The cheaper variant of Xiaomi Mi NoteBook 14 to launch on November 5
Xiaomi will expand its Mi NoteBook 14 lineup in India with the inclusion of a new Mi NoteBook 14 laptop with a Core i3 variant soon.
Read MoreNews that British retailer Argos will stop printing its iconic catalogue was trending on Twitter earlier today, with a number of different publications professing their sadness. The Guardian even did a retrospective - something usually reserved for deceased celebrities and proof that this unique British institution was very much part of our life.
More than a billion copies of the Argos catalogue have been printed since 1973 and its appearance in local stores, every three months, was always in sync with the four seasons. You could almost hear the jingle bells and the scent of mulled wine in the autumn edition.
The catalogue's arrival in households across the land marked the beginning of mass consumerization and has influenced the lives of millions, allowing them to discover the latest toys, new gadgets and much more. The Book of Dreams, as it was nicknamed, became a printed memory box - a paper time capsule that illustrated the societal fabric of the year and the closest thing to a pre-Google Zeitgeist.
Argos came into my life in the late 1980s through a relative that brought the catalogue from abroad as a gift. I vividly remember being in the midst of a bout of fever, not in the best of shape and probably bored to death by the lack of entertainment.
As a young boy living thousand of miles from British shores, the arrival of this bible of capitalism brought some joy to my life and, well, changed my destiny.
Through the Argos catalogue, I discovered the allure of brands and the nascent world of computers (hello Amstrad, Commodore, Atari, Amiga and Spectrum). This set me on a collision course with a company created a few years earlier in England by Chris Anderson, Future Publishing - a journey that would last nearly three decades.
Scrolling through Twitter today brought back many memories and emotions; there's something very personal and intimate about the catalogue - at least for me. That edition from 1987 was the only one I had for years and I cherished it like a childhood memento.
Pre-internet, it was the only way of rapidly distributing product descriptions and pricing to the masses. Circling products to add to your wishlist, knowing catalogue numbers by heart and using bookmarks to save favorite pages became accepted ways of buying without seeing first.
The glossy pages of the catalogue, intricate colour photography and succinct descriptions, meanwhile, informed the efforts of other retailers everywhere, even online. Argos deals themselves launched on the website back in 1998 (according to the Wayback Machine).
At the peak of its success, Argos published 10 million copies of each edition - that’s billions of pages (and probably tens of thousands of trees) - but the writing was already on the wall when e-commerce started to grow.
In hindsight, it is extraordinary that Argos (now owned by Sainsburys) still managed to print four million copies of the catalogue in its last, pre-pandemic edition.
To have managed to withstand the threat posed by online retail for as long as it did is a credit to the catalogue's quality - and for it to disappear when so many retro products are now making a comeback is perhaps well-timed.
For nostalgists, old copies of the catalogue are available from Archive.org
Xiaomi will expand its Mi NoteBook 14 lineup in India with the inclusion of a new Mi NoteBook 14 laptop with a Core i3 variant soon.
Read MoreActivision denies suffering data breach, but some COD gamers told to change usernames and passwords.
Read MoreSynopsys has discovered a partial authentication bypass vulnerability in routers containing chipsets from Mediatek, Qualcomm, Zyxel and Realtek.
Read MoreDell often has some of the best early Black Friday deals, and this year is no exception, with the current model of Dell XPS 13 available for just $649.99, down from $949. (Not in the US? Scroll down for deals in your region). That's a saving of 31% on one of the best laptops currently on the market, which means you won't need to compromise performance for affordability if you're looking to buy a high-quality portable workstation on a tight budget. This is the smallest laptop in the Dell XPS family, but that smaller, more portable size doesn't mean it's a less capable device. In fact, this is one of the few laptops to fairly compete against the MacBook Air, is one of the most appealing portables available, making this one of the best Ultrabooks for working professionals and students alike. This saving is applied to the base model, which comes equipped with an 11th generation Intel i5-1135G7 processor, 8GB of super speedy DDR4x RAM and a 256GB SSD for storage, which is ideal as an everyday laptop for web browsing, office tasks like spreadsheets and checking emails, and homework. This is also the model without a touchscreen, but you can include one for an additional $300, which still saves you $100 on the usual retail price. If you need something with a little more juice then the flagship XPS 13 is also available with a beefed-up Intel i7-11655G7 processor, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and that full HD touch display for $1,399.99, saving you $150 on the usual $1,549.99. The Dell Black Friday sale often starts early, getting a leg up in the run-up to the big event itself, but they also tend to take offers down quickly when stock has been depleted so if you want to snag yourself a real bargain, you'll need to act fast. Dell XPS 13: Dell XPS 13: No matter where you live, you'll find all the lowest prices for the Dell XPS 13 from around the web right here, with offers available in your region. Today's best Dell XPS 13 Black Friday deals
$949.99 $649.99 at Dell
Save $300
From its impressive battery life, to its high build quality and gorgeous design, the Dell XPS 13 is a champion of small laptops, perfect for use at home, in school or at work. It's equipped with an Intel i5 processor and some seriously speedy RAM to eat through everyday tasks with ease.$1,549.99 $1,399.99 at Dell
Save $150
If you need something with additional power but don't want to sacrifice that small size, this beefier Dell XPS 13 comes equipped with an 11th generation Intel i7, 16GB of RAM and a whopping 1TB of storage for your files and photographs.More Dell XPS 13 deals
More Black Friday deals
Want to hire best people for your project? Look no further you came to the right place!