Robot cars are back in the spotlight on Capitol Hill after previous efforts failed to pass comprehensive legislation allowing more autonomous vehicles on the road.
US Sens. Gary Peters (D-MI) and John Thune (R-SD) plan to introduce an amendment to a funding bill that would grant federal regulators the power to exempt tens of thousands of vehicles from requirements to have traditional controls for human drivers, according to Reuters.
The amendment would give the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) the power to exempt 15,000 vehicles per manufacturer from certain safety standards, with that number increasing to 80,000 in three years. The effect would be to grant more leeway to automakers like Ford and General Motors, as well as tech firms like Google and Amazon, to manufacture and deploy vehicles that lack traditional controls like steering wheels, pedals, and sideview mirrors.
Today, the NHTSA is only legally allowed to grant 2,500 exemptions per manufacturer. The agency handed out its first autonomous vehicle exemption to a California-based company called Nuro in early 2020.
The autonomous vehicle industry praised the introduction of the amendment. A group called the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets, which includes Uber, Lyft, Volvo, Ford, and Waymo as members, said it “welcomes Senators Peters and Thune’s amendment to support autonomous vehicle testing and deployment in the U.S.” The amendment will “pave the way for AV technology to save lives, unlock new economic and mobility opportunities, and promote American leadership and innovation in this globally competitive arena,” Ariel Wolf, general counsel of the coalition, said in a statement.
But some safety groups say the amendment falls short similarly to previous legislation, like the AV START bill, which died after failing to muster enough support in the Senate. Along with trial lawyers and some local officials, they argue that the technology is not ready for prime time and want Congress to empower the NHTSA to require more data from autonomous vehicle operators, such as crash reporting and disengagements of the self-driving software. The trial lawyers, who have an enormously powerful lobbying group, have been blamed for sinking the previous effort to pass legislation.
“The amendment fails to provide consumer protection and instead essentially creates a fast-track process for manufacturers to attest that their driverless vehicle is no more safe than the least safe vehicle on the road today, before being permitted to sell tens of thousands of them and turning them lose in our neighborhoods,” Jason Levine, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, said in an email. “Throwing open the door to more unregulated testing and underregulated sales without a strong oversight mandate is no way to bolster diminished public trust in driverless technology.”
Cathy Chase, executive director of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, said the amendment was “alarming,” and she opposed the effort to pass the legislation as an amendment rather than a standalone bill.
The Peters-Thune amendment would be attached to the Endless Frontier Act, a $100 million spending bill that aims to increase investments in science and technology in order to compete with China and other countries. Peters and Thune are hoping to win the approval from the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday when they take up the bill. The Biden administration has signaled its support for the Endless Frontier Act, but not specifically the autonomous vehicle legislation.
The news of the new amendment comes during a week in which two other members of the Senate, Ed Markey (D-MI) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), have requested a robust investigation into a fatal crash involving a Tesla Model S in which no one was behind the steering wheel.
Update April 22nd, 1:12PM ET: Updated the first paragraph to reflect that Garmin wouldn’t disclose how long its introductory price of $319.99 will last.
Garmin has upgraded its premium Venu smartwatch for 2021 (via DC Rainmakerand Ars Technica). It now comes in two sizes instead of a single 43mm-sized model. The 45mm Venu 2 houses a 1.3-inch 416 x 416 OLED screen. For smaller wrists (or those who just prefer a less wrist-dominating device), the 40mm Venu 2S has a 1.1-inch 360 x 360 OLED screen. Both watches have an optional always-on mode, and they are available now for an introductory cost of $319.99, which is $80 cheaper than the original Venu when it launched in late 2019. Garmin hasn’t shared how long this price will be in effect (the product pages mention a $399.99 asking price), and the company declined to disclose how long this lower price will last.
Other than the differences in case sizes, there isn’t much else distinguishing the Venu 2 lineup visually from the predecessor. They’re slick-looking touchscreen wearables with Gorilla Glass 3-covered touchscreens that feature two buttons. One of the biggest gen-to-gen improvements is its battery performance. The original Venu could last five days in smartwatch mode, but Garmin’s bigger 45mm Venu 2 watch doubles it (and then some) to a claim of 11 days of operation if you’re just using it for getting phone notifications with light usage otherwise. If you’re using its built-in GPS and streaming music from the watch to your headphones via Bluetooth, Garmin predicts up to eight hours of battery life, up from six in the previous model.
A close-up of the larger Venu 2.Garmin
Surprisingly, the smaller 40mm Venu 2S also has better battery life than the original, with 10 days of use expected in smartwatch mode or up to seven hours in GPS mode with music. Garmin has a whole page that backs up how it makes predictions on battery life, telling you what to expect depending on the kind of activities you’re doing. Garmin is also touting faster recharging for both models, with 10 minutes of charging giving you up to one day of use in smartwatch mode or an hour of GPS usage with music. Both models can store up to 650 songs from Spotify, Amazon Music, or Deezer, up from 500 in the Venu and the 2020 Venu Sq.
The Venu 2 watches are packed with sensors, featuring a heart rate sensor, GPS (GLONASS and Galileo), a wrist-based pulse ox sensor to measure blood oxygen, a barometric altimeter for altitude, compass, gyroscope, accelerometer, thermometer, and an ambient light sensor. Each watch also features NFC for the Garmin Pay contactless payment feature. These watches work with iOS and Android, but only on Android can you respond to text messages.
In terms of new software features coming to the watches, Garmin’s Sleep Score will give you an aggregate score based on tracking your sleep stages, heart rate, stress, respiration, and your blood oxygen levels. The Venu 2 series can estimate your “Fitness Age” based on your level of activity and can guide you through high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and advanced strength training.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed a lawsuit against the remote testing company Proctorio on behalf of Miami University student Erik Johnson. The lawsuit is intended to “quash a campaign of harassment designed to undermine important concerns” about the company’s remote test-proctoring software, according to the EFF. It’s the latest legal battle for the software company, which has publicly sparred with online critics throughout the last year.
The lawsuit intends to address the company’s behavior toward Johnson in September of last year. After Johnson found out that he’d need to use the software for two of his classes, Johnson dug into the source code of Proctorio’s Chrome extension and made a lengthy Twitter thread criticizing its practices — including links to excerpts of the source code, which he’d posted on Pastebin. Proctorio CEO Mike Olsen sent Johnson a direct message on Twitter requesting that he remove the code from Pastebin, according to screenshots viewed by The Verge. After Johnson refused, Proctorio filed a copyright takedown notice, and three of the tweets were removed. (They were reinstated after TechCrunch reported on the controversy.)
In its lawsuit, the EFF is arguing that Johnson made fair use of Proctorio’s code and that the company’s takedown “interfered with Johnson’s First Amendment right.”
“Copyright holders should be held liable when they falsely accuse their critics of copyright infringement, especially when the goal is plainly to intimidate and undermine them,” said EFF Staff Attorney Cara Gagliano in a statement.
Proctorio is one of the most prominent software platforms that schools use to watch for cheating on remote tests. Its use exploded last year with the rise of remote learning; the platform proctored over 16 million exams. The software records students through their webcams as they work and monitors the position of their heads while they take exams. It flags “suspicious signs” to professors, who can review its recordings. It also enables instructors to track the websites students visit during the exam period and to bar them from functions like copying and pasting text.
Students and instructors around the country have volleyed numerous criticisms against Proctorio, claiming it violates student privacy and has the potential to discriminate against marginalized students. The Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a complaint against the service (and four others) in December, calling it “inherently invasive.” A coalition of US senators, including Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Cory Booker (D-NJ), cited similar concerns about Proctorio in an open letter last year.
Proctorio has engaged critics in court before, although more often as a plaintiff. Last October, the company sued a technology specialist at the University of British Columbia who made a series of tweets criticizing the platform. The thread contained links to unlisted YouTube videos, which Proctorio claimed contained confidential information. The lawsuit drew ire from the global education community: hundreds of university faculty, staff, administrators, and students have signed an open letter in the specialist’s defense, and a GoFundMe for his legal expenses has raised $60,000 from over 700 donors.
“We disagree that sharing confidential information is the same thing as criticism,” Olsen told The Verge at the time. “Posting these kinds of things…it risks students learning how to circumvent the software, and it risks the safety and security of millions of students who use the software.”
Proctorio did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the EFF’s lawsuit.
AMD has released its new Ryzen CPU Performance Guide for software developers that provides a set of tips and tools how to properly optimize programs for AMD’s processors. While the new version of the guide is tailored primarily for the latest Zen 3 microarchitecture as well as Ryzen 5000-series CPUs, this new set of tools can also increase performance of systems running previous-generation AMD processors.
All CPU vendors work closely with software developers to ensure that programs can take advantage of the latest technologies and capabilities of their hardware. Identifying performance bottlenecks, CPU under-utilization, thread contention, cross-core thread migration, etc that prevent hardware from delivering its best, can significantly boost performance on all types of processors no matter which microarchitecture they are based on.
AMD’s Ryzen CPU Performance Guide provides software developers with not only the necessary tools useful for performance boosting or identifying possible bottlenecks, but also valuable tips about memory usage, testing, compiling, debugging, and profiling. Many of AMD’s recommendations are general, so following them can increase performance not only on the latest AMD Zen 3-powered systems, but even on Intel-based PCs.
With a Zen 3-focused CPU Performance Guide released, it is reasonable to expect software developers to better optimize their programs for AMD’s latest processors. When to expect widespread availability of Zen 3-optimized apps depends on many factors. For obvious reasons, it is easier to optimize smaller projects with fewer bottlenecks and generally lower performance requirements. Meanwhile, performance-hungry applications usually get the greatest benefits from optimizations.
We’re not sure entirely how useful this will be, but for those of you with a plentiful NFT collection, a GitHub user called snarflakes has published instructions for creating an NFT viewer out of a Raspberry Pi Zero and a Pirate Audio pHAT from Pimoroni.
(Image credit: snarflakes)
The brains of the unit is a Raspberry Pi Zero WH, the model with the built-in Wi-Fi and pre-soldered GPIO header. The tiny computer sits behind a Pimoroni Pirate Audio, a 1.3 inch SPI LCD display, which has a resolution of 240 x 240px, four buttons and a speaker that connects directly to the Pi’s GPIO pins. There’s a slim battery pack too, connected to the GPIO of the Raspberry Pi Zero WH via a UPS Lite board. All you need is the software, installed to a Micro SD card, and you are ready to appreciate your art collection.
The Python code running the project, drives the display, processes the users input via the four buttons, plays the tunes and calls up the art images from their URLs.
Snarflakes has provided full instructions on GitHub, where we expect cryptoart appreciators to begin flocking immediately.
TP-Link’s mid-range AX6000 offers Wi-Fi 6, 2.5Gb WAN and lots of ports at a reasonable $270. While the software is simple and 2.4 Ghz performance isn’t great, this is a solid option, if you don’t expect too much.
For
+ Affordable Wi-Fi 6 option
+ Abundant Ethernet ports
+ Ease of setup and interface
+ Supports Link Aggregation
+ Excellent compatibility across all clients tested
Against
– Dual-band only
– No Wi-Fi 6E
– Simplistic software
– Unexceptional 2.4 GHz throughput speeds
TP-Link’s Archer AX6000 Next-Gen Wi-Fi Router sits somewhere between a full-tilt gaming router like the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AXE11000 and basic budget options like TP-Link’s sub-$70 Archer A7 AC1750. The Archer AX6000’s ‘middle of the road’ approach results in a router that’s larger than some, with lots of antennae (8) and gigabit Ethernet ports (8, plus a 2.5GB WAN). You also get Wi-Fi 6, though not the newer 6E that makes use of the less-cluttered 6 GHz band.
But the Archer AX6000 doesn’t feature the red accents and dancing LED’s that often adorn gaming routers. It also does not have a ridiculously high price tag. As of publication, it was selling for about $270–a far cry from flagship gaming options that often sell in the $500 range.
Is this more general-purpose approach to a router setup still perform well enough for serious gamers to take notice? Read on as we delve into the Archer AX6000’s full feature lest and performance testing to find out.
Design of the TP-Link Archer AX6000
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The AX6000 takes a more subtle approach to design than its flamboyant gaming counterparts (like the flagship Archer AX11000). While it comes with eight permanently attached antennae and a horizontal design, it goes with a black plastic exterior that looks more business than gaming. But there’s some flash here, in the form of an LED on the top center, behind a shiny gold TP-Link badge, that glows blue when all is working (and red when it isn’t). But the light is easily disabled with a dedicated hardware button–important if your router lives near your TV or in a bedroom.
AX6000 is on the larger end of the spectrum at 10.3 × 10.3 × 2.4 inches (261.2 × 261.2 × 60.2 mm), and it weighs 3.5 pounds (1.59 kg). That’s nearly as big as the Asus Rapture GT-AXE1000, at 10.4 x 10.4 x 2.9 inches and 3.94 pounds. But the Archer AX6000’s antennae are shorter than on most routers, and they come permanently attached, so all you have to do when taking the router out of the box is flip them up.
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Specifications of the TP-Link Archer AX6000
In terms of hardware specs, the AX6000 can definitely go toe-to-toe with higher-end routers. You get a 1.8 GHz quad-core processor with two additional coprocessors, 1 GB of RAM and 128 MB of flash storage.
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Ports are also ample, with the WAN port a speedy 2.5 Gbps, plus eight gigabit LAN ports, basically giving you an integrated switch for plenty of wired connections. Link Aggregation is also supported, should you want to give extra bandwidth to a particular device. There are also a pair of two USB 3.0 ports (one Type-A and one Type-C) for connecting things like external storage to share on your network.
All that aside, the wireless department is where the AX6000 starts to show its mid-range limitations. The router is dual-band, rather than the more robust tri-band options found on higher-end gear. That means the AX6000 has a single 2.4 GHz option, rated at up to 1148 Mbps and a single 5 GHz for up to 4804 Mbps of throughput–hence (with the help of the usual rounding) the 6000 designation. Also, this router supports Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), but not the newest Wi-Fi 6E spec. So your devices get to live in the more crowded and mainstream bandwidths, rather than in the newly opened (and therefore much-less crowded) 6 GHz band.
That said, the aforementioned Asus ROG Rapture router is the only model we’ve tested so far that supports Wi-Fi 6E, and there are still very few devices (aside from some new phones) that are out there waiting for a 6E router to connect to.
Setup of the TP-Link Archer AX6000
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Setup of the TP-Link Archer AX6000 is fairly simple and took less than 10 minutes. After the requisite unboxing, we appreciate that the eight antennas come pre-attached, so just have to be rotated into their vertical position (although a few may be disappointed that they cannot be manually fine-tuned and adjusted to maximize reception).
Software setup can be done via the TP-Link app for the smartphone, or via the web browser, with the latter as our method of choice. We were given opportunities to choose a router password, the Wi-Fi password, and upgrade the firmware. This got us dialed in right away and was a painless and efficient process.
Features of the TP-Link Archer AX6000
We found the software for this router to be a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the interface is easy to use; we doubt more novice users will get confused using it. The converse for this is that compared to actual gaming routers, it’s less robust. You get fewer fine controls and not as much flexibility as some other offerings.
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The Quality of Service (QoS) offers a reasonable solution to allow for some adjustability. The choices include Gaming (which was used for our testing), Standard, Streaming, Surfing, and Chatting. There is also a Custom setting to allow for finer control of prioritization of traffic when your network needs don’t fit into a preset setting. There is also an option for Device Prioritization, so for example you can make sure your Gaming PC gets a higher priority than other clients on the network.
Security of the TP-Link Archer AX6000
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The security functionality on the Archer AX6000 also strikes a delicate balance between simple and capable. We do like that the AX6000 has integrated network security, and are glad that the subscription is included, taking it a notch above budget routers. The security is powered by Trend Micro, but the functions are limited to just three: a Malicious Content Filter, an Intrusion Prevention System, and Infected Device Quarantine. There’s also a Parental Controls function to limit screen time for younger family members.
Performance of the TP-Link Archer AX6000
2.4 GHz near
2.4 GHz far
5 GHz near
5 GHz far
132 Mbps
76 Mbps
789 Mbps
301 Mbps
The TP-Link Archer AX6000 proved to be quite stable during our testing. We connected a variety of clients to it, including laptops with Intel chips, an iPhone, and multiple Android smartphones. All devices connected easily and consistently to the AX6000.
Throughput testing with an Intel AX201 Wi-Fi 6 chipset showed decent, although unexceptional Wi-Fi 6 speeds. At the time that this router was introduced the speeds were quite solid, but given newer Wi-Fi 6E gear and the significantly faster speeds offered, the AX6000 feels more mid-range than it did in 2019. While the 5 GHz near speed of 789 Mbps is certainly solid, the throughput on the 2.4 GHz of 132 Mbps when close, and 76 Mbps on the far test offered no significant advantage over even older 802.11ac routers.
Testing Configuration
QoS
FRAPS Avg
Max
8K Dropped Frames
Pingplotter Spikes
Latency
Ethernet
no
123.7
158
n/a
0
235
Ethernet + 10 8k videos
no
96.8
121
34.90%
3
259
Ethernet + 10 8k videos
yes
119.4
146
28.80%
2
259
5 GHz
no
127.3
149
n/a
0
249
5 GHz + 10 8k videos
no
119.3
147
14.10%
0
275
5 GHz + 10 8k videos
yes
120.7
140
49.90%
1
257
2.4 GHz
no
123.6
156
n/a
0
68
2.4 GHz + 10 8k videos
no
45.2
91
16.30%
9
156
2.4 GHz + 10 8k videos
yes
88.8
123
47.20%
11
306
Again, the AX6000 showed its strengths and weaknesses in our testing. We did obtain some definitely fast gaming scores on our test game of Overwatch, such as 123.7 fps when wired, and an even slightly faster frame rate of 127.3 fps when connected via 5 GHz, both with nothing else running.
From a gameplay standpoint, when connected via 5 GHz, the fps were well maintained, both without the QoS at 119.3 FPS, and a slightly faster, and close to wired speed of 120.7 fps with the QoS activated with our ten 8K videos streaming in the background.
We also had some concerns, such as the high latency on all of the wired connection testing situations that went as high 259 milliseconds. The 2.4 GHz gaming score with background video congestion without QoS dragged to a much slower 45.2 fps. While activating the QoS improved the frame rate to 88.8 fps, we were disappointed to see how much the video streaming got sacrificed as the dropped frames went from 16.3% to a stuttering 47.2%.
Pricing of the TP-Link Archer AX6000
A strong point of this AX6000 is the pricing. At a suggested retail price of $299, it’s an affordable way to acquire a robust higher-end Wi-Fi 6 router. And street price seems to consistently hover at $269 at the time of this writing, dropping this router more solidly into the mid-range category in terms of pricing.
Conclusion
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The TP-Link AX6000 is a decent mid-range router, offering good value for the dollar. We like the solid 5 GHz throughput speeds, the high fps gaming scores when connected via Ethernet or 5 GHz, the integrated 8 port switch, and the included security subscription.
But there are some shortcomings, including slower 2.4 GHz throughput (at this point only really an issue with older devices), the high dropped frame rate on video streaming with QoS activated for gaming, the simplified interface, and the lack of tri-band. Overall, for a general-purpose, mid-range router, there is plenty to like about the AX6000, including decent overall gaming performance.
But if maximum gaming speed is your priority and your network is often congested by lots of people and devices vying for bandwidth, you may want to spend more on something that handles this better, with less latency and frame drops. TP-Link’s own Archer AX11000 performed better on that front for about $100 more, while also delivering an extra 5 GHz band to ease congestion. But that router also suffered from a fair amount of dropped frames in our congestion testing.
The ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga is just half-inch thick computer that lags behind similarly priced competitors on productivity, but is supremely classy and convenient.
For
+ Extremely thin
+ Looks and feels classy
+ Great webcam
Against
– Priced for business, so more expensive
– Haptic touchpad can feel unresponsive
When it comes to portability, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga ($1,684.99 to start) is all business. It’s an enterprise notebook that puts thinness above all else, including power.
This is a smaller than half-inch convertible that still manages to stay within spitting distance of other similar competitors on productivity while being even smaller than some detachables (with their keyboards attached, to be fair). Combine that with Lenovo’s excellent keyboard and a classy design that’s easy to feel proud of, and it’s clear how the Titanium Yoga could become a respectable daily driver for casual users or certain trendy businesses that don’t require heavy computing from their employees.
But for the price of the unit we reviewed, which had an Intel Core i5-1130G7, you could easily get a speedier competitor equipped with a Core i7 but without the business trappings of ThinkPad. You’ll have to choose if power or portability is more important for your money, as well as whether you need enterprise features like extra durability and security.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga Specifications
CPU
Intel Core i5-1130G7
Graphics
Intel Iris Xe Integrated Graphics
Memory
16GB LPDDR4x-4266
Storage
512MB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
Display
13.5 inch, 2256 x 1504, IPS, Touchscreen
Networking
Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 11ax, Bluetooth 5.1
Ports
2x Thunderbolt 4, 3.5mm headphone/microphone combo jack
Camera
720p
Battery
44.5 Wh
Power Adapter
65W
Operating System
Windows 10 Pro
Dimensions(WxDxH)
11.71 x 9.16 x 0.45 inches (297.5 x 232.7 x 11.5 mm)
Weight
2.54 pounds (1.15 kg)
Price (as configured)
$1,684.99
Design of Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
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From its silver color to its textured faux leather lid to its titanium, carbon and magnesium chassis, the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga exudes class. Like a geeky version of a Rolex, this computer is clearly aiming to be a statement piece as much as a genuinely useful device, and for the most part, it succeeds.
That faux leather lid feels soft to the touch, and its texture almost gives the convertible a subdued glittery appearance. The lid’s detailing also makes the ThinkPad feel somewhat like a fancy moleskin journal, both to the eye and to the touch.
Decoration is otherwise minimal, with light ThinkPad branding on the lid and keyboard deck’s outer corners standing out the most. This serves to accentuate the case’s sturdy and solid build quality, which emphasizes the Titanium Yoga’s premium status.
The Titanium Yoga is also thinner than other Intel 11th generation convertibles we’ve tested, coming in at under half an inch of thickness. At 11.71 x 9.16 x 0.45 inches, it’s smaller than the HP Spectre x360 14 (11.75 x 8.67 x 0.67 inches) and the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 9310 (11.69 x 8.15 x 0.56 inches). It’s even smaller than the recent ThinkPad X12 Detachable with its keyboard attached, which sits at 11.15 x 8.01 x 0.57 inches.
This small form factor extends to weight as well. The Titanium Yoga is 2.54 pounds, whereas the Spectre x360 14 is 2.95 pounds, the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 is 2.9 pounds and the X12 Detachable is 2.4 pounds.
The small form factor approach doesn’t come without sacrifices, though. The Titanium Yoga is woefully low on ports, with the left side housing two Thunderbolt 4 connections and the right side simply giving you a single 3.5 mm combination microphone/headphone jack. The device doesn’t come with any dongles, so you’re either going to need to buy them separately or pick your accessories carefully.
The Titanium Yoga also comes with a Lenovo Pen, which magnetically attaches to the right side of the display. This is a secure fit, though it might take you a while to figure out that it can actually attach to the device if you don’t read the manual.
Finally, the Titanium Yoga has MIL-SPEC certification, meaning it can take a tumble or five. This isn’t always found on non-business laptops, giving the ThinkPad an edge up when it comes to durability.
Productivity Performance of Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
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Despite its stylish exterior, our review configuration of the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga packs lackluster performance compared to similarly-priced 11th generation Intel convertibles. The Intel Core i5-1130G7 processor is the same one you’ll find in the tablet based ThinkPad X12 Detachable, and it’s outclassed by the Intel Core i7-1165G7 that powers both the HP Spectre x360 14 and the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1. Our configuration also only came with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD.
It’s not too uncommon to see ThinkPads costing more, however, due to their business classification. And, you can configure the ThinkPad X1 Titanium with a Core i7, if you’re willing to pay a bit more.
On Geekbench 5, a synthetic benchmark for testing PC performance, the Titanium Yoga fell behind each of its competitors. It scored 1,328 on single-core tasks and 4,747 on multi-core tasks. That’s only slightly less performance than you’ll get from the ThinkPad X12 Detachable (1,334 single-core/4,778 multi-core), but other convertibles provide more serious competition with the higher-end chips. The HP Spectre x360 14 hit scores of 1,462 on single-core/4,904 on multi-core, while the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 9310 hit 1,532 on single-core/4,778 on multi-core.
The Titanium Yoga was largely on par with competition when we tested its file transfer speeds, where we tracked how quickly it transferred 25GB of data across its SSD. Here, it hit speeds of 409.26 MBps, which is slightly above the XPS 13 2-in-1’s 405.55 MBps and the X12 Detachable’s 408.39 MBps on the same test. The HP Spectre x360 14 was an outlier here, transferring its files at a speed of 533.61 MBps.
On our Handbrake benchmark, in which we use the free program to track how long it takes a computer to transcode a video file down from 4K to 1080p, once again saw the Titanium Yoga fall towards the bottom of the pack. It finished the task in 20:57, which was faster than the X12 Detachable’s 24:12 but slower than other convertibles. The Spectre x360 14 finished its transcode in 18:05, while the XPS 13 2-in-1 did so in 15:52.
We also ran the Titanium Yoga through Cinebench R23 for 20 runs in a row to simulate an extended intensive work session. Its average score was 3,397, while its CPU ran at an average clock speed of 2.1 GHz. During this time, the CPU hit an average 64.75 degrees Celsius (148.55 degrees Fahrenheit).
Display on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Like plenty of other recent ultraportables, the Titanium Yoga has a 3:2 aspect ratio screen, which means an image with more vertical headroom. This means more letterboxing on 16:9 content, but it also means you’re expanding your vertical resolution to display more, which is particularly useful for reading webpage content. The Titanium Yoga’s IPS touchscreen in particular has a 2,256 x 1,504 resolution image. That’s more detail than you’ll get on the more common 1920 x 1280 resolution found in the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 9310 and the ThinkPad X12 Detachable, but less detail than the HP Spectre x360 14’s 3000 x 2000 resolution.
When I watched the trailer for Nobody on the Titanium Yoga, I was impressed by how deep the blacks were, but not by much else. The screen was bright enough that I didn’t have to strain to view it, and while colors were accurate, they were not vivid. Viewing angles were also restrictive in a well-lit room, and I had to sit almost directly in front of the laptop to have a workable image. Turning off my lights solved this problem, but that’s not an applicable solution all of the time. I also noticed a mild glare on the screen even when holding it away from heavy light, but it was easy enough to ignore.
Of course, the Titanium Yoga’s aspect ratio is meant more for surfing the web or working on documents than watching a movie. In that respect, the Titanium Yoga exceeded, especially in tablet mode. Reading on it feels almost like browsing through a well put-together coffee table book.
Our testing found that, when it comes to color, the Titanium Yoga is roughly on par with competition. It covers 71.1% of the DCI-P3 color spectrum, which is about the same as the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1’s 70% DCI-P3 rating and the ThinkPad X12 Detachable’s 74.9% rating. The HP Spectre x360 14 stands as an outlier, hitting a vibrant 139.7% DCI-P3 rating.
The Titanium Yoga had a higher average brightness than most competitors in our testing. It registered at an average 425 nits, with only the XPS 13 2-in-1’s 488 nits beating it. The X12 Detachable had 376.2 average nits of brightness, where the HP Spectre x360 14 was the dimmest at 339 nits.
Keyboard, Touchpad and Stylus on the LenovoThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga doesn’t make any changes to the classic ThinkPad keyboard design, which makes it a great typer, but its unconfigurable haptic touchpad leaves it feeling unresponsive elsewhere.
The ThinkPad style keyboard is an old favorite among techies, and it works well on the Titanium Yoga. This keyboard has concave keycaps to help you easily touch-type without having to look at its buttons, which feel like they have reasonable travel distance for such a thin machine. I regularly hit between 80 – 85 words per minute on this keyboard, which is between five to ten points higher than I usually score.
The trackpoint nub is also back here, and you can press on it like an analog stick to move your mouse cursor. It’s kind of an old-fashioned solution, but it works well and is decent if you don’t like taking your fingers off home row. I even found myself using it a few times, despite generally preferring touchpads, since I found the Titanium Yoga’s touchpad lacking.
While my finger smoothly glides around the Titanium Yoga’s touchpad and multi-touch gestures are easy to perform thanks to its precision drivers, the touchpad uses haptic feedback and has no travel when you press it in. We’ve seen this option before on MacBooks and certain other PCs, but it’s unconfigurable here, and the amount of force I needed to actuate the touchpad feels awkward to me. Sometimes presses register, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes I right click when I mean to left click, and vice versa.
There are physical left, right and even middle click buttons above the touchpad, though those exist more for trackpoint users and are inconvenient to reach for when using the touchpad. Additionally, the 3.5 x 2.5 inch touchpad dimensions leave it feeling a little small, and it wasn’t uncommon for my finger to bump up against its sides.
The Titanium Yoga also comes with a Lenovo Pen, which tracks writing well and has three programmable buttons. One of those buttons is where you’d normally place an eraser, but unfortunately isn’t touch sensitive. Palm rejection is impressive here, as I could fully place my palm on the display while writing or drawing with the pen without having the ThinkPad pick it up. The only time palm rejection failed was when I tried to use Windows’ built-in feature that translates handwriting to text when you click on a text box with your stylus. In these situations, my cursor bounced all over the place.
Audio on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
Audio on the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga is loud and accurate, if not what I’d use to DJ my first post-lockdown party. The convertible has two top-firing speakers, one on each side of its keyboard, which I tested by listening to Leave the Door Open by Bruno Mars, Anderson .Paak and Silk Sonic.
This song’s full of drum beats and smooth vocal performances all over the pitch spectrum, but despite that, nothing sounded inaccurate, tinny or dropped on the Titanium Yoga. It could have sounded richer or fuller, but for such a thin device, not losing the bass tracks is enough for me.
As for volume, I could understand the song’s lyrics across most of my 2-bedroom apartment, though they did become muffled at the very edges of my space. When just sitting by myself in front of the Titanium Yoga, I tended to keep the volume at around 60%.
Upgradeability of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
The ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga is easy to open, though there’s not much point to doing so. All you have to do is loosen, but not remove, the six Phillips head screws on the convertible’s underside and gently lift off the case. Inside, you’ll see the battery as well as the networking chip. The M.2 SSD is hidden under a black flap, though it’s in an uncommon size (it looks like a 2242 form factor to us, though we don’t have official word on that) and there’s no slot for a second SSD.
You may be able to change out your SSD in the future, but for the other components, consider that you won’t be able to replace them.
Battery Life of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga hit just under 10 hours of battery life in our testing, which while not the absolute minimum for an ultraportable, does put it behind most of its similarly powered competition.
Specifically, the Titanium Yoga had 9:58 of life on our battery benchmark, which continuously streams video, browses the web and runs OpenGL tests at 150 nits of brightness. That’s about an hour less life than we got on both the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 9310, which hit 10:52, and the ThinkPad X12 Detachable, which hit 11:05.
Heat on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
For such a thin device, the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga impresses on cooling. After 15 minutes of streaming video, the device’s touchpad only registered 73.4 degrees Fahrenheit (23 degrees Celsius), while the center of its keyboard in between the G and H keys only hit 81.5 degrees Fahrenheit (27.5 degrees Celsius). Its underside was just slightly hotter at 84.6 degrees Fahrenheit (29.22 degrees Celsius).
The only part of this laptop that even came close to pushing any boundaries was the keyboard deck, right above the f5 key. This hit 93.6 degrees Fahrenheit (34.22 degrees Celsius), which typically isn’t too concerning, but could get warm to the touch after a few seconds here.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga Webcam
The ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga comes with a single front-facing 720p webcam that’s usually color accurate and tends to avoid artifacting, but doesn’t always hold up to dark or overly lit rooms.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
During late afternoon in my office, the Titanium Yoga’s camera captured my face with no visible grain and no major alterations to my natural skin tone. All aspects of the photo are properly in focus, as well.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
In my much dimmer hallway, shots lost focus and fidelity and heavy grain started to appear. Colors still appear accurate, however.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Colors started to take a hit when I stood in front of my office’s window. Here, my face appears much paler than in real life. You also can’t see much of the scenery outside my window, though artifacting seems to be at a minimum.
Overall, that’s pretty impressive performance for a laptop webcam — no 720p webcam is going to perform perfectly under dim conditions or heavy light. And of course, the typical ThinkPad physical camera shutter is also here on the Titanium Yoga.
Software and Warranty on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
The ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga is mostly free of bloat, excluding typical Windows pre-installs like Skype and the Microsoft Solitaire Collection. Otherwise, the Titanium Yoga’s built-in software suite largely focuses on genuine utility.
Most of the Titanium Yoga’s functions are inside Lenovo Commercial Vantage, which is where you’ll update your BIOS and drivers, check your warranty, view your storage and RAM usage, find documentation and check Wi-Fi security.
There’s also Lenovo Pen Settings for programming various aspects of your Lenovo Pen, as well as Dolby Access, which lets you choose between equalizer and postprocessing presets for your display and audio settings.
The one program that does feel excessive here is Glance by Mirametrix, which you can turn on to try to get your computer to move windows to where your eyes are looking or go to sleep if someone looks over your shoulder.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga Configurations
Our configuration of the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga came with an Intel Core i5-1130G7 CPU (with integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics), 16GB of LPDDR4x-4266 RAM, a 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD and a 13.5 inch 2256 x 1504 IPS touchscreen. All of this currently costs $1,685 on Lenovo’s website.
That $1,685 is also the current starting price for this unit, though other configurations can reach up to $2,429. For these other configurations, your display will stay the same, but you’ll be able to select CPUs up to the Intel Core i7-1180G7 with vPro and RAM capacities ranging from 8GB to 16GB. Storage options range from 256GB to 1TB.
All configurations also come with the Lenovo pen.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga Bottom Line
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium’s focus on size and aesthetics makes this device especially appealing to casual users, but puts it behind other, similarly-priced convertibles when it comes to productivity.
In our performance tests, our Core i5-powered X1 Titanium Yoga fell behind some non-business competitors that have Intel Core i7-1165G7 CPUS and sell for similar prices (you can also get the Titanium Yoga with Core i7 for more money). These rivals also had thicker chassis, which allowed for longer battery life.
But that thickness does count harm portability, and the Titanium Yoga has the advantage of being a business-class device while those rivals are not. That means it comes with added durability, like MIL-SPEC certification, plus extra security and manageability features like vPro.
It also comes with an included stylus. While the HP Spectre x360 14 also has an included pen, the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 does not. You also get Lenovo’s excellent keyboard with the Titanium Yoga, plus a fashionable design and a moleskin-like finish.
Those features make the Titanium Yoga a great casual usage device, though thanks to its aesthetics, it will look equally at home in the boardroom, the classroom or the living room.
Apple is getting ready to announce a raft of software updates for the iPhone and iPad in June according to a new report from Bloomberg, including “the most significant update to the [iPad’s] Home Screen since first launching the product in 2010.”
The new versions of iOS and iPadOS — iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 — will be unveiled at Apple’s upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 7th, says Bloomberg. Last year’s iOS 14 update was announced at WWDC on June 22nd, before becoming available for download on September 16th in time to accompany the iPhone 12 release.
Bloomberg’s story has a host of details about what to expect from the latest versions of Apple’s mobile software, but here are the biggest points:
New notification filters based on user status. From a new menu accessible from the Lock Screen and Control Center, users will have more granular control over how notifications are displayed (do they play sounds or not, for example) based on whether they’re driving, sleeping, at work, or have turned on Do Not Disturb mode.
iPad home screen upgrade. This will reportedly include the ability to add widgets (introduced in iOS last year). Bloomberg doesn’t offer any more details, but claims this will be the most significant update to the iPad home screen since the product launched.
Quick access to privacy data. A new menu will reportedly let users see what information apps are collecting about them. Presumably this would tap the same data used by Apple for new “privacy labels” introduced to the App Store last December.
Updated iOS Lock Screen. This will include access to the above privacy menu. It’s not clear if any other changes are coming.
Social upgrades for iMessage. New features would help iMessage compete with WhatsApp “with the eventual goal of acting as more of a social network.” But Bloomberg says these are “still early in development” and might be announced later this year.
Minor updates for macOS, watchOS, and tvOS. Apple launched a big redesign for macOS last year with Big Sur, so it seems right to expect only small changes this time round.
These are the first reliable rumors we’ve heard about what to expect from iOS and iPadOS 15, though they aren’t particularly surprising. Updated notification filters and access to app data are solid additions but not splashy features. Meanwhile, giving iPadOS the same widgets available in iOS is welcome but hardly a major change. Given that the iPad Pro got upgraded with a beefy M1 processor this week, we’re still hoping that Apple will be a bit more ambitious about what its tablets can deliver in future in terms of software. Bloomberg’s report doesn’t suggest a leap forward but we’ll have to wait for WWDC to see.
Meanwhile, iOS 14.5 is set to arrive next week featuring support for Apple’s new AirTag item trackers, and the company’s new podcast features.
(Pocket-lint) – The Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite joins the Mi Watch as a part of a duo that wants to put smarts on your wrist for significantly less money than an Apple Watch or a Samsung smartwatch.
If the Mi Watch is considered affordable, then the Mi Watch Lite is proper cheap, going toe-to-toe with a raft of Amazfit Bip watches available around this price – and other budget options you should probably steer clear of.
For that cut price, the Mi Watch Lite offers a mix of smartwatch and fitness tracking features and battery life that can make it through a week. You’ll inevitably have to live with some shortcomings, but it feels like ones that don’t detract from what is a decent budget smartwatch.
Design & Display
Measures: 41 x 35 x 11.9mm / Weighs: 35g
1.39-inch display, 320 x 320 resolution
Size options: 41mm
5ATM waterproof
Like the first Mi Watch – the one that never made it out of China – the Mi Watch Lite is a square affair, featuring a 41mm case made from plastic.
Pocket-lint
It weighs in at 35g, so it’s by no means a heavy watch, and it’s paired up with a TPU strap that’s removable. It just takes a bit of time to get it off and get something else on there.
There’s your pick of black, ivory or navy blue case colours, or the choice of five ‘fashionable’ Morandi colours including olive, pink and ivory.
On the wrist, the Mi Watch Lite doesn’t look hugely different from other budget square smartwatches out there and the colour options are nice – but it would be stretch to say it gives them a more stylish look. It’s pleasant enough looking, but the larger Xiaomi Mi Watch is visually more appealing.
The Lite offers a single physical button on the side of the case that’ll wake the screen up and launch the app menu screen. That screen is the touchscreen kind of course. It’s a 1.4-inch TFT LCD type, so not the AMOLED kind you get on the more expensive Mi Watch.
It’s a good quality screen for the price and certainly doesn’t have that washed-out look you sometimes find on smartwatches this cheap. The backlight offers 350 nits of brightness, so it’s not one you’re going to struggle to see at night or during the day. It still offers good colours and it’s generally a nice screen to glance down at.
What’s more problematic is the controls: tapping is prioritised over swiping through screens. You can scroll through some screens, but it’s slow moving when you do it. It’s generally less of a problem if you’re checking a notification or looking at one of the widgets, but when the sweat comes during exercise, it’s more problematic and frustrating to handle.
Like the round Mi Watch, Xiaomi has made the Lite suitable for swimming and showering by slapping it with a 5ATM water resistance rating, which means it’s good at depths up to 50 metres.
Software & Performance
Works with Android and iOS
No third-party app support
Xiaomi uses its own in-house operating system for the on-watch software experience and it has Xiaomi Wear (Android) and Xiaomi Wear Lite (Apple) apps for that time spent away from the watch itself.
Pocket-lint
Our screen control frustrations aside, it’s a very easy watch software to get to grips with. Swipe left and right to see widgets showing off data like heart rate and weather forecasts. The main menu screen is a mere button press away.
Like the Mi Watch, that main menu screen doesn’t include any text, so it’s up to you to quickly establish what launches what here. There’s some simple settings you can tinker with on the watch like screen brightness, watch faces, do not disturb mode, idle alerts, and setting up a password for security.
The companion Xiaomi Wear app is broken up into three sections letting you dig into your health and fitness stats, track workouts from and adjust settings. There’s no third-party app support here, so if you’re thinking of connecting it to the likes of Apple Health or Google Fit, you’re out of luck.
Pocket-lint
The app itself – much like Zepp Health’s Amazfit and Mobvoi’s TicWatch – doesn’t feel the most polished or slick, but it does make it easy to adjust watch settings and delve deeper into your data if you want.
Sports & Fitness Tracking
GPS and GLONASS
Built-in heart rate monitor
24/7 fitness tracking and sleep monitoring
Like the Mi Watch, the Lite is one that’s built to track your fitness and health – and has the key sensors on board to deliver that.
Pocket-lint
There’s built-in GPS and GLONASS satellite support to map outdoor activities. There’s accelerometer and gyroscope motion sensors for indoor tracking. And there’s 11 sports modes in total, including running (indoors and outdoor), cycling, trekking, swimming (pool and open water) and freestyle modes for those activities it doesn’t cover.
What you’re missing out from the Mi Watch are the Firstbeat-powered training features, stress tracking, the ability to take blood oxygen measurements, automatic exercise recognitio, and wider satellite support.
As a stripped-back sports and health monitoring watch, the Lite performs pretty well. GPS accuracy during our testing was reliable in comparison to a Garmin running watch. For indoor workouts, heart rate data was usually closely in-line with a chest strap monitor for HIIT and indoor rowing sessions – although we didn’t have to raise the intensity too high outside to see some odd spikes in heart rate.
If you’re less concerned about smashing out burpees and nailing 5K PBs, the Lite’s core fitness tracker features work well without really offering ways to make improvements or motivate you to move more.
Pocket-lint
Step counts during our testing were within acceptable range of the Fitbit Sense, and it’ll capture distance covered and calories burned. It offered similar accuracy to the bigger Mi Watch for sleep monitoring, though doesn’t capture REM sleep stages or offer any kind of insight or advice to improve sleep.
If you choose to continuously monitor your heart rate, then based on our experience, resting and average heart rate data seemed high compared to the data captured on a chest strap and a heart rate monitoring pulse oximeter. While there’s no stress monitoring here, you do still get guided breathing exercises, though there’s nothing groundbreaking on that front in terms of how it’s delivered.
Smartwatch Features
Over 120 watch faces
View notifications
Music controls
For this low price you’re obviously not going to get an Apple Watch equivalent here, so you won’t be able to make payments, put music on it, or even download apps.
Pocket-lint
What you can do is view notifications from a paired Android or iPhone, control music playing on your phone from native and third-party apps, check weather forecasts and set alarms.
Notifications can only be displayed and not acted on and some messages can look a little messy at times in the manner they’re displayed. Music playback controls work well and dedicated screens to show-off weather data work without issue, so there’s definitely some nice elements here.
You do get a nice array of watch faces too, with the ability to store multiple faces on the watch itself and download more from the watch store, which you can find in the companion app. There’s a good mix of analogue and digital faces and additional ones if you want to pack it with data or keep things simple.
Pocket-lint
That’s really your lot though. Aside from some timer and alarm features, Xiaomi keeps it basic, which some will be satisfied with and others possibly not so much.
Battery Life
Up to 9 days in typical use
10 hours GPS battery life
The Mi Watch Lite comes packing a 230mAh capacity battery, which Xiaomi says will get you up to 9 days in typical use. That typical use is based on lab tests where heart rate monitoring was set to be the biggest interval option, 100 notifications were received by the watch, and it tracked one 35-minute outdoor exercise session a week.
Pocket-lint
The likelihood is that most people are probably going to be working out more than once a week or wanting to monitor heart rate with more detail. Our testing time didn’t reflect Xiaomi’s lab testing conditions. We had continuous heart rate monitoring on at 5 minute intervals, had notifications turned on and tracked five outdoor and indoor workouts a week. It ended up lasting about 5 days in our testing time, which is short by 4 days of that claimed 9 days life per charge.
Those GPS battery life numbers seem to add up as well, offering the kind of drop off in 30 minute and 1 hour outdoor runs that suggest it could reach to those 10 hours when you want that hit of mapping data.
Best fitness trackers 2021: Top activity bands to buy today
By Britta O’Boyle
·
Our guide to the top fitness trackers available, helping you count steps, track calories, monitor your heart rate, sleep patterns and more.
When it comes to charging, there’s a large cradle that clips around the back of the watch and you’ll have no concerns it’s going to budge or fall out when it’s charging. It’s pretty well locked in place.
Verdict
The Xiaomi Watch Lite is a cheap smartwatch that is surprisingly nice to live with once you accept the compromises you have to make with it.
You’re not going to get that same high-quality display or some of the richer health and fitness features and insights you’ll get on the Mi Watch, but what remains offers a familiar and good experience.
It’s a solid albeit basic fitness tracker, competent smartwatch, and doesn’t do too badly as a budget sportswatch all considered. Compared to smartwatches in and around it at this price, the Mi Watch Lite stands out for the right reasons.
Also consider
Pocket-lint
Amazfit GTS 2
If you can stretch to spend more, the GTS 2 will get you a more impressive hardware and richer fitness tracking and smartwatch features.
Tesla’s solar products will soon only be sold together with the company’s Powerwall battery, CEO Elon Musk announced on Twitter. Integrating them into a single product will making installations easier and home backup more seamless during outages, according to Musk. The change will affect both Tesla’s Solar Panels (which sit on top of an existing roof), and Solar Roof (which replaces a home’s existing roof slats).
The new policy was announced just hours after Musk responded to a tweet from Ark Investment Management’s director of research Brett Winton, who had complained that his Tesla solar panels hadn’t generated any electricity since installation because he was waiting on his local utility company to approve the connection.
Solar power will feed exclusively to Powerwall. Powerwall will interface only between utility meter & house main breaker panel, enabling super simple install & seamless whole house backup during utility dropouts.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 22, 2021
“Did you buy a Powerwall?” Musk tweeted at Winton, “Utility permission is required for flowing electricity back to grid, but usually not if stored in our battery.” Bloomberg notes that Ark Investment has been a big supporter of Tesla, and holds “significant stakes” in the company.
Did you buy a Powerwall? Utility permission is required for flowing electricity back to grid, but usually not if stored in our battery. This also enables 24/7 electricity security for your home.
Utility permission is still needed for when Powerwall is full & can stabilize grid.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2021
Signs of Tesla’s intention to bundle its solar products with the Powerwall were reported last month by Elektrek, who spotted that the company was only accepting new Powerwall orders when combined with a Tesla solar panel project. Powerwall supply shortages were thought to be to blame for the shift, with demand and wait times increasing for the home battery solution. In the fourth quarter of 2020, Tesla installed 86 mega-watts (MW) of solar energy, a 59 percent increase compared to the same period the previous year.
Alongside the change, Musk announced an upcoming software update for the Powerwall, which he says will enable upwards of a 50 percent power increase depending on production date. The current Powerwall is rated to provide 5 kW of real power (7 kW peak) in North America, but in a tweet the CEO said that Tesla’s newest units can “probably” provide as much as 10kW continuous, and “double that in peak” under the right circumstances.
The changes come after Tesla faced criticism for substantially raising the prices of some of its solar products. Earlier this month one customer reported that the company had told them a $35,000 solar roof order would now cost them $75,000, while the price of the accompanying batteries would increase from $30,000 to $35,000.
Founded in 2019 by several former Zowie employees, VAXEE is a peripherals company and shop platform. The AX marks VAXEE’s second cooperation with an esports figurehead. This time around, VAXEE joined forces with former CS professional player Zhengwei “alex” Bian and his brand, Outset. Whereas the Outset lettering features prominently on the AX, the line “powered by VAXEE” is hidden on the back of the mouse, underlining that the AX is the result of a joint creative process. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll nonetheless refer exclusively to VAXEE throughout the review.
In many ways, the Outset AX is no different from the Zygen NP-01. PixArt’s PMW3389 sensor, Huano switches for the main buttons, a fairly flexible, soft, braided cable, 24-step optical scroll wheel: The AX focuses on performance and to that end does without RGB lighting or resource-heavy software, but instead comes with extensive on-device configurability, including CPI, polling rate, lift-off distance, and button response time. VAXEE still is of the opinion that pursuing the lowest weight possible isn’t necessarily most conducive to in-game performance, instead settling on a reasonable middle ground of 81 g. Aside from the shape, which is essentially a differently balanced EC2, some improvements have been made to the AX: The scroll wheel has been refined and is smoother, the stock mouse feet are 0.6 mm thick, and the matte coating is, well, more matte now. Speaking of which, variants in matte black and glossy white are available exclusively through VAXEE’s own shop.
Samsung has launched a beta program to help put some older Galaxy phones to new uses. Owners of certain phones can download an update to turn the device into a smart home sensor with some neat functions — it can detect the sound of a crying baby or turn on a lamp when it gets dark. The program is limited to certain models launched in 2018 or later, which is fairly limited, but it’s a nice, accessible offering that could help users get a little more use out of their old devices.
Announced at CES earlier this year, the company is launching the program in the US, UK, and Korea starting today. By downloading a software update through the SmartThings app, users can access two basic functions. The first is an audio sensor that detects the sound of a baby crying, pet barking or meowing, or a knock at the door. When it detects one of these, it sends an alert to your phone with a recording of the sound.
The other function is a light level sensor that can turn on a connected light automatically when brightness levels in a room fall below a certain threshold. Samsung says the update includes battery optimization necessary to keep the phone powered and functioning as a sensor for long periods of time, though the company doesn’t specify how long it would be able to run between charges.
Galaxy S, Note, and Z-series phones launched from 2018 onward are eligible, provided they’re running Android 9 or later. Samsung says more devices will be supported in the future, which hopefully includes more budget-oriented devices that owners may be less likely to trade in. And if those limited functions don’t appeal, there’s a lot more you can do with your old phone if you don’t mind a DIY approach.
OnePlus has announced that it plans to bring new features, like an always-on display mode, a 12-hour watchface, and more to its new smartwatch with future software updates. The news came with the announcement of the Watch’s first software update after its release, which OnePlus says it’s starting to roll out. This release aims to fix the issues we experienced with heart rate and activity tracking, among other bugs.
The lack of an always-on display was one of the ways we found the Watch to be lacking when we reviewed it, so it’s a standout feature among the planned updates. While that feature alone won’t make the device a great smartwatch, it will at least make it more useful as a timepiece. However, it will be interesting to see how always having the screen on affects the Watch’s almost two-week-long battery life.
Some of the other planned improvements include giving the user the ability to control their Android phone’s camera, new languages, and enabling of all the workout modes (OnePlus says it will have 110-plus, it currently has just over a dozen) and the AI watch face. OnePlus doesn’t provide a time frame as to when these updates will come out. But when they do, they’re sure to be a tad more exciting than the current update, which appears to mostly fix some of the larger bugs rather than add new features.
The University of Minnesota isn’t making any friends in the Linux community. Phoronix reported that Greg Kroah-Hartman, the Fellow at the Linux Foundation responsible for stable releases of the Linux kernel, has banned the University from contributing to that kernel after two students purposely added faulty code to it.
The students in question published a research paper titled “On the Feasibility of Stealthily Introducing Vulnerabilities in Open-Source Software via Hypocrite Commits” on February 10. Those so-called “hypocrite commits” were defined as “seemingly beneficial commits that in fact introduce other critical issues.”
Although the paper was ostensibly focused on open source software generally, the students devoted much of their attention to the Linux kernel specifically because it’s so popular. The kernel is practically ubiquitous—it’s found in everything from single-board computers like the Raspberry Pi to the most powerful supercomputers.
All of which is to say that Linux is vital. It would make sense, then, for the person responsible for the Linux kernel’s stable release branch to be upset about those students’ efforts to undermine that project. Kroah-Hartman made his stance on the issue clear in a message posted to the Linux kernel mailing list earlier today:
“Our community does not appreciate being experimented on, and being ‘tested’ by submitting known patches that are either do nothing [sic] on purpose, or introduce bugs on purpose. If you wish to do work like this, I suggest you find a different community to run your experiments on, you are not welcome here.”
Kroah-Hartman also said that he “will now have to ban all future contributions from
your University and rip out your previous contributions, as they were obviously submitted in bad-faith with the intent to cause problems.” It seems that research conducted by two students will now affect the entire University of Minnesota.
That actually includes five schools spread across Crookston, Duluth, Morris, Rochester, and Twin Cities. We’ve reached out to the overarching University of Minnesota as well as Kroah-Hartman to learn more about the full extent of the ban and will update this post if either responds to our request for more information.
The Asus ZenBook 13 UM325SA packs some of the best value we’ve seen in an ultraportable yet, outperforming much more expensive Intel options thanks to new Ryzen 5000U chips.
For
+ Strong and cheap
+ OLED display
+ Surprisingly good audio
Against
– Need a dongle for a headphone jack
– Touch-based numpad feels gimmicky
The Asus ZenBook line usually tends to be a series of plain, mid-range ultraportables that hit respectable performance for strong value. The ZenBook 13 UM325SA ($749 to start, $999 as tested), is also somewhat unassuming and still maintains strong value, but its performance is anything but mid-range.
That’s thanks to its new Ryzen 5000U processor options, which bring the power of AMD’s latest CPU line to ultraportables and into competition with Intel’s 11th Gen “Tiger Lake” processors. The result is a stunningly strong computer that’s priced well below Intel and Apple alternatives, yet usually outperforms the former while coming within spitting range of the latter.
Asus ZenBook 13 Specs
CPU
AMD Ryzen 7 5800U
Graphics
AMD Integrated Radeon Vega Graphics
Memory
16GB DDR4-3733 MHz
Storage
1TB M.2 SSD
Display
13.3 inch, 1920 x 1080, OLED
Networking
802.11ax Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0
Ports
2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x microSD card reader
Camera
720p, IR
Battery
67Wh
Power Adapter
65W
Operating System
Windows 10 Pro
Dimensions(WxDxH)
11.97 x 7.99 x 0.55 inches
Weight
2.5 pounds
Price Range
$750 – $1000
Design of Asus ZenBook 13
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The Zenbook 13 is still a thin, light and minimally decorated machine that looks neither ostentatious nor exciting. Fitting that, color options include a blackish gray and a lighter, more metallic silver — the one we tested was gray.
The laptop’s lid is probably its most heavily decorated part, with a reflective, silvery Asus logo sitting off-center towards the laptop’s charging port side. A slight radial texture surrounds and emanates from the logo, although a glossy surface means it’s often covered by fingerprints. There’s also a small “Zenbook Series” logo on the laptop’s outer hinge.
Opening the laptop reveals a focus on functionality, as there’s not too much going on here visually aside from the chiclet-style keyboard and large touchpad. The keyboard does sit inside a sloping tray, which is nice, but what’s more noticeable is that opening the laptop’s lid also lifts the keyboard off your desk at up to a three-degree angle for easier typing.
The left side of the laptops houses two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C ports and one HDMI 2.1 connection. The right side similarly has just a single USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port and a microSD card reader. The big missing port is a 3.5 mm audio jack; you get a USB Type-C dongle in the box for that. You also get a USB Type-A dongle for RJ-45 Ethernet. Those adapters cut into the device’s portability. For instance, plugging in both dongles as well as the charger will use up all of your ports.
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The Zenbook 13 is on the smaller and lighter side when it comes to portability. At 11.97 x 7.99 x 0.55 inches and 2.5 pounds, it edges out similarly specced competitors on most measurements. The 13 inch MacBook Pro with an M1 chip is 11.97 x 8.36 x 0.61 inches and 3 pounds, while the HP Spectre x360 14 is 11.75 x 8.67 x 0.67 inches and 2.95 pounds. The Dell XPS 13 9310 comes the closest to giving the ZenBook decent competition on size, hitting 11.6 x 7.8 x 0.6 inches and 2.8 pounds.
Productivity Performance of Asus ZenBook 13
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The ZenBook 13 UM325SA is our first time looking at a Ryzen 5000U series chip, which brings AMD’s latest CPU generation to the ultraportable market. While our Ryzen 7 5800U ZenBook 13 configuration with 16GB of RAM and 1TB M.2 SSD didn’t quite beat Apple’s new M1 chip, it generally outperformed Intel Tiger Lake ultraportables like the i7-1165G7 HP Spectre x360 14 and XPS 13 9310. The Ryzen 7 5800U has eight cores and 16 threads, while Intel’s U-series Tiger Lake processors go up to four cores and eight threads.
In Geekbench 5, which is a synthetic benchmark that attempts to capture general performance, the Asus ZenBook 13 hit 6,956 points in multi-core tests and 1,451 points in single-core tests. That’s above the 5,925 multi-core/1,316 single-core scores earned by the MacBook Pro with an M1 processor running Geekbench via Rosetta 2 emulation. The M1 running a native Geekbench test performed much higher, although native M1 Geekbench isn’t exactly comparable to what we ran on the ZenBook. The ZenBook also generally beats our Tiger Lake competition. For instance, the HP Spectre x360 14 earned 4,904 multi-core/1,462 single-core scores and the Dell XPS 13 9310 earned 5,319 multi-core/1,521 single-core scores. Those single-core scores are closer to our ZenBook’s output, but the laptops fall far enough behind on multi-core to outweigh that benefit in most cases.
The ZenBook 13 led the pack in file transfer speeds. When transferring 25GB of files, the ZenBook 13 did so at a rate of 1,068.21 MBps, while the XPS 13 9310 followed behind at a rate of 806.2 MBps. The MacBook Pro M1 hit a rate of 727.04 MBps, and the Spectre x360 14 trailed behind with a score of 533.61 MBps.
The ZenBook 13 and MacBook Pro M1 were significantly faster than our Tiger Lake machines in our Handbrake video-editing benchmark, which tracks how long it takes a device to transcode a video from 4K to FHD. The ZenBook 13 completed this task in 9:18 and the MacBook Pro M1 did it in 7:44. Meanwhile, the Spectre x360 14 and XPS 13 9310 were much slower with scores of 18:05 and 18:22, respectively.
We also ran our ZenBook 13 through Cinebench R23 for 20 runs in a row to stress test how well it operates under an extended load. The average score among these tests was 7,966.40, and the CPU ran at an average clock speed of 2.43 GHz and average temperature of 66.72 Celsius (152.1 Fahrenheit).
Display on Asus ZenBook 13
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Aside from a new Ryzen 5000U chip, the ZenBook 13 UM325SA also packs a new 1920 x 1080
OLED
display. That’s an improvement over 2020’s
Tiger Lake model
, which had an
IPS
-level screen.
I tested this display by watching The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and was impressed by the color and brightness, but a little disappointed by the screen’s viewing angles and reflectivity. While the red on Falcon’s outfit popped and shadows and other blacks were deep, I found that the image tended to wash out when looking at the screen from over 45 degrees away horizontally. Vertical angles were more generous, but the issue with horizontal angles persisted regardless of whether I watched in a high or low-light environment. I also found that even in low light environments, reflectivity was an issue, as I could frequently see my outline on the screen. Still, this didn’t outweigh the excellent color and brightness for me.
Our testing backed up my experience, with the ZenBook 13’s color only being beaten by the HP Spectre x360 14, which also had an OLED screen when we tested it. The ZenBook’s DCI-P3 color rating was 96.5%, while the Spectre’s was 139.7%. The MacBook Pro M1 had a much lower 78.3% DCI-P3 color rating, while the Dell XPS 13 9310 followed behind with a 69.4% DCI-P3 color rating.
The ZenBook was closer to the bottom of the pack in terms of brightness, though given that all of our competitors were also packing bright screens, this isn’t really a mark of low quality. It had 375 nits of average brightness, which is above the Spectre’s 339 nits, but below the MacBook Pro M1’s 435 nits score. The XPS 13 led the pack with a score of 469 nits, but any of the screens are still plenty bright.
Keyboard and Touchpad on Asus ZenBook 13
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The ZenBook 13 UM325SA boasts a chiclet membrane keyboard that’s not too different from what you’ll find on most other ultraportables, but is nonetheless comfortable to use thanks to a slight angle and a cushiony feeling on keypresses.
The Zenbook’s lid is designed to lift its keyboard off your desk at up to a three-degree angle when opened, and while it doesn’t sound like much, that slight elevation helps for both comfort and typing accuracy. I wasn’t any faster than my typical 75 words-per-minute when typing on this keyboard, but I did find myself making fewer typos and my fingers didn’t feel as strained.
That comfort comes from keypresses that feel satisfyingly soft and pillowy, as well as wide keycaps that keep your fingers from feeling cramped or getting lost.
What’s perhaps more interesting than the keyboard is the touchpad, which is a generous 5.1 x 2.5 inches. It uses precision drivers and is perfectly smooth yet has enough friction for precise input, plus it tracks multi-touch gestures without issue. But that’s not what makes it interesting. What stands out here is the toggle-able touchscreen numpad built into it.
By holding the touchpad’s top-right corner for about a second, a numpad overlay will appear on the touchpad. You can still move your mouse cursor as usual in this mode, but you’ll also be able to tap on the overlay to input numbers as well as simple arithmetic commands like addition, subtraction and multiplication. Further, by swiping the touchpad’s top-left corner, your laptop will automatically open the calculator app.
This isn’t our first time seeing these features on a ZenBook, but they still remain novel here. The idea is to make up for the keyboard’s lack of a number pad, but unfortunately, this solution leaves much to be desired. The simplest issue is that touch input is unreliable and often requires users to self-correct by looking at what they’re touching. It also tends to lack comfort due to a lack of tactile feedback. Those two problems take away the major strengths tenkeys tend to have over number rows, but they’re not the only issue here.
While the numpad shortcut works well enough, the swipe to either bring up or dismiss the calculator can be finicky, and it’s not too unusual for it to not register a few times before working. It’s also unusual from a user experience perspective that the calculator shortcut uses a different input method than the numpad, and that the logo indicating where to swipe bears no resemblance to a calculator, but instead looks more like a social media share button.
While you can safely ignore the touch-based numpad without losing any utility over competitors, it doesn’t add much convenience to the device and comes across like a gimmick. At the very least, it does result in a larger touchpad than usual.
Audio on Asus ZenBook 13
The Asus ZenBook 13 UM325S comes with bottom-firing Harman Kardon speakers. And despite the ultrabook’s small size, they work well for both bass and volume.
I tested the ZenBook’s speakers by listening to Blinding Lights by The Weeknd, and they got loud enough at max volume to fill my whole 2-bedroom apartment, even through doors. Bass was also plenty present, capturing both the song’s drum beats and low synth without losing too much information. I couldn’t exactly feel it in my chest, but I also didn’t feel like part of the song was getting cut or drastically losing its impact, which is impressive on a laptop this size.
Unfortunately, the compromise here is that high notes did tend to get a little tinny as the volume got louder. While I had a decent listening experience at volumes lower than 60%, the distortion became noticeable and eventually annoying as I got higher than that level.
There’s also DTS audio software on board that lets you swap between different presets for music, movies and games, and lets you access a custom mode to boost certain parts of your audio like treble and bass. This mostly tended to affect sound mixing rather than quality, but helped me keep my general system volume down, which reduced tinniness to a minimum.
Upgradeability of Asus ZenBook 13
The ZenBook line has a history of being difficult to upgrade, and that’s the case here as well. That’s because some of the screws you’d need to remove to open up the device are hidden under the laptop’s feet. There’s no guarantee you’ll be able to get these feet back on after removal, so we skipped opening up the laptop for this review.
When we reached out to Asus, we were told that the ZenBook 13 UM325SA uses soldered RAM, though you can access and swap out the M.2 SSD if you wish.
However, given that you might end up having to replace your laptop’s feet in the process, we’d suggest being careful about your configuration choices before buying.
Battery Life of Asus ZenBook 13
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The ZenBook 13 UM325SA enjoyed a long 13 hours and 36 minute battery life in our benchmark, which continuously streams video, browses the web and runs OpenGL tests over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness. That put it well above the HP Spectre x360 14’s 7:14 score and the Dell XPS 13 9310’s 11:07, with only the MacBook Pro M1 beating it. That laptop lasted for 16:32.
Heat on Asus ZenBook 13
We took the ZenBook’s temperature after 15 minutes of YouTube videos, and found that the touchpad registered 73.4 degrees Celsius (164.12 Fahrenheit), the center of the keyboard between the G and H keys hit 83.3 degrees Celsius (181.94 Fahrenheit) and the laptop’s underside was mostly 84.7 degrees Celsius (184.46 Fahrenheit).
That said, the underside as a whole has a lot of surface area, and its rear-center (just in front of its underside vent) did hit 94.6 degrees Celsius (202.28 Fahrenheit).
Webcam on Asus ZenBook 13
The ZenBook 13 UM325SA has a single 720p webcam with IR capability for Windows Hello. While it has strong color accuracy, I found that photos I took with it suffered from low quality and a lot of artifacting. It also didn’t adjust well to heavy or low light.
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The colors were natural, but it still almost feels as if I have a filter on. I’d be nervous taking an important work call on this device.
Software and Warranty of Asus ZenBook 13
The Asus ZenBook 13 UM325SA comes with minimal utility software, excluding the extended McAfee total protection trial that’s turned on by default when you get the system. We uninstalled this fairly early on, as some antivirus programs can lower benchmark performance.
Aside from that, you have DTS audio processing for swapping between different presets that tune the speakers for music, movies or gaming. You also have AMD Radeon software, where you can adjust your PC’s power mode, view usage stats for different components and launch games.
Most of Asus’ utility software limited to the MyAsus app, which lets you run diagnostics, troubleshoot, perform updates and the like, all from one place.
There’s also typical Windows pack-ins like Spotify, the weather app, and Microsoft Solitaire Collection.
Configurations of Asus ZenBook 13
We reviewed the ZenBook 13 UM325SA with a Ryzen 7 5800U processor, integrated Radeon Vega graphics, a 13.3-inch 1920 x 1080 OLED display, 16GB of LPDDR4X-3733 memory and a 1TB M.2 SSD. That’s the top configuration for the AMD version of this laptop.
Official pricing info is still a little undefined at the moment, though we’ve been told that the price range for this line of Zenbooks is $750 – $1000. We’d assume that our laptop would come in closer to the top of that range. CPU options for this laptop include the Ryzen 5 5500U, the Ryzen 5 5600U, the Ryzen 7 5700U and the Ryzen 7 5800U. Some of those CPUs are split between the UM325UA and UM325SA models, though there isn’t much difference on these devices other than that CPU selection.
You can also choose to lower your RAM and SSD capacities for a cheaper price, although Asus hasn’t given us details on available options as of publishing.
Bottom Line
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AMD’s Ryzen processors have, as of late, had a reputation for strong productivity performance and value, and those features stand out in how the latest Asus ZenBook 13 leverages the new Ryzen 5800U chip. Despite costing a maximum of $1,000 at its highest configuration, it easily stands above Intel Tiger Lake competitors that reach as high as $1,600, all while touting a gorgeous OLED display.
In our productivity tests, the only ultraportable that beat the ZenBook 13 was the M1-equipped MacBook Pro 13, which we tested in an $1,899 configuration (and starts at $1,299). Yet despite costing slightly more than half of that price tag, the ZenBook was still in the MacBook’s general range, and never once lost to an Intel competitor.
Granted, some of those Intel competitors have special features. The HP Spectre x360 14 is a convertible, and the Dell XPS 13 has a premium design and a 1920 x 1200 resolution. But they also perform worse while costing more, and even though this ZenBook is still largely plain when it comes to bonuses, it does have a beautiful new OLED display.
There are a few quibbles here and there, like the slim port selection or the near-useless touch-based numpad. But overall, this device is the definition of punching above your weight class.
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