Dell XPS 13 Review

Dell’s XPS 13 has been a favorite laptop at Digital Trends since its revitalized debut in early 2015. The original won our Editors’ Choice award, impressing us with its excellent battery life, beautiful display, and slim dimensions. Now, with the release of Intel’s new 8th-generation “Kaby Lake R” processors, the XPS 13 has received yet another internal update, and so has our Dell XPS 13 review.

Our new review model packs the latest Intel i7-8550U into familiar slick silver chassis that’s as trendy as it is eye-catching. Dell currently offers two XPS 13 models which feature 8th-generation processors, both of which are top-end offerings, starting at $1,250 and $1,650. Both configurations are significantly more than the $800 base model, but the low base price means the upgraded versions are still competitive with other high-end laptops.

The Dell XPS 13 was once a trend-setter, but systems like the Asus Zenbook 3 Deluxe, Lenovo Yoga 920, and even the Huawei Matebook X, are hot on its tail. Can the Dell still hold the top spot?

Small, yet big

Opening the Dell XPS 13 immediately reveals its most prominent design trait: an InfinityEdge display. The bezels between the edges of the screen and the edges of the lid are less than a quarter of an inch thick, which means this notebook comes closer to a true “edge-to-edge” display than the competition. They also help the XPS stay small, as it’s only one foot wide and eight inches deep. That’s half an inch narrower than the new MacBook Pro 13.

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

At its narrowest point it’s 9mm thick, and 15 mm thick at its widest point. It’s a very lightweight laptop, but it doesn’t quite feel that way. Maybe it’s the blend of plastic and aluminum, but it feels thicker in the hand than a system like the MacBook Pro 13 which is 14.9mm thick all the way across.

Similarly, the all-aluminum Zenbook 3 Deluxe also feels like a much thinner laptop, despite the fact that it’s only about 2mm thinner than the XPS 13 at its widest point.

The carbon fiber and aluminum chassis feels rigid. Even the thin-bezel display allows only the slightest flex. We feel confident the XPS 13 will handle abuse better than most systems of its size.

This notebook comes closer to a true “edge-to-edge” display than its competition.

The exterior of the standard silver XPS 13 is mundane with the display lid closed. Dell could have done more to differentiate the system at a glance from the Inspiron 7000 series, which also relies on silver metallic accents. Dell’s gold and rose gold models resolve that issue with a subtle change of color. Once open, both models reveal a uniquely textured, soft-touch carbon fiber interior that steals the show.

It’s still a looker, but in a marketplace chock-full of slim, svelte, and increasingly well-built competitors, the Dell XPS 13 isn’t quite the stand-out it used to be. It still feels solid in the hand, build quality is as robust as ever, but the plastic inner bezel around the display feels a little dated.

USB 3.0 dominates, but USB-C is included

Wired connectivity is adequate. It offers two USB ports, both 3.0, along with a Thunderbolt 3/USB-C port, which handles video and additional peripheral connections. The Dell does not charge over this port, but instead still includes a proprietary charger. We’d prefer to see USB-C charging supported.

An SD card reader and an audio jack are also included. There’s no Ethernet or HDMI – you’ll need adapters for those.

You may not need Ethernet, though, because the base XPS 13 comes standard with 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0.

Still one of the best Windows touchpads

The small size of XPS 13 might be worrisome for anyone who’s been burned in the past by bad laptop keyboards, but don’t worry, you’re in good hands here. Or, well, your hands are. In good hands.

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Individual keys provide solid feel, with reasonable travel and a firm bottoming action. Though the laptop is relatively thin, it doesn’t feel flimsy when typing, and no keyboard flex is noticeable in regular use. You can find a better keyboard – Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 series has it beat, for example – but Dell’s effort is solid.

A ton of space between individual keys leads to our only complaint. The key caps could be larger, and the Backspace key is too small. This didn’t trouble us, but users with large hands might find it a problem.

Multi-touch gestures are smooth and accurate thanks to the brilliant touchpad.

Keyboard backlighting is standard. By default, it turns on only when the system is actively in use. Just two brightness levels are available, and a great deal of light escapes from beneath the keys, which can be distracting. A third, even dimmer setting would be preferable.

We can’t praise the touchpad highly enough. Four inches wide, and a hair more than two inches deep, it’s not particularly large, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in fluidity.

Multi-touch scroll and zoom feel wonderful, almost Mac-like, and we never had an issue with mistaken or unwanted input. The tactile left and right buttons integrated into the touchpad lack travel, but it hardly matters because tap-to-click works so well.

Pleasing pixels, sub-par speakers

The standard XPS 13 comes with a 1080p display, featured on our the Core i7-8550U model we most recently reviewed. It has a non-touch matte surface, with a maximum brightness of 267.5 lux. That is less than most competitors, but the non-gloss surface makes the minimal backlight useable in almost all conditions. Its contrast reached 902:1 with the brightness all the way up, coming in ahead of the competition, but just barely. Color accuracy wasn’t as strong, at 2.21.

Lower is better in this test, and some competitors – like the Apple MacBook Pro 13 and Microsoft Surface Pro – achieve a score of less than one. That’s a significant improvement. However, you might not notice (or care) if you don’t handle professional photo and video editing. The XPS 13’s color error is low enough to look good if you’re watching a movie or playing a game.

The glossy 3,200 x 1,800 display on the more expensive QHD+ model fared a bit better. Its 279 lux maximum brightness still doesn’t reach the 350 range which we see on most high-end displays, but will suffice for most use cases.

Contrast is slightly lower than the 1080p model, at just 780:1 with the brightness all the way up, which falls further from the 900-1000 range we’re used to seeing. Its 2.0 gamma is a bit bright, but forgivable, seeing as even strong panels often fall just outside the ideal perfect range.

Both displays look good, but in different ways. The matte-screen 1080p model is a better choice if you read or write frequently on your laptop, as the high contrast and non-gloss surface help documents pop.

The glossy, QHD+ display is the opposite. It’s not the best choice if you’re looking to read a document on a plane, as the mirror-like finish becomes annoying. But it does look more vibrant when displaying entertainment, especially when the laptop is viewed in a dim or dark room.

There’s also a glossy 1080p option available on some models. We didn’t test it this time around, but we have in the past. Its performance is like the QHD+ version, so it’s a good choice if you want an entry-level XPS 13, and intend to use it to watch movies or edit photos.

Audio performance is less than impressive. The speakers don’t sound terrible, but they can’t output enough volume to fill a room with sound, and at high volumes you lose a lot of detail. External speakers or headphones are a necessity for anything other than system notifications and YouTube videos.

A strong showing from the 8th-generation

We’ve reviewed a handful of XPS 13 configurations over the past two years, and the newest model features, as we mentioned, an Core i7-8550U processor, the latest and greatest from Intel. It’s the first quad-core available in the XPS 13 – all previous models had dual-core hardware.

The 8th-generation processor is a strong competitor and a worthy successor to the Core i7-7500U. The new CPU pushes well ahead of the pack, eclipsing most of its competitors featuring 7th-generation chips.

Predictably, the extra cores make their presence known in the Geekbench 4 multi-core test. There, the new Core i7-8550U-powered XPS 13 scored 11,133. A previously reviewed XPS 13 with the Core i7-7500U only scored 7,952. The 8th-generation Core processor was also good for a few hundred additional points in the single-core test.

However, the new XPS 13’s Geekbench 4 scores slip behind other recently updated competitors. The Lenovo Yoga 920 and Asus Zenbook 3 Deluxe scored 14,566 and 13,086, respectively, in the multi-core test. Both scores are a fair bit higher than the Dell, and suggest that the small XPS 13 has trouble using its processor to its full potential.

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

We also tested the XPS 13 using Handbrake to encode a 4K video. Here, the 8th-generation processor maintains its lead, outperforming 7th-generation chips by a solid margin. For instance, the new XPS 13 with the 8th-generation processor finished the encode in about 14 minutes, while the previous 7th-generation model finished the same encode in 18 minutes.

Once again, though, the new XPS 13 isn’t the quickest option. The Lenovo Yoga 920 also features an Intel Core i7-8550U, and it finished the encode in a breezy 10 minutes. The new Zenbook 3 Deluxe with 8th-gen Core i7, though, finished the encode in 15 minutes, a little slower than the XPS 13.

The 8th generation Intel Core i7 processor breathes new life into an old favorite.

Even though you might not notice the speed boost in everyday use — web browsing, running Microsoft Office, or that kind of thing — it’s a big enough performance improvement that you will notice it over time. The 8th-generation processor will shave minutes off video encodes, keep resource-hungry applications like Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Pro well-fed and purring along.

What you get out of a quicker processor is a longer overall life out of the system. The faster your processor is today, the better equipped it will be to tackle resource-intensive applications in the future.

Go with PCIe

PCIe SSDs have become the standard in high-end laptops, and it’s no different here. The newest XPS 13 model featured sustained read speeds of 1,150 megabytes per second, and sustained writes of 569.7mb/s. That’s right around what we got out of the previous model.

That means the XPS 13 is still in league with the fastest laptop hard drives on the market, nipping at the heels of Razer’s Blade Stealth and Apple’s MacBook. Competitors like the Asus Zenbook Flip S, which we tested with a SATA hard drive, struggle to offer half the XPS 13’s read performance. Of course, you can order the lower-end XPS 13 with a SATA hard drive, but the move to a 256GB PCIe SSD is sure to make a difference.

The latest Zenbook 3 Deluxe and Lenovo Yoga 920 however, eclipse the XPS 13’s write speeds by a significant margin, almost doubling them, even if they are neck-and-neck in the read-speed race.

Let’s not play games

Despite Intel’s best efforts to provide gaming-ready integrated graphics, it becomes clearer with every generation that they just aren’t cut out for it.

The Core i7-8550U model of XPS 13 achieves a Fire Strike score of 1,114, better than most of its competitors, but not exactly an impressive score in the grand scheme of things. It’s an improvement over performance we saw on the i7-7500U model, which hit a score of 882, but still isn’t fast enough for the latest games.

Even in a low-impact game like Civilization VI, we only averaged about 12 frames per second on medium settings and 1080p resolution — not exactly what you’d call playable.

Dell XPS 13 (Kaby Lake) Compared To

Asus VivoBook Pro 15 N580VD

HP ZBook 14u G4

Acer Swift 3 SF314-52-557Y

Microsoft Surface Laptop

Toshiba Portege Z30-C1310

Asus ZenBook UX305

Toshiba Kirabook (2014)

Asus Zenbook UX301LA

Dell XPS 13

Dell XPS 12

ASUS Zenbook Prime UX32VD

Sony Vaio S Premium 13.3-inch

Toshiba Portege Z835

Asus U36Jc

Sharp M4000

The Core i5-7200U model performs very similarly in terms of graphical performance. Both chips are equipped with Intel HD graphics which, again, aren’t our favorite. They’ll be fine for some light League of Legends, or maybe even World of Warcraft if you aren’t too picky about quality settings, but that’s about it. Then again, you won’t often see systems this small, or inexpensive, with dedicated graphics.

All day endurance

The XPS 13 starts at 2.7 pounds, and the high-resolution touchscreen increases that figure to a still-light 2.9 pounds. That’s slightly heavier than other laptops in its weight class, such as the HP Spectre and Zenbook 3 Deluxe, but whether you’ll notice half a pound or not is up for debate.

Though physical small, the Dell feels chunky in-hand. That’s an effect of the thin bezels. The XPS 13 is smaller than other laptops sporting a 13-inch display, and thus denser. Despite how it feels, it’s one of the smallest and lightest 13-inch systems overall, and will easily fit in any backpack or bag designed to carry a typical laptop.

Dell has increased the capacity of the battery with each iteration, and it’s now up to 60 watt-hours. That’s among the largest batteries in any 13-inch laptop. Most are at 50 watt-hours, or less.

In the Basemark battery benchmark, the Core i7-8550U version of the XPS 13 kept going for just over three and a half hours. It brushes past results from the latest Zenbook 3 Deluxe and Lenovo Yoga 920, which managed 157 and 203 minutes, respectively.

However, the XPS 13 didn’t take the lead in our web browsing and video loop tests. It lasted 322 minutes in the former, and 541 minutes – over nine hours – in the latter.

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

That may seem like a long time, and it is, but the Asus Zenbook 3 and Lenovo Yoga 920 last even longer. The Lenovo is particularly impressive. Equipped with a 70 watt-hour battery, it lasted just a few minutes short of 14 hours in our video loop test.

Warranty

Dell ships the XPS 13 with its standard one-year “enhanced support” warranty. This is essentially the same warranty you’d expect to receive from any laptop. While it’d be nice to see a longer warranty given this model’s price, we can’t knock the company; few competitors bother to offer more than a year.

Our Take

Though this year’s updates aren’t the most exciting, Dell builds on an already successful computer with the revised Dell XPS 13. It remains our favorite 13-inch laptop, and it’s still a great all-around buy – especially with that new processor. But, just to be sure, let’s break it down.

Is there a better alternative?

The thin and light laptop space has become even more crowded in the last year, but the XPS 13 still stands out as one of the best laptops in the category. The Zenbook 3 Deluxe has made a splash, but despite its finicky keyboard, the latest version puts it in league with the XPS 13 in terms of raw performance. The Lenovo Yoga 920 offers similar pricing, a higher degree of versatility, and the same 8th-generation processor.

The 8th-generation Zenbook 3 Deluxe starts at $1,700. That isn’t as attractive an entry price as $1,250, which is what the 8th-generation XPS 13 starts at. The Yoga 920 is also a little more expensive, starting at $1,330.

If you’re looking for something a bit more business-oriented, Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 series might be a good place to look. The ThinkPad X1 Carbon, for instance, features a carbon fiber chassis, and the signature trackpoint ball in the center of the keyboard. On top of that, it offers a familiar, stylish, and spartan design if the XPS 13’s aluminum accents aren’t quite your taste.

Speaking of aluminum, the Huawei Matebook X might also be worth a look. It’s an ultra-thin, ultra-light laptop which starts at $1,100 for the Core i7 model with 512GB of storage space.

The Surface Laptop and Surface Pro offer compelling alternatives – alongside the Surface Book 2 – but your money goes a bit further with the Dell XPS 13.

HP’s reimagined Spectre line has also challenged the XPS 13’s superiority, with the extremely thin Spectre 13 and convertible Spectre x360. They’re priced competitively too, and offer a solid alternative with a slick look. However, the Dell XPS 13 has a wider range of display options and more attractive, more portable design.

How long will it last?

Dell’s newest XPS 13 model checks off almost everything on our list for a future-proof laptops. It has Thunderbolt 3, plus two USB-A ports for legacy support, screen options over 1080p, the latest generation of Intel processors, a sturdy design, and a large battery.

Should you buy it?

Yes.

The XPS 13 is no longer an undefeated champion. Its battery life is exceeded by a few alternatives, and its performance is just on par with many of its rivals. Dell’s laptop used to be the default choice, but rivals – the Yoga 920, particularly – give it a challenge.

Yet the XPS 13’s performance and portability remain near the top of the class. We also love its design, keyboard, touchpad, and wide variety of configuration options, which range from $800 to over $2,000. There’s something for everyone here.

In the end, the Dell XPS 13 is still the best laptop you can buy.

Editor’s Recommendations

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Best Universal Lenses For Android Phones

What are the best universal lenses for Android phones?

Your Android phone already captures beautiful photos, but artificially distorting the photo to add a fisheye, wide-angle, or macro look to your photos afterwards — something a smartphone can’t shoot normally — ruins the quality and feel.

Instead, using external, universal lenses are a great way to shoot creatively with your Android phone. All you need to do is attach the lens, aim, and start shooting your photography masterpieces!

Here are a few options to consider when looking for a Universal lens kit for your Android phone.

• VicTsing 3-in-1 lens
• Moment Lens
• Photojojo Magnetic lens series
• Aukey Ora lens
• Camkix Universal 3-in-1 cell phone camera kit

VicTsing 3-in-1 lens

This small lens may not seem like it packs a punch, but the VicTsing 3-in-1 clip-on lens brings a new creative element to your photos with three different phone photography perspectives!

To attach on the lens, simply secure the piece over your Android phone’s camera with its sturdy clip, adjust, and start shooting! You have the option to shoot with either a fisheye, wide-angle, or macro lens, so be sure to play around and experiment with different shots to see what you like best.

The lenses are made from high-quality, optical glass, while the clip’s design makes it easy to slide and adjust to fit different smartphone’s cameras for the perfect shot. You can pick up the VicTsing 3-in-1 lens for around $9.

See at Amazon

Moment Lens

While not technically a universal lens, Moment Lens will turn your Galaxy S8, Pixel and Pixel 2 into a professional camera with the twist of a lens.

We believe that the future of photography is in your pocket and we can’t wait to experience the journey with you. (Moment)

These high-end lenses might set you back a couple of buck — between $90 to $100, specifically — but if you’re serious about taking some impecible photos with your smartphone, then Moment is well worth the money.

You can pick up a wide angle lens, macro lens, superfish lens, and tele lens for your Galaxy S8, Pixel and Pixel 2. All you have to do is attach the mounting system over your phone, pick the lens you want to shoot it, screw it on, and start shooting!

See at Moment

Photojojo Magnetic lens series

While some people aren’t terribly fond of magnetic smartphone photography lenses because they don’t tend to stay on as well as clip-on or band lenses, there are plenty of upsides to them. They’re less bulky, typically quicker to attach to your smartphone, and with the Photojojo Magnetic lens series specifically, you have a lot of room to really get creative with your photography!

Unlike some other lenses on this list, the full Photojojo Magnetic lens series — which in total with a pouch cost around $99 — has more than your three standard lens options. The set comes with a wide and macro lens, a super fisheye and fisheye, a polarizer lens, and a telephoto piece.

The lenses are made from a durable aluminum material, so if they slip off accidentally, you won’t always have to worry about them cracking in an instant. The lens glass itself is also thick, and is made from a high quality, high-clarity glass.

See at Photojojo

Aukey Ora lens

Turn your Android phone into a powerful photography tool with the Aukey Ora lens, equipped with a 120-degree wide angle lens and a 15x, high definition macro lens!

The Ora lens is designed with a durable aluminum material and a multi-coated glass to reduce glare and reflections from ruining your photo. The clip that the Aukey comes with is made from a soft rubber, so it won’t scratch your Android as you adjust it to fit perfectly over your phone’s camera.

Not only is the Ora extremely well designed and built from high-quality materials, but the best part of this $30 lens is its powerful 15x macro piece that allows you to capture even the finest of your subject’s details with crystal-clear clarity.

See at Amazon

Camkix Universal 3-in-1 cell phone camera kit

Clip on your Camkix Universal 3-in-1 cell phone camera kit to your Android phone, pick your lens, take aim, and start shooting phone photography masterpieces with this powerful, affordable, pocket-sized piece!

You can pick between shooting with a wide-angle lens, a fisheye piece, or a powerful macro lens; just unscrew the wide-angle on top to expose the macro below. With the Camkix, you also get a velvet carrying bag so your lenses don’t accidentally get damaged and scratched.

Unlike more phone lenses, the Camkix comes in a ton of fun colors to match and customize your Android phone. You can pick from black, blue, gold, purple, red, or silver.

See at Amazon

What do you think?

Are you a fan of using external lenses, or do you prefer to tweak your photos while editing? What are your favorite lenses to use? Do you think external lenses bring a clean, professional quality to your Android phone photography, or would you prefer to shoot on your own?

Let us know what you think in the comments below!

Updated October 2017: We have removed the Godzilla Gear clip-on cell phone camera lens from our list and added the Moment Lens instead.

Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL

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• Join our Pixel 2 forums

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Here’s how well the new Daydream View handles heat

Does Daydream View’s built-in heatsink get the job done?

Google made a variety of updates to Daydream View when they premiered their 2017 model. Along with changes in the fabric, and where your remote is stored, they’ve also added an awesome built-in heatsink to help ameliorate those issues with phones overheating. So the big question is whether or not this built-in heatsink can actually get the job done, and help keep your phone a bit cooler when you’re enjoying VR.

We’ve done the research, and here are the results!

Read more at VRHeads!

Assassin’s Creed Origins for PS4 review: A beautiful, meditative adventure

Walk like an Egyptian? Assassinate like an Egyptian!

In the world of cinema, there are tentpole film franchises. While there are mixed emotions for the consumer when it comes to these movies, these are the flicks that movie studios can count on to sell tons of tickets. I would have to say that Assassin’s Creed is the video game equivalent of a tentpole franchise. In the 80’s you could always count on a new Police Academy movie and now you can always count on a new Assassin’s Creed game.

Just like the sparrows returning to Capistrano, Assassin’s Creed Origins has migrated to the warmer climes of my hot little hands. Let’s take a brief look at Assassin’s Creed Origins on PS4.

See at Amazon

If you want amazing graphics, you got it

Great googly moogly this is a stunning looking game. Built on the back of the Anvil Next 2.0 engine, Ubisoft has created one of the best-looking games I have ever encountered. The setting of ancient Egypt is a perfect showcase for the beauty of this game. For my money, the most satisfying element of this game was simple exploration. Climbing to the top of great heights in order to take in massive sweeping vistas was a real pleasure.

I always felt as if the real story was lurking around a corner somewhere.

Once I had made it to Giza, I heard the siren song of the Great Pyramid off in the distance. All quests went on hold as I rode my mount directly to the base of the Pyramid and spent the next ten minutes scaling to the very top of the gold-capped wonder. Once I had taken a few moments to enjoy the view I slid back down the face of the pyramid, which was just as enjoyable as the trip up.

Then, back at ground level, my childhood curiosity took charge and I was off to find the Sphinx. It’s there. It’s not as big as I imagined it to be. Scattered throughout my session with the game I encountered a few clipping issues and the occasional frame rate drop during cinematics. However, these minor issues did not mar what was a pretty darn breathtaking visual experience.

New Assassin, new combat

There, of course, were some changes in this, the newest Assassin’s Creed game. I would have to say that the biggest change in Origins was in regard to combat. There is a lot more depth to battling opponents than there has been in previous Assassin’s Creed games. Origins has seen Ubisoft make the switch to a hitbox based combat mechanic.

Gone are the days of yore when your assassin would slog through an endless series of animation-based fights where certain death for your enemies was just a button push away. This feels like it leans a bit more toward the hack and slash realm. In addition, you’re not going to have a bunch of enemies standing around you like the bad guys in a Jackie Chan movie, waiting their turn to get beat up.

All these changes serve to create an experience that is a good bit more dynamic than previous Assassin’s Creed offerings.

But how good is the story?

For all the graphic beauty that Assassin’s Creed Origins has to offer, I found the story to be a bit lacking and muddled. You assume the role of Bayek who is sort of the ancient Egyptian equivalent of a sheriff. At the outset of the game, you are beset by a tragedy which forces you to embark on a quest for vengeance against those who wronged you.

More than anything I found Assassin’s Creed Origins to be a nice meditative experience.

While there were moments when I found the main storyline to be dramatic and engaging, I always felt as if the real story was lurking around a corner somewhere. In fact, I found some of the most effective examples of storytelling to be tucked amid the side quests. Another disappointment for me was that it seemed as if the sci-fi elements were given short shrift.

One of the things I have always found compelling about the Assassin’s Creed franchise was the addition of Abstergo and the Animus. Where some of the previous games used these cutaways to create depth of world, in Origin’s these scenes just felt like a break in the flow of the story.

Should you buy it? That depends…

It’s a big week for video game releases. Assassin’s Creed Origins will be seeing big competition in Super Mario Odyssey and Wolfenstein 2. So why should you spend your time in Egypt? In spite of any issues I had with Origins, I actually enjoyed it more than I expected to. It’s a stunningly massive game. With game-time reports rolling in from anywhere from 30 hours to double that if you complete all the side quests, it’s a great way to kill some time.

More than anything I found Assassin’s Creed Origins to be a nice meditative experience. I think the best way to get your money’s worth is to take it slow and enjoy the world rather than barreling through. The setting is fun and beautiful and I can see myself flipping on my PS4 every now and then to play Origins as a pleasant getaway from the real world. Just like any good tent-pole film, Assassin’s Creed Origins isn’t going to revolutionize anything, but it can be fun if you let it.

See at Amazon

Why are we reviewing PlayStation 4 games on Android Central? Let us explain.

PlayStation 4

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Video: What’s new in Android 8.1 Oreo

Say hello to a new flavor of Oreo. Android 8.1 is official, and available now as a developer preview ahead of its launch in December. Being a “point” release of Android, there aren’t too many big, sweeping changes. But there’s plenty for Pixel owners in particular to get excited about.

Android 8.1 is, firstly, a big deal for the 2016 Pixels because it brings them up to date with the look and feel of Google’s latest phones. And it’s a big deal for the Pixel 2 series as well — or at least it will be, when we can demo what the Pixel Visual Core is capable of. There’s a great deal of potential around the Pixel 2’s Visual Core that could be unlocked with Android 8.1 and its AI API’s.

And what’s more, it’ll be important for upcoming phones like the Huawei Mate 10, to unlock the power of their own AI hardware.

Check out our video for a rundown of the top five features you need to know about in the very latest version of Android.

• Android 8.0 Oreo review
• More on Android Oreo
• Android Oreo video review
• Android Central on YouTube

Automatically record every emergency with the $38 Yi dashboard camera

Record your amazing (or terrible) driving with this dash cam!

Is this deal for me?

The Yi 1080p dashboard camera is down to $40 on Amazon with code YIDASH38. It normally sells for $50, so this code is a $12 drop and the lowest it has gone recently.

Features include:

• The ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) – the most advanced and optimized visual recognition algorithms ensure safe driving by providing real time Lane Departure
• Emergency recording feature – Enabled by G-sensor technology, the camera automatically saves footage in the events leading up to a collision and immediately after
• High Definition Image and First-class Night vision – 1920x1080p 60fps high speed video recording captures fast moving scenes and creates high resolution images in high speed. Note: Requires 8 – 64GB Class10 or above microSD card, sold separately
• Features 165 ultra wide-angle to reduce blind spots and obtain full 3 lane coverage. F1.8 apertures (the largest in the industry) and 3.0mx3.0m high sensitivity image sensors guarantee excellent night vision
• Built – in 2.7″ TFT LCD widescreen and intuitive YI Dash Cam App – The interface features large buttons and user-friendly icons for quick recognition and intuitive operation

Amazon users give it 4.3 stars based on more than 1,400 reviews.

You’ll need an SD card to record all the footage onto, so grab this 64GB SanDisk Ultra for just $23.

TL;DR

• What makes this deal worth considering? – This is $2 lower than previous deals, which had it at $40.
• Things to know before you buy! – There are a lot of dashcams out there, and each of them will offer something different. If you’re just trying to get started and see what they are all about, this is a great one to try.

See at Amazon

Happy Thrifting!

Day one Pixel 2 and 2 XL preorders doubled first-gen Pixels

Pichai used Alphabet’s latest earnings call to talk about Pixel 2 preorder performance and the company’s recent deal with HTC.

Alphabet held its latest earnings call on October 26, and during this, it was revealed that the company saw a revenue increase of 24% when looking at its year-over-year earnings. This was already impressive enough on its own, but when talking about Google’s hardware performance, CEO Sundar Pichai also announced that Pixel 2 preorders on day one were more than double the amount the company saw last year with the first-generation Pixel.

This is a huge milestone for Google, especially considering that this is only the company’s second time at truly creating and launching its own phone. Last year’s Pixel created for a bit of uproar for diehard Android fans between the axing of the Nexus brand and dated design, but display issues aside, Google appears to have made a much more positive impact on consumers this time around.

Also during the earning’s call, Pichai says:

To get these devices in people’s hands, we are also focused on scaling our go-to-market strategy. We are investing more in marketing, we are launching in more countries, and we are offering these devices in more retailers and we are already seeing results.

Pichai also references the HTC deal that went through shortly before the Pixel 2’s announcement on October 4, saying that its acquisition of the company’s engineers is “the foundation for our continuity efforts next year.”

The Pixel 2 and 2 XL are still two of the best Android phones you can currently buy, and when you combine them with the likes of the Google Home Mini, Home Max, and Pixelbook, it becomes very clear that Google is serious about being as powerful of a hardware company as it can be. This year certainly seems to be a success for Google, and I’m sure plenty of you are already excited for what the company will have to show off in 2018.

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HTC teases U11 Plus once again, this time shows slim display bezels

HTC’s finally jumping on the slim-bezel train.

This year’s HTC U11 is a mighty fine phone, but when compared to devices like the Galaxy S8, LG V30, and Essential Phone, it’s chunky bottom and top bezels really do look out of place for a 2017 flagship. We’re expecting HTC to announce the U11 Plus on November 2, and thanks to a new teaser from HTC, we have a closer look at just how little bezel the U11 Plus will ship with.

The image that HTC shared on Twitter looks very similar to one that went out earlier this week, but rather than a glimpse at the back of the U11 Plus, we get to see what appears to be the bottom left of the display.

You can see from the image above that the bezels aren’t entirely gone, but they’re drastically smaller than the regular U11. This reduction does mean that there’s no longer a front-facing fingerprint scanner, but HTC’s moved it to a sensible place on the back unlike all of Samsung’s phones this year.

Along with the slim bezels and rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, the U11 Plus should also come equipped with a beefy 4,000 mAh battery, 6GB of RAM, and an 18:9 display with a QuadHD+ resolution.

HTC U11 Plus shown off in renders, official announcement coming Nov 2

Android 8.1 hints at SMS Connect for sending texts via your Chromebook

This is huge.

Even though Android 8.0 Oreo just officially launched in August, that didn’t stop Google from releasing a beta for 8.1 earlier this week. Android 8.1 is a much smaller update compared to the jump from Nougat to Oreo, but there are still a few new goodies to keep an eye out for – especially if you’re rocking a first-gen Pixel.

During an investigation of the 8.1 beta, Ars Technica came across something rather interesting. An APK labeled as “SMSConnectPrebuilt” can be found within the beta, and although it isn’t readily accessible to users by default, the app can be launched through the use of an activity browser.

SMS Connect doesn’t look to be a proper application, but rather something that will be cooked into Android’s settings or pop up when setting up your device for the first time. The splash screen shows a messaging icon with the text “Set up SMS Connect” below it in Google’s new Product Sans font, and underneath that is the following message:

Read and reply to messages on your Chromebook. To set up SMS Connect, allow access to your phone calls, messages, and contacts. Your wireless carrier’s standard messaging rates may apply.

Image via Ars Technica

When tapping the Next icon in the bottom right and granting permissions to the above items, another screen appears saying “You’ll get notifications for new text messages on your Chromebook.” Ars Technica also reports that you can access SMS Connect via a Chromebook by typing chrome://flags in the address bar, turning on Enable Multidevice features, and then restarting your machine.

Android and Chrome OS are finally talking to each other, and that’s beyond exciting.

SMS Connect doesn’t appear to be working at all right now, but even so, this is very exciting for Android and Chrome OS users. Although no one likes to admit it, Apple’s been demolishing Google for years now when it comes to communication between all of your devices. MacBooks have been able to connect to iPhones to work with iMessage for years now, and while third-party solutions do exist for getting SMS messages on your computer, there’s never been a proper solution from Google. That is, until now.

It’s unclear at this point when Google will actually be enabling SMS Connect, but when you combine this with the Pixel 2’s ability to automatically tether to the Pixelbook, it’s easy to see that Google is doubling down on creating an ecosystem of devices that actually talk and work with each other.

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Seawater desalination will quench the thirst of a parched planet

Humanity has sought to make the Earth’s oceans potable for thousands of years. The Norse tale of Utgarda-Loki tells of Odin being tricked into drinking from a horn connected to the sea, while Exodus 15:22–26 of the Bible likely describes Moses desalinating the water of Marah:

When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter; therefore it was named Marah. And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.

Even the Greek philosopher Aristotle once observed that “salt water, when it turns into vapor, becomes sweet and the vapor does not form salt water again when it condenses.” Yet, despite the continued accelerating pace of technological advancement since we switched from BC to AD, turning salt water into fresh has remained more expensive than transforming it into wine. But as climate change continues to ravage the world’s watersheds, we may soon have little choice other than to turn to the sea’s bounty of H2O to keep our growing global population from getting parched.

Roughly forty percent of the world’s population — 2.3 billion people — lives in water-stressed areas, with that figure predicted to rise to a full two-thirds by 2025. Per the World Health Organization, another billion don’t have access to clean, piped water. So unless we want to try our luck with a Mad Max-style dystopia, we’re going to need to find new sources of drinking water, so why not the ocean? It does contain over 97.2 percent of the planet’s water resources and given that desalination only supplies about 1 percent of the world’s drinking water, there’s plenty of room to expand.

“The sea is the unlimited source from which we can create new freshwater through desalination,” Leon Awerbuch Director, International Desalination Association, told Filtration Separation, “and seawater desalination offers the potential for an abundant and steady source of fresh water purified from the vast oceans.”

“Desalination has decisively proven, during the last forty years, its reliability to deliver large quantities of fresh water from the sea” he continued, “so we can no longer view fresh water as an infinitely renewable resource because, unlike oil, fresh water has no viable substitute.”

Large-scale desalination efforts began in the 1930s, though they relied on the ancient principle that Aristotle described: a condensing dome sandwiched between a saltwater boiler and a coolant tank. Water vapor would rise from the boiler, collect in the dome and be diverted for human consumption. The entire process was highly inefficient and energy intensive, though it did eventually evolve into a process known as multi-stage flash distillation (MSF).

It wasn’t until the late 1950s that the modern, membrane-based reverse osmosis (RO) technology came into existence. In 1959, researchers CE Reid and EJ Breton first described the use of polymeric cellulose films for desalination and built the first working RO prototype. Four years later, a team from UCLA devised the first asymmetric cellulose acetate membrane. It would take nearly four decades for RO to overtake MSF. Currently, state of the art research is exploring the use of water-channeling proteins called aquaporins (AQPs), which the human body uses to ferry water across cellular membranes, as well as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) for incorporation into RO applications.

As of 2015, roughly 18,000 desalination plants were in operation worldwide, 44 percent of them being located in the Middle East and North Africa. All told, they produce 22,870 million gallons of drinking water per day.

“I don’t see [the demand for desalination] slowing down any,” Michelle Chapman, a physical scientist at the US Bureau of Reclamation in Denver, Colorado, told Science Magazine.

Today, RO is the most efficient and widely accessible means of desalination at our disposal, capable of sifting the salt molecules and chloride ions out of both seawater (30,000-50,000 total dissolved solids mg/L) and brackish water (1,500 – 15,000 TDS mg/L). While it is still a resource-heavy operation — it takes a lot of energy to push salt water through these membranes at a sufficient rate — modern RO systems consume around a third of the power required by older MSF plants.

These two distillation technologies are not mutually exclusive and have been combined into hybrid MSF/RO systems numerous times in the past two decades. These hybrid systems work much the same way combined-cycle natural gas turbines do, with the MSF system generating low-pressure steam that can be used to drive a mechanical RO distillation process. Hybrid plants can also be combined with conventional power plants and renewable energy sources, using excess electrical power generated by those systems to drive the distillation.

Take the soon-to-be-completed Al Khafji desalination plant in the UAE, for example. It will produce 60,000 cubic meters of water per day while drawing power from a grid-connected solar power plant spanning more than 119 hectares and generating up to 45.7MW of power.

Not only do these hybrid systems reduce the plant’s carbon footprint but up to 40 percent, they drastically reduce fuel costs. “In the base case for a 455,000 cubic meters per day MSF desalination and 400 MW of electric power generation plant, the fuel consumption is 191 tons/hr and the annual cost requirement will exceed US$735 million,” Awerbuch writes in Water and Wastewater International, “By comparison, a hybrid 455,000 m3/day desalination plant based on 60 percent thermal and 40 percent RO will operate at reduced fuel consumption of only 115 tons/hr. This equates to a cost of US$443 million per year.” That’s an annual saving of $292 million.

Of course, cost and power consumption aren’t the only hurdles desalination must overcome, there are a number of environmental impacts that need to be addressed as the technology becomes more common — the first being, what do we do with all this brine?

Brine is the high salinity leftovers from the desalination process. It is produced at the same rate as freshwater in that for every two gallons of seawater that come in, one gallon of fresh and one gallon of brine go out. Coastal desalination plants often simply dump the brine back out into the ocean, however, that can wreak havoc on the local wildlife population. Since brine is denser than the seawater around it, the brine will quickly sink and spread out along the seafloor, shrouding it in a low-oxygen film which suffocates any marine life caught the area.

Beyond the brine, desalination plants may also pose a risk to the local ecosystem. These plants suck up massive amounts of water and, along with it, fish fry, eggs, plankton and numerous other organisms that make up the base layer of the food web. Data on the long-term impacts of these plants’ effects on their local environments remain scarce.

One potential solution to the intake issue is to suck the water in from underground. “Subsurface intakes are being used in a growing number of plants around the world, as new drilling technologies – like the directional drilling that has made hydraulic fracturing possible – have made subsurface intakes possible in more locations,” Heather Cooley, co-director of the Pacific Institute Water Program said in a 2013 statement. “Now, even where the site is surrounded by generally unfavorable conditions, it may be possible to find a pocket with the right ones.”

Unfortunately, installing these sorts of intakes is very expensive — especially in cases like the proposed Poseidon Resources desalination plant in Huntington Beach in Orange County, California where the entire seabed above the intakes would have to be dredged and excavated, then replaced with a different kind of soil more amenable to the saltwater incursion. The company also estimates that the intakes construction costs would tack on an extra $1-1.5 billion to the $2 billion plant itself. What’s more, the environmental costs in doing that could be astronomical.

So where do we go from here? Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be any magic bullet solution to desalination technology’s growing pains, there is no revolutionary membrane technology just around the corner. Instead, the state of the art is likely to continue plodding along, making iterative improvement after iterative improvement, steadily driving costs down and efficiencies up as it has since the development of RO technology began.

That’s not to say that commercial scale (and commercially viable) desalination plants are unobtainable, just look at what Israel has managed to do. In 2004, the country pulled all of its potable water from the ground or collected it from rain. Today, five desalination plants provide two-thirds of the nation’s drinking water, nearly 582 million cubic meters of water annually. The Sobek plant, the country’s latest and largest, churns out 627,000 cubic meters of water per day alone.

However, even in places like Israel and the UAE, where the governments have made concerted efforts to adopt the technology, there are still some fundamental technical limitations that must be addressed. And addressed they will be, because, on our rapidly warming planet, we no longer have the choice not to.