Facebook has revealed its long-rumored standalone newsletter platform: Bulletin. Mark Zuckerberg announced the new project during a live audio room, saying that the project was a “response to what’s happening in the media ecosystem.”
Interestingly, unlike previous journalism initiatives from Facebook, Bulletin primarily lives outside of the main Facebook app. The newsletter platform has its own website, though it will take advantage of Facebook’s distribution tools. The newsletters will be integrated into author’s Facebook pages and readers can find the content in the news section of Facebook’s app.
There’s something a little counter-revolutionary about high-end gaming machines made by suit-and-tie PC businesses. The idea of Lenovo, makers of the ThinkPad, making a gaming machine worthy of comment feels a little weird, and yet the Legion 5 Pro is just that. The Walmart-exclusive model that I’m testing costs $1,530, pairing AMD’s Ryzen 7 5800H with NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3070 graphics. Powerful and affordable? That’s almost revolutionary.
Rounding out that spec list is 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD and, mercifully, both components are user-upgradeable. That piddly drive will barely hold more than a couple Calls worth of Duty before you’re reaching for an external HDD. But these are the sort of smart compromises that Lenovo have opted for to keep the price down, letting you add more RAM and storage when you’re feeling more flush.
And then there’s the screen, a 16-inch, 165Hz QHD, X-Rite Pantone-validated IPS display with the new, taller, 16:10 aspect ratio. At 500 nits, the panel can hold its own in bright light compared to many of its rivals, and the matte screen reduces the risk of glare. Watching 4K video on this thing is a very pleasant experience and I’ve enjoyed working from this device across the week I’ve been using it. It certainly makes you want to spend hours at a time staring at gigapixel images of, say, Paris, which I definitely didn’t spend a long time doing this week (cough).
Daniel Cooper
Lenovo wasn’t looking to pull up any trees with this design, which is little more than a refinement of what went before. It’s not as thin or light as its rivals, and looks better in a dark room lit only by the glow of an RGB keyboard and the odd Nanoleaf panel. But if you’re buying it as a desktop replacement that’ll spend 90 percent of its time plonked on the same desk, it’s fine. Oh, and the aluminum chassis is rock solid, giving you confidence on those occasions when you do need to take it somewhere. That matte grey paint job, while very business-forward, hides a multitude of palm sweat-based sins but will attract every speck of dust in a three mile zone.
The Legion 5 Pro’s chunky chassis also means that you’ll find an excellent supply of I/O running around its deck. You get four USB-A (3.2 Gen 1) ports, two USB-C (3.2 Gen 2), HDMI, Ethernet and a 3.5mm headphone / microphone jack, as well as the proprietary power jack. On the right hand side, you’ll also find a hardware camera mute button, which replaces the dedicated hardware shutter from previous versions.
Even after several days of use, using Lenovo’s TrueStrike keyboard remains a pleasant but weird experience. The keys have a depth of 1.5mm, but Lenovo uses “soft landing” switches to make each actuation feel a little deeper than that. Every time you hit a key, you’re expecting the hard jerk of a mechanical keyboard, only to find a pillowy end and bounce back up. It’s like filling your shoes with water on a hot day and then stepping into them, it’s very useful, but your brain is telling you that something’s amiss here.
One thing worthy of comment is that Lenovo took advantage of the Legion 5’s bigger deck size to include a numerical keypad. The company says that the numpad itself is full size, but to my eyes and fingers, it feels a little squashed compared to a regular external PC keyboard. The RGB backlighting is perhaps appropriately muted but can be set to four different lighting zones when required. The trackpad, meanwhile, is perfectly functional, but the bigger size is welcome given how tight previous models have been.
Daniel Cooper
I have less to say about the machine’s 720p camera, which is the very definition of serviceable, or useful in a pinch. Light blooms, everything’s uncomfortably fuzzy and the overall effect is that of most ‘60s TV shows when they’d get the Vaseline-smeared lens for close-ups. If you’re looking to make a living from streaming, or you’re a professional Zoom-call-haver, buy an external device, please. Poor webcam aside, Lenovo gets props for offering a dedicated camera disconnect button since there wasn’t room in the space-starved lid for its customary shutter.
Benchmarks don’t tell the whole story, but the Legion 5 Pro comes in close enough to machines priced a couple hundred bucks more. When playing demanding AAA games like Cyberpunk and Shadow of the Tomb Raider, I got between 50-60fps with the settings appropriately tweaked. Naturally, you’ll lose a little bit of that when you enable ray tracing, but it can handle hard work relatively well. The Legion 5 Pro has three pre-set performance modes which can be set inside the Vantage utility, or cycled through when you hit Fn+Q. One neat addition is that the power button will change color depending on which mode you’re in: Auto offers a white glow, Quiet a cool blue, and Performance an angry red.
Using a machine like this for general productivity work is a bit like taking an F-150 to buy a box of cereal, but it’s more than possible. After all, if all you’re doing is crunching documents, writing term papers, poking at spreadsheets and using Slack, then this has more than enough. When transcoding a 28.2GB UHD H.265 video file to 1080p, Handbrake was able to crunch through it at over 40 fps, making it sturdy enough for even halfway professional video editors.
The Legion 5 Pro uses a dual-fan system which pushes hot air out of its chassis through a quartet of exhausts. Two vents at the back are complemented by one on each side, and if you’re not blessed with huge amounts of room, beware. Leave your hand, mouse, gamepad or drink next to one of those vents for too long and they will become uncomfortably warm. Playing Cyberpunk and Shadow of the Tomb Raider was kicking out enough heat that I wondered if I could make s’mores.
Daniel Cooper
This problem is exacerbated with the aluminum underside of the chassis which gets too hot to touch. After a couple hours gaming, I picked up the machine to move it somewhere else and damn. I thought I’d picked up a baking sheet straight out of the oven and nearly dropped the thing through muscle memory. It’s not hot enough to burn you, but it’s not something you wanna touch if you value not being in pain.
It’s impossible to sugarcoat the sheer noise that this machine makes when the fans spin up, either. This thing is noisy, noisy enough that you’ll need to dial your speakers up to drown it out or grab a pair of headphones to claw back some of that immersion. This is an occupational hazard of gaming laptops, but it’s worth noting that this thing is loud.
Another tick in the “not ideal” column is battery life, and despite packing an 80WHr battery, it will not last for long when divorced from an outlet. Our standard battery rundown test loops a video until the computer dies, with the brightness set to 65 percent and all battery-saving tech disabled. It managed to last for four hours and 43 minutes while using the integrated Radeon graphics, which is fine in the gritted-teeth sense of the word. Certainly, while you can handle a few emails or some light browsing while sat on your couch, this is not a device you can take away from a socket for a full working day without fuss.
One of the reasons that the Legion 5 Pro is compelling despite some of its flaws is its price, which is something. Lenovo has managed to undercut several of its competitors here, and there’s no wonder it’s only intermittently on sale right now. If you want a machine from Alienware with similar specs (the romantically-named M15 Ryzen Edition R5 Gaming Laptop) it’ll cost you $1,899.99. For that, you’ll get a Ryzen R7 5800H (same as here), RTX 3070 with 8GB RAM (same as here), 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD (same as… you get the idea).
Daniel Cooper
If getting RTX 3070 graphics is a dealbreaker, then you could opt for the Razer Blade 15 Base Model with a 15.6-inch FHD display, 10th-generation Intel Core i7-10750H, 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD. You will, however, have to pay $1,999.99 for the privilege, which may be something of a dealbreaker. ASUS also offers the ROG Strix G15 — an all-AMD version of which we reviewed a few weeks back — with an RTX 3070, priced at $1,799.99. If you were looking for a machine in that $1,500-or-so bracket, you could get the $1,599.99 Razer Book, with a Core i7-1165G7 and Intel Iris Xe Graphics. Alternatively, gor $1,499.99, Acer’s Predator Triton 300 SE packs a Core i7-11375H and NVIDIA’s RTX 3060 GPU, which seems like a fairly reasonable deal all things considered.
Despite all of the chaos that has so far made up the ‘20s, we’re seeing a new dawn of AMD’s high-er end chips winding up in gaming laptops. This Ryzen 7 5800H can beat (select) Intel chips in a number of benchmarks, and you can expect to see it crop up in a number of other machines across this year. And while wealthier buyers may be tempted by a far pricier machine with RTX 3080 graphics, the 3070 here shouldn’t make you feel like a second-class citizen.
There is lots to like about this machine, although the snips made to get its price to this level will rankle. The battery life is well below par, the thermals could do with refinement, and the webcam would look retrograde on a machine five years its senior. But, if you’re going to stick this on a desk, keep it constantly plugged in to power and never do more than the odd Zoom, does that matter?
As good as it is to read with your kids, you might not always be there when they want to open a book. Amazon thinks it can fill in that gap, though. It just rolled out a long-teased Reading Sidekick feature that uses an Echo Kids device to help your kids read aloud on their own time. Children just have to tell Alexa "let's read" to take turns reading supported books, whether they're digital or physical. Your young ones won't always have to wait for you, in other words.
You'll need a Kids+ subscription to use the Sidekick, although you'll at least have your choice of books. Over 700 titles will be available for kids aged 6 to 9, and Amazon is promising "hundreds more" every month.
Appropriately, Amazon is simultaneously rolling out Alexa Voice Profiles for Kids. Set them up for your children (as many as four) and they'll get parental controls, kid-appropriate responses as well personalized Alexa skills, games and media. Not everyone will have Voice Profiles for Kids right away, but they should be available to everyone by July 2nd.
Before you ask: yes, Amazon is aware that parents and teachers should be involved in reading whenever possible. It's not suggesting that you use a smart speaker as a substitute for reading at bedtime. Reading Sidekick is meant to fill in the gaps and encourage kids to read aloud more often — you don't have to worry quite so much if a business trip keeps you away from home.
Neon White stole the show during the February 2021 Nintendo Direct live stream. It looked like a mature, anime-styled game set in Heaven and starring a cast of demon assassins, with tinges of Cowboy Bebop, Bayonetta and Danganronpa. Its debut trailer showed off frenetic first-person gameplay and stylish cinematics, but once the screen faded to black, viewers were left with a handful of questions:
Is this a first-person shooter, or a card-based game?
Is it on rails?
What’s with those animal masks?
Is this a dating sim?
And finally: Wait, Neon White is made by Ben Esposito? The dude who created Donut County, that bastion of wholesome, pastel-slathered gameplay and design?
Yep.
“This game is just so different than stuff I've made in the past,” Esposito told Engadget. “And there's expectations that people have that you'll just make the same thing over and over again. So, people don't really know what to think or say. I mean, my parents don't know what to think or say. My parents played Donut County and they enjoyed it. They're not going to play this.”
Annapurna Interactive
Donut County was Esposito’s first original project after doing design work on two hit indie games, 2012’s The Unfinished Swan and 2017’s What Remains of Edith Finch. Donut County came out in 2018 after six years of development, and garnered praise for its adorable visual world and simple, physics-puzzler mechanics. You play as a literal hole in the ground, gobbling up the cartoon landscape and interacting with cute characters along the way.
Neon White is decidedly different. By Esposito’s own account, he’s pumping it full of weird cult energy and late-1990s, early-2000s adult anime vibes.
“I don't need to make wholesome stuff right now,” Esposito said. “I've explored it. It's not for me at the moment. I'm here to make edgy indulgent things.”
So, let’s indulge. Esposito talked through exactly how Neon White will play, answering those lingering questions from the game’s debut trailer a month ago. First up:
Mechanics
Neon White is a first-person shooter, full-stop. It’s coming to Nintendo Switch and Steam, and on PC, it uses the standard WASD and mouse input. It’s not on rails, and in fact, freedom of movement and rapidity are key gameplay elements. Players earn medals for beating levels quickly, adding a delectable layer of speedrunning to the game.
Actions and weapons are augmented by the floating cards scattered around Heaven’s platforms or left behind by slain enemies.
“The whole conceit of playing the game is the cards that are both weapons and movement,” Esposito said. “The way that works is, you start with just a sidearm, like a little katana card, and you swipe it. And then all the weapons that you get in the level come from either they're sitting around in the world, or if you kill an enemy, sometimes they'll drop a card. And when you pick up the card, now you can use that card as a gun. It has a number of shots, depending on what gun it is, or you can discard it, which would just delete it essentially. And in exchange, you'll get some sort of movement ability.”
Take the Godspeed card, for example. If you choose to use it as a gun, it’s essentially a rifle with four shots, and it’s accurate and powerful. But, if you discard it, it’s a dash that slaughters basically any enemy you move through. These card-discard decisions play out in rapid succession in the game, as players catapult themselves from one Heavenly platform to another.
Every action is extreme in Neon White.
“When you jump, you jump three humans tall,” Esposito said. “When you do movement, you go really, really, really far. So, it's like a first-person platformer in something that I really like about those old-school games is that they can be nice and broad and clear, and they can be kind of abstract in how the levels are constructed, which lets me do really interesting, weird layouts.”
It also lets Esposito get weird regarding the second critical aspect of Neon White:
Story
Annapurna Interactive
“The story component is very big,” Esposito said. “It's structured 100 percent around the story, which is weird for kind-of a speed-running shooter. It's not something that I think has really been done.”
Neon White’s narrative begins with a simple conceit. You wake up in Heaven with no clue how you got there, and you’re immediately thrown into a competition to be the top demon slayer and earn a permanent place beyond the Pearly Gates. The thing is, all the other demon slayers seem to know you, and you don’t remember anyone.
The bulk of the narrative plays out in dialogue scenes in-between missions. Missions are composed of 10 rapid-fire, card-casting, demon-slaying levels each, with story beats scattered throughout.
“And then you get an opportunity to hang out in Heaven,” Esposito said. “You talk to all the various other characters, and you can find gifts and stuff for them. It's kind of got dating sim elements and you can give them gifts to deepen your relationship, and they will give you back things for giving them gifts. So, you'll be able to do interesting side quests and stuff that will deepen the relationship even further.”
Using dating-sim-inspired mechanics, players decide who to trust and gather information about their own backstory. It's a little Hades, a little Paradise Killer, a little El Shaddai, and altogether unique. One of the most evocative images from Neon White’s announcement features two bone-white, animal-faced humans drawn in a lanky anime style; one of them is holding the other in his arms, even as she presses the barrel of a pistol to the underside of his chin. It’s mysterious, dangerous and sensual.
“It's really a little bit of a reaction to spending so long making Donut County,” Esposito said. “That's a game that was really devised to be enjoyed by both children and their parents at the same time. It was kind of conceived as something that was supposed to be really anyone could get into it…. Neon White is not that at all. It’s for particular people.”
If there are any “particular people” here, Neon White is due to hit Nintendo Switch and PC this winter, published by Annapurna Interactive. It’s available to wishlist on Steam right now.
