6 awesome laptop deals you should check out now

Shopping for a new computer can be a time-consuming hassle, but if you’re looking for a deal, we’ve handpicked some of the best current discounts to spare you some work. Along with offering you a selection of discounted computers from name-brand makers like Apple and HP, our laptop deal roundup highlights a variety of models suited for different needs — from general use to hardcore gaming — to help you find the PC that best fits your lifestyle.

The budget option: Acer Aspire E 15 E5-575-33BM

First on our laptop deal roundup is the budget-friendly Acer Aspire E5-575-33BM, available for just $350 on Amazon. This PC features a 15.6-inch 1,920 x 1,080 LED display that utilizes Acer ColorBlast technology for a crisp and color-rich HD picture. The seventh-generation Intel Core i3-7100U 2.4GHz processor, 4GB of RAM, and Intel HD Graphics 620 GPU work together to provide sufficient power for work, light gaming, and general use, making the Aspire E5-575-33BM a great choice for an affordable everyday laptop.

The computer comes with a 1TB hard drive for plenty of internal storage, and the battery can last up to 12 hours on a single charge so you have enough power for a full day’s work on the go.

$350 on Amazon

The workhorse: HP Notebook 15-ay011nr

HP manufactures a wide lineup of business-focused laptop computers, and if you’re in need of a reliable work companion then consider the HP Notebook 15-ay011nr. A step up specs-wise from the Acer E 15, the HP comes equipped with an Intel Core i5-6200U processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 1TB hard drive. The 15.6-inch widescreen display offers a 1080p resolution to let you enjoy your games, videos, and pictures in full HD, while the DTS Studio Sound enhances your audio experience with improved bass response and simulated surround sound.

The HP Notebook 15-ay011nr goes for as high as $690 at some retailers, but Amazon has it on sale for $100 off of its already-low normal price. This brings this workhorse laptop down to just $460 for a limited time.

$460 on Amazon

The slimline option: HP Envy 13-ab016nr Notebook

For those wanting something a bit smaller, the HP Envy 13-ab016nr Notebook is a solid option. This slim laptop features a 13-inch display, a 2.5GHz Intel Core i5-7200U CPU, and 8GB of RAM, while the 256GB SSD gives you improved disk speeds over traditional hard drives. Despite its compact form factor, the Envy’s metal construction and scratch-resistant glass screen increase its durability for when you’re on the move.

The lid hinge has a built-in riser that slightly raises the laptop when it is open, allowing for a more natural typing posture and for extra air flow underneath the unit. The full-size keyboard is backlit as well. The HP Envy 13-ab016nr comes in at $757 on Amazon.

$757 on Amazon

The touchscreen option: Acer Aspire S 13 S5-371T-78TA

If you’re looking for a compact notebook like the Envy but want added touchscreen functionality, then the fourth entry on our laptop deal list is for you. The Aspire S 13 S5-371T-78TA is a sleek and lightweight PC with a 13.3-inch 1080p display, seventh-generation Core i7-7500U processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB solid state drive. The Aspire also features a secure fingerprint reader along with a convenient multi-touch screen, adding a tablet-like interface to the traditional laptop design.

When fully charged, the battery can keep going for up to 13 hours, making this notebook an ideal portable companion to carry with you on your busy day. We’ve seen the Aspire S 13 S5-371T-78TA go for $870 at some retailers, but Amazon currently has it available for just $720.

$720 on Amazon

For the Gamer: Acer Aspire VX 15

New on the scene for 2017, the Acer Aspire VX 15 is a laptop built for gamers that — unlike many portable gaming machines — won’t cost you a fortune. With its Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti GPU, the VX 15 is the only laptop on our list equipped with a dedicated graphics card. The seventh-generation Core i7-7700HQ processor can be clocked up to 3.8GHz with Intel Turbo technology which, when paired with 16GB of RAM, should give you plenty of power for demanding games.

The 15.6-inch IPS display lets you enjoy your gaming in full HD, and makes the laptop a good desktop replacement without being too bulky to carry around. The distinctive angular lines and red and black color scheme are accented by a red backlit keyboard for an aggressive look. The Acer Aspire VX 15 can be difficult to find as it is still new on the market, but Amazon now has it available for $1,000.

$1,000 on Amazon

For the Apple lover: MacBook Pro with 13.3-inch Retina display

If Windows isn’t your speed, then we’ve included another option on our laptop deal roundup just for the Apple crowd — and it offers the biggest discount of all the selections on our laptop deal roundup. Amazon is currently offering a generous $150 discount on the 13-inch MacBook Pro with a Retina display, bringing the cost down to $1,150 from its standard $1,300 price tag.

Apple’s famous Retina display technology features an impressive resolution of 2,560 x 1,600, giving you an extremely crisp picture for a compact 13-inch screen. Under the hood, the MacBook Pro comes loaded with a 2.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of installed RAM, and 128GB of flash storage. Two Thunderbolt 2 connector ports allow for high-speed data transfers, and the integrated battery provides up to nine hours of power.

$1,150 on Amazon

Porsche Design Book One is a ridiculously plush 2-in-1 Windows dream device

Porsche Design is making its foray into computing with the launch of the Book One. Pairing up with Intel, Windows and Quanta Computing, the result is a 2-in-1 premium laptop looking to take on the likes of the Surface Book.

The Book One is crafted from anodised aluminium and offers a unique hinge – reportedly inspired by design on Porsche cars – that will give you full flexibility, like a Lenovo Yoga, so you can articulate the device into any angle you need – laptop, tent, easel mode, or relaxed Madame on a Sunday afternoon. 

It also offers complete separation, so you’ll be able to detach the display and use it in tablet mode for complete flexibility. It comes with a Wacom-powered pen that attaches to the side of the device magnetically, offering 2048 levels of pressure, giving you a range of input options. 

The Book One is powered by the latest 7-gen Intel Core i7U processor, with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD, it uses Intel HD Graphics 620 to drive the 13.3-inch, 3200 x 1800 pixel resolution display. 

Pocket-lint

There’s a ridiculous sheen to the Book One, a loving precision to its understated design. Measuring 331.4 x 226.5 x 15.9mm when docked, the tablet side of things is only 7.7mm thick when you separate it from the keyboard. 

The keyboard has a distinctly Mac-like aesthetic to it, offering a large glass trackpad and chiclet keyboard that on first touch appears to offer a precise enough action, although the key travel is perhaps a little shallow for our liking.

Running Windows 10 Pro, with Hello support, this is a lustworthy 2-in-1 designed for those who want something to stand-out from the crowd. The battery will reportedly give you 14 hours of use when docked, the tablet having a 25Wh battery and the keyboard bringing 45Wh to the party.

Pocket-lint

There’s a 5MP camera on the front for video conferencing, with IR for Windows Hello, as well as two full USB 3.0 connections on the keyboard, as well as a USB Type-C, and a Thunderbolt 3.1 on the tablet, giving a cornucopia of connections. 

There’s also a microSD card slot on the side, should you want to whip the card out of your Panasonic Lumix GX800 and slap it into your Porsche Design computer. 

Accomplished, perhaps, the Porsche Design Book One is an example of what happens when there’s very little restriction on the price you’re going to ask your customers to pay. Perhaps it’s an indulgence, but we can’t help wanting one. 

It’s going to be available widely for a credit card bothering €2795. Yes, it comes with a USB Type-C adapter in the box.

T-Mobile upgrades its unlimited plan again to one-up AT&T

T-Mobile added HD video streaming and 10GB of LTE hotspot tethering to its unlimited One plan earlier this month, possibly as a response to Verizon’s new unlimited data plan. Yes, the mobile carrier wars have been intense lately, and they’re getting even hotter. Just hours after AT&T announced it was also adding 10GB of tethering data to its unlimited plan, T-Mobile fired back with another tweak to its One plan. Now, new and existing customers with two lines can get a third for free.

Starting March 1st, customers will be able to snag three lines for $100 (with fees and taxes included) on a One, Simple Choice or Simple Choice No Credit plan. And don’t worry, if you’ve already got three or more lines, you can tack on another for free, according to the @TMobileHelp Twitter account. The promo doesn’t have an end date yet, but customers who get in on it now will be able to keep their free line for as long as they’re on an eligible T-Mobile plan.

So now, we wait and see how the other carriers will respond. The marketplace is super competitive right now, so consumers really stand to benefit from whatever happens next.

Source: T-Mobile

‘MythBusters’ revival gets its new hosts

The original MythBusters show ended with a bang, but Discovery was quick to plan a reboot and launch a reality show competition (Science Channel’s MythBusters: The Search) to find replacements for lead presenters Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman. And at last, the network has its winners: meet Jonathan Lung and Brian Louden, the new MythBusters’ hosts. They’re not your typical show leads (Lung is a product designer by trade, Louden is a pilot and rescue diver), but then this isn’t your typical show. On top of being personable, they had to demonstrate a knack for building machines to test commonly held beliefs.

Will they fill the shoes of Adam and Jamie? It’s hard to say — the two original busters developed a legendary reputation, and that’s not factoring in the talents of regulars like Tory Belleci, Kari Byron and Grant Imahara. They have to prove that they can make scientific experiments just as exciting, and it’s it’s too early tell when we don’t even have a hint as to the new show’s format, let alone its debut date. Look at it this way, though: if the revival doesn’t completely scratch your itch, you can always watch MythBusters alumni doing their thing on Netflix.

Source: CNET

LG is working on a VR headset with Valve

LG is teaming up with video game developer Valve to create a head-mounted virtual reality device that uses SteamVR tracking technology. This places LG in direct competition with HTC, which teamed up with Valve to create the HTC Vive.

This is not the first time LG has dipped its toes into the VR pool. Last year, it released the (largely forgettable) 360 VR headset for the G5 smartphone. LG hasn’t released many details about its new prototype, simply calling it a “high fidelity, next generation VR experience.” But we do know the headset will use Valve’s royalty-free SteamVR 3D tracking system. Valve began offering open access to SteamVR tracking last year, but LG is the first company besides HTC to utilize it.

LG will show off its new headset in Valve’s booth at this year’s GDC in San Francisco, where it says it will meet with developers to collect feedback and impressions. Engadget has a team of reporters at GDC — hopefully we’ll get to see the headset up close before the show is over. Information on the prototype’s pricing, launch dates and territories are coming at a later date.

Source: Road to VR

Mozilla buys Pocket, an app for saving articles

More than one save-it-for-later service is finding a new owner these days — Mozilla has acquired Read It Later, the developer behind Pocket. The service will be treated as a product separate from (but of course, complementary to) Firefox, and will fold into Mozilla’s open source project. It’s also poised to give a boost to Mozilla’s Context Graph strategy, which uses related knowledge to help you find what you’re really looking for on the web.

The reasons behind the move are both ideological and pragmatic. If you ask Mozilla chief Chris Beard, it’s a way of “fighting against the rising tide” of walled gardens online. This helps you share web material regardless of the platform you’re on, he says. However, it’s also a simple matter of growing Mozilla’s mobile footprint. Firefox is one of the bigger browsers in the smartphone world, but it’s still small relative to Chrome or Safari. Pocket puts Mozilla’s brand in front of more people, and might just give them an incentive to try Firefox when they’d otherwise have given it a pass.

Source: Mozilla Blog

Huawei is considering cell towers that wirelessly charge drones

Huawei’s big news at MWC was, of course, the P10 handset and a new watch. The company does have its fingers in other pies, though, and one of those is the drone game. Far away from the exhibition halls where all the smartphones are on display is an area called “Innovation City” (it’s more of a hamlet, but we’ll go along with it). Here, Huawei is demoing a number of quirky ideas, one of which is a grand plan to help solve the short battery lives of drones — and it’s as curious as it is clever. In case you were worried, that’s a scale model of a cell tower above. The plan isn’t to have mega drones.

The concept is part of Huawei’s X Labs project (in partnership with China Mobile). The team behind it identified what it thinks are the two main problems when it comes to using drones for cell site inspection: battery life, and GPS interference from buildings. A spokesperson suggested that GPS issue is also often a significant contributor to the battery life issue. The proposed solution is to have cell towers boost GPS data, passing it to the drone while also providing wireless charging.

In the future, the company hopes that wireless charging will be good enough that the drone won’t need to land at all, but that seems a few years off, especially since we can barely charge a phone more than a few feet across the room right now. Still, if the technology develops fast enough, it could have useful implications that go broader than just cell tower inspection.

China Mobile (Huawei’s partner on this project) already has real-world plans for its network that involve drones. Last summer it outlined a collaboration with Ericsson to have 5G-enabled quadcopters act as relay points between two cell towers to help ease handover problems. With a typical flight time for most drones being around 30 minutes, this is a temporary solution at best — one that might provide some impetus to crack this power issue for good.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from MWC 2017.

We’re live from GDC 2017 in San Francisco!

The 2017 Game Developers Conference is happening this week in San Francisco, and we’re here to keep you up to date on all the latest news from the event. Like last year, companies such as HTC and Oculus will probably share new virtual reality developments, while augmented reality may also be a major topic of discussion at GDC.

Independent game development is now a mainstream endeavor, with studios large and small breaking free of traditional publishing tracks to bootstrap (or crowdfund) their dreams. GDC is the home of the Independent Games Festival Awards and the Game Developers Choice Awards, where the most important and engaging games of the past year are given their dues. We’ll be live backstage with the winners from both awards shows.

Naturally, we’ll play some games along the way, as well as attend keynotes and panels that are happening throughout the week. Stay tuned so you don’t miss any of the action.

Boston Dynamics officially reveals its rolling ‘Handle’ robot

We got a preview of Boston Dynamics’ latest “helper” thanks to offscreen video leaked from a presentation, but now the company is ready to let us meet Handle. Unlike its previous robots that ran, jumped or walked, this two-legged monstrosity gets around on small wheels. Even with the adjustment, the video shows clearly how it can still get down stairs, navigate down a snowy hill, and pull off impressive leaps even while moving.

The company says it’s designed to carry things, hence the name, but with that kind of go-anywhere ability it seems equipped for any kind of task up to and including Judgement Day. Handle is 6.5 feet tall, can jump 4 feet and travels at speeds of up to 9mph. According to the description on the video, it combines hydraulic and electric actuators, and can travel up to 15 miles between charges and it’s apparently less complex than the quadruped and bipedal robots.

Source: Boston Dynamics (YouTube)

Uber’s SVP of engineering resigns amid allegations of sexual harassment

Uber’s highly regarded SVP of engineering Amit Singhal has been asked to leave the company after reports emerged that he was involved in a sexual harassment case while he was still employed at Google. According to Recode, Singhal was with Uber for about a year before the site informed Uber of the allegations against him this week. Singhal, who was regarded as a powerful figure within the search giant, failed to disclose the reasons for his departure to his new employer and Uber claims their own background checks didn’t catch the accusations against him.

Although Singhal disputed those allegations with Google’s head of HR, as well as CEO Sundar Pichai, the company’s own internal investigation reportedly found them to be “credible.” According to Recode’s sources, Singhal was on the verge of getting fired when he decided to resign on his own, but he still received a warm farewell party and posted a heartfelt goodbye on Google Plus. But having a prominent exec with sexual harassment accusations lodged against him is obviously not a good thing for Uber, which is currently in the middle of a very public credibility crisis and dealing with its own accusations of systemic internal sexism. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick personally asked Singhal’s resignation on Monday morning.