Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5i review: Meteor Lake dazzles on performance and endurance

Tom’s Hardware Verdict Lenovo is firing on all cylinders with its Meteor Lake-equipped IdeaPad Pro 5i. It offers a blend of performance and endurance at a reasonable price. Meteor Lake shows strong performance and excellent battery life Lightweight aluminum chassis with plenty of ports Attractive pricing Speakers and webcam could be better M.2 2242 SSD instead of 2280 Why you may trust Tom’s HardwareOur expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you....

July 2, 2025 · 11 min · 2261 words · David Merritt

Lenovo Legion R27fc-30 27-inch 280 Hz gaming monitor review: Remarkable performance and value

Why you may trust Tom’s HardwareOur expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you.Find out more about how we test. Grayscale, Gamma and Color The R27fc-30 doesn’t sacrifice color accuracy for cost. It can be used without calibration if you prefer to just set brightness to taste. Stick to the Standard mode for all content. And if you need sRGB, that choice is in the color temp menu....

July 2, 2025 · 4 min · 795 words · Austin Pope

Lenovo's Legion Go Windows gaming handheld is now only $601

There are a few gaming handhelds on the market already, from Valve’s popular and successful Steam Deck to the newly released Asus ROG Ally X. Prices can vary depending on the model and hardware configuration, with prices often over $500. The recently released ROG Ally X comes with a hefty $799 price tag, and today’s deal is on a gaming handheld that shares some of the same tech but costs $200 less....

July 2, 2025 · 2 min · 415 words · Angela Simmons

Lenovo's ThinkBook Plus Gen 5 Hybrid smashes a Windows laptop and Android tablet together.

The concept of dual-booting — installing and having the option to run two operating systems on your computer at boot — isn’t new. But atCES, Lenovo is baking the idea into its hardware. The ThinkBook Plus Gen 5 is an Android tablet running on a Qualcomm processor that plugs into a keyboard base — with its own Intel Core Ultra processor — and can runWindows 11. The system is split into two parts: the Hybrid Tab, a 14-inch Android tablet, and the Hybrid Station, a Windows 11 system running on an Intel Core Ultra 7 processor....

July 2, 2025 · 3 min · 569 words · Norma Lucas

Lenovo’s Legion Go S handheld is powered by AMD’s Z2 Go, runs SteamOS or Windows

Lenovo’s original Legion Go gaming handheld didn’t exactly get the warmest of receptions when itarrived in mid-2023. But the company is back with three new models here in 2025, all running either the familiar AMD Z1 Extreme processor or the new Z2. Legion Go S: Powered by SteamOS or Windows 11 The Legion Go S ditches the detachable controllers of the previous Legion Go, in favor of a more traditional (and lighter, at 1....

July 2, 2025 · 3 min · 544 words · Kimberly Hoover

Lightmatter unveils high-performance photonic 'superchip', claims world's fastest AI interconnect

The challenges facing multi-chiplet processors are the performance and power consumption of inter-chiplet interconnects, which may eventually limit their performance. Lightmatter, a startup that has worked onvarious optical interconnects for several years now, this week introduced a possible solution: its Photonic M1000 high-performance photonic interconnect platform that promises to enable large multi-chiplet processors with optical interconnects supporting bandwidth of up to 114 Tbps (14.25 TB/s). Lightmatter’sPassage M1000is a multi-reticle eight-tile active 3D interposer enabling die complexes of 4,000 mm^2, which by far exceeds the sizes of today’s multi-chiplet solutions....

July 2, 2025 · 3 min · 445 words · Darren Mack

Linux Snapdragon X Elite laptop Shown at Computex — Tuxedo OEM hopes to ship by the end of the year

Qualcomm’sSnapdragon X Elite, the latest champion of Windows on Arm, may soon see a pairing with Linux. Tuxedo showed off its prototype for a Snapdragon X Elite laptop shipping with Linux atComputex 2024, with a tentative release coming before the end of the year. Tuxedo Computers, based out of Germany, hopes tobring high-power Arm processingto a hungry Linux community. Being developed under codename “Drako,” its first prototype promises interesting specs. The display is a 16:10 IPS panel running at 2560x1600, with a peak brightness of 400 nits — no word on refresh rates, though Tuxedo has shipped notebooks as fast as 165Hz before....

July 2, 2025 · 3 min · 474 words · Edward Dorsey

Lucky data hoarder pays $360 for six 8TB WD external hard drives, lands five more for free — scores 11 shuckable HDDs for $4 per TB

You can find many interesting things at an estate sale. OneRedditorfrom the data hoarder community recently struck gold at one and picked up 11WDEasystore 8TB external hard drives for just $360. Fortune was certainly smiling on the individual as five of the 11 came free of charge. The estate sale broker initially asked $90 per drive for what everyone thought was six drives, but the Redditor negotiated a great deal and bought all six for $60 each....

July 2, 2025 · 2 min · 422 words · Marcus Davis

Maker builds Raspberry Pi Pico smart clock with lots of cool features

Sometimes, it’s the simpler ideas that require quite a bit of work to make them run flawlessly. Today we’ve got an example of just that in the form of aRaspberry Piproject put together by maker and developer NeverCode. Using our favorite microcontroller, the Raspberry Pi Pico, NeverCode has created a DIYsmart clockthat has tons of cool features you may replicate at home. This smart clock has a handful of add-ons, including two LCD displays and a keypad you can use for user input....

July 2, 2025 · 2 min · 409 words · Amanda Harris

Memorial Day Tech Deals Live: Best savings this holiday weekend

Memorial Day this year falls on May 26th in the U.S. Traditionally a day to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice, it’s also a time when many retailers have huge sales on everything from mattresses to M.2 SSDs. In the tech world, this is a great time to save money on everything from peripherals to components to pre-built PC and gaming laptops. It’s also the biggest sale you’re going to see before Prime Day arrives sometime in July....

July 2, 2025 · 18 min · 3790 words · Ronald Odom

Microphone Not Working on Windows? Here’s How to Fix It

Microphones are essential for recording audio, playing games, or using speech recognition on Windows. But, it can be a hurdle if it stops working. When it malfunctions, it is often a microphone configuration error or a hardware failure. While the issue primarily arises due to incorrect privacy settings of the microphone, it also occurs due to the use of improper audio drivers. Or, there might be cases when the cable connection or microphone itself is faulty....

July 2, 2025 · 4 min · 647 words · Virginia Daniels

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 sucks up to 180 Mb/s of internet bandwidth while in flight — peak rate equivalent to 81GB of data per hour

Testing of an early technical alpha ofMicrosoftFlight Simulator 2024has revealed that the game’s streaming data demands can reach as high as 180 Mb/s while in flight—a number that places peak utilization somewhere around 81GB per hour of gameplay at high LOD settings flying over densely populated areas. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024has already caused some controversy due to itshighly recommended specifications, but it’s been noted that it has a much lower base install size thanFlight Simulator 2020, at about 30 GB instead of the 130-400 GB required forFlight Simulator 2020(higher range including DLC)....

July 2, 2025 · 3 min · 500 words · Christina Callahan

Microsoft makes passkeys the default authentication method for all new accounts

Microsoftnow uses passkeys by default for all new accounts, helping its users stay secure by ensuring that their passwords can’t be stolen by not having one.Microsoftwill ask you for an email address when creating an account for the first time. It will then send a verification code to confirm your identity, and once done, it will become your default credential for your new account. After you’ve created your Microsoft account and signed in, the company will ask you to add a passkey....

July 2, 2025 · 3 min · 492 words · Donna Hansen