Long gone are the days of closing a Windows laptop’s lid and losing half of its battery by the time you open it later in the day, according to Intel, as the first wave of Core Ultra Series 3 devices arrive in Australia.
It’s been a multi-year journey for Team Blue, which has ambitiously set out to improve its silicon amidst greater competition from the likes of Apple, AMD, and Qualcomm. Since Intel debuted its first NPU-equipped Core Ultra system-on-a-chip (SoC), codenamed Meteor Lake, followed by Lunar Lake, it has focused on power and efficiency. In other words, better performance while prolonging battery life.
With the Core Ultra Series 3 launch, known by its ‘Panther Lake’ alias, Intel made some fairly bold claims. At a recent Australian media event, Intel claimed that its latest chipset drives up to 60 per cent better CPU performance and 77 per cent graphics performance compared to last year’s Lunar Lake.
Image: Chris Button.
Those are some impressive theoretical numbers from the company’s 18A technology out of Arizona. For Intel, which has had its troubles in recent years, its latest release could be a much-needed win.
Gaming without a dedicated GPU
Aside from longer battery life and faster performance across the board, gaming is one of the major beneficiaries of the new chipset’s design. A live demo running a Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark saw an Intel Core Ultra Series 3 laptop outperform a laptop with a discrete Nvidia RTX 4050 graphics card.
Upon closer inspection, both benchmarks ran at each laptop’s native display resolution, with the graphics set to ‘Ultra’. There was some upscaling involved; the Panther Lake laptop used Intel’s XeSS technology, while the RTX 4050-equipped device had DLSS on — the frame-generating kind, not the controversial DLSS 5 version.
Even your work laptop could be a capable gaming machine. Image: Chris Button.
Even so, for an integrated GPU to outperform a dedicated graphics card is no small feat. Playing Cyberpunk 2077 at its highest graphical settings at above 60 frames per second on a laptop’s integrated GPU would’ve been unheard of only a few years ago.
A big driver of this graphical uplift is the new Core Ultra X7 and X9 chipsets, which are Intel’s top-of-the-line variants. They house 12 of Intel’s Xe GPU cores, compared to Lunar Lake’s maximum of eight, providing a decent year-on-year boost.
Intel Core Ultra Series 3 laptops launch in Australia
Naturally, gaming is just one part of the new Intel range. Other demos included splitting music tracks (specifically “Thunderstruck”) into individual instrument stems in Audacity, while others showed local AI models quickly sorting through clips in Adobe Premiere Pro.
More than 200 devices will use Intel Core Ultra Series 3 SoCs throughout 2026. Some of those laptops are arriving in Australian retailers now, with new Acer, Asus, and HP models among them.
Of Intel’s recent processors, its Panther Lake range could be the company’s strongest entry in years, as the computing market only gets more competitive.
Smart homes are great; they let you control appliances remotely via a single device and can automate tasks to make home life easier. If you’ve been curious about jumping on the smart home bandwagon, now’s your chance — thanks to Tapo, we have a Tapo H110 Smart IR and IoT Hub to give away!
From our testing, the Tapo H110 is one of the easiest entry points to starting up a smart home ecosystem. A highlight is the hub’s ability to connect newer and older gadgets together.
Included in the Tapo H110 is an infrared (IR) sensor, letting you connect older devices and appliances, which can then be controlled via the TP-Link Tapo app. So, even if your air conditioner uses an IR remote, you can pair it with the hub and then use your phone to adjust the temperature.
That then unlocks sophisticated automations, which are fully customisable. Here, your imagination is one of the only limitations. You can create an automation that automatically closes the blinds and turns on the lights late in the day, or do the reverse to help as part of your morning routine.
If you want to get really fancy with it, adding various other sensors unlocks even more automations. Temperature sensors can activate appliances when they reach a certain threshold, while a motion sensor can turn off a room’s lights if it doesn’t detect any movement for a while. For the forgetful types, a door sensor is handy for notifying you when the garage door gets left open.
How to win a Tapo H110 Smart IR and IoT Hub
Want to win one of these smart hubs for yourself? All you need to do is follow the instructions below, and you’re in with a chance.
Included in the widget below is an entry form. Simply enter using as many methods as you can, and that’s all you need to do. Here’s a handy tip: the more entry methods you use, the greater your chances of winning!
If the widget doesn’t display properly in your browser, you can visit the entry form directly.
Entries are open now until 9 April at 4:00 PM AEST. You’ll want to get your entries in now to make sure you can win this prize and set up your smart home.
Know anyone else who could use a smart home hub? Once you’ve entered the giveaway, share this page with them so they can be in with a shot too. Good luck!
For some years now, whenever I travel or need computing power away from home, I have been using a Google Chromebook. With everything in the cloud, I can work quite happily on a small screen and with low-spec computers. Indeed, the Chromebook in question was released in November 2021.
This got me thinking, will a Google tablet work just as well as a Chromebook? I take a look at the Xiaomi Pad 8 tablet to find out.
Why am I even considering a tablet as a notebook PC?
When the Pad 8 arrived for GadgetGuy to review, it came with three covers. Two included a keyboard, and one just a cover. One keyboard (the Pro Case) is so impressive that it looks like a notebook with illuminated keys, a trackpad, and reasonable key travel. The responsiveness is faster than on my Chromebook, and the specs are much better. Thus, my next thought is, could I use this instead to travel?
Xiaomi Pad 8 features
The Xiaomi Pad 8 is an 11.2-inch Android tablet with a fast Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 processor, a large battery, and four speakers. In the box, you will find the tablet and a USB-C cable. Various accessories are available for it, including a smart pen, protective cover, standard case keyboard, and a Pro Case keyboard.
Image: Angus Jones.
The tablet weighs less than half a kilogram and measures less than 6mm thick. Note that it does have a camera bump, which is flush when you add one of the cases mentioned above. Packed inside this thin body is a 9200mAh battery, which is quoted with up to 17 hours of video streaming. With multiple tasks, the useful life is closer to eight hours, which is still much better than the competition, at around five hours. Charging takes up to an hour and 10 minutes.
The display is a 3:2 aspect ratio, which is standard for tablets. Still, since most video is produced in 16:9 these days, you will have black bars above and below the video you are watching to maintain the correct aspect ratio. The screen itself is a 3K LCD supporting up to 144Hz refresh rate. This means it’s not as good as your 4K TV display, but it’s good for fast-moving video like sports. Because it is so much smaller than a TV, the actual resolution appears better to your eyes.
The tablet’s Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 engine is about a third faster than the Xiaomi Pad 7’s processor. This, together with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, gives you a fast, well-performing tablet that supports many of the latest games, video editing, and everyday responsiveness when moving between apps. Note that the 128GB of storage can fill up fast with apps or photos.
Various AI tools, split-screen tricks, and the ability to manage more open apps mean this tablet’s productivity is more PC-like than previous tablets.
Not that I am an Apple user, but it was interesting to read that you can use the tablet as an external display for a MacBook and seamlessly transfer files between it and an Apple device.
A big plus is that the Pad 8 ships with WPS Office, which lets you create, view, and edit documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and PDFs.
Xiaomi Pad 8 specifications and price
Screen
11.2-inch 3.2K (3200 x 2136) LED
144Hz refresh rate
Setup is super easy, assuming you are already in the Google ecosystem. In my case, I set up the tablet based on my smartphone configuration.
Setup screen. Image: Angus Jones.
As we all do, I sit and watch TV at night with my phone in hand, scrolling as I pretend to watch TV (I really cannot multitask). Having the Pad 8 on hand, I now find myself using it over my mobile. I almost feel guilty, but the bigger screen is so much better for doomscrolling as you relax at night.
I guess you expect it with a new device, but the speed at which apps opened, loaded, and tasks completed blew my expectations out of the water. Maybe my top-tier phone has too much bloatware, since the tablet was much faster.
I have been playing with the three case options, and at this stage I am leaning towards the non-keyboard one. I like the keyboard, but my use has ended up not being at a desk. This, of course, is a spoiler: I have decided this tablet, although lightning-fast, will not replace my five-year-old Chromebook. If I compare the screen, the vertical height is similar, but the Chromebook is wider. That extra screen really does make a difference. I can manage dropping back from the large-screen dual-display setup I use at home to cope with the Chromebook whilst travelling, but to write and do a sales job on the road, I do need more screen real estate than the tablet offers. I did try reducing the font size, but it became too small.
Pro Keyboard. Image: Xiaomi.
The second showstopper for me was using Microsoft 365 on the tablet. I can load Outlook in a browser, read my email, write emails, but when I press send, it does not work. Turns out the email did go, but it sat there as if it had not been sent. No doubt this software issue will be fixed, but for now, the tablet I really wanted will not be my remote work computing device.
For personal use, I am very excited about this tablet. Whether at home or exploring a new city, the size, battery life and ability to research and consume are amazing. The cameras on this tablet are very average, but everyone uses their smartphone, so it’s no big deal.
As part of my testing, I also used a Xiaomi Focus Pen Pro, a stylus pen that magnetically attaches to the top of the tablet and also wirelessly charges there. If I could draw, then I would see a lot of benefit, but I found myself going back to just using my finger rather than using the stylus to navigate. It has some innovative, customisable controls: pinch the pen or slide a finger along the body, or rotate the body. There was no latency when using it, and you do not have to touch the screen to interact; you can hover over it.
Split screen: Watch a video and do your email. Screenshot: Angus Jones.
A feature I love about the bigger screen (compared to my smartphone) is that, if you watch TV and scroll at home, you can split the screen on the Pad 8 to stream video while scrolling through email on the train, for example. Best turn the tablet to portrait orientation so you maximise available screen size.
Who is the Xiaomi Pad 8 for?
On paper, this tablet has all the potential to be a do-it-all computer and a desktop replacement on the road. In practice, for me, it did not quite get there, maybe if I forced myself to persist, but a product should aspire for you to love it from day one.
Speaking of which, I do love this device for ‘me’ time; it can be used for scrolling whilst I watch TV, streaming movies on a plane, navigating a foreign city, working out where the best gelato is, or reading your Gmail.
I see the Xiaomi Pad 8 is an amazing companion for leisure travel and a home device for browsing websites or getting instructions from YouTube videos. If you do all this on a phone today, you will be blown away by the Pad 8’s larger screen and versatility.
Xiaomi Pad 8
Compared to my Chromebook, the Xiaomi Pad 8 is an impressive tablet alternative, especially when it comes to entertainment.
In this current era, particularly amidst the backdrop of global memory shortages, tech companies have two main choices when it comes to annual upgrades. One is to keep prices the same, albeit with some hardware compromises. The other is to increase prices but make some tangible upgrades to justify the higher cost. With the new Galaxy A57 and A37 phones, Samsung opted for the latter.
Both phones are $50 more expensive than their respective predecessors. Australians will pay $749 for the base Galaxy A57 model, and $599 for the A37. However, the mid-range phones don’t contain a mere processor upgrade and call it a day. Particularly with the A57, the changes are more wholesale.
Both phones have thinner bezels at the top and bottom, providing more available screen real estate. Compared to the Galaxy A56, the A57 is nearly 20 grams lighter and has been slimmed down to a svelte 6.9mm thick.
As you’d expect from a yearly upgrade, both phones process faster than their predecessors, running on Samsung’s in-house Exynos chipsets. Arguably, the Galaxy A37 gets the biggest processing improvement, benefitting from an upgrade to faster LPDDR5X memory.
According to Samsung, a combination of processor and software improvements equates to substantial battery life gains. Even though each phone houses a fairly standard 5,000mAh battery, the Galaxy A37 has an estimated 59-hour battery life, while the A57 gets up to 66 hours between charges.
Camera improvements also come to the new A-series handsets. Between the two phones, larger pixel sensor sizes, better image processing, and faster response times between taking photos are the main upgrades.
Each phone getting six years of software and security updates is among the best post-launch support for phones in this price range. The Samsung Galaxy A37 and Galaxy A57 launch in Australia on 10 April.
Looking in two directions at once, to keep a watchful eye on passersby, the dual-lens Tapo C645D Kit security camera doesn’t miss a thing.
Smart security cameras are great for keeping an eye on things from afar, but it’s always difficult to see everything. Rather than installing extra cameras to tackle blind spots, another option is to opt for a ‘pan-tilt’ camera that can swivel to look around.
Pan-tilt cameras let you control the camera angle remotely, while some also feature auto-tracking so they can automatically follow someone as they walk past the camera.
Auto-tracking is great for keeping an eye on suspicious characters, but when the camera is busy following someone, you lose sight of the big picture.
That’s where a dual-lens security camera comes to the rescue, with a main wide-angle lens for watching the entire scene and a second telephoto lens for following people around.
The Tapo C645D Kit is understandably bulky, when you consider that it’s really two cameras stuck together.
The larger camera at the top features a wide-angle lens, so it can see everything that’s happening in front. You can adjust it left or right by hand, but it only looks straight forward and can’t move by itself.
Meanwhile, the smaller telephoto camera, hanging down at the bottom, has a narrower field of view and 10.8 x digital zoom for getting an up close view of things.
You can control the telephoto camera’s pan and tilt remotely using the Tapo app. It also features patrol mode, which moves between fixed points (but isn’t a constant sweep), as well as auto-tracking, which automatically follows passersby, even if they walk beyond the view of the main wide-angle camera.
The cameras work in unison for auto-tracking, so when the main lens spots someone, the telephoto lens automatically swings into action.
Thanks to the 2K resolution, you can tap or pinch to zoom on the view from either lens when you’re watching a live scene via the Tapo app, but you can’t zoom when watching action replays. It’s obviously not as sharp as 4K, but still better than what you get on basic 1080p cameras.
When it comes to installation, the supplied bracket lets you mount the dual camera on a wall, eaves, or a pole. Up high, looking slightly down is best, preferably not looking directly into the sun.
The Tapo C645D security camera kit comes with everything you need to attach it to a wall, eaves or a pole. Image: Adam Turner.
For the best results, Tapo recommends installing the camera 2.5 metres above the ground, with the wide-angle lens tilted down 15 degrees and the telephoto lens tilted down 20 degrees.
At first glance, it seems you can’t adjust the downwards angle of the wide-angle lens at the top, but look closer, and you discover you can press on the black front plate to tilt it inside the white frame.
To power the camera, you’ll want to add the solar panel mount, but of course, it might not suit you to mount the camera and solar panel in the same location.
Thankfully, there’s the option to install the solar panel in a different spot and connect it back to the camera using the supplied 3.8-metre extension cable.
You can adjust the solar panel on its ball joint to best catch the sun. Tapo says it needs to get at least one hour of sunshine per each to top up the onboard battery. Alternatively, you can recharge manually via USB.
The system is rated IP65 for protection against dust and low-pressure water jets, so it’s fine to install it exposed to the elements.
Tapo C645D Kit specifications and price
Image sensor
1/2.8” Progressive Scan CMOS Starlight Sensor
Lens
Wide-angle lens
Focal Length: 2.53 mm
Aperture: F1.6
Field of View: 165.1° (Diagonal), 137.6°(Horizontal), 73°(Vertical)
Telephoto lens
Focal Length: 6mm
Aperture: F1.6
Field of View: 65.5° (Diagonal), 56.5°(Horizontal), 30.6°(Vertical)
Once you’ve decided where and how you want to install the Tapo C645D Kit, setup is pretty straightforward using the Tapo app on an Apple iOS or Google Android device.
To make life easier, the camera talks to you throughout the setup process. Unlike some Tapo cameras, the C645D Kit supports both 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi bands to reduce setup hassles.
The wide-angle lens’ 137-degree horizontal viewing angle offers a great view of the scene and, installed in a corner, it can see across from wall to wall.
Meanwhile, the 73-degree vertical viewing angle is more generous than some cameras but, as you’d expect, you still get a blind spot directly beneath the main camera.
That’s where the pan and tilt telephoto lens comes to the rescue, with the ability to tilt straight down (but not up past level). It can also pan 180 degrees left or right to provide full coverage, letting it follow people even if they walk beyond the view of the main wide lens camera.
In the Tapo app, the full-screen picture shows the main lens’ wide view of the world, while the inset picture shows the view from the telephoto lens. Image: Adam Turner.
After someone walks beyond the view of the pan-tilt camera, such as around a corner, it waits 30 seconds and then re-centres, ready to track the next person passing by.
Alternatively, you can leave auto-tracking disabled and position the pan-tilt telephoto lens, so the two lenses are always looking in two directions for increased surveillance coverage.
With auto-tracking enabled, the telephoto lens has followed me to the right, even though I am out of view of the main wide lens. Image: Adam Turner.
Each camera also features a built-in spotlight, plus you have the advantage of night vision to keep an eye on things after dark. You can opt for full-colour night vision for detailed clarity, otherwise you can stick with infrared for power-efficient monitoring even in complete darkness.
There’s a built-in microphone for listening in on events, along with a speaker so you can talk to people on the other end. Unfortunately, the microphone struggles with voices in the distance and doesn’t handle wind noise very well.
The Tapo app notifies you of real-time movement day or night, but watching action replays requires using local or cloud storage. Replays show the view from both lenses, so you get a complete view of the scene.
As part of the setup process, you get a 30-day free trial of the Tapo Care unlimited cloud storage service. After it expires, you can choose between the Basic and Premium plans or opt to continue without a subscription.
The free service offers some features that many other cameras can provide with a subscription. You get live view, motion detection, instant notifications, two-way audio, activity zones and local storage using a 512 GB microSD card. You also get free smart AI detection that can distinguish between people, animals and vehicles.
Meanwhile, the paid plans add cloud recording for multiple devices and rich notifications with snapshots.
To reduce false positives, you can set separate detection zones in the field of view for People and Motion alerts, as well as create blacked-out privacy zones.
These are adjustable for each camera, although the pan-tilt camera’s privacy zones are of limited use when you consider that they remain fixed in the camera’s view as you pan, rather than adjusting to continually block the area you don’t want to see.
When it comes to smart home integration, you can link the camera to Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and Samsung SmartThings, with the ability to view live streams on an Echo Show or Chromecast. Unfortunately, there’s no Apple HomeKit integration.
Who is the Tapo C645D security camera kit for?
If you’re frustrated with the limitations of a single camera when monitoring a wide area, the Tapo C645D Kit security camera could be exactly what you need. Especially if it saves you the expense of needing to buy a second camera for full coverage – not to mention saving on subscription fees if you’re happy with Tapo’s generous set of free features.
The convenience of a completely wireless camera that doesn’t require AC power or manual recharging is the icing on the cake, assuming you’ve got a good spot to install the solar panel.
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Tapo C645D Kit
Looking both ways and following intruders, the dual-lens Tapo C645D Kit security camera sees all.
Samsung is the latest Android brand to confirm AirDrop support, enabling easier photo and file sharing with iPhones and Apple devices, but don’t get too excited just yet.
To start with, only the Samsung Galaxy S26 range will support AirDrop. Other devices will come later, but the feature will come to the company’s new phones, like the Galaxy S26 Ultra, first.
Secondly, and perhaps most crucially to those of us in the Southern Hemisphere, Samsung’s AirDrop support is limited to Korean users. For now, at least.
According to Samsung’s overseas announcement, AirDrop comes to Korea first, followed by Europe, Hong Kong, Japan, Latin America, North America, Southeast Asia, and Taiwan. Australia doesn’t get a specific mention, but it’s fair to assume that we’ll get the feature eventually, but there’s no set timeline currently.
Typically, Android users can send files between devices within close proximity using Quick Share. But this doesn’t extend to Apple devices, which rely on AirDrop, a different technology that previously hasn’t been cross-brand compatible.
Now, there’s a growing push for better compatibility between platforms. For the Android devices beginning to support AirDrop, it’s housed within the existing Quick Share settings menu.
Along with Samsung’s announcement is a quick video demonstrating how the AirDrop functionality works. Under Quick Share is a separate toggle labelled ‘Share with Apple devices’. Once enabled, the Samsung handset can send and receive files with Apple devices.
It’s quicker than sending an email or a cloud link, and there’s no image degradation associated with non-RCS messages. Stay tuned for when the feature comes to Australia.
Apple has launched its latest iPhone software update, iOS 26.4, and there’s good reason to be excited. Yes, it includes some fun things, like delightful new emojis, but there’s one addition I’m particularly pleased about.
Buried in the patch notes is this rather innocuous change:
“Purchase Sharing lets adult members in Family Sharing groups use their own payment method when making purchases, without relying on the family organiser.”
Halle-bloody-lujah.
Since I finished high school, I’ve always owned an iPhone. My parents have iPhones, and so does my younger brother. For years, we’ve used Apple’s Family Sharing feature, letting each other access apps and subscriptions without needing to make separate purchases.
However, because this was set up using my mum’s account, all purchases automatically came from her bank account. Despite trying various workarounds, we eventually resigned ourselves to this annoying centralised payment system. Any time one of us (usually me or my brother) wanted to buy an app, we’d send a quick message or call mum to let her know, accompanied by a bank transfer of the app’s cost (despite her protests).
Now, with iOS 26.4, I can finally pay for apps using my own debit card, instead of constantly paying back the bank of mum.
Apple also claims that iOS 26.4 has “improved keyboard accuracy when typing quickly”. I don’t know about you, but I feel that making typos on an iPhone keyboard is easier than ever. This YouTube video somewhat vindicated my suspicions, so I’m hoping the new update makes the typing experience better.
When you go to update your iPhone (Settings > General > Software Update), here are the iOS 26.4 patch notes that appear:
Apple Intelligence
Live Translation in Messages automatically translates incoming texts, including group messages, and sends a response in your preferred language so it arrives already translated
Apple Music
Concerts helps you discover nearby shows from artists in your library and recommends new artists based on what you listen to
Offline Music Recognition in Control Centre identifies songs without an internet connection and delivers results automatically when you’re back online
Ambient Music widget for Sleep, Chill, Productivity and Wellbeing brings curated playlists to the Home Screen
Full-screen backgrounds give album and playlist pages a more immersive look
Accessibility
Reduce bright effects setting minimises bright flashes when tapping on elements like buttons
Subtitle and caption settings are available from the captions icon while viewing media, making them easier to find, customise and preview
Reduce Motion setting more reliably reduces the animations of Liquid Glass for users sensitive to onscreen motion
This update also includes the following enhancements:
Support for AirPods Max 2
8 new emoji including an orca, trombone, landslide, ballet dancer and distorted face are available in the emoji keyboard
Freeform gains advanced image creation and editing tools, and a premium content library, joining Apple Creator Studio
Mark reminders as urgent from the Quick Toolbar or by touching and holding, and filter for urgent reminders in your Smart Lists
Purchase Sharing lets adult members in Family Sharing groups use their own payment method when making purchases, without relying on the family organiser
Improved keyboard accuracy when typing quickly
It’s a reasonable list of features and improvements, with many of them also coming to iPad and Mac.
