(Pocket-lint) – It’s safe to say that the TWS (or True Wireless) earbuds market has grown phenomenally over the past few years. Thanks mostly to the huge popularity of Apple’s AirPods and AirPods Pro.
Just because they’re the market leaders doesn’t make them the only options worth considering. Samsung’s Galaxy Buds+ are a decent shout too. Especially if you’re not an iPhone user. Hopefully by the end of this and having watched our video below we’ll help you decide whether the AirPods Pro or Galaxy buds+ are the best option for you.
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Design
Buds+: 17.5 x 19.2 x 22.5mm
AirPods Pro: 30.9 x 21.8 x 24mm
Buds+: IPX2 splash resistant
AirPods Pro: IPX4 water resistant
At the design stage there might be something here that makes you choose one over the other. Samsung’s Galaxy Buds are a neat little rounded triangle shape, but have subtle built-in fins to help keep them in your ears, plus a silicone tip to create a seal within your ear to cut out some noise from outside.
If you’re after a pair that stays in while you’re running or working out, this is going to be your best bet. But, we’ve the found design of the tips and earphones isn’t quite comfortable enough to wear for long periods.
Apple’s AirPods Pro also have the silicon tips to help create that seal in the ear – but they’re a little less secure, so not really great for working out. They seem more comfortable over longer stints though.
We didn’t find that either of them fell out of the ears during everyday listening, while commuting or walking. The AirPods are light enough that they sit pretty well-balanced in the ear.
The charging case
Buds+: USB Type-C wired and Qi wireless charging
AirPods: Lightning wired and Qi wireless charging
Both come with a charging case, and despite being different shapes and sizes, they’re both neat and portable and made from glossy plastic.
The AirPods Pro case charges using either a Lightning cable (the same as the iPhone) or you can use a wireless charger. Samsung’s uses either a USB Type-C cable or wireless charging. So either way, they’re as convenient as each other to top up on the go.
Sound and noise cancelling
Buds+: Ambient noise mode
AirPods Pro: Adaptive Noise Cancelling
AirPods Pro is by far the best pair for noise cancelling. Once in the ears, it’s almost as if they close you in a noiseless bubble, even when there’s no music playing.
They’re great for ensuring you can hear your music as intended when on busy trains or on a plane. It’s also constantly monitoring and analysing external noise and adjusting to match, as well as using an internal mic to detect any leakage and adjusting the sound to compensate.
There’s a transparency mode you can use on the AirPods Pro, but you can’t really adjust it. It’s one setting, and it works well for hearing traffic and platform announcements.
Samsung provides something of a passive shield against the noise around you, although they don’t have any active noise cancelling. Walking near a busy road, they do a good job of cutting out the ambient noise, and they have a really effective ambient mode that lets you choose how much external noise you want to let in using microphones on the exterior.
As for sound quality overall, we like Samsung’s approach of using the app to adjust the sound. Set to ‘Normal’, the Samsung seems a bit more bassy and full than the AirPods, but then you can change it to be more treble heavy, clearer, or add even more bass. The Samsung headphones sound a bit harsher, with a slightly boomy bass. It’s not that it’s bad at all, but to our ears, we didn’t enjoy it quite as much as the AirPods.
The AirPods Pro sound good. You get a bit less bass overall, but it’s better controlled and the sound overall seems a bit clearer with tighter treble. There’s really not a lot in it though, and we think you’d enjoy listening to either of these two.
Battery life
Buds+: 11 hours playback out of case (22 hours total)
AirPods: 4.5 hours playback out of case (24 hours total)
Looking at the ever important battery life, and when it comes to pure out-of-the-case longevity, there’s one winner here: Galaxy Buds+.
They can play music constantly for up to 11 hours before needing to be plonked back in the case again. They have one single charge in the case, meaning you’ll get a maximum of 22 hours before needing to charge the case.
AirPods Pro max out at 4.5 hours in one stretch, with 24 in total including the case. Overall, the listening time – including the battery case is similar – for both of them.
But, if you regularly go more than 4-5 hours in one sitting where you need to be taking calls or listening to music, the Galaxy Buds+ are best, when used in stereo.
Convenience, control and features
If you’re an Apple user, there’s added convenience to using AirPods. That H1 chip inside means that once it’s paired with one of your Apple devices, it’s paired with all of them. Of course, you can pair AirPods with Android phones too, it’s just not as convenient as with an iPhone. One of the other benefits of AirPods however is that you can take them out and the music will stop automatically.
Samsung’s don’t seem to do that at all. In our testing, they just kept playing in both earbuds whether you had both of them out of your ears or not.
Apple AirPods also have the convenience of being able to use one at a time, so you can just use the right one for a long call, and if the battery runs out, put the left one in and seamlessly switch.
Samsung offers a bit more control overall using the app, where you can set the sound profile, see the battery level and choose ambient noise, and use it to find your earphones when lost.
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Price
Galaxy Buds+: £159
AirPods Pro: £249
On the whole, it may come down to price for you. Galaxy Buds are £159 and include the wireless charging case.
AirPods Pro are the more advanced, in terms of noise cancelling and wireless connectivity, and cost £249, also with a wireless charging case. Comfortably more than Galaxy Buds+ and that’s quite a difference.
So, if you’re in the Apple ecosystem and want that advanced noise cancelling and convenience, or even if you’re not and just want a good pair of noise cancelling in-ears, it may just be worth it for you.
If you just want a solid pair of buds to listen to music with, Samsung will save you a lot of money.
Instagram wants more people to go live at once, so today, it’s launching Live Rooms. The feature, which will be available globally, allows four people to video chat in a live broadcast, compared to the previous limit of two. Instagram’s blog post today says it hopes the feature encourages people to start a “talk show or a podcast,” host a “jam session,” or collaborate with other creators.
Going live with more people means the rooms could attract larger audiences. The followers of everyone participating will see the live room and, depending on their notifications, be pinged about it. (Anyone blocked by the active participants won’t be able to join the live, though.)
The easy comparison to make here is to Clubhouse, the buzzy social audio app that lets people go live in rooms. More than 10 people can speak at once, and rooms can reach up to 8,000 people before they’re full. Facebook is reportedly building a direct competitor, but Instagram Live could capture some people who might be interested in Clubhouse but can’t access it currently — it’s invite-only and only available through iOS devices.
But unlike Clubhouse, Instagram Live requires people to be on-camera, which comes with the added pressure of looking good and being in a photogenic environment. Clubhouse is thriving because it only requires a phone and lowers the audio expectation. (People regularly chat when they’re in the car, out on a walk, or just in a loud place.) Still, Live Rooms will likely do well on the platform as people fall back on their already-established followers and bank on the high energy more people in a room can create.
The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 is beautiful, bold, and totally functional.
Samsung’s flagship Chromebook is less expensive and better than before
I’ll spare you the suspense: the battery life is good.
It’s not incredible. The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 is far from the longest-lasting Chromebook I’ve ever tested. But after last year’s Samsung Galaxy Chromebook couldn’t even make it five hours on a charge, my expectations were on the floor. I performed my first battery test on this year’s sequel in an optimistic but nervous state. Finally, several months after the Chromebook 2 was announced, I’m breathing a sigh of relief. To repeat: the battery life is not a disaster, folks. The battery life is fine.
That’s sort of the theme of this machine. There are a couple of standout features, and the rest of it is fine. And I’m very happy with that.
Samsung’s Galaxy Chromebook, released almost a year ago, was a high-risk, high-reward play. There were a number of fantastic features, some of which (the OLED screen, the built-in S Pen, the 0.38-inch-thick chassis) were so fancy it was shocking to see them on a Chromebook. But two of its features were significant problems: the $999 price tag (putting the device in competition with the likes of the MacBook Air), and the battery life.
The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 (which isn’t so much a sequel to the Galaxy Chromebook as it is a more affordable alternative) lacks some of the Galaxy Chromebook’s most ambitious features. The stylus, the fingerprint sensor, and the OLED panel have all disappeared. But in their place are all-day battery life and a sub-$700 price tag. In doing so, it makes its case not as a groundbreaking Chromebook of the future, but as a device you might actually want to buy today.
With colors like these, who needs OLED?
From afar, the Galaxy Chromebook 2 looks fairly similar to the Galaxy Chromebook. That’s a compliment — the Galaxy Chromebook’s striking design was one of its biggest selling points. The Chromebook 2 comes in a bold “fiesta red” color, which is a cross between bright red and bright orange. You certainly don’t see Chromebooks of this hue every day, and it’ll turn heads if you’re sitting in public. (You can also buy this in “mercury gray” if you’re boring.)
Pick the thing up, and you’ll start to see where Samsung has cut some corners. It’s thicker and heavier than its predecessor, at 0.55 inches thick and 2.71 pounds, respectively. It’s still plenty light, though it’s a bit hefty to hold as a tablet for long periods. With square edges, it also has a blockier vibe, and the finish feels a bit plasticky and is quite a fingerprint magnet (though the prints are easy to wipe off if you have a cloth on hand).
None of these changes are massive knocks against the Galaxy Chromebook 2, though, especially at this price point. It still looks quite nice, and the aluminum chassis is sturdy. There’s little to no flex in the display or keyboard, and while I saw a bit of screen wobble while typing and using the touchscreen, it wasn’t too distracting. This is where the Chromebook 2 has an advantage over our current top pick, the Acer Chromebook Spin 713. That device is bulkier than Samsung’s, quite bland in its design, and has a bit more flex in its keyboard and screen.
The really big chassis downgrade Samsung has made is in the display. The Galaxy Chromebook has a 4K OLED panel that’s absolutely beautiful but, to be honest, not necessary for the majority of people. Instead, the Chromebook 2 is the first Chromebook ever to feature a QLED panel. QLED panels aren’t OLED, despite the name similarity; they’re LED-backlit LCD screens that use Samsung’s quantum-dot technology.
But OLED or not OLED, this is still one of the best displays I’ve ever seen on a Chromebook. It’s gorgeous. Colors were vibrant and accurate, with solid contrast and fine details. This machine is great to watch videos on. It is glossy and kicks back some glare but nothing that was too distracting. The other disappointment is that it’s 16:9 (1920 x 1080 resolution). The Chromebook Spin 713 also has a very nice panel at the roomier 3:2 aspect ratio. But on the whole, the Chromebook 2 looks great. Its speakers sound quite good as well, making for a solid entertainment device all around.
I’ll admit that the keyboard took some getting used to. It’s flatter than some of the best Chromebook keyboards I’ve used, including that of Google’s Pixelbook Go. But it does have a nice key texture with a click that’s satisfying but not too loud. I was enjoying it after a few days into my testing. In terms of ports, you get two USB-C ports (one on each side — bonus points for convenient charging!), a microSD slot, and a headphone jack. The one thing I’d wish for is a USB-A, but I know I’m fighting a losing battle there.
As I noted before, the Chromebook 2 is missing some of the snazzier features you’ll see on more expensive devices (including the Galaxy Chromebook). The most significant is that there’s no biometric authentication on this; it’s password-only, and I do miss the convenience of the fingerprint reader on its predecessor. (If you’re super anti-password, you could, technically, pair the Chromebook to an Android phone and unlock it with that phone’s biometrics.)
Another thing you don’t get is a bundled stylus. The Galaxy Chromebook shipped with a nice pen, which lived in a tiny garage in the chassis. The Chromebook 2 is compatible with USI pens, but you’ll have to store them separately. And there’s no camera on the keyboard deck, something a number of recent Chromebooks have included to allow for easy front-facing photos while in tablet mode.
But while those features are all nice bonuses, they likely won’t impact the average user’s experience too much. And at the $549 to $699 price points, I’m not enraged by their absence.
Pretty chassis with no stylus garage in sight.
You can buy the Galaxy Chromebook 2 with one of two processors: the starting $549.99 configuration includes an Intel Celeron 5205U with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, and the $699.99 model (which I received) includes a Core i3-10110U, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage.
In my first hands-on with this device, I was hesitant about the base configuration. Despite the appealing price, a Celeron with 4GB of RAM is quite an entry-level system, and I generally wouldn’t recommend it for anyone who needs their device to do school or office work. However, I now think there’s one compelling use case for the Celeron model: a Netflix machine. If you don’t plan on using the Galaxy Chromebook 2 as a primary driver but want to take advantage of the QLED screen for entertainment, you can probably get away with the $549 price. (Everyone else should probably spring for the Core i3.)
The Core i3 is a step down from the Core i5, the processor that powered the Galaxy Chromebook. But like an OLED screen, that processor is overkill for many Chrome OS tasks. As I used the Chromebook 2 to send emails, fiddle with spreadsheets, write in Google Docs, stream Spotify, and do other standard work, I didn’t notice any performance issues. I also never felt any heat in the keyboard, the touchpad, or the bottom of the deck. (The Galaxy Chromebook 2 has a fan, which some thin Chromebooks don’t.)
Battery life, as mentioned, is quite acceptable. I averaged 7 hours and 21 minutes of continuous work at 50 percent brightness, sometimes using a mix of Chrome and Android apps and sometimes sticking mostly to Chrome. The Chromebook 2 does take a bit of time to charge, though. It only juiced up to 54 percent in an hour.
Where the system lagged was in tasks that leverage the internal storage. The Galaxy Chromebook 2 has eMMC storage, which is considerably slower than the SSD you’ll find in most laptops. The process of getting a batch of around 100 photos from a camera into Adobe Lightroom just dragged. It took so long that, several times, I considered aborting the mission and hopping over to my MacBook. I ran AndroBench to confirm that the storage was the issue, and the results were… not great. To be clear, eMMC isn’t a huge knock against a Chromebook at this price, but it is a spec I’d stay away from if you’ll need to do anything with photos or other tasks that involve writing files to the drive.
Great for lighter loads, meh for more.
Finally, I think this is my first Chromebook testing period where I haven’t run into any big hiccups with Chrome OS. The operating system itself has been smooth for a while, but I’ve run into all kinds of issues with Android apps (one of the OS’s big selling points) in the past. No major problems here, though: nothing crashed, nothing bricked the device, nothing randomly changed size, nothing disappeared during tablet-mode transitions. That’s a welcome relief.
Your experience with Android apps on the Galaxy Chromebook 2 will vary widely based on the app. I generally used them to keep distractions like Twitter separate from my browser where I was working. Some popular services, such as Podcast Addict and 1Weather, don’t have great browser equivalents, so it’s handy to be able to load those apps through Chrome OS. But on net, I found that the apps I used for stuff every day — Slack, Messenger, Google Docs, Reddit, Twitter, Gmail — were either equivalent to or worse than their browser counterparts. The Android interfaces were generally slower to update and still had some kinks to work out. (You can’t click and drag to highlight in Docs, for example.) Slack also wouldn’t let me clear my status icon and occasionally sent me multiple pings for the same message. And Facebook Messenger occasionally refused to minimize, and also sent me huge dumps of notifications each morning from conversations I’d had on my phone the previous night. If you run into issues with Android apps, you can use the web app versions, which mostly work great.
In comparing the Chromebook 2 to the market, the most prominent competitor that comes to mind is Google’s Pixelbook Go. It offers similar benefits (an attractive design, decent battery life, a portable build) with similar caveats (no biometric authentication, no built-in stylus). But as of this writing, the $649 Pixelbook Go configuration comes with only 64GB of storage and an older Core m3 chip. So while there are reasons certain folks might prefer Google’s device (it has a better keyboard, it’s thinner and lighter), I think the $699 Galaxy Chromebook 2 is the better value among the two. For just $50 more, you get a better processor, more storage and RAM, a brilliant color, a convertible build, and a spectacular screen.
A $549 Chromebook that looks like a thousand bucks.
A more difficult comparison is the convertible Chromebook Spin 713. For $70 less, you can get that system with a Core i5, an NVMe SSD, a better port selection that includes USB-A and HDMI, and a 3:2 screen that’s also excellent. On the whole, Acer’s device still offers better value for the average person. That said, there’s a valid reason some people may want to splurge on the Galaxy: looks. The Spin 713, like a number of Chromebooks that are great on the inside, looks like something that you’d see on a middle school laptop cart. Pared-down as it is, the Galaxy Chromebook 2 is still a Samsung device: it asks a premium for hardware that’s beautiful to look at and built to last.
Put the Galaxy Chromebook 2 next to the Galaxy Chromebook, and the former has clearly cut some corners. But it’s cut the right corners. In some ways, it’s the device I’d hoped the Galaxy Chromebook would be: beautiful, bold, and totally functional as well. It’s exchanged a bit of panache for a lot of simplicity. It’s, as I said in my hands-on, “a regular-ass Chromebook.” And I couldn’t be happier with it.
The MSI GP66 Leopard is a powerhouse gaming notebook housed in a fairly subtle shell that also boasts a comfortable keyboard. It also offers plenty to upgrade or repair, but it’s a chore getting inside.
For
Strong gaming performance
Comfortable keyboard
Replaceable components
Subtle design for a gaming notebook
Against
Difficult to open
Touchpad feels cheap
Too much bloatware
Just because you grow up a bit doesn’t mean you need to stop having fun. The MSI GP66 Leopard ($1,799.00 to start, $2,599.00 as tested) is a powerhouse gaming notebook with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 and Intel Core i7-10870H. But it would fit in anywhere, whether it be an office or a gaming room, thanks to its matte-black stylings. If you’re looking for gaming power without all of the flash, this might be on your list of the
best gaming laptops
.
If you ran some workstation tasks on this, you might believe it was a work machine. Only when you turn on the RGB keyboard do you know it’s time to play. There aren’t red stripes, or, say, an RGB lightbar like MSI’s other models.
It’s a powerhouse, and many of the components are upgradeable for replacement down the line. But while the GP66 Leopard is all grown up, there are still some areas, like its touchpad and its bloatware, where it needs some more maturing.
Design of the MSI GP66 Leopard
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As far as MSI’s gaming notebooks go, the Leopard is quite plain. While some of its other laptops have red accents or RGB light strips, the GP66 is an all-black affair. On the aluminum lid, even the dragon shield logo is tone-on-tone. Only the hinges, which are connected to aggressively shaped plastic molds, suggest this is anything other than a workstation PC.
The only real sign of the GP66’s gaming prowess is the keyboard, which has RGB backlighting courtesy of SteelSeries. But the black aluminum deck and the fairly thin bezels around three sides of the display suggest just a premium notebook. The bottom cover is plastic.
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The Leopard is a thick machine at 0.92 inches tall, so there’s plenty of room for ports. However, MSI has placed only a few of them on the sides: The right side has a pair of USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, while the left side has another Type-A and the headphone jack. The rest of the ports — USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C, HDMI, RJ-45 Ethernet and the charging port — are all on the rear of the device. Alienware has been doing this for years, and it’s a benefit if you use your laptop like a desktop replacement and don’t move it around much. But it can also be inconvenient if you like to use your laptop on your lap.
At 14.09 x 10.51 x 0.92 inches and 5.25 pounds, the Leopard isn’t exactly portable in the toss-it-in-a-bag sense. Dell’s 15-inch competitor, the Alienware 15 m4, is slightly lighter at 5 pounds and a similar size 14.2 x 10.9 x 0.9 inches, but its design is slightly more sleek. The Gigabyte Aorus 17G is expectedly larger with a bigger screen, at 5.95 pounds and 14.9 x 10.8 x 1 inches.
3x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, HDMI, 3.5 mm headphone jack, RJ-45 Ethernet
Camera
720p
Battery
65 Wh
Power Adapter
230W
Operating System
Windows 10 Home
Dimensions(WxDxH)
14.09 x 10.51 x 0.92 inches / 357.89 x 266.95 x 23.37 mm
Weight
5.25 pounds / 2.38 kilograms
Price (as configured)
$2,599.00
Gaming and Graphics on the MSI GP66 Leopard
MSI opted for a powerful implementation of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 for the GP66 Leopard. This version has a 130W max graphics power and a
boost clock
of 1,605 MHz.
Besides running benchmarks, I tried playing Control, a game I use often on laptops with RTX GPUs because of how tough it is to run and because
ray tracing
has a truly noticeable effect. With the settings maxed out at 1080p and with ray tracing on high, the game ran between 52 and 57 frames per second as I traded shots with hiss guards surrounding a control point, though it went as high as 70 during exploration.
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On Shadow of the Tomb Raider (1080p, highest), the GP66 hit 106 frames per second. The Aorus 17G, with an RTX 3080
Max-Q
ran the game at 86 fps, while the Alienware m15 R4 with an RTX 3070 played it at 77 fps.
The Leopard played Grand Theft Auto V (1080p, very high) at 125 fps, beating the Aorus (100 fps) and Alienware m15 (108 fps).
MSI’s laptop ran Far Cry New Dawn (1080p, ultra) at 103 fps, beating both the Alienware and Aorus by over 10 frames per second.
The GP66 Leopard outperformed on Red Dead Redemption 2 (1080p, medium), playing at 82 fps.
It also won out on Borderlands 3 (badass, 1080p), at 99 fps, while the Aorus 17G ran at 79 fps and the Alienware hit 84 fps.
We also ran our gaming stress test on the GP66 Leopard by looping the Metro Exodus benchmark at RTX settings for 15 runs, simulating roughly half an hour of gaming. It ran at a largely steady average of 76.38 frames per second across the runs. The CPU ran at an average of 3.73 GHz and an average temperature of 61.85 degrees Celsius (143.3 degrees Fahrenheit). The GPU ran at an average of 1.1 GHz and 61.49 degrees Celsius (142.68 degrees Fahrenheit).
Productivity Performance on the MSI GP66 Leopard
Beyond gaming, the GP66’s Intel Core i7-1070H and GeForce RTX 3080, along with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD are powerful parts that should aid in creative endeavors like streaming or video editing.
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On the Geekbench 5 overall performance benchmark, the GP66 earned a single-core score of 1,274 and multi-core score of 7,848. The Gigabyte Aorus 17G had scores of 1,265 and 7,895, respectively, while the Alienware 15 R5 notched scores of 1,252 and 7,642.
On our file transfer test, the Leopard copied and transferred 25GB of files at a rate of 1,059.78 MBps, falling just below the Alienware but ahead of the Aorus.
It took the GP66 Leopard seven minutes and three seconds (7:03) to complete our Handbrake test, transcoding a 4K video to 1080p. That’s slightly faster than the Alienawre (7:07) and far speeder than the Aorus (8:33).
Display on the MSI GP66 Leopard
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Our review unit came equipped with a 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080 (FHD) display with a 240 Hz refresh rate. The most demanding titles won’t run that fast, but you can take advantage of it if you like playing esports titles like Overwatch, Fortnite or Rocket League.
When I watched the trailer for the upcoming Mortal Kombat movie, I felt the need to turn up the brightness for the best experience. Cole’s yellow gloves popped, as did Kano’s red eye lasers against a dark background, but the screen was largely serviceable rather than special.
When I played Control, the screen was bright enough, even in some dark spaces. That game has a lot of red, and it really popped, especially against the Oldest House’s dark walls.
MSI’s panel covers 78.5% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, matching what we saw on the Aorus 17G. We reviewed the Alienware m15 R4 with a 4K
OLED
screen, so it’s not surprising to see superior coverage there.
However, at 277 nits of brightness, the screen was dimmer than both the Aorus (300 nits) and the Alienware (362 nits).
Keyboard and Touchpad on the MSI GP66 Leopard
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MSI’s inputs are a mixed bag. Arguably the more important part of a gaming laptop, the keyboard, is the superior of the two. For years now, MSI has partnered with SteelSeries on its keyboards, and they’ve typically been quite good. On the Leopard, the keys are a bit more shallow than I would like, but they’re still fairly comfortable to type on. I hit 120 words per minute with a 2 percent error rate, which is about as fast as I ever get on the 10fastfingers.com typing test.
The 2.5 x 4.1-inch touchpad is fine for navigating and gestures with its Windows precision drivers, but it felt like cheap plastic compared to the aluminum around it. On top of that, I found I had to click harder than on most laptops. For gaming, you should be using a mouse anyway, but this could be a little better for general productivity use.
Audio on the MSI GP66 Leopard
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When I listened to Daft Punk’s “Something About Us,” the various synths and samples were quite clear through the laptop’s bottom-firing speakers. The vocals, purposefully distorted, still stood out on top of the track, along with some piano backing. The low end, including some drums, could have used a bit more punch.
There is a semblance of bass, which many laptops don’t offer, and I was able to tune it more to my liking in the Nahimic audio software.
When I played Control, Jesse’s internal thoughts were clear, especially as her narration ran over the creeping voices of the hiss. At some points, though, I wished I was able to make the volume louder, though this is something else that could be solved with headphones.
Upgrading the MSI GP66 Leopard
The GP66 Leopard is pretty easy to upgrade or repair. Well…it is once you manage to get inside. Compared to some other gaming notebooks, it’s like breaking into Fort Knox.
At first, eleven screws separate you from the GP66 Leopard’s internals. A size 000 Phillips head screwdriver will do the trick. Note, though, that one screw is beneath a factory seal, which is a questionable practice at best. If you send this back through warranty, MSI will know you opened it.
Even after removing all the screws, the system was too tight to open at first. No spudger or pick would fit in the cracks in the chassis. I tried this for longer before I cared to admit, before I eventually found
a YouTube video
from someone that had cracked the case. There is a decorative cover around the hinges, which you can pop off with a spudger. Once that’s off, you can slowly move your way around from the rear ports to the front of the case and carefully remove the bottom.
Once you’re in there, you’ll find that the RAM, Wi-Fi card and the SSD are replaceable. There are two PCIe
m.2 SSD
slots, and since ours came with a sole 1TB boot drive, there is room to expand. The 65 Wh battery, too, is replaceable.
Battery Life on the MSI GP66 Leopard
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The MSI’s GP66 Leopard’s 65W hour battery isn’t going to last it terribly long on a charge. This, unfortunately, is a trend on gaming notebooks, but the Leopard with its full-power RTX 3080, didn’t last as long as competitors.
MSI’s notebook endured for two hours and 25 minutes on our test, which browses the web, runs OpenGL tests and streams video over Wi-Fi, all at 150 nits of brightness. The Alienware m15 ran for 4:01 and the Gigabyte Aorus 17G ran for 4:42.
Heat on the MSI GP66 Leopard
Call it the MSI GP66 Jet Engine.
To keep its components cool, the GPU fans run hard and loud (especially in extreme performance mode, which MSI sent the GP66 Leopard to us set to by default). Admittedly, if you use headphones this is a bit less of a problem.
We took surface temperatures while running our Metro Exodus gauntlet (see the gaming performance section above).
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The center of the keyboard, between the G and H keys, measured 38.6 degrees Celsius (101.48 degrees Fahrenheit), while the touchpad reached 25.6 degrees Celsius (78.08 degrees Fahrenheit). The hottest point on the bottom of the laptop was 46.7 degrees Celsius (116.06 degrees Fahrenheit).
Webcam on the MSI GP66 Leopard
MSI has a laptop with a 1080p
webcam
coming this year. This isn’t it.
No, the GP66 Leopard still has a 720p webcam, and an image at my desk was grainy, though at least it was color accurate with my blue eyes and green t-shirt.
One minor annoyance is that the light that notifies you the camera is on blinks, rather than staying on and static. This is extremely distracting when you’re having a video call or streaming and want to focus on what’s on the screen.
Software and Warranty on the MSI GP66 Leopard
There is quite a lot of software preinstalled on the GP66, which has been a trademark of MSI laptops for a bit now. Unfortunately, a lot of it is bloatware.
Let’s start with the good stuff (it’s a shorter list). There’s MSI Dragon Center, which lets you monitor CPU and GPU usage and other stats, as well as change between different modes of performance. SteelSeries Engine 3 lets you configure the lighting on the keyboard, though I feel MSI should roll this into the other app. Nahimic lets you customize audio profiles.
Aside from that, MSI has added a ton of extra bloat, including the Cyberlink suite (AudioDirector, ColorDirector, PhotoDirector and PowerDirector), as well as Microsoft Sudoku, LinkedIn, Music Maker Jam and Norton Security.
That’s on top of the regular
Windows 10
inclusions, like Roblox, Hulu, Hidden City: Hidden Object Adventure and Adobe Photoshop Express.
MSI sells the GP66 Leopard with a one-year warranty.
Configurations
We tested the MSI GP66 Leopard with an Intel Core i7-1070H, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD and a 15.6-inch, FHD display with a 240 Hz refresh rate. All of that adds up to a grand total of $2,599. (We have, however, seen an identical model with 32GB of RAM going for $2,499, so be sure to shop around).
For $1,799, you can get the Leopard with a Core i7-10750H, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD and an FHD 144 Hz display.
Bottom Line
If you’re looking for a powerful gaming notebook that draws attention to games, not itself, the GP66 Leopard is worth looking at. The combination of a full-power RTX 3080 and 10th Gen Intel makes for a potent, if loud, gaming machine. And MSI has put it in a chassis that looks and feels fairly adult, even compared to something like the Alienware m15, which has also gone minimalistic.
There are some things MSI needs to work on here: primarily, the touchpad, which feels like an afterthought, and the sheer amount of bloatware that the company includes on its laptops. If you prefer a premium experience, the Alienware may be a better way to go, but a similarly specced model (with a 300 Hz compared to 240 Hz on the Leopard) is a little more expensive as of this writing.
But if you want a gaming notebook with powerful graphics performance, subtle styling and replaceable parts (even if it takes a bit of work to get to them), this Leopard will impress.
You can now listen to Amazon Music on your Google TV- or Android TV-powered tellybox directly through the native Amazon app.
The new app launched last week in the US, UK, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, India, Japan and Australia. It lets Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers access the full music library, while Prime members (who get a more limited Amazon Music catalogue as part of their package, but not Amazon Music Unlimited) can access a curated list of songs and playlists. Don’t have either subscription? You can still listen using the ad-supported option, though that will obviously mean putting up with interruptive adverts.
Amazon Music isn’t the first music streaming service to land on the relatively new Google TV platform (which succeeded Google’s former Android TV operating system): Google’s own YouTube Music is available, as are Spotify and Tidal.
The app’s launch shows relations between Amazon and Google are considerably more cordial than has previously been the case. A few years ago, the two tech giants were at loggerheads, with Amazon refusing to sell Google’s Chromecast streaming devices, and Google pulling the YouTube app from Amazon’s Fire TV streamers. Thankfully for consumers, those days are now behind us.
The Google TV operating system is currently only available with the Google Chromecast with Google TV streamer, a top video streamer that earned a perfect five out of five in our review. However, Google TV will also be coming to smart TVs from Sony and TCL in 2021. Android TV-based TVs, meanwhile, span hundreds of models from the likes of Sony, Philips, TCL and Sharp.
MORE:
Read all about Google TV: apps, features, compatible TVs and more
Read our guide to the best video streamers
Read the full Amazon Music Unlimited review
Or check out our verdict in our Amazon Music HD review
(Pocket-lint) – After a pretty nasty ice-related incident over the winter, it became clear that to get back on the bike it was wisest to invest in an indoor trainer. Cue a moment of contemplating whether to go low-end or all-out in that investment – and after using a noisy, non-dynamic wheel-on roller for a short time, it became obvious that something far better was needed.
Enter the Tacx Neo 2T Smart. This direct drive turbo trainer is Tacx’s top-end trainer – i.e. to be used in conjunction with a bicycle; it’s not entirely standalone like the company’s Neo Bike Smart – and features a swathe of features to help with accurate measurements, enhanced comfort, lower noise, and even the ability to emulate a road-like feel.
Which all sounds well and good, but is it the best of best if you want to get into Zwift and other indoor training programmes? Its obvious rival is Wahoo and its Kickr range. So where is your money best spent?
What’s needed to setup?
Cassette not included – you’ll need 8/10/11/12 speed and tools to assemble
Recommended: phone/tablet/laptop for interactive experiences
To use the Neo 2T you’ll need an existing fully functional bike setup. As a direct drive setup, you simply remove your bike’s rear wheel and mount it onto the turbo trainer.
Pocket-lint
Well, hold up one second. First you’ll need to purchase, assemble and install a rear cassette onto the trainer. This allows you to select the corresponding speed to fit with your existing setup. You’ll also want the kit – cassette tightening tool, spanner, chain hold – to ensure this can be assembled properly (as such tools aren’t included). But once that’s done you needn’t worry about it again.
To mount your bike onto the turbo trainer it’s a case of lining the chain up and sitting the bike into place, before installing the included quick-release skewer, locking it into place, and ensuring everything is solid. With that done you’re good to go.
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The Neo 2T doesn’t actually require power to function – you could just hop on and ride, but you wouldn’t benefit from the dynamic controls or connectivity that make this such a top-end piece of tech. Such features are largely the point of this kind of product – to interact with software, such as Zwift, to simulate a real-world feel for indoor training.
As such you’ll want a phone/tablet/laptop and some kind of mount or table to have that nearby for any necessary interactivity. We’ve since purchased a sweat-catch that doubles up as a phone holder to use as our quick-glance and easy interaction second screen.
Let’s get Zwifting
Tacx Premium month subscription included
Zwift month subscription included
No calibration required
While Tacx does have its own software, it’s reasonably basic. It offers top-down GPS route rides as part of its free setup, plus training options. But if you want the visual real-world movies – which function realistically with the trainer – then you’ll need a Tacx Premium subscription. A month is included in the Neo 2T’s box to give you a taster – after which it’s €9.99 per month (€99.99 annually) or €13.99/€139.99 for the HD version.
But the big-success virtual training tool is Zwift (we know there are plenty of other options, but this is our personal go-to preference). This can be installed on your smart device (Apple iOS and Android supported), or setup on Windows/Mac. Or you can do both: we run the Windows version on a laptop, while an Android phone running the Zwift Companion app is able to talk to the Windows version in real-time.
Zwift
The world of Zwift – or Watopia as you may hear people talking about – is vast and pitched as a ‘game’. But there are plenty of training tools, goals and progress measurements to get to grips with, making it a veritable mountain (pun intended, there are actual ones) to climb. Whether you’re training for specifics, joining interactive rides, or just want to go for a solo spin, it’s all at your fingertips. A month’s subscription is included in the box, after which it’s £12.99/$14.99 per month – cancellable at any time.
It’s worth noting at this point that Tacx and Zwift is no spin class; it’s not like Peloton with a live instructor. It’s more flexible than that, with the ability to choose your own path to training. And when the weather’s good outside, pop your bike’s rear wheel back on, tighten the brakes, and get back out into the real world.
How realistic is the Neo 2T?
Emulates road feel (through vibrations) for different terrain
Frame allows a few degrees of movement left/right
Descent simulation (motorised power)
25% incline simulation possible
Let’s start by saying that riding on our original wheel-on roller was more like riding a plank of wood. It was just so rigid. And noisy. And undynamic.
Best Garmin watch 2021: Fenix, Forerunner and Vivo compared
By Chris Hall
·
Compared to that the Tacx Neo 2T Smart is a revelation. Now we’re not saying you’ll climb on and think you’re out on the actual road, because as any rider knows you’ll put a lot more force and motion through the frame in an outdoor real-world situation.
Pocket-lint
But the key thing for us about the Neo 2T is that there’s a few degrees of left/right movement available, so when, say, your left/right power is offset, or you stand, or sprint, you’ll get that bit of natural ‘wiggle’ – it’s not only is more authentic, but it adds to overall comfort too (i.e. it’ll help avoid chafe).
Plug the Neo 2T in, however, and this is where it steps up a gear. Zwift will identify the trainer via Bluetooth and this will mean it can measure your power (Watts), cadence (rpm), speed and total distance (in miles or kilometres). Use it in conjunction with other kit – say a bike computer, heart-rate monitor, and so forth – and you can use ANT+ FE-C to get everything communicating in real time (although you’ll need a USB ANT+ dongle for any non-Bluetooth device to register on Zwift, for example, which is the issue we have with our heart-rate monitor).
But with power flowing into the trainer it can simulate climb and descent – the former by magnetically braking the flywheel, the latter by powering the flywheel as relevant – to give you real-time real world feel on your rides, as relative to the route that you’re riding. We’ve taken on some 12% inclines and that -10% on the way back down is sweet release for the legs. The trainer can cater for +25%, which is, well, insane.
Pocket-lint
There’s also no calibration needed, ever. So whether you have the Neo 2T setup semi-permanently, or fold it away after each use – which would be no surprise, as it’s pretty large – you needn’t fiddle around between rides. So long as your gears are smoothly setup. If they’re not it’ll add some extra noise from your drivetrain (a problem from which our setup suffers, sad face), as the actual trainer emits a low hum that’s whisper-quiet.
One quirky feature is the trainer’s ability to simulate road feel, using vibrations. Whether that’s rough, wooden boards, a cattle grid, and so forth, it’s quite an entertaining feature – but not especially needed, plus it only adds to the audible vibration/sound output.
Measurements & accuracy
Dimensions: 575 × 750mm (footprint) x 550 mm (height) / Weight: 21.5kgs
Measures: Power, cadence, speed, distance
Colour LED reacts to power input
Bluetooth, ANT+ FE-C control
2000W maximum power
Near silent operation
Because the Neo 2T Smart can measure so much it’s a great way to train. Whether you want to increase your FTP (functional threshold power), get fitter, ride further or faster, or whatever goal you have – all the data is there to see in real-time.
Pocket-lint
It appears to be accurate too. We compared the trainer’s power measurement against our Garmin Vector 3 power pedals and there was just one Watt difference in the average over the course of an hour’s ride.
As all this is built-in, too, you don’t need to mess around adding any sensors onto the bike itself. Normal pedals will do, giving you power and cadence measures – and, as a calculation of that input, your relative speed and overall distance too.
The Neo 2T can handle an absurd 2000W maximum, too, not that anyone will be looking to push it to that extreme (unless you’re the Hulk). What this does is provide extra headroom so that if you do shift from, say, a 150W output to a sudden 30 second sprint at 450W – good luck with that, legs – then it’s not going to slip as you engage.
Pocket-lint
Your relative effort is represented by a colour LED light output which spills onto the floor, glowing from blue through to red the harder you’re at it.
We’ve been able to treat this turbo trainer with great confidence too, throwing in full standing sprints and never feeling as though it’s unstable. This is a heavy unit with a sensible footprint span, so while it takes up a lot of space even weightier riders can push power through it no problems.
What’s missing?
Currently no ascent simulation accessory in Tacx catalogue
No official rocker plate accessory for enhanced comfort
More accessories in the box would be nice
So what can the Tacx Neo 2T Smart not do? There’s less expandability here compared to its Wahoo rival. While there’s climb and descent simulation, you don’t get the physical movement that some dedicated bikes can offer – or the Wahoo Kickr Climb can add (but only for Wahoo trainers, it’s not compatible with Tacx).
Pocket-lint
While the Tacx is far more comfortable than other trainers we’ve ridden, there’s a limit to just how much flexibility is on offer. Many swear by a rocker plate for those longer rides, giving even more motion to help emulate that real-world feel. But Tacx makes no such product. Wahoo has explored similar motion-adding products in the past, but the current line-up lacks any such kit (discontinued, but who can say why – quality control?).
Another minor criticism is the software-to-hardware communication. This isn’t really an issue with the Neo 2T, per se, more how it receives information and very quickly actions upon it. So if you suddenly hit a +3% climb off the back of a descent, say, there’s no consideration for momentum – the trainer quickly responds, so you’ll need steely legs to respond, which takes away some of that real-world feel.
Furthermore, you can adjust various trainer settings, but not in real-time. In Zwift, for example, you can sat the Neo 2T’s resistance from ‘Off’ to ‘Max’, which is a bit like turning up the resistance on an exercise bike. Put it to max and a +1% climb feels like a +15%. But put it to that level by accident and you’re then stuck with it – until restarting the software anyway. This should be more dynamic, permitting tweaks to the level setting in order to obtain that sweet-spot of response – because, as mentioned above, you’ll want a set point that doesn’t cause too much clattering on your legs as you shift between descents and climbs.
Pocket-lint
Lastly, we think Tacx could include a bit more in the Neo 2T Smart’s box. A year’s subscription to its software seems minimal, given the considerable price outlay up front. And, really, with no rollmat to help curtail vibrations – you can buy one, at cost, but of course (yes, we see the irony in having a bright red Elite one beneath ours) – or other branded goodies in the box, it’d be a nicety to at least add a little something more to make for a complete package.
Verdict
It’s easy to look at a product such as the Tacx Neo 2T Smart and think “but that’s the price of a bike”, baulking at just how much an indoor setup could cost. Yes, this turbo trainer is undeniably pricey – like we say, it’s at the top-end of the market – but it’s undeniably sophisticated in its delivery.
As a training tool it’s as comfortable as such kit gets, it effortlessly communicates with other gear – using it for Zwift use is a breeze – allowing for dynamic auto-controlled adjustment for descent/climb, and it’s more than stable enough to take a hammering whether seated in the saddle or standing legs pelting it out.
As with any turbo trainer, however, it’s never going to 100 per cent recreate the real feel of the road – much as it tries with vibration-based road feel feedback, which very quirky indeed – and the comfort levels after long rides are, somewhat inevitably, going to feel different (a bit more ‘numb’) than our in the real-world. And without any true climb/descent physical motion or accessory add-ons – Wahoo offers the Kickr Climb for its turbo trainers – we think there’s scope for future enhancement.
Overall, if you’re looking for a smart indoor turbo trainer – one that will work dynamically with your setup, measuring all the important factors (power, cadence) – without the need for adding extras, then Tacx has a winning product on its hands. It’s near-silent, it’s supremely stable, and it’s revolutionised our indoor training during winter cold spells – we certainly won’t miss our wheel-on roller of old one bit.
Also consider
Wahoo Kickr V5
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What we find appealing about Wahoo’s option is its expandability – pair with a Kickr Climb and Kickr Headwind and you can simulate more realistic physical climbs and descents. As an out-and-out trainer, however, we think the Tacx Neo 2T has the edge given its wider base rigidity. Spec wise the two are highly similar, though, both offering climb/descent simulation and 2000W max. And Wahoo’s isn’t quite as pricey (not that it’s cheap!).
The iPhone’s Notes app has a powerful document scanning feature built right into it, and today I learned that this scanner can be controlled directly from a paired Mac in a variety of apps. It’s an incredibly useful tip for Mac users as it cuts out the awkward middle steps of having to transfer it from phone to computer, or grabbing it from the Mac’s Notes app after it syncs. Shoutout to TikTok account @keyboardshortcuts for bringing it to my attention.
Besides Notes, the iPhone’s scanner can be accessed from a number of different Mac apps, including the Finder, Mail, Messages, and Pages 7.2 and later. To use it, control-click (or right-click) in the window you want to scan the document into, select “Import from iPhone or iPad,” and then click “Scan Documents.” The camera app will magically open on the linked mobile device, where a scan can be taken as usual — no wires required. Once done, the scanned document will end up in the Mac app with a minimum of hassle. I found it useful to scan a bunch of legdocuments directly into a new folder in Finder, for example.
According to a support page for the feature, the Mac will need to be running macOS Mojave or above, and the iPhone or iPad needs to be running iOS 12 and above. Both devices need to have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned on, and signed into iCloud with the same Apple ID with two-factor authentication enabled.
As well as scanning documents, the feature can also be used to take photos. Simply select “Take Photo” rather than “Scan Documents” from the menu and tap the shutter button on your mobile device to capture an image.
Camera Continuity isn’t a new feature, but its compatibility with the iPhone’s document scanner was news to me.
Lime is getting back to its roots. The scooter company formerly known as LimeBike says it will invest $50 million to grow its shared electric bicycle network, including adding a new model of bike and doubling the number of cities in which it operates.
Lime got its start with shared bikes, only to quickly pivot after Bird first introduced the concept of dockless electric scooters in 2017. The company dropped the “bike” from its name and started phasing out its bikes in 2019. But the following year, Lime acquired bike-share company Jump from Uber, and suddenly, bikes were back on the menu.
Now, the company is doubling down on shared electric bikes, with plans to launch in “a dozen” new cities in North America by the end of the year, as well as dozens more in Europe and other markets. In total, the company plans to have its bikes in 50 new cities by the start of 2022, roughly quadrupling its fleet size.
The $50 million investment will largely go toward designing, manufacturing, and assembling its next-generation bike, which will start rolling out this summer. The new model will come with a more powerful 350-watt motor and a swappable battery capable of up to 25 miles of range.
The battery is also interchangeable with the ones that power Lime’s Gen4 electric scooters, allowing for a standardized battery charging operation. A two-speed gear shifter will help with those hill climbs, and an integrated, electronically controlled hub lock will help keep the bike safe from theft and vandalism.
There are other new features on the bike: the handlebars are being replaced with ones similar to Lime’s scooters, there’s a phone holder in the front basket, and the bike will be able to hit speeds of up to 20mph (depending on local regulations). It weighs 72 pounds, which is heavier than the 65-pound electric Citi Bikes.
Lime will keep its cherry-red Jump bikes in operation, with no plans to phase those out in favor of the new Lime-branded e-bikes. The company has stated that it wants to be a multimodal provider of many different types of low-speed, electric vehicles. Last year, Lime added pedal-less e-bikes from Wheels to its app in several cities as part of a new effort to integrate third-party micromobility providers. And recently, it announced plans to introduce electric mopeds in Paris and Washington, DC.
The new investment in e-bikes comes as cycling is surging around the globe, with bike sales — and especially e-bike sales — hitting record numbers. Legislation has been introduced in the US to make e-bikes more affordable. And bike-share systems are adding more electric models to their fleets in the hopes of attracting more members. Lime says its customers took more than 2.5 million rides on its e-bikes last year, with the company expecting that number to grow significantly in 2021.
Awards season in Hollywood begins Sunday, February 28th, with the 78th Golden Globe Awards, hosted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. The Golden Globes, usually considered a harbinger of who may take home awards at other shows like the Oscars, will look a bit different this year thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. The hosts and presenters will be in different locations in the US and around the world.
Streaming services have finally come into their own at the Globes, with Netflix leading the pack of with 20 total nominations for its television shows; Hulu has six total nominations, Apple TV Plus has two, and Disney Plus has one. In the motion picture categories (the Globes honor films and TV shows), Netflix leads the way with 22 nominations.
And it seems the Golden Globes’ judges have heard the criticism from past years about excluding women from the best director category. This year three of the five nominees for best director are women.
How do I watch the Golden Globes?
The Golden Globes will start at 8PM ET / 5PM PT on Sunday, February 28th. As it has for the past several years, NBC is broadcasting the three-hour awards show.
The Golden Globes will be available for live-streaming through NBC’s website or app, but you’ll have to enter your TV provider information to watch. You can also watch on Hulu Plus Live TV and YouTubeTV, both of which have paid subscriptions.
Where can I watch the pre-show?
As it does every year, E! is running its pre-show at starting at 6PM ET / 3PM PT. The official pre-show will begin streaming at 6:30PM ET/3:30PM PT from the Golden Globes Twitter account and the official Hollywood Foreign Press Association Golden Globes website. NBC will start its red-carpet coverage at 7PM ET / 4PM PT.
Who’s hosting the Golden Globes?
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are back as co-hosts, returning for the fourth time. The pair hosted back in 2013, 2013, and 2015. They’ll be bicoastal this year: Fey will be live in New York while Poehler will be in Beverly Hills.
The list of presenters includes: Awkwafina, Cynthia Erivo, Annie Mumolo, Joaquin Phoenix, Kristen Wiig, Renee Zellweger, Bryce Dallas Howard, Christopher Meloni, Rosie Perez, Christian Slater, Anthony Anderson, Tiffany Haddish, Kate Hudson, Margot Robbie, and Kenan Thompson.
Nominees are expected to appear from various locations around the world
Who’s nominated?
Here is the full list of nominees:
Best Motion Picture — Drama
The Father Mank Nomadland Promising Young Woman The Trial of the Chicago 7
Best Picture — Musical/Comedy
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm Hamilton Music Palm Springs The Prom
Best Actress in a Motion Picture — Drama
Viola Davis, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Andra Day, The United States vs. Billie Holiday Vanessa Kirby, Pieces of a Woman Frances McDormand, Nomadland Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman
Best Actor in a Motion Picture — Drama
Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal Chadwick Boseman, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Anthony Hopkins, The Father Gary Oldman, Mank Tahar Rahim, The Mauritanian
Best Actress in a Motion Picture — Musical/Comedy
Maria Bakalova, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm Kate Hudson, Music Michelle Pfeiffer, French Exit Rosamund Pike, I Care A Lot Anya Taylor-Joy, Emma
Best Actor in a Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy
Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm James Corden, The Prom Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton Dev Patel, The Personal History of David Copperfield Andy Samberg, Palm Springs
Best Supporting Actress — Motion Picture
Glenn Close, Hillbilly Elegy Olivia Colman, The Father Jodie Foster, The Mauritanian Amanda Seyfried, Mank Helena Zengel, News of the World
Best Supporting Actor — Motion Picture
Sacha Baron Cohen, The Trial of the Chicago 7 Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah Jared Leto, The Little Things Bill Murray, On the Rocks Leslie Odom, Jr., One Night in Miami
Best Director — Motion Picture
Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman David Fincher, Mank Regina King, One Night in Miami Aaron Sorkin, The Trial of the Chicago 7 Chloe Zhao, Nomadland
Best Screenplay — Motion Picture
Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman Jack Fincher, Mank Aaron Sorkin, The Trial of the Chicago 7 Christopher Hampton and Florian Zeller, The Father Chloe Zhao, Nomadland
Best Picture — Animated
The Croods, A New Age Onward Over the Moon Soul Wolfwalkers
Best Picture — Foreign Language
Another Round La Llorona The Life Ahead Minari Two of Us
Best Original Score — Motion Picture
Alexandre Desplat, The Midnight Sky Ludwig Goransson, Tenet James Newton Howard, News of the World Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor, Mank Jon Batiste, Atticus Ross, and Trent Reznor, Soul
Best Original Song — Motion Picture
“Fight for You,” Judas and the Black Messiah “Hear My Voice,” The Trial of the Chicago 7 “Io Si,” The Life Ahead “Speak Now,” One Night in Miami “Tigress and Tweed,” The United States vs. Billie Holiday
Best Television Series — Drama
The Crown Lovecraft Country The Mandalorian Ozark Ratched
Best Television Series – Musical /Comedy
Emily in Paris The Flight Attendant The Great Schitt’s Creek Ted Lasso
Best Television Motion Picture
Normal People The Queen’s Gambit Small Axe The Undoing Unorthodox
Best Actress – Television Motion Picture
Cate Blanchett, Mrs. America Daisy Edgar-Jones, Normal People Shira Haas, Unorthodox, Nicole Kidman, The Undoing Anya Taylor-Joy, The Queen’s Gambit
Best Actor – Television Motion Picture
Bryan Cranston, Your Honor Jeff Daniels, The Comey Rule Hugh Grant, The Undoing Ethan Hawke, The Good Lord Bird Mark Ruffalo, I Know This Much is True
Best Actress in a Drama Series
Olivia Colman, The Crown Jodie Comer, Killing Eve Emma Corrin, The Crown Laura Linney, Ozark Sarah Paulson, Ratched
Best Actor in a Drama Series
Jason Bateman, Ozark Josh O’Connor, The Crown Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul Al Pacino, Hunters Matthew Rhys, Perry Mason
Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy Series
Lily Collins, Emily in Paris Kaley Cuoco, The Flight Attendant Elle Fanning, The Great Jane Levy, Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist Catherine O’Hara, Schitt’s Creek
Best Actor in a Comedy Series
Don Cheadle, Black Monday Nicholas Hoult, The Great Eugene Levy, Schitt’s Creek Jason Sudeikis, Ted Lasso Ramy Youssef, Ramy
Best Supporting Actress -Television
Gillian Anderson, The Crown Helena Bonham Carter, The Crown Julia Garner, Ozark Annie Murphy, Schitt’s Creek Cynthia Nixon, Ratched
Best Supporting Actor – Television
John Boyega, Small Axe Brendan Gleeson, The Comey Rule Daniel Levy, Schitt’s Creek Jim Parsons, Hollywood Donald Sutherland, The Undoing
Cecil B. deMille Award
Jane Fonda
Carol Burnett Award
Norman Lear
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Microsoft is finalizing its Xbox Game Streaming app for Windows PCs, which includes access to streaming games from the company’s xCloud service. We’ve managed to get access to the latest version of the Xbox Game Streaming app for Windows, an unannounced and unreleased app. Once released, the app will let Windows users stream games from their Xbox Series S / X consoles, and from xCloud.
Currently, you can’t stream games from the new Xbox consoles to Windows PCs, as this is unsupported in the existing Xbox Console Companion app. This new app will solve that, and also bring xCloud streaming to Windows PCs for the first time. We first got a look at this xCloud app for Windows last year, and it has improved a lot since then.
The Xbox remote play feature, for connecting to Xbox consoles, works similarly to how the existing Console Companion does. You can remotely wake an Xbox console, sign in, and play games wherever you are.
There is now full touch support, allowing Surface or other touchscreen devices to play Xbox games without a controller. Microsoft also appears to be readying some form of gyro support here, too. There’s an option to enable this, but it doesn’t appear to be fully functional yet. This is an internal beta application, so it’s still unfinished.
Microsoft’s unreleased Xbox Game Streaming app.
Microsoft also appears to be readying 1080p streams for xCloud, instead of the 720p that exists today. This would obviously improve the experience on Windows PCs, ahead of higher resolutions once Microsoft has upgraded its xCloud servers to include Xbox Series X hardware.
It’s still not clear exactly when this app will be made available more broadly. Microsoft is rumored to be planning a “what’s new for gaming” event for next month, so it’s possible we’ll hear a lot more about the company’s xCloud plans (for the web and iOS, too) very soon.
(Pocket-lint) – Despite the overall TV trend being towards ever bigger screens, when it comes to OLED technology there’s actually been a growing clamour for something smaller. Not everyone can fit a 55-inch screen in their living room – yet that size has traditionally been as small as OLED TVs get.
Happily there are finally no less than three 48-inch options out there for people who want the contrast-rich picture quality OLED is renowned for but in a more manageable package: the LG OLED48CX, the Philips 48OLED+935, and on review here, the Sony KD-48A9.
Sony KD-48A9 review: Design
4x HDMI inputs, 3x USB ports
LAN & Wi-Fi multimedia options
From the front, the 48-inch Sony A9 is gorgeously minimalistic. The frame around the screen is both exceptionally narrow and sits in the same plane as the image, so it all looks like one immaculate sheet of glass.
The screen sits so low on its heavy duty, centrally mounted desktop plate stand, too, that from any regular viewing distance the screen appears to be holding itself upright using some sort of magic.
Sony
The outer edges of the screen are less than a centimetre deep, too. This outer trimness does contrast starkly, it has to be said, with a central section of the rear that actually sticks out more than the backsides of most modern tellies. Unless the set is going to be hung on a wall, though, the A9’s chunky bits don’t detract much at all from the overall supremely elegant look.
The 48-inch A9’s design doesn’t appear to include any forward-facing speakers. Except that actually, it does. For despite being Sony’s smallest ever OLED TV, the A9 still uses the brand’s unique Acoustic Screen technology, where precisely positioned actuators are used to turn the screen itself into a speaker.
The 48-inch A9 isn’t short of connections either. Four HDMIs, three USBs, and support for both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi wireless connectivity are all present and correct.
Disappointingly, though, none of the HDMIs can handle enough data to support 4K streams at 120Hz, or variable refresh rates (VRR). In other words, this A9 can’t support the two most important new features of the latest games consoles and PC graphics cards. Despite Sony actually making one of those games consoles.
Sony KD-48A9 review: Picture Features
HDR Support: HDR10, Dolby Vision, HLG
Processing engine: X1 Ultimate
While this A9 might be smaller than other Sony OLED TVs, it’s certainly no less clever. It gets the same premium X1 Ultimate processor that all of its bigger OLED siblings also get, complete with all of its proven benefits.
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For starters, it converts sub-4K sources to 4K using a vast dual database of picture analysis to give more effective results in real-time. There’s also a Super Bitmap system for refining striping out of HDR (high dynamic range) colour blends, and a Triluminos colour system that uses precision colour mapping to deliver an enhanced range of colour tones more accurately.
Sony’s Pixel Booster technology is on hand, meanwhile, to deliver enhanced contrast by better sharing power around between the individual pixels in the A9’s self-emissive OLED screen, while Sony’s renowned MotionFlow processing contributes to improved motion handling. There’s even a new option that inserts partial black frames into the image to create a more authentic looking 24 frames per second (24p) cinematic experience, but without the same degree of brightness reduction that black frame insertion usually causes.
The X1 Ultimate processor also powers a standard dynamic range (SDR) to HDR conversion system that’s sophisticated enough to treat various objects in the image differently, rather than just applying a conversion algorithm to the image as a whole. Sony is so confident about this system that it’s applied by default and undefeatably to most of the A9’s picture presets.
Unlike Sony’s A8 OLED TV range, the A9 is designated as one of Sony’s Master Series OLED TVs. This means that each set has been individually checked over and fine tuned in Sony’s factories before being released for sale.
As an OLED TV, of course, the 48-inch A9 gives you the technology’s key advantage of every single pixel in its 4K screen producing its own light source and colour, so that the darkest pixel in any image can appear right next to the brightest – without either compromising the other.
Sony
Being self-emissive also means the A9 can be watched from pretty much any angle without any loss of contrast or colour – something which the vast majority of LCD TVs cannot compete with.
In the interests of fairness, it needs to be stressed that OLED TVs can’t achieve the sort of brightness levels that LCD sets can. The highest brightness the 48-inch A9 can achieve is 665 nits in its Standard preset, dropping to 590 nits in Cinema mode. For comparison: premium LCD TVs can routinely hit more than 1,000 nits. In fact, Sony itself has managed almost 4,000 nits from its ultra expensive ZG9 8K LCD TVs.
The A9 supports three high dynamic range (HDR) formats: the standard HDR10 system; the HLG format typically used for live HDR broadcasts; and the premium Dolby Vision format, which adds extra scene-by-scene picture information so that compatible TVs can deliver more accurate images. There’s no support for the Dolby Vision-rivalling HDR10+ system – but that’s much less commonly found in the content world than Dolby Vision.
Sony KD-48A9 review: Smart Features
Smart System: Android TV plus YouView
Happily, after a buggy and cumbersome past life, the Android TV interface is finally improving to the point where you can actually start to appreciate the platform’s main strength: the amount of content it carries.
Sony’s implementation even includes Apple TV alongside the usual Netflix, Google Play, Amazon Prime, Rakuten, and other suspects, while Android TV’s remaining blind spots when it comes to the streaming services of the main UK broadcasters are covered by the inclusion on the A9 of the excellent YouView app. This brings all the UK streaming services together into one attractively presented, easy to browse umbrella app.
Pocket-lint
Android TV on the A9 proves to be significantly less buggy than previous generations, and integrates smoothly with the TV’s setup menus. There’s none of the excessive menu sluggishness Android has sometimes caused in the past, either.
There’s still something a little dated about its full screen presentation, and it still doesn’t feel quite as well adapted to TV (as opposed to smartphone or tablet) usage as some rival TV smart systems. But it’s now something that isn’t actually a chore to use, and that’s a definite step in the right direction!
It’s worth adding, too, that Android TV supports Chromecast out of the box, while voice recognition/control support is on hand courtesy of Google Assistant.
Sony KD-48A9 review: Picture Quality
While the 48-inch A9 isn’t the only 48-inch OLED TV on the market, its picture quality ensures that it’s a unique proposition.
The best way to start developing an impression of just how lovely the A9 is to watch is to say that it’s the closest Sony has got yet to matching the renowned picture quality of its legendary BVM-X300 professional OLED mastering monitor (a screen that cost tens of thousands).
Sony
The A9’s handling of dark scenes and black tones isn’t just great, as would be expected of any OLED TV, it’s pretty much perfect. It’s completely consistent, for instance, with no hint of the sort of sudden shifts in the overall black tone that you see with some OLED rivals.
There’s no sign of noise, either, be it fizzing or blocking, in areas of near-black detail. Yet at the same time the amount of subtle shadow detail the A9 brings out of even the darkest parts of the image is exceptional.
In other words, the screen doesn’t just take the easy route to clean, dark areas by sneakily crushing subtle details out of dark areas.
Colours, too, are exceptionally handled. Not a tone looks out of place or unnatural, no particular shades end up getting too much emphasis, potential colour banding is handily suppressed by the Super Bitmapping system, and the sheer range of tones the screen can produce does justice to even the most aggressive HDR/wide colour gamut sources.
Thanks in part to the finesse of its colour management and light control, the A9 delivers native 4K images with excellent sharpness and texture. So much so that you’re never in doubt that you’re watching a 4K screen despite the A9 being relatively small by today’s standards.
Pocket-lint
Just as importantly, though, the sharpness doesn’t feel forced. The set just looks like it’s bringing out every subtlety that’s present in a 4K image, rather than using processing to artificially sharpen things up.
The natural clarity continues during action scenes and sports events, too, thanks to Sony’s excellent motion processing system. The new black frame insertion system is pretty effective – motion looks less juddery without sliding into the ‘soap opera effect’, and the image doesn’t lose as much brightness as you’d expect with a BFI-based system. Sony’s regular MotionFlow True Cinema option, though, is so effective that most users likely won’t feel the need to trade even a little brightness for the BFI option’s slightly more authentic cinematic flicker.
It’s not just native 4K images that look detailed and clean on the A9. The upscaling prowess of Sony’s X1 Ultimate processor adds detail while removing source noise pretty much flawlessly, achieving remarkably convincing results with all but the most heavily compressed sources. Even Sony’s (sensibly restrained) SDR-to-HDR conversion system delivers results so natural and believable that even the most die-hard picture accuracy obsessives will likely find the system hard to resist.
While it’s useful to break the A9’s pictures down into their different elements, the really key point about them is that they are almost free of distracting shortcomings, errors or inconsistencies. Which means, of course, that they’re phenomenally immersive and satisfying.
Sony
If there’s an issue with the 48-inch A9’s pictures, it’s just that they’re not very bright. The measured brightness figures quoted earlier are around a fifth lower than the numbers measured in the same circumstances from many rival OLED sets. Something to consider for people looking for a TV to go into a typically bright room, perhaps.
It’s important to add, though, that the local contrast impact achieved by the Pixel Booster feature is good enough to ensure the A9’s picture still feels startlingly punchy in a dark room, and certainly doesn’t completely fade into the background when the lights are on.
Sony KD-48A9 review: Sound Quality
Concerns that the 48-inch A9’s smaller screen size might lead to a diminished performance from Sony’s Acoustic Surface technology prove unfounded. The sound still projects forward into with pleasing directness, and swells out nicely to create a sound stage that spreads far beyond the outer edges of the screen.
There’s a lovely open, rounded feel to the sound’s tone, too, that even holds up in very loud, dense film moments. In fact, the sound expands really nicely to embrace raucous action scenes; there’s no levelling off too early or thinning out with the heaviest content like you get with many TV sound systems.
Sony
Also impressive is how detailed the A9 sounds. This includes some startlingly accurate positioning of specific sounds – voices, gunfire, moving vehicles – on the screen, and lots of general detailing.
The soundstage’s precision slips once it expands far beyond the screen, though, limiting the effectiveness of its Dolby Atmos support. Bass, too, while clean and lively, doesn’t sound particularly meaty, denying big soundtrack moments the foundation of rumbles they need to deliver their full sense of scale and impact.
Verdict
The Sony KD-48A9’s pictures are as good as it gets. Close to the sort of thing typically only seen on pro-grade monitors, in fact. Especially if you’re prepared to darken your room for serious viewing.
It sounds good for its size too, and even its Android smart system is finally turning into a reasonably friendly place to hang out.
But the 48-inch A9 doesn’t quite bag a full five-star score for two main reasons: first, its puzzling lack of support for the latest cutting-edge gaming features (120/4K and VRR). Second, its asking price is pretty steep when a very similar 55-inch Sony KD-55A8 is available for hundreds less.
Alternatives to consider
LG OLED48CX
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LG’s 48-inch OLED telly is brighter and slightly cheaper than the Sony. It also, crucially, supports all the latest 4K/120Hz and VRR gaming features across all four of its HDMI inputs. Its picture quality isn’t quite as overall refined as that of the 48A9, though, and its more conventional speaker system is not quite as effective as the Sony’s Acoustic Surface approach.
Read our review
Sony KD-55A8
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Aside from sporting a less premium design and not having each set individually optimised in Sony’s factories before shipping, the A8 OLED range is a very close sibling indeed to the 48A9. And this 55-inch mode can be yours for less cash than the A9 too – if you’re ok with it being a bigger set.
Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez returns to the ring this Saturday night to defend his WBC and WBA super middleweight titles against Avni Yildirim in Miami. The big fight costs up to $50 in the US, but savvy sports streaming service DAZN has the rights to show the clash in 200 countries – and from only £1.99 in the UK! Read on as we preview the action from the Hard Rock Stadium and explain how to get a good price Canelo vs Yildirim live stream wherever you are in the world.
Canelo vs Yildirim live stream
Date: Saturday 27th February 2021
Ringwalks: 4.30am GMT / 11pm ET / 3pm AEDT
UK stream: DAZN (£1.99)
Canada stream: DAZN (30-day free trial)
Watch anywhere: Try ExpressVPN risk-free today
US stream: DAZN ($2.99)
AUS stream: DAZN (AU$2.99)
Canelo has only ever been defeated as a professional by the legendary Floyd Mayweather, a result that took place way back in 2013. No surprise, then, that the WBA (Super), WBC and The Ring super-middleweight champion is a huge favourite for this blockbuster fight.
The Mexican star out-punched Callum Smith in a stunning display last December to enter the champions’ enclosure at 168lbs. If he can defeat Turkey’s Avni Yildirim on Saturday, he could unify the division just two months after picking up his belts, and tee up a massive fight against against Billy Joe Saunders this summer.
Yildirim is a good fighter but he got knocked out by Chris Eubank Jr in three rounds. He’s a low level threat to a fighter of the calibre of Canelo and will do well to last all 12 rounds of this super-middleweight clash.
Here’s how to get a Canelo vs Yildirim live stream, one of the most anticipated fights of the year, from anywhere in the world.
Canelo vs Yildirim live stream for £1.99
DAZN UK has the rights to broadcast Canelo vs Yildirim in the UK and – for a limited time – it’s available for only £1.99 a month.
Of course, the £1.99 a month offer is only available to boxing fans located in the UK or US. If you’re a UK citizen stuck abroad, you’ll want to use a VPN to unblock the boxing live streams as if you were back home in the UK.
ExpressVPN is a great option because you can try it 100 per cent risk-free thanks to their 30-day money-back guarantee. Why not give it a go? You’ve nothing to lose.
DAZN introductory offer: £1.99 a month + cancel anytime Fast-growing streaming service DAZN features a ton of exclusive live and on-demand boxing, plus sports documentaries galore. If you’re a fan of pugilism this introductory offer is a no brainer. Cancel anytime – there’s no contract to worry about.
DAZN sports streaming is available on a variety of platforms including: iOS/Android app, Apple TV, Google Chromecast, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3, Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari. Sky subscribers can find the DAZN app in Sky’s app store.
Watch a Canelo vs Yildirim live stream from abroad using a VPN
Even if you have subscribed to the relevant Canelo vs Yildirim rights holders, you won’t be able to access them when outside your own country. The service will know your location based on your IP address, and will automatically block your access.
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) helps you get around this obstacle. VPNs are a doddle to use and create a private connection between your device and the internet. All the information passing back and forth is entirely encrypted.
There are many VPN providers out there, with some more reliable and safe than others. As a rule, we’d suggest a paid-for service such as ExpressVPN which offers a 100 per cent risk-free money back guarantee. If you’re not happy with the service any time within the first 30-days, then you can cancel with no penalties at all.
Try ExpressVPN risk-free for 30 days ExpressVPN offers a 30-day money back guarantee with its VPN service. You can use it to watch on your mobile, tablet, laptop, TV, games console and more. There’s 24/7 customer support and three months free when you sign-up. Try it – you’ll be surprised how simple it is.
Canelo v Yildirim live stream in Australia and New Zealand
(Image credit: DAZN)
DAZN has the rights to show Canelo v Yildirim in Australia and New Zealand. A monthly subscription is available at the introductory offer price of just AU$2.99 a month – that’s significantly cheaper than the price in the United States, currently $19.99 a month!
The main card is due to start at 12pm AEDT / 2pm NZDT, with the ring walks to follow at around 3pm AEDT / 5pm NZDT.
Going to be away from Australia or New Zealand this weekend? Simply use a VPN to unblock the boxing live streams. Good to know, right? ExpressVPN is a great option because you can try 100 per cent risk-free thanks to their 30-day money-back guarantee.
Canelo v Yildirim live stream in the Canada
If you’re lucky enough to live in Canada you won’t have to pay $50, $20 or even $2.99. That’s because you can get a free trial of DAZN in Canada.
Going to be away from Canada this weekend? Simply use a VPN to unblock the boxing live streams. Good to know, right? ExpressVPN is a great option because you can try 100 per cent risk-free thanks to their 30-day money-back guarantee.
Full card for Canelo vs Yildirim
Canelo vs Yildirim (WBA Super, WBC, and The Ring super middleweight titles)
Julio Cesar Martinez vs McWilliams Arroyo (WBC Flyweight Title)
Zhang Zhilei vs Jerry Forrest (Heavyweight)
Diego Pacheco vs Rodolfo Gomez Jr. (Super Middleweight)
Alexis Espino vs Ashton Sykes (Super Middleweight)
Marc Castro vs Lester Brown (Junior Lightweight)
Aaron Aponte vs Harry Gigliotti (Junior Welterweight)
If you’re moving from LastPass (or another password manager you’re dissatisfied with), you may be tempted to simply go with the password manager that comes with your browser or operating system. It’s certainly an easy solution, and a reasonable one, depending on your point of view. Until recently, third-party password managers were known to be more secure, but Apple and Google have been working to make their built-in password managers more secure, while Microsoft is adding one to its authenticator app. So it could be a viable choice.
One way, however, that these built-in password managers don’t stand up to their independent competitors is how tricky it can be to get preexisting passwords into their systems.
If you tend to hang out in the Apple ecosystem, that means using Safari for your passwords and passing them to your other devices using Apple’s iCloud Keychain. Here’s how to move your password data into iCloud Keychain.
Make sure you have Keychain
iCloud Keychain is how Apple syncs your information across devices — not just passwords, but also credit card info, Wi-Fi passwords, etc. If you haven’t used it, you may want to check to make sure it’s been set up and turned on. (If you plan to use your passwords on your mobile iOS device as well, you might want to check it there, too.)
Using a macOS device:
Go to your System Preferences app by clicking on the Apple icon in the upper-left corner
If you have macOS Mojave or earlier, click iCloud. Otherwise, select Apple ID > iCloud.
Go down the list of apps, and make sure that Keychain is checked
Make sure you have iCloud Keychain.
Using an iOS device:
Go to Settings and tap on your name
Tap on iCloud and scroll down to Keychain
If Keychain is Off, tap on the entry and then toggle it on
Import your password data
In order to get your data into Keychain, you need to import it into Safari on your Mac. Simple, right? Well, not really.
Unfortunately, unlike most password managers, you can’t import passwords from a CSV file into Safari. You can, however, import passwords from either Firefox or Chrome. So if you’ve got a CSV file from another password manager and you don’t have either of those browsers on your machine, you’ll have to install one of them first and upload your passwords into it. (You can find instructions for importing passwords into Chrome here and Firefox here.)
Once your passwords have been imported into one of the other browsers:
Close the other browser
Open Safari, go to File > Import From, and choose Chrome or Firefox. You can import Bookmarks, History, Passwords, or any combination thereof by checking the appropriate boxes.
One note: I had a series of mishaps trying to import from Firefox into Safari. Safari would invariably crash, even after I made a series of tweaks to Firefox. I finally gave up and tried it with Chrome, and the import worked immediately. Your mileage may vary.
You can check to see if the import worked by going to Safari’s top menu and selecting Safari > Preferences > Passwords. (You’ll have to enter your user password to access the password list.) You should see your passwords listed there.
Once you’ve imported your passwords into Safari, they should be automatically picked up by iCloud Keychain and useable across all your approved devices. You can check by typing and clicking on “Keychain Access” using Spotlight Search. That should bring up your Keychain app; you can click on iCloud in the top-left column and “Passwords” in the bottom left to see your imported passwords.
You should find your passwords in Keychain Access. (For obvious reasons, some data has been grayed out.)
DC Comics and Fortnite developer Epic Games are joining forces on a new Batman and Fortnite-themed crossover comic book. The six-issue miniseries, titled Batman / Fortnite: Zero Point, will debut on April 20th. Two issues will then launch in both May and June before the series concludes with a final issue on July 6th.
Longtime Fortnite fans might have perked up at the mention of the Zero Point, a reality-warping ball of energy that is hovering over the middle of the Fortnite island and is the catalyst for this season’s many brand crossovers. (Just yesterday, Ellen Ripley and the Xenomorph from the Alien series were added to the game.) It seems the Zero Point will play a key role in this comic miniseries, according to this plot summary:
A crack splits the sky above Gotham City… a tear in reality itself. This rift pulls the Dark Knight into a bizarre and unfamiliar world, with no memory of who he is or where he came from…Batman has been drawn into Fortnite!
As he fights to recall his past and escape an endless loop of chaos and struggle, he’ll come face-to-face with the likes of Renegade Raider, Fishstick, Bandolier, and more. While the world’s greatest detective strives to make sense of this strange new world, he’ll uncover the shocking truth about the Island, what lies beyond the Loop, and how everything is connected to the mysterious Zero Point.
Print issues will have codes for DC-themed in-game Fortnite items inspired by the comic, and US subscribers to the DC Universe Infinite app will get the full series and codes for the in-game items for free.
This won’t be Batman’s first crossover with Fortnite. He and Catwoman were added as skins alongside a playable Gotham City area in 2019, and Epic has since added skins for Harley Quinn, the Joker, and Poison Ivy as well.
And it’s also not Fortnite’s first comic crossover — Epic has created many Marvel skins for the popular battle royale, and the game’s last season, which was Marvel-themed, kicked off with an in-game comic.
Citizen, the app that turns everyone into a crime reporter, now wants to track helicopters. The company announced today that it’s introducing helicopter tracking to the app, which will explain to users why there are flying vehicles overhead.
The team tells The Verge it employs a 24/7 group to review 911 communications, and now they’ll review data about police helicopters, too. Like any other info on Citizen, users can add their own videos and comments about the incident while Citizen verifies it on its end. When possible, the team will include a “related incident” for a helicopter spotting that’ll better explain the situation. That way, if the helicopter pertains to a missing person report, for example, that report will be linked.
The helicopter tool is the latest in Citizen’s arsenal in its attempt to become the place where people get all their local crime info. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it introduced an in-app contact tracing tool, and the company says it’s seen over 7 million signups since its launch in 2017.
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