03 Jul
Blog

Iron Man VR Review: Bringing The Summer Blockbuster Home

Iron Man VR

Iron Man VR Review: Bring the summer blockbuster home

"Iron Man VR is an entertaining superhero adventure that doesn't quite reach the summer blockbuster heights."

  • Satisfactory flying

  • Frenetic dogfighting

  • Creative motion control

  • A robust package

  • Fussy VR

  • Generic history

  • Unpolished graphics

Any other year, Iron Man VR would have flown under the radar. Despite all of the simulated exploits and explosions, it's the kind of licensed superhero fare that feels slim next to a muscular Marvel Studios movie.

But of course 2020 is not another year. Cinema-goers won't pack theater to see the next chapter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe soon. Iron Man VR could be the best thing that fans will bring to a summer blockbuster this year. It's not an ideal replacement, but the thought of traveling to a fantasy world where good always beats evil sounds more appealing when hope is so scarce.

Although Iron Man VR doesn't fully exploit its promising potential due to technical limitations and a general lack of polish, thanks to its creative control scheme, it offers enough fun and action film heroism.

Marvel flight simulator

Iron Man VR can best be described as a first person aerial combat game. Players step into the iconic red and gold armor to read an original story about a mysterious hacker who directed Tony Stark's deadly drones against him. Much of the adventure is spent flying around arena-like locations and blowing robot waves out of the air.

Both actions are carried out with different success using the PS Move controller. When flying, hold the moves straight down and press the triggers to drive forward. Turning the controller to the left or right moves the suit in this direction, while tilting it horizontally increases the height.

It's not the most seamless VR flight game, but when it all comes together, it's an undeniably cool experience.

It may seem intuitive at first, but gets more complicated when steering comes into play. Players can tilt their heads to rotate, but the most effective way to move is to press a button to rotate the camera. Flying becomes a difficult balance between controlling the character's position in the game and focusing on the PlayStation camera in physical space.

It is not the fastest learning process. In the game's early missions, I played with my arms and neck and tried to achieve a smooth flight pattern. It felt like I was playing a scene in a Spider-Man film in which a freshly bitten Peter Parker whirls around on the roofs and tries to learn the mechanics of his nets.

All this trial and error paid off when the controls finally clicked. In an outstanding mission, players fly through a rocky canyon to pursue a runaway villain. It's a standard video game chase, but it's also a sequence that rewards the player's mastery. As I raced through narrow passages and effortlessly snaked around rugged cliffs, I felt less like a youthful avenger. Instead, the PSVR headset felt like the Iron Man helmet, and the Move controllers became palm boosters. At that moment I was a superhero racing through the air with verve.

It's not the most seamless VR flight game, but when it all comes together, it's an undeniably cool experience.

Exploits

The action side of the game has its own ups and downs. During the flight, the Move controllers can be raised to shoot enemies. When you aim a straight one like a sword, players can fire blaster shots from the palm of their hand while flipping down activates an auxiliary attack like homing missiles from the suit's wrist.

If everything works as intended, all the time you spent as a child playing superheroes was worth it.

As with flying, shooting takes a bit to get the hang of it. The nuance of the wrist placement makes it difficult to constantly trigger the intended force in rapid battles. Flying and shooting at the same time is a separate fight in which the players have to juggle two separate movements. If the flight feels like it is fully focused, it will be absolutely impossible to do the tandem action.

Even with the tricky controls, firefights are often fun and hectic. The waves of jellyfish-like drones offer players a lot of moving targets where they can test their skills. It is uniquely satisfying to blow up incoming enemies with the palm of your hand on the right and aim with the other five ships and destroy them at once with a barrage of wrist missiles.

Iron Man VR

Iron Man VR adds additional gestural gameplay to enhance the feeling of heroism. If you hold down a button and swing the controller, a powerful blow is triggered, which can throw opponents back. There are also many other well-known comic book moments. The players open incredibly heavy gates and release the stuck landing gear of an airplane during the adventure. This type of tactile design feels more exciting than tapping X quickly to achieve strength in an average game.

The overall fight can sometimes feel a bit simple, especially when compared to a superhero game that is as varied and fluid as Marvel's Spider-Man, but the physicality of VR allows for additional experimentation in combat. If everything works as intended, all the time you spent as a child playing superheroes was worth it.

B-Movie

Despite a creative approach to control, Iron Man VR stumbles across its presentation. The story itself is a collection of genre clichés, from tortured heroes to predictable red pegs. The constant jokes feel like they've been pulled out of a seminar on writing a Marvel movie.

The graphics don't look much better. Many of the textures wouldn't look out of place in an average Nintendo GameCube game, and the largest set pieces tend to fall flat with lackluster effects. That wouldn't normally be a deal breaker for VR, but superhero games live and die through spectacle. Iron Man VR has a lot of potential, but can't always deliver its blockbuster moments. Explosions are more often anti-climactic than they inspire.

Iron Man VR

It's not that the game doesn't feel complete. It's a weighty package with an eight-hour history, lots of bonus missions, and a full suit customization. The problem boils down to a lack of polish that feels uncomfortable for the genre.

Love her or hate her, Marvel films have made entertainment a science. These superhero adventures have been carefully designed to provide constant fun for fans. Even when they are the weakest, it is rare for this iron formula to crack.

Iron Man VR has a lot of potential, but can't always deliver its blockbuster moments.

Iron Man VR, on the other hand, is a game in which players constantly see the seams. The technical restrictions always prevail, whether in the form of recycled locations or incredibly long loading times. These limits are particularly noticeable in the game's home base scenes, where Tony Stark's arms tend to twist and twist in a way that makes a surgeon flinch.

The frequent interruptions in flight keep Iron Man VR from reaching new superhero heights. There are lightning bolts from Avengers Action, but the experience is more similar to that of Tony Stark, who controls his Mark I armor for the first time and tries to remove the kinks.

Our opinion

Iron Man VR is an entertaining escape that finds creative ways to turn motion controls into heroic stunts, but lacks the thrill and polish needed to make it feel like a real Hollywood spectacle.

Is there a better alternative?

Marvel's Spider-Man is still the gold standard for modern superhero games, and Eagle Flight is a more elegant (but disgusting) VR flight experience.

How long it will take?

The story takes approximately eight hours and the game features races, combat attempts and free flight to add weight to the package.

Should you buy it

Yes, if you have a PSVR and a Move controller. If you don't have one, a killer app isn't enough to justify a full VR investment.

Editor's recommendations




03 Jul
Blog

2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S Review: It’s Always On

2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S.

2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S.

"If you're looking for a high-performance electric car with a six-figure price tag, this is the best option."

  • Packed with technical features

  • Immediate performance at any speed

  • More practical than you think

  • Very quiet in normal driving

  • Modest electrical range

  • Regenerative braking can be adjusted

Porsche made a name for itself by building high-performance, high-octane cars for the road and the route, not for drivers who want to reduce their carbon footprint. Although company founder Ferdinand Porsche dealt with hybrid technology at the end of the 19th century, the automaker's reputation is intertwined with the combustion engine. It began to unravel this egg when it entered the hybrid segment in the 2000s, and it chose an additional level of separation when it launched the Taycan, its first mass-produced electric car, in 2019.

Can a Porsche be electric? Or does one fly into the teeth of logic with a battery instead of a gas tank? I traveled to Stuttgart, the home town of the German company, and borrowed a Taycan Turbo S to find out.

Design and interior

Visually, the low-powered electric sedan from Porsche hardly changed when it switched from the sensational Mission E-Concept presented at the 2015 Frankfurt Motor Show (back when the Frankfurt trade fair was still an issue) to the Taycan presented in 2019.The company's design language is more futuristic , but still looks unmistakably like a car that has grown in the same family tree as the 911 and the Panamera.

The rear doors of the design study, which were hinged on the back, remained on the drawing board for safety and packaging reasons. They are terribly expensive and not very practical to build. Ask Lincoln if you don't believe it.

2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S.Ronan Glon

Inside, the Taycan feels just like a Porsche. Look elsewhere if you want wide, velor-upholstered seats and a sky-high seating position. The cabin has a 2 + 2 layout with plenty of room for the front seat passenger, but headroom in the rear is somewhat narrow due to the sloping roof line.

Fit and workmanship are almost perfect throughout the cabin – anything else would be alarming considering the Turbo S is priced at $ 185,000 – and the Taycan is more practical than its sleek lines suggest. It carries back 12.9 cubic feet of your belongings and 2.8 cubes in the "frunk", which offers enough space for a few bags of groceries or a briefcase. The charging cable is usually located here.

Technology, infotainment and driver assistance

Fittingly, the first series-produced electric car from Porsche is the most modern model to date. It has a curved digital 16.8-inch instrument cluster with individual displays that can be configured using buttons on the steering wheel. There's a 10.9-inch touchscreen for the infotainment system, an 8.4-inch screen with additional features just below, and a fourth screen on the right side of the dashboard, but it can only be used when the car detects that someone is sitting in the passenger seat.

In other words, there are as many screens in the driver's line of sight as there are cylinders in the engine compartment of a Boxster. The number of functions packed in the dashboard is gigantic and it takes a while to find out which functions do what. Everything is where you expect it to be, but Porsche hasn't attached a volume control to the dashboard. While the driver has one on the steering wheel, the front passenger must use the touchscreen on the center console. This becomes an unnecessarily cumbersome task if there is something in the cup holder directly behind it.

2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S.Ronan Glon

Apple CarPlay compatibility is standard, but Android Auto is not available. This could change soon.

Lane Keeping Assist, traffic sign recognition and adaptive cruise control are available. These functions are driving aids – they do not make the Taycan autonomous in any way, but they are useful on long journeys and work as indicated.

InnoDrive technology, which is similar to steroid cruise control, is a $ 3,610 option that should be standard when you consider that the Turbo S has a supercar-like price tag. It is a data-driven function based, in part, on information sent by the various sensors in the vehicle to calculate the best driving strategy for a particular route. It detects when the road is wet, for example by analyzing the feedback from the stability control system. Maps are also considered to determine when there is a hill for which it needs to accelerate or a curve for which it needs to slow down to ensure that passengers do not feel like they are on a roller coaster. InnoDrive is about three kilometers ahead of the driver, Porsche told me.

Experience driving

Good enough, it doesn't cut in Stuttgart.

While there are tamer, cheaper variants of the Taycan, the Turbo S is the flagship that shows what Porsche is capable of in the area of ​​electrification. It is based on a 93.4 kilowatt hour lithium-ion battery that drives two electric motors (one per axis). This configuration is hardly unusual in the world of electric cars because it offers all-wheel drive across the street. However, it is noteworthy that the rear engine shifts via a two-speed gearbox for better performance.

2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S.Ronan Glon

The maximum output reaches a confusing 750 horsepower and a torque of 774 pound-feet. However, these numbers are only under your right foot when a temporary overload function is activated. The drive train delivers 613 horses under normal conditions, which is sufficient. It takes 2.6 seconds to reach 100 km / h from a stop. So it's good before you read this sentence.

Porsche has installed the ignition on the left side of the steering wheel for decades. It's a habit it picked up on when pilots started big races (like the Le Mans 24 Hours) by running from the pits to their car. You could turn on the engine with your left hand and shift into gear with your right hand. Although the Taycan doesn't have a key, Porsche has attached the on / off switch to the left of the instrument cluster to honor the tradition.

However, there is no need to press it. It turns on automatically when it is determined that someone has put the keychain in their pocket behind the wheel. If you move the small gear selector switch down, the Taycan switches on without the slightest clink or noise and creeps forward in complete silence. It's as quiet, quiet, and stress-free in the city as you'd expect from an electric car. The adaptive air suspension filters out the cobblestones that line the streets in small German towns, and the relatively light steering at low speeds makes maneuvering easier. There's a 360-degree camera that shows how far the corners are from things waiting to take an expensive stab, like concrete barriers.

2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S.Ronan Glon

Quaint towns with quaint houses and bakeries selling delicious pretzels made me feel like I was driving the Taycan through a postcard, but Germany – and the car – offer more than just crawling around looking for a snack. I left Neckarsulm (where NSU once made cars and where Audi now makes cars), pointed the Taycan's low nose at Stuttgart, and waited for the sign indicating that there is no speed limit to see how it is at the other end of the driving spectrum. And to my surprise, it's smooth, quiet and stress-free again, even at 250 km / h, which is close to the top speed of 250 km / h.

There is obviously no motor, so the only noise comes from the tires and the wind, and it is possible to have a conversation without raising your voice. To remove the engine from the high-performance equation, every squeak and rattle that the exhaust normally hides had to be suppressed. I spoke to some of the engineers who worked on the project, and they all told me that calming down at 250 km / h was much easier said than done, especially because adding extra sound absorbing material weighed it down the Taycan would have increased and its range reduced.

What impressed me the most about the Turbo S is the way it accelerates from 100 to 155 mph, for example. Or if you are outside of Germany, from 50 to 80 miles per hour. It is always on, the power is always on and there is never the slightest hint of delay. It's a performance approach that would require colossal displacement to be achieved with combustion technology, and it's one of the most exciting aspects of the driving experience.

2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S.Ronan Glon

On side streets, the Taycan feels like a Panamera in the sense that it is a large, heavy car that hides its weight well. It is equipped with all-wheel steering, so that the rear wheels turn slightly in the opposite direction to the front wheels at a speed of up to 48 km / h. You can feel the difference when driving on a street that looks like a cooked piece of spaghetti. It is nimbler than its size and weight. Above 30 miles an hour, the rear wheels turn again (very lightly; this is not a forklift) in the same direction as the front wheels to increase stability.

If I could travel back in time and participate in the development process, I would choose a more pronounced energy recovery effect (or at least add an option that allows the driver to turn it up if he wants to). With some electric cars and a handful of plug-in hybrid models, you rarely need to touch the brake pedal to slow down or gradually come to a stop. You just take your foot off the accelerator and the engines do the rest. In the Taycan, the regenerative braking system is extremely powerful (Porsche told me that it can slow the car down to 0.4 G), and the brake pedal always feels constant , but driving with a pedal is not possible. Although the brakes are bitten very hard (they have to stop a £ 5,200 rocket that travels about 160 miles an hour), I would appreciate the opportunity to pedal them on back roads.

Range and charging

Much has been said in the US about the range of the Taycan and not much of it has been positive. It received a 192 mile rating from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is low and does not qualify for coveted long distance status. In the European Union, where all cars go through a test cycle called WLTP, the Turbo S has received a more usable 256-mile rating. In the real world, which neither of the two test methods reflects well, the range of the Taycan depends on a variety of factors, including the outside temperature, whether you're using the air conditioner, and whether you're spending more time on the freeway or on the freeway city. Your mileage will vary.

I spent about 40% of my time on the freeway, 40% on back roads and 20% in cities, including some of Stuttgart's best traffic jams, and the Taycan consumed an average of 23.7 kilowatt hours of electricity to travel 62 miles. This number makes it more efficient than the distance estimate it has received on both sides of the pond. It was pretty warm and I had the air conditioning on throughout the trip. I could have done better and I could have done it much worse. No two drivers are identical, no two rides are exactly the same, and the bottom line is that the Taycan has a lot of range.

2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S.Ronan Glon

Charging speed is just as important as range when driving an electric car every day. The Taycan is compatible with a quick charge of 350 kilowatts, with which the battery zaps with a range of approx. 100 km in approx. 4 minutes. Another question is whether you live near a 350-kilowatt charger. If not, the battery will be charged by a slower station.

To find out, tap the navigation menu on the touchscreen and ask it to call up a list of the charging stations in your area. It organizes the results by distance (the closest ones are listed first), specifies the number of plugs in a specific location, notes the charging speed and even shows you how many are currently occupied in the Rea-Time. This extremely useful function makes driving an electric car considerably easier.

In the U.S., the Taycan comes standard with three years of unlimited 30-minute quick charge sessions at Electrify America stations. There are over 400 chargers across America, and many more are planned.

How DT would configure this car

I would start with Dolomite Gray Metallic and keep the standard 21-inch alloy wheels for a more understated look. I would skip the screen in front of the passenger and add the InnoDrive technology above, although it's not cheap.

Our opinion

The Taycan is more than spaetzle cooked in a Tesla-flavored sauce. It looks, drives, and feels like a real Porsche, no matter how you approach it – and Holy Moly has a price like one. Don't be fooled by the unflattering range estimates that driving every day or being unable to trip on the road is impractical. In order to live with the Taycan, you have to change your habits. However, this is the case with every electric car, regardless of range, performance and price.

Porsche found out the electrification, which is a relief when you consider that the Taycan will no longer remain the only battery-powered model. There's a more spacious variant with the Cross Turismo emblem and an adventure-friendly car body around the corner, and the next-generation Macan, which is slated to launch in the early 2020s, will be completely electric. The upcoming E-Tron GT from Audi, which is slated to take cover in 2020, will be closely related to the Taycan under the skin.

Should you get one?

Yes. If you are looking for a high performance electric car with a six digit price, this is the best option.

Editor's recommendations




02 Jul
Blog

Bose Home Speaker 500 Review: Smart, Stylish, Surround Sound

Bose Home Speaker 500

"Rich, expansive sound helps this intelligent speaker deliver a virtuoso performance."

  • Expansive stereo sound

  • Slim, attractive design

  • Choice of Alexa or Google Assistant

  • Easy to use controls

  • Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and line-in options

  • AirPlay 2

  • Expensive

  • Some music services are not supported

  • A little cumbersome multiroom control

  • No Chromecast option for Android

In the early days of the smart speaker revolution, finding a speaker that sounded both smart and great was a challenge. Fortunately, those days are long gone. With products from Sonos, Marshall, Apple and Amazon, you can now have and eat your cake. However, before deciding on a new wireless smart speaker from one of these companies, you should consider the $ 300 Bose Home Speaker 500.

With a fascinating mix of sleek design, expansive sound and a choice of digital assistants, it could be just the smart audio device that your home was missing.

But is it right for you? Let's take a look.

design

Bose Home Speaker 500Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

The Bose Home Speaker 500 is available in triple black or a sophisticated two-tone silver and white tone and is deceptively large. With an elliptical shape that is much wider than it is deep, its base is small enough to easily find a seat on a countertop, bookcase, or coat. At just 4.75 pounds, it's also surprisingly light for its size.

Nothing breaks the smooth aluminum and plastic contours of the speaker – even the included AUX input is barely noticeable and is located on the back near the floor. My triple black test device looked great no matter where I placed it.

There are people who are tempted to hide their speakers (even the good looking ones) where they can be heard but not seen. However, this would be a mistake with the Home Speaker 500. Not only would this make using the thoughtful design more difficult touch controls that adorn the top, but also prevent you from seeing the front-facing color screen.

Not that you have to see or touch it (it's not a touchscreen), but it just looks so damn cool that it would be a shame not to place it where it can be appreciated.

But I can't help thinking that Bose missed an opportunity here. When you are listening to music, the 3-inch screen shows the album art for the currently playing track, along with the artist and the track name. If the speaker is inactive, you can choose a dial or nothing at all, but that's all it does. I can think of several ways to use this screen: weather forecasts, news feeds, or just a selection of softly animated screensavers.

Given that the home speaker 500 can also be used as a smart speaker, it would be super cool to see the screen as a secondary display for voice commands, e.g. If you said, "Alexa, what's the weather like?" and the screen showed you the current weather along with Alexa’s spoken response.

But I digress. Those who want to hear the same artists, playlists, or radio stations regularly will appreciate the six special preset buttons on the Home Speaker 500. You assign them in the Bose Music app and they can be assigned to almost any music source supported by the app.

configuration

Sonos has always been my benchmark for quick and easy setups, but Bose is under a second. With the Bose Music app, I configured the Home Speaker 500 for my home WiFi, connected it to my Google account for access to the Google Assistant, and streamed music in less than five minutes.

The Bose Music app is simple and mostly very intuitive to use, with great instructions and feedback at every step.

links

Bose Home Speaker 500Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

Some wireless home speakers like Sonos only offer Wi-Fi, but the Bose Home Speaker 500 lets you make three connections: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and the aforementioned line-in input. With the exception of a USB port for accessing disk-based files, you can't ask for more.

However, Bose has chosen not to include an Ethernet jack, which you may miss if your Wi-Fi network is stained in some places. Sonos contains them except for one of its speakers, but I suspect that very few of its customers use them – I certainly never needed that.

Wi-Fi with its higher bandwidth than Bluetooth should be your preferred connection method, but it gets a little difficult here.

With Wi-Fi, you can set up and control the Home Speaker 500 through the Bose Music app. This also includes streaming music from Spotify Premium and Free, Apple Music, TuneIn, Pandora, SiriusXM, Amazon Music, Deezer and iHeartRadio. It's a good selection, but not nearly as extensive as Sonos'. For example, tide and YouTube music are not included. There is also no way to stream from a personal music collection on your home network.

If you're an Apple device owner, AirPlay 2 can make up for this shortcoming, so you can stream virtually any audio source from your iPhone, iPad, or Mac to the Home Speaker 500. If you're an Android user who lacks the music app, Bluetooth is your only replacement option.

Chromecast for audio may be a future Wi-Fi path for Android owners, but the Home Speaker 500 does not yet support it. When it appears, it appears as a subset of the Google Assistant, so for those who prefer Alexa – or no assistant at all – it still gets stuck with Bluetooth.

Sound quality

Bose Home Speaker 500Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

Bose makes a pretty big claim for the Home Speaker 500: "The widest sound of all intelligent speakers." I put it side by side with the $ 200 Amazon Echo Studio, which has a very similar internal driver layout and both products are designed to deliver impressive sound. The Home Speaker 500 performed admirably and delivered a slightly wider sound stage than the Echo Studio despite the weaker bass response.

How expansive the sound becomes depends in part on the placement. In an ideal world, you would give her plenty of room to breathe, away from the walls and preferably not stowed in a bookcase.

Broadest or not, I think you'll love how this speaker sounds. Bose has positioned the internal drivers so that sound waves are distributed in a kind of crooked 360-degree field. By that I mean the best seat in the house is right in front of the speaker, but you can still enjoy about 80% of its full quality from almost anywhere else.

I learned to appreciate this effect when I reviewed Bose's excellent portable home speaker, which produces an almost perfectly circular sound field.

What is impressive is that you not only get real room-filling audio, but also a fairly decent stereo separation – not an easy task for such a small speaker.

You can set both bass and treble in the app. However, if your taste isn't really going in either direction, the factory EQ offers a nice balance between the two.

If there's a weakness, it's in the midrange definition – a challenging area for even the best little speakers. This is particularly noticeable when playing genres such as classical or jazz – instruments that live in the middle frequencies, such as cellos and some woodwinds, can be flattened somewhat. Overall, the Home Speaker 500 is a pleasure to hear, regardless of whether it provides the setting for an intimate dinner or a rough get-together.

The Home Speaker 500 also offers impressive volume levels. Max get this thing out and be ready for many knocks on the door of irritated neighbors.

Multiroom audio

Bose Home Speaker 500Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

One of the advantages of buying a wireless speaker at home is that different music can be played in each room, or the same music (or a combination thereof) can be played in all rooms. The Home Speaker 500 can be easily grouped with other Bose home speakers such as the Home Speaker 300 or the Bose Soundbar 500 using the Bose Music app.

However, using multiroom requires a bit of planning. Since you can also create speaker groups with AirPlay 2, you need to decide whether you want to stream from a music service in the Bose Music app – in which case you would manage your speaker groups there – or from another app on your phone or tablet – in in this case you would manage the groups using the AirPlay 2 interface.

The two systems don't play well together. Groups created in the Bose Music app don't like trying to change them with AirPlay 2, or vice versa.

There's also no way to create stereo pairs with two Bose speakers. If multiroom audio is top priority, you're probably more satisfied with Sonos.

However, Bose has a trick up its sleeve that I haven't found in any wireless speaker system, including Sonos. Bose calls it Simplesync and allows you to group any Bluetooth audio device, from a portable speaker to a wireless headphone, with the Home Speaker 500. In this sense, according to Bose, this function works best with the company's own Bluetooth speakers and headphones. This audio is more precisely synchronized.

It's true. I tried Simplesync with a JBL Flip 5 speaker that I had on hand, and while setup was a breeze, there was a fraction of a second latency between the two speakers. I wouldn't rely on doing multiroom audio, but it's a pretty handy option.

Voice assistants

Bose has followed Sonos' role model in its smart speaker strategy, and that's an excellent decision. As with Sonos, with Bose you can choose between Alexa and Google Assistant for the Home Speaker 500 instead of selling two different versions of the speaker as with other home audio companies.

I chose Google Assistant for this review because I have more compatible products at home. However, setting up Home Speaker 500 with Alexa is just as easy. Bose really nailed the smart speaker experience. Voice commands are easily recognized, even in fairly noisy environments and up to 15 feet away, without you having to actually raise your voice. If privacy is an issue, a special microphone mute button guarantees an A.I.-free environment.

The response times are also very good. I have found no difference between the Home Speaker 500 and my Google Nest mini in terms of response times.

I particularly liked that the bright white LED strip over the color screen immediately gave visual feedback that my commands had been heard. Most smart speakers have a similar visual cue. However, if they are only visible from the top (e.g. Sonos smart speakers or Google's Home and Nest minis), you won't be able to see them that easily from a room.

There is one limitation when you choose the Bose Home Speaker 500 as your smart speaker, and that is compatibility with music services. Although Google Assistant and Alexa can take control of a variety of music services, you cannot use these voice assistants if the Home Speaker 500 does not support a particular service (see Connections above). Google Play Music (now mainly switched to YouTube Music), Apple Music and Tidal are examples of services that none of the Home Speaker 500 wizards can control.

Our opinion

At its new lower price of $ 300, the Bose Home Speaker 500 costs the same as the Apple HomePod and Google Home Max, two very good smart speakers. But with Bluetooth, line-in, a full color display and a choice of voice assistants, it offers more value than these two products and also sounds amazing.

Is there a better alternative?

For $ 200, the Sonos One delivers great sound and supports almost every streaming service on the planet. It doesn't have the ultra-wide stereo sound stage, Bluetooth, AUX input, or chic color screen of the Home Speaker 500, but it has the best multiroom audio system we've ever used. It's still our top rated smart speaker for a reason.

If you're on board with Bose and want to take over the smart speaker experience but prefer to pay a little less, the $ 200 Bose Home Speaker 300 loses the color screen and wide stereo sound, but retains all other functions.

How long it will take?

Bose builds great products that usually last a long time. It only applies to the Home Speaker 500 with a one-year warranty, although this is standard for similar products from other companies.

Should you buy it

Yes. The Bose Home Speaker 500 combines beautiful design with flexibility of the voice assistant and an expansive stereo sound, which is characterized by its slim body. The color screen is also a nice touch. Android users should be aware of the lack of Chromecast as a Wi-Fi streaming option, but Apple users should be more than happy with AirPlay 2 as a Bluetooth alternative.

Editor's recommendations




01 Jul
Blog

2021 Toyota RAV4 Prime XSE Review: Fast and Frugal

2021 Toyota RAV4 Prime

2021 Toyota RAV4 Prime XSE Review: A New Normal

"The 2021 Toyota RAV4 Prime makes the future seem normal."

  • It's fast

  • Shatter the myth of the gas-guzzling SUV

  • Competitive in the cargo space

  • Intuitive infotainment system

  • Refined driving quality

With the Hybrid-Prius and the Plug-in-Hybrid-Prius Prime, Toyota wrapped green technology in an extroverted design and used design to trumpet its success. The 2021 Toyota RAV4 Prime takes a different approach.

The Prime looks like an ordinary RAV4, Toyota's bestseller. Like the Prius Prime, the RAV4 Prime is a plug-in hybrid with better mileage than the current RAV4 hybrid model. However, the Prime is not only the most economical RAV4. It is also the most powerful and fastest accelerating RAV4.

The RAV4 Prime is available in two configurations. The SE starts at $ 39,195, while XSE models like our test car start at $ 42,500. That means the base SE is around $ 2,000 more than the most expensive RAV4 hybrid. However, due to the size of the battery, Toyota expects the Prime to qualify for a tax credit of $ 7,500 to compensate for this difference.

2021 Toyota RAV4 Prime

Design and interior

In contrast to the Prius Prime, whose design differs significantly from the standard Prius, the RAV4 Prime looks like any other RAV4. Black exterior trim, another grille, model-specific wheels and badges are the only hallmarks of the Prime. The RAV4 itself looks like a rugged off-roader, but has the same TNGA (Toyota New Global Architecture) platform as cars like the Corolla and Camry.

The interior is practically unchanged, which is not a bad thing. Chunky buttons and strategically placed rubber grips give the interior a sturdy feel while improving usability. The free-standing infotainment touchscreen is easy to reach from the driver's seat, but somewhat difficult for the passengers in the front seats. The front seats were fairly comfortable, but the lower cushions of the rear seats were flat and unsupportive.

Chunky buttons and strategically placed rubber grips give the interior a sturdy feel while improving usability.

While Toyota pinned the design down, the quality of the interior material remained. The Prime is the flagship of the RAV4 series, but the interior didn't seem to be an improvement over cheaper models. The faux leather seats looked like they had been taken out of a taxi, and trim parts seemed to have been sourced from Rubbermaid.

Toyota claims that the battery mounted under the floor has no effect on the interior. However, this is not a segment-leading interior, since the RAV4 already lagged behind most of the competitors. The RAV4 Prime offers more rear headroom than the plug-in hybrids Ford Escape and Mitsubishi Outlander, but the Escape offers more rear legroom thanks to a sliding seat in the second row. The Toyota also offers more cargo space than the Ford and Mitsubishi. The RAV4 and the Outlander also have 120 volt outlets in their holds, around power tools, camping gear or whatever you want to connect on the go.

2021 Toyota RAV4 Prime

Technology, infotainment and driver assistance

The basic RAV4 Prime SE has an 8.0-inch touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as well as an integrated WLAN hotspot. The XSE trim level has a 9.0-inch touchscreen – the largest available in a RAV4. An optional premium package for the XSE adds a head-up display. This is the only way to use this function on a RAV4.

The infotainment system is easy to use, also thanks to the protection of analog controls for the most important functions. The digital instrument cluster display is known to anyone who has driven another Toyota hybrid. It packs a lot of information in a relatively small space, but is easy to acclimatize. Overall, the infotainment experience offers nothing special, but does its job in a simple way.

The infotainment system is easy to use, also thanks to the protection of analog controls for the most important functions.

The RAV4 Prime comes standard with Toyota Safety Sense 2.0, which includes: Autonomous emergency braking (with pedestrian and cyclist recognition), traffic sign recognition, lane departure warning, adaptive cruise control and lane tracking assistant that offers small steering inputs to keep the speed centered on the car .

The standard package of driver aids is comparable to other popular brands, although the lane tracking assistant should not be confused with the more aggressive steering assistance functions of Ford, Nissan and Subaru. The Toyota version is more of an improved lane keeping assistant than a real steering aid.

2021 Toyota RAV4 Prime

Experience driving

The RAV4 Prime tries to outperform in two very different disciplines: performance and efficiency. An updated version of the RAV4 hybrid powertrain is used to achieve impressive numbers.

The 2.5-liter four-cylinder petrol engine delivers the same 176 hp as before, but with the additional grunt of two electric motors, the overall system performance increases to 302 hp. That is 83 hp more than the RAV4 Hybrid and much more than the plug-in hybrids Ford Escape or Mitsubishi Outlander. The Escape is also only equipped with front-wheel drive, while the two Japanese vehicles have all-wheel drive.

The Toyota, according to Toyota, a number previously reserved for sports cars, can travel between zero and 60 miles per hour in 5.7 seconds. This makes the RAV4 Prime the fastest four-door Toyota currently sold in the United States (only the Supra sports car is faster).

The four-wheel drive hybrid system is similar to other Toyota vehicles. The rear wheels are driven by a special electric motor without a mechanical connection to the front wheels. As with the RAV4 Hybrid, this rear engine is also used for torque transmission to steer performance from side to side to improve road handling and increase traction on slippery surfaces. A "trail" driving mode also helps with the latter.

The RAV4 Prime is the fastest four-door Toyota currently sold in the United States.

On the go, the RAV4 Prime felt as fast as the numbers suggest. It was not just the extra power, but also the way that power was delivered. The Prime felt like an electric car and instantly delivered a surge of torque on every stroke of the right pedal. This steady, urgent acceleration took place regardless of the state of charge of the battery. A slight buzz was the only indication that the gasoline engine was on.

Like the Mitsubishi Outlander, the RAV4 Prime also has paddle shifters that can be used to adjust regenerative braking to slow the car down without using the brake pedal and recovering some energy. However, the effect didn't feel as dramatic in the Toyota as in the Mitsubishi, and you'll have to upgrade from the SE to the XSE to get these paddles.

Toyota also tried to make the Prime more refined than other RAV4 models by getting thicker laminated glass, more soundproofing, and a different suspension set-up. The Prime felt significantly quieter and more comfortable than other RAV4 variants, but maybe Toyota should have gone in the opposite direction with a sportier chassis. As it is, the chassis cannot use this 302 horsepower.

2021 Toyota RAV4 Prime

Fuel consumption, range and safety

The RAV4 Prime proves that electricity does not have to come at the expense of efficiency. Toyota cites 42 miles of electric range with an efficiency of 94 MPGe. This is more electrical range than a first-generation Chevrolet Volt with identical efficiency. When it debuted in 2010, the Volt was a purpose-built vehicle that is considered a “moon shot” by General Motors. Therefore, it is remarkable to see similar numbers in an ordinary crossover. The RAV4 Prime also offers almost twice the electric range of the Toyota Prius Prime, albeit with much less efficiency.

The Prime beats the Ford Escape and the Mitsubishi Outlander in electric range, although the Ford is more efficient with 100 MPGe. Toyota had no fuel consumption values ​​for gasoline available at the time of release, but according to the car's on-board computer, we had an average of 42.5 mpg.

With the standard 3.3-kilowatt on-board charger, a full charge takes 12 hours at a 120-volt household socket or 4.5 hours at a 240-volt charging station at level 2. A 6.6- available in the XSE version kW charger shortens the charging time of level 2 to 2.5 hours. This is as good as it gets as Toyota doesn't offer DC fast charging on the RAV4 Prime (it's standard on the Mitsubishi Outlander).

Safety ratings for the Prime are not yet available, but the standard RAV4 received the "Top Safety Pick" rating from the Road Safety Insurance Institute (IIHS), with the highest rating being missed due to poor headlights. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) rated the standard RAV4 with five stars.

Toyota offers a three-year basic warranty of 36,000 miles and a five-year warranty of 60,000 miles for the powertrain, as well as free scheduled maintenance for two years or 25,000 miles. The Prime battery has its own 10-year 150,000-mile warranty, and other hybrid system components have an eight-year 100,000-mile warranty. Overall, the RAV4 has a good reputation for reliability because many hybrid models can easily handle a taxis service.

How DT would configure this car

The technically friendliest incarnation of the RAV4 Prime is the XSE with the optional premium package. The XSE has some technical functions that the basic SE equipment variant does not offer, including a larger 9.0-inch touchscreen and charging the Qi mobile phone. The premium package ($ 3,765) includes a head-up display, a more powerful 6.6 kW on-board charger, a socket for the cargo area, a video rear view mirror, a 360-degree camera system and a parking assistant with automatic Front and rear braking.

The Prime itself is the best RAV4. Just as the RAV4 Hybrid outperforms the petrol model in terms of performance and sophistication as well as mileage, the Prime offers the CV of this crossover more power and even more efficiency. If you have the extra money, the Prime turns the RAV4 from a pretty good car into a world hit.

Our opinion

The Toyota RAV4 Prime 2021 proves that the future doesn't have to be unusual. This plug-in hybrid breaks new ground by being normal. Instead of just trying to make a statement, the Prime is bringing green technology into a car that people are already buying. With 302 hp, the RAV4 Prime shows that the future doesn't have to be boring.

The RAV4 Prime is also the class of its (admittedly small) competitive field. It outperforms the Mitsubishi Outlander in terms of cargo space, performance and efficiency, while offering more technical functions. The Ford Escape plug-in hybrid lags behind the RAV4 Prime in terms of electrical range, but offers greater efficiency. The Ford is also below the Toyota and starts at just under $ 35,000. However, the Escape itself isn't our preferred little crossover, and the plug-in hybrid doesn't have all-wheel drive.

The Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid and the Kia Niro PHEV are not only suitable for SUVs, but also cannot keep up with the triple threat of performance, electrical range and cargo space from Toyota. The Kia is also not available with all-wheel drive.

Should you get one?

Yes. The RAV4 Prime is a true all-rounder.

Editor's recommendations




30 Jun
Blog

Acer Predator Triton 500 Review: The Value King

Acer Predator Triton 500

Acer Predator Triton 500 Review: The king of values

"Acer's Predator Triton 500 is a value leader, but its gaming performance is top notch."

  • Excellent 300 Hz display

  • Strong gaming performance

  • Pleasant keyboard and touchpad

  • Slim and light form factor

  • Great value for money

  • So-so design

  • Processor is just ok (for the price)

  • Modest battery life

Acer has not always been a real competitor in the gaming laptop world. But in recent years, it has pushed into the arena and at times has asserted itself against Razer, Alienware and other well-known brands. The Predator Triton 500 plays a major role in the story of Acer's rise.

The formula of this laptop is simple. It emulates the Razer Blade 15 with a focus on thin and light design that makes minimal performance concessions, and then increases the value. The Acer Predator Triton 500 review device I received had all the tricks. An 10th generation Intel Core i7 processor, Nvidia RTX 2080 super graphics, 32 GB RAM, a 1 TB hard drive and a 300 Hz 1080p display. This is a serious kit, and the price, as tested, is $ 2,600.

Nobody will call $ 2,600 "affordable", but it's $ 400 less than a Razer Blade 15 with almost identical hardware (but half as much RAM). The RTX 2080 Super or Intel hardware of the 10th generation has not yet offered any other alternatives, such as the Alienware m15 R2.

Everything looks good at first glance, but does it stand up to the test?

design

Like the laptops it emulates, the Acer Predator Triton 500 is a reserved, if not subtle, laptop. This box-shaped laptop wouldn't look out of place on a laptop designed for workstation users, but a colorful Predator chrome logo that glows blue when the laptop is turned on reveals the purpose of the laptop. It reminds me of gaming laptops that were sold in the late 2000s – except that they're much thinner.

So there is not much to see. However, the Triton 500 does not neglect the basics. The laptop is only 0.7 inches thick and weighs 4.6 pounds. Both numbers hardly exceed an Apple MacBook Pro 16. Razers Blade 15 is also 0.7 inches thick and about the same weight, although Razer gives slightly different numbers for different variants.

The Predator Triton 500 has a slight disadvantage in the footprint. It's 10 inches deep, while the Razer Blade 15 is only 9.25 inches deep. The blade is also a hair narrower. I don't think these differences are significant. Both feel slim for a 15-inch laptop, but you still want a 15-inch bag to carry comfortably.

Acer Predator Triton 500Matthew S Smith / Digital Trends

There is plenty of space for the keyboard, and Acer makes good use of it. The Predator Triton 500 lacks a number pad, but the layout offered is spacious. I immediately felt comfortable. My only criticism is the position of the power switch on the keyboard, where I would normally reach for the Delete key. I accidentally put the laptop to sleep more than once.

I also enjoyed the tactile feel of the keyboard. The key travel is abundant, and the keys have a fixed but forgiving action that offers just the right amount of "click". It is comparable to the Razer Blade 15 and the Alienware m15 R2, none of which have a lackluster keyboard.

The key stroke is abundant, and the keys are achieved with a firm but forgiving act.

The RGB backlighting per key is standard on all current Predator Triton 500 models. The buttons let out a lot of light at the edges, which can be annoying in a very dark room. Fortunately, Acer's Predator Sense software lets you customize the lighting color, brightness, and pattern to your liking.

There's not much to talk about on the touchpad. It's a fair size and feels smooth, but it's not comparable to more general-purpose laptops like the Dell XPS 15 and Apple MacBook Pro 16. It just does the job.

Gaming performance

The Acer Predator Triton 500 doesn't push the design forward, but it's basically a solid foundation to build on. What kind of monster did Acer put in this thin and light chassis?

My test device had none other than Nvidia's RTX 2080 Super Max-Q. This relatively new GPU is (on paper) the king of mobile gaming performance. This is paired with an Intel Core i7-10750H six-core processor and 32 GB RAM. It all looks good at a glance, but specifications don't mean as much as they used to. The performance between laptops with the same CPU and GPU can vary considerably depending on the firmware and thermal solution of the system.

I started my round by launching 3DMark, a trusted benchmark that we've been using for over eight years. The results were promising. The Triton 500 spit out a score of 7,955 in 3DMark's demanding Time Spy benchmark. This surpasses the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15, another RTX 2080 Super Max-Q notebook that we recently tested. This score also surpasses the RTX 2080 Max-Q laptops. The MSI GS75 Stealth, Razer Blade 15 (2019) and HP Omen X 2S, all tested with RTX 2080, achieved 6,825, 6,285 and 6,478 points, respectively.

Acer Predator Triton 500Matthew S Smith / Digital Trends

Next I started Civilization VI. The Acer Predator Triton 500 delivered 138 frames per second with a native 1080p resolution, the details being set to Ultra and the MSAA to 2x. This is an excellent score. It beats the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 with 121 FPS and the HP Omen X 2S with 125 FPS.

This brought me to Battlefield V, an attractive but well-optimized shooter. Here the Acer Predator Triton brought 80 FPS at 1080p and ultra detail. Asus & # 39; Rog Zephyrus Duo 15 (who also has Nvidia's RTX 2080 Super Max-Q) is the winner and delivers an average of 90 FPS. In this game, the Triton 500 even came a little behind the Alienware M15 (2019), which has an RTX 2080 Max-Q.

Now it's time for the most challenging game we're testing – Assassins Creed Odyssey. Here, the Acer Predator Triton 500 achieves a remarkable result by achieving an average of 59 FPS at 1080p and ultra-high details. The Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 achieved 55 FPS, as did the Alienware M15 (2019) and the Razer Blade 15 56 FPS. It's just a small win, but the Triton 500 pushes them all aside.

Taken together, the benchmarks are good news for the Acer Predator Triton 500.

Taken together, the benchmarks are good news for the Acer Predator Triton 500. It delivered strong results in a variety of tests and only lost in Battlefield V. My gameplay impressions matched the benchmarks. The Triton 500 always felt supple and responsive and only hesitated briefly in the most demanding sections of the Assassins Creed Odyssey benchmarks. You will find it hard to find a laptop with better performance at a lower price.

Processor and hard drive performance

As already mentioned, the Acer Predator Triton 500 that I tested has the Intel Core i7-10750H CPU. This is a 12-thread processor with six cores, a base clock of 2.6 GHz and a maximum turbo boost speed of 5 GHz. Although this processor looks impressive in and of itself, it won't be remarkable in 2020. The Core i7-10750H was filtered down on laptops that sell half as much as the Triton 500.

The Triton 500 achieved a score of 1,190 in the Geekbench 5 single-core test and 5,805 in the multi-core test. Neither of the two reviews is impressive compared to the alternatives. The Dell G5 SE Gaming, a much cheaper notebook with a Ryzen 7 4800H processor, beats the Triton 500 in both tests. And as expected, the Triton 500 loses against laptops that we tested with better Intel chips like the Core i7-10875H and the Core i9-10980HK. You can find these processors in inexpensive laptops like the Dell XPS 15.

Acer Predator Triton 500 "class =" m-Karussell - picture dt-lazy-no "src =" https://icdn2.digitaltrends.com/image/digitaltrends/acerpredatortriton500-5-640x640.jpg "srcset =" https: / /www.digitaltrends.com/data:image/gif;base64,https://www.digitaltrends.com/R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7Matthew S Smith / Digital Trends

Acer Predator Triton 500 "class =" m-Karussell - picture dt-lazy-no "src =" https://icdn3.digitaltrends.com/image/digitaltrends/acerpredatortriton500-4-640x640.jpg "srcset =" https: / /www.digitaltrends.com/data:image/gif;base64,https://www.digitaltrends.com/R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7Matthew S Smith / Digital Trends

I've seen similar results from Handbrake that I used to transcode a 4K movie trailer from h.264 to h.265. This task took 121 seconds for the Triton 500. That's not a bad thing, but the Dell G5 SE with Ryzen 7 drive only took 104 seconds. The Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 with a Core i9-10980HK also completed the task in 104 seconds.

Do not get me wrong. The Core i7-10750H is a fantastically fast processor in every respect and, above all, fast enough to handle games easily. Most users have no reason to complain. The processor is not a problem – but given the price of the Triton 500, it is disappointing to see that it loses against mid-range gaming laptops.

The Triton 500 I tested showed more impressive hard drive performance. Read speeds of 1,773 MB / s and write speeds of 1283 MB / s were provided in CrystalDiskMark. These are not record-breaking numbers, but they distinguish the Triton 500 from cheaper laptops, which often achieve read and write values ​​below 1,000 MB / s in this benchmark. The terabyte of capacity of the Triton 500 also offers good value for money.

Display and audio

Instead of opting for a 4K or 1440p display, as you will see with some competitors, the Acer Predator Triton 500 has a 1080p display with an insanely high refresh rate of 300 Hz. The display also supports G-Sync.

I love that decision. It may seem absurd to increase the refresh rate to 300 Hz, but this allows gamers to take advantage of the RTX 2080 Super for a variety of content.

You can play Control with activated RTX ray tracing function and all settings to the maximum and enjoy the maximum visual quality. Or you can play League of Legends at an absurd frame rate while enjoying the movement details and responsiveness that the 300 Hz display can offer.

Acer Predator Triton 500Matthew S Smith / Digital Trends

The only players who may feel left out are those who play strategy games or some open world RPGs where an extremely sharp 4K image is preferable to more fluid gameplay. Still, I think Acer made the right choice.

It helps that the display provides excellent picture quality. I measured a contrast ratio of 1,060: 1 that surpasses the Alienware M15 R2 and non-OLED versions of the Razer Blade 15. The Triton 500 also has a slightly wider range of colors than these competitors and its color accuracy when it is solid. The brightness is only 272 nits, but with one caveat: this is a matte screen. Although the display is weaker than the competition, it is comfortable with everything except full, direct sunlight.

As I said, I love the choices made here and I enjoy the ad. It's not the best in every category, but the combination of strong 1080p picture quality and a refresh rate of 300 Hz gives it an angle that most players will appreciate.

However, you should know that the Triton 500's display is ambiguous. Razers Blade 15 offers a similar display option. Asus and MSI also offer 300 Hz displays on selected models.

The Triton 500 delivers its audio through a series of speakers directly above the keyboard. They offer strong, clear audio. Distortion can prevail in demanding situations such as bass-heavy music or action films when the volume approaches its maximum. Still, it resists that better than most laptops. Most players want to use a headset, but the audio quality of the Triton 500 won't disappoint if one isn't available.

Battery life

There is an 82 watt hour battery in the Acer Predator Triton 500. It's not a small battery, but considering what it powers (a six-core processor and the fastest mobile GPU from Nvidia), it's clear that the battery did its job.

Let's start with a simple video loop, our least demanding test. The Triton 500 played a 1080p movie trailer on a loop for three and a half hours before the battery was empty. That is a mediocre result. It's better than the HP Omen X 2S, but not as good as the latest Razer Blade 15.

In the Basemark 3.0 browser benchmark, our most demanding test, the Acer Predator Triton 500 only lasted one hour and 57 minutes. This is slightly better than the Alienware m15 (2019), which lasted an hour and 49 minutes. It connects the Razer Blade 15 (2019) exactly to a 240 Hz 1080p display.

My real observations came close to the Basemark browser test. The laptop had more than two hours of battery life when it was used for Internet surfing and Microsoft Word productivity. The endurance when playing is even worse and is north of an hour.

These results are not uncommon for a gaming laptop with this hardware caliber. The Alienware m15 performed even worse in our tests, while the HP Omen X 2S and the Razer Blade (2019) were roughly equivalent. Especially with high-end gaming laptops, it is still correct that excellent gaming performance and excellent battery life often do not match.

This is due to Nvidia's G-Sync, which synchronizes the game's frame rate with the refresh rate of the display, but unfortunately doesn't work with Nvidia's Optimus, which allows a laptop to use the powerful integrated Intel graphics solution when the Nvidia GPU is not needed. Pairing G-Sync with Optimus is not impossible. Some laptops have a switch that allows users to choose between them after a restart.

Nvidia recently launched Advanced Optimus, which allows laptops to use G-Sync and Optimus at the same time. Unfortunately, the Triton 500 does not support a hardware switch or Advanced Optimus, so you only have a short battery life.

software

Acer ships the Predator Triton 500 with its “PredatorSense” software suite. This includes fan management and keyboard customization. It all works well and looks pretty chic, which is more than I can say about certain competitors (I see yours, MSI). On the other hand, the Alienware brand from Dell offers a more elegant surface.

Unfortunately, Acer ships the Triton 500 with bloatware, including Norton Antivirus. Uninstalling is easy, but annoying given the price of $ 2,600 for the laptop.

Our take

The Predator Triton 500 from Acer is not a revolutionary or most attractive gaming laptop, but it offers excellent gaming performance and offers important functions such as the 300 Hz display and the keyboard. It's a good choice and, at $ 2,600, a better value than most high-end gaming laptops.

Is there a better alternative?

Razers Blade 15 is our favorite gaming laptop overall, and the Triton 500 doesn't change that. We like the Blade 15 because it offers great gaming performance and is still fun to use as a normal gaming notebook every day. However, the Blade 15 is more expensive, so the Triton 500 is a better choice if performance per dollar is your main concern.

MSI and Asus offer a variety of alternatives. Digital Trends hasn't tested all of them, but in general we have better assessed Acer's recent efforts. MSI gaming laptops often offer excellent performance at the expense of mediocre design. Asus mirrors Acer more closely, but I think Acer gaming laptops are more attractive.

Alienware's laptops are another strong choice. However, the Alienware m15 doesn't focus as much on everyday use as the Triton 500. This makes the m15 a better choice when you need a laptop mainly for gaming, while the Triton 500 is better when you use it. It's yours most important everyday laptop.

How long it will take?

You will be surprised how long the Triton 500 remains relevant. It has excellent gaming hardware and doesn't surpass that hardware by unnecessarily adding a 4K display. You will see excellent gaming performance for at least three years, and the latest games should run on the laptop at medium settings for over five years.

Should you buy it

Yes. The Acer Predator Triton 500 is a killer value.

Editor's recommendations




30 Jun
Blog

2020 Subaru Outback Touring XT Review: Big Screen

2020 Subaru Outback

2020 Subaru Outback Touring XT review: tons of technology

"The 2020 Subaru Outback is a robust, practical car that doesn't save on technology."

  • Powerful turbo engine

  • A large screen that justifies its size

  • Comfortable ride

  • Well-executed driver assistant technician

  • The price rises quickly with options

The Subaru Outback was developed under the motto "If you can't beat them, join them". In the 1990s, Subaru took one of its four-wheel suits and added some SUV-like styling details to create the outback. The model is still popular, even though other SUV cars have been pushed out of the market.

The outback remains a convincing SUV alternative, also thanks to a spacious loading space and all-wheel traction. The outback was revised for model year 2020 and expands the mix by more technology. The car is available with an 11.6-inch touchscreen and Subaru's DriverFocus system, which uses a driver-related camera to detect distractions.

Outback 2020 prices start at $ 27,655, but our test car was a Touring XT model priced at $ 40,705. It had every bell and whistle, including the large touchscreen, DriverFocus and a more powerful turbo engine.

Design and interior

The Subaru Outback 2020 is still essentially a car version of the Subaru Legacy sedan (which was also redesigned for the 2020 model year). The outback not only has a tailgate instead of a trunk, but also has plastic trim for an SUV-like look. The outback drives up a lot for a car too, so it feels more like an SUV. Its 8.7 inch ground clearance is actually more than a Honda CR-V or Toyota RAV4.

The interior is typical Subaru, with a simple but reasonable layout.

Despite the redesign, it is difficult for you to distinguish the Outback 2020 from its predecessor. The new model is also quite large as the Outback 2019. It is a little wider and longer, but with the same wheelbase. The 2020 Outback runs under the skin on the Subaru Global Platform, on which most of the automaker's other models are based. Subaru claims that the 2020 Outback has 70% stiffer torsional stiffness than its predecessor, which helps improve handling and creates a more solid feel. According to Subaru, the new model can absorb more than 40% more energy even in front and side impacts.

2020 Subaru outback rearStephen Edelstein / Digital Trends

The interior is typical Subaru, with a simple but reasonable layout. Our touring test car was fully leather-cushioned, but the materials didn't feel worthy of the $ 40,000 price tag. Like many other car manufacturers, Subaru opted for a piano-black plastic panel that scratches and smears easily and, in our experience, creates a lot of glare on sunny days.

In terms of interior space, the outback is inexpensive compared to the compact crossovers that you can buy for similar money. It has more front legroom than a Honda CR-V or Toyota RAV4, and with rear seats folded down, more cargo space than a Ford Escape. However, the outback follows Subaru's own forester, thanks to its larger, more box-shaped body.

Technology, infotainment and driver assistance

The big technical news for 2020 is an available 11.6 inch touchscreen in portrait format. The screen is standard in all outback trim levels, with the exception of the base model (which has a 7.0-inch touchscreen), while Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard across the board.

Many automakers have large screens installed, but most don't seem to know what to do with all of these properties. Subaru did something smart and straightforward – it just enlarged the menu icons. You don't have to blink to see anything on this screen, and the large icons are easier to find while driving. Subaru also placed icons for climate control at the bottom of the screen – roughly where analog controls are usually – and included an analog volume control, which is still the best tool for this job.

2020 Subaru Outback interiorStephen Edelstein / Digital Trends

The 2020 Outback also gets Subaru's EyeSight Driver Assistant technology, which uses forward-facing cameras near the rearview mirror instead of the radar equipment used by most other automakers. Adaptive cruise control with lane centering is standard, while blind spot monitoring, lane change assistant and rear cross traffic alarm are optional extras. The Honda CR-V and the Toyota RAV4 are equipped with adaptive cruise control as standard. The Ford Escape costs extra, but the Ford system has a stop-and-go function.

Subaru did something smart and straightforward – it just enlarged the menu icons.

On the highway, adaptive cruise control was characterized by a constant pace, but reacted slowly when cars drove abruptly. In a straight line, the lane centering function did its job with the smoothest steering inputs, but had problems with even the slightest turns. These are issues that we have seen with most of the competitor systems, and overall performance has been good for a vehicle in this price range that lacks the more sophisticated sensor suites of high-end models.

Subaru is one of a few automakers (along with BMW and Cadillac) that use a driver-side camera to ensure that people don't use these technical features irresponsibly. The DriverFocus system, which was introduced in the Forester, sends audio and video warnings when the driver takes his eyes off the road. As with the Forester, we found DriverFocus to be fairly inconspicuous, with no false alarms.

Experience driving

Another big change for 2020 is under the hood. For the first time since 2009, the Outback is available with a four-cylinder engine with a turbocharger. As with all Subaru engines, a “boxer” configuration allows this engine to sit lower in the chassis, which helps improve driveability. Together with the Ascent, the turbo engine delivers 260 horsepower and 277 pound-feet of torque. You have to pay extra for this force. Base Outbacks receive from the Forester a 2.5-liter boxer four-cylinder with naturally aspirated engine that delivers 182 hp and 176 lb-ft.

The base engine offers competitive numbers for this segment, but the optional turbo engine is the partback of the outback. Only the Jeep Cherokee, which is available with a 2.0-liter turbo four-cylinder with 270 hp, offers a similar combination of performance and utility in a vehicle of this size.

2020 Subaru Outback touchscreenStephen Edelstein / Digital Trends

Regardless of the engine, the outback receives a continuously variable transmission (CVT) and all-wheel drive. Like the Ascent and the Forester, the all-wheel drive system also has an “X-Mode”, which is designed for light off-roading. This doesn't turn the outback into a hardcore off-roader, but it comes in handy for unpaved roads and deep snow.

The optional turbo engine is the part of the outback.

On the road, the extra power of the turbo engine was a stroke of luck when other vehicles were overhauled. However, the engine and transmission did not always seem to be on the same side, which resulted in uneven power output, which we did not remember from the same combination when climbing higher. Although the outback was smaller and had a lower center of gravity, it did not have the cornering capabilities of the Ascent. The handling wasn't bad, but the outback's limits felt much lower than those of its big siblings.

Subaru also found a good balance between handling and driving quality. The outback felt almost luxurious and absorbed bumps without feeling floating and separate from the road. A comfortable ride is probably more important to the person buying this car than a few extra degrees of manageability. If you want a sporty Subaru, buy a WRX STI.

Fuel consumption and security

Our turbo test car has a combined output of 26 mpg (23 mpg city, 30 mpg highway). This is a significant improvement over the old six-cylinder outback, which could only produce 22 mpg together, and a little behind a turbocharged Honda CR-V (29 mpg combined) and a non-hybrid Toyota RAV4 (28 mpg combined). According to the car's on-board computer, we reached an average of 22 mpg over a week's drive.

The 2020 Outback received the highest Top Safety Pick + rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and a five-star overall rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Subaru offers a three-year basic warranty of 36,000 miles and a five-year warranty of 60,000 miles for the powertrain. That's about the average of a mainstream brand, although Hyundai and Kia offer longer warranty periods. Subaru also has an excellent reputation for reliability.

How DT would configure this car

Our ideal outback would be equipped similarly to the car we tested. It may be a significant price increase, but if you want technology, the Touring equipment variant is the right one. The Touring is the only equipment variant that is equipped with the DriverFocus deflection function as standard. It also has an 11.6-inch touchscreen, leather upholstery, heated and ventilated front seats and an electric sunroof.

2020 Subaru Outback in frontStephen Edelstein / Digital Trends

We would shell out for the turbo engine too. Although we haven't had a chance to test the base machine, our experience in the Forester shows that this would be the wrong choice. The Forester felt sluggish with this engine and things are unlikely to change in the heavier outback.

Our opinion

The Subaru Outback is a familiar sight on roads in the northeast and northwest, but the latest version is aimed at a much broader appeal. The outback still offers great utility and all-wheel traction in a low-key package, but now with more technology and a better turbo engine.

For the last generation outback, buyers had chosen between an economical but underperforming four-cylinder engine and a powerful but thirsty six-cylinder. The Turbo Four of the 2020 Outback makes the difference and offers an urgently needed performance increase without destroying the mileage.

No one bought a 2019 outback for their infotainment system, but the 2020 model gets one of the largest screens in a mainstream car. Unlike its rivals Ford and Toyota, Subaru also used this large screen effectively. Subaru's EyeSight Driver Assistant technology is still among the best in this price range, and the DriverFocus feature ensures that it is not misused.

As the only car of a mainstream brand that is still on the market, the outback mainly competes against SUVs such as the Honda CR-V, the Toyota RAV4 and the Ford Escape. The Subaru is close to the competition in terms of interior space and fuel consumption, and shows how close they are to conventional cars. The outback also has a much stronger tech game thanks to its 11.6-inch touchscreen and EyeSight and DriverFocus driver aids. The 260-horsepower engine provides additional fun that most other small SUVs don't have.

Should you get one?

Yes. The outback offers an impressive combination of technology and utility.

Editor's recommendations




29 Jun
Blog

Lenovo Chromebook Flex 5 Review: What $410 Can Buy You

Lenovo Chromebook Flex 5 review 14

"The Lenovo Chromebook Flex 5 is the best Chromebook you can buy for under $ 500."

  • Responsive keyboard

  • Impressive performance

  • Great value for money

  • Under three pounds

  • Bad touchpad

  • Mediocre display

Chromebooks are getting more expensive every year. They also grow in quality. Display, performance and design improve. They're far from yesterday's cheap Chromebooks.

The Lenovo Flex 5 Chromebook tries to be the best of both worlds. At $ 410, it captures the original spirit of highly affordable laptops, yet offers an Intel Core processor, a 1080p screen, and a solid appearance.

Lenovo has struck the balance carefully, but not without a few hiccups on the way.

design

I'm not looking for anything special in a laptop under $ 500. I want modern. I want thin and light. I want a solid build quality. And bonus points if it doesn't look gaudy or plastic.

The Lenovo Chromebook Flex 5 performs better than most Chromebooks at this price. The color "graphite gray" is initially subtle. Although each surface is made of plastic, it feels firm and well built. The hinge is firm and resists shaking, even when you tap and swipe on the touchscreen.

I have a few minor complaints. The bezels are large – especially the chin. The 360 ​​degree hinge provides additional space under the screen. It is hard to miss on such a small laptop. Premium chromebooks like the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook or the Asus Chromebook Flip C436 have the thin frames we see on Windows laptops, but they're about twice as expensive. It's a problem that the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 solves by using a slightly larger 16:10 aspect ratio.

Despite the frames, the Chromebook Flex 5 comes in a portable package. It's less than 3 pounds and 0.7 inches thick, and just a bit bigger than a MacBook Air. Options like the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook or Google Pixelbook Go are much smaller – but price tags aren't.

Most Chromebooks under $ 500 are bulky 15-inch laptops, which is a shame. The Chromebook Flex 5 fills this gap.

The Chromebook Flex 5 offers a standard selection of ports, at least for a modern Chromebook. On the right side there is a USB-C 3.1, a USB-A 3.1, a headphone jack and a microSD card slot. The other side contains another USB-C port and a Kensington lock. Unfortunately, only the right side can be used to charge the device.

As it is a 2-in-1 device, the Lenovo Chromebook Flex 5 has a volume rocker and a power switch in addition to the connections. The volume rocker is mushy and difficult to distinguish, which is a little frustrating. You'll use the volume control on the keyboard a lot more often, but that's no excuse for lousy keys.

Display and speakers

The Flex 5 Chromebook doesn't have the best display in the world. It is a 13.3-inch IPS LED display with a standard resolution of 1,920 x 1,080. It has a slight shade of green, which makes pale skin tones look sick.

It only brightens up to 250 nits. This is bright enough for home use, but if you stand under strong office light or sit next to a window, the glossy screen can cause strong reflections. A matte screen may have made the screen look cheap, but avoided this problem.

I've seen a lot worse on Chromebooks, but options like the Google Pixelbook Go or the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook do much better. The software on my colorimeter doesn't work in Chrome OS to measure color accuracy, but the Flex 5 Chromebook is probably not accurate enough for creative people. For what a Chromebook is made for $ 410, the screen does the trick.

The Flex 5 Chromebook has a set of upward-facing speakers that flank the keyboard on both sides. The placement is good, but they are as thin as laptop speakers. The Pixelbook Go is far superior in this category.

Keyboard and touchpad

The Lenovo Chromebook Flex 5 offers a pleasant typing experience. This is the typical Chrome OS layout outside of the oddly shortened left and right arrow keys. But the keycaps are big, the journey is long and the keystrokes respond. Lenovo has even installed a backlight with five brightness levels. I felt at home.

The touchpad is a different story. It's big enough, but of below average quality. The plastic, structured surface leads to skipping and sloppy tracking. Inexpensive touchpads like this slow down my workflow and make detailed tasks such as text selection difficult. The click mechanism is also quite stiff and loud. As my daily driver, the touchpad was the only hurdle to usability that I kept tripping over. I'm not shocked by the price, but I was hoping to be surprised. The switch back to a Google Pixelbook Go felt heavenly in comparison.

The Flex 5 Chromebook has a 720p on-screen webcam that can be serviced for occasional zoom calls.

performance

Many cheap Chromebooks use slow MediaTek or Intel Celeron processors. Not the Lenovo Chromebook Flex 5. It offers an Intel Core i3-10110U processor of the latest generation of Intel chips. This is a full 15-watt processor, while many other Chromebooks use an 8-watt processor. More performance means more potential performance, and the Lenovo Chromebook Flex 5 offers.

Other Chromebooks that use this 10th generation Core i3 are usually much more expensive, such as the Asus Chromebook Flip C436 for $ 800. The Flex 5 corresponds to this processor in multi-core scores in Geekbench 5 and is 18% faster than the Google Pixelbook Go.

The two cores and four threads it offers may not sound impressive, and 4 GB of RAM may not. But it feels quick. Chrome OS works on this hardware regardless of how many tabs you have open. This can best be measured in a test like the Tachometer 2.0, which measures JavaScript performance. In web applications, the Lenovo Chromebook Flex 5 is as fast as a quad-core Core i5 Windows 10 laptop. This is important because it is almost exclusively what you use this Chromebook for.

You can of course run Android apps on the Flex 5. 3D games like the mobile racing driver Asphalt 9 Legends were played smoothly. However, the integrated graphics cannot even start a match from PUBG Mobile. As strange as it may sound, your phone will perform better. Many of these Android apps are still not well optimized for the 16: 9 aspect ratio and a cursor. However, this is a problem with Android app emulation in Chrome OS in general, not the fault of the Flex 5.

A processor with higher performance has one disadvantage. Heat. The Lenovo Chromebook Flex 5 is not a fanless device like the Pixelbook Go. Open a few YouTube videos, Slack, Spotify, and about a dozen websites – that's enough to hear the fans spinning and the keyboard warming up. I never had the feeling that the fans were turning prematurely or too often.

The laptop also has 64 GB of eMMC storage. It's not a ton of capacity – and not as fast as a solid-state drive. Unfortunately, both have become the standard for Chromebooks. As long as you do most of the things in the cloud, 64 GB shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Battery life

The Lenovo Chromebook Flex 5 offers decent battery life. It has always been a Chromebook strength and budget laptop deficit. These two properties meet in the Flex 5, a laptop has a better battery life than most at this price.

On average, it took me about six to seven hours of my daily workload. Not quite enough to get through a full day's work, but close.

It's not a Pixelbook Go – or even the current Lenovo Yoga C640 – but it should take you most of a working day. In our browsing test, I zeroed the battery through a selection of websites. The Lenovo Chromebook Flex 5 lasted almost eight hours. Playing videos took a few hours longer, and I looped a video clip until it died.

Our opinion

The Lenovo Chromebook Flex 5 is one of the cheaper Chromebooks you can buy. It is characterized by excellent performance, excellent battery life and solid build quality. The touchpad is not great, and neither is the screen. It's not a no-compromise laptop, but this $ 410 Chromebook is still one of the best laptops you can buy under $ 500.

Are there alternatives?

The 14-inch Asus Chromebook C425 is worth considering. It doesn't have such a powerful processor, but it looks impressive and only costs $ 443. The Google Pixelbook Go costs a little more, but it remains my choice for the best Chromebook you can buy.

If you're looking for a Windows laptop with a similar price tag, the Acer Swift 3 is a good choice. The $ 399 model is equipped with an 8th generation Intel Core i3 processor, 4 GB RAM and a 128 GB SSD.

How long it will take?

The Lenovo Chromebook Flex 5 should last four or five years. Google extends software updates to older Chromebooks for many years. The warranty is a one-year limited warranty.

Should you buy it

Yes. If you are looking for a laptop under $ 500, the Lenovo Chromebook Flex 5 is one of the best you can buy.

Editor's recommendations




27 Jun
Blog

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14 Review: AMD Nails It Again

Lenovo Ideapad Flex 5 14 Review Ryzen 01

"The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 offers incredible value and solid performance with few compromises."

  • Exceptional performance for an affordable laptop

  • Comfortable keyboard and touchpad

  • Active pen included

  • Excellent value for money

  • Solid speakers

  • Mediocre display

  • Boring look

Laptops with AMD's Ryzen 4000 chips seem too good to be true. The specifications are incredibly powerful and cheaper than Intel's.

Take the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14, for example. It is the latest in a range of Ryzen-based budget laptops. This comes with a Ryzen 5 4500U with six cores and 16 GB RAM and costs only $ 600. Due to the technical data alone, a better performance value for the price is hard to imagine.

Is there a catch?

design

The IdeaPad Flex 5 is a plastic laptop. Lenovo calls it "normal" plastic at the top and "stable PC / ABC" at the bottom. Aside from the chemistry lesson, this means the laptop case is relatively sturdy. Don't expect it to be as robust as a unibody MacBook Pro or even the Lenovo Yoga C640 for $ 600. The lid, the keyboard deck and the case back are all somewhat flexible. However, it is not outrageous. Low prices and flexible laptops no longer necessarily go hand in hand.

Another indication of the budget status of the Flex 5 is its stature. It's pretty thick at 0.82 inches and heavy at 3.3 pounds. Compare that to the Yoga C640 at 0.67 inches and 2.98 pounds and the HP Specter x360 13 at 0.67 inches and 2.88 pounds. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga is available at 0.59 inches and 2.99 pounds. The display bezel of the Flex 5 is also not tiny, especially at the top and bottom, which means that the entire case is also more extensive. No matter how you cut it, this is not a small 2-in-1.

It's a rather nondescript design that doesn't catch the eye – like many Lenovo laptops lately.

The hinge of the Flex 5 is firm. The small wobble when moving the laptop does not distract excessively. Most importantly, the tight hinge allows for smooth transitions through the various 2-in-1 modes, including clamshell, tent, media and tablet. The 14-inch display and the resulting housing obviously result in a rather large and unwieldy tablet. You just don't want to try holding a 3.3-pound tablet in one hand for too long.

Aesthetically, the IdeaPad Flex 5 is an attractive dark gray all around. The only chrome is the border around the Lenovo logo on the lid and the keyboard deck. Ultimately, it is a rather nondescript design that – like many Lenovo laptops lately – is not noticeable, but still looks good. The Specter x360 13 with its gem design is at the other end of the attention-grabbing spectrum, and the Yoga C640 is very similar in aesthetics to the IdeaPad.

An advantage of the Flex 5's thickness is that it offers a good level of connectivity. There are two USB-A 3.1 ports, a USB-C 3.1 port, a full-size HDMI 1.4 port, and a 4-in-1 SD card reader. Although Thunderbolt 3 is missing, many will appreciate the inclusion of some of these older ports that come in handy. Wireless connectivity is still limited to Wi-Fi 5 and not the newer Wi-Fi 6 standard, and Bluetooth 4.2 is on board.

performance

The IdeaPad Flex 5 doesn't look like a cheap laptop and doesn't work like one either. The Ryzen 5 chips from AMD keep proving that it is one of the best bargains. In this case, the Ryzen 5 4500U comes with six cores and six threads. It's the same chip that you can find in other cheap laptops like the Acer Swift 3 for $ 650. This option used the Ryzen 7 4700U CPU with eight cores and eight threads for the power supply. Interestingly, the processor performance of the Flex 5 is quite competitive with this chip.

First, it did well in the synthetic Geekbench 5 benchmark, reaching 1,096 in the single-core test and 4,543 in the multi-core test. In the multi-core test, it was 20% faster than the Acer Spin 3, a similar Intel Core i5 notebook. It is clear that the AMD chips perform well when multitasking, even though they have two fewer threads.

The IdeaPad Flex 5 is an extremely fast laptop for only $ 600.

Speaking of which, I then ran our handbrake test, which encodes a 420MB video as H.265 and uses as many cores and threads as a CPU has to offer. The Flex 5 took just over two minutes to complete the test, just eight seconds longer than the Swift 3. The Surface Book 3 13 took four minutes. Compared to the Dell XPS 13, a very fast laptop with the Core i7-1065G7, the Flex 5 was finished in 38 seconds less.

The fantastic performance of the Flex 5 is supported by 16 GB of RAM, which is surprising with such an inexpensive computer. All of this results in an extremely fast laptop for only $ 600, which is characterized by high productivity in multitasking and migration by demanding tasks such as photo and video editing. The laptop slows down when measured with Intel Core i7 laptops that have more threads, especially 45-watt parts. Compared to the typical Intel CPUs that you see in laptops at this price, AMD rules apply.

The Flex 5 also includes built-in AMD Radeon graphics, which according to 3DMark are slightly faster than Intel's Iris Plus graphics. That means you can get a little boost in creative apps that can use the GPU and play light games with lower resolutions and graphics settings. A game like Rocket League plays decently, but anything that is more intense will suffer.

Battery life

The IdeaPad Flex 5 has a battery capacity of 52.5 watt hours, which is not much for a 14-inch laptop. I therefore had little hope of longevity.

The Flex 5 was an average performer. In our web browser test, it took eight hours compared to the Yoga C640 with its CPU with lower performance of over 10.5 hours. The Acer Swift 3 lasted six minutes less than the Flex 5, suggesting that the AMD Ryzen CPUs aren't the most energy efficient. The Dell XPS 13 with a 1080p display and the Core i7-1065G7 lasted 11.5 hours.

For a lower load, I looped a local video clip, and the Flex 5 lasted 11 hours. That's not a bad thing, but it's far less than the spectacular 23 hours of the Yoga C640 and the powerful 14.5 hours of the XPS 13. Last, I took the machine through our most demanding battery test, the Basemark Web Benchmark. This replicates battery life in heavier applications. It took three and a half hours, similar to laptops like the Yoga C640.

No, it's not a leader in battery life. Unlike many budget laptops of the past, however, the IdeaPad Flex 5 should survive most of a working day on a single charge.

display

So far nothing on the IdeaPad Flex 5 screams "cheap". Then there is the display.

It's not that this display is bothering you when you work or even watch movies. Actually, this display would have been pretty good five years ago. Although the contrast is not as high as with better displays, black text is displayed on a white background without major quality problems. And colors may be limited and inaccurate when measured with a colorimeter – as creative types do – but they are neither unnatural nor do they interfere with everyday image viewing and web browsing. This isn't a terrible display, it just doesn't go well with the performance that this affordable laptop can offer.

However, according to my colorimeter, Lenovo had to use a cheaper panel. It is a 1080p IPS display, but it has a narrow color gamut (only 47% of AdobeRGB and 63% of sRGB). The screen is limited to only 242 nits of brightness, and even the contrast is low at 770: 1. It's a glossy screen, so glare issues may occur in brighter environments.

The lackluster picture quality is a shame. Otherwise, the Flex 5 would have been a powerful little photo editing device. We have seen the same panel in many budget laptops, but there are notable exceptions like the Lenovo Yoga C640.

And the audio was a plus, with high-profile speakers next to the keyboard that offer a lot of volume without distortion. The bass was missing as always, but mids and highs were good for music and occasional YouTube videos. You can even bathe Netflix with these speakers as long as you listen.

Keyboard and touchpad

If you've used one of Lenovo's yoga or IdeaPad keyboards, you're familiar with it. It's relatively flat with a lot of space and a precise mechanism, which means that it disappoints those who travel a lot but can otherwise be serviced. I was able to type fast enough at full speed, and although it is nowhere near the Magic Keyboard of the much more expensive MacBook range or even the Specter x360 13's second-best (in my opinion) keyboard, it's a solid keyboard that most works users will enjoy.

The touchpad is also comfortable and of average size for a modern Windows 10 laptop. It supports Microsoft's Precision Touchpad drivers and provides smooth and precise Windows 10 multi-touch gestures. No complaints there.

As a 2-in-1 device, the Flex 5 naturally has a touch-capable display that works as usual. Lenovo also includes an active stylus that supports 4,096 pressure sensitivity levels. This makes it a great option for anyone who wants to illustrate the display or take detailed notes. Many inexpensive 2-in-1 devices either do not include the pen (the Yoga C640 is an example) or do not support it. It's a real plus if it's in the box.

Finally, Windows 10 Hello login without a password is supported by a fingerprint reader in the upper right corner of the keyboard deck. It's fast and accurate, and again a bonus for a $ 600 laptop. However, there is no infrared camera for facial recognition.

Our opinion

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 is a spectacularly fast laptop for $ 600 with a build quality that finally deserves the price. The configuration is impressive too – you don't often get a 256GB PCIe SSD and 16GB RAM for nearly that price. If your goal is a budget performer, this is a great laptop.

However, the display is disappointing, which means that all of the power that might target creative types is wasted. This is a shame and holds the Flex 5 back.

Are there alternatives?

The Lenovo Yoga C640 is a bit smaller, has a much better battery life, and a better display. It also costs $ 600, but offers less storage space and a much slower CPU.

For just $ 50 more, you can choose the even faster Acer Swift 3. It is well built, looks good, and is the fastest budget notebook we've tested. But it also has a mediocre display.

For the same price, consider considering a Chromebook route. The Google Pixelbook Go for $ 650 is an excellent choice, with an excellent display and portability.

How long it will take?

The Yoga IdeaPad Flex 5 is durable enough to last as long as you'd expect from a $ 600 machine. And it's fast enough to keep up with your workflow for years. There is no Thunderbolt 3 support, so expansion is limited, but this is expected at this price. The 1 year warranty is typical and disappointing.

Should you buy it

Yes. The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 is a very competent, affordable laptop that demonstrates the strength of AMD processors.

Editor's recommendations




26 Jun
Blog

2020 Land Rover Range Rover Velar Review: V8 Muscle

2020 Land Rover Range Rover Velar SV autobiography dynamic edition

2020 Range Rover Velar SVAutobiography Dynamic Edition Test: V8 performance

"A supercharged V8 engine gives the Range Rover Velar a performance that matches its looks."

  • V8 muscle

  • Impressive handling

  • Well equipped cabin

  • Comfortable ride

  • Tech needs to be refined

  • Sunglasses are required for the interior

Land Rover started making glorified agricultural equipment, but today the British company is synonymous with luxury. Like their ancestors, today's Land Rovers have impressive off-road capabilities, but are also good for suburbs. The 2020 Land Rover Range Rover Velar SVAutobiography Dynamic Edition embodies this transformation.

This name requires a lot of unpacking. The Velar was introduced for the 2018 model year and is part of Land Rover's efforts to transform the legendary Range Rover into a model family. The Velar is slimmer and more car-like than the original Range Rover, which remains the brand's flagship. And the SVAutobiography Dynamic Edition is a one-year special edition that contains a turbocharged V8 instead of the usual V6 engine.

The Velar was already the most technically heavy Land Rover SUV, but the V8 gives his CV more power. However, this additional ability comes at a price. The SVAutobiography Dynamic Edition costs from $ 91,775 – a whopping $ 34,550 more than a basic Velar.

Design and interior

The Velar (the name refers to the first Range Rover prototypes from 1969) reaches the limits of Land Rover design. It dispenses with traditional SUV boxiness and ensures a slimmer appearance. The steeply sloping windshield and the low roof give the Velar a completely different silhouette than the original Range Rover and the smaller Range Rover Sport. Short overhangs ensure a sporty appearance and ensure that the body does not get caught on obstacles in the field.

Stephen Edelstein / Digital Trends

The differences between the SVAutobiography Dynamic Edition and the standard Velar are subtle. The Dynamic Edition gets another front bumper with larger cooling outlets that supply air to the V8 engine and brakes, as well as a new rear bumper with four exhaust tips. A shelf under the transmission tunnel helps to improve aerodynamic efficiency.

The interior feels more like the cockpit of a sports car than an SUV. You sit fairly high above the floor, but the dashboard, center console, and door sills rise to wrap you around. While this makes it easier to reach the cup holder or touchscreen, it also creates the worst of both worlds. A big, big vehicle that you can't see anything from.

The interior feels more like the cockpit of a sports car than an SUV.

The quality of the interior material is high, as you would expect from a vehicle that costs so much. The Land Rover contained lots of real metal trimmings, and the quilt pattern stitching on the seats is a nice touch. However, Land Rover also used a lot of piano-black plastic, which easily smeared and scratched and also produced glare in direct sunlight. When the sun is at certain angles, the black and metal cladding of the piano along with the huge screens can blind a driver like paparazzi lightbulbs on the red carpet.

Stephen Edelstein / Digital Trends

The Velar is an intermediary when it comes to size. Land Rover regards the Porsche Macan Turbo as the competition of the Velar SVAutobiography Dynamic Edition. The Velar is much larger than the Macan, but smaller than a Porsche Cayenne – the next size up. The Velar is also larger than a Mercedes-AMG GLC63, but smaller than the SUV's big brother, the GLE.

The Velar has more cargo space than the GLC or Macan, but the Mercedes has more leg room at the front and rear (Porsche does not publish internal dimensions for the Macan). The BMW X3 M has more cargo space than the Land Rover, but only with the rear seats folded down. The Alfa Romeo Stelvio is smaller overall, but offers more headroom than the Velar, just like the X3 M. Subjectively, the back seats of the Velar felt comfortable and spacious, but the front seats felt tight, with limited legroom.

Technology, infotainment and driver assistance

The Velar features the InControl Touch Pro Duo infotainment system from Land Rover, which, as the name suggests, has two 10.0-inch touchscreens. The top screen manages phone, navigation and media functions and can be tilted up to 30 degrees for better positioning. (Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard, as is a Wi-Fi hotspot that can handle up to eight devices.)

The bottom screen deals with vehicle settings and climate control. It has additional buttons that allow you to change the cabin temperature or switch between different driving modes. The on-screen menus are logically arranged and contain high quality graphics. However, the loading times for both screens were slow, especially immediately after starting the vehicle.

The driver also receives a digital 12.3-inch instrument cluster, a head-up display and capacitive steering wheel controls. These controls work well, but their glossy black plastic surface adds to the glare in the cockpit – something Lincoln could avoid with its reconfigurable steering wheel controls.

A screen has additional buttons with which you can change the cabin temperature or switch between different driving modes.

The 2020 Velar is equipped as standard with autonomous emergency braking, a lane departure warning system and parking aids at the front and rear. Our test car also had an optional adaptive cruise control, blind spot monitoring and a 360-degree camera system. These functions are part of an option package that also increases the speed threshold for autonomous emergency braking.

As with most other luxury cars, it's surprising to see adaptive cruise control as an option when it is standard on some mainstream brand cars like Honda and Toyota. Land Rover also offers nothing more demanding than the simple lane keeping assistant. Other luxury brands (and even some mainstream brands) offer technologies that can actively steer the car to keep it in the lane.

2020 Land Rover Range Rover Velar SV autobiography dynamic editionStephen Edelstein / Digital Trends

With the exception of the 360-degree camera system, the driver aids performed well. Poorly chosen camera angles and a confusing user interface didn't make it helpful. The 360-degree view is also not displayed automatically and cannot be activated in certain situations. Such a system can be very helpful in an SUV like the Velar. So it was frustrating that Land Rover's efforts were neglected.

Experience driving

The V8 engine of the SVAutobiography Dynamic Edition transforms the Velar. While the Standard Velar is a relaxed and luxurious cruiser, the Dynamic Edition is exciting and dynamic.

The 5.0-liter V8 with compressor is used in numerous Land Rover and sibling Jaguar models. In the Velar, it produces 550 horsepower and 502 pound-feet of torque. For comparison: the most powerful V6 Velar can only produce 380 hp and 332 lb-ft. Power is transmitted to all four wheels via the same eight-speed automatic transmission that is used in other Velar variants.

Land Rover estimates that it can go from zero to 60 mph in 4.3 seconds, with a top speed of 177 mph. That's good for such a heavy vehicle, but unfortunately for Land Rover there are many high-performance SUVs on offer today. The Velar has much more power than a BMW X3 M Competition, a Mercedes-AMG GLC63 or a Porsche Macan Turbo, but cannot improve its times from zero to 60 mph. After unpacking, the Macan Turbo corresponds to the time of the Velar and, according to Porsche, can reach 4.1 seconds with the optional Sport Chrono Package. BMW cites 4.0 seconds for the X3 M competition, while Mercedes claims that the GLC63 can reach 60 miles an hour in just 3.8 seconds.

The Velar breathed like an angry bear as its engine breathed through a quad exhaust system.

In addition to the V8 swap, Land Rover gave the SVAutobiography Dynamic Edition larger brakes, improved all-wheel hardware for additional performance and new tuning for both the all-wheel system and the adaptive air suspension. Despite the relatively limited changes, the Dynamic Edition felt pretty sporty on winding roads. The steering was precise, the body swaying was well controlled, and the larger brakes had a lot of confidence that stimulated the braking force.

The Velar breathed like an angry bear, whose engine breathed through a model-specific quad exhaust system. And like a bear, this Land Rover was surprisingly nimble, even though it was still an animal. If carving in bends is a priority, you're better off with a sports sedan or a sports car, but the Velar copes with bends better than the average SUV.

Stephen Edelstein / Digital Trends

While the focus is on driving on the road, the Velar is also equipped for off-roading. It has a limited slip differential at the rear and Land Rover's Terrain Response system, which can be used to adjust different vehicle settings for different surfaces. The Velar also has an all-terrain progress control that acts like a low-speed cruise control on slippery surfaces.

However, the Velar all-wheel drive system only has a single-speed transfer case and not the two-speed units used in most serious off-roaders. Together with the 21-inch wheels and the low-profile tires of our test car, this means that this SUV is not our first choice when we hit the trails.

Fuel consumption and security

The disadvantage of a V8 is the poor mileage. The SVAutobiography Dynamic Edition is rated 17 mpg (15 mpg city, 20 mpg highway) compared to 20 mpg (18 mpg city, 24 mpg highway) for the most powerful V6 Velar. According to the car's on-board computer, we managed an average of 14.5 mpg over a week's drive.

Crash test assessments by the Road Safety Insurance Institute (IIHS) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) are not available. While the Velar has been on the market for a few years, high-end vehicles like this usually have a low priority for testing because they are sold in small quantities.

Land Rover does not have a reputation for reliability, but the automaker offers a four-year 50,000-mile warranty comparable to other luxury brands, as well as a six-year warranty on corrosion / perforation with unlimited mileage.

How DT would configure this car

Is it better to choose SVAutobiography Dynamic Edition or the Standard Velar? The Dynamic Edition comes with a substantial price premium, but the right one. If you can afford it, the V8 drivetrain adds a sporty character that other Velar models lack.

2020 Land Rover Range Rover Velar SV autobiography dynamic editionStephen Edelstein / Digital Trends

This version also offers all driver aids and other functions, some of which are chargeable in other equipment variants. The Dynamic Edition also has a good picture of collectability: Land Rover has no fixed production cap, but a spokesman told Digital Trends that the company expects only 500 of these special editions.

Our opinion

The 2020 Land Rover Range Rover Velar SVAutobiography Dynamic Edition proves that the devil is in the details. It's a stylish SUV that combines luxury, performance and technology like no other vehicle. However, a closer look reveals some problems.

Land Rover's InControl TouchPro Duo infotainment system lives up to the promise of a smartphone-like interface, but slow screens dampen the experience. The interior is luxurious, but a lack of front legroom and glare-free trim parts show that it could have used a different pass through customer clinics. The Velar generates impressive performance data, but the BMW X3 M Competition, the Mercedes-AMG GLC63 and the Porsche Macan Turbo are faster. Other Land Rover models are better suited for off-road driving.

However, these shortcomings don't ruin experience. The standard Velar is a solid but luxurious SUV that doesn't really stand out from the many alternatives available. However, the V8 engine of this model turns the SVAutobiogrpahy Dynamic Edition into something very special.

Should you get one?

Yes. Long live the V8.

Editor's recommendations




26 Jun
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Samsung Q90T 4K HDR QLED TV review: Mostly Exceptional

"The Samsung Q90T delivers a breathtaking picture."

  • Eye-catching design

  • Excellent brightness and contrast

  • Spot color accuracy

  • Excellent for playing

  • Rainbow effect from the screen level

  • Still expensive

  • Nobody connects box

Given that the Samsung Q90R was one of my favorite TVs in 2019, I had high hopes for its successor in 2020, which I suspected would be the Q90T tested here. As it turned out, Samsung had some interesting plans to shake up its 2020 lineup, which was unveiled at CES earlier this year.

Unlike the Q90R, the Q90T doesn't come with Samsung's One Connect Box (a feature I'm a big fan of), the backlight system has fewer local dimming zones, and the panel layer that enables deeper black levels isn't quite as effective. To use these functions, you have to switch to the Q800T, which is an 8K television.

All of this makes the Q90T appear less as a replacement for the Q90R than as an effort by Samsung to bring premium buyers to its 8K TV line. But it's not all bad news. The 65-inch Q90T costs $ 1,000 less than the 65-inch Q90R when it was released. It has a pimped sound system and is available in other sizes – including 55, 65, 75 and 85 inch variants.

Ultimately, the Q90T doesn't seem to be as advanced as last year's 4K flagship, but it is still a remarkable TV and will likely be one of the best TVs you can buy this year.

Out of the box

The Q90T is one of the heaviest 65-inch devices I've wrestled with from Samsung and Panasonic plasma TVs since sunset. Most of the weight comes from the stand, a sturdy, curved piece of brushed metal that attaches to the center of the TV. This weight instilled confidence that the panel is held securely, and it is, but the TV still wobbles a lot more than I want. Be sure to install a seat belt to ensure safety when you mount this TV while standing.

Do-it-yourself wall mounting needs a friend. I dare to say that even the 55-inch set would require a second set of hands to be securely mounted on the wall. I would also recommend drilling the wall mounting plate into studs as I'm not sure if drywall anchors would do the trick.

Samsung Q90T remote controlDan Baker

In addition to the TV and the stand, the packaging contains the simple but effective remote control from Samsung, batteries, stand screws and some product literature, which contains an installation guide that I would like to recommend to buyers, since the method of installing the TV stand depends on Stand size varies TELEVISION.

Properties and design

The Q90T is a very eye-catching television, even if its bezels are not as invisible as that of the Q90R. It's a black plate with an intentionally thick profile, but I like it. Maybe it's all lush brushed metal, but the Q90T seems to be on business.

The Q90T is a very eye-catching television

I mentioned the absence of Samsung's One Connect box, which handles all incoming connections from game consoles, Blu-ray players, etc., and conducts power and video signals over a single clear cable that is virtually undetectable on a wall. Its convenience and practicality are missed.

Samsung Q90T profileDan Baker

The Q90T has four built-in HDMI inputs, of which only one is HDMI 2.1 capable. This means that the TV supports eARC together with variable refresh rate (VRR), automatic low latency mode (ALLM) and up to 4K 120 Hz signals. All of this is good news for gamers.

Samsung's workmanship has also improved this year. You will see fewer artifacts, especially if you stream content from Netflix, Hulu, Disney + or HBO Max. Apps for which everyone is directly integrated. Samsung has also reduced its tendency to sharpen the image too much by making the image presets in the focus department less aggressive. These are all welcome improvements.

Regarding the backlight, I have already mentioned that there are fewer zones, but as I will explain shortly, this is not a weak point for this TV. Samsung's local dimming processor seems to be working even better than last year, fewer zones or not.

user friendliness

Samsung's Tizen operating system is fine. There is nothing wrong with that. I think most people will navigate it easily enough. Maybe it just feels a little stale to me because I've used it so often and I've been using it for a long time. I will say that Samsung's automatic detection function, which detects what you have connected to the TV, labels it correctly and allows immediate control via its own remote control, is something I have always appreciated on Samsung TVs and that for the user friendliness of this television set is of great importance.

Compared to LG's webOS, which looks a bit dated, Tizen makes less effort to integrate the smart home, which I think is a little more geared towards meeting the needs of television. Tizen also complies with LG's webOS in that it combines free wireless and free TV channels provided over the Internet and summarizes everything in one guide.

Compared to Android TV, which is used by Sony, Tizen feels a bit more individual, but less language-friendly. Samsung added the ability to make Amazon Alexa the default voice assistant – much better than Samsung's own Bixby – but the integration was uncomfortable for me. Android TV makes using the Google Assistant very easy.

picture quality

It gets a little tricky here. From the moment I turned on the Q90T for the first time, I found that it had a problem with the uniformity of the panel. Certain areas of the screen appear blotchy, which is known in television circles as the dirty screen effect (DSE). I've seen this on less expensive TVs, but never on a premium Samsung.

Dan Baker

I think that's an anomaly. Let me explain.

First of all, it is clear that this TV has been used before – the screws of the TV stand were in a sandwich bag and I could see some small scratches on the back of the TV. In addition, the TV box saw significantly more than the typical mailing campaign. Speaking to representatives from Samsung, I also learned that, given the global coronavirus pandemic, it was difficult to send review samples to reviewers, and part of this fight meant that the device I had received was unlikely to be checked, before it was shipped to me.

The Q90T is a top performer.

I have requested a replacement sample for Q90T and will update this review as soon as I have made a second review. I only offer this option in extreme cases when I suspect that a television is damaged or otherwise defective. Until then, my rating and rating for this TV contains the uniformity issues I've seen.

But uniformity is only part of the picture quality. Otherwise, the Q90T is a first-class service provider.

The Q90T's black levels are the best I've seen outside of Samsung's own high-end models (like the 8K Q900R and probably the Q800T, which I haven't checked yet) and the Sony and LG OLED TVs, one use completely different technology. Blooming is well controlled, which is particularly evident when, in some films, subtitles run across the bottom black letterbox bars without turning the black bar gray.

Dan Baker

The brightness is more than sufficient. Using Portrait Display's Calman software, along with a SpectraCal C6 HDR colorimeter and a Videoforge Pro pattern generator, I measured the sustained peak brightness in HDR at 1500 nits, which is bright enough to provide a stunning HDR image from the Screen appears. Compared to the brightness of the Sony X900H of 750 nits that I am currently evaluating, the number is twice as high, although I would say that it is not twice as bright.

The Q90T delivers a breathtaking picture

The color accuracy in the Q90T's film image preset was immediately ready for use in both SDR and HDR. I've made minor adjustments to the white balance that have further improved color accuracy, but I think most people will love the color of the TV without any adjustment. So far, only the Sony X900H has achieved ready-to-use color accuracy, but with a slightly lower color volume due to the lower HDR brightness. However, I still have a lot of TVs to check, so I will be running updates all year round.

Apart from technical data and dimensions, the Q90T delivers a breathtaking picture. In my case, the dirty screen effect was a distraction, but it didn't affect other performance elements. I suspect that the replacement device I am getting has a more typical "clean" panel than I have seen in the past.

I have a complaint that I am less optimistic that a replacement TV will respond, and this is a rainbow effect that I have observed on the screen. This can be a side effect of Samsung's anti-glare treatment or the wide-angle viewing layer, both of which are very effective for the intended purpose. This is also something that I would like to investigate further and that I will update as I learn more.

When I saw this TV for several days, I was often amazed by its picture quality. Samsung tends to over-brighten the picture, especially in HDR mode, but I suspect this move away from technical accuracy is actually enjoyed by many viewers. However, purists should check out the Sony A8H OLED, the Sony X900H LED or one of LG's OLED televisions if strict compliance with the intent of the creator is of the utmost importance.

Gaming performance

This is an excellent TV for gamers. The Q90T's response time is among the best I've seen from a VA LCD panel, its input delay is also exceptional at just 10 ms in game mode, and its support for Freesync VRR will be a huge bonus for gamers, especially if the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X arrive.

At this point, the only televisions that can compete for games with the Q90T are LG's OLEDs that topping Nvidia's G-Sync VRR.

Our opinion

The Q90T will likely turn out to be one of the best 4K HDR LED TVs you can buy in 2020. Without the suspicious problems with panel uniformity I've seen, this TV would be enthusiastically received by me. I suspect a replacement pattern review will lift all of the caveats as the Q90T outperforms any other television I've seen in its class this year and in all previous years. It's no small thing that Samsung offers such premium picture quality at a significantly cheaper price than last year.

Is there a better alternative?

At this point, I have not yet tested a superior 4K LED TV for the Q90T. I'm excited to see what Vizio brings this year and I've been impressed with the Sony X900H so far, but if history is an indicator, the Q90T will be one of the best 4K LED TVs you can buy this year.

You can find more options in our best TVs of 2020.

How long it will take?

With an HDMI 2.1 input, the TV supports extended functions for many years. I suspect that this television will continue to exist in the future.

warranty

Samsung offers a one-year warranty on parts and labor for home use and a 90-day warranty on parts and labor for commercial use.

Should you buy it

I'm holding back to give this TV the "Digital Trends Recommended Product" award, but I still think the answer is "yes" until a solution to the extremely uniformity of my sample is found. This is one of the best TVs you can buy this year. If you find problems with the uniformity of the panel that were to some extent a problem for all TV brands, you can request a replacement from your authorized Samsung dealer.

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