Tag: pcs

Mac Mini (2024): Specs, Release Date, Price, Features

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There’s Shark Week, and then there’s Mac Week. It’s a little less exciting, but Apple first announced a new iMac yesterday, and today we’re being treated to a new Mac Mini. Tomorrow, there’s a good chance you can expect a new MacBook Pro, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

The Mac Mini is Apple’s tiniest desktop computer and it’s getting its first redesign in decades. Apple refreshed this machine early in 2023 with the M2 chipset, but the latest entry is powered by the all-new M4 Pro, a processor making its debut today. The M4 lineup improves on power efficiency and speed, and like its predecessor, it can take advantage of the new Apple Intelligence that rolled out this week in macOS Sequoia 15.1.

Apple’s smallest desktop starts at $599 and is available for preorder now. It starts shipping on November 8.

Photograph: Courtesy of Apple

Small but Mightier Than Ever

OK, remember when Apple said the Apple Watch Series 10 had an all-new design and it still looked pretty identical to every other Apple Watch? Yes, the small changes made the Series 10 more comfortable and nicer to wear, but new design is a bit of a stretch. That’s kind of like the Mac Mini. It hasn’t received a major redesign since 2010, but things are changing now.

The already small desktop computer is now even smaller—coming in at 5 x 5 inches. Despite the smaller footprint, it’s a little taller, and the base slopes down with vents for airflow. It’s still, for all intents and purposes, a metallic cube.

Apple has finally added ports to the front, making them easier to access. Two USB-C ports support the USB 3.0, and there’s a 3.5-mm headphone jack. On the back, the M4-powered Mac Mini includes three Thunderbolt 4 ports while the M4 Pro version has three Thunderbolt 5 USB-C ports (another first—Thunderbolt 5 is the latest standard that supports up to 80 Gbps data transfer speeds and it’s only available in very few devices at the moment). Both models also have an HDMI (for connecting an external display), an Ethernet connection (configurable up to 10 GB), and a port for the power cable. Apple has completely nixed the USB-A ports in this model.

Unlike the iPhone, which arrives exactly on time every September, Apple’s desktop hardware can be a little more sporadic, and naturally, that means the processors powering these machines aren’t chronological. The last Mac Mini had the M2 chip, and no, this one doesn’t have the M3, but the M4 instead. There are two types to choose from: M4 or M4 Pro.

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October 29, 2024
Apple 24-inch iMac (2024): Specs, Release Date, Price, Features

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The colors are technically the same as before (green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, and blue, alongside silver), but rather than pastel shades, Apple made them darker. It comes with color-matched accessories too.

Speaking of, Apple finally transitioned the peripherals to USB-C—so, we can take them off the list of products that still use the Lightning Connector. At checkout, you can pick between the standard Magic Keyboard or the Touch ID model as well as either a Magic Mouse or Magic Trackpad. Yes, the Magic Mouse’s charging port is still located at the bottom, so you can’t charge and use it at the same time.

Apple has finally added the nano-texture glass option from its Studio Display and Pro Display XDR. It’s great if your computer is by a window and you want to reduce glare. However, it’s an additional $200 and is only available on the higher-tier iMac configurations.

Powering the 24-inch iMac is an M4 processor. The latest chip was announced in May but until now it was only available in the iPad Pro (2024). Built on a second-generation three-nanometer process, it prioritizes power efficiency and speed. With this new chip, Apple claims the iMac is up to 1.7 times faster than the original M1 chip in the 2021 iMac. Meanwhile, graphics are up to 2.1 times faster. The company also says it’s up to six times faster than the aging Intel iMac.

You can also pick between different variations of the M4. If you don’t need all the processing power, the entry-level model has an eight-core CPU and an eight-core GPU. You can upgrade to a 10-core CPU and a 10-core GPU. All models start with 16 gigabytes of RAM instead of 8 gigabytes, with the option to go up to 32 gigabytes (depending on the processor). As for storage, you can upgrade up to 2 terabytes for an additional cost, but you start with 256 GB.

Photograph: Apple

The increase in RAM will allow for a smoother experience with Apple Intelligence (it’s why Apple increased RAM to 8 gigabytes on the iPhone 16 models). Available with MacOS Sequoia 15.1, you’ll have access to features like Writing Tools, an overhauled Siri, Summaries for transcriptions in the Notes app, Smart Reply in Messages, and more. You can read all about these features, along with all the other new additions in Sequoia, in our roundup.

Apple Intelligence isn’t exclusive to the M4, but it’s clear that Apple is on a crusade to update all of its hardware so that Apple Intelligence is at the forefront of its operating systems. As Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman pointed out in his Power On newsletter, it took Apple three years to update the iMac with an M3 chip—the company launched the M4 version in 12 months.

Still, like the M3 iMac, the latest model is largely another spec bump. If you have a recent iMac—even the one from 2021—you can at the very least upgrade to the USB-C peripherals separately if you don’t need the bump in performance but want to finally ditch those Lightning accessories.

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October 28, 2024
MSI Stealth 18 AI Studio A1V Review: No AI Needed

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I was able to max out at 120 frames per second while playing Doom Eternal on Ultra settings, and even got around 70 fps in Starfield on Medium. Starfield dropped down to a still-playable 50 fps on Ultra, though I got it up to 80 fps on Ultra by enabling frame generation. I’m not a fan of this feature as it can sometimes lead to some weird smoothing effects—to my mind, it hits the same nerve as motion smoothing on TVs—but your mileage may vary.

In terms of battery life, your best bet is to keep your charger nearby for gaming sessions. The nearly 100-watt-hour battery is massive, but so is the power draw. It lasted around three hours of heavy gaming, and closer to six to seven hours with more typical use.

These limitations make the MSI Stealth 18 best suited to being a workhorse laptop you can play games on at the end of the day. Running media editing apps like DaVinci Resolve and Blender was smooth, and I rarely noticed performance problems while working on it. Most gaming laptops would run similarly with comparable GPUs, but the new Meteor Lake CPU gives you a bit of future-proofing. Companies like Blackmagic are working on adding support for NPUs generally, so if there’s an area where Intel’s NPU is likely to be used in the future, it’s likely media creation first.

There might be better laptops purely for gaming—the Razer Blade 18, for example, trades a lower-resolution screen for a whopping 300-Hz refresh rate. But if you’d rather have one powerful laptop for work and play, the Stealth 18 is a solid investment.

All the Right Extras

The design of the Stealth 18 feels a little bit more gam3r than I like, but I can live with it for all the extra little touches MSI has put in this thing. For starters, it comes with a NumPad. I don’t care what anyone else says, NumPads are great, and I appreciate that there’s a powerful gaming laptop with one. It’s most handy while doing various video editing tasks, less for gaming, but if you’re like me, you’ll appreciate its presence.

The rest of the keyboard is similarly delightful. The font on the keys looks strikingly similar to the font Sony inexplicably used for both PlayStation and Spider-Man branding back in the aughts. The chiclet-style keys are flat, with no dimples, but they’re raised enough to feel easy to distinguish while typing, though my most common mistake was hitting the new and largely unnecessary Copilot key, which takes up room near the space bar. The trackpad is super smooth. It could be a bit bigger, but I only wished this while connected to a second monitor.

Photograph: Eric Ravenscraft

There’s an Ethernet port, HDMI port, and the proprietary charging port on the rear of the device, which is an incredibly convenient location for plugging the laptop into a desk workstation. It’s not quite as convenient as a laptop docking station, but it’s less cluttered than cables sticking out the sides. I’m also a fan of the dedicated fingerprint sensor, which makes it easier to sign in to Windows and unlock password managers.

Overall, the MSI Stealth 18 is a powerhouse, even without the NPU. At $3,300 for the RTX 4080 model, you can save a few hundred dollars compared to comparably-specced (minus the refresh rate) laptops like the Razer Blade 18. Just make sure to keep your wall charger handy.

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September 25, 2024
The Best All-in-One Computers, Tested and Reviewed (2024)

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The all-in-one computer category—nestled fitfully between the laptop and desktop worlds—seemingly gets little respect from anyone: consumers and manufacturers. Why purchase a machine that has limited upgradeability and isn’t portable, a shopper might ask. And why invest in a small category no one cares much about, a computer executive would probably retort.

Why consider the all-in-one? Well, lots of reasons. First, because everything you need is packed into a single device—most have only one cable (for power) to deal with. They don’t take up the space of traditional desktops, and they’re less complex. Setup is a snap: Pop it on the desk, plug it in, and you’re ready to go. Even a relatively low-end all-in-one is more attractive on the desk than a traditional desktop. There’s a reason you often see iMacs parked in front of receptionists. Compared to a laptop, an all-in-one offers a much more expansive screen and, usually, more power to boot. Yet they can often be considerably cheaper than a laptop despite being larger. Many all-in-ones are available for well under $1,000.

It’s a tragedy then that the category is often ignored and slow to be updated. While most all-in-ones use laptop parts, none of the Intel-based machines I tested for this guide have been upgraded with its latest generation of CPUs (the Core Ultra line), and one is still using a processor from two generations ago. Nevertheless, there are so many pros to the all-in-one that the category merits attention. Here are our picks for the best all-in-one computers in various categories.

Be sure to read our other computing guides, including the Best Laptops, Best Cheap Laptops, Best Chromebooks, and Best MacBooks.

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August 28, 2024
Modular and Non-Modular PC Power Supply: What’s the Difference?

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If you’re in the process of building your PC, one of the most important components to consider is which power supply unit you will choose for your new computer. While shopping, you might see the word “modular” thrown around a lot as a key feature, and it’s not exactly self-explanatory. In fact, this decision is really important when it comes to your purchase, particularly if you’re building a new PC. Below is everything you need to know, as well as a few product recommendations.

Want to know more about PC gear? Be sure to have a look at our guides on Motherboard Sizes, the Best Gaming Keyboards, Best Gaming Mice, Best Gaming Headsets, and Best Gaming Controllers.

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Fully Modular

Simply put, the cables on a modular power supply are fully detachable from the brick. You’ll find a row of ports on the interior of the power supply, which match up with an included bag of cables. Both the ports and cables are meant for a specific power supply and use case, so make sure they match up.

The biggest benefit is cable management. Forget dealing with that big tangled cluster of hard plastic cables and oddly similar plugs. Instead, you can take each individual cable and run it from the power supply to its component, and then wrap them up at the end into tidy bundles.

Corsair’s fully modular RM1000e ($160) was updated in 2023 to support the new ATX 3.0 standard. It’s fully modular, well reviewed, and consistently available for below retail price.

Whatever cables you don’t need can also be left out of the case entirely. Any improvement to airflow is a welcome one, even if it’s minor, particularly next to the power supply. If you have a smaller case, or don’t have a dedicated area for the power supply, this can be particularly important.

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August 20, 2024
Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE Review: A Game-Streaming Laptop

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Gaming isn’t something you’d typically associate with Chromebooks, but Google and its hardware partners have made strides toward shaking that up with a handful of cloud gaming laptops in recent years. One of the more popular options is the Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE, which just got updated for 2024 with a new processor while keeping everything great about the previous model. It’s a modest upgrade, but it’s still one of the best Chromebooks you can buy.

Let’s get this out of the way first: If you already have the previous Chromebook 516 GE, there’s very little reason to upgrade to the 2024 Chromebook Plus model. Outside of some small aesthetic updates, this is largely the same device. The processor is now an Intel Core 5 120U instead of the older model’s Core i5-1240P, and you likely won’t notice much of a difference in speed.

Photograph: Daniel Thorp-Lancaster

Still, performance on the Chromebook Plus 516 GE is fantastic, and the battery kept me chugging through regular eight-hour workdays. Combined with 8 GB of RAM, you have plenty of room and horsepower for multitasking. The laptop frequently handled quick swaps between different apps and more than a dozen tabs with ease during my testing, and the dual fans keeping things cool never got loud enough to be annoying.

In contrast to Windows gaming laptops, the Chromebook Plus 516 GE is geared as a cloud gaming machine, and it fits that role well. You’ll do most of your gaming via Xbox Cloud Gaming and streaming through Nvidia GeForce Now, and ChromeOS handles both well. The laptop has Wi-Fi 6E and a dedicated Ethernet port on board to keep things running smoothly, and I didn’t experience any major hitches or issues with even competitive games.

The one gaming area that was hit-or-miss was Steam, which is still in beta on ChromeOS. Lightweight indie games like Vampire Survivors run like butter on the Chromebook Plus 516 GE’s hardware, and that’s the lane I’d stick with if I wanted to run games natively instead of streaming. Heavier games can have some trouble, which is to be expected with integrated graphics and a lightweight (by gaming standards) processor. I couldn’t get Dead by Daylight, one of my favorite time killers, to open through Steam beyond the initial loading screen, for example.

Photograph: Daniel Thorp-Lancaster

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August 10, 2024
How to Build a PC (2024): Hardware Suggestions, Instructions, and More

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Assembling a computer yourself is a good way to learn how they work.

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August 9, 2024
Asus Vivobook S 15 Copilot+ PC Review: Promising Battery Life

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The arrival of Microsoft’s AI-soaked Copilot+ PC has somewhat overshadowed the simultaneous launch of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X CPU, an upgraded, ARM-based alternative to Intel and AMD processors that have long dominated the laptop world.

Qualcomm has made some incredible claims about what the Snapdragon X would be able to do since its announcement last fall, the most notable being a promise of double the performance over competing CPUs at one-third the power draw. Those competing CPUs have all been upgraded since that announcement, so examining the situation with the current environment fully accounted for is crucial. The catch is that Microsoft’s Copilot+ PCs are only certified to run on Snapdragon X CPUs—for now, at least—so if you want the Copilot+ experience with all the new artificial intelligence features baked into Windows, a Snapdragon is the only way to fly.

Before we get to the CPU, let’s look at the laptop containing it more broadly. The Asus Vivobook S 15 (now featuring a space in the name, but sometimes not) dates back to 2017, when it began as an Intel-based product. Intel-powered Vivobooks are still around, mind you. The Qualcomm-based version reviewed here is model number S5507Q.

The silver laptop features a spacious 15.6-inch (non-touch) display running at 2,880 X 1,620 pixels of resolution. It’s plenty bright without being eye-searing, backing up its screen with a beefy Harman Kardon sound system. In addition to the Snapdragon X Elite X1E7810 CPU, the unit features 16 GB of RAM and a 1-terabyte solid-state drive, both standard on a modern laptop. The keyboard is roomy and responsive, even squeezing a tiny numeric keypad to the right.

Photograph: Chris Null

An intriguing addition is the inclusion of color LED backlighting for the keyboard—something you don’t often see outside the world of gaming laptops. The single-zone lighting effects can be tweaked in the preloaded MyAsus app, which controls a range of functions ranging from fan speed to audio effects. The backlighting is understated in large part because it is hard to see, due to the silver color of the keys. Whether the backlighting was on or off, I struggled to read the letters and symbols on the tops of the keys; there just wasn’t enough contrast.

Note that the unit does not include Asus’ new Ceraluminum shell—the S 15 has an all-metal chassis—nor does it include the older ScreenPad feature (where the touchpad doubles as a small display), which is present on some other Vivobook offerings.

Port selection is good and befitting of a 15.6-inch laptop, with two USB-C ports supporting USB4, two USB-A 3.2 ports, a full-size HDMI port, and a microSD card reader. All ports are side-mounted. The Vivobook weighs 3 pounds and is 20 millimeters thick, acceptable stats for a machine of this size.

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June 23, 2024
KVM Monitors Let You Cut Down the Desk Clutter, and I Love It

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“You need a KVM switch.”

That’s what my friend said to me three years ago after seeing a photo of my double-laptop setup. I told her how all I have to do is switch over a couple of cords at the end of my workday and I can enjoy my new gaming laptop in the same space as my work laptop. She’s a fellow hardware reviewer, so she had an easy answer: buy a keyboard, video, mouse (KVM) switch to do that exact step for me, no more cord-swapping required. It sounded too good to be true.

I didn’t buy one—I didn’t want to add yet another item to my small desk, so I continued to manually switch my HDMI and USB cords between my various computers for a few years. I got some other items to ease this process—a tiny HDMI switcher I can hide behind my monitor along with receiver-free Bluetooth devices—but the real answer was always a KVM switch. Until now. I switched my monitor to one with a KVM switch built in, so it’s a win-win. Less desk clutter, and no need to plug and unplug cords again!

A Desk to Rescue

Photograph: Nena Farrell

This is my desk circa April 2021. I became a big co-op gamer over the pandemic since playing games like Deep Rock Galatic and Stardew Valley was an easy way to stay close to my friends. Originally, I was exclusively a Nintendo Switch girl, but once my addiction to Animal Crossing: New Horizons ended, I moved on to PC games.

That’s when I got my first gaming laptop, but I needed room on my desk for it and my work computer. The bulky body of a gaming laptop is decidedly less comfortable away from my desk (and has worse battery life too), so I suddenly needed a permanent solution for my after-work gaming lifestyle.

A KVM switch was the clear answer. These let you plug in two computers or laptops—even if they run different operating systems—and connect peripherals like a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Once everything is connected, just hit the switch and you can use the same peripherals with either PC, no need to unplug and reconnect them. There are tons of options to buy one online, and they’re usually not too expensive.

But you can see my desk above. Another item to fit onto the desktop was the last thing I wanted; I’d rather have room for an extra candle or my mug of tea. KVM switches aren’t so big that this is a huge issue, but I let it stop me for years.

One Monitor to Rule Them All

Why get something extra if I don’t have to? The good news is that more and more PC monitors have a built-in KVM switch, so you can connect two computers and your accessories to the monitor and switch as you see fit. It’s so easy! Nothing else is on my desk! It’s the best of both worlds. I need a monitor anyway, so why not get one that has the power of a KVM switch inside?

It’s only useful if your keyboard and mouse have a 2.4-GHz USB receiver for connectivity, though. (These receivers usually offer better stability and lower response times than Bluetooth.) This Philips Creator Series monitor (read more about it in our Best PC Monitors guide) has both a KVM switch and an input change option. When I used it with receiver-free Bluetooth accessories, I only needed to switch the input from the monitor instead of using the full KVM switch feature.

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May 29, 2024
11 Best Cheap Laptops (2024): Our Picks for $700 or Less

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For our full take on what to look for in a laptop, see our guide Choosing the Right Laptop. The condensed version (even if your budget is limited) is to try to get at least an Intel i5 processor and at least 8 GB of RAM. 16 GB is even better. Recent versions of Windows (both 11 and 12) use an astronomical amount of RAM (sometimes as much as 6 GB in my testing). If you only have 8 GB total, that doesn’t leave much RAM for applications, and results in a slower laptop.

Aim for these specs: Try to get a laptop with at least a 10th-generation Intel Core i5 processor, 16 GB of RAM, and 128 GB of storage in the form of a solid state drive. We suggest getting a 13- or 14-inch display that’s close to FHD (1080p resolution). If you’re going to use it for watching movies, consider a 2-in-1 model (although these do tend to cost more).

If your budget is tight and you want the most bang for your buck, or you just want to keep something out of the landfill, consider the used or refurbished laptop market. I’ve had great luck buying used laptops on eBay from all sorts of sellers (both pros and regular people).

To score the best deal, make sure you know the market. Do some research to figure out what kind of machine will suit your needs. The easiest to come by, and therefore (usually) the best deals, tend to be the more boring, business-oriented models. I happen to like ThinkPads, which are used by—and then dumped all at once by—large corporations, which means there are lots to choose from, and they’re cheap.

Finding used laptops on eBay: Once you know what you want, search for it on eBay. Scroll down and check the option to show only “Sold Listings.” Now take the 10 most recent sales, add up the prices, and divide by 10. That’s the average price; don’t pay more than that. Keep the lowest price in mind—that’s the great deal price. Now, uncheck the Sold Listing option. See what’s between the lowest price and the average price. Those are the deals you can consider. I suggest watching a few. Don’t bid or participate at all. Just watch them until the end and see how high the auctions end up going.

Once you have a feel for the market and what you should be paying, you’ll know when you’ve found a deal. When you find it, wait. Don’t bid until the last few minutes of the auction. You don’t want other bidders to have a chance to react. Remember that if you miss out on something, it’s not the end of the world. There’s always something new being listed on eBay.

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May 21, 2024