Lenovo’s first VR-certified 15-inch mobile workstation packs a six-core CPU

Lenovo introduced its first 15-inch virtual reality-ready mobile workstation on Wednesday, June 13, the ThinkPad P52 laptop. It joins the current ThinkPad P52s model but offers better hardware such as up to an eighth-generation Intel Xeon six-core processor, up to a Nvidia Quadro P3200 discrete graphics chip, and up to 128GB of system memory. With that kind of hardware, you should have no problem developing and experiencing top-notch virtual reality applications and games. 

Lenovo didn’t provide a full list of processor options prior to the workstation’s introduction, but you will have a choice of five operating system options for your developing needs: Windows 10 Pro for Workstations, Windows 10 Pro, Windows 10 Home, Ubuntu, or Red Hat Linux. Preloaded on the laptop will be Lenovo Vantage and a trial of Microsoft Office 2016. 

Lenovo’s generalized hardware list shows that you can cram up to 6TB of storage in the new workstation, some of which relies on PCIe-based connections for crazy-fast data read and write speeds. You will also find two types of memory options: 8/16/32GB non-ECC memory sticks, and 8/16GB ECC memory sticks. The laptop presumably has four memory slots supporting 32GB each. 

For the workstation’s port complement, here is what you get: 

• 3x USB-A (5Gbps) 
• 2x Thunderbolt 3 
• 1x HDMI 2.0 
• 1x Mini DisplayPort 1.4 
• 1x Microphone/headphone combo jack 
• 1x SD card reader 
• 1x Smart Card reader 
• 1x Gigabit Ethernet port 

Other bells and whistles in Lenovo’s upcoming workstation include a 15.6-inch touch-capable screen with a resolution supporting up to 3,840 x 2,160, support for 100 percent of the Adobe RGB color space, and a brightness of up to 400 nits. The laptop ships with an infrared camera for facial recognition in Windows Hello, a 720p webcam, Intel 9560 Wireless AC connectivity, Bluetooth 5.0, and 4G LTE connectivity (Cat 9). 

Finally, powering this laptop is a 90WHr battery and a 170-watt external power supply. The workstation measures 14.86 x 9.93 x 0.96 inches and weighs around 5.4 pounds. 

“When our customers choose Lenovo, we want them to know that means more than just receiving a quality computer,” the company says. “For us, it’s about choosing design innovation, legendary quality and a dedication to detail. Like you, we constantly challenge the conventional to deliver an entirely new level of power, durability, and possibility for our customers.” 

Meanwhile, the ThinkPad P52s mobile workstation has a $1,070 starting price and will likely be the cheaper alternative. The baseline configuration includes an Intel Core i5-8350U processor, a discrete Quadro P500 graphics chip, 8GB of system memory clocked at 2,400MHz (DDR4), and a 500GB hard drive. The 15.6-inch IPS screen only supports a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution. 

The ThinkPad P52 workstation doesn’t launch until later this month for an unknown starting price. Also made available at launch will be the ThinkPad Thunderbolt Workstation Dock, the Lenovo Passage Backpack, and a 170-watt ThinkPad power supply if something goes wrong with P52’s bundled version (aka kids, pets, vacuum cleaners, etc.). 

To see Lenovo’s entire family of P Series workstations, head here.

How to play ‘Skyrim: Very Special Edition’ on your Alexa device

Bethesda appeared to be mocking itself during its E3 2018 conference with its trailer for Skyrim: A Very Special Edition on Amazon Alexa. The trailer features comedian Keegan-Michael Key getting completely carried away playing the game, swiping everything off of his table while using the unrelenting force shout “Fus Ro Dah.”

Most people thought the game was a joke. But, it’s no joke at all. Like everyone else, we were surprised to find out the game is real. Yes, you can actually download and play Skyrim: A Very Special Edition.

What is ‘Skyrim: A Very Special Edition?’

Skyrim for Alexa is a simple, text-based adventure game. It’s reminiscent of the old DOS text adventure games like Infocom and other text-based games from the ’80s, except it’s voice-controlled, so you listen to the game through a speaker and input your commands vocally.

While playing Skyrim: A Very Special Adventure, Skyrim fans will recognize some of the features and lingo in the game, like some of the races, enemies, weapons, and abilities. For instance, you’ll probably come across someone from the Red Guard race, or maybe a Khajiit warrior, or possibly a Dark Elf. The game also frequently asks if you want to use shout. Unlike the console iterations of Skyrim, however, you can’t customize your character, open your inventory, or choose the specific spell you want to use during combat.

Although you don’t have a ton of control over what’s happening in the game, it is fun to imagine yourself traveling through the universe. With a little imagination, you can picture yourself in the world of Skyrim, going on quests as Alexa describes them to you.

How to play Skyrim on Amazon Echo

To play Skyrim: A Very Special Edition on your Echo Spot or another Amazon Alexa device, you just have to follow a few simple steps.

Step 1: Go to your Amazon account and search Alexa skills for “Skyrim: A Very Special Edition.” You’ll also want to make sure your Echo device is connected to your Amazon account.

Step 2: Enable the skill.

Step 3: Say “Alexa, open Skyrim”

Step 4: Start your text-based adventure.

The game starts by telling you that you’re standing at a crossroad, and it asks you which of two options you want to explore. Do you want to explore a fortified town or a foggy dock? If you start the game over, it may give you two different options, like an isolated shack or an ancient stone. As you play on, you’ll encounter enemies. When you encounter an enemy, your main options are to attack the enemy with a weapon, cast a spell, use a shout, or flee the scene.

Throughout the game, you’ll notice Alexa has a lot of funny quips. For instance, if you choose the flee option, Alexa may say something like “you scamper off with your tail between your legs, no need to mention this to anyone.” Thanks Alexa, we feel much better now.

If you exit the game, it will start you back at the beginning of the quest you were on when you left. It may say something like, “you open your quest journal, and you were helping a dark elf…” to remind you of your quest.

How to play Skyrim on your smartphone

If you want to go into battle without an Echo device, no worries. Here’s how to play Skyrim: A Very Special Edition on your smartphone:

Step 1: Download the Amazon app on your iOS device. Android users should download the Alexa app.

Step 2: Login into your Amazon Account, search Alexa Skills for ‘Skyrim: A Very Special Edition,’ and enable the skill.

Step 3: Tap the Alexa button in the upper-right corner of the Amazon App. If using the Alexa App, the Alexa circle is located at the bottom.

Step 4: Say “Alexa, Open Skyrim.”

Step 5: Begin your adventure.

Is Skyrim: A Very Special Edition any good?

Don’t expect the Alexa version of Skyrim to be anything like Skyrim Special Edition. It’s not even close. We may even go as far as to say that the game is a de-evolution back about 20 or 30 years. It offers limited choices and very limited user control. You can ask very basic questions, like “what’s my health?” and Alexa will tell you “your health is 95.”

But, other than Alexa answering very basic questions and offering you a few options to choose from in situations throughout the game, you’re kind of just along for the adventure. But, that doesn’t mean it’s not fun to try.

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Out-of-this-world champagne bottle is designed for popping in zero gravity

So you’ve scrimped and saved, and your 2038 self and significant other are rocketing off into space for the first time, staying on one of the pricey but luxurious International Space Station-style hotels that orbit the Earth. But how best to celebrate your week away from work and your belligerent robot boss? How about by popping a bottle of the world’s finest zero-gravity champagne!

Okay, so most of this scenario is still science fiction, although it’s certainly becoming more real every day. However, the reference to a space champagne is totally legit. It’s the work of Mumm International, one of the world’s most established champagne producers. This week, the French company announced its new Mumm Grand Cordon Stellar vintage, a bubbly designed with space exploration in mind.

Officially launching (no, not in that way) in September, the new champagne is the result of a three-year partnership with space design agency Spade. While the contents of the bottle are what you might expect, the part of it that makes it space-ready is the unique design of the bottle. Or as Spade founder Octave de Gaulle said: “The big design challenge for Mumm Grand Cordon Stellar was actually getting the liquid out of the bottle [in zero gravity].”

Without the assistance of gravity, the unusual-looking bottle uses the champagne’s gas to expel the liquid from the bottle into a ring-shaped frame. There, it is concentrated into a droplet of bubbles, which float through the air until they are captured by an equally unorthodox champagne glass boasting a concave cup. The otherworldly experience continues when you drink the champagne, since the alcohol exists as a ball of foam until it enters the drinkers’ mouth, whereupon it transforms back into a liquid.

“It’s a very surprising feeling,” Didier Mariotti, Mumm’s Cellar Master, said in a statement. “Because of zero gravity, the liquid instantly coats the entire inside of the mouth, magnifying the taste sensations. There’s less fizziness and more roundness and generosity, enabling the wine to express itself fully.”

According to Mumm, this will be one of the first champagnes to grace the supersonic airliner French Concorde. There’s no word yet on what this space-age champagne will retail for, but we can’t imagine it’ll be particularly cheap. Still, if you start paying it off now, it’ll be taken care of by the time of your 2038 vacation!

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Google plays guidance counselor with its new college search feature

Choosing which college to want to attend for the next four years is stressful enough, never mind all the other factors that come along with it: Finances, the campus environment, and more. To help ease the anxiety, Google added a new feature to its search engine that provides all the information needed to responsibly navigate the future.

Using public information from the U.S. Department of Education’s College and Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), the results include data available specifically for four-year colleges. After searching a specific school, the new feature breaks down the information into different tabs to look through admissions, cost, majors, outcomes, and other criteria.

Last year, the company debuted a similar feature for job searches on Google. By searching terms like “jobs near me” and “teaching jobs” when looking for work, the results provide users with information like the location of the job and how long ago the post went live. It also includes whether it’s a full-time or part-time position and an estimate of how long the commute will take from home.

Similar to the job search feature, students searching specific four-year schools will be able to click through in-depth information by simply typing in “UCLA” or “Rutgers University” into the search bar. That way, there is an ability to rule out options that aren’t intriguing right on the spot.

To give both students and parents a more realistic overview of what to expect over the next few years, the search tool will provide the average cost after student aid is applied, which is also broken down by household income. Other data includes graduation rates, along with the average annual income 10 years after enrollment to help students see the long-term effects of attending the school.

The search feature also lists stats about the student body, notable alumni, and undergraduate enrollment rates to help paint a picture of what attending the specific college could look like. It will even suggest other colleges that are similar to the one you’re currently looking at to expand your list of options.

Google is currently rolling out the college search feature is on mobile. Some features are available on desktop as well.

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Google Pixel Launcher will soon let you manually toggle its dark/light theme

The feature will be added in a “future Android build.”

Google’s Pixel Launcher is one of the best Android launchers around, and with the launch of the Pixel 2 last year, it introduced a feature that enabled a dark theme when applying certain wallpapers. Now, Google’s going to give you manual control for toggling it.

Spotted by the fine folks at Android Police, a Googler recently responded to a thread on the Google Issue Tracker from a user requesting a light and dark theme toggle in Android P, saying:

We have added support for a Dark theme to be applied to quick settings and launcher under Settings -> Display -> Device Theme. It will be available in a future Android build.

It’s unclear what the “future Android build” will be, and while we could see this added as soon as Android P Developer Preview 4, we should get it by P’s public release at the latest.

I love the current implementation of the Pixel Launcher’s dark theme being tied to your wallpaper, but even so, it’s going to be really nice to have the freedom of choosing when it is and isn’t applied. Also, with Google putting this under a new “Device Theme” section, might we see even more themes added down the road? Speculate away in the comments below.

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AT&T granted approval to acquire Time Warner for $85 billion

The decision comes after a six-week-long trial.

For the past six weeks, AT&T has been in court over concern of its want to purchase Time Warner for a total of $85 billion. On Tuesday, June 12, Judge Richard Leon of the United States District Court in Washington D.C. officially approved the deal.

Leon says that the acquisition doesn’t violate any antitrust laws, and in response to the government asking Leon to put down his own ruling to potentially kill the purchase, Leon noted that the quest was “manifestly unjust.”

AT&T was originally sued by the U.S. Justice Department for trying to buy Time Warner, and if it wants to, the Department has the option of making an appeal before AT&T moves to complete the deal six days from now.

Per Makan Delrahim of the Justice Department —

We continue to believe that the pay-TV market will be less competitive and less innovative as a result of the proposed merger between AT&T and Time Warner.

On the flip side, David McAtee of AT&T’s general counsel says:

We are pleased that, after conducting a full and fair trial on the merits, the Court has categorically rejected the government’s lawsuit to block our merger with Time Warner.

With AT&T and Time Warner joining forces, the two companies claim they’ll be able to better compete with the likes of Google, Amazon, Netflix, Facebook, and others. AT&T and Time Warner will offer better-targeted ads to their customers, and as a result of all this, it’s expected that prices will be lowered at some point.

AT&T says it’ll complete the purchase of Time Warner on June 20, and seeing as how the wireless carrier first announced these plans on October 22 of 2016, some resolution is well overdue.

What do you think about AT&T buying Time Warner? Drop a line in the comments below.

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Hands on with Marvel’s Spider-Man for PlayStation 4

Spider-Man looks and feels beautiful to play, but there are a few eyebrow-raising gameplay elements.

At Sony’s E3 2018 event, they finally showed off in-depth gameplay for Insomniac’s Spider-Man… or, as in-depth as they thought they should, I suppose. Just from what was on screen, I was disappointed in the lack of detail the publisher went through in showing off the game. None of what they showed was especially dramatic from what we had already known, and it felt like much of our time was spent in cutscenes rather than in gameplay.

However, after the event, I was able to go hands-on with Spider-Man from Insomniac Games and experience traveling the city, fighting off bad guys, and taking down a familiar boss.

Spider-Man, Spider-Man

When I first saw the trailer for Spider-Man, I was excited, but a bit nervous at the prospect of the most quintessential of Spidey’s powers: his web-slinging. Given my clumsiness, I wasn’t sure I could pull off a series of complex grapples to get myself around the city in a smooth, flowing motion like the trailer showed.

Even if I did mess up, I could always stick a landing, dash up a building, and get going again.

Fortunately, I never had to. Spider-Man throw out a web with a touch of R2 and, in the dense New York cityscape, almost always hits something. The game’s logic for web placement was fairly good while I played, and there’s enough freedom of movement on a single sling that even if the angle wasn’t what I was gunning for, I could still make nice, smooth turns and keep the flow going. Even if I did mess up, I could always stick a landing, dash up a building, and get going again. Sailing around the city like this was by far my favorite part of the demo, and I hope there are enough interesting landmarks to explore to make it worth just floating around for hours.

Though I know it’s not a great comparison, something about this view from the sky reminded me of what I loved most about early Assassin’s Creed games–looking out over a huge city and planning my next move before setting off over the heads of everyone below, zipping across rooftops. It’s not quite the same, but the feeling of freedom was comparable.

Whatever a Spider can

Eventually, I had to stop swinging around and take out a bunch of thugs atop a roof construction site, where I got a taste of the combat in Spider-Man. With the square button, Spidey will punch, kick, and perform logical combos–circle is to dodge. Triangle shoots webs, X will jump. These four buttons can be used in combos to pull off interesting moves on enemies and counter some of their attacks. There are also certain special moves that can be executed if you fill up a Focus bar high enough by landing attacks, and that bar can also be burned to self-heal.

I enjoyed combat more than I expected. Spidey fights fluidly and intelligently, usually targeting the nearest enemy I focus my camera on and flowing from one clash to the next seamlessly. I also appreciated his ability to web sling up out of combat if things got hairy, then drop back down for a surprise attack. Spider-Man does include some stealth elements, allowing for an advantage if you can sneak up on your foes.

Find your objective

Earlier, I compared the “view from the sky” element in Spider-Man to what I had always wanted to the earlier Assassin’s Creed games, but there’s also a negative comparison to be made on those same lines. When not actively pursuing story missions, you can use a ability to search the city for trouble and go deal with the problems. This can involve stopping drug deals, chasing runaway cars, fighting off thugs, or (I presume) other activities. I worry about Spider-Man suffering from the weird, repetitive map bloat that other open world games like it suffer from, where the map is peppered with objectives and you find yourself not wanting to do any of them. Though I enjoyed the simple acts of swinging through the city and combat itself, I can see chasing cars and fighting same-faced thugs on rooftops getting real old, real fast.

To combat that, the activities will need to be diverse enough in the final game to keep everyone’s attention and preventing the map from becoming a non-stop series of pointless objectives. I don’t know yet if Spider-Man will deliver on that, but given how much I enjoyed some of the game’s other elements, I very much want it to.

It’s electric

My session concluded with a boss fight against Electro, who had escaped from prison. It took place in the lobby of a bank and mostly consisted of a familiar boss loop: dodge attacks, use ability to break boss’ shield, hit him, repeat. This seemed a little bit basic compared to what I’d seen in the trailers, but I’d be lying if I said the addition of web slinging abilities didn’t make things much more enjoyable. I liked being able to dodge attacks both in the air and on the ground, and the addition of Spidey’s web grappling and shooting abilities spiced things up somewhat.

Overall

Overall, I walked away from Spider-Man feeling happy but a bit more skeptical than I had been when I initially saw the trailer. The overall feel of the game, characters, witty banter, and the deluge of popular villains delivered on my expectations, but there was the slightest creep of hum-drum open world game elements that gave me pause. I hope that repetition was reflective only of an easygoing demo to ensure I was able to experience everything, and not an indicator of the full scope of the game. It’s a big city–there should be a lot to discover.

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Linking your Fortnite account to a PlayStation 4 is becoming a problem

Sony hasn’t opened PS4 for cross-play like other platforms have

This year at E3 2018 it was announced that Fortnite is now on the Nintendo Switch. Now you can cross-play with Fortnite on your PC, Switch, Mac, iOS, and Xbox… just not PlayStation 4.

Me 2.

— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) March 10, 2018

Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox, expressed his desires for PS4 and Xbox to be able to cross-play together. This leaves us to assume it was most certainly a decision on Sony’s part to not allow it. Previously Sony had explained that their decision to not allow cross-play was to “protect their players’ security,” but they have chosen to not make any comment on why they’re deciding to stay out of such an inclusive platform game.

If you want to use cross-play, don’t link your account to PlayStation 4

If you create a Fortnite account and link it to your PS4, it will not allow you to log in on any other platform besides PC. This means you’ll be required to make a separate account to use on another platform. If you are a new player looking to get into Fortnite who intends on using the crossplay options make sure you link your account to anything but your PlayStation.

.@PlayStation, fix this.Not allowing me to sign-in to Fortnite Switch with my Epic account because it’s linked to PS4 is tone deaf and points more to fear than market dominance. It does the opposite of what you want — it makes me think about moving to Xbox for Fortnite. pic.twitter.com/D9xqv9aWdF

— Greg Miller (@GameOverGreggy) June 12, 2018

Basically, what I’m saying is, if you want to use the cross-play options then don’t link your Epic account to your PlayStation 4. You don’t want your account locked to a PC and PlayStation when you have so much more abilities to play with a lot more people by keeping it connected to literally any of your other platforms. On top of this, your PlayStation 4 account purchases don’t transfer to your Xbox, Switch or PC accounts. But, if all your friends are playing on PlayStation 4, and you have no intention of linking it to another account, then you have nothing to worry about.

Unlinking your Fortnite account from PlayStation

There are a few warnings we want you to know before you do this. You will lose just about everything connected to your account as you can not carry it from one console to another. These warnings and instructions will work for PSN ID, Nintendo account, Xbox gamertag, or another external account.

• All of your saved data lives on your Epic account, not your connected account.
• If you disconnect your PSN ID from the Epic account that is currently connected to, any purchases, stats, and saved data will be lost.
• Platform Locks on Fortnite cannot be circumvented, even by replacing one connected account with another.

If you’ve read the warnings and still want to disconnect your PS4 account so that you can connect it to another platform:

Go to your Connected Accounts page.
Click the DISCONNECT button below the external account in question.

Now your account is free to connect to any console you so wish to connect it to.

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Judge Approves AT&T and Time Warner Merger

A planned merger between AT&T and Time Warner can move forward, a U.S. District Court Judge ruled this afternoon, reports CNBC.

AT&T’s $85.4 billion purchase of Time Warner has been on hold since November, when the United States Justice Department filed a lawsuit to stop the merger, based on the argument that it would result in higher bills and fewer options for consumers.

According to the court’s ruling, the merger between the two companies is legal, and no conditions were imposed on its approval.

In a statement, AT&T said that it is pleased with the merger and plans to move forward with closing the deal on or before June 20.

“We are pleased that, after conducting a full and fair trial on the merits, the Court has categorically rejected the government’s lawsuit to block our merger with Time Warner. We thank the Court for its thorough and timely examination of the evidence, and we compliment our colleagues at the Department of Justice on their dedicated representation of the government. We look forward to closing the merger on or before June 20 so we can begin to give consumers video entertainment that is more affordable, mobile, and innovative.”

The Justice Department, meanwhile, said that it was disappointed with the court’s ruling.

“We continue to believe that the pay-TV market will be less competitive and less innovative as a result of the proposed merger between AT&T and Time Warner. We will closely review the Court’s opinion and consider next steps in light of our commitment to preserving competition for the benefit of American consumers.”

Today’s decision could have an impact on other significant “vertical” mergers where distribution companies like AT&T purchase companies that make content, like Time Warner. Comcast, for example, has already announced plans to bid on Fox’s assets in an attempt to beat out Disney.
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Vivo Nex hands-on: Welcome to the all-screen future

The day many of us have been waiting for has finally arrived. A truly bezel-free smartphone is here! Sort of. Many have tried and many have failed, with the much-maligned notch emerging as the compromised offspring of those failed attempts to rid the smartphone of bezels. The Vivo Nex is the closest to a truly bezel-free smartphone we’ve seen come to market. It’s has very few compromises and no notch.

The phone fuses the in-display fingerprint scanner demo shown at CES 2018 and the drool-worthy Apex concept phone’s front-facing camera from MWC 2018, and we got to hands on with it.

Unfortunately, the phone everyone wants — with a look long promised by science fiction — not everyone will be able to get. The Vivo Nex is currently only slated for a Chinese release. It may come to other select markets in time, but a truly global release isn’t likely. Given Huawei and ZTE’s woes in the U.S., one can hardly blame Vivo for focusing on more friendly markets. Selling units isn’t Vivo’s main focus here though; demonstrating truly cutting-edge technology is.

Science fiction has long promised us that smartphones of the future would look like the Vivo Nex.

If U.S. hostility to Chinese smartphones means the first bezel-free device you buy isn’t made by Vivo, that’s perfectly fine. Vivo says the Nex is more about taking a step into the industry’s future than it is about being number one. To that end, Vivo senior vice president Alex Feng says he hopes the Nex gets the industry to “continue pondering ‘what’s next?’ in this mobile experience journey.”

For what it’s worth, I wish everyone would have a chance to buy the Vivo Nex, because it truly feels like a momentous turning point. It feels somehow unfair that not everyone will get to experience such a significant device.

As with most smartphones these days, it all starts with the screen. As bezels have shrunk, so too have the defining features on the front of most phones. The Vivo Nex features a 6.59-inch Super AMOLED panel with a 19.3:9 aspect ratio and Full HD+ resolution (1,080 x 2,316, 338ppi). As with most other OLED panels, it offers deep blacks and colors that pop. There’s also an always-on display option for showing missed calls and message notifications.

The Vivo Nex does away with the bezel above the display, only keeping a very slight chin at the bottom. In case you’re interested, the bezels measure 1.71 mm on the sides, 2.16mm on top and 5mm below the display. Because the Vivo Nex pushes the boundaries with a 91.24 percent screen-to-body ratio, there’s no room for the usual array of sensors, cameras and speakers you’d find on a traditionally-proportioned smartphone. Those have now moved under the glass or inside the device’s body.

The earpiece speaker has been removed altogether. Vivo’s Screen SoundCasting technology now use the display itself as a speaker. Vivo says this not only releases the Nex from the burden of a top bezel but also adds “more powerful bass and softer, smoother treble.” From what I could hear at the noisy launch event it sounded fine, but we’ll give it some more rigorous testing in the full Vivo Nex review. The rest of the Nex’s audio comes from a single bottom-firing speaker. There’s also a 3.5mm headphone port up top, in case you were worried.

The earpiece speaker and fingerprint scanner live under the display glass while the front-facing camera slides up from the top of the Vivo Nex only when needed.

The in-display fingerprint scanner is the other Big Deal in the Vivo Nex. While the Vivo X21 UD and Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS also featured such a scanner, Vivo was the first to demo the tech back at CES 2018. The tech is now in its third generation, and while it won’t offer device unlocking quite as quick as a modern capacitive finger scanner, the slight delay you’ll experience will be far outweighed by the simple satisfaction of unlocking your phone through the screen. According to Vivo, the new scanner provides a 10 percent speed increase, 50 percent higher accuracy and a 30 percent lower fake recognition rate than the under-glass scanners in previous devices.

The front-facing camera is hidden in the upper frame of the phone, popping up when you launch the front-facing camera. It’s a novel and, perhaps counterintuitively, kind of “obvious” solution to the bezel-free problem. Like Oppo’s rotating camera on the Oppo N1 or a plastic cover to obscure the webcam on your laptop, sometimes a simple solution is best. That said, I totally understand the misgivings many have aired over making the operation of your front-facing camera dependent on a piece of mechanical tech that could fail.

The camera mechanism has undergone extensive testing and can be raised and lowered 50,000 times and withstand up to 45kg of thrust force when extended.

To address the “failure question,” Vivo assures me that the front-facing camera can push up to 500g in repeated trials and its micro-stepping motor, independent drive ICs and control algorithms allow the camera to move with absolute precision. With a special buffer structure design, the camera has also undergone reliability tests such as drop resistance and dust resistance tests. According to Vivo, the camera can be raised and lowered repeatedly up to 50,000 times and withstand up to 45kg of thrust force when extended. Only time will tell what the failure rate of the camera elevator will be in real-world usage.

Speaking of cameras, the Vivo Nex has a dual camera setup on the back. The camera has a 12MP f/1.8 sensor with 1.4-micron pixel size and both optical image stabilization and electronic image stabilization. The secondary camera on the back is a 5MP f/2.4 lens and the front-facing camera is an 8MP f/2.0 shooter. We didn’t have time for usable test shots at the launch event, but we can tell you shutter lag is a thing here. Stay tuned for a full gallery of images.

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Vivo Nex announced: Full-screen powerhouse

Hate the notch? You’ll love the new Vivo Nex. There’s no cutout at the top, yet its bezels are still tantalizingly thin. It may look like a prop from a sci-fi movie, but it’s a …

The camera app offers a range of aspect ratios and shutter triggers (including touch, voice, and a palm gesture). You can also reassign a long press of the volume down button to quickly launch the camera when the screen is off. If the last camera you were using was the front-facing one, the lens will slide up instantly while the camera app launches. There’s a full manual mode, HDR, portrait mode, and Live Photos. The front-facing camera only shoots 1080p video, but the main camera shoots 4K.

The Vivo Nex’s glass back features a nice diffracting pattern beneath the glass which creates rainbow colors in the right light. Despite the glass, the Nex lacks wireless charging, an IP rating, or NFC for contactless payment systems like Google Pay. The omission of any or all of these might be a dealbreaker for some.

As far as the rest of the phone goes though, there are no compromises. The Vivo Nex  packs in the Snapdragon 845 with Qualcomm’s AI Engine and the Adreno 630 GPU, 8GB of RAM, variants with 128 or 256GB of internal storage, a 4,000mAh battery with fast charging and Android 8.1 Oreo underneath Vivo’s FunTouch 4.0 software layer.

The software experience on most Chinese phones won’t appeal to most westerners, but a quick dip into the pool of alternate Android launchers will manage to cure some of what ails you. We’ll dive deeper into what the software offers in the full Vivo Nex review, but most of what you’d expect from an Android device is present and accounted for, it’s simply presented in a less palatable fashion than, say, the Pixel 2.

There’s a dedicated AI button on the left for summoning Vivo’s Jovi Intelligent Voice Assistant. You can change what the button does in the settings, but only to the image recognizer, voice assistant, or nothing — there’s no option for switching it to your virtual assistant of choice. There’s also a ton of AI-this and AI-that, primarily in the camera. Most of this will probably not appeal, and often doesn’t rely all that heavily on AI at all. We’ll cover that further in the review too.

Out of the box, the Vivo Nex has gesture navigation turned on. Swipe up from one of three spots on the bottom of the screen to go back, go home or open recent apps. You can also turn on on-screen nav buttons if you prefer. Vivo also lets you rearrange the order to put the back button (or back gesture) on the left side where it belongs. If you opt for gesture navigation and would like a visual cue, you can choose between horizontal lines or small dots. You can remove everything from the bottom of the screen once your used to it.

The Vivo Nex will be available in China (and possibly other select markets in future). It’s priced at 4998 yuan (~$780) for the 256GB version, while the 128GB version will cost 4498 yuan (~$702).

Like its screen-to-body ratio, the Vivo Nex comes very close to doing everything but falls slightly short. Even in my brief time with it, I noticed a few things that will niggle some people. Camera lag, a slow(ish) fingerprint scanner, bloatware, as well as the lack of an IP rating, NFC, and wireless charging are all worth noting. In all honesty, those absences are relatively minor, and frequently don’t appear on “normal” phones with big bezels and regularly placed fingerprint scanners.

Where the Nex fails, it more than makes up for in the sheer coolness, the novelty, the audacity of what it promises.

In some ways the Vivo Nex shouldn’t be considered a normal phone and shouldn’t be judged by the same standards. It goes somewhere no one else has gone before and it does so surprisingly well. However, it’s also a phone in the real world, affected by things like price, availability, update reliability, feature set and so on. It’s a first-gen product, to be sure, and as such we should expect a few things to not be quite perfect. Perhaps this is why Vivo is more interested in showcasing tech with the Nex than it is in taking the world by storm.

The Nex more than makes up for its problems in sheer coolness, novelty, and the audacity of what it promises. We are literally on the brink of smartphones with all their traditional front-facing components and sensors hidden out of sight or underneath the display. The Vivo Nex, even its name, points to a time so tantalizingly close we can almost touch it, even though it still hasn’t fully arrived.