P_Devil

No, we had that with the Ngage. But they’re it wrong in saying it’s an Android smartphone without the phone. That doesn’t mean they want a phone added, it means it needs to not be an Android device.

Like I said, that requires a solid internet connection wherever you play (high speed mobile still isn’t as ubiquitous as it should be) and you’re relying on a mobile OS. I’d rather just buy a controller for my iPhone 14 Pro Max, which will have a better performing SoC and higher quality screen, if I’m going to stream games. Even with the added heat, an iPhone will be fine for hours of gaming sessions. I’d rather buy an iPad over an Android device, a Mini would be more powerful and could still be strapped to a controller.

This isn’t even using Qualcomm’s flagship SoC. It seems like Razer is trying to introduce their own Android gaming device and compete with ones that sell for $350 on Amazon, except that they’ll charge $600 because Razer. It would be worth it if the device ran Windows and could do more but it will run Android and probably have a customized launcher that isn’t in anyway influenced by Microsoft’s tile interface.

I don’t understand the appeal of devices like these that run Android. Yeah, it could always be used to stream games from xCloud or use Steam Link but both require a solid Wi-Fi connection and one needs to be connected to the same network as a more powerful PC to work. If I want something to play portable games on, I’ll just use my smartphone and buy a controller for it.

This would be interesting if Razer puts Windows on it and figured out a compatibility layer so that x86 and x86-64 titles don’t suffer much, but this sounds like it will be yet another phone-less Android smartphone with a built-in controller. The reason why something like the Steam Deck is so appealing is because it has more powerful hardware that isn’t limited to mobile titles. It can run full Windows if the user chooses to do so, unlocking the potential for anything. It’s not limited to what’s in the Google Play Store or requiring a gaming PC on the same Wi-Fi network.

Right, that was their niche that they filled. I have a large GoG library but it’s all older games. I purchased a few old games from Steam in the past but they don’t run on my system due incompatibility with something (Star Wars KOTOR is one). The GoG versions were always guaranteed to work. Worst case scenario, they will run within a DOS emulator. Stick to the old titles so you don’t have to compete with Steam, something that much larger companies are struggling with. The day I stopped using GoG was the day they recommended their launcher. No, I already have Steam, I don’t need another launcher package running in the background.

The whole love triangle wasn’t needed either. It’s like they didn’t learn anything from Spider-Man 2 and keep things simple. Spider-Man 2 was great and only had one main villain with a few side plots of Peter & MJ and Peter & Franko (I don’t remember his character’s name). That was fine, it worked.

They didn’t need to add three villains, Peter flirting with someone else, the forced love triangle that made no sense, and disrespect to Venom (Rami doesn’t like the character) along with all the other garbage in there movie (emo Peter, black suite SP, and things I’m forgetting). Disney/Marvel has shown they can effectively juggle characters so I’m not worried about them doing a bad job with those. I’m just worried about the Spider-Man curse with the next sequel always promising more and never delivering, at least for the previous two iterations.

Ugh, don’t remind me. A 2 hour movie about Sandman that nobody asked for featuring a sidelined, half-baked Venom. I remember disliking that movie 5 minutes in with MJ’s signing voiceover. That was the perfect setup for the rest of the movie, a shame after how great Spider-Man 2 was. Hopefully this new one doesn’t have the Spider-Man sequel curse when they try to shove too many villains into one movie.

They had to fully setup the multiverse first. We’ve seen the seeds being planted but this will be the first movie set within the multiverse. I’m sure they’ll run with it. We already knew about Jane Foster’s Thor. She could be a multiverse character or Thor could have the hammer rebuilt. Marvel probably has the next 20 years already planned out.

I hate that stores are hiding products behind purchases and using scalpers as an excuse. At least this is only a monthly payment and not something as horrendous as a $200 annual Total Tech purchase from Best Buy. I’d rather do that than give Best Buy $200 for something I will never use just to have the option of buying a new console (if I can get one at all).

Tom Hardy is still better than Eric Forman, even if the Venom movies aren’t perfect. The last one was an improvement over the first and they would only get better if Marvel/Disney got involved, like they did with the Spider-Man movies. The post-credits scene of the last Venom movies might be an indication of the direction they’re going.

Ha. I did the same thing with my wife, just going from a 51" plasma to a 65" QLED. She said 65" was going to be too big for our living room. It took her an hour before noticing, it took her a day before seeing and hearing the Sonos Arc under it that was also new (and was going to be too loud for our living room).

It’s not a buzz term when it’s a prominent aspect that defines battery life for a system. Yeah, you can get 11 hours out of a SP8 under specific conditions. That is a different class device than something like an Alienware x17 or 16" MBP. Like I said, call me when a 16"+ Intel unit, with a dedicated GPU matching the performance of an M1 Pro, can even get 5-6 hours of work that’s not having it sit there idle. That’s something a gaming system isn’t going to do. 4 hours of intense 3D work is better than the 2.5 hours a 16-17" gaming system provides when doing the same and that isn’t going to change with 12th gen Intel chips. Not until both Intel and Nvidia/AMD drastically improve their performance/watt.

Intel has moved the needle, but they aren’t there yet.

Like I said, that was one score. Other scores for that same chip aren’t that high for multi-core performance. Even if it is able to achieve that, it will consume as much power as an M1 Pro when firing on all cylinders (CPU+graphics).

Ah yes, someone has a different opinion than yours so you’ll take a snippet and call them a fanboy.

I would open a Samsung partnership if they took the Exynos seriously. Partnering with AMD for the IGP helps but Exynos chips are notorious for performing hot, throttling, and not being able to match Qualcomm’s chips. I would welcome a notebook-class Exynos chip that competes with Qualcomm’s M-series competitors (coming in 2023) or the M-series directly (in terms of performance and power/watt) but I’m not sure Samsung cares enough at this point. It would be great, especially to have more competition, but I don’t see it happening if Samsung continues their trend.

I have a feeling MS is going to spin off their Azure ARM development for a consumer SoC and have TSMC (or whoever) make it. They just need to get out from under Qualcomm. The SQ1 and SQ2 aren’t the best chips, better than the 8xc but still behind offerings from Intel, AMD, and Apple’s M-series.

They like to move goalposts to fit their agenda. There’s no arguing with them. MS is the best, Qualcomm are the best, Intel is the best and Apple is garbage. Qualcomm is the only one that can make ARM SoCs, period.

Don’t try to include logic or anything like that, or pointing out that Apple has always been pushing performance/watt with the M1.

1. Those scores don’t leave the M1 Pro/Max in the "dust," especially for single-core or the other Geekbench multi-core scores for the same chip.
2. That’s a preproduction chip in an unreleased notebook.
3. It uses more power than Apple’s chips.

I stressed power/watts before as my main comparison and what I said holds true. Yeah, it’s going to outperform what Apple is doing but it isn’t going to do so consuming 35-45 watts. Intel’s IGP still isn’t going to approach the performance or efficiency of an M1 Max and will still require a more powerful RTX 3080 paired with it. The whole package is going to consume 200 watts. Call me when an Intel chip is able to get desktop performance and 10 hours of battery life in a unit as thin and light as a 16" MBP with a 4K 120Hz display.

Troll comments are troll comments. iF aNyOnE cOuLd Be BeTeR tHeY WuLd! Nvidia exiting the market didn’t have anything to do with the rapid decline in Android tablet sales or the wireless licensing that Qualcomm has had a strangle over. Nah, it was because Qualcomm is the best. Samsung does use Exynos outside of the U.S., just not in their phones where Qualcomm holds all the licensing for wireless. It wouldn’t make sense for them to put an Exynos chip in their phone and a Qualcomm wireless chip. But Samsung does use Exynos in some of their U.S. tablets along with their TVs and other devices, the Galaxy Watch 4 uses a Samsung chip.

That brings up another area where Qualcomm is lacking: smart watches. Their SoCs have been terrible since the get-go and Samsung’s Exynos chip in the Watch 4 is wiping the floor with anything Qualcomm has done. That wouldn’t have happened if Samsung stuck with your attitude. But go ahead, continue being a troll and make 3409857 more comments in this post about how Qualcomm and Intel are the best and nobody should make other chips because theirs are used in the most devices.

Who is this us? It certainly isn’t the industry, maybe it’s the mouse in your pocket? Power per watt is most important in notebooks, not just data centers or offices. You want to talk about a company moving goalposts yet that is what you continually do.

12th gen notebook chips from Intel may outperform the CPU of the M1 Pro/Max but they will do so at the expense of power. Intel keeps throwing power at their chips to push them instead of going back and improving their power/watts. The 12th gen might be better than 11th gen but it still won’t compete with Apple. I would also be surprised if Intel’s 13th gen launch on time. Also, if we’re going to look into the future, you’re forgetting about what Apple will do next year and each subsequent year with their M-series. Apple is at a point where they could upgrade their chip every year and keep pushing past what Intel is doing. The M1 was their first chip, the M1 Pro and M1 Max are iterations on that chip.

The issue isn’t about MS gaining more market share but rather tapping into a market that Intel or AMD doesn’t have. When people want them to compete with Apple, they don’t want them to gain more market share but rather release SoCs that compete with what Apple is doing. That’s something Qualcomm isn’t doing now.

Lastly, just because Qualcomm chips are using in flagship Android phones, it doesn’t mean they’re the best ARM option overall or that other companies can’t do better. Other companies, aside from Samsung, are just now starting to push into flagship territory. MediaTek outsells Qualcomm in media devices, they’re investing in their flagship SoC. Google’s chips are also doing well in the Pixel 6. You’re holding Qualcomm in this untouchable light while just ignoring what Apple has done in terms of performance and efficiency. Why you continue acting stubborn is beyond me.

Apple makes a better SoC than Qualcomm. Yeah, Qualcomm may have licenses that Apple uses but that doesn’t mean their chips are the best. Android isn’t the only platform running on ARM chips. There’s also the slew of media devices that MediaTek outsells Qualcomm on. Most TVs, streaming sticks, and smart assistants run SoCs from MediaTek, not Qualcomm.

I have friends that use Life360, I absolutely hate the service. They’re all on Apple devices and could just share their location but they choose to subscribe to Life360. As of late, they’ve been getting notifications 10-15 minutes after someone leaves that they aren’t home, 30-50 minutes after they arrive that they’re home, and the app is a constant drain on their batteries (devices ranging from an iPhone SE to iPhone 12 Pros). They all have Apple everything, it baffles me why they continue to subscribe to Life360 yet have never used any of the SOS or other services, they just use it for tracking.

Hopefully they can pour more money into Tile so that there’s competition with Apple and Samsung.

An exclusivity deal was probably needed from MS so that Qualcomm would make the SQ1 and SQ2. I’m not sure if it was MS or Qualcomm who made the terrible decision to put that in a tablet that starts at $900 and gets 4 hours of battery life. MS sealed the Surface Pro X’s fate when they released the Pro 8 with more powerful hardware, the same design, and longer battery life in a less expensive package. Aside from their servers, I’m not sure MS is fully in with Windows on ARM. Maybe the end of this will help.

Totaltech is garbage for most people anyways. It’s fine if you’re a frequent Best Buy shopper and plan on buying TVs, PCs, and appliances over a few years. But it shouldn’t be used as a paywall for a new console. Some employees are arguing that it’s no different than Costco charging for a membership to shop. It is different. I was offered Totaltech for a new MacBook I purchased a couple of weeks ago. It does offer AppleCare+ on any new Apple device you own, so long as you pay the $200 a year. But I ended up buying AC+ for less than $250 on my own to have 3 years of coverage. Even if Totaltech was a good deal for me (it isn’t), I would refuse it on the principle alone. Best Buy needs to stop peddling things to customers, nobody is going to buy a $200 membership with their $40 headphones.

Lyrics? Yes, lyrics have been a part of iTunes for a while. Live synced lyrics with Apple Music are not available on iTunes though, I don’t think the web interface has them either (I haven’t used it in months because it was, and still is, garbage). Live lyrics are limited to Apple devices, Android, and some other devices running Apple Music.

There are other ARM OEMs though. Samsung has been making their own chips for quite some time and MediaTek isn’t new to the game. There’s a slew of others besides Qualcomm. The issue is that Qualcomm hold many of the wireless patents in the US and the other OEMs haven’t been able to catch up to Qualcomm’s performance. This isn’t quite the same as Apple relying on Intel or AMD, pretty much the only consumer mass market x86 chip makers.

This is a step in the right direction, should help with mods too and cheat platforms. One of the reasons why I’ve avoided buying PC games from Xbox is because I couldn’t run cheat clients (I know, it’s frowned upon but I don’t feel like playing RDR2 for 50 hours just to unlock a specific gun or ability).

I think you’re correct with that, they were going to charge more for it until Apple added their lossless/hi-fi option at no additional cost (and Amazon followed the same day). My guess is that they’ve been pushing free podcasts for ad revenue, they’re trying to offset the cost of lossless with podcasts and other content which contain ads even for premium subscribers. I wouldn’t be surprised if they launch lossless the week of Christmas or the last week of December just to squeeze it in before 2021 ends, if it all lines up with their revenue. The service will be DOA if they charge more for lossless.

It’s like two tape measurers put back-to-back with an LED light strip in the center, The Verge has a piece on it a while back.

The Mouse likes money, there’s no way Disney isn’t working on a version of this to sell to the public. I have a feeling they’re going to revamp the sabers they sell in the parks to be sturdier and feature new aspects (like vibrations), then come out with these. They’ll sell even if they’re $500+. I have a friend whose tight with their money and he made his own saber after picking mine up.

Give Disney a couple of years and it will be ready for primetime purchasing.

An on-property hotel fitting a family of 4 and entry to three parks, one of which was a special event, set my wife and I back $1800. It wasn’t the top hotel but it wasn’t the bottom, fine for a family event where you’re not spending loads of time in the hotel anyways. Yes, it’s expensive but we saved up for a year and it was fine. My wife and I are firmly in the middle class with a mortgage, two car payments, and the general bills (student loans, CC, phone, internet, TV).

The whole thing set us back by $5000 and that was with spending way too much money in Galaxy’s Edge, we could have cut it back to $3500-$4000 had we not let everyone make a lightsaber and build a droid.