Jurang Tayo

Minggu, 05 Mei 2019

What to expect from Google I/O 2019 - Ars Technica

Enlarge / Shoreline Amphitheatre, as seen at Google I/O 2017.
Ron Amadeo

Google I/O kicks off May 7 in Mountain View, California, where Google will be hosting a keynote and a million other sessions at the Shoreline Amphitheater. The keynote starts at 10am PT, and we'll be there to cover everything announced at the show. But before we hop on a plane and fly down to Google HQ, we've prepared a likely list of things we anticipate Google will announce. If you want to know where the larger Google-verse is about to go, here are the rumors, expected updates on previously announced things, and notable schedule tidbits to keep an eye on at I/O 2019.

The mid-range Pixel

Google's teaser #1.
The Pixel 3a press render from Evan Blass.

Evan Blass
Real images of the mid-range Pixel 3a.

Rozetked
The back has this strange "C" logo.

Rozetked
A headphone jack!

Rozetked
These slots on the bottom edge are new. With the missing bottom-front speaker grille, at least one of these is probably a speaker.

Rozetked
A neon power button.

Rozetked

When it comes to entry-level smartphone pricing, Google gets the title of "Most Expensive Smartphone Lineup on Earth." Google wants to be a smartphone manufacturer, but its cheapest phone, the Pixel 3, starts at $800. Most other manufacturers have a range of smartphones starting as low as $100 and going up from there. You can even enter the iOS ecosystem for just $449, where Apple will still sell you a new iPhone 7.

At Google I/O 2019, Google will take a baby step toward offering a real smartphone lineup by launching something other than a premium smartphone: a mid-range Pixel is coming, and supposedly there will be two devices, called the "Pixel 3a" and "Pixel 3a XL," with identical designs. Hardware has been absent from Google I/O for several years, but these devices are pretty much a lock to debut at Google I/O—Google has already sent out a teaser for May 7.

So, what exactly is a mid-range Pixel? Well, we've already seen both real life pictures and official press renders of the Pixel 3a, and it looks like we're getting a device that closely resembles the smaller Pixel 3 design, just in a cheaper, plastic shell with a cheaper SoC. The smaller Pixel 3a has been thoroughly leaked, with prototypes spotted in the wild dating back to November 2018.

The rumored sales pitch is that the Pixel 3a has the same industry-leading camera technology that's available in the more expensive Pixel 3, and, of course, it'll have Google's day-one Android updates for three years. You're also getting a headphone jack, which famously has been absent from the Pixel line after the Pixel 1.

The mid-ranginess comes from the plastic body (changed from glass on the Pixel 3) and the Snapdragon 670 SoC (downgraded from the Snapdragon 845 in the Pixel 3). The other rumored Pixel 3a specs are nearly identical to the regular Pixel 3, with a 5.6-inch, 2220×1080 display, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, a 12MP rear camera, 8MP front camera, and a 3000mAh battery. The Pixel 3a XL is rumored to pack a 6-inch, 2160×1080 OLED display—a downgrade from the 6.3-inch, 2960×1440 OLED panel in the 3XL—and a 3700mAh battery—an upgrade from the 3 XL's 3430mAh battery.

Can the Pixel 3a survive in the cutthroat value market?

We still don't know the price of the Pixel 3a, but Google's pricing scheme will be a major factor in the phone's success. The value market is a cutthroat business, and the Pixel 3a will have to slot in under devices like the OnePlus 6T. OnePlus' flagship has a faster SoC (a Snapdragon 845), more RAM (6GB), a bigger screen (6.4-inches), a bigger battery (3700mAh), and more storage (128GB), which all combine to allow the 6T to monopolize the $549 price range. And this isn't even OnePlus' final form! The OnePlus 7 will be announced days after the Pixel 3a on May 14, and it will be packing an even faster SoC, the Snapdragon 855, and possibly other upgrades, hopefully for a similar price.

If Google is building the Pixel 3a with an eye toward emerging markets like India—Google's second favorite country—then it has to deal with even more brutal competition from the likes of Xiaomi. India gets sweetheart country-specific devices like Xiaomi's Poco F1, again with a Snapdragon 845 and 6GB of RAM but this time for an astounding $300. India is for major players only, and I doubt Google can compete.

If you're looking for a spec-for-spec comparison, the closest is probably the Vivo Z3, which has a Snapdragon 670, a bigger 6.3-inch, 2220×1080 LCD, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, and a 3310mAh battery, all similar or better than the Pixel 3a, and Vivo's phone is $240. The Xiaomi Mi A2 is in a similar spec bracket with the Pixel 3a (although it has a year older SoC, the Snapdragon 660) and even has stock Android through the Android One program. This is one of Xiaomi's most widely distributed phones, and it can be grabbed from Amazon with two-day shipping in the US with an MSRP of $290. It would not surprise us to hear of a Xiaomi Mi A3 soon with an upgraded SoC.

The fear is that Google will continue the Pixel tradition of being too expensive for what it is offering. If the Pixel 3a comes in at around $500, would anyone really want to pay that much for a mid-range device when flagship-class OnePlus hardware can be had for $50 more, and similar hardware can be had for hundreds less? Will Google really price the 3a lower than that? How much would you pay for a Pixel 3a with the above specs?

Seriously, "Google Nest" products?

The Google Home Hub.

Ron Amadeo
The back features a mute switch and a volume rocker.

Ron Amadeo
Don't worry about where the speaker cloth is, it pumps out sound in all directions pretty well.

Ron Amadeo
On the bottom is a rubber root.

Ron Amadeo
What's this?! The foot comes off.

Ron Amadeo
Connected to the power board you'll find a mysterious Micro-USB port.

Ron Amadeo

Remember Nest? Google bought the smart home company in 2014, then spun it off as one of the first Alphabet companies in 2015. After it stagnated under Alphabet, founder Tony Fadell left in 2016, and Nest was folded into Google's hardware division by 2018. Now what?

The Google Store has been dropping hints at what might become of what's left of Nest—it could serve as a brand for Google's smart home products called "Google Nest." In early April, the Google Store Web page accidentally posted a navigation menu listing "Google Home Hub/Google Nest Hub" and "Google Nest Hub Max" as products. The Google Home Hub is an existing product: it's a Google Home smart speaker with a display, and apparently it's going to be rebranded as the "Google Nest Hub" in the future.

There is no "Google Home Hub Max," but a Google Home Max is a bigger version of the Google Home speaker. So then the Nest Hub Max would presumably be a larger version of the Google Home Hub, with a bigger display and better speakers. It always seemed odd that Google only shipped a 7-inch smart display, while partners like Lenovo ship 8- and 10-inch Google Smart Displays. A bigger Google Nest Home Hub would just be keeping up with Google's frenemies.

There is no reason to believe "Google Nest" products will be announced at Google I/O, other than the fact that the Google Store leaks also mentioned the Pixel 3a, which definitely is being mentioned at I/O. Since Google has everyone's attention during the big show, it makes sense to toss the Nest news in with the other announcements. We're going to pencil this one in for the keynote.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/05/what-to-expect-from-google-io-2019/

2019-05-05 13:30:00Z
52780284024875

Google IO 2019 livestream: how to watch the keynote online - TechRadar

The Google IO 2019 keynote starts at 10am ET (1pm PT, 6pm BST), and we'll be reporting live from Mountain View, California to bring you all the latest Google has to offer, and you'll be able to watch along with the Google IO livestream.

Google IO, or as the company styles it Google I/O, is the search giant's annual developer conference where it showcases everything we can expect from the coming year of Android and Google services.

So if you want to know what the next 12 months of tech brings, you need to know how to watch the Google IO 2019 keynote.

How to livestream Google IO 2019

You'll likely be able to watch the keynote on the Google IO website, which is currently running a countdown clock to big event right now.

Google will also likely livestream the keynote on YouTube, with the Google Developer's channel hosting the video last year.

When Google unveils its stream, we'll add it into this article so you can easily find it. For now, enjoy Google's highlight reel from Google IO 2018.

What to expect at Google IO 2019

There are a few things we're hoping to see from the Google IO livestream. One is the rumored Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL smartphones, which we've heard will be budget alternatives to the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL.

Another big announcement could be around the next version of its mobile operating system, with new features for Android 10 likely to be revealed on stage.

Google will probably also unveil a range of new features and changes to its Google Suite of apps, which it recently discontinued a load of, so perhaps we'll see some of the features in the old apps added to the newer ones.

TechRadar will be at Google IO and analyzing all the announcements, from hardware announcements to software upgrades, so stay tuned over the coming days for all our expert commentary.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.techradar.com/news/google-io-2019-livestream-how-to-watch-the-keynote-online

2019-05-05 09:00:00Z
52780284024875

Android Q: Best and worst features of Google's beta OS so far - CNET

With the annual Google I/O developer conference right around the corner, we can expect to soon hear about what that Google has in the works for the rest of the year, including for Android Q, the next version of the company's Android operating system due in the summer or fall.

I'm coming up on two months of using Android Q -- Google's beta software available on its Pixel phones -- every day since the middle of March. I love dark mode, I want guests to visit so I can add to them my Wi-Fi network via a QR code, and I appreciate getting a better of idea of my battery usage. But I also miss a few of my favorite apps that don't work quite right in Android Q yet.

The first prerelease versions of any new operating system are interesting because they show the direction a company is heading and offer you a chance to try out a feature before it's finished. But they can also be unstable, as a company works out the kinks. And some apps may not work as expected because they depend on a part of the OS that is changing. I am up to the challenge, because I want to find out what kinds of treats Android Q will bring us later this year when Google intends to release Android Q to the public.

Google released the first public beta of Q on March 18, the second beta on April 3 and then a security patch on April 5. The software runs on any Pixel device and gives interested Android owners a chance to check out upcoming features as well as help Google track down issues with the prerelease software and apps.

Honestly, unless it's required for your job -- or you have a spare Pixel you want to try it on -- running a beta of a mobile OS may not be the best use of your time. With Q, Google is focusing in large part on privacy, giving Android owners finer control over what data they share and creating stricter limits on the information apps can ask for. It also includes small but useful changes to its notifications and controls.

Google makes it clear what you're getting into with Android Q, cautioning before you install the mobile OS that the prerelease software contains significant changes that may affect your photos, videos and other files you store on your phone. I was curious enough to jump in anyway. So here, about two months, is what stands out about Android Q so far.

Where Android Q is already solid

You expect odd behavior when running a beta. Google said the system might be "janky." But over the two months I've used Android Q and my Pixel 2 to stream movies to my TV and music to my car's audio system, navigate up and down the California Central Coast with Maps, check email, listen to podcasts, take pictures, make calls, message with family and friends, fill in the holes for the Marvel movies I missed prior to seeing Endgame… basically everything I'd regularly do on my phone. Except for a few annoyances I'll get to in a bit, Q has so far been stable and usable, despite Google's warnings.

androidqdarkmode2 — Dark Mode in action.
Screenshot by Clifford Colby/CNET

Dark mode. To my eye, everything looks better in dark mode. Android Pie finally made it possible to apply a dark theme via the Display settings. That setting is gone in the first two beta releases of Q, but you can still force Q into dark mode. In Battery settings, if you turn on Battery Saver -- which is designed to conserve a battery charge -- you can make the phone switch to dark mode when you unplug it. You can also set when Q switches to dark mode to converse battery either based on your routine or on the percentage of battery life left. And Q's dark mode appears in more places than Pie's does, which is nice.

More info on lock screen. Android Q's lock screen displays more interesting and useful notifications, such which song is playing or your expected arrival time if you are using a transit app like Citymapper.

More feedback. Running Q, you get the charging sound and a vibration when you plug in the phone to charge it. And when you select text, you get haptic feedback. It's a little unnerving at first to feel my phone vibrate more, but I appreciate the notification that I've successfully plugged it in.

image-from-ios — Share Wi-Fi network credentials with Android- and iPhone-using friends.
Screenshot by Tuong Nguyen/CNET

Sharing Wi-Fi details. First-time visitors to my place no longer have to type -- and retype -- the super-secret Wi-Fi password to hop on the network. In Android Q, I can create a QR code containing Wi-Fi information that visitors then can scan to connect.

Helpful battery level indicators. Android Pie shows battery status via an icon in the status bar. Q goes a step further and displays battery level as a percent to the right of the battery icon. When you're unplugged, you can swipe down on the status bar to view an estimate of how long your battery will last. Does it make the status bar cleaner? Maybe not. Is it more usable information? For me, yes.

Quick access to emergency info. I don't plan to use this, but press and hold the power button -- with the phone locked or unlocked -- to bring up an emergency shortcut. It appears below the Power off, Restart and Screenshot buttons. Tap the shortcut to bring up your phone dial pad and access to your emergency information, if you've filled it out. (You can include your name, address, blood type, medications and contacts in the emergency info.)

Where Android Q is still a work in progress

No deal-breakers, but Q has a few not-quite-ready-to-use things that have made me change how I use my phone.

androidqcantsave — You can take photos in Q, but editing them may not work.
Screenshot by Clifford Colby/CNET

Some apps don't work as expected. Google notes in Q that some apps have known issues. One of those is the Photos app, which may not handle photos as expected. According to Google, Q stores more information about the images its camera captures in a separate file, letting you adjust the depth of a photo. Google says this will be especially useful for AR images, but I've not seen it in action yet.

Pokemon Go and Ingress are yet not fully supported, Niantic said. For me, Pokemon Go won't open at all. Ingress will sometimes open, and sometimes I get a message that the game is not supported on my device configuration. If I close and reopen -- and reclose and re-reopen -- the app, I can usually get it to work. Niantic said it will have news on Harry Potter: Wizards Unite support for Q as the game gets closer to release.

I initially also had problems getting my Pixel 2 to sync with my Fitbit Versa smart watch via Bluetooth with the first beta. The second beta seemed to have fixed the problem, but the syncing issue has come back again recently.

And some apps don't work at all. Both of Mozilla's Android browsers -- Firefox and Focus -- close right after I tap to open them. Promisingly, the Firefox beta works fine, so Mozilla may have a fix in the works. Other browsers based on Chromium, such as Chrome, Opera and Brave, also work fine.

Up next for Q

In the second beta, Google added bubble notifications, which act a bit like Facebook Messenger's Chat Heads and provide a way for apps to display a notification. Developers need to add bubble notifications to their apps. None of the apps I have installed are using them yet, but I look forward to seeing them in action.

Looking ahead, Google said it intends to release four more betas through the spring and summer before having the final release ready in the third quarter.

androidqtimeline — Google intends to release Q in the third quarter.
Google

Originally published on April 14.

Update, April 23: Add information on Pokemon Go and Ingress.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.cnet.com/news/android-q-best-and-worst-features-of-googles-beta-os-so-far/

2019-05-05 11:30:01Z
52780286480082

Sabtu, 04 Mei 2019

Ask Engadget: Which smart doorbell should I buy? - Engadget

The support shared among readers in the comments section is one of the things we love most about the Engadget community. Over the years, we've known you to offer sage advice on everything from Chromecasts and cameras to drones and smartphones. In fact, our community's knowledge and insights are a reason why many of you participate in the comments.

We truly value the time and detail you all spend in responding to questions from your fellow tech-obsessed commenters, which is why we've decided to bring back our "Ask Engadget" column. This week's question concerns dumb houses and smart doorbells. Weigh in with your advice in the comments -- and feel free to send your own questions along to ask@engadget.com!

My parents have an older home but really want a smart doorbell. Which ones are easy to install (and offer the best security)?

Jordan Brown

As a paranoid, first-time homeowner, naturally one of the first things I purchased (even before moving in) was a Ring video doorbell. I chose the Ring based on its price point, features and the polished app interface. A few of my friends had owned Rings for a while and were happy with the experience, so I decided it was enough for me to give it a shot. Also, based on the friends I knew with them, I assumed the install couldn't be too challenging; and I was right.

Ring's app has an easy-to-follow walkthrough for whatever your application is. In our case, I was lucky in that our house had an existing, wired doorbell with a transformer, and in a relatively ideal location; right next to the door with a nice clear view of the porch. If this is the situation for your parents house, installation is very straight-forward. You simply cut the power to the existing doorbell, remove it, wire the mounting plate up to the old doorbell power wire, and then slide the Ring onto that mount. The nice thing about this option is that the Ring uses the house's existing doorbell chime and shouldn't require any charging (although I've had to top off mine periodically during the winter months).

However, some older houses -- and this could be the case with your parents' -- might lack the appropriate wiring. They could even lack wiring altogether. But the beauty of the Ring's battery back-up is that this is a non-issue. In those cases, installation is just about as easy. You won't have the wiring to worry about, but you will have to spend a little more time finding a place to mount the plate, making sure it's level, etc. But other than that, and assuming you don't have to drill into any granite walls or anything crazy, you're all set.

This will mean you have to charge the unit periodically, as it won't be drawing its power from the old doorbell wire in this case. Ring says the doorbell should last six to 12 months on a charge, depending on the amount of activity that triggers it, but take that with a grain of salt. Real-world estimates put it closer to the three-month mark, but that's still not terrible to live with, and the app will let you know when it's time to charge. Also keep in mind that if it's not wired to an existing chime, you will only get push notifications on your paired devices, but Ring will sell you a separate wireless chime, which you can plug into any standard outlet if you want something akin to a standard doorbell notification.

In either application, the Ring app does a great job walking you through the entire process and the installation is a relative snap. In terms of the application and day-to-day experience, I've also found Ring's interface to be very intuitive and customizable. I've limited the motion alert sensitivity on the Ring so as to not get false positives from passersby. But it's handy getting notifications any time we get a delivery, and it's fun to dismiss door-to-door salespeople from the comfort of the couch.

Daniel Cooper
Senior Editor

The first-generation Ring is super easy to install: Just drill four holes into the wall, screw in the security plate and boom, it's on. The downside is that the build quality isn't great and it does rely upon you charging the battery regularly. The newer ones have removable batteries which make it easier to charge, and if you're halfway smart with wire, you can wire the Pro-models up to your existing door chimes with relatively little effort.

As for security, it's an Amazon company so they're not amateurs, but they did have (two!) security snafus a couple of months back so, as with all smart home products, go in knowing that it's possible that others can still access your stuff.

Nicole Lee
Senior Editor

I think Wirecutter explains it well enough, but tl;dr: The Ring is the easiest to install but the Nest has better security. That's because the cheaper Ring models lets you install the doorbell without hooking into your house's electrical (which often requires a certified electrician to come by, and the upgraded model). The Nest Hello also requires a connection to the house's electrical system, but it does offer 24/7 monitoring, AI motion detection and facial recognition; the Ring only records when motion is detected.

All products recommended by Engadget were selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company, Verizon Media. If you buy something through one of our links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/04/best-smart-doorbell/

2019-05-04 18:30:32Z
CAIiEPmDSk_3pAf3i2AXfbydC9EqGAgEKg8IACoHCAowwOjjAjDp3xswicOyAw

Hitting the Books: Ever wonder how audio sampling works? - Engadget

Welcome to Hitting the Books. With less than one in five Americans reading just for fun these days, we've done the hard work for you by scouring the internet for the most interesting, thought provoking books on science and technology we can find and delivering an easily digestible nugget of their stories.

The Discrete Charm of the Machine: Why the World Became Digital
by Ken Steiglitz

We're living the audiophile dream! Our phones can hold a year's worth of music and stream more songs than anyone could listen to in a lifetime. But none of that would be possible without the efforts of one Harry Nyquist, an engineer at Bell Labs in the 1920s, and his research into improving turn-of-the-20th-Century telephone signals.

In The Discrete Charm of the Machine, author Ken Steiglitz -- himself a pioneer in digital signal processing -- examines the underpinnings of our culture's rapid digitization; explains in clear, concise language how today's technologies grew from their analog forerunners; and even provides a few hints at where we might be headed.

A signal in the real world is always limited in how high a frequency it can contain. The reason is similar to the reason that transistors are limited in their speed of operation; all electronic devices have a certain amount of capacitance, which limits the speed with which charge can accumulate, which limits the speed with which voltages can change. Mechanical devices have a corresponding amount of inertia. These factors limit the highest frequency that a real signal in any particular physical environment can contain. The point is that we need to worry only about sampling the highest frequency in a signal. The lower frequencies are easier, not harder, to represent at a given sampling rate.

The idea of a "pure" tone of a given frequency is often introduced as a sine wave, the familiar waveform that goes up, levels off, then goes down, levels off, and so on. The function sine is referred to as a "circular" function, for the following reason: Picture a rotating circular disk, horizontal, a roulette wheel if you like, with a point of light (from an LED, say) glued to a fixed point near its edge. If we darken the room, we see the light rotating continuously at a given rate, at a certain frequency in "cycles per second," or Hz. If you kneel down and look at the disk from the side, the light goes back and forth, and, in fact, it will describe precisely the waveform called a sine wave. This is a great convenience, because we can now think about the rotating disk, which is much easier to visualize, and a more precise picture than an undulating wave. As an aside, I point out that physicists and engineers make heavy use of this alternative representation of a sine wave, albeit mathematically, in the form of a complex-valued function called a phasor. Richard Feynman wrote a marvelous little book, called QED, explaining quantum electrodynamics in simple terms, and he uses the picture of a little spinning disk throughout.

Now, instead of leaving the LED on steadily as the disk rotates, flash it periodically. Each flash corresponds to a sample of the position of the little light as it turns with the disk. If we sample many times for each rotation of the disk, we have no trouble representing the true rate at which the disk is turning. However, if we try to get away with slower sampling, we reach a point where we are sampling exactly twice for each rotation of the disk, and the little point of light will just flip back and forth between two positions 180◦ apart. If we now try to get away with slower sampling, flashing (sampling) the light a little less often than twice per rotation, slower and slower, a rather bad (but interesting) thing happens: the little light appears to turn in the direction opposite to its actual direction. If we slow the flashing down to only once per rotation, the flashing light appears stationary. If we flash even slower than once per rotation, the little light appears to start rotating in the correct direction but at a very slow rate—much slower than the true rate of the disk.

This is exactly what happens in an old Western movie when the stagecoach draws to a stop. The wagon wheels appear to turn in the wrong direction, slow down, start turning in the right direction, and so on, until they appear to be turning in the correct direction, more and more slowly, until they finally draw to a stop. The sampling behind this phenomenon is the frame rate of the movie camera, which is standardized at 24 frames per second. When the wagon wheel is turning faster than 12 times a second, we are in effect sampling at a rate less than twice per rotation, and the image shows a fraudulent representation of the speed of the wheel. In fact, practitioners of digital signal processing (DSP) call such a fraudulent frequency an alias of the true frequency.

We can now draw the promised elegant conclusion from this imaginary experiment: To capture faithfully the frequencies in a signal, we must sample at a rate at least twice the highest frequency present in the signal. Put the other way around, if we sample at a given rate, we must limit the highest frequency present in the signal to half the sampling rate. This latter rate is now called the Nyquist frequency.

Harry Nyquist worked for Bell Telephone Laboratories, which was very concerned with communication problems from the early days of the twentieth century, for obvious reasons. He explains his principle in Nyquist (1928a), but his explanation is in terms of telegraph terminology that is 90 years old, and he is not always easy to interpret. But Nyquist's principle, sometimes called his sampling theorem, is there.

What this means in our modern world, for example, is that audio signals, which are usually limited to frequencies (well) below 20 kHz, need to be sampled at a rate of at least 40 kHz. In fact, the standardized sampling rate used by compact discs is 44.1 kHz. Exactly the same ideas apply to A-to-D conversion of video signals, but the rates are much higher.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/04/hitting-the-books-ever-wonder-how-audio-sampling-works/

2019-05-04 16:10:42Z
CAIiENEB3B-IEQ6aFgK4N6SG3rAqGAgEKg8IACoHCAowwOjjAjDp3xswicOyAw

This week in tech history: Microsoft announces its first 'real' laptop - Engadget

At Engadget, we spend every day looking at how technology will shape the future. But it's also important to look back at how far we've come. That's what This Week in Tech History does. Join us every weekend for a recap of historical tech news, anniversaries and advances from the recent and not-so-recent past. This week, we're looking back at Microsoft's first "real laptop," the Surface Laptop.

It's hard to believe that only two years have passed since Microsoft first announced the Surface Laptop. That's probably because the company had already built up a reputation with the Surface line of convertible tablets. Those computers tried to marry the portability and touch-screen convenience of the iPad with accessories, software and specs that made it more of a "real computer."

It took Microsoft a few years to hone in on what exactly made the standard Surface work, but by 2015 it had really nailed the concept with the Surface Pro 4. But still, there were plenty of people who longed to see what Microsoft could do if it applied its burgeoning hardware chops to a more traditional laptop design. Enter the Surface Laptop, a computer with no fancy hinges or detachable keyboard; its most notable design quirk was the fabric-covered keyboard palm rests. But people who loved the design prowess Microsoft showed off with the Surface Pro but wanted a package that sat better on the lap were delighted.

And with good reason: The Surface Laptop quickly became one of the best all-around notebook computers, a device that hit right in the intersection of style, capability and price. It was basically a more modern MacBook Air that ran Windows, a device that had lots of people interested.

Microsoft Surface Laptop

Of course, the Surface Laptop didn't launch without a slight controversy -- but it was about software, not hardware. You may or may not recall that Microsoft briefly dabbled with a Windows 10 variant called Windows 10 S. It was a slightly more locked-down version of Windows 10 that only allowed app installs from the Windows Store and only let users browse the web with Microsoft Edge. To some extent, it was meant to be a competitor to Chrome OS, which had found great success in the education market by 2017.

But consumers seemed more willing to accept the limitations of Chrome OS given how much inexpensive Chrome hardware was available. The Surface Laptop, on the other hand, started at $999, making it a harder sell for education-focused buyers. Initially, Microsoft offered free upgrades to Windows 10 Pro, but said it would charge $50 for upgrades starting in 2018.

Fortunately, Microsoft quickly realized the error of its ways and started shipping the Surface Laptop with the full Windows 10 Pro experience, The company still offers a streamlined "S" mode for Windows, but for the most part Windows 10 S is a blip in Microsoft's long and winding operating system history.

That's good news, because there's almost nothing else to complain about with the Surface Laptop, which was upgraded last fall. Sure, it could use a USB-C port for charging and connectivity, but that's basically one quibble. There are other laptops that are cheaper, or thinner and lighters, or more powerful. But it's not often we come across a computer that truly checks all the boxes for almost anyone who might be considering it.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/04/this-week-in-tech-history-microsoft-surface-laptop/

2019-05-04 13:58:02Z
52780285645155

This week in tech history: Microsoft announces its first 'real' laptop - Engadget

Microsoft Surface Laptop

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/04/this-week-in-tech-history-microsoft-surface-laptop/

2019-05-04 13:30:24Z
CAIiEPDZjD0uaXwTxrTL3c6EPF8qGAgEKg8IACoHCAowwOjjAjDp3xswicOyAw

Minggu, 05 Mei 2019

Table of Contents

The mid-range Pixel

Can the Pixel 3a survive in the cutthroat value market?

Seriously, "Google Nest" products?

How to livestream Google IO 2019

What to expect at Google IO 2019

Where Android Q is already solid

Where Android Q is still a work in progress

Up next for Q

Sabtu, 04 Mei 2019

The Discrete Charm of the Machine: Why the World Became Digitalby Ken Steiglitz

The Discrete Charm of the Machine: Why the World Became Digital
by Ken Steiglitz