Posted: 02 May 2020 06:00 AM PDT

There are plenty of good-looking OLED TVs around these days, and few look better than those put out by LG. The South Korean TV maker has put an immense amount of thought into its premium OLED range, nowhere more so than with the LG E Series OLED – even if it was sadly discontinued this year.

2019’s LG E9 OLED was a masterclass in panel design, offering a glass display that banished the bezel and almost appeared to be floating up from the counter – offering a truly breathtaking visual experience. More than anything else, it looked different from any other TV put out that year.

The E9 didn’t quite make the cut for 2020, though, with the new Gallery Series GX model replacing the E Series line instead. While it presumably made business sense for LG to cut the E Series – which doesn’t seem to have received nearly the amount of media attention as the cheaper (and equivalently specced) C9 OLED, or the more affordable B9 OLED at the bottom of LG’s 2019 OLED range – it’s a loss nonetheless.

LG BX vs LG B9 OLED: is the new B Series OLED worth the upgrade?

We were disappointed not to see an EX model unveiled at CES 2020 along with the other new LG TVs being shown off, and were told simply that the E Series was no longer being pursued.

Neil Robinson, Senior Director for Strategic Projects at LG Electronics, tells us that “The E and G Series were both step-up models, so the GX can be seen as the replacement for the E9.”

Given how close the LG GX and LG WX are in terms of design – both being slim, wall-mounted televisions, with only really a soundbar to differentiate the latter – the removal of an E Series is a move away from variety, even if the GX will be sure to find an audience of its own.

It’s a shame, given the truly unique aesthetic of the E Series compared to other LG TVs. The new BX and CX models look essentially the same as each other, too, like most televisions these days. How much can you iterate on a flatscreen, after all?

The LG Gallery Series (GX) OLED replaces the E Series for 2020

Why we loved the E Series OLED

Certainly, there are plenty of subtle differences between the physical appearances of TVs, whether that’s where the TV brand’s logo sits, what kinds of feet or stands prop it up off a counter, or the thickness and quality of the display’s casing. That’s not to mention the differences in picture quality – which is really the heart of any television experience.

But that’s why the E Series felt so refreshing: offering a unique form factor amid a ceaseless catalogue of identikit rectangles. Most of LG's OLED range shares the same panel and processor, anyway, so differences in design feel even more important

In our LG E9 OLED review last year, we praised the set’s “all-glass, frameless panel” for its “open and expansive air”, as well as “a dazzling picture, with crisp detail and truly cinematic visuals”. Aside from minor irritations – the lack of HDR10+, and a patchy Bluetooth connection – the E9 was and is a knockout television to watch.

The E9 OLED (2019) was a glass-panel beauty

The year before? We called the E8 OLED “arguably the ultimate expression of these OLED advances, thanks to its glamorous design, niftily integrated sound system and, best of all, mesmerizingly good pictures.”

Other LG TVs have similarly intriguing design choices – including the TV stand for the C9 OLED, which is slanted to funnel audio towards the viewer – but it’s frustrating to see successful examples of this not pursued further, limited to just one or two model generations.

So where did the E Series go?

Our senior home entertainment editor, Nick Pino, speculates that “the reason not to make one this year isn’t based on any pre-existing issues [with the E Series design], but rather that LG decided it couldn’t innovate enough to warrant a new model.”

It’s possible that LG backed itself into a corner with the glass panel design. The TV market demands iteration, and the unique design constraints of a glass display may have meant there was less room to alter or improve its shape going forward compared to other designs (the GX really feels like an iteration on the W Series, rather than a standalone model).

The LG WX and GX are alike in all but the former's soundbar

OLED panels are also infamous for often getting damaged during production – given their sensitive, organic materials – and we can’t imagine an all-glass display offsetting worries about breakages either.

The LG E9 OLED is still on sale for those wanting something different – costing roughly half what it did at launch this time last year – and we recommend you take a look if you aren’t sold on the new Gallery Series GX OLED, which offers the only notable divergence from LG’s existing models. Processing enhancements are likely to be minimal compared to the 2020 range too.

But for those of us wanting something different from our televisions, it looks like we’ll have to look elsewhere – whether that’s Samsung’s zero-bezel Q950TS QLED, the rotating Samsung Sero TV, or Hisense’s wacky projector-TV hybrids – to do so.

Next-gen TVs: the OLED, micro-LED, and holographic TVs of the future

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Internet has been placed under immense strain - but it’s holding strong

Posted: 01 May 2020 10:30 PM PDT

The increase in sustained Internet traffic brought about by coronavirus lockdown measures has led to speculation infrastructure might crumble under the burden.

Although cloud-based services (such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams) have experienced outages - likely as a result of increased traffic - and broadband providers have suffered blips in service, the UK is yet to experience significant downtime outside of usual margins.

TechRadar Pro spoke to network monitoring firm ThousandEyes about the performance of UK Internet infrastructure, the challenges facing internet service providers (ISPs) and how the pandemic might affect Internet services going forward.

The company detects network performance issues by actively probing networks from thousands of vantage points around the globe. It takes billions of measurements each day, detecting instances in which traffic is terminating within ISPs and the networks of public cloud providers, UCaaS providers, and edge service providers.

According to ThousandEyes, this outage detection mechanism is highly specific, enabling isolation of traffic termination incidents down to the interfaces of the infrastructure involved.

How do you set about detecting outages?

ThousandEyes detects network performance issues (including outages) through active network probing from vantage points around the globe. The resultant network telemetry data covers latency, packet loss and other key performance indicators.

While packet loss of any level can be potentially disruptive to users, ThousandEyes defines an outage as an incident involving 100% packet loss, where traffic completely terminates at some point within a network.

Since lockdown measures were introduced, how would you assess the performance of UK Internet infrastructure?

The performance of Internet infrastructure in the UK has been varied over the course of lockdown, but generally speaking, it has held up well.

When compared globally, UK outages have remained low overall, standing at 21 in the first week of lockdown, with the second week rising to 28. A significant reduction was seen in the third week with only 10 outages, before we observed a slight increase in the fourth week with 13.

How is UK Internet faring in comparison to other countries?

About a third of all outages in the first quarter this year occurred in EMEA. Although the duration and scope of many of the outages suggest they were the result of network operators optimising performance as traffic levels increased, we have also seen a clear spike in outages among collaboration app network providers, including video conferencing services.

Comparatively speaking, the UK’s Internet has fared well. We saw outages spike in mid-March, but when a second global elevation occurred in early April, the UK was minimally affected.

What kind of damage was caused by the recent outages you identified?

The impact of outages can vary depending on location, time of day, and scope of the outage. In general, when Tier 1 ISPs, broadband providers, and large transit providers experience outages, the impact of consumers and business can be significant.

The recent Tata Communications outage had far-reaching implications geographically, as did last week’s CenturyLink outage, which caused Merrill Lynch to publicly report on disruptions to its brokerage business. Many other large businesses experienced service disruption throughout the outage. Taken together, the financial impact may well have been in the millions of dollars.

What have been the primary causes of outages in recent weeks?

Outages can occur for many different reasons, including infrastructure failure, fibre cut, and configuration error, making them hard to predict.

Throughout March, as traffic usage increased to support remote work, online school and leisure activities, the duration and scope of network outages has increased compared to pre-coronavirus. These characteristics aren’t consistent with congestion related outages. Instead, they suggest increased traffic engineering activity by network operators — likely to address increased traffic usage.

What are the greatest challenges currently facing ISPs?

Overall, ISPs have performed well given dramatically increased network usage. As traffic volumes increased, many reported an increase in requests for bandwidth and connectivity from their customers and peers. Responding to a large number of service requests may have posed a challenge for some providers.

ISPs are also under greater scrutiny, given the dependence that users now have on the Internet. Even issues unrelated to network usage, such as fibre cuts, can bring an unwelcome spotlight.

Outages are, however, an inevitability even under normal Internet conditions, and sound network strategy and operations will continue to be the best methods to limit their occurrence.

Do you anticipate any changes to the way services are consumed going forward?

The overnight transition to a remote workforce and customer base has made one thing very clear for a lot of enterprises - they’re reliant on a well-functioning Internet to power all of those online services and applications that are core to employee and consumer experiences.

Going forward, we may see a change in the way businesses invest in and consume some Internet services. ISPs may also examine their service and investment prioritisation given the heavy utilisation of consumer networks.

Here's our list of the best business routers on the market

This 16-core beast is the most powerful notebook in the world

Posted: 01 May 2020 08:00 PM PDT

The AMD Ryzen 9 3950X is a behemoth when it comes to sheer computing power; its 16 cores and 32 threads will power through any task you’ll throw at it with aplomb. A tantalizing prospect for professionals looking for a desktop replacement alternative. With a base clock of 3.5GHz and a staggering 73MB cache, it’s almost a miracle that it has a TDP (power dissipation) of 105W.

German notebook vendor Schenker has integrated this beast of a CPU in its latest XMG APEX 15 notebook which carries a starting price of 1,958 Euros including tax but excluding shipping costs (around US$2,130, AU$3,277, £1,704). Note that the link is a bit temperamental and times out often.

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The Clevo-source chassis comes with a 144Hz full HD IPS display, an Nvidia Geforce RTX 2060 with 6GB GDDR6, 8GB Kingston memory, a 250GB Kingston A2000 SSD, Bluetooth 5.0, two-year pick-and-return warranty but no operating system.

105W is quite a big amount of power to dissipate so, the 3950X will run in an eco mode which will drop the base speed via the Ryzen Master software (and possibly in the BIOS) to offer about three-quarters of its performance while consuming 44% less power.

That brings up another interesting question; would it be better to buy a cheaper 12 or 8-core CPU instead that comes with a 65W TDP by default?

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Saturday, May 2, 2020

Apple : The E9 OLED was one of LG’s best TVs – so where did it go?