HP, the world’s second-largest PC vendor by market share, says that the new Pavilion Aero 13 is designed for Generation Z. Youthful, vibrant post-teens who love entertainment, communication and — COVID notwithstanding — travel. It’s ironic, then, that when you examine this machine from that perspective, it becomes a less attractive proposition. This is actually a pretty nice laptop, but I doubt it’s top on any Zoomer’s wish list.

Hardware

Daniel Cooper

The focus here is on making a machine that is as thin and light as possible while still offering a decent amount of power and connectivity. Weighing 2.2 pounds, about the same as the 14-inch LG Gram, the Aero is HP’s first low-end machine to pack a taller 16:10 display. It carries a pair of USB-A ports with kick-out covers, HDMI-out and a single USB-C socket alongside a 3.5mm audio jack and the barrel power connector. I’m still torn over the throwback power connector, which on one hand is acceptable and cost-effective, but, again, does your average Gen-Zer not want to minimize the number of chunky charging plugs they’re carrying around?

Build quality is solid, with no flex or creaks when you hold it open with one hand and wave it around. The one place where I’ll take marks off is in the display hinge, which is designed to push the laptop deck up off the table like ASUS’ ZenBook. It just feels a little bit less sturdy than you might expect, which you’ll need to be mindful of if you rest your weight too much on the front of your hands. The malleability of that hinge feels just weak enough to make me paranoid.

Keyboard and trackpad

Daniel Cooper

The Pavilion Aero 13’s keyboard is well-engineered and satisfying, with a fair level of travel and a good hit at the end of your press. Interestingly, you need to pony up extra for a model with backlighting, which is either miserly or smart cost-cutting, depending on your perspective. It may not be the same quality as HP’s higher-priced laptops but it’s certainly not a chore to write with.

Except for, and I am being needlessly grouchy here, HP’s inclusion of a function row along the rightmost side of the keyboard. Most 13-inch laptops, for obvious reasons, try to cut down on superfluous keys that you may only find on more spacious models. And that’s fine, because it’s rare that I ever find myself needing to use Home/Pg Up/Pg Down/End when I have other keyboard shortcuts (and, you know, a trackpad) available.

I get why HP insists on using them here, but it means that you’ll have a learning curve when coming off pretty much every other laptop in this class. And, if I were king, I would have opted for a standard layout with more breathing room, not to mention full-size up/down keys with more space around them. After more than a week using this thing, I’m still hitting the home key instead of backspace, dramatically slowing my typing speed, much to my frustration.

As for the trackpad, it’s bigger than on the 2020 model that this replaces, and has a decent click with tolerable accuracy. The lack of a touchscreen on this laptop isn’t, in my opinion, a huge issue given its size and class, so long as the trackpad is solid. And this trackpad is very much that, and there’s not much else to say about it as a consequence.

Display, sound and webcam

Daniel Cooper

This machine carries a 13.3-inch HD display, although because of its 16:10 ratio, that 1,920 x 1,200 resolution is actually WUXGA. I don’t think anyone would need a 4K display on a machine like this, but you can configure it with a WQXGA (2,560 x 1,600) screen should you need to. The 400-nit panel can balance any strong summer light, and the matte screen means that you avoid a lot of glare.

The downward-firing B&O-branded speakers hidden under the edges of the laptop deck provide acceptable audio. They sound a little better than on some ultrabooks I could mention, but it’s still thin and reedy, with tinny equalization presets and nonexistent bass. This is audio you can put up with rather than enjoy during all of those Netflix and Chill sessions where you actually watch Netflix and Chill.

Daniel Cooper

Perhaps I’ve been reviewing too many laptops of late that have some sort of webcam shutter, but the omission here surprises me. The HP WideVision 720p HD camera is at least sharp enough that people can see your face properly when you’re using it. Even better, it handles most light well enough that blow-outs are occasional rather than ever-present, which is good considering how much we all need to Zoom each other right now.

Software

One thing to note is that HP pre-installs a number of apps onto its laptops, including McAfee, LastPass and ExpressVPN. This means you’ll start getting pop-ups after installing Chrome, telling you that plugins are about to be installed. That I think this is an unacceptable thing to happen, even for a relatively low-cost laptop, should go without saying.

Performance and battery life

Both Intel and AMD have made enormous strides toward integrated graphics units that don’t suck. This is thunderingly relevant in the ultrabook market where thinness and portability are prized over pretty much everything else. After all, even a few years ago you couldn’t have done much more on a machine of this class beyond mash the odd spreadsheet. Now you can expect passable, even quite pleasant performance on a wide variety of tasks, from intensive Chrome browsing to video games.

The model that HP sent to reviewers retails for $999, and includes AMD’s Ryzen 5800U with Radeon Integrated Graphics, which packs 512MB of dedicated DDR4 VRAM. Rounding out the spec list is 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD, which sits on the higher end of what you can expect to get for this sort of money. Certainly, the benchmarks make this thing look a lot less powerful, but I suspect the Aero simply isn’t set up for intensive gaming. It’s worth saying that even the fan noise isn’t that aggressive under heavy load, too.

That said, I was able to play Fortnite pretty smoothly on this machine with the graphics set to Medium, and an evening’s marathon session of Two Point Hospital passed without comment. Certainly, if you are happy with undemanding titles, you’ll be able to squeeze a lot of fun from this machine. GTA V’s benchmarking tool was able to produce a fairly consistent 30fps, and if you dial down all of the visuals, you can get this running fast enough to play in a pinch.

Battery life is similarly resilient, with this machine clocking in at 9 hours and 43 minutes in our standard rundown test. When untethered from power, I didn’t feel any nagging urgency to head back to a socket while using this thing, and you should expect this to last for the length of your working day. And, to be honest, if this had conked out any sooner I would be screaming from the rooftops about it, since the whole point of an ultraportable is, after all, to be portable.

Price and the competition

Daniel Cooper

As I said, the model I’m testing costs $999. That’s a fair price, especially if you try to configure a similar spec list with some rival machines in the same category. There are some alternatives, and if your priority is a slender, lightweight machine, then LG’s Gram 14 can be picked up for $799.99. It has a 14-inch WUXGA display and weighs 2.2 pounds. Sadly, its specs fall far short of HP’s offering, with an Intel Core i3-1115G4, 8GB RAM and a 256GB SSD. You could also opt for ASUS’ ZenBook 13 OLED, which packs a Ryzen 7 5700U, 8GB RAM, a 512GB SSD and an OLED display for $899.99.

If you’re feeling picky, you could do worse than to wait for more AMD-toting laptops to enter retail channels in the near future. I expect that we’ll see models similar to Lenovo’s ThinkPad X13 and Acer’s Spin 3 with comparable internals coming very soon. At which point, you should have your pick of any number of high-quality machines that can do jobs similar to this one.

Wrap-up

Daniel Cooper

This isn’t a fair comparison at all, but in my head I keep thinking about Dell’s XPS 13 which, for many people, is either the gold-standard ultrabook, or in the top three. And, right now, that on both specs and price, the Pavilion Aero 13 is a more compelling choice. When you look at the base model XPS 13, which starts $1,019.99, the only thing that HP loses out on is aesthetics. In almost every other regard, I’d much rather have this Pavilion Aero than the XPS and that, to me, is wild.

I think the Pavilion Aero 13 is a very good machine, with a solid thin-and-light body and performance that punches well above its weight. For some people, the 5800U running the show is enough of a reason to buy one of these that everything else is broadly immaterial. Do I wish it was priced a little more aggressively? Yes, because I could forgive the learning curve with the keyboard if it was a hundred bucks cheaper. Despite the keyboard and sound, though, it’s a good machine for folks who want a little bit of everything.

Amazon is adding more titles to the list Prime Gaming subscribers can claim for free starting on September 1st. One of the latest additions is Knockout City, a recent release from Velan and EA. It's a cross-platform dodgeball brawler launched in May that's already available through Xbox Games Pass Ultimate and EA Play. The game is also free to play until level 25, but Prime Gaming users who want to keep playing until after they reach it will now be able to grab the title at no additional cost. 

In addition, subscribers can still claim Lucasfilm Games' Sam & Max: Hit The Road beyond September 1st. The game has been free for subscribers since July, but like the studio's Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, it was supposed to be removed from the list after that date. Sam & Max: Hit The Road is based on a comic featuring an anthropomorphic detective dog and a rabbit-like creature. Completing the list games that will available for free starting on September 1st are Candleman The Complete Journey, Puzzle Agent, Secret Files 2: Puritas Cordis, Tools Up! and Unmemory.

Subscribers will also get access to new loot for popular open-world RPG Genshin Impact. Namely: 60x Primogems, 8x Hero's Wit and 5x Calla Lily Seafood Soup. New loot also awaits Madden NFL 22, Fall Guys, Red Dead Online, Brawlhalla, Apex Legends, Grand Theft Auto Online and Rogue Company players. These freebies will be available at different dates throughout the month and will be up for a limited time only. Subscribers can check the official Amazon Prime Gaming website for the offers' start and end dates.

The Apple Watch may be the best smartwatch for iPhone lovers, but it's a pretty expensive accessory. With the Series 6 setting users back $400, Apple brought the more affordable Watch SE into its lineup so those with tighter budgets could get the same, core Apple Watch experience. Now you can pick up a Watch SE for even less at Amazon while a couple of models are on sale. Key among them is the 44mm, GPS + Cellular Apple Watch SE in silver for $300 — that's $59 off its normal price and a record low. The same Watch in space gray is as low as $319 right now as well, depending on the style of band you pick.

The Apple Watch SE doesn't look all that different from the Series 6, and it has a feature set that will be more than enough for those new to the smartwatch experience. The Watch SE performed well in our testing, despite running on an older processor than the one found in the Series 6, and it has all of the core features of watchOS 7 including heart rate monitoring with high and low alerts, noise monitoring, fall detection, Emergency SOS and more. The fitness features are almost identical to that of the Series 6 — the only things you don't get on the SE are blood oxygen and ECG measurements.

You also don't get the always-on display that the Series 6 has, but the Watch SE has the same size display, which is noticeably larger than that of the old Series 3. And with these models on sale, you're getting cellular connectivity — that means you can make and receive calls, send text messages and more even when your iPhone isn't around. The Apple Watch is still very much an iPhone accessory, but those with LTE will get the most untethered experience.

Even though you have to give up a few features with the Apple Watch SE, you're still getting one of the best smartwatches available today. But we'd be remiss if we didn't mention that Apple may be coming out with new models soon. We typically see new Apple Watches announced along with the latest iPhones in September, but there's no guarantee a new Watch SE will make the lineup this year.

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

Fans of celeb-endorsed gadgets rejoice. Hollywood's busiest man Dwayne Johnson has found time to release another pair of workout headphones under the Project Rock line he created with Under Armor. The cans are essentially an updated version of the durable over-ears released in 2018. But, this is more of a trio than a tag team. Built by JBL, the new headphones' standout upgrades include adaptive noise cancelling and a promised 45-hour battery life. With speed charging, you can get a purported two hours of playback time in just five minutes. 

Like their predecessors, the over-ears are designed to be the ultimate gym buddy. The IPX4 rating means they can withstand your sweaty workouts. While UA provided the extra grip on the headband and supervent materials on the fast-drying cushions, which you can remove and hand wash. 

Under Armor

Johnson, meanwhile, finely tuned JBL's Charged Sound to his liking. Possibly, so he could listen to his workout playlist on Spotify or relive his atrocious gospel rap ditty, Pie. Just so you know who cooked these up, his Brahma Bull insignia his prominently placed on each ear cup. Additional audio tech includes two ambient modes that filter through external chatter and sounds. Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa are also on hand for when you need voice commands mid-workout.

UA Project Rock Over-Ear Training headphones are out now via JBL and Under Armor for $299.95.

Just weeks after Blue Origin's first manned flight, with founder Jeff Bezos onboard, the space company is preparing to launch its New Shepard spacecraft again. Liftoff is scheduled to take place at at 9:35 AM EDT (6:35 AM PDT) from the company’s launch site in West Texas. The flight's NS-17 mission title is a reference to its status as New Shepard's 17th launch. You can watch the proceedings live on the stream below. This time, there won't be any humans aboard, however. Instead, the reusable rocket and capsule will carry a payload of NASA tech including a LiDAR sensor and computer designed for lunar landers. 

The launch comes amid a brewing lawsuit filed by Blue Origin over the space agency's handling of the Human Landing System program. For this launch, it's capsule will also house experiments from academic institutions including the University of Florida.

Tesla is rolling out a major update for its iOS smartphone app with new controls, improved management and cool visuals. Version 4.0 also gives you the choice between two different sized widgets for your iPhone home screen. As detailed by Tesla Software Updates, both feature the same information: the name of the car, battery percentage, location (or charging info), unlock status, an image of the vehicle and the time the information was last updated. Tesla previously had a "Today" extension for iOS that was nowhere near as comprehensive as the new widgets. 

In terms of controls, you can send commands to your car immediately upon opening the app, instead of waiting for the vehicle to wake up. There's also enhanced phone key support that essentially lets you unlock multiple Teslas.

An updated visual that should be immediately noticeable is the new 3D vehicle render. There are also new animations when you charge your car and in the climate and controls sections. Design-wise, Tesla has ditched the charging section and now displays that info when your car is plugged in. You can also view Supercharging history from within the app. While the speed limit, valet mode and sentry mode settings have been moved to a new category titled Security, which includes tips on how to use the Bluetooth, phone key and location services.

To sum up, this is the biggest update to the EV maker's iOS app in a while. Recently, Tesla has mainly focused on providing bug fixes and improvements, outside of the introduction of Virtual Power Plant enrolment in July.

OnlyFans is back. Or at least, business will continue as usual for now. Best known for its adult videos and images from independent creators, the site decided to bring the ban hammer down on adult content last week, citing that big banking was to blame for the sudden shift in policy. Apparently, as of yesterday, OnlyFans has found a way forward. It says it’s “suspended” the ban on pornography for now, but has otherwise left creators and the rest of us in the dark as to the details. In an email to creators, OnlyFans said it’s got “banking partners’ assurances” that it can support the whole gamut of content hosted on the site.

The next challenge for the company are the issues highlighted in a recent BBC investigation of its activities. The report outlined how illegal content from some creators was able to make it onto the site, and how banning policy seemed to contort to fit its most popular creators.

— Mat Smith

Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 review

Still the best Android smartwatch.

David Imel for Engadget

Samsung features a new OS, body composition measurement and sleep-tracking features as well as upgraded sensors and processor in its Galaxy Watch 4. According to Reviews Editor Cherlynn Low, while those are helpful, it’s the core smartwatch experience (what used to be known as Tizen) that shines. Unfortunately, battery life suffers as a result of all those new features.

Continue reading.

The next Marvel game is a turn-based RPG from the creators of XCOM

Apparently, no perma-deaths.

Firaxis Games/2K

XCOM developer Firaxis has unveiled Marvel's Midnight Suns, a turn-based role-playing game based on the Midnight Sons team from 1990s crossover issues. The modern take has you play a new Marvel co-created superhero, The Hunter, with help from Midnight Sons members, like Blade, Ghost Rider and Wolverine, and Avengers including Captain America and Iron Man.

Midnight Suns comes to PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Switch and Windows PCs in March 2022.

Continue reading.

A Discord music bot is going offline after YouTube crackdown

It's shutting down on August 30th.

If you're a Discord user, there's a good chance you've benefited from Groovy Bot, which lets people jam together with music from YouTube, Spotify and others. But it turns out Google didn't appreciate its ability to rip music out of YouTube. The company has sent a cease and desist letter to Groovy Bot's owners, and against the might of Google, they're not putting up a fight: Groovy Bot will go offline on August 30th.

A YouTube spokesperson noted that Groovy Bot violated its terms of service, particularly because it modified the way YouTube worked and charged for the privilege. If Groovy Bot were merely free, it may have been able to live on — the premium subscription might be what killed it.

Continue reading.

Kanye West's new album 'Donda' comes on a remix-it-yourself gadget

You’ll be able to split up the elements of each song.

Kanye West

West and electronics design firm Kano have introduced a Donda Stem Player that, as the name implies, lets you remix music from Kanye's upcoming album Donda (plus your own tunes) using song stems. The gadget can apparently isolate song parts and control aspects like bass, drums, samples and vocals, though it’s unlikely to be able to perfectly lift out separate elements. You can order the Stem Player now for $200. 

Continue reading.

'Halo Infinite' is launching on December 8th

It was confirmed at Gamescom.

After a year-long delay, Halo Infinite will arrive on December 8th. Developer 343 Industries confirmed the timing during Gamescom’s Opening Night Live event yesterday. However, this date was leaked just hours before the show started. To celebrate, however, we did get a new multiplayer gameplay trailer. 

Take a look here.

The best wireless headphones you can buy right now

Sony, Bose, Apple and even Razer have headphones worth considering.

In the last two years, true wireless earbuds have made quite the leap. There’s no doubt the popularity of Apple’s AirPods helped make these headphones a mainstay, but companies’ ability to offer reliable connectivity, great sound and active noise cancellation (ANC) in an increasingly smaller form factor has hastened widespread adoption. Here’s our updated guide to the best options out there.

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The big news you might have missed

Fitbit's Charge 5 packs an ECG and stress response sensor

How to clean and organize your Mac

Facebook is reportedly mulling a commission to advise on elections

Special-edition 'Halo Infinite' Xbox Series X and controller arrive on November 15th

President Biden is meeting with Apple, Google and Microsoft on cybersecurity

Lucid is offering two variants of its Air Dream Edition luxury EV

South Korea to end its controversial gaming curfew

Saints Row gets a gritty reboot set in the 'weird west'

Marvel's 'What If…?' turns grim in its third episode with mixed results

Peter Thiel's AI company Palantir, whose clients have included the CIA and US immigration agency ICE, is back in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. A new report claims a glitch in its secretive software program used by the FBI allowed unauthorized personnel to access private data for more than a year. According to The New York Post, the mishap was revealed in a letter by prosecutors in the Manhattan federal court case against accused hacker Virgil Griffith. Palantir denied the claims in a statement and said the fault was caused by the FBI's incorrect use of the software.

Griffith was arrested in 2019 for allegedly providing North Korea with information on how cryptocurrency and blockchain tech could help it to evade US sanctions. The incident in question revolves around the alleged hacker's social media data, obtained through a federal search warrant in March 2020. According to the letter, the Twitter and Facebook information was uploaded to Palantir's program through the default settings, effectively allowing unauthorized FBI employees to access it.

Between May 2020 to August 2021, the material was accessed four times by three analysts and an agent. The FBI case agent assigned to Griffith's case was alerted to the issue by a colleague earlier this month, according to the letter. Those who accessed the info reportedly told prosecutors that they did not recall using it in their investigations.

“An FBI analyst, in the course of conducting a separate investigation, had identified communications between the defendant and the subject of that other investigation by means of searches on the Platform that accessed the Search Warrant Returns,” the letter noted.

Palantir is trying to distance itself from the issue. "There was no glitch in the software," it told The New York Post in a statement, adding that the "customer" did not follow the "rigorous protocols established to protect search warrant returns."

Amid increasing growth, the last thing Palantir needs is a major PR crisis involving flaws in its software. Since going public last fall, the company has seen its revenues surge, though it's operational losses are also increasing. Palantir's customers now span government agencies, tech stalwarts like IBM and even mining group Rio Tinto. Plus, it's working with commercial space companies to manage a meta-constellation of 237 satellites.

Niantic, the developer behind Pokémon Go, has announced that it will reinstate the wider access distance for players interacting with Pokéstops and Gyms. In a tweet, the company said that the radius would return to 80 meters from “now on,” after saying that the distance would be reduced back to its pre-pandemic size.

Go is, after all, a game designed to get folks out and about, which isn’t a great idea when there’s a global respiratory pandemic knocking around. That’s why, as COVID-19 began to bite, Niantic made interaction distances much longer, to discourage groups from crowding in public areas.

In addition, the company also made Remote Raid battles, and Adventure Sync work much more effectively from home, given the number of people who had to isolate. The normal calendar of real-world events were moved online, too, and many of the store deals were slashed in cost.

As Polygon reports, Niantic’s flip-flop here was prompted by social media protests after some of these changes were reversed. The company engaged in dialog with players, with a change in policy planned for September 1st, with players asking for better regard for safety and accessibility.

Google's YouTube Music app for Wear OS is now live, a few months after the tech giant promised to release one for the platform. That certainly sounds like great news for users who've been waiting for it after Google retired Play Music for Wear OS in 2020. The bad news is, as noted by 9to5Google, it only currently works on Google's Wear OS 3 platform. Samsung's Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic wearables, which will be available on August 27th, will be the only devices that will be running the OS in the foreseeable future. 

The company killed off the Play Music app for Wear OS watches back in August 2020, weeks before it completely shut the service down in favor of YouTube Music. It quickly released a YouTube Music app for the Apple Watch, but Wear OS users have had to wait for their turn. And, based on what we know now, they may have to continue waiting, unless they're set to get Samsung's new smartwatches tomorrow. In comparison, Spotify's Wear OS app works even on older smartwatches and can be used to stream and download music.

In addition to extremely limited compatibility, the app can't actually be used to stream music. According to 9to5Google's hands-on experience, users will only be able to download tracks on the app. Further, the phone must be plugged in to be able to download anything. For those not bothered by all those limitations and will soon have access to a Galaxy Watch 4, the app is now available on Google Play.