There’s only a week until Amazon’s October Prime Day starts, and the pre-sales keep coming. Right now, Amazon’s Fire TV Stick Lite is touting a nice 40 percent discount, dropping its price to $18 from $30, and only a few dollars more than its all-time low. Plus, another $4 gets you a two-year protection plan, still taking home a savings of $9.

Amazon’s Fire TV Stick Lite is already the cheapest option in the lineup and is a good choice for anyone looking to use Fire TV without any bells and whistles. It has Wi-Fi 5 compatibility, 1GB of memory and Dolby encoded (versus Atmos) audio. It presents media in 1080p full HD and comes with the Alexa Voice Remote Lite, which doesn’t have any TV controls but can still take audio commands.

Additional Fire TV devices are also on sale if you’re in the market for a higher-quality option. The previous generation 4K Stick is down to $23 from $50, a 54 percent deal — and a reminder that 2-for-1 and better deals are a great way to get your holiday shopping done early and affordably. The Fire TV Stick 4K offers improved picture quality, 2GB of memory and Dolby Vision compatibility. The standard Fire TV Stick is also marked down —to $20 from $40 — and the Fire TV Cube is available for $110 versus its typical $140.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazons-fire-tv-stick-lite-drops-to-18-ahead-of-october-prime-day-141523613.html?src=rss

Source: Engadget – Amazon’s Fire TV Stick Lite drops to ahead of October Prime Day

Framework has slowly broadened its product portfolio to include a gaming laptop and an AMD variant of its 13-inch productivity notebook. After an initial manufacturing hiccup earlier in the year, it’s the latter that’s finally ready to reach eager pre-order customers as new mainboards make their debut. Like every other Framework release, you can pick them up as a pre-built laptop, or as the parts for you to upgrade an existing model. There are some differences, both in how they’re set up and what they can do, but don’t expect a revolution. This is still a Framework 13, after all, and it can do more or less the same thing it’s always been able to.

Hardware

Given Framework’s emphasis on building a stable platform for its modular laptops, there are no changes here. Pop the hood and you’ll only notice a few differences, like a plastic retainer on the WiFi module rather than a metal one, but that’s it. At this point, I feel confident enough that I could swap out a mainboard without having to consult a manual.

Framework’s adopted the “Good, Better, Best” mode with its specs, with the base model packing a Ryzen 5, 7640U with a Radeon 760M iGPU, 8GB RAM and a 256GB SSD. The middle-tier unit I’m testing has a Ryzen 7, 7840U with Radeon 7840U, 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD. Fancier types who opt for the flagship get the same Ryzen 7 7840U as the middle tier, albeit with 32GB RAM and a 1TB SSD.

The only other difference is with batteries: The base model will ship with the older, 55Wh battery while the other two get the newer 61Wh model. That said, the company has also wheeled out new HDMI and DisplayPort expansion cards for more power-efficient video outputs. Those will be coming to all new laptop orders in the near future, but make their debut here with the AMD editions.

Upgrades and Compromises

Naturally, the point of Framework’s platform is that if you already have one of its notebooks, you can just swap in the AMD mainboard. Although that process isn’t as simple as it is when you’re swapping out an Intel model for one of its successors. Your existing RAM and WiFi modules will not work with the AMD board, so you’ll need to get new DDR5 DIMMs and an AMD-made WiFi module like the RZ616, which is what Framework bundles in its prebuilt editions.

Much as the laptop’s design remains the same, there are more differences on the inside, which is where it counts. If you don’t know, each mainboard has a quartet of USB-C ports that stick out of the laptop’s deck. Each one corresponds to an Expansion Card slot, letting you slide in a specific port depending on your needs for that day. So you can pop out your second USB-C port in favor of a HDMI or DisplayPort-out the day you have a presentation to give.

On Intel’s side of the fence, this is a stress free experience because all four ports are the same. Since the 12th generation board, all four support Thunderbolt (and USB) 4, each one with 40 Gbps bandwidth, up to 100W power draw and support for two 60Hz 4K displays. Not to mention the standard enables you to add an eGPU to your setup for extra graphics muscle.

But things aren’t as elegant on the AMD side because a) Thunderbolt is an Intel standard and b) AMD’s portable silicon has some, uh, limitations. Only the rear port on either side supports USB 4, with the front two a mish-mash of competing standards. As you can see from the graphic, the front left port supports charging, USB 3.2 and USB-A, while the front right offers USB 3.2 and video out.

To make things worse, there are no visible clues to remind you what each port can and cannot do for obvious design and uniformity reasons. I don’t blame Framework for having to deal with AMD’s mess, and it has been brave enough to foreground these compromises from day one. But it’s one of those issues where you’ll either need to keep a mental record, or face an error pop-up when you’ve plugged the wrong port into the wrong socket.

But then I doubt there are too many people who are looking to buy this laptop who will need regular access to a quartet of 40 Gbps connections. I suspect there won’t be too many times AMD users are cursing the skies for the minor annoyance of swapping cards over. It’s just one of those situations where you wish users weren’t left dealing with the consequences of two chip giants who won’t play nicely.

Performance

Much as AMD may not have the silky uniformity and consistency of its rival chip giant, it does have an ace up its sleeve. Those integrated GPUs are far ahead of Intel’s, giving it enough grunt to push halfway-demanding games without too much sweat. It’s worth saying, as usual, that this is, first and foremost, a productivity machine, but with AMD on board, it’ll play just as hard as it works.

In the time I had with the hardware, I played Grand Theft Auto V on high settings and got 55 fps out of this machine. Similarly, Fortnite will crank out an average of 50 fps with the settings on high, easily enough to keep you amused on work trips or in your dorm room. Synthetic tests aren’t everything, but suggest the AMD version comes out ahead in both single (by a little) and multi-core performance (by a lot) compared to the equivalent Intel model.

The issue, really, isn’t with the performance you can wring out of this machine, but how much noise it’ll make while doing it. A common complaint, from the earliest version of the Framework 13, is the excessive fan noise when it’s put under heavy load. The mainboard fan really wasn’t designed to cope with the high loads you might expect to want to put it under, making a sound I will describe as “persistent” and “noticeable” and often “quite loud.”

Pricing

When announcing the AMD boards, Framework committed to price parity between Intel and AMD editions whenever possible. The Base and Performance models, on the entry and mid tiers, cost $1,049 and $1,469 whatever chip you choose. At the high end, however, there is a fairly big delta between the $1,669 you’ll pay for the AMD version and the $2,069 asking price for the Intel edition.

Wrap-Up

In the short time I’ve had with the AMD edition, I’ve been impressed with what is now possible in this chassis. The silicon out-performs its Intel equivalent, but it’s all taking place in the same body with the same, user-serviceable design. That’s a big achievement, and there are plenty of folks chomping at the bit to get one of these in their lives – the first seven production batches are already sold out, with an eighth on the way. It remains, undeniably, a Framework 13, so you will get the same flexibility and longevity that you’ve come to expect, but with a little bit more oomph.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/framework-brings-amd-mainboards-to-its-13-inch-laptop-140050567.html?src=rss

Source: Engadget – Framework brings AMD mainboards to its 13-inch laptop

The rise of streaming and the switch to remote work means that in the past few years, more people are using mics than ever before. Which in turns means that lots of companies are looking to get into the space, and the latest entrant is well-respected game accessory manufacturer SteelSeries. Though the company’s probably best known for its headsets, it just might change that perception with its $180 Alias and $330 Alias Pro gaming microphones, available today.

Upfront I’ll admit I’m not a streamer, but I do make regular use of a microphone in both podcasting and regular Dungeons & Dragons sessions on Discord. And, like so many during the pandemic, I found myself in an endless array of remote meetings over Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, WebEx, and whatever else companies want to throw out there. Even in the year 2023, it’s a pain in the ass. My go-to mic for the past few years has been the Elgato Wave:3, which I admire for its excellent audio and solid build quality. But in use it hasn’t always been a dream; weirdly enough I never got it to work properly with USB headsets, even those made by its parent company Corsair. And switching between apps, even with the Elgato software installed, wasn’t always a smooth process. I’ve started so many meetings with my computer outputting to the wrong device (usually the internal laptop microphone, which as you can imagine, is crap).

SteelSeries looks to simplify all that with its GG software, which automatically works with all SteelSeries hardware. I plugged in the Alias and it was detected immediately; I didn’t have to adjust the settings in any app or on my system. Within seconds I was on a call with a friend on Messenger, and Discord automatically made the adjustment on its own as well. In 2023 I would expect audio software should just work, and GG fits the bill. It has lots of built-in customization for things like lighting so you don’t have to be a programmer to make your setup look cool. It also lets you set levels program by program, with multiple outputs so you can have what your stream hears be different from what you hear on your end. It’s just a good level of control that allows professionals (as well as amateurs) fine-tune their stream to their liking.

Of course, solid software wouldn’t be anything without the hardware to back it up, and the Alias and Alias Pro are high-quality, extremely attractive microphones to have on your desk. They’re both oblong pills suspended by elastic cords in a ring-shaped stand. It’s easy enough to remove and mount on a boom arm, and both models of the Alias come with a clip to attach it to your existing arm, or you can purchase one from SteelSeries.

From there the two mics have different features: the entry-level Alias has a volume dial and mute button right on its front, while the Pro outsources those to the included mixer, which requires external power (it comes with an AC adapter). The mixer has two dials, which can be customized in the GG software, and two buttons for muting mic and headset audio. (They feel extremely nice to push.) The biggest difference, however, is where the Pro gets its name from, and that’s the XLR connection in the back. That’s a higher-end connector than most users will need, but professionals looking to add a speciality gaming microphone into their mix will appreciate it. The mixer also comes with two USB ports so you can do dual PC streaming.

As I am not a professional audio person I stuck with the regular Alias, which connects to your setup using USB-C. It also has a single headphone jack for plugging in a headset, and I appreciated the mic stand design for keeping the cords tidy. When you plug in the mic it’ll start working right away; you’ll know because the front of the mic is outfitted with LED lighting that will show your levels. If the single bar of lights rises into the red, you know you’re clipping. When the mic is muted, a big red “X” is displayed on the surface, so there’s absolutely no question about the state of your recording.

In chatting with friends and family over various chat programs, the reports I got was that my audio was clear and loud, though one podcasting friend did think I did sound a little off at times — possibly because I got too close to the mic. At a normal distance I sounded fine. By my own reckoning through headphones, I thought it sounded great — on par with the audio I get from the Elgato Wave: 3 though a little more sensitive as it picked up the occasional ambient sound, like my typing. This isn’t unusual when I’m using a mechanical deck, but in this case it was the spongier membrane keyboard on my laptop. It can be mitigated by simply moving the devices further apart, if you have the space to do so.

Overall I think it’s a good piece of hardware to have on my desk; one of those accessories that makes you excited to record a stream, podcast or anything else you can imagine. You don’t need good tools to start creating, but the SteelSeries Alias is one of those that makes you want to make something because it’s such a delight to use.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/steelseries-starts-out-strong-with-its-first-dedicated-gaming-microphones-140041321.html?src=rss

Source: Engadget – SteelSeries starts out strong with its first dedicated gaming microphones