Honor View 20 review: Large screen, innovative cameras, great value

A year or so ago I said the Honor View 10 was a worthy and impressive flagship handset, easily able to hold its own with the best of the competition at its price. Since then we've seen an inexorable rise in top-flight handset prices, generating something of a backlash. We've also seen the recent arrival of Chinese giant Xiaomi in the UK, its £499 Mi 8 Pro creating a real buzz and anticipation of more to come.
If the £400-£600 price bracket was competitive before all that, it's even more cutthroat now, and Honor has upped the ante with the View 20. This 6.4-inch handset is available with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage for £499.99, or with 8GB and 256GB for £579.99.
With the View 20 Honor has gone all out to create a handset that looks distinctively different. Three features contribute. There is the much-talked-about 'hole-punch' camera, an intriguing design at the back and the near all-screen front. Each of these deserves attention.
The front camera sits in the top left of the screen, enclosed in a small circular frame, and embedded within the display rather than separated from it. This positioning is the cue for that 'hole-punch' descriptor.
This camera location eliminates the need for the 'notch' in the display, which can divide opinion. Most of the top row of the screen can be set aside for application icons, so more at-a-glance information is accessible than a notch typically allows. Apps can also extend into the newly available space. It's a good compromise, and it doesn't affect the front camera's usability.
The Honor View20 comes in four colours: I was sent a Phantom Blue unit, the other colours being Sapphire Blue, Midnight Black and Red. In each case the back is made from etched glass that reflects light in a chevron pattern. There are breaks in this for the camera system and the fingerprint scanner, which I found to be comfortably positioned for my hand.
While the design is distinctive, it may well end up being covered up by a bumper case because that glass is extremely slippery -- the handset fell from my armchair and even shimmied off an open notebook on my desk onto the (thankfully) carpeted floor.
The screen measures 6.4 inches across the diagonal, and its 1,080-by-2,310 resolution delivers a sharp and readable 398 pixels per inch (ppi). The panel is LCD rather than the more vibrant AMOLED, but it's bright enough and I was quite happy watching video, reading web pages and reading ebooks. I do wonder, though, why more handset-makers don't include a monochrome mode (the excellent OnePlus Reading Mode is a real deal-maker in this respect).
With the View 20 sat next to last year's View 10 it's clear that the slight increase in overall size delivers rather more viewable height and a little more viewable width. The other screen statistics show how Honor's interpretation of customer expectations has changed over the course of a year:
View 10: 5.99-inch screen, 78.6% screen-to-body ratio, 1,080 x 2,160 pixels, 18:9 aspect ratio, 403ppi
View 20: 6.4-inch screen, 85.7% screen-to-body ratio, 1,080 x 2,310 pixels, 19.5:9 aspect ratio, 398ppi
The build quality is impressive. The handset has an aluminium shell, which means it feels solid in the hand. The volume rocker and power button on the right side are fitted nicely, while the SIM tray on the left side can house two SIM cards.
On the top edge is another feature that's making a comeback in handsets -- an IR blaster. I'm delighted to see this making a return to phones, as it allows for remote control of a whole range of devices from your TV to professional equipment that uses IR. One of the pre-installed apps, Smart Remote, can handle this for you, and its library of brands is vast.
There is just the one speaker on the bottom edge of the phone, next to the USB-C connector. Sound quality is surprisingly good, and maximum volume is loud. I would happily listen to radio and even consume a bit of less important catch-up TV without headphones -- although of course a headset is ideal for most listening.
We're pleased to see a 3.5mm headset jack, whose return Honor told me is a response to user feedback. The recently reviewed 7.2-inch Mate 20 X from Honor's parent company Huawei also has a headset jack.
Missing features include an IP rating for dust and water resistance and wireless charging. MicroSD card support is absent too, although with 128GB or 256GB of internal storage this shouldn't be a significant issue. My review sample had 256GB variant, of which 15.86GB was already in use, leaving 240.14GB free out of the box.
Although the View 20 is a mid-range handset costing £499.99 (6GB/128GB) or £579.99 (8GB/256GB), Honor has managed to fit in the Kirin 980 processor that's found in Huawei's premium Mate 20 Series. Like the Huawei handsets, the View 20 has a 'performance mode' that allows the processor to max out. Consequently I ran two sets of Geekbench 4 tests, each comprising three runs to get an average score.
With performance mode switched off the average Geekbench 4 multi-core score was 9767, with single-core performance scoring 3295; under performance mode the averages were 9985 and 3325 respectively. Here are the View 20's scores compared with Huawei's large-screen Mate 20 X and flagship Mate 20 Pro:
Factors affecting performance include RAM (the Honor View 20 has 8GB while the Huawei handsets both have 6GB) and screen size (6.4, 7.2 and 6.39 inches respectively). The key point, though, is that the Honor View 20 performs impressively for its price -- at £799, the Huawei Mate 20X costs £219 more.
The other key benchmark is battery life, and here the Honor View 20 also acquits itself well. The Geekbench battery rundown test saw its 4,000mAh battery last for 9 hours and 1 minute in performance mode, and 11 hours 41 minutes in normal mode.
This isn't a spectacular benchmark, but during testing I have been getting through a day's mainstream usage with ease. If you do gaming, TV catchup, or run other demanding workloads, you may need to recharge at some point during the day; fortunately the View 20 supports rapid charge and, Honor says, will gain 50 percent in 30 minutes.
The camera setup, coupled with the Kirin 980's AI features, is another reminder of the close relationship between Honor and Huawei.
The front-facing camera has a 25MP sensor and captures great selfies, with a lot of detail. It wasn't great at handling dramatic contrast of light and shade, such as when a face is close to the lens and there's a very bright -- or very dark -- scene behind, but really this is splitting hairs: the quality is very good.
The real camera goodies come at the back, where a 48MP main camera with an f/1.8 lens and a 3D ToF (Time of Flight) camera for capturing depth-of-field data act in combination. Low light work benefits from a night shooting mode, which can be selected using a simple slider on the viewscreen. Here you can also switch into video mode, where highlights include 960fps super slow-motion (clips are impressive but very short), and AI Zoom, which attempts to keep the main subject in focus as you shoot.
The default shooting resolution is 12MP, and to get to 48MP shooting you need to go into the camera settings. RAW images can be captured if you switch into Pro mode.
More evidence of the relationship between Honor and Huawei come in the shape of the 3D Qmoji mode, in which cartoon characters mimic facial movements -- you can even drop one of these on top of your real head if you choose. There's also an AI mode that analyses a shot and makes camera settings accordingly. In a limited test period I've had some fun, and taken some neat photos too.
The Honor View 20 runs on Android 9 Pie with a UI overlay called Magic 2. This is remarkably similar to the EMUI overlay that it replaces, and includes a number of apps that duplicate Android standards -- a potential point of confusion for users. Perhaps the renaming is just a part of Honor's attempts to create a separation between it and Huawei, but if so it needs to work harder to achieve the uncoupling. To give just one example of how embedded the two are: when setting up Gmail I was informed that I would be using Huawei email.
Conclusions
Honor has responded to increased competition in the mid-range with a remarkable 6.4-inch handset whose features include a 48MP main camera, a minimal-bezel screen, a novel front camera design, a top-of-the-range AI-enabled processor and plenty of internal storage. There's a lot to like here, and the complete package stands comparison with today's flagship handsets -- although dust/water resistance and wireless charging are absent. With the 8GB/256GB model costing £579.99, it's hard to describe the View 20 as 'affordable', but it does deliver very good value for money.

Lenovo Yoga C630 review

The Yoga C630 has insane battery life, but is still too slow to replace your PC
The second wave of Qualcomm-based Windows 10 on ARM laptops have hit the market, promising faster performance to go along with lasting a long time on a charge and letting you work wherever and whenever you want. Lenovo’s Yoga C630 is a member of that second wave, and it aims to make up for the first generation’s poor performance.
We reviewed a configuration with the newest Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 SoC, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of eUFS storage, and a 13.3-inch Full HD display. You’ll pay $940 for this configuration, with a 4GB version available for $860 and a 256GB storage version for $1,000.
That’s a premium price to pay for a laptop that hasn’t proven its ability to compete with Intel’s best. Does the Lenovo C630 offer enough oomph to justify its relatively hefty pricing?
A SOLIDLY BUILT LAPTOP THAT FEELS GREAT IN HAND
If you’ve kept up with Lenovo’s Intel-based Yoga line, then the Yoga C630 will seem very familiar. Simply put, Qualcomm inside doesn’t mean dramatic changes outside, and that’s a good thing. The Yoga C630 fits Lenovo’s attractive yet conservative aesthetic, with a dark gray color scheme that’s not marred by any bling. The Asus NovaGo is a Qualcomm-based 2-in-1 that stands out a bit more with some chrome accents on the hinge and edges.
Even better, the Yoga C630 also maintains the line’s penchant for solid build quality. It’s an all-aluminum laptop with zero bending or flexing in the lid, keyboard deck, or chassis. It feels solid in hand as well, just like its Intel-based and more expensive cousin, the Yoga C930. In fact, the Yoga C630 is more rigid than other 2-in-1 competitors like the HP Spectre x360 13 and Lenovo’s own Yoga 730, and clamshells like the Dell XPS 13. Accounting for the difference in screen size, the Yoga C630 feels a lot like a miniature version of the C930.
You’ll also like the Yoga C630’s dimensions. It’s roughly the same size as the Yoga 730, although it’s slightly thinner at 0.51 inches compared to 0.55 inches. It’s almost exactly as heavy, too, at 2.6 pounds versus 2.62 pounds. Compared to the Spectre x360 at 0.54 inches and 2.78 pounds, the Yoga C630 feels just a tad smaller. Generally, speaking we’d love to see a Windows 10 version of this form factor – it’s sized right for a 2-in-1, and it’s a pleasure to carry around.
Connectivity is a bit limited at two USB-C Gen 1 ports, with only one providing power delivery. Along with the Nano SIM card for the LTE support – which we tested and it worked very well in keeping us connected no matter where we went – there’s only a 3.5mm audio combo jack. In addition to LTE, wireless connectivity includes 2X2 MU-MIMO 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2.
INPUT THAT MIMICS ITS WINDOWS 10 COUSINS
Keyboard feel is another thing the Yoga C630 shares with the rest of the Yoga line. There’s the same relatively shallow key mechanism that still manages to be responsive and precise. It’s not as good as the much snappier keyboards on the Spectre x360 and the XPS 13, but it won’t disappoint touch typists.
The touchpad is also a pleasure thanks to Windows Precision drivers, and it supports all of the usual Windows 10 gestures. The touchpad surface provides just the right amount of tactile feedback and is comfortable when swiping and gesturing, and the buttons click nicely but aren’t too loud. It’s a little larger than the touchpads on the Spectre x360 and XPS 13, which we always appreciate.
Finally, there’s the usual touch display that works just fine for scrolling web pages and tapping the occasional button. The optional Lenovo Pen supports 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity and tilt, just like the Surface Pro 6 pen, but it Lenovo didn’t include it with our review unit. Windows 10 Hello password-less login is supported by a responsive fingerprint scanner on the keyboard deck to the right of the touchpad.
A VISUAL AND AUDIO EXPERIENCE THAT’S JUST GOOD ENOUGH
The Yoga C630 ships with the only option, a 13.3-inch Full HD (1,920 x 1,080) IPS display that’s plenty sharp for everyone but the most devoted pixel-peeper. It’s a good resolution for the panel size and didn’t leave us wanting a sharper image.
As is usual with Windows 10 on ARM laptops, we couldn’t subject the display to our usual colorimeter tests. The supporting application wouldn’t run on the platform, even in Windows 10 Home, and so we relied on our usual extensive real-life testing to see how well it displays text, plays video, and shows off the color and vibrancy of images.
In a word, we’re going to call this an average display. Brightness, contrast, and colors all combined to provide roughly the same experience as with other 2-in-1s like the Spectre x360 and the Yoga C930. That makes it a good but not great display for productivity work, and you’ll likely find it insufficient if your workflow requires highly accurate colors and a wide color gamut. If you want a Windows 10 on Arm laptop with the best display, then the AMOLED-equipped Samsung Galaxy Book 2 is a far better choice.
Watching video, a common 2-in-1 task, was pleasant enough. We didn’t perceive the gamma being off, and so shows were neither too light nor too dark to our eyes. Sound was the audio equivalent of the display quality – it was good enough for short YouTube videos and the like, and it provided plenty of volume. But for the best binging or music experience, we’ll recommend you pull out your headphones.
FASTER, BUT NOT FAST ENOUGH
The first wave of Windows on ARM laptops used Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 SoC, which simply couldn’t compete with even entry-level Intel CPUs. The Yoga C630 is built around the Snapdragon 850, which promises up to 30 percent more performance. Does it live up to its claims?
Thanks to the limits of Windows on ARM, we can’t run our full suite of benchmarks on the Yoga C630. Specifically, although we switched from Windows 10 S Mode to Windows 10 Home pretty quickly, even that’s limited to 32-bit Windows applications. And the 32-bit version of Handbrake, which we use to test real-life CPU performance, crashes on the laptop.
Geekbench 4 runs without problems, though, and the Snapdragon 850 scored 2,292 on the single-core test and 6,710 on the multi-core test. That’s a massive improvement from the Asus NovaGo with its Snapdragon 835, and it’s much closer to 7th-generation Intel Core i5 performance as in the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga. Perhaps most important, it matches the low-power Intel Y-series in the HP Envy x2 in the multi-core test, which is maybe the most relevant comparison given that both processors aim at decent performance with superior battery life.
Our subjective experience almost backs up the synthetic benchmark scores. The Yoga C630 felt most like a laptop running Intel’s 7th-generation Y-series CPU, meaning it was fast enough for basic productivity and media consumption tasks. But it exhibited hesitation and lag when opening new browser taps, scrolling through complex web pages, and opening and switch apps that Y-series Intel processors manage to avoid.
Although we couldn’t test its ability to encode video using Handbrake, we suspect it would have fallen far behind similarly priced laptops running the latest quad-core Intel U-series CPUs. We’ll note that our review Yoga C630 benefitted from having a full 8GB of RAM when we opened multiple Chrome tabs. At the same time, the eUFS storage was much slower than the solid-state drives (SSDs) you’ll typically find on Intel-based laptops.
In the end, performance was disappointing overall. It was just not good enough for a modern laptop at this price point. At the same time, there’s still hope for Qualcomm PCs. Windows 10 on ARM is too slow for most users with the Snapdragon 850 SoC, but there’s reason to believe the next wave of laptops running the next generation Snapdragon 8cx CPU will be legitimately competitive. We can’t wait to see it, but for now, the 850 is all we have.
GOOD ENOUGH FOR CANDY CRUSH, BUT NOT MUCH ELSE
The Yoga C630 uses the Qualcomm Adreno 630 GPU, which as you’ll remember is part of the same family that powers smartphone graphics. What works on Android phones, though, doesn’t carry over well to Windows gaming.
We tried to test using our normal suite of gaming benchmarks, but 3DMark simply wouldn’t run. That left us to give Rocket League a try, which is lightweight enough that perhaps the Adreno could keep up. Our experience was pretty much as we expected: The Yoga C630 just isn’t a great Windows gaming laptop.
Sure, it ran Rocket League at 30 frames per second (FPS) at 1080p and Performance settings, although that dropped to just 17 FPS when we switched to High Quality. That’s better than the Galaxy Book 2, the other Adreno 630 laptop on the market, which couldn’t break 20 FPS.
But other 2-in-1s are faster, even those with integrated Intel UHD 620 graphics like the LG Gram 14. Interestingly, the Yoga C630 did manage to perform as well as the HP Spectre Folio in this test, a 2-in-1 that uses Intel’s low-powered Y-series CPU and its Intel UHD 615 graphics.
You’ll be okay playing casual Windows 10 games, but that’s it. Stick to your smartphone if you want to do some Qualcomm-based gaming.
LIVES UP TO THE WINDOWS 10 ON ARM BATTERY PROMISE
So, did the Yoga C630 live up to any of the Windows 10 on ARM hype? Performance didn’t cut it, and so we were left with battery life, which the Snapdragon 850 was supposed to optimize on the platform. Here, the Yoga C630 represented.
Battery life was indeed very good across our suite of tests. We’ll note that we’re reporting all our tests as run in Windows 10 Home rather than Windows 10 S, which is supposed to provide more longevity. We did run our video loop test, that runs through a local Avengers trailer, in Windows 10 S and saw 30 minutes more battery life.
The Yoga C630 did the best, relatively speaking, running our most CPU-intensive test using the Basemark web benchmark tool. Here, it managed almost nine hours, which is among the best we’ve seen and bested only by the Asus NovaGo. Note that the benchmarks ran very slowly on the Qualcomm-based laptops — the Intel-based LG Gram 14 and Spectre Folio lasted for respectable times as well, but they were significantly faster.
When browsing the web, the Yoga C630 was also near the top of all the laptops we’ve reviewed, at well over 11 hours. Only the LG Gram 14 lasted longer among our comparison group, and we’ll note that the other Snapdragon 850-based laptop, the Galaxy Book 2, fell far short. The results were similar for our video looping test, where only the Spectre Folio bested the Yoga C630.
Simply put, the Yoga C630 really does have spectacular battery life. And, it supports Windows 10 on ARM’s instant-on feature and long standby times. It’s much more like an ARM-based tablet in this respect — it not only lasts a long time while it’s working, but it also lasts a long time while it’s idle.
OUR TAKE That brings us to decision time. What do we think of the Yoga C630? It feels great in hand and it looks just fine. It has solid input options and a good (but not great) display. And it lasts a long, long time on a single charge of the battery.
But it’s still just too darn slow. It’s a fair step behind even laptops powered by Intel’s low-power Y-series CPUs. Those are just fast enough for general productivity use, but too slow for demanding tasks. The Yoga C630 is sometimes fast enough for productivity, but it hitches and lags far too often. It’s enough to make you wish there was Intel inside, but it’s also enough to hint that the next generation might push the platform over the hump.
Is there a better alternative?
The HP Spectre Folio is an incredibly elegant leather-clad alternative to the Yoga C630, and its battery life is just as impressive while it offers better overall performance. With a Core i5-8200Y CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB PCIe SSD, you’ll spend $1,300. Add $170 if you need always-connected LTE support. Sure, it’s more expensive, but you’re getting a far better experience for your money.
You could also consider the Microsoft Surface Pro 6. It won’t offer the same battery life, but it’s just as well-built, and it offers a far better tablet experience. You’ll spend $900 for a full-speed Intel Core i5 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB PCIe SSD, making for a much faster laptop. You’ll want to add in the Microsoft Type Cover for another $130, making the Surface Pro 6 just slightly more expensive. Battery life won’t be as good, though, and you’d have to opt for the older Surface Pro generation for LTE support.
How long will it last?
The Yoga C630 is built like a tank, so it’ll physically last as long as you’re likely to need and well beyond the standard one-year warranty. But its performance is already behind the curve, and that limits its useful life.
Should you buy it?
No. Windows 10 on ARM is so much closer this time around, but it’s still not quite there. If your productivity tasks are light enough and battery life is your priority, then the Yoga C630 just might fit the bill. For everyone else, there are better options.

Windows Lite: Whispers focus on streamlining, ditching and Windows 7-like comfort

A Windows Lite OS, really? Expect to see a lot more talk about Lite. If and when we get such a thing, you might also expect positive comments like "simple," "uncluttered," and "good riddance live tiles."
OK, no official announcement from Microsoft, but rumors and alleged descriptions of what it will be like have surfaced since December. This is a stripped-down OS; Windows on a budget. For now, the new flavor is being dubbed Windows Lite but the name may indeed change.
TechRadar's Matt Hanson was among several writers on sites that described the changes in a Lite version. These can be summed up as 1. Live tiles dropped; 2. Resonance with Windows 7; 3. Storage, RAM on a diet. "Windows Lite will be designed for systems which may only have 32GB of storage or 2GB of RAM," said TechSpot; 4. Eased resource consumption: Windows 10 Lite will be lightweight in terms of resource consumption, and offer near-instant boot times, said Cohen Coberly in December, in TechSpot.
The words Microsoft Lite were spotted in a Windows10 SDK, reported Isaiah Mayersen in TechSpot. Also, he said that it seems Windows Lite will carry structural changes and aesthetic change: live tiles would be dropped.
Actually, the most frequent detail mentioned thus far on Windows Lite was all about live tiles, symptomatic of what some do not want out of an operating system; some users just want to tap out a shopping list and catch a bus. A number of sites said it was possible that Windows Lite would drop support of the tiles. Most of the sites seemed to have a common reaction to a redesigned start menu missing the tiles: RIP.
Reports indicated people were not rushing to the Start menu to look at or customize live tiles. If it ain't broke, don't...as old habits die hard and pinning everything to the taskbar sans tiles may still make the most sense. But before a final farewell, understand its beginnings.
Matt Hanson in TechSpot: The tiles appeared in Windows 8, and were designed to provide tablet-like buttons for touchscreens with contextual information, too. Microsoft brought live tiles to Windows 10, "but they always felt a little out of place in that operating system, and have ended up making the Start Menu look large and cluttered."
The question of why drop live tiles is more a question of why not. After all, said Mayersen, "even major apps aren't focused on taking advantage of the feature," he wrote, and :"the overall design language of Windows Lite will be simpler to reduce system requirements, and redesigning the Start menu is part of that."
In addition, there have been remarks bordering on nostalgia for a well-liked OS in the name of Windows 7. "Windows Lite is likely to be more colorful and bring back some of the soft curves and comfortable feel of Windows 7."
All in all, the "OS is most likely being designed to appeal to those who need only the basics from their systems," said Cohen Coberly in TechSpot. "If we were to speculate, we'd say this OS is most likely being designed to appeal to those who need only the basics from their systems, such as word processing, entertainment apps like Netflix or Hulu, and web browsing."
Back in December, Coberly reported: Microsoft was said to be working on stripped-down 'Windows Lite' OS to compete with Chrome OS." MSPoweruser like a number of other tech-watching sites remarked on the competition factor: Windows Lite is a ChromeOS competitor. In December, an interesting question took the form of a picture caption in TechSpot: " Will Windows 10 Lite make its way to Microsoft's Surface laptops?"
Reactions to Windows Lite thus far have been mixed. Among those who can't see its usefulness seem to be those users who seek the professional capabilities of Windows for students, academics and business.
"...who in their right mind will want it? Certainly not students or businesses who need the full Microsoft Office. Who does that really leave?"
But the spectrum of opinion goes all over the place. Another reader viewpoint: "If they get rid of live tiles, I really hope they do something other than static icons. Live Tiles were a welcome change of pace from a UI perspective in a static world of a bunch of icons."
And another: "If Windows Lite is really going to improve tablet mode, I'd like to see them stick with Live Tiles. They were great in tablet mode on Windows 8, (aside from all other issues found there)..."

Forget Windows, these are Microsoft’s future platform bets

Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott recently gave an interview to Fortune magazine discussing about Microsoft’s future, challenges related to AI, and more. In the interview, Kevin Scott was asked whether Microsoft will continue to invest in new technologies like VR/AR if they didn’t get enough user adoption as expected. Kevin confirmed that Microsoft has not reduced its investments in mixed reality and actually has increased it.
He mentioned that his job is to make sure that Microsoft maintains its focus and its commitment to some of these investments over long periods. Kevin also revealed that Microsoft believes that the following three things are going to be important platforms in the future.
One is quantum computing, which at some point is going to be very important.
There’s mixed reality, which we think is probably in a shorter time horizon is going to be a very important platform.
And on a shorter time horizon than that, this notion of an intelligent edge, which you can think of as a mashup of IOT [Internet-connected devices], sensors, and AI.
“We believe all three of those will be extremely important platforms in the future. And to make a global scale platform work, you have to invest and believe it’s real. It’s a question of when and not if,” said Kevin.
Microsoft will be talking about HoloLens vNext at MWC press event next month.

Huawei's MacBook Air Clone For Windows Is Nearly Flawless

Last year, Huawei took a big shot at Apple with the MateBook X Pro, a laptop that encapsulated some of the best things about MacBook Pro line while ignoring more gimmicky features like the Touch Bar and Apple’s frustrating butterfly keyboard. So for 2019, Huawei made a new mainstream 13-inch laptop meant to take down the recently revamped MacBook Air, and aside from one shortcoming, the MateBook 13 outclasses its biggest competitor in nearly every way.
From the outset, it’s no secret where Huawei is drawing its inspiration, as the MateBook 13 is an unabashed riff on the MacBook Air. But even though it’s a clone, it’s a good one. The MateBook 13 features a superbly constructed unibody aluminum frame that just so happens to measure in at 0.59 inches thick, less than 0.02 inches thinner than the MacBook Air’s thickest point.That said, because the MateBook 13's body doesn’t have the same tapered body as the MBA, it doesn’t actually feel any sleeker when you pick it up.
Also, like the MacBook Air, the MateBook 13 offers two USB-C ports, tough on the Huawei, you don’t get support for Thunderbolt 3. Instead, the port on the left is meant for data and charging, while the right is intended for data and video output. So to make up the difference in the overall usability of the MateBook 13's ports, Huawei is throwing in a free MateBook Dock 2 with every system, which expands connectivity by adding a VGA, USB-A, one more USB-C, and Ethernet.
Where Huawei starts to deviate from Apple’s formula is with the MateBook 13's keyboard and screen. Instead of the infuriating stiff and shallow keys you get on modern MacBooks, the MateBook 13 opts for a standard chiclet layout with ample travel and plenty of bounce that leaves you with zero concerns about finger fatigue. And to the top right of the keyboard, the MateBook 13 features an elegant power button with a built-in fingerprint reader that makes it possible to turn on the laptop and log into Windows with a single touch.
Meanwhile, the MateBook 13's 2,160 by 1,440 screen offers a slightly lower overall resolution the MBA’s 2,560 by 1,600 Retina Display in exchange for touch support, which bafflingly remains an unattainable option on any current MacBook. And despite my initial concerns about potential lackluster brightness and colors, after using the MateBook 13 over the course of a week, there’s very little to complain about. In fact, despite a claimed brightness of 300 nits, our review unit actually peaked at 356 nits, which is almost 10 percent brighter than what we saw while testing the MacBook Air (327 nits). Though I will say that for optimal performance, it’s best to leave the MateBook 13's ambient brightness option on, as it offers a slightly better experience when the using computer in bright or sunny rooms.
Compared to its slightly pricier sibling, the MateBook 13's smaller 13-inch screen makes it just a tad more portable than the 14-inch MateBook X Pro. The size difference isn’t enough to stop either one from fitting in a bag, but for anyone who fancies getting work done on planes, the 13's smaller dimensions are just enough to make typing on tray tables a tiny bit less objectionable. Thankfully, Huawei kept the X Pro’s 3:2 aspect ratio screen, whose relatively taller dimensions gives a slight boost in productivity over systems with traditional 16:9 or 16:10 screens like the MacBook Air.
But perhaps the MateBook 13's biggest advantage over its Mac counterpart is performance. That’s because while the MacBook Air is limited to a 1.6-GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 CPU, Huawei’s machines comes with a faster quad-core chip (either Core i5 or Core i7). This makes the MateBook a better companion for anyone wanting to do a little number crunching or video editing on the side, while the optional Nvidia MX 150 GPU on the $1,300 Core i7 configuration even makes some light gaming possible. In Overwatch at 1,920 by 1,080, I averaged 50 to 55 fps with graphics on high and the render scale set to 100. That’s not stellar, but with a just a few setting tweaks, you can turn the MateBook 13 into a serviceable time-waster too.
Unfortunately, the MateBook 13's proficient performance seems to come at the expense of battery life. Huawei claims the MateBook 13 should get 10 hours on a charge, but manufacturer expectations are always a little generous. On our video rundown test, the MateBook 13 only lasted 8 hours and 9 minutes, which is very average, and about an hour less than the MacBook Air (9:16).
That gap in battery life might be enough scare to some people off, but when you look at the MateBook 13's overall value, everything snaps back into place. Starting at $1,000 for a Core i5 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD, the Matebook 13 costs $200 less than a base MacBook Air with a much less powerful processor and half the storage. And on the Windows side of the OS divide, it’s a similar story versus a new Dell XPS 13, which goes for about $200 more the Matebook 13 when loaded up with equivalent specs. Though to be fair, Dell does make a $900 XPS 13 with an i3 CPU and 4GB of RAM that Huawei can’t match.
Also, unlike a lot of Huawei phones, the MateBook 13 will be conveniently available in the U.S. from Newegg and Amazon (and even Microsoft stores in a few weeks). And with Huawei finally caught up to the massive demand for the MateBook X Pro, it seems Huawei’s issues keeping retailers in stock shouldn’t be an issue either.
The MateBook 13 isn’t flashy, and it doesn’t have the brand appeal or pedigree of systems like the MacBook Air or XPS 13. But it’s well built, well equipped, and a refreshingly straightforward take on what a portable, mainstream laptop should be. And the fact that it’s pound-for-pound one of the best values for a $1,000 laptop doesn’t hurt either.
README
With a run time just north of 8 hours, the biggest downside of our Core i7 review unit with discrete graphics is just mediocre battery life.
Only the left USB-C port can be used for data transfer and charging, while the right USB-C port supports data and video out via DisplayPort.
Compared to the new MacBook Air and Dell XPS 13, an equivalent Matebook 13 is cheaper and offers a better value than both.
The $1,000 i5 model comes is mystic silver, while the $1,300 i7 model with Nvidia MX 150 graphics sports a slightly dark space gray finish.
SPEC DUMP
Windows 10 • 13-inch 3:2 2160 x 1440 LCD touchscreen • Intel Core i5-8265U CPU with integrated graphics/8GB of RAM/256GB SSD or Intel Core i7-8565U CPU with Nvidia MX 150 GPU/8GB of RAM/512GB SSD • combo fingerprint reader/power button • 3.5mm jack • 2x USB-C • 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac wi-fi • 1-MP front camera • Bluetooth 5.0 • backlit keyboard • 41.7 Wh battery • 11.26 x 8.31 x 0.59 inches • 2.82 pounds

Windows 7’s Windows Media Player app is about to get worse

As Windows 7 hurtles towards its end of life date (January 14 2020), it looks like Microsoft is beginning to strip features from the ageing operating system, and it has now removed a key feature from Windows 7’s Windows Media Player.
According to a support document that Microsoft quietly updated a few days ago, “you may be unable to view information (metadata) such as the title, genre, and artist for songs, and the director, actors, cover art, and TV guide for movies in Windows Media Center and Windows Media Player.”
This move also affects the Windows Media Center app found in Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1.
So, it looks like when you import music or videos into Windows Media Player in Windows 7, titles, artist names and other information won’t be downloaded. This is a major blow to the usefulness of the app, in our view.
Why?
Microsoft looked at customer feedback and usage data regarding the feature and decided to discontinue it, so it probably means not many people were using it.
If you were, it might mean it’s time to finally upgrade from Windows 7 – as you’ll probably want to anyway before January 14 next year – or start using an alternative such as VLC Media Player.
While the removal of this feature is disappointing, Microsoft has promised that metadata that’s already been downloaded will still be available – it just won’t download metadata for new media you add.
Microsoft has also explained that this change won’t affect any of the app’s media playing functionality, such as playback, media stream and other major features.
Still, it’s a reminder that it’s probably worth thinking about upgrading to Windows 10.
Check out our collection of guides on how to use Windows 10
Via Windows Latest
Related product: Microsoft Windows 10 Home
Our Verdict:
☆☆☆☆☆
With the April 2018 Update, Windows 10 is more useful and secure than ever, introducing features that could genuinely save you time and frustration as well as focus on work. Of course, there’s always room for improvement, but Windows 10 is better than it has ever been and continues to evolve.
FOR Start menu improvements
Action Center, Cortana are useful
Edge continues to improve
Windows Hello faster, easier
Timeline genuinely useful

Dell Precision 5530 2-in-1 review: A flexible workstation-class convertible

The Precision 5530 2-in-1 has a familiar look-and-feel, as its design is similar to Dell's impressive XPS 13 and XPS 15 laptops. According to Dell this is "the world's smallest 15-inch mobile 2-in-1 workstation", and it packs plenty of punch, but you do pay a premium price for it, with a starting price of £1,897.83 (ex VAT).
Creating a powerful yet portable 15-inch mobile workstation is not easy. It needs to be tough and robust to survive a lot of travel, yet light enough to be transportable regularly. Dell has done what it can to square this difficult circle. The build is tough and solid -- I was unable to bow the lid in my hands, for example, and the base feels just as solidly made. Still, it has to be noted that the Precision 5530 2-in-1 is pretty weighty at 2kg, and quite bulky at 354 x 235 x 16mm. Add a protective sleeve and you'll need a sizeable backpack or bag to tote it.
The keyboard isn't perfect for me. While the keys spring up nicely when released, I found the lack of travel a little unrewarding. I'm sure I'd get used to this, but it did prevent me reaching my optimum touch typing speed during the review period. There's a two-level backlight, toggled via a FN key. The touchpad is large, responsive and easy to use.
My review sample had a 3,840-by-2,160 (4K) touch screen that was a pleasure to view. Dell has squished a 15.6-inch display into the chassis, using its InfinityEdge system to minimise bezels. The side and long top bezels are truly tiny -- I measured them at just under 4mm to the panel edge. An additional 1mm for the chassis edge makes the total bezel just under 5mm. The bottom bezel measures 21mm to the panel edge, with an additional 11mm of chassis to accommodate the laptop's hinge mechanism, and is deep enough to house the Dell branding and cameras for 720p video calling and Windows Hello login that won't fit above the screen.
This is not the ideal webcam location. Video calls present an awkwardly angled view of your face, unless you use the 360 screen rotation to take video calls in tent mode – in which case, of course, the keyboard isn't accessible.
Quality speakers are vital for a laptop like the Precision 5530 2-in1 that's designed for high-end graphics workloads and presentations. The good news is that the speakers are up to the brief: maximum volume is loud enough to reach across a conference room, and even when maxed out there's minimal distortion and good bass tones.
Sound emerges from two grilles set towards the outer edges of the underside of the laptop. The chassis curves upwards at this point, so audio is not muffled by a desk, but there is muffling if the laptop is resting on a soft surface -- when working with the device on your lap, for example. There are forward, back and pause/play controls on the Fn key row as well as volume up/down.
Dell offers two variants of this laptop on its UK website. One has a 1,920-by-1,080 touch-screen, an Intel Core i5-8305G CPU, a discrete Radeon Pro WX Vega M GL GPU with 4GB of video memory, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of NVMe M.2 SSD storage (£1,897.83 ex. VAT). The other has a 4K touch-screen, a Core i7-8706G, a 4GB Radeon Pro WX Vega M GL, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD storage (£1,889 ex. VAT).
Our review unit had the Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD storage.
Battery life could be better. In one sample session running some media streaming, writing into online apps and web browsing, the Precision 5530 2-in-1's 75Wh battery depleted 39 percent in four hours, and was down by 56 percent after six hours. The default screen brightness of 40 percent was perfectly fine to work with during this session. This was a very light workload for a workstation-class laptop, and it might be hard to achieve a full day's work away from mains power in more realistic conditions.
Dropping down to the 1,920-by-1,080 screen resolution might improve battery life, but then you'd have to forego the delights of the high-resolution 4K display. So it's likely that you'll need to carry the relatively bulky and heavy 130W AC adapter in your travel bag.
The Precision 5530 2-in-1 is not over-generous with ports and connectors. The right side has a pair of Thunderbolt/USB-C ports with DisplayPort and a 3.5mm headset jack, while there are two USB-C ports on the left, one of which is the power input, plus a MicroSD card slot and a 5-LED battery power gauge. Dell often employs this indicator, and it's a really useful feature.
Dell provides two USB-C converters, one to RJ-45 Ethernet and one to USB 3.0. These are potentially useful, although using either will block a USB-C port for other uses -- and of course, you need to remember to carry them if you think they'll be needed.
Conclusions
The Dell Precision 5530 2 in 1 workstation is a nicely engineered workstation-class laptop. It's heavy, but the chassis is tough and the 15.6-inch screen -- at least at the 4K (3,840 x 2,160) resolution of my review sample -- is a pleasure to work with. There's plenty of processing and graphics power available, but battery life may be an issue if you need to work on the move. Be prepared to carry the (sizeable) power brick...

Everything New in Windows 10’s April 2019 Update

Windows 10’s next update is the April 2019 Update, which is version 1903 and was codenamed 19H1 during development. It features a light theme, speed improvements, and lots of polish. There are no crazy new features like My People or Timeline.
This article includes everything new as of Insider Preview build 18323, released on January 24, 2019.

Speed Improvements (Thanks to Better Spectre Fixes)
The news of Spectre shook the industry at the start of 2018. Spectre is a design flaw in CPUs, and it allows programs to escape their restrictions and read other programs’ memory spaces. Microsoft patched Windows to help block Spectre attacks, but the resulting patches reduced your PC’s performance in some scenarios—especially on PCs from 2015 and earlier, which don’t have the CPU features needed to speed up the fix.
Now, a change in the April 2019 Update looks set to practically eliminate those performance penalties and speed your PC back up. Specifically, Microsoft is enabling “retpoline” and “import optimization.” All you need to know is your PC should get faster, and you won’t even need to think about it. But here’s a detailed document from Microsoft explaining how these optimizations work if you’re interested in the details.
7 GB of Your PC’s Storage Reserved for Updates
Windows Updates can fail to install properly if your PC doesn’t have enough free disk space. This can be a problem on inexpensive devices with only a small amount of built-in storage.
Microsoft is solving the problem by commandeering about 7 GB of your PC’s storage and making it into “reserved storage.” This space is used for Windows Updates, but programs can also store temporary files here. When Windows needs the space for updates, it deletes the temporary files and performs the update. So space isn’t completely wasted, as files that would have normally used space on your computer will just sit in the reserved storage space.
The exact amount of storage space used depends on the optional features and languages you have installed, but it starts at about 7 GB.
Home Users Can Now Pause Updates, Too!
Microsoft says it’s “[made] the Pause Update feature easier to find” by placing it directly on the main Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update page.
However, that’s not all. Microsoft didn’t announce this officially, but the Pause Updates feature now works on Home editions of Windows 10. Home users can now pause updates for up to seven days. It’s a great feature if you need a temporary reprieve from updates. However, as in the Professional version of Windows 10, Windows Update will immediately check for and install updates after it unpauses. Windows 10 Professional users can still pause updates for up to 35 days at a time.
A Light Desktop Theme
Windows 10 now has a shiny new light theme. The Start menu, taskbar, notifications, action center sidebar, print dialog, and other interface elements can now be light instead of dark. Windows 10’s latest update even features a new default desktop wallpaper that matches the new theme.
Technically, Windows 10 now has two separate options: Windows mode and app mode. The old default theme, which combined a dark taskbar (dark Windows mode) with light apps (light app mode) is still an option. You can choose any combination of the two settings.
File Explorer’s icon has been tweaked to have some brighter colors, and it now looks better with the new light theme.
Windows Sandbox for Professional Users
Windows 10 now has a built-in “Windows Sandbox.” It’s everything we’ve always wanted: an integrated, isolated desktop environment where you can run software in a container without affecting your host operating system. When you close the Sandbox, all the software and files in the sandbox are deleted. It uses hardware-based virtualization to keep the software confined to a container, just like Microsoft’s Hyper-V.
The Sandbox is only available on Professional, Enterprise, and Education editions of Windows, so Home users will have to pay to upgrade from Home to Pro to install and use the sandbox.
A Less Cluttered Default Start Menu
Microsoft is cleaning up the default Start menu. The default Start menu is now just a single column and is much simpler. Yes, it’s not perfect, and it still has Candy Crush Saga—but at least that game is buried in a “Play” folder.
You won’t see these changes on an existing PC. But, when you start using a new PC or start using a new user account on your current PC, you’ll see a cleaner Start menu.
You can also unpin the default groups of tiles more quickly if you’d rather have a cleaner Start menu. Windows now lets you unpin groups of tiles by right-clicking them and selecting the “Unpin Group From Start” option. You don’t have to remove tiles one by one anymore.
Windows 10 Lets You Uninstall More Built-in Apps
If you want to uninstall more built-in apps completely, now you can. Windows 10 always let you uninstall some built-in apps like Solitaire, My Office, and Skype, but now it also lets you uninstall built-in apps like 3D Viewer, Groove Music, Mail, Paint 3D, and more.
This doesn’t extend to all apps. There’s still no way to remove the Edge browser or Store app, for example. But you can remove most apps.
Cortana and the Search Bar Are Separating
Windows 10 has a search bar that’s integrated with Cortana, but they’re separating. In the April 2019 Update, the search bar functions as a normal search box, and there’s a separate Cortana icon on the Windows taskbar. You can leave the search box on the taskbar and hide the Cortana icon or hide the search box and leave Cortana. Of course, you can also hide both.
The Search interface has a new start design, and it features options like “All,” “Apps,” “Documents,” “Email,” and “Web” after you click it. This is different from previous versions of Windows 10, which showed Cortana whenever you clicked the box and waited for you to type a search to present these options.
Unfortunately, the standard Windows search bar still integrates online search results with Bing, so it doesn’t just search your PC. There are more options, too—you can even disable SafeSearch for results in the search bar, and Windows will show you previews of adult content, for some reason.
But this does point to an interesting way forward and a decrease in the relevance of Cortana—now, you could leave the search bar on the taskbar and disable the Cortana icon, putting Alexa in its place.
The Start Menu Searches All Your PC’s Files
The Start menu’s search box is getting a lot more useful, however! The file search feature in the Start menu can now search for files anywhere on your PC using the Windows search index. In previous versions of Windows 10, it only searched libraries like Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, and Videos, and your Desktop. The search will still be quick thanks to the index.
This is an elegant solution and makes a lot of sense. The Windows search indexer has been around for a long time and was always ignored by Windows 10’s Start menu for some reason, but Microsoft has finally seen the light. You can configure which locations are indexed and searched from within the Settings app.
To enable this, head to Settings > Search > Searching Windows and select “Enhanced (Recommended)” to make the indexer search your entire PC. “Classic” indexing mode, which just searches your libraries and desktop, is still available as an option. You can also customize search locations to choose the precise folders indexed by Windows.
Passwordless Login
Microsoft is pursuing “a world without passwords.” You can now create a Microsoft account without a password online. That account is linked to your phone number, and Microsoft will text you a security code whenever you try to sign in.
On the latest version of Windows 10, you can now sign into Windows 10 with these passwordless accounts and set up a PIN or other Windows Hello sign-in feature to secure your computer. The account doesn’t have a password you ever have to type.
Of course, this isn’t mandatory. It’s just a new, optional type of account you don’t have to create.
A System Tray Icon for Windows Update
Windows Update now has a notification (system tray) icon for updates. You can head to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update > Advanced Options and enable the “Show a notification when your PC requires a restart to finish updating” option to enable it.
After you do, you’ll see a Windows Update icon with an orange dot in your taskbar’s notification area when you need to reboot your PC for updates. It’s a nicer way of getting alerted to a required reboot than a full-screen message; that’s for sure.
A New Update Naming Scheme (For Now)
Microsoft keeps changing Windows 10’s update naming scheme. Windows 10’s October 2018 Update was named Redstone 5 during development, and the previous four were also “Redstone” releases with different numbers. Now, to make things even simpler, the April 2019 update was named 19H1, as it was scheduled for release in the first half of 2019.
This sounds simple, except Microsoft has already abandoned the new naming scheme and is about to change the naming next time around. The releases after 19H1 will reportedly be codenamed “Vanadium” and “Vibranium,” as the Windows 10 team is aligning its naming with the Azure team.
Zoom (and More) in the Console
Windows 10’s console now lets you zoom in and out. Just hold the Ctrl key and scroll with your mouse or trackpad. With the default Consolas font, text in the console scales nicely and doesn’t look pixelated, no matter how much you zoom in. The aspect ratio of the frame stays the same so text won’t overflow onto different lines, either.
There are also some new experimental console features you can adjust. Right-click any console window’s title bar, select “Properties,” and click the “Terminal” tab to find them. For example, you can configure the text entry cursor’s color and shape.
More Automatic Troubleshooting
Windows has had troubleshooters for a while, but you had to know what type of problem your PC was having and then navigate to the correct troubleshooter. Now, you can just navigate to Settings > Update & Security > Troubleshoot. You’ll see a list of recommended troubleshooters that Windows thinks might fix your problem.
In fact, Windows automatically tries to fix some problems in the background now. Here’s what Microsoft says about that:
Microsoft can automatically fix certain critical problems on your Windows device to keep it running smoothly. For example, we may automatically restore default settings for critical services, adjust feature settings to match your hardware configuration, or make other specific changes required for Windows to operate normally. Critical troubleshooting happens automatically and can’t be turned off.
Windows can perform recommended troubleshooting in the background, too. To control whether this happens, head to Settings > Privacy > Diagnostics & Feedback. Under Recommended Troubleshooting, select “Ask me before fixing problems,” “Tell me when problems get fixed,” or “Fix problems for me without asking. By default, Windows 10 is set to ask.
Notifications Hidden in Full-Screen Apps
Windows 10’s next update can also hide notifications while you watch videos or use any other full-screen app thanks to an improvement in Focus Assist. Focus Assist can already hide notifications while you’re playing any full-screen game, but now it can work when you’re using any app, whether that’s a video player, full-screen spreadsheet, or web browser after you pressed F11.
Notepad Improvements, Once Again
Yes, Microsoft is still working on Notepad—even after all the improvements back in the October 2018 Update.
Microsoft has also made changes to the way Notepad handles encodings. The status bar now displays the encoding of the open document. Notepad can now save files in UTF-8 format without a Byte Order Mark, which is now the default. This makes Notepad more compatible with the web, where UTF-8 is the default, and it’s also backward compatible with traditional ASCII.
Notepad will now have an asterisk in the title bar when the current file has been modified and not saved. For example, if you’re working on a file named Example.txt and make some changes, the title bar will say “*Example.txt” until you save the file.
New shortcuts are available, too. Press Ctrl+Shift+N to open a new Notepad window, Ctrl+Shift+S to open the Save As dialog, or Ctrl+W to close the current Notepad window. Notepad can also now save files with a path longer than 260 characters if you set a larger MAX_PATH on your system.
There’s also a new Help > Send Feedback option that will open the Feedback Hub to the Notepad category so you can provide feedback to Microsoft.
More Improvements and Changes
You’ll see a banner at the top of the Settings app’s “home page” with your Microsoft account and links to common tasks like Your Phone, Windows Update—and Microsoft Rewards, for some reason.
The official release of Emoji 12 is coming in March 2019, and Microsoft has added new emoji to Windows 10 in preparation. As always, you can press Windows + . (period) to open the emoji panel anywhere in Windows 10. They’re also available on the touch keyboard.
Windows 10 now supports kaomoji in the emoji picker, too. Kaomoji is a Japanese term that translates to “face characters. For example, (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ is a popular kaomoji.
And, when you open the emoji panel, you can now click or touch and drag it to move it around.
File Explorer now shows “friendly dates” by default. So, rather than dates like “1/23/2019”, you’ll see dates like “Yesterday,” “Tuesday,” “January 11,” and “February 16, 2016.”
You can disable this by right-clicking the top of the columns in the File Explorer window and unchecking “Use friendly dates.” This will give you the old format back.
The Storage Settings page has been redesigned a bit, too. Head to Settings > System > Storage to see a breakdown of how your space is used. You can click each category to find actions that will help free up space.
The Settings > Time & Language > Date & Time screen gains a “Sync Now” button to immediately synchronize your clock with an internet time server. It also shows you when the time was last synchronized and the address of your system’s current internet time server. This helps if your time is wrong for some reason—like, for example, if Windows doesn’t correctly change your clock for DST.
The Settings app can now configure advanced IP settings for Ethernet connections. For example, you can configure a static IP address or set your favorite DNS server. Previously, this required using the Control Panel. Head to Settings > Network & Internet > Ethernet, click your Ethernet connection name, and click “Edit” under IP settings to find these options.
Windows Update has had “Active Hours” since the Anniversary Update. You can tell Windows when you’re using your PC, and it won’t automatically restart your PC during these hours.
In the April 2019 Update, you can enable a new “Automatically adjust active hours for this device based on activity” setting and Windows will automatically set your active hours, so you don’t have to think about them. This option is available at Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update > Change Active Hours.
There’s now a new, globe-shaped icon that appears when your PC doesn’t have any Internet connection. This replaces the previous individual icons for Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and cellular data connections.
Windows now has a microphone status icon, too. This icon appears in your notification when an application is using your microphone. You can mouse over it to see which application is using your mic. Click it to open the Settings > Privacy > Microphone screen.
The Windows Security app—Windows 10’s built-in antivirus and security application—now has a redesigned “Protection History” pane. It shows you more information about detected threats and available actions. For example, in addition to threats detected by the Windows Defender antivirus, it also shows you blocks initiated by Controlled Folder Access.
Windows Security now also has a new “Tamper Protection” option. When enabled, this setting protects important security settings. For example, it limits changes to many of the options controlled by the Windows Security app unless you open the app and make the changes. This prevents programs from changing them in the background. To enable this setting, head to Windows Security > Virus & Threat Protection > Virus & Threat Protection Settings.
You can set a default tab in the Task Manager. This tab will open whenever you launch the Task Manager. To do so, use the Options > Set Default Tab in the Task Manager.
The Task Manager now displays the high DPI awareness of the processes on your system, so you can see more information about which applications will work properly with high DPI displays. To find this option, open the Task Manager, click the Details tab, right-click the headers at the top of the list, click “Select Columns,” check “DPI Awareness” in the list, and click “OK.”
Microsoft is also enabling the “Fix Scaling for Apps” option by default. This will help fix blurry applications on high DPI displays. This was added to Windows 10 back in the April 2018 Update, but Microsoft left it disabled by default to be conservative.
The sign-in screen now has an “acrylic” background to blend in with Microsoft’s new “Fluent Design System. Previously, it had more of a blur—it’s a different visual effect.
Speaking of Fluent Design, Microsoft is also adding shadows to Microsoft Edge’s context menus and other parts of the operating system.
The Start menu’s design has been tweaked a bit, too. It has more “Fluent Design” touches and icons in the menus. For example, the Sleep, Shut Down, and Restart options in the menu now have icons.
The Windows Hello options at Settings > Accounts > Sign-in Options have been redesigned. All available sign-in options are now in a single list, and each option has an explanation under it.
You can also now set up Windows Hello to work with a physical security key (like a YubiKey) directly from the Settings app.
The brightness tile under quick actions in the Action Center is now a slider, which makes it a lot easier to quickly change your display’s brightness level. You can now right-click a quick action tile and select “Edit Quick Actions” to quickly edit your tiles right from the sidebar without opening the Settings app, too.
The touch keyboard now lets you input more symbols. To find them, tap the old “&123” button to see symbols and numbers, and then tap the new “Ω” button see additional symbols. These symbols are integrated into the emoji picker, too.
That same touch keyboard now helps you type more accurately by dynamically adjusting the targets around each key. So, if you frequently mistype a letter by tapping a little to the left or right, it’ll learn. This happens invisibly, under the hood.
Windows now lets you choose a cursor color and size. You can make the cursor larger and change its color, making it easier to see. Head to Settings > Ease of Access > Cursor & Pointer to see available options.
Even More Changes!
There are always tons of new changes in these Windows 10 builds. Even this isn’t a complete list! But here are a few more:
App Updates: Various apps included with Windows have been updated, as usual. For example, the Snip & Sketch app has more options for working with screenshots, including the ability to add a border to them and print them. It can now take delayed screenshots on a timer and screenshots of individual windows, too. Sticky Notes 3.0 is available, and it finally syncs your notes between computers. The Mail & Calendar app now has a navigation button for opening Microsoft To-Do. The Game Bar has a built-in gallery so you can see view screenshots and videos, right from the Game Bar interface. The Office app has been redesigned to be based on the new Office.com experience. It helps you launch Office apps on your computer, install ones that aren’t, and find recently used Office documents.
Cortana + Microsoft To Do: Cortana now adds your reminders and tasks to lists in Microsoft To-Do. So, when you tell Cortana to add milk to your grocery list, you’ll see Milk appear on the “Grocery” list in the Microsoft To-Do app.
Consistent Display Brightness: Your display’s brightness will not change automatically when you plug it into a charger. Previously, you may have lowered your display’s brightness, and it might become brighter when you plug it in. Now, it will automatically remember your preferred brightness—even when you plug it in.
Download Folder Sorting: Windows 10’s Downloads folder will be sorted by “most recent” by default, which puts your most recently downloaded folders on top. This has always been an option, but it wasn’t the default. If you’ve chosen a default sorting method, your existing setting won’t be changed.
Disk Cleanup Warning: The Disk Cleanup tool now displays a warning when you click the “Downloads” option, warning that this is your personal downloads folder and all files inside it will be removed.
Windows Update Reboots: Windows Update can now reboot your PC immediately after installing updates rather than waiting for a more convenient time. This is an optional setting you can enable if you like, and Windows Update will be more considerate by default.
Start Menu Reliability Improvements: The Start menu is becoming more reliable. Start was previously part of the ShellExperienceHost.exe process but is now its own process: StartMenuExperienceHost.exe. If a problem occurs with the main ShellExperienceHost.exe process, the Start menu should still be responsive. This will also make it easier for Microsoft to debug problems with the Start menu.
Native RAW Support: Microsoft is adding native support for the RAW image format often used by professional photographers to Windows 10. Open the Microsoft Store and install the “Raw Image Extension” package to use it. This will enable image thumbnails, previews, and metadata of RAW files in File Explorer. You can also view RAW images in apps like Photos after installing the package.
Font Management in Settings: Font management is improved. You can now drag-and-drop font files into the Settings > Fonts page to install them. You can click a font on this page to view its font faces and details or uninstall a font from here. (This installs the font for a single user. To install it system-wide, right-click a font file normally and select “Install for All Users.”)
Clipboard History Redesign: The Clipboard History viewer added back in the October 2018 Update has a new, more compact design. Press Windows + V to open it.
Streamlined PIN Resets: When signing into Windows 10 with a PIN, you can click the “I Forgot My PIN” link, and you’ll see a new, streamlined interface for resetting your PIN right from the welcome screen.
Colors in the Task Bar’s Jump Lists: If you tell Windows to show your accent color on the taskbar from Settings > Personalization > Colors, the jump lists that appear after you right-click an icon on your taskbar will also be themed with your chosen color.
Windows Subsystem for Linux: Windows Subsystem for Linux’s wsl command-line toolnow has new options, including the --import and --export options for importing and exporting Linux distributions using tar archive files. Microsoft is also consolidating things—the wsl command now includes options from the wslconfig command, and Microsoft plans to only update the wsl command with command-line options in the future.
FLS Slot Limit Increase: Microsoft raised Windows 10’s FLS (Fiber Local Storage) slot allocation limit. This is particularly useful for musicians, who will be able to load more unique plugins into their DAWs (digital audio workstations.) This will also aid any other application that wants to load hundreds or thousands of unique DLL files.
Narrator Improvements: Narrator has a “Read by Sentence” feature that you can instruct to read the current, next, and previous sentences. The Narrator also works better with Google Chrome, too—which makes sense, as Microsoft Edge will one day be based on Chromium, the open-source software that forms the basis for Google Chrome. Narrator will now even warn you if the Caps Lock key is on when you start typing, too. It also has a new “Narrator Home” interface that appears whenever you turn on Narrator.
Reset This PC Redesign: The “Reset This PC” interface that resets your PC to its original state was redesigned a bit, and now requires fewer clicks to go through.
Insider Settings Redesign: The Windows Insider settings at Settings > Update & Security > Windows Insider Program have also been streamlined and simplified, but all the same options are still there.
Sound in the Notification Area Stays the Same: In earlier Insider builds of 19H1, Microsoft experimented with making the sound icon system tray open the Sound page in the Settings app. This change has been reverted, and the option in the volume icon’s context menu will now open the classic desktop volume mixer window.
My People: Microsoft may kill Windows 10’s “My People” feature at some point, but this hasn’t been officially confirmed.
Other new features include support for additional languages throughout the operating system. For example, SwiftKey’s typing intelligence now supports languages like English (Canada), French (Canada), Portuguese (Portugal), and Spanish (United States). If you write in Vietnamese, the touch keyboard now supports Vietnamese Telex and Number-key based (VNI) keyboards. Windows now also contains an Ebrima font that supports ADLaM documents and web pages, which is the language of the Fulani people, who predominantly live in West Africa.

Motorola Razr V4 Can Beat Samsung's Galaxy X With Two Features

Motorola’s foldable Razr V4 might be an unexpected success story of the foldable smartphone generation, even up against the mammoth (in grandeur, not size) product Samsung’s Galaxy X will be.
As I explained in an article earlier this week, a way for smaller OEMs to compete in the foldable phone market will be to offer features other companies don’t, or solve the inevitable UX issues a flexible screen will bring. Based on the recently reported patent and rumours, Motorola might have a shot at doing both.
A familiar shape
The rumours suggest Motorola will create a modern version of its famous flip phone shape. Given the popularity of the device in the early 2000s, that makes perfect sense.
But outside of brand recognition, for a foldable device, a flip-up shape would be the most ergonomic. A large part of the appeal of foldable smartphones is their ability to unfold a larger device without having to always be a larger device. It means carrying around a big screen without having to carry around a big screen. That was true of the original flip-phone and it will be true of a modern, foldable flip phone, too.
The renders that have been published since the Wall Streeet Journal report (like the image above) suggest that the foldable phone will flip out into a normal-sized smartphone. Of course these aren’t official measurements, but they make sense. Transforming from a half-size, folded shape, into a full-size touchscreen smartphone will be the most familiar to, well, everyone.
Bezels and batteries
The foldable device Samsung demoed last year appeared to be a traditional - slightly thick - smartphone that horizontally folds out into a tablet. In tablet mode, it looked fine. In smartphone mode, it looked like a brick.
If you're counting: that's three power-hungry displays and one, thick bezel that goes all the way around when it's in smartphone mode. Samsung has worked hard to eliminate bezels in its Galaxy S lineup, and the S10 looks like it might just do that, so it seems unlikely the Korean company would go with such an ugly design that can only hold a limited charge. Rumours suggest that the Galaxy X will have two 2190 mAh batteries to power all of that extra display - it will be a hefty device.
A potentially less power-hungry design option includes a two-screen device that has no bezel on one side (where the fold is) and a UI that automatically cuts off one section of the screen when folded. Take a look at Royole’s Flexpai for how unattractive that is. I’m sure Samsung will do a far better job than Royole, but whatever solution Samsung comes up with, it seems like a complex design riddle that Motorola might not have to contend with.

Samsung finally launched phones with notches, but didn’t copy Apple’s design

We were assaulted with phones with notches for most of 2018, as every smartphone maker that matters (aside from Samsung) copied Apple’s design. Some people mistakenly believe that phones like the first Essential handset an unpopular Sharp phone that brought notches to prominence. But there’s no question that, without Apple, we wouldn’t have had this explosion of notch handsets from all sorts of Android vendors.
In the second half of 2018, we did see plenty of no-notch, all-screen alternatives, proving that some device makers do want to differentiate themselves from Apple, as well as new notch designs that looked nothing like the iPhone X. And, soon enough, we’ll see Samsung’s true answer to the iPhone X/XS design: The Galaxy S10 with its Infinity-O screen. But until that happens, we’ll have to settle for Samsung’s first phones with notches, which look a lot more like OnePlus 6T alternatives than iPhone XS rivals.
Announced on Friday and hitting Amazon India on February 5th, the Samsung Galaxy M20 and M10 seem to be specifically tailored for the Indian market, where Samsung is fighting a fierce battle for market share against a slew of Chinese smartphone makers, including Xiaomi, (which just dethroned Samsung), Vivo, Oppo, and OnePlus.
The Galaxy M20, as the name suggests, is the more powerful, more expensive model of the bunch. We’re looking at a 6.3-inch display with 2340 x 1080 resolution and 19.5:9 aspect ratio, an Exynos 7904 processor, 3GB or 4GB of RAM, 32GB or 64GB of storage, microSD support, 13-megapixel (f/1.9) and 5-megapixel (ultrawide f/2.2 lens) rear cameras, 8-megapixel (f/2.0) front camera, rear fingerprint sensor, 5,000 mAh battery with 15W fast charging, USB-C connectivity, and headphone jack.
The Galaxy M10, meanwhile, is less spectacular, and therefore, more affordable. While it does share many design details and specs with the bigger model, the M10 features a 6.22-inch screen with 1520 x 720 resolution, Exynos 7870 processor, and 3,400 mAh battery. The RAM and storage options are also downgraded to 2GB/16GB and 3GB/32GB. Yes, these devices may look a lot like the OnePlus 6T, but they’re not going to deliver the same speed. After all, these are supposed to be very affordable smartphones.
We have no idea whether the M20 and M10 will ever launch in international markets, but they certainly have attractive prices for India. The cheapest Galaxy M10 retails for 7,990 INR ($112), while the cheapest M20 will cost you 10,990 INR ($154).

HUAWEI MATE 9 GETS ANDROID 9 PIE STABLE UPDATE

According to users feedback, Huawei Mate 9 has been updated with Android 9 Pie stable update and users of this smartphone can now upgrade. The version number is MHA-AL 9.0.1.150. As usual, this update may not be available for all units of this smartphone. Those who have not received the update will have to be patient as it would likely arrive later.
The changelog includes
Natural minimalist natural design
Inspired by natural colors, the landscape elements and natural light and shadows are cleverly integrated into the interface design to create a natural sound effect that is close to nature.
For the alarm clock ringtone, its sound is based on the natural sound of turbulent water and the early morning bird sounds allowing users to have a natural feeling scene.
Combined complex options in the system
Integrates common settings portal into a one-level menu
Simplify the setting items and provides an efficient setting operation.
Smart life
Added calorie recognition function to identify nearly a thousand kinds of food and provide unit calorie data encyclopedia query
It provides you with the authoritative encyclopedic data of celebrities, cars, animals, and plants
Advanced reminder feature
Help you better understand your phone habits, allocate your time properly, and create a healthy mobile phone atmosphere for you and your family.
Device interaction
Adds Huawei Share – Share content directly to your computer and share it to multiple recorders simultaneously
Added recording editing, accelerated playback, and other functions
Add full-screen real-time translation function.
Enhanced cloning, improved clone transfer speed, and data integrity when cloning different EMUI systems

Over a year after promising Oreo for the Moto G4 Plus, Motorola is yet to do so

Motorola released the Moto G4 Plus back in 2016 and promised it would receive two major updates. A while later, the company went back on its word and claimed the mid-range phone would not get the update, prompting a media outcry which forced it to once again promise to deliver Oreo. It's been 16 months since then, though, and the G4 Plus is still on Nougat.
In what may turn out to be another case of corporate deceit, Motorola has failed to deliver on its promise to provide the Moto G4 Plus with Android Oreo, over 16 months after it was called out on its crookery.
Motorola released the Moto G4 Plus back in 2016. The mid-range phone ran on Android Marshmallow out of the box, and Moto advertised it as being eligible for two major updates: Nougat and Oreo. When Oreo was released to the public in August 2017, the company unveiled its Oreo update road map.
The G4 Plus wasn’t on it.
Of course, that only served to stoke the flames of a public outcry, a fiasco that concluded with Motorola promising to send the Oreo update to G4 Plus, like it originally advertised.
Since then, though, users of the G4 Plus are yet to receive any Oreo update. In fact, according to posts by users of that device online, Motorola hasn’t sent any security updates to the G4 Plus since early 2018. There were reports, a few months ago, that the company had begun the soak test for the Oreo update but that is as far as things have gone, and G4 Plus users are yet to get anything concrete.
Send out the G4 Plus’s Oreo update, Moto; we still remember all about this.

DELL UNLEASHES NEXT GENERATION CHROMEBOOKS FOR EDUCATION

In the Chromebook space, Dell has remained a constant but relatively subtle OEM. While their latest flagship is a welcome addition to the premium Chromebook market, they continue to launch a handful of devices as the market expands with a focus on the educations sector.
On the heels of Acer, ASUS and HP, Dell has now tossed their own Gemini Lake Chromebooks into the ring at BETT 2019 in the hopes of capturing their share of the EDU market.
Like their counterparts, Dell has brought a range of new devices including 180-degree and convertible 11.6″ models designed with rugged specs for students. They’ve also added a larger, 14″ model that will likely be more for the educator and business types.
Available in March, we don’t have a lot of specifics on the new devices but you can expect them to be comparable to offerings from other manufacturers.
Here’s what to expect from Dell in March:
DELL CHROMEBOOK 3000 SERIES
Chromebook 3100: Features 11.6” display with Embedded Touch or nontouchoptions with a 180-degree lay-flat, durable hinge that allows students and educators to gather around a single device to view material together. Battery life: up to 14 hours and 3 minutes. Starting at $249.
Chromebook 3100 2-in-1: Convertible design with 11.6” display and Gorilla Glass NBT Touch; also features an optional world-facing camera to encourage student creativity. Battery life: up to 13 hours and 25 minutes. Starting at $359.
Chromebook 3400: Features 14” nontouch display with optional full HD. Battery life: up to 12 hours and 58 minutes. Starting at $319.
With so many EDU device launched in the past 30 days, this may seem like white noise to many but the sheer number of devices released lately is almost overwhelming and that is a very good thing.
It’s very encouraging to see major OEMs deepening their commitment to Chrome OS inside and outside of the EDU space. We look forward to getting our hands on the Dell Chromebooks and letting you know our thoughts.

Galaxy Note 9 has a huge advantage over the Galaxy S9 that you probably didn't know about

GALAXY Note 9 has a big advantage over the Galaxy S9 that you were probably not aware of, a new report has insisted.
Galaxy Note 9 debuted back in August and remains one of the best smartphone offerings on the market.
That is because the hardware boasts a swathe of flagship features and has a number of unique tools in its own right such as an S Pen stylus.
Note 9 comes with a huge 6.4-inch AMOLED display, a 4,000mAh battery and a dual camera system capable of taking great shots.
The latter of which took cues from the Galaxy S9 by implementing a variable aperture that was able to open or close depending on lighting conditions.
However, the Note 9 improved upon the sensors offered by the Galaxy S9 and S9+ by adding artificial intelligence (AI) functions that would alert the user when an image that had been taken was blurry or if a subject had blinked for instance.
On paper, the Galaxy Note 9 appears to have the same front-facing camera as the Galaxy S9 and S9+.
Both are equipped with an 8-megapixel sensor that clocks in an aperture of f/1.7.
However, it appears the front-facing lens on the Note 9 is actually superior to that of the Galaxy S9 and S9+, according to DxOMark.
DxOMark is an outlet renowned for meticulously analysing smartphone camera systems and awarding them a final score based on performance.
Previously, the publication only focused on reviewing the rear modules of devices, however last week it published its first front-facing camera reviews for numerous devices.
The Google Pixel 3 and the Galaxy Note 9 were branded as delivering the two best front lenses with tallies of 92.
In contrast, the Galaxy S9+ was only handed a score of 81, showcasing the differences between the two systems.
In its review for the Note 9, DxOMark was eager to explain the Samsung phablet offers greater "accuracy" and HDR capabilities than the firm's older flagship offering.
The outlet said: "Achieving a DxOMark Selfie score of 92, the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is a joint leader along with the Google Pixel 3 in our new DxOMark Selfie ranking.
"Boasting good results for both still photos and video, it’s a solid all-rounder, and the inclusion of an autofocus lens means that the Note 9 often captures sharper multiple group and environmental portraits compared to many competitors.
"While it’s fair to say that the autofocus performance isn’t perfect, Samsung has noticeably improved its accuracy and repeatability over that of the S9+.
"HDR images improve over the S9+’s, although some tone compression issues can still lead to a lack of contrast on faces and to noticeable haloing."
In order to deliver its final verdict on a camera system, DxOMark awards a number based on photo and video performance individually.
The median number between the two is then found to deliver the final score.
The Galaxy Note 9 achieved a photo score of 96 and a video score of 86.
Meanwhile, the Galaxy S9+ was handed a photo total of 81 and a video tally of 81.

Vivo's new 5G concept phone has no ports, no seams and no bezels

Taking unibody design to the extreme, the refreshed Apex has all of 2019's buzziest specs.
Vivo has given a very 2019 makeover to the Apex concept phone it first unveiled last year. The new version has a minimalist design with no openings or bezels, and supports 5G, the next generation of cellular technology, which has the potential to increase connectivity speeds significantly. The prior incarnation of the Apex evolved into the Vivo Nex, which debuted last July.
The new Apex will be among the first wave of phones -- which will also include the forthcoming Samsung Galaxy S10 -- to come equipped with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 855. In addition to the usual performance boost, the new chip is partnered up with the company's X50 modem that will connect phones with the super-fast 5G network launching in the US later this year. In addition to the brand-new processor, the Apex will also have 12GB of RAM.
Vivo says the phone's "Super Unibody" design includes an edge-to-edge display made out of "Curved-Surface Waterdrop Glass." Remarkably, it has no physical buttons, no USB ports and no speaker grilles. The company, which has been at the forefront of integrating biometric security into smartphone displays, says that users can unlock the new Apex by touching anywhere on the screen. The phone's display will illuminate the pixels around the fingertip to provide additional light for the sensor. Sounds cool.
To support its super-streamlined aesthetic, Vivo has also developed a new user interface that leverages capacitive touch and pressure sensitivity; it sounds similar to the UI Apple introduced on the iPhone X in 2017. In the place of a USB port, a magnetic connector will support charging and data transfer. And -- get this -- the Apex's vibrating display will somehow double as a speaker.
Last year, Vivo made a splash at Mobile World Congress with an earlier version of the Apex -- a concept phone with a 6-inch OLED edge-to-edge display, an unusual front-facing camera that popped out of the body of the phone and a vibrating display.
We'll see in person how far Vivo has come with the Apex 2019, when it shows it off at MWC in Barcelona next month. There's no word yet on availability date or price. 

Whiteboard for EDU now available worldwide on Windows 10 and iPad

Microsoft yesterday announced that Whiteboard for EDU is now available on Windows 10 and iPad worldwide. Microsoft first announced the preview of Whiteboard for Education in November last year. Whiteboard for Education gives the whole class a new space to engage, ideate, and create. Teachers and students can brainstorm and grow ideas on this limitless canvas, coming together on lessons, projects, and more.
Microsoft Whiteboard for Edu comes with several features for students and teachers, read about some of them below.
Teachers can also pick up where they left off and never waste time getting back into a lesson, by securely saving boards to the cloud.
Change Whiteboard’s background to a variety of new colors (including blackboard mode!) and reduce eye strain on large devices.
Use education-themed stickers with your students to collect poll responses and give feedback in real time.
Increase the readability of quickly-jotted notes with Ink Beautification, which analyzes handwriting and automatically replaces it with more legible strokes.
And for teachers and students who occasionally use analog whiteboards, you can convert pictures of your notes into real digital ink with Ink Grab, making the move from analog to digital seamless.

Everything New in iOS 12.2: HomeKit TV Support, Redesigned Remote, Safari Updates and More

Apple today released the first beta of iOS 12.2 for developers, and while it doesn't bring as many new changes as we might have hoped for in a 12.x update, there are still quite a few minor tweaks to be aware of.
Below, we've listed all of the new features and changes that we've discovered in iOS 12.2 so far, and we'll update this post should any additional features be found.
- Apple News for Canada - iOS 12.2 expands the availability of Apple News to Canada for the first time, with news sources available in either English or French.
- HomeKit TV Support - Apple recently announced that HomeKit support is coming to a number of third-party TVs, and iOS 12.2 introduces the infrastructure to allow users to add their TVs to HomeKit.
- Home Controls for TVs - Open up the Home app, tap the house-shaped icon in the upper left, choose "Home Settings" and you'll see an updated section for "Allow Speaker & TV Access," which was previously just "Allow Speaker Access." This setting lets you choose who can access and send content to your speakers and TVs.
- Redesigned TV Remote - The TV Remote feature in Control Center has been redesigned with a more streamlined look that takes advantage of the entire display and does away with the large Home button.
- New Screen Mirroring Icon - There's a redesigned Screen Mirroring icon in the Control Center that features two displays rather than a single display and an arrow.
- Wallet - The Wallet interface has been slightly tweaked when viewing a single card within the Wallet app. The info button has been relocated to the top, and there's now a "Done" button instead of an option to tap other cards at the bottom of the app. Transaction information is now listed more clearly, with a longer history available. The main wallet interface is largely unchanged, but the "+" button to add a new card is now black instead of blue.
- Apple Pay Cash - There's an "Add Money" option in Wallet when you select the Apple Pay Cash card. Before, you needed to go into the more detailed Apple Pay Cash view to add money to the card.
- New AirPlay icon - Some users are seeing a new AirPlay icon when AirPlaying to certain devices.
- Safari search arrows - When entering a search term or website in the main bar in Safari, under the "Google Search" autofill section, there are now little blue arrows. Tapping an arrow adds the text to the search field, so you can get more targeted search results with just a few taps. In prior versions of Safari, tapping on a Google Search result simply conducted the search.
- Unsecure websites - Sites that do not use a secure HTTPS connection are now prominently listed as "Not Secure" in the Safari menu bar. There was a "Not Secure" feature in prior versions of iOS, but it only showed up on pages requesting a password or credit card. Now any unencrypted site shows the "Not Secure" heading.
There are some known issues and bugs in the iOS 12.2 beta that users should be aware of. Some iPad and iPhone owners have run into an Apple Pay issue after installing the beta, where Apple Pay says that an update is required to work.
Apple's release notes also list several issues, with workarounds available. Users may be unable to authenticate in Apple Pay within Wallet after selecting a card. Apple suggests on Touch ID iPhones, that Apple Pay users double-click on the Home button when the iPhone is locked, select the desired card in Wallet, and then authenticate before holding the iPhone near the reader.
On Face ID devices, Apple recommends double clicking the side button, choosing the desired card, and then authenticating via Face ID before holding the iPhone near the reader.
Apple says that iOS 12.2 users may be unable to purchase prepaid data plans using cellular data, and that a Wi-Fi connection should be used instead. Siri is also not working with iOS simulators.
iOS 12.2 is limited to developers at the current time, but Apple should soon be providing a beta to its public beta testers.

Latest iOS beta hints at 'AirPods 2' with 'Hey Siri' setup screen

A "Hey Siri" configuration tool found in Apple's latest iOS 12.2 beta suggests Apple is on the verge of releasing a second-generation AirPods model capable of native interactions with the virtual assistant.
Discovered by 9to5Mac's Guilherme Rambo, the setup screen is nearly identical to Apple's existing "Hey Siri" configuration prompt, but for the first time includes mention of AirPods. Currently, the "Set Up 'Hey Siri'" window is restricted to iPhone.
The screen included in Apple's latest iOS beta version for developers is currently obscured from public view, suggesting the company wanted to keep the feature under wraps prior to an unveiling.
According to Rambo, "Hey Siri" for AirPods will be nearly identical to the same feature for iPhone, the difference being AirPods hardware is expected to handle voice recognition. The earbuds will wirelessly transmit commands to a paired iPhone, allowing users to invoke Siri without pulling out and speaking to their handset.
Considering current AirPods components do not support "Hey Siri" functionality, the setup screen's discovery strongly hints at a near future launch for Apple's widely rumored next-generation AirPods model.
Rumblings of an AirPods refresh first circulated in early 2018, when Bloomberg claimed Apple was working on a follow up to its extremely popular wireless headphones. "Hey Siri" functionality was said to be a major feature addition. The report anticipated a 2018 launch, but those estimates proved incorrect.
In December, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicted Apple to debut an updated AirPods product with wireless charging and a Bluetooth specification upgrade in the first quarter of 2019. The new device might also incorporate a revised W-series chip, an inclusion anticipated to power Apple's "Hey Siri" feature.
Earlier this week, a report echoed Kuo's claims, but added unspecified health tracking capabilities to the list of improvements.

Samsung Galaxy S10 Could Expose Crypto to Millions of Tech Savvy Users

This week, images were leaked potentially giving the world its first glimpse at South Korea-based tech giant Samsung’s flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S10. Among the images, was evidence that Samsung could be ready to launch a crypto wallet to store cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, and a blockchain explorer service called Samsung Blockchain KeyStore.
While the leaked images aren’t yet confirmation that the much-anticipated iPhone killer will indeed ship with the crypto wallet in tow, if it does, Samsung will be exposing crypto and blockchain to millions of its most tech-savvy smartphone users.
Samsung Galaxy S10 May Ship With Crypto Wallet, Blockchain Explorer
The smartphone market has been one of the hottest markets with the fiercest competition over the last decade. Apple and Samsung, and more recently in Asia, Xiaomi, have been battling for market share and are constantly adding new features to their smartphones in each new iteration to lure users from one brand to the other.
Samsung often leads with new features, while Apple is said to later take those same features and perfect them. In the Galaxy S10 – the closest competitor to Apple’s iPhone – Samsung may be adding a crypto wallet and other blockchain-related features to the phone via a new Blockchain KeyStore application.
According to Samsung-focused media outlet SamMobile, new leaked images of the Galaxy S10 appear to show the Blockchain KeyStore application live in action. The app welcome page explains that Samsung Blockchain KeyStore “is a secure and convenient place for your cryptocurrency.”
The existence of Samsung’s Blockchain Keystore was first reported last month, stemming from patents the South Korean firm had previously filed in relation to cryptocurrency wallets for cold storage, among other blockchain-related patents.
Initial reports mentioned that the Blockchain Keystore app will store private keys behind biometric authentication, can sign transactions, and can view account information and transaction history of each cryptocurrency wallet.
The leaked photos show only Ethereum as a supported cryptocurrency, however, rumors suggest that the app will launch with support for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Ethereum-based ERC-20 tokens.
Samsung’s Blockchain Keystore Makes Crypto Adoption Easy For Millions Of Users
Cryptocurrency is a new technology, and emerging asset class that isn’t widely understood by the mainstream public. Like the internet before it, crypto has many years of adoption ahead of it before its potential is ever fully realized. This latest move from Samsung may speed up crypto adoption by exposing cryptocurrencies and blockchain to its million of customers who will purchase the flagship smartphone.
The original Galaxy S launched in June 2010, and in the nine years since then smartphones went from a device reserved for tech enthusiasts looking for the next big thing, to becoming an everyday item people cannot live without. Samsung’s inclusion of crypto-related features in its smartphone could do the same for cryptocurrencies.
Smartphones have succeeded due to their simplistic design, ease of use, and the fact they’ve become an almost necessary device for those seeking to stay in touch with friends, family, and business contacts. By placing cryptocurrencies at the fingertips of these users, crypto could see a similar path of adoption through familiarity alone.
The year the Galaxy S released, Samsung shipped 22 million units of the smartphone. However, starting in Q2 2013, when the smartphone market began to boom, Samsung has shipped over 70 million units per quarter, totaling nearly 300 million smartphones shipped each year.
In the almost six years since then, Samsung has shipped nearly 2 billion smartphones. While it took years to achieve, the inclusion of a crypto wallet in Samsung smartphone has the potential to expose crypto and blockchain to millions – and potentially billions – of tech-savvy smartphone users.

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