Welcome to this week’s newsletter – and for those of you who celebrate Christmas, I hope you’re all feeling sufficiently festive! It was our team’s Christmas party last night, so I’m feeling a bit fragile, but I’ll soldier on – and I apologize in advance for any breakdowns or weird tangents I take us on.
With the holidays fast approaching, and CES 2023 just around the corner – the huge tech expo kicks off in Las Vegas at the beginning of January – you’d be forgiven for thinking that the tech world might be winding down, but there are still plenty of juicy stories to discuss.
And if you’re frantically trying to complete your present-buying, we’ve got a roundup of the best Christmas sales in the US, which should hopefully help you to find the perfect gift and save you money, while if you’re in the UK we’ve found some last-minute gift ideas.
As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this newsletter, and the tech world in general, so please feel free to drop me an email, remembering to include 'NEWSLETTER' in the subject line.
Matt Hanson, Managing Editor, Core Tech
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The makers of the Steam Deck have been talking about a possible follow-up (Valve)
I love the original Steam Deck – Valve essentially made a handheld gaming PC that can play almost my entire Steam library of PC games, and it quickly became one of my favorite gadgets released in the past few years. Swinging around New York as Spider-Man will never get old – especially when you’re doing it while commuting to work on a bus.
It’s not perfect though – which isn’t surprising given that it’s Valve’s first attempt at a handheld console (the company is better known for making games like Half-Life than hardware). Its fans can get rather noisy when the device is working hard, and battery life can evaporate pretty quickly; so any talk of a follow-up that addresses such issues definitely gets my attention, and some of the people behind the Steam Deck have been talking about what they’d like to include in a potential Steam Deck 2.
While they didn’t go into specifics, Valve’s Lawrence Yang and Pierre-Loup Griffais mentioned battery life and the screen as being two areas they want to improve. A longer battery life would certainly be welcome, but I personally don’t have any issues with the screen – sure it’s not anywhere near the 4K (and even 8K) resolutions I usually game at on my desktop PC, but for the size it does the job well, although I wouldn’t say no to higher resolutions if that is on the cards.
What we shouldn’t expect from a Steam Deck 2 is improved performance – and I’m actually okay with that. For a start, the original Steam Deck is only nine months old, so to have it become outdated so swiftly would sting.
Also, as Yang and Griffais point out, having one set performance level means the team can ensure that as many games as possible run well for every Steam Deck owner; once you start having devices with wildly different specs, there may come a time when some games can only run well on the newer model, and that leads to inevitable annoyance when users find that the specs of their Steam Deck aren’t enough to run a game – a feeling a lot of PC gamers know all too well.
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We're expecting to see the successor to the Galaxy S22 Ultra, above, in February (Future)
I’ve been having a bit of a rocky time with Samsung phones recently. After a few years of sticking with Google’s Pixel handsets I got the Galaxy Note 9, which I loved, and I thought I’d be perfectly happy maintaining my allegiance to Samsung.
When my Note 9 started to show its age, I moved on to the Samsung Galaxy S21 Plus, and I thought I’d be just as enamored with that handset… but something hasn’t clicked. It’s a fine phone, but it doesn’t wow me. The fact that it’s filled up with Samsung apps that I never want to use has become a frustration (I could forgive this on the Note 9 as the rest of the experience was so good), and makes Google’s more slimline approach with its Pixel phones attractive. Worse, I’ve found the S21 Plus to be unreliable, occasionally crashing or becoming unresponsive.
So I’d been thinking about jumping ship and returning to Google’s Pixel lineup, especially after reading TechRadar’s glowing reviews of the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro (an iPhone is out of the question as I’m so heavily invested in the Android ecosystem – which basically means I bought an app a few years ago for a handful of loose change, and I’m too tight to buy it again).
However, Phil Berne’s roundup of all the exciting rumors swirling around the upcoming Galaxy S23 Ultra has me thinking maybe I should stick with Samsung. As Phil points out, the S23 Ultra is shaping up to be the most important phone launch of 2023 – and he knows his phones. Better performance and an incredibly powerful camera appear to be on the cards, which are two things I’d love to see in any new handset, although Phil does deflate my excitement a little by saying he doesn’t expect any big improvements to Samsung’s OneUI software, which is perhaps my biggest issue with Samsung phones at the moment.
So, will I be sticking with Samsung? Let’s see what 2023 brings…
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Henry Cavill won't be back as Superman, but he's pretty excited about his next project (Warner Bros. Pictures)
It can be hard to feel sorry for Henry Cavill – he is, after all, rich, famous and good-looking – but even the most cynical of us would have felt a pang of pity this week at the news that he’s been dropped as Superman, just weeks after he announced that he would be returning as the DC superhero.
While I’ve not really enjoyed the DCEU movies, I was disappointed to hear just a couple of weeks ago that Cavill had left The Witcher TV series, as I think he’s brilliant in the lead role as Geralt. I, like many people, assumed he’d left The Witcher so that he could commit to Superman, so for that to have fallen through makes it sting all the more.
So I was happy to read today that following those setbacks, Cavill has landed a role that’s been a childhood dream – he’s teamed up with Amazon Studios to develop and star in a number of movies based on the tabletop role-playing game franchise Warhammer 40,000. Cavill’s love of the game is well known, and announcing the project on Instagram he said “For 30 years I have dreamt of seeing a Warhammer universe in live action.”
You know what? I think the rich, famous, and good-looking Cavill is going to be okay after all…
POLL QUESTION:
What would you like to see Henry Cavill star in next?
Amazon is working on a God of War TV show (SIE Santa Monica Studio)
The Witcher, Last of Us, Cyberpunk Edgerunners… do we really need more TV shows based on video games? Amazon seems to think so, as it’s apparently working on an adaptation of Sony’s excellent God of War series.
I love the games, and I think they could make for a great TV show, following around Kratos while he pummels various mythological beings, so I’d definitely tune in for an episode or two if it does get made. One thing I’d like to know, however, is what kind of God of War we’d be getting. The first few games in the franchise were over-the-top violent escapades through Greek mythology, while the latest ones have pitted Kratos against Norse gods.
Personally, I prefer the roster of Greek myths and legends, so I’d love a series in that setting, but the tone of the original games hasn’t aged well. Meanwhile, the newer entries offer a much more nuanced and emotional take on Kratos, and I can definitely see that translating better into a prestige TV show. A mix of the two, though, would be my absolute dream.
Could the rumored Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti be the abandoned 12GB RTX 4080 in disguise? (Nvidia/Future)
Nvidia is the most popular graphics card maker in the world by sales, and by quite some distance – but that doesn’t mean everything it does is a sure-fire hit. You may have noticed some controversy swirling about an RTX 4080 12GB version that, when announced alongside a much more powerful RTX 4080 16GB version, baffled a lot of people who felt the weaker 12GB version was just an overpriced RTX 4070 with an ‘8’ stuck over the ‘7’ so that Nvidia could charge more for it.
The criticism obviously stung Nvidia, as it ended up ‘unlaunching’ the 12GB model. And now rumors are cropping up about a new GPU, the RTX 4070 Ti… which looks awfully like the old 12GB 4080.
If these rumors are true, then hopefully we’ll get a reasonably-priced mid-range GPU that still performs brilliantly. The latest rumor suggests that may be the case, with a surprise leaked benchmark that shows the RTX 4070 Ti beating AMD’s new high-end RX 7900 XTX. While it’s not quite a clear-cut win (and remember, this is all unconfirmed), if Nvidia releases an affordable GPU that can match or even beat AMD’s more expensive offering, that could cause quite a big upset.
James Cameron takes us back to Pandora with Avatar: The Way of Water (20th Century Studios)
It’s been a long time coming, but James Cameron appears to have done it again, as his belated sequel to 2009’s Avatar appears to be getting rave reviews – including from our own Axel Metz. I’ve not seen it yet; I wasn’t that fond of the original, and with a young child, finding time to go to the cinema can be difficult. But maybe I should give it a go.
Apparently, it’s a visual treat, with some groundbreaking special effects, and a story that’s surprisingly moving considering that it’s about lanky blue alien things. One thing I did like about the original was how the world of Pandora looked like a Roger Dean painting come to life – something that fans of prog rockers Yes and iconic Psygnosis games on the Amiga will appreciate.
However, something is still putting me off: the runtime, which is more than three hours. At the risk of sounding like an old man (despite just referencing prog rock and sadly defunct computer game companies), films these days are too long, especially if you have limited time to do stuff, as is the case when you have small kids.
So I’ll probably do what I always do now, and wait until it comes to a streaming service (I’m guessing Disney Plus). Sure, I won’t get the full cinematic experience, but with a large OLED TV and Dolby Atmos sound system, it’ll be pretty close – plus I can pause the film to nip to the bathroom, which I’ll undoubtedly need to do given that runtime, and the fact that it features vast amounts of water.
Scientists are learning more about how music can affect our mood (Getty Images)
On the subject of music (yes, prog rock is music, and if you disagree I’ll be forced to throw an ELP album at you), our sister site Live Science has a great feature on how music can affect our brains – and unlike the site’s regular stories about asteroids heading for Earth and other potential disasters, this is actually good news.
I’m sure most people have experienced their mood lifting when a certain song is played, and this interesting feature, with input from a psychotherapist, highlights the scientific facts behind this sensation – including how music can help release dopamine to reduce stress and perk up your mood.
Of course, it also probably depends on the music you’re listening to. With my recent realization (a few paragraphs ago) that I’m getting old, I don’t think listening to Time by Pink Floyd will do my mood much good. Shorter of breath and one day closer to death indeed…
The Sign Off
On that cheery note, I’m off to curl up in a ball in a dark room and have a little sob. I hope you all enjoyed this week’s pick of stories (and my existential breakdown), and do please email me with your thoughts on this newsletter, or your own prog-rock hot takes! Lance will be back next week, so I’ll take this opportunity to wish you a very happy Christmas, Hanukkah, holiday season, or whatever you’re celebrating.
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