One of the most underrated addition to any smart home, a smart lock can add a whole lot of convenience and peace of mind by automatically locking if you forget and letting you leave your keys in your pocket. And today’s a great day to pick one up, as Amazon is selling the third-generation August Smart Lock for $100Remove non-product link, down from a list price of $150 and just pennies away from the lowest price we’ve ever seen.
The August Smart Lock connects to an Android or iOS app to allow you keyless access to your home with only your phone, and a Bluetooth connection lets it recognize your phone as you approach to unlock your door automatically. You can also remotely allow access for friends, family, or whomever else needs to come in without having to make a bunch of duplicate keys. And if you’re one of those forgetful people who sometimes doesn’t remember to lock your door, the August Smart Lock has your back: its DoorSense technology locks itself and can tell if your door is completely closed or not and Auto Lock will bolt your door after a set period of time. You can also control this lock using Alexa and Google Assistant, provided you purchase a separate August Connect Wi-Fi Bridge.
When we reviewed this smart lock in late 2017, we gave it just 2.5 stars out of 5, noting that although it has a lot of great features and a good price even before a discount, it had a lot of bugs. Several early Amazon reviews note a similarly frustrating experience, though a recent software update seems to have fixed many of the connectivity issues.
[Today’s deal: Third-generation August Smart Lock for $100 on AmazonRemove non-product link]
This story, “The third-gen August Smart Lock is down to a near-all-time-low of $100 on Amazon today” was originally published by
TechHive.
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An ancient struggle between two Cybertronian races, the heroic Autobots and the evil Decepticons, comes to Earth, with a clue to the ultimate power held by a teenager.
The Avengers and their allies must be willing to sacrifice all in an attempt to defeat the powerful Thanos before his blitz of devastation and ruin puts an end to the universe.
Directors:
Anthony Russo,
Joe Russo
Stars:
Robert Downey Jr.,
Chris Hemsworth,
Mark Ruffalo
Young computer hacker Lisbeth Salander and journalist Mikael Blomkvist find themselves caught in a web of spies, cybercriminals and corrupt government officials.
Sam Witwicky leaves the Autobots behind for a normal life. But when his mind is filled with cryptic symbols, the Decepticons target him and he is dragged back into the Transformers’ war.
T’Challa, heir to the hidden but advanced kingdom of Wakanda, must step forward to lead his people into a new future and must confront a challenger from his country’s past.
Director:
Ryan Coogler
Stars:
Chadwick Boseman,
Michael B. Jordan,
Lupita Nyong’o
Autobots must escape sight from a bounty hunter who has taken control of the human serendipity: Unexpectedly, Optimus Prime and his remaining gang turn to a mechanic, his daughter, and her back street racing boyfriend for help.
On the run in the year 1987, Bumblebee finds refuge in a junkyard in a small Californian beach town. Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld), on the cusp of turning 18 and trying to find her place in the world, discovers Bumblebee, battle-scarred and broken. When Charlie revives him, she quickly learns this is no ordinary, yellow VW bug. Written by Paramount Pictures
Bumblebee’s alternate mode in this feature is a Volkswagen Beetle, his original mode in Transformers (1984). His robot design (short and compact, with horns and a faceplate) is based on his Transformers (1984) and Transformers: Animated (2007) versions. See more »
Goofs
Before Charlie finds out Bumblebee is a robot she uses a creeper to look underneath him. There is nowhere near enough clearance under a Beetle to do this without first putting it up on jacks or ramps. See more »
The Paramount Pictures, Allspark Pictures, dB Pictures and Tencent Pictures logos are accompanied by a series of robotic sounds. See more »
Alternate Versions
Although the original British submission was uncut and rated 12A, it was replaced by a cut PG version removing 6 seconds of violence/injury. See more »
Bigmouth Strikes Again
Written by Morrissey (as Steven Morrissey) & Johnny Marr
Performed by The Smiths
Courtesy of Warner Music U.K. Ltd.
By arrangement with Warner Music Group Film & TV Licensing See more »
Newegg’s offering a great deal on one of our favorite SSDs, and it beats the all-time historical low price on Amazon. The 500GB Samsung 860 EVO SSD is $67Remove non-product link after applying the checkout code AFM9SSD674. That’s $18 less than the current price of $85. The deal ends just before midnight on Thursday, Pacific time.
We crowned the Samsung 860 EVO as the top solid-state drive for most people in our round-up of the best SSDs you can buy. The 860 EVO is one of the fastest triple-layer cell (TLC) SSDs we’ve tested, and one of the few TLC NAND drives that doesn’t slow down during big write jobs.
Samsung says the 860 EVO has a sequential read speed up to 500 megabytes per second, and write speeds up to 520MB/s. The drive uses the standard SATA III interface instead of the newer and speedier NVMe protocol even though it comes in both 2.5-inch and M.2 form factors. It’s still plenty fast for virtually all common use cases, though. The current sale price at Newegg is only for the 2.5-inch version.
If $67 is still too much for your wallet, Amazon is selling the Crucial MX500 500GB for $58. While we haven’t reviewed it, it’s a highly regarded drive by reviewers and more than 2,000 Amazon buyers. Don’t miss out! Whether you go with the Samsung 860 EVO or the Crucial MX500, an SSD is the single best upgrade you can give your PC if you’re still running a spinning hard drive.
[Today’s deal: Samsung 860 Evo 500GB for $67 at Newegg with checkout code AFM9SSD674.Remove non-product link]
To comment on this article and other Haveaheartsavealife content, visit our Facebook page or our Twitter feed.
Ian is an independent writer based in Israel who has never met a tech subject he didn’t like. He primarily covers Windows, PC and gaming hardware, video and music streaming services, social networks, and browsers. When he’s not covering the news he’s working on how-to tips for PC users, or tuning his eGPU setup.
Six years after the events of “Wreck-It Ralph,” Ralph and Vanellope, now friends, discover a wi-fi router in their arcade, leading them into a new adventure.
Teen Miles Morales becomes Spider-Man of his reality, crossing his path with five counterparts from other dimensions to stop a threat for all realities.
The Incredibles hero family takes on a new mission, which involves a change in family roles: Bob Parr (Mr Incredible) must manage the house while his wife Helen (Elastigirl) goes out to save the world.
Director:
Brad Bird
Stars:
Craig T. Nelson,
Holly Hunter,
Sarah Vowell
A Lion cub crown prince is tricked by a treacherous uncle into thinking he caused his father’s death and flees into exile in despair, only to learn in adulthood his identity and his responsibilities.
Directors:
Roger Allers,
Rob Minkoff
Stars:
Matthew Broderick,
Jeremy Irons,
James Earl Jones
In a city of humanoid animals, a hustling theater impresario’s attempt to save his theater with a singing competition becomes grander than he anticipates even as its finalists’ find that their lives will never be the same.
Directors:
Garth Jennings,
Christophe Lourdelet
Stars:
Matthew McConaughey,
Reese Witherspoon,
Seth MacFarlane
When the newly-crowned Queen Elsa accidentally uses her power to turn things into ice to curse her home in infinite winter, her sister Anna teams up with a mountain man, his playful reindeer, and a snowman to change the weather condition.
In Depression-era London, a now-grown Jane and Michael Banks, along with Michael’s three children, are visited by the enigmatic Mary Poppins following a personal loss. Through her unique magical skills, and with the aid of her friend Jack, she helps the family rediscover the joy and wonder missing in their lives. Written by Disney
Angela Lansbury, who played the Balloon Lady, starred with Glynis Johns in The Court Jester (1955). Glynis Johns played Mrs. Banks in the original 1964 Mary Poppins film. See more »
Goofs
When the children are going to the shop and don’t have enough money, they mention buying things at ‘half-off’. This is an American phrase that would not be used by a child in London who would say ‘half price’. See more »
Quotes
Jack:
[from second sneak peek]
Whenever I lose my way, I just look up.
In a reprisal of the credits gag from the original, Dick Van Dyke is at first credited as “Nackvid Keyd”, only for the credits to unscramble themselves again. See more »
Few previews feel so fraught with danger as Total War. It’s a series with some very high highs, including the original Rome, Medieval II, Shogun II, and (more recently) the Warhammer games. Then there are the disappointments, including the infamous Rome II and last year’s Thrones of Britannia. And I bring up Warhammer and Thrones of Britannia to show how hard the pendulum can swing. 2017 brought one of the best Total War games, 2018 one of the worst.
Worse, these are games that take upwards of 20 or 30 hours to play a single campaign, and it’s often hard to tell whether it’s worth the time investment until you’re most of the way through. Strategy games are difficult to read, that way. A developer can tell you how systems ideally work, tell you the underlying numbers, tell you the unit names and the theme and the goal, but there’s an ephemeral quality that’s hard to pin down, a cohesion that a game either finds or fumbles.
Take this preview with a grain of salt, in other words. I recently had the opportunity to go hands-on with Total War: Three Kingdoms for upwards of two hours, which sounds like a lot of time. In reality though? That covered maybe 25 turns—hardly enough to get a solid impression.
There are some interesting aspects to dig into though.
Question everything
Total War: Three Kingdoms is an interesting challenge for the nearly 20-year-old Total War series. The two Warhammer entries have proven, I think, more popular and successful than anyone could’ve imagined. And that’s great, except they also upended most of the Total War formula. Freed from the confines of actual human history, the Warhammer games were able to create livelier and more iconic battles, a better narrative framework for your actions, unique win conditions and tech tree unlocks—all sorts of ideas that were (for the most part) new to the series.
The question: What happens when you’re once again constrained by human history?
Total War: Three Kingdoms
To that, Creative Assembly came up with a pretty interesting answer. Three Kingdoms takes as inspiration the fall of China’s Han dynasty and the ensuing civil war, a.k.a. the Three Kingdoms period. It’s a real-life historical era, the stock-and-trade of Creative Assembly pre-Warhammer.
You’re perhaps more likely to know it from Romance of the Three Kingdoms though, a loosely historical novel written more than a millennia after the actual events, and which forms the basis for many Three Kingdoms-set adaptations (including the Dynasty Warriors series). Romance draws on historical records, but injects the story with some larger-than-life actions on the parts of its characters.
This duality is the basis of Total War: Three Kingdoms. There’s a classic Total War experience for those who want it. But the new default is “Romance” mode, which folds in some of the changes from the Warhammer games—namely, those larger-than-life characters.
For our demo we played as Liu Bei, the “Virtuous Idealist,” who hopes to restore the proper Han dynasty to power and unite China. Problem is, Liu Bei starts the game with a small army and no territory at all. No cities, no way to resupply his troops, nothing.
So the first order of business is capturing a city or five. My enemies at this point were primarily Yellow Turbans, the remnants of a peasant uprising. And the battles you fight carry about as much prestige as you’d expect, putting down a rebellion. The first fight of Liu Bei’s campaign is over…an iron mine. That’s it! It’s hardly an auspicious start to your career.
It did showcase Three Kingdoms’new character heroics though. Mere seconds into the conflict, the opposing commander Zhao Bo proposed a one-on-one duel with my general Guan Yu. An area cleared in the middle of the battlefield, the two sparring as their armies fought around them. It doesn’t have quite the same visual impact as a dragon knocking aside Warhammer grunts, but it’s still a uniquely cinematic moment for the heretofore ultra-serious Total War series.
Your various named generals are now essentially “Hero Units,” with unique armor, weapons, and skill trees. I’ve seen no evidence of the unique story-driven battles I loved in the Warhammer games, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re in here as well. I just don’t know one way or the other. Regardless, it’s a more character-driven game than any Total War since probably the original Rome, and that’s a good thing in my book.
Generals can be appointed to government positions, a throwback to the dynasty systems people liked in previous Total War games. They can also develop rivalries, or even get so jealous they choose to leave for a different faction and take their army along with them. Each general has a focus as well, based on elemental traits. A “Fire” general, for instance, is colored red and has bonuses related to cavalry, while the blue “Water” general is better at leading ranged units.
At its heart this is just an extension of the rock-paper-scissors algorithm underpinning Total War’s mechanics, but it makes for interesting strategic decisions. Do you add another rank of spearmen because you’ll get an accompanying bonus to their skills, or do you take the cavalry you know you need even if you’re less attuned to using them? And will archers finally be less overpowered? Time will tell.
Total War: Three Kingdoms
Anyway, we didn’t get too deep into the character system. As I said, 25 turns isn’t much at all—certainly not long enough for someone to betray Liu Bei and jump to an opposing faction.
There were a few other changes though, some I’m really keen to see in the final release. Total War’s finally (finally!) overhauled its diplomacy system. Diplomacy’s a weak point in pretty much any you-versus-AI strategy game, but it’s been particularly bad in Total War for a while. You were limited to a small handful of options, many of them near-useless, and the AI was unpredictable at the best of times. Wars were all-too-often endless affairs, no amount of bargaining enough to secure peace, and peacetime diplomacy options were nil.
Three Kingdoms gets a hell of a lot more complicated, in a good way. There are the usual options—war, peace, alliances, et cetera. But there are also nuanced options like “Request permission to declare war” from an ally, or “Support independence” of vassal states, or “Arrange marriage.” Someone’s been playing a lot of Paradox games, I think.
The one that surprised me most: In Romance of the Three Kingdoms the governor of Xu Province, Tao Qian, falls ill and offers the governorship to Liu Bei from his deathbed. The new diplomacy system is sophisticated enough to reproduce this event in-game, with Tao Qian an early ally of Liu Bei and then, a mere 10 or 15 turns in, handing over his entire territory before passing away.
IDG / Hayden Dingman
It’s a really unique moment, one that speaks to the same level of fastidious care in Three Kingdoms that we saw in Warhammer—and one that opens up a world of possibilities for recreating (or diverging from) other important historical moments. I’m excited to see whether the new system actually pans out, or whether the AI is as dumb as ever, but that’s something we won’t know until we’ve played a full campaign or two.
There’s also a cool new end-game scenario where up to three factions declare themselves emperor, and then fight it out among themselves. We obviously didn’t see any of that in play, but it sounds neat. It’s not as unique as Warhammer’s bespoke end-game conditions, but should hopefully be more interesting than the never-ending conquest slog from previous historical Total Wars.
My only real complaints at this point—again, a mere 25 turns in—concern some of the artistic choices. The game looks phenomenal, as you’d expect. There are some weird choices though. Cities and armies tend to blend into the landscape, with the accompanying info panels (like city names) even occluded by objects on the map, i.e. mountains, clouds, et cetera. It’s hard sometimes to take a glance and get an idea what’s happening, which is annoying when information is so vital to your actions.
The city screens are also a mess, once again. It’s not quite as bad as Rome II, but the issues in Three Kingdoms stem from similar roots. I was constantly struggling to figure out what I could build, what I was already building, why I couldn’t access certain options, and so on. It’s something that 30 hours hands-on might rectify, but there’s a line where form-over-function becomes annoying, and Total War keeps crossing that line.
IDG / Hayden Dingman
That said, I love the tech tree. It’s styled after a literal tree, sprouting cherry blossoms on the branches you choose, and is quite literally the most beautiful interface I’ve ever seen in a game. So yeah, form-over-function doesn’t always work, but when it does it can be stunning.
Bottom line
Who knows, though? Total War: Three Kingdoms seems pretty damn good from what I’ve played, but Creative Assembly’s track record is too spotty of late for me to readily recommend it sans-review. There are bold changes at play here, and many of them are necessary changes, but it remains to be seen whether it’s a triumphant reinvention of the series or just the first stumbling steps towards a better future.
Total War: Three Kingdoms is due to release on March 7, 2019—the first proper historical Total War since Attila in 2015, or even 2013’s Rome II if you count Attila as a spin-off. That’s quite a long time, indeed. I hope it’s been worth the wait.
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On the run in the year of 1987, Bumblebee finds refuge in a junkyard in a small Californian beach town. Charlie, on the cusp of turning 18 and trying to find her place in the world, discovers Bumblebee, battle-scarred and broken.
Director:
Travis Knight
Stars:
Hailee Steinfeld,
Jorge Lendeborg Jr.,
John Cena
The true story of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, her struggles for equal rights, and the early cases of a historic career that lead to her nomination and confirmation as U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice.
The story of Dick Cheney, an unassuming bureaucratic Washington insider, who quietly wielded immense power as Vice President to George W. Bush, reshaping the country and the globe in ways that we still feel today.
Six strangers are given mysterious black boxes with tickets to an immersive escape room for a chance to win tons of money. Being locked in several rooms with extreme conditions, they discover the secrets behind the escape room and must fight to survive and to find a way out.
Not long ago, I thought of smart TV software—especially from the likes of Samsung and LG—as something to ignore. Dedicated streaming devices such as Roku’s Streaming Stick and Amazon’s Fire TV Stick offered slicker interfaces and better app selections, which made me wonder why TV makers even bothered making subpar software.
A funny thing’s happened in recent years, though: Smart TV software from LG and Samsung has actually gotten pretty good. Now, I’m wondering why those companies don’t take a page from Roku and Amazon, and put their software on external streaming players.
To be clear, I don’t own any Samsung or LG TVs, so I haven’t lived with their software like I have with all the major streaming devices. I did, however, check out both companies’ smart TVs during CES earlier this month, and I came away impressed with what they offer.
Jared Newman / TechHive
Samsung’s app list lets you quickly preview what’s in each one.
On Samsung TVs, scrolling through your app list shows a preview what’s available in each app. You can see what’s new in Netflix, for example, resume watching shows in Amazon Prime, or check out new releases in iTunes or Google Play Movies. It reminds me of the previews that appear in the top row of the Apple TV app launcher, but it works with any app instead of just your five favorites. It’s also somewhat similar in spirit to the “Channel Rows” concept on Amazon Fire TV devices, but without the clutter of banner ads, Amazon video recommendations, and other unwanted content.
Last year, Samsung also launched a new feature called Universal Guide, which recommends videos from across different apps and lets you quickly resume shows you’ve been watching. Again, the concept is similar to what Apple’s tried to accomplish through its TV app, but Samsung is now adding personalized recommendations based on the services you’re already paying for. Apple TV’s recommendations are more generic and will often send you crashing a paywall.
Jared Newman / TechHive
The Universal Guide on Samsung TVs offers personalized recommendations across different apps.
Samsung is even including far-field microphones for voice control in its 2019 TVs. That means you’ll be able to control the volume or ask Samsung’s Bixby assistant for recommendations when the remote’s out of reach on the coffee table. The only standalone streaming devices that have far-field voice built into their hardware are Amazon’s Fire TV Cube and Nvidia’s Shield TV (through its optional game controller).
Speaking of voice control, LG’s latest TVs have a clever way of supporting multiple voice assistants: If you press the remote’s microphone button and ask for movie or TV recommendations, LG’s ThinQ AI will provide the answers, with icons showing where you can watch each result. For more general queries or smart home controls, Google Assistant will respond to your voice commands instead. LG TVs also support Alexa, which you can access by holding down the remote’s Amazon Prime button. That could be useful for listening to Amazon Music or controlling Alexa-enabled smart home devices. By comparison, there isn’t a single streaming player that supports multiple voice assistants through its remote control.
Jared Newman / TechHive
LG’s universal search results are pretty slick.
Unlike most streaming devices, LG and Samsung TVs will even support certain Apple services. Samsung TVs are getting a built-in iTunes app and AirPlay 2 support for launching media from iOS or Mac devices. LG TVs will support AirPlay 2 as well, and they’re getting HomeKit support for controlling basic TV functions with Siri voice commands. The only streaming player that supports these services is Apple TV.
The case for streaming devices
Unfortunately, I’ve never seen an explanation for why Samsung and LG don’t offer their own streaming boxes or sticks. My best guess is that both companies view smart TV software as a unique selling point for their hardware, and they don’t want to give that up by separating the two sides.
Still, I can think of several reasons why standalone streaming devices would make sense, both for TV makers and their users.
For one thing, they’d give Samsung and LG a bigger user base, which in turn might improve the app support on their respective platforms. Newer streaming services like DirecTV Now and Hulu with Live TV have generally reached smart TVs only after they’ve launched on Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, and Chromecast, and some apps that are table-stakes on other platforms aren’t available at all. (Samsung and LG, for instance, both lack PlayStation Vue and CW, and LG doesn’t support HBO Now.)
If Samsung or LG TV owners want to upgrade their streaming experience more frequently, the only option is to switch to a completely new platform with a different interface. Given that Roku and Amazon now build their streaming software directly into smart TVs—and that Roku still updates all its TVs, from 2014 onward—those customers might never come back to Samsung and LG when the time does come for a new television. (Several years ago, Samsung tried to solve this problem with hardware upgrade kits, but the program was an expensive disaster. Now, the company is peddling full-blown TV upgrade plans, which seem equally ridiculous.)
Without a way to stick with Samsung’s or LG’s platforms that doesn’t involve buying a new television, it’s hard to recommend their hardware solely on the strength of their software. In light of what both companies were showing off at CES, that seems like a shame.
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When the big news surrounding the latest version of the Dell XPS 13 is its camera position, that’s both good and bad.
It’s good because the camera’s one “feature” that some customers (and competitors) have used to batter what has otherwise been the most trend-setting laptop of recent memory.
If you recall, the original Dell XPS 13 9343 from 2014 crammed a 13.3-inch laptop into the space an 11-inch laptop would normally occupy. Dell relied on “InfinityEdge” bezels to shrink the foot print of the XPS 13 to unbelievable levels. Just about every laptop maker now offers their own narrow bezel designs.
But Dell’s implementation compromised convenience for slimness, moving the camera around the bottom bezel. No more. After years of mocking, Dell’s thrown in the towel and moved the camera above the screen, though in doing so the XPS 13 9380 lost the ability to use your face to sign into Windows Hello.
Gordon Mah Ung
The older Dell XPS 13 9360’s often-mocked webcam.
The bad news? The camera’s movement overshadows other upgrades in the Dell XPS 13 9380. You’d hardly know the XPS 13 packs Intel’s newest ultra-low power consumption Core i7-8565U, for instance—the first laptop we’ve tested with this “Whiskey Lake U” chip. Beyond a fair performance bump, other changes in the CPU include native support for USB 3.1 10Gbps and integrated Wi-Fi support (except for the radio).
If you’re thinking “that’s it?” then, well, you can understand all the excitement over moving the Dell XPS 13’s camera to the top bezel. So let’s start there.
Gordon Mah Ung
Dell caved and moved the camera to top bezel on the new XPS 13 9380.
Dell XPS 13 9380 camera: Maybe you were right
Dell wasn’t about to give up the narrow bezels to fit the camera in, so it opted for a 2.25mm diameter camera using four elements, compared to typical three element cams. The camera is also built using the same precision usually reserved for higher-end smart phones, the company says, and sharper in corners than previous designs.
We compared the new XPS 13 9380’s camera against the XPS 13 9370, which positioned it’s camera in the middle of the bottom bezel, and also against the XPS 13 9360, which put its camera in the lower-left corner.
For the tests, we positioned all of the laptop screens at similar angles, with our hands on the keyboard. Our eyes were on the same spot on the screen: Dead center, where you’d be looking in a video conference.
The first image is from the XPS 13 9360’s lower-left corner camera. It’s pretty wacky because it looks like we’re not paying attention to our three bosses drone on about TPS reports.
IDG
The XPS 13 9370 put the camera in the middle of the bottom bezel.
It gets somewhat better with the XPS 13 9370 and its low-center-mounted camera, but then you can see when someone needs a manicure and some industrial hand lotion. If you don’t mind your co-workers snickering that you must be working as a dish washer on the side, then this positioning is OK, though you also get a good amount of “turkey neck” or neck waddle at this angle.
IDG
The newest XPS 13 9380 finally moves the camera to the top bezel.
Finally, we have the new Dell XPS 13 9380’s conventional top-mounted camera. While we actually prefer the exposure of the previous images, the new camera’s position is a vast improvement because it looks like we’re paying attention to our three bosses. It also minimizes turkey neck and doesn’t let coworkers gawk at your chapped hands.
As we mentioned, the new XPS 13 9380 ditches infrared support for Windows Hello, but Dell does offer a finger-print reader integrated into the power button as an option.
Dell XPS 13 9380: Whiskey Lake U performance
There’s one more very important thing inside the XPS 13 9380 that nerds care about: performance.
The XPS 13 9380 is the first laptop we’ve reviewed with Intel’s Whiskey Lake U Core i7-8565U. The 14nm chip is essentially an improved version of the 14nm Kaby Lake R used in other 8th-generation CPUs. The performance bump mostly comes from higher clock speeds. Thanks to whatever magic Intel has mustered, Whiskey Lake U can run up to 500MHz faster than its predecessor.
The Dell XPS 13 9380 shows just how much smaller you can make a 13-inch laptop over a much older and definitely unfashionable 13-inch laptop with wide bezels.
Our first test is Maxon’s Cinebench R15. It’s a free benchmark based on Maxon’s older Cinema4D rendering engine. The test is multi-threaded and probably isn’t what most XPS 13 9380 users will run, but it’s still a fair representation of what you’re likely to see from the laptop and CPU in shorter multi-threaded workloads. Those occasional multi-threaded tasks in Excel or that rare multi-threaded Adobe Photoshop filter would likely see similar performance bumps.
Six years after the events of “Wreck-It Ralph,” Ralph and Vanellope, now friends, discover a wi-fi router in their arcade, leading them into a new adventure.
The Incredibles hero family takes on a new mission, which involves a change in family roles: Bob Parr (Mr Incredible) must manage the house while his wife Helen (Elastigirl) goes out to save the world.
Director:
Brad Bird
Stars:
Craig T. Nelson,
Holly Hunter,
Sarah Vowell
The special bond that develops between plus-sized inflatable robot Baymax, and prodigy Hiro Hamada, who team up with a group of friends to form a band of high-tech heroes.
A Lion cub crown prince is tricked by a treacherous uncle into thinking he caused his father’s death and flees into exile in despair, only to learn in adulthood his identity and his responsibilities.
Directors:
Roger Allers,
Rob Minkoff
Stars:
Matthew Broderick,
Jeremy Irons,
James Earl Jones
During her family’s move to the suburbs, a sullen 10-year-old girl wanders into a world ruled by gods, witches, and spirits, and where humans are changed into beasts.
Miles Morales is a New York teen struggling with school, friends and, on top of that, being the new Spider-Man. When he comes across Peter Parker, the erstwhile saviour of New York, in the multiverse, Miles must train to become the new protector of his city. Written by Tom Daly
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) marked Spider-Man’s debut theatrical animated feature, both from Marvel Entertainment and Sony Pictures Animation. However, Big Hero 6 (2014) was released in 2014, sans Marvel Entertainment’s involvement with the project; that film was exclusively a Walt Disney Pictures production in spite of the original property being a Marvel I.P. (intellectual property). See more »
Goofs
Miles, strangely, blames himself for ‘being followed’ to Aunt May’s house, when by then it was public knowledge that May’s nephew was Spider-Man. (The memorials placed in front of her house are evidence of this ubiquity; although, as another plot hole, the obviousness of the backyard shed being a brightly glowing, emblem-showing Spider-Cave entry door would have tipped off the neighbors long before Spider-Man’s passing, that May knows Spider-Man). Either way, it makes perfect sense to assume the villains would go to May’s to find the Spider-Men they were pursuing. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Peter Parker:
[narrating]
Alright, let’s do this one last time. My name is Peter Parker. I was bitten by a radioactive spider and for ten years I’ve been the one and only Spider-Man. I’m pretty sure you know the rest. I saved a bunch of people, fell in love, saved the city, and then I saved the city again and again and again… And, uh… I did this.
[shot of Spidey doing the emo dance from “Spider-Man 3”]
Peter Parker:
We don’t really talk about this. Look, I’m a comic book, I’m a cereal, did a Christmas album…
The Comics Code Authority seal, which was used in the period Spider-Man was created to authorize a comic book for public access, appears in the beginning of the film. See more »
Total War: Three Kingdoms
Total War: Three Kingdoms
IDG / Hayden Dingman
Total War: Three Kingdoms
IDG / Hayden Dingman
IDG / Hayden Dingman
Jared Newman / TechHive
Jared Newman / TechHive
Jared Newman / TechHive
Gordon Mah Ung
Gordon Mah Ung
IDG
IDG
IDG
Gordon Mah Ung
Rayden Reviews 