Apple Pay Promotion Offers Free Bonus Credits With $10 TouchTunes Purchase

Apple’s latest Apple Pay promotion, which is Halloween-themed, offers Apple Pay users three free bonus credits when making a purchase of $10 or more in the TouchTunes jukebox app on iOS devices.

TouchTunes is designed to let users play the jukebox at more than 65,000 bars and restaurants across the United States. To get the credit, users will need to download TouchTunes and make a $10+ credits purchase to receive the free credits. Credits within TouchTunes are used to play songs at local jukeboxes.

According to the fine print of the deal, it will last from October 24 to 11:59 Pacific Time on October 31 in the United States and Canada. Only one reward is available per person and per Apple Pay account.

Apple’s promotional email also highlights several other apps designed for party planning, including Party City, Pizza Hut, and Walgreens, along with Lyft, Postmates, and Uber for avoiding Halloween traffic.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay
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Uh-oh. Somebody taught drones how to team up so they can open doors

There are plenty of drones designed for flying indoors. You know what those drones can’t do, however? Open doors. At least, that’s true in 99 percent of cases. Fortunately, the diminutive Flycrotug microdrone is the exception to the rule — and all it needs is a partner drone and its trusty lasso.

In a proof-of-concept demonstration, Flycrotug’s creators showed how two drones could attach their onboard cables to a door handle, anchor themselves to the floor using adhesive feet, and then pull the door open using on-board winches. This is only one example of how the drones could interact with their environment. Other examples might include removing a piece of debris blocking their path. The objects the drones are able to pull can weigh up to 40 times their own weight.

“We came up with a design for micro air vehicles that allows them to anchor onto their environment — similar to insects — and tug loads much heavier than what they can fly with,” Matthew Estrada, a graduate student at Stanford University, who worked on the project, told Digital Trends. “This addresses one persistent limitation with small, air vehicles: They are very mobile, but can only exert forces about twice their weight with thrust from their propellers. It is exciting progress because it could allow them to accomplish tasks that we usually send in larger robots to tackle.”

Kurt Hickman

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Estrada said that an application for these tiny, scenery-manipulating drones might be in search and rescue tasks. They could be especially useful when these involve confined or remote environments, where other robots would struggle to fit or reach. That might mean slipping through a crevice or the window of a partially collapsed building to clear a pathway or retrieve an item of interest for rescuers.

“This is really a beginning, and there are many interesting questions in making this a practical method in unknown environments, where they would encounter a variety of different attachment surfaces and obstacles they would need to interact with,” he continued. “Planning maneuvers for manipulation tasks and generalizing the hardware to attach onto ever-more varied surfaces are two interesting thrusts for future work.”

A paper describing this research was recently published in the journal Science Robotics.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Eye-tracking tech lets you control a drone by looking where you want it to move
• 7 amazing anti-drone technologies designed to swat UAVs out of the sky
• Disney takes to the air with an autonomous paint-spraying drone
• Death from above? How we’re preparing for a future filled with weaponized drones
• Awesome Tech You Can’t Buy Yet: A.I.-powered cat toys, wallets, food containers

Lenovo Smart Display review

Google Assistant is awesome. It’s everywhere we go, knows just about everything, and helps us keep track of our lives. We use it in our phone multiple times a day and our homes are starting to fill up with Assistant-powered smart speakers and connected devices.

If you thought talking to Google was really cool, wait until you’ve interacted with it visually. That’s the basic premise of the Lenovo Smart Display, one of the first products of its type to hit the market which is powered by Google Assistant.

Available in 8-inch and 10-inch configurations, the slate is everything your kitchen or home office ever needed. Well, that might be just a slight exaggeration. Nevertheless, it’s hard to imagine a future without something like this in every room.

What is the Lenovo Smart Display?

The Lenovo Smart Display runs a different, but increasingly interesting operating system in Android Things. It’s not the full-blown Android experience that you get with a phone or tablet; it doesn’t have any apps or access to the Google Play Store. In essence, it’s a canvas that compliments your lifestyle using anything and everything possible from your Google account.

When not in use, the Smart Display defaults to a digital picture frame or clock. Walk into a room and you’ll see it cycling through a Google Photos album or simply offering up the current time. Prompt it with “Hey Google” or “Okay Google” and it gets down to business.

Think of all of the things you do with Google Assistant today. Whether it’s asking for the weather forecast, a glimpse into your day, or querying Search for some random statistic, you’re tapping into it quite often. If you’re like us, we’re using more with each passing week.

Once you have the ability to literally see what Google knows, it changes the game. Now, instead of hearing how tall a particular building is, you get a picture and a readout of the stats, too.

If you ask for a timer on your phone, you get a countdown that can run in the background. If you ask to watch a video, your phone hands you off to YouTube. Music? Here’s that playlist with album artwork on Google Play Music. How about a recipe? Ask Google how to make a raspberry Danish and your phone pulls up neatly organized results with easy-to-read ingredients and directions.

The Lenovo Smart Display takes all of that stuff you get on your phone and reconfigures it for the kitchen. Or home office. Or bedroom. It works no matter where you put it, and it works in so many facets of our lives.

This isn’t simply taking the same results and actions and expanding them to a larger display. No, Google does an excellent job of taking advantage of a bigger, portrait orientation.

Design

We’ve already talked quite a bit about what the Smart Display can and does do. Let’s back up and discuss how it’s designed as well as how it looks, and sounds.

First, and foremost, it takes up a fair amount of space. It’s not the same as a 10-inch tablet as there’s a speaker grille to the left with a curved, angular back with bamboo finish. It’s a unique design that lets the Smart Display sit in both landscape and portrait orientation.

There are rubber feet on the bottom and left end, meaning it is meant to fit your environment. That’s physically, at least. For not the software does not allow for any portrait stuff just yet.

In a crowded kitchen, on a smaller nightstand, or on a cluttered desk the portrait mode would work best. With that said, if there’s room for it, the landscape looks awesome and it compliments pretty much any decor.

The 10-watt speaker, and two passive tweeters are fairly nice, but it’s not what you want to use for really diving into music or starting a party. It gets loud enough, sure, but it doesn’t have the range you get from other Bluetooth speakers.

We’ve enjoyed playing music, casting YouTube TV, and other audiovisual media if, for no other reason, than to have an extra place to consume content. If you’re using the Smart Display for recipes, timers, alarms, and other daily needs, the sound experience is great. The same goes for taking in a podcast. You can easily fill a room with a respectable sound.

Unlike the Google Home Hub, the Lenovo Smart Display houses a front-facing camera. Don’t be alarmed, though, as you can slide a shutter over it to block it out. This was the sort of peace of mind we hoped for as we moved the device to the bedroom for a few days. Similarly, there is an option to toggle the microphones, too. Rest easy knowing Google isn’t listening to you talking in your sleep.

The two microphones do an excellent job of recognizing voices, particularly those you’ve set up with Google Assistant. As you may already know, it behaves differently when different people use it.

Google replies with specifics when you ask your phone how your day looks or to remind you of upcoming appointments. But, that doesn’t mean your spouse can’t pick up the phone to use it for other, broad purposes. That’s the same situation with the Smart Display.

Setup

Setup is surprisingly easy. If you’ve ever used a Google Home or Google Home Mini, you know what it’s like. In essence, you use the Google Home app and follow a few steps as the device is found and registered on your network.

We’ve moved it from home to the office and found it really simple to set up. The only thing we’d caution is to go into the settings and have the device “forget” the current Wi-Fi network before taking it to another location. Once off the registered network you’ll not be able to communicate between phone and device.

Once you’re up and running, you are able to tap into Google Assistant right away. Ask Google whatever questions you have, direct it to play a video, or look up a recipe. This is where the fun begins.

Usage and Features

Having a display for Google Assistant is pretty damn cool. If you’ve ever asked to broadcast “it’s dinner time”, you know it’s accompanied by a dinner bell. Here, you get visual representations, too. So, when mom tells you to come downstairs to eat, and you’ve got your headphones on, your Smart Display will show fun, attention-getting animations.

When used for recipes, for instance, you get sharp, large text with a standardized format and photos. Tap the button to get going and you’ll get prompts to preheat the oven with a nice large readout of 350 degrees.

We found that we’ve significantly increased our usage of Google Assistant in the time we’ve spent with the Smart Display. Instead of setting reminders on our phone or putting in a cooking timer on the oven we simply said, “Hey Google, set a timer for 15 minutes”. Doing so gives us large clock which counts down until zero when it rings and flashes an image.

While much of what we do with the Smart Display is done via voice, the screen does reply nicely to touch. What’s more, navigation is intuitive hassle-free.

Swipe from the left and you find it acts like a “back” button. If you’re listening to a podcast, you can swipe back to the home screen or ambient screen saver. Swipe up from the bottom and you can adjust volume and brightness.

You won’t find very many screens to go through, which we found to be refreshing. Too much stuff tends to feel like clutter and leads to a confusing experience. It takes all of a few minutes to figure out how things work here and what you’ll see.

The Google Home app gives you control over what you get to see. Let’s say you don’t want to see your personal photos splashed across the screen or show your calendar appointments. That’s all really easy to change and you’re never stuck with any particular settings.

One thing we’d like to see in Google Home is the ability to add merge more than one account. It would be nice to see both our personal and work calendar but that’s not a shortcoming of the device.

Making and receiving calls via Google Duo is pretty interesting, and is probably the most compelling reason for the service yet. We could imagine having these throughout the home or office so it makes sense that contacts can reach us as easily as they would through a phone.

Thinking more broadly, it doesn’t seem a stretch to consider an update which allows room-to-room calls or video chat from one office to another. The more we outfit our homes with smart displays with cameras, the more helpful they become. A mom can ask to see a baby’s room regardless of where she is in the house. A co-worker can go over the TPS report with management without leaving the cubicle.

We love using the Smart Display as a screen for casting our apps. Whether that’s from our phones with YouTube TV in the kitchen, or Google Play Music from a web browser in the living room, it’s a seamless experience.

It might only be 10-inches, and sound really small, but catching up on the news is awesome when putting dishes away. Forget about pausing live TV or recorded shows because you have to hang up laundry. Cast to your Smart Display and make sure you catch that touchdown drive.

Conclusion

The Smart Display might be manufactured by Lenovo but it is Google through and through — and that’s awesome. We use its services for search, Chrome, Gmail, calendar appointments, YouTube, and much, much more. This is a piece of hardware that ties many of those things together, and it does it in a uniform and interesting experience.

We would love to see how this works in portrait mode and hope that an update is not far away. Upright could change things quite a bit and force us to reconsider how and where we use it.

We’ve already increased our Google Assistant use with just one of these devices. A second one, or one in another location such as work, feels like the next move.

Although Google Home and Google Assistant have been around a few years, we’re just starting to kick things into gear. Devices like the Lenovo Smart Display make us giddy with anticipation over where we might be a year or two down the road.

As of the time of publication we were not able to use the Home Hub features or add the Smart Display to a group. Both of these issues will be resolved in an update which should arrive in the coming weeks.

Availability

You can purchase the Lenovo Smart Display in 8-inch and 10-inch options for $179.99 and $249.99, respectively. It’s available at lenovo.com as well as through retailers like Best Buy, Office Depot, and Newegg.

Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 hands-on: The bezel-less slider phone

Slider phones are back and I couldn’t be happier. Nothing beats that satisfying snap as the phone clicks back into place. Xiaomi has updated the form factor for 2018 though, with a large bezel-free display, four cameras and premium ceramic build material. This is our Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 hands-on.

What strikes you when you see the Mi Mix 3 is its screen. A 6.39-inch Full HD+ AMOLED panel from Samsung with 19.5:9 aspect ratio and 600-nit peak brightness occupies 93.4 percent of the phone. There’s no notch and only the smallest chin beneath the screen, which is covered in Gorilla Glass 5. You can enable an always-on display in the settings and you can adjust the color temperature of the display.

The Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 delivers a 6.39-inch AMOLED display with 93.4% screen-to-body ratio and no notch.

Pick up the Mi Mix 3 and the first thing you’ll notice is its weight; it is easily among the heaviest phones I’ve ever used. At 218 grams, it’s 10 percent heavier than either the Vivo Nex (199 grams) or the Galaxy Note 9 (201 grams). The Mi Mix 3 is a little slimmer and shorter than the Note 9, but has a more aggressive curve on the ceramic back panel so it feels a little less “edgy.”

The manual sliding mechanism is the standout feature here, with neodymium magnets used to lock the slider in place when open or closed. As you start to push the display in or out you encounter slight resistance as the magnets interact and then get that nostalgic click as the screen pops into place. It feels great and Xiaomi claims it can withstand 300,000 cycles. Unlike other phones with hidden cameras, the mechanism is fully manual, so no motor is required. This is a much better solution and much less likely to suffer from failure.

The manual slider mechanism uses neodymium magnets to lock the screen in place. It’s cool, nostalgic, and infinitely satisfying.

The default slider action is to launch the front-facing camera, but it can also be customized to answer incoming calls or launch certain apps. The slider sounds can be swapped out too, so adding a lightsaber noise is easy as pie. Speaking of pie, the Mi Mix 3 launches with MIUI 10 and Android 9 Pie out of the box. When the Mi Mix 3 is in landscape mode while gaming, sliding the screen over will reveal an in-game menu to hide notifications, record the screen, or take a screenshot.

The slider isn’t just for fun. Like other bezel-free phones including the Oppo Find X and Vivo Nex, the front-facing camera only pops up when required. If you’re not using the face unlocking sensor or the front-facing camera, the phone can stay in its default state. So it’s only when you want a selfie or need to unlock your phone that you need to slide the screen down to reveal the cameras. The extra layer of security adds some peace of mind.

The front-facing camera only pops up when required and there’s no motor to worry about.

Those front-facing cameras are a 24MP Sony IMX576 with 1.8-micron pixels and f/2.2 aperture lens and a secondary 2MP camera for portrait mode and bokeh effects. The main sensor uses pixel binning in low-light situations to combine light data from four adjacent pixels, dropping the resolution to 6MP and then upscaling the image back to 24MP. AI-supported portrait mode, studio lighting effects, and AI beautify settings round out the selfie options. I noticed some lens flares at the bottom of the frame, presumably from the overhead light bouncing off the edge of the screen section which sits right below the camera lens.

There’s an included case in the Mi Mix 3 box that has a cutaway at the bottom, so you can still slide the screen down with a case on. The USB Type-C cable in the box also has a kind of scalloped sheath so you can charge your Mi Mix 3 and still use the slider (other USB Type-C cables don’t let you do this). There’s a free 10W wireless charger in the box and 5V/3A, 9V/2A, 12V/1.5A charging brick (with support for Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0).

The battery is a diminutive 3,200mAh cell, with the slider mechanism to blame for the smaller battery capacity. The Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 supports Qualcomm Quick Charge 4+ if you want to buy an optional additional charger, as well as the regular Qi standard.

Flipping the phone over, the familiar ceramic build material and camera layout remain intact, with a stylish MIX logo towards the bottom. A capacitive fingerprint scanner provides options if you don’t want to use the face unlocking on the front. The Mi Mix 3 includes NFC for contactless payments.

The bottom edge has twin speaker grilles but only the one on the right is a speaker, the other just conceals a microphone. It gets decently loud and doesn’t sound terrible either, but it’s a far cry from excellent. It goes without saying there’s nowhere to include a headphone jack on a slider phone and I’d do my best to keep the Mi Mix 3 away from water as it’s not IP rated. You’ll find a 3.5mm-to-USB-Type-C adapter included in the box so you can easily use your existing wired headphones.

Related Articles

Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 announced: Slider design, four cameras, no notch for under $500

Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S Review: The luster remains

The dual cameras on the back are both 12MP sensors. The main sensor is a Sony IMX363 with 1.4-micron pixels and dual pixel autofocus. An f/1.8 aperture lens sits on top with four axis OIS. The secondary sensor is a Samsung S5K3M3+ with 1-micron pixels and a 2x optical f/2.4 aperture lens in front.

Both cameras support various AI modes, but the main Sony sensor is the one handling 960fps slow-motion video (at 1080p or 720p). It’s not true 960fps like you’d find on a Galaxy Note 9 though, as the IMX363 doesn’t have built-in DRAM on which to store such high frame rates before offloading them to the image buffer. The Mi Mix 3 uses frame interpolation to achieve 960fps, meaning it won’t be as high quality as that found on a device with built-in DRAM on the sensor.

Xiaomi made a big deal about the Mi Mix 3’s low-light performance via night mode, posting side-by-side images with the Huawei P20 Pro showing the Mi Mix 3 to be superior. Some of the differences were pretty minimal, and we’d have to put the Mi Mix 3 up against the latest from Huawei, the Mate 20 Pro, to see if Xiaomi has truly outpaced its Chinese competitor in the low-light stakes. I don’t have a Mate 20 Pro with me in Beijing, so you’ll have to wait a little longer for that comparison. The Mi Mix 3 achieves its low-light results via multi-frame noise reduction, AI light metering, and AI image stabilization and calibration.

The Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 specs top out at 10GB of RAM and 256GB of storage with the Snapdragon 845 for ~$720.

The rest of the specs of the Mi Mix 3 are top notch, with the Snapdragon 845 mobile platform with Adreno 630 GPU running the show. There are several variants of the Mi Mix 3: 6GB with 128GB of storage, 8GB with 128GB, 8GB with 256GB and a special limited-edition “Forbidden City Palace Museum” version with 10GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Prices are as follows: 6GB/128GB 3,299 yuan (~$475); 8GB/128GB 3,599 yuan (~$520); 8GB/256GB 3,999 yuan (~$575); 10GB/256GB special edition 4,999 (~$720). All versions use UFS 2.1 flash memory and LPDDR4x RAM.

Xiaomi’s voice assistant, Xiao AI, can be accessed via the dedicated assistant button on the left of the phone. It will likely be replaced by Google Assistant on the global version but I couldn’t get this confirmed. 5G support will be coming on the limited edition version but not until next year. As always, take any claims of “5G” with a pinch of salt. You’ll need your carrier to support it at any rate. The Mi Mix 3 thankfully features global bands.

The Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 comes in three colors – onyx black, jade green, and sapphire blue – the most Xiaomi has ever offered at launch. It will be available in China on November 1, with select global markets to follow. There are currently no confirmed launch markets or prices outside China.

What do you think of the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3? Would you buy one if it comes to your market?

First iPhone XR Orders Begin Arriving to Customers in Australia and New Zealand

Apple customers in Australia and New Zealand are always the first to get their hands on new devices on launch day because of time zone differences, and the iPhone XR is no exception.

It’s now morning time in Australia and New Zealand and customers who pre-ordered one of Apple’s new devices are beginning to receive their shipments. New iPhone XR owners have started sharing photos of the device on Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, and the MacRumors forums.

There are no Apple Stores located in New Zealand, so customers in Australia were the first to be able to purchase an iPhone XR from an Apple retail location. Given that iPhone XR stock quantities remained strong following pre-orders on October 19, Apple should have plenty of stock available for walk-in purchases around the world.

iPhone XR’s are here! #iPhoneXR @MacRumors pic.twitter.com/iPaK7IOqay

— Michael Topschij 🤓 (@MichaelTopschij) October 25, 2018

Following New Zealand and Australia, iPhone XR sales will kick off in Asia, Europe, and finally, North America. Apple Stores globally are opening up at 8:00 a.m. local time to allow customers to pick up reserved devices and make walk-in purchases.

In the United States, the first new device deliveries and sales will take place on the East Coast starting at 8:00 a.m.

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#Iphonexr #2degrees #white #black #blue #yellow #coral #red 👌👌

A post shared by Kritisha Kant (@kritishak) on Oct 25, 2018 at 1:47pm PDT

Aside from Apple, other retailers including carriers and big box stores are also stocking the iPhone XR and should have supply available for launch day purchases.

We’ll be sharing first impressions of the new device from actual Apple customers in Australia and New Zealand, so make sure to stay tuned to MacRumors and if you’ve received one of the new iPhone XR models, let us know what you think.

Related Roundup: iPhone XRBuyer’s Guide: iPhone XR (Buy Now)
Discuss this article in our forums

Microsoft plans to overhaul a central feature of Windows 10

With Windows 10 getting major updates twice a year, the operating system is always seeing new improvements. In a new one of these updates, Microsoft is overhauling the Windows search feature, now beta testing indexing changes with Windows 10 19H1 Fast Ring build 18267.

Noted on the Windows Insider Blog, Microsoft’s search improvements involve enabling Windows to index and search all folders and drives, instead of limiting it to the default documents, pictures, and videos folders.

Currently, the feature is only available in preview testing and isn’t turned on by default. For consumers beta testing Fast Ring build 18267, it can be enabled by heading to Windows settings and selecting “Enhanced” under Windows search settings. The indexing will then take about 15 minutes and Microsoft recommends to plug in before starting since indexing can be a resource intense activity.

As the Windows Insider beta testing program often sets out to do, the change was built on the feedback of those who found that Windows search needed improvements.

“When the indexing is complete, you’ll be able to find all your files almost instantly when you use Windows Search. To exclude a folder from search, add it to the Excluded Folders list. Thanks for your feedback about search and the indexer. These improvements were made because of your input. Keep the feedback coming,” said Microsoft.

Microsoft is officially calling the new mode “Enhanced Search” and it will be interesting to see if it will make Windows searches more accurate and less painful. Regardless, the experience could still be buggy, as it is being previewed with an early beta version of the next update to Windows 10. The name can also change, too, and it might even be removed, as Windows 10 preview features have come and gone in the past.

This is just the latest set of changes coming in the next version of Windows 10 as a previous preview recently introduced the ability to remove more of the pre-installed Microsoft apps on a PC. The same Windows 10 19H1 Fast Ring build 18267 also adds in Vietnamese Telex and Number key-based keyboards, more symbols on the touch keyboard, and several improvements for Windows narrator.

There is still no solid date yet for when standard non-beta Windows users can expect these features on their PCs. Windows 10 updates are typically released around April and again around October.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Windows 10 update adds support for continuity functions via Your Phone app
• Microsoft confirms Redstone 5 as Windows 10 October 2018 Update
• Microsoft finishes turning File Explorer dark in latest Windows update
• New Windows 10 19H1 preview lets users remove more pre-installed Microsoft apps
• The next big Windows update could launch as soon as October 2

Singapore plans to open its skies to drone taxi test flights in 2019

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To use some retro slang, the idea of taking an autonomous flying taxi to work sounds pretty far-out. In fact, it could be a whole lot closer than you think. At least, that’s our takeaway from the news that Volocopter, a German company specializing in electric multirotor helicopters, is gearing up to run inner-city tests of its self-driving air taxis in Singapore. They will take place starting in the second half of 2019.

The tests are intended to validate and verify the ability of the company’s flying vehicles, and will culminate in public demo flights. They are being supported by Singapore’s Ministry of Transport, Civil Aviation Authority, and Economic Development Board. This follows tests of the Volocopter air taxis in Germany, along with one autonomous flight in Dubai that took place in 2017.

“The tests in Singapore will happen in an urban environment and under completely different climatic conditions than here in Germany,” Alex Zosel, co-founder of Volocopter, told Digital Trends. “Those two aspects will allow us to learn a lot and prepare for deployment in cities. Furthermore, in Singapore, we will be looking at testing potential commercial routes. To enable these routes, we will also work on airspace integration in the lower airspace above the city, a crucial aspect for implementing this new way of mobility.”

Volocopter’s vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) air taxis look a whole lot like a helicopter, but they function technologically like a drone — albeit one with 18 rotors instead of the usual four that are found on a quadcopter. They are capable of carrying two people for distances of just under 30 kilometers. The taxis are electrically powered, emission-free, and fly quietly enough to make them a viable technology for use as a mass-market mobility service in cities.

As to how long the rest of us will be waiting until we can ditch the subway for an autonomous flight to work, Zosel is optimistic. “We expect the first commercial air taxi routes to open in 3 to 5 years,” he said. “By the time I retire — so in 12 years — I want there to be full Volocopter infrastructure systems in at least 10 cities worldwide.”

Editors’ Recommendations

• 12 awesome flying cars and taxis currently in development
• Lyft’s self-driving taxis have made 5,000 trips for paying riders in Las Vegas
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Trump refuses to give up his iPhone, despite report that spies are listening in

President Donald Trump is known to call friends and advisors late at night, but it turns out that when he does, someone else may be listening too. According to a new report from the New York Times, American intelligence suggests that Chinese and Russian spies are “often listening” to Trump’s calls — and may well be using that information to figure out how best to work with the president when it comes to administration policies.

It’s well-known that the President is advised to steer clear of using everyday Android or iPhone devices, and aides have reportedly warned Trump against using his iPhone on multiple occasions. Despite the fact that Trump has reportedly given in to pressure and uses his secure landline more often these days, he still refuses to give up his iPhone — and could be using it to discuss classified information. According to the report, Trump has three phones — two with limited functionality, aimed at preventing eavesdropping, and one iPhone that’s like any other iPhone out there.

The report notes that American spy agencies have learned that China and Russia were eavesdropping on Trump’s phone calls from human sources inside foreign government agencies. Agencies have also said that they’ve determined what China is hoping to learn by listening in on these calls:  Things like who he generally listens to, what kinds of arguments sway his opinion, and more. It seems as though the Chinese have put together a list of individuals with influence over Trump in the hopes of eventually being able to use them. The Chinese government is also relying on Chinese businessmen to feed arguments to Trump’s trusted friends with the hopes that those arguments will eventually be delivered to Trump by people he trusts. It’s not currently believed that Russian spies are using the same methods given Trump’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

China’s methods of influencing the president aren’t new. For decades, officials have attempted to sway the president’s opinions by creating an informal network of businesspeople and academics who can be fed ideas and then bring them to the White House. What’s new, however, is that officials previously weren’t able to rely on eavesdropping on the president’s phone calls.

Following the New York Times story, Trump tweeted that he “only [uses] government phones,” and that he only seldom uses government cell phones. He then clarified in a follow-up tweet that he “rarely” uses a cell phone, and that when he does, it’s a government-issued phone. Ironically enough, both tweets were sent from an iPhone.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Google responds to Trump’s tweet-rage: We didn’t rig search against you!
• To infinity and beyond? Space Force may be a real thing by 2020
• How to find a lost phone
• There’s finally a way to trace ‘untraceable’ 3D printed guns
• Quantum computers could break encryption, so it’s going quantum too

Yoga Book C930 vs. Surface Go

Riley Young/Digital Trends

Knowing how much to spend on a device that can function as both a tablet and a laptop isn’t easy. There are ultra-affordable options that do the job just fine and fancier options two, or even three times the cost that make you wonder whether it’s worth spending extra for whatever it is they offer.

To find out which is the best option for most, we pitted the Yoga Book C930 against the Surface Go in a battle that compares not just how they look, feel, and perform, but whether their price tags accurately reflect worth.

Further Reading

Laptop reviews

The best 2-in-1 laptops

The best laptops

Design

Both of these convertible laptop/tablets look fantastic, but in their own, distinct way. The Surface Go is a clear evolution of its predecessors, with Microsoft building on its pedigree with a more shapely, but thin, and portable device. It has a professional and clear silver/grey aesthetic, and the Alcantara coating on the ($130 add-on) type cover is as lovely on the wrists and fingers as ever.

The Yoga Book C930, however, looks like a revolution. The Surface Go feels like a product of today, while the Yoga Book feels exceedingly futuristic. It has a gorgeous aesthetic of its own, including a beautiful watch-like hinge, and a funky “knock-knock” method for opening its cover.

When you do open it, you get a look at the laptop’s dual-screen design which includes a standard QHD, IPS display in the lid and a far-from-conventional E-Ink display at its base. That does mean it lacks a physical keyboard, so you’ll be typing on a touchscreen with some basic haptic feedback. That does take some getting used to and ultimately most people in the Digital Trends offices who tried it thought it was cool, but not something they’d be willing to trade a physical keyboard for. Even if it can double as an e-reader or drawing tablet.

The Surface Go’s keyboard is nice too, with arguably a more satisfying feel to it even if its layout did take some getting used to.

Port selection is somewhat limited on these devices, with just a pair of USB-C 3.1 (Gen 1) ports and a microSD card reader. The Surface Go does at least have a 3.5mm headphone jack, but it has only a single USB-C connector, microSDXC card reader, and Surface Connect port.

Performance

Riley Young/Digital Trends

With Lenovo is still yet to officially launch the Yoga Book in the states, we don’t have exact pricing information for its various incarnations. We can say though, that the model we reviewed started $1,000 and featured a Core i5-7Y54 CPU, 4GB of RAM, and 128GB of SSD storage. Far from a powerhouse, but adequate for day-to-day use.

We’re disappointed not to see eighth-generation CPUs from Intel used as part of its configuration, especially the new Y-Series range. That does mean the C930 could start to feel outdated in a couple of years. Its display may not though. As well as having a unique configuration, they are also quite beautiful. Its top IPS panel has a resolution of 2,560 x 1,600 for a crisp image and even the E-ink display is 1080p — although it isn’t backlit.

The Surface Go does have a Y-series chip, but it’s not one of the newest ones. Instead, it packs a Pentium Gold 4415Y which has the same HD 615 graphics core as the Core m3 CPU in the base model Yoga Book, but it’s substantially slower elsewhere and wouldn’t hold a candle to the Core i5 model. But then again, its starting price is just $400, so you can’t expect the same kind of hardware. Its memory and storage are more comparable though, with 4GB and 64GB of SSD space respectively. Every configuration has an 1,800 x 1,200 resolution PixelSense display which delivers crisp, and precise imagery with great brightness and solid color support.

For $550, you can upgrade to 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Though our review unit sported the heftier configuration, the Surface Go wasn’t a particularly great performer. It could handle single, basic tasks well enough, but a dozen browser tabs would bring it to its knees and gaming beyond the absolute barebones indies isn’t an enjoyable experience.

When we compared these two devices in our C930 review, the Lenovo notebook came in significantly faster than the Surface Go in memory and CPU performance tests. It falls behind other devices like the Dell XPS 13, but performance is strong enough with the Lenovo device that we don’t have any major concerns. Still, it’s hard to ignore the pricing disparity. You get less with the Surface Go, but for what it’s designed to do (and at that price point), it offers more value for your money.

Portability

Riley Young/Digital Trends

In the 10-inch form factor you have some of the most portable devices in the world and these two devices exemplify that ideal. The Yoga Book C930 measures just 10.25 x 7.1 0.39-inches and weighs 1.71 pounds. The Surface Go though, isn’t far off iPad-like portability, measuring just 9.65 x 6.90 x 0.33-inches, and weighing as little as 1.15 pounds.

Despite the weight disparity, we’re arguably more impressed with the Yoga Book’s weighting since it does pack a pair of displays in almost the same physical space. Its battery is quite comparable too. Lenovo claims eight-hours of battery life in general usage. Our intensive Basemark benchmark ran for just over three hours before the battery died. That’s slightly better than the Surface Go. Microsoft claims up to nine-hours of media viewing in its specifications which proved quite accurate in our testing, but it came in just under three hours in the Basemark test. The Yoga Book C930 has better overall battery life, though we would have liked to have seen more life in a charge from both devices.

Neither have the equation solved, but Surface does it best

Rich Shibley/Digital Trends

Comparing two devices with a big gap in their price tags is no easy task, as typically the more expensive device is better. The question is, is it worth the added expense? In this case, it’s close, but we’d say no. The Yoga Book C930 is more expensive in its base configuration than even the top specced Surface Go with the optional Type Cover accessory. It does offer more, but not enough. For simple day-to-day portable computing, the Surface Go is a better buy.

The Surface Go is the smaller and more portable of the two devices too, and though the Lenovo Yoga Book C930 does have some great features, the lack of a reliable keyboard holds it back. There’s also much more competition at its inflated price point and though we like the dual-screen solution, it’s hard to recommend it over more capable devices at similar costs.

For low-power computing on the go, the Surface Go isn’t the best device, lacking strong performance or battery life, but we’d still recommend it over the Yoga Book for most people.

Overall winner: Microsoft Surface Go

Editors’ Recommendations

• Lenovo Yoga Book C930 review
• Lenovo Legion Y730 vs. Dell G3 Gaming Laptop
• Lenovo Yoga C930 Review
• Microsoft Surface Pro (2017) review
• HP Spectre x360 13 (Late 2017) Review

Lenovo Yoga C930 vs. HP Spectre x360 13

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

If you’re looking for a laptop these days, chances are it’s also a 2-in-1. Ranging from less than $1,000 and to over $2,000, you can find a premium 2-in-1 laptop that rivals any other form factor on the market. In fact, unless you’re looking for a hardcore gaming system or workstation with a very high-end discrete GPU, there’s usually not a real reason to settle for “just” a clamshell notebook.

Two outstanding cases in point are Lenovo’s latest premium 2-in-1, the Yoga C930, and HP’s Spectre x360 13, which has been on our best 2-in-1 list for some time now. Given that the Yoga C930 was just released, does it have enough to take over the top spot?

Design

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

The Yoga C930 doesn’t stray too far from Lenovo’s usual conservative and rather businesslike aesthetic. It comes in a Mica or Iron gray colorways that won’t stand out too much in a coffeehouse or conference room. The Yoga C930 also maintains the line’s solid build quality and thin (0.57 inches) and relatively light (3.0 pounds) chassis, particularly considering it packs in a 13.9-inch display. It’s a 360-degree convertible, of course, and that means it depends on its hinge to flip through four modes — but it’s no ordinary hinge. The iconic watchband hinge from the previous versions is gone, replaced with a new, longer “sound bar” that houses speakers for some awesome Dolby Atmos audio. The Yoga C930 is, in other words, like a finely crafted sedan that’s meant to ferry around four or more adults in comfort — and without drawing any undue attention.

The Spectre x360 is more like a sports coupe, with some shiny angles that are meant to catch the eye. HP offers its premium 2-in-1 in three distinct color schemes, and all of them are gorgeous. There’s the bold Dark Ash Silver, the lovely Rose Gold, and the more traditional Natural Silver from which to choose. The Spectre x360’s aesthetic is also more angular and modern than the Yoga, with shiny chrome accents that add some flair without too much ostentation. The Spectre 360 isn’t quite as solidly built as Lenovo’s 2-in-1, but it’s also slightly thinner at 0.54 inches and lighter at 2.78 pounds, with a robust convertible hinge that spins the display with confidence.

As 2-in-1s, both notebooks offer a wide range of input options. We liked the Spectre x360’s keyboard better thanks to greater travel and a lighter, springier mechanism. The Yoga C930’s was a bit shallow and wasn’t nearly as comfortable for our longer typing sessions. Lenovo’s touchpad is better, though, being larger and sporting Microsoft’s Precision Touchpad protocol compared to HP’s choice to use Synaptic drivers. In addition, the Lenovo Active Pen (which is stored and recharged in a slot on the rear edge) also offers 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity versus the HP’s 1,024 levels, but the latter’s is larger and more natural.

The Spectre x360 is a far more striking notebook that manages to walk that fine line between being a standout good looker and attracting the wrong kind of attention. It’s also well built, if without the tank-like rigidity of the Yoga, and HP’s keyboard is much better. The Spectre x360 wins this round, narrowly. We’ll note that HP has just announced a refresh of the Spectre x360, and it looks to take the current model’s design and make it even more stunning.

Performance

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

Both the Yoga C930 and the Spectre x360 utilized Intel’s quad-core 8th-generation CPUs, and so they offer similar performance in both synthetic benchmarks and real-world usage. Both, therefore, are excellent productivity machines that can handle anything the typical user can throw at them. The Spectre x360’s PCIe solid-state drive (SSD) is slightly faster, but not so much so that it’s likely to be noticeable unless you’re working with really huge files.

The Yoga C930 offers a 13.9-inch IPS panel at either Full HD or 4K resolutions, and the latter supports Dolby Vision high dynamic range (HDR) as well. The Spectre x360’s display is the usual 13.3 inches, and HP also offers Full HD and 4K options (albeit without HDR support) along with a Sure View privacy screen that keeps sensitive information invisible to unwanted onlookers.

In our testing, we found Spectre x360’s Full HD display to beat out the Yoga C930’s, which was below average for this class. HP’s panel was better for viewing text, images, and video, and overall we just preferred it to Lenovo’s somewhat lifeless version. We’re sure that the 4K HDR option is probably a winner, but we haven’t had an opportunity to give that one a try.

With performance being very similar, the choice here is down to display quality. If you’re looking for a Full HD notebook, then the Spectre x360 is most worth your money. The next version of the Spectre x360 will sport the absolute latest Whiskey Lake 8th-generation CPUs, though, and so they’re likely to up the performance delta a bit.

Portability

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

The Yoga C930 is slightly thicker and heavier than the Spectre x360, and that’s not too surprising given its larger display. They’re both highly portable, though, and the differences aren’t going to be that noticeable once you toss them into a bag and carry them around. The Spectre x360 will be slightly more comfortable in tablet mode, though, if you’re carrying it around — and that’s not nothing.

Battery life is a mixed bag for these two thin and light notebooks. The Yoga C930 lasted longer in our aggressive Basemark web benchmark and web browsing tests, but the Spectre x360 lasted longer when looping an Avengers trailer from the SSD. But again it’s something of a wash since both 2-in-1s will likely last you a full working day.

The Yoga C930 and Spectre x360 are closely matched here, although the HP edges out the Lenovo as a tablet. When the next version of the Spectre x360 arrives, expect battery life to be significantly in its favor, though.

Conclusion

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

The least expensive Yoga C930 costs $1,300 for a Core i7 CPU, 12GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, and a Full HD display. The price jumps to $2,200 for a version with a Core i7, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and a 4K HDR display. The Spectre x360 is quite a bit less expensive, starting at $1,150 ($950 on sale) for a Core i5, 8GB of RAM, a 256GH SSD, and a Full HD display. With a Core i7, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and a 4K display, you’ll spend $1,800 ($1,600 on sale).

Not only does the HP Spectre x360 look better and has a much better keyboard, but it’s also available at a lower price than the Yoga C930. Lenovo’s latest effort is a good one, but it can’t beat out the kind of 13-inch 2-in-1s, the Spectre x360.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Lenovo Yoga C930 Review
• HP Spectre x360 13 (Late 2017) Review
• Eve Technology Eve V review
• HP Spectre 13 (2017) review
• Microsoft Surface Pro (2017) review