10 Jul
Blog

Nokia 5.3 Review: $199 Really Can Buy You a Good Smartphone

hmd global nokia 5 3 Review backhand

Nokia 5.3 test: $ 199 can really buy a great smartphone

"The Nokia 5.3 offers everyday performance and future-proof software at an affordable price."

  • Two days of battery life

  • Large screen size

  • Two years of software updates

  • NFC for Google Pay

  • Camera disappointed

  • The screen lacks brightness

High-performance smartphones that cost $ 400 can do everything that many people expect from a cell phone, but what about phones that cost half as much? The Nokia 5.3 from HMD Global only costs $ 199 or £ 149. After a week on the phone, however, I can safely say that you won't cut the quality and performance of a more expensive model in half – in most regions. at least.

The Nokia 5.3 will surprise you with its functions, its software and its general capabilities as an everyday smartphone. No, the camera and screen aren't the best models, but you shouldn't expect them to be. If you buy the Nokia 5.3 and know what it can and can't do, you get one of the best smartphone values ​​I've seen in a while.

design

The back of the Nokia 5.3 is made of a plastic composite that is easy to grip but has no pleasant texture. It also has some flex and curves around the side to hit the plastic frame, which then leads into the 6.55-inch screen. The phone is 8.5 mm thick and weighs only 185 grams. It feels good in the hand but is wide, so owners with small hands may find it uncomfortable.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

In addition to the volume rocker and the SIM compartment, there are two other buttons on the housing of the Nokia 5.3. The power switch is an obvious necessity and is located under the volume rocker. A notification light is built in that is bright and eye-catching. It pulsates when there are messages waiting for you on the phone. This is useful when there is no screen and the positioning is unusual and noticeable.

The second button feels superfluous. It's on the opposite side and calls Google Assistant. I often accidentally pressed it when I picked up the phone or juggled with one hand. This is annoying, because unlocking the phone adds several extra steps, or taking extra seconds to cancel at other times. There's a way to turn the button off, but there's no way to reconfigure it for something more useful. Nokia has added a 3.5mm headphone jack and a single speaker at the bottom. It has a lot of volume but no bass, which results in a hard and thin sound.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

On the back is a quad sensor camera module that protrudes very easily from the body and is attached over a fingerprint sensor. The design is no different from many other phones in recent years, including the OnePlus 7T and the Poco F2 Pro, and is harmlessly attractive.

This phone doesn't look like it will cost $ 199, and that's the big advantage here. You don't get an ugly phone that screams "cheap" when you take off or look at it, but a reserved and balanced design. I suggest that you buy the Nokia 5.3 in either cyan or sand instead of the boring charcoal color of my test model to make the phone more attractive.

screen

The 6.5-inch IPS LCD screen on the front shows where money was saved. The resolution is 1,600 x 720 pixels, which means that YouTube videos are played with a maximum of 720p. While this is perfectly acceptable for a phone at this price, I have found that it suffers from a lack of brightness. I had to crank up the brightness most of the time, and even then it is difficult to see in bright sunlight. The automatic brightness function is also annoyingly random and rarely settles on a single level before fluctuating again and never at the right point.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

With the selfie camera at the top of the screen there is a drop notch and at the bottom a small chin bezel with Nokia logo. Assuming the maximum brightness and the intrusive night light function that reduces the blue light (it affects the colors too much, especially when scrolling), the screen is suitable for everyday use. Just don't expect it to be a media powerhouse.

However, you can expect it to be satisfactory. The low resolution means that details are missing, but I found the screen to have a very cool color palette by default. It cries out for more brightness, and some videos may lack life and vibrancy. However, this is not the real aim of the phone, and the Nokia 5.3 works well for casual viewing. I also like that the screen is huge, so you don't feel that the low price has led to other visual compromises outside of resolution.

camera

Even phones that cost $ 199 now have four lens camera sensors, but they shouldn't. The main camera of the Nokia 5.3 has 13 megapixels and an aperture of 1: 1.8. There is also a 5-megapixel ultra-wide sensor, a 2-megapixel depth sensor and a 2-megapixel macro lens. The selfie camera in the teardrop notch has 8 megapixels.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

It's functional, but not inspiring. As with the screen, expectations have to be mitigated because it is inconsistent and rarely took a photo that I want to share without editing. Neither the wide-angle nor the standard lenses provide the right lighting every time, either over- or underexposed, and the dynamic range also varies greatly between the two. Macro shots are as overwhelming as you would expect from a 2 megapixel sensor.

There is a night mode, but the shots are only slightly better than those without, and also a portrait mode. Edge detection is decent, but you have to wait for the camera to process the shots. When you switch to the selfie camera, the results often look washed out in bright conditions. However, the results are acceptable indoors.

If you combine all of this with slow software, the Nokia 5.3's camera is a letdown. This is a cheap phone and it will never take the best in terms of the camera, but there should still be a standard that needs to be maintained. Fast software and constant performance are required at all costs. I would rather have a camera with a lens that takes good photos than a camera with four lenses that takes mediocre photos.

Software and performance

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 processor with 3 GB, 4 GB or 6 GB RAM supplies the Nokia 5.3 with power. My rating phone is 4 GB and can handle tasks like social networking apps, messaging and calls with ease. If you do something more intense, including using YouTube, speed can suffer. Switching from landscape to portrait mode takes a few seconds, for example, and quitting performance-hungry game apps leads to a longer pause while the phone sorts itself out.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

The benchmark tests are as follows:

Geekbench 5: 308 single core / 1312 multi core

3DMark Sling Shot Extreme: 1129 (volcano)

It's the same chip used in the Motorola Moto G8, Moto G Fast, and G Power, and the results are similar. Do you think you cannot play on Nokia 5.3? Think again No, it's not a ROG Phone 2, but I played Asphalt 9 Legends happily enough. Sure, it's not the smoothest experience, but it never develops into a situation that makes it unplayable. 1945 and playing Hill Climb Racer was fine too.

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The Nokia 5.3 is an Android One phone. This means that the software is similar to Google Pixel phones, with no special user interface, additional apps, or other changes to Google's basic Android style. Android One also ensures regular and timely software updates. The phone receives Android 11 when it arrives and will be updated for the next two years in total. This is a serious selling point and ensures that your cheap smartphone purchase will not be out of date in the near future.

Aside from a few performance stutters, it runs very smoothly, and I think it's good that it has a dark mode and also comes with NFC for Google Pay. Again, this is another big advantage since some competing devices don't have this feature at all.

Battery and security

The 4,000 mAh battery in combination with the low resolution screen and the mid-range processor gave me great hopes for the battery life of the Nokia 5.3. In reality, it was nothing better than most other phones, regardless of the specification. I mostly tested the Nokia at home and therefore connected to Wi-Fi most of the time.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

For me, average usage includes social media, some photos, some video and voice calls, and news and a little bit of games. The Nokia lasted almost two full days, but only if the second day is less intense than the first. Video puts additional strain on the battery. The charging process takes place only via cable, and here too there is no quick charging.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

Security is exactly what you want: a simple but secure fingerprint sensor on the back of the phone and a face unlock, both of which are fast and largely reliable. However, the rear fingerprint sensor didn't work well with wet fingers. It has a handy feature that swipes down to pull down the notification shadow on the screen.

Price, guarantee and availability

The Nokia 5.3 can be purchased in the US for $ 199 from Amazon. In the UK, it costs £ 149 and is available in Nokia's own online shop, Amazon and Argos.

The device is warranted for two years in the United Kingdom, but only for one year in the United States.

Our opinion

When reading this review, you run the risk of believing that the Nokia 5.3 is not worth buying. As with any phone, I've pointed out the drawbacks, but it's important to put them in context. The Nokia 5.3 costs $ 199, it does everything a smartphone could want, and it does some things quite well. You can find much better phones, but at the same time the Nokia 5.3 can easily handle what most people need a phone for.

It's refreshing to see that at $ 199 you buy an attractive, modern smartphone that plays top games, runs all your apps, and has enough power and battery to be a reliable companion for everyday life. Just be prepared for the fact that it doesn't have the excellent photography or display quality that you would expect from a model over $ 700.

Is there a better alternative?

For $ 199? The options are limited. Take a look at the Motorola Moto G Power for $ 249 or the Motorola Moto G Fast for $ 199 if you want similar alternatives. However, to really buy a better phone, you have to spend a lot more. We recommend the Apple iPhone SE for $ 399, the Poco F2 Pro for $ 500, or the OnePlus 8 for $ 600. Google has set the Pixel 3a. However, if you find another one, it is a solid buy.

How long it will take?

The Nokia 5.3 is not waterproof, but the composite back is scratch-resistant. Thanks to the Android One platform, HMD Global also promises software updates for the next two years. This is a significant advantage over the Motorola alternatives. Provided you don't expect your own phone to change use, Nokia 5.3 easily holds the entire two-year guaranteed software update period.

Should you buy it

Yes. Don't let the negatives catch you and instead rejoice that you can buy a powerful everyday smartphone for $ 199.

Editor's recommendations




09 Jul
Blog

Klipsch The Fives Review: The Soundbar Killer

klipsch the fives review active speaker 6

"The Fives prove that the left and right channels beat most sound bars and look great at the same time."

  • Powerful, balanced, real stereo sound

  • Excellent multimedia audio experience

  • Stellar Phantom Center Canal

  • Beautiful design

  • Multiple connection options

  • May not fit in every home theater setup

The soundbar was designed as a simple plug-and-play solution to provide good audio quality in a simple device that didn't ask you to do a degree in audio design at the local community college. Since then, sound bars have dominated home theater audio and displaced loudspeakers in most households.

But Klipsch disagrees that the sound bar is the best and only option here. It is believed that a soundbar cannot deliver high quality stereo sound because it is limited by a single speaker in the middle. Instead of doing what was popular, Klipsch decided to create The Fives, a $ 799 response to the soundbar craze.

Are you clapping back successfully? Let's go into that.

Jaron Schneider | Digital trends

Stylish and attractive

Sound bars have a consistent problem. They are not the most attractive devices. With rare exceptions like the Bose Soundbar 700, they are generally huge blocks of black plastic. Even in the case of the Bose, which looks pretty good, soundbars rarely work alongside the living room decor. Black is not the dominant color in my particular home setup and can conflict with the white and wood accents in my living room.

Jaron Schneider | Digital trends

Although you can get The Fives in black, I was delighted to see that walnut is also a color option. It's just that my media stand has a walnut veneer and The Fives looks great on it. They fit in so well that they go into my media setup unless you try to notice the speakers.

Overall, the Fives kill it with their aesthetics.

For most active bookshelf style speakers, the device with all controls and cable inputs must be a specific speaker, either the left or the right speaker (in my experience, it is usually the right speaker). While I've set it up with the main speaker as the right speaker, the fives have a switch on the back of the main speaker that allows you to switch between left and right. Where the main controls and cables lead is entirely up to you and your setup.

Jaron Schneider | Digital trends

There are two dials on top of the main speaker, one for tactile volume control (if you wish) and the other for switching connection options. None of these dials are required because all of these functions can be accessed via the infrared remote control. Still, it's nice to have them as an option and they feel good. They have a wide design, a serrated handle and a slightly notched feel, which makes them remarkably satisfactory.

Overall, the Fives kill it with their aesthetics. In my opinion, they look better than any soundbar I've come across.

The five: Connected

The Fives offer easy connectivity to your TV as they are the first stereo bookshelf speakers to offer HDMI ARC compatibility. Setting up is as easy as connecting a soundbar.

Jaron Schneider | Digital trends

In addition to HDMI ARC, The Fives also support optics, Bluetooth, phono, USB and aux via a mini jack. There is also an output socket for an optional subwoofer. Thanks to the numerous options, you can connect your audio-specific device like a turntable. Switching between these devices is very easy using the above-mentioned setting wheel or the remote control.

It is clear that Klipsch is an audio company that is used to catering to the needs of music fans and that the connection options will definitely come through.

Two are better than one

Sound bars do a decent job with stereo sound, but even if they have the left and right surround speakers that come with some devices, your primary audio will come from a middle-weighted source. Single soundbar solutions like the Bose Soundbar 700 and Sonos Arc do their best to deceive your ears that there is a large gap between the soundbar drivers if this is not the case. However, digital tricks can only go so far.

Jaron Schneider | Digital trends

Klipsch intends to use The Fives as a soundbar alternative for people who enjoy the simple plug-and-play nature of soundbars but crave better stereo sound. Because The Fives divides their left and right channels into physically separate speakers, you have complete freedom to distribute The Fives to the sides of your TV, regardless of their size, and enjoy the benefits of this true separation.

Where sound bars try to restore sound from the left and right, The Fives have to recreate the sound of a center. This "phantom center channel" is reproduced extremely well in my tests. I was on both sides of my 65-inch Sony TV and felt covered in sound. Even though there is no actual center channel, my ears believe that they are listening to audio directly from me, like from the center of my TV.

The Fives do something that only a few sound bars can successfully achieve – they deliver fantastic home theater sound.

The result is an audio experience that delivers great studio sound without loss. The Fives offer fantastic home theater sound, engaging and impressive video game audio and great music. If you use your home entertainment center as a real multimedia hub, The Fives can meet this demand.

Avengers: Endgame felt like a theater experience when the rumble of Thanos' army crashed into the Avengers, leaving me almost breathless with the clarity and depth of the bass.

Playing The Last of Us: Part II was a comprehensive experience. Every step, every whistle, every dog ​​bark and every infected click radiated from a certain direction on the screen and allowed me to get lost in the gameplay.

The survival of Jimmy Eat World, the dark necessities of the Red Hot Chili Peppers or Lady Gaga's stupid love were all beautifully reproduced. I will go into the details in the next section on how best to set up The Fives. However, once you select them, you will be rewarded with an exceptionally balanced sound.

The Fives really showed their skills with the volume. At the lower volumes, the sound output between the channels was much less pronounced and possibly somewhat cloudy. When I used them at these low volumes, the Fives felt like driving a Lamborghini at the speed limit in a school zone. Sure, it can go slowly, but that's not really the point.

The Fives also want to be pushed and driven to top speed. Turn up the fives a little and you will be blessed with the best they can offer. Not only do they get loud (although yes, they get incredibly loud), they become a better listening experience as the volume increases.

Balance the bass

Since The Fives are a speaker pair, their placement is important. Most people don't leave much space between a wall and a media console to save space in the room or to hide cables. In most cases, the fives will not shine to the fullest.

These are ported speakers, which means that the lion's share of the bass comes from behind and is reflected by the wall. A certain distance is required to bring the low frequencies into phase (time alignment) with the mids and highs. To maximize their effectiveness, you should give these speakers about a foot and a half to work. When pressed closer, the perceived strength of the bass will overwhelm the mids, making it sound like these mids are below average.

When you have this kind of space, you can pump The Fives bass to the max and get serious power out of them. It won't be the mere rumble factor of a dedicated submarine, but it will effectively round off music and cinema.

If you don't have enough space, you can still enjoy high quality bass. You must use Klipsch's Bass Boost feature, which is enabled by default on The Fives. Bass Boost is a function that increases the performance of the bass. Between switching on and off, I strongly recommend leaving it switched on.

Since the bass was set to maximum, but the bass boost was switched off, the fives did not give me enough power in the depths to satisfy me (regardless of their placement distance). But if this option is activated, the speakers only need to have a bass volume of 50% in order to produce a very even, balanced audio at closer distances.

If you crave deeper bass and don't have enough room to give The Fives space to breathe, you can attach an optional sub. The fives recognize when a sub has been connected and automatically send all lows to the sub, with the entire performance of these main drivers dedicated to the mids.

Decorate your ears with excellent sound quality

I tested this with the Klipsch R-100SW subwoofer, a mid-priced 10-inch subwoofer, and the result literally rocked the foundation of my house with rumbling, chest-rattling basses while being blasted with one of the most beautifully balanced sounds I could think of can imagine. Music was a powerful beneficiary that the sub was added to this arrangement. It should be noted that if you choose a sub with The Fives, it needs to be wired.

The difference between using and not using a submarine is obvious, but I'm happy with the performance of The Fives. At least they match a single soundbar solution and in many cases exceed it.

At the start and until later this year, there is no way to optimize The Fives with app support. According to Klipsch, an app is in the works and should be available before the end of 2020.

No Dolby decoding required

The Fives do not support Dolby decoding. So if you're like me and channel all your content through something like the Roku Ultra, you'll need to go into the Roku's audio settings and switch it to PCM instead of the default. If you don't, content sent in Dolby Digital or Dolby Atmos will not deliver audio. Netflix & # 39; Dark and Avengers: Endgame, which is streamed over Vudu, are two examples of this.

You might think at first that this is a disadvantage of The Fives, but au contraire it is not. A Dolby Atmos soundbar with real drivers is nice, but not yet a standard, and we don't hold it against a specific sound system if it doesn't support it. By default, Dolby Digital does not need this signal because it does not require separation of the audio channel information. The fives do not have to decode the subwoofer, the center, the surrounds or the like. You get two-channel digital audio playback with full bandwidth via PCM. This is all The Fives need to decorate your ears with excellent sound quality.

Jaron Schneider | Digital trends

Our opinion

The Fives are the dream of an audiophile in a soundbar killer. Not only will you outperform a single soundbar solution, you will also give soundbar systems with multiple speakers a chance. If you're interested in the quality of your home theater sound, the price of $ 799 is fair. The fives kill in every situation.

Is there a better alternative?

If you are looking for real left and right monitors that can be easily combined with your TV setup via HDMI ARC and without an A / V receiver, The Fives are currently your only option. They are the first and only speaker set to fill this role.

If you're open to soundbars, both the Sonos Arc and Bose Soundbar 700 are good choices. The Sonos Arc is the only sound bar in this price range that supports Dolby Atmos. All three are like The Fives in that they don't come with the included submarine, but still offer excellent sound quality.

How long will they last?

All active Klipsch speakers come with a one-year warranty, but you should expect them to last much longer. Klipsch is a respected brand and The Fives should offer you sound quality for at least a decade, if not more.

Should you buy them

Yes. They are an absolute home run and you will want them.

Editor's recommendations




08 Jul
Blog

Audio-Technica ATH-ANC300TW Review: A Worthy Sony Challenger

Audio-Technica 300TW earphones

Audio-Technica ATH-ANC300TW

"Audio-Technica has created the best challenger for the Sony WF-1000XM3 that we have seen so far."

  • Comfortable design

  • Outstanding sound quality

  • Excellent noise cancellation

The Sony WF-1000XM3 has long been the undisputed champion of the real wireless earphone arena. Competitors struggle to achieve the couple's incredible sound quality and active noise cancellation at a comparable price. After this review, the Sony buds will be able to keep the crown, but man, Audio-Technica was nearing the throne.

Audio-Technica's new true wireless earphones, the ATH-ANC300TW, along with the Technics TSW EAH-AZ70W, are one of the most direct competitors of the WF-1000XM3. With an identical MSRP of $ 230 (though the Sonys are now often found for less) and many similar features, the 300TW aimed directly at the king. Here's why they just missed the mark, but also why they're still an excellent option.

Out of the box

The packaging in which the ATH-ANC300TW is delivered has nothing special. When you lift the lid of the white box, a protective layer of foam is inserted, under which the earphones and the rest of the accessories sit.

Audio-Technica 300TW charging caseNick Woodard / Digital Trends

Audio-Technica offers the usual gift items – a USB-C charging cable and a lot of documentation – but exceeds the expectations with the numerous included earplugs. There are extra small, small and large silicone earplugs (they are already delivered on the buds with the medium iteration) as well as a pair of medium sized Comply foam tips. If you want to make sure a customer gets the right fit for their earbuds, this is an ideal way to do it.

The connection is straightforward. The pairing process begins and ends with finding the buds in your mobile device's Bluetooth settings and establishing the connection. The ATH-ANC300TW has Bluetooth 5 technology and offers the coveted range of 30 meters. My tests of these buds at home have also confirmed this. In addition, I had no connection failure the week I used these buds.

design

The ATH-ANC300TW are built almost deceptively. When I initially pulled them out of their charging case, I thought that under no circumstances would they stick out of my ears. But I get that when I judge a book by its cover.

Audio-Technica 300TW earphones

The curved body of the ATH-ANC300TW offers you a compact, comfortable fit, even though you are looking for the opposite. I found them sufficiently safe so that I could run a handful of runs without them falling out. There are far better training-oriented buds, but these will come to the fore when necessary.

Except for the Audio-Technica logo on the end cap of each bud, these earphones, which are held in an elegant black, do not stand out aesthetically. There is a single button at the top of each bud. The action that these buttons take depends on how often you tap them. They were easy to use, especially since you can choose between a right-handed and a left-handed pattern in the associated app. We'll dive deeper into the app later, but it was worth noting that Audio-Technica didn't forget all of the world's southern paws.

The charging case takes a similar approach in terms of aesthetic simplicity and is kept in a black and gray color scheme. It's a bit bulky than I would like for pocket travel, but I wouldn't call it an obstacle.

properties

There is a laundry list with features that you can comb through with the ATH-ANC300TW. They are mostly exceptional, with a few tangles involved.

Audio-Technica 300TW earphonesNick Woodard / Digital Trends

The 300TW are weatherproof according to IPX2 to protect them from dripping water such as rain and sweat. This is better than the Sony WF-1000XM3, which has no official weather protection class. However, buds like the Google Pixel Buds 2 or the Technics TSWs mentioned above offer an IPX4 rating at a cheaper or similar price. I didn't see any rain when I was wearing the 300TW, but as a lush sweater during training, I will ensure that it can hold through this level of sweat.

The battery life is unfortunately only average. The 300TW can last up to 4.5 hours on a single charge, adding 13.5 hours of extra power to the charging case. That would have been fine a few years ago, but we're living in fast-paced times. The Sony WF-1000XM3 outshone these numbers a long time ago with six hours of playback and 18 additional plays. Newer products like the WF-SP800N from Sony offer a playback time of nine hours with active noise canceling activated. With the 300TW it's a real shit, because buds that sound so good shouldn't have such a short listening span.

Audio-Technica has included a nifty bunch of technology in these buds, and while the average owner may not be keeping an eye on them, they help improve the overall experience. There's Qualcomm Clear Voice Capture (CVV) technology to support calls during a call, a low-latency feature called Qualcomm True Wireless Stereo Plus that lets you stream without audio interruption, and SCMS-T technology that over Bluetooth protects content transferred between compatible devices.

Audio quality

It's been a while since I heard earphones that sound so good. Sure, I liked the sound of Google Pixel Buds 2 and Samsung Galaxy Buds +, but we're talking about a different class of audio quality with the ATH-ANC300TW.

Audio-Technica 300TW earphonesNick Woodard / Digital Trends

My favorite sounding real wireless earbuds are the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 2, and although the Audio-Technica buds don't quite reach the bar, they're on par with the great sounding WF-1000XM3 from Sony. This could be due to a combination of the 5.8mm drivers with diamond-like carbon-coated membranes for the 300TW or the collection of supported audio codecs such as aptX, AAC and SBC.

Whatever it is, it's great. Think of one of the endless catalogs of classic riffs in music – from Led Zeppelin's electrifying intro to the Good Times Bad Times to the dancing instrumentals of Frank Sinatra's Fly Me to The Moon – and these buds instantly make them even better. They are remarkably clear and present a masterful sound stage with a frequency response of 20-25,000 Hz. I would give the WF-1000XM3 the edge in the lower section, with the bass being the only area with the 300TW that is not that impressive. Still, the bass provided is probably more than enough for most people.

There is no EQ in the app for the 300TW, although I hardly find it a mistake. The sound quality offered here is fantastic. However, the app shows the active audio codec and allows you to navigate between them if you wish.

Active noise cancellation

I want to publicly apologize to all the neighbors who have heard me say "wow" repeatedly in the past week. As strange as it may have been to see someone say this without being asked when walking with their dogs, I promise that this is justified.

Audio-Technica 300TW earphonesNick Woodard / Digital Trends

The active noise cancellation integrated into the 300TW is really exceptional. Audio-Technica used hybrid noise cancellation technology. This means that there are microphones in front of and behind each driver to analyze, process, and prevent as much environmental noise as possible from affecting sound reproduction. It is a technology similar to Panasonic with the RZ-S500W or the Technics TSWs. As in these buds, the ANC does a damn good job in the 300TS.

I tested the 300TW's ANC capabilities with everything I could throw at it – a busy street, my lawnmower, a towering John Deere tractor in my local park – and they responded admirably. The app contains three different ANC modes, but instead of the typical low / medium / high modes, they are labeled for the environments they are best suited for: Airplane, On the Go, and Office / Study.

Of course, at least two of these three intended environments are not really one thing at the moment, so I couldn't put them against real business. But I switched through each mode and everyone reacted as it was intended: Airplane mode attenuated lower frequencies, targeted street noise on the go and office / study helped in quieter situations.

Such strong active noise cancellation requires an equally effective ambient noise function. The hear-through function of the 300TW is the ideal addition with the possibility to adjust the amount of noise let in. Interestingly, ANC is the default setting for the 300TW, and the alternative is hear-through. The only way to listen without any of these settings is to disable them in the app. On the other hand, I don't know why someone wants to do something like this.

Despite all the praise I've given the 300TW and its ANC capabilities, I still think Sony's WF-1000XM3 is better at its noise cancellation. But as close as Audio-Technica is, I would be more than a little concerned if I were Sony now. And although we really liked the Technics TSW's ability to suppress noise, the additional situation granularity in these buds is a huge bonus.

Our opinion

The Audio-Technica ATH-ANC300TW does not have a long battery life, but it makes up for it in almost every other category. These are great earbuds, no two ways.

Are there any better alternatives?

The Sony WF-1000XM3 for $ 230 offers better battery life, better bass and better noise reduction, and all with very small margins. The Technics TSW buds have better battery life and excellent noise cancellation, but a little weaker bass performance and a higher price. The Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 2 sounds better, but costs $ 300.

How long will they last?

With their IPX2 weather resistance, the 300TW are durable in the elements and have a technology that is supported by consistent firmware updates. These buds should be designed for a long life.

Should you buy them

Yes. They may not have succeeded in dropping Sony, but Audio-Technica has managed to create one of the best challengers for the WF-1000XM3 that we saw in the ATH-ANC300TW. While Sony remains the leader on campus, it has to look carefully over its shoulder.

Editor's recommendations




07 Jul
Blog

Shark IQ Robot R101AE Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum Review

Hai iq robot vacuum rating 3

Shark IQ Robot 101AE with self-draining base

"The self-draining ability of the IQ robot combined with its ability to clean only certain areas allows me to schedule 30 days and achieve a truly automated cleaning experience."

  • Empties

  • Excellent suction power

  • Useful home mapping

  • Reasonable price

  • Loud operation

  • The robot needs a week to learn the environment

I'm too lazy to do robotic vacuum cleaners.

I don't want to make sure the dog bowl is out of the way, pull my shoes out of the middle of the entrance, and move my laptop cable and cell phone chargers so the robot doesn't eat them. I also don’t feel like emptying the trash can regularly.

I recently had the opportunity to review a new Shark robot vacuum called IQ Robot. What does the Shark IQ Robot have compared to the millions of other robot vacuum cleaners on the market? Is it nicer Smarter? Will it fold my laundry? What makes it special?

Well, like the Roomba i7 plus, the Shark IQ R101AE is an automatically emptied robotic vacuum cleaner. It is also said to have exceptional suction power, a self-cleaning brush roller, advanced mapping functions and a relatively affordable price. Given that features tend to increase pricing, it's reassuring that Shark keeps them relatively available.

Let's see if this self-draining robot is as good as it sounds.

Get ready

When I opened the box, I found the Shark IQ robot with the self-cleaning brush roller, wheels and main components already installed. To complete the assembly of the robot, all I had to do was snap open the two front side brushes, which are one-sided. I also found the self-draining base that also serves as a charging station. Finally, there is a mat included in case I want to set up the IQ robot on a carpet area. I did not use the mat because I placed the device on a hard floor.

Erika Rawes / Digital Trends

The setup process was very simple. It took less than five minutes. After fully charging the robot, which took six hours to fully charge the battery, I installed the Shark Clean app and connected the voice control device to Alexa.

Yes, it empties itself and is pretty cute

Erika Rawes / Digital Trends

I can hear the dirt being sucked out of the robot every time the robot interacts with the docking station. The emptying station is also without a bag, so I don't have to worry about replacement bags or environmental damage caused by plastic.

Thanks to the self-draining bagless technology, I can leave the vacuum alone for about a month. When it's finally time to empty the dirt, I just lift the container up and push a button to throw dust and dirt into a trash can.

Much better mapping than previous Shark robots

Earlier Shark robot vacuum cleaners like the ION R85 weren't particularly good at card technology. The R85 has intelligent sensor navigation with which it can avoid objects and move around the house. However, it does not have a visual assignment.

The new Shark IQ Robot is far ahead of the ION R85 in this regard. It does not repeatedly drive over areas where it has already been cleaned, and it creates a map of your house in the app that allows you to select specific areas in which the robot should clean. For example, you can instruct the robot to only clean the master bedroom or living room and they know exactly where to go.

Powerful shark suction

This vacuum has an amazing suction power. The suction power is better than most upright units I have encountered. As a result, my floors were completely free of dust, dirt and dog hair. However, what really impressed me about the IQ robot was its ability to pick up large debris. We have a lot of trees on our property, so my family and I track a lot of dried leaves. The robot picked up all of the last leaves, crumbs, and scraps of food left on the floor from the day.

The IQ robot comes with 8 feet of magnetic strips that I can use to block areas where the robot shouldn't be driving. I cut the magnetic strips into smaller pieces and put the strips in front of my dog's crate, around their feeding area and in front of an area where there are many cables and charging cables. This way, I don't have to move anything before I have vacuumed or cleaned up, which cancels the purpose of automated cleaning.

Planning, automatic top-up and more

I can set the IQ robot to clean on a schedule. In general, the robot vacuum planning features are not too useful since the user has to empty the trash can and prepare the cleaning area between cleanings. The self-draining ability of the IQ robot, combined with its ability to clean only certain areas, allows me to set a 30-day schedule and have a truly automated cleaning experience. The robot has a battery life of 90 minutes on a single charge. However, if the robot runs out of battery juice or the dust container fills up during cleaning, it will return to the station to get more battery power or drain itself and then continue cleaning.

The robot also speaks and lets me know when problems arise. If I can't find the robot, the app has the "Find my robot" function that the robot uses to beep so that I can find the device if it gets stuck under a couch or in a cabinet. Since it is compatible with Alexa and Google Home, I can also use voice commands to control the IQ robot.

The robot is a bit loud

Erika Rawes / Digital Trends

This vacuum makes a lot of noise. It's louder than any other robot vacuum I've used during operation. It is also extremely noisy when the robot empties the dirt into the self-draining base. When emptied, it sounds like one of those vacuum cleaners in the car wash. It frightened my dog ​​for the first time, and now she looks at the robot every time he approaches the docking station and waits for him to make the loud noise.

For me, the volume of the device wasn't too much of a problem as I can just stop my Hulu show when the vacuum approaches. But for those who have young children or in a home situation where they need a robot vacuum that works quietly, this could be a problem.

There is a learning curve

Most robotic vacuum cleaners take some time to learn your home. This device had to vacuum my house for eight days (14 separate cleaning cycles) before a complete map of my house was created. For the first week before the card was ready, I couldn't set the robot to only clean certain rooms.

The robot couldn't find the dock when he was still learning my home. It searched for about 45 seconds and then the robot said aloud that it couldn't find the dock and asked me to put it on the dock manually. It still worked normally and emptied itself after I put it on the dock, but I was a little surprised that it couldn't find it on its own. After about five days, the robot started to locate the dock with no problems.

Warranty info

The Shark IQ robot is guaranteed for one year.

Our opinion

The practical and powerful Shark IQ robot solves most of the problems customers have with robotic vacuum cleaners. There are a few drawbacks – the robot is noisy and it takes about a week to learn the house and unlock all of its features – but since the IQ robot is cheaper than other robots in its category, I'm still happy with that Total unit.

Are there any better alternatives?

The main competition to the IQ Robot is the iRobot Roomba i7 Plus, an excellent machine with excellent mapping functions and exceptional cleaning performance. The two main differences between the IQ Robot and the i7 Plus are the price and the fact that the IQ Robot is bagless.

You can buy the IQ Robot for $ 600, which is the normal retail price. The i7 Plus costs around $ 1,000. The i7 Plus is also self-draining, but the emptying station contains disposable bags. The customer must replace the bag after the trash can has been emptied 30 times.

How long it will take?

With visual mapping and smart home compatibility, this robot is technologically exactly where it should be. Functions such as self-draining and the option to select certain cleaning areas make it even better and bring it a little ahead of the curve.

There's no reason to believe that the Companion (Shark Clean) app will soon end support for the IQ Robot, and you shouldn't have to worry about the quality of the robot either. All parts and components feel robust and well made.

Should you buy it

Yes. If you don't want to worry about vacuuming at all, this robot is a good investment.

Editor's recommendations




06 Jul
Blog

Arlo Pro 3 Review: A Great Choice For Smart Home Security

Netgear Arlo Pro 3

"The Alro Pro 3 is a premium choice for smart home security."

  • Weatherproof, wireless cameras

  • High quality 2K video

  • Smart A.I. properties

  • Easy to install and use

  • Easy upgrade for existing Arlo owners

  • Minor performance issues with multiple 2K streams

  • A subscription is required for advanced features

Since its beginnings as a peculiar offshoot of Netgear, Arlo has found its rhythm with an excellent selection of wireless and weatherproof smart cams. The high-resolution Arlo Pro 2 tops our list of the best outdoor surveillance cameras in 2019 – and it is also a good choice for indoor surveillance.

In April Arlos became Ultra 4K came and marked the first shot in a next generation battle for the supremacy of the UHD Smart Cam. It offers superior sharpness and impressively large views, but a price tag of $ 300 per camera and a restrictive upgrade path for existing Arlo owners meant it wasn't a big hit.

The Arlo Pro 3 ($ 499 for a 2-camera kit with additional cameras at $ 199 each) sits exactly between the two. While Arlo Ultra 4K's headline-breaking UHD resolution is lacking, it does offer a wider range of enhancements that make it a better choice than Arlo's most expensive kit.

There has been fierce competition in this area, but Arlo's excellent track record has given consumers confidence that this should succeed.

Netgear Arlo Pro 3Terry Walsh / Digital Trends

This new model improves the Arlo Pro 2's 1080p image resolution to sharper, more vivid 2K (2560 x 1440 pixels) and supports a high dynamic range (HDR), which promises better video quality in very dark or bright areas. A 160 degree field of view may be narrower than the Arlo Ultra 4K's generous 180 degree field of view, but it's a significant advance over the 130 degrees offered by the outgoing model.

Additional functions are performed directly by the Arlo Ultra 4K. An integrated headlamp allows Arlo to take advantage of color night vision support, while noise-canceling two-way audio and a siren in front of the camera further strengthen the Arlo Pro 3's security requirements. It also benefits from the clean magnetic charging system that we got to know in April that promises a battery life of up to six months between charges.

A better choice for Arlo upgrades

Visually, the cameras and the SmartHub of the Arlo Pro 3 look identical to those we saw when we tested the Arlo 4K Ultra. That's not a bad thing, as Arlo's much-copied design is one of the more compact and attractive systems. The curvy all-plastic case is sturdy enough to withstand the elements, while installation is simplified by a strong magnetic mounting system (a screw-mounting option is also available). A partially flattened base also allows the camera to be placed indoors on a shelf or desktop. In short, you can install the Arlo Pro 3 anywhere.

The often copied design by Arlo is one of the more compact and attractive systems.

It also includes Arlo's latest SmartHub (VMB4540), which enables the network connection between the cameras and your router. Again, it looks identical to the slimmer device introduced with the Arlo Ultra 4K, but a closer look reveals important differences. External video storage for camera shots is available, but this model enables it via a single USB 2.0 port instead of the microSD slot equipped with the Arlo Ultra.

This is good news for surveillance video horters who benefit from storage capacities of up to 2 TB. The With Arlo Pro 3's lower resolution video, the system can also operate with reduced bandwidth requirements. This SmartHub works with 802.11 b / g / n Wi-Fi and not with the faster "AC" standard supported by the Arlo Ultra 4K.

Netgear Arlo Pro 3Terry Walsh / Digital Trends

Perhaps the best news is that owners of some older Arlo systems You can add Arlo Pro 3 cameras to your existing network and take advantage of enhanced 2K video streams without having to replace the SmartHubs. This makes the Arlo Pro 3 a better upgrade option than Arlo's top tier kit. Arlo Pro 3 owners can even add Ultra 4K cameras to their systems at a later date without losing functionality.

Setup is a breeze

As with every Arlo system we tested, commissioning Arlo Pro 3 is very easy. Arlo recently launched a new version of its smartphone app that guides you through the installation. While cheaper smart camera systems can switch between direct Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections during setup, Arlo's wired SmartHub does the installation smoothly.

Hardware installation is just as easy. The scope of delivery includes options for screw and magnetic fastening. Arlo's newer concave magnetic mount is fabulous and combines strength and versatility. Cameras snap into place on the bracket on the back and can be precisely angled despite the fixed connection. For more ambitious assembly, the included adjustable safety bracket can be screwed into walls, fences, ceilings, trees, etc. It supports 360 degree rotation and 90 degree tilt.

A step in video quality

In use, the Arlo Pro 3's 2K image quality is a noticeable improvement over the previous generation camera (and a big leap over the 720p that is supported by the original Arlo system). While it's not quite as clear as Arlo Ultra 4K or wired Nest Cam IQ models, it's still very good indeed.

The improved resolution allows you to use the camera's 12x digital zoom without instantly breaking images into blurry chaos. If you exceed the 3x zoom, the quality will be noticeably affected. Arlo Pro 3 is equipped with an intelligent automatic zoom and tracking function, which is practical for security monitoring. As we found with the Arlo Ultra 4K, the resolution of the camera is unfortunately reduced to 1080p when the function is activated.

Night vision offers greater sharpness and clarity than many competitors.

We found that the image quality is balanced during the day, with precise colors and good contrast. Arlo's Auto HDR feature makes it one of the few smart cameras we've tested indoors that avoid overexposure near bright windows. This means taking pictures of people looking through your windows to see if you are at home. The 160-degree field of view is wide enough to cover all but the most spacious rooms or huge gardens, and the distortion of the fisheye is negligible.

At night, Arlo Pro 3's color night vision feature requires the camera's built-in headlight to be illuminated. The resulting images are certainly more natural than the creepy standard monochrome images produced by competitors. Although the range is good, color night vision suffers from the blurring and noise that normally occurs in high ISO photography. If the headlight is deactivated, the camera returns to a standard night vision setting. The lighting area is good here too, and while monochrome images are a bit noisy, the night vision of Arlo Pro 3 offers greater clarity and clarity than many of its competitors.

Piercing alarm, integrated headlight

While the Arlo Pro 3 doesn't necessarily compete with those Easy or nest safe As a full-fledged smart home security system, it comes with a number of overlapping features that are worth considering until we wait for the next one to arrive Arlo security system.

The Arlo Pro 2 SmartHub piercing alarm was transmitted to the cameras themselves. The option can be triggered when motion is detected. The resulting racket is certainly enough to scare an intruder and, together with the camera's bright, integrated LED spotlight, forms an effective first line of protection for your home.

The Arlo app supports a number of configurable modes for activating the system. In addition to manually switching, you can enable monitoring using a timed schedule or geolocation setting. Each mode can be customized with simple IFTTT rules for motion detection, video recording and built-in alarm, or you can quickly create a custom mode that suits your preferences. Everything is very simple.

Easy to use, but it's super smart under the hood.

Elsewhere, we found the updated Arlo app easy to understand. There are few ways to tweak camera settings, but they do include useful options such as brightness, low-light settings, and video quality controls. Navigating, reviewing, and sharing video clips from the library is easy. A standard daily timeline view is supported by filters that allow users to zoom in on certain cameras or check clips based on the type of alert triggered or the object detected. Our only criticism of the app is that connecting to a camera's livestream can take a while, even on the local network. In some cases, we watched live videos within 5 seconds. In other cases, there is a delay of up to 30 seconds.

Terry Walsh / Digital Trends

Since both cameras broadcast 2K video live at the same time, we noticed some temporary performance problems during stress tests. About every 20 seconds, both streams were replaced by a black screen for one second before the livestream was restored. When 2K local streaming was disabled, the performance improved, although there was occasional flickering. Since both cameras report a good signal, we can only assume that this was a problem with the network bandwidth or a processing bottleneck. Maybe it would have been better to maintain Arlo Ultra's 802.11ac connectivity?

Intelligent functions behind Paywall

While Nest often praises Smart Cam A.I. Received, the Arlo Pro 3 is equipped with an admirable set of improvements that offer real comfort and benefit. Unfortunately, most are locked up behind you Arlo Smart Subscription service for $ 3 per month. A 3-month free trial version is available during setup so that you can try out the functions and check whether the upgrade makes sense.

This includes extended object recognition, which the camera can use to differentiate between people, vehicles, animals and packages (the latter is currently in the beta phase). Smoke and carbon dioxide alarm detection sends you a smartphone notification when a camera detects an audible alarm. US subscribers also benefit from an e911 feature that allows you to call emergency services with a single touch of a button on your smartphone.

We loved Arlo's extensive notification feature, which adds a thumbnail to the smart notifications sent to your phone. When a person is recognized, an image captured by your camera is displayed. Many smart cams do the same thing, but Arlo also darkens the image and clearly highlights the person in the frame. A quick look and you can check if the friend or foe of the camera has been recognized. Arlo is easy to use, but super smart under the hood. With everyday features like custom activity zones and a 30-day video recording cloud, Arlo Smart functions well. Only you can decide whether they are worth the extra effort.

Our opinion

While the Arlo Ultra 4K made headlines with its eye-catching UHD video resolution, we think the Arlo Pro 3 is a more worthy and economical successor to our favorite Smartcam of the past two years, the Arlo Pro 2. It is certainly not cheap, but the improved one Image quality, the integrated security functions and the simple app control of the Arlo Pro 3 make it an excellent choice for home surveillance. If you enjoy investing in a monthly subscription, you can take advantage of an expanded suite of useful A.I. Features that make the Arlo Pro 3 one of the smartest systems around. In the meantime, owners of Arlo systems of the first and second generation have a reasonable way to update their cameras and / or SmartHubs. We were waiting for a competitive Arlo Pro 2 smart cam to hit the bar – maybe it was inevitable that the Arlo Pro 3 would do the job.

Is there a better alternative?

Few intelligent cameras offer Arlo's convincing mix of lightness, quality and versatility. With a limited budget, however, there are numerous cheaper systems available. The Swann Smart Security Camera ($ 129) is a solid budget device with similar wireless connectivity and weatherproof protection to Arlo and 1080p HD imaging.

At the premium end of the market, the Arlo 4K Ultra ($ 599 for a 2-camera bundle) definitely beats the Arlo Pro 3 in terms of video quality, but you should be aware that you are into new cameras and a replacement SmartHub must invest Use UHD video. It's also worth noting that Arlo recently expanded its line and introduced new models like the Arlo Pro 3 Floodlight and the Arlo Essential.

The Cam Cam Outdoor ($ 329) and Nest Cam IQ Indoor ($ 229) cameras are top-notch performers that lack the versatility and value of the Arlo Pro 3.

How long it will take?

Arlo Pro 3 was developed to withstand the hard temperament of mother nature with operating temperatures between -20 ° C and 45 ° C. So expect the hardware to be robust. In terms of software, Arlo continues to publish improvements and optimizations for all Arlo systems. We therefore expect the owners to live a long and happy life with the Arlo Pro 3.

Should you buy it

Yes. It's an investment, but the Arlo Pro 3 is a great choice for those considering their first smart home camera system.

Editor's recommendations




06 Jul
Blog

HP Envy x360 13 Review: AMD Ryzen Cranks Up the Value

HP Envy x360 13 Ryzen Review 01

HP Envy x360 13 review: AMD Ryzen 4000 increases the value

"The HP Envy x360 13 is a midrange laptop that doesn't compromise despite its low price."

  • Slim and attractive

  • Superior typing experience

  • Excellent performance

  • Balanced port selection

  • Well built

  • Battery life delays

  • Pen not included

Better performance at a lower price? Laptops aren't usually sold like this, but that's exactly what the new HP Envy x360 suggests.

The HP Envy line has played the second violin after the company's premium Specter laptops. It was the option in the middle area and has always led to corner cuts. No more.

The new Envy x360 13 with Ryzen 4000 CPUs is a typical example of this and promises better performance than the corresponding Specter at a lower price. I looked at an $ 860 configuration with a Ryzen 5 4500U CPU, 8 GB RAM, a 256 GB solid-state drive (SSD), and a low-power, Full HD display (1,920 x 1,080).

Although not perfect, I knew that as soon as I held the Envy x360 in my hands, my expectations for a laptop at this price had to change.

design

The Envy x360 13 is an all-metal laptop made of punched aluminum in the elegant color Midnight Black, which is also available with the Specter x360 13. The difference is that the Specter is made of aluminum, but you won't see the difference. Hold them side by side. The build of the Envy x360 exudes quality and thanks to some reductions in the Envy bezel, both feel very small for 13-inch laptops.

Compared to competitors in its price range, the Envy x360 stands out. The materials are far better than a laptop like the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14 made of plastic (and much larger). Although this laptop is about $ 200 cheaper, it uses the same Ryzen 5 processor and has the same 2-in-1 functionality.

The Envy x360 is also fairly thin and light. At 0.65 inches, it's thinner than the Specter x360 at 0.67 inches and at 2.92 inches, slightly heavier than 2.88 pounds. The Envy x360 is smaller than the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5, which is 0.82 inches thick and 3.3 pounds. And compared to the previous version of the Envy, HP has done a remarkable job by squeezing more computers into a thinner case – the Envy definitely intervenes in the Specter x360's space when you look at the overall design.

As a 2-in-1 device, the Envy x360 feels robust in all four modes – clamshell, tent, media and tablet. The hinge works smoothly, but holds the screen in place with little wobble when you move it. It's not quite as tight as the Specter x360, but it's better than the IdeaPad Flex 5. Again, the delta between the Premium Specter x360 and the Envy x360 is smaller than expected in the middle.

The HP Envy x360 13 isn't nearly as extravagant as the gem-cut Specter, but it's still an attractive laptop. Let's call it elegant rather than luxurious – its lines are clean and streamlined, giving it a coherent design that looks great from every angle. Compared to the boring Lenovo Flex 5 14 Ryzen, the Envy is the more sophisticated laptop.

Connectivity is about what to expect from a thin and light machine. There are two USB-A 3.1 ports to support older devices that are easy to get, as well as a microSD card reader and a USB-C 3.2 port (which charges the laptop despite the proprietary connector).

performance

AMD's Ryzen 4000 chips were very impressive. Every laptop we tested with the CPU, including some budget models, performed much better than the 10th generation Intel alternatives. Whether you're talking about Ice Lake or Comet Lake, there's a Ryzen 4000 chip that does it – you need to jump on 45-watt Intel parts to get better performance.

The HP Envy x360 13 also performed well, though not as quickly as some other Ryzen machines. In Geekbench 5, for example, 1,101 points were scored in the single-core test and 4,485 points in the multi-core test. This is comparable to the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 with the same Ryzen CPU from 1,096 and 4,543. In comparison, the Acer Spin 3 with a 10th generation Intel Core i5-1035G1 scored 1,215 and 3,615 points, which is slightly faster in single-core mode and much slower in multi-core mode. The Specter x360 13 with a Core i7-1065G7 scores 1,164 and 3,981 points and makes the Envy the faster sibling.

The Envy x360 13 isn't the fastest Ryzen 4000 system, but it still beats most Intel systems.

When switching to our handbrake test, which encodes a 420 MB video as H.265, the Envy x360 13 took just under three minutes. It's quick, even though the IdeaPad Flex 5 was 16 seconds faster. I tried HP Performance Mode in the Command Center utility and found that the IdeaPad only takes five seconds less time. Compare these results to laptops like the Microsoft Surface Book 3 13 with a Core i7-1065G7 that took about four and a half minutes. Note that the Acer Swift 3 with the Ryzen 7 4700U was only about 10 seconds faster, which means that the Ryzen 5 4500U is a good sweet spot for this kind of performance. When comparing the Envy x360 with the Specter x360, the Envy was even a full minute faster, even when the Specter was running in performance mode.

The Envy x360 13 may not be the fastest Ryzen 4000 system we've tested, but it still beats most Intel systems. You will find it great for demanding productivity work and even for some creative apps if necessary. Just don't plan on gaming – you get performance that is little better than Intel's new Iris Plus graphics and far less than a discrete GPU.

display

HP equipped my test device with its energy-saving 400-nit Full HD IPS display (1,920 x 1,080). This is an upgrade of $ 50 over the standard-performance 300-nit Full HD display. You can spend $ 60 more on the latest HP screen technology that hides the screen from the sides. I like the display that HP chose for the Envy x360 13. It is bright at 399 nits and has a large contrast at 1110: 1 (we like to see a contrast at 1000: 1 or more). The color gamut is only average at 71% sRGB and 96% sRGB – for premium laptops – and the accuracy is not the best at 2.26 (1.0 or less is considered excellent).

This is much better than the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 with an accuracy of 47% AdobeRGB, 63% sRGB and 3.0. This display was also weak at 242 nits and suffered from poor contrast at 770: 1. The display alone is one reason why you want to spend the additional $ 200 on the Envy x360 13 over its Ryzen 4000 competitor.

The Envy's display isn't quite as good as some other laptops. For example, the Full HD display of the Dell XPS 13 Clamshell had better colors at 77% AdobeRGB and 97% sRGB, more accurate colors at 1.53 and a higher contrast ratio of 1440: 1. At 377 nits, however, it was not quite as bright can get the same display as the Envy of the Specter x360 13, and the premium device also offers a 4K OLED display with absolutely spectacular colors and contrasts. This is a checkbox that the Envy x360 cannot tick.

I enjoyed this display in everyday use. It was bright enough and the contrast made black text stand out against a white background. Colors may not be good enough for professional photo and image editors, but they don't prevent me from viewing pictures or viewing Netflix.

After all, the speakers shooting down were surprisingly loud without distortion. That was a nice surprise. The bass was missing, but the mids and highs were clear, and I could rely on the speakers when I listened casually. I pulled out my headphones for action films and music – but that applies to almost all laptops with the exception of Apple's MacBooks.

Keyboard and touchpad

The keyboards of the HP Specter x360 laptops are my second favorite behind Apple's fantastic new Magic keyboard on the latest MacBooks. They have plenty of travel and nice big keycaps well spaced, and the mechanism has a click that avoids any hint of bottoming. I can type on these keyboards as quickly as I can on any other keyboard, including Apple's. Why do I mention the more expensive Specter keyboard? Because as far as I can tell, the Envy x360 is exactly the same keyboard. HP has again removed a key differentiator between these two computers.

The Envy x360's touchpad is also similar to that of the Specter, although its surface is not quite as smooth. However, it does support Microsoft's Precision Touchpad protocol, so multi-touch gestures work perfectly. Interestingly, I prefer the click of the Envy touchpad to that of the Specter – it's softer and more confidence that a button was actually pressed.

The Envy x360, of course, has a touch display that's 2-in-1, and it works almost always. It also supports the latest pen protocol from Microsoft, which promises a longer battery life (up to 30 days) and a more natural tilt function for the 4,096 pressure sensitivity levels. And yes, you guessed it, that's something the Specter doesn't have – even though the pen isn't included in the Envy.

Finally, next to the arrow keys, there is a fingerprint scanner in the keyboard that works perfectly. However, Windows Hello about facial recognition is not included, as is the case with more expensive laptops. The Envy x360 has a privacy screen for the webcam. Unlike the Specter, however, it is a physical cover that is activated by pressing a special key on the keyboard. It is neat to see how the cover appears when you press the button.

There is also a special button to mute the microphone, another data protection function that has been taken over by the Specter line.

Battery life

The jury is not yet sure how efficient the Ryzen 4000 is, but it looks like the Intel chips haven't hit yet. The Envy x360 13 has a battery life of 51 watt-hours and a low-power display that has given some other laptops a spectacular battery life. Still, the results of envy weren't at the top of our list.

In the web browser test, which is the best indicator of how long the battery is performing typical productivity tasks, the Envy lasted just over nine hours. That's a good score, but well below the 12 hours of the Dell XPS 13. The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5, which lasted almost eight hours, was outperformed.

The Envy lasted almost four hours in our demanding Basemark web benchmark test. This is also a strong score, but was solidly beaten by the 4.7 hours of the XPS 13. The IdeaPad Flex 5 lasted only eight minutes less. In our video test, which replayed a local video clip, the Envy lasted 13 hours compared to the 14.5 hours of the XPS 13 and the 11 hours of the IdeaPad Flex 5. This is the only test in which the low-power Display demonstrated its worth.

Overall, the Envy x360 13 is likely to give you full-day productivity as long as you don't put too much strain on the Ryzen CPU. I suspect the 10th generation Intel CPUs are a bit more efficient than the Ryzen 4000 series, but I can't prove that – we still don't have enough data.

Our opinion

The HP Envy x360 13 creates a mystery for HP. It's faster than the more expensive Specter x360 13 and almost as well built. If you're not looking for a 4K display, I can't give a good reason to spend more on a Specter. That's a relatively high praise for the Envy and makes it a great 2-in-1 device at a medium price.

The Envy really doesn't have many weaknesses, although battery life wasn't the greatest strength and it's a shame that the pen isn't included. It's simply a well-designed 2-in-1 device that meets the needs of most people who want to spend around $ 1,000 on a machine. You can even configure up to $ 550 if you really want to save costs.

Are there alternatives?

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 is a close competitor and costs around $ 200 less. It has the same Ryzen CPU and slightly faster performance. However, the battery life is not that long and the screen quality is lower.

The Lenovo Yoga C640 is another great option from just $ 600. The Intel Core i3 is a pretty big step back in terms of performance, but in return you get a significantly better battery life.

The HP Specter x360 13 offers improved aesthetics and the ability to configure a 4K display. As configured (though with a slower Intel CPU and 512 GB of memory), it's about $ 300 more expensive, and adding the 4K display adds another $ 200 to the price.

How long it will take?

The Envy x360 13 is built well enough to last as long as you need it, and its performance will keep up for years to come. By integrating Thunderbolt 3, you can connect modern peripheral devices. However, the 1 year warranty is typical and disappointing.

Should you buy it

Yes. The Envy Envy x360 13 is a slim, well-built and fast 2-in-1 device that feels far more valuable than the price suggests.

Editor's recommendations




05 Jul
Blog

Nubia Red Magic 5G Review: Wins at Games, Misses Elsewhere

Nubia Red Magic 5g review hand held

"An affordable gaming phone, assuming games are your top priority, but lacking the polish needed for a strong everyday device."

  • Good game-oriented design

  • Excellent multimedia capability

  • A lot of performance

  • Long battery life

  • Mediocre camera

  • Bad software experience

  • Fingerprint sensor is not working

The Nubia Red Magic 5G gaming phone is an enticing purchase with flagship specs for just $ 579, but buying a gaming phone is a big decision. You might want it mainly for games, but it almost certainly has to do other things as well. This includes taking pictures, making calls, using social networks and much more.

You have to live with it every day, so it has to do everything every other phone does, plus it has to meet your gaming needs. The Red Magic 5G will meet your gaming needs, but is not enough elsewhere.

design

There is no doubt that the Red Magic 5G is a gaming phone. It has cooling slots on the side, a sci-fi design on the back, and the biggest giveaway of all – the Red Magic logo lights up. My test model is in Eclipse Black, which is a bit reluctant, but the Hot Rod Red and Pulse versions are much brighter and more like what I would expect from a gaming phone design.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

This is not a featherweight. It weighs 218 grams and is also 9.8 mm thick. While this is usually too much for a "normal" smartphone like the 220-gram Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, it is quite welcome on a gaming phone because the size makes it easier to grip and hold. It's not that hard to cause fatigue, and it's still lighter than the Monster 240 gram Asus ROG Phone 2.

Despite the vents, buttons, and lights, the Eclipse Black Red Magic 5G is a bit boring to look at, and some of the visual elements are random. The three lens camera body is small and full of mismatched shapes, with only two of the lenses and not all three having a bump. The phone calls "5G" on the back, which looks uncomfortably cheap. I like the textured, bright red Game Space button on the side of the phone, which feels great.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

On the side opposite the Game Space slider are the on / off switch and the volume rocker. I usually pressed the volume button instead of the power button, which I think is too low on the side of the phone. The placement is affected by the cooling slots and two additional shoulder buttons on the same side.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

Holding the Red Magic 5G in landscape mode is extremely convenient due to the excellent balance, the rounded corners, the flat screen and the chunky body. The portrait orientation is not as comfortable as the phone is not only thick, but also just a little bit wider than the Asus ROG Phone 2 and the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. The Red Magic 5G serves its target audience well, but loses notes as an everyday tool.

screen

The Red Magic 5G has the world's first screen with a refresh rate of 144 Hz on a smartphone. It is a 6.65-inch AMOLED with a resolution of 2340 x 1080 pixels and an aspect ratio of 19.5: 9. It also has a touch sampling rate of 240 Hz for a faster response.

Let's talk about the 144 Hz refresh rate. Yes, you notice the difference between 60 Hz and 90 Hz or 120 Hz, but it becomes much more difficult to see between 90 Hz and 120 GHz and between both and 144 Hz.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

The Red Magic 5G works at 90 Hz most of the time and is very easy on the eyes. Screens with a higher refresh rate should be displayed on all cell phones today because they make scrolling and gameplay more enjoyable. But is 144Hz overkill? The setting is activated when you play games that are optimized for Red Magic 5G, of which there are currently a handful. Real Racing 3 is one of them, and although there's no denying that it's incredibly fluid, I'm not sure if I make a big difference when compared to the 90 Hz OnePlus 8 Pro or the 120 Hz Asus ROG phone 2 found.

Watch videos with the default settings of the screen. The colors are a bit washed out and details are missing, especially when compared to the iPhone 11 Pro. Go to the "Settings" menu and select the "DCI-P3 color scale" option. This makes everything more saturated and the details are further hidden in the deeper black tones. I'm going to pick a little here because otherwise it's a great phone for games, media, and videos. The stereo speakers are loud and there is plenty of bass to the point where the back of the phone vibrates in your hand.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

There is a large bezel at the top and bottom of the screen, which is not preferable on most phones, but makes it easier to hold and edit in landscape orientation – something gamers want. For the same reason, most will be happy that there is no curve on the sides. This makes controlling games much more natural, but affects how modern the phone looks.

Play

Real Racing 3 presents the Red Magic 5G with a challenge. If you activate Game Space, you can switch the refresh rate from 144 Hz to "On". I played it in both auto and super performance modes, where it fully exploits the capabilities of the CPU and GPU. The game plays great, with no difference between minute one and minute 60 in terms of speed, smoothness and fun. However, the phone gets hot.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

The Red Magic 5G has an active, multi-layer cooling system with a fan (a real, whirring fan that you can hear rotating) for just this situation. It didn't make much of a difference to the phone's surface temperature, especially on the sides of the case, but I suspect that it effectively cools the components inside since the performance has never changed. The sound in action is somewhat distracting.

For comparison, I played Real Racing 3 on the Red Magic 3, the OnePlus 8 Pro and the Asus ROG Phone 2. The game looks better on the Red Magic 5G than on the OnePlus, generally brighter and more attractive and with improved response. However, it cannot keep up with the ROG Phone 2. The Asus phone's 120 Hz screen is stunning, it has front-facing stereo speakers that sound great, and the tilt control of the Asus phone responds faster than the other two. I was a better and faster driver who played on the ROG Phone 2. The ROG Phone 2 is almost twice as expensive as the Red Magic 5G, but it shows.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

The phone has two capacitive shoulder buttons that work with Asphalt 9: legends for drift and boost controls. They are responsive and easy to press and locate with your finger. They were also easy to configure with most games. When you use them, your fingers stay away from the screen. The Red Magic 5G has a touch sampling rate of 240 Hz, which allows you to react quickly to your taps and swipes, while the shoulder buttons go beyond 300 Hz.

Is the Red Magic 3 about graphically intensive, processor-intensive games? I spent time playing Game Dev Tycoon with Game Space active, and although the fan did turn on occasionally, it didn't seem to be charging the phone in any way. Playing on the Red Magic 3 was no different than playing on another high-end smartphone outside of the very comfortable body, which during my review never resulted in fatigue when kept in landscape orientation.

nubia red magic 5g rating scope "class =" m-carousel - picture dt-lazy-no "src =" https://icdn2.digitaltrends.com/image/digitaltrends/red-magic-5g-game-space- 640x640. jpg "srcset =" https://www.digitaltrends.com/data:image/gif;base64,https://www.digitaltrends.com/R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAARed Magic 5G scope Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

nubia red magic 5g rating performance "class =" m-carousel - image dt-lazy-no "src =" https://icdn3.digitaltrends.com/image/digitaltrends/red-magic-5g-game-performance- 640x640. jpg "srcset =" https://www.digitaltrends.com/data:image/gif;base64,https://www.digitaltrends.com/R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAARed Magic 5G performance modes Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

nubia red magic 5g Check trigger setting "class =" m-carousel - image dt-faul-no "src =" https://icdn4.digitaltrends.com/image/digitaltrends/red-magic-5g-trigger-setting- 640x640. jpg "srcset =" https://www.digitaltrends.com/data:image/gif;base64,https://www.digitaltrends.com/R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAARed Magic 5G trigger settings Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

Game space is turned on using a physical slider on the side of the phone. It acts as a menu for your games and a slot adjusts the phone's GPU and CPU performance, sets up the Pro Trigger shoulder buttons, activates the fan, 144 Hz refresh rate and also minimizes notifications. It also has a programmable macro mode to perform complex functions quickly, as well as a screen recorder system. I don't like how it suddenly increases the volume in the game when you activate it, as it has made me decrease the volume each time. If I want to increase the volume, I turn it up myself.

Overall, playing on the Red Magic 5G is a very enjoyable experience as the excellent visual and acoustic performance adds a lot to my favorite games and urges me to play more.

software

My test Red Magic 3 had Android 10 installed with the security update March 2020 and exaggerated version 2.0 of the user interface of Red Magic OS. If you expect the phone to have software as good as Google Pixel 4 or OnePlus 8 Pro, be prepared for disappointments. Red Magic phones come from device maker Nubia, which was once part of the ZTE empire, and the similarity to dodgy Android user interfaces on Nubia and old ZTE phones is still evident.

Symbols are large, stylized, and often mismatched, with some more curved than others. This makes the home screen look cheap and messy. Even though there is an app drawer, the phone still distributes app icons across multiple home screens, so you'll end up having to clean everything up yourself.

The always-on screen is customizable and shows a clock and battery level, but no notification icons. On the home screen, only a few icons have notification counters like messages, but others like WhatsApp don't. Email notifications are also not grouped in the notification shade, which results in a long list that isn't particularly useful. It's full of other little quirks, like warnings that don't have an OK option to close, but an "I know" button instead.

Handling the phone with notifications is frustrating. I checked my phone more because I couldn't tell at a glance whether a message was waiting. Otherwise there were no compatibility or performance problems. I like the Google News panel that appears and Game Space works well. In addition, drawing shoulder triggers for certain functions in a game is easy and effective. It's unfortunate that I trust the phone less because of everyday issues, which in turn means that I don't want to use it.

camera

Obviously, Red Magic is focused on gaming, and at this price, other aspects of the phone may not get the attention they deserve. The camera seems to be one of them. The main sensor has 64 megapixels, the wide-angle sensor has 8 megapixels and the macro lens has 2 megapixels. On paper, it's a mid-range setup that should still deliver some decent photos.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

In reality, work is still needed. The main problem is the dynamic range, as the phone has difficulty handling shadows and exposure, especially when the lighting is uncomfortable. Shots on sunny days have lost many details or increased the saturation too much, while some indoor shots have mixed up the colors. A photo I took of cooking rice turned yellow when, for example, there was no yellow at all.

The software of the phone supports a 3x, 5x and 10x zoom function. However, these appear to be completely digital, and the quality over 3 times is poor. Don't be fooled that the Red Magic 5G will question the Huawei P40 Pro's mega-zoom capability. There's also a wide-angle mode, but strangely, the setting is only available in Pro mode. The results are solid, so it's a shame that many miss their very existence. There are also a variety of bizarre camera modes, from a multiple exposure mode to "phantom" that gives videos a strange motion blur effect. They are all totally unforgettable.

nubia red magic 5g evaluation standard "class =" m-carousel - image dt-lazy-no "src =" https://icdn5.digitaltrends.com/image/digitaltrends/red-magic-5g-standard-640x640.jpg "srcset = "https://www.digitaltrends.com/data:image/gif;base64,https://www.digitaltrends.com/R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7Red Magic 5G standard Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

nubia red magic 5g review 3x zoom "class =" m-karussell - picture dt-lazy-no "src =" https://icdn6.digitaltrends.com/image/digitaltrends/red-magic-5g-3x-zoom- 640x640 .jpg "srcset =" https://www.digitaltrends.com/data:image/gif;base64,https://www.digitaltrends.com/R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAARed Magic 5G 3x zoom Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

nubia red magic 5g review 5x zoom "class =" m-carousel - picture dt-lazy-no "src =" https://icdn7.digitaltrends.com/image/digitaltrends/red-magic-5g-5x-zoom- 640x640 .jpg "srcset =" https://www.digitaltrends.com/data:image/gif;base64,https://www.digitaltrends.com/R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAARed Magic 5G 5x zoom Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

nubia red magic 5g review 10x zoom "class =" m-karussell - picture dt-lazy-no "src =" https://icdn8.digitaltrends.com/image/digitaltrends/red-magic-5g-10x-zoom- 640x640 .jpg "srcset =" https://www.digitaltrends.com/data:image/gif;base64,https://www.digitaltrends.com/R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAARed Magic 5G 10x zoom Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

Don't buy the Red Magic 5G and don't think the camera will be above average. I want it to get a lot better, but I guess it's not about what the phone is about. As long as you do, you won't be disappointed.

Performance, battery and security

A Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor is the power source of the Red Magic 5G with 8 GB or 12 GB RAM, depending on the version you purchased. My test model has 8 GB. Here are the benchmark results:

Geekbench 5: 3222 Multi Core / 902 Single Core

3DMark Sling Shot Extreme: 6702 (volcano)

These numbers match those of the Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro, Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro and OnePlus 8 Pro, all of which have the same Snapdragon 865 processor. The results of the Red Magic 5G outperform the Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus with Exynos technology. I haven't found any issues with the phone's performance and calls were fine, but I haven't tried the 5G connection due to movement restrictions and no 5G service near me.

There is a fingerprint sensor under the screen. This has refused to register my fingerprint at all, which makes it completely unusable. Although my software version claims to have a face unlock feature, it doesn't exist. I spoke to Red Magic about this and was informed that a software update that resolves these issues is available for my device. However, it has not yet arrived at the time of writing. My Red Magic 5G can only be secured with a PIN or a sample.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

Battery life was strong, and the phone lasted a full day in addition to my usual activities, even after several hours of gaming. With more general use, it took almost two full days. However, charging does not match because the phone supports 55W quick charge, according to Red Magic, but you will need to purchase a special charger, sold separately, to charge it. Otherwise, you can get by with the 18 W charger in the box, which takes almost two hours to charge the 4,500 mAh cell. Disappointing, and there is no wireless charging either. In addition, the USB Type-C port is traditionally located at the end of the phone, as opposed to the side port on the ROG Phone 2, to improve ergonomics.

Price, guarantee and availability

You only pay £ 579 or £ 539 for the 8GB / 128GB Red Magic 5G phone I've tested here, or you can spend £ 599 or £ 599 for the 12GB / 256GB version. It's best to buy the phone through Red Magic's own website so you can take advantage of the manufacturer's warranty that covers one year in the United States and two years in the United Kingdom.

Our opinion

The Red Magic 5G does what it was built for – playing games – very well and is decent in terms of hardware. Outside of gaming, however, the phone disappoints on several fronts, including the camera, slow battery charging, and software.

Is there a better alternative?

Yes. If you only want to spend around £ 600 or £ 600, check out the OnePlus 8 and Poco F2 Pro. Both have the same processor as the Red Magic 5G, while the OnePlus 8 has a screen with a refresh rate of 90 Hz and a more elegant design. Both have cameras that are better than the Red Magic 5G, but obviously don't have game-centered features like the shoulder buttons.

If a gaming phone is at the top of your list, the Asus ROG Phone 2 still applies despite its age of almost a year. However, we recommend waiting to see if Asus releases a sequel in the near future as there are rumors that it will arrive before the end of summer. It's also much more expensive than the Red Magic 5G, and if the price doesn't matter, it is our recommendation to put the iPhone 11 Pro at the top of your list due to the wealth and quality of the games available for it.

How long it will take?

Do you see these vents on the side of the Red Magic 5G? They should give you an indication of the phone's ability to withstand water. That's right, there is no IP protection class here, and the glass bottom and heavy weight mean that it is unlikely to be great even in a long fall. Treat it with care.

With 5G and the Snapdragon 865 and the high-spec screen, the phone should stay fresh for some time. However, if you aim to use the phone for a lot of photos now or in the future, it may not meet your needs very well. However, if you just want to play games, the Red Magic 5G will be there for you for at least several years.

I asked Red Magic for software updates. Apparently the phone will get Android 11, but there is no timeframe at the moment. The team also says it sends general software updates to the phone every two months.

Should you buy it

No. The Red Magic 5G is a good gaming smartphone, but not a great everyday smartphone.

Editor's recommendations




04 Jul
Blog

Dell XPS 17 Review: Leaving The MacBook Pro In The Dust

"The Dell XPS 17 is a remarkably small 17-inch laptop with incredible performance."

  • Almost perfect screen

  • Incredible performance

  • Four Thunderbolt 3 ports

  • Keyboard and touchpad are excellent

  • Surprisingly small

  • Disappointing battery life

  • Expensive

If you told me that you bought a 17-inch laptop in 2020, I would call you crazy. There are only a handful of 17-inch laptops, and with the good 15-inch laptops, they are hardly worth your time.

That said, unless you're talking about the new Dell XPS 17. Unlike most 17-inch models, the XPS 17 is more than just a large screen. It increases performance. Serious performance. The kind that even the XPS 15 cannot offer.

I expect a lot from a laptop that costs nearly $ 3,000, but with the Nvidia RTX 2060 under the hood and a sprawling 17-inch screen, this could be the ultimate content creation workstation.

design

17-inch laptops are massive. This is one of the reasons why they have gone out of style. However, Dell engineers and designers always strive to ensure that the laptops are as small as possible, and these principles apply here too.

The case is only slightly larger in width and depth than the 16-inch MacBook Pro. You won't notice a big difference if you push it into your backpack even though you have an inch more screen. I was surprised to see that the XPS 17 fits in the pocket of my backpack, which is only suitable for laptops up to 15 inches. This is impressive.

As always, the screen bezels on the laptop are key. With thinner edges around each side of the screen (including the lower chin), the XPS 17 can reduce its overall footprint. The display feels full. It's not as big a difference as upgrading from XPS 13 to XPS 15, but every inch counts. You will appreciate the extra screen, whether you are playing, editing videos, or just scrolling a website.

If you don't use a mouse often, you will appreciate the spacious and responsive touchpad.

Thickness is the only dimension in which the MacBook Pro 16-inch is even smaller. It measures at 0.64 inches and weighs 4.3 pounds. The XPS 17 is slightly larger at 0.77 inches and weighs 4.65 pounds. That's up to 5.53 pounds for the touchscreen option. It's not easy, although the new Razer Blade Pro 17 is still almost half a pound heavier.

However, if you've already seen the new XPS 15, nothing will surprise you. Many of the same design elements have been adopted into the larger form factor, including the keyboard, touchpad, 16:10 aspect ratio, and carbon fiber fabric in the palm rests.

The keyboard and touchpad are highlights. If you're like me and don't use a mouse often, you'll particularly appreciate the spacious and responsive touchpad. The click is quiet and the tracking is almost perfect. The loose mechanism in my test device of the XPS 15 was fixed in the XPS 17.

Ports and connectivity

Connectivity has been added to highlight the "Pro" nature of the Dell XPS 17. It has four Thunderbolt 3 ports, two on each side. That means you have access to display output, superfast transfer speeds, charging, and more.

These are two more Thunderbolt 3 ports than the Dell XPS 15 and even a 16-inch MacBook Pro with a full-size SD card slot. Photographers and videographers should be enthusiastic.

If you come from an older XPS, MacBook or even Razer Blade, older ports may be missing. If you need HDMI or USB-A connections, you have to rely on dongles or a Thunderbolt 3 hub.

The XPS 17 also features Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5, the latest wireless connections designed to provide strong network performance and a reliable Bluetooth connection.

performance

The Dell XPS 15 is already an extremely powerful laptop. When I heard that the XPS 17 would improve things a bit, I was curious how this could be achieved. After all, the two laptops have the same processor options. The basic model includes the Intel Core i5-10300H and extends to the Intel Core i9-10980HK with eight cores.

The Core i5 model only has four cores and integrated graphics, so you shouldn't expect anything special in terms of performance. It starts at $ 1,372, more than a base XPS 15, and you pay for the bigger screen. Laptops like the LG Gram 17 or the HP Envy 17 follow this approach – and remain relatively niche products.

The processor performance is not found in smaller laptops like the Dell XPS 15.

However, the processor used in my test device was the Intel Core i7-10875H, an 8-core piece of silicon. Together with 32 GB of RAM, the XPS 17 achieved impressive results in Geekbench 5 and Cinebench R20. It is 8% faster in the multi-core Cinebench R20 than in the 16-inch MacBook Pro with Intel Core i9-9980HK. Geekbench 5 single-core is also 9% ahead.

Laptops with the AMD Ryzen 7 3800H or the Intel Core i9-10980HK offer a slightly faster processor performance. However, a Core i9 variant of the Dell XPS 17 will close the gap. In the meantime, this upgraded Core i7 is very powerful, even for content creators, developers, designers, and anyone else running heavy-duty applications.

However, processor performance is not something you cannot find in the XPS 15. For me alone, this does not justify the larger space requirement and the higher price of the XPS 17. The graphics hardware is a different story.

Graphics performance

The Dell XPS 17 features a brand new heat solution that uses a combination of steam chambers and a redesigned airflow system. Better cooling enables the use of more power-hungry components like the Nvidia RTX 2060. We're not talking about a powerful graphics card for such a thin and light laptop.

The XPS 17 outperforms the Nvidia GTX 1650 Ti of the XPS 15 in 3DMark Time Spy by 35%. It's even on par with the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, a gaming laptop that uses the same RTX 2060 GPU. In contrast to the XPS 15, which always had limited gaming performance, the XPS 17 is a fully-fledged gaming laptop. It plays Assassin's Creed Odyssey at 41 FPS (frames per second) at 1080p and ultra detail, and this is an extremely challenging game. That's 37% better than the XPS 15 and just a few frames behind the ROG Zephyrus G14.

Of course, performance in lighter games like Fortnite, which was playable at almost 60 FPS, even held up to 1440p with Epic graphics settings. If you want to connect an external monitor with a high refresh rate, you can even enjoy frame rates of up to 116 at a resolution of 1080p with settings for high details. Of course it's not a good experience at 4K, but that's not surprising.

The XPS 17 had similar frame rates in Battlefield V. 4K is prohibited, but the 1440p gameplay was smooth and looks crisp.

The lack of a higher refresh rate or G-Sync support is the only function missing in the gaming experience. Limiting the frame rate and enabling V-Sync is probably the best way to avoid screen tears in most games, but it's not quite the experience of a high-end gaming laptop. As much as I wish all new laptops had 120 Hz or 144 Hz screens, we are not there yet.

But here, too, the XPS 17 is not labeled as a gaming laptop, and these inflated graphics have many other uses. It is blown through 3D modeling and AutoCAD and is an extremely powerful option for video editing.

The Dell XPS 17 cannot stand the performance of the Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch.

I tried some video renderings in Adobe Premiere, in which the graphics card can be fully used on some laptops. The XPS 17 was one of the fastest laptops in our test that exported a two-minute 4K video clip to ProRes 422. The task was completed in just five minutes and 47 seconds, and the XPS 15 was exceeded by three minutes. With an Intel Xeon processor, you might get more out of a chunky workstation, but the two are hardly worth comparing.

The Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch doesn't hold a candle for the XPS 17 despite the recent graphics card upgrade. The only device that could hardly beat in this test was the Microsoft Surface Book 3 15. In this 2-in-1 Device, the graphics card is in a separate housing. It's not a fair fight, but it shows how powerful graphics cards can be if the software is optimized for them.

The new Razer Blade Pro 17 can outperform it as a video editing option when it launches later this year. It offers the same eight-core processor in addition to the much more powerful Nvidia RTX 2080 Super Max-Q graphics card. I won't know for sure how it will work until I test it myself, but the specs look promising.

The base model of the XPS 17, of course, uses built-in Intel graphics, which means that you can't expect to be a slot machine. There's also an option for an Nvidia GTX 1650 Ti graphics card if you want a little more performance at a lower cost. The GTX 1650 Ti option can serve you well if you want to play games with medium detail settings.

Display and speakers

Like the Dell XPS 15, the XPS 17 offers two display options. One is 1,920 x 1,200, which comes in the base model. It's more pixels than a standard 1080p screen, but most people will want to choose the 3840×2400 display. It is almost perfect. It's the most color accurate screen I've ever tested, and its color gamut is up to 96% in the Adobe RGB color space. Not even the MacBook Pro 16-inch can compare it, although it is known to be a leader in picture quality.

The XPS 17's 4K display never has as high a brightness and contrast ratio as an OLED screen, but the XPS 17 isn't a problem there either. The contrast ratio is 1530: 1, which makes it a beautiful screen for games and films and produces a wide range of color depths. With a maximum of 491 nits, I never had a problem with screen glare even when working outdoors.

The speaker grille is larger, but the sound itself is not.

I had high hopes for the rest of the multimedia experience on the XPS 17. Like the XPS 15, the speakers are hidden under a series of laser-cut holes on the keyboard deck. Here the speaker grille is larger, but the sound itself is not.

The audio of the XPS 17 sounds almost identical to that of the XPS 15, which offers a little bass and a decently rounded sound profile. It's better than many laptops, even expensive options like the Razer Blade Pro 17. But do they compete with the MacBook Pro 16-inch or even the MacBook Air? Unfortunately not. The bass and the abundance of audio quality are simply not there.

Battery life

I didn't expect the Dell XPS 17 to offer good battery life. Most laptops with 4K screens don't last long on a single charge, and adding an extra 5 cm screen doesn't help. I didn't expect it to be that bad.

Despite a massive 97 watt-hour battery, the XPS 17 only lasted about four and a half hours on my normal day of use. My workflow is not overly large and mainly consists of web applications, dozens of tabs, and video or audio streaming.

If your workload is simple, endurance will improve significantly. In our video playback test, in which a local 1080p video is repeated until the battery is empty, the XPS 17 took almost seven hours. But in everyday use, the MacBook Pro 16-inch will still outlast it.

I also tested it on the Basemark 3.0 web benchmark, which simulates battery life and puts a heavy load on the CPU at the same time. The XPS 17 only lasted three hours. This is a poor score for a modern mainstream laptop and is more like dedicated gaming laptops.

Of course, if you choose a lower resolution screen, you should see at least a few hours of extra battery.

Our opinion

If the Dell XPS 17 had been nothing more than the XPS 15 with a larger screen, I would not have been impressed. However, if you're looking for absolute performance, there's a new king in town – and it's nowhere near as big as you might think.

It is not cheap and the battery life is disappointing. However, if you're looking for a sleek, professional laptop that can handle heavy workloads, the Dell XPS 17 is the all-in-one package.

Are there alternatives?

The MacBook Pro 16-inch is the main competitor of this laptop. However, it's more expensive and doesn't offer as powerful graphics performance.

The Razer Blade Pro 17 poses a major threat to the XPS 17. The updated model now offers the same eight-core Intel processor, but can be configured up to an Nvidia RTX 2080 Super Max-Q graphics card. It also has a much faster 300 Hz refresh rate screen for smoother games. The Razer Blade Pro 17 is bigger and heavier and can only be configured with a 4K screen starting at a whopping $ 3,800.

Finally, the Dell XPS 15 should be considered as an alternative. It's a little cheaper, smaller, has better battery life, and is still quite powerful.

How long it will take?

The Dell XPS 17 should last for at least five years. It is a well built and powerful laptop. However, you cannot update the memory or memory. There is also only a one-year warranty, although Dell offers an extended accidental damage service or premium hardware support up to four years.

Should you buy it

Yes. The Dell XPS 17 is an extremely powerful laptop specially designed for content creation.

Editor's recommendations




04 Jul
Blog

Sony X900H 4K HDR TV review | Stunning Value

"Image quality that far exceeds your expectations"

  • Great black levels

  • Impressive HDR highlights

  • Extremely accurate color

  • Clean picture

  • Snappy Android TV response

  • Reflective screen

  • VRR not yet available for games

How can a 65-inch TV worth $ 1,300 add value? By providing an image quality that is well above the price. This is exactly what the Sony X900H does and therefore causes a lot of excitement in TV enthusiasts.

For several years now, film fans, home theater owners and almost everyone who wants to get the best TV picture quality for their money have been looking at the models of the X900 series from Sony. Yes, in the middle price segment, but not in the middle price segment due to the consistently excellent image quality from Sony.

This year the X900H offers a bonus. The set offers (or will soon be) features that none of its other televisions will offer this year – Variable Refresh Rate (VRR), especially for gamers. If you want a Sony and the best gaming experience, especially with next generation consoles like Sony PlayStation 5 and Microsoft Xbox Series X, you should buy this TV. You get the following:

Out of the box

Dan Baker / Digital Trends

The X900H is by far the easiest TV I've set up this year. The TV's packaging contains the unnecessarily long Sony remote, batteries for the remote, some product literature, and two legs – or feet if you prefer.

You will find that I have said nothing about screws, and that is because you do not need them. The legs snap directly into the slots under the TV cabinet without the need for screws. I was happy with how stable the stand was, but I'm not sure how to find the look of ultra-slim blade feet, and I wasn't impressed with the cable management solution, which is basically just a clip on the back of the feet.

Dan Baker / Digital Trends

Also not included is a breakout cable for older component or composite video cables. I'm not sure how many more people rock a classic console or VCR that may need to use one of these connections, but I know that in this case you will need your own breakout cable to make the connection.

Properties and design

Dan Baker / Digital Trends

The X900H looks slim and reserved. It has thin bezels, not a ton of trim and is more plastic than metal. The overall depth of the X900H is 2 7/8 inches. Depending on what type of wall bracket is used, the TV should look inconspicuous on a wall.

An important note on the screen of the X900H. It's pretty reflective. This is usually not a problem if you are viewing bright content, but I would not plan to see Game of Thrones or Ozark with the windows open on a bright day without seeing room reflections.

Under the hood, the X900H is equipped with the X1 4K HDR processor from Sony. It's not the Hot Rod X1 Ultimate processor found in more expensive models like the recently reviewed Sony A8H OLED, but in my experience, it still delivers the nifty, clean look that distinguishes Sony TVs from others.

The X900H gives you four HDMI 2.0 inputs, one of which supports ARC. I mentioned earlier that the X900H will support VRR for gaming, but the update that enables it has not yet been released as of the release date of this review, and Sony has no estimated schedule for this feature coming on this TV.

A quick note on the above. I asked Sony why this TV has not yet been updated to support VRR or why it is not supported immediately. Sony's response is to standards. As a partner of CTA, NAB and various other standards organizations, Sony prefers to complete all standard tests before deploying new technology such as HDMI 2.1 or any of the features it comes with. Sony mentions a consistent, stable experience as very important to its customers.

I can respect Sony's stance, but while competitors offer features that their TVs don't have, I think Sony looks like it is lagging behind at the moment. Regardless, there is no reason not to have VRR at the start of not buying this TV. The image quality is too good for the price.

picture quality

Dan Baker / Digital Trends

The contrast, which is the most striking element of image quality, is based on black levels. The darker a television can get, the higher the contrast and the less brightness is required to achieve a high contrast. One of the reasons why the X900H excels is its very good black level. This is thanks to Sony's backlight system.

An LCD screen is illuminated from behind by a series of LED backlights. The backlight system must be carefully controlled so that the black level does not turn gray. This control, which includes different zones – or groups – of lights is called local dimming, and this local dimming is driven by an algorithm. I've said it before, but it needs to be repeated: Sony has the best local dimming algorithm in the industry.

With a solid black base, the X900H doesn't need to be extremely bright to look vibrant. With the Calman software from Portrait Display and a SpectraCal C6 colorimeter, I measured the peak brightness of the X900H over a longer period in a 10% window at 750 nits. With competing TVs with 1,500, 2,000, and even 3,000 nits of peak brightness (see Vizio PQX), the X900Hs seem to be a bit low, but I assure you that 750 nits will offer you a very pleasant HDR experience even when the lights are on. and especially with the lights off.

Sony has the best local dimming algorithm in the industry.

To put things in the right light, the Samsung Q90T in HDR film mode (same 10% window test) offers about 1,400 nits of peak brightness, which is almost double the X900H. However, the 65-inch Q90T also costs $ 2,500. That's $ 1,200 more than the Sony X900H we tested here. I can tell you from experience that despite other valuable features, the experience of having double brightness alone in reserve is not worth more than $ 1,000.

When I turned to color, I was impressed with the ready-to-use color accuracy of the X900H in the Cinema and Custom image presets, both in SDR and HDR modes. The television had to be adjusted very little to bring the color accuracy below the visible threshold. This means that most users never have to touch anything to get an outstanding color experience with this TV.

Dan Baker / Digital Trends

Aside from these core picture elements, Sony's X1 processor delivered a very clean picture even when low bit rate content was streamed from websites like Netflix and Hulu. I observed minimized contours and streaks of color when I looked at them. The performance of the upscaling and other processing elements outperformed the Hisense H8G Quantum that I am currently evaluating and in some cases was just as good and even better than the Samsung Q90T.

This was not a surprise as Sony's workmanship has always been the best in the business. Also not surprising was the cleanliness of the VA panel, which had no dirty screen effect (DSE) or stains.

All of these individual elements have been brought together to create a rich, brilliant, vivid and clean picture. On more than a few occasions, I didn't take notes and just admired the TV. It's not as stunning as Sony's A8H OLED, but it offers a similarly satisfying cinema experience at a fraction of the price, and that's the value in my book.

Our opinion

The Sony X900H offers one of the best picture quality to price ratios you'll find this year. The screen is a bit reflective, and viewing this type of LED / LCD TV off-angle is never great, but these two mistakes can be overlooked thanks to the rich, colorful, and cinematic picture quality.

Is there a better alternative?

Not yet and not in this price range, although I have some upcoming Vizio models in mind. For gamers who want instant gratification, I would recommend taking a look at the Samsung Q70T, which costs the same for a 65-inch model, supports VRR and Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM) and should also have convincing image quality.

How long it will take?

The television itself should last for many years, and new features to support next-generation game consoles are promised in the near future.

warranty

Sony grants a one year warranty on its X900H series TVs if you buy the TV from an authorized dealer. The guarantee relates specifically to the storage of the product packaging. So look at the fine print.

You should buy it

Yes. If you crave Sony image quality but want to minimize the dent in your wallet after purchase, the X900H is an excellent choice.

Editor's recommendations




04 Jul
Blog

Bose Soundbar 700 Review: Sleek Design Meets Top-Notch Sound

Bose Soundbar 700

"Bose gives this soundbar an excellent appearance, excellent sound and numerous functions."

  • Fascinating surround sound

  • Beautiful design

  • Choice of Alexa or Google Assistant

  • Private listening option

  • Intelligent universal remote control

  • AirPlay 2

  • Not the best value

  • Some music services are not supported

  • No Chromecast option for Android

  • No HDMI inputs

Sound bars just started. Their mission was to deliver the best possible sound through a single speaker so people could forget about wiring problems and just enjoy their TV and music. While this still applies to some soundbar models, the industry has quickly shifted back to more speakers and less simplicity.

The $ 800 Bose Soundbar 700 is in some ways a return to the original soundbar concept, but some of its sleek exterior hides some thoroughly modern features.

Is it the right audio companion for your media room? Let's try it out.

design

Bose Soundbar 700Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

If you need to watch a soundbar from time to time, it should be the Bose Soundbar 700.

I claim that soundbars should do their utmost to get out of sight. If you want a speaker to be the highlight of your TV room, invest in the biggest ones you can find.

But let's face it: if you don't hide a soundbar in a wall – which would affect both sound and simplicity – you'll see it. So if you need to watch a soundbar from time to time, it should be the Bose Soundbar 700.

With its sleek lines, perfectly smooth glass top, and amazingly small and flat stature, the Soundbar 700 is one of those rare technologies that can improve your decor instead of compromising it. Available in black or white, you can choose whether it fits seamlessly into the background or makes a statement. Aesthetically speaking, it's quite an orator.

With a width of 38.5 inches and a height of only 2.25 inches, it is narrow and short enough to fit between the legs of almost all televisions that are at least 50 inches tall and slide directly underneath. If you want to mount it on the wall, an optional (and remarkably affordable) bracket is available for $ 40.

You won't find a single physical button anywhere on the Soundbar 700. The glass plate has a single touch-sensitive area near the front left corner to mute the built-in microphone. However, I recommend using it sparingly – as beautiful as the glass is, it is also a fingerprint magnet. Good thing Bose contains a microfiber cleaning cloth.

The only flat note in an otherwise stunning design is the included universal remote, a bulky, rubberized stone that doesn't match the sleek, minimalist lines of the Soundbar 700. More on that later.

configuration

Bose Soundbar 700Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

Although it's a soundbar, the Soundbar 700 is also a powerful wireless smart speaker. Therefore, the setup process is led by Bose's music app (free for iOS and Android). It's tempting to assume that virtually everyone has a phone or tablet that can run the music app. However, if you're one of the few who doesn't have one, or you're considering buying the Soundbar 700 for a friend or relative who doesn't have one, you might not be making the right choice.

As long as you have a compatible device, setting up the speaker is easy thanks to the intuitive Bose app, which guides you through the process with easy-to-follow steps and lots of helpful feedback.

Part of this setup is to tune the Soundbar 700 to the acoustics of your room using the included Adaptiq microphone, a wired plastic headband that you wear like headphones. All you have to do is choose your five favorite places to watch TV and the app does the rest. It's not as elegant a solution as Sonos' TruePlay system, which uses the microphone of an iOS device to get the same result achieve. However, it does have the advantage of being compatible with all smart devices.

You'll also be quickly guided through the process of adding your home theater devices to the universal remote control, and you can choose between Alexa and Google Assistant if you want to use the speaker's voice control features. I strongly recommend that you do this.

links

Bose Soundbar 700 Bose Soundbar 700

The Soundbar 700 can be connected to your TV via HDMI ARC or an optical cable. Since the speaker is limited to Dolby Digital and DTS audio signals, the choice of sound quality does not offer an advantage when choosing a speaker. However, the universal remote control is more effective when you use HDMI ARC because it can send some commands to connected devices via the CEC protocol (one way to send commands via HDMI).

As long as all your devices can be controlled via infrared (IR), I think an optical connection makes more sense. Why should you forego a valuable HDMI connection on your TV, especially since the Soundbar 700 has no HDMI inputs to compensate for this loss?

The HDMI ARC and the optical connections on the back of the bar also include Ethernet (as a more robust option for Wi-Fi) and several dedicated connections for the Adaptiq microphone, a wired bass module (subwoofer) and an optional IR repeater and one for "data" (we're still not quite sure what it does).

You can use it as a Bluetooth source for wireless headphones for private listening – it works fine.

Unfortunately, the connector for cabling a subwoofer is a proprietary Bose connector, so there is no way to use it with a subwoofer from another company. Even stranger, although it is possible to connect a wired Bose subwoofer to the Soundbar 700, both subwoofers sold by Bose (the $ 400 bass module 500 and the $ 700 bass module 700) connect wirelessly to the soundbar.

Wi-Fi is the best choice to stream music to the soundbar. However, it also supports the AirPlay 2 streaming protocol from Apple and Bluetooth. If you are an Android user, this may be your best bet. We'll discuss this a little later.

Speaking of Bluetooth: The Soundbar 700 has a nice function: You can use it with the SimpleSync technology from Bose as a Bluetooth source for wireless headphones for private listening. It works with any Bluetooth speaker, but you can better sync with the on-screen dialog if you're using one of the Bose headphones. The volume of each Bluetooth device can be controlled independently. I tried Bowers and Wilkins PX7 headphones and it worked perfectly – it even stopped my Netflix video when I pressed the play / pause button on the headphones.

Sound quality

Bose Soundbar 700Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

The Bose Soundbar 700 sounds great and, unlike several other soundbars we tested, handles TV soundtrack audio and music streaming equally well.

Behind the grille are a number of midrange tweeters and a tweeter, which provide most of the direct sound you hear, including a very clear dialogue. However, Bose's PhaseGuide arrays are on the sides of the bar. These cleverly shaped tunnels project sound onto the sides of the soundbar and give the impression that there are invisible speakers above your television and even a few to the side – if your viewing area has walls on both sides.

In short, it triggers the magic trick that we all consciously or subconsciously expect from a soundbar, and that means we get impressive home theater sound without all the cables and speakers.

One limitation that needs to be mentioned – especially since the Soundbar 700 is a significant investment – is Dolby Atmos and DTS: X. These object-based surround formats are the latest and greatest. When a compatible soundbar is combined with a Dolby Atmos or DTS: X soundtrack, the results can be exciting and include sounds that feel like they fully match the on-screen action. The Soundbar 700 is not one of these speakers. It's still great at what it does, but it can't make you future-proof if you think these new technologies are something you want to explore someday.

If you are not yet familiar with soundbars as a whole, I should make one thing clear: as good as the Soundbar 700 provides a feeling of depth and breadth, it alone does not create such a deep feeling of low-end bass for a complete home theater system. Because of its small proportions, there is no way.

I was ready to fall in love with his music less, but it went against my expectations.

That doesn't mean there is no bass – it actually does an admirable job – it just can't compete with systems that come with their own subwoofer.

As mentioned earlier, you can add an optional Bose bass module, but this increases the price.

It can't shake the furniture with low-end bass, but boy can this thing get loud. I would bet that the Soundbar 700 cannot fill any space in your house, even if your home is in palatial proportions.

Dialogue playback is another outstanding element of this speaker. It is clear and easy to separate from background noise – even before you use the available dialog enhancement mode. If for some reason you find it insufficient, you can only increase the volume of the center channel in the Bose Music app and make adjustments for treble, bass and synchronization / delay if necessary.

At $ 800, I had fully expected the Soundbar 700 to be a powerful TV speaker, but I was also less willing to get excited about their music. But it exceeded my expectations very much. Thoroughly modern studio mixes like Beck's Hyperspace album benefit most from the bar's ability to project sound in space, but older tracks like The Who & # 39; s classic Pinball Wizard also get new life from the depths of the Soundbar 700.

On a whim and because the Tidal app advertised it, I tried Buju Banton's The Upside Down 2020 Experience. I couldn't have chosen a better track to find out what the Soundbar 700 can do with the right material. Banton's voice comes through as if he were on stage in front of you, while his background singers, strings and occasional saxophone spread outwards and envelop you in a rich mix of tones. "It all comes from this one speaker?" my son asked. Yes yes it is.

The Soundbar 700 only stumbled once when it heard Hans Zimmer's deeply bass-laden Time from the Inception soundtrack – the cabinet vibrated very slightly.

Multiroom audio

The Bose Soundbar 700 is part of a family of wireless speakers that can be controlled using the Bose Music app. This includes products like the Bose Home Speaker 500 and the Portable Home Speaker. In Sonos' multiroom steps, you can group these speakers to play the same music or stream something different for everyone.

But when it comes to pure multiroom smarts, Bose still has some catching up to do if he wants to do something other than follow.

For example, Sonos lets you pair any matching Sonos speaker – from the Ikea Symfonisk bookshelf speakers for $ 100 to the Sonos Five for $ 499 – as a surround set for the Sonos Arc Dolby Atmos soundbar for $ 800 – Use dollars. If you want to do the same with the Soundbar 700, you'll need to buy a special set of Bose wireless surround speakers.

You also can't turn two Bose speakers into a stereo pair, although this is much less relevant when dealing with soundbars.

Music sources

While the Bose Music app is friendly and user-friendly, it does offer some features that I would like to see, such as universal search, support for other music services, and the ability to stream music from a personal library on the network.

You can choose between Spotify Premium and Free, Apple Music, TuneIn, Pandora, SiriusXM, Amazon Music, Deezer and iHeartRadio within the app or use any audio app on your phone or tablet and stream directly to the Soundbar 700 2 or via AirPlay Bluetooth. The disadvantage of these options is that controls and content reside on a single device, and other people at home cannot edit or continue listening to the playlist if the person with the source device leaves the house.

You are also limited to just six favorites (which Bose calls presets). Regardless of whether it's a favorite radio station, podcast, or playlist, you need to choose wisely.

Universal remote control

Bose Soundbar 700 universal remote controlSimon Cohen / Digital Trends

It's big, bulky, and I'm not a fan of the rubberized surface that covers all the buttons, but I have to admit that the Bose Soundbar Universal Remote is well thought out as long as you only need to control a maximum of three devices (except the soundbar itself).

The idea behind the dark rubber layer is that it intentionally hides the many buttons under its surface. Once you've programmed it for your devices – which is easy and possible via the Bose Music app – only the buttons that correspond to the device you want to operate are selectively illuminated.

Pressing these illuminated buttons first sends a Bluetooth command to the Soundbar 700, which in turn forwards the command to the device in question via IR or HDMI-CEC (if you use HDMI between the Soundbar and your TV).

The main advantage of this arrangement is that the remote control and the soundbar are always perfectly synchronized. Even if you select TV mode on the universal remote and then switch the soundbar to AirPlay 2 or Bluetooth mode using the Bose Music app, the remote will automatically show this status change.

Good as it is, it's not perfect.

Three devices (two if you don't count your TV, which is pretty mandatory) may not be enough for some people.

I wish I could control how long the buttons light up. It always seemed like the lights went out as I decided what to do and I had to shake the remote again.

The soundbar, remote control, or TV screen does not show where the volume is relative to the minimum and maximum settings. If you want this level of detail, you need to consult the Bose Music app.

You can use the remote control to adjust the volume of the soundbar during an activity. However, you cannot access settings such as EQ or dialog enhancement.

For reasons known only to Bose, there are no buttons to access the six music presets that you program in the Bose Music app.

Overall, however, it worked very well except for one mistake – I couldn't get the remote to speak to my cable box. My LG TV and Apple TV 4K were no problem at all. I attributed the bug in the cable box to poor IR connectivity and didn't have enough time to try to fix it.

Voice assistants

Bose Soundbar 700Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

Soundbars that are compatible with voice assistants are being used more and more, but few offer you the choice of which assistant you want to use. With the Soundbar 700, you can choose Alexa or Google Assistant and change your mind at any time (you just can't do both at the same time).

One of the best aspects of a smart speaker that really rocks is the ability to summon your favorite music by simply asking for it. But be warned: although Google Assistant and Alexa can take control of a variety of music services, you cannot use these voice assistants to control if the service you want to control is not available in the Bose Music app. Google Play Music (now mostly switched to YouTube Music), Apple Music and Tidal are examples of services that none of the Soundbar 700 wizards can control.

Bose uses a small multi-colored LED light strip on its smart speakers to give you visual feedback on what condition it is in. Two white bars indicate a pause, a single blue bar indicates Bluetooth and a small red dot means muting. However, the strip is also animated to inform you that a voice command has been heard. This is a great feature.

What I can't understand is why Bose is not using it to indicate volume – something I should consider for a future firmware update.

Voice commands were easy to hear even with some fairly loud sounds, and the response times were very good when I tested them with Google Assistant.

Our opinion

$ 800 may be a lot of money for a soundbar that isn't compatible with Dolby Atmos, but the Bose Soundbar 700 proves that the investment is a great combination of sound quality, great design, and a host of useful features, including yours, still worth choosing the language assistant.

Is there a better alternative?

The direct competitor of the Soundbar 700 is the excellent Sonos Arc for $ 800, a larger Dolby Atmos soundbar that also offers a choice of voice assistants and offers the best support for multiroom and music services in the industry. If you want to be future-proof for object-based surround sound, this is a good choice.

We believe that the Soundbar 700 treats TV and music audio better with the same accuracy (the Arc tends to prefer TV audio) and has several features that the Arc lacks, e.g. B. a universal remote control, Bluetooth and the possibility to connect a wireless headphones for private listening.

How long it will take?

The Bose Soundbar 700 comes with a one-year warranty. This is fairly standard for this type of product, but Bose has an excellent reputation for producing quality products and the Soundbar 700 should have a very long lifespan. You may want to replace it in the future, but you are unlikely to need to replace it.

Should you buy it

Yes. The Bose Soundbar 700 is a fantastic solution with a speaker for simple but exciting home theater sound. With optional subwoofer and surround speaker modules, it can grow with your needs as long as those requirements don't include Dolby Atmos.

Editor's recommendations




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