Hasta La Gadget!

Commodore’s Amiga 500 was one of the most popular home computers in the era just before the PC swallowed the world. Now, thirty years and change since its heyday, Retro Games is making a “mini” version of the computer and games console. Much like Retro Games’ last machine, a “mini” version of the Commodore 64 that can’t use the Commodore name, this will be branded as THEA500 Mini.

Retro Games has said that the console will include 25 titles from the vast (and excellent) Amiga library including Another World, Worms, Simon the Sorcerer and The Chaos Engine. The full list of titles hasn’t been released, but if Bart vs. The Space Mutants and Dalek Attack aren’t on there, I will cry.

Much like pretty much every other retro console, a glossy software layer will smooth out the rougher edges of this software. Users will be able to save and resume titles part-way through play, and you’ll be able to side-load titles you (ahem) own over the included USB port.

Rather than simply emulating the vanilla Amiga 500, the hardware will also run the Enhanced Chip Set (ECS) layers found in the Amiga 500 Plus, a short-lived revision released in 1991. You’ll also be able to harness the advanced graphics architecture (AGA) of the much-pricier flagship model, the Amiga 1200.

Retro Games / Koch Media

Hardware-wise, it’s likely to be a similar sort of moulded-plastic-around-a-mini-board situation as found in THEC64 Mini. But on the accessories front, it’ll ship with the Amiga’s famous two-button mouse, and a joypad that, to my eyes, seems to be based on the Amiga CD32’s gamepad rather than the 500’s (which, to be fair, was more famously a joystick-led machine).

Retro Games / Koch Media

THEA500 Mini will launch at some point in early 2022, and is expected to cost $140 (£120, €130) when it arrives. The only misgivings I have at this point is that Retro Games’ previous work with the THEC64 Mini made that a hard product to love in several ways. Hopefully, however, many of those issues have been resolved for the new model, which was the object of lust for many people soon be knocking on 40.

Oh, and here’s the greatest advert for a computer ever made:

Just days after Oppo unveiled its latest under-screen camera solution, Xiaomi is now launching a new flagship phone with a similar, if not the same, feature. The Mi Mix 4 is the Chinese company’s slimmest ceramic unibody smartphone yet, featuring a 6.67-inch 2,400 x 1,080 screen that stealthily hides a 20-megapixel selfie camera underneath a near-indistinguishable patch of pixels — it’s the same 400ppi density as the rest of the panel, albeit with smaller pixels and transparent circuitry thanks to advancements in AMOLED production.

If the selfie photos on the Mi Mix 4 turn out to be just as good, if not better, than Oppo’s samples from last week, then it’s no surprise that Xiaomi went with this under-screen camera tech. The Mix series has always been about pushing the boundary of form factor design, with the firsttwo models — both designed by Philippe Starck — offering super slim screen bezels along three sides. They were some of the first ceramic smartphones, too. 

With the Mi Mix 3, Xiaomi finally got rid of the chin by moving the selfie camera to a slide-up module. I wasn’t a fan of that design, though, as it felt more fragile.

Xiaomi

Now that the under-screen camera is seemingly reaching maturity, it serves as a sensible evolution path to the Mi Mix 4. Still, CEO Lei Jun added that if you really care about your selfies, you should stick to phones with punch-hole cameras; but for him, the under-screen camera is good enough.

The screen itself is otherwise very much the same as what many other recent flagships are offering: 10-bit color, P3 gamut, Dolby Vision, HDR10+, 120Hz refresh rate and 480Hz touch sampling rate. It’s protected by a layer of Gorilla Glass Victus. Like many recent Xiaomi phones, the Mi Mix 4 provides stereo sound tuned by Harman/Kardon, which should go well with that vibrant screen.

Xiaomi

The Mi Mix 4 also happens to be the first smartphone sporting Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 888+ 5G processor, taking the clock speed up to 3GHz while being cooled by several layers of graphene and graphite. LPDDR5 RAM options range from 8GB to 12GB, whereas UFS 3.1 storage goes from 128GB to 512GB.

Much like the iPhone 12 series, the Mi Mix 4 also packs UWB (ultra-wide band), but instead of tracking tags, Xiaomi is using this for a feature dubbed “Point to Connect.” Simply point your Mi Mix 4 to a compatible Xiaomi smart device like a TV, smart speaker (like the freshly-announced Xiaomi Sound) or air conditioner, and the relevant app will show up. 

The company will also offer a small UWB hub for existing TVs, and this will launch via a beta program in China on August 20th. But if you prefer the old-school way, this Android phone also has an infrared remote feature — as is the case with some Chinese smartphones these days.

Xiaomi

The rear cameras are impressive on paper. There’s a 108-megapixel main camera (HMX sensor with optical stabilization), an 8-megapixel 5x optical zoom camera (with optical stabilization) and a 13-megapixel 120-degree ultra-wide camera (with free-form lens). Still, Lei admitted on stage that he’s saving the better camera components for his main flagship line.

The Mi Mix 4 houses a 4,500mAh which is relatively standard these days, but it supports 120W wired charging, which goes from zero to 100 percent in 21 minutes by default, or in just 15 minutes if you enable “Boost Mode.” There’s also 50W wireless charging, which normally takes 45 minutes for a full charge, or just 28 minutes in “Boost Mode.”

Xiaomi

Xiaomi will be selling the Mi Mix 4 in China starting from August 16th, with colors including white, black and a new gray option. Prices start from 4,999 yuan or around $770 for the 8GB RAM + 128GB storage model, and capping at 6,299 yuan or about $970 for the 12GB RAM + 512GB storage option. We’ll have to stay tuned for international availability, but we’d be surprised if the world’s second largest phone maker doesn’t plan on taking the Mi Mix 4 outside of China.

Most credit cards these days offer some kind of reward to users, whether it’s a percentage of your spending in cash back, airline miles or some other perk. Venmo launched its own credit card last fall, and while it offers up to three percent cash back, the company is now letting users do something relatively unique with that refund. As of today, Venmo credit card users can automatically get that cash back in cryptocurrency.

Once you opt in, you can choose one of four cryptocurrencies to purchase with your cash back: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash. There are no transaction fees for the purchase, and the transfer happens automatically. From there, you can turn that crypto back into cash at any time, or change what currency you get each month from your cash back. 

This feature builds on the cryptocurrency features that Venmo added to its app earlier this year. Since April, Venmo users have been able to buy those same four cryptocurrencies directly in the app, so a feature to easily turn cash back into crypto might make it easier for more people to dip their toes into the Bitcoin world. 

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