Technologies

Asus Gaming Laptops Overwhelm with 2023 Updates

Even the most basic refreshes announced at CES have some useful enhancements.

Asus’ CES gaming laptop announcements seem to touch every single model in its portfolio, and include 2023’s biggest gaming hardware trend (so far), an 18-inch gaming laptop.

Yes, there are also the usual everything-is-updated-to-2023-generation components, like Intel 13th-gen H and HX-series processors and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 40-series GPUs (as well as «next-gen» AMD CPUs and GPUs, which we’re expecting to hear about during the keynote on Wednesday night, Jan. 4). The company has announced a couple of interesting gaming monitors as well.

Screen updates abound — there are lots of 240Hz 1440p displays with smaller bezels and 16:10 aspect ratios, which you’ll see everywhere in gaming laptops — and you’ll see 15- and 17-inch models swapped out for 16- and 18-inch ones, which is another big trend at the show.

The actual physical redesigns are modest, so don’t look for an all-ver new look, just new components and features.

Optimized for Optimus

My fave new feature is the rollout of Nvidia Advanced Optimus support across all Asus’ gaming laptops with Nvidia GPUs (or at least most of them). That’s the technology that enables the laptop screen to switch between operating on the discrete GPU or the integrated GPU without forcing you to reboot, and which finally lets the laptop display use G-Sync. It’s potentially a big energy efficiency and battery life saver.

Asus’ ROG Nebula HDR displays, available on the Zephyrus M16, Zephyrus G14, Strix Scar 16 and Flow X16, have double the mini LED backlight zones: 1,024. They’re DisplayHDR 1000-compliant screens with a peak brightness of 1,100 nits. They have larger heatsinks, too, because that level of brightness can get hot. As mentioned above they’re 1440p 240Hz, plus 100% P3 gamut coverage. One exception is the Nebula HDR screen in the Zephyrus G14, which is a dimmer DisplayHDR 600. The 3ms pixel refresh isn’t stellar, though.

Asus also has an external GPU box called the XG Mobile. It works with systems like the 13-inch Flow X13 and Flow Z13 laptops and the 16-inch Flow X16, adding extra graphics power. That XG Mobile previously contained an Nvidia RTX 3080 GPU, and this year it’ll get bumped up to a newer 40-series RTX GPU. That’ll help this expensive add-on feel like a better long-term investment.

AMD isn’t getting left out. there’s a new model that highlights all the latest and greatest technology on offer from that company, called the TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition. It’s one of the few laptops incorporating an AMD GPU, which is up to generation RDNA 3 this year. Sadly, the MUX switch — a clunky way to toggle between the discrete and integrated GPU — lives on here. It’s not as elegant a solution as Optimus, nor does it have Thunderbolt 4 support (it does have USB 4), because that’s still an Intel thing.

There are a few other AMD CPU-based models as well and several of the new gaming laptops, including the 16-inch Zephyrus models, have newer six-speaker arrays. Perhaps more importantly, many of the ROG offerings have been (finally) upgraded to 1080p webcams, which is something we should expect from every laptop now.

We don’t have any pricing yet, but they all seem to be slated for Q2 shipping.

Technologies

Tesla Has a New Range of Affordable Electric Cars: How Much They Cost

The new, stripped-back versions of the Model Y and Model 3 have a more affordable starting price.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Oct. 22 #598

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Oct. 22, No. 598.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is a fun one — I definitely have at least two of these in my house. Some of the answers are a bit tough to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Catch all.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: A mess of items.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

BATE, LICE, SLUM, CAPE, HOLE, CARE, BARE, THEN, SLAM, SAMBA, BACK

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

TAPE, COIN, PENCIL, BATTERY, SHOELACE, THUMBTACK

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is JUNKDRAWER. To find it, look for the J that’s five letters down on the far-left row, and wind down, over and then up.

Quick tips for Strands

#1: To get more clue words, see if you can tweak the words you’ve already found, by adding an «S» or other variants. And if you find a word like WILL, see if other letters are close enough to help you make SILL, or BILL.

#2: Once you get one theme word, look at the puzzle to see if you can spot other related words.

#3: If you’ve been given the letters for a theme word, but can’t figure it out, guess three more clue words, and the puzzle will light up each letter in order, revealing the word.

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Oct. 22, #1586

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle for Oct. 22, No. 1,586.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Wordle puzzle features some letters I don’t often guess, but it’s not terribly difficult. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.

Today’s Wordle hints

Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now.

Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats

Today’s Wordle answer has one repeated letter.

Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels

Today’s Wordle answer has one vowel.

Wordle hint No. 3: First letter

Today’s Wordle answer begins with S.

Wordle hint No. 4: Last letter

Today’s Wordle answer ends with T.

Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning

Today’s Wordle answer can refer to an action displaying spectacular skill and daring.

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Today’s Wordle answer is STUNT.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle answer, Oct. 21, No. 1,585 was DETOX.

Recent Wordle answers

Oct. 17, No. 1,581: GROSS
Oct. 18, No. 1,582: HAVEN
Oct. 19, No. 1,583: IDEAL
Oct. 20, No. 1,584: LIMBO

Quick tips for Wordle

#1: Check our list ranking the popularity of all the letters in the alphabet and choose your starter words accordingly. (TRAIN, STERN and AUDIO are good.)

#2: Don’t forget that letters can be used more than once.

#3: Many words are similar. You don’t want to use up multiple guesses that don’t advance your cause. So if the puzzle is STA_E, don’t guess STARE, STATE and STALE. Guess something that uses that R, T and L, like TWIRL.