Xiaomi’s Mi 55W Wireless Charging Stand offers ultra-fast charging for under US$40

The Mi 10 Ultra has a lot going for it, including its ability to charge wirelessly. However, while many modern flagship smartphones support wireless charging, few can recharge as quickly as the Mi 10 Ultra can. Xiaomi boasts that the Mi 10 Ultra can wirelessly charge at up to 50 W, a wattage that is well beyond what the capabilities of most smartphones.

The wireless charger that you need to charge at 50 W is reasonably-affordable, too. Xiaomi’s Mi 55W Wireless Charging Stand is not yet available from the company directly in Europe, but it can be purchased from retailers like AliExpress, Gearbest and Banggood. The latter sells the charger for US$55.99, but Gearbest has it even cheaper at US$42.99. AliExpress has it even cheaper still at around US$37, though.

According to Xiaomi, its wireless charger can recharge the Mi 10 Ultra in 40 minutes and has an active fan to keep things cool. The charger supports Qi Extended Power Profile (EPP), so it should recharge other smartphones like the Pixel 4 series quickly, too. The Google Pixel Stand retails for US$69, so Xiaomi’s effort could well be a better alternative, especially as it also includes a stand.

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon announced; no US or European releases seemingly planned for lightweight Tiger Lake laptop

Lenovo has unveiled the Yoga Slim 7i Carbon, its compact Tiger Lake ultrabook. According to Liliputing, Lenovo does not have any plans to bring the machine to North America. However, it will be available in Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Thailand, and Vietnam from this month. Pricing for these countries remains unknown, though. It is also unclear whether the device will make its way to Europe.

As expected, the Yoga Slim 7i Carbon has a 13.3-inch display with a QHD resolution and a 16:10 aspect ratio. The 2,560 x 1,600-pixel panel corresponds to a 91% screen-to-body ratio, but Lenovo has still found space for a Windows Hello IR camera. Powering the machine is ‘up to’ a Core i7 Tiger Lake processor, although it remains unknown exactly what CPUs Lenovo will offer for the device.

However, Lenovo has confirmed that the Yoga Slim 7i Carbon will be available with up to a 1 TB M.2 PCIe SSD and 16 GB of LPDDR4X dual-channel RAM. Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 support is also on board, as are two Thunderbolt 4 ports and a USB 3.0 Gen 1 Type-C port.

The Yoga Slim 7i Carbon will only be available in Moon White and weighs less than 1 kg thanks to its carbon fibre chassis. Lenovo has still included a 50 Wh battery that can charge at up to 65 W, though. The machine measures 296.9 x 208.6 mm and 14.9 mm at its thickest point, too.

Xiaomi Mi 10T Pro irreparability revealed in teardown video

Xiaomi has released yet another teardown video, this time for the Mi 10T Pro. Officially called the Mi 10T Pro 5G, the device features a bevvy of flagship hardware, such as a Snapdragon 865 chipset, UFS 3.1 storage, a 108 MP camera and a 5,000 mAh battery. The company’s teardown video underlines just how complex and irrepairable the Mi 10T Pro is, though.

Xiaomi stresses that one should tear down their Mi 10T Pro, despite making it look easier than it is to disassemble the device. For some reason, the company decided to remove several steps from its short video, including the process for removing the back panel and the battery. The latter appears to have a pull-tab of some sort, but that may not necessarily be the case. Hopefully, Xiaomi has included pull tabs, as that would make the battery easier to replace.

Either way, the fingerprint scanner is replaceable, as are the camera sensors. The 108 MP primary camera dwarfs the other lenses though, explaining why Xiaomi included such a large housing for them. Sadly, Xiaomi has soldered the USB Type-C port to a daughter-board, meaning that you must replace it and the dual-SIM card slot if the Type-C port malfunctions.

The video highlights the cooling efficiency of the Mi 10T Pro too, with Xiaomi focusing on its graphite and copper cooling systems. From what we can tell, Xiaomi has included a sheet of copper over the SoC and a graphite layer behind the display. Beneath this sits a copper heat pipe, which runs through the middle of the device.

Overall, the Mi 10T Pro does not seem that repairable, not least because Xiaomi does not sell any replacement parts for the device. The inclusion of multiple soldered parts emphasises this, which is a shame considering the value for money that the Mi 10T Pro offers.

Zeblaze Thor 6: Smartwatch with full-size smartphone CPU and Android 10 available in the US

While Apple and other big manufacturers dominate the international smartwatch market, there are still more and more startups coming up, especially in China, that are trying to gain a foothold in this rapidly growing market. These small companies like to take unusual approaches to their devices to attract attention. One of these manufacturers is Zeblaze, which does a lot different with its new Thor 6 smartwatch compared to established companies like Samsung.

Hence, the company has chosen the Helio P22 as its processor, which is normally intended for smartphones. Accordingly, LTE is always on board. With 4 GB RAM and 64 GB internal memory, the smartwatch has considerably more storage capacity than the Galaxy Watch 3, for example. At 830 mAh, the battery should provide runtimes of two to three days. Nevertheless, the Thor 6 comes with many classic smartwatch features, which means that you can use it to track various types of sport and your pulse.

The round IPS display is 1.6 inches in size and has a resolution of 400 x 400 pixels. Furthermore, the Thor 6 has a 5-MP camera in both the front and the back. The ceramic and plastic chassis is IP67-certified and weighs 74 grams. Considering the specifications, this is relatively light. In comparison, the Galaxy Watch 3 is only a little lighter at 53.8 grams. As operating system Android 10 is preinstalled.

Currently the Zeblaze Thor 6 is not available in Europe. However, at US$219 on AliExpress the smartwatch is rather cheap for customers in the United States and is likely to make its way to Europe soon.

Fortnite can now run at 90 FPS on the Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 and Galaxy Tab S7+

Despite high-refresh-rate screens becoming increasingly commonplace even among low-cost smartphones, many applications cannot take advantage of it. In particular, several mobile games max out at 60 FPS and require direct intervention from their developers to run at higher framerates. Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 and Galaxy Tab S7+ owners will be pleased to know that they can now play Fortnite at 90 FPS.

Samsung announced the update via a blog post. To get started, all one needs to do is update the game via the Galaxy Store and enable the 90 FPS mode via the game’s settings. It becomes the second Android device after the OnePlus 8 series that can run Fortnite at that framerate. The problem is, both Apple and Google have removed Fortnite from their respective platforms, making the Galaxy Tab S7 series one of the few devices that can run the game, to begin with.

Interestingly enough, both the Galaxy Tab S7 and Galaxy Tab S7+ come with 120Hz screens. However, it is unlikely that either device will be able to deliver 120 FPS consistently. Even the iPad Pro had to sacrifice some visual fidelity and run the game at 720p to run Fortnite at that frame rate. One can only hope that Samsung and Epic implement something similar for the future Galaxy devices running more powerful hardware.

Latest Xiaomi Mi 11 renders take more design cues from the Mi 3 than the Mi 10

More renders of the Xiaomi Mi 11 (or Xiaomi Mi 11 Pro even) have appeared on Weibo, and they look vastly different from those that appeared in Chinese media back in July. While there’s still a full-screen display to gaze upon thanks to the widely expected under-display camera unit, the shape of the Mi 11 and its rear-facing camera setup are much different in the latest renders.

The Xiaomi Mi 11 pictured here appears to have a “waterfall” type display that falls gracefully over the sides of the smartphone, which seems to have a surprisingly square-shaped form to it that is somewhat reminiscent of 2013’s Xiaomi Mi 3 device. Curved edges and sides have been de rigueur for the majority of smartphones over recent years, so it would be a daring change for Xiaomi to go “square”.

The rear-facing camera housing looks quite egregious in these Xiaomi Mi 11 renders, which are more likely to be fan-made efforts than leaked images from an official source. With a flagship device like the Mi 10T Pro managing to pack its quad camera system into a neat arrangement, it’s hard to imagine Xiaomi would take a backward step by placing such an unsightly block on the rear. The tech tipster on Weibo also mentions the SD 875 and 150x zoom for the Mi 11, which could see the light of day in the first quarter of 2021.

Intel quietly upgrades the Core i3-9100F processor to 10th-gen for the same price

u/Akira13645 on Reddit has observed that Intel has updated the Core i3-x100F series for the final quarter of 2020 (4Q2020). This recently-established line exists to offer budget processing without UHD graphics. The new i3-10100F still fits this mold, although it also has marked Comet Lake-afforded advantages over its predecessor.

For example, it is the first F-variant to exhibit Intel Hyper-Threading Technology – which means double the threads for its 4 cores for the first time. They can use Turbo Boost Max v2.0 for a maximal clock of 4.3GHz, whereas the i3-9100F could only go up to 4.2GHz. 

The i3-10100F also now supports up to 128GB of DDR4-2666 RAM, whereas its predecessor was rated for half that much DDR4-2400 memory. There is also a maximum bandwidth of 41.6 GB/s compared to 37.5 GB/s. The Comet Lake-based i3 F variant also uses the LGA 1200 socket rather than the LGA 1151.

Then again, the two chipsets share a TDP of 65W, a 6MB cache, have 2-channel memory and are, of course, still both 14nm. The Core i3-10100F is also still pitched at low-powered PCs, probably thin clients and tablets, and has an MRSP of US$79 to $97.

Intel Core i9-10885H is almost 20 percent slower than the Core i7-10875H

Intel vPro-enabled processors are typically slower than their non-vPro counterparts due to the overhead necessary for the integrated security features. The vPro-enabled Core i7-10810U, for example, is about 10 to 15 percent slower than the consumer-oriented Core i7-10710U even though the higher-digit naming convention might suggest otherwise.

The latest vPro CPU we tested was the 10th gen Comet lake-H Core i9-10885H as found on the Dell Precision 3551. When compared to its consumer-oriented counterpart the Core i7-10875H, the Core i9 CPU is slower in multi-threaded applications by about 20 percent according to CineBench benchmarks. Other benchmarks like Blender, 7-Zip, LibreOffice, and HWBOT show a smaller gap of about 10 percent between the two processors.

The 20 percent performance deficit against the Core i7-10875H is wider than anticipated, but we do believe the i9-10885H is able to narrow the gap if configured on laptops with better cooling. The CPU in our Precision 3551 test unit, for example, would stabilize at just 2.7 GHz when at 100 percent utilization which is only 300 MHz above the base clock rate. Intel rates the processor for much higher Turbo Boost clock rates of up to 5.3 GHz meaning there is plenty of untouched performance headroom if laptops are able to support it. The Precision 3551, being a budget mobile workstation, likely wasn’t designed to run a Core i9 CPU anywhere near its maximum potential.

It’s unlikely that we’ll get to test many more Core i9-10885H laptops as this particular processor is quite uncommon, but it’s something to keep in mind for those who want to squeeze as much performance as possible out of their vPro-enabled business laptops or mobile workstations.

Aorus 5 KB: A lot of space for storage devices

In the gaming sector, many manufacturers try to stand out from the competition through their own designs and sophisticated cooling systems. The results are usually highly adapted laptops that can more or less implement their performance well. Maintenance options or hardware expansions by the user are limited and often not even intended at all.

The laptops under the Aorus label usually also set clear accents that connect buyers to the brand. On the contrary, the Clevo barebone, on which the Aorus 5 KB is based, offers a rather plain design. But this is also accompanied by a replaceable battery. Users can also access a free SATA and a free M.2 slot inside whereby a second M.2 slot is occupied by the SSD installed by the manufacturer. The RAM, which is installed in two memory slots, can also be exchanged and expanded as desired.

But since Gigabyte now depends on the cooling system of the Clevo case, a lot of optimization is done by the software. It allows users to adjust system performance with four power modes as well as to adjust the fan control. In this way, a balanced adjustment of fan volume and performance is possible, which has a significant impact on everyday life.

An Intel Core i7-10750H, 16 GB of RAM, a 512 GB SSD, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 are used in our test configuration. In our review of the Aorus 5 KB, we’ll clarify in detail what the built-in hardware is able to achieve in daily use and in gaming.

Lenovo ThinkBook 14 Gen 2 launched with 11th-generation Intel processors, Wi-Fi 6, Thunderbolt 4.0, and more

Lenovo has launched a barrage of notebooks powered by Intel’s 11th-generation Tiger Lake CPUs. The Lenovo ThinkBook 14 Gen 2 comes in a wide range of configurations. There are some AMD variants too for Team Red enthusiasts. It will retail at US$569 for the Intel model and US$549 for the AMD variant. The notebooks will be available for purchase in October 2020.

The Lenovo ThinkBook 14 Gen 2 comes with a 14′ FHD screen. It can be configured with a regular IPS and TN panel. Users looking to do color-sensitive work can also upgrade the IPS panel to cover 100% of the sRGB spectrum. An Intel Iris Xe GPU powers the display, which can be upgraded to an Nvidia GeForce MX450 if needed. Lastly, the notebook’s camera comes with a shutter too.

As mentioned earlier, the Lenovo ThinkBook 14 Gen 2 can be configured with Intel and AMD CPUs. Lenovo will tell us more about the exact CPU models at a later date. It is possible to customize the notebook with up to 40GB of DDR4 memory, coupled with a 1TB NVMe SSD and a 2TB 5400 rpm mechanical hard drive. Depending on the model, the Lenovo ThinkBook 14 Gen 2 comes with either a 45Wh or 60Wh battery that can provide up to six and eight hours of backup, respectively.

Input options on the Lenovo ThinkBook 14 Gen 2 include a Thunderbolt 4.0 port and one USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C port. The latter can charge the laptop with compatible USB PD chargers and even output display to monitors. Other options include two USB 3.2 Type-A ports for peripherals, one RJ45 Ethernet port, a headphone/mic combo jack, and a 4-in-1 card reader.

Some Lenovo ThinkBook 14 models are Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 compatible, while others are restricted to Wi-Fi 5. The notebook weighs 1.4kg (3.1lbs) and has an anodized aluminum body. The hinges allow the laptop to be laid out flat at a 180-degree angle. Lastly, its power button also doubles up as a fingerprint scanner.