Sorry, Apple fans, but the iPhone 13 Pro Max is no longer the best iPhone on the market – you’re going to want to upgrade to the newer iPhone 14 Pro Max for that. The new device has an always-on display, 48MP main camera, no notch and newer chipset, making for an all-around better package.

That’s not to say the 14 Pro Max’s predecessor is bad, though. It’s got incredible battery life, cameras that can do pretty much anything you’d need on a smartphone, and is available in a range of muted, but classy, colors. Simply put, this is one of the leading contenders for the best smartphone in the world right now.

It now also appears with a 1TB storage option (not available on the iPhone 12), so if you’re a budding (or professional) film maker, you can fill this handset with content to your heart’s content.

It’s also got a ‘Pro’ price, starting at $1,099 / £1,049 / AU$1,849 and going all the way up to $1,599 / £1,549 / AU$2,719.

Yes, it’s a bit of a tired trope to moan about how expensive the iPhone can get at the top end, but Apple has charged top dollar for its best iPhone year on year, and yet they still remain among the most popular models, meaning ‘too expensive’ is starting to become rather subjective when it comes to reviewing.

That said, if you’re considering the iPhone 13 Pro Max then you’re probably after the best iPhone, and in that case you might want to wait a little longer, as we’re expecting to see the iPhone 14 Pro Max along with the rest of the iPhone 14 line on September 7. That’s sure to be an upgrade in a number of ways, and even if it doesn’t appeal it’s likely to mean price drops for this model.

In any case, ‘best’ is heavily subjective here, but if you can handle the gargantuan proportions of a phone with a 6.7-inch screen, then this is easily the best iPhone Apple has ever made… until the aforementioned iPhone 14 makes an appearance.

The design is almost identical to that of the 12 Pro Max that appeared in 2020, with the flat, industrial-looking stainless steel frame surrounding the massive OLED screen.

The large camera protrusion at the rear is noticeable (and it now sticks out even further to enable greater photography prowess). The new Pro comes in a fetching Sierra Blue too this year, which is a nice-looking, powdery color to enjoy.

The screen has been improved to not only include a 120Hz refresh rate, called ProMotion (which iPhone users have been asking for for years, but which to our eyes adds very little) but also higher maximum brightness and a smaller notch.

The shrinking of the notch is good, but it’s not game-changing – Apple needs to shrink it out of existence. However, the overall screen quality is stunning, whatever you’re looking at.

The key thing you’d buy the iPhone 13 Pro Max for, in our opinion, is its battery life. Apple has improved this again over the 12 Pro Max, which offered pretty good longevity, to the point where it’s no longer an issue.

Most of the time we’d make it into a second day before needing a charger, and even on a day of high-intensity use it was around 9pm before the phone totally died.

It remains a shame that Apple doesn’t bundle its higher-power iPhone charger in the box, though, so you’ll need to pay $19 / £19 / AU$29 for that speedy juicing.

The cameras, as we’ve alluded to, enable you to take a huge variety of snaps in a wider range of scenarios than ever. Apple has made a big deal about adding improved low-light capability and Night Mode to all of the three 12MP sensors on the rear, and the iPhone 13 Pro Max also comes with a nifty macrophotography mode.

This means the handset will automatically shift to the ultrawide camera when you get close to objects, and the effects are stellar.

Apple has balanced an impressive amount of power with ease of use, so you can take great snaps in auto mode, but you’re also easily able to play around with various settings for a more hands-on experience.

However, we’re not taken with the new Cinematic mode, which will automatically shift focus depending on where people are looking – it’s cool, but it doesn’t really add much.

Finally, another reason to save up and buy the iPhone 13 Pro Max is its performance – it’s ridiculously powerful, and is able to play games to a high graphical standard and perform intensive tasks like encoding video at a pretty nifty rate.

Most people buying this phone will never scratch the surface of what it can truly do, but videographers will really appreciate the increased storage, the number of shooting options and speed at which it can process edits.

Want more than a two-minute review? Read on to find out how the iPhone 13 Pro Max performed in our in-depth testing – the results of our battery life and camera tests in particular are pretty impressive.

The iPhone 13 Pro Max was unveiled on September 14, and you’ve been able to buy the handset from September 24.  The 13 Pro Max is the most expensive iPhone you can buy right now, with the cheapest model (128GB of storage) costing $1,099 / £1,049 / AU$1,849.

The 256GB model costs $1,199 / £1,149 / AU$2,019, the 512GB variant costs $1,399 / £1,349 / AU$2,369, and the 1TB model costs $1,599 / £1,549 / AU$2,719.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a 1TB smartphone, but it is the first time Apple has offered that much storage – and it’s going to cost you, so think carefully about whether you really need that much space.

Really, 1TB is only for those who are going to be using the iPhone 13 Pro Max for movie making and generating reams of 4K video at 60 frames per second, or thousands of maximum-resolution photos; most people won’t need more than 512GB.

Compare the best iPhone 13 Pro Max deals available

Design – more of the same

We’ll get this out of the way now: if you’re looking at the iPhone 13 Pro Max as your next phone, you surely have to know you’re getting a massive handset. And it is massive. This is not a phone for those wanting something that you can wrap a hand around or even reach a thumb the whole way across – you want screen, you want battery, and you’re ready to sacrifice the feel in the hand for it.

Let’s start by looking at how it’s put together. The stainless steel outer band, first seen on the iPhone 12 range last year, is back again, aping the design of the iPad Pro range for the last few years.

Even after a year, we’re still missing the curved back of the previous iPhone models, first seen on the iPhone 6. Yes, there’s a nice grippiness to the sharper, more industrial-looking edges of the new iPhone 13 Pro Max, and change is always welcome in the world of smartphone design, but it just feels less comfortable to hold.

Speaking of comfort, while we assume that you’re okay with the idea of the larger handset if you’re plumping for the iPhone 13 Pro Max, unless you’ve got very large hands it can be a bit of a challenge to wield.

We’ve noticed that using the phone for extended periods can stretch the fingers a little further than normal, and that can lead to some slight aches; our digits adapted over time, but it’s worth being aware of if you’ve decided you just want ‘that iPhone with the really long-lasting battery’.

The Lightning connector remains at the base of the phone, flanked by the speaker (well, one of them – the other is in the earpiece, and does a thoroughly good job of dispensing sound when you’re watching movies or listening to music).

While there would be numerous advantages to Apple switching the iPhone to USB-C at the bottom (faster charging and data transmission for one) it would clearly incur the wrath of a lot of people with iPhone chargers kicking around, so the miss isn’t really that strongly felt at this time.

We were sent the Sierra Blue version of the iPhone 13 Pro Max and, like the other colors in the range (graphite, gold and silver), it’s on the muted side to allow those who need to do more ‘professional’ things (like carry briefcases and have a weekly lunch with Tomi from Accounts) to have the phone in meetings and the like.

The blue is a strong addition to the line-up in the iPhone Pro range, but despite the phone having Apple’s super-tough Ceramic Shield on the front, we would still suggest you pop this thing in a case.

We still managed to dull the edges off the iPhone 12 Pro Max, as well as scratching the front screen, over the course of a few months’ use – so while the 13 Pro Max is a more robust phone than iPhones from years ago, we still think it’s worth protecting your investment.

MagSafe, the magnetic connection on the back of the new iPhone range that allows you to wirelessly connect chargers and other accessories, also returns – and it’s becoming more of a selling point.

We’re still not seeing swathes of MagSafe accessories on the market just yet, but that makes sense given that, other than the new iPhones, only the iPhone 12 range supports it.

Now there are four more phones that use MagSafe, expect more cases, stands, controllers and gimbals to appear – and it’s really cool to just slip on the round metal disc and see your phone start charging instantly.

iPhone 13 Pro Max Display – Brighter, But 120Hz Misses

There are three key changes to the 6.7-inch display on the iPhone 13 Pro Max that are worth discussing: the smaller notch, a screen that refreshes at up to 120Hz (meaning smoother scrolling and transitions throughout) and improved brightness when frolicking outdoors in the sunny sunshine.

The reduced size of the notch is the most obvious of the three, and while it’s welcome it doesn’t really change a lot in terms of the iPhone design – there’s still a notch encroaching on your movies and games, where other brands are playing with smaller punch-holes and even completely invisible cameras.

That said, we’re not saying the notch is without its merits – when you find that you’re able to unlock your phone with your face from a surprising angle (where you think ‘surely it can’t pick my face up from here’), you can forgive the need for multiple sensors to be wedged in at the top of the screen.

We’d like to see Apple miniaturize this a little more though, and get the cameras and sensors into the rim of the phone – or at least let us see the battery percentage shown constantly, rather than having to swipe down. When we heard word of a smaller notch coming, we had hoped that the little beacon of battery life would be a constant option, but sadly no.

Apple’s 120Hz display technology is called ProMotion, and has been used on the iPad Pro range for years. It’s surprising that it’s taken this long to appear on an iPhone, simply because the technology clearly exists within Apple, and because most rivals have had it on flagship and even some mid-range phones for a while now.

However, we can also see why Apple has eschewed its presence until now – it comes at the cost of battery life, and, to our eyes, doesn’t always add a lot to the browsing experience.

A quick explainer if you need it: the refresh rate is the amount of time your screen will show a new image per second – 120Hz means you’ll see 120 images per second, which means that scrolling a web page or flipping through Twitter will be smoother.

However, often you don’t need that high refresh rate if you’re just looking at a static image, so Apple has made the feature dynamic, with the phone intelligently deciding the refresh rate, and dropping down to 10Hz when needed to save battery life.

A 120Hz display is definitely a luxury extra rather than a must-have feature, and in our scrolling tests we noticed that things didn’t always look that much smoother compared to the screen on the 11 Pro Max – when you peer closely you can see the difference, but in reality it isn’t a huge change.

What was noticeable was that the screen scrolled in a far more ‘stable’ way, meaning that our finger flicks were far more accurate, and we didn’t send the rows of text flying around with the merest quiver of a digit. Text was also clearer as it flew by, showing that there is a benefit here, even if it’s a modest one.

While we have called this a luxury feature, the iPhone 13 Pro Max is presented as one of the most luxurious phones on the market, so a 120Hz screen is something that Apple really should have added by now, and its presence feels more like a box-tick than an impressive new feature.

Another purported advantage of a 120Hz screen is for gaming – the increased frame rate is supposed to yield superior play thanks to smoother motion and the ability to react that much quicker in games – but quite honestly, we couldn’t see a difference compared to older screens.

We chose Aldo’s Odyssey and Grid Autosport to test the feature out, and both looked – and played – identically to on the 11 Pro Max, with the smoothness and graphical performance appearing to be exactly the same.

Do 120Hz Refresh Rates Matter?

Don’t get us wrong, it looks good, but it’s hard to see what 120Hz is adding here other than a touch more fluidity. Developers will likely need to optimize some games to make full use of the slickness of 120Hz, so perhaps that’s what we’re seeing here – we’ve asked for more clarification.

Apple is also touting greater outdoor brightness on the iPhone 13 Pro Max, with higher peak levels of 1200 nits (read: brighter than a lot of other smartphones out there). Compared to the 11 Pro Max, it was easier to see what was on the screen in brighter conditions, although it’s still something of a squint-fest when you’re trying to watch a movie in direct sunlight.

However, that screen brightness increase makes the 13 Pro Max more usable than any iPhone before it and a good example of Apple focusing on the changes that really will make a difference in day-to-day use.

Underpinning all these changes is the fact the iPhone 13 Pro Max has a stunning OLED display, with incredibly rich color reproduction and great use of things like Dolby Vision playback for when you want to watch movies with that extra level of detail and clarity.

The effect is pretty stunning – even though it’s not that new, as the iPhone and many other smartphones have had great screens for many years – and it’s worth remembering that you’re getting a phone that’s a genuine alternative to watching on the big screen when it comes to quality.

We noticed that Apple’s changes to the brightness of the screen are minor, but noticeable when you place the iPhone 13 Pro Max alongside an older phone. Interestingly Apple has wandered more towards more saturated colors with the latest display – particularly when showing off red elements of the image.

This is something that Samsung has always been famed for, so it’s intriguing to see Apple decide to add a little more artificial ‘pop’ to its displays with the iPhone 13 Pro range.

Battery Life – Finally Good

Let’s not beat around the bush here – you’ve already seen us say it, but the battery life of the iPhone 13 Pro Max is the biggest reason why you’d buy this phone.

Sure, you like the larger display to watch all your fancy movies and TikTok clips on, but in reality the notion of owning an iPhone with actually decent battery life is going to attract hordes of people to this model.

Why is everyone proclaiming that the iPhone 13 Pro Max battery life is so good? Well, it just feels robust. On a day of ‘middling’ use – mostly consisting of web browsing and music streaming over Wi-Fi, with three trips out for running and picking up kids from school – we took the phone off charge at 7:30am, and only managed to kill it by 4am the next day by downloading two huge games… that’s 35 hours of battery life.

We performed a side-by-side test with the iPhone 11 Pro Max, starting with both phones at 100% battery, streaming two hours and 20 minutes of YouTube on full brightness. The older model (which, we must stress, has been used for over a year, so there will be some battery degradation) fell to 81% in that time, where the new Pro Max only dropped to 91%.

Even if you were feeling generous to the older iPhone, that’s a massive gulf in battery management.

We’re not claiming that the iPhone 13 Pro Max has bulletproof battery life – on a super-hard day of testing, which saw us using the camera for hours, running around with Spotify playing in the background, and going in and out of signal, making phone calls, running a YouTube test and generally fiddling about with the phone, we only managed to get 14 hours of use before reaching for the charger.

But don’t get us wrong: in day-to-day use, you’ll regularly find that you’ve got a good third of the battery left by the time you go to bed, even with a few heavier tasks like music streaming or navigating using Google Maps for a few hours, so you’re less likely to need a power bank with this new phone.

In our lab testing we saw a score of 12 hours and 16 minutes for continuously browsing the web over a 5G connection until the battery was flat, which is pretty impressive, and the best we’ve seen from a flagship phone – the handsets that have performed better are usually cheaper phones that don’t have things like fast-charging capability.

Oh, while we’re on that subject… we’re still strongly of the opinion that Apple is being unfair by not including a charging block in the box with the iPhone 13 Pro Max. Yes, it definitely does save on waste from people having unnecessary chargers when many iPhone users likely have a few Lightning leads kicking around.

We also get why there’s a USB-C to Lightning cable in the box – so that users can connect easily to one of the new MacBooks or other laptops on the market. But that lead also facilitates the faster charging this phone is capable of, meaning you’ll want to buy the 20W charging block to get that sweet juice into your phone quickly.

It would be better if Apple gave you the option of whether or not to have a charger at purchase – either giving you a small discount for not having one, or just a general sense of being a good person and helping the planet. (Although, in fairness, keeping the cost of the phone the same as last year is a pretty good move when there are some decent hardware upgrades in the mix).

Why would you want that faster charger? Well, if you suddenly remember that you’re useless at life and have let your phone run out of battery, we found that in 15 minutes we could replenish the phone to a third full – enough for up to 10 hours of use, based on our testing.

Another 15 minutes on the charger got the phone up to 53%, showing that the fast charger is definitely worth it. However, the rate of charging slows down after that, with the phone getting to around 80% after an hour, and then requiring another 80 minutes to get to 100%.

The larger iPhones have always been the longest-lasting in each range, obviously, but this battery performance is a level above for a phone made by Apple.

It finally removes ‘Yes, but it hasn’t got very good battery life’ from the equation if you’re deciding between Apple and Android devices, as it’ll be more than serviceable for anyone who regularly charges nightly, and will save the bacon of those ‘forgetful chargers’ who don’t top up each night and then constantly pester you for a charger.

Camera – Making Tiny Things Amazing

While we think the battery life is the real selling point of the iPhone 13 Pro Max, a close second is the camera offering – while the improvements here are only tweaks from the iPhone 12 Pro Max, those tweaks are useful and impressive in a number of ways and make it one of the best camera phones around.

Let’s run through the changes quickly: the main camera (which Apple calls the Wide camera, confusingly) has a 12MP sensor, with larger 1.9μm pixels placed on the largest sensor Apple’s ever put in a smartphone in order to absorb even more light, which combined with an f/1.5 aperture enables you to capture some seriously impressive low-light images, as you’ll see in the samples below.

The Ultra Wide sensor (which zooms out from the main image) has also been upgraded – the megapixel count here is also 12MP which is the same as last year, but it now packs Apple’s Night Mode functionality, with the phone able to take some breathtaking photos in near-pitch black situations, as long as you’re able to hold the handset perfectly still for the necessary amount of time.

The Telephoto lens, the one that can zoom in on distant objects, has been upgraded to be able to zoom in three times optically – meaning that it’s physically magnifying the image, rather than doing so digitally and creating a grainier shot. That’s a useful addition, but it’s a shame you can’t also do 2x zoom optically – as sometimes that would be preferable.

Sadly, the zoom distance is fixed, so you’ll need to make do – although the iPhone’s chipset does a pretty good job of cleaning up the digital zoom.

When it comes to the quality of the photos the iPhone 13 Pro Max is capable of producing day to day, there’s a clear and obvious improvement over last year’s model.

What’s interesting is that it appears to be in the processing of images that the improvements have been made – in some shots the subject was clearer and brighter where a strong backlight was present (which is tricky to manage on a smartphone camera), while in others it was clear that the 13 Pro Max had decided to darken the photo in order to preserve more detail.

This is useful to prevent overexposure, and leads to more attractive shots overall – although the improvements aren’t huge over the 12 Pro Max, or even the 11 Pro Max, they’re noticeable and welcome.

Macrophotography

One of the key changes to the iPhone 13 Pro Max camera setup comes in the shape of the new macrophotography mode, which activates instantly when you move the phone closer to a subject. It’s quite a jarring jump, but suddenly a world of blur becomes clear, and you can take some fantastic pictures.

In fact, it’s only the shadow of the phone falling on some subjects, due to the camera being so close, that causes any issue with the photos – we took some stunning snaps, and we can see the macro mode being something we play with for hours, as all kinds of subjects can look fascinatingly different when viewed ultra-close.

Low-light and Night Mode

Apple has improved all three rear camera sensors for the iPhone 13 Pro Max to make them more effective in low light, and the results are pretty spectacular in a number of ways.

The first is that, generally, low-light shots (not using the long-exposure, hold-still method of Night Mode) look far brighter. Everything we shot looked clear, sharp and bright, and while there was a fair amount of grain in images we definitely got the best low-light photos we’ve seen from any iPhone.

This is partly to do with the new sensor, but also the use of the LiDAR function (which uses lasers to spot where surfaces are) as well as excellent stabilization on board – these mean that the autofocus was superb and sometimes yielded photos that looked brighter than the subject did in real life without losing definition to keep the shutter open for longer.

a night scene of a garden, with trees at the top and sweeping lawn

One interesting quirk of the multi-lens setup of the new phone: in low light, the iPhone 13 Pro Max once again, when using the telephoto lens and instead of using the optical sensor, defaults to the main wide camera and crops in digitally.

It’s not a huge issue, as the picture quality still gets processed to a decent level, but it’s annoying that it’s not highlighted in the process, and Apple has been doing this for years now.

The other enhancement the new, more sensitive sensor has brought with it is that Night Mode doesn’t activate as often. While the results from Night Mode can be incredible (see the samples below) it’s annoying to have to hold the phone steady for a second or two when you just want to take a quick snap in the evening, and the new sensor often negates the need for that.

Photographic Styles

We were surprised when Apple came out with Photographic Styles as a Big New Feature () on the iPhone 13 range – while there are five pre-programmed settings (standard, rich contrast, vibrant, warm and cool) to make the image more vibrant or alter the color temperature, we didn’t see how this was really different from a filter.

But what’s actually happening here is that the color and contrast of the photo are being altered when you take it, rather than an effect being applied post-capture, and which you can undo.

This means you can choose to shoot in richer contrast every time if that’s your style, or take a set of photos that are a little less warm if that’s what the project calls for.

It’s more akin to the photo style options on DSLRs and mirrorless cameras than an Instagram filter, and, while we didn’t really use it that much, it does add another interesting new layer of functionality.

Cinematic Mode

Apple’s other new feature is Cinematic Mode, where the ‘rack focus’ (as in, which part of the shot in a movie is in focus) will change automatically depending on where the focus of the viewer should be.

This means that if the protagonist in your movie looks at someone else and stops speaking, the focus will shift to them and blur out the original speaker- it certainly looks dynamic and more movie-like. You can even alter the focus after the movie has been taken in the on-phone editing suite, if someone speaking doesn’t quite look as sharp as you want.

You might assume that this is a mode designed for professionals so that they don’t have to worry about rack focus when shooting movies, but given that it’s also appearing on the regular iPhone 13 and 13 mini, as well as the 13 Pro, it’s clear that this isn’t exclusively a pro feature, and something the everyday user can play with.

While it’s a fun tool, it seems odd that Apple’s made such a big deal of this. Yes, we can see that it will yield some cool videos if you want to film your friends talking about something or everyone having fun at a party, but that’s quite rare for home footage.

It feels more like you’d need to remember to use Cinematic Mode when the conditions are just right, where the focus of your movie is constantly shifting – and we’re not sure how often most people will make ‘proper’ movies’ at home, rather than just capturing a video of their dog doing a backflip for a treat or similar.

Portrait Mode

Another enhancement Apple has made is, once again, refining the background-blurring Portrait mode on both the front and back cameras.

The forward-facing TrueDepth camera can take some truly stunning selfies (well, subject dependent, of course…) and the blurred-background pictures you can get with the rear-facing camera was something we enjoyed playing with, getting some impressive shots.

It’s the foundational elements of the Portrait-mode shots that have been upgraded: the lighting is more natural, the lighting is more natural, and the depth-of-field or ‘bokeh’ effects have been improved so that the things that should be in focus are in focus – the edges of someone’s head for example (and even their stray hairs).

You can even use Portrait mode to capture stationary objects that aren’t human or animal – being able to a heavy depth of field to a trail or forest leads to some lovely pictures when you’re out and about.

We’re a bit sad that Portrait mode only works in 1x or 3x zoom though – on the 11 Pro Max, 2x zoom was the perfect length to capture a subject, and we found that we constantly had to move the camera forward and back to get the right image with the 13 Pro Max. The 12 Pro Max increased this to 2.5x zoom, but now we’ve gone even further.ProRAW

ProRAW is back again on the iPhone 13 Pro Max (and it’s now available on the iPhone 13 Pro too) – and it’s a bit of a gateway drug to ‘proper’ photography.

A quick overview: most phones shoot in the JPEG format, with images processed in-camera to tweak things like color and contrast, and do a jolly good job of it; however, the images are also compressed, and much of the image data discarded, which leaves you with less latitude to edit your shots later.

Most modern cameras also enable you to shoot in raw mode, which captures unprocessed and uncompressed (but very large) image files, giving you plenty of leeway to fine-tune the exposure, color, contrast and more in post-processing.

ProRAW gives you the best of both formats, allowing the user to get an enhanced and ready-to-go snap using the smarts of Apple’s A15 image processor, but retaining all the information to allow you to edit the photo afterwards if you want – this is easily doable in a program such as LightRoom, and we really enjoyed playing with the ability to raise or drop shadows and get some really cool extra effects by altering the exposure and sharpness, thanks to having more image data to play with..

iPhone 13 Pro Max photo showing a long forest trail

A ProRAW photo taken and edited on the iPhone itself from the inbuilt editing app (Image credit: TechRadar)

Now this really is the kind of thing that we’d expect from a ‘Pro’ handset, and it’s a feature that’s really fun to explore and play with.

Speaking of pro modes that videographers will want to use, there’s also ProRes support here, which is a high-quality, lossy video compression format that Apple created to let creative types manage video up to 8K, and which is used regularly throughout the industry now.

The inclusion of support for this format on an iPhone is going to be useful to those who want to shoot commercials or high-end video and send off the edited results from the field – that’s not something that most of us will do regularly, but such additions show that Apple wants to make it clear that the iPhone 13 Pro range is a step above the ‘basic’ models.

iOS 15 and Supreme Power

Apple is making some bold claims about the iPhone 13 Pro Max, selling it as one of the most powerful smartphones out there right now – and the claims seem pretty justified based on our testing.

While the numbers that we saw in our benchmarking absolutely back Apple up (and we’ll get onto that in a minute), the real-world performance is what matters. The ‘issue’ is that smartphones are already more than powerful enough to handle most things you want to throw at them, and the fact the 13 Pro Max is lightning-fast at switching between apps is no surprising thing.

When it comes to raw figures the results speak for themselves: this phone is twice as fast (nearly) at transcoding Adobe video from 4K to 1080p) as the 11 Pro Max, and a second faster than the 12 Pro Max from last year. Apple’s claims that the new A15 chipset is powering things along more efficiently than ever before really do stack up.

But we were surprised to see that some high-power games, like Grid Autosport, didn’t load that much faster – the game’s high levels of detail and graphical fidelity mean it’s going to take a few seconds to load on any device, but we expected it to be a lot quicker on the iPhone 13 Pro Max compared to a phone from two years ago.

That’s splitting hairs somewhat though, as there’s no doubt that when it comes to things like editing photos, saving video and performing the heavy tasks the iPhone 13 Pro Max is more than adept. In fact, it’s only bettered by the iPad Pro range in our testing – which is a far more expensive device, and arguably more likely to be picked up by those looking for a high-power device.

Let’s quickly look at those benchmarks: the iPhone 13 Pro Max scored far better in terms of framerate, multi-core capability and speed of video transcoding when compared to the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra – almost twice as fast in some cases.

However, keeping in mind what we said above about real-world use, we wouldn’t read too much into that performance, as both phones operate sublimely well; but if you’re a creative looking for a phone that can help you record high-quality video or work on high-power tasks, this is your phone.

The upgraded iOS 15 is coming to most iPhones, so the new capabilities aren’t too much to get excited about on the new iPhone 13 Pro Max, as you can get the same tricks on older models.

That said, there are a few improvements that you can look forward to: the new Weather app is hugely enhanced, with more accurate location tracking, improved animations and things that are genuinely useful, like radar maps to show heat and rainfall patterns.

Apple is making a big deal about Focus Mode, which allows you to turn off certain distractions when you need them. This feels like a powerful tool, but in our testing we didn’t really get much from it. Perhaps it’s something that needs to be perfected over a few months, allowing you to work out who you want to hear from and in what scenarios, but we found we kept cancelling the settings.

Perhaps we just need more discipline here – but it would be nice to see a few more default modes, or more in-depth tutorials to see how useful this can be.

Another change that’s worth noting is to notifications – it’s great to be able to lump together non-time-sensitive updates, and only see them each morning and afternoon. We instantly found we didn’t care about most of them, and just switched them off in the menu, and having a moment to perform that cleaning was handy.

We do like the new ‘Cards’ used to show images in Messages too – it’s a small change, but they were fun to scroll through.

The post iPhone 13 Pro Max Review appeared first on Review Products.

A fiery design and surprising gaming chops.

Even for Motorola, the champion of cheap Android phones, the Moto G84 is an above-average handset. It excels above its weight class for gaming power, its battery lasts ages, it has some surprisingly top-end features and, if those traits weren’t all enough, it comes in an eye-catching and vibrant red tone that we can’t get enough of.

Pros

• +Lively red color
• +Impressive performance for price
• +Snappy fingerprint scanner

Cons

• -Two other colorways are dull
• -Unimpressive cameras
• -Very similar to cheaper G73

MOTO G84 TWO-MINUTE REVIEW

Another day, another Moto G phone…

…and as usual, the Moto G84 is a surprisingly adept and reliable Android handset from one of the world’s most dedicated phone manufacturers, with Motorola continuing its forcible takeover of our round-up of the best cheap phones.

The latest entry in Motorola’s ever-growing G-line of low-cost mobiles, the G84 brings a few clear and concise arguments as to why it should be your next purchase, as well as a few wardrobes that it hopes you won’t be checking for skeletons.

First up, the Moto G84 is the company’s latest collaboration between Motorola and paint company Pantone, with one of its three colors designed by color experts. This is the Viva Magenta one that you can see pictured above, adorned in the shade that Pantone decided was its Color Of The Year 2023.

It’s a distinctive shade (which may put some people off), and we’re big enough fans to add the vibrant and striking look to the ‘Pros’ list above. But for some reason, Moto decided to release two other color options, silver and black, which look pretty boring by comparison.

We go from one of the phone’s touted selling points to something Motorola is barely mentioning: the G84 is a powerhouse for gaming. While I’ve been disappointed by other mobiles brandishing the same Snapdragon 695 chipset used here, the Moto chews through gaming and other intensive tasks. If you’re a gamer on a budget, this is definitely a solid pick.

It’s at this point in the review (less than a minute into the ‘two-minute review’, so pretty early on) that I should mention the Moto G73. This mobile, released in early 2023 and still ranged by most retailers including Moto itself, has lots of specs in common with the G84.

It has a lower price and the same camera array, same rough design, same software, same battery size, same charging speed and same screen size. Admittedly it’s screen quality is worse, it doesn’t have an under-display fingerprint scanner, it’s less powerful and it doesn’t catch the eye quite like this Viva Magenta-clad beast. But if you want to save some cash and don’t mind these tweaked features, it’s a very real competitor that may sway your attention.

‘Close competition’ is nothing new for Moto phones, given how many similar-looking budget mobiles it releases each year. Neither is my other major gripe with the handset: its cameras are anything but impressive, with photos that look a little dull and unexciting.

Picking up a Motorola phone and being surprised that its cameras aren’t amazing, is like picking up a dumbbell and being surprised it’s heavy – that trait is just par for the course. The cameras aren’t terrible either, they just won’t suit passionate smartphone-centric photographers.

And overall, the Moto G84 is a terribly impressive phone, when you consider its feisty look, gaming power and low price; it’ll just fit some users better than others.

MOTO G84 REVIEW: PRICE AND AVAILABILITY

• Released in September 2023
• Costs £249.99 (roughly $315, AU$475)
• Not for sale in US or Australia

The Moto G84 was released in the UK in mid-September 2023, after coming out in India and Europe in the weeks prior. It was joined by the low-end Moto G54 and premium-leaning Moto Edge 40 Neo.

You can pick up the phone for £249.99 (roughly $315, AU$475), which lodges it firmly in the category of ‘cheap Android phone’, perfect for people on a budget who want a reliable mobile. That’s Moto’s whole schtick, after all. There’s no information on a US or Australian launch, but they seem unlikely even several months after the phone’s release.

Rivals at that price include Samsung’s Galaxy A23 5G, Redmi’s Note 12 5G, OnePlus’ Nord CE 3 Lite and several of Motorola’s own mobiles, like the Moto G73 5G and Edge 40 Neo, which are all at roughly the same price point. But for its price and the performance it offers, the G84 is solidly good value.

Value score: 4 / 5

MOTO G84 REVIEW: SPECS

The Moto G84 has many traits in common with other budget phones, but it exceeds its class in a few areas too.

Moto G84 Specs:

• Dimensions: 160 x 74.4 x 7.6mm
• Weight: 166.8g
• Screen :6.5-inch 20:9 FHD+ (2400×1080) 120Hz p-OLED
• Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 695
• RAM: 12GB
• Storage: 256GB
• OS: Android 13
• Primary camera: 50MP, f/1.9
• Ultra-wide camera: 8MP f/2.2
• Front camera: 16MP f/2.5
• Audio: Stereo speakers, 3.5mm headphone jack
• Battery: 5,000mAh
• Charging: 30W wired
• Colors: Viva Magenta, Marshmallow Blue, Midnight Blue

MOTO G84 REVIEW:DESIGN

• Vibrant Pantone-designed red shell
• Repositioned under-display fingerprint scanner
• 3.5mm headphone jack and USB-C port

Motorola isn’t exactly in the business of revolutionizing smartphone design (well, at least for its budget mobiles, though you can say what you like about the Moto Razr). So if you’ve seen a Moto G in the last few years you’ve seen the G84.

It’s a standard Android mobile measuring 160 x 74.4 x 7.6 mm – a few years ago we could’ve called it “a little on the big side” though you could probably consider it average now. It’s surprisingly light at 166.8g, which means the phone sits a little comfier in the hand than most phones with a flat edge.

You’ve got the usual accouterments of a Moto: a USB-C port and 3.5mm headphone jack underneath, a power button and volume rocker on the right edge. But Motorola has made one big adjustment in its budget phones of late, and that’s in replacing the side-mounted fingerprint scanner with a more premium under-display one. And it’s a great change too, as unlocking the phone is much easier than in previous Motos. The scanner is a bit lower down the phone than on most others, but it’s something I got used to.

There are three different color options for the Moto G84: a silver and a black option, and also an eye-catching red version called Viva Magenta. This latter was created by paint company Pantone, and it’d make the phone very attractive if it wasn’t for the big Pantone-logo color swatch on the bottom. You can’t remove this, it’s part of the phone.

Still, if the G84 was in a line-up of 10 random other phones, it’d be the most attractive one the vast majority of the time – its red is a little richer than Apple’s Product Red and the glossy alternatives some Chinese phones offer.

In terms of protection, you’re looking at IP54: it’s partly dust proofed but not against all solids, and is splash-proof but can’t be dunked in water. That’s all to be expected at this price.

Design score: 3.5 / 5

MOTO G84 REVIEW: DISPLAY

• Big 6.5-inch screen
• FHD+ resolution and 120Hz refresh
• Automatic brightness issues

The Moto G84 has a 6.5-inch display, which is pretty average for a smartphone these days, but the Moto’s specs are anything but average.

The phone packs an FHD+ display (that’s 1080 x 2400) and a 120Hz refresh rate, which means the display updates its image 120 times per second, over the old standard of 60Hz. Lots of budget mobiles tout this spec now but certainly not all of them, and it brings a marked improvement when you’re scrolling around the menus.

Another unusual trait is the use of the DCI-P3 color gamut with over 1 billion colors – this was designed for use in movies and it makes videos look that little bit better than on another budget phone.

One other display feature worth flagging is that the punch-hole that houses the front-facing camera is very small, reducing the amount of screen space you’re losing from it.

A small issue I had with the phone was with its display and the automatic brightness features. Often, the phone would default to a screen brightness that was just too low, and I frequently had to manually adjust it to be able to make out the display.

Display score: 3.5 / 5

MOTO G84 REVIEW: SOFTWARE

• Stock Android 13 is clean
• Useful Moto Actions return
• Plenty of customization options

When you boot up the Moto G84, it’ll come running stock Android 13 – that was the current OS when the mobile launched, though Android 14 started rolling out just weeks later. The G84 is only confirmed for one software update too, so Android 14 is all you’ll definitely get, though you’ll be able to enjoy at least three years’ security updates.

Stock Android is always fairly clean, at least compared to some other Android forks, but some bloatware has snuck into the Moto. There’s TikTok, LinkedIn and three simple games – it’s nothing too offensive, and if you’ve used one of the budget phones from another brand you might have used something a lot worse, but it’s still not ideal.

Moto phones have always been great for software customization, even before Google made it an official Android feature, and there’s no difference here. You have plenty of choice in terms of font, color scheme, icon shape, animations and more – if you like diving into the settings and then tweaking the nitty-gritty of how your phone looks, you’ll love this phone.

A returning feature exclusive to Moto phones are Moto Actions, which are easy navigation tricks that I find myself using a lot. Examples include a double karate-chop motion to quickly turn on the torch and a twisting shake to open the camera app. They take a little getting used to, but once you’ve got the knack for them, they’re incredibly handy.

Software score: 4 / 5

MOTO G84: CAMERAS

• 50MP main and 8MP ultra-wide cameras
• Some extra features like Spot Color
• 16MP front-facing camera for selfies

The camera department is an area that Motorola phones rarely excel in, and there’s no exception here. The phone uses up its ‘color’ budget on its exterior shell and there’s none left for its photos…

The main snapper is a 50MP f/1.9 unit and it’s joined by a single 8MP f/2.2 ultra-wide companion. On the front, you’re looking at a 16MP f/2.5 selfie camera. That’s not exactly a revolutionary combo for Moto, which used the exact same line-up in the Moto G73 from earlier in the year.

Pictures taken on the main camera looked fine – that nondescript word is the best way to describe them – with fair sharpness but a lack of vibrancy or color that made me miss Samsung’s or Xiaomi’s handsets.

Flip onto the ultra-wide camera and you’re getting pretty grainy pictures – it’s an 8MP sensor, what did you expect – though not straight away. No, the secondary snapper was surprisingly slow to focus when I pressed the icon in the camera app, and I often found myself waiting a few moments for it to sharpen the image.

You can also use the ultra-wide camera for macro (close-up) shots, but this suffers from the issue that all wide-angle-macro phone photos do: it’s rounded and distorted thanks to the lens type. No thanks!

There’s no zoom lens on the Moto G84, so you have to use its 8x digital zoom to get closer to a subject. But I’d really recommend you don’t, unless you want your photo to be as grainy as spot art.

Grainy is also the word to use for pictures captured on the front camera, which is a surprising twist as some Motos redeem themselves on their selfie abilities. They’ll be fine for sending between phones, especially with bokeh working well in Portrait mode, but if you look at selfies on any bigger screen you’ll see the pixels clearly.

When capturing video, you can shoot at 1080p, with no 4K option. There’s also a slow-mo option as well as dual capture (front and back cameras at once) and Spot Color, which lets you isolate a single color in your recording. These latter two options are also available for photography.

MOTO G84: PERFORMANCE AND AUDIO

• Snapdragon 695 chip exceeds expectations
• 12GB RAM and 256GB storage
• 3.5mm headphone jack and Bluetooth 5.1

The Moto G84 packs the Snapdragon 695, and anyone who’s used a phone using this chipset knows what to expect: fine everyday performance, but a lackluster showing when used for gaming or intensive processes. That’s how this exact same chip worked in the recent OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite, and gaming was a slog.

In a pleasantly surprising plot twist, the G84 bucks expectations: it runs a lot faster than you’d think. In fact, through our rigorous gaming tests, it proved itself as one of the most reliable low-budget phones for gaming.

When playing titles like Call of Duty: Mobile and PUBG Mobile, the phone could be relied on to get through a match without lags, stutters or freezes – in fact, the G84 beat many gaming phones in that it didn’t even overheat!

This may be thanks to the 12GB RAM you’re getting, a surprising amount for a phone at this price. The 256GB storage is also laudable – this is a phone that’ll last you a long time, and even if you do manage to fill the device’s onboard storage, the microSD card slot will keep you going for even longer.

If you’re into your facts and figures, a benchmark test through Geekbench 6 returned a multi-core average score of 2,037. That middling score shows that this phone is no supercomputer that’ll land a spaceship on the sun or predict the future, but for the price, I was very surprised.

Onto audio – this is par for the course for a Moto phone. There’s a 3.5mm headphone jack for wired music and Bluetooth 5.1 for wireless. The onboard stereo speaker is nothing to write home about, but it’s not so tinny that voice calls or memos are affected.

Performance Score: 4 / 5

MOTO G84 REVIEW: BATTERY LIFE

• Large 5,000mAh battery
• Over a day’s use from a single charge
• 30W charging isn’t particularly fast

If there’s one thing a Motorola phone can be relied on to have, even more than a confusing name, great customization or that distinctive sound when you first boot it up, it’s a long-lasting battery life.

No surprise, then, that the Moto G84’s 5,000mAh battery lasts a long time. You can use it to get through a day of use with no issue, and in our tests it lasted well into a second day before the charging cable needed to come out.

That charging cable gets you powering at 30W, so it’s not particularly fast, not when rival budget mobiles hit 50W, 67W or higher. You’re looking at charging times just shy of an hour, or more if you’re using the thing as you power it.

There’s no wireless charging here, but at that price, no-one should be surprised.

Battery Score: 3.5 / 5

HOW I TESTED THE MOTO G84

Review test period = 2 week

Testing included = Everyday usage, including web browsing, social media, photography, video calling, gaming, streaming video, music playback

Tools used = Geekbench 5, Geekbench 6, Geekbench ML, GFXBench, native Android stats

As you can tell from my review and the images, I tested the Moto G84 in its Pantone-endorsed Viva Magenta colorway. It felt fitting to test this festive-looking mobile during winter, hence the Christmas baking images!

Before true testing commenced I set up the phone to let the battery use settle, then used it as a standard mobile for two weeks. This included all the tasks you’d use your mobile for: social media, photography and streaming.

I also used it for gaming a lot. In fact, it was so snappy and fast for this task, alongside its lovely display, that I was loathe to move onto the next handset I’m testing for TechRadar!

My tech review history spans five years for TechRadar, and more for other brands. I used to work as an editor and writer for the site, covering phones, tablets and wearables (as well as a wide range of other gadgets), and continue to write freelance reviews across many types of gadget.

The post Motorola Moto G84 Review appeared first on Review Products.

Dell’s Inspiron range of laptops has long been a popular choice for many buyers thanks to its approachable pricing and features. The company’s new 16-inch series of Inspiron laptops aims to deliver a more premium experience for productivity and entertainment. We have with us today the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 laptop which boasts of a taller 16:10 aspect ratio display, four speakers, and the ability to unfold into a tablet. Dell is pitching it as an entertainment and productivity solution, so let’s see if it achieves that goal.

Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 price in India

The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 starts at Rs. 1,00,990 in India for the base variant, which has an Intel Core i5 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a full-HD resolution display. The other configuration is priced at Rs. 1,40,990 and this gets you an Intel Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM, an Nvidia GeForce MX550 GPU, and a 4K resolution OLED display.

The metal body of the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 looks and feels premium

Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 design

The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 has a minimalistic design and looks slick in the Platinum Silver colour. The back of the metal lid is plain with just a Dell logo etched on the surface. It is a heavy laptop, weighing a little over 2kg, and it takes up a lot of space on a desk or in a backpack. Even so, Dell has managed to keep the thickness under 20mm so it doesn’t feel like you’re carrying a thick slab of metal in the hand.

The sides of the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 are very angular but have soft edges so nothing really digs into your skin when using it. The base of the laptop has ports on either side, and these include a full-sized SD card slot, two USB 3.2 (Gen1) Type-A ports, a headphone jack, HDMI 1.4 (up to 1080p 60Hz output), and two Thunderbolt 4.0 ports.

The palm rest area is large and spacious and the same goes for the trackpad. Despite the size of this laptop, you don’t get a full keyboard layout, but the keys are spaced well and the backlighting is easily visible through the grey keycaps.You get two large speaker vents on either side of the keys, similar to Apple’s MacBook Pros. The power button also houses a fingerprint sensor, and the higher-end variant comes with an infrared camera for Windows Hello authentication.

You get a decent number of ports on the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1

The 16-inch display looks massive up-close and is taller than the usual 16:9 aspect ratio. It supports touch input, and has a 60Hz refresh rate and a full-HD (1920×1200) resolution. The display is rated to deliver up to 300 nits of brightness, which seems more than adequate for home use. The display bezels on the left and right are thin but the top and bottom are slightly thicker. There’s a 1080p webcam above the display with a physical privacy shutter. The bottom of the display has a fabric layer which covers the two front-firing speakers.

The base variant of the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 which was sent for this review ships with only a 65W power adapter and some documentation. You’ll need to buy Dell’s stylus separately if you wish to use it with this laptop.

Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 specifications and software

The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 comes with Intel’s 13th Gen CPUs and this base variant has an Intel Core i5-1335U processor with 10 CPU cores. There’s 8GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 512GB of PCIe NVMe SSD storage. The laptop also features a 6-cell, 86WHr battery, Wi-Fi 6E, and Bluetooth.

The laptop ships with Windows 11 Home and comes with some of Dell’s own apps preinstalled such as SupportAssist and MyDell. You also get a full license for Microsoft Office Home and Student 2021 and a 15-month subscription to McAfee Antivirus.

Tent mode is convenient if you need to watch content and save some desk space

Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 performance and battery life

The performance of the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 during this review was very good. The large vents on the bottom and between the two hinges ensure there’s good airflow in and out of the system. The laptop ran silently and cool with most casual tasks, and I only heard the fans when performing intensive tasks such as running benchmarks and gaming. Since this is a convertible laptop, you can use it in a variety of positions. Tent mode is something I used often when watching video content and if I wanted to save some desk space. The only issue I faced was volume control, which required using the touchscreen since there aren’t any physical buttons on any side of this laptop.

Video looks great on the large display, however reflections can sometimes be an issue. The speakers sound very good and produce clean highs and decent bass, although I felt that the maximum volume could have been better. This variant of the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 isn’t really designed for gaming since it only has onboard graphics, but you can still play casual games from the Microsoft Store. Webcam quality is decent but the picture gets grainy in low light.

The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 posted strong benchmark scores relative to its configuration. Cinebench R20 returned 631 and 3,056 points in its single- and multi-core tests. PCMark 10 returned 4,915 points, while 3DMark Time Spy managed 1,351 points. Results from real-world tests were good too. It took just 56 seconds to encode a 1.3GB AVI file to H.265 MKV, while the BMW test scene in Blender took 7 minutes, 4 seconds to render.

The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 runs cool for the most part thanks to good airflow

Battery life of the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 was pretty stellar. The laptop conforms to the Intel Evo platform, which guarantees a certain level of performance and all-day battery life. The laptop ran just shy of four hours in the Battery Eater Pro test, which is a solid number and well above average. This translates to very good real-world battery life too, and I was generally able to average a good eight to nine hours of usage, while taking a few short breaks in between.

Verdict

The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 is a well-built and good performing convertible laptop which also delivers great battery life. It’s a little too expensive, but it’s a convertible and has a touchscreen display, so if you don’t really need these features then you should look at the standard Inspiron 16. Other 16-inch laptops with a similar configuration are also generally less expensive. I feel that at this price and configuration, Dell should have bundled a stylus along with the laptop. There aren’t many other negative points for the Inspiron 16 2-in-1, other than the fact that it’s a little cumbersome to carry around and perhaps physical volume buttons on the side would have been convenient when using it in other modes.

The post Dell Inspiron 16 | 2 in 1 Review: Keeping It Classy appeared first on Review Products.

India isn’t seen as a huge market for handheld gaming consoles. Nintendo doesn’t have an official presence here at all, Sony never really promoted the PS Vita, and there’s no hope of the Steam Deck coming in anytime soon. There clearly is some demand, evidenced by the easy availability of grey-market Nintendo Switch units, online listings for niche Chinese manufacturers such as Ayaneo, and even small yet vocal crowds of retro console enthusiasts in forums online. However, they’re a microscopic niche compared to smartphone gamers here, with PUBG/BGMI becoming a cultural phenomenon and even casual titles making enormous money. Over 500 million Indians are estimated to play games on their smartphones; double what the figure was just five years ago. That’s incredible in terms of sheer market potential.

But what games are these people playing, how much are they willing to spend, and how does the hardware and software fit into their lives? Is there space for a dedicated portable gaming device in the Indian market? And can the new Asus ROG Ally, which costs more than some entry-level gaming laptops, fill it? After spending some time with the device, and some conversations with Asus, here’s what I think.

Asus ROG Ally price in India

Internationally, there are two variants of the ROG Ally, and the only difference is the choice of SoC – AMD’s new Ryzen Z1 powers the lower-end one, while the more capable Ryzen Z1 Extreme can deliver better performance in games. Asus has brought only the higher-end version to India, at least for now. This makes sense, because it isn’t competing with anything on price and you might as well make a good impression with the best possible performance. It costs Rs. 69,990 which isn’t bad considering the specifications.

You don’t get very much in the box – just a fairly oversized charger and a power cable. It’s particularly disappointing that there’s no case, since this is by nature a portable device. Asus does sell a case which has compartments for microSD cards and can function as a stand, but that’s an added cost. Third-party alternatives should be available soon.

The ROG Ally’s 7-inch screen is just the right size for comfortable gaming

Asus ROG Ally: What it is and who it’s for

Appearance aside, the ROG Ally is much closer to a full-fledged computer than a handheld console. It has a standard processor with an integrated GPU, and all the components you’d expect except a keyboard and trackpad. It boots up just like a PC and runs Windows 11 Home. This is its greatest strength, because it can run pretty much any PC game including plenty of free ones – but also its greatest weakness, because you’re using software and hardware in ways they might not have originally been designed for. We’ll get into this in much more detail soon.

You can run almost any PC game, and most recent ones actually work surprisingly well. Asus isn’t interested in creating its own ecosystem to compete with Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony, so there’s no custom hardware or software and no tie to a specific game store. You can download anything from the Internet, including through the Steam, Epic, EA, etc stores. You can install any company’s launcher, use cloud or subscription services, and even hook up an external drive via USB to copy files over. That also opens up a huge world of free games (and ones obtained in less-than-ethical ways). Besides, titles usually cost far less on PC than they do on consoles, and older games are often heavily discounted.

But then there’s that Rs. 69,990 price – if you’re a mobile gamer looking to get to the next level, you probably want a gaming laptop. The ROG Ally isn’t a replacement or alternative, unless you have extreme space constraints plus a computer that you already use for non-gaming tasks.

The buttons and sticks on the ROG Ally are modelled on Microsoft’s Xbox controller layout

Asus imagines that people will use the ROG Ally not only as a handheld, but also docked with a TV. You could even pick up one of the company’s XG Mobile external GPUs, which start at around Rs. 80,000 in India and go up to Rs. 1,82,990 for a GeForce RTX 4090) to turn the ROG Ally into a full gaming setup with up to a 4K monitor or TV.

Other than price and size, two big considerations are battery life and performance while running on battery power, which we’ll test soon. Another thing to remember is that a lot of PC games require always-on or periodic Internet connectivity, so the ROG Ally might not be all that suited for those who want to play games on a long flight or while commuting.

And then there are non-gaming use cases too – you definitely won’t want to browse the Web or type office documents on the tiny 7-inch touchscreen, but it’s better than a phone for watching movies on. Plus, a cheap USB dock and some peripherals could make the ROG Ally quite versatile in many situations.

The ROG Ally seems to be something you’d have in addition to a more traditional gaming setup – a bit of an indulgence, maybe for a student who wants to keep it hidden in a dorm, a frequent traveler, or a very committed couch potato. It’s hard to imagine choosing the Ally instead of a similarly priced laptop. Hopefully in the future, prices will go down and devices like this will make up a new, more affordable tier of gaming PCs.

You get a simple stand in the box, but a carry case would have been much more appreciated

Asus ROG Ally design and capabilities

Physically, the ROG Ally is a little bigger than the Nintendo Switch and quite a lot smaller than the Steam Deck. The general layout of buttons and controls is deliberately modelled on an Xbox controller, to make gaming on Windows as seamless as using Microsoft’s own hardware. Asus says it focused a huge amount of engineering effort on keeping weight down, and the final 608g was achieved through some very creative structural work as well as paying attention to every little detail, down to the design of the fan blades and every last hardware choice.

It’s comfortable to hold, and the weight is fine. My index fingers sat naturally on the triggers and my ring fingers found the macro paddles on the back. The front-firing speakers aren’t obstructed by a user’s palms at all, and sound is surprisingly rich and clear. There are also stereo mics with noise cancelling. A fingerprint sensor is integrated into the power button on the top.

Of course, front and centre we have the 7-inch full-HD display. I think Asus got the size and proportions right – I never had to hold the ROG Ally too close to my face. Viewing angles aren’t the greatest and colours are fine, but don’t pop especially. That said, Windows 11 was clearly not designed for this screen size, and some text elements can be hard to read. Text input is the most painful, particularly during the Windows 11 setup process. The virtual keyboard can take up half the screen when docked, and cover what you’re trying to do when floating. I found myself using a stylus rather than trying to finger-pick letters, and it felt like typing on an old-school PDA at times. You can use the macro paddles on the rear to trigger several common Windows functions, but that requires memorising them.

There are two small buttons on either side of the screen – you might recognise the Menu and View buttons if you’re an Xbox user, and that’s exactly what they’re for in games. There’s also a button for Asus’ custom control panel on the left, and an Armoury Crate software shortcut on the right.

The power and volume buttons as well as all ports are on the top of the ROG Ally

The ABXY buttons are colour-coded but in a very muted palette. Button quality is decent; not much different from a console controller. The trigger buttons use Hall effect sensors and allow for analogue control based on how far you press them. Asus hasn’t announced plans for swappable buttons, triggers and sticks like you might find on some high-end console controllers. There’s also a 6-axis gyro sensor and vibrators in each grip, which some but not all games can take advantage of.

Asus has shown many design prototypes it experimented with before settling on this design. Overall, it’s pretty plain. It doesn’t scream “gamer” with any sharp lines or bright accents but you do get a bit of RGB flair around the analogue sticks and a reflective strip on the back. The diagonal slash matches the current ROG series aesthetic. The company says it has gone with textures that work well for grip and allowing sweat on your palms to evaporate. The Ally is only available in white, and I hope the plastic doesn’t get discoloured after long months of gaming with sweaty palms.

Build quality feels pretty good – even with vigorous button mashing and the inevitable bending and twisting that happens when caught up in the action of a game, the ROG Ally never felt delicate or cheap. The display uses Gorilla Glass Victus with an anti-reflective coating. There’s no IP rating because the active cooling requires open air vents, although Asus says they are filtered to prevent dust ingress. One negative is that the ports and slot on the top aren’t protected; a rubber flap would have been appreciated.

The paddles on the rear let you trigger macros when pressed in combination with other buttons

Asus ROG Ally specifications and software

At the heart of the ROG Ally is the new AMD Ryzen Z1 series of SoCs. These are slightly trimmed versions of the Ryzen 7040 series chips, codenamed “Phoenix” and originally designed for premium ultralight laptops. They’re based on the current Zen 4 CPU and RDNA 3 GPU architectures. The Ryzen Z1, which we won’t see in India yet, features six CPU cores and four GPU compute units, while the Ryzen Z1 Extreme steps up to eight CPU cores and 12 GPU units. Maximum boost clock speeds are 4.9GHz and 5.1GHz respectively, Both have 9-30W TDP ranges.

That’s a surprising amount of power and explains the need for a dual-fan cooling system. What we have here is essentially an entire laptop’s worth of hardware packed into a thick rectangle rather than a clamshell. It’s surprising that AMD is marketing both these chips as explicitly optimised for handheld gaming, since they could power various types of miniature PCs.

Back to the ROG Ally though, we also have 16GB of LPDDR5 memory which is of course soldered and not upgradeable. The SSD is a 512GB PCIe 4.0 unit and is socketed, though the smaller M.2 2230 form factor isn’t very easily available. Asus says ROG Ally owners are free to perform an upgrade, but it will void their warranty so it’s best to have trained service centre staff do it.

Asus went with a 7-inch, full-HD 120Hz “IPS level” display. It supports AMD Freesync Premium, brightness is rated at 500nits and colour reproduction is 100 percent sRGB. The battery capacity is 40Wh which is understandable for a handheld. You get a 65W USB-PD charging brick, which is surprisingly bulky and seems to be the same one that the company ships with some of its laptops. There’s no mention of quick charging.

Asus’ Armoury Crate SE software lets you tweak the controller inputs and set system-wide options

You get just one USB 3.2 Gen2 (10Gbps) Type-C port for charging and connecting peripherals such as a portable SSD. It can also be used for an external display over DisplayPort 1.4. This port is part of Asus’ proprietary XG Mobile Interface, which essentially lets you route PCIe lanes externally. The XG Mobile docks, initially designed for the ultra-compact ROG Flow laptop series, give you a huge boost in GPU power and multiple additional ports including Ethernet, USB, and multiple display outputs. There’s also Wi-Fi 6E (which isn’t technically licensed to work in India) and Bluetooth 5.2.

The ROG Ally also has a 3.5mm audio jack and a microSD card slot. Asus states that you can install almost any game onto a microSD card and it will only be marginally slower than using the SSD, which in theory would be a great way to carry more games and content around with you. Unfortunately recent reports have confirmed that microSD cards are prone to failure due to the slot’s proximity to a hot air vent.

One big challenge for Asus was making the Windows 11 UI manageable on such a small screen, and so the Armoury Crate SE software acts as a launcher, with your games front and centre. It also has a bunch of options for customising everything from the analogue stick responsiveness to Aura Sync lighting and checking for firmware updates. You can use it to launch individual games as well as storefronts such as Steam and the Xbox app if you have a Game Pass subscription.

The Command Centre overlay can be called up within games, and gives you big, touch-friendly buttons. You can control brightness and volume, but more importantly toggle between performance modes (30/25W, 15W and 10W), change game profiles, and pull up useful tools. You can fully customise its layout and add shortcuts for the Windows desktop, on-screen keyboard, and task manager. For power users, there are controls letting you cap screen resolution and refresh rate on the fly, toggle an FPS limiter and use AMD Radeon Software features such as Radeon Image Sharpening and Radeon Super Resolution upscaling.

You can pull up this panel at any time to change system performance parameters

Asus ROG Ally usage and performance

There are loads of system settings you can tweak, and so performance can be tricky to measure. I noticed that the 30W Turbo mode was only available when using the ROG Ally with its bundled 65W charger – the TDP was capped at 25W when on battery power and even when using a third-party 61W adapter. More interestingly, plugging in a USB Type-C dock and routing power through that also limited the Ally to 25W. This was a bit of a surprise, and you’ll probably encounter this too, since most docks don’t specify their passthrough power ratings.

Speaking of docks, I found mine to be indispensable when setting up the ROG Ally and performing general tasks in Windows. A fast wired Internet connection really helped when downloading 100GB+ games. In fact, I had to daisy-chain two hubs because I needed at least one USB port for an external SSD and one each for a keyboard and mouse, plus pass-through power. Wireless peripherals will take some of this load off but the Ally really needs at least one more USB port – it is after all a full Windows PC. If you’re planning to use a desktop monitor or TV, output resolution and refresh rate might also depend on the chain of docks and cables or adapters you use.

The 30W mode is what you should be using for gaming when plugged in. This unlocks the Ryzen Z1 Extreme’s full performance, and also reveals one of its biggest limitations. You can’t use the full potential of the ROG Ally unless it’s plugged in to a power source – this is normal for laptops, but a bit frustrating for a handheld.

The supplied power brick is quite large by today’s standards

Battery life is also greatly affected when the higher power modes are enabled. As you’ll see from the benchmark test and game performance scores below, you can get decent enough performance in heavy games at 30/25W but 15W is more sensible for battery-powered gaming. FPS numbers drop drastically and disproportionately at the 10W setting, so this is only really advisable when you’re doing things like watching videos or running non-game software.

You can expect 1-2 hours of gaming at reasonable settings, using the 15W mode. This of course depends on which game you choose, but that still isn’t a lot. Asus rates video playback time at 6 hours using the 10W mode. Our graphics-heavy Battery Eater Pro test ran for 2 hours, 23 minutes at 10W. This won’t get you through a long road trip but most plane seats have power outlets these days so that’s at least one possibility. Charging isn’t particularly quick – I noted a 20 percent battery level after 10 minutes of charging when completely switched off.

All games and tests were run at the 25W setting to gauge maximum performance under ordinary conditions, except where noted. Starting with general performance tests, the ROG Ally scored 6,886 points in the synthetic PCMark benchmark’s standard run, and 6,891 points in its Extended run. Geekbench 6 managed a single-core score of 2,521 and a multi-core score of 11,570. Cinebench R23 is another popular standardised test, and it completed its render workload with 1,761 points with a single active thread and 14,108 points with all threads active.

The ROG Ally should have had at least one more USB Type-C port for charging while peripherals are plugged in

The POVRay render test finished its default benchmark in just 52 seconds. The browser-based Webxprt 4, Basemark Web, and Jetstream 2 tests returned scores of 282, 1969.65, and 273.372 respectively. Compressing our standard 3.24GB folder of assorted files with 7-zip took 1 minute, 28 seconds and transcoding a 1.3GB AVI file to H.265 using Handbrake took 41 seconds.

At 25W, all these scores are roughly on par with or better than what you can expect from the recently launched 15-inch MacBook Air, although Apple’s M2 SoC only needs passive cooling. The ROG Ally also handily beats a current-gen Windows-based ultraportable, the LG Gram 14 (14Z90Q), with its low-power Intel Core i7-1260P processor. Most of that is down to AMD’s beefy integrated GPU.

For the sake of comparison, I ran some tests again in the 10W mode. Geekbench 6 scores dropped to 1,840 and 6,869 for the single- and multi-core tests respectively. 7zip took 2 minutes, 29 seconds for the exact same compression task, and video transcoding took 1 minute, 35 seconds.

Of course graphics and gaming test results are what everyone’s been waiting for. The trusty 3DMark posted scores of 1,477 in 3DMark’s Port Royal ray tracing benchmark, 3,138 in the DX12 Time Spy test, and 7,203 in the legacy Fire Strike test. That’s far better than what we’ve seen from laptops such as the Xiaomi Notebook Pro 120G with its entry-level GeForce MX550 GPU, and slots in neatly below the mainstream GeForce RTX 3050, as seen in the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Pro X.

You can set up a desktop with a monitor, keyboard and mouse, but it doesn’t seem practical for gaming

The Unigine Superposition test managed a score of 5,004 with a 37.43fps average at the 25W setting, and that came down to 3,958 points with an average of 29.6fps at 10W. Both runs used the 1080p Medium preset. The difference in absolute values as well as overall consistency shows how performance scales down when trying to save power. Gears Tactics has a fairly intense built-in benchmark which managed a 53.5fps average at 25W but only an unplayable 16.5fps average at 10W, also using the same 1920×1080 resolution and High quality preset.

We have some more in-game benchmarks lined up, since these let us compare performance across devices and platforms under identical conditions. GTA V is now quite old but still popular, and a great example of what I’d like to play on a portable console. While it was fun, graphics quality was not great. Even at 1280×720 resolution, most graphics quality variables were disabled or set to Low by default. The built-in benchmark averaged 30.24fps with the minimum dropping to just 11.44fps.

Other games fared considerably better. The classic Rise of the Tomb Raider ran fairly well at 1080p using its Medium preset. The benchmark average was 41fps which is good enough. Far Cry 5 is another of our regular benchmark tests, and this title managed an average of 43fps at 1080 using its High preset. You might encounter stutters and slowdowns in intense sequences in-game, but there’s no doubt that they’re playable and enjoyable.

Doom Eternal looks great and is incredibly fast-paced, but is also known to be forgiving when it comes to hardware. Using its on-screen diagnostic counter, I was able to test the ROG Ally at three different power settings across a level that included navigating some simple passages followed by a major fight sequence. When plugged in and running at its 30W Turbo setting, I was able to play at 50-70fps and there was no issue other than fan noise. The 15W mode took performance down to about 45fps which was also fine – this is what you should expect when playing on battery power. However, the game ran at an excruciating 20fps and fight sequences were impossible, when I tried the 10W mode. The resolution was set to 1080p throughout, and the quality setting was Ultra.

Casual games run well on battery power and are fun to play on the ROG Ally

Superhot is not as graphically intense but seems well suited to the form factor of the ROG Ally. Using the game’s High preset and the console’s 30W setting, I was comfortable with the 100fps or so that Asus’ overlay showed. at Sadly, that dropped to just about 30fps at 15W.

And what about casual games? I did manage to have fun with simple titles such as Portal 2, Slime Rancher, and Rayman Legends. These ran poorly at the 10W setting but seemed to be manageable at 15W. Games such as these are designed to work with a controller, and detected the ROG Ally’s hardware as a standard input device, letting me tweak button assignments in-game. Many PC games these days are console ports anyway, so the UI and controls just worked. Civilization VI felt too constrained on the tiny screen and controls were quite painful – I can’t imagine spending much time with simulation or strategy titles on this device.

For games that don’t just work with a controller, Armoury Crate SE can be used to create per-game profiles and manually map keyboard or mouse inputs to the Ally’s buttons and sticks. This isn’t always smooth, since using an analogue stick is very different to using a mouse. I tried one fairly old game, Mirror’s Edge, in order to gauge the controller experience here because I had enjoyed it very much on an Xbox 360, but it crashed on launch and just refused to run.

Beyond that, many casual Windows games are designed either for mouse-and-keyboard input or a touchscreen, and I found that Bloons TD6, Mini Motorways, and games of that sort worked best with touch input, ignoring the controller hardware altogether. The touchscreen isn’t very responsive, and these games really don’t do justice to the ROG Ally’s hardware, but if you have a portable computer then why not!

The ROG Ally’s fans are not exactly quiet when running games at the 30W setting. The sound isn’t too distracting but it is noticeable. Hot air rushes out the vents, thankfully away from your hands though.

Asus says it had to do a lot of work to achieve the final size and weight of the ROG Ally

Verdict

The Asus ROG Ally is a fascinating product. It’s genuinely new and fresh, and there’s clearly a market for it. However, I’m not quite sure it’s ready for mainstream adoption, and those who are immediately drawn to the concept should really consider a few key points about how and where they will end up using it. First of all, this isn’t a traditional handheld console – it’s a mini PC with a screen and a physically integrated controller. It doesn’t have its own ecosystem of games that just work, a game store, or a seamless UI. PC games won’t all run smoothly and working with Windows 11 can be annoying.

Moreover, the sheer number of variables you have to deal with manually can be daunting for casual gamers. You have to know what power profile is active, you can change the screen resolution and refresh rate, and I just didn’t have time to get into what’s possible with Radeon Super Resolution upscaling. During the review period, there weren’t many times that I actually saw any benefit in plugging the ROG Ally into a TV or using it at a desk with a monitor, keyboard and mouse. I also don’t think an XG Mobile dock with a much more powerful GPU would be good enough value for money, for the use I got out of it.

PC games might expect always-on Internet access, so gaming on the go can be tricky. Adding a cellular data modem would have compromised battery life further, so it’s understandable that Asus didn’t implement that. The problem is there are places you can’t even tether, such as on a plane, which is exactly where you’d want a portable gaming machine to work.

You get the convenience of a fingerprint sensor and of course programmable RGB lighting effects

Battery life is very limited and you only get the best performance when plugged into a power source that can deliver 65W. For that reason I found myself using the ROG Ally most often when lounging at home. In that sense, it’s nice to have but it’s definitely an indulgence. If this is the main use case, rather than gaming while outdoors or traveling, I’d prioritise buying a gaming laptop and a capable smartphone before spending money on this device.

I’m surprised that other manufacturers haven’t yet announced their own versions of the same thing, but I can’t say whether that’s because AMD’s Ryzen Z1 series isn’t widely available to OEMs, they were caught off guard and need more R&D time, or they’re choosing to wait and watch. Asus is clearly confident enough to launch the ROG Ally worldwide – and has created quite a lot of resources including guides on its website to help you optimise game settings and get familiar with it. I’m fascinated to see whether this will end up as a one-off, like many of Asus’ most inventive products, or whether we’ve just seen the birth of a whole new market. As for the Ryzen Z1 series SoCs, I’d love to see them in a variety of compact form factors beyond handheld gaming consoles.

Unlike the Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck, the ROG Ally is officially available in India. Just the fact that you will get authorised support for it makes spending Rs. 70,000 seem palatable, but you have to know exactly what you’re getting into. This isn’t a simple game console that you can just pull out of your bag to kill time with wherever you are. It also isn’t a low-cost gaming PC. It’s more of a plaything for enthusiasts who already have good PCs and who will find joy in the device itself, not just the games they play on it.

Asus ROG Ally

Price: Rs. 69,990

Pros:-

• Innovative and unique
• Powerful hardware
• Reasonable weight, good build quality
• Runs a wide variety of PC games

Cons:-

• Very limited battery life
• Only one USB port
• Windows UI is hard to use
• Carry case not included

Ratings (Out of 5):-

• Design: 4
• Display: 3.5
• Software: 3.5
• Performance: 5
• Battery life: 3
• Value for Money: 4
• Overall: 3.5

The post Asus ROG Ally Review: The Start of Something New? appeared first on Review Products.

Realme has only released two tablet computers since its 2018 debut. The Realme Pad 2, the company’s second tablet, has some performance and aesthetic upgrades over its predecessor. It also includes cellular connectivity, distinguishing it as a unique product in the sub-Rs—20,000 tablet market, dominated by inexpensive tablets deficient in this capability. Faster charging and a display with a 120Hz refresh rate are also included. More significantly, the software has been optimized for a wide-screen experience, and the base model also includes 6GB of RAM. But to produce a tablet at such a low cost, did Realme make any compromises? Can it genuinely outperform the recently released Redmi Pad in terms of value? Let’s investigate.

Indian Realme Pad 2 cost

The Realme Pad 2’s base model costs Rs. 19,999 in India and comes with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The most expensive model costs Rs. 22,999 and has 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Since LTE connectivity is an essential feature on both models, the older model’s more excellent price is more than justified, especially considering the additional improvements it provides.

Realme Pad 2’s look

There are two finishes for the tablet: Inspiration Green and Imagination Grey. As one can see, Realme is aiming both of these products at young consumers. The unit we received for evaluation in a brilliant green color looks pretty appealing, even though I found its design and material selection somewhat reminiscent of Oppo’s Pad Air.

The Realme Pad 2 has a chassis with a polycarbonate insert that occupies about a quarter of the back surface and a metal frame with flat sides. The considerable camera module is attached to one end of the plastic band, which spans the whole top half of the gadget (when held horizontally) and includes the frame.

All antennas required for radio transmission are conveniently concealed beneath the insert. Although noticeable, the camera bump does not protrude very far and does not cause the tablet to wiggle when placed on a flat surface.

Due to the basic design approach, there are no joints or antenna gaps. Thus, it feels rather premium and relatively compact (7.2mm). The four-speaker grilles’ perforations, which likewise seem understated and understated, are another feature I appreciated. Realme’s software interface blends beautifully with the enormous 11.5-inch LCD screen’s thin bezel all around and rounded corner cuts.

The Realme Pad 2 lacks additional accessories, just like the previous version. It’s still being determined why the Pad doesn’t even sell a simple kickstand folio cover, but this does suggest that the company only intends for its tablet to be used as a media consumption tool. I always had to hold the tablet at an angle to watch the content or navigate via its interface because there wasn’t an available case or stand. With a weight of 518g, holding this tablet at the necessary angle gets tiresome, especially when viewing movies or television.

Software and specifications for the Realme Pad 2

For some time, various low-cost devices have been using the 6nm MediaTek Helio G99 SoC, which powers the Realme Pad 2. The Redmi Pad, which is this device’s main rival, is also on the list of gadgets. Wi-Fi AC, Bluetooth 5.2, support for several LTE bands, and the typical satellite global positioning systems are among the communication technologies.

To plug in headphones, there is no headphone jack available. However, you receive a SIM card tray with slots for a SIM and a microSD card that can hold up to 1TB of data. The tablet’s 8,360mAh battery may be topped with the included 33W charger.

I was also taken aback that there was no secure biometric authentication on a tablet priced less than Rs. 20,000. Like the previous version, the Realme Pad 2 lacks a fingerprint reader, making 2D face unlock the only way to access the tablet without entering a passcode. While this isn’t a safe way to open a personal device, it did function well in all but complete darkness.

Three apps can be displayed at once on the Realme Pad 2.

The software interface of the Realme Pad is an enhancement over the earlier model. It is not a ‘light’ or simplified version of the conventional Realme UI interface that can be found on its entry-level devices, including the prior design.

The brand-new Realme Pad 2 receives the complete treatment with all the customization options one would anticipate from its smartphones and a few more. This features a bottom dock that displays recently launched and pinned apps running in the background. Although this dock isn’t available anywhere in the interface or can be called up over third-party programs, its utility is restricted to the home screen.

The Realme Pad 2 included just one preinstalled third-party program (Facebook), which can be removed, in contrast to most other Realme devices and tablets in this price range.

This tablet-optimized version of Realme UI has full touchpad functionality (under Additional Settings) with full support for gestures one would do on a standard trackpad despite no officially authorized peripherals. There are also the standard features, such as the ability to run two apps in split-screen mode while another app is launched in a pop-up window, allowing for the simultaneous display of three apps.

Realme Pad 2 functionality

This tablet allows for effective multitasking. I ran five Chrome tabs concurrently while the YouTube app was split-screening clips side by side. The system handles opening a floating window while executing all of this fine, with some slowness when drawing lengthy web pages.

I liked the aspect ratio of this large display regardless of the tablet’s software performance, which was suitable for a cheap tablet. It is excellent for content consumption and has enough space to run two split-screen apps simultaneously.

Because Realme includes Widevine L1 support, I could stream and watch full-HD video content on this tablet. Although the display loses contrast at an angle, outdoor visibility is decent. Given its size and quality, the show isn’t the clearest on the market, and its MEMC high-refresh-rate system occasionally exhibits noticeable choppiness when scrolling or switching between videos and apps.

When it came to benchmarks, the tablet delivered results that were comparable to low-cost smartphones at this price point. The Realme Pad 2 got 726 and 1,975 issues in the single-core and multi-core tests of Geekbench, respectively, and 4,29,907 points in AnTuTu. In the Manhattan 3.1, T-Rex, and Car Chase test suites of GFXBench, the tablet achieved graphical frame rates of 25, 55, and 15 frames per second, respectively.

Among its rivals, the Realme Pad 2’s display is the largest but could be better.

Although the MediaTek Helio G99 is not a performance powerhouse, it is adequate for daily tasks. Despite boasting a 120Hz refresh rate display, this tablet is better suited for casual gaming than graphics-intensive games. I tried Asphalt 9: Legends, and it played perfectly well, with some little frame skipping and stuttering on the basic settings.

The sound was better than the previous model’s more straightforward dual speaker configuration, which was what I liked about the gaming and video viewing experience. The sound is unquestionably louder and more immersive than the previous generation. Additionally, the tablet supports Dolby Atmos.

A 5-megapixel back camera and an 8-megapixel front camera are both featured on the Realme Pad 2. As predicted, the primary shooter provides essential image quality with below-average detail but closer to natural colors. Even in full daylight, the textures were mainly flat. Thus, you are better off using any smartphone camera offered at this price bracket.

The front-facing camera’s selfies have bland surfaces and trim detail. This camera is better suited for video calling because it handles backdrop exposure well when recording video, which is helpful when making video calls.

A 5-megapixel primary camera is featured on the Realme Pad 2.

For a low-cost tablet, the battery life is quite good. The Realme Pad 2 completed the typical battery loop video test at 26 hours and 13 minutes. It can easily last two days with intensive use and three days with light use, which is suitable for a compact tablet, with or without a SIM card inside.

Because it now has LTE coverage, it is also a dependable road warrior that can offer continuous entertainment (for OTT apps) or connectivity (for video conversations, etc.) while moving. Its larger battery will also last significantly longer than any smartphone in your pocket.

Regarding charging, the tablet received a 33 percent charge in 30 minutes, a 62 percent charge in an hour, and a full charge in 1 hour and 36 minutes, which is decent for a tablet.

Verdict

Overall, the form and functionality of the Realme Pad 2 are identical to those of the first version. It works best when used only as a media consumption tool. Realme should have released a keyboard adapter with the tablet to use it as a portable workstation. It also cannot be used to scribble on because it does not support styluses.

The Realme Pad 2 improves upon the shortcomings of its predecessor and achieves something of an all-rounder status by adding a high-refresh-rate display, an upgraded processor, and cellular connectivity to its feature list. Finding something comparable on the market at Rs. 19,999 can be challenging. Its nearest rivals are the Redmi Pad (Review) and the Oppo Pad Air (Review), which are slightly less expensive but feature smaller displays, batteries, and no cellular connectivity.

The post Realme Pad 2 Review: A Stylish Upgrade That Covers the Basics appeared first on Review Products.

HP has launched its latest laptop in the Dragonfly series in India, called the HP Dragonfly G4. We got our hands on the device for a brief period of time and here is our first impressions of the laptop. The HP Dragonfly G4 is aimed at professionals and business users who need a powerful machine which also looks stylish. It will retail starting at Rs. 2,20,000 in India and will come in two colour options, Slate Blue and Natural Silver. The HP Dragonfly G4 comes equipped with Intel 13th Gen processors and integrated graphics.

HP Dragonfly G4 body HP Dragonfly G4 body

The HP Dragonfly G4 laptop sports a 13.5-inch display

 The look and feel of this laptop is quite premium. The matte-finished housing is smooth to the touch and offers a durable feeling while carrying it around. It weighs just under 1kg but this will vary based on the configuration you choose. It is also just 16.4mm thick which makes it the thinnest laptop from HP. The chrome Dragonfly branding on the inside and on the hinge does look kinda trendy and will stand out.

The Dragonfly G4 features a 13.5-inch display and you can choose from a variety of options such as an LCD or OLED panels. The WUXGA+ Sure View Reflect display for instance supports a peak brightness of up to 1000 nits, and one feature that I particularly liked about it is that it can block the view of your displayed content to anyone trying to snoop in from the side. It is definitely a unique privacy feature.

You get a full-sized backlit keyboard on this one with a trackpad which has chamfered edges. The keys are quite responsive too.

HP Dragonfly G4 keyboard HP Dragonfly G4 keyboard

The HP Dragonfly G4 features up to a 2TB M.2 PCIe Gen 4 SSD and up to 32GB LPDDR5 soldered RAM. It does have an extensive host of ports, including two Thunderbolt 4 ports, one Superspeed USB Type-A port, one HDMI 2.1 port, one nano-SIM slot and a 3.5mm headphone and mic combo jack. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3 and an optional M.2 WWAN adapter for up to 5G cellular support.

The HP Dragonfly G4 comes with HP Fast Charge support that can charge the battery up to 50 percent in 30 minutes, according to the brand. It also sports a speaker system by Bang & Olufsen, a 5-megapixel webcam and comes preloaded with Windows 11 Pro for Business.

Is the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 the best foldable phone you can buy in India right now? We discuss the company’s new clamshell-style foldable handset on the latest episode of Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

The post HP Dragonfly G4 First Impressions: Slim, Yet Powerful appeared first on Review Products.

Acer introduced the Swift Go laptop series at CES 2023, powered by both Intel and AMD CPUs. The AMD Ryzen-powered laptop was launched in March of this year in India, and today we’ll be reviewing the base model of the Swift Go 14. It is aimed at the urban youth who would want a stylish and premium looking laptop which is portable and powerful. Let’s find out if the Swift Go 14 checks all the boxes.

Acer Swift Go 14 price in India

The Acer Swift Go 14 is available in Prodigy Pink and Pure Silver colours. On the Acer India online store, the laptop starts at Rs. 59,999 and is the variant we’ll be testing. This comes with an AMD Ryzen 5 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. For about Rs. 5,000 more, you can get the same configuration but with 16GB of RAM.

Acer Swift Go 14 design and features

The Acer Swift Go 14 features a metal chassis which is what gives it a premium look and feel. It’s also quite compact and lightweight measuring just 15.9mm in thickness and 1.25kg in weight. The pink variant actually looks nice and grows on you after a while. You get a good variety of ports for a 14-inch laptop and these include two USB 3.2 (Gen1) Type-C ports for charging, HDMI, USB 3.2 (Gen1) Type-A port, USB 2.0 Type-A port, headphone jack, and a Kensington lock. There’s no SD card reader of any kind, which I don’t think is a total loss. The right side of the laptop also has two LEDs for the power and activity status.

The Acer Swift Go 14 features an all-metal chassis and is fairly light

The backlit keyboard on the Acer Swift Go 14 is nicely laid out, and the keys themselves are responsive and not noisy. There’s a fingerprint sensor in the power button which wobbles when pressed, unlike the rest of the keys, but it works fine when it comes to authentication. The trackpad does a good job of tracking and you get a decent amount of room to rest your palms.

The 14-inch display has a 16:9 aspect ratio, making it ideal for watching most video content. The Acer Swift Go 14 uses an IPS display panel with a full-HD (1920×1080) resolution and comes with a matte, anti-glare finish. The display has a rated maximum brightness of 300 nits which I found to be more than adequate. The 1080p webcam is quite inconspicuous and is located just above the display. The Acer Swift Go 14 ships with just a 65W USB Type-C charger in the box.

Acer Swift Go 14 specifications and software

The Acer Swift Go 14 features an AMD Ryzen 5 7530U CPU featuring six CPU cores. It’s part of AMD’s mobile CPU refresh which was announced during CES this year. However, this model is based on a refreshed Zen 3 architecture, unlike the 7040 series which uses the latest Zen 4 architecture. This is currently the only CPU configuration that Acer offers in India for the Swift Go 14 series. Storage is taken care of by a 512GB NVMe PCIe Gen3 SSD, and there’s 8GB of RAM. The laptop also features Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.1, and a 3-cell 50WHr battery.

The Acer Swift Go 14 features a good number of ports for a 14-inch laptop

The Acer Swift Go 14 ships with Windows 11 Home, along with the usual preinstalled programs such as Microsoft Office Home and Student, McAfee antivirus, and bunch of softwares by Acer for system diagnostics and keeping drivers up to date.

Acer Swift Go 14 performance and battery life

General performance of the Acer Swift Go 14 is very good. It runs cool and the fans are not audible when performing simple tasks, but you can hear them faintly during gaming. I found the typing angle to be quite ergonomic as the base is propped up a bit when the lid is open. The keyboard backlighting is also soothing and the display gets sufficiently bright even for daytime outdoor use. Applications are quick to load and I never really felt any lack of power.

The stereo speakers get loud but don’t sound all that great. Games run decently well with the onboard Radeon graphics. I was able to get smooth framerates in Fortnite with medium graphics and running at the display’s native resolution. In synthetic gaming tests such as 3DMark, the Acer Swift Go 14 returned a score of 1,268 in the Time Spy test suite, and 13,570 in Night Raid. CPU and SSD performance was also very good. The laptop scored 566 and 3,664 points in Cinebench R20, and returned an average read speed of over 1.5GB/s for both sequential and random tests in SiSoft Sandra. Write speeds were lower coming in under 900MB/s.

Video rendering and encoding performance was also quite good. The Acer Swift Go 14 took 45 seconds to encode a 1.3GB AVI file to H.265 MKV, while the BMW test scene in Blender took 6 minutes, 18 seconds to render. These were lower (better) times compared to something like the Intel Core i5-1335U CPU which we recently tested in the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1.

The keyboard on the Acer Swift Go 14 is comfortable to type on

Battery life is another highlight of the Acer Swift Go 14. Considering its size, it ran for an impressive 3 hours, 26 minutes in the Battery Eater Pro benchmark. With my daily workflow, I was able to get roughly 7-8 hours of non-stop use before the battery went below 10 percent. By these estimates, it should be possible to get even up to 10 hours of use on one charge (or more), if you don’t use it non-stop. The laptop can be charged fairly quickly using the bundled charger. You get roughly a 70 percent charge in an hour.

Verdict

It’s really hard to find fault with the Acer Swift Go 14 as it does everything you’d expect from a thin and light laptop, and this is before you even consider the price. At Rs. 59,999 (less during sales), you get a well-designed compact laptop with good performance and long battery life. The speakers are possibly the only thing that’s a little underwhelming, and the wobbly power button feels a little out of place in an otherwise well put-together laptop (or it could just be our unit). The Swift Go 14 is definitely worth recommending if you’re looking for a compact Windows laptop under Rs. 60,000 that doesn’t compromise on battery life.

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Apple’s desktop strategy has taken an interesting turn this year. Not only has the company finally updated the Mac Pro, which was its last Intel-based computer, but there’s also a new version of the Mac Mini with a more powerful processor. This means there are more choices than ever, with new options at the ultra-high end as well as the mainstream-pro level. In between those sits the updated second-gen Mac Studio, with your choice of M2 Max and M2 Ultra processors.

We had thought this device might replace the Mac Pro or serve as the default option for content creators, but there’s more to it than that. In this review, we’ll check out what’s new with the 2023 Mac Studio and help you decide whether it’s the perfect middle ground, or whether any of its siblings would better suit your needs.

Mac Studio price in India

The Mac Studio is sold without a monitor, keyboard or mouse – all you get in the box is the unit itself, a power cable, and some documentation. Prices start at Rs. 2,09,900 for the base variant with an M2 Max SoC (12-core CPU, 30-core GPU), 32GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. A slightly more powerful M2 Max with 38 GPU cores instead of 30 will cost Rs. 20,000 more.

In typical Apple fashion, nothing can be upgraded post-purchase, and configuration options are extremely expensive. For example, you’d have to pay a shocking Rs. 40,000 more to step up to 64GB of RAM and Rs. 20,000 more to double your storage to 1TB. The SSD is actually removable, according to teardowns, but you can’t swap or upgrade it yourself due to software-level locks.

Options with the M2 Ultra SoC, which we’ll talk about later in this review, start at Rs. 4,19,900, which means you’re in a whole different class – this isn’t just a simple spec bump. This version of the Mac Studio will have 64GB RAM minimum, and a 1TB SSD. There are two versions of this SoC as well, with 16 extra GPU cores on the higher-end one raising the price by Rs. 1,00,000. You can step up to 128GB or 192GB of RAM (for an eye-watering Rs. 80,000 and Rs. 1,60,000 more respectively) plus up to 8TB of storage (another Rs. 2,20,000). That means the top-end spec goes for Rs. 8,99,900 – and that’s before adding any software.

Apple’s Studio Display would be well suited to the Mac Studio, and if you want to know whether it’s worth the Rs. 1,59,900 base price, check out my impressions of it in my recent Mac mini review. I also used Apple’s Magic Keyboard With Touch ID and Number Pad, Magic Mouse, and Magic Trackpad during this review. Those are priced at Rs. 19,500, Rs. 9,500 and Rs. 14,500 respectively – so that’s well over Rs. 10,00,000 right there.

Mac Studio (M2 Max, 2023) design

The most obvious way to describe the Mac Studio is to say it looks like a taller Mac mini. It’s a simple, effective design that belies the amount of power inside. The Mac Studio is exactly as wide and deep, but over twice as tall, making it much less easy to tuck away than the mini. Stackable Mac mini accessories such as hubs should look right at home. It’s made of the same silver aluminum and has the same body texture. The Apple logo on the top is also larger, and the base a little more raised. This device is clearly meant to sit on your desk. I’m most thrilled to see ports on the front; something I’ve complained about with multiple generations of desktop Macs.

There’s very little else to say about design – the power LED on the front is surprisingly large. The back is where all the rest of the ports are, and you’ll also see a large air vent. In India, the AC power cord you get in the box unfortunately has a 16A power plug, and I’ve noted the inconvenience of this before, especially when power consumption shouldn’t be anywhere near that high. If you’re using a Mac Studio with a Studio Display, you’ll need two of these uncommon outlets at your desk. At least the power supply is built in, and you don’t have to deal with an external brick.

The M2 Max-based version weighs 2.7kg while the M2 Ultra-based version is a surprising 3.62kg, probably due to a needing a more robust cooling system. Both are still portable enough to be carried around if you need to work on location often. In fact, the box it comes in has a cloth handle so you can do just that. Plenty of companies also sell rack-mount adapters so you can slot one or more of these units into a standard equipment cage.

Mac Studio (M2 Max, 2023) specifications and software

I received an M2 Max-powered Mac Studio for this review, with the 30-core GPU, 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, which would be priced at Rs. 2,29,900 in India. The M2 Max is superior to the M2 and M2 Pro (which is where the Mac mini tops out), but fits below the M2 Ultra and even the M1 Ultra. The entire M2 family is fabricated on a 5nm process.

Apple says the M2 Max is made up of 67 billion transistors. It features the same 12-core CPU block and 16-core ‘Neural Engine’ AI accelerator as the M2 Pro but GPU resources jump up to 30 or 38 cores and RAM support goes up to 96GB. You also get double the video encoding resources in hardware, including acceleration for Apple’s own ProRES format, compared to the M2 Pro. That’s a large part of how the Mac Studio is positioned above the Mac mini – these differences won’t matter much for everyday photo and video editing but will certainly come into play when editing or recolouring multiple 4K or higher-res video streams, processing 3D models and visual effects, and even training machine learning models.

The Mac Studio will update to the latest version of macOS on first boot Apple

Compared to a previous-gen Mac Studio with the M1 Max SoC, Apple says this model with the M2 Max can render motion graphics in Adobe AfterEffects up to 50 percent faster, or build Xcode projects 25 percent faster.

If you’re splurging on a higher-end Mac Studio, you’ll get the M2 Ultra SoC which is Apple’s current top-end in-house processor and essentially doubles everything about the M2 Max – in fact, it’s two M2 Max dies joined together with a custom high-speed interconnect. That’s around 134 billion transistors, according to Apple, and means you get 24 CPU cores and either 60 or 76 GPU cores, plus twice the Neural Engine capacity, memory bandwidth, and media encoding resources.

A 2023 Mac Studio with an M2 Max SoC can drive up to four 6K displays plus another at 4K 60Hz, or two 4K displays plus one 8K at 60Hz. If that wasn’t enough, the M2 Ultra-powered variants can handle up to eight 4K, six 6K or three 8K 60Hz displays – and you can use that headroom for higher refresh rates on fewer displays, and play with different permutations thereof.

On the rear panel, you get four Thunderbolt 4 (40Gbps) Type-C ports, two USB 3.1 Gen2 (10Gbps) Type-A ports, 10Gb Ethernet, HDMI, and a 3.5mm combo audio socket. There’s also the three-pin AC mains inlet and a power button. It’s nice to see legacy USB Type-A ports, but connectivity on the front is even better. On M2 Max-powered units these two Type-C ports work at USB 3.1 Gen2 (10Gbps) speed but the M2 Ultra can drive more Thunderbolt 4 ports so you get all that bandwidth. The card slot supports SDXC cards but not the newer SDExpress format.

Like the Mac mini, there’s a built-in speaker which is decent enough for notifications but you wouldn’t want to use it for music. If you’re connected to a Studio Display which has its own speakers, or any other external ones, this speaker will be bypassed. As for wireless communications, there’s Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3.

MacOS is of course preloaded and you’ll need an iCloud account to set up any current-day Mac. You get all of the preloaded apps including Safari, Apple Music, Apple TV, Books, FaceTime, iMovie, GarageBand, Mail, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, and Maps. There is of course the company’s own App Store, and all the iCloud ecosystem tie-ins such as Find My. If you also use an iPhone, iPad and/or AirPods with the same Apple account, you’ll be able to sync content across them easily.

Mac Studio (M2 Max, 2023) specifications and software

When you first power up the Mac Studio, you’re guided through a fairly lengthy setup process. You’ll have to sign in or create a new Apple ID, and you can import data from iCloud or another Apple device automatically. A few security features are enabled by default – your SSD is encrypted, the version of macOS you have installed is verified to be unmodified, booting from other media isn’t possible. Your SSD is also encrypted by default. These are the first signs that the Mac Studio is intended to be used in a production environment. My Apple accessories were detected automatically and I was able to enroll my fingerprint seamlessly. On first boot, I was offered upgrades to macOS Ventura 13.5 and the Apple Studio Display firmware 16.4.

There’s really nothing to be said about everyday performance – it’s perfectly fine. If you want to know more about using macOS and Apple’s monitor and accessories, check out our Mac mini review. In short, everything’s very expensive but you won’t get the same experience and some features such as Touch ID with third-party products. One little note is that as much as I like having USB Type-C ports on the front, you’ll need to hold the Mac Studio down with one hand when plugging in or unplugging devices with your other hand, since it isn’t very heavy.

The 2023 Mac Studio is available with either the M2 Max or M2 Ultra SoC Apple

Things only really start to feel different when running benchmarks. Starting with Geekbench 6, I got scores of 2,664 in the single-core CPU test, 14,508 in the multi-core test, and 74,465 in the GPU OpenCL test. For reference, the Mac mini (M2 Pro, 2023) scored a completely unsurprising 2,654 and 14,208 in the CPU-based scores but its GPU score was significantly lower at 49,686. Cinebench R23’s render test posted single-core and all-cores scores of 1,660 and 14,539 respectively, which are again at par with what the Mac mini managed.

SSD performance, as measured by AmorphousDiskMark, indicated sequential read and write speeds of 6,497.12MBps and 7,044MBps, which is also on par with what the Mac mini was capable of. As you can see, depending on your workload, you might be perfectly fine with Apple’s much less expensive desktop. In such cases, you’ll have to spend far more on the M2 Ultra SoC to get to the next performance tier.

We start to see the M2 Max-based Mac Studio set itself apart when it comes to content creation and more holistic tests. The browser-based WebXprt benchmark managed 255 points, Basemark Web test showed a score of 2,285.41, and Jetstream 2 posted 320.501. The LuxMark render test posted a score of 39,217 for the standard LuxBall scene, and IndigoBench’s Bedroom and Supercar scene tests managed 1.679 and 3.848 Megasamples per second respectively. Blender’s popular Barcelona Pavilion Demo took 7 minutes, 2 seconds to render and the Classroom scene took 5 minutes, 50 seconds.

Using Final Cut Pro to transcode a 23.8GB ProRES 4K file shot with an iPhone 13 Pro to H.254 1080p took approximately 37 seconds, and keeping the resolution at 4K, that only rose to approximately 1 minute, 48 seconds.

Coming to graphics performance, GFXBench’s Aztec Ruins and Car Chase test runs both maxed out at 60fps, likely due to being constrained by the Studio Display. The same tests set to render off-screen at 4K pushed out a whopping 144.934fps and 589.78fps respectively, which is considerably higher than what the Mac mini managed. Unigine’s Valley benchmark posted 114.6fps at 1920×1080 using the Ultra quality preset with AA set to 4X. AAA games are still relatively rare on the Mac platform, but the trusty Rise of the Tomb Raider averaged 111fps at 1920×1080, 75fps at 2560×1440, and 38fps at 4K, all using the High quality preset.

The Mac Studio’s cooling system was barely audible. At no point during testing did I even notice fan noise. The top of the unit only got slightly warm.

Verdict

All of our performance testing and observations apply to the M2 Max-based Mac Studio. This SoC is notably faster than the M2 Pro in some areas but not all and you should really examine your workload and future requirements carefully before spending your money on the Mac Studio vs the Mac mini. You should really consider the M2 Ultra version of the Mac Studio a completely different product. Its performance and price puts it in another class altogether, and the target market is also different. This machine will likely suffice for anyone who has heavy creative production work.

That relegates the brand new Mac Pro to an extremely niche audience – it’s only for those who need expansion cards for specific workflow environments such as a fibre-based network interface, more NVMe storage, and low-latency audio/video interfaces. The Mac Studio offers none of this expandability (aside from what you can do with external Thunderbolt devices), but that should be fine for a lot of creative workers.

The Mac Studio is great at handling content creation workloads Apple

Considering how powerful the Mac Studio is, it’s quite remarkable how Apple managed to keep it this small. The tradeoff is upgradability – absolutely nothing about the Mac Studio’s internal components can be upgraded or even swapped out. Apple’s RAM and storage configuration options at the time of purchase are infuriatingly overpriced, but there’s nothing anyone can do about that.

Video editors, 3D artists and software developers who deal with a lot of high-resolution content seem to be the primary target audience for the Mac Studio. It’s potentially good value for money, but you should really study all the options available to you within Apple’s current catalogue before deciding to buy it.

Price: Rs. 2,09,900 (as reviewed)

Pros:

• Very good performance
• Compact and quiet
• Ports on the front

Cons:

• RAM and storage not upgradeable
• Expensive configuration options

Ratings (out of 5):

• Design: 4
• Performance: 4.5
• Software: 4.5
• Value for Money: 3.5
• Overall: 4

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