15 Jan
Blog

The Best Exercises For A Smaller Waist

Do you shy away from wearing a bikini on a beach trip? Well, not anymore. Make your shame go away because we are here with some exercises that will help you give your waist a defined shape. Exercises for a smaller waist burn belly fat and tone abs. There are mainly two techniques you can use to achieve a thin waist.

  1. Burn excess calories with exercise.
  2. Eat better foods for a healthier life.

Let's learn some exercises for a smaller waist.

Risks of Carrying Excessive Fat Around Your Waist

Not only does your self-confidence stay on the edge when you carry weight around your waist, but your health also stays on guard. Visceral fat is linked to a number of diseases including heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, gallstones or any other type of cancer. Visceral fat is a form of fat that gets trapped and stored in your abdominal organs and these types of days are detrimental to the lower body organs.

Best exercises for a smaller waist

A defined waist is the best way to look good and it's every woman's psychology when it comes to fitness. Exercising makes your whole body appear linear, and focusing on a specific body part helps shed excess fat. Exercises that can give a woman a smaller waist are as follows:

1. cardio exercises

Cardio training burns a lot of calories during exercise and helps build lean muscle. To trim your waist, you can do abdominal exercises. 4 great exercises to add to your program are the following:

  • Step-ups – Step-ups help strengthen the glutes and calves.
  • Swimming – focuses on the entire body to get lean muscles. It helps increase heart rate without putting stress on joints.
  • Climbing a flight of stairs helps reprogram the mind to burn calories.
  • Running is the best exercise to lose weight and burn calories. It's an intense cardio exercise that requires a lot of strength in the leg and core muscles.

These exercises give the body a linear look and are considered the best Exercises for a smaller waist.

2. Strength training exercises

Once you are done with your cardio exercises that will help burn extra calories in your body and shrink your waistline, now is the time to try strength training exercises that will help you tighten your waistline. Below are some of the strength training exercises that can be tried by any woman who wants to achieve a defined waistline:

  • Bike crunches are the best strength training exercise that focuses on the abs, lower back and hips. It is most effective when performed on a mat.
  • Russian twists are another great exercise to work the obliques and lower back muscles.
  • The dumbbell side bend is an effective way to tone your obliques while performing the side bends.
  • Plank Hip Dips – a strength training exercise that helps your waistline. It is an evolution of a traditional plank.
  • Squats are the best way to tone the muscles of the whole body. It helps get rid of excess fat near the waist.

What to eat for a smaller waist

A balanced diet is just as important as regular exercise. Proper nutrition helps your body be in good shape, or you can say it helps you slim your waistline. Below are some of the types of foods that you can consume after you have completed your workout.

  • Healthy fats should be consumed
  • More fibrous vegetables should be consumed
  • Make protein necessary in every meal
  • eat whole grains
  • Eat fresh fruit to improve your diet
  • Eat breakfast for a good metabolism
  • Water should be drunk within 30 minutes of waking up
  • Consumption of refined grains should be avoided
  • Control your sugar consumption
  • Avoid alcoholic beverages
  • Limit sugary fruit juices
  • Control your portions

The final result

Losing weight around the belly is not an easy task and it requires a. Lots of dedication and hardware to focus on Exercises on a smaller waist. Getting rid of the belly through cardio exercise takes commitment and consistency, as well as a balanced diet. You need to check the number of calories you are consuming on a daily basis. Limiting yourself from excessive calorie intake and burning calories can help you achieve a smaller waist.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. Which nutritional options can we integrate into our everyday life?

They can include brown rice, oats, and sweet potatoes as they have high nutritional value.

2. What should we avoid with regular exercise?

If you exercise regularly, be sure to limit your sugar and alcohol intake, as well as the addition of preservatives to beverages.

28 Sep
Blog

Logitech MX Keys Mini Review: Like the Original, But Smaller

Logitech MX Keys Mini looks great in graphite.

Logitech MX Keys Mini reviewed: Honey, I made the keyboard smaller

RRP $ 99.00

"The Logitech MX Keys Mini offers the same great typing experience in a smaller, more ergonomic experience."

advantages

  • Comfortable typing experience

  • Compact and lightweight for on the go

  • Ergonomic

  • Advanced features

  • Sustainable design and packaging

disadvantage

  • Expensive

  • Cannot be used as a wired keyboard

How do you improve a near-perfect keyboard? It's a good problem for Logitech with its MX Keys peripheral, which quickly became a fan-favorite keyboard at retailers like Amazon.

Logitech's solution was to bring a more compact version of its critically acclaimed keyboard in the form of the MX Keys Mini and MX Keys Mini for Mac. Both the standard and compact keyboards have similar layouts, with the one made for the Mac edition containing Apple-specific keys such as the option and command keys. Versions with international keyboard layouts will also be available.

It's not for the serious mechanical keyboard enthusiast, but most others will find a lot in what Logitech did with the MX Keys Mini.

draft

Logitech MX Keys Mini offers a more compact design.

Smaller doesn't mean tight. Like the regular MX Keys, the MX Keys Mini has full-size keys for easy typing. To shrink the dimensions of the keyboard – the standard version measures 131.63 x 430.2 x 20.5 mm – Logitech removed essentially everything to the right of the Enter key and repositioned the arrow keys in an inverted T layout. This reduces the width of the MX Keys Mini by 134.21 mm to 295.99 mm.

This is equivalent to a size reduction of just over five and a half inches – or 30%. The compact dimensions make the MX Mini more portable, making it easier to slip into a smaller bag when you need a better keyboard for remote typing. The real benefit, however, is that a narrower keyboard makes typing more ergonomic.

Logitech MX Keys versus new MX Keys Mini.

The new size reduces the weight of the keyboard from 810 grams to 506 grams. Much of the weight is due to the solid construction of the keyboard, which has a full metal shell on the top that surrounds the keys in an island style. There's a thin plastic strip that extends from the top of the keyboard, and this area houses the sensors, battery, and circuitry. The other dimensions have also changed slightly, but are largely similar to the original model.

Like the original, the mini edition has individual keys with a circular indentation on the keycap, a design feature that helps with typing. The chiclet key layout looks a lot more modern than the 1990s-style keycaps on mechanical keyboards, and looks like you could have taken them straight off a laptop. The company claims that the dimple on each key adjusts to your fingertips as you type, and automatic backlighting is available for night work too.

The MX Keys Mini is available in three colors – rose, graphite, and light gray – and features white LED-backlit keys. A built-in battery provides up to 10 days of use on a single charge with the backlight on, or up to five months of no-light use, claims Logitech, and it can be charged using the included USB-C cable. The keyboard version that we received for testing is made of graphite and comes with slightly darker gray keycaps and white lettering.

Our model isn't made for Mac, but it also comes with dual keys that support Mac and Windows – for example, the Apple Option key can be used to activate the Start menu on Windows, while the Command key can also serve as the Alt key on the Microsoft operating system. If you're a Mac user looking to take over the MX Keys Mini, the major downside is that you won't find a Touch ID fingerprint scanner on this third party keyboard.

As part of the company's commitment to sustainability, the MX Keys Mini is made with up to 30% recycled plastic, however the amount of recycled plastic in the lighter shades will be far less than the darker graphite color variant. That's because, according to the company, it's way too difficult to extract and recycle plastics from existing keyboards – which are often made from darker materials – and convert them to lighter colors like those found on the pink and light gray keyboard .

Typing and functions

Logitech MX Keys Mini side profile.

Many of the key functions of the larger MX Keys are carried over to the MX Keys Mini, including the ability to pair and use the keyboard with up to three different Bluetooth devices. The keyboard has alternate keys in the row of functions for switching between devices. Logitech claims the keyboard will work on a wide range of devices including Windows, Mac, Android, Linux, iOS, and iPadOS.

The company will also release a special Enterprise version that uses a more secure and proprietary Logi Bolt connection. This B2B model requires a special USB-A dongle, while the consumer model that you can find in many retail stores works with Bluetooth.

1.8 mm travel is sufficient for long sessions with comfortable typing.

Logitech didn't provide any key travel and pitch specifications for the MX Keys Mini, but they feel no different than the full-size original, advertised as 1.8mm of key travel. This makes the key travel comparable to what you'd find on some larger professional laptops and gaming laptops. Many smaller laptops in the 13-inch range have keys with 1.1 mm to 1.5 mm of travel, while some larger 15-inch notebooks have keyboards with 1.5 to 1.8 mm of travel. In any case, 1.8 mm of travel is sufficient for long sessions with comfortable typing.

For comparison, Apple's newest Magic Keyboard on the MacBook Pro has a 1mm shorter key travel that uses a new scissor switch implementation, while the company's older butterfly keys on some older Intel-model laptops only provided 0.7mm of key travel.

The MX Keys Mini feels like it was made for those who love laptop keyboards but prefer to work at their desks. While my MacBook Pro keyboard feels different when typing – Apple's keys are less stiff and louder – the similarly sized Logitech offers the same ergonomic experience. When I paired the Logitech MX Keys Mini with my Apple Mac Mini on my desk, it really felt like I was working on a mobile workstation.

Logitech MX Keys Mini can be connected to up to three devices.

If you are used to working on a laptop without a built-in numeric keypad, a similar arrangement in an external keyboard makes it easier to customize and helps with ergonomics if you have the right desk setup. An external monitor would be ideal, but even if you choose not to connect a second monitor, putting your laptop on a stand helps as you won't stretch your neck to look at your laptop's screen.

And when you add the right external keyboard to the setup, you get an even more comfortable PC environment with a larger key travel. Moving the keyboard closer to your body can also reduce arm fatigue.

Logitech MX Keys Mini comes with a dedicated emoji key.

And to accommodate more modern communication modes, the MX Keys are also equipped with some special keys that make it easier to get your message across. There's an emoji button that brings up an emoji picker so you can choose the best emoticon to use, for example, to express yourself in an email, and a new dictation button helps you control your operating system's voice-to-text engine to type with your voice.

power

If you consistently work on two or three different devices as part of your workflow, the MX Keys Mini is for you. Pairing multiple devices allows you to connect up to three devices without the need for a KVM switch and also saves desk space as you don't need a separate keyboard for your desktop and a second tablet, like an iPad Pro or SurfacePro 8.

Like its bigger brother, the MX Keys Mini offers a very comfortable typing experience with its full-size keys. Compared to the butterfly key switches on my aging MacBook Pro 13 inch, the keys of the MX Keys Mini are deeper, stiffer (since they require more actuation force) and a little quieter. A quieter keyboard could be useful if you share a small apartment with someone else and prefer to work at night.

The backlight turns on automatically when your hands approach the keyboard.

LED-backlit keys on a wireless keyboard aren't a new technology, but Logitech has made some smart upgrades to make this popular staple even better. Like the backlit keyboard on many modern laptops, the backlight can be adjusted manually – there are six levels of brightness, and you can also turn it off – or automatically based on the ambient light in the room.

Thanks to magnetic sensors, the backlight can also turn on automatically when your hands approach the keyboard. This feature may sound trivial, but it is extremely useful. On other keyboard models, the backlight turns off after a period of inactivity to save battery life. To turn the backlight back on, you need to tap any key on the keyboard randomly to wake it up.

If you press a non-character key, such as the Shift key or the Ctrl key, everything is fine. However, if you tap any of the character keys like a letter, you are accidentally adding gibberish to your open document and will have to delete any additions you made. Distorting the MX Keys Mini's magnetic field to wake up a backlight is an ingenious solution to a problem many didn't even know they had until they started using the Logitech keyboard.

Logitech MX Keys Mini supports Windows and Macs.

Since the keyboard has full-size keys, it didn't take me any time to get used to the keyboard and was able to type accurately and quickly right out of the box. My typing speed and accuracy on this model rivaled that of keyboards on Apple, Lenovos, and HP laptops, and I had no problems with typing accuracy. The deeper key travel feels more similar on Windows laptops than it does on Mac laptops.

As someone who mainly works on a laptop, the biggest criticism of the MX Keys Mini is that the keys feel a little too stiff. While key travel is generous, the Logitech keyboard's keys require greater actuation force before they move. The greater force required to operate it could result in increased finger fatigue, at least until you get used to the keyboard. It took me about a day to acclimate and once I did it, the MX Keys Mini delivered one of the better typing experiences with responsive switches outside of a mechanical keyboard.

Logitech did not provide precise actuation force measurements for the Mini, but in general the typing experience is very similar to that of the larger MX Keys. If you are experienced with the MX Keys you will feel right at home here. Compared to Apple's external Magic Keyboard that comes with the iMac, the MX Keys feel a little quieter when typing and require a little more force to operate.

Mac users who choose this keyboard will have to forego Touch ID support, a feature supported by some of Apple's newer external keyboards. However, this is not limited to Logitech as no third-party Mac keyboards currently support fingerprint recognition on Mac. Since most Windows systems rely on face scanning with Windows Hello, this may be less of a concern for PC owners.

Logitech MX Keys Mini charges via USB-C.

The MX Keys Mini comes with a single USB-C to USB-A cable for charging and can be connected to your PC or Mac via Bluetooth. The Mac edition comes with a USB-C to USB-C cable instead. tThe keyboard's USB-C port is used for charging only and you cannot connect it to your PC to use it as a wired keyboard. You can still charge the battery while using it via Bluetooth.

While I didn't experience any lag or latency from the wireless connection, if you're concerned about Bluetooth security or around, you can also opt for the MX Keys Mini for Business model, which works with Logitech's proprietary Bolt standard Make input delays. Logi Bolt, as it's called, also works with Bluetooth if you don't take the adapter with you when you travel.

In my weeklong review of the MX Keys Mini – this test was done entirely with the MX Keys Mini connected to a MacBook Pro via Bluetooth – I was unable to discharge the battery. During the day the backlight was generally turned off to save power and at night I let the keyboard automatically adjust the backlight to the available ambient lighting.

Despite the added convenience of a narrow keyboard, the MX Keys Mini is not designed for ergonomics.

Compared to a wider, full-size keyboard with a number pad, the MX Keys Mini's narrower keyboard makes working on long documents more convenient, although it may not be the ideal solution for a finance or accounting job. If you work with a lot of numbers or live in Excel spreadsheets, you're better off using a keyboard with a dedicated number pad like the full-size MX keys.

The Logitech team informed me that the narrower dimension was designed for ergonomics. It's supposed to reduce muscle fatigue by reducing your arms spread as widely and resulting in a more natural posture at the desk. But despite the added convenience of a slim keyboard, this keyboard is not designed for the same ergonomics as the split-design keyboard.

Another advanced software-based feature of the MX Keys and MX Keys Mini is called Flow. For Flow you need an MX series mouse, such as the MX Master 3 or MX Master Anywhere. Once these devices are paired on multiple computers, you can essentially copy and paste text, files, and documents between Mac and Windows devices. This helps simplify your workflow so that you don't have to rely on USB drives or cloud storage to access a document that is on another paired device. In practice, it works really well, adding to the support for pairing multiple devices.

Our opinion

Logitech doesn't shy away from experimenting with a proven formula to improve its existing products. By removing its popular MX keys while keeping the keys at full size, the company has made arguably the best keyboards on the market even better by making it more portable and focusing on ergonomics.

are there alternatives

At $ 99, the Logitech MX Keys Mini will cost the same as the full version when shipped next month. So you're making a compromise between ergonomics and a dedicated number pad for entering data in spreadsheets. There are plenty of other wireless and wired keyboards competing in the same place as the Logitech MX Keys series, but keep in mind that you'll be sacrificing some of the more advanced features – deep key travel, flow, and sophisticated backlighting – if you choose for cheaper models.

Some brand competitors include Apple's Magic Keyboard, which sells for the same price, or the new Magic Keyboard with Touch ID, which adds a $ 50 premium. There's also Microsoft's Premium Designer Compact Keyboard, which costs $ 50 less than what Logitech has to offer.

How long it will take?

The MX Keys Mini is covered by Logitech's one-year limited hardware warranty, while the MX Keys Mini for Business with Logi Bolt support has an additional year of support.

A premium keyboard like the MX Keys Mini should last for many years. Unlike a laptop, there aren't many innovations in the keyboard area that will warrant an upgrade to a newer model anytime soon, so this device should last as long as the rechargeable battery can be charged.

Should I buy it?

Although expensive as a Bluetooth accessory, the MX Keys Mini is a solid investment that will help you stay productive and keep your body happy thanks to its thoughtful ergonomic design. It offers the great typing experience that the original MX Keys offered in a more compact package.

Editor's recommendations



31 Aug
Blog

Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Review: The Best for Smaller Wrists

Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 functional picture ..

Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 review: the best Wear OS smartwatch for smaller wrists

RRP $ 249.99

"The Galaxy Watch 4 has great health and fitness tracking capabilities in a comfortable package designed for smaller wrists."

advantages

  • Comfortable fit and size

  • Excellent fitness and health tracking capabilities

  • Seamless pairing with Samsung devices

  • Two days of battery life

disadvantage

  • Tricky digital bezel

  • Automatic exercise tracking can be inconsistent

the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 is the slim brother of the chunkier Watch 4 Classic. With its smaller size and multiple color options, it offers largely the same Wear OS experience as the Classic, but there are a few key differences. It has a digital bezel rather than the physically rotating bezel that the Galaxy Watch series is known for. This reduces part of the overall footprint at the expense of a certain ease of use.

When it comes to features, however, you don't miss a thing. It runs Wear OS 3 and comes with health and fitness tracking features like blood oxygen, heart rate and BMI. You also get a full set of Google Play Store apps including Spotify, YouTube Music, Google Maps, Samsung Pay, and more. All of this leaves you with one of the best Android smartwatches for smaller wrist sizes at the expense of easy control.

Watch 4 vs. Watch 4 ClassicAjay Kumar / Digital Trends

Design and comfort

The Galaxy Watch 4 is much less of a wrist giant than the Watch 4 Classic, which makes it seem more like the spiritual (and physical) successor to the fitness-focused Active range. There are two size options, 40mm and 44mm, and the screen sizes are pretty much the same as the Classic, with the smaller Watch 4 having a 1.2-inch screen and the 44mm having a 1.4-inch screen. There are several color options including black, silver, green, and rose gold. My test device was black.

I got the larger 44mm Watch 4 for testing, even though my wrist is on the narrower side to take advantage of the slightly larger screen size – and possibly battery life. At 30.3 grams, it is a good deal lighter than the 52-gram Watch 4 Classic and fits comfortably thanks to the silicone strap supplied. Carrying, exercising, and sleeping with it all day was perfectly comfortable. Since it's IP68 there is no need to worry about water or dust, so I never felt the need to take it off and often even forgot it was on my wrist.

The most notable change is that the Watch 4 has a digital bezel instead of a physically rotating one. The screen sits flush with the aluminum case, but there is a black bezel that surrounds it along with two shank buttons that you can use to return to the home screen or reopen a previously opened app.

If you want to scroll through apps or the different tiles, you can swipe your finger on the bezel and in theory it should recreate the same effect as rotating the physical bezel with haptics.

Galaxy Watch 4 Classic and Watch 4 side by side.Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

Unfortunately, in practice it was never very accurate. Maybe my fingers are just too inelegant, but trying to scroll with the digital bezel was awkward and picky at best. All of this gives more credibility to my personal belief that physical buttons and controls are almost always superior to “fake” capacitive ones that try to haptically recreate them. Most of the time I only used the touchscreen.

On the plus side, the screen is crisp at 450 × 450, which translates to 330 pixels per inch. The AMOLED panel looks great in all settings and is bright enough for outdoor use. I wasn't worried about durability either, as the screen is protected by Gorilla Glass DX + and has weathered a few accidental drops and hits without scratching.

software

With the merging of Samsung Tizen and Google's Wear OS platform into Wear OS 3, the Watch 4 is one of the best smartwatches I've used in terms of consistency and ease of use. In many ways, Samsung's Tizen dominates the user interface with the different tiles you can set up to show what's important to you, tons of watch face options with as many or as few complications as you want, and solid and improved app support on Google Play Store . Bixby is there if you want to use voice commands, but I've never found much use for it. The initial pairing is simple and automatically imports things like alarms and Do Not Disturb settings from your phone.

However, getting notifications when first set up was tricky. I couldn't always count on messages to come from Teams, Slack, Signal, or Discord. After a software update, the notifications became much more reliable and I haven't noticed any missing notifications lately.

The Watch 4 is one of the best smartwatches I've used in terms of consistency and ease of use.

Apps like Spotify and YouTube Music support offline listening mode, so you can leave your phone at home while jogging. You also have media controls for most apps, including Audible, Netflix, and Pocket Casts. One app I used a lot was Google Maps. You can enter directions using the keyboard or use voice commands and have the Watch 4 give you directions. It's great for saving you the hassle of looking at your phone on the go.

See 4 directions on the map.

Ajay Kumar / Digital Trends

Check out 4 Spotify playlists.

Ajay Kumar / Digital Trends

Take a look at 4 media controls.

Ajay Kumar / Digital Trends

The only complaint I have is that not everything is in the Galaxy Wearable app. You'll need to use the app to initially set up the watch, select watch faces, control watch settings and the quick control panel, and find the watch. However, to get all the details of your fitness and health data, you need the Samsung Health app, which gives you access to sleep and stress tracking, steps, heart rate and more. Finally, for electrocardiogram (EKG) measurements, all you need to do is download the Samsung Health Monitor app and grant permissions, which you can download from the Galaxy Store.

That brings you a total of three apps to take full advantage of the Watch 4, and I wonder why Samsung doesn't put it all in Galaxy Wearable or Health. It's a lot of unnecessary app clutter. There are also some individual permissions that have to be granted in order to be able to use certain functions.

Health and Fitness Tracking

You won't be disappointed with the comprehensive suite of health and fitness tracking features included in the Watch 4. In terms of what it can measure, it is a closer competitor to smart scales than other smartwatches on the market.

The big unique measurement here is body composition. The Watch 4 can measure an impressive range of statistics including body mass index (BMI), basal metabolic rate (BMR), weight, muscle mass, fat mass and body fat. You measure by sliding the smartwatch further up on your wrist, placing your elbow on the table, and then pressing your fingers against the two shank buttons without touching your wrist. It's a cumbersome gesture and not very comfortable to hold for the time it takes to process the results.

Once you get the results there are lots of numbers, and as you can see in the screenshots below, it doesn't really offer much of a breakdown or explanation of what it all actually means. You will need to do your own research to find out if the statistics provided by Body Composition are good or bad and for actionable advice. That would have been a nice feature in the Samsung Health app, and I'm surprised at the missed opportunity as other measurements like sleep and stress tracking offer advice on how to improve it.

With sleep tracking, the Watch 4 neatly breaks down your sleep cycle in the Samsung Health app and gives you a sleep score, shows sleep stages such as REM sleep, tracks blood oxygen and records snoring and even calories burned. It was an excellent way to assess the quality of my sleep, especially on the unfortunately frequent nights I suffered from insomnia.

Stress tracking doesn't throw so many numbers at you, it simply records your stress level on a graph and color-coded bar. It's hard to say how accurate it is. It often told me that I wasn't very stressed when I was under a barrage of work and told me that I was very stressed when I sat down and watched Castlevania on Netflix. As much as I like Trevor Belmont and Alucard, I don't think either of them caused me much stress.

Other tracking features are pretty standard. You get step and workout tracking with a variety of exercises like running, walking, biking, swimming, circuit training, rowing, weight machines, treadmills, and more. There is both automatic and manual exercise tracking, but the Watch 4 is pretty decent when it comes to walking and running.

Watch 4 heart rate monitoring.

Ajay Kumar / Digital Trends

Watch the training with 4 rowing machines.

Ajay Kumar / Digital Trends

It had more trouble noticing when I was using my rowing machine, often being 10 minutes in my workout before noticing. The first few times I had to start it manually before it finally started getting what I was doing. However, it has a bad habit of ending my session early and I couldn't quite figure out why.

With sleep tracking, the Watch 4 neatly breaks down your sleep cycle in the Samsung Health app.

There is also a heart rate monitor and an electrocardiogram (EKG) that you can use to keep track of your vital signs. The EKG requires the separate download of the Samsung Health Monitor, which gives you up to three apps to fully use the Watch 4.

The EKG measurement takes about 30 seconds and requires you to place your finger on one of the button noses. The measurement is not intended for diagnosing a heart attack, but it does tell you if you have atrial fibrillation. It's useful enough in that regard, but not really something I would measure every day as the heart rate monitor automatically keeps track of things.

Performance and battery

The Watch 4 is powered by an Exynos W920 processor and has 1.5 GB of RAM and 16 GB of internal storage. This results in fast and responsive apps and measurements. I never noticed any lagging or hanging like you might on certain older generation smartwatches. It's also nice to see the 5nm processor finally reaching wearables after years of hardware stagnation in the smartwatch space.

The battery life is great, at least when compared to the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic. With average use, I reliably got two days out of the battery, which included training on the rowing machine for 40 minutes, a walk in the park, sleep tracking, Spotify and general daily monitoring. It took just under two hours to fully charge from 1%. Instead of filling it up overnight, I usually only plugged the Watch 4 in when showering and I never ran out of juice.

Price and availability

the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 is available at the following prices depending on size and model:

  • 40mm Bluetooth / WiFi: $ 250
  • 44mm Bluetooth / Wi-Fi: $ 280
  • 40mm 4G LTE: $ 300
  • 44mm 4G LTE: $ 330

Most models will be delivered in mid-September.

Our opinion

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 is packed with features and has plenty to please Android users. With its sleeker design and more color options, it's more fashionable than the bulky Watch 4 Classic, although it does make some compromises in terms of usability. The health and fitness tracking features are impressive, especially body composition, although there is room for improvement. Wear OS 3 is smooth and responsive, and the issues it encountered the first time seem to be steadily being fixed. If you're looking for a comfortable, feature-rich smartwatch, you won't go wrong with the Galaxy Watch 4.

Is there a better alternative?

If you're an iPhone user, the obvious choices are the Apple Watch Series 6 and Apple Watch SE. They incorporate the best of the iOS ecosystem, are high quality, and come with most or all of the same features as the Watch 4. While it is possible to use Android smartwatches on iOS, the setup and integration are not perfect and you will be missing out on a lot of features.

For Android users, the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic is our top pick, with the Watch 4 right next to it for people with smaller wrists willing to forego the convenience of the physical bezel. However, there are other Android smartwatch options like the Mobvoi TicWatch Pro 3 and the TicWatch E3, both of which will get Wear OS 3 sometime next year. But the Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic are both newer. So if you want the latest and greatest, you are better off with them.

How long it will take?

The Galaxy Watch 4 comes with a standard one year warranty. It's dust and waterproof to IP68 and rated up to 5ATM, which means it can survive 10 minutes at a depth of 50 meters. It's also MIL-STD-810G certified, which means it has passed a series of laboratory tests for shock and vibration resistance. The included sports armband also seems to be made of good, high-quality silicone that does not stick after training. After all, Wear OS 3 is the latest software for smartwatches, and you're sure to get more updates, so I expect it to last at least two years, if not longer.

Should you buy it?

Yes sir. The Galaxy Watch 4 is the best Wear OS smartwatch for people with narrow wrists. It has the same great health and fitness tracking features as the Watch 4 Classic, but with a lower starting price and two days of battery life. While the digital bezel isn't nearly as precise as the physical dial, the slimmer and more comfortable design makes it a worthwhile compromise.

Editor's recommendations



27 Jun
Blog

Sony WF-1000XM4 Review: Smaller, Better in Almost Every Way

Sony WF-1000XM4

"With a completely new design and many improvements, they are hard to beat."

  • Great sound quality

  • Good battery life

  • Great noise cancellation

  • LDAC bluetooth codec

  • Wireless charging

  • May not fit small ears

  • Something is missing in high-end details

Sony's highly anticipated successor to its highly rated WF-1000XM3 True Wireless Noise-Canceling Earbuds is finally here: The WF-1000XM4 is priced at $ 280, and it even addresses our very few criticisms of the XM3 with a slew of improvements – some big, some small.

Has Sony set a new benchmark for the true wireless world yet again, or is there still work to be done? Let's get into that.

Video review

What's in the box

Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

First of all, kudos to Sony for developing packaging that should be adopted as the industry standard. The XM4 comes in a tiny box that avoids all of the flashy lettering and glossy prints you see on boxes from companies like JBL and Soundcore. This allows each piece to be recycled or composted.

The only hint of plastic is in the thin outer packing tape that holds the two halves of the box together. Once opened, there's no way to close it again, but I'll bet most people toss their earbud packs away anyway, which is really the whole point.

Inside you will find the WF-1000XM4 already stowed in its charging case, a short USB-C charging cable, two additional sizes of foam earplugs (the media are pre-installed) and a printed manual.

design

Sony WF-1000XM4 vs WF-1000XM3Sony WF-1000XM3 (left) and WF-1000XM4 Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

As much as we praise the WF-1000XM3, they always had one big caveat: they are some of the bulkiest buds you can buy that aren't specifically designed for aggressive training. This applies to the earphones and their charging case with a copper tip.

The WF-1000XM4 earbuds are 10% smaller than the XM3, which is good, but not earth-shattering. The charging case, on the other hand, is 40% smaller and now also offers wireless charging as an option. This is a big deal. The case still isn't small for AirPods Pro, but it's not the weird man anymore when you look at the rest of the real wireless options. I can now conveniently call it a pocket bag – which I can't say about the XM3.

The touch-sensitive interfaces are now much easier to type.

The case lid opens easily and stays open on its own until you close it, which it does with a satisfactory click. But getting the earbuds is surprisingly tedious compared to the XM3 due to the incredibly strong magnets and the narrow shape of the charging port. On the plus side, these magnets also grab the earbuds as soon as they get close to the jacks and reinsert them immediately and safely.

The other big change is the shape of the earbuds themselves. For years Sony has used the same capsule shape for its true wireless earbuds, with most of the case sticking out clearly from your ear. For the XM4, Sony designers tried something completely different and created a more compact, rounded case that fits much tighter. It looks a lot better in my opinion, although there may be some disagreement about the look of the prominent copper-capped microphone housings. And not just optically: The touch-sensitive user interface now takes up almost 100% of the exposed part of the earphone, which makes typing more easy. With the XM3, you had to make sure your fingers were connected to a small touch-sensitive circle.

I'm not a fan of touch controls in general, but the XM4 could turn me into a convert.

It's also worth noting that with the XM3, Sony fixed one of our other small flaws: the lack of water resistance. With an IPX4 rating, the XM4 are officially sweatproof for the gym or wherever you want to take them with you.

Comfort, controls and connections

Sony WF-1000XM4Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

I find the WF-1000XM4 quite comfortable to wear, but I'm not sure everyone will agree. The new shape is designed to fit inside your concha – the cavity that leads to the ear canal. But the XM4 are pretty big. If you have small ears, you may not be able to put them in all the way. The XM3, in comparison, has a much smaller "footprint" in the concha, to use an awkward metaphor.

The XM4 feels bigger to my ears than most of its top competitors, including the Jabra Elite 85t, Apple AirPods Pro, Master & Dynamic MW08, and JBL Tour Pro +.

The foam earplugs adapt to the shape of your ear better than silicone: you don't have to struggle to find a suitable set.

If your ears can accommodate the larger shape of the XM4, you will be rewarded with a very secure fit. There's a lot of surface contact, and once in place, it's not going anywhere. They inspire much more confidence than their predecessors.

While the XM3 was available with silicone earplugs, the XM4 only comes with memory foam. They mold to your ear shape better than silicone, which means you probably won't have to struggle as much to find a set that fits. But they also create a stronger feeling of having an object in the ear canal, and they degrade faster than silicone.

I'm generally not a fan of touch controls, but the XM4 could turn me into a convert. The generous size of the touchpad makes typing easy, accurate and fast.

I'm less enthusiastic about Sony's control customization scheme that it has retained from the XM3. The headphones app groups the controls by function: environment, playback, volume and none. Since each earbud can only be assigned to one control group, you have to select your two favorites. Do you want to control playback and volume? You cannot change the ANC mode. Like ANC control and also playback? Volume is no longer available. JBL does the same, so this situation isn't unique to Sony, but I would prefer more flexibility à la carte.

At least for Android users there is a workaround. The XM4 enables wake word access to both Google Assistant and Alexa when using a phone with Android 6 or higher. Each of these voice assistants can adjust the volume for you. So when you choose playback and environment for your physical controls, you can always say, "Alexa, turn up the volume."

Wear sensors let you pause and resume playback automatically whenever you remove or reinsert the earbuds, and they work really well and are quick to respond to changes. If it bothers you, you can turn it off in the headphones app.

The frequency response is strong end to end and the bass has incredible depth.

The XM4's excellent bluetooth connection works very smoothly and allowed me to place 12 or 15 meters between the earbuds and my phone before the connection started shaking. In contrast to the XM3, which occasionally gave me tiny dropouts of half a second, the XM4 never missed a blow. I just wish Sony had found a way to incorporate bluetooth multipoint that allows you to connect the earbuds to two devices at the same time. Sony's full-size WH-1000XM4 can do this, but it's still a rarity in the world of earbuds.

Sound quality

Sony WF-1000XM4Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

The WF-1000XM4 sounds great. The frequency response is strong end to end and the bass has incredible depth. I guarantee that whoever uses them will enjoy their rich and full sound signature.

But as I jumped back and forth between the XM4 and XM3, something became clear: the XM3s show clearer upper mids and high frequencies, which give the vocals a little more presence. It also adds a level of power that the XM4 seems to lack.

These observations are based on factory settings without EQ adjustments in the Sony Headphones app. Switching the XM4 to “Bright” or “Treble Boost” helps a little, but even then I think the XM3 is better overall for clarity.

Will you notice if you just hear the XM4? I doubt it. It's only when you put the two of them next to each other and listen to each other track by track that it really becomes clear.

The XM4 are the first true Sony wireless earbuds to support the company's high quality LDAC Bluetooth codec. In theory at least, you should use it to reproduce far more nuances than the XM3, which only works with the much lower SBC and AAC codecs. In addition, the XM4 features DSEE Extreme, Sony's latest version of its excellent digital signal processing technology, which can upscale compressed digital music such as MP3s to a far higher quality.

To be clear, the difference between these two siblings is really a matter of taste. The XM4 does a better job of low-end details that you can really hear when songs layer the bass guitar, drums, and low-end synthesizer. Too often these elements get smeared together, but the XM4 lets you hear them clearly which is a real delight. So think of the XM4 as an alternate take on Sony's superb sound quality, but aimed at those who want to hear extra detail at the bottom.

Noise cancellation and transparency

Sony WF-1000XM4Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

Sony's noise cancellation technology has always been great, and the WF-1000XM4 manages to improve on it. Sony claims that the built-in V1 processor chip in the XM4 improves the XM3's ANC performance across the board, reducing external noise across the audible spectrum. I tend to agree.

The XM4s aren't just better at masking sound; they're better at making it invisible.

One of my benchmark tests for ANC is running my loud bathroom fan, which makes both low-pitched and high-pitched noise. Then I turn ANC on and off to hear the differences and repeat the process at different distances. The XM4 is an ace in this test, killing almost 90% of fan noise at 3 feet and 100% when I'm sitting right in front of the bathroom.

But the XM4s aren't just better at masking sound; they're better at making it invisible. Some ANC systems kill external noises but introduce new ones, such as: B. a low hiss that can be heard when no music is playing. The XM4's ANC system is very quiet, which is what you need when you need to concentrate in a noisy environment and don't want music to drown out these noises.

Apple's AirPods Pro have built a solid lead over the WF-1000XM3 in this area, but the XM4 has once again leveled the playing field. But the XM4 is still not as effective at suppressing wind noise as the AirPods Pro, even with Sony's optional wind noise reduction system.

The transparency mode is also more convenient to use thanks to the new talk-to-chat function. It uses sensors to find out when you are speaking and automatically turns on transparency mode while you pause your music. I thought it worked really well. The headphones app lets you toggle them on and off, adjust the sensitivity, and decide how long to keep the transparency on after it detects your voice.

Battery life

Sony WF-1000XM4Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

When fully charged, Sony claims eight hours of playtime with the ANC on and an impressive 12 hours when it is off – a large increase over the XM3's six and eight hour capacity, respectively. Several features, like wake word access to voice assistants and wind noise cancellation, will reduce these numbers, but by and large I found them to be correct.

The XM4 also gets a faster quick charge option: a five minute quick charge adds another hour to playtime, while the XM3 took 10 minutes to gain 90 minutes of playtime. The charging case contains enough juice for two full charges, which gives a total listening time of at least 24 hours before you have to go looking for a power outlet or a wireless charging mat.

Compatibility with voice assistants

Sony has always been agnostic about voice assistants on their headphones: you can use your phone's built-in assistant or switch to Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant.

Android users even get something that was a rarity with wireless earbuds: the ability to trigger Alexa or Google Assistant by simply saying their wake-up words. I've tried both assistants and it works just as well as the Google Pixel Buds or the Amazon Echo Buds, with each assistant responding quickly and accurately to my voice commands.

Call quality

Sony WF-1000XM4Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

Calling up the WF-1000XM4 is good. Most competing noises, such as traffic, are effectively neutralized, as is wind noise, which was a weakness of the WF-1000XM3. It's not perfect: when the earbuds try to correct for those external noises – especially wind – it can make it sound like you're talking through multiple layers of fabric. But since that's preferable to the annoying whistling of the wind, I think it's an improvement.

During a call, the earbuds automatically deactivate ANC, but you can still turn it back on or switch to transparency mode, which is not possible with all earbuds during a call.

Our opinion

Sony has taken the already excellent WF-1000XM3 and made significant improvements across the board with the new WF-1000XM4. While the new shape can cause some fit issues for some, they are some of the best true wireless earbuds you can buy.

Is there a better alternative?

Function by function, it's hard to find a range of wireless earbuds that can really compete with the WF-1000XM4, but there are better options for certain functions.

The AirPods Pro and Bose QuietComfort earbuds are better for ANC and transparency, with the Bose shining particularly brightly for call quality.

The Master & dynamic MW08 deliver a more nuanced sound quality with better clarity.

And now that Sony is still selling that WF-1000XM3 For a discounted price of $ 180, they're still worth considering if you're okay with some missing features like wireless charging and water resistance.

How long will they last?

Sony backs the WF-1000XM4 with a one year warranty, but I expect they will last for many years. Both the processing quality and the materials are excellent. The foam earbuds will likely need to be replaced every six months with regular daily wear, but this is not uncommon.

Should you buy it?

Absolutely. If you are looking for wireless earbuds with fantastic features, great ANC, and fantastic sound quality, you can't go wrong with the WF-1000XM4.

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