Today we are back with another extensive performance analysis, as we check out the recently-released Days Gone. As the latest formerly PlayStation-exclusive title to come to the PC, we test thirty graphics cards in this game to find out exactly what sort of GPU you need to play at maximum image quality settings. Has this game launched in a better state than when Horizon Zero Dawn first came to PC? Let’s find out.
Watch via our Vimeo channel (below) or over on YouTube at 2160p HERE
The first thing to know about Days Gone is that it is developed by Sony’s Bend Studio, and is built on Unreal Engine 4. Interestingly though, it uses DirectX 11, and there’s no option for DX12. That means there’s no ray tracing or DLSS features in Days Gone, something which is becoming more unusual these days.
In terms of visual settings, there are a number of options in the display menu. Textures, lighting, shadows and more can all be adjusted, while it’s great to see a field of view (FOV) slider as well as a render scale setting. There’s also a selection of quick presets – Low, Medium, High and Very High – and for our benchmarking today we opted for the Very High preset, with V-Sync of course disabled.
Driver Notes
AMD GPUs were benchmarked with the 21.5.2 driver.
Nvidia GPUs were benchmarked with the 466.47 driver.
Test System
We test using the a custom built system from PCSpecialist, based on Intel’s Comet Lake-S platform. You can read more about it over HERE, and configure your own system from PCSpecialist HERE.
CPU
Intel Core i9-10900K
Overclocked to 5.1GHz on all cores
Motherboard
ASUS ROG Maximus XII Hero Wi-Fi
Memory
Corsair Vengeance DDR4 3600MHz (4 X 8GB)
CL 18-22-22-42
Graphics Card
Varies
System Drive
500GB Samsung 970 Evo Plus M.2
Games Drive
2TB Samsung 860 QVO 2.5″ SSD
Chassis
Fractal Meshify S2 Blackout Tempered Glass
CPU Cooler
Corsair H115i RGB Platinum Hydro Series
Power Supply
Corsair 1200W HX Series Modular 80 Plus Platinum
Operating System
Windows 10 2004
Our 1-minute benchmark pass came from quite early on in the game, as Deacon is riding on the back of Boozer’s motorbike, headed to Crazy Willie’s. This represents a reasonably demanding section of the game based on the first hour or so that I played through, and it is also highly repeatable which makes it great for benchmarking multiple GPUs.
1080p Benchmarks
1440p Benchmarks
2160p (4K) Benchmarks
Closing Thoughts
By and large, Days Gone is an impressive PC port that almost everyone will be happy with. I say almost everyone, as currently my main issue with the game is related to visible stuttering when using an RDNA 2 GPU. This didn’t happen for other AMD cards though, or Nvidia GPUs, so hopefully it is a quick fix for AMD’s driver team or the game’s developers.
As a DX11 title built on Unreal Engine 4, if we had to guess before testing the game, we would’ve thought Nvidia GPUs would perform the best, and that is certainly true. RTX 2070 Super is significantly faster than the RX 5700 XT, for example, while RTX 3070 also beats out the RX 6800 across the board, which isn’t something we usually see.
Even then, the game does run well across a wide variety of hardware. GTX 1060 and RX 580, for instance, aren’t far off from hitting 60FPS at 1080p with maximum image quality settings, with just a few small tweaks to the IQ needed to hit that figure. VRAM doesn’t appear to be in high demand either, with both the 4GB and 8GB versions of the RX 5500 XT performing almost identically.
If you do want to drop down some image quality settings, the game’s options scale well. We found that the High preset offered 35% more performance than Very High (which is more than enough to get a GTX 1060 averaging over 60FPS at 1080p), while you can almost double frame rates using the Low preset when compared to Very High.
The only other issue I noticed is what appears to be an animation hitching problem in the game, which is particularly noticeable when riding a motorbike – the game feels like it is slowing down but then correcting itself by speeding up again. This wasn’t a game breaker for me but it was most noticeable when frame rates were below 60FPS – the higher the frame rate, the less I noticed the issue.
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KitGuru says: Days Gone is definitely in a better state at launch than what we saw when Horizon Zero Dawn hit PCs in 2020. There’s a couple of issues to be fixed, but by and large this game performs well across a good range of graphics cards.
After ‘Z Roll’, Samsung also files a European trademark for the name ‘Z Slide’ Are there multiple rollable / slider smartphones from Samsung on the way?
Samsung Electronics successfully introduced the Galaxy Z Fold 2 and Galaxy Z Flip foldable smartphones last year. Meanwhile, the South Korean manufacturer seems to be preparing for the arrival of a new type of smartphone, one with a retractable screen. Three days ago, LetsGoDigital unveiled a European trademark for the name “Samsung Z Roll“, presumably meant for the first Samsung smartphone with a rollable display. Perhaps it is a slideable smartphone such as Samsung Display showed earlier this week, we concluded at the time.
In the mean time, new information has been released as the South Korean manufacturer has filed another trademark with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO).
Samsung Galaxy Z Slide smartphone
On May 21, 2021, Samsung Electronics filed a trademark with the EUIPO for the name “Z Slide”. The application is categorized as Class 9 and comes with the same description as “Z Roll”.
Samsung Z Slide trademark description: ‘Smartphones; mobile telephones; tablet computers; telecommunication apparatus; electronic pens for smartphones and tablet computers’.
The description also makes mention of the S Pen. It is expected that the Galaxy Z Fold 3 will be Samsung’s first foldable smartphone to offer S Pen support. Samsung is probably planning to release more foldable, bendable and slideable models met S Pen support in the future.
The names Samsung Galaxy Z Slide and Z Roll are very close to each other. “Roll” stands for rollable, while “Slide” implies that it is a slideable smartphone with a rollable display. For the time being, it remains unclear whether Samsung refers to one and the same device with these names or whether the company has several new smartphone models in development.
Samsung Electronics may have simply not yet determined the final name. Personally, however, I have my doubts about this. The company is not known for applying multiple trademarks for one and the same product – unlike some other brands, such as LG Electronics. Almost all of Samsung’s trademarks result in an end product.
One of the possibilities is that, in addition to a horizontal slider display, Samsung Electronics is also working on a model with a vertical slider screen. Thus, the same differentiation can be made between “Z Roll” and “Z Slide” as between the “Z Fold” and “Z Flip” devices. The company has already filed several patents for such a type of slider smartphone.
Here you can take a look at the application for Samsung Z Slide.
Ilse is a Dutch journalist and joined LetsGoDigital more than 15 years ago. She is highly educated and speaks four languages. Ilse is a true tech-girl and loves to write about the future of consumer electronics. She has a special interest for smartphones, digital cameras, gaming and VR.
HP, aka Hewlett Packard, is one of the most well-known tech companies in the world. They produce nearly every product you can think of: laptops, desktops, printers, enterprise hardware, and solid-state drives.
We’ve previously reviewed the HP P700 Portable SSD, which impressed with outstanding performance and high transfer rates. Today’s review is for the HP P500 Portable SSD, which is a much more cost affordable design for people who aren’t as focused on performance.
The HP P500 is actually produced by HP business partner BIWIN Storage, a large Chinese OEM for SSD solutions with 25 years of experience in the storage and microelectronics business. They were granted authorization from HP to produce SSDs in their name. Internally, the HP P500 is built using a UFS flash chip paired with the appropriate glue chips and USB interface. UFS is a highly popular storage standard with cell phones, tablets, and digital cameras. It was invented as a high-performance alternative to SD memory cards for multi-gigabit transfer rates.
The HP P500 uses a UFS 2.1 compatible storage chip from Samsung, which means it’s not the latest revision 3.1, so slower speeds are expected. For external connectivity, HP opted for the fast USB 3.1 Gen 2 interface, which is handled by a Silicon Motion SM3350 controller acting as a USB-to-UFS bridge. In a move typical for most portable SSDs, the P500 does not include a DRAM cache chip.
We review the HP P500 in the 1 TB variant, which retails for $115, but it is also available in capacities of 250 GB (price unknown) and 500 GB ($75). Warranty is set to three years for all these models. The HP P500 is available in four colors.
Shopping for a laptop can be stressful — doubly stressful if you or your children will be learning online for the first time. Kids of different ages have a range of different laptop use cases and different needs. And as the choices for best laptop and best Chromebook evolve, so do students’ needs. So I spoke to some experts on the subject: students themselves.
My recommendations here are meant to accommodate a variety of preferences and price ranges. But they’re a jumping-off point rather than an exhaustive list: every student is different. Before making a decision, you’ll want to make sure you read reviews and try out devices yourself if you can. I’ll do my best to keep this article up to date with items that are in stock.
Best laptop for students
Google’s Pixelbook Go has solid battery life and a rippled base that’s easy to grip, making it a good choice for kids.Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
Best laptop for elementary school
For younger students, a touchscreen device is easier to use than a keyboard and touchpad, says Michelle Glogovac. Glogovac’s five-year-old son uses an iPad for Webex meetings with his kindergarten class. He’s gotten the hang of it; Glogovac says he’s already learned how to mute and unmute himself, “a skill that many adults aren’t familiar with.”
That said, it may be worth investing in a keyboard case if you go the tablet route. Glogovac has to type her son’s meeting codes and passwords for him, which can be cumbersome on the iPad’s flat screen.
As kids get older, their best laptop choice will vary depending on their needs. As a parent, it’s important that you and your child are in sync about how they intend to use it and the size of the programs they want.
Kristin Wallace purchased a budget HP laptop for her daughter, Bella, but didn’t realize how quickly the nine-year-old would fill up 32GB of storage. “It is really slow and has no space for games. I need a computer with more storage space,” said Bella, who uses the laptop to Zoom with friends and take virtual guitar lessons and math enrichment classes. Wallace plans to buy Bella a better device in the next few weeks.
Audio quality is an important consideration for kids’ laptops. Lisa Mitchell, an elementary library media specialist, says her students use their devices to watch YouTube videos in addition to their online classes. Battery life is also a plus, even for distance learners who may not be far from a wall outlet. Bella likes to use her laptop all around the house and doesn’t want to bring the cord with her.
Durability is also worth paying for, according to Mitchell. If you’re using a tablet, get a protective case. “If a reasonably-priced insurance or replacement policy is available, it’s usually worth the extra expense.”
Check out:
Amazon Fire HD 10 Kids Edition ($199): a colorful, fast tablet with kid-friendly content
Lenovo Chromebook Duet ($279): a tiny 10-inch Chromebook with a detachable keyboard
Apple 10.2-inch iPad ($329): a great budget tablet that supports the Apple Pencil
Microsoft Surface Go 2 ($399): a solid Windows tablet with a built-in kickstand
Google Pixelbook Go ($649): a sturdy touchscreen Chromebook
Lenovo’s Chromebook Duet is just $289, but it can run plenty of tabs and apps with no problem.Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge
Best laptop for middle school
The middle school students I spoke to don’t use their laptops for much more than web-based schoolwork and browsing. Don’t be too concerned about power — prioritize a machine that’s comfortable and easy for your child to use.
“We just got the most basic Chromebook and it is totally perfect,” says Gabrielle Hartley, an attorney and mother of three children who take a mix of in-person and online classes. “The most basic Chromebook serves all the needs of the basic middle schooler.”
Chromebooks, like this one from Acer, are a good choice for students who use Google Classroom.Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge
Hartley’s son Max, who is in eighth grade, agrees. “I would really like a gaming PC or gaming laptop that can plug into a monitor and run video games with 120fps, but I really don’t need that,” Max says. “Most eighth graders aren’t going to be running any video games on their laptops or any software that requires a lot of power.”
Max mostly uses his laptop for Google Classroom applications, including Gmail, Slides, Google Docs, and Google Sheets. They’re very easy to use on his device, which he describes as “a run-of-the-mill Samsung Chromebook.” That said, if your child is starting middle school this year, it could be worth checking with their teachers to see what operating system is most compatible with their workflow. Caspian Fischer Odén, a ninth grader from Sweden, told me he has trouble with his Chromebook because his school has blocked downloading apps from the Google Play Store.
Even kids with more demanding hobbies think a budget device can get the job done. Sam Hickman, an eighth grader from the UK who uses his laptop for photo and video editing, says, “For most middle schoolers, any processor developed within the last two years will be able to handle any tasks they can throw at it.”
So, what is worth paying for? A comfortable keyboard, several students told me. Many middle school kids aren’t used to typing for long periods of time. You should also look for a device that’s compact and easy for them to carry around, particularly if they’re preparing for in-person school. Shoot for an 11- to 13-inch model — certainly nothing larger than 15 inches.
Check out:
HP Chromebook x360 ($279): an affordable Chromebook with great battery life
Lenovo Flex 3 Chromebook ($350): a small but sturdy laptop made for students
Lenovo 300e ($378): a durable 2-in-1 with a stylus
Acer Aspire 5 ($466): a portable option for kids who need a 15-inch screen
Microsoft Surface Laptop Go ($549): an attractive, light Windows laptop
The Surface Laptop 4 is a capable, no-nonsense laptop — just what many high schoolers want.Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge
Best laptop for high school
High schoolers’ laptop needs can vary based on their interests, but most don’t need powerful machines with lots of bells and whistles — especially if they come with glitches or serious downsides that could interfere with schoolwork. Miles Riehle, a student at Laguna Beach High School, has a high-end Surface Pro 7 but finds it overwhelming. “There is so much other stuff that I don’t use very often,” he said. “Something simpler might be a little more straightforward.”
The best operating system may depend on what your child is used to. Aryan Nambiar, a student at Barrington High School in Illinois, has an iMac at home and enjoys using an iPad for his schoolwork. Riehle says he would prefer a Chromebook because he has an Android phone and often uses Google services.
But almost every student I spoke to agreed that the most important feature of a high school laptop is portability. Kids attending in-person classes may be carrying their device around for much of the day with a stack of other books. Look for a 13- or 14-inch screen, or a lighter 15- to 17-inch model.
Students also recommend something sturdy. “Most high schoolers I’ve seen will throw their laptop in their bag without too much care,” says Moses Buckwalter, a student at Penn Manor High School. Backpacks can be jostled in the hallway as well. Distance learners can still run into trouble at home. “Anything can happen,” says Aadit Agrawal, a high school student from India. “My own brother scratched my laptop with his nails.”
Battery life is another key feature. “It can be a real struggle to find a place to charge while in class,” says Cas Heemskerk, a sophomore from the Netherlands. Unlike college students, many high schoolers don’t have frequent breaks to juice up their devices, so try to find something that can last a full day.
Many students recommend a touchscreen with stylus support. Nambiar uses the feature for his biology class, where he does a lot of visual modeling. “The touchscreen is always a bonus for drawing diagrams, whereas if you’re using a laptop it’d be a whole process to submit a diagram you drew,” Nambiar says. Riehle uses a Surface Pen to fill out school forms and annotate PDFs. Agrawal finds it useful to take notes on the same screen as his online lessons.
Depending on the broadband situation in your area, you may also want a laptop with multiple connectivity options. Agrawal’s online classes are sometimes interrupted by powercuts, so he recommends an LTE model. Matej Plavevski, a junior at Yahya Kemal College in North Macedonia, recommends looking for an Ethernet port in case slower connections disrupt meetings. That’s hard to find on smaller laptops, but there’s a slew of affordable dongles and docks to consider.
Check out:
Acer Chromebook Spin 513 ($349): a convertible Chromebook with all-day battery
Apple iPad Air ($599): a powerful tablet with a great screen
Acer Chromebook Spin 713 ($629): a fantastic Chromebook that’s not too pricey
Dell XPS 13 ($931): a solid clamshell Windows laptop
Surface Laptop 4 ($999): an excellent, light laptop that’s comfortable to use
For college students seeking an affordable laptop, HP’s Envy x360 performs just as well as some expensive competitors.Photography by Monica Chin / The Verge
Best laptop for college
College kids are justified in spending a bit more money than other age groups. Some (especially in STEM courses) can expect to do some fairly demanding work. Assad Abid, an electrical engineering undergrad from Pakistan, needs to run simulation software for his assignments. Aakash Chandra, a student at New Horizon College of Engineering in India, does a lot of coding, in addition to creative work in Premiere Pro and Photoshop, and gaming. Students also noted that it’s worthwhile to pay for a laptop that will last for a few years after graduation. That means you won’t have to worry about finding and financing your next device until you’re (hopefully) settled into a job.
But among high-end, capable devices there’s still a wide range of options. Students stressed that a college laptop should be light. Expect to bring it between classes, meals, meetings, the library, and other locations on campus. “It’s a boon that I can carry my laptop as well as some notebooks without feeling like I’m carrying too much for six hours a day,” says Haseeb Waseem, a senior at Villanova University.
The Dell XPS 13 has a variety of configurations. Students with light workloads may prefer the base model, while gamers and creatives can add a GPU.Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge
Another universally-lauded feature: battery life. Waseem, who uses an HP Spectre, says the all-day juice gives him “the flexibility to study in a bunch of different locations, and even outside.”
Speakers and webcams are often overlooked, even in top-end devices. But students say it’s worth looking for good ones if you’re starting college this year. Zoom will be a large part of university life this semester: many kids will be attending virtual classes, while others will still be meeting with clubs, study groups, and professors as well as hanging out with friends online. Waseem isn’t satisfied with his laptop’s audio and picture quality, which he says has made it difficult to pay attention in class and to engage with other students.
Many students will need to invest more in areas tailored to their interests and schoolwork needs. Chandra’s dream laptop would include a stylus and touchscreen for his creative work as well as a high-end GPU. Waseem, who uses his laptop for a hodgepodge of activities, including streaming, coding, social media, video chatting, and Microsoft Office work, would prefer to prioritize a large screen to keep track of his multitasking.
Check out:
Acer Swift 3 ($613): a super light laptop that performs well
HP Envy x360 13 ($689): a fast and stylish 2-in-1
Dell XPS 13 ($930): a solid clamshell Windows laptop
Surface Laptop 4 ($999): an excellent, light laptop that’s comfortable to use
HP Spectre x360 14 ($1,269): a premium convertible with standout battery life
Solid-state drives have a number of advantages when compared to hard drives, which include performance, dimensions, and reliability. Yet, for quite a while, HDDs offered a better balance between capacity, performance, and cost, which is why they outsold SSDs in terms of unit sales. Things have certainly changed for client PCs as 60% of new computers sold in Q1 2021 used SSDs instead of HDDs. That said, it’s not surprising that SSDs outsold HDDs almost 3:2 in the first quarter in terms of unit sales as, in 2020, SSDs outsold hard drives (by units not GBs), by 28 perecent.
Unit Sales: SSDs Win 3:2
Three makers of hard drives shipped as many as 64.17 million HDDs in Q1 2021, according to Trendfocus. Meanwhile, less than a dozen SSD suppliers, including those featured in our list of best SSDs, shipped 99.438 million solid-state drives in the first quarter, the same company claims (via StorageNewsletter).
(Image credit: Trendfocus/StorageNewsletter)
Keeping in mind that many modern notebooks cannot accommodate a hard drive (and many desktops are shipped with an SSD by default), it is not particularly surprising that sales of SSDs are high. Furthermore, nowadays users want their PCs to be very responsive and that more or less requires an SSD. All in all, the majority of new PCs use SSDs as boot drives, some are also equipped with hard drives and much fewer use HDDs as boot drives.
Exabyte Sales: HDDs Win 4.5:1
But while many modern PCs do not host a lot of data, NAS, on-prem servers, and cloud datacenters do and this is where high-capacity NAS and nearline HDDs come into play. These hard drives can store up to 18TB of data and an average capacity of a 3.5-inch enterprise/nearline HDD is about 12TB these days nowadays. Thus, HDD sales in terms of exabytes vastly exceed those of SSDs (288.3EB vs 61.5EB).
Meanwhile, it should be noted that the vast majority of datacenters use SSDs for caching and HDDs for bulk storage, so it is impossible to build a datacenter purely based on solid-state storage (3D NAND) or hard drives.
Anyhow, as far as exabytes shipments are concerned, HDDs win. Total capacity of hard drives shipped in the first quarter 2021 was 288.28 EB, whereas SSDs sold in Q1 could store ‘only’ 66 EB s of data.
Since adoption of SSDs both by clients and servers is increasing, dollar sales of solid-state drives are strong too. Research and Markets values SSD market in 2020 at $34.86 billion and forecasts that it will total $80.34 billion by 2026. To put the numbers into context, Gartner estimated sales of HDDs to reach $20.7 billion in 2020 and expected them to grow to $22.6 billion in 2022.
Samsung Leads the Pack
(Image credit: Trendfocus/StorageNewsletter)
When it comes to SSD market frontrunners, Samsung is an indisputable champion both in terms of unit and exabytes shipments. Samsung sold its HDD division to Seagate in 2011, a rather surprising move then. Yet, the rationale behind the move has always been there for the company that is the No. 1 supplier of NAND flash memory. Today, the move looks obvious.
Right now, Samsung challenges other SSD makers both in terms of unit (a 25.3% market share) and exabyte (a 34.3% chunk of the market) shipments. Such results are logical to expect as the company sells loads of drives to PC OEMs, and high-capacity drives to server makers and cloud giants.
Still, not everything is rosy for the SSD market in general and Samsung in particular due to shortage of SSD controllers. The company had to shut down its chip manufacturing facility that produces its SSD and NAND controllers in Austin, Texas, earlier this year, which forced it to consider outsourcing of such components. Potentially, shortage of may affect sales of SSDs by Samsung and other companies.
“Shortages of controllers and other NAND sub-components are causing supply chain uncertainty, putting upwards pressure on ASPs,” said Walt Coon, VP of NAND and Memory Research at Yole Développement. “The recent shutdown of Samsung’s manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas, USA, which manufactures NAND controllers for its SSDs, further amplifies this situation and will likely accelerate the NAND pricing recovery, particularly in the PC SSD and mobile markets, where impacts from the controller shortages are most pronounced.”
Storage Bosses Still Lead the Game
(Image credit: Trendfocus/StorageNewsletter)
Western Digital follows Samsung in terms of SSD units (18.2%) and capacity (15.8%) share to a large degree because it sells loads of drives for applications previously served by HDDs and (perhaps we are speculating here) mission-critical hard drives supplied by Western Digital, HGST (as well as Hitachi and IBM before that).
The number three SSD supplier is Kioxia (formerly Toshiba Memory) with a 13.3% unit market share and a 9.4% exabyte market share, according to TrendFocus. Kioxia has inherited many shipment contracts (particularly in the business/mission-critical space) from Toshiba. Kioxia’s unit shipments (a 13.3% market share) are way lower when compared to those of its partner Western Digital (to some degree because the company is more aimed at the spot 3D NAND and retail SSD markets).
Being aimed primarily at high-capacity server and workstation applications, Intel is the number three SSD supplier in terms of capacity with an 11.5% market share, but when it comes to unit sales, Intel controls only 5% of the market. This situation is not particularly unexpected as Intel has always positioned its storage business as a part of its datacenter platform division, which is why the company has always been focused on high-capacity NAND ICs (unlike its former partner Micron) for advanced server-grade SSDs.
Speaking of Micron, its SSD unit market share is at an 8.4%, whereas its exabytes share is at 7.9%, which is an indicator that the company is balancing between the client and enterprise. SK Hynix also ships quite a lot of consumer drives (an 11.8% market share), but quite some higher-end enterprise-grade SSDs (as its exabytes share is 9.1%).
Seagate is perhaps one exception — among the historical storage bosses — that controls a 0.7% of the exabyte SSD market and only 0.3% of unit shipments. The company serves its loyal clientele and has yet to gain significant share in the SSD market.
Branded Client SSDs
One interesting thing about the SSD market is that while there are loads of consumer-oriented brands that sell flash-powered drives, they do not control a significant part of the market either in terms of units nor in terms of exabytes, according to Trendfocus.
Companies like Kingston, Lite-On, and a number of others make it to the headlines, yet in terms of volume, they control about 18% of the market, a significant, but not a definitive chunk. In terms of exabytes, their share is about 11.3%, which is quite high considering the fact that most of their drives are aimed at client PCs.
Summary
Client storage is going solid state in terms of unit shipments due to performance, dimensions, and power reasons. Datacenters continue to adopt SSDs for caching as well as business and mission-critical applications.
Being the largest supplier of 3D NAND (V-NAND in Samsung’s nomenclature), Samsung continues to be the leading supplier of SSDs both in terms of volumes and in terms of capacity shipments. Meanwhile, shortage of SSD controllers may have an impact on the company’s SSD sales.
Based on current trends, SSDs are set to continue taking unit market share from HDDs. Yet hard drives are not set to give up bulk storage.
Talk of a possible Spotify HiFi launch hit the headlines this week, but it seems the music streaming giant wants to focus on a new feature for Google Wear devices: offline listening.
In a keynote speech at the recent Google I/O developer conference, Spotify’s product lead for cars and wearables revealed plans to allow the company’s 350 million users to download music to their Google Wear smartwatch.
YouTube followed up with a similar announcement. The company’s YouTube Music app is also due to get an update that will let some 35 million users download tracks directly to their Wear OS watch.
Apple Watch users have enjoyed offline listening via Apple Music for years but Apple Watch does not currently support offline Spotify playback.
As yet, Spotify hasn’t said when new the offline listening feature will be available – only that the new Spotify app has been “rebuilt from the ground up for Wear”. YouTube Music is due to land on Wear OS devices “later this year”.
The announcements came as part of a major overhaul of Google’s flagging Wear OS. The latest version of the software was developed in partnership with Samsung and claims improved performance (apps open 30 percent faster, apparently) and a sleek user experience based on Samsung’s popular Tizen OS.
MORE:
Spotify HiFi is missing something – but will it matter?
Its ambition is to be applauded, but Deezer falls between the two stools of Spotify and Tidal and struggles to justify itself over either
For
Vast catalogue and device support
CD-quality HiFi tier
Envelope-pushing 3D audio
Against
No hi-res streaming
Spotify does discovery better
Tidal does hi-fi better
Deezer appears to be stuck with a bit of an identity crisis. When we first reviewed the music streaming service in 2015, it clearly saw itself as a Spotify rival, bringing a vast library of music to a mainstream audience as efficiently as possible.
By the time of our re-review, in early 2018, Deezer had begun courting the hi-fi crowd with a comprehensive catalogue of CD-quality tracks and murmurings of hi-res MQA support to come.
In 2020, with hi-res yet to appear on the platform, Deezer hopped into bed with Sony and started offering 360 Reality Audio streaming to subscribers to its HiFi tier.
And now here we are in 2021 and 16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC files (ie. CD quality) is still the pinnacle of Deezer’s HiFi offering. Yes, it is a solid step up from the 128kbps MP3 files of “standard streaming services”, but those are now few and far between. As both Apple (with Apple Music Lossless) and Spotify (with Spotify HiFi) become well and truly embroiled in a hi-res music war and Amazon Music quietly drops its premium tier by £5 per month to just £7.99 if you’re a Prime Member, where does that leave Deezer?
Clearly, the French streaming service is trying its best to find a USP, and that’s to be applauded, but the result is that it falls short of matching Spotify’s mainstream appeal and Tidal’s hi-fi credentials.
Features
(Image credit: Apple / Deezer)
While Spotify held on resolutely to its compressed music streams until its 2021 HiFi tier announcement, Deezer has offered ‘CD quality’ tracks in the 16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC format since 2017.
These tracks are available to those who subscribe to the £14.99 ($14.99) per-month HiFi tier – which used to cost £19.99 until roughly a year ago – and while initially you also needed to own one of a handful of specific devices, they can now be enjoyed on almost any device that supports the core Deezer experience. In fact, Deezer now comes pre-loaded in kit such as Mobee-K’s new smart USB-C headphones while Apple’s own HomePod and HomePod Mini support Deezer voice control, and Deezer tracks can be downloaded to enjoy offline on your Apple watch, too.
It once looked likely that Deezer would add hi-res streaming to its repertoire, but the company has since decided to go down the 360 Reality Audio route. Think of this as a Dolby Atmos rival but specifically for streamed music, and you’ve got the idea.
Deezer was the first music streaming service to offer 360 Reality Audio, but it has since been joined by Tidal, Amazon Music HD and nugs.net (for the uninitiated, that is a streaming service dedicated to live concerts). Back to Deezer and the tracks available in the format are included as part of its HiFi subscription. You will need to download a different app, called 360 by Deezer, if you want to listen to them all, but this extra app also gives access to all of the non-360 tracks of the standard app so you don’t have to constantly switch between the two.
The bad news is that 360 by Deezer is only available on iOS and Android devices. There are eight playlists, including ‘New on 360 by Deezer’ that can be enjoyed on a computer or hi-fi via the desktop app as teasers – but not the full package.
Pricing
(Image credit: Apple / Deezer)
Below Deezer HiFi there are three tiers. Premium (£9.99/$9.99 per month) shares features with HiFi – no ads, unlimited streaming and control on mobile apps, and offline access – but limits sound quality to 320kbps.
Deezer Family (£14.99/$14.99 per month) gets you everything on Premium for up to six profiles. There’s also a free, ad-supported tier with 128kbps streaming and limited mobile app use.
Compatibility
(Image credit: Apple / Deezer)
As well as smartphones and computers, the Deezer app is also available on many other devices: TVs from the likes of Samsung, Sony and LG; wireless speakers by Sonos, Amazon, Bluesound and Bose; and even cars via Android Auto or Apple CarPlay. And that’s far from an exhaustive list.
What’s more, Chromecast and AirPlay allow you to send tunes to yet more devices. Deezer might not quite match Spotify’s ubiquity (it’s missing from Cambridge Audio’s streamers, for example), but it’s close.
Regardless of the device used, subscribers can access a catalogue of over 56 million songs, more than 52 million of which it claims are in the CD-quality FLAC format. It’s an impressive figure, but with all music streaming services making similarly huge claims, the numbers game is rendered a little academic.
What matters is whether the tracks you’re looking for are available and, in our experience, Deezer produces the fewest blanks after Spotify. It’s very rare to find a song in Spotify’s catalogue that isn’t also available in Deezer’s – and usually in that higher-quality format. One nil to Deezer.
We find Deezer stocks pretty much every track of the diverse range we search for, and all in CD quality too. Just be aware that, unlike Apple Music and Tidal, Deezer doesn’t have artist or album window ‘exclusives’, although it does occasionally release its own live sessions with big artists.
Ease of use
(Image credit: Apple / Deezer)
As HiFi subscribers, we mostly use the desktop and iOS mobile apps, and the ability to flick from one to the other is made easy by the fact each platform offers a very similar interface.
Deezer’s appearance is perhaps best described as stripped-back – almost brutally so. The interface is clean and clear, but also a bit bare, particularly on desktop. Music streaming services are generally similar in layout, with a bottom playback bar and a few left-hand side tabs bordering the centralised chunk of content – and Deezer doesn’t stray too far from this template.
Since our last review update, things have been slightly tweaked. ‘Home’ has been replaced by ‘Music’, although it does the same job as before: presenting users with personalised playlists as well as the opportunity to browse music by charts, new releases, popularity and various moods. Radio stations still appear at the bottom of this page, but podcasts now have their own tab.
‘Favorites’ has replaced ‘My music’, but again, the purpose is unchanged: it’s a gateway to your saved playlists and ‘favourite’ tracks, albums and podcasts.
Performance
(Image credit: Apple / Deezer)
We play the What Hi-Fi? January 2021 playlist, and are pleased to hear Deezer HiFi (CD-quality) streams are clear, full-bodied and, perhaps most importantly, an upgrade from the ‘Better’ (320kbps) quality streams. It’s worth noting sound quality can be changed between ‘Standard’ (128kbps), ‘Better’ (320kbps on wi-fi and 128kbps on mobile data), and ‘High Fidelity’ (1411kbps).
The HiFi streams cling more committedly to the textures of the ‘80s-style keys, percussion and synths underpinning Chaka Khan’s Pallion (aka Hot Butterfly), and those of the affected backing track and vocals in Dua Lipa’s Levitating.
However, we find Tidal’s CD-quality streams a little crisper, cleaner and more precise. There’s more fuel driving Tiny Giant’s Draw Me a Line, and greater space around the instrumental and vocal accompaniment. Timing of the drumbeats and underlying cymbal rhythm is noticeably more accurate, too, with Tidal’s version of Donald Fagen’s I.G.Y. springing into life with a touch more bite.
That said, listening through Grado SR325e headphones plugged into a MacBook Air, the differences are admittedly subtle. And it’s only when we up the transparency of our set-up with a Chord Hugo 2 DAC that these discrepancies become really significant, helped by Tidal’s fancy options for taking exclusive control of the DAC and bypassing the MacBook’s audio processing and volume control. Deezer has no such options.
Of course, the ace up Deezer’s sleeve is 360 Reality Audio, which isn’t offered by any other streaming service. 360 Reality Audio offers a 3D sound space by creating multiple virtual speakers and can be listened to via most standard headphones – although the experience has been optimised for Sony’s range.
At its best, it’s really rather impressive, immersing you in the music and surrounding you with spatially distinct instruments in a way not previously experienced. As a technological showcase it’s very effective, and gives you fresh insight into some of your favourite tracks (although the selection is fairly limited at this point).
But whether the 360 version of a track will replace the stereo version in your affections is debatable. For one, even the best tracks sound comparatively lacking in punch and weight when compared to their stereo equivalents, and some other tracks just don’t seem to have made the transition to 3D particularly well, coming across as rather flat and compressed in terms of detail and dynamics.
It’s worth remembering that 360 Reality Audio is still in its infancy and there’s already so much to like. In time it could be absolutely brilliant – it’s just not a hugely persuasive reason to opt for Deezer over Tidal right now.
Verdict
(Image credit: Apple / Deezer)
While we prefer Tidal’s comprehensive layout and slightly superior sound quality, the main chink in Deezer’s armour is its current lack of hi-res audio.
After all, subscribers to Tidal’s HiFi tier get access to over a million (typically 24-bit/96kHz) hi-res Masters in addition to CD-quality streaming – although they have to pay a little more for it at £19.99 ($19.99) per month – and Amazon Music HD delivers hi-res tracks for £7.99 ($7.99) per month for Prime members and £9.99 ($9.99) per month if you don’t have an Amazon Prime account.
Deezer may still have hi-res in its sights, but all has gone quiet on that front since the announcement of its partnership with MQA back in September 2017. And until it comes as part of a competitive package, it doesn’t shine brightly enough to be the leading light in music streaming.
Its core, non-HiFi subscription, meanwhile, falls just a whisker short of Spotify when it comes to ubiquity, discovery and presentation.
But, while Deezer rather falls between the two pillars of Tidal and Spotify right now, the addition of hi-res streams (and some of the hi-fi-focused features of Tidal) could actually one day see it become the best of both worlds.
SCORES
Performance 4
Features 4
Ease of use 4
MORE:
See the best music streaming services 2021: free streams to hi-res audio
Read our Tidal review
Check out the best music streamers 2021: upgrade to a wireless system
(Pocket-lint) – The OnePlus 8 Pro was one of 2020’s best phones, offering flagship specs and premium design at cheaper price than the likes of Samsung’s Galaxy S20 range.
While both series of phones are a little older now, they still make great purchase options purely because you can now get them cheaper than they were at launch.
So how does the OnePlus 8 Pro compare to Samsung’s top-of-the-range Galaxy S20 Ultra and Galaxy S20+? Here are the specifications up against each other.
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Design
OnePlus 8 Pro: 165.3 x 74.4 x 8.5mm, 199g
Samsung S20+: 161.9 x 73.7 x 7.8mm, 186g
Samsung S20 Ultra: 166.9 x 76 x 8.8mm, 220g
The OnePlus 8 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S20+ and Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra all offer premium designs with metal cores and glass rears, though OnePlus offers matte options, while Samsung offers gloss only. The frosted glass is both lovely to look at, and does a better job of resisting smudges from fingerprint grease.
The Samsung S20+ and S20 Ultra both have punch hole cameras centralised at the top of their displays, while the OnePlus 8 Pro has a punch hole camera positioned in the top left corner of its display.
On the back, the OnePlus 8 Pro has a slightly neater design with a pill-shaped vertical camera housing positioned in the middle, while the Samsung Galaxy S20+ and S20 Ultra both have more prominent rectangular camera housings in the top left corner of their rears.
Size wise, the OnePlus sits right in the middle of the two Samsung phones. It’s a little wider and thicker than the S20+, but narrower and thinner than the S20 Ultra. That means, in the hand, the S20+ is slightly more comfortable, but in truth all phones are pretty big.
All devices being compared here offer IP68 water and dust resistance and they all have in-display fingerprint sensors. So there’s a lot of parity here. In terms of build and looks, you’re not getting a less premium device by going with OnePlus.
Display
OnePlus 8 Pro: 6.78-inch, Quad HD+, 120Hz
Samsung S20+: 6.7-inch, Quad HD+, 120Hz
Samsung S20 Ultra: 6.9-inch, Quad HD+, 120Hz
The OnePlus 8 Pro has a 6.78-inch display with a Quad HD+ resolution offering a pixel density of 513ppi. It offers an aspect ratio of 19.8:9 and a refresh rate of 120Hz.
The Samsung Galaxy S20+ has a 6.7-inch display with a Quad HD+ resolution and 525ppi, putting it at a similar size to the OnePlus 8 Pro, while the Ultra is larger at 6.9-inches. It too has a Quad HD+ resolution though, with a pixel density of 511ppi.
While both Galaxy devices have 120Hz refresh rate displays – just like OnePlus – Samsung currently only allows you to have it switched on if the resolution is set to full HD+. That means you have to choose between sharpness, and fast animations. OnePlus allows you to have both switched on at the same time, without compromise.
Still, despite this, all three displays are truly excellent and easily the best currently available on any smartphone. They’re sharp, vibrant and responsive.
All devices being compared in this feature have a AMOLED panel and offer HDR10+ support.
The camera department is perhaps the area these devices differ the most.
The OnePlus 8 Pro has a quad rear camera, made up of a 48-megapixel main sensor, 8-megapixel telephoto sensor, 48-megapixel ultra-wide angle sensor and a 5-megapixel colour filter sensor. There’s a dual LED flash and a range of features including Video HDR, Smart Pet Capture mode and 3x hybrid zoom.
The Samsung Galaxy S20+ has a quad rear camera too, made up of a 12-megapixel main sensor, 64-megapixel telephoto sensor, 12-megapixel ultra wide sensor and a Depth Vision time of flight sensor.
The Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra meanwhile, has a 108-megapixel main sensor, 48-megapixel telephoto sensor, which is a 10x hybrid optic periscope lens, 12-megapixel ultra wide sensor and a DepthVision sensor.
Despite having the impressive-sounding 100x Space Zoom, in our testing, we had a few issues with the S20 Ultra’s camera. Apart from that ultra-zoom being not much more than a gimmick at its extreme focal lengths, there were other problems with focussing on items up close. The S20+ may have the less jaw-dropping spec sheet here, but it gave us fewer issues overall and performs well. As does OnePlus.
The 8 Pro’s primary and ultra-wide cameras are excellent, and the zoom is useful, even if the colours and detail don’t quite match up with the other two main cameras. As for that colour filter camera, that’s a little weird and lets you be creative, but doesn’t offer anything distinctly wortwhile.
The OnePlus 8 Pro runs on the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor with a choice of 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage or 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. There is no microSD support for further storage expansion.
The Samsung Galaxy S20+ and S20 Ultra both run on either the Exynos 990 or Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor, depending on the region. Both have 12GB of RAM as standard but the Ultra also comes in a 16GB option. There are various storage options, with 128GB, 256GB and 512GB models available, all of which offer microSD storage expansion up to 1TB.
In terms of everyday speed and performance, the OnePlus and Samsung phones will all offer you a speedy, responsive experience. We didn’t notice any significant difference between the three. It’s no surprise really given the similar specifications and power available in all of them.
In terms of battery capacities, the OnePlus 8 Pro has a 4510mAh battery, the Samsung Galaxy S20+ has a 4500mAh battery and the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra has a 5000mAh battery. IN testing, the OnePlus was the one that’s likely to last a little bit longer, but again, there’s not a huge amount in it. Samsung has really upped its battery longevity game this year.
The one place you will notice a difference is in charging speeds. With its 30W wireless charging, OnePlus will refill much quicker on its charging stand than either of the Samsung phones will while wireless charging.
All three also offer reverse wireless charging too, so you can top up your wireless charging compatible earphones or smartwatch from any of the phones.
All three devices being compared here are 5G enabled.
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Conclusion
The OnePlus 8 Pro sits in the middle of both the Samsung Galaxy S20+ and the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra but it is quite a bit cheaper than both models, coming in around the same price as the standard Galaxy S20 instead.
There’s plenty of similarities between the three devices too, despite the price difference. All have large displays, premium designs, powerful hardware and good software experiences, albeit different.
You get microSD support on the Samsung devices, along with some interesting camera functionality, especially on the S20 Ultra, but you pay more for these attributes – a lot more in the case of the Ultra – so the decision between these handsets will come down to your budget and what features matter to you most.
On the whole, we don’t think you’ll be losing a whole lot at all in real daily performance and capabilities by going with the OnePlus 8 Pro instead of either of these two Samsung phones.
Yesterday brought the momentous news that Google and Samsung will merge together their Wear OS and Tizen-based smartwatch platforms into a single operating system. The new software is currently being referred to as Wear, but that name could change as we get closer to the first devices that will ship with it.
The unified platform is intended to give Android smartwatches a huge boost and much simpler strategy. It will also allow developers to create apps and widgets for a single OS instead of splitting their efforts between Wear OS and Tizen. A lot of this is spelled out in more detail in the below video, but let’s also focus on the big highlights.
It’s going to be faster than Wear OS
Speed and responsiveness were one of the major talking points when Google and Samsung made this announcement during the I/O 2021 keynote. The companies are claiming that apps open up to 30 percent faster than they currently do on Wear OS. Google also promises “smooth user interface animations and motion,” which hasn’t always been a strength of Wear OS.
Battery life will be a step up, too
Samsung’s smartwatches were already routinely outlasting Wear OS products, so this doesn’t come as a surprise. The company is lending Google some hardware expertise to ensure better stamina. “Samsung implemented our best technology to provide optimized performances, and advanced sensor batching and low power display technology to ensure an efficient and long-lasting battery,” Samsung’sJanghyun Yoon wrote after Tuesday’s news. Google’s Bjorn Kilburn said customers can expect “handy optimizations like the ability to run the heart rate sensor continuously during the day, track your sleep overnight and still have battery for the next day.”
The next Samsung Galaxy Watch will run Wear
Samsung has confirmed that its next smartwatch — and all others in the pipeline — will run the unified Wear platform. But the company made sure to note that it will bring over some of its popular hardware elements, like the rotating bezel mechanism.
A standalone Google Maps app will do turn-by-turn directions
In a report from Wired, we learned that there are plans for a Google Maps app on Wear that features “a new user interface that will also work even if your phone is not with you.” That hints at cellular data support on the new unified platform.
Spotify and YouTube Music apps will support offline downloads
Spotify already allows owners of Samsung smartwatches to download songs for offline listening, and now that same convenience will be extended to Wear. That’s one thing Spotify for the Apple Watch still doesn’t do.
Google also confirmed that YouTube Music will be available on Wear. Like Spotify, it’ll include full support for offline listening.
Fitbit activity tracking will be built into the platform
Having completed its acquisition of Fitbit at the start of this year, Google will now integrate some of the brand’s health and activity tracking features into Wear. Future premium Fitbit wearables will also run the unified platform.
Device makers will be able to customize the look and feel
Google tried to emphasize on Tuesday that this platform isn’t just intended for itself and Samsung. “All device makers will be able to add a customized user experience on top of the platform,” Kilburn said. That’s going to prove important if Google wants to keep companies like Garmin on board with the new platform. And we can’t forget about the many traditional watchmakers — Fossil, Citizen, TAG Heuer, and others — that have gotten behind Wear OS in recent years in the absence of a flagship smartwatch from Google.
Apps should be faster and easier to develop with new APIs
Wear’s apps will use the latest Android development techniques like Jetpack and Kotlin to help reach the best possible performance. Google is also promising to make life easier for app makers with new APIs that cover Tiles, health services, watchfaces, complications, and more. And an activity indicator will show when certain functions are running in the background.
Some Wear OS smartwatches might get upgraded to Wear
There aren’t any firm promises yet, but Google at least didn’t outright say existing products won’t be updated to the new OS. The company told 9to5Google, “we will have more updates to share on timelines once the new version launches later this year.”
Samsung will not update Galaxy Watch models to Wear
Samsung will not be updating its Galaxy Watch line to Wear, but says it has no intention of leaving its current customers in the dust once it starts releasing Wear hardware. “For customers who already own the Tizen OS based Galaxy smartwatches, we are continuing to provide at least three years of software support after the product launch,” the company said Tuesday. However, it seems plausible there will be more than a few features and new Wear tricks that will never make their way to older Galaxy smartwatches.
Samsung will bring over its watchface designer tool
Some people out there really care about having a good watchface selection on a pricey smartwatch. Google and Samsung are promising a wide mix of styles, and Samsung told Wired its design tool — and many of the company’s own signature watchfaces — will be available on Wear.
The unknowns
Google and Samsung shared a decent chunk of information on day one, but we’re still left without answers to a few important questions. We should learn more details over the summer as we head into fall hardware season.
When will the first Wear smartwatch be available?
Is the underlying operating system closer to Wear OS or closer to Tizen? (Considering that developers will be using Android tools to build apps, it seems like the former.)
Will there be required helper apps like some of Samsung’s watches have needed?
Is Wear going to continue offering some semblance of iOS support?
What’s going to happen to Samsung Pay and Bixby? Are they both goners on the wrist?
XMG has added a new processor option to the company’s existing Neo 15 and Neo 17. Intel’s new Core i7-11800H (Tiger Lake) processor will be powering XMG’s refreshed gaming laptops.
Built on Intel’s 10nm SuperFin process, the Core i7-11800H wields eight Willow Cove cores with Hyper-Threading and up to 24MB of L3 cache. The 45W chip rocks a 2.3 GHz base clock and 4.6 GHz boost clock. In contrast to the Ryzen-powered Neo 15 and Neo 17 models, XMG has outfitted the Intel equivalent with Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut for improved cooling.
It’s not just the processor upgrade. XMG also upped the Neo 15 and Neo 17’s graphics card game. Previously, the GeForce RTX 3080 (Ampere) was limited to 150W (135W plus 15W from Dynamic Boost 2.0). With the Tiger Lake-H model, XMG was able to increase the thermal envelope up to 165W for even more performance. XMG doesn’t force you to roll with the GeForce RTX 3080, either. The company also offers the GeForce RTX 3070 and RTX 3060 as other viable options.
The Neo 15 (359.8 x 243 x 26 mm, 2.2 kg) and Neo 17 (395.7 x 260.8 x 27.45 mm, 2.5 kg) boasts a screen that will make any gamer happy. The devices feature a WQHD (2560×1440) IPS screen with a 165 Hz refresh rate and 95% sRGB color space coverage and a maximum brightness of 350 nits. The Neo 15 comes with a 15.6-inch display, while the Neo 17 arrives with a 17.3-inch screen.
XMG Neo 15 (Image credit: XMG)
The Tiger Lake-H version of the Neo 15 and Neo 17 also offers 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet networking, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 functionality, Thunderbolt 4 connectivity, high-speed PCIe 4.0 M.2 storage and native support for DDR4-3200 memory.
The base configuration for the Neo 15 (XNE15IM21) and Neo 17 (XNE17IM21) starts at €1,949 or $2,380. It model comes with the Core i7-11800H, Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3060, 16GB of DDR4-3200 memory, a 500GB Samsung 970 Evo Plus SSD and the beautiful WQHD 165 Hz IPS panel. There’s ample room for upgrades too. Both gaming laptops support up to 64GB of memory and RAID 0 or 1 arrays, thanks to the presence of two M.2 2280 slots.
Due to the global shortage of components, the pricing could vary. Pre-orders for the Tiger Lake-based Neo 15 and Neo 17 starts at the beginning of June with orders expected to go out by the end of June.
Despite insisting in April that the IFA 2021 technology fair would be, “a full-scale, real-life event”, organisers of the show have announced it will now be cancelled due to the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Berlin-based show, which was due to take place from 3rd-7th September, is Europe’s biggest tech fair and showcases kit across a range of consumer electronics categories from a wide range of manufacturers including LG, Panasonic, Samsung, and Sony.
IFA is unique in that after the press and trade days have passed, the general public get admittance – most tech shows are strictly industry-only affairs. This year’s show was also due to see the debut of the first-ever Tech Up for Women Conference and Berlin Photo Week.
The decision not to proceed with an in-person show was made in light of new global health concerns and resulting uncertainties for exhibitors and attendees planning to travel to Berlin.
It is the latest hi-fi trade show to withdraw its in-person event for 2021 with High-End Munich taking the decision last month, while January’s CES was an online-only affair.
Speaking about the cancellation, Martin Ecknig, the CEO of Messe Berlin, said: “We did not take this decision lightly. IFA Berlin is arguably the most important event of the year for brands and retailers alike. IFA Berlin connects our industry with trade visitors, media and real consumers like no other event. However, the health and safety of everybody has to be absolutely paramount.”
Plans are now being made for next year’s IFA, which will be held as a full-scale live event (we hope) at the Berlin exhibition grounds from 2nd to 6th September 2022.
Qualcomm has announced a new 700-series chipset for mobile devices: the Snapdragon 778G 5G. It will start appearing in premium midrange phones from manufacturers including Motorola, Xiaomi, Realme, Honor, Oppo, and iQOO in the next few months, bringing with it some video capture and AI capabilities borrowed from the Snapdragon 888, the current chipset of choice for flagship Android phones. The company has also made a couple of other announcements today designed to get 5G connectivity into more tech.
The Snapdragon 778G offers three image-signal processors, or ISPs — a feature Qualcomm touted in its flagship 888 chipset, and also appears in the higher-end 780G. This makes it possible to capture photos and video from three different cameras at once. You can easily switch between different cameras’ video feeds during recording ala Samsung’s director view on the Snapdragon 888-powered S21 series.
The processor also supports cameras with staggered HDR sensors like the 50-megapixel chip in the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra for better HDR video recording. The 778G also includes some improvements for more GPU-efficient mobile gaming, and things like better noise suppression and camera experiences on video calls. Both mmWave and sub-6GHz 5G are supported, as well as Wi-Fi 6.
In “more 5G in more places” news, Qualcomm is also making M.2 reference designs available for current OEM customers of its X65 and X62 5G modems. This makes it easier for laptop, desktop, gaming, and IoT manufacturers to incorporate 5G connectivity into their products. The company is also debuting a new X65 5G modem, which Qualcomm says is more energy efficient and offers wider support of mmWave frequencies. It will start appearing in commercial mobile devices later this year, the company says.
IFA 2021’s physical event has been canceled just weeks after promising it would return as an in-person show in Berlin in September. The event’s organizers cited “global health uncertainties” relating to the Covid-19 pandemic for the cancellation, including the emergence of new variants of the virus and concerns about the speed of vaccine rollouts around the world.
This will be the second year IFA has not taken place as normal in Berlin. Last year the show took place in a mostly-virtual format, with companies like Samsung and LG making announcements online coinciding with the dates the show would have normally taken place. IFA is the largest consumer tech show of its kind held in Europe each year.
“Unfortunately, the latest public health developments introduced too much risk into everybody’s planning for the event,” said Kai Hillebrandt, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of gfu Consumer & Home Electronics GmbH. “There simply are now too many uncertainties. Therefore, right now it has become near impossible for anyone to responsibly plan their participation in any trade show.”
These uncertainties are yet to force the cancellation of Europe’s other major tech show, MWC, which is currently due to take place next month. Multiple companies including Samsung, Lenovo, Nokia, Ericsson, Sony, and Oracle have said they won’t be attending the conference in-person.
Exclusive: After the Galaxy Z Fold and Galaxy Z Flip, Samsung is preparing for the introduction of its first rollable smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy Z Roll.
Ahead of the Display Week 2021 conference, Samsung Display showed its new generation OLED screens yesterday. These included an S Foldable, a Slidable and a Rollable device. So far, the display devices have only been demonstrated by Samsung’s display division. The question therefore remains when will Samsung Electronics integrate these new types of screens for the first time and what will be the name of these devices?
Today we can already unveil you the name of Samsung’s upcoming rollable smartphone, as Samsung Electronics has applied for a remarkable trademark at the European Union Intellectual Property Office.
Samsung Z Roll rollable smartphone
On May 18, 2021, Samsung Electronics filed a trademark for “Z Roll”. The application is categorized as Class 9 and comes with the following description.
Samsung Z Rolltrademark description: “Smartphones; mobile telephones; tablet computers; telecommunication apparatus; electronic pens for smartphones and tablet computers “.
Based on the name “Roll”, it is very likely that this device will have a rollable display. The “Z” seems to refer to the series, all smartphones with a folding screen are housed in the Galaxy Z series. This application shows that Samsung intends to place its rollable smartphones within the same series.
The name does not come as a complete surprise. In November last year, we already suggested that Z Roll would be a very appropriate name for Samsung’s rollable smartphone. After the Galaxy Z Fold and the Galaxy Z Flip, this time it seems to be the turn of the Samsung Galaxy Z Roll.
For the time being, it remains unclear when Samsung will announce its first smartphone with retractable display. Perhaps that we will hear more about this futuristic device in August 2021, during the Galaxy Unpacked event where the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 3 foldable smartphones are also expected. However, it will likely take until 2022 before the Z Roll gets released.
From the images released by Samsung Display, it can be concluded that the slidable smartphone is a regular-sized smartphone in its most compact form. In portrait mode, the screen can be pulled out to the right, after which the screen area is enlarged by approximately 30%. The extra screen part can serve, among other things, for displaying system icons or a messaging app.
Over time, LetsGoDigital has reported several times about a Samsung phone with a retractable screen. For example, in mid-2019 we already managed to track down a patent for a Samsung Galaxy smartphone that could be pulled out in width – as shown in the image below.
At the beginning of this year, we also reported on a slide smartphone from Samsung where the screen could be enlarged by about 30%. Rumors have been going on for some time about a rollable Samsung smartphone. At the beginning of 2020, a retractable Samsung Galaxy phone was already shown to a limited group of people during CES.
Samsung is not the only manufacturer that sees a future in rollable phones. For a long time it was thought that the LG Rollable would become the first slidable smartphone, however the development of this device has been discontinued now that LG Electronics has officially stopped the production of smartphones.
Oppo also showed a retractable phone last year. However, the Oppo x 2021 was just a concept, the company has indicated that it has no plans yet to actually release this device. More recently, TCL also showed a special concept of a Fold ‘n Roll smartphone. It is certainly not inconceivable that Samsung will become the very first manufacturer to actually release a rollable smartphone.
Here you can take a look at the trademark of Samsung Electronics for Z Roll.
For those wondering why the name “Samsung Electronics” is not mentioned in the PDF, it appears that Samsung simply has not paid the bill for the application yet – which is for the first time. In our system, however, the name “Samsung Electronics” immediately comes up as the rightful owner of this trademark. In addition, the application was submitted by intermediary Abril Abogados from Spain, this company has more often been responsible for filing European trademarks for the South Korean manufacturer, including for the name Samsung Z Fold.
Ilse is a Dutch journalist and joined LetsGoDigital more than 15 years ago. She is highly educated and speaks four languages. Ilse is a true tech-girl and loves to write about the future of consumer electronics. She has a special interest for smartphones, digital cameras, gaming and VR.
Spotify’s product lead for cars and wearables teased an exciting new feature coming to Wear devices during Google’s Developer Keynote on Tuesday: the ability for the streaming services’ 356 million users to download music directly to their watch, and listen to it at times when they don’t want to carry their phone (via XDA Developers). The feature isn’t included in the redesign that was just released, but Spotify says that it’s currently in the works.
The announcement came alongside Google’s reveal that it would be merging Wear OS with Samsung’s Tizen. During Tuesday’s I/O keynote, Google promised that the updated OS would bring faster performance and longer battery life, which are currently still issues for Wear OS watches.
The YouTube Music app is also getting an update, which will similarly add the ability to download music directly to Wear devices, allowing users to listen without a phone nearby.
YouTube Music will also support downloads. Image: Google
Google’s smartwatch OS has lagged behind Apple’s in many ways, including offline music listening. The Apple Watch has been able to play songs downloaded through Apple Music when away from a phone for years, and it got to the point where Google decided to release its YouTube Music app for the Apple Watch before its own Wear OS. When Gizmodo put out an article last November on how listen to music phone-free on smartwatches, its Wear OS recommendation was more or less an app that acted as an MP3 player, requiring the transfer of local files that you already own.
Since the shutdown of Google Play Music, Wear OS users haven’t had many options for offline music. But now, Google’s Wear watches could potentially even leapfrog the Apple Watch when it comes to offline Spotify playback — to get your Spotify on an Apple Watch without carrying around your phone, you currently need an active internet connection to stream it to one of Apple’s pricier cellular Apple Watch models, a feature added late last year. Some other watches have had offline Spotify playback in the past, though, like Garmin’s flagship Forerunner sports watches and some Samsung Galaxy wearables.
You can check out the Spotify and YouTube Music app reveals for yourself in Google’s Wear-specific session from I/O. The YouTube Music announcement starts at 2:38, and the Spotify demo starts at 12:50 in the video below.
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