Dell’s XPS 13 laptop is beloved by PC users, and for good reason: It’s really thin, really light, and the super thin bezels surrounding the display make MacBooks look ancient by comparison.

But the laptop’s worst feature is easily the placement of the webcam on the bezel below the screen. It’s in a weird spot, right where the camera is always aimed at an unflattering angle, right up your nose.

Now, thankfully, Dell has listened to the complaints and put the camera back where it belongs — above the screen — on the new 2019 XPS 13.

SEE ALSO: 7 tech trends that will dominate CES 2019

The new Windows 10 laptop made its debut at CES 2019, and it’ll likely be a top contender for best laptop of the new year.

Available in silver with black interior, rose gold or white with white interior and starting at $899, the new XPS 13’s design is largely unchanged compared to the well-received 2018 model. Small tweaks like a new “woven glass fiber palm rest” that’s stain-resistant make the aluminum construction more premium and durable.

Otherwise, the new XPS 13’s still lightweight starting at 2.7 pounds and compact with a design that tapers from 0.46 inches to 0.3 inches. It also has the same number of ports: 2x Thunderbolt 3, 1x USB-C 3.1, microSD card reader, headphone jack, and lock port.

The keyboard’s the same, which means there’s more key travel for each key compared to the flat keyboards on Apple’s MacBooks. Similarly, the trackpad is top-notch as well.

Internally, the XPS 13 comes with Intel’s latest 8th-gen Core i processors, configurable with Core i3, i5, and i7 chips. For graphics, there’s only the Intel UHD Graphics 620 integrated graphics; it’s a capable graphics chip and the same one used in Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 2, but it’s no discrete graphics so don’t expect to do any kind of serious gaming with the XPS 13.

RAM can be configured form 8GB up to 16GB and SSD options come in 256GB all the way up to 1TB.

As mentioned earlier, the XPS 13’s biggest upgrade is the position of the webcam. It may sound like a tiny and insignificant change (especially in an age when everyone including Mark Zuckerberg’s taping their webcams up), but it’s a big deal if you hated how the webcam pointed upwards instead of at a reasonable eye level.

Dell says it designed a new 2.25mm-thick webcam module using precision techniques employed in smartphone cameras to squeeze it onto the 4mm-thick bezel above the “InfinityEdge” display. The tiny webcam records in HD resolution and has built-in noise reduction processing for clearer image quality.

That screen, by the way, is still available in two options: standard Full HD (1,920 x 1,080) and 4K (3,840 x 2,160) with touchscreen.

Another design change that might go unnoticed at first is the redesigned thermal solution. There’s two heat pipes and two fans on the 2019 XPS 13 for better cooling, which should mean improved sustained peak performance when the processor is going full throttle.

Dell says battery life on the new laptop is rated for up to 21 hours on the Core i5/8GB/256GB SSD model and up to 12 hours on the Core i7/16GB/1TB SSD model. It’s an impressive claim for a synthetic battery test, but we’ll have to see for ourselves how well well the new XPS 13 lasts in actual daily usage.

Laptops have seen a big resurgence over the last couple of years, particularly with displays that sport thinner bezels. 

Last year, Dell’s XPS 13 and Huawei’s MateBook X Pro really wowed with the ultra-thin laptop bezels. But both came up short with the webcam. On the XPS 13, the webcam was mounted to the bottom bezel and on the MateBook X Pro, it’s hidden in the keyboard. 

With Dell’s new XPS 13 webcam upgrade, we might see more laptops this year follow suit. Let the bezel wars begin!

Just when cyber-espionage was doing so much to turn the image of lone hoodie-wearing hackers around!

German authorities have discovered the identity of the hacker that breached the accounts of hundreds of politicians, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, and other public figures, the New York Times reports. 

The culprit? A 20-year-old malcontent; a student, still in high school (which is not uncommon for 20 year olds in Germany), who lives with his parents.

SEE ALSO: Hackers leak data stolen from German politicians and celebrities

The young man admitted to the breach, and said it was motivated by frustration with the government. His identification has put to rest fears that a foreign power was behind the attack.

Over the last month, the personal data of rappers, vloggers, journalists, and finally politicians began appearing online. That included contact information, private communications, and more. The release gained widespread attention on January 3, after a popular YouTube account was hacked to spread the information.

The hacker stole and published the data from members of five of the six German political parties with seats in parliament — all except the group farthest to the right. German officials did not comment on the hacker’s political views.

Despite compromising the security of the highest powered officials in the land, the hacker likely won’t face much jail time. After initially arresting him, authorities determined he wasn’t a flight risk and released him. And because he is under 21 — still a legal minor in Germany — the Wall Street Journal reports that he probably won’t be punished with the up to three years in prison he might have faced had he been a legal adult.

Authorities did determine that the hacker acted alone. The discovery is notable because it shows that the German attacks did not come from a malicious coordinated state effort, as Germany and the United States both experienced in 2016.

Instead, the hacker appears to be just that — a hacker. We hope his parents kept his basement warm for him.

Sony’s gaming division had a stellar 2018.

The PlayStation 4, which launched just over five years ago on Nov. 15, 2013, finished last year with 91.6 million consoles sold to date. For comparison: The PlayStation 3 and its last-gen competitor, the Xbox 360, were on shelves for more than a decade. Neither one sold more than 85 million in double the amount of time.

So, yeah: it’s fair to say that the PS4 has been pretty successful. And it sounds like Spider-Man played a big role there, at least in terms of Sony’s 2018 fortunes.

SEE ALSO: The best video games of 2018

Despite the fact that PS4 hosted a number of major exclusives in 2018, including the triumphant return of God of War and the bar-raising update to a classic game in Tetris Effect, only Spidey gets a shout-out by name in Sony’s news blast.

Between Sept. 2018, when the Marvel adventure from Insomniac Games launched, and Nov. 25, 2018, an impressive 9 million copies sold. A good number of those copies likely accompanied newly gifted consoles; during the 2018 holiday season, Sony reports 5.6 million PS4s sold worldwide.

These are some big numbers, especially the total consoles sold to date. Don’t forget that the PS4 is still a relatively young machine. It launched in Nov. 2013, just over five years ago. In typical hardware cycle terms, that’s middle aged.

Unfortunately, there’s not any comparable measurement in the market to hold the PS4’s success up against. Microsoft hasn’t been diligent about sharing Xbox One sales numbers (purposefully so), and Nintendo’s Switch only launched in 2017 — though notably, it had more than 22 million sold as of July 2018, a year and a half after launch, and it surely added many millions more during the busy holiday season.

As of now, PlayStation 4 is believed to be the sixth best-selling game hardware of all time. It’s likely to break into the top five by the end of 2019, with the original PlayStation and Nintendo Wii currently in the four and five spots, respectively, with 102.5 million sold and 101.6 million sold. PS4 could even make it to the top three; Nintendo’s Game Boy/Game Boy Color occupies that position, with 118.7 million sold.

There’s a good chance the next wave of console announcements disrupts what we’ve traditionally come to expect from new reveals.

Any higher than that is harder to predict. The top-selling gaming machines of all time are the PlayStation 2, at number one with more than 155 million sold, and the portable Nintendo DS, the long-lived 3DS precursor that sold slightly more than 154 million.

Those numbers aren’t completely unattainable for PS4. But importantly, any speculation on the PS4’s eventual lifetime sales performance assumes that future console releases and hardware cycles are going to look the same as they always have. That’s no sure thing at this point.

Let’s consider the bigger picture for a moment. The traditional console hardware cycle is in a state of flux right now. The big three companies — Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony — are increasingly aware of the fact that marking a new console release as the breaking point between an old library of games and a new one doesn’t go over well with consumers.

Microsoft’s emphasis on bringing backwards compatibility to Xbox One for Xbox 360 games has gone over well. But it’s the current generation of games the presents the most challenges for releasing new hardware that leaves old stuff behind.

“Live” games are all the rage right now; these are largely online experiences that evolve and grow over time. Some of the latest and most popular releases (think Fortnite) have the potential to outlive the current generation of hardware. Games that aren’t likely to just get a spruced-up sequel, because the original game is still propelled by an active and excited community.

Then there’s the hardware itself. More frequent and dramatic upgrades to graphics, displays, and processing on the PC side of gaming have made it tough for older, longer-lived console cycles to keep up. That’s why we’ve seen Microsoft and Sony release Xbox and PlayStation updates during the current generation (Xbox One X, PS4 Pro) that boost performance as well as storage capacity.

All of which is to say: We don’t really know what’s coming next. Speculating on the lifetime sales of something like the PS4 at this point is a fool’s errand because there’s a good chance the next wave of console announcements disrupts what we’ve traditionally come to expect from new PlayStation and Xbox reveals.

None of that changes the fact that PlayStation had a great 2018, of course. But it’s helpful to look at the big picture when we think about these sales milestones. The so-called “console war” isn’t what it used to be.

CES 2019 is officially upon us. Which means … giant televisions. Autonomous vehicles. Cute robots. Even Apple has a rare presence this year. 

If you weren’t able to make it to Vegas for the first big tech event of 2019, don’t worry. Read on for the highlights from the first official day of CES. 

Apple comes to CES … sort of

CES is usually a hard pass for Apple. Tim Cook and company generally opt to make their announcements at the tech giant’s own Apple events.

That’s not totally the case this year.

While Apple isn’t making any official product announcements of its own, the iPhone maker is more present than usual in Vegas in 2019. First, we have the billboards. Apple is taunting its competitors with the company’s pro-consumer privacy policy. Apple’s advertisements around CES play on Sin City’s “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” slogan.

SEE ALSO: Captain America hates you, CES

Then there’s the big iTunes and Airplay 2 announcement from Samsung, LG, and Vizio. Apple rarely allows its software to run on non-Apple hardware. The exceptions that have been made usually involve audio. But Apple has stiff competition when it comes to the streaming video market, and partnering with the big TV manufacturers in order to integrate Apple’s streaming video services is a huge move for the company. It’s also very much a sign of the times for Apple, which is struggling with its latest iPhone models.

Samsung offers a completely customizable Micro LED TV

At CES this year, Samsung is showing off a 75” TV. Only, it could also be a 80” TV. Or a 90”. 

That’s because this Samsung television is made up of multiple Micro LED panels, allowing complete customization of your screen. You can have a giant TV, a tiny TV, or even a TV made specifically for vertical social media videos. We bet you’ve never considered a television screen for that.

Customizing your Micro LED TV to any size, resolution, and aspect ratio you’d like is wicked simple too. Simply twist and slide a panel right off.

LG shows us a super-thin rollable TV

Big TVs that perfectly integrate with our homes are definitely a thing this year. The LG Signature OLED TV R, a 65” 4K TV, rolls into its base with the press of a button, completely disappearing from sight when not in use. 

When we say roll, by the way, we mean it literally. The OLED display, which, while thin, doesn’t look flimsy, actually rolls up inside the base like a projector screen. 

One thing that sets this LG super-thin rollable TV apart from other futuristic tech at CES: It’s coming out later this year.

This very cute robot that looks like a knock-off Ewok was on the scene

Robots are making waves this year at CES, but the truth is they’re not all as cute as these guys.

Japanese startup Groove X has brought its Lovet robots to Vegas. While these Ewok-looking robots don’t talk, they’re extremely emotive. And unlike some robots, they actually work! 

At $6,000 a pair, you probably won’t be seeing them very much off the CES floor, so keep an eye out. They’re much more adorable than CES breakouts like the Alexa voice-powered toilet.

Be sure to follow your favorite Mashable reporters as they provide more updates from the CES floor!