Lexar SL500 1TB Portable SSD Review - The best of native USB

Lexar SL500 1TB Portable SSD Review - The best of native USB

Lexar's SL500 portable SSD is the best we've encountered. It offers the speed, compatibility, and portability that only SM2320-controlled devices can.

Apple's new iPad Pros feature dual OLED displays and are the company's thinnest devices ever

Apple has unveiled the new iPad Pro line-up, powered by the company's new 3-nanometer M4 chip. Available in two sizes, 13-inch and 11-inch, both feature the company's new 6K resolution Ultra Retina XDR display built with OLED technology.

Apple's new iPad Pros feature dual OLED displays and are the company's thinnest devices ever

Each iPad Pro uses two OLED panels to combine the light to "phenomenal full-screen brightness." We're talking 1000 nits of full-screen brightness for SDR and HDR content and 1600 nits of peak brightness for HDR.

"Tandem OLED technology enables sub-millisecond control over the color and luminance of each pixel, taking XDR precision further than ever," Apple writes. "Specular highlights in photos and video appear even brighter, and there's more detail in shadows and low light than ever before on iPad - all while delivering even more responsiveness to content in motion."

Continue reading: Apple's new iPad Pros feature dual OLED displays and are the company's thinnest devices ever (full post)

Lenovo teases AMD's next-gen Ryzen 8050 Strix Point APU inside its ThinkPad T14 Gen 5 laptop

Anthony Garreffa | Laptops | May 7, 2024 8:00 PM CDT

Lenovo has just teased its new ThinkPad T14 Gen 5 laptop with "Ryzen 8050" splashed front and center, which could be one of the earliest Zen 5-based laptops.

Lenovo teases AMD's next-gen Ryzen 8050 Strix Point APU inside its ThinkPad T14 Gen 5 laptop

In the brochure for the ThinkPad T14 Gen 5 laptop, the company has "Ryzen 8050" right in your face, and AMD Ryzen AI technology at bottom. The Ryzen AI tech Lenovo is referring to is the NPU (neural processing unit) for AI workloads, which the Ryzen 8050 "Strix Point" APUs feature an upgraded XDNA2-based NPU for AI workloads.

AMD has its current-gen Ryzen 8040 series "Hawk Point" APUs in the wild now, with an XDNA-based NPU with up to 16 TOPS of AI workload performance from the NPU alone.

Continue reading: Lenovo teases AMD's next-gen Ryzen 8050 Strix Point APU inside its ThinkPad T14 Gen 5 laptop (full post)

Apple announces new M4 chip built with 3-nanometer technology powering new iPad Pro

Kosta Andreadis | CPU, APU & Chipsets | May 7, 2024 7:32 PM CDT

Apple has announced the latest iteration of its custom processor, the new M4 chip, which will power the new iPad Pro line-up. The M4 chip is the second generation of Apple's 3-nanometer technology (28 billion transistors), and the company is touting a brand-new display engine that will utilize the Ultra Retina XDR OLED display on iPad Pro.

Apple announces new M4 chip built with 3-nanometer technology powering new iPad Pro

The new M4 CPU features up to 10 cores (4 performance cores and 6 efficiency cores), with a next-gen 10-core GPU that "builds on the next-generation GPU architecture introduced in M3" with new caching tech called Dynamic Caching, hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and hardware-accelerated mesh shading. It's the most powerful GPU ever to hit the iPad, so it will be interesting to see how it fares with modern games.

Of course, AI is a vital component of the new M4 chip - it's "Apple's fastest Neural Engine ever," sporting an AI performance of 38 TOPS, higher than Intel's current Core Ultra and AMD's current Ryzen offerings. The M4 also features faster memory bandwidth to help push AI performance even further.

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Sony takes back PlayStation Store top-sellers list, now has more best-sellers than Microsoft

Derek Strickland | Gaming | May 7, 2024 6:41 PM CDT

Sony now once again has more games on the PlayStation Store's best-sellers list than Microsoft does.

Sony takes back PlayStation Store top-sellers list, now has more best-sellers than Microsoft

Once Microsoft purchased Activision for $70 billion, Xbox became an overnight powerhouse. Microsoft now owns Activision Blizzard King, Bethesda/ZeniMax, and the myriad of teams under its Xbox Game Studios banner. That's a lot of IPs and franchises--Microsoft now casts one of the widest nets in gaming.

Buying ABK wasn't enough--Microsoft also needed to break exclusivity and bring its first-party games to competing platforms so it can "use what Sony has" to sell games. As a result of these expansion efforts, Microsoft took over the U.S. PlayStation Store top-sellers charts simply by virtue of its size.

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Nintendo gives update on when Switch 2 will be revealed

Derek Strickland | Gaming | May 7, 2024 5:13 PM CDT

Nintendo gives fans a very loose timeline on when the next-gen Switch will be revealed.

Nintendo gives update on when Switch 2 will be revealed

Today, Nintendo announced its Q4 financials that clearly illustrate the Switch is on its way out. It's time for a new model, and Nintendo is set to unveil its new Switch 2 (aka the Super Switch, Switch 4K, etc). The only question is...when?

In a surprise move, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa gave an update on Twitter on the new hardware. The company plans to reveal the new Switch during the current Fiscal Year 2025 timeline, which ends in March 2025. And it won't be revealed in June. So the system could be revealed at any time in 9 months.

Continue reading: Nintendo gives update on when Switch 2 will be revealed (full post)

Microsoft fixes odd situation where those upgrading to Windows 11 would get an old version

Darren Allan | Software & Apps | May 7, 2024 2:15 PM CDT

Windows 10 users wanting to upgrade to Windows 11 will soon be put on the latest version of Microsoft's newer operating system.

Microsoft fixes odd situation where those upgrading to Windows 11 would get an old version

What, you might be thinking: Didn't this happen already? No, actually, because some of those upgrading from Windows 10 found themselves migrated to Windows 11 22H2, rather than the 23H2 flavor of the OS.

Windows Latest reports that they have observed on several Windows 10 PCs that Microsoft was offering the upgrade to Windows 11, but that it would install the 22H2 version.

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Buying a maxed-out M4 iPad Pro? You'll need to spend almost Apple Vision Pro money to do it

Apple's brand-new M4 iPad Pro has officially been announced at today's 'Let Loose' event and, as expected, it's quite the beast. It comes with the new M4 chip, making this the first time that particular silicon has found its way into a device that we can buy. And it comes with a very impressive new OLED display, too. The M4 iPad Pro is every bit the flagship tablet. So it's perhaps no surprise to anyone who is paying attention that maxing one out is going to get very expensive, very quickly.

Buying a maxed-out M4 iPad Pro? You'll need to spend almost Apple Vision Pro money to do it

How expensive? The 13-inch iPad Pro starts at $1,299 so it's where we'll start as well. That's already more than enough for most people to start looking further down the lineup. But if you really do need everything the iPad Pro has to offer and have money to spend, it turns out Apple will very happily take $3,077 from you. To put that into perspective, the Apple Vision Pro costs $3,499 for the 256GB model.

How did we get that far? Well, that $1,299 asking price is just the base 256GB model so the most obvious way to spend more is to add extra storage. The 2TB option costs an extra $1,000 right out the gate, and then we get to the display. Such a gorgeous 13-inch display deserves the best, so let's add the nano-texture glass as well. It preserves the fidelity of the display while reducing glare and reflections, so why not?

Continue reading: Buying a maxed-out M4 iPad Pro? You'll need to spend almost Apple Vision Pro money to do it (full post)

Buying a new M4 iPad Pro or M2 iPad Air? You'll need new accessories and maybe a new SIM

Apple today announced the new M4 iPad Pro and an updated M2 iPad Air, with both tablets now available for preorder. They'll both go on sale next week alongside the first Apple Pencil Pro and a refreshed Apple Magic Keyboard. And all of those things could make for an expensive upgrade.

Buying a new M4 iPad Pro or M2 iPad Air? You'll need new accessories and maybe a new SIM

Apple announced all of the new devices and accessories at the same time which should give you an idea of how intertwined they all are. And it turns out that buying a new iPad Pro or iPad Air could soon get expensive when you factor in that you could well need two new accessories. And then there's the matter of the SIM card you use in your old cellular iPad, too.

Starting with the accessories, new M4 iPad Pro buyers need to know that they won't be able to use their old Magic Keyboard or Apple Pencil with their new tablet. Apple says that the older magnetic Apple Pencils won't work because of the change in charging and attachment mechanism required for the Apple Pencil Pro, so that's an extra $129 that buyers will have to fork out. The USB-C Apple Pencil will work, but you'll lose out on all those cool features of the Apple Pencil 2nd-gen let alone what the new Apple Pencil Pro has to offer. Considering many new M4 iPad Pro buyers will upgrade from older models with the Apple Pencil 2nd-gen, a new stylus will be in order.

Continue reading: Buying a new M4 iPad Pro or M2 iPad Air? You'll need new accessories and maybe a new SIM (full post)

Apple announces a big new Final Cut Pro update for iPad and Mac

Oliver Haslam | Software & Apps | May 7, 2024 1:15 PM CDT

Apple's Let Loose event was billed as the one where Apple would announce a new iPad Pro and a refreshed iPad Air and it definitely didn't disappoint on that front. But the company also took the time to announce a couple of new software updates for its creative apps, including the popular Final Cut Pro app for the iPad and Mac.

Apple announces a big new Final Cut Pro update for iPad and Mac

The new Final Cut Pro for iPad 2 is a big update and coincides with the release of the new iPad Pro, and Apple says that it transforms the tablet into a multicam production studio with Live Multicam, a feature giving users the ability to connect and preview up to four cameras at the same time.

Apple also announced new AI features coming to Final Cut Pro for Mac 10.78, giving users the ability to rapidly edit the look of videos and photos with a single click, among other things. There are new workflow-accelerating tools that are designed to bring new ways to manage color correction and more, too.

Continue reading: Apple announces a big new Final Cut Pro update for iPad and Mac (full post)

Apple slashed the price of its entry-level 10th-gen iPad and killed off the 9th-gen model

Following Apple's Let Loose iPad event the company has confirmed that the 10th-generation entry-level iPad is no longer selling for the previous $449 asking price but has instead been reduced by $100. The new $349 price is much more befitting of a tablet at the lower-end of the iPad lineup, while Apple has had to cancel an older model to make space.

Apple slashed the price of its entry-level 10th-gen iPad and killed off the 9th-gen model

The previous-generation 9th-generation iPad was still being sold for $329 as a way to offer a cheaper option for iPad buyers. However, the price reduction of the 10th-generation model means that Apple has now discontinued the 9th-generation model, making way for the better tablet in the process.

The 10th-generation iPad comes with an A14 chip and has an all-screen design with Apple removing the Home button from the entry-level iPad for the first time. That move gave the model a new, more modern look when compared to the previous generation tablets and better matched that of the iPad Air and iPad Pro.

Continue reading: Apple slashed the price of its entry-level 10th-gen iPad and killed off the 9th-gen model (full post)