Close to the Metal Ep. 44: New 2-in-1s breach the surface, but are any winners?

By Brad Bourque Published May 23, 2017

There’s been a bit of a dry spell for new 2-in-1 systems, particularly after going so long without a Surface Pro update. This morning, that all changed, as three new Windows-powered convertibles came to light, the Samsung Galaxy Book, the Huawei Matebook X, and of course, the Microsoft Surface Pro.

As we’ve learned all too well, building a 2-in-1 is really tricky business, and even one wrong move can render a system near-unusable, and far from earning a recommendation for us. Microsoft has managed to refine the pattern over several generations and different products, and at this point, we’re confident in its ability to put together a minor update to the Surface Pro line.

Huawei and Samsung, on the other hand, have more to prove. Samsung’s last effort at the 2-in-1 game left us unimpressed, with an overly ambitious OLED display that brought some tinting issues with it, and an overall chintzy design. Huawei made a decent effort with the previous Matebook, but it was marred by a flimsy design and expensive peripherals.

So which one is the right 2-in-1 for you, if any of them? Join us on today’s episode of Close to the Metal as we break down each device, and try to decide on a winner for the category.

Close to the Metal is a podcast from Digital Trends that takes a deep dive into computing and PC gaming topics. Each show, we’ll focus in on one topic, and leave no stone unturned as we show off the latest in hardware and software. Whether it’s the latest GPU, supercomputers, or which 2-in-1 you should buy, we break down the complicated jargon and talk about how user experience is affected in the real world. Please subscribe, share, and send your questions to podcast@digitaltrends.com. We broadcast the show live on YouTube every Tuesday at 1pm EST/10am PST.

Former Staff Writer

Brad Bourque is a native Portlander, devout nerd, and craft beer enthusiast. He studied creative writing at Willamette…

Topics

Computing

Microsoft has begun rolling out Copilot Code for building apps with natural language

The workplace-focused vibe coding tool can pull context from emails, documents, meetings, and chats.

Microsoft introduced Code last month as one of the three core parts of its revamped Copilot app. The app was pitched as an easy-to-use coding agent that lets users describe what they want to build in natural language, like an app, a tracker, a dashboard, an automation, or a workflow, and Copilot would build it for them.

Essentially, it's a workplace-focused vibe-coding app that turns existing work into a functional app, and Microsoft has begun rolling it out through the Frontier program.

Computing

AI agents are acting like rogues and causing a huge headache for US banks

US banks block AI agents over fears they could make unauthorised financial moves

Banking

US banks are facing a new kind of digital headache: artificial intelligence agents attempting to access customer accounts and perform actions that may go beyond what users intended. As AI tools become more capable of navigating websites and carrying out tasks independently, financial institutions are scrambling to prevent them from crossing security boundaries.

According to a report published by Axios on October 22, major US banks have detected third-party AI agents operating inside customer accounts without authorisation. Some agents reportedly appeared to attempt actions independently of user instructions. The banks involved have not publicly detailed every incident, and there is no evidence that the reported activity resulted in widespread theft of customer funds.

Computing

Canva enters the AI image generation race with Craft, and it’s thinking beyond pretty pictures

The new model plans layouts before generating images, with precise editing and support for 30 aspect ratios.

Canva Craft Featured Image

AI can generate all kinds of pretty pictures, but getting it to spell a headline correctly or keep a poster's layout intact can be another story. Canva wants to fix that with Canva Craft, its first in-house image generation model. Rather than focusing primarily on photographs, Craft is designed around the posters, presentations, social media graphics, and other visual content people actually create. The goal is simple: spend less time fixing AI's mistakes and more time making something useful.

Canva Craft plans before it generates