Battery J0PGR Replacement For DELL laptop Dell Latitude 12 5285 Series

Find the right battery for Dell Latitude 12 5285 Series to solve your power issues. Our DELL J0PGR batteries are manufactured to precisely fit just as your original battery.

We use the highest quality Li-ion cells and components that are lighter weight, charge faster and last longer.

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DELL J0PGR Battery For DELL – Battery For DELL laptop Li-ion 5250mAh/42WH 7.6V/8.8V. Browse our various categories and find out why we have been the go-to source for our customers.

J0PGR
  • Chemistry: Li-ion
  • Voltage: 5250mAh/42WH
  • Capacity: 7.6V/8.8V

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What’s the total delivery time? (please use this formula to determine when your order will arrive) total delivery time = packaging time + shipping time.

Replaces the following products:

Fits the following devices:

Dell Latitude 12 5285 Series

DELL J0PGR DELL battery is replacement for Dell Latitude 12 5285 Series. The J0PGR batteries equivalent is guaranteed to meet or exceed DELL original specifications. All DELL J0PGR Battery are brand new, 1 year Warranty, 100% Guarantee Quality and Fully Test!

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  • 1 Year Warranty on all DELL laptop Replacement Batteries

6 tips to increase J0PGR DELL Battery lifetime

The performance of your DELL depends largely on the performance of your battery. And his time of life depends on its users, and that you are. These are the principles that have guided the DELL , at the head, so you can optimize the performance of DELL laptop battery.
New battery still fully charged J0PGR sold. You must be on the first wheel to be conditioned for optimum performance. Loading and unloading of the battery 4 or 5 times is enough to determine.
The memory effect completely to avoid a full charge and discharge the battery, DELL J0PGR twice a month.
The dirt on the DELL J0PGR contacts of the battery can power the DELL laptop batteries. Clean with alcohol and cotton can look like and function like new.
This method is recommended for those using the AC adapter for long periods. We recommend that you use the DELL J0PGR battery at least once in two weeks. Batteries lose its charge when stored for a long time and you need the battery if it does break.
If he does not use a length of time, the DELL J0PGR battery will be stored protected from a clean, dry and cool, heat and other metals. A loss of business to charge the battery in time and need a break before reuse.
Power Management Features Battery J0PGR enable the conservation of energy in the battery of DELL laptop. You can control the speed of the processor off, or you can adjust the brightness of the LCD screen to a minimum to ensure low power consumption. 

Why we have been the go-to source for our customers ?

We stock a wide range of rechargeable batteries for DELL laptop. Your DELL Tablet PC is part of your everyday life. Successful communications on a DELL begin with your battery. When purchasing a replacement battery for your DELL DELL, dependability and price are what we have to offer. We’ve been supplying reliable, high quality DELL batteries for over 10 years. Our goal is to provide high quality aftermarket replacement batteries at a very reasonable price. All of our rechargeable Li-Ion DELL batteries are backed by a one year warranty.

What is the run time of DELL battery?

DELL batteries have two main ratings on them: Volts and Amperes. Because size and weight of batteries is limited when compared to larger batteries such as car batteries, most companies show their ratings with Volts and Milliamperes. One thousand Milliamperes equals 1 Ampere. When buying a battery, select batteries with the most Milliamperes (or mAh). Batteries are also rated by Watt-Hours, perhaps the simplest rating of all. This is found by multiplying the Volts and the Amperes together. For example:

  • 14.4 Volts, 4000mAh (Note: 4000mAh is equal to 4.0 Amperes).
  • 14.4 x 4.0 = 57.60 Watt-Hours

Watt-Hours signifies the energy needed to power one watt for one hour.

Surface Pro X teardown finds a new high in ‘repairability’ for Microsoft

Microsoft’s Surface Pro X is even more repair-friendly than the Surface Laptop 3, getting a bigger thumbs-up from the teardown experts over at iFixit.

While iFixit scored the Surface Laptop 3 as a 5 out of 10 when it came to repairs, the freshly unleashed Surface Pro X managed to creep ahead with a 6 out of 10.

The most positive facet was the SSD being ‘truly user-replaceable’ as it’s accessed without having to remove the screen, and can be taken out with just a SIM eject pin (and a T3 Torx screwdriver is needed to undo a single screw).

“That’s awesome to see in such a slim form factor,” enthuses iFixit, while observing that the solid-state drive is the same model used in the Surface Laptop 3, and so standardization across the range means it’s easier for third-parties to support repairs on these devices.

Screen pass

All the screws used in the Surface Pro X are standard Torx affairs, and the iFixit team were particularly impressed with how easily the display came out, with no globs of glue holding the screen in place (rather there’s foam adhesive which can be cut easily enough, without requiring any heating and possible accidents with cracked displays).

There’s even a tongue-in-cheek mention of a celebratory dance and the fact that “we never thought we’d get into a Surface Pro this easily”.

The caveats here are that iFixit noted that almost all repairs do require removal of the screen – and it still isn’t a trivial matter – plus the battery remains firmly glued in, so there’s no change here.

Still, Microsoft is clearly moving in the right direction with this and the Surface Laptop 3, and is certainly a long way away from the days when iFixit wanted to give the Surface Laptop 2 a negative score for repairability.

Related product: Microsoft Surface Pro X

Our Verdict:

☆☆☆☆☆

The Surface Pro X is an astoundingly impressive looking and feeling Windows tablet – possibly the best yet in that department. Still, while we understand Microsoft’s faith in its new ARM processor, we’ve yet to see an ARM-based Windows device perform to expectations for the price it will cost you. Consider us impressed, though cautiously optimistic.

FOR Refinement of Surface Pro design

Fantastically bright and vibrant display

Brilliant Surface Pen implementation

AGAINST ARM CPU is worrisome

No more microSD slot

Lenovo ThinkPad P53 review: A powerful workstation with 16GB Quadro RTX graphics

Way back in the old days of March of this year, I reviewed the Lenovo ThinkPad P52, and I advised that you probably shouldn’t buy it unless you needed a mobile workstation at that moment. At the time, GeForce RTX GPUs were out for desktops and laptops, and Quadro RTX was out for desktop workstations. The writing was on the wall: Quadro RTX for mobile workstations is coming.

Well, it’s here, and it comes in the form of the ThinkPad P53. Yes, this is a beast of a machine. Now packing Intel’s ninth-generation 45W processors (you can get Core or Xeon), the other big improvement is that you can get it with a 4K OLED display, although that’s not included in my unit.

As usual, $4,419 is the current price on Lenovo.com, as it does fluctuate. The base price before discounts is $5,179. Also, this PC starts at $1,399, and that gets you a Core i5-9400H, 8GB RAM, a 256GB SSD, and an Nvidia Quadro T1000.

Design

The Lenovo ThinkPad P53 is thick and heavy, but that’s the price of power. It’s over an inch thick, and it weighs in at over five and a half pounds, and that’s just the starting weight. But it also packs a 45W hexa-core processor and a 16GB GPU. Those are some heavy internals, that require a ton of ventilation.

It comes in black, just like most ThinkPads, and it’s made out of glass fiber reinforced polymer. The lid has the standard ThinkPad logo stamped in the corner. While it’s probably the most powerful ThinkPad that exists, it doesn’t have the same glossy black logo that the premium X1/P1 models do.

Also, like all ThinkPads, the P53 passes 12 MIL-STD-810G tests, which means that it’s made for durability. It can handle tough conditions like extreme temperatures, shocks, vibrations, dust, and so on. In fact, Lenovo says that it has the best durability of any workstation.

It’s also loaded up with ports, something that you’ll definitely need on a machine like this. On the back, you’ll find an Ethernet port, two Thunderbolt 3 ports, and a power port. This machine uses Lenovo’s proprietary charger, since it requires a 230W adapter; that’s way too much for USB Type-C.

On the left side, there are two USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports, one of which is always on. There’s also HDMI 2.0, which allows you to output to 4K displays at 60Hz without a problem. And finally, there’s a 4-in-1 media card reader.

Finally, the right side has a SIM tray, a USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C port, and a 3.5mm combo audio jack. As you can see from the image, there’s no actual hole for a pin to remove the SIM tray, because this isn’t a cellular model. Like all ThinkPads, the cellular and non-cellular models use the same chassis, so the port is still there; it just doesn’t do anything.

The placement of the ports is just right. Ports in the back are great for cable management, but it’s notable that the only ones back there are the ones that you’ll not need to unplug, like the power port and Ethernet. The ones on the sides are better for peripherals that you might be attaching while you’re using it, such as a VR headset.

The bottom panel is easy enough to remove with seven Philips-head screws. That gives you access to the internals, where you can easily upgrade the SSD and RAM, or add secondary and tertiary storage.

Display and audio

The ThinkPad P53 model that Lenovo sent me includes a 15.6-inch 1080p display with 500-nit brightness, which is pretty bright. Outdoor usage is great, not that this is the type of machine that you really take on the go. I feel like it’s meant to be portable when you need it to be, rather than all the time. The screen also supports Dolby Vision HDR400, and it supports 72% color gamut.

There are other display options though. There’s the regular 300-nit FHD display, which is what comes in the base model, and there’s also an option for a 500-nit 4K panel with Dolby Vision HDR500 support.

But there’s one more, which is the OLED one. When Lenovo refreshed its workstations this year, all of the 15-inch ones came with 4K OLED options. And of course, OLED means that you get true blacks and more vibrant colors; this is also the only display option that supports multitouch. It also supports Dolby Vision HDR500.

Another thing to be aware of is that everything except the OLED model is an anti-glare screen. In other words, if you need anti-glare for your use case with this workstation, don’t get the OLED option. Otherwise, you should totally get OLED.

The bezels around the screen are pretty large, although this really isn’t a narrow bezel type of PC. Above the screen is a webcam and an IR camera for Windows Hello. There’s also the ThinkShutter privacy guard, a physical switch to cover the camera, so there’s no need to put a piece of tape over it.

Audio quality is pretty solid. As I write this review, I’m playing music from the speakers above the keyboard, and the sound really fills the room. Depending on the type of project that you’re working on, the dual 2W Dolby Audio Premium speakers really make a difference.

Keyboard and trackpad

Probably my biggest issue with the P53 was the keyboard, since that’s probably the most important feature to me in a laptop. I’m always looking for the type of machine where I can perform powerful tasks and still write articles, my true all-in-one portable PC.

I didn’t care for the keyboard, and it’s weird, because I always like ThinkPad keyboards. As is always the case with ThinkPad clamshells, the key press has a pretty long throw. It’s definitely one of the deeper keyboards these days. The problem with this one is that the keys just feel too resistant. I almost felt like I was hurting my fingers typing on the keyboard.

Still, the keys are accurate and precise, which is always a good thing. There’s also a number pad to the right of the standard keys, since the chassis is certainly big enough for it.

As always, there’s a TrackPoint between the G, H, and B keys. This can be used for moving the pointer around the screen, just like with the trackpad. You don’t have to use it if you don’t want to, but it’s there if that’s your jam.

And then there’s the Precision trackpad itself, which is off-centered to the left, a common trait for big machines like this one. It’s centered with the main portion of the keyboard though, rather than centered with the full keyboard including the number pad.

There are physical buttons both above and below the trackpad, as the trackpad itself is not clickable. Generally, the ones above it are meant for use with the TrackPoint, and the ones below it are meant for use with the trackpad. I’m a big fan of physical buttons with trackpads though; it just makes drag-and-drop operations a lot easier.

Performance and battery life

To put it briefly, performance is great and battery life is not. Both of those things are expected on a machine with these kinds of specs. The model that Lenovo sent me includes a Core i7-9850H, a 45W hexa-core CPU with 12 threads, although you can have it configured with a Xeon; this is a workstation, after all.

The GPU is an Nvidia Quadro RTX 5000 with 16GB GDDR6, so yes, it’s a beast. This is the one that I told you to wait for last year, knowing that Quadro RTX was on the way. Nvidia’s RTX lineup allows for real-time ray tracing and machine learning improvements, and it makes a big difference over the previous generation.

This is a $5,000 mobile workstation, and it’s built to handle any kind of task that you throw at it, such as complicated CAD projects or enterprise VR environments. This isn’t even the most expensive model. It comes out to $7,334 before discounts if you spec it out with 128GB RAM, three 2TB SSDs, and the 4K OLED display.

Battery life though, is less impressive. You can have power and you can have battery life, but you can’t have both. There are, however, some adjustments that you can make. At full power, you’ll probably get about two hours of battery life. Microsoft has a battery slider in Windows 10 that has four settings, and also, Lenovo gave me another solution. You can boot into the UEFI settings and switch to Hybrid Graphics instead of Discrete Graphics. If you use both options to conserve battery, battery life will increase drastically, but of course, it won’t be as powerful. The nice thing is that you can use it the way that you want to use it, when you need to.

Conclusion

If power is what you need, then look no further. The Lenovo ThinkPad P53 is a beast. With a Core i7-9850H CPU, an Nvidia Quadro RTX 5000 GPU with 16GB GDDR6, 64GB RAM, a 2TB SSD, and an option for an OLED multitouch screen, there’s not much that you can’t do with this thing. You can use it as your desktop PC by just plugging in some monitors and some peripherals, and it’s surely powerful enough to do what you need it to, and then you can just unplug it and take it somewhere else.

And that means it comes with the necessary compromises to make that happens. It’s big, it’s bulky, it’s heavy, and the battery life isn’t great. My biggest disappointment was the keyboard though. Maybe I’m becoming accustomed to the increasingly used shallow keyboards, since I don’t think it felt uncomfortable to me with the P52, and I doubt that Lenovo changed the deck much, or at all.

To be fair though, if you buy a ThinkPad P53, you’re not buying it to write articles that will be published on the internet. You’re buying it for much more power-intensive tasks than that, and the P53 has all the power. If you’re going the mobile workstation route, the ThinkPad P53 is a sure bet. And unlike with last year’s P52, I don’t have to say that with a caveat since there was newer hardware coming. You’re pretty future-proofed with this one.

Windows 10 vs. Ubuntu 19.10 vs. Clear Linux Performance On The Dell Ice Lake Laptop

Last month I posted benchmarks looking at the Windows 10 vs. Linux OpenGL and Vulkan graphics performance for the Ice Lake “Gen11” graphics. But for those wondering about the CPU/system performance between Windows and Linux for the Core i7-1065G7 with the Dell XPS 7390, here are those benchmarks as we compare the latest Windows 10 to Ubuntu 19.10 and Intel’s own Clear Linux platform.

Windows 10, Ubuntu 19.10, and Clear Linux 31340 were all cleanly installed and benchmarked on the same Dell XPS 7390 Ice Lake laptop under test. This system features the Intel Core i7-1065G7 with 4 cores / 8 threads, 16GB of RAM, Intel Iris Plus Graphics, and 512GB Toshiba NVMe SSD.

Each operating system was freshly installed and benchmarked at its defaults besides running with all available stable system updates as of testing time, which happened back in October. This is part of our ongoing series in investigating the Intel Ice Lake Linux performance after purchasing this laptop.

A wider variety of Linux distribution benchmarks from this Core i7-1065G7 laptop will be coming up in the weeks ahead. All of these Windows/Linux benchmarks were carried out using the Phoronix Test Suite.

From the Editor’s Desk: Wait, did my Pixel 4 XL battery life get better?

We’re now a few weeks into using the Pixel 4 (XL, in my case), and among the seemingly endless complaints people have with the phones there’s a constant undercurrent of chatter about battery life. Yes there’s Motion Sense, face unlock and the 90Hz display … but it all seems secondary to battery. It was the main focus of both our Pixel 4 review and to a lesser extent 4 XL review, and the debate is still going. Both a debate about whether the battery life is good enough to deal with in order to enjoy so many great parts of the phones, and also about just how bad the battery life actually is.

I think it’s fair to say a majority of people feel the battery life isn’t good enough. Even those who are okay with the battery for their usage can recognize that it isn’t as good as other competitive phones. I’m still fully in the camp that believes Google should’ve put more emphasis on battery life in the Pixel 4 XL, and should never have released the smaller Pixel 4 as it stood considering its woeful longevity.

A couple weeks after my review, though, I was given a ray of hope: my Pixel 4 XL’s battery life … started to get better. Whether it’s Google’s Adaptive Battery finally doing something, my limiting of notifications and background location access using Android 10’s new settings, or something else entirely, I was notably less worried about battery life the past week. Look, it was still not great — I was ending each day with about 15% battery — but I was getting to bedtime without charging, and that was a notable improvement. Curiously, when I talked to our own Hayato Huseman, who’s using the Pixel 4, he felt like he was experiencing the same thing — the phone was getting through a day; scraping by to do so, but making it.

But in the last couple days, I was really brought back down to reality. Taking multiple flights hopping between coasts, and also spending time in the troubling network environment that is New York City, the 4 XL didn’t come anywhere near holding up to tougher days. But I have started to figure out what I was experiencing that made me so optimistic: I feel like my Pixel 4 XL has reached a weird point where its standby battery life (aka when you’re not really using it) has much improved, but actually using the phone any amount still tanks it.

Keeping things light, spending lots of time on Wi-Fi, and never having the screen on for more than a few minutes at a time for messages, some photos, and short app usage, it’s totally fine. I recognize for a lot of people, that’s the extent of their phone usage — and seeing complaints about battery life would seem odd. But that’s not how I use my phone every day. Sure I have times when my phone goes hours at a time face-down on a table or on silent in my pocket; but others I’m streaming music, dealing with messages and emails, running with Bluetooth headphones and GPS, piling up notifications and making phone calls. When I use the phone lightly, I’m oddly impressed by the battery life. But as soon as I intensely hit the phone for even an hour or two in a day, I have to charge in the early evening. To say nothing of a proper travel day, when it’s dead in nine hours.

Myself and several friends are in San Diego this weekend meeting with MediaTek (disclosure: MediaTek paid for our flights and accommodations), and as is so often the case when a bunch of technology enthusiasts get together we started talking about our Pixel’s battery. The afternoon that we all arrived, we were enjoying drinks on the beach … and every single person with a Pixel 4 (or XL) had charged earlier in the day or was on a battery pack at the table. It turned into a Pixel 4 battery life support group — exchanging stories about just how bad the battery is, and the frustration over it considering how many parts of the phone we love.

I’m still using my Pixel 4 XL. On the whole, I’m very happy with it. I’m just extra bothered by the weak battery life because this is otherwise a fantastic phone. Yes the battery life is good enough for many people (at least, on the 4 XL), but it’s not at all a strength of this phone, and nobody complaining about the battery life is wrong to do so.

ASRock X570 Creator Review: Aqua-Free Thunderbolt 3

OUR VERDICT

What looks on paper to be a half-priced version of the X570 Aqua is really a completely different product. But the X570 Creator’s impressive feature set still makes it worth its price to those in the market for integrated Thunderbolt 3 and 10GbE.

FOR

Integrated Thunderbolt 3 with DisplayPort passthrough

10GbE, Gigabit Ethernet & 802.11ax Wi-Fi

Excellent CPU overclocking at moderate voltage levels

AGAINST

Half the SATA ports are on PCIe 2.0 controllers

All three PCIe x1 slots are 2.0 version

All PCIe 2.0 devices share bandwidth on a single-lane hub

As much as bells and whistles are impressive, ASRock’s recently released X570 Aqua is extremely expensive at $1,000. But the $500 X570 Creator ($480, with a $20 rebate as of this writing) is in many ways a similar board that’s half the price. It doesn’t have the exclusivity or open-loop cooling of the flagship Aqua, but it still has a full-fledged feature set. 

Specifications

Nothing in our features table differentiates this board from the X570 Aqua that went before it, but we still need to dig deeper, as those identical features have been placed on completely different circuit boards.

The lack of a monoblock and color-matched cladding gives the less-costly X570 Creator a completely different look from its feature-matched predecessor. But it does have all the same ports and slots. In fact, the lack of the Aqua’s integrated I/O shield is the only thing that differentiates the Creator’s I/O panel.

The BIOS flash mode button, dual antenna connections for factory-installed 802.11ax module, six USB3 Gen1 and two Thunderbolt 3 ports, Gigabit and 10GbE ports, audio jacks with digital optical output, DisplayPort input and HDMI output are still present. The video input is for Thunderbolt passthrough via external graphics card linking, and the digital audio output supports DTS Connect to encode 5.1-channel streams from live audio sources. The biggest disappointment is that the two Type-A ports that appear color-coded for 10Gbps but are only wired for 5Gbps.

Unlike the X570 Aqua, the Creator fits completely within the confines of standard ATX. We looked around for crowded components and found nothing unusual, though the voltage regulator and socket are both closer to the I/O shield and the chipset is closer to the PCIe slots. The same onboard controllers are in similar positions relative to each other, but with less spacing between them. We even see the same internal DisplayPort pass-through connector, which is used for connecting specific ASRock graphics cards internally to the board’s Thunderbolt 3 outputs, located forward of the I/O audio connections.

Internal power and reset buttons are moved slightly rearward to make room for the X570 Creator’s shortened front edge by moving its legacy PC Speaker/3-pin spaced redundant power LED combo header, compared to the X570 Aqua. Farther up the board we see that the ALC1220 audio codec is moved further down than on the X570 Aqua, and that the ASM1187e PCIe 2.0 x1 to x7 smart switch is now closer to the battery. Builders are welcome to use up to eight SATA devices, but the fact that four of these ports share bandwidth with three x1 slots through that switch’s single-lane 5Gb/s interface might give them pause.

The X570 Creator’s installation kit adds an I/O shield compared to the X570 Aqua, since that one came pre-installed on the motherboard. The same four SATA cables, Wi-Fi antenna, legacy high-bandwidth SLI bridge, and link cable for DisplayPort-to-Thunderbolt passthrough are included.

Software

We played around with ASRock’s A-Tuning long enough to determine that it at least controls our CPU clocks, though its System Info page shows Ryzen Master’s CPU temperature reading as “SB TSI CPU”.

The X570 Creator has no onboard lighting, so its Polychrome Sync app only works for RGB headers and compatible DRAM. Though changes were laggy with our memory, it did eventually work.

Firmware

The tested version of X570 Creator firmware doesn’t have an easy-mode GUI, but its advanced mode is simple to navigate. Its OC Tweaker menu is of particular interest to us, since it includes everything we need to push our low-risk overclocks.

Attempting an all-core overclock means living with the maximum frequency of the worst core, which in our case isn’t very high. As with most boards, attempts to go beyond 4.2 GHz were unsuccessful even at far-higher voltage levels, so we reverted to safe settings.

Ryzen 3000 processors are famed for their memory overclocks but also known for needing sub-optimal memory controller and Infinity Fabric ratios to reach these. Users who don’t want to exceed AMD’s default DDR4-3600 limit for those ratios may instead choose to chase memory performance via optimized timings, for which the X570 Creator includes the full set of controls.

The X570 Creator doesn’t have onboard RGB lighting, and anyone who doesn’t want to install ASRock’s RGB application for Windows can control compatible RGB accessories via the board’s external RGB headers via firmware.

ASRock left the fan mapping graphic out of X570 Creator firmware, but the corresponding numeric values are still there for those who’d rather not use the included software. The default map for the southbridge fan kept it running at 3700 to 5000 RPM, its noise minimized only by its small size.

Overclocking

We’re using the hardware from our first X570 review to compare the X570 Creator to our first four boards, including Fractal Design’s Celsius S24, Gigabyte’s GeForce RTX 2070 Gaming OC 8G and Toshiba’s OCZ RD400 512GB NVMe SSD. Because the previously-reviewed X570 Aqua required a different cooling system, we’ve left it out of our charts.

The X570 Aqua reached DDR4-4000 with all four DIMMs installed, while the X570 Creator only reached DDR4-3800. The Creator still beat the X570-E Gaming and X570 Taichi, but that’s probably due to its newer firmware. It also beats those two boards, and only those two boards, in CPU overclocking, if by a scant 25 MHz.

We overclock to gain performance, but the X570 Creator had the third-worst overclocked memory bandwidth. The slower (data rate) boards were faster (more bandwidth), but we should note that settings over DDR4-3600 can hurt performance due to firmware automatically decoupling the CPU’s Infinity Fabric clock at higher frequencies. This can be overcome via manual overclocking, but typically not at data rates this high. 

3DMark and PCMark

We credit the X570 Creator’s newer firmware for higher CPU scores in 3DMark, but that gain barely made an impact in PCMark Essentials, with a less-than-1% advantage in web browsing. It made a clean sweep of PCMark Digital Content Creation, but came out roughly tied in MS Office.

3D Gaming

The X570 Creator swaps positions at various Ashes settings to take third place overall, but somehow gets a big enough jump in just one of our F1 2017 tests to emerge victorious by a mere 1%.

Mixed Applications

The X570 Creator also showed higher scores on Cinebench, as well as our complete set of timed workloads. If this is what AMD’s new microcode does, our congratulations should go there.

Power, Heat and Efficiency

The X570 Creator throttles our CPU back to 3950 MHz under a fully multithreaded load of Prime95, while the Taichi from the same brand ran up to 4.1 GHz and the Strix X570-E Gaming ran 3950 to 3975 MHz.

Since the CPU power settings of both boards are so similar, it’s important to discuss how the X570 Creator compares to the X570-E Gaming. Both boards have similar CPU thermal readings, though the ROG Strix model has a slightly warmer voltage regulator.

Gigabyte and MSI samples skewed our efficiency results by clocking our CPU down to 3.8 GHz. Even if we adjusted our chart to account for the approximately 4% difference in clock speed, the MEG X570 Ace would still win the efficiency crown.

Final Analysis

One thing to note in our performance-per-dollar chart: The Creator has more features than its competitors. If all you care about is performance and price, that makes the Creator tough to argue for. But you do get more for you money in other ways with this board.

None of the comparison boards have Thunderbolt 3 or 10GbE, though the copper cabling of 2.5GbE give the second network interface of Asus, Gigabyte and MSI broader compatibility.

The cheapest of the comparison boards, ASRock’s own X570 Taichi doesn’t even have a second wired network interface. The X570 Creator’s extra features are probably worth an extra $200 at most, and it costs exactly $200 more.

Competing samples from Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI cost $30 to $60 more, and our previous reviews pointed out how each of these was worth the upgrade. That just makes this a tie from a value perspective, so our best advice is to pick from these the board that best fits your compatibility, efficiency, and overclockability needs.

Sony A6600 review: A rare misstep for Sony’s cameras

As Sony’s new flagship APS-C camera, the 24.2-meagpixel A6600 has a lot to live up to. First of all, it had to follow the A6500, launched in 2016 with innovative features like 4K 30 fps video, fast 11 fps shooting speeds, in-body stabilization and face- and eye-tracking. For a couple of years, nothing else on the market could touch it.

What’s more, the A6600 arrived just after Sony’s 61-megapixel A7R IV full-frame mirrorless camera — possibly the best camera I’ve ever seen. From a competition standpoint, Sony is also under pressure to top Fujifilm’s X-T3, which has a higher-resolution sensor, more 4K video features and much better handling than the A6500.

The A6600 has in-body stabilization, a key feature that its rivals lack, and packs other promising features like a bigger grip and battery, along with improvements to its famous AI-powered autofocus system. However, Sony did not upgrade the three-year old sensor. Can it can hold its own against its full-frame stablemates? Can it beat the X-T3?

Pros

Excellent battery life

Class-leading autofocus

In-body stabilization

Good low-light performance

Cons

Bad rolling shutter

Mediocre 4K capability

Poor handling

Single slow memory card slot

Summary

As Sony’s new flagship APS-C camera, the 24.2-megapixel A6600 has a lot to live up to. Its predecessor, the A6500, broke new ground, and the full-frame A7 series are the best mirrorless cameras on the market. The A6600 does have some nice features like real-time AF tracking, in-body stabilization and improved battery life. However, it’s held back by poor handling, an old sensor with bad rolling shutter and 4K video capabilities that are behind rivals. Overall, it’s not as good a camera as Fujifilm’s X-T3, and represents a rare camera misfire for Sony.

Body and handling

A lot of fans were hoping that Sony might reboot the A6500’s rather plain, ergonomically-deficient body and go with something that looks more like the A7R III. That didn’t happen. The A6600’s body is pretty similar to the previous model, except for one important detail: a much bigger grip.

That grip not only makes it easier to grab and hold the camera, but also houses a much larger Z-series battery. You now get 810 shots on a charge, an incredible spec usually reserved for DSLRs. In that department, it beats its main rivals — the X-T3 (390 shots), Canon’s M6 II (305 shots), the Panasonic GH5 (410 shots) and the Nikon Z 50 (300 shots) — by miles.

Unfortunately, that’s where the ergonomic improvements end. The A6600 has the same button and dial layout as before, bar some minor nip-and-tuck work. That means it still lacks a front shutter/aperture dial and a joystick control for focus. It’s inexcusable for Sony to leave those things out on a flagship, $1,400 camera, especially when you can find them on all its competition.

The A6600’s menu system is roughly the same as before, which is to say, not good. Many functions are buried in the wrong menus, and require endless scrolling to find. Given that, and the lack of manual controls, using the A6600 was frankly a frustrating experience — especially after I had such a good time with the well-designed A7R IV. Oh, and on top of all that, the A6600 is still pretty ugly, too.

Another negative is the 2.36-million dot OLED electronic (EVF) viewfinder, which is also largely unchanged from the last model. It works okay, but feels out-of-date compared to the 3.69-million dot, blackout-free EVF on Fujifilm’s X-T3.

The A6600 has just a single card slot, and worse, it only uses the UHS-I standard and not UHS-II with triple the speed. As I’ll explain later, that can slow down shooting considerably. While this might have been acceptable three years ago, in 2019 the A6600 has to go up against the X-T3 and Panasonic’s GH5, both of which have two fast UHS-II card slots.

On the positive side, the rear touch display now tilts up, making the A6600 more useful as a vlogging camera. You can also use it to choose autofocus tracking subjects, but unlike the touch displays on all its rivals, it can’t be used to operate the main menu or even the quick menu.

Like before, the A6600 has a microphone input, and Sony has also added a headphone port. That’s a nice addition, as serious videographers can monitor sound while they’re doing interviews and other chores.

Performance

While ergonomics are not the A6600’s strong point, it has excellent shooting speeds and, particularly, autofocus performance. It can handle bursts up to 11 fps with full autofocus and auto exposure, which is a bit slower than Canon’s M6 Mark II (14 fps) and identical to the Fujifilm X-T3. However, in electronic shutter mode, the X-T3 can hit 20 fps, nearly doubling the A6600 burst speeds.

Sony’s uncanny autofocus system, with 425 phase and contrast detect AF points, still delivers more in-focus shots than those models. The latest feature is what Sony calls “real-time tracking” and “real-time eye autofocus.” What that means is that Sony has increased AF speeds to the point that you can touch to select a subject, and it’ll track them in real time.

The face- and eye-detect systems are particularly good, staying locked onto your subject’s face even if they temporarily move out of view. If you touch to select your subject, it tenaciously tracks them no matter where they go. I found that the only time subject tracking didn’t work well was if they were particularly far away.

Overall, Sony still has the best autofocus and face-tracking AI of any APS-C camera. It was able to handle everything I tried, from tracking people playing at a pond, to a musical group in low light, to dogs running around.

However, it’s hampered by a couple of things. First off, if you need to be unobtrusive while shooting sports with the silent electronic shutter, you might end up with skewed shots because of the sensor’s rolling shutter issue.

And while you can shoot pretty long bursts of up to 99 shots at maximum resolution, it takes ages and ages for the buffer to clear. That’s likely because of the relatively slow write speeds from the UHS I slot that Sony inexplicably decided to use. When that happens, you can’t shoot anymore and many of the camera’s functions are inoperable.

Another issue with the burst shooting is the lack of a blackout-free EVF. That can make it hard to follow action in sports or wildlife — and that’s the point of burst shooting and tracking autofocus. The X-T3, on the other hand, has no blackout in the viewfinder at the maximum 20 fps shooting speeds.

One of the Sony A6600’s biggest advantages over similar cameras is the five-axis stabilization. The system lets you shoot in much lower light than would otherwise be possible. With five stops of shake reduction, I was able to take photos at shutter speeds down to around 1/15th of a second, provided my subject didn’t move around much. On other cameras, including Nikon’s Z 50 and the X-T3, you’ll need to use lenses with built-in stabilization — and many of the best primes don’t have that option.

Image Quality

While it has the same sensor as the A6500, Sony did a good job sprucing up the A6600’s image quality. It has a new Bionz X processor, and Sony rejigged the algorithms, using the same ones on the A7R IV, to improve the color accuracy and sharpness.

JPEGs straight out of the camera were sharp and had natural-looking colors, especially in the skin tone regions. With 14 stops of dynamic range, shadows and highlights were pleasingly smooth and not brutally cut off in tricky gradient areas. When working with RAW files, I was able to tease out detail in both shadow and highlight areas.

As far as low-light shooting goes, the A6600 is one of the best APS-C cameras on the market, with usable shots up to ISO 12,800 and beyond. Above that, you’ll see a lot of noise in shadows, but well-lit areas still retain a surprising amount of detail. I took one photo in a train station at ISO 6400, and by cranking up the shadows, I was able to see the detailed brickwork in the ceiling without excessive noise levels.

Overall, image quality is a strong point on this camera thanks to Sony’s faster processor and improved color science. Again, keep in mind the rolling shutter issues that can happen in electronic shutter mode. If you or your subject move around a lot, you’re going to get skew that can potentially ruin a photo.

Video

With a full-sensor readout and super-sampled 30 fps 4K, along with full HD at 120 fps, the A6500 was an excellent video camera in 2016. But in 20190? Not so much. The A6600 carries over those same specs, and still only supports low bit-rate, 8-bit video. In the meantime, its rivals have moved on. The X-T3 and Panasonic’s GH5 can handle 4K at 60 fps and also record 30 fps 4K with 10 bits (billions) of color, both externally and internally at up to 400 Mbps.

You still get sharp super-sampled 4K video, and with Sony’s latest algorithms, colors and skin tones look realistic and natural. Sony also has added V-Log2 and V-Log3 options to maximize dynamic range in post. However, that feature is somewhat crippled by the lack of 10-bit output and low 100 Mbps bit rate, which means you’ll have less flexibility when you go to adjust the footage.

That said, Sony’s excellent autofocus system is an advantage here. If you flip it into face and eye detection mode, you’ll keep your subject in focus more reliably than on the X-T3. Despite the recent improvements, though, it still occasionally lost focus on my subjects. As such, Canon still holds a slight lead over Sony with its Dual Pixel autofocus system.

The A6600 is a decent vlogging and general-purpose video camera thanks to the flip-up screen and headphone output. I tried it out in face-detection mode, and at close vlogging range, it rarely lost focus. Because of the flip-up screen, however, you can’t just mount an external mic on the hot shoe — rather, you’ll need to get an accessory like Sony’s shooting grip kit, including an external microphone bracket.

The biggest problem for vlogging, though, is (again) the rolling shutter. Unless you can walk a lot more smoothly than I can, any jolt will turn the video into a wobbly mess. For that reason alone, it’s hard for me to recommend it for any serious vloggers — I’d get Panasonic’s GH5 or GH5s instead.

Wrap-up

Given Sony’s technical leadership in the camera industry, the release of the A6600 is a head-scratcher. If you were looking for a mirrorless APS-C camera three years ago, the A6500 was the best option, hands down. Now? I’m not so sure.

Sony did make a few decent improvements, adding real-time tracking and real-time eye AF to its class-leading autofocus system. It’s nice to have a bigger grip and incredible battery life for both photo and video shooting. And the five-axis in-body stabilization gives the A6600 a leg up on its rivals, particularly when using un-stabilized prime lenses.

However, it’s bizarre that Sony didn’t update the sensor over the last model, considering that it’s the world’s leader in sensor technology. The bad rolling shutter was the biggest weakness of the original A6500, and it’s now back to haunt the A6600. In 2019, it has to compete against the X-T3, Z 50, Canon’s M6 II and Panasonic’s GH5, none of which have rolling shutter that’s nearly as noticeable. I also wish it had two faster card slots and more advanced 4K options.

If you’re looking to spend $1,400, I’d get the X-T3 instead, which is a better all around camera. If it’s resolution you need, take a look at Canon’s M6 Mark II which is cheaper ($1,050 with the EVF) and can also shoot faster. If you’re okay with a smaller Micro Four Thirds sensor, Panasonic’s $1,500 GH5 is still the best video-centric mirrorless camera out there, especially with recent AF firmware updates.

Lenovo Tab M7 now available for $60 (with Android 9 Go Edition)

This summer Lenovo introduced a handful of Android tablets with budget prices — and now the first is available and it’s even cheaper than expected.

The Lenovo Tab M7 is now available for $60… which is almost $30 less than the price Lenovo had announced in August.

As you’d probably expect from a tablet this cheap, the Lenovo Tab M7 isn’t exactly a speed demon. It features a MediaTek MT8321 processors, which is a 32-bit, 1.3 GHz, quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 processor.

By comparison, Amazon’s $50 Fire 7 tablet has a MediaTek MT8163 processor, which is a 64-bit, 1.5 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor. So Amazon wins this round.

Both tablets feature 7 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel IPS touchscreen displays, 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of storage. Both have 2MP front and rear cameras and both top out at 802.11n WiFi. So that’s a draw.

But here’s why Lenovo’s tablet might be worth considering in spite of its shortcomings: it ships with Android 9 Pie Go Edition, while Amazon’s entry-level tablet comes with Fire OS 6.3, which is based on Android 7.1.2 Nougat — and which has a custom user interface and app store rather than stock Google apps and services.

Amazon’s tablet also becomes the more expensive option if you opt for a model “without special offers.” In order to remove the ads from the lock screen, you’ll have to pay at least $65.

So Lenovo wins some points on the software front.

Other features include a micro USB port, a headset jack, and a microSD card reader. Lenovo’s budget tablet measures 6.9″ x 4.1″ x 0.3″ and weighs about 8.4 ounces. It has a mono front-facing speaker.

If you’re looking for a high performance tablet, you should probably look elsewhere. But if you’re looking for something dirt cheap for a little gaming, reading, or video streaming, the Lenovo Tab M7 is… and option, I guess.

Or you could hold out for the upcoming Lenovo Tab M8 HD which is expected to sell for $140 when it arrives soon. That model has twice the memory and storage, a 1280 x 800 pixel display, 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth 5.0, and a speedier 2 GHz MediaTek Helio A22 quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor.

WhatsApp’s latest feature, Catalogs, caters to small businesses skipping the web for mobile

WhatsApp is expanding the capabilities of its dedicated app for business owners who want to reach their customers on smartphones. The Facebook-owned company is today introducing to the WhatsApp Business app a new “catalogs” feature that will allow the businesses to showcase and share their products and services to potential customers, who can browse photos, view prices and read product descriptions to help inform their purchase decisions.

These catalogs effectively serve as a mobile storefront on WhatsApp — and one that can be operated without the need for a web page at all. Instead, the business owner simply visits the new Catalog option in their app’s settings and uploads photos of whatever it is they’re selling and fill out the details, which can optionally include a product or service code (e.g. a SKU), if need be.

These catalog items can then be sent to customers in a WhatsApp chat message. For example, if a customer asks about a particular item or for a recommendation, the business owner can tap to send a particular item from their catalog that includes all the information the customer wants to know.

The catalogs are particularly appealing to WhatsApp’s customer based in emerging markets, where much of users’ online activity is taking place inside apps instead of on the wider web. As new users come online in these regions, they’re often skipping the PC revolution entirely and going straight to smartphones instead.

Already, the WhatsApp Business app is claiming a portion of that market. Earlier this year, the company said the app had reached some 5 million business customers.

The catalogs feature today joins several others designed with the needs of businesses in mind, including business profiles, quick replies for messages, chat labels and automated messages.

WhatsApp says the new feature is available to businesses using the WhatsApp Business app on both Android and iPhone in Brazil, Germany, India, Indonesia, Mexico, the U.K. and the U.S., for the time being. It will roll out to other worldwide markets “soon,” but WhatsApp didn’t offer a more exact launch time frame.

Google Pixel 4 goes up against a full-frame Canon DSLR in low-light test

Smartphone cameras are getting ridiculously good and, for the vast majority of people, they’ve replaced traditional cameras. This week, a blind test to see if the Pixel 4 could beat an expensive Canon camera in low light was run and the Pixel came out on top.

A YouTube channel (via PetaPixel) shot several handheld stills to compare the full-frame Canon EOS RP to the Pixel 4, a device with a much smaller sensor size. Traditionally, a larger sensor would mean better low light photography, but computational photography has changed the game.

In every comparison, the Pixel 4 produces brighter shots in the low-light setting with much less noise than the shots taken by Canon. That’s largely thanks to Google’s behind-the-scenes magic which stacks multiple images at different exposures to capture more detail and eliminate noise. A traditional DSLR just can’t do that on the fly, so comparing the low-light shots side-by-side will almost always give the Pixel the advantage.

Of course, there are ways for trained photographers to close the gap. They can copy Google’s HDR technique by stacking shots in post-production for better results. Taking the photos with a tripod or even using a more expensive camera could improve the shots, but that’s not really the point.

Google’s Pixel 4, thanks to its computational photography, makes taking excellent pictures easy for everyone.