БПЛА Vampire. Джерело armyinform.com.ua
There is very little time left until the end of the year, so this year the editorial team decided to identify the best things of 2024. This will be a series of articles where we will name the gadget of the year, the game of the year, the movie and TV series of the year, and the car of the year. Of course, all this is according to the ITC.ua editorial team. In each category, we will allocate three places and assign the first, second, and third place. Of course, we look forward to your comments, discussions, agreement and disagreement. Share your gadgets of the year and explain why they are your favorites.
After the release of Steam Deck and the hype around portable gaming devices, sooner or later the industry had to release a number of follower consoles. However, it was expected that they would not reach the level of Valve’s device, which in fact happened. But.
But MSI released its «Claw», i.e. Claw, which literally caught on and held on to the segment of portable game consoles. The important thing is that no one expected anything from the console, but it managed to surprise with its autonomy, design, powerful processor, Windows 11, and the ability to turn the console into a full-fledged PC. And most importantly, the portable game console turned out to be of high quality, productive, stylish, and something you want to buy.
Of course, the success of Steam Deck MSI Claw is still a long way off, but it is already a confident bid for success, especially since the company announced MSI Claw 8 AI+ and 7 AI+ with Intel Lunar Lake processors. These will be older and younger models with some differences in hardware, but the main thing is that they will have fresh, energy-efficient AI laptop processors that we believe will further unlock the potential of MSI Claw.
Ever since the first APUs from AMD, manufacturers have been trying to create a universal processor without a discrete video adapter that can be used for both work tasks and gaming scenarios. Built-in graphics in laptops are no longer a surprise, but when it comes to demanding game development projects, one can only shrug. The fact is that built-in solutions can only provide a conditionally comfortable FPS in undemanding online games or legends of past decades.
However, we have access to real gaming laptops that allow us to play even the most resource-intensive titles of our time within the available power limit. However, all this is relevant only when we are near an outlet. As soon as we switch to the built-in battery, the carriage turns into a laptop pumpkin: we have to decide with whom to share the limited energy resources. In this case, framerate «melts before our eyes» and the word «gaming» becomes conditional.
Unexpectedly, the status quo has changed in this year 2024. New kings of energy-efficient windows gaming from AMD and Intel entered the arena. The Reds were represented by the most powerful processor with built-in graphics, AMD Ryzen 9 HX 370. The Radeon 890M iGPU allows you to play Cyberpunk 2077 on medium settings, providing more than 40 frames per second. A year ago, this seemed incredible.
Intel’s honor in 2024 was defended by high-performance and energy-efficient Intel Core Ultra 7 258V and Core Ultra 7 258v with built-in Intel Arc Graphics 140V graphics. Although they are slightly inferior to AMD competitors, they are an excellent choice in terms of TDP to performance ratio. They are perfect for both work and multimedia tasks. 12 hours of YouTube time and that’s without even turning on the energy efficiency mode! And when running on battery power during gaming, they can outperform even lines with discrete graphics cards, including the 4000 series.
As times change, so do the winners. To choose the first place, we decided to turn toYuri Filatov, head of the unmanned systems department of the Third Assault Brigade headquarters. With him we had interesting interview. He told us the best drones they use to destroy the occupiers. There were many good options among the contenders, including the Heavy Shot UAV, which is highly praised, but its relatively small number prevents it from being used on a mass scale. However, the most popular was the Vampire UAV from the Ukrainian company SkyFall, which Muscovites nicknamed «Baba Yaga».
The Vampire was developed in 2022, so it is not a novelty of 2024. However, we gave it the gadget of the year because of the largest number of killed and wounded enemies, due to its good characteristics, and most importantly, mass production, supply, and use.
The Vampire UAV is supplied to the Armed Forces of Ukraine at a price starting at $10,000. In fact, this drone is a hexacopter, meaning that it has six propellers instead of four. Vampire is equipped with thermal imaging cameras and can operate at night.
The hexacopter can lift 15 kg of weight to a height of 400 meters. The Vampire can reach speeds of up to 80 km/h without load and up to 40 km/h with a full ammunition load. The flight range is 10 km and the communication range is 6 kilometers. On a single charge, the drone can fly for 37 minutes, but this is without load. With a 10 kg load, this time is reduced to 23 minutes.
The Vampire UAV is capable of dropping various different types of shells on the enemy, including high-explosive, thermobaric, or cumulative shells. This means that «Vampire» can be dropped on both the occupiers’ infantry and various armored vehicles, including tanks.