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Tech Bytes: January 2025

Welcome to Tech Bytes! In this series, we bring you the biggest news hitting the Tech and Gaming fields, putting it into an excellent, simple brief for you to quickly catch up on so you’re up to speed over dinner and drinks.

Welcome to the start of the new year, and what a way to kick things off! CES 2025 brought a ton of news to January 2025, but the announcement of the month is possibly from Nintendo. We’ve also got new phones and the emergence of a new game—enough teasing, here’s a round-up of all the big news.

Lenovo Legion Go S brings SteamOS to more people

Though we’ve had many handheld PCs arrive on the scene, the Steam Deck remains one of the top choices—and that is all down to SteamOS. Thus far, it has remained a Steam Deck exclusive, but Valve is finally expanding it to other devices.

At CES 2025, Lenovo revealed their latest Legion Go S handheld, but notably, it will have two versions – one with Microsoft Windows installed, and the other with SteamOS. It becomes the first device that’s not made by Valve to ship with SteamOS, but not only that, the company says it is letting users install a working copy of SteamOS on other handhelds. There’s no timeline on when this will happen, but Pierre-Loup Griffais, one of Steam Deck’s lead designers, says that a beta for other handhelds “is slated to ship after March sometime”.

But back to the Lenovo Legion Go S. This device is a new iteration of the Legion Go, ditching the detachable side controllers for a more traditional design. The 8-inch display comes with a resolution of 1920 x 1200 and features a variable 120Hz refresh rate. Inside, it will be equipped with the AMD Ryzen Z2 GO processor.

The Windows version of the Lenovo Legion Go S arrives first this month, costing S$899.01 for a 32GB RAM and 1TB storage SKU. Meanwhile, the SteamOS version is slated to launch in May, priced at US$499.99 for 16GBs of RAM and 512GBs of storage.

NVIDIA upgrades to the new RTX 50-series GPUs

Tech Bytes January 2025: NVIDIA RTX 50-Series

It’s the year for the number 5, not because of 2025 but because of NVIDIA. Everybody has been waiting to find out what the new RTX 50-series GPUs are all about, and that was all laid out at NVIDIA’s CES 2025 presentation.

The new series will comprise 4 GPUS— RTX 5090,  RTX 5080, RTX 5070 Ti, and RTX 5070. All of them will come with DLSS 4, which boasts Multi Frame Generation that generates up to three additional frames per traditional frame; multiplying frame rates by up to eight times. 

The new big boy RTX 5090 touts massive gains over the RTX 4090. Black Myth: Wukong, for example, sees a boost of over 2x in performance, and the same goes for Cyberpunk 2077. Meanwhile, RTX 5080, RTX 5070 Ti, and RTX 5070 get similar gains over their predecessors—the 5070 specifically is claimed to provide “RTX 4090 performance”. However, these performance benchmarks may prove to be misleading, considering NVIDIA is testing them with the new DLSS 4 over the old DLSS 3.5.

Both the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 GPUs will be available on 30 January, priced at US$1,999 and US$999, respectively. As for the RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5070, they are slated to launch in February, with the 5070 Ti costing US$749 while the regular 5070 will retail at US$549.

Samsung Galaxy S25 series doubles down on AI

Tech Bytes January 2025: Samsun Galaxy S25 Ultra

Samsung’s latest flagship smartphone line comes early again this year with the Galaxy S25 series. Though there’s not much in the way of hardware changes for the phones, there are new AI features that users will get to experience.

The entire line has gotten slightly slimmer, with the bezel size on the S25 Ultra reduced by 15%. All three devices also receive the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite chip as well as larger vapour chambers for heat dissipation. However, the one change that is only present on the S25 Ultra is the new 50-megapixel ultrawide camera, ensuring that users get sharp images at nearly all focal lengths.

That’s the list of changes on the physical side. Internally, the Galaxy S25 series has updated its AI capabilities, making interactions with the device more natural and seamless. With the new assistant (a hybrid of Google’s Gemini and Samsung’s Bixby), users can do useful commands like searching an event online and adding it to the calendar all in one go. Another new feature is Audio Eraser, which removes unwanted background noise from any video. Plus, returning tools are now more powerful, with Circle to Search now able to search info for audio.

The new phones are slated to be widely available on 14 February 2025 in Singapore, priced starting at S$1,288 (S25), S$1,478 (S25+), and S$1,828 (S25 Ultra). Read more about the Samsung Galaxy S25 series through our hands-on coverage!

Nintendo Switch 2 finally reveals itself

It’s been an open secret in the last few months of 2024, but now everyone is able to see what the Nintendo Switch successor looks like.

Unsurprisingly, it is called the Nintendo Switch 2 and it looks very much like the original console. However, there are a few key differences that are worth noting. For starters, it’s bigger and the bezels are slightly less egregious on the new console. The joycons also seem to magnetically snap to the screen, instead of sliding on or off. There’s also a new USB-C port next to the 3.5mm headphone jack at the top, plus the kickstand now extends across the length of the screen.

The trailer mostly highlighted the hardware changes of the new console, but it did tease a new Mario Kart title at the end. Nintendo says they will share more details in a focused Direct on 2 April 2025, with the Nintendo Switch 2 expected to be released sometime this year.

Former Witcher devs unveil new game, The Blood of Dawnwalker

Rebel Wolves, a new studio founded by some of the minds behind The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Cyberpunk 2077, formed almost three years ago – teasing a new AAA RPG that they are working on. Now, we get to see what it is all about.

Their new game is called The Blood of Dawnwalker, an open-world dark fantasy action game that revolves around vampires. It is set in 14th-century Europe, with the Black Death and bloody conflict sweeping the lands of Vale Sangora. Players will take on the role of Coen, a young man turned into a Dawnwalker who must save his family in 30 days and nights.

As a Dawnwalker, Coen can travel both in the daytime as well as night and with that, brings different skills, abilities and storyline outcomes that players can experience. No release date has been revealed for the game, but it is confirmed to launch for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series consoles, and PC.

Ninja Gaiden 4 sneaks into 2025

After being dormant for over 13 years, who would’ve thought that we’d get a continuation of the Ninja Gaiden series? However, Microsft surprised many fans at their January Xbox Developer Direct, formally unveiling Ninja Gaiden 4 to the masses. 

Made as a joint collaboration with Team Ninja and PlatinumGames, Ninja Gaiden 4 is a direct sequel to Ninja Gaiden 3; though it takes place a significant amount of time after the game’s events. You play as a new protagonist Yakumo, where future Tokyo is on its knees after the return of the Dark Dragon. The series’ old protagonist, Ryu Hayabusa, will also appear throughout the game and is playable.

The fast-paced action combat that has been quintessential to the series is back once again, now revolving around a new element which is Yakumo’s “Bloodraven Form” – a technique that manipulates the blood of his enemies and himself. When certain conditions are met, Yakumo can unleash his ‘Bloodbath Kil’ move, instantly bisecting foes in a single strike. 

You’ll be glad to know that the game is coming out relatively soon as well! It is expected to launch this Fall for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series consoles, and PC. If you’re itching for some Ninja Gaiden action now though, a Unreal Engine 5 remake of Ninja Gaiden II called Ninja Gaiden II Black was announced alongside Ninja Gaiden 4 and is available today.


This marks 2025 January’s edition of Tech Bytes, and we hope this roundup gives you a little insight into tech to be excited about. Check with us again in February 2025, as we bring you more byte-sized news every month!

Visuals courtesy of NVIDIA, and Samsung Singapore.

Russell Matthew Loh

Watcher of films and player of games. Dabble with writing in between.

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