Apple’s MacBook Air M1 is $100 off right now

While you may waiting in anticipation for Apple’s next iteration of the MacBook Air, the current model is on sale at Amazon. You can pick up the 256GB MacBook Air M1 for $900 right now, or $100 off its normal price. We have seen it lower before — last year’s holiday shopping season brought its lowest price ever of $800 — but a $100 discount remains a good one if you’re in need of a new thin-and-light laptop.

Buy MacBook Air M1 (256GB) at Amazon – $900

We consider the MacBook Air M1 to be the best laptop for most people, despite it being about two years old at this point. It impressed us with its stellar performance and lack of fan noise, both of which help it feel speedier, smoother and more efficient than previous models. It also has improved GPU performance, and while it’s not a gaming machine by any means, it can handle Apple Arcade games nicely.

Performance is the standout new feature on the MacBook Air M1, but that’s only because Apple didn’t fix what wasn’t broken about the laptop’s design. It’s super thin and light, coming in at 2.8 pounds, plus it has a lovely 13-inch Retina Display, an excellent keyboard and trackpad and a battery that can last over 16 hours on a single charge. The biggest downsides come in its webcam and scant port selection. You’re only getting a 720p webcam on this laptop, which is lackluster considering how much time many of us spend on video calls every day, and the machine has only two USB-C ports on it.

If you absolutely must have more ports and don’t want to live the dongle life going forward, consider the 14-inch MacBook Pro instead. It’s more expensive, but it’ll be a better investment in the long run. However, if speed and portability are your top concerns, the MacBook Air M1 is one of the best options out there.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

Amazon is taking up to 60 percent off WD and SanDisk storage for today only

If you’re building a new PC or just need a storage device for your computers and gaming consoles, make sure to check out Amazon today. You can get both internal and external disk drives, as well as memory cards, for up to 60 percent off from the website’s ongoing one-day Western Digital and SanDisk sale. One of the most deeply discounted items included in the event is Western Digital’s 2TB Blue 3D NAND SATA SSD that’s currently listed for $170, or $210 off its original price. The component went on sale at Amazon earlier this month, but this is the lowest price we’ve seen it go for on the website. It has read speeds of up to 560MB/s, sequential write speeds of up to 530MB/s and is compatible with computers that have standard SATA connectors.

Buy Western Digital and SanDisk storage and memory products at Amazon

In case you’re looking for a memory card, the SanDisk Ultra microSDXC card with 400GB capacity is also on sale for $36, down $34 or almost half its original retail price. It’s compatible with most devices that have microSD card slots, such as Android phones and tablets, and it has transfer speeds reaching 120MB/s that will let you move up to 1,000 photos within a minute.

For portable storage devices, there’s SanDisk’s Extreme PRO Portable SSD with a 2TB capacity. It’s currently on sale for $260 — its all-time low on the website — or $250 off its retail price. The device has 2000MB/s read or write speeds, comes with a USB-C and a USB-A cable and can work with both Windows and Mac computers. 

But if you need external storage with an even bigger capacity for your home or office, you can get Western Digital’s 10TB Elements Desktop Hard Drive HDD instead. It’s currently available for $175 — not quite an all-time low, but still $125 lower than its retail price of $300. The storage solution is plug-and-play ready for Windows PCs, but you can also use it for your Mac computers, as well as for your PS4 and your Xbox consoles.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

Microsoft’s Project Volterra is a mini PC for ARM developers

At its annual developer conference, Microsoft doesn’t typically announce new hardware. But at Build 2022 the company made time to unveil Project Volterra, a PC Microsoft designed to assist developers with building native ARM apps that employ AI-acceler…

HP is putting an OLED display in a Pavilion laptop for the first time

After announcing a refresh of pretty much all its Envy and Spectre notebooks, HP has revealed that it’s also updating its mid-range Pavilion line with new components and features. The HP Pavilion Plus 14-inch laptop can be configured with up to 12th gen Intel Core H-series processors and with up to NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2050 4G discrete graphics. 

You can also choose to get it with an OLED display with up to 2.8K resolution and a 16:10 aspect ratio instead of a standard LCD, which is a first for the Pavilion line. If you do choose to use it for gaming or for other resource-intensive tasks, the laptop’s two fans and two heat pipes will help keep things cool. 

HP has also refreshed the Pavilion x360 14-inch laptop so that you can get it with up to 12th gen Intel Core U-series processors. The convertible, which can rotate 360 degrees so you can use it as a tablet, can also be equipped with an optional Intel 5G solution 5000 component for built-in mobile data connection. It’s HP’s first consumer laptop with a physical shutter door for its camera, so you no longer have to tape it up if you’re concerned about privacy and security. 

Speaking of cameras, both laptops come with a 5-megapixel camera that has HP Presence technology, including AI Noise Removal. They both also come with dual Bang & Olufsen speakers. The Pavilion Plus 14-inch laptop will be available starting on May 25th at HP’s website and retailers with a starting price of $799 in space blue, warm gold, mineral silver, tranquil pink and natural silver. Meanwhile, the new Pavilion x360 will be available this summer with prices starting at $599 in space blue, pale rose gold and natural silver. 

The best laptops

Whether it’s in anticipation of back to school season or you just need a new machine for work, a new laptop may be near the top of your shopping list right now. Given we’re still dealing with the global chip supply shortage, you might find yourself con…

Corsair’s first gaming laptop puts Elgato Stream Deck tech in its touch bar

PC accessory manufacturer Corsair has unveiled its first laptop, the 16-inch Voyager AMD Advantage Edition, that’s unabashedly designed for gamers and streamers. It’s an all-AMD affair, packing both Ryzen 6000-series processors and an AMD Radeon RX 680…

AMD’s Ryzen 7000 desktop chips are coming this fall with 5nm Zen 4 cores

AMD’s upcoming Ryzen 7000 chips will mark another major milestone for the company: they’ll be the first desktop processors running 5 nanometer cores. During her Computex keynote presentation today, AMD CEO Lisa Su confirmed that Ryzen 7000 chips will launch this fall. Under the hood, they’ll feature dual 5nm Zen 4 cores, as well as a redesigned 6nm I/O core (which includes RDNA2 graphics, DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 controllers and a low-power architecture). Earlier this month, the company teased its plans for high-end “Dragon Range” Ryzen 7000 laptop chips, which are expected to launch in 2023.

Since this is just a Computex glimpse, AMD isn’t giving us many other details about the Ryzen 7000 yet. The company says it will offer a 15 percent performance jump in Cinebench’s single-threaded benchmark compared to the Ryzen 5950X. Still, it’d be more interesting to hear about multi-threaded performance, especially given the progress Intel has made with its 12th-gen CPUs. You can expect 1MB of L2 cache per core, as well as maximum boost speeds beyond 5GHz and better hardware acceleration for AI tasks.

AMD is also debuting Socket AM5 motherboards alongside its new flagship processor. The company is moving towards a 1718-pin LGA socket, but it will still support AM4 coolers. That’s a big deal if you’ve already invested a ton into your cooling setup. The new motherboards will offer up to 24 channels of PCIe 5.0 split across storage and graphics, up to 14 USB SuperSpeed ports running at 20 Gbps, and up to 4 HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2 ports. You’ll find them in three different flavors: B650 for mainstream systems, X650 for enthusiasts who want PCIe 5.0 for storage and graphics and X650 Extreme for the most demanding folks.

Given that Intel still won’t have a 7nm desktop chip until next year (barring any additional delays), AMD seems poised to once again take the performance lead for another generation. But given just how well Intel’s hybrid process for its 12th-gen chips has worked out, it’ll be interesting to see how it plans to respond. If anything, it sure is nice to see genuine competition in the CPU space again.

While Ryzen 7000 will be AMD’s main focus for the rest of the year, the company is also throwing a bone to mainstream laptops in the fourth quarter with its upcoming 6nm “Mendocino” CPUs. They’ll sport four 6nm Zen 2 cores, as well as RDNA 2 graphics, making them ideal for systems priced between $399 and $699. Sure, that’s not much to get excited about, but even basic machines like Lenovo’s Ideapad 1 deserve decent performance. And for many office drones, it could mean having work-issued machines that finally don’t stink.

Shadow Spotlight: very disappointing announcements for the French cloud-computing service

Shadow is a service of cloud computing allowing you to connect on the device of your choice (PC, tablet, smartphone, Mac…) to a PC gamer. […]

The post Shadow Spotlight: very disappointing announcements for the French cloud-computing service appeared first on Gamingsym.

Acer’s latest mainstream laptops include a Swift 3 model with an OLED screen

You don’t need to pay a hefty sum (or go large) to get OLED in a laptop. Acer has unveiled a refreshed laptop line headlined by the Swift 3 OLED, an enhanced version of its thin-and-light mainstream portable. The highlight, as you’d guess, is a 14-inch “2.8K” display that promises OLED’s signature high contrast, accurate color (100 percent of DCI-P3) and 500-nit HDR. Add in a 92 percent screen-to-body ratio and it might be a good fit if you want lush visuals without buying an exotic PC.

The Swift 3 OLED runs on 12th-gen Intel Core H-series chips with Iris Xe integrated graphics, PCIe Gen 4 SSDs and as much as 16GB of LPDDR5 memory. It ships to the US this July starting at $900. While we wouldn’t call it a budget laptop, that’s a relative bargain given the display tech.

Acer Spin 5 laptop (2022)
Acer

The are upgrades for convertible machines, too. The 14-inch Spin 5 (shown at middle) comes with a 1600p display and configurations that offer up to a 12th-gen Core i7, 16GB of RAM and a 1TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD. You’ll also get two Thunderbolt 4 ports and an improved cooling system that should net more performance under heavy loads. Opt for the Spin 3 and you’ll get ‘just’ a 1080p 14-inch display, but you’ll also have the twin Thunderbolt 4 ports, SSD storage and a range of 12th-gen Core CPUs.

The updated Spin 5 arrives first, shipping in July with a $1,350 starting price. Acer delivers the new Spin 3 in August at an $850 base sticker.

And yes, Acer is expanding its eco-friendly Vero line. You’ll find new 14- and 15-inch Vero laptops that meld 12th-gen Core, Thunderbolt 4 and 1080p displays with bodies made partly from recycled and ocean-bound plastic. Desktop users can spring for a 24-inch Veriton Vero all-in-one with up to a 12th-gen Core i9 and GeForce MX550 graphics. The Vero portables ship to the US in September starting at $750 regardless of size, while the Veriton Vero will wait until October to sell for $799.

Acer brings glasses-free 3D to its gaming laptops

3D TVs may be dead, but Acer isn’t giving up on the dream of going beyond 2D just yet. It’s spent years hyping up its SpatialLabs technology, which lets you view stereoscopic 3D content without any clunky glasses. Now that innovation is headed to the company’s gaming laptops, starting with the new Predator Helios 300 SpatialLabs Edition. The company says you’ll be able to play more than 50 modern and classic games in 3D, including Forza Horizon 5, No Man’s Sky and God of War (no Halo Infinite yet, sadly).

Naturally, though, you’ll have to pay a huge premium to be an early glasses-free 3D adopter. The Helios 300 SpatialLabs Edition will start at $3,400 when it arrives in the fourth quarter. You’ll get some killer hardware under the hood, like Intel’s latest 12th-gen CPUs, 32GB of DDR5 RAM and up to NVIDIA’s RTX 3080, but it’s clearly not meant for the typical gamer. It weighs a hefty 6.6 pounds, and the small amount of supported 3D titles makes this laptop seem even more like a niche product.

Acer Helios 300 SpatialLabs Edition
Acer

Still, the display nerd in me is eager to see how Acer actually implements this technology. I was impressed by some early SpatialLabs demos years ago, but it’s another thing to transform a game into a fully 3D experience. The technology relies on a combination of eye tracking (which helps the image stay in focus without additional glasses), real-time rendering and a stereoscopic 15.6-inch screen. Acer is also bringing SpatialLabs’ 3D hardware to its ConceptD7 laptop this year. 

If you’re just looking for a thin gaming laptop, without any fancy 3D screens, Acer is also updating the Predator Triton 300 SE with 12th-gen Intel chips, RTX 3000-series GPUs and 16:10 OLED panels. A 16-inch model with a 240Hz 1,440p display is joining the existing 14-inch version, giving the company options for gamers who want the lightest possible machine or something with a bit more breathing room. The smaller model tops out with an RTX 3060, but the larger one can squeeze in a beefier 3070 Ti.

We’ve generally liked Acer’s gaming hardware over the years (except when they introduce useless concepts like swiveling screens). Based on my brief hands-on time with the Triton 300 SE, it seems like yet another solid option for a stylish-yet-portable gaming rig. The new OLED screen is clearly the star of the show, delivering deep black levels and glorious colors in a few Halo Infinite matches, but its 90Hz refresh rate may disappoint gamers used to faster LCDs. Those folks can just opt for the 165Hz 1080p and 1,440p LCDs, instead. The 14-inch Triton 300 SE is lighter than the Razer Blade 14, clocking in at 3.7 pounds instead of 3.9, and its overall build quality feels just as premium.

You’ll find the 14-inch Triton 300 SE in July starting at $1,600, while the 16-inch version will arrive in August for $1,750.