Stealth has produced an all-new waterproof mini-PC with an IP67 water resistance rating, the WPC-905. The unit is designed to be used as an IoT device, server, or workstation in harsh environmental conditions. The starting price for the WPC-905 is $3,195.
But for that price, you get a fully waterproof enclosure, including rear I/O. You can kit your WPC-905 with a low-powered 8th Gen Intel “UE” processor, a single stick of 8GB, 16GB or 32GB DDR4 RAM and up to 2TB of SSD storage. But keep in mind, pricing goes up dramatically once you go beyond the baseline specs.
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To ensure full waterproof capability, the unit has a fully waterproof rear I/O, which includes one DVI-D IP67 rated display output, a power input, one RS-232 Serial Port, two 2-port USB 2.0 ports, and dual networking ports.
Each port is connected to the PC via an M12 port, this port is completely waterproof and requires custom cables/adapters if you want to connect peripherals, display outputs, or other devices to the WPC-905.
For over $3,000, that might seem like a lot for the specs the WPC-905 offers. However, in the business world, if you need a machine that can work well in harsh conditions and perform mission-critical work, buying a device like this can be well worth it.
If you are in the market for a new pair of wireless earbuds and want something with an unconventional design, Master & Dynamic’s MW07 Go true wireless earbuds are $120 at Best Buy today. That’s $80 off their usual price of $200.
At first glance, the MW07 Go look like they might be uncomfortable inside your ears, but don’t let the looks fool you. The Verge’s Cameron Faulkner reviewed these earbuds in 2019 and noted they are much more comfortable than their appearance suggests. These buds also have great sound, last up to 10 hours on a single charge, and include a USB-C charging case.
Amazon is currently selling Samsung’s 980 Pro NVMe M.2 SSD with 500GB for $112 today. Normally $150, this is the lowest price we have seen this internal SSD marked down yet.
If you are planning to buy this SSD, there are a few things to keep in mind: it’s PCIe 4.0-ready (but fully compatible with PCIe 3.0 motherboards), so if you want to take full advantage of this SSD, you will need to have cutting-edge PC parts in your build. Secondly, if you own a PS5 and are hoping to expand your internal storage, the PS5 has a slot for an M.2 drive like this, but Sony doesn’t support expandable SSD storage yet. But because the 980 Pro is PCIe 4.0-ready, it will likely be a solid contender once the PS5 does add support.
B&H Photo is once again selling a 64GB unlocked Google Pixel 3 XL for only $300. Even though this phone is nearly three years old, it’s still a solid contender for those looking for a solid stock Android device with powerful front and rear cameras. This phone comes equipped with Android 11, and Google has confirmed it will receive Android 12, which will arrive later this year.
Google Pixel 3 XL
$300
$800
63% off
Prices taken at time of publishing.
Released in 2018 alongside the Google Pixel 3, the Pixel 3 XL is a solid contender for smartphones that include great cameras at a competitive price.
$300
at B&H Photo
At Best Buy, you can grab a Lenovo Smart Clock plus four LED smart bulbs for just $30, which is $65 off its usual price of $95. This bundle will allow you to take full advantage of Google Assistant and add some smarts to a specific room in your home.
(Pocket-lint) – The Apple Mac mini has been around in one form or another for the best part of 15 years. It may not be a top seller, or a model you see millions upon millions of people using, but it clearly has strong appeal that’s seen it last as long as any of Apple’s product families.
What makes it attractive now is the same thing that made it attractive back in 2005 (when the PowerPC G4 version first shipped): it’s small, it’s powerful and it’s a lot less expensive than an iMac.
And while this Mac mini looks identical to the one that’s been on store shelves for the past couple of years, it has a totally new brain: Apple’s M1 processor. So what does that mean and does it make for the best miniature desktop machine you could buy?
Minimalist to the extreme
Case built from recycled aluminium
Dimensions: 197mm square x 36mm tall / Weight: 1.2kg
Like the M1-updated MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, nothing has changed for the Mac mini from a visual perspective. It’s still that minimalist rounded-edged square aluminium case with the Apple logo in the centre, with nothing but a single white LED on the front. All the ‘ugly’ ports are hidden at the back, so that if you want to hide all your messy cables then it’s easy.
Size wise, it’s maybe not as ‘mini’ as it could be though. Watch enough teardown videos and you’ll see how much space there is inside the new M1-powered Mac mini. That’s because the M1 hardware and all that entails fits into a much smaller space than all the previous components. We’d be surprised if the next-generation model wasn’t even smaller for that very reason.
Still, compare it to a tower PC or any other Mac desktop computer and it takes up a lot less space than most. Despite being a bit old now, there’s something quite attractive about a sleek metal box sitting on your desk with no seams, joins or screws visible (well, unless you you turn it upside down or look at it from the back).
That minimalism also applies to the port selection on the back, but there’s still much wider support here than on either of the M1 MacBooks. For starters, you get two USB-A ports, along with the two USB 4 Type-C/Thunderbolt ports. You even get an Ethernet connection point, HDMI 2.0, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. There’s also an opening to allow airflow from the fan.
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We’d love to see one or two more Thunderbolt ports and an SD card reader in future models though (as much as the latter is highly unlikely). It certainly seems like there’s adequate space, though, so we can’t fathom why there isn’t a card reader on a machine that’s otherwise primed and ready for creators. The same can be said of the MacBook Pro, really.
It’s not unusable with this number of ports, of course, but we had to rely on a Thunderbolt 3 desktop dock to get constant access to an SD card and microSD card reader. It also expanded our options for additional ports and – just as usefully – gave us a headphone port that we didn’t need to reach around the back of a computer to gain access.
Which monitors can I use?
Thunderbolt supports 6K up to 60Hz
HDMI 2.0 port supports 4K up to 60Hz
Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2, DVI and VGA adapters available
We can’t talk ports without talking monitors, which is certainly something to consider before deciding on whether to get a Mac mini or not. In this home office there’s been a USB-C LG monitor for a good few years. Primarily because it’s a monitor with multiple input options, and because for a good chunk of time, the MacBook Pro was our home computer of choice.
The model we paired up is the LG 27UK850. It’s a 4K 27-inch monitor that supports up to 60Hz refresh rates and is pretty much perfect for the Mac mini. You can plug it either into the HDMI 2.0 port on the back, or use one of the USB-C/Thunderbolt ports.
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The good thing about this particular monitor is that it also features two USB-A ports on the back, so you can effectively use it as a desktop hub if you need to plug an extra couple of peripherals in, like a USB microphone or a wired keyboard.
Anyway, enough about the monitor. The real thing to note with this Mac is that you can connect up to two monitors. But you do need to split it between the HDMI port and one Thunderbolt port. Using two screens, you get 4K and 60Hz on both. For higher-resolution monitors, you’re limited to just one monitor and you have to use one of the Thunderbolt ports as the HDMI maxes out at 4K. Those power users who like three or more screens won’t have much luck here, but we suspect those users are few and are already using a Mac Pro.
M1 power
8 core M1 processor, 8GB or 16GB RAM
8 core GPU + 16 core Neural Engine
256GB/512GB/1TB/2TB storage
A lot has been said about Apple’s M1 processor. That’s not exactly a surprise though. Following years of partnership with Intel, Apple used the expertise it’s built up following years of putting powerful ARM-based chipsets in its smartphones and iPads, and applied that to a custom processor for ‘proper computers’.
In our use-case – primarily video editing in Final Cut Pro and Affinity Photo – the apps are already optimised for the M1 processor, so the experience is dreamy.
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It’s worth noting at this point, however, that our unit is 16GB RAM model, so it’s a custom order from Apple which – as well as being pricier than the standard configurations – takes longer to ship. Compared to the other Macs it’s by far the most affordable and best value if you have monitor, keyboard and mouse already.
It took us by complete surprise how quickly Affinity opened images. Where our older Intel Core i5-powered MacBook would take a second or two to open large image files, the M1 Mac mini is virtually instant.
Likewise when zooming and out of those images using trackpad gestures, it’s instant and smooth, making the process of editing photos so much more convenient Even compared to using our previous powerful Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080Ti-powered desktop PC with 32GB RAM and SSD storage, Affinity Photo feels much quicker. We’ve been genuinely blown away by it.
It’s a similar feeling when editing 4K video in Final Cut Pro: skimming through timelines of 4K/30 projects is smooth and rarely resulted in any noticeable frame drop. It’s worth noting, our edits aren’t especially complex – we’d have a maximum of three video streams – but it remains smooth in ways we don’t typically see.
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For instance, when we show screen recordings on top of an expanded and blurred background of that same recording, or when adding masks and censoring to parts of the screen. These are the areas when we’d typically see a little stutter or frame drop on a lot of our previous MacBook setups. With the M1 Mac mini that just didn’t happen.
Export times are fast, too, but it’s the buttery smoothness when actually working with footage, photos and timelines in the M1-optimised apps that makes the most day-to-day difference.
We also dabbled with Pixelmator Pro, using it to edit thumbnails for videos, and found it as fast and responsive as Affinity Photo. For those interested in benchmarks, there are plenty available to view on Geekbench.
For those apps that aren’t yet M1-optimised, there’s Rosetta – which is like an app translator, to ensure things can run – but the list of programmes and apps that needs Rosetta is slowly getting smaller. Both Zoom and Chrome now have M1-optimised versions, while Microsoft Edge is close at the time of writing.
For creatives, the list of apps that are M1 optimised is getting bigger too. Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom are both ready, as is Microsoft Office. In terms of video editors, both Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve have beta versions available with M1 support but – at time of writing – no official, stable release.
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Like its laptop-shaped cousins, the desktop Mac does everything quietly with a barely an audible whirr from its built-in fans. It’s just ridiculously efficient. It didn’t seem to matter what we were doing with it, we didn’t hear the fan, even when exporting a video. That would normally be enough to send an Intel Mac’s fans spinning furiously.
The best Chromebook 2021: Our pick of the top Chrome OS laptops for school, college and more
As for other apps, we tested a whole load of them during our testing of both the M1-powered MacBook Pro and M1-powered MacBook Air, both running Big Sur, and our experience was pretty much faultless. Of course, those using specific enterprise software and systems my have a different experience and it’s worth looking up examples of tests on your specific needs before making the jump to M1. For the average user though, we don’t anticipate any significant issues arising.
Verdict
This miniature desktop might be small, but it’s still mighty thanks to the M1 chipset. It won’t be for everyone, however, especially if you’ve invested in a lot of apps not yet optimised for M1 support. Otherwise it’s a speedy and reliable workhorse that, given its small size, doesn’t draw attention to itself and helps you gets stuff done quickly.
The Mac mini has long been about being a versatile tool that works for most people. Given how fast and efficient it now is, it’s also a great tool for digital creatives. Whether you edit lots of photo or video, or just need something at home that works for you.
It’s the lowest price Mac available, yet its performance with optimised apps blows away some of the supposedly more powerful Intel-powered versions that cost far more. The Mac mini M1 really delivers big bang for your buck.
(Pocket-lint) – With more and more laptops and devices being equipped with flash memory, that often means it becomes too expensive to get a good amount of storage built-in.
And, with so many more of us travelling around for work, working from home or needing to use more than one machine, it’s more important than ever to have an external drive of sorts.
Thankfully, there’s a lot of them around. And most of the portable options are small enough to go in a pocket.
There’s both SSD (solid state) and HDD (more traditional style hard-drive), with the former being a bit more expensive, but also faster, smaller and more portable. They’re also more likely to last you a long time because there are no moving parts. For editing movies and photos on an external drive, nothing really gets the job done like an SSD.
SSD vs HDD: What’s the difference between flash storage and traditional hard drives?
SSDs – Small and speedy
We’ve tested each of the following, using each of them to edit 4K video footage in Final Cut Pro, keeping the original files on the external drive, and each of them performed really well, with no real frame-drop issues, slow export or render times. So, regardless of which of the following you get, you’ll enjoy the speediness and efficiency.
Judging them based on portability, design, performance and value for money, here are our top picks.
How to improve your gaming performance with blazing-fast NVMe SSDs
Our top external drive recommendation
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Samsung T7 Touch
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The Samsung T7 Touch is the latest in ultra-fast portable drives from Samsung that joins our list and replaces our previous favourite – the T5. With the T7 Touch, Samsung has taken the brilliant foundations of the previous drive and improved upon them. Not only is the transfer speed of the T7 almost double that of the T5 (at up to 1,050 MB/s) but it’s also interesting in other ways too.
This is a drive that’s designed to blur the lines between professional and personal use with the inclusion of AES 256-bit hardware data encryption and a fingerprint sensor/password setup. It includes both USB type-C-to-C, USB type-C-to-A cables in the box and software for Mac, PC and Android phones too. Using that software you can set a secure password and scan your fingerprints to secure the drive so no one else can access it. Plugged in without scanning it simply won’t show any files on the drive.
You also have the option of registering as many as four different fingerprints, meaning you can scan your preferred fingers or give access to family or team members with ease.
All this is rounded off in a durable, aesthetically pleasing aluminium housing with a nifty “Motion LED” light around the fingerprint reader. The T7 Touch is a brilliant balance of speed, portability and security that we love and are sure you will too.
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WD_Black P10
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The WD_Black P10 is one of several variants of external SSDs Western Digitial has designed specifically for gamers. This drive comes with a robust, snazzy-looking housing that includes an aluminium top for passive cooling goodness. It’s available in several size formats and offers extra space for your games.
An external drive like this is a brilliantly simple way to upgrade your storage space for more games without messing about with internals. We’ve written before on how to upgrade your PS4 and Xbox One using this sort of drive and the WD_Black range is an awesome option. The bonus of the P10 is it’s plug and play. We used it on PC, installing a multitude of Steam games, then booting them straight from the drive with reasonable speed. The P10 isn’t the fastest of the line-up (that honour goes to the P50) but it is a brilliant balance of speed, size and value for money.
If you want something faster, the P50 is a niftier option with a rear/write speed of 1980MB/s and USB SuperSpeed 20Gbps too. While if you need insane amounts of space there’s the D10 which offers up to 12 TBs of storage space and can hold as many as 200 games.
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Seagate FireCuda gaming SSD
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Gamers love RGB and speed. At least that’s what Seagate seems to be saying with this external FireCuda Gaming SSD. A drive in a solid, robust casing that’s rubber backed and sports a customisable RGB lighting strip.
This is a compact drive you could easily slip in your pocket, but it’s also a great looking bit of kit with up to 2TB storage space and as much as 2,000MB/s max speed with USB 3.2 gen 2×2 tech.
Fast, fabulous and a fantastic addition to your gaming setup.
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ADATA SE800 External Solid State Drive
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The ADATA SE800 is a compact, lightweight, blazingly fast portable SSD. This is an external drive that comes in a uber-snazzy looking protective shell that looks like it’s made of brushed aluminium. That shell is also IP-68 rated, meaning that (as long as it is properly sealed) it’s waterproof, dustproof and shockproof too. So your data is safe if you happen to take a soaking while carrying it or accidentally drop it into a small body water – the bath, a puddle, a river, the toilet. We’re not here to judge.
This drive isn’t just about looks and waterproofing though, it’s also a powerhouse. Thanks to USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C connectivity, it’s able to transfer data at speeds of up to 1,0000MB/s making it one of the fastest drives on this list. It comes bundled with both a USB 3.2 Type-C to C cable and USB 3.2 Type-C to A cable meaning it will also connect to basically anything you own with ease too.
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Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD
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Testing the transfer speeds from our MacBook Pro desktop to the Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD, we got virtually identical results to the Samsung. The same 9.3GB collection of files was transferred in 20.66 seconds, and the discrepancy easily ignorable, and probably explained by the pace of human reaction, rather than the speed of the transfer itself.
So performance is essentially as good, but there’s one real reason you might want this over the Samsung: design. Not only is the Sandisk (somehow) considerably smaller and lighter than the T5, but it’s also got some water and dust resistance.
You can’t submerge it, but it’ll survive the odd accidental splash. As a bonus, it also has a handy little cutout in the corner to feed a carabiner through so you can attach it to your keys if you want to.
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Gtech G-Drive Mobile SSD
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The G-Drive Mobile SSD is taller and thicker than either the Samsung T5 or Sandisk Extreme SSDs, but what it lacks (slightly) in portability, it more than makes up for in durability. Its external surfaces are covered in a shock-absorbing plastic/rubber material, ensuring that it can survive falls up to three metres. What’s more, it has IP67 rated water and dust resistance, which means it can survive in up to one metre of water for up to 30 minutes. As a bonus, you also get a limited five-year warranty as standard.
You don’t really lose out on performance either, with Gtech claiming up to 560MB/s transfer speeds. Testing using the same selection of files, the G-Drive Mobile SSD took 24.4 seconds to transfer. We tested it a few times just to be sure, and it was consistently around four to five seconds slower than the previous two drives, despite claiming faster top speeds. Still, it’s hardly slow, just not quite as fast as the T5 or Sandisk Extreme.
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Samsung X5 Thunderbolt drive
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If you want a stupendously fast external drive, look no further. The Samsung X5 is it, featuring sequential read speeds up to 2,800MB/s and sequential write speeds up to 2,300MB/s. Using the same 9.3GB collection of seven video files, we tested the transfer speeds and were blown away. Those same files that take 20-25 seconds on the previously mentioned drives took less than 6.5 seconds on the Samsung X5.
You may be wondering, why with those speeds is it not our top recommendation? Two simple reasons: it is pretty expensive, and it only achieves those speeds if you use a Thunderbolt 3 port on your Mac/Laptop. If you can afford it, and you have TB3 ports on your computer, it’s well worth it. It’s so ridiculously fast.
Taking a different approach to the T5, Samsung clad the X5 in plastic, but in the form that looks more like the outer shell of a sports car than an external drive. What’s more, inside it has a protection guard built from magnesium and a heat sink to ensure the NVMe SSD inside is kept at a temperature below 45 degrees C.
All of this innovation and design comes at a cost, both literally in terms of cash outlay and in portability. It’s not exactly huge, but it’s three times heavier than the Samsung T5, and considerably taller, wider and thicker. Still, it’s not difficult to carry around and comfortably fits in a pocket.
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LaCie Rugged SSD
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As SSD standards go, the LaCie is big and bulky but – as the name suggests – it’s very durable. It can survive drops up to 2 metres, and conforms to Military Standard 810-F. It’s recognisable instantly too, thanks to its bright orange chunky, texturised silicone outer casing that absorbs all the shocks and bumps you can throw its way.
Don’t confuse its chunky, hefty looks for slow pace though. It’s just as speedy as most of the others on this list, thanks to that SSD storage. Using our same selection of video files, it transferred them in around 20.2 seconds, bringing it up to speed with the Samsung T5 and SanDisk options.
As a bonus, for those who still have computers rocking the old style Thunderbolt port, it has one of those connectors built into the unit, wrapped around safely in the rubber sleeve.
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Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Slim
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As external HDDs go, the Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Slim has a lot going for it. It’s attractive, covered in a dimpled sheet of aluminium and – as the name suggests – it’s really slim.
It’s compatible with both Windows and mac OS, and is very affordable compared to the SSDs in the list above. While the speeds aren’t quite fast enough for live editing of RAW photos or 4K video, the transfer speeds are reasonable. We got those same video files as we’ve been using previously, dragged them across, and they’d written to the drive in around 1min 18 seconds.
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Toshiba Canvio Basics Portable HD
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If you’re looking for really great value for money, the Toshiba Canvio Basics is one way to go. It’s compatible with USB 3.0, so it’s not a snail, and it’s compatible with Xbox and PS4, although it is formatted to NTFS for Windows machines, rather than the system Mac uses. It can be reformatted to work with Mac, however, or you can download plugins to make your Mac read NTFS-formatted drives.
In our file transfer test, it was slightly faster than the Seagate Backup Plus, but not by much. The 9.3GB collection of videos transferred across in around 1min 12 seconds.
Writing by Cam Bunton. Editing by Max Freeman-Mills.
ASRock has announced its new series of ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) PCs that combine small dimensions with performance of desktop APUs from AMD. ASRock’s Jupiter X300-series is only slightly larger the company’s Mars 4000U-series machines launched last November, but it clearly packs considerably more performance and features than its smaller brother.
ASRock’s Jupiter X300 barebones PC uses AMD’s easy-to-find socketed Ryzen 2000/3000/4000 APU with up to eight cores, built-in Radeon Vega graphics as well as an up to 65W TDP cooled using a copper heatsink and a high-performance blower. The APUs can be paired with up to 64GB of DDR4 3200 MHz memory (using two SO-DIMM modules), an M.2-2280 SSD with a PCIe 3.0 x4 or SATA interface, and a 2.5-inch/9.5-mm drive.
The manufacturer says nothing about compatibility of its Jupiter X300 systems with AMD’s not-yet-announced Ryzen 5000-series ‘Cezanne’ APUs, but the machines are based on a rather outdated AMD X300 chipset. Meanwhile, since the motherboard uses a proprietary form-factor, it will prove tricky to upgrade.
(Image credit: ASRock)
The Jupiter X300 chassis measures 178 × 178 × 34mm, so not as compact as a NUC, but not too far away from NUC-like dimensions. The system — which is actually smaller than Apple’s MacMini — can be attached to VESA mounts of a display or used on the desktop.
(Image credit: ASRock)
Connectivity department of ASRock’s Jupiter X300 is quite advanced. The machine can be equipped with Intel’s AX200 Wi-Fi 6 + Bluetooth 5 module (or any other adapter if you buy it separately), it has one Gigabit Ethernet port, three display outputs (a DisplayPort 1.2, an HDMI 2.0, and a D-Sub to support legacy monitors), two 3.5-mm audio connectors, and eight USB ports (two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C, four USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, two USB 2.0), which might be a record for an UCFF PC.
(Image credit: ASRock)
ASRock positions its Jupiter X300-series machines for home, office, and enterprise customers. Since the latter often require remote management and advances security, ASRock offers them its X300-serie DASH barebones with a DASH-enabled LAN, trusted platform module 2.0, an anti-intrusion sensor. Obviously, to use remote management and other advanced features of AMD’s business platform, the systems have to be equipped with the company’s Ryzen Pro-series APUs.
ASRock did not announce MSRPs of its Jupiter X300-series barebones PC.
Microsoft posted the second quarter of its 2021 financial results today, reporting revenue of $43.1 billion and a net income of $15.5 billion. Revenue is up 17 percent, and net income has increased by 33 percent. We saw some impressive growth for Surface, Xbox, and cloud-related services in Microsoft’s previous quarter, and it’s very much the same this time around.
The PC market just had its first big growth in 10 years, with around 300 million shipments of devices during 2020. The pandemic has impacted the way a lot of people work or learn, and many have turned to laptops to continue remotely.
Windows OEM non-pro revenue has grown by 24 percent for Microsoft, reflecting the demand from consumers. Windows OEM revenue overall, including pro licenses, grew 1 percent in total, likely because of the strong prior Windows 7 upgrade schedule for businesses.
Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox consoles.Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
This is the first quarter of sales of Microsoft’s Xbox Series X and Series S consoles. While both debuted toward the end of the quarter (November 10th), Microsoft says hardware revenue has grown 86 percent, thanks to the next-gen consoles.
Xbox content and services revenue has also increased by 40 percent compared to the same quarter last year. Gaming has been incredibly popular throughout 2020, and many have clearly turned to Xbox Game Pass and services like xCloud during the pandemic. That’s pushed Microsoft’s overall gaming revenue up 51 percent.
Over on the Surface side, Microsoft’s updated Surface Pro X and Surface Laptop Go also debuted during this quarter. Surface revenue is up 3 percent, but it’s crucially now a $2 billion business for the first time ever. That’s significant for the long-term health of the Surface business, and it comes during an increased demand for laptops and PCs.
Microsoft also just announced an updated Surface Pro 7 Plus device, available only for businesses and schools. The new model includes a bigger battery, Intel’s 11th Gen processors, a removable SSD, and LTE.
Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 3 lineup.Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Microsoft 365 Consumer subscribers have also increased to 47.5 million, a 28 percent bump. Microsoft has been focusing on Teams and Microsoft 365 services for consumers, launching a renewed effort to attract more subscribers last year.
Cloud services continue to be a big boost to Microsoft’s revenues, thanks to the general pandemic shift in work and learning behavior. Both Office commercial and consumer are up, with Office 365 Commercial revenue growth up by 21 percent. Server products and cloud services revenue has also increased 26 percent as more businesses rely on cloud services. Azure revenue itself grew 50 percent.
“What we have witnessed over the past year is the dawn of a second wave of digital transformation sweeping every company and every industry,” says Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. “Building their own digital capability is the new currency driving every organization’s resilience and growth.”
Microsoft is planning to hold an investor call at 5:30PM ET, and we’ll update this article with any relevant information.
The Gigabyte Aorus 17G pushes out solid RTX-30 series performance while offering a mechanical keyboard.
For
300 Hz Screen
Physical Mechanical Keyboard
Against
Not much faster than prior-gen laptops
Slightly dim screen
Slightly low color gamut
Ampere has finally landed on laptops, with Gigabyte’s 2021 refresh of the Aorus 17G in particular representing our first chance to look at how RTX 3080 performs on mobile. This refresh also brings a 300Hz display to an Aorus laptop for the first time, plus sees the return of Aorus’ mobile physical mechanical keyboard. But the GPU still steals the show here, for two particular reasons. The first is to see if mobile Ampere is enough to propel this to our list of the best gaming laptops, and the second is that this represents yet another way to buy the notoriously rare RTX 30-series of GPUs.
Still, transitioning to mobile always comes with its tradeoffs, so the question remains- does the mobile RTX 3080 live up to the reputation set by its full-size cousins, or will PC owners still be left without many ways to get their hands on the best Ampere has to offer?
Specifications
CPU
Intel Core i7-10870H
Graphics
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 GDDR6 8GB
Memory
32GB DDR4-2933MHz
Storage
1TB M.2 NVMe SSD
Display
17.3 inch, 1080p, 300Hz, IPS-level
Networking
802.11ax Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0
Ports
3x USB 3.2 Gen 1 (Type-A), 1x Thunderbolt 3, 1x UHS-II SD Card Reader, 1x RJ-45 Ethernet, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x Mini DP 1.4, 1x 3.5mm Headphone jack, 1x 3.5mm Microphone jack
Camera
720p
Battery
99Wh
Power Adapter
240W
Operating System
Windows 10 Home
Dimensions(WxDxH)
15.9 x 10.8 x 1.0 inches
Weight
5.95 pounds
Price (as configured)
$2,699
Design of Gigabyte Aorus 17G
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Like Gigabyte’s other Aorus laptops, the 2021 refresh of the Aorus 17G unabashedly wears its gamer branding on its sleeve, with an angled hinge, copious vents and a full physical mechanical keyboard. It does look a little cluttered upon opening the lid, mostly due to all the stickers advertising this laptop’s new features, like an RTX GPU and 300Hz screen. But removing those stickers reveals a slick look that speaks to its gaming nature while still not coming across as embarrassing.
Take the lid, which has a simple matte black finish that mostly resists fingerprints and is only accentuated by a single logo in the center. And the hinge, while angled, is also pleasingly rounded. The webcam placement is questionable- it’s under the screen- but that affects usefulness more than looks and at least allows for a thin bezel.
Despite looking reasonably restrained for gamer gear, the Aorus is still bulky enough to draw attention. When compared to other high-end gaming laptops, its 15.9 x 10.8 x 1 inch dimensions were only matched by the Asus ROG Strix Scar 17’s 15.7 x 11.53 x 1.02 inch dimensions. The Razer Blade Pro 17, meanwhile, is far more compact at 15.5 x 10.24 x 0.78 inches, while the similarly RTX-equipped, 15-inch Alienware m15 R4 is also smaller at 14.2 x 10.9 x 0.7 ~ 0.8 (depending on model) inches.
Despite its girth, though, the Aorus is slightly lighter than its competition at 5.95 pounds. While by no means lightweight, only the Alienware’s 5.25-pound weigh-in beat it. The Scar 17 and the Blade Pro 17, meanwhile, came in at 6.28 and 6.06 pounds, respectively.
The Aorus’ size also means it has plenty of room for ports. On its left side, you’ll find two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type A ports, an SD card reader, an RJ-45 ethernet port and 2 separate 3.5mm audio jacks, one for headphones and one for microphones. That last feature in particular is a nice upgrade from, well, pretty much every other laptop I’ve reviewed. The laptop’s right side, meanwhile, has an additional USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type A port, a single Thunderbolt 3 connection, plus connections for both Mini DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.1. You’ll also find the DC In here, but there’s no lock slot anywhere on the Aorus.
Gaming Performance of Gigabyte Aorus 17G
What makes the Aorus 17G’s 2021 refresh special is that it’s the first laptop we’re looking at with a mobile RTX 3080 inside. Nvidia Control Center suggested the the laptop is utilizing Max-Q technologies. The Aorus 17G is also packing an Intel Core i7-10870H CPU and 32GB of RAM. So, how does the Aorus compare to both the m15 R4, which has the same CPU and 16GB of RAM, as well as powerful Turing laptops like the Scar 17 (i9-10980H, 2080 Super, 32GB RAM) and the Razer Blade Pro 17 (i7-10875H, 2080 Super Max-Q, 16GB RAM)?
In general? It sat towards the top of our results but didn’t make the RTX 2080 feel obsolete.
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In Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, the Aorus 17G hit an average 65 fps at 1080p on its highest settings, which was slightly behind the m15 R4’s 67 fps average but slightly above the 63 fps average of both the Scar 17 and the Blade Pro 17.
In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, both the Aorus 17G and the Scar 17 had average frame rates of 86 fps, while the m15 R4 was significantly lower at 77 fps and the Blade Pro 17 hit the bottom of the ranking at 75 fps.
Far Cry: New Dawn was fairly close across all contenders save the Blade Pro 17, with the Aorus 17G scoring 92 fps, the Scar 17, hitting 95 fps and the m15 R4 lagging imperceptibly behind at 91 fps. The slowest contender here was the Blade Pro 17, with 87 fps.
I also personally played Control for about a half hour on the Aorus using DirectX12 and High settings. With ray tracing off, I tended to fall between 79 – 84 fps, and with ray tracing on its high preset lowered that to 46 – 55 fps. The computer never felt hot to the touch during this time, nor did the fans get loud. The frame rate was also stable regardless of the amount of action on screen, though I did notice that it tended to load in at 94 – 105 fps before dropping a few minutes into play, I assume as more assets get loaded.
We also ran the Aorus through our typical Metro: Exodus stress test, where we ran the game’s 1080p RTX benchmark on a loop 15 times in a row. This is to simulate a half hour of intense gaming. The laptop scored an average frame rate of 59.6 fps, with a CPU clock speed of 3.47 GHz and a GPU clock speed of 1.19 GHz. The average CPU temperature during this time was 77.32 degrees Celsius (171.18 degrees Fahrenheit) while the average GPU temperature was 75.62 degrees Celsius (168.12 degrees Fahrenheit).
Productivity Performance of Gigabyte Aorus 17G
We’ve seen how the Aorus 17G handles games, but what about the productivity software that gaming laptops so frequently moonlight in? The Intel Core i7-10870H and 32GB of RAM provide a solid amount of power.
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In Geekbench 5.0, which is a synthetic general productivity benchmark, the Aorus 17G scored 7895 points on multi-core tests and 1,265 on single-core tests. That puts it above both the Razer Blade Pro 17’s 5776/1,179 points and the Alienware m15 R4’s 7642/1,252 points, but behind the Asus ROG Strix Scar 17’s 8708/1,290 points.
In Handbrake, where we track how long it takes laptops to transcode a 4K video down to FHD, the Aorus 17G jumped down to third place, with a time of 8:33. That’s slower than the Scar 17’s 7:06 and the m15 R4’s near-identical 7:07, but still beats the Blade Pro 17’s 9:31.
The Aorus 17G was also in third place in our file transfer test, where we test the rate at which laptops can move 4.97GB of files. The Aorus did so at 845.02 MBps, which was about on par with the Blade Pro 17’s 844 MBps. That’s a far cry from the 1570.76 MBps score from the Scar 17 or even the m15 R4’s 1,055 MBps.
Display of Aorus 17G
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Aside from its GPU, another key innovation for the Aorus 17G is its 300 Hz
IPS
-level display. I tested this screen in two separate ways. First, I watched a trailer for Wandavision (one with color and widescreen, don’t worry), and second, I played Overwatch on it.
In Wandavision, I was impressed by the color quality and even the depth of blacks, but found viewing angles and reflectivity to be a big problem. While vertical viewing angles were almost complete, the screen’s image washed out whenever I strayed more than 45 degrees away from it horizontally. More problematic than this, though, was glare. I had to be certain my screen was pointing away from light, or else my image would reflect back at me even within perfect viewing angles.
In Overwatch, I was in love. While I’m doubtful that refresh rates over 144 Hz can really make one better in a game if they haven’t trained for professional esports, high refresh rates just feel responsive and pleasing to my eyes. I love being able to see as many frames of Overwatch’s gloriously detailed animation as possible, and to feel like my screen is almost instantly reacting to me. That said, I’m not sure I noticed too much of a difference between this display and the 240 Hz display I saw on the last Aorus I reviewed. How well you can distinguish between frame rates, however, tends to be highly personal.
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Looking at our benchmarking results, I was surprised to see that the Aorus 17G actually covers less of the DCI-P3 color spectrum than competitors. It tops out at 79% versus the Scar 17’s 88.5% score, the Razer Blade Pro 17’s 84.1% score and the Alienware m15 R4’s whopping 149.5% score (thanks to a slower OLED screen). This is something I didn’t notice much in practice, though while my colors didn’t come across as flat, neither were they especially vivid.
The same pattern applied to brightness. The Aorus 17G had 300 nits of average brightness, while the Scar 17 had 336 nits, the Blade Pro had 304 nits and the m15 R4 had 362 nits. 300 nits of brightness was plenty for my purposes, and was a welcome increase over the unfortunately-dim 243 nits I saw on my last Aorus laptop.
Keyboard and Touchpad of Aorus 17G
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While not new to the Aorus line, another key way this laptop differentiates itself from the competition is the inclusion of a full physical mechanical keyboard. It’s got a number pad and full-size keys, plus an easy to read Arial font and media controls baked into its Fn row. Full per-key RGB and clicky low profile Omron switches with 2.5mm of key travel and a 1.6mm actuation point make the gaming implications obvious, so I tested this in both general typing and Overwatch.
In general typing, I scored an average word-per-minute count of 65 – 70 on 10fastfingers.com. That’s lower than my usual score range between 75 – 80 wpm, which isn’t what I’d expect from a mechanical keyboard. However, I found that because these keys sit higher than the typical laptop keyboard (despite resting inside a divot into the case), my wrists had to come at them from an awkward angle where I had to manually raise them above where the wrist rest encouraged me to place them. Additionally, the perfectly smooth keycaps leave my fingers without any identifying features to use as landmarks when typing by touch alone.
In Overwatch, by contrast, I found button presses were satisfying and easy to register through touch and audio alone. This made actions like triggering my shift ability feel like second nature, and more importantly, made spamming A/D to stay evasive and help with aiming both easy to perform and easy on my fingers.
The 4.1 x 2.8 precision touchpad, meanwhile, is comfortably smooth without losing the friction needed for precise input and handles multitouch well. It does have a fingerprint reader in the top-left corner, though, rendering it unusable for input.
Audio on the Gigabyte Aorus 17G
The Aorus 17G has two bottom-firing speakers, one on either side, that tend to produce accurate sound but have an issue with volume.
I tested these speakers by listening to Driver’s License by Olivia Rodrigo. The most noticeable issue I had was that the song didn’t become audible until I hit about 30% volume and didn’t get comfortable until about 55 – 60% volume. On max volume, that song was able to fill my whole office, but didn’t hit much of the rest of my 2-bedroom apartment.
Sound quality was full-bodied during the test, with clear voices and bass and no sign of tinniness. However, throughout my whole test, the song also sounded somewhat muffled, as if the laptop was struggling to push it out.
Upgradeability of Gigabyte Aorus 17G
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Being a 17 inch laptop, the 17G has plenty of room for extra storage and memory. It’s a bit of a hassle to open — you’ll need a Torx screwdriver (we used a TR 6 bit) — and a spudger, but upgrading is easy once the case is off. Inside, you’ll have easy access to the two RAM slots and two M.2 SSD slots, plus the networking card. Our configuration came with both RAM slots filled with unsoldered memory, plus one of the SSD slots already taken, but there’s nothing to stop you from substituting your own parts.
Battery Life on Gigabyte Aorus 17G
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The Aorus 17G has the type of battery life you’d expect from a high-powered gaming laptop, which is to say “not much.” It clocked in at 4:42 during our battery life test, which continuously streams video, browses the web and runs OpenGL over Wi-Fi tests at 150 nits of brightness. That’s about on par with the Razer Blade Pro 17’s 4:41 hours of battery life and longer than the Alienware m15 R4’s 4:01 battery life, but still falls short of the ROG Strix Scar 17’s 5:25 battery life.
Heat on the Gigabyte Aorus 17G
We tested the Aorus 17G’s heat after 15 minutes of streaming video on YouTube, and found that it stays cool during non-gaming use. Its touchpad was the coolest touchpoint on the laptop at 71.4 degrees Fahrenheit (21.89 degrees Celsius), while the center of the keyboard (between the G&H keys) was slightly hotter at 75.2 degrees Fahrenheit (24 degrees Celsius). The bottom of the laptop generally hit 81.9 degrees Fahrenheit (27.72 degrees Celsius), but the center of the bottom, which is just below the vents, did hit 85.5 degrees Fahrenheit (29.72 degrees Celsius).
Webcam on the Gigabyte Aorus 17G
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The Aorus 17G suffers from what we like to call a “nosecam.” Placed below the screen rather than above it, this webcam has the unfortunate tendency to look directly up your nose. The idea here is usually to save bezel space, but we have to wonder if the unflattering angle is worth it? You can rectify it a little by stretching in uncomfortable ways, but if you’re looking directly at your screen, be prepared to show off your nostrils, your chin, pretty much everything a good selfie avoids.
Quality is mixed, with accurate color and decent shadows, but fuzzy texture. On the plus side, the Aorus 17G’s webcam does come with a sliding privacy cover.
Software and Warranty on the Gigabyte Aorus 17G
The Aorus 17G comes gracefully free of bloat, with the only examples we could find being standard Windows pre-installs like Microsoft Solitaire Collection and Spotify. In addition to these, you’ll also find utility apps like Nahimic Companion, Intel Graphics Command Center and Thunderbolt Control Center. These let you adjust and customize your audio and display as well as check what’s attached to your Thunderbolt ports.
Gigabyte Aorus 17G Configurations
The Aorus 17G has two different configurations, one with an RTX 3080, dubbed the Aorus 17G YC and one with an RTX 3070, listed as Aorus 17G XC. We reviewed the 3080 configuration, which is $2,699. Both configurations are otherwise identical, each packing an Intel Core i7-10870H, up to 64GB of DDR4-2933MHz RAM (our unit had 32GB) and 1TB of SSD storage. They also both have the same 17.3 inch 300HZ IPS-level display.
The version we reviewed costs $2,699, while the 3070 version costs $2,099.
Bottom Line
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I’m of two minds on the 2021 refresh of the Aorus 17G. While I was hoping for a laptop equipped with a mobile RTX 3080 to far outperform its 2080 and 2080 Super cousins, what I instead got was a machine that was largely on par with them in performance. However, the Aorus 17G is also about $1000 cheaper than its competitors, even with the same CPU and memory/SSD loadouts.
That means you can now regularly hit frame rates anywhere from 60 – 90 fps on ultra settings in graphically intensive games for less than $3000 on a laptop.
Which brings us to the display. This is the first Aorus with a 300Hz option, and it’s just as responsive and satisfying as you’d think. The tradeoff here is that the screen is limited to FHD, and while it is IPS-level, its color and brightness don’t quite hit the peaks of its competitors. The 2021 refresh of the Aorus 17G also sees the return of its physical mechanical keyboard, though its featureless keycaps and awkward height leave it a little more useful for gaming than typing.
While I’d love to see an Ampere laptop pushing out significantly more frames than the competition, I have to compare it to what we have benchmarks for right now. And doing that, it’s still plenty enticing. The Aorus 17G gives you similar power to what you may find in a Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 G732 or Razer Blade Pro 17 for almost $1,000 less, plus a 300 Hz screen and a physical mechanical keyboard.
That said, we have recently reviewed another Ampere laptop, the Alienware m15 R4, which comes with a mobile RTX 3070 as opposed to a 3080. The upside here is that the Alienware lets you choose between a 300Hz screen or a 4K OLED, which drops the refresh rate to 60Hz but far eclipses the Aorus on color and brightness. You’ll also gain some performance on Handbrake and file transfer speed, but will generally be weaker on gaming. At $2,499 against the Aorus’ $2,699 (or $2,099 if you go for the RTX 3070 configuration), it’s up to you if those seem like worthwhile tradeoffs.
The Asus TUF Dash F15 is an attractively thin gaming clamshell with an eSports-ready screen. But you can squeeze more frames out of other RTX 30-series laptops.
For
Decent battery life
Fast screen
Successful software-based noise cancelling
Easy upgrades
Against
Frame rates could be better
No webcam
Flat keyboard
Gaming laptops are trying to slim down. This growing trend finds vendors promising power comparable to the best gaming laptops, which often require bulky chassis and cooling to support high-end components, in a PC that’s closer in size to a mainstream notebook.
The Asus TUF Dash F15 ($1,100 to start, available as tested on March 8 for $1,450) is a next-gen example. It offers the latest in Nvidia RTX 30-series mobile graphics and is one of the first machines to use an Intel H35-series chip. The Dash F15 is 20% thinner and 10% lighter than Asus’ usual TUF gaming laptop.
But while the Dash F15 can handle high-end titles, its gaming performance overall feels more like a last-gen Super card than the latest and greatest.
Asus TUF Dash F15 Specs
CPU
Intel Core i7-11370H
Graphics
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 (8GB GDDR6)
Memory
16GB DDR4-3200
Storage
1TB M.2 2230 NVMe PCIe
Display
15.6-inch IPS panel, 1920 x 1080 resolution @, 240 Hz
Networking
Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), RJ45 Ethernet, Bluetooth 5.2
Ports
Thunderbolt 4 (USB Type-C), 3x USB 3.2 Gen1 (Type-A), HDMI 2.0, 3.5mm audio jack
Camera
None
Battery
76 WHr
Power Adapter
200W
Operating System
Windows 10 Pro
Dimensions (WxDxH)
14.17 x 9.92 x 0.78 inches (360 x 252 x 19.9mm)
Weight
4.41 pounds (2kg)
Price (as configured)
$1,450
Design on the Asus TUF Dash F15
Available in moonlight white or a more subtle eclipse gray, the Dash F15 can be striking or muted. Its trim build won’t grab attention on its own, but if you opt for the bolder white or decide to activate the keyboard’s “bolt blue”-colored backlight, you may make a head or two turn.
It’s not the striking visage that many gaming laptops proudly carry but with the large TUF block typography that may or may not have been inspired by Alienware (Asus hasn’t stated) on the lid accompanying the TUF logo, there’s enough to keep this more mature laptop from being a complete snooze. But if you’re looking for more fun, the aqua backlight sure looks special coming out of white keycaps compared to our review unit’s more traditional black ones.
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The Dash F15 isn’t the only trim gaming laptop on the block. At 4.41 pounds and 14.17 x 9.92 x 0.78 inches, it’s a little lighter and wider than the Razer Blade 15 Advanced Model (4.7 pounds, 14 x 9.3 x 0.7 inches). The Acer Predator Triton 300 is also of a similar build (4.4 pounds, 14.3 x 10 x 0.7 inches), but the Alienware m15 R4, which also holds an RTX 3070 graphics card, is heavier than the Dash F15 (5.25 pounds).
When you open the Dash F15, you’re greeted by a more gamer-friendly font and a darker deck. The deck loves to attract fingerprints and is side-flanked with diagonal line carvings that complement the vents north of the keyboard. Liberties were also taken with the shape of the power button. White WASD keys also add to the gamer aesthetic but can look kind of cheap, as you can see the keys’ cross-armed-like white retainers, especially if you turn the blue backlight on.
You get some offset media controls, including a mute button, which is particularly handy as we do more conference calls from home offices. Less welcome is the button for launching Asus’ Armoury Crate software. I’d much rather have the volume mute button here, alongside the other volume buttons (it’s on the FN row instead). There are also no play or pause functions on the keyboard.
Thankfully, the Dash F15 doesn’t sacrifice ports in its quest for sleek. The left side hosts the port for charging the laptop, along with an Ethernet jack, HDMI 2.0, USB 3.2 Gen 1 (Type-A) and even Thunderbolt 4 (USB Type-C). The right side carries two more USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports. All the ports are closer to the laptop’s lip, and the charger is shaped like a right angle, so it can be easy for attached cables to get in the way of one another or you.
The Dash F15 isn’t the only trim gaming laptop on the block. At 4.41 pounds and 14.17 x 9.92 x 0.78 inches, it’s a little lighter and wider than the Razer Blade 15 Advanced Model (4.7 pounds, 14 x 9.3 x 0.7 inches). The Acer Predator Triton 300 is also of a similar build (4.4 pounds, 14.3 x 10 x 0.7 inches), but the Alienware m15 R4, which also holds an RTX 3070 graphics card, is heavier than the Dash F15 (5.25 pounds).
Accompanying the travel-friendly form and backing the TUF moniker is military-grade MIL-STD-810H certification for durability. The machine was tested for drops, extreme temperatures, humidity and vibration. Its plastic deck feels a little more solid than the average laptop, especially a budget one, but there’s a little bit of give when pressing the function row buttons. The lid is thin and also has a small amount of flex. The laptop doesn’t open all the way flat, which was a rare nuisance.
Gaming and Graphics on the Asus TUF Dash F15
The Dash F15 we reviewed uses an RTX 3070 (we confirmed that it’s a Max-Q design; however, Asus isn’t using the Max-Q label anymore) mobile graphics card, a member of Nvidia’s newest lineup. With Nvidia’s Dynamic Boost 2.0 AI feature, Asus says the card can clock to over 1,390 MHz (Nvidia specs the card to run from 1,290-1,620 MHz with boost). This is combined with Intel’s latest H35 series processor, a 35W, 4-core/8-thread part based on 11th Gen “Tiger Lake,” rather than the 45W parts we often see in gaming notebooks.
The machine handled Control well on high settings with ray tracing off. The game typically showed frame frame rates in the high 60s to low 70s, going as low as 57 frames per second (fps) and as high as 75 fps. With ray tracing set to high, the average frame rate dropped to the mid to upper 40s. However, it was sometimes down to 33 fps and managed as much as 53 fps.
There’s an obvious hit to frame rate, but ray tracing does provide a noticeable change in graphics in Control, since it uses ray tracing in five ways (on reflections, transparent reflections, diffuse lighting, contact shadows and debris). With ray tracing on, an office wall inside the Oldest House looked very high-end, with a shiny mirrored finish. I could see Jesse’s reflection, as well as that of the light fixture behind her. The wall’s gold paneling reflected a large staircase. But with ray tracing off, I could no longer see the light fixture or my reflection. The wall looked less like a pricey, executive border and instead had a large rectangular area that just looked whiter. The paneling was so washed out it barely looked gold and also lacked reflections.
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The Dash F15 and Alienware both rock the midrange card in Nvidia’s latest mobile GPU lineup; however, the pricier Alienware was able to push out much more impressive frame rates with its RTX 3070 in the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark (1920 x 1080 resolution, highest settings). Even the Razer and Acer laptops, which use a last-gen RTX 2080 Super Max-Q and RTX 2070 Super Max-Q, respectively, did better than the Asus, though those are also paired with 10th Gen 45W Intel CPUs.
Our review focus ran the Grand Theft Auto V benchmark (very high) at an average of 87 fps, tying with the Razer and beating the acer (77 fps). But at 108 fps, the Alienware is starkly on top.
The Dash F15 fell to last place when it came to Far Cry New Dawn (ultra), with a 74 fps average. That’s 17 fps slower than the fastest machine in this benchmark, the Alienware. The two last-gen graphics systems were in the mid-80s.
In Red Dead Redemption 2 (medium), the TUF Dash F15 landed a solid second place finish with a 61 fps average. The Alienware beat it by just 8 fps.
The Dash F15 continued to outshine the Razer and Acer laptops on the Borderlands 3 benchmark (badass). The Razer was just 2 fps behind though, and the Alienware, again, took the crown, this time by a notable 16 fps.
To measure ray tracing prowess, we also ran the 3DMark Port Royal benchmark. The Alienware got the highest score (6,411), followed by the Razer (5,048). As a next-gen RTX card, it’s a little disappointing for the Asus to rank third (4,982), albeit a close third. The Acer took last place (3,989).
As a stress test, we ran the Metro Exodus1080p RTX benchmark on a loop 15 times, simulating 30 minutes of gameplay. During this time, the game’s frame rate was very consistent and averaged 51 fps. The RTX 3070 ran at an average clock speed of 1,238.64 MHz and average temperature of 70.8 degrees Celsius (159.44 degrees Fahrenheit). Meanwhile, the CPU averaged 3.66 GHz and 72.19 degrees Celsius (161.94 degrees Fahrenheit).
Productivity Performance on the Asus TUF Dash F15
The Dash F15 stands out as one of the first machines to arrive with an Intel H35-series CPU. Announced in January, these chips were designed specifically for ultraportable laptops and can operate at a TDP between 28W and 35W. Our Dash F15 configuration opts for an Intel Core i7-11370H. It runs at up to 35W, has four CPU cores, eight threads and a clock speed of up to 5.0 GHz. Our review laptop combines that with a 1TB M.2 2230 NVMe PCIe SSD and 16GB of DDR4-3200 RAM.
That proved ample for 21 Google Chrome tabs, with one streaming a TV show, Spotify and the Epic Games launcher. The 21st tab caused the fans to kick up for a second, but not so powerfully that the sound overpowered the audio. I could quickly toggle through tabs and programs without delay or interruption to my show. Even tracking through the show was easy, with just a 1-3 second delay.
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In Geekbench 5.0, the Dash F15 bested the Alienware (same specs as our review focus but with an octa-core i7-10870H), Acer (six-core i7-10750H / 16GB DDR4-2933 / 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD) and Razer (eight-core i7-10875H / 16GB DDR4-2933 / 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD) by a few hundred points. When it came to multi-core productivity, the Dash F15 naturally couldn’t compete with its beefier rivals here. All the competing machines’ CPUs have higher core counts than that of the Dash F15. They also all use older 10th Gen chips, but they’re configured at a higher 45W TDP. If you’re running heavily threaded tasks or games, you can get better performance out of the competitors here.
The Dash F15 fared better against the competition in our file transfer test, moving 25GB of files at a speed of 1,052.03 Mbps. Only the Alienware (1,147 Mbps) was faster. The Razer meanwhile, was at a crawl compared to the other machines here.
In our Handbrake test, each system is tasked with transcoding a video from 4K resolution down to 1080p. The TUF Dash F15 accomplished this in 10 minutes and 41 seconds. That’s 3:34 slower than the winner here, which is, again, the Alienware. The Triton 300 came in third place, completing the task 1:30 faster than the Dash F15.
Display on the Asus TUF Dash F15
Asus opted for a 15.6-inch IPS panel for the Dash F15 and even went the extra mile to include Nvidia G-Sync, a high 240 Hz refresh rate and 3ms response time.
A speedy screen like that has obvious benefits to gaming, especially if you’re playing an eSports title, where it’s easier for your graphics card to near 240 fps. Keep in mind that more graphics-intensive games will be harder to hit high frame rates on.
IPS is known for good color reproduction, and the shades, including the hints of brown cabinets in the darkest shadows or the pale robin’s egg blue of cabinets, came through. Smoky effects with rainbow prisms looked smooth and realistic with hints of purple, blue and red striking through. The area I was playing in is quite dark, however, and in my sunny room I did find myself wanting to nudge up the brightness a smidge.
Mission: Impossible – Fallout didn’t lose its luster on the Dash F15. Subtle shades, like pink in a light purple sky, were apparent, and reds were especially strong. The movie was bright enough head on, but from a side view, I could see reflections on about 80% of the screen.
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The TUF Dash F15 is a bit shy of our 300-nit preferred minimum. At 265 nits, it’s in last place here, although the Triton 300 isn’t too far ahead (286 nits). Not surprisingly, the Alienware’s OLED ran away with both the brightness and color tests. The TUF Dash F15’s more equal color competitors are the Razer and Acer machines, and the Asus tied with the Razer with 79% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space, while just barely edging out the Acer.
Keyboard and Touchpad on the Asus TUF Dash F15
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The keyboard on the Dash F15 is a mixed bag. There’s backlighting, but it’s only a teal-ish blue. On the plus side, you can toggle it across three brightness settings or turn it off straight from the keyboard. There’s also an Aura button on the keyboard that toggles through effects, which are all basically flashing blue at different speeds.
The keys have a good amount of travel at 1.7mm, but they’re excruciatingly flat. Typing felt swift and snappy, but it was harder to figure out where my fingers were without any grooves to help them feel grounded in between presses. The travel makes most of the keys comfortable to press, but larger keys, like backspace, enter and shift (interestingly, not the spacebar) felt a little loose and hollow.
On the 10fastfingers.com typing test I averaged 112 words per minute (wpm) with a 93.97% accuracy rate. That’s slightly below my typical 115 wpm average and 98% accuracy rate, and I attribute all that to the flat keys.
Making the keyboard even more home office-friendly, Asus built the keyboard to be quiet and claims that the keys exude less than 30dB of noise. They certainly shouldn’t drum up any complaints. Their gentle clicking is neither silent nor annoying or distracting.
The 4.1 x 2.9-inch touchpad on the Dash F15 is on the smoother side, but doesn’t offer the ice rink-like gliding that some premium competitors offer. Clicks are heavy and clunky, but Windows gestures worked well though.
Audio on the Asus TUF Dash F15
The Dash F15 has two speakers that pump out virtual 7.1 surround sound audio via four cutouts on the laptop’s underside. They’re clear and accurate for gaming, but I wished for a little more volume.
When I played Control, it was sometimes hard to hear voices, such as those chanting in the background or my character’s voice. I also wanted to pump up the volume to better focus on key dialogue providing instructions. Footsteps were also hard to hear, sometimes, especially if the laptop’s fans were whizzing, and the experience wasn’t comparable to the virtual surround sound experience you can get with some of the best gaming headsets. Gunshots, however, sounded crisp and with solid pop.
Again, when I listened to music I want to turn it up about 15% louder for stronger effect. It was loud enough to enjoy but not to blast. Chaka Khan’s “Through the Fire” came through accurately and without sounding tinny. But some of the strength and echo in her voice, along with the instruments, didn’t come through, and there was little bass. More electronic sounds, such as those in ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” suffered more. The song’s sound lost warmth and sounded tinny at times. Playing around with the equalizer and presets in the included Realtek Audio Console software didn’t yield significant improvements.
Upgradeability of the Asus TUF Dash F15
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The Dash F15’s back covers prys off easily after unscrewing 14 Phillips head screws. Once inside, there’s space for a second PCIe Gen3 x4 SSD. You can also add up to 32GB of RAM, but you’ll have to get past some thermal tape to get to the SO-DIMM slots, as is the case with the Wi-Fi card.
Battery Life on the Asus TUF Dash F15
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Despite its trim build, the Dash F15 packs decent battery life for a gaming laptop. Our battery test surfs the web, runs OpenGL tests and streams video while connected to Wi-Fi and set to 150 nits brightness. The TUF Dash 15 kept up the workload for 6 minutes and 32 seconds, which is 41 minutes longer than the closest competitor, the Triton 300. The Alienware has been a favorite among our benchmarks, but all that power cost it battery life, and it placed last.
The Dash F15 comes with an AC charger, but you can also charge it at up to 100W via USB-C. Sadly, our review unit wasn’t bundled with a USB-C laptop charger. Still, it’s a nice feature to have. If you’re ever in a pickle, it keeps getting more likely that you or someone around you has something that uses a USB-C charger.
Heat on the Asus TUF Dash F15
As you might expect with a slender laptop, this isn’t the coolest machine around, but the Dash F15 still manages to keep warm temperatures relatively at bay. Although, it gets harder not to sweat when you get gaming. When I fired up Control, my right hand controlling my mouse immediately felt warm air blowing out of the side of the laptop, which remained as long as I was playing.
After 15 minutes of watching YouTube, the Dash F15’s hottest point was the center of the underside, where it measured 93 degrees Fahrenheit (33.9 degrees Celsius). The spot between the G and H keys was 90.5 degrees Fahrenheit (32.5 degrees Celsius), while the touchpad was 78 degrees Fahrenheit (25.6 degrees Celsius).
After 15 minutes of gaming, the touchpad was still a cool 78 degrees Fahrenheit, but the spot between the G and H keys jumped up to 101.5 degrees Fahrenheit (38.6 degrees Celsius), and the hottest point reached 117.5 degrees Fahrenheit (47.5 degrees Celsius. For comparison, the Alienware hit 108.7 degrees after YouTubing and 111.4 degrees when gaming.
To keep a 0.78-inch machine cool, Asus implemented its ROG Intelligent Cooling hardware-software solution. The Dash F15 uses 5 copper heat pipes (covering the CPU, GPU, VRAM and VRM) and two 83-blade, liquid crystal polymer fans to pull heat away from the CPU, GPU, VRAM and VRM and disperse it through the machine’s four heatsinks and fan outlets. There’s venting by the WASD keys to let the fan beneath generate airflow. Additionally, Asus upgraded the self-cleaning capabilities over last year’s TUF lineup with 5% more airflow space.
On the software side of the cooling solution, the TUF Dash F15 uses Nvidia’s Dynamic Boost 2.0, which switches power to the CPU or GPU, depending on what needs the most push. There’s also Armoury Crate, which, once downloaded, lets you choose among performance modes, including a “Silent” one that promises a max sound level of 35dB.
Webcam on the Asus TUF Dash F15
There’s no webcam integrated in the slim bezel on the Dash F15’s display. There’s no making up for that, especially with more people taking so many video calls these days, but Asus tries by offering software-based artificial intelligence (AI) to block out background noise on both ends of a call.
That’s right, Asus claims its tech can remove the sound of your noisy keyboard while also silencing your friend’s dog annoyingly barking in the background. Once you activate AI noise cancelling in the Armoury Crate software and switch to the appropriate speaker and mic in your chatting platform, it provides a helpful service.
In a video call with a friend, I was able to silence his TV and banging in the background. And on my end, he could “barely” hear me tapping my pen right next to my laptop on my desk.
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Asus claims its software can reduce noise by 95% and eradicate 500 million “types of background noise.” The technology purposely uses the laptop’s CPU instead of its graphics card, so as to not interfere with gaming performance. You can also tweak its settings in Armoury Crate, and Asus provides recommended settings based on the scenario.
Software and Warranty on the Asus TUF Dash F15
Asus kept the Dash F15’s bloatware light. Our review unit came with RealTek Audio Console, McAfee Personal Security, Skype, Your Phone, Xbox Game Bar and Xbox Console Companion, courtesy of Windows 10, but not much else — not even your usual smatterings of Candy Crush Sagas.
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Asus does include Armoury Crate, but it’s worth keeping for the AI noise cancelling and, partially, because two of the keyboard’s buttons are useless without it. If you do download the app, you’ll also get access to other perks, the most helpful being the ability to select and tweak different cooling profiles and display presets.
Asus backs the TUF Dash F15 with a 1-year warranty.
Asus TUF Dash F15 Configurations
We tested the middle configuration of the Dash F15 (SKU FX516PR-211.TM15). Available on March 8 for $1,450, it includes an Intel Core i7-11370H CPU, RTX 3070 graphics card, 16GB of DDR4 RAM, a 1TB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD and a 240 Hz display.
The cheapest configuration (SKU FX516PM-211.TF15) will be available on February 15 for $1,100. It comes with the same CPU and RAM as our review focus but drops down to an RTX 3060 GPU, a less roomy 512GB SSD and a slower 144 Hz refresh rate.
The most expensive version of the Dash F15 is $1,700 and matches our review configuration, except it bumps up to an Intel Core i7-11375H and RTX 3070.
Bottom Line
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The Asus TUF Dash F15 continues the trend of slim gaming laptops and does it justice, but there are inherent limitations to a gaming laptop focused on staying thin.
For one, frame rates might not match what you expect from Nvidia’s next-gen RTX 30-series on thicker machines. The Dash F15 fell behind the Alienware m15 R4 using the same GPU in our gaming benchmarks, and overall, its gaming performance was more similar to an RTX 20-Series Super card. .
At $1,450, our configuration of the Dash F15 seems fairly priced . It performed similarly to the Acer Predator Triton 300, which was $1,600 when it came out with a six-core Intel Core i7-10750H and RTX 2080 Super Max-Q. The aforementioned Alienware, meanwhile, is $2,499 as tested. So the Dash F15 offers good gaming performance for the price; it’s just not much of an upgrade over last-gen machines.
In terms of the new Intel H35-series chip, the Dash F15 excelled with lightly threaded workloads, even compared to pricey rivals. But for workloads requiring more cores, the Dash F15’s 11th Gen quad-core chip can’t keep up with beefier 10th Gen CPUs.
The performance conundrum of a slim gaming laptop is something Asus hasn’t fully solved with the Dash F15. But if you’re after a lightweight laptop with the premium screen and components that can handle high-end gaming with good frame rates for the price, the Dash F15 may be for you.
The Alienware m15 R4 packs plenty of RTX 30-series performance in an attractive design with an amazing screen.
For
Sleek design
Strong performance
Snappy Keyboard
Vibrant optional OLED Screen
Against
Warm temperatures
Relatively short battery life
Nvidia’s RTX 30-series “Ampere” graphics cards have been burning up the desktop market since they launched last fall, and now they’ve come to laptops. Alienware’s m15 R4 is among the first laptops to offer RTX 3070 and 3080 GPUs and has paired them with 10th Gen Intel Comet Lake H CPUs for speedy performance.
But the Alienware m15 R4 ($2,149 to start, $2,499 as configured) is more than just a speedy system with the latest components. Ready to compete with the best gaming laptops, it sports a spaceship-like chassis that’s relatively thin and light, a fantastic tactile keyboard and an optional 4K OLED display that offers epic image quality.
3x USB Type-A Gen 3.2, microSD, Thunderbolt 3, Mini DisplayPort, HDMI 2.1
Camera
1280 x 720
Battery
86 WHr
Power Adapter
240W
Operating System
Windows 10 Home
Dimensions(WxDxH)
14.19 x 10.86 x 0.78 inches (360.43 x 275.84 x 19.81mm)
Weight
5.25 pounds (2.38kg)
Price (as configured)
$2,499
Design of the Alienware m15 R4
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Available in lunar light (white) or dark side of the moon (black), the Alienware m15 R4 has the same sci-fi-inspired chassis design — Alienware calls it “Legend” design — as its immediate predecessor, the Alienware m15 R3. A sloped front lip and a large rear exhaust with a honeycomb grille and RGB light ring make the m15 look like an alien spaceship. The number 15 adorns the back of the lid in a sci-fi font that looks like it comes straight from a warehouse at Area 51. The space theme continues on the inside, where a honeycombed grilled appears above the keyboard, which matches the color of the deck.
Like other Alienware laptops, the m15 R4 is loaded with RGB. The keyboard comes with either 4-zone or per-key lighting, depending on your configuration, and there are also lights around the rear exhaust and on alien heads on the back of the lid and power button. You can customize all the lights and create your own themes that launch along with your favorite games using the preloaded Alienware Command Center app.
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As befits a laptop of its price and stature, the Alienware m15 R4 is made from premium materials with a magnesium alloy shell and clear coat paint. On the inside, Alienware’s own Cryo-Tech cooling technology uses a CPU vapor chamber, 12-phase graphics voltage regulation and 6-phase CPU voltage regulation to improve performance.
At 14.19 x 10.86 x 0.78 inches (360 x 276 x 20mm) and 4.7- 5.5 pounds ,(depending on your configuration; ours was 5.25 pounds), the Alienware m15 R4 is pretty compact for a 15-inch mobile gaming right with all the trimmings. It’s only a little larger than last years’ Razer Blade 15 Advanced Model (14 x 9.3 x 0.7 inches, 4.7 pounds), which had a last-gen RTX 2080 graphics card, and slimmer than the MSI GE66 Raider (14.1 x 10.5 x 0.8 inches, 5.3 pounds). The 17-inch Gigabyte Aorus 17G YC with its RTX 3080 measures 15.9 x 10.8 x 1.0 inches while weighing 5.95 pounds.
The m15 R4 finds room for plenty of ports. On the right side, you’ll find two USB Type-A Gen 3.2 ports, while on the left live a third USB Type-A port, a 2.5 Gbps Killer Ethernet port and a 3.5mm audio jack. On the back side, there’s HDMI 2.1, a Mini DisplayPort, a Thunderbolt 3 port and Alienware’s proprietary graphics amplifier port.
Gaming Performance on the Alienware m15 R4
One of the first laptops with an RTX 30-series inside, the Alienware m15 R4 is powerful enough to do real 4K gaming with the effects turned up. Our review configuration came with the optional 4K OLED display that’s limited to 60 Hz, but it’s so damn sharp that to some, the spectacle may make up for the refresh rates.
With the RTX 3070 in our unit and its Core i7-10870H Comet Lake H CPU, we were able to play Cyberpunk 2077 at RTX Ultra in 4K, the highest possible settings, and the visuals were impressive (more on that in the display section below). However, we were limited to around 42 frames per second (fps) during action scenes, which is more than playable but a tad below the 60 fps that would max out the display’s capabilities. Turning down the settings to RTX Medium improved the frame rate by a few fps, as did setting DLSS to prioritize performance
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The Alienware m15 R4 returned an impressive 108 fps in Grand Theft Auto V at 1080p resolution with very high settings. That rate was surprisingly a little higher than the Gigabyte Aorus 17G YC laptop (100 fps) with its RTX 3080 GPU and the same Core i7-10870H CPU. The Razer Blade 15 Advanced Model (RTX 2070) and MSI GE66 Raider (RTX 2080) were about 10% slower.
When we tested with the very-demanding Red Dead Redemption 2 at 1080p and medium settings, the story was much the same. The m15 R4 managed a strong 68 fps, while the on-paper more powerful Aorus 17G YC was slightly behind (64 fps), followed by the two laptops with older cards.
On Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 1080p, highest settings, the m15 R4 returned an impressive 77 fps, but this time the Aorus 17G YC pulled ahead (86 fps) and the Razer and MSI laptops were just a few fps behind.
The numbers for Far Cry New Dawn, running at 1080p and ultra settings, weren’t the strongest. The m15 R4 managed a buttery smooth 91 fps, which is about on par with the 17G YC’s 92 fps but a little behind the GE66 Raider’s 99 fps. Though the Raider has an older GPU, it has a faster CPU in the Core i9-10980HK.
It’s worth noting that, as you might expect, playing these same four games at 4K dramatically reduced the frame rates to a modest 34 fps for Grand Theft Auto V, 33 fps for Shadow of the Tomb Raider, 56 fps for Far Cry New Dawn and a barely playable 27 fps for Red Dead Redemption 2. To run at higher resolutions, you may want to turn down other settings.
To see how the Alienware m15 R4 and its cooling system perform when you’re playing a demanding game over time, we ran the Metro Exodus benchmark at the RTX preset 15 times, simulating about 30 minutes of gaming. The system averaged 60.2 fps, but performance declined steadily from 63.9 fps at run 1 to 58.9 on the final run. During that time, the GPU clock speed averaged 1.4 GHz, and the CPU clock speed averaged 3.5 GHz. It had average GPU temperature and CPU temperatures of 77 and 88 degrees Celsius, respectively (170.6 degrees Fahrenheit and 190.4 degrees Fahrenheit).
Productivity Performance of Alienware m15 R4
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With an Intel Core i7-10870H CPU, along with 16GB of RAM, a speedy 1TB NVMe PCIe SSD and RTX 3070 graphics, our configuration of the Alienware m15 R4 was more than capable of productivity work and heavy multitasking. Even with 35 tabs open and a 4K video playing, the laptop didn’t miss a beat. In fact, we were able to set the webGL Aquarium test to show 4,000 fish during this multitasking workload and still got 60 fps.
The Alienware m15 R4 scored a solid multi-core score of 7,642 on Geekbench 5 , a synthetic benchmark that measures overall performance. The Gigabyte Aorus 17G with the same Core i7-10870H scored a bit higher at 7,895.T he Core i9-10980HK-enabled MSI GE66 Raider understandably fared much better with 8,379, and the Razer Blade 15 Advanced Model with its Core i7-10875H was slightly behind the rest at 7,319. When it came to single-core performance, the numbers were much closer with the Alienware dipping behind all three of its competitors by a few points.
The 1TB PCIe M.2 SSD in our review unit delivered a speedy 1,055 MBps on our file transfer test, which copies 4.97 GBps of mixed media files from and to the storage drive. That rate is quicker than all of the Alienware m15 R4’s direct competitors except the GE66 Raider, which hit an impressive 1,696 MBps.
It took just 7 minutes and 7 seconds for the m15 R4 to transcode a 4K video to 1080p using Handbrake. That time is faster than the Aorus 17G (8:33) and Blade 15 Advanced Model (8:04) but a few seconds behind the GE66 Raider (6:59).
Display on Alienware m15 R4
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Alienware sells the m15 R4 with two different screen options: a 1080p, 300 Hz screen and a 4K OLED display with vibrant color but a 60 Hz refresh rate. Our review unit came with the OLED screen, and it was just eye-popping to behold. When I watched a 4K nature video, colors, like the red in a parrot’s feathers and the green in a frog’s skin, seemed incredibly vibrant — as colorful as I’ve seen on any laptop screen.
Images were also bright and sharp for gaming. When I played Cyberpunk 2077, the facial lines on character, such as Jackie, were well-defined, and colors, like the reds and pinks of neon lights, were quite vibrant, though they didn’t pop as much as they did in the video. When I fired up Shadow of the Tomb Raider, water rippling in a lake had a very realistic sheen to it, and the green in trees really stood out.
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According to our colorimeter, the screen reproduces an impressive 149.5% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which is nearly double that of its competitors without OLED screens, which all covered 79 or 80% of the gamut. OLED screens measure as brighter if only a portion of the pixels are white, so, with a smaller white square, our screen averaged an impressive 461 nits and, with the entire screen white, it was a still-strong 361 nits. Its IPS-based competitors were all stuck at around 300 nits.
Keyboard and TouchPad on Alienware m15 R4
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The Alienware m15 R4’s tenkeyless keyboard is really snappy and great for typing or gaming. Thanks to its generous 1.7mm of travel, I never bottomed out while hitting a strong 99 words per minute (wpm) on the 10 Fast Fingers typing test with a 2.5% error rate. Both were improvements over my typical 95 wpm and 3-5% error rate.
The keyboard features customizable RGB backlighting and comes in two configuration options: one with 4-zone lighting and another with per-key RGB. Either way, you can customize the colors and enable effects using the included Alienware Command Center software.
The 2.4 x 4.1-inch glass touchpad has just the right amount of friction, providing smooth navigation. Using Windows Precision touchpad drivers, it quickly and accurately responded to all our gestures, from pinch-to-zoom to three-finger swipe.
Audio on Alienware m15 R4
The front-mounted speakers produce music that’s mostly accurate and relatively loud, if not overly smooth. When I played AC/DC’s guitar and drum-heavy “Back in Black” at full volume, I could hear a clear separation of sound with some instruments coming from one side or the other. However, there was just a slight hint of tinniness on the drums.
A Taste of Honey’s bass-centric “Get Down, Boogie Oogie Oogie” sounded perfectly clean, thanks to its lack of harsh percussion. The top volume was loud enough to fill a small room, but I wouldn’t recommend using the Alienware m15 R4 to DJ a party, unless you attach external speakers.
The speakers are definitely good enough for gaming. When I played Cyberpunk 2077, the thumping music in a club scene felt really immersive, and gunshots were loud and clear.
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The Alienware Command Center software has an audio settings section, which allows you to control the equalizer and contains profiles for a variety of situations, from music to gaming and movie-viewing. I found that the default profile, labeled “Alienware” sounded nearly identical to the Music profile and is probably your best bet overall.
Upgradeability of the Alienware m15 R4
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You can upgrade the storage on the Alienware m15 R4, and the good news is that there are two M.2 2280 slots. To open up the laptop, all I needed to do was to loosen the eight Philip’s head screws on the bottom, two of which come out, and then use a spudger to pry the cover off.
Underneath, there are two M.2 slots under copper heatsinks. If your configuration only comes with one SSD, this means that you have an expansion slot that’s readily available. You just need to remove the heatsink covering the slot, pop it in and you’re good to go. Unfortunately, the RAM is soldered on and can’t be removed.
Battery Life on Alienware m15 R4
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We don’t expect long battery life from a gaming laptop this powerful, but you will get a few hours of endurance on the Alienware m15 R4. The laptop lasted 4 hours and 1 minute on our battery test, which involves continuous surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness. The Razer Blade 15 Advanced Model (5:02) and MSI GE66 Raider (4:57) both lasted about an hour longer but have older-generation graphics cards. The Gigabyte Aorus 17G, however, has a more powerful RTX 3080 and lasted 40 minutes longer than the R4.
Heat on Alienware m15 R4
As with many thin gaming laptops, the skin temperature on the Alienware m15 R4 can get uncomfortably warm. We don’t recommend holding this on your lap with shorts on while you’re gaming.
After running the Metro Exodus benchmark for 15 minutes, the keyboard measured a toasty 53.9 degrees Celsius (129 degrees Fahrenheit), and the bottom center hit 51.7 degrees Celsius (125 degrees Fahrenheit). The back bottom was the warmest spot, reaching a full 57.8 degrees Celsius (136 degrees Fahrenheit), while the touchpad was relatively cool at 36.7 degrees Celsius (98 degrees Fahrenheit). The fan was running loud and nearly constantly during this test.
Webcam on Alienware m15 R4
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The Alienware m15 R4’s 720p resolution webcam captures pictures that were color-accurate but noisy. When I shot a selfie, the red on my hat, shirt and in a set of bins behind me really popped, as did some yellow and blue objects. However, there was a lot of speckling from sunlight coming in through a window.
Like other Alienware laptops, the m15 R4 comes with Tobii eye tracking sensors. The Tobii software comes preloaded, and I found that setting it up was a breeze. It asked me to calibrate it for my eyes. The software then showed a bubble, which moved accurately around the screen to follow my glances.
Software and Warranty on Alienware m15 R4
The Alienware m15 R4’s main piece of first-party software is the Alienware Command Center, which lets you control the RGB lighting, set the power policy, overclock the CPU and GPU (if your CPU allows it) and change the audio profile.
There’s also the Killer Control Center app ,which lets you control the Killer Wi-Fi card that can be set to prioritize gaming internet traffic over other background tasks, such as Windows updates, that might slow down your play. I really like the Wi-Fi analyzer screen on this tool because it showed the relative strength of all the networks in the area, even several of my neighbors’ routers.
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Like every other Windows laptop, the R4 comes with a little bloatware: two free-to-play games, a trial of Microsoft Office, a link to download Photoshop Express and Hulu.
Dell backs the Alienware m15 R4 with a standard 1-year warranty, which you can extend if you pay extra.
Configurations of Alienware m15 R4
Like many other Alienware laptops, Dell sells the m15 R4 with a variety of configuration options. You can get it with a Core i7-10870H or Core i9-10980HK CPU, an RTX 3070 or 3080 GPU, up to 32GB of RAM and up to 4TB of SSD storage in RAID 0. The display comes in either 1080p, 300 Hz or 4K, OLED 60 Hz varieties, and the chassis is either Lunar Light (white) or Dark Side of the Moon (black).
The system starts at $2,149 and comes standard with the Core i7 CPU, RTX 3070 graphics, the 1080p screen, 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD.
Our review configuration of the Alienware m15 R4 is $2,499. For that price, you get the laptop with an Intel Core i7-10870H CPU, RTX 3070 GPU, 16GB of DDR4 RAM, a 1TB M.2 SSD and the 4K, OLED display panel.
Prices for other configurations were not available at press time.
Bottom Line
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The Alienware m15 R4 offers plenty of performance in a sci-fi-styled chassis that’s relatively thin and light for its class. The snappy, deep keyboard feels absolutely fantastic for typing or gaming ,and the optional 4K, OLED panel is one of the most vibrant we’ve seen.
There are some trade-offs here: the laptop skin temperature can get pretty warm, the battery life is mediocre and the 4K display tops out at 60 Hz. On the other hand, getting a AAA game running at 4K and more than 60 fps at high settings can be a challenge, even with RTX 30-series graphics cards. If smooth frame rates are more important than sharp resolution and eye-popping color, the 1080p, 300 Hz panel might be more your speed.
Whatever your display preference, the Alienware m15 R4 is an impressive gaming laptop that’s worth its premium price.
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I had hoped that MSI’s GS66 Stealth for 2021 would look and feel a little different than last year’s model — not that the 2020 version was particularly busted in any major way. In fact, the previous model was a few nips and tucks shy of reaching Razer’s high bar for gaming laptop design. But while the outside shell of this year’s model is exactly the same as last year’s, I can live with that because what’s inside is mostly all-new.
The review unit we were sent was kitted out with the current pinnacle of mobile graphics tech: Nvidia’s new RTX 3080 Max-Q graphics chip, with 16GB of video memory (Nvidia also makes an 8GB variant). MSI also added a gorgeous canvas of a display: a 15.6-inch 1440p (QHD) IPS G-Sync screen with a fast 240Hz refresh rate.
The other specs in the review model are good, too, but not necessarily cutting-edge. It has 16GB of RAM, a 1TB NVMe SSD, and the same big, four-cell 99.99Wh battery that was in the previous iteration. It is equipped with an Intel Core i7-10870H processor, which on paper is a slight step down compared to the Core i7-10875H in the previous model I tested, but I didn’t notice a difference in performance.
Everything from games and websites to desktop backgrounds look so crisp in QHD.
Other minor tweaks worthy of mention include a bump up to Wi-Fi 6E compatibility and Bluetooth 5.2. This laptop has an HDMI 2.0 port, so it’s limited to outputting 4K resolution at up to 60 frames per second. Of the things MSI updated in this year’s GS66, the HDMI port should have been a little higher on the list than Wi-Fi 6E. Razer’s new Blade 15 and 17 Pro each feature HDMI 2.1, allowing 4K output with up to 120 frames per second to really take advantage of the hardware while connected to an external monitor.
The refreshed GS66 Stealth lineup with RTX 30-series chips and either a 1080p or 4K display will be shipping in February, but unfortunately, the model with the QHD display won’t be available until sometime in Q2 2021. MSI doesn’t have a price nailed down for the review configuration, either. Given that assessing value is an important part of the review process, we’re reserving a score until the cost is available.
I’ve been testing the flagship configuration of the new GS66 Stealth for a week. General performance outside of gaming felt similarly snappy to last year’s model. A big stack of tabs in Microsoft Edge, alongside Slack and Spotify, didn’t slow this machine down. It didn’t perform nearly as well in our Adobe Premiere Pro export test, though. Tasked with exporting a five-minute, 33-second 4K video, the laptop took six minutes, 30 seconds, compared to the three-minute, 14-second export time that we got with last year’s model. (It wouldn’t be fair not to mention that this configuration has 16GB of RAM versus 32GB in last year’s model, but I plan to retest this once final drivers are released for the GPU.)
Cyberpunk 2077 performed the worst of any recent AAA title I tested, but the numbers are still impressive.
But the real question is: was Nvidia’s latest high-end graphics chip worth the wait — and can it keep up with a QHD display? The short answer is that, like my colleague Tom Warren saw on the desktop version of the RTX 3080, this mobile variant is a big leap over what the last-gen RTX 2080 could provide. Since this is also the first generation of gaming laptops that offer QHD screens, it’s a little hard to compare the two, but there’s no question that games look great.
The RTX 3080 with 16GB of video memory is capable of running some of the most demanding games in QHD well beyond 60 frames per second — with all graphical settings adjusted to max, and with ray tracing and other RTX settings activated, when applicable. That’s an incredible achievement. And if you’re someone who doesn’t always play the latest games as they are released, these specs will afford you even more headroom to power through your backlog, with a fantastic display to enjoy them on to boot. The IPS screen that MSI opted to use is rich with contrast and better viewing angles than I expected, and its G-Sync adaptive sync does a great job of keeping visuals free of artifacts.
I was able to spend time playing Horizon: Zero Dawn, Cyberpunk 2077, Death Stranding, Shadow of the Tomb Raider,and Control, most of which have ray tracing and / or DLSS (deep-learning super sampling) graphical options to take further advantage of this powerful graphics chip. I tested it by running brief snippets of these games at 1440p and 1080p in order to see the gains from playing games at a slightly less demanding resolution.
MSI GS66 Stealth with RTX 3080 (16GB) performance
Benchmark (set to highest possible settings)
Average results running at 1440p
Average results running at 1080p
Benchmark (set to highest possible settings)
Average results running at 1440p
Average results running at 1080p
Horizon: Zero Dawn
76fps
88fps
Red Dead Redemption 2
58fps
72fps
Shadow of the Tomb Raider (RT shadows and DLSS on)
62fps
78fps
Cyberpunk 2077 (RT and DLSS on quality mode)
40fps
56fps
Death Stranding (DLSS on)
100fps
130fps
Control (RT and DLSS on)
56fps
80fps
Since Cyberpunk 2077, Death Stranding,and Control don’t ship with built-in benchmarking tests, I simply ran around a variety of locales to stress-test the hardware (the other games have scripted methods for gathering performance metrics). As someone who’s used to playing games on a 1080p display, I was impressed to see such graphically intensive games run this fluidly, especially at a higher native resolution. (If you’re a gamer who wouldn’t be totally happy with some of the numbers above, you could probably improve the frame rate by knocking down a few graphical settings.)
As I mentioned up top, the design of the 2021 GS66 Stealth is note-for-note the same as last year’s model. The overall look is stellar, though, and I wish every gaming laptop had a trackpad this generously large. It has backlit keys that can be programmed to dazzle with RGB splendor through SteelSeries software, but that’s really the only element that reveals this is a gaming laptop.
Well, aside from the very loud fans. I noted that last year’s model was relatively quiet, even under pressure. I’ve heard laptops louder than this new RTX 3080 version, but the decibel level went high enough so that at times I felt I needed headphones to hear all of the in-game details. Of course, that differed depending on the game. Cyberpunk 2077 made this laptop whir the loudest of the games I tested, while Control actually ran fairly quietly by comparison.
This QHD screen is pin-sharp, but importantly, it’s really vibrant, and the viewing angles are generous.
I found other flaws with the design. The keyboard layout is still crowded, with the important function key placed awkwardly next to the control key, making it cumbersome to do simple tasks like adjust the volume and brightness. Also, the bottom of the laptop chassis still flexes in a slightly worrying way. I don’t think it’s liable to break under normal use, but for a pricey machine like this, the design doesn’t inspire confidence.
Nvidia says that QHD-equipped laptops featuring RTX 30-series graphics chips will begin launching today, with systems from Razer, Asus, and Eluktronics launching first. For example, Razer’s Blade 15 with a 165Hz QHD screen and the RTX 3070 will price out at $2,199.99. We haven’t gotten our hands on it yet, but we expect to find similar performance in models with similar specs. However, since not all QHD panels are created equally, it will be interesting to see how the others compare to the excellent display in MSI’s review unit.
I couldn’t stop holding my eyeballs this close to the screen.
If you’re looking to buy one of MSI’s non-QHD models today, there is a number of options. You can get a system equipped with a less powerful RTX 3060 chip starting at $1,799.99, one with the RTX 3070 for $2,399.99, or with the new RTX 3080 chip starting at $2,699.99. The specs start with a 1080p IPS display with a 240Hz or 300Hz refresh rate. MSI’s product landing page indicates that it will be possible to upgrade to a 4K 60Hz IPS display.
Meanwhile, if you’re curious about how the RTX 3070 is shaping up while running alongside an FHD display, my colleague Monica Chin has our review of the MSI GP66 Leopard. We’ll have a lot more coverage of laptops built with the latest RTX graphics chip in the coming weeks and months.
But the TL;DR is that the RTX 3080, working in tandem with the QHD display and everything else that this GS66 Stealth is packing, has fantastic graphics performance, reaffirming that a display like this really is worth spending extra for (if you can swing it). The sharpness of the 1440p display makes pictures and text more enjoyable and pleasant to look at — both in-game and with everyday tasks.
If you wanted to connect your laptop to a desktop GPU, generally, you have to use a Thunderbolt 3-based graphics dock of some kind. However, a mod from Kosin (a China offshoot of Lenovo) has demonstrated that there is another way. Kosin shared a video where one of its employees managed to run an RTX 3090 off a notebook’s NVMe M.2 slot, and it works! (via PC Watch.)
Kosin used one of its own laptops, the Ryzen 4600U-powered Air 14, to demonstrate its modification. The modder first removed the M.2 NVMe SSD residing in the notebook, then connected an M.2 to a PCIe adapter cable, allowing the RTX 3090 to communicate with the laptop. Finally, the modder drilled out a slot in the laptop’s housing so the cable could run outside of the laptop’s chassis.
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Surprisingly, performance from the RTX 3090 was perfectly adequate, even with just four PCIe lanes being fed to the card. The system scored 14,008 points in 3DMark TimeSpy: For reference, a standard RTX 3080 paired with a Core i9-9900K gets 15,000 points. So, yes, you lose quite a bit of performance compared to installing the 3090 in a desktop PC, but the score is still quite good considering the notebook’s specs (and the downgrade to four PCIe lanes).
If you want to do this yourself, beware that this is a mod and isn’t guaranteed to work. However, NVMe based M.2 slots run off pure PCI Express, so theoretically, you can execute this mod with little to no compatibility issues.
Microsoft has a habit of reigniting the Mac vs. PC conflict for its Surface ads, and this time it’s going after Apple’s Touch Bar. In a new TV commercial, aired during Sunday night’s NFL championship games, Microsoft pits Apple’s MacBook Pro against the company’s Surface Pro 7. It’s a chance for Microsoft to mock Apple’s Touch Bar in a TV commercial for the first time.
“Mac gave me this little bar, but why can’t they just give me a whole touchscreen?” asks a boy comparing the two laptops. That’s something that some MacBook Pro users have been calling for, or just the removal of the Touch Bar altogether. Apple is now reportedly planning a redesign for the MacBook Pro later this year, with the Touch Bar rumored to be replaced by physical function keys.
Elsewhere in the ad, Microsoft tries to position the Surface Pro 7 as a gaming device. “It is a much better gaming device,” claims the ad, which is an unusual way to frame Microsoft’s popular Surface device. The Surface Pro 7 is barely capable of running the latest PC games at acceptable frame rates with its integrated Intel graphics, so it’s not the biggest selling point.
Microsoft has previously compared its Surface Pro to the MacBook Air, bashed Macs in general, and found a guy named Mac Book to tell people to get a Surface Laptop.
This latest ad also focuses on the older Surface Pro 7, which has now been replaced by the Surface Pro 7 Plus for businesses and schools at least. The new model includes a bigger battery, Intel’s 11th Gen processors, a removable SSD, and LTE.
Microsoft’s digital whiteboard is designed to improve the work of teams, both when they meet in the company and when they do it remotely. And it is also an opportunity for retailers who aim to seize the opportunities offered by smart working
of Alberto Falchi published on 22 January 2021 , at 11: 41 in the Device channel Smart Working Teams Microsoft
If there is one thing that this crisis taught us is that companies do not stop when faced with problems. Thanks to the digital technology, which shortens the distances and allows you to continue work even from home, without giving up on collaboration. It is no coincidence that solutions like Teams experienced impressive growth during 2020. They have proved to be so effective that many companies will not abandon their use once normality is back, but will integrate them into company workflows, continuing to adopt smart working even when the restrictions on circulation will disappear.
But software is only part of the solution: there are numerous hardware solutions that revolve around Teams, making it more and more effective, and among these one of the best performing is Microsoft Surface Hub 2S , a very special digital whiteboard.
Microsoft Surface Hub 2S, the whiteboard that makes meetings more effective, both in presence and remotely
In corporate meeting rooms there are two tools that are hardly missing: a large display, or a projector, and a slate that acts as a support for ac hi holds the presentation, which can use it to quickly draw diagrams and examples. Microsoft Surface Hub 2S brings these two tools together . Apparently, it looks like a generous monitor from 50 “ (but a version from will come soon “) with particular proportions, 3: 2 instead of the canons 16: 9). Analyzing it more carefully, however, it turns out that it is a real tool for simultaneous collaboration. It integrates a fairly powerful computer (8th generation Intel Core i5 with 8 GB of RAM and SSD from 128 GB) which manages the whiteboard apps and communication with Teams. The Redmond giant defines it as a compute unit due to the fact that it can be replaced in a few moments with a more powerful model, simply by extracting the “cartridge” that contains it and inserting another one with more advanced hardware.
There is also a 4K wide-range camera , able to frame all the participants present in a medium-sized room, and an array of microphones capable of capturing the voices of everyone present, even those who are further away from the device. Finally included a stylus , which will allow you to draw on the touch screen with a quality and sensitivity of inking fully comparable to physical whiteboards.
The strong point of this solution is also the perfect integration with Teams , which allows you to make presentations, both those carried out in the meeting room and those made with colleagues and customers remotely, more intriguing and effective: what is drawn on the screen will be shared with all participants, simplifying a lot of group work, which will be immediately available for all participants, before a secure cancellation of the session data ..
Suface Hub 2S, an opportunity also for resellers
Maverick AV Solutions , division of Tech Data , is the exclusive distributor sivo of Surface Hub 2S for Italy. Maverick does not sell directly to end users but goes through resellers (who must be Microsoft certified to deploy Surface Hub 2S), offering a number of benefits for those interested in distributing Microsoft’s dedicated whiteboard for collaboration.
Maverick AV Solutions, in addition to distributing the hardware, offers a series of additional services : from consulting to channel support with inspections, instructions on use, maintenance and network integration, up to support for the product itself. The company’s goal is to make the solution practically plug & play for the end user: all the evaluation, installation, configuration, integration and fine-tuning work can then be delegated by the end user to Maverick itself or to its partners.
These are not the only services offered to resellers, who will have at their disposal a team of dedicated experts which will support them through webinars, events and promotions, aimed at keeping partners updated and involving them more. In short, Maverick does not just act as a paper passer, to provide a product to sell, but aims to pass on all its wealth of expertise on the solution to its partners, starting from onboarding , when the collaboration begins. Skills not limited to Surface Hub 2S, but extended to the entire Microsoft world and, in particular, to the Teams collaboration platform .
The resellers of the Surface Hub 2S, in short, are in effect Maverick’s partners.
Maverick also offers optional accessories for Surface Hub 2s that Microsoft has made together with its partners, such as Steelcase mobile carts or the APC batteries , which provide an easily transportable support for the whiteboard so that it can be easily repositioned from one meeting room to another when needed, to reach the APC backup batteries, which guarantee approximately 90 minutes of autonomy on the blackboard if disconnected from the mains.
Tech as a Service, Tech Data’s operational rental program
Microsoft Surface Hub 2S can be purchased, also together with its services, through the program Tech as a Service by Tech Data, which eliminates the initial investments, replaced by a monthly payment that includes hardware and services. Tech as a Service also allows you to always have the most up-to-date devices, thus allowing resellers to better retain customers over time. Resellers will also be able to include their personalized services in this formula, thus increasing their profit margins and offering the opportunity to differentiate themselves from the competition.
The as-a-Service offer is not the only alternative to purchase: Tech Data’s Finance Solutions business unit also allows access to financing, rental, operating, financial and even leasing, thus covering the different needs of the company’s resellers.
Samsung’s 870 EVO is one of the most responsive SATA SSDs we have tested. Fast, efficient, and well-backed by Samsung, the 870 EVO is our top choice for a solid SATA SSD.
For
Reliable and responsive architecture
Appealing aesthetics
AES 256-bit encryption
Capacities up to 4TB
5-year warranty
Software suite
Features and Specifications
Samsung’s 870 EVO succeeds the hottest-selling SATA SSD on the market, the company’s own 860 EVO, so it has big shoes to fill. Normally, this would be a challenge, but for Samsung, it’s like clockwork: Samsung’s 870 EVO is now our top pick for those looking for the best consumer SATA SSD on the market.
Offering up high-ranking performance and efficiency, spacious capacities, and well regarded by many for high reliability, Samsung’s SSDs have earned quite the following and reputation over the years. The company hopes to build on its reputation with the addition of Samsung’s 870 EVO to its lineup that’s built on years of the company’s flash expertise.
Samsung’s 870 EVO is the most refined version yet, courtesy of its latest 6th-gen 128-Layer V-NAND TLC flash and an updated MKX ‘Metis’ SATA 6Gbps controller. Still bottlenecked by the SATA interface, the new SSD doesn’t stand a chance against the latest NVMe SSDs. Still, Samsung says the 870 EVO offers up to 38% higher performance for everyday computing tasks over its predecessor, and the 250GB model sees an up to 30% improvement in sustained write performance.
Specifications
Product
870 EVO 250GB
870 EVO 500GB
870 EVO 1TB
870 EVO 2TB
870 EVO 4TB
Pricing
$39.99
$69.99
$129.99
$249.99
$479.99
Capacity (User / Raw)
250GB / 256GB
500GB / 512GB
1000GB / 1024GB
2000GB / 2048GB
4000GB / 4096GB
Form Factor
2.5″ 7mm
2.5″ 7mm
2.5″ 7mm
2.5″ 7mm
2.5″ 7mm
Interface / Protocol
SATA 6 Gbps / AHCI
SATA 6 Gbps / AHCI
SATA 6 Gbps / AHCI
SATA 6 Gbps / AHCI
SATA 6 Gbps / AHCI
Controller
Samsung MKX ‘Metis’
Samsung MKX ‘Metis’
Samsung MKX ‘Metis’
Samsung MKX ‘Metis’
Samsung MKX ‘Metis’
DRAM
Samsung LPDDR4
Samsung LPDDR4
Samsung LPDDR4
Samsung LPDDR4
Samsung LPDDR4
Memory
Samsung 128L TLC
Samsung 128L TLC
Samsung 128L TLC
Samsung 128L TLC
Samsung 128L TLC
Sequential Read
560 MBps
560 MBps
560 MBps
560 MBps
560 MBps
Sequential Write
530 MBps
530 MBps
530 MBps
530 MBps
530 MBps
Random Read
98,000 IOPS
98,000 IOPS
98,000 IOPS
98,000 IOPS
98,000 IOPS
Random Write
88,000 IOPS
88,000 IOPS
88,000 IOPS
88,000 IOPS
88,000 IOPS
Security
AES 256-bit encryption
AES 256-bit encryption
AES 256-bit encryption
AES 256-bit encryption
AES 256-bit encryption
Endurance (TBW)
150 TB
300 TB
600 TB
1,200 TB
2,400 TB
Part Number
MZ-77E250
MZ-77E500
MZ-77E1T0
MZ-77E2T0
MZ-77E4T0
Warranty
5-Years
5-Years
5-Years
5-Years
5-Years
Samsung’s 870 EVO is available in almost every capacity you could need, ranging from sizes as small as 250GB up to 4TB for the data hoarders who need the extra space. Each capacity comes at premium MSRPs, with prices ranging from $0.12-$0.16 per gigabyte.
Samsung rates the 870 EVO to deliver sequential speeds of up to 560/530 MBps and sustain up to 98,000/88,000 random read/write IOPS across the board. In regards to the Intelligent TurboWrite algorithm, Samsung did not disclose any changes.
Intelligent TurboWrite
Capacity
250GB
500GB
1TB
2TB
4TB
SLC Write Cache
12 GB
22 GB
42 GB
78 GB
78 GB
Each capacity should measure similar to that of the 860 EVO – typically, it will have a 6GB-12GB of static SLC cache paired with a dynamic SLC cache that spans tens of gigabytes. Speed degradation was not apparent in our testing of the 1TB and 4TB model, but it may impact the smaller models.
The 870 EVO is over-provisioned by 9%, with most of that space set aside for controller use and background block management. Samsung backs the 870 EVO with a five-year warranty, and the drives can absorb up to 150TB of write data per 250GB of capacity, meaning the 4TB model is rated to handle 2,400 TB of writes within its warranty period.
Not only is it rated to be endurant, but it’s also potentially very secure with the option to use TCG Opal 2.0-compliant AES 256-bit full disk encryption for those whose data needs the added protection from prying eyes.
Software and Accessories
Samsung supports customers with data migration software for easy cloning and the Samsung Magician SSD toolbox. Samsung Magician allows you to monitor your SSD’s health via reading its S.M.A.R.T. data report, upgrade the SSD’s firmware if applicable, secure erase, and even benchmark your drives.
A Closer Look
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Samsung’s 870 EVO comes in a 2.5” 7mm form factor and has a sleek, black anodized aluminum casing, that gives it a quality feel over cheaper competitors.
Opening up the 870 EVO reveals very tiny PCBs, not only for the 1TB model but also the 4TB model.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Samsung’s 870 EVO is powered by the company’s MKX ‘Metis’ SATA 6Gbps controller, the same one powering the 870 QVO. The company did not disclose details, like how many or what type of cores the controller has, their speeds, or what process node it was built on. We do know it’s based on an ARM architecture (possibly tri-core like the MJX ‘Maru’ controller before it) and leverages DRAM for FTL metadata caching. Samsung’s own LPDDR4 DRAM resides next to the controller, measuring 1GB on our 1TB sample and 4GB on our 4TB sample.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The controller also has eight NAND flash channels to maintain high levels of interleaving with Samsung’s 6th-gen 512Gb 128-Layer V-NAND TLC. This new flash offers very low latency, communicating with the controller at Toggle DDR4.0 speeds up to 1.4 GTps. Like the company’s previous flash, it is still dual-plane, but due to sub-planes, the die supports very fast performance on par with or exceeding that of most competitors.
The German company Tuxedo brings that 15, 6-inch notebook InfinityBook S 15 with Intel’s Tiger Lake processors and pre-installed Linux operating system. Thanks to its compact dimensions, the model is quite light, and also provides a 73 -Watt-hour battery for a long runtime.
The heart of the InfinityBook S 15 optionally forms a Core i5 – 1135 G7 or Core i7 – 1165 G7 Intel’s 10 Nanometer Production. Both come with four CPU cores, but the i7 model has a higher clock rate, uses more level 3 cache and has a more powerful graphics unit. Both models have Tuxedo with a Thermal Design Power (TDP) of 28 watts run, which ensures high turbo clock frequencies.
Long battery life and many connections The 15 , 6-inch IPS display covers 74 percent of the sRGB color space and lights up with up to 300 cd / m². The housing is made of aluminum and plastic; the complete notebook weighs around 1, 74 kilograms. The battery should last up to 19 hours – under realistic office conditions, Tuxedo promises 11 hours at half display brightness.
On the connection side, the InfinityBook S is 15 well equipped: 1 × Thunderbolt 4 as USB-C port including USB 4, DisplayPort Altmode and Power Delivery, 2 × USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbit / s, once each type A and type C), 1 × USB 2.0 type A, HDMI 2.0, audio combo jack, micro SD card reader and Gigabit Ethernet. Wi-Fi 6 (WLAN 802. 11 ax) and Bluetooth 5.1 are also included.
Tuxedo InfinityBook S 15 (19 Pictures) (Image: Tuxedo) From 802 Euro can be pre-ordered The basic configuration of the InfinityBook S 15 with Core i5 – 1135 G7, 250 GByte small SATA-6G-SSD and 8 GByte DDR4-SDRAM costs just under 940 Euro. Buyers can have various operating systems preinstalled, from the Tuxedo OS they have customized themselves to Ubuntu LTS and openSUSE – Windows 10 are available at an additional cost. If you want to save money, order without an SSD and retrofit one yourself. The interior is freely accessible thanks to the removable underside. Delivery is to begin at the end of February 2020.
Comparable notebooks with Tiger Lake CPU, lightweight housing and 250 – cd / m² display are available in small numbers 700 Euro available, but without the promised Linux compatibility and less maintenance-friendly.
( mma)
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