This Intel Mini PC (16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) Goes for Peanuts, Now Even Cheaper Than on Prime Day
The Intel Twin Lake N150 3.6GHz processor at the heart of the G3 Plus's tiny body is an upgrade from the N100, and beats it across every benchmark possible. With the new processor cranking at up to 3.6GHz and the Intel Graphics card keeping the visuals moving at up to 1000MHz, you won't be sacrificing speed or quality in exchange for all the desk space you'll gain when you switch to this palm-sized PC.
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Any mini PC is going to be immediately compared to the Mac Mini, so let's get that out of the way first. The GMKtec G3 Plus is 4.49 by 4.17 inches around and 1.65 inches tall, even smaller than the 5 x 5 x 2 Mac Mini. The G3 Plus's Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 connections are just a hair behind the Mac's Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3, but the G3 Plus holds its own when it comes to ports, with four USB 3.2, two HDMI 4K, and gigabyte Ethernet, compared to the Mac's two USB-C, three Thunderbolt 4, Ethernet, and one HDMI.
But while the GMKtec G3 Plus would probably get edged out by the Mac Mini in a pure toe-to-toe performance battle, it more than makes up for it by destroying the Mac in the all-important price war — just $157 in this Amazon deal, compared to the $500 starting point of the Mac Mini. Unless you're a hardcore Mac devotee, that's a hard one to overcome.
The GMKtec G3 Plus's ability to drive two 4K monitors, its fast internet via Ethernet or Wi-Fi, and its wide range of ports for printers, external hard drives, or any other parallel device or accessory you could want or need at your desk, make it a bona fide steal at this price point. Also consider the premium construction of the G3 Plus, with new upgraded cooling fan and thermal paste to further reduce heat.
GMKtec might not spring to mind immediately when you're preparing to shop for a new PC, but in addition to being one of the world's leading makers of small desktops, they've also scored an Amazon's Choice designation with the G3 Plus, and now a 25% off Amazon deal that takes the price of this palm-sized powerhouse down from $210 to just $157.
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Akre Capital's Akre Focus Fund 2nd-Quarter 2025 Letter: A Review
Greetings from Middleburg. We hope your summer is off to a good start. The Akre Focus Fund's (the Fund) second quarter 2025 performance for the Institutional share class was 6.46% compared with S&P 500 Total Return of 10.94%. Performance for the trailing 12-month period ending June 30, 2025, for the Institutional share class was 20.43% compared with 15.16% for the S&P 500 Total Return. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 7 Warning Signs with TSX:CSU. We recently read a very interesting report by Morgan Stanley's Michael Mauboussin and Dan Callahan entitled Drawdowns and Recoveries: Base Rates for Bottoms and Bounces (1). We were hooked from the opening sentence: One of the hardest aspects of being a long-term investor is that even the best investments, or investment portfolios, suffer large drawdowns. A drawdown is the price decline from peak to trough. For us, the report's key findings were as follows: Large drawdowns indeed! The report cites a study of roughly 28,600 public companies from 1926 through 2024. The top six of these in terms of wealth creation (Apple, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Alphabet, Amazon, ExxonMobil) suffered an average maximum drawdown of 80.3%! Amazon's share price dropped 95% from December 1999 to October 2001, for example. Nvidia's dropped 90% from January 2002 to October 2002. The study by Messrs. Mauboussin and Callahan involved 6,500 US stocks from 19852024. The median stock price recovery from the drawdown bottom was 89.6% of the pre-drawdown peak (a.k.a. par). In other words, the median stock failed to return to its prior peak after max drawdowns: a permanent loss of capital for those who bought high. Returns from the bottom of these drawdowns were spectacular even if the stock failed to return to par. Intuitively, the bigger the drawdown, the bigger the subsequent return from the bottom. As the report points out, buying at the very bottom of a drawdown is highly unlikely. But it holds that the lower one buys during a drawdown, the higher the subsequent return. The role business quality played in terms of long-term compounding was of particular interest to us. In this report, the proxy for business quality was the extent of the drawdown: the smaller the drawdown, the higher the business quality, and vice versa. Critically, the study shows that while the largest drawdown (lowest quality) businesses produced the highest returns from the bottom, they generally did not compound from their pre-drawdown peak. Specifically, the quintile of stocks with the largest drawdowns recovered just 80% of prior peak value five years after the drawdown bottom. On the other hand, the quintile of stocks with the smallest drawdowns (a.k.a. the highest quality stocks) nearly doubled in value from their prior peak value five years after bottoming. In rough math, given the seven-year time frame of the study (two-year drawdown followed by five years of recovery), the lowest quality businesses compounded at negative 3.1% annually from peak to recovery, declining from an indexed peak of $100 to $80 seven years later. The highest quality businesses compounded at positive 9.6% annually over those seven years, increasing from an indexed peak of $100 to approximately $190 seven years later. We cannot directly map these research findings to our portfolio or investment approach, particularly the correlation of drawdown depth to business quality. However, we believe the findings corroborate our long-held notion that a compounding investment approach has subtle but important distinctions from value investing. Those distinctions center on the primacy of business quality. Per the Morgan Stanley study (2), high quality businesses generally compounded positively over time, even from their pre-drawdown peak. Low quality businesses, which declined more and bounced higher off the bottom, generally did not. These findings reminded us of what we did, and did not do, during the sharp but short-lived COVID bear market of March 2020, a month during which we bought over $1.1 billion in equities. We did not buy the COVID ground zero names such as airlines and cruise lines, both among the hardest hit, deepest value sectors at the time. Value investors might reasonably look to play the bounce in such sectors. If you bought the all-airline US Global Jets ETF (JETS) on March 30, 2020, you made an 85.62% return after just one year! The harder the fall, the higher the bounce. To our way of thinking, however, airlines are not high-quality businesses. And indeed, that lack of quality weighed on their longer-term rate of compounding. By the second anniversary of that well-timed JETS purchase, the annual rate of return dropped to 22.31%. By June 30, 2025, the annualized return off the bottom stood at 9.15% [per Bloomberg]. The equity investments we made in March 2020 bounced less but have compounded more. A year later, as of March 30, 2021, our March 2020 investments in aggregate had appreciated 74.85%, excluding dividends. A nice rebound, to be sure, but less than that achieved by the harder hit, lower quality airline stocks. However, quality and compounding show over time. Our March 2020 equity investments in total would have compounded at approximately 19.07% annualized if all were held through June 30, 2025, excluding dividends. The investments we made in March 2020 and have held through June 30, 2025, have compounded at approximately 21.67% excluding dividends. We believe compounding-driven investors are distinguished by an emphasis on quality and quality's tendency to reward longer holding periods. Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio)'s adage, If you aren't thinking about owning a stock for ten years, don't even think about owning it for ten minutes, captures this distinction between compounding and bounce-seeking value investing. Furthermore, we think of traditional value investing as seeking to buy the proverbial $1 of intrinsic value for ~$0.60, sell at $0.85 or $0.90, rinse and repeat. For value investors, valuation is the primary investment (buy and sell) consideration. And there's nothing wrong with this whatsoever. However, in our view, such an approach implies a somewhat commoditized view of businesses as easily exchangeable like-for-like. We believe business quality is just as important as starting valuations if the goal is to compound capital at an attractive rate over the longest time. We endeavor to own the highest quality businesses we can understand and buy them only at attractive valuations. The Morgan Stanley study supports this notion that high business quality is key to long-term compounding, even from pre-drawdown peaks. Obviously, compounding is easier said than done. Even when done exceptionally well, an active manager is prone to getting fired during the inevitable sharp drawdown or its aftermath. Indeed, the Morgan Stanley piece cites another of our favorite reads of recent years, Wes Gray's Even God Would Get Fired as an Active Investor. Dr. Gray constructs portfolios consisting only of the 50 best performing stocks over five-year periods starting January 1, 1927. Every five years, these portfolios are reset to include only the 50 best performers over the next five years. Calling these God Portfoliosbuilt with perfect foresight to contain only the best performing stocks over each five-year periodthese portfolios performed brilliantly, with annualized returns over the study period (1927 through 2016) three times that of the S&P 500. However, even these perfect portfolios were subject to significant drawdowns, the worst being 76% (August 1929 to May 1932) along with five drawdowns of 30% and higher. As Messrs. Mauboussin and Callahan say, Even the perfect portfolio tests the resolve of those who own it. Even for the best performing stocks and the best performing portfolios, faith-testing drawdowns are inevitable. The Morgan Stanley study supports our long-held view that a dual focus on business quality and starting valuation are the keys to long-term compounding. The top five contributors to performance during the quarter were Constellation Software (TSX:CSU), Brookfield Corporation (NYSE:BN), (TOITF), KKR (NYSE:KKR), and Moody's (NYSE:MCO). No callouts worth mentioning. The top four detractors from performance this quarter were O'Reilly Automotive (NASDAQ:ORLY), Roper Technologies (NASDAQ:ROP), LVMH (LVMUY), and Danaher (NYSE:DHR). As of June 30, cash and equivalents stood at 8.1% of the Fund, up from 6.3% on March 31 and 1.4% on December 31st. We have made a point of raising our cash position in case our valuation discipline and patience gets rewarded in the weeks and months ahead. Over the life of the Fund, we have routinely held cash in the 5-10% range. Finally, as announced in the supplement to the Akre Focus Fund's Prospectus dated June 4, 2025, we received approval from the Board of Trustees to convert the Fund from a mutual fund to an exchange traded fund. The ETF structure is expected to offer enhanced tax efficiency, greater trading flexibility, and increased transparency of portfolio holdings. The investment process and investment team will remain the same. We thank you for your exceptional support. John The Fund's investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses must be considered carefully before investing. The summary and statutory prospectus contains this and other important information about the investment company and it may be obtained by calling (877) 862-9556 or visiting Read it carefully before investing. Performance data quoted represents past performance and does not guarantee future results. The investment return and principal value of an investment will fluctuate so that an investor's shares, when redeemed, may be worth more or less than their original cost. Fund performance current to the most recent month-end may be lower or higher than the performance quoted and can be obtained by calling 1-877-862-9556. The Fund's annual operating expense (gross) for the Retail Class shares is 1.31% and 1.04% for the Institutional Class shares. The Fund imposes a 1.00% redemption fee on shares held less than 30 days. Performance data does not reflect the redemption fee, and if reflected, total returns would be reduced. Mutual fund investing involves risk. Principal loss is possible. The Fund is non-diversified, meaning it may concentrate its assets in fewer individual holdings than a diversified fund. Therefore, the Fund is more exposed to individual stock volatility than a diversified fund. In addition to large- capitalization companies, the Fund invests in small- and medium- capitalization companies, which involve additional risks such as limited liquidity and greater volatility than larger capitalization companies. (1) Drawdowns and Recoveries: Base Rates for Bottoms and Bounces (2) Drawdowns and Recoveries: Base Rates for Bottoms and Bounces This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
Engadget
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macOS 26 preview: Spotlight's time to shine
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Add in a lovely visual refresh thanks to Apple's Liquid Glass design, as well as enhanced iPhone continuity features, and you have an operating system that feels like a genuine step forward for the Mac faithful. I've never been a heavy Spotlight user, aside from the few times I've needed to quickly look for an app or file. But in macOS Tahoe 26, it's suddenly a lot more useful. Now Spotlight can also help you find specific files; search cloud file services and websites; run Apple shortcuts and automations; and even run basic commands, like looking up your recent screenshots when you type "/screenshot." Spotlight has become more than just a search engine for your Mac, it's practically a super-powered command line. (And notably, it has no real equivalent on Windows. So once again, Mac power users will be able to gloat about the supremacy of macOS.) Over the course of my testing, tapping the command key and space bar to trigger Spotlight practically became second nature. I'd bring it up to find files, as usual, but I noticed that it was better at unearthing what I was looking for than before. Spotlight also replaced my usual practice of typing in search strings in Safari or Chrome's address bar. It takes just a few seconds to bring up Spotlight, type "YouTube," hit tab to trigger the search box and type in the video I'm looking for. This intelligent site searching also works for Amazon and IMDB — hopefully, Apple will add more commonly used sites over time (or perhaps just the ability to map a site's internal search engine to Spotlight). If you're often buried by tons of tabs in your web browser, Spotlight can also quickly search through them. That helped me avoid getting distracted by social media and Slack conversations. I could just stay in my productivity flow, since I didn't have to sift through multiple app windows and tabs. The ability to trigger actions from Spotlight was similarly useful — it's a cinch to pop it up, start typing "Send Message" and jot out a quick text to my wife. Spotlight also learns your most common commands over time, so now I just have to type "se" for the Send Message action to pop up. I'm sure for a certain type of Mac power user, Spotlight will give them far fewer reasons to ever touch their mouse or trackpad. While Spotlight is the most powerful upgrade in macOS Tahoe 26, you'll notice the spiffier Liquid Glass interface first. As with iOS 26, it basically amounts to more transparencies and visual flourishes spread throughout the OS. The menu bar at the top of the screen is now fully transparent, instead of looking foggy like before. It's not much, but it does make your Mac's screen seem a little bigger (or perhaps that may have just been extra noticeable on the cramped 13-inch MacBook Air I've been testing on). Similarly, widgets and the Control Center dropdown have more glass-like visual elements that make them look a bit more modern. There's no real practical advantage, but to paraphrase a classic Marge Simpson quote, I just think it's neat. Apple Silicon-equipped hardware has more than enough graphics power to spare, so these visual upgrades also don't hinder performance at all. I didn't notice any slowdown during my testing, and according to Activity Monitor, there didn't seem to be a big hit to CPU or GPU usage. Even though you've been able to make phone calls on Macs for a while now through FaceTime, it's taken until macOS Tahoe 26 for Apple to debut a dedicated Phone app. The app itself is nothing special — it gives you a quick glance at your contacts and recent calls, all in a compact Liquid Glass window — but at least it's a more logical place for phone calls. 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You can have an automation trigger writing tools or Image Playgrounds, and there's also a new "Use Model" command that can tap into on-device AI models and ChatGPT. I'm still trying to wrap my head around building a complex automation, but conceivably it could let you do something like compare an audio transcript to text notes, according to Apple. Safari has received a Liquid Glass redesign that looks pretty polished. It's not nearly as transformative as the Safari iOS upgrade, which makes it easier to read websites on a small phone screen, but at least it looks nice. The Notes app now has Apple Intelligence-powered reminders whenever you share content to it. That could help you unearth some key tasks from a large email. The Photos app has also received the Liquid Glass treatment, and you can finally use Pinned Collections on Macs to keep your favorite photo groups handy. The Apple Music app can now use AutoMix to intelligently blend songs together, similar to a DJ. I've been using this feature on iOS 26 a lot, and it's honestly delightful — so long as you're not a total gapless playback purist.
Engadget
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Apple's iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26 and watchOS 26 public betas are ready to download
You can now take Apple's 2026 software for a spin. The first public betas for iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26, watchOS 26 and tvOS 26 are now available. The two most obvious changes serve to unify Apple's platforms. First, we have Apple's biggest cosmetic overhaul to date. Liquid Glass is the company's name for the shiny, translucent redesign that will be heading to its software this fall. The other significant change is in the numbering. Apple traded its old chronological system for a year-based one. Since 2026 is when the software will spend the bulk of its time in the spotlight, "26" it is. iOS 26 brings new personalized backgrounds and polls to Messages. Live Translation is another new arrival, making it easier to communicate in Messages, FaceTime and Phone. In addition, Visual Intelligence inches forward: It now lets you interact with content on your iPhone's screen. There are also new screening tools to decide whether a conversation is worth your time. The Phone app even includes Hold Assist, which listens to the Muzak so you don't have to. Arguably, Apple's most significant update this year is iPadOS 26. The new software makes Apple's tablet more of a workhorse. The iPad finally has desktop-like window management and Menu Bar dropdown entries. It even includes the Preview app and Exposé, both familiar to Mac users. The update should do a lot to calm the fury over the iPad Pro's wasted productivity potential. Meanwhile, Apple's Mac software adopts the "26" branding without ditching California landmarks. macOS Tahoe 26 adds the Phone app and Live Activities from the iPhone. The update also introduces a more advanced Spotlight that allows you to take actions directly from the launcher. Finally, watchOS 26 adds Workout Buddy, a virtual fitness coach. The AI-powered feature learns from your fitness history to "identify meaningful insights in real time." A text-to-speech model then communicates those to you verbally. "You're crushing it — closing that move ring for six straight days!" Although the public betas are less risky than installing a developer beta on day one, remember that this is still pre-release software. Only go this route if you're comfortable with the inherent risks, which could include buggy apps and unpredictable battery life. It also can't hurt to make a local backup of your device before taking the plunge.
