Lenovo IdeaPad Miix 700 review

Lenovo has been a trailblazer in the hybrid laptop market. Its original Yoga ushered in a new era of portable computing with four modes of use - laptop, stand, tent, and tablet - meaning laptops and tablets were no longer separate entities.

The company's latest device, the IdeaPad Miix 700, is aimed firmly at Surface Pro 3 buyers - but there's plenty here to turn heads of Surface Pro 4 fans too. Here's the killer move: the Miix 700 with 256GB of solid-stage storage (SSD) comes bundled with both a pen and keyboard, making it a complete hybrid device, for £899 (around $1,313 or AUS$1,813).

The Surface Pro 4, on the other hand, can be had with a 256GB SSD and an Intel Core i5 processor for £1,079 (around $1,575 or AUS$2,176). While that includes a pen, the keyboard is an extra £109.99 (around $150 or AUS$222), which adds up to £1188.99 (around $1,753 or AUS$2,397). Yes - that includes a faster Intel Core-series processor, but if you don't need the extra power under the hood then the Miix is a compelling alternative.

With no hidden costs, it could be the clincher if you're after a Windows 10hybrid that just works straight out of the box. There's no fiddling round with purchasing peripherals here.

Another alternative to the Miix 700, Apple's 12-inch iPad Pro, is just sold as a tablet. It comes in at £1,019 ($1,229 or AUS$1,599) for the version with 256GB of flash storage. The keyboard accessory is an extra £139 (around $203 or AUS$280) and the pen is another £79 (around $115 or AUS$159), pushing the Wi-Fi-only model up to £1,237 ($1,547 or AUS$2,038). The iPad Pro runs Apple's tablet-friendly iOS 9 operating system, making it more of a consumption device than one geared for mouse-and-keyboard work like the Miix 700.

Design

With many laptops such as the Surface Book and XPS 13 opting for silver-inspired designs, it's refreshing to see Lenovo stick to 1980s-inspired black. Like Dell's XPS 12, another convertible, it looks positively executive rather than dated.

Tablets and hybrids tend to take a lot more life abuse than a traditional laptop. They're not just used in offices, but kitchens, public transport, cafes wherever, so the ability to look good whatever the weather is appreciated.

Design-wise it's a slightly blocky square shape which fits the 80s matte black look. There are stereo speakers, one on each side, which are a little tinny but functional - certainly decent enough for the odd Skype call. It's worth noting that the IdeaPad Miix 700 is also available in Champagne Gold, so if that tickles your tastebuds then quaff away.

Lenovo's famous Watchband Hinge-inspired design, which is borrowed from theYoga 900, lets the kickstand fold almost flat and is very discreet. While it's not as thin as an iPad Pro, the hinge means that in tablet mode it's slimmer by 0.02 inches than a Surface Pro 4 in tablet mode. However the large bezel around the screen makes it a little chunkier than the one on Microsoft's machine. The Miix 700's stand can be a little stiff to pull out but that does mean it's extremely sturdy.

There's a small eight-pin connector on the keyboard that neatly grabs onto the base of the screen with ease, latching on like a magnet. It's the same satisfaction to be had when flapping shut the smart case on an iPad, even sounds off a similar click.

The keyboard can be laid flat while featuring a clever little kink just close to where it attaches to the screen. This provides elevation at the back so there's a small slope that makes typing easier. Admittedly this adds a little bit of bounce when typing quickly, but it's not a deal-breaker. The back of the keyboard is decked in plush material with a leather effect that doesn't feel cheap and is hard-wearing.

Lenovo's placing of the keys on the right-hand side where the Enter and Shift keys are located is slightly different to a normal office keyboard. I tested its performance with a words-per-minute online app and found the results were only slightly less than when using a wireless Apple keyboard. The IdeaPad's keyboard is not backlit, which is reflected in the relatively cheap price of the unit.

Screen and pen

The display is bright and its colours are clear and defined. On the highest brightness the screen shines in even harsh outdoor light. The touchscreen is responsive, and because the resolution is so high it's good to have the pen handy for more intricate work.

The pen takes one AAAA battery (that's not a typo - they're one smaller than AAA). It's light and made of metal with two buttons on top. The upper of the two serves as a right click, or you can just hold down the pen to right click too. In the box is a small plastic clip with three holes which is designed to fit in either of the two USB slots (one on each side).

The pen can be placed downwards, so parallel to the screen. Or it can be perpendicular sticking straight out like a 1980s executive pen holder, so be careful you don't take your eye out with it.

Canon EOS-1D X Mk II review

The Canon EOS-1D X Mk II is a replacement not just for the original 1D X, but also for the EOS-1D C pro video camera. And while in some areas the Mk II seems like a modest upgrade of the tech in the 1D X, in others it breaks entirely new ground.

The big news stories are the Mk II's amazing continuous shooting mode, its improved autofocus system and its 4K video capability. Canon set out to deliver "the ultimate combination of image quality, resolution and speed" in a camera designed to give photographers a "competitive edge".

• Buy Canon EOS-1D X Mark II at Amazon for $5999.00

The EOS 1D X Mk II has a brand new sensor, but it offers only a modest increase in resolution over the original 1D X's, from 18.1 million effective pixels to 20.2 million. That may seem very low in comparison to the 50 million pixels of Canon's 5DS and 5DS R, but the 1D X Mk II is about speed and low-light shooting – it's designed to be a workhorse for professional sport and news photographers.

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Having fewer pixels on the same size sensor means each photoreceptor is larger, and therefore able to capture more light. As a result the image signal requires less amplification than it would with a highly populated sensor, and so images have less noise.

Canon has also integrated the A/D converter circuitry into the sensor, which means the analogue signal from the pixels doesn't have to travel as far before it's converted into a digital signal, and as a result there's less opportunity for noise to be introduced.

These facts combine to help keep noise levels down throughout the sensitivity range. Nevertheless, Canon has kept the 1D X Mk II's standard sensitivity range the same as the 1D X's at ISO100-51,200; however, the expansion settings take it to ISO50-409,600, whereas the 1D X tops out at ISO204,800.

While the maximum setting is high by most camera's standards, it's three stops lower than the ISO3,276,800 that's possible on the D5.

In addition to the new sensor design, the use of two Digic 6+ processors helps keep noise levels down by enabling the 1D X Mk II to apply complex noise-reduction algorithms. But of course, the main reason for this mighty processing power is to facilitate fast continuous shooting speeds.

The 1D X II can shoot at up to 14 frames per second (fps) with full exposure metering and autofocus operation (however it drops to 10fps at ISO102,400). The Nikon D5 can only match that rate if the mirror is locked up, and that rules out focusing and metering mid-sequence, as well as seeing the subject in the viewfinder. The 1D X Mk II can perform a similar trick, but it can then shoot at 16fps.

To help enable (and cope with) the fast shooting rates, Canon has given the 1D X Mk II a 'refined' mirror system that uses cams instead of springs. This gives much more control over the movement of the mechanical parts at high speeds, and helps control mirror vibration and noise.

When you're shooting at 14 or 16fps you really rattle off the shots, so a large buffer is needed. Where the EOS-1D X could shoot 180 JPEGs or 38 raw files in a single burst, the Mk II is able to record an unlimited number of JPEGs and up to 170 raw files. If you shoot at 14fps, 170 images will be captured in around 12 seconds.

This continuous shooting speed and buffer depth relies on the latest CFast 2.0 memory cards. The EOS 1D X II has one CFast memory card slot and one regular CompactFlash slot. This gives photographers the benefit of the latest memory card technology, and also compatibility with their existing memory cards. Interestingly, you'll also need a healthy battery to take full advantage of the burst rate – Canon says you won't get the top shooting speeds if the battery level drops below 50%.

Faster focusing

It's all very well having super-fast continuous shooting speeds, but you'll need an autofocus system that can keep up. At first sight, the AF system in the Canon 1D X Mk II looks the same as the 61-point AF system in its predecessor, with 41 cross-type sensors and five dual cross-type.

But Canon has made lots of changes under the hood, with an expanded AF area and a new AI Servo AF III+ system, which improves the tracking sensitivity for subjects that are moving erratically. Canon's latest adaptive 3D tracking system adjusts to your movements as well as the subject's, such as when you swivel to follow a subject moving past you, for example.

The autofocus tracking is aided by the 1D X Mk II's new 360,000-pixel RGB+IR metering sensor, which provides improved subject detection – an interesting example of how metering and focusing work closely together in the latest cameras. One further improvement will be big news for photographers who routinely use long telephoto lenses with teleconverters: all 61 AF points now work at f/8.

Canon has had Dual Pixel CMOS AF technology on APS-C format cameras like the 80D (and previously the 70D) before, but this is the first time that the technology has appeared in a full-frame camera. It means the 1D X Mk II has phase-detection autofocus points on the sensor to enable faster focusing in live view and video mode. However, because fast focusing isn't always an advantage when recording video, it's possible to reduce the speed via the menu.

4K video

The EOS-1D X Mark II can shoot stills faster, and for longer, than ever before, but it also introduces another major new feature: 4K video. This has been around on mirrorless cameras for a while, but it's the first time it's appeared on a stills-orientated Canon DSLR. It means the camera will appeal to the growing number of pro photographers now being commissioned to shoot video footage as well as stills.

Dedicated videographers, however, will be better served by a dedicated video camera that has an electronic viewfinder, more video-centric handling and contrast suppressing Log-modes. That said, it's great that the 1D X Mk II can shoot shoot 4K at 30fps and 60fps – that requires serious processing power, and it means you can record smooth 2x slow motion footage at 4K resolution.

Interestingly, the Mk II shoots 'real' 4K at 4096 x 2160 pixels, rather than the slightly smaller UHD format most other cameras refer to generically as '4K'. The one possible complication is that this 4K video is slightly wider than the standard 16:9 ratio used by UHD, full HD and standard HD – it's actually closer to a 17:9 ratio.

Another anomaly is that the 1D X II can't save 4K to an external recorder via HDMI – it's restricted to 1920 x 1080. 4K can only be recorded internally, which seems a little odd, but perhaps this aligns the camera more strongly with the occasional video shooter rather than the dedicated videographer.

Canon has chosen the Motion JPEG format for video capture, because this stores a full image for each frame of data and allows the extraction of 8.8-megapixel stills. It means photographers can capture good quality still images at 60 frames a second, albeit not at the sensor's full 20-megapixel resolution. Grabbing stills from video is being taken much more seriously with the advent of 4K.

The 1D X Mk II's new Dual Pixel CMOS AF sensor plays an important part in video recording, enabling fast and smooth autofocus during filming with the camera's Movie Servo AF and touch-panel autofocus point selection.

And the 1D X Mark II takes another step forward relative to its predecessor with the addition of a headphone socket. Sound is a major part of any video production, and it's important to be able to monitor the sound the camera is recording as you film in case you need to reshoot.

Shuttle XPC Cube SZ170R8 review

The last few years have seen a variety of form factors emerging. However, it's easy to forget that vendors have been trying to break away from the mould (the beige mid-tower format) for ages. One of the first was a Taiwanese manufacturer called Shuttle which pioneered small form factor cubes for ages. You will need a pair of them to fill an average mid-tower case and you don't lose any of the functionality or upgrade capabilities.

The Shuttle SZ170R8 cuts a very familiar shape, reminding us of the XPC SX38P2Pro and the SH55J2 amongst others – it has a similar rectangular shaped chassis with a square-ish fascia. Since it is a barebones model, it comes without a processor, system memory or storage.

It is available at Ballicom for about £286 (around $420, AU$580) all inclusive which is a lot for what is essentially a pretty case, motherboard and a custom fan. Shuttle aims it at the DIY enthusiast who may use it for a microserver, a portable gaming rig or even a home theatre PC (HTPC).

The front panel is essentially a brushed aluminium, anodised black panel with a couple of LEDs (activity, power) and the power button. At the bottom is a flap that hides two audio ports and two USB 3.0 ports. Note that it doesn't have an SD card reader.

There are plenty of holes on either side of the unit to facilitate air circulation, which is vital if you want to keep your system cool under load. Empty, it weighs around 3.5kg with a 14.2 litre volume.

Visible at the back of the device are the fan outlet (a 60mm unit) for the proprietary power supply unit and the air outlet for the processor heatsink fan plus a myriad of ports. There are six USB 3.0 ports, two DisplayPorts, an eSATA and HDMI connectors, a GbE LAN port, a CMOS reset button and 7.1 audio.

This means that Shuttle's little box will be able to drive two 4K monitors if required. Opening the chassis requires unscrewing three thumb screws and removing the U-shaped cover (which reminded us of how entry-level cases were in the distant past).

There's plenty of space inside, partly because the PSU is so small (and yet it is a 500W model with an 80% plus efficiency). The SZ170R8 can take up to four 3.5-inch hard disk drives (up to 40TB) with four expansion slots available (PCI-e x16, PCI-e x4, M.2 and Mini PCI-e) and four memory slots (supporting up to 64GB DDR4-2133 RAM modules).

The chassis will support dual-slot graphics cards, like the AMD R9 Nano, complete with a 6-pin connector, up to a size of 267 x 120 x 34.6mm.

Access to all the empty ports and the drive cage is pretty straightforward and the same is true when it comes to removing the CPU heatsink and fan. Underneath it is a Socket LGA 1151, which paired with the Z180 chipset, supports Skylake CPUs with a TDP of up to 95W. Note that Intel Xeon E3 v5 processors are not compatible.

The cooler uses Shuttle's signature ICE (Integrated Cooling Engine) technology with three pipes and a temperature controlled 92mm fan with noise reduction technology.

What surprised us was how easy it was to access the ports and empty bays. Sure, there are loads of cables and it was a touch tricky at times, but this is where Shuttle's two decades of expertise come to light, both as a case and a motherboard manufacturer.

Early verdict

A loaded SZ170R8 will have an Intel Core i7 processor at its heart, 64GB of RAM, up to eight SSDs (or four HDDs) and a dual-slot GPU. This spec will compete with ease when compared to much bigger desktop counterparts and the 500W power supply unit has the necessary firepower to handle all these components comfortably.

This is not, therefore, your usual barebones system – it bears all the hallmarks of one that has been fine-tuned for the connoisseur who will look to build a powerful and yet portable gaming rig or workstation that can crunch vast amounts of data.

The SZ170R8 felt premium despite the U-shaped cover, which we were not a big fan of. It is expensive but in the grander scheme of things, will only account for a fraction of what you'd expect to pay for a decent gaming base unit.

When a branded full-size gaming case with a quality power supply unit and a decent cooling solution costs a couple of hundred pounds, it doesn't feel ludicrous to spend a bit more to save on space.

The real competition though doesn't come from other vendors; there's barely anyone left in this space. Shuttle operates in a niche but lucrative market, one that has seen gaming laptops, like the Dell Inspiron 15 7000, emerge as realistic alternatives for gamers on the move.

Outside gaming though, this unit will shine as a more elegant and nimbler alternative to your standard workstation rig. The fact that you can slot in a top-end graphics card (Nvidia Quadro or AMD FirePro) makes it an interesting candidate for all sorts of exotic applications.

• Also check out: 10 best desktop PCs 2016: which computer should you buy?

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