New macbook pro teardown macbook pro 13 2016 teardown macbook air 2021 teardown macbook pro 2019 teardown macbook air 2021 teardown macbook pro 2022 teardown macbook pro 2022 macbook pro 2021 macbook pro 2020

MacBook Pro 2021 teardown shows Apple gave repair at least some thought, iFixit says

MacBook Pro 2021 teardown shows Apple gave repair at least some thought, iFixit says

Apple's new MacBook Pro , featuring the next generation of the company's in-house chips and the much-welcomed return of an HDMI port and SD card reader, makes "better use of interior space," according to a teardown by iFixit. But when it comes to repairability, there's room for improvement.

"Apple's M1 silicon is rocketing the industry forward in a bunch of ways, and it's unfortunate repairability isn't advancing as quickly," iFixit writes. "Still, this design represents a major move in the right direction." For instance, the process of replacing a battery is slightly less difficult now.

Compared to 2019's 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, the newer models pack speakers and batteries in "every cozy cranny, without sacrificing a robust-looking cooling assembly," iFixit notes. And replacing the power button doesn't appear to be too much of a headache. 

But the rest of the keyboard is "problematic to replace," iFixit says.

"Apple stores and AASPs (Apple Authorized Service Providers) will likely continue replacing your entire top case rather than deal with the hassle of repairing their own keyboard design," the post reads. "(Thankfully it's not a butterfly affair anymore, so repairs should be far less frequent—just be sure to keep a tight grip on your latte.)"

Another factor complicating repairability is the laptop's "soldered-down, non-removable storage." iFixit adds, "Forget about removing the drive to protect your data during repair or when you sell it; you've gotta shred the whole logic board if you want failproof security."

Nearly $20 for a cloth, you say?

iFixit

And what about that $19 Polishing Cloth from Apple? iFixit took a look at that, too (in jest, really), calling it an "object of beauty worthy of being cleaneditself," before coming to its senses and asking, "Where did our twenty dollars go?"

Ending on a sarcastic note, iFixit says, "The new Apple Polishing Cloth earns a 0 out of 10 on our repairability scale, for distracting us from a very important MacBook Pro teardown and not going back together after we cut it into pieces with scissors."

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Apple on Monday revealed its M1 Pro and M1 Max processors, giving us a look at its highest-end chips so far and the brains inside its redesigned MacBook Pro, which comes in 14-inch and 16-inch models. The chips present a new threat to Intel's decades of PC processor dominance, thanks to more computing cores compared to older M1 chips.

Apple debuted its M1 in 2020 with new MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro laptops and added the chip to new iPad Pro tablets and iMac all-in-one PCs in 2021. The M1 chip offered a winning combination of performance and battery life, but Apple now is making the case that its processors also are suited for customers like photographers, video editors and developers who need a lot more horsepower.

The new chips are behemoths in the processor world. The M1 Pro has 33.7 billion transistors, the core circuitry element fundamental to all chips, and the M1 Max has 57 billion. They both employ a beefier version of the M1's unified memory architecture, with the M1 Pro reaching 32GB and the M1 Pro Max reaching 64GB.

The M1 Pro has 10 central processing unit cores and 16 graphics processing unit cores, though lower-end MacBook Pros come only with eight CPU cores and 14 GPU cores. The M1 Max has 10 CPU cores and 32 GPU cores. The chips have eight high-performance cores for important jobs and two efficiency cores for background tasks.

The 14-inch MacBook Pro, which starts at $1,999 (£1,899, AU$2,999), comes with the M1 Pro chip. The 16-inch model, which starts at $2,499 (£2,399, AU$3,749), is available with either chip.

It's relatively easy to make a powerful processor, but it's hard to make one that's efficient in energy consumption. Apple touted its new M1 Pro and Max as strong here, too, with 17- and 21-hour battery life, respectively, for watching video. Using Adobe's Lightroom Classic photo editing software, battery life is twice as long compared with Intel-based MacBook Pros.

The M1 Pro and M1 Max enable Apple to leave Intel behind for a broader swath of Macs. Apple's first Intel-powered Macs shipped in 2006. When Apple announced the M1 in 2020, it said it would take two years to push Intel chips out of its Macs. To smooth the transition, the M-series chips can translate software written for Intel chips, and Apple promised five years of software updates for Intel-based Macs.

Apple revealed the chips at an online MacBook Pro launch event. Although iPhones have eclipsed Macs as Apple's most profitable products, the computers remain an important part of the company's business. MacBook Pro models in particular are geared for customers willing to spend thousands of dollars for a premium laptop.

Compared with its 16-inch MacBook Pro with a high-end Intel Core i9 processor, Apple's 16-inch MacBook Pros with M1 Pro or M1 Max chips are twice as fast in CPU performance, Apple said. In graphics speed, the M1 Pro laptops are two and a half times faster and the M1 Max laptops are four times faster, Apple said.

And in AI tasks, which use machine learning techniques for jobs like recognizing faces in photos or converting speech to text, the M1 chips are five times faster than the Intel i9 machine. Apple didn't disclose which benchmarks it used for the tests.

Apple for several years has steadily improved AI accelerators it's built into its A-series chips for iPhones and iPads and brought that to its M-series chips, too. Intel, which has suffered from years of difficulties improving its manufacturing processes, has been slower to add AI accelerators.

It makes a big difference. On Adobe's Super Resolution feature, which uses AI to double photo sizes in Photoshop and Lightroom, Apple's AI hardware doubles speed and power efficiency on M1-based Macs, spokesman Roman Skuratovsky said. And with MacOS Monterey, new AI support makes Photoshop's Neural Filter features 10 times faster.

Compared to the M1, the M1 Pro's CPU performance is 70% faster and GPU performance is 100% faster. The M1 Max, which has a faster internal data transfer system and memory interface, 

Like its M1 processor, the M1 Pro and M1 Max are built using a 5-nanometer manufacturing process. They're members of the Arm family of chips used to power every smartphone and many other devices. Apple uses Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to build its chips.

Other changes coming to the MacBook Pro include camera enhancements, the death of the Touch Bar, the return of MagSafe charging and an HDMI port, and the addition of a notch. Along with the new laptops and chips, Apple announced the AirPods 3 (here's how to buy them), a new Apple Music "Voice" Plan and new HomePod Mini colors.

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Source

https://ramodale.kian.my.id/

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New mini led tv best mini led tv 2022 what is mini led tv mini led tv tcl c835 mini led tv technology lg mini led tv best mini led tv sony mini led tv 2022 mini led tv tcl c835 best mini led tv 2022 mini led tv mini led vs qled

Mini-LED TV: What it is and how it improves Samsung, TCL and Sony TVs in 2022

Mini-LED TV: What it is and how it improves Samsung, TCL and Sony TVs in 2022

TVs get a bit better every year, and in 2022 the improvement with the biggest impact might be mini-LED. It's an evolution of traditional LCD TV tech that uses thousands of tiny light emitting diodes to improve picture quality, and at CES 2022 more TV makers than ever are using it. TCL, Samsung and LG all introduced new mini-LED TVs and Sony and Hisense will ship their first mini-LED TVs later this year. Samsung calls its version Neo QLED, LG is going with QNED for some reason while the latest version from TCL is called OD Zero.

Let's start with what makes mini-LED special. By using more, smaller LEDs to illuminate the screen, a TV can have finer control over its highlights and shadows, for potentially better contrast and image quality especially with HDR shows, movies and games. Mini-LED's main advantage over OLED, the best TV tech on the market, is that it can be more affordable, particularly in larger screen sizes. Mini-LED is an evolutionary technology, not a revolutionary one, and draws on existing LCD TV technology. In the mini-LED TVs we've tested so far, including the TCL 6-Series and Samsung QN90A, the picture quality improvements are the real deal, although not quite good enough to beat OLED.

Now that just about every TV maker will sell a mini-LED TV of some kind in 2022, you're bound to hear a lot more about the technology. Here's how it works, and why it's so cool.

Mini-LED is not MicroLED

Before we get started, know that mini-LED and MicroLED are not the same thing. MicroLED is a near-future tech that's reserved for huge screens and rich people today -- like a 110-inch Samsung for the cool price of $156,000. Mini-LED is currently available in TVs as small as 55 inches and as affordable as $700. 

MicroLED displays from Samsung and LG use millions of LEDs, one for each pixel. Essentially, you're looking directly at the LEDs that are creating the picture. And while each individual MicroLED is tiny, the modular nature of MicroLED means it can get truly gigantic. The biggest example we've seen of Samsung's The Wall hit 292 inches diagonal, although the 2022 version isn't necessarily modular and ranges from a relatively modest 89- to 110-inches.

Read more: Samsung MicroLED TVs get 89-inch size, better audio, bezel-free design at CES 2022

MicroLED is seen here in a massive 219-inch size Samsung calls The Wall.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Mini-LEDs are found inside normal-size TVs but the LEDs themselves are much larger than MicroLEDs. Just like the standard LEDs found in current TVs, they're used to power the backlight of the television. A liquid crystal layer, the LCD itself, modulates that light to create the image. MicroLED isn't LCD at all, it's a whole new TV technology that also happens to use LEDs.

Here's how the two stack up against one another as well as standard LED, QLED and OLED.

Light-emitting diode TV technologies compared

	Standard LED	QLED	OLED	Mini-LED	MicroLED
Size range	15-inch and up	32-inch and up	42-inch and up	55-inch and up	89-inch and up
Typical 65-inch price	$800	$900	$2,000	$1,000	N/A
US TV brands	All	Samsung, TCL	LG, Sony, Vizio	Hisense, LG, Samsung, Sony, TCL	LG, Samsung
Based on LCD tech	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No

Bright lights, big TV, better local dimming

To understand mini-LED, you need to understand standard LED, at least as far as your TV is concerned. Inside all modern LCD TVs (i.e. every TV that's not an OLED), there's anywhere between a few, to a few hundred light emitting diodes. These tiny devices emit light when you give them electricity and are being used everywhere in the modern world, from the flashlight on your phone to the taillights on your car. They range in size -- commonly they're around 1 millimeter, but can be smaller than 0.2 millimeter. In your TV these LEDs are collectively referred to as the "backlight."

In some TVs the LEDs are on the edges, pointing inward. On others, the LEDs are behind the screen, pointing toward you. For improved image quality, particularly to appreciate high dynamic range (HDR), you need local dimming. This is where the TV dims the LEDs behind dark sections of the image to create a better contrast ratio between the bright parts of the image and the dark. For more on this, check out LED local dimming explained.

Ideally, you'd be able to dim each pixel enough to create a visually impressive contrast ratio. This is, for example, how OLED and MicroLED work. With LCD, though, it's much harder to do. The liquid crystal panel that creates the image only blocks the light created by the backlight. Not all the light can be blocked, so the image is grayer and has less "punch" than with OLED. 

Local dimming improves this issue, but it's not 1:1. There isn't one LED for each of the 8 million-plus pixels in a 4K TV. Instead there are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of pixels for every LED (or more accurately, groups of LEDs called "zones"). There's a limit to how many LEDs you can squeeze onto the back panel of a TV before energy drain, heat production and cost become severely limiting factors. Enter mini-LED.

On the left, the image as you'd see it on a TV with full-array local dimming. On the right, an exaggerated illustration of the backlight array as you'd see it if you could remove the LCD layer. Arranged across the back of the TV, each LED covers a large-ish section of the screen (i.e. creating the light for many thousands of pixels). Pinpoint, or per-pixel lighting is impossible.

Geoffrey Morrison/CNET

Here's the same image (left) illuminated by another exaggerated illustration, this time of a mini LED TV array backlight (right). Note how much more you can make out compared to the standard-size LEDs in the first image above. With far more LEDs, the backlight has a greater "resolution," so there can be finer distinctions between light and dark. The ideal, like OLED and micro LED, would be per-pixel illumination, but mini LED is a step closer to that without the cost of the other two technologies. 

Geoffrey Morrison/CNET

Going big with little LEDs

Although there's no accepted threshold, LEDs smaller than 0.2-millimeter tend to be called mini-LEDs. They're often 0.1-millimeter or less. Not too small though: At around 0.01-millimeter, they're called MicroLEDs.

Generally speaking, when you make an LED smaller, it becomes dimmer. There's less material to create the light. You can offset this a bit by giving them more electricity ("driving" them harder), but there's a limit here, too, constrained by energy consumption, heat, longevity and practicality. No one is going to hook their TV up to a high-amp, home appliance-style outlet. 

As LED technology improves, they get more efficient. New tech, new manufacturing methods and other factors mean that the same amount of light is created using less energy, or more light using the same energy. New tech also allows for smaller LEDs.

TCL's comparison of LED backlight types using the 8-Series with mini-LED as the "Best" example.

TCL

One of the first mini-LED TVs available was TCL's 8-Series. It had over 25,000 mini-LEDs arrayed across the back of the TV. These were grouped into around 1,000 zones. Both of these numbers are significantly higher than what you'd find in a traditional LED TV. The 65-inch Hisense U8G, for example, has 485 local dimming zones while the 85-inch Vizio P85X has 792. No TV maker aside from TCL officially lists the number of LEDs in its TVs, but it's safe to assume none have as many as 25,000 (yet).

Don't expect every mini-LED TV to have that many LEDs, of course. Lower-end models will have far fewer, but likely still more than regular LED TVs. For instance TCL's 65-inch 6-Series has 1,000 mini-LEDs and 240 zones -- more than many models at its price but clearly not at the same level as the 8-Series.

If you were to take the LCD layer of the TV off, the mini-LEDs would create an image that would look like a low-resolution black-and-white internet video version of the show you were watching (see the pairs of image comparisons above). By being able to dim parts of the screen far more precisely, the overall apparent contrast ratio goes up. It's still not quite as good as being able to dim each pixel individually (like OLED and MicroLED), but it's far closer to that ideal than even the most elaborate full-array LED LCDs now. 

LG

Having more zones is a big factor here, as it means improving two other aspects of the image. The most obvious is reducing the "blooming" typical of many local-dimming LCDs. Blooming is created because the local-dimming backlight is too coarse, creating light behind a part of the image that should be dark. 

Imagine a streetlight on an otherwise dark road. A local-dimming TV doesn't have the resolution in its backlight to only light up the pixels creating the street light, so it has to light up some of the surrounding night as well. Many LCDs TVs have gotten pretty good at this, but not as good as something that can dim each pixel like OLED. With mini-LED, you might not be able to light up individual stars in a night scene, but the moon probably won't have a halo.

Because there's less of a chance of blooming, the LEDs can be driven harder without fear of artifacts. So there can be a greater on-screen contrast ratio in a wider variety of scenes. The bright parts of the image can be truly bright, the dark parts of the image can be at or near totally dark.

Samsung Neo QLED, LG QNED and TCL OD Zero: What's in a name?

The overall name for the technology is mini-LED. That's what TCL, Sony and Hisense call it while LG and Samsung, true to form, prefer to use their own names.

Samsung's is Neo QLED, building on the company's years of marketing QLED with quantum dots. LG's QNED, based on its Neo-LED technology, is a brand-new addition to the bewildering world of TV acronyms.

There are bound to be differences between how these companies implement mini-LED, most notably how many LEDs are on each size of TV. On top of that, how well these LEDs are addressed and other factors will determine how good they look compared to each other and to other TV technologies.

Meanwhile TCL introduced its third-gen mini-LED televisions this year as well, called OD Zero. TCL says OD Zero TVs will be much thinner, just 10mm in the first example, thanks to a reduction in the distance between the backlight layer and the LCD display layer. That TV also happens to be an 85-inch 8K model that costs $10,000.

As of early 2022 the only major TV maker that hasn't introduced mini-LED is Vizio, but that could change once the company announced their official 2022 lineup in spring.

The dark night returns

Deep blacks and bright whites are the Holy Grail (Grails?) of TV image quality. Add in the color possible with quantum dots and you've got the makings of a fantastic-looking television. With LG Display still the only company able to make OLED work affordably in TV sizes -- at least until Sony and Samsung QD-OLED models from Samsung Display appear later this year -- other manufacturers need ways to create competing technology. LCD is still the only cost-effective alternative, and while it has come a long way, it's an aging technology. Mini-LED is the latest band-aid keeping it in the game.

As far as band-aids go, however, this is a pretty good one. We'll continue comparing the best mini-LED-based TVs against OLED in the near-term and, eventually, micro LED and future technologies like direct view QD.

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As well as covering TV and other display tech, Geoff does photo tours of cool museums and locations around the world, including nuclear submarines, massive aircraft carriers, medieval castles, airplane graveyards and more. 

You can follow his exploits on Instagram and YouTube, and on his travel blog, BaldNomad. He also wrote a bestselling sci-fi novel about city-sized submarines, along with a sequel.

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Source

https://quemwijaa.kian.my.id/

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Lightroom on Apple's M1 Max Mac: Holy mackerel, this is fast

Lightroom on Apple's M1 Max Mac: Holy mackerel, this is fast

I didn't really need to upgrade to an M1 Max-powered MacBook Pro. After spending hours using Adobe's Lightroom photo editing and cataloging software, boy, am I glad I did. 

The speed of the new MacBook Pro knocked my socks off. The battery life was similarly impressive. And it's great having an SD card reader back for importing photos and videos from my cameras.

The improvements, validated with by testing some common Lightroom chores that caused my older Intel-powered Mac to crawl, are thanks to Apple's new chip and Adobe optimization to take advantage of it. Apple is halfway through a two-year process of replacing Intel processors with its own M-series designs. The chips are beefier cousins to the A-series chips in Apple's iPhones and iPads.

If you're leery about the switch, come on in. The water's fine.

Among the advantages the M1 Max and its similar but less graphically powerful M1 Pro sibling deliver: built-in circuitry for artificial intelligence tasks, a unified memory architecture, and a beefy built-in graphics processing unit. The chips balance power with battery life by combining high-speed and high-efficiency cores, resulting in more hours of use per charge. The chips are made for Apple by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC).

My photography labor of love

For the record, my new MacBook Pro sports 32GB of memory, a midrange configuration for the 16-inch models and twice what's in my two-year-old MacBook Pro using a six-core Intel Core i7 processor. The extra memory is a $400 addition, but I judged it worthwhile to accommodate photo and video editing plus my usual burden of a few dozen browser tabs. (Lightroom is happy to grab as much of that memory as it can.)

To be clear: I was trying to decide whether my upgrade was justified, not evaluate how the latest Intel-based machines measure up. So the speed tests are relevant to me and likely anyone else wondering whether to shell out $3,000 or more. But they aren't meant to be definitive.

From the moment I set up the machine, the performance boost was obvious. Loading websites, scrolling and unlocking with Touch ID were all noticeably faster. Everything was refreshingly snappy.

And for a collection of Lightroom tests I ran, clocking common operations by stopwatch, the speedup factor on a collection of tests I ran is between 2x and 5x.

My new MacBook Pro with Apple's M1 Max processor handily outpaced the two-year-old Intel-based machine on a variety of common computing chores in my Lightroom photo editing. Each result is the average of three tests I clocked with a stopwatch.

Stephen Shankland/CNET

The main reason I justified buying a $3,500 laptop, which came to $2,150 with a $1,350 rebate for trading in my previous Intel-powered machine, was because glowing reviews indicated the new MacBook Pro would be better at heavy-duty tasks like photo editing.

I take a lot of photos. My Lightroom catalog has more than 129,000 shots and my Flickr archive has upwards of 30,000. I use photography as a creative outlet, a journal of my family's life and a tool that encourages me to learn about everything from insects to architecture. I take a lot of photos for work: I've documented refugees, nudibranchs and close-up details of processors.

It's a labor of love, and I do mean labor. I usually take 30-megapixel photos in raw image formats with my Canon 5D Mark IV. I also shoot hundreds of raw photos with a Google Pixel and an Apple iPhone. I also try out new camera products like the 45-megapixel Canon R5 and the 151-megapixel Phase One IQ4. That means I have a lot of photos to manage, many of them in processor-taxing sizes.

Processing photos is a lot of work for computers. Turning raw photo data into a shot I can see on my screen is a constant computational bottleneck as the computer renders new photos or rerenders them with editing changes. I quickly max out my memory with editing tasks such as exposure adjustments and tonal changes. I often sit impatiently watching progress bars crawl along as I merge multiple photos into a single panorama or high dynamic range (HDR) image or increase photo size with Adobe's Super Resolution feature.

Lightroom on the M1 Max MacBook

So how much faster is the new machine? Way faster. I performed five tests of routine but taxing Lightroom actions, running them three times on each machine and taking the average time. That might not be statistically rigorous for a scientific study, but it did clearly show I wasn't imagining the speedup.

Merging six 30-megapixel shots into a panorama was 4.8x faster on the new MacBook Pro, taking an average of 14 seconds vs. 67 for the Intel machine. That was the biggest speedup in my tests. The smallest was merging three 30-megapixel shots into an HDR photo, which took 22 seconds on the Intel machine and 12 seconds on the M1 Max, a 1.9x speedup.

Lightroom still struggles to accommodate Phase One's enormous 151-megapixel raw files, but the new Mac handled it much better than my older machine. A panorama merge of two shots took an excruciating 109 seconds on the Intel Mac; it was 3.2x faster on the M1 Max MacBook Pro at 34 seconds. Interpreting the raw files to generate full-resolution previews -- the most common delay I experience in Lightroom -- was 2.5x faster on the new machine.

Adobe's Super Resolution, a machine learning tool that benefits from the M1 Max's AI accelerator module, was 2.4x faster on the M1 Max Mac, an average of 9 seconds compared with 22 on the Intel Mac.

Adobe has updated Lightroom to take advantage of the M1 chips' unified memory architecture, which offers a single pool of memory that the central processing cores and graphics processing cores both can take advantage of. That means data doesn't have to be laboriously copied back and forth to separate CPU and GPU memory regions, liberating programmers to use whichever core is fastest for a particular job. Adobe also taps into the M1's Neural Engine cores for AI acceleration, said Sharad Mangalick, Adobe's photo product manager.

Lightroom photo editors also should see "noticeable improvements" in speed and responsiveness when importing and exporting photos, scrolling through the photo library, editing, and merging shots into HDR and panorama images, Mangalick said.

Indeed, I found many tasks in Lightroom -- launching, scrolling, zooming, importing and exporting -- are snappier on the new machine. On a Thanksgiving excursion on which I shot a couple hundred photos, battery life was good enough that it wasn't until the third day that I had to plug in the new MacBook Pro.

I'm a satisfied customer.

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Source

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You need to try these new Apple Watch 7 features

You need to try these new Apple Watch 7 features

After setting up your new Apple Watch Series 7 that you got this holiday season and pairing it with your iPhone, it's time to check out all the new features and tweak a few settings to make the most of your new Watch. The Apple Watch Series 7 comes with a larger screen, faster charging and a more durable design. That might not sound as exciting as the blood oxygen sensor that debuted in last year's Series 6. (Here's how the Apple Watch 7 compares to the Apple Watch 6.) But the Series 7's new features have the potential to add more convenience to a lot of everyday tasks, from checking the time to resp onding to texts and tracking your sleep. 

Apple unveiled the $399 Apple Watch Series 7 during its product launch event on Sept. 14 alongside the iPhone 13 family, a refreshed iPad Mini, and a new entry-level iPad. The new Apple Watch is a light update to the Series 6 that's ideal for people looking to replace a watch that's several years old.

Read more: Apple Watch 7 review: A slight upgrade compared to last year's smartwatch

If you're considering the Apple Watch Series 7 or already bought one, here's a breakdown of what's new and why it matters. You can also check out all the Apple Watch Series 8 rumors we've heard so far.

Apple Watch Series 7 has a QWERTY keyboard

The Apple Watch Series 7 should be easier to type on. 

Apple

The Apple Watch has a new QWERTY keyboard that takes advantage of its larger screen, which is about 20% bigger than the Series 6, allowing you to type similarly to how you would on a phone.

What's new: A full-size keyboard means that you aren't limited to sending a canned response to a text, scribbling a quick note or dictating a message, as is the case with the Apple Watch Series 6.

How you'll use it: The Apple Watch Series 7's QWERTY keyboard lets you tap each key to type, or use Apple's QuickPath feature to swipe between letters without lifting your finger. You'll still want to use your phone for messages longer than a short sentence, but it still generally makes it easier to text using the watch.

The bottom line: The Series 7's QWERTY keyboard makes it easier to send longer and more complex messages that are uncomfortable to scribble or too private to dictate. It's another example of how the Apple Watch has evolved to become better at working independently of your phone in the years since its launch. 

Third-party Apple Watch apps like FlickType already allow you to type on your Apple Watch, but having it as a native option on the watch results in a smoother experience. It also means watch owners won't have to rely on third parties for this potentially vital tool, which is important considering some keyboard apps have been accused of participating in App Store rating scams.

Read more: Apple Watch 7 upgrade: How to trade in your old watch to get the best deals

Larger screen on the Apple Watch Series 7 amps up reading

The Apple Watch Series 7's larger screen can fit more text.

Apple/Screenshot by Sarah Tew/CNET

The Series 7 is Apple's first major redesign since the Series 4 launched in 2018. The new watch comes in 41-millimeter and 45mm sizes for the first time, representing a shift away from the 40mm and 44mm sizes that were available on the Series 4 through Series 6. 

What's new: The Apple Watch Series 7's screen is about 20% larger than the Series 6's and more than 50% bigger than the Series 3's. The borders that frame the screen are also 40% smaller than those of the Series 6, allowing Apple to expand the screen size without making the device much larger. But don't worry, older watch bands are still compatible with the Series 7. 

How you'll use it: The Series 7's larger screen makes it better at its most important job: showing information that's easy to see at a glance so that you don't have to grab your phone. The larger screen means the Series 7 is capable of displaying 50% more text without having to scroll, making reading text messages, emails and notifications more convenient. 

There's more: Apple also updated the user interface in its apps to make better use of that larger screen. Apps like the stopwatch, activity and timer now have larger buttons, meaning it's easier to hit snooze even when you're still half asleep. You also get specific watch faces that are optimized for the Series 7's bigger display, such as a new version of the Modular face that can fit complications with more information. I've been using this new watch face to see my activity progress, the time and weather forecast at a glance.

And don't forget, WatchOS 8 introduces the ability to set Portrait mode photos as your watch face, and the Series 7's larger screen is better able to show them off.

Read more: Apple Watch Series 7 vs. Series 6: The biggest changes coming in Apple's new smartwatch

A brighter screen in always-on mode

Apple/Screenshot by Sarah Tew/CNET

Apple also updated the Apple Watch's display in a different way by making the screen more visible in always-on mode. It's another addition that makes it even faster to get quick bits of information from your watch. 

What's new: The Apple Watch Series 7's screen is up to 70% brighter in always-on mode when your wrist is down, according to Apple. However, Apple specifically says this applies to indoor usage.

How you'll use it: The Series 7's improved brightness means it is even easier to see information like the time, your activity rings and your next meeting without having to wake the watch's screen. It feels like a step toward making the Apple Watch's screen appear the same whether it's asleep or in use, and doing so creates a more seamless look that doesn't feel jarring when switching between awake and idle mode. 

To use this feature, you'll want to make sure the always-on display setting is turned on in the Apple Watch's settings menu. On your Apple Watch's app screen, press the settings icon, scroll down to Display & Brightness and tap Always On. From there, make sure the switch next to Always On is toggled on. 

What about battery life? You could also choose to keep this feature turned off if you want to maximize battery life, and Apple hasn't said whether the brighter always-on screen will affect the watch's power consumption. I've been wearing the Apple Watch Series 7 daily with the always-on display setting turned on, and it typically lasts for about a day and a half. But battery life will always vary depending on your usage, and activities like using GPS connectivity while running will cause it to drain faster. 

Read more: Best Apple Watch accessories

Apple Watch Series 7 charges faster than Series 6 

The Apple Watch Series 7 should charge 33% faster than the Series 6.

Apple/Screenshot by Sarah Tew/CNET

The Apple Watch Series 7's battery lasts as long as the Series 6, but the amount of time it takes to charge your watch has dipped. 

What's new: The Apple Watch Series 7 can charge up to 33% faster than the Apple Watch Series 6, according to Apple. It takes 45 minutes to charge from zero to 80%, and 8 minutes of charging should enable 8 hours of sleep tracking. In CNET's testing of the new Apple Watch, reviewers found this to be true. Charging the Watch for at least 30 minutes made the battery jump from zero to 54%. In comparison, the Series 6 only replenished 37% in the same amount of time. 

How you'll use it: We've been asking for more battery life out of the Apple Watch for years, but that's especially relevant now that Apple has added native sleep tracking to its smartwatches. Rather than extending the watch's battery life, Apple makes it easier to quickly charge the watch during short windows throughout the day, presumably so that you don't have to charge it overnight. The idea is that you'll be able to top off the watch's battery whenever you have a few spare minutes.

The bottom line: The Apple Watch Series 7's faster charging speed is another way in which Apple is trying to make its smartwatch a more capable sleep tracker. In addition to making the Series 7 easier to charge in a pinch, Apple also added the ability to measure respiratory rate during sleep with its WatchOS 8 update. Taken together, these improvements could help Apple catch up to Fitbit, which offers multiday battery life on its watches and more in-depth sleep metrics. 

Read more: Best Apple Watch bands for 2021

The Apple Watch Series 7 has a brawnier build

The Apple Watch Series 7 comes with tougher crystal and is dust resistant. 

Apple/Screenshot by Sarah Tew/CNET

Exercise tracking has become one of Apple's biggest areas of focus for the Apple Watch. The Series 7 is more suitable for outdoor activity since Apple claims it has a more durable build. 

What's new: The Apple Watch Series 7 is rated for IP6X dust resistance (a first) and is coated in a crystal cover that Apple says is 50% thicker than that of the Apple Watch Series 6. That means you'll feel at ease wearing it to the beach or during a hike. 

How you'll use it: The Series 7's increased durability pairs nicely with the new cycling features in WatchOS 8. The new software brings an updated version of fall detection that Apple says can tell the difference between falling off a bicycle and a different type of accident. Apple also says WatchOS 8 can automatically detect outdoor cycling workouts. (See Lexy Savvides' test of the new Apple Watch cycling features here.)

The bottom line: We put Apple Watch Series 7's durability to the test. Those who want a truly rugged watch have military-grade options from Garmin and Casio to choose from, or could opt for a rugged Apple Watch case. But these updates suggest Apple is trying to push the Apple Watch beyond basic workouts and appeal to those who might need a more durable watch for activities like rock climbing. That's the premise behind the rumored Explorer Edition, which Bloomberg reports will come with greater impact resistance and could launch in 2022.

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