The same goes for the Acer Swift Go 14, which we are testing this time. It doesn’t fall below the magic kilogram threshold like one of the previous Acer Swift 5 models. But 1.3 kilograms is still light enough to check in your bag to see if you remembered to bring your PC. And the price is under €1100.

As the name suggests, this is a 14-inch laptop. It’s a perfect size for studying and for anyone who needs to take their PC everywhere.

The most significant change since we last tested a 14-inch Acer Swift laptop is that the screen is now a super-sharp OLED in 2.8K resolution (2,880 x 1,800 pixels).

The titanium gray, wedge-shaped metal chassis is 1.5 cm at its thickest point, and had we not seen the price beforehand, we would probably have tipped the Acer Swift Go 14 to be more expensive than it is. Above the screen, surrounded only by a narrow bezel, is the webcam. The resolution is QHD (1,560 x 1,440 pixels), so you’ll appear a little sharper than your colleagues at the Zoom meeting. The camera can be physically blocked with a slide button. Cute detail.

The keyboard is very good for the price range, with keys that don’t wobble or wobble significantly. And there’s plenty of space around the keys. The range of ports is better than average for super-compact PCs: two USB-C, two USB-A, an HDMI output and a card reader. That’s definitely adequate. Charging is done via the USB-C ports.

AMD instead of Intel

The core of the Acer Swift Go 14 is a 3.8 GHz AMD Ryzen 7-8845HS processor with eight cores and 16 threads. The number of cores is slightly less impressive than Intel processors in the same price range, but the performance is essentially the same.

There are 16 gigabytes of RAM and 1 terabyte of SSD storage.

Benchmarks

For a long time, most of the ultrabook PCs we’ve tested have been based on the Intel EVO architecture. The Acer Swift Go 14 is not, as it uses AMD Ryzen 7. However, the differences are obvious.

The Geekbench 6 processor test ends with a score of 11,386 points in multicore and 2,416 in single-core. That’s really good. And more than enough for any kind of office work.

The same is demonstrated by the Office simulation PCMark 10, which ends at 7,048. In fact, the pure processor tests are on almost the same level as the Asus Zephyrus M16, which is almost three times as expensive.

The graphics processor is the AMD Radeon 780M. However, this is not a “real” dedicated graphics processor, but integrated graphics in the Ryzen 7 processor. The performance is comparable to the Arc processor in Intel’s Core Ultra processors. And that is perfectly acceptable. With a score of 3,004 in the 3DMark Time Spy graphics test and 7,267 in 3DMark Fire Strike, you can actually play slightly older shooters on your cheap ultrabook PC.

The battery life is really excellent. It took almost six hours to drain the battery with our intense office simulation. That’s far better than the average lightweight ultrabook PC and it’s practically enough for a full day at the office or studio – and probably a few hours of overtime.

Copilot – just around the corner

The Acer Swift Go 14 is equipped with a dose of artificial intelligence – and the much talked about Copilot button on the keyboard. Pressing the button figuratively brings out the genie to answer questions. However, this is only the basic Copilot and not the more advanced Copilot+, which requires a little more machine power. We’ll have to wait a processor generation for that.

Whether this is a problem is a matter of taste. Copilot is happy to answer questions, and the answers are often quite useful and supported by web links to documentation. If you ask the machine oracle which processors support Copilot+, you’ll be told that it’s currently Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus and Snapdragon X Elite.

However, the AI is unable to answer whether the machine from which the question is asked supports Copilot+, and it quickly becomes embroiled in a series of contradictions. So the self-awareness of the AI is not as high as its surfing skills.

Conclusion

The Acer Swift Go 14 is a lesson in well-chosen solutions. The OLED display is excellent, there’s plenty of storage space and the processor is really fast. The fact that it doesn’t cost more is impressive. The graphics performance isn’t for serious gaming, but it’s still fast enough for any task you might encounter in the office. And also for editing those vacation videos after hours. A touchscreen would have been the icing on the cake. But at this price, there’s nothing to complain about. Absolutely nothing.

As a PC tester, I have lots of new computers visiting my desk all the time. And many of them represent the best that technology has to offer. But the truly exciting and innovative ideas are few and far between.

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold is one of those. It’s quite simply one of the sexiest laptops I’ve ever seen. And from Lenovo, which is otherwise known for its conservative style.

All laptops are foldable in the sense that they can be folded. But the ThinkPad X1 Fold is something else entirely. The entire device is one large touchscreen that folds in half. When folded, the computer looks like a Chinese paper notebook with its textured black carbon fibre surface. Which, in a way, it is. But infinitely more advanced – and a lot more expensive.

Opening the device reveals a 16-inch, almost square OLED screen. The screen can be fully unfolded or left half open like a regular laptop. In the latter case, an on-screen keyboard can be called up.

Stunning display

The display is sharp and colour-saturated as only OLED can be. And the fold seems reassuringly solid and perfectly smooth when unfolded.

If you need to write more than just short notes, you’ll probably want to use the included keyboard. It’s a five millimetre thick keyboard in a recognisable ThinkPad style – including the classic red TrackPoint in the middle. Although the keyboard is thin, the keys are relatively comfortable to type on. Unfortunately, the relatively small touchpad lacks haptic feedback. This makes it difficult to know if you’ve clicked or not; especially since the delay between click and on-screen action is quite long.

A monitor stand can be magnetically attached to the keyboard and locked at any angle. Unfortunately, the magnets are weak, so the keyboard often comes loose while trying to adjust the angle.

The screen can be positioned vertically or horizontally, and the experience of working on the computer when fully extended as a laptop is simply marvellous. Which is partly an optical illusion caused by the fact that the screen area is twice the size of the keyboard. More cynically, the screen on the ThinkPad X1 Fold is no bigger than on other large laptops. And the 2,560 x 2,040 pixel resolution is also quite mundane, despite the screen aspect being unusual.

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The unfolded screen can be positioned horizontally and vertically using a kickstand. (Photo: Lenovo)

The selection of ports is summarised quickly: there are only three USB-C ports. Nothing else. And there are no HDMI or audio adapters in the box. For the price of a fairly decent used family car, you’d expect more!

The PC of the future – with last year’s hardware

You can’t fault the design of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold. It’s groundbreaking. The hardware beneath the surface isn’t quite as innovative.

The processor is an Intel Core i7-12650U. Notice the first two digits of the model number: it’s a 12th generation processor. That’s what was all the rage two years ago. This means the number of cores (10) is smaller than what we see today. And while the competition (and Lenovo’s other machines) boast Intel Core Ultra processors with AI capabilities and especially Arc graphics, the X1 Fold has to make do with the old Iris Xe graphics.

It’s not the first time we’ve seen a computer with hardware several years out of date turn up in the office. The reason is often that the PR agency’s test machines have been in circulation for too long. However, that is not the case here. The machine is identical to those currently available in Lenovo’s online store. And Lenovo does not offer a model with newer hardware.

The ThinkPad X1 Fold tested had 32 gigabytes of RAM and 1 terabyte of SSD storage. That’s fine, although you could wish for more luxury in this price range.

Benchmarks

The somewhat outdated hardware leaves its mark on the speed. All in all, the performance is poor.

The GeekBench 6 processor test ends with a result of 7,647 in multi-core and 2,273 in single-core. The PCMark 10 office programme simulation ends with a result of 4,898. In isolation, this is more than enough for normal office work, unless you’re doing video editing. But you can get more or less the same performance in an Acer Aspire Vero 15, which costs a fifth of the price!

The 12th generation processors from Intel have integrated Iris Xe graphics. Again, this is enough to run the Windows interface smoothly, but this year’s Ultra processors with Intel Arc graphics are about twice as fast for 3D graphics and also have (simple) ray tracing built in. This can be seen, for example, on the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED, which despite its sleek design still costs less than a third.

The large, colourful and relatively bright (HDR600) OLED display in the slim case is not a recipe for long battery life. Two hours was all the ThinkPad X1 Fold could manage with the office simulation. Presumably, the PC can barely make it through a day’s work on one charge. But most modern lightweight laptops have twice that battery life.

Conclusion

The moment we saw the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold launched at IFA, we knew we had to test it. We’ve been waiting a long time for this to be possible. But to be honest, we expected the PC that finally showed up at the editorial office to be updated in line with hardware developments. This is not the case. The configuration of the X1 Fold on sale today is exactly the same as when it was unveiled in 2022!

The result is a laptop that’s groundbreaking in design, but with the performance of a cheap school laptop. You can easily buy three great ultrabooks for the price of one X1 Fold. And each one will be twice as powerful!

Of course, it has to cost something to be cutting edge, and a 16-inch foldable OLED display is certainly expensive to manufacture. But the price in this case is so extreme that unless you have a very specific reason for wanting this particular model, and money means nothing to you, it’s not possible to find any reason to recommend this computer.

The Crystal laptop, formally named the ThinkBook Transparent Display Laptop Concept, is a futuristic laptop with a transparent 17.3-inch Micro-LED display. The borderless screen, transparent keyboard area and “floating” stand almost make the computer disappear.

According to Lenovo, the micro-LED display has a brightness of 1,000 nits and high enough contrast to be used outdoors. However, the transparent screen had less contrast with its surroundings for good reason.

The transparent screen allows you to merge the digital and physical environment and display images “in mid-air”. Something we’ve been waiting for since Blade Runner in 1982.

Reality – with subtitles

Lenovo’s vision with the Crystal PC goes beyond free-floating images. Using Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC), the transparent will enable interaction with physical objects, with additional information about the objects superimposed on the screen. A pen and drawing board will allow for creative interaction with mixed reality.

There is no information on when – if ever – the transparent PC will be available for purchase.

Apple’s proprietary Apple Silicon processor, which integrates memory, graphics and multiple processing cores in the same 5 nanometre architecture. The M1 processor was later replaced by a new one called M2, which was rolled out in all Apple machines except the iMac. It has until recently been the only Mac with first-generation Apple Silicon, but now it is finally available with the very latest 3nm M3 processor.

The iMac is only available with a 24-inch display, there is no 27-inch version and the new M3 processor is only available in two versions: M3 with 8 processor cores, 8 graphics cores or 8 processor cores and 10 graphics cores.

Both can be configured with up to 24 GB of integrated memory and up to 1 TB of storage. The entry-level model we’re testing here has the M3 processor with 8 CPU cores, 8 graphics cores, 256 GB of storage and two Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports on the back.

Each has a 3.5 mm headphone jack, which is customised for higher impedance headphones. This means you can plug in your 300 ohm studio headphones when mixing music.

Same form factor

In fact, a 24-inch iMac is a practical choice. It doesn’t take up much space and is complete straight out of the box. With Apple’s Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse. Which Apple hasn’t bothered to update with USB-C like they did with the iPhone 15. They still charge with Apple’s proprietary Lightning cable.

When you step up from the entry-level model, you get two extra GPU cores and Gigabit Ethernet, but most importantly, you also get two extra USB-C ports and the Magic Keyboard with Touch ID, fingerprint reading. This can be used to unlock the iMac as well as to log in to websites and confirm online purchases.

Great screen

Apple hasn’t upgraded the display, which uses the same 24-inch LED-based panel with a resolution of 4.5K and a maximum brightness of 500 nits. It supports an expanded P3 colour space and features Apple’s True Tone colour management, but not 120Hz Pro motion.

The display doesn’t have the contrast and uniform brightness of the 27″ Studio Display, but for the target audience of an iMac, it’s great.

An additional display can be connected with a maximum resolution of 6K.

The webcam appears to be the same 1080 camera we tested on the iMac 24 M1, with three microphones. The quality seems to be the same, so there are no major upgrades here.

Dolby Atmos

The iMac’s six built-in speakers deliver a relatively large soundscape with acceptable bass and dynamics. They support Spatial Audio from Dolby Atmos on both music and film. The effect is audible, but quite limited compared to headphones or a Dolby Atmos soundbar.

If you’re mixing music or adding a soundtrack, you still need a decent pair of headphones and a good pair of studio monitors, so for that part of the iMac user base, the built-in audio is less important.

On the test bench

When we tested the iMac 24 with the M1 processor, we realised that Apple Silicon technology was a huge step forward for iMac performance. Our Geekbench and Cinebench tests showed that the M1 processor crushed the Intel processor Apple had previously used.

Performance was noticeably better, not only in Geekbench, but also in real life.

The new iMac with the M3 processor is faster than the equivalent iMac with the M1, but not as much faster as we had thought in all disciplines. Perhaps this is because our test machine was the entry-level model with 8 processor cores, 8 graphics cores and 8GB of memory. But we imagined that since Apple skipped iMacs with the M2, the improvements in performance would be greater across the board than is actually the case with the M3.

When we tested the M1 edition with Geekbench 5, we did the same with the M3 edition. In the single-core test, the M3 managed a score of 2342 vs. 1740, while the multi-core gave a score of 10,622 vs. 7615. That’s an improvement of just over 30 per cent in pure processing power.

In Geekbench 5 Metal, we got 30,280 from the M3 processor. In the corresponding test, the M1 processor finished with 19,951. A significant improvement for the iMac with the M3.

We also compared the performance of the M3 processor in Geekbench 6 with a MacBook Air with M2, and while you can see that the M3 processor scores higher, the difference is not that big. The MacBook came in at 2601 in the single-core test and 9961 in the multi-core test. That’s an improvement of around 20 per cent.

For comparison, we got 3100 and 11,921 respectively on the iMac with M3. That’s not an insignificant improvement – around 20 per cent – but in the Metal test, it was the MacBook that drew the longest straw. With 45,574 vs. 41,127. This is because the MacBook had two extra graphics cores, which is worth noting for those considering an iMac M3 for video editing and graphics-intensive tasks.

In the Cinebench test (Cinebench 2024), the iMac performed better than the M1 processors we tested. With a single-core score of 139 points, it actually beats a 10-core M1 Max, but not in the multi-core test, where a score of 500 is far behind the M1 Max’s performance. Not to mention the M2 Max and M2 Ultra.

Conclusion

All the numbers from the tests aren’t worth much until you’ve tried the performance in practice. Because even though the iMac with the new M3 processor scores above the M1 version, there are some tasks it’s not so well suited for. Photo editing in Lightroom is no problem. Saving changes and exporting to other folders is lightning fast. But so is an M1 and an M2. It’s during the more demanding tasks, such as adding effects to 4K videos in Final Cut or Premiere, that you’ll notice the M3 processor has more muscle.

But don’t do it at the same time as other demanding tasks. Because with 8 graphics cores and 8 GB of memory, you’ll quickly encounter the limitations of the entry-level models: the ability to handle multiple demanding tasks at the same time. Here, an M2 Pro with 16 GB memory and more GPU cores is better suited, or one of the new Pro or Max versions of the M3 processor. However, these are not available as an option on an iMac, which only comes with the base version of the M3.

For the more demanding tasks, we recommend choosing an iMac with the M3 processor, which has 8 CPU cores, 10 GPU cores and 16GB of memory.

Impressively, the new chips use 3 nanometre technology, while Intel is still stuck at 10nm, and Taiwan’s TSMC has reached 5nm. The smaller the size, the more transistors can be packed into the same area, making them faster and more efficient.

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Grapics: Apple

Of course, the performance evolution of the M1 and M2 continues in a fairly predictable curve. The low-power cores in the processor are 30 per cent faster than the M2 and as much as 50 per cent faster than the M1. The performance cores, on the other hand, are “only” 30 per cent faster than the M1. However, up to 128GB of memory is now supported, which should make a big difference for heavy workloads.

The big difference, however, is the upgrade of the graphics circuits. It’s not so much about horsepower as memory management. Dynamic Caching uses just the amount of memory needed, rather than the software having to guess in advance, which often means unused resources. According to Apple, we can expect up to 65% faster graphics.

What is new is that the M3 chips support hardware-accelerated ray tracing, mesh shading, and hardware acceleration of AV1 video decoding. Machine learning will also be up to 60 per cent faster.

• M3: 25 billion transistors, 8-core processor (4/4), supports 24 GB memory.
• M3 Pro: 37 billion transistors, 12-core processor (6/6), 18-core GPU, up to 36 GB memory.
• M3 Max: 92 billion transistors, 16-core processor (12/4), 40-core GPU, up to 128 GB memory.

Now we finally get a new model of the colourful all-in-one computer for consumer use. Thanks to its use of the new M3 processor, performance has almost doubled, according to Apple. If you still have an old Intel model, now might be the moment to upgrade. Apple says it’s 2.5x faster than the 27-inch model and 4x faster than the old 21.5-inch model.

“We’re excited to give iMac a big boost in performance with the M3 chip. Millions of users absolutely love iMac for its stunning design and expansive 24-inch, 4.5K Retina display that’s the perfect size to spread out with all their favorite apps and get things done, said John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering

The screen is a 4.5K retina display with 11.3 million pixels, P3 colour space and 500 nits of brightness. The new iMac has Wi-Fi 6E for lightning-fast wireless connectivity and Bluetooth 5.3. It has four USB-C ports, two of which are Thunderbolt.

Price and availability

The 24-inch iMac will be released on 7 November and will cost from €1629 to €2089 depending on the configuration.

More info at Apple

At the lower end, we start with the 14-inch version with the basic M3 chipset, which is great for professional users who want a more portable version.

If you still want a small computer but require more horsepower and more memory, you can upgrade to the 14-inch with the M3 Pro processor, which is more than fast enough for most of us. If you need a bigger screen, it’s also available in 16 inches.

For the most demanding users, MacBook Pro with the M3 Max processor is now available in either 14 or 16 inches. They also support up to 128 GB of memory.

MacBook Pro empowers users to do their life’s best work, said John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering

For an idea of the performance increase, Apple says the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M3 is 60 per cent faster than the previous 13-inch with M1. The M3 Pro version is said to be 40 per cent faster than the 16-inch with M1 Pro.

For the real professionals, the MacBook Pro M3 Max should be 250 (!) per cent faster than the 16-inch MacBook Pro with M1 Max. Compared to an Intel-based MacBook Pro, this is almost ridiculous as it should be 11 times faster!

The screen should be able to maintain 1000 nits of brightness continuously and peak at 1600 nits with HDR material. SDR material is displayed with 20 per cent more brightness than before.

But most notably… you can now get the MacBook Pro in black!

Price and availability

The new MacBook Pro series will be released on 7 November.

The 14-inch models cost €2049 – €2049 with M3 processor.

With the M3 Pro CPU, it’s €2599 – €3099.

And for an M3 Max you have to cough up €4099.

For 16 inches it increases to €3099 – €3599 for the M3 Pro.

With an M3 Max, it comes to €4340 – €4049.

More info at Apple

The Asus Zenbook S13 fulfils all the expectations of an ultrabook: It takes up the space of a sheet of A4 paper and weighs just one kilo. And the thickness is just over 1 centimetre. This puts it in the most exclusive segment of ultrabook PCs. So far, we’ve tested less than a handful of computers that weigh or take up as little space as the Asus – but never one that was actually lighter or smaller.

Full-featured screen

With such tight demands on the exterior, you’d think compromises would have been made on the hardware side. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. To start with the screen, it’s a full-blown and colourful OLED display with a resolution of 2,880 x 1,800 pixels. And while we’d prefer true 4K resolution, the 2.8K is plenty for a 13.3-inch screen. The only thing we miss is touch functionality. Not just because it looks flashy, but also because touch comes into its own in the very places where an ultraportable shines: Cramped auditorium tables, meeting rooms and aircraft seats.

As with previous Zenbook models, the screen is hinged on the underside of the chassis. This means that the rear edge of the PC is slightly lifted from the table when the screen is opened, which is smart as it provides both a better typing position and better airflow in the case.

Excellent keys

For obvious reasons, the width of the keyboard is slightly reduced. However, as only the outer rows of keys are narrower, this does not affect the ergonomics. In fact, the keyboard on the Zenbook S13 is one of the most comfortable and responsive ultrabook keyboards we’ve tried in a long time.

The keyboard could have been wider, but if the keys had reached all the way to the edge like on the Dell XPS 13 Plus, there wouldn’t have been room for so many ports.

We have often criticised Asus for being too miserly with the ports. As if the lack of connections was a particularly exclusive feature. The Zenbook S13 actually has what you need: Two USB-C ports, an HDMI output and an old-fashioned USB-A port. This means you can use the machine for most everyday tasks without having to worry about bringing adapters.

No greasy fingers – finally!

Asus’ exclusive Zenbook models have previously featured a navy blue polished aluminium enclosure that looks sleek and stylish, but also attracts fingerprints. Instead, a surface called “plasma ceramic aluminium,” which is impervious to fingerprints, is used.

The sound is Harman/Kardon, and it also fulfils the requirements for Dolby Atmos. The screen is also Dolby Vision certified. However, these certifications do not prevent the sound from the tiny inbuilt speakers from being somewhat tinny. But the sound is still clean enough to keep you entertained with a film during a break or after work.

Predictable

Under the hood you will find a 13th Gen Intel Core i7 processor with integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics. In a way, the Intel EVO platform, which the vast majority of lightweight laptops today are built on, has made PC testing a little more boring. But since the goal of EVO is to ensure that laptops are fast and also boot up quickly, in the grand scheme of things, it’s an advantage. The Asus Zenbook S13 is one of the faster ones, by the way. The processor is a Core i7-1355U with 10 cores and 12 threads – and a maximum operating frequency of 4.9 GHz. With 16 GB of RAM and a superbly fast SSD, the results are excellent.

Benchmarks

The Asus Zenbook S13 is certainly not a slow computer. Of course, it can’t compete with the heaviest gaming computers. But it’s actually impressive how much power you can pack into just one kilo of laptop.

The GeekBench 6 processor test ends with a result of 7,354 in multi-core and 2,215 in single-core. This is practically the same as the much more expensive Dell XPS 13 Plus we tested in the autumn. And also the somewhat more expensive Microsoft Surface Laptop 5.

The same applies to the Cinebench R23 test, which ends with 1,680 in single-core and 6,267 in multi-core. The office application simulation PCMark 10 ends up with a score of 5,262. This means that the super light laptop has roughly the same power as most desktop PCs when it comes to common office programmes.

Typical integrated graphics

Just to make sure the Zenbook wouldn’t get overconfident, we also put it through the 3DMark graphics tests. With the expected result. Namely, that ultrabooks with Intel Iris Xe graphics are not meant for 3D gaming. A score of 1,564 in Time Spy is nothing to brag about. But it’s still sufficient for a game of CS:GO after work.

The battery test was more convincing. The Asus Zenbook S13 lasted almost five hours with the screen on full blast and intense office simulation before the battery quit. That’s definitely on the better end of the scale. And while it’s far from the “up to 12 hours” that Asus promises, the PC will almost certainly make it through a long day of work or study on a single charge.

Conclusion

If pure portability is the goal, the Asus Zenbook S13 is one of the most successful ultrabooks we’ve tested. Few are as compact and lightweight as this one. And most are either expensive, limited in performance – or both at the same time. The Zenbook S13 is not a cheap computer, but the price should be manageable for most people. And the machine is characterised by an almost complete lack of compromise. The screen is high-resolution and colourful in a way that only OLED screens can do. And the processor is fast enough for all office tasks. The Asus Zenbook 13 may be elegant, but it’s still not as sharply designed as the Dell XPS 13 Plus. On the other hand, the Zenbook 13 is considerably cheaper, without cutting corners where it affects performance.

The only complaint is that a 13.6-inch screen can sometimes be too small.

The new 15.4-inch MacBook Air solves that problem. Like the 13.6-inch, it is equipped with the latest generation of Apple Silicon, an 8-core M2 processor.

The same processor that convinced us in our test of the MacBook Air 13 M2 is available in a larger package with the same performance, just with a larger screen. The rest is the same. The MacBook Air 15 M2 has the same slim form factor that clearly differentiates the MacBook Air from the pro machines.

The MacBook Air 15 M2 comes in the same colours as the 13-inch. Silver grey, the darker stellar grey, golden starlight – and this one: Midnight. A navy blue matte finish that looks gorgeous but attracts fingerprints like a magnet.

A little bigger – noticeably heavier

It’s a light and handy machine, despite being larger than the 13-inch. The most noticeable difference is the weight, which is 250 grams heavier in addition to being four centimetres wider. So anyone who can only just fit the 13-inch in their bag may struggle to squeeze in the 15-inch. The keyboard with fingerprint reader is the same backlit keyboard we already know.

The same connections are also found on the 15-inch. A 3.5 mm headphone output on the right side, two USB and Thunderbolt ports on the left side.

There’s also Apple’s handy MagSafe 3, a magnetic charging connector that snaps out the charging plug without drama if someone trips over the cord. The included charger actually has two USB connectors, so you can charge your mobile phone at the same time as charging the machine.

Apple states that the battery life is 18 hours. A day’s work, including several performance tests, failed to drain the battery and indicated 20 per cent when the charging plug slipped into the socket before bedtime.

Larger screen area

The display is of the same type, only 15.4 versus 13.6 inches. With 224 pixels per inch, 500 nits brightness and support for extended P3 colour space. Which gives the user billions more colours from the IPS panel Apple uses on the MacBook Air. Nice especially for photographers.

The webcam in the black bus pocket at the top of the screen is the same 1080 camera (FaceTime HD) with three microphones that we know from the 13-inch.

The display supports 60 Hz frequency, and does not have Pro Motion with up to 120 Hz frequency. That’s reserved for the pro models, but it’s plenty good enough for video editing, but the monitor supports Dolby Vision and HDR. It’s not very common in this class.

It also doesn’t connect to as many external displays as the pro models, but worked great on my Apple Studio Display via the USB output. Which supports one 6K display.

Dolby Atmos

Laptop sound is rarely something to brag about, but Apple should get two thumbs up for the sound quality from the 15-inch. There’s room for six speakers compared to four in the 13-inch, which is most noticeable in the bass, which manages to contribute both rhythm and richness, and music with Dolby Atmos (or Spatial Audio as Apple calls it) creates a convincingly large soundstage in front of the listener.

It works well when you don’t have a pair of good speakers or headphones to hand. More than good enough for music and film, but not good enough for music production or as a sound monitor. You can also get Dolby Atmos in headphones that support it. If you use Apple’s own – AirPods Pro and AirPods Max – the sound image remains stationary in space when you move your head.

On the test bench

But with the new M2 processor, the performance is significantly better than any Intel-based Air model, and in our tests it also proves to be faster than the previous generation Apple Silicon with the M1 processor.

MacBook Air 15 M2 is only available with one edition of the processor. It has 8 processor cores, 10 graphics cores, a 16-core Neural Engine, up to 24 GB of memory and 100 Gbps of memory bandwidth. That’s more than sufficient for the machine to easily handle video editing with various video formats, such as established H.264, newer HEVC, as well as Apple ProRes and ProRes RAW, which the pros use.

The base edition comes with the same processor, but with 8GB of memory and a slower 256GB of integrated storage. Our advice is to opt for 512 GB of storage, as this makes better use of memory bandwidth.

Compared to a MacBook Pro with an M2 Max processor, the most demanding tests are heavily weighted in favour of the Pro model. But for anyone not running multiple 8K video streams in programmes like Final Cut Pro, or 24-track 24-bit audio production, it’s astonishing how powerful the basic M2 processor is.

Performance is, of course, comparable to the same M2 processor in the 13-inch version. A round in Geekbench 5 gives similar scores with slight deviations in favour of the 15-inch. The same test shows that it scores better than the previous generation MacBook Air with the M1 processor. Especially in the multi-core test, which shows how demanding tasks are solved by the machine when it runs all the cores.

A comparison in Geekbench 6, with an 8-core M2 Pro in a MacBook Pro 14, showed that the much cheaper MacBook Air 15 M2 performed excellently even though it had to stretch its arms in the most processor-intensive tests.

Conclusion

A MacBook Air 15 M2 is the perfect Mac laptop for many who need a large screen, high performance for a wide variety of tasks, but who do not want to pay a premium amount for a pro model from Apple. The extra screen space allows more room for more windows and tasks. There’s room for two documents side-by-side, more space for photos in Lightroom, and the performance gives your tasks the power to solve demanding calculations in a complex school assignment. Or stitch together seamless 4K videos without annoying interruptions or pauses. There’s nothing to hesitate about.

The Computex fair in Taipei is over for now, and the humid subtropical climate in Taiwan has once again been replaced by Nordic spring. There were hundreds of booths at the fair, so it’s impossible to take in everything, but here are some of the impressions we got.

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Nvidia's booth was slightly more modest. Although their products are available from all suppliers, they had no products of their own on the booth.

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MSI Katana 17 - not necessarily the most powerful gaming machine, but still one of the most popular as it offers great value for money.

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Scooters are by far the most popular means of transport - and there's room for the whole family.

Alle bilder: John Alex Hvidlykke, L&B Home.

We’ve also seen machines aimed at the home office, as with the sensible Modern series. But it was still surprising to see the new MSI Commercial 14H, which is a pure office machine. It doesn’t have flashing RGB lights or blazing fast 3D graphics.

In fact, MSI has kept its cards so close to its chest that even MSI’s product specialist, who showed us around the stand, was surprised by the Commercial series. He first heard about the series just a few weeks before Computex 2023.

The hardware includes an Intel Core i7 processor and a 14-inch FHD+ display (1920 x 1200 pixels) with integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics. These aren’t specs that will make gamers jump out of their chairs. But it seemed solid enough, and with a chassis made from recycled materials, it’s eco-friendly enough to get through the eye of the needle. It will be exciting to see if MSI can establish itself in such a competitive market. A rather useful feature was a built-in NFC reader for chip cards or mobile phones.

The MSI Creator Z17 is a significantly more powerful machine aimed at graphics professionals. We tested an earlier version of the Z17, but the model has naturally been updated. A clever detail was the pen that could write on both the screen and paper – without changing the tip!

The 14-inch version of the MacBook Pro brought Apple’s most popular laptop back to the top of every creative user’s wish list, where it belongs. And while the recently launched and revamped 14-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro processor, which we’ve now had on the test bench, offers few real improvements over its predecessor, the fact remains that the smallest and cheapest MacBook Pro is the best laptop the caffe latte segment can dream of.

Display

First of all, the screen is the same as its predecessor, and it’s still stunning! To be precise, the screen measures 14.2″, while the resolution is 3,024 x 1,964 pixels, which gives a pixel density of 254 ppi.

The display technology was introduced by the Cupertino tech giant alongside the iPad Pro from 2021. In Apple’s marketing lingo, the technology is called Liquid Retina XDR, but in reality it’s a Mini-LED design that uses over 10,000 LEDs across the entire back of the screen, thus delivering a brightness of 1,000 nits at full screen (up to 1,600 nits peak brightness) and a contrast of 1:1 million.

In practice, the technology translates into the most beautiful screen and image quality we’ve seen on a MacBook to date. Everything is razor-sharp, and when watching high-resolution video (4K HDR), for example, both the contrast of the image and the richness of colour are simply stunning.

The high peak brightness means that sunlight, reflections in water surfaces, snow landscapes, etc. all light up, creating a more realistic and compelling image than we’ve ever seen on any laptop. Add to that a 120Hz refresh rate that adapts the screen’s refresh to the content. The result is completely seamless video playback without any choppiness.

And with the M2 Pro’s built-in graphics processing unit (GPU), the new MacBook Pro can drive multiple external displays. The exact number depends on the resolution of the displays and how they’re connected. For example, you can have two external monitors with 6K resolution and 60 Hz refresh rate connected via Thunderbolt 4. Another possible combination is one external 6K monitor with 60 Hz via Thunderbolt and one external monitor with 4K resolution but up to 144 Hz refresh rate via HDMI 2.0.

The 14-inch MacBook Pro can even drive one 8K external display with 60Hz refresh rate via the HDMI port, so you have plenty of options for desktop work with your laptop, whatever your needs.

Apple M2 Pro

Our test specimen is the cheapest version of the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro processor, so the above constellation of supported external displays is a measure of what the smallest M2 Pro processor can pull.

In our test configuration, the CPU in the M2 Pro processor has 10 cores (with six high-performance cores and four efficiency cores). In addition, there’s a 16-core GPU.

The new 14-inch MacBook Pro is also available in more expensive versions, such as the M2 Pro with 12 CPU cores and 19 GPU cores, and the M2 Max processor also with 12 CPU cores, but with a 30-core GPU (which can even be upgraded to as many as 38 cores when you buy the machine, but then you also need to dig out the really, really big wallet). And just as an example, the best-configured MacBook Pro M2 Max supports up to four external displays, including up to three 6K external displays at 60Hz via Thunderbolt and one 4K external display at 144Hz via HDMI.

But even with fewer external displays, the smallest version of the M2 Pro processor still outperforms everything and everyone in its price class in raw performance. No Intel-based Windows PC in the same price range can keep up when MacBook Pro unfolds. Neither the Dell XPS 13 Plus 9320 nor the Microsoft Surface Laptop 5, both brand new ultrabooks aimed at the same audience, can match the 14-inch MacBook Pro for raw performance.

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The number of ports and connectivity options has not changed significantly. The M2 Pro edition of MacBook Pro also features Touch ID, HDMI 2.0, SDXC card reader and MagSafe 3 for the power supply. There's also a 3.5mm mini jack for headphones and three USB-C inputs with Thunderbolt 4.

However, the new M2 Pro model is only about 10-12 percent faster in various benchmark tests than its predecessor, the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M1 Pro processor. So if you’ve already invested in its predecessor and are only after more processor muscle, there’s no need to swipe your credit card.

Connectivity

The number of ports and connectivity options hasn’t changed much either. The M2 Pro edition of MacBook Pro also features Touch ID, HDMI 2.0, SDXC card reader and MagSafe 3 for the power supply. There’s also a 3.5mm minijack for headphones and three USB-C inputs with Thunderbolt 4. And the old-fashioned USB-A ports still haven’t returned, so you’ll still need to carry a pair of dongles in your bag if you want to use the most common USB connectors and accessories with your MacBook Pro.

On the other hand, Apple has finally gotten on the Wi-fi 6E bandwagon, ensuring faster wireless networking if you have Wi-fi 6E equipment at home. The Bluetooth connection has been upgraded to version 5.3, which includes LE Audio that improves sound quality over the wireless connection, as well as lowering power consumption and increasing connection security.

The same so-called FaceTime webcam is in the new MacBook Pro, which means the new model doesn’t support FaceID either. That would be a welcome addition, and it’s also a bit odd that the ‘In Focus’ feature (which can follow you around the frame during video calls) we know from the iPad Air and iPad Pro hasn’t made it to the MacBook Pro yet.

In fact, Apple has made sure that you can get ‘In Focus’ to work with the new MacBook Pro, but that’s thanks to a new feature in macOS Ventura – called Continuity Camera – which lets users use their iPhone as a webcam.

The MacBook Pro can automatically recognise and use the camera on the iPhone when it’s nearby, without users having to wake and select it. The connection is made wirelessly. So it’s thanks to the ultra-wide camera in the iPhone that ‘In Focus’ can work in practice, but we find it odd that you have to go round several corners to get something to work that by default just works if you’re using an iPad instead of your MacBook Pro.

Conclusion

If you’ve already invested in a 14-inch MacBook Pro with M1 Pro processor, there’s no discernible gain for you in buying the new model. For everyone else, it’s just a matter of emptying your piggy bank. At this price point, you can’t buy a better laptop right now.

The new M2 Pro edition of the MacBook Pro offers towering performance, improved wireless connectivity, and the same great display we know from its predecessor.

The only reason the 14-inch Macbook Pro with M2 Pro processor doesn’t get our top marks is that we’d have liked Apple to upgrade the built-in webcam. By 2023, we expect both FaceID and the ‘In Focus’ feature from a laptop costing more than €2,000.

But then there are those who have special requirements because data needs to be stored extra securely. Or stored under extra challenging circumstances. Professional photographers, for example.

For extreme circumstances

It’s for them that devices like the SanDisk Extreme Pro V2 are made. The “disk” is just under half the size of a normal USB hard drive. The enclosure is made of black anodized aluminum, which in addition to making the device perfectly stable, also serves as a heat sink for the memory circuits that make up the storage space inside.

The unit has rounded corners and can easily find a place in your photo bag or in an inside jacket pocket. An open “eye” in one corner may be intended for attaching a strap or carabiner to clip the drive to a backpack. I probably wouldn’t dare to do that. With IP55 weather protection, the disk should be able to withstand it, but the fairly standard short USB-C cable will probably be gone long before you reach Basecamp.

The SanDisk Extreme PRO V2 is available in three capacities: 1 TB, 2 TB and 4 TB. And the price of massive storage has fortunately come down in recent years. SSDs used to be for economic masochists only, but today the price is about double that of equivalent USB hard drives.

The speed is worth it

According to SanDisk, the Extreme Pro V2 can transfer data at up to 20 gigabits per second. I didn’t get it to do that in practice on any of the computers I tried it on. But it managed to move data to and from the SSD storage in a modern laptop at a steady 1 gigabyte per second (about half the theoretical maximum). By comparison, a WD MyPassport physical hard drive managed 89.5 MB/s – less than a tenth. The laptop’s built-in NVMe SSD managed a fair 6.4 GB/s.

The difference between the Extreme Pro V2 and a physical hard drive is completely irrelevant if you only need to store a handful of Word documents. But if your day’s work involves a few hours of 4K video (equivalent to 50 to 100 GB of data), the time difference suddenly becomes important.

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Extreme Pro V2 withstands rough treatment, including sand and water. But don't drop it in the pool, as it's "only" IP55 certified. (Photo: SanDisk)

Conclusion

SanDisk Extreme PRO V2 is made for above average needs. But you don’t have to be a secret agent and have a government budget to afford it. The SSD costs about twice as much as a conventional USB hard drive with the same capacity. But since USB storage is now cheap, it’s still not a scary amount. For the higher price, you get a drive that can be dropped on a concrete floor from any height, and that can also take a trip in pouring rain, snow or sandstorms. If you’re not an extreme nature photographer, you’ll probably still appreciate that the drive is lightning fast, so you can back up your data from computer or camera in an instant.

Over the years, we’ve therefore tested many of the so-called Yoga models in particular, because – as the name suggests – these are actually hybrid computers with a flexible form factor and a wide range of uses.

Perhaps it’s the age that’s getting to Lenovo when it comes to Yoga, because the manufacturer has recently launched a series of Yoga Slim laptops that can’t be used as a tablet, for example. Rather, these are super-slim ultrabooks that otherwise stick to a completely traditional form factor. This is also the case with the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon, which in turn is probably the lightest laptop we have tested to date.

Appearance and construction

The super-slim laptop weighs just 970 grams and is 1.48 cm thin at its thickest point, making it very easy to carry in your bag. It’s great to have a computer that won’t cause back injuries and massage and chiropractic costs.

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon is made from hard plastic combined with carbon fibre (hence the name Carbon), and the choice of materials means the machine is sturdy and solid.

The backlit keyboard is full-sized, with plenty of space between keys and good travel (the distance between the key’s resting state and its state when fully depressed), despite the computer’s ultra-slim form factor.

On the other hand, the range of ports has been reduced to a minimum. Two USB-C ports, including one with Thunderbolt 4, have been added, and if you connect the laptop to power, it’s via USB-C and you’re down to one usable connection option.

Even Apple’s MacBook Air has more connectivity options built in – namely a 3.5mm jack socket – and while the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon shamefully comes with a hefty adapter that adds HDMI, USB-A, VGA and 3.5mm jack socket to the package, the options aren’t exactly overwhelming. What’s the point of VGA these days? And wouldn’t it have been smart to include a card reader for SD cards instead?

Minimalism can also be overdone.

Display and sound

On the other hand, there’s plenty of space on the screen, which otherwise measures just 13.3″. The compact IPS screen supports a resolution of up to 2560 x 1600 pixels, which gives the slim laptop more real workspace than many slim ultrabooks with larger screens, such as the Samsung Galaxy Book2 Pro 360, which otherwise comes with a full 15.6″ screen, yet can only muster an outdated 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution.

Even though it’s not an OLED panel, the screen delivers a sharp image and good colours. However, the brightness (max. 400 nits) could be better.

Sound is a relatively tinny affair through the built-in stereo speakers, but gets plenty of richness and heft when a pair of proper headphones is used.

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One has to accept that the range of ports is reduced to a minimum. Two USB-C ports, including one with Thunderbolt 4, have been added. (Photo: Lenovo)

Performance and features

Under the hood sits the not-so-new 12th-gen Intel Core i7 processor and Intel Iris Xe Graphics architecture, meaning the Galaxy Book2 Pro 360 supports both Thunderbolt 4 and Wi-Fi 6.

The good processor – combined with generous 16 gigabytes of RAM – delivers a satisfyingly high performance, as our benchmark results also document, while the machine doesn’t develop so much heat that the fans get overworked. So the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon can handle the vast majority of everyday tasks without a creak, but it’s no gaming computer. On the whole, the graphics performance is nothing to brag about.

The poor battery life is particularly disastrous. Admittedly, when we benchmark, the computer is subjected to maximum stress without battery-saving features until it runs out of power. But a result of less than two and a half hours is still below what should be accepted at the relatively high price.

Conclusion

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon is a super-light ultrabook with plenty of muscle. The screen comes with a high resolution and we like the keyboard, which is both backlit and offers a good tactile user experience.

That’s why it’s all the more frustrating that the little laptop stumbles before the finish line. The screen’s brightness is too weak, the computer has almost no built-in connectivity options, and worst of all is the battery life, which is nothing short of outrageously poor.

The Yoga series was expanded with several models. Including the all-in-one PC Yoga AIO 9i, the slim Yoga Slim 6i. And – for those who can’t get enough screen space, the Yoga Book 9i has two 13.3″ OLED displays.

In addition, the existing models in the Yoga series are of course updated with new processors from Intel and AMD.

Lenovo is also still making tablets. Here, Lenovo launched the 14-inch(!) and aptly named Lenovo Tab Extreme, which can be switched between serving as a laptop and tablet. And Lenovo Smart Paper, a digital notepad with handwriting recognition and space for more than 50,000 notes.

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The Lenovo Tab Extreme is a 14" tablet with a separate keyboard. (Photo: Lenovo)

Lenovo had also thought outside the box on the business models. ThinkBook Plus Twist has two screens in one. The two screens are OLED and e-Ink respectively, but you can’t see them at the same time as they are mounted back-to-back. On the other hand, you can choose between the sides in a snap by rotating the screen around its axis.

We’re not quite sure what need Lenovo has met here – but it’s certainly original and eye-catching!

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Hocus pocus... screen or e-Ink? Levo's chameleonic ThinkBook Plus Twist has them both. (Photo: Lenovo)

The ThinkBook range also has a new addition in the form of the ThinkBook 16p Gen 4, which has a “magic” docking space at the top of the screen for mounting upgrade parts. Such as a better webcam, LTE modem or video light. Only one of those at a time, though.

Gaming with AI chip

In connection with CES, Lenovo is also updating the Legion gaming series. This includes the world’s first dedicated AI chip, which should be able to optimise performance automatically during gameplay on the new Lenovo Legion Pro 7 and 7i as well as the Lenovo Legion Pro 5 and 5i. Many of Lenovo’s models come in two processor versions, so the “i” stands not for “injection” but for “Intel.”

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Lenovo Legion Pro 5i (Intel)

Most notable is the updated Odyssey Neo G9 (G95NC), which isn’t just gigantic. The 57″ ultrawide display (above) is also the world’s first display with dual UHD resolution. For the first time, the gaming monitor delivers 7680 × 2160 resolution and a 32:9 aspect ratio on a single screen.

The display is also the world’s first with DisplayPort 2.1 support, which transfers data at approximately twice the speed of the previously used DisplayPort 1.4. The Odyssey Neo G9 supports a refresh rate of 240 Hz, so gamers won’t miss a beat during fast-paced games. At double UHD resolution, it must require a super-heavyweight graphics card – and wallet.

Slightly smaller but with unfathomably deep black is the Odyssey OLED G9 (G95SC), which has a 49″ ultra-wide screen and an OLED panel with double QHD resolution. This screen also has a 240 Hz refresh rate.

Thanks to apps from partners such as Prime Video, Netflix and YouTube, the Odyssey OLED G9 can display smart TVs directly from the internet without the need for a PC.

Graphic designers and photographers can look forward to the ViewFinity S9 (S90PC), a 27″ 5K display optimised for creative users. The monitor’s built-in colour calibration engine will ensure accurate screen colours and brightness.

Finally, the range of smart monitors for the home office expands. Smart Monitor M8 (M80C) is now available in a new 27″ with 4K resolution.

The Smart Monitor M8 can be used to access Prime Video, Netflix, YouTube instantly via the Smart Hub.

The monitors have just been unveiled to the press at the CES 2023 electronics show in the US. When the monitors will reach Europe and what the prices will be is yet to be confirmed.

The Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 is the latest in the line of laptops from Microsoft. A large and very slim computer, available in 15″ and 13″ versions. We’re looking at the 15-incher here.

Available in five colours

The machine is slim and the large screen makes the computer look even thinner than it is. At its lowest, the bottom of the machine is only about half a centimetre thick. And at 1.6 kg, the Surface Laptop 5 is among the lightest in the 15-inch class.

The case is milled from one piece of aluminium and the machine is available in no fewer than five colour variants: three shades of grey as well as black and a pinkish metallic colour called ‘sandstone’.

The design oozes subtle exclusivity. Not in as ostentatious a way as the super-stylish Dell XPS 13 Plus. But it’s a machine you can comfortably afford to haul out of your bag and place on the conference table next to your colleagues’ MacBooks with a confident I’m-not-just-going-with-the-flock smile.

Unique screen format

The touch screen is 15″ in 3:2 format, the same proportions as a landscape A4 page. The screen resolution is 2,496 x 1,664 pixels, a resolution that is only used by Microsoft, so there is no standard abbreviation for it. But in practice the resolution is pleasantly higher than the outdated Full HD, but without being as razor sharp as true 4K.

The screen is of a type that Microsoft called PixelSense. What that means, we need a trip back in time to understand.

A wild concept

Microsoft Surface started as a wild concept for the future in 2007 – a ‘digital coffee table’ where multiple people could work together around a giant high-resolution screen that recognised both touch and the objects placed on the screen. It was a truly amazing experience when I first saw Surface.

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The Surface series started as an experimental interactive computing platform. (Photo: John Alex Hvidlykke, L&B)

Since then, the wild concepts have been translated and simplified into practical everyday reality. The large collaboration screen has been replaced by the touch screen of a laptop. However, the screen, now called PixelSense, has retained the ability to handle touch by anything other than human hands. You can, for example, ‘paint’ on it with an ordinary brush in painting applications – instead of a special digital equivalent.

As there is no separate numeric keypad, the surface of the computer seems as large and spacious as the deck of an aircraft carrier. The keyboard is otherwise of excellent quality. The keys have a pleasant spring and resistance and do not wobble horizontally, as many slightly cheaper keyboards tend to do. But the Surface Laptop 5 is no cheap machine either.

Simplicity is arguably a virtue, but the selection of ports is simply pathetic. One USB-C port and one USB-A. That’s all. Although the former includes Thunderbolt 4 and can thus provide access to external monitors and much more if you invest in a dock such as the Corsair TBT200, it’s still beneath contempt.

Mediocre interior

Beneath the designer metal surface you’ll find an interior that’s a little more traditional, bordering on the mundane. The motherboard is built over the Intel EVO specification, which for years has given us laptops with fast startup and enough RAM and graphics to handle everyday office tasks.

There’s a choice of 12th-gen Intel Core i5 and i7, as well as either 8GB or 16GB of RAM and an SSD of either 256GB or 512GB. All in all, useful but by no means lavish choices! Especially not considering the price.

The graphics card in all cases is Intel Iris Xe Graphics, which is built into the processor and shares memory with Windows.

Benchmarks

The processor is an Intel Core i7-1255U with a working speed of 2.6 GHz and up to 4.7 GHz in turbo mode. That’s okay. 10 cores and 12 threads would have been awesome a few years ago. But having tried many-core monsters, the processor honestly seems a bit sluggish. It handles common office tasks just fine. But at a premium price, expectations are high. The GeekBench processor test ends with a score of 8,110 in multicore and 1,593 in single-core respectively.

The Cinebench R23 test scores 1,142 in single-core and 7,241 in multi-core. And the PCMark 10 office application simulation ends with a score of 4,193. All the values paint a picture of a laptop that will handle all everyday tasks without a hitch. But it puts things in perspective that every single score is surpassed by the Acer Swift 5, which is only half as expensive.

That includes the 3D tests, which once again show that the Intel Iris Xe isn’t made for games more demanding than Minecraft.

For an ultrabook like the Surface Laptop 5, battery life is far more important than 3D performance. And here, thankfully, it doesn’t disappoint. Our intensive battery test ran four and a half hours before the machine shut down. In realistic use, that equates to more than a full working day’s use.

Conclusion

Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 is a luxury machine in a stylish execution that a pleasure to take out of the bag and put your hands on. It also has an excellent 15-inch touchscreen with a usable resolution. For the price, however, I miss a bit more opulence. 16 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD are not what I expect to find in a top model from a leading manufacturer. And it’s not hard to find machines with the same performance for much less. Whether your preference is for a PC (for example, the fine Acer Swift 5) or you prefer a MacBook Air M2.

Whether you go for a standard 16:9 screen, a wider 21:9 – or the very widest, curved 32:9 format depends on several factors. In this case, I’d go for the latter. Because there’s something special about the image filling the whole field of view. Both for the immersion in the game itself, and because it gives a much better overview. It’s like having two 16:9 screens next to each other, but with no joint or edge between them. This has a number of advantages.

Advantages of ultra-wide screens

The biggest benefit of all is that you can see more of the environment around your main character. This adds to the realism, and an important benefit can also be that you can see enemies that would normally be out of your field of vision – saving you time spent shifting perspective. Precious time that, in a game, can mean the difference between life and death. In car games, you also have better side vision that extends beyond the position of the wing mirrors, making the driving experience more natural.

If you use the screen for anything other than gaming, it’s also great to be able to open multiple windows next to each other on your desktop. Having the Word document right next to the browser, while you can drag image files into Photoshop next to it, makes workflow much better than having to keep pressing alt+tab to switch between application windows.

Disadvantages

However, there are a few things you should be aware of. Firstly, as we all know, nothing comes for free, and this is particularly true of ultra-wide screens. Because in practice we’re talking about two screens in one, and while the screen itself is unlikely to be twice as expensive as a ‘normal screen’ of similar quality, there are other complicating factors that mean in practice some significant compromises have to be made.

I use a 16:9 monitor with 4K resolution myself. If you want to double the width of the same screen, you need to go up to 8K horizontal resolution to get the same sharp picture in practice. But if you need to double the resolution of a normal 4K image, while playing at a screen rate higher than 120 Hz, you definitely can’t settle for a ‘pretty good’ graphics card. Only the very best graphics cards will be able to handle the task convincingly. And since people looking for a relatively budget-friendly ultra-wide display are unlikely to have a four-figure beast of a graphics card, one solution is therefore to reduce the screen resolution.

That’s why the largest screen resolution you’ll see on 32:9 ultra-wide displays today is 5120 pixels horizontally and 1440 pixels vertically. The same resolution as the screen we’re testing here. That saves the graphics card a lot of work, while the screen itself can be made cheaper. Win-win in most areas, except for the somewhat more pixelated resolution.

Tough specs at a reasonable price

The AOC Agon AG493UCX2 measures 49 inches diagonally and is equivalent to two 27-inch 16:9 monitors side by side. The resolution is like two QHD screens with 2560 x 1440 pixels each, which is in between Full HD and Ultra HD.

The screen frequency is a very respectable 165 Hz, which means it’s faster for action and panning than other screens at 120 and 144 Hz. Graphic designers and video producers who work on 60 Hz screens and think that’s enough are unlikely to see the need, but when you’re gaming and balancing on a knife edge with your virtual life at stake, there’s a whole different set of speed requirements.

There are of course even faster screens, for example Samsung’s expensive Odyssey Neo G9 with 240 Hz, but my assessment is that the AOC screen is plenty fast. You won’t experience any image lag, and the sharpness on movement is also fine.

Good contrast

The panel is of the VA type, which mainly differs from the more common IPS by having about twice the contrast. This is important for the experience! The trade-off of the technology, however, is a poorer viewing angle. The image becomes pale when viewed from an oblique angle, and with a screen as wide as this, it also means more vignetting at edges and corners.

Samsung’s Odyssey screen has the same panel type, but solves it with a much sharper curvature (1000R equals a circle with a radius of 1000 mm). On the Samsung screen, you have the same viewing distance to the screen, so to speak, no matter where you look at the picture. The weaker curvature of the AG493UCX2 (1800R = radius of 1800 mm) is not enough to completely get rid of the vignetting in the VA panel. But it helps somewhat, and it also means that the screen takes up less space on the desktop than if it were completely flat.

Nice picture

Uncalibrated, straight out of the box, the picture is fine and without any signs of banding (shading) or annoying artifacts. With standard dynamic range (SDR), I think the picture looks good, especially in movie mode. The white balance leans somewhat towards the warm, so if you have a colorimeter from, say, Datacolor or Calibrite, there’s a bit more to be gained from a calibration. If you’re sitting in a dark room playing games or working, you can also calibrate the screen down to 120 nits, which gives a better HDR impression when the lighting effects really need to go beyond the screen.

If you calibrate the screen to a maximum brightness of over 500 nits, you’ll find that HDR has almost no effect.

Global dimming

The reason is that the screen does not have local dimming, only global. In practice, this means that HDR white can never be ‘whiter than white’ if you run the screen at full brightness. You don’t get any excess HDR light.

Another disadvantage of global dimming is that the whole screen goes up and down in brightness in line with the screen content. This means that you constantly see the screen standing and working with the light, which I personally find so distracting that I prefer to turn off the HDR effect completely.

It’s more noticeable in movies than when gaming, but I notice it more on this monitor than when I tested the even brighter Quantum Dot monitor MSI Optix MPG321UR-QD.

Vignetting and resolution

I’ve talked about vignetting before, you can see it for example on a blue sky, which is brighter and paler in the corners than in the middle. This can be distracting, especially when watching movies or working with static content, whereas when playing games you tend to concentrate on slightly different things. Like not dying…

The resolution trade-off compared to a 4K display is also more apparent here than on the aforementioned Samsung display. Probably because the Samsung Neo G9 has an impressive dynamic range and contrast in the image, but also because it has a less distinct raster pattern, that is, a smaller gap between each pixel. The AOC AG493UCX2 never lets you forget that you’re actually looking at a screen, not an alternate reality. Simply because you see pixels too clearly.

This is true for games and movies, but especially for reading text. I have certainly seen QHD screens with better pixel density.

AOC Agon AG493UCX2: Conclusion

After testing the AOC AG493UCX2 over a while, I think it’s a good gaming monitor, even if the HDR effect doesn’t really make a big impression. You can live with the slightly too obvious vignetting when gaming, and also with the fact that the screen resolution isn’t quite up to par with true Ultra HD. The benefit of an ultra-wide image makes up for much of that, especially in first-person shooters like Halo Infinite where you need to see as much of your surroundings as possible without having to turn around.

The screen isn’t my first choice for video editing and image processing, as that kind of work requires a sharper image without visible vignetting. In my eyes, this is a pure gaming monitor and it can be recommended for that purpose with some reservations.

But they do exist, and not just at the detail level.

The most obvious improvement is the processor: Apple’s latest 5nm M2 processor, still with 8-core CPU, but now with 10-core GPU and up to 35 percent better graphics performance.

Improved performance of the processor’s Media Engine and more graphics cores also means iPad Pro can now be used for much more demanding image and video editing, such as 4K content, including in Apple ProRes with Dolby Atmos sound. For Pro models with a minimum of 256 GB, that is.

There’s just one catch, Apple ProRes doesn’t appear to be supported in the iPad’s camera app. At least for now, you’ll need a third-party app, such as the very useful Filmic Pro, to take advantage of the iPad’s ability to edit Apple ProRes footage.

BlackMagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve is another app – soon to be available for iPad – that also supports ProRes.

Flying Apple Pencil

So until then, it’s performance that’s the focus. Because pretty much everything else is like the 2021 model. iPad Pro still comes in two sizes, 11 and 12.9 inches. With mini LED display that supports ProMotion, variable refresh rate from 24 to 120 Hz and expanded P3 color space.

The display is very sharp with over 10,000 mini LEDs, distributed over 2,596 zones on the screen surface, and a maximum brightness of 1600 nit.

The only new thing here is a nifty solution for the Apple Pencil 2, which I thought was a gimmick. Instead, it turned out to be much more useful than I had imagined.

On the 2022 iPad Pro, all you have to do is move the stylus to the screen. Within 12mm of the screen, the iPad detects that an Apple Pencil is nearby, and then most apps respond with a preview of the setting when the stylus comes close. Tabs can open when the stylus is close, close when the stylus is pulled away, and so on.

iPad with iPadOS 16 also has support for Stage Manager, which makes multitasking a little easier. Now you can finally have multiple apps open at the same time, and see them in a row of tabs next to the active app. You can also switch between apps by putting the active one on top and the inactive one in the background. iPadOS 16 on iPad Pro also supports an external 6K display, connected to iPad via USB-C.

Performance test

In most apps, you barely notice that the M2 processor is faster than its predecessor with the M1 processor. Unless you’re using some of the more demanding apps, like Capture One, Adobe Photoshop, Affinity or Pixelmator. In other words, apps for creative users who are involved in image and video editing, among other things.

If you want an iPad for surfing, movies and TV shows, an iPad Air is a better choice. But then you don’t get laptop-class performance.

In our Geekbench 5 test, it turns out the 2022 model is slightly faster. In the single-core test, the difference isn’t much compared to the 2021 model, but in the multi-core test, the new Pro model scores 8,482 points and 33,231 in the Compute test. That’s certainly an improvement in theory, but what does it look like in practice?

Launching apps like Capture One and Photoshop is no faster than before, but tasks like adding filters and saving are experienced as faster. Stitching 4K footage together is just as easy as before, but adding and saving changes is more seamless, and the iPad plays back the 4K footage afterwards without any visible artifacts or layers.

What about the cameras?

They haven’t changed – it’s the same 12 megapixel cameras on the back and front. One rear camera is a wide-angle camera with 2x zoom, and the other is an ultra-wide-angle camera. Next to that a flash and Apple’s Lidar scanner, which can be used to display objects in AR – augmented reality – on the screen. For example, it could be a display of a piece of furniture in AR, showing how it would look in the living room.

iPad Pro or MacBook Pro?

When you’re faced with the choice between a new iPad Pro or a MacBook Pro, there are some obvious differences that will have a big impact on what you can do with them. The iPad’s touchscreen and pencil offer options that aren’t available on a laptop like the MacBook Pro.

The tablet can be expanded with accessories like a regular keyboard or one with a trackpad. A so-called Magic Keyboard. That makes the iPad almost like a MacBook, only with fewer connections. Just one: USB-C with Thunderbolt 4. Which is more than fast enough, but it means you can’t charge when the 9-10 hours of battery life is about up unless you disconnect other devices.

The iPad also lacks the card reader and HDMI output found on a newer MacBook Pro.

But don’t forget that with the same M2 processor and integrated memory at 50 percent faster memory speeds (up to 16GB on an iPad Pro with more than 512GB), the difference in performance won’t be much in practice.

A bonus of the iPad Pro is the combination of Wi-Fi 6 and 5G. That means you can quickly combine Wi-Fi access with access to the 5G network and be connected anywhere.

Conclusion

The biggest drawback with the 2022 models of the iPad Pro is the steep price increase. It makes a fully featured iPad Pro 12.9 with 2TB of storage and 5G more expensive than a MacBook Pro with a 14-inch retina display and 2TB of storage. And that’s before adding a keyboard to the iPad. Still, there’s no denying that the 2022 edition of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro is a formidable tool for creative professionals who need a powerhouse in a convenient form factor.

The key to that is Thunderbolt 4, which is really not due to Corsair. Thunderbolt is in fact a standard built into the newer versions of the USB port. But the dock brings it all together, so to speak. And that’s where the usefulness begins.

Thunderbolt allows you to connect not only old-fashioned USB devices like printers, webcams and hard drives, but also monitors to the USB-C port. In fact, both HDMI and DisplayPort standards are integrated into the port.

This also means that you can most likely connect an external monitor to your laptop, even if it lacks a physical HDMI or DisplayPort output. It just requires a suitable cable.

Everything in one place

But back to the dock. The Corsair TBT200 is a pretty comprehensive – and admittedly expensive – one of its kind, allowing you to pack a lot of features into one place.

The dock itself is a flat, oblong aluminum box with rounded edges and a variety of ports on the front and back.

On the back you’ll find three USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 support. Each port can transfer up to 40 gigabits of data per second. The ports can thus be used for fast devices like PCI Express devices – and monitors. There are also two fast USB-A ports for external hard drives, for example. And an Ethernet port for wired networking. It can handle up to 2.5 gigabits per second. If the Ethernet ports on your router or switch can keep up.

The front offers more and more diverse connections. A USB-C and a USB-A port will likely be used for USB drives and for charging USB devices. With 15 watts of charging on USB-C and 7.5 watts on USB-A, it’s not super-fast, but at the work computer most people have all day anyway.

There’s also an SD card reader and a combined audio output that can double as an input.

It’s convenient!

You might ask yourself, what’s the point of another audio output when every laptop in the world already has a 3.5mm minijack output? That’s right. And the Corsair TBT200 solves a number of problems that for most users can already be solved by the built-in ports in the computer. But the dock expands the number of devices that can be connected at the same time. And, most importantly, it makes it convenient.

In fact, the most useful port on the TBT200 is the last USB-C port, which is labelled ‘upstream’. You plug in your computer here – and with just one cable you can access everything connected to the dock. Since the dock has its own 150 watt power supply, you can also charge the computer through the same cable. A short and powerful USB-C cable is included for just that purpose.

All combinations work

Two USB adapter cables for HDMI and DisplayPort are also included in the box. If you need to connect two monitors with the same type of connectors, you can simply buy an extra of the kind you need. The dock (and through that, the computer) doesn’t care whether HDMI or DisplayPort is used, as both connection types are integrated into the Thunderbolt 4 standard.

And this is where things get really magical. I had long used a 27-inch 4K monitor on the desktop alongside the built-in monitor in the PC. But in addition to the Word window with the story I am currently working on, I also have to keep an eye on emails in Outlook, internal messages from colleagues, a couple of browser windows with information and Photoshop for image editing. All of which adds up to a desperate need for screen space!

And this is solved as simply as putting another monitor on the desk and plugging another USB cable into the dock After a few seconds of the now three monitors turning on and off, and the images on the screens noticeably twisting as the graphics card tries to solve the monitor puzzle, the Windows desktop has almost doubled in size. Which is more than you can say for the space on the physical desktop. But hey, you can’t have everything …

Automatic setup

It takes no drivers and no installation to make the multi-display setup work. And Windows automatically figures out what resolution and refresh rate the monitors support. And that’s usually the best option. However, if the screens have very different resolutions in relation to size, it may be a good idea to adjust the magnification so that icons and text don’t change size when you drag a window from one screen to another.

Plug and play notwithstanding, the adjustment is apparently not instantaneous. For the first day or two, the screens sometimes had to be helped to come on if the screen had been switched off during a break. This was solved by turning the screen on and off. And the problem disappeared completely after a short warm-up period, during which Windows must probably have updated the screen drivers.

As mentioned, the basic features are built into the Thunderbolt 4 standard – and thus most laptops (both PC and Mac) launched since 2020. And the Corsair TBT200 just adheres to this. Not all docks support all screen resolutions and refresh rates, though. The Corsair dock allows you to connect up to two 4K resolution monitors with 60Hz refresh rates at the same time. Furthermore, the Thunderbolt 4 standard does not support more than two monitors via USB-C.

Note: The TBT200 is currently only available via Corsair’s own webshop, but should be available in stores later.

Conclusion

A product like the Corsair TBT200 is as indispensable as it is indispensable – once you get it on your desktop. It solves – virtually – no problems that couldn’t be solved by the ‘naked’ laptop along with the right cables and adapters. But it does make the switch between using the computer as a super-portable ultrabook and a desktop office workstation much, much easier. Because instead of having to fiddle with plugging cables into all the openings on the computer, I now only have to plug or unplug one USB-C cable.

If you’re just attaching a few USB devices, this is insane overkill. But the ability to attach multiple monitors to the laptop and connect everything – including audio – to the computer with a single cable is simply an amazing convenience.

With its metallic blue aluminium casing, the Acer Swift 5 looks like the typical luxury Ultrabook. But just 15mm high and 1.2kg light, the laptop costs half as much as executive toys like the Dell XPS 13 Plus. And while the Swift 5 isn’t as razor-sharply designed as the Dell, it’s actually a little bit lighter and thinner.

As high-res as you need

In the reviewed version, the Acer Swift 5 has a 14-inch screen in the resolution that with an impossible abbreviation is called WQXGA. That equates to 2560 x 1600 pixels, so it’s comfortably sharper than Full HD, but not as extreme (and expensive) as 4K resolution. And for most, higher resolution will be irrelevant on a 14″ screen, as it will simply mean that text and icons will have to be magnified to 200% instead of 150% to be legible. The screen is in 16:10 format.

Equally important, the screen has touch functionality, which makes it easier to use the computer when there is no room for a mouse. For example, in airplane seats or crowded auditoriums. The screen is made of Gorilla Glass; we’ve seen that before. But this is the first time I’ve come across a screen with a germ-killing coating, so your greasy fingerprints won’t pose a health risk.

The keyboard, which is the same metallic blue colour as the case, is of slightly better than average quality and you can type quite quickly on it. Acer has chosen to make the outer rows of keys narrower instead of letting the keyboard go to the edge of the case.

It seems a bit cheap (the machine is cheap), but the reason is probably that there should be room for more ports. And there is: Two USB-C ports, two USB-A ports and a proper HDMI output. Next to the power button you’ll also find an in fingerprint reader.

Built over Intel EVO

Like most Intel-based ultrabooks today, the Acer Swift 5 is built over the Intel EVO-platform. This is an excellent starting point that almost inevitably leads to pretty decent computers. Once the EVO logo is on the machine, you’re assured of at least 16GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD, as well as Intel Iris Xe Graphics. The processor, on the other hand, can vary. In this case, however, it’s a really snappy Intel Core i7-1260P with 12 cores and 16 threads. That means about three times as much computing power as the typical i7 processor had just two years ago. And that’s even the same processor as in the aforementioned and twice as expensive Dell XPS 12 Plus.

Benchmarks

With the motherboard’s EVO architecture, the results of our benchmark measurements aren’t particularly surprising. And the processor is equally well known, so the fact that it’s fast comes as no surprise either. But considering the price, it’s all actually quite surprising. In fact, on not just most, but all points, the Acer Swift 5 outperforms the Dell XPS 13 Plus, which is twice as expensive and built on virtually the same hardware!

The Geekbench 5 processor test ends with a score of 9.225 in multicore and 1.716 in single-core. That’s very nice. And enough for any kind of office work.

The same is shown by the office simulation PCMark 10, which ends up with 5,708. We’ve seen it higher. But only on expensive gaming monsters.

The Intel Iris Xe graphics are good for what they’re designed for, which is to ensure a smooth running Windows user interface. 3D graphics are not its forte. But you can just barely play some Counterstrike or League of Legends after office hours.

The 3DMark Time Spy test ends with a score of 1.775. The less demanding 3DMark Fire Strike passes with a score of 4.795.

The battery life of three hours and 17 minutes is sufficient for a full day at the office. And since the machine charges with USB-C, you can emergency charge with most mobile chargers should you be hit by overtime.

Competitors

There are plenty of EVO computers, but most are more expensive than the Acer Swift 5. In the price range this year, we only tested the Huawei Matebook 14, which had the same screen resolution but had to settle for a slightly slower processor.

The Dell XPS 13 Plus has the same performance but a much higher price. So if you can make do with WQXGA screen resolution and a more down-to-earth design, there’s a lot of money to be saved.

Conclusion

The Acer Swift 5 is an exceptionally well-built ultrabook computer at a really sharp price. The processor is the star of the show, but there’s enough graphics, RAM and storage to compete with more upmarket models. And the Swift 5 doesn’t look cheap at all. If you need a handy PC that you can stuff in your bag for everyday use and that’s so light and compact you’ll wonder if you remembered to bring it, there’s not much to worry about.

However, Lenovo also makes computers that are more flamboyant. The Legion series are pure gaming PCs. And in this case we’re looking at the Lenovo Legion 5i, which – in the tested version – is a medium-sized and not too expensive gaming laptop.

Many (almost) identical PCs

You have to be very attentive here, as the Legion 5i comes in an almost infinite number of variants: screen sizes of 15.6″, 16″ and 17″, different resolutions and refresh rates, with or without touch. We could go on …

The same goes for the hardware, where you can choose between different processors and graphics cards, as well as customise the amount of RAM and SSD storage. Depending on the choices, you can end up with prices that, despite a similar look, are several hundred euros above or below the machine we tested.

These kinds of differences are not uncommon, and to give the most sober and accurate assessment, we at L&B tech Reviews often have to ask the vendors and their press agencies several times to clarify exactly which SKU (configuration) is being offered for review – and what it actually costs in the shops. But when it comes to a giant like Lenovo, the choices are more numerous than at smaller manufacturers, who often have to make do with a handful of variants.

Nice mid-range quality

The Lenovo Legion 5i we’ve tested is a 15.6-inch laptop in a fairly lean titanium grey casing. The screen is hinged a few centimetres in front of the rear edge of the chassis, which both makes the machine seem smaller and provides better space for the cooling system, which is crucial in a gaming PC.

The screen is neat without being overwhelmingly colourful (on the other hand, it is fast).

The keyboard is of average quality. There’s plenty of space around the keys and they’re all normal-sized. It’s all good for the price. There’s also a separate numeric keypad. That sort of thing is a good thing on office machines, but pretty irrelevant for gaming.

Plenty of ports

Since the case is large, room has been found for a nice number of ports: Three USB-C ports, three USB-A and even Ethernet – although wireless is faster, thanks to WiFi 6E. What’s missing is a separate DisplayPort output for a fast external monitor. But the display port is still available via USB-C.

Good processor, skimpy GPU

The processor in the Lenovo Legion 5i is among the best you can find for reasonable money. At least from Intel: a 12th-generation Core i7-12700H with 14 cores and 20 threads.

There’s also enough good, fast DDR5 RAM, plus a 1TB SSD. You can save some money by settling for a smaller SSD, but games require space. Lots of space.

We would, on the other hand, accuse Lenovo of having skimped on the graphics processor. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 isn’t bad, but on the other hand we’ve seen machines with much better graphics cards for the same price.

The Lenovo Legion 5i has a WQHD resolution screen (2560 x 1440 pixels) and a respectable 165 Hz refresh rate.

Benchmarks

Although it would require a serious outlay for most people, the Lenovo Legion 5i is not an expensive top-of-the-range model, but a reasonable mid-range product. This can be seen in our benchmark measurements, which are mostly decent without being overwhelming.

However, we’ll start with an exception: the Geekbench 5 processor test ends with a score of 11,680 in multicore and 1,660 in singlecore. That’s really nice, and it shows that the Intel Core i7-12700H is miles ahead of previous i7 generations.

The PCMark 10 test shows the same. A score of 7.175 is great – and you can definitely take the gaming computer to work, where it will excel at spreadsheets and graphics editing.

The lightning-fast CPU also does its bit to boost performance on 3D graphics, which is actually above what you should expect from a GeForce RTX 3060 card. But if you want to play advanced games in high resolution, you should look for a more powerful alternative. Lenovo can provide that too, but it adds significantly to the overall price of the machine.

In absolute terms, the 3DMark Time Spy graphics test ends with a score of 8.476. That’s well below GeForce 3070 machines like the aforementioned Shark Gaming and Acer Predator Helios 300. This wouldn’t matter much if the machines didn’t cost roughly the same as the Legion 5i.

The battery test is great for a gaming PC: three hours. But in any case, the fast hardware requires so much power that you still have to carry the heavy charger in your bag.

Conclusion

The Lenovo Legion 5i is a gaming laptop at a relatively accessible price and with quite usable specifications. But it doesn’t make the headlines. In the price range, you have to make some compromises, but in this case, they are not so well chosen. The processor is downright excellent, and the high-resolution and fast screen could provide the basis for great games. Which it does. But despite the fact that in previous tests I’ve complained time and again about an outdated Full HD resolution on gaming monitors, I’d rather sacrifice the WQHD screen for a snappier graphics card. That doesn’t make the Legion 5i a bad machine, but for the price you can find more successful configurations. In fact, you can do that at Lenovo too, which regularly offers just the discount that would make it a good buy.

The Dell XPS 13 Plus 9320 is the ultrabook of ultrabooks. I’ve been writing about technology, including computers, for over 30 years. I’ve also seen several generations of 13-inch Dell XPS computers. The oldest of them is from 2007, and 15 years after I bought it, it’s still stylish. And I turn it on from time to time. But I’ve never seen a laptop as sharply designed as the new XPS 13 Plus! The case is so wedge-shaped and thin that it makes a MacBook Air look clunky. The sharp 4K display is largely edge-to-edge – but framed by a slim aluminium frame. So is the keyboard, which goes right to the edge of the enclosure. The sleek impression is reinforced by the touchpad – which can’t be seen.

Where’s the trackpad?

The computer has a trackpad, of course. It’s just invisible. The same goes for the top row of function keys, which are touch panels that light up when the PC is on. However, the touchpad remains invisible at all times. It looks exceptionally smart and exclusive! In use, however, it’s not nearly as smart, as you’re literally fumbling blindly while trying to hit the touchpad, which is no bigger than on other laptops. Right-clicking becomes particularly difficult as, unlike left-clicking, it can only be done in the bottom right corner of the touchpad, the extent of which you can’t see!

More smart than practical

Accuracy does improve over time as your fingers get used to finding the magic spot. But Dell has managed to make a simple operation much harder than it needs to be. Which is opposite of the idea of great design, is it not?

The sleek impression is reinforced by the touchpad – which isn’t there at all.

Unfortunately, the same applies to the ports on the Dell XPS 13 Plus. Which are barely numerous enough to be mentioned in the plural. Two USB-C ports are the only connections to be found on the ultra-slim enclosure. In fairness, it would have been nearly impossible to find room for any other ports. An included adapter for USB-A, HDMI and DisplayPort would have gone a long way. You do get a USB-C to USB-A adapter and a headphone adapter, though.

Perfect display

The display, on the other hand, is nothing to complain about: a bright and colorful UHD display in 16:10 format. As mentioned, it takes up almost the entire frame. And the touch function is the icing on the cake. It doesn’t get much better than that. And no laptop from Cupertino has a screen that’s even half as good. Apple fans are welcome to refute my claim by pointing to 13-inch Mac laptops with 4K resolution and touchscreens. Or at least with just one of the two.

Powerful components in a small frame

The Dell XPX 13 Plus is among the slimmest laptops you’ll find. The computer is just 1.6 centimetres thick. And since the solid aluminium lid measures just under half a centimetre in thickness, there’s just over a centimetre for the electronics themselves. It’s impressive what Dell’s engineers have managed to cram into the ultra-slim enclosure.

The processor is a 12th generation Intel Core i7. There’s 32GB of DDR5 memory and a 1TB SSD. The graphics card is – of course – an Intel Iris Xe, which is integrated into the processor. A perfectly acceptable solution for an ultrabook computer.

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Touchpad and function keys are invisible. And the keyboard goes all the way to the edge. (Photo: Dell)

Benchmarks

The processor is an Intel Core i7-1260P with a speed of 2.1 GHz and up to 4.7 Ghz in turbo mode. It has 12 cores, but ‘only’ 16 threads, as modern processors don’t just have cores, but are split into ‘performance cores’ and ‘efficient cores’, which doesn’t automatically lead to twice as many threads as there are cores. However, this is a technicality, as the processor is fast anyway.

The GeekBench 5 processor test ends with a result of 7,032 in multicore and 1,426 in singlecore respectively. That’s definitely respectable for a processor designed for ultrabooks, where heat dissipation should be as low as possible. It’s a bit slower than the 2022 edition of the Apple MacBook Air with M2 processor. But only slightly. As is also the case with the Cinebench R23 test, which ends up with 1,608 in single-core and 6,702 in multi-core. The PCMark 10 office application simulation ends with a result of 4,935. That’s an impressive score for such a light laptop. And you have to go up to much heavier computers, like the Acer Predator Helios 300, to see significantly higher processor performance. And that comes at a cost in terms of weight.

True to tradition, we’ve also tried running 3D graphics tests on the Dell XPS 13 Plus. And as always, they show that this is not what ultrabooks are built for. Compared to other computers with Intel Iris Xe graphics, however, the Dell holds up fairly well.

For an ultrabook, the battery test result was a little disappointing. The Dell XPS 13 Plus only managed a good two and a half hours of intense office simulation at full brightness before the battery was drained. However, that should be enough for a normal working day. And if the worst comes to the worst, most newer USB-C chargers will do the job.

Verdict

The Dell XPS 13 Plus is an extreme computer. It’s slimmer and lighter than most, and design-wise, it’s quite spectacular. It’s also just as fast as bigger and heavier laptops, and the 4K touchscreen is nice and sharp. When generous amounts of SSD and DDR5 RAM are added, a hefty price point is inevitable. If you can afford it (or if your company pays for it – which they’ll later deduce from your taxes), you’ll get a computer that’s bound to get some attention at the conference table. The invisible trackpad is a wild idea that, in my view, makes operation unnecessarily cumbersome. At least until you get used to hitting the right spot with your finger.

The comparison with the Apple MacBook Air is unavoidable. The performance is on a par with it. And if you scale back the RAM, storage and screen resolution requirements, you can easily find a Dell XPS 13 Plus that matches the MacBook on both price and specifications. But it’s in this super edition that it’s most interesting.

The Acer Predator Helios 300 isn’t a top model, but it’s at the better end of the premium segment. In other words, a machine that you may have to save up for – but not for ever.

No-nonsense gaming

The Acer Predator Helios 300 has a classic gaming design: namely a relatively thick and heavy PC in an angular, jet-black casing. Acer even calls the colour Abyssal Black. The blackness is broken only by a logo in silver and neon blue on the lid. And since we’re in the gaming department, all keys are individually RGB-lit. But there’s none of the orgy of luminous colour bars we’ve seen on more expensive gaming computers.

A gaming computer can be big and heavy, as long as it delivers the goods in terms of 3D action with enough frames per second. It is also easier to achieve adequate cooling when the enclosure is large.

Higher resolution than usual

The 15.6-inch screen is in the old 16:9 widescreen format, which is still the norm for gaming. But the enclosure is curiously in the higher 16:10 aspect ratio. That means there’s a fairly wide bezel under the screen. The screen is quite nice, by the way, and the resolution is QHD (2560 x 1440 pixels), which is a step up from the age-old Full HD format.

The downside of the higher screen resolution is that you have to live with a slower refresh rate. 165 Hz is just enough to play fast 3D games without any visible stutter or lag. The screen has Nvidia G-Sync to prevent the image from tearing when things get fast.

Good, colourful keys

The keyboard, as mentioned, has individual illumination behind each key. There’s also been room for a separate numeric keypad without squeezing the size of the keys too much. Gamers in particular might have preferred Acer to use all the space on the main keyboard, though. The quality is also very good. The keys have exactly the firmness and resistance needed to be sure whether a key is pressed or not. Which can save (or take) lives in the heat of battle.

A beast of a CPU

And then we come to the interesting part: the interior. The new 12th-generation processors from Intel are really fast. And the Helios 300 uses a Core i7-12700H, that’s a 3.5 GHz beast with 14 cores and 20 threads.

The graphics card is an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 TI with 8 GB of video memory. So the second fastest Nvidia card for notebook use.

Benchmarks

The Acer Predator Helios 300 is a PC at a fairly reasonable price. That is, about half the price of the super-heavy machines. But although the price difference from the top is substantial, the difference in performance is much smaller.

The Geekbench 5 processor test ends with a score of 12,506 in multicore and 1,704 in singlecore. Only the i9-equipped Asus ROG Flow Z13 has been faster. And not by much.

The GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GPU is currently the second best mobile GPU from Nvidia. And it’s doing an excellent job. In fact, the 3DMark Time Spy graphics test score of 11,331 is the best we’ve measured on a laptop to date. And the nearest competitors all had RTX 3080 graphics cards. In the pure raytracing test 3DMark Port Royal, the Helios 300 also comes in ahead of the on paper much more powerful MSI Creator Z17 (respectively 6,303 points for Acer and 5,695 for MSI)

The battery test goes better than we’re used to when it comes to gaming PCs. It took almost four hours to drain the battery with a constant simulation of office applications. That’s great, but of no practical importance, as games use far more power. And no one would consider using such a large and heavy PC as a school computer.

Conclusion

The Acer Predator Helios 300 is a gaming laptop in a price range that isn’t cheap, but is still accessible to most people who want to spend a little extra on their hobby. And if you choose to spend the extra money on the Helios 300, you’ll get performance that will satisfy all but the most fanatical pros. The GeForce RTX 3070 Ti card is almost as fast as an RTX 3080 card in all respects, but significantly cheaper. And the processor makes both games and “serious” applications go very fast. With a refresh rate of 165 Hz, the screen is only just fast enough for demanding games. But it’s a necessary and well-chosen compromise when the resolution has to be raised to QHD. It’s not often that I give full top marks to a mid-priced gaming PC. But here it’s well deserved.

But Samsung ultimately chose to be present in Barcelona, and as the South Korean electronics giant had already launched new smartphones and tablets in the Galaxy S range shortly beforehand, the only real news the company had with it at the mobile show was a pair of new laptops in the so-called Galaxy Book range. One of these is the Samsung Galaxy Book2 Pro 360, which we have now had on our test bench in the version with a 15.6-inch screen.

Appearance and design

And as the name suggests, it’s a laptop that folds 360 degrees around its own axis. So the hybrid computer can be changed from being closed up like a regular laptop to being folded so that the lid and base are back to back.

In this mode, the Galaxy Book2 Pro 360 can in principle be used as a kind of tablet, but it is too large and heavy for that. In all fairness, the computer is actually a lightweight at just over 1.4 kilos, considering the 15.6-inch screen and the huge case. But walking around with it in your hands as a tablet is just not very practical. Rather, the hybrid format can be used in other ways – for example, in movie mode or presentation mode.

A so-called S Pen is also included in the package, so you can write or draw directly on the screen, but it’s a passive and less accurate version of Samsung’s pen without built-in Bluetooth – not the active type that comes with, among other things, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra tablet.

Instead, the pen uses electromagnetic resonance to work with the laptop’s touch screen, so functionality is limited. For example, you can’t use this S Pen as a remote control or remote trigger for the camera. On the other hand, it does not need to be charged.

The fact that the Galaxy Book2 Pro 360 is so large means that there’s room for a full keyboard. There’s good spacing between the keys, and both the wander and the haptic user experience are respectable.

Samsung has also built a fingerprint reader into the power button, which is located at the top right of the keyboard. Unfortunately, we experienced constant problems with the function, as the button repeatedly refused to recognise my fingerprints. Most annoying.

The huge trackpad under the keyboard, on the other hand, is very precise and responsive. But because the trackpad takes up so much space, the distance between the laptop’s bottom edge and the keyboard is so great that it’s a long way for the hands to reach the keys. In other words, your wrists rest on the rather sharp and uncomfortable edge when typing, which isn’t exactly super-ergonomic. It can be done better too, Samsung!

Screen

Of course, the Galaxy Book2 Pro 360 has to be big to accommodate a full 15.6 inches of screen real estate. That’s definitely something to live with, when in return you’re rewarded with SO much more space for all your application windows and work tasks… [Uh, what did you say? That can’t be right, let me check … duh! That’s right, the screen only has 1080p resolution. Well, well, well, Samsung. What were you thinking?]

Well, we’re just hearing in our earpiece that you actually DON’T get more real space to work on, even though the screen is 15.6 inches. And so it’s hard to find a grimace that fits. It makes so little sense that our empathic faculties are at a loss to figure out why Samsung even brought the product to market. Perhaps for users who want their documents and projects blown up to FULL size (in poorer quality)? We don’t know, but if you know the answer, then the Galaxy Book2 Pro 360 with 15.6-inch screen might be for you.

If so, you’ll at least enjoy the AMOLED screen’s fine image quality, which offers good contrast and sharp colours. Unfortunately, the brightness is not so great, reaching a maximum of 500 nit. In other words, this hybrid model is best suited to those who prefer to stay indoors when the sun shines.

Performance and features

Under the hood sits the latest 12th generation Intel Core i7 processor as well as Intel Iris Xe Graphics architecture, meaning the Galaxy Book2 Pro 360 supports both Thunderbolt 4 and Wi-Fi 6E.

The new processor – combined with a whopping 16 gigabytes of RAM – delivers a satisfyingly high performance, as our benchmark results also prove, while the machine doesn’t develop so much heat that fans get overworked.

The range of ports is also well-approved with three USB-C ports, one of which also supports Thunderbolt 4, as well as a 3.5mm headphone input and a card reader for microSD. However, we would have liked a dedicated HDMI output, but you can’t always have everything.

The poor battery life detracts more from the overall experience than the absent HDMI port. Now then, when we benchmark test, the computer is subjected to maximum stress without battery-saving features until it runs out of power. But a result of just over four and a half hours is still below what we expected.

Conclusion

To sum up, the Samsung Galaxy Book2 Pro 360 is a mediocre product, which may work in a pinch, but is definitely not recommendable.

First of all, the laptop is so big and unwieldy that the hybrid format doesn’t make a lot of sense. In addition, it is very unergonomic, especially if you type a lot.

The performance, on the other hand, is acceptable (if we disregard battery life), whereas the huge 15.6-inch screen, which has to make do with Full HD resolution, just doesn’t make sense.

More precisely, it’s about the media player Winamp, which has just been released in a new version – after four years of total silence from the developers. And a whole nine years after the program was officially given the deathblow. Winamp was huge in its day, but is this the beginning of a new success for the 25-year-old application?

As important as the Walkman

When the MP3 format appeared in the first half of the 90s, it meant a musical revolution at least as big as when the Walkman made music portable. Now you could transfer music over the emerging internet and store it on your hard drive. Back then, net speed had to be measured in kilobits per second and hard drives in megabytes, so file compression was absolutely essential.

This was made possible by the MP3 format (actually MPEG1 Audio Layer 3), invented by the Fraunhofer Institute. By removing the “redundant” data, the file size could be reduced by 90-95 percent compared to uncompressed wav files ripped from CDs. It was revolutionary – even though the sound quality of the higly compressed files was questionable. Suddenly MP3 files were on everyone’s hard drives and could be swapped with friends in the same way as Pokemon cards. Or downloaded from pirate services like Napster. You could also rip tracks from your own CDs, which the author of this article has spent countless hours doing.

Organising the music

But the music had to be played. And that’s where Winamp came in, in 1997. A small free program with a CD player interface that could play music through the PC’s speakers. But more importantly, Winamp made it easy to organise music files into playlists. And thanks to meta-information stored in MP3 files, files could be organised by genre, album and artist. This had never been seen before.

Although the name reveals that Winamp began as a Windows application, versions have been made for Mac, as well as DOS and Android.

Winamp was easy to use, and you could extend its functions with plug-ins that allowed you to play other file formats or create psychedelic light shows on the screen in time to the music. If you attended a party in the late 90s or early 00s, it’s pretty certain that the music was controlled by Winamp. Yours truly has been the nerd DJ for many a party at the office or at his son’s school. And in far corners of the hard drive there are still folders with names like 70s party and Halloweendisco 2011.

Streaming conquered the MP3 folder

For more than a decade, Winamp was an indispensable application on every music geek’s hard drive. But in 2013, it was over. Music services like Spotify and iTunes had made it possible to play music directly from the internet via your mobile phone, which had by then become a smartphone. It was goodbye to lugging a computer and external hard drives to the party – and hello to millions of online music tracks to choose from. Internet giant AOL, which had paid $80 million for Winamp at the time, closed down the development department.

Nothing’s changed

Since then, Winamp has led a shadowy existence under changing ownership, but largely without development. An updated version was launched in 2018, but with no visible changes or improvements.

Until now, when a new version 5.9 has been launched. The improvements consist of a number of bug fixes, as well as adaptation to Windows 11.

When you open the program, however, the recognizability is unmistakable. Winamp looks like itself. But it must be operated with a magnifying glass. Not only has my eyesight dimmed somewhat over the 25 years that have passed. But the screen resolution has multiplied. Which means the application window is tiny and the font and buttons unreadably small. After some time, however, I managed to find the menu that scales the display to 300% – and makes it possible to see what is going on on the screen.

So what? The reunion is nostalgic, but I don’t think the new release will become a regular part of my daily music listening. And the four years of development will probably turn out to have been wasted effort. For one thing, the streaming services that caused Winamp’s demise in the first place are stronger, more numerous and more popular than ever. And once you’ve got 50 million tracks available on your mobile, it’s hard to imagine ever going back to the MP3 folder on your computer. And even die-hard music collectors like myself have since found easier ways to play the collection of FLAC and MP3 files. In fact, this functionality is now built into any self-respecting multi-room speaker, amplifier or even TV. Along with the ability to supplement with music from all sorts of streaming services.

You can download Winamp 5.9 here.

The HP Spectre x360 is, as the name suggests, a 360 degree PC where the touch screen can be rotated all the way around and laid flat against the back of the keyboard, allowing the machine to be used as a tablet. We’ve tested a few of these over the years, but where previous models have been compact 13-inch machines, the screen on the current generation has grown to 16 inches. And in the taller 16:10 format.

So the computer takes up a lot of space and weighs a lot. But you do get a workspace that’s suitable for more than just typing emails on the go.

Sharp 4K touch screen

The screen is the Spectre x360’s most compelling card. A bright and crisp 16-inch in UHD+ resolution (3860 x 2400 pixels). And with touch, of course. A touch-sensitive pen is included in the rather large box. This makes the computer an obvious choice for graphic artists.

Since graphics work requires processing power, there is a separate graphics processor on board, namely the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 with 4 gigabytes of dedicated graphics memory. There’s 32 gigabytes of working memory and a 1 terabyte SSD for storing applications and data.

Too big to be smart

The Spectre series is HP’s premium range. On the x360, it’s seen in the form of a graphite-grey unibody enclosure. But although the edges are rounded and adorned with a copper-coloured accent stripe all round, it doesn’t really manage to make the 40cm-wide, two-kilogram computer feel light and elegant.

On the other hand, the large case provides plenty of space for the keyboard, which is spacious, and the keys feel just as firm as they should. A discreet white backlight makes it easy to find the right key in a darkened auditorium. There would have been room for a numeric keypad, but HP opted for ergonomics – and space for the Bang & Olufsen sound system.

There’s an acceptable selection of ports on the HP Spectre x360: two USB-C ports of the latest vintage – with integrated DisplayPort and Thunderbolt 4 – plus an HDMI output and a single USB-A port. The latter is half-covered by a flap, which shouldn’t really be necessary as its only purpose is to preserve the sharply designed edge of the casing.

The Ethernet port will probably not be missed. Especially since the machine in turn has the brand new Wi-Fi 6E standard.

Benchmarks

The processor in the Spectre x360 is a surprise – but not in any good way. An 11th generation i7 (3.4GHz i7-11390H) with just four cores is frankly pretty sluggish in such an expensive machine. This can also be seen in the performance, which is pretty mediocre.

The Geekbench 5 test resulted in a score of 1,604 in single-core and 4,950 in multi-core. The PCMark 10 office software test scores 5,016. In isolation, these are speeds that are perfectly adequate for office use. But you can get better performance from cheaper PCs with more advanced processors. Among them the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 – and HP’s own Envy 15.

One of the things that piqued our curiosity and made us order the HP Spectre x360 home for testing was that it comes with the new GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card. This is a new graphics processor that is less expensive than the larger models in the RTX series. But still with the promise of real 3D performance in a not too expensive laptop.

So are the promises being fulfilled? Barely: the 3D performance is below what I would call real, and the computer is quite expensive.

Disappointing GPU

The 3D graphics tests from UL (formerly Futuremark) get results that are admittedly well above the typical ultrabook with Intel Iris Xe graphics. But they’re still only on par with the older and more inexpensive GeForce GTX 1650 Ti graphics card that used to be the solution for true 3D graphics on a budget. The Time Spy test comes in at 3,607, and the older Fire Strike test (both in the standard edition) scores 8,120.

The PCMark 8 battery test finishes at just over three hours. That’s quite good for such a large PC with a 4K screen. And enough to get through a day at work without the charger. Which is extra important, since HP has opted to use an old-fashioned DC connector for charging instead of USB-C. So you can’t borrow a charger from a colleague for an emergency charge.

Conclusion

The HP Spectre x360 is a curious machine, and I can’t really see who it’s primarily targeted at. It’s too big, heavy and expensive to carry in your bag for most people. If it was the 3D performance that was the selling point, you can get much more for the price. And no one would consider gaming on a 60 Hz screen.

The only thing that stands out positively about the Spectre x360 is the large and very nice 4K touch screen, which together with the pen can make the machine a workhorse for graphic artists. But even there, the price/performance ratio is somewhat strained.

The Razer Audio Mixer is – of course – an audio mixer, but it’s specifically designed for streaming, where microphones and other external audio sources can be combined with sound from the computer.

The mixer is a compact unit (11.5 x 15.5 cm) that easily fits on the desk next to the keyboard, mouse, coffee cup and microphone. Since it’s a mic, four large faders take up most of the surface. And since it’s a Razer, the mixer is jet black with built-in RGB lights that can be synced with other gaming devices.

<Bleep!>

The faders are numbered 1-4, and there’s a mute button under each that can turn off the sound. What each button and slider will control in practice can be set in the Razer Central application, which controls all installed Razer devices.

For the sake of Americans who are comfortable with firearms but can’t stand expletives, there’s a “bleep” button that mutes the microphone sound when the button is held down.

Advanced setup

Setting up and bringing the Razer Audio Mixer into use isn’t something you should just start five minutes before your first stream is due to go live. In fact, you need to keep your wits about you when connecting the various audio sources to the mixer, which can handle analogue, digital and virtual sources. The latter could be the sound of a game on your PC, for example.

If you have a professional studio microphone, you’ll be pleased to know that the mixer has built-in 48-volt phantom power. USB mics without analogue outputs, on the other hand, have to go via the computer, as there is no USB input apart from the USB-C connection from the mixer to the PC.

Routing

With all the cables plugged into the mixer, the Razer Central control program needs to define the routing – which channels on the mixer control which audio sources. This is where it gets really complex, as the mixer acts as both input and output here.

For example, if you want background music from Tidal in the mix, you’ll need to select “Music (Razer)” as the playback device in the Tidal client, and then assign “Music” to a fader on the mixer to adjust the volume. Similarly with playback sound, microphone input, etc.

It’s not crucially different from how you set up the sound on studio audio interfaces with multiple inputs and outputs. But the combination of external audio sources and audio streams in the PC makes things more complicated. And that also makes the Razer Audio Mixer a suitable tool for streamers in particular.

There’s a selection of built-in effects such as compressor, EQ and echo/room sound, so you can get rid of the worst of the dry sound from the microphone. And special effects like robot voice etc, if that is your thing.

Few channels and inputs

But the mixer isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for every upcoming audio engineer. For one thing, four audio channels is very limited. You can, however, control more than four audio sources in Razer’s control panel, but that’ll be without nice volume sliders.

The second limitation is that there’s only one of each type of input. If you need to connect two professional microphones or two line signals, the mixer is too limited. So forget about having two hosts in your streaming studio.

Competitors

Since we haven’t tested – or for that matter seen – a similar product before, there are not many direct competitors we can point to. But a lot of the features can be found in professional studio sound cards from the likes of RØDE and Zoom. And here you can easily get 8, 12 or more channels. At a price that starts about one and a half times that of Razer. On the other hand, they lack the crucial integration with the here-and-now sound from the PC itself.

Conclusion

The Razer Audio Mixer is a specialized product by integrating an analog/digital mixer with the PC’s various internal audio channels. This makes it a great tool for streamers who want to do broadcasts of gaming in particular. Razer’s core audience. The fact that it can also be spiced up with sound effects makes it all the more fun.

The setup is bound to get a little complicated when you have to follow and understand which signals go where. If you’re used to using a “real” mixer with multiple audio channels in and out of a home studio, the Razer mixer may seem limited. But for its particular purpose, it’s right on the mark.

If you’re a competitive gamer or simply want to immerse yourself in action games to the max, the screen has its work cut out for it. After all, it’s the visual link between you and the game, and it needs to be lightning fast to keep up with every movement and avoid screen tearing, where the image breaks up into flickers when the frame rate gets too high.

But that’s not all. For the best gaming experience, the screen needs to be high resolution. Preferably 4K Ultra HD!

While it’s not a big deal when you’re editing and watching video (there are other challenges like contrast, viewing angle and, not least, correct colours), you want both when it comes to gaming.

But the higher the resolution of the screen, the more it takes to make it fast enough. Minimum 120 Hz, preferably 144 Hz. And a super-fast screen often has lower pixel resolution and therefore not so good graphics in landscape scenes and racing games.

It’s perhaps in e-sports in particular that you want a bag-and-bag solution. Car games, for example. You’re used to seeing cars all the time in real life, and a game with good graphics can make vehicles almost lifelike. While humans haven’t yet gotten that lifelike rendering anyway, shooting and adventure games might not need the very highest pixel density. Lightning-fast movement is more important here.

IPS display with all the benefits

With 1 ms true response time (MPRT), the MSI Optix MPG321UR-QD is about as fast as it’s possible to make a display with an IPS panel.

IPS is a panel type that has viewing angle and color accuracy as its greatest strengths, and just a few years ago it was almost unthinkable to use the technology for gaming. It wasn’t fast enough.

Another disadvantage of IPS is that the absolute contrast level suffers somewhat from the wide viewing angle. A TN panel, for example, has higher contrast when viewed directly from the front, but falls through when viewed from an oblique angle.

With this display, MSI has pushed IPS technology as far as they can to get the optimum balance between sharp colours, high resolution and lightning fast refresh rates.

What’s more, the screen is factory calibrated to be near colour neutral, so it can actually be used for imaging without having to pay for a colorimeter and spend time on multiple calibrations to get a good enough image. That’s not common for gaming monitors, where the focus is often on nice rather than correct colours.

Quantum dots

To reproduce a wide spectrum of colours, MSI has settled for using quantum dots in the colour filter. Where ordinary pigments both steal brightness and degrade over time, quantum dots are instead tiny holes drilled into a specific substance (zinc magnesium oxide), where the size of the hole determines the wavelength of the light – and therefore the colour – that is carried on to the image sensor.

The advantage of quantum dots is that colours do not degrade over time and they have a much higher light output – and therefore better contrast and colour detail – than a conventional colour filter.

Almost correct right out of the box

In the menu you’ll find different colour settings, divided into a Gaming tab and a Professional tab. Because the idea is that you should actually be able to use this monitor for image and video processing as well, and then the price might not be so crazy.

My own 32-inch 4K monitor from BenQ, which I use as a reference, has neither HDR nor a screen frequency higher than 60 Hz. The MSI monitor is thus much more usable, and although the colours are not quite as correctly calibrated, there is not much difference between the two set up against each other. That is, except that the MSI screen is brighter.

The User colour setting is the one that looks best if you’re going to use the screen for gaming, video and image processing. It’s close to neutral, while the colours are more vibrant than if the screen were set to sRGB, which is even more similar to the BenQ reference.

For gaming, you don’t really need to think about calibration. However, if you’re going to use the screen for image processing, internet surfing and perhaps video editing, I think it’s going to be too bright. Personally, I like to have it down around 120 nit, and then the screen needs to be calibrated to get the grayscale correct. But as a gaming and entertainment monitor, you can just go for it.

Fabulously snappy image

There’s something special about a 32-inch display with razor-sharp 4K resolution seen from a metre away. You get up close to the action, and the cars in Forza Horizon 5 are so lifelike it’s almost scary.

Ray tracing makes sunlight reflecting off the paintwork look amazing, and with 144Hz speed and G-Sync support, there’s such a flow to the image – completely flicker-free – that it’s almost hypnotic.

Now admittedly you don’t need more than 120 Hz for this game; at least I never saw the frequency counter higher than 119 when playing it on PC with a GeForce RTX 3090 video card. But then I also set all graphics and resolution to max. If you turn it down a bit here and there, you can get higher frame rates.

HDR600

The MSI display has 400 nits brightness to play with by default, but you can switch to HDR and get 600 nits as the absolute maximum. An HDR brightness of 600 nits may seem a bit low, but in normal environments it provides an excellent experience.

The fact that the screen has global dimming means that the whole picture – including the shadow areas – gets brighter in those brief moments when the screen needs to go above 400 nits. But I honestly don’t notice it when I’m gaming. In movies, however, it’s more noticeable, as you have more time to study the picture surface. But contrast, brightness and colour reproduction are better balanced than on many other screens.

Just be aware that black levels generally get brighter when HDR is enabled, so if you dim HDR content but keep HDR enabled in Windows, you’ll experience a slightly paler image.

Outperforms more expensive monitors in some respects

The many other displays also include the cool Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 widescreen, which has dynamic backlighting but gives a significantly paler SDR image than the MSI display. And SDR is important, because you don’t always want HDR on, especially when working with images for websites and prints, or just browsing the web.

As an all-round monitor, the MSI Optix MPG321UR-QD is among the best I’ve tested. It also doesn’t suffer from the halo effect that characterises monitors with dynamic backlights. Even much more expensive monitors like the Asus PA32UCX-K mini-LED monitor that costs three times as much!

USB hub and other connections

In addition to being an excellent display that supports both 144 Hz through HDMI and DisplayPort, the many USB inputs add to the usability. The MSI monitor has USB-C display connectivity for laptop users and also a built-in hub with a whopping six USB-A inputs as well as three USB-C inputs for connecting external hard drives and memory sticks.

Unfortunately, all of these are 2.0 and not 3.0, so they’re a bit slower than I’d like. But they’ll do just fine.

Smart image features

Finally, I want to highlight some smart features, such as the ability to bring up a crosshair in the middle of the screen, which makes it easier to aim at things when the game doesn’t offer a proper aiming function. Or a digital magnifying glass that enlarges the centre of the screen, helping you aim at the enemy or distinguish between friend and foe before pulling the trigger.

That sort of thing also helps to increase the screen’s usability.

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The MSI Optix MPG321UR-QD stand is height adjustable. (Photo: MSI)

Conclusion

A screen is just a screen, you might think. But when you see how the MSI Optix MPG321UR-QD balances resolution with speed and colour reproduction, you immediately start to feel the need for something proper. Racing games, in particular, have smooth motion while the picture is razor sharp!

For shooting games, you might want something even faster, and there are monitors available today with up to 360 Hz refresh. But then they usually only have 1920 x 1080 resolution (Full HD) and thus only a quarter of the pixel count of the MSI Optix. Or 2560 x 1440 at best.

That’s good too, but I’d go for 4K if I were going to use the screen for other things.

The 27-inch display could easily be mistaken for an iMac. Just without the section below the screen, and it does come with an A13 chip and 64 gigabytes of internal storage, but it doesn’t work without being connected to a Mac. For example, the aforementioned Mac Studio. Or a Mac Mini, a Mac Pro or a newer MacBook laptop.

The display looks most like the larger Apple Pro Display, but if you think the Studio Display is expensive, wait until you see the price of the Pro Display. Which, admittedly, is a somewhat different screen. 32 inches with 6K resolution in 16:9 format, a whopping 1,000,000-1 contrast and 10-bit colour depth; it’s the kind of thing only the most demanding professionals need.

Apple Studio Display costs a third of Pro Display, and for most it will be a much better buy. It’s also available with nano-coating – at a price premium – which is basically a texture etched into the glass to dampen reflections without sacrificing contrast and sharpness.

Not many 27-inchers are directly comparable to the Studio Display. Respected Eizo makes 4K displays for photo and graphics in the same size and price range, as does LG, which has an excellent 5K display at a more favourable price. But the range isn’t huge.

Charging the laptop

The Apple Studio Display is priced at €1,749. For that you get an IPS panel with 218 dpi resolution, up to 600 nit brightness, support for P3 color space and a billion colors. The display also supports True Tone, which adjusts the screen’s colour temperature to the light in the room and reduces blue, which can give you a headache in the worst case.

Turn the screen over and you’ll find three USB-C connectors and one Thunderbolt 3 input and output with 96 watts of charging power. Plug in a MacBook and Studio Display charges the battery. Note that there’s no HDMI input on the display, which oddly doesn’t have a power button either. Instead, it automatically turns on when connected to a compatible Mac and turns off when the Mac goes to sleep.

There’s also a Vesa wall mount for the screen, which allows it to be tilted vertically, and a table stand with 105mm height adjustment. These can either be supplied pre-assembled, making the screen slightly more expensive, or retrofitted by an Apple specialist.

Great sound

Studio Display has built-in speakers that are surprisingly good. They are hidden on the inside and include four woofers in push-pull configuration and two tweeters. The display also supports Apple’s Spatial Audio as well as Dolby Atmos, and the sound it delivers is several steps up in quality compared to what’s common in this kind of display.

Indeed, bass and dynamics are aplenty here. A round of Apple TV+ and Apple Music was very convincing. I doubt musicians and music producers will settle for the built-in speakers, but many others probably won’t feel the need for anything better. The sound is that good.

FaceTime

The display also has a built-in FaceTime camera with three microphones on top, providing crystal-clear, noise-free audio for your conversation partner.

The camera is 1080p Full HD and has advanced image processing to improve video quality and provide accurate colours without noise and with good definition and sharpness. The FaceTime camera also has Apple’s Center Stage feature, where it follows you and zooms out if others are on the video call. It looks pretty cool, but the image quality is unfortunately lacking.

I compared the camera on the screen to the camera on a 24-inch iMac M1, and the image quality from the camera on the iMac was significantly better. Where the iMac camera gave images good sharpness, smooth contrast, nice colour gradations and very little image noise, the images from the Studio Display were blurry and washed out with a grainy layer of image noise.

Strange.

Apple says an update is coming to the display that will fix the problem. It wasn’t ready when we had to return the screen, so we have no idea how good the update is or if it will even provide decent image quality from the FaceTime camera.

Screen quality

The overall screen quality, on the other hand, is impeccable. You don’t get more than 60 Hz, and Studio Display doesn’t support Pro Motion at 120 Hz. We think it should, since it’s aimed at professionals who do video editing at an advanced level.

The display also doesn’t support HDR, another strange omission on what is, after all, a professional display. Compared to the screen of a calibrated 27-inch iMac (with Intel processor), however, you’ll see a much greater contrast range and smoother gradations on the Studio Display screen, which also has a more correct white balance right out of the box than the calibrated iMac screen.

Editing in Final Cut Pro or Adobe Photoshop is a pleasure when combined with the lightning-fast Mac Studio. Running smooth slow-motion videos on the razor-sharp screen looks simply phenomenal. But with even deeper black levels, like on an OLED display, videos and animations would look even more appealing.

MicroLED is also an option Apple already uses on the iPad Pro, but at the end of the day, the IPS panels Apple uses here are among the best on the market. It shows on the Studio Display.

Conclusion

Apple’s Studio Display is the natural partner for a Mac Studio. But I also used it with an older MacBook and a newer 24-inch iMac M1, and both worked flawlessly with the display. Which is a notch or two more solid and more well-made than most everything else in this class.

The price can seem off-putting, and considering that LG’s UltraFine 27MD5 has an equivalent 5K panel for considerably less – depending on where you shop – the Apple display seems overpriced.

The LG display also works with most PCs. But it doesn’t look as good next to a Mac Studio and doesn’t have nearly the great sound of the Apple display. It would have been perfect with HDR, ProMotion and a better FaceTime camera.