Move over H.264/AVC and HEVC, there’s a new video streaming codec in town and it’s got you in its sites. AV1 is here and it’s going to be everywhere before you know it.
AV1 is an open, royalty-free video standard with an improved compression system that should allow huge data efficiency savings without reducing video quality – and that could be key going forward into a world of higher frame rates, 8K resolution, HDR standards and audio demands.
As such, AV1 brings implications for those who use services such as Netflix, Disney Plus and Prime Video; people looking to buy a new TV or media streamer; and anyone interested in 8K TV. And as a catch-all compression standard there are many uses beyond, including gaming, realtime applications such as video conferencing and anything else where video streams are required.
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What is AV1?
AV1 (AOMedia Video 1) is the the next evolution of the defacto video streaming codec across the internet. It’s planned as the successor to the HEVC (H.265) format that is currently used for 4K HDR video on platforms such as Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney Plus and Netflix.
It was developed by the Alliance for Open Media, which counts Amazon, Apple, ARM, Facebook, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla, Netflix, Nvidia and Samsung among its members, and is designed to offer internet streaming efficiency upgrades without affecting quality. That makes it an important step in the uptake of streamed 8K video, given the more data-heavy demands of this higher-res format.
The other big advantage to the streaming giants is that AV1 is royalty-free. That means video platforms, device manufacturers and, by proxy, users can avoid the hefty licensing payments previously associated with codecs such as HEVC. With any luck, that should also grease the wheels of AV1’s evolution and development by avoiding costly, time consuming and generally prohibitive law suits and patent claims.
At the time of writing, the AV1 video codec shows anywhere up to 30 per cent more efficient compression than HEVC, and those within the Alliance for Open Media will push for even bigger gains still. After all, it’s always good to leave room to squeeze more audio and video standards into the bitstream as and when they arise.
But while all sounds good for efficiency of the compression, there is a catch – it takes much, much longer to encode videos in AV1 in the first place. Imagine capturing a video on your mobile then having to wait an age for the AV1 file to be created before you can share it.
The aim for AV1 is for significant improvement here. Realistically, it’s a problem that needs to be solved before widespread adoption can happen. Until then, expect AV1 to be a more fringe player.
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AV1 specs
(Image credit: AOAlliance)
AV1 decoders are available at different profile settings and levels, depending on each piece of hardware’s capabilities. Theoretically, though, there’s plenty of scope and the very upper limits of AV1 have not yet been defined.
For the time being, the codec can go as far as 8K at up to 120fps, involving bitrates at up to 800mbps. Bit depth for colour comes in 8-, 10- and 12-bit varieties and with colour sampling up to a 4:4:4 full pixel level.
Can I watch AV1 video now?
Google has already implemented some AV1 use onto YouTube and requires AV1 support to view its 8K videos on TV.
Netflix has also started streaming AV1 content on a few titles. In fact, the subscription giant first took on AV1 as a way of keeping costs down for Android customers. The Netflix ‘Save Data’ feature on Android devices prioritises the use of the less data-heavy AV1 streams where possible. The company has also committed to take AV1 use across the board going forward.
Vimeo has adopted AV1 for the streams of its ‘Staff picks’ channel. Facebook has promised a roll out of AV1 as browser support emerges, and Twitch has 2022 or 2023 targeted with universal support projected to arrive in 2024 or 2025.
To watch this AV1 content requires both hardware and software support, which mostly breaks down to which device you’ve got and what operating system it’s using. At the time of writing, there’s no AV1 support on MacOS or iOS.
Android (10 onwards), Chrome (70 onwards) and Linux can decode AV1 streams, as can Windows 10 devices (once updated) for certain Windows apps.
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What devices support AV1?
Any device looking to support AV1 will need to have an AV1 decoder built-in at the chip level. Compatibility to the codec cannot be added as a firmware update for most devices. That means the very vast majority of devices out there at the time of writing aren’t ready for it.
There are one or two that were future-proofed in 2020, though. Of those, the Roku Ultra is probably your best bet to get going with AV1 content straight away, although it’s only available in the US for now.
LG’s 8K TVs from 2020 are also AV1 compatible with a decoder built into the α9 (Gen 3) processor. It’s a similar story for Samsung’s 8K sets from the same time – you can actually watch AV1-encoded 8K content from the YouTube app of those sets now.
The other notable AV1-enabled hardware is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 Series graphics cards, which would make a very handy video streaming addition to most PCs.
Otherwise, it’s a list of AV1 promises but these include a particularly good one. Google recently announced that any device looking to use the Android TV 10 OS produced after the 31st March 2021 deadline will need to have an AV1 decoder built in.
So, expect plenty of set-top boxes and smart TVs launched in 2021 and beyond to be ready to go and, with Google putting its foot down, all sorts of other products and services should fall in line over the next 12 months, and that’s good news for everyone. Higher quality video, here we come.
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Samsung’s first Neo QLED is a force to be reckoned with, and the greatest threat yet to the dominance of OLED
For
Superbly bright, punchy and sharp
Exhaustive feature set
Lovely design
Against
Artificial boost to dark detail
Reticence with extreme contrast
Still no Dolby Vision
This year looks very much like the year of Mini LED. The technology, which sees the traditional LEDs of a TV backlight miniaturised in order to increase contrast, is a feature of the 2021 line-ups of most major TV brands, including LG and Philips.
For those brands, Mini LED TVs sit below their OLED models, but for Samsung, Mini LED is its flagship technology (assuming you discount its eye-wateringly expensive new Micro LED sets). The company has developed its own Mini LEDs, which it says are even smaller and more efficient than those of its rivals, and combined them with its existing Quantum Dot tech to create a range of premium TVs that it calls Neo QLEDs.
The QE65QN95A is the first Neo QLED we’ve tested. It’s the top 4K model in Samsung’s 2021 range, and it purports to offer a huge upgrade on last year’s equivalent without any increase in price.
This is the model that Samsung is pitching against LG’s incredibly popular C-class OLED, the 2021 version of which (the C1) we have yet to review. When it does appear, the C1 is going to have its work cut out because the Samsung QN95A is the best QLED there’s ever been, and that makes it a serious challenger to even the best OLEDs.
Pricing
The Samsung QE65QN95A is priced at £2999 – exactly the same price its predecessor, the QE65Q95T, launched at, despite this new model representing what appears to be a serious technological upgrade.
The QN95A is exclusive to Europe. US buyers instead get the QN90A, which does without the QN95A’s One Connect box and has just one HDMI 2.1 socket (the QN95A has four). Confusingly, the US QN90A is different to the European QN90A, which is more heavily downgraded. Apparently, Europe will in fact get an as-yet-unannounced model called the QN94A, which will be the same as the US’s QN90A.
If you’ve completely lost track, it’s no surprise. It feels as though Samsung has gone out of its way to make its model structure even less coherent than it was in 2020. Sony, meanwhile, is putting a concerted effort into unifying its model numbers across all regions, and LG has been doing that for years, at least in terms of its OLEDs.
Build
(Image credit: Future)
Besides the benefits in terms of contrast, a Mini LED backlight is much slimmer than one consisting of standard LEDs. Samsung has also worked hard to reduce the distance between the backlight and the Quantum Dot panel, making the whole display section slimmer.
Samsung QE65QN95A tech specs
(Image credit: Future / Escape From Pretoria, Amazon Prime)
Screen type QLED
Backlight Mini LED
Resolution 4K
Operating system Samsung Tizen
HDR formats HDR10, HDR10+, HLG
HDMI x4
USB x3
Optical x1
Of course, a TV also needs to pack in processing hardware and speakers, but Samsung has still managed to reduce the thickness of the QN95A to just 2.6cm, down from the 3.5cm of last year’s Q95T.
That doesn’t make the QN95A as thin as an OLED is at its thinnest point (the LG CX is under 4mm thick here) but its uniform depth measurement means it is much thinner than most OLEDs are at their thickest points (the CX is 4.7cm here) and arguably makes for a more stylish, picture frame-like proposition when wall mounted.
The QN95A also gets the new, redesigned version of Samsung’s One Connect box. The concept is the same – all connections, including power, go into a separate unit that’s connected to the TV via a single cable – but the chunky brick design has been replaced by one reminiscent of a stack of five or six placemats. While this One Connect can be mounted to the rear of the stand of Samsung’s 2021 8K models, it can’t be mounted to the QN95A at all.
Also slightly disappointing is that the cable that runs between the One Connect box and display is significantly thicker and less flexible than that of previous versions. Samsung says the cable has changed in the name of “performance stability and durability”, but we weren’t aware of any issues with the previous design.
While the move to a thicker wire is a bit of a shame, having just one cable running to the display rather than multiple HDMIs and power is still undeniably neater. And, if your set-up means that the One Connect box will be visible in your TV rack, this new version is significantly easier on the eye than its predecessor.
Features
(Image credit: Future / Escape From Pretoria, Amazon Prime)
The One Connect box also gives the QN95A a more advanced set of connections than other 2021 Samsung models such as the QN90A. It’s all down to the HDMIs: all four of the QN95A’s HDMI sockets are 2.1-spec, while its siblings get just one HDMI 2.1 socket. That probably won’t make a huge difference right now, but anyone planning to buy both the PS5 and Xbox Series X will need more than one HDMI 2.1 socket to take full advantage of both consoles, and there will only be more HDMI 2.1 sources in the future.
Of course, simply having HDMI 2.1 sockets isn’t enough to guarantee support for all of those fancy next-gen HDMI features, but the QN95A offers support for eARC (Enhanced Audio Return Channel), ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode), 4K@120Hz (aka High Frame Rate) and VRR (Variable Refresh Rate). VRR is supported in all three of the formats currently available: standard HDMI VRR, Nvidia G-Sync and AMD FreeSync (this is the first TV to be FreeSync Premium Pro-certified, in fact).
As is probably already clear, Samsung is even more committed to courting gamers than before, going as far as creating the ‘Game Bar’ – a pop-up menu that gives you quick access to various game-related features and delivers live information on the signal being received, including the VRR format and frame rate. Input lag, meanwhile, has been reduced to under 10ms, which is entirely imperceptible. If you don’t mind sacrificing a little of that speed, you can enable some gaming-specific motion smoothing, although we don’t find that necessary during testing.
Finally, on the gaming front, the HGiG (HDR Gaming Interest Group) setting that was added to Samsung’s 2020 QLEDs via a software update late last year is also present on the QN95A. This is well worth using in conjunction with your console’s HDR calibration settings as it results in a more accurate picture with deeper blacks and more detailed highlights.
Samsung has also long been the market leader when it comes to integrated streaming apps, and the QN95A is just as well-appointed as its predecessors in that regard. Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV, Google Play Movies & TV and Rakuten are all present in 4K and HDR; BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All 4 and My5 complete the set of catch-up apps; Now TV and BT Sport are also here; and Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, BBC Sounds and TuneIn mean every major music and radio app is on board, too. In short, there’s no app of significance that’s missing here, and there are loads of niche apps in there too.
There is, though, an HDR format of significance that’s missing – Dolby Vision. While Samsung’s rival HDR10+ has made undeniable in-roads in recent years, Dolby Vision is clearly the more dominant format and it’s very hard indeed to see the power balance shifting. Even if Samsung truly believes HDR10+ is better, it should by now be offering Dolby Vision support as well.
(Image credit: Future)
The operating system is more or less unchanged from last year, which is no bad thing. It’s still the best in the business, slickly getting you to the content you’re after quicker than any rival. One new feature that has the potential to be great is Multi View, which allows you to split the screen in two and watch an HDMI source in one window while you access an app via the other. We could see this could be useful for watching two football games at once, for example, one via your Sky Q box and the other the BT Sport app, but currently the only apps supported in Multi View are YouTube and a wellness app called Calm, rendering it almost useless.
The QN95A’s new remote has a useful new feature, though: on the bottom is a light panel that allows it to be charged via sunlight and even house lights. It works really well – during testing, the remote’s battery level doesn’t drop below about 95 per cent as it constantly tops itself up. That said, the remote does also have a USB-C socket that can be used as a backup charging method.
Under the TV’s skin is a new version of Samsung Quantum Processor, called the Neo Quantum Processor 4K. The big new feature here is referred to as Ultra Precision Light Driving, which involves more precise dimming and a local power distribution feature that sends power to the brightest areas of the picture and away from the darker parts. It also works in conjunction with a sensor integrated into the TV’s frame to adjust brightness and contrast in response to ambient lighting conditions. There’s a new level of ‘deep learning’ applied to contrast enhancement, too.
Of course, the biggest new feature of the QN95A is its Mini LED backlight. Samsung explains that the majority of a typical LED’s size is made up of its protective packaging and light-guiding lens, both of which it has done away with for its so-called ‘New LEDs’. Not only that, but it has also miniaturised the LEDs themselves, to astonishing effect: the new LEDs, packaging and all, are a fortieth the size of their traditional counterparts and look like little more than sparkly grains of sand.
Instead of a lens, this New LED backlight works with a new ‘micro layer’ that guides the light through the quantum dots (which provide the set’s colours). The result is apparently no light leakage or blooming.
Crucially, because the New LEDs are so much smaller, significantly more of them can be packed in, creating more individual dimming zones in the process. While Samsung doesn’t quote official figures for these dimming zones, we understand that the QN95A has just under 800 of them. Last year’s Q95T and Q90T are thought to have had around 120 dimming zones each so, on paper at least, this appears to be a massive upgrade that should have a startling impact on contrast.
Picture
(Image credit: Future / Escape From Pretoria, Amazon Prime)
Kicking off with the 4K Blu-ray of John Wick: Chapter 3, it quickly becomes clear that this is a massive upgrade in real terms, too. Not only does the QN95A go vastly brighter than the OLED competition, in most conditions it combines bright and dark picture elements unlike any commercially available TV before it. As John cuts through the chandelier shop near the start of the film, the warm, piercing light contrasts brilliantly with the rain-soaked streets in the background, with the bulbs and the glass sections of the chandeliers sparkling to a degree that makes the Award-winning Philips 65OLED805 look decidedly dull.
Crucially, this brightness doesn’t come at the expense of black depth, which is close to OLED-quality. If you look closely at a still image, you can see that the top black bar loses a bit of purity as one of the shining bulbs lingers at its edge, but in action, this isn’t noticeable. What’s more, there’s no obvious haloing around bright objects on dark backgrounds, or any other real hint that this is a backlit telly. It’s not totally perfect, but it could be argued that it’s close enough to not matter.
That said, the QN95A is, like its predecessor, a little cautious when confronted by small bright objects in otherwise overwhelmingly black images. During the opening scene of It, Pennywise’s eyes should glow menacingly bright out of the gloom of the basement, but they’re barely noticeable here. As the camera heads through the tunnel towards daylight for the start of the film, it’s clear that the TV is holding back, presumably for fear of introducing blooming, and it makes the image less exciting than it should be.
The same trait is clear in the company logos and intro text at the start of Blade Runner 2049. It could be that Samsung is playing things just a little too safe here, but crucially, these ultra-high contrast images are relatively uncommon, and in isolation, the Samsung’s delivery rarely looks wrong. It’s only in a side-by-side comparison with one of the punchier 2020 OLEDs that this reticence becomes clear.
The only other slight flaw in the QN95A’s delivery is regarding the balance of dark detail and black depth. Not that the TV isn’t capable of both, but we struggle to find the perfect balance. There’s a dedicated Shadow Detail setting that does exactly that but it also somewhat washes out the image. Switching the Contrast Enhancer to High, meanwhile, reveals so much dark detail that it feels as though artificial light is being added to some dark scenes.
We’ve always appreciated Samsung’s bold and straightforward picture settings, but for this TV, a Contrast Enhancer setting between Low and High might have proved perfect. As it is, you have to trade just a bit of dark detail to get inky blacks, or have slightly artificially boosted shadow detail.
Ultimately, though, the QN95A is a stunning performer overall. It’s so dynamic and vibrant that it makes its rivals look flat and boring. Whites, in particular, are incredibly pure and punchy, from John Wick’s shirt to the fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling of the first-floor armoury above the chandelier shop.
(Image credit: Future / Escape From Pretoria, Amazon Prime)
Colours are incredibly lush, too, but also natural and controlled – as long as you tone down the Colour setting just a bit. It’s the perfect foil for the comic book-style exaggeration of John Wick 3, pumping up the pink of the shirts of the call centre staff and bringing the Marrakesh market to life with its varied and vibrant hues.
Switch to 1917 and the vibrancy is tempered by a slightly unexpected degree of naturalism. Some TVs we’ve reviewed have, in their quest for vibrancy, pushed the green fields at the film’s start from verdant to lurid, but the QN95A doesn’t fall into this trap and the film is delivered with both punch and poise.
The same effortless balance is applied in regards to detail and sharpness, too. Where some TVs, including previous Samsung models, can over-sharpen edges and details, giving everything an artificially etched look, the QN95A ensures that everything is crisp and clearly defined without any of that exaggeration. The detail is all there, but it isn’t rammed down your throat, and that’s the way it should be.
In 2020, Samsung took a big step forward in terms of motion processing, and it’s good to see that that balance of smoothness and naturalism continues into 2021. Again, you need to select the right setting: the default Auto setting is forced and unpleasant, but switching to Custom and setting Blur Reduction and Judder Reduction to 10 and 3 respectively keeps motion controlled without adding fizz around fast movement or any of the dreaded soap opera effect.
Switching from 4K to 1080p with the Looper Blu-ray, it becomes clear that this Samsung takes a surprisingly subtle approach to SDR content. While many TVs attempt to give SDR content an HDR sheen, the QN95A opts instead for subtlety. Compared with the Philips OLED805, the Samsung’s image is less dynamic and instantly exciting, but also more nuanced in its shading and a fair bit more detailed. Both approaches have their merits, but Samsung’s feels more authentic.
The same relative characteristics are present as we switch to our trusty Dirty Harry DVD. While the Samsung is once again less punchy in its delivery, it’s subtler and cleaner, too.
Sound
(Image credit: Future)
Considering the QN95A’s sound system is essentially invisible, it packs in a large number of drivers – eight of them, in fact – in a 4.2.2 arrangement that Samsung refers to as OTS+ and is rated to 70W. ‘OTS’ stands for ‘Object Tracking Sound’ and refers to the fact that the system is designed to create a sense of three-dimensionality akin to Dolby Atmos. All of which makes it slightly baffling that the QN95A can’t natively play Dolby Atmos soundtracks, although it can pass them out to a connected speaker system (even a Samsung soundbar).
Regardless of the tech involved (or not), the QN95A puts in a solid audio performance that’s clear, direct and punchy but with good weight and openness. It delivers a strong sense of space and atmosphere while ensuring that dialogue and effects are presented clearly. Detail levels are high by the standards of an integrated sound system, too.
That said, the QN95A’s speakers struggle with the super-deep bass at the start of chapter 2 of Blade Runner 2049, with its woofers flapping uncomfortably. This is far from the only TV to have problems here – LG’s CX OLEDs suffer at least as badly – but it’s a shame all the same. Still, we would always recommend partnering a TV as impressive as this with a dedicated sound system, and this flaw only reinforces that message.
If you are determined to stick with the Samsung’s integrated speakers, Adaptive Volume is best switched off as it tends to sound quite forced and hard, but Adaptive Sound+ is worth using as it adds spaciousness and a slight sense of cinematic envelopment. Amplify is worth trying, too: it sacrifices a bit of low-level dynamic subtlety for bigger overall dynamics and more punch, making it useful for action films. Standard is probably better if you want to use one setting for all content, though.
Verdict
While Mini LED might not quite be the revolution that Samsung is pitching it as, it’s still a substantial upgrade to an already excellent range of TVs. The overall contrast offered is staggering, and the QN95A combines near-OLED black levels with awesomely crisp white highlights and fabulously vibrant colours, all while retaining an effortless sense of naturalism.
Throw in the best, most app-packed operating system in the business, a delightfully slim design and a full set of next-gen HDMI sockets and this is (a lack of Dolby Vision support aside) as complete a package as can be imagined.
It’s early days for 2021 TVs, but Samsung has thrown down the gauntlet in emphatic style and it will be fascinating to see how its rivals respond.
If you’re moving from LastPass (or another password manager you’re dissatisfied with), you may be tempted to simply go with the password manager that comes with your browser or operating system. It’s certainly an easy solution, and a reasonable one, depending on your point of view. Until recently, third-party password managers were known to be more secure, but Apple and Google have been working to make their built-in password managers more secure, while Microsoft is adding one to its authenticator app. So it could be a viable choice.
One way, however, that these built-in password managers don’t stand up to their independent competitors is how tricky it can be to get preexisting passwords into their systems.
If you tend to hang out in the Google ecosystem and / or you have an Android mobile device, that means you can be using the Google Password Manager to store and synch your passwords via the Chrome browser. Unfortunately, like Apple’s Safari, Google Chrome makes it extremely difficult to import passwords from a CSV file.
The only way to do it that I could find was to try to enable a disabled Chrome feature that allows you to import passwords. After searching online, I found several methods to enable it, depending on which version of Chrome you’re running. I am currently running version 88, and while I was able to use the following method to add the import command to Chrome (thank you to Guiding Tech for pointing me toward this possible solution), my copy of Chrome was never able to actually import the CSV file I had downloaded from LastPass.
Be that as it may, here is the process I used. Perhaps you’ll have more luck. I’ll let you know how I finally managed to get my passwords into Chrome right afterward.
In Chrome’s top address bar, type in chrome://flags. This will bring you to the Experiments page.
In the “Search flags” box on top, type in “password import.” (Probably just typing “password” will be enough.)
In Chrome’s Experiments page, you can enable the Import feature.
Find “Password import” and click on the drop-down menu on the left (it will probably be labeled “Default”). Select “Enabled.”
Select “Relaunch.”
Now that you’ve added the import function, go to to your Chrome Settings (by selecting the three dots in the upper right corner and choosing “Settings”).
Find “Passwords” (which will be in the “Autofill” category) and click on the arrow on the right.
Look for “Saved Passwords,” and click on the three dots on the right. You should see a drop-down that includes the selection “Import.”
Chrome should now have an Import selection under Saved Passwords.
Click on “Import.” You’ll be able to select a CSV file from your file manager — and hopefully, import your passwords.
If that works for you — great! If not, then there is a last desperate way to get your passwords into Chrome, which is the one that finally worked for me.
Download Firefox (if you don’t have it already) and start it up.
Click on the three lines in the upper right corner and select “Logins and Passwords.”
Click on the three dots in the upper right corner and select “Import from a File.”
Select your CSV file and import it.
Firefox has no qualms about importing a CSV password file.
Now that your passwords are in Firefox, you can transfer them easily to Chrome:
In Chrome, click on the three dots in the upper right corner and go to “Bookmarks” > “Import Bookmarks and Settings.”
Select Mozilla Firefox in the drop-down menu, select “Passwords” (and “Autofill form data” if you had any), and click on “Import.”
Chrome has no problem importing passwords from rival browsers.
That (phew!) should do it! But if you don’t want to go through all that, there are always free alternative password managers that you can try.
The Android Google TV app could soon be getting a built-in remote control for Android TVs, XDA Developers reports. The unreleased feature was discovered in the code for version 4.25 of the Android app. Enabling the feature reveals an apparently unfinished interface built around a large D-pad, and the option to pair the app with an Android TV device using a 4-digit PIN.
The discovery of the new code coincides with a renewed push from Google to update and modernize its smart TV software. Last year it launched a Chromecast with a new Google TV interface for the operating system, and this software is also coming as a built-in operating system to smart TVs this year. As part of the launch, Google also rebranded its Play Movies & TV app to Google TV on Android (for now, on iOS it’s still appearing as Google Play Movies & TV).
Google is working on integrating the Android TV Remote Control app into the Google TV app. Here are some screenshots of the feature, which is not yet available in version 4.25. (Surprise, surprise…it’s exactly as you’d expect.) pic.twitter.com/73iqX6FRJd
— Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) March 2, 2021
Google technically already has an Android TV app on iOS and Android that offers this functionality, but neither versions have been updated in years. We wouldn’t be surprised if both ended up being discontinued if the feature gets rolled in the Google TV app.
The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 is beautiful, bold, and totally functional.
Samsung’s flagship Chromebook is less expensive and better than before
I’ll spare you the suspense: the battery life is good.
It’s not incredible. The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 is far from the longest-lasting Chromebook I’ve ever tested. But after last year’s Samsung Galaxy Chromebook couldn’t even make it five hours on a charge, my expectations were on the floor. I performed my first battery test on this year’s sequel in an optimistic but nervous state. Finally, several months after the Chromebook 2 was announced, I’m breathing a sigh of relief. To repeat: the battery life is not a disaster, folks. The battery life is fine.
That’s sort of the theme of this machine. There are a couple of standout features, and the rest of it is fine. And I’m very happy with that.
Samsung’s Galaxy Chromebook, released almost a year ago, was a high-risk, high-reward play. There were a number of fantastic features, some of which (the OLED screen, the built-in S Pen, the 0.38-inch-thick chassis) were so fancy it was shocking to see them on a Chromebook. But two of its features were significant problems: the $999 price tag (putting the device in competition with the likes of the MacBook Air), and the battery life.
The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 (which isn’t so much a sequel to the Galaxy Chromebook as it is a more affordable alternative) lacks some of the Galaxy Chromebook’s most ambitious features. The stylus, the fingerprint sensor, and the OLED panel have all disappeared. But in their place are all-day battery life and a sub-$700 price tag. In doing so, it makes its case not as a groundbreaking Chromebook of the future, but as a device you might actually want to buy today.
With colors like these, who needs OLED?
From afar, the Galaxy Chromebook 2 looks fairly similar to the Galaxy Chromebook. That’s a compliment — the Galaxy Chromebook’s striking design was one of its biggest selling points. The Chromebook 2 comes in a bold “fiesta red” color, which is a cross between bright red and bright orange. You certainly don’t see Chromebooks of this hue every day, and it’ll turn heads if you’re sitting in public. (You can also buy this in “mercury gray” if you’re boring.)
Pick the thing up, and you’ll start to see where Samsung has cut some corners. It’s thicker and heavier than its predecessor, at 0.55 inches thick and 2.71 pounds, respectively. It’s still plenty light, though it’s a bit hefty to hold as a tablet for long periods. With square edges, it also has a blockier vibe, and the finish feels a bit plasticky and is quite a fingerprint magnet (though the prints are easy to wipe off if you have a cloth on hand).
None of these changes are massive knocks against the Galaxy Chromebook 2, though, especially at this price point. It still looks quite nice, and the aluminum chassis is sturdy. There’s little to no flex in the display or keyboard, and while I saw a bit of screen wobble while typing and using the touchscreen, it wasn’t too distracting. This is where the Chromebook 2 has an advantage over our current top pick, the Acer Chromebook Spin 713. That device is bulkier than Samsung’s, quite bland in its design, and has a bit more flex in its keyboard and screen.
The really big chassis downgrade Samsung has made is in the display. The Galaxy Chromebook has a 4K OLED panel that’s absolutely beautiful but, to be honest, not necessary for the majority of people. Instead, the Chromebook 2 is the first Chromebook ever to feature a QLED panel. QLED panels aren’t OLED, despite the name similarity; they’re LED-backlit LCD screens that use Samsung’s quantum-dot technology.
But OLED or not OLED, this is still one of the best displays I’ve ever seen on a Chromebook. It’s gorgeous. Colors were vibrant and accurate, with solid contrast and fine details. This machine is great to watch videos on. It is glossy and kicks back some glare but nothing that was too distracting. The other disappointment is that it’s 16:9 (1920 x 1080 resolution). The Chromebook Spin 713 also has a very nice panel at the roomier 3:2 aspect ratio. But on the whole, the Chromebook 2 looks great. Its speakers sound quite good as well, making for a solid entertainment device all around.
I’ll admit that the keyboard took some getting used to. It’s flatter than some of the best Chromebook keyboards I’ve used, including that of Google’s Pixelbook Go. But it does have a nice key texture with a click that’s satisfying but not too loud. I was enjoying it after a few days into my testing. In terms of ports, you get two USB-C ports (one on each side — bonus points for convenient charging!), a microSD slot, and a headphone jack. The one thing I’d wish for is a USB-A, but I know I’m fighting a losing battle there.
As I noted before, the Chromebook 2 is missing some of the snazzier features you’ll see on more expensive devices (including the Galaxy Chromebook). The most significant is that there’s no biometric authentication on this; it’s password-only, and I do miss the convenience of the fingerprint reader on its predecessor. (If you’re super anti-password, you could, technically, pair the Chromebook to an Android phone and unlock it with that phone’s biometrics.)
Another thing you don’t get is a bundled stylus. The Galaxy Chromebook shipped with a nice pen, which lived in a tiny garage in the chassis. The Chromebook 2 is compatible with USI pens, but you’ll have to store them separately. And there’s no camera on the keyboard deck, something a number of recent Chromebooks have included to allow for easy front-facing photos while in tablet mode.
But while those features are all nice bonuses, they likely won’t impact the average user’s experience too much. And at the $549 to $699 price points, I’m not enraged by their absence.
Pretty chassis with no stylus garage in sight.
You can buy the Galaxy Chromebook 2 with one of two processors: the starting $549.99 configuration includes an Intel Celeron 5205U with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, and the $699.99 model (which I received) includes a Core i3-10110U, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage.
In my first hands-on with this device, I was hesitant about the base configuration. Despite the appealing price, a Celeron with 4GB of RAM is quite an entry-level system, and I generally wouldn’t recommend it for anyone who needs their device to do school or office work. However, I now think there’s one compelling use case for the Celeron model: a Netflix machine. If you don’t plan on using the Galaxy Chromebook 2 as a primary driver but want to take advantage of the QLED screen for entertainment, you can probably get away with the $549 price. (Everyone else should probably spring for the Core i3.)
The Core i3 is a step down from the Core i5, the processor that powered the Galaxy Chromebook. But like an OLED screen, that processor is overkill for many Chrome OS tasks. As I used the Chromebook 2 to send emails, fiddle with spreadsheets, write in Google Docs, stream Spotify, and do other standard work, I didn’t notice any performance issues. I also never felt any heat in the keyboard, the touchpad, or the bottom of the deck. (The Galaxy Chromebook 2 has a fan, which some thin Chromebooks don’t.)
Battery life, as mentioned, is quite acceptable. I averaged 7 hours and 21 minutes of continuous work at 50 percent brightness, sometimes using a mix of Chrome and Android apps and sometimes sticking mostly to Chrome. The Chromebook 2 does take a bit of time to charge, though. It only juiced up to 54 percent in an hour.
Where the system lagged was in tasks that leverage the internal storage. The Galaxy Chromebook 2 has eMMC storage, which is considerably slower than the SSD you’ll find in most laptops. The process of getting a batch of around 100 photos from a camera into Adobe Lightroom just dragged. It took so long that, several times, I considered aborting the mission and hopping over to my MacBook. I ran AndroBench to confirm that the storage was the issue, and the results were… not great. To be clear, eMMC isn’t a huge knock against a Chromebook at this price, but it is a spec I’d stay away from if you’ll need to do anything with photos or other tasks that involve writing files to the drive.
Great for lighter loads, meh for more.
Finally, I think this is my first Chromebook testing period where I haven’t run into any big hiccups with Chrome OS. The operating system itself has been smooth for a while, but I’ve run into all kinds of issues with Android apps (one of the OS’s big selling points) in the past. No major problems here, though: nothing crashed, nothing bricked the device, nothing randomly changed size, nothing disappeared during tablet-mode transitions. That’s a welcome relief.
Your experience with Android apps on the Galaxy Chromebook 2 will vary widely based on the app. I generally used them to keep distractions like Twitter separate from my browser where I was working. Some popular services, such as Podcast Addict and 1Weather, don’t have great browser equivalents, so it’s handy to be able to load those apps through Chrome OS. But on net, I found that the apps I used for stuff every day — Slack, Messenger, Google Docs, Reddit, Twitter, Gmail — were either equivalent to or worse than their browser counterparts. The Android interfaces were generally slower to update and still had some kinks to work out. (You can’t click and drag to highlight in Docs, for example.) Slack also wouldn’t let me clear my status icon and occasionally sent me multiple pings for the same message. And Facebook Messenger occasionally refused to minimize, and also sent me huge dumps of notifications each morning from conversations I’d had on my phone the previous night. If you run into issues with Android apps, you can use the web app versions, which mostly work great.
In comparing the Chromebook 2 to the market, the most prominent competitor that comes to mind is Google’s Pixelbook Go. It offers similar benefits (an attractive design, decent battery life, a portable build) with similar caveats (no biometric authentication, no built-in stylus). But as of this writing, the $649 Pixelbook Go configuration comes with only 64GB of storage and an older Core m3 chip. So while there are reasons certain folks might prefer Google’s device (it has a better keyboard, it’s thinner and lighter), I think the $699 Galaxy Chromebook 2 is the better value among the two. For just $50 more, you get a better processor, more storage and RAM, a brilliant color, a convertible build, and a spectacular screen.
A $549 Chromebook that looks like a thousand bucks.
A more difficult comparison is the convertible Chromebook Spin 713. For $70 less, you can get that system with a Core i5, an NVMe SSD, a better port selection that includes USB-A and HDMI, and a 3:2 screen that’s also excellent. On the whole, Acer’s device still offers better value for the average person. That said, there’s a valid reason some people may want to splurge on the Galaxy: looks. The Spin 713, like a number of Chromebooks that are great on the inside, looks like something that you’d see on a middle school laptop cart. Pared-down as it is, the Galaxy Chromebook 2 is still a Samsung device: it asks a premium for hardware that’s beautiful to look at and built to last.
Put the Galaxy Chromebook 2 next to the Galaxy Chromebook, and the former has clearly cut some corners. But it’s cut the right corners. In some ways, it’s the device I’d hoped the Galaxy Chromebook would be: beautiful, bold, and totally functional as well. It’s exchanged a bit of panache for a lot of simplicity. It’s, as I said in my hands-on, “a regular-ass Chromebook.” And I couldn’t be happier with it.
One of the world’s most popular and innovative computers officially launched on February 29, 2012. Nine years and 38 million units sold later, the Raspberry Pi powers a huge community of makers, students and businesses. What started as a small project, meant to increase applications for Cambridge University’s computer science program has become a global movement.
Every serious tech enthusiast should own at least one Raspberry Pi or, if you’re like me, 30 Raspberry Pis. You can use one as a lightweight PC, a retro arcade machine or to power a variety of projects, from home security cameras to tic-tac-toe-playing robots, self-driving trash cans or streaming media servers.
In honor of the Raspberry Pi’s ninth birthday, here are 9 key facts about it.
1. Raspberry Pi’s original target was just 1,000 units.
The Raspberry Pi was originally developed to solve a very limited problem: the decreasing number of people applying to study computer science at Cambridge University. The number of applications had dropped from 600 to 250 per year and Eben Upton, who was the director of studies and responsible for admission, became concerned that not enough kids were taking an interest in computers. By providing a low-cost, hackable computer to just a few kids in the UK, Upton intended to get more and better students for his program.
“The stuff we were designing, the business model side, they were all scaled around the idea that if you could get 1,000 units built and into the hands of the right 1,000 kids [you’d solve the problem],” he told us in 2019.
After interest in the project swelled, Upton and his team decided that they needed to make a lot more than 1,000 units. And the target audience expanded from U.K. children to people of all ages in all countries.
2. There have been at least 21 Different Models of Raspberry Pi.
(Image credit: Shutterstock)
Since its launch in 2012, the Raspberry Pi Foundation has released 20 additional models, 52 if you count all four RAM capacities of the Raspberry Pi 4 B and all 32 variants of the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 (which comes in different RAM and storage capacities and with or without Wi-Fi).
The original Raspberry Pi, the Model B had just 256MB of RAM and a single-core, 700 MHz processor. The current mainstream model, the Pi 4 B, has up to 8GB of RAM, a quad-core 1.5-GHz CPU and USB 3.0 ports.
Model
Year Released
CPU
RAM
Raspberry Pi 1 B
2012
700 MHz Broadcom BCM2835 (1 core)
256MB
Raspberry Pi 1 A
2013
700 MHz Broadcom BCM2835 (1 core)
256MB
Raspberry Pi 1 A+
2014
700 MHz Broadcom BCM2835 (1 core)
512MB
Raspberry Pi 1 B+
2014
700 MHz Broadcom BCM2835 (1 core)
512MB
Compute Module 1
2014
700 MHz Broadcom BCM2835 (1 core)
512MB
Raspberry Pi 2 B
2015
900 MHz Broadcom BCM2836 (4 cores)
1GB
Raspberry Pi Zero 1.2
2015
1 GHz Broadcom BCM2835 (1 core)
512MB
Raspberry Pi 2 B v1.2
2016
1 GHz Broadcom BCM2835 (1 core)
512MB
Raspberry Pi 3 B
2016
1.2 GHz Broadcom BCM2837 (4 cores)
1GB
Raspberry Pi Zero 1.3
2016
1 GHz Broadcom BCM2835 (1 core)
512MB
Raspberry Pi Zero W
2017
1 GHz Broadcom BCM2835 (1 core)
512MB
Compute Module 3
2017
1.2-GHz Broadcom BCM2837 (4 cores)
1GB
Compute Module 3 Lite
2017
1.2-GHz Broadcom BCM2837 (4 cores)
1GB
Raspberry Pi 3 B+
2018
1.2-GHz Broadcom BCM2837 (4 cores)
1GB
Compute Module 3+
2019
1.2-GHz Broadcom BCM2837B0 (4 cores)
1GB
Compute Module 3+ Lite
2019
1.2-GHz Broadcom BCM2837B0 (4 cores)
1GB
Raspberry Pi 4 B
2019
1.5-GHz Broadcom BCM2711
1 / 2 / 4 / 8GB (2020)
Compute Module 4
2020
1.5-GHz Broadcom BCM2711
1 / 2 / 4 / 8GB
Raspberry Pi 400
2020
1.8-GHz Broadcom BCM2711
4GB
Raspberry Pi Pico
2021
133-MHz RP2040
264K
Launched in late 2020, the Raspberry Pi 400 is Raspberry Pi’s first standalone computer. Instead of a bare board, the Pi 400 is a keyboard with the equivalent of a Pi 4 inside, though the CPU runs at 1.8 rather than 1.5 GHz. It’s sold either by itself or in a kit with a mouse, power supply, cables and an official guide.
The Raspberry Pi Pico is a completely different type of Pi, a microcontroller board that’s more like an Arduino than a traditional Pi (more on that below).
3. Raspberry Pi Pico marks a new chapter in Pi history.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Released in January 2021, the Raspberry Pi Pico is the company’s first microcontroller and marks the debut of its first custom silicon, the RP2040 CPU. Where every prior Pi has been a full-fledged computer that boots into a, typically Linux, operating system, the $4 Pico falls into the same category as Arduino. The Pico is great for controlling motors, lights and sensors and runs a program as soon as you turn it on, without the need to boot up or the worry that you’ll lose data if you pull the plug without doing a safe shutdown.
The Pico has three built-in ADC (analog-to-digital converters), something that other Pis lack, which allow you to connect directly to analog devices such as joysticks, potentiometers and distance sensors. See our articles about Raspberry Pico vs Arduino and which Raspberry Pi is right for you for more detailed comparisons between the Pico, the Arduino and other Raspberry Pis.
The RP2040 chip which powers the Pico marks an even bigger evolution than the board itself. This 133-MHz, dual-core Cortex M0+ CPU is designed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation and licensed out to other vendors such as Pimoroni and Adafruit who are building an entire ecosystem of RP2040-powered microcontrollers themselves. Even Arduino is getting in on the act, releasing the Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect, which will have built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
4. The most popular Pi is . . .
(Image credit: Shutterstock)
The Raspberry Pi 3 B is the best-selling Pi model of all-time, with 13.2 million units sold. Of the various Raspberry Pi 4 B RAM capacities, the 4GB model accounts for approximately twice as many sales as the 8GB and 2GB SKUs.
The Pico has only been on the market for a few weeks, but already has sold 250,000 units with 750,000 on back order. 2020 was the top-selling year for Pi, with 7.1 million units sold.
5. The Pi has more than 20 operating systems.
Raspberry Pi OS, a customized version of Debian, is the official operating system for Raspberry Pi boards, but it’s not the only choice, by far. From Pi-friendly versions of Ubuntu and FreeBSD Linux to unofficial ports of Android and Chrome OS, there are a ton of different operating systems available. Some of the most interesting include:
LibreELEC: A lightweight OS that runs the Kodi open-source media software.
RISC OS: Designed for ARM chips, this unique OS promises faster speeds than Linux.
Chromium OS: Turn your Pi into a Chrome Box.
Windows 10: Yes, you can install Windows 10 on a Raspberry Pi 4 (with some hacks), but it’s so slow you probably won’t want to keep using it.
Lakka: Specially designed for retro gaming, this OS comes with a series of emulators pre-loaded.
6. There are two Raspberry Pis in space.
The International Space Station is home to two “Astro Pis,” which are specially modified Raspberry Pi B+ models that have been “space hardened” and equipped with the official Raspberry Pi Sense HATs . The European Space agency runs periodic contests where children submit code to be run on the devices.
Though the Pis are older models, they recently got a storage upgrade as the Astro Pi project sent 256GB microSD cards to the ISS to replace the 32GB cards they were using.
7. The Raspberry Pi Foundation wants products to live forever.
Even though the Raspberry Pi B+, Raspberry Pi 2, Raspberry Pi 3 B and other models are way out of date, the Raspberry Pi Foundation continues to actively manufacture and sell them. The organization hates to End-of-Life (EOL) products, because there are industrial clients who may still need them even if they are really old.
“EOLing product is death. We’ve EOLed [just] five products in our life,” Upton told us in 2019. He said that the only five products that Raspberry Pi discontinued include the Pi 1A and Pi 1B, because “the Pi 1A+ and B+ are a better implementation of that world.”
Even after the price of the Raspberry Pi 4 B (2GB) dropped to $35, the 1GB model remained available at the same price, because some customers may still want it as a drop-in replacement.
8. The price of Raspberry Pi has dropped, relative to inflation.
The original Raspberry Pi cost $35 in 2012 while the Raspberry Pi 4 B (2GB) costs the same price today. However, if you consider inflation, $35 from 2012 is actually equivalent to $39.88 today. For that same price, you get:
A 40x faster processor (700 MHz, single-core vs 1.5-GHz quad core)
8x the RAM (256GB vs 2GB)
Wi-Fi vs no-Wifi
Dual monitor output vs single HDMI out
USB 3.0 ports vs USB 2 only
If $35 still seems like a lot of money, there are cheaper Pi models. The Raspberry Pi Zero goes for just $5 while the Raspberry Pi Pico, a microcontroller board, goes for a mere $4.
9. There’s a Pi War every year.
Yes, you can compete with your Raspberry Pi. Pi Wars is an annual robotics competition where all of the gear must be built with your choice of Raspberry Pi. Teams at Pi Wars compete in challenges such as navigating obstacle courses, popping balloons and navigating a maze.
There are both human-driven and automated challenges. The next Pi Wars will take place in July 2021.
You can now listen to Amazon Music on your Google TV- or Android TV-powered tellybox directly through the native Amazon app.
The new app launched last week in the US, UK, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, India, Japan and Australia. It lets Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers access the full music library, while Prime members (who get a more limited Amazon Music catalogue as part of their package, but not Amazon Music Unlimited) can access a curated list of songs and playlists. Don’t have either subscription? You can still listen using the ad-supported option, though that will obviously mean putting up with interruptive adverts.
Amazon Music isn’t the first music streaming service to land on the relatively new Google TV platform (which succeeded Google’s former Android TV operating system): Google’s own YouTube Music is available, as are Spotify and Tidal.
The app’s launch shows relations between Amazon and Google are considerably more cordial than has previously been the case. A few years ago, the two tech giants were at loggerheads, with Amazon refusing to sell Google’s Chromecast streaming devices, and Google pulling the YouTube app from Amazon’s Fire TV streamers. Thankfully for consumers, those days are now behind us.
The Google TV operating system is currently only available with the Google Chromecast with Google TV streamer, a top video streamer that earned a perfect five out of five in our review. However, Google TV will also be coming to smart TVs from Sony and TCL in 2021. Android TV-based TVs, meanwhile, span hundreds of models from the likes of Sony, Philips, TCL and Sharp.
MORE:
Read all about Google TV: apps, features, compatible TVs and more
Read our guide to the best video streamers
Read the full Amazon Music Unlimited review
Or check out our verdict in our Amazon Music HD review
If you’re moving from LastPass (or another password manager you’re dissatisfied with), you may be tempted to simply go with the password manager that comes with your browser or operating system. It’s certainly an easy solution, and a reasonable one, depending on your point of view. Until recently, third-party password managers were known to be more secure, but Apple and Google have been working to make their built-in password managers more secure, while Microsoft is adding one to its authenticator app. So it could be a viable choice.
One way, however, that these built-in password managers don’t stand up to their independent competitors is how tricky it can be to get preexisting passwords into their systems.
If you tend to hang out in the Apple ecosystem, that means using Safari for your passwords and passing them to your other devices using Apple’s iCloud Keychain. Here’s how to move your password data into iCloud Keychain.
Make sure you have Keychain
iCloud Keychain is how Apple syncs your information across devices — not just passwords, but also credit card info, Wi-Fi passwords, etc. If you haven’t used it, you may want to check to make sure it’s been set up and turned on. (If you plan to use your passwords on your mobile iOS device as well, you might want to check it there, too.)
Using a macOS device:
Go to your System Preferences app by clicking on the Apple icon in the upper-left corner
If you have macOS Mojave or earlier, click iCloud. Otherwise, select Apple ID > iCloud.
Go down the list of apps, and make sure that Keychain is checked
Make sure you have iCloud Keychain.
Using an iOS device:
Go to Settings and tap on your name
Tap on iCloud and scroll down to Keychain
If Keychain is Off, tap on the entry and then toggle it on
Import your password data
In order to get your data into Keychain, you need to import it into Safari on your Mac. Simple, right? Well, not really.
Unfortunately, unlike most password managers, you can’t import passwords from a CSV file into Safari. You can, however, import passwords from either Firefox or Chrome. So if you’ve got a CSV file from another password manager and you don’t have either of those browsers on your machine, you’ll have to install one of them first and upload your passwords into it. (You can find instructions for importing passwords into Chrome here and Firefox here.)
Once your passwords have been imported into one of the other browsers:
Close the other browser
Open Safari, go to File > Import From, and choose Chrome or Firefox. You can import Bookmarks, History, Passwords, or any combination thereof by checking the appropriate boxes.
One note: I had a series of mishaps trying to import from Firefox into Safari. Safari would invariably crash, even after I made a series of tweaks to Firefox. I finally gave up and tried it with Chrome, and the import worked immediately. Your mileage may vary.
You can check to see if the import worked by going to Safari’s top menu and selecting Safari > Preferences > Passwords. (You’ll have to enter your user password to access the password list.) You should see your passwords listed there.
Once you’ve imported your passwords into Safari, they should be automatically picked up by iCloud Keychain and useable across all your approved devices. You can check by typing and clicking on “Keychain Access” using Spotlight Search. That should bring up your Keychain app; you can click on iCloud in the top-left column and “Passwords” in the bottom left to see your imported passwords.
You should find your passwords in Keychain Access. (For obvious reasons, some data has been grayed out.)
PlayStation 5 owners might soon be able to install more than a few games at a time. Bloomberg today reported that, according to “people briefed on the plan,” Sony wants to release a firmware update with support for additional M.2 SSD storage this summer.
The PS5 launched with a custom 825GB SSD—only 667GB of which remained available after the operating system and other extras were installed— complemented by a custom flash controller that features a PCIe 4.0 interface.
That 667GB might seem like a lot, especially compared to last-gen consoles, but saying that PS5 games are storage-hungry would be an understatement. Most people will only be able to have a handful of titles installed at a given time.
Sony previously said the PS5 would support certain M.2 SSDs that meet the same performance requirements as the custom drive that ships with the console. Key factors include PCIe 4.0 support and a read bandwidth of at least 5.5GBps.
The console also offered support for external HDDs at launch, but only for use with PlayStation 4 titles, and Sony didn’t say when the PS5 would be updated with support for additional storage. Bloomberg’s report finally offers a (vague) timeline.
Sony gave Bloomberg this statement: “As previously announced, we are working to enable M.2 SSD storage expansion for PlayStation 5. The timing has not been announced and details will be shared later.” That’s neither confirmation nor denial.
All of which means those lucky enough to have found a PS5 should be able to have more than a few games installed this summer—provided they’re willing to purchase an M.2 SSD that meets Sony’s requirements. We’ll have to see how many are forced to choose between that and, say, a replacement DualSense controller.
A San Francisco-based startup called Framework has just launched an ambitious project: a thin, lightweight productivity laptop that it claims can be “upgraded, customized, and repaired in ways that no other notebook can.”
Framework founder Nirav Patel told The Verge that the company aims to address his long-standing frustrations with consumer technology companies. Patel was one of the original Oculus employees and has worked for Apple as well. During that time, he says he “saw an industry that felt incredibly broken across the board.”
“As a consumer electronics company, your business model effectively depends on churning out constant tons of hardware and pushing it into channels, and into market, and into consumers’ hands, and then sort of dropping it and letting it exist out there,” Patel explains. “It encourages waste and inefficiency, and ultimately environmental damage.”
To that end, Patel sees the Framework Laptop as more than a product — he sees it as an ecosystem.
The Framework comes with a 13.5-inch 2256 x 1504 screen, a 1080p 60fps webcam, a 57Wh battery, and a 2.87-pound aluminum chassis. Inside, you’ll get 11th Gen Intel processors, up to 64GB of DDR4 memory, and “4TB or more” of Gen4 NVMe storage.
As is the case with all kinds of consumer laptops, buyers can swap out and upgrade various internal parts of the Framework, including the RAM, battery, and storage. The company is trying to bring three additional benefits to the table. The first is that you can also customize and upgrade external components of the chassis, including the keyboard, screen, bezels (which are magnetically attached), and ports (via an expansion card system). If you’re someone who hates dongles and docks, you can select four ports from an assortment that includes the usual suspects (USB-C, USB-A, HDMI, DisplayPort, microSD, etc).
The second is that Framework will be selling its own modules in a centralized online marketplace, which is also open to third-party sellers and resellers. The idea is that if your screen cracks or you feel like changing your bezels, you can hop onto Framework’s site to find replacements that are custom-made for your laptop rather than having to search around. Framework’s components are printed with QR codes that, when scanned, will bring you straight to a purchase page for their upgrades.
The third is that in addition to a pre-built Framework system, you can purchase a “DIY” kit of your selected parts, which you can then use to assemble the laptop yourself. The DIY Edition provides some operating system flexibility: you can install “your preferred Linux distribution” on it or your pick of Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro.
Image: Framework
It’s a cogent plan, to be sure. But Framework won’t be able to achieve its upgradable, sustainable future just by announcing an ecosystem — it has to actually create an ecosystem that will last. And whether Framework will continue to manufacture modules for this specific laptop model far into the future, or whether third-party partners will pick up the slack, is certainly a question mark.
If you’re any kind of PC enthusiast, you probably know that Framework is far from the first company to try a scheme like this. Intel has given modular computers a shot in the past, to little result — its Compute Card was a commercial failure, and its modular Ghost Canyon NUC (which had hardware partners on board at launch) still has yet to receive any new components. Alienware’s original Area-51m also never received its promised future-proof upgradable parts. Phone makers have tried modular devices as well: Google’s Project Ara smartphone, composed of Lego-style bricks that users could rearrange and swap in and out, didn’t go anywhere. The reality is that hardware is hard to build and modular hardware is even more challenging.
Image: Framework
Patel, for his part, believes those OEMs weren’t committed enough. “Other companies, they put it out there, and someone internally decided, ‘Eh, we’re going to focus on something else this year,’ and shut down the project,” says Patel. “This is not something we’re dabbling in. It’s not a side project for us that someone thought was interesting. This is the core of our company.”
“We are releasing new modules, and upgrades, and accessories, and so on to drive the health of the ecosystem, and we’re going to continue doing that for as long as customers want us to,” Patel adds.
Framework will be taking preorders this spring, and the device is expected to ship this summer. Pricing hasn’t yet been announced, though Patel says it will be “comparable to other well-reviewed notebooks.”
Google TV, the search giant’s latest attempt at TV software, will include a new “Basic TV” mode that strips out a TV’s smart features in favor of providing simple access to live TV and HDMI inputs, 9to5Google reports. It’s a potential boon to anyone that ever wanted to dumb-down their smart TV because they prefer an external streamer or because they value privacy.
Google TV debuted on the new Chromecast, where it offered a new interface built on Google’s existing Android TV software, but will soon be offered as built-in software for TCL and Sony’s upcoming TVs.
According to 9to5Google, you can select the “Basic TV” mode at setup. Doing so strips out the operating system’s apps, content recommendations, and Google Assistant support. It’s possible to revert back to the standard interface at any time, but selecting the basic mode can only be done on setup. Unfortunately it’s unclear exactly what the interface will end up looking like, since the developer-focused ADT-3 dongle 9to5Google tested the mode on doesn’t have the required live TV or HDMI hardware. We also don’t know how basic mode will affect data collection.
The interface shows which features the basic TV mode strips out.Image: Google / 9to5Google
A Google spokesperson confirmed to 9to5Google that the mode is a feature of Google TV specifically, rather than Android TV 12.
There are plenty of reasons that people might want to remove all the smarts from a smart TV. Many users rely on set-top boxes from Apple, Roku, or Amazon for their streaming content, and a duplicate interface built into their TV just gets in the way. Others might want to continue using a TV long after developers have stopped supporting its software and apps, at which point it’s helpful to be able to strip it down to its bare essentials to improve performance. Or maybe you just don’t like the idea of using a smart TV given their history of tracking you everything you watch.
Intel’s Rocket Lake is on the launchpad for release this quarter, and in traditional fashion, the company began teasing hard gaming performance numbers during CES 2021. Now, Ryan Shrout, Intel’s Chief Performance Strategist, has teased a new benchmark result via Twitter that shows the flagship Rocket Lake Core i9-11900K beating AMD’s fastest mainstream chip, the Ryzen 9 5950X, by 11% in a storage benchmark conducted by Allyn Malventano, a Storage Technical Analyst with Intel. The company says the faster performance comes courtesy of the PCIe 4.0 interface on its 500-series motherboards for Rocket Lake.
Intel is a bit more than fashionably late to adopting PCIe 4.0, AMD embraced the speedier interface two years ago, but Intel is finally making the move with Rocket Lake. Intel’s test results slide notes that ‘results may vary,’ and as with all vendor-provided benchmarks, you should take the results with the requisite grain of salt.
At #CES21 we looked at Rocket Lake-S gaming. Here’s a sneak peek of Core i9-11900K PCIe Gen 4 storage performance – up to 11% faster on PCMark 10 Quick System Drive Benchmark vs the 5950X. Thanks @Malventano for the data. Backup: https://t.co/LcI5n5Cok2 pic.twitter.com/NhblHRQJSCFebruary 23, 2021
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Intel ran PCMark 10’s Quick Storage Benchmark test for its comparison, which is one of four possible benchmarks in the popular test suite. PCMark 10’s documentation points out that this “is a shorter test with a smaller set of less demanding real-world traces” that’s used to test smaller system drives that cannot run the Full System Drive benchmark that we use in our SSD reviews. This test performs mundane tasks like small file transfers/copies and runs Microsoft Excel, Adobe Illustrator, and Photoshop traces that emulate real-world performance.
As noted, the other PCMark 10 storage tests are much more demanding. However, the extended benchmarks push the bottleneck back to the storage device, largely removing the CPU/interface from the equation because the tests access a very large portion of the drive (100GB+ span) to push the drive into a degraded state. This is the long way of saying that it makes sense to use the shorter benchmark in an attempt to isolate either the CPU or the PCIe 4.0 interface as the bottleneck.
Intel outfitted both test systems (500-series motherboards for both chips) with a drive for the operating system and a secondary PCIe 4.0 1TB Samsung 980 Pro (50% full) as the test device. Intel connected these drives to a riser card placed in the PCIe slot, which should remove any interference from the platform controller hub (PCH) on the test results. We’ve included the test notes below.
The results are pretty straightforward – Intel claims that Rocket Lake is 11% faster in this benchmark than the Ryzen 9 5950X, and it’s noteworthy that this doesn’t boil down to having a ‘faster’ physical PCIe 4.0 connection than present on AMD’s motherboards. Instead, storage performance is impacted by a host of factors, including system drivers, motherboard firmware, and CPU performance. All in all, Intel claims that these factors combined to give Rocket Lake the upper hand in the tests.
Fast storage performance is important, and Intel’s late move to the PCIe 4.0 interface is welcome. However, it’s noteworthy that even if Intel has taken the lead in storage performance, AMD’s modern Ryzen platforms offer up more PCIe 4.0 connectivity: Intel’s Z590 chipset features PCIe 3.0 lanes for devices connected to the PCH, while AMD’s PCH serves up PCIe 4.0.
Intel has added a single direct PCIe 4.0 x4 interface for connecting M.2 storage devices to Rocket Lake chips, and you’ll either have to use this interface or place your SSD in a riser card in the PCIe slot to unlock the best performance possible with Rocket Lake. It’s too bad that Intel killed off its Optane drives for desktop PCs, or we might see a more pronounced difference in the benchmark.
Faster storage performance will benefit users that tend to transfer large files, and also those with more prosumer-class workloads, like heavy video editing, but most gamers wouldn’t notice the difference in typical conditions. You can see everything we know about Rocket Lake here, but we’ll have to wait for the final silicon to see how the chips stack up in our CPU Benchmarks performance hierarchy.
Lately, the consumer internet — that set of products devoted to building and monetizing large networks of people — has started to feel rather buzzy. A space that had been largely emptied out over the past five years is once again humming with life. The products are compelling enough, and growing fast enough, that Facebook and others have begun trying to reverse-engineer and copy them.
It still doesn’t seem quite real to me, and yet everywhere I look the signs are there: social networks are competitive again.
Today, let’s tour this weird new landscape and talk about what it means — and doesn’t mean — for the tech giants and the governments trying to rein them in.
I. How competition ended
If I had to put a date on when competition ended among social networks in the United States, I’d choose August 2nd, 2016. That’s when Instagram introduced its copy of Snapchat stories, blunting the momentum of an upstart challenger and sending a chill through the startup ecosystem.
I don’t think copying features is necessarily anti-competitive — in fact, as I’ll argue below, it’s a sign that the ecosystem is working as intended — but the effect of Facebook’s copying here was dramatic. Snap fell into a long funk, and would-be entrepreneurs and investors got the message: Facebook will seek to acquire or copy any upstart social product, dramatically limiting its odds of breakout success. Investment shrunk accordingly.
The previous year, after the success of Twitter’s Periscope app, Facebook had cloned its live video features, and enthusiasm for both products seemed to broadly peter out. When live group video experienced momentary success under Houseparty, Facebook cloned that too, and Houseparty later sold to Epic Games for an undisclosed sum.
It was in this stagnant environment that many people, myself included, came to believe that it had been a mistake to let Facebook acquire Instagram and WhatsApp. The former became the breakout social network of a younger generation, and the latter cemented Facebook’s global dominance in communication. A world in which both had remained independent would have been much more competitive, even if neither had grown to the scale that they did under Facebook.
This is the basic thesis of the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit against the company, which it filed in December. The government argues that Facebook “is illegally maintaining its personal social networking monopoly through a years-long course of anticompetitive conduct,” and if successful, it could force Facebook to sell off Instagram and WhatsApp. It’s a tricky case; as Ben Thompson explains here, the government’s attempt to define the market in which Facebook competes so as to prove it has a monopoly is rather tortured.
You can think the FTC’s case against Facebook is weak and also believe that the period from 2016 to 2021 saw remarkably little innovation among American social networks, at least in terms of the basic user behaviors that they inspire. The market for social products became incredibly concentrated; Facebook and Google built a duopoly in digital advertising; and their vast size and unpredictable effects helped to trigger a global backlash against American tech giants.
If, like me, you think this is all a problem, you could argue for one of two basic approaches to fixing it. The first is government intervention, in the form of an antitrust lawsuit or new regulations from Congress, that would regulate the ability of tech giants to acquire smaller companies or put up new barriers to entering the market or competing on fair terms. The second is to do basically nothing, trusting that the entropic nature of the universe and the inexorable march of time would eventually restore competition.
If the second choice sounds ridiculous, it is not without precedent. In the late 1990s, Microsoft’s dominance over the PC market led the government to pursue an antitrust case over the company’s move to bundle its Internet Explorer browser with the Windows operating system. The fear was that such bundling would grant Microsoft total power over the consumer PC market forever. In reality, of course, mobile phones were out there just waiting to be perfected, and then Apple came along and did just that, and now no one really worries too much about Microsoft’s power over the PC market.
I do wish the US government had intervened around 2016 to explore new regulations for tech giants’ mergers and acquisitions. In its absence, we could only bet on entropy — and whichever contrarian capitalists still felt like they could challenge Facebook in the market despite its many advantages.
The thing is, though, that a bunch of contrarian capitalists did. And lately they have been having a lot of success.
II.How competition began
Facebook’s biggest competitor in 2021 is, of course, TikTok, which has been siphoning usage from Facebook’s family of apps since it launched in the United States in 2018 (after merging with Musical.ly).
TikTok began by making it dramatically easier for people to make compelling videos, parceled out fame and fortune with a central feed that is incredibly compelling even if you don’t know or follow a single person, and eventually created an entire universe of audio memes, visual effects, and community in-jokes.
Eugene Wei, our best writer and thinker on TikTok, published the third part of his essay series about the app Sunday night. Among the many salient points Wei makes is that the sheer number of forces that have gone into TikTok’s success have made it difficult for Facebook (or YouTube) to clone. He writes:
People will litigate Instagram copying Snapchat’s Stories feature until the end of time, but the fact is that format wasn’t ever going to be some defensible moat. Ephemerality is a clever new dimension on which to vary social media, but it’s easily copiable.
This is why TikTok’s network effects of creativity matter. To clone TikTok, you can’t just copy any single feature. It’s all of that, and not just the features, but how users deploy them and how the resultant videos interact with each other on the FYP feed. It’s replicating all the feedback loops that are built into TikTok’s ecosystem, all of which are interconnected. Maybe you can copy some of the atoms, but the magic lives at the molecular level.
The success of TikTok is a source of real anxiety inside Facebook, where employees ask CEO Mark Zuckerberg a question about it during nearly every all-hands Q&A session. The company has deployed a competitor, called Reels, inside of Instagram, and perhaps it will find a way to succeed. But the larger point is that, whatever the odds, Facebook now has to compete against TiKTok or risk losing the next generation.
You’ve probably already considered that, though. (Unless you’re the FTC, which conspicuously avoided any mention of TikTok in its entire complaint about Facebook’s alleged monopoly position.) But when it comes to mobile short-form video, Facebook and YouTube face a real challenge.
So where else does Facebook suddenly find itself forced to compete?
For starters, there’s audio. While still available only by invitation, Clubhouse recently hit an estimated 10 million downloads. Celebrities including Tiffany Haddish, Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, and Zuckerberg himself have made appearances on the app, granting it a cultural cachet rare in a social startup that is still less than a year old. Clubhouse raised money last month at a valuation of $1 billion — more than Facebook ultimately paid for Instagram.
Because it’s an audio app, Clubhouse doesn’t pose quite the existential threat that TikTok does: you can still theoretically browse Instagram or message businesses on WhatsApp while listening to a Clubhouse chat. But Facebook has been sufficiently intrigued by Clubhouse’s rapid rise that it is now working out how to clone the app, according to a report this month in TheNew York Times. Elsewhere, Twitter already has a Clubhouse clone, called Spaces, in beta. It’s not clear that Clubhouse poses a threat to either company, exactly. But both are still taking it as a challenge.
What else?
After years of making its most prominent investments in technically challenging media involving video, augmented reality, and virtual reality, Facebook is reportedly taking a second look at text. The rise of Substack over the past year has begun to mint a growing number of millionaire, text-based creators, while also pulling millions of people away from their social feeds into the relative calm of the email inbox. (I have a personal stake in this one, of course; I started a newsletter in large part because my social feeds had come to feel like a lousy place to get my news.)
What’s interesting here is that Facebook now seems open to this possibility, too. Last month, the Times also reported that Facebook is developing newsletter tools for reporters and writers. (I’ve confirmed this with my own sources.) As with Clubhouse, newsletters hardly pose an existential threat to Facebook. But they do bleed time and attention away from the company’s apps — and in a world where news may not be even available on Facebook in some countries, it may be wise for it to have a hedge. (And Twitter clearly thinks so, too: it acquired Substack competitor Revue last month.)
That leaves Facebook competing with legitimately fast-growing, well-funded competitors across several categories. And while it’s in a much earlier stage, I think the company may soon have an interesting competitor in photography as well.
Dispo is an invite-only social photo app with a twist: you can’t see any photos you take with the app until 24 hours after you take them. (The app sends you a push notification to open them every day at 9AM local time: among other things, a nice hack to boost daily usage.) Founded by David Dobrik, one of the world’s most popular YouTubers, Dispo has been around as a basic utility for a year. But last month a beta version launched on iOS with social features including shared photo “rolls,” and it quickly hit the 10,000-person cap on Apple’s TestFlight software. It raised $4 million in seed funding in October, and assuming the buzz continues into a public launch, I wouldn’t be surprised if Dispo took off in a major way.
Audio, video, photos, and text: to some extent, Facebook has never had to stop competing across these dimensions in the company’s history. But I can’t remember the last time it was fighting so many interesting battles at the same time.
III. What it means
Here’s what I’m not saying when I argue that social networks are competitive again:
That Facebook has not acted in various anti-competitive ways throughout its history.
That Facebook should no longer be subject to antitrust scrutiny, or that the US government (and, separately, a coalition of US attorneys general) should abandon their lawsuits.
That, given all this new competition, Facebook should be allowed to purchase rival social networks in the future.
That Facebook won’t remain the world’s largest social network for a long time to come, or that its business will suffer in the short term.
In fact, I think there’s a good case to be made that antitrust pressure from the US government in particular is what has allowed competition to return to social networks in the first place. Had Clubhouse or Substack emerged in 2013 or 2014, it’s not hard to imagine Facebook racing to acquire them and knock them off the chessboard. But in 2021, when Facebook faces a formal antitrust review in the United Kingdom over its acquisition of a failing GIF search engine, the company can only sit back and try to copy what others are doing better.
If that’s the case, it suggests that the half-assed response to Facebook’s growing dominance over the past half-decade nonetheless got us, however belatedly, to a better place. Antitrust pressure made it extremely difficult for the company to make acquisitions, opening a window just big enough for new entrants to climb through. It remains to be seen how big any new challengers to Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter can grow. But for the first time in a long time, I’m optimistic about their chances.
A slew of complaints has been posted to Reddit and user forums regarding USB connectivity bugs with Ryzen systems. AMD has announced via a forum post that it is investigating the matter, but for now, the breadth of the issue remains unknown and AMD says it impacts a “small number of users.” We’ve reached out to AMD and motherboard vendors for further comment and will update as necessary.
The issues seem confined to Ryzen 3000 and 5000 series CPUs in 500-series motherboards (i.e., X570 and B550) and consist of random dropouts for USB-connected devices. The complaints encompass a number of different types of USB devices, with issues including unresponsive external capture devices, momentary keyboard connection drops, slow mouse responses, issues with VR headsets, and, more worryingly, connection issues with external storage devices and USB-connected CPU coolers.
Naturally, poor connections to storage devices can result in data corruption, and coolers that don’t operate correctly can result in thermal throttling and reduced performance (luckily, AMD’s chips have robust protection mechanisms that prevent physical damage to the chip from excessive heat).
Some impacted AMD customers have compiled a list of 78 systems impacted by the bug. However, identifying the root issue could be daunting: a modern system relies on a wide collection of drivers, software, operating system code, and firmware to operate, and different motherboard firmware (AGESA) revisions could also be in play.
Additionally, AMD’s Ryzen processors supply some USB connectivity directly from the processor, while other USB lanes hang off the chipset. For now, it isn’t clear which set of USB ports are impacted.
To that effect, AMD has notified users that it has begun investigating the issue:
“AMD is aware of reports that a small number of users are experiencing intermittent USB connectivity issues reported on 500 Series chipsets. We have been analyzing the root cause and at this time, we would like to request the community’s assistance with a small selection of additional hardware configurations. Over the next few days, some r/Amd users may be contacted directly by an AMD representative (u/AMDOfficial) via Reddit’s PM system with a request for more information.
This request may include detailed hardware configurations, steps to reproduce the issue, specific logs, and other system information pertinent to verifying our development efforts. We will provide an update when we have more details to share. Customers facing issues are always encouraged to raise an Online Service Request with AMD customer support; this enables us to find correlations and compare notes across support claims.” – AMD Official Account.
Experimenting Ryzen users have come up with a few workarounds that seem to reduce and/or eliminate the USB dropout issues, which includes disabling Global C-States, disabling PCIe 4.0 in the BIOS and using PCIe 3.0 instead, manually uninstalling/reinstalling USB ports and root hubs, and also disabling unused USB headers. However, results vary and typically reduce, rather than eliminate, the issues.
The breadth of the issue isn’t currently known, and given the number of complaints, the spreadsheet with 78 impacted configurations obviously doesn’t include all instances of the bug — particularly given that many customers aren’t tech-savvy and wouldn’t frequent enthusiast tech forums. However, AMD has shipped over 1 million Ryzen 5000 chips (and an untold number of Ryzen 3000 chips) thus far, so it’s clear that the issue doesn’t impact all users. We’ve reached out to AMD on the matter and will update as necessary.
Huawei has announced the Mate X2, its first all-new foldable device since 2019’s Mate X. The new phone has received a radical redesign compared to the original device, with a large screen that unfolds from the inside of the device rather than around the outside. For using the phone while folded, the Huawei Mate X2 has a second screen on its outside, similar to Samsung’s approach with the Galaxy Fold series. Images of the phone were leaked minutes ahead of its official announcement by Evan Blass on Voice.
This being a Huawei device, the Mate X2 will launch without support for Google’s apps or services, which is likely to severely limit its appeal outside of China. According to Huawei’s site, the phone will run on EMUI 11.0 based on Android 10. However, during its livestream the company said it plans for the Mate X2 to be among the first phones to be updated to its own operating system, HarmonyOS, starting in April.
The internal screen on the Mate X2 measures 8-inches with a resolution of 2480 x 2200, while the exterior screen is 6.45-inches big with a 2700 x 1160 resolution. Both are OLED, and have refresh rates of up to 90Hz. They’re also both slightly bigger than the 7.6-inch internal display, and 6.2-inch external displays found on Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 2. Internally, the phone is powered by the company’s flagship Kirin 9000 chip, the processor that debuted in its Mate 40 Pro last year. This is paired with 8GB of RAM, and a battery with a rated capacity of 4,400mAh that can be fast-charged at up to 55W.
The Mate X2 is available in four colors.Image: Huawei
There are four cameras on the rear of the phone. A 50-megapixel wide-angle, a 16-megapixel ultra-wide, a 12-megapixel telephoto with a 3x optical zoom, and an 8-megapixel “SuperZoom” camera with a 10x optical zoom. The selfie camera on the outside of the phone has a 16-megapixel resolution, and there doesn’t appear to be a selfie camera in, or around, the foldable inner screen.
The Mate X2 is technically the third phone in Huawei’s foldable lineup. Last year it released the Mate XS, an updated version of the original Mate X which featured a more durable display and faster Kirin 990 processor.
Huawei says the Mate X2 will be available in China with 256GB of internal storage for ¥17,999 (around $2,785), or for ¥18,999 (around $2,940) with 512GB of storage. Available colors include blue, pink, black, and white. It’ll be available to buy in China from February 25th, but it’s unclear when the phone could be released outside the country.
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