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The Morning After: Intel's 10th gen mobile CPUs cross the 5GHz barrier

And NVIDIA's mobile Super RTX GPUs.

Richard Lawler
Senior News Editor
·5 min read
0

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

The coronavirus has caused an unprecedented shift of people working, learning and socializing from inside their homes, and Zoom has been there to take advantage. The group conferencing app is connecting people from all over the world, but with its increased popularity -- it went from 10 million meetings in December to 200 million last month -- there has come a new level of scrutiny.

After some embarrassing security and privacy revelations and the rise of "zoombombing," CEO Eric S. Yuan said the company will dedicate all of its engineering resources to fixing its "biggest trust, safety and privacy issues." Will that be enough to keep its momentum going? Only time will tell, but until then, at least take some basic steps to keep "party crashers" out of your Zoom chats.

-- Richard

Up against AMD.Intel and NVIDIA have new hardware for your next laptop

Intel has crossed the 5GHz barrier with its new notebook CPUs, and you'll get such speeds from six- and eight-core i7 processors, not just the fully specced i9 model. Intel stepped up its fight against AMD's new 4000 series Ryzen mobile processors, which also offer up to eight cores, but with a lower 4.4GHz maximum clock speed. AMD, however, is using a refined 7nm architecture, which makes them more power efficient. Oh, and AMD's latest chips also include up to eight cores of Radeon Vega graphics, which are far more capable than Intel's aging UHD graphics. That said, these processors are meant to go with a dedicated GPU, so it's a different thing.

Fortunately, then, NVIDIA's Super iterations of its RTX cards are now getting laptop versions, with the most powerful being the flagship RTX 2080 Super Max-Q. The company has included some new Max-Q features that should boost performance and power efficiency significantly on all the Max-Q GPUs, but only on new 2020 laptops. Naturally, all this news lands alongside new laptop reveals from Razer, Gigabyte and ASUS and Lenovo -- so it's worth browsing around if you're planning to pick up a powerful gaming PC in the next six months.

It's done.T-Mobile completes Sprint merger

As of Wednesday, the two carriers are one -- they'll do business simply as T-Mobile. They're also clearly confident in the transition, as CEO John Legere is stepping down early rather than waiting until the end of April as his contract dictated. COO Mike Sievert is taking Legere's place, effective immediately. The combined companies continue to claim this will help push 5G adoption across the US, despite opposition from those who think customers would've been better served by keeping another national wireless company in the game.

And some bass-heavy in-ear buds.Sony's new headphone line includes noise-cancelling ones for under $200

Sony's noise-cancelling headphones are among the best. The company often packs some of its best features into more affordable sets, too, and the WH-CH710N, announced yesterday, follow that trend. They're priced at $200 and pack active noise cancellation and ambient sound mode to hear traffic and your coffee order (both things less likely to happen at this present moment in time). Notably, Sony says these headphones will last for up to 35 hours on a charge -- that's longer than its flagship headphones.

Alongside these, Sony also revealed a new set of true wireless earbuds that don't pack any noise cancellation tech, but do have more bass power versus the competition. They have a nine-hour battery life and a tempting $130 price tag.

More polished than ever.Dell XPS 13 review (2020): Tweaked to near-perfection

We might have been singing the praises of the MacBook Air just yesterday, but if there's any device that might swing you to Windows, it could be the XPS 13. Refreshed, yet again, there's a bigger screen, more expansive keyboard and... still no full-sized SD card reader. Devindra Hardawar is besotted all over again.

If you take care of it.Samsung's Galaxy S20 buyback scheme promises half your money back

Samsung has launched a buyback program for the Galaxy S20 that would make it quite a steal. If you buy any of the Galaxy S20 phones on Samsung's store, you can return it any time within 24 months and, provided it's in decent enough condition with "no damage beyond normal wear and tear," Samsung will credit 50 percent of the full retail price to your payment account.

The deal means you could get from $500 off the Galaxy S20 5G 128GB and up to $800 off the Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G 512GB. That effectively gets you these expensive phones for as little as $500 for the entry-level Galaxy S20. It also makes it cheaper than the 'flagship' Android phones from rivals like OnePlus that typically undercut the Galaxy series.

See how Drake's story ends.'Uncharted 4' is free on PlayStation Plus in April

Let's start with a cliche. There's never been a better time to play through that pesky backlog of free games you've accumulated through PlayStation Plus. For your lockdown April, add Uncharted 4, the final chapter of the series. Because you already played through Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection (which included all the other games) that was free to download in January, right?

But wait, there's more...

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