Review - Page 53 of 153

Our Verdict

The ZH8 does a lot of things seriously well, but it makes less sense as a purchase than rival models from Samsung

For

Bright and punchy picture
Superb colours and motion
Impressive sound

Against

Blooming around bright highlights
Plays even less 8K than rivals
Missing some HDMI features

With the dearth of real 8K content likely to continue for a good while yet, manufacturers have an uphill battle to convince consumers that an 8K TV is a sensible purchase in the here and now.

With the ZH8, here reviewed as the 75-inch KD-75ZH8 model, Sony gets a huge amount right. This is one of the punchiest TVs we’ve tested, and one of the best-sounding too. It’s also aggressively priced for an 8K model, significantly undercutting our current Award-winner in the category.

That said, the ZH8 also lags a little behind its main rival in a couple of key areas, not least of which is its lack of support for the tiny amount of 8K footage that is actually already available.

Pricing

The Sony KD-75ZH8 (XBR-75Z8H in the US) was priced at £5999 ($7000) at launch, but you can now pick it up for £4999 ($4998).

Should you have the space and appetite for an even bigger 8K set, the 85in KD-85ZH8 (XBR-85Z8H) is currently available for £8499 ($9000).

Features

(Image credit: Future)

A 75in TV is always going to be a physically daunting proposition, but the Sony KD-75ZH8 is even more imposing than similarly sized rivals thanks to its chunky, industrial design. If you expect a high-end TV to be little more than a super-slim screen, you might be disappointed by the ZH8’s relatively thick bezels and 8.4cm depth – the Samsung QE75Q950TS is just 1.5cm deep. That said, there’s an undeniable stylishness to the Sony, its solidity, straight edges and pointy corners amounting to a seriously premium statement.

Sony KD-75ZH8 tech specs

(Image credit: Future / Greenland, Amazon Prime)

Screen type LCD w/ direct LED backlight

Resolution 8K

Operating system Android TV 9.0

HDR formats HDR10, Dolby Vision, HLG

HDMI x4

USB x3

Optical 1

It’s hard to imagine a pedestal stand that wouldn’t buckle under the 48kg weight of the ZH8, so it’s little surprise that Sony has opted for sturdy, low-profile feet instead. These look best when positioned at the bottom corners of the set, but a narrower placement is also an option. With this arrangement, the huge TV will stand on any furniture that’s at least 62cm wide – assuming it’s strong enough to take the 50kg weight with feet attached.

In the box, there are a number of plastic panels that can be attached to the rear of the set, concealing connections and creating an appealing chequerboard pattern. Those connections include four HDMIs, one of which is HDMI 2.1 certified. You might assume that means it has the full suite of advanced HDMI features, but that’s not the case: while the ZH8 supports 8K@60Hz, 4K@120Hz (also known as HFR) and eARC (Enhanced Audio Return Channel), VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) and ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) are missing. The absence of those last two features will be disappointing to next-gen gamers: the Xbox Series X makes use of both and the PS5 is due a VRR update in the not too distant future.

As is the norm for all but the most budget-oriented of Sony’s TVs, the ZH8 uses Android TV as its operating system. Android TV gets better with each iteration, and version 9 is no different. As with all Android TVs, the Android portion is installed over a more functional, core operating system, and it makes for a slightly more disjointed user experience than you get from the likes of Samsung and LG. The smart platform feels more like using an external source than it does a core component, for example. That said, Android TV brings bonuses such as Chromecast and Google Assistant (the set is also ‘Works with Alexa’ certified).

Android TV is already pretty well appointed in terms of apps, but Sony has also worked hard to fill any gaps. Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV, Google Play Movies and Rakuten are all here, in at least HDR10 and most with Dolby Vision (the ZH8 doesn’t support HDR10+, as is the norm for Sony). For the UK, BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All 4, My5, Now TV and BT Sport are all present, too. On the music front, Spotify, Tidal and Deezer are integrated, and while Apple Music and Amazon Music aren’t, you can use Chromecast to cast music to the TV from those apps on your phone.

In terms of core technology, the ZH8 is an LCD set with a direct LED backlight, and it uses the Picture Processor X1 Ultimate chip, which is Sony’s most powerful processor until the 2021 Cognitive Processor XR makes its debut with the company’s 2021 TVs in a few months’ time. The headline features here are Object Based Super Resolution, which is designed to intelligently analyse and enhance the definition of individual objects in an image, and an enhanced version of Object Based HDR Remaster, which applies a similar approach to contrast.

Picture

(Image credit: Future / Greenland, Amazon Prime)

Naturally, you’ll want to watch 8K content on your new 8K TV, but that’s even harder to do on the ZH8 than it is with Samsung’s 8K TVs. The only commercially available 8K content out there is streamed by YouTube in the AV1 format, which the ZH8 doesn’t support. You may only be missing out on aerial footage of lovely landscapes, but the fact that the tiny amount of 8K content out there is unplayable on your expensive 8K TV is hugely irritating. What’s more, it raises questions about the extent to which the ZH8 is future-proofed: it looks increasingly likely that the AV1 format is the one that will be utilised for 8K by other streaming services, including Netflix.

We are able to watch 8K content on the ZH8 for this review by using a Sony-supplied media player containing a handful of demo clips. With these clips, the ZH8 puts in a stunning performance that’s so crisp, dynamic and lifelike that you feel you could step right into each scene. However, that’s not an experience you’re going to be able to recreate at home.

Instead, what really matters is how the ZH8 performs with the content you do have access to right now, with the priority being 4K HDR. We insert Blade Runner 2049, one of our most demanding 4K Blu-rays, into our player, and are immediately impressed with the results. What strikes you first about the ZH8’s performance is how punchy and bright it is, particularly in very high-contrast scenarios. Most TVs shy away from fully illuminating the white text that appears from the black background at the beginning of the film, for example, but the ZH8 has no such reservations – this could well be the brightest rendition of this scene-setting copy we’ve seen.

This extreme contrast capability translates well to the film as a whole. As K travels around LA on foot and by flying car, the neon signs and holographic adverts jump out of the depressing dinginess of the rest of the city.

The effectiveness of that punch is further enhanced by the depth of the blacks. It’s not quite OLED levels of perfect blackness, but the ZH8 gets much closer than most LCD TVs, while also proving a dab hand at digging up dark details: on top of that striking contrast, you get superbly subtle shadows, with next to nothing being lost to the gloom.

However, there’s a problem here, and that’s backlight blooming. There are quite obvious halos of light around very bright objects on very dark backgrounds, and light frequently creeps into the black bars at the top and bottom when you’re watching an ultra-widescreen film. It is enough to be distracting at times, which is the last thing you want when you’re trying to sink right into a movie.

(Image credit: Future / Greenland, Amazon Prime)

The ZH8 is also a little soft and flat in its performance compared with the Samsung QE75Q950TS, which upscales 4K content in such a way that you could almost be fooled into thinking you were watching 8K. The Sony isn’t capable of pulling off the same trick, and the image doesn’t leap from the screen in quite the same way.

That said, there’s a naturalism to the ZH8’s performance that few can match. Its edges aren’t as sharp as those of the Samsung Q950TS, but there’s a smoothness and subtlety to the presentation that’s utterly convincing. It’s significantly better with motion, too, smoothing and sharpening everything without any shimmer or unpleasant artificiality. Its rivals are closing the gap in this regard, but Sony remains out in front.

Arguably the greatest contributor to the ZH8’s naturalism is its colour reproduction. It is capable of stunning vibrancy, but it’s also superbly subtle and nuanced, delivering every character’s unique skin tone, every building’s interior lighting, and every neon sign with unquestionable authenticity. Others might entice the eye a little more effectively, but this Sony (like many of its siblings) delivers on the creator’s intent in a way that few can match.

Dropping down to Looper in 1080p, that overall authenticity remains a strength, and it’s actually sharper and more detailed than the Samsung Q950TS. That said, it’s a fair bit noisier, too, exaggerating the intentional film grain to a degree that some will find distracting. It can be toned down by reducing sharpness and/or increasing noise reduction, but doing so softens the picture too much for our tastes. The perfect balance feels just out of reach, but this is an issue that you’ll encounter only occasionally as few films these days have this level of grain.

Those qualities with Full HD content roughly translate when you switch to standard-definition material. We play our trusty Dirty Harry DVD and the performance is sharp and detailed, which is impressive when you consider the amount of picture information that the TV is creating itself. Again, it’s effortlessly natural and convincing, particularly in terms of colours, although there’s still more picture noise than you’ll get from rival models.

Sound

(Image credit: Future)

Sony has been much more creative than its rivals in recent years in terms of TV sound, most notably by turning the entire panel of its OLED models into a speaker. That feature, called Acoustic Surface Technology, isn’t possible with an LCD model such as the ZH8, but Sony has sought to recreate the effect (which it calls ‘Sound from Picture’) by using a couple of tweeters to vibrate the frame of the TV. These work in conjunction with two forward-facing drivers mounted at the bottom to make it seem as if the sound is coming directly from the screen, while two rear-mounted woofers fill out the presentation.

All that effort has paid off handsomely. The ZH8 is clear and direct in its presentation, with the sound and picture linked in a way that’s supremely engaging. This is no one-trick performance, though – the sound is also detailed and dynamic by the standards of a TV sound system, making for an overall delivery that’s both engaging and exciting.

Dolby Atmos is supported and, in conjunction with the Acoustic Auto Calibration feature, which tailors the audio performance to your room, gives appropriate soundtracks plenty of scope and scale without sacrificing that directness. Few if any TV-integrated sound systems can fill a room quite as effectively, while also clearly projecting dialogue.

You can even use the ZH8 as the centre speaker of a surround sound package, should you wish, using the standard speaker terminals on the rear of the set. We wouldn’t recommend that, though – while the ZH8 sounds mighty impressive for a TV, even the best AV amplifier will struggle to tonally integrate it with a set of traditional speakers.

Verdict

There’s so much that the ZH8 gets right, most notably its supremely authentic picture performance and very impressive sound, but we can’t give it our wholehearted recommendation.

8K TVs are already a hard sell, and the fact that the ZH8 won’t play the tiny amount of 8K content that’s already available is a real issue, not least because it raises doubts about its ability to play other 8K content that might appear in the future. What’s more, it doesn’t make use its extra pixels with 4K content the way that the rival Samsung Q950TS does.

As such, the ZH8 may as well be a 4K TV. Even viewed on those terms it’s almost worth the full five stars, but the high price and backlight blooming hold it back to a four.

SCORES

Picture 4
Sound 5
Features 4

MORE:

Read our guide to the best 8K televisions

Read our Samsung QE75Q950TS review

(Image credit: TSMC)

Update: Clarified specifics pertaining to the industry letter.

If you’re still disappointed at not being able to

buy a Ryzen 5000 series chip

yet, you’ve apparently got some friends in high places. President Biden is just as annoyed as you, according to a new statement from White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, and is working to bring the global semiconductor shortage to an end as quickly as possible.

The Biden administration is “currently identifying potential chokepoints in the [semiconductor] supply chain and actively working alongside key stakeholders in industry and with our trading partners to do more now,” Psaki said.

Alongside these discussions, Psaki said that Biden also plans to sign an executive order in the coming weeks that would direct a comprehensive review of supply chain issues for critical goods, including chips.

Two people familiar with the review’s specifics told Bloomberg that it will last 100 days and will be led by the National Economic Council and National Security Council. Plans are to focus on semiconductor manufacturing and advanced packaging, as well as critical minerals, medical supplies and high-capacity batteries such as those used in electric vehicles.

The American auto industry also stands to gain from a more available supply of chips as well, with the United Auto Workers union releasing its own statement saying that “we also call on the Biden administration and Congress to develop trade and policy solutions that ensure that advanced technology that has been offshored is brought back and produced by UAW workers here in the U.S.” The statement follows a January 19th letter the union sent to the Biden administration asking the President to “consider urging major silicon wafer foundries to ramp up production of automotive-grade wafers.”

As such, we can’t say how much of a role consumer electronics will play in Biden’s plans.

National security is also a concern, especially given increased trading tensions between the United States and China within the past year. While TSMC is based in Taiwan, the political situation between Taiwan and China is still fraught.

Other moves are also developing in the semiconductor industry, with a letter sent to the President earlier today that was signed by the CEOs of Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm and which urged his administration to increase government support for domestic chip production, long a challenging issue due to foreign subsidies for chip R&D and manufacturing plants. This is in itself enlightening, given that both AMD and Qualcomm currently rely on foreign partners for chip production. “Our technology leadership is at risk in the race for preeminence in the technologies of the future, including artificial intelligence, 5G/6G, and quantum computing,” the letter states.

18 other CEOs signed the letter, which pointed out that the United States’ share of chip manufacturing has fallen by 12% since 1990. The letter’s specific demands include “substantial funding for incentives for semiconductor manufacturing, in the form of grants and/or tax credits.”

While it sounds like much of the lobbying pressure facing the Biden administration is focused on bringing chip production under American companies’ purview, it’s also possible that the President’s solutions may also piggyback off the previous administration’s work with TSMC to build a factory in Arizona.

Introduction

Mad Catz is a gaming peripherals company located in Hong Kong and has been around since 1989. Much like many other Mad Catz mice, the R.A.T. Pro X3 Supreme comes with a whole slew of customization options. Aside from the extendable back, both the right and left side panels may be swapped with differently shaped panels. Additionally, either ceramic or regular PTFE feet may be used (and freely swapped). PixArt’s PMW3389 sensor ensures great tracking, and Omron switches rated for 50 million clicks are used for the main buttons. Full software customizability is provided, and the same goes for extensive RGB lighting options.

Specifications

Mad Catz R.A.T. Pro X3 Supreme
Size:	115 mm x 87 mm x 38 mm (default)
Size (inches):	4.53″ x 3.43″ x 1.50″ (default)
Ambidextrous:	No
Weight:	112 g
Number of Buttons:	7 (including wheel click)
Main Switches:	Omron (50M)
Wheel Encoder:	Mechanical
Sensor:	PixArt PMW3389
Resolution:	50–16,000 CPI
Polling Rate:	125/250/500/1000/2000/3000 Hz
Cable:	1.80 m, braided
Software:	Yes
Price:	$229.99
Warranty:	2 years

(Pocket-lint) – Welcome to our guide to the best 65-inch TVs. As manufacturers find new ways to harness their technology and take leaps forward technically, the sets that almost always get those innovations first are the bigger ones in their ranges.

Best 4K TV: Premium Ultra HD smart TVs to buy today

If you’re used to smaller TVs, the jump to a 65-inch television can feel like a really big one, but trust us that it’s worth it if you can fit one in. You’ll be transported into the content you’re watching or playing and will be able to plan movie nights that really are like going to the theatre. So, to that end, we’ve gathered some of the very best 65-inch TVs on the market right now for you to choose from.

Our pick of the best 65-inch 4K TVs to buy today

LG OLED CX

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LG is sort of the kind of OLED TVs at the moment – it’s got the display tech down to a tee, and the CX is another in a long line of hits for the manufacturer.

It’s nicely designed with a stand that’s attractive without being too big, and bezels that are practically non-existant. On top of that you get stunning picture-quality on a really well-made OS, making it a joy to use. Of course, you’ll pay handsomely for the privilege.

LG OLED CX 4K TV review: Superb picture quality

Samsung

Samsung Q80T

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Samsung’s Q80T is a real stormer of a release – it’s still pretty pricey, but by Samsung’s standards brings the pricing down nicely, and has a range of sizes to pick from.

The 65-inch version, like the others, is a really superb display that uses Samsung’s trademark QLED technology to get deep blacks and impressive colour range without using OLED tech.

Samsung Q80T 4K QLED TV review: A 4K sensation

LG NANO90 65-inch

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LG’s got another ace up its sleeve in the form of this NANO90 TV, which is perfect if you’re a big gamer and want to guarantee low lag to give you every possible advantage.

It might look like any old TV nowadays, but the picture quality is great and by cutting on the cost of OLED, using standard LED, LG’s been able to make sure the TV is super-fast, perfect for games.

LG NANO90 4K NanoCell TV review: Can it outshine OLED?

TCL

TCL 5-Series S535

squirrel_widget_3956184

This is a high-quality 4K QLED TV but it isn’t outrageously expensive. TCL’s Natural Motion 240 tech is designed to reduce motion blur, especially when watching sports or other fast-moving scenes.

As you’d expect the TV is HDR compatible (HDR10, HLG, and Dolby Vision) while there are all the smart TV apps you’ll need, four HDMI ports and Google Assistant/Alexa integration.

TCL’s 5-Series is also available in 55, 75 and 50-inch sizes.

Samsung

Samsung Q65T

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If you like the look of Samsung’s televisions, but don’t want to fork out the money needed for the Q80T, the Q65T is a fabulous compromise.

You still get a brilliant QLED panel that’s gorgeous to watch 4K content on, and it’s a dab hand at upscaling, too. Sound quality could be better, we feel, but that’s not exactly the top concern when you buy a TV.

Samsung Q65T 4K QLED TV review: Punchy picture at an attractive price

Insignia

Insignia NS-65DF710NA21

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This is a stunningly good value 65-inch 4K Ultra HD TV that’s based around Amazon’s Fire TV interface. if you’ve used an Amazon Fire TV Stick or similar you’ll know that it’s easy to use.

Fire TVs have an Alexa remote, so there’s full voice control, too.

And you can be safe in the knowledge that your TV will support all the latest streaming apps and services, too.

There’s full HDR support, too.

This model is also available in 43, 50, 55 and 70-inch sizes.

Sony

Sony XH95

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Sony comes in swinging with this huge TV that specialises in colour – its HDR is as good as you’ll find out there, making for amazing contrast and depths.

This isn’t an OLED or QLED display, instead representing the best of what an LCD display can offer with a bunch of refinements and improvements, and we’re suitably impressed. At this price, though, we wonder if OLED would be a better investment.

Sony XH95 4K TV review: Punchy pictures

Writing by Max Freeman-Mills. Editing by Dan Grabham.

(Image credit: TSMC)

If you’re still disappointed at not being able to buy a Ryzen 5000 series chip yet, you’ve apparently got some friends in high places. President Biden is just as annoyed as you, according to a new statement from White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, and is working to bring the global semiconductor shortage to an end as quickly as possible.

Two people familiar with the review’s specifics told Bloomberg that it will last 100-days and will be led by the National Economic Council and National Security Council. Plans are to focus on semiconductor manufacturing and advanced packaging, as well as critical minerals, medical supplies and high-capacity batteries such as those used in electric vehicles.

This move follows

a letter

sent to the President earlier today that was signed by the CEOs of Intel, AMD and Qualcomm and which urged his administration to increase support for domestic chip production. This is in itself enlightening, given that both AMD and Qualcomm currently rely on foreign partners for chip production.

“Our technology leadership is at risk in the race for preeminence in the technologies of the future, including artificial intelligence, 5G/6G, and quantum computing,” the letter states.

18 other CEOs signed the letter as well, which pointed out that the United States’ share of chip manufacturing has fallen by 12% since 1990. The letter’s specific demands include “substantial funding for incentives for semiconductor manufacturing, in the form of grants and/or tax credits.”

Aside from the semiconductor shortage, it’s possible that trouble at TSMC is also partially behind the industry letter, as the company recently announced that it would be prioritizing the auto industry when allocating new capacity.

However, the American auto industry also stands to gain from a more available supply of chips as well, with the United Auto Workers union releasing its own statement saying that “we also call on the Biden administration and Congress to develop trade and policy solutions that ensure that advanced technology that has been offshored is brought back and produced by UAW workers here in the U.S.” The statement follows a January 19th letter the union sent to the Biden administration asking the President to “consider urging major silicon wafer foundries to ramp up production of automotive grade wafers.”

As such, we can’t say how much of a role consumer electronics will play in Biden’s plans.

While it sounds like much of the lobbying pressure facing the Biden administration is focused on bringing chip production under the purview of American companies, it’s also possible that the President’s solutions may also piggyback off the previous administration’s work with TSMC to build a factory in Arizona.

On Thursday, Facebook released a new moderation transparency report showing a marked uptick in bullying and harassment enforcement, which reached a peak of 6.3 million total takedowns through the last quarter of 2020. It’s an increase from 3.5 million pieces last quarter and 2.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2019. The company said much of the change is due to improvements in the automated systems that analyze Facebook and Instagram comments.

Facebook’s latest transparency report covers October to December 2020, a period that includes the US presidential election. During that time, the main Facebook network removed more harassment, organized hate and hate speech, and suicide and self-harm content. Instagram saw significant jumps in bullying and self-harm removals. The company says its numbers were shaped by two factors: more human review capacity and improvements in artificial intelligence, especially for non-English posts.

The company also indicates it will lean on automation to address a growing amount of video and audio on its platforms, including a rumored Clubhouse competitor. “We’re investing in technology across all the different sorts of ways that people share,” said CTO Mike Schroepfer on a call with reporters. “We understand audio, video, we understand the content around those things, who shared it, and build a broader picture of what’s happening there.” Facebook hasn’t confirmed the existence of a Clubhouse-like audio platform, but “I think there’s a lot we’re doing here that can apply to these different formats, and we obviously look at how the products are changing and invest ahead of those changes to make sure we have the technological tools we need,” he said.

Facebook pushed some moderation teams back into offices in early October; although it said in November that most moderators worked remotely, it’s also said that some sensitive content can’t be reviewed from home. Now, the company says increased moderation has helped Facebook and Instagram remove more suicide and self-injury posts. Facebook removed 2.5 million pieces of violating content, compared to 1.3 million pieces the preceding quarter, and Instagram removed 3.4 million pieces, up from 1.3 million. That’s comparable to pre-pandemic levels for Facebook, and it’s a significant absolute increase for Instagram.

Facebook bullying and harassment takedowns between Q3 2018 and Q4 2020.

Conversely, Facebook attributes some increases to AI-powered moderation. It removed 6.3 million pieces of bullying and harassing content on Facebook, for instance, which is nearly double the numbers from previous quarters. On Instagram, it removed 5 million pieces of content, up from 2.6 million pieces last quarter and 1.5 million pieces at the end of 2019. Those increases stem from tech that better analyzes comments in the context of the accompanying post.

Non-English language moderation has been a historic weak point for Facebook, and the company says it has improved AI language detection in Arabic, Spanish, and Portuguese, fueling a hate speech takedown increase from 22.1 million to 26.9 million pieces. That’s not as big as the jump Facebook saw in late 2019, however, when it made what it described as dramatic improvements to its automated detection.

Facebook hate speech takedowns between Q4 2017 and Q4 2020.

Facebook says it’s changed its News Feed in ways that reduce the amount of hate speech and violent content people see. A survey of hate speech in the third quarter found that users averaged between 10 and 11 pieces of hate speech for every 10,000 pieces of content; in the fourth quarter, that dropped to seven or eight pieces. The company said it was still formulating responses to some suggestions from the Facebook Oversight Board, which released its first decisions last month.

As it did last quarter, Facebook suggested lawmakers could use its transparency report as the model for a legal framework. Facebook has supported changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a broad liability shield that has come under fire from critics of social media. “We think that regulation would be a very good thing,” said Monika Bickert, VP of content policy.

However, Facebook has not backed a specific legislative proposal — including the SAFE TECH Act, a sweeping rollback proposed in Congress last week. “We remain committed to having this dialogue with everybody in the United States who is working on finding a way forward with regulation,” said Bickert. “We’ve obviously seen a number of proposals in this area, and we’ve seen different focuses from different people on the Hill in terms of what they want to pursue, and we want to make sure that we are part of all those conversations.”

(Image credit: Intel)

Intel kicked off 2021 with a fresh lineup of mobile processors with a unique twist. The 11th Gen Tiger Lake H35-series processors aren’t just for any ol’ laptop. They target what Intel calls “ultraportable gaming laptops.” And at 3 p.m. ET today on The Tom’s Hardware Show, we’re sitting down with the chipmaker to learn more about what that means.

The Tom’s Hardware Show livestream is every Thursday at 3 p.m. ET. Today, Intel’s general manager of premium and gaming notebook segments, Fredrik Hamberger, will join Tom’s Hardware editors to give us an inside look at Intel’s H35 chips.

You can watch today’s Tom’s Hardware show below at 3 p.m. ET:

You can also catch the show on Facebook and the Tom’s Hardware Twitch channel. Every episode is also available to download as a podcast.

And like with any episode of The Tom’s Hardware Show, we’ll be taking questions from the audience. Join the livestream at 3 p.m. ET to submit your questions via chat YouTube or Facebook, and we may discuss them on air.

Announced during CES 2021 in January, Intel’s H35 CPUs go up to four CPU cores, eight threads and a 35W TDP. The flagship Core i7-11375H Special Edition can hit a 5.0 single-core turbo frequency and has a standard base clock speed of 3.3 GHz at 35W (it drops to 3.0 GHz at 28W).

Intel is positioning the H35 series as an option for the growing number of machines looking to compete with the best gaming laptops by including a discrete graphics cards while remaining portable. Our Asus TUF Dash F15 review showed what the quad-core Core i7-1130H can do alongside a mobile RTX 3070 graphics card in a 0.78-inch thick clamshell.

Join Tom’s Hardware this afternoon to learn more and ask Intel your H35 queries.

A midtail cargo bike for the whole family

The best measure of an electric bike is how easily it slots into your everyday life. By that metric, the Tern HSD P9 is one of the better ones I’ve tested.

Tern let me borrow one at the end of July, and I rode it at least 12 miles every day around my suburban New Jersey neighborhood for about a month and a half. I took my son to daycare, went to the grocery store, the farmer’s market, the liquor store, the drug store, and a variety of other places too menial to remember. It kept me socially distant from my neighbors as I rode around town and kept me out of my car, which I always appreciate. And whether I was hauling dual panniers loaded with groceries or just myself, the ride quality was impeccable.

To be clear, this isn’t the fastest, most powerful, or even the best-looking e-bike I’ve ever ridden. But it was a solid workhorse that got the job done. That’s mostly due to the Bosch Active Line Plus mid-drive motor, one of the best on the market today, silently churning away between the cranks.

But it’s also because the HSD is an extremely flexible e-bike. The low-step frame combined with the adjustable handlebars and seat post, as well as a custom SunTour front suspension fork, help make this a bike that can easily be passed around among family members or friends. Riders of all shapes and sizes will feel at ease on the HSD.

If it looks a bit shrunken down for a cargo bike, that’s by design. Those in need of something larger can level up to the Tern GSD, which has an extended rack that can carry even more stuff than the HSD. (I’m testing a GSD right now, and I’m very infatuated with it.)

During my month-and-a-half test period, the HSD barely demanded my attention, nor did it draw any stares from passers-by or take up too much space in my garage. (I got one looky-loo from a lady who was impressed with the fingernail red paint job.) And while the $3,199 price tag means this won’t be an affordable option for many, you do get a lot of bike for that price.

Regardless, when it comes to cargo bikes, I try not to compare it to other non-electric bikes, but rather to the car I am trying to replace.

Tern got its name when several founding members of the company were hanging out poolside after a bike conference in Las Vegas, drinking beer and talking about the 2010 surfing documentary 180° South, which includes a deep discussion about how people live with nature.

Cycling through some possible names for their nascent company, the group eventually settled on Tern, the name for an Arctic migratory bird that is lightweight, a global traveler, and long-lived. It was also a homophone for “turn,” which fed into the group’s idea of “turning around and moving forward to face the challenges head-on,” according to Tern’s website.

Tern, which is headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan, fancies itself an urban transportation company, but it’s mostly known for its non-electric, folding bikes. In August 2014, the company announced its first electric bike, the eLink, which weighed 46 pounds (21 kg) and could fold in under 10 seconds. The following year, Tern launched its first lineup of electrified models using BionX motor systems. Later, the company shifted to using more popular powertrain systems by Bosch and Bafang.

The HSD P9, which first came out in 2019, is described as “enormously useful [and] surprisingly small.” Indeed, the HSD is a great bike for anyone looking for cargo-carrying power without those cumbersome cargo bike specs. It’s not exactly lightweight, clocking in at roughly 56 lbs. But when compared to electric cargo bikes from companies like Rad Power Bikes (73 lbs), Carqon (88 lbs), or Urban Arrow (104 lbs), the HSD P9 is practically a featherweight.

Speaking of specs, here’s what you need to know about the Tern HSD P9:

Motor: Bosch Active Line Plus
Top speed: 20 mph (32 km/h)
Range: 26–69 miles
Battery: 36V 11Ah (400 Wh)
Weight: 56.5 lbs (25.7 kg)
Brakes: Shimano hydraulic disc brakes
Tires: 20 inches
Extras: SunTour suspension front fork
Price: $3,199

The HSD P9 is a Class 1 electric bike in the US, meaning it’s pedal-assist with no throttle and a top speed of 20 mph. There were times when I missed the twist throttle, especially when getting started from a standstill on a steep incline with a kid and extra cargo on the rear rack. But I also understand why some manufacturers abhor the throttle — and honestly believe that throttles will eventually run into regulatory issues in the future — so I try not to begrudge any bike for its exclusion.

HSD stands for “haul stuff daily” — or if you’re out of earshot of your kids, “haul shit daily.” Arleigh Greenwald, the eponymous Bike Shop Girl who recently got a job as a product manager at Tern (congrats, Arleigh!), calls the HSD “the crossover of electric bikes,” and I wholeheartedly agree. If Riese and Muller’s Load 75 is the Cadillac Escalade of e-bikes and the RadWagon is the Chevy Suburban, then Tern’s HSD is definitely the Toyota Rav4 — a highly capable daily driver with just enough space for a kid and some cargo.

The HSD isn’t completely incognito — just look at that cherry red paint job. It does have some interesting design touches, from the “HSD” logo carved out of the frame below the head tube to the rear rack that also doubles as a stand for when you want to park the bike vertically. That’s a great space-saver for anyone who keeps their bike in their apartment, for example.

Tern makes a couple of folding bikes, like the Vektron, BYB, and fantastically named Verge. I would classify the HSD as a quasi-folding bike since it lacks the full folding capabilities of Tern’s other models. The handlebars can fold down, but that’s about it. Still, it’s a useful feature if you need to transport the bike in the back of your car, for example.

The rear rack is rated for 132 lbs, while the whole bike can carry a combined weight of 374 lbs. Tern sent me two of its Cargo Hold 37 panniers, each of which can hold several big grocery bags. When empty, the bags can be cinched tightly to the side of the bike.

Performance-wise, I wasn’t that impressed with the 400Wh battery pack. While Tern claims the HSD has a range of 69 miles (110km), I found myself needing to recharge the battery after as little as 30 miles of riding on mostly flat surfaces with a few steep hills mixed in. This may seem paltry, but it’s fairly standard across e-bikes, especially while riding in the highest setting offered. This is my preferred riding style, and I know that’s true for many others. That said, more range would be nice, especially considering the HSD’s $3,199 price tag.

The battery, while not integrated in the frame like I would prefer, was neatly stored behind the seat post, parallel to the rear rack. It’s a placement that I think is fairly unique to Tern, and it avoids the unsightliness of a bulging battery pack perched on the downtube. Plus, it helps distribute the weight to the back of the bike, which helps prevent it from toppling over when parking it vertically.

The HSD’s small, fast wheels mean there’s a much lower center of gravity than most cargo bikes, which made cornering much more fun. And it’s shorter than the average road bike, which makes it easier to maneuver and store. The upright seating position gave me a good vantage point to see the cars around me, which made me feel safer while I rode.

I find myself torn over the value proposition of the Tern HSD. It’s a smaller, lighter cargo bike than most, which is certainly an advantage, and yet, it costs noticeably more than other, more powerful cargo bikes. What do you get for that extra cash? Easy storage is nice, but most of that cost is for the Bosch mid-drive motor. The German company arguably makes one of the most reliable and dependable systems in the world — and that comes at a price.

Overall, the Tern HSD P9 is a sturdy electric cargo bike that’s easy on the eyes and easy to stash away when needed. It’s highly adaptable and has a decently powerful drivetrain that shrinks most hills down to size. While I don’t think the HSD is for everybody, I do believe that it aspires to be easy and approachable enough that anyone can ride it.

Photography by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge

(Pocket-lint) – Sony has grown a legion of fans for its growing number of Alpha system cameras. Whether it’s the ultra compact A6000 series or a full-frame A7 series, there’s something for everyone. But it’s videographers who’ve turned more towards Sony’s mirrorless full-frame bodies in recent years – and it’s easy to see why when looking at the Alpha A7S III.

Spec wise, this third-generation ‘S’ model offers some incredible capabilities, with particular focus for video and low-light performance. Rather than go all-out on the pixel count, the A7S III opts for bigger pixels on a quality sensor. But does that limit its appeal?

Design

Dimensions: 128.9mm x 96.9mm x 80.8mm / Weight: 699g (with battery)
3-inch, 1.44m-dot vari-angle LCD touchscreen
Moisture- and dust-resistant design

Sony was among the first manufacturers to put a full-frame sensor in a compact mirrorless body (the original A7, from back in 2013, was revolutionary for its size). And while many manufacturers have since followed suit and Sony – with its own A7C – has made an even smaller one, the size of the A7S III makes it hugely practical to carry around. It’ll fit into most camera carriers, even with a lens on it.

Pocket-lint

The body weighs about 700g with a battery and memory card in it, but – of course – that weight goes up once you attach a lens. We were testing with the 12-24mm G Master lens, which is pretty bulky and weighty, but not so much that we got really tired from shooting with it handheld.

A lot of the A7S III’s buttons are well positioned, including the switch-ring around the shutter button at the top of the grip. There’s a dedicated red movie ring for shooting video, plus an exposure gain adjustment ring, a custom function button, and the shoot mode select dial.

The shoot mode dial has to be unlocked by pressing the button in the middle before turning, which adds a bit of security, but also frustration if you’re used to just turning the dial to quickly change between movie mode and one of the photo modes.

The other questionable decision is the position of the menu button. Most buttons on the back of the A7S III are within easy thumb reach. But not the menu button. That’s way off to the other side, on the left side of the viewfinder, meaning you have to use your other hand to dive into the menu system to adjust and change features and settings.

Best mirrorless cameras 2021: The best interchangeable lens cameras available to buy today

By Mike Lowe
·
11 February 2021

Pocket-lint

There are plenty of customisable function buttons. Four, in fact, which are super useful when you want quick access to essential functions like changing the autofocus area or changing the white balance. Having that autofocus selection mode is super useful, especially if you want to use the joystick to manually pick a small area to focus on. Just for those times when the super smart autofocus engine doesn’t quick pick the right area.

Like a number of Sony’s recent cameras, the A7S III has a proper flip-out touchscreen too. It makes that little monitor way more useful and versatile. It enables better framing at awkward angles and – as importantly – makes shooting to camera easier whether handheld vlogging or when shooting with the camera on the tripod. You can focus and frame without having to go behind the camera or having your view obstructed like on the older models.

Videographer’s multi-tool

Ports: HDMI, 3.5mm, USB-C
- XLR adapter available – offers 4-channel 24-bit audio recording
16-bit Raw data output for external recorders
- Proxy recording internally
Cards: Dual SD (UHS-II)

If you’re just starting out making video, it’s unlikely you’d look at the A7S III right away, especially as the price point is enough to make your eyes water (it’s several thousand at launch – and we doubt that’ll drop much). But for the seasoned pro or someone wanting to up their game, it’s easy to see the appeal.

It may not look like it from the outside, but there’s a tonne of flexibility here when it comes to connecting additional gear like microphones and monitors. Not only do you get a 3.5mm input for microphone, the hotshoe with the right adapter attached (note: sold separately) can be used to power an XLR adapter for plugging in ‘proper’ microphones too.

Pocket-lint

Using the HDMI you can connect the A7S III’s output to an external recorder/monitor (with 16 bit Raw output), plus you have the ability to record proxy files simultaneously while capturing at your desired resolution and bitrate. That means your computer workflow load times should be faster, because you already have the proxies to hand, your desktop shouldn’t have to generate them for you.

That’s without listing all the bitrate, colour profile, resolution and frame-rate options available. And there are many (it’s worth having a look at Sony’s detailed breakdown in the A7S III’s full specifications). You can shoot in S-Log3, S-Gamut3 or Cine gamut profiles, so that your video matches the colour profile on your professional camera and allows you to colour grade it to your heart’s content, including the ability to shoot in HLG for HDR workflows.

Video and photo

12.1MP Exmor R CMOS sensor, Bionz XR processor
ISO sensitivity: 80-102,400 standard
4K video (4:2:2 up to 10bit)
Full-frame 4K at 120fps
S-Log2 and S-Log3

Sony has equipped the A7S III with a 12-megapixel sensor, which is in stark contrast to the much higher resolution 61-megapixel full frame sensor on the A7R IV. The reason: to feature enough pixels to effectively capture full 4K resolution video, but also to enable much better low-light performance. The bigger the sensor diodes (in effect the ‘pixels’), the more light it can draw in. And it works.

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Shooting in tricky situations with little light, using mostly street lights outside after sundown, still enabled us to take decent, sharp images completely handheld. Of course, part of this is down to the built in 5-axis stabilisation – which is great, but not infallible, so if we didn’t quite hold the camera steady enough then some images still came out with a little blur.

Switching the camera into auto mode, the default in our night time shoot was for the camera to select ISO 12,800 – which is rather high – but the sensor still managed to capture an impressive amount of range (at f/4 and a 2/5-second exposure), revealing the clouds in the sky and even silhouettes of hills miles in the distance. It’s not completely image-noise-free, but the results are more grain-like, at an acceptable level, and doesn’t result in the destruction of detail.

Testing with the 12-24mm G Master lens also meant we got to try one of Sony’s most recent wide-angle lenses. It’s not the most versatile lens in the world, but we found it more than usable for our regular close-up product shooting for our YouTube channel. It did struggle to focus when too close, but otherwise is a great tool to have in the studio.

Being able shoot practically unlimited 4K/50p footage meant we never had to worry that the camera would overheat. The redesigned heat dissipation inside the body means the A7S III never struggles – which is a step change from earlier Sony video-focused cameras. The result is smooth, sharp and detailed video with great colour. Rolling shutter seems to be a thing of the past too.

Further helped by that stabilisation – which introduces a 1.1x crop, but can be switched off for full-frame access – it’s easy enough to shoot handheld and keep things smooth and steady. For the times it gets a bit janky when our hands weren’t as steady as we’d like them to be, the resulting shakiness was minimal and easy to fix in post-production with Final Cut’s one-click stabilsation tool.

And for those times where we’d accidentally over-exposed and ended up with highlights that were overexposed, we were able to drop those brightness levels down for to retain detail and surface texture without any hassle. It’s a very forgiving camera.

For those of you who don’t shoot much beyond 60 frames per second, but need 4K for detail and 10 bit for colour grading and detail, the A7S III is more than capable, although the highest bitrate and frame-rate recording does require you to use Sony’s new CFExpress Type A card (also known as XQD). The rest can be recorded internally on UHS-II SD cards.

While it might not be the perfect camera for those looking to creat big, high-resolution images that are great for cropping into, the A7S III still takes great shots in daylight too. Colours are lovely, the depth of field on offer is sublime. Close-ish shots of plants revealed some stunning smooth bokeh.

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Battery performance is strong for a camera this powerful too. It uses one of Sony’s new FX100 batteries – which is good for about 510 shots or 80-95 minutes of video recording, depending on whether you use the viewfinder or LCD monitor. Plus, you can charge it via the USB-C port on the camera, so you could take a Type-C cable and a battery pack to refill while on the move.

Autofocus and tracking

759 phase-detection autofocus points (PDAF) & 425 contrast detection points
9.44 million-dot viewfinder
Real-time tracking

Sony’s strength for the past couple of years has been autofocus and tracking and – until the recently announced A1 – the A7S III was the epitome of that effort. It has 759 phase-detection AF points, meaning almost the you can select to focus pretty much anywhere within the frame. What’s more, it combines with 425 contrast detection points, making focusing really quick and accurate.

Pocket-lint

Whether we left it to automatically focus on people’s or pet’s eyes, or manually chose the spot we wanted to focus on, it was really quick and tracking was so smooth and responsive we rarely saw it hunting when we took video footage into the edit suite. It does it with such efficiency pretty much all the time.

Digging into the settings you can choose whether you want it tracking a human eye or an animal eye, or whether you want to prioritise a specific eye, or to let the camera decide (it’s actually pretty clever and will choose whichever is closest by default, and does so without fail).

There are a lot more options in the settings menu, and while colour coding and reorganising things has made Sony’s software easier than it used to be, it can still be a bit overwhelming at times. There’s just so much there to get a handle on. You could easily spend an hour just going through the various options and trying to remember where it all is.

Verdict

The Sony Alpha A7S III is the most impressive video-centric consumer camera to date. By using the right sensor, processing power and heat dissipation, Sony offers full-frame recording at staggering resolutions quality. The price might make you wince a bit though.

While the sensor and performance lends the camera to professional video work, it also makes it very good in low-light situations for both stills and video. With a good lens, you can forget the tripod and go shoot dimly lit scenes handheld.

However, those stills photographers looking to shoot ultra-resolute images ought to look elsewhere – but it’s not as if there’s a lack of choice in the Alpha range. But for those invested in Sony for video work, the A7S III will be the mirrorless camera of choice for years to come.

Alternatives to consider

Pocket-lint

Panasonic Lumix S5

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It’s less than half the price of the Sony, and while it doesn’t quite match its performance in terms of video capabilities or low-light capabilities, if you’re wanting a strong video-centric mirrorless with great performance that won’t cost you nearly four grand, the Panasonic is a very strong choice.

Read our review

Pocket-lint

Sony A7R IV

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Sony’s A7R IV has a much higher-resolution sensor, making it a more suitable choice for photographers chasing those super-sharp image files that hey can present in huge format or crop into heavily. It’s not as strong on the video side, though, but it can still shoot 4K.

Read our review

Writing by Cam Bunton. Editing by Mike Lowe.

(Image credit: Nvidia)

When Nvidia launched its RTX A6000 48GB professional graphics card last October, the company said that it would offer at least twice the performance of the company’s previous-gen Quadro cards. These types of claims are not unusual, but how fast is the $4,650 RTX A6000 really in real-world benchmarks? (Interestingly, that’s only $650 more than Galax’s flagship RTX 3090 GPU.)

Workstation maker Puget Systems decided to find out and ran multiple professional-grade benchmarks on the card. The results turned out to be impressive – in fact, Puget says the Nvidia RTX A6000 48GB is the fastest professional graphics card they have ever tested.

An Ampere with 48GB of RAM

Nvidia’s RTX A6000 48GB graphics card is powered by its GA102 GPU with 10,752 CUDA cores, 336 tensor cores, and 84 RT cores, and a 384-bit memory bus that pairs the chip with a beefy 48GB slab of GDDR6 memory. In contrast, Nvidia’s top-of-the-range GeForce RTX 3090 consumer board based on the same graphics processor features a different GPU configuration containing 10,496 CUDA cores, 328 tensor cores, 82 RT cores, and a 384-bit memory interface for its ‘mere’ 24GB of GDDR6X memory.

While the Nvidia RTX A6000 has a slightly better GPU configuration than the GeForce RTX 3090, it uses slower memory and therefore features 768 GB/s of memory bandwidth, which is 18% lower than the consumer graphics card (936GB/s), so it will not beat the 3090 in gaming. Meanwhile, because the RTX A6000 has 48GB of DRAM onboard, it will perform better in memory-hungry professional workloads.

While all GeForce RTX graphics cards come with Nvidia Studio drivers that support acceleration in some professional applications, they are not designed to run all professional software suites. In contrast, professional ISV-certified drivers of the Quadro series and Nvidia RTX A6000 make them a better fit for workstations.

The combination of the Nvidia GeForce RTX A6000 drivers, 48GB of GDDR6, a slightly different GPU configuration, Quadro Sync support, enhanced reliability, a different display output configuration, and a blower-type cooler (which is preferable for multi-GPU configurations) create a solution that costs $4,650, which is considerably higher than a $1,500 MSRP of the standard GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition, though some custom RTX 3090’s push the needle as high as $4,000.

Up to 92% Faster

As far as performance is concerned (read the full review at Puget’s website), the GeForce RTX 3090 might get close to the Nvidia RTX A6000 48GB, but since the former is not a workstation-grade graphics card, Puget decided to compare the new professional board to Nvidia’s Quadro RTX 6000 24GB (TU102 with 4,608 CUDA cores).

Technically, the Nvidia RTX A6000 48GB ($4,650) is the successor of the Quadro RTX 6000 24GB (~$4,000), even though the latter has only half the memory. Meanwhile, the previous generation flagship — the Quadro RTX 8000 48GB (TU102 with 4,608 CUDA cores) — is still priced at $5,000 ~ $5,500.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

Not all professional workloads require enormous onboard memory capacity, but GPU-accelerated rendering applications benefit greatly, especially when it comes to large scenes. Since we are talking about graphics rendering, the same programs also benefit from GPU capabilities. That said, it is not surprising that the Nvidia RTX A6000 48GB outperformed its predecessor by 46.6% ~ 92.2% in all four rendering benchmarks ran by Puget.

Evidently, V-Ray 5 scales better with the increase of GPU horsepower and onboard memory capacity, whereas Redshift 3 is not that good. Still, the new RTX A6000 48GB is tangibly faster than any other professional graphics card in GPU-accelerated rendering workloads.

Modern video editing and color correction applications, such as DaVinci Resolve 16.2.8 and Adobe Premiere Pro 14.8, can also accelerate some of the tasks using GPUs. In both cases, the Nvidia RTX A6000 48GB offers tangible performance advantages compared to its predecessor, but its advantages look even more serious when the board is compared to graphics cards released several years ago.

Like other modern professional graphics applications, Adobe After Effects and Adobe Photoshop can take advantage of GPUs. Yet, both programs are CPU bottlenecked in many cases, which means that any decent graphics processor (and not necessarily a professional one) is usually enough for both suites. Nonetheless, the new Nvidia RTX A6000 64GB managed to show some speed gains compared to the predecessor in these two apps as well.

Fastest Professional Graphics Card

Unsurprisingly, Puget found the Nvidia RTX A6000 48GB is the fastest professional graphics card they have ever tested. Evidently, with the massive increase in GPU horsepower versus its predecessor, the card brings its biggest gains in GPU rendering benchmarks as well as in DaVinci Resolve. Other applications can also benefit from the new card, but actual advantages heavily depend on exact workloads.

(Pocket-lint) – Samsung has numerous options within its smartphone portfolio, from the flagship Galaxy Z folding models to the latest Galaxy S and Galaxy Note ranges.

There’s also the sub-flagship Galaxy A range to consider, as well as the older Galaxy S and Galaxy Note models. Choosing the right Galaxy for you if it’s Samsung you are after is no easy task.

We’ve broken down the four core ranges – Galaxy S, Note, A and Z – and the devices available within each to help you choose the right Samsung device for you and your budget.

Quick Summary

• The Samsung Galaxy S range is the company’s main flagship smartphone range. Most of its models have a glass and metal waterproof design, lots of power and the best cameras.

• The Samsung Galaxy Note series is often more expensive than the S range, but it adds S Pen functionality with the stylus built into a metal and glass design. The overall look has similar traits to the Galaxy S range.

• The Samsung Galaxy A is the sub-flagship range, sitting below the S range in terms of price, but borrowing several of its design features including full displays and under-screen fingerprint sensors in some models.

• The Galaxy Z series is the Samsung’s folding smartphones, sitting at the top of the portfolio in terms of price and offering the company’s latest innovations in design.

Samsung / Pocket-lint

Samsung Galaxy S

The 2021 flagships for the Galaxy S range are the S21, S21+ and the S21 Ultra, succeeding the S20, S20+ and the S20 Ultra from 2020. There’s also the cheaper but great S20 FE to consider. In 2019, there was the Galaxy S10e, S10 and S10+, which are still available to buy. We wouldn’t recommend going further back than that because of a lack of software updates.

Samsung Galaxy S20 range compared: S20 vs S20+ vs S20 Ultra

Samsung Galaxy S21

Dimensions: 151.7 x 71.2 x 7.9mm, 172g, IP68
Display: 6.2-inches, Full HD+, Infinity-O, 120Hz
Cameras: 12MP main + 12MP ultra wide + 64MP zoom; 10MP front
Storage: 128/256GB, no microSD
Battery: 4000mAh

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The Samsung Galaxy S21 succeeds the S20, offering a new processor, 5G capabilites, a slight redesign, but otherwise a very similar offering to the 2020 handset. It offers a flat display instead of curved, and a drop in resolution to Full HD+.

The material finish is also plastic rather than glass, like the Galaxy S20 FE. It offers the same camera hardware as the S20 however, as well as the same battery capacity and RAM. It’s the entry point into the new Galaxy S devices.

Samsung Galaxy S21 review

Samsung Galaxy S21+

Dimensions: 161.5 x 75.6 x 7.8mm, 202g, IP68
Display: 6.7-inches, Full HD+, Infinity-O, 120Hz
Cameras: 12MP main + 12MP ultra wide + 64MP zoom; 10MP front
Storage: 128/256GB, no microSD
Battery: 4800mAh

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The Samsung Galaxy S21+ offers almost identical specifications to its smaller sibling, the Galaxy S21. It is slightly larger and heavier, offering a bigger display but like the S21, it is a flat display with a Full HD+ resolution rather than curved like the S20+.

The camera hardware is the same as the Galaxy S21 and the Galaxy S20, ditching the depth sensor from the Galaxy S20+. We expect it to deliver good results and this 2021 model has a battery increase compared to its predecessor too.

Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra

Dimensions: 165.1 x 75.6 x 8.9mm, 228g, IP68
Display: 6.8-inches, Quad HD+, Infinity-O, Adaptive 120Hz
Cameras: 108MP main + 12MP ultra wide + 10MP tele + 10MP tele 2; 40MP front
Storage: 128/256/512GB, no microSD
Battery: 5000mAh

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The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is the top of the S21 range, offering the largest display, a glass and metal body, an adaptive 120Hz refresh rate and a sharper display than the S21 and S21+.

It also has a different camera loadout than the other two devices in the range with two telephoto lenses on board. Additionally, the S21 Ultra comes with S Pen functionality, putting it up against the Note range, even though the difference here is that the Ultra doesn’t have the S Pen included. It’s the most expensive of the S21 range however so be prepared to dig deep.

Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra review

Samsung Galaxy S20 FE

Dimensions: 159.8 x 74.5 x 8.4mm, 190g, IP68
Display: 6.5-inch, Full HD+, Infinity-O, 120Hz,
Cameras: 12MP main + 12MP ultra wide + 8MP zoom; 32MP front
Storage: 128GB, microSD
Battery: 4500mAh

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The Samsung Galaxy S20 FE launched after the rest of the Galaxy S20 range but it offers a lot for its price point – which is quite a bit lower than the Galaxy S20. The FE, or Fan Edition, offers a big display with a 120Hz refresh rate, along with a design that is the same as the S20 range but with a plastic body instead of glass.

It drops the screen resolution to Full HD+ like the S21 and S21+ and it has a flat display with larger bezels than the rest of the S20 range, but it offers a good camera loadout, a good battery and it’s a great price.

Samsung Galaxy S20 FE review

Samsung Galaxy S20

Dimensions: 151.7 x 69.1 x 7.9mm, 163g, IP68
Display: 6.2-inches, 3200 x 1440 (566ppi), Infinity-O, 120Hz
Cameras: 12MP main + 12MP ultra wide + 64MP zoom; 10MP front
Storage: 128GB, microSD
Battery: 4000mAh

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The Samsung Galaxy S20 is the foundation for the 2020 phones, updating the Galaxy S10, with new hardware, a new display that offers 120Hz, a bigger battery and new cameras.

The camera gets a new sensor with larger pixels and a more impressive zoom arrangement giving you up to 30X digital zoom, as well as 8K video capture. This model also comes in 4G or 5G versions. It’s more affordable than the bigger devices, but the display is smaller. Overall, it’s a good solid phone.

Samsung Galaxy S20 review

Samsung Galaxy S20+

Dimensions: 161.9, 73.7 x 7.8mm, 186g, IP68
Display: 6.7-inches, 3200 x 1440 (524ppi), Infinity-O, 120Hz
Cameras: 12MP main + 12MP ultra wide + 64MP zoom + DepthVision; 10MP front
Storage: 128/512GB, microSD
Battery: 4500mAh

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Switching things up, the S20+ is probably the sweet spot for many in the S20 series, in terms of size, but it only comes as a 5G handset in many markets, making it look relatively expensive compared to the S10+ that it replaces.

It also offers lots of power, that great display with 120Hz for those who want it, and a new camera system – the same as the Galaxy S20 and S21 but with an added depth sensor – which doesn’t appear to do much. The battery is respectable making this a good all-rounder.

Samsung Galaxy S20+ review

Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra

Dimensions: 166.9 x 76.0 x 8.8mm, 220g, IP68
Display: 6.9-inches, 3200 x 1440 (509ppi), Infinity-O, 120Hz
Cameras: 108MP main + 12MP ultra wide + 48MP zoom + DepthVision; 40MP front
Storage: 128/512GB, microSD
Battery: 5000mAh

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The Galaxy S20 Ultra sets out to be the greatest of the Galaxy S20 family with big everything: big display, big battery, big camera resolutions. Just like the S21 Ultra that replaces it. That all, sadly, comes at a big price.

On the whole the S20 Ultra is a great phone, but the battery might not last as long as you expect and the cameras are a little oversold, so the 100X zoom headline doesn’t really deliver. It’s a 5G phone.

Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra review

Samsung Galaxy S10e

Dimensions: 142.2 x 69.9 x 7.9mm, 150g, IP68
Display: 5.8-inches, 2280 x 1080 (438ppi), flat Super AMOLED
Cameras: 16MP wide + 12MP main; 10MP front
Storage: 128GB or 256GB, microSD support up to 512GB
Battery: 3100mAh

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The Samsung Galaxy S10e was originally the cheapest of the S10 range, offering a flat display and a physical fingerprint sensor, rather than a curved screen and under-display sensor. On the back, the S10e has a dual camera instead of triple.

It misses out on a couple of the features but the S10e still offers a fresh design, as well as lovely build quality and good hardware. It’s undercut by the impressive S10 Lite however, which appears to offer more for the money.

Samsung Galaxy S10e review

Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite

Dimensions: 162.5 x 75.6 x 8.1 mm, 186g
Display: 6.7-inches, 1080 x 2400 (394ppi), Super AMOLED
Cameras: 48MP main + 12MP wide + 5MP; 32MP front
Storage: 128GB, microSD support up to 512GB
Battery: 4500mAh

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An addition to the S10 range, this handset debuted alongside the Note 10 Lite at CES 2020 in early January.

It fits into the range above the S10e. Why? It has more cameras, a larger screen and a bigger battery. It’s actually the largest of the standard S10 series, having the same screen size as the S10 5G.

It also has some other premium specs, not least the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 platform under the hood. Confusing, but given the price, very compelling.

Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite review

Samsung Galaxy S10

Dimensions: 149.9 x 70.4 x 7.8mm, 157g, IP68
Display: 6.1-inches, 3040 x 1440 (550ppi), dual-edge Super AMOLED
Cameras: 16MP + 12MP + 12MP, 10MP front
Storage: 128GB or 512GB, microSD support up to 512GB
Battery: 3400mAh

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The Samsung Galaxy S10 is a great device, featuring a lovely design and plenty of features including an in-display fingerprint sensor and reverse wireless charging.

There’s a triple camera on the rear and the 19.5:9 aspect ratio display is stunning, while the software experience is up there with the best.

Samsung Galaxy S10 review

Samsung Galaxy S10+

Dimensions: 157.6 x 74.1 x 7.8mm, 175g, IP68
Display: 6.4-inches, 3040 x 1440 (522ppi), dual-edge Super AMOLED
Cameras: 16MP + 12MP + 12MP; 10MP front
Storage: 128GB, 512GB or 1TB, microSD support up to 512GB
Battery: 4100mAh

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The Samsung Galaxy S10+ features an outstanding display, brilliant sound quality and a great software experience packed full of features.

The design is great, it has a fun wide-angle camera and it offers strengths in all areas, delivering one of the best phones of 2019.

Samsung Galaxy S10+ review

Samsung Galaxy S10 5G

Dimensions: 1162.6 x 77.1 x 7.9mm, 198g, IP68
Display: 6.7-inches, 3040 x 1440 (505ppi), dual-edge Super AMOLED
Cameras: 3D Depth + 16MP + 12MP + 12MP; 10MP front + 3D Depth Camera
Storage: 256GB or 512GB, microSD support up to 512GB
Battery: 4500mAh

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The Samsung Galaxy S10 5G follows a very similar design to the S10+ but it’s larger, has a couple of extra cameras and most importantly, it is 5G-enabled.

It’s not cheap, but it has a good design, great camera potential and if you’re after a 5G phone, it’s an option worth considering as it should be available at good prices now the S10 range has been superseded twice.

Samsung Galaxy S10 5G review

Samsung / Pocket-lint

Samsung Galaxy Note

The main models in the Galaxy Note range are the Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra (and their 5G variants), all of which launched in August 2020. Don’t ignore the Note 10 Lite, Note 10 and Note 10+ if you’re interested in the Note though.

As ever, only opt for a Note if you’re going to make use of the S Pen stylus and consider the S20 Ultra if you want S Pen compatibility but without it being built in.

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra vs Galaxy Note 20: What’s the difference?

Samsung Galaxy Note 20

Dimensions: 161.6 x 75.2 x 8.3mm, 192g (LTE), 194g (5G), IP68
Display: 6.7-inches, 2400 x 1080 (393ppi), flat Super AMOLED
Cameras: 12MP main + 12MP ultra-wide + 64MP telephoto; 10MP front
Storage: 128GB/256GB (5G), 256GB (LTE), no microSD support
Battery: 4300mAh

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The Samsung Galaxy Note 20 offers a similar design to the Note 10 it succeeds, but it opts for a flat display and changes the camera housing on the rear to a more pronounced offering. There’s also a ‘glasstic’ rear instead of glass but the overall design is lovely and neat.

The camera system is the same as what you’ll find in the Galaxy S20 and S21 so it should deliver great things, and while the display sticks to a 60Hz refresh rate and there’s no microSD support again, if you’re looking for a phone with an integrated stylus then there’s little better than the note-taking potential of this phone.

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 initial review

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra

Dimensions: 164.8 x 77.2 x 8.1mm, 208g, IP68
Display: 6.9-inches, 3088 x 1440 (496ppi), dual edge Super AMOLED
Cameras: 12MP main + 108MP ultra-wide + 12MP telephoto; 10MP front
Storage: 128GB/256GB/512GB (5G), 256GB/512GB (LTE), microSD support
Battery: 4500mAh

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The Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra sits at the top of the Galaxy Note series and it offers some of the best technology Samsung has to offer. It has a similar design to the Note 10+ but changes things up in the rear camera housing as well as the camera make up. A similar offering to the S20 Ultra is on board but with a laser sensor to help with the zoom – which has dropped to 50X instead of 100X.

After nearly 10 years at the cutting edge, the Samsung Galaxy Note series is still on top of its game. Yes, it’s easy to see the Note 20 Ultra as “just another Note” – but that’s because it’s got so much right.

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra review

Samsung Galaxy Note 10

Dimensions: 151 x 71.8 x 7.9mm, 168g, IP68
Display: 6.3-inches, 2280 x 1080 (401ppi), dual edge Super AMOLED
Cameras: 12MP + 16MP + 12MP; 10MP front
Storage: 256GB, no microSD support
Battery: 3500mAh

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The Samsung Galaxy Note 10 offers a cleaner design than the S10 range with vertical rear camera setup and a centralised punch-hole front camera.

It was the first Note device to offer a smaller screen but it retains all the S Pen performance of the other models. A few compromises have been made, such as a lower resolution display and no microSD support, but the Note 10 is a great option for those that have always wanted a Note but may have found it too big. There’s the option of 4G and 5G models too.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10 review

Samsung Galaxy Note 10+

Dimensions: 162.3 x 77.2 x 7.9mm, 196g, IP68
Display: 6.8-inches, 3040 x 1440 (498ppi), dual edge Super AMOLED
Cameras: 16MP + 12MP + 12MP + Depth; 10MP front
Storage: 256GB/512GB, microSD support (up to 1TB)
Battery: 4300mAh

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The Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ has the same design as the Note 10 but on a larger scale. It also ups the rear camera lenses to four, adding a depth sensor and it increases the screen resolution and size too.

The S Pen stylus and its gesture controls are great, while the huge screen and neat punch hole camera are everything you’d hope for from the Note series. There’s also smooth and speedy operation, making the Note 10+ a fabulous handset. Like the standard Note 10, there are 4G and 5G options.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ review

Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Lite

Dimensions: 163.7 x 76.1 x 8.7mm, 199g
Display: 6.7 inches, 2400 x 1080 (394ppi), Super AMOLED
Cameras: 12MP + 12MP + 12MP; 32MP front
Storage: 128GB, microSD
Battery: 4500mAh

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The Note 10 Lite arrived in January 2020 and is an entry to the Note range that reflects what Samsung tried to do with the S10e – have a cheaper model that still retained a premium name.

It’s no slouch with an Exynos 9810 octa-core platform underpinning everything and it only features a few corner cuts as opposed to the main Note 10 models. It’s also bigger than the standard Note 10, but slightly smaller than the Note 10+.

It doesn’t, however, quite have the specs to compete with the S10 Lite.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Lite initial review

Samsung / Pocket-lint

Samsung Galaxy A

Samsung also offers a wide range of A models, which might be worth considering depending on what you want from your smartphone. There’s some overlap with Galaxy S phones, especially at the top end.

Samsung Galaxy A90 5G

Dimensions: 164.8 x 76.4 x 8.4mm, 206g
Display: 6.7-inches, 2400 x 1080 (393ppi), Super AMOLED
Cameras: 48MP + 5MP + 8MP; 32MP front
Storage: 128GB, microSD support up to 512GB
Battery: 4500mAh

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The Samsung Galaxy A90 5G has a large display with a small waterdrop notch at the top and a triple vertical camera on the rear, neatly positioned in the top left corner. It’s also Snapdragon 855, so this is flagship grade, even if it is 2019 flagship grade.

There are some excellent features onboard this device, not just a lovely design and build quality but a triple rear camera, an under-display fingerprint scanner and 5G.

Samsung Galaxy A90 5G review

Samsung Galaxy A80

Dimensions: 165.2 x 76.5 x 9.3mm, 220g
Display: 6.7-inches, 2400 x 1080 (392ppi), Super AMOLED
Cameras: Rotating 48MP + 8MP + HQVGA
Storage: 128GB, no microSD support
Battery: 3700mAh

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The Samsung Galaxy A80 has a huge, uninterrupted display thanks to the automatic slide up rotating camera. We weren’t 100 per cent sold on the rotating mechanism’s durability, but the A80 is a lovely looking device with some great features.

There are some excellent specs under its hood, including plenty of RAM, a battery that will likely see you through the day, as well as an under-display fingerprint sensor, bringing lots of flagship features for less money than the flagship Galaxy devices.

Samsung A80 review

Samsung Galaxy A71

Dimensions: 163.6 x 76.0 x 7.7mm, 179g
Display: 6.7-inches, 2400 x 1080 (392ppi), Super AMOLED Plus
Cameras: 64MP main + 12MP ultra wide + 5MP macro + depth sensor; 32MP (f/2.2) front
Storage: 128GB, microSD support up to 1TB
Battery: 4500mAh

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The Samsung Galaxy A71 was announced at the start of 2020, essentially an update for the A70. That brings with it newer hardware, but similar core specs. There’s the shift to Infinity-O for the display, with a punch hole rather than the notch of the A70. There is also a 5G version in some regions.

That’s joined by a higher resolution rear camera, going after the megapixels in this mid-range device. If you love the S10 range but you can’t justify the price tag, the A71 is half the price with plenty to love.

Samsung A70 review

Samsung Galaxy A51 5G

Dimensions: 158.9 x 73.6 x 8.7mm, 187g
Display: 6.5-inches, 2400 x 1080 (405ppi), Super AMOLED
Cameras: 48MP main + 12MP ultra-wide + 5MP depth + 5MP macro; 32MP (f/2.2) front
Storage: 128GB, microSD support up to 1TB
Battery: 4500mAh

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There’s a few small differences between the Galaxy A51 and the Galaxy A71 models, but overall this is an update on the A50 model, with a larger display, increased resolution on the cameras and a larger battery capacity.

It’s still a mid-range device, but it is available with 5G in some regions. The base level of storage is generous with microSD expansion and a there’s a nice punch hole display too.

Samsung Galaxy A41

Dimensions: 149.9 x 69.8 x 7.9mm, 152g
Display: 6.1-inches, 2400 x 1080 (431ppi), Super AMOLED
Cameras: 48MP main + 8MP ultra wide + 5MP depth; 25MP front
Storage: 64GB, microSD support up to 512GB
Battery: 3500mAh

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The Samsung Galaxy A41 updates the A40, moving to a 0.2-inch larger display with an under-display fingerprint scanner and a largwer battery. It keeps the Infinity-U display, so there’s a water drop notch at the top, rather than the punch hole that you’ll find on the A51.

There’s a step-down in the number of cameras from the A51, missing out on the macro camera, but otherwise the A41 offers a nice compact Samsung handset.

Samsung Galaxy A21s

Dimensions: 163.7 x 75.3 x 8.9mm, 192g
Display: 6.5-inches, 1600 x 720 (270ppi), TFT LCD
Cameras: Quad rear 48MP (f/2.0) main + 8MP (f/2.2) ultra wide + 2MP (f/2.4) depth + 2MP (f/2.4) macro; 13MP front (f/2.2)
Storage: 32GB, microSD support up to 512GB
Battery: 5000mAh

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The Samsung Galaxy A21s has a huge display with a punch hole selfie camera in the top left corner, a huge battery that should more than see you through the day and a quad camera on the rear in a camera housing that resembles the more expensive S20 range.

There’s a physical fingerprint sensor on the rear and microSD support for storage expansion too. The resolution isn’t the highest, nor is the internal storage but for the price, the A21s could be a good option for those that want a Samsung with a big screen and big battery.

Samsung Galaxy A21e

Dimensions: 147.4 x 69.7 x 8.4mm, 141g
Display: 5.8-inches, 1560 x 720 (296ppi), TFT LCD
Cameras: Dual rear 13MP (f/1.9) main + 5MP (f/2.2) ultra wide; 8MP front (f/2.0)
Storage: 32GB, microSD support up to 512GB
Battery: 3000mAh

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The Samsung Galaxy A21e doesn’t have a punch hole camera like the A20s – instead opting for a waterdrop notch at the top – making it look a little more dated. There’s a big enough display though, a dual rear camera and it still has a nice design for the price.

You get a little more with the A21s – especially in the case of the battery – but the A21e still has an ultra-wide angle camera on the rear to give you some interesting shots, as well as some software features for great selfies from the front.

Samsung Galaxy A10

Dimensions: 146.1 x 71.4 x 7.9mm, 157g
Display: 6.2-inches, 1520 x 720 (271ppi), TFT LCD
Cameras: 13MP (f/1.9, AF, FHD video), 5MP front (f/2.0)
Storage: 32GB, microSD support up to 512GB
Battery: 3400mAh

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The Samsung Galaxy A10 is the cheapest A model device but it still has a huge display for its footprint, a large battery capacity that should easily see you through a day and then some and plenty of storage from the 512GB microSD support.

It doesn’t have a fingerprint sensor and it only offers a single rear camera and single front camera, but if you’re after a cheap Samsung device with a nice design and basic specifications, the Galaxy A10 might be the one for you.

Samsung / Pocket-lint

Samsung Galaxy Z

The Samsung Galaxy Z series sits at the top of the Galaxy portfolio in terms of price, mainly down to their folding designs. The two latest models are the Galaxy Z Fold 2 and the Galaxy Z Flip. There’s also the original folding device in the Galaxy Fold but it has had its issues so the newer model is likely the better option.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2

Dimensions: 159.2 x 128.2 x 6.9mm (unfolded), 159.2 x 68 x 16.8mm (folded), 282g
Internal display: 7.6-inches, 2208 x 1768 (372ppi), AMOLED
External display: 6.2-inches, 2260 x 816 (388ppi), AMOLED
Cameras: 12MP (f/1.8, AF, OIS), 12MP ultra-wide (f/2.2), 12MP telephoto (f/2.4), two 10MP front (f/2.0)
Storage: 256GB, no microSD support
Battery: 4500mAh

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The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 succeeds the original Galaxy Fold, offering the same book-style design with a vertical fold but featuring a number of refinements, including a hinge redesign. There’s also a larger external display on board and punch hole front cameras for a neater finish.

The Galaxy Z Fold 2 appears to have fixed some of the biggest issues with the original Fold so if you’re after a folding smartphone and the latest innovation Samsung has to offer in terms of design, the Galaxy Z Fold 2 might be the one for you.

Samsung Galaxy Fold 2 review
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 vs Fold: What’s the difference?

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip

Dimensions: 167.3 x 73.6 x 7.2mm (unfolded), 87.4 x 73.6 x 17.3mm (folded), 183g
Internal display: 6.7-inches, 2636 x 1080 pixels (425ppi), AMOLED
External display: 1.1-inches, 300 x 112 pixels (303ppi)
Cameras: 12MP (f/1.8), 12MP ultra-wide (f/2.2), 10MP front (f/2.4)
Storage: 256GB, no microSD support
Battery: 3300mAh

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The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5G is also a foldable smartphone but it folds horizontally rather than vertically like the Fold, resulting in a very cool clamshell design. A little like an older Galaxy S model folded in half. There is a 4G model with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ and a 5G model running the Snapdragon 865+.

The Z Flip 5G allows you to have a larger display but without that length in your pocket and the hinge design offers various viewing angles. There are some compromises in terms of camera and battery but for those after retro cool, the Z Flip could definitely be the Galaxy for you.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip review

Writing by Britta O’Boyle.

Our Verdict

The Gigabyte M27Q is a very capable and speedy gaming monitor with few flaws. Though it has a huge color gamut, red is a little under-saturated, and it doesn’t offer extra contrast in HDR mode. But you do get superb gaming performance with 170 Hz and super-low input lag. As a value choice, it’s hard to beat.

For

170 Hz
Low input lag
Large color gamut
Accurate sRGB mode
KVM switch

Against

Aim Stabilizer causes ghosting
Lackluster HDR
DCI-P3 red is slightly under-saturated

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Features and Specifications

Performance-to-price ratio is something we talk about often. While there are many seeking the lowest priced components and some for whom price is no object, most want the highest possible performance for the money.

Every computer component has a market sweet spot where you get most of the speed and power of top-level components for a lot less than the premium price, and it is no different for PC gaming monitors. We’re talking about the elements that gamers shop for: speed, resolution and screen size.

The Gigabyte M27Q ($330 as of writing) packs 1440p resolution into an IPS panel running at a speedy 170 Hz. The picture quality quotient is upped by a wide color gamut and HDR support. But is the best gaming monitor for value-seekers?

Gigabyte M27Q Specs

Panel Type / Backlight	Super Speed IPS / W-LED, edge array
Screen Size / Aspect Ratio	27 inches / 16:9
Max Resolution & Refresh Rate	2560×1440 @ 170 Hz
	AMD FreeSync Premium: 48-170 Hz
Native Color Depth & Gamut	8-bit / DCI-P3
	DisplayHDR 400
	HDR10
Response Time (GTG)	0.5 ms
Brightness (mfr)	400 nits
Contrast (mfr)	1,000:1
Speakers	2x 2w
Video Inputs	1x DisplayPort 1.2
	2x HDMI 2.0
	1x USB-C
Audio	3.5mm headphone output
USB 3.0	2x up, 2x down
Power Consumption	21w, brightness @ 200 nits
Panel Dimensions WxHxD w/base	24.2 x 15.8-21 x 8 inches (615 x 401-533 x 203mm)
Panel Thickness	1.7 inches (43mm)
Bezel Width	Top/sides: 0.3 inch (8mm)
	Bottom: 0.8 inch (21mm)
Weight	12.1 pounds (5.5kg)
Warranty	3 years

High-contrast VA panels make for amazing image quality on gaming monitors, but speedy IPS implementations are quickly moving to a position of domination in the speediest part of the genre. The M27Q opts for Super Speed (SS) IPS, Gigabyte’s branding for IPS tech that achieves lower response times by using a thinner liquid crystal layer and higher driving voltage than standard IPS screens. Our review focus runs at a 170 Hz refresh rate without overclock and supports AMD FreeSync Premium. It’s not an official G-Sync Compatible monitor, but we got the M27Q to run G-Sync (see our How to Run G-Sync on a FreeSync Monitor tutorial). A claimed 0.5 ms response time puts it in company with most 240 Hz monitors.

The backlight is a flicker-free white LED in an edge array that’s specced to deliver over 400 nits brightness for both SDR and HDR content. It also advertises a “Super Wide Color Gamut” on the box, and we confirmed that claim — although there’s a caveat that we’ll explain on page three.

For the price, the M27Q promises a lot of gaming performance and plenty of features for the enthusiast. Let’s dive in and see if it lives up to the spec sheet.

Assembly and Accessories

Unpacking the substantial carton reveals a panel already bolted to an upright. Just attach the large base with a captive bolt, and you’re ready to make connections. The power supply is a small external brick. Bundled cables include HDMI, DisplayPort and USB 3.0. Despite having a USB-C input, the M27Q does not include a USB-C cable.

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(Image credit: Gigabyte)

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To keep the price low, (and is is under $350), there are few frills in the M27Q’s design. The monitor doesn’t include an RGB effect, and styling is understated. Build quality, however, is in keeping with higher-priced monitors, and you get Gigabyte’s usual suite of gaming features, like aiming points and timers.

The M27Q is unassuming from the front with just a Gigabyte logo and a tiny white LED adorning the bottom trim strip. The remainder of the bezel is flush mounted with an 8 mm frame around the image. The anti-glare layer is the same 3H-hardness part found on almost all computer monitors. Here, it provides a sharp, bright image with no apparent grain or optical distortion.

There are a few styling cues around back with a shiny polished strip across the top underlined with a thin grill. “M27Q” is molded in below that and in the same gloss finish. The rest of the plastic cover is matte finished in two different textures. Futuristic-looking lines are set around a button for activating KVM mode, which lets you control two PCs connected to the monitor with one keyboard and mouse, and the joystick for controlling the on-screen display (OSD). The upright can be removed if you’d rather use the 100mm VESA mount for a monitor arm.

The stand is very solid with firm movements. The vertical movement has subtle detents, which make it even more positive. You get a 5.2-inch height adjustment plus -5 and 20-degree tilts. There is no swivel or portrait mode. Thankfully, we didn’t encounter any play or wobble when moving the M27Q around. It is very well-built.

The side view shows the M27Q to be a touch thinner than most 27-inch monitors. There are no USB or headphone jacks here. Instead, they’re on the bottom input panel. which includes two HDMI 2.0, one DisplayPort 1.2, one USB-C and three USB 3.0 ports, one upstream and two down. Input labels are easy to see, making connections easier.

OSD Features

Outside of the monitor’s integrated on-screen display (OSD), the M27Q is controllable via the Windows desktop if you download the OSD Sidekick app. You can also create up to three custom reticles in the app. The OSD, however, offers the full-featured menu.

The M27Q’s OSD looks just like the one found on all Gigabyte and Aorus monitors with a large rectangular window and four columns making up the menu tree. There are seven sub-menus, plus a reset all function. The top portion always shows signal information and the status of various settings at a glance.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

The first menu is for gaming and includes Aim Stabilizer, Gigabyte’s term for backlight strobe-based blur reduction. Engaging it means turning off Adaptive-Sync and overdrive. It doesn’t affect peak brightness, like most backlight strobes do, but in our tests, it introduced significant ghosting around moving objects. Aim Magnifier enlarges the center of the screen, just the thing for sniping. Unfortunately, it also requires losing Adaptive-Sync and overdrive.

Further adjustments include Black Equalizer, which brightens shadow areas, and Super Resolution, which adds edge enhancement. Display Mode contains aspect ratio options and has a FreeSync toggle. The overdrive feature here is interesting in that you can’t completely turn it off. It has three levels (Balance is the best choice), plus Auto. In our tests, Auto corresponded to the Balance choice. At this setting, overdrive reduced blur nicely without ghosting.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

The Picture menu offers seven picture modes, plus three custom memories for user settings. You can store more configurations on your PC by using the OSD Sidekick app. The best mode is Standard as it offers good out-of-box accuracy and calibration to a high standard. It locks the user into the full native color gamut, which as we found out is very large, over 100% of DCI-P3. The sRGB mode is completely usable though with accurate grayscale, gamma and color gamut rendering. That’s the choice for SDR content if you’re a color purist.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

You can get to the Game Assist menu by pressing the joystick once, then clicking right. The monitor has one crosshair included, but you can create three more of your own using the aforementioned OSD Sidekick app. Game Info offers timers that count up or down and a frame rate indicator. Dashboard requires a USB connection and displays CPU and GPU temps, fan speeds and usage stats in an on-screen box that can be placed anywhere you like. If you plan to use multiple M27Qs, this menu has alignment marks available too.

Gigabyte M27Q Calibration Settings

In the Standard picture mode, the M27Q is accurate enough to satisfy most. The native color space is DCI-P3, but you can use the sRGB mode for an accurate display of that gamut. Its only available adjustment is brightness.

For calibration though, the Standard mode offers five gamma presets and three color temps plus a user mode. We left gamma alone but tweaked the RGB sliders for excellent grayscale and gamma tracking.

Here are our recommended calibration settings for enjoying SDR content on the Gigabyte M27Q and what we used for our calibrated benchmarks:

Picture Mode	Standard
Brightness 200 nits	41
Brightness 120 nits	19
Brightness 100 nits	14
Brightness 80 nits	9
Brightness 50 nits	1 (min. 48 nits)
Contrast	48
Gamma	3
Color Temp User	Red 95, Green 98, Blue 100

When it comes to HDR signals, the only adjustment available is brightness. We found the best HDR quality by leaving that slider maxed.

Gaming and Hands-on

One unique feature included of thee M27Q is its KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) switch. The ability to control two PCs connected to the monitor with one keyboard and mouse isn’t that common among PC monitors and is almost always found in general use/productivity monitors, rather than gaming ones. In a gaming monitor, a KVM switch makes it easy to toggle from your best gaming laptop, for example, over to your work-sanctioned work PC without unplugging and replugging all your peripherals. The M27Q’s OSD includes a wizard to easily assign video inputs and then switch between them with a dedicated button above the OSD joystick. The USB-C input can be a video connection and a USB upstream port.

With the M27Q calibrated to 200 nits brightness, the Windows desktop looked bright and sharp. Our office has a moderate light level with filtered sunlight coming in one window. We never had trouble with glare or other environmental factors affecting the image. Color looked well-saturated but not overly so. Greens and blues are especially vibrant. Pictures of sky and grass radiated with brilliant hues. Skin tones looked natural and robust without excessive warmth. Detail in tiny fonts and icons was well-resolved, thanks to the screen’s 109 pixel per inch (ppi) pixel density — right at our sweet spot.

Turning on HDR brightened the M27Q’s image considerably, but you can compensate with the brightness slider if it seems too harsh. We only used HDR for gaming and video, not for workday tasks. It offers no benefit when editing spreadsheets. Switchover is automatic and rapid when you select the HDR option in Windows’ Display Settings.

With HDR on we played a bit of Call of Duty: WWII. Comparing HDR to SDR in this game showed a brighter overall environment for HDR but better detail and color saturation in SDR mode. Your selection will come down to user preference. We preferred playing all games in SDR mode. Other titles, like Tomb Raider, looked fantastic with deeply detailed shadows, vivid color and defined textures in this mode.

The M27Q’s video processing was visually perfect in every game we tried when paired with high frame rates. Our GeForce RTX 3090 drove the frames per second (fps) counter to 170 every time. At this speed, there is no hesitation or stutter at all. Frame tears were non-existent, and control inputs were instantly responded to. Blur was also a non-issue.

On a machine running an Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card, the same games ran at around 120 fps and delivered a similar experience. To casual gamers, that additional 50 Hz makes little difference, but more skilled players will appreciate the M27Q’s extra speed. That performance was reliably delivered and never wavered in quality.

Our final takeaway was that this Gigabyte is a serious gaming monitor for an attractive price. Its performance-to-price ratio yielded favorable results on the battlefield.

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Features and Specifications

Next Page Brightness and Contrast

Introduction

We would like to thank XPG for supplying the review sample.

XPG is going strong in the PSU segment because of their great Core Reactor PSUs, two of which (850 W and 750 W) I have reviewed. XPG now also has a more affordable line for those seeking less expensive but still reliable power supplies. The Pylon series consists of four models with capacities ranging from 450 W to 750 W. In this review, I will take a look at the strongest of these, the XPG Pylon 750 W.

It uses a CWT platform (CSB-A), which offers good performance for the price. With the part upgrades XPG had implemented by the OEM, the platform has also improved in performance and reliability. I will go through these part upgrades in the components section of this review. To keep cost low, the modular cables were the first to go since they would have notably increased the price. So if you don’t like native cables, this PSU is not for you.

With the 80 PLUS Bronze and Cybenetics Silver efficiency certifications, platform efficiency is sufficient for those on tight budgets. Because of the current situation, shipping cost has skyrocketed as well, and while stock isn’t high, prices are. $100–$110 would have gotten you a Gold 750 W PSU before. As such, many buyers are turning to 80 PLUS Bronze/Cybernetics Silver certified PSUs instead. Hopefully, the situation will normalize soon.

Specifications

XPG Pylon 750
Features & Specifications
Max. DC Output	750 W
PFC	Active PFC
Efficiency (230 V)	80 PLUS Bronze, Cybenetics Silver (87%–89%)
Noise (230 V)	Cybenetics Standard++ (30–35 dBA)
Modular	No
Intel C6/C7 Power State Support	Yes
Operating Temperature	0–40 °C
Protections	Over Voltage Protection Under Voltage Protection Over Power Protection Over Temperature Protection Over Current Protection Short Circuit Protection
Cooling	120 mm fluid dynamic bearing fan (HA1225H12F-Z)
Semi-passive Operation	No
Dimensions (W x H x D)	150 x 85 x 140 mm
Weight	1.94 kg (4.28 lb)
Compliance	ATX12V v2.53, EPS 2.92
Warranty	3 years
Price at Time of Review (excl. VAT)	$93.33

XPG Pylon 750
Power Specifications
Rail	3.3 V	5 V	12 V	5 VSB	-12 V
Max. Power	20 A	20 A	62.5 A	2.5 A	0.3 A
Max. Power	120 W		750 W	12.5 W	3.6 W
Total Max. Power	750 W

(Pocket-lint) – Oh, the Wii U. That poor ol’ console really was a trial for Nintendo. But just because it didn’t sell well, let’s not forget some of the goodies that graced the platform.

Premier of which is Super Mario 3D World, now ported for Nintendo Switch in fine fettle, complete with brand new add-on Bowser’s Fury. The latter of which is the most bonkers Mario game we’ve played since Super Mario Sunshine (also re-released for Switch as part of Super Mario 3D All-Stars).

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We’ve had Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury on our Switch for three weeks, playing our way through its vast array of levels, to see whether Mario’s remastered world, including its online multiplayer, is the platforming perfection everyone needs right now – whether new to the game or already a fan.

Bowser’s Fury review

First thing’s first: the title that people most want to know about, as it’s all new. Yes, it’s Bowser’s Fury. This Switch exclusive has certainly got tongues wagging. So what’s it all about?

Well, Bowser’s Fury is quite unlike any Mario game we’ve played before. Largely because you play assisted by Bowser Jr. – who is available for a second player to command if you wish (otherwise he’s computer controlled – but you can state whether he’s helpful “a lot” or “a little”) – in taking down a very angry Bowser.

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That’s right: you’re helping your usual enemy in the goal of greater good. Mario has such a heart of gold, eh? But that premise is just the start in a rather whacky caper.

Nintendo

Bowser’s Fury feels more open-world than many recent Mario titles. It’s set in a giant expanse where you need to continue to open additional levels by collecting what are called Cat Shines.

In the centre of this expanse is Bowser, his head plonked down in the mud, who becomes rather irritated by this Cat Shine collecting and, intermittently during traversing the open-world – which we think has some elements of Super Mario Odyssey meets Mario 64 about it – Bowser will get, well, furious and start spitting fire in Mario’s general direction.

Bowser’s Fury’s world lovingly takes on elements from the wider Super Mario 3D World game – the most prominent of which is the Cat Mario power-up – and adds further twists. Specifically that, in order to take on giant bowser you need to become Giga Cat Mario – yup, a giant cat Mario! – to defeat your dino-like foe.

Nintendo

Bowser’s Fury is a great add-on. But it also feels just that: like an extra, rather than something quite established enough to be its own packaged title. So it’s the perfect way to release this slice of Mario newness; plus those who have already played through the Wii U version of Super Mario 3D World should see immediate extra worth in their purchase.

Super Mario 3D World: Floaty fun

But back to the main event: Super Mario 3D World. Which, for Nintendo Switch, is given an extra lick of paint with sharper graphics, smoother and faster characters, and three-dimentional platform gaming fun just as you’d expect.

It’s humble to the original Wii U game, so whether you want to relive that experience – from back in 2013, indeed it’s been about seven-and-a-half years now – or learn now why even back then it was a future classic, it’s a great opportunity.

If you’re as old as we are then you’ll find all the references as part of the 1990 SNES original, Super Mario World, extra charming. The boss themes, for example, largely overlap; the music often echoes the original, albeit brought bang up to date. It’s like a 3D homage, as the game’s title ultimately spells out.

But as Super Mario 3D World is, indeed, in three dimensions you’ll quickly need to get to grips with the “floaty” nature of the characters’ mechanics, as it’s very easy to get lost in space and not land where you want to go.

At first we thought this was most likely because we’ve spent two months 100 percenting Sackboy: A Big Adventure on the PS5 – which is a more complex platform game to master – but, actually, we’ve never quite got to grips with the nature of Super Mario 3D World’s controls. Moving camera and distance from character adds to the trickiness throughout.

You can commence your Super Mario 3D Adventure as Mario, naturally, or pick from Luigi, Princess Peach, or Toad. Each character has a slight shift in handling style – Luigi can jump higher, Peach floats farther, Toad is a little faster – but whichever character you pick it won’t affect what’s possible to achieve in the game or any of its level.

Nintendo

In addition to the usual favourites – firepower, mushrooms, mega Mario – there’s also the Cat Mario power-up, obtained in the form of a bell, which gives this game its most distinctive feature. As Cat Mario you can climb walls, swipe at enemies, giving the game a real distinction from any other Mario title. Not that you’re Cat Mario all the time – but you’ll often want to be.

There are plenty of levels to master, plus lots of replay value thanks to collectible stars – three per level – and an individual ‘stamp’ that adds to a sticker book. To achieve all that’s on offer will take an awful lot of practice – and we’re still not that far into those finer details.

Super Mario 3D World: Multiplayer antics

While you can pick one of the four main characters to play as, it’s also possible to play up to all four of them at once – whether in local co-operative play or online multiplayer via Nintendo Online. We’ve dabbled in both and it’s a lot of fun – with a dash of infuriating thrown in for good measure.

That’s part of the beauty with the Switch. The controller, as it’s made up of two parts, can be split to make two mini controllers – more similar to the NES from the 1980s – in order to have two-player co-operative play in your living room (or wherever you Switch lives). Or buy more controllers for a better experience (we would be most at home with the Pro Controller really).

Online takes the idea of co-op but means you needn’t share any controllers at all. Dig into Nintendo Online and find friends to play along with. But, be warned, the camera focuses on who is farthest ahead, and so it’s very easy to counter a lot of your friends’ plays – such as throwing one another off the side of the playfield – which can be both hilarious and infuriating in equal measure.

It also gets competitive, because the highest points-scorer earns a crown, which is taken into the next level. Get hit and you’ll drop your crown, which can be pinched by other players, but you’ll want to keep ahold of it to show-off that you’re the best – plus it’s worth extra points when you cross a level’s finish line (or, more accurately, climb the finish pole – just as you’ll be familiar with classic Mario titles).

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There’s a bombastic nature to the multi-player of Super Mario 3D World – note, it’s not available for Bowser’s Fury, that’s local co-op only – which adds another layer to the levels you’ve already explored and, often, loved. Which only goes to enhance the replayability factor yet more – and give you an excuse to buy into a Nintendo Switch online subscription too.

Verdict

Although we find the handling of characters somewhat “floaty” and therefore a little tricky to master – Sackboy on PS5 is more intricate in this regard – there’s still oodles of fun to be had in Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury.

As a chance to revist one of the most underplayed Mario games, but in refreshed form on Nintendo Switch, it’s a golden opportunity. It’s got all the fun and cheer of Mario, with plenty of nods to his long-established heritage, plus super online and local co-op play opportunities.

Additionally you’ll get the chance to experience all-new Bowser’s Fury as an added bonus too – which isn’t a reason to buy the package in itself, but is a great extra. And up there as one of the most bonkers Mario games to date.

That the original Super Mario 3D World is already over seven years old is never telling. Which, as ever, goes to show Nintendo’s ongoing genius when it comes to creating timeless masterpieces. Let’s-a-go!

Writing by Mike Lowe.

(Image credit: Google)

Google’s newest Chromecast with Google TV video streamer has received a chunky firmware update.

According to 9to5google, the update brings improved 4K support for both TVs and AV receivers, including improved Dolby Atmos and Dolby Digital Plus passthrough.

The Google changelog (200918.033) doesn’t go into much detail, but the update is set to fix the ‘Data is corrupt’ bug that a few owners have experienced and that requires a full reset.

Some users have also reported that the dongle doesn’t trigger Dolby Atmos audio when streaming content from Disney+, only when streaming from Netflix and Prime Video. Fingers crossed the update addresses this.

Sadly, there’s still no sign of the Apple TV app but Google has promised to add it to the device sometime in “early 2021”.

The update is available now and should be delivered to your Chromecast with Google TV automatically. Want to do it manually? Hold the home button, select system update in the settings menu, and the device should seek out the latest firmware.

If you’re in the market for a streaming stick, the Chromecast with Google TV is well worth considering. Under review we called it “one of the best video streamers available” thanks to the excellent Google TV platform and voice remote. In fact, our only real gripe was the lack of Apple content, which should be resolved shortly.

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