Sports betting operators in the United States played a vital role in the NFL achieving record sponsorship revenue in 2021. Data compiled by IEG, a global consultancy in partnership strategies and effectiveness evaluation, released its 2021 NFL sponsorship findings this week. The report detailed a historic year for the pro football league. IEG says the […]
Apple on Wednesday released iOS 15.3 and macOS Monterey 12.2 with a fix for the privacy-defeating bug in Safari, as well as to contain a zero-day flaw, which it said has been exploited in the wild to break into its devices.
Tracked as CVE-2022-22587, the vulnerability relates to a memory corruption issue in the IOMobileFrameBuffer component that could be abused by a malicious application to
With a new year comes many exciting new developments in the Valorant space, not least the pending launch of Episode 4, Act 1, which players around the world are keenly anticipating. Episode 3 has officially come to a close, and the first act of Episode 4 officially launched worldwide on January 11, 2022. While there […]
When starting your sports betting career the first thing you should do is build a system that can earn you more profits. This is where professional sports bettors win. They have a value system in place that helps them determine when and where to place bets. At once, it lets you win more and saves a tremendous amount of time. Sports betting is a place where the margin between winning and losing is pretty thin. So, this system can help […]
Deciso® announces the immediate availability of OPNsense® 22.1 named “Observant Owl”. The Observant Owl marks the 15th major release of the popular open source firewall and security...
Are you in the market for a brand spanking new laptop? If so, you've come to the right place. We curated a list of the best laptops available today. From traditional clamshells to swanky 2-in1's, we've got something for everyone. If you're working with an inflexible budget, don't sweat it, we've included Chromebooks and a few other affordable options. Every single one of these laptops has been tested and personally vetted by the crew at PCWorld as well. Read on for our picks for the best laptops around.
Asus ROG Strix G15 Advantage Edition – Best gaming laptop on a budget
The Asus ROG Strix G15 Advanced Edition is an all-AMD laptop that delivers fast CPU and GPU performance at a reasonable price point. It's packing an AMD Ryzen 5900HX processor, an AMD Radeon RX 6800M GPU (with 12GB of GDDR6), 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of SSD storage. According to our review, the GPU “doesn't outpace higher-wattage RTX 3080 laptop GPUs, but it's a worthy competitor for conventional gaming tasks.” Unsurprisingly, the Strix G15 is one chunky machine, measuring 28mm at its thickest part. Although the additional thickness allows more space for cooling components, it's not very portable. That said, so long as you don't plan on taking this laptop everywhere with you, it's a powerful gaming rig that's well worth the money.
We understand that the $1,650 price tag isn't “cheap” in the traditional sense, but this all-AMD laptop costs significantly less than comparable laptops in power. If you look on Best Buy or Nvidia's website for 3080 machines, they cost upwards of $2,200 to $3,000.
Microsoft's Surface tablets were already atop our list of best 2-in-1 laptops, but Microsoft reworked the Surface Pro 8 in numerous ways by adding a larger, higher-resolution, faster screen, a pair of Thunderbolt ports that replace the legacy Surface Connector, and a new inking experience, among other features.
While this generation of the Surface Pro tablet forgoes an always-connected LTE option as well as the choice of a cheap Core i3, performance still soared to the top of the heap. Benefits like how the increased display refresh rate improves inking are subtle improvements that matter, too. It's the most dramatic revamp of a Surface in years and it's all for the better.
Google's Pixelbook Go is a perfectly good Chromebook, and that's exactly what the company set out to create. It offers a careful balance of quality features and economical compromises for a reasonable $649 starting price. And it's a darn sight better than the typical bare-bones model. If you're committed to the Chromebook universe, this is a laptop worth buying.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 is one such laptop. It's packing a quad-core Core i7-1185G7, 16GB of RAM, and integrated Iris Xe graphics. That means it's well-equipped to handle “Office and other productivity apps” and “a variety of multitasking scenarios.” The real star of the show is the 16:10 display, though, as it gives you plenty of room to work with. If you consider yourself a business professional, you'll definitely want to pick this one up.
When we think about the best thin-and-light laptop, it's always been a close contest between the Dell XPS 2-in-1 and the HP Spectre x360. This time around, we're giving the luxurious HP Spectre x360 14 some time in the sun. The Spectre x360 14, now sporting the same Intel 11th-gen Tiger Lake CPU available in the Dell XPS line, trades blows with its eternal rival in test after test. It rises to the top because of a few key advantages: It offers longer battery life (thanks to a bigger battery), a far better keyboard, and little things like a USB-A port and a physical webcam shutoff switch, all for a lower price. Well played, HP.
Dell's updated XPS 17 boasts a huge 17-inch screen, 11th-gen Intel CPU, and GeForce RTGX 3060 GPU. By packing as much screen real estate into such a compact laptop, the XPS 17 is the poster child for what a content creation workhorse laptop is.
The Asus ZenBook Flip 13 offers a lot for the money. It's a beautiful laptop that offers decent battery life, very good graphics, and a lot of pep for most of what you'd do on a small 13-inch convertible laptop.
Some might fixate on its lack of a headphone jack, but that would be unfair to its impressive 11th-gen Intel Tiger Lake Core i7-1165G7 chip and its drop-dead gorgeous OLED screen.
The HP Chromebook x360 12b takes you a cut above the rock-bottom basic Chromebooks that hover around $250 (and continue to sell well). Get one of those for your kids—who cares if they destroy it? But you, the adult in the room, deserve this one, with its surprisingly good design and great battery life.
This is still a budget-grade Chromebook, so there are some compromises: Performance is mediocre, and the 3:2 display, while nice and tall, isn't very bright. Still, we think HP made reasonable choices to provide a productive and enjoyable experience without breaking the bank.
If this particular model of the Acer Aspire 5 looks familiar, it's probably because it's been sitting atop Amazon's laptop bestseller list for months. It's easy to understand why. This AMD Ryzen 3-powered Aspire 5 packs some enticing features for the price, including a Full-HD 15.6-inch display, a slim-and-trim chassis, and solid performance on everyday computing tasks.
That said, a Windows 10 laptop this inexpensive has its compromises. In this case, we're talking a scant 4GB of RAM and a cramped 128GB solid-state drive, while battery life falls significantly short compared to similar Aspire 5 models that don't cost much more.
The PCWorld team puts each and every Windows laptop through a series of benchmarks that test GPU and CPU performance, battery life, and so on. The idea is to push the laptop to its limits and then compare it against others we've tested. Chromebooks, on the other hand, go through a series of web-based tests. It wouldn't be fair or possible to run the same kinds of tests on a Chromebook, as they're Chrome OS-based machines. Below, you'll find a breakdown of each test and the reasons why we run them.
Windows laptops
PCMark 10: PCMark 10 is how we determine how well the laptop handles lighter tasks like web browsing, word processing, spreadsheets, and so on.
HandBrake: HandBrake is more intensive than PCMark 10. It basically measures how long a laptop's CPU takes to encode a beefy 30GB file.
Cinebench: Cinebench is a brief stress test of the CPU cores. It does this by rendering a 2D scene over a short period of time.
3DMark: 3DMark checks if 3D performance remains consistent over time by running graphic-intensive clips.
Video rundown test: To gauge battery life, we loop a 4K video using Windows 10's Movies & TV app until the laptop dies.
Chromebooks
CrXPRT 2: The CrXPRT 2 benchmark tests a Chromebook's battery life.
Speedometer 2.0: This test determines a Chromebook's web browser performance. It simulates this by adding, completing, and removing a to-do list.
Basemark Web 3.0: This benchmark gauges how well a Chromebook can handle web-based applications.
Kraken 1.1: Kraken 1.1 is a JavaScript performance benchmark.
Jetstream 2: Jetstream 2 is a combination of WebAssembly and JavaScript benchmarks. This is a way to gauge how well a Chromebook runs advanced workloads.
What kind of laptop should I get?
Ah, here we are at the billion dollar question. Do you spring for a basic Chromebook or go for a Windows laptop with more features? Well, it really depends on your personal lifestyle and what you plan on using your laptop for. For example, Chromebooks are a great low-cost option for those who just want the basics. I use a Chromebook as my primary work laptop, as it has everything I need for both editing and writing. If you travel a bunch for work, it's probably a good idea to invest in a laptop with solid battery life. If you're still unsure, don't sweat it. I've put together a list of quick tips below.
Laptop type: The first question you should ask yourself is what kind of laptop you're looking for. There's traditional clamshells, 2-in-1's, Chromebooks, and much more. The displays on convertible laptops (aka 2-in-1's), for example, can swing around 360 degrees. This allows you to use the laptop like a tablet. They can also be propped up like a tent for viewing movies or participating in video calls. Chromebooks, on the other hand, exclusively run Google's web-focused Chrome OS and are generally used for everyday tasks. All you need is a Gmail account and boom, you're in. There are pros and cons to each of them. Chromebooks are affordable and generally have good battery life whereas convertibles are normally lightweight and portable.
CPU: If it's CPU power you're looking for, the cream of the crop is the Intel Core i7-1185G7. It's a quad-core, eight-thread CPU with “awesomely high clock speeds.” It can hit up to 4.8Hz on boost, too. However, a Core i
7 is more suited to gaming and more intense work than everyday tasks. Intel processors are available in Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, and Core i9. The higher the number, the more powerful the CPU. If you don't need a ton of power, Intel Core i5 processors are your best bet, as they offer a good balance of performance and price. Basic office and web work gets along just fine on a Core i3, however.
Graphics: You'll want a discrete graphics card for hardcore gaming or editing videos. It's separate from the processor, so you can expect higher performance out of it. Integrated graphics, on the other hand, are attached to the CPU and uses less power as a result. This is perfectly fine for everyday tasks, especially if you're not doing anything that's graphics-intensive.
Display size: If you're a video editor or someone who does a lot of multimedia work, you'll want a display that's anywhere from 15 to 17 inches. The sweet spot is really anywhere from 13 to 14 inches, though. The bigger the display, the heavier your laptop is going to be. A 13- or 14-inch display is the best in terms of portability and value.
Battery life: If you plan on taking your laptop anywhere with you, aim for something that can last 10 to 12 hours on a single charge. That's more than a full work day, so it should theoretically get you through long flights or a day of classes. Obviously, more is always better. Just know that the bigger the battery, the heavier the laptop.
Price: The price really depends on your budget. If you're strapped for cash (been there, trust me), go for a Chromebook or an entry-level business laptop. These laptops are good choices for students or young professionals. If you can afford to spend more, the versatility of a 2-in-1 laptop is really worth it.
Ports: A wide array of ports is always a plus in my book, as it eliminates the need for an adapter. I'd recommend a laptop that has both USB-C and USB-A. An HDMI port is good, too. This is especially useful for when you want to hook up to an external monitor.
There are a lot of benefits of using artificial intelligence in 2022. One of the biggest reasons that many people use AI is to improve their marketing strategies. A recent survey found that 64% of marketers reported that data-driven marketing strategies are more important than ever. One of the biggest reasons big data is so […]
GameStop has announced its latest in-store PS5 restock. Select GameStop locations will have PS5 bundles in stock tomorrow, January 27. The bundles will be exclusive to PowerUp Rewards Pro members. As usual, quantities will be limited, and GameStop hasn't revealed the contents of the bundles.
Based on the picture shared on GameStop's site, it appears that both PS5 and PS5 Digital bundles will be available. GameStop's PS5 bundles typically range from $600 to $750. Bundles generally come with a combination of add-ons. They almost always include a GameStop gift card and PS Plus subscription. Some of GameStop's bundles have also come with a game or two and/or an extra DualSense controller.
While you are paying retail price for everything in GameStop's bundles, if you like what's being offered, it's generally easier to secure a PS5 bundle than a console by itself. We'd recommend heading to your local store when it opens, as the bundles are bound to sell out quickly.
The PS5 remains extremely hard to find in stock at major retailers. We regularly update our PS5 restock tracker when restocks go live, but we haven't seen very many restocks so far this year.