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Are you the type of person who swears like a sailor or someone who prefers to maintain a professional level of discourse at all times? Windows will have you covered, regardless. Microsoft is releasing new Insider builds as of Friday in multiple channels. The key feature, as it appears in Windows 11’s Beta Insider build (26120.3941) is an updated profanity filter for voice typing. You can turn on voice typing using the WIN+H shortcut and begin dictating. It recognizes your voice about as well as a smartphone but without the need for an AI-powered NPU. Dictation, however, can be formal such as using my voice to type an article like this or more casual like orally recapping a meeting. In certain cases, you might be tempted to drop in a swear word here and there. With the new update, you can simply opt to either “bleep” out the cussing via asterisks or else leave the profanity in in its entirety. Either way, it’s up to you. Today marks the day that Microsoft releases features like Recall, Click-to-Do, and others into the wild. To build upon that, Windows is releasing an additional feature: launching Click to Do with a Bluetooth pen. Click to Do essentially allows you to right-click and open up a menu of the most frequently used features attached to a file or app. The pen option is a bone that seems to be tossed to tablet users, as you’ll still have to select which function you want to access. The idea seems to be that if you’re already inking, you can click your pen and then tap your preferred task quickly without breaking the flow. Microsoft is also adding a small feature that can wall off your Photos from Windows’ Search function, if you’re on a work or school account and don’t want Windows to “see” your personal photos. Insider Beta Builds aren’t guaranteed to make it through Microsoft’s testing process and land on your PC. But there’s a good chance they will! Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Remarkably full featured for a first-generation device Can be wired to analog or digital doorbell chimes Supports Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings Ecobee has one of the most affordable security plans that includes professional monitoring Cons No battery backup for power outages Subscription required to unlock entire feature set Doesn’t support Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video Ecobee’s home security ecosystem lacks an outdoor camera Our Verdict The Ecobee Smart Doorbell (wired) is a reliable, easy-to-use, high-end video doorbell. It depends on hardwired power, but it can trigger a homeowner’s existing chimes. As with many of its competitors, you’ll need to pay for a subscription to unlock all its features, but it can be incorporated into a robust home security system with professional monitoring at a very reasonable price. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today If you’re already using one of Ecobee’s smart home thermostats or security systems—or you’re thinking about installing one—you’ll want to consider the company’s first video doorbell. The Ecobee Smart Doorbell Camera (wired) doesn’t just compete with category leaders Ring, Nest, and Arlo, it also brings a few smart ideas of its own—and it plays especially well within Ecobee’s larger smart home/home security ecosystem. There is no battery-powered version of this product, but its $160 price tag puts it in the sweet spot for high-end video doorbells. The unit records in 1080p resolution with HDR, capturing a tall (175 degrees vertical, 115 degrees horizontal) field of view with no fisheye distortion. That framing gives you a head-to-toe view of visitors and lets you see packages dropped flush against the door. The doorbell delivers a clear, bright image, day or night. The Ecobee Smart Doorbell Camera can be integrated into a comprehensive, self-installed, professionally monitored home security system. The upside of being entirely reliant on hardwired power means no downtime when a battery needs to be recharged. On the other hand, you can’t install this doorbell unless you either already have the infrastructure in place or you’re willing to run wire to the location you want to install it. If you don’t want to do that yourself, Ecobee offers professional installation for a reasonable $150 (not including the power transformer, if needed). Specifications The Ecobee Smart Doorbell Camera (wired) comes with everything you need to install it, including a wedge mount, extension wires at the doorbell end, an adapter at the chime/transformer end, wire nuts and screws. Ecobee The Ecobee Smart Doorbell boasts IP65 weatherization, which means it’ll stand up to dust, rain, and snow, which—as TechHive’s IP code decoder tells us—means it’s impervious to dust and that it can withstand water jets projected from any direction. What’s more, it can operate in temperatures from ranging from a frigid -13 degrees Fahrenheit to a broiling 113 F (-25 to 45 C). In other words, it’s built to last without the remove-recharge-reinstall routine a solely battery-powered doorbell requires. That said, a hybrid wired/battery solution would keep the camera operational during a power outage. Being a division of Generac, perhaps Ecobee would suggest homeowners invest in a backup generator to keep your home security system powered up. In any event, I’d been using a Ring Battery Doorbell connected to a Ring Alarm base station, and I never liked the synthesized electronic ring it delivered when a visitor rang. It was loud enough to be heard throughout the house, but I really preferred my old-school analog chimes, and the Ecobee made it possible to return those to use. Ring has other wired models that can do this as well, but the one I have doesn’t. Installation and setup The Ecobee Smart Doorbell (wired) fit in the narrow space next to my door, but I needed to use the provided extension wires to connect it to my existing transfomer.James Barber/Foundry The Ecobee Smart Doorbell can be installed flat, with its camera lens facing straight out, or attached to a wedge that angles its lens by 15 degrees to better capture a view of a person standing at your door. At my home, there’s a very narrow gap between the front door frame and the brick surrounding it. The Ring doorbell I’d been using wouldn’t fit in the space, and while the Ecobee and its wedge did fit, the angled camera stuck out so that my storm door wouldn’t fully close. I ended up removing the wedge and the reinstalling Ecobee’s doorbell, and it worked perfectly in that very cramped space. That wasn’t the end of my challenges, however; Ecobee’s app displayed a “low power” warning when I connected it to my existing doorbell transformer, so Ecobee recommended that I upgrade to a 24 Volt, 40 VA AC model. The low-power warning continued to show up for a few days after I upgraded the transformer, but it eventually disappeared. Despite the low-power warning, Ecobee’s doorbell operated as expected during my entire review period. I’ve since replaced the outlet the original transformer was plugged into because it showed some wear-and-tear. In retrospect, I suspect the old outlet was the true cause of the low-power warnings, and buying a new transformer was probably unnecessary. Ecobee’s chime adapter allowed me to connect its Smart Doorbell to my lovely old-school chime.James Barber/Foundry The wiring for the original doorbell button was cut to an exact length, so there was no extra wire tucked into the wall. That makes sense. An electrician in 1967 couldn’t have dreamed that a homeowner would want to replace a doorbell button with a magic camera more than 50 years down the road. Anyway, I needed to use the extension wires and wire nuts that Ecobee included in the box to make my connection. The cavity in the wall behind the doorbell was a bit tight with the extra wire and wire nuts stuffed inside, but everything worked as expected. Ecobee’s receiver unit can connect to your home’s previously installed doorbell chime. My mid-century chime box is built like a tank and has a wonderfully musical tone when the hammer strikes the tone bar. There’s no way I could buy a unit of this quality today at any price, and it’s a welcome contrast to all the other electronic sounds generated by the modern TV, audio, and smart home gear in my home. You can also configure the doorbell to ring a chime on an Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium or an Ecobee SmartCamera. Like Ecobee’s higher-end smart thermostats, the Ecobee Smart Doorbell sports a dual-band (2.4-/5GHz) Wi-Fi adapter. Performance Ecobee’s approach to visitor detection is another feature that differentiates this doorbell from the competition. The unit’s camera has a radar sensor that cuts down on false alerts. That means fewer notifications triggered by wind-blown leaves or passing cars. Smart Focus automatically pans and zooms to keep people centered in the frame, a feature that’s usually only seen on more expensive models. As with many video doorbells and security cameras, you’ll need a subscription to get the full value from an Ecobee Smart Doorbell Camera. But even without a sub, Ecobee delivers more features than most manufacturers do when you don’t pay up, including person detection, two-way talk (between the doorbell and the Ecobee app on your smartphone or an Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium), live video viewing on your smartphone or that thermostat, and 30 days of video snapshots (not video clips) from a single Ecobee camera. Stepping up to Ecobee’s Smart Security Standard subscription ($5 per month or $50 per year) adds package detection, 30 days of video recordings, and rich push notifications (all three of those features are for a single Ecobee camera). You can also pair the doorbell camera with a Yale or August smart lock and gain the ability to lock and unlock those locks from within the Ecobee app, making it easy to open your door for a visitor you see on the camera. You’ll get a 30-day free trial to Ecobee Smart Security when you buy a Smart Doorbell Cam, but you’ll need to pay at least $5 per month after that to continue being able to store video recordings and receive smart alerts. James Barber The Ecobee Smart Doorbell Camera can also be integrated into a comprehensive, self-installed, professionally monitored home security system in which the fabulous Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium serves as the central hub. Ecobee makes excellent door/window sensors ($80 for a 2-pack) and occupancy/temperature sensors ($100 for a 2-pack), and the indoor Ecobee SmartCamera is very good as well. Currently missing from Ecobee’s home security portfolio: an outdoor security camera—apart from this doorbell camera, that is. The top-tier Ecobee Complete subscription is one of the least expensive professional monitoring plans on the market at just $10 per month or $100 per year. You’ll also get 30 days of video storage for an unlimited number of Ecobee cameras and doorbell cameras. With professional monitoring, an agent can dispatch the police in the event of a break-in or the fire department if your Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium or Ecobee SmartCamera detects the sound of a smoke alarm sounding off. Ecobee’s top-tier plan is a rare bargain for that level of service. After a recent price increase, Ring charges at least $20 a month—$30 a month if you want to enable all the features of its Ring Alarm Pro security system. The Ecobee Smart Doorbell Camera can be integrated with Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings smart home ecosystems. When a visitor rings the doorbell, you’ll get an alert on your Amazon Echo, Apple HomePod, or Google smart speaker. Unlike Ecobee’s SmartCamera, however, this doorbell camera does not support Apple’s excellent HomeKit Secure Video, which stores encrypted video recordings to an Apple user’s iCloud account. Should you buy the Ecobee Smart Doorbell (wired)? The Ecobee Smart Doorbell Camera (wired) doesn’t capture 2K or 4K video like some competitors, but its image quality is solid, and the radar-assisted motion detection is ahead of the curve. The Ecobee app is easy to understand and its connections to the doorbell camera have proved reliable during my testing. Two-way communication with visitors at the door was clear with almost zero lag. The Ring doorbell I replaced touts is hi-res (1536 x 1536 pixels) resolution, but I haven’t noticed a significant downgrade in video quality with the Ecobee’s 1080p resolution. That seems more than adequate for this camera’s purposes, but some users may want a unit that offers a sharper image. It’s an unfortunate fact of life that in today’s smart home security environment, you generally need to pick an ecosystem and stay in it. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself juggling apps on your phone to get a complete picture of what’s going on. The good news for Ecobee is that its video doorbell, indoor camera, smart thermostat/home security hub, and its sensor suite are all excellent. The company even has a smart light switch. Add in its highly affordable professional monitoring service plan and you have a 95 percent winner. The remaining 5 percent deficit comes from Ecobee not having an outdoor security camera—or anything battery powered (apart from its sensors, that is). Read...

Microsoft’s controversial Windows Recall has now been generally released, and it poses as much of a risk to your privacy as it could be a boon to your productivity. Recall is just one of several new features that either have or will be arriving on Copilot+ PC, Microsoft said Friday. Recall, Windows’ improved semantic search, Live Captions, Cocreator, and Restyle Image and Image Creator within Photos are now all available for Copilot+ PCs that include Qualcomm Snapdragon CPUs as well as PCs with qualifying processors from AMD and Intel. A few features — Click to Do, Live Captions, and Voice Access — are available for Copilot+ PCs running on Snapdragon, but support for AMD and Intel chips isn’t quite available. For Microsoft, the release of these AI-powered features are cause for celebration, finally delivering on promises of an AI-powered world that the company first made a year ago. But in the weeks and months since Microsoft first announced Recall, a darker side of its potential has emerged. Now, Recall and its saved snapshots provide a record of information that could be used against you. Fortunately, Microsoft hasn’t shied away from allowing you to remove Recall altogether, deleting these saved records entirely. It’s also important to put Recall in perspective. Now, by default, Recall is opt-in, which means that you’ll have to explicitly enable it. But even if you want to use Recall, it’s only available to Copilot+ PCs, which are a tiny subset of the available PCs on the market. Just because Recall is available doesn’t mean that your PC will necessarily receive it. Even the most “modern” PCs, such as Intel’s Core Ultra 200 series (Arrow Lake) don’t have the necessary NPU power to run Recall. Windows Recall’s taskbar icon.Mark Hachman / IDG What is Windows Recall? Microsoft first announced Recall at a May 2024 event at its headquarters in Redmond, Wash., where the company debuted several upcoming Windows features to complement its newly announced Copilot+ PCs. Recall was designed as a sort of search assistant: As you went about your day-to-day business, Recall would periodically take and store “snapshots” of your PC, which its optical-character recognition AI could “read.” (At the time, Recall wasn’t designed to be opt-in.) Essentially, Recall could search your PC for a piece of information without knowing the app in which it was captured, or when it was stored. In concept, Recall’s premise appealed to me. Windows Recall allows you to search for a keyword or specific data, and it returns a list of snapshots or screenshots.Mark Hachman / IDG Privacy experts disagreed, big time. Instead of serving as a useful tool, Recall could store snapshots of information that weren’t necessarily secure, opening them up to hackers and whoever else gained access to your PC. Meanwhile, others were concerned with the vast amounts of storage needed to store all of that information. Cowed, Microsoft pulled Recall from the original Copilot+ launch and promised to perform more testing. Recall would debut in October, Microsoft said then. In September, Microsoft began making the changes that users had asked for: making Recall opt-in, and even uninstallable after a user had decided to enable it. But it was delayed yet again. I went hands-on with Recall in early December, but by then my stance had changed — I found Recall to be a useful tool, but by then government attitudes toward privacy and free speech had begun changing. Also at that time, Microsoft opened up Recall to Copilot+ PCs using AMD and Intel processors, paving the way for a final test run before releasing it. Recall’s risks outweigh its benefits Recall will be shipped as a feature of new Copilot+ PCs, though you should be able to opt in during the original setup process. When I tested Recall, I had to manually download a new Windows builds and then manually launch the Recall app, which then stepped me through its setup process. Finally, I had to specifically choose to enable Recall and store snapshots. Even after doing so, the Windows 11 Settings menu included a toggle switch that allowed me to turn off the ability to save Recall snapshots entirely, or exclude specific applications. (It still does.) Windows uses optical character recognition to search out the relevant snapshot, but also to extract text stored within it.Mark Hachman / IDG Related: What are Copilot+ PCs? Explained Even with all of these safeguards, I don’t trust Recall. That’s not to say I distrust Microsoft’s implementation of it — Recall is protected by Windows Hello, which is both a secure and convenient way of locking down information on your PC. It’s the convenience of Hello that worries me. I can imagine a scenario in which I’m directed to unlock my PC via Windows Hello, which would give someone access to my documents and email — even as a journalist, whose legal protections should safeguard that correspondence. I have major concerns about Hello also unlocking a searchable database of everything I’ve done on that PC for the last few months using Windows Hello. No, I don’t have anything to hide, but I also don’t want anyone poring through anything I consider private. You shouldn’t, either. It’s my recommendation, then, that you don’t let Recall on to your system. How to remove Recall If your PC is managed by a corporation or school, Microsoft says that Recall won’t be on it. Otherwise, Recall “is available by default,” Microsoft says on its Recall support page. (“An IT admin can’t, on their own, enable saving snapshots on devices that are managed by an organization or school,” Microsoft says. “IT admins can only give you the option to enable snapshots.”) Recall can be turned on and off via the optional Windows features. To access them, type “Turn Windows features on or off” within the Windows search bar. That will bring up a list of optional features that can be turned off or on depending on whether the appropriate box is checked. To remove Recall, you’ll need to search for “Turn Windows features on and off,” then uncheck the Recall box.Mark Hachman / IDG Microsoft shouldn’t enable Recall without telling you, as per my earlier test. But if you’re simply not sure, you can double check by running down the list of optional features and seeing if Recall is installed. (If it is, the box marked “Recall” will be checked.) To uninstall Recall, you can simply uncheck the “Recall” box. Recall will be uninstalled and your PC will be rebooted, so be careful to save your work. As Microsoft removes Recall, it will delete your stored snapshots, too. You can re-enable Recall by checking the box at a future time, though doing so won’t restore the deleted snapshots. Recall is an optional feature; the other new AI features arriving on your Copilot PC are not. On the other hand, something like Photos’ new Restyle Image doesn’t offer anywhere near the privacy concerns that the other applications do. If you’ve followed our coverage, you’ll know that I was in favor of Recall from the beginning. But upon further reflection and changing world events I’ve become uncomfortable with the threat that Recall poses to our privacy. Remove it immediately. Read...

If you’ve ever used your phone to navigate from one appointment to the next, then you’ve probably never used Windows Maps. That’s basically why Microsoft is getting rid of it. In an ongoing calendar of deprecated features within Windows, Microsoft has targeted Maps for deprecation by April. It will be removed from the Windows Store by July and will no longer be supported, the company said. In July, a new update will turn the Maps app off. “Any personal data or files you have saved, such as guided navigation or URLs to maps, won’t be removed, but they’ll no longer function in the Maps app past July 2025,” Microsoft said. The Maps app won’t come preinstalled on new PCs past the current Windows 11 24H2 release, either. Maps will still be supported within Windows, however. You’ll simply have to visit Bing’s own maps page to access them. Maps is a legacy app that was invaluable on Windows Phones, though that platform died years ago. Now, there’s no real reason to hold on to Maps, or to add those few kilobytes to the install size of Windows. Maps, whose data is credited to both TomTom and Microsoft itself, also previously agreed to change the “Gulf of Mexico” to the “Gulf of America.” So if that riles you up, you’ll be glad to see Maps go. Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Long battery life Sleek build quality with nice touches like a haptic touchpad Bundled AI software is more useful than on past AI PCs Cons It’s just too expensive No discrete GPU, which is necessary for many AI tasks Lunar Lake’s multithreaded CPU performance is lacking Glossy OLED display isn’t ideal in direct sun Our Verdict The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i combines a premium Lunar Lake laptop with lots of AI software tricks, but the price tag feels too high. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i is a “next-generation AI PC” from HP. I feel like I’ve been hearing about AI PCs for years now, and it’s easy to tune that out. Despite the machine’s capable hardware and attractive build, HP’s primary focus remains on AI. HP really wants to talk about all the AI software it bundled with this PC, so I’ll try to focus more on that in this review than normal. Indeed, this is a high-quality portable PC with solid Lunar Lake hardware. Assuming you don’t want a discrete GPU, it’s a good pick. But that’s the catch, isn’t it? For lots of local AI tasks, you actually do want a powerful GPU. Or you may at least want strong multithreaded performance and Lunar Lake doesn’t deliver that. This machine is more of a premium laptop with AI tricks than an AI-centered workstation. With an MSRP of nearly $2,429, that’s hard to swallow. HP EliteBook Ultra G1i: Specs The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i is a laptop powered by an Intel Core Ultra (Series 2) CPU. This series is the line of processors codenamed Lunar Lake. Specifically, this machine has an Intel Core Ultra 7 268V processor. It’s combined with 32 GB of RAM, and the Lunar Lake NPU handles much of the AI processing this machine is touting. However, you’re just getting onboard graphics here and that’s normally fine for a lightweight, ultraportable laptop. But, if I’m taking this machine’s AI aspirations seriously, I’ll say I feel that the Intel GPU isn’t the ideal fit for what I’d picture from an AI PC, where lots of workloads — Stable Diffusion image generation, for example — still require a GPU. CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 268V Memory: 32 GB LPDDR5X RAM Graphics/GPU: Intel Arc 140V NPU: Intel AI Boost (up to 48 TOPS) Display: 14-inch 2880×1800 OLED touchscreen Storage: 512 GB PCIe Gen 4 SSD Webcam: 1440p camera Connectivity: 3x Thunderbolt 4 (USB4 Type-C), 1x USB Type-A, 1x combo headphone jack, 1x Kensington nano lock slot Networking: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4 Biometrics: Fingerprint reader and IR camera for Windows Hello Battery capacity: 64 watt-hours Dimensions: 12.35 × 8.55 × 0.48 inches Weight: 2.68 pounds MSRP: $2,429, as tested The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i is a nice laptop: solid build quality, beautiful OLED screen, reasonable all-around Lunar Lake performance, and serious battery life. HP EliteBook Ultra G1i: Design and build quality IDG / Chris Hoffman The 14-inch HP EliteBook Ultra G1i does have great build quality. The chassis is available in a nice dark “Atmosphere Blue” color with a black bezel around the display, giving it an unassuming yet premium feel. Magnesium makes up the chassis, giving it a solid yet lightweight feel characteristic of a high-quality metal laptop. At 2.68 pounds, it’s a good weight — not unusually heavy, but not going out of its way to be unusually light, either. The laptop’s AI aspirations aren’t exactly loud: The lid has an “HP” logo, but nothing about AI. The only sign of those AI aspirations is the small blue “AI” logo at the bottom-right corner of the keyboard, below the right arrow key. HP bundles various apps here, including the HP AI Companion app, which includes a support assistant that can answer questions based on HP product manuals and change PC settings. The HP AI Companion app has various features that use GPT-4o in the cloud — the same model you could pull up with ChatGPT. While the integration is interesting and the AI features are much less half-baked than they were on early AI PCs, they probably won’t sway many people to buy this laptop in particular. (But perhaps they may sway you!) For the price, I wish some of the software was a little less intrusive out of the box. As I write this, I see an “HP Wolf Pro Security” pop-up that touts the software’s AV-Test rating and urges me to register it for full protection. For $2,000 and up, we deserve a more streamlined experience out of the box. HP EliteBook Ultra G1i: Keyboard and trackpad IDG / Chris Hoffman The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i’s keyboard feels excellent, and I say that as someone who’s been spending more time with mechanical keyboards lately. This isn’t a mechanical keyboard at all, but something about it feels crisp and responsive to me. It’s not mushy at all. You press a key and get a crisp response with a quick lift. It feels great to type on. The trackpad is also a winner. HP has chosen to use a haptic trackpad here — that’s something I’ve been asking for from PC manufacturers. It’s a nice big, smooth surface, and you can click down anywhere on the surface thanks to the haptic feedback. HP EliteBook Ultra G1i: Display and speakers IDG / Chris Hoffman The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i has a 2880×1800 OLED display with a variable refresh rate that goes up to 120Hz and 400 nits of brightness. It’s a touch screen, too. It’s a beautiful OLED screen, and it looks great. The variable refresh rate should also reduce power consumption, eliminating the need to constantly lock the laptop to 60 Hz. I’m a big fan of OLED displays, but just bear in mind that this is a fairly glossy display (no surprise for OLED displays) and that 400 nits of brightness isn’t the brightest display you’ll find. That means the reflections on this screen can be rather intense, especially in direct sunlight. It’s just something to be aware of, it’s the nature of a glossy display. This laptop has a “quad speaker design,” according to HP. They sound pretty good for a laptop of this size. They manage to reach a decent level of volume and clarity. There’s perhaps even a bit more bass than I might expect, but this is still a speaker system built into a 14-inch lightweight laptop. HP EliteBook Ultra G1i: Webcam, microphone, biometrics The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i has a 1440p camera with a physical shutter, which is always nice to see. As far as AI features, you’ve got both Windows Studio Effects (thanks to the NPU) along with Poly Camera Pro built in. Poly Camera Pro offers a variety of features like “magic backgrounds” for transforming the way your webcam background looks in any app — replacing it, stylizing it, or applying effects. The webcam image looks unusually high quality and clear, it’s excellent. HP touts dual-array microphones that make for “loud and clear” sound. They sound fine to me, although I’ve heard clearer audio from some other laptops. This machine does have a good selection of biometric hardware: both an IR camera for facial recognition with Windows Hello and a fingerprint reader at the top-right corner of the keyboard above the Backspace key. HP EliteBook Ultra G1i: Connectivity IDG / Chris Hoffman The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i has a decent number of ports, assuming you’re looking for Thunderbolt 4 (USB Type-C) ports. On the left, you’ll find a combo audio jack, a USB Type-A port, and a Thunderbolt 4 (USB Type-C) port. On the right, the machine has two more Thunderbolt 4 (USB Type-C) ports as well as a Kensington lock slot for physically securing the machine. That’s all — no microSD reader, for example. And bear in mind that this laptop charges over USB Type-C. For more ports, you’ll need a dongle. Thanks to Lunar Lake, this machine also has the hardware for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. HP EliteBook Ultra G1i: Performance The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i performs well in day-to-day desktop use. That’s no surprise, as we’ve got an Intel Lunar Lake CPU, a speedy SSD, and 32 GB of RAM here. As always, though, we ran the HP EliteBook Ultra G1i through our standard benchmarks to see how it performs. IDG / Chris Hoffman First, we run PCMark 10 to get an idea of overall system performance. With an overall PCMark 10 score of 7,324, the HP EliteBook Ultra G1i was a little on the speedier side compared to some other Lunar Lake systems we compared it to. However, it wasn’t as fast as the HP OmniBook Ultra 14 with its AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX hardware. IDG / Chris Hoffman Next, we run Cinebench R20. This test is a heavily multithreaded benchmark that focuses on overall CPU performance. It’s a quick benchmark, so cooling under extended workloads isn’t a factor. But, since it’s heavily multithreaded, CPUs with more cores have a huge advantage. With a multithreaded score of 3799, this machine came in behind some other Lunar Lake systems and well behind other PCs with CPUs that have more cores. Lunar Lake CPUs only have eight cores, so they struggle on this sort of synthetic benchmark. That doesn’t mean they struggle in day-to-day computer use, but they aren’t ideal for multithreaded compute-heavy tasks. IDG / Chris Hoffman We also run an encode with Handbrake. This is another heavily multithreaded benchmark, but it runs over an extended period of time. This demands the laptop’s cooling kick in, and many laptops will throttle and slow down under load. The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i finished the encode process in 1,576 seconds — that’s over 26 minutes. It’s on the slow side even for Meteor Lake, suggesting throttling under load may occur. This isn’t the ideal system for sustained CPU performance. IDG / Chris Hoffman Next, we run a graphical benchmark. This isn’t a gaming laptop, but it’s still good to check how the GPU performs. We run 3DMark Time Spy, a graphical benchmark that focuses on GPU performance. With a score of 4,186, this machine delivers pretty standard Lunar Lake graphics performance. Intel’s integrated graphics are a lot better than they used to be, but they still can’t compare to a good discrete GPU. Overall, the HP EliteBook Ultra G1i delivered reasonably standard Lunar Lake performance — slower on some benchmarks and faster than others. There weren’t any big surprises here. HP EliteBook Ultra G1i: Battery life The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i combines a 64 watt-hour battery with Intel’s theoretically power-sipping Lunar Lake hardware, so we’d expect to see better battery life, but not as long as it could be, as some other machines have bigger batteries. IDG / Chris Hoffman To benchmark the battery life, we play a 4K copy of Tears of Steel on repeat on Windows 11 with airplane mode enabled until the laptop suspends itself. This is a best-case scenario for any laptop since local video playback is so efficient, and real battery life in day-to-day use is always going to be less than this. We set the screen to 250 nits of brightness for our battery benchmarks, and it’s worth noting that the EliteBook’s OLED display has a bit of an advantage, as OLED screens use less power to display the black bars around the video. This machine lasted for 1,089 minutes before suspending itself — that’s over 18 hours. It’s a substantial number that matches what we generally see with Lunar Lake-powered systems, although the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 pulled way ahead of its competitors here. HP EliteBook Ultra G1i: Conclusion The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i is a nice laptop: solid build quality, beautiful OLED screen, reasonable all-around Lunar Lake performance, and serious battery life. That’s without even considering the AI features and if I have to evaluate a laptop based on its AI features, this is one of the better packages I’ve seen so far. HP definitely made a strong effort here. Still, this is just such an expensive machine. At an MSRP of nearly $2,500, you could choose from so many other Lunar Lake-powered PCs. Consider the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro, for example. It’s substantially cheaper and has much longer battery life. Furthermore, if you really are looking for an AI workstation, this machine isn’t it. Lunar Lake doesn’t really deliver the multithreaded CPU performance you might want, and the lack of a discrete GPU means many more demanding local AI tasks are effectively out of reach. This limitation is significant given the high cost of the machine. The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i is a lovely premium laptop, but its price just means it’s not the right fit for most people. Read...

This Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 laptop is only $1,140 at Best Buy right now, an insane discount of $460 off its original price. That’s fantastic news because this thing has a powerful configuration that’s rarely available at a price like this. You could go slightly cheaper with our recommended gaming laptops under $1,000, but if you’re able to front just a little more cash, you can get so much more here. The Zephyrus G16 is a chunky 16-inch laptop with a gaming-ready 1080p IPS display and a marvelous 165Hz refresh rate, capable of cranking out high frame rates so all those fast-paced action scenes smooth. That’s thanks to the RTX 4070 graphics card, a GPU that’s really hard to find in the one-grand range, especially with all these other specs in tow. Under the hood, this laptop also features a 13th-gen Intel Core i7 processor and a solid 16GB of RAM, which translates into short loading times, quick swapping between apps, and productive multitasking. This combo can handle any task you need to complete, although the 512GB SSD is smaller than we’d like. (Not terrible, but not great.) If you’re in the market for a high-end gaming laptop at a mid-range price, and if you want to grab one before tariffs drive prices up to astronomical levels, then take advantage of this deal and snag the Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 for $1,140 at Best Buy while you can. Save 29% on this RTX-stacked Asus gaming laptopBuy now at Best Buy Read...

Remember when Microsoft promised that the Copilot key would be the next big thing? Since then Microsoft has begun backing away from its Copilot app, and this week the company is promising that Copilot won’t even launch when you tap the key — just a subset of the app will. This “new experience” for Copilot won’t feature the full-fledged Copilot app. Instead, Microsoft is promising that the Copilot key — or, in future, the WIN+C shortcut — will launch Copilot Chat, a small chat box that won’t take up as much screen space as before. Cool, right? But even this new experience isn’t free from Microsoft’s fragmentation problems, which puts separate features on separate tracks. Microsoft has two Copilot experiences: the “consumer” version of Copilot, and the more professional Copilot experience as Microsoft 365 Copilot. This week, Microsoft began reworking that latter version of Copilot to bring it more in line with the consumer application, which allows for image creation. Microsoft 365 Copilot is adding project-based Notebooks and other features, such as improved AI search and an “agent store” for sending out AI to do more specific tasks. It’s Microsoft 365 Copilot that’s receiving the less obtrusive interface. In May, Microsoft said it will launch “an updated Copilot key experience,” which will launch a “prompt box” using Copilot Chat. While the app can be expanded into the full Copilot app, it’s designed to offer a minimal interface at launch. Microsoft 365 Chat within Windows.Microsoft If you have a Windows 11 Pro or Enterprise PC with a Copilot key, and the Copilot key is mapped to the full Microsoft 365 Copilot app, you’ll see this behavior change, too, as part of a Windows update. Put another way, you’ll have to launch the Copilot Chat app, then launch the full-screen app if that’s the way you work. (If you’ve already mapped the Copilot key to some other app or function, that won’t change.) It’s not clear what will happen to the Alt+Space shortcut. Microsoft’s blog post says that the key changes are being pushed to “organizations,” implying that business customers may be the first group to receive the change. But it wouldn’t be surprising if it migrated into the consumer space, too. Windows Copilot for consumer PCs is a much more obtrusive interface. Microsoft has waffled between making Copilot a web app, and then a native one; and the Copilot key can now be remapped to other functions on consumer PCs, too. Microsoft probably correctly feels that businesses don’t want an omnipresent Copilot app taking over their screen when they tap the Copilot key. But there’s sure to be a set of consumers who feel the same way, too. Read...

I’m a big fan of gaming mice for productivity applications thanks to their deep customization options. Razer has tried to expand into office-style devices before, but with mixed results. Its second stab at the space includes two new mouse designs, including its first vertical mouse. Both the Pro Click V2 and Pro Click V2 Vertical are on sale today for $100 and $120, respectively. The Pro Click V2 Vertical is definitely the more interesting design, if only by virtue of its novelty. The flat bottom and 71.7-degree tilt puts your hand into a “handshake” position with the outer edge resting on the lip of the device, a form factor you’ll no doubt recognize from other mice like Logitech’s MX Vertical. Razer seems to have borrowed the top edge and button from similar designs in this sector, and thrown in thumb buttons above and below the standard resting place. But this is Razer we’re talking about, so naturally you get features like 30,000 DPI sensor and an RGB ring that goes nearly all the way around the base. Razer’s promo page says this can be used for “reactive RGB notifications” using the Chroma program, you know, in case you needed to justify this thing on an expense report. The battery lasts for up to six months with a USB-C recharge and it can connect over wired, Bluetooth, or 2.4GHz dongle modes. Razer The non-vertical Pro Click 2 looks a lot more like a standard Razer mouse. You’ve got a typical “shooter” setup with two thumb buttons, but the switch above the scroll wheel can shift it from standard to “free-spin” mode, again as seen on Logitech’s MX designs, and all the better for getting through a massive spreadsheet. Razer says it’s designed for maximum comfort over long stretches with an extended thumb rest. Other features are identical to the Pro Click V2, with the exception of the battery, which lasts “only” 3.5 months. Both mice are shipping from Razer’s store right now in any color you want, so long as you want black. Read...