Razer Book 13–the XPS 13 killer?

So Razer just announced Razer Book 13, a non gaming of Razer blade mate with XPS 13 design. The main selling point is the 13.4 infinity screen with really thin bezel all around just like the XPS 13 and 11th gen intel CPU with Xe integrated graphics. The main difference apart from XPS 13 are: more ports, vapor chamber cooling, RGB lighting keyboard. It’s business oriented while offers some gaming capability.

I was really disappointed with this year’s newly designed XPS 13 9300/9310 to offer merely only two USB-C ports. But now Razer Book 13 certainly rectify the situation. It’s got two USB-C thunderbolts 4 ports, one USB-A (which is still very practical for 2020 and beyond!), and one HDMI 2.0 port. MicroSD card slot is present just like XPS 13.

The downside is that configuration is pretty limited. If you want the Anti-glare HD screen, you only get 8GB memory and i5 CPU. IMHO, in 2020, you really shouldn’t consider anything below 16GB memory. If you want 16GB, you have to go with the touch screen with either HD or UHD resolutions. The storage is user replaceable. Unfortunately being Dell, you are stuck with the Killer wifi which I really don’t like. Since it’s got USB-A port and vapor chamber cooling, the thickness and weight are slightly more than XPS 13 (0.6 in vs 0.58 in / 2.64-2.8lb vs 2.95-3.09lb)

Granted the MSRP is quite steep for the actual usable ones. So the entry price is actually the HD touch screen version at a whopping price tag of $1599. I’m not sure how pricing on the refurbished ones work for Razer products. For XPS 13, you could certainly get refurbished HD screen ones around $800-900 with decent specs. At $1599, macbook pro 13 seems more attractive. 

 

Left: XPS 15 9500 (10th Gen intel / 2020). Right: XPS 15 9360 (8th Gen intel / 2017)

Over the years, I’ve owned quite a few XPS 13s, XPS 13 9350 (6th Gen intel / 2015), XPS 13 9360 (8th Gen intel / 2017), and XPS 13 9370 (8th Gen intel / 2018). Overall, I think XPS 13 is a great product line and keeps evolving over the years. In early 2020, XPS 13 9300 (10 Gen intel / talking about the confusing naming convention, and not to mention only after a handful month now 9310 (11th Gen intel) is out) was introduced with some significant changes to the chasis and design finally. A 16:10 aspect ratio 13.4 in infinity screen with really tiny bottom bezel was introduced. It is pretty exciting to see something better than the XPS 13. Although again, the price is too steep for me. I would certainly not considering this product. The ARM macbook to be announced seem to be the future IMO, and I’m looking more forward to that.

Google Fi adds iPhone esim support / Old user OK for data only function

Yesterday Google Fi quietly published a support page "Activate Google Fi on an iPhone with eSIM". This is a pretty big news to iPhone users as up till now Google Fi only offers support for physical sim. Now you can utilize one of the 13 slots available for esim, even for the newly released iPhone SE 2 (2020).



Officially Google Fi says it only support new users, but reddit members report some success on old account and Google seems to be working on support for old users. So I followed this detailed process to activate esim on my iPhone 11. It turns out it works to the extent that only data is working, voice and message are disabled with dial tone "The service you are attempting to use has been restricted or is unavailable. Please contact customer service. msg: CA19365".



Speedtest at my home is abysmal, but this is typical performance from T-Mobile. Outside should be fine.

Overall I'm quite happy with the result. This is big step forward in terms of esim support. I could care less about Apple Watch support at the moment.


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Huawei to launch Huawei Card (a credit card clone to Apple Card) / Apple Card impression

Huawei to launch Huawei Card (a credit card clone to Apple Card) with physical card and virtual card. You can apply the credit card straight from the mobile wallet.

At this time, information is sparse, Huawei hasn't announce which bank is issuing the card. And the earning is cash back, but no rate is disclosed. The card appears to be Unionpay, so usage maybe limited outside of China.

The key benefits are:

首年免年费，用华为key次年免年费；First year Annual Fee waived, second year Annual Fee waived after using Huawei key (nfc key for cars and luggage bag) 消费返利；Cash back 高铁贵宾厅。Bullet train VIP lounge

I'll follow up on this card as Huawei's phones are very popular inside China, southeat asia, part of Europe. Huawei is also actively developing a handful devices (laptop, tablet, wireless earphone, TV, smart speaker) to form their own ecosystem.

Actually this is not the first attempt by Chinese company to knock off Apple card. Oppo, the sister brand for Vivo and oneplus, released their own version in November 2019.

The credit card is issued by Shanghai Pudong Development Bank with a cash back earning structure: 3% cash back for Chinese domestic spending and 2% cash back for foreign spending. It seems to be UnionPay only though, no VISA or mastercard network, so the usage could be limited outside of China.

Now back to Apple Card, while everyone from the credit card enthusiastic community seems despise it, I find the card to be pretty useful, both domestically and in foreign country. I was an early adopter applied in August 2019. Goldman Sachs pulled TransUnion hard pull, and the card never showed up Equifax report per Credit Karma. It has no annual fee with a 3/2/1 cash back structure (3% apple store with financing available, there are some random retailers added to the 3% categories going along, 2% mobile payment, 1% rest). I'm using it mainly for Apple Pay with 2% cash back which US has adopted it widely. The cash back is almost instant. The default statement and payment day are always last day of the month, which makes it very easy to remember. The statements and bank info (bank account, autopay etc) can be accessed right from Apple wallet. The only downside is that there is no sign up bonus.

I was travelling in Tokyo, Japan in December 2019. I had the chance to try Apple Card for purchasing digital Suica card. The exchange rate is exactly the same as found on xe.com.

From my previous trips to Japan, my experience that cash is used about 30% and credit card is about 70% (I tried to use whenever credit card is accepted to max out my credit card bonus points). And for the 30% usage of cash, I find Suica/Icoca can be used as alternatives about 50% within 30% usage.

Another interesting data point is that when top off the digital Suica card using the mobile app with Amex Green card which has 3X bonus on travel category, Amex only gives 1X point as the merchant is from Suica Keitaikessai, literally means mobile settlement. So this actually puts the Apple Card a higher earning rate 2X cash back than the 1X Amex point which I value at 1.5X at the most.

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How to change Netflix subtitle style on iPad

So I just got the new iPad Pro 2020 version. It’s the first ipad I ever got. I want to use it as an entertainment/editing machine on the go. As I was testing the Netflix app on iPad, I was shocked to see that the subtitle has a block background. This Is the first time I see such style, it never happened when I was using a pc with chrome browser. So naturally I thought it was Netflix app screw up, I looked around in the app setting as well as the Netflix account setting, I couldn’t find such setting. It turns out it’s the iOS/iPadOS screwing up. iOS has dedicated subtitle setting in accessibility section.

By default, it has this style with semi transparent blocky background. You can create your own.

You do get quite some flexibility in the styles , but unfortunately you can not adjust the vertical placement.

After the adjustment, I am quite happy with the end result. I’m assuming it works same way with iPhone and Apple TV, but I am not bothered to look into it.

By the way, this is the first post I wrote on wix app with iPad. I am happy that the wix app is fully compatible with iPadOS. But what’s the deal with iPad Pro does not support split keyboard? Is Apple that desperate wants to sell you their 299/349 keyboard?

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How to install Dell Mobile Connect 3.0 on any devices

With the announcement of Dell Mobile Connect 3.0 which supports screencast for iOS device, I would like to give this software another shot.

Per Dell, these are the requirements for the software to run:

"Product Requirements Available on Dell consumer XPS, Inspiron, Vostro and Alienware PCs with Bluetooth purchased in January 2018 or later. PCs purchased before January 2018 are not supported to ensure the highest level of quality you expect from Dell. Companion mobile app is compatible with iOS 10 and above and Android 6 and above."

In order for Dell Mobile Connect to run, you need the following three components:

1. Dell Mobile Connect PC from Microsoft Store

2. Dell Mobile Connect driver from Dell support

3. Dell Mobile Connect iOS/Android from App Store/Play Store

(As of 3/31/2020, the most current version for all three components are 3.0.9268)

If you go to Microsoft Store right away for an unsupported device, you'll be unable to download for compatibility reason. To get around this, you have two options:

1. Download appxbundle other people have installed and intercepted from Microsoft Store.

I have seen version 1.0.x and 2.0.x available on other forum/blog (Note that the above three components don't have to match to run, you can run PC version 2.0.x with 3.0.9268 driver and mobile app with no problem, you just don't get new functionality such as screencast for iOS)

2. Force adding machine ID to registry, copy following code and save it as "Add_SCMID_RegEdit_for_DMC.bat" and run as admin.

@echo off
setlocal

echo:
echo Setting OEMID in RegEdit...
REG ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Store" /v OEMID /f /t REG_SZ /d DELL
echo:

echo Setting SCMID...
echo Fetching System Model Name
for /f "tokens=2 delims==" %%a in ('wmic computersystem get model /format:list') do set SYSMODEL=%%a
set SYSMODEL=%SYSMODEL:  =%
echo System Model Name is "%SYSMODEL%"

if not "x%SYSMODEL:Alienware=%" == "x%SYSMODEL%" goto modelAlienware
if not "x%SYSMODEL:Vostro=%" == "x%SYSMODEL%" goto modelVostro
if not "x%SYSMODEL:XPS=%" == "x%SYSMODEL%" goto modelXPS
if not "x%SYSMODEL:Inspiron=%" == "x%SYSMODEL%" goto modelInspiron

:modelAlienware
echo System model contains the name Alienware
set SYSNAME=Alienware
goto modelFinish
:modelVostro
echo System model contains the name Vostro
set SYSNAME=Vostro
goto modelFinish
:modelXPS
echo System model contains the name Xps
set SYSNAME=Xps
goto modelFinish
:modelInspiron
echo System model contains the name Inspiron
set SYSNAME=Inspiron
goto modelFinish
:modelFinish
echo System Name is %SYSNAME%

set SCMID=DELL_%SYSNAME%
echo SCMID to be set is %SCMID%

echo Setting SCMID in RegEdit
REG ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Store" /v StoreContentModifier /f /t REG_SZ /d %SCMID%

This code will add machine name into the system, I actually have a legit Dell XPS 9360 with a brand new Windows 10 PRO installed (no Dell exploded software thus unrecognizable by Microsoft Store), the code recognizes the correct machine ID, YMMV for other custom machine:

msinfo32:

You should be able to install Dell Mobile Connect from Microsoft Store with the above code.

The second step is to download Dell Mobile Connect driver from Dell support site. I got "Dell-Mobile-Connect-Application_4N5PR_WIN_3.0_A00.EXE". Don't install from this. Extract the file with 7z, get "DellMobileConnectDriversSetup_9268.exe" and install from it.

After installation, you need to set the phone to discoverable mode and pair Bluetooth to the PC. If you have difficulties in pairing, just restart the PC and the phone and retry.

For phone, message, file sharing, everything is done via Bluetooth. While the screencast is done via Wifi. It's best to use 5G wifi, otherwise the image quality is very poor.

I have both Samsung Galaxy S7 and iPhone 11 paired. Unfortunately, you can only pair one phone at a time. The android has a bit more functions such as better file sharing including access to files (iOS you can only access pictures and videos), a dedicated wechat button, screencast seems easier than iOS.

Android support is just more well rounded. There is a mouse cursor enabled by default and you get the standard three button for navigation. While for iOS, you have to enable assistive touch to get mouse support, without it, it's impossible to navigate through the interface.

Final thoughts:

The Dell Mobile Connect is certainly by far the one of most mature solutions if you want to narrow the gap between iOS and windows PC, except the Huawei ecosystem.

The software is actually not developed by Dell, but by a company called Screenovate Technologies Ltd, they just give a Dell skin to the software.

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