Phone Repair Guru on YouTube recently compared the process of replacing the battery on Samsung’s new Galaxy Buds 3 Pro and Apple’s AirPods Pro. While both use a very similar design and internals, Apple’s approach was, to say the least, extremely unfriendly for repairing.

Apple’s AirPods Pro offer an IPX4 rating whereas the Buds 3 Pro offer IP57. Here, IP57 is a bit more protective as it provides protection against dust and water immersion up to 1m for 30 minutes. Despite this, Samsung’s Buds 3 Pro is much more repairable than Apple’s AirPods Pro, completely negating Apple’s claims:

Designing for repairability

This may not appear as a friendly contest since Apple has released its 2nd Generation AirPods Pro. However, even they suffer from more of the same problems and land another 0/10 in iFixit’s book. Adding insult to injury, their IP54 rating does not protect against water immersion.

Here’s how both devices compare in their disassembly process:

The AirPods Pro: A Gluey Mess

First things first, in order to access the battery, users need to open the AirPods through heating. Using a clamp specifically designed for AirPods, which mind you, also fits the Buds 3 Pro (we wonder why), the glue loosened and the stems came apart, to some extent. But here’s where things start to get worse.

Apple’s connectors are so tiny and hard to remove that this repair would be impossible without a special micro soldering station. Here’s our first problem, removing the Bluetooth module’s ribbon cable. The not-so-fun part is that Apple has used glue to keep the ribbon cable in place, to prevent water damage, we presume. One wrong step, and you may end up with a broken pin or cable.

After a lot of alcohol and heat, the ribbon cable finally came off. Oh don’t worry, it gets even more difficult. Apparently, the entire earpiece is engulfed in some white adhesive, again for water resistance we guess. After that is painstakingly taken off, your next job is to remove the speaker from the battery — by desoldering it.

Once the speaker and battery have been desoldered, the battery is popped out with a tweezer. It almost feels like this product wasn’t made with repairability in mind. Don’t take our word for it, iFixit gives the AirPods 2 Pro, which is supposed to be an improvement over the originals, a 0/10 in the repairability score.

“Personalized spatial audio can give you a great audio experience but can it mute the guilt of wearing unrepairable future e-waste?“

iFixit

You can imagine how hard it would be to connect the new battery. The repair afterward involved soldering millimeter-wide connections, with zero margin of error, doing everything in reverse, and hoping that these AirPods just work, provided if you didn’t break any connections.

Over to You Samsung

While we don’t usually compare aesthetics, Samsung’s Galaxy Buds 3 Pro looks awfully inspired by Apple’s AirPods. Not to say that’s a bad thing, especially when they could make Apple rethink their stance on repairability.

The case was rather easy to disassemble. You’re practically a few Phillips screws away from removing the case battery and inserting a new one. The one thing that isn’t easily repairable is the Type-C port which is soldered, one point to Apple for that, but you can make do if you know how to solder.

Moving over to the Buds themselves, we hope you remember the steps involved with the AirPods Pro. Let’s compare them against the Buds 3 Pro. Using the same clamp and some heated air, the stems came off partially. The one downside is that the stems are glued together, so when reassembling, you’ll have to glue them back.

The ribbon cable clips out easily, as there is no adhesive involved. Since we’re doing a battery replacement, yes, there will be some desoldering but that’s it. You won’t need a micro soldering station and hands with 100% precision and accuracy to repair these, unlike the AirPods Pro.

On loosening up just 2 solder joints, you can pry the battery open and voilà. If you’re careful and don’t damage the protective layer on the flex cable, this repair could potentially retain Samsung’s advertised IP57 rating.

Conclusion

Samsung is not exactly renowned for its support of the Right to Repair (1) (2), but it is good to see that its actions may push Apple to do better. If the giants in our industry make devices easier to repair, this paves the way for smaller brands and promotes a repair-friendly ecosystem.

Do you believe Apple’s next-generation AirPods will improve repairability? Moreover, how long will it take until we see mobile phones with swappable batteries like in the good old days? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.

Source: Phone Repair Guru – AirPods Pro, Galaxy Buds 3 Pro

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8C/8T Lunar Lake-MX CPU Smokes 10C/12T Meteor Lake-U Counterpart Despite Lacking Hyperthreading

Lunar Lake comes tailored for different TDP levels, 8W (No Fan) and 17W (Single Fan) being the currently known configurations per leaked information. Bionic_Squash reports that Intel has given leverage to OEMs by extending the cTDP from 17W to 30W, depending on the chosen cooling solution.

At 17W, single-fan-equipped Lunar Lake-MX systems can be considered the direct successor to 15W Meteor Lake-U offerings. To that end, Bionic_Squash claims that a Lunar Lake sample at 17W was found to be 1.5x faster in multi-threaded workloads than a similar 15W Meteor Lake-U CPU.

The user has not shared any verifiable information, so take this with a grain of salt. Moreover, this report is based on synthetic testing in Cinebench R23 and GeekBench 5.4.5. Real-world performance can vary slightly.

The relevant Meteor Lake-U CPU hosts 2P and 8E cores alongside 12 threads. Meanwhile, Lunar Lake only has 4P and 4E cores with just 8 threads (no HT). Despite featuring 1.5x more threads, Meteor Lake sees Lunar Lake in the lead by a whopping 1.5x.

Lunar Lake: What Do We Know So Far

Based on yesterday’s leak from MLID, Intel is ready to launch Lunar Lake no later than Q4 2024. In fact, it may even hit shelves before Arrow Lake if plans go accordingly.

• Lunar Lake
• Up to 4 Lion-Cove P Cores and 4 Skymont E Cores with no SMT
• 8 Xe2 (Battlemage) iGPU Cores
• Support for On Package LPDDR5x-8533 Memory
• CPU+GFX Tile Built Using TSMC’s N3B Node
• SoC Tile Built Using Intel 18A
• Next-Gen NPU 4.0
• Support for WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4
• 40% Efficiency Uplift Touted
• 2.5 TFLOPS (12W) | 3.8 TFLOPS (Peak Performance)

It is becoming evident that Intel has significantly revamped the underlying architecture with ARL and LNL. Removing Hyperthreading, thus far, hasn’t actually yielded any noticeable setbacks, even in benchmarks.

Since this is probably an Engineering Sample, the performance is expected to improve as time goes on. In light of recent rumors, do you have high expectations from Intel this year? Tell us in the comments.

Source: Bionic_Squash

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Arrow Lake to Offer 25-35% Performance than MTL at Same Core Counts

Arrow Lake is expected to launch in late 2024, hailing as the successor to Raptor Lake Refresh. Since Arrow Lake is seeing a significant architectural revamp, Intel has decided to axe hyperthreading from these CPUs.

Basically, for each core, you will only have one thread available. Despite this setback, Arrow Lake can deliver (reportedly) 25-35% better performance than Meteor Lake. Moreover, the same source alleges that this is enough to beat Zen5 in raw performance.

However, Arrow Lake’s NPU can only output 13 TOPS of performance, comparable to Meteor Lake. A second source confirms much of the same. Lunar Lake is expected to deliver above 40 TOPS, in the ballpark of AMD’s Strix offerings.

• Arrow Lake
• Intel 20A + TSMC N3B Process Nodes
• Lion Cove P-Core + Skymont E-Core architectures
• Up to 24 Cores / 24 Threads
• No Hyperthreading
• Supported on the LGA 1851 Socket
• Support for DDR5-6400 Memory (JEDEC)
• Launch Expected in H2 2024

Lunar Lake ‘Firmly’ Targeting Q4 2024 Launch: Same or Better iGPU Performance than MTL at Half the Power

MLID alleges that Lunar Lake, Intel’s go-to LP platform for 2024–25, is on schedule for a late 2024 launch. Apparently, it may arrive before Arrow Lake, provided that AXG (Intel’s Graphics Division) can iron out drivers for Battlemage.

Packed with 8 Xe-Cores based on Battlemage, Intel is expecting performance similar to Meteor Lake, at half the power level. Moreover, Arrow Lake’s mobile variants will use a modified version of Alchemist, named Alchemist+. The desktop variants will stick with the good old Alchemist, the one you see in Meteor Lake.

Given the expectations from Lunar Lake, it could very well be a handheld beast. The only factor remaining is the driver performance, which we cannot say much about for now.

• Lunar Lake
• Up to 4 Lion-Cove P Cores and 4 Skymont E Cores with no SMT
• 8 Xe2 (Battlemage) iGPU Cores
• Support for On Package LPDDR5x-8533 Memory
• CPU+GFX Tile Built Using TSMC’s N3B Node
• SoC Tile Built Using Intel 18A
• Next-Gen NPU 4.0
• Support for WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4
• 40% Efficiency Uplift Touted
• 2.5 TFLOPS (12W) | 3.8 TFLOPS (Peak Performance)

Summary

Intel’s lineup looks packed this year and initial reports indicate almost no delays. Arrow Lake is slated to launch in very late 2024 and might just be a paper launch, pushed into 2025.

Since both AMD and Intel should deliver identical performance, the only determining factor is cost. Can Intel undercut AMD this time around? AMD is still opting for TSMC’s N4 node, whereas Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake heavily make use of TSMC’s new N3 process.

Source: MLID

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While not being a full-fledged reveal or announcement, we can get a glimpse of what’s coming from Team Blue. Moreover, AMD will host a similar event a day earlier on the 3rd of June where we’ll hear more about Zen5 from Dr. Lisa Su.

Intel to Host Keynote at Computex 2024: AI-Acceleration in Intel Xeon, Intel Gaudi, and Intel Core Ultra Families

Following Computex’s general theme of AI, the focal point of this keynote will be Intel’s vision of AI for everyone. With the introduction of its own NPU, Intel is looking to make strides in the AI market, seeing NVIDIA’s success.

The event focuses on Intel’s AI portfolio including data center Xeons, Gaudi Accelerators and Core Ultra CPUs for the mainstream market. A key takeaway should be Arrow Lake’s NPU performance. If we’re lucky, we might even see a Lunar Lake sample in action as well.

• Arrow Lake
• Intel 20A + TSMC N3B Process Nodes
• Lion Cove P-Core + Skymont E-Core architectures
• Up to 24 Cores / 24 Threads
• No Hyperthreading
• Supported on the LGA 1851 Socket
• Support for DDR5-6400 Memory (JEDEC)
• Launch Expected in H2 2024

Aside from the consumer market, efficiency improvements offered by next-gen Xeon processors will also be highlighted. This is a given since Granite Rapids, tipped to offer 132 P-Cores, is built using a refined Intel 3 process with a significant performance/watt lead over Intel 4.

• Granite Rapids
• Intel 3 Process Node
• Redwood Cove P-Core architecture
• Up to 132 Cores (AP) or 88 Cores (SP)
• Support for DDR5-6400 Memory (12 Channel)
• Launch Expected sometime in 2024

The event is set to take place from the 4th of June to the 7th at Nangang Exhibition Center Halls 1 and 2 at Taipei, Taiwan. Apart from Intel, other notable presenters include AMD, Qualcomm, MediaTek, NXP, Supermicro, and Delta who will share their goals and ambitions in the field of Artificial Intelligence.

Source: COMPUTEX

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A55’s Exynos 1480 is a Huge Step Up from its Predecessor, the Exynos 1380

One of the major changes made to the A55 is the SoC, which is the Exynos 1480. This chipset is a huge step up from its predecessor, the Exynos 1380. In comparison to Qualcomm, it delivers performance equivalent to that of the Snapdragon 778G, a chipset that is now three years old.

This time, the Exynos 1480 has been captured in early benchmarks, and the performance metrics have shown significant improvements. Manufactured on Samsung’s 4nm (4LPP) process node, the SoC features an octa-core configuration, comprising 4x Cortex-A78 cores clocked at 2.75GHz and another 4x Cortex-A55 cores operating at 2.05GHz.

Benchmarks & Comparison

YouTuber MadCoby recently put the Samsung Galaxy A55 through its paces, and the new SoC delivered promising results. On Geekbench 6, the phone achieved a single-core score of 1,161 and a multi-core score of 3,398. These figures represent an impressive 18.5% and 22.7% improvement, respectively, compared to previous benchmarks.

On AnTuTu, the A55 scored a decent 713,993 points, showcasing a 20.4% increase in benchmark scores. For the CPU’s thermal efficiency, it was tested through a 15-minute CPU throttling test, where it maintained a relatively stable temperature without any sudden drops.

As for the GPU, the A55 uses Samsung’s Xclipse 530 GPU, based on the RDNA 2 architecture. This GPU unit notably outperforms the Mali-G68 found in the A54. In Geekbench 6 GPU Compute Score, the Xclipse 530 showed a significant 31.4% improvement over the Mali-G68.

This is all we know for now, but rest assured that we will keep you updated as new information becomes available.

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Apple’s Roadmap for Sixteen Upcoming Devices Leaked in New Report

Within the list of sixteen devices, eight were reported to feature existing Apple silicon, including the A17 Pro (7th generation iPad mini), M2 (6th generation iPad Air), and A14 Bionic (11th generation iPad). The remaining eight devices were allegedly reported to sport upcoming hardware, which isn’t really too hard to guess. The M4 will succeed the M3, and the A17 Pro would serve as the predecessor to the A18 Pro.

The iPhone 16 lineup, which is most likely to be announced in the second half of this year, will come with the new A18 chips across the board. For reference, each iteration of iPhones for the past few years has come with different chipset configurations within the same line. The Pros get the new SoCs, while the vanilla models get last year’s Pros’ chips.

Likewise, the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max come with A17 Pro, whereas the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus use the year-old A16 Bionic. For the iPhone 16 series, the Pros might use the “A18 Pro” moniker, but the base variants will likely stick to something like the A18 or A18 Bionic.

The M4 Might Be Apple’s Way of Justifying iPad Pros’ Price Hike

The general expectation for the upcoming OLED iPads was that they would share the M3 chip with the new MacBook Air M3, both of which are expected to be released this month. However, this leak suggests the possibility that the new iPad might use the M4 chip. It’s important to note that these iPads are expected to come with a price tag nearly double that of their last-generation counterparts.

Given the significant price discrepancy, Apple might resort to marketing strategies to justify the potential price hike. For reference, the 11-inch model is expected to start at $1500, while the larger 13-inch variant is expected to be priced around $1800.

This is all we know for now, but rest assured that we will keep you updated as new information becomes available.

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Qualcomm Expects to Utilize a Multi-Foundry Approach for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5

The report indicates that Qualcomm may adopt a multi-foundry strategy next year to manufacture the next generation of Snapdragon chips. Previously, Samsung fabricated Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon SoCs, including the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. However, due to concerns about overheating and inefficiency, Qualcomm switched to TSMC, which has been their exclusive foundry partner since then.

This pattern could change next year. Not only is Samsung expected to excel as a mobile manufacturer again, but its foundry division might also make a comeback. While the standard Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 is reportedly slated for fabrication on TSMC’s 3nm N3E process node, the “For Galaxy” variant specifically designed for Samsung’s flagship phones could utilize a 2nm variant produced by Samsung Foundry on their SF2P node.

Will Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 See a Generational Gap Within the Same Lineup?

If the above leaks are considered to be accurate, a nodal jump from 3nm to 2nm within the same year in the same generation of SoC seems highly unlikely. If done, it might be hard for Qualcomm to justify this level of discrepancy to its other clients, especially at a sensitive time like this when competition is picking up from the likes of MediaTek and Google (with the expected improvement in Tensor G5 to match other flagship SoCs).

Since this, like other news, is simply an early leak, we’d advise our readers to take this news with a pinch of salt until stronger patterns or leaks surface online later. This is all we know for now, but rest assured that we will keep you updated as new information becomes available.

via: Revegnus

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Samsung Had to Reconsider the Headset Hardware After the Release of Apple’s Vision Pro

Samsung has been planning on launching its own version of an XR headset for quite some time now, but the release of Apple’s Vision Pro inadvertently postponed its launch, since the original hardware specifications were considered inferior to the Vision Pro.

The design and hardware have undergone significant changes, and now appear to be well-suited for the target market. Reports indicate that the headset will be priced somewhere between $500 (Meta Quest 3) and $3,500 (Apple Vision Pro), potentially settling around $2,000, which would directly compete with Meta’s Quest Pro series.

Due to the hardware re-evaluation, Samsung not only increased the raw processing power but also addressed the visual aspects of the headset. Initially, it offered a lower-resolution 2,000 PPI single-eye display compared to Apple’s 3,386 PPI display, and it also lacked behind in the chipset department, using the older, less powerful Exynos 2200 compared to Apple’s dual-chip M2 and R1 combination.

The revised specifications include Qualcomm’s recently released Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chipset, paired with displays offering a 90Hz refresh rate at 4.3K resolution and 120Hz at 3.7K resolution. This chipset is the direct successor to the XR2 Gen 2 found in the Meta Quest 3. Since we don’t have complete performance numbers at this point, we can’t directly compare the XR2+ Gen 2 with the M2.

Samsung’s XR headset has now entered mass production and targets a release around the last quarter of this year. The company forecasts selling around 300,000 units in 2024. The release of the Vision Pro has undoubtedly raised a lot of eyebrows, with multiple companies now vying to push for a place within this rapidly emerging green field market.

This is all we know for now, but rest assured that we will keep you updated as new information becomes available.

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Intel Lunar Lake to Use TSMC’s N3B Process

A small press session was held after the IFS Direct event, where CEO of Intel, Pat Gelsinger confirmed Intel’s partnership with TSMC to produce Lunar Lake. For the unaware, Lunar Lake is the successor to Meteor Lake and targets the ever-growing 15W laptop segment.

Gelsinger also confirmed the expansion of orders to TSMC, confirming that TSMC will hold orders for Intel’s Arrow and Lunar Lake CPU, GPU, and NPU chips this year, and will produce them using the N3B process, officially ushering in the Intel notebook platform that the outside world has been waiting for for many years. CPU orders.

Pat Gelsinger (Translated)

If we take Pat’s (translated) wording literally, it would imply that the entire Lunar Lake package is built on TSMC’s N3B node. However, Intel’s own slides indicate that Lunar Lake will be a mix of external nodes plus the bleeding-edge 18A node.

The modular design (Foveros) enables them to tackle this obstacle by contracting TSMC with almost all of Lunar Lake. Investors and consumers want reliable products out as fast as possible. If they wait a quarter or two should they choose to design everything using IFS, they’ll have to play catch up once more.

It will be quite interesting to see 18A in action since Lunar Lake is said to arrive by late 2024. As 18A is a 1.8nm equivalent process, odds would be in Intel’s favor as they’d have the most advanced node, if Lunar Lake releases on time.

Lunar Lake: Everything We Know So Far

Lunar Lake succeeds Meteor Lake by offering a substantial architectural uplifts. On the CPU side of things, we have up to 8 Lion Cove and Skymont cores, with no support for hyperthreading. The iGPU has been upgraded from Xe-LPG to Xe2-LPG (8 Xe Cores), also known as Battlemage.

Memory-wise, support for LPDDR5x-8533 memory is rumored. The ‘MX‘ in Lunar Lake-MX indicates packaged memory, that is, the RAM will be directly soldered on to the CPU package, with capacities starting from 16GB.

• Up to 4 Lion-Cove P Cores and 4 Skymont E Cores with no SMT
• 8 Xe2 (Battlemage) iGPU Cores
• Support for On Package LPDDR5x-8533 Memory
• CPU+GFX Tile Built Using TSMC’s N3B Node
• SoC Tile Built Using Intel 18A
• Next-Gen NPU 4.0
• Support for WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4
• 40% Efficiency Uplift Touted
• 2.5 TFLOPS (12W) | 3.8 TFLOPS (Peak Performance)

Lunar Lake’s design is significantly different from Meteor Lake, in a sense that it only features 2 Tiles; CPU+GFX, SoC. This CPU+GFX Tile will verly likely manufactured be using TSMC N3B, as indicated by documentation. Put two and two together, the SoC tile is then left to be fabricated using Intel 18A. Read more about Lunar Lake here.

Source: ChinaTimes

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Meet the NVIDIA App: A Merger of Control Panel and GeForce Experience With a Modern Interface

NVIDIA App is designed for both desktop and mobile, featuring all the bells and whistles a modern and attractive UI. This app integrates the NVIDIA Control Panel, GeForce Experience, and RTX Apps into a unified package.

While this is a nice and much-anticipated update, we’re surprised it took NVIDIA this long. It is unanimously agreed upon that NVIDIA’s Control Panel looks like a relic from the Windows Vista era.

Besides the Control Panel, you’d need to install a separate app called GeForce Experience which is (was) NVIDIA’s answer to AMD’s Adrenalin. Firstly, you have the stark UI difference between both. Secondly, GeForce Experience required users to create an account, which did not bode well with some members of the community.

Now, NVIDIA users can manage all options, games, and settings within a single software. From the initial images, the interface strikes a resemblance to GeForce Experience with 5 unique tabs; Home, Drivers, Graphics, Redeem and Settings.

NVIDIA App no longer requires users to create an NVIDIA account and provides options top install other NVIDIA apps such as Omniverse.

In-Game Overlay Updates: Enhanced and Simplified UI & RTX HDR

Not only that, but NVIDIA’s in-game overlay has also seen a visual overhaul. While many of the options remain the same, the interface has been made simpler and easier to navigate. You have your typical options like Recording, Instant Replay, Photo Mode, Highlights, Game Filters etcetera.

In the same section, we have in-game statistics which allow users to monitor the FPS, GPU Clocks/Voltages, Latency and whatnot.

RTX HDR is also a key element of the in-game overlay software stack, which actually acts as a filter. It is recommended that you have an HDR-supported monitor to fully utilize this feature. From what we can see, the uplift in visual fidelity difference is quite huge.

Availability

The NVIDIA App is currently in Beta and is available for download here. NVIDIA’s latest 551.61 driver is optimized for this tool, so you can give that a look as well. Being in Beta, the software is still experimental and is missing quite a lot of features. Are you willing to give the NVIDIA App a try? Tell us in the comments.

Source: NVIDIA, Videocardz

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