Laptops News - Page 42

Apple had quite the unveiling a few weeks ago with its refreshed MacBook Pro family, featuring a high-end $4000+ model that featured AMD's new Polaris-based Radeon Pro 460 graphics.

Then less than 24 hours ago we reported on the issue, with waves of people complaining about their new MacBook Pros experiencing video-related issues. There were issues with the new 15-inch MBP that sports AMD's new Radeon Pro 400 series graphics, with people taking to the MacRumor forums to complain about their problems. But there are a lot of people with 13-inch MacBook Pros that are experiencing issues, and there is no AMD hardware inside of those models - that's all an all-Intel MacBook Pro, with the same issues the model with the Radeon Pro 400 series graphics has.

The issue here is that Apple, a company that prides itself on being courageous for removing the headphone jack from the iPhone 7, and is meant to be the top of the pyramid when it comes to their quality products. So much so, that Apple even has a $300 book on its amazing designs, yet its new $4000+ laptop was shipped with major issues resulting in thousands of people complaining about issues on their new laptops.

It appears that Apple's new $2399 MacBook Pro may have some sort of hardware fault, with quite a few users reporting similar video and screen tearing/flickering issues that could be linked to the ultrabook's Radeon Pro discrete GPUs.

The issues seem to be affecting the latest 15-inch MacBook Pro models outfitted with a dedicated GPU from AMD's new Radeon Pro 400 Series, suggesting that a faulty graphics card could be the culprit. Many frustrated Apple users have been sharing their horror stories on the MacRumor Forums, and some aren't even able to use their MacBook Pros without visual issues.

The glitches appear to be widespread in the initial first wave of MacBook Pros, with Radeon Pro 450 and Radeon Pro 460 users reporting what appear to be symptoms of video card failure--artifacts, distorted colors, flickering and tearing. Bear in mind that the Radeon Pro 460 MacBook Pros cost a staggering $4,099, so at that price you'd expect everything to be in tip-top shape.

ASUS today introduced the insane ROG GX800 gaming laptop that rocks dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080s with liquid-cooling, a 4K UHD display, and other enthusiast-grade specs.

The ASUS ROG GX800 is the "world's most powerful Windows 10 Professional gaming laptop" and the "world's first gaming laptop to provide real 4K UHD gameplay" thanks to its high-end specifications. The ROG GX800 taps its liquid-cooled Hydro Overclocking System add-on dock for extreme overclocking across the board: the laptop's onboard Intel i7 6820HK can hit 4.2GHz and its dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080s to hit 1961MHz and VRAM overclocked to 5200MHz with the liquid-cooling add-on, and RAM can be OC'ed to 2800MHz.

The ROG GX800 rocks a 60Hz 18.4-inch 16:9 LED 4K IPS G-Sync display with 100% Adobe RGB, with its internal components clocking in with an Intel Core i7 6820HK Processor, up to 64GB of 2800Mhz DDR4 RAM, dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 SLI with 16GB of GDDR5X VRAM, and a 512GB PCIe SSD with support for up to three M.2 PCIe-based SSDs in RAID 0. The performance notebook also features a full ROG Aura RGB mechanical keyboard.

Apple might have unveiled its new MacBook Pro to the world with excitement, and while it is a beautiful machine - with it smaller and thinner than previous MBPs, and it rocks the new OLED touch bar - it's let down by its Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports, a courageous move.

Well, if you want to plug anything into your new MacBook Pro, you're going to need to throw down some benjamins on dongles. Yeah, lots of them. If you want to plug an HDMI cable into it and display your MacBook Pro on the TV, buy a dongle. Need an Ethernet jack? Dongle. SD card? Dongle. VGA port? Dongle. How about older Thunderbolt 2 devices? Dongle. What about your new iPhone 7? Dongle.

BGR went through the list of dongles you'd need, and it adds up quickly:

Apple has unveiled their new refreshed line of MacBook Pro laptops, with two new 13-inch models and a single higher-end 15-inch model that rocks Radeon Pro 450 graphics from AMD.

The lower-end 13-inch MBP features a dual-core Intel Core i5 processor at 2GHz, 8GB of RAM, 256GB SSD, 2 x Thunderbolt 3 ports and Intel Iris Graphics 540 - but it's the higher-end 13-inch MBP where the fun begins.

Apple has refreshed its MacBook Pro line up with some slightly beefier hardware, with Apple noting the new display on the MacBook Pro is 67% brighter, 67% higher contrast, and has 25% more colors than the MacBook.

Razer today unveiled its new high-end Razer Blade Pro ultrabook that's aimed at replacing your enthusiast desktop rig.

With the Razer Blade Pro, Razer packs in ultra-performance desktop-grade components in a sleek, ultra-slim form factor. The Razer Blade Pro rocks a 17.3-inch IGZO UHD 3840 x 2160 G-Sync display with multi-touch and 100% RGB Adobe color with up to 170 degree viewing angles, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 video card, an Intel Core i7-6700HQ quad-core CPU at up to 3.5GHz, 32GB of DDR4 RAM at 2133MHz, and up to two 1TB PCIe M.2 hard drives.

The ultrabook also rocks a full mechanical keyboard with Razer's Ultra-Low-Profile Mechanical switches and Razer Chroma color lighting. In order to efficiently manage heat, Razer's new ultrabook is outfitted with a custom cooling solution, made up of "dynamic heat exchange" and "vapor chamber" technology to effectively dissipate heat.

Google hasn't unveiled their new Chromebook Pro laptops yet, an expected high-end Chromebook unveiling that is meant to arrive later this month. Before that, Samsung has accidentally teased the Chromebook Pro on their own website, but it was quickly edited and removed - after Chrome Unboxed managed to get some system specs.

Codename Kevin is Google's purported Chromebook Pro, which features a 12.3-inch touchscreen with a resolution of 2400x1600 (234 PPI, 400 nets, 3:2 ratio) that is a Lenovo Yoga-like device with the screen capable of being rotated 360 degrees, turning it into a 12.3-inch tablet. Inside, there'll be an ARM-based 8-core processor at 2GHz, 4GB of RAM, and 32GB of local flash storage on top.

Samsung's upcoming Chromebook Pro will reportedly rock an all-aluminum chassis with curved edges, weighing just 2.38 pounds and 13.9mm at its thickest point. Battery life wise we're being told to expect around 10 hours, while it should hit shelves on October 24 at only $499 - tablet pricing, with the power of a laptop.

Apple has unleashed its iPhone 7, so now its onwards towards the next-gen MacBook Pro laptops which are looking to be announced sometime next month.

The new MacBook Pro is expected "some time in the second half of October", with Apple working on macOS 10.12.1 so that it fully supports the purported Touch ID sensor, and OLED touchbar. Apple is expected to fully revamp their 13-inch and 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro, which should rock Intel's new Kaby Lake CPUs - making for thinner, lighter MacBook Pros.

Apple is expected to unveil their Touch ID fingerprint sensor onto the next-gen MacBook Pros, borrowing the security side of things from the iPhone and iPad. The fingerprint sensor would allow MacBook Pro owners to log-in to their laptops using their fingerprint, or they would allow for Apple Pay purchases with your fingerprint, which is now supported by macOS Sierra, and iOS 10.

One of the more exciting things we've heard about Google in the last few months is that they're reportedly working on a next-gen OS that would see the combination of Android and Chrome OS, known as Andromeda. Well, now there are rumors that Google will unveil an Andromeda-powered 'Pixel 3' laptop, which will hit the market in Q3 2017.

The purported Pixel 3 would arrive with a 12.3-inch display, with Google wanting its ultra-thin laptop to be used in 'tablet' mode, too. We could see a Lenovo Yoga-type of flexibility with the Pixel 3, especially as it is supposedly powered by an Intel Core m3 or i5 processor, 32/128GB of storage and 8/16GB of RAM. We should see two models of Pixel 3, one with the Intel m3/32GB storage/8GB RAM and the higher-end model with Core i3/128GB storage/16GB RAM.

Android Police reports that there should be a fingerprint scanner and more on the Pixel 3:

Dell has impressed with its XPS laptops in 2015, with the company refreshing the smaller XPS 13 model with Intel's new Kaby Lake processors on the new 14nm process.

The upgraded XPS 13 arrives with the new Kaby Lake-based Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 processors offering more performance and improved battery life. Dell is touting around 22 hours of productivity in various apps, 13 hours for web browsing or Netflix streaming - not bad for a 13-inch laptop.

Dell's new XPS 13 starts at $799 with the 13-inch display optioned with a 1080p panel, Core i3 processor, 128GB SSD, and only 4GB of RAM. You can option for the higher resolution display and faster Kaby Labe processors, with a 3200x1800 touchscreen option, up to 16GB of RAM, and 1TB SSD. All of the XPS 13 models include high-speed Killer NIC-based Wi-Fi, and insanely fast Thunderbolt 3 connectivity.