Samsung has revealed the Exynos 2200, its first mobile processor with an AMD RDNA 2-powered GPU that will allow ray-tracing and other gaming features. The system-on-chip (SoC) will likely feature in Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S22, rumored to be launching at an Unpacked event on February 8th. 

The Exynos 2200 with AMD's "Xclipse" GPU will be manufactured on Samsung's 4-nanometer EUV process. "Samsung’s Xclipse GPU is the first result of multiple planned generations of AMD RDNA graphics in Exynos SoCs,” said AMD Senior VP David Wang.

The CPU, meanwhile, will use one high-powered Cortex-X2 "flagship core" along with three performance and efficiency balanced Cortex-A710 big-cores and four power-efficient Cortex-A510 little-cores. The image processor is designed to support camera sensors up to 200 megapixels like the Isocell HP1 Samsung revealed last September. 

Evan Blass

AMD and Samsung announced a collaboration in 2019, with the expectation that AMD's graphics tech would be used in Exynos smartphone processors. Rumors early in 2021 suggested that AMD-powered Samsung processors were coming soon, and at Computex, AMD confirmed that an upcoming Exynos mobile system-on-chip would feature RDNA 2 graphics technology. 

The Exynos 2200 was supposed to be launched earlier, but Samsung mysteriously no-showed its own launch event originally scheduled for January 11th. Normally, Exynos processors are earmarked for regions outside North America, while the US gets Qualcomm's Snapdragon mobile processors. That would mean the you wouldn't see the AMD GPU and its ray tracing features stateside, but we'll have to wait for the Galaxy S22 launch to confirm that. 

Last November, Amazon notified customers that it would stop accepting Visa credit cards in the UK as of January 19th, 2022, blaming the high fees Visa charges for credit card transactions. Now, the company has backtracked on that, telling customers via email that it will continue accepting Visa cards, at least for the time being.

"The expected change regarding the use of Visa credit cards on Amazon.co.uk will no longer take place on January 19," an Amazon spokesperson told Engadget. " We are working closely with Visa on a potential solution that will enable customers to continue using their Visa credit cards on Amazon.co.uk."

The dispute has been simmering for a while, with Amazon previously accusing Visa of charging high credit card transaction fees, and Visa saying that Amazon was "threatening to restrict consumer choice in the future." Both companies, global leaders of their respective industries, previously said that they were attempting to work towards a solution. 

Amazon didn't elaborate further on its statement but also didn't set another deadline — so presumably UK buyers will be able to use their Visa cards for the foreseeable future. 

If you've been waiting for a sale to buy one of Amazon's Fire HD tablets, today might be the day. You can currently pick up some key products on sale, with the best deals on the Fire HD 8 and Fire HD 8 Plus, available at all-time low discounts of 50 percent. The Fire 7 is also back to its Black Friday pricing, and kids tablets have big discounts as well. 

We gave the 2020 Fire HD 8 a decent 81 score in our Engadget review, thanks to the new design, switch to USB-C charging, long battery life and solid performance. The Fire HD 8 Plus, however, offers a bit more RAM (3GB instead of 2GB), along with a faster processor and wireless charging support. Both models have 32GB of storage that's expandable via microSD.

The Fire 7 is more of a budget option that comes with a 7-inch IPS display, 2MP front- and rear-cameras and hands-free Alexa controls. It also offers roughly seven hours of battery life, depending on what you're doing. The biggest drawback is the lack of Google apps, but at $35, it's great as a couch device for reading, checking social media and browsing the web. 

If you're shopping for the younger set, meanwhile, the Fire 7 Kids Pro tablet is on sale for $50, or half off the regular $100 price. That price makes it an excellent budget kids option, thanks to the decent specs (a quad-core processor, dual cameras and expandable storage), along with the Kids+ content that includes educational content from National Geographic, Rabbids Coding, LEGO and others.

Finally, the Fire HD 8 Kids Pro Tablet, with similar features to the Fire HD 7 Kids Pro but a slightly larger screen, is available for $80, for a savings of 43 percent from the regular $140 price. Finally, the Fire HD 10 Kids Pro tablet comes with a 10.1-inch 1080p display, dual cameras, USB-C and 3GB of RAM. That model is available for $140 instead of $200, a discount of $60 or 30 percent. 

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

Meta recently said that it would implement end-to-end encryption in Facebook Messenger and Instagram by 2023, despite strong opposition from governments in the UK and elsewhere. However, the UK Home Office is reportedly planning an ad campaign to mobilize public opinion against end-to-end encryption using what critics called "scaremongering" tactics, according to a report from Rolling Stone. 

The UK government plans to team up with charities and law enforcement agencies on a public relations blitz created by M&C Saatchi advertising agency, the report states. The aim of the campaign is to relay a message that end-to-end encryption could hamper child exploitation online. 

"We have engaged M&C Saatchi to bring together the many organizations who share our concerns about the impact end-to-end encryption would have on our ability to keep children safe," a Home Office spokesperson told Rolling Stone in a statement. The government has allocated £534,000 ($730,500) for the blitz, according to a letter sent from the Home Office in response to a freedom of information request. 

The campaign may include elements designed to make the public "uneasy," according to a slideshow designed to help it recruit non-profit coalition partners. That includes a proposed stunt with adult and child actors placed in a glass box as it fades to black. It also involves a "social media activation where we ask parents to write to Mark [Zuckerberg] via their Facebook status." 

One slide noted that "most of the public have never heard" of end-to-end encryption, meaning they can "be easily swayed" on the subject. It also states that the government "must not start a privacy vs safety debate." 

Privacy advocates called the plans "scaremongering" and said that a lack of end-to-end encryption could have the opposite intended effect. "Without strong encryption, children are more vulnerable online than ever. Encryption protects personal safety and national security… what the government is proposing puts everyone at risk," Internet Society's Robin Wilton told Rolling Stone. 

Apple's "Noise Cancellation" accessibility feature has been a staple on past iPhones, but may have been permanently removed from the iPhone 13 series, 9to5Mac has reported. The feature is designed to "reduce ambient noise on phone calls when you are holding the receiver to your ear," a feature that can help make calls easier to hear. 

"Phone Noise Cancellation is not available on iPhone 13 models, which is why you do not see this option in [the Accessibility] settings," Apple support told one of 9to5Mac's readers. When the reader asked for clarification, the support team confirmed that the feature is "not supported."

Questions about noise cancellation came up on Reddit and Apple support pages shortly after the phone went on sale, with readers noticing that it was no longer available on the Accessibility page. The feature is still available with iOS 15 on past iPhone models, but is nowhere to be found on the iPhone 13. 

"Noise Cancellation" normally uses an iPhone's camera microphone to detect and remove ambient noise around you, so you can more easily hear the other person on a phone or FaceTime call — something that can be valuable for the hard of hearing. The issue only applies if you use the handset by itself without, say, Apple's AirPods noise-cancelling earphones. (It does not affect what others hear; for that, Apple introduced the Voice Isolation feature with iOS 15.)  

Apple has yet to officially confirm that the feature has been permanently removed on iPhone 13 devices; so far, the only word about it has come indirectly from Apple Support. As such, Engadget has reached out to Apple for further clarification. 

Microsoft has hired a third -party law firm to review its policies on sexual harassment and gender discrimination policies, The Verge has reported. As part of that, the final report will summarize the results of sexual harassment investigations against the company's senior leadership and board of directors, including former CEO Bill Gates. 

The report will "lead to the public release of a transparency report assessing the effectiveness of the company's workplace sexual harassment and gender discrimination policies, training, and related policies," Microsoft said in a press release. It will also "assess the steps that have been taken to hold employees, including executives, accountable for sexual harassment or gender discrimination," and include the number of sexual harassment cases investigated and their resolution. 

[The report] will lead to the public release of a transparency report assessing the effectiveness of the company's workplace sexual harassment and gender discrimination policies, training, and related policies. This will include a review of concerns raised by employees in 2019 in the “In Need of Assistance” email thread, steps the company has taken to respond to these concerns, and additional steps that could further strengthen these safeguards. The review will also include an analysis of policies, practices, and commitments to create a safe, inclusive work environment.

Microsoft had been planning to disclose how it implements sexual harassment and gender discrimination policies, with a key request being the disclosure of executive-level investigations. However, late last year, Microsoft shareholders forced the company to write up an annual report detailing how it handles sexual harassment cases within the company. 

The review will be conducted by the law firm Arent Fox and will look at allegations of discrimination and harassment arising from an internal Microsoft email chain back in 2019. In over 90 pages of emails, female employees alleged that they were harassed and denied promotions and pay raises, among other issues. They further complained that managers and the company's HR department took no action in many cases. Microsoft was also accused of 238 cases of gender discrimination or sexual harassment in 2018. 

While the board will assess the previous investigation against Gates, it won't reinvestigate the affair that happened in 2000. Gates resigned from Microsoft's board in early March of 2020, reportedly before the investigation was complete.

"We’re committed not just to reviewing the report but learning from the assessment so we can continue to improve the experiences of our employees,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement. “I embrace this comprehensive review as an opportunity to continue to get better."

Tesla is allowing customers to buy select merchandise items using Dogecoin, according to the website and a tweet from CEO Elon Musk. You can now pick up the Cyberwhistle for 300 doge ($58), Giga Texas Belt Buckle for 835 doge ($161) and the Cyberquad for Kids at 12,020 doge or $2,320. According to the store, Dogecoin is now the only way to buy those items as a cash option is no longer showing. 

Musk has been interested in Dogecoin of late, having discussed in May the potential "efficiency" of the cryptocurrency compared to Bitcoin. Then in December, he tweeted that the company would "make some merch buyable with Doge & see how it goes." Following Musk's announcement today, Dogecoin has gone up around 14 percent over the last 24 hours.

Tesla accepted Bitcoin as payment for its cars in February 2021, but halted the initiative less than two months later citing Bitcoin's environmental impact. "Cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels... but this cannot come at a great cost to the environment," Musk said on Twitter at the time. 

Dogecoin uses less power to mine, mainly because it's worth less than Bitcoin. Musk said last year that he was working with Dogecoin's devs to improve its efficiency, though there's no clear way yet to do that without decreasing its value. That said, Block's CEO Jack Dorsey just announced plans to build an open Bitcoin mining system that makes that particular cryptocurrency "more distributed and efficient."  

A legal expert has teamed with a litigation firm to sue Meta on behalf of 44 million Facebook users in the UK, claiming that they had their data exploited in violation of competition laws, TechCrunch has reported. The firm is seeking £2.3 billion ($3.1 billion) in damages for UK Facebook users. 

The lawsuit was filed by competition law specialist Dr. Liza Lovdahl Gormsen, and is being funded by Innsworth, a law firm that takes on cases in exchange for a share of damages won. It claims that even though users don't pay to use Facebook, they surrender data that has considerable value. 

"They are exploiting users by taking their personal data without properly compensating them for taking that data," Lovdahl Gormsen said in a statement. "I don’t think the users are entirely clear when they click on the terms and conditions how unfair that deal is." 

She added that Facebook has become "the sole social network in the UK where you could be sure to connect with friends and family in one place." And even as it locked users into its ecosystem (which includes WhatsApp and Instagram), it was tracking users across other websites as well. "It abused its market dominance to impose unfair terms and conditions on ordinary Britons giving it the power to exploit their personal data," according to Lovdahl Gormsen. 

The lawsuit covers the period from October 2015 to December 31st, 2019. It's an "opt-out" class action lawsuit, meaning that users will not need to take any action to receive damages in the case, unless they decide to opt out. 

"People access our service for free. They choose our services because we deliver value for them and they have meaningful control of what information they share on Meta’s platforms and who with. We have invested heavily to create tools that allow them to do so," a Meta spokesperson told The Guardian in a statement. 

Facebook already had a hit of bad news this week in the US, as a Federal judge said an antitrust suit by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against Facebook could move forward. The FTC wants to force Meta to sell Instagram and WhatsApp, accusing it of engaging in "anti-competitive conduct" against rivals. 

Nearly four years after Sony released its highly successful A7 III hybrid full-frame mirrorless camera, it finally launched a follow up. The A7 IV brings a raft of new features and improvements like a higher-resolution 33-megapixel sensor, improved video specs and updated AI-powered autofocus. However, at $2,500 it’s also $500 more than the A7 III was at launch.

A lot has changed over the years between the two models. Sony now has to contend with formidable rivals like Canon’s EOS R6 and the Nikon Z6 II. It itself has also released new high-end models like the A7S III, A7R IV and A1 loaded with the latest technology.

With all that, I was of course curious to see how the A7 IV would stack up in a category it dominated for quite a few years. How does it measure up against rivals, particularly when it comes to video? How much new tech from the high-end models has made it to the mainstream A7 IV? And is it suitable for professional use? Let’s dive in and find out.

Design and handling

Sony’s A1, A7S III and A7R IV all had substantial body changes compared to their predecessors, and the A7 IV follows the same script. It has the same nice big grip, so you never feel you’re going to drop it, even with a big lens. However, it has picked up some heft and size, weighing in at 699 grams compared to 650 with the AIII. It’s 7mm thicker, too.

It has similar controls to the A7 III, with the biggest difference being that the record button has moved from the back to an easier-to-access position on top. The buttons and dials also generally feel better and more precise, and the joystick is grippier and easier to use. It lacks certain dials compared to the far more expensive A1, like the shooting mode and autofocus dials. The lockable exposure compensation dial is the same, but lacks the graphics because it’s designed to be programmable.

In one way, however, the A7 IV’s body is a step up from the A1. The rear touch display can fully articulate and not just tilt out, so it’s much more practical for low-angle shooting in portrait orientation. That also makes it far more useful as a vlogging camera.

It has the same well-organized menu system as the A1 and A7S III, though some controls can be a bit tricky to find. As with any other modern camera then, it’s time well spent to set up the function menu, custom menus and manual controls to your liking. Overall, though, Sony’s menus are now among the best, and better organized than on Canon’s EOS R6, for example.

Steve Dent/Engadget

The 3.69-million dot EVF is much clearer than the 2.68-million dot one one on the A7 and on par with similarly priced rivals. However, the rear display is smaller and has lower resolution than the one on the R6. That can make manual focus tricky, though the A7 IV has a new feature that can help there – more on that shortly.

The A7 IV has a dual-slot card system that supports both SD UHS II and much faster CFexpress Type A cards. However, unlike the slots on the A1 and A7S III, it only has a single dual-slot, with the other being SD UHS II only. Type A CFexpress cards aren’t quite as fast as regular CFexpress cards, topping out at 800 MB/s compared to 1,700 MB/s. They're also only used in Sony cameras, so they’re relatively hard to find and quite expensive.

Other features include a USB-C port that can power the camera during operation, along with a full-sized HDMI port, thank God. It uses Sony’s new NP-FZ100 battery that delivers up to 580 shots on a charge, or about 2 hours of 4K video shooting. Finally, the A7 IV can close its mechanical shutter when the camera is turned off, protecting it from dust when you change lenses. That’s a feature that first appeared on the EOS R, so thanks for starting that trend, Canon.

Performance

Steve Dent/Engadget

Sony’s mirrorless cameras are renowned for their autofocus speeds and AI smarts and the A7 IV is no exception. However, Sony made some compromises that affect performance.

The new 33-megapixel sensor is back-side illuminated but not stacked like the sensor on the A1, so readout speeds are relatively slow. As a result, shooting speeds are 10 fps like the A7 III in either mechanical or electronic shutter modes for compressed RAW photos, and drop to 6 fps if you use lossless or uncompressed RAW, as many photographers prefer to do.

That’s still impressive considering the resolution is up nearly 50 percent. By comparison though, the Sony A1 can shoot 50-megapixel photos in electronic mode at up to 30 fps, showing the speed benefits of a stacked sensor.

While burst speeds aren’t improved, you can capture more photos at a time, up to 1,000 in the uncompressed RAW format. If you use CFexpress Type A cards from Sony or ProGrade, you can effectively shoot forever without filling the buffer.

Steve Dent/Engadget

Another drawback with the A7 IV’s slow sensor readout speeds is rolling shutter. If you want to shoot silently in electronic mode, you’ll need to keep the camera steady and your subject can’t move quickly either. Otherwise, you’ll see slanted lines and other artifacts that can be bad enough to ruin shots. Using the crop mode helps a lot, but then you lose the benefits of a full-frame sensor.

The A7 IV is Sony’s most advanced camera yet when it comes to autofocus. All of Sony’s new AI tricks add up to make it the easiest to use and most reliable camera I’ve ever tested in that regard.

Unlike the A7 III, face, eye and body tracking works in all focus modes for animals, birds and people. Unless you turn it off, it’ll automatically pick up your subject’s eyes, face or body and track them even if they turn or disappear from frame.

Whether you’re tracking sports, birds or cars, the tracking spot will stay tenaciously locked to your subject in most situations. All you have to do is touch the subject you want to track and the camera will take it from there.

Steve Dent/Engadget

The A7 IV’s autofocus can easily keep up with the camera’s burst speeds for sports or bird shooting. But more importantly, the A7 IV consistently nails focus in other tricky situations, particularly with people. In some chaotic situations with lots of subjects and complex lighting, I ended up with very few unusable shots. Keep in mind that optimum focus performance requires Sony’s latest lenses, but it worked well with recent Sigma models as well.

Focus is just one part of the equation. It consistently nailed auto-exposure and auto white balance in tricky situations with a mix of lighting. That worked well in a bar with a mix of studio and practical lights, or in front of the famous Paris department store animated windows with all kinds of colors of lights.

In-body stabilization improves a half stop over the A7 III to 5.5 stops with compatible lenses, but neither comes close to Canon’s claimed 8 stops on the EOS R6. That’s somewhat balanced out by Sony’s superior high ISO performance, however. I was still able to get reasonably sharp shots down to a half second with some care.

Photo Quality

A big improvement with the A7 IV is with image quality. You’d expect more sharpness with the extra resolution, and it certainly delivers that. However, you might also think that the smaller pixels would make A7 IV worse in low light, but nope. In fact, through much of its ISO range, the A7 IV performs better even than Sony’s low-light champ, the A7S III.

Images are clean and usable in most low-light situations right up to ISO 12,800, with plenty of detail even in underexposed shots. In fact, the A7 IV has the least noise I’ve ever seen in that ISO range. Correctly exposed photos are usable up to ISO 25,600, but noise becomes a serious issue after that.

Sony has improved its color science with every new camera lately, and the A7 IV has perhaps its best setup yet. The green cast we’ve seen on earlier models is gone and colors are accurate right out of the camera and easier to balance in post than ever before.

JPEGs look great straight out of the camera with a nice balance between detail and noise reduction. The 14-bit RAW images deliver up to 13 stops of dynamic range, giving you plenty of room to lift shadows and claw back highlights. Overall, Sony’s A7 IV delivers perhaps the best images of any of its cameras, with a great balance between detail, high ISO performance and color accuracy.

Video

Samuel Dejours

Finally we’re onto video, the one area where rival cameras have moved well beyond the A7 III. Fortunately the A7 IV has big improvements in that area too, along with one drawback.

As before, it can shoot downsampled 4K video at up to 30p using the full width of the sensor, meaning video is extremely sharp. But now, it can capture that video at 4:2:2 10-bit with Sony’s S-Log, so it’s much easier to stretch and pull in post-production.

And now you can shoot 4K at up to 60 fps, also with 10 bits of color depth. While it’s cropped, video is still downsampled from a 4.6K size, so it remains sharp. The A7 IV can’t handle 120 fps 4K like Canon’s EOS R6, but then again it doesn’t have the R6’s serious overheating issues either. If you need that frame rate, it’s only available up to 1080p. HDMI output is limited to 4K 25p at just 8 bits of color depth, unfortunately.

With 13 stops of dynamic range in Sony’s S-Log3 mode, along with 10-bit 4:2:2 color and reasonably high bit rates up to 500 Mbps, image quality is superb and easy to control in post. The lack of noise at high ISO ranges is a huge plus, making the camera usable in a lot of low and tricky lighting situations.

Eye AF and tracking now work in video mode, making it far more dependable for shooting interviews or action. As with photos, it’s extremely intuitive to use. You can tap a subject to track it, and it will automatically switch to eye or face tracking as needed.

There’s a new and cool video feature called lens breathing compensation. Normally, pulling focus from one subject to another causes a slight but distracting zoom – an issue that’s particularly problematic on Sony’s pricey GM lenses, as good as they are. The breathing compensation function introduces a slight digital zoom that counteracts any change in focal length when focusing on a new subject.

Using the feature does cause a slight crop, and it only works with select, mostly expensive, Sony lenses. It’s a really nice feature though, and currently only found on the A7 IV.

Sony has made manual focusing for video easier as well with Manual Focus Assist. It places blue and red colors over objects behind and in front of the focus plane, while objects in focus are clear. Once I got used to it, it was relatively easy to pull focus quickly and in the right direction. The color display is a bit blocky, though, so super precise adjustments can be a challenge.

Image stabilization is very effective for video, particularly with active mode engaged. It works with 4K in both cropped 60p and uncropped 30p modes. However, rolling shutter can be pretty brutal in 30p mode with the full width of the sensor, and stabilization can sometimes make that worse (and unfixable). If you have a wide lens and can stick to the cropped mode with active stabilization, wobble is well controlled and not much worse than with the excellent A1.

Wrap-up

Steve Dent/Engadget

The A7 IV offers big improvements in resolution, AF tracking, video features and more, but forget about the spec sheet for a second. Sony’s largest achievement is that it created a mainstream camera that makes photography and video easier, thanks to AI smarts that can aid any photographer, no matter their skill.

The biggest drawback is rolling shutter that might give you pause if you require a silent mode or want to shoot uncropped 4K video. Another issue is the $2,500 price that’s $500 more than the A7 III was at launch.

Other hybrid cameras in that price range can’t quite measure up, though. Canon’s $2,500 20-megapixel EOS R6 is your best alternative, but the resolution is a big step down. Panasonic’s 24-megapixel S5 and Nikon’s Z6 II are other decent options, but lack the reliability and ease of use of the A7 IV. So once again, Sony rules the mainstream hybrid camera market and will probably do so for a while to come.

Arturia has launched Brute Noir editions of its popular mid-tier monophonic synths, the MiniBrute 2 and MiniBrute 2S. It also launched a limited Brute Noir edition of its DrumBrute Impact analog drum machine. All the versions are all-black rather than grey, so they may appeal to musicians who want that aesthetic or the exclusivity of a limited edition model.

As a reminder, the MiniBrute 2 is a monophonic synth that's semi-modular in that it has a decent-sized patchbay for rerouting the synth's signal, but it can also make sounds right out of the box. Other features include a pair of VCOs, two LFOs and the 25-note, velocity-sensitive keyboard with aftertouch and dual-oscillator Brute Voice. The MiniBrute 2s lacks the keyboard but offers a 64-step sequencer for "classic synth workflow and punchy Brute character."

Arturia

The DrumBrute Impact, meanwhile, is Arturia's entry level 10-voice analog drum machine. It's modernized with "gnarly FM," Arturia says, along with polyrythmic sequencing and a built-in distortion circuit. Arturia didn't reveal specific pricing for the Brute Noir editions ahead of publication, but the regular MiniBrute 2 and MiniBrute 2s models are $499, while the standard DrumBrute is $299 at Amazon.