In February this year, we reported that Samsung is going to launch its next set of foldable smartphones, which will have two devices, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and the Galaxy Z Flip 6, in July this year, which is earlier than usual. As such, it has started working on the production of these devices in full swing. Well, the company has now started benchmarking those phones. That’s right. Samsung has just benchmarked the Galaxy Z Flip 6 on Geekbench, which confirms key features of the upcoming device.
Geekbench has listed a smartphone from Samsung that the company hasn’t announced yet. It comes bearing the model number SM-F741U. According to a previous report, this device is none other than the Galaxy Z Flip 6. According to the benchmarking platform, Samsung’s upcoming clamshell foldable smartphone features the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, one of the variants of the device has 8GB of RAM, and the phone runs on the Android 14 operating system, most likely with One UI 6.1.
Galaxy Z Flip 6 spotted on Geekbench
The Galaxy Z Flip 6 managed to score 15,050 points on the GPU test, which is similar to what the Galaxy S24 Ultra managed to achieve. The Galaxy Z Flip 6 is more compact than the Galaxy S24 Ultra. As such, it has less space for a cooling system. Despite that, it managed to achieve the same level of performance as the brand’s flagship phone, which is quite impressive. However, we suspect that the Galaxy Z Flip 6 might not be able to maintain that level of performance for as long as the Galaxy S24 Ultra.
According to a previous report, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 will feature a larger cover display than that on the Galaxy Z Flip 5. Reportedly, the cover display on the upcoming phone will a 120Hz refresh rate instead of a 60Hz refresh rate on its predecessor. Samsung is expected to offer the foldable with an Exynos chipset in some regions, and the it will be available with up to 12GB RAM. We already got to see the phone’s design, thanks to a previous leak, and according to another report, it will come in a new set of colors.
More than a year after a patch was released, hackers are still competing to compromise vulnerable TP-Link Wi-Fi routers.
A report from Fortinet claims half a dozen botnet operators are scanning for vulnerable TP-Link Archer AX21 (AX1800) routers after cybersecurity researchers discovered a high-severity unauthenticated command injection flaw in the endpoints early last year.
The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2023-1389, was patched a few months later, in March 2023.
Working in Russia’s interest
However, a year later, in March 2024, Fortinet discovered that attempts at leveraging this flaw rose beyond 40,000 and up to 50,000 a day. Apparently, multiple groups are doing it at the same time:
“Recently, we observed multiple attacks focusing on this year-old vulnerability, spotlighting botnets like Moobot, Miori, the Golang-based agent “AGoent,” and the Gafgyt Variant”, Fortinet said in its report.
Different Mirai variants, and a botnet named “Condi” have been identified as going after TP-Link routers since the vulnerability was first disclosed.
Mirai is considered one of the largest and most disruptive botnets out there.
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Hackers are always on the lookout for vulnerable, internet-connected endpoints, such as smart home devices, smart speakers, routers, computers, and similar. When they find such devices, they infect them with malware that gives them the ability to run certain commands. The most popular use case is Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, in which the compromised machines are tasked with sending meaningless traffic towards a single entity.
Due to the sheer number of traffic requests, the entity is unable to process them all – including legitimate traffic – and crashes, hence the name – denial of service.
To make sure your endpoints are not assimilated into a malicious botnet and used in DDoS attacks, apply the latest patches and firmware updates to all internet-connected devices and make sure they’re protected with a strong password.
Samsung’s Galaxy M55 is an interesting phone. While not nearly as expensive as the Galaxy A55, Samsung has equipped it with features we don’t see–or haven’t seen–on the company’s mid-range phones.
The M55 has a 50MP front camera, a first for any Samsung Galaxy smartphone. It’s also the first mid-range Galaxy phone to support 45W super fast charging and the first Galaxy phone with the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 chipset. That’s not all: the M55 boasts a few features that we have never seen in the M series, such as 12GB of RAM, an under-display fingerprint sensor, and stereo speakers.
Unfortunately, Samsung has also cut back on some features compared to 2023’s Galaxy M54. The M55 has a 50MP rear camera instead of a 108MP camera, and it is powered by a 5,000 mAh battery, as opposed to the 6,000 mAh battery found in the Galaxy M54.
Still, despite some of the downgrades, the Galaxy M55 has an impressive spec sheet for the asking price. We used it for a week to discover if the spec sheet translates into a good overall user experience and detail our findings in this review.
Design
While Galaxy A series phones like the Galaxy A35 and A55 have become thicker this year, Samsung has taken the opposite approach for the M55. Thanks to the 7.8mm thickness, the M55 feels very sleek.
Thanks to the 7.8mm thickness, the M55 feels very sleek
However, it also lacks the premium design of the A35 and A55. There is no metal frame or glass back, and the display is protected by Dragontrail Glass instead of Gorilla Glass. The Key Island design element, which raises the frame around the volume and power buttons, that we have seen on many mid-range Samsung phones this year is missing as well.
Still, the M55 doesn’t feel cheap or low-cost when you hold it in your hand, thanks to a smooth finish for the rear panel and the thin side profile. Its design doesn’t have anything out of the ordinary, but the last time we checked, having a traditional and unassuming design wasn’t illegal.
We just wish Samsung had used Gorilla Glass 5, or perhaps even Gorilla Glass Victus+ like the A35 and A55, for the display. Not having Gorilla Glass protection isn’t illegal, either, but in 2024, maybe it should be. Fancy features like glass backs and metal frames aren’t necessary, but dependable display protection is. Next year, we would also like to see Samsung bringing some form of water and dust resistance to Galaxy M smartphones.
Display and sound
With a 6.7-inch Super AMOLED Plus display, the M55 offers a viewing experience similar to the Galaxy A35 and A55. The colors are punchy, brightness levels are sufficient for every environment, and the 120Hz refresh rate makes for a smooth UI.
The M55 even has something you don’t find on the A35 or A55: slim bezels. Not flagship-level slim, but slim nonetheless. However, we didn’t notice any difference compared to the Galaxy M54, even though Samsung claims it has trimmed the bezels on the new phone.
The quality of the stereo speaker setup leaves a lot to be desired
As mentioned earlier, this is the first Galaxy M phone that doesn’t have the fingerprint sensor embedded into the power button. The M55 has an optical in-display fingerprint sensor that works well, though it can take an extra second or two to do its job every now and then.
A stereo speaker setup is another feature we haven’t seen on any phone in the series before. Sadly, the quality of the stereo speaker setup leaves a lot to be desired. Bass is practically non-existent, and it always feels like the speakers are trying their hardest to fight off distortion. The M55 also lacks a 3.5mm port, so the audio experience is entirely dependent on the quality of your wireless earbuds or USB-C headphones.
Camera
The photography experience on the Galaxy M55 disappointed us. Not because the camera specs aren’t good or because the 108MP camera of the M54 has been replaced by a 50MP camera, but because how slow it is at taking pictures.
The M55’s camera is slow in two important areas. The first one is general responsiveness of the camera app. The second is when you take photos in the evenings or in low-light conditions. The M55, like all other modern Samsung phones, automatically takes a long-exposure shot when it detects tough or low lighting conditions, but it takes a whopping 7 seconds to capture those long-exposure shots every single time.
The photography experience on the Galaxy M55 disappointed us
Holding the phone steady for 7 seconds is tough for anyone, and more often than not it results in shaky photos. And you can’t just turn off the automatic Night mode, because it is what allows Galaxy phones to take usable nighttime and low-light photos. Without it, you get dark and noisy pictures.
This is something Samsung can fix with a software update, but out of the box, the M55’s rear camera is only good for daylight photos and photos captured with the flash on. The same goes for the ultra-wide camera, which also requires Night mode to take usable photos in low-light conditions.
The M55 also struggles in Portrait mode. The camera goes haywire trying to differentiate between the foreground and background and setting the right brightness levels, and every so often, it simply fails to blur the background in the final picture. As for the macro camera, it’s there just for the sake of it.
Check out some rear camera photos in the gallery below. Ultra-wide and bokeh versions of some scenes and subjects are included next to the standard photos taken by the 50MP primary camera.
What about the 50MP selfie camera? Numbers don’t lie, unless you’re talking about the front camera on the M55. This is the highest-resolution front camera on a Samsung phone ever, but the only thing that has changed is the number. Selfie quality is similar to phones like the A35 and A55 with their 32MP front cameras, and in some situations, the M55 can even take worse photos.
Numbers don’t lie, unless you’re talking about the 50MP front camera on the M55
Like the rear cameras, the front camera suffers from the issue of needing 7 seconds to capture selfies when automatic Night mode is turned on. That issue is exacerbated by the fact that the M55 switches on Night mode even in well lit indoor conditions where devices like the A35 and A55 don’t require Night mode.
All in all, the Galaxy M55 is not a good phone if you happen to take a lot of photos. Samsung can fix its shortcomings with software updates, but there’s no guarantee that will actually happen.
Performance
The Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 never caught any traction with Android phone manufacturers, making the M55 one of very few phones to feature this chip. The Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 is slightly faster than the Exynos 1380 used in the Galaxy M54, Galaxy A54, and Galaxy A35 and around 10-15% slower than the Exynos 1480 inside the Galaxy A55.
But here’s the kicker: in high-end games, the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 beats both the Exynos 1380 and 1480. In Call of Duty, the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 lets you enable the ‘Very High’ graphic preset along with the max frame rate option. The Exynos 1380 tops out at the high preset, but doesn’t let you enable the max frame rate option at the same time. The Exynos 1480, meanwhile, limits you to the lowest preset.
The M55 is the better choice for passionate gamers when compared with the A35 and A55
This is a great example of why Snapdragon chips are in so much demand among Samsung fans. They simply have much higher support from game developers right out of the box, even when the chip in question has been used in less than a handful of smartphones. Exynos chips receive no special attention, and so they aren’t used to their full potential in many games.
The M55 is the better choice for passionate gamers when compared with the A35 and A55 that launched a few weeks prior. The M55 only lags behind in thermal management. It doesn’t have the large cooling system that sits inside the A35 and A55, so it can get noticeably warm to the touch in long gaming sessions and when it is being charged at 45W. Still, it never gets uncomfortably hot.
Performance in the camera app is horrendous, though
As for performance outside of gaming, the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 does a fine job. UI animations are fluid most of the time, and apps launch fairly quickly. Thanks to 12GB of RAM, the M55’s performance remains stable even after prolonged use.
Performance in the camera app is horrendous, though. It lags when you change modes or switch between different zoom levels when shooting videos; it also takes 2-3 seconds to respond to your touches right after you capture a photo or stop recording a video. Combined with the other issues that are mentioned in the camera section above, the M55 is not the least bit suitable for photography enthusiasts.
The M55 comes with all the latest connectivity features, including 5G, NFC, and Wi-Fi 6. The Bluetooth specification isn’t the latest, and when playing music over Bluetooth in a car equipped with a somewhat antiquated audio system, we noticed that audio would go mute for a couple of every seconds every now and then. This wasn’t an issue with any other Bluetooth audio device, however.
The M55 sports a hybrid SIM tray that can either take two SIM cards or one SIM card and a microSD card. There is no eSIM support.
Software
The Galaxy M55 runs Android 14 with One UI 6.1 out of the box and is eligible for four major Android OS upgrades and five years of security updates. In terms of features, there’s everything here except for the Galaxy S24’s AI features and Samsung DeX functionality.
The M55 has a built-in screen recorder, one-handed mode, Always On Display (without AOD wallpaper support), Quick Share (for quick sharing of files and media to other Android devices and Windows PCs), Multi Window multitasking, Wi-Fi Calling, dedicated Kids Mode, Live Caption, Link to Windows, and even Multi Control, which lets you control multiple Samsung devices with the same keyboard and mouse and copy and paste text and files across those devices.
The M55 also has the smooth animations that Samsung introduced with One UI 6.1, though the animations can stutter from time to time as this is a mid-range phone. One UI 6.1 also means that the M55 only gives you the option to use Android’s stock navigation gestures, though there is a workaround you can use to get Samsung’s gestures back.
Battery life
The Galaxy M55 has a smaller battery than the Galaxy M54, but battery life is still fantastic. With light use, it can stay on for almost two days off the charger. With heavy use involving a few hours of gaming and watching videos on YouTube or Netflix, you can get a full day of battery life. With moderate use, the M55 can last until early afternoon on the second day.
Charging is quick as well, but 45W charging is only faster after the battery is charged to 90%. In the first half hour, both 25W and 45W charging get you around 50% charge. In 60 minutes, both charge the phone to around 90%. The only difference is that the final 10% charge takes around 10 minutes with a 45W charger and 20 minutes with a 25W charger.
45W charging is only faster after the battery is charged to 90%
We realized that the M55 doesn’t charge quickly because it supports 45W charging. Samsung’s mid-range phones are artificially limited to slower charging with a 25W charger compared to the company’s flagships, and all it has done here is remove that limitation, which effectively makes 45W support a non-upgrade.
For most users, getting a 25W charger should be enough. The 10-minute advantage a 45W charger has in the final 10% of charge is too small to matter. Whichever you choose, the charger will be a separate purchase, as the box only comes with a USB-C cable. The included cable is a thicker USB-C cable that you get with the 45W charger, though the M55 charges at 45W with any Samsung cable that has USB-C connectors at both ends.
Verdict
The Galaxy M55 only manages to rise above other Samsung phones in the same price bracket because of the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 chip. This chip isn’t as powerful as the Galaxy A55’s Exynos 1480, but it’s more than enough for even the most demanding games and is better supported by game developers.
The rest of the phone is fine, but nothing spectacular. And for photography buffs, this phone is a strict no-no. The 50MP front camera doesn’t noticeably improve selfie quality, and the long time the camera takes to capture night mode shots, both in automatic mode and in the dedicated Night mode, makes it very undependable unless you only take photos outdoors during the day.
The M55 fits the bill for gaming enthusiasts looking for a phone with good performance and a price tag that doesn’t break the bank. But those who take lots of photos should stay away and get something like the Galaxy A35 or even last year’s Galaxy A54 instead.
Recently a story made headlines concerning a potential seller finding out just how bad Microcenter’s trade-in value is for a Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card.
The retailer only offered $700 for a card that’s currently priced at nearly $2000 on its own online store, less than half its original value. And keep in mind that this is a current-gen high-end component, easily the best graphics card out there right now, not something from two generations ago.
(Image credit: Wccftech / Mr. Biggie Smallz)
Of course, there are several factors involved in trade-in value, including the condition of the product in question. However, Wccftech reported that this was a simple look-up through Microcenter’s website, meaning that this value is the standard one. Compare this to what Newegg is offering, about $1,500 or over twice as much, and you see quite the discrepancy between the two amounts.
Microcenter is also a brick-and-mortar retailer unlike Newegg, which means its reach extends beyond online shoppers and to more casual shoppers who may not be aware of how terrible that trade-in amount is compared to its competitors. Which is something it shares with another massive chain that buys and sells used products — Gamestop.
Though far from its peak as the most popular chain gaming retailer in the US, Gamestop is still widely known and attracts plenty of customers, including casual shoppers who simply want to buy whatever’s the most popular game or console and are willing to trade in older used products for it.
Gamestop has always been infamous for just how little it offers customers for trade-ins, even becoming an internet meme, and yet despite that still attracts quite a bit of business. At one point, it was estimated that the retailer made nearly $1 billion in profit off the used trade-in market alone. The company earned 48 cents of gross profits from every dollar earned in its pre-owned games and consoles, which it accomplished by reselling purchased used products at a much higher price.
So when I see a large retailer offer such an abysmal trade-in value for a very recent product that it’s guaranteed to resale at a premium, I get flashbacks to a Gamestop employee cheerfully announcing to me that my combined trade-in value of Final Fantasy X and Madden 2005 would be just over $3.
Hopefully, news will spread and it will inform more buyers to shop for better prices rather than take Microcenter’s paltry offer, and maybe even dissuade Microcenter from trying to low-ball its customers like this. This is behavior that needs to be nipped in the bud now, before it poisons the well and makes it that much harder to sell and purchase used components in the future.
NVIDIA sees AI as a means of putting new tools into the hands of gamers and creators alike. NVIDIA Instant NeRF is one such tool, leveraging the power of NVIDIA’s GPUs to make complex 3D creations orders of magnitude easier to generate. Instant NeRF is an especially powerful tool in its ability to create these 3D scenes and objects.
In effect, NVIDIA Instant NeRF takes a series of 2D images, figures out how they overlap, and uses that knowledge to create an entire 3D scene. A NeRF (or Neural Radiance Field) isn’t a new thing, but the process to create one was not fast. By applying machine learning techniques to the process and specialized hardware, NVIDIA was able to make it much quicker, enough to be almost instant — thus Instant NeRF.
Being able to snap a series of photos or even record a video of a scene and then turn it into a freely explorable 3D environment offers a new realm of creative possibility for artists. It also provides a quick way to turn a real-world object into a 3D one.
Some artists are already realizing the potential of Instant NeRF. In a few artist showcases, NVIDIA highlights artists’ abilities to share historic artworks, capture memories, and allow viewers of the artworks to more fully immerse themselves in the scenes without being beholden to the original composition.
Karen X. Cheng explores the potential of this tool in her creation, Through the Looking Glass, which uses NVIDIA Instant NeRF to create the 3D scene through which her camera ventures, eventually slipping through a mirror into an inverted world.
Hugues Bruyère uses Instant NeRF in his creation, Zeus, to present a historic sculpture from the Royal Ontario Museum in a new way. This gives those who may never have a chance to see it in person the ability to view it from all angles nonetheless.
(Image credit: NVIDIA)
With tools like Instant NeRF, it’s clear that NVIDIA’s latest hardware has much more than just gamers in mind. With more and more dedicated AI power built into each chip, NVIDIA RTX GPUs are bringing new levels of AI performance to the table that can serve gamers and creators alike.
The same Tensor Cores that make it possible to infer what a 4K frame in a game would look like using a 1080p frame as a reference are also making it possible to infer what a fully fleshed out 3D scene would look like using a series of 2D images. And NVIDIA’s latest GPUs put those tools right into your hands.
Instant NeRF isn’t something you just get to hear about. It’s actually a tool you can try for yourself. Developers can dive right in with this guide, and less technical users can grab a simpler Windows installer here which even includes a demo photo set. Since Instant NeRF runs on RTX GPUs, it’s widely available, though the latest RTX 40 Series and RTX Ada GPUs can turn out results even faster.
The ability of NVIDIA’s hardware to accelerate AI is key to powering a new generation of AI PCs. Instant NeRF is just one of many examples of how NVIDIA’s GPUs are enabling new capabilities or dramatically speeding up existing tools. To help you explore the latest developments in AI and present them in an easy-to-understand format, NVIDIA has introduced the AI Decoded blog series. You can also see all the ways NVIDIA is boosting AI performance at NVIDIA’s RTX for AI page.
There are plenty of 6-inch ereaders, but there’s nothing quite like the Onyx Boox Palma. It mimics a smartphone’s design, right down to a rear camera, side buttons and a speaker on the top bezel.
With an aspect ratio of 2:1 on its 6.3-inch display as opposed to the roughly 4:3 (technically 8.9:6.7) of other 6-inch ereaders like the Amazon Kindle (2022) or the Kobo Clara 2E, the Palma doesn’t offer as much width while reading. It will, however, allow you to read in both landscape and portrait orientation, a feature that no other 6-inch ereader that I’ve tested offers.
If you’re someone who regularly reads on your phone only to suffer from eye fatigue, then the Palma is an easy switch to make. For others, the screen might feel too small and narrow. Still, its size is perfectly suited for reading on the go, and it’s remarkably lightweight too. To give it a little more grip, Onyx also has cases that resemble the ones you’d buy for your own phone.
Compared to a smartphone, the one thing the Palma really can’t do is make calls.
What it can do is get you access to the Google Play Store thanks to running on a lean version of Android 11. So you can download apps, including mobile games, news aggregators for RSS feeds, social media and even messaging apps. It’s got a speedy enough processor and a good amount of memory that allows those apps to run smoothly – although seeing them all displayed like black-and-white print takes a little getting used to.
There really is a case to be made for a device like this, but I think it’s a missed opportunity to not have added stylus support. That truly would have made the Palma unbeatable as a portable note-taking and digital reading device. I think there’s enough room for a stylus like Samsung’s S Pen to be added to the Palma; it would also make its price tag a little more palatable.
(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)
Onyx Boox Palma review: Price and availability
Released August 2023; available to buy now
List price of $279.99 / AU$499 (around £259)
Cases available as part of bundles
At $279.99 / AU$499 (around £259) with a case in the box, the Onyx Boox Palma is an expensive device compared to other 6-inch ereaders, but to be fair, there really is nothing on the market quite like the Palma to compare. Its novelty alone might be justification enough for some users to splurge, but it would have been easier to recommend if it came with stylus support.
Even though access to the Play Store makes this a more versatile ereader than 6-inch alternatives from Amazon and Kobo, and it comes with more storage and a bigger battery than what the aforementioned brands offer, it’s still hard to justify the price.
To compare, you can pick up the 2022 Kindle with 16GB of storage for $119.99 / £94.99 / AU$179 without ads at full price and the Kobo Clara BW for $129.99 / £119.99 / AU$239.95, with the latter getting you superior screen tech.
• Value score: 3.5 / 5
(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)
Onyx Boox Palma review: Specs
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Display type:
E Ink Carta 1200
Screen size:
6.13 inches (2:1 aspect ratio)
Resolution:
300ppi (824 x 1648 dots)
Processor:
Qualcomm Octacore 2GHz
System memory:
6GB RAM
Storage:
128GB (expandable via microSD)
Frontlight:
Moon Light 2 (warm and cold)
Camera:
16MP rear camera; LED flash
Battery:
3,950mAh
Water protection:
Unconfirmed rating
Software:
Android 11
Connectivity:
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0, USB-C
File support:
18 document, 4 image, 2 audio
Dimensions:
159 × 80 × 8 mm
Weight:
170g
Onyx Boox Palma review: Design and display
Smartphone-like looks with built-in speaker and flash
Very lightweight and comfortable to use
Rear 16MP camera not best for scanning
Available in both black and white colorways, the Onyx Boox Palma instantly gives up its ereader status thanks to its black-and-white screen. Out of the box you can tell it’s an e-paper display and it feels lighter than an iPhone or Samsung Galaxy handset of similar size.
The 6.13-inch E Ink Carta 1200 display is encased within a plastic body that features two buttons on the right edge (one for power and another for volume/page turns) as well as a customizable function button on the left. Above the function button is a microSD card tray that can add more storage to the 128GB already available on board, although Onyx doesn’t specify how much additional storage is supported. Considering the 6-inch Onyx Boox Poke 5 can support an additional 1TB microSD, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Palma can too.
The buttons and the card tray are silver on the white Palma colorway, adding a touch of color, but no such embellishments are on the black device. For this review, I was sent the white option.
The bottom edge has a USB-C port with OTG support, so you can plug a USB-C storage device directly into the Palma to access files. On either side of the charging port are what appear to be speaker grilles, although only one of them is for audio output, while the other is a mic. The latter might be handy for voice notes, but this device isn’t really intended for more common mic needs, like video or audio calls.
(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)
Another speaker is on the top bezel, just where you’d expect to see one on a smartphone, alongside a light sensor. The latter, however, doesn’t seem to be associated with the screen’s auto-brightness, but to enable the LED flash located on the rear. The flash can also act as a torch, which can be switched on via the Onyx Control Center accessible by swiping down from the top right corner of the screen.
Above the flash is a 16MP rear camera that can be used to scan documents and, unlike most phones, isn’t housed in a bump. So the device can lie flat on a table, which is nice. The rear plastic panel is also textured to add some grip, but Onyx has cases (the devices ships with one in the box as a bundle) that add to the heft if you’re after a little more security.
If you’ve been using a grayscale ereader already, you’re probably familiar with ones like the E Ink Carta 1200 used here, which is both responsive and sharp. What’s novel here is the screen’s 2:1 aspect ratio – there’s nothing like it among ereaders, and it’ll likely best suit those who like reading on their phone, but it will help reduce the eye fatigue that can occur when staring at an LCD or OLED display for long. I personally find my phone’s screen too small for reading, and I largely felt the same with the Palma, but I have to admit that this little tablet (can you really call it that?) is pocketable and perfect for reading on the go.
It’s also really light, tipping the scales at 170g without a microSD card, and comfortable to hold. That makes it the perfect travel companion, especially since its 128GB storage can store hundreds of books and audio files. Thanks to its all-plastic build, it might survive an accidental drop better than your phone, but there’s no waterproofing here, much like most other Onyx devices, which is another factor that makes the price point hard to justify.
• Design & display score: 4 / 5
(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)
Onyx Boox Palma review: User experience
Simpler interface than other Onyx devices but still complicated
Runs Android 11 with access to the Google Play Store
Built-in browser and music player
As with other Onyx Boox devices that were released in 2023, the Palma runs a very slimmed-down version of Android 11. Yes, that version’s a little outdated, but Onyx only moved up to Android 12 with the 2024 release of the Onyx Boox Note Air 3 and, in any case, you won’t be using an ereader for anything too financially or personally sensitive – well, I wouldn’t – so there’s probably no need to worry about security issues.
The operating system gives you access to the Google Play Store, available directly on the home screen via its icon. You can download almost any Android app, including the Kobo and Kindle apps so you can log into an existing account and purchase ebooks and other content. There’s also a native browser that will allow you to do the same via other stores.
You can even download a music streaming service like Spotify and listen without headphones – the Palma can get quite loud! Heck, you could even use a message app that works over Wi-Fi, but note that the device disconnects the moment it’s in Sleep mode, so it may not be the most ideal way to stay in touch with people.
(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)
You can set the volume button to turn pages back and forth, and the function button on the other side can fulfil three different actions from a list of 15 via either a short press, double click or a long press.
The floating toolbar in the native library app on other Onyx devices isn’t offered here, but that’s arguably a good call, as it takes up precious screen space that the Palma can’t spare. A lot of the other customizations I’ve found to be overkill on the other Onyx ereaders have also been trimmed down, and yet there’s still quite a lot going on here. You can customize the home screen widgets, just like on a phone, add a wallpaper, change the power-off image and add a screensaver. I would recommend not bothering with the wallpaper however, as it can affect the way the home screen widgets appear.
The display renders text well and reading on the Palma is a pleasure… provided you like reading on a small screen. Pinch-to-zoom is available, which means you can change font size in the native library app easily.
(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)
You can watch videos on this screen too and also adjust the refresh rate to be faster for specific apps, but don’t expect the refresh rate to match what you’d get from your phone. YouTube videos are, for the most part, fine to watch on the Palma, but it’s all obviously in black and white. It’s a similar situation with playing mobile games on the Palma – while it’s quite responsive and its processor handles graphics remarkably well, something that really impressed me, we can’t imagine wanting to use this for anything other than simple games (like puzzle, word or card games) without much animation.
What didn’t impress, however, was the uneven screen lighting. There are random bits throughout the screen that aren’t as bright as rest, which largely isn’t an issue while reading, but can make a difference if you’re, say, playing a game on the Palma. The Palma has the same Moon Light 2 tech used in other Onyx ereaders, and I’ve not had an issue with the smaller devices like the 6-inch Poke 5 and the Onyx Boox Page, so it’s a little surprising that the LEDs on the Palma aren’t as effective.
I would have also really liked to see stylus support here for writing and note-taking.
• User interface score: 4 / 5
Onyx Boox Palma review: Performance
Fast and responsive
Good refresh rates for most tasks
Handles graphics well
The Palma has a decent processor in the form of a 2GHz 8-core Qualcomm CPU with integrated graphics. That’s a phone-grade chip that’s plenty for most ereaders and, paired with 6GB of RAM, is enough to handle mobile games with some heavy graphics requirements. For example, I downloaded Sky: Children of the Light, which is a resonably graphics-intensive game and, despite the lack of colors, it was easy to play on the Palma. The device did get a little warm, but no more than what my iPhone 13 Max gets when playing the same game.
On-screen controls while playing were smooth, which is the same case when doing anything else that needs fast response times. Whether typing via the on-screen keyboard or navigating using gestures and taps, the display is responsive and peppy. I experienced no lag at any time during my weeks-long testing.
The Kobo Clara Colour alongside the Onyx Boox Palma (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)
Onyx has an array of refresh rates it offers on most of its devices, which I’ve previously said don’t do much to reduce ghosting. That thankfully wasn’t an issue on the Palma, as I experienced no ghosting while reading or when navigating between apps and screens.
As I’ve already mentioned, the speaker can get loud and doesn’t sound too bad – the sound quality and volume are similar to a lot of budget phones out there. I’d still pair a set of Bluetooth headphones with it though, as I personally like bass, which the Palma doesn’t offer much of. For listening to audiobooks and podcasts, however, that speaker is great.
Overall, the performance here is better than the brand’s own 6-inch Onyx Boox Poke 5 ereader, and a touch better than the 2022 Kindle or the Kobo Clara 2E. I’ve been testing the new Kobo Clara Colour alongside the Palma and, while I can’t compare the two devices as the screens are different, both devices are on par in speed and responsiveness.
The rear camera is intended to be used to scan documents; it isn’t meant for taking actual photos like a phone can, and there’s no native camera app. Unfortunately, it isn’t great at scanning. The included DocScan app lets you take photos, which you can edit and export as PDFs. There is also OCR (optical character recognition) available within DocScan to convert words within the image into text, but the final results were quite garbled and nonsensical in my testing. I think I’d stick with my iPhone for quick document scans instead.
(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)
Battery life is where most Onyx Boox tablets shine, and that’s the case here as well. If you’re just reading on the Palma for say, 30 minutes a day, you can easily eke out two months of reading, if not more, on a single charge – even with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on all the time. In my case, I used it to read, listen to music, play mobile games and browse the web, and I still got about 6 weeks of use, with the battery dropping to 20% from full – so I still had a ways to go before it ran dry.
Topping it up can take a while, depending on how low you let the battery level drop. It took over two hours to go from 30% to full when plugged into a 65W wall adapter and using a good quality USB cable, but then it is a larger battery than most such devices typically use. A progress notification is visible on the display when in Sleep mode as soon as you plug the Palma in for a charge.
(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)
Should I buy the Onyx Boox Palma?
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Attribute
Notes
Score
Value
There are cheaper 6-inch ereaders available and, without stylus support, it’s hard to justify the price tag.
3.5/5
Design & display
It’s a nice little ereader, particularly the white colorway, with a good display – I just wish it came with a built-in stylus.
4/5
User interface
It’s an easier Onyx UX here, which serves the Palma well.
4/5
Performance
Other than the DocScan app, it’s hard to fault the Palma’s performance.
4/5
Overall
It’s a great device – good size for travel, peppy performance and versatile too for an ereader. It is, however, expensive.
4/5
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
Also consider
It’s a little hard to compare the Onyx Boox Palma to other devices because it has no real counterparts. However, because it’s an ereader at heart, I’ve listed a few alternatives to consider if you’re not sold on the Palma.
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Header Cell – Column 0
Onyx Boox Palma
Amazon Kindle (2022)
Kobo Clara BW
Onyx Boox Poke 5
Price
$279.99 / AU$499 (around £259)
$119.99 / £94.99 / AU$179 (no ads)
$129.99 / £119.99 / AU$239.95
$169.99 / £169.99 / AU$289
Screen
6.3-inch E Ink Carta 1200
6-inch E Ink Carta 1200
6-inch E Ink Carta 1300
6-inch E Ink Carta Plus
Resolution
300ppi
300ppi
300ppi
300ppi
Operating system
Android 11
Linux based
Linux based
Android 11
Storage
128GB (expandable)
16GB
16GB
32GB (expandable)
CPU
Qualcomm 2GHz quad-core
1GHz
1GHz
Qualcomm 2GHz quad-core
Battery
3,950mAh
1,040mAh
1,500mAh
1,500mAh
Connectivity
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB-C
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB-C
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB-C
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB-C
Waterproofing
No
No
IPX8
No
File support (including audio and images)
24
17
16
21
Audio
Yes, built-in speaker
No
No
No
Dimensions
159 × 80 × 8 mm
157.8 x 108.6 x 8.0 mm
160 x 112 x 9.2 mm
148 × 108 × 6.8 mm
Weight
170g
158g
174g
160g
How I tested the Onyx Boox Palma
(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)
Used every day for three weeks, intermittently for a more extended period
Used it to read, listen to music and play mobile games
Downloaded other apps from the Play Store to use
I’ve had the Onyx Boox Palma for a couple of months now and have used it on and off since it arrived. However, for the purposes of this review, I used it every single day for about three weeks to read, listen to music and audiobooks, and download apps from the Play Store.
These included the Kindle and Kobo apps so I could access my existing libraries on both platforms, but I also sideloaded some ebook titles to read via the native library application. The other apps I used were Dropbox and a notes application.
To test the device’s performance, I also downloaded a graphics-intensive mobile game and played it for about 20 minutes. The other content I had on the Palma included music files so I could test the native player, as well as the speaker performance.
To test the rear camera’s performance, I used it to scan a printout and a page from an appliance manual. I also tried the OCR feature on both and tested how easy it is to export or share these documents.
Panic is celebrating Playdate’s second birthday this month, and the party favors include some piping-hot statistics about Catalog game sales.
Playdate hit the market in April 2022 with 24 free games. Its Catalog store went live in March 2023, offering 16 curated games for purchase directly on the device. Panic has added more titles to Catalog on a bi-weekly basis for the past year, and the marketplace today has 181 games and apps. More than 150,000 games have been sold on Catalog, giving developers $544,290 in gross revenue — that’s after taxes, processing fees and Panic’s 25 percent cut.
Panic
The average price of a Playdate Catalog game is $5.36. The average install size is 5.03MB, while the smallest Catalog game is 30.1KB and the largest is 107MB. Playdate ships with 4GB of flash storage. It also has 16GB of RAM, an accelerometer, a 400 x 240 1-bit display, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities, a mono speaker, and a condenser mic and stereo headphone jack. Oh, and it has a delightful little crank.
The figures Panic shared today cover Catalog purchases, which means they only tell part of the story. While Catalog has just under 200 titles, there are more than 800 Playdate games and apps available on itch.io alone, and the community there is active and vibrant. As I described in our Playdate retrospective published last week, browsing the device’s itch.io page feels like “hanging out in a friendly underground clubhouse populated by crank-obsessed video game freaks.” But, like, in a great way.
This is the first time Panic has publicly shared data about Playdate game sales or its revenue-share model. The 25 percent cut that Panic takes is less than the standard set by Steam, which gets 30 percent of most game sales, but it’s more than split on the Epic Games Store, which reserves 12 percent for Epic.
Playdate costs $199 and there’s an optional teal cover available for $30. Panic has also been teasing the Stereo Dock — an adorable Playdate charging station, Bluetooth speaker and pen holder — for more than two years, but the accessory is still “coming soon.” There’s no word on a price or release window for the Stereo Dock, but Playdate Project Lead Greg Maletic recently told Engadget to expect an update in the coming months.
“We apologize to everyone with a Playdate who has been waiting patiently for the Stereo Dock; it’s been a trickier project than we anticipated and we had a few false starts,” Maletic said. “We thought we’d save some time on that project by having our factory do the software for the Stereo Dock, but we’ve learned that you don’t always necessarily want that in some cases. The Stereo Dock is very much alive, we have the physical prototypes to prove it! We expect to have a formal update on when you can buy one later this year.”
Panic
More than 70,000 Playdates have been sold in the past two years and a little more than half of all owners have purchased a Catalog game, according to Panic.
The working week ends here, for some people at least – but you’re not allowed to down tools and start relaxing until you’ve solved today’s Strands puzzle. OK, that’s not an official requirement – no, I don’t have the power to compel people to play – but it’ll get your brain working ahead of that last day of work.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to know the answers.
Your Strands expert
Your Strands expert
Marc McLaren
NYT Strands today (game #47) – hint #1 – today’s theme
What is the theme of today’s NYT Strands?
• Today’s NYT Strands theme is… Get to work!
NYT Strands today (game #47) – hint #2 – clue words
What are some good clue words today?
Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.
• SUIT
• TRACE
• FATE
• WATER
• SWORE
• SORT
NYT Strands today (game #47) – hint #3 – spangram
What is a hint for today’s spangram?
• Entertainment on the go
NYT Strands today (game #47) – hint #4 – spangram position
Where does today’s spangram start and end?
• Start: bottom, 3rd column
• End: top, 5th column
Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE THEM.
NYT Strands today (game #47) – the answers
(Image credit: New York Times)
The answers to today’s Strands, game #47, are…
MUSIC
NEWS
WEATHER
SPORTS
TRAFFIC
COMEDY
TALK
SPANGRAM: DRIVETIME
My rating: Hard
My score: Perfect
I’ve marked this one as hard, because I really, really struggled to find a couple of answers, including the spangram. The theme hint – Go to work! – is fairly obtuse, and the first couple of answers I turned up (MUSIC, NEWS) didn’t take me much further.
I could see it was something to do with the media, but nothing more. It was only when I uncovered WEATHER and SPORTS that I started getting a clearer idea. But there my game stalled.
I returned to it after a break and with fresh eyes spotted DRIVETIME, reading ‘backwards’ from the bottom up. Even with that in place it still took me a while to spot COMEDY, which I would never have considered to be a part of the drivetime menu. Still, I got there in the end.
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Yesterday’s NYT Strands answers (Thursday 18 April, game #46)
THREAD
NEEDLE
STITCH
THIMBLE
SEAM
CLOTH
PATCH
SPANGRAM: TAILORING
What is NYT Strands?
Strands is the NYT’s new word game, following Wordle and Connections. It’s currently in Beta and can be played on the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.
I’ve got a full guide to how to play NYT Strands, complete with tips for solving it, so check that out if you’re struggling to beat it each day.
The AI auto-generates channel recaps to give people key highlights of stuff they missed while away from the keyboard or smartphone, for keeping track of important work stuff and office in-jokes. Slack says the algorithm that generates these recaps is smart enough to pull content from the various topics discussed in the channel. This means that you’ll get a paragraph on how plans are going for Jenny’s cake party in the conference room and another on sales trends or whatever.
There’s something similar available for threads, which are smaller conversations between one or a few people. The tool will recap any of these threads into a short paragraph. Customers can also opt into a daily recap for any channel or thread, delivered each morning.
Slack
Another interesting feature is conversational search. The various Slack channels stretch on forever and it can be tough to find the right chat when necessary. This allows people to ask questions using natural language, with the algorithm doing the actual searching.
These tools aren’t just for English speakers, as Slack AI now offers Japanese and Spanish language support. Slack says it’ll soon integrate some of its most-used third-party apps into the AI ecosystem. To that end, integration with Salesforce’s Einstein Copilot is coming in the near future.
It remains to be seen if these tools will actually be helpful or if they’re just more excuses to put the letters “AI” in promotional materials. I’ve been on Slack a long time and I haven’t encountered too many scenarios in which I’d need a series of auto-generated recaps, as longer conversations are typically relegated to one-on-one meetings, emails or video streams. However, maybe this will change how people use the service.
Sunny, a mystery thriller with a darkly comic bent, will premiere on Apple TV+ this summer. The series will star Rashida Jones and a robot.
The two will work together in an attempt to locate the woman’s missing family.
Sunny will be a mystery/thriller/dark comedy
As a computer-maker, it really shouldn’t surprise anyone that Apple’s streaming video service includes plenty of sci-fi. Silo and Foundation stand out as two excellent examples. Some of the series mix sci-fi into everyday life, like Severance and The Big Door Prize.
That’s the approach that Sunny is taking. As Apple TV+ says:
Sunny stars Jones as Suzie, an American woman living in Kyoto, Japan, whose life is upended when her husband and son disappear in a mysterious plane crash. As “consolation” she’s given Sunny, one of a new class of domestic robots made by her husband’s electronics company. Though at first, Suzie resents Sunny’s attempts to fill the void in her life, gradually they develop an unexpected friendship. Together they uncover the dark truth of what really happened to Suzie’s family and become dangerously enmeshed in a world Suzie never knew existed.
Emmy-nominee Rashida Jones has been part of multiple Apple TV+ projects. She’s in Silo and Sofia Coppola’s acclaimed film On the Rocks. But she’s perhaps best known for her time on NBC’s Parks and Recreation.
Sunny was created by Katie Robbins (The Affair, The Last Tycoon), who’s also the showrunner, and Lucy Tcherniak (Station Eleven, The End of the F***ing World), who is also the director.
There’s no better place than Japan to set a TV series with a robot as a central character. Photo: Apple TV+
On Apple TV+ this summer
The 10-episode series will premier globally on Apple’s streaming service with the first two episodes on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. Apple TV+ will release new episodes every Wednesday through September 4.
Watching Sunny will come with a subscription to Apple TV+. The service is $9.99 per month with a seven-day free trial. You can also access it via any tier of the Apple One subscription bundle.
And Apple’s streaming video service also includes much more, of course. There’s a library of drama, comedies, sci-fi, musicals, children’s shows, nature documentaries, etc.
