Intel recently teased an upcoming NUC 11 Extreme compact, modular gaming desktop computer with 11th-gen Core processors, code-named “Beast Canyon.” But the company didn’t say which 11th-gen chips it would have. Now we know that at least some models will have a pretty powerful Tiger Lake chip.
Xiaomi recently showed off a 200W fast charging system that could fully charge a smartphone’s 4,000 mAh battery in just 8 minutes. It could also wear down that battery quickly so that it has just 80-percent capacity in less than two years.
And last month Linux computer company System76 began taking pre-orders for an expensive, but versatile mechanical keyboard called the Launch Configurable Keyboard. Now reviews are starting to come in, and I suspect there’ll definitely be some keyboard enthusiasts willing to pay the $285 asking price for such a configurable keyboard that you can truly make your own.
Here’s a roundup of recent tech news from around the web.
- Intel Beast Canyon NUC 11 Roars With Mighty 5.3GHz Core i9-11900KB Tiger Lake-B CPU [HotHardware]
Intel Beast Canyon NUC with support for discrete graphics will be available with a removable Compute Element featuring up to a 65W Core i9-11900KB 8-core, 16-thread processor with 3.3 GHz base/5.3 GHz max freq and Intel UHD graphics (32 execution units). - Apple Brings Windows Precision Touchpad Support to Boot Camp [Tom’s Hardware]
Apple rolls out Boot Camp update with Windows Precision touchpad drivers, allowing you to use multi-touch gestures when running Windows on some Macs (but the newest Macs with M1 chips don’t support Boot Camp at all). - Xiaomi’s 200W charging will decrease your battery capacity pretty quickly [Android Authority]
Xiaomi says its new 200W fast charging tech lets you charge a 4,000 mAh battery in minutes. But it will also degrade the battery, leaving you with just 80% capacity after 800 charge cycles (around 2 years of daily charges). - Open Source OpenGL ES 3.1 on Mali GPUs with Panfrost [Collabora]
Open source Arm Mali graphics driver Panfrost now supports OpenGL ES 3.1 for Mali T760 and newer GPUs as well as Mali G31, G52, and G76. That means support for compute shaders, among other things. - Google Nest Hub & Hub Max get a more feature-rich browser complete with keyboard [9to5Google]
Google rolls out a Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max software update that lets you use an on-screen keyboard with the browser. Voice input is still supported though. - System76 Launch – A Very Well Built, Highly Configurable, Open-Source Keyboard [Phoronix]
Priced at $285, the System76 Launch keyboard isn’t cheap, even by mechanical keyboard standards. But this review describes it as a versatile kb that’s also a USB hub and everything is open source including firmware and hardware and hardware.
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80% after 2 years? That’s bad.
I have a 2016 iPhone SE and it’s at 91% max capacity still even after all these years. Still getting security/bug fixes and runs as well as when I first got it in 2016.
And that’s probably just on average. The edge cases could be really bad and possible broader than what one might think of as “edge” too. And it’s not just that one extreme quick charging scheme that has an effect. If it heats up your phone (as every quick charger I’ve ever used does), odds are pretty good it’s decreasing your battery lifespan. Manufacturers aren’t incentivized to care about longevity, their warranties expire quick and most consumers upgrade pretty quick.
What bothers me most about quick charging is that it has accelerated alongside a hard lockdown of batteries. Not too many years ago, even though batteries weren’t advertised as user replaceable anymore, replacing them wasn’t too hard. Now I view ifixit teardowns with popcorn like I’d watch a horror movie. Maybe everyone else can still DIY those replacements but my clumsy self would break everything trying to replace a $5 battery.
I would be happy to trade 8min full charge times for 80% capacity after 2 years. I have never had a phone that I wanted to use after 3 years. I can literally fully charge my phone while in the shower.
How much do batteries normally run down in two years?
The one on my Galaxy Note 9 is actually also down to 83% after about 2 years and 2 months or so of use, according to the app AccuBattery
I would estimate about the same for my Galaxy Note 9, which is almost 3 years old now. My wife used and charged it daily for 2 years, and I’m now using it daily for the last 9 months charging it every 2-3 days.
It definitely has at least 80% of it’s original capacity left.