Goodman Property Services (NZ) Limited has provided NZX with the Goodman Property Trust and GMT Bond Issuer Limited 2025 Annual Report. It incorporates GMT’s Climate-related Disclosures and features a new remuneration report following internalisatio Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Wide rotation and tilt range covers large areas Sharp 3.5K resolution with full-color and infrared night vision On-device AI detection Cons Bulky design may stand out too much for some setups Requires a wired power connection Only supports 2.4GHz Wi-Fi Our Verdict The Imilab EC6 Panorama delivers broad, high-quality coverage with smart features that punch above its price. It’s a strong choice for anyone willing to trade a compact design for fewer blind spots and less reliance on multiple cameras. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Imilab EC6 Panorama Retailer Price $113.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Covering large areas like front yards, driveways, or wide side yards often means juggling multiple cameras and feeds–and apps, if you buy from more than one manufacturer. But as users pile on more devices to cover every angle, managing all that footage can get cumbersome and expensive. Imilab’s EC6 Panorama 3.5K Wi-Fi Spotlight Camera aims to solve that by offering a broad, near wraparound coverage from a single vantage point. It’s built to reduce blind spots—and maybe the need for a second or even third camera. The Imilab EC6 Panorama’s marquee feature is its wide coverage, thanks to dual lenses that deliver a combined 180-degree field of view. Design and features The EC6 Panorama is a dome-style camera with a clean white finish, designed to be mounted on a porch, under an eave, or anywhere else that gives it a clear view of a large area. It measures 7.91 inches deep, 7.56 inches high, and 5.04 inches wide, so it’s not exactly inconspicuous, but that can work in its favor as a visual deterrent. With an IP66 rating, it’s sealed against dust and can handle heavy rain or high-pressure water jets, making it well-suited for outdoor use in exposed areas. You can read more about IP codes at the preceding link. The camera’s marquee feature is its wide coverage. It uses dual lenses with an ultra-wide-angle 180-degree field of view to capture broad scenes. It can also rotate 344 degrees and tilt 90 degrees to follow movement across nearly an entire perimeter. You control the rotation and tilt through the Xiaomi Home app, which also offers 6x digital zoom if you want a closer look. The camera’s bulky design isn’t discreet, but the broad coverage eliminates the need for multiple-camera setups.Michael Ansaldo/Foundry It also uses AI to identify people and vehicles and to create virtual fences, with all detection handled on the device itself—there’s no cloud processing or subscription required. You can filter alerts based on what kind of activity you want to be notified of, which helps cut down on false alarms from things like squirrels or passing headlights. Video is recorded in 3.5K (3456 × 1944 pixels) resolution. The camera offers full-color night vision with the help of its onboard spotlight, or you can switch to infrared mode for a more discreet view in total darkness. That spotlight, along with a built-in siren, adds an extra layer of deterrence when motion is detected. The EC6 connects over 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, which offers better range but might be more prone to interference in congested network environments. If a wireless connection doesn’t work for you, take advantage of the RJ45 port on its power cord to make a hardwired connection to your network. Two-way audio allows you to speak to visitors—or warn off intruders—directly from the app. The camera works with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, giving you the option to control it with voice commands. Once paired, you can pull up the live feed on a compatible smart display or interact with the camera hands-free, which can be handy when your phone isn’t within reach. A microSD card slot allows for local storage. It’s hidden behind a tamper-resistant tab.Michael Ansaldo/Foundry Video can be stored locally on a user-provided microSD card (capacities up to 256GB are supported) or in the cloud. The latter requires a subscription: $4.49 per month for 7 days of event video history or $6.49 per month for 30 days. Setup and performance Getting the EC6 Panorama installed was straightforward. The camera includes everything you need to get it mounted and powered up. You’ll need to mount it near an outlet, which limits your placement options a bit, but once it’s up, it feels solid and secure. To start the setup, you’ll press a small reset button hidden behind a protective tab on the base of the camera. The microSD card slot is located there too, and you’ll need to remove a couple of tiny screws to get in there—not difficult, but you’ll need a precision Phillips screwdriver to do it; I had to borrow one from a computer repair kit. Once that’s done, the Xiaomi Home app walks you through the Wi-Fi connection process, which only took a couple of minutes in testing. The Xiaomi Home app makes it easy to get started. The main control screen is clean and straightforward, with clearly labeled buttons for key functions like two-way talk, spotlight activation, snapshots, and recording. A simple directional pad lets you control the camera’s pan and tilt, and swiping gestures can be enabled from the camera settings. Most features are easy to find, though a few—like auto-tracking and sleep mode—are still tucked away in submenus. Overall, it’s a smooth, user-friendly experience that doesn’t require much of a learning curve. The Xiaomi Home app has clearly labeled buttons for key functions like two-way talk, spotlight activation, snapshots, and recording plus a directional for controlling the camera’s pan and tilt. Other features can be customized from the settings menu. Michael Ansaldo/Foundry The EC6 Panorama delivers excellent video quality. Footage is crisp during the day, and at night the camera automatically switches to full-color mode when motion is detected, using its spotlight to illuminate the scene. This helps conserve power while still giving you detailed nighttime footage when it matters. AI motion tracking works well. The camera follows people and vehicles as they move through the frame, and for the most part, it stays locked on. It’s not perfect—once in a while it overcorrects or drifts off-target—but it’s fast enough to be useful, especially if you’re watching events in real time. This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best home security cameras. Two-way audio worked well. I had no trouble hearing people on the other end, and my voice came through clearly when I tested it from the app. It’s more than enough for giving delivery instructions or yelling at someone to get off your lawn. The spotlight and siren also kick in with barely any delay—loud and bright enough to startle, if not outright scare someone off. We reviewed Imilab’s dual-2K-camera–the Imilab EC6 Dual–last October and had a similarly favorable opinion. Should you buy the Imilab EC6 Panorama? If you need to monitor a large area and don’t want to stitch together coverage with multiple cameras, the Imilab EC6 Panorama is a solid bet. With a street price of $169.99, it delivers a lot for the price: broad coverage, dependable performance, and smart features that often come with higher-end models. It’s worth a look for anyone looking to simplify their surveillance setup without sacrificing coverage. Read...

If you’re going to upgrade your computer, then you might as well get a mini PC these days because they’re a lot smaller, just as powerful, and more affordable. The Geekom AX8 Max is currently 23% off at Amazon, which means you can purchase it for $579 instead of the usual $749. The beautiful thing about this mini PC is that it’s not just going to be a good choice for work, but also for leisure since the built-in Radeon 780M graphics card will enable you to play some games. That’s one of the most powerful integrated graphics solutions around. While you can’t expect to play games with the graphics pushed at max level, you can still have some fun (as long as you temper your expectations!). You’ll also use the mini PC for work and your daily internet activities just fine. There’s a speedy AMD Ryzen 7 8745HS CPU on board and it comes loaded with a massive 32GB of DDR5 RAM. Now that’s a speedy combo that will serve you well day after day. It also doesn’t hurt that it features a 1TB SSD because that’s a ton of storage space! Plus, if you really want a speedier device, you can upgrade to 96GB of RAM and 4TB of storage without issue. Connectivity won’t be an issue with this mini PC because there are two USB4 type-C ports and two HDMI ports available, so you can hook up to four 8K screens. There are also tons of other ports for peripherals and data transfers, and even an audio jack if you want to take the old-fashioned approach to listening to music. So, snag this uber-powerful mini PC for $579 while this deal still lasts. Keep in mind this is a Prime deal, so you’ll need to have a Prime subscription to access it, which you can get with a 30-day free trial. Timing is perfect because Prime Day is coming July 8th to 11th with a gazillion discounts. Get a mini PC for 23% offBuy now at Amazon Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Good PCIe 5.0, host memory buffer performance Fastest native-writing QLC NAND we’ve seen Affordable Cons Still slows to 450MBps writing natively Our Verdict Up against some stiff competition, the Lexar NQ780 proved itself with aplomb. Buy it at the right price. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Lexar NQ780 SSD Retailer Price $73.25 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket I love it when new stuff shows up, and from the faster native-write performance and much larger TBW rating, the QLC NAND inside the Lexar NQ780 reviewed here seems to be new to the party. Woohoo! Read on to learn more, then see our roundup of the best SSDs for comparison. What are the Lexar NQ780’s features? Lexar’s NQ780, NVMe 2.0, 2280 (22mm wide, 80mm long) SSD uses the PCIe 4.0 transfer protocol (x4). And as you might guess from the Q in the model name, it uses stacked QLC NAND. The controller is an Innogrit IG5326. The design uses host memory buffer (system memory) for primary caching, so there’s no DRAM on board. The flipside of the NQ780. Lexar warranties the NQ780 for five years and/or 600TBW (terabytes that may be written) per terabyte of capacity. Write more than that (unlikely) and the warranty is dead –though not necessarily the drive. You won’t lose data when the percentage used reaches 100 percent, just the ability to write more. By the way, that’s a very high TBW rating for QLC NAND, which usually is in the 200- to 250TBW region. That reinforces my belief that this is a new type of QLC. How much is the Lexar NQ780? At the time of this writing you could glom onto a 4TB (tested) NQ780 for $290, a 2TB for $150, and a 1TB for $80. That’s about standard for bargain SSDs, but not outstandingly cheap. How fast is the Lexar NQ780? I’m always happy when faster NAND shows up, especially QLC NAND, as in Lexar’s NQ780. It nearly tripled what I normally see from quad-level cell flash memory writes, though it could of course be a controller trick. All NVMe SSDs are fast. That said, the 4TB NQ780 placed about middle of the pack in performance. It ranked third out of six HMB/QLC SSDs, 13th out of all 32 HMB SSDs, and 39th out of the 57 NVMe SSDs of all types that I’ve tested. It more than held its own in CrystalDiskMark 8’s sequential testing, though. The NQ780’s CrystalDiskMark 8 random performance was good, but behind the pack, and way short of the WD Black SN7100. The 48GB transfer times were also good, if not record-setting. Writing 450GB took the NQ780 just over two and a half minutes — within shouting distance of the Kingston NV3, which was the fastest of the listed drives. The other being the Teamgroup MP44Q. Note that the WD uses TLC NAND. While it’s not the fastest drive listed here, the NQ780 is easily fast enough for most purposes and the native write rate (secondary write as SLC cache is exhausted) is two to four times that which I’ve seen from other QLC NAND SSDs. See the image below. The NQ780’s native write rate (secondary write as SLC cache is exhausted) is two to four times that what I’ve seen from other QLC NAND SSDs. Should you buy the Lexar NQ780? Given the right price, I wouldn’t say no to the NQ780, with it’s newly faster-off-cache QLC NAND. While it’s not the speediest kid on the block, it is affordable. How we test Our storage tests currently utilize Windows 11 (22H2) 64-bit running on a Z790 (PCIe 5.0) motherboard/i5-12400 CPU combo with two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 modules (64GB of memory total). Intel integrated graphics are used. The 48GB transfer tests utilize an ImDisk RAM disk taking up 58GB of the 64GB total memory. The 450GB file is transferred from a Samsung 990 Pro 2TB, which also contains the operating system. Each test is performed on a newly formatted and TRIM’d drive so the results are optimal. Note that as any drive fills up, performance will decrease due to less NAND for secondary caching, and other factors. The performance numbers shown apply only to the drive we were shipped as well as the capacity tested. SSD performance can vary by capacity due to more or fewer chips to read/write across and the amount of NAND available for secondary caching (writing TLC/QLC as SLC). Vendors also occasionally swap components. If you ever notice a large discrepancy between the performance you experience and that which we report (systems being roughly equal), by all means — let us know. Read...

Chromebooks can do AI. Did you know that? If you didn’t, you’re making someone in Google’s marketing department very sad. The Chromebook team has been pushing Google Gemini AI powers, particularly on the more capable Chromebook Plus label, for a year and change. The new Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14, with a MediaTek processor boasting 50 TOPS, is a good example. Lenovo’s new MediaTek-powered Chromebook Plus 14 Google used the upcoming Lenovo design to showcase Gemini’s latest tricks at a press event last week. But I have to confess that I found the laptop itself, particularly its value proposition, more immediately gripping than the latest attempts to sell me a subscription that’ll write my emails for me. The Chromebook Plus 14 combines a solid and lightweight build, a 14-inch OLED screen (touchscreen optional), generous memory (12GB or 16GB), and that MediaTek processor. “MediaTek” usually indicates a more budget option, such as Lenovo’s own Surface-style Chromebook tablets. But in this case it’s the Kompanio Ultra, an 8-core, 3-nanometer design that has more in common with the Snapdragon X series in recent Windows laptops than the repurposed phone boards often associated with the brand. Michael Crider/Foundry And this chip is the reason that this particular Chromebook Plus was so heavily featured. It’s packing a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) that enables more powerful, efficient local processing for AI tasks, at the same 50 Terra Operations Per Second (TOPS) rating as many of the best laptop CPUs on the market. Google says that this is the first Chromebook Plus to get its latest AI capabilities, which the Chromebook Plus 14 can handle 32 percent faster and 44 percent more efficiently…than models without an NPU. A bit of a weighted comparison, that. Throw in the excellent efficiency of an Arm architecture, which is inherently less limiting on Chrome OS than on Windows (heck, it might be even better for running Android games from the Play Store), and you have the makings of an excellent option on the higher end of the Chromebook spectrum. MediaTek has highlighted this chip’s ability to perform in Minecraft specifically. Michael Crider/Foundry Other charms of the Chromebook Plus 14 include Dolby-certified speakers (which are indeed pretty good, letting me clearly hear music and speech in a crowded demo room), a fingerprint scanner, a 2.5-pound (1.13 kg) weight, and the “longest battery life on a Chromebook Plus [laptop].” A more precise number for that longevity is 17 hours, but exactly what you’ll be doing in those 17 hours will of course make it vary (especially on something so web-dependent). Using the new laptop briefly at the event, I found it to be appealing in a lot of different ways. The keyboard in particular is very good for a Chromebook, if not quite up to the standards of Lenovo’s ThinkPad line. It’s fanless, thin, and lightweight for a 14-inch model, probably helped along by a polycarbonate case bottom that reminds me of the Pixelbook Go in a good way (rest in peace, Google-produced laptops). Like other recent Lenovo mid-range designs, the 5-megapixel webcam gets a little lip above it that functions as a handy lifting edge, and includes a hardware shutter for privacy. Michael Crider/Foundry Oh, one more happy design choice: A USB-C port on both sides of the laptop. Would I be conceited if I claimed that someone at Lenovo is listening to my whiny complaints on the topic? Yes, I would, but I’m going to claim it anyway. Perhaps most impressive is the starting price for this design, $649. That’s low enough that it’s within striking distance of an upgrade for more conventionally “affordable” Chromebooks, or worth considering versus a more expensive Windows laptop with similar specs. That base model gets 12GB of RAM (low for a Windows laptop, but higher than the 8GB necessary for the Chromebook Plus designation), and sadly lacks a touch upgrade for that very pretty OLED screen. An upgraded model will get 16GB of RAM, 256GB of storage — I assume 128GB for the base model, but haven’t seen that confirmed — and the missing touchscreen. How much you’ll be paying for those bonuses, I don’t know. New AI powers for Chromebook Plus So what exactly will you be able to do with all those AI powers enabled by the fancy new chip inside? Here’s a quick list. Some of these will be exclusive to the new Lenovo model, at least to start, but will presumably expand to more Chromebook Plus models as the Kompanio Ultra chip proliferates across new and updated models. Select to search with Google Lens: This is essentially a desktop/laptop version of Circle to Search, as seen on recent Android phones. Google Text capture: It’s a more powerful version of optical character recognition (OCR) built into the same tool. More structured data, like an expense report, can be exported to a Google Sheets spreadsheet if the tool recognizes it. Ditto for events and Google Calendar. Google Image generation in Quick Insert: Google is expanding its generative AI offerings enabled by the Quick Insert button, which replaced the search/Caps Lock button on the most recent Chromebook Plus designs. Now you can use the same contextual tool to insert Gemini’s AI-created images, anywhere in the interface, and across any web-connected tool. You’ll have four images to choose from when you invoke the tool…but I couldn’t get it to work in the demo. Google Image editing (exclusive to Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14): Chromebook Plus models are getting more powerful image editing tools in the basic gallery app, powered by Gemini AI. Help Me Read, Simplify: Chromebook Plus models will get a contextual option to sum up a selection of text or a page using the Gemini LLM. This is different from “Summarize,” and currently in an experimental mode. I get the impression that this is meant for children or others who want to read as little as possible for a large amount of info. Smart Grouping (exclusive to Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14): This is the one that’s most interesting to me, an “AI” skeptic. Using this new function you can create a new Smart Group for whatever you’re looking at, and Gemini will create a new “desk” (Chrome OS’s term for virtual desktops) with all the relevant info you currently have open. This works across Chrome browser tabs, apps, and anything else you happen to have open. Google I can see how this would be extremely useful for anyone who tends to let their tab bar fill up, just a couple of seconds will give you a focused, streamlined interface for a single task and tons of information. That’s the intention, anyway — I get the feeling that, like virtual desktops themselves, I might bounce off this feature unless it proves to be extremely reliable. Google is still using buyers of new Chromebooks, and especially those that qualify for Chromebook Plus features, as a testing ground for the pricey $20-a-month Google AI Pro plan, which comes with 2 terabytes of cloud storage. In addition to a year of free access with a new Plus device purchase, Google will now throw in access to the Veo 3 video generator and flagship NotebookLM large language model across that year. Google claims this is worth $240 for the year. You can use it to generate “up to 20 podcasts daily.” Having seen plenty of AI slop on YouTube trying to pass off a NotebookLM “podcast,” in which two AI-generated voices talk to each other with painful approximations of human dialogue and vocal tics, I can’t imagine a more painful way to try and absorb information. But perhaps I’m just getting old. And bitter. Chromebook’s future in question without Chrome Before I left the event, I cornered John Malentis, Google’s VP of Chrome OS Product Management to ask a few questions. I was glad to hear that teachers, and to a lesser degree parents, can turn off access to text and image generation powers in Chrome OS with management tools. That’ll make it harder — if far from impossible — for kids to get Google to do their homework. More promising was the news that Google’s live translation of video and audio is rolling out to more education devices later this year. I also asked Malentis if he had any comment on the future of Chrome OS, in the theoretical event that a judicial branch of a large government forced Google to sell or otherwise divest itself of the Chrome browser. I fully expected him to be unable to comment on this, and he fulfilled my expectation. Exactly what the future of Chrome OS looks like when and if the United States determines that Google must get rid of Chrome remains the most interesting, and concerning, variable for Chromebooks in the near future. Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Extremely affordable for its size class Very simple to use Reasonably easy to clean Cons Short operating cycle due to its limited battery life Misses a fair amount of debris Zero smart features Our Verdict This robotic pool cleaner has no smart features and offers slightly limited performance; but you might not find anything as capable at this very low price. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Airrobo PC10 Retailer Price $369.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Sometimes there’s a place for simplicity in and around the home, and pool owners who only need the absolute basics might want to give the affordably priced Airrobo PC10 a look for handling their pool-cleaning duties. Airrobo manufactures robot vacuum cleaners primarily; the PC10 and the similarly priced PC200 Lite are its only forays into pool-cleaning tech. Specifications This robotic pool cleaner certainly looks the part, weighing in at 22 pounds and featuring the tread-based design and central, scrubbing rollers that are typical of higher-end cleaners. Powered by a modest 5200mAh battery, the PC10 offers two hours of running time and a specified maximum coverage area of 1,076 square feet–roughly double the surface area of my pool’s floor (not including its walls). The unit charges via a burly connector on the side of the robot; a screw-on cap keeps water out while it’s at work. The Airrobo PC10’s tread design mimics the look of higher-end, higher-priced robotic pool cleaners, although this machine doesn’t perform at their level.Christopher Null/Foundry There’s no mobile app and no remote control here; in fact, the only control on the entire device is a switch on the top of the robot that allows you to choose between three operating modes: floor only, wall/waterline, or both. This switch is more convenient than the typical selector buttons on competing devices, in part because it makes it easy to remember to turn the robot off after a run, even if its battery is dead. The Airrobo PC10 is far cheaper than the other midrange robots with which competes. Too many times I’ve forgotten to turn off a robot, only for it to attempt to come back to life after it’s been plugged in and charged for a bit. A large LED bar near the switch provides a color-coded indication of either battery level or a fault condition, but that’s it. Performance The Airrobo PC10 is dutiful in the water, pathfinding with reasonable efficacy, though it’s not always 100-percent effective at actually suctioning up debris. In observing the robot on its rounds, I found it often rolled over leaves without successfully picking them up—and sometimes created a current that pushed those leaves up and over the robot as it approached. Christopher Null/Foundry It’s perhaps a strange quirk of the unit’s aquadynamics, and the primary reason why the Airrobo was only about 85-percent effective—at most—collecting both organic and synthetic debris in my testing. As with most robotic pool cleaners, the Airrobo was unable to clean steps, and it struggled with tight corners, although it never got stuck anywhere. Wall/waterline cleaning performance was about average in my testing. The unit is designed to park itself near a wall upon completion of its two-hour cycle, which it did successfully in my testing, after which it must be retrieved with the included hook and a pole. Debris is captured in a mid-sized, tight-meshed filter basket, which is accessed through a hatch on top of the robot. The basket is a simple unit with a single, hinged lid. Cleaning it out with a hose is not the easiest because debris can’t pass through, but the size of the basket is small enough to make the process fairly uneventful. The Airrobo PC10’s The filter basket fits beneath a top-mounted hatch. You’ll use a hose to clean it out.Christopher Null/Foundry This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best robotic pool cleaners. The Airrobo PC10 is available in two colors, both two-toned in white and either gray or blue. Both were priced at $360 at the time of this review, a steep discount over the perhaps over-ambitious $800 MSRP and far cheaper than other midrange robots with which Airrobo competes, such as the Wybot S2. At the same time, it’s a more effective device than the entry-level Aiper Seagull SE and similar robots, which are designed for very small pools that don’t get overly dirty. Other robotic pool cleaners in this class typicall don’t scrub walls, either. You can read more about Airrobo’s other pool-cleaning bot, PC200Lite, if you’re curious. Should you buy the Airrobo PC10? The Airrobo PC10 is a bit underpowered for my pool, though perhaps with a larger battery and a revamped suction system, it could be a contender down the line. For now, it’s best directed at users who want to upgrade from even smaller units without spending significantly more. Read...

It’s often hard to find a gaming or creator laptop that isn’t super large and heavy—at least not without paying a small fortune. Best Buy is slashing the price of the Gigabyte Aero 14 by $600, which means you can get it for $1,100. Not only does it weigh a little over three pounds, but it also pairs a stunning OLED display with solid hardware — including an RTX GPU — for peak content creation performance. The OLED screen is one of the main highlights of this laptop, delivering crisp visuals at 2880×1800 resolution. The 13th-gen Intel Core i7 processor is also a strong performer for both everyday tasks and gaming. While we’d like to see more RAM than the 16GB DDR5 available, it’s enough for most games. This model comes equipped with an RTX 4050 graphics card. It’s definitely on the entry-level side, but so is the price. It’s fine for 1080p gaming, but you may need to dial things back on more visually demanding games. If you’re a creator, on the other hand, you’ll appreciate the Nvidia/Intel combo joining forces with a crisp OLED display. As for connectivity, the Aero 14 has you covered. It features two Thunderbolt 4 ports, an HDMI port, and multiple USB ports. There’s even a microSD card reader, which is hard to come by these days. Snag the powerful Gigabyte Aero 14 laptop for $600 off at Best Buy right now! It’s a rare sight to see this laptop down to $1,100, so make the most of it and add it to your cart. Save $600 on a speedy gaming laptopBuy now at Best Buy Read...

I don’t use a Windows Copilot+ PC as a daily driver, though I have several in my office. But there’s one absolutely critical Copilot+ feature that forces me to swap out my current laptop, attach a Copilot+ PC to my docking station, and boot it up. Very few people have bought a Copilot+ PC in the last year. So these features, which are currently locked to Copilot+ PCs and their NPU, aren’t well known: Windows Recall; Paint’s Cocreator, Generative Erase, Object Select, and Sticker Generator; Click-to-Do; Photos’ Super Resolution, Relight and Restyle Image; the intelligent search features within the Settings menu; Windows Studio Effects; and Live Captions. My editor assumed I would prefer the last feature, Live Captions, probably because it’s both useful and cool. But no! I actually have one Copilot+ feature I frequently use instead: Image Resizer, now called Super Resolution. What are these Copilot+ features, anyway? Our explainer on what a Copilot+ PC is focused on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite processor and laptops that can use it. Certain Intel Core Ultra (Lunar Lake) and AMD Ryzen AI 300 laptops now qualify, too. They all depend on the power of an NPU, the AI engine at the heart of these chips. Microsoft, in turn, uses the NPU to power some of its AI features that have arrived on Windows PCs with an NPU installed. Here’s a brief list of those features that I explained above, and you can use the link for a deeper dive. Note that these are features that require an NPU, and you won’t receive them if you don’t own a Copilot+ PC. Windows Recall: Microsoft’s handy but controversial tool that snapshots your PC to help you find misplaced bits of information Paint’s Cocreator: An art tool that generates art in near-real time as you sketch, preserving the layout of your drawing. Click-To-Do: Think of this as an intelligent right-click menu, that uses AI to guess what you want to do. Windows Photos’ Restyle Image: If you want to turn a photo into a mosaic or a Monet, you can ask Photos’ AI to do that for you. Windows Studio Effects: A collection of tools to blur your background, filter out noise, and help you look like you’re paying attention. Live Captions: This provides AI-based captioning and translation of pre-recorded and streamed video. Photos’ Image Relight: a subtle editing tool to provide additional lighting effects. Microsoft is also testing semantic search, both for files as well as the Settings menu. The latter is now live. Why do I love Super Resolution? For every story we write, we need to have art to accompany it. If you’re reviewing a laptop, your work is practically done for you. We need an illustration that meets certain image size guidelines, and sometimes that means working with a very small icon — for example, the Microsoft Store icon on your taskbar, or the Copilot icon. Sometimes, you can’t find an image that’s large enough. If you choose to edit a photo within the Windows Photos app, you can turn on Super Resolution. Here, you can choose to upscale a photo to a larger resolution, and Windows performs some AI editing effects to try and smooth out any graininess. Here, I’ve taken the tiny OneDrive icon on my Windows taskbar and increased the resolution. A slider bar demonstrates the differences. Super Resolution within the Windows Photos app, for Copilot+ PCs.Mark Hachman / Foundry Super Resolution is the perfect tool for the job. I can take a small image and simply enlarge it within Paint, but a tiny icon can look blurry and indistinct when enlarged. The image resizing tool works very well for enlarging and sharpening an image, so that it looks pretty good. And, of course, it’s free. Of course, you can use Super Resolution for something like a scanned photo, or something else. It’s not a tool you’ll need to dig out frequently, but it’s very helpful for me when I need it. It’s not a miracle worker, and there are paid services like Topaz.ai that promise to do a better job. But again: Super Resolution is free, convenient, and right on my laptop. Why don’t I use Live Captions? I don’t watch that much video, basically. I’ll watch foreign TV (my wife is a K-drama fan on Netflix) and I’ll read foreign reporting. I don’t often find myself watching foreign TikToks or other video, and many of those platforms already have built-in translation, anyway. I’m also never sure if Live Captions is giving me the correct translation. Live Captions supplies translated captions on your screen (here, at the very top). But the translated audio is entirely different from the captions. As a non-native speaker, I’m not sure what’s correct. Live Captions is still pretty magical — it’s easy to take it for granted, but it’s something from Star Trek come to life. But it’s the little things that matter in my daily work, and Image Resizer fill the bill. A bonus feature for you: Generative Erase One of the issues with Microsoft’s latest AI blitz is that some functions demand an NPU, while others don’t — and there’s no messaging to that effect. It’s chaotic. I do really enjoy how Microsoft has quietly taken some of the better features in apps like Photoshop and brought them inside Windows, such as layers in the Paint app. Microsoft For ages, Photos also had a tool called Spot Fix, a very early use of AI for photo editing. I don’t like to heavily edit photos, only because we often have a journalistic responsibility to show things as they are. If a laptop attracts fingerprints, it’s sometimes useful to show that. In certain cases, I’d use Spot Tool to edit out a speck of dust, a spot on a background wall, or occasionally an object. In the latter case, that’s usually because I was trying to take a photo of a device at a trade show, and something distracting intruded. Spot Fill would erase dust very easily. Generative Erase is like an improved version of it. There is a Generative Erase function inside both Photos and Paint, and neither require an NPU. I know smartphones now provide photo editing right in the phone itself, but Generative Erase is handy for stored photos in OneDrive or elsewhere. Microsoft is also testing Generative Fill within Paint, which will add objects to your image — so you could add a guy in a gorilla suit to your wedding photo, or something. Generative Fill, however, will require an NPU / Copilot+ PC. Simply keeping track of what AI features are available and what hardware they require is a challenge for everyone right now! Microsoft Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Attractive design and good build quality Great image quality in both SDR and HDR Versatile webOS with smart TV features USB-C input with Power Delivery Cons Not as sharp as most current OLED monitors Speakers are included, but weak Confusing menu system Our Verdict The LG Ultragear 39GX90SA-W is a gigantic 39-inch ultrawide monitor that can double as a smart television, for better and for worse. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: LG Ultragear 39GX90SA-W Retailer Price $1,299.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Blink and you’d miss it, but it’s true. Smart gaming monitors are here. Both LG and Samsung now offer monitors marketed at gamers that include a fully functional TV operating system that works much as it does on each brand’s smart TVs. The LG Ultragear 39GX90SA-W brings this concept to a big, beautiful OLED panel. It looks great, but it’s not perfect. Read on to learn more, then see our roundup of the best gaming monitors for comparison. LG Ultragear 39GX90SA-W specs and features The most notable specification on the LG UltraGear 39GX90SA-W’s spec sheet is its size. It’s a 39-inch ultrawide with a 21:9 aspect ratio, and while a 39-inch display may not sound significantly larger than a 34-inch ultrawide, it results in a 31 percent increase in display area. Put simply, the 39-inch LG feels way bigger than a 34-inch alternative. Display size: 39-inch 21:9 aspect ratio Native resolution: 3440×1440 Panel type: WOLED Refresh rate: Up to 240Hz Adaptive Sync: Yes, Adaptive Sync, AMD FreeSync Premium, Nvidia G-Sync Compatible HDR: HDR 10, VESA DisplayHDR True Black 400 CertifiedHDR Ports: 2x HDMI 2.1, 1x DisplayPort 1.4, 1x USB-C with DisplayPort Alternate Mode and 65 watts of Power Delivery, 1x Ethernet, 2x USB-A (2.0), 1x 3.5mm audio-out Additional features: Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth, remote control, LG webOS Audio: Speakers included Warranty: 2-year parts and labor warranty Price: $1,599.99 MSRP, $1,299.99 retail at time of review The 39GX90SA-W is also notable because it includes LG’s webOS smart television operating system. It works just as it does on an LG Smart TV and provides access to a wide variety of apps, as well as connectivity to many digital content libraries, like movies you might have purchased through YouTube. It even supports cloud gaming services like GeForce Now. Pricing is high, though not more than expected. The retail MSRP is $1,599.99, but a glance at price tracking websites shows the sale price of $1,199.99 is more typical. That’s expensive but expected for a huge, high-end OLED monitor. LG Ultragear 39GX90SA-W design The LG Ultragear 39GX90SA-W is a 39-inch ultrawide monitor with an aggressive 800R curve. Though obviously not as large as 45-inch ultrawide alternatives, it has serious presence and takes up a lot of space on a desk. The aggressive curve stands out immediately and will prove polarizing. If you like a curved monitor, it’s great. If not, you’ll have trouble putting up with it. Size and curved display aside, the 39GX90SA benefits from an alluring ultra-white design. The rear panel and display stand both feature a stark, clean, almost clinical look that will fit in with minimalist desk setups. Most of the monitor’s materials are plastic, but the bottom half of the stand is metal, and the plastics used were sturdy when I picked up the monitor. Matthew Smith / Foundry The stand is huge. It includes a broad neck, a large base, and a deep reach that places the ultrawide display panel relatively close to the user’s face. It can be difficult, or impossible, to find an ideal position if your desk is less than 30 inches deep, or less than 50 inches wide. That’s to be expected given the 39GX90SA’s huge ultrawide screen, but it’s still important to keep in mind. Most people will find a 34-inch ultrawide a better fit for their desk. Even so, LG’s design is a win. It’s at least as premium as Samsung’s Odyssey G8 and G9 monitors, and more attractive than recent alternatives from Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI (among other brands). It works especially well as a mixed-used monitor in a room that serves as a home office during the day and a gaming den at night. The aggressive curve stands out immediately and will prove polarizing. LG Ultragear 39GX90SA-W connectivity Connectivity is mostly a highlight for the LG Ultragear 39GX90SA-W, with a few caveats. On the plus side, the monitor includes a lot of video connectivity. It has two HDMI 2.1 ports, one DisplayPort, and one USB-C with DisplayPort. That’s a total of four video inputs and a good range of options for connecting laptops, desktops, and game consoles. The USB-C port also supports data and up to 65 watts of Power Delivery. I’m happy to see a USB-C port with Power Delivery included, as it reinforces the monitor’s identity as a display for both work and play. Owners can use a single cable to connect and charge a thin-and-light laptop that has USB-C. The monitor’s additional connectivity includes two USB-A ports (both USB 2.0) and Ethernet. The Ethernet port is useful if you plan to make the most of the monitor’s smart connectivity, which I’ll get to shortly. If you don’t have Ethernet handy, however, that’s fine: The monitor also supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. A 3.5mm audio jack rounds out the connectivity. LG Ultragear 39GX90SA-W menus and features LG calls the Ultragear 39GX90SA-W a “smart gaming monitor.” What does that mean? It’s basically a smart TV. While it lacks a TV tuner (meaning it can’t accept cable or antenna TV input), it otherwise works much like any LG television that runs LG’s webOS. It provides a huge variety of streaming apps, from Netflix to Crunchyroll, and even supports cloud gaming apps like GeForce Now (which means you can technically game without a PC or console by connecting a Bluetooth game controller to the monitor). WebOS is quick, attractive, and easy to understand. However, the 39GX90SA-W suffers a few problems when it comes to how the monitor interacts with PC inputs. For example, when a new PC input is connected, the monitor will ask if you’d like to switch to that input. The prompt doesn’t stay on-screen for long, though, so I often found it had disappeared by the time I climbed out from under my desk to connect my desktop. I also had small but noticeable issues with the responsiveness of the monitor’s on-screen menu, which occasionally hesitated as I moved through options. I even encountered a loading screen icon while swapping between monitor menus. That’s not something you’ll see on a monitor that lacks a smart TV operating system. This is most obvious when using the Game Optimizer mode. Opening the on-screen menu in this mode opens a Ultragear-branded menu that otherwise doesn’t appear. It doesn’t support adjusting many features, however, and the swap from the Ultragear menu to the standard menu takes a few seconds, during which a loading icon appears. On the other hand, the 39GX90SA-W ships with a compact remote that provides easy access to monitor options. While the menu system’s sometimes slow performance is annoying, it’s less annoying than adjusting monitor menus using a joystick or buttons on the monitor itself (a joystick is still found on the monitor, though, in case you lose the remote). The streaming apps I tested, such as YouTube and Netflix, worked as expected. Matthew Smith / Foundry Speakers are bundled in the 39GX90SA-W, but they’re not loud enough to be useful in most situations. I found them tepid at maximum volume even in my home office, which has no significant noise besides my home HVAC. The 39GX90SA-W’s speakers could hardly compete with that. I’m not sure everyone will find the 39GX90SA-W’s smart features a win, but it’s always interesting to see them on a big, ultrawide monitor. This is effectively a 39-inch ultrawide smart TV—something that doesn’t exist in the traditional HDTV market. It’s unfortunately not large enough for use in most TV dens, but I do think this concept will appeal to shoppers mostly interested in viewing movies or playing PC games. LG Ultragear 39GX90SA-W SDR image quality The LG Ultragear 39GX90SA-W utilizes an LG WOLED panel. These panels have been tested in numerous monitors and are generally slightly less vibrant compared to Samsung’s QD OLED panels, although they still perform well in terms of contrast and brightness. The LG Ultragear 39GX90SA-W remains on-script. Matthew Smith / Foundry I measured a sustained SDR brightness of about 246 nits from the 39GX90SA-W. As the graph shows, that is a typical level of brightness for a modern OLED monitor in SDR. Although it’s not especially bright, it’s enough for use in a room with some light control, like blinds or curtains. If you are sitting near sunlit windows, however, glare can become an issue. The monitor has a semi-gloss coat, but its aggressive curve can have the effect of focusing light sources depending on their angle, which can amplify glare. Matthew Smith / Foundry Contrast is a strength of OLED panels. They can reach a minimum brightness of zero nits, which means they have an effectively infinite contrast ratio. The result is the deep, immersive image that propelled OLED to the top of image quality rankings. The 39GX90SA-W is no exception, but it also doesn’t stand out. All the OLED panels found on modern monitors reach a minimum luminance of zero nits, so there’s no meaningful difference here. Still, contrast is a key reason to select the 39GX90SA-W instead of an ultrawide LCD competitor. Matthew Smith / Foundry The 39GX90SA-W’s color gamut spans 100 percent of sRGB as well as 96 percent of DCI-P3 and 88 percent of Adobe RGB when tested in the standard monitor preset. That’s an excellent result and enough to provide a vibrant, highly saturated image that most people will find pleasing. As the graph shows, QD-OLED monitors like the Alienware AW3425DW tend to have slightly better color saturation. The advantage is subtle, but noticeable, though the LG’s color gamut is still excellent. Matthew Smith / Foundry The 39GX90SA-W has good color accuracy in its standard image preset, although as the graph shows, it’s not the best in its category. The image looks realistic, and I had difficulty noticing any major color issues aside from color temperature. It is important to note that the monitor offers a comprehensive range of image quality presets, including expert presets. These presets significantly enhance color accuracy, reducing the average color error to an impressive 0.85. In standard mode, the gamma was 2.3, which is above my target of 2.2, and the color temperature was 7400 K—which is cooler and more sterile than the preferred 6500 K. The expert image quality preset again improved matters dramatically, shifting both gamma and color temperature to our preference. Sharpness, however, is a problem that can’t be mitigated. The 39GX90SA-W has a native resolution of 3440×1440, which is typical of most ultrawide monitors. But most alternatives have a smaller 34-inch panel, and spreading the same number of pixels across a 39-inch panel noticeably degrades sharpness. Small fonts have clear pixelation and color artifacts around them, while small buttons and interface elements can look blocky. It’s tolerable, but the 39GX90SA-W is not for those who want a crystal-clear display. The 39GX90SA-W’s overall image quality is good, but it’s a bit below-average for an OLED monitor. It shares common OLED strengths, including an incredible contrast ratio and wide color gamut. However, LG’s WOLED still doesn’t rival Samsung’s QD-OLED in color volume, and the 39GX90SA-W’s sharpness will be an issue for eagle-eyed buyers. It’s an attractive display but doesn’t stand out from the OLED crowd. LG Ultragear 39GX90SA-W HDR Image Quality LG’s UltraGear 39GX90SA-W supports HDR and is VESA DisplayHDR True Black 400 certified. That’s the typical level of certification for an OLED monitor. However, as the graph below shows, the monitor can reach a higher level of brightness than that certification would suggest, with a maximum sustained HDR brightness of 783.5 nits. Matthew Smith / Foundry When I compare the 39GX90SA-W to its competitors I’m forced to repeat myself, as once again it performs about as well as most other OLED monitors on the market. Its HDR brightness figures are similar to recently tested WOLED monitors. Samsung QD-OLED are currently a better choice for HDR overall, but I wouldn’t call it a night-and-day difference, and it should only sway you if HDR performance is among your top priorities.  Still, I was pleased with the LG’s HDR picture. It’s vivid in most scenes and games, with only scenes that attempt to push brightness across the entire display really challenging the monitor. LG Ultragear 39GX90SA-W motion performance The LG UltraGear 39GX90SA-W has a maximum refresh rate of 240Hz, which provides a buttery-smooth image in PC games that can reach frame rates that high. It also benefits from OLED’s low pixel response time, which drops as low as 0.03 milliseconds. In practice, this further reduces motion blur. As a bonus, it also translates to relatively minor motion blur at lower refresh rates (like 60Hz or 120Hz). There’s more to it than just motion clarity, because the monitor also provides broad adaptive sync support with official support for Adaptive Sync, AMD FreeSync Premium, and Nvidia G-Sync standards. While most monitors that support any of these will also unofficially work with all three, it’s good to see official support to give gamers peace of mind. As with other aspects of the 39GX90SA-W, the monitor’s only downside is that it’s basically the same as other OLEDs on the market. There’s a very wide variety of monitors that have a 240Hz refresh rate or higher, so while the LG looks great in fast-paced games, it doesn’t look better than the competition. Should you buy the LG Ultragear 39GX90SA-W? The Ultragear 39GX90SA-W is another competent entry into LG’s ever-growing line-up of OLED monitors. It delivers an immersive, colorful, contrast-rich image with superb motion clarity, though it suffers from sub-par sharpness. The monitor also provides LG’s webOS smart TV operating system with access to familiar apps including Netflix and GeForce Now, alongside Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. That means it can serve as an all-in-one gaming and entertainment display even without a PC attached. That makes the 39GX90SA-W alluring if you want an ultrawide monitor that’s larger and more feature-rich than most competitors. If you don’t care about smart features in your monitor, however, a smaller and less expensive alternative like the Alienware AW3425DW will make more sense. Read...

The looming vote on the assisted dying bill features prominently on the front pages of Friday`s papers. Read...