Qualcomm slams Intel chips in new Snapdragon ads — and it may have a point
In a set of three new ads, Qualcomm targets Intel by stating that Snapdragon PCs run at max performance when it's unplugged, while an Intel-based laptop "drops to as little as 55%." Plus, the company ridicules its competition's battery life, with Snapdragon Series X offering "the fastest PCs with multi-day battery life" compared to Intel PCs getting "left behind."
There's a lot of spice being thrown around, with two of the ads, "The Max Performance You Deserve" and "Office Tripped," being more comical in the way they bash Intel with its 55% unplugged power. As for "What's the Intel," it outright dishes out the heat with a sly "here's a little intel on what's really inside."
The next ad focuses even more on that 55% performance, playing up different scenarios where people "give 55%." That includes a sports coach motivating their team, a company offering a bonus, an officiant asking wedding vows, and a commander inspiring soldiers to fight for their country.
It's a funny take, with a office worker at the end stating "PCs powered by Intel can cut performance by up to 55% when unplugged, but with Snapdragon X series, max performance when unplugged.
The final ad sees office workers in different scenarios where everything only works in half, like cutting paper with one blade of a scissors, an elevator being halfway up a level, a man's suit being cut in half and more. The main statement is "when PC's powered by Intel perform at 55% when unplugged, it's like your whole team does."
It's clear that Qualcomm wants buyers to know that Snapdragon-powered laptops can deliver better performance for those who often use their PCs unplugged. After all, the point of a laptop is for it to be portable, and the tech giant is hammering in that point by throwing shade at Intel.
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Can Qualcomm back up these big claims? A look at the small print shows that it's done the benchmarking, but it may leave out other key details.
Qualcomm states these tests were based on Geekbench 6.2 single-core scores on WIindows 11 in October 2024, running a Dell XPS 13 with a Snapdragon X Elite and a Dell XPS 13 with an Intel Core Ultra 7 256V CPU — two laptops we've compared.
For the most part, Qualcomm is on point with the type of performance it states. The XPS 13 with Snapdragon X Elite achieved 2,797 in our Geekbench test, while the Intel-based XPS 13 reached 2,772. What's more, multi-score performance saw 14,635 and 11,033, respectively.
As for battery, the Snapdragon-equipped laptop reached 20 hours and 51 minutes, while the Intel-based PC held out for 17 hours and 29 minutes. So, the Snapdragon X Elite does shine in these results.
All that said, laptops come in all sorts of different configurations from different brands, and Qualcomm doesn't mention if the performance of an Intel-based laptop is still better than one with a Snapdragon X Elite one, despite the unplugged performance.
In our benchmark tests compared Intel Lunar Lake chips with Snapdragon X series and Apple M3 chips, we saw various results and Intel laptops came out on top in certain scenarios.
Earlier this year, I saw how Snapdragon X series chips outperform Intel CPUs during a tech demo, with Qualcomm stating its Elite chips offer a 90% performance increase over Intel Core Ultra 7 Series 2 chips when unplugged.
Still, when it comes to other areas of computing, as you'll find in the best gaming laptops and best laptops for video editing, Qualcomm still has some work to do. For now, it's witty ads make a point.
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Android Authority
5 hours ago
- Android Authority
The AYANEO Pocket S2 is the most powerful Android handheld I've ever tested, but is it the best?
AYANEO Pocket S2 The Pocket S2 is the most powerful Android gaming handheld you can buy, with a massive battery to boot. Only small sticks and a non-OLED screen keep it from achieving absolute perfection, if you can afford it. When it comes to truly premium Android gaming handhelds, AYANEO practically owns the market. Its devices are admitedly niche compared to the likes of Retroid and ANBERNIC, but they offer premium devices with performance that blows away the competition. So when it was announced that the Pocket S2 would be one of the first devies to get the Qualcomm's new handheld-focused G series chips, I was immediately intrigued. Could this be the first of a new generation of ultra powerful Android gaming handhelds? After a week of testing, I'm confident that the answer is yes. Does that mean you should actually buy it? That's still up for debate. Sleek and slender Before I get to the chipset, let's talk about the design of the AYANEO Pocket S2. At first glance, the all glass front and flat form-factor make it look an awful lot like a phone, which doesn't sound like good news for ergonomics. But I'm happy to say that it actually feels great to hold. The aluminum frame is perfectly curved and smooth, with the plastic back providing a little extra grip for your fingers. It uses the same flat design philosophy as the Nintendo Switch, but with a more premium build. Nick Fernandez / Android Authority The other thing that makes it comfortable to hold are the stacked triggers. Like the Nintendo Switch, they flare out from the back, and provide a nice little ledge to rest your fingers on. They're much more pronounced than the triggers on my OG Switch, and the triggers themselves have a nice, grippy texture. The Pocket S2 is more comfortable to hold than a Switch, with a premium feel. Unlike the Switch, the rest of the controls are also great. The buttons offer a satisfying amount of resistance, although I did find them a bit on the small side. The sticks are also on the smaller side and I'd highly recommend picking up bigger stick caps or replacing the sticks altogether if you're going to play FPS games. They pop right off, so it's a quick fix. Size aside, they are high-end TMR electromagnetic sticks. This technology is essentially the successor to Hall effect sticks, providing many of the same benefits but with better precision, resolution, and battery efficiency. I'm sure these will never drift as badly as my Switch sticks do, even after replacing them once. Nick Fernandez / Android Authority The D-pad, on the other hand, is perfect. It's an absolute joy to use, and if you swing for the Pocket S2 Pro, it comes with a second, shield-style alternative. There's a small tool to pluck out the D-pad to install the other one, and it's just as easy as swapping the keys on a mechanical keyboard. It's completely unnecessary and no one else does it, but it does spark joy. Speaking of sparking joy, the Pocket S2 marks the return of a fan favorite feature: a headphone jack. I'm glad AYANEO decided to listen to the fans on this one, because it doesn't make much sense to omit them on gaming handhelds. On phones you can argue it helps with water resistance, but I'm not taking the Pocket S2 anywhere close to the pool, no matter how hot it gets this summer. Nick Fernandez / Android Authority My only complaint, other than the smaller sticks, is the screen. It's a gorgeous, 6.3-inch 1440p IPS display with great colors and brightness, but at this price, it feels like it should be more. Don't get me wrong, I love gaming on this screen, but OLED should be the standard here. Or at the very least, a 120hz refresh-rate to enable black frame insertion on retro titles. That's available on cheaper devices like the Odin 2 Portal or even the ANBERNIC RG 477M. The screen is the only component that isn't top-spec. Still, the whole package looks and feels premium. It's also relatively light for the size, weighing in at 440g. That's very similar to the Odin 2 Portal (430g) and significantly less than something like the Steam Deck OLED, which weighs a whopping 640g. Obviously the Steam Deck is a different class of device, but there's a reason I'm comparing them, and it's because the Pocket S2 packs way more power than any other Android handheld released until now. Unmatched power Nick Fernandez / Android Authority I ran the Pocket S2 through our standard suite of benchmarks, and it confirmed what I already knew: this thing is a beast. Let's compare the scores to other popular handhelds, including the AYANEO Pocket ACE (Snapdragon G3 Gen 2), AYN Odin 2 Portal (Snapdragon 8 Gen 2), ONEXSUGAR SUGAR 1 (also the Snapdragon G3 Gen 3), and the Retroid Pocket Flip 2 (Snapdragon 865). In terms of multi-core CPU performance, we're looking at a more than 25% increase over the previous leader, the AYN Odin 2 Portal. It even outperforms the SUGAR 1, which has the same chipset. That device has two screens and a less-than-ideal cooling setup, but it could also be chalked up to AYANEO's years of experience with Android handhelds. Nick Fernandez / Android Authority Moving on to GPU performance, we see even more drastic results. The Snapdragon G3 Gen 3 is essentially a gaming-oriented Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, so it makes sense that it outperforms the competition. Still, I wasn't expecting the delta to be so large. It scored 20% higher than the Pocket ACE, and more than 40% higher than the Odin 2 Portal. Needless to say, the Retroid Pocket Flip 2's older chipset is completely outclassed here. It isn't easy to see in the graphs, but the G3 Gen 3 on the Pocket S2 also made gains in terms of sustained performance. These tests rate devices for stability, essentially comparing the best and worst results after 20 runs, and the G3 Gen 3 scored roughly 91%. That's up from 85% on its predecessor, but still less than the 99% on mainline chips. Temperatures were also well within control, peaking at just 42 degrees celcius. Compared to 46 degrees on the Pocket ACE, that's remarkably cool. Those temperatures are also focused in the center of the device, so I never felt any heat on my hands while holding it. In other words, it's the new most powerful Android gaming handheld on the market by a heathly margin when looking at the raw data. But how does it perform in Android games and emulators? Spoiler: also great. Nick Fernandez / Android Authority This thing ran literally everything I could throw at it. Obviously retro games play like a dream, even with very heavy shaders. Revisiting some of my favorite retro titles with the CRT-Royale shader is an incredible experience, even with the black bars on the sides. PS2 with widescreen hacks also ran at 3X resolution without breaking a sweat. When it comes to more modern stuff, it still gets the job done. I was actually surprised how well Nintendo Switch emulation worked on this device. Nearly every game was playable, including some titles that don't work on the previous generation of powerful handhelds. It's still not perfect and games still play better on original hardware, but this is the first time that I wouldn't mind playing through an entire Switch game on non-Switch hardware. Nick Fernandez / Android Authority For these kinds of emulators, it all really comes down to drivers. When the Snapdragon G3 Gen 2 debuted on the Pocket EVO and DMG, it was a major issue, even with Android games. Now, it's a total non-issue. You can spoof other devices in settings, but I doubt you'll ever need to. AYANEO announced that it's working closely with Qualcomm on drivers starting with this release, and it really shows here. The company also sent test devices (including the Pocket S2) to the developers behind the Nintendo Switch emulator Eden, which might explain why it works so well right out of the box. The Pocket S2 is the most powerful Android handheld on the market. I'll also note that this chipset is great for game streaming, with WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.3 supported. However, the smaller sticks on the Pocket S2 made it a little uncomfortable to play modern PC games, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for that. There are cheaper devices with larger sticks that perform every bit as well. Another big selling point for the Pocket S2 is battery life. The standard model comes with a massive 8,000mAh battery, while the Pro model ups that to 10,000mAh. That was enough for well over five hours of intense gaming, or more than a dozen in lighter retro titles. Charging is also speedy, jumping from 20% to 90% in about 75 minutes. The 60W max charging speeds I tested are exclusive to the Pro model, however, with the standard maxing out at 40W. Even so, you won't need to spend much time tethered to a charger with the Pocket S2. AYANEO Pocket S2 Pro review: Should you buy it? Nick Fernandez / Android Authority AYANEO Pocket S2: 8/128GB: $499 ($439 early bird) 12/256GB: $559 ($499 early bird) AYANEO Pocket S2 Pro: 16/512GB: $619 ($559 early bird) 16GB/1TB: $719 ($659 early bird) While I was very impressed throughout my testing period with this device, the events of the past week have made it considerably harder to recommend. Don't get me wrong, it's a fantastic device and you will probably love it if you decide to buy it, but the premium price tag is tough to stomach, especially when AYANEO itself is releasing compelling alternatives. The standard version of the AYANEO Pocket S2 comes with 8-12GB of RAM and 128-256GB of internal storage. The Pro model bumps that up to 16GB of RAM and 512GB-1TB of storage, plus a larger battery and a swappable D-pad. Personally, I think the lowest tier of the Pro model is the best value, since you'll be able to play everything at the highest quality. That said, it will run you $559 during the crowdfunding campaign, and $619 retail. That's well into Windows handheld territory in terms of pricing. The problem is that unless you absolutely need the maximum amount of power, there are plenty of devices that cost a lot less or have more interesting designs. Just this week AYANEO announced the dual-screened Pocket DS, which has the previous G3 Gen 2 but pairs it with a massive 7-inch 165Hz OLED panel and a 5-inch LCD panel on the bottom. That makes it an extremely unique handheld, and although full pricing hasn't been revealed, we already know it's going to be cheaper than the Pocket 2S. Unless you want maximum power, there are compelling alternatives, even from AYANEO. It also announced a sub-brand called KONKR, and its first device, the Pocket FIT, looks like a solid alternative to the Pocket S2. It has a 6-inch 144Hz LCD display, and it's powered by the the same G3 Gen 3 as the Pocket S2. That means you can get the same incredible performance for what will surely over a hundred dollars less, although there will be other tradeoffs in build quality. Neither of those products have launched yet, so you won't be able to get your hands on them until fall or winter. We also don't have all of the details yet, so there may be downsides that make the Pocket S2 look more attractive in hindsight. Outside of AYANEO's offerings, you've got reliable devices like the AYN Odin 2 Portal ($329 at Manufacturer site). You're trading the extra power of the newer chipset for a 120Hz AMOLED display, albeit at 1080p instead of 1440p. That device has been available for more than six months now, so you can find it for $200 less than the Pocket S2. That said, if you do want power, the AYANEO Pocket S2 is the most powerful Android gaming handheld you can get right now. This device is at the absolute bleeding edge of performance, and if you can't wait for other devices to catch up, your best bet is to buy one before the crowdfunding campaign ends in mid-August. AYANEO Pocket S2 AYANEO Pocket S2 Incredible performance • Beautiful screen • Premium build MSRP: $499.00 The most powerful Android gaming handheld ever The Pocket S2 is the first of the next generation of ultra-powerful Android gaming handhelds. See price at Manufacturer site Follow
USA Today
9 hours ago
- USA Today
America's fascination with the kiss cam: For better or worse, it's here to stay
'Are you not entertained?' Russell Crowe's Maximus famously bellowed to the Colosseum crowd in the 2000 film 'Gladiator.' But for decades, kiss cams have been posing a different question to U.S. sports fans and concertgoers: 'Are you not the entertainment?' Whether lighthearted distraction or comic relief, the ubiquitous arena and stadium feature is as American as apple pie — or at least as American as baking an apple pie and posting it on social media. Live competition and performance offer us communal experience on a massive scale, but they also offer a chance to make memories and — with the aid of kiss cams — to become part of the entertainment ourselves. For a few back-to-back moments, as the camera zeroes in on its various targets, fans watch with curiosity, anticipation, excitement and maybe even self-conscious dread. 'These events are epic, nostalgic, and for some even narcissistic,' said Adam Resnick, founder of 15 Seconds of Fame, a Los Angeles-based company whose app allows participating fans featured on in-venue video boards like kiss cams to download and share the footage as a digital souvenir. The origins of the kiss cam are frustratingly foggy but Resnick and others agree they burst onto sports scenes in the 1980s, in the years after sports franchises began introducing increasingly massive color video screens at ballparks and stadiums. Designed to fill breaks in the action and typically set to cheesy pop ballads, the kiss cam was a major innovation that shifted the focus from courts and fields into the stands. The feature is pretty much a slam dunk, with the camera's roving eye picking out random pairs of people in the stands who may or may not be actual couples — and therein lies part of the fun. Reactions are broadcast on the venue's giant video boards: If they kiss, the crowd cheers, while refusals draw playful jeers or laughter. "We love love," said Pepper Schwartz, a professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Washington in Seattle. When couples oblige, she said, "it's a feel-good feeling that transfers from one person to another and makes us optimistic." Kiss cams are cheap entertainment designed to keep audiences engaged when they could easily check out, said Joseph Darowski, an assistant professor of English at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. 'The energy of the live crowd is incredibly important, and the kiss cam helps to prevent it from dying down,' said Darowski, co-author of 'Survivor: A Cultural History,' a book that in part explores the rise of reality TV. 'Sporting events are not just about the game being played. It's the entire entertainment experience.' Any additional theatrics are generally a bonus — at least for the audience. But as illustrated by the now infamous July 16 incident at a Coldplay concert in Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, that's not always the case for the featured individuals. When reactions tell the story It was the shot broadcast around the world – the TikTok'd footage of a couple at a Coldplay concert caught mid-cuddle. 'Either they're having an affair, or they're just very shy,' Coldplay singer Chris Martin quipped after seeing the video from the stage. The video of the July 16 incident at Gillette Stadium has received more than 129 million views on TikTok alone. The viral moment and its professional and personal fallout, Schwartz said, prompted reactions ranging from amusement and fascination to, for those who've been involved in similar circumstances, schadenfreude and relief. But it wouldn't have unfolded the way it did without the kiss cam. The couple seen on the screen "could have saved themselves from worldwide derision had they waved and looked like, 'This is no big deal,'" Schwartz said. "But they took the second instinct, which was to flee. And that was the funny one." 'It could have been a vanilla, fleeting moment,' Resnick agreed. 'However, their reaction told a story." The episode illustrated how kiss cams have provoked occasional embarrassment and controversy since their debut. In addition to outing potential infidelities, their use in the past has been accused of pressuring unwilling participants to take part and shamed for promoting homophobia by showing same-sex couples for laughs. It also showed the hazards of baring private matters in public in the age of kiss cams, smartphones and social media. 'The expectation of privacy at a public event has never existed, and today, with camera ubiquity, it's preposterous for anyone to take that position,' Resnick said. More often, though, kiss cams offer those attending live events the chance to score a cameo in their own experience, claiming part or even all of those 15 seconds of fame once foretold for all of us. The power of those moments, Resnick said, lies in their organic nature. 'Authenticity can't be staged in real time,' he said. 'It resonates in the social zeitgeist.' Kiss cams 'an important metric' of acceptance The kiss cam's evolution hasn't been without its stumbles. In 2015, Syracuse University discontinued its kiss cam feature after a letter to the local newspaper cited a pair of troubling instances at the football team's game against Wake Forest. Steve Port of Manlius, N.Y., wrote that the kiss cam segment had twice featured young women who expressed unwillingness to participate but were forced to anyway, either by their male counterpart or by surrounding students. Meanwhile, a dozen or so years have passed since some major league sports franchises were accused of promoting homophobia by using kiss cams to poke fun at other teams. In those cases, after featuring a series of smooching male-female couples, the kiss cam segments ended by focusing on two of the home team's rival players, or even fans – suggesting they might kiss, and that doing so would be comedic. As a fan of the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars complained after such a segment in a 2013 letter to team owner Shahid Khan, initially reported by Outsports: 'Hilarious, right? No, and the message is clear. Jaguars are heterosexual and approved. The opponent is 'gay,' disapproved and the butt of a crude joke.' A year earlier, pitcher Brandon McCarthy of Major League Baseball's Oakland A's had similarly condemned the practice after a game against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. 'They put two guys on the 'Kiss Cam' tonight,' McCarthy posted on the social platform now known as X. 'What hilarity!! (by hilarity I mean offensive homophobia). Enough with this stupid trend.' Later, McCarthy — now sporting director for the USL Championship's Phoenix Rising FC — told the San Francisco Chronicle: "If there are gay people who are coming to a game and seeing something like that, you can't assume they're comfortable with it. If you're even making a small group of people ... feel like outcasts, then you're going against what makes your model successful." Before long, franchises were striving to be more inclusive, and in 2015, MLB's New York Mets told the Huffington Post they would no longer feature opposing players in their kiss cam segments; that same year, the Dodgers included a gay couple in its kiss cam. 'Kiss cams are an important metric in measuring how acceptable certain people are in a given community,' said Stephanie Bonvissuto, an adjunct assistant professor of women's and gender studies at Hunter College and Brooklyn College, both part of the City University of New York system. In early 2017, the Ad Council's 'Love Has No Labels' campaign produced a commercial featuring kiss cam footage from that year's NFL Pro Bowl in Orlando, Florida, where 49 people had been killed seven months earlier in a mass shooting at gay nightclub Pulse. 'Kiss Cams have been a part of sports culture for years,' the opening text read, but at that game, it continued, they 'became part of something bigger.' The images showed pairs of individuals, outlined by a heart, broadcast on Camping World Stadium's giant screens. Friends were featured. So, too, were same-sex and interracial couples. Then the camera zoomed in on two women in the stands, one of them wearing a shirt reading 'Orlando survivor.' The two turned and kissed, to the crowd's delight. Still, Bonvissuto said it's still rare to see LGBTQ couples featured on kiss cams beyond Pride Night events. While cautioning that she hasn't seen any statistics on such representation, she said the footage she's viewed largely features white, able-bodied and seemingly cisgender individuals. 'Kiss cams act as a means to exclude certain people,' she said. 'They're incredibly important in thinking about representation — who we're seeing and not seeing.' 'Socially acceptable' voyeurism But for the most part, kiss cams have offered streams of harmless fun, fodder for highlight and blooper reels and glimpses into the relationships of everyone from fellow citizens to celebrities and sitting and former U.S. presidents. Kiss cams, said BYU's Darowski, offer audiences the constant thrill of knowing they could be onscreen combined with 'a socially acceptable, safe form of voyeurism that is traditionally taboo.' The presumed authenticity of couples' raw, unrehearsed reactions is key, too, he said. 'So much of our entertainment is highly mediated, edited and packaged for our consumption,' he said. It doesn't always play out as planned – and not all of it is necessarily genuine, thanks to some sports teams' creative minds. Many couples share crowd-pleasing kisses. Others, not so much. Some, snubbed by their companions, stomp off in a huff or peck adjacent fans instead, while youthful pairs looking to lock lips are thwarted by chaperoning adults. Whether any of it is staged doesn't matter much. Fans and audiences alike have enjoyed their moment in the limelight. Resnick, of 15 Seconds of Fame, recalled a moment in June 2024 after a Dallas Mavericks loss in game five of the NBA Finals. The arena cameras zeroed on a fan tearful over the outcome. While it wasn't part of the kiss cam feature, 'the minute he saw himself on the Jumbotron, he smiled and kissed the girl (who was) with him,' Resnick said. 'That's all you need to know about what those 15 seconds mean to fans.'
Business Insider
9 hours ago
- Business Insider
I've interviewed around 500 people. I can trace all my best and worst hires back to this single interview question.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Eli Rubel, a 37-year-old Denver-based serial entrepreneur and CEO of Profit Labs. His identification has been verified by Business Insider. This story has been edited for length and clarity. At any given time, I employ between 40 and 50 people on a full-time basis. I've probably interviewed around 500 people. I created my first company, an enterprise contract management software in 2010, and sold that business in 2014. Next, I bought a commerce business, spent four years turning it around, and sold it. Then, in 2019 I started a marketing agency called Matter Made, and in 2022, I started a second agency called No Boring Design. Today I still own both of those businesses but I have talented leaders run them. I just started a third agency called Profit Labs, which is a bookkeeping and accounting firm for agency owners. It took a lot of reps to figure out what felt like a genuine interview process for me. Now, I can trace every one of my best and worst hires back to this single interview question. My go-to interview question has evolved Originally I used to ask candidates, "have you heard of the zones of genius?" Most people hadn't heard of it at the time. I think it's more popular now and it's the concept that everybody has a zone of excellence, competence, and incompetence. So I would ask them "Can you walk me through your zones?" I discovered that the problem with the zone of genius question was that if you say zone of incompetence, people are on the defensive. They may think that they need to be careful about what they say because they're in an interview. It's still one of my favorite questions but it evolved into the question that I eventually got to, which is, "what gives you energy and what takes away energy in a working environment?" People tend to answer the question honestly That one question has made or saved me more money than any ATS or hiring tool I've ever used. When it's framed like that, it feels like you're an ally by asking the question. It's kind of like, "hey, I'm here to protect you from the things that don't that take away your energy." So I think people are just much more at ease and authentic when they answer the question. There is no right or wrong answer because ultimately I'm looking to figure out if this person is going to be well-aligned for the role. I don't want them to be a bad fit just as much as they don't want to be. For example, if they're interviewing for a facing account manager role and they answer the question by saying, "I love dealing with people and that gives me energy, and what takes it away is when a client pushes back on an idea that I share," that would be a huge flag for me. That tells me this person is not right for an account manager role because they're going to get their ideas shot down all the time. It's a red flag as it relates to this role, but it's not a bad thing in general. Maybe there's another role that is better for them, though. If I know what their skill set is, I can find a place for them where they're not pitching ideas to clients that are going to get shot down, but they can still leverage their skill of dealing with people. It's almost always the case that whatever they responded to the question is directly related to what I later see in manager feedback or in performance reviews.
