31 Dec
Blog

Samsung Galaxy Book Odyssey Review: Yet Another Poor Display

Samsung Galaxy Book Odyssey Review

Samsung Galaxy Book Odyssey

RRP $ 1,400.00

"The Samsung Galaxy Book Odyssey is fast for the productive user and can meet some entry-level gaming needs, but its poor display is a real disappointment."

benefits

  • Solid productivity performance

  • Good keyboard and touchpad

  • Attractive design

  • Great battery life

disadvantage

  • Build quality is a little below average

  • Display is a real disappointment

  • The gaming performance is a little overwhelming

Samsung has expanded its line of laptops with a new entry-level Galaxy Book and an updated version of the Galaxy Book Pro 360. One of the more interesting introductions is the Galaxy Book Odyssey, which Samsung positions as both a productivity and gaming machine with a nod to its creators. That's a fine line to walk both aesthetically, where the laptop has some frills, and in terms of performance.

Our review unit is priced at $ 1,400 but is currently on sale for $ 1,210, a more attractive price point for the Intel Core i7-11600H 11. You can spend another $ 100 and upgrade from 8 GB to 16 GB of RAM, but the 512GB PCIe solid state drive (SSD) is the only option, as is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU. The Galaxy Book Odyssey wants to play on either side of the fence, and in the end it doesn't shine as a productivity laptop or gaming device – and developers will be disappointed with the display.

draft

An oblique view of the cover of the Samsung Galaxy Book Odyssey.Mark Coppock / Digital Trends

The Galaxy Book Odyssey is made entirely of aluminum, which usually results in a rigid laptop. In this case, the lid was a bit flexible and the keyboard deck and the bottom of the case yielded a bit. I've noticed this tendency on a few other Samsung laptops like the Galaxy Book that show the same lack of rigidity. It's not bad, but laptops like the Dell XPS 15 and Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4 feel significantly more durable. I've forgiven the Galaxy Book, which costs $ 900, more than the Galaxy Book Odyssey, which sold for $ 1,400. Even with a retail price of $ 1,210, I would expect a more solid feel.

Aesthetically, the Galaxy Book Odyssey is mostly a minimalist design, especially around the edges where the angles are simple and streamlined. Its “Mystic Black” is an attractive color that differs from the more common silver, and there are some decorative strips with a striking chrome logo on the lid, which add a little flair. It's not as harmoniously designed as the XPS 15, nor as colorful as some mid-range options from Asus and Lenovo, but it's a laptop you won't be embarrassed to carry around. As a gaming laptop, it's muffled.

Speaking of carrying around, the Galaxy Book Odyssey is pretty average size for a laptop with a 16: 9 15.6-inch display. The bezels are smaller, not as narrow as those of the XPS 15, only the lower chin is larger than it could be. Even so, there's not a lot of fat, and it's roughly the same width and depth as the Galaxy Book. It's 0.70 inches thick and weighs 4.08 pounds, which makes it just as thick but considerably heavier than the Acer Aspire 5, which weighs 3.64 pounds. The Galaxy Book Odyssey is pretty much in the Goldilocks zone, neither too small nor too big.

On the left is a full-size HDMI port, a USB-A 3.2 port, and two USB-C 3.2 ports.

On the right side there are two USB-A 3.2 ports, an Ethernet socket, a 3.5 mm audio socket and a microSD card reader.

Connectivity is generous with only one disappointment. There's a full-size HDMI port, a USB-A 3.2 port, and two USB-C 3.2 ports on the left with two USB-A 3.2 ports, an Ethernet jack, a 3.5mm Audio jack and a microSD card reader on the right. The disappointment isn't Thunderbolt 4 support that is to be expected on a laptop in this price range. The fastest Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5 provide wireless tasks.

Power is supplied via USB-C via a large 135-watt power supply that exceeds the usual 100-watt USB-C limit.

power

The Samsung Galaxy Book Odyssey shows the desktop.Mark Coppock / Digital Trends

The Galaxy Book Odyssey is based on an 11th generation Intel Core i7-11600H, a 45 watt CPU with six cores and 12 threads. That lies between Intel's 4-core / 8-thread 28-watt U-series CPUs and the 8-core / 16-thread 45-watt H-series processors. So I expected a solid productivity performance and maybe even some creativity performance with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti.

As it turns out, the Galaxy Book Odyssey performed as expected in our non-gaming benchmarks. It didn't impress in Geekbench 5, lagging behind the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 71 Pro with a 35-watt 4-core / 8-thread Core i7-11370H, but ahead of the Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio with the same CPU. As expected, it couldn't keep up with the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U or the Core i7-11800H. In our Handbrake test, which encodes a 420MB video as H.265, the Galaxy Book Odyssey did well, beating all but the Ryzen 7 and the Core i7-11800H. Samsung took second place in Cinebench R23 and surprisingly beat the Ryzen 7, which typically does well in this benchmark. Finally, the Galaxy Book Odyssey took second place again in the PCMark 10 Complete benchmark, which is the best indicator of productivity performance, with a strong performance in the test's essentials, productivity and content creation.

I also ran the laptop through the Pugetbench benchmark running in Adobe Premiere Pro where it got 318 points. That is less than the Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio, which also equips the RTX 3050 Ti, and the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4 with its Core i7-11800H and RTX 3060. It is faster than a laptop like the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360 with a U-series Core i7-1165G7 that scored 241 points but wasn't as high as I'd hoped. Creators can use the Galaxy Book Pro Odyssey for their work, but it will be delayed.

Overall, the Galaxy Book Odyssey is a strong productivity performer and good enough for creative lower-end tasks. Some other 15-inch laptops like the Dell XPS 15 and the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4 are much faster, but also more expensive.

Geekbench (single / multiple) Handbrake
(Seconds)		 Cinebench R23 (single / multiple) PCMark 10 Pugetbank
Samsung Galaxy Book Odyssey (Core i7-11600H) 1478/5366 151 1601/8571 5989 318
Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7i Pro (Core i7-11370H) 1578/5957 202 1514/5544 5149 N / A
Dell Inspiron 14 2-in-1 (Ryzen7 5700U) 1184/6281 120 1287/8013 5411 N / A
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 (Core i7-1165G7) 1327/5201 N / A 1469/4945 5147 N / A
Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio (Core i7-11370H) 1321/5131 179 1304/5450 5091 417
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4 (Core i7-11800H) 1520/7353 106 1519/10497 6251 432
MSI Sumit E13 Flip Evo (Core i7-1185G7) 1352/4891 207 1360/4392 4872 N / A

Gaming performance

Since Samsung has positioned the Galaxy Book Odyssey as a part-time gaming machine, it's fair to compare it to its competition. Having an RTX 3050 Ti installed means low-end gaming laptops and non-gaming laptops that happen to have separate graphics cards.

I usually start to discuss benchmarks with 3DMark Time Spy, but for some reason the Galaxy Book Odyssey wouldn't install 3DMark. It did 60% of the way through the installation routine and then just hung around there until I restarted. So take this test.

With current games, the Galaxy Book Odyssey was not the fastest gaming laptop in our comparison group. It didn't rank first in any of our benchmarks, and in fact, it was last or second to last in most of them. His Assassin's Creed Valhalla score was particularly low at 15 frames per second (fps) at 1080p and ultra-high graphics and only lost to the equally strangely low Asus ROG Flow X13 gaming computer. In Battlefield V and Civilization VI, the Galaxy Book Odyssey was more competitive but still lagged behind the competition and was able to hold its own in Fortnite. Outside of Assassin's Creed Valhalla, the laptop was a decent entry-level 1080p game machine that lets you turn up the graphics in some games and still get playable frame rates.

That's a decent result since Samsung wanted this laptop to be both a productivity workhorse – where it performed well – and a part-time slot machine. For the most part, I would say Samsung succeeded.

Laptop Assassin & # 39; s Creed Valhalla
(1080p ultra high)		 Battlefield V
(1080p Ultra)		 Fourteen days
(1080p epic)		 Civilization VI
(1080p Ultra)
Samsung Galaxy Book Odyssey
(RTX 3050Ti)		 15 fps 40 fps 54 fps 61 fps
Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio (RTX 3050TI) 47 fps (1200p) 51 fps 47 fps 75 fps
Asus ROG Flow X13 (RTX 3050Ti) 7 fps (1200p 52 fps 57 fps 65 fps
Acer Swift X (RTX 3050Ti) N / A N / A 43 fps 66 fps
HP Victus 16
(RTX 3060)		 59 fps 72 fps 99 fps 118 fps
Razer blade 14
(RTX 3070)		 60 fps 96 fps 96 fps 111 fps

display

The display of the Samsung Galaxy Book Odyssey shows a picture of the home screen.Mark Coppock / Digital Trends

Oops, they did it again. For a company that sources great displays for so many other manufacturers, Samsung can pick some inferior panels for its own laptops. I noticed the poor display in the Galaxy Book which kept this device from getting a higher score. Unfortunately, the more expensive Galaxy Book Odyssey shares a similar display.

Subjectively, the display doesn't look bad. For my productivity workflow, such as writing this review, it was sufficient. The colors were fine and the contrast wasn't so bad that black text was a light gray. But the screen didn't jump on me. It's only Full HD, which means it's not sharp at the 15.6-inch size, and it's old-school 16: 9 aspect ratio.

Perhaps most importantly, Samsung is at least partially targeting developers with this laptop and they would hate this display.

My colorimeter agreed. While the display was bright enough at 350 cd / m² (300 is our threshold for a display that can handle most bright lighting conditions), its colors were incredibly narrow for a premium laptop at just 48% AdobeRGB and 65% sRGB – we expect that you'll see at least 70% of AdobeRGB and 95% of sRGB from similarly priced devices. Those colors weren't particularly accurate either, with a DeltaE of 2.37 (1.0 or less is considered excellent), with premium laptops typically under 2.0. And the contrast was 800: 1, lower than the 1,000: 1 we like to see, which guarantee deeper blacks rather than dark grays. For comparison: The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7i Pro costs a little less than the Galaxy Book Odyssey, and yet its display comes in at 369 cd / m², 80% AdobeRGB and 100% sRGB, a DeltaE of 1.65 and a contrast ratio of 1,340: 1 .

A close-up of the display and keyboard on the Samsung Galaxy Book Odyssey.Mark Coppock / Digital Trends

It's not that this is a terrible display for simple productivity jobs, but if you plan to use it to view photos and videos, the colors will leave you disappointed. And text didn't show up on a white background, which makes the ad less than ideal for writers and anyone who works with lots of numbers. Perhaps most importantly, Samsung is at least partially targeting developers with this laptop and they would hate this display. Overall, this was my biggest disappointment with the laptop, and frankly I don't understand why Samsung would choose an inferior panel for its own laptop.

The sound is provided by two downward-facing speakers on the front of the laptop, which ensure a clean sound with pleasant highs and mids and just a hint of bass. The only problem: The volume was incredibly low. I turned the speakers all the way up thinking I had 50% left to go. If you're in a quiet room watching Netflix, you'll be fine. But keep a pair of headphones handy.

Keyboard and touchpad

A close-up view of the Samsung Galaxy Book Odyssey's keyboard and trackpadMark Coppock / Digital Trends

The keyboard offers a lot of space and even manages to squeeze a usable number pad into it. The keycaps are big enough and sculpted very lightly to make them a bit more comfortable. The switch mechanisms are good too, they're a bit flat but make up for it with a comfortable floor movement with a bit of pressure. It's a sufficiently accurate keyboard that is a step ahead of the best, like the HP Specter range and Apple's great MacBook keyboards, but it keeps high-speed typists productive.

The touchpad is large and takes up most of the space on the palm rest. It has tactile feedback that helps with swiping, and as a Microsoft Precision touchpad (pretty much the norm today) it reliably and precisely supports all of Windows 11's multi-touch gestures. Unfortunately, the display cannot be touched, which I always miss and for me personally it is actually a deal breaker at this point.

Passwordless login under Windows 10 Hello is provided by a fingerprint reader integrated into the power button. It was quick and accurate.

Battery life

The Galaxy Book Odyssey has 83 watt-hours of battery capacity, a nice number for a device with a 15.6-inch Full HD display. I was hoping the laptop would live up to its productivity performance with all day battery life.

I was not disappointed. The laptop got 10.5 hours in our web browser test, which goes through a number of popular and complex websites, a solid score that is much better than the 8.3 hours of the Galaxy Book and nine hours of the Dell XPS 15 OLED. The Galaxy Book Odyssey lasted 14.25 hours in our video test repeating a local Full HD Avengers trailer. I also tested the PCMark 10 Applications battery test, the best indicator of battery life productivity, where the Galaxy Book Odyssey again scores well with 11.75 hours compared to the Galaxy Book with just under 11 hours and the XPS 15 OLED with eight hours . And finally, the Galaxy Book Odyssey got 93 minutes on the PCMark 10 gaming battery test, which shows how hard a laptop works when turned off, which is almost average and indicates that you aren't giving up much performance on battery power.

Overall, these are strong results that suggest the Galaxy Book Odyssey can handle a full day of work with some time for evening productivity or media strolling. Samsung did a respectable job of designing a laptop that would meet the demands of productivity workers.

Our opinion

I wanted to give the Samsung Galaxy Book Odyssey a higher score. It offers solid productivity performance with the ability to handle some creative tasks as well, and while its gaming performance was a little overwhelming, it can still handle 1080p games with decent graphical detail. It has great battery life, a good keyboard, and an excellent touchpad, and its build quality is just a little below average.

Unfortunately, the display is a huge disappointment. You just can't offer as narrow colors and low contrast on a laptop in this price range, especially one that is at least partially aimed at creative people. With a better display, I could have easily recommended this laptop, but I have to go through it as it is.

Are there alternatives?

You can get a Dell XPS 15 for roughly the same retail price if you go down the specs a bit, and it's probably worth considering for the XPS 15's great build quality and harmonious design. Or, spend and get a little more Get equivalent performance with a much better display.

The HP Envy 15 is a solid competitor to the Galaxy Book Odyssey. It costs less and performs better with a much better display.

How long it will take?

The Samsung Galaxy Book Odyssey has some bends and bends in the lid and case, but it's not exceptional. It should last for several years with typical use, and its components are up-to-date and should also meet Windows 11 requirements for years to come. As always, the one-year warranty is disappointing.

Should you buy it?

No. The Galaxy Book Odyssey is competitive in many ways, but you can get much better displays for the same money – and that's very important.

Editor's recommendations



23 Dec
Blog

Govee Immersion Kit Review: More Colorful TV On a Budget

The Govee Immersion Kit improves the content of the screen.

Govee Immersion Kit Review: How to Make TV a More Colorful Experience

RRP $ 150.00

"The Govee Immersion Kit is a solid option for someone who wants to enhance their home theater experience without breaking the bank."

benefits

  • Inexpensive

  • Easy to use and customize

  • Looks great when connected

  • Long enough to work with the biggest televisions

disadvantage

  • Tricky setup process

  • The camera is sensitive to light from other sources

I've always loved the idea of ​​immersive lighting. There's something about the way the colors displayed on your TV are reproduced that makes the content come to life, almost like it's bleeding from the screen and on the walls around it. When Govee asked if I wanted to check out his Immersion Kit with Light Bars, I took the chance.

The results blew me away. While it's not a perfect product, the lighting looks great and creates a cool effect on the wall. I don't know if it improves the viewing experience or not, but it definitely improves the look of my living room TV setup – especially when displaying content with strong color contrasts, like the first home screen from Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart or that great scene on End of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

It definitely improves the look of my living room TV setup.

The Govee Immersion Kit improves the content of the screen.

What's in the box?

The Govee Immersion Kit contains a lot of the accessories you will all need. Take the time to set it up as it isn't the easiest process in the world.

The box contains two light strips and one LED light strip. It also includes a camera, sync box and mounting hardware. I installed it on the back of a 65-inch TV and the LED strip was still almost too long. It went over the top, down both sides, and over the bottom, almost to the edges of the TV. So it's not too short.

The setup instructions give you the option to mount the camera either on top or on the bottom of your TV. I decided to mount it at the bottom, but the instructions and all of the graphics still showed it from the top – that's a bit confusing, to say the least. The box also contains a set of orange adhesive squares that you attach to the four corners of your TV and then place a square across from the camera. These are used to ensure that the camera can capture the entire screen. They are useful because the way your phone looks at the camera is incredibly distorted due to the shape of the lens.

The instructions also warn against peeling the squares straight off to avoid damaging your TV. The question arises, if this requires temporarily mounting something on my screen that could damage it, is it necessary? I think the squares could be done without, but they actually came off easily. Just pull it sideways instead of straight back.

You place the light strips on either side of your TV. The light bars, LED strip, and camera cable all attach to a single hub that can be mounted to the back of your TV so that it is hidden from view. One cable supplies the entire setup with power.

All in all, it wasn't a difficult process to set up, but it was fraught with minor annoyances.

Light, sound, action

The Govee Immersion Kit works by capturing the colors on the screen and reflecting those colors through the lights. This does it pretty well, although the color accuracy felt multiple times. What the lights projected and what was displayed on the screen weren't perfect representations of each other.

Avatar: TLA shows ambient colors on a TV better than many shows.

The overall color also plays a role in how the lights are perceived. I tested it while watching Rosewood only to see that the lights were always yellow in color because the show itself is being shown with a sepia filter on everything.

Fortunately, the Govee app allows the lights to be adjusted and tweaked. The app allows you to choose custom settings for the lights. You can choose to have the entire setup display the predominant color no matter what you see, or you can choose to display each light bar in a separate color. You can also choose whether the light bars are segmented (each one being able to display multiple colors at the same time) or that each light bar is one color while the LED strip displays different colors.

If I could add a feature it would be to turn off the lights when the TV is off.

You can also adjust the frequency of color changes. The Dynamic setting results in more frenetic shifts, while the Quiet setting is a slow, gradual transition that works well for movies. If you really want to step up the stakes, turn on sound effects. The lights change based not only on the color shown on the screen, but also based on the volume.

Of course, you can also choose a separate color for the entire setup, entirely based on your preferences and what isn't on the screen. You don't need to use the camera.

The Govee Immersion Kit enhances your viewing experience.

If I could add a feature it would be to turn off the lights when the TV is off. The Govee Immersion Kit camera is sensitive to light. When the TV is off, the lights will stay on, indicating any detected hue. Even in the middle of the night, when there is no other light on anywhere in the house, it glows pale blue. Since the lamps cannot be plugged into your TV's power supply, you will have to turn them on and off yourself.

This is of course easier as Govee connects to intelligent assistants. It is very easy to link and control the Govee Immersion Kit with Alexa or Google Assistant.

The Govee Immersion Kit is a fun, affordable option for an immersive lighting kit.

The sensitivity of the camera means that the brighter your TV, the better – especially when viewing content during the day or with the lights on in your home. Sitting down to see something while all the lights in your home are off (except for the Govee Immersion Kit, of course) is a pretty magical experience. The colors come from the screen and onto the wall around the television. I would recommend going for something particularly colorful, like a Pixar movie. It's a great way to experience these smart lights.

Our opinion

The Govee Immersion Kit is a fun, affordable option for an immersive lighting kit. The main drawbacks are the camera's sensitivity to outside light and the irritating set-up process. If the camera had a screen at the top that blocks all light except that from the television, this would improve color accuracy.

Is there a better alternative?

The Hue Play HDMI Sync Box will also match the colors on the screen, and probably more accurately, since the input is being fed through the box itself. However, it is a much more expensive alternative. The sync box alone is $ 230, and it doesn't include the cost of the lights.

The Govee Immersion Kit does a good job for a much cheaper price of $ 150.

How long it will take?

All components make a solid and robust impression. I have several Govee lights in my house and they all still work fine after over a year. Should something happen, the Govee Immersion Kit includes a one-year warranty.

Should I buy it?

Yes. Despite my complaints about aspects of the kit, overall it's great value for money that I look forward to every time I sit down to relax at the end of the day.

Editor's recommendations



21 Dec
Blog

Asus ROG GA35 Review: A Great Gaming PC, But Not The Best

asus rog ga35 test g35dx 07

Asus ROG GA35

RRP $ 4,999.00

"A top-of-the-line gaming PC held back by some frustrating design decisions."

benefits

  • Stay cool under loud

  • Vertical GPU looks great

  • Two USB-C ports on the front

  • Hot-swappable SSD drives

  • Standard size components

disadvantage

  • No horizontal GPU option

  • A little loud

  • Upgrades are more frustrating than they should be

If you want one of the best gaming PCs available in 2021, building your own isn't an option. Pre-built versions used to be overpriced, underperforming options compared to building your own PC, but thanks to the lack of a GPU, they're downright a bargain. And that's the Asus ROG GA35 G35DX – a great offer for 2021.

I have some issues with this compared to boutique options from Origin and Maingear, but the ROG GA35 still has plenty of power to impress. It's not too expensive either, at least in the price crisis that is plaguing PC components at the moment. If I didn't already have a graphics card from queuing at Best Buy, the ROG GA35 would be at the top of my option list.

It probably wouldn't make the cut, however. Small issues like poor cable management and the lack of thumbscrews keep the GA35 from reaching the top tier of pre-built gaming PCs. That doesn't mean it's a bad choice, especially with high-end Asus hardware under the hood.

draft

Earlier Asus G-series desktops used a taller, more traditional mid-tower case design, but the GA35 did not. It has a squat case design that is 16.5 inches long and just under 11 inches wide to accommodate a two-chamber design. I'm a fan of dual chamber cases, but it doesn't feel like the GA35 is making effective use of space.

Asus G35DX sits on a table.Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

I'll talk more about the internal build later. For now, all you know is that both chambers are the same size. The rear contains the power supply and the tangled cables, and the front contains all of the beautiful RGB components required for any modern gaming rig. Hiding ugly things, showing glitter – that's what double-chambered covers offer.

There are some strange design choices, however. The all-in-one (AIO) liquid cooler is installed in the rear chamber and sucks air that has no inlet. It also causes the braided fluid hoses to be clumsily laid across the motherboard, which I noticed with the GA35's internal layout.

Air circulation wasn't a problem, but it could have been better. The only fan included is a 92mm vent on the back of the case, and there is no space to mount other fans. The device was a bit noisy during my test, but it wasn't like the Lenovo Thinkstation P620. It didn't get too hot either, because the CPU climbed to 48 degrees Celsius after a 30-minute AIDA64 stress test.

The GA35 is a cohesive, RGB-controlled PC that looks wonderful.

This is mainly due to the back of the open case design. On the angular edges of the GA35 there are filters that are cleverly hidden in the corners and edges of the housing. None of them have dust filters, so you need to be careful to keep the inside clean.

The temperature surprised me as the GA35 uses a vertical mount for the power-hungry RTX 3090. The vertical bracket also works wonders visually. The GA35 is adorned with as many ROG Strix products as possible, including the RTX 3090. The result is a cohesive, RGB-controlled PC that looks wonderful when lit.

Connectivity

Connections on the front of the Asus G35DX.Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

Asus makes some of the best gaming motherboards you can buy, so I wasn't surprised that the GA35 comes with great connectivity. You get a pair of USB-C and USB 3.0 ports on the front of the case, as well as separate headphone and microphone inputs that put even expensive devices like the Origin Neuron in the shade.

On the back you have access to a further seven USB 3.2 ports, another USB-C port, Gigabit Ethernet and the usual audio connections. All of these ports are great, but the two front USB-C ports make all the difference to me. My personal rig, which I built with a Lian Li PC-011 Dynamic, only has a single USB-C port on the front. I'm jealous that I don't have a second now because I was able to plug both my Samsung T5 and Steelseries Prime Wireless into the GA35 without reaching around the back.

The memory expansion is also excellent. The case offers two hot-swappable SSD slots on the front as well as an additional slot for a 3.5-inch hard drive in the HDD cage. The motherboard has two M.2 expansion slots – one of which is filled from the factory – though you'll have to struggle to get the GPU out to access it.

Expansion ports on the Asus G35DX.Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

The port selection is great and can rival boutique designs like the Falcon Northwest Talon. I also like the additional storage space, but I would have liked Asus to focus this effort on swapping out other components rather than adding more storage space.

Specifications and internals

Asus had four models of the GA35 that offer different GPU and CPU configurations. Each model has the same specifications otherwise – 16 GB DDR4-3200 memory, a custom Asus X570 motherboard, an 80 Plus Gold power supply and 3 TB total storage (1 TB NVMe SSD and 2 TB HDD).

Central processor AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
GPU Asus ROG Strix RTX 3090
Motherboard Customized Asus ROG Strix X570-F motherboard
case Customized Asus ROG case
reminder 16 GB DDR4-3200. unbranded
warehouse 1 TB PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD, 2 TB HDD
Power supply Delta 850W 80+ gold
USB ports Nine USB-A, three USB-C
Networking 1Gbit Ethernet

I tested the GA35DX-XB999 which comes with a Ryzen 9 5900X and an RTX 3090. This machine costs around $ 5,000, which is a better deal than you might think. I configured a machine that is identical to the GA35 and it was actually $ 100 more expensive (thanks, GPU shortage). A similarly configured Origin Neuron was $ 500 more expensive, but with better cable management and more RGB.

The GA35 is good business on the component front. My only complaint is the PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD. Ryzen 5000 chips support PCIe 4.0 so it's just a matter of Asus where it is possible.

I like the dual chamber design of the GA35, but I don't like how closed it is for upgrades.

The GA35 has some internal problems outside of the components. Cable management is sloppy, component swaps are annoying at best and impossible at worst, and the case actively fights you when you try to get inside. I like the dual chamber design of the GA35, but I don't like how closed it is for upgrades.

It's not like the Alienware Aurora R10. You can still swap out components as everything inside complies with ATX standards. It's just a hassle to get there. There are extra screws on every corner, and they're buried. There aren't even thumbscrews to unlock the side panels, let alone a tool-less design like the HP Omen 30L.

A plastic cover covers the outside of the chassis, which is cheap and frustrating. I immediately broke one of the plastic tabs holding the front cover and didn't apply enough pressure to get off. There are long plastic tubes in the center of each part of the bowl to keep you out and that's all they're good for.

Cable management is sloppy, but you don't see it right away. It's like shining a flashlight on a dusty desk in a dark room, revealing all the messy things you didn't know about. When I opened the case, I quickly noticed that ketchup and mustard cables led to the graphics card, an additional CPU power connector hung just on the side, and several small wires for RGB and fan connections that were pressed into crevices around the motherboard. All of the chunky cables are also routed through a single channel, exposing a small bird's nest of cables in the front that only grows in the rear chamber.

Cable in the back of the Asus G35DX.Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

The vertical GPU bracket is a welcome addition, but it's your only option. The RTX 3090 fits straight flat and the GA35 does not have a bracket for this type of configuration. It only has two vertical brackets that will keep you from upgrading to a triple-slot GPU in the future.

In terms of specs, the GA35 is as high-end as PCs have come. Asus has made some clear design choices to deter users from upgrading, even though the form factor allows for those upgrades.

Productivity performance

CPU pump on the Asus G35DX.Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

The Asus GA35 is a powerful machine, but the Ryzen 9 5900X is slowly showing its age compared to the best and brightest from Intel. It's still way ahead of Intel's 10th and 11th generation chips, and the single-core performance is great for gaming. However, the higher number of cores of the Ryzen 9 5950X and the hybrid architecture of the Core i9-12900K give them an advantage over the Ryzen 9 5900X.

Asus ROG GA35 Custom PC (Core i9-12900K, RTX 3090) Origin Neuron (Ryzen 9 5950X, RTX 3080 Ti)
Cinebench R23 multicore 21,907 27,344 25.166
Cinebench R23 single core 1,501 1,989 1,587
Geekbench 5 multicore 12,695 18,282 15,872
Geekbench 5 single core 1,692 1,962 1,682
PugetBench for Premiere Pro 1,115 1,283 1,088
Mixer (average in seconds, lower is better) 53 N / A 53
Handbrake (seconds, lower is better) 58 47 50

You can see that clearly in my results. In terms of single-core performance, the machine corresponds to the Ryzen 9 5950X in the Origin Neuron in Cinebench and Geekbench. Unsurprisingly, the Ryzen 9 5950X scores well above the 5900X in the multi-core tests, with the four additional cores providing an increase of up to 15%.

Outside of pure processor benchmarks, the GA35 shows more performance. It was able to score higher than the Origin Neuron in PugetBench for Premiere Pro, which shows the RTX 3090's slow acceleration, and it matched the Neuron in Blender. I tested Blender with CUDA rendering, so this is my most interesting result. The RTX 3090 showed no advantages over the RTX 3080 Ti.

Intel's Core i9-12900K raises this tricky comparison between the Ryzen 9 5950X and 5900X. It's faster across the board, sometimes by up to 25%. However, this does not apply to older Intel chips. Go back to the Core i9-11900K, and the GA35 can mop the floor.

The GA35 does about what I expected. It's great, but I wouldn't recommend configuring it with the RTX 3090. In some cases it gives a small boost, in others it is of no use at all. That's even more true when it comes to gaming performance, which is probably why you're interested in the GA35.

Gaming performance

Components inside the Asus G35DX.Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

The GA35 is built for 4K – and better with an RTX 3090 under the hood. I ran a number of benchmarks across resolutions, but I only recorded my results in 4K with the highest graphics preset possible. This should tie performance to the GPU and remove the CPU from the equation. But my results show some big differences.

Asus ROG GA35 Custom PC (Core i9-12900K, RTX 3090) Origin Neuron (Ryzen 9 5950X, RTX 3080 Ti)
Forza Horizon 4 147 fps 160 fps N / A
Red Dead Redemption 2 73 fps 79 fps 72 fps
Assassin & # 39; s Creed Valhalla 69 fps 66 fps 55 fps
3DMark time spy 17,356 19,511 17,937
Fourteen days 78 fps N / A 89 fps

In Forza Horizon 4 and Red Dead Redemption 2, the GA35 underperformed my custom built rig with an RTX 3090. The processors are different, but they shouldn't affect performance much. Even the aging Core i9-10900K performed better in these two games when paired with the RTX 3090.

RAM is the problem. The GA35 only comes with 16 GB of RAM, which is an odd configuration for such a high-end system. Asus does not use any branded RAM modules beyond the capacity. I was told by a company representative that the modules use Samsung, Micron, and Hynix memory. And if you know anything about Ryzen processors, you know how much of a difference these these can make.

I couldn't verify the chips used for the modules in my tester. However, I used Corsair memory in the other two machines that use Samsung B-Die modules (which are known to work best with Ryzen chips). With 16 GB DDR4-3200, Asus chose the lowest reasonable option – and it shows in my results. DDR4-3600 modules would solve the problem, but otherwise leave slightly lower performance on the table.

In fact, the RTX 3090 shows a great advantage in Assassin's Creed Valhalla.

3DMark Time Spy shows how well the device compares to the Origin Neuron. My custom rig was able to get a higher score, but that's on the back of the Core i9-12900K.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla is also interesting. This game is still having issues with Intel's 12th gen platform which explains the lower scores I've seen with my custom PC. The RTX 3090 actually shows a big advantage here by sliding the GA35 over the Origin Neuron. In most other cases, the added power of the RTX 3090 was of no use.

The GA35 is a super fast gaming PC. There is no doubt about that. However, there are a couple of small issues that are mostly related to system memory. In most cases the differences are no more than a few frames. But they are there and you should keep them in mind if you are planning on losing $ 5,000.

Guarantee and support

Asus offers a one-year warranty for the GA35 as standard. Finding that out, however, was tedious. The warranty information is not printed on the warranty card and you cannot find it on the Asus website. Instead, it's listed on a sticker on the back of the device, just labeled "12M" with no context. It is frustrating that Asus encloses a copy of this sticker with the warranty card – just without the warranty information.

Warranty sticker on Asus G35DX.Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

You can purchase insurance cover plus accident protection for up to three years. The standard warranty only covers defects and workmanship. One year is common for desktops. However, Asus could make it easier to access the warranty instead of splitting the information across three locations.

A product support card is included with the warranty information. Asus offers 24/7 phone support as well as live chat and email. For the second two, the support brochure points you to a website that is not working. I had to navigate through the Asus support site to find the right post.

Like the device itself, Asus doesn't go wrong with its warranty or support. There are just additional unnecessary steps that can make the process frustrating.

Our opinion

The Asus GA35 is a damn good gaming PC. It's packed with top-notch hardware that provides gaming and productivity without getting too hot (even though the fan is noisy). It also uses a standard form factor so upgrades are possible even though they may not always be practical.

It's just not all it could be. Thumbscrews, black power cords, and paying more attention to upgrades would put it at the top of our list of best desktop computers. I recommend the GA35, but you should know its quirks before you lose $ 5,000.

Are there alternatives?

Yes. The Origin Neuron and Maingear Vybe are the most direct competition, and the Vybe costs about $ 1,000 less. The HP Omen 30L is also a solid alternative thanks to its high-end hardware and tool-free housing design.

The Alienware Aurora R14 and Falcon Northwest Talon are also high-end gaming options, although they are both slightly different from the GA35. The Aurora R14 is more restrictive when it comes to upgrades, while the Northwest Talon uses all off-the-shelf parts and costs a little more.

How long it will take?

The GA35 is packed with powerful hardware, so what's in it should last for years. You can upgrade at any time, but the case doesn't make upgrades as easy as they could be.

Should you buy it?

Yes, as long as you considered the other options. The Maingear Vybe and Origin Neuron are both top-of-the-range gaming PCs, and the GA35 is just a small step below. It still works fine, but the options from Maingear and Origin are a bit easier when it comes to upgrading.

Editor's recommendations



19 Dec
Blog

Amazon Echo Show 15 Review: Large Screen, Larger Utility

The Echo Show 15 is the largest smart display to date.

Echo show 15

RRP $ 250.00

"The strong resemblance to a picture frame suggests the promise of the ideal smart home: a living space filled with normal, expected objects that serve more than one purpose."

benefits

  • Huge 15.6-inch screen

  • Widget functionality makes it easy to see tasks, smart home and more at a glance

  • Various orientation options

  • Visual ID exchange between users

disadvantage

  • Lack of customization and personalization options

  • Software crashes with no explanation

The original model of Amazon's Echo Show looked more like the dream CRTs of the late 90s than a smart display, but the product has improved over time and evolved into its latest iteration. The Echo Show 15, a wide, crystal clear display that looks like a digital picture frame. With a diagonal of 15 inches and a flat back, it looks perfectly mounted on a wall as a truly functional piece of art.

Its strong resemblance to a picture frame suggests the promise of the ideal smart home: a living space filled with normal, expected objects that serve more than one purpose. I've been using the Echo Show 15 for a little over a week and have leaned on it for a lot of different tasks – more than I've ever used a smart display in the past.

Enough screen space to see Casablanca properly

The obvious standout feature of the Echo Show 15 is its screen. It's really massive, which is a huge improvement over the five- and even eight-inch versions. With a diameter of 15.6 inches and a 1080p display, all content is clearly displayed. So it's no wonder that Amazon put a lot of work into the video options of the Echo Show 15.

The Echo Show 15 is a great device for watching content.

You can all watch Prime Video, Netflix, and Hulu on the device. You can also watch YouTube through the built-in Amazon Silk web browser. An on-screen keyboard makes it easy to search for content quickly; Of course, you can also simply ask Alexa to play the video you want.

With a screen this big, the Echo Show 15 seems like the perfect addition to an office, especially when it comes to video conferencing – other than it doesn't work with zoom. According to Amazon, zoom compatibility is coming in the next few months and will use the 5 megapixel camera in the upper right corner of the Echo Show 15.

The beauty of widgets

Aside from streaming all of your favorite shows, the other benefit of having such a big screen is the widget functionality. The Echo Show 15 introduces various widgets that provide at-a-glance access to your favorite Alexa features. You can access it by swiping down from the top of the screen and tapping "Widget Gallery" or simply asking Alexa to open the gallery.

There are several options to choose from:

  • Alexa suggestions
  • Calendar & reminders (daily and monthly)
  • Commute
  • Favorite photos
  • cards
  • Music and audio
  • Proposals for reorganization
  • Shopping List
  • Smart home favorites
  • Sticky notes
  • The daily show
  • To do list
  • weather
  • What to eat
  • Your deliveries

I've spent so much time with the Echo Show 15 thanks to these widgets. You can divide the screen for your widgets into different segments. At first I thought I'd use the Echo Show 15 in the kitchen to work through recipes, but it has found a home in my office (at least for now) as I'm planning for CES 2022.

With the ability to link my Google calendar with Alexa, I can see all upcoming meetings at a glance. I also have my to-do list at a glance and the Smart Home widget allows me to control the devices in my office without saying a word. (Nothing can excite a tech company meeting like giving an Alexa command and triggering half a dozen different devices.)

The Echo Show 15 uses widgets to display information.

At the moment the widgets are exclusively from Amazon. However, the company has released an API that developers can use. Over time, widgets can follow Alexa skills and you have more to choose from than you could possibly dream of.

Over time, widgets can follow Alexa skills and you have more to choose from than you could possibly dream of.

Layout versatility

The Echo Show 15 can be mounted in a horizontal or vertical orientation, which makes it even more versatile than it already was. If you buy a third-party stand, you can even mount it on the countertop at an angle. The different configurations make the Echo Show 15 ideal for so many different tasks, whether in the kitchen or in the office.

It's definitely better for entertainment in the horizontal orientation, but the vertical layout is better for reading content.

Picture in picture

Another new feature that bends in everyday functionality is the picture-in-picture function. The best way to explain is to illustrate. If I have Hulu streaming on the Echo Show 15, I can ask Alexa to show one of my security cameras. It appears in the upper right part of the screen and lets me check things out in the house without losing sight of the big picture.

Visual ID

Visual ID is another new feature. It uses the Echo Show 15's camera to identify individual family members and change the display based on relevance to that person. I admittedly didn't take advantage of that – my wife and I see the same schedule, shopping list, and more. However, it could be useful for a household full of children.

Visual ID could be used to show individual to-do lists for each child in the house, and the calendar could change to show who has an upcoming game or project.

Privacy and security

Any device with built-in microphones and cameras will be the focus of the audit for privacy purposes. We have written extensively about the need for tighter security measures, especially physical privacy screens. The Echo Show 15 delivers that in spades.

The Echo Show 15 uses a physical privacy screen.

It includes a button to turn off the microphone, as well as a physical shutter that blocks your view of the lens. There are two buttons on the top of the Echo Show 15 (or on the side if you've oriented it vertically) that control the volume. In addition, everything else is voice or touch controlled.

As with other Alexa-enabled devices, you can delete your recordings. It's a good idea to keep track of what information your smart assistant knows about you, but the advantage of the Echo Show 15 is that you don't have to worry about it recording you – it can't see anything with the lens closed.

Setup and installation

Setting up the Echo Show 15 is a breeze. It's easy to plug the smart display into an electrical outlet, wait for it to turn on, and follow the on-screen instructions. Nothing more is needed. You will need your Wi-Fi password to log into your home network and then you will need to log into your Amazon account.

Have your phone ready to receive the password for two-factor authentication. If you didn't enable that, do it now. You control the Echo Show 15 via the Alexa app. Here you can change the display, images, and more.

Not that good

While I'm incredibly impressed with the Echo Show 15, there are a few areas that could be improved a bit. First, the software is a little sensitive. Trying to stream content from Netflix or Hulu often crashed an app, but only when I was using the touchscreen to access it. Asking Alexa to open the app or play a specific episode worked just fine every time. I hope this is just a minor issue that a patch can fix.

Another potential problem is weight. The Echo Show 15 isn't easy; in fact, it's just over 4 pounds. If you're lifting weights, it's not a big deal. For an intelligent display? I would be scared of the end result if it fell off the wall.

After all, the lack of customization is disappointing. The Echo Show 15 is so big and so colorful that users could easily turn it into their own personalized device. There's no real way to change the blue background, and the widget arrangement is limited. It feels like an area where Amazon could have enabled a lot more functionality (and maybe still can with operating system updates).

Our opinion

The Amazon Echo Show 15 is the largest and most impressive smart display I've ever used. It became my most-used smart display almost immediately. Just being able to stream all of my security cameras to a single location while keeping track of the weather and my upcoming events is amazing.

It's not perfect, but it's a huge leap in the right direction for smart displays. New smart displays require parity between equivalent models, but in some ways the Echo Show 15 has fewer specifications than the Echo Show 10.

Is there a better alternative?

Nothing fits the Echo Show 15 in terms of size. It's the biggest and worst on the market. At the same time, it only has a 5-megapixel camera versus the Echo Show 10's 13-megapixel camera – a smart display for the same price.

The difference? The Echo Show 10 is a device primarily for communication. It pans to chase you across a room. The Echo Show 15 is for entertainment. In that regard, this smart display is the very best.

How long it will take?

The Echo Show 15 has a robust construction that gives the impression of quality. That is, its weight works against it. Should it fall, its weight could cause more damage. If something happens, it's backed by a one-year limited warranty and service.

Should you buy it?

Yes. The Echo Show 15 is a great device with a lot of utility. It is the natural evolution of the Echo Show, and if you plan to use it for entertainment or special purposes, e.g. For example, to stay on your to-do list, you can't go wrong.

Editor's recommendations



17 Dec
Blog

Shure Aonic Free Review: True Wireless Studio Monitors

Shure Aonic Free True Wireless Earbuds.

Shure Aonic Free Trial: True Wireless Studio Monitors

RRP $ 199.00

"Big in size, comfort and precision are these buds for critical hearing."

benefits

  • Clear, precise and detailed sound

  • Very convenient

  • Very good transparency mode

  • Easy to use, customizable controls

  • Great EQ settings

  • Good call quality

disadvantage

  • Big buds, big charging case

  • No ANC or auto pause

  • No wireless charging

  • No watertightness

Shure is no stranger to high-performance audio. The company's in-ear monitors (IEMs) and microphones have been the first choice of musicians and audio professionals for decades. But when it comes to the true wireless earphone market, Shure has only just stepped into the ring with its $ 199 Shure Aonic Free. Was it worth the wait? And how do these new buds compare to products from more established brands like Sony, Jabra and Apple? Let's check them out.

A larger set of buds

Shure Aonic Free True Wireless Earbuds.Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

Let's talk to the elephant in the room: The Shure Aonic Free are big. They use a very similar design to Sony's previous flagship, the WF-1000XM3, which places the electronics, battery, and other goodies in a diamond-shaped gondola that sits fairly prominently outside your ear.

Shure's design is even bigger than Sony's, making the Aonic Free one of the biggest buds we've ever tested. Fortunately, these nacelles look pretty sleek, with a relatively thin profile and a satin gunmetal finish that gives the plastic a high quality, sophisticated look. If you really want to get noticed, they are also available in red. But despite their size, they are also remarkably light and in fact weigh a gram less than the Sony XM3.

There's a lot of precision and detail, especially in the mids and higher frequencies.

And while there's no denying that these buds are really big, the design has two distinct advantages. First, with all of the bowels of the buds outside of your ear, the part that actually fits in your ear is tiny and extremely comfortable. Shure uses memory foam earplugs instead of silicone, which increases comfort by reducing pressure points.

Not everyone loves the sometimes squishy feel of memory foam, but I'm a huge fan. Once inserted, the fit is very secure, but it won't withstand vigorous activity, as well as buds designed for this purpose. Expect to need regular readjustments as you walk. In fact, you might want to avoid using the Aonic Free for exercise: they are some of the only earbuds on the market that do not offer official protection from water in relation to an IPX rating.

Second, the large outer gondolas make pressing the multifunction button located on the top edge very easy. Accidental presses are almost completely eliminated, and you probably won't accidentally remove an earbud while using these buttons.

The Aonic Free comes with an equally large charging case to match the large buds. It absolutely dwarfs the tiny package of the AirPods Pro case, and I doubt a lot of people will think of it as pocket money. It also lacks wireless charging, which is an unfortunate shortcoming at this price point. Nevertheless, it is robustly built, the lid can be easily opened and closed using a large study hinge and the Aonic Free is really easy to plug in and out of the charging sockets.

I like the sound

Man with Shure Aonic Free True Wireless Earbuds.Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

In keeping with Shure's reputation for stage and studio equipment, the Aonic Free has a neutral and very clear sound signature. There's a lot of precision and detail, especially in the mids and higher frequencies. A track like Dire Straits ’Six Blade Knife and Mark Knopfler's unmistakable Stratocaster work becomes a haptic experience – you can almost feel the strings under his experienced hand.

The bass reproduction is strictly controlled, is only displayed when necessary and never overwhelms the other frequencies. Such a conservative approach to bass can make the Aonic Free sound cold when you're used to headphones or earphones like the Sony WF-1000XM3 or XM4.

Shure Play app screenshot for iOS.This is how things sound right out of the box. But the Shure Play Companion app can completely change the personality of the Aonic Free with its EQ adjustments. Shure gives you seven presets to play with, including Bass Boost, Bass Cut, Vocal Boost, and Loudness, but if you really want to get the most out of the Aonic Free, you need to try the manual EQ option. Here you will find a graphic EQ that can be adjusted more precisely than I have ever seen it before. You get four control points on a frequency spectrum from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. Each of them can be raised +/- 10 dB in 0.5 dB steps, and you can even adjust their bandwidth from 0.2 octaves to 4 octaves in 0.1 octave steps.

If all of this is Greek to you, suffice it to say that this is an unmatched level of EQ control for a set of true wireless earbuds, and those who love to mess around with the sonic weeds will love it.

It's worth noting that the Aonic Free doesn't generate as much volume as a percentage of some other well-respected earbuds. In other words, at 50% volume on my iPhone, the Aonic Free were significantly quieter than the Jabra Elite 7 Pro or the Technics EAH-AZ60. I don't see this as a problem – they can still get really loud – but you may find that you have to run these earbuds at a higher setting than you are used to.

It's also worth noting for Android users that Aonic Free supports the aptX codec, which can be helpful in situations where audio delay (latency) is an issue.

Total control

Shure Aonic Free True Wireless Earbuds.Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

The Aonic Free do not have Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), but thanks to these foam earplugs they are excellent at blocking outside noise passively. There have been a couple of times when I felt like ANC was blocking a bit more, but not many. What they have is a very good transparency mode that you can set in the Shure Play app to let in little or a lot of the noise around you. In fact, at the maximum setting, it amplifies some of these sounds, so some careful adjustment is required.

I love that Shure has built in a feature called PausePlus that allows you to automatically turn on transparency mode when you pause your music. With too many earbuds, you'll have to pause first and then switch to transparency, which can be annoying when someone tries to talk to you.

Shure Play app screenshot for iOS.

Shure Play app screenshot for iOS.

The Shure Play app also gives you complete control over the multi-function buttons. You can assign up to three different commands per earbud, including play / pause, skip forward / backward, transparency on / off and access to the voice assistant. In addition, you can choose whether you want to control the volume with a fourth gesture. It's a bit awkward, admittedly – you have to press and then long press – but it's a handy option nonetheless. The only thing Shure left out is wear sensors, which can automatically pause if you remove one or both of the earbuds – another surprise considering how many other earbuds come standard with them at this price point.

Your phone call options include muting the microphone and switching between two calls, both of which are rare features. You can also use each earbud independently for music and calls.

Avoid the wind

Shure Aonic Free True Wireless Earbuds.Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

Call quality on the Aonic Free can be excellent, but you need to avoid windy or very noisy situations. The microphone does a great job of capturing the full tone and resonance of your voice, with little to no distortion, but struggles to maintain that quality under adverse conditions. They're definitely not the earbuds you'd want to use on the phone while you bike through heavy traffic, but they will work admirably on Zoom calls or anywhere you find relatively calm conditions.

Speaking of Zoom calls, the Aonic Free are the first headphones I've come across that can automatically turn on a red LED light when you're on the phone to let others know that just because you're not speaking, you aren't yet to be interrupted. It's a look back at the early days of Bluetooth, but I think it's brilliant – all true wireless earbuds should have a similar option.

More performance please

Shure Aonic Free True Wireless Earbuds.Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

Shure claims that the Aonic Free can last for around seven hours on a single charge, and as far as I can tell, that's correct when you're listening at 50% volume. But as mentioned above, because these Buds run quieter than other models, you'll likely hear at 60% or more, which will reduce battery life a bit.

I agree – six to seven hours is still enough for most people. But what I can't understand, given their huge charging case, is why you can only charge the earbuds twice for a total of 21 hours of playtime? If the Aonic Free were really small – say, AirPods Pro small – I'd happily accept that (although even the AirPods Pro have a longer total time of up to 24 hours), but the Aonic Free have no such excuse.

Our opinion

Although the Aonic Free are larger than most true wireless earbuds, they are very comfortable and offer exceptionally clear and detailed sound. For the discerning listener, this may be worth the price of admission, but given the many features that are lacking at the price, most people will likely be happier with other models.

Are there any better alternatives?

When it comes to sheer clarity, attention to detail, and EQ control – that so-called studio sound – you will hardly find a better set of true wireless earbuds, even if you are spending well over the price of $ 199 on Aonic Free. But considering how many features Shure has left out, here are two options worth considering:

$ 200 Jabra Elite 7 Pro: At the same price as the Aonic Free, the Elite 7 Pro has it all: Great sound, great ANC, great transparency, tons of customization options, long battery life, wireless charging, and an IP57 rating that makes it effectively waterproof. Oh, and they're much smaller too. Audio purists will still prefer the incredibly precise sound of the Aonic Free, but I also think the Elite 7 Pro sounds pretty good.

230 $ Technology EAH-AZ60: For a slightly larger investment, the AZ60 offers fabulous ANC and sound quality that rivals the Aonic Free, but with a slightly warmer standard signature that will appeal to people who don't love the sometimes overly accurate Shure sound. The Technics also have Sony's LDAC codec for wireless hi-res audio and Bluetooth multipoint to connect two devices to your earbuds at the same time.

How long will they last?

Given their total lack of water protection, this very much depends on how careful you are with the Aonic Free. The build quality seems to be excellent, however, and Shure backs it with a two-year warranty, which is unusual in this product category. That might be a good sign that they'll be better off in the long run, but like all true wireless earbuds, it's likely that decreasing battery life is what is keeping them from still being in your audio arsenal 10 years from now.

Should you buy it?

Yes, but only if you're looking for what Aonic Free has to offer – a highly detailed, precise, and customizable sound with very few other bells and whistles. For everyone else, you can find better options for the same price or less.

Editor's recommendations



17 Dec
Blog

HP ZBook Studio G8 Review: Powerful, Portable, and Pricey

An HP ZBook Studio G8 is on a table.

HP ZBook Studio G8

RRP $ 6,863.00

"The HP ZBook Studio G8 is fast and well built, but the price is far too high."

benefits

  • Stable built

  • Spectacular display

  • Thin and light for a workplace

  • Excellent keyboard and touchpad

  • Good productivity and creative performance

disadvantage

  • Too expensive

  • Performance does not correspond to the price

  • Terrible battery life

HP offers a full line of portable workstations for developers and technical users, from the ultra-portable ZBook Firefly G8 to the ultra-powerful ZBook Fury G8. In the middle of the product range is the ZBook Studio G8, a workstation that is aimed at both gamers and creative professionals. Simply put, it's not your typical portable workstation that is large, heavy, and highly upgradeable. It is aimed at the same people who might buy a Dell XPS 15, Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme, or MacBook Pro.

It's not a cheap laptop either. I tested a configuration with the Intel Core i9-11950H vPro CPU and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 GPU that says the retail price is a whopping 6,863 US dollars. As of this writing, the price is still $ 4,392, although prices will fluctuate.

Either way, you are spending a huge surcharge to get a laptop with high-end components and a handful of professional features. For most people, this won't be a winning combination compared to today's extremely powerful thin and light consumer laptops.

draft

An HP ZBook Studio G8 sits on a table showing the back and lid.Mark Coppock / Digital Trends

The ZBook Studio G8 is more like traditional thin and light laptops than a workstation. This is intentional, because the laptop should appeal to both consumer-oriented power users and professionals who are looking for a highly mobile solution. Take a look at the ZBook Studio G8 and you'll see a striking resemblance to an HP Specter from a few years ago. There's an aggressive angle along each side, sharp chamfers on different edges, and the back edge is a sharp wedge that adds some flair to the design.

The color is called "Turbo Silver" and the overall aesthetic is sophisticated but eye-catching. It's a lot more attractive than the Lenovo ThinkPad P15 Gen 2, which shares similar components but is a lot more boxy and old-fashioned. The ZBook Studio G8 challenges the Dell XPS 15 more directly in its look and feel, but the Dell is slimmer and just as attractive.

Thanks to the very thin display bezels on the sides and relatively narrow bezels at the top and bottom, the ZBook Studio G8 with its 15.6-inch display in 16: 9 format is quite a large notebook. It's only slightly larger in width and depth than the XPS 15, with its 15.6-inch 16:10 display that has tiny bezels all around, and it's considerably smaller than the ThinkPad P15. It's also thin at 0.69 inches compared to the 0.71 inch on the XPS 15 and 1.24 inches on the ThinkPad P15 at its thickest point, and at 3.96 pounds lighter compared to 4.42 pounds, respectively. 6.32 pounds for the XPS or P15. The ZBook Studio G8 manages to fall into the thin and light category while housing some serious components.

The ZBook Studio G8 is as good as the best in terms of build quality. There's no bending, bending, or twisting in the lid, keyboard deck, or bottom case, and HP puts the laptop through a brutal series of 21 military certification tests. The ZBook Studio G8 is easily on par with the Dell XPS 15 and Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4, which makes it a fairly robust device.

The ZBook Studio G8 does not offer the same expandability as many workstations. It has 32GB of RAM, much less than others that can be upgraded to 128GB, and the maximum storage is 2TB. There's only one slot for a solid-state drive (SSD), while many workstations have two – the ThinkPad P15, for example, has two slots and can be upgraded to a whopping 16 TB of storage. That's the price you pay for being so thin and light.

On the left side of the HP ZBook Studio G8 there is a single USB-A port and a 3.5mm audio jack.

On the right side of the HP ZBook Studio G8 there are two USB-C with Thunderbolt 4 ports, a mini display port connector and a full-size SD card reader.

Connectivity is good for a thin and light laptop, although thicker workstations tend to have more ports. On the left you will find a single USB-A port and a 3.5mm audio jack and on the right you will find two USB-C with Thunderbolt 4 ports, a mini DisplayPort connector and an SD card reader in full size hand side. Power is supplied via a proprietary connection that is fed by a sizable 200 watt power supply. Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 provide wireless tasks.

There are a few "professional" features that you won't find on a typical consumer laptop. For example, there is built-in tile support that will help you track down your laptop if it has been stolen. HP's Wolf Security Suite provides hardware-based protection against BIOS corruption and attacks, and there are several other security features only available on HP's business-class laptops. The chassis can also be disinfected and has been tested for 1,000 cleaning cycles with selected household towels. Whether these features offer enough added value to justify the price of the ZBook Studio G8 is an open question.

power

An HP ZBook Studio G8 sits forward on a table.Mark Coppock / Digital Trends

My test device was equipped with the 8-core / 16-thread Core i9-11950H vPro CPU, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 GPU, 32 GB RAM and a 2 TB PCIe SSD. You can also choose up to an Nvidia Quadro A5000 GPU if you want really professional graphics, but otherwise my review unit was maxed out. I ran it through our suite of benchmarks and found that while it's a fast laptop, it doesn't outperform some consumer-grade laptops that cost less than half the price.

The ZBook Studio G8 performed well in Geekbench 5 and took third place in our comparison group behind the Apple MacBook Pro 16 and the Lenovo ThinkPad P15. In our Handbrake test, which encodes a 420 MB video as H.265, the Lenovo took first place and in the Cinebench R23 came third, again behind the MacBook Pro 16 and the ThinkPad P15. In the PCMark 10 Complete Benchmark, which is a great test of productivity performance, the ZBook Studio G8 finally took third place behind the ThinkPad P15 and the Asus Vivobook Pro 16X with a Ryzen 9 5900HX CPU.

The extremely high price of the ZBook Studio G8 can hardly be justified due to the performance alone.

Most tellingly, however, was the workstation's performance in the real-world Pugetbench benchmark running in Adobe Premiere – a demanding application for which the machine was specifically designed. The ZBook Studio G8 scored 612 in the benchmark, a solid score that fell short of the ThinkPad P15, Dell XPS 17, and the insanely fast MacBook Pro 16, which beat the rest of the field. The ZBook Studio G8 wasn't even much faster than the Dell XPS 15 with a slower CPU and GPU. In short, HP's workstation was disappointing in what is perhaps the most important benchmark.

The only way to characterize its performance is that it is certainly a fast laptop that will serve its professional market well while satisfying productive users at the same time. At the same time, however, it's not necessarily faster than the thin and light mass of high-end consumers. The extremely high price of the ZBook Studio G8 can hardly be justified due to the performance alone.

Underdog bench 5
(Single / multiple)		 Cinebench R23 (single / multiple) Handbrake (seconds) PCMark 10 Pugetbench Premiere Pro
HP ZBook Studio G8 (Core i9-11950H) 1637/9139 1594/11788 84 6432 612
Lenovo ThinkPad P15 (Core i9-11950H) 1691/9250 1596/12207 84 6866 724
Apple MacBook Pro 16 (M1 Pro) 1773/12605 1531/12343 95 N / A 956
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4 (Core i7-11800H) 1520/7353 1519/10497 106 6251 432
Dell XPS 15 (Core i7-11800H) 1556/7692 1513/9979 103 6024 509
Dell XPS 17 (Core i7-11800H) 1568/8801 1525/10145 109 6209 692
Asus Vivobook Pro 16X (Ryzen 9 5900HX) 1544/8299 1486/11478 90 6486 571

Gaming performance

Given that HP specifically mentions Gaming as one of the ZBook Studio G8's strengths, and it features an RGB backlit keyboard per key and the OMEN Gaming Hub utility, it's fair to rate its gaming performance. The RTX 3070 was supposed to make it a competitive gaming device, but it turned out that its performance was downright mixed.

The ZBook Studio G8's 3DMark Time Spy Score was low compared to the peer group, especially the Razer Blade 14 and Lenovo Legion 5 Pro, which both came with RTX-3070 GPUs. The HP caught up with Assassin's Creed Valhalla, where they tied for first place, and it ended up between the Razer Blade 14 and Legion 5 Pro in Battlefield V. However, his Fortnite score was the second lowest and he wasn't especially fast on Civilization VI, where its CPU should have paid some dividends. Overall, the ZBook Studio G8 is undoubtedly capable of playing competently at 1080p and even 1440p, but it won't beat many dedicated gaming laptops.

Laptop 3DMark time spy Assassin & # 39; s Creed Valhalla
(1080p ultra high)		 Battlefield V
(1080p Ultra)		 Fourteen days
(1080p epic)		 Civilization VI (1080p Ultra)
HP ZBook Studio G8 (RTX 3070) 7391 77 fps 83 fps 89 fps 112 fps
HP Victus 16 (RTX 3060) 7341 59 fps 72 fps 99 fps 118 fps
Razer blade 14 (RTX 3070) 8605 60 fps 96 fps 96 fps 111 fps
Lenovo Legion 5 Pro (RTX 3070) 9175 61 fps 73 fps 101 fps 114 fps
Asus ROG Strix G15 (RX6800M) 10504 77 fps 109 fps 108 fps 150 fps
MSI GS66 Stealth (RTX 3080) 9097 70 fps 117 fps 140 fps 149 fps
Razer blade 15 (RTX 2080 Super) 7637 58 fps 98 fps 110 fps 134 fps
MSI Creator Z16 (RTX 3060) 6322 50 fps 57 fps 56 fps (1600p) 92 fps

At this point it should be noted that the ZBook Studio G8 gets very loud under full load and produces so much noise in our gaming benchmarks that I wanted to put on headphones. The case also got quite warm, with parts of the palm rest exceeding 126 degrees Fahrenheit and the bottom of the case reaching over 140 degrees F. The CPU temperatures stayed below 90 degrees F during the 3DMark Time Spy benchmark, so HP did an excellent job of keeping the component temperatures within a reasonable range.

display

Close-up on the display of the HP ZBook Studio G8.Mark Coppock / Digital Trends

My test device came with the 4K OLED display (3840 x 2160), one of four options, along with two Full HD options (1920 x 1080) and HP's DreamColor 4K display running at 120 Hz. With OLED displays you can't usually go wrong, and mine definitely looked great. The colors were dynamic without being oversaturated, the display was bright enough in all my work environments (including outside in southern California sunlight), and I enjoyed deep black colors.

My colorimeter was mostly happy with the display, but it wasn't quite as spectacular as some of the OLED panels I tested. It was bright at 413 nits, well above our 300 nit threshold, and the contrast was excellent at 28,880: 1 (note this is a lower score than some of my previous OLED tests, but I switched colorimeters and it apparently tests OLED displays differently). The colors were wide at 94% of AdobeRGB and 100% of sRGB. The color accuracy was just OK with a DeltaE of 2.16 (1.0 or less is considered excellent). Compared to the Dell XPS 15 OLED display with 397 nits, 27,770: 1 contrast, 97% AdobeRGB and 100% sRGB and a color accuracy of 0.41. The ThinkPad 15 had a more average IPS display that was very bright at 542 cd / m² and had a contrast ratio of 1,040: 1, 76% AdobeRGB and 100% sRGB and a color accuracy of 1.49.

Creative types will love this display, although they would like the colors to be a little more accurate. Everyone else will enjoy the colors, brightness and contrasts that make the ZBook Studio G8 an excellent laptop for creative and productive work.

The speakers of the HP ZBook Studio G8 rest next to the keyboard.Mark Coppock / Digital Trends

Four speakers, two tweeters and two woofers provide the sound, and when they are all the way up, they emit ample volume. There was no distortion either, with clear mids and highs and a hint of bass. These are some of the best speakers you'll find on a Windows laptop that rival the Dell XPS 15, which is the Windows benchmark but doesn't quite get on par with the excellent MacBook Pro audio.

You can use these speakers for all of your listening needs from gaming to Netflix bingeing to music. No headphones or external speakers are required.

Keyboard and touchpad

Keyboard and touchpad of the HP ZBook Studio G8.Mark Coppock / Digital Trends

The ZBook Studio G8's keyboard is very similar to that of HP's Specter range, with plenty of key spacing, large keycaps, and a row of cursor movement keys along the right side. However, its switching mechanism is completely different, it is the same depth, but with more click than push button. It's a comfortable and quiet keyboard on par with the excellent version of the Specter, even if it feels different. My test unit came with the optional per-key RGB lighting that can cycle 16.8 million colors, and it's as good as a gaming laptop like the Razer Blade 14. It's strange to have such lighting on a portable workstation but that too shows how HP sees its customers using the laptop.

The touchpad was large and comfortable, with a glass surface that made swiping precise. As a Microsoft Precision touchpad, it supported the multi-touch gestures of Windows 10 and was pleasant to use. The display was also touch-enabled and precise as usual.

Windows 10 Hello support is provided by both an infrared camera for facial recognition and a fingerprint reader in the upper right corner of the palm rest. Both worked quickly and reliably.

There's no privacy switch or slider for the webcam, which was disappointing. And the webcam itself gets stuck at 720p.

Battery life

An HP ZBook Studio G8 is on a table.Mark Coppock / Digital Trends

Inside the ZBook Studio G8 there is an 83 watt hour battery installed, which is not exactly huge for this device class. The Lenovo ThinkPad P15, for example, has a capacity of 94 watt hours and the Dell XPS 15 is almost on par with HP with 86 watt hours. Throw in some high-end components and a power hungry 4K OLED display and my predictions for battery life have been bleak.

Things were just as bad as I expected. Starting with our web browsing test, which ran through a number of popular and complex websites, the ZBook Studio G8 only lasted five hours, about half of what we'd like to see in this test. The XPS 15 OLED lasted nine hours and the ThinkPad P15 reached 9.5 hours. In our video test, which repeats a local 1080p movie trailer, the ZBook Studio G8 only lasted 6.25 hours, compared to the XPS 15 OLED for 11 hours and the ThinkPad P15 for 11.15 hours.

I also ran the PCMark Applications battery test, the best indicator of productivity performance, and the ZBook Studio G8 got 5.5 hours, while the XPS 15 got eight hours and the ThinkPad P15 6.35 hours. Finally, in the PCMark Gaming Battery Test, which shows how hard a laptop works on battery power, the ZBook Studio G8 lasted 91 minutes, roughly the same as the XPS 15 OLED and about 40 minutes longer than the ThinkPad P15.

Overall, the battery life of the ZBook Studio G8 was poor. You have to lug around and plug in the large power pack before a work day is over. If your workload is demanding at all, you'll pocket it even before noon.

Our opinion

The ZBook Studio G8 manages to pack components at the workstation level into a thin and light housing. However, this happens at the expense of pure performance and expandability. Aside from some professional features that may or may not be useful to the typical developer or even engineer, the ZBook Studio G8 outperforms some 15-inch laptops like the Dell XPS 15 and the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen. not 4 (which is actually more expandable than the HP).

That makes the ZBook Studio G8 an odd laptop. It's a great machine, no doubt about it. But it's also horribly expensive without much to add to justify the investment.

Are there alternatives?

The ThinkPad P15 offers similar performance to the ZBook Studio G8, but is much more expandable at the expense of the added thickness and weight. It's just as expensive, but you'll be happy to find that you can upgrade the memory and storage if needed.

You can also consider MSI's WS65 Mobile Workstation. It supports the same basic components and can be configured with up to 64GB of RAM, but it is also thinner and lighter and does not offer the same expandability as some workstations.

Finally, the Dell XPS 15 is an excellent choice when you don't need these professional features. It's just as well built and handsome, and it's almost as fast in our test configuration that it wasn't maxed out. Buy an XPS 15 and its high-end components and you'll likely get similar performance for thousands less.

How long it will take?

The ZBook Studio G8 is solidly built and will withstand many years of productive service. However, it is not as expandable as many workstations. So you buy what you get. However, the three-year guarantee is welcome.

Should you buy it?

No. The ZBook Studio G8 is also a great device. It's just too expensive compared to the competition.

Editor's recommendations



16 Dec
Blog

OnePlus Buds Z2 Review: Too Much Bass, Not Enough Grace

OnePlus Buds Z2 open case.

OnePlus Buds Z2 in the test: Too much bass, too little grace

RRP $ 99.00

"Active noise cancellation is a welcome addition to the lightweight OnePlus Buds Z2, but the heavy bass of the 11mm drivers can be overwhelming and they don't really stand out enough to beat the competition."

benefits

  • Light and comfortable to wear

  • Simple, reliable touch controls

  • Choice of noise cancellation modes

  • IP55 and IPX4 water and dust resistance

disadvantage

  • Bass-heavy sound profile

  • No wireless charging

  • No alternative sound modes

True wireless earbuds, almost regardless of the price, have to attract attention today due to the large selection. OnePlus is no stranger to its smartphones, which usually come up with good design, desirable features, and a tempting price.

But what about the OnePlus Buds Z2? They follow the OnePlus Buds Z for $ 49, but the price has now doubled as Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) and a pair of updated drivers have been added. Is that enough to separate them from everyone else – and separate you with $ 99 to get them?

draft

The housing of the OnePlus Buds Z2 is made of glossy plastic – my test model is black, but there is also a white model – with the brand name in simple letters on the lid, which is held securely closed by a magnet. Open it up and the top feels pretty cheap and thin, with a scratchy, matte plastic lining that keeps the Buds Z2 in place. It's a simple and nondescript case.

OnePlus Buds Z2 closed case.Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

OnePlus has also chosen a simple design for the Buds Z2. A short, tube-like shaft protrudes from the inoperative speaker cabinet, with visual interest only provided by a sunburst-style CD-like endplate. That's it. They are certainly not ugly, but neither are they inspiring. OnePlus definitely relies on subtlety here, but the case and design of the Bud Z2 border on boring.

The box contains three sets of earplugs in the sizes small, medium and large. I liked the medium best and, according to the MyMelody app, makes for a good end to my ears. There is also a short USB Type-C cable in the case for charging the battery. A button on the back of the case puts the Buds Z2 into pairing mode, and there is a single LED on the front to indicate status.

OnePlus Buds Z2 open case.Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

Although I'm not particularly impressed by the look of the OnePlus Buds Z2, I can't fault the comfort and durability. The Buds Z2 are very light at 4.5 grams each and do not cause ear fatigue. I wore them for four hours straight and had no problems. Each bud has an IP55 water resistance rating, so you can even clean it with a single flush. It's just a shame that they look rather generic.

sound

Inside every ordinary-looking Buds Z2 earbud, you'll find an 11mm driver and three microphones, plus a tiny 40mAh battery. The driver is the same as in the OnePlus Buds Pro, plus there is Dolby Atmos and AAC and SBC codec support. The design may be subtle, but there's no doubt that OnePlus tuned the Buds Z2 for bass because it can be, damn it, overwhelming.

OnePlus Buds Z2 earbuds.Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

The scientist at Twice has a strong bass line undoubtedly, but the finesse of the song has been removed with the OnePlus Buds Z2. It booms and booms all the time, but due to the tight soundstage and amplified highs, it doesn't seem to overwhelm the vocals, instead wrapping the song's sweet and addicting melody in a thick bass blanket. Listen to the Apple AirPods Pro, and the nice balance and controls make it sound like a different song.

This bombastic approach can also be heard in Ive & # 39; s Eleven, where the harsh treatment of the vocals and the heavy bass boom of the Buds Z2 don't encourage you to turn up the volume. There's also noticeable distortion as you approach even the three-quarter mark on the iPhone 13 Pro. That said, there's a ton of volume on offer if you want it. Two of my regular test tracks – Tokyo Towers Mix from What Time is Love by The KLF and Inner Peace by CloZee – both have deep bass throughout and are not particularly pleasant to listen to. Unfortunately, there's no equalizer in the app or some way to tweak the sound profile to fix this overzealous approach.

Compared to other headphones that I use plugged into my TV, the OnePlus Buds Z2 were very loud and still pretty harsh, with some laughter being especially deafening during comedy shows. However, on the spoken word, performance was good, helped by a focus on treble and vocals. I've used the OnePlus Buds Z2 for video calls and while the audio quality was okay for me, listeners described it as average.

Dolby Atmos support is offered. but only if you are using a current OnePlus phone. On the OnePlus 9 Pro, I used the Disney + and Tidal apps to try it out, but the results were mixed, not least because it's quite difficult to tell if you're listening to Dolby Atmos content. Seeing Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings didn't really sound any different, while the Atmos mixes on Tidal's Atmos playlists were better, with some interesting spatial effects, but overall, it was never as effective as listening to Atmos tracks over Apple Music and the AirPods Pro.

OnePlus Buds Z2 in the ear.Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

The OnePlus Buds Z2 is all about bass and treble and it lacks a fine balance, which means that the mids tend to be lost and some details are hidden. This harshness didn't suit my tastes or my choice of music, but I can see bass and volume junkies enjoying the sound more – just be aware that listening to music with the OnePlus Buds Z2 isn't anything relaxing. These are loud and very proud of the bass they can deliver.

Controls and noise cancellation

The OnePlus Buds Z2's touch controls are responsive and the sensor is easy to find with your finger, which makes them better than many other earbuds. All you have to do is tap the flat endplate to pause or play the music, or touch and hold to change the noise canceling setting. There's no messing around with holding the stem or trying to find the touch sensor, everything is built in sensibly and the sensor seems big enough that you don't have to tap over and over to find the right spot.

There are two settings for noise cancellation, a standard and a maximum mode and a transparency mode. You long press the earbud to switch between them. By default, this goes from transparency to maximum noise cancellation, but you can customize this in the app. In the end I set it to the standard ANC mode instead of the maximum due to the excessive hiss created by the maximum setting.

These are loud and very proud of the bass they can deliver.

While the +/- 25db standard mode creates some pressure in your ears, I prefer that initial discomfort to the louder background noise created by the +/- 40db max mode. I didn't notice much of a difference between them in terms of isolation either, although I suspect that has something to do with the environment. The default mode was fine for home and general outdoor use, but I wasn't on an airplane or in an overly noisy environment to fully try the maximum setting.

App and connectivity

The OnePlus Buds Z2 connect via Bluetooth 5.2 and support Android Fast Pair, which worked fine on my OnePlus 9 Pro and Google Pixel 6 Pro, although I had to manually establish a connection on the iPhone 13 Pro. I also connected it to my Sony TV. I was able to move around my one-story apartment without losing connectivity, and the range was similar to other wireless headphones I use.

MyMelody app with OnePlus Buds Z2.Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

I found the connection time to be very fast and extremely reliable. During the test, I kept switching between devices and headphones, and the Buds Z2 had no problems with this at all. If you tap and hold an earbud for a few seconds, the Buds Z2 will also quickly switch between previously connected and available devices. Take the headphones out of your ears and the content will pause automatically, and this worked even while streaming an app from my phone to my TV.

If you have a OnePlus phone, the Buds Z2 doesn't need to install an app as all functions and firmware updates are handled by the phone. For other Android phones and the iPhone, you should download the My Melody app, but the OnePlus Buds Z2 will work perfectly without using the accompanying app if you prefer.

For my music choices, the OnePlus Buds Z2's bass response is ridiculously exaggerated.

My Melody allows you to customize the touch controls, update the firmware, change the noise canceling mode, perform a seat test, and check the battery level for the case and headphones. It was reliable on my iPhone 13 Pro, although I don't use it very often other than applying a firmware update.

battery

In a listening session in which the OnePlus Buds Z2 switched between my iPhone 13 Pro, my Sony TV and my Mac Mini, the low battery warning came after four hours. You should get near the estimated five hours of OnePlus usage with ANC active, but don't expect to exceed this. OnePlus estimates 27 hours of total ANC usage, or 38 hours without it. It takes 90 minutes to fully charge the case and a 10 minute charge adds five hours to its useful life via the included cable and standard adapter. The OnePlus Buds Z2 do not have wireless charging.

Price and availability

The OnePlus Buds Z2 cost US $ 99 in the US and will be available from the OnePlus and Amazon online stores from December 18. However, if you join OnePlus' "Red Cable Club", you will be able to buy them from December 17th. Joining the club is free and comes with certain benefits, including free shipping. The white version will initially be available, the black version will be available in early 2022. In the UK, the OnePlus Buds Z2 will cost £ 99 and are now available in the OnePlus online shop.

Our opinion

The original OnePlus Buds Z were $ 49, but the addition of ANC and Buds Pro drivers means the Buds Z2 has doubled in price, and at $ 99, they have serious competition. We found that you don't have to spend more than $ 100 these days to get a pair of true feature-packed wireless headphones, and while the OnePlus Buds Z2s tick most of the boxes, the sound is going to split opinions.

For my music choices, the bass reproduction of the OnePlus Buds Z2 is ridiculously exaggerated and robs most of the songs of any subtleties. I understand, however, that a lot of people seriously want loud and bassy headphones, and while the Buds Z2 definitely are, the mega bass darkens details and overwhelms the midrange, which isn't ideal no matter how much you want.

On the positive side, the touch controls are good, the noise cancellation is effective in standard mode, and the waterproof rating is IP55. It's a shame the battery life doesn't go beyond four to five hours with ANC, and the design isn't a bit more inspired. The OnePlus Buds Z2 are inconspicuous unless you crave thundering bass.

Is there a better alternative?

Unfortunately for OnePlus, and luckily for you, there are so many alternatives to choose from that you can get exactly what you want, for the same price or less. I used the OnePlus Buds Z2 along with the $ 99 Nothing Ear 1, and I prefer the latter's natural sound profile and overall design, and I really appreciate the addition of wireless charging.

If the Nothing Ear 1 isn't for you, here are eight alternative options, all under $ 100. There is so much to choose from that you can pretty much find a pair to suit your exact needs. This diversity poses a problem for the OnePlus Buds Z2, which are difficult to stand out from the crowd.

How long will they last?

The IP55-rated earphones and the IPX4-rated housing offer the OnePlus Buds Z2 sufficient protection against water and dust, making them suitable for use in the gym or in the rain. The plastic construction should be resistant to damage. The HeyMelody app enables firmware updates if OnePlus releases them in the future. Battery life can degrade over time, but there's no reason why it doesn't last two or three years before it becomes noticeable.

Should you buy it?

No, there are better sounding and equally, if not more, feature rich options for the same or less money.

Editor's recommendations



13 Dec
Blog

Lockly Flex Touch Review: The Perfect First Smart Lock

The Lockly Flex Touch Smart Lock.

Lockly Flex-Touch

RRP $ 149.99

"The Lockly Flex Touch gives you many ways to lock and unlock your doors and make other adjustments, but some can be prevented by the additional cost of adding Wi-Fi controls."

benefits

  • Quick and easy installation

  • Responsive fingerprint scanner

  • Multiple ways to lock / unlock

  • Simple but efficient app

disadvantage

  • Bulky interior design

  • No battery

  • Requires Wi-Fi adapter for mobile functionality

Smart locks are a family of tried and tested smart home devices. For the most part, these latched internet connected peripherals have one job – to keep the door locked. The many bells and whistles, from fingerprint scanning to intuitive companion apps that offer a variety of controls for on the go, are secondary to the certainty that the lock will protect your home every night.

You can find a dizzying amount of smart lock brands on the shelves of brick and mortar and digital stores. Ideally, you want to balance a solid brand name with a great set of security and control features. Oh, and a decent price never hurt either.

Lockly, a formidable name in the smart lock market, has made a number of internet connected locks that we have installed and tested. The latest in the company's product range, the Lockly Flex Touch (available exclusively from Home Depot), does a great job offering a number of must-have smart lock features for less than $ 200. However, there are a few other features that the company hasn't built into the basic package lock (more on this below).

Read on to learn more about our experience with the Lockly Flex Touch.

Out of the box

The scope of delivery of the Lockly Flex Touch.

When you unpack the Lockly Flex Touch, you will find everything you need to install it. This includes the outer and inner lock peripherals (the latter with connected wiring harness), the bolt assembly, an assembly wiring harness and strike plate, screws for all components and an instruction manual. The lock should also come with an activation code card with the serial number and activation code of your Flex Touch.

The code is needed during setup and if you ever need to pair or replace your lock you will need the unique PIN again. After setting up the card, please keep it in a safe place.

The biometric fingerprint scanner is one of the best we've ever worked with.

Our first impression of the overall look and feel of the castle was pretty good. The outward-facing key cylinder made of satined nickel is durable but elegant. Aside from the fingerprint reader, the lock exterior actually looks like most of the traditional single cylinder locks you will find.

What impressed us less is the interior. It's big, at least when compared to most of the interior smart lock hardware. At seven inches high and nearly ten inches wide, the chassis is framed to hold the four AA batteries needed to power the Flex Touch. Let's just say it doesn't exactly fit most doors.

Easy installation, quick setup

The finished interior for the Lockly Flex Touch.

Attaching and turning on the Flex Touch was a pretty straightforward process.

To get started, you must first remove your existing lock and deadbolt. Similar to other smart locks, Lockly's included deadbolt assembly is designed for both 60mm and 70mm configurations, depending on the type of door you are working with. My door required an adjustment of the latch that was as simple as turning the latch body clockwise. You will feel and hear an audible click when the new fitting is locked.

Install the latch for the Lockly Flex Touch.

After the bolt has been screwed in, the outer lock only needs to be attached and the connection cable passed through, the inner mounting plate attached, the cable inserted and then the inner assembly screwed in place. Oh, and don't forget to pop in the four AA batteries. The Flex Touch is supposed to be included, but mine is not. So it is a good idea to make sure you have some extra batteries on hand before installing.

Before you put the battery cover on, you must hold down the programming button before inserting the last of your four AA batteries. A series of beeps will indicate that the lock is being calibrated on your door. Once the calibration is complete, you can download the Lockly Companion App (for iOS and Android devices).

Make sure your phone or tablet's bluetooth is turned on as this is how your Flex Touch will be controlled from your mobile device (more on this below). After you have been asked to enter your lock's unique activation code, general setup is complete. All said and done, you're probably looking for about half an hour (top) to install.

main features

The outer assembly of the Lockly Flex Touch.

With most smart locks around $ 200, the price of the Flex Touch is a bit lower than average, but don't expect a cheaper price to translate into less technology. While Lockly locked a number of the Flex Touch's mobile controls behind the Lockly Secure Link Wi-Fi Hub's paywall, the Flex Touch's basic functionality is pretty great.

The Lockly app has a simple layout and a number of easily accessible settings.

For starters, the biometric fingerprint scanner is one of the best we've ever worked with. Unlike more sensitive fingerprint smartlocks, which can get fussy in the rain or cold outdoors, the Flex Touch's print reader did a solid scan of my app-assigned finger every time and locked and unlocked it with almost no raids.

In fact, the only time I've had problems was after returning home from a long, cold walk. The print scanner made a mistake on the first read, but a simple re-scan was all it took. It is also good to know that the lock can store up to 99 individual fingerprints in case your dominant hand is otherwise busy or you want someone else to unlock the door.

Other important features include a reliable auto-lock function, physical backup keys and external 9V battery contacts when the AA batteries are empty, as well as quick and easy profile duplication to store your fingerprints and eKey-Passes on other Lockly Smarts Import locks.

Mobile control and the Lockly app

Three screens of the Lockly Companion app (on an iOS device).

One of the most convenient aspects of any smart lock is the ability to lock and unlock your doors on the go. Remote access is especially useful when you are on your way to the house in a car laden with groceries. Instead of fumbling for keys or deciding which finger to scan while balancing bags on either shoulder, you can simply open your lock app (after parking in the driveway, of course) and tap a button to open the door to unlock.

Yes, mobile controls are available for the Lockly Flex Touch. No, these functions are not included in the scope of delivery. If you want remote lock / unlock, multi-door lock, Alexa and Google Assistant commands, or real-time door monitoring, you need to purchase the aforementioned Lockly Secure Link Wi-Fi Hub for $ 80.

This means that a fully featured Flex Touch will cost you around $ 230. Not bad, but there are plenty of smart locks out there that include Wi-Fi controls, and sometimes for less than $ 200. Without the network module, the Flex Touch and Lockly companion apps run without bluetooth, which means you will still be able to lock / unlock the app as long as you are near the lock itself.

The Lockly app has a simple layout and a number of easily accessible settings. The start page lists the rooms in your house or houses and the Lockly devices assigned to them. If you select the Flex Touch, you will be taken to the lock status and control screen. A large blue lock / unlock button takes up most of the space, with controls, log, access, and additional settings at the bottom of the page. There's also a battery life indicator in the top right corner.

Fingerprint mapping is done through the Lockly app, and the process is a breeze. Once you tap Start, press your finger repeatedly on the scanner and lift it up when you hear a beep. As soon as the scanning process is complete, the pressure is logged in the Lockly app. You can assign multiple fingers to multiple users, and the lock administrator can enter imprints on as many Lockly devices as you want.

Adding a fingerprint in the Lockly Flex Touch app.

You can also use the app to monitor when and how (fingerprint, app, key) the Flex Touch was unlocked, adjust haptics and tones for the lock and app and add / remove users from your Lockly account.

Prices and guarantee

For now, you can only find Lockly Flex Touch in Home Depot stores and online at homedepot.com. The current retail price is $ 150, and the lock comes with a five-year limited mechanical warranty and a two-year electronics warranty.

Don't forget: if you want to use Alexa or Google Assistant to control the lock, or use other exclusive WiFi features, you need to include the Lockly Secure Link Wi-Fi Hub worth $ 80 in your total purchase price.

Our opinion

In our opinion, the Lockly Flex Touch is a great smart lock to get you started. It is a perfect gift for someone who is just getting started in the world of smart home technology. It's easy to install, the app is solid, and there are plenty of bluetooth-only features for you to enjoy. However, after a while, you will find that you want more.

When you get to that point, you can either invest in the Secure Link for additional functionality or maybe move the Flex Touch to a different door and invest in a new Smart Lock altogether.

Is there a better alternative?

Yes, especially if you want a smart lock that's instantly Wi-Fi enabled. One of our most popular smart locks, the August Wi-Fi Smart Lock, typically costs around $ 230, doesn't require a WiFi bridge, and is packed with incredible features and tons of app customizations.

If the budget matters, there is also the Wyze Lock. It's priced at around $ 130, it's quick to install, the app is great, and like the August Castle, it doesn't require a Wi-Fi bridge.

How long it will take?

Due to the generous mechanical guarantee period (five years), we assume that the Lockly Flex Touch will last a long time. Keep in mind that there is no rechargeable lithium-ion battery here, so you need to keep an eye on the battery life of the four AA batteries.

Lockly claims that the first round of batteries will give you about a year of useful life, but to be on the safe side, try replacing them every six to eight months.

Should you buy it?

Depends on. If you're looking for a cheap smart lock and just want to use bluetooth controls to begin with, the Lockly Flex Touch is a solid choice, especially when you consider the responsive fingerprint reader. However, with Wi-Fi built in, you can easily grab a network-enabled Smart Lock for just a few dollars more than the Flex Touch's $ 150 price point.

Editor's recommendations



11 Dec
Blog

Halo View Review: An Affordable Fitbit Alternative

Amazon Halo View lineup.

Halo View Review: An Affordable Fitbit Alternative

RRP $ 79.00

"The Halo View competes with Fitbit and offers robust functionality and a price that doesn't break the bank."

benefits

  • Inexpensive

  • Affordable membership

  • Easy

  • Focus on wellness

disadvantage

  • No GPS

  • Not as durable as others

Amazon unveiled its Halo fitness band in 2020 to mixed reviews. While many liked the simple design and abundance of wellness features, the voice tracking and fat scanning features caused quite a stir. The company has listened to this feedback and is back with its second iteration of the fitness tracker. The new Halo View takes the best features of the original Halo, removes the controversial ones, and adds an important feature that is missing from the Halo band. Is this new band keeping their promise to "build a healthier lifestyle right from the wrist?" We tested it to find out.

Fitbit-like and feature-rich

When I first saw the new Halo View from Amazon, my first thought was, "This looks like a Fitbit". The Halo View features Fitbit's traditional rectangular case, soft elastomeric strap, and a bright, colorful AMOLED display. It's a bit more boxy than the current-gen Fitbit Charge 5, but the similarity can't be denied.

Halo View's feature set is very competitive. It has a battery life of seven days and has withstood this claim in my tests. It's also equipped with an optical heart rate sensor, a pulse oximeter that can take both background and on-demand measurements, and a temperature monitor for your skin. Thanks to its 50-meter water resistance, you can wear the Halo View in the shower and while swimming.

Person wearing the Amazon Halo view.

Light as a feather

The Halo View looks like a Fitbit but doesn't have the same feel as a Fitbit. Compared to most other fitness bands with a weight of 30 grams, the Halo View is incredibly light at 20.6 grams. The View is so light that I've often forgotten I'm wearing it. It's also very comfortable on the wrist with an easy-to-close strap that doesn't pinch or, at least to me, irritate my skin.

If you want a fitness band that won't weigh you down, the Halo View should be your first choice.

The Halo View doesn't feel as solid as a Fitbit, either. While it feels cheap, it doesn't work like a cheap device. The Halo View exceeded expectations during the test. The battery life was up to a week and the sensor readings were accurate. Although the tape is awkwardly attached to the top of the sensor unit, it held it securely on my wrist and the screen remained scratch-free during the test.

Fitness tracking falls short in one area

Weekly goal for Halo view

Amazon is new to fitness tracking, but you wouldn't know. The Halo app is surprisingly designed with a user interface that makes it easy to find the information you need. And that information is abundant. Amazon's Halo View gathers all of the common health metrics you need to track your fitness, like step count, heart rate, calories, and more. The View uses a weekly scoring system to measure your activity level, which is perfect for busy people. Instead of cramming thousands of steps each day, you can take a day off, exercise when you have more time, and still meet your fitness goals. GPS is the only blatant omission. The View has no built-in GPS and does not use your phone's GPS. As a result, it will not display distance or pace during an outdoor activity. Most people probably won't care, but runners and bikers alike will be disappointed.

Temperature tracking while you sleep

Halo View automatically tracks your sleep every night and is great at knowing when you fall asleep and wake up. It also calculates a sleep score, which is a quick and easy way for you to gauge your sleep quality without digging deep into a variety of metrics. If you want to explore the details, you can too. The Halo app divides sleep into deep, light REM sleep, as well as number of disturbances, awake time, and more.

Not only does Amazon Halo View track your nightly heart rate and movement, it also measures your skin temperature at night. This adds another metric that you can use to diagnose sleep problems or to monitor your health. Do you wake up tired but have slept eight hours? You can check the temperature stats to see if temperature played a role in your insomnia. You may need to shed a layer or add a blanket to keep yourself comfortable at night. Temperature can also be used to diagnose illness, track your menstrual cycle, and monitor other changes in your body or around you.

Halo Fitness brings the burn

Halo fitness

Halo View integrates with Amazon's Halo Fitness, which provides access to a growing library of on-demand workouts led by professional fitness instructors. You can choose between cardio, outdoor, strength, yoga and mobility courses. And there are workouts for all fitness levels. Like Apple Fitness and iFit, the workouts are mostly bodyweight exercises, but that doesn't mean they were easy. The classes I took were strong enough to make me sweat and left me sore the next day. Most of the exercises take less than 25 minutes, so you can easily do them even on a busy day. Although I used Halo View to track my workout, the tracker stats don't integrate with Halo Fitness in the Halo app. I had to look at my watch to check my heart rate instead of seeing it on my phone's screen.

Decreased creepiness

Amazon raised some eyebrows with its tone voice analysis and the photo-based body fat analysis it added to its original Halo fitness band. Even though it removed Tone from the Halo view, Amazon kept the body fat measurements that require you to take a photo of yourself in your Skivvies. Measuring body fat using photos may be more accurate, but not everyone will use this feature.

Same goes for Halo View's new Movement Health, which uses the camera to assess your ability to make five simple movements. The data collected by the camera is then analyzed and used to improve your mobility, stability and posture. Fortunately, these features are optional and disabled by default. I turned it on for testing but didn't use it much after initial setup. Step count, activity score, and the weekly goal were my main motivators for keeping moving.

Diet adds a new dimension

View Hale nutrition recipes

Step count, heart rate and sleep tracking are only half the story. The Halo View is packed with a variety of health and wellness features that complement the fitness metrics gathered by the band's built-in sensors. Diet is one of the newest additions and shows promise. The Nutrition section in the Halo app contains customized single meal recipes as well as long-term nutrition programs to help you build healthy eating habits over time. I signed up for "Have a Glass of Water Before Every Meal" and cherished the daily reminders that encouraged me to improve my hydration each day. In the future, Amazon plans to offer instructions for meal planning and shopping lists that will be synchronized with Alexa.

Affordable monthly membership

Amazon nailed the membership options on Halo View. Some companies cripple their devices for non-subscribers, but Amazon gives you basic metrics like steps, heart rate, and sleep times for free. You do not need to purchase this additional subscription to take advantage of the device's minimal fitness tracking capabilities.

Those who want advanced metrics like daily activity results or personalized insights can sign up for a Halo membership. Amazon cost its membership at an affordable $ 3.99 per month. The View comes with a 12 month free subscription to Halo membership so you don't have to pay that fee right away.

Person wearing the Amazon Halo view.

Our opinion

The Halo View is a great value for those looking for an affordable alternative to the more expensive trackers from Fitbit and Garmin. It has more than enough metrics and wellness features to keep most users at ease. The Halo View might not have enough bells and whistles to draw people away from Fitbit or Garmin, but it's a great starting point for those new to fitness tracking.

Is there a better alternative?

The Halo makes a great entry-level fitness attacker, but there are better alternatives. With sleek, rounded lines and a beautiful AMOLED display, the Charge 5 is a worthy competitor to the Halo View. At an MSRP of $ 129, the Charge 5 is more expensive but offers the distance and pace metrics not found on the Halo View. Another option is Garmin's Vivosmart 4, which has a sophisticated design and loads of smart features to keep you both connected and healthy.

How long it will take?

Amazon Halo View is a budget fitness tracker, so don't expect it to last five years. Most users will be able to use Halo View for a number of years with normal usage. Adventure athletes or hand-working people such as mechanics or carpenters may find the View too sensitive for their harsh lifestyles.

Should you buy it?

Absolutely. With fitness tracking, sleep tracking, nutrition, and access to instructor-led workouts, the Halo View is ideal for someone who wants a fitness tracker but doesn't want to spend a lot of money.

Editor's recommendations



09 Dec
Blog

Nokia T20 Tablet Review: Plenty of Peaks and Valleys

You can play Call of Duty: Mobile on Nokia t20 tablet.

"The Nokia T20 tablet is a decent tablet that is better than a Fire tablet and cheaper than an iPad, but that's all it offers."

advantages

  • Nice design with nice color

  • Good price

  • Decent performance

  • The Google TV hub is pretty awesome

disadvantage

  • Poor network connectivity and battery life

  • Screen is not bright enough.

  • Volume is not loud enough

The Android tablet market is largely dominated by iPads and Amazon Fire tablets, but the Nokia T20 is worth considering. If you're looking for a tablet that's cheaper than an iPad but more useful than an Amazon Fire, the Nokia T20 is a good budget option with just a few minor pitfalls.

One of the (only) advantages of using an Android tablet (as opposed to a Fire) is access to Google services and the App Store. Gmail, Maps and Drive are central to my workflow. And while most Android apps aren't ideal for the tablet form factor, the Play Store is a much better app ecosystem than Amazon's App Store. Also, Google recently launched Android 12L, which is designed for tablets and is foldable, indicating Google's interest in form factor support. So now could be a good time to jump on the Android tablet bandwagon.

Overall, the Nokia T20 does a pretty good job as a media streamer and can even turn into a productivity machine. Let's dive in.

Design and display

The Nokia t20 tablet is too big to hold with one hand.

The Nokia T20 tablet has a glass and aluminum construction so you won't confuse it with a budget device. The deep ocean colorway on the back is a pleasant shade of blue. It gives the tablet an overall classic and subtle look that you would want from a coffee table tablet. One disadvantage is that the display is not bright enough for outdoor use. Otherwise, it's a sharp 10.4-inch diagonal with a resolution of 1200 x 2000, resulting in an odd aspect ratio of 5: 3. That puts it somewhere between 16: 9, which is great for watching movies, and 2: 3, which is great for productivity.

This tablet does a pretty good job as a media streamer and can even turn a case into a productivity machine.

The aspect ratio means that the tablet is awkward to hold to read in the Kindle app. It's too wide and too big to hold with one hand in any orientation. So you can either hold the tablet with both hands or place it on a table to watch movies or TV. Speaking of watching movies, most have black bars at the top and bottom, but they're not distracting as letterboxing is also common on TVs.

The Nokia t20 is easy to hold and carry.

In landscape mode you will find the power button in the upper left corner. The volume rocker is at the top in the same corner. You can expand the 32 or 64 GB internal storage with a microSD slot on the top right. Stereo speakers on both sides deliver good sound that isn't quite as loud as I'd like. There is a headphone jack in a strange place in the rounded corner of the tablet. I didn't expect to find it there, so much so that I didn't even notice it for the first week. Finally, there is a single USB-C port on the right for charging and data.

The power button is placed a bit inconveniently because I accidentally switched off the tablet while playing or only held the tablet with two hands. That gets really annoying when playing or reading. Combined with the weight, this means this tablet excels when you can put the tablet on a stand and watch a video, or when you plug in a wireless keyboard for easy typing. That's exactly how I wrote this review.

Performance, battery and camera

The Nokia t20 has a great blue color scheme.

In this section, I'm going to highlight the ups and downs of this tablet. What is important here is the price. While the price tag isn't all that cheap with a Fire tablet, it's very cheap even when compared to a base model of the iPad. But this low price comes with some compromises.

To be honest, the performance and battery are not great. While the tablet can run games like Call of Duty: Mobile pretty well, the game loads very slowly. Apps tend to lag on launch and even if you switch back to them while multitasking.

Network connectivity isn't great either. The tablet sometimes had problems playing or resuming a video stream on my mesh home WiFi. I was testing it on either my iPad or Lenovo Tab 13 Yoga when this happened. Both had no problem playing the same content at the same time. Add to this the performance lag, and that doesn't mean good things for hardware.

The battery is an 8,200 mAh battery that lasts for about one to one and a half days. When you stream or play videos, the battery chews through pretty quickly. After 30 minutes of streaming Netflix at 75% brightness and playing Call of Duty: Mobile, the battery was 80%. In contrast, most phones can do both activities along with 30 minutes of navigation and have more in the tank.

A good pill usually gives you a solid two days. This is not enough, so remember to plug it in at night.

The battery life isn't bad, but it's not the best either. I often found myself picking up the tablet in the morning only to find the battery at almost 25%. A good pill usually gives you a solid two days. This is not enough, so remember to plug it in at night.

As for the cameras, there are two. On the front, you get a 5 mega-pixel shooter that is clear and great for video calls and the like. On the back there is an 8MP shooter that is suitable for scanning documents or QR codes. These are the only acceptable uses for a tablet camera, by the way. Please don't be the person holding up your slate to record a concert.

software

The Google TV interface is one of the best things about the software.

The software on the Nokia T20 is pretty close to a standard Google experience. That's a good thing, too, because there isn't a lot of additional bloatware that takes up space. I activated the gesture navigation right away because that's how I roll. Unfortunately, on a tablet, it takes several seconds to display multitasking when using gesture navigation. It takes so long that I often have to remind myself that I'm actually doing it right. Having seen this phenomenon on other tablets, I can assume this is an Android thing, not a Google thing. That doesn't make it any less of a nuisance.

A nice part of the software is also a Google component. The Google TV hub is pretty awesome. It's a combination of the different services that you've signed up for and can curate the content for you, which you can watch from Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, and others. While I certainly miss the Google News feed, this is an acceptable replacement, especially given the nature of Android tablets. They are primarily content consumer machines.

As mentioned earlier, you can use the tablet as a productivity machine, but there is no software here to make it possible like there is on the Lenovo Tab 11 Plus. Also, it doesn't mean you should be doing something just because you can do something on this tablet.

A nice part of the software is also a Google component. The Google TV hub is pretty awesome.

Other aspects of the software are singing the same chorus they have been singing for years. Android apps are not optimized for a tablet screen. Hopefully Android 12L (when it comes to this tablet) will fix this problem. But for now, you can only expect regular Android apps that cover a larger area. That is not Nokia's fault, however; this is google's fault and it is high time google fixed it. What would Nokia's fault be if this tablet never saw Android 12L. Nokia isn't exactly known for its software updates, and while Nokia promises three years of security updates, I wouldn't be holding my breath for OS updates.

Price and availability

The Nokia T20 tablet is available in the US for $ 249 from Nokia.com or. available Amazon. In the UK, prices start at £ 199. The main difference between the US version of the tablet and the global version is in the LTE connectivity. The US tablet doesn't have that; global publishing does.

Our opinion

The Nokia t20 tablet fits easily into a backpack.

Overall, this is a nice coffee table tablet that is good for content consuming and some gaming. It lives in that strange space between being more useful than an Amazon Fire tablet and less expensive than an iPad. It's a stunning tablet that can give you a good screen for watching movies and, in a pinch, can even help you get productive work done.

While it's good for the price, if you really want a great tablet, spend about $ 100 more and get a 9th generation iPad. If all you want is a tablet for movies and a game or two, get an Amazon Fire. But if you want something that bridges the gap and lets you use Google services that can't be overrated, then this is a good tablet that won't break the bank. Just don't expect a great app experience or software updates.

Is there a better alternative?

Naturally. Probably the best Android tablet you can buy is the Samsung Galaxy Tab S7. The best tablet you can buy overall is the iPad Pro. However, if you want to stay in the under $ 500 category, check out the iPad Mini. This is one area that Apple has blocked the field and the Nokia T20 doesn't change that fact. It's not a terrible tablet, but it's not really good either.

How long it will take?

The aluminum construction makes a robust impression. Provided there is no accidental spillage or drop, the hardware should last a long time. However, we cannot make any guarantees about software updates, and history is not on Nokia’s side. Nokia promises three years of security updates, so that's it. What we can promise is that you will get your money's worth with this tablet over its entire service life.

Should you buy it?

No. But that's the answer we give you for almost every Android tablet we look at. Google just isn't there yet, but there is hope on the horizon. If Google is serious about Android 12L, that can change the conversation. Android is a wonderful operating system on phones, but the experience doesn't translate well to bigger screens, and it's a shame it took foldable phones to finally make this clear to Google.

Editor's recommendations



«‹23456›»