A Review of the Nikon Z 50 Camera

The Nikon Z 50 offers a sub-$1,000 entry point into Nikon’s mirrorless system in a compact and lightweight crop sensor body, making it an intriguing option for many photographers. This helpful review takes a look at the new camera to help you decide if it is a good choice for your work.

Coming to you from gabpolitely, this great review takes a look at the Nikon Z 50. The Z 50 offers a DX-fortmat 20.9-megapixel sensor with an ISO range of 100-51,200 (expandable to 204,800). It also includes an impressive continuous burst rate of 11 fps, with an option for shooting 8-megapixel images at 30 fps. Along with that is a 209-point autofocus system with Eye Detection AF. On the video side, the Z 50 sports UHD 4K 30p capabilities. The magnesium alloy body also features dust and weather resistance and is quite light at just a smidgen under 14 oz (395 g). Of course, to get the camera down to its impressive price point, some compromises had to be made, but altogether, it looks to be an impressive piece of kit at a very reasonable cost, making it an intriguing option for many Nikon shooters. Check out the video above for the full rundown.

Microsoft: Xbox Scarlett will kick PlayStation 5’s ass in perf/price

The fight for console dominance is going to really kick off in 2020, as Microsoft doesn’t want to behind in any sense of the word with the new generation of consoles. Microsoft plans to use its Xbox Scarlett to well and truly kick some Sony ass with its right-now-way-more-hyped PlayStation 5 console.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer recently talked with The Verge, where he talked about Project Scarlett and said: “I would say a learning from the Xbox One generation is we will not be out of position on power or price. If you remember the beginning of this generation we were a hundred dollars more expensive and, yes, we were less powerful. And we started Project Scarlett with this leadership team in place with a goal of having market success”.

Spencer continued, saying that Microsoft had talked internally about whether they would do another generation of consoles “years ago”. He added that he personally thinks there will be more generations of consoles post-Scarlett, saying: “We’re all-in on Project Scarlett and I want to compete, and I want to compete in the right ways which is why we’re focused on cross-play and backward compatibility”.

There you have it — Microsoft knows it was too expensive, and too slow, with Xbox One — and the company won’t repeat that mistake with Xbox Scarlett and its 2020 and beyond battle with Sony’s next-gen PlayStation 5. It’s no surprise, since Microsoft has been teasing it will be pulling no punches with Xbox Scarlett against the PS5 for a while now.

Apple Mac Pro finally gets a release date… sort of

After its much talked about unveiling at Apple’s WWDC 2019 event this summer, eager content creators and other professionals have long been waiting for the release of Mac Pro (2019). 

And, what a long wait it has been, with the words “Coming This Fall” seemingly taunting us for months. Especially considering that Apple has been very busy the last few months, refreshing both its MacBook Air and MacBook Pros, rolling out not just one but three new iPhones and releasing the new 16-inch MacBook Pro since the announcement. That’s just on the hardware side.

The good news is, after what seemed like forever and the company finally securing the FCC approval for the Mac Pro, Apple is ready to officially commit to a release date. 

Tom’s Hardware reports that the long-awaited dedicated desktop and follow up to the Mac Pro 2013 is set to be released in December. That’s right; if you’ve been good this year, you might just find a brand spanking new Mac Pro (2019) under your Christmas tree come Christmas morning.

With “might” being the operative word. While we know the month, we still don’t know the exact date. In addition, the Mac Pro page on the Apple website still hasn’t been updated and still has “Coming This Fall” for a release date. However, if Apple were to keep that Fall release, we should see the Mac Pro hit the streets before December 22nd.

Mac Pro configurations and the Pro Display XDR

The Mac Pro will be available is several configurations. Its base model touts an octa-core Intel Xeon W chip, AMD Radeon Pro 580X graphics and 32GB of memory. This will set you back $5,999 (about £4,730, AU$8.720). On the other hand, its most souped-up configuration rocks a 28-core Intel Xeon processor, dual AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo GPUs and 1.5TB of memory. An estimate suggests that this could cost as high as $45,000 (around £35,000, AU$65,000).

Alongside the Mac Pro release announcement, Apple also revealed that the Pro Display XDR, which will start at $4,999, will come as a 32-inch Retina display with a whopping 6K (6016 x 3384) resolution and a 10-bit panel for 1.073 billion colors with DCI-P3 wide color space.

Microsoft Windows 10 Has A Reliable Advantage Over MacOS Catalina

Alongside the announcement of the Surface Duo, Microsoft announced a new version of Windows – Windows 10X – that would power the upcoming dual-screen device. It’s going to look very familiar to Windows 10, but with some tweaks to improve the UI for dual screened devices.

Windows 10X is part of Microsoft’s push towards a modular version of Windows 10, so 10X should be regarded as a branch of Windows 10 for dual screened devices, just as there are versions of Windows 10 that branch out to support HoloLens, Surface Hub, and Xbox.

This weekend saw reports of a leaked internal design document around Windows 10X and a number of key areas where 10X will take a different path to the vanilla Windows 10. It also suggested that some of the options in 10X could make their way to the more traditional laptop formats with single screen setups.

We’re clearly in ’assuming Taniyama-Shimura’ territory here, but the suggested features of 10X feel very much in tune with the slow iterative progress that Microsoft is making with Windows 10… Improvements to Windows Hello and the facial recognition system will benefit the entire platform. The inclusion of a more touch friendly ‘modern’ file explorer to fit the UI seen in other UWP apps coded by Microsoft and others is a logical progression.

And we can already see with the limited amount of public time that the Surface Duo has had that the classic Start Menu is becoming more like a smartphone launcher, so the suggested additions of improved local search and recommended content should not come as a surprise.

This is where Microsoft is playing a better game than Apple. As witnessed by the recent changes to MacOS with Catalina, Apple is working on an annual tempo of releases and new things need to happen ‘on schedule’ for the preview at WWDC in June and the public availability of the next version of in September. That puts a huge amount of pressure on the development team to keep coming up with something new for marketing for the limited pool of MacOS powered machines. With Catalina needing an almost immediate hot fix because of installation issues you have to ask if this is the right approach.

Microsoft has moved away from this tempo to a more ‘continual’ update cycle for Windows 10, releasing when the code is ready. Although issues can still arise when the code is rolled out to the almost infinite combinations of hardware around the world, Microsoft’s steady pattern of releases offers more reassurance to customers that things will not rapidly change.

HUAWEI MATE X 5G FOLDABLE PHONE TO HIT THE MARKET TOMORROW

According to Huawei’s official mall information, Huawei Mate X 5G foldable phone will commence sales at 10:08 am on November 15 (Tomorrow). However, Huawei Mall limits the sale to the 8GB + 512GB version and the price is 16999 yuan ($2421).

Huawei Mate X uses a foldable display that uses an eagle-wing folding scheme. It can be expanded up to 8 inches. It also has the option of becoming a 6.6-inch or a 6.38-inch display. The 6-inch+ display can be handed with one hand and the body thickness is only 5.4mm. In the core configuration, Huawei Mate X comes with Huawei’s first 7nm 5G multimode chip Balong 5000 + Kirin 980. However, subsequent batches upgrade the chip to Kirin 990 5G. This smartphone also uses a 4500 mAh in-built battery which supports 55W super fast charge. It can deliver up to 85% in 30 minutes. Furthermore, this 5G smartphone also supports the 4G network.

In the camera configuration, this device comes with a triple camera setup. It uses a 40MP super-sensing camera (27mm) f/1.8, an 8MP telephoto lens (80mm) f/2.4 which supports OIS optical anti-shake and a 16MP super wide-angle lens (17mm) f/2.2. Its 3D depth sensor supports professional-grade blur effects. Mate X’s lens supports ISO 204800 ultra-high sensitivity, 45x zoom range (ultra wide-angle -3x optical – 30x digital), 2.5cm super macro shooting, and OIS + AIS super anti-shake.

MSI launches Cubi 5 mini PC with 10th-gen Intel Core chips

The MSI Cubi line of tiny desktop computers are getting a spec bump. MSI added the new Cubi 5 10M to its website this week, with support for up to a 10th-gen Intel Core i7 U-series processor.

Since Intel hasn’t officially launched its upcoming Frost Canyon NUC yet, (even though we know it’s coming), that makes the Cubi 5 the first compact desktop computer in this category to feature 10th-gen Intel Core processors (Comet Lake, in this case).

The Cubi 5 measures 4.9″ x 4.9″ x 2.1″ and has room inside for an M.2 solid state drive and/or a 2.5 inch hard drive or SSD.

There are two SODIMM slots for up to 64GB of DDR4-2666 memmory.

And on the outside you’ll find:

1 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C port

3 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports

2 x USB 2.0 ports

1 x RJ45 Ethernet jack

1 x HDMI 1.4 port

1 x DisplayPort 1.2

1 x mic input

1 x headphone/speaker output

MSI will also offer 802.11ac or 802.11ax wireless cards.

With a VESA mount kit, you can attach the little computer to the back of a monitor. And there’s support for an optional external power switch so you can turn it on and off easily even if the PC is stuffed in a hard-to-reach spot.

Corsair’s New iCUE QL PWM Fans Pack 34 Addressable RGB LEDS Each

It appears that RGB has been in the market for so long that companies are starting to feel the need to up the ante, which is exactly what Corsair is doing with its new iCUE QL RGB PWM fans announced today. For the time being, the company is only announcing them in 120 and 140mm variants.

What’s special about these RGB-enabled fans is that they have not one, two or even three lighting zones. No, they have four lighting zones spanning over a grand total of 34 individually addressable RGB LEDs per fan. I don’t think my entire PC even has that many RGB LEDs in the entire build!

The lighting zones are located at the outer and inner rings of the fans on the front and exhaust sides. Corsair’s goal here was to make accompanying systems “look great from all angles,” its announcement said. The inner ring of the intake side of the fan also passes some light into the lightly translucent fan blades for added effect.

Thankfully, all this RGB craze seemingly hasn’t gone at the total expense of the PWM fans’ performance. Corsair is still trying to ensure these units aren’t all too loud with built-in vibration dampers, PWM control and silent fan hubs. The 120mm units will run at up to 1,500 RPM while pushing up to 41.8 CFM of air, and the 140mm units are said to push up to 50.2CFM at 1,250 RPM. Corsair rates both at 18-26dBA through their RPM range, and although they aren’t expected to perform at industry-leading silence levels, these are fairly respectable numbers (assuming Corsair’s testing conditions were fair). They’ll go down to 525 and 550 RPM for the QL120 and QL140, respectively, so based on this information I wouldn’t concern yourself with excessive noise levels.

Corsair will sell the units in single-packs and in three-packs (120mm) or two-packs (140mm) with an included Corsair iCue Node CORE hub that allows you to connect up to six fans. They come with a two-year warranty, and the fans are rated to operate with a mean time between failure of 40,000 hours.

Corsair’s color-crazy fans are currently available at Amazon starting at $44.99 for 120mm or $49.99 for 140mm. The 120mm three-pack is $139.99, and the 140mm two-pack is $119.99, but “temporarily out of stock.”

Grab a Radeon RX 5700 graphics card for just $290 right now

AMD’s Radeon RX 5700 is a great graphics card, if you can’t spend a little extra money for the 5700 XT. The card has dropped to $290 a few times, and now one model from XFX has returned to that price. For comparison, most other RX 5700 cards start at $330.

The model on sale uses AMD’s reference design, meaning there is no factory overclock, no custom cooler, and so on. Don’t worry, though—our review of the reference 5700 found that it still out-performed the RTX 2060 and AMD’s own Vega 64. It’s a great graphics card for 1440p and 1080p gaming, though you may have to turn settings a bit on the latter (at least in super-demanding games) to maintain silky-smooth 60 fps.

The exact hardware specifications include a core clock of 1465 MHz, a boost clock of 1725 MHz, 8GB of GDDR6 memory, and 2304 Stream Processors. For video output, you get one HDMI 2.0b and three DisplayPort 1.4.

Apple iOS 13.3 Is Poised To Launch With This Killer Security Feature

Apple’s iOS 13.3 should be coming to your iPhone pretty soon, and with it a bunch of cool new features. One of the interesting and exciting iOS 13.3 updates for anyone who is concerned about their security is the ability to use security keys with Apple’s Safari browser. 

The move is revealed in Apple’s release notes for the second developer beta, which says iOS 13.3 supports NFC, USB, and Lightning FIDO2-compliant security keys in Safari. 

In other words, when the iOS 13.3 update drops, you will able to use physical security keys such as Yubico’s iPhone compatible YubiKey 5Ci–which was previously unavailable to browsers such as Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome. However, it could be used with some password manager apps such as 1Password. 

It is expected that iOS 13.3 will probably hit sometime in December. So what’s the deal with security keys?

Security keys in iOS 13.3: A great idea 

A security key is a convenient and secure form of authentication because you can simply plug it into your device. 

Security researcher Sean Wright goes one step further, saying security keys are “fantastic.” 

“Keys are a rare case in security where a good mechanism comes with something that is relatively easy to use. They represent a desire to move away from password based authentication to something that is often more secure as well as hopefully more user friendly.”

He points out that security keys also prevent phishing attempts, where an attacker will try to steal your details by, for example, sending you an email prompting you to enter your credentials onto a fake page. 

ZeroDayLab’s director of cyber security strategy, Stuart Peck agrees the move is a “great idea.” However, he points out that support for YubiKey is limited–although this is likely to change over time. 

But like any form of authentication, security keys aren’t bulletproof. You might even want to avoid carrying them around with you, especially if there is a chance they may get lost. “Like any key, you will want to ensure that you keep them safe, and avoid leaving them around and losing them,” Wright says.

In order to protect yourself while still getting the most benefit out of the key, Wright advises having another means–perhaps another backup key–to access your account. “So if you lost your key or it was stolen you would immediately revoke it.”

Security keys in iOS 13.3: Should you use one?

It’s an exciting change, and security keys are a definite yes for a technical user who is concerned about their data. However, Peck thinks they could be overkill for the average person. “Unless your personal threat model requires the use of security keys, an app for two factor authentication is just as acceptable.”

Apple’s iOS 13 is certainly moving in the right direction for security and privacy. The iPhone maker has added a host of new security features to the updated operating system including the ability to lock down its voice assistant Siri. 

It has also introduced new features that could be a blow to firms such as Facebook and Google by highlighting how much data they collect in the background and giving you the opportunity to prevent this.

Personally, I’m looking forward to iOS 13.3 and the ability to try out a security key on my device. But it isn’t for everyone–and it’s certainly not something you’d want to lose–so if you do use one make sure you have a back up. 

MSI Prestige 15 Core i7 is really fast, but expect high Core temperatures

We recently checked out the MSI Prestige 15 aimed at both office users and content creators who may need more power than your typical Ultrabook. While its 4K display and GTX 1650 Max-Q graphics proved to be brighter and faster than most other ultra-thin laptops, the brand new Comet Lake-U Core i7-10710U processor was a mixed bag when under 100 percent utilization.

To test this, we would run Prime95 to stress the CPU while observing clock rate and temperature behavior with HWiNFO. Our screenshot below shows that once the Prime95 stress test begins, clock rates would jump to 3.6 GHz for the first few seconds until hitting a core temperature of 92 C. Clock rates and temperature would then stabilize at ~3.2 GHz and ~94 C thereafter, respectively.

After about 4.5 minutes of Prime95 stress, however, clock rates and temperature would suddenly cycle between 800 MHz and 3.2 GHz and 67 C and 95 C, respectively. Power consumption during this time would also cycle between 37 W and 92 W to be in tandem with the clock rate and temperature cycling.

Strangely, we were unable to reproduce the results above when rerunning the same stress test on a second Prestige 15 unit. Clock rates and temperature would instead stabilize at 2.8 GHz and 95 C, respectively, as shown by the screenshot below compared to 2.8 GHz and 82 C on the ZenBook 15 UX534F.

There’s nothing inherently wrong about high core temperatures reaching over 90 C as Intel CPUs are designed to run as warm as 100 C to 105 C in most cases. Nonetheless, stabilizing at 95 C like on the Prestige 15 is undesirable since you are essentially walking a thin line between high performance and the potential for throttling. We recommend keeping a close eye on core temperature if you intend to run the MSI laptop at 100 percent CPU utilization. Thankfully, this shouldn’t be an issue if browsing, streaming, editing, or gaming.