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Xiaomi Announces Redmi Note 10 Series: Pro Hands-On at $279 - AnandTech

Today Xiaomi is updating one of its most popular and successful phone models with a slew of new Redmi Note 10 variants. Alongside the Note 10, Note 10S and the Note 10 5G, we’ve had the Redmi Note 10 Pro for a few days to get our first impressions of the low-cost device. The device’s predecessor, the Redmi Note 9 Pro, was amongst our top buyer’s recommendations at this price point in 2020, and the newer Note 10 Pro has a few tricks up its sleeve to make it an ever more interesting device in this price range.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro Comparison
	Note 9 Pro	Note 10 Pro
SoC	Snapdragon 7202x A76 @ 2.3GHz 6x A55 @ 1.8GHzAdreno 618	Snapdragon 732G2x A76 @ 2.3GHz 6x A55 @ 1.8GHzAdreno 618
Display	6.67-inchFHD+ 2400 x 1080(20:9)	6.67-inchFHD+ 2400 x 1080(20:9)
IPS LCD60Hz	AMOLED120Hz
Dimensions	165.8 x 76.7 x 8.8 mm209 grams	164.0 x 76.5 x 8.1 mm193 grams
RAM	6GB LPDDR4X	6 / 8GB LPDDR4X
NANDStorage	64 / 128GB UFS 2.1+ microSD	64 / 128GB UFS 2.2+ microSD
Battery	5020mAh (19.32Wh) typ.
18W Fast Charging	33W Fast Charging
Front Camera	16MP 1.0µmf/2.5	16MPf/2.45
Primary Rear Camera	64MP 0.8µm 1/1.72"Samsung GW1(16MP 1.6µm 2x2 binning)f/1.89	108MP 0.7µm 1/1.52"Samsung HM2(12MP 2.1µm 3x3 binning)f/1.925mm eq.
SecondaryRear Camera	8MP 1.12µmUltra-Wide-Anglef/2.2 119° FoV / 13mm eq.
TertiaryRear Camera	5MP 1.12µmMacro Cameraf/2.4
ExtraCamera	2MP Depth Sensor
4G / 5GModem	Integrated 4G
SIM Size	NanoSIM + NanoSIM + microSD(Triple slot, all separate)
Wireless	802.11a/b/g/n/acBT 5.0 LE, NFC, GPS/Glonass/Galileo/BDS
Connectivity	USB Type-C + 3.5mm jack
Special Features		IP53 Rating
Fingerprint sensor (Capacitive power button)IR Blaster
Launch OS	Android 10 w/ MIUI 11	Android 11 w/ MIUI 12
Launch Prices	6+64GB: $2696+128GB: $299	6+64GB: $2796+128GB: $2998+128GB: $329

In terms of SoC powering the Redmi Note 10 Pro, we find the Snapdragon 732G, which is a binned Snapdragon 730 which was found in last year’s Redmi Note 10 Lite – which in turn was a very similar chip to the Snapdragon 720 in the previous Note 9 Pro. The SoC is characterised by 2x Cortex-A76 cores at 2.3GHz which serve as the performance workhorses of the chip, alongside 6x Cortex-A55 cores at 1.8GHz. The phone’s CPUs and general usage performance is excellent for a device in this price range, and is a larger departure of the low-end performance of low-cost devices of past years. Relative to the Note 9 Pro, the generational improvements are more minor. The Adreno 618 GPU isn’t nothing to write home about, however the performance can actually be surprisingly high for this segment, and even outperforms the odd performance of much more expensive devices such as the Pixel 4 XL or Pixel 5. Xiaomi is equipping the base model of the Note 10 Pro with 6GB of LPDDR4X and 64GB of UFS 2.2 storage, which upgrades to 128GB for a higher storage model, and finally a rather odd 8+128GB combination for the highest configuration. The phone has expandable storage via a dedicated microSD slot whose tray also separately can also house two nanoSIM cards. Connectivity on the device is rather basic, no 5G or WiFi 6 to be found here, but that’s generally to be expected. It does offer an IR blaster though which is somewhat rare these days. The biggest feature of the new generation Note 10 Pro is its display. Featuring the same size and resolution as its predecessor at 6.67” and 2400 x 1080, the very big difference this year is the fact that Xiaomi has moved towards an OLED display, replacing the IPS LCD of the previous iteration. I’ve always considered OLED displays a major feature differentiation in these price segments, and it gives the Redmi Note 10 Pro a major advantage against other competitors. Furthermore, not only is this an excellent quality OLED screen, but it’s even capable of 120Hz refresh rate, making the phone even more attractive as essentially you cannot find this feature combination anywhere near this price point. The real only nitpick I’d have to make about the display is the hole-punch front camera. It’s still a 16MP unit with f/2.45, so in that regard we don’t seem much change. On my unit however the camera was notably off-centre within the OLED panel hole, and the silver reflective highlight ring around the module further attracts attention to it, which might not be to everybody’s taste. The phone is on the larger side with a width of 76.5mm width, but at least Xiaomi was able to slightly reduce the weight down to 193g, all while keeping the same 5020mAh battery capacity of the predecessor. In terms of ergonomics, the phone has a curved glass back panel which helps with handling the rather large footprint phone. The left side of the phone is bare, except for the SIM and microSD slot, while the right side has the power button and volume rocker. The power button is a combo-button and capacitive fingerprint scanner, with a good quality click and good vertical positioning. The rear camera setup gives me a very 80’s electronics device feeling – I wonder if that’s on purpose or not. Although Xiaomi advertises the phone as a quad-camera device, it really only contains two everyday usable modules, with a 5MP f/2.4 macro camera and a 2MP depth sensor being situated between the main camera module and the ultra-wide module. The ultra-wide module is seemingly the same as on the Note 9 Pro series, an 8MP 1.12µm unit with f/2.2 optics with a very large 119°FoV / 13mm equivalent. The main camera is a larger departure from past generations. This is amongst the first phones to feature Samsung’s new HM2 108MP module. Unlike other 108MP modules from Xiaomi or Samsung, this features smaller 0.7µm pixels, being a smaller 1/1.52” sensor. It’s still definitely a large module, and is quite bigger than the 1/1.72” GW1 in the Note 9 Pro. The sensor here does 3x3 pixel binning down to 12MP images with equivalent pixel pitches of 2.1µm, so each pixel should receive 72% more light than the previous generation module, albeit it’s lower resolution at 12MP vs 16MP. The optics are f/1.9 with a 25mm equivalent focal length. There’s no OIS here – it’s a compromise that had to be made at this price range. A quick testing of the daylight camera performance shows that the main module is quite adequate, being able to bring out a lot of details in most situations, however the general processing isn’t really up to par with a higher-end device, as we’re seeing not quite great dynamic range and rather flat processing. The ultra-wide in particular suffers a lot in demanding lighting situations, and also generally the HDR requires the camera and subject to be still to avoid ghosting. All in all, it’s still a very functional camera at this price point. The frame at the top and bottom of the phone has a matte finish to it and allows for a better grip while also avoiding more obvious fingerprint marks. The phone has stereo speakers which are surprisingly clear and good quality – we’ve seen Xiaomi develop some really great implementations in the last few years. Naturally, there’s also a 3.5mm headphone jack which continues to be a feature only for lower-end devices in recent times. Alongside the Note 10 Pro, Xiaomi is also announcing three other Redmi Note 10 devices, with the Note 10S, Note 10:

Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Series Comparison
	Note 10 5G	Note 10	Note 10S	Note 10 Pro
SoC	Dimensity 7002x A76 @ 2.2GHz 6x A55 @ 2.0GHzMali G57MP2	Snapdragon 6782x A76 @ 2.0GHz 6x A55 @ 1.7GHzAdreno 612	Helio G952x A76 @ 2.3GHz 6x A55 @ 1.8GHzMali G76MP4	Snapdragon 732G2x A76 @ 2.3GHz 6x A55 @ 1.8GHzAdreno 618
Display	6.5-inchFHD+ 2400 x 1080(20:9)	6.43-inchFHD+ 2400 x 1080(20:9)	6.67-inchFHD+ 2400 x 1080(20:9)
IPS LCD90Hz	AMOLED60Hz	AMOLED120Hz
Dimensions	161.8 x 75.34 x 8.92 mm190 grams	160.0 x 74.5 x 8.29 mm178.8 grams	164.0 x 76.5 x 8.1 mm193 grams
RAM	4 / 6GB LPDDR4X	6 / 8GB LPDDR4X
NANDStorage	64 / 128GB UFS 2.2+ microSD
Battery	5000mAh(19.25Wh) typ.	5020mAh (19.32Wh) typ.
18W Fast Charging	33W Fast Charging
Front Camera	8MP	13MP	16MPf/2.45
Primary Rear Camera	48MP 0.8µm1/2"(12MP 1.6µm 2x2) f/1.79	64MP 0.8µm 1/1.72"Samsung GW1(16MP 1.6µm 2x2) f/1.89	108MP 0.7µm 1/1.52"Samsung HM2(12MP 2.1µm 3x3) f/1.925mm eq.
SecondaryRear Camera	-	8MP 1.12µmUltra-Wide-Anglef/2.2 119° FoV / 13mm eq.
TertiaryRear Camera	2MP macro	5MP 1.12µmMacro Cameraf/2.4
ExtraCamera	2MP Depth Sensor
4G / 5GModem	Integrated 5G	Integrated 4G
SIM Size	NanoSIM + NanoSIM + microSD(Triple slot, all separate)
Wireless	802.11a/b/g/n/acBT 5.0 LE, NFC, GPS/Glonass/Galileo/BDS
Connectivity	USB Type-C + 3.5mm jack
Special Features	-	Dual Speakers, IP53 Rating
Fingerprint sensor (Capacitive)	Fingerprint sensor (Capacitive power button)IR Blaster
Launch OS	Android 11 w/ MIUI 12
Launch Prices	4+64GB: $1994+128GB: $229	4+64GB: $1994+128GB: $229	6+64GB: $2296+128GB: $2498+128GB: $279	6+64GB: $2796+128GB: $2998+128GB: $329

Redmi Note 10 @ $199 The Redmi Note 10 is a smaller sibling to the Note 10 Pro. The differences between the devices is a 6.43” screen, and different camera setup. The display is still a AMOLED display at 1080p, however it doesn’t feature 120Hz refresh rate. The main camera is a 48MP unit, and the device is powered by a Snapdragon 678 SoC, with the device starting at $199. Redmi Note 10S @ $229 The Redmi Note 10S is a higher-end Note 10, sharing the same smaller form-factor, but replaces the main camera with a higher-end 64MP camera, and replaces the SoC with a MediaTek Helio G95. The pricing here starts at $229. Redmi Note 10 5G @ $199 Finally, the Redmi Note 10 5G is a really weird entry in the series. Powered by MediaTek’s Dimensity 700 SoC, this is actually a lower-end processor compared to the other Note 10 devices, however it differentiates itself in that it’s the single model which features 5G connectivity. The phone is actually lower-end, it features a 90Hz LCD display at 2400 x 1080 resolution, features still the basic 48MP main camera module as on the Note 10, however doesn’t feature the ultra-wide camera module. Pricing of the Note 10 5G is also coming in at the $199 price range. Essentially, you’re trading in an OLED display and ultra-wide camera module, and better build design with dual speakers in favour of 5G. Generally, I don’t think that’s worth the compromises, so for me this is the least interesting device in the new line-up. Great Value Devices Overall, I think Xiaomi did a really great job with this round of Redmi Note 10 devices. While having tested the Note 10 Pro, the Note 10 and Note 10S phones also look extremely interesting and fantastic value for their respective prices, ranging from $199 to $279 in the base configurations. As noted earlier, my thoughts last year were that the Note 9 Pro was amongst the best value devices at this price range, and I think the Note 10 Pro and smaller siblings are even more attractive – offering either superior features and hardware, or undercutting the competition in price. In that regard, I don’t think you can go wrong with the new 2021 line-up.

https://avalanches.com/world_news/gb/gb_29610/anan_xiao1390201_04_03_2021

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MediaTek Announces Dimensity 1100 & 1200 SoCs: A78 on 6nm - AnandTech

Today MediaTek announced two new top-end SoCs in the form of the new Dimensity 1100 and Dimensity 1200. The two new designs are a...

Today MediaTek announced two new top-end SoCs in the form of the new Dimensity 1100 and Dimensity 1200. The two new designs are a follow-up to last year’s Dimensity 1000 SoC which marked the company’s return to the high-end in 2020, with a relatively solid SoC design. The two new chipsets upgrade the Dimensity 1000 in terms of CPU configuration and camera ability, as well as coming in a new 6nm process node. The new chips however don’t upgrade every aspect of their designs, as things such as the GPU configuration and the modem capabilities seem to be identical to that of the Dimensity 1000.

MediaTek SoCs
SoC	Dimensity 1000(+)	Dimensity 1100	Dimensity 1200
CPU	4x Cortex A77 @ 2.6GHz4x Cortex A55 @ 2.0GHz	4x Cortex A78 @ 2.6GHz4x Cortex A55 @ 2.0GHz	1x Cortex A78 @ 3.0GHz3x Cortex A78 @ 2.6GHz4x Cortex A55 @ 2.0GHz
GPU	Mali-G77MP9 @ ? MHz	Mali-G77MP9 @ ? MHz	Mali-G77MP9 @ ? MHz
APU / NPU / AI Proc. / Neural IP	"3rd gen APU"2 "big" + 3 "small" + 1 "tiny"4.5TOPs total perf	"3rd gen APU"2 "big" + 3 "small" + 1 "tiny"	"3rd gen APU"2 "big" + 3 "small" + 1 "tiny"+12.5% perf
Memory	4x 16b LPDDR4x	4x 16b LPDDR4x	4x 16b LPDDR4x
ISP/Camera	80MPor32MP + 16MP	108MPor32MP + 16MP	200MPor32MP + 16MP
Encode/Decode	2160p60H.264 & HEVC& AV1 (Decode)	2160p60H.264 & HEVC& AV1 (Decode)	2160p60H.264 & HEVC& AV1 (Decode)
Integrated Modem	5G Sub-6DL = 4600Mbps200MHz 2CA, 256-QAM,4x4 MIMO UL = 2500Mbps200MHz 2CA, 256-QAM,2x2 MIMO LTE Category 19 DL	5G Sub-6DL = 4700Mbps200MHz 2CA, 256-QAM,4x4 MIMO UL = 2500Mbps200MHz 2CA, 256-QAM,2x2 MIMO LTE Category 19 DL
Connectivity	WiFi 6 (802.11ax)+ Bluetooth 5.1+ Dual Band GNSS	WiFi 6 (802.11ax)+ Bluetooth 5.2+ Dual Band GNSS
Mfc. Process	7nm (N7)	6nm (N6)

Starting off where we see the biggest changes, the two new SoCs differ the most from its predecessor on the CPU side of things. The Dimensity 1100 is quite straightforward in that it replaces the Cortex-A77 cores with newer Cortex-A78 cores. The configuration still remains at 4 cores running at 2.6GHz (as the higher-bin Dimensity 1000+), with four Cortex-A55 cores at 2.0GHz as the little cores. The Dimensity 1200 changes the configuration to a 1+3+4 setup, with one performance Cortex-A78 core clocking up to 3.0GHz, and MediaTek stating that it sports double the L2 cache compared to the other cores. This would mean it has a 512KB configuration while the other 3 cores feature 256KB L2’s. The 1+3 big cores setup is also accompanied by 4x Cortex-A55 cores at 2GHz. The GPU side of things is a bit weird, as oddly enough it features the exact same setup as the Dimensity 1000, and we again see a Mali-G77MP9 configuration on both new chipsets. That’s very odd given the fact that other competitor chipsets are deploying new Mali-G78 designs. DRAM capability remains at LPDDR4X at 2133MHz – the lack of LPDDR5 isn’t too surprising here given the performance gains aren’t too great and these chipset designs are to be used in more cost-effective devices. NPU and AI capabilities aren’t exactly clear on the Dimensity 1100 and it seems to be identical to that of the Dimensity 1000 – the Dimensity 1200 advertises a performance boost of 12.5% which could just be a slight clock frequency upgrade compared to its predecessor. On the camera capabilities, the new chips don’t change their multi-camera configurations, still being at 32+16MP, however both increase the single-camera advertised capability up to respectively 108MP and 200MP for the Dimensity 1100 and Dimensity 1200. On the 5G modem side, we’re seeing no apparent changes in the specifications supported by the new design, it still being a sub-6GHz only implementation. The new chip is manufactured on a new 6nm process node at TSMC – a design-rule compatible shrink compared to the 7nm node that was used in the Dimensity 1000. Both Dimensity 1100 are Dimensity 1200 are rather odd SoC designs in that they are rather small upgrades compared to their predecessor – in fact looking at them one would think they are just minor refreshes on the ground-up redesign of their predecessor. It’s also very odd to see the very small feature disparity between the 1100 and 1200, even though these should be different chip designs and tape-outs given their CPU differences. The fact that MediaTek hasn’t upgraded the NPU/APU or GPUs in any substantial fashion also point out these would be rather small design upgrades to the previous generation. That’s not really a negative in itself, but it begs the question what MediaTek’s market plan for the new SoCs are. MediaTek quotes vendors such as Xiaomi, Vivo, OPPO and realme as expressing support for the new SoCs, with devices using both SoCs being expected to be available at the end of Q1 and beginning of Q2 this year. Related Reading:

https://avalanches.com/world_news/gb/gb_29610/anan_medi1243262_20_01_2021

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Intel at CES 2021: Ice, Tiger, Rocket, Jasper, and Alder Lake - AnandTech

Despite only having a 30 minute press event at this year’s annual CES trade show, Intel has a lot to discuss about its plans through the next 12 months. The company touched upon five key processor architectures and product segments that will dictate where a lot of its FY2021 will come from. This is essentially a yearly roadmap set of announcements, without actually giving us the roadmap. Carousel Image is of Intel's Greg Bryant, GM of the Client Computing Group, presenting at CES. We’ve had a lot of Intel news today, which we separated out into separate news posts for ease of use. This is a handy quick-use guide to click through to any of our analysis An Evening with Intel CEO Bob Swan: Roundtable Q&A Intel surprised us by offering a chance to ask questions to the man in charge, CEO Bob Swan. It is rare for Intel to offer access to its C-Level executives to the tech press, and as a result we had to think of some nail biters to ask him that only he could answer. Our time was short, and ended up being about 15 minutes for the 5/6 of us to ask and get answers, but it was good to hear answers relating to Intel’s fab strategy, what Intel can do when it comes to outsourcing, and whether Bob considers Intel’s technical or financial position as more important. Hot Off The Press: Ice Lake Xeon Now In Production Many of Intel’s recent challenges stems from its inability to drive its 10nm process into two of the key revenue generating areas for the company: desktop and server. We were expecting to see Intel’s 10nm Ice Lake Xeon Scalable at the end of last year, but it passed by without a peep. Today Intel is announcing that it has started production, although earlier in the year Intel said it was already ramping production, and other sources tell us that Intel has already launched the hardware, and is shipping to customers? It all got very confusing. The Newest Desktop On The Block: Rocket Lake’s Core i9-11900K Intel has been teasing its next generation Rocket Lake desktop processors for several months now, with arrows pointing to PCIe 4.0 and we already know about the backported CPU and GPU cores. There are big questions as to what this means for performance and power, and Intel answered exactly zero of our questions, but did decided to preview some of the gaming performance, as well as give us concrete numbers on frequencies. There’s also a launch of many, many 500-series motherboards. Laptops Now Have Options: Tiger Lake 35W, Tiger Lake 45W On the notebook side of the equation, Intel has two new product families for its OEM partners to play with. The closest to launch is the new Tiger Lake H35 series, which are Intel’s regular 15 W processors beefed up to a 35 W power mode, and scraping 5.0 GHz. A little further away is the traditional 45W H-Series processors, featuring up to eight cores. We’ve got details on both. Business Customers Matter Too: Intel Tiger Lake gets vPro Given the massive growth of notebook sales this year to the business sector, demand for business class notebooks is growing fast. These business notebooks need special security features, as well as out-of-band management, and thus require Intel’s vPro line of hardware. Intel is meeting that need by putting the latest 15W Tiger Lake processors into its vPro line. More details of the additional features that come with the hardware, such as CET, in our coverage. Chromebooks for Education: 10nm Jasper Lake Comes To Life Here’s an announcement we weren’t really expecting to get in detail, but we’re glad we did: Intel is updating its Pentium Silver and Celeron processor line with 10nm Jasper Lake processors. What makes this an exciting launch is that these are powered by Intel’s latest generation Tremont Atom cores that do x86 a little differently than most. We can’t wait to get our hands on one, especially as they filter into Windows machines and mini-PCs. More details inside. Alder Lake? Mentioned briefly in our pre-show discussions under NDA at the time, while there’s no specific news on Intel’s Alder Lake platform coming later in 2021, CEO Bob Swan did tell us that it will be Intel’s most ‘power scalable’ SoC for desktop and mobile. More details to follow later in the year. Update: Intel showed off this system during the CES press conference. Intel said it was an Alder Lake system, up and running with Windows. Obviously early silicon and a test board so far, but it's a step in the right direction. It was confirmed for launch in the second half of the year. Related Reading

https://avalanches.com/world_news/gb/gb_29610/anan_inte1213057_12_01_2021

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Lenovo Announces New IdeaPad 5 Laptops at CES: AMD, Intel, Qualcomm, and 5G - AnandTech

Always one of the biggest set of announcements for CES is from Lenovo, with updates to a lot of their lineup being announced every...

Always one of the biggest set of announcements for CES is from Lenovo, with updates to a lot of their lineup being announced every January, as well as some very interesting new products being shown off most years. As we head into CES week, Lenovo is teasing us with some updates to their IdeaPad lineup, including a new 5G model. As tends to be the case, we don’t always have the full spec sheets for these announcements yet, but let’s dig in and see what Lenovo is planning for the start of 2021. IdeaPad 5G 5G is still a buzzword, but it is nice to see the technology coming to laptops as well. Lenovo’s new IdeaPad 5G is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx processor, and is coupled to the X55 modem to provide sub-6 GHz 5G capabilities for speedier networking in supported locations. Interestingly, the new laptop offers the fastest cellular connectivity, but only has Wi-Fi 5 support when you do connect to an access point. The 14-inch laptop offers a 1920x1080 16:9 display which can hit 300 nits in the sRGB gamut. RAM is up to 8 GB of LPDDR4X, and storage offerings will be up to 512 GB of PCIe SSD. The IdeaPad, thanks to the 8cx platform, is able to go fanless, which is one of the benefits of the low-powered Arm platform. Another benefit is battery life, with Lenovo claiming up to 20 hours of video playback from just 51 Wh capacity is a strong showing, and the USB-C charging offers Rapid Charge Express. Lenovo hasn’t fixed a price yet, other than to say it will vary by market, and that it will not be released in North America at this time. IdeaPad 5 Pro and 5i Pro Back in the x86 world, Lenovo is releasing two new IdeaPad models powered by AMD Ryzen in the 5 Pro, and 11th Gen Intel Core in the 5i Pro. These new laptops have moved to a 16:10 aspect ratio, and will be available in both a 14-inch and 16-inch model. We have seen a lot of laptops make the jump to taller displays in the last year or two, and it is very nice to see Lenovo offer several models with the 16:10 ratio. Lenovo is utilizing the IR sensor for time-of-flight, instead of just for Windows Hello login, which is a nice touch. The laptop will sense when you get up and walk away, and automatically pause video, as an example. Lenovo is also adding Amazon Alexa Show Mode, which lets you use your PC as an Alexa device when you want to. The displays are not only 16:10 aspect, but the 14-inch model offers a 90 Hz refresh rate and 400 nits of brightness. The 16-inch offers 120 Hz and 350 nits, which is nice to see in a non-gaming laptop. Both the Intel and AMD models will also offer an NVIDIA MX450 graphics card as a bump over integrated graphics. The 14-inch model will offer a 56.5 Wh battery, while the larger 16-inch model jumps to a very impressive 75 Wh unit, and all of them feature Rapid Charge Express for quicker charging over USB-C. On the Intel model, Tiger Lake is paired with up to 16 GB of DDR4 RAM and up to 1 TB of PCIe storage, and the 16-inch model features a Thunderbolt 4 port. Those opting for the next-generation AMD Ryzen H model lose access to the Thunderbolt 4, but the 16-inch IdeaPad 5 Pro can be outfitted with 32 GB of DDR4, rather than the 16 GB max in the smaller model. Lenovo has also added a larger trackpad, and updated the keyboard with new keys and backlighting. These devices, other than the 16-inch AMD powered model, will not initially be in the US market, but availability for all models will be in March, with prices as follows:

IdeaPad 5 Pro 16” AMD laptop starts at $1149.99 and is to be available starting May 2021.
IdeaPad 5 Pro 14” AMD laptop (not in the U.S.) available in EMEA March 2021, starts at €799.00
IdeaPad 5i Pro 16” Intel laptop (not in the U.S.) available in EMEA March 2021, starts at €899
IdeaPad 5i Pro 14” Intel laptop (not in the U.S.) available in EMEA March 2021 starts at €699

Source: Lenovo

https://avalanches.com/world_news/gb/gb_29610/anan_leno1198831_07_01_2021

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Apple Announces new 8th gen iPad with A12, iPad Air with 5nm A14 Chip - AnandTech

This year’s September Apple event has been relatively unusual, not only because of the pandemic and online-only nature of the show, but also because...

This year’s September Apple event has been relatively unusual, not only because of the pandemic and online-only nature of the show, but also because amongst the new hardware releases there’s been an evident lack of a new iPhone at this point in time. Apple however didn’t disappoint, and managed to showcase brand-new iPads and Apple Watches. Amongst the new tablet line-up, we find the new 8th generation iPad which sees an upgrade in its computing capabilities with the new A12 chip, and the newest iPad Air which sees a total redesign, adopting the design queues of the iPad Pro siblings, and also for the first time introducing the new Apple A14 chipset – the industry’s first 5nm processor.

Apple iPad Comparison
	iPad (2019)	iPad (2020)NEW	iPad Air (2019)	iPad Air (2020)NEW
SoC	Apple A102x Hurricane4x Zephyr	Apple A122 × Vortex @ 2.5GHz4 × Tempest @ 1.59GHz	Apple A142 × Firestorm4 × Icestorm
Display	10.2" 2160x1620IPS LCD	10.5" 2224x1668IPS LCDDCI-P3, True Tone	10.9" 2360x1640"Liquid Retina"IPS LCDDCI-P3, True Tone
Dimensions	250 x 174.1x 7.5mm483g	250 x 174.1x 7.5mm490g / 495g	250.6 x 174.1x 6.1mm456g / 464g	247.6 x 178.5x 6.1mm458g / 460g
RAM	3GB LPDDR4	?	3GB LPDDR4X	?
NAND	32 / 128GB	64 / 256GB	64 / 256GB
Battery	32.9Wh	?	30.8Wh
Front Camera	1.2MP, F/2.2	7MP, F/2.2
Rear Camera	8MP, F/2.4, 1.12 µm	8MP, F/2.4	12MP, f/1.8
Cellular	2G / 3G / 4G LTE (Category 9)	UE Category 16 LTE (1Gbps) with 4x4 MIMO and LAA
SIM Size	NanoSIM	NanoSIM + eSIM
Wireless	802.11a/b/g/n/ac 2x2 MIMO,BT 4.2 LE, GPS/GLONASS	802.11a/b/g/n/ac 2x2 MIMO,BT 5.0 LE, GPS/GLONASS	802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax 2x2 MIMO,BT 5.0 LE, GPS/GLONASS
Connectivity	Apple Lightning3.5mm headphone jack	Apple Lightning	USB-C
Launch OS	iOS 13.1	iOS 14	iOS 13.1	iOS 14
Launch Price	(Wi-Fi / Cellular)$329/$459 (32G)$429/$559 (128G)	(Wi-Fi / Cellular)$329/$459 (32G)$429/$559 (128G)	(Wifi / Cellular)$499/$629 (64G)$649/$779 (256G)	(Wifi / Cellular)$599/$729 (64G)$749/$879 (256G)

Starting off with the most exciting tablet today, which is the new iPad Air: At the heart of the new tablet we find Apple’s newest A14 chip, which is a keystone component of the new generation devices and will also likely power the next generation iPhone once it gets released later this year. Apple’s event disclosures this year were a bit confusing as the company was comparing the new A14 metrics against the A12, given that’s what the previous generation iPad Air had been using until now – we’ll need to add some proper context behind the figures to extrapolate what this means. On the CPU side of things, Apple is using new generation large performance cores as well as new small power efficient cores, but remains in a 2+4 configuration. Apple here claims a 40% performance boost on the part of the CPUs, although the company doesn’t specify exactly what this metric refers to – is it single-threaded performance? Is it multi-threaded performance? Is it for the large or the small cores? What we do know though is that it’s in reference to the A12 chipset, and the A13 already had claimed a 20% boost over that generation. Simple arithmetic thus dictates that the A14 would be roughly 16% faster than the A13 if Apple’s performance metric measurements are consistent between generations. On the GPU side, we also see a similar calculation as Apple claims a 30% performance boost compared to the A12 generation thanks to the new 4-core GPU in the A14. Normalising this against the A13 this would mean only an 8.3% performance boost which is actually quite meagre. In other areas, Apple is boasting more significant performance jumps such as the new 16-core neural engine which now sports up to 11TOPs inferencing throughput, which is over double the 5TOPs of the A12 and 83% more than the estimated 6TOPs of the A13 neural engine. Apple does advertise a new image signal processor amongst new features of the SoC, but otherwise the performance metrics (aside from the neural engine) seem rather conservative given the fact that the new chip is boasting 11.8 billion transistors, a 38% generational increase over the A13’s 8.5bn figures. The one explanation and theory I have is that Apple might have finally pulled back on their excessive peak power draw at the maximum performance states of the CPUs and GPUs, and thus peak performance wouldn’t have seen such a large jump this generation, but favour more sustainable thermal figures. What speaks against such a theory is that Apple made no mention at all of power or power efficiency this generation, which is rather very unusual given they’ve always made a remark in regards to this aspect of the new designs. We’ll have to see if this is indicative of the actual products, of it’s just a side-effect of the new more streamlined presentation style of the event. Whatever the performance and efficiency figures are, what Apple can boast about is having the industry’s first ever 5nm silicon design. The new TSMC-fabricated A14 thus represents the cutting-edge of semiconductor technology today, and Apple made sure to mention this during the presentation. Coming back to the iPad Air, the new tablet is a complete redesign for the mid-range device, and now adopts the new design language that had been introduced with the latest iPad Pro models over the last generations. This means a new thinner bezel design and the loss of the home button. Centre-stage we find a new 10.9” liquid retina IPS LCD panel with a 2360 x 1640 resolution. The panel comes with all bells and whistles you expect from Apple, such as a full lamination manufacturing process to enable better contrast and a “pop-out” feeling, True Tone and a Display P3 colour gamut. We’re seeing the adoption of the same 12MP 1.22µm pixel sensor as on the recent generation iPad Pro models, sporting a for a tablet relatively large f/1.8 aperture. Interestingly, because of the removal of the TouchID home button on the tablet, Apple has opted to not just solely rely on Face ID, but to introduce a new fingerprint scanner on the frame of the device. The new capacitive design isn’t exceptionally novel in the industry, however it’s the first time that we see Apple employ such a unit in their products. Another big noteworthy change in the new iPad Air is the fact that it’s now using a USB-C connector rather than Lightning. Apple here explains that the new connector allows for much faster transfer speeds between more devices. It’s a much welcome addition to the new generation, and we’re still crossing our fingers that Apple will make the same choice on the next-gen iPhone. 8th Generation iPad: A12 Brains Upgrade Also announced today was Apple’s new 8th generation iPad. The lower-entry tablet here largely retains the specifications of its predecessor when it comes to form-factor, display, cameras and connectivity. The big improvement for this generation is the move from the A10 chip to the newer A12 generation. Although it’s not the newest silicon, at this price range the upgrade represents a massive performance boost, and now it means that even the lowest-end iPad supports high-performance machine learning through the inclusion of the Neural Engine. $599+ for the iPad Air, $329 for the iPad The new iPad Air will commence at $599 which is an uptick in terms of price range compared to its predecessor. The upgrade from 64GB to 256GB storage costs an extra $130, whilst cellular LTE connectivity over the basic Wi-Fi models costs an extra $150 as well. Oddly enough, availability of the iPad Air will only start in October, which is unusual for an Apple launch. The 8th generation iPad starts at the same prices as the 7th gen, meaning $329 for the basic 32GB Wi-Fi model, with an extra $130 for the 128GB variant, and an extra $100 for cellular connectivity. Availability for the new iPad starts this Friday the 18th. Related Reading:

https://avalanches.com/world_news/gb/gb_29610/anand_appl809880_16_09_2020

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NVIDIA Ampere Unleashed: NVIDIA Announces New GPU Architecture, A100 GPU, and Accelerator - AnandTech

While NVIDIA’s usual presentation efforts for the year were dashed by the current coronavirus outbreak, the company’s march towards developing and releasing newer products has continued unabated. To that end, at today’s now digital GPU Technology Conference 2020 keynote, the company and its CEO Jensen Huang are taking to the virtual stage to announce NVIDIA’s next-generation GPU architecture, Ampere, and the first products that will be using it. Like the Volta reveal 3 years ago – and is now traditional for NVIDIA GTC reveals – today’s focus is on the very high end of the market. In 2017 NVIDIA launched the Volta-based GV100 GPU, and with it the V100 accelerator. V100 was a massive success for the company, greatly expanding their datacenter business on the back of the Volta architecture’s novel tensor cores and sheer brute force that can only be provided by a 800mm2+ GPU. Now in 2020, the company is looking to continue that growth with Volta’s successor, the Ampere architecture. Now a much more secretive company than they once were, NVIDIA has been holding its future GPU roadmap close to its chest. While the Ampere codename (among others) has been floating around for quite some time now, it’s only this morning that we’re finally getting confirmation that Ampere is in, as well as our first details on the architecture. Due to the nature of NVIDIA’s digital presentation – as well as the limited information given in NVIDIA’s press pre-briefings – we don’t have all of the details on Ampere quite yet. However for this morning at least, NVIDIA is touching upon the highlights of the architecture for its datacenter compute and AI customers, and what major innovations Ampere is bringing to help with their workloads. Kicking things off for the Ampere family is the A100. Officially, this is the name of both the GPU and the accelerator incorporating it; and at least for the moment they’re both one in the same, since there is only the single accelerator using the GPU.

NVIDIA Accelerator Specification Comparison
	A100	V100	P100
FP32 CUDA Cores	6912	5120	3584
Boost Clock	~1.41GHz	1530MHz	1480MHz
Memory Clock	2.4Gbps HBM2	1.75Gbps HBM2	1.4Gbps HBM2
Memory Bus Width	5120-bit	4096-bit	4096-bit
Memory Bandwidth	1.6TB/sec	900GB/sec	720GB/sec
VRAM	40GB	16GB/32GB	16GB
Single Precision	19.5 TFLOPs	15.7 TFLOPs	10.6 TFLOPs
Double Precision	9.7 TFLOPs(1/2 FP32 rate)	7.8 TFLOPs(1/2 FP32 rate)	5.3 TFLOPs(1/2 FP32 rate)
INT8 Tensor	624 TOPs	N/A	N/A
FP16 Tensor	312 TFLOPs	125 TFLOPs	N/A
TF32 Tensor	156 TFLOPs	N/A	N/A
Interconnect	NVLink 312 Links (600GB/sec)	NVLink 26 Links (300GB/sec)	NVLink 14 Links (160GB/sec)
GPU	A100(826mm2)	GV100(815mm2)	GP100(610mm2)
Transistor Count	54.2B	21.1B	15.3B
TDP	400W	300W/350W	300W
Manufacturing Process	TSMC 7N	TSMC 12nm FFN	TSMC 16nm FinFET
Interface	SXM4	SXM2/SXM3	SXM
Architecture	Ampere	Volta	Pascal

Designed to be the successor to the V100 accelerator, the A100 aims just as high, just as we’d expect from NVIDIA’s new flagship accelerator for compute. The leading Ampere part is built on TSMC’s 7nm process and incorporates a whopping 54 billion transistors, 2.5x as many as the V100 before it. NVIDIA has put the full density improvements offered by the 7nm process in use, and then some, as the resulting GPU die is 826mm2 in size, even larger than the GV100. NVIDIA went big on the last generation, and in order to top themselves they’ve gone even bigger this generation. We’ll touch more on the individual specifications a bit later, but at a high level it’s clear that NVIDIA has invested more in some areas than others. FP32 performance is, on paper, only modestly improved from the V100. Meanwhile tensor performance is greatly improved – almost 2.5x for FP16 tensors – and NVIDIA has greatly expanded the formats that can be used with INT8/4 support, as well as a new FP32-ish format called TF32. Memory bandwidth is also significantly expanded, with multiple stacks of HBM2 memory delivering a total of 1.6TB/second of bandwidth to feed the beast that is Ampere. NVIDIA will be delivering the initial version of this accelerator in their now-common SXM form factor, which is a mezzanine-style card well-suited for installation in servers. On a generation-over-generation basis, power consumption has once again gone up, which is probably fitting for a generation called Ampere. Altogether the A100 is rated for 400W, as opposed to 300W and 350W for various versions of the V100. This makes the SXM form factor all the more important for NVIDIA’s efforts, as PCIe cards would not be suitable for that kind of power consumption. As for the Ampere architecture itself, NVIDIA is releasing limited details about it today. Expect we’ll hear more over the coming weeks, but for now NVIDIA is confirming that they are keeping their various product lines architecturally compatible, albeit in potentially vastly different configurations. So while the company is not talking about Ampere (or derivatives) for video cards today, they are making it clear that what they’ve been working on is not a pure compute architecture, and that Ampere’s technologies will be coming to graphics parts as well, presumably with some new features for them as well. Ultimately this is part of NVIDIA’s ongoing strategy to ensure that they have a single ecosystem, where, to quote Jensen, “Every single workload runs on every single GPU.” This is breaking news

https://avalanches.com/world_news/gb/gb_29610/anand_nvid263544_14_05_2020

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