Audi's strategy with electrification has been "don't rock a smooth-sailing boat," and it's sticking with that recipe for the 2020 Q5 55 TFSI e. If the e-tron SUV and e-tron Sportback feel much like regular Audi models that just so happen to be all-electric, the Q5 plug-in hybrid sticks even closer to that recipe.
Today Apple One subscriptions launched in the morning. This Apple One Subscription system will likely appear on your iPhone first, then spread throughout the Apple ecosystem. The Apple One Subscription was first revealed earlier this year as a way for Apple users to combine their favorite systems into one single Apple subscription service - now's the time for that subscription to take hold.
Today the AMD Big Navi line of AMD graphics cards were revealed in three sizes, all under the name AMD RX 6000. There's the AMD RX 6800, AMD RX 6800 XT, and AMD RX 6900 XT, all with AMD RDNA 2 architecture. The more tantalizing of these is the 6800 XT, a card that'll do battle directly against the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080. AMD's Radeon RX 6800 XT will compete with the RTX 3080 with availability in stores AND a starting price for $659 USD right out the gate.
This is the Xbox Series X, a gaming console released in late 2020 by Microsoft. It'd been 7 years since the release of the console called Xbox One, and high time we saw a relatively massive change in the design of the hardware. We'll be looking at the software, the games, and the overall experience in our full review, soon. Today it's all about the size, shape, and feel of the console hardware itself.
In 2020 we take our reassurance where we can find it, even if that's in the sound and feel of an SUV door when it closes. The 2020 Mercedes-AMG G63 is known for plenty of things - not least its wanton profligacy, Brutalist proportions, and conspicuous dedication to excess - but even with 577 horsepower to play with it's those doors I keep coming back to.
The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro are the more sensible half of Apple's new smartphone range for 2020, and that's as it should be. Nestling right at the heart of the mobile market, they replace the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro as the go-to choice for savvy shoppers, and this time around the list of differences between the two is even shorter. Somehow that makes deciding between them simultaneously easier and more difficult.
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 was released to a wary consumer public in late 2020. Here it was, the least expensive of the RTX 30 graphics cards from NVIDIA, ready to roll with power that out-performed its predecessors in almost every way, available at approximately $500 USD. The "wary" part comes thanks to supply issues with other RTX cards this year, issues that messed with the minds and pocketbooks of potential users that, now, might be relying on the RTX 3070 to fill the void left for them after the hype of the reveal and the subsequent failure to meet demand.
Verizon's most affordable 5G phone has arrived, with the TCL 10 5G UW delivering mmWave speeds for under $400. Latest in the phone-maker's 10 Series, the new Android phone slots in as the cheapest way to get on Verizon's 5G network so far, undercutting the Motorola One 5G UW by $150.
Emulate or innovate. When, as with the 2021 Genesis G80, you're taking on Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz in the segment that has for decades been their bread and butter, it would be easy to go conservative and simply borrow from their playbook. That's just what the first G80 did, indeed, a join-the-German-dots which ended up all proficiency and no passion. Nobody, though, would describe the new G80 as conservative.
"Without pain," so the old saying goes, "how can we know true joy?" Happily the stress was all left to the iPhone 12 Pro design team, leaving me to simply take pleasure in how near-perfect this new smartphone's design feels. Resembling a scaled-down version of the iPad Pro, this year's lineup consists of the iPhone 12, iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max, all having the same flat edges. I've never been a big fan of the rounded edges from Apple's last few generations of iPhone, though not because it looks terrible by any means. For me, it's more about how the iPhone feels in my hand.
2020 is the year of big phone families, and Samsung's Galaxy S20 Series is nearing Brady Bunch numbers. Latest to arrive is the Galaxy S20 FE 5G, described as the "Fan Edition" but also the most affordable of the line-up. As always that means what's absent from the spec sheet is as important to note as what's present, but for once the compromise may all be worth it.
What's old is new again, and the Philips Hue Iris table lamp returns with a welcome 2020 upgrade. Brighter, more flexible, and more competitively priced, the new Iris taps all of the features Signify has added to the Hue platform in the six years since the original table lamp launched, now with a $99.99 price tag.