Table of contents for February 2021 in PCWorld

CES 2021 was virtual, but the parade of PC hardware went on regardless. Big names AMD, Intel, and Nvidia all made splashy announcements, and PC manufacturers followed in their wake with new products, many coming soon. No time to sift through all our CES coverage? No problem! Read on for our Best of CES picks—the most intriguing and innovative products we saw. AMD RYZEN 5000 MOBILE Last year you couldn’t find a high-end gaming laptop with a Ryzen CPU in it to save your life. This year the tables are turning, with probably a dozen different designs announced or in the works. That should confirm the confidence laptop makers have in AMD’s Ryzen 5000 Mobile, based on the award-winning Zen 3-based Ryzen 5000 desktop chip. While we don’t have independent…

Nvidia held its big “GeForce RTX: Game On” event as part of CES 2021, and as expected, the company revealed a flood of fresh features and hardware for gamers. Not only did Nvidia unveil mobile GeForce RTX 30-series GPUs for laptops, but it also announced a new GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card for the desktop, an expansion of its Reflex Latency Analyzer displays, and plans to support the performance-boosting PCIe Resizable BAR feature that AMD introduced with the Radeon RX 6000-series as AMD Smart Access Memory. Oh, and Call of Duty: Warzone and the next Five Nights at Freddy’s game are getting Nvidia’s spectacular DLSS 2.0 technology, with Freddy’s wrapping in real-time ray tracing as well. Phew. GEFORCE RTX 30-SERIES FOR LAPTOPS Let’s start with the mobile GeForce RTX 30-series…

Microsoft will be shutting down its augmented-reality version of Minecraft, known as Minecraft Earth, beginning in June 2021, the company said on Tuesday, January 5. Microsoft blamed the pandemic as a cause, as well as the lack of freedom of movement that the game required. At its core, Minecraft Earth was a game based upon exploration and discovery. During the early days of lockdown, my kids and I would wander around the neighborhood, looking for animals, ores, and dungeons to explore. But Microsoft said that the “current global situation” prevented the free movement and collaborative play that allowed Minecraft Earth to survive. As a result, Minecraft Earth will be turned off in June. “On June 30, we will discontinue all content and service support for the game,” Microsoft said in…

After Apple released its impressive M1 Arm chip on its new Macs, and Microsoft followed with its long-awaited 64-bit X86 emulator, we had just one question: How does Windows on ARM compare to macOS on ARM? The answer: badly. Very, very badly. Running Windows apps on ARM processors has a few wrinkles. For one, there are only two chips currently powering Windows on ARM machines: Qualcomm’s own processors, such as the Snapdragon 8cx and Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2, as well as the derivative SQ1 and SQ2 processors Microsoft co-designed with Qualcomm. The latter two processors both appear in Microsoft’s Surface Pro X tablet. Until last week, WOA devices have only been able to run apps coded natively for the Snapdragon ARM architecture, or run 32-bit apps coded for X86 processors natively.…

Sabrent must’ve read some of my articles and discovered my love of the color copper. The heat-spreader and the metal carrying case for the brand-spanking-new Rocket 4 Plus PCIe 4 NMVe SSD feature the color in copious amounts. I like it. Even if copper leaves you flat, the drive’s stellar performance will grab your attention—it bested the Samsung 980 Pro in many tests. SPECS AND PRICING The NVMe SSDs we review all use the M.2 connector, and are 22mm wide by 80mm long (2280). The Rocket 4 Plus is an x4 PCIe 4.0 device featuring a Phison PS5018-E18 controller and 96-layer, Micron TLC NAND. Sabrent promises not to change to slower components, as has happened with a couple of SSD vendors recently. There’s also 2MB of DRAM cache. NAND is treated…

Give your old laptop a big performance boost with one simple upgrade: replacing its traditional, spinning-platter hard drive (HDD) with a chip-based solid state drive (SSD). SSDs are becoming more affordable, and they are magnitudes faster than a hard drive in reading and writing data. There’s just one question: Can your laptop even take an SSD? If you’re not sure, we’ll help you figure it out in this video.…

AMD officially launched its Ryzen 5000 Mobile processors at CES 2021 in January, hoping to continue what it’s accomplished on the desktop: bring its powerful Zen 3 architecture to bear and oust Intel’s Core i9 as the best gaming CPU. The unexpected bonus AMD adds is a renewed focus on battery life, potentially solving a noted weakness in Ryzen-powered laptops. AMD chief executive Lisa Su ushered in the new lineup of mobile chips as part of her keynote address at CES 2021, now held virtually rather than in Las Vegas. Su didn’t announce any new GPUs, but did say that the AMD RDNA 2 GPU architecture found within the RX6800 and similar chips will arrive in mobile GPUs in the first half of 2021, along with “mainstream” desktop graphics cards. She…

Microsoft unexpectedly launched the Surface Pro 7+, a refreshed Surface Pro tablet with Intel’s 11th-gen “Tiger Lake” processors inside, LTE options, and the removable SSD that Microsoft first introduced with the Surface Pro X. Microsoft began taking orders for the Surface Pro 7+, part of the Surface Pro for Business line, on January 11 via its business partners. Prices start at $900. Adding the LTE Advanced option essentially tacks on a substantial premium, with the option only available on more powerful configurations whose price begins at $1,150. Neither price factors in a Signature Type Keyboard and Surface Pen, which cost about $160 and $100, respectively. Matte black and platinum color options are available. The Surface Pro 7+ name is appropriate, as the Surface Pro 7 included Intel’s 10th-gen Ice Lake processors…

Masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 have evolved from protection to a fashion statement. Now Razer is taking it a step further with Project Hazel, a voice-amplified RGB mask it announced at CES 2021. Yes, RGB. In March 2020, Razer announced that it would convert some of its manufacturing lines to develop certified surgical-grade masks to help fight the spread of coronavirus, and company executives said they’ve already manufactured a million masks. “And as a natural progression, the evolution of this initiative, we wanted to test our team with looking at developing a new mask, something designed from the ground up for the new normal,” said Mike Scharnikow, a senior marketing manager at Razer. That mask is known as Project Hazel, a prototype that Razer hasn’t definitely committed to manufacture…

Packed with features sure to make productivity mavens happy, the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 delivers both performance and value in a slim and trim shell, even if its battery life isn’t quite what we’d hoped. Powered by a Core i5 Ice Lake processor and armed with discrete GeForce MX350 graphics, this configuration of the IdeaPad Slim 7 ($880 from Lenovo) deftly handles crushing CPU loads and Adobe Premiere-level graphical chores. It also boasts such niceties as a Thunderbolt 3 port, facial and fingerprint biometrics, Dolby Atmos sound, and Wi-Fi 6 support. The IdeaPad Slim 7’s battery life fell a little short of our expectations, and the laptop’s staid design, while pleasingly slim, won’t wow anybody (which shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with Lenovo’s IdeaPad line). Still, it offers a good feature set…

The ChargeTech Portable Power Outlet AM is a mix between a portable battery pack, albeit a big one, and one of the more robust and capable power stations. It includes several USB ports and a standard wall outlet capable of providing up to 100W of power. It’s more expensive than a typical battery pack, priced at $199 most of the time, but can be found on sale for as low as $149. The “AM” version that I received is sheathed in an antimicrobial film that ChargeTech says will prevent viruses and bacteria from growing on the outside of the pack. (The microbe-friendly version of the Portable Power Outlet is slightly cheaper, with a regular price of $159, but on sale for $139.) With a total capacity of 96.48Wh, or 27,000mAh,…

There’s a new version of Android floating around, and whether you get Android 11 via an OTA update or a shiny new phone upgrade, there will be new things to explore. Android 11 includes numerous quality of life improvements and security enhancements, some of which might replace features you had in the previous version. Here are eight things you should look for when acclimating to the latest OS. 1. NEW MEDIA PLAYBACK CONTROLS Media controls have been part of the Android notification shade for years, but that changes in Android 11. That playback notification still exists, but it’ll be above your notifications in the quick settings. The upshot is your controls will always be in the same place, and they won’t push important notifications out of the way. You can…

Microsoft’s Windows Security acts like an airbag: It will protect you, regardless of whether you know it exists. You’ll find a number of technologies grouped within the Windows 10 Settings menu, all designed to secure your PC from malware. Our video walks through the basic components of Windows Security, from the antimalware technologies built into Windows Defender all the way up through the browser security features associated with Microsoft Edge. We show you what each feature does, and if there are any changes you’ll need to make to better secure your PC. You’ll learn about how Windows tries to protect your PC: preventing malware from getting on your PC in the first place, blocking pernicious attacks like rootkits, and walling off your documents to prevent them from being infected.…

Intel debuted its next-generation 11th-gen “Rocket Lake S” desktop Core chips at CES 2021, boasting that its flagship Core i9-11900K processor offers a 19 percent performance improvement over the prior generation, and with gaming performance that rivals AMD’s most powerful Ryzen chip. Intel’s Core i9-11900K does take a step back: Intel’s 10th-gen Core i9-10900K offered 10 cores and 20 threads. The new i9-11900K wields just 8 cores and 16 threads instead, at turbo speeds up to 5.3 GHz (single core) and a slower 4.8GHz (all cores) than the i9-10900K offered. It’s also a 14-nanometer chip. But there are subtle, significant improvements, too: a new, wider, 8-lane DMI interface between the processor and chipset, and an increased 20 lanes of PCIe 4.0 off the CPU for GPUs and SSD storage, matching the…

If you’ve felt the need for gaming speed, Acer’s trio of ultra-fast high-resolution monitors might just catch your eye. Announced ahead of CES 2021, all three also offer adaptive sync technology for buttery-smooth, tear-free gaming experiences, as well as TÜV Rheinland Eyesafe-certifierd screens designed to emit less blue light than standard LCDs. Maybe that’ll help you get to sleep more quickly after a long, late-night gaming session. The most interesting display actually rocks the lowest resolution. The 27-inch Predator XB273U NX features a 2560x1440-resolution IPS display—PC gaming’s sweet spot—but pushed to insane speeds. It hums along at a blistering 265Hz when overclocked, with a 0.5-millisecond grey-to-grey response time. Acer said the monitor is “HDR capable” without offering more detailed specifics (don’t expect true 1000-nit HDR visuals) and says the screen covers…

Apple’s new M1 processor took the laptop world by storm, with many proclaiming it had ended the PC’s whole career. Hyperbole and irrational fanboy flexing aside, Apple’s M1 is indeed a powerful chip. But to get a better feel against its contemporaries we sat down and retested a pile of current Windows 10 laptops to get an idea where the M1 MacBook Air 13 lands in the pecking order of laptops. While we don’t have direct access to an MacBook Pro M1, our sister publication, Macworld does, so we cribbed from its glowing review of the 13-inch MacBook Pro M1. Macworld also graciously ran a couple of additional tests for our analysis. For two other results, we relied on published results from Puget Systems, a bespoke system builder that manufactures workstations and rolls its…

Frames win games,” Nvidia likes to say, but there’s more to esports domination than raw frame rates. How those frames get delivered matters too. Latency—the time it takes for an on-screen action to happen after you press a button—reigns supreme in the blink-and-you’re-dead competitive esports scene. If your game looks beautiful but feels sluggish, you’ll find yourself outgunned by rivals playing with crummy visual settings to increase responsiveness. Enter Nvidia Reflex, introduced alongside the GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 3090. If you’ve heard of it before, you probably associate it with low-latency features being added to games like Call of Duty: Warzone, Valorant, and Fortnite. But Reflex is actually Nvidia’s overarching brand name for a wide range of new latency-obsessed tools. Yes, the Low Latency Mode being added to games is…

Ever since Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 30-series and AMD’s Radeon RX 6000-series graphics cards launched last fall, the overwhelming demand and tight supply, exacerbated by a cryptocurrency boom, has caused prices for all graphics cards to go nuts. Brace yourself: It looks like it’s about to get even worse. In the Asus DIY PC Facebook group, Asus technical marketing manager Juan Jose Guerrero III warned that prices for the company’s components will increase in the new year. “We have an announcement in regards to MSRP price changes that are effective in early 2021 for our award-winning series of graphic cards and motherboards,” Guerrero wrote, though he warned that “additional models” may also wind up receiving price increases as well. “Our new MSRP reflects increases in cost for components, operating costs, and logistical…

The SSD you’ve bought may not be exactly the SSD you think it is. That’s because of a common vendor practice of swapping out internal parts due to supply, pricing pressure, or other reasons. Usually this practice has focused on the NAND flash storage modules on SSDs, and the vendor has met or exceeded the promised specification. If the change is significant, the vendors have usually changed the SKU. But as Sean Webster of Tom’s Hardware discovered in his investigation of the Adata XPG 8200 Pro, the company changed the SSD controller without changing the name—except the performance changed, for the worse. There was no way of knowing the difference from the outside. Such practices leave both SSD buyers and we who review SSDs in the dark, with no idea of…