ASUS unveiled a bunch of new laptops at this week’s Computex tech expo in Taipei, including a Zenbook refresh. The Zenbook S16 is as sleek and well-designed as ever, but comes with a spate of iterative improvements and a couple of major updates.

It's equipped with AMD's Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor, announced just hours ago. That chip promises improved laptop AI performance with 50 TOPS of processing power, triple AMD's previous laptop hardware. That makes it suitable for Copilot+, meaning Qualcomm isn't the only game in town for Microsoft's AI assistant.

ASUS

One thing worth pointing out is that this laptop is extremely thin and light for a 16-inch model, clocking in at just over three pounds with a thickness of just 1.1cm or 0.4 inches. The cooling system has also been revamped, with a new top vent and an ultra-thin vapor chamber. Better laptop cooling is always much appreciated.

It still features the same signature aluminum ceramic coating as found with last year’s Zenbook 14X, but ASUS changed the name of the finish to, wait for it, Ceraluminum. What a portmanteau!

There’s a 16-inch 3K OLED touchscreen with a max refresh rate of 120Hz. The 78Wh battery makes it a great option for all-day use and the six-speaker setup from Harman Kardon will certainly pump out the jams. It also supports Wi-Fi 7, includes up to 2TB of solid-state storage and can be specced out with up to 32GB of RAM. 

The ASUS Zenbook S16 starts at $1,400 and is now available to pre-order at Best Buy in white or gray colors. 

Steve Dent contributed to this report.

Microsoft's Copilot+ initiative for super-charged AI PCs is becoming more of a reality at Computex 2024. Today, AMD announced its next major chip platforms, Ryzen AI 300 for notebooks and Ryzen 9000 for desktops, which respectively target beefier laptop AI performance and fast gaming on desktops. Notably, Ryzen AI 300 chips feature a revamped neural processing unit (NPU) with 50 TOPS (tera operations per second) of AI performance, more than three times AMD's previous laptop hardware. The new desktop processors, meanwhile, are reportedly 16 percent faster than their predecessors when it comes to overall performance.

The key takeaway from these announcements is that Qualcomm is no longer the only company able to gloat about fast AI hardware for Copilot+ PCs. That initiative, which Microsoft unveiled a few weeks ago, sets a new baseline specification standard for AI PCs. Copilot+ PCs require an NPU with at least 40 TOPS of AI performance, 16GB of RAM and 256GB SSDs to qualify as Copilot+ notebooks. Microsoft also tied together long battery life with the initiative, but it's unclear if the Ryzen AI 300 chips will be able to touch the reported twenty-plus hours from Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon processors. (We're also expecting Intel to respond with more details about its Lunar Lake Copilot+ chips later today at Computex.)

AMD

So far, AMD's new laptop chips include two models: The 12-core Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, and the 10-core AI 9 365. As usual, we expect the company to fill out its lineup over the next year with mid-tier and lower-end offerings. Both Ryzen AI 9 chips reach at least 5GHz max boost speeds, and they also feature built-in RDNA 3.5 Radeon 890M and 880M graphics. According to AMD's benchmarks, the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 is 98 percent faster than Apple's M3 chip in Blender, and it's 73 percent faster than Intel's Core Ultra 185H. (It's worth noting company tested its hardware with 32GB of RAM against Apple and Intel systems with 16GB of RAM, according to its testing footnotes.)

AMD

Powering both the Ryzen AI 300 and Ryzen 9000 chips is AMD's Zen 5 architecture, which is a "sweeping update" for the company, Senior Processor Technical Marketing Manager Donny Woligrosky said in a media briefing. He claims it offers better branch prediction (which helps with accuracy and latency), higher overall throughput and up to two times better instruction bandwidth. For regular users, that means you can expect Zen 5 systems to feel a bit more responsive and be better primed for handling large data loads.

AMD

While AMD's new AI chips are the star of the show, the company isn't leaving desktop users behind. The new Ryzen 9000 chips top out with the 16-core Ryzen 9 9950X, which edges close to the 6GHz dream with 5.7GHz boost speeds. It's a power-hungry beast though, requiring 170 watts, so more reasonable hardware nerds might want to opt for the Ryzen 9 9900X (120W TDP) or the eight-core Ryzen 7 9700X (65W). These new chips don't include NPUs like the Ryzen 8000G, but at this point, gamers and demanding PC users can make do with the raw computational power from desktop CPUs and powerful GPUs. (NVIDIA is also trying to power some AI features with its RTX GPUs, which eschews the need for a standalone NPU.)

Alongside these new desktop chips, AMD is also unveiling the X870E and X870 AM5 chipsets. They include the next-gen PC features you'd expect, including PCIe 5, USB4, WiFi 7 and DDR5. For its older AM4 hardware, AMD also unveiled the 16-core Ryzen 9 5900XT and eight-core Ryzen 7 5800XT, which can both hit 4.8GHz speeds.

We're still awaiting pricing details on AMD's new hardware, but the company says we can expect to see Ryzen AI 300 systems and Ryzen 9000 chips in July. Those new laptops include the ASUS ZenBook S 16 and Zephyrus G16, as well as the MSI Stealth A16 AI+.

Sometimes it’s the simplest games that end up leaving you all teary-eyed and emotional.

When I first downloaded Cool Lemon Club’s The Keyper for Playdate, I didn’t have much in the way of expectations beyond a general sense that it should be pretty good, since lots of people online seemed to be recommending it. The adventure game, which is available on itch.io and the official Playdate Catalog, sees the player searching for the many different keys needed to unlock areas of the mysterious Winchester 21 building after taking over the role of caretaker. The person who formerly held the job is gone, leaving only some cryptic notes behind, and the residents are varying degrees of weird.

On its face, it seems like a pretty standard game of puzzle solving and exploration. It’s effectively frustrating throughout, as you repeatedly retrace your steps trying to navigate the Winchester 21’s several floors and labyrinthine tunnel system to find the keys and the doors they unlock. But as the plot unfolds and you uncover more of the building’s secrets, The Keyper reveals itself to be a game with a lot of heart.

Its charm lies in the strange interactions between you and the people who live in the apartments (and tunnels… and walls) of the Winchester 21. They each have their own little storylines, some of which present new mysteries and side-quests for you to take on. One of these in particular really tugged at my heartstrings, but I wouldn’t dare spoil it for you here.

The Keyper is a little dark, a little funny and just the right amount of challenging. While it does offer the option to save your progress so you can walk away from it and come back later, I’d recommend setting aside a few hours and just playing this through in one shot for the most impact. By the time you reach the end and finally figure out what’s been going on all along, the entire tone of the game has shifted into something a lot more heartwarming than it all first appears. I may even have cried a little during the final scene. 

After yesterday’s launch of the first crewed Starliner mission was scrubbed, NASA, Boeing and ULA made the decision to wait a few days before making another attempt. Starliner was scheduled to finally lift off on Saturday afternoon after a series of delays, but this attempt was aborted due to a last-minute issue with a ground computer system that plays a key role in launching the rocket. While NASA and partners discussed possibly flying today following their assessment of the issue, they’ve decided to hold off until the next opportunities, either on June 5 or 6.

Saturday’s launch wasn’t scrubbed due to a problem with the Starliner craft itself, but because an automatic hold was issued by the ground launch sequencer for a then-unknown reason. In a press conference later on Saturday, Tory Bruno, president and CEO of ULA explained that it came down to a problem in verifying the launch sequencer’s redundancy. There are three large computers in this system, all of which are the same so it’s “triple redundant,” Bruno said. During the system health check in the minutes before launch, one of the computers came up slow, triggering an automatic hold.

NASA said the decision to forgo today’s launch attempt was made in order to “give the team additional time to assess a ground support equipment issue.” The launch window opens again on June 5, but no target liftoff time has been announced just yet. If Starliner doesn’t fly by June 6, it’ll be set back by at least another 10 days, ArsTechnica reports, as the ULA team will need to swap out the Atlas V rocket’s batteries.

The newest Apple Watch is down to one of the best prices we’ve seen it go for yet, so if you’ve been thinking about upgrading, now would be the perfect time to do so. The 41mm Apple Watch Series 9 (GPS only) is $100 off on Amazon, bringing the price down to $299. There’s also a deal on the larger version (45mm), which is down to $360 from its usual price of $430. The full discounts apply to Series 9 in Midnight and Starlight, but there are varying deals on the other colors as well.

The Series 9 Apple Watch is the best Apple Watch you can get today, and our favorite smartwatch in general. It comes with some new features made possible by the S9 system-in-package (SiP) processor. With this model, Apple introduced the Double Tap gesture that allows you to carry out certain actions on the watch without touching the screen, like pausing your music. It also has on-device Siri and an improved version of “Raise to Speak” to more easily activate the assistant.

As with the other Apple Watch models, the Series 9 is water resistant and great for fitness and health tracking, though it currently doesn’t offer the blood oxygen monitoring feature that was initially touted, thanks to a patent dispute. It has an always on display with a peak brightness rating double that of the previous model, and twice the internal storage capacity.

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You can get Apple’s third-generation AirPods for under $150 right now. In a deal on Amazon, the AirPods are back down to their record-low price of $140, a 17 percent discount. This model normally costs $170. The third-generation AirPods were released in 2021 and brought some big improvements over the previous version, with a more compact and comfortable design, and much better sound quality.

The third-generation AirPods earned a score of 88 in our review and marked a notable upgrade over their predecessors in the line of regular AirPods. They feature a shorter stem and more angled earbud placement that’s meant to give the sound a more direct path into your ear, on top of fitting more comfortably. They also brought an IPX4 rating to the regular AirPods, making the earbuds and the charging case sweat and water resistant.

This model is powered by Apple’s H1 chip, which allows for features like always-on Siri and one-touch fast pairing. The chip also enables some more advanced features in the sound department like Adaptive EQ, spatial audio and dynamic head tracking. Audio quality got a big boost in the third-generation AirPods. Engadget’s Billy Steele found that “the sound is bigger and more immersive” than with the earlier AirPods, which by comparison offer sound that seems “compressed and downright boring.”

The third-generation AirPods have pretty good battery life too, lasting about six hours on their own and up to 30 with the charging case. They also support quick charging with the case, which allows for about an hour of additional use after just five minutes in the case.

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Amazon Prime Day 2024 is coming soon, now's the time to start thinking about the things you’ll want to look for once the deals arrive. Everything from gadgets to clothes to household necessities will be on sale during the shopping event, and if you’re a Prime member, you’ll have access to all of the Amazon Prime Day deals. Engadget will be surfacing all of the best tech deals we can find – both on Amazon and elsewhere – but there are some important things to know ahead of time so you can get exactly what you want out of this year’s Prime Day.

When is Amazon Prime Day?

We do not have official dates for Prime Day 2024 yet, but we do know it’ll be back sometime in July. The shopping event focuses on exclusive deals for Prime members, which means you’ll have to be a Prime subscriber on Prime Day to take advantage of most of the savings. Amazon still offers a 30-day free trial to new Prime subscribers, so you can start your free trial closer to July and participate in the event.

If you don’t pay for Prime and have no intention of doing so, you should still check out Amazon on Prime Day for sales that are available to all shoppers — there are always a few of them. Plus, it’s very likely that other retailers like Target and Best Buy will have their own competing Prime Day sales during that time frame, too.

Speaking of competitors, Walmart just announced that its version of Prime Day, dubbed Walmart+ Week, will take place June 17 through June 23. Walmart+ Week offers exclusive deals for Walmart+ members, and the retail giant appears to be placing a lot of emphasis on gas and travel discounts this year. It's currently teasing 20 cents off every gallon of gas purchased at Exxon and Mobil stations, as well as 20 percent Walmart Cash back on travel accommodations purchased through Walmart+ Travel. However, that's not to say we won't see discounts on other items, including electronics, during Walmart's members-only shopping event.

Amazon Prime Day deals

Amazon Prime Day typically lasts two days, but for the past few years, the company has started pushing out deals well before the event actually kicks off. We anticipate the same happening this year, with early Prime Day deals kicking off possibly as soon as Amazon officially announces the dates of Prime Day 2024.

Be they early Prime Day deals or day-of sales, Amazon gadgets are almost guaranteed to be on sale for the event. You can safely bet on things like Echo speakers, Kindle e-readers and Fire TV devices to be at record-low prices for Prime Day, so if you’ve had your eye on one of those items, it’s worth waiting for those deals to drop. Prime Day is only matched by Black Friday in its discounts, so while that means you will likely have another chance to get that smart speaker for dirt cheap, it probably won’t be until the holiday shopping season.

Amazon gadgets will not be the only items discounted on Prime Day. You’ll find clothes, shoes, household items, appliances, accessories and more on sale, but here at Engadget, we’ll naturally be focusing on electronics. We expect this year’s Prime Day to be like last year’s, in that it will bring big discounts on headphones, earbuds, gaming accessories, SSDs and microSD cards, robot vacuums and more.

Engadget will be covering Amazon Prime Day in its entirety, so if you have a lot of tech on your to-buy list, be sure to check back here on Prime Day for the best tech sales we could find. We’ll be sure to include gadgets from across the board – from headphones to robot vacuums to gaming gear – plus the best “anti-Prime Day” deals you can find from other retailers. You can also follow the @EngadgetDeals Twitter account and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter to stay up to date on the latest discounts.

ASUS was the first major PC maker to try its hand at making a gaming handheld. And despite a few issues like a wonky microSD card reader, the ROG Ally succeeded at giving people a powerful way to take their games on the go. But after about a year on the market, ASUS’ portable is getting a major revamp and it feels like it’s becoming the device we wanted all along.

Now just to be clear, the Ally X isn’t a true sequel to the original, it’s more of a mid-cycle refresh similar to what Nintendo did for the Switch back in 2019. Except I’d argue ASUS has done more to boost the new model’s capabilities. That’s because while the Ally X has the same Ryzen Z1 Extreme chip and 7-inch 120Hz LCD screen used in its predecessor, nearly everything else on the system has been tweaked or improved in some way.

Inside, ASUS doubled the size of the Ally X’s battery to a whopping 80Wh, up from 40Wh on the old model. Same goes for storage, with the handheld featuring a 1TB M.2 SSD (up from 512GB). Unlike before, it’s a full-size 2280 module, so anyone planning on adding a larger drive later on will have lots of options for third-party add-ons. Even its memory is getting a big bump up to 24GB (up from 16GB) of faster LPDDR5X 75000 RAM. And to keep everything cooled properly, ASUS installed a new fan system that the company says is 23 percent smaller while delivering 24 percent better airflow.

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

Now all this would be a more-than-welcome change, especially when it comes to performance and battery life. But ASUS didn’t stop there. The Ally X also features a new black exterior and it’s a touch thicker than before, which allows for more pronounced grips and a slightly more ergonomic button layout. There’s also a new precision D-Pad, which is something I’m happy to see as the previous one felt a bit numb and spongy. And while ASUS didn’t opt for Hall Effect joysticks, the company says it switched to stiffer springs, which should increase durability and make them feel more responsive.

Finally, around back, the Ally X features smaller rear paddles that should be harder to press by accident. However, one of my favorite changes is that in addition to a new third vent on top, ASUS also ditched its proprietary XG mobile connector in favor of a second USB-C port. And because this one supports both USB 4 and Thunderbolt 4, it’s fast enough to use with an external GPU (if you’re into that kind of thing) while leaving the other jack open for charging or other wired accessories.

In a lot of ways, it feels like ASUS has finally made the Ally X the handheld I wanted all along. The bigger battery solves one of the main issues with the previous model, which often conked out after a little more than an hour when playing modern games. Then there’s the addition of a second USB-C port, which makes the system a lot more versatile and better equipped to pull double duty as a pseudo desktop in a pinch. And I can’t say enough about the larger grips. That’s because even though the X is only a few millimeters thicker than before, it’s way more comfortable, which is obviously super important for any handheld device.

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

But potentially the biggest impact of all this is that ASUS is turning its first mover's advantage into an even bigger lead. Because while rivals like the Legion Go are still on their first model (not to mention others like the MSI Claw that arrived way late to the party, stayed tuned for my review coming coon), ASUS is already iterating on its handheld. And that’s coming from a device with a solid foundation. For anyone who has been as enamored with the recent wave of gaming handhelds as I have, it’s really encouraging to see these devices mature so quickly. Plus, starting at $800, which is just $100 more than the original Ally, the Ally X feels very reasonably priced.

The ROG Ally X is available for pre-order today from Best Buy, with official sales set to begin sometime in July.

Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft is coming to Netflix on October 10. Netflix announced the release date today along with a new trailer, which finally gives us a slightly more in-depth look at what the series will be like. It picks up after the events of the Survivor Trilogy, which focused on a younger Lara Croft. Per Netflix’s Tudum, it will see Lara “forced to confront her true self and decide just what kind of hero she wants to become,” as she chases down a “dangerous and powerful” stolen artifact.

Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft was first announced back in 2021 and is being produced by Legendary Television and Powerhouse Animation, the studio behind the Castlevania anime. It’s executive produced and written by Tasha Huo, known for The Witcher: Blood Origin. Lara Croft is voiced by Hayley Atwell (Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning). The Legend of Lara Croft is not to be confused with the other Tomb Raider series currently in development for Prime Video, which has Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge on board as writer and executive producer.

Godzilla Minus One is now available to stream on Netflix, and the black-and-white version will soon follow. The streaming giant announced the surprise release today, coinciding with the film’s arrival for digital purchase and rental on VOD platforms including Prime Video and Apple TV, where both the color and “Minus Color” versions are available. On Netflix, Godzilla Minus One can be watched with subtitles or dubbed.

For anyone who didn’t get a chance to catch the black-and-white Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color when it briefly ran in theaters earlier this year, distributor Toho International said it’s coming to Netflix later this summer. Anyone else’s plans for a summer Godzilla marathon just get even better?

Godzilla Minus One, which is set in post-World War II Japan, quickly gained a lot of passionate fans when it was released in December 2023, becoming one of those movies that had people running back to theaters to see it again — and again, once the Minus Color version dropped. It received critical acclaim, and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects at the 2024 Oscars.