Four-day general admission tickets for the Australian Grand Prix have increased by 107 per cent over the last five years as Formula 1’s popularity continues to skyrocket. Read...

The public deserve answers says a hospital trust chair says, as Health NZ refuses to say how much it`s paying. Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Beautiful high-refresh rate OLED display Good price for that OLED Solid performance per dollar Lots of ports Cons Doesn’t pull far ahead of RTX 5070-powered laptops NPU is too slow for Copilot+ PC AI features 12 GB VRAM is low for GPU-heavy AI models Bad speakers Our Verdict The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI feels like it was meant to be a gaming laptop and the marketing department wanted to slap “AI” on it. It’s a reasonable midrange gaming laptop with a stunning OLED display. If you want AI laptop features, though — look elsewhere. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI Retailer Price Check Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Best Prices Today: Check today’s prices The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI is a 16-inch gaming laptop with solid hardware for a reasonable price. But if you’re looking for a true “AI laptop,” this isn’t it. The neural processing unit (NPU) is too slow to handle Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC AI features nor is it ready to run the most current AI tasks. Many buyers don’t realize that modern “AI laptops” often fall short of Microsoft’s advertised standards. Like other gaming laptops rebranded as AI laptops, this machine would excel at GPU-based AI tasks, but no more than any other gaming laptop. With 12 GB of VRAM, the Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti GPU here isn’t ideal for local AI models. (For example, OpenAI’s new gpt-oss-20B model is intended for GPUs with at least 16 GB of VRAM.) Moving beyond the AI branding, this is a fine laptop — if we treat it as a gaming laptop and not an AI laptop. And this OLED display at less than $2,000 is extremely impressive. So, for the rest of this review, I’ll just treat it like a gaming laptop. Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI: Specs The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S is a 16-inch gaming laptop with a blazing-fast 24-core Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU, a current-generation Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti GPU, 32 GB of RAM, and a 1 TB SSD. That’s the Best Buy-exclusive configuration we reviewed, and it retails for $1,899. The RAM and storage are end user-upgradable, too. All you have to do is remove the bottom cover. Model number: PHN16S-71-98RF CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX Memory: 32 GB DDR5 6400 MHz RAM Graphics/GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 12GB NPU: Intel AI Boost (up to 13 TOPS) Display: 16-inch 2560×1600 OLED display with 240Hz refresh rate Storage: 1 TB PCIe Gen4 SSD Webcam: 1080p webcam Connectivity: 2x USB Type-C (1x Thunderbolt 4, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 10Gbps), 3x USB Type-A (2x USB 3.2 Gen 2, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1), 1x HDMI 2.1 out, 1x Ethernet, 1x microSD card reader, 1x combo audio jack, 1x DC power in Networking: Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.4 Biometrics: IR camera for facial recognition Battery capacity: 76 Watt-hours Dimensions: 14.06 x 10.9 x 1.01 inches Weight: 4.8 pounds MSRP: $1,899 as tested If you want a 16-inch OLED with 240Hz refresh rate for under $2,000, you should seriously consider this machine.” Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI: Design and build quality IDG / Chris Hoffman The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI is a 16-inch gaming laptop that lands somewhere between the thinnest gaming laptops and the chunkiest ones. At just under five pounds, it’s still plenty portable for a gaming laptop. It’s all black, aside from a reflective Predator logo on the lid and a silver logo on the keyboard tray. The good news is that there’s no “AI” logo anywhere on this machine. While Acer doesn’t specify the materials in its reviewer’s guide, the lid appears to be made of a black aluminum, with much of the rest of the machine made of a black plastic. It feels solid. The hinge also feels nice and smooth, and it’s easy to open with a single hand. While the keyboard lights up with multicolored LEDs if you want it, the rest of the machine in its “Obsidian Black” color scheme is restrained, and it could pass for more of a professional laptop than a gaming laptop. There are no light bars or other effects elsewhere on the laptop. That silver “Predator” logo below the keyboard marks it as a gaming laptop, however. It’s a solid laptop. It feels sturdy, and the plastic finish doesn’t feel cheap. At an inch thick, it’s a reasonable thickness for a gaming laptop. But it doesn’t feel quite as luxurious to the touch as an all-metal laptop chassis. Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI: Keyboard and trackpad IDG / Chris Hoffman The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI has a full-size keyboard complete with a number pad (there’s plenty of room for it) and four zones of RGB LED backlighting. That customizable backlighting lets you set up colorful effects without the cost of including more expensive per-key RGB backlighting. With 1.5mm of key travel, this is a standard membrane-style chiclet keyboard on a gaming laptop of this size. There’s plenty of room for enough key travel to make the keyboard feel nice without any extra tricks. It feels fine — not mushy — but it doesn’t feel as unusually snappy as when manufacturers go the extra mile to include a mechanical keyboard or one with extra actuation force. The trackpad is a good size, smooth, and responsive. The surface isn’t as smooth as a glass touchpad, and there’s perhaps a little more friction than on some other trackpad finishes I’ve used recently — plus the click-down action lands with a bit more of a “thunk” than a “click” — but it’s fine. It’s a standard touchpad, but nothing that stands out against its competitors. I game with a mouse, anyway, and I’d be happy using this while I wasn’t gaming. Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI: Display and speakers IDG / Chris Hoffman The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI has a 16-inch 2560×1600 OLED display with a 240Hz refresh rate and up to 400 nits of brightness (peaking a bit higher in HDR mode.) It supports HDR and Nvidia G-Sync, too. The display looks great — I’m a sucker for a good OLED. I’m excited to see an OLED with such a high refresh rate, too. For years, it felt like you had to pick between OLED or a high refresh rate on a gaming laptop. You can get displays that are brighter or even higher resolution on a gaming laptop, but this one looks good with the deep blacks you’ll find on an OLED. While this is very nice OLED, it’s not the best one I’ve seen. While playing Doom: The Dark Ages, the blacks on this OLED display looked nice and deep, but these aren’t the vivid colors and high brightness I normally see on an OLED-powered laptop. In a lot of ways, it reminds me more of a good IPS display. That’s not a surprise due to that 400 nits brightness. The blacks are nice and deep, but the colors aren’t as vivid as I see on brighter OLEDs. As an OLED, it’s a little glossy and prone to reflections, and that can be an issue in a bright room, more brightness usually helps overpower these reflections. I test the speakers on every laptop I review by playing Steely Dan’s Aja and Daft Punk’s Get Lucky. The Helios Neo 16S AI’s two stereo speakers delivered plenty of volume. They did a better job in Get Lucky than in Aja with its precise instrument separation. But the upper midrange was a little harsh, especially at higher volume settings — something that really comes through in sounds like the singing in Get Lucky‘s chorus. I found the upper midranges fatiguing after just a few minutes in Doom: The Dark Ages, too. I don’t like the way the speakers sound, and I would really want to use headphones while gaming. Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI: Webcam, microphone, biometrics The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI has a 1080p webcam that looks fine for a gaming laptop. In fact, I’d say it’s on the better side for a gaming laptop, though the color and general image quality aren’t up there with business laptops optimized for video conferencing. Since Acer is pushing AI features for the webcam and microphone, it’s worth noting that the “PurifiedView” button in the PredatorSense app’s “Experience Zone” just opens Windows Studio Effects webcam settings — you’ll get these particular effects (automatic framing, eye contact, and background blur) on basically any laptop with this NPU. And you’ll get more on a Copilot+ PC that delivers extra features. The microphone setup was on the quiet side and not particularly high-quality. That’s normal for gaming laptops, but Acer markets this as a three-microphone setup for crystal-clear voice quality. You’ll probably be using an external microphone, anyway. This machine has Acer Purified Voice features you can tweak in the PredatorSense’s “Experience Zone,” and they’re an improvement over no effects. However, stronger microphone hardware would deliver a better voice input experience than these trendy AI effects do. You don’t need an “AI laptop” for background noise removal, anyway. This machine has an IR camera for facial recognition with Windows Hello, so you can sign in with your face. As usual on modern laptops, it works well. Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI: Connectivity IDG / Chris Hoffman The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI has a good collection of ports that are positioned well. But it also has one of the big problems I tend to see on laptops like these — USB port confusion. On the left side, the machine offers an Ethernet jack, a USB Type-A port, a microSD card reader, and combo audio jack. On the right side, it’s got two more USB Type-A ports. On the back, you’ll find a DC power in jack, HDMI 2.1 out, and two USB Type-C ports (one is Thunderbolt 4 and one is USB 3.2). That’s a great location and means cables like power in and video out are coming out the back of your laptop and aren’t in the way of your mouse and other things on your desk. The annoyance is the usual USB port confusion. On the back, one of the USB Type-C ports is a Thunderbolt 4 port while the other operates at USB 3.2 speeds. You’ll need to keep an eye on which is which if you have Thunderbolt 4 devices or you’ll find them operating at reduced speeds. This laptop features Killer Wi-Fi 6E hardware and Bluetooth 5.4 support, and it thankfully has that 2.5 Gbps Ethernet port for wired networking. It’s disappointing that Acer skipped Wi-Fi 7 here. It’s not a big deal, but Wi-Fi 7 support would make it more futureproof. Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI: Performance I put the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI to the test in Doom: The Dark Ages, and it performed well — as it should with this CPU and GPU! Under load, the fans aren’t unusually loud for a gaming laptop. They blow hot air out of both the back and sides. I’d prefer if they only blew it out the back. The keyboard can also get a little toasty, especially in the middle. As always, we ran the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI through our standard benchmarks to see how it performs. IDG / Chris Hoffman First, we run PCMark 10 to get an idea of overall system performance. This is an overall system benchmark, but the CPU is a huge factor here. The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI delivered a solid score of 8,320 thanks to its speedy Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU. IDG / Chris Hoffman Next, we run Cinebench R20. This is a heavily multithreaded benchmark that focuses on overall CPU performance. It’s a quick benchmark, so cooling under extended workloads isn’t a factor. But, since it’s heavily multithreaded, CPUs with more cores have a huge advantage. With an average multithreaded Cinebench R20 score of 13,072, this laptop was a bit behind some competitors with the same CPU, possibly suggesting cooling may be a factor. IDG / Chris Hoffman We also run an encode with Handbrake. This is another heavily multithreaded benchmark, but it runs over an extended period. This demands the laptop’s cooling kick in, and many laptops will throttle and slow down under load. The Helios Neo 16S completed the encode process in an average of 562 seconds. That’s over nine minutes. Again, we see it slipping behind similar laptops that presumably have better cooling systems and need less throttling under load. If I were approaching this as an AI laptop and saying you might be looking to do CPU inference, I’d point out this is a real issue — you’d want a laptop with better cooling to run heavy CPU-crunching tasks for extended periods of time. (But, since we’ve left the idea of this being an AI workstation behind, it’s fine and likely won’t have a huge effect on gaming performance.) IDG / Chris Hoffman Next, we run a graphical benchmark. First, we run 3Dmark Time Spy, a graphical benchmark that focuses on GPU performance. The Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti GPU here produced a Time Spy score of 13,528. A benchmark like this one is all about the GPU. What’s interesting here is the RTX 5070 Ti in this machine doesn’t pull very far ahead of the RTX 5070 in the Alienware 16X Aurora. It’s ahead, but only by a little bit. Comparing on-paper GPU speeds, it should be ahead by a lot! The cause is likely the TDP. In this machine, the RTX 5070 Ti is limited to 115 W max, so it can’t take full advantage of the 5070 Ti’s theoretically higher performance in the ideal world. (The Alienware 16X Aurora also runs its 5070 at a 115 W TDP.) IDG / Chris Hoffman Then, we benchmark some games. We start with Shadow of the Tomb Raider, an older game, but a great way to compare performance across hardware. With an average FPS of 160 in our standard benchmark here, this machine is in line with other similar laptops and even ones with faster RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 GPUs. IDG / Chris Hoffman Finally, we benchmark a demanding game. We run the Extreme benchmark in Metro Exodus. With an average FPS of 56 in this benchmark, this comes in roughly where we’d expect to see it — behind RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 laptops. Again, this is only a hair faster than the RTX 5070 in the Alienware 16X Aurora. While the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S does have a faster GPU, the advantages are marginal at this TDP level. Overall, the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI performed fine. But it doesn’t take full advantage of its hardware. The Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX doesn’t deliver the kind of sustained performance it can on competing PCs (likely due to the cooling hardware), for example. More importantly, while the choice of a faster RTX 5070 Ti GPU looks like a big on-paper win that will deliver faster performance than an RTX 5070, the TDP here means that the GPU in this machine performs similarly to machines with RTX 5070 GPUs running at the high end of what they can manage. Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI: Battery life The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI has a 76 Watt-hour battery, which is middle of the road for a gaming laptop. Still, it helps keep weight down and you aren’t going to game on battery power anyway. IDG / Chris Hoffman To benchmark the battery life, we play a 4K copy of Tears of Steel on repeat on Windows 11 with airplane mode enabled until the laptop suspends itself. We set the screen to 250 nits of brightness for our battery benchmarks. This is a best-case scenario for any laptop since local video playback is so efficient, and real battery life in day-to-day use is always going to be less than this. Also, since this laptop has an OLED screen that doesn’t have to use extra power to display the black bars around the video, that gives it a bit of an edge against competing laptops with IPS displays on this test. The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI lasted for an average of 371 minutes in our benchmark — that’s just over six hours. You’ll get less in the real world, so this laptop won’t make it through a workday (maybe not even have a workday) before you must plug it in. That’s standard for gaming laptops with power-hungry Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processors. Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI: Conclusion If you want a 16-inch OLED with 240Hz refresh rate for under $2,000, you should seriously consider this machine. Asus’s ROG Zephyrus G16 is another 16-inch laptop with an RTX 5070 Ti, a slower Intel Core Ultra 9 285H CPU, and a 240Hz refresh rate, and Asus’s online store has it at $2,799 as I’m wrapping up this review. The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI tries a few other gimmicks. The “AI” branding isn’t a reason to buy this PC over another gaming laptop. And the RTX 5070 Ti GPU — a win on paper — is held back and doesn’t deliver the theoretical high-end performance it might. If you aren’t excited by this OLED at this price, I recommend you consider other options. This display at this price is this machine’s standout feature, not AI. Read...

Remember back when Windows 11 first came out and Microsoft gave everyone a free pass to upgrade? On the surface, it was a generous move; in actuality, it was a ploy to lure us away from Windows 10. get windows 11 pro for cheap Windows 11 Pro Obviously, if Microsoft was giving something away, it was going to come with a catch. In this case, it’s all the ads that are being added to Windows 11, going above and beyond what we’ve seen in previous versions. Fortunately, we can disable those ads… for now, at least. If you’re fed up with all the ads and recommendations throughout Windows 11, there are plenty of ways to push back. Here are the settings you need to turn off to ditch Windows’ worst ads. Further reading: 13 important Windows settings to change immediately Shut down Start menu ads Jon Martindale / IDG The Start menu has been fertile ground for Microsoft’s “Recommended” apps since Windows 10, and it’s alive and well in the latest builds of Windows 11. Fortunately, it’s straightforward to turn off. Navigate to Settings > Personalization > Start, then look for the option titled “Show recommendations for tips, shortcuts, new apps, and more” and toggle it to Off. Ditch Windows notification ads Jon Martindale / IDG I’m not a fan of notifications. I have enough trouble concentrating on tasks day to day without pop-ups and alerts distracting me — and the last thing I need are ads disguised as important notifications. Let’s turn those off, shall we? And while we’re at it, let’s remove those pesky full-screen “Finish setting up” prompts, too. Navigate to Settings > System > Notifications. Scroll down to the bottom where you’ll find Additional settings. Click to expand those options, then uncheck the boxes for “Get tips and suggestions when using Windows,” “Suggest ways to get the most out of Windows and finish setting up this device,” and “Show the Windows welcome experience after updates and when signed in to show what’s new and suggested.” Phew, what a mouthful. Stop suggested ads in Settings Jon Martindale / IDG Fed up with Microsoft’s “suggestions” for Copilot and other features in the Settings app? You can turn those off, too. Navigate to Settings > Privacy and Security > General, then toggle the option for “Show me suggested content in the Settings app” to Off. Remove File Explorer ads Jon Martindale / IDG OneDrive may not be one of our top-pick cloud backup services, but it’s still pretty good and affordable. The problem is, being bombarded with ads for it can be a huge turn-off — and if you’re like me, you’re probably sick of those ads in File Explorer. Here’s how to switch those off. Open File Explorer and select the three-dot menu in the actions toolbar. Select Options followed by the View tab. Scroll down to near the bottom of the list and look for “Show sync provider notifications.” Make sure it’s unchecked, then select OK. Eliminate widget feed ads Jon Martindale / IDG If you make use of Windows’ widgets, you know all too well that they often try to push you towards breaking stories, stock updates, and other content that may be irrelevant to you. To disable those, you can either turn off specific feeds or disable widgets entirely. To remove an individual widget feed, select the widget icon at the bottom-left of your screen, then select the cog icon at the top-right of the widget window. Select Show or hide feeds and switch the feed(s) to Off. To remove widgets entirely, right-click on your taskbar and select Taskbar settings. Then, toggle “Widgets” to Off. Disable manufacturer bloatware ads Joel Lee / IDG If you bought your PC or laptop from a major manufacturer like Dell, Lenovo, or HP, there’s a good chance it came preloaded with unsolicited apps (“bloatware”) you don’t want or need. If you don’t want to uninstall them altogether, you can at least cut down on notification spam. Navigate to Settings > System > Notifications and look through the list of apps until you find any named after your PC’s manufacturer. Disable those ads by toggling those notifications to Off. Sometimes they give their apps names that are less obviously identifying. If you spot any suspicious or unusual apps, do a quick Google search on them to see if they’re worth disabling. Block lock-screen and background ads Jon Martindale / IDG The Windows Spotlight feature dynamically changes your background and lock screen images to keep your desktop feeling fresh and interesting. But Microsoft has occasionally shown ads for various games with it, and the related tips can be a little ad-like at times, too. Unfortunately, the only way to stop that for now is to turn off Windows Spotlight. If you’d rather resort to static images that you change yourself, here’s what you can do: Navigate to Settings > Personalization > Background. Then, next to Personalize your background, use the drop-down menu to select anything other than Windows Spotlight. Also, navigate to Settings > Personalization > Lock Screen. Then, next to Personalize your Lock Screen, use the drop-down menu to choose any option that isn’t Windows Spotlight. Hide the highlight ads in Windows search Jon Martindale / IDG Ah, Windows search, how I love and loathe thee. You’re good at finding apps as long as I type them out correctly, but I don’t need you to show me ads and suggested shopping content. Let’s turn that off. Navigate to Settings > Privacy and security > Search permissions. Scroll down until you find “Show search highlights” and toggle it Off. No more personalized ads Jon Martindale / IDG While all the above settings will prevent Microsoft from serving you as many ads within Windows itself, they won’t stop the operating system from collecting your data to serve you personalized ads in the future. You can put a stop to that now so that even if an ad does somehow get through, it won’t be highly targeted to you and your activity. Disable Windows device usage tracking by navigating to Settings > Personalization > Device Usage and toggling Off all the options there. You can also disable further gathering of diagnostic data by navigating to Settings > Privacy and security > General and toggling all the options there to Off as well. Further reading: All the ways Windows 11 collects your data Read...

A former solicitor-general and acting attorney-general of Tonga says the change brings `fluidity, certainty [and] clarity`. Read...

If you want to record what’s on your screen, you probably know that you can use a Windows keyboard shortcut to launch the Snipping Tool in Windows 11. That’s Windows key + Shift + R and it’ll start recording the entire screen. But what if you want to record only a certain area? Until now, if using the Snipping Tool, you had to record the entire screen and then crop the clip afterwards with some light video editing. Now, the latest news is that Microsoft will soon make it possible to record a specific window instead of the entire desktop, which means you won’t have to crop the clip afterwards anymore. The new window-recording feature in Snipping Tool is currently available in the latest beta of Windows 11, according to Windows Latest. Microsoft hasn’t provided an exact release date for the general public, but it’s likely coming out in an update later this year or early next year. Read...

If you’re a Gmail user, you need to be particularly careful right now as criminals are currently targeting Gmail accounts. Hackers from a group called ShinyHunters were recently able to gain access to Google’s Salesforce database systems, reports Forbes. Google has confirmed the attacks and states that general data like customer and company names were leaked, but not passwords. The resulting data leak means that users of Google services—including Gmail and Google Cloud—are now at risk of falling victim to phishing attempts. How the phishing attacks work Initial reports of attempted attacks have already been seen on Reddit, which are likely related to the data leak. Users describe how alleged Google employees have contacted them by phone to inform them of a security breach in their accounts. In these scam attempts, attackers are trying to take over Gmail accounts by triggering alleged “account resets” and then intercepting passwords to subsequently lock out the account holders. Another attack method involves “dangling buckets” (i.e., outdated access addresses) to steal data from or inject malware into Google Cloud. Both methods are extremely dangerous and currently threaten Gmail and Google Cloud users in particular, around 2.5 billion people worldwide. In theory, companies are of particular interest to hackers, but private individuals can also easily be targeted. How to protect yourself To be on the safe side, you should ensure that your account is protected against unauthorized access. Google has provided the following security measures for this purpose: Use Google’s Security Checkup to automatically identify security vulnerabilities and get account security recommendations. Activate Google’s Advanced Protection Program to get an additional security barrier that blocks the download of potentially harmful files and restricts non-Google apps from accessing Gmail data. Use passkeys instead of passwords to stay better protected against hacking attacks and phishing attempts. Above all, you must remain vigilant. Be particularly skeptical if you’re contacted by alleged support staff who can’t confirm their identity. Google employees will never contact you by phone or email to reset a password or make other changes to your accounts. Further reading: Gmail’s AI summaries can be hijacked by scammers Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Fastest USB4 enclosure to date Solid, thermally excellent design Good-looking Cons Pricier than most Our Verdict I love this sexy-in-an-oddball-fashion enclosure. It’s the fastest USB4 enclosure I’ve tested so far, and with all the fins, there’s no chance of thermal throttling. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: TerraMaster D1 SSD Plus Retailer Price $109.99 View Deal TerraMaster $109.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Best Prices Today: Check today’s prices TerraMaster’s radiator-finned, all-aluminum D1 SSD Plus looks cool, and runs cool. It’s performance lends much credence to the theory that thermal design is important when it comes to high-speed external storage, or for that matter — high-speed storage in general. A lack of thermal throttling may or may not be why the D1 SSD Plus outperformed the competition, but given past experience with great thermal designs, I reckon it just might’ve factored in. Either way, it’s a fantastic, if pricey external USB4 enclosure. Read on to learn more, then see our roundup of the best external drives for comparison. What are the D1 SSD Plus’s features? The D1 SSD Plus is a striking-looking, all-aluminum enclosure featuring the 40GBps USB4 protocol, with a single M.2 NVMe slot inside with thermal compound strips included. It measures approximately 4.4-inches long, by 2.25-inches wide, by 1.25-inches thick/high. Weight is just shy of 9 ounces, which feels pretty hefty at the size. A two-piece clamshell, the halves of the silver enclosure are held together by two tabs and a single captive screw — a rather tiny screw, which makes it a good thing that it’s captive. On the other hand, the D1’s method for holding the M.2 NVMe SSD in the enclosure is an old-fashioned non-captive screw. That stands out when the trend in enclosures seems to favor captive plastic or rubber retention methods. The yin and yang? A screw is more secure and less likely to break, but it’s also more easily lost. I’ve sent any number of the little buggers scurrying across my hardwood floors. Solution? I’ve learned to be much more careful and do the work on a soft towel or blanket which will capture it before it escapes. How much does the D1 SSD Plus cost? Alas, you won’t find the D1 SSD Plus in or anywhere near the bargain bin. At $110 it’s one of the pricier enclosures I’ve tested, certainly more expensive than the competing Ugreen CM850 shown in the charts. But given the specs, the all-aluminum design, and the decidedly superior performance, I can’t help but consider the extra moola worthwhile. How fast is the D1 SSD Plus? Short answer: very. Given that I populated the the Ugreen CM850 with the same, extremely fast Samsung 9100 Pro SSD, I wasn’t expecting the D1 SSD Plus to spank it in our real-world copies as it did. I ran those tests more than the usual number of times to verify the results. Lack of thermal throttling? Again, could be. The Adata SE920 comes pre-populated and is thrown into the mix to show that positive things can happen when you roll your own external storage with a very fast SSD. The synthetic benchmarks were exceptionally close between the TerraMaster and Ugreen, with the Adata very close behind. It’s the fins, baby! There’s not a lot of difference between the three drives in CrystalDiskMark 8’s sequential throughput tests. But the D1 did triumph. Longer bars are better. The CrystalDiskMark 8 4K results were nearly equal between all three competitors. Indeed, NVMe technology is so much faster than even 40Gbps, or even 80Gbps USB4/5 and Thunderbolt 4/5, that it tends to bump right up against those transfer protocols’ ceilings. These numbers are very close, with no “Who’s the fastest?” conclusion to be drawn. Longer bars are better But the D1 SSD Plus sustained throughput so well that it gained a decisive advantage in our real-world transfers. To the point that I’m beginning to wonder exactly how much thermal throttling goes on with your average vanilla enclosure. After all the OWC 1M2 with its similarly finned design is also faster than most generic enclosures. Note that Windows 11 242H seems to have flatlined transfer speeds, at least with our new testbed, so these transfer tests are closer than they used to be. As such, they’re no longer a true indication of potential performance. Also, you may notice that the Xcopy (Command prompt) tests are significantly faster and far closer to what the synthetic benchmarks say are possible. Microsoft seems to have optimized these for NVMe while leaving Explorer outdated. The D1 won most or the 48GB transfer tests, but it was close. Shorter bars are better. Here’s where the difference between the D1 SSD Plus and the Ugreen CM850 really showed up — the aforementioned spanking. Note that the SE920 was only 2TB whereas the Samsung 9100 Pro used in the others was 4TB. This might’ve worked against the Adata SE920 in such a long copy, but other 2TB SSDs have turned in far faster times. The 450GB write was a major win for the D1. Keep in mind that the Ugreen had the same Samsung 9100 Pro inside. Shorter bars are better. All told, the D1 SSD Plus outperformed the competition. Sometimes marginally, sometimes substantially. If you want the fasted USB4 enclosure I’ve tested, this is it. It’s the fins, baby! Should you buy the D1 SSD plus? Personally, I find the D1 SSD Plus attractive, but the look might not strike everyone the same way. That said, it is fast as all get-out and there’s absolutely zero chance that you will ever overheat the SSD inside. Worth the money? I say yea. How we test Drive tests currently utilize Windows 11 24H2, 64-bit running off of a PCIe 4.0 Samsung 990 Pro in an Asus Z890-Creator WiFi (PCIe 4.0/5.0) motherboard. The CPU is a Core Ultra i5 225 feeding/fed by two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 4800MHz modules (64GB of memory total). Both 20Gbps USB and Thunderbolt 5 are integrated and Intel CPU/GPU graphics are used. SSDs involved in the test are mounted in a HighPoint 7604A 16x PCIe 5.0 adapter card. We run the CrystalDiskMark 8, AS SSD 2, and ATTO 4 synthetic benchmarks to find the storage device’s potential performance, then a series of 48GB and 450GB transfers tests using Windows Explorer drag and drop to show what you’ll see under Window, as well as the far faster Xcopy to show what’s possible. The 48GB transfer tests utilize an USFMount RAM disk taking up 58GB of the 64GB of total memory. The 450GB file is transferred from another SSD on the HighPoint card. Each test is performed on a newly NTFS-formatted and TRIM’d drive so the results are optimal. Note that in normal use, as a drive fills up, performance may decrease due to less NAND for secondary caching, as well as other factors. This can be less of a factor with the current crop of SSDs with far faster late-generation NAND. Caveat: The performance numbers shown apply only to the drive we were shipped and to the capacity tested. SSD performance can and will vary by capacity due to more or fewer chips to shotgun reads/writes across and the amount of NAND available for secondary caching. Vendors also occasionally swap components. If you ever notice a large discrepancy between the performance you experience and that which we report, by all means, let us know. Read...

Graphics card prices are dropping. Wow, that’s something I haven’t been able to say in a long time. Unfortunately, it’s only for those of you in Europe, as Nvidia makes a slight cut to some of the latest RTX 50-series desktop graphics cards in the region. Notably, prices in the US (where unpredictable tariffs are putting a damper on anything with chips in it) remain unchanged. VideoCardz noticed the price drop, specifically for the RTX 5090, 5080, and 5070. The top-of-the-line RTX 5090 gets the biggest drop, from €2,329 to €2,099, just a hair under 10 percent. The RTX 5080 goes from €1,169 to €1,059, while the RTX 5070 drops from €649 to €589. The RTX 5070 Ti, 5060, and 5060 Ti are not getting any price drops at the moment. Note that the prices are for Nvidia’s Founders Edition cards, though a small amount of cards from other manufacturers should be available at that “base” price with no extras. Why the price drop? Since Nvidia changed the European prices without ceremony, there’s no official word. But VideoCardz notes that the 9 to 10 percent drop roughly follows the rise of the Euro currency versus the US dollar over the last six months, a 12 percent gain for the former. That would explain why US prices are unchanged, despite high demand across the board for Nvidia’s graphics cards. For the sake of comparison, €2,099 is $2449 at today’s exchange rates, and the US price of the RTX 5090 Founder’s Edition is still allegedly $2,000, so Europe’s general higher prices (accounting for factors like Value Added Tax, among others) seem to be holding. That being the case, this is less of an actual price cut and more of an adjustment to match the economic realities of the weakening US dollar. Read...

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: I’m a PC, not a Mac. I’ll take Windows over macOS any day and I’ve been this way for years. But after reviewing a lot of Arm laptops with Snapdragon X chips this past year, I’ve noticed a big problem: if you want an Arm laptop, MacBooks are much more compelling. While Apple lowers prices on its high-end laptops, PC makers are pricing down by cutting corners. In other words, the PC industry is failing to compete properly in the Arm laptop market, with Microsoft’s Surface laptop lineup as the perfect example of it all—and we deserve better than this. Arm PCs vs. Arm MacBooks: Let’s compare I love Windows and I love PCs. But when it comes to Arm laptops, you lose a lot of the PC’s advantages—like upgradeable hardware, near-perfect backwards compatibility, a huge library of PC games, etc. Arm laptops fail to deliver on those fronts, and if those are your highest priorities, then you’re better off with an Intel or AMD laptop. Moreover, Arm-based Windows laptops with Qualcomm Snapdragon chips are failing to deliver the price points I’d hoped for at launch. (More on that in a moment.) Meanwhile, Arm-based MacBooks are becoming shockingly more affordable. Apple MacBook Air M1 (2020)IDG Right now, in mid-August 2025 as we head into back-to-school season, you can get an M1 MacBook Air for $599 from Walmart, down from $650 retail. Sure, it only has 8GB of RAM, and sure, it was originally released in 2020. But it’s still a high-quality machine—not cheap, not plasticky, and not a lower-end screen just to reach that price point. It was top-of-the-line when it released in 2020. Similarly, you can grab a current-gen M4 MacBook Air for $799 from Best Buy, down from $999 retail. Asus Vivobook S 15 (2024)IDG / Matthew Smith For comparison, how much is a high-end Snapdragon X Elite laptop? The Asus Vivobook S 15 retails for $1,299 and still costs about a grand on sale. The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x retails for $1,199 and sometimes discounts down to $900. The base model of Microsoft’s 13-inch Surface Laptop 7 retailed for $999 and went as low as $750 on sale. Personally, I would rather have a Windows laptop on the go. But I’d also have a hard time convincing anyone who’s neutral into buying a Qualcomm Snapdragon X-powered laptop over a MacBook, especially once we started comparing prices. The Surface Laptop shows what’s wrong Snapdragon X laptops are meant for people who prefer Windows over macOS while on the go, and I’m one of those people. I’m actually typing up this article on a Windows Arm laptop right now! But you can’t buy my favorite machine anymore. It’s been discontinued. When Microsoft released its initial line of Copilot+ PCs running Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus chips in 2024, I knew I had to buy one—I’m a professional PC reviewer, after all. At release, Microsoft offered a 13.8-inch Surface Laptop 7 with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for $999, meeting the M4 MacBook Air’s retail price. In the months following release, I saw Surface Laptop 7s on sale for around $800, with further drops later on. So far, so good. Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 (2024)Mark Hachman / IDG But now, more than a year later, Microsoft has discontinued the $999 Surface Laptop. That particular line now starts at $1,199—that’s $200 more expensive than the M4 MacBook Air at its retail price. To compensate, Microsoft released a cheaper line of 13-inch Surface Laptops… but these are lower-end PCs with worse screens, lower-resolution webcams, no facial recognition hardware, and other corner-cutting decisions. And they still start at $899. That’s the problem: while Apple’s strategy involves shipping older premium products, Microsoft’s strategy involves releasing worse products with corners cut. Why would someone who doesn’t love Windows choose to buy a lower-end Surface Laptop or spend up on a higher-end Surface Laptop when the MacBook Air exists? And at $599 or $799, it’s a flat-out better value if you don’t depend on Windows. Microsoft Surface Laptop 13 (2025)Mattias Inghe / Foundry It pains me to say that because I love my Surface Laptop 7. It’s a great machine for productivity and browsing with long battery life. But you can’t buy the one I have anymore—you’ll be buying something worse, or paying hundreds more to get something similar. Microsoft gave up on competing in the critical $999 laptop market. New Arm laptops struggle to compete At CES 2025, Qualcomm said its new Snapdragon X chips would pave the way for $600 laptops. But those lower-end Snapdragon chips perform surprisingly close to Apple’s 2020-era M1 hardware—the one that powers those $599 MacBooks—in many benchmarks. And when Lenovo released the comparatively inexpensive Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x with that chip, launching at a $749 price point with a dim display and tinny speakers, I was disappointed. Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x (2025)IDG / Chris Hoffman Let me reiterate: a “budget MacBook” is an older premium model that now has a lower price, while a “budget Windows Arm laptop” is a new machine with corners cut. It’s a huge difference in philosophy, and it makes PC laptops feel lower end. When MacBooks are beating you on price and performance, you know something has gone wrong. Of course, these Arm laptops running Windows do go on sale from time to time. As I write this, you can get that Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x for $449 at Best Buy, which is a serious value. But, at release, comparing the $749 PC to the $649 MacBook, the winner for people who aren’t committed to Windows is clear: it’s the MacBook. Windows Arm laptops are in a weird spot There are so many good reasons to buy a PC instead of a Mac! But most of those reasons will push you towards Intel or AMD laptops, not these Snapdragon-powered Arm laptops. If I were buying a laptop today and prioritizing battery life, I’d probably go for an Intel Lunar Lake-powered machine. You get full compatibility with Windows apps—including games, many of which run pretty well on the integrated GPU with no compatibility hiccups—along with excellent battery life. And if I wanted a gaming laptop or more CPU performance in general, I’d have so many other good options. Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 (2025)Chris Hoffman / IDG Windows Arm laptops, on the other hand, just aren’t compelling right now. You’d have to find one at a rock-bottom sale price to make it worthwhile. (And with those sales becoming more common, it’s a sign that they aren’t selling as well as PC makers hoped they would.) All of this could change in the coming years. Windows PCs with Arm processors may have a long and bright future ahead of them, especially when other manufacturers—like Nvidia, perhaps—start making Arm chips for them. But in a world where Apple keeps getting the MacBook’s price lower without compromising on specs or experience, PC manufacturers will have to do better to stand out. One thing’s for sure: Microsoft’s push to brand these as “Copilot+ PCs” and sell the platform based on a handful of nebulous AI features has failed. Instead of AI, Microsoft should have championed battery life—especially now that you don’t even need Arm for AI features. Are tariffs to blame? I’ve been making a lot of price comparisons, which might seem unfair given the elephant in the room: US tariffs. Manufacturers generally avoid commenting (at least on the record) on how tariffs are affecting their pricing strategies, so I generally don’t ask. But when Microsoft axes its $999 laptop and replaces it with a worse version with lower-end hardware, it’s easy to suspect that something is going on behind the scenes. And when we hear about $600 Windows Arm laptops in January but they never materialize after tariffs come into play, I have to assume tariffs are a factor. And yet, Apple’s MacBook can be had for $599 to $649 at Walmart, complete with a premium build quality and good display. When I review a new Arm PC laptop that delivers similar performance with a worse build quality at a higher price point, I really don’t know what to say. Read...