Police Officers Find Lost Nintendo Switch in Utah Park, Beat All High Scores: See Hilarious Tweet

When the Bountiful City Police Department in the US state of Utah found a Nintendo Switch left behind at a park that was returned to them, they announced on Twitter that the owners, Mason and Ali, should collect it back. However, they also joked that they had already made good use of the gaming console and their skills were far better than the owners.

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Indian teams unable to partake in Free Fire World Series in Singapore due to COVID fears

The upcoming Garena Free Fire World Series in Singapore was supposed to be a return to normalcy for the game following the COVID lockdowns in 2020. However, it looks like at least two of the teams would not be making it to the tournament. Free Fire has announced that both the teams from India will not be partaking in the Free Fire World Series. This was put in place following restrictions imposed by the Singapore Government following the second wave of COVID in India. The teams in question include Galaxy Racer Esports and Team Elite.

Why Indian teams could not make it to Garena Free Fire World Series

“On Thursday (Apr 22) evening, the Singapore Government announced that all long-term pass holders and short-term visitors with recent travel history to India within the last 14 days will not be allowed to enter or transit through Singapore from 11.59 pm, April 23,” the post on Facebook notes. Since the Play-Ins are scheduled to start from May 22, it seems unlikely that the players will be able to make it as unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like the second wave of COVID in India will stop any time soon.

Garena notes that they tried exploring all the possible options they could, but there wasn't any breakthrough. The company notes that it empathises and shares the disappointment of both teams and will award them with a share of the prize pool. This is done to recognise their efforts and achievement in qualifying for the World Series. 

Garena plans two further international tournaments this year. In July, the company plans to host Free Fire All-Stars. This event aims to bring together top influencers and professional players from around the world. It will then pit them against each other to see who is the best. Then in November, the company plans to hold the second edition of the Free Fire World Series. Hopefully, the situation in India and the world will have improved enough to host the event without any issues

To recall, Galaxy Racer and Team Elite were selected to represent India following their performance in the recently concluded Free Fire India Championship 2021 tournament. While Team Elite was one of the six teams that directly qualified via the group stage, Galaxy Racer qualified via Play-Ins. 

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ASUS ExpertBook B9400 Review: Sets a new benchmark for business laptops

The ASUS Expertbook B9400 is a first-class business laptop that stands out from the multitude of enterprise notebooks out there on the market. Its ultra-portable form factor is an appealing draw on its own, but the laptop truly shines with its battery life and performance. ASUS has also peppered it with some truly desirable features like a physical shutter/kill switch for the webcam, a virtual numeric keypad on the touchpad, Windows Hello support, and more to make it an unequivocal ultrabook recommendation. 

The enterprise laptop segment has become somewhat of a competitive field now with plenty of good notebooks to choose from. There's no place for people bringing a knife to a gunfight, meaning you can no longer get away by sliding in a mediocre machine in this segment. ASUS has decided to raise the bar even further with its new Expertbook B9400 enterprise laptop.

The ExpertBook B9, according to ASUS, is the world's lightest 14" business laptop. But there's more to it than just the portability factor. I have been using the ExpertBook B9400 as my daily driver for a couple of weeks now and the laptop still hasn't lost its lustre, even after the honeymoon period. Here's my detailed review of the ASUS Expertbook B9400 business laptop.

ASUS Expertbook B9400: Specifications

Processor: Intel Core i7-1165G7 Processor 2.8 GHz (12M Cache, up to 4.7 GHz, 4 cores) Graphics: Intel Iris Xe Graphics RAM: 16GB LPDDR4X Storage: 512GB + 512GB M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 RAID1 SSD Display: 14" FHD IPS anti-glare panel with 94% screen-to-body ratio

ASUS Expertbook B9400: Performance

The ExpertBook B9400 is an ultra-portable business laptop powered by Intel's 11th generation i7 Tiger Lake CPU. It's got Iris Xe graphics and packs 16GB of RAM. On paper, the laptops seem like it's kitted with powerful hardware to run almost anything you throw at it. The best part is that it packs all that in a chassis that weighs less than a kilogram.

To test the performance of this laptop, I started off by running our usual suite of benchmark programs to see how it fairs. Let's dive in.

So the Intel Core i7-1165G7 is touted to be one of the fastest Tiger Lake chips. It's a quad-core CPU with a base clock of 2.8Ghz and a turbo frequency of up to 4.7Ghz. When the laptop is idle, the CPU clocks itself at just 1.2Ghz as observed during the downtime between my benchmark programs.

In Cinebench R20, the ExpertBook B9400 managed to put out a score of 1810. The numbers are better than what I got on the HP Pavilion Laptop 13 running on the Intel Core i5 1135G7 CPU, as expected. I got similar results after running the Cinebench R15 and Cinebench R11.5, but I do have to point out that I started noticing some thermal throttling with scores dipping significantly. The CPU clock rate also started falling by about 8-10%.

The CPU starts to throttle down quite hard as soon as the temperature exceeds 90° C. The CPU hit 45W TDP during the test and kept fluctuating thereafter to hit 28W on average. On battery power, the CPU underclocked significantly and I was able to see the relevant performance dip in the benchmark scores too.

In PCMark 10 benchmark, the ExpertBook B9400 managed to score 4957, beating most other notebooks in our list including the HP ProBook Aero 635 G7 that's powered by the Ryzen 7 4700U. The ExpertBook B9400 did fall a little short on the PCMark 10's Digital Content Creation test, but that's not to say that you can't edit photos or videos on this laptop.

Graphics are handled by the Intel Iris Xe iGPU, which is proven to be quite a reliable solution for most laptops. In the synthetic 3DMark Fire Strike benchmark, I got a score of 4831 whereas it scored 1285 in 3DMark's Time Spy test.

Given the ExpertBook B9400's form factor, I don't recommend playing games on this laptop. Not to mention, the Xe graphics can only achieve playable frame rates for most games at 1080p at low settings. I was able to run titles like Shadow Of The Tomb Raider at low settings but the experience wasn't consistently good to keep me glued to the game due to the thermal limitations of the chassis. The temperatures for normal use case scenarios, however, are perfectly fine.

For day-to-day usage, the ExpertBook B9400 will prove to be a reliable machine as it did during my testing period. I was able to get through all my workloads without any issues whatsoever. Yes, the laptop handles the notorious Chrome browser quite well even when there are tons of tabs open at any given point.

Booting and loading times are extremely short thanks to the super-fast SSD inside the laptop. My review unit came with 512GB+512GB M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 RAID1 SSD. The Raid 1 config is very desirable in an enterprise set up for security and reliability reasons. Even if you completely lose a drive, the machine can still stay up and running off the additional drive.

CrystalDiskMark benchmark gave me fast sequential read speeds of up to 2597MB/s but there was a slightly higher write latency. The obvious downside of Raid 1 storage is that you will only have the available capacity of a single drive while needing two drives since the data needs to be written to both drives.

ASUS Expertbook B9400: Display

The ASUS Expertbook B9400 comes with a 14-inch FHD IPS panel with an anti-glare coating to reduce deflections. ASUS is not offering multiple screen choices for this product, so you only have this standard matte IPS panel. While the display doesn't particularly wow me with what it has to offer, there's indeed a lot to like about it and it seems perfectly serviceable for day-to-day usage.

The 14-inch panel is flanked by slim bezels on all four sides. The bottom bezel, even though it isn't actually that thin, hides beneath the keyboard deck thanks to the ErgoLift hinge that keeps it out of sight. The top bezel is also just thick enough to house a webcam, which, by the way, comes with a physical privacy shutter and an IR sensor for quick Windows Hello facial login.

The 1080p resolution seems ideal for the 14-inch panel as anything above that is not desirable for a laptop of this size. The display is sharp and shows good colours for all kinds of content as it covers 100% sRGB colour space. It panel also has great viewing angles, which means the screen content won't distort or the colours won't be inverted when viewed from a wide angle. I also didn't notice any screen flickering and the panel didn't suffer from uniformity or bleeding issues.

The ExpertBook B9400 has a peak brightness of 400 nits. It's not the brightest display in the world but it's totally usable even outdoors under some shade. I would've preferred a brighter panel but this is already an upgrade over last year's model that peaked at 300 nits brightness, so I am not complaining.

The display also has a good contrast ratio which makes the black colours look even without any visible bleeding issues. The laptop's hinge allows you to open the lid up to 180-degrees, making it a good option if you want to quickly present something to your colleagues during a meeting. 

Overall, the ExpertBook B9400 has a very good display that doesn't leave any room for complaints. If it was up to me, I would probably add a brighter panel or one with touchscreen support. But even without those, the ExpertBook B9400's screen is really good for day-to-day usage. In fact, you can even use it for occasional photo/video editing if you don't mind the smaller size.

ASUS Expertbook B9400: Battery Life

Before I begin talking about the battery life, I'd like to point out that ASUS has two variants of the laptop on offer. The one that weighs the lightest packs only a 33Whr battery, which is probably not going to be very practical if you want long battery life. The variant with a 66Whrs battery is what you should go for and even this variant weighs about a kilogram.

So how's the battery life of this laptop? Honestly, it's quite impressive. In fact, I'd say that the battery life is one of its strong points. On PCMark 10's battery test, the ExpertBook B9400 lasted for 839 minutes at peak brightness. 13+ hours on PCMark 10 is a very commendable score. It basically lasted longer than pretty much every other laptop that we've tested here at Digit.

Real-world usage also reflects similar numbers. I was able to get more than 10 hours of usage every day during my review period. In fact, I kept coming back to this laptop for work because of how battery efficient it is and I could rely on it for getting my work done without having to worry about charging.

On a typical workday, I use the laptop to browse the internet, research and write stories for the website, do a little bit of photo editing, listen to music and watch videos/streams on either YouTube or Twitch. Depending on the use case, your mileage may vary. However, I am sure you will not be disappointed with the ExpertBook B9400's battery life.

The 11th gen Intel Core processor goes easy on the power consumption and it only sips anywhere between 3.4W to 5.9W when it idle. You can definitely get more battery life by tweaking the energy profiles or by lowering the display brightness. The laptop charges via a USB Type C cable and the battery can be fully juiced in under 2 hours.

ASUS Expertbook B9400: Keyboard, Trackpad, and I/O

The keyboards on the ASUS laptops have proved to be consistently reliable for me and this one is no exception. Despite the small form factor, the keyboard doesn't feel cramped. The keys also have sufficient tactile feedback and a good amount of travel. It's very easy to get used to this keyboard and I thoroughly enjoyed typing on it. 

The only thing I wanted to point out is that I am not a fan of the power button placement. It sits on top of the 'Backspace' key and right next to the 'Delete' key. I am not sure about anyone else, but I use those two keys a lot and I've lost count of the times I ended up hitting the power button accidentally putting the laptop to rest. It's not a deal-breaker by any means, but just a quibble which I thought is worth mentioning.

I am also a huge fan of the oversized touchpad on the ExpertBook B9400 that also acts as a Numpad. The NumberPad 2.0, believe it or not, makes it easier for 'Sheet Ninjas' like me to work on Excel sheets. The touchpad itself is also very good reliable for tracking thanks to the matte glass finish. It doesn't have any dedicated keys either which means there's more room to glide your fingers for gestures. I honestly, did not miss my mouse while using this laptop.

ASUS has also handled the port situation very well despite having less room to work with on a small chassis like this. On the left side, you get two USB-C 3.2 Gen2 ports with Thunderbolt 4, an HDMI port, and a micro HDMI port that can be used as LAN via the micro HDMI-to-RJ45 adapter that's included in the box. On the right side, you get an audio jack, a USB-A 3.2 Gen2 port, and a Kensington lock.

ASUS Expertbook B9400: Design And Build Quality

ASUS says the ExpertBook B9400 is the world's lightest 14-inch business laptop. Even the unit that comes with a 66Whr battery weighs only about a kilogram. Having used it extensively as my primary machine, I can vouch for that. It is, without a doubt, one of the lightest laptops I have used to date. Carrying it around will make you feel like you are carrying a file. In fact, I am sure I have carried around some files and folders that were heavier than this laptop. 

I was initially quite sceptical about the build quality of this unit because thin and light laptops, especially those of this calibre, can sometimes feel flimsy. The ExpertBook B9400, however, turned out to be surprisingly sturdy thanks to the build materials ASUS used for its chassis. The laptop is made out of magnesium-lithium alloy material and ASUS has used multiple layers of it to make sure it's built to last.

ASUS also says the ExpertBook B9400 has passed MIL-STD 810G military-grade standards which means it's probably not going to give up on you if your usage is a little bit on the rough side. I did notice some flexing on the keyboard deck and the lid but it is nothing compared to some other thin and light notebooks I have tested in the past like the HP Pavilion Laptop 13.

I would also like to give some credit to ASUS for the exquisite design of the ExpertBook B9400. It only comes in this one colour variant called 'Star Black' and it looks like a sophisticated piece of a machine designed for a professional setup. A closer look at the laptop also reveals some sparkling metallic flecks in the finish, adding a unique flair to the chassis.

With its distinct design and sharp edges, the ExpertBook B9400 also locks horns with some of our perennial favourites like the HP Spectre and the Dell XPS series in terms of design. The ExpertBook B9400 also has several novelties like the ErgoLift hinge and the NumberPad 2.0 feature. ErgiLift essentially lifts the laptop a little bit off the ground to open up more space for cooling and make the keyboard deck comfortable for typing at an angle.

The NumPad 2.0, for those of you who don't know, is a feature that allows you to pull up an LED Numpad with the touch of a sensor. Being able to use the touchpad for inputs and have the Numpad available to enter numbers or do calculations simultaneously is a nice touch.

Overall, the ExpertBook B9400 is an attractive piece of hardware. ASUS has been churning out some head-turners lately and the ExpertBook B9400 is certainly on the same boat of laptops that are built to reflect their price tags. The ExpertBook B9400 is one of those laptops that you'd expect jet-setters and businessmen to carry around with them at all times. 

ASUS Expertbook B9400: Verdict

The ASUS Expertbook B9400 is ASUS' best ultrabook to date. It's impressive to me how the ExpertBook B9 doesn't compromise on any important aspect despite weighing as little as it does. It's compact, has a stellar build quality, offers plenty of ports on the sides, and packs powerful hardware to handle strenuous work without breaking a sweat. Intel's EVO branding speaks for itself here.

ASUS has also aced the battery life of this laptop and the results, as you saw, are quite spectacular with the laptop lasting for as long as 13+ hours on PCMark's battery life test. The ExpertBook B9400, however, is not without its quirks. If it wasn't for the mediocre speakers and the relatively low brightness level of the display, I would happily recommend this over every other thin & light ultrabook in its class. For now, though, it sits in the hall of fame for setting a new benchmark for business laptops, leaving very little to complain about.

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FAUG Team Deathmatch Beta to release on June 21: Everything you need to know

FAUG aka Fearless and United Guards was launched earlier this year and the game was missing a number of features. Namely a multiplayer mode. Now though, the developers of the game have finally given us some more information about the upcoming. Mode. According to a recent tweet, the TDM beta will release on June 21.

The choice between good & evil is within us! On this auspicious day of Ram Navami, we present to u the cinematic teaser of FAU-G’s TDM Mode! Which side are you on? Beta Release–June21 #FAUG #AtmaNirbharBharat #RamNavami @vishalgondal @akshaykumar @dayanidhimg @BharatKeVeer pic.twitter.com/f4naB5oJCY

— nCORE Games (@nCore_games) April 21, 2021 FAUG TDM Mode: What to expect

Alongside the announcement, the developers also posted a short teaser for the new mode in FAUG. This teaser gave us a few hints about the type of gunplay we can expect in the game. The teaser features numerous weapons such as assault rifles, light machine guns, and sniper rifles. There also seems to be a lot of variety within these weapon sets too as we saw multiple different assault rifles and sniper rifles in use. There also seems to be the addition of throwable items like grenades available to players. 

As far as the map goes, it looks like the players are fighting in an urban environment set in some desert. It is not yet known if this will be the only map made available to players or if there will be a different map at launch. 

Of course, it should be noted that this was a pre-rendered teaser. So take everything with a pinch of salt till any in-game footage is released.

It is not yet known if there will be additional gameplay changes made to movement in the game in order to accommodate the new TDM mode. The teaser showcases players running vaulting over obstacles, but currently, the game does not offer any such movement option. We also do not know how gunplay will work in TDM mode as the current version of the game only supports melee combat. 

Looks like we’ll learn more as the beta release date approaches. Till then, you can check out our review of FAUG here. We have also listed down our opinion on the 5 things nCore Games can do to improve the game. You can read that here. 

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OPPO A74 5G: A future proof 5G offering from OPPO at a pocket friendly price point

India is an extremely diverse market with people from all walks of life. As such, each and every one has different needs and requirements when it comes to what they want in a smartphone. In order to meet their needs, smartphone manufacturers like OPPO offer a vast portfolio of devices. However, while it is relatively easy to offer a lot of features on a premium smartphone, it's harder to do so on budget devices. 

With its A-Series of smartphones however, OPPO has done its bit to ensure that those on a tight budget don’t miss out on key features that will help them get the most out of their phones. This includes features like 5G for better connectivity, smooth display, large battery, faster charging and more. The series is known for offering features that used to be a normal fixture on most premium smartphones, but at a more affordable price point. The brand new OPPO A74 5G is the newest smartphone in the long running series and is out to not only match up to the promises of the OPPO A-Series, but set the bar even higher. 

90Hz of smoothness

The OPPO A74 5G packs a 6.5-inch FHD+ punch-hole display with a resolution of 2400x1080p. However, one of the most notable features of the display has to be the fact that the phone offers a refresh rate of 90Hz and a touch sampling rate of 180Hz. The high refresh rate should help with smoother animations and transitions as you swipe around the phone. The high touch sampling rate should help when gaming as the phone will be able to register touch commands faster. So when gaming, the higher refresh rate helps ensure smoother gameplay as it allows for a higher framerate. This is very handy in fast-paced games like PFS or racing games. Meanwhile. the faster touch sampling rate will ensure that the game registers you touch faster than someone with a slower touch sampling rate. This can give players a vital competitive edge, especially when playing online.

The large screen should also help binge watchers as it will give them a big screen video-watching experience. In fact, the phone also comes with Netflix HD and Amazon Prime Video HD certification, which should ensure a good video watching experience on those platforms. To ensure that you don’t harm your eyes, the OPPO A74 5G comes with AI Backlight, that automatically adjusts the phone’s backlight settings throughout the day. It also tracks how the user manually adjusts the brightness setting in different lighting conditions to provide all-day AI Eye Comfort. So you will be able to binge-watch your favourite TV series or movies without worrying about harming your eyes.

Bigger battery to last longer

Another key aspect of the OPPO A74 5G is its large 5000mAh battery. This battery capacity should be more than enough to last all through the day. In fact, OPPO notes that the 5000mAh battery will allow for one and a half days of use with a single charge. This means that users will get to spend less time charging and more time on the go. 

This feature can come in really handy for those who are almost constant on the go as it will ensure that users will be able to continue their work without worrying about running out of battery. This will help you de-stress and you won’t have to worry about hunting for a charging spot all the time.

Faster is always better

With such a large battery, one would be forgiven for thinking that the phone would take a lot of time to charge. However, this is OPPO we are talking about. The company has been a pioneer in the field of fast charging. So of course, the OPPO A74 5G comes with a version of fast charging. The phone offers 18W Flash charging, which is said to charge the battery to 68% within 60 minutes. The benefits of fast charging are pretty evident. 

OPPO’s thought process towards charging can also be seen in the Super Nighttime Standby feature. With this feature, the OPPO A74 5G can learn a user’s bedtime routine and automatically optimise the phone’s battery consumption. For example, when the phone knows that you are asleep, it will understand that the phone won’t be used. As such, it starts to curtail resources that may not be needed. OPPO notes that with this more only, the OPPO A74 5G’s battery will only decrease 2% between 11:00pm and 07:00am. This means that even if you forget to plug in your phone at night, you won’t have to worry about your battery being drained when you wake up.  

Affordable future proofing

At the heart of the OPPO A74 5G is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 480 5G platform. As the name would suggest, the chipset allows the smartphone to support 5G. This means that even those with a tight budget will be able to harness the full potential of 5G. The phone should be able to offer Gigabit speeds and super low latency when connected to a 5G network. This is more than just super fast download speeds. 5G will impact everything from gaming to IoT. As a gamer, the extremely low latency will make for a huge difference when it comes to online gaming. This will ensure that your commands are reflected in the game faster, thereby giving you anget edge over opponents.

Having a 5G-ready phone in India will ensure that you will be able to make the most of the technology as soon as it's rolled out. In order words, it will ensure future proofing. This means that users won’t have to go out and buy another smartphone just to enjoy 5G services. 

Three cameras for triple the fun

Even with its affordable price tag, the OPPO A74 5G comes with a triple rear setup. This includes a 48MP primary camera, a 2MP depth camera, and a 2MP macro camera. For selfies and video chatting, the phone comes with an 8MP unit that is housed inside a punch-hole located in the corner of the display. The flexibility seen with the triple camera setup is vital as it gives users more options when taking a shot. For example, when they want to take close up shots they can switch to the macro camera and get detailed photos which can then be posted on social media. 

As with all OPPO devices, the OPPO A74 5G comes with a host of camera-centric features like AI Scene Enhancement 2.0. This uses the AI to intelligently recognise scenes within the shot and then automatically adjust color saturation and contrast ratio to improve picture quality. Ultra Clear 108MP image uses the 48MP unit to take a high resolution 108MP picture that offers crisp details. Of course, as this is an OPPO phone, you also get AI Beautification 2.0. This feature is designed to make people look their natural best. The feature automatically identifies and removes imperfections like blemishes, while improving the texture of the skin and touching up makeup. All this is done in accordance with the ambient lighting to ensure that the resulting image looks natural. So you can take as many selfies and pictures as you want and the only problem you’ll face is choosing which one to upload to social media.

Designed to please

Design has always been a key aspect when it comes to OPPO phones. This has been true regardless of the phone’s price point. The OPPO A74 5G is no different. The phone features a curved 3D shape that looks simple, yet elegant. The curved edges also make the phone easier to hold as the corners don’t dig into the hand. 

The rear panel of the OPPO A74 5G uses a ‘Warm Tech” design concept, which is designed to offer a glossy, yet glare free look. If you look at the phone, the colour gradient appears to shift hues from one end of the phone to another. Speaking of the rear panel, the OPPO A74 5G features a transparent composite on the back cover. OPPO notes that this is comparable to glass and is resistant to shattering and cracking. This means that the colourful design of the rear panel should not be marred over time. 

So, what does it all mean?

As one can see, the OPPO A74 5G has a lot to offer for its price point. The phone gives yours the option of a 5G-ready device that offers a host of other features like a 90Hz refresh rate, large 5000mAh battery, 18W Flash charging and much more. As such, it’s a compelling choice for someone looking for a feature-rich smartphone at a relatively pocket-friendly price. It should definitely be on the cards of any OPPO fan looking for a device that’s future-proof and will be their companion for a long time. 

The OPPO A74 5G (6GB + 128GB) variant is priced at INR 17,990 and will be available for sale from April 26 across mainline retailer outlets and Amazon. The device will be available with a host of offers both for online and offline customers.

Online Offers via Amazon

OPPO A74 5G will be available on Amazon. The customers can avail a 10% instant bank discount on credit card, credit card EMI& debit card on selected banks.  NCE is also available for up to 9 months.  There are also several bundling offers on OPPO A74 5G. Consumers’ purchasing OPPO A74 5G will get OPPO EncoW11 at a reduced price of Rs 1299, OPPO Band for Rs 2499 and OPPO W31 for Rs 2499.  There is also a 2-year extended warranty available on OPPO A74 5G.

Offline Offers- Mainline Retail Outlets

Through offline retails outlets, customers will get 5% cashback on HDFC Bank, Standard Chartered, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bank of Baroda, Federal Bank, 11% instant cashback on Paytm; Zero Down Payment scheme from all leading financers. Apart from all this, there is also the option of No Cost EMI up to 6 months. 

[Brand Story] 

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OnePlus Gaming Triggers for Android and iOS Teased at OnePlus 9 Series Launch Are Finally Available in India

OnePlus Gaming Triggers have been launched in India for Rs. 1,099. They are now available for purchase via OnePlus online store. As per OnePlus, the triggers use Omron switches to offer a tactile feedback, and can be used along with Android and iOS smartphones.

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Philips 50PUT8215 4K HDR Android TV Review: Watch out for this one

What the Philips 50PUT8215 has going for it is good colour reproduction with Dolby Vision, HDR 10 and SDR content. HDR 10+ content has a few hits and misses. The skin tones look quite accurate which is great. The settings menu is not traditional Android and can take some getting used to. However, the settings are easy to navigate and some complex settings have been simplified so that they are more accessible to novice TV users. The audio output of the TV is acceptable. The gaming performance of the TV is a hit or miss based on the game you are playing. If you are looking for a TV where content consumption from OTT services and set-top-box is the top priority, then you can consider this TV. But for gamers, we recommend you look elsewhere. 

 

When you talk about premium brands in the TV space, the prominent names that come to mind are Sony, LG and Samsung. After the big three, we have brands like TCL, Hisense, Toshiba, Xiaomi and more offering an interesting portfolio of products. Today we have with us a 50-inch TV from Philips with an unassuming model number - 50PUT8215. The series is available from 50-inches up to 70-inches. We have with us the 50-inch TV for review. It has the standard bells and whistles one would expect, including Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, HDR 10 support, running on Android TV and more. The TV has an SSP (Standard Selling Price) of Rs 55,990, pitting it against the popular Mi QLED TV (review). Can it take on the popular QLED TV? Read on and find out.

Philips 50PUT8215: Key specs at a glance

Panel Size: 50-inch  Panel Type: IPS LED Panel Resolution: 3840 x 2160 - 4K Panel Refresh Rate: 60Hz HDR 10 support: Yes HDR 10+ support: Yes Dolby Vision Support: Yes Weight: 11.38 kgs HDMI Ports: 4 USB Ports: 2 Bluetooth: Yes Wi-Fi: Yes Ethernet: Yes Speakers: 16W Built-in storage: 16GB (5GB usable) Price: SSP: 55,990

Philips 50PUT8215: Display Panel and Picture Quality

Kicking things off with the most important - the Philips 50PUT8215 has an IPS panel. The display has a 4K resolution with support for HDR 10, Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. The panel has a peak brightness of 400 nits, and the TV runs on the Android TV UI. The panel’s performance is very good for consuming both HDR and SDR content, and the content is clearly visible even in a brightly lit room. The TV covers 85% of the BT 2020 colour space giving it good colours overall for all types of content, barring a few exceptions, which we will discuss in detail below. 

Philips 50PUT8215: 4K and HDR performance

The TV supports both Dolby Vision and HDR 10 content playback, and in short, its performance is great for both formats. For Dolby Vision, we recommend leaving the picture preset to Dolby Vision Bright and for HDR 10 content, the Vivid picture preset packs the punchiest colours. We players our standard suite of content on the TV and barring 1 exception, all the content look sublime with true to source colours.

Kicking things off with Altered Carbon, the warehouse fight sequence is notorious for having a green tint on some panels. That was absent here leaving us with natural skin tones, good blacks and detailed environments. The contrast ratio here ensures the brightest highlights and darkest corners are all visible. Same for Our Planet. While the night sky doesn’t have the same range as we’ve seen on an OLED TV, it’s still a very good experience especially considering the price point. Even shows like DareDevil and Star Trek Discovery on Netflix was a fun experience on this TV.

We played Ready Player One using the Apple TV app on a PS5 (review) and the quality of streaming from Apple’s service shines on this TV. The opening race sequence around the 13-minute mark is filled with bright highlights of explosions, flashing cars and generally a lot of detail on screen, all of which was easily enjoyable. 

Moving over to Grand Tour Season 1 Episode 1 on Prime Video where we have a lot of cars running on screen, this sequence left me wanting more. The Vivid picture preset ensured the cars look great but left the desert and sky overexposed giving it a slightly burnt-out look. While HDR Natural did reduce the burn effect, it also took the punchy colours away. HDR Movie was the sweet spot (almost), but it worked only for this content. 

Jack Ryan is another piece of content in HDR 10+ and here too the Vivid preset made the content look punchy while keeping the skin tones natural. Some would prefer more muted colours and for them, the Movie preset will do just fine. Although in some HDR 10+ content, this comes at the cost of loss of detail in low light scenes.

Overall, I am impressed with the HDR performance of this TV. It’s not common to find a TV that can produce Vivid colours without compromising skin tones and this is one area where the Philips TV’s P5 engine works well. While some HDR 10+ content has its shortcomings, the overall experience is extremely enjoyable, especially with Dolby Vision content.

Philips 50PUT8215: FHD and SDR performance

The SDR performance of this TV is very good. Spider-Man Homecoming on Netflix is in SDR and the web slingers suit looks the right kind of lush blue and red. The sequence where he is scaling the Washington Monument is in a well-lit environment and there are a lot of primary colours at play here - Red, Green and Blue. You also some Yellow thrown into the mix and these colours look quite lush. Once again, we left the TV in Vivid but if you are turning the lights down for a theatre feel, you can also select the Movie preset for such content. 

The same is the case for Young Sheldon and Mission Impossible on Prime Video and Netflix. In Mission Impossible Rogue Nation, the motorcycle chase sequence, we have seen the background desert look slightly muted on some TVs, but here it was bright without getting burnt. Again, here the Vivid preset preserved the natural-looking skin tones ensuring only those colours that need to pop in a given sequence.  

Needless to say, if your primary use case is consuming content from OTT services or a set-top box, this TV should do just fine. 

Philips 50PUT8215: Gaming Performance

But when it comes to gaming performance, the TV is a mixed bag. For gaming, all the post-processing needs to be switched off so that the content can be displayed as intended by the console. That isn't always the case on this TV. There is an HDR Game Mode on this TV and it works for 4 out of 5 games we played. In Spider-Man Miles Morales, the game had a slightly cooler tone as compared to other TVs we’ve tested. Now granted, if you don't know what you are looking for you won't notice this. The rest of the game looks good with Spider-Man’s outfit looking crisp. Dirt 5 is another game that looked good overall after we bumped up the HDR brightness a bit from the in-game setting. 

The one game which showed us slightly overexposed greens was God of War. The game has some beautiful environments and some very punchy colours. While Kratos and his armour looked fine and so do the trees and other environmental aspects, the green foliage just looks too overexposed. It’s possible that this is a problem only with God of War as when we booted Ghost of Tsushima, riding our horse and navigating the tall green grass was a pleasant experience, visually. 

Overall, the Philips 50PUT8215 is a very good TV for consuming content from OTT and other platforms, but for gaming, you need to manually jump into the settings to get the desired output. 

Philips 50PUT8215: Audio performance

The Philips 50PUT8215 has 16W of sound output and while that doesn’t sound like a lot on paper, it is enough to fill a small bedroom with sound at about 60% volume. While the TV has a bunch of sound modes like Original, Movie, Music, Etc. I found setting it to AI Mode to offer the best outcome. While the TV supports Dolby Atmos, what you get is a straight sound from in front of you. 

The audio from the TV is clear overall. While it lacks bass, you can hear dialogues clearly at even low volumes. The race sequence in Ready Player One has a mix of cars crashing, people talking, coins flying around and King Kong pounding and it's all easily audible. 

There is also a night mode to control the dynamic range for those late-night movie sessions but it's slightly buried in the sound settings. 

Philips 50PUT8215: UI

The Philips 50PUT8215 runs on Android TV 9 out of the box and while the UI is something we’ve seen countless times on other TVs it’s the settings here that are completely unique. While navigating the Android TV UI is nothing new, let’s take a look at how the settings have been tweaked. 

Press the settings button and you have a pull-out menu on the left of the screen. While you do have the standard picture presets to choose from, they function a little differently as we’ve come to expect from other TVs. For example, the settings recommend Vivid as the mode to use for daylight viewing while Standard is actually the energy-saving mode. Personal is the settings you choose when you first boot up the TV and this is the setting that deserves some special attention. 

Not all of us are comfortable tweaking the settings of our TV. The “Personal” setting makes that job easier. It will ask you questions like Brightness and give you the option of More Bright, Medium or Less Bright. Each option is accompanied by an image giving you a clear understanding of what you are tweaking. It offers the same for settings like Contrast, Colour, and Sharpness. Once you are done the setting is saved as your “Personal setting”. For the calibrators, there is a “day” and “night” option as well to finetune the picture settings. 

The settings also offer an HDMI Auto Game Mode and HDMI Auto Movie mode and the TV immediately recognized when we connected the PS5 to the TV. You also have HDMI Ultra HD which essentially enables 4K60 4:4:4 and I highly recommend you leave this setting on when connecting a gaming console. 

The settings are neatly laid out with each one bringing a small description on the right as to what that setting does. It may take some getting used to, but the settings are easy to navigate once you get the hang of things. 

Philips 50PUT8215: Remote Control

We live in an age where the design of remote controls is minimal. Devices like the Fire TV Stick (review) and the Mi TVs come with minimal designed remote controls. The Philips 50PUT8215 has a traditional remote control. While the remote control has a simple design, its ergonomics are not to my liking. I have a habit of holding the remote control from the bottom third and all-important buttons like the Assistant, OTT hotkeys, directional buttons and settings are in the top third. This makes me move my hand around the remote quite a bit. The one remote that has a mix of traditional and modern controls is the LG Magic Remote and I think they’ve nailed the button placement. On the Philips 50PUT8215 the volume, playback and home are easily reachable, I wish the top third was replaced with the number pad making it easier for me to navigate the TV. The design of the remote control is something personal, so this may be a design that’ll appeal to you more. The remote control also houses the mic and a dedicated Google Assistant button. 

Philips 50PUT8215: Build and design

Lastly, let's talk about the build and design of the TV. It has very slim bezels on three sides, with the thickest bezel at the bottom - pretty standard. Two metal feet hold the TV in place when kept on a table. 

For connectivity, the TV has one HDMI port, the headphones port, one USB port and a service port facing the side. At the back, the TV has three HDMI ports, one USB port, an antenna port, a LAN port and the Optical Port. While the side facing ports are easy to access, the design of the TV makes it seem as though the ports at the back may be difficult to access once the TV is wall mounted. You may want to think of cable management before wall mounting the TV.

Bottom Line

The 50-inch variant of the Philips 8200 series has an SSP 55,990 which pegs it straight against the 55-inch Mi QLED TV we reviewed earlier. While 5 inches should make much of a difference, the performance difference between the two definitely does. While Xiaomi has PatchWall as its strength along with support for HDMI 2.1, what the Philips TV has going for it is very good colour reproduction. No matter what the picture preset for HDR or SDR content, skin tones look accurate and that's important if watching movies and TV shows is your primary utility with this TV. The Dolby Vision Bright mode and Vivid Mode for SDR content make content consumption a treat on this TV. The audio output is acceptable. Where the TV lacks is a slight inconsistency in HDR 10+ performance and also with games. Some games look great while others look a tad oversaturated and need considerable manual intervention to make them look right. If watching movies and TV shows is a priority and you are looking for a bright panel with good colours, you can definitely consider the Philips. Its value for money proposition increases if you can snag this one under 50K.

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