There’s been a bit of a dry spell for new 2-in-1 systems, particularly after going so long without a Surface Pro update. This morning, that all changed, as three new Windows-powered convertibles came to light, the Samsung Galaxy Book, the Huawei Matebook X, and of course, the Microsoft Surface Pro.
As we’ve learned all too well, building a 2-in-1 is really tricky business, and even one wrong move can render a system near-unusable, and far from earning a recommendation for us. Microsoft has managed to refine the pattern over several generations and different products, and at this point, we’re confident in its ability to put together a minor update to the Surface Pro line.
Huawei and Samsung, on the other hand, have more to prove. Samsung’s last effort at the 2-in-1 game left us unimpressed, with an overly ambitious OLED display that brought some tinting issues with it, and an overall chintzy design. Huawei made a decent effort with the previous Matebook, but it was marred by a flimsy design and expensive peripherals.
So which one is the right 2-in-1 for you, if any of them? Join us on today’s episode of Close to the Metal as we break down each device, and try to decide on a winner for the category.
Close to the Metal is a podcast from Digital Trends that takes a deep dive into computing and PC gaming topics. Each show, we’ll focus in on one topic, and leave no stone unturned as we show off the latest in hardware and software. Whether it’s the latest GPU, supercomputers, or which 2-in-1 you should buy, we break down the complicated jargon and talk about how user experience is affected in the real world. Please subscribe, share, and send your questions to [email protected]. We broadcast the show live on YouTube every Tuesday at 1pm EST/10am PST.
Gemini Notebook’s mobile app now has a built-in recorder for capturing lectures and meetings as sources. You can record directly where you’ll use the material, skipping the separate recording app and the file upload afterward.
Google announced the feature on X, highlighting classroom lectures and team meetings as potential uses. It also works for capturing your own thoughts, so you can talk through an idea and bring that explanation into your notebook while it’s still fresh.
In 1950, Alan Turing asked whether machines can think. Rather than argue over definitions, he turned the question into a party game, where an interrogator trades typed messages with hidden players and tries to work out who is who. Since then, chatbots have gotten so good that they have already fooled humans in modern versions of the test.
So, four researchers from Paris Cité University asked the obvious follow-up question in a new study published in Computers in Human Behavior Reports: can AI at least catch its own kind?
Mozilla is giving Firefox’s Smart Window two new tricks. If you haven’t tried it yet, Smart Window is an optional AI mode in Firefox with a built-in chat that helps you get things done while you browse. With this update, it can fill out online forms using details from your tabs and keep an eye on websites for you.
Tired of typing the same details into every form?