ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today released a significant update to its bundled Virtual Assistant software (formerly known as Virtual Pet). This new software package comes preinstalled on the ROG Zephyrus G16 gaming laptop and leverages the incredible power of AI to significantly level up the capabilities of the Virtual Assistant, including an intelligent chat and Q&A interface, written document summarization, and voice transcription tools. This update is available on laptop models with AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series processors as a free download via ASUS Live Update.

Intelligent chat support
The Virtual Assistant gives users a leg up when they're using an unfamiliar program or system tool. With a local chat and Q&A feature, even when disconnected from the internet, the Virtual Assistant can help users navigate complicated menus and activate the features and settings they need. For example, if a new user is looking to adjust fan settings, they can request that from the Virtual Assistant, and it will direct them to the appropriate settings menu within the Armoury Crate app. Applications like MyASUS, GlideX, and ProArt Creator Hub are supported, and the chat functionality adds a new layer of support for end users.

Courtesy of ASUS Vietnam (via @rquandt on X/Twitter), we now have an idea of what ASUS' first Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite notebook will look like, but also what the main specifications are. It will share the Vivobook S 15 OLED branding with other notebooks from ASUS, although the leaked model carries the model number S5507QA-MA089WS. At its core is a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100 SoC which is the base model from Qualcomm. The SoC consists of 12 Oryon cores, of which eight are performance cores and four are energy efficient cores. A peak, multi-threaded clock speed of 3.4 GHz and 42 MB of cache, as well as a 75 TOPs AI engine rounds off the SoC specs. The SoC is also home to a Qualcomm Adreno GPU, but so far Qualcomm hasn't released any useful specs about the GPU in the Snapdragon X Elite series of chips.

ASUS has paired the SoC with 32 GB of LPDDR5X memory of an unknown clock speed, although Qualcomm officially supports speed of up to 8,448 MT/s in a to PC users unusual configuration of eight channels at 16-bit wide, for a bandwidth of up to 135 GB/s. For comparison, Intel's latest Core Ultra processors max out at LPDDR5X 7,467 MT/s and up to 120 GB/s memory bandwidth. Other features include a 1 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD, a glossy 15.6-inch 2,880 x 1,620 resolution, 120 Hz OLED display with 600 nits peak brightness and a 70 WHr battery. It's unclear what connectivity options will be on offer, but judging by the screenshot below, we can at least expect an HDMI out as well as a pair of USB Type-C ports, a micro SD card slot and a headphone jack. As far as pricing goes, Roland Quandt is suggesting a €1,500 base price on X/Twitter, but we'll have to wait for the official launch to find out what these Arm based laptops will retail for. ASUS Vietnam has already removed the page from its website.

Smartphone specialists Oppo and OnePlus have responded to the rumors of both companies exiting several European markets, as well as the UK. In a joint statement provided to Android Authority the message was a promise to stay put in 2023: "OPPO and OnePlus are committed to all the existing European markets. We had a great start in 2023 with the successful launches of several products in Europe and have a line-up of upcoming products for the rest of the year. As always, OPPO and OnePlus will continue to provide more innovative products and the best-in-class service for users moving forward."

Starting yesterday, industry tipsters issued posts about Oppo and OnePlus withdrawing from markets in Europe, with more immediate exits from key territories - France, Germany, Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The cited reasons for exiting the aforementioned markets include a massive slowdown in regional sales and legal cases levied by competitors in regard to patent infringements on Oppo's part. The lawsuits that were levied by Nokia have resulted in a number of Oppo and OnePlus devices being banned from sale in Germany.

According to TrendForce's latest research, global smartphone production totaled around 289 million units for 3Q22, showing a slight QoQ drop of 0.9% and a YoY drop of 11%. The smartphone market thus exhibited an extremely weak demand situation as the "iron law" of positive growth in the third quarter was broken after being in effect for years. The contraction of smartphone production during this year's peak season was mainly attributed to smartphone brands giving priority to consumption of channel inventory for whole devices and maintaining a fairly conservative production plan for 3Q22. Moreover, they had kept lowering their production targets due to strong global economic headwinds.

Regarding the performances of the major smartphone brands in 3Q22, Samsung posted around 64.2 million units in device production, showing a QoQ increase of just 3.9%. This was the result of the brand scaling back production since 2Q22 and maintaining a conservative outlook on the future market situation. Due to persistent inventory pressure, Samsung is expected to again post a QoQ decline for 4Q22. In the aspect of product development, Samsung has been the leader in foldable smartphones. This year, the global market share of foldable smartphones is estimated to reach 1.1%; and within this segment, Samsung is expected to hold a market share of almost 90%. As for 2023, the global market share of foldable smartphones is forecasted to climb to 1.5%, and Samsung is forecasted to retain a market share of almost 80% in the segment.

The recent wave of COVID-19 outbreaks in India has weakened sales of retail storage products such as memory cards and USB drives, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. However, demand remains fairly strong in the main application segments due to the arrival of the traditional peak season and the growth in the procurement related to data centers. Hence, the sufficiency ratio of the entire market has declined further. NAND Flash suppliers have kept their inventories at a healthy level thanks to clients' stock-up activities during the past several quarters. Moreover, the ongoing shortage of NAND Flash controller ICs continues to affect the production of finished storage products. Taking account of these demand-side and supply-side factors, TrendForce forecasts that contract prices of NAND Flash products will rise marginally for 3Q21, with QoQ increases in the range of 5-10%.

Demand for DRAM exceeded expectations in 1Q21 as the proliferation of WFH and distance education resulted in high demand for notebook computers against market headwinds, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. Also contributing to the increased DRAM demand was Chinese smartphone brands' ramp-up of component procurement while these companies, including OPPO, Vivo, and Xiaomi, attempted to seize additional market shares after Huawei's inclusion on the Entity List. Finally, DRAM demand from server manufacturers also saw a gradual recovery. Taken together, these factors led to higher-than-expected shipments from various DRAM suppliers in 1Q21 despite the frequent shortage of such key components as IC and passive components. On the other hand, DRAM prices also entered an upward trajectory in 1Q21 in accordance with TrendForce's previous forecasts. In light of the increases in both shipments and quotes, all DRAM suppliers posted revenue growths in 1Q21, and overall DRAM revenue for the quarter reached US$19.2 billion, an 8.7% growth QoQ.

Demand for PC, mobile, graphics, and special DRAM remains healthy in 2Q21. Furthermore, after two to three quarters of inventory reduction during which their DRAM demand was relatively sluggish, some server manufacturers have now kicked off a new round of procurement as they expect a persistent increase in DRAM prices. TrendForce therefore forecasts a significant QoQ increase in DRAM ASP in 2Q21. In conjunction with increased bit shipment, this price hike will likely drive total DRAM revenue for 2Q21 to increase by more than 20% QoQ.

TrendForce's investigations find that India has become the second largest market for smartphones since 2019. However, the recent worsening of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country has severely impaired India's domestic economy and subsequently dampened various smartphone brands' production volume and sales (sell-in) performances there. TrendForce is therefore revising the forecasted YoY growth in global smartphone production for 2021 from 9.4% down to 8.5%, with a yearly production volume of 1.36 billion units and potential for further decreases going forward.

TrendForce further indicates that the top five smartphone brands (Samsung, Apple, Xiaomi, OPPO, and Vivo) have either set up assembly plants in India or sought assistance from EMS providers with operations in the country. Hence, the share of made-in-India smartphones has been on the rise over the years, even though the majority of the domestically manufactured devices are still for meeting the demand of the home market. Judging from the current state of Indian smartphone manufacturing, TrendForce expects the second wave to reduce the country's smartphone production volume for 2Q21 and 3Q21 by a total of 12 million units, in turn resulting in a 7.5% YoY decrease in smartphone production in India for the whole year.

The third-generation semiconductor industry was impaired by the US-China trade war and the COVID-19 pandemic successively from 2018 to 2020, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. During this period, the semiconductor industry on the whole saw limited upward momentum, in turn leading to muted growth for the 3rd gen semiconductor segment as well. However, this segment is likely to enter a rapid upturn owing to high demand from automotive, industrial, and telecom applications. In particular, the GaN power device market will undergo the fastest growth, with a $61 million revenue, a 90.6% YoY increase, projected for 2021.

Global sales of smartphones to end users declined 5.4% in the fourth quarter of 2020, according to Gartner, Inc. Smartphone sales declined 12.5% in full year 2020.

"The sales of more 5G smartphones and lower-to-mid-tier smartphones minimized the market decline in the fourth quarter of 2020," said Anshul Gupta, senior research director at Gartner. "Even as consumers remained cautious in their spending and held off on some discretionary purchases, 5G smartphones and pro-camera features encouraged some end users to purchase new smartphones or upgrade their current smartphones in the quarter."

Vivo, a relative unknown in the case space, has announced their new offering, the CASE-V10G, which aims to bring premium features to an almost unheard of price of $50. The new CASE-V10G includes an all-black steel and plastic construction, with tempered glass front and side panels providing users the opportunity to peek at their hardware. The front tempered glass panel sits about an inch ahead of the included 3x Blue LED fans, guaranteeing enough air flow for proper component cooling.

For the company to achieve its list pricing, however, some corners had to be cut: there's no room for a proper watercooling setup, and the only exhaust fan (120 mm, the only support point for a radiator) is located on the back of the chassis - should users want top exhausts, they'll have to drill them in themselves. The CASE-V10G supports motherboards up to ATX in size, graphics cards up to 350 mm, tower coolers with up to 155 mm, and full size ATX power supplies. There are 7x expansion slots, and enough mounting locations for 2x 3.5" and 2x 2.5" hard drives. Front panel connectors include 2x USB 2.0 ports, 1x USB 3.0 port, and HD audio jacks. The Vivo CASE-V10G is available now from retailers.