PCWorld February 2020

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Matt Egan EDITOR IN CHIEF, CONSUMER BRANDS Jon Phillips DESIGN DIRECTOR Robert Schultz EDITORIAL EXECUTIVE EDITORS Melissa Riofrio, Gordon Mah Ung SENIOR EDITORS Michael Brown, Brad Chacos, Mark Hachman ASSOCIATE EDITOR Leif Johnson COPY EDITOR Sue Voelkel DESIGN DESIGNER Rob Woodcock ADVERTISING SALES INQUIRIES http://idg.com/contact-us/ FOUNDERS FOUNDER David Bunnell FOUNDING EDITOR Andrew Fluegelman INTERNATIONAL DATA GROUP, INC. CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD Walter Boyd US PRESIDENT, IDG COMMUNICATIONS Charles Lee…

Dell’s Concept UFO, Concept Duet, and Concept Ori offer a rare peek at future products from the usually tight-lipped PC maker. PCWorld got an advance look at these concepts ahead of their announcement at CES in Las Vegas. Because they’re concepts, we don’t know whether they’ll ever make it to market. So, think of them as hints of what Dell’s working on for future PCs, and who knows—you may see something like it someday at your local electronics store. CONCEPT ORI: IT FOLDS! The Concept Ori is a folding PC that looks a lot like the ThinkPad X1 Fold (go.pcworld.com/thx1) that Lenovo revealed at CES 2020. It’s a single display that folds in the middle, offering options for using it as a display, a tablet, or a clamshell laptop. A small Bluetooth keyboard…

HP’s Envy 32 AiO claims the title of being the first with an HDR600 4K display, the first with GeForce RTX graphics, and for those who want the noise: the world’s loudest speakers on an AiO, too. Announced at CES in Las Vegas, it’s also arguably the first all-in-one PC that’s bad-ass instead of boring. You can configure the Envy 32 right now on HP.com. Calling it a “personal creative studio,” HP says the all-in-one PC is the first to feature a 32-inch 4K UHD screen that can hit HDR600 requirements. HP says the panel offers a 6000:1 contrast ratio, 600 nits of brightness, and 98 percent of the DCI-P3 color space. HP opted not to offer touch support on the screen. Officials said their research indicates touch is preferred on laptops,…

After snatching the performance crown from Intel on the desktop, AMD officially opened up a second front in the war at CES 2020, with a series of Ryzen 4000 laptop CPUs that look to outperform Intel’s best and brightest. “In 2020, we will be introducing the best laptop processor ever built,” said AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su during the unveil. The company detailed no less than seven consumer Ryzen 4000 processors, based on its 7nm Zen 2 cores. The new CPUs will come in both 15 watt “U-class” ultra-low power versions in thin and light laptops and “H-class” 45-watt gaming and content creation laptops. The Ryzen 7 4800U is the top-end low power version, packing 8-cores and 16-threads. It will hit boost clock of 4.2GHz and have a base clock of 1.8GHz. The…

Intel used CES in Las Vegas to offer a further glimpse, though little detail, of its next-generation chips due in 2020. ‘Tiger Lake’ is its next CPU, and Intel proved that its next GPU, code-named DG1, is up and running. Before its press conference began, Intel had already made several announcements, some arguably more interesting: its new Core i9-based modular NUC, “Ghost Canyon,” plus new details concerning its 10th-gen Comet Lake chips, including the fact that they’ll run above 5GHz. Intel also revealed earlier that its upcoming Tiger Lake CPUs will have improved AI performance, though the company didn’t say how much. Intel is—or should be—worried about AMD’s barrage of CES announcements, including the Ryzen 4000 (see page 12) 7nm/Zen 2 mobile chips expected to take on Intel, and the ridiculously powerful…

Another CES is in the books, and this time around, the annual techstravaganza served as a harbinger for the disruption aimed at PCs in 2020. Things are about to get funky, friends. AMD opened a new front in the war against Intel, Intel fired shots at AMD and Nvidia, and monitors were being pushed to blazing-fast new limits left and right. Laptops embraced newfound form factors. Desktops got weird. Heck, we even saw a détente in the battle between consoles and PC gamers in bold, badass fashion. We were there to capture it all. Here’s a recap of the CES 2020 reveals that PC enthusiasts need to know about. Hit those links for deeper details throughout. AMD VS. INTEL VS. NVIDIA Let’s start with the heavy hitters powering the chips inside the PCs you…