The best laptops to buy for remote learning in 2022

After the last two years, it’s fair to say that remote learning and remote work are here to stay at least in some capacity. It’s not all bad – working or learning remotely can give you more flexibility and freedom, and many places take a hybrid approach that give you the best of both worlds. But that means you’re going to need a great laptop, and we’re here to help. We’ve already written about the best PCs for remote work, and in this article, we’ll focus on the best laptops for remote learning.

There are a few things to consider when choosing a laptop for remote learning. One factor we’d say is somewhat important is that it’s not overly expensive, since not everyone is willing to spend thousands of dollars on a laptop for a young student. We’d also favor having good webcams, which might be important for online classes, but you can always consider buying an external webcam if you want better camera quality. And of course, a great display and solid performance are also quite important so students can keep up with their classes and assignments more easily.

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• Best overall: HP Envy x360
• Best premium laptop: Surface Laptop 4
• Best Chromebook: Acer Chromebook Spin 713
• Best affordable laptop: HP Pavilion Aero
• Best 17-inch laptop: LG gram 17
• Best for gaming on the side: Dell G15
• Best affordable tablet: Surface Go 3
• Best Chrome OS tablet: HP Chromebook x2 11

Best overall: HP Envy x360 15

HP makes some of the best and most popular laptops in the world, and the Envy series strikes a great balance of premium features and a relatively affordable price. It has the performance to keep up with all kinds of school work, it has a great screen, and it’s versatile, all while being budget-friendly.

There are multiple versions of the Envy x360, both with Intel and AMD processors, but we’ll focus on the former. The HP Envy x360 is powered by an Intel Core i7-1165G7 processor, which has four cores, eight threads, and boost speeds up to 4.7GHz. It’s one of the fastest CPUs around, plus it has integrated Iris Xe graphics for some light GPU workloads, too. It will breeze through just about any school task, especially with 16GB of RAM included as well. Plus, you can get up to a 1TB SSD for storage.

The display is great too. It’s a large 15.6-inch screen that’s great to work on, and it comes in Full HD (1920 x 1080) by default, which is already great. You can upgrade to a brighter 400-nit panel, which we’d recommend if you want to use the laptop outside. And if you have money to spare, there’s even an incredibly sharp 4K (3840 x 2160) AMOLED option that’s not only great for work but also a stellar way to watch movies and videos on.

The webcam here is a 720p HD camera, and that’s the minimum requirement for a Windows PC nowadays. It’s good enough to use for calls and online classes, though it won’t stand out as a particularly great camera. There’s no Windows Hello facial recognition support, but it does have a fingerprint reader on the keyboard, so it’s easy to unlock.

Design-wise, the Envy x360 is premium, but not flashy. It’s an all-silver laptop (some other models are black), and while it looks and feels good, it’s not super unique. It weighs 4.35lbs and it’s 18.8mm thick, so it’s not super light, but that shouldn’t be a problem if you’re learning from home. One thing this model has is a full number pad, which might be useful if your classes involve a lot of number crunching.

As for ports, the HP Envy x360 comes with one USB Type-C port, two USB Type-A ports, HDMI, a headphone jack, and a full-size SD card reader. It’s a solid setup that covers most needs you’d have. The USB Type-C port doesn’t support Thunderbolt, but we wouldn’t consider that an essential feature for a student.

All in all, the HP Envy x360 balance of performance, display, and price makes it easily one of the best laptops you get for remote learning. You can check out the AMD version here if you find it more interesting.

HP Envy x360 15

The HP Envy x360 is an relatively affordable premium laptop with high-end performance and great specs for remoe learning.

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Best premium laptop for remote learning: Surface Laptop 4

If you want a premium laptop experience across the board and you’re willing to spend a bit more, the Surface Laptop 4 is one of the best options for school, including remote learning. It has a premium design, a great display to get work done, and high-end performance, all wrapped in a sleek chassis. It comes in 13.5-inch and 15-inch versions so you can choose what works best for you.

The Surface Laptop 4 comes in both Intel and AMD flavors, and it maxes it with an Intel Core i7-1185G7 processor (both sizes), or a custom AMD Ryzen 7 4980U (15-inch model; Ryzen 5 4680U for the 13.5-inch version). No matter which version you go with, you’re going to get great performance, so there’s not necessarily a wrong choice. AMD models may be a bit slower, especially on battery power, but they also last longer on a charge. Intel models do come with up to 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, while AMD versions max out with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. Still, both are fantastic options.

The display on the Surface Laptop 4 is one of its highlights. It comes with either a 13.5-inch or a 15-inch panel, but both have exactly the same pixel density, meaning they both look great. The 13.5-inch model has a resolution of 2256 x 1504, while the 15-inch model goes up to 2496 x 1664. On top of that, these panels come in the 3:2 aspect ratio, which is taller than your typical 16:9 display. A taller screen means more vertical space and more display area for things like text in documents or rows in Excel, so it’s great for working on school projects. It’s a touchscreen, too, so you can interact with some things more intuitively by just touching them or using the Surface Pen.

The Surface Laptop 4 uses a 720p webcam like most other laptps on this list, but Surface devices typically have some of the best cameras out of any laptop. While the resolution isn’t anything special, this is still one of the better cameras you’ll find on a laptop. Plus, it supports Windows Hello facial recognition so it’s easy to unlock your PC.

Design-wise, the Surface Laptop 4 has that clean and minimalist aesthetic of the Surface family, but it’s not boring. It comes in four colors (only two for the 15-inch model) – Platinum, Matte Black, Ice Blue (13.5-inch), and Sandstone (13.5-inch) – so you can still get something that’s more unique to your tastes. And if you go with the smaller 13.5-inch model, the Platinum and Ice Blue models have an Alcantara-covered keyboard deck. This is a soft fabric that feels really nice to the touch, and it makes the laptop more comfortable to use, especially when it’s cold and you don’t want to feel cold metal on your wrists.

Coming around to the ports, the Surface Laptop 4 has one USB Type-C port, one USB Type-A, a Surface Connect port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. While we don’t expect most students to have a second screen, some users may have liked to have a display output, so it’s a bit of a shame that it’s not built in. You can use a Surface Dock with the Surface Connect port or a USB-C adapter if you want to connect an external display, though.

Whether it’s for remote or in-person learning, the Surface Laptop 4 is one of the best laptops you can get for a student.

Surface Laptop 4

The Surface Laptop 4 has high-end performance, a great 3:2 display, and a premium design making it great for all kinds of students.

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Best Chromebook: Acer Chromebook Spin 713

Chromebooks are super popular for school, and for many schools, they might be the ideal solution. The Acer Chromebook Spin 713 is one of the very best Chrome OS laptops you can buy right now, so if you’re interested in remote learning, this is a fantastic choice.

While many Chromebooks come with low-end hardware (and they can still run well that way), the Acer Chromebook Spin 713 feels like a premium laptop in almost every way, including performance. It has an Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor with four cores, eight threads, and boost speeds up to 4.4GHz. This is an excellent CPU for just about anything you could want to do on a Chromebook, and everything will run smoothly on it. It even has integrated Iris Xe graphics. The laptop also comes with 8GB of RAM so multi-tasking isn’t a problem, and you get 256GB of SSD storage for your files. Considering Chrome OS relies a lot more on cloud storage, that’s probably more than you’ll ever need.

The Chromebook Spin 713 is also one of the very few Chrome OS laptops with a tall 3:2 display, which also makes it one of the best for productivity. It’s a 13.5-inch panel and it comes in 2256 x 1504 resolution, so it gives you plenty of space to work with and it looks sharp and vibrant. Plus, this is a convertible, so you can also count on touch and pen support, and you can even use it like a tablet.

For online classes and calls, you get a 720p webcam, which does the job well enough. There’s no facial recognition support, or any form of biometric authentication, which is one of the downsides of this laptop. All it means is you’ll need to enter your password to unlock the laptop every time, so how much of a problem it is depends on how much you value convenience.

The design of the Acer Chromebook Spin 713 is premium, albeit not particularly flashy. It’s an all-metal laptop with Corning Gorilla Glass protecting the display, so it certainly feels sturdy and durable. It even achieves military standards (MIL-STD-810H) for durability, so it can survive some accidental drops and bumps. Some may find the all-grey design a bit boring, but it does the job, and it’s a decently portable laptop, too.

As for ports, you get two Thunderbolt 4/USB-C ports, one USB Type-A port, HDMI, a microSD card reader, and a headphone jack, which is a very good setup for a laptop of this size. This should allow you to connect just about any peripheral you want, and you shouldn’t need any adapters, so there isn’t much more you can ask for.

Considering the sub-$700 price point, this isn’t just one of the best Chromebooks, it’s one of the best value laptops you can buy for remote learning. Of course, you’ll need to make sure Chrome OS works for you, but it should be good enough for many students.

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Acer Chromebook Spin 713

If a Chromebook is what you're looking for, it doesn't get much better than the Acer Chromebook Spin 713. It's fast, it has a great screen, and a durable build.

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Best affordable laptop for remote learning: HP Pavilion Aero

Want a great laptop that doesn’t break the bank? The HP Pavilion Aero is one of the best value laptops we’ve seen recently. It checks all the right boxes and still manages to come in at an affordable price, so you can’t go wrong with it if you’re on a small budget.

First off, it’s powered by AMD Ryzen processors up to an AMD Ryzen 7 5800U, which is one of the best 15W processors on the market right now. It has 8 cores, 16 threads, and it can boost up to 4.4GHz, so you’ll have fantastic performance, especially for multi-tasking. It also comes with up to 16GB of RAM (8GB minimum) and a 1TB SSD. It covers all the basic needs you could have at a very compelling price point.

The display is also surprisingly good for this price. It’s a 13.3-inch panel, and it comes in Full HD+ (1920 x 1200) in the base configuration, which is something you don’t always get at this price point, especially combined with the high-end processors. Not only that, you can upgrade to an even better Quad HD+ (2560 x 1600) panel for just $30, which is even less common for a laptop at this price. The display doesn’t support touch, but that’s not a feature everyone needs, and this is still fantastic value.

Above the display, the HP Pavilion Aero has a 720p webcam, which, much like most laptops on this list, does the job. It’s not particularly great, but it’s not terrible either. It doesn’t support Windows Hello facial recognition, but if you want an easy way to unlock the PC, you do get a fingerprint reader for that.

Many laptops at this price point tend to make sacrifices in design, but the HP Pavilion Aero is a pleasant surprise here, too. It has a magnesium alloy chassis, which allows it to be extremely light, weighing less than 2.2lbs. It’s also just 17mm, so this is a very portable laptop. What’s more, the laptop comes in a few different colors, which is also rare for this price point, especially for a laptop made of metal. You can choose from silver, white, gold, and rose gold.

And for ports, you get a solid selection, too. It has one USB Type-C port, two USB Type-A ports, HDMI, and a headphone jack, so it covers most basic needs you could have. You can connect a handful of peripherals and a second screen if you have one, which is all most students should need.

The HP Pavilion Aero offers more value than almost any other Windows laptop you can buy right now, and it’s easily one of the best choices if you want something to use for remote learning.

HP Pavilion Aero

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Best 17-inch laptop for remote learning: LG gram 17

If you want a large-screen laptop for your school work, the LG gram 17 is probably the best option around. This one is admittedly a bit expensive for just remote learning, but if you want a great experience on a large laptop, this is one of your best bets. Going for a lower price on a 17-inch laptops usually means some bigger sacrifices have to be made.

The LG gram 17 is powered by an Intel Core i7-1195G7, a quad-core, eight-thread processor with boost speeds up to 5GHz, which is one of the fastest 15W processors you can find today. It also includes Intel Iris Xe graphics, so you can use it for some light GPU workloads. This model also comes with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, giving you plenty of performance for multi-tasking and a lot of space for school projects and files.

If you’re here for the display, there’s a lot to love in the gram 17, too. It’s a 17-inch panel and it comes in the 16:10 aspect ratio, so it’s going to feel massive. As we’ve mentioned, taller screens give you more surface area, thus more space for content. When you apply that to a 17-inch display, it feels huge. It’s a sharp display, too, coming in Quad HD+ (2560 x 1600) resolution. Full HD is generally a good place to start already, but on a 17-inch laptop, not so much. The extra resolution really pays off here.

For everything it gets right, the LG gram 17 still has a 720p webcam, so it’s not exactly a standout among premium laptops. It does the job fine, though. There’s no Windows Hello facial recognition, but LG builds a fingerprint sensor into the power button, so it’s very easy to unlock your laptop as soon as you turn it on.

Being lightweight is the whole design philosophy behind the LG gram 17, which means this is one of the most portable laptops you can find, somehow weighing under 3lbs. Sure, you’re using it for remote learning, but if you also want to take it to school or anywhere else in the future, this is probably the only 17-inch laptop that lets you do that comfortably. It comes in either white, silver, or black, so it looks professional in just about any setting.

And for ports, you’re looking at two Thunderbolt 4 connections, two USB Type-A ports, HDMI, a headphone jack, and a microSD card reader. It covers all your needs and then some, and it’s hard to complain about any of it.

The LG gram 17 is one of the best laptops you can buy today, and while it may be great for remote learning, it can also be great for much more than that, so it’s an easy recommendation.

LG gram 17

The LG gram 17 is one of the lightest laptops around, which is especially impressive considering it has a 17-inch display. It's also got great performance.

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Best for gaming on the side: Dell G15

You may be buying a laptop for school, but if there’s one thing kids love using their laptops for, it’s gaming. If you want to unwind after your school work and play some games, the Dell G15 is a great laptop that can play most modern games with some tweaked settings, and just about any older game you could want to. Of course, it’ll also do a great job for school work.

First off, this model of the Dell G15 is powered by an AMD Ryzen 5 5600H processor, which is a 45W processor with 6 cores, 12 threads, and boost speeds up to 4.2GHz. Because it has a higher power rating, this is going to be noticeably faster than most laptops we’ve mentioned above, especially if you’re playing games. Backing that up, there’s an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card. As we’ve mentioned, that’s more than capable of running most modern games, though you may need to adjust some settings in more demanding titles. You also get 8GB of RAM of the box (you can upgrade it later), and a 512GB SSD that should be able to store school documents and games alike.

For the display, you’re looking at a 15.6-inch panel that comes in Full HD resolution (1920 x 1080), which is just fine for gaming. It doesn’t have a tall screen like many laptops on this list do, but wide screens are still very popular for gaming. It also has a 120Hz refresh rate, which is also great if you want your games to run as smoothly as possible. This should do a great job for both work and play.

Just like most other laptops on this list, the webcam on the Dell G15 is a 720p camera, and there’s no Windows Hello support either, whether that be via facial recognition or a fingerprint sensor. That’s a feature most gaming laptops don’t have, so it’s not too surprising.

The big caveat with this laptop is that it’s only ideal for learning remotely. Like most gaming laptops, especially more affordable ones, the Dell G15 is thick and heavy, so it’s not something a student should be carrying around all day to school. If the laptop can stay at home, then that shouldn’t be a problem. The laptop does look cool, though, using a textured great chassis with black spots that gives it a pretty unique look. It’s not as obnoxious as some gaming laptops can be, which you might like.

As for ports, the Dell G15 has a pretty complete setup. You get one USB Type-C port, three USB Type-A ports, HDMI, 2.5Gbps Ethernet, and a headphone jack, covering pretty much all you could need. You even get fast wired internet if you need it for gaming or if your Wi-Fi just isn’t reliable enough for online classes. It’s certainly a solid selection of ports that makes good use of this large chassis.

It’s not for everyone, but for the student who’s learning remotely and wants to play games, this is one of the best choices.

Dell G15

For the young gamer who's attending school remotely, the Dell G15 offers the performance you need to handle botth school work and modern games.

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Best budget tablet: Surface Go 3

If you want something affordable, compact, and versatile, the Surface Go 3 is a great laptop for students, especially younger ones with lighter workloads. It doesn’t have top-notch specs, but it’s got a great display, a great webcam for online classes, and it can still handle basic day-to-day tasks like writing documents and browsing the web without a problem.

It’s powered by either an Intel Pentium Gold 6500Y or an Intel Core i3-10100Y, and the latter of those is the more powerful model. It’s a dual-core, four-thread CPU that can boost up to 3.9GHz, so it can still handle basic tasks just fine. It has a low 5W TDP, so it’s not going to be as fast as more expensive laptops, but it should give you solid battery life in return. You can also get the Surface Go 3 with 8GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD, wand that’s something we’d really recommend, even if you stick to the lowered Pentium Gold processor. The base model uses slower storage, which makes a bigger difference than you might think.

The Surface Go 3 makes up for its lesser performance with a great screen, though. It’s a 10.5-inch panel and it comes in Full HD+ (1920 x 1280) resolution, which is very sharp for a display of this size. It’s also using that 3:2 aspect ratio Microsoft always uses for its devices, so it feels a bit bigger than it may seem on paper. It’s a great screen for reading, typing, and watching content, and the small size helps this be a very portable device.

Something else that’s great on the Surface Go 3 is the webcam. It’s using a 5MP on the front with support for 1080p video, making it one of the best cameras out of any laptop on this list. It’s great for online classes so everyone can see you clearly. It also supports Windows Hello facial recognition, a rare feature for laptops at this price. As bonus, there’s another camera with an 8MP sensor on the back, so you can record videos or take pictures for school in a pinch.

Portability is also something the Surface Go 3 excels at. It’s a small tablet that weighs just 1.2lbs, and it’s just 8.3mm thick. Even if you add the Type Cover, which is sold separately, it only adds up to 1.74lbs and 12.9mm, so it’s still super portable. The design is also nice aesthetically, with a clean and minimalist look using a magnesium chassis. It comes in either Platinum or Matte Black colors, so you can choose what fits your style best.

The port selection on the Surface Go 3 is about what you’d expect from a tablet. You get a USB Type-C port, a Surface Connect port, a headphone jack, and a microSD card reader. For LTE-enabled models, there’s also a nano-SIM card tray. And yes, you can get the Surface Go 3 with LTE if you want to stay connected to the internet while away from home. That way, you can attend classes from anywhere.

Surface Go 3

The Surface Go 3 is small lightweight tablet with a great display and webcam that makes it great for remote learning. It also has solid performance for basic school tasks.

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Best Chrome OS tablet: HP Chromebook x2 11

As we’ve already mentioned, Chrome OS is very popular in some schools, and if you want a more affordable option that’s also very lightweight and portable, the HP Chromebook x2 11 is a fantastic choice, especially for younger children.

It’s powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c chipset, which is based on the Arm architecture. This is an 8-core chipset with four performance cores and four efficient cores, and it can handle most day-to-day tasks just fine. Chrome OS is a lightweight operating system, and it’s the perfect fit for this kind of hardware. It also has 9GB of RAM and 128GB of eMMC storage (there’s also a cheaper 4GB/64GB configuration if you want something even cheaper).

The display on the Chromebook x2 11 is also great: An 11-inch panel with a 3:2 aspect ratio that’s great to get work done, but also watch content on. it comes in a very sharp 2160 x 1440 resolution, even sharper than the Surface Go 3, and it also supports touch and pen input. Plus, unlike the Surface, the pen is included in the box, so you don’t have to worry about buying it separately.

You also get great cameras for video calls, online classes, and recording video in a pinch. The front-facing camera is a 5MP sensor, and on the back, there’s an 8MP camera that you can use to record videos or show off something that’s in front of you. There’s no facial recognition because that’s not something Chrome OS supports, but you do get a fingerprint reader built into the tablet so it’s easy to unlock.

The main chassis of the HP Chromebook x2 11 is made of aluminum, which allows it to feel premium and durable. It also has a detachable back plate that serves as a kickstand so you can use it like a laptop, and a detachable keyboard to go along with it. These attachments are grey, or blue in the lower-tier model. By itself, the tablet weighs a mere 1.23bs, but the keyboard and kickstand take that to a total of 2.27lbs. It’s still very much portable and lightweight, though it’s not quite on the same level as the Surface Go 3.

As for ports, you get two USB-C ports and a microSD card reader, which isn’t far from what you’d expect out of a tablet. The lack of a headphone jack may be a problem for some users, and it’s kind of surprising to see it missing, but this is a very thin device when you don’t have the kickstand attached, so it probably wouldn’t be possible to fit it in here.

The HP Chromebook x2 11 deserves a spot among the best laptops for remote learning, especially if it’s for a younger student. You can buy it below or find the cheaper 4GB/64GB model here.

HP Chromebook x2 11

The HP Chromebook x2 11 is a great Chrome OS tablet that's very portable and a great choice for younger students.

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Whether you’re buying for a younger student or someone in the later years of their school journey, there are a few great laptops to choose from for remote learning. We gave the top spot to the Envy x360 15 because it’s a premium laptop with great performance, a great display, a versatile design, and because Windows is the operating system most people are familiar. However, these are all great choices depending on your specific needs and preferences.

If you’re a college student and you want something a little more suited for your needs, be sure to check out the best laptops for college students.

The post The best laptops to buy for remote learning in 2022 appeared first on xda-developers.

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Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon review: An OLED screen in a laptop that weighs under 2.5 pounds

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon is a mouthful to say, but it’s also a killer laptop. It starts with a chassis that weighs in at under two and a half pounds, but then you add on top of that the beautiful 90Hz OLED display. With AMD Ryzen 5000 performance and a price tag that’s $1,239.99, it starts to feel like a bargain.

As you’d expect, there are some shortcomings. It’s still got a 720p webcam, rather than the 1080p sensors that are going to become more common this year. Also, with the 3K resolution of the OLED display and the 90Hz refresh rate, battery life isn’t great.

Still, the IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon is just delightful. This is an ultrabook that most users would absolutely enjoy.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon

Lenovo's IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon is an absolute pleasure. It's got a 90Hz OLED display, AMD Ryzen processors, and weighs in at under 2.5 pounds.

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Navigate this review:

• Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon pricing and availability
• Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon specs
• Design: The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon weighs under 2.5 pounds
• Display: That sweet, sweet OLED
• Keyboard: Pretty standard for a Lenovo consumer device
• Performance: The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon comes with AMD Ryzen 5000 processors
• Who should buy the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon?

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon pricing and availability

• The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon is available now, and this unit costs $1,239.99
• There’s another unit on Lenovo.com that adds MX450 graphics and more storage.

Announced as one of the first PCs to ship with Windows 11 last year, the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon is available now. The model that Lenovo sent me for review includes an AMD Ryzen 7 5800U, 16GB RAM, and a 512GB SSD. It’s available on Amazon from the link above.

There’s only one other configuration that I can find, and that’s from Lenovo.com. That comes with the same processor and RAM, but there’s a 1TB SSD and an NVIDIA GeForce MX450 dedicated GPU.

All models come with the 14-inch 2,880×1,800 90Hz OLED display, which is really the reason why you should be buying this laptop.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon specs

Processor	AMD Ryzen 7 5800U 1.9GHz, 4.4GHz (Max)
Graphics	AMD Radeon Graphics (integrated)
Body	14.9x313x214.5mm (.59” x 12.32” x 8.44”), 1.1kg (2.43lbs)
Display	14” (16:10) OLED 2.8K (2880×1800), 100% DCI-P3, 400 nits, Dolby Vision, Multi-touch
Memory	16GB Dual Channel LPDDR4x-4266
Storage	512GB M.2 2280 SSD
Connectivity	Realtek Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax (2 x 2) + Bluetooth 5.1
Ports	1x USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 (support data transfer only) 2x USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 (support data transfer, Power Delivery 3.0 and DisplayPort 1.4) 1x Headphone / microphone combo jack (3.5mm)
Audio	2x 3W (woofers on the side), 2x 2W (front-facing tweeters), Dolby-branded, optimized with Dolby Atmos
Keyboard	6-row, multimedia Fn keys, LED backlight
Touchpad	Buttonless glass surface multi-touch touchpad, Precision Touchpad
Battery	61Wh, supports Rapid Charge Express (3 hrs runtime with 15-min charge)
Camera	IR & 720p with TOF sensor, fixed focus, E-Camera shutter
Material	Top: Carbon fiber Bottom: Magnesium-aluminum
Color	Cloud Grey
OS	Windows 11 Home
Price	$1,239.99

Design: The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon weighs under 2.5 pounds

• It’s so light that you’ll forget it’s in your bag.
• The Cloud Gray color is a light silver.
• The USB Type-C ports are limiting.

Made out of magnesium-aluminum and carbon fiber, the IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon weighs in at 2.43 pounds, which is incredibly light for a consumer laptop. Being that the lid is made out of carbon fiber, it doesn’t feel cheap and plasticky like many ultra-light magnesium-based laptops do.

And the weight makes a big difference in how it feels to carry, even if it’s just the difference of a half-pound between this and a three-pound laptop. When it’s in your bag, it feels like there’s nothing there. It’s fantastic.

When the IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon is in your bag, it feels like there's nothing there.

It comes in a color that Lenovo calls Cloud Grey, as opposed to the Storm Grey that’s more of a gunmetal shade. Cloud Grey is more of a light silver, and I’m pretty sure it’s just called that because Lenovo likes calling things grey and naming the color after weather. It’s sort of like how HP used to use ‘Dark Ash Silver’ as a fancy way of saying black. Personally, I think the Cloud Grey is very stylish, as I often find the darker tone of Storm Grey to be a bit dull. If you’re ever choosing between the two, go for Cloud Grey.

As for branding, Lenovo still keeps its logo in the corner, and it’s the only major OEM that doesn’t put a big, sexy logo in the middle. It gives the firm’s consumer laptops a basic look.

As for ports, it’s all USB Type-C, which I’m not complaining about. I will, however, complain about the selection of ports. Obviously, there’s no Thunderbolt, which is to be expected on an AMD-based laptop. If it was Ryzen 6000, which Lenovo would have just had to wait a few months for, it could have been USB4.

That’s not what I’m actually complaining about. The issue is that the two USB Type-C ports on the left are very different from the one on the right. The two on the left are USB 3.2 Gen 2, supporting 10Gbps data transfer speeds, DisplayPort, and Power Delivery. The one on the right is just 5Gbps data transfer.

It’s a pain point for sure, because you’re asking the user to know the difference between three ports that look identical, and only the one on the right is labeled as SuperSpeed; the other two have no real label at all. Personally, I discovered the limitation of the port on the right when I left it on the charger, and it wasn’t charged.

Also on the right is a switch for camera privacy. This uses a method I’ve previously seen on some HP laptops, where it actually disconnects the camera internally. I do like this method for a privacy guard, as it’s pretty simple, but it does present a couple of issues.

For one thing, there’s nothing physical covering the camera. Even when HP used this feature a couple of generations ago on its Spectre lineup, it added the physical guard in the next generation. For a feature that’s designed around distrust, I don’t think users want to trust that the camera is disconnected internally. The other issue besides trust is that there’s no way to tell that the camera is disconnected. I went through a call at one point, where it said it couldn’t find my camera, and I had no idea why. I realized later that I had this switch flipped.

Overall, this is a well-designed laptop, and I really want to hammer home how light it is to carry. At 2.43 pounds, it’s delightful, but the thing that really puts it over the top is the OLED display.

Display: That sweet, sweet OLED

• The 14-inch 2.8K 90Hz OLED display is absolutely gorgeous.
• The webcam is still 720p.

This is one of the best displays that you’ll find on a laptop, and yes, that’s because it’s OLED. It’s 14 inches with a 2,880×1,800 resolution, giving it a 16:10 aspect ratio. It’s got a 90Hz refresh rate too, so animations are buttery-smooth. That’s not on by default though, so you’ll have to make sure it’s on in Settings.

The OLED display is absolutely gorgeous.

Being that it uses OLED technology in the screen, that means that blacks are blacker and colors are more vibrant. It’s a stunning display, and it’s really cool that it comes standard. For most OLED laptops, you have to opt for some ultra-premium model that’s super expensive. Being that this one comes in at just over $1,200, it’s one of the lowest-priced OLED laptops out there.

As you can see, the color gamut tests come back as good as they get, supporting 100% sRGB, 96% NTSC, 98% Adobe RGB, and 100% P3.

Brightness maxes out at 401.2 nits, which is just above the 400 nits that’s promised. Contrast maxes out at 27,300:1, which is way beyond the 1,000:1 or so that you’d find on a non-OLED laptop. In fact, it’s probably much higher than 27,300:1, since the blacks get as close to true black as possible.

Here’s the bad news. While the bezels are delightfully narrow, the webcam is still small and 720p. Obviously, you’ll be looking for an FHD webcam if you’re considering working from home. Also in that reverse notch is an IR camera and a TOF sensor for Windows Hello and what Lenovo calls Zero Touch login. The idea is that it senses when you’re in front of the laptop, wakes up, uses Windows Hello to know that it’s you sitting there, and logs you in, all without you ever having to touch anything.

Keyboard: Pretty standard for a Lenovo consumer device

• The keyboard is backlit and the touchpad is big.
• The audio quality is fantastic, making this an excellent streaming box.

As far as input goes, there’s really nothing to see here. It’s a pretty standard keyboard, which is fine.

Lenovo’s keyboards are really good, something it has a reputation for with ThinkPads, but it also applies to consumer PCs like this one. It’s backlit, as you’d expect, and frankly, that line about the keyboard on the spec sheet is all Lenovo’s reviewer’s guide says about it, so we’ll leave it at that.

One thing I really like is that the Precision touchpad is nice and big, taking advantage of most of the available real estate. It gives you a little more space to move around.

The excellent speakers combined with the OLED display make this a great streaming box.

The keyboard is flanked by stereo speakers, which sound phenomenal. There are two 3W woofers and two 2W tweeters, so they’re pretty powerful if you’re interested in audio quality. That also means that this is a really great streaming box. With the beautiful display and excellent audio, watching movies on here is delightful.

Performance: The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon comes with AMD Ryzen 5000 processors

• AMD Ryzen 5000 processors are great, but there’s a big performance hit when they’re running on battery.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon comes with an AMD Ryzen 7 5800U, and the unit that Lenovo sent me has integrated graphics. It’s available in another configuration with an NVIDIA GeForce MX450, if you want the boost, but you probably don’t need it for what a laptop like this is going to be used for. It’s a productivity machine.

There’s good and bad when it comes to AMD Ryzen processors. The good is that you get a ton of performance for the price. To see a package like this come in at $1,239.99, it’s really impressive. These days, any time I feel like we’re seeing a premium laptop that still has a lot of value for the price, it has an AMD chip inside of it.

AMD Ryzen 5000 processors lose over 20% of performance when the power cable is disconnected.

The bad news is that AMD Ryzen laptops lose a good chunk of performance when they’re not plugged into power. Even if you set the power slider to best performance, there will be a difference. And if you’re doing something like photo editing, you’ll actually feel the difference, so it’s notable. Plugged in, this laptop scored 5,621 on PCMark 10, beating out any U-series laptop that Intel offers, in my testing, by over 400 points. On battery life, however, it scored 4,295, which is closer to an Intel 8th-gen (Whiskey Lake) Core i7. This is still fine for a productivity machine, meaning if you work in the browser or Microsoft Office.

For benchmarks, I used PCMark 10, 3DMark, Geekbench, and Cinebench. Note that all of these tests were performed while the laptop was connected to power.

	IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon Ryzen 7 5800U	Surface Laptop Studio Core i7-11370H, RTX A2000	ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 Core i7-1185G7
PCMark 10	5,621	5,573	5,168
3DMark: Time Spy	1,323	5,075
Geekbench	1,412 / 6,347	1,546 / 5,826	1,489 / 5,280
Cinebench	1,377 / 8,222	1,504 / 6,283	1,303 / 4,224

You can see that out of the three laptops, the IdeaPad gets the highest overall PCMark 10 score. However, both Intel processors do better when it comes to single-core performance, while the extra cores on the AMD processor gives it a leg up on multi-core performance. Also, the Surface Laptop Studio does much better on the 3DMark test thanks to the dedicated graphics.

For battery life, the most consistent results I could get were around four hours and 40 minutes. And to be completely clear, I did have the screen set to 90Hz and the power slider set to best performance. Like I said, Ryzen processors do lose a fair bit of performance just from running off of battery life, so I didn’t want to lower the power slider. And as for the refresh rate, if you’re given a higher refresh rate, you’re going to want to use it. Obviously, you can get better batter life if you adjust these things.

Who should buy the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon?

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon is a laptop that’s incredibly easy to recommend. But as always, it’s not for everyone.

Who should but it:

• Customers who want a great productivity laptop and are frequently on-the-go
• People who want a great streaming experience

Who shouldn’t buy it:

• People who need high-quality video for calls
• Creative professionals or gamers that require dedicated graphics

This laptop is just all-around amazing. It’s got a beautiful 90Hz OLED display, AMD Ryzen 5000 power, and it all comes in a package that weighs in at under two and a half pounds.

The biggest downside is the HD webcam. If you’re on a lot of video calls, you’re going to feel that. Also, that beautiful display sure uses a good amount of battery.

Still, the IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon is so easy to fall in love with.

The post Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon review: An OLED screen in a laptop that weighs under 2.5 pounds appeared first on xda-developers.

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These are the Best USB Cables for the Galaxy S22 series in 2022

Samsung has finally revealed its latest lineup of flagship phones — the Galaxy S22, the Galaxy S22 Plus, and the Galaxy S22 Ultra. They come in different sizes and suit different audiences. No matter what your budget or expectations are, there’s likely a Galaxy S22 phone that matches these needs. If you plan to buy one of these phones, it’s a wise idea to check out some recommended chargers for the Galaxy S22 series since none of the phones come with a charging brick in the box. They do come with a USB cable, but that is a USB-C to USB-C cable. However, there’s a good chance you either need a different cable, or you need multiple cables. If you need to pick a new cable up for your device, we have compiled a list of the best USB cables for the Galaxy S22 series.

Best Galaxy S22 series USB cables

There are two mainstream options to choose from when it comes to buying a USB cable: USB-A to USB-C and USB-C to USB-C.

USB-A to USB-C cables

When it comes to the speeds of charging and data transfer, USB-A is slower and more limited than USB-C. However, some people still use old PCs with USB-A ports, older chargers, or newer multi-port chargers — so a USB-A to USB-C cable comes. For the most part, though, new gadgets tend to utilize USB-C instead of USB-A, so we’d recommend first figuring out your use-cases.

Anker Powerline II

Lifetime Warranty

This cable from supports data transfer at up to 10Gbps and is USB-IF certified. Anker is so confident about its quality, offering a hassle-free lifetime warranty for the product.

View on Amazon

Belkin USB-A to USB-C Cable

High-Speed Data Transfer

This 3ft USB cable from Belkin offers high data transfer speeds at up to 10Gbps. However, its charging capabilities are limited to around 15W only.

View on Amazon

Samsung USB-A to USB-C Cable

Official

This 1-meter cable is the official one from the company. If you'd rather not resort to third-party cables, then this Samsung product is what you should go for.

View on Amazon

Hibiker Premium Nylon USB-C to USB-A Cable

3-Pack

This package from Hibiker includes three USB-A to USB-C cables. They're 1ft long each and support data transfer at up to 480Mb/s. And thanks to their braided design, they will likely last you for a long time.

View on Amazon

etguuds USB-A to USB-C Braided Cable

Long

This pack comes with two 15ft long USB-A to USB-C braided cables. It's perfect for those who move around their rooms a lot while holding their connected devices. They're available in four colors to choose from.

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CableCreation Short USB-A to USB-C Braided Cable

Short

This cable is only 6 inches long. It's ideal for minimalists who don't need the extra length. Just like similar products, it supports data transfer at up to 480Mb/s. You can buy it in three different colors.

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USB-C to USB-C cables

USB-C to USB-C cables can support higher charging and data transfer speeds. If you don’t need to plug your Galaxy S22 into a USB-A port, you should most definitely buy one of these USB-C to USB-C cables instead. USB-A isn’t as widely prevalent as it once was, at this point.

Cable Matters USB-C to USB-C Cable

Master Of All Trades

This USB cable offers ultra-fast speeds for both charging and data transfer, at up to 100W and 10Gbps respectively.

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Baseus USB-C to USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 Cable

Affordable

This braided cable is ideal for fast charging, with 100W support. Its data transfer speed is limited to 480Mbps.

View on Amazon

Nekteck USB-C to USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 Cable

Bang For The Buck

This quality cable is affordable and supports 100W fast charging and 10Gbps data transfer speeds.

View on Amazon

Samsung Galaxy USB-C to USB-C Cable

Official

This the official USB-C to USB-C cable from Samsung. It is 1 meter long, isn't braided, and comes with a one-year warranty in the US.

View on Amazon

Anker Nylon USB-C to USB-C Braided Cable

Braided

This pack from Anker includes two 6ft braided cables. They support up to 60W fast charging and are available in three colors.

View on Amazon

AINOPE USB-C to USB-C Right Angle Cable

Right Angle

This braided cable has a right angle on one of its ends. This makes holding your phone in landscape orientation while it's connected more comfortable.

View on Amazon

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Some of the brands we recommend include Anker and Baseus. And of course, you can’t really go wrong with picking the official cable from Samsung itself. However, there’s no real tangible benefit to picking a Samsung-branded cable other than perhaps reliability, so do explore the options.

Samsung Galaxy S22

The Samsung Galaxy S22 is the entry flagship for 2022, bringing over top of the line performance and camera capabilities in a form that fits many pockets and budgets.

Buy from Samsung.com

Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus

The Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus is the mid flagship for 2022, bringing over top of the line performance, display and camera capabilities in a larger housing for those that need to do more.

Buy from Samsung.com

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra

The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is the top flagship for 2022, bringing over top of the line performance, display and camera capabilities alongside S Pen capabilities to deliver an ultra experience for power users.

Buy from Samsung.com

Which of these USB cables will you be buying for your Galaxy S22 phone, and why? Let us know in the comments section below.

The post These are the Best USB Cables for the Galaxy S22 series in 2022 appeared first on xda-developers.

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MediaTek confirms the Dimensity 9000 will debut in the OPPO Find X5 series

MediaTek’s first foray into a proper flagship chipset in years comes in the form of the MediaTek Dimensity 9000. It’s a 4nm chipset manufactured by TSMC and packs a serious punch, featuring’s Arm’s most powerful Cortex-X2 core, an 18-bit image signal processor, Bluetooth 5.3 support, and much more. While we hadn’t heard what devices would run it yet, it’s now been confirmed that the Dimensity 9000 will debut in the OPPO Find X5 series.

Source: GizmoChina

As posted on the official MediaTek Weibo account, the Taiwanese chipset company will debut the Dimensity 9000 in an OPPO Find X5 series device. While it may be a mistranslation (as the above image is machine translated by GizmoChina), it appears that there may be a specific Pro variant that packs this particular chip. That would make sense, as the Dimensity 9000 is actually supposed to be a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 competitor.

Previous leaks are at odds with this confirmation from MediaTek, which would lead me to suspect that the Dimensity 9000 edition of the device may be a limited or later launch. From those leaks, we’ve heard that the phone will have a large QHD+ AMOLED LTPO display with an in-screen fingerprint sensor and a refresh rate of 120Hz, a 5,000mAh battery, and 80W wired fast charging support. There’s 12GB of RAM and 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage — the only model expected to be available in Europe.

OPPO also announced that it has partnered with Hasselblad, just like OnePlus. The cameras are expected to consist of two 50MP Sony IMX766 sensors (primary and ultra-wide) and a 13MP telephoto camera with 5x optical zoom. The device will also feature OPPO’s new MariSilicon X chip, which features a combination of an advanced NPU, ISP, and multi-tier memory architecture on one chip.

The company has announced that it will be showcasing new products at the upcoming Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona. We expect to see the new Find X5 series devices at the event, and potentially with a Dimensity 9000-powered device in tow, too.

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Source: MediaTek Weibo

Via: GizmoChina

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Latest WhatsApp update brings rich document previews

WhatsApp is one of the best instant messaging apps out there, and while it’s not as feature-packed and powerful as Telegram, it’s always getting better with new improvements and features. Case in point: WhatsApp is rolling out a new update that brings improved document previews.

As spotted by WABetainfo, WhatsApp is rolling out a new and improved preview for documents. Up until now, when you shared documents, be it a PDF, JPEG, or DOC, WhatsApp only showed a generic preview displaying the file type and the file name. That means you had to open the document to really know what was inside. With the latest WhatsApp beta update, however, the app now displays a rich preview, giving you a glimpse of the content inside.

WhatsApp beta for Android 2.22.5.11: what’s new?

WhatsApp is introducing a new way to view the preview of images and videos shared as documents. Certain beta testers may be able to use the same feature on some previous updates as well.https://t.co/RtSbCoMfx3

— WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) February 17, 2022

Right now, previews are of really low quality, as you can see in the left image above. This can be indicative of the beta nature of the feature, and we hope WhatsApp will be able to optimize it to display higher-res previews.

The new document preview UI is rolling out with the latest WhatsApp beta update. It’s not widely available on the stable channel yet. If you want to give it a try, you can sign up for the beta program here or grab the latest APK from APKMirror.

WhatsApp has been testing a lot of new features as of late. The app will soon add iMessage-style message reactions, let you finally transfer chats from Android to iOS, and let you preview voice notes before sending them. In addition, WhatsApp is also working on a new feature that will automatically transcribe voice messages. Meanwhile, new drawing tools will allow you to draw thicker and thinner lines on images/videos.

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Android 12’s dynamic theming could come to more platforms as Google releases the Material Color Utilities library

Google is serious about Material You’s dynamic theming system. The company evidently wants more Android OEMs to offer a theming engine (Monet, or something similar) on Android 12 devices, but that doesn’t seem to be the extent of Google’s plans for its wallpaper-based theming system. The company has now open-sourced the Material Color Utilities code library in an effort to bring the new theming system to more platforms.

In a recent blog post (via 9to5Google), Google’s James O’Leary reveals that Material Color Utilities is a cross-platform code library for color, which includes everything developers would need to implement Material You’s dynamic theming system on various platforms. Currently, the library is available in Dart, Java, and Typescript, but Google plans to bring it to iOS, CSS via SASS, and GLSL shaders. Given that it’s open-source, anyone can contribute to the library.

In addition, the blog post sheds light on exactly how the dynamic theming system works on Android 12. As the post explains, each time you change wallpapers on an Android 12 device:

“First, the wallpaper is quantized, reducing the thousands of colors in it to a smaller number by merging them in color space. The reduced color set is small enough to run statistical algorithms against with efficiency. These algorithms are used to score and filter colors; Android 12 gives color options for colorfulness and how much the image they represent, and it filters out colors close to monochrome.

One color, defaulting to the top-ranked color by the algorithm, or chosen by the user in the wallpaper picker, becomes the source color. Its hue and chroma influence the overall color scheme, enabling a vibrant blue scheme, or a muted green one, based on the user’s choice of color.

Using the source color, we create the core palette, which is a set of 5 tonal palettes. A tonal palette is defined by a hue and chroma; the colors in the palette come from varying tones. These tonal palettes reduce cognitive load for designers when creating a design system: instead of specifying hue and chroma for each role, a tonal palette can be substituted.

Finally, we fill out the table that defines the hue chroma and tone of each color role, then use those values and HCT to create the colors used in the theme.”

Furthermore, the blog post highlights how Google came up with a new HCT (hue, chroma, tone) color system to replace the existing HSL (hue, saturation, lightness) system to make designing with colors easier. You can learn more about this new color system by checking out the original blog post.

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Leaked render gives us our first look at Motorola Frontier and its massive camera sensor

Last month we learned that Motorola was working on a “next-generation” flagship phone codenamed “Frontier.” The leak revealed the phone would offer top-of-the-line hardware, including a flagship Qualcomm SoC, insanely fast charging speed, and powerful cameras. Now a fresh leak has given us our very first look at the phone’s design.

Evan Blass, AKA @evleaks has released a high-quality render of the Motorola Frontier, showcasing the phone’s design from multiple angles. As you can see in the images below, the Frontier sports a striking design that’s a departure from previous Motorola phones. The phone has a curved back with the Moto batwing logo imprinted in the middle. However, the most interesting element here is that massive circular camera sensor in the top left corner. The text written along the camera area reveals that it’s a 194MP 1/1.5-inch sensor with OIS support.

Two additional camera sensors accompany the main camera, and a dual-tone LED flash. While today’s leak doesn’t reveal the specs of the other two cameras, a previous report from TechnikNews claims a 50MP ultra-wide sensor and a 12MP IMX664 telephoto camera would join the primary shooter.

Moving to the front, we see a curved display that stretches edge to edge and has a centered hole-punch cutout for the selfie camera. Meanwhile, a SIM slot, the USB Type C port, and the speaker are located at the bottom.

The Motorola Frontier will reportedly feature a 6.67-inch FHD+ OLED display with a 144Hz refresh rate, according to previous rumors. It will be powered by a Qualcomm chipset codenamed “SM8475,” which could be a Plus variant of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. We’re also told the phone will offer insanely fast charging speeds: up to 120W wired and 50W wireless.

Motorola hasn’t officially confirmed anything about the Frontier at this point. In any case, we’re not holding our breath for the phone to launch anytime soon, especially considering the Moto Edge 30 series launch is just around the corner.

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