Technical Glossary (1935 terms)

Standardized hardware and benchmark definitions across smartphones, laptops, CPUs, GPUs, SoCs, and tablets.

• Touchscreen — A display that accepts direct finger input; modern panels support multi-touch gestures. [ DISPLAY ]
• Transistor Count — The number of transistors on a chip (in billions); more, on a smaller node, means more performance. [ PERFORMANCE ]
• True Black 400 — A VESA DisplayHDR tier for OLED displays demanding deep blacks and 400 nits peak brightness. [ DISPLAY ]
• True Black 500 — A VESA OLED HDR tier requiring 500 nits peak brightness and near-perfect black levels. [ DISPLAY ]
• True Tone — Apple's ambient-light color adaptation that makes whites look natural under different lighting. [ DISPLAY ]
• Turin — Turin is AMD's EPYC server CPU codename on the Zen 5 architecture. [ CHIPS ]
• Turing — NVIDIA's GPU architecture that introduced hardware ray tracing (RTX 20). [ CHIPS ]
• U3 speed — An SD card video speed class guaranteeing enough write speed for 4K recording. [ STORAGE ]
• UDIMM — Unbuffered DIMM, the standard memory module type for desktop computers. [ MEMORY ]
• UEFI — The modern firmware that boots a PC, replacing the legacy BIOS. [ SOFTWARE ]
• UFS — Universal Flash Storage, the dominant phone storage standard; UFS 4.0 doubles UFS 3.1 speed. [ STORAGE ]
• UFS 2.0 — An early Universal Flash Storage standard used in older smartphones. [ STORAGE ]
• UFS controller — A UFS controller manages flash storage on a device. [ CHIPS ]
• UI — UI is the user interface, the visual and interactive part of software. [ SOFTWARE ]
• UL Procyon — UL Procyon benchmarks AI inference and office productivity. [ BENCHMARK ]
• UL Solutions — Company behind the 3DMark and PCMark benchmark suites. [ BRANDS ]
• UMC — United Microelectronics Corporation — a Taiwanese contract chip foundry. [ BRANDS ]
• UMTS — Universal Mobile Telecommunications System — a 3G standard. [ CONNECTIVITY ]
• USB — Universal Serial Bus — the standard connector for peripherals. [ PORTS ]
• USB 2.0 — An older USB generation limited to about 480 Mbps. [ PORTS ]
• USB 3.0 — A USB generation offering up to 5 Gbps, later renamed USB 3.2 Gen 1. [ PORTS ]
• USB 3.1 — A USB generation offering up to 10 Gbps in its Gen 2 mode. [ PORTS ]
• USB 3.2 — The current mainstream USB generation, spanning 5-20 Gbps modes. [ PORTS ]
• USB 3.2 Gen 1 — A 5 Gbps USB transfer mode, the renamed USB 3.0 standard. [ PORTS ]
• USB 3.2 Gen 1 port — A port running the 5 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 1 mode for peripherals. [ PORTS ]
• USB Power Delivery — A fast-charging standard over USB-C that can deliver up to 100W+ to phones and laptops. [ PORTS ]
• USB Type-C — The modern reversible connector for charging, data, and video; found on nearly all new devices. [ PORTS ]
• USB drive — A small, portable flash storage device that plugs into a USB port. [ STORAGE ]
• USB modem — Using a USB connection to share cellular data with a computer. [ CONNECTIVITY ]
• USB storage mode — A mode that exposes a device's storage to a computer as a mass-storage drive. [ STORAGE ]
• USB-A — The classic rectangular USB connector used on hosts and chargers. [ PORTS ]
• USB-C audio — Audio delivered digitally over the USB-C port to headphones. [ AUDIO ]
• USB-C charging — Charging a device through a USB-C port, often at high wattage. [ PORTS ]
• USB-C port — A reversible 24-pin connector standard for charging, data transfer, and video output on modern devices. [ PORTS ]
• USB-C to DisplayPort — An adapter or mode that outputs DisplayPort video over USB-C. [ PORTS ]
• USB-C to HDMI — An adapter or mode that outputs HDMI video over USB-C. [ PORTS ]
• USB-IF — USB Implementers Forum — the body that defines USB specifications. [ BRANDS ]
• USB4 — The USB-C generation based on Thunderbolt 3, offering up to 40 Gbps. [ PORTS ]
• USB4 Gen 3 — A 20 Gbps USB4 mode, one of the USB4 transfer variants. [ PORTS ]
• UTG — Ultra-Thin Glass — the cover glass used on foldable displays. [ DISPLAY ]
• UWB — A short-range radio for precise distance/positioning, used for keyless car access and device tracking. [ CONNECTIVITY ]
• UX — UX is the user experience, the overall feel and usability of a product. [ SOFTWARE ]
• Ultrawide Lens — A very wide-angle lens (~13 mm) for landscapes and group shots. [ CAMERA ]
• Unified Memory — A memory pool shared by CPU and GPU (Apple silicon); fast and efficient but fixed and un-upgradable. [ MEMORY ]
• Unisoc — Chinese SoC designer (formerly Spreadtrum) supplying budget phones. [ BRANDS ]
• Unity — Unity is a widely used cross-platform game engine. [ GAMING ]
• Unreal Engine — Unreal Engine is Epic's game engine known for high-end graphics. [ GAMING ]
• V-NAND — Samsung's brand name for its vertically stacked 3D NAND flash. [ STORAGE ]
• V-Ray benchmark — The V-Ray benchmark measures rendering speed on CPU and GPU. [ BENCHMARK ]
• V90 — The highest SD video speed class, guaranteeing write speed for 8K video. [ STORAGE ]