Hasta La Gadget!

As teased at I/O, you no longer need to get Wear OS 3 smartwatches from Samsung — though you will pay for the privilege. The Vergenotes Montblanc has introduced the Summit 3, a significant upgrade to the German brand’s luxury timepieces. The improved Google software (including better performance) is the most noticeable update, but you’ll also get a much-needed leap from the Summit 2’s 2018-era Snapdragon Wear 3100 chip to the (still somewhat old) Wear 4100+. Expect more responsive wristwear that lasts longer on a charge.

The standout feature remains the upscale design. The conventionally styled case is made from light-but-strong titanium, and you’ll get both leather and rubber straps to suit various occasions. Some watch faces also mimic Montblanc mechanical models like the 1858 Geosphere. You can otherwise expect typical high-end smartwatch features like blood oxygen monitoring, sleep tracking and Google Pay support.

The Summit 3 will be available worldwide on July 15th. Like with earlier Montblanc smartwatches, though, you’re paying for the combination of classic watchmaking expertise with modern technology — the new model will sell for $1,290. That’s a bargain compared to the $1,800 TAG Heuer Connected Calibre E4 and the $3,400 Louis Vuitton Tambour Horizon Light Up, but it’s a sharp jump from the $300 you’ll currently pay for a 42mm Galaxy Watch 4 Classic. This is for well-off enthusiasts who want a tech accessory for formal galas — and won’t balk at the cost of upgrading a few years later.

More affordable Wear OS 3 watches are coming from brands like Fossil, Mobvoi, Samsung and Google itself. For now, though, you’ll still have few choices.

With Prime Video’s prequel series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power arriving in early September, it stands to reason there’ll be a renewed interest in J.R.R. Tolkien’s original writings on Middle-earth’s Second Age. So the timing is perfect for The Fall of Númenor, which gathers all of Tolkien’s works on the…

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Desktop workstation computers are usually bulky and heavy because they are optimized solely for maximum performance and expandability. The ThinkStation P360 Ultra takes the opposite direction and is primarily optimized for space. Lenovo tries to cram as much computing power as possible within that sub-4-Liters space.

This computer is a Small Form Factor (SFF) workstation that claims to be 15% smaller than the competition and has key energy-efficiency certifications such as ENERGY STAR or EPEAT Gold. The 8.7×7.9×3.4 inches dimensions make it certainly smaller than Intel’s NUC 12 Extreme which is 14.1×7.4×4.7 inches big.

Inside, you will find an Intel gen12 desktop CPU (16-core max) with a maximum RTX A5000 GPU configuration (16GB VRAM). That’s very much like a mobile RTX 3080. The mobile nature of the GPU better matches the cooling and power envelopes feasible on such a small computer.

Note that the GPU board connects to the motherboard via a proprietary connector, which means that only Lenovo can supply a GPU upgrade. That said, I would not be surprised if customers would in fact never upgrade the GPU, like laptop users.

Four DDR5 RAM slots for the primary system should be enough for most people interested in an SFF workstation. It should be easy to configure 64GB of RAM that way.

Like other SFF computers, the 300W power supply is external, and I would be curious to see if the highest CPU and GPU options would be limited by power. But extra speed and power also mean more heat, so it’s probably fair to think of this workstation as having better cooling than a laptop workstation like the ThinkPad P15 Gen2 we reviewed.

The ThinkStation P360 Ultra has lots of ports. It is also considerably more affordable (and speedy) than a similarly priced ThinkPad workstation. At the same time, it is relatively (trans)portable if you include a ThinkVision M15 mobile display, for example. I wish there were a couple more USB-C or Thunderbolt 4 ports, though.

You can easily extend the connectivity at a fixed location with a Thunderbolt 4 dock to access extra storage and accessories linked to that workspace. Having a one-cable setup is extremely agreeable if you connect/disconnect often.

In conclusion, it’s easy to like the SFF nature of this workstation and its relative affordability. It would look amazing on any desk, making it easy to create a neat environment and provide some level of mobility. That said, it’s for the space-conscious crowd rather than your typical workstation customer, so we’re looking forward to hearing about real-world experiences.

Lenovo ThinkStation P360 Ultra Redefines Compact Desktop Workstations

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After waiting ages for the mysterious first smartphone reveal from the brand Nothing, it turns out that’s exactly what the U.S. will get come release time.

Neo has taken the crypto red pill. Keanu Reeves and his partner Alexandra Grant have joined in the efforts of a foundation focused on NFTs and art in the metaverse, the Futureverse Foundation.

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