100 DECEMBER 2019|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE 382
Europe’s biggesttechnologyshowreturnedtoBerlin this year.JamesArcherand
RolandMoore -Colyerwere on thegroundtofi nd thebestnew andupcomingproducts
5
Gwas the themeof Huawei’s IFA2019 plans. Unusually,these
began with something that’s alreadyavailable in the UK, with
the Chinese firm giving us another look at the Mate20X5G
(right). This is likelyto
become obsoletesoon,
however,asH uawei’s
main event was the
reveal of its Kirin 990
smartphone processor.
This is the first
5G-capable 7nm SoC on
the planet and, unlike
on the Mate20X5G’s
Kirin 980, the 5G
modem is fully
integrated: it’s not a
conventional SoC with
an added-on modem.
This helps it stay
smaller and more
power-efficient.
The Kirin 990 will
first findahome in
the Mate30s eries,
which will have
been revealed at a
separateevent in
Munichby the time
you read this.
T
wo very different
products caught the
eyeatA cer’s booth, which
mainly contained updates
to its Swift laptops and
Predator gaming systems.
One was the C250i (right),
aportable projector
designedforquickly blowing
up your smartphone screen.
It connects wirelessly,
projects at 1080p,and can
automatically switch
between landscape and
portrait modes, just like your
phone.Itl aunches in January
in the UK at €539 (£480).
The other was theSwift 5,
which we’ve looked at in
more depth on page 14.
While not as highly specced
as the Swift 7, it is Acer’s
lightest laptop yet, weighing a
mere 990g. Despitethis, there’s
still room on the chassisforacouple of full-size USB3 ports
and an HDMI output, and processors come inachoice of
Intel’s latest 10th-gen Ice Lake Core i5 and Core i7 chips. Prices
will range from €899 (£799)to €1,399 (£1,240) when theSwift 5
is released later this year.
W
i-Fi 6, also known as 802.11ax, was the
big networking trend at IFAthis year.
Netgear won the raceto announceamesh
router system that uses this new,higher-
bandwidth standard, unveiling the tri-band
Orbi WiFi6System AX6000 (right),
alongsidearange of traditional standalone
Wi-Fi 6routers, such as the Nighthawk
AX8 (below) and
Nighthawk AX12.
The AX6000
should look
familiar,as
physically it’s
based on the
excellent current
generationof
Orbi mesh systems.
However,ith as
two more internal
antennas than the
802.11ac RBK50
system (Shopper375),
amuch faster 2.2GHz
quad-core processor
and greatly improved
throughput speedsof
1,200Mbit/s on the 2.4GHz band and
2,400Mbit/s on the two 5GHz bands.
None of this comes cheap: when the Orbi
WiFi 6System AX6000 launches it will cost
$700 (£565)forone router and one satellite.
That’s more than three times as much as an
equivalent RBK50 set.
d
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NETGEAR
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