At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Very fast disk, partition, and file/folder backup Highly reliable backups Super-versatile backup configuration Mounts images as virtual machines Guards backups from accidental or mischievous alteration Cons Subscription-only makes it costly over time No online storage included or supported Our Verdict While we love Reflect X’s speed, interface, options, and reliability, $50 a year for a pure backup program without support for online storage is a rather bold ask. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Macrium Reflect X Home backup Retailer Price Macrium $49.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket As an imaging program, Macrium Reflect X is second to none. In fact, it currently stands alone as the only such beastie that’s never created a bad backup in my hands. (Sadly, former-favorite R-Drive is no longer a member of that club.) The problem is that Macrium’s new subscription-only pricing for Reflect X makes it prohibitively expensive over time. Read on to learn more, then see our roundup of the best Windows backup software for comparison. What are Macrium Reflects features? At its core Reflect X is an imaging program, i.e., it creates byte-for-byte copies of drives and partitions — including “empty” sectors if you wish, which can be handy for recovering deleted or corrupted files. It can also create backups of files and folders you select to the same type of container file. Creating backups with Reflect X is a breeze — once you’re up to speed. Being a backup geek, I was truly taken with Macrium Reflect X’s incorporating full, incremental, and differential backup options into a single job with separate scheduling for each. Most software forces you to choose between incremental and differential. It’s brilliant. Now if the company would only do that with destinations. The vast majority of users have one set of data that they would like to keep backed up to multiple locations — for instance, to a local drive as well as cloud locations. Recreating a job for each is a pain. Reflect X’s interface is nicely laid out with three main tabs, for creating backups, existing backups (for testing or restore), and logs. Each has sub-tabs for related tasks — scripts, definitions, etc. I find them intuitively organized and easy to navigate. Full, incremental, and differential backup all in the same job with different schedules. Sweet. Creating a backup is done largely from two dialogs: a main/parent dialog with the major options and an advanced-options child dialog accessed by an icon in the lower-left corner of the parent. Perhaps not as easy as a wizard, but certainly a lot quicker once you know what’s where. Reflect X features a secure background monitor that watches over your backups for attempts to change or delete them, and also folds in Oracle VirtualBox functionality so you can mount your images as Virtual Machines. Both are very cool features. At least to this self-confessed backup geek. The VM mounter and a VM running in the VirtualBox add-in. There’s also a full-featured Windows PE-based recovery disc included for booting and recovering your system after a disaster. Mecrium’s Reflect X WinPE boot disc in all its glory. While Reflect X is aces at imaging, it’s not particularly versatile. For instance, there’s no sync or plain-file backup (simple copy with options), but most saliently — no support for online storage services, proprietary or otherwise. The company points out that many of its rivals (Acronis, Aomei, Easeus, etc.) are of possibly unfriendly foreign origins and that storing data with them might be a security risk. Sadly, that’s not beyond the realm of possibility, though last I heard the Swiss (Acronis) were allies. Note that there is zero proof of ill intent from any of them. Regardless, there are plenty of storage vendors within friendly territories they could use or at least allow access to. Offering support for known safe third-party services such as Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive etc. would be a nice compromise. Note that you can still use Reflect X to back up to the cloud by employing a cloud storage manager. To this self-confessed backup geek, a background monitor for backups and VirtualBox support are cool features. What’s new in Macrium Reflect X? Macrium touts its new open source file/image container format. This, however, simply means that developers have access to the format, not that it’s a commonly supported one you can mount with Windows or other means. If you have programming chops, this might do you some good if your program futzes out. But until other utilities take advantage, it’s of little significance to the average user who will still need the program for restore chores. Jon L. Jacobi Also new is the ability to pause and resume backups. It can be handy if you need to free up some CPU for another task, but it’s limited to the current session. I.e., you can’t quit the program or Windows and still resume. Note that the previous version of Reflect was 8.x, the company skipped over 9.x for the sexier 10.x, aka X. How does Macrium Reflect X perform? Macrium claims a significant increase in performance over version 8 and that was evident in my testing. Reflect X blew through a 240GB internal SSD-to-SSD backup in 2 minutes, 30 seconds, which is cooking with gas. The 7 minutes it took backing up to an external 5Gbps SSD isn’t bad either. Both procedures maximized the potential bandwidth. The only other program I’ve seen that’s comparably fast is Easeus ToDo Backup, which is glitchier, albeit in non-fatal ways. I reinstalled version 8 to test the difference and it was far slower, taking just over 9 minutes for the first task, and just over 10 minutes for the second. Obviously, the 5Gbps SSD (the Samsung T5 Evo) was the limiting factor in the second test, but that’s a lot of minutes saved between the two test runs. If there are any issues in a Reflect X backup, you’ll find them in the extensive logs. Of course, backup performance isn’t something a lot of users worry about, as the task generally runs in the background. Macrium thoughtfully puts a throttle on the progress page so you can vary the CPU usage. Most modern systems with SSDs won’t require throttling. How much does Macrium Reflect X cost? Now we come to the conundrum with Reflect X. If you want to continue making backups with the program, you have to pony up $50 every year. Yup, Macrium has gone from a company that offered a free personal-use version of Reflect 8, to one that sells the latest version only on a subscription basis. The program remains functional for restores if you discontinue your subscription, so your data remains recoverable. The real problem with this policy is that Reflect X isn’t photo, video, or music software whose basic utility can evolve substantially. It’s backup software whose core capability — imaging — isn’t going to change appreciably. Yup. No perpetual license is offered for Reflect X. In CA-speak, that’s a bummer. There are features Macrium could definitely add such as sync, multiple destinations, and especially support for online storage services. But I’d rather pay an upgrade fee, or buy the program again rather than be essentially on the hook for $50 year after year. Rival Acronis True Image is also subscription-only, but at least it includes relatively affordable cloud storage — secure or not. Not to mention malware protection. Hence, I haven’t been as negative towards Acronis’s annual fee. Should you buy Macrium Reflect X? Reflect X is a very quick, competent, and historically reliable imaging program. However, $50 a year? If you find it worth it, and/or can write it off as a business expense, have at it. But I can’t recommend it for the average user when there are so many free, and cheaper options — including the older, slower, but gratis version of Macrium Reflect 8 which I just used to restore a system that Microsoft’s Recovery Drive trashed. Thus my 4.5-stars rating for the excellent software gets a half-star deducted for the ongoing cost. Read...

One of the most prominent features of this year’s spate of graphics card launches—from both AMD and Nvidia—is the pricing issues they’ve faced. Due to various factors, GPUs that launched at modest MSRPs are selling with price tags several hundred dollars beyond. Though some newer and more affordable cards are bucking the trend, like AMD’s Radeon RX 9060 XT, most gamers are simply being priced out by the latest GPUs. Anyone looking to upgrade is likely having a hard time, and a new study by Liquid Web suggests these prices are sending gamers toward cloud gaming in greater numbers than ever before. Liquid Web (admittedly a cloud hosting company) polled 1,000 gamers of various ages and backgrounds on their recent PC upgrade interests and intentions. Some of the results are quite stark. PC gamers are being priced out Over half of all polled gamers said they had been so affected by price hikes and scalping on GPUs that they’d been forced to delay—or even cancel—their PC upgrading plans altogether. In fact, 43% of respondents said that life expenses (e.g., rent and bills) had forced them to skip graphics card purchases. You have to imagine there’s a lot of crossover there. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition is incredible, but its exorbitant price puts it out of reach of just about everyone.Foundry That’s no surprise considering the sky-high graphics card prices we’re seeing. Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5090 was supposed to sell at $2,000, but it quickly rocketed to over $3,000 at most retailers. Even much-more-affordable cards, like the RTX 5070 Ti and 5070, ended up retailing for hundreds of dollars north of their MSRP in the weeks following launch. The downside of rapidly rising GPU prices isn’t just that PC gamers miss out on next-generation gaming experiences—it disillusions them to the idea of upgrading at all. Among gamers who were ready to upgrade, 39% said they would wait at least another one to two years to upgrade their graphics cards, while a further 37% said they’d run what they have into the ground and only replace it when it dies. Then again, maybe by that time they won’t feel the need to upgrade anymore. Liquid Web’s study also shed insight on gamers switching to cloud gaming, where upgrades aren’t dependent on hardware availability or retail pricing. And there were an impressive number of respondents who were keen on the idea. Will the cloud replace hardware? Cloud gaming has come a long way over the past decade, and today it’s a relatively solid alternative to native play. Geforce Now, Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Plus—they all offer relatively affordable options for playing large libraries of PC and console games without needing to own the proper hardware… or, in some cases, even the games. As of this writing, cloud gaming is far from replacing local gaming. There are a number of factors as to why that is, but for the gamers in this study, it’s mainly due to latency problems. 62% of respondents (mostly Millenial and Gen Z) said they would switch to cloud gaming full-time instead of playing on their own hardware if latency were “eliminated.” Cloud gaming makes gaming anywhere with anything a lot easier.Muha Ajjan / Unsplash Unfortunately, that’s just not going to happen. While modern hardware and networking is fast, there’s just no beating the physical immediacy of local rendering on your own machine. However, when the question was asked more broadly of respondents, a sizeable number (42%) said they’d skip upgrading their graphics cards if “their needs were met” with either cloud gaming or AI upscaling. That’s a much more achievable goal for cloud providers who want to deliver a premium remote gaming experience. Around 20% of Millennial and Gen Z gamers believe that high-end GPUs will become less essential in the next three years because of cloud gaming and the growing improvements to AI upscaling like DLSS and FSR. Meanwhile, nearly 60% who are still holding out for a GPU upgrade to improve their gaming experience. I’m not entirely sold on the idea of AI upscaling being everything, but frame generation has made some impressive leaps lately. If Nvidia keeps its focus on AI and can’t figure out how to keep its GPUs in better stock, we may all be relying on more cloud and AI features before long. Read...

Millions of laptops get tossed in the U.S. every year. Most still work, but they end up in landfills or collecting dust in drawers. Only about one in five gets properly recycled, according to Lifewire. That’s a problem, but also a chance to do better. You can make a real difference through the choices you make when buying, using, and disposing of your laptop. That’s where we come in (hi there!). We’ll show you how to make a smarter, greener choice next time you upgrade. What makes a laptop sustainable? A sustainable laptop is designed with longevity, reparability, and energy efficiency in mind. Some companies are already deep in the game. For example, Framework makes laptops with modular parts, so you can replace or upgrade just about anything without tossing the whole thing. It’s honestly just fun to jump in and start messing around. If you’re up for a little challenge, they’ve got a DIY version where you build the whole thing yourself. IDG / Mark Knapp And then there’s the materials. Dell uses ocean-bound plastics in some laptops and packaging to keep waste out of the oceans. Apple’s newer MacBooks are made from recycled aluminum, cutting down on mining. Acer and Lenovo also sneak recycled plastics into their devices, helping reduce the need for new raw materials. HP is also stepping up by offering programs that take back old devices to recycle them responsibly. All these efforts might seem small on their own, but together they really add up. Further reading: How 6 top laptop manufacturers are lowering their carbon footprints Okay, but does this stuff really matter? It sure does! If you end up springing for a laptop made from recycled aluminum (like a newer MacBook, for instance), you’re already one step ahead of the game. Great job lowering your carbon footprint! Plus, fixing or reusing old parts helps reduce digging up new materials from the earth. And there’s the energy side of things, too. A traditional laptop eats up about 25 kilowatt-hours of electricity every year. That’s like a keeping a light bulb on for two whole weeks. Over a four year period, you’re looking at around 100 kWh. But ENERGY STAR laptops? They use way less energy — 30 to 40 percent less. Are sustainable laptops more expensive? Some are, but it pays off over time. Lots of laptops let you upgrade stuff like RAM and SSD, not just the Framework ones. Plenty of mainstream models (especially in the business lines from brands like Dell, HP, and Lenovo) still give you access to those parts. That means you can start with a more affordable configuration and upgrade later if you need more storage. Just a heads up, though! Some super-thin models don’t let you upgrade because the parts are usually soldered in. So check reviews before you buy if upgrades matter to you and look for mentions of upgradeability in product listings, it can save you money and frustration down the road. Refurbished laptops are also a solid way to go because they’re cheaper and better for the planet, since you’re reusing something that’s already been created. Sustainability doesn’t have to mean dropping big bucks or only choosing niche models. Even small choices help like picking a model with longer battery life or better repairability. And even simple stuff like clearing out dust or replacing an old battery can keep your laptop going way longer than you’d expect. Taking a little extra time to look after your laptop can save you from having to drop cash on a new one any time soon. It’s a lot less waste, too. Check out pcworld`s top pick for best upgradeable laptop Framework Laptop 13 (2025) Read our review What should you look for in a sustainable laptop? If you’re ready to pick up a sustainable laptop, here are some key features to keep an eye out for. If you want even deeper info, check out PCWorld’s 5 factors to consider when shopping for an eco-friendly laptop. EPEAT Gold Rating EPEAT works like a medal system for how eco-friendly a product is. There’s Bronze, Silver, or Gold. Gold is the highest medal and it means the device is ultra-efficient and made with fewer toxic materials. ENERGY STAR certification ENERGY STAR certification means the device is energy-efficient and better for the environment. Modular or tool-less design This means you can swap parts like the battery or storage without tools or tech skills. Companies like Framework make laptops easy to upgrade or fix, so you don’t have to toss the whole thing if something breaks. Long software support (5+ years) Long software support mostly matters for Chromebooks. Some cheap models only get updates for a couple more years and then they’re basically useless. Fortunately, Google now offers up to 10 years of support on some models. This PCWorld article explains what to look for. Manufacturer take-back program Got an old laptop? Some companies will take it back and recycle it properly. It’s very easy and many companies even give you a free shipping label or drop-off spot. Brands like Apple, Dell, and HP do this to keep old tech out of landfills. Small habits, big difference Buying a sustainable laptop won’t save the planet overnight, but it’s a solid place to start. These little choices add up, especially when more of us start making them. And honestly, just keeping your laptop around a little longer makes a bigger difference than you might think. Just hanging onto your laptop a little longer makes a real difference. Less waste. Fewer new materials needed. Your wallet’s probably happier, too. So, next time you’re thinking about upgrading, hit the pause button for a second and ask yourself: Will I still be happy with this in three or four years? Can I fix it if something breaks? Will the company help me recycle it when I’m done? Saying yes to any one of those questions means you’re making a smarter, more sustainable choice. You’re already one step ahead of the game, kid. Further reading: 4 eco-friendly ways to get rid of a laptop Read...

If you own a Windows 10 PC, now is a good time to consider the question: should I buy something to replace it before support expires this October? And if so, what? For years, the choice between Intel and AMD was a toss-up. Both offered compelling options. Now, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chip has become a viable contender, at least in notebooks. And the issues go beyond price and performance when AI—and how Microsoft treats each vendor—become a factor. Why consider a Copilot+ PC? Consider this a high-level look at what to buy as you migrate from Windows 10 to new Windows 11 hardware before support expires, assuming that you don’t want to pay Microsoft $30 for an additional year’s worth of Windows 10 support. The other assumption that we’re making is that you’ll want to invest in a Copilot+ PC—not because we’re endorsing AI, but because an AI PC will likely become the norm. You might not see any need for AI now, but why lock yourself out of something that might eventually become mandatory? OpenAI’s ChatGPT was a wild card when it debuted at the end of 2022, catching Microsoft (and everyone else) off guard with this surprising new thing, AI. Most everything Microsoft has announced since then, from hardware to software to services, has been a reaction to that. Some AI services, like Copilot, can run in the cloud. The Copilot+ PC program was designed to ensure that AI services could run directly on PCs in the future. Microsoft is still trying to figure out which AI services can run on PCs and what they’ll do. This situation presents a catch-22. When Microsoft began previewing Copilot+ PC capabilities last year—generative AI art inside Paint, local image editing in Photos, the controversial Recall feature, and so on—only one vendor, Qualcomm, had an AI engine (the NPU) powerful enough to make those features a reality. Microsoft imposed a minimum performance baseline: 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS), a measure of NPU performance. Today, both Intel and AMD ship processors with integrated NPUs powerful enough that the PCs that include them qualify as a Copilot+ PC. But all three chip vendors aren’t created equal, and this article will help explain the differences. There’s one quirk: at press time, with an exception or two, there are basically no Copilot+ desktops. The nice thing is that all of the Copilot+ chips from all three chipmakers are quite good in their own way. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite: Power that lasts all day The good: Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips often provide the best battery life, lasting over a day. Set a Snapdragon PC aside for a week while you go on vacation, and the battery level barely budges. Otherwise, performance is solid across the board. Qualcomm is clearly Microsoft’s favorite when it comes to rolling out new AI features, and you’ll typically see them arrive on Snapdragon PCs first. (We have an exhaustive review of the Snapdragon X Elite here.) Qualcomm is running ads pointing out that the Snapdragon PC chips deliver the same performance while plugged in as on battery, and that’s generally true. YouTube The bad: Some users report issues with application compatibility. Qualcomm, however, has made great strides to solve this problem, and it’s far less of an issue than it has been. But the current iteration of Snapdragon, even the X Elite, is just not as good for gaming as X86 chips from AMD and Intel in any context. In detail: AI has existed for years on smartphones, specifically in all of the tricks a smartphone camera makes to make your photos look good. So Qualcomm, which is the “Intel Inside” of most smartphones not made by Apple, understood the market. Its redesigned Snapdragon X Elite PC Arm processor platform was essentially Microsoft’s Copilot+ launch partner, and Microsoft has made it its first choice for its latest Surface Laptop and Surface Pro devices. For now, you can only buy a laptop with a Snapdragon X Elite chip inside, though they’re available from a variety of major PC makers. Though Qualcomm has teased a desktop PC (or all-in-one PC) launch, that hasn’t happened. Qualcomm has three laptop chip lines: the Snapdragon X Elite, which is the most popular, as well as the more moderate Snapdragon X Plus and the basic Snapdragon X processor. (It’s a little confusing since Qualcomm uses the “Snapdragon X” term to refer to the entire family of chips, as well as its specific, most basic processor.) Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 7, one of the flagship devices for the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite family.Matthew Smith / IDG Qualcomm Snapdragon PCs are first and foremost productivity devices. Though Snapdragons are an ARM architecture and don’t natively run Windows apps designed for X86 processors, Qualcomm claims that it runs all of the top 100 apps on Windows, based on information gathered from Microsoft. (Ninety-six of those have ARM versions, while four are emulated.) That includes everything from Microsoft’s own Office (Microsoft 365) apps down to more niche options like Unigram and RingCentral. Still, it’s very unlikely your ancient HP printer will have its own ARM driver; mine does not. What to buy: I didn’t personally review the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7, but I brought it with me on more than one business trip, and it’s been excellent. Intel’s Core Ultra Series 2 (Lunar Lake): The best all-rounder The good: Intel’s Core Ultra Series 2 (Lunar Lake) chips finally qualify for Copilot+ status, and Intel paid attention to the example Qualcomm set. At about 21 hours, a Lunar Lake laptop might not have quite the battery life as a Snapdragon — but with that longevity, you probably won’t care. When plugged in, Intel’s Lunar Lake chips perform well, and their integrated GPU is very good, allowing for light gaming. They’ll run all Windows apps without a problem. The bad: How does Intel achieve long battery life with Lunar Lake notebooks? By clocking down while unplugged, which lowers the notebook’s performance significantly. Intel also has a problem: too many processors and a confusing naming scheme. Processors like the Intel Core Ultra 7 165H are Intel “Meteor Lake” (Core Ultra Series 1) processors, which lack the requisite TOPS. So too does Intel’s Core Ultra 7 200H or “Arrow Lake” laptop chips. The “good” Core Ultra 2 (Lunar Lake) chips use a “V” suffix and an initial “2,” like the Core Ultra 7 258V I reviewed, rather than the “H” suffix used by Arrow Lake. A benchmark slide plucked from our Core Ultra Series 2 review: this productivity chip can game, too.Mark Hachman / IDG In detail: Intel’s Lunar Lake chips (again, look for the “2” and the “V” on the model number) are terrific and offer all-around performance that the Snapdragon chips do not. Enthusiasts know that Intel has been repeatedly beaten in both desktops and laptops several times in the past decade, but these Core Ultra 200V chips deliver the performance and battery life that you don’t have to worry about. They’re the safe bet. You simply don’t have to worry about running apps, as Intel’s X86 architecture is the default. While Qualcomm’s work with developers has also produced apps written specifically for Arm chips, Intel’s influence also extends into app developers, and third-party AI apps will take advantage of the Core Ultra NPU. Windows, however, is another story. Qualcomm and Microsoft forged a tight partnership early on, and new AI functions within Windows usually lag behind Snapdragons by several months. Lenovo’s Yoga Pro 9i is one of our recommended Intel Core Ultra (Lunar Lake) PCs.IDG / Ryan Whitwam What to buy: Lenovo’s Yoga Pro 9i is one of the better laptops on the market, period, though Lenovo paired it with a discrete GPU that takes the battery life down to (just?) nine hours. Otherwise, the Asus ZenBook S14 that was my test platform delivered over 17 hours of battery life with top performance. AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 and AI Max: Performance first The good: If you prefer better performance and are willing to give up some battery life, AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 series should be your choice. My Ryzen test laptop ran for almost 11 hours before shutting down, and the Ryzen AI 300 generally outperformed the competition in productivity applications. (I’ll refer you to both our dedicated Ryzen AI 300 review as well as the Intel Core Ultra 200 “Lunar Lake” review, if only because both include the other processors.) AMD also has an odd AI alternative: the Ryzen AI Max+, which includes an NPU with 50 TOPS but an absolutely massive cache for its GPU, optimized for games and AI alike. It’s actually inside one of the only Copilot+ desktops you’ll be able to buy, the Framework Desktop, when it ships in the third quarter of 2025. AMD The bad: Again, battery life slips a bit with the Ryzen AI 300. I also tested the ROG Flow Z13 gaming tablet with a Ryzen AI Max+ chip, and the battery life under a gaming load was about 90 minutes. Microsoft has also put AMD and Intel into the same tier for Windows feature releases, letting them lag behind Qualcomm Snapdragon PCs by a few months. AMD notebooks are sometimes hard to find, too. In detail: Last year, I encouraged AMD to adopt a performance-first approach, and it’s done so. If you want the fastest laptops, AMD’s Ryzen platform generally delivers. We just don’t see that many of them cross our desk. That’s probably because PC makers don’t have the flexibility to design laptops with a choice of three different processors; they generally pick two, and that’s been the old standby, Intel, and the new hotness, Qualcomm. Kind of hard to believe, but yes, this is a Copilot+ -capable desktop.Framework I would really like to see PC makers adopt the Ryzen AI Max+ in a traditional clamshell notebook! Under our normal productivity tests, the ROG Flow Z13 lasted 12.5 hours. It’s still a possibility. As I stated above, Intel’s Lunar Lake, AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 (Strix Point), and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite are all very good choices for a productivity laptop, and it’s a unique time in history where we can say that. If you want a gaming laptop, AMD and Intel are your choices. AI really hasn’t arrived on the desktop yet, unfortunately. Nevertheless, it’s a safe bet that all three chipmakers will continue building in AI through generations to come. Eventually, it will likely become an afterthought…but right now, it’s an important decision! Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Easy to clean Solid battery life, with an amazing magnetic charger Perhaps the best mobile app on the market Cons Remote is awkward, slow, and difficult to use Required a major firmware update to clean effectively Very, very slow Our Verdict With pool-mapping capabilities and other smart features, the Dreame Z1 Pro is one of the most intelligent robots I’ve tested to date. Unfortunately, erratic performance and extremely slow operation make it short of perfect. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Dreame Z1 Pro Retailer Price $999.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket From the start, Dreame’s Z1 Pro robotic pool cleaner certainly seems to check off all the boxes. Its features list touts just about everything: The ability to clean floor, walls, and waterline. Big, dual, front-mounted brushes. Three hours of running time. Mobile app support. And a remote control in the box. I’m not sure what the touted “Triple Surround Fusion Perception System” is, but that sounds good, too. Specifications I’ll start with what I liked the most: After unboxing, I discovered that the 27-pound robot offers one of the most convenient charging systems I’ve seen to date, thanks to a magnetic charging mechanism that simply snaps onto the device’s chassis, with no plugs or rubber gaskets involved—and no need to hoist the robot onto a bulky charging station, either. There’s even a small microfiber cloth attached to the end of the charging cable for wiping off any moisture on the contacts; that’s a thoughtful touch. Dreame’s mobile app is maybe its coolest feature, the first I’ve seen that can visually map the pool after a run. The Dreame hardware looks tough, but it’s not garish: a silver-and-black device with large-wheeled treads and promised support for scrubbing up to 2,160 square feet of pool surface area. The included light-pulse remote charges via USB-C, and even the remote’s color and shape fit the Z1 Pro’s design theme. The magnetic charging system on top of the Dreame robotic pool cleaner is a game-changer when it comes to easy recharging. It even comes with a rag attached to the cord for wiping the terminals dry.Christopher Null/Foundry LEDs on top of the Z1 Pro provide a handy indication of battery-charging status and operating mode (floor, walls, waterline, or everything, accessed via a single selector button). A top-mounted hatch gives you access to a single-piece filter basket that pops out easily. The bottom of the filter opens on a hinge to allow for easy cleaning after a run. Dreame’s mobile app is maybe its coolest feature, the first I’ve seen that can visually map the pool after a run. With support for both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, the app also makes it easy to get a quick look at the robot’s status (provided it is turned on and out of the water), set cleaning settings remotely, and to configure a routine cleaning schedule if you leave your robot in the pool for multiple days at a time. (The non-Pro Dreame Z1 loses a few features, including the remote, and costs $200 less.) Dreame’s app is the first I’ve seen that can draw a reasonable representation  of my swimming pool’s shape once it completes a cleaning run. Christopher Null/Foundry So, there’s plenty to like here, which was all the more saddening when my initial experience with the device didn’t go very well. Performance My first issue involved the remote control. Out of the box, it didn’t work at all, unable to turn on. Some troubleshooting with Dreame ultimately ended with the company sending me a new one altogether. The new remote did work, but not overly well. A powerful green light must be aimed fairly precisely at a sensor on top of the robot, with pulses directing the robot to pause/restart its task, clean around a certain spot, or return to the surface for retrieval. But getting the robot to respond to any of these commands was an exercise in both frustration and trial and error, often requiring up to a minute of repeatedly stabbing at buttons, waving the remote around, and hoping something would finally stick. The good news was that eventually, it usually would, though I ultimately found the remote useful only for telling it to climb to the waterline so I could retrieve it from the pool. It’s just too erratic to use for much else. The bottom of the Dreame Pro Z1 debris basket opens on a hinge for easy cleaning.Christopher Null/Foundry My next issue with the Z1 Pro was its initially poor cleaning quality. As I do with all robotic pool cleaners I test, I put the Z1 Pro to work in both organic and synthetic conditions to gauge its performance. After a particularly big storm one night, I woke to find the perfect testing conditions in a pool full of debris. I dropped the Z1 Pro in the pool and watched it get to work. Three hours later, I retrieved the robot to find its filter basket less than half full, and the pool looking like next to no cleaning at all had occurred. (I then dropped in another robot, which took care of things much more effectively.) I saw similar results with synthetic leaves scattered in the pool: The Z1 Pro was only able to scoop up about two-thirds of the leaves, leaving the rest behind and large areas of the pool clearly untouched. That’s about the worst performance I’ve ever seen in a premium-priced pool robot like this one. A fortuitous firmware update Fortunately, Dreame pushed a firmware update during my testing, and after a total of six complete cleaning runs (plus several shorter sessions), I was finally able to see performance improve significantly. Eventually I was able to achieve a cleaning rate of about 90 percent. That’s good but not great, and it still left behind visible debris even on its best days, particularly on and around steps. The Dreame app can control and report on the Z1 Pro over either a Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connection.Christopher Null/Foundry Observing the Dreame in action reveals a little about what might be going on, as operations didn’t always make a lot of sense. At one point, about halfway through the run, I found the robot stopped in the middle of the pool, spinning around and around in one spot for nearly 10 minutes. Was it mapping the walls? Pondering the future? Plotting against me? Eventually it did at least get back to work, finishing the rest of the cleaning task without incident. That said, the robot is one of the slowest—if not the absolute slowest—I’ve ever seen, literally crawling across the floor of the pool at a turtle’s pace. Its lack of speed may be a contributing issue to its performance, as debris is always moving in a pool. When finished, the robot climbs to the waterline and waits for retrieval (still chugging away to keep itself moored in place, as it can’t float otherwise), but only for five minutes, after which it sinks back to the bottom and will have to be retrieved via the included hook or via remote control. If you want to grab it when it’s docked, keep a close eye on your mobile app notifications. The Dreame Z1 Pro is one of the most intelligent robotic pool cleaners we’ve tested. But intelligence alone doesn’t make for a top-tier performer. Christopher Null/Foundry The Dreame app was surprisingly successful at mapping my pool, providing a reasonable facsimile of what my L-shaped pool looks like, at least once. Again, this was the first among the pool robots I’ve tested over the years to do this. But subsequent runs weren’t as solid, leaving me with a map that looked more like a dunce cap. This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best robotic pool cleaners. The report issued at the end of each run was usually accurate, though again, not always: Once I received a note that a near-two-hour run had cleaned just 3 square meters of the pool. Other odd errors, like a mysterious “charging error” in the log while the unit was 100-percent charged, defied explanation. Should you buy the Dreame Z1 Pro? At $1,099, the Dreame Z1 Pro has a premium price, and consumers would be well justified to demand the highest tier of performance from it. Some of its features are extremely compelling, especially its app. But to merit a wholesale recommendation, I’d need to see another step up in cleaning performance. Might another firmware update deliver it? Read...

In a recent announcement post on the Google Workspace Updates blog, Google announced that it’s continuing to integrate its AI assistant Gemini into Workspace with new features for Drive and Forms. In Google Drive, PDFs now get automatic summaries that show key points and suggested actions right in the sidebar. The feature supports over 20 different languages and it’s being rolled out now. In Google Forms, Gemini can automatically summarize responses once at least three people have responded. This feature will be available on June 26th and will initially only be available in English. On July 7th, Google will also release a new tool that allows users to quickly AI-generate forms based on a simple description and existing documents in Google Workspace. Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Online storage, multi-device sync, and mirroring Fantastically affordable lifetime plans Extremely secure and private Free 2TB account Cons Could use better help and task feedback The backup is actually one-way sync/mirroring Our Verdict Internxt’s intuitively blended web access, file sync, and backup (mirroring) services are impressive. However, the incredibly affordable lifetime plans are by far the most outstanding aspect. The docs, client interface, and backup feedback could be better, but, by Grapthor’s hammer — what a savings! Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Retailer Price Internxt Free View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Best Prices Today: Internxt Drive online backup Retailer Price Internxt Free View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Though Internxt Drive rightfully touts its 256-bit encryption and dedication to privacy, there’s no feature in particular that sets it apart from the crowd. As with services such as Dropbox, Sync.com, OneDrive, iDrive, etc. there’s sync and storage. There’s also backup, though it’s not true inviolable backup, but mirroring. Internxt presents its features in a largely intuitive fashion, but what wholly distinguishes itself from the hoi polloi are its incredibly affordable lifetime plans. Read on to learn more, then see our roundup of the best online backup services for comparison. How much is Internxt? When I last reviewed Internxt, I said you might want to hop on its super-affordable lifetime plans before they disappeared. Happily, here we are two years later, and Internxt lifetime plans are still imminently affordable — albeit a bit different than before. Read this discussion carefully. I first tried the free plan with 1GB of storage (formerly 2TB). Sadly, you can no longer increase the free plan’s capacity to as much as 10GB through various actions such as inviting friends to the service. The company Will of course try to upsell you, but you can still have 1GB for free. Beyond that, things have changed a bit since my last look in 2023. Gone are the $0.89-per-month 20GB and $3.49-per-month 200GB plans. Subscriptions now start at $1.65 a month for 1TB and $3.30 monthly for 3TB billed annually. Mind you, these rates are discounted from $10.99 and $21.99 per month, respectively, and might not last. Those prices are also approximate and subject to change as they reflect conversion to dollars from Euros. So Internxt can be a tad pricey on an annual basis when not on sale. But if you’re willing to commit for life (is that even a thing anymore?) Internxt morphs into uber-affordable. See below. (Note that all stated prices are even lower using the links to purchase in this review.) Internxt’s lifetime plans are currently an incredible bargain. Foundry If you’ve priced online storage at any time, these lifetime deals are eye-popping. As mentioned, the 3TB forever plan (assuming the company lasts, of course) is only a bit more per-gigabyte than I pay for 1TB with OneDrive for two years. As to the company lasting, while I hate to be that guy, my job description requires that I point out that Internxt is now only five years old and online storage is a very competitive landscape. That said, I made that same caveat two years ago, when the company was just three years old, and it’s still here. It’s reassuring that the company employs the well-known OVH storage infrastructure. Worst case, your data will still be available for download after any corporate failure, and the lifetime pricing is more than worth a roll of the dice in my book. My being particularly risk-averse makes that a hearty endorsement. Note that features vary with the cost of the plan, not surprisingly. Most notably, the backup function is not available for free accounts. If you’ve priced online storage at any time, these lifetime deals are eye-popping. Internxt Drive features Internxt’s features are basically four-fold: sync, backup, sharing, and a recent addition — antivirus. The first three are located in a menu tree to the left of the web interface, and also the Internxt desktop app which resides in the system tray. The AV is only available in the local client, while sharing is done online. Syncing works like services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, etc. You drag or add files to a local folder/virtual drive that Internxt created, and they’re synced between your devices and the Internxt online storage. There are apps for iOS and Android. The pay plans also let you create a backup plan that will fire off automatically at a rate as granular as one hour. Add any files or folders that you want backed up regularly, set the schedule, and forget about it. Backups don’t sync. You can schedule backups as granularly as per-hour. This is the Mac client. Though I stupidly referred to it as such in my first review, Internxt’s backup isn’t true backup. A true backup is never altered, using versioning to reflect changes. With Internxt, any files that change overwrite older files. This is actually a form of one-way sync known as mirroring. The company is considering versioning (saving older files) but has not implemented it at the time of this writing. I’ve never needed it, and for most users, current-state backup will be fine. As mentioned, Internxt now includes antivirus with the paid plans. On both Windows and my Mac it proved extremely thorough — and aggressive. One scan registered 114 percent when I stopped it. I appreciate enthusiasm, but let’s stop at 100 percent please. This was from the Windows AV scan. 113 percent effort? I clicked on the above notice with some trepidation, fearing it would simply trash files out of hand. However, it only takes you to a list that you can then select items from. There is no quarantine, only remove. Be doubly sure before you remove stuff. There’s also a custom scan that will let you narrow the scope to a single drive or folder. The antivirus is also very aggressive, so be careful — there were quite a few false positives. Actually all them were, though I understand why most were selected. Internxt has ditched the Photo backup I tested for the last review, although you can still upload photos from your phone’s camera roll to the Family folder. For free accounts this is limited to 25 files per operation. Yup, a teaser. There’s also a separate section where shared files are kept—i.e., files shared with others, not among the Internxt sections. The separation reduces user confusion, even if it might waste a bit of space due to duplication. How easy is Internxt Drive? I’ve never seen an easier sign-up than Internxt. Provide your email, enter a password a single time, and you’re online with two sync folders (Family, Personal) ready to go. There’s an email verification to remove the yellow exclamation point next to your account level, but… The layout and overall structure of the website make it very easy to set up and use. As easy, or easier than any I’ve experienced. It’s got a clean look as well. The help that I complained about last time is also improved. But the app, while easy once you know it, is not particularly intuitive. Who looks for the backup function under “Preferences”? Maybe “Settings”… Then there’s “Change folders” for your backup when “Add/Remove folders” would be much clearer. And of course there’s the aforementioned paranoia-inducing “Remove Malware” button. To be fair, these might be translation issues as Internxt is in Europe. So why isn’t Backups on the main menu? Antivirus, a more ancillary function is. Open the Windows app after it’s installed, and there’s an icon to take you to the local Internxt sync folder. It’s on your C: drive in the same location as your user folders (Documents, etc.), but the name is a rather verbose affair with a hash value tagged on — “InternxtDrive – b44b4d7a-a509-4fd8-98d6-14429611abaa” in my case. Internxt should find a more attractive method of hashing it’s virtual drive folders. I suppose the hash is to allow multiple accounts on the same PC, as I logged on as three different users and two more of these folders appeared, but it’s an ugly naming convention. The Internxt web interface is easy to decipher and browse. But gone is the photos section, and you can no longer upgrade the capacity of the free account by inviting friends, etc. Overall, I give Internxt a B+ for its interfaces. They’re good-looking and functional, though there’s certainly room for improvement. How does Internxt Drive perform? Internxt fixed at least one of the bugs I spotted last time. Formerly, when adding the folder “1. Midi files” the folder showed up in the list as “1” and wouldn’t back up because it couldn’t be found. No such error now occurs. I also didn’t see any false error messages during backups. Nice. Sync across devices was generally fine performance-wise, though I didn’t go much beyond 1GB of files. Uploading photos from my iPhone was rather tedious with each one being encrypted. I didn’t see a setting to disable encryption. Backups also went off without a hitch on both Windows and the Mac for over a week, so I give Internxt an A for reliability. This is from the Mac client . Speaking of logs, Internxt keeps them and provides a link in the app, but they contain every operation. There should be a separate log for errors so you don’t have to search through 10MB of text to find them. The Mac client at least divides the logs into separate tasks. Also, I’d love more granular info on what and how much data has been copied. It seemed when I had two folders selected for backup, it considered the job 50 percent complete when one folder was copied, even though it was only 10MB while the remaining one was 7GB. Internxt should also implement bandwidth throttling. Backups came too close to maxing out the upstream traffic for my taste, slowing or creating issues for other tasks on occasion. I connect to the software Test Bed using Microsoft Remote Desktop and I was continually kicked off by Internxt backups. The Windows Internxt system tray popup lets you know that it’s on the ball. One thing I noticed was that Internxt doesn’t copy zero-byte files. If you sometimes use the name of a zero-byte file as a label for the contents of a folder or some such, it won’t be copied. This should be optional. Success is always the bottom line, and all the backups and syncs completed, so good on ya’, Internxt. But more info would be appreciated. Is Internxt Drive worth it? There’s no way around the fact that Internxt’s discounted lifetime plans are the flat-out steal in the industry at the moment. The client software could use some grooming, but hey, it works and it’s the best online storage deal in town for the long term. Further reading: How PCWorld tests cloud backup services Read...

Should Microsoft and the PC industry have paid more attention to the GPU during the development of AI and Copilot+ PCs? After a year’s time waiting for Copilot+ PCs (and their newfangled “Neural Processing Units” to take off, I can’t help but wonder. Microsoft launched the Copilot+ PC initiative on May 20, 2024, and began shipping them on June 18. Since then, Microsoft has supported Copilot+ PCs with a handful of features, rolling them out first for PCs with the Qualcomm Snapdragon chips inside and then later for PCs powered by Intel Core Ultra Series 2 chips and the AMD Ryzen AI 300 processor. It’s been a sputtery, stuttery start. Qualcomm is essentially blameless, delivering a potent PC processor with most AI capabilities and long battery life. But AMD and Intel shipped processors without NPUs wielding the requisite AI TOPS to qualify as Copilot+ PCs, leaving PC makers to sell the concept of an “AI PC” without much behind it. Microsoft had a more cohesive plan in place, delivering several Copilot+ features: Live Captions, which can generate closed captions and even translations of pre-recorded video; Paint’s Cocreator AI functionality, Photos’ Super Resolution; semantic Search; Windows Studio Effects and some Click-to-Do features that “know” what you want to do when you right-click a file. Windows Recall, of course, was supposed to be the flagship, then became mired in controversy. Paint’s Cocreator tool uses your doodles as the basis for AI-generated art.Mark Hachman / IDG None of those features, with the exception of Recall and Live Captions, require excessive compute power. Windows Studio Effects runs on the NPU, but the features are essentially clones of existing effects like background blurring that can be run on a CPU. Paint’s Cocreator is quite fast, and probably benefits from running on the NPU. But the app is kind of a gimmick, and not all that accurate. The most powerful AI silicon isn’t the NPU Yet we’ve known for months that the most powerful AI engine — not the most efficient, but the most powerful — is the GPU…which is why they’re being snapped up in droves. Yes, gamers love them. But it’s clear that a PC or laptop graphics card can outperform an NPU in most AI tasks, at least right now. I love creator-class notebooks. A laptop like Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Studio 2 might lack the long battery life of a Snapdragon PC — something I certainly missed while on the road! — but it contains a robust Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU that often sits idle. If I need to edit a photo, I could certainly load up Adobe Photoshop. Otherwise, it sits unused. Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5090 Founder’s Edition: basically the fastest consumer AI engine available.Adam Patrick Murray / Foundry Let’s face it: many of the Copilot+ features feel like small potatoes. Nothing that runs on the PC feels aspirational. There’s no AI equivalent to Crysis that runs on the local PC. What if Microsoft had simply said, you know, we believe the future is this thing known as an AI PC, which will eventually include NPUs with increasing power. But to give you a taste of what could be, we’re going to allow these AI functions to take advantage of these powerful GPUs already in your laptops and desktop PCs. Yes, it’s going to spin up your GPU, and your PC’s fans; however, future AI PCs will be much more efficient and less power-hungry. Heck, I could have done the marketing: think of a GPU and an NPU as a gas-guzzling ICE engine, and an NPU as a slick, efficient electric vehicle. It’s easy for me to suggest that Microsoft should have split its developer resources, coding Copilot+ features for NPUs as well as GPUs. It’s also easy for me to accuse Microsoft of gobbling up that opportunity for itself, routing billions to its own cloud services. Meanwhile, products like AMD’s Ryzen AI Max are being specifically designed for a new breed of gaming/inferencing PC workstations. Gigabyte describes its AI TOP 500 TRX50 as “purpose-built for local AI development, multimodal fine-tuning, and high-performance gaming,” with an AMD Threadripper Pro and up to 768GB of DRAM. It runs Windows 11. It does not have an NPU. Can Microsoft save itself from itself? Like so many others, Microsoft appears to have been caught flat-footed by AI, tip-toeing ahead with incremental improvements while the giants stride by. It may be that Microsoft’s Foundry Local, launched at Build 2025, may be the answer. But it’s absolutely true that if you want to work with AI on a PC or workstation, you choose a third-party solution — not Microsoft. Microsoft doesn’t have to do everything, of course. Yet while it still myopically focuses in on optimizing for PCs with a few TOPS of AI power, millions more are sitting around waiting for an opportunity to do more. Read...

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