Month: March 2023

Enlarge / SSDs not included, of course. (credit: Apex Storage)

For high-capacity storage needs, the average consumer turns to hard disk drives (HDDs). They're generally not as speedy or reliable as SSDs, but they're a heck of a lot cheaper. The Apex Storage X21 add-in card (AIC) currently making its rounds on the Internet isn't about using the most cost-effective storage, though. Instead, the expansion card, which looks to be a debut product from a not-yet-known storage company, is for people or businesses willing to spend what it takes to stock the card with up to 21 8TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSDs.

Tom's Hardware first spotted the website for the X21 on Sunday, and Henry Hill, in engineering and sales at the company, confirmed the product to Ars Technica via email. He said the product will cost $2,800, with discounts available for volume purchases, which will ship by Q2. Samples are already available to volume customers, he said, and consumer shipments will start "before the end of 2023."

MIke Spicer, listed as Apex Storage's founder and CEO, launched a Kickstarter in 2021 with a concept that's similar to the X21. Instead of 21 M.2 SSDs, the Apex Storage Scaler claimed to support a modest 16 SSDs. It's unclear how many, if any, of these cards reached backers. However, in July, Spicer hinted at a "V2" of the product on Twitter.

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  The Pixel 8 Pro. Just look at the gloriously flat display.

Google's Pixel line has been subject to a huge amount of leaks over the past few days: The Pixel 8, Pixel 8 Pro, Pixel 7a, and even the Pixel Fold have all made the news rounds, somehow all at once. This is going to take a while.

We'll start with the Pixel 8 Pro, which has a set of renders from OnLeaks and Smartprix. It feels like these get leaked earlier and earlier every year, but this phone should be out sometime in Q4. The biggest change in the new renders from last year: a flat display! The smartphone industry might finally be giving up on the pointless gimmick of curved smartphone displays.

We have been railing against curved smartphone displays for nine years now. Samsung, the world's leading smartphone display manufacturer, figured out years ago that it could bend an OLED panel, making the left and right sides of the display curve downward and wrap around the phone body. Samsung never actually considered whether this was a good idea, though, and curved displays only bring a host of negatives to your phone design. A curved display distorts the image of your apps, videos, and photos, which were all meant to be displayed on a flat surface. In many lighting conditions, the curve captures a ton of glare, making it hard to see anything that's actually in that area. The curve also makes it a lot easier to accidentally touch the curved parts of the screen, which will generally stop the touchscreen from working.

Enlarge / The MNT Pocket Reform and its programmable RGB keyboard should begin shipping to backers later this year. (credit: MNT Research)

The creators of the all-open source MNT Reform laptop are getting nearer to launching its handheld counterpart: The crowdfunding campaign for the 7-inch MNT Pocket Reform has officially launched and is also serving as a de-facto preorder system for the device. The cheapest version of the Pocket Reform starts at $899, and it's also being offered in purple for $969 or in a bundle with a 1TB SSD, carrying case, handbook, and poster for $1,299. All versions are currently slated to ship in mid-October.

Crowdfunded hardware projects have a pretty spotty record when it comes to actually shipping products, but MNT used essentially the same funding strategy for the full-size Reform back in 2018.

Like the full-size Reform, the pocket version uses open source hardware and a mechanical keyboard (buyers can choose either white or red Kalih switches). But the pocket version uses a 7-inch 1920×1200 LCD screen instead of a 12.5-inch version and comes with fewer and smaller ports (two USB-C, one micro HDMI, a microSD port, and one ix industrial mini Ethernet port). Its keyboard also comes with an individually programmable RGB backlight, and its trackball-style pointing device has been downsized to fit into the smaller design.

The deck has a fingerprint reader/power button above the keyboard. (credit: Scharon Harding)

Lenovo is back this week with a few terrific deals on some of its bestselling laptops. The company is still continuing its 50 percent off promotion for the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10, and now it's adding the convertible model of that laptop to its anniversary sale. The 14-inch ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 7 is now enjoying a 57 percent discount from its regular retail price, knocking the price down from $3,099 to $1,333 for a savings of $1,766.

You're getting a laptop that can convert into a tablet in the same 14-inch form factor as the regular ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10. It has a 360-degree convertible hinge design, a touchscreen, integrated pen support, and all the reliability and durability of a business-class notebook from Lenovo. If you don't need a business-class laptop, Lenovo's Yoga 7i is also on sale.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 7 14-inch

Enlarge / Hug it out, boys.

As every Roman historian and Shakespeare fan knows, a soothsayer once told Caesar to beware the Ides of March, for on that day, dark and terrible things would happen. I like to think the message was intended for me, too, because today, my beloved low-cost wireless carrier, Mint Mobile, packed up its ironic communications style, its celebrity ownership, and its $15/month plans... and agreed to sell them all to T-Mobile for $1.35 billion.

Good for actor Ryan Reynolds, part-owner of Mint Mobile. As Reynolds said in a statement, "We are so happy T-Mobile beat out an aggressive last-minute bid from my mom Tammy Reynolds as we believe the excellence of their 5G network will provide a better strategic fit than my mom’s slightly-above-average mahjong skills." (Ha-ha!) Reynolds also released the funniest acquisition video I have ever seen.

Still, the news is depressing. Mint felt fresh; it was a wireless carrier with a slick website and app that worked (at least for me) simply and seamlessly, an irreverent and straight-talking style (Reynolds sent out temp tattoos of his face to subscribers for Christmas; they said, "No Ragrets"), and great prices. It all Just Worked. Now, I love a good value, but not at the cost of janky service, constant hiccups, and 2000-era websites like I saw at other cheap mobile providers. And it wasn't just me; Mint racked up many recommendations, including the "best budget" wireless option from Wirecutter.