#on the bright side‚ it helps me get used to my laptop touchpad AND my drawing tablet more as a pointing device

[just-jammin]

having only 2 usb ports in your laptop and no extension ports can so weird things for your setup

[fishmongeringstudies]

six: wandering the city while waiting for a train that'll never come, you stop to wave at a dog on the street only to realize you have mistaken a crumpled bag of mcdonald's for a chihuahua

i almost slipped and died in the shower today. luckily i didn't, because i read somewhere that slipping and dying in the shower makes it a little hard for you to finish writing a manuscript for a novel fictionalizing the events of your freshman spring semester that's definitely going to become a new york times bestseller in about four years' time, but i came pretty close. for a moment i had my hand on the wall and my legs splayed like a barbie doll stuck to a stripper pole and the matchbox world behind the shower curtain was slipping steadily south and heading lower still. and then i caught myself.

several minutes later i heard scuffling beyond the pale, soapy shower curtain and thought there might be someone creeping on me. if someone was creeping on me i had an idea of who it might be, which made the prospect all the more likely and infinitely more convincing inside the grapefruit-sized thing i called my brain. then i heard the clap of god's hands in an ashen sky, and i knew. this was no man made disaster-in-waiting. it had begun to rain.

it didn't rain for long. five minutes at best, two if my grasp on the spatial-temporal continuum is worse than i'd imagined (this is very likely; the stars pass me by faster than i can count them these days), but long enough that anyone who happened to be outside when that first teardrop fell from the sky got a little wet. a little fucked up, if you will, which, hey. good for him. he deserves to get a little fucked up.

but i get carried away. please excuse my personal grievances. this is not a lament, it is a swimming pool. full of tiny colorful fish which flit around at its bottom, chasing strands of sunlight like children on a playground.

the weather forecast says it'll rain again tomorrow, and maybe the day after, too, if the world stays sad enough to let it happen. it makes me nostalgic. when i left in february monsoon season was in full swing, tearing trees from their roots with big meaty hands and making every fleeting boring moment into the kind of gray sunday afternoon on which i imagine the directors of romantic dramas like to shoot break-ups. rain in singapore looks different. it's not a bucket full of water, it's a room. a blue room against a silver sky. your socks stuck to your ankles with the kind of grim determination that makes you almost a little sad to peel them off, to toss them in the washing machine behind the kitchen. there's a little balcony behind the kitchen in the house you left in february, with a washing machine and a ledge for sitting on and a dryer that doesn't work. you used to go there when you wanted to check on the restaurant across the street. from here you can make out the round, blue-rimmed tables that attract students, biking enthusiasts, three am brawls between red-faced european men and their red-faced european friends. if there's noise on this side of the street, it's probably coming from there.

summer. summer reminds me of home. so far i've been telling people that the association is a bad one, and it certainly isn't a lie, but it's not a whole truth either, if one believes in the matter of whole truths to begin with. i'm starting to think maybe there are only skim-milk truths, clotted cream truths, 0% fat yogurt truths. truths that change shape when you aren't looking. we aren't looking most of the time, after all. we're very busy people. all of us. we're trying to change the world.

and for what? who are we trying to save? do you want to live forever? that's the goal, isn't it. i mean it's definitely mine. i won't blame you if the concept of death sits on your shoulder like a fourth generation ipod touch with a broken home button, whispering really fucked up shit into your ear when you're alone. i mean it definitely does for me.

puzzle-girl is in new york now, last i checked. good for her. i hear new york is full of lights and electricity and car exhaust. maybe one day she will learn that friendship isn't an emergency help-line. probably not. my friend thinks she will, thinks we'll come back around in our junior year and everyone will see us stuck to each other again like two grotesque modern art pieces drilled back-to-back into a museum exhibit wall only with a firm mutual understanding of what boundaries are, but i have my doubts.

once someone told me with the kind of half-fake half-genuine smile that makes you wonder if AI technology has advanced far enough to mimic the complexities of stupid hormonal teenagers with really bad interpersonal issues after all that i was blooming. coincidentally all the flowers on campus had suddenly decided to poke their heads out of the dirt like babies busting their way out of refrigerators, guns blazing, hearts shot to pieces, so it's not like he was completely bullshitting me. he was only ninety-eight percent bullshitting me. the two percent is why he comes up in my writing as often as he does, all this time later. like i think he was ninety-eight percent clown but two percent circus, two percent red-nosed reindeer trying to unionize behind a striped curtain, two percent something real. or at least i like to think that way. i'm a writer. we have to pretend there's something to write about. or else what will we write about?

so yeah. one time someone told me i was blooming. at the time i was embarrassed. and then after the story put an abrupt end to itself i was madly obsessed with the idea of flowers jutting out of cracks in the earth, gold pouring forth from blood-wounds, poinsettia eyes, whatever, whatever, and then the flowers started wilting. standing on the path outside my dorm i was like what the fuck? why the hell is everything dying? it's been like three days, god, what are you guys made of, tissue paper?

i was talking to the flowers. which died in spite of my indignation, so that's one for nature, zero for me. good for them. see you next spring, when things will, hopefully, be different. i don't have a plan as much as i have a dream i'd like to see walk into reality on three legs and a pitchfork. but it's a good dream. i promise.

the sky's clear as glass now. it's so bright i could probably stick my hand up there and stir vigorously and then an angel would emerge from the ether, rubbing her eye sleepily with the back of her hand. that's the kind of clarity i'm talking about. making metaphors about christianity-clarity. i am lonely and my dreams are full of beautiful people-clarity.

that's a lie-clarity. loneliness is, as mentioned in a previous installment of the meandering car accident i call this blog, a choice, and i'm too lazy and full of my own slew of interpersonal issues to commit to something like that. but summer is new, and it's like i'm getting used to the body in my basement all over again. how do i step around it, how do i make sure i don't look at its face? and its eyes, oh, those eyes. how terrible. how full of absence.

there will be exactly two hundred students on campus when summer move-ins are finished next week. this school has a population of nearly sixteen hundred. what are we doing?

research. academia. learning a new language. road trips. plane trips. horse riding lessons. research. academia. learning a new language. relationships. spaceships. building a ladder to the moon.

it feels like the sun never sets sometimes. the hours slide into one another like tectonic plates beneath the surface of the world and yet the sky remains just as it looked this afternoon, milk-white and pale as death. a hot summer wind blows and sends the clouds careening sideways into each other, and yet from this distance nothing changes. drop a body in a bathtub and nothing changes. beat someone up and nothing changes. survive thirteen weeks of bad mistakes and then worse ones, midnight mistakes, thursday evening mistakes, the kind of mistake you don't think you'll ever be able to write about, and still nothing changes.

they say there's always a silver lining but what if i want fur instead? let's say i want a fur-lined sky with fur-lined clouds and a little heart-shaped toy that makes a sound when you step on it. let's say i want to be fifteen again. the sky doesn't care. it still looks like a damn sky. the sky doesn't do things out of sentimentality.

it's just kind of there. today i'm just kind of here. today we're all alive. good for you. good for me. good thing my hand was on the wall when i slipped in the shower, so i could get out and dry my hair and then sit down in this shitty weird-smelling lounge with my laptop with the cracked touchpad and my cool elmo slippers, and tell you about this solitary life on mars.

05.26.2021

[renaerys]

PPG One-Shot: Six Degrees Chiller (Brick/Blossom)

A new cute one-shot in honor of @carriedreamerx birthday! In the same high school AU as part 1, part 2, and part 3, but can totally stand-alone. Also posted on my AO3. Tune in for some laughs and some Reds cuteness!

Summary: Brick goes deodorant shopping. It doesn't end well. (Or does it??)

xxx

Brick squinted at the nine-foot shelf packed with a full color wheel of deodorants and antiperspirants. The sheer surfeit of brands and scents was as daunting to behold as it was absolutely batshit insane—how many ways did people need to not smell like a dirty gym sock?

He picked a random stick and scowled at the label as if it had offended him and all his future progeny. Who the fuck would want to smell like mango lassi?

The squeak of a shopping cart rolling down the aisle sent Brick into a febrile panic for a hot second, and he shoved the saccharine deodorant stick back onto the shelf. A geriatric woman with a hunched back, a bright head scarf, and eyes so folded over with wrinkles it was a miracle she could see anything at all wheeled her cart slowly past Brick, who froze where he stood. She smiled politely at him, and he nodded out of sheer self-preservation instinct. The moment she passed him, he yanked the bill of his red cap lower over his eyes.

“Get a grip,” he grumbled. He was an eighteen-year-old guy buying deodorant, not stool softener. He was totally casual and had absolutely no reason to be so fucking paranoid. Nobody who might recognize him was coming to Cooper’s Market at 8 a.m. on a Sunday.

Brick wiped his clammy palms on his jeans and searched the shelves for what he’d come for so he could hurry up and leave. There it was, fifth shelf in a sea of sleek black and edgy, neon letters: Axe Ice Chill.

“Okay, do you consider yourself more of a music lover, sports star, gaming guru, or style icon?” Boomer had asked as he sat cross-legged on the sofa with his laptop open to the Axe “Find Your Magic” test a few months ago.

“Sports star,” Butch had said on his left, and poked the screen that wasn’t a touch-screen.

“That’s you, moron,” Brick had said, totally above this stupid test. “Pick style icon.”

Boomer grinned. “Oh yeah, your hoodies are so stylin’.” He clicked the next question. “Signature scent? Huh, maybe warm and aromatic?”

“Sounds like one of those Yankee holiday candles,” Butch had said.

Unfortunately, he had a point.

“Well, you're not exactly woody and earthy, and you’re definitely not fruity and sweet—”

“Just go to the next one.” Brick clicked on “fresh and cool” and waited for the screen to load. “Smellin’ good!” the loading page flashed at him. Jesus fucking Christ.

When the quiz presented a true or false statement, Butch moved like he had a bug up his ass and slammed the touchpad before Brick or Boomer could do anything about it.

Boomer tried not to laugh. “Dude, come on.”

“Please, he’s a punk-ass dweeb who’d never make the first move in a fight, let alone on a girl—” Butch had taunted.

Brick punched him in the throat with his Super speed and smiled at the sound of his asshat brother gagging. “Choke and die, motherfucker.”

Butch wheezed as he laughed through the pain, and Brick and Boomer breezed through the more generic age and appearance questions: under 18, long hair (“Mane Man!” the quiz gushed, and Brick almost melted Boomer’s laptop right there), and natural look. After an artificially anticipatory loading screen, a picture of a dude with a clown nose crowd surfing in a sepia Instagram filter appeared on the screen with the generic “Be your best self!” encouragement in blocky letters superimposed upon it, and finally the expert, personalized recommendation for Brick’s body spray needs.

“Because you’re hotter when you’re chill.” Brick had cringed when he read that idiotic tagline the first time, and he cringed reading it again now in the deserted personal hygiene aisle where he prayed no one would find him buying this cry-for-help vanity spritz.

However.

He sprayed a bit of mist in the air and reveled in that cool, icy scent that wasn’t a scent so much as a feeling. Six degrees chiller in a bottle. The first time he’d tried it (under great duress), he’d griped and bitched and slammed his bedroom door to get away from his howling brothers. Settled on his bed with a frown, he had to admit it did cool him off. It was almost pleasant. The smell wasn’t overwhelming like that tiger piss Butch bathed in on the daily. But it wasn’t out of this world compared to the generic shit he’d been using before.

It wasn’t until Blossom sneezed on their way out of AP Lit that her ice breath—and understanding—hit him with the force of a cold snap to the balls.

“Sorry, did I get you?” she’d said, abashed as she covered her mouth with one hand and fished out a bottle of Purell from her messenger bag with the other. Her ice splatter fast melted on his shoulder as his too-warm body absorbed the cold with a bizarre, but extremely pleasant, shiver down his spine.

Son of a bitch, but he had a kink.

Which, of course, spiraled way the hell out of control when he found himself here months later with a recycled shopping bag he’d brought so he could carry the three bottles of Axe Ice Chill he planned to purchase home, because Brick planned ahead and liked to keep his bathroom well-stocked.

Which also, of course, was why at that very moment, fate decided to punch him in the dick.

“Bubbles, you have, like, fourteen bottles of shampoo at home! You don’t need another one,” Buttercup groused at 8 in the goddamned morning on a Sunday.

“Those are all different products, not just shampoo. Honestly, Buttercup.” Bubbles zipped into the aisle with Buttercup on her tail just at the moment Brick had his second panic attack in the span of five minutes and completely lost his shit.

He launched the bottle of Axe Ice Chill so hard into the ceiling that it lodged in there tighter than a prairie-dogging turd.

“Brick?” Blossom’s hand on his shoulder nearly sent him yeeting after his abused body spray, if the sheer mortification didn’t rob him of further motor function and exactly one hundred percent of his brain cells.

Like her sisters, she wore a jacket over her pajama pants. They must have just popped over for some last-minute breakfast staples and a side of peer humiliation. But even in those criminally hideous Ugg boots and five boxes of pancake mix in her shopping basket at 8 on a fucking Sunday morning, her smile glowed.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” he returned lamely, because that was all she was getting from him until his neurological functions rebooted.

“Hi, Brick,” Buttercup said, suspicious like usual and searching for some excuse to bust his balls for a laugh. “What’re you doing here?”

The Super sisters had cornered him in front of the Teen Spirit, which came in an absolutely frightful eighteen scents because there was nothing pubescent teenagers needed more than eighteen reassurances that their social survival depended on smelling like a potpourri candy bar.

“Shopping, obviously,” Bubbles said. “Ooh, Brick, you have straight hair. What do you think?” She held up two bottles of brightly colored free-range, organic hair shit.

“I think I was just leaving,” he managed.

“Empty-handed?” Buttercup peered at him like he might transform into a literal dick with ears if she only managed not to blink for long enough. He could smell the threat of a joke on her.

“They didn’t have the brand I wanted.”

“Oh, that sucks,” Bubbles said, genuinely stricken.

“Girls, let’s get going. I really want those pancakes,” Blossom said.

“We better grab more syrup. Buttercup finished it all,” Bubbles said, already moving away. She dropped both hair products in Blossom’s basket, not bothering to choose between them.

“Oh please, everybody knows you and the Professor are the syrup fiends in this house.” Buttercup floated after her and waved to Brick. “Hey, tell that shithead to answer my texts. He owes me $20.”

“Uh-huh,” Brick said, fully intending not to mention anything about this conversation to Butch at all.

“Sorry about your favorite brand being sold out,” Blossom said.

It’s fine, he would have said had she not caught his cheek in her hand and pressed a frosty kiss to the corner of his lips before he could do anything about it. Frozen fernlings crept over his cheek and chin, down his neck, and slowly absorbed through his now flushed skin, and he shivered. Without even thinking about it, he reached for her, but she was already walking away to catch up with her sisters.

When she got to the end of the aisle, she shot him a cheeky grin over her shoulder and had the nerve to wink at him. “Stay cool, Brick.”

Red in the face and high on her, Brick just stood there like an idiot gawking at his kind of unofficial girlfriend and the singular dominating object of his fantasies, be they sexual or otherwise. What was dignity when she smiled at him like that? What was a paltry imitation in a bottle when she kissed him like that?

The paltry imitation fell from its hole in the ceiling and exploded on the tiled floor at Brick’s feet with a winter ferocity that, in that moment at least, rivaled Blossom’s in the heat of battle.

When Brick got home later that morning and Boomer asked him why he smelled like a snowman’s asshole, Brick burned the clothes on his back and spent the next half hour in the shower thinking about how he was going to convince Blossom to make the first move and finally make them official.

xxx

Y’all better appreciate the research that went into this fic. That Axe quiz is real and I took it pretending to be Brick, and it literally does spit out a photo of a dude wearing a clown nose in a club. If that’s not a sign from the Daddy that I’ve chosen the righteous path, then idk what is. Sacrifices to my Chrome search history were made for this fic in the name of celebrating Carrie, ergo, worth it.

[fahadstechblog]

MSI GF65- The MacBook Decimator

The sub $1000 MSI GF65 definitely packs a punch and absolutely demolishes the competitors in this price range

INTRODUCTION

So this is the MSI GF 65 thin which is a very thin and light 15-inch gaming laptop that comes with a brand new Intel Core i7 10 750H CPU. Now the CPU is pretty much like the previous generation CPUs but with significantly higher clock speeds. The MSI GF65 thin series have always aimed at the affordable end of the market. This particular model comes with the Intel Core i7 10750H CPU, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 GPU with 16 gigs of ram(upgradable to 64 gigs), a lightning quick 512 gigabyte NVMe SSD and a great 120 hertz IPS panel for a buttery smooth FPS experience. I have personally used this laptop as my daily driver for about 60 days now and this laptop just feels FANTASTIC. From gaming to productivity, this laptop ticks all the things one looks in a laptop. This laptop will cost you $1000 so that’s pretty much the same as the AMD version, the MSI Bravo 17 and places in the same price range as the Asus G15.

DESIGN

The outer design of the GF 65 thin isn’t that different from the MSI Bravo series. It is fairly compact for a 15-inch laptop as it’s only about 2 centimeters high and it weighs a bit less than 2 kilos so it’s pretty much a bit lighter and more compact than the Asus TUF A15. I bought this laptop mainly to use it for University work and to be very honest, it is extremely easy to carry in your backpack and is the best option for students(please don’t buy a MacBook instead, you’ll definitely be shooting yourself in the foot). It has a brushed aluminum on top which very premium but does show fingerprints occasionally. The Build Quality is great. It’s definitely not typical for this price range but there is a bit of flex here and there. The overall look is a bit old school as MSI decided to stick to Reds details(catered to the hardcore gamers) The hinge feels pretty good and it is very easy to open with one hand, the display feels fairly sturdy. The inside has a metal layer as well and has a glossy yet matte finish. So overall quality and finish is quite impressive for this price range.

Keyboard and Trackpad

The keyboard of the MSI GF 65 is fairly typical at this price point. The actuation feels great and the key travel is a bit shorter, making it an extremely easy and swift typing experience. The backlighting of the keyboard is only red(a bit of a bummer for all the RGB fans), and the brightness can be adjusted through the macros provided by MSI on the left-side of the keyboard. The Trackpad on this thing is quite unique. It is equipped with windows precision drivers which is great for quick gestures, and the surface that MSI used is actually quite great. It is really smooth, the palm rejection is good and its overall nice to use for you. I mean it’s a touchpad you cannot really love a touchpad but unfortunately it does have a bit of a wobble so both tapping and pressing the corners to click does feel a bit awkward. A great addition would be to see added dedicated buttons.

Connectivity

Connectivity is pretty alright, on the left we have an HDMI port and the charging port, while on the right side there are two USB 3.0 gen1 type-c ports and two USB 3.0 gen one type-a ports. There is an Ethernet connection and a combined audio jack although there is no Thunderbolt support or USB3.2 gen 2 connections but considering the price of this laptop I think it’s really fair to assume that the buyers won’t really spend big cash on the fastest external storage and are pretty much more concerned with having enough USB ports instead.

Performance

Now off to the main part you all have been waiting for- the performance. Considering the fact how well the AMD Ryzen CPUs did, it is interesting to see that Intel is neck-to-neck, on its way to reclaim their crown in this mobile segment. In the single core Cinebench 15 benchmark, the 10750 H manages to stay ahead of the Ryzen CPUs by a mile, but in all other CPU benchmarks including the much newer single core Cinebench 20, the i7 10750H CPUs are just ahead and the jump from the 9th generation to the 10th generation of Intel CPUs looks quite promising for productivity. So now the question is what does the new CPU mean for gamers? And the answer to that is actually not that much.

Looking at raw gaming performance-The Division, Far Cry 5 and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey which are all fairly CPU heavy games and turned up to the highest settings, the MSI GF65 consistently demonstrated its prowess by maintaining an 80 FPS average at 1080p. If you’re more into FPS and multiplayer gaming, you can certainly take advantage of that 120 Hertz screen. The MSI GF65 pulls a 140FPS average on Call of Duty: Warzone on the highest settings. Tweak those settings and hitting 240 FPS wont be an issue but be prepared to invest in a 240 Hertz monitor!

Battery Life

Now lets take a look at the battery life of this thing. The GF 65 thing does a great job considering it’s a gaming laptop, with about six and a half hours in the heavy PC Mark 8 and just over nine hours of Netflix watching is not bad at all. It is considerably better than its counterparts, the MSI Bravo 17 which had a smaller battery so it could keep the 2.5 inch drive but at the same time it is a little worse than the Asus G15. Gaming on battery is not advisable as you will most certainly only get 3–4 hours of gaming out of this thing.thermals and noise

Thermals

If you’re into overclocking and undervolting, thermals are going to be very important to you and this is where the MSI GF65 proves to be impressive again! The MSI’s flagship cooler booster 5 does a fantastic job keeping this thing cool. After 9 hours of intense gaming, the peak temperature this machine hits is a 65 degrees Celsius and a 60 degrees Celsius for the CPU and GPU respectively. Now that’s a BARGAIN! The laptop the fans do have to work hard when running a CPU heavy game, it is coming in at around 50 decibels in extreme performance mode.

What’s Inside?

The bottom panel of the GF 65 is really easy to open and after removing the panel you can see a lot of copper heat pipes and you have access to all key components. You can easily clean the fans, replace the battery, upgrade the memory or change out the network card, however since this already has a Wi-Fi 6 chip there is no reason to do so. Most importantly you can add a second SSD as well with the second slot taking both nvme and SATA drives.

Display

The MSI GF65 comes equipped with a120 Hertz IPS panel. Now it is a cheaper gaming panel that we’ve seen in other laptops as well and it is better than having a 60 Hertz refresh rate panel but still the color gamut is barely mediocre and the other results are also averaged. But none of this matters unless you’re looking to do some color correction work. Now I’m into that sort of thing so I’ve simple connected this to my LG 24-inch display monitor via HDMI. Now the gamut percentage sounds worse than it actually looks in reality and it’s not something you have to worry about when watching Netflix or gaming, especially considering the other results like contrast are actually quite good.

Conclusion

Overall, the MSI GF65 Thin is a fantastic machine, capable of running modern AAA titles comfortably at high framerates. It is more than equipped for doing your daily tasks, and is a wonderful machine for productivity tasks such as video editing, programing, development and what not. A perfect MacBook alternative, crushing the Apple’s overrated laptop in all aspects. I highly recommend this laptop to you all, especially students like me who need all the power in a compact and light machine. Don’t forget to share this article if it helped you. Cheers!

[rwbyremnants]

WARNINGS: roleplay, bondage, blindfolds, tickling, feet, undressing, shibari, dildo, first time, female ejaculation.

Hey guys, I know you came here for the smuts and I won't take up much of your time (or you can skip this author note, don't say you couldn't lmao). But there's a lot going on out there and it's pretty terrifying. If you aren't already doing all you can, visit this Black Lives Matter website for more information on what's up and how you can help. Thanks.

=Chapter 3

Little had seemed to change in the week following Ruby’s first encounter with Winter. She was still living with her dad, still trying to steal little Fènleng at every opportunity when she visited Yang and Weiss, and still searching for her own place.

Rather than return to the other side the country, Penny had opted to live with Ruby and Taiyang while they searched for jobs and apartments in Nashville, now that they had their degrees from university. As content with the arrangement the three of them were, there were many times when Taiyang would prove rather overbearing, often knocking on the door to check things were okay and ask if they wanted drinks, even when they had requested him not to.

Ruby had taken to her laptop once more, looking through various housing websites; just as she did every evening. "Hey, this apartment has two bedrooms, that looks nice!"

"I do not think we need two bedrooms," Penny mused as she sorted through the stack of job applications. They had sent resumes to several places online, but it didn't hurt to consider some minimum wage possibilities to tide them over financially. "Although, it might be nice to use the second one as an office, or a guest room…"

"Or when Fenny's a little older so she can sleep over, or we can get a green iguana and it could be its room, or we could just-" But the silence from Penny spoke volumes. Eventually Ruby stopped talking, looking back to the screen. "Rambling, sorry. But I'll keep looking!"

"You're fine, Ruby." It a simple statement, designed to let Ruby know that she had no problem with her rambling and no more. Then her curiosity got the better of her. "Why a green iguana?"

"Well, have you seen them? I think they'd be so much more interesting than a cat. Not that cats aren't cool, though!" Looking through more of the site's choices, her face seemed to light up yet again at another choice. "Hey, this one here looks really good! And it's in the middle of the city close to the-"

But right away, Ruby stopped. She had been about to admit it was close to The Clamp, the club which Blake had first taken her to when she was exploring. But at last minute, she remembered Penny didn't want to hear about such things. “Theeeee ice cream bar I like… yeah…"

Ruby's strange tone of voice did draw Penny's gaze up, but she hadn't quite caught on what she was trying to avoid mentioning. "There's an ice cream bar you like in midtown? Excellent. You'll have to take me there sometime."

"Huh? O-Oh… Yeah! Sure! Great." Now that had gotten her into a sticky situation. She'd need to find an ice cream bar in the middle of town now. There was certainly no way she could take Penny anywhere near The Clamp. Eventually she turned her chair to face her, leaving her house hunting for later. "How's your job search going?"

"Not great," she sighed, glancing between her own laptop and the papers. "But I have completed a few of these applications. Maybe an exciting beginning in the Walmart industry will be in my future."

"Well, anything is something! I have my savings for a deposit for a place, so we're not in too much trouble if we can't find anything." As always, Ruby was optimistic. She moved over to sit next to Penny on the bed and rested her head against her shoulder. It was a habit of Ruby's, leaning over to watch her as she browsed online.

The arm not occupied with the touchpad reached around to squeeze Ruby closer. She didn't even have to concentrate on doing it, so often did this habit come up. "What do you think about me trying to sell people phones?"

"Like at a kiosk or whatever?" she asked, looking to the job application she had open. A typical highstreet phone store needing another representative. "Sure! I think it'd pay better then Walmart, plus you get to be the one to tell people what's what."

"Indeed! I am satisfied with our current phone plan, but if they offer an employee discount… who knows?" Just then, she heard the telltale jingle of Ruby's default ringtone. That meant it wasn't Yang or Weiss, and obviously not Penny. "Oh, that's funny; we're talking about phones, and yours is ringing! How coincidental."

"Oop, so it is!" Pulling it from her pocket to check who it was, Ruby's face froze a moment. In plain view of Penny, the contact name was 'Winter'. "Oh… One sec."

“Sure,” Penny said in a casual tone. Though her eyes were wide, curious about Ruby’s behaviour.

Untangling herself from Penny's side, she stood again, pacing back toward her chair so she was a small distance from her girlfriend. Mainly for her benefit, and so she couldn't hear Winter should she start dirty talking straightaway. "Hello?"

"What are you wearing?" came the tinny voice, sultry and husky.

Yep, there it was. All that was missing was some cheesy saxophone music in the background and she could have been a late-night commercial for phone sex operators. Ruby's face lit a bright red, eyes as big as dinner plates as she looked back toward Penny for a split second, and then toward the ground as she talked in a hushed tone.

"You can't ask that right outta the gate! What if I was in public?!"

But Winter was already laughing. "You didn't actually have to answer, I was kidding. I'm sorry."

"Well, I would have answered anyway, but I’m not exactly alone." Glancing back at Penny for a moment, she gave a small grin to try and apologise, before looking away. "Penny and I were looking at apartments."

"Ahh." The voice sounded apologetic. "She… does know about our arrangement, doesn't she? I think you told me she does, but I want to make sure. I can be more discreet about contacting you if you need me to."

"No, she does! We just haven’t talked about the nitty gritty details, but she knows it's a thing. In fact…" Covering the phone for a moment, she looked toward Penny instead to ask. "Are you okay with me taking this in here? Or do you want me to leave the room?"

Though Penny did look vaguely uncomfortable, she smiled and said, "It's fine. We're all adults here." She hesitated, then added, "Tell Winter I say 'hello'."

"I'll make it up to you when we're done." Ruby assured with a warm smile, before turning back the other way to talk back to Winter again. "Yeah she's fine. She says hi, by the way!"

"And the same back to her," Winter chuckled. "I suppose I did call out of the blue so I should get to the point. I was wondering if you'd be available for a session tomorrow evening. Say, around six?"

"Tomorrow? I don't think I have anything planned. Lemme just double check," Yet again she covered the phone, and looked right back at Penny. "We have nothing going on tomorrow evening, right? I don't think your dads are here ‘til next week, are they?"

"Nope," Penny said easily. "You can set up an… appointment for tomorrow. I don't mind." Her smile was still a little awkward, but she wasn’t at all outraged or overly disgusted.

"Alrighty." Back to the phone again, she smiled. "Sure, I'm free! Guessing you managed to get rid of your roomie for a bit?"

"Indeed. In fact… I felt a bit regretful that you had to leave so late last time that I've arranged for my 'roomie' not to come back until late the next day. This way, you can sleep here if you're too exhausted to move afterward. And if it's alright with Penny, of course."

The implication was clear; Winter intended to really put Ruby through her paces in one way or another. And that idea was making Ruby blush yet again. Last time already seemed crazy to her! She didn't even know she was ready for more just yet. Swallowing, she nodded. "Cool, sounds good. You didn't have to go through all that trouble though, I don't mind."

"Too late," she told her carelessly. "But honestly, it's fine. So, can I expect you at six? That will give us time to stop and have a drink beforehand again. That seemed to help you de-stress a bit."

"Yeah, six sounds great. I'll ask about sleeping over as well, but it should be fine. I'll see you then!"

And with that, she hung up the call, tucking her phone away in her pocket, before she looked over toward Penny again. Despite her being alright with their arrangement, clearly stating she had no problems, Ruby still felt guilty about leaving her. She needed that reassurance.

"Are you definitely okay with this?"

Penny didn't look quite as easy-going as she did a moment before. "Well… alright. I suppose there isn't any harm, but I'm going to miss you while you're over there."

"I can stay." Immediately, she took her seat back next to her again, wrapping her arms around her and cuddling closely. "Or come back after, whatever you want. I mean it, if you want me to stop then you're totally okay in asking me to."

"I don't. I want you to enjoy sex. Since I do not, it's only logical for you to find somebody who can fill that need." After a breath, she added quite calmly, "Sleeping over there… isn't the same, but it also makes sense from a practical standpoint. You're already there, and doing something that's very… physically demanding. Even getting dressed and hailing a cab would be inconvenient, nevermind driving yourself home."

"There's a little drinking involved so I won't be driving." As if that would somehow make things better. But Ruby only continued to cuddle into her side, delivering a kiss to her cheek before she nuzzled against her neck. "But for real, if you don't want me sleeping there, I won't. I'll Uber it back home to snuggle with you. Because I'd rather you be happy than me have convenience."

"Honestly, it's fine. It's just less of a 'sex only' arrangement, that's all." She turned her sparkling green eyes on Ruby for a moment, gaze level and unflinching. "But I would appreciate you letting me know if things become romantic between you and Winter. Not that it will mean our relationship ends automatically; I can share you. But I won't share you without being aware of it."

"I don't want you to share me," Ruby insisted, looking back into the dazzling eyes of her loved one with honesty as she took her hand in her own, running her thumb over the top of it. "You're the one I want to spend my life with, not Winter. I promise that."

That brought an easy smile to Penny's face, and she leaned over to kiss her lips with great relish. "Not that I was worried about you leaving me, Ruby. I think we know each other well enough by now."

Then, uncharacteristically for the libido-less girl, she allowed herself something like a lewd smile. On anyone else, it would have just looked mischievous, but for Penny, she was practically winking and nudging Ruby in the ribs.

"Have fun with your playdate tomorrow, okay?"

Rolling her eyes, Ruby gave a warm smile back as she squeezed Penny once more. "I will, I'm sure. But for tonight…" She drew herself away, holding the top of Penny's laptop screen for a moment as though she were about to close it. "How about we go to bed early and snuggle up with a few episodes of Doctor Who?"

The smile turned joyful, and she placed her own hand on the side to help swing the laptop shut. "That sounds excellent! I think I've done all I can here, anyway. Shall we order a pizza?"

"You read my mind! Nothing to stop us having a really quiet, relaxing evening to ourselves."

At least, that was what Ruby thought. Until there was a knock at the door, and the voice of her father calling through, "Ruby, could you take Zwei on his evening walk? Make sure to take a bag!"

"…Nothing but picking up dog poop, I guess. Whee…"

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This time, Winter was a lot more nervous about the things she had set up for Ruby's arrival. In most situations, she had a firm grasp of the scene they were setting up; how things would go, and what would be involved. What their roles would be. This time, she was operating with partial information, most of which had been hastily researched specifically for their evening. She had to hope for the best, and that she had not jumbled up anything in her mind.

When she heard the doorbell, she shouted, "COMING!" from the bedroom as she made sure a few last things were set up, glanced at the spare outfit hanging from the back of the door, and at the other one in the bathroom as she passed. Then she nodded to herself as she swept through the house to the front door, took a deep breath, and eased it open.

"Sorry I'm a little late!" Ruby hastily tucked a strand of hair behind her ear again. Once more, she sported the black and red skirt, only with a black tank top to go with it this time. Just the thing for the summer heat. But that didn't stop the knee high boots she always wore from making a second appearance. It was a little more casual than the first evening, a sign of Ruby's growing confidence; but still enough to show she made an effort. "The Uber driver took me the wrong way to try and charge me more, the jerk. He’s getting a frowny-face review."

"No, no, you're right on time," Winter chuckled. She herself was wearing a pencil skirt and a light blouse; a bit dressed up for their evening in, but nothing terribly fancy. "Really, if you came when we said, I'd have still been rushing around setting things up."

"Oh… Well, okay! It all worked out for the best then!" Ruby grinned, taking a few steps into the apartment so Winter could lock the door behind them both. Yet another evening with the building to themselves, thanks to Winter's mysterious roommate disappearing for the night. Strange how Ruby had never met them.

Pacing toward the sofa, she asked, "Oh, am I okay to take my boots off? They're clean, but just in case."

"Hm? Oh, please, make yourself comfortable! Do you want some help?" She gestured to the sofa, which would make a prime spot to shed the boots either way.

"Nah, I got it!" She took a seat at the sofa right away, unzipping her boots to place them one side of the table. Once more she was hearing the calming sound of the well-contained waterfall in the corner, a relaxing ambiance. "So…" Ruby began, sitting back in the chair. "Are we having a drink first again? Or going straight to it?"

"Whatever you like." She gestured toward the kitchen. "This time, I've made sure I have a few easy-to-microwave snacks on hand, if you're hungry. Much as I loved eating dinner with you last time, I… didn't want to assume you were after a longer 'date'. Especially if you wanted to get straight to it. Do you?"

"Huh… Well…" Slowly shrugging her shoulders, Ruby weighed up the options. The way she saw it, it was no different to the times back in college where her and her dorm friends would have a meal together before spending the evening playing games. Winter was a friend, nothing more, nothing less. "Snacks sound great! So we can chill."

A pleasant smile spread across her face, almost one of relief. "Good. That's… that's good. Well, I don't know how you feel about spinach-artichoke dip and pita bread, but I do have other options if that doesn't sound appetizing to you."

"Hey, I’m game!" She tried her best to sound genuine. In truth, anything to do with vegetables wasn't the most pleasing of things to Ruby. But for Winter, she would make an effort. The least she could do was try it and then have another option should she not like it. Plus, they had drinks. "Got anymore of that strawberry ale? That was really nice."

"Restocked it just for you," Winter said over her shoulder as she went into the kitchen.

As it turned out, the dip with pita bread turned out to be a rather pleasant snack. That alongside some mozzarella sticks made for a wonderful snacky meal between them, accompanied with light conversation and one or two drinks to get them feeling at ease with one another. Both had began chatting about various subjects together; work, living at home, even Zwei.

But as they got down to the last of the bread, the subject had changed to college stories. This one in particular, an embarrassing tale about how Ruby managed to walk in on one of her dorm-mates. "All I wanted to get was my DVDs back, I didn't expect to walk in on Pyrrha pinning her boyfriend against the wall! Ever since then, I made sure to knock a lot louder if Jaune was ever over."

"Goodness!" Winter chuckled, wiping a drip of hummus from the corner of her mouth. "Sounds like a disaster narrowly averted to me!" Sighing, she thought that over for a moment before saying, "I wish I had an experience like that. My university was here, so there was no need to live in the dorms."

"Oh it was a blast! Even if me and Penny weren't typical sex-crazed dopes, we all had good laughs. And teased each other whenever we could. Pyrrha and Jaune never lived that down, I’ll put it that way." She continued to giggle to herself, finishing off the last bite quickly once finished with the tale. But just before she took a swig of ale to wash it down, she laughed and added, "I think Jaune was more worried we were gonna tell people that he was clearly the bottom, fragile masculinity and all that."

"Oh? Interesting…" Her head tilted to one side - a bit more than it would have done without the pair of martinis she'd ingested. "Have you ever wondered how it is that… I mean, look around you. I'm your Dom, Blake and Sun go to the club, too… Qrow was there the once. You ended up having quite a few kinky people around you, even though it's not a very typical 'hobby' to have. Isn't that funny?"

Finishing up the last swig of ale, she nodded as she put the glass down. "Yeah! It's a crazy world… maybe kinky people all just gravitate towards one another without realising or something. Who knows?"

"Could very well be," she admitted as she glanced at the half-empty container of dip. "Now then. I have a little something special planned for this evening, but we don't have to get to it right away. What would you like to do next?"

"Special?" That piqued Ruby's interest. Special like the costume Winter had prepared last time? Possibly something on those lines, given the rather mischievous look on her face. Giving a small smile of her own, she crossed her legs. "What kinda ‘special’ are we talking?"

It seemed Ruby was ready to progress their evening. Waggling her empty glass back and forth a few times, Winter then set it down and stood. "If you're ready…?"

"I can be.” Standing and holding a hand out toward her, she said, "Lead the way."

Down the hallway they went to the three doors that branched off to both bedrooms and the bathroom. However, instead of opening the door to her room, Winter gestured to the loo.

"You'll find a change of clothes in there," she told her sub formally. "By the time you've changed, I will have, too - but please knock just in case."

"Alrighty; I'm meeting you in your bedroom, right?" she asked, opening the door to the bathroom and about to step inside, though she lingered around for Winter's answer. She had to double check.

"You are. See you sooooon…" The last syllable was drawn out as Winter waved at her, a twinkle in her eye. With a sly wink of her own, Ruby entered the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind her. For a moment, she had to giggle to herself as she stood against the door, composing herself.

A special surprise, huh? I wonder what it could be. Looking to the towel hangers in the room, she spotted something that could be what Winter had in mind. A long, black robe hanging from one of them, hanging alongside a school uniform. When she walked over to inspect it, she found there was more to it; specifically, an emblem on one of the pockets.

"Hufflepuff! Wait… Is this an official robe?!" It was. Ruby knew rather well how expensive some of the merchandise could be, but Winter had bought her an official Harry Potter robe regardless. Her house, too! She also clearly expected her to wear it for their session today, however, which lead Ruby to wonder… what could the evening possibly entail?

Doing as asked, Ruby slipped off her clothes and put on the robes. Taking a moment to neaten up her appearance in the mirror, she was satisfied and ready to go, leaping out of the bathroom with excitement. Once at Winter's door, she gave a quick knock.

"You may enter."

When Ruby did, she beheld a room completely transformed. A curtain hid the bed entirely from view, and everything else… it looked straight off the sets of the movies. Fake wood paneling covered the floor, a huge old steamer trunk sat nearby, and dark-hued tapestries and paintings did a fantastic job of hiding the normally-pristine walls. There were a couple of very authentic-looking school satchels propped against the wall, and right in the center…

"There you are," Winter said without looking up from the bubbling cauldron set in the middle of the floor. She, too, was dressed in a similar outfit, although finished off with knee-high black stockings and brown shoes. Her own colours were the blue-and-bronze of Ravenclaw, and she was, indeed, flicking a thin wand over the top of the "potion" she had brewing. "I thought your detention would be finished hours ago."

"Holy…" Ruby took a moment to look around in awe. How on earth did Winter manage to do all this on her own? And it was all for her; a fantasy from her favourite books, all hers to live out. She really was someone who went all in to impress their partners, it seemed. Quickly remembering she had a role to play, she stood upright and looked right toward Winter again rather than the look of the room. She could focus on being thunderstruck later.

"U-uh, yes! Well… Lockhart had me signing a bunch of fanmail… it took a long time, got super boring."

"Sounds as if it would be. Oh, and this owl came for you…" She handed over an envelope, one made of yellowed parchment. The address on it was her actual home address, but it was written in calligraphy.

"Oh, thanks!" Taking it from her, Ruby took a moment to inspect the beautiful handwriting. Even just the envelope was a sight to see, and they had barely started! As she gently broke the wax seal at the back, she leant forward to ask out of character before she read what was inside, "Can I keep the envelope?"

"Of course, since it is yours," Winter said in an impatient tone… one that seemed to be equal parts Hermione and McGonagall. The letter read:

Welcome to Hogwarts! Hopefully you can forgive me if I mess up something here or there, you know this is all new territory for me. But I did a fair amount of research; I am a professional! There was a winky face there, which was such an odd thing to see in calligraphy that Ruby had to giggle. Today's safeword is "Muggle." Please do not be afraid to use it, either just to tell me you prefer or don't prefer something, or because you don't want to continue this scene. Otherwise, I'm going to continue to behave as if this is all very real, and you will do the same.

Have fun! -Princess

Muggle, huh? Ruby thought to herself. She really has done her research. This was exciting! A real practice this time, where only that word was her safety net. Ruby was determined to make the most of this new role and play along - not to mention curious to see just how much research Winter had done.

To test, she tried a simple question: "So what's a Ravenclaw doing outside their dorm past curfew?"

The look she fixed Ruby with was withering. "You're the one that needs tutoring with potions, Rose. But if you'd prefer I go back to my own rooms…" She began to move as if to stand up.

"O-oh I… Um, yes! Guess I do," she admitted instead, wandering over to the boiling cauldron. How was Winter keeping it bubbling like that? She didn’t feel much heat. There were so many questions, but it was all as magical as the book world Winter attempted to recreate.

"Good. Now… this Disappearing Solution is through the first phase of ingredients. What's next, do you remember?" Winter's free hand gestured to a carrying case of fake potions ingredients that stood open nearby. Most of the tiny phials looked like they simply held coloured sand or beads, but it was enough to complete the look.

"Disappearing solution? Hmm…" If that was from the books, she couldn’t remember it. Maybe it didn’t matter. Straightening her glasses for a moment, she looked to the “ingredients” Winter had prepared, wondering what would create the better effect for the boiling liquid. In the end, she went for the green food colouring.

"I believe it's goblin’s blood next, right?"

"Exactly," Winter said with a grin. "Go on and add it - not too much, though."

Opening the phial, she allowed a couple of drops to enter the cauldron. Just as she anticipated, it was the right amount to change the colour of the water, to show she'd achieved the goal. Satisfied, she grinned. "Done! And it didn't blow up this time!"

Her Ravenclaw tutor had to suppress a laugh at this, but she managed. "Very good, yes. You'll get an A in Potions yet."

Of course, she meant this to sound complimentary, but she didn't know that an "O" was the most desired grade. Ruby was quick to point it out, chuckling to herself as she reached for a flask of yellow sand to keep herself temporarily occupied. "Don't you mean an O, miss? That's what I hope to get." But, she couldn't help but smirk, muttering to herself under her breath, "In more ways than one…"

Winter scowled at her. "What did I tell you about correcting me while I'm tutoring? That's one punishment you've earned when we're through… keep it up, and I'll add a few more." Clearing her throat, she recomposed herself and consulted the large, old book beneath her. It looked to be some kind of encyclopaedia volume or an atlas in which she had stuck a few pages of notes in the centre. "Now… we let this simmer for two minutes, then add… what, Rose?"

"Sorry miss! We add… U-uh…" No doubt Winter would want to add more and more punishments to the list, and in truth, Ruby was rather curious about that prospect. What kind of punishments would a Hogwarts tutor exactly use? Holding up the flask of sand to her view, she shrugged her shoulders. "Powdered Mandrake, miss?"

Winter pursed her lips, as if deciding to be mean on purpose, or to be more fair. "Very good," she finally said. "But I would hope you'd remember it faster than that by now. Well, go on, shake it in there."

"O-oop! Right!" Taking off the cap, Ruby added a much larger amount of sand to the mixture than she did with the colouring, seeing how it mixed in with the water below. Two ingredients down; how many more was Winter willing to add? But then she thought of something else she could do, and grasped the wooden spoon that rested to one side, giving the “potion” a good stirring for a while to make sure the sand mixed well.

"Gently!" she was warned, with the wand pointed at her. "You don't want to go too fast, or you'll set it off again! Honestly, you're a hazard to our health!"

"S-sorry, Mistress! I thought it would be more viscous." She tried to play along. Once satisfied, she allowed the potion to settle before reaching back to the pack of supplies once more. Perhaps Winter would want other conversations to keep them going, and to stick to the theme. "So… I hear you're doing well in Charms? That's pretty good to hear."

"Potionus Brewus," she said to the cauldron as she waved her wand over it - then sticking her tongue out at Ruby, a briefly out-of-character moment. They both knew that wasn't anything like a spell from the movies or books. "Yes, indeed; the professor says I'm getting top marks. I heard you're improving in there, too."

Having to suppress a laugh of her own, Ruby continued to stand upright as she nodded to her tutor, taking a fake feather from the pack. One that had obviously been painted to look like it belonged to Fawkes, the phoenix from the movie. As she held it above the mixture a moment, she smiled. "Yes! It's probably my better subject. That and Care of Magical Creatures."

"Oh! Don't add that!" Winter warned her with wide eyes, the other hand coming up as if to stop her. "A feather would upset the balance! Ruby, what are you thinking?!"

So she was going to be a little mean. Bringing her hand away from the potion again, she held the feather still in her hand, keeping it still. "But, I thought a few strands from a phoenix feather give it that longer lasting effect? It's better than troll hairs, right?"

"Yes, longer lasting, but only in the hands of an experienced witch! If we do anything slightly off, it will go up in our faces! Again!" Sighing, she snatched the feather away, pointing it at Ruby. "That's two punishments. You know we aren't ready to begin messing with the ingredients list, we're only fifth years!"

So they were in the same year in this scenario? Interesting. It was all little things for Ruby to play with in their fantasy together, things she could use in conversation. Deep down, Ruby would be more than happy to roleplay an entire scene without the sexual part, to live in one of her favourite fantasies for an evening. But the prospect of more sex, if it was going to be as amazing as last time, made it better.

"Well, what would you do to finish it?!" she asked, putting her hands on her hips. "It's not my fault I'm trying new things!"

Rolling her eyes, Winter sighed, "How is it not your fault when you're the one doing it? You sound like a Slytherin." Her head nodded to the phials. "Just use the troll hairs. We're not trying to impress anyone, just getting it done so we know what we're doing in class."

"Alright, alright!" She finally rolled her eyes, collecting one of the phials Winter had prepared. This one seemed to be a few trimmings of her own silver strands of hair, only a few inches long each. Probably from a recent haircut that she had saved specifically for this event. Taking the cork out from the bottle, she poured its contents straight in with the rest of the mixture, before taking the spoon once more to stir.

"That's better." After a few minutes, she sighed and eased her legs apart, moving them off to one side instead of folded up together. "So… how are things with that girl in your dormitory going? The redhead who looks like a Weasley."

"Oh you mean Pe- The Polendina girl?" Maybe that would be a better way to keep up their illusions. Unable to help herself, she smiled happily at the mention of her name, taking the spoon out from the potion and lightly tapping the few drops off of it. "Well, not too bad. But I think she's still a bit anxious towards me. She was startled when I told her I was sleeping in your dorm."

Glancing around with an alarmed expression, Winter hissed with a finger up to her lips. "Shhh! We don't want that getting around, do we?" Clearing her throat, she set down the wand to smooth down her blouse and necktie. "Alright. This is nearly done, so… would you like to mark the results down?"

Her hands moved to one of the satchels and pulled out a ladle and a large potion bottle, complete with stopper. With a mildly disinterested look, she nodded at a roll of parchment, a quill, and a bottle of ink that lay near the potions ingredients.

"Yes, yes of course, Mistress." That name seemed to be an odd habit. Mistress. It suited her well enough, even if not for this particular role. Still, there hadn't been a complaint yet. Taking the roll of paper and the quill, she dipped it into the inkwell, about to press it into the page, when realising she hadn't a clue how to write that neatly. "Um…" she muttered to herself, still paused with the long feather in her hand, trying to hide the drops of ink that splattered on the page by writing as best she could. Which unfortunately, was very messy.

As Winter blew across the liquid resting in the ladle, waiting for it to cool off to put it in the bottle, she glanced at the page and winced. "Dreadful. No wonder I'm always fixing your essays." Then she poured it in and stoppered it. "There, this is for you to turn in tomorrow. I'll pour one for myself."

"Sorry," she muttered again, finishing up the last few words before she took the bottle to set near her paper. All there and ready to go for their “lesson” at a later date.

"Good, Rose. That's brilliant. Now…" Glancing up as she turned down the burner under the cauldron, she favoured Ruby with a smile. "Are you ready for your punishments now, or will you take them later?"

A good question again. Two punishments awaited Ruby at some point, and the more she thought on it, the more excited she was to discover what they would be. Biting her lip with a smile, she shrugged her shoulders again. "Right now will do, Mistress."

Stoppering her own potion bottle, Winter chuckled to herself as she tucked it into the ingredients case and closed it. "I see. In that case… I think it's time we practice a little spellwork, don't you?"

With careful attention, she began to move the cauldron and the burner it sat upon closer to the wall, to give them more room. Ruby could now see that Winter had been sitting on the cord that led to the nearest outlet. Not quite as magical as anticipated it seemed. But it was probably for the best that the burner was switched off before they got into play. A fire would be one of the worst distractions. Focusing her attention back on Winter again, she stood upright, quickly adjusting her glasses once more.

"What kind of spells?"

"Funny you should ask…" Only briefly checking the pages in the middle of the book again, she swished the wand at Ruby and cried, "Petrificus totallus!"

Ruby knew a lot of the spells by heart – including the petrifying curse. She immediately stood straight, arms flat against her body. Taking a very quick glance just to check there was nothing presenting a danger behind her, she then allowed herself to fall back, falling to the ground with a FLUMP!

"Shit!" Winter breathed very quietly at the sound of her hitting the floor, but then cleared her throat. "Good, good. That will help with the punishments a lot." A smirk touched her lips. "Blink twice if you can understand me."

"Owie…" Ruby couldn't help but whisper to herself, slightly shocked at how the fall had hurt. But it wasn't serious at all. And within a few seconds, she looked up toward Winter again, blinking twice as commanded.

"Excellent. You are now at my mercy, Rose." Walking around her on a slow circle, she granted an occasional view up her skirt.

The lack of underwear was enticing. Something Ruby hadn't expected. She couldn't help herself, eyes following as she paced slowly around her, until the naughty sight was no longer visible. Then her focus went back to Winter's face. But rather noticeably, her cheeks were redder than before as she tried to lay as still and stiff as possible.

"Let's just… yes, I think that would do nicely for a start." Squatting down - and again, presenting Ruby with a brief flash of flesh before her legs were in the way again - Winter rolled Ruby over onto her stomach. Still having to remain stiff, Ruby allowed for Winter to manipulate her in this way, curling her hands into tight fists. Something to keep her focused for the time being.

Once she was face down and secure in that position, there came the sound of Winter rummaging in one of the satchels. When she approached again, she said in a clear voice, "And now… Incarcerous."

The spell was accompanied by the feeling of something slithering over Ruby's bare calf. Something thin, but made of a type of fabric.

"Hmm?!" Unable to see what was happening, or even ask, Ruby was forced to put up with whatever Winter intended for her. Feeling the strange fabric seeming to crawl over her legs sent a small shudder up her back, making her bite her lips to try and suppress any sounds.

Now that the effect had been established, the work had to be done. Next, Ruby could feel a long, thin rod being pushed under her arms and stomach; it felt similar to the material that had teased the backs of her legs, but not quite the same. Then a thick knot of what was surely… rope. It had to be rope, there wasn't much else it could be; a thin cord maybe half an inch thick, at the most. Blinking in shock, Ruby had no choice but to be bound. It wasn't just to hold her steady, it had a pretty appearance, too.

Once Winter was done, Ruby was still left on the floor in her previous position, waiting patiently for Winter to lift the first spell. However, she did not… quite yet, anyway. Instead, there was another muttered spell: "Obscuro."

This time, thin fabric slid down over Ruby's eyes from above, settling into place and blocking out all light. Blindfolds as well?! Winter really was going all out with her new sub this evening. Now Ruby couldn't move, even if she tried to! What else could Winter possibly have in store? A gag?

No. They hadn't established a signal for that. Winter wouldn't make things that extreme just yet; they would need to build toward it. That came with just as much relief as it did disappointment, but perhaps some day…

"There," she sighed, trailing the very tip of the wand up and down the back of Ruby's thigh. Tying her up had bunched the back of her robes off to one side, which looked quite awkward but did at least reveal more of her shapely legs. "Now then… Finite petrificus."

Finally she was allowed to relax her body. And she did so, first by testing the bindings; pulling this way and that, she struggled against them as much as she could, discovering they were holding well. Now she really was at Winter's mercy.

"Oi!" she called out, struggling again. "Are you mad?! What if Filch catches us?"

"Shhhhh!" Winter warned her. "Or else I'll use a…" Another pause to glance at the book. She really was trying her best, even if she hadn't quite memorized every detail she would need. "Langlock on you!"

That shut Ruby up. Trying to look toward Winter as best she could, she struggled against the bonds on her hands again. More than anything, it was to make a show for Winter, to display how helpless she was. Something she hoped she would like. "What are you gonna do to me?"

A low chuckle floated out as she grasped Ruby's ankles and raised them up. "Well, first I have to finish what I couldn't with you stiff as a board like that." Then she began to tie the ropes around her ankles, much in the same fashion she had done around her sides and wrists. They actually connected to the tie around her wrists, in fact.

What an embarrassingly compromising position! Any effort to move her hand would surely result in exposing more of herself, revealing her in the process. Even if she was still wearing her underwear, it wasn't exactly something she wanted to display so easily. Wriggling again once it was tied, she turned her head toward Winter.

"I-it feels… good, Mistress."

At that, Winter frowned, but it was clearly a theatrical one. "Aww, what kind of punishment is it if it feels good? Oh well… guess we'll have to move on to the next one." More rummaging sounds came from nearby.

"Oh, I-I mean, u-uh…" Ruby stuttered. She meant to try and please her master, not further annoy her into making more punishments for her! Still trying to look around foolishly, she listened carefully for what her mistress was doing, unable to hear anything she could identify.

"Are you ready, Rose?" Winter demanded as she drew closer again.

And then came the feeling of her socks being pulled off. Seemed she had no choice but to see what Winter had in store for her. Swallowing, she whispered, "Yes."

There was a brief pause, and a quiet chuckle to herself. Then Winter bellowed, "Rictusempra!"

And without a second's delay, suddenly light, teasing sensations were sliding up and down the sides of her legs, over the soles of her feet, even briefly over her wrists and knuckles.

"Wha-haha! Hahahaha! Hehe hahaaaa!" Right away, Ruby was laughing and giggling loudly, reduced to a squirming mess on Winter's bedroom floor. She couldn't escape it! Whatever Winter was using for her spell was tickling her most sensitive areas, making it difficult to focus on anything else.

"Ahhh, this seems to be doing the trick!" Winter cackled as half of the sensation moved to the back of Ruby's neck, while the rest continued to slide from ankles to knees.

"Hahaha! No! S-stop! Hahahaha!" But from the silly grin on her face and the immense laughter, it was unsure to tell if Ruby really did want her to stop or not. She continued to squirm as best she could, trying to shrug her shoulders to keep Winter away from her neck, but failing miserably. She could do nothing about any of it but squirm, and wait till Winter was done.

Or use their safeword... but no, she didn’t want to chicken out. Not just yet and not so easily.

"Oooh, I think I- I mean, the spell has found the parts where Ruby Rose is most ticklish!" A little giggle followed as the teasing bits poked into her ear briefly, but only for a second before returning to the back of her neck. Meanwhile, the other half returned to her toes, swishing back and forth at a rapid pace.

"Hehehe! Nooo! I-it hahahaha I-it's too, haha! Much!!!" But Ruby was absolutely powerless, no matter how much she wriggled away from it. It just kept coming, over and over again, making it difficult to keep talking at all. She felt her toes flexing, fists clenching to try and hold on.

After another few seconds that felt like an eternity to the poor girl, Winter said in a bemused voice, "Finite Rictusempra." The sensations all fell away. "I may have to use that one on you again; it's great fun, and great practice."

It took a few extra seconds for the sensations to die down, and the poor girl to go slack. Finally she could lay against the floor and catch her breath, panting heavily to do just that. Whatever Winter used to tickle her certainly did the trick.

"Goodness me," Winter said, in the "Hogwarts Student" accent and tone she had been using most of their play. "I didn't think that would have that great of an effect on you, Rose! How do you feel?"

Ruby eventually tried to look back toward her again, giving a small smile and a nod back at her, and attempting to make a thumbs up gesture with her hand. While she was still breathless, it was just enough to assure she was feeling alright enough to continue, just exhausted from the tickling.

"Ooh, glad to hear that. Do you want to feel… better?" The question was vague, but had a distinct implication of what kind of "better" Winter might have meant. As she asked that, the thin, cold length of her wand passed up and down the outside of Ruby's calf. Thankfully, it wasn't the same type of sensation she'd just put up with moments before.

"B-better?" she finally had the breath to ask, leaning to try and look toward where Winter was touching. Not to much use at all. She assumed Winter was using a wand, given the texture of it, but couldn't be too sure. Whatever it as, it felt good to give her the attention she craved. She wanted more. "Yes, I.. I think so."

The sensation moved down until it was trailing over the backs of Ruby's thighs, over each inch with the lightest touch. Eventually, that meant pushing her skirt upward along with it. There was a light gasp from Ruby as she was being exposed all the more to Winter, able to feel the cool air caressing her thighs right up to her rear cheeks. Something sharp and warm closed around the blade of her foot as what was presumably the wand kept taunting the back of her thighs.

Had Winter just… bit her foot? The "Mmmm" that vibrated against the skin would seem to suggest she really had. Unable to help herself, Ruby curled her toes again to test the sensations. Sharp teeth were still present, biting against her flesh. Why Winter would be so interested in one of her feet was beyond the Hufflepuff girl. But it was happening, and not too unpleasant, either.

Then she could feel the wand right against the lining of her undies, causing yet another gasp. Noticing the gasp, Winter answered it - for what turned out to be the wrong reason. "Sorry, just watching these wiggle around during the Tickling Jinx… I felt like a cat watching a mouse try to escape. Made me want to attack."

Another bite, this one softer, just in case Ruby had not enjoyed the first as much as she let on. But yet again, Ruby wriggled her toes back and forth against the sensation. It was certainly interesting, and if Winter enjoyed it, she couldn't argue. In fact…

"Does Mistress like my feet?" she asked, trying to suppress a giggle.

"How dare you accuse me of that, Rose!" Winter cried out, again in her "Hogwarts" accent. Then, playing it up for effect, she pitched her voice so that it would sound very slightly nervous, combined with a lot of budding desire. "I wouldn't… like such a thing…" Lips grazed over the sole near where teeth had just clamped down moments before.

A small smirk graced Ruby's lips again as she waved her toes, very gently moving her feet back and forth. "It feels like you do… Is that a kiss I feel there?"

Unbeknownst to the tied-up girl, the blush that crept into Winter's cheeks was not at all staged. Not so much because of the topic, but because Ruby had discovered one of her secret kinks: a sub teasing her as a Dom.

"N-no," she breathed, kissing again, and harder. "This… it isn't what you think, you silly Hufflepuff…"

"I think it iiiis," Ruby continued, and once again wriggled her feet in a teasing manner, curling her toes on occasion. "I think you're a foot worshiper, aren't you?"

The teasing was working far more than Ruby knew. Her cheek nuzzled the wiggling toes as she breathed, "Stop, you… you can't know that…"

Obviously, she wasn't very convincing, so she decided to try to distract Ruby by pressing the wand inward against her centre again.

There was another small gasp inward as Ruby felt herself getting touched directly. Right against her panties with the wand, and it was so hard! An unfortunate side effect was how it made her think of possible other things that could go in there… Such thoughts were making her grow warmer, wetter. She found herself biting her lip, trying to suppress a moan.

"You like that, don't you?" Winter breathed, turning the teasing around on her sub now as she rubbed the wandtip up and down her sensitive lips through the thin material. "You like it when I expelliarmus your panties off."

"I… don't think that's how the spell works," she commented, but continued to squirm under Winter's movements, trying to shuffle herself away from the wand for the sake of her dignity. An attempt that failed miserably.

"I think it is." Of course, Winter didn't know for sure, but for the moment it didn't matter. "And… I think it's time we go a little further, don't you? I can't leave you tied up all day long." Her lips quirked. "Or…. can I?"

There was no response to that, other than Ruby clearly swallowing. There were advantages to her remaining tied for the evening; Winter would have full control, Ruby would simply have to go with the flow. But the disadvantage of remaining tied was that Ruby would still be clothed. It would be rather difficult for Winter to do anything to her.

"In fact… I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere. Oh, wait…"

And there was a strain of light laughter as all pressures disappeared from the rest of Ruby's body, and she heard shoes clopping away from her.

"Huh? Mistress? …Winter?!" Upon hearing Winter walk away, she tried to look around yet again. Curse that blindfold! There was no way Winter would just leave her tied up and sightless, was there?!

Apparently, there was. The room was entirely silent for about five minutes; not even the sound of a ticking clock to break up the silence. There were distant sounds in the rest of the apartment, so at least she knew Winter was still around there somewhere.

"…Great."

Left in a compromising position, bound and blind, Ruby had no choice but to wait out her time. Shuffling yet again, the bounds held tight. Escaping that way was out. She could attempt to yell out the safeword… "No, she has the room soundproofed. She wouldn't be able to hear me." There wasn't anything she could do, other than try and get comfortable and await her master's return.

"Ahhhh," Winter sighed softly as she reentered the room. "There's my favourite pupil, right where I left her. So patient!" The voice grew closer, and to one side of Ruby. "Did you have a nice break?"

"Winter?!" It was as though Ruby was barely able to believe she'd got back from the shocked tone of voice. Squirming yet again against the bonds, she groaned, "That wasn't funny! You just left!"

A hand patted her backside - perhaps a little harder than was necessary, but still nowhere near a spanking. "You were fine, I'm sure. And I brought you a little treat, too…"

"What if I needed the bathroom, or had a panic atta- wait, a treat?" she asked, yet again making a futile attempt to look.

"Yes," Winter cooed. "A treat for Rose. Here, I'll give you a hint…"

And suddenly, there was a sharp, ice-cold sensation directly between her thighs. Not quite high enough to reach anywhere more sensitive, but not far off, either.

"HAAAAH!" Yet again, Ruby tried to shuffle herself forward and away, squirming almost as much as she had when she was tickled. "What the heck is that?!"

"The question is, do you like it?" The object turned very slowly, and that revealed that it was round. Also, wet; she could feel moisture running down the inside of her legs to the floor.

"It's freezing!" Ruby truly hadn't a clue what was being placed on her skin. The more it turned, the colder it was. There was no way that she could get away from it. "Seriously, what is it?!"

Giggling, the object was removed and brought around to Ruby's face, and chill, smooth glass was pressed up against her lips. "I fetched you some refreshment."

"God, it was freezing…" Ruby continued to comment, although when feeling the edge of it touch her lips she puckered them ready to take a sip, waiting for Winter to pour it gently. So Winter tipped it up for her, the other hand pressing gently against her forehead to help her head remain upright while she swallowed.

"Do you like?"

Taking a few sips from the glass, she welcomed the strange gingery flavour, with a hint of cream. It was a flavour she didn't recognise, but a good one. Finally trying to turn to one side once she'd had enough, she sighed. "That was nice, actually."

"A little butterbeer to quench your thirst."

Then soft lips were replacing the mouth of the bottle, pressing in so gently it was almost as if they weren't there. Relishing in the small kiss for a moment, Ruby hummed contentedly. And then realised; Butterbeer! That had to be imported either from Florida or from the UK studios. Winter really got some just for her to try? How much was her master willing to spend on her sub?

When their lips parted again, Winter whispered, "Fancy any more, Rose? Or do you want to be out of these ropes quicker? Your choice."

Again, the choice. She could be out of the ropes at last, to be free to either end their play there or finish in a simple manner. Or, they could make things more intense. Once again, she got thinking; what if she wasn't wearing clothes under the ropes? What if she was tied and naked, an item for Winter to just freely use? It was an exciting thought, one that brought all the more heat to her sex. Her Dom hadn't even seen her naked properly – not yet. But that didn't stop Ruby from egging her on.

"Don't suppose you have a spell to get me naked in these ropes, do you?"

"Hmm…" A few seconds ticked by with Winter thinking that proposition over. Then she leaned down and whispered, "Muggle," before slightly peeling up one side of Ruby's blindfold so she could see her.

Finally she could see. Blinking to adjust to the light again, Ruby made eye contact with her Dom, tilting her head questioningly. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No, no," Winter assured her immediately with a gentle smile. "But I wanted to ask… would you rather we stop this play and strip you? Or do you want 'Winter the Ravenclaw' to be more hardline with you and tell you 'no'? I have… ideas for either choice." That word being stressed made it sound an awful lot like Winter wasn't bluffing.

"Ideas?" It certainly got Ruby's attention. If she had plans either way, then there was nothing to lose. What did Ruby want? Truthfully, she wanted to remain in the fantasy world they had created. To be the small, helpless student at the mercy of her Ravenclaw tutor. Perhaps not a teacher, but it was close enough to her darkest fantasy; she could pretend. Biting her lip, she smirked mischievously.

"Well… I do like Winter the Ravenclaw…"

Chuckling at the impish grin on her sub’s face, the Dom traced her fingertips through Ruby’s hair. “Maybe we can reach a compromise. What if we keep the scene ‘paused’, and I untie you and strip you as quick as I can? Then we’ll ‘unpause’, and act as if it’s all been a spell to undress you.”

That was exactly what Ruby wanted. There would be no way they could actually remove clothes through the bindings, but it would be the closest thing to her potential fantasy. A brief moment to simply set things up for the next scene. Giving a nod, she tried to shuffle her hands again.

"Sounds good. You don't have to tie me back up as pretty as this if you don't want to."

"Oh, I'm a shibari master," Winter informed her. "Without feigning the spellwork, I could redo that in five minutes or less. But I also have some other apparatus with which to hogtie you again if you'd rather not wait."

"You really do have everything here!" Ruby teased, flexing her fingers slightly as Winter began to loosen what was on her. Finally her arms were freed, then she moved on to her feet. Shrugging her shoulders, Ruby smiled. "I gotta admit, I'm curious. But I think going back to the ropes would be better for the pausing thing."

"We can do that another time. I mean, if you're still enjoying our arrangement." As her hands raised up and began helping Ruby remove her "uniform", she added, "Believe me, I have an entire closet full of possibilities, and a fairly empty social calendar in the evenings and on weekends. There will be time."

"As long as your roomie's okay with it." Ruby continued to help with removing her clothes, unbuttoning her shirt gradually for her pleasure. Although, while they were on that subject… "How come they aren't here, anyways?"

"Out making themselves scarce." When Ruby only quirked an eyebrow, she snorted, "They know what I get up to here, and that under those circumstances, I appreciate having the place to myself. Don't worry, no one's going to bust in on us."

Smirking again, she gave a rather taunting wink back to Winter. "Do they have this sort of arrangement with you?"

Luckily for both of them, at that exact second, Winter had been about to undo the black-and-yellow necktie from around Ruby's collar. Instead, she grasped it and jerked her forward so their bodies were flush with each other. She gazed straight into her silver eyes.

"That… would be asking me to breach a Dom-sub nondisclosure agreement. And you wouldn't do that… would you, Lady?"

The mischief vanished. All Ruby could do was look back into Winter's eyes with a mixture of fear and arousal. She really did have her wrapped around her little finger. "N-no, ma'am! Sorry!"

But in a way, it answered her question. Otherwise Winter would have outright said no, rather than calmly avoid the question. But there was a new question she now asked herself out of curiosity: was Winter a Dom or a sub with this mysterious roommate?

"You're forgiven." She kissed Ruby's nose briefly. "And no harm done. I just don't want you prying into that kind of thing too much, or getting into the habit of doing it at the Clamp, either. It's… impolite, and could get you hurt if you do it to just the wrong person."

"Okay. Understood, yeah… won't do that," she backtracked, sliding off her skirt and tossing it aside. It was a fair point on Winter's part that she shouldn't pry into people's business. Anyone could be dating anyone, for numerous reasons. It wasn't for Ruby to know, and she had to protect them as much as she would want to be protected.

Moving on to the task she was looking forward to, but equally nervous about, she reached her hands behind her to the straps of her bra. Pulling it together to prise it free, she allowed it to slide off her arms, revealing her modest chest to Winter. Releasing the necktie, having opted not to take it off after all, Winter reached down and traced her fingertips around either side of the erect little peaks.

"Ohhh… have I told you lately how much I enjoy your form? All of it… and I'm straight six days of the week!"

"I guess I'll have to note down Wednesday is your gay day." Ruby giggled to herself at that little joke. But the hands on her chest were irresistible. She found herself having to lean forward against them, smiling contentedly when soft thumbs moved over the tips. So soft, even when she was at her mercy.

"Guess you will." Her smile slipped on one side. "Actually, I'm sorry you haven't been here in a couple of weeks; I was waiting for some of these supplies to come in. Plus there was a lot going on at the office."

"It's fine! Don't worry about it." Taking a moment to stand still and recover, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and added, "I can imagine things are hectic right now with Fènleng on the scene. Yang mentioned they've had a few people at their door asking dumb questions so I can't imagine how much more you've had if you're the middle man."

"It's…" Winter reconsidered what she had been about to say, hands pausing on Ruby's stomach. "Well, not exactly a 'PR nightmare', but it's made a lot more work for us. But that's shop talk, and you're here to play." Her hands glided around the waist, index fingers dipping just under Ruby's waistband.

"Yeah but, we're paused." She held onto Winter's hands for a moment to stop her, looking up into her eyes to catch her attention. "You can talk to me, y’know. I'm not just a sub, I wanna be a friend to you, as well."

For whatever reason, the insistence from Ruby made the taller woman blink down at her with some surprise. "Of course you aren't just a sub. At the very least, you're my sister-in-law. But even more…" Her fingers came up to caress the soft apple cheek of the girl in front of her. "You're already my friend. Just a… new one."

Smiling back gratefully, Ruby allowed one of her hands to hold Winter's against her cheek still, leaning in against it. "Good. So if you want to talk about whatever, we can."

Is this delving into romantic territory? she thought to herself. That was one of the major rules Penny had against their arrangement. No romance; at least, not without telling her. And though she insisted it wouldn't happen, here she was - just about naked, looking up affectionately to Winter. In a very similar manner she would with Penny. Was it a step too far?

Perhaps Winter had recognized that, as well, because she smiled a bit wider and gave Ruby a light kiss on the forehead; one more like Yang would give her than Penny. Obviously, it was a move to tone down the emotional vibe between them. "No, no, I'm finished. It's nothing I can't handle." Then she reached the other hand down to squeeze Ruby's backside. "I'm much more interested in finishing our scene than rehashing crap from the office."

"Oooh…" Clenching her rear muscle slightly against the hand, Ruby purred with surprise. But alas, she too was far more interested in reaching the end of their play than anything else. That didn't mean she wasn't going to ask later, though. "Alrighty." Finally letting to of Winter's hands, she smiled mischievously again. "I believe you were removing my undies?"

"Yes. Let me see you stripped." The fingertips raised up again, pulling at the waistband until it began to slip downward. Ruby was prepared for this; below she was freshly trimmed, making everything neat and tidy for her Dom. Assisting further, Ruby stepped out the underwear once she'd lowered them enough, letting Winter place them with the rest of her clothes.

Then for the last item. Her glasses. Taking them off and folding them neatly, she quickly leant over to put them down on one of Winter's desks. That was something she couldn't risk throwing among the pile.

"You could have left them on," Winter chuckled softly, eyes sliding up and down her flawless form. "The whole 'Potter' thing. But it's okay if you don't want to have them in harm's way, should things get… vigorous."

"Yeah, was kinda worried about it." Though stepping away from Winter again, she reached to pick up one of the ropes on the floor, innocently handing it toward her. "Speaking of which…?"

A wicked grin flashed across her face. "Ohhh, I am gonna enjoy this."

And she did. In a matter of minutes, she had Ruby hogtied on the floor again, the ropes tied in such intricate, visually appealing patterns up the front of her, above and below her breasts… around her hips, ankles, wrists. Everything was tight, but not so tight that it would be uncomfortable or cut off her circulation. She really had done this many times… or had it done to herself many times, at the least.

Right away Ruby assumed her role, faking a nervousness in her voice. "I can't believe you’ve done this! How can you be sure Filch won't walk in?"

"Because I magically locked the door!" Winter snapped, walking around Ruby in a circle now. Completely missing Ruby’s meme reference. "But of course, we both know you don't mind this as much as you're pretending! Isn't that right, Rose?!"

Struggling again against the bonds, she looked toward her master once more. Still slightly nervous, but more excited about what was to come. Winter was right. "I'm not giving you that satisfaction!" she shouted back, tugging at her ankles. "Not when I could tease you more!"

And Winter's eyes flicked toward the ankles and back. "Hah! As if that's…" Another flick. "Stop changing the subject! I have you tied up, and I'm going to make sure you remember it!"

Yet again, Ruby curled her toes and flicked her ankles again, smirking to herself. Even in character, it was beginning to grow more obvious just how well it was working, how attracted to her body Winter was. This really was a “gay day”.

"Oh I'll remember," she goaded. "I'll remember how much you can't resist me!"

After a second, Winter whispered under her breath, "Damn. Forgot to put the blindfold back." She bent over at the waist and quickly tugged it into place, then breathed, "Sorry," before straightening again.

"Ow!" With how quickly she tied it she had managed to catch a few strands of hair. But it was enough that could be ignored. Besides, she knew she was obviously getting to her master. "You really do, huh?" She grinned. "Wow, I never expected how much you did!"

"Do what?" Winter hedged, back in her "Hogwarts" accent once again now that she had fixed that minor mistake. "Do want to tease my trussed up turkey?"

So it wasn't working anymore. Growing nervous again, the grin was slowly vanishing from her face, where she bit her lips nervously instead. "A-and how… how will you do that?"

Satisfied that her ploy to distract Ruby had worked, both in and out of character, Winter chuckled. "Oh, I have a special spell for that…" There was the sound of rooting through a satchel once more, then a page being turned nearby. When she returned, she knelt by Ruby's side, seemingly ready to proceed.

"Are you ready for the ultimate in witchcraft?" Even to her own ears, the line sounded silly, but she hoped her sub wouldn't mind too much.

Swallowing, said sub leant her head against the ground and resigned herself. Winter was going to have her way, and there was nothing she could do to stop her. No more teasing. Eventually she nodded, waiting for what she would do. "Yes."

"Good. First… Engorgio!" Of course, there was no actual sound of the spell taking effect, but Winter paused as if there were. Then she breathed, "Now, we are ready."

An instant later, something textured and semi-firm was brushing up and down the insides of Ruby's thighs. Suddenly Ruby's muscles tensed up again. That felt a lot thicker than her wand did… Maybe Ruby's idea that Winter would use some kind of object to tease her wasn't so far fetched after all. And that spell…

"What is that?" she asked. "Why does it need to be bigger?"

"It's something just for my Rose," Winter cooed, trailing it higher and higher until it was within a hair's breadth of her moistened lips. "She's going to take it… ohhh, she's going to take it deep."

Clenching her muscles closed again instinctively, her eyes opened wide behind the blindfold. There really was something going inside her tonight. Something big, and as she said, something that would get deep. Biting her lip nervously, she shuddered at the thought.

"O-oh… wait, be careful! I've never, um, had anything that big before!"

As it began to edge its way between the folds, Winter cooed, "First time for everything. And you can't do a thing to stop me, tied up like you are…" As it delved a little further in, she continued to taunt her. "You don't want me to stop anyway, do you? Yes… yes, you're really looking forward to this. To me opening you up."

Feeling it right against her lips had her breath quickening. And Ruby wasn’t lying; she really hadn't had anything too big inside her body. Nothing bigger than two fingers, at least. And from the feel of whatever Winter had, this was going to be a fair bit bigger. Would it cause damage if Winter rammed it inside so quickly?

Biting her lip nervously, she had to call up out of character, "Winter, I'm serious. Just… Go slow? At first?"

"I'll do what I want, you Hufflepuff!" Winter snapped. But the latter was clearly added to remind Ruby that they were, after all, still playing out a scene. At the same time, the object ceased its slow, inward progress and instead began to shift back and forth very slightly.

Ruby gasped shakily. This was really happening! And by Winter's gradual pace, it was going to head deeper and deeper, even if not right away.

After another moment of teasing her body, preparing her, it began to push in again - and there was more resistance. Winter seemed to hesitate, then placed a hand on Ruby's shoulder, stroking up and down for a moment. She was waiting for a signal; should she continue, or did Ruby not want what was about to happen to happen under these unusual circumstances?

But there was no response from Ruby. She seemed unaware of what was truly happening within her body. What was being pushed against. That was until Winter pushed a little more, and could feel something give. And that something had her wincing fairly loudly. A sharp, intense pain, like something had torn.

"Muggle! Muggle!!"

The presence inside of her vanished, and Winter pulled up the blindfold, cradling her face in both hands. "Are you alright?!" she demanded the instant they could establish eye contact.

Ruby’s legs closed tightly, eyes clenching shut still as she bore the pain. Already she could feel her eyes watering, but she held herself back. She couldn't cry in front of her dom, that would ruin everything! "What the heck was that?! It felt good, then… then something felt weird, and it really hurt, I just freaked out!"

"Why didn't you tell me?!" Winter snapped, somewhere between angry and sad. "I'd never have done it this way if I had known – you should have disclosed to me before we ever had our first scene!"

"I did!" She finally managed to open her watery eyes again, still holding herself back. It was more from that sudden pain than truly feeling sad. "I said I'd never had anything that big! I didn't know taking things bigger would hurt!"

"Then you… really didn’t- alright." Sighing, she pinched the bridge of her nose. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get upset, but… it's unusual that you would have taken anything in without clipping the hymen. But now it's done, so… so there's no use in crying over spilled milk."

Oh… THAT'S what that was, she thought to herself, sniffling as she looked back down toward the ground. No wonder Winter was so upset that she didn't know; it was something that no one could give her back. Blinking a few times to try and clear her tears, Ruby shook her head again before she looked back up to her.

"Sorry, I had… I had no idea. Like, I thought that only- I d-don’t know what I thought. Sounds like my school's sex ed fucking sucked, huh?"

But of course, Winter saw the sparkle of wetness on her eyelashes, and frowned further. "God, Ruby… I would have done this so differently. If I did it at all! I should have- well, I say I should have looked, but that would be pretty strange. I'm not your gynecologist." She traced her fingernails through Ruby's hair. "Are you okay, though? Do you need me to untie you?"

She shook her head again. "No! No I don't want that. I mean…" For a moment, she looked to one side, instinctively leaning her head against the hand that was fussing through her hair. Even when her hands a moment ago were teasing and enticing her, they did just as good a job at calming her right down, relaxing her.

"I was really enjoying it. So hot, even if kinda weird. I just… I didn't know it would hurt that much. Will it still hurt? Or is… that it now?"

"It might still be a little sensitive," Winter admitted. "But the worst of it will be over now. I'm so sorry this had to happen this way, with you tied up, and…" Bending low, she kissed the top of Ruby's head. "Virginity is such an overrated thing, anyway. It doesn't matter in the slightest. What matters is if you're enjoying yourself."

"Well, I've heard of people ripping theirs when riding horses and stuff. That's why I guess I kinda assumed I didn't have one or something, with me and Penny doing stuff in the past…" But after a short while, she finally parted her legs again, into the same position they once were. And with a small nod, she smiled. "I do wanna keep going, though."

A very soft laugh floated out of Winter's throat, betrayed as it was by her sad eyes. "You're a real trooper, Ruby Rose. And… when we're finished with our scene, I have a treat for you - not a 'Lady' treat, but something I think you'll like." Clearing her throat, she leaned down to kiss her head again before reaching up to the blindfold. "Ready to begin?"

That made everything all the more sweeter. Winter wasn't angry with her after all; that enough was plenty of relief for the smaller girl. As things went, it was probably the best outcome for the loss of something so intimate. Even if it wasn't Penny, it was someone she trusted deeply. Trusted so much, she wanted to continue until the end. Nodding, she smiled.

"Ready."

"Okay." The blindfold came down to eclipse her vision again. Seconds later, she whispered, "Begin play" for good measure.

"Alright, Rose," the colder voice snapped as the foreign object began to push its way into her once more. "I'm about to change your entire world."

Yet again, her breath quickened. In the blink of an eye, Winter could go from a calming presence to a merciless Dom. It was something she adored, but also feared at the same time. Winter truly was a mystery. Biting her lip as the object slid past her defenses, she took another breath in preparation. .

And this time, it wasn't stopping, even if the pace was as gradual as before. Moreso, in fact; Winter seemed to have taken Ruby's newly-discarded virginity into consideration, even if her character did not.

"Ooh, look at you taking all of this… every last inch of it. You really were dying to have me invade you, weren't you? Such a naughty Hufflepuff."

When it slid past the point that hurt last time, there was a small shudder that went through her body. But not one of pain. One of pleasure. One that was made so obvious when she looked outward blankly against the blindfold, moaning out rather quietly.

Humming with satisfaction, Winter manoeuvred herself around to one side, positioning herself with her head just above where her wrists and ankles were hogtied so that her arm could get a better angle. As could her vision; looking straight down, she was just able to glimpse what she was doing to Ruby's sensitive sex.

And within a few more seconds… "There. All the way filled. How does that feel?"

"It's so big…" she half-whispered, half-moaned. Whatever Winter had used to fill her insides truly was larger than anything she had ever taken. And when she tested it by clenching her muscles even tighter against it, she found herself moaning outward again, arms quivering in pleasure. Which in turn, caused her ankles to twitch, as well.

Which Winter did notice, but she was determined to ignore. That was a separate play for a separate occasion; Ruby was experiencing being filled for the first time, and it was her duty to make sure the orgasm was one of the best she'd ever had.

"Do you like it this big?" Winter demanded of her, turning the thick shape within her very slowly. "Does it touch you in ways you didn't think you could be touched?"

"Oooohhh…" she strained out once again. It truly was teasing her in all the right places! And as she rotated the object, it was touching all the more of her, brushing against her inner walls in new and insane ways. "Yes!" she moaned, clenching her muscles down onto the object. "God, it really does, Mistress!"

"Good," Winter cooed, bringing it around to the original position. Then she began to slowly pull it back out of her. Inwardly, she hoped Ruby would say something if this was moving too fast, but her Dom persona certainly wouldn't stop to ask at that juncture.

It certainly wasn't. The sub found herself missing the sensation of being filled again. She wanted it back in there, back deep. Was something wrong with her to crave something so depraved? If there was, she didn't care right now. Especially not when she made a silly attempt to move back against the object.

However, unbeknownst to Ruby, her Dom didn't think it was silly at all. It filled her with a tingling of lust to see the girl, newly christened a woman, so eager to participate and enjoy these foreign sensations. So she slowly began to ease it back inward - though it was a fair bit faster than the time previous.

Yet again, there was another strained moan. Feeling it re-enter after a brief period away was so good! Far better than she ever expected it to be! And with the speed growing even faster than it had before, it hit all new places, teased all new parts of her. She loved it. Maybe she really was growing more corrupt, craving more obscene things for her body.

As she watched Ruby writhe below her, Winter held onto her shin with the free hand, to steady both of them. With more leverage now, she began to push it in and out of Ruby at a faster pace, listening to the sounds it was beginning to create.

"She's so wet," Winter cooed at her sub. "Wet and ready. Mmm, next time I'll have to drink her… bottle her up as a potion, perhaps." A particularly jerky thrust, just for variety. "A potion of lust."

"Hah… Ah…" The moans were continuous now. As Winter continued at a faster pace, her callings of pleasure were syncing up perfectly – a melody to rival that of her Dom's sister's singing, all summoned by the movements of that object pumping in and out of her. She no longer cared what it was, just that it wouldn't stop. Not until she got the finish she was craving.

As Ruby writhed and moaned, enjoying the pounding that was heightening her pleasure with every pass, Winter found herself with a small, unexpected problem. There really was no other way for her to continue to do what she was doing, no other angle from which to best deflower her – not without rolling her over, anyway, and that would be too painful on the poor girl's limbs. Therefore…

She was stuck face-to-feet, staring at what Ruby had been using to tease her earlier. Not glancing at them very often was working so far, but the faster she slid her instrument of pleasure in and out of Ruby, the more the toes curled and uncurled. Would they prove impossible to ignore, after all?

"Oooohh!" And that got particularly worse when Winter hit one spot. When she angled against her spine slightly, something felt even better than before, causing Ruby to yell out in even louder pleasure. She was already beginning to sweat before, but this was making her fists clench… and toes curl in as tightly as they could.

Hot breath caressed over Ruby's ankles as Winter began to feel the effects of her exertion, having to thrust into her over and over with the as-yet-unnamed object. She may have been in fantastic shape, but even she would sweat during a workout. And bringing her sub off definitely qualified.

"Do you… like it right there?" she asked, trying to replicate the effect with her next thrust.

Thankfully, it did. Rather perfectly, in fact, as the poor erstwhile virgin called out once more, growling with delight. "Yes!" she called loudly, grinning with glee. "Yes! Oh Winter, again!"

"Yeah! Yeah, that's right, again!" Licking her lips, she leaned even further down to better angle her shoulder, so she could deliver the maximum thrust possible once they really got going…

And felt a big toe writhing back and forth against her cheek. How was she supposed to ignore Ruby being so cute and squirmy? This really was testing her limits as a Dom; it was part of the reason she preferred to be on the receiving end most of the time. Temptation was hard to fight.

Something else was growing hard to fight, as well. Ruby's overwhelming need for her finish. To further tease Winter, though not with her intent, her trussed legs were beginning to shudder and quiver right by Winter, toes vibrating again right by her cheeks. "W-winter!" she called again, allowing herself another moment to moan. "I-I'm so close… I-I'm gonna- ah!"

The temptation would not win; Winter loved seeing and feeling the wriggling toes, but she could resist that long. It was easy. She was nothing if not professional. "That's it, Rose! Let it happen; let me conjure your orgasm here and now! Shout for me, squirm and shout! Be a good little Hufflepuff!"

All Ruby had to do was clamp her muscles onto the object again, and she was done for. The Hufflepuff turned into a quivering, shuddering mess on the ground as she called out loudly, straining against the ropes as her muscles pulsed with pure joy. As expected, her last little occurrence when she finished was not a one off. Being laid on her stomach, any of the fluid she secreted went straight against the ground, the ropes, or on the object; coating it with a different kind of fluid. It was far beyond her control.

And though Ruby could not see it, Winter was watching all the while, eyes wide. However, rather than being revolted, she was smiling, mouth very slightly open. What a glorious sight! Knowing her sub's climax was so powerful she couldn't help but squirt that way filled her with pride. A job well done.

Top marks.

[bubmyg]

of equine considerations - ksj

pairing: seokjin x reader

genre: ceo!au, fluff, is there really a plot here? kind of

word count: 2,180

summary: what the hell do you get the best thing to ever happen to you who’ve you’ve already given everything you can think of or where seokjin runs into you in a boutique down the block from his office looking at the exact same teddy bear figurine he’d been coming after

a/n: part 5 of aicaib!!! we are nearing the end ladies :’-) again, tumblr’s link situation sucks, if you need the series masterlist lmk!!!

There was a piece of paper pasted to the corner of stained red oak, the signature line prominent and starred in bleeding red ink. It was just another multi million dollar investment that Kim Enterprise would endorse in the new year, just like the stack in a manilla folder on the opposite corner of the expansive desk, if only for the scrawl of Seokjin’s signature on the blank line. It was the third time he’d pushed it out of the way in favor of his home Macbook, backspace key and touch pad worn from his incessant clicking through the same three tabs.

The thick snowflakes ricocheting off the glass panel windows of his corner office mocked him, your shining eyes reflected in the crystal shapes as you ranted against his lips how there was to be a white Christmas this year. He’d smiled and kissed you back, letting you wrap his tie up in your fist and make him five minutes late to his morning appointment, one he could barely comprehend because his thoughts were flooded with your towering tree in the foyer that had not one present underneath it that was addressed from him to you.

Seokjin’s office chair groaned as he stretched backward in it, arms tucking behind his head, fingers thrust in the short hairs at the nape of his neck. The first tab of three glared at him first, a local floral shop that sold towering arrangements. He had the most expensive one open, bursting and overflowing in all the bright flowers you’d fawn over in your garden when spring finally melted the snow that was falling outside.

He barely blinked, index finger tracking the touchpad to close the tab. Flowers were a Valentine’s Day gift. A I was just thinking of you on the way home gift. A gift not for the middle of winter.

“Can you wrap flowers?” Seokjin mumbled to himself, replacing the tab with that question. The answer was a clear yes.

The second tab was a travel website, three different trips to somewhere tropical dropped into his listings. He had the power to control his own schedule but not yours, knowing your work wouldn’t let you off until at least the summer, knowing that he couldn’t really afford to leave the company to Yoongi in the midst of their busiest quarter, anyway.

And even then, when you were that excited about snow, who was he to retch you out of it? He closed that tab too.

Sometime, offhandedly, you’d mentioned picking up a new hobby. “Maybe horseback riding,” You’d informed Namjoon’s wife, white wine delicate in your ringed fingers as Seokjin had watched you swallow down a languid sip.

Whether you’d mentioned that a year into your marriage or just last week at the company Christmas gala, Seokjin couldn’t remember.

The last tab was an advert for lessons at a nearby stable with the history including the price of hiring contractors to build your own barn just outside your gardens and an endless number of listings for the best Warmbloods money could buy. It was stupid and pretentious and not anything Seokjin could see you being excited about for more that ten seconds just to spare his ego.

He closed that tab too, now left staring at your grinning face beyond his clutter of work files that had somehow crept into his personal device. The laptop shut with a resounding thud, his elbows knocking into the lid as he hunched over his desk, head in his hands. One arm slipped off the laptop when he groaned and suddenly a concerned voice was hushing to him.

“Mr. Kim? Are you alright? Mr. Kim? Seokjin, I’ll come in there, what is—”

He was out the door, cutting off his secretary’s voice abruptly in the process as he came to loom over her desk, fingers gripping at the wood, feet crossing at the ankles as he sighed.

“Mr. Kim, what can I—”

“Minseo,” Seokjin began slowly, voice deliberate, calculated, “I need your help.”

She blinked, brushing away the pile of paperwork in front of her, fingers fiddling together, “Go on.”

“I haven’t got my wife anything,” He winced when Minseo’s mouth rounded in some sort of shocked horror, “and I’m not making any progress on what to get her.”

“Would you like me to order her something and have it sent to the estate?”

“No,” Seokjin searched behind him, dragging one of the two generic chairs closer to plop backward into it. He fiddled at the cuffs of his white dress shirt, dragging them over his elbows as he loosened his tie, running his fingers through his hair for good measure. “I want you to talk to me like a friend,” He cocked an eyebrow, “What do I get her?”

Her expression softened, bracelets clattering to her desktop as she dropped her arms against the surface. “Jin, I know Y/N, but not like you do,” She tilted her head, “What does she like?”

“Lots of things,” He dragged incessant fingers across his face, scratching underneath his chin, “She likes to take the sugar gliders out of their cages and let them roam around inside one of my giant hoodies. She says it’s like their own playground. She also likes to garden, but only specific flowers, and the color scheme has to match. I witnessed her pull out an entire marigold plant with her bare hands because the yellow contrasted with her ‘aesthetic’. She likes to watch fireworks and has endless polaroids of them hanging on a corkboard in her office.”

His voice dropped a bit, “She likes it when I take three day weekends because it gives her an excuse to use her ridiculous amount of vacation time. And she likes it when we’re both home without responsibility. Just being together, you know?”

Minseo hummed, considering Seokjin with a fond glint in the tiny smile that curved on her lips. “Well, I assume another sugar glider is out of the question. Flowers aren’t really a Christmas gift. I don’t trust you to light off fireworks and…” She studied him with cross eyebrows, “...you have taken off Christmas Eve and day, correct?”

“Yeah,” He spoke through fingers now splayed across his cheeks, thumbs sandwiching his lips, “What do I do?”

“I’ll tell you what—” She rolled around to her computer, shaking the mouse to bring the blank screen back to life. She clicked around for a second before speaking to him, “—have you ever been to the boutique down the block?”

Seokjin squinted, “The what?”

Minseo laughed, snatching a royal blue post it note from a stack in the corner of her desk. After scrawling for a second, she thrust it at him. “Take the rest of the day off and go to this address,” She watched him as he stood, still staring at the address pasted to his thumb like it was in a foreign language, “Just buy her something small and cute that she can keep around the house. Maybe an ornament for the tree.”

He nodded, dumbly albeit, nearly tripping over himself to collect his coat and keys, address still fluttering from his fingers as he navigated through the office for the elevator.

“It’s the little things, Mr. Kim!” Minseo called, shooting him a beaming thumbs up as the elevator doors slid to a close.

His towering SUV felt out of place parked next to the miniature smart car and off white sedan both dirtied in snow and salt residue. The engine rolled over, heat in the cabin immediately escaping as he stared absently through the blankets of falling snow. Giant adverts were pasted to the clear windows of the quaint shop, advertising a new collection of scarves, the newest snowglobes adorned in Disney characters, and a whole display of stone like figurines.

It was a tiny face in the corner of the aqua blue advert that caught his attention, a tiny teddy bear figurine clutching onto a group of neon colored balloons. Seokjin’s first thought was that would like nice on the bedside table, a place you reserved for decorations that didn’t quite match the rest of the house. It was filled with you, a trophy you’d received for your club, co-ed water polo team in college, a framed employee of the month certificate, a lanyard from your honeymoon adorned in pretty pink flowers.

Something about the bear’s face screamed you and suddenly he had to have it.

Seokjin was first distracted by the overwhelming sweet scent that smacked against his cheeks. It was somewhere between pine needles, vanilla, and warmth, swirling around and clinging to the fabric of his suit jacket he tucked a little tighter to his torso. It was an entire wall of ornaments next, all covered in some layer of glitter and shining in vibrant paints over delicate glass.

He eyed a bell out of curiosity, black with a striped bow wired at the top near the hook. His index finger poked at the curved outer shell, an audible gasp of surprise tumbling off his tongue when the bell actually made a tinkling ding.

He fled that wall quickly.

There was too much, too many knit beanies and knit scarves and knit potholders, too many snow globes with intricate characters he didn’t recognize, too many glass vases he would use as wine glasses if he didn’t know better, too much. He’d shrugged off the workers milling about the nearly deserted store one too many times, his clueless expression and noises of discontent giving him away even without a verbal confirmation.

Seokjin was nearly caught by the one at the register, one who’d been glaring at him for the five minutes he’d been turning a paperweight over in his palms, one that contained glitter that floated around every time you moved the heavy glass. He avoided her, though, dropping the glass back to its shelf with a resounding clatter before side stepping around one of the aisles.

And directly into someone.

He noticed the display before him first, coated in the very figurines on the advert outside. There were rabbits and bears and sock monkeys and elephants, all tiny and cute and holding various items. His eyes roamed down the shelf, zeroing in on what appeared to be the only bear, his bear, it’s tiny balloons held proudly over it’s head like the triumphant smile that stretched to his lips as he leaned in and snatched it into his grasp.

And then he remembered he’d smacked into someone.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Jin?”

A familiar hand squeezed at the apex of his elbow and suddenly he was staring into your half confused, half enraged, half endeared eyes. You cocked your head, hair falling into your eyelashes, smile growing wider as the horrified round of his lips did.

“What are you doing here?” Seokjin babbled nearly incoherent.

“What are you doing here, mister?” The hand on his arm shoved lightly at his torso, “And with my bear too.”

“Your bear?” He childishly held the figurine closer to his chest before he realized, “I mean, yeah, I was going to buy it for you.”

“I was going to buy it for you.”

His eyebrows went through various emotions, mostly confusion and amusement, “You were what?”

“I thought you’d think it was cute,” Your bottom lip worried between your teeth as you shrugged, suddenly bashful, “Maybe keep it on your desk or something. I don’t know.”

Seokjin sighed, reaching to wrap an arm around your shoulders and bring you against his chest, lips against your forehead. “Darling, I was going to buy it for you,” He pecked your temple, “I thought it’d look nice on the bedside table.”

You hummed in acknowledgement, pressing your face against the lapel of his jacket. “Nothing underneath the tree is for you,” You mumbled finally.

His shoulders shook, laugh wheezing quietly, “Want to know a secret? I haven’t got you anything yet either.”

“I was going to buy you a new tie with donuts on it.”

“I was going to build a stable and buy you horseback riding lessons.”

“Jesus, Seokjin.”

“What?” He pinched your chin, bringing your gaze up to his so he could peck your cheek. “You mentioned it like once. Four years ago but. You mentioned it.”

“You know what I really want for Christmas?” He blinked for you to continue, “I want to bake shitty Christmas cookies in the oven and watch a bad romance movie and wear those ridiculously itchy sweaters Yoongi bought us all while our cute new bear friend watches us from the coffee table.”

Seokjin’s nose wrinkled, holding you a little bit tighter, “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I think we can make that happen,” He fished for your hand, moving to pull you towards the register, “but you have to act surprised when you open the bear.”

“Who said you’re buying it?”

“Me.”

“You have no authority over me, Mr. Kim.”

“No,” Seokjin clutched onto your hand, ducking to peck your nose, “but I do have longer legs.”

“Wait, Jin, watch out for the—”

[artificialqueens]

Beyond My Wildest Dreams, Ch.2 (Nina West/OC) - multifandomgeek

A/N: Thank you to the kind @alexandriabelle1 for being my first beta ever <3

ao3 

Pride season had always been a busy time for Nina. Not only it was a time where the queer community came together stronger than usual, but it also brought the mainstream spotlight to their issues, every year more so than the previous, and Nina was gonna be damned if she didn’t take this opportunity to highlight important topics and engage people in important initiatives.

This year, however, was absolutely crazy! Her popularity was insane, the projects she was doing barely one week in were already so successful she didn’t even know where to put how fucking grateful she was for all of this. She was in drag practically every day. She did parades in heels, talked to people, chanted political rhymes, performed in front of crowds bigger than she ever had before. Living her best life didn’t even begin to describe it.

Somewhere in the middle of June, she was in Columbus (she wasn’t even gonna pretend she knew the date), glad to be home even though the workload there was bigger because of all the partnerships and projects pre-Drag Race. She had a meeting with the people from the Nina West Foundation today. They were gonna talk about the results of the videos they were releasing about the charities they worked with, and apparently Kevin had a briefing to present to Nina, a big idea that promised to use her fame to bring in big money.

Nina would be lying if she said she wasn’t nervous about seeing Kevin. She hadn’t seen him in person in a while, though they kept talking pretty frequently even with Nina as busy as she was. Brooke asked her about him now and then and fueled her hope that her feelings weren’t one-sided. It had been a cute fantasy to entertain in her head until now, but she felt incredibly self-conscious about seeing the man in person. She was sure she was going to embarrass herself some way or another, and her mind was already going from “maybe he’ll kiss me” to “what if he shows up with a boyfriend?” while she put way too much thought on what she was wearing while getting ready.

The Foundation was more of an idea than an actual place, and for today they were using a meeting room in one of Nina’s friend’s office. The room had a big oval table with about a dozen chairs and a good structure for projections, conference calls, the sort of business things you could eventually need, but other than that it wasn’t especially fancy. Nina got there about 5 minutes earlier than necessary, opening the door to see Kevin already settled in, frowning in concentration while hunched down in front of his laptop. Nina smiled fondly and sighed, feeling like a teenage girl and basking in it.

“Hey,” said Nina gently, managing to startle Kevin anyway. She chuckled.

“Nina!” said Kevin with a wide smile, getting up and rounding the table to hug Nina tightly. God, he smelled so good. “Come here, come see the new project,” he said, pulling her to sit beside him by the computer, “Steven is gonna be a little late with the girls, and I’ll do the whole projection thing for everybody, but I can’t wait to show you,” he finished excitedly, fiddling with the touchpad to put up a powerpoint presentation. Nina caught herself staring at his face and promptly looked at the screen just as he started explaining.

The idea was definitely ambitious, almost arrogantly so, and call Nina crazy, but she thought they could make it happen. It would take time and a lot of behind the scenes preparations, they would need a few more extra hands to help with the technology aspect of it, and if that went wrong the whole thing would be a disaster. Even so, they could prepare well, have lots of backup plans. It definitely had a good chance to go right. She had seen what the fans could do, this could definitely happen!

“We’ll need you fully on board with this, though,” said Kevin, looking at Nina expectantly, “You’re gonna have to be the one making calls and bringing the big people in. Without you, and without them, it doesn’t go anywhere.”

“Are you kidding me, of course I’m on board with it! I can already think of half a dozen people that would agree from the top of my head! And the fact that it’s all digital, I mean, just the schedule issues that would avoid… I even think we can top your initial numbers!” her mind was already planning schedules and making lists and rehearsing convincing speeches.

“You’re amazing, Andrew,” said Kevin quietly. Nina looked up from the computer to see him staring at her with a sweet smile on the corner of his mouth. Her heart fluttered.

“You are the amazing one. I could never think of something like this by myself,” responded Nina, reaching for his hand. She was in awe with this idea, it was genius! As if she needed another reason to like Kevin.

They were staring at each other, and suddenly the excitement gave place to tension. Kevin squeezed Nina’s hand firmly, caressing the back of it lightly, sending shivers through Nina’s arm. She searched into his green eyes for any sign that she was reading this wrong, and found none. Nina licked her lips. She was gonna do it, she was gonna kiss him.

Then, the door opened.

Luckily, the group of people that entered the room was too engrossed in their own conversation to notice if they interrupted something. Kevin looked down and bit back an adorable shy smile, squeezing Nina’s hand one more time before letting it go. Nina just adjusted her seat to be a little further away from him, trying to force her mind back into focus when the only thing she wanted to think about was how the warm lips from the man beside her would taste.

The meeting went on as planned. They discussed the foundation’s past month or so, their actions for Pride, and Kevin presented the new project by the end. He did it in a more structured and professional way than he did to Nina, which made her think he was comfortable around her, instigating a bubbly feeling in her chest. Everybody was excited about the idea, but the others were a bit more down to earth than Nina had been, and the rest of their time boiled down to planning and budgeting and building a timeline for it.

Nina had to leave before they finished in order to make it in time for a gig. It pained her to think that maybe if she had stayed, she and Kevin could have gone for coffee after the meeting and picked up where they left off, but she had no choice. Just the thought, however, that they had been that close to really kissing, that Kevin would kiss her back, touch her, that she would know for sure he liked her back, oh it was so nice. Plus, that project? If they really could pull it off, it could even become an annual thing! There was so much hope inside of Nina that the only thing she could do was share it away, and that made her go into the gig in full power, giving the public her all and leaving them with a sense of satisfaction she hadn’t felt in a while.

When her day finally ended, she was laughing with one of her local queen friends as they made their way to the dressing rooms. The club was still somewhat full despite the late hour, so when someone touched Nina’s arm to ask if she had time for one more fan, she was ready to turn away another drunk person politely until she met a pair of familiar green eyes, squished with a smile, and all but swooned.

“Kevin, hi,” said Nina, forgetting all about her friend, who took the clue and kept walking by herself. “What are you doing here? You don’t even like clubs.”

“I don’t, yeah,” he said, shrugging, “but I didn’t know when you were leaving again, so,” he finished, looking away shyly. Nina’s smile was so wide it was starting to ache.

“I’m in town until Wednesday,” she said. “I like that you came here though, that’s very sweet. I may have a little free time tomorrow if you want to maybe grab a coffee with me,” she asked, touching the back of his hand with her knuckles. He was looking at her again with those eyes and she was getting drowned in them. “Or ice cream. I’m an ice cream now. I’m very delicious if I say so myself,” she said, touching her fluffy hair with playful pride.

“I’d love to taste you,” said Kevin waggling his eyebrows, eliciting a full belly laugh from Nina. “Come here,” he said, pulling her by the hand and guiding her to the back of the stage. Nina went willingly, if confused.

“What are you doing?” she asked, still laughing a little.

“I’m finding a step,” he said, climbing one of the few steps leading to the back of the stage. He turned to Nina and pulled her close, now barely an inch taller than her in her high heels. He touched her face, and her smile faltered. “You’re too tall in drag for me to do this like I wanted,” said Kevin, keeping one hand softly on Nina’s cheek while the other lifted her chin, barely, to place a soft kiss on her lips.

Nina felt like a princess. Her eyes fluttered closed and her hands moved to his waist, steadying her as Kevin kissed and touched her like she was made of glass, a precious, soft thing. Nina was not a delicate man, nor a delicate woman, or a delicate drag-queen, and although she had loved and been loved many times in her life, she couldn’t recall ever being touched like that. It took her breath away.

Kevin pulled back, all half-lidded and dreamy, still touching Nina’s face. She smiled closed-mouthed, feeling her insides all bubbly.

“You have my lipgloss all over your mouth now,” said Nina, chuckling. Kevin reached to clean the corner of his mouth, not tackling even 1% of the problem. Nina giggled, and tried to help him, but ended up just smearing the bright purple all over his juicy lips even more. He was trying to keep still but was also giggling. “Ok, that didn’t help at all. You look cute, though.”

“Hmmm I might as well get them dirtier them,” he said, leaning down to kiss Nina again. Her mouth closed against his tightly while her chest still shook with laughter, but it soon died down, especially when Kevin tilted his head and his hand traveled to her back to pull her closer. Nina was loving the softness, but she also loved the added pressure and the tease of the tongue.

She was, however, still in drag. She couldn’t feel his chest against hers because of her fake boobs, some parts of her body were numb by now, and when his hand touched her neck it went too far and unbalanced her wig. She pulled back, resisting the urge to nuzzle him and get a little foundation to match his lipgloss.

“I have to de-drag,” she said. He nodded. “Come with me so I can get a wipe for you. Unless you wanna rock the gloss, I mean…”

“I think it’ll work better if I apply directly from the bottle? Unless it’s a new trend I’m not aware of,” said Kevin, stepping down from the stage stairs to follow Nina to the dressing room. She forgot he was perched up there. It was funny.

“Who knows, the beauty gurus are full of surprises these days,” she opened the door and entered the room with Kevin right behind. She didn’t even think about the other queens undressing there, going directly to her things and looking for her wipes. Kevin followed hesitantly, trying to avert his gaze from the other people in various states of undress also in the room. “Don’t worry, they’re used to people coming and going,” said Nina, bringing the wipe to his mouth and cleaning it easily. She had to crouch, only remembering to take off her shoes after she was done. “There you go, no evidence of the crime now,” she said with a smile, throwing the wipe away and kicking her shoes to the side.

“Can I help you with it?” he asked, pointing at the general direction of her stuff, taking Nina by surprise.

“Nah, I’m good, I do this every day,” she said dismissively.

“I know you don’t need it,” he said quietly, still wary of the other people around them. “I want to.” Nina was done, melted into a puddle on the floor. “But, I mean, I don’t wanna bother you, of course,” he said, flustered, like it occurred to him Nina might not want him there and he should leave immediately.

“Stay,” said Nina, grabbing his arm gently, her smile completely gone. Somehow, it made her feel vulnerable. Kevin smiled only with his eyes, which was maybe just as beautiful as the full-mouthed one.

Nina turned around and asked for his help with her zipper. She wasn’t getting naked, there were quite a few layers until that, but the gesture made her feel like she was. As if her prom date was taking her gown off at the end of the night, and not as if the guy she liked was going to see her in a weird state of under-drag in a room full of other people.

Once her dress was folded up and stored in her suitcase, she pulled up a stool for Kevin to sit behind her, instructing him on how to loosen up her corset while she took her wig and lashes off. They small talked while they did it, and Nina kept looking at his face in the mirror, the same frown of concentration she caught him with earlier on the day, creasing his forehead. She let him work on it for more than was strictly necessary, and once he was done with that there wasn’t much he could do except organize her things while she wiped her make-up away and pulled off her undergarments. She made sure he wouldn’t touch those, they didn’t need that level of gross-smells-intimacy just yet. He also turned away for the naked part of the process and pretended to fiddle with her brushes, which was a real gentleman move.

Kevin did get to see Nina shirtless though, which almost made her say she deserved to see him shirtless too, but she bit it back. She caught him looking at the red marks left by drag with some kind of worry, and thought maybe he wanted to touch them but refrained to. She would have liked it if he did.

It was different than having an assistant or a friend helping her out. There was a sense of calm and care she wasn’t used to, something warm and gentle that turned routine into affection. In the end, the process was over way sooner than Nina wanted it to be.

It occurred to her, however, that now she could very well invite him over to her place, and that thought brought a whole new excitement with it. She hurriedly asked him to wait while she said goodbye to the queens and staff.

“Now that’s the kind of trade I deserve, honey,” Nina heard a voice say while she made her way back to Kevin after properly talking to everybody. “Hot and useful? Where can I get a piece of that?”

“Nina’s a Ru girl now, baby, they bend over backwards for them,” responded another voice. It made Nina uneasy. She looked around but couldn’t pinpoint who said it.

Kevin wasn’t just some trade, and he wasn’t helping Nina to get in her pants. He could get in her pants any time of day without lifting a finger. It bothered her that people saw a moment so tender and twisted it into something sexually-founded. He didn’t even care if she was a Ru-girl or not. Right? Ok, now she was getting paranoid.

Kevin was leaning against the wall by the time she came back to him, looking down. He was close enough that Nina lost all hope he hadn’t heard the same comments she did. She didn’t know what to say about it.

“You ready to go?” he asked with a smile when he noticed her close, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Nina nodded, getting her suitcase and following him to his car. He had promised her a ride home since he hadn’t drank, and she just had to let her friends know. They were silent, there was tension and not the good kind.

Goddamnit.

[vivianhoangz-blog]

Loving my MacBook 🥰

This is my 2017 15-inch MacBook Pro. Its thinner and lighter than the rest. I love this version of the MacBook because it displays such a great image when I’m watching Netflix or any type of movie. When I was watching Avatar (the movie with the big blue people), I noticed the serene blue of the alien’ s skin, how it glittered and popped out in each scene as they raced through the exotic jungle. The crips image the Macbook portrayed made the movie more enjoyable, especially the MacBook Pro’s internal speakers, which blast enough sound to feel like I was in an actual movie theatre. I especially love how comfortable the keys are on the keyboard, and how it gives off the feeling of a snappier and responsive apprehension. It is especially helpful when I'm writing an assignment, knowing I'm not making many spelling mistakes.

What I also love is the MacBook Pro’s massive 6.3 x 3.9-inch force touchpad (huge but not intrusive). If this is your first MacBook in a while, just know that it doesn't move, instead of providing hepatic feedback to simulate a click. This means you’ll just need to learn how to use two fingers to drag and drop, which isn't that hard to get used to, as you can't hold down on the touchpad with one finger if the touchpad doesn't move. Just an FYI if you’re planning on getting one yourself. My two favorite things about the MacBook Pro is the touch bar and the long battery life. The touch bar gives me a futuristic vibe. it allows you to tune the volume, the brightness, etc. It also allows you to active Siri. My favorite part of the touch bar is the fingerprint id to be able to log in into your Mac. The Mac provides a different and slimmer port to charge yourMac, it provides two ports on each side. What I don't like about the MacBook Pro is that when it heats up, it gets a little bit warm. And the gaming graphics aren't that great when I want to play league of legends. Other than that the MacBook Pro is a great laptop to have.

[tech-battery]

Dell's XPS 17 Proves Big-Screen Laptops Are Back, and They're Awesome

A few years back, a lot of major laptop makers began quietly paring down the number of 17-inch laptops they made (aside from monstrously large gaming rigs), with Apple and Dell dropping the 17-inch MacBook Pro and XPS 17 respectively. However, thanks to improvements like smaller bezels and improved energy efficiency, thin and light laptops with plus-sized screens and big performance are making a comeback.

After Apple re-envisioned its big-format laptop as the 16-inch MacBook Pro in 2019, Dell made a similar move by bringing back the XPS 17 this year. While the circumstances are different this time around (especially considering 2020 is a tire fire of a year), the revival of Dell’s flagship 17-inch laptop couldn’t have come at a better time. Big-screen laptops are back, baby, and they’re even better than before.

For the big reintroduction of the XPS 17, Dell didn’t deviate too much from the classic XPS design. The XPS 17 has a tapered wedge-shaped body with a silver aluminum lid, a big carbon fiber deck in the middle, and another aluminum tub on bottom. Despite its overall size (14.74 x 9.76 x 0.77 inches) and weight (5.53 pounds), the XPS 17 still manages to feel quite sleek and surprisingly portable—until you stack an XPS 15 on top and see how big the difference really is. In some ways, the size and design of the XPS 17 feels like a mirage, because when you open it up, you can’t help but appreciate how much display you get from a system that seems smaller than it is, especially when you consider the last time we saw the XPS 17 was back in 2012, when it weighed more than eight pounds instead of five.

Along its sides, the XPS 17 comes with an ample assortment of ports, including four USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 3 (all support charging, too), a headphone jack, and a full-size SD card reader. The only ports you might be missing are HDMI and USB-A, though Dell has that covered too with an included dongle.

Inside, Dell maximizes the XPS 17's display (which comes in a multitude of options, from a 1900 x 1200 non-touch panel to a 4K UHD+ screen), with razor-thin bezels. Dell’s super tiny webcam and IR camera module, which sits above the screen, are exactly where you want them. The built-in IR camera offers support for Windows Hello face login, while the 720p HD webcam is meant to handle all your video-calling needs, though I must say that the XPS 17's webcam image quality and resolution aren’t quite as high as I’d like.

Below on its deck, Dell flanks the keyboard with large stereo speakers that feature a 2.5-watt woofer and 1.5-watt tweeter on each side capable of delivering rich, room-filling sound. And as for the keyboard itself, Dell wisely hasn’t messed with the feel of the XPS 17's keys, which are crisp and bouncy. I’m not gonna call them perfect, but the XPS 17's keyboard is pretty much my platonic ideal of how keys on a laptop should feel. And finally, there’s that huge 6 x 3.5-inch matte touchpad, which leaves just enough room for your wrists on either side while providing accurate gesture recognition and more mousing room than most people probably need.

The one potential oddity about the XPS 17's deck is Dell’s decision not to include a dedicated numpad like you sometimes see on 17-inch gaming systems. Some might bemoan that call, but on a well-rounded system like this, I think sacrificing the numpad for bigger speakers and an overall cleaner design was ultimately the right choice.

And then there’s that screen. Our review unit features the upgraded 4K 3840 x 2400 touchscreen, and I just can’t get enough. It puts out over 450 nits of brightness and has some of the richest and most vivid colors you can get from a laptop LCD panel today. If you’re intending to buy an XPS 17 to edit photos or videos, I would highly recommend upgrading to the 4K screen instead of the base FHD+ panel. Furthermore, with its 16:10 aspect ratio, the XPS 17 also provides a bit more vertical screen real estate, which is exactly what you want from a big all-purpose laptop.

The XPS 17 ain’t no slouch when it comes to performance, either. The base config comes with a 10th-gen Intel Core i5-10300H CPU, but our more expensive review unit came upgraded with a Core i7-10875H CPU, and it absolutely flies. In our CPU rendering test in Blender, the XPS 17 took almost four minutes less to render the same image (4:40) as MSI’s Creator 15 (8:33), despite the smaller Creator 15 having the same CPU.

And when it comes to graphics performance, it’s a similar story, with the XPS 17 (6:26) beating the MSI Creator 15 (8:36) by more than two minutes in our Blender GPU rendering test, once again with both systems featuring an RTX 2060 GPU. This kind of performance makes the XPS 17 a great choice for content creators, and while it’s not intended to be a competitive gaming machine, the XPS 17 is able to pump out more than 80 fps in Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 1080p with all the graphics bells and whistles turned on, so it’s not a bad fragging machine either. Thermal headroom also seems quite respectable, because while the XPS 17 will throttle itself a bit when maxed out, I didn’t notice any major lag or dips in performance during more normal loads.

Even the XPS 17's battery life is pretty solid for a system this big, with it lasting just shy of 9 hours (8:58) on our video rundown test, nearly two hours longer than the MSI Creator 15 and an hour longer than HP’s ZBook Create G7.

After using the XPS 17 for several weeks, I only really have one complaint: its price. Because even though it starts at just $1,350 for a 17-inch FHD+ screen, Core i5 CPU, 8GB of RAM, 256GB SSD, and integrated graphics, when you start upgrading components, the cost balloons quite quickly. So in comparison, our review unit, which features a 4K touchscreen, Core i7 10875H CPU, 32GB of RAM, 1TB SSD, and RTX 2060 GPU, costs more than double the price at around $2,750. And annoyingly, if you want to cut back on a few components like RAM or storage to save money, currently the cheapest model with an RTX 2060 card starts at $2,450. Thankfully, if you’re less concerned with graphics, you can split the difference for a system with a GTX 1650 Ti GPU, which starts at around $1,800, and if you’re looking for the best balance between price and performance, that’s where I’d start.

But for me the biggest takeaway about the XPS 17 is the way it fits into 2020. While a lot of people wait for the world to get back to normal, I feel like it’s also important to think about what normal even means. Right now there are millions of people who have to work or learn from home, and even when things start opening up again, a lot of people won’t be returning to the same buildings or positions they were in before. This makes it even more important to consider what you need from a personal computer.

For years, 15-inch systems have been the most popular laptop size, as they generally offered the best balance between price, power, and portability. However, if you’re the kind of person who is only going to travel with their laptop a handful of times every year (or less considering the ongoing pandemic), a bigger system like the XPS 17 suddenly becomes a very intriguing option. Not only does its bigger screen translate into more productivity (or better movie-watching) when you’re stuck at home, you also get more ports and a wider range of upgradable components.

Meanwhile, the XPS 17 doesn’t suffer from being tied to a desk or table like a normal desktop or all-in-one. And all of this comes in a package that’s not that much larger (or much more expensive) than an XPS 15. (Though you will want to make sure you have something to carry it in, because the XPS 17 definitely doesn’t fit in my normal messenger bag.) So in a strange way, 2020 was sort of the perfect time for Dell to bring back the XPS 17. You get a bigger, more powerful system from one of the best laptop lines on the market, but in a body that’s way less of a burden than its predecessors from the not-too-distant past. So even if a 17-inch laptop might not be in your immediate future, the XPS 17 has demonstrated why they’re making a comeback, and it’s done so with power and style.

[dipulb3]

Dell XPS 15 9500 strikes a good balance for photo editing

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/dell-xps-15-9500-strikes-a-good-balance-for-photo-editing/

Dell XPS 15 9500 strikes a good balance for photo editing

Lori Grunin/CNET

Dell’s XPS 15 laptops continue to be crowd-pleasers. With its eye-catching, slim new design and photo-editing-friendly performance, display and feature set, the latest 15-inch model can hold its own as a less powerful — much cheaper — alternative to a 16-inch MacBook Pro ($2,399 at Apple). It’s well worth a look if that’s how you roll, though you might want to consider the new 17-inch XPS 17 instead for the bigger screen. Both are still premium-priced, and likely not worth the money if all you need is a pretty work clamshell, not a serious workhorse. 

Like

Impressive control over color management for a consumer laptop

Two USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 connections

Good performance and battery life, all things considered

Don’t Like

Can run hot

Only USB-C connectors

Soft, rubberized keyboard deck feels fine but scratches easily

The configuration we tested runs about $2,255. If you don’t need color accuracy, want better battery life and can live without the slightly-better-than 4K UHD resolution, you can save almost $300 by going for the lower-resolution option. The base configuration costs about $1,300 and comes with an Intel Core i5-10300H, 8GB RAM, a 256GB solid-state drive and the 1,900×1,200-pixel display. That’s a pretty big range for a single laptop model. 

Something in me cringes at the idea of paying $1,300 for a system with only 8GB RAM and integrated graphics, though, so if you’re leaning towards that I suggest you consider something like the Lenovo C740. The processor is much less powerful, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense to pair a powerful CPU with so little memory. You can get an otherwise similar configuration of the C740, which is also sleek and about the same weight, for well under $1,000.

Dell XPS 15 9500

Price as reviewed $2,254 Display 3,840×2,400-pixel 15-inch touchscreen CPU 2.3GHz Intel Core i7-10875H Memory 16GB 3,733MHz LPDDR4x Graphics 4GB GDDR6 GeForce GTX 1650 Ti Storage 512GB SSD, SD card reader Ports 3x USB-C (2x Thunderbolt 3), headphone Networking Killer Wi-Fi 6 AX1650s (802.11ax), Bluetooth 5.1 Operating system Microsoft Windows 10 Home (1909) Weight 4.5 pounds (2.1 kg)

If you’re considering it for anything beyond casual photo editing, though, do yourself a favor and spring for 32GB RAM and an i7 CPU. My consistent experience is that if you need to multitask, then operations like mass thumbnail generation, which takes advantage of high core counts, can become bottlenecked by memory (at least on Windows). And applications like Adobe’s Lightroom Classic will use all the cores you can throw at it for some operations.

Dell redesigned the XPS 15 (and introduced a new 17-inch model) for 2020 to align more with the XPS 13, mostly. For one thing, that means the XPS 15 ditched its 4K OLED option. It gets a little complicated after that. The XPS 13’s display has a 16:10 aspect ratio, which means both the XPS 15 and 17 follow suit. The problem is that standard OLED panels only come in standard 4K UHD 16:9 aspect, so the XPS switched to a nonstandard 4K “UHD Plus” (3,840×2,160 pixels) and a base “FHD Plus” (1,980×1,200 pixels).

I like the UHD Plus screen more than the OLED, though, especially for photo editing, which is arguably the creative work that this system is optimized for. It has better color consistency and tonal range in the shadows, and as tested it covers 100% of Adobe RGB rather than P3, which is still a respectable 94%. (We test screens using using Portrait Displays’ Calman 5 Ultimate and an X-Rite i1Display Pro Plus.) If you don’t know what all this color gamut talk is about, this may not be the laptop for you. 

The bigger touchpad is great, but I don’t like that the power button/fingerprint reader in the upper right corner is intentionally left a mystery. Plus, I like the soft, rubberized keyboard deck, but it seems prone to scratching (as you can see on the right speaker grille).

Lori Grunin/CNET

A wealth of pro photo-editing options

Oddly, Dell doesn’t promote accuracy as one of the virtues of the screen, and out of the box it wasn’t, despite the inclusion of PremierColor, Dell’s color management software. But with some easy tweaks to the brightness and gamma settings in PremierColor, I was able to get it to to standard target values of 2.2 gamma, delta E for grayscale and color less than or equal to 2 and white point of 6,500K. It can’t hit the effectively zero nits black (and therefore infinite contrast, since that puts zero in the denominator of the contrast calculation) but its roughly 1,560:1 contrast is good for an IPS (non-OLED) screen. 

It also supports HDR, though with a maximum brightness of roughly 465 nits it won’t really wow you. And playback of 4K HDR content really taxes the integrated graphics; I couldn’t successfully force it to use the GTX 1650 Ti all the time.

More notably, unlike many consumer calibrated displays, Dell’s factory calibrated profiles actually clip the gamut boundaries to the color space; in other words, even though the display can produce colors well outside sRGB, it won’t if you’ve opted to use the sRGB color profile. That’s really helpful if you need to check out-of-gamut colors. You can create custom profiles with a calibrator using PremierColor as well, but only with the popular X-Rite i1Display Pro; it doesn’t even support the Plus yet, so I couldn’t test it. (If you want to calibrate it using your own software and a different calibrator, remember to turn PremierColor off.) 

PremierColor gives you the standard set of color profiles, including Rec 709 (HD) and Rec 601 (SD), as well as settings for specific color temperatures and relative scales for gamma, contrast and black level. It also lets you choose from different viewing conditions, such as daylight or incandescent light. 

A downside to the ever-shrinking screen bezels is you have to be careful when adjusting the display. For instance, while trying to find the perfect angle I accidentally touched the touchscreen and closed Chrome. I think a touchscreen is unnecessary here, anyway. And I’d gladly trade a millimeter more of top bezel for a better webcam.

Another trade-off of the new, thinner design is swapping USB-A and HDMI connections for all-USB-C/Thunderbolt 3. The XPS 15 has two Thunderbolt 3 connections, which is handy. But losing a display connection on the discrete GPU bus means you sacrifice some flexibility. It does (thankfully) retain the SD card slot, though. Dell grew the touchpad and moved the speakers to either side of the keyboard, both welcome changes. I don’t like the unlabeled, unilluminated power button: It has a fingerprint reader built in, but in the dark it’s just a blank spot and seems to scream, “Why do you want to turn me off?”

The Dell XPS 15 9500 (top) has roughly the same footprint as the Razer Blade 15, but it’s thinner. Plus, the sloping profile makes it seem thinner than it is.

Lori Grunin/CNET

One thing Dell didn’t sacrifice is speed, sort of. It stuck with the Intel H series processor where a lot of slim competitors use the lower-power (and therefore slower) U series. But it also tops out with the GeForce GTX 1650 Ti; bumping it up to a 6GB 1660 Ti GPU, like the Surface Book 3 has, might have given it the extra 2GB memory needed to let it better run some professional graphics applications or a little extra needed oomph for video editing. It does let Dell differentiate between the XPS 15 and the larger XPS 17 for something other than size, though.

The battery life is solid relative to the rest of its class at a little over eight hours, at least for streaming video. It also held up pretty well under my more punishing real-life workload, lasting about five hours of active use (though no imaging apps). That’s a pretty long time for me, though it ran too hot to keep it on my lap for that long.

The new design for the XPS 15 acquits itself well, and Dell didn’t make any major mistakes with it (along the lines of the now-retired XPS 13 bottom-dwelling webcam). But as a general-purpose work laptop, it’s not super light, doesn’t have a super long battery life, isn’t super thin, super fast or super cheap. It’s not a work laptop superhero, just a premium workhorse.

Geekbench 5 (multicore)

Microsoft Surface Book 3 (15-inch)

Lenovo Yoga C940 (15-inch)

Apple MacBook Pro (16-inch)

Note:

Longer bars indicate better performance

Geekbench 5 (single core)

Lenovo Yoga C940 (15-inch)

Apple MacBook Pro (16-inch)

Microsoft Surface Book 3 (15-inch)

Note:

Longer bars indicate better performance

Geekbench 5 (Vulkan)

Lenovo Yoga C940 (15-inch)

Microsoft Surface Book 3 (15-inch)

Note:

Longer bars indicate better performance

Cinebench R20 CPU (multicore)

Microsoft Surface Book 3 (15-inch)

Lenovo Yoga C940 (15-inch)

Apple MacBook Pro (16-inch)

Note:

Longer bars indicate better performance

Video playback battery drain test (streaming)

Apple MacBook Pro (16-inch)

Lenovo Yoga C940 (15-inch)

Microsoft Surface Book 3 (15-inch)

Note:

Longer bars indicate better performance (in minutes)

3DMark Fire Strike Ultra

Microsoft Surface Book 3 (15-inch)

Lenovo Yoga C940 (15-inch)

Note:

Longer bars indicate better performance

System configurations

Apple MacBook Pro (16-inch) Apple MacOS Catalina 10.15.1; 2.4GHz Intel Core i9-9980HK; 32GB DDR3 SDRAM 2,666MHz; 8GB Radeon Pro 5500M/1,536MB Intel HD Graphics 630; 2TB SSD Dell XPS 15 9500 Microsoft Windows 10 Home (1909); 2.3GHz Intel Core i7-10875H; 16GB DDR4 SDRAM 2,933MHz; 4GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Ti; 512GB SSD Lenovo Yoga C940 (15-inch) Microsoft Windows 10 Home (64-bit); 2.6GHz Intel Core i7-9750H; 16GB DDR4 RAM 2,667MHz; 4GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 with Max-Q design; 512GB SSD Microsoft Surface Book 3 (15-inch) Microsoft Windows 10 Home (1909); 1.3GHz Intel Core i7-1065G7; 32GB DDR4 SDRAM 4,267MHz; Intel Iris Plus Graphics and 6GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti with Max-Q design; 512GB SSD MSI Prestige 15 Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (1909); 1.1Hz Intel Core i7-10710U; 32GB DDR4 SDRAM 2,667MHz; 4GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 with Max-Q design; 1TB SSD

[grassroutes]

One Mix 3S Yoga: Not the First Netbook, But Probably The Best

Our verdict of the One-Netbook One Mix 3S: If you absolutely need maximum portability but want all the power you can get, this is a good buy, but the same money can buy you a much better laptop.710

It’s official: netbooks are back. It started with a few smaller computers here and there, but it wasn’t long before the trickle became a torrent. Things have changed though. The netbooks of 10 years ago were tiny and portable, yes, but they were also massively underpowered.

On the other hand, the netbooks we’re seeing released now can be as powerful as any other laptop, just scaled down in size. The One Mix 3S is an example of just how mighty these pint-sized powerhouses can be. Whether you actually need one for yourself is another matter entirely.

One Mix 3S Hardware Specifications

The One Mix 3S comes in a few different variations. The specs of our review unit, which appears to be the base model, are reflected below. You can also get it with major power upgrades like an i7 processor, though obviously, it will cost you more.

CPU: Intel Core M3-8100Y (1.1GHz to 3.4GHz)

GPU: Intel UHD Graphics 615

RAM: 16GB

Storage: 512 NVMe SSD

Screen: 8.4″, 2560×1600 55Hz multi-touch IPS display @ 358ppi

Battery: 8,600 mAh 3.7V

Dimensions: 204mm x 129mm x 14.9mm or 8.03 x 5.07 x 0.58 inches

Wireless: Dual-band 802.11ac / Bluetooth 4.0

Ports: USB-C, USB 3.0, Micro HDMI, Headset, TF card slot

Other: Fingerprint scanner, optional stylus with 4,096 pressure levels

Price: under $900 at GeekBuying.com

The One Mix 3S runs Windows 10 Home. We’d have preferred to see Windows 10 Pro, but this helps keep the initial price down, and you can always upgrade easy enough from the Windows Store.

Body and Design

 As you can likely tell by either reading the size specs above or just looking at the photos, this is a tiny computer. Because of the overall small dimensions, it looks a little on the chunky side, but compared to my MacBook Pro, it’s just as thin.

Our review unit came in a sleek black finish that was stunning out of the box. There’s a reason I say “was” instead of “is.” This is a bit of a fingerprint magnet. Within a few minutes of handling the laptop, it didn’t look nearly as sleek as it had out of the box. A quick wipe with a microfibre cloth had it back to its original look.

The netbooks of old were often flimsy, but this is anything but. Like the One Mix 2S, this is machined from solid aluminum, giving it a very solid feel. This extends to the netbook as a whole, especially the hinges for the screen, which have been the downfall of many a laptop.

Given the small size, this is among the most portable computers you’ll find. It won’t quite fit in your pocket as advertised, but it will certainly fit in a purse and can easily fit into all but the most jam-packed backpacks.

Display and Brightness

The screen is almost overkill, with a resolution of 2560 x 1600 packed into an 8.4-inch screen size. That’s close to the resolution of a Surface Pro, but in a much smaller screen size. This results in an ultra-crisp pixel density of 358 pixels per inch.

The color isn’t as good as the overall display, however. Colors are a little muted and washed out when compared to the displays on other gadgets I had handy. Granted I had to look, but this was definitely noticeable.

One issue I’m not sure will be so obvious, but did give me pause during testing, is the refresh rate. Instead of the usual 60Hz refresh rate, the One Mix 3S runs at 55Hz. This caused a noticeable strobing effect when I was shooting photos and video.

Even after I was done shooting, I could swear I noticed a vague strobing effect when looking at the screen. This could have been in my head, but it’s worth keeping in mind if you’re sensitive to this sort of thing.

Is the Tiny Keyboard Usable?

As with any computer like this, the keyboard is small. There’s no getting around that. Because of its small size, the keyboard layout has changed. This is the actual problem with these netbooks, rather than the individual key size.

If a company somehow manages to fit a standard keyboard layout into a netbook-sized keyboard, they’ll deserve some sort of award. Until then, it’s a matter of figuring out which sacrifices you can comfortably live with and which are simply untenable.

With the One Mix 3S, there are a few specific problems. The first and most common is the tiny space bar. For frequent users of the tab key, it’s even worse, as this key has been relocated to the function keys. The quote keys are down to the right of the space bar as well.

One plus of the tiny keyboard is that it is backlit. Strangely though, the backlight is aggressive about turning off. This is likely in the name of saving battery life, but if you frequently type in a dark room, this will get annoying quickly.

What’s the Point of the Pointer?

While older netbooks usually still included a touchpad, these are hard to find on modern netbooks. In the case of the One Mix 3S, it uses an infrared induction mouse. We’ve seen these before, and while not ideal, they are usable.

The problem in the case of the One Mix 3S is the location. On older One Mix models and similar netbook-style computers like the Chuwi MiniBook 8″, the “mouse” is located in the middle of the spacebar, similar to where a ThinkPad-style trackpoint would be. Here it’s below the space bar and in between the left and right mouse buttons, making it unwieldy to use.

As I and others have said before, an actual rubber trackpoint would be both smaller and easier to use. This could simply be familiarity, but the induction mouse would be maddening if it was your only option for navigating the OS.

Fortunately, the screen on the One Mix 3S is a touchscreen, which alleviates almost all of the mouse-related issues. Even better, our review unit shipped with a stylus, which made selecting tiny user interface elements possible.

The touchscreen and stylus allow the One Mix 3S to pull double duty as a Windows 10 tablet. It’s not going to give Microsoft’s Surface Pro devices a run for their money, but it works quite well in tablet mode.

Performance

As reading the specs might have clued you in, the One Mix 3S isn’t a toy. This is a serious computer that just happens to be in an ultra-portable form factor. While I noticed limitations from the screen size and keyboard, I never felt like the hardware was slowing me down.

Thermal issues can pop up on smaller form factor computers like this, so you may be glad to know the fans are pretty aggressive. They don’t get overly loud, but they tend to kick in as soon as the computer starts to work at all.

I’m not quite sure why, but when I tried running benchmarks, they didn’t line up with the performance I noticed. Geekbench gave me scores of 654 for single-core performance and 1263 for multi-core performance, much slower than scores I’ve seen on less powerful hardware. The computer certainly felt more responsive than these scores would indicate.

Another area where the One Mix 3S excelled was Wi-Fi speed. Unlike the One Mix 2S, which was hampered by problematic Wi-Fi, I never noticed any issues with the One Mix 3S.

Battery Life

The One Mix 3S sports an 8,600mAh battery, bigger than the 6,500mAh battery in the One Mix 2S. Of course, this model has a bigger screen, but battery life is still improved overall.

I averaged around 6 hours of life per charge during my testing, though this varied based on how much I was pushing the hardware. The good news is that the One Mix 3S doesn’t seem to sip much power when the screen is shut, so you don’t need to worry about shutting it down to save power.

Like other modern netbooks, the One Mix 3S uses USB-C for charging. It only has a single USB-C port, which can be problematic, but like other similar computers, you can always get around this by using a hub.

How long it takes to charge will vary based on the charger you’re using. With the included 12V, 2.5A charger, charge time was around 2 to 3 hours.

Should You Buy the One Mix 3S?

With some other modern netbooks, I’ve noticed that while the specs seem powerful enough, actually using them still feels slow. That isn’t the case with the One Mix 3S. This feels like a computer that, with the exception of editing video, I’d have no problem using on a day to day basis. That is assuming that I’d eventually get used to the keyboard.

That said, if you’re just looking for a moderately powerful laptop, the One Mix 3S shouldn’t be at the top of the list. If portability is your first concern, with power coming in a close second, then the One Mix 3S is absolutely worth looking at. The sheer amount of RAM alone will be very useful when it comes to everyday computing tasks.

If you’re not in a rush, you might just want to wait a few months and see what comes down the pike next. We’re in a great time for netbooks, with each new model seemingly better than the last. If that trend continues, I can’t wait to see what the future has in store.

The One Mix 3S, configured as we reviewed it, will cost you between just under $900 currently. That certainly isn’t cheap, and as mentioned above, that will buy you plenty of power in a standard-sized laptop. That said, if you crave portability but can’t sacrifice the power, you could certainly do a lot worse.

Enter the Competition!

One-Netbook One Mix 3S Giveaway

Read the full article: One Mix 3S Yoga: Not the First Netbook, But Probably The Best

One Mix 3S Yoga: Not the First Netbook, But Probably The Best posted first on grassroutespage.blogspot.com

[droneseco]

One Mix 3S Yoga: Not the First Netbook, But Probably The Best

Our verdict of the One-Netbook One Mix 3S: If you absolutely need maximum portability but want all the power you can get, this is a good buy, but the same money can buy you a much better laptop.710

It’s official: netbooks are back. It started with a few smaller computers here and there, but it wasn’t long before the trickle became a torrent. Things have changed though. The netbooks of 10 years ago were tiny and portable, yes, but they were also massively underpowered.

On the other hand, the netbooks we’re seeing released now can be as powerful as any other laptop, just scaled down in size. The One Mix 3S is an example of just how mighty these pint-sized powerhouses can be. Whether you actually need one for yourself is another matter entirely.

One Mix 3S Hardware Specifications

The One Mix 3S comes in a few different variations. The specs of our review unit, which appears to be the base model, are reflected below. You can also get it with major power upgrades like an i7 processor, though obviously, it will cost you more.

CPU: Intel Core M3-8100Y (1.1GHz to 3.4GHz)

GPU: Intel UHD Graphics 615

RAM: 16GB

Storage: 512 NVMe SSD

Screen: 8.4″, 2560×1600 55Hz multi-touch IPS display @ 358ppi

Battery: 8,600 mAh 3.7V

Dimensions: 204mm x 129mm x 14.9mm or 8.03 x 5.07 x 0.58 inches

Wireless: Dual-band 802.11ac / Bluetooth 4.0

Ports: USB-C, USB 3.0, Micro HDMI, Headset, TF card slot

Other: Fingerprint scanner, optional stylus with 4,096 pressure levels

Price: under $900 at GeekBuying.com

The One Mix 3S runs Windows 10 Home. We’d have preferred to see Windows 10 Pro, but this helps keep the initial price down, and you can always upgrade easy enough from the Windows Store.

Body and Design

  As you can likely tell by either reading the size specs above or just looking at the photos, this is a tiny computer. Because of the overall small dimensions, it looks a little on the chunky side, but compared to my MacBook Pro, it’s just as thin.

Our review unit came in a sleek black finish that was stunning out of the box. There’s a reason I say “was” instead of “is.” This is a bit of a fingerprint magnet. Within a few minutes of handling the laptop, it didn’t look nearly as sleek as it had out of the box. A quick wipe with a microfibre cloth had it back to its original look.

The netbooks of old were often flimsy, but this is anything but. Like the One Mix 2S, this is machined from solid aluminum, giving it a very solid feel. This extends to the netbook as a whole, especially the hinges for the screen, which have been the downfall of many a laptop.

Given the small size, this is among the most portable computers you’ll find. It won’t quite fit in your pocket as advertised, but it will certainly fit in a purse and can easily fit into all but the most jam-packed backpacks.

Display and Brightness

The screen is almost overkill, with a resolution of 2560 x 1600 packed into an 8.4-inch screen size. That’s close to the resolution of a Surface Pro, but in a much smaller screen size. This results in an ultra-crisp pixel density of 358 pixels per inch.

The color isn’t as good as the overall display, however. Colors are a little muted and washed out when compared to the displays on other gadgets I had handy. Granted I had to look, but this was definitely noticeable.

One issue I’m not sure will be so obvious, but did give me pause during testing, is the refresh rate. Instead of the usual 60Hz refresh rate, the One Mix 3S runs at 55Hz. This caused a noticeable strobing effect when I was shooting photos and video.

Even after I was done shooting, I could swear I noticed a vague strobing effect when looking at the screen. This could have been in my head, but it’s worth keeping in mind if you’re sensitive to this sort of thing.

Is the Tiny Keyboard Usable?

As with any computer like this, the keyboard is small. There’s no getting around that. Because of its small size, the keyboard layout has changed. This is the actual problem with these netbooks, rather than the individual key size.

If a company somehow manages to fit a standard keyboard layout into a netbook-sized keyboard, they’ll deserve some sort of award. Until then, it’s a matter of figuring out which sacrifices you can comfortably live with and which are simply untenable.

With the One Mix 3S, there are a few specific problems. The first and most common is the tiny space bar. For frequent users of the tab key, it’s even worse, as this key has been relocated to the function keys. The quote keys are down to the right of the space bar as well.

One plus of the tiny keyboard is that it is backlit. Strangely though, the backlight is aggressive about turning off. This is likely in the name of saving battery life, but if you frequently type in a dark room, this will get annoying quickly.

What’s the Point of the Pointer?

While older netbooks usually still included a touchpad, these are hard to find on modern netbooks. In the case of the One Mix 3S, it uses an infrared induction mouse. We’ve seen these before, and while not ideal, they are usable.

The problem in the case of the One Mix 3S is the location. On older One Mix models and similar netbook-style computers like the Chuwi MiniBook 8″, the “mouse” is located in the middle of the spacebar, similar to where a ThinkPad-style trackpoint would be. Here it’s below the space bar and in between the left and right mouse buttons, making it unwieldy to use.

As I and others have said before, an actual rubber trackpoint would be both smaller and easier to use. This could simply be familiarity, but the induction mouse would be maddening if it was your only option for navigating the OS.

Fortunately, the screen on the One Mix 3S is a touchscreen, which alleviates almost all of the mouse-related issues. Even better, our review unit shipped with a stylus, which made selecting tiny user interface elements possible.

The touchscreen and stylus allow the One Mix 3S to pull double duty as a Windows 10 tablet. It’s not going to give Microsoft’s Surface Pro devices a run for their money, but it works quite well in tablet mode.

Performance

As reading the specs might have clued you in, the One Mix 3S isn’t a toy. This is a serious computer that just happens to be in an ultra-portable form factor. While I noticed limitations from the screen size and keyboard, I never felt like the hardware was slowing me down.

Thermal issues can pop up on smaller form factor computers like this, so you may be glad to know the fans are pretty aggressive. They don’t get overly loud, but they tend to kick in as soon as the computer starts to work at all.

I’m not quite sure why, but when I tried running benchmarks, they didn’t line up with the performance I noticed. Geekbench gave me scores of 654 for single-core performance and 1263 for multi-core performance, much slower than scores I’ve seen on less powerful hardware. The computer certainly felt more responsive than these scores would indicate.

Another area where the One Mix 3S excelled was Wi-Fi speed. Unlike the One Mix 2S, which was hampered by problematic Wi-Fi, I never noticed any issues with the One Mix 3S.

Battery Life

The One Mix 3S sports an 8,600mAh battery, bigger than the 6,500mAh battery in the One Mix 2S. Of course, this model has a bigger screen, but battery life is still improved overall.

I averaged around 6 hours of life per charge during my testing, though this varied based on how much I was pushing the hardware. The good news is that the One Mix 3S doesn’t seem to sip much power when the screen is shut, so you don’t need to worry about shutting it down to save power.

Like other modern netbooks, the One Mix 3S uses USB-C for charging. It only has a single USB-C port, which can be problematic, but like other similar computers, you can always get around this by using a hub.

How long it takes to charge will vary based on the charger you’re using. With the included 12V, 2.5A charger, charge time was around 2 to 3 hours.

Should You Buy the One Mix 3S?

With some other modern netbooks, I’ve noticed that while the specs seem powerful enough, actually using them still feels slow. That isn’t the case with the One Mix 3S. This feels like a computer that, with the exception of editing video, I’d have no problem using on a day to day basis. That is assuming that I’d eventually get used to the keyboard.

That said, if you’re just looking for a moderately powerful laptop, the One Mix 3S shouldn’t be at the top of the list. If portability is your first concern, with power coming in a close second, then the One Mix 3S is absolutely worth looking at. The sheer amount of RAM alone will be very useful when it comes to everyday computing tasks.

If you’re not in a rush, you might just want to wait a few months and see what comes down the pike next. We’re in a great time for netbooks, with each new model seemingly better than the last. If that trend continues, I can’t wait to see what the future has in store.

The One Mix 3S, configured as we reviewed it, will cost you between just under $900 currently. That certainly isn’t cheap, and as mentioned above, that will buy you plenty of power in a standard-sized laptop. That said, if you crave portability but can’t sacrifice the power, you could certainly do a lot worse.

Enter the Competition!

One-Netbook One Mix 3S Giveaway

Read the full article: One Mix 3S Yoga: Not the First Netbook, But Probably The Best

One Mix 3S Yoga: Not the First Netbook, But Probably The Best published first on http://droneseco.tumblr.com/

[goadapter-blog]

HP Envy x360 15 Overview

A 15-inch notebook much like the HP Envy x360 fifteen is often a little bit of an odd duck.This kind of 2-in-1 convertible laptop computer includes a 360-degree-rotating hinge,that's a bit extra complicated and often heavier compared to a person with a standard laptop computer.Meanwhile,the chassis expected to house the 15-inch display screen is uncomfortable to hold inside your fingers for additional than the usual couple seconds when compared having a additional workable 13-inch 2-in-1.But you will find specialized niche use situations alimentatore fujitsu u904 to get a 15-inch convertible,for instance propping it up like a tent for an impromptu presentation.The Envy x360 15 performs duties like this properly,it's got a sleek all-metal design and style,it really is fairly affordable,and on top of that it isn't as significant while you may well feel.For big-screen-convertible shoppers,it truly is really worth a glance.

Case

Similar for the jump through the Spectre 13 2016 into the Spectre 13 2017,the leap in the Envy x360 15 2016 for the Envy x360 15 2017 is outlined by HP's "micro-edge" slim bezel style to offer an enormous boost in the screen-to-body ratio of the display.The process is therefore smaller sized in footprint,additional eye-catching in layout,and perhaps lighter in weight on account of its eight mm-thin bezels when compared to thick-bezel convertibles which have yet to make the transition.Its all-aluminum supplies return from very last year's product sans the brushed surfaces to seem far more like HP's higher-end matte Spectre collection rather.We don't head the transform as rigidity remains to be great throughout the base with just negligible side-to-side flexing and warping down the center of your keyboard.Visually,the notebook matches its role given that the midway place involving the more cost-effective Pavilion x360 15 plus the pricier Spectre x350 15.Most likely the worst physical part in the new layout is its dual hinges.They really feel weaker when compared to the hinges with the Yoga 720 sequence caricabatterie lenovo 300 15isk and so are much more prone to motion when lifting and transporting the notebook.Stiffness is just not dispersed evenly all over;the display screen has a tendency to "fall" after it passes an angle of about one hundred forty levels or so.The hinges are merely hardly more than enough to stop teetering although typing on the flat desk and not a lot more.Usually,the lid alone is powerful with minimum side-to-side twisting and light-moderate warping when applying stress down its outer center.The Spectre x360 loved ones continues to be the more unyielding method in general along with the a person to conquer within the larger sized convertible area.Design excellent is perfect on our unique device as we can observe no unintended gaps or problems concerning elements or within the hinges.Its sharper back again corners and edges are even so additional at risk of nicks and bruises compared to the rounder corners with the Pavilion and Spectre batteria asus ux330ua equivalents.Even with the noticeably smaller sized footprint through the slim bezel style and design and thinner profile,the brand new Envy X360 fifteen nonetheless weighs virtually just as much as final year's Envy x360 15 for a very dense perception.Options like the XPS 15 and Spectre x360 15 are thinner and lighter and even the Yoga 720 and new Acer Spin 5 convertibles have managed to incorporate GTX 1050 graphics with no being any heavier or thicker.From this angle,it really is fairly disappointing not to see extra customizable alternatives offered.

Speaking of that stunning style,the keyboard is fantastic.It feels great to sort on,that has a satisfying key depth that designed this reviewer want to sort and sort.And it will make quite minor sound in the least - whilst mechanical keyboard fanatics will lament the silence.Individuals,you should: Enjoy the silence.But before you reach experiencing the keys,you'll likely detect the keyboard and trackpad are weirdly misaligned,one thing HP swears clients favor.The off-kilter keyboard accommodates a numeric keypad,which some will call a godsend and others will regard as an artifact.Who does data entry anymore  Due to keypad,the resting position within your fingers a1343 on the ASDF and JKL;keys aligns you using the still left 50 % from the screen.As well as touchpad is centered with them,somewhat in comparison to the heart on the display screen.It threw us off at the beginning,but it truly is a thing business-focused men and women will certainly enjoy.The 4K screen-FHD resolution,which means one,920   ¡ì ¨¦ one,080 pixels - is sharp and crisp and actually shiny.It caught our eye from across the home similar to a motion picture star.We didn't have enough time and energy to benchmark the procedure,not surprisingly - we'll go away to our whole critique.But inside our transient working experience,applications released immediately,plus the entire process felt zippy.It really is well worth noting the Envy x360 turns on while in the blink of an eye at the same time.Open up the duvet,and the technique is instantaneously on and awake.It feels very responsive overall.Help for inking through HP's most recent pens is an extremely great matter - and so are all those pens.The newest designs have tilt aid,which helps you to shade you inside of a sketch,in addition to a button about the stop which can launch applications alimentatore asus k501ux by means of Bluetooth,a la Microsoft's Floor pens.We didn't have a chance to check this out,sad to say.The Envy x360 fifteen begins to get a model along with the 8th-gen Intel Main i5,8GB of RAM,a 256GB SSD,and onboard UMA graphics.In the event you opt for AMD,it is possible to the choice of a more affordable configuration,packing a Ryzen 5 CPU and 128GB of SSD storage.As a reward,you need to get some improved graphics general performance with the AMD selection,pushing around Radeon RX Vega ten for your spendier configuration.

Display

The Envyx360 provides neat and clean pics on its 15.6-inch broader monitor.Even so,the exhibit suffers due to low brightness and blah color.The Intel-supported Envyx360 model will be able to generate a lot more than seventy five per cent on the sRGB spectrum.Even now on this ground,Envy falls significantly beneath the standard typical that is 102 percent.Even the Yoga and Spectre generate increased rankings - 114 and 130 per cent respectively.The notebook creates 186 nits of brightness caricabatterie dell m3800 and it is actually a paltry determine as per the current standard.Not stunning that this sort of volume of brightness leads to the scenario that requires you to perspective the display screen head on,given that the photos looks substantially darker to both equally sides.If it arrives to effectiveness of touchscreen,the product isn't responsible in the slightest degree.What we wish to tell you that don't expect it to reply into a comfortable touch.Check out HP Envy x360-15 user information.The truth is,it requirements a hefty touch to begin functioning.Now we have an answer for that problem.Obtain the HP Client Notebook/Desktop Computer ME Firware Update.After you utilize it,sleek and fast swipe gestures can be a potent assurance.

Performance

One with the advantages of the 15-inch laptop computer is that you can find extra space for cooling machines than there can be with a 13-inch style and design,which in turns signifies that suppliers can outfit a lot more potent CPUs and graphics processors.That is what HP did from the configuration of the Spectre x360 15we reviewed before this calendar year.With our Envy x360 fifteen evaluation device,the organization in its place opted to setup a U-series Main i7 CPU and an integrated graphics chip.The "U" designator suggests a low-powered chip alimentatore inspiron 15 3558 that demands very tiny exterior cooling.It is a quite prevalent configuration in ultraportable laptops,and it can help maintain the Envy x360 15's expense realistic.To check the laptop's computing overall performance,I pitted it towards other equally priced and in the same way configured convertible laptops,whose specs are inside the chart down below.I also provided the Spectre x360 15 forever measure,although that may be a much more powerful and high priced 15-inch convertible.General,the Envy x360 15 held its own with direct competitors just like the Dell Inspiron fifteen 7000 2-in-1 at Dell,although naturally underperformed the more highly-priced Spectre x360 15 on some assessments.For typical computing responsibilities like website browsing and word processing,the Envy x360 will not enable you down.I seasoned no sluggishness or crashes for the duration of a full day of use,which include putting in several desktop apps and opening numerous browser tabs batteria alienware thirteen R2 simultaneously.The PCMark ten benchmark confirms my expertise,while using the Envy x360 15 undertaking within a few hundred factors of all of its rivals help save with the Spectre x360 15.On this examination,which simulates total procedure general performance for light gaming and office-centric tasks like world wide web searching and videoconferencing,nearly anything bigger than 4,000 indicates very good performance.The exact same is real on the PCMark eight check,which simulates the same forms of responsibilities,but focuses entirely on how properly the PC's storage subsystem can manage them.These laptops have SSDs as their key boot drives,so they done about equally.The variances are more pronounced on our media development assessments.The Envy x360 fifteen was neck-in-neck with just about every competitor except for the 15-inch Spectre x360,which showed an unlimited advantage many thanks to its impressive GPU.Cinebench stresses the CPU fairly as opposed to GPU to render a posh impression.The result batteria hp fifteen r205nl is usually a proprietary score indicating a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads.In terms of implementing a sequence of filters and also other outcomes to some JPG test graphic in Adobe Photoshop CC,however,scores were being in every single place.The Envy x360 15 really done competitively in opposition to both of its HP siblings along with the Dell Inspiron 14 5000 2-in-1,when the Inspiron fifteen 7000 lagged appreciably.The Photoshop test requires "bursty" needs on the CPU and GPU,and it can throw a curveball even for powerful programs.I did not try to engage in resource-intensive game titles around the Envy x360 fifteen,plus the effects of our gaming checks below make clear why.3DMark actions relative graphics muscle by rendering sequences of highly in-depth,gaming-style 3D graphics that emphasize particles and lighting.Like 3DMark,the Superposition take a look at renders and pans by an in depth 3D scene and measures how the procedure copes.The Envy x360 executed poorly on both of those of these checks,which is not always a drawback,considering that no ultraportable with built-in graphics can perform demanding games extremely properly.As with Cinebench,when the laptop contains a discrete GPU from Nvidia or AMD,it will eventually accomplish vastly much better.Persist with casual games like Candy Crush and you'll be fine.The Envy x360 15's 56Wh battery delivers sufficient daily life,as measured by our video-rundown examination,which involves looping a domestically stored 720p file with screen brightness established at fifty per cent and quantity at 100 per cent until finally the program conks out.Thirteen hrs will get you through a cross-country flight batteria toshiba satellite p50 or even a day at function,but it isn't really pretty much as good because the virtually 21 hours that the Spectre x360 thirteen can reach absent from a plug.

Our industry experts have talked to couple users and compiled their viewpoint relating to this products.We cannot state that this HP receives a combination response from your customers.With no mincing terms,we'll set it straight which the Envyx360 introduced a blot in HP's reputation.Some end users have gone further to swear that they won't ever purchase a HP notebook.Lots of people are furious at poor HP customer alimentatore dell venue 10 treatment company.They may have complained the recently acquired program showed disturbances in a number of months and they had to wait very long to acquire responses through the buyer care office.Now that appears disturbing.Some customers are complaining about its turning out to be incredibly hot in a very couple minutes.Of their words and phrases,it gets too sizzling to place on the lap.HP ought to tackle the problem of their subsequent variation.CNET thinks Contact ID is just not proof against criticism.Lots of consumers have mentioned it is actually not reputable.The touch ID does not aspect a user-friendly character.TechRadder thinks hinges are weak,as we've already talked about during the introduction part.Some end users think that pixels will not be flawless.One of the most troublesome portion - they truly feel - the machine reboots with no warning.However,the Gadget Net have liked its glance.But according to them,modern glance is just what the HP Envyx360 has got to present.Within the overall performance floor,it really is considerably beneath the market batteria 0b200 00310200 common in numerous fronts.

Verdict

The HP Envyx360 notebook will come using a significant screen measuring fifteen.6 inches.The potential buyers usually desire a bigger display for distinct pictures and sound audio.Nonetheless,the furthermore place is overshadowed by its deficiency luster display,short battery life and unfastened hinges.The look is pretty good although under no circumstances feels exceptional while you will get significantly better-looking versions within the identical selling price selection.Silver ending is not a signature aspect of Envyx360.Really speaking,silver beauty will not stand tall from the crowd nevertheless the identical doesn't keep real for the black designs of Envyx360.In line with our industry experts,efficiency by no means feels great about the x360 process.If you absolutely are a video game enthusiast,you may have lot of pleasurable whilst taking part in on it.Nonetheless,the hard-core avid gamers will certainly favor the committed gaming programs batteria asus a31 n56 for their purpose.If it arrives to running high-end experienced applications that have a wonderful deal of memory house,performance is likely to go gradual.The method is created to deal with multitasking with no hitch.Nevertheless,the reality contradicts the promises and that will not likely bore very well for your people.Should you function with multiple tabs open up,performance will suffer.It is actually ok for computing as well as likes but absolutely not ideal for specialist multimedia works,as that call for good speed.If you'd like a combination of long-lasting battery existence,a lot quicker effectiveness,brighter display screen,think about investing with a improved model from a myriad of obtainable alternatives.However,in the event you are focused on purchasing a big-screen laptop computer batteria asus a41 x550a that will operate for a tablet in addition,the Envyx360 nonetheless will make a very good decision worth thinking of.Given that this can be the initial commercially offered notebook geared up with Raven Ridge,our verdict can be split into two elements.The main portion relates to the AMD hardware alone.On paper,the twenty five W cTDP Ryzen five 2500U APU and RX Vega eight GPU can easily stand neck-to-neck with recent fifteen W Kaby Lake-R options although outperforming even the Iris Professional Graphics 580 in synthetic benchmarks.Merge this along with the normally decreased value tag and there may be seemingly no rationale to settle on Intel above AMD with all else remaining equal.Regretably for AMD,all else is not equivalent and Raven Ridge is actually not however all set for key time.Our take a look at device is extraordinarily gradual and suffers from random crashes.Particularly,the program would crash more usually when stressing the GPU or operating gaming loads comparable for the previous technology of AMD Dual Graphics notebooks like about the Asus FX550IU.Synthetic benchmarks may well expose the Vega 8 for being faster as opposed to aging GeForce 940MX,although the reverse is accurate when managing newest online games.This really is vintage AMD for improved or even worse - outstanding performance-per-Dollar that is eventually dragged down by inferior drivers and developer assistance.Possible customers who are drawn in by the remarkable processor effectiveness will discover the reduce price beautiful above an Intel Kaby Lake-R equivalent.On the other hand,players will discover practically nothing but disappointment from the RX Vega 8 till its drivers are around speed.It might be about two times as powerful as being the UHD Graphics 620 in synthetic exams,nevertheless the MX150 remains the better expense for trustworthy 1080p gaming over a price range.The second element of our verdict is around the HP notebook as a whole.The manufacturer has productively incorporated Spectre-class slender bezels onto its mainstream Envy lineup that's sleeker batteria toshiba pa5107u 1brs and just as tough since the outgoing generation.Outside of the chassis redesign,nonetheless,not a lot else has enhanced.This was HP's opportunity to boost all aspects in the Envy x360 15 series but we in its place have the similar dim 1080p touchscreen,constrained coloration room,and PWM traits as very last year's product.The speakers,SD reader,keyboard,trackpad,hinges,overall bodyweight,and pulsing supporter sounds usually are not tangibly improved about the 2016 product,possibly.The largest draw,then,is definitely the slimmer seems to be and maybe the slightly extended battery existence and USB Type-C Gen.one port on this newest redesign.

[computerguideworld-blog]

The world's first crowd-sourced computer reveals there is no wisdom in the crowd

New Post has been published on https://computerguideto.com/must-see/the-worlds-first-crowd-sourced-computer-reveals-there-is-no-wisdom-in-the-crowd/

The world's first crowd-sourced computer reveals there is no wisdom in the crowd

It looks familiar, but the EVE V doesn't quite match up to the Surface Pro

Image: lance ulanoff/mashable

Beware of group-think. It can lead to bad choices and circular logic. The wisdom of the crowd might help you solve a difficult puzzle, but it won’t necessarily lead to better choices or products.

For EVE, the puzzle was how to build the Surface Pro-style 2-in-1 computer of their dreams, while undercutting Microsoft on price.

EVE’s team of just 8 employees tapped into a community of 1,000 developers around the world and a larger EVE community of over 6,000 members to decide each specification. The result is a solidly-built, attractive, and generally performant computer that packs impressive power and battery life into an extraordinarily affordable package.

The EVE V starts at the same base price as the Microsoft Surface Pro: $799 for a Core m3 system, but EVE throws in the keyboard and pen, a $228 value. The system I tested was running an 8th-generation Core i7 processor with 16 GB of RAM and a half terabyte hard drive. The list price is $1,599. A similarly configured Surface Pro starts at $2,199, and that’s without the Type Cover Keyboard and Surface Pen.

And if price were your only consideration, the EVE V would be an all-out winner. It’s not.

Something’s different 

The EVE V laptop has all the earmarks of a Surface Pro. The thin HD display, fully adjustable kickstand, detachable keyboard and Bluetooth stylus. It runs Windows 10. There is a plethora of ports: two USB-C ports (two more than the Surface Pro has), two USB-3 ports (one more than the Surface Pro) and, like the Surface, a micro-SD card slot for storage expansion.

The EVE V back is a bit of a fingerprint magnet.

Image: LANCE ULANOFF/MASHABLE

It’s a little thick and a little heavy.

The display is slightly smaller than the Surface Pro’s, with more unsightly black bezel around the edge, but it’s also higher resolution (2880×1920). There are also HD-capable cameras on the front and back.

While the Eve V lacks the front-facing infrared camera to enable Windows Hello facial recognition and authentication, it does have a finger print reader hidden on the right edge of the screen that doubles as a power button. It sits right above the volume rocker button.

The EVE V has decent speakers and powerful far-field microphones.

Image: LANCE ULANOFF/MASHABLE

It all sounds good, but thanks to the the brilliant crowd, the Eve V features several bizarre design decisions that ultimately hobbled this otherwise decent machine.

As soon as I picked up the machine, I was shocked by its heft. The tablet alone weighs over 2 pounds. That’s at least a quarter heavier than the Surface Pro. Even the keyboard is considerably heavier than its Type Cover counterpart. In total, it all makes the Eve V a noticeably heavier system than you might expect with an ultra-portable 2-in-1. The extra weight also messed with the “lapability” of the system. I worked with the EVE V on my lap for a couple of hours and noticed how the edge of the kickstand was digging uncomfortably into my legs.

Yes, the keyboard is too thick, but at least you can change the color of the back-lighting.

Image: LANCE ULANOFF/MASHABLE

There is good reason for all this weight. In its wisdom, the EVE V hive-mind decided it was willing to add a couple of millimeters here and there (in the display and keyboard) to accommodate more battery. 

Before you applaud this foresight, let me make it clear that you are not getting an extra day of battery life. All that extra weight equates to, maybe, a few hours (I got almost 12 hours of battery life with full screen brightness).

My preference is for ultra portable manufacturers to achieve battery savings though efficient components and smart programming. If I wanted a heavier system with a lot more battery life, but some of the Surface DNA, I’d switch to the Surface Book 2 (13 or 15-inch). It’s a heavy beast, but at least I have tons of battery life and discrete graphics.

The keyboard is more evidence of the sometimes-confounding group-think nature of this device. 

Typing is easy on this keyboard, but let me know if you can find the “Backspace” key.

Image: LANCE ULANOFF/MASHABLE

Generally, I like the keyboard. It has decent travel, and though the keystroke feel is a bit mushy, the keys are well spaced. It even has customizable backlighting, I can switch between seven different color options. However, I quickly noticed that the “V” key is an inverted rectangle and “Backspace” says, “Oops!” 

Seriously. 

I’m all for being cheeky, but don’t mess with my keys unless you don’t expect people to be doing real work on this system.

The touchpad is small, but effective. Despite the thicker keyboard, it doesn’t travel as far as the trackpad on my Surface Pro Type Cover.

My last complaint about the keyboard is that it does not ably flip around to the back of the display for easy conversion into a handheld tablet without detaching from the screen. That’s just not how these things are supposed to work.

Boot me up

While I miss the ability to unlock my PC with my face, the EVE V’s fingerprint sensor is a decent substitute. It’s a little hard to find by feel, but the more I used the computer, the more I got used to putting my finger in the right spot on the side of the computer.

It’s hard to spot (and to feel), but there is a fingerprint sensor here

Image: LANCE ULANOFF/MASHABLE

Overall, though, the fingerprint reader/power button and long volume control button right below it feels a little unfinished. In fact, I’m not a big fan of most of the materials used here. I admit. Microsoft’s frequent use of magnesium has spoiled me. The EVE V metal chassis doesn’t feel great and, oddly, is a fingerprint magnet.

Aside from these many nits, the EVE V is a decent Windows 10 System.

Unlike Microsoft, EVE didn’t hesitate on the USB-C ports.

Image: LANCE ULANOFF/MASHABLE

It handled all tasks I threw at it and I was especially impressed with the responsiveness of the pen and screen interactions. The tip of the thin, black stylus glides across the screen. Unfortunately, there’s a little more lag between drawing on the screen and the digital ink dropping down on the page. From what I can tell, EVE V is not matching the Surface Pro’s 20 millisecond latency.

I like the feel of the pen (and that it’s included in the price), but I wish it held onto the side of the EVE V screen a little more tightly.

Drawing on the EVE V feels great, though, there is more lag than I found on the Surface Pro.

When I was done drawing, I placed the pen on the right edge of the screen where somewhat weak magnets struggled to hold it in place. Lacking the flat edge of the Surface Pen, the EVE V’s pen appears designed to be lost.

Why buy it

If you want approximate Surface Pro functionality, a bunch of useful ports and can live with the tradeoff of weight, polish and smart feature choices, it’s hard to find a better value that this. I have long said that it’s time for Microsoft to offer a decent Surface Pro, Type Cover and Surface Pen bundle deal, to which they have responded with resounding silence. The EVE V shows us what’s possible at a much more affordable price.

I fully expect EVE V version 2 to improve in all the areas it lags, especially if they stop listening to the crowd. I also expect, by then, a response from Microsoft.

EVE V Computer

The Good

Excellent value • Effective fingerprint reader • Gorgeous screen

The Bad

Materials could be better • Keyboard substitutions not welcome • Too thick and heavy

The Bottom Line

EVE’s V Computer is a good start on the affordable Surface Pro-style computer, but the crowd-influenced design and features are not winning.

WATCH: Check out Microsoft’s latest, sleekest Surface Pro

Read more: http://mashable.com/

[galucy-blog]

Acer Spin 1 Review

  The Pros Sharp, colorful display; Attractive metal chassis; Comfortable keyboard The Cons Below-average battery life; Small storage drive Verdict A fantastic budget 2-in-1, the Acer Spin 1 provides a premium metal design and one of the most colorful screens you can get for well under $350. It's not difficult to find a 2-in-1 that costs under $400, but in this price range, you normally have to settle for a system with a dull, low-res screen and so-so build quality. Enter the Acer Spin 1 (SP111-32N-C2X3). One of the best laptop values around, the $329 Spin 1 has a sleek, metal chassis, a snappy keyboard and one of the most colorful screens we've seen on any laptop at any price. Acer even includes an active, pressure sensitive stylus in the box. While we wish the battery life were better, this 11.6-inch laptop is the best budget 2-in-1 you can get and one of the best sub-$400 laptops overall. Design The Acer Spin 1 doesn't look anything like a $329 laptop. Its gunmetal-gray aluminum chassis stands out in a price band where cheap, glossy plastic is the norm. I particularly like the subtle, cross-hatch pattern on the dark gray lid and how it contrasts with the shiny, silver hinge area. Thick screen bezels, however, keep the inside of the system from looking quite as stunning as the outside of the package. At just 2.65 pounds and 11.4 x 7.9 x 0.56 inches thick, the Spin 1 is thin, light and compact enough to take anywhere. Competitors such as the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 2-in-1 and HP Pavilion x360 (11-inch) both weighed 3 or more pounds and were 0.2 to 0.3 inches thicker. Like any 11.6-inch laptop, Acer's 2-in-1 may seem a little too small for adults who want a larger keyboard and screen and a more substantial object to balance on their laps.

When you're buying a sub-$400 laptop, build quality is always a concern. However, the Spin 1 feels solid and sturdy. The hinges, which bend the screen back 360 degrees into tablet or tent modes, were strong and tight, offering just the right amount of resistance. The keyboard didn't suffer from flex, like we see on many affordable laptops. During the test period, I also accidentally knocked the laptop off of my desk and onto a carpeted floor and it suffered no noticeable damage. If Acer can put a 1920 x 1080 IPS touch display this vibrant on a $329 laptop, why can't manufacturers offer this kind of quality in their $800 and $1,000 laptops? Ports For a laptop this thin, the Acer Spin 1 has a decent selection of ports. On the left side, you'll find a USB 3.0 port, a full-size HDMI out connector and a microSD card reader, which could help increase the laptop's paltry 32GB of storage. The right side holds a USB 2.0 port and a 3.5mm audio jack.

Display The 11.6-inch screen on the Spin 1 is so bright and colorful that it has caused me to question my assumptions about the laptop industry. If Acer can put a 1920 x 1080 IPS touch display this vibrant on a $329 laptop, why can't manufacturers offer this kind of display quality in their $800 and $1,000 laptops?

When I watched a 1080p trailer for the Last Jedi, the red wall behind Kylo Ren and some billowing red smoke really popped while the foliage on Ahch-To was alive with rich green shades. Fine details, like gears in Luke's mechanical hand and the rocks that Rey levitates, were sharp and clear. According to our colorimeter, the Spin 1 can reproduce an impressive 129 percent of the sRGB color gamut, about 26 percent more than the ultraportable average. The Dell Inspiron 11 3000 2-in-1 and HP Pavilion x360 both offer far fewer colors, hitting just 81 and 70 percent of the gamut, respectively. Acer's 2-in-1 is also extremely bright, hitting 349 nits of brightness in our tests, which is 22 percent above the category average. The Inspiron 11 3000 2-in-1 is 12 percent dimmer than the Spin, but still bright, while the Pavilion x360's screen returned an awful 193 nits, which is 44 percent less than Acer's laptop. Acer's 2-in-1 blew away my expectations with a snappy, responsive keyboard. Audio The Acer Spin 1 offers decent but unimpressive audio output for a budget laptop. When I played AC/DC's "For Those About to Rock," the music was a little tinny and was loud enough to fill only a small room. However, I've heard far worse tinniness on much more expensive machines. The Spin's storage is so small that we didn't have enough free space to use our entire set of files. Keyboard and Touchpad When it comes time to type on most budget laptops, particularly 11-inchers like the Spin 1, I gird myself for an unpleasant experience. However, Acer's 2-in-1 blew away my expectations with a snappy, responsive keyboard that didn't have any of the flex or key stiffness I often see on much more expensive systems.

The keys have a solid 1.4 millimeters of vertical travel, which is pretty deep for a system this thin (1.5 to 2mm is typical on a full-size laptop) and require a 67 grams of force to actuate. Using the keyboard, I achieved a rate of 101 words per minute, with a 3.5 percent error rate on the 10fastfingers.com test, which is right in the middle of my usual range. The 4.1 x 2.3-inch buttonless touchpad provided accurate navigation, without any jerkiness. It also responded immediately to multitouch gestures such as pinch-to-zoom and three-finger swipe. Pen Experience While many 2-in-1s either have no compatible pen or make you buy one separately, the Acer Spin 1 comes with a stylus that supports 1,024 levels of pressure. About the size of a traditional ballpoint pen, the Acer Active Stylus felt really natural in my hand, though pressing its tip against the screen definitely felt like I was pushing plastic against glass. More expensive 2-in-1s, such asthe Surface Pro, offer stylii that do a good job of simulating the friction you get from writing with a pen on paper, but you can't really expect that feeling from a $329 laptop.

The Active Stylus worked fairly well during my testing, but I did experience some lag while drawing lines in the Fresh Paint program. However, when I wrote into the Windows 10 handwriting recognition box, the system quickly and accurately recorded my words. Strokes were thinner or thicker, depending on how hard I pressed. Performance Despite modest components that include an Intel Celeron N3350 CPU, 4GB of RAM and a 32GB eMMC storage drive, our review configuration of the Acer Spin 1 was a decent multitasker. With over a dozen sites open in Chrome and a 1080p video playing in another window, I experienced just a little bit of lag when I changed tabs and had to wait for the focused web page to render. (Chrome reloads pages on tab focus when you're low on system memory.) The Spin 1 scored a modest 2,806 on Geekbench 3, a synthetic benchmark test that measures overall performance. The Pentium N3530-powered Dell Inspiron 3000 2-in-1 was 21 percent quicker and the Pentium-N4200-enabled HP Envy x360 was a full 77 percent ahead of Acer's 2-in-1.

You probably don't want to crunch large spreadsheets on the Spin 1 very often, but its capabilities are in line with or better than direct competitors. Acer's 2-in-1 took 9 minutes and 45 seconds to match 20,000 names with their addresses in OpenOffice Calc, which is 43 seconds slower than the Pavilion x360, but nearly 6 minutes quicker than the Inspiron 11 3000. There isn't much room on the Spin 1's 32GB of internal storage, but the eMMC drive is quicker than those of most devices in this price range. The Spin copied 2.59GB of mixed media files at a rate of 83.5 MBps, which is 150 percent quicker than the Inspiron 11 3000 and 45 percent faster than the Pavilion x360 took to complete the same test with 4.97GB of files. The Spin's storage is so small that we didn't have enough free space to use our entire set of files. Unless it's the kind of low-end game that involves cards or falling pieces of candy, you probably won't want to play it on the Spin 1. It returned a score of 24,193 on 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited, which is far below the average ultraportable, but within range of competitors. The Spin 1 came in around 5,000 points ahead of the Inspiron 11 3000 and roughly 5,000 behind the Pavilion x360. Its gunmetal-gray aluminum chassis stands out in a price band where cheap, glossy plastic is the norm. Battery Life If you're planning to take the Spin 1 with you, be sure to pack the charger. The convertible lasted a modest 6 hours and 44 minutes on the Laptop Battery Test, which involves continuous surfing over Wi-Fi. That's enough time to get you through part of a work or school day, and it's nearly identical to the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 2-in-1's mark while besting the HP Pavilion x360 by about an hour. However, we prefer 8 hours or longer from an ultraportable.

Heat The Acer Spin 1 stayed cool throughout our tests. After we streamed video for 15 minutes, the touchpad measured 82.5 degrees Fahrenheit, the touchpad hit 88 degrees and the bottom reached only 94.3 degrees. We consider temperatures below 95 degrees comfortable. Webcam The Spin 1's 640 x 480 webcam is pretty awful. A selfie I took was both particularly grainy and blurry. Fine details like the hairs on my beard were hard to make out, and colors like the blue of my shirt and the green of the wall behind me were muted and inaccurate. Software and Warranty For a laptop with just 32GB of internal storage, the Spin 1 has an awful lot of unnecessary pre-loaded software. So plan to spend a few minutes in the control panel, hitting the uninstall button. Acer Portal contains the company's abPhoto, abFiles, abMusic and abADocs services, all of which sync different types of data across all of your devices. Both Portal and Acer Care Center, which lets you check system health and download updates, run in the background at all times. They can't be closed, so if you don't want them, you need to uninstall them. Acer Collection contains a set of tiles that link into the Windows Store so you can download recommended apps such as Drawboard PDF editor and, oddly enough, Yahoo mail. In addition to its own utilities, Acer has thrown on some third-party bloatware, including Amazon, Netflix, WildTangent games and Evernote. There's also the standard set of Microsoft handpicked bloat that we see on every Windows 10 device, including Asphalt 8, Bubble Witch Saga and March of Empires. Acer backs the Spin 1 with a standard one-year warranty on parts and labor. See how Acer fared on our Tech Support Showdown and Best and Worst Brand Ratings. Configurations Our review configuration of the Acer Spin 1, which goes by model number SP111-32N-C2X3, costs $329 and comes with an aluminum chassis, a Celeron processor, a 1080p screen, 4GB of RAM and a 32GB eMMC storage drive. For $429, you can get model number SP111-32N-P0FA which has a faster, Pentium N4200 CPU and a more-generous 64GB of storage. Depending on where you shop, you will see older versions of the Spin 1 selling for $300 or less. Target, for example, has a Spin 1 with the same exact specs as our review unit, but a plastic chassis for $249. We haven't tested these other models, but if they have the same components, they should offer a similar experience to the unit we reviewed.

Bottom Line With its snazzy design, responsive keyboard and brilliant display, the Acer Spin 1 sets a new standard for budget 2-in-1s. Only its below-average battery life prevents us from giving it a higher rating. Because of its small screen, limited storage and low-end processor, this convertible works best as a secondary device for people who already have a primary PC or as a child's computer. But if you want a high-quality, low-cost 2-in-1 for some quick drawing, web surfing and light productivity or school work, the Spin 1 is the best choice. TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS CPU Intel Celeron N3350 Operating System Windows 10 Home RAM 4GB RAM Upgradable to 4GB Hard Drive Size 32GB Hard Drive Speed Hard Drive Type eMMC Secondary Hard Drive Size Secondary Hard Drive Speed Secondary Hard Drive Type Display Size 11.6 Highest Available Resolution 1920 x 1080 Native Resolution 1920x1080 Optical Drive Optical Drive Speed Graphics Card Intel HD Graphics 500 Video Memory Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi Model Bluetooth Mobile Broadband Touchpad Size 4.1 x 2.3 inches Ports (excluding USB) USB 3.0 Ports (excluding USB) USB 2.0 Ports (excluding USB) Headphone/Mic Ports (excluding USB) HDMI USB Ports 2 Card Slots microSD Warranty/Support one year warranty Size 11.4 x 7.9 x 0.56 inches Weight 2.65 pounds Company Website www.acer.com   Read the full article

[koristore-blog]

The HP Envy 13t isn’t just a great laptop; it’s also a great deal. Starting under $900, you get a premium aluminum chassis and an 8th Gen Core i processor. It has an awesome keyboard and lasted 9 hours and 46 minutes on the Laptop Mag Battery Test.

While it’s branded with the budget Envy moniker, the 13t feels more like it belongs in the superior Spectre series, and while you can get brighter, more vivid displays on some competitors, the Envy 13t is priced more competitively.

The Pros

World-class keyboard; Light design; Long battery life; Strong performance; Great value

The Cons

Display doesn’t pop; Tinny audio

Verdict

The HP Envy 13t packs strong performance, long battery life and a fantastic typing experience into a lightweight and affordable package.

HP’s Envy 13t proves that you don’t have to break the bank to get a lightweight laptop with heavy doses of style and performance. For under $900 ($849 at publication time), this 2.9-pound ultrabook packs the power of an Intel 8th Gen Core processor, the sexiness of an all-metal chassis and the convenience of all-day battery life. It also has one of the best keyboards on the market. Higher-priced competitors offer more vibrant displays and even longer endurance, but overall the Envy 13t is a fantastic value.

Design

We see so many silver laptops in our lab that it can be hard to tell them apart, but the Envy 13 adds some original touches that make it stand out. The matte aluminum lid has a small incline in the back that covers the hinge, giving it clean, sleek lines. The shiny HP logo in the middle of the lid really pops while the tapered shape of the chassis makes the entire system look slim and sexy. A smooth bottom surface is made from magnesium alloy.

Opening the lid reveals an attractive aluminum deck, completely with silver keys that match the aesthetic (MacBooks break the color scheme by using brown keys). The side bezels around the 13.3-inch screen are relatively thin, but no one would mistake this display for one of the nearly edgeless offerings on Dell’s XPS 13 or Lenovo’s Yoga 920. HP also offers the Envy 13t in a “Silk Gold” color.

At 12 x 8.5 x 0.55 inches, the Envy is slim enough to fit into a narrow pocket in your bag and compact enough to fit on even the narrowest seat-back tray while its 2.93-pound weight makes it very easy to take with you. The Dell XPS 13 and Microsoft Surface Laptop are both a little bit — less than 0.2 pounds — lighter, the MacBook Air is about the same weight and the pricier HP Spectre 13 is half a pound less.

The Envy 13t’s keyboard is so good that it alone makes this laptop a compelling option for students or productivity workers.

Ports

For a notebook this thin, the Envy 13t has a fair selection of ports, which includes two standard USB 3.0 connections and two USB-C ports, with one of each on either side. There’s also a 3.5mm audio jack and a microSD card slot. The USB-C ports can be used for charging, data and video out, but you they can only accept power from an HP branded charger. The device itself comes with a proprietary, non-USB charger.

Display

The 13.3-inch, 1080p touch screen on the Envy 13t offers decent image quality. When I watched a trailer for Thor: Ragnarok, colors like the green in Hela’s cape, the purple on a statue and the red behind the Marvel logo all seemed fairly accurate but they didn’t “pop” like they do on pricier competitors like the Dell XPS 13 and HP’s own Spectre 13. HP also offers the Envy 13t with an optional 4K display, which may be brighter and more vibrant (we haven’t tested one).

According to our colorimeter, the Envy’s screen reproduced a solid 106 percent of the sRGB color gamut, which is just a few points ahead of the ultraportable laptop category average and 5 or 6 points between the XPS 13 and Spectre 13. The stunning screen on the Surface Laptop can show 30 percent more colors than Envy. Apple’s MacBook Air can’t even compete as its panel can only hit 71 percent of the gamut.

The glossy surface on the panel, along with below-average brightness hurts the viewing angles on the Envy. Even from just 45 degrees to the left or right, colors started to fade and the overhead lights in my office reflected back at me. The screen measured a modest 248 nits on our light meter, about 15 percent below the category average

Audio

The Envy 13t’s audio output is good enough for listening to dialog in movies or Skyping, but for music, you’ll want external speakers. When I played AC/DC’s “For Those About to Rock,” the music was loud enough to fill a small room, but it was tinny.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The Envy 13t’s keyboard is so good that it alone makes this laptop a compelling option for students or productivity workers. Competitors take note; HP has shown that, even on a very-thin laptop, you can have a world-class typing experience. Though the keys have a modest 1.2 millimeters of travel (1.5 to 2mm is typical for mainstream laptops), they have such a snappy, responsive feel that I never found myself bottoming out. The keys felt so much like an extension of my finger tips that I was able to match my all-time high of 110 words per minute on the 10FastFingers.com typing test.

The 4.3 x 2.1-inch buttonless touchpad was highly accurate,whether I was highlighting text or navigating around the desktop. It also responded flawlessly to multitouch gestures such as pinch-to-zoom and three-finger swipe.

If you’re heading to work or school, the Envy 13t can tag along while you leave its charger at home.

Performance

With its Intel 8th Gen Core i7-8550U, 8GB of RAM and 256GB PCIe SSD, our review configuration of the Envy 13t offered a plethora of performance, both in everyday use and benchmark tests. Even with over a dozen Chrome tabs open and a video playing, I didn’t experience even a hint of lag.

The Envy 13t scored a strong mark of 12,225 on Geekbench 4, a synthetic benchmark. That number is about 60 percent higher than the category average and Microsoft Surface Laptop and its slower Core i5-7200U. However, the Dell XPS 13 and HP Spectre 13 were 7 to 16 percent better, though they both have the same Core i7-8550U CPU as the Envy.

The laptop’s 256GB PCIe SSD took just 24 seconds to copy 4.97GB of mixed media files. That’s a comfortable rate of 212 MBps, which would dwarf any laptop with a mechanical hard drive or a slower SSD. The MacBook Air returned an identical speed on our test. However, the ultraportable laptop category average is a modest 15 MBps higher, the Spectre 13 was 60 percent quicker and the Dell XPS 13 was more than twice as fast.

The Envy 13t completed our spreadsheet macro test, in which we match 20,000 names with their addresses, in 3 minutes and 36 seconds, which is about 2 minutes quicker than the category average and 25 seconds ahead of the Surface Laptop. However, the XPS 13 was about 27 seconds faster than the Envy while the Spectre was just 7 seconds ahead.

Graphics

With its integrated Intel UHD 620 GPU on-board, the Envy 13t can’t replace a gaming rig, but it can play videos and run less-demanding titles. When we fired up the Dirt 3 racing game, HP’s laptop managed a strong frame rate of 48 fps, which is nearly 20 percent above the category average. However, the XPS 13 and Spectre 13 both offered well above 50 fps while the Surface Laptop screamed to a rate of 68 fps.

On 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited, a synthetic graphics test, the Envy 13t scored a strong 77,685, which beats the category average by over 30 percent and bests the Surface Laptop by over 15 percent. The Spectre 13 came up a few points short of the Envy while the XPS 13 was about 5 percent quicker.

Battery Life

If you’re heading to work or school, the Envy 13t can tag along while you leave its charger at home. The laptop lasted a strong 9 hours and 46 minutes on the Laptop Battery Test, which involves continuous surfing over Wi-Fi. That time is an hour and 20 minutes longer than the category average, about 45 minutes ahead of the Surface Laptop and 3 hours and 45 minutes longer than the Spectre 13. The MacBook Air lasted about 40 minutes longer than the Envy while the XPS 13 blew away the field with a time of 16:05.

Webcam

The Envy 13t’s 720p camera is good enough to use for Skype calls, but if you are podcasting or making a really important call, you’ll want to invest in an external webcam. When I shot an image of myself under the flourescent lights of my office, the blue in my shirt appeared dull and flat and fine details like the hairs in my beard and pores in my skin were impossible to distinguish. The image was very bright, but there was a lot of visual noise in the background.

Software

HP packs the Envy 13t with a few useful utilities, a sprinkling of bloatware and the standard Microsoft-installed crapware that every Windows 10 computer gets these days. Great for novice users, HP JumpStart contains a series of tutorials such as “Must-know keyboard shortcuts for Windows 10,” but it also has promotions for its extended warranty and ink refill programs.

ePrint lets you output to an HP printer over the Internet. Recovery Manager helps you create a system backup or reset. HP Support Assistant provides access to live chat and other tech support resources. The Bang and Olufsen audio control app allows you to adjust the volume and choose among music, movie and voice sound profiles.

The manufacturer has also preloaded Netflix, Priceline, Amazon and Dropbox apps, along with a card game called Simple Solitaire. If you are a new Dropbox subscriber, you get a free 25GB of space for a year. On top of these unnecessary apps, you have the standard Windows 10 set of bloatware, including Candy Crush Soda Saga, Bubblewitch Saga, Asphalt 8, March of Empires and a link to download Drawboard PDF editor, which costs $9.99. Fortunately, it’s easy to remove any unwanted apps.

Heat

What good is a laptop if it’s too hot to use on your lap? Fortunately, the Envy 13t kept its cool throughout our testings. After streaming a video for 15 minutes, the touchpad measured 82 degrees, the keyboard clocked in at 90 degrees and the bottom hit only 92.5 degrees Fahrenheit. We consider temperatures below 95 degrees comfortable.

Configurations

Our review configuration, which features a 1080p touch screen, Core i7-8550U CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB PCIe SSD carries a list price of $1,049. However, at press time, HP.com was selling this model for just $849, which is an incredible deal. If you purchase through HP’s website, you can configure the laptop with a larger SSD or upgrade to a 4K panel for an extra $150. HP says that the Envy 13t will be available with Nvidia MX 150 graphics and in Silk Gold, but the company website didn’t include those options at press time.

At third-party retailers, you can get versions of the Envy 13t that have a Core i5 processor and carry a lower MSRP. For $899, Microsoft Store sells a version of the laptop which has a Core i5-8250U CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD. Depending on current pricing, we’d definitely recommend the Core i7 model with at least a 256GB SSD.

Bottom Line

The HP Envy 13t is a great choice for students, knowledge workers or anyone that just needs to get something done. Though it has the sleek looks of a premium consumer laptop, this 13.3-inch ultraportable has the great typing experience, long battery life and strong performance people expect from the finest business laptops.

If you can spend a few hundred dollars more, depending on sale prices, the Dell XPS 13 offers much longer battery life, a more vibrant screen and better audio, but its keyboard isn’t as good as HP’s. Whether you need it for work or play, the Envy 13t provides exceptional power and portability for the money.

TECHICAL SPECIFICATIONS

CPU Intel Core i7-8550U Operating System Windows 10 Home RAM 8GB RAM Upgradable to Hard Drive Size 256GB Hard Drive Speed Hard Drive Type PCIe m.2 SSD Secondary Hard Drive Size Secondary Hard Drive Speed Secondary Hard Drive Type Display Size 13.3 Highest Available Resolution 3840 x 2160 Native Resolution 1920×1080 Optical Drive Optical Drive Speed Graphics Card Intel UHD Graphics 620 Video Memory Shared Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi Model Bluetooth Bluetooth 4.1 Mobile Broadband Touchpad Size 4.3 x 2.1 inches Ports (excluding USB) Combo Headphone/Mic Jack Ports (excluding USB) USB 3.0 Ports (excluding USB) USB Type-C USB Ports 4 Card Slots microSD Warranty/Support one year warranty Size 12.85 x 8.9 x 0.51 inches Weight 2.93 pounds Company Website http://www.hp.com/

HP Envy 13t The HP Envy 13t isn't just a great laptop; it's also a great deal. Starting under $900, you get a premium aluminum chassis and an 8th Gen Core i processor.