The CES 2022 is a couple of days away. But Samsung is already showing off a few of its monitors that it is set to unveil at the tech event. Among the monitors it is debuting at the tech extravaganza are what it touts to be the world’s first gaming monitor with both a 4K resolution and a 240 Hz refresh rate display and the 32-inch Smart Monitor M8 that has Smart TV and productivity apps built into it. Another one of its new offering is the high resolution monitor S8 that offers professional-level UHD performance for creators and designers.

“As the work and entertainment worlds continue to evolve, we are proud to deliver monitors that boost users’ experiences from the comfort of their homes,” Hyesung Ha, Executive Vice President of Visual Display Business at Samsung Electronics was quoted as saying .

Odyssey Neo G8, the cynosure

Hitherto, gaming monitors with ultrahigh definition have shown a latency of up to 144 Hz display. Now, Samsung is upping it to a high refresh rate of 240 Hz and 4K resolution with Odyssey Neo G8. This is expected to ensure a smoother motion than is possible in the conventional ultrahigh resolution monitors.

The new 32-inch monitor will use quantum-mini light-emitting diode and has a curvature of 1000R, meaning the curved monitor would form a circle with a 1-meter radius.

Smart monitor M8 is a smart hub, too

The 32-inch smart monitor M8, at 11.4 mm thickness, is said to be about three-quarters thinner than the previous model. The UHD panel provides 99% sRGB color gamut while supporting 1.07 billion colors at 400nit brightness, showing every video, document or photo with true-to-life accuracy.

Samsung has packed smart-home hub functions into the new device. In that it comes with in-built smart TV and productivity apps. It can serve as a SmartThings control hub even without the need of a PC. Its movable magnetic SlimFit webcam is handy for video calls that are inevitable in these work-from-home times. Its built-in video call application supports popular calling apps like Google Duo. The Game Home feature can also transform the M8 into a cloud game streaming monitor.

S8 High Resolution monitor

The Samsung high resolution monitor S8, available in 27-inch and 32-inch models, is expected to deliver ultra-wide range of rich and nuanced colors. It is claimed as the world’s first UL (Underwriter Laboratories) verified Glare Free monitor. Matte Display is applied on the top of the panel, reducing light reflection even when not using a monitor hood, to provide a distraction-free working environment.

Both models feature USB Type-C 90W charging and LAN ports to help users charge laptops and mobile devices with no need for additional docking station.

All the three monitors will be rolled out globally in the first half of the year, Samsung said. Their retailing prices have not been specified yet.

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Amazon's Lord of the Rings images reveal first look at key characters

The first images for Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power have arrived – and they confirm which characters will be part of the show's sizable cast.

Released as part of a lengthy Vanity Fair feature – the whole article is a must-read for any Lord of the Rings fan – the official stills reveal the individuals who will play significant roles in the Prime Video TV show .

We already knew that Morfydd Clark (Saint Maud) is portraying a younger version of Galadriel, and that Lenny Henry (Doctor Who) is playing an unnamed hobbit. Aside from a first-look image that was released in August 2021 and 23 character posters that were released earlier in February, though, we had no idea about who would appear in The Rings of Power .

Now, though, we've received confirmation that beloved characters, including Elrond and Durin IV, will feature in some capacity. Check out a snapshot of some of the official images via Vanity Fair's tweet below:

Robert Aramayo (Game of Thrones), who replaced Will Poulter as a supposedly key character called 'Beldor' back in January 2020, is actually playing Elrond, the eventual King of Rivendell and future father of Arwen.

Meanwhile, Owain Arthur, best known to UK viewers for BBC hospital drama Casualty, will portray Prince Durin IV. In J.R.R. Tolkien's legendary novels, Durin IV goes onto rule the Kingdom of Khazad-dûm, which has fallen into ruin and is overrun with goblins (and the Balrog) by the time of The Fellowship of the Ring.

British stage actress Sophia Nomvete is playing a Dwarven princess called Disa, while Ismael Cruz Córdova (In The Blood, The Undoing) is portraying a silvan elf named Arondir, a brand-new character for the series. Arondir will had a forbidden romance with a human called Bronwyn, who Nazanin Boniadi (How I Met Your Mother) will portray.

Another new character, Halbrand, will be played by Charlie Vickers (Medici, Palm Beach). Per Vanity Fair's article, Halbrand is a "fugitive who is on the run from his past", and he'll bump into Clark's Galadriel early on in The Rings of Power's first season.

Speaking of Galadriel, The Rings of Power will open on her quest to hunt down the last of Morgoth and Sauron's fellow evil-doers. Vanity Fair's article suggests that she'll be leading the elven Northern Armies – a position that only the most noble of elves hold. Meanwhile, another significant elf character in Celebrimbor, who makes the titular Rings of Power, will be played by Charles Edwards ( The Crown ).

Finally, Markella Kavenagh and Megan Richards will play unnamed hobbits, while Maxim Baldry (Years and Years) is playing Isildur – the hugely significant character who ends Sauron's reign of terror during the Second Age's climactic battle, but who succumbs to Sauron's legendary ring and refuses to cast it into the fires of Mount Doom, thus setting up the events of Lord of the Rings.

Thankfully, it won't be much longer until we find out more about The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The series' official trailer will debut during the Super Bowl LVI half-time show, so we'll learn more about its Second Age setting, other characters, overarching plot, and more very soon.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will launch exclusively on Prime Video on September 2, 2022.

Analysis: who are The Rings of Power's other characters?

While Vanity Fair's feature confirmed the identities of nine other individuals who'll appear alongside Galadriel, there are still plenty of actors who haven't had their characters revealed yet.

For one, we don't know who'll be starring as Sauron yet. Online rumors have suggested that Game of Thrones' Joseph Mawle is playing someone called Oren, which could be a pseudonym for Sauron. After all, we thought Aramayo was portraying someone named Beldor, so it's certainly a possibility.

The identity of Lenny Henry's Harfoot hobbit is yet to be revealed, while other notable names including Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Trystan Gravelle, Ema Horvath, Simon Merrells, and Lloyd Owens haven't received public character confirmations. In total, we're still waiting on 30 of The Rings of Power's cast to receive official character reveals.

One thing we can count on, however, is that Frodo, Sam, Aragorn and company won't feature in Amazon's Lord of the Rings. These characters weren't born until Middle Earth's Third Age, so they won't be making cameo appearances in The Rings of Power. Amazon's Lord of the Rings TV show has a stacked enough cast as it is, so that's largely a good thing.

We'll be here on Monday (February 14) to take a deep dive into The Rings of Power's trailer, as well as covering any other confirmed character announcements that are revealed. So make sure you check back in with TechRadar next week.

Entire OnePlus 10 Pro specs list has been revealed, but three things are still a mystery

So you hunkered down to hibernate after Christmas day, ready to sleep off all the food and drink, safe in the knowledge that nothing would happen in the mobile phone world for a few weeks, right? Well put down that last slice of pie: Here's everything there is to know about the flagship OnePlus 10 Pro .

Oh, this isn't a leak, by the way. Ahead of the annual CES 2022 tech event, OnePlus has been drip-feeding us pieces of information on its next top-end phone. We already know what it looks like - see the image above - and that it's launching in China on January 11, and now we also know its entire specs list.

The specs list shows largely what we'd expect for a top-end 2022 smartphone: the OnePlus 10 Pro will have the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset , LPDDR5 RAM (which basically means really fast RAM), Android 12 with OxygenOS 12 laid over the top, and NFC.

Regarding cameras, it'll have a 32MP front snapper with a 48MP, 50MP and 8MP trio on the back - we'd imagine those are main, ultra-wide and telephoto cameras respectively, but that wasn't confirmed. This is the second generation of OnePlus phone that camera company Hasselblad has worked on, and we know they've done something for the OnePlus 10 Pro, but what that is, remains to be seen. (Is a Hasselblad camera a big deal? Some would say yes .)

We don't actually know the screen size, but we can make a good guess, because we know the phone's dimensions are 163 x 73.9 x 8.55mm. The OnePlus 9 Pro measured 163.2 x 73.6 x 8.7mm, almost identical dimensions, so we can safely assume the screen will remain at 6.7 inches. The display will have a 120Hz refresh rate.

We're impressed by the battery size, because not all flagships get 5,000mAh power packs, and its powering speed is impressive too at 80W. That's alongside 50W wireless charging and also reverse wireless powering, though we don't know a speed for that.

All in all, that's an impressive and thorough specs list - but we're not ready to get excited just yet.

Analysis: three things about the OnePlus 10 Pro we need to learn

A smartphone is more than a collection of specs, and whether you should buy it doesn't just depend on its internals.

While the OnePlus 10 Pro sounds super powerful, we're not ready to get excited just yet; there are three key things we still need to learn before our skepticism makes way for... no skepticism.

First is the camera, and we're not talking about the resolution or lenses, but the Hasselblad influence. The camera company worked on the OnePlus 9 series, but provided only a light touch, and we were always aware that they'd have a bigger hand in future generations of OnePlus phone.

So we want to know... what exactly? What expertise has Hasselblad brought to the OnePlus 10 Pro to make it a supreme camera phone? Will there be extra photography modes, or improved scene optimization, or bespoke lenses, or something else entirely?

The OnePlus 10 Pro is far from the only smartphone to have multiple high-resolution rear cameras, and we've previously seen that phones need a lot more than that to take great pictures. So until we know what Hasselblad has contributed, we remain wary.

Next is the OnePlus 10 Pro price, and for this writer, that's the make-or-break aspect of any smartphone. No matter how great a mobile's specs are, if it's not priced competitively, it doesn't deserve your time of day.

The mid-range phone market is incredibly competitive, with medium-priced mobiles offering similar specs to what the OnePlus 10 Pro has, and the premium phone market has struggled to keep up. We'll need to see a very tempting price on the new top-end OnePlus phone if it's going to impress us.

The final thing to know about before you consider buying the OnePlus 10 Pro is a bit of a cheat answer, but we still think it's valid: It's the standard OnePlus 10.

OnePlus hasn't shared much information about the standard model in its new family, and we don't expect it to launch on January 11 like the Pro, so it's somewhat of a mystery compared to the top-end model.

And it could end up being the better phone. It'll be cheaper than the Pro - that's just how phone series work - and it might end up having quite a few of the same specs and features. Depending on how different the phones are, the vanilla model could be a better buy for most people than the Pro.

We might find an answer to the first of these questions on January 11, when the OnePlus 10 Pro will debut in China, but for global pricing and information on the standard OnePlus 10, we'll have to wait even further. Stay tuned for more information though, in case the company decides to share even more information ahead of time.