Microsoft finally has a 15-inch clamshell laptop offering with the new Surface Laptop 3. The previous versions of the Surface Laptop were only offered in a 13.5-inch screen size. While these screen sizes were adequate, nothing can replace the good old 15-inch Ultrabook form factor when it comes to productivity tasks. The screen real estate is just worlds apart from the smaller Surface Laptop 3 in terms of split view multitasking. 15-inch laptops just feel more natural to the human eye. It’s like you’re viewing two documents side-by-side during split view mode. While 13-inchers are perfectly capable of this as well, some might find it difficult to do so without squinting. It’s not a surprise, therefore, that a laptop line that’s always been marketed as the ultimate in productivity, to launch a 15-inch version as well. This endeavour comes in the form of the 15-inch Surface Laptop 3. 15-Inch Screen Let’s start with the most obvious departure from Surface Laptop 2 – the screen. It’s important to note that Microsoft also still offers the 13-inch Surface Laptop 3. The sales team at Microsoft is just so obviously pushing for the 15-inch models. But they’re probably doing so more for another reason than just the screen real estate. More on that later… As for now, let’s focus on the screen size. The 15-inch screen is just a blessing for the fans of the Surface Laptop line. The combination of the screen size and the 3:2 aspect ratio is just a match made in mobile productivity heaven. We’ve seen this in the high-powered Surface Book 2 but those hybrids are aimed at a different set of audience. Both the Surface Book 3 models are aimed squarely at the regular user, not the creative professionals that the Surface Book is trying to woo. In both computers, though, the extra vertical space means more information is always available on your browser. The difference is subtle between the 16:9 and the 3:2, but once you go back to a traditional 16:9 aspect ratio, you’d know what you’re missing. Ryzen CPUs Yep. You read that right. Microsoft finally has an AMD-equipped laptop coming out of their stables. The consumer editions, meaning the ones that are going to be available to the general public, are going to be powered by either a 3rd generation Ryzen 5 or a 3rd generation Ryzen 7. For Enterprise consumers, however, they’re sticking with Intel. Why this is the case is anyone’s guess. If you’ve been following news on desktop CPUs, you’d probably know that Ryzen has, for the first time in years, been beating Intel in terms of sales and in terms of raw processing power. This should mean that going the Ryzen route would be a good move for the Surface Laptop 3. However, the fact of the matter is that mobile CPUs are not the same as desktops. Ryzen is still playing catch up to Intel in this field. In terms of processing power, the two brands are about equal. Intel wins only ever so slightly over its AMD counterpart. However, in terms of power efficiency, the Ryzen-equipped Surface Laptops are no match for the Intel ones. Despite having a considerably low-powered chip at 15W, battery life is still surprisingly about 1 hour shorter than the Intel models for Enterprise users. Because the Surface Laptop 3 is primarily a mobile device this, is a huge win for Intel. It’s important to note, however, that even the Ryzen-equipped Surface Laptop 3 has an above average battery life for 15-inch laptops. It’s just that for the measly $100 price increase if you can get your hands on an Enterprise Surface Laptop, it’s a no brainer choice. The Surface Laptop 3 with Intel processors are much better laptops than the ones available for consumers. The APUs on the desktop chipsets of the Ryzen processors have also been praised by a lot of customers. Unfortunately, the AMD and Microsoft partnership didn’t come up with a similar concoction. Instead, some early users have complained that they've been experiencing random crashes while putting load on the GPU. This is pretty unfortunate because Microsoft is obviously pushing this product hard on its customers. The website for the Laptop 3 even has a dedicated page for their partnership with AMD in making these chips. Build Quality and Aesthetics As it has always been for Microsoft hardware, build quality on the Surface Laptop 3 is excellent. It has a boxy silhouette dominated by straight lines and sharp edges. If I were to compare it to a car, it would be the Lamborghini Diablo from the 90s. Whether you’re in to that sort of aesthetic is up to you. What’s sure that everyone would like is the durability of the device. Of course, we couldn’t test this part but sometimes, it's enough to be able to hold it and immediately feel that the product is premium. Furthermore, the hinge is still as solid as ever. It’s still openable with just one hand which is a feature that more and more people seem to appreciate in their Ultrabook. The weight distribution of this device, on the other hand, is top-notch. Dave 2D, a famous YouTuber, claims it's one of the easiest to spin on his fingers. This means it'll be easy to travel with especially if you're just going carry it around by hand tucked between your arm and hip. However, it doesn’t seem that they’ve changed much in terms of physical features except, of course, for the addition of the long-awaited USB Type-C It’s the third version that they’ve used this chassis and it’s already showing its age. Despite the 13.5-inchers having four different material and colour finishes, the 15-inch Surface Laptops are strictly offered in metal and in just two colours – matte black and platinum. This way, Microsoft nudges it towards a more professional crowd. They wouldn’t be out of place in the middle of a conference room. The louder colours like sandstone and cobalt blue, however, are more at home in a more relaxed environment. At the end of the day, the 15-inch Surface Laptop 3 is a great mobile productivity device. However, the fact that there’s an even better device from the same company seems like a cheap shot from Microsoft. Hopefully, the Intel-equipped laptops can be made available to the rest of us as well in the near future.

#contest2019 #battlestations #ultrawide

#couple #battlestation #gaming

#contest2019 #battlestation #gaming

When you put the word “Pro” in your products, people expect them to have professional-level capabilities. For the longest time, this meant some spec bumps from the base models of devices. Whether that’s something that you’re okay with is a matter of discussion. But lately, technology has evolved in a way that had made spec bumps more like a blip in the radar. The gap between low-end and high-end processors, for example, have become slimmer and slimmer. MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs, for example, are not very different machines in terms of capabilities. Sure, you have the option for a graphics card with the Pro, but the fact of the matter here is that the integrated graphics processor that comes with the Air can do the same job… just for a little longer processing time though. Slapping the Pro in this case simply translates into a convenience in terms of the speed. Output-wise they’re the same. To me, this sounds a bit like overselling. A real professional can do as much with a MacBook Air as he or she can with a MacBook Pro. If you put into account that the top-tier models of the last generation MacBook Pros had thermal throttling issues, then you've got a recipe for a useless pro moniker. What's the point of buying a MacBook Pro when it slows down while doing pro-level tasks? This makes the 2019 release of the MacBook Pro, such an important one for Apple. Its improvements over the previous generation are squarely aimed at increasing professional productivity. Minor Professional-Grade Spec Bumps It’s not an upgrade if there’s no spec bump so Apple obliged on this aspect. Because it's the bigger version of the MacBook Pro it gets the 9th Generation Intel Core i7 which can further be configured to a Core i9 chip. This should be enough for the heaviest of photo and video editing tasks that professionals might get themselves confronted with. The least expensive version that you can buy will have 1TB of PCIe SSD which can further be upgraded to 8TB if you’re willing to pay more than $2,799. For professionals who edit videos on the go, these amounts should suffice even if you’re using 4K HDR footage. Multitasking should also be no problem for this workstation as it starts with 16GB of RAM. If that’s not enough for you, there’s are upgrade options that range from 32GB to 64GB. Of course, these improvements don’t mean much if you’ve already got a hold on last year’s models. The 9th and 8th generation CPUs are so slight improvement-wise that it might not even be worth the bother to compare them. However, if you’re coming from a MacBook Pro from 2 generations ago, then the spec bumps might be compelling enough to make you upgrade. Slightly Larger Screen and Chassis Makes a World of Difference The heating issues were the downfall of the last generation MacBook Pros, especially for the top-of-the-line Core i9 version. It throttles the performance midway through a CPU intensive task. This effectively negates the spec superiority of the MacBook Pro from MacBook Air in terms of high-intensity CPU tasks such as video rendering. The larger 16-inch screen is an industry-first. Apple had shrunk the bezels even further than they already have which translates into noticeably bigger screen real estate without adding too much bulk to the chassis. To fit in the new 16-inch screen, Apple decided to make the new larger MacBook Pro a bit bigger. The change is small enough that it’s barely noticeable in the physical realm. It’s what Apple did with this extra real estate inside the device itself that makes a whole lot of sense. With it, they installed larger heatsinks which improved ventilation immensely. This improvement eliminated the throttling issues from last year. For a workstation laptop, this small improvement makes a huge difference in terms of user experience. The bigger screen real estate means an easier time fitting all the tools you need on standby on your screen. It also helps you see more of your subject. And when you’re done editing, the larger heatsink helps keep rendering times low. One Last Thing… True to Steve Jobs’ spirit, the new MacBook Pro 16 also improved on a few fronts that even tech pundits failed to predict. In this new version, they’ve improved audio quality in both input and output side. Upon initial testing, the speakers sound much like a built-in speaker from high-end TVs. This is a huge improvement because, for the longest time, we have accepted laptop speakers as the lesser audio delivery system. To achieve this, Apple again made use of the slightly larger chassis to install 3 speakers on each side of the laptop. This two of these speakers are woofers that dramatically improve the bass while minimizing vibrations. This enables the laptop to play deeper and richer bass without contributing to making the audio sound tinny. The result is astoundingly rich sounds with stereo separation. If you like watching movies on your laptop without headphones, this might just be the only acceptable way to do it. Lastly, Apple also improved the microphone on this thing. Some reviewers even recorded full songs on them with surprisingly acceptable results. They now use a three-mic setup that mimics a studio-array which cancels out echoes and hiss that we normally find in other laptop mics. The Whole Package Apple’s approach with the MacBook Pro 16 is a wholistic one. It improved on everything it could including dropping some features from the previous model that didn’t work. They've rolled back their butterfly switches and completely took out the touch bar to name a few. This new MacBook Pro 16 has become the full package laptop that fans have, for the longest time, been clamouring for.

#battlestation #quadmonitor #green

There are a few trivial parts of a gaming setup that have a deceptively huge impact on your entire gaming experience. One of these is the gaming chair. Even if you have the latest and greatest CPU and GPU, if you’re not sat comfortably, you wouldn’t be able to use your glorious system for more than a few minutes. I’ve seen one too many desk setups like this that performs magnificently on max settings via its hardware, but I just can’t imagine how that can be done for more than a few minutes with sub-par lumbar support. You can build a kickass system out of the best components but if you don’t have the foresight to invest in a good gaming chair, your experience will always be diminished. So, if you’re looking for the gaming chair that’ll suit your needs, here’s a little helping hand. In this piece, I’m going to give a few pointers on which aspects of a gaming chair that you need to look out for. Ergonomics Sitting for long periods can be just as damaging to your health as smoking. This has been a dominant debate in health science circles for a long time now. But if you’re going to sit for long periods, like when you’re gaming, it may be less damaging to your health if you’re sitting on a comfortable chair. Some chairs are more comfortable than others. A bar stool for, example, is nowhere in the league of a good gaming chair. But, that’s exactly what I’ve seen in many desk setups that I’ve come across. So, if you have the chance, try out the gaming chair of your dreams before buying it. The contours of our body are different from each other so merely browsing visually might not be the best bet here. Feeling how the chair supports your back is of paramount. Versatility Gamers aren’t stuck with just PC. A lot of are console gamers too. So, having a chair that adjusts to how you’re getting your gaming fix is a huge plus. Whether you’re using a mouse and keyboard or a game controller, your chair must be able to make you feel comfortable. At the minimum, the armrests should have some sort of y-axis adjustability. Having armrests that are either too high or too low is a sure way of getting stiff shoulders. Furthermore, the chair height itself should also be adjustable. Leg length can vary wildly between individuals so it should be taken into consideration as well especially if you intend on letting other people use it. Materials Gaming hard can make you lose track of time which, for some people, can lead to several hours of sitting. This makes the material your chair is made out of an important aspect to think about. It should be appropriate for your environment. The cool look of a leather gaming chair might be enticing but if you’re gaming in warm dry environments, you’re going to want to stay away from it. It’s not breathable, high-maintenance, and not very durable. It’s surely going to start cracking within the first few months of use in dry environments. And if you're an avid gamer, it's prone to getting a lot of abrasion damage as well. It also tends to get smelly. This is because leather absorbs moisture. And because it’s not breathable, you’re prone to sweating a lot when gaming on it. It’s surely going to absorb the sweat at the back of your neck when things get too extreme at your favourite FPS or horror game. The smell of accumulated sweat trapped in a leather seat isn’t the most pleasant smell out there. Leather seats, however, a great if you’re in a climate-controlled environment. It’s almost stain-proof and very comfortable to sit on for extended periods as it serves as an additional layer of cushion. Fabric gaming chairs, on the other hand, are more breathable. Sweat, therefore, is not as much of a problem as it is on leather. Some fabric chairs are even washable which makes it a bit more durable. This makes sense, because it stains easily, unlike leather. So be warned if you’re the type to bring your food into your gaming area. The centrepiece of any gaming setup is the gaming unit itself. And within that gaming unit lay the entire setup’s heart and soul - the CPU and GPU combination. Whether a game would run with a playable frame rate all depends on these two tiny little things. Nobody likes gaming on an underpowered system. Picking out which components to use in your gaming setup, therefore, is understandably one of the most important decisions you’d have to make. However, you can have the best CPU and GPU combination that money can buy; but if you have a crappy chair, the gaming experience is surely going to crumble. It’s like having a heart and soul but no mind or body for a complete entity. So, do yourself a favour… Pick out a decent gaming chair.

I found it interesting that the article asks the question "how can Samsung convince buyers to stick with the conventional, current-generation handsets instead of opting for shiny new foldable phones?" I think the current problem is exactly the opposite - getting buyers to trust the new folding technology, especially after the initial bomb of the Fold release.

There are some really awesome deals going on for Black Friday. Walmart is selling the iPad Pro for $400 off the regular price! That alone makes me want to take part in the craziness that is Black Friday, heh.