Tag: Reviews

AMD today announced three products at Computex 2026. One of these is a re-released 4-year-old CPU, another is a scaled down version of a 3-year-old CPU, and the third is a year-old graphics card. Just in case you were wondering how the home PC gaming industry is currently going. The first is the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which was discontinued in 2024 after a two-year run. This was the first CPU by AMD to feature the company's 3D V-Cache technology. It's now being brought back, as it is based on the AM4 platform that can still be run on DDR4 memory. Speaking of AM4, the platform is...

Nvidia just announced the RTX Spark – this is AI server tech trickling down to the consumer space with a Grace CPU (20 cores), a Blackwell GPU (6,144 CUDA cores) and 128GB of LPDDR5X. Now here’s what’s next for servers – and maybe one day consumer devices too. The new Vera CPU is the CPU half of the Vera Rubin platform – the other being the Rubin GPU. Vera promises a 1.8x average speedup over “leading x86 CPUs” (Nvidia didn’t name them explicitly). Vera is massive – it has 88 Olympus cores (based on the ARM instruction set) with Spatial Multithreading for 176 threads per socket. The...

Microsoft's next Surface will be its most powerful yet. The Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra was just announced at Computex 2026, and it's taking the MacBook Pro head-on. The Surface Laptop Ultra packs the just-announced Nvidia RTX Spark system on a chip. It packages up to 20 ARM CPU cores, up to 128GB of LPDDR5X unified RAM, and a Blackwell GPU with 6,144 CUDA cores, which Microsoft says roughly translates to an Nvidia RTX 5070. The power draw is expected to reach up to 80W, so a low-powered 5070. Microsoft says the thermal headroom of the new Surface Laptop Ultra is 2.5x that of the...

The Steam Deck used to be the go-to x86 gaming handheld, but after the recent ridiculous price hike, it’s hard to recommend. There are alternatives like the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X, which launched last year at $1,000 (24GB/1TB). This used to be a lot of money, except the 16GB/1TB OLED Deck is $950 now. In our review of the Xbox Ally X, we pointed out some major cons for such an expensive handheld, e.g. having an LCD instead of an OLED panel and the iffy analog sticks. We have some good news and some bad news – the new Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20 bundle solves both issues. Wait, a bundle? Well,...

The past weekend I had the incredible opportunity to visit the beautiful city of Budapest. Better yet, I was able to attend the biggest game in this season's club football – the UEFA Champions League Final, featuring French side Paris Saint Germain from France and England's Arsenal. Oppo, which is an official global partner of UEFA for the tournament were kind enough to offer me a ticket for the game so I figured I'd use the opportunity to test the Find X9 Ultra's camera and the teleconverter from its Earth Explorer Kit and how well it can serve on my travels. Now don't expect any...

Xiaomi introduced a new paintjob in an attempt to refresh one of its mid-rangers and put it back in the spotlight. The hue is called Bold Yellow color and it's put on top of the Poco X8 Pro. Poco X8 Pro in Bold Yellow The company says the new Bold Yellow color is inspired by the racetrack with all the stripes and the black accent color around the frame. We don't get to see an accented frame that often, and it looks nice, at least in those official images. However, the back panel has a more industrial vibe to it with the bolts and the semi-transparent-like design. Of...

Alongside the newly unveiled Huawei nova 16, 16 Pro and 16 Ultra, Huawei also launched the Huawei nova 16z. This is not an entirely new model, it is more like if you took the nova 15 from last year and added BeiDou satellite connectivity. There is a bit more to it than that, but just a bit. The phone has a 6.7” OLED display with 1,084 x 2,412px resolution, 10-bit colors and aluminosilicate glass like before. However, this time it’s not an LTPO panel. Similarly, the 50MP selfie camera (f/2.4), 50MP main (f/1.9) and 12MP 3x/69mm telephoto modules (RYYB sensor, f/2.4 lens with OIS) sound just...

Huawei’s nova series of mid-rangers has some unique designs and the new 16 generation shakes things up again. We’re sure that the “spectacles” look on the Pro in particular will attract a lot of comments. Looks aside, the new nova 16 and 16 Pro bring significant camera improvements, bigger batteries, a faster chipset for the vanilla model and satellite messaging for both. Starting with the Huawei nova 16 Pro, the phone boasts a large 200MP 1/1.28” RYYB sensor in its main camera. It sits behind an f/1.8 lens with OIS. Joining it is a 50MP ultra-wide camera with an f/2.2 lens with autofocus...

Just as expected, Huawei unveiled its nova 16 series in China today with four members. The top dog in the rotation is the nova 16 Ultra, and it brings an impressive set of cameras and a substantial battery capacity. Nova 16 Ultra is armed with a 7,000 mAh battery, which supports 100W wired, 50W wireless and up to 7.5W reverse wireless charging. The phone also holds IP68 and IP69 ingress protection ratings. Up front, nova 16 Ultra features a 6.84-inch LTPO OLED with FHD+ resolution and a 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate. The panel features Kunlun Glass protection and is rated at up...

Nvidia took the stage at Computex 2026 for its highly awaited entry into the consumer chip market - meet the RTX Spark, a chipset that merges a powerful and efficient ARM CPU with an RTX GPU. The RTX Spark superchip merges an Nvidia Grace CPU with up to 20 cores with an Nvidia Blackwell GPU with 6,144 CUDA cores, and up to 128GB of fast, LPDDR5X unified memory. The processor is based on Nvidia's GB10 chip inside the DGX Spark platform, a class of enterprise-aimed mini-PCs running a custom Ubuntu Linux. The GPU is basically an RTX 5070 (non-Ti), having the same amount of CUDA cores. The...