 is slightly thicker at 11.5 mm and 11.9 mm, respectively. The smallest of the line, the Galaxy Book Pro 13, will weigh just 1.92 pounds.
The hardware also includes a redesigned keyboard, with scissor switches and rubber domes with 1 millimeter of travel which Samsung says is nearly silent.
Samsung is also emphasizing the two laptops for their spot in the Galaxy-branded ecosystem. That includes using Samsung Notes and PENUP to sync notes across devices, using Smart Switch to transfer files (a first on Samsung’s PCs) and Quick Share. A Galaxy Tab S7 can be used as a second monitor, and a Link to Windows feature will let you use up to five mobile apps on your laptop.
For those of us working from home, there’s a Studio Mode for improved video calling and intelligent noise cancelling to get rid of ambient sounds. Some of this is already built into other apps, but for those not familiar, these may be a nice touch.
The company is also bringing Samsung Care+ to PCs for the first time, allowing for up to two years of customer service and what it says are discounted repairs.
The Samsung Galaxy Book Pro will start at $999 for the 13-inch version and $1,099 for the 15.6 option. The Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360 will start at $1,199 and $1,299 in the same screen sizes, but with touch support and an S Pen.
Samsung has expanded its Galaxy family with four new Galaxy Book “mobile PCs”, each of which can be used in laptop or tablet form.
The new Galaxy Books – the Galaxy Book, Galaxy Book Pro (pictured, top) and Galaxy Book Pro 360 – aim to be as powerful as a laptop but as portable as a tablet, and with the promise of an all-day battery. Prices start from £699, rising to £1499 (full details below).
Samsung wants these Galaxy Books to be the obvious choice for the millions of people who already own Galaxy devices, whether that be the Galaxy S21 phone or the Galaxy Buds earphones, promising a seamless cross-device experience.
Samsung Galaxy Book (Image credit: Samsung)
But there are reasons to consider them whether you’re part of the Galaxy family already: all three Galaxy Books feature Dolby Atmos support, while the Pro and Pro 360 also have VESA-certified DisplayHDR 500 screens, which bodes well for picture performance.
While the Galaxy Book (pictured, above) makes do with a full HD LCD screen, you can jump to a full HD AMOLED with the Galaxy Book Pro or a full HD Super AMOLED on the Pro 360.
Inside are the 11th-gen Intel Core processors and Intel Iris X garphics, plus USB-C and HDMI connections, and a microSD card slot. An upgraded S Pen stylus, as seen on the Galaxy Note phones, is also included on the Galaxy Book Pro 360 (pictured, below), though there’s no storage integrated inside the laptop, which seems a shame.
Only the Pro 360 includes 5G connectivity, with the Pro settling for LTE. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5 are across all three models. All the Galaxy Books use the Windows 10 Home/Pro OS, so expect all the associated Microsoft features including Link to Windows/Microsoft Your Phone mobile connectivity. In fact, Samsung is promising seamless Android and Windows compatibility for something of a world first.
Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360 (Image credit: Samsung)
The real draw is the form factor, with the most compact model (the 13-inch Galaxy Book Pro) coming in at just 11.2mm – “thin like a phone” – and weighing just 870g. And of course you can fold the laptop on itself for a flat tablet experience or to use as a second screen.
The Pro and Pro 360 are also available in a 15.6-inch screen size, while the Galaxy Book is limited to a 15.6-inch display model.
There’s Samsung’s finger print authentication on each of the laptop-tablet combos, plus support for USB-C 65-watt fast charging.
Built from aluminium, the Galaxy Books continue the ‘Mystic’ colour palette of Samsung’s Galaxy phones, with a choice of mystic navy, silver, blue, pink gold and bronze.
Also launching are a range of accessories, including a neoprene pouch with pen holder (£24.99), a Galaxy Book Leather Sleeve (from £149.99), the Smart Keyboard Trio 500 (£39.99) and the Bluetooth Mouse Slim (£52.99).
Can it beat the best tablets and the best laptops? That remains to be seen.
If you’re already smitten you can pre-order now and you’ll get a free pair of Galaxy Buds Pro true wireless earbuds.
On sale from 14th May, full price details are as follows:
Microsoft posted the third quarter of its 2021 financial results today, reporting revenue of $41.7 billion and a net income of $15.5 billion. Revenue is up 19 percent, and net income has increased by 44 percent. Once again, Microsoft has seen strong growth for Surface, Xbox, and cloud-related services.
The PC market isn’t slowing down, despite a global chip shortage, and Microsoft is benefiting from this once again. Windows OEM revenue has grown by 10 percent, reflecting the strong consumer PC demand. Windows non-pro OEM revenue also grew 44 percent, and only Windows OEM Pro revenue declined by 2 percent.
Surface Laptop 4.Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge
Surface hit a $2 billion business milestone in the previous quarter, and Microsoft has recorded $1.5 billion of revenue in Q3. That may look like a dip, but it’s actually up 12 percent year over year during what’s usually a more quiet quarter for Surface sales.
While Microsoft just unveiled its new Surface Laptop 4 and accessories earlier this month, the Surface Pro 7 Plus also debuted for businesses and schools during this recent quarter. The Surface Pro is Microsoft’s most popular Surface device, and this latest model includes a bigger battery, Intel’s 11th Gen processors, a removable SSD, and LTE.
Xbox Series X.
Microsoft is also home to Xbox hardware and games, and once again revenue has grown across gaming. This is the second quarter of sales of Microsoft’s Xbox Series X and Series S consoles, and hardware revenue has grown by a massive 232 percent thanks to these next-gen consoles.
Xbox content and services revenue has also increased by 34 percent compared to the same quarter last year. Gaming became a key hobby for many during 2020, and that trend has remained throughout 2021. Microsoft’s overall gaming revenue is up 50 percent, after reaching $5 billion for the first quarter ever last quarter.
Acer announced in a blog post that it’s getting into the flash storage and memory business with help from a Chinese manufacturer called Biwin. Acer’s brand will be slapped onto each of these SSDs, but it’ll be another company that’s responsible for building them. Even though you’ll see an Acer logo on this storage, it’s Biwin that’ll handle the warranty for these products.
Acer isn’t the only major company utilizing Biwin’s hardware. This storage and memory manufacturer also puts out HP-branded products, including portable SSDs, NVMe SSDs, 2.5-inch SATA SSDs, and RAM.
The latest partnership aims to release Acer-branded products first in the US, China, Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and in the UK. Release dates and prices weren’t shared, but The Verge contacted Biwin for more information.
Acer and Biwin are kicking things off with a 2.5-inch SATA SSD called the SA100 with up to a 1.92TB version available, which has up to a 560MB/s read speed. Its RE100 comes in a 2.5-inch form factor, or as an M.2 SATA SSD, and either will have configurations of up to 4TB, and its read and write speeds top out at 560MB/s and 520MB/s, respectively. Lastly, a much faster M.2 PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD called the FA100 will come in capacities up to 2TB, with read and write speeds of up to 3,300MB/s and 2,700MB/s, respectively.
The partnership will also yield an assortment of laptop and desktop RAM, ranging in capacities from 4GB to 32GB per stick, with up to 3,600MHz in speed. All of these RAM products are listed as “coming soon” on Acer’s storage site.
Matthew Wilson 2 hours ago Featured Tech News, Mouse
Razer is back with another gaming mouse this week. This time around, the Razer Orochi is getting a tune up with the Orochi V2, a compact and ultra lightweight wireless gaming mouse capable of up to 900 hours of use on a single charge.
The Razer Orochi V2 is equipped with the company’s HyperSpeed Wireless technology, making latency a non-issue. It also comes with Razer’s 2nd Gen mechanical mouse switches for even greater response times. Aimed at laptop gamers, the Orochi V2 is designed to be portable, as noted by its smaller, compact design and light weight. In fact, the Orochi V2 weighs in at less than 60g (excluding batteries).
Rather than having a built-in battery that you constantly have to recharge, the Razer Orochi V2 uses a AA battery for power. Just one battery can deliver up to 900 hours of use in Bluetooth mode, or 425 hours of use in Razer HyperSpeed mode.
Here is the full list of specs and features:
Approximate size: 108mm (Length) x 60mm (Width) x 38mm (Height)
The Razer Orochi V2 is available in either black or white colours. Alternatively, there is also the Razer Customs edition, which allows buyers to customise the mouse more to their liking, choosing from over 100 different designs. The Razer Orochi V2 will cost £69.99/$69.99/€79.99, while the Customs Edition costs a bit more, coming in at £89.99/$89.99/€99.99.
KitGuru Says: The Razer Orochi is back and better than ever. What do you all think of the Orochi V2? Is this something you’d add to your portable gaming setup?
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Home/Component/APU/AMD 4700S appears to be the Xbox Series X|S CPU but for PC
João Silva 2 hours ago APU, Featured Tech News
An unknown AMD processor has appeared online, known as the ‘4700S’. The specifications of this processor don’t line up with any of AMD’s announced CPUs or APUs, but based on some of the details, this could be a reused Xbox Series X|S APU with the graphics cores disabled.
As per the retailer (via @9550pro), the AMD 4700S APU is being sold inside a mini-ITX system. Like the Xbox Series X|S APU, this one is based on the 7nm process node and features 8x Zen 2 cores and 16x threads. The naming lacks the “Ryzen” of other AMD APUs and is apparently based on the ‘Cardinal’ platform.
The boost clock is set at 4.0GHz, which is slightly above the Xbox Series X|S consoles. This might be due to the iGPU being disabled, allowing for more power to be delivered to the CPU, therefore allowing higher clock speeds.
Another similarity with the Xbox Series consoles is the 16GB of GDDR6 memory and the lack of DIMM slots. The reseller even added marketing material featuring the Xbox Series X|S APU, implying that this APU is also used on the consoles. Although we can’t confirm it, it’s possible that these APUs have not passed the tests to be equipped on Xbox Series consoles, so AMD resells them with the iGPU disabled.
The reseller also included some benchmark results, showing the AMD 4700S APU is slower than both the Core i7-9700 processor and the Ryzen 7 4750G Pro, but faster than the Core i7-9750H laptop processor.
KitGuru says: If AMD were to sell the Xbox Series console processor as its own product for the DIY PC market, would you buy one?
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Acer is making new inroads in the components market, with both Acer- and Predator-branded SSD storage and RAM modules. The brand has been licensed by Biwin Technologies, which will release the products in the United States, United Kingdom, China, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. Pricing and release dates weren’t announced, though the products have shown up on two dedicated websites.
The Acer SSDs include a 2.5-inch SATA SA100 SSD, an m.2 RE100 SATA drive, and an M.2 PCIe Gen 3 FA100 NVMe SSD. The RAM products include both laptop SODIMM and desktop UDIMM modules ranging from 4GB to 32GB per module, with speeds from 2,666 MHz to 3,200 MHz.
(Image credit: Acer, Biwin)
For “high-performance computing enthusiasts,” there will also be an HT100 RAM module with a heat spreader.
On the Predator side, there’s just one SSD: the GM3500, a PCIe Gen 3×4 NVMe SSD with 3,400 MBps promised read speeds and 3,000 MBps write speeds.
(Image credit: Acer, Biwin)
There are two Predator RAM modules: The Predator Apollo, a “cyberpunk inspired” module with RGB lighting that works with Asus, Aorus, ASRock and MSI’s lighting platforms. It has an aluminum heatsink, can utilize Intel XMP 2.0 and supports speeds between 3,200 MHz and 5,000 MHz.
(Image credit: Acer, Biwin)
The other RAM is the Predator Talos, which focus on lower RAM timings and a zinc-alloy heatsink for faster performance, Biwin claims. Its speeds range from 2,666 MHZ to 4,400 MHz and its black and white shell doesn’t have any RGB, making it fit more more subtle builds.
Biwin is licensing Acer’s names, but it isn’t a new player in the market. The company also makes RAM and SSDs for HP, and occasionally you can find its own branded products on sites like Amazon.
This is Acer’s biggest step into components to date. In October, it started selling its own FrostBlade PC fans, but has largely stuck to its own laptops, desktops and peripherals.
If I asked most people to name a laptop with a detachable keyboard, they’d probably say “Surface Pro.” But there is a number of Windows alternatives out there, for business users and consumers alike. Dell’s newly announced Latitude 7320 Detachable looks to be vying for the top spot in the enterprise market.
Like Dell’s previous Latitude detachable models, the Latitude 7320 Detachable is a powerful Windows tablet with a kickstand and detachable keyboard deck aimed at mobile business users. The 7320’s most significant update is that it includes Intel’s newest 11th Gen processors, up to a Core i7.
The new model also has a 3:2, 1920 x 1280 touch display with support for its own stylus (the 7320 Detachable Active Pen). Dell says this is “the world’s fastest charging stylus pen available on a commercial detachable tablet.” The company claims it will charge up to 100 percent in just 30 seconds and will last for 90 minutes of continuous use on one charge.
Like other modern Latitudes, the 7320 Detachable supports the AI-powered Dell Optimizer software, which improves the device’s performance and battery life over time based on your behavior. Dell claims it’s “the world’s most intelligent business PC.”
The device supports Intel’s vPro platform and can come with Windows 10 Pro and Windows 10 Enterprise as well as Windows 10 Home.
The Dell Latitude 7320 Detachable is available for purchase now. Models start at $1,549.
Whether you’re working or gaming on your computer, there’s nothing quite like the feel of a mechanical keyboard. All of the best gaming keyboards are mechanical, but when it comes time to choose a laptop, you’ll find not many come mechanical switches. While there have been a handful of high-end gaming laptops that managed to incorporate mechanical keys into their designs over the past few years, the amount of vertical space needed is a huge limiting factor.
But last month, Alienware announced that it would be the first-ever brand to use new Cherry MX Ultra Low Profile mechanical switches as it deployed them in a couple current-generation gaming laptops. The Alienware m15 R4 and Alienware m17 R4 were already among the best gaming laptops, but it seemed likely they were about to get better. These unique switches provide strong tactile feedback with an audible click that feels and sounds like one of the company’s famous Cherry MX Blue switches.
The Cherry MX Ultra Low Profile keyboard is available right now as a $147 upgrade option when you configure your laptop on the Alienware website. It also comes with per-key RGB lighting, a feature that the standard Alienware keyboard lacks, and 100 percent anti-ghosting and N-Key rollover.
To demonstrate what Cherry MX Ultra Lower Profile switches feel like, Dell sent me an updated Alienware m17 with them under each key, along with a switch tester that shows what the mechanism looks like without a keycap or surrounding keys covering it. After typing and gaming on the laptop, I’m impressed with just how much this feels like an external, clicky keyboard.
The Cherry MX Ultra Low Profile switches have a fairly deep travel of 1.8mm and a total height of 3.5mm. This is much more compact than regular Cherry MX Blue switches that have 2mm of travel and an 18.5mm total height, or even MX Low Profile switches that have 3.2mm of travel and 11.9mm total height.
Cherry MX Switches Compared: MX Original vs Low Profile and Ultra Low Profile (Image credit: Cherry)
The 1.8mm of travel is good for a laptop keyboard, but it is by no means extraordinary, as we’ve seen ultraportable ThinkPads have this much. What makes the Cherry Ultra Low Profile switches stand out is a design that maximizes the amount of resistance and feedback by placing a taut spring horizontally across a metal base that has two edges which flip up like the “Gullwing” doors on a Delorean car (Cherry specifically cites the car as an inspiration). When you press down on the middle of the key, the spring stretches, pushing the edges down and actuating while you get a pleasant click sound.
(Image credit: Cherry)
Cherry says that the MX Ultra Low Profile switches require 65 grams of force to actuate, which actually makes them a bit more resistant than the 60-gram MX Blue switches you find on so many external keyboards. The keys also have 0.8mm of pre travel, which means that there’s an extra 1mm of travel after you actuate the key and before you bottom out. That’s good, because the goal of every typist, whether they know it or not, is to avoid the unpleasant feeling of bottoming out, pressing against the hard base at the end of a switch.
When I typed on the Alienware m17’s mechanical keyboard, the feel was almost as good as on the Hexgears Impulse — the external keyboard I use every day with my desktop — and its best-in-class Kailh Box White clicky switches. The keys on the laptop felt snappy and emitted a very pleasant click. This enabled me to hit a very strong 102 words per minute with just a 3-percent error rate on the 10fastfingers.com typing test. That’s at the high end of my typical 95 to 100 wpm rate. Better still, my fingers were less tired than after performing the same test on my everyday keyboard.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
To see what it’s like to game with the Cherry MX Ultra Low Profile switches, I loaded a saved game in Cyberpunk 2077 and immediately jumped into a firefight. Moving around with the mechanical keys felt great, but the gaming experience with the Alienware m17’s default, non-mechanical keyboard was also pretty good, so it’s a smaller step up than the typing experience. Gamers who prefer the rapid-fire feel of linear switches will probably not like the clicky feel here, but for me, it was fantastic.
Bottom Line
The Alienware m15 and m17 are already fantastic laptops, thanks to their strong performance, attractive sci-fi inspired designs and gorgeous screen options. The default, non-mechanical keyboard option is snappy and tactile all by itself. However, using Cherry MX Ultra Low Profile switches really takes the everyday typing experience to the next level while also making the gaming feel a bit more responsive. If you’re already spending thousands of dollars on a high-end gaming laptop, the $147 premium to get the mechanical keyboard option is worthwhile as you’ll have no reason to attach an external keyboard, which could cost $100 to $150 on its own. Plus you’ll also get better per-key RGB backlighting along with the better keys.
As a picky typist, I’d like to see some non-gaming laptops using the Cherry MX Ultra Low Profile switches. Alienware told me that, right now, it has an exclusivity window with Cherry, but that’s not going to last forever. I’d love to see other companies, including Dell itself, put this on lightweight consumer and business laptops you can use for productivity. Having this kind of key feel would automatically make any system a contender for the best ultrabooks list.
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Lenovo’s Ideapad Flex 3 Chromebook is one of the tiniest Chromebooks I’ve ever used. It’s also one of the cheapest, retailing for just $349.99.
Any laptop that costs that little is going to have some serious drawbacks — and the Flex 3 certainly does. On the other hand, if you’re the sort of shopper who’s willing to set those aside, this little IdeaPad also has a number of pleasant surprises up its sleeve. There are even a few areas (in particular, the battery life) where it gives significantly more expensive devices a run for their money.
I’ll start with the pleasant surprises. The Flex 3 offers a more modern port selection than I’d expect at its price point — there are two USB 3.1 Type-C Gen 1 ports and two USB 3.1 Type-A Gen 1 ports (one on each side, which is really handy for charging and connecting accessories), as well as a microSD reader, an audio combo jack, and a lock slot. There’s a 720p webcam that works decently well if you’re not in low light. And the touchpad is surprisingly sturdy — I often find that touchpads in this price range feel plasticky. The Flex even comes with a Google Security H1 chip, which encrypts sensitive on-device data.
There’s a power button on the side, as well as a volume rocker.
There are two features that really impressed me (in addition to the battery life, which I’ll discuss later on). First, I can’t stop talking about the keyboard. It’s great, with tons of travel and a satisfying click. The keys have a slightly rough texture that really grew on me. I got one of the highest scores I’ve ever gotten on my usual typing test, with almost no errors. The only note is that it lacks backlighting, a feature you’ll find on more expensive devices like Acer’s Chromebook Spin 713 (our current top Chromebook pick) and Lenovo’s Flex 5 Chromebook.
God, I love a good keyboard.
Second, audio. The balance and volume that these 2W stereo speakers deliver are on par with those of any number of more expensive Chromebooks. They easily beat the Spin 713, which sounds tinny and thin. There are caveats, of course: There’s very little bass, percussion is weak, I heard a bit of distortion at max volume, and you’ll want an external speaker for any crowded setting. But the Flex is great for video conferences and regular music-listening, and certainly beats what I’ve heard from all kinds of Windows laptops that are over $1,000.
Now, for the major drawbacks. First, this thing is a clunker. It’s not too heavy, at 2.65 pounds, but it’s 0.7 inches thick, and it’s not too far from the size of many modern 13-inch laptops despite having just an 11-inch screen. My main turnoff, though, is the bezels. Good lord, the bezels are enormous. When I’m using the Flex 3, I feel like I’m looking at a small window of screen floating in an abyss of black. It looks like a device you’d have bought in 2014.
I wish Lenovo had sprung for a better screen.
I do like some things about the chassis, though. It doesn’t feel at all flimsy, with an aluminum cover and a non-plasticky finish. The display and keyboard are free of flex (despite the laptop’s name). And the 360 hinge is sturdy, with very little wobble.
Speaking of the display, though: That’s the second major drawback here. It’s cramped — I often use two windows side-by-side and I’ve been squinting at tiny text in order to make that work on the Flex 3. Moreover, it’s dim (maxing out at 250 nits), kicks back a ton of glare even indoors, and is quite low-resolution (1366 x 768). I’m gonna be real: It’s pixel-y to look at. I’ve been using the Flex 3 as my primary driver for a week, and while I will miss the keyboard and audio when I send it back, I can’t wait never to have to look at this terrible screen again.
That’s the lowdown on the chassis — let’s look inside. This Ideapad Flex 3 Chromebook configuration is powered by Intel’s dual-core Celeron N4020. That’s the bottom of the barrel as Intel processors go, and it comes with just 4GB of memory (LPDDR4-2400, soldered) and 64GB of eMMC 5.1 storage.
On a Windows machine, these specs would be a hard pass. But Chrome OS is a lighter load, and I can vouch that the Flex 3’s screen is a bigger limit on multitasking than its horsepower is. I was able to use the laptop for a substantial workload, jumping between dozens of Chrome tabs and some apps, but the experience was cramped enough that I wouldn’t recommend it.
The color is called “almond”.
Scrolling got a bit sluggish when I tried to work on top of a Spotify or YouTube stream, and the transitions between laptop and tablet mode were a bit slower than I would’ve liked. The only task where I ran into real trouble, though, was sorting through a batch of shots in Google Photos (with a couple other apps running on the side). The Flex 3 did get the job done, but it was quite slow. The one Zoom meeting I tried (on top of some other tabs I needed) was also a bad experience — audio randomly cut out a couple times, and video was stuttery throughout.
Overall, this device is best if you’re looking to do basic office or school tasks, and don’t think you’ll need to have more than a few things open at a time. (And in case this doesn’t go without saying, you’ll want to stay far away from this thing if you plan on doing anything fancy with Linux.)
The flipside of the weak processor is that the Flex 3 has excellent battery life. I averaged eight hours and 45 minutes to a charge with brightness at 50 percent — and I was pushing the thing harder than most people probably will be, as noted above. You can expect that this thing will last all day, and certainly longer than many more powerful Chromebooks. The 45W charger is acceptably quick, juicing the device up to 60 percent in 52 minutes.
Six rows of keys.
The Flex 3 runs Chrome OS, which means it can run Android apps natively. Some of these have improved since the last time I used this operating system — Messenger is now functional and no longer a complete disaster that bricks the machine, for example. But most of the services I use daily (Slack, Twitter, Gmail, Reddit, etc.) are just better experiences in a browser, so I didn’t use the dedicated app functionality all that often. There’s also still a double-notification problem — every time I got a Slack message, I got a notification both from the Slack Android app and my browser.
The Flex 3 also supports Chrome OS’s tablet mode, which has gotten quite good. It supports Android-esque gesture controls, which should help flatten the learning curve for new Chromebook users (though they were a bit sluggish on this device).
Deciding whether to buy a $350 Chromebook comes down to understanding what the big drawbacks are. In this case, there are two: The screen is cramped, and the processor is weak. So the question to ask is: Given those caveats, can you get your stuff done?
If you’re just using this device to pay bills, email people, and run some YouTube videos, I would say you can. It’ll be a little cramped, but you can. And if you can stomach that, the Flex 3 does deliver some great benefits in other areas, from the great keyboard and convenient ports to the outstanding battery life and respectable audio. In these categories, it rivals or surpasses our top Chromebook pick (the Spin 713). If you’re okay with its flaws, you’ll find that the Flex 3 offers quite a bit for its budget price.
Apple’s product design is usually very good, setting industry standards for how many of the gadgets and computers we use every day look and feel. But the company’s many hits make the less obvious design decisions stand out that much more.
Thanks to the huge amount of new stuff Apple introduced at its “Spring Loaded” event on Tuesday, we have a lot of new Apple designs to scrutinize. While the company generally did pretty well with this round of updates, there are still a few things that made us raise our eyebrows.
The iMac still has a big chin
The new iMac and its large chin.Image: Apple
I think Apple’s new iMacs look really good — except for that darn chin, which, once again, proudly protrudes from the bottom of the computer’s screen like Johnny Bravo’s impressive jawline.
To be fair, Apple did what it could to make the chin look nice. The pastel colors are really fun, and I’m happy Apple removed the giant logo that graced the chin of previous iMac generations. (Remove the “MacBook Air” text from my laptop’s bezel next, Apple.)
And I get that the chin is necessary to allow iMac to be as ridiculously thin as it is. Instead of putting the computer’s internals behind the screen, Apple has stuffed them into the chin.
The new iMac’s logic board and cooling system, stuffed into the chin.Image: Apple
Someday, though, I’d like to see Apple release an iMac with no chin at all — just a screen that’s a computer.
The iMac has white bezels
The white bezels on the new iMac.Image: Apple
Perhaps the most surprising thing to me about the new iMac was its white bezels. Most of Apple’s recent computers have had black bezels, which typically do a better job of hiding the edges of the display and make it less obvious where the screen ends and the bezel begins. (The non-Retina MacBook Air, with its silver bezels, hung around until 2019.)
But again, I have to give Apple some credit for its choice here. Black bezels paired with the bright new iMac colors would be quite jarring — the white looks great with the new iMac colors. And these white bezels are significantly smaller than the giant black bezels on the Intel-based iMacs that are still on sale.
The new iMacs join Apple’s base iPad, the iPad mini, and the iPod touch in the white bezel club. It remains to be seen if the new iMac joining it is foreshadowing others.
The curved corner keys on the iMac’s Magic Keyboard don’t look good
The new Magic Keyboard has some nice upgrades, including a Touch ID sensor (which comes with more expensive models), new function keys, and color-matched aluminum. But the look of just four of the keys on the keyboard makes it much worse than the previous model, in my opinion.
Check out the keys on the four corners of the new Magic Keyboard. Notice how they each have one corner with a much wider curve than the rest?
Apple’s new Magic Keyboard, with the weirdly rounded corner keys.Image: Apple
I just think they don’t look very good. I get that they better match the wider curves of the keyboard itself, but I think they look odd when all of the other keys have four corners with exactly the same curvature.
Here’s an image slider comparing the old keyboard to the new. The uniform corners on the old model look a lot better, in my opinion. Look at that bad right arrow key on the new one!
Apple’s old Magic Keyboard (left) vs. the new one (right).“,”image_left”:{“ratio”:”*”,”original_url”:”https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22461459/Screen_Shot_2021_04_21_at_8.19.05_PM.jpg”,”network”:”verge”,”bgcolor”:”white”,”pinterest_enabled”:false,”caption”:null,”credit”:null,”focal_area”:{“top_left_x”:0,”top_left_y”:0,”bottom_right_x”:860,”bottom_right_y”:449},”bounds”:[0,0,860,449],”uploaded_size”:{“width”:860,”height”:449},”focal_point”:null,”asset_id”:22461459,”asset_credit”:null,”alt_text”:””},”image_right”:{“ratio”:”*”,”original_url”:”https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22461460/blue_keyboard.png”,”network”:”verge”,”bgcolor”:”white”,”pinterest_enabled”:false,”caption”:null,”credit”:null,”focal_area”:{“top_left_x”:0,”top_left_y”:0,”bottom_right_x”:838,”bottom_right_y”:368},”bounds”:[0,0,838,368],”uploaded_size”:{“width”:838,”height”:368},”focal_point”:null,”asset_id”:22461460,”asset_credit”:null,”alt_text”:””},”credit”:null}” data-cid=”apps/imageslider-1619201415_9223_302188″>
Apple’s old Magic Keyboard (left) vs. the new one (right).
And by the way, it looks like the Magic Trackpad that comes with the new iMac has the same wider corners as the new keyboard, too, based on a picture from Apple’s website. So if you want your keyboard and trackpad to have matched corners, you’re going to have to pay extra to get the new trackpad.
Apple’s new Magic Keyboard and Trackpad.Image: Apple
The new iMac does not have a touchscreen, despite looking an awful lot like another Apple device with a touchscreen
Hmm.Image: Apple
The iPad Pro’s front camera is still in portrait instead of landscape
The new iPad Pro’s portrait front camera.Image: Apple
Apple, once again, has released a new iPad Pro with a front camera that’s placed on top of the device in portrait mode instead of on top in landscape mode. That means if you use any keyboard case that requires the tablet to be in landscape and you want to take a video call (which is something a lot of people are doing right now), the camera is awkwardly off to the side instead of right above the middle of your screen.
To try to get around this, Apple upgraded the iPad Pro’s new front camera to make it an ultrawide, and the company debuted a new technology that can automatically keep you in frame during video calls. But we won’t know for sure if that will keep you better-centered until we can test it for ourselves. And it won’t solve the problem of forcing you to look to the side if you want to look directly into the camera.
The new 12.9-inch iPad Pro isn’t compatible with the original Magic Keyboard case
Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
Apple’s new 12.9-inch iPad Pro isn’t compatible with the original Magic Keyboard case, which fits the 2018 and 2020 models of the tablet. It’s not exactly clear why, but it could be because the new iPad Pro is 0.5mm thicker than the 2020 12.9-inch iPad Pro.
Regardless of what the reason is, though, if you’re planning to buy the new 12.9-inch iPad Pro and want to use a Magic Keyboard along with it, you’re also going to have to pony up $349 to buy the new version of the Magic Keyboard case.
AirTags don’t have a built-in keychain loop
Apple’s AirTag tracker doesn’t have a keychain loop.Image: Apple
Apple’s new AirTag item trackers sure seem like they should have an easy way to directly attach to something, but Apple decided not to include a small hole for, say, a keychain or a string. (Yes, I side with my colleague Chaim Gartenberg in his great AirTags keychain loop debate with Jon Porter.)
The Magic Mouse’s charging port is still on the bottom, five and a half years later
This is still how you charge the Magic Mouse.
I already wrote about this one.
There is some hope: it looks like Apple fixed its TV remote
Apple’s new Siri remote, with its iPod-like scroll wheel, a five-way click pad, and smaller touchpad, looks like it will address complaints about the previous Apple TV remote’s annoyingly oversensitive touch controls. And the new aluminum design with black buttons should make it easier to see the buttons on the remote compared to the mostly black design of the previous model.
The ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga is just half-inch thick computer that lags behind similarly priced competitors on productivity, but is supremely classy and convenient.
For
+ Extremely thin
+ Looks and feels classy
+ Great webcam
Against
– Priced for business, so more expensive
– Haptic touchpad can feel unresponsive
When it comes to portability, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga ($1,684.99 to start) is all business. It’s an enterprise notebook that puts thinness above all else, including power.
This is a smaller than half-inch convertible that still manages to stay within spitting distance of other similar competitors on productivity while being even smaller than some detachables (with their keyboards attached, to be fair). Combine that with Lenovo’s excellent keyboard and a classy design that’s easy to feel proud of, and it’s clear how the Titanium Yoga could become a respectable daily driver for casual users or certain trendy businesses that don’t require heavy computing from their employees.
But for the price of the unit we reviewed, which had an Intel Core i5-1130G7, you could easily get a speedier competitor equipped with a Core i7 but without the business trappings of ThinkPad. You’ll have to choose if power or portability is more important for your money, as well as whether you need enterprise features like extra durability and security.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga Specifications
CPU
Intel Core i5-1130G7
Graphics
Intel Iris Xe Integrated Graphics
Memory
16GB LPDDR4x-4266
Storage
512MB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
Display
13.5 inch, 2256 x 1504, IPS, Touchscreen
Networking
Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 11ax, Bluetooth 5.1
Ports
2x Thunderbolt 4, 3.5mm headphone/microphone combo jack
Camera
720p
Battery
44.5 Wh
Power Adapter
65W
Operating System
Windows 10 Pro
Dimensions(WxDxH)
11.71 x 9.16 x 0.45 inches (297.5 x 232.7 x 11.5 mm)
Weight
2.54 pounds (1.15 kg)
Price (as configured)
$1,684.99
Design of Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
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From its silver color to its textured faux leather lid to its titanium, carbon and magnesium chassis, the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga exudes class. Like a geeky version of a Rolex, this computer is clearly aiming to be a statement piece as much as a genuinely useful device, and for the most part, it succeeds.
That faux leather lid feels soft to the touch, and its texture almost gives the convertible a subdued glittery appearance. The lid’s detailing also makes the ThinkPad feel somewhat like a fancy moleskin journal, both to the eye and to the touch.
Decoration is otherwise minimal, with light ThinkPad branding on the lid and keyboard deck’s outer corners standing out the most. This serves to accentuate the case’s sturdy and solid build quality, which emphasizes the Titanium Yoga’s premium status.
The Titanium Yoga is also thinner than other Intel 11th generation convertibles we’ve tested, coming in at under half an inch of thickness. At 11.71 x 9.16 x 0.45 inches, it’s smaller than the HP Spectre x360 14 (11.75 x 8.67 x 0.67 inches) and the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 9310 (11.69 x 8.15 x 0.56 inches). It’s even smaller than the recent ThinkPad X12 Detachable with its keyboard attached, which sits at 11.15 x 8.01 x 0.57 inches.
This small form factor extends to weight as well. The Titanium Yoga is 2.54 pounds, whereas the Spectre x360 14 is 2.95 pounds, the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 is 2.9 pounds and the X12 Detachable is 2.4 pounds.
The small form factor approach doesn’t come without sacrifices, though. The Titanium Yoga is woefully low on ports, with the left side housing two Thunderbolt 4 connections and the right side simply giving you a single 3.5 mm combination microphone/headphone jack. The device doesn’t come with any dongles, so you’re either going to need to buy them separately or pick your accessories carefully.
The Titanium Yoga also comes with a Lenovo Pen, which magnetically attaches to the right side of the display. This is a secure fit, though it might take you a while to figure out that it can actually attach to the device if you don’t read the manual.
Finally, the Titanium Yoga has MIL-SPEC certification, meaning it can take a tumble or five. This isn’t always found on non-business laptops, giving the ThinkPad an edge up when it comes to durability.
Productivity Performance of Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
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Despite its stylish exterior, our review configuration of the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga packs lackluster performance compared to similarly-priced 11th generation Intel convertibles. The Intel Core i5-1130G7 processor is the same one you’ll find in the tablet based ThinkPad X12 Detachable, and it’s outclassed by the Intel Core i7-1165G7 that powers both the HP Spectre x360 14 and the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1. Our configuration also only came with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD.
It’s not too uncommon to see ThinkPads costing more, however, due to their business classification. And, you can configure the ThinkPad X1 Titanium with a Core i7, if you’re willing to pay a bit more.
On Geekbench 5, a synthetic benchmark for testing PC performance, the Titanium Yoga fell behind each of its competitors. It scored 1,328 on single-core tasks and 4,747 on multi-core tasks. That’s only slightly less performance than you’ll get from the ThinkPad X12 Detachable (1,334 single-core/4,778 multi-core), but other convertibles provide more serious competition with the higher-end chips. The HP Spectre x360 14 hit scores of 1,462 on single-core/4,904 on multi-core, while the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 9310 hit 1,532 on single-core/4,778 on multi-core.
The Titanium Yoga was largely on par with competition when we tested its file transfer speeds, where we tracked how quickly it transferred 25GB of data across its SSD. Here, it hit speeds of 409.26 MBps, which is slightly above the XPS 13 2-in-1’s 405.55 MBps and the X12 Detachable’s 408.39 MBps on the same test. The HP Spectre x360 14 was an outlier here, transferring its files at a speed of 533.61 MBps.
On our Handbrake benchmark, in which we use the free program to track how long it takes a computer to transcode a video file down from 4K to 1080p, once again saw the Titanium Yoga fall towards the bottom of the pack. It finished the task in 20:57, which was faster than the X12 Detachable’s 24:12 but slower than other convertibles. The Spectre x360 14 finished its transcode in 18:05, while the XPS 13 2-in-1 did so in 15:52.
We also ran the Titanium Yoga through Cinebench R23 for 20 runs in a row to simulate an extended intensive work session. Its average score was 3,397, while its CPU ran at an average clock speed of 2.1 GHz. During this time, the CPU hit an average 64.75 degrees Celsius (148.55 degrees Fahrenheit).
Display on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Like plenty of other recent ultraportables, the Titanium Yoga has a 3:2 aspect ratio screen, which means an image with more vertical headroom. This means more letterboxing on 16:9 content, but it also means you’re expanding your vertical resolution to display more, which is particularly useful for reading webpage content. The Titanium Yoga’s IPS touchscreen in particular has a 2,256 x 1,504 resolution image. That’s more detail than you’ll get on the more common 1920 x 1280 resolution found in the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 9310 and the ThinkPad X12 Detachable, but less detail than the HP Spectre x360 14’s 3000 x 2000 resolution.
When I watched the trailer for Nobody on the Titanium Yoga, I was impressed by how deep the blacks were, but not by much else. The screen was bright enough that I didn’t have to strain to view it, and while colors were accurate, they were not vivid. Viewing angles were also restrictive in a well-lit room, and I had to sit almost directly in front of the laptop to have a workable image. Turning off my lights solved this problem, but that’s not an applicable solution all of the time. I also noticed a mild glare on the screen even when holding it away from heavy light, but it was easy enough to ignore.
Of course, the Titanium Yoga’s aspect ratio is meant more for surfing the web or working on documents than watching a movie. In that respect, the Titanium Yoga exceeded, especially in tablet mode. Reading on it feels almost like browsing through a well put-together coffee table book.
Our testing found that, when it comes to color, the Titanium Yoga is roughly on par with competition. It covers 71.1% of the DCI-P3 color spectrum, which is about the same as the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1’s 70% DCI-P3 rating and the ThinkPad X12 Detachable’s 74.9% rating. The HP Spectre x360 14 stands as an outlier, hitting a vibrant 139.7% DCI-P3 rating.
The Titanium Yoga had a higher average brightness than most competitors in our testing. It registered at an average 425 nits, with only the XPS 13 2-in-1’s 488 nits beating it. The X12 Detachable had 376.2 average nits of brightness, where the HP Spectre x360 14 was the dimmest at 339 nits.
Keyboard, Touchpad and Stylus on the LenovoThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga doesn’t make any changes to the classic ThinkPad keyboard design, which makes it a great typer, but its unconfigurable haptic touchpad leaves it feeling unresponsive elsewhere.
The ThinkPad style keyboard is an old favorite among techies, and it works well on the Titanium Yoga. This keyboard has concave keycaps to help you easily touch-type without having to look at its buttons, which feel like they have reasonable travel distance for such a thin machine. I regularly hit between 80 – 85 words per minute on this keyboard, which is between five to ten points higher than I usually score.
The trackpoint nub is also back here, and you can press on it like an analog stick to move your mouse cursor. It’s kind of an old-fashioned solution, but it works well and is decent if you don’t like taking your fingers off home row. I even found myself using it a few times, despite generally preferring touchpads, since I found the Titanium Yoga’s touchpad lacking.
While my finger smoothly glides around the Titanium Yoga’s touchpad and multi-touch gestures are easy to perform thanks to its precision drivers, the touchpad uses haptic feedback and has no travel when you press it in. We’ve seen this option before on MacBooks and certain other PCs, but it’s unconfigurable here, and the amount of force I needed to actuate the touchpad feels awkward to me. Sometimes presses register, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes I right click when I mean to left click, and vice versa.
There are physical left, right and even middle click buttons above the touchpad, though those exist more for trackpoint users and are inconvenient to reach for when using the touchpad. Additionally, the 3.5 x 2.5 inch touchpad dimensions leave it feeling a little small, and it wasn’t uncommon for my finger to bump up against its sides.
The Titanium Yoga also comes with a Lenovo Pen, which tracks writing well and has three programmable buttons. One of those buttons is where you’d normally place an eraser, but unfortunately isn’t touch sensitive. Palm rejection is impressive here, as I could fully place my palm on the display while writing or drawing with the pen without having the ThinkPad pick it up. The only time palm rejection failed was when I tried to use Windows’ built-in feature that translates handwriting to text when you click on a text box with your stylus. In these situations, my cursor bounced all over the place.
Audio on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
Audio on the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga is loud and accurate, if not what I’d use to DJ my first post-lockdown party. The convertible has two top-firing speakers, one on each side of its keyboard, which I tested by listening to Leave the Door Open by Bruno Mars, Anderson .Paak and Silk Sonic.
This song’s full of drum beats and smooth vocal performances all over the pitch spectrum, but despite that, nothing sounded inaccurate, tinny or dropped on the Titanium Yoga. It could have sounded richer or fuller, but for such a thin device, not losing the bass tracks is enough for me.
As for volume, I could understand the song’s lyrics across most of my 2-bedroom apartment, though they did become muffled at the very edges of my space. When just sitting by myself in front of the Titanium Yoga, I tended to keep the volume at around 60%.
Upgradeability of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
The ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga is easy to open, though there’s not much point to doing so. All you have to do is loosen, but not remove, the six Phillips head screws on the convertible’s underside and gently lift off the case. Inside, you’ll see the battery as well as the networking chip. The M.2 SSD is hidden under a black flap, though it’s in an uncommon size (it looks like a 2242 form factor to us, though we don’t have official word on that) and there’s no slot for a second SSD.
You may be able to change out your SSD in the future, but for the other components, consider that you won’t be able to replace them.
Battery Life of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
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The ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga hit just under 10 hours of battery life in our testing, which while not the absolute minimum for an ultraportable, does put it behind most of its similarly powered competition.
Specifically, the Titanium Yoga had 9:58 of life on our battery benchmark, which continuously streams video, browses the web and runs OpenGL tests at 150 nits of brightness. That’s about an hour less life than we got on both the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 9310, which hit 10:52, and the ThinkPad X12 Detachable, which hit 11:05.
Heat on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
For such a thin device, the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga impresses on cooling. After 15 minutes of streaming video, the device’s touchpad only registered 73.4 degrees Fahrenheit (23 degrees Celsius), while the center of its keyboard in between the G and H keys only hit 81.5 degrees Fahrenheit (27.5 degrees Celsius). Its underside was just slightly hotter at 84.6 degrees Fahrenheit (29.22 degrees Celsius).
The only part of this laptop that even came close to pushing any boundaries was the keyboard deck, right above the f5 key. This hit 93.6 degrees Fahrenheit (34.22 degrees Celsius), which typically isn’t too concerning, but could get warm to the touch after a few seconds here.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga Webcam
The ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga comes with a single front-facing 720p webcam that’s usually color accurate and tends to avoid artifacting, but doesn’t always hold up to dark or overly lit rooms.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
During late afternoon in my office, the Titanium Yoga’s camera captured my face with no visible grain and no major alterations to my natural skin tone. All aspects of the photo are properly in focus, as well.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
In my much dimmer hallway, shots lost focus and fidelity and heavy grain started to appear. Colors still appear accurate, however.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Colors started to take a hit when I stood in front of my office’s window. Here, my face appears much paler than in real life. You also can’t see much of the scenery outside my window, though artifacting seems to be at a minimum.
Overall, that’s pretty impressive performance for a laptop webcam — no 720p webcam is going to perform perfectly under dim conditions or heavy light. And of course, the typical ThinkPad physical camera shutter is also here on the Titanium Yoga.
Software and Warranty on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
The ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga is mostly free of bloat, excluding typical Windows pre-installs like Skype and the Microsoft Solitaire Collection. Otherwise, the Titanium Yoga’s built-in software suite largely focuses on genuine utility.
Most of the Titanium Yoga’s functions are inside Lenovo Commercial Vantage, which is where you’ll update your BIOS and drivers, check your warranty, view your storage and RAM usage, find documentation and check Wi-Fi security.
There’s also Lenovo Pen Settings for programming various aspects of your Lenovo Pen, as well as Dolby Access, which lets you choose between equalizer and postprocessing presets for your display and audio settings.
The one program that does feel excessive here is Glance by Mirametrix, which you can turn on to try to get your computer to move windows to where your eyes are looking or go to sleep if someone looks over your shoulder.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga Configurations
Our configuration of the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga came with an Intel Core i5-1130G7 CPU (with integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics), 16GB of LPDDR4x-4266 RAM, a 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD and a 13.5 inch 2256 x 1504 IPS touchscreen. All of this currently costs $1,685 on Lenovo’s website.
That $1,685 is also the current starting price for this unit, though other configurations can reach up to $2,429. For these other configurations, your display will stay the same, but you’ll be able to select CPUs up to the Intel Core i7-1180G7 with vPro and RAM capacities ranging from 8GB to 16GB. Storage options range from 256GB to 1TB.
All configurations also come with the Lenovo pen.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga Bottom Line
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium’s focus on size and aesthetics makes this device especially appealing to casual users, but puts it behind other, similarly-priced convertibles when it comes to productivity.
In our performance tests, our Core i5-powered X1 Titanium Yoga fell behind some non-business competitors that have Intel Core i7-1165G7 CPUS and sell for similar prices (you can also get the Titanium Yoga with Core i7 for more money). These rivals also had thicker chassis, which allowed for longer battery life.
But that thickness does count harm portability, and the Titanium Yoga has the advantage of being a business-class device while those rivals are not. That means it comes with added durability, like MIL-SPEC certification, plus extra security and manageability features like vPro.
It also comes with an included stylus. While the HP Spectre x360 14 also has an included pen, the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 does not. You also get Lenovo’s excellent keyboard with the Titanium Yoga, plus a fashionable design and a moleskin-like finish.
Those features make the Titanium Yoga a great casual usage device, though thanks to its aesthetics, it will look equally at home in the boardroom, the classroom or the living room.
Apple has been targeted in a $50 million ransomware attack following the theft of a trove of engineering and manufacturing schematics of current and future products from Quanta, a Taiwan-based company that manufactures MacBooks and other products for Apple.
The leak, first reported by The Record, was carried out by REvil, a Russian hacking group that’s also known by the name Sodinokibi. The group had already begun posting the stolen images on April 20th, timed specifically to coincide with Apple’s latest “Spring Loaded” event, after Quanta refused to pay the $50 million ransom for the data. The group is now hoping to get Apple itself to pay up by May 1st, promising to continue to post new images from the leak daily until it does.
Quanta has confirmed that its servers were breached in a statement to Bloomberg, commenting: “Quanta Computer’s information security team has worked with external IT experts in response to cyber attacks on a small number of Quanta servers.” Quanta also says “there’s no material impact on the company’s business operation” as a result of the hack.
REvil has a history of similar ransomware attacks, Bleeping Computer points out, with the group also carrying out similar hacks on Acer and other companies in the past several months. But the Quanta attack — by virtue of its connection to Apple and the potential to reveal unannounced Apple hardware — marks the group’s highest-profile target yet.
The company hasn’t clarified the extent of the leak yet, but images leaked by REvil so far include schematics for Apple’s just-revealed iMac redesign — which, prior to yesterday, hadn’t been seen by anyone outside of Apple’s sphere of influence, lending credence to the fact that the documents are indeed accurate. The schematics also include warnings on nearly every page: “This is the property of Apple and it must be returned,” and they specify that the documents are not to be reproduced, copied, or published.
Also contained within the revealed files are manufacturing diagrams for Apple’s already-released 2020 M1 MacBook Air refresh and an as-yet-unreleased laptop that features additional ports in line with the existing rumors for the upcoming laptop refresh from Apple.
These documents were stolen and are being leaked to extort Apple and Quanta. Due to the nature of their origin, we believe it would be unethical to extensively report on their contents. We’ve reached out to Apple for comment and will update this post with any new information.
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