Tech Round-up Week 1 September 2020: Intel’s Tiger Lake, Nvidia’s RTX 3000 Series, Mulan

Credit: Intel Corporation

Plenty of PC news this week as Intel announces their 11th gen mobile processors, Tiger Lake. The chips will support Thunderbolt 4 and Wi-Fi 6, and Intel claims that the 11th gen lineup offers the best processors for thin-and-light laptops. The new chips will also support 8K HDR displays and the option to use four 4K displays at once.

There’s also an Intel Evo certification standard that guarantees over nine hours of “real world” usage on a single charge for 1080p laptops, fast charging, Wi-Fi 6 and Thunderbolt 4, and system wake in less than a second.

Credit: Samsung

Of course, when Intel or AMD launches new chips, companies will announce new laptops using them. Samsung is one of those first movers, with the new Samsung Galaxy Book Flex 5G being the first 5G-enabled system to qualify for the Intel Evo certification.

It also has the claim of being Samsung’s first 5G laptop, and will come with a “world-facing” camera that can be used when the 2-in-1 laptop is in tablet mode. There’s no mention of price or availability yet, but it’s definitely one to keep an eye out for.

Credit: Nvidia

It’s also time for Nvidia’s new GeForce graphics cards to be announced, and the RTX 3000 has taken the Internet by storm. Nvidia claims the RTX 3080 will have up to two times the performance of the previous generation’s equivalent, the RTX 2080, which is incredible.

The launch of the RTX 3000 series has left many people excited, but customers who’ve recently purchased the RTX 2000 series were left feeling pretty disgruntled. RTX 2000 series owners have started to sell their old graphics cards on Ebay and Amazon at lowered prices, in anticipation. Regardless, plenty of fans will be happy to know that Nvidia isn’t getting complacent.

Credit: Disney

Due to Covid-19, many movies were either delayed or released online. Mulan was one of the most anticipated movies for 2020, and Disney originally announced that it would start streaming on Disney Plus on 4 September for an additional cost of US$30 on top of the subscription fee.

Now the company has announced that it will be released for free on their streaming platform, Disney Plus, on 4 December. So for people who weren’t willing to pay the $30 to watch Mulan on the launch date, they’ll now be able to watch it for free three months later. For countries where Disney Plus is still unavailable, Mulan will be released in theatres.

Most gamers out there will know how tough gaming companies can be with refunds on their digital stores. Sony’s a prime example of this; if you try to do a chargeback on your credit card for a game you bought without first speaking to customer support, the company will automatically suspend your account.

Thankfully, things are starting to get better nowadays. Another big gaming company, Nintendo, is now allowing customers to cancel digital game preorders as long as it’s done at least seven days before the game’s release date. While it’s not the best, at least it’s better than Xbox where you’ll need to cancel preorders ten days before the release date.