Tag Archives: iPad

The best laptops and tablets to give as holiday gifts in 2022

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If you’re thinking of getting a laptop or tablet as a gift, you’ve got a wealth of options. Thanks to the latest round of hardware from Intel, Apple, AMD and NVIDIA, all of our portable devices have gotten faster and more efficient. Even the cheapest iPad can be a decent productivity machine, while gaming laptops can almost match the power of their desktop siblings. And now that Windows 11 has proven very stable over the past year, it's a perfect time to give someone a nifty PC upgrade.

Dell XPS 13

Dell XPS 13
Will Lipman Photography for Engadget

Not to sound like a broken record, but the XPS 13 is still one of the best Windows ultraportables you can buy. This year, Dell also streamlined its design to be even slimmer and lighter than before. The result is a laptop that’s easy to carry all day, and a joy to behold thanks to its incredibly thin screen bezels. It’s been upgraded to lower-wattage Intel 12th-gen processors, which is a boon for battery life without sacrificing much performance. The XPS 13 can also be configured with an OLED screen, an ideal gift for someone who could use a bright and color accurate display. If you’re looking for better performance and even more striking design, Dell’s new XPS 13 Plus is also a great gift option. For most users, though, the standard XPS 13 will still be a fantastic laptop.

Shop XPS 13 models at Dell

Apple MacBook Air (M2, 2022)

Apple MacBook Air M2
Will Lipman Photography for Engadget

Apple’s successor to the miraculous M1 MacBook Air is even more impressive, thanks to its thinner design, larger 13.6-inch screen, and a rocking quad-speaker setup. If you were feeling a bit bored by Apple’s older design, this is the upgrade you’ve been waiting for. While it’s still fan-less, the M2 MacBook Air remains one of the fastest ultraportables around. It’ll handle all of your productivity tasks, and even a bit of media creation, without breaking a sweat. And if you’re looking for more of a deal, Apple’s M1 MacBook Air is still a very compelling laptop, especially when it goes on sale.

Buy MacBook Air M2 at Amazon - $1,199

Apple iPad

Apple iPad
Will Lipman Photography for Engadget

Apple’s newest iPad has basically a stripped down iPad Air: It has a new flat-edged design, a faster processor and a more convenient front-facing camera. Starting at $449, it’s a great deal more expensive than the previous model, but all of the upgrades also make it far more future proof. And if you pair the iPad with Apple’s new Magic Keyboard Folio, it can even tackle basic typing, email and productivity work. If you can’t stomach the higher price (or the $250 keyboard accessory), last year’s $329 model is a fantastic deal. It’s fast enough for most users, and it also has a few keyboard accessories for writers.

Buy iPad (9th gen) at Amazon - $329Buy iPad (10th gen) at Amazon - $449

Amazon Fire HD 10

Amazon Fire HD 10
Will Lipman Photography for Engadget

Amazon's Fire tablets are basically just video-first Android slates, but they also prove you don’t have to pay a ton to buy a useful tablet for someone. Last year’s Fire HD 10 is a bit faster than before, has 50 percent more memory and features a slightly brighter screen. And, as a bonus, there's a Bluetooth keyboard accessory that can turn it into a cheap productivity tablet. But its core selling point is the same as always: it can tackle most tablet tasks easily, and it won’t cost too much. (There are also kid-centric Fire tablets worth considering, which come with a more durable case and two years worth of free replacements.)

Buy Fire HD 10 at Amazon - $150

Razer Blade 15

Razer Blade 15
Will Lipman Photography for Engadget

You can take all of the praise we've given Razer's Blade 15 over the years and apply it to the latest model. Razer's flagship gaming notebook still has a sleek unibody aluminum case, and it packs in the latest CPUs and GPUs, including NVIDIA's top-end RTX 3080. And thanks to improved screen choices, you can also gift models with fast 1,440p displays, which require less horsepowerpower to run than 4K screens. If portability is a greater concern, take a look at the Razer Blade 14, a sub-four-pound notebook sporting AMD's latest processors.

Buy Razer Blade 15 at Amazon - $3,000

ASUS Zephyrus G14

ASUS Zephyrus G14
Will Lipman Photography for Engadget

ASUS’s excellent Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop is back, and this time it finally has a webcam. (That fixes our one main flaw with the original model.) The G14 remains one of the best 14-inch gaming laptops around, with the power of AMD’s Ryzen 9 6900HS chip and either Radeon 6700S or 6800S graphics. That’s pretty impressive for a computer that starts at just 3.6 pounds. You can choose between 1080p 144Hz or 1,440p 120Hz screens, both of which look fantastic. The G14 can appear flashy, thanks to its optional rear LED panel, but it can also do double duty as an attractive productivity PC. It’s a gaming machine that won’t look out of place in a lecture hall, making it ideal for students who don’t want to draw too much attention while they’re watching Twitch streams during class.

Buy ASUS Zephyrus G14 at Amazon - $1,100

Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 2

Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 2
Microsoft

We called the Surface Laptop Go 2 “basic, but in a good way” in our review, and that pretty much says it all. It’s a $600 computer with the design language of Microsoft’s excellent Surface Laptop, and some slightly lower-tier specs. We love that it has a better CPU than the first model, faster storage and improved cooling. It’s the ideal computer for a high school student who doesn’t need high-end components, and wants a sturdy computer that can last a day’s worth of classes (and beyond!).

Buy Surface Laptop Go 2 at Amazon - $799

Dell G15 Gaming Laptop

Dell G15 Gaming Laptop
Will Lipman Photography for Engadget

We’ve been huge fans of Dell’s budget G15 gaming laptops for years, and the latest model is no exception. It starts at around $900 and includes a 12th-gen Intel Core i5 chip and NVIDIA’s RTX 3050 graphics. You can scale it all the way up to an i9 CPU and RTX 3070, all the while staying below the price of many comparable gaming machines. The G15 isn’t as sleek as the Razer Blade, but it’s a sturdy and reliable computer that will serve any budding gamer well.

Shop G15 models at Dell

Apple’s all new iPad Mini is the cutest, most versatile, most powerful mini-tablet ever

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The smallest iPad just got its biggest upgrade. I’ll be honest, I didn’t think the iPad Mini was really that much of a big deal… that was until Tim Cook mentioned how its compact size made it perfect for doctors and scientists to carry around in their lab coats, for pilots to strap to their thighs while flying, and just for anyone who wanted an iPad experience in a more pocketable form factor. The new iPad Mini feels like a watershed moment for the mini-tablet market, as Apple literally pushed everything it had into it. It now comes with a modern flat-edge design, an ultrawide camera on the front, TouchID in the power button, support for Apple Pencil, USB-C, and 5G, making it an absolute behemoth even for its size.

With an 8.3-inch Liquid Retina screen, the iPad Mini is like a scaled-down version of the iPad Air. It’s just right for your palm, and will fit easily into generously designed pockets. And if you’ve got yourself the 2nd Gen Apple Pencil, you can easily snap it to the side of the iPad Mini the way you would on an iPad Pro. Although judging by the image below, the pencil and tablet are now almost the same height – I kinda like it.

The new iPad Mini sports the same uniform bezel design seen in this year’s iPad Air lineups, and just like in the iPad Air, the Mini comes with TouchID built right into the power button. That means being able to securely lock/unlock your iPad, as well as use your biometrics to approve app installs and pay for stuff online.

Perhaps the biggest upgrade to the iPad Mini (apart from its support for the Pencil) is the USB-C port on the bottom. Ditching the Lightning port from the previous version, the latest iPad Mini embraces the power and versatility of USB-C. Sure, that means faster charging, but when you stop to think about all the places an iPad Mini would be useful, a USB-C port just makes a lot more sense. You could potentially connect the iPad Mini to a host of devices, from a DSLR to an Ultrasound Camera… encapsulating perfectly how the iPad Mini can transition from a creative’s power tool to a doctor or specialist’s handheld computer.

The new iPad Mini also comes with 5G cellular, practically making it a perfect hybrid between the iPad and iPhone, and comes with WiFi 6 for even better wireless connectivity. It’s powered by the A15 Bionic chip, sports 12MP cameras on both the front and the back, comes in 4 colors, and starts at $499. Pretty impressive for a device that’s just 8.3-inches diagonally.

Designer: Apple

iPad Accessories designed to give you the ultimate work from home tablet setup!

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My iPad has almost reached necessity status in my life, I’m pretty sure all of us tablet owners are super reliant on them (I mean, I am for sure)! I personally find tablets extremely handy, they’re the comfortable middle ground between a smartphone and a laptop, and they pretty much perform the same functions as these two. They’re super easy to carry around, and honestly, I could survive wholly and solely on my iPad Pro if I really wanted to. I’m always on the lookout for innovative and fun accessories to amp up my tablet (besides the basic ones Apple offers). Luckily there’s a whole bunch of crafty designs out there that can function as the perfect sidekick to your precious tablet. So, here’s a collection of super cool and functional product designs that promise to upgrade your iPad game to a whole another level!

The Apple Pencil is arguably the iPad Pro‘s secret sauce. Along with the Pencil, the iPad Pro becomes the ultimate creator’s setup (for both 2D as well as 3D creation). It would therefore make sense to explore how the Pencil could further become a ‘power-user tool, allowing creators to unlock new potentials. Yanko Design has imagined what these new nibs could look like, with explorations for more niche 2D uses. The interchangeable nibs include a fine-tip nib, a chisel nib, and a flexible brush-pen nib. Other nib styles could unlock 3D modeling features like being able to sculpt on the iPad. “The filing suggests the nib could contain several different sensors for varying purposes. The component list includes tactile sensors, contact sensors, capacitive and touch sensors, a camera, a piezoelectric sensor, a pressure sensor, or a photodiode”, reports Apple Insider.

Stationery in general gets lost all the time. Our favorite pens fall into hard-to-reach cracks and our pencils roll under our beds, never to be seen again. The iPad Pro Stand from Yohann features an exact slot for your Apple Pencil to slink into when not in use. The secure lip allows the iPad Pro to remain stationary on the stand. The Apple Pencil holder features magnetic ends to ensure secure storage and that you’ll never lose your Apple Pencil again. The stand itself is handcrafted from a single piece of wood for a solid and durable structure that ages well and stands the test of time. The iPad Pro stand features a winged back for multi-angled use.

The most obvious convenience of gaming on an iPad is that you can practically play anything on it. You don’t need to go out and physically buy a board game or order cards online. Everything is just an app-install away… although that comes with an obvious caveat – it isn’t easy playing group games on one iPad. The Wonder Cover comes up with a clever little hack to facilitate better group gaming on the iPad. The covers are just plastic parts that slide onto the tablet, creating a shielded enclosure to allow players to “protect their hand”. Perfect for card games like Poker and Uno, or even for Scrabble, the Wonder Cover is a nifty way to bring a physical/personal element to a digital gaming experience.

The iTrack comes from the fine folks at Brydge, who’ve developed some of the best accessories for Apple products over the years (they released a keyboard+trackpad attachment for the iPad before Apple did). Debuted at CES back in 2020, the iTrack (which officially launched just last week) is a compact multi-touch trackpad that’s designed to give your iPad workflow a significant upgrade. Styled to look just like Apple’s own Magic Trackpad 2, the iTrack is much smaller (with a 6.1-inch diagonal) and sports the same space-grey aluminum body and touch-sensitive glass top.

The Moment M-Series multidirectional lens mount works perfectly with your iPad, or iPhone even! You can move the mount in any direction, and capture your priceless moments and that too at the perfect angle! You can use it to shoot on the front, as well as the back camera. Amped with a sleek aluminum frame, the mount is extremely easy to install and stays securely fitted in one spot. You can now capture your next shot with ease!

In hindsight, you really can’t call the HoverBar Duo an iPad ‘stand’. The multi-hinged, incredibly versatile, height/direction adjustable arm is capable of doing much more than your conventional stand is. In fact, think of it as a mechanical butler who just holds your iPad for you at any angle you want, for any length of time. More versatile than a stand or a tripod, the HoverBar Duo for the iPad and iPhone is better described by the things that it’s capable of… and it’s capable of quite a lot! Simply put, the HoverBar Duo holds your iPad or iPhone wherever you want it, and in any orientation you need.

At nearly 1/4th the price of Apple’s own Magic Keyboard for the iPad Pro, the Mokibo Folio provides the same set of features in a portable, accessible, and universally compatible format. Designed to work with multiple devices, and with a foldable stand that lets you prop those devices up as you type, the Mokibo Folio is a QWERTY keyboard that also doubles up as an iPad case. Designed, however, with a touch-sensitive surface that sits under the entire right-half the keyboard’s key-surface, the Mokibo goes from keyboard to touch-board just simply by running your hand over the right-hand side of the keyboard’s surface, allowing you to swipe, pinch, and perform a wide variety of gestures.

The PencilSnap Apple Pencil iPad Sleeve from Twelve South stores and protects your stylus at all times! You can slide your Apple Pencil into the beautiful leather sleeve, where it will be safely stored. A snug grip ensures that the stylus does not slip or slide out. A magnetic mounting system makes it compatible with an Apple Smart Cover. The magnets ensure that the stylus is stuck in place! No losing your Apple Pencils anymore!

Made of powder-coated steel sheet, the FCTNDSGN Bookend comes in an ‘L’ shaped form, albeit with one flat end and one corrugated one. This unique form factor isn’t just a stylistic design choice, it serves a unique purpose too. The flat and corrugated surfaces allow the FCTNDSGN Bookend to work not just as a bookend, but also as a bookstand that lets you prop up anything from hardbound (or even paperback) books, vinyl discs, or even tablets, including your iPad!

Plug the Hello X3 in the top left corner of any display (or any flat surface) and suddenly you have a stylus-capable screen that you can draw on, annotate against, and present with. Up until just 5 minutes ago, I was ready to throw a little over a grand at a new, 12.9-inch M1 iPad Pro and the Apple Pencil. I’m honestly reconsidering now after stumbling across this $120 gadget that transforms any flat surface into a stylus-friendly touchscreen. Titled the YELANG Hello X3, this 3-axis-shaped device plugs onto the corner of any flat rectangular surface (although it’s much more useful when mounted on a display), practically turning it into an iPad. The Hello X3 works with displays as large as 27-inches and comes along with a pressure-sensitive stylus too to rival the Apple Pencil. It may not be an iPad accessory, but it definitely does not let you feel the lack of a tablet!

Apple Designs that tech lovers wish to get their hands on in this September 2021 event!

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Apple’s September 2021 event is just around the corner! The air is buzzing with excitement, as we eagerly await to hear what Apple may announce. As we find ourselves biting our nails, and squirming in anticipation of what Apple has in store for us, let’s take a moment to appreciate all the inspiration this groundbreaking tech giant has provided. Apple’s ingenious and mesmerizing designs and design philosophy have inspired and influenced designers all over the world, resulting in some pretty unique Apple concepts! And, we’ve put together some of the very best. We hope we get to see a few of them at the September event! Who knows?

Designer and visualizer, Devam Jangra’s put together a view to show us what candy-colored MacBook Airs could look like, and I won’t lie… I really like it! If the colorful iMacs were a hat-tip to the candy-colored iMac G3 computers from 1998, these vibrant MacBook Airs most certainly pay a tribute to the old iBook G3s from 1999. It’s certainly been a while since Apple’s experimented with colored laptops – their latest foray was 6 years ago, with the rose-gold MacBook Air. Jangra’s concept video definitely shows why Apple should be less reticent and more open to creating colorful MacBooks… they spark joy, don’t they?

Meet the Apple glass concept that pays homage to Steve Jobs’s favorite pair of prescription glasses – the Lunor Classic PP. These countered glasses look absolutely stylish for the generation next crowd- with the frame crafted from lightweight aluminum and the lenses made out of polycarbonate material. The technology of these wearables is honed by an array of six cameras with autofocus lenses, an eye-tracking system with HDR, and gesture recognition. The glasses even track your calorie intake and health status. Coming onto the cameras, two cameras are tucked in the nose-piece assemblies and the other two on the opposite side of each nose piece.

Italian designer Antonio De Rosa believes an Apple action cam is a realistic possibility in a landscape of current-gen geeky gadgets. Apple and an action cam would not be something out of the ordinary for the Cupertino giant to create. So, Antonio leaves me in awe with the Apple AirCam, which is no more significant than the AirPods Pro case. It carries a similar design language to the case with the obvious addition of an LCD screen display on the front and the big camera sensor on the backside. If you look closely, this lens is accompanied by a small Apple Watch-like screen, perhaps to click selfies and display vital heads-up information. There is a single shutter button on top to keep things as simple as possible. On the sides, there is space for USB-C and SHDC card slots to make data transfer seamless and load the camera with additional memory.

The M1 really unleashes the tablet’s potential, giving it incredible storage, transfer, and read/write abilities… or as Apple calls it, the most powerful chip on an iPad. The M1, apart from being a productive beast, also allows the iPad to have 5G capabilities, and even up to 2 Terabytes of storage… let’s see Microsoft’s Surface match that! Nothing much changes on the form front. The iPad Pro’s design is in a place where it doesn’t need to refine its exterior design. but how we wish it they would! A bezel-less design is all that is needed to take that ‘piece of magical glass’ to a revolutionary new level!

Probably the coolest feature of this iMac Pro concept by Daniel Bautista is its wireless charging option! The base of the computer stand functions as a charging platform for all your other Apple Devices. You can place your iPhone, AirPods, or even your Apple Watch on it to charge. Daniel’s iMac Pro has been equipped with Face ID, and a cool backlit keyboard as well. This could be the future of iMacs!

Vincent Lin designed the Apple Pro Mouse concept, and I haven’t seen a mouse this stunning in a while! Designed to allow your hands to fit perfectly around it, the ergonomically designed mouse works well for both lefties and righties! Amped with a Taptic Engine, the Pro Mouse makes clicking and scrolling gentle and precise. A Taptic Sidebar allows you to switch between gestures, and manipulate from one option to another smoothly. Not to mention, the mouse’s sleek and modern looks are a complete added bonus!

Park’s flexible iPhone manifests itself as an intersection between a phone and a tablet (like most folding phones), but the advantage Apple has over its competition is its complete dominance in the tablet sector. The iPhone Pro neatly goes from a regular smartphone (with a notch) to a 4:3 screen tablet (with a slightly offset notch). It comes with not one, but two hinges that separate the AMOLED screen into three parts with outward facing screens, and a slight cantilever at one end that allows the rear camera to not be covered (not the most elegant of solutions, but then again it lets you have a screen right beside the powerful triple-lens rear-view camera.

What if Apple and Samsung collaborated to create a phone? How cool would that be! 4RMD imagined a smartphone created by Apple and Samsung, and named it iGalaxy S22 ProMax! It’s a mix between the iPhone 12 Pro Max and Galaxy S21 Ultra. It has adopted the Apple Camera module, although the phone is boxier, and has flat edges like the iPhone 12. It also features a 108-megapixel main camera and 100X Space Zoom. The iGalaxy is truly the best of both worlds!

Designer Antonio De Rosa, who’s impressed us with his reimagined Apple products, now has another one that’s worth the shout-out. As he rightly says “Dreaming doesn’t cost anything.” This time around Antonio has thought of a modular Mac Pro which fuels the craving of professionals who are always tinkering around with their hunger for more hardware – the likes of GPU, RAM, USB-C ports, or SD card slots. While hardcore Apple fans will be divided on this modular Mac design’s subjectivity, it at least solves the purpose for people who want to experience an open-ended approach to hardware configuration. This concept Apple Silicon Mac Pro is kind of a hybrid design – it doesn’t sacrifice visual aesthetics as the expansion modules sit inside the casing, well within the machine’s footprint.

Meet the Apple One, a sophisticated-looking SUV created in the image of the company behind the iPhone. Peisert’s Concept One embodies all the good aspects of Apple (and a few unsavory ones) into a design that’s meant for the entire family. It’s a luxury car, but it isn’t a sedan. Instead, the Apple One is a one-for-all sort of SUV that accommodates 4 or more people pretty spaciously. Its proportions (and especially that headlight) feel slightly like a cross between the Tesla Cybertruck and the Rivian SUV. The design is mildly angular but doesn’t come with any edgy surfaces or straight lines. Instead, everything curves rather organically… a feature also seen in the continuous curves found on Apple products. Is this hoping for too much at the September 2021 event? A girl can dream!

The best iPad accessories for 2024

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Once you’ve decided which iPad you want, the next step is finding the right accessories. For getting work done, you’ll likely want a mouse and keyboard. For drawing and note-taking, a stylus is the obvious choice, but we also recommend a paper-like screen protector for added texture. Power banks let you recharge your slate whenever you need to and a hub helps you get the most out of your iPad’s processing power with connections for wired peripherals. After testing (and owning) iPads over the years, we’ve singled out a dozen-plus accessories that help expand what Apple’s tablets can do.

Which iPad generation do you own?

Before you splurge on a bunch of accessories, you should double check which iPad generation you own. There are a couple of ways to do this: first, you can check the back of your tablet for its model number, which will start with an “A” and end with a series of numbers. You can also go into Settings on your iPad, then General and look up the model number in the top section. If you see a series of letters and numbers with a slash (“/“) in it, just tap that to reveal the iPad’s true model number.

The most recent iPad is the 10th-gen iPad, which was released in 2022, but Apple still sells the 9th-gen iPad as well. Other iPad models include the 5th-gen iPad Air, the 6th-gen iPad mini and the 6th-gen iPad Pros. Apple usually announces new iPads in the fall after its iPhone event, but it’s unclear if the company will do so this year.

The most important iPad details to consider before buying accessories are the charging port, screen size and Apple Pencil compatibility. Most iPads now have USB-C charging, save for the 9th-gen iPad that still uses a Lightning connector. Make sure to double check your iPad’s screen size before buying a case or a screen protector. As for the Apple Pencil, both the 9th- and 10th-gen iPad support only the 1st-gen stylus, while all other iPads can use the 2nd-gen Apple Pencil.

Paper-feel screen protectors

If you’re a heavy user of the Apple Pencil or some other stylus, you should consider getting a screen protector for your new iPad. They pull double-duty: Not only do they act as a first line of defense if your iPad goes careening onto concrete, but they can also enhance the digital drawing and writing experience. Using a stylus on an iPad is strange at first because gliding the stylus nib over a glass surface feels nothing like “normal” writing. Matte screen protectors can get closer to replicating the pen-on-paper experience, and they also prevent the stylus nib from wearing down as quickly.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/best-ipad-accessories-130018595.html?src=rss

This nifty gadget turns any laptop or desktop monitor into a massive iPad Pro and Stylus

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Plug the Hello X3 in the top left corner of any display (or any flat surface) and suddenly you have a stylus-capable screen that you can draw on, annotate against, and present with.

Up until just 5 minutes ago, I was ready to throw a little over a grand at a new, 12.9-inch M1 iPad Pro and the Apple Pencil. I’m honestly reconsidering now after stumbling across this $120 gadget that transforms any flat surface into a stylus-friendly touchscreen. Titled the YELANG Hello X3, this 3-axis-shaped device plugs onto the corner of any flat rectangular surface (although it’s much more useful when mounted on a display), practically turning it into an iPad. The Hello X3 works with displays as large as 27-inches, and comes along with a pressure-sensitive stylus too to rival the Apple Pencil.

Click Here to Buy Now: $120 $189 (37% off) Hurry! Just 14 hours left!

Currently in its third generation (hence the X3 suffix), the Hello X3 expands on what its previous generations could do. It comes with a camera-sensor that can now read surface areas that are anywhere between 10-27 inches, has 2mm precision (which is alright, to be honest), a 120 fps response time, and here’s the best part, compatibility with both Macintosh and Windows-based systems. Just plug it onto your iMac or your Windows desktop monitor and you’ve got yourself a massive tablet PC that you can sketch on, make models in, edit documents, sign papers, or even use in a bunch of other productivity apps and softwares. If you’re traveling, the Hello X3 plugs right off and is portable enough to be carried right in your bag along with the stylus.

The Hello X3’s universal design is perhaps its biggest selling point, but it’s also matched by the fact that setting it up on a new device is ridiculously simple. Just pop the gadget on the top-left of the screen (it works with left-handed as well as right-handed users), plug it in via USB, and you’re ready to calibrate it. To calibrate the Hello X3 to your screen, just tap the 4 corners of the display with the stylus and you’re done. The stylus is thick and grippy like a marker or a fountain-pen, and sports a pressure-sensitive tip that can make thicker strokes if you press harder and thinner strokes if you lightly touch a surface. In just minutes, your 4K monitor turns into a graphics tablet.

The Hello X3 works with regular surfaces too. If you’re not really comfortable with drawing on vertical surfaces (which, let’s face it, can get uncomfortable), just plug the Hello X3 onto a drawing pad or a clipboard and you’ve got yourself a makeshift tablet PC (remember the Wacom Intuos?). This setup works rather well when you’re using a projector too, instead of a laptop or a desktop monitor. Each Hello X3 comes along with its own drawing-board for good measure, and a stand for your stylus when it’s not in use. The stylus has a standby time of 120 days, and a use-time of 4 hours, although it charges completely in just under 30 minutes. The YELANG Hello X3 is currently in its final hours of funding and is set to ship as early as September. Grab it at its special early-bird price of $120 on Kickstarter!

Click Here to Buy Now: $120 $189 (37% off) Hurry! Just 14 hours left!

Genius plastic covers let you play a game of poker on your iPad while concealing your cards

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WonderCover Card Cover for playing Poker on iPad

I hope there’s a Battleship version in the works too!

The most obvious convenience with gaming on an iPad is that you can practically play anything on it. You don’t need to go out and physically buy a board game or order cards online. Everything is just an app-install away… although that comes with an obvious caveat – it isn’t easy playing group games on one iPad. The Wonder Cover comes up with a clever little hack to facilitate better group-gaming on the iPad. The covers are just plastic parts that slide onto the tablet, creating a shielded enclosure to allow players to “protect their hand”.

Perfect for card games like Poker and Uno, or even for Scrabble, the Wonder Cover is a nifty way to bring a physical/personal element to a digital gaming experience. Poker-face not included!

Designers: Nuno Pires, André Gouveia and INNGAGE Design

WonderCover Card Cover for playing Poker on iPad

WonderCover Card Cover for playing Poker on iPad

The plastic ‘dugouts’ act as physical barriers, preventing other people from seeing your cards. The fact that they can be clipped on anywhere to the side of a tablet makes them accommodate different games and numbers of players. They can also be used on any tablet, working as well on an iPad as they would on a Galaxy tab or a Microsoft Surface Tab.

WonderCover Card Cover for playing Poker on iPad

WonderCover Card Cover for playing Poker on iPad

WonderCover Card Cover for playing Poker on iPad

WonderCover Card Cover for playing Poker on iPad

Get the iMac-style workflow on your iPad Pro with Brydge’s standalone trackpad for iPadOS

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Your M1 iPad Pro is as good as an iMac… Brydge’s iTrack trackpad brings iMac-style functionality to it. Up until last month, Apple marketed the iPad as a laptop replacement, however that perception changed when the iPad was introduced alongside the iMac at Apple’s SpringLoaded event at the end of April, both with Apple’s supercharged M1 chip. The iPad is more than just a laptop now, it’s a machine with more processing power than most machines with Intel chips, and its graphical power is comparable to high-end gaming consoles. In short, it looks and behaves like an iMac with a touchscreen, so it just made sense to bring the iMac’s accessories to it too.

The iTrack comes from the fine folks at Brydge, who’ve developed some of the best accessories for Apple products over the years (they released a keyboard+trackpad attachment for the iPad before Apple did). Debuted at CES back in 2020, the iTrack (which officially launched just last week) is a compact multi-touch trackpad that’s designed to give your iPad workflow a significant upgrade. Styled to look just like Apple’s own Magic Trackpad 2, the iTrack is much smaller (with a 6.1-inch diagonal) and sports the same space-grey aluminum body and touch-sensitive glass top.

Designed to work seamlessly with iPadOS (versions 14.5 and higher), the iTrack automatically and instantly connects with your tablet via Bluetooth, providing an experience as seamless as Apple’s own trackpad. Sensors within the device detect subtle pressure differences that let you tap, scroll, swipe, and use other multi-touch features on your iPad Pro. Just like a Trackpad or a Magic Mouse, you can work within programs, intuitively select and edit text and spreadsheets, and switch between apps… besides, the iTrack even works seamlessly with other connected accessories like a keyboard or Apple Pencil, complementing most workflows.

The iTrack debuted back in 2020, but its launch wasn’t until last week, owing to delays because of the pandemic. It ships for $99.99 (that’s $20 cheaper than Apple’s Magic Trackpad 2), has a USB-C port for charging, and boasts of an impressive 6-month battery life on a full charge, with 2-hours of use every day.

Designer: Brydge

Radical Samsung Galaxy Z Fold Tab patent shows a two-part folding screen + magnetic S-Pen docking area

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It’s slowly becoming pretty clear that Samsung wants to be the dominant player in the foldables market. We’ve seen Motorola, Xiaomi, Huawei, Royole, and even the oddball TCL try their hands at folding devices, but none of them have invested the amount of time and effort as Samsung has. Based on a patent filing uncovered by LetsoGoDigital and rendered by Sarang Sheth, here’s a look at the Galaxy Z Fold Tab, a Note-style smartphone with 2 hinges and a nifty ‘crawl-space’ to dock and charge your S-Pen. The Z Fold Tab hopes to form a third device in Samsung’s line-up alongside the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and the Galaxy Z Flip 3, which are set to launch this year – in effect consolidating Samsung’s position in a questionable yet rather interesting foldable-devices market.

The Z Fold Tab concept takes on the avatar of a folding device with an outward screen. However, unlike the Huawei Mate X or any of Royole’s Flexpai devices, the Z Fold Tab comes with two hinges on its massive screen, creating a novel folding format that has a rather interesting set of pros as well as cons. In its closed mode, the Z Fold Tab can obviously be used as a regular smartphone (albeit being slightly thicker) with a waterfall display on both left and right edges thanks to the folding screens (this obscures the volume and power buttons, but those could easily be translated to the screen via force-touch like in the Vivo Apex 2019). However, unfold the screens on either side and you have yourself a larger tablet. The obvious cons are that instead of one crease running across the screen, you’re now faced with TWO creases, however, given how we consume content and the amount of time we spend looking at centrally aligned elements, this format oddly works, because the two creases sit on the sides of the screen rather than along the center.

The foldable design comes with a unique detail. The two halves leave a distinct gap when folded completely, solving two purposes – the gap exposes the main camera lenses, enabling you to take photos and videos without worrying about unfolding your phone; and the gap even acts as a safe space to magnetically dock your S-Pen. Unlike previous Note devices that came with hollow slots that allowed you to slide an S-Pen into the phone, the Z Fold Tab lets the S-Pen dock outside, almost like the iPad Pro. The magnetic dock charges the S-Pen while that comfy gap prevents the pen from accidentally sliding out or getting lost.

The Galaxy Z Fold Tab is not unlike the Z Fold 3 concept we featured last year, however, its key difference is that the two-part hinges don’t overlap to form a 3-layered device. Even when folded, the Z Fold Tablet still remains relatively slim by foldable standards.

For now, however, the Z Fold Tab exists only in conceptual form, protected by an international patent filed by Samsung. The Korean consumer-tech giant is slated to host its annual Galaxy Unpacked event in August this year, although according to analysts and experts, we’re probably only going to see the Z Fold 3 and the Z Flip 3 devices this year along with the usual suspects. According to LetsGoDigital, Samsung may have this under wraps until 2022.

Designer/Visualizer: Sarang Sheth for LetsGoDigital

This concept was first published on LetsGoDigital. Click here to view the original piece.

Lenovo’s YOGA Pad Pro tablet comes with its own stand and can double up as an external monitor

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The common saying “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” really doesn’t work in the tablet industry. Apple’s successfully left every Android and Windows tablet in the dust with its ridiculously powerful iPad Pro, so the only way to really stand out in the tablet market is to do something the iPad really can’t… Someone at Lenovo seems to have figured that out early.

Lenovo’s new YOGA Pad Pro tries to stand out by not copying the iPad. While the iPad Pro is a pretty powerful machine that Apple often touts as a laptop replacement, the YOGA Pad Pro takes up the role of being a laptop accompaniment. With its own built-in kickstand and an integrated Micro HDMI port, the Lenovo YOGA Pad Pro is the perfect sidekick to your laptop. Make no mistake, it’s a pretty neat Android tablet on its own, but it manages to do a good job at the one thing the iPad can’t do – acting as a neat HDMI external monitor. Plug the YOGA Pad Pro into any device like your laptop, Nintendo Switch, or even your PlayStation or Xbox and you’ve got yourself a nice 13-inch touchscreen that you can prop up at any angle, hang on a hook, or carry around with you anywhere.

On the hardware front, the YOGA Pad Pro comes powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 processor, with 8GB of RAM and up to 256GB of internal storage. While that absolutely pales in comparison to the 2021 iPad Pro with the M1 chip, it’s really an ‘apples to oranges’ sort of deal (no pun intended). The Lenovo YOGA Pad Pro isn’t trying to replace a laptop, it’s trying to augment it. The 13-inch screen is larger than the one found on the iPad, but then again, it’s perfect for pairing with a Windows desktop or laptop. It’s even great for watching movies or playing games, thanks to the presence of four JBL speakers on every corner of the tablet… Plus that built-in kickstand proves incredibly useful when you want to prop the tablet on your workspace, kitchen counter, or even hang it on a wall! The YOGA Pad Pro is currently available for pre-order in China with a pretty commendable price tag of $515 – Lenovo is yet to announce a worldwide rollout.

Designer: Lenovo