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Best portable projector Buying Guide: Welcome to What Hi-Fi?’s round-up of the best portable projectors you can buy in 2021.
Projectors are typically neither convenient nor cheap. To get the most out of the best projectors you need to paint entire rooms black, buy yourself a screen, an AVR, a speaker package and possibly even have to fix a chunky mounting bracket onto the ceiling.
This is why portable and mini projectors are a better choice for many. There’s no need to replace your TV. Just pull out your portable when you want to go big and you can even take them around to friends’ houses for movie nights. What’s more, installing a portable projector is no more complicated than finding a flat surface or even a sheet hung in the garden and pointing the thing at it (though a dedicated screen is so much better).
A few years ago, these mini projectors were still hard to recommend despite their convenience. ‘Pico’ projectors had dim light sources that couldn’t do justice to colours or contrast, even in a darkened room.
Today’s portable projectors benefit from improvements to LED and laser light tech. And that means a bigger, brighter picture and no more worrying about having to replace the lamp after a year or so. Traditional halogen projector lamps tend to last 2000-3000 hours. LEDs last tens of thousands.
There’s no magic brand-new tech in the lower-end of the portable world, of course. If a projector fits in the palm of your hand, it will not be particularly bright nor kick out top notch detail. No micro projector works well during the day with the windows open either.
This is one reason our best portable projector round-up includes almost all flavours in this category. There’s a pick so small you could fit it in some large coat pockets. It is great for camping, travelling or for entertaining the kids without putting a TV in their room.
The newer “lunchbox” style projector is a better fit for many, though. They offer a decent compromise of portability and performance, and will likely have the better software extras, as these are real lifestyle tech buys.
Right at the top of the tree are projectors that blur the divide between normal and portable designs. They are only slightly smaller than some normal home projectors but have built-in speakers and other convenience features such as short-throw lenses. These mean the projector does not have to be as far from the screen to create a large, cinematic image, and they can be stowed away in the cupboard again once you’re done with your viewing.
Got all that? If that sounds like the kind of convenience and entertainment you’re looking for, then read on for our best mini projectors of 2021.
(Image credit: Grado)
1. LG CineBeam HU80KSW
This all-in-one, do-it-all portable projector does it all well.
It’s not what you’d call ‘mini’ but the LG CineBeam has an integrated handle for easy carrying and is small enough to be easily hidden away in a cupboard when not in use.
That’s especially impressive when you consider it’s more or less an entire home cinema system: a 4K HDR picture, stereo sound, an array of smart sources, all in a unit you can carry like a holdall and set up wherever and whenever you might choose. Even the power cable is wound up inside the base, so there is really nothing you have to plug in if you don’t want to.
That’s the great beauty of the CineBeam: its versatility and intuitive simplicity. As long as you have a clean wall or ceiling upon which to throw a picture, you can have it up and running in a matter of minutes each time you use it.
Picture performance is strong: impressively crisp and detailed, with decent depth and natural hues. It is bright enough without being garish, vibrant enough to combat leaked sunlight. And it sounds surprisingly good by the standards of integrated speakers, too.
The only downside is the price, but if you want the best, you’re going to have to pay for it. Besides, you’ll find lots of more affordable options below.
Read our LG CineBeam HU80KSW review
(Image credit: Asus)
2. Asus F1
Projects a cinematic image in dark rooms.
SPECIFICATIONS
Resolution: 1920 x 1080 | Type: DLP | Brightness: 1200 lumens | Throw ratio: 0.8:1 | Focus: Motorised AF | Zoom: Digital | Keystone correction: +/- 30 degrees | Dimensions: 25 x 75 x 21cm | Weight: 1.8Kg
Reasons to Buy
Decent DLP image
Solid light output
Engaging picture
Reasons to Avoid
No battery
Not the most portable design
The Asus F1 stretches the limits of what we might call a “portable projector”. It does not have a battery and you’ll need a rucksack to take it over to a friend’s house, but it is a very handy projector to take between rooms in your own home.
It weighs just 1.8kg, similar to some laptops, and has a short throw lens. This means it doesn’t need to sit as far from a wall or projector screen to produce a large image. A 1.4m distance gets you 80-inch movies.
It’s also less likely to get damaged when moved about as it uses an LED light array rather than a traditional lamp.
At this size you get much closer to the image quality of a traditional home projector. Its resolution is Full HD, 1920 x 1080 pixels, and the 1200 lumen brightness doesn’t need anything like the light-blocking preparation of a smaller model.
If you want to use a projector in the day time, the significantly brighter Epson EF100 is a better bet. But with the Asus F1 you get a much more cinematic image in a dark room. Colours have real DLP punch and the black level is more than respectable.
We’re not in the same class as JVC’s D-ILA range here, of course, but if you can project onto a grey wall or a white screen with black border, you’re looking at very enjoyable home cinema experience.
Unlike many more traditional projectors, the Asus F1 does not have lens shift or optical lens zoom, just digital zoom and keystone correction. Both limit picture quality so it’s a good idea to take out a tape measure to check it will suit your living room. You need some patience for the menu system too, as it can be very slow to respond.
(Image credit: Nebula)
3. Nebula Mars 2
A battery-powered, truly portable package that’s fun to use.
SPECIFICATIONS
Resolution: 1280 x 720 | Brightness: 300 lumens | Throw ratio: 1.2:1 | Focus: Motorised AF | Zoom: No | Keystone correction: Auto +/-40 degrees | Dimensions: 18 x 12 x 14cm | Weight: 1.8Kg
Reasons to Avoid
Not Full HD
Basic colour reproduction
The Nebula Mars 2 sits in a portable projector sweet spot. It is far from palm-sized, but has a synthetic leather carry strap and a shape similar to the Bang & Olufsen BeoLit 15 “lunchbox” wireless speaker. It’s cute.
This is easily the most fun portable projector in this group too. It has a battery that lasts up to four hours and Android rather than a basic menu system. The front-end is customised for use with the supplied remote, and has a dedicated app store rather than Google Play. But you can still download Netflix, BBC iPlayer and countless other apps to run direct from the Mars 2.
That includes games, but don’t get your hopes up. Most don’t run perfectly, although you can pair your phone and use its touchscreen like a laptop trackpad.
Image quality is respectable too. In a room with closed curtains and no lights switched on, the Mars 2 can produce a watchable image on a 100-inch screen. The projector dims significantly on battery power, but head to the settings menu and you can turn this off. It will simply last closer to two hours than the claimed four.
There’s no worrying about focus either as it has motorised autofocus. Sharpness is less than perfect and there’s some disparity to the sharpness across the image, but you’ll only notice if you look carefully. Its 720p resolution offers far better image detail than a basic 480p model and is a huge upgrade for gaming in particular. And you don’t need to look close to notice that.
The bad parts? Colour reproduction is not particularly good. It lacks finesse and vibrancy, and only minor image controls are available. And while larger than some, the Nebula Mars 2 still needs a partially light-controlled room to produce sufficient image contrast.
Read our Nebula Mars 2 review
(Image credit: Viewsonic)
4. Viewsonic M1+
A tiny projector with built-in Harman Kardon speakers.
SPECIFICATIONS
Resolution: 854 x 480 | Brightness: 300 lumens | Throw ratio: 1.2:1 | Focus: Manual dial | Zoom: No | Keystone correction: Veryical +/-40 degrees | Dimensions: 14.5 x 12.6 x 4cm
Reasons to Buy
Reasonable image in dim light
Speaker goes surprisingly loud
Reasons to Avoid
Low resolution and brightness
Poor focus control
Mini projectors don’t get much more convenient than the Viewsonic M1+. It’s tiny, and only weighs as much as four phones stacked in a pile. And it does come with wi-fi, a MicroSD card slot, plus USB Type-A and USB Type-C connectors.
The stand makes projecting an image from slanted surface, or onto angled walls, a cinch. Its speaker is the real surprise, though. While it sounds harsh and brash at maximum volume, the dual Harman Kardon speakers deliver enough volume for a movie night if you keep things sensible. The sound may only be that of mediocre budget bluetooth speaker, but it’s much better than that of most pint-size projectors.
Image quality is mixed, and not up to the traditional standards of TVs and projectors. That’s hardly surprising as resolution is very low at 854×480 pixels. Text looks terrible, but we are pleasantly surprised by how invisible the pixel structure is even when projecting at 100 inches. Faces look smooth rather than blocky, although naturally there’s limited fine detail. This is a DVD-quality projector, not an HD one.
The Viewsonic M1+’s focusing is fiddly too. It has a flimsy wheel, and the M1+ tends to change focus slightly as soon as your take your finger off the control. Getting a perfectly in-focus picture requires some finger gymnastics.
And, no surprise here, the Viewsonic M1+ needs a fairly dark room to achieve an acceptable image. No-one is likely to be bowled over by this projector. But it is compact, relatively affordable, sounds reasonable, has a three-hour battery life and does a fair job displaying SD-quality movies. If that’s all you require, it does the job.
NVIDIA confirmed that they will only offer three notebook graphics chips in the future, namely the GeForce RTX 3080 Laptop GPU, the GeForce RTX 3070 laptop -GPU and the GeForce RTX 3060 laptop GPU . In contrast to previous generations, NVIDIA deliberately dispensed with a Max-Q and Max-P variant. Although this gives notebook manufacturers greater freedom in designing their own laptops, it makes the purchase much more opaque for customers.
The dedicated Max-Q and Max-P versions of earlier generations were always equipped with a specific TGP. For example, the GeForce 2080 RTX Max-Q had a TGP between 80 and 90 W and that regardless of the configuration of a particular notebook manufacturer. The GeForce 2080 RTX Max-P, on the other hand, came with a TGP of 150 W therefore. With the GeForce RTX 3080 laptop GPU, however, there are no TPG numbers prescribed by NVIDIA, which is why some manufacturers have a TGP of 80 W, while in other gaming laptops RTX 3080 Laptop GPUs with a TGP of more than 150 W are used. The confusion for customers is great, as many companies do not give any reference to the TGP in the data sheet of the respective notebook, which is why it is difficult to find out whether a certain device meets your own requirements until detailed tests are published.
The table summarizes the specifications known from NVIDIA for the laptop GPUs.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Laptop GPU
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU
CUDA arithmetic units
6. 144
5. 120
3. 840
TGP
80 – 150 + Watt
80 – 125 Watt
60 – 115 Watt
Boost clock (MHz)
1.245 – 1.710 MHz
1. 290 – 1.620 MHz
1. 283 – 1. 703 MHz
Memory size
16 GB or 8GB GDDR6
8 GB GDDR6
6 GB GDDR6
NVIDIA calls it however, four technologies that the company itself describes as the third generation Max-Q. These should be integrated in all GeForce RTX 290 laptop GPUs and include, for example, Dynamic Boost 2.0, which enables the card to distribute the available TGP between the processor and the graphics chip depending on the requirements. Another feature is Whispermode 2.0, which should always offer the best possible performance at a certain fan volume. Resizable BAR and is designed to allow the CPU to access all of the graphics memory to improve performance. DLSS is supposed to increase the performance by the fact that only part of the pixels are actually rendered, the rest is to be supplemented by an artificial intelligence.
Each of us has our favorite or hated companies. This applies to every aspect of our lives – food, clothes, games, cars, computer components and consumer electronics. In each of these market branches, however, there are companies that have been present in stores for many years and it is difficult not to associate them. In the case of smartphones, one of such entities is cheebol in the form of LG, which offers devices from various price and performance segments. However, according to the latest information, we can say goodbye to Korean phones soon. After years of losing out in this segment, Asians are considering options, one of which is to exit the phone market altogether.
The Polish branch of LG denies the reported reports, while the foreign branch of LG confirms them. So the situation is still unclear.
LG Wing test – smartphone with gimbal function and rotating screen
As reported by the Korean newspaper The Korea Herald, Kwon Bong-seok (LG CEO) sent an internal message to employees on Wednesday, including that “As competition in the global mobile device market becomes increasingly sharper, it is time for LG to take a cool judgment and make the best choice. “and” The company is considering all possible measures, including selling or reducing the smartphone division or withdrawing completely from this market. “At the same time, the CEO stressed that” Regardless of changes in the smartphone business, employment will be maintained, so there is no need to worry. “And it is hard not to believe these assurances, considering the size of the Korean company and how many different things it produces.
LG Gram Test 17 2020 – The lightest 17 – inch laptop in the world
The reason for the changes in the company’s smartphone division is the fact that the total loss of LG Electronics over the last five years is around 5 000 000 000 000 Korean won (~ 4 544 425 500 dollars). Although the situation in the third quarter 2020 was much better than in the first and second quarter, it is still not colorful. The speech was about operational loss “only” 148, 4 billion won, decreasing from consecutive 206 and 237, 8 billion won (Q2 and Q3 2020). LG confirmed in an interview with the foreign portal The Verge that such a message had actually been sent, although the company has not yet made any final decision. On the other hand, LG Polska completely denied these reports in an interview with us. We must admit, however, that similar rumors were already appearing earlier this month.
LG introduces OLED, NanoCell and QNED Mini LED Smart TVs with Google Stadia and NVIDIA GeForce NOW support
Well, there is nothing else but to wait for the situation to develop further. In my opinion, the lack of LG on the smartphone market would be a noticeable loss. This is one of the few companies that should be valued for originality. For example LG G4 from 2015 of the year with leather backs; the newer LG Wing with two screens and a built-in gimbal or the futuristic LG Rollable with a sliding screen announced for this year. What’s more, Koreans have always offered good DACs and cameras in their flagships, without removing useful solutions such as a jack socket or a memory card space like Samsung or Apple. A lot of positive things were also heard about specific Nexus / Pixel models, which were just made on behalf of the Americans by Koreans.
A new Linux port allows Apple’s M1 Macs to run Ubuntu for the first time. Corellium, a security firm that offers a virtualized version of iOS for security testing, has successfully ported Ubuntu over to M1 Macs and released a tutorial for others to follow. The modified version of Ubuntu boots into the regular user interface and includes USB support.
The team at Corellium have detailed exactly how they managed to get Ubuntu running, and it’s a good in-depth read if you’re interested in the details. While a number of M1 components are shared with Apple’s mobile chips, the non-standard chips made it challenging to create Linux drivers to get Ubuntu running properly.
Apple hasn’t designed its M1 Macs with dual-boot or Boot Camp in mind. Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, has previously ruled out official support for natively booting alternate operating systems like Windows or Linux. Virtualization seems to be Apple’s preferred method, but that hasn’t stopped people from making their own ports.
Linux is now completely usable on the Mac mini M1. Booting from USB a full Ubuntu desktop (rpi). Network works via a USB c dongle. Update includes support for USB, I2C, DART. We will push changes to our GitHub and a tutorial later today. Thanks to the @CorelliumHQ team ❤️ pic.twitter.com/uBDbDmvJUG
— Chris Wade (@cmwdotme) January 20, 2021
Hector Martin, a developer who regularly gets Linux running on a variety of hardware, is also porting Linux to M1 Macs. Developers seem to be enticed by the performance benefits offered by Apple’s M1 chips, and the ability to run Linux on a silent ARM-based machine. “I’ve been waiting for an ARM laptop that can run Linux for a long time,” said Linux creator Linus Torvalds back in November. “The new Air would be almost perfect, except for the OS.”
Corellium CTO Chris Wade describes this new port as “completely usable” on a Mac Mini M1, and it works by booting the full Ubuntu desktop from USB. You will need a USB-C dongle to get networking working, though, and the process to get the port running will require some familiarity with Linux and custom kernels. Corellium has posted a tutorial on the process, if you’re interested in trying this beta project out.
Corellium has some experience in working around Apple’s operating system protections. Corellium offers security researchers a virtual iPhone to help with vulnerability exploration. It’s a process that has angered Apple enough to file lawsuits against Corellium. Apple lost an early challenge against Corellium late last year, after initially filing a lawsuit against the company on copyright grounds back in August 2019. Apple later alleged DMCA violations in January 2020, and a judge dismissed the copyright infringement claims in December. A ruling on the separate DMCA allegations has been deferred.
Samsung has developed a panel OLED from 14 inches and refresh rate at 90 Hz intended for notebooks. Volume production will start in March.
by Manolo De Agostini published 21 January 2021 , at 10: 21 in the Portable channel Samsung
Samsung Display announced the start in March of the volume production of an OLED panel a 90 Hz intended for notebooks . The new solution from 14 inches , according to Samsung Display CEO Joo Sun Choi, “can best meet the diverse needs of consumers in laptops used in telecommuting, online education, video streaming and games “.
South Korean manufacturer believes new panel will be welcomed by consumers thanks to images with better contrast and color, together with a better response time which should ensure a motion blur comparable to that obtained with an LCD screen at 120 Hz when viewing content at high speed.
Samsung has not provided further technical details (aspec ratio, gamut, etc.) nor indicated any OEM ready to adopt the panel in question. OLED displays are not a total novelty in the laptop industry, but they are certainly not common. Some models offer an OLED panel as an option, but these are 60 Hz solutions. Samsung itself, l ‘last year, it presented a Galaxy Chromebook with an OLED display, while this year it turned to a cheaper QLED.
However, it should not be forgotten that in recent days the Asian company has anticipated the arrival of a future notebook with OLED screen and webcam “under” the display, a novelty able to eliminate as much as possible the frames to the advantage of a larger viewing area and a better design.
We recently watched a Samsung video in which we could see the company’s new OLED screen technology for laptops, showing some extremely thin and light panels that will allow laptops with Samsung OLED screens to be even thinner.
However, at that time We did not really have much information, something that is updated today through the CFO of Samsung, Joo Sun Choi, who has indicated that the company will manufacture large quantities of OLED panels of 14 inches and 90 Hz, starting this March.
In this way, it is expected that several companies will launch devices with a screen OLED of 14 inches with these panels, which, among other advantages, will provide us with better colors, greater visibility in certain conditions, deep blacks and lower consumption , all very interesting especially if we need to use the equipment several hours a day, where a High-quality display can make all the difference between a satisfactory user experience or a terrible one.
Additionally, it has been calculated that the ghosting performance is on par with an LCD screen of 120 Hz, so that with a trace of 0.9mm in the tests carried out, we find a very versatile screen.
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Jordi Bercial
Avid enthusiast of technology and electronics. I mess around with computer components almost since I learned to ride. I started working at Geeknetic after winning a contest on their forum for writing hardware articles. Drift, mechanics and photography lover. Don’t be shy and leave a comment on my articles if you have any questions.
Just a few days ago, during the CES conference 2021, AMD has officially unveiled the fourth generation of APUs from the Cezzane family. It is a family based on the new Zen 3 architecture, which boasts, among other things, doubled the amount of L3 cache and reduced latency. The new AMD Cezanne-H processors are to hit machines from different price and performance shelves, also to top gaming laptops. We have already learned the performance of one of the leading models in the form of AMD Ryzen 9 5900 HX. To the delight of fans of the “red power side”, the new chip takes the top place in the multithreading test in PassMark, beating Intel processors.
AMD Ryzen 9 5900 HX scores 7 in the PassMark multithreading test 445 points more than last year’s Intel Core i9 10980 HK.
AMD Ryzen 5000 – premiere of Cezanne processors for laptops Zen 3 architecture enters the top notebook
AMD Ryzen 9 5900 HX is 8- core and 16 – threaded, unlocked processor with TDP 45 W + which works with clocks from 3.3 to 4.7 GHz. This is the second the best chip from the AMD Cezanne family, and only AMD Ryzen 9 5980 HX with 100 MHz with higher boost clock. The system went to the ASUS ROG Strix SCAR laptop 17 G 733 (32 GB of RAM + GeForce R TX 3080), and this one was tested in PassMark in the multi-threaded performance test. Currently from 24 039 he takes first place with points. For comparison, the top chip from the competition, Intel Core i9 10980 HK, has only in the same test) 594 points.
New test procedure for gaming laptops with Intel Tiger Lake-H, AMD Cezanne-H and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3000
For the sake of fairness, however, it must be emphasized that the CPU from the Blue was tested at 2.4 GHz. So let’s take a look at the performance against the previous generation mobile chips from AMD. Here AMD Ryzen 9 5900 HX drops by 21% better than AMD Ryzen 9 4900 HS (19 854 points) and 25% better than AMD Ryzen 7 4800 H (19 180 points). The question is, what will the performance of the upcoming Intel Tiger Lake mobile chipsets, which are expected to be released in the second half of the year 2021, look like?
Samsung Display has announced plans to mass-produce the world’s first 90Hz OLED screens designed for laptops and says that “several global IT companies” are expected to release models with the new panels this year. Manufacturing will begin in March in “very large quantities,” the company says in a statement attributed to CEO Choi Joo-sun.
The panels are 14-inch in size, though Samsung Display hasn’t given details on specs like aspect ratio or resolution; it’s possible that there will be multiple versions available. Samsung does cite the faster response time of its OLED panels, claiming “practically” the same amount of blurring as a 120Hz LCD when displaying fast-moving content. No potential laptop OEM partners were named in the statement.
OLED displays aren’t unheard of in laptops, but they’re not at all commonplace. While quite a few gaming laptops offer them as an option, the tradeoff there is that you’ve had to give up on high refresh rates. And despite Samsung itself launching an OLED-equipped Galaxy Chromebook last year, the 2021 followup uses a cheaper QLED-branded LCD display instead.
Samsung is the world’s biggest vendor of OLED display panels, so the announcement today suggests that OLED laptops are likely to become much more of a common sight this year.
Last year vivo trademarked several product names under its own brand, NEX and iQOO. Talk around the Weibo watercooler suggests that one of them, the vivo Pad, will be unveiled at tomorrow’s event alongside the vivo X60 Pro+.
The vivo Pad will become the company’s first tablet. We don’t actually know much about the tablet as the slate has successfully avoided major leaks. We do know that it might soon have company.
Among the trademarked names were the iQOO Pad and NEXPAD, though there’s no word on either coming out anytime soon (and almost certainly not during the vivo X-series event). Another name, the vivo Watch is already a reality, though the iQOO Watch is yet to materialize.
That’s not the end of it either. The vivo book and NEXBOOK sound like laptop names. There’s also the NEX SoC and iQOO SoC, plus the iQOO Zeal, but we’re at a loss here (you’d think we would have heard if vivo plans to start its own chipset line).
Some of the trademarked names: NEXPAD, iQOOBOOK, vivo book, NEXBOOK
Anyway, tomorrow’s vivo X60 Pro+ event could have a “one more thing”, the vivo Pad. However, the company’s official social networking accounts (which have been boasting about the X60 for days) are surprisingly quiet on the tablet matter.
(Pocket-lint) – The Microsoft Surface Laptop has, through all three of its release iterations, proven to be our favourite premium Windows laptop time and again – winning the Pocket-lint Awards in its category in both 2019 and 2020.
So when Microsoft decided to bring out a more affordable version, called the Surface Laptop Go, it did make us wonder what would have to give to cut the price without cutting into a premier experience. So here’s how it all stacks up.
Design & Display
12.4-inch PixelSense display, 3:2 aspect ratio, 1536 x 1024 resolution
Dimensions: 278 x 206 x 15.7mm / Weight: 1.1kgs
1x USB-A, 1x USB-C, 1x 3.5mm headphone jack
Proprietary Surface Connect port for power
Finishes: Platinum, Sandstone, Ice Blue
Windows 10 S
Upon pulling the Surface Laptop Go from its box it looks a far cry from its budget status, aping many of the premium design traits that you’ll find in the Surface Laptop proper. The use of cool-to-touch metal on the lid and frame being standout, while the finish options – there’s three, this one in the photos is Ice Blue – look great.
Pocket-lint
The Go is small and lightweight, yet it’s got a fairly large screen on account of the 3:2 aspect ratio – making the 12.4-inch panel more like an A4 sheet of paper than the more elongated screens that are so typical in laptops.
The screen is plenty bright, too, while its resolution – at 1536 by 1024 – is pretty sharp considering it’s less than Full HD in overall pixel count. That’s not a big problem, it just means you’ll find sharper panels elsewhere in the market. It’s befitting of its budget status, really, which is the whole point of the Go model.
Pocket-lint
Ports aren’t especially plentiful: there’s a USB-C and a full-size USB-A port, but other than the 3.5mm headphones jack that’s your lot. Thankfully power is handled by Microsoft’s Surface Connect rather than using up the USB-C port, although we would prefer this proprietary format to be dropped in favour of more ports in the design.
When plugged in we found the Go’s first issue though: it’s noisy. The fan kicks in due to the device heating up when recharging, which is delivered in an irksome whistling fashion. It doesn’t even need to be under load for this to happen, you could have no applications open whatsoever and it’ll whistle away.
Pocket-lint
Another major point to mention is the use of Windows 10 S. This version of Windows utilises the Microsoft Store to obtain and download apps – so you’re shielded from EXE file-types and can’t download and install such a variety of apps.
However, to switch out from S to ‘normal’ Windows 10 is easy enough: you can do it for free and we suspect most will do this straight away. We certainly did. That then means the Go has no limitations in what you can obtain and run on it, whether that’s a different browser such as Chrome, or a full-fat app such as Photoshop (albeit running at Intel Core i5 levels).
Keyboard & Trackpad
Fingerprint reader power button*
Full-size keyboard, no backlight
Large precision trackpad
Although the Go’s keyboard looks fairly squashed into its space, it’s actually a full-size one – and that makes for a decent typing experience.
Pocket-lint
Well, it does when it’s light. Unfortunately the Go’s keyboard lacks a backlight, with only the Caps Lock key having a corner LED for any kind of illumination. It’s pretty rare that a keyboard isn’t backlit these days. But that’s another area where cost-cutting has happened, ultimately, to help keep the Go a little more budget.
The trackpad is a reasonably large scale, too, with a smooth topped finish that’s responsive to touch. It is plastic rather than glass, which gives it a slightly more ‘tacky’ feel to the fingers, but it works well enough. Some competitors are releasing laptops with even larger over-size trackpads, but there’s not much unused space in the Surface Laptop Go’s real-estate anyway, so we think it’s a sound solution as is.
Pocket-lint
Also of note is the fingerprint scanner embedded in the power button, which makes for super-quick Windows 10 sign-in. *Caveat time though: this feature is absent from the entry-level model, so if you’re looking to the Laptop Go for its appealing price point then note that not all models offer the same by feature set.
The best Chromebook 2021: Our pick of the top Chrome OS laptops for school, college and more
Performance & Battery
10th Gen Intel Core i5 processor (1035G1), Intel UHD Graphics
As we detailed previously, the Surface Laptop Go ships with Windows 10 S, but you can switch this to Windows 10 instead without incurring a cost. It’s a good job, then, that there’s a proper processor under the hood, capable enough of handling tasks that may typically fall outside of the Windows 10 S remit. Want Photoshop? You got it.
Pocket-lint
Whichever Surface Laptop Go you pick – and there are three levels – it’s the same processor, an Intel Core i5 (1035G1). It’s the storage and RAM that differ rather dramatically though: the entry-level model has 64GB and 4GB respectively, which is rather limited; the two other models up the RAM to 8GB; while the only other difference from mid- to top-level is 128GB versus 256GB storage.
If you opt for the top-end model, however, the price is significantly higher – by almost 40 per cent over the base model, and closing in on the four-figures mark. That’s rather a lot to pay for doubling the RAM and delivering a usable storage amount. The middle spec model is probably the best balanced of the lot, remaining at an attractive price point with just about enough storage on board.
Pocket-lint
In terms of battery life the Surface Laptop Go quotes an up-to-13-hour life per charge, but that’s over-reaching compared to its real-world figure. We were able to stream a Full HD YouTube video (well, the source was Full HD, the screen downscales that given the resolution available) for just under seven hours before it was game-over time. That’s reasonable enough innings, on par with the Surface Laptop 3, and long enough to cater for a varied day of work/study/mucking about on the internet.
Verdict
The Microsoft Surface Laptop Go is a compelling affordable laptop. It pulls on much of the design and quality of Microsoft’s established Surface range, without cutting features to the bone.
There are some quirks – such as a noisy fan, a limited numbers of ports, and limited storage in the entry-level model – but given the balance of features and performance we think Microsoft has got a success on its hands here. The mid-priced model is the one to go for.
Also consider
Pocket-lint
Lenovo Yoga Slim 7
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It’s got more ports, better battery life, and is well designed – albeit not quite as refined as the Microsoft product. If the mid-spec Surface Laptop Go seems appealing then consider comparing it to this Yoga before making that final decision.
Apple macOS 11 Big Sur: All the key new Mac features explored
Is it better to take notes by hand, or is it better to type in what you have heard, because the information is processed digitally anyway? The question, which at first glance seems harmless, has led to passionate scientific disputes, because opponents of digitization in schools like to use arguments from “Embodied Intelligence”.
This school of cognitive research emphasizes that consciousness is shaped by the physical interaction of the body with the environment. More specifically: the hippocampus, in which automated movements are stored, is derived from the spatial orientation system of the early vertebrates. Information that is written on paper can literally be “grasped” more easily, in contrast to information that appears on a screen.
What is better to remember? ? The thesis is indeed controversial. The dispute seemed decided when Pam Mueller, psychologist at Princeton University, together with Daniel Oppenheimer, today at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), 2014 presented a study that should prove this with numbers. First 65 college students got to see video lectures. They took notes either on laptops or with pen and notepad and had to answer questions about the content of the presentations half an hour later. For factual knowledge, both groups were the same, but for conceptual knowledge, the handwritten group was ahead.
Now the discussion should flare up again. Because researchers have tried to replicate the study of 2014 – but they did not succeed. In a similar test setup, Heather Urry and Chelsea Crittle from Tufts University and their team were able to confirm that students made more detailed notes on their laptops and included more verbatim speech in their notes. However, it does not do better in subsequent tests.
“If original and replication studies find different results, there are three interpretations: 1) there was a problem with replication; 2) there was a problem with the original study; and 3) the phenomenon under study is not permanent or universal, “write the authors. “These interpretations are not mutually exclusive”. As a serious weakness of the original study, they criticize, for example, that the test subjects were allowed to choose the medium pen or computer that suits them best. A cross-check independent of the preferences was just as little carried out as a comparison with test persons who had not made any notes. They also criticized the fact that the test participants did not have time to prepare for the test based on their notes – which would normally happen.
No refutation, a “generalization” Your conclusion therefore: “Until future research can clarify whether and when the right medium for note-taking affects academic performance, we conclude that students and professors who are concerned about the adverse effects of computer notes don’t have to throw away the laptop just yet. There is more work to be done with methods that better take into account the actual educational context. ”
Daniel Oppenheimer sees Urry’s study, however, less as a refutation of his results than as a “generalization”. “In our original studies, we brought the participants into a controlled laboratory environment that was calm and free of distraction,” he writes on request from heise online. However, there were many more distractions and disturbances in Urry’s studies. “Given that the key psychological mechanism that we believed to take advantage of handwritten notes is deeper thinking, testing people in highly distracting environments isn’t exactly fair.”
Nonetheless, Urry’s study is “important work”, because even in the real world, “students normally do not learn in strictly controlled laboratory environments,” writes Oppenheimer. “Classrooms are full of distractions and noise, and so Urry’s study can tell us whether the original results can be generalized to more natural situations.” Despite these objections, he wanted to re-examine the reliability of his original study “under controlled laboratory conditions,” he writes. “The only way to know the truth is to test it!” (wst)
Half of the reason to buy a Mac is to get native support for macOS, but that doesn’t mean Mac owners don’t also suffer from the grass-is-greener syndrome. While Apple’s operating system is known for being casual friendly and is also the OS system people who grew up on its products might be more familiar with, PC users are always quick to point out that the extra steps it adds to actions like installing programs can slow down more serious work. It’s currently possible to
emulate Windows for ARM
on Apple’s latest M1 Macs, but what if you want to take your power user cred a step further and use Linux on your new M1 Mac?
According to ARM-based Linux virtualization startup Correlium, now you can – but there’s a bit of a catch.
More to show that it’s possible than anything else, Correlium first posted hints of an M1 version of Linux to its Twitter account on January 15th.
We had some spare time today so we ported Linux to the M1. Releasing tomorrow #fridayfun pic.twitter.com/dCrXApyKefJanuary 16, 2021
Correlium CTO Chris Wade then made the beta build the group was using publicly available the following day but warned that it was for “advanced users only” as it didn’t have USB support at the time.
Now, the group has pushed a new release that adds AIC, UUART, and SMP support, with Wade promising that the group’s next goal is to add “DART, USB, and maybe PCIE (if time persists).”
This adds AIC, UART & SMP. We will push DART, USB and maybe PCIE (if time permits) next. It also looks like tomorrow you will also be able to boot Linux on the M1 with Pongo. Big thanks to the whole @CorelliumHQ team and to @never_released and @qwertyoruiopz for their assistance. https://t.co/tKscy0LUWeJanuary 19, 2021
What does all that mean? Well, now you can technically load Linux on an M1 Mac, though certain connection standards won’t be supported, and you also won’t be able to take advantage of the M1’s graphics. So while this is more versatile than the January 15th release, it’s still a long way from being as useful as Linux is on older, Intel-based Macs (which still isn’t saying much).
That’s to be expected from such a new chip, as even Windows running on M1 currently does so through emulation (though Apple is open to native support). Still, this marks a major step forward for the Linux on M1 and even Linux on ARM scene, particularly when it comes to Wade’s promise of PongoOS support.
So how will you boot third-party operating systems on arm64 Macs?You might have seen that pongoOS has been getting a ton of work in the recent past, and even more is coming. This work will allow us to support pongoOS as a second-stage bootloader for Apple Silicon-based Macs.November 13, 2020
PongoOS is essentially a pre-boot execution environment built with Apple Silicon in mind, with the intention of loading third-party operating systems on chips like M1. It’s been expected to pave the way for Linux on Apple Silicon since late last year, so it’s exciting to see that coming true, even if it’s still primitive.
As for why this is something you’d want to do, we find it best to refer to Linux creator Linus Torvalds.
“I’ve been waiting for an ARM laptop that can run Linux for a long time,” he wrote last November on the
Real World technologies
forum. “The new Air would be almost perfect, except for the OS.”
Despite not always having the absolute best hardware, Macs are still built to run consistently and feel premium. That’s valuable for a lot of users, including power users, especially those who grew up with the Mac.
“I have fairly fond memories of the 11″ Macbook Air (I think 4,1) that I used about a decade ago,” Torvalds explained. “But [I] moved away from because it took Apple too long to fix the screen – and by the time they did, I’d moved on to better laptops, and Apple had moved on to make Linux less convenient.”
Here’s hoping that, as developers get more familiar with them, Apple’s ARM-based laptops don’t follow the same path.
One of the biggest trends coming out of this year’s CES wasn’t something people will necessarily notice at first glance unless they look closely. After enduring years of cramped, “widescreen” laptop displays, it looks like we’re finally starting to say goodbye to the 16:9 aspect ratio.
Here’s the new Dell Latitude 9420.Image: Dell
An aspect ratio is the ratio of a display’s width to a display’s height (in that order). For example, a screen with a resolution of 500 x 500 would have an aspect ratio of 1:1. Think of it like simplifying a fraction: a 1080p screen has a resolution of 1920 x 1080, which divides down to 16:9.
The aspect ratios you’ll typically see on laptops are 16:9, 3:2, 16:10 (which, for whatever reason, is called 16:10 rather than 8:5), and (occasionally) 4:3. 16:9 is the most common option and also the one with the lowest amount of vertical space relative to its horizontal space.
If you have a modern Windows laptop, there’s a good chance your screen is 16:9. If you have a gaming laptop, its panel is almost certainly 16:9. (It’s unusual to find high refresh-rate panels with other proportions.) There are some notable exceptions: Microsoft’s Surface products have been 3:2 for quite some time, while Dell’s last few XPS 13 models and Apple’s MacBooks are already 16:10. But traditionally, Windows laptops like these have been few and far between.
16:9 screens are cramped — at least compared to other options. I usually can’t comfortably work in multiple windows side by side without zooming out or doing a ton of vertical scrolling, and when I’m multitasking in Chrome, the tabs get tiny very quickly. If you’re used to using a 16:9 screen and you try a 16:10 or 3:2 display of the same size, you probably won’t want to go back. You just have a lot more room, and it’s a much more efficient use of screen space.
But this CES showed that 16:10 and 3:2 displays are inching closer to the mainstream. These are some of the biggest laptops announced at the show that are offering non-16:9 display options:
HP Elite Folio (1920 x 1280, 3:2)
Dell Latitude 9420 2-in-1 (2560 x 1600, 16:10)
Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 (2560 x 1600, 16:10)
Lenovo Legion 7 and Legion 5 Pro (2560 x 1600, 16:10)
LG Gram 17 and Gram 16 (2650 x 1600, 16:10)
Lenovo IdeaPad 5 Pro (2560 x 1600, 16:10)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga (2256 x 1504, 3:2)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 and X1 Yoga Gen 6 (up to 3840 x 2400, 16:10)
Lenovo ThinkPad X12 Detachable (1920 x 1280, 3:2)
Asus ROG Flow X13 (up to 3840 x 2400, 16:10)
That doesn’t mean there are no 16:9 displays left — plenty of laptops still use it, and probably will for the foreseeable future. And some of these devices, like the LG Grams, were 16:10 already.
But it’s significant that a large number of the flagships we’ll be seeing in the first half of 2021 will be either 16:10 or 3:2. In fact, when you include MSI’s 16:10 Summit E13 Flip and Razer’s 16:10 Razer Book 13 (both of which were announced prior to CES), I can’t think of a mainstream consumer laptop company that isn’t now selling a non-16:9 flagship-level machine. It’s clear that companies across the board are moving toward laptops with taller aspect ratios, and I fully expect to see more of them in the years to come.
Here’s the X1 Detachable (currently attached).Image: Lenovo
Again, this may seem like a boring change. But it will make a big difference in the lives of this year’s laptop buyers, particularly people shopping for a work-from-home device. I switched from a 16:9 laptop to a 3:2 Surface Book 2 back in 2017, and it was one of the best purchasing decisions I’ve ever made. If you’re using a 16:9 screen now and are looking to upgrade this year, I encourage you to give one of these new devices a shot. You won’t want to go back.
The NEC Lavie range, owned by Lenovo now, has been on the market for a few years with very small, convertible laptops. His latest creation, the Lavie Mini, combines an 8-inch laptop convertible into a tablet with a game console compatible with integrated controllers.
The 8-inch screen has a good resolution of 1. 920 x 1. 90 pixels in 16: 01 together with a refresh rate of 60 Hz. This touch screen is attached to a small QWERTY keyboard by means of hinges that allow the rotation of 360 degrees to become a tablet.
The NEC Lavie Mini integrates an 11th generation Intel Core i7 “Tiger Lake” with Iris Xe graphics
Inside it hides an Intel Core Tiger Lake processor from 11 3rd generation with integrated Iris Xe graphics from the Core i7 range, graphics that manages the screen and HDMI output. You also have USB-C and USB-A, in addition to 16 GB of LPDDR4 memory and 360 GB of integrated SSD. Also offers WiFi 6 and infrared camera for use with Windows Hello on Windows 10 , operating system that integrates as standard.
The battery that powers the Lenovo Lavie Mini is 26 WH and the total weight of the equipment is only 579 grams. The equipment is compatible with controllers similar to those of the Nintendo Switch, as well as other accessories such as docks.
At the moment we do not know its availability and price.
End of Article. Tell us something in the Comments or come to our Forum!
Antonio Delgado
Computer Engineer by training, editor and hardware analyst at Geeknetic since 2011. I love gutting everything that comes my way, especially the latest hardware that we get here for reviews. In my spare time I fiddle with 3d printers, drones and other gadgets. For anything here you have me.
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