Lenovo has launched a cheap compact camera, dubbed the Lenovo C55. You heard that right, the Beijing-based consumer tech company, best known for its affordable laptops and desktop computers, has jumped on the compact camera bandwagon and looks set to duke it out with the likes of the Kodak PixPro FZ45 and Yashica City 100.

According to Yanko Design and Notebookcheck this little camera is built around a 64MP Sony CMOS sensor, which can capture 4K video. And while that does sound very impressive for a $69 (approx £51 / AU$107) device, many cheap compact camera manufacturers quote similar specs.

Ultimately, you can only expect so much from a tiny 1/3-inch sensor and I can’t find word of 4K video framerates, but for well under $100, that’s not to say this couldn’t turn out to be a useful little device for the right person.

And with that person in mind, it’s worth remembering that these kinds of cameras aren’t necessarily aimed at photography enthusiasts, with a price point and features that are more likely to appeal to a younger, beginner demographic. As such, the built-in ring light around the built-in f/2.2 lens is definitely a highlight (no pun intended) that will appeal to selfie takers and fledgling content creators. And while the 2.8-inch rear LCD screen appears to be fixed, you'll notice a selfie mirror on the picture above (à la Fujifilm Instax) so selfie takers can still frame the perfect shot.

There’s no optical zoom, although the camera does have an 18x digital zoom. And, according to Photo Rumors, the camera features electronic image stabilization and continuous shooting (no word on the framerate). Press imagery – translated by Google Translate – reveals a 1300 mAh battery with a 120-minute shooting time. The camera also takes microSD cards of up to 128GB, and appears to have a USB-C port.

There’s also a mode dial, of which PetaPixel released a machine-translated graphic of an original press image from Lenovo. This reveals various functions, including filter effects, loop video, slow-motion video, and time-lapse video. However, I do wonder if the latter is in fact a self-timer, given it has an icon of a clockface with the letter ‘S’ next to it. The form factor of this little camera is suitably small, weighing in at 190g and measuring 112x71.5x34.5mm.

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Working within a tight budget? Here are the best cheap cameras. Also, check out the Kodak PixPro Z55 and for those in search of a more premium compact camera, the brand new Fujifilm X Half.

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 15 Aura is a 15.3-inch Windows laptop that aims to give respectable performance as well as excellent battery life, all from a device that's super-thin and light, weighing only around 1.5kg. It also boasts a very highly-specified screen, completing what should be an ideal laptop for photo editing on the go. Think of it as a Windows rival to the MacBook Air. Lenovo also produces a Yoga Pro. No prizes for guessing what that's pitched against.

The Yoga Slim 7 has been around a while, with the latest version being the 9th generation - look for 'Gen 9' in the model name when comparing products. It's available with AMD or Intel processing power: our review sample is equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V processor (8 cores, 4.8GHz max) and 32GB of RAM - this particular spec has the Lenovo model code 15ILL9.

The Core Ultra 7 258V is one of Intel's AI-optimized CPUs, designed to work flawlessly with Windows Copilot AI assistant, and this should also make it faster at dealing with other AI workloads. We'll see how well this translates to real-world use in Photoshop later.

The Yoga Slim 7 can be had with 16GB or 32GB of RAM, but I'd recommend the latter to stay future-proofed as sadly, like recent MacBooks, the Slim 7's RAM is soldered to the motherboard and cannot be user-upgraded later down the line.

Graphics processing is done by the main processor, so there's no separate graphics chip. This is to be expected for such a thin and portable device, but does mean the Slim 7 might not be the best choice if you regularly render lots of video footage which would otherwise benefit from graphical hardware acceleration.

Possibly the most appealing feature of the Yoga Slim 7 for photo editing is its screen. You can choose from an IPS LCD touch-sensitive display, or an OLED non-touch screen. Both are 15.3" in size, and both run at a high 2880 x 1800 resolution. Our test laptop came equipped with the LCD touch screen. This is capable of 500-nit maximum brightness, earning it HDR400 certification, and it covers an advertised 100% of the wide-gamut DCI-P3 color space. Both the LCD and OLED screens are factory calibrated to an accuracy of Delta E <1. I'd be hugely impressed to see a standalone color-critical monitor with this accuracy, so for a laptop display to offer such high image quality is phenomenal.

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 15 Aura: Specifications

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 15 Aura: Design & Handling

The Yoga Slim 7 looks and feels pretty much like any other premium thin and light laptop. It's surprisingly compact for a 15.3" model though, with the slim screen bezels and overall svelte design making it handle more like a 14" device from a few years ago.

Build quality is very good, and while there is a little flex evident in the main section, it's not concerning. The large trackpad is smooth, responsive and easy to use, and though the keyboard keys inevitably have a short travel due to the restricted chassis thickness, they're tactile and give good feedback.

Moving to the edges of the Yoga Slim 7 and on the left there's an HDMI output, one USB-C port and a 3.5mm combined headphone/microphone socket. On the right edge is a second USB-C socket, a single USB-A port, the power button and a slider to turn the webcam off and on. Both USB-C sockets run at Thunderbolt 4 / USB4 speed, so you'll get the fastest possible USB performance available right now.

This is great if you own a fast portable SSD, or use a camera that takes CFexpress cards, as the latter will require USB4 if you want to max out the card's read/write speeds. We also appreciate the inclusion of an older Type-A port, as many people - myself included - still have plenty of Type-A devices, and adapters aren't always convenient. There is one slight catch though: you don't get a separate charging port. Instead the charger connects to one of the two USB-C sockets, so you'll be down to just a single Type-C socket when you need to plug in and charge.

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 15 Aura: Performance

In general use the Yoga Slim 7 feels snappy and responsive. The 8-core Intel Core Ultra 7 258V CPU in our test machine isn't designed for all-out speed - it's meant to balance speed with efficiency - but I found it handled high-resolution image files in photoshop with no issue. To see how its AI credentials stack up in real-world use, I loaded a 1.4GB, 852-megapixel stitched panorama TIFF file and attempted to enlarge it vertically by around 500 pixels using Generative Expand. This took the Slim 7 45 seconds. For reference, my personal tower PC equipped with a 6-core AMD Ryzen 5 5600G (a CPU not designed with AI in mind) took 1 minute 23 seconds to complete the same task - nearly twice as long as the Slim 7.

I also ran several performance benchmarks on the Slim 7 - Geekbench and Cinebench to assess general speed, and CrystalDiskMark specifically to test the SSD storage:

The Cinebench score of 549 seems relatively underwhelming, but you have to remember this is a compromise laptop that has to balance speed with efficiency - it's not designed to break Cinebench records. The benefit of this low power consumption is that even after intensive benchmarking, the Slim 7 didn't feel particularly hot and its fans never spun up to distracting noise levels.

The 1 terabyte PCIe Gen4 SSD performs admirably, recording hugely impressive read and write speeds in CrystalDiskMark, meaning you can comfortably max out even the fastest CFexpress 4.0 memory cards when ingesting images and video from your camera.

Sound quality from laptop speakers is never going to send you to aural nirvana, but I was pleasantly surprised by the audio performance from the Slim 7. You get stereo speakers, each containing a separate woofer and tweeter, and they're Dolby Atmos certified. Obviously with a device this slim, those 'woofers' don't actually generate any meaningful bass, but the overall soundscape is surprisingly expansive, with good stereo separation. Push the volume past about 80% and high notes sound coarse, but listen to music at a more sensible volume and there's enough clarity and punch from the midrange that the lack of high- and low-end definition isn't distracting.

Battery life is supposed to be a highlight of the Slim 7, with Lenovo advertising a whopping 13.5 hours of web browsing and 22 hours of 1080p local video playback from the 70Wh battery. I tested that 22 hour video playback claim by looping a Full HD movie of my own and recorded an astounding 21 hours 48 minutes, with the Windows Power Mode set to Best Power Efficiency, and screen brightness set fairly low.

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 15 Aura: Screen quality

You can have all the processing power in the world, but it won't mean much if you're editing your images on a screen with poor image quality. To the naked eye, the Slim 7's 2.8K (2880x1800) display is a joy to behold. Contrast is very good, with decent black depth, and if you crank up the brightness, the screen is easily visible outdoors. Color is also beautifully vibrant and seems accurate, but to assess that objectively, you need to measure the screen's output with a specialist device called a colorimeter - more commonly know as a monitor calibrator. Our Datacolor Spyder Pro is also able to measure the image quality of an uncalibrated display, so I can verify if Lenovo's image quality claims are correct.

Color gamut

Lenovo's advertised 100% sRGB color coverage proved to be bang-on. The screen is also supposed to cover 100% of the far wider DCI-P3 gamut. My testing 'only' produced a result of 96%, but that's still very respectable. AdobeRGB coverage isn't stated, but the Spyder determined it to be 85%.

Color accuracy

Lenovo says that the Yoga Slim 7's screen is pre-calibrated to an accuracy of Delta-E <1 - a bold claim, as most color-critical monitors tend to be calibrated to within Delta-E <2 from perfect accuracy. However, the Spyder revealed Lenovo's claims to actually be fairly conservative, with the display on our sample laptop being accurate to 0.48 (zero being perfect accuracy). That's exceptional color accuracy, and one of the best scores I've ever recorded from any display.

Screen uniformity

Brightness uniformity is very good, deviating by a maximum of 9% from the brightest, central region. Color uniformity is even better, only varying by a maximum 2% across the whole screen.

Brightness & contrast

Lenovo states that the Yoga's screen brightness is 500 nits - I recorded an even brighter 617 nits. Our review sample laptop managed a contrast ratio of 1480:1 - close enough to the claimed 1,500:1.

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 15 Aura: Verdict

If you want to edit images or video on the go, and prioritize compactness, light weight and long battery life over the fastest possible performance, the Lenovo Slim 7 15 Aura is a great laptop. It's fast enough to deal with heavy workloads, while still staying cool and quiet, and all the while you get to edit your content on a gorgeous screen with terrific color accuracy.

Port selection is lacking, but sadly that's now par for the course with a laptop this thin. At least the two USB-C ports you do get are extremely fast, and able to max out even the very best memory cards and external SSDs you can buy.

At the time of writing a Yoga Slim 7 15 Aura configured to the same spec as our review sample (product code 15ILL9) retails for around $1,400/£1,260. A 15-inch MacBook Air specced with 24GB of memory and a 1TB SSD, would cost $1,899/£1,899. While the M3 SoC in the MacBook will be faster than the Slim 7's Intel hardware, that's still a heck of a price gap, making the Yoga Slim 7 a bit of a bargain.

Lenovo has revealed a new laptop at this year's CES trade show that features an under display camera. Under display cameras have long been the holy grail for phone and laptop manufacturers, as they eliminate the need for screen notches or punch holes. However, implementing such a camera design is inherently difficult, as placing a semi-opaque screen directly in front of a camera severely impacts its recording quality. The multiple thin-film layers that constitute an OLED display, along with its pixel grid, not only diffract light passing through to the under display camera, they also cause potential color casts. Furthermore, the screen's partial opacity restricts light entering a camera, leading to increased image noise.

Read more:
The best laptops for video editing
The best photo-editing laptops

But Lenovo, in conjunction with Visionary.ai and Intel, has managed to overcome these hurdles to create the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i: the world's first CUD (camera-under-display) laptop, with a 14" 4k 120Hz PureSight Pro OLED display and super-slim screen bezels. The secret to successfully implementing an under display camera has been to create real-time AI video enhancement algorithms that compensate for the image quality issues caused by positioning the camera behind the screen. The laptop's Image Processing Unit in its Intel Core Ultra 200V series processor is able to enhance the under display camera's video recording in real time, with no perceivable lag in video calls or while streaming. This includes applying AI de-noising technology to compensate for the low light transmission reaching the camera sensor, which would otherwise be particularly problematic in dimly lit environments.

"Delivering sharp imaging with a camera under the display was a challenge that seemed impossible just a few years ago. Our breakthrough in leveraging AI to achieve real-time, stable denoising under challenging conditions has made it a reality."

Yoav Taieb, Visionary.ai CTO

We don't yet know when the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i will go on sale, or how much it is likely to cost.

You’ve got an Android phone and a Windows computer and want a big-screened, high-end tablet for photo edits and on-the-go apps – an iPad seems altogether too Apple – so your obvious choice is a Samsung slate like the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra. After all, Samsung is the go-to for premium Android tech, known for excellent software, design and pen support (ideal for Lightroom). Most of all, Samsung’s premium tablets are known for having the best screens around, also critical for photo edits, a highlight we really appreciated when testing the Tab S8 Ultra. 

Over the last year, though, the Android tablet space got shaken up. Lenovo’s Tab Extreme, another 14+ inch Android behemoth, was launched, and so too was the smaller OnePlus Pad, a much cheaper alternative. Even Google got in on the action, launching the first-ever Pixel Tablet, complete with a booming docking station.

Never one to back down from a challenge, though, Samsung’s loaded up the new Tab S9 Ultra with the very best Android tablet hardware and software. And with its latest update to OneUI 6.0, it also enjoys many of the same features as the new Galaxy S24 series and IP68 water resistance. 

But with a punchy price tag and a potentially awkward, oversized body, would you be better served with an alternative from Samsung or the competition, or is the Tab S9 Ultra a perfect photography companion?

Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra: Design

Despite its massive footprint thanks to that 14.6-inch screen, the Tab S9 Ultra is super-slender at just 5.5mm thin (thinner than any mainstream phone out now). Before you think it’s a featherweight, it isn’t. Clocking in at 732g, it’s relatively heavy, so it isn’t comfortable for long bouts of one-handed use. 

Over the last few years, Samsung’s premium design has been a benchmark for Android phones and tablets, and the Tab S9 Ultra carries this quality forward. Its Gorilla Glass front and aluminium frame and back create flat sides and curved corners, making it both easy to grip and not too sharp as the corners nuzzle into the hand.

The only premium tablet with IP68 water resistance, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra can be submerged without fear, and its you can write on it using the S Pen underwater.

Dotted around the frame is a quad-speaker system, an SD card slot, a USB-C port and the power and volume buttons. The back panel has a dual camera and a magnetic charging point for the S Pen, and on the front is the screen, a notch for the selfie camera and an under-display fingerprint scanner.

Available in Beige and Graphite, while we tested the Graphite model, the Beige option looks like it would fend off fingerprints a bit better and it also has a bit more of an ooh la quality to it.

As long as you’re okay with the size, the Tab S9 Ultra is a winning package from a design point of view. The only area it falls short is accessories. Samsung’s official keyboard folio isn’t particularly comfortable for laptop typing, so it isn’t ideal for a commute. Apple’s Magic Keyboard for iPads and Lenovo’s Tab Extreme keyboard folio are much more fit for purpose. So, if you’re picking up the Tab S9 Ultra for productivity, ensure you do most of your typing at a table or desk.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra: Screen

The Tab S8 Ultra’s excellent screen was only let down by a modest maximum brightness. This resulted in a mediocre view in direct sunlight, but the Tab S9 Ultra remedies this by with its brighter panel that peaks at a beaming 930 nits peak brightness. This might sound low compared to flagship smartphones, but tablet peak brightness is always significantly lower.

Bright and sharp, the Tab S9 Ultra is also has a 1848 x 2960 resolution, which equates to a pixel density of 239PPI. With its smooth 120Hz refresh rate, menus glide, and the widescreen 16:10 aspect ratio is a perfect pairing for 16:9 shows, especially when set against much more square iPads and their heavy letterboxing.

Samsung is one of the few tab makers that makes its own screens, so it’s little wonder the AMOLED display on the Tab S9 Ultra looks glorious, especially in darker areas and when playing back HDR content. There is a caveat, though. If you watch atmospheric, dark content in a bright environment, you may lose some detail in the shadows, but when watching indoors or in a darker space, no other tab can touch the Tab S9 Ultra’s rich, atmospheric quality.

The Tab S9 Ultra has a notch for the two front cameras. This keeps the bezel extremely slim, and falls outside the viewing window for 16:9 content and wider, so we didn’t find it interrupted our view.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra: Camera

Tablet cameras are generally significantly lower-spec than smartphone cameras, so we will touch on the Tab S9 Ultra’s cameras without going into too much detail and focus more on ways the Tab S9 Ultra can fit into a photography workflow.

Starting with the cameras, the Tab S9 Utlra has two on either side. Around the back is a 13MP main camera and an 8MP ultra-wide. On the front are two 12MP cameras for selfies and video calls. The main camera is good enough for a document scan and is the only camera on the tab with autofocus, with the rest featuring fixed-focus lenses.

As for the front camera mix, it’s great for video calls – in bright environments, it’s sharp enough for an HD feed – and all the cameras can shoot 4K 30fps video except for the ultra-wide rear camera. Drop the lights, and none of the cameras – front or back – hold up particularly well.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra: Productivity

Samsung pre-loads a few powerful apps on the Tab S9 Ultra to give creatives a jump start, bundling in a two-month trial subscription to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, as well as a full version of Good Notes for a year, and a half-price offer for LumaFusion video editor.

Running Android 14 with OneUI 6.0, the Tab S9 Ultra features DeX, Samsung’s desktop UI. This year, we have two versions of the interface, a Classic DeX and New DeX. While the Classic version is a full-blown Windows-style interface, the New version looks like familiar Android but adds resizable floating windows to the mix. These two forms of DeX are very powerful, with Classic DeX working perfectly when projecting to an external monitor – ideal for big-screen editing – and New DeX looking better on the tablet itself, particularly suited to the keyboard folio cover or a keyboard and mouse setup.

While DeX works better than anything else in the Android space for both standalone and monitor-connected productivity, the Lenovo Tab Extreme’s second USB-C port supports video input, and gives it a slight edge in a creative workflow, enabling it to double up as a second screen for your MacOS or Windows device. The Tab S9 Ultra is only a wireless second screen for Windows computers – so Lenovo's tab is more versatile.

Samsung’s pressure-sensitive S Pen is also a powerful creative tool. Whether using a brush with precision in a drawing app like Concepts or with the Heal tool in Lightroom, the S Pen’s 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity and almost brush-like feel on-screen has always been a tonic to Apple’s hard plastic Pencil.

The main creative limitation of the Tab S9 Ultra is Android and, more specifically, app support. Yes, Concepts, Lightroom and LumaFusion are excellent. Still, with apps like Adobe Illustrator, DaVinci Resolve and ProCreate available for iPadOS, it is the better creative tool.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra: Performance

Thanks to a powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset matched with 12GB RAM, the Tab S9 Ultra does an excellent job of 4K video edits and 3D gaming. The interface glides, even when loaded up with multiple apps on-screen, or projecting DeX to an external monitor. It’s very impressive to get into a rhythm with the tablet, smash out a load of work and realise, it was all powered by a skinny slate.

There’s also plenty of storage on offer, with either 256GB, 512GB or 1TB internal storage and a microSD card slot, so you can bump that up by an extra 1TB.

Talk about multi-function – the Tab S9 Ultra can charge phone in a pinch with its huge 11,200mAh battery – you just need a USB-C to USB-C port. You’ll probably have capacity to spare with Samsung’s tablet easily lasting a few days or longer with modest use – an episode and some browsing here and there. For more intense workloads, expect one or two days out of it. It also charges up at 45W, taking around two hours to power up fully.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra: Verdict

The Tab S9 Ultra has the best screen of any tablet we’ve tested, and the fact it’s water resistant makes it an obvious choice for anyone who needs a slate that can withstand the elements. Paired with your camera’s companion apps, it makes for an impressively oversized external monitor, and there are enough great photo editing and productivity apps for Android to make it the most capable Android tablet around.

There are some red flags to bear in mind before picking one up. This tablet is huge, so make sure the S9 Ultra is what you need, not the more modest, manageable Tab S9 Plus. The keyboard dock isn’t well-suited to resting on a lap; ergonomically, this isn’t a laptop replacement. Finally, even if you have a Windows laptop and an Android phone, you might still be better off getting an iPad, thanks to iPadOS’s superior creative app support.

If none of those caveats faze you, the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra could be the best tablet of 2024 for you and should add a brilliant, big-screened boost to your workflow.

When you read the title, I bet you think I’m an Apple hater – a Windows user who doesn’t understand the unique way that Macs work. Or, perhaps, that I simply can’t afford one so I carry a bitterness for anything and everything Apple. These are common assumptions made by Apple users when confronted by seemingly angry Windows keyboard warriors online.

I can honestly say that any of those assumptions couldn’t be further from the truth. I used to only buy Apple computers, love the way they’re designed and built and still believe that macOS is a far superior operating system to Windows, which has pretty much always been the case. So now you’re probably wondering, why on Earth did I move to Windows?

To cut a slightly longer story short, I used to always upgrade the RAM and HDDs in my Mac notebooks as soon as they arrived. Once Apple began soldering in the RAM and over time it became harder and harder to do home upgrades, I moved over to a Windows desktop where I could change any component myself. Overall, I was becoming frustrated with the way Apple was telling me how to interact and use the hardware it manufactures when I owned the device itself.

Why Windows works for me

I recently bought a new notebook because my old one was no longer up to the tasks I needed it for at seven years old. This was a process that spanned several weeks of research and I even looked at the MacBook Pro 14-inch, but I saved myself a small fortune with a comparably powerful Lenovo Legion Slim 5 14. What’s more, it has a fantastic wide gamut OLED screen for photo and video editing, along with an Nvidia 40-series GPU.

I have to confess that the RAM in my Legion Slim 5 is soldered in. Why Lenovo (the best Lenovo laptops) has gone down this route is beyond belief because the upgrade was peanuts compared to Apple's RAM prices – so it’s not about profit. However, I opted for the maximum 32GB of DDR 5 6400MHz RAM, so this should keep me going for a while. But I can add a second M.2 SSD if I want to, and clone and change the upgraded 1TB M.2 drive the notebook came with, if and when I want to. My desire to tinker is, in part, catered for.

I appreciate that Apple Unified RAM works slightly differently to RAM in PCs because of how and where it’s attached to the motherboard, and that Apple claims their computers can match the performance of comparable Windows computers with twice as much RAM. But does this even matter? I for one don’t care as long as I can achieve the performance I need with double the amount of RAM in a PC, especially when it’s so inexpensive compared to Apple’s RAM upgrade prices.

I paid £1431 For the Legion, and the nearest equivalent MacBook Pro 14, assuming 16GB of RAM is the equivalent of the 32GB I chose, would have cost me $2600 /£2099, so a saving of $840 / £668 for what I would consider to be a more versatile option. As I say, I do prefer macOS, but I also don’t mind Windows and PCs are comparably well-suited to creative work these days, unlike 20 years or so ago when things were different. Coincidentally, both notebooks also benchmark with similar results, so the lower cost of the Legion is a true saving in every sense.

I guess it comes down to preference and what you’re willing to pay. Of course, a low-end $375 / £300 Windows notebook will be next to useless and plagued with performance issues, but spend around $1,890 / £1500 and things are significantly different. So, for me, a mid-range Windows gaming notebook provides all of the power I need for photo and video editing and more, it’s a well-built device and saved me a ton of cash in the process. Which is why, I wouldn’t touch a MacBook Pro with a bargepole.

See where the rest of the DCW team rank things in the best photo-editing laptops guide.

Ugreen’s 12-in-1 docking station boasts quite the spec; 12 incredibly powerful ports that let you connect just about anything including up to 3 monitors. Ugreen has a substantial range of hubs and docking stations but this one stands above them all in both capacity and capability. One of the most notable inclusions is the triple display option all the way up to 8K.

Ugreen 12-in-1 Docking Station: Specifications

Ugreen 12-in-1 Docking Station: Key Features

Probably the most notable feature is its ability to extend your display to three further displays. This is achieved through two HDMI ports and one Display port. 8K functionality is supported at 30hz which is good but I would like to have seen this extended to 60hz. Users can easily work on multiple shots, edits, or projects thanks to this dock. 

Files can be transferred without any hassle at all. Video files, in particular, are getting larger all the time so to have a device that can get those onto your machine quickly is paramount. Cutting down the time between capture and editing is easily achieved with this docking station.

Alongside display extension and data transfer, there is a lightning-quick charging port which is perfect for getting your laptop, phone, or other compatible device charged up in a hurry.

Ugreen 12-in-1 Docking Station: Build & Handling

This dock is solid and well-built with nice beveled edges. The metal construction and matt finish means it looks great in any setup. The input cables and cards slot in well demonstrating the quality of the build. The bottom includes four rubber pads giving a soft contact between the dock and the desk. Due to the number of inputs it supports, this is a heavy item, weighing in at 748 grams. At this weight, and with the bulky power adapter, you’ll be fine using it in one location but it doesn’t lend itself to portability.

Ugreen 12-in-1 Docking Station: Performance

This device performs well on all fronts. Data speeds of 10Gbps can be achieved through USB 3.0 and USB-C with a LAN port supporting 1000Mbps. The dock is great but in reality, it opens up a whole world of possibilities for efficient and streamlined working. 

Ugreen 12-in-1 Docking Station: Verdict

If you want a dock that will do it all and you’re not concerned about how much money you’ll need to part with then this is the dock for you. Benefitting from triple display capability, lightning-quick data transfer, and a range of other connections, this dock has it all. The only downside is the significant cost but if you can stomach that then you won’t be disappointed with the results.

The likes of Satechi, Corsair, and Anker offer alternative solutions but Ugreen’s docking stations devoted to display extension are really pushing the market forward. Video editors or those working on demanding design projects will find this dock to be pretty unmatched.

Read more: find out more of our top picks for best laptop docking stations.

Taking the fight to Samsung and its Tab S8 Ultra and S9 Ultra, the huge-screened Lenovo Tab Extreme has a secret weapon no other Android tablet can match: an excellent, Apple-grade keyboard dock. 

iPads and their Magic Keyboards have kept Android tabs at bay when it comes to productivity, and neither Samsung or its fellow Android tab makers could touch Apple on that front until now. But the Extreme is more than just a stellar optional accessory.

Lenovo's flagship tablet has a giant 14.5-inch Super AMOLED screen, MediaTek Dimensity 9000 power, and a thin chassis, as well as pen support and not one, but two USB-C ports. 

The Tab Extreme also takes advantage of a slew of new tablet software for Android, including the powerful LumaFusion for video edits, Concepts for sketching and mind mapping, and Goodnotes for note-taking. These help Android eke closer to iPad-grade productivity. 

Costing a punchy $949 / £999 for the tablet, and an additional £350 for the keyboard dock, has Lenovo's oversized slate really got what it takes to justify its price and fend off fresh competition from the brand-new Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra? Or should you spend a little more for a tried and tested iPad Pro?

Lenovo Tab Extreme Review: Design

From the front, the Lenovo Tab Extreme and Galaxy Tab Ultra line could almost be mistaken for one another. They both have near-identically sized and specced screens, though Lenovo's slate doesn't have a notch or a dual front camera like Samsung's Ultra.

The back and sides are where Lenovo chooses to stand out with its own highlights. On the right side are no less than two USB-C port, and around the back is a stepped glass panel that runs along the top fifth of the tab, where you'll find the cameras and pen docking point.

The Tab Extreme has a mighty eight speakers under an array of unapologetic speaker holes on each side, a power button and fingerprint scanner combo on the left, and up top is a volume rocker.

Just because the Tab Extreme is a tablet, that doesn't mean it's a featherweight E-Reader alternative. This behemoth is a 740g slab, and with its keyboard dock, it weighs more than many laptops, including the new MacBookAir. While it's elegant for its size and very well built, therefore, you'll absolutely notice it in a bag, and one-handed use for long periods is out of the question.

Lenovo Tab Extreme Review: Display

In addition to its slim chassis, what helps make the Lenovo Tab Extreme pack more appeal than a laptop is its stunning screen and pen support. Shipping with a pen in the box and supporting up to 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity, apps like Concepts feel like they were made for tablets like this.

With a resolution of 1876 x 3000, the Tab Extreme is relatively sharp for such a large-screened tablet, with a pixel density of 244 pixels per inch. Images and text look crisp, and thanks to the OLED screen tech at the heart of the display, it's both deep and vibrant.

With support for Dolby Vision, HDR10+, videos look excellent when playing back optimized content. While the display has a silky 120Hz refresh rate, Lenovo lets users override this in the settings and set the refresh rate to 60Hz or 90Hz, and customize the color temperature and vibrancy too.

The Lenovo Tab Extreme's manual peak brightness edges slightly ahead of the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra, though going on a brief tangent and talking about sound – we prefer the audio from Samsung's slate. The Tab Extreme also has a cooler hue to the screen, while Samsung keeps things a bit warmer. 

Irrespective of differences, these are two of the very best tablet displays available right now, and thanks to their size, they make photo and video editing or working split-screen feel spacious.

Lenovo Tab Extreme Review: Camera

As with most tablets, the Lenovo Tab Extreme's camera isn't going to best your smartphone and should be used for casual snaps, reading QR codes, and document scans when you don't have your phone to hand.

The Tab has two cameras on the back – a primary and ultra-wide – and a front camera for video calls and selfies. The main camera has a 13MP resolution with an f/2.4 lens, while the ultra-wide is a humble 5MP, f/2.2 camera with a fixed-focus lens. Finally, the front camera is a 13MP fixed-focus setup and is likely the one you'll fire up most often for video calls.

None of the cameras do an excellent job in poorly lit environments, and Lenovo doesn't load up a manual mode to help eke out more detail with long-exposure shots. That said, if you do want to get the best from then, a third-party manual camera app is probably the way to go in all but the brightest scenes.

Lenovo Tab Extreme for Photographers

What could be one of the best things about the Tab Extreme for photographers is the screen projection mode. We're not talking about projecting from the tablet to a monitor, but the other way around and using the Tab Extreme's glorious screen as a display for your laptop, mirrorless camera, or DSLR.

The tech you'll need to do this project from your camera will depend on your setup. If, like us, you're testing the Tab Extreme with a Canon R6, you will want a micro HDMI to USB-C solution – not too easy to come by. 

Bear in mind, converter cables are one-way, so if you buy a standard HDMI converter it fires the picture the wrong way – so be sure to hunt around for the right one. Of course, you can use the app for wireless control over your camera.

The Tab Extreme is an excellent plug-and-play second monitor for a laptop, and it will even fire up smartphone desktop interfaces like Samsung DeX, pictured above. This connectivity also extends to pen input which should be a boon for digital artists.

Pressure sensitivity could have meant the Tab Extreme turns into something of a Wacom Cintiq when working in apps like Photoshop across MacOS and Windows devices and using the tablet as a second monitor. Unfortunately, the pen pressure calibration was off on our review unit, so pen taps wouldn't register unless we pressed with a worrying amount of force. If this is the same across all units, this lack of optimization is a missed trick.

When using native Android apps like Lightroom, the pen is a handy, accurate tool for masking and applying edits, and it's also a powerful drawing tool with apps like Concepts, pictured below, though we prefer the softer nib of Samsung's Tab series.

Lenovo Tab Extreme Additional Features

When a piece of tech tries to do too many things, it's at the mercy of its internals, but the Tab Extreme tears through 4K video edits and batch photo processing with gusto, thanks in part to the MediaTek Dimensity 9000 powering the experience. 

Once upon a time, MediaTek was best known for budget chips driving much of the affordable smartphone market, but over the last few years, its Dimensity series has fuelled some of our favorite powerhouses, including the Vivo X90 Pro. 

Taking the fight to Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen series, the Dimensity 9000 in the Lenovo Tab Extreme, matched with 12GB RAM, kept up with everything we threw at it, including a fair bit of big-screen gaming. 

What most impressed us was the Extreme's solid performance when working across two monitors and using Lenovo's second-screen desktop experience. So whether typing on the go with the keyboard case, lounging and watching, sketching, or plugged into a monitor at home, the Tab Extreme kept up with us.

What didn't always meet our needs was Android itself. While iPad OS's tablet apps are mostly optimized for big screens, that isn't always the case with Android apps. It's more than just the apps, though. Apple has added native second-screen support for its newer iPads, and Samsung has been honing its DeX desktop experience for years, but Lenovo's bespoke desktop UI feels half-baked by comparison.

With 256GB storage inside and a microSD card slot to bump this number up, the Tab Extreme gives you plenty of space to work, watch and play. 

Lenovo's interface feels like a relatively stock take on Android, similar to the Pixel Tablet, but is turbo-charged in some areas. There's a floating taskbar at the bottom of the screen for easy split-screen working, and Lenovo's floating window support can display more than 14 apps on-screen at once.

Lenovo also tries to squeeze extra productivity from the tab with FreeStyle – a feature that supports file and screen sharing across your tablet and Windows computer, though we found the experience, which is in Beta, to be hit and miss.

The Tab Extreme's massive 12,300mAh battery is larger than the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra's, and should see you through a full working day – provided you keep an eye on the brightness. 

It charges up at 68W, taking around 90 minutes to power up fully with the plug in the box. Be mindful, though, if you use a third-party plug, you could be waiting around for hours.

Lenovo Tab Extreme Verdict

The Lenovo Tab Extreme definitely isn't the best tablet of 2023 if you're looking to buy a tablet and a tablet alone. We prefer the sound from the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra's speakers, and Samsung's interface is better optimized for big-screened tablet tasks. If you don't need so much size, smaller tablets are far less unwieldy, and Lenovo's Yoga Tabs have handy kickstands and cost a lot less.

As an Android tablet alone, the Tab Extreme is a four-star choice. Performance is smooth thanks to MediaTek Dimensity 9000 internals, so editing 50fps 4K video in Lumafusion didn't grind it to a halt. Software optimization could be better, but Lenovo gets the basics right, and the Extreme's screen is glorious.

What edges Lenovo's behemoth slate nearer to that coveted five-star score is its second-monitor support and its superb keyboard accessory. If you see yourself using those features, nothing else can touch the Tab Extreme. 

It's no secret that Android tablets have broadly failed to be Swiss Army Knife tools for photographers. But with its stunning display, second monitor functionality, two USB-C ports for dongles and card readers, and the best keyboard accessory outside Apple's ecosystem, Lenovo's the first to truly crack that nut despite the Extreme's imperfections.

See our guides to the best iPad alternatives, the best Android tablets, and the best iPads

Motorola has announced the global release of its Edge 40 Pro flagship smartphone, a £799 (roughly $1,000 / AUS £1,480) featuring two attention-grabbing inclusions, a screen with a lightning-quick 165Hz refresh rate, and a main camera sensor made by relatively unknown sensor designer – OmniVision.

When compared to big hitters like the OnePlus 11 and Samsung Galaxy S23, its camera mix might not sound that interesting on first impression with its 50MP main camera resolution and a maximum 2x optical zoom, the fact Motorola has opted for an OmniVision sensor to lead the charge could mark a continued shift in flagship smartphone imaging.

While most high-end smartphones are launching with Samsung or Sony sensors, from the 1-inch Sony IMX989 in the Vivo X90 Pro, to the 200MP Samsung ISOCELL HP2 in the Galaxy S23 Ultra, more brands are looking to OmniVision, a lesser-known image sensor maker to power their camera experiences of late.

Who is OmniVision?

OmniVision is an American subsidiary of the Chinese company, Will Semiconductor, and its camera sensors power webcams – both for laptops and standalone, surveillance equipment, automotive parts and more. 

When it comes to smartphones, OmniVision is best known for making secondary cameras, like the 2MP macro cameras in many midrange phones. In recent years, though, OmniVision sensors have been climbing the ranks, featuring as primary cameras in more devices.

The first reputable flagship we can recall with an OmniVision main camera was the Lenovo Legion Phone Duel, a gaming phone with a 64MP OV64A sensor. Now, with its Edge series, Motorola, a Lenovo company is clearly doubling down on its relationship with the camera sensor maker, packing a 1/1.5-inch OV50A primary sensor in its Motorola Edge 40 Pro.

Motorola Edge 40 Pro key features

The Moto Edge 40 Pro is a fine-looking, powerful phone that's made of glass and metal. We've spent a week with it, and love how it looks – the screen is curved on all edges, there's a sand-blasted aluminium frame, and it isn't too big, with a low-on-bezel 6.67-inch screen.

Protected by Gorilla Glass Victus, and packing IP68 water and dust resistance, the phone's hardy, and it also ships with a case in the box and a pre-fitted screen protector for some added value.

In addition to that primary 50MP OmniVision camera, the phone has a Samsung-powered ultra-wide which doubles up as a macro camera, and a 12MP telephoto camera, with a Sony sensor matched with a 2x zoom. Most interesting about the telephoto camera is its wide f/1.6 aperture, atypically open for a camera with reach.

Motorola's camera packs a few notable highlights: the inclusion of night vision video, and a new horizon lock feature. There's also a 60MP selfie camera too – powered by another OmniVision sensor.

The Edge 40 Pro should deliver mighty gaming performance with its Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 power, which is matched with 12GB LPDDR5X RAM. It also has 256GB UFS 4.0 storage, though no SD card expansion options.

The screen also looks set to be a high-point of Motorola's latest flagship with its sky-high 165Hz refresh rate and Dolby Vision credentials. With a peak brightness of 1300 nits, it also gets very bright, so content should be easy to see indoors or out.

Loaded up with wireless charging and very fast 125W wired charging, complete with a charger in the box, it looks like all the specs are on point. So whether or not the phone is the best camera phone of 2023 when we come to review it in the coming weeks will come down to that OmniVision sensor, and Motorola's photo and video processing – check back for our verdict.

Read More: Find out more about the latest phones with our guides to the best Android phone, the best budget camera phone, and the best Motorola phones.

Whether you are looking for the best tablet for photo editing or the best drawing tablet, the journey usually starts with the question, Android or iPadOS? In the early days, there used to be more of a straightforward answer, with Apple’s tablets wiping the board against their Android rivals save for a Samsung flagship like the Galaxy S8 Tab S8 Ultra. This explains why the Cupertino giant’s iPad range makes up 51.21% of all tablets sold, despite its options erring on the expensive side. 

Google has done considerable work to its AndroidOS to not only make it more visually appealing than ever before with Android 13's 'Material You' theming, but it has also invested in making the operating system that works for phones better to use on tablets. Now, there are now far more compelling options for the best Android tablet.

The Lenovo Tab P12 Pro uses a very close version of the OS to the fabled ‘stock Android’ experience, with minimal changes to the user interface or additional apps pre-loaded onto the tablet, instead focusing their attention on making high-end hardware, including a high-quality screen, metal premium chassis and keyboard and stylus accessories.

The P12, as the designation 'Pro' in its title might suggest, is a high-end tablet, with a price tag to match. The P12 is similar in price to Apple’s latest iPad Air model, however unlike Apple's device, it can be bought with a detachable keyboard and stylus pen included, making it immediately more useful as a productivity device out of the box.

Tab P12 Pro Specifications

Processor: 3.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 octa-core processor
RAM: 8GB
Storage: 256GB + MicroSD card up to 1TB
Screen: 2560 x 1600 pixels
Battery: Up to 15 hours video playback and up to 8 hours web browsing
Speakers: 4 x JBL speakers with Dolby Atmos
Mics: Dual mic array
Camera: Rear 13MP and front 8MP
Dimensions (H x W x D): 5.8mm x 264.28mm x 171.4mm / 0.22" x 10.4" x 6.74"
Weight: 485g (without keyboard and pen)
Sensors: Accelerometer, e-compass, ambient light-sensor, gyroscope, TOF sensor, vibrator
Connectivity: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, 2.4GHz & 5GHz dual band, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS
Security: Fingerprint reader, face unlock

Tab P12 Pro Key Features

The Lenovo Tab P12 Pro is centered around its 12.6-inch (2560x1600) OLED screen, with built-in Dolby Vision, which should produce deeper contrast, brighter highlights, and a wide color palette. The tablet also has eye comfort certification, from TUV Rheinland, ensuring long sessions watching movies will put less strain on your eyes.

To complement the Dolby Vision screen, the P12 Pro has 4 internal speakers tuned by JBL that also support Dolby Atmos, which should provide a superior sound experience for watching movies and TV shows.

The tablet comes equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 processor, combined with 8GB of RAM, which is powerful enough to breeze through web browsing, streaming video, or using some graphically intensive games or productivity apps from the Google Play Store.

The tablet has a claimed battery of 15 hours for watching videos already saved to the device (not streaming) or 8 hours of web browsing. The tablet also comes with a fingerprint reader built into the power button and has face unlock, although this is the ‘unsophisticated’ version that uses software recognition only, not hardware like Apple’s FaceID.

Tab P12 Pro Build & Handling

The frame is built from an aluminum alloy measuring just 5.8mm at its thinnest point, which provides a very lightweight but still strong and sturdy-feeling tablet. The screen itself has very narrow bezels measuring just 6.9mm narrow bezels around the display. The P12 feels much more premium than its price tag, the metal chassis is really nice to touch and the screen just always looks great. Lenovo has done an excellent job on the build quality here.

The screen is the star of the show. It is very bright with excellent contrast and saturation, it is a really nice screen to use to watch movies or browse through photos. The speakers are equally great quality for a tablet, providing loud deep sound for a very svelt tablet. Whilst there are better-sounding tablets out there, but you will not be disappointed when watching movies made for Dolby Atmos audio tuning.

However, the 16:10 screen is a huge problem for me, a problem shared with other top Android tablets. This screen size suits a lot of Hollywood movies perfectly, but it is not ideal for a lot of TV shows, and when it comes to some games and productivity apps it is just not the ideal ratio.

In portrait, this ratio works okay, it is possible to hold comfortably in one hand, although apps feel too long. In landscape mode, though this tablet is not easy to hold, as it is too long to hold on one side for extended periods of time. Microsoft’s Surface and Apple’s iPad devices are just a much more usable screen ratio for handheld and productivity purposes. 

The tablet comes with a detachable keyboard and stylus. Both these are solid quality, with a smooth plastic material used. The keyboard attaches and detaches using magnets and two small notches to guide alignment, and is a very simple and fast system to use, it is very responsive with nice key travel. The pen attaches to the rear of the tablet using a built-in magnet, which also doubles as a wireless charging point. This magnetic connection is very strong, and I didn’t find the pen falling off easily.

Tab P12 Pro Performance

The tablet is very fast, flying through the operating system with ease, with it's top-tier processor performing very well. During photo editing using Lightroom CC from the Play Store, the tablet handled applying and processing gradients and spot removal well with very little lag, and exporting a cropped video using Google Photos was also fast enough to not be bothersome. Gaming was fast and responsive, with almost no stuttering or dropped frames.

Battery life is also excellent, I wasn’t quite getting the longevity claimed by Lenovo (manufacturer estimates are always quite generous), but I was getting respectably close, and never felt myself worrying about the battery running out prematurely.

There are still a few inconsistencies in the Android OS with spacing and font size between different apps that make the experience a little jarring, the icons and font size for portrait and landscape are wildly different for example. However, Google has made enormous strides in getting Android for tablets to now be a very enjoyable user experience, the interface is colorful and engaging as well as being highly intuitive to use. If you love using an Android phone then you will feel right at home using the Lenovo P12.

Sadly the pen experience is very underwhelming, while the stylus itself is very accurate, and the handwriting recognition is pretty perfect, the palm rejection is nearly non-existent. When taking notes using the stylus, my palm/wrist would continually hit other things on the screen causing all sorts of chaos. This is just something I have never experienced with an iPad or Surface device.

The cameras are also a dreadful experience. The rear cameras are very poor, considering the main camera has a 13MP sensor, the images look like oversharpened oil paintings. The front camera is not much better, with poor sharpness and a washed-out look, it is just about acceptable for video calls.

Lenovo Tab P12 Pro Verdict

If you are firmly in the Android ecosystem, and you want an affordable tablet that feels more premium than its price tag then the Lenovo P12 Pro is definitely a tablet to consider. With an excellent metal chassis, and a high-quality colorful screen that makes watching movies and looking through photos a joy. The P12 is also fast, flying through tasks such as browsing the web, streaming video, and some light photo and video editing. The included stylus and keyboard also make the tablet more of a hybrid productivity device.

Google has made huge strides forward with Android, and it is now an excellent experience, it still has a few kinks to iron out, but is edging closer in user experience to Apple’s tablet OS. For the P12 Pro, unfortunately, the stylus experience is not fantastic, with poor palm rejection, it makes using the stylus without any unwanted side effects very difficult. And a raft of poor cameras as well also let down what is otherwise an excellent hardware design. 

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Motorola has introduced a new rollable smartphone concept. We’ve previously seen rollable phone concepts from Oppo and TLC, and LG was working on one before they exited the smartphone sphere last year. Motorola's new offering, seen at Lenovo Tech World ‘22, could be the most practical rollable prototype we’ve seen to date… 

Pocket-friendly 

The concept phone starts out at a pocket-friendly 4-inches high and the wraparound OLED panel extends to a normal-sized 6.5 inches with the click of a button. Another click and the phone retracts to the 4-inch form.  

Motorola has demonstrated, as seen in the video above, the rollable phone being usable at both sizes, and demonstrated how the screen content instantly adapts to the screen size. It’s certainly an impressive and practical concept. 

“At Motorola, we see the smartphone as an extension of ourselves – a tool that allows us to adapt to our surroundings and accomplish tasks with ease. Now, we are investing in flexible OLED or pOLED, screens to deliver an optimal balance of content and comfort. The Rollable concept embodies this idea with a screen that adjusts to three distinct states: extended, compact, and peek, with a simple press of a button,” said Motorola via a press release. 

The new rollable concept demonstrated at the Lenovo show comes from the team at 312 Labs, Motorola’s internal innovation group of product, research, design, and engineering experts. 312 Labs explores several emerging technology spaces, and  the company says that one, in particular, is; “reimagining device form factors to solve customer pain points and enable new experiences.” Indeed, this new concept clearly builds upon the display and mechanical innovations Motorola has delivered in the Motorola Razr 2022. 

In addition to the rollable smartphone concept, Lenovo Tech World ‘22 also saw the company debut a rollable laptop PC concept that employs similar technology.

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The first Lenovo Legion Phone Duel was a bold move, and with the Legion Phone Duel 2, the company is doubling down on its unconventional gaming phone direction. First time around, the Lenovo’s gaming brand ditched tradition in favour of landscape orientation mobile, adding a pop-up selfie camera in the center of the phone, and positioning the rear cameras slap bang in the middle portion of the back panel. This was awful for portrait-orientation photography, but anyone who’s bent on taking landscape photos would have felt vindicated with Lenovo’s decision. This time around, Lenovo is updating the internals, upgrading the selfie camera from 20MP to 44MP, and adding even more RGB lighting to the mix. 

Taking on the likes of the Asus ROG Phone 5, which we were confident in calling the world’s best gaming phone when we tested it, Lenovo’s new [on-screen] button basher of a flagship has stiff competition. That said, the Lenovo Phone  Duel 2 packs a few aces up its sleeve that the ROG Phone 5 doesn’t, most notably, its entire architecture is designed for horizontal use, with its large passive cooling vapor chamber and active Twin Turbo-Fan system.

The phone’s eight on-body triggers, and dual-haptic feedback delivers a console controller-like experience according to Lenovo, while it’s hefty size gives it gravitas. Why’s it so big? A huge 6.92-inch screen occupies the front, combining AMOLED tech with a 2460 x 1080 resolution. It isn’t especially sharp, but with HDR 10+ support, a 144Hz refresh rate and 720Hz touch sampling rate, its quality shines in other respects. 

The main camera is a dual-module setup, and combines a 64MP OmniVision (OV64A )image sensor with an f/1.9 aperture, seven element lens. Alongside it, the Legion Phone Duel 2 has an ultra-wide 16MP camera with an f/2.2 aperture and a 123-degree field of view. More than just megapixels, when the Legion Phone Duel 2 is held horizontally, the 44MP, f/2 selfie camera pops up and offers fun tools like background removal. Streamers can also enjoy four noise canceling mics too. 

Just like the original Legion Phone Duel, the Duel 2 delivers ridiculously fast charging. The two-cell 5,500mAh battery is 10 percent larger, so the nippy 90W charging (made possible by connecting not one, but two USB-C charging connectors) can power the phone up fully in around 30 minutes.

As for power, a flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipset brings the line up to speed, and just like the best from Asus, the Legion Phone Duel 2 packs up to 18GB RAM and 512GB fast UFS 3.1 storage. 

Available in Europe in May 2021, the Lenovo Legion Phone Duel 2 (16GB/512GB) will cost £899, while the lower-capacity version (12GB/256GB) will start at £699. US availability is yet to be confirmed. 

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When your phone battery is low and you're in a rush to leave, plugging your charger in and impatiently waiting an extra couple of minutes for just a tiny percentage of extra juice can hardly seem worth it. However, the Lenovo Legion could be the answer to your troubles. This upcoming camera phone is due to be announced soon, but the latest teaser video boasts that it'll be able to set the record for fast charging. 

Apparently, the Lenovo Legion's 90W 'Twin Turbo' system will be able to fully charge the Legion's 5,000 mAh battery in just 30 minutes, beating out the current most powerful fast charger – Oppo's 65W SuperVOOC system. 

• Read more: iPhone 12: Everything we know

To help achieve these lightning-fast charging speeds, the Lenovo Legion's battery has been split into two cells in order to double the charging speed. According to GSMArena, Legion has implemented 16 security checks to help ensure that all that power remains under control.

Interestingly, the Lenovo Legion will have two USB-C ports, one on the bottom and one on the side. This means that you can easily charge your phone regardless of whether you're holding it vertically or horizontally. This means that no matter whether you're scrolling through Instagram, or watching your favorite show on Netflix, you don't need to worry about losing power.

The Lenovo Legion will be launched on Wednesday 22 July with a 144Hz screen, dual linear vibration motors and a pop-up selfie camera. It will also feature the Snapdragon 865+, a powerful chipset that enables 5G.

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The Motorola RAZR V3 was an icon when it launched in 2004 nuzzled in the hands of celebrities and across glossy spreads around the world. Whether you were a celebrity or not, there’s a good chance you or one of your friends had a RAZR, given the fact it was the best-selling flip-phone of all time, shifting more than 130m units. 

With the rise of the smartphone, though, Motorola lost its footing for a few years, was bought and sold by Google and now lives as part of Lenovo, the Chinese tech giant, who has resurrected the brand as a midrange champ. 

• See also Best Motorola phones

Now, Motorola’s most exciting phone to date, the RAZR has also been reinvented and looks like it will be the second foldable phone set to go on sale in the UK and US. 

Design and screen

The new RAZR is all about flip-phone design and a folding screen. A quick glance over its specs and you’ll see that they’re middling for a phone of the RAZR’s price, but everything from the midrange chip to the single rear camera was chosen to enable this folding phone to carry forward the RAZR name and fit in the palm of your hand. 

In a nutshell, or clamshell, when closed, the new RAZR has the same thickness as the original - 14mm, making it a compact device with a front screen that offers basic functionality. 

Flip it open, and a 6.2-inch, 21:9, 876 x 2142 display unfurls within. The RAZR’s chin has returned below it, housing the brains of the phone within and a fingerprint scanner on the front. The sole primary 16MP camera is below the smaller, secondary display on the front when the phone is closed.

The reason the RAZR is getting such a good reception with press isn’t just nostalgia - it’s the utility of Motorola’s design. Flexible OLED displays are plastic which scratches easily; so having them wrap around the phone and always exposed is a terrifying durability prospect - that’s one of the reasons we reckon the Huawei Mate X has taken so long to hit the market - other than the political situation Huawei’s in the US government, of course

If the screen folds inwards though, as with the Samsung Galaxy Fold, then there’s a gap in the crease when closed, which is a weakness from a design point of view and a dust trap. The Galaxy Fold was recalled and relaunched with a pushed back general release because it was too fragile - so Motorola had to do something different.

With the help of two metal plates, an ingenious stainless steel hinge and a screen that actually slides a couple of millimetres into the phone’s chin when closed, Motorola has managed to create a zero-gap fold that makes this flip-phone feel incredibly robust for a device with moving parts.

How the RAZR fares in the real world remains to be seen, but Motorola is offering a two-year warranty for added peace of mind.

Camera

As with most of the specs, imaging has taken a bit of a backseat when compared to most flagships on the new RAZR, with a sole 16MP primary camera with an f/1.7 lens and Dual Pixel PDAF. 

There’s also a ToF camera alongside it for depth perception, and inside, a 5MP selfie camera housed within the notch - that said, you probably won’t use it for selfies. Instead, the main camera can engage the mini display as a viewfinder so you can snap-happy when the phone is closed. This way, your selfies are coming from the best camera on the phone - similar in principle to the ZTE Nubia Z20.

Additional specs

Motorola ran through the design process of the RAZR with us and explained that in order to create a phone with the RAZR’s form factor, they needed to go with an upper midrange chipset - the Qualcomm Snapdragon 710. The reason for this is primarily heat management, and battery consumption, given the fact that there's only a 2510mAh cell inside - a smaller capacity than in most smartphones.

All this wouldn’t be particularly difficult to stomach if the phone was affordable, but at $1500 (UK price has yet to be announced), it’s anything but. Still, as a design-led proof of concept and a slice of the future for anyone with the cash to splash, we can’t help but be impressed here. If this is, indeed the shape of foldables, when prices drop and specs climb a little higher, it’s looking a whole lot more promising than it was before the RAZR arrived.

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Google is no stranger to phone mods. It had invested a lot of money and time into Project Ara, which was meant to be the future of smartphones where users had the ability to switch out components. But this was eventually shelved in 2015. 

It seems that the modular dream is alive and well, though, if these new modular patents are to be believed. 

Sourced by T3.com, the patents, filed by Google and published in January, are titled Modular Device and Methods Therefor. 

They showcase a phone (or tablet device) that is broken down into three parts, the most important being the camera module. 

Theoretically this means that Google could be planning a handset with a camera that could be regularly upgraded to keep up with the fast pace of the phone market. 

It could also mean that there could be many lens variants to choose from. In short: it would be the best camera phone customised to your needs.

In mod we trust

"While a manufacturer may like to have thousands of different SKUs for electronic devices, this requires sending thousands of devices through regulatory testing," notes the patent. 

"Wireless communication, product safety, product reliability, and other regulatory testing are expensive and time consuming. It would be advantageous to be able to provide customization options while mitigating device qualification demands."

Interestingly, Motorola tried a similar modular thing with its smartphone line-up but this was after the company was sold by Google and bought by Lenovo. 

Its Moto Z range has a range of modular add-ons, including a camera upgrade supplied by Hasselblad. This wasn't a seamless integration with the phone, though, more of a chunky case add-on. 

Google's patent suggests that that the modular side of things would go much deeper, meaning you could replace the optics in your phone for something a whole lot better.

Via T3.com

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We were all just getting used to having three cameras on the back of our smartphones, but Lenovo is set to outclass the rest of the phone market with the Lenovo S5 Pro rumoured to come with a quad-camera setup. 

Details are a little sketchy but the computing giant - which acquired Motorola back in 2012 - is poised to reveal a phone with four cameras on its back. 

Why four cameras? It's unclear at the moment, but Chang Cheng, Lenovo’s VP, teased the four cameras on a Weibo post. The image shows four cameras in a square formation. 

Another post on Weibo seems to show an image taken on the upcoming - but not yet announced - Lenovo S5 Pro and has been taken in AI mode and using a Super 2x Optical Zoom. 

Given the AI badge, it looks like Lenovo is going the way of Honor and Huawei and will be adding AI smarts to its photo functionality, as seen on the Huawei P20 Pro. 

This usually boils down to the phone able to automatically choose the situation you are in and change the camera settings to suit.

There are no other specs for the phone but given this will be an upgraded Lenovo S5 which came with 5.7-inch FHD+ display with 18:9 aspect ratio. Camera-wise, It had a 13MP + 13MP camera setup on the back of the device and a 16MP camera on the front for all your selfie needs. 

Samsung has also teased a rear quad-lens setup, which could come to its upcoming phone, the Samsung Galaxy A9 Star Pro.  

Via PhoneRadar

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