Opera Software has continued its trend of building specialized browsers with The Crypto Browser Project, a specialized Web3 browser optimized for the use of the blockchain and cryptocurrencies, together with its own dedicated wallet.

It doesn't appear that Opera plans to replace its desktop browser with its Crypto Browser, although the language Opera used was a bit vague. (Opera already offers a specialized gaming browser, Opera GX.) “Today, we are taking our Web3 effort a step further by allowing you to test experimental browsers on Android, Mac and Windows that will become our flagships for you to interact with Web3,” Opera said in a blog post.

Though Opera's browser is still built upon the same Chromium underpinnings as its current desktop browser, Opera also built in a number of Web3 features. (In some circles the term “Web3” has become synonymous with the blockchain, referring to a decentralized web that's governed by tokens.) In Opera's case, that includes designing in a more fully integrated non-custodial crypto wallet as well as quick links to crypto news, airdrops, and, yes, NFTs. The Crypto Browser Project also includes support for what Opera calls distributed apps, or dApps —a suite of decentralized apps that can provide more functionality than traditional plugins, according to Opera.

Opera

Opera said that its native, non-custodial crypto wallet would still allow for users to select an alternative wallet, such as Metamask, through a new wallet selector. The wallet's clipboard monitors itself to ensure that no other app alters the wallet data. Opera supports Ethereum, Bitcoin, Celo, and Nervos, and the company said it has announced partnerships with Handshake, NEAR, Polygon, and Solana.

The Crypto Browser Project also includes a sidebar, called the Crypto Corner, in which you can access Opera's crypto wallet. The Crypto Corner also includes “access to the latest blockchain news, upcoming airdrops, an industry events calendar, NFTs, crypto communities, educational content, podcasts, and videos as well as crypto prices, gas fees, and market sentiment—all in one spot,” Opera said. You can also access “Crypto Twitter,” Discord, Reddit, or DappRadar directly from the browser's speed dial.

Opera

Opera also said that it is preserving features like its anonymous, unlimited “VPN” proxy, which doesn't log user data.

Although Opera is touting its commitment to crypto, rival Brave staked out an earlier presence in the crypto community, with its own integrated crypto wallet and even its own cryptocurrency.

Users can download the new Crypto Browser for Android, Windows, and Mac, Opera said. An iOS version is coming soon, Opera said. An official launch of the Crypto Project is coming soon in the next few months, the company said.

AMD's $199 Radeon RX 6500 XT is here, bringing both real-time ray tracing and affordable graphics cards back to the masses—if it can stay well-stocked enough to remain on store shelves for close to its suggested pricing, that is. This ain't your average graphics card though. AMD needed to tweak and tune the Radeon RX 6500 XT to (hopefully) keep cryptocurrency miners at bay and hit the coveted, crucial sub-$200 price point.

Putting this GPU through its paces took quite a bit more effort and explaining than usual. Head over to our comprehensive Radeon RX 6500 XT review for the complete rundown, but for folks who don't feel like wading through thousands of words and dozens of charts worth of analysis, here are five key facts you need to know about the Radeon RX 6500 XT.

1. This is a great graphics card for beginning PC gamers…

PC gaming picked up serious steam over the pandemic, but newcomers haven't had a shot at investing in affordable new gear, with most graphics cards going for double MSRP or more thanks to a mixture of a chip crunch, logistics woes, booming demand from cryptocurrency miners seeking profits, and more. We've resorted to suggesting a CPU with good integrated graphics as the best budget “graphics card” for gaming. Ugh.

Radeon RX 6500 XT

Read our review

MSRP: $199

Best Prices Today: $200 at Newegg | Not Available at Amazon

That changes with the Radeon RX 6500 XT. Not only is this card affordable at $199, it will absolutely chew through competitive e-sports titles at high frame rates, and play modern triple-A games at a fast pace using Medium to High settings at 1080p resolution. It also supports modern features like ray tracing, AMD's Smart Access Memory, FidelityFX Super Resolution, Radeon Anti-Lag, and Radeon Boost, and all but ray tracing can help make this graphics card run even faster. Groovy.

If you already have a graphics card like the GeForce GTX 1650 Super or Radeon RX 580, though, the Radeon RX 6500 XT doesn't provide enough of a performance uplift to be a compelling upgrade (unless you want access to those features).

2. …if you stick to what it's good at

Crafting a sub-$200 graphics card in these trying times required AMD to turn to some unorthodox design decisions. The Radeon RX 6500 XT packs a scant 4GB of GDDR6 memory over a minute 64-bit bus unheard-of in modern gaming GPUs, though those memory chips are clocked at a blazing-fast 18Gbps and come augmented by AMD's radical Infinity Cache technology. It also, somewhat shockingly, only supports four PCIe lanes rather than the usual 16.

Those decisions mean that while the Radeon RX 6500 XT excels at what it's designed for—e-sports, and triple-A gaming at Mid to High settings at 1080p resolution—if you crank the eye candy to Ultra or jack up the resolution to 1440p, you could run into performance issues (like slow frame rates or lag spikes). Start at 1080p Medium graphics presets in your favorite games and nudge knobs up from there if you're able.

3. It's built to evade crypto miners

AMD

While many of AMD's design choices were no doubt made to hit the Radeon RX 6500 XT's juicy $199 suggested pricing, it's a bit more complicated than that when it comes to the memory system. If the GPU world wasn't so crazy right now, releasing a 1080p graphics card with just 4GB of RAM and a 64-bit bus in 2022 would get AMD laughed out of town. But in today's wild graphics card market, those limited specifications are almost genuine features, as the memory configuration will make the Radeon RX 6500 XT unappealing for mining Ethereum, the popular cryptocurrency fueling a lot of the sky-high graphics card demand. Ethereum thrives on memory bandwidth, and mining it requires your graphics card to have more than 4GB of memory.

“There's a lot of dynamics that are involved in the availability of the GPUs we have,” Radeon vice president Laura Smith said to PCWorld as part of a small roundtable with journalists during CES. “We have really optimized this one to be gaming first….You can see that with the way we've configured the part. Even with the four gigs of frame buffer, that's a really nice frame buffer size for the majority of triple-A games, but it's not particularly attractive if you're doing blockchain-type or mining activities. We've tried to make some gamer-first transitions for the things we don't control, but we have influence over, to optimize that card to be as accessible as possible to the use of gamers.”

We'll see if that translates into actual widespread availability at its $199 suggested price, but the Radeon RX 6500 XT has a better shot than most modern graphics cards at actually being obtainable—including Nvidia's imminent $250 GeForce RTX 3050. Fingers crossed. For more info, check out our explainer on why less memory could mean more in AMD and Nvidia's budget GPU battle.

4. Don't worry about using the Radeon RX 6500 XT in an older PC

After its reveal, gamers worried that the Radeon RX 6500 XT's four limited PCIe lanes would translate to terrible performance on any gaming PC more than a few years old. That's because those lanes work best on modern computers featuring the much-faster PCIe 4.0 interface. Older PCs have PCIe 3.0, and people feared that detail, mixed with the minimal number of available lanes, would choke off frame rates.

Brad Chacos/IDG

Spoiler: It does, but not to a degree worth worrying about in most games, thanks to the helping hand provided by AMD's fast GDDR6 chips and 16MB of on-chip Infinity Cache. Across our 11-game test suite, we saw two major outliers—Rainbow Six Siege performed identically on both PCIe 3 and 4, while Total War: Troy suffered a major 18.4 percent loss on PCIe 3.0—but otherwise, games were only an average of 6.4 percent slower in PCIe 3.0 mode. That's noteworthy but doesn't significantly alter the value proposition of the graphics card. It's still usually in the same performance ballpark as GPUs like the Radeon RX 580 and 5500 XT, or Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1060 6GB and GTX 1650, regardless of which version of PCIe being used.

That said, you need to keep the Radeon RX 6500 XT's intended usage in mind. Stick to those Medium to High graphics settings at 1080p and only nudge things up as you can. If you try to play on Ultra settings in intense games, or at 1440p resolution, you're likely to exceed the 4GB frame buffer on this card and if that happens over PCIe 3.0, lag spikes and performance slowdowns could get real nasty, real fast.

5. Other missing features

AMD also stripped out some other features in its quest to hit the $199 price point, albeit ones the company claims that most people don't use in this pricing bracket. The Radeon RX 6500 XT lacks AV1 decoding as well as H.264 and H.265/HEVC encoding capabilities. (There are H.264 and H.265 decode, though.) AMD also only slapped singular HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort connections on this GPU. The combination means that the Radeon RX 6500 XT won't be a great choice for home theater PCs, and people looking to stream their gaming adventures will probably want to look elsewhere as well.

That's it for our roundup of must-know facts. For much, much more info, be sure to check out our full comprehensive Radeon RX 6500 XT review.

Update: On January 18, Microsoft said that it had begun to ship with Surface Laptop SE as well as a number of third-party laptops, described in a Microsoft blog post. They include the Acer TravelMate Spin B3 laptop, the ASUS BR1100F, the Dell Latitude 3120 and 3120 2-in-1 for Education, the Dynabook E10-S , and more. The original story follows.

On Tuesday, Microsoft unexpectedly announced a “simpler” version of Windows, Windows 11 SE, in its latest effort to push aside Chromebooks and make Windows the operating system of elementary- and middle-school classrooms.

For years, that operating system was Windows 10 (and now Windows 11) Home in S Mode, aka Windows 10 S or Windows 11 S, which powers the new Surface Go 3. Windows 11 SE appears to be a slightly more flexible alternative: The operating system will support third-party apps including Chrome and Zoom, Microsoft said. Windows 11 SE will also be exclusive to the education market, Microsoft said.

The new operating system has won the approval of hardware developers, too, Microsoft said. Classrooms and parents will have the option of buying Windows 11 SE PCs from Acer, Asus,
Dell, Dynabook, Fujitsu, HP, JK-IP, Lenovo, and Positivo. Even more surprising, Microsoft said it will debut its cheapest Surface yet, the $249 Surface Laptop SE. They'll be available beginning later this year, Microsoft said.

For years, the American classroom has been a battleground for the major tech players, beginning with basic Commodore computers, then moving to early Windows PCs, Apple Macintoshes, and even iPads. In 2011, however, Google moved Chrome OS off its own CR-48 pilot laptops and onto the first Chromebooks from Acer and Samsung. For the last decade, Google-powered Chromebooks have been growing in might, influence, and features, enough to make the decision between buying a laptop and a Chromebook an important choice.

Canalys

It should be no surprise that Chromebooks surged during the pandemic, or that Microsoft is making a renewed push into that territory. Chromebook sales soared as kids turned to remote schooling and parents hunted down the technology that they would normally use in the classroom. According to Canalys, Chromebook sales erupted a massive 275 percent year-over-year during the first quarter of 2021, after climbing even higher during 2020. For the year, Chromebooks even outsold Macs, according to analyst firm IDC. (However, Canalys reported on November 1 that Chromebook sales fell 37 percent from a year ago, as students returned to the classroom. Mercury Research reported similar findings in the PC CPU market.)

What is Windows 11 SE?

Microsoft is only talking about Windows 11 SE in vague terms, though company representatives followed up with more specifics on how it will differ from Windows 11. According to a blog post authored by Paige Johnson, the vice president of education marketing at Microsoft, educators have told Microsoft that “they need options that are simpler, secure, and work on more affordable devices.” Johnson described Windows 11 SE PCs as “distraction-free” and easy to manage.

Microsoft

According to screenshots Microsoft pro vided, Windows 11 SE looks exactly like Windows 11. But there's a few key differences. For one, Microsoft did away with the distracting Widgets menu in Windows 11 SE, according to an email sent by a company representative. Apps will be launched in full-screen mode by default, too. Unlike Windows 11, kids using a Windows 11 SE PC will only be able to run two apps side-by-side, rather than four. Finally, the Start menu will only include four “Recommended” files to help kids find what they need, the representative said.

Johnson also said that the new PCs will be optimized for the most-used education experiences, including Microsoft 365, and that they'll be configured specifically for both online and offline experiences. Microsoft called out Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote as apps that will be included on Windows 11 SE PCs. As you might expect, a Windows 11 SE PC would allow the student to work offline. Students will be able to sync files with OneDrive locally, which will then connect and sync with the cloud when back online. Naturally, school administrators will be able to manage Windows 11 SE devices via InTune for Education, keeping them up to date behind the scenes.

For years, Windows 10 S and now Windows 11 S have forbidden users to download or sideload third-party apps like Chrome or Zoom in the interest of security. But as Zoom's usage soared during the pandemic and users switched out of Windows 10 S to accommodate it, it's likely that Microsoft simply relented.

Microsoft

Well, sort of. While Microsoft will allow apps outside of the Microsoft Store to be loaded onto Windows 11 SE devices, only the IT admins will be able to perform those tasks, a company representative said. That sounds like it will prevent kids from loading apps willy-nilly. According to Johnson, Windows 11 SE also includes “broad support for web-based learning apps,” though it's unclear whether Microsoft is simply talking about supporting something like Zoom's web app versus a true standalone, downloadable application.

Microsoft

Finally, it's unclear what will eventually happen to Windows 10 S / 11 S as a result of Microsoft's new operating system. Microsoft originally launched Windows 10 S in June 2017 as a solution “streamlined for simplicity” for schools, similar to the language Microsoft used to describe Windows 11 SE. But Windows 11 SE certainly seems like a middle ground between Windows 11 and Windows 11 S, and possibly an altogether wholesale replacement. For now, though, both will exist: “Windows 11 in S mode is still a great option for people looking for a general streamlined Windows experience, and in fact, it continues to ship in devices like Surface Go 3,” a company representative said.

Microsoft representatives also noted that Windows 10/11 S will be used to power retail devices, while Windows 11 SE will only be used in laptops for the education market. For now, the two operating systems are on two different tracks.

This story was updated at 10:59 AM to clarify that Windows 11 SE will only be used in the education market. This story was updated a second time on January 18 to note that the Surface Laptop SE and the third-party laptops are now shipping.