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Lilbits: MacBook Self Service repairs could get pricy, Apple will unveil the iPhone 14 on September 7th, and Google launches new Fitbit wearables

Earlier this year Apple introduced a Self Service Repair program that lets customers purchase genuine Apple parts, use official repair guides, and even rent the same equipment Apple uses to perform repairs. At launch, the company offered everything you needed to repair recent iPhones. Now Apple has expanded to cover MacBook laptops as well. But […]

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Chromebook shipments are falling fast (but they’re still higher than at the start of the pandemic)

The global COVID-19 pandemic has affected PC shipments in unusual ways. Toward the beginning of the pandemic in early 2020, shipments of PCs, smartphones, and all sorts of other tech products slowed due to supply chain shortages (which still haven’t entirely gone away yet). But as many people around the world found themselves working from […]

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Lilbits: Lenovo’s next ThinkPad X1 foldable, Asus Zenfone 9, and turning the Game Boy Camera into a modern mirrorless camera

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold was one of the first tablets with a foldable display that lets you position it like a laptop, hold it like a book, or fold it in half. But it was also one of the only computers to ever ship with an Intel Lakefield processor, known for its unimpressive performance. […]

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Lilbits: The latest Unihertz BlackBerry clone, why Pebble failed, and a dip in PC shipments

Unihertz plans to launch a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign soon for a modern phone with some retro-inspired features including a BlackBerry-style physical keyboard. The upcoming Unihertz Titan Slim will be the latest in a line of unusual phones from Unihertz, which has made a habit of releasing niche smartphones aimed at fans of old-school features like […]

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Lilbits: Android 12L Beta 2, Windows 11 Preview 22533, and Rockchip RK3588S

Windows PC shipments were up nearly 15% year-over-year in 2021 according to the latest report from research firm IDC. Google has released a second beta of Android 12L, the upcoming version of its mobile operating system optimized for tablets & foldables. Microsoft has released a new preview build of Windows 11 to Insiders. And Rockchip […]

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Lilbits: Playdate dissected, PC shipments continue to rise, and Chromebooks lose support for MS Office Android apps

Chromebooks are basically just laptops that ship with Google’s Chrome OS rather than another operating system. But since Chrome OS was designed to put the web browser front and center, some folks have insisted that it’s not a real operating system – after all, it loses much of its functionality if you lose your internet connection. […]

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PC shipments continue their pandemic-fueled growth streak (but supply chain issues mean slower growth)

After years of declining shipments, PC makers saw big growth over the past year, largely fueled by the work-from-home trend during the global COVID-19 pandemic. Now research firms Gartner, IDC, and Canalys report that PC shipments are continuing to trend upward… but growth has slowed somewhat in the latest quarter. The most likely reason for […]

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Tablets and Chromebooks continue to do well during the pandemic

We learned earlier this month that PC shipments continued to surge during the first quarter of 2021. Now IDC reports that two particular product categories are doing particularly well: Chromebooks and tablets. According to IDC, 39.9 million tablets were shipped in the first quarter of 2021, which is a 55.2 percent increase over the same […]

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Lilbits: Ubuntu on Windows, rising smartphone shipments, and first-time Mac and iPad buyers

When Apple introduced the M1 processor late last year, the company made bold claims about its performance and efficiency. And when reviews of the new Macs powered by the chip started to come in, it turned out that those claims were largely true – Apple’s new processors are among the fastest desktop and laptop chips […]

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Lilbits: Apple leaks, NVIDIA’s ARM CPUs, and PC shipments are (way) up

Every quarter a handful of analysts release reports letting us know if shipments of devices like PCs, smartphones, tablets, and smart home devices are rising, falling, or flat. Sometimes this data gives us a good idea of current and future trends. This year, I’m not really so sure what it tells us. With that in […]