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Google I/O, the company’s big developer conference, is back after being canceled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The keynote kicks off on Tuesday, May 18th, at 1PM ET / 10AM PT, and it will likely be packed with news about Google products.
In the keynote’s official description, Google is unsurprisingly coy about what might be announced: “Tune in to find out about how we’re furthering our mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” But we can make a few educated guesses about what could be shown off at the event. Read on to find out what to expect from the big show.
Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge
Google often uses its Google I/O keynotes to exhaustively detail its next major version of Android, and we expect the same for this year’s release, Android 12.
Google has already released a few developer previews of Android 12, which have mostly brought a lot of small tweaks and developer-focused features. But at I/O, Google will likely reveal some of Android 12’s biggest user-facing features — including some significant UI changes that are rumored to be in the works, like stacked widgets and a new lock screen with larger clock text.
Android 12 seems poised to be a big upgrade, and Google will likely share a whole lot about it.
Google also likes to use I/O to showcase major updates to its services and software, and this year’s event will likely be no different. In previous years, we’ve seen Google use I/O to announce things like Google Maps’ incognito mode, new Assistant voices, and the Google Duplex demo, where the Google Assistant called a hair salon to book an appointment. Google could plan to take the wraps off some similarly exciting new features.
We already know the company is working on a new model of its Pixel Buds true wireless headphones — thanks in large part to a couple of huge leaks from Google itself — and perhaps they’ll make their debut (again) at I/O.
Here’s the timeline of what’s been revealed so far:
These leaks don’t tell us all that much about the buds, but the “A-Series” moniker seems to indicate they’ll be a more affordable model of the company’s true wireless headphones, similar to how the lower-cost Pixel models are identified with “A” names like the Pixel 4A. And speaking of “A” phones…
Google officially announced the Pixel 5A 5G in April in reaction to a rumor that the phone had been canceled, but we probably won’t see more of it at Google I/O this year.
When Google announced the upcoming phone, the company said “it will be available later this year in the U.S. and Japan and announced in line with when last year’s a-series phone was introduced.” The Pixel 4A, 4A 5G, and Pixel 5 were all announced in early August last year, so it seems like we might be waiting until some time around then to see an official reveal of Google’s next midrange phone.
Google is rumored to be developing a custom-designed system on a chip (SoC) for upcoming Pixel phones, the company’s first, and perhaps Google will discuss some of what that sea change could mean for Android developers and prospective Pixel buyers at I/O.
The so-called “GS101” chip may have a “3 cluster setup with a TPU (Tensor Processing Unit),” which could improve performance for machine learning applications and might also include an integrated Titan M security chip, according to XDA-Developers. And we might first see the chip on board two new Pixel phones that debut this fall, 9to5Google reported.
A Google-designed SoC could bring some major performance benefits to the company’s Pixel lineup, like what Apple sees with its custom A-series chips in iPhones. But there’s also a good chance that Google keeps this rumored chip under wraps until it unveils devices that actually have it on board, so don’t set your expectations too high.
Although Google has a reputation for being unable to keep its biggest products secret, there’s always the possibility that the company has some totally new and surprising things in store for this year’s I/O. Keep it locked to The Verge during the event to stay up to date on the latest.
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Expert testimony continues
Sometimes I reflect on my life and wonder where I went wrong, such that I am sitting on a wooden pew in federal court, watching a Google search for Candy Crush Saga on the display monitor. This is a huge trial with major stakes for tech companies. It is also a crashing bore.
On the stand is Lorin Hitt, professor of operations, information, and decisions at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton, looking uncomfortable behind his face shield. During his direct examination in the ongoing Epic v. Apple trial, Hitt testified that he didn’t think having to access an app like Candy Crush through a browser instead of the app counted as “friction” for the user — and that it certainly was less friction than “real-world” alternatives, such as leaving a convenience store and then crossing the street to go to another convenience store.
The point of Hitt’s earlier testimony was that game developers “multi-home” games to PC and mobile. He’s Apple’s expert witness, and he is here to convince the judge that being blocked from the App Store isn’t a huge barrier to developers. Epic — whose game Fortnite is in fact blocked from the store — has taken Apple to court to show otherwise. And the picture Hitt painted on his direct examination was largely dismissive of Epic’s concerns.
Epic attorney Yonatan Even, also in a face shield, is now doing his best to blow a hole in Hitt’s testimony. I am doing my best to follow a confusing spreadsheet that includes games that Hitt has promised are on both PC and mobile phones. Even begins by pointing out some of these games are not, in fact, available for PC. One game, Words Story, is listed as available on PC on the document, but does not say this on the developer’s website. In the Microsoft store, a “Words Story” with the same art exists, but it’s not the same developer. “Sir, this is not the same developer and not the same game, is it?” Even says. “It’s what is called a ‘fake game.’”
We go through this tiresome process for several games: Helix Game, Crowd City, BitLife, Happy Glass, Paper.io 2, and Mr. Bullet. I have never heard of any of these small-potatoes games, which makes them sort of a weird point of comparison for the most popular game in the world. The app developer pages suggest they are not available on PC, despite Hitt’s document to the contrary. Things are getting contentious, and Hitt is beginning to have a hang-dog “Rick Moranis in Honey I Shrunk the Kids” vibe. Did Hitt double-check the data to make sure it was the same developer across stores? Can he tell the court under oath that a certain app is from the same developer?
“Can you give the court sworn testimony that you have seen with your own eyes that this game is also available on PC?” Even asks.
Hitt can’t guarantee all the games listed in the unintelligible spreadsheet are from the same developer across all platforms, it turns out. He says his team of researchers did the analysis, and he trusts his team.
Hitt said earlier that he’d identified eight games that let people buy things on the iOS web browser, and then use them in iOS apps; these are identified in the spreadsheet. Epic has complained that this process isn’t good enough — and certainly isn’t ubiquitous. Now, Even raises the “frictionless” process that Hitt had blithely testified to earlier in the day. Candy Crush Saga is the example Even chooses. We go to the website, and press “install,” where we are promptly sent to the App Store. We tab back to the website. The only possible way to play on the web is on desktop. The Facebook option for Candy Crush, too, is desktop.
“That’s part of the frictionless process you have envisioned?” Even asks, somewhat sarcastically.
We try another game, Clash Royale, developed by Supercell. We go to Supercell’s FAQ, where it emerges that payment processes are only through Apple’s App Store or Google play. Supercell itself doesn’t keep payment information “And yet you believe that your team managed to go into a website and buy legitimate Clash Royale money and go back to the app? That’s your testimony?” Even asks.
Then he twists the knife: The typical user of Clash Royale doesn’t have a research team, Even observes.
I am terrified we are going to go through all eight apps, but thankfully Even spares us the exhaustion. According to Even, there are three apps that support buying something on the web, then using it in an app: PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Roblox and… Fortnite. (Fortnite, however, is now banned from iOS.) Does Hitt have any basis to dispute this?
Hitt says he trusts his team. I am feeling very bad for the team, which has largely been thrown under the bus by Hitt here.
On redirect, Apple’s Cynthia Richman tries to stop the bleeding. Sometimes developers license games to other developers — which might explain some of the cases where the developers don’t match. Hitt also tells us that Even’s rather brutal examples aren’t typical. Hitt has personally purchased V-bucks on a mobile browser, he tells us proudly.
“It looked pretty difficult given the examples you provided,” says Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. What’s the explanation for why we couldn’t do these things during the cross-examination? Well, Hitt says, there were other links in the spreadsheet.
That may very well be true. But Even’s point stands: most of us do not have research teams. I wish I did — I could send them to the trial in my stead and blame them if the work was subpar. Instead, I am personally sitting through excruciating expert testimony. Why am I focusing on this, specifically? It’s the most interesting thing that happened all day.
There’s been some buzz recently about how Apple is having problems getting rid of its HomePods, with the now-discontinued Siri speakers still being on sale two months after Apple announced their discontinuation. And yet, the speakers are still $300, which is only slightly lower than their launch price of $350. Apple: it’s time to put them on sale.
Here’s an anecdote to show how hard it’s been for Apple to unload these things: I bought a HomePod the day its discontinuation was announced. An online tool tells me that it was made in October 2017, which was before Apple even started selling them in January 2018. That’s pretty rough, especially given that it’s a “space gray” one, seemingly the more popular of the two colors given that the white ones are still available from Apple’s website. The same thing also happened to tech YouTuber DetroitBORG.
Listen, Apple. I know that selling these things off for $200, or even $150, would pretty much be admitting defeat, but these things are still in stock two months after they were discontinued. It’s a great speaker, but at $300, it just doesn’t make sense given its complete lack of inputs that aren’t powered by Siri or AirPlay.
Fire sales always get people excited: just today, a few of my colleagues started pining for a Surface Duo after Microsoft slashed its price (even though they’ve heard all about how painful it is to use). There’s also the famous HP Touchpad, a tablet which was flatly ignored until HP took the price from $399 to $99.
I most certainly don’t need another HomePod, but if there was one last hoorah sale that made it a reasonable price, I might forget that for a moment and buy one for my office. But Apple, please: it’s obvious you didn’t care enough for this speaker while it was alive. Just do something, anything to finally close the loop. Put it on sale, “accidentally” include one with AirTag orders, whatever. Just let it go gently into that dark night, with no stock left.
Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge
The beauty and misery of private RSS feeds
There’s only supposed to be one way to hear exclusive podcast content from sports host Scott Wetzel: by paying $5 a month to subscribe to his Patreon. But the show’s also been available on a smaller podcasting app for free. In fact, leaked podcast feeds from dozens of subscription-only shows, including Wetzel’s and The Last Podcast On The Left, are available to stream through Castbox, a smaller app for both iOS and Android, just by searching for them.
Two people in the podcast space tell me they’ve reached out to Castbox multiple times, only for the company to remove a show and then have it pop up again, an infuriating cycle for someone trying to charge for their content. “It’s a little bit like playing whack-a-mole with them,” says one source, who asked to remain anonymous because of their ongoing work in the space.
Podcast subscriptions have existed for years, but they’ve gained wider attention this past month. Apple, which makes the dominant podcasting app, introduced in-app subscriptions with a button that lets people directly subscribe to a show from the app. Spotify announced its own subscription product, too, but with caveats — the main one being there’s no actual in-app button.
Prior to both of these proprietary solutions, the podcasting world’s subscription products mostly centered on private RSS feeds, or links typically assigned to individual listeners that allow them to access shows. The links can be pasted into any supporting podcast app, like Apple Podcasts, Overcast, and Pocket Casts, and for the most part, the system’s worked. Podcasting remains a mostly open ecosystem, and although this content is paywalled, shows still benefit from seamless RSS distribution. Notably, podcasters don’t have to manage multiple backends across services and can publish all their subscribers’ content at once.
But private feeds still have a glaring downside: these links can be easily shared, and anyone with the link can access private content. Piracy might become a growing concern, too, as the industry looks toward subscription and exclusive models. Already we’ve seen pirated shows on Anchor, and re-uploads of the Spotify-exclusive The Joe Rogan Experience on Castbox, as well. Although Castbox is small enough that the leaks likely aren’t on most podcasters’ radars, they still illustrate the problems one weak link in the distribution chain can create.
“This is the beauty and the mess of the open system — the web is amazing and allows us to publish content everywhere, but restricting access to content is always going to be tricky,” says Justin Jackson, co-founder of podcast hosting service Transistor.fm.
He adds that, inevitably, people will find ways to subvert the system, whether that’s recording audio and distributing it on their own or sharing their private feed links among friends.
To prevent situations like this, software has been touted as a possible solution. Slate’s Supporting Cast — which powers multiple membership-oriented shows, including Slate’s own Slate Plus network — monitors private RSS feeds for suspicious activity, like thousands of downloads on what’s supposed to be someone’s single-person feed. The software also monitors the IP addresses where someone is listening and the podcast app they’re using to see if anything seems out of the ordinary.
So far, the issue hasn’t become a huge problem. Supporting Cast CEO David Stern says the team has only had to take action fewer than 100 times in the year and a half that the automated monitoring has been active.
“You could always share a username and password to Hulu or Netflix, and that’s sort of okay. The companies let you get away with that,” Stern says. “You’ve got to strike a balance. We’re not talking about national security secrets here.”
The software-side workarounds can be effective — especially considering RSS, the backbone upon which the podcast industry was built, doesn’t allow for many technical improvements. However, it’s an investment that not every company might want to make. So the broader solution for locking down private feeds is simpler: tags, or literal snippets of text, that are part of a podcast feed’s metadata.
Multiple distribution companies and hosting platforms now verify the owners of RSS feeds through tags. These tags list an owner’s email address, which the platforms then use to verify the person uploading the feed, thereby preventing people from trying to pass an already established show off as their own. Feeds can also be “locked,” a separate tag that, if respected, stops platforms from importing a show. A third and final tag, which is particularly relevant to private RSS feeds, instructs podcast apps not to index a particular show. Google Podcasts, as an example, scours the web to index shows and include them in the app, similarly to how its search engine populates results. If this tag is placed in an RSS feed, as it likely would be for a private feed, the app won’t index it.
“What most platforms are doing is making it as difficult as they can for people to pirate podcast feeds – for people to submit podcast feeds to the directories — but still, at the same time, trying to make it easy for folks [who listen],” Jackson says.
The catch with tags, though, is they’re only as good as the platforms allow them to be. You might tell a platform not to index a program, but it doesn’t have to obey that request.
Jackson posits that this appears to be happening in Castbox’s case. These RSS feeds likely aren’t being verified when they’re submitted and, if a feed’s metadata requests that it not be indexed, Castbox isn’t heeding that ask.
None of these feeds appear to have been uploaded maliciously to Castbox and most have a small number of plays — the damage is minimal. I reached out to the owner of the private RSS for Wetzel’s podcast, and he confirmed that he only meant to listen to this podcast on his own, not to make it public. He “didn’t give it any thought” that the show would become public when he added the RSS feed to listen on Castbox. (The Joe Rogan Experience copycat, however, has more than 400,000 plays and over 14,000 subscribers.)
It’s unclear what’s happening on Castbox’s end. The company says it supports private RSS feeds, but presumably doing so wouldn’t mean making them public. Verifying a feed should also prevent it from going public, as should some of these tags. We’ve reached out to Castbox to confirm the details, but seemingly, the industry’s safeguards failed.
Podcasters and app developers clearly see paid memberships as part of the industry’s future, but the risks of private RSS feeds could compromise the industry’s headway. It might even give Spotify and Apple a leg up on competitors that have built entire businesses around locking down the open technology. But even a proprietary solution can’t prevent piracy entirely, and for podcasters, they’ll likely have to accept some risk and rely on the good faith of the podcasting players themselves to keep their shows from going wide.
(Pocket-lint) – There are numerous speakers within the Sonos portfolio but if you’re looking at the smaller end of the range, the choice likely comes down to the Sonos Roam or the Sonos One, or One SL.
You can read how all the Sonos speakers compare in our separate feature, but here we are focusing on the differences between the Sonos Roam and the Sonos One, and One SL, to help you work out which could be the right starting point for you into the Sonos system, or which you should add to an existing one.
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The Sonos Roam is triangular prism shaped and comes in Shadow Black and Lunar White colour options. It is IP67 water and dust resistant and it is small, light and portable – around the size of a water bottle – so you can pick it up and bring it wherever you go.
On the top, there are tactile controls for microphone, play/pause, skip and rewind, and the Roam can be positioned vertically or horizontally. There is a wireless charger sold separately that the Roam will magnetically attach to, or you can charge it via the USB-C port.
The One and One SL meanwhile, are a little shorter and fatter than Roam in terms of physical measurements, but the main difference is they are mains-powered devices and not portable – or waterproof. They can also only be positioned vertically.
One comes in black and white colour options and it has capacitive controls on top, with a microphone on/off button, play/pause and skip and rewind. There’s a pairing button on the back, next to the power port and an ethernet port.
The One SL has an almost identical design to the One, but it doesn’t have a microphone array or button on its top controls.
The Sonos Roam and Sonos One both come with all the features offered by all Sonos speakers, like support for over 100 streaming services, stereo pairing, EQ adjusting through the Sonos app and of course, seamless multi-room audio, among plenty of others.
The Roam and One also both have built-in support for Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant – meaning they are both smart speakers. You can’t have both assistants running at the same time but you can switch between them. One SL doesn’t have built-in support for the assistants but it can be controlled via a Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa device.
Both Roam and One have Trueplay tuning on board, enabling you to tune them according to their surroundings, though Roam does this automatically, whereas One and One SL require you to do it manually with an iOS device.
From here, Roam then takes the lead in the feature department compared to the One and One SL. It offers Bluetooth connectivity – automatically switching between Bluetooth and Wi-Fi – meaning you can use Roam as a traditional Sonos speaker when on Wi-Fi, or as a traditional Bluetooth speaker when you leave the house.
There’s also a feature called Sound Swap on the Sonos Roam where you push and hold the play/pause button to send the music playing on Roam to the nearest Sonos speaker. The Sonos One and One SL can receive the music from Roam if they are closest and they will continue playing whatever tunes you were listening to.
The Sonos One and One SL don’t have Bluetooth connectivity and they don’t offer Sound Swap, but they can both be grouped with a Sonos Arc, Beam, Playbar or Playbase and Sonos SUB to act as surrounds. The Roam can’t be grouped with a Sonos soundbar or the Sonos SUB.
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The Sonos Roam features two Class-H digital amplifiers, one tweeter and one mid-woofer under its hood. There’s also a far-field microphone array, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on board.
The Sonos One and One SL have two Class-D amplifiers, a tweeter and a mid-woofer. The One also has a far-field microphone array – the One SL doesn’t – and they both have Wi-Fi on board, but no Bluetooth capabilities.
All three speakers offer Apple AirPlay 2 support.
In terms of sound output, the Sonos One delivers a little extra than the Roam, but the Roam is an excellent sounding speaker for its size and all three speakers have no problem filling a standard room with sound. They also all sound great so you’re unlikey to be disappointed with any of them in this department.
The Sonos Roam is the cheapest of the Sonos speakers being compared here, costing £159 in the UK and $169 in the US.
The Sonos One costs £199 in the UK and $199 in the US, while the Sonos One SL is a little more expensive than the Sonos Roam but cheaper than the Sonos One at £179 in the UK and $179 in the US.
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The decision between the Sonos Roam and Sonos One will come down to what you want your speaker to deliver.
The Roam offers the best of both worlds, giving you an excellent multi-room Sonos speaker when on Wi-Fi and an excellent Bluetooth speaker when out and about. It also has some great features, like Sound Swap, automatic Trueplay tuning and Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa support.
The One is a little more expensive and it isn’t portable, though it delivers a little extra punch in terms of sound compared to Roam, two can be grouped with a Sonos soundbar and SUB and used as surrounds (which Roam can’t) and it still has some great features, like the smart assistant support and manual Trueplay.
The One SL meanwhile, delivers the same sound capabilities as the One, but it isn’t a smart speaker. It’s the one you’d pick if you wanted a small Sonos speaker but you aren’t bothered about portability or having Google or Alexa, or if you want two as surrounds to your Beam or Arc.
Writing by Britta O’Boyle.
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Amazon’s new second-generation Echo Buds are the company’s second crack at true wireless earbuds. They’re smaller, lighter, and more comfortable than before, and now have more effective noise cancellation. The first time around, Amazon borrowed some of Bose’s tech to help the original Echo Buds block outside noise, but version two was built completely in-house. Hands-free Alexa voice commands still get top billing, but the most compelling thing about the Echo Buds is still their aggressive price — and the solid mix of features you get in exchange.
The Echo Buds cost $99.99 or $119.99 (with wireless charging case) for a limited time, after which the prices will rise to $119 and $139.99, respectively. Not only is Amazon undercutting premium noise-canceling buds from Apple, Bose, Sony, and others, but it’s also seemingly trying to obliterate mid-range options like the Anker Liberty Air 2 Pros.
The revamped Echo Buds are 20 percent smaller in footprint and have a shortened nozzle, so they protrude from the ears a bit less. They ditch the glossy outer touchpad for a matte design (though the side facing your ear is glossy) The Amazon “smile” logo is present on both earbuds, but it’s not as obnoxious as I assumed it’d be. It’s matte and printed onto the buds instead of being embossed or given a different texture to stand out, so the logo doesn’t really call attention. Still, I’d have preferred it not to be there at all. The charging case is far more understated; there, the smile logo is on the underside — where most people are never even going to see it.
That case has also been downsized and is roughly 40 percent smaller than the last gen, but still carries enough juice to provide the earbuds with two full recharges. The Echo Buds last for five hours with ANC enabled, which is extremely par for the course in 2021. This stretches to 6.5 hours if you disable noise canceling and hands-free Alexa. Oh, and the case does charging LEDs right: you get separate indicators for the case’s charge and both earbuds also have their own.
Amazon has included everything but the kitchen sink to help guarantee a good seal and snug fit. There are four sizes of silicone tips in the box — S, M, L, XL — and three different pairs of optional wing tips. The ear tips are color coded, which makes it much easier to tell the different sizes apart without having to squint at them. The wing tips might prove useful if you’re going to use the Echo Buds for intense workouts, but they weren’t necessary for everyday use or outdoor runs in my ears; the reduced size of the earbuds was enough to keep them locked in place for me.
The new Echo Buds now feature a vented design to cut down on ear pressure, similar to Apple’s AirPods Pro and recent Samsung Galaxy Buds models. But the flipside of this change means if you turn off ANC in the Alexa app (or with a voice command), you’re going to hear a fair mix of ambient noise. If you want to hear more, Amazon gets credit for its passthrough mode, which nearly matches the AirPods Pro and Bose in how natural sound it sounds. If you crank it up all the way, it almost feels like superpower hearing — but there’s a very noticeable hiss at max passthrough.
Amazon claims that the second-gen Echo Buds cancel out “twice as much noise” as the original pair, and the improvements are most concentrated in lower sound frequencies — exactly what you’d want for flights or bothersome hums around the house or office. But remember that the original Echo Buds utilized Bose’s noise reduction technology, which isn’t the same as full-blown active noise cancellation. (Even at the time, Bose said it could do better.) So while Amazon is advertising significant gains over the prior model, you won’t hear any claims that it’s outperforming earbuds from Apple, Bose, Jabra, or other companies. Those are different goalposts.
And the Echo Buds objectively aren’t as effective as the AirPods Pro or Bose QuietComfort Earbuds at turning down the volume knob on the outside world. You might assume that it’s because of the vented design — but the AirPods Pro have that design trait too — so it’s really just that Amazon’s proprietary noise cancellation tech doesn’t yet measure up to the best out there. Occasionally when holding the Echo Buds in my hands, I’d hear a high-pitched whine or squeal coming out of them. This has happened with other earbuds, and Amazon tells me it’s due to an ANC-related feedback loop. Amusingly, I’m also told there’s a “squeal detection algorithm” that’s meant to suppress this. The noise is never really a bother when they’re in your ears, thankfully, but it does pop up from time to time.
Passable ANC aside, the Echo Buds do sound good. They handily beat out the AirPods Pro at bass, which is becoming a regular occurrence at this point. Amazon says the 5.7mm drivers are “optimized for increased fidelity in bass and treble,” and they make for easy listening when you’re playing spoken word content like podcasts, audiobooks, or watching videos. All of this proves out as true when using them. The bass has ample kick and the treble is well contained and never gets earsplitting. Tracks like Lil Nas X’s “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” or Dua Lipa’s “Don’t Start Now” are perfect demonstration of what the Echo Buds are good at. I get the impression that Amazon has tuned these with modern hits in mind.
But they do lack a layer of depth and texture that you’ll find in the higher price tiers of true wireless earbuds. Acoustic-heavy tunes aren’t as warm as they could be, and tracks like Phoebe Bridgers’ “Graceland Too” don’t have as wide of a soundstage. The powerful bottom end can make up for that somewhat on songs like “Chinatown” by Bleachers, where the bassline never gets lost to the synths, vocals, and guitars.
So even before you get to the Alexa part of the equation, the Echo Buds establish themselves as worthy contenders at a hard-to-resist price. They also offer IPX4 water and sweat resistance, and voice call quality has improved some over the first-gen buds. Audio automatically pauses when either bud is removed, and each side can be used independently. Like most earbuds (save for those from Jabra), the Echo Buds lack multipoint Bluetooth pairing. Both AAC and SBC codecs are supported. Connection stability has been rock solid in my review period so far with only the rarest blip or dropout.
But how does Amazon’s voice assistant fare? Alexa can aptly handle music requests (“play my Release Radar on Spotify”), weather checks, smart home commands, and other activities that are normally smooth sailing on Echo speakers. Amazon says “later this year” the Echo Buds will get the same VIP Filter as its Echo Frames, which lets you pick which notifications you want to hear.
But on the whole, Alexa noticeably lags behind Siri and Google Assistant at more on-the-go requests. If you ask for directions, Alexa responds that you must tap a notification on your iPhone for those directions to actually open up in Apple Maps. It’s not a huge inconvenience, and some of this — like SMS messaging being limited to Android — boils down to platform restrictions, but there are often middle steps that don’t exist if you’re making the same ask of Siri or Google Assistant. (You also must grant the Alexa app full-time location access for directions to work.) It’s nice that I can ask these earbuds where the nearest COVID-19 vaccine site is or inquire about the status of a given subway line, but these are the kind of things that I’m always going to use my phone for. Getting people to change that default behavior is no small hurdle.
There were also bugs where I didn’t expect them. When I would say, “Alexa, turn on noise canceling,” it would often respond “sorry, what device?” Apparently “noise cancellation” is the term you’ve got to use, but it seems obvious that both should get you there. This was never an issue with voice commands asking to enable or switch off passthrough mode, which worked every time.
Amazon says it has built in a number of privacy-minded features to limit how often the microphones are listening for the “Alexa” wake word. At least one of the earbuds needs to actually be in your ear for the mics to function — they’re automatically muted when both are removed — and there must be an active Bluetooth connection to your phone. You can also manually mute the mics with the Alexa app or by customizing a long-press to do that.
Though Amazon promotes hands-free Alexa as a flagship feature of the Echo Buds, I think it’ll be a negligible value add for some buyers: the price, comfort, and sound are still enough to make these earbuds quite enticing. You’ve also got the choice of using your phone’s native assistant instead of Alexa, which is another option for the long-press command on the outside of a bud. So at least Amazon isn’t forcing anything on you.
If you don’t have an inherent resistance towards Amazon products (and some people certainly do), the 2021 Echo Buds strike a balance of features that’s downright impressive at their selling price. They’re a considerable upgrade from the first-gen earbuds in comfort with improved noise cancellation to boot — even if it’s not close to best in class. You can do better if you’re willing to spend upwards of $50 to $70 more. If you don’t want to go that high, the Echo Buds won’t disappoint.
Photography by Chris Welch / The Verge
Antonio García Martínez is no longer working at Apple hours after employees circulated a petition calling for an investigation into his hiring. Martínez, a former Facebook product manager on the ad targeting team, authored a controversial book about Silicon Valley where he expressed misogynistic views on women.
“We are deeply concerned about the recent hiring of Antonio García Martínez,” employees wrote in the petition. “His misogynistic statements in his autobiography — such as ‘Most women in the Bay Area are soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit’ (further quoted below this letter) — directly oppose Apple’s commitment to Inclusion & Diversity.”
More than 2,000 employees signed the letter before it was published in The Verge.
Shortly after the petition began circulating internally at Apple, Martínez’s Slack account was deactivated. The ad platforms team was called into an emergency meeting where it was confirmed Martínez would no longer be working at the company.
In a statement emailed to The Verge, an Apple spokesperson said: “At Apple, we have always strived to create an inclusive, welcoming workplace where everyone is respected and accepted. Behavior that demeans or discriminates against people for who they are has no place here.”
Developing…
The Aorus FV43U misses a couple of things as a TV replacement, but for gaming, it has few equals. A huge and accurate color gamut coupled with high contrast, 4K resolution and 144 Hz makes it a great choice for both PC and console gamers.
If you’re looking for a jumbo-sized gaming monitor, there are plenty of routes you can take. There are multiple sizes of ultrawide 21:9 screens ranging from 34 to 38 inches diagonal. Then there’s the mega-wide 32:9, 49-inch genre. Or you can stick with flat panels in the 16:9 aspect ratio and go 32 inches or larger. Many simply opt for a TV, opening up the field to extra large displays that can top 80 inches.
If you want to stick with a desktop configuration though, the 43-inch category is a good choice. It’s large but not so big that you can’t sit close. It’s possible to play from 3 or 4 feet away, see the entire screen, and fill your peripheral vision with the image. And the 16:9 aspect ratio that 43-inch monitors come in means plenty of height, something that ultrawide and mega-wide monitors don’t have.
You can typically put a 43-inch gaming monitor on your desktop for around $1,500. That’s more than many 55-inch TVs but a computer monitor delivers a few things, like DisplayPort and high refresh rates, that consumer TVs do not. The Gigabyte Aorus FV43U makes the comparison a little easier, however, as it’s going for $1,000 as of writing.
The FV43U is a 16:9 VA panel competing with the best 4K gaming monitors with a 144 Hz refresh rate, AMD FreeSync, HDR and a quantum dot backlight that’s specced to reach 1,000 nits brightness. It also delivers decent sound from its built-in speakers, thanks to multiple sound modes. Let’s take a look.
| Panel Type / Backlight | VA / W-LED, edge array |
| Screen Size & Aspect Ratio | 43 inches / 16:9 |
| Max Resolution & Refresh Rate | 3840×2160 @ 144 Hz |
| FreeSync: 48-144 Hz | |
| Native Color Depth & Gamut | 10-bit (8-bits+FRC) / DCI-P3 |
| DisplayHDR 1000, HDR10 | |
| Response Time (GTG) | 1ms |
| Brightness | 1,000 nits |
| Contrast | 4,000:1 |
| Speakers | 2x 12w |
| Video Inputs | 1x DisplayPort 1.4 w/DSC |
| 2x HDMI 2.1, 1x USB-C | |
| Audio | 2x 3.5mm headphone output |
| USB 3.0 | 1x up, 2x down |
| Power Consumption | 54.3w, brightness @ 200 nits |
| Panel Dimensions | 38.1 x 25.1 x 9.9 inches |
| WxHxD w/base | (967 x 638 x 251mm) |
| Panel Thickness | 3.5 inches (88mm) |
| Bezel Width | Top/sides: 0.4 inch (10mm) |
| Bottom: 1 inch (25mm) | |
| Weight | 33.8 pounds (15.4kg) |
| Warranty | 3 years |
By starting with a VA panel, the FV43U is already ahead of many premium gaming monitors that rely on lower contrast IPS technology. Most IPS monitors are specced for around 1,000:1 contrast, while the FV43U boasts 4,000:1 on its sheet and topped that dramatically in our testing with SDR and extremely when it came to HDR. HDR is aided by the monitor’s 1,000-nit backlight enhanced by a quantum dot filter for greater color volume, which our testing will also confirm.
Video processing leaves nothing under the table. The FV43U is one of the few 4K displays that can run at 144 Hz. It manages this over a single DisplayPort cable using Display Stream Compression (DSC). That means it can process 10-bit color, though it uses Frame Rate Control (FRC) to achieve this. FreeSync operates from 48-144 Hz in SDR and HDR modes. G-Sync also works with the same signals as verified by our tests, even though it’s not Nvidia-certified. (You can see how by checking out our How to Run G-Sync on a FreeSync Monitor tutorial).
Peripheral features include two HDMI 2.1 ports, which support console operation, namely the PS5 and Xbox Series X, with variable refresh rates up to 120 Hz. The monitor’s USB-C port accepts Ultra HD signals up to 144 Hz. This is common among USB-C monitors as USB-C can replicate DisplayPort functions, but you’ll need a graphics card with USB-C, of course. The monitor’s USB-C port also allows for KVM switching (allowing you to control multiple PCs with a single keyboard, monitor and mouse) through additional USB 3.0 ports.
Two solid metal stand pieces bolt in place on the bottom if you set up on a desktop or entertainment center. Wall mounting is supported by a 200mm lug pattern in back. You’ll have to source your own bolts which should be part of any bracket kit.
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From the front, the FV43U looks like any modern television with a narrow bezel around the top and sides and larger bit of molded trim across the bottom. The Aorus logo and a power LED are visible in the center. The stand puts the panel a bit less than 3 inches from the table, so it’s a good height for a desktop if you plan to sit around 4 feet back. The anti-glare layer is more reflective than most smaller screens, so plan placement accordingly if you have windows in your room.
A joystick for controlling the on-screen display (OSD) menu joystick is prominently situated on the panel’s bottom center but the easiest way to control the FV43U is with its tiny remote. It only has a few keys but they’re enough to zip through the OSD, change inputs and control the gaming features.
The back is where you’ll find most of the styling elements. Two slanted shapes are rendered in shiny plastic, along with an Aorus logo in the center. The rest of the finish is matte and features some brushed textures. Angles and straight lines are the order of the day with a generous grill at the top for heat dissipation. Speakers fire from the bottom vents and deliver 12W apiece (more on that in the Hands-on section).
The input panel is on the right side which makes it easily accessible. You get two HDMI 2.1, one DisplayPort 1.4 and a USB-C, which also supports 144 Hz and Adaptive-Sync. The HDMIs are limited to 120 Hz but support Adaptive-Sync and 4K resolution, making it fit for console gaming.
The OSD looks just like the menu found in all Aorus monitors but you can make it larger so it can be more legible from across the room.
The Gaming sub-menu has everything needed for competitive gameplay. At the top is Aim Stabilizer Sync, which is a backlight strobe for blur reduction. It’s one of the rare implementations that can work in concert with Adaptive-Sync, and it manages to do this without reducing brightness too much out of the box (of course, you can always turn the brightness up).
Black Equalizer makes shadow detail more visible; Super Resolution adds edge enhancement (not in a good way), Display Mode changes the aspect ratio and Overdrive offers four options. Balance is the best one, as it has good blur reduction, no visible ghosting and allows you to toggle Adaptive-Sync on or off.
The Picture menu offers an extensive array of image modes (eight, plus three custom memories), along with color temp and gamma presets and something we normally see only on professional screens: selectable color gamuts. You can choose between Adobe RGB, DCI-P3, sRGB or Auto, but in our tests, Auto did not automatically switch the color gamut for different signal types. That means that if we wanted to watch SDR content in the sRGB it’s made in, we had to select the gamut manually.
You also get Local Dimming, which increases contrast significantly. It makes the picture very bright as well, but highlight and shadow detail remain solid, so it is perfectly usable. However, we recommend leaving it off unless your room has a lot of ambient light because you can’t reduce brightness when it’s on. If you prefer a Low Blue Light mode for reading, that feature is in the OSD too.
A single press of the large button in the center of the remote’s nav pad brings up a quick menu. Pressing left opens the Aorus dashboard, which can display your PC component’s internal temperatures and fan speeds. You’ll need a USB connection for this, but most motherboards will transmit the information to the FV43U.
A right press brings up Game Assist, which offers timers, counters, refresh rate info and aiming points. You also get a single cross in the OSD and can create additional reticles if you download the Aorus desktop app. Additionally, the OSD offers alignment marks in case you plan to set up additional FV43Us in a multi-screen configuration. Now that would be super cool! We’re thinking ultimate desktop flight simulator.
The FV43U comes set to its Green (yes, that’s the term used in the OSD) picture mode. It has nothing to do with the color green but is fairly accurate out of the box – enough to make our Calibration Not Required list. But if you’re a perfectionist and want to tweak the image, choose the User Define color temp and adjust the RGB sliders. Gamma presets and color gamut options are also available. For the full native gamut, choose Auto or Adobe RGB. Either will deliver just over 100% of DCI-P3 coverage. sRGB is also very accurate, but we found it better to choose the sRGB picture mode rather than the sRGB gamut mode. Below are our recommended calibration settings for SDR on the Gigabyte Aorus FV43U.
| Picture Mode | Green |
| Brightness 200 nits | 13 |
| Brightness 120 nits | 4 |
| Brightness 100 nits | 2 (min. 89 nits) |
| Contrast | 50 |
| Gamma | 2.2 |
| Color Space | Auto or Adobe |
| Color Temp User | Red 100, Green 97, Blue 99 |
When HDR content is present, there are four additional picture modes available: HDR1000, HLG, Game and Movie. HDR1000 is the most accurate, but locks out all image controls. Game and Movie allow for brightness and contrast adjustments and toggling and local dimming. We’ll explain that in more detail in the HDR tests.
A question that should be answered when one considers buying a 43-inch gaming monitor is, will it function as a TV? Since some FV43Us will wind up in living rooms or entertainment centers, it’s important to know whether it can play well with things like disc players or streaming boxes.
There is no internal tuner so technically, the FV43U is not a TV. But its HDMI 2.1 inputs can accept input from any cable or satellite receiver, as well as a 4K disc player or streaming box like Apple TV. We tried a Philips BDP-7501 player and an Apple TV source. SDR and HDR10 signals were supported fine with one omission, 24p. Film cadences are present on any Blu-ray and in many streamed shows and movies from streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime (in addition to 50 and 60 Hz). The FV43U converted these streams to 60 Hz, which caused a bit of stuttering here and there. It wasn’t pervasive, but we occasionally saw artifacts. Note that the FV43U, like most computer monitors, doesn’t support Dolby Vision. We’ve only seen a few pro screens that includeDolby Vision.
As a monitor for controlling Windows, the FV43U was a joy to use. With its vast area, we could clearly view four or five documents simultaneously. Sitting about 4 feet back, the pixel structure was invisible, but if we sat closer we were just able to see the dots. Color, meanwhile, was beautifully saturated, great for watching YouTube and browsing the web. If you want perfect accuracy for web browsing, the sRGB mode is available with a few clicks of the remote.
Gaming is also a blast with a screen this big. SDR games like Tomb Raider rendered in vivid hues with deep blacks, bright whites and superb contrast. The large dynamic range and accurate gamma mean that you’ll see all the detail present in the original content. That lends a realism seen on only the very best computer monitors.
HDR games, like Call of Duty: WWII, also showed tremendous depth on the FV43U. We played exclusively in the HDR1000 picture mode because of its very accurate luminance and grayscale tracking. The FV43Us large color gamut was put to good use here. It was readily apparent in skin tones and natural earth shades, like brown and green. That, coupled with nearly 39,000:1 contrast, made surfaces and textures pop with a tactility that we’ve only seen from premium screens like the Acer Predator CG437K or the Asus ROG Swift PG43UQ (both go for $1,500 as of writing). Without a full-array local dimming (FALD) backlight like that Acer Predator X27 and Asus ROG Swift PG27UQ have, the FV43U doesn’t quite make the very top tier of the best HDR monitors. But it comes awfully close to their image quality while delivering a lot more screen area.
The monitor’s two 12W speakers deliver sound that’s better than what you’ll hear from smaller monitors with much more bass and overall presence. Five audio modes help you tailor sound to your preference. If you’d rather use your best gaming headset, there’s a 3.5mm jack and an additional analog output for external systems.
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After a couple of generations making phones with flip-out cameras and increasingly large displays, Asus has taken the ZenFone 8 in a totally different direction: small.
The flipping camera concept lives on in the also-new ZenFone 8 Flip, but it’s no longer a standard feature across this year’s ZenFone lineup. Instead, priced at €599 (about $730), the ZenFone 8 lands in the upper-midrange class with a conventional rear camera bump and a much smaller 5.9-inch display. As a side note, final US pricing is TBD — Asus says somewhere between $599 and $799 — but it will be coming to North America, unlike last year’s model.
Rather than an attention-grabbing camera feature, the focus of this design has been to create a smaller phone that’s comfortable to use in one hand, which Asus has done without skimping on processing power or higher-end features.
It’s an Android iPhone mini, and it’s fantastic.
The ZenFone 8 may be small, but that hasn’t kept it from offering the latest flagship processor: a Snapdragon 888 chipset, coupled with 6, 8, or 16GB of RAM (my review unit has 16GB). I can’t find fault with this phone’s performance. It feels responsive, animations and interactions are smooth, and it keeps up with demanding use and rapid app switching. This is performance fitting of a flagship device.
The display is a 5.9-inch 1080p OLED panel with a fast 120Hz refresh rate that makes routine interactions with the phone — swiping, scrolling, animations — look much more smooth and polished than a standard 60Hz screen or even a 90Hz panel. By default, the phone will automatically switch between 120 / 90 / 60Hz depending on the application to save battery life, but you can manually select any of those three refresh rates if you prefer.
The display’s 20:9 aspect ratio was carefully considered by Asus. The company says it settled on this slightly narrower format so the phone would fit more easily into a pocket, and it does. I can’t get it all the way into a back jeans pocket, but it mostly fits. More importantly, it fits well inside a jacket pocket and doesn’t feel like it’s going to flop out if I sit down on the floor to tie my shoes. The ZenFone 8 is rated IP68 for dust protection and some water submersion.
The front panel is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus and houses an in-display fingerprint sensor, while the back uses Gorilla Glass 3 with a frosted finish that’s on the matte side of the matte / glossy spectrum. The front panel is flat, but the rear features a slight curve on the long edges for an easier fit in the hand. At 169 grams (5.9 ounces), it’s heavy for its size, and it feels surprisingly dense when you first pick it up. The phone’s frame is aluminum, giving the whole package a high-end look and feel. There’s even a headphone jack on the top edge as a treat.
The power button (an exciting shade of blue!) is well-positioned so my right thumb falls on it naturally with the phone in my hand. Same for the in-screen fingerprint sensor: the target appears to be positioned higher on the screen than usual, but that actually puts it within a comfortable reach of my thumb.
I’ll admit up front that I have a personal bias toward smaller phones, but the ZenFone 8 just feels great in my hand. I’ve spent a lot of time using big devices over the last six months, and I’ve gotten used to it. But the ZenFone 8 is the first device that feels like it was adapted to me, not something I’ve had to adapt to using.
The phone’s small size makes a smaller battery a necessity — 4,000mAh in this case, much smaller than the ZenFone 6 and 7’s 5,000mAh. I felt the difference in using this phone versus a battery-for-days budget or midrange phone, but I had no problem getting through a full day of moderate use. I even left Strava running for 20 hours by accident, and the battery still had some life in it the next morning. The ZenFone 8 supports 30W wired charging with the included power adapter, which takes an empty battery to 100 percent in a bit more than an hour. Wireless charging isn’t supported, which makes the ZenFone 8 a bit of an outlier in the flagship class.
Asus offers a ton of options to help stretch day-to-day battery life as well as the overall lifespan of your battery. There are no fewer than five battery modes to optimize phone performance or battery longevity on a daily basis, and different charging modes let you set a custom charging limit or stagger charging overnight so it reaches 100 percent around the time of your alarm for better battery health. You won’t find class-leading battery capacity here, but rest assured if you need to stretch the ZenFone 8’s battery, there are plenty of options.
The ZenFone 8 ships with Android 11, and Asus says it will provide “at least” two major OS with security updates for the same timeframe. That’s on the low side of what we’d expect for a flagship phone, especially compared to Apple’s typical four- or five-year support schedule. An important note for US shoppers is that the ZenFone 8 will only work with AT&T and T-Mobile’s LTE and Sub-6GHz 5G networks; you can’t use this phone on Verizon, and there’s no support for the fast, but extremely limited, millimeter-wave 5G networks.
There are just two cameras on the ZenFone 8’s rear camera bump, and they are both worth your time. Rather than cram in a depth sensor, macro, or some monochrome nonsense, Asus just went with a 64-megapixel main camera with OIS and a 12-megapixel ultrawide. They’re borrowed from last year’s model, minus a telephoto camera and the flipping mechanism.
As in the ZenFone 7 Pro, the 8’s main camera produces 16-megapixel images with vibrant color and plenty of detail in good light. Images can lean a little too far into unnatural-looking territory, and some high-contrast scenes look a little too HDR-y for my liking. But overall, this camera does fine: it handles moderately low-light conditions like a dim store interior well, and Night Mode does an okay job in very low light, provided you can hold the phone still for a few seconds and your subject isn’t moving.
Ultrawide camera
Ultrawide camera
Ultrawide camera
A skin-smoothing beauty mode is on by default when you use portrait mode, and it is not good. Skin looks over-smoothed, unnaturally flat, and brightened, like your subject is wearing a couple of layers of stage makeup. Turning this off improves things significantly.
The ultrawide camera also turns in good performance. Asus calls it a “flagship” grade sensor, and while that might have been true in 2018, it’s at least a step up from the smaller, cheaper sensors often found in ultrawide cameras. Likewise, the front-facing 12-megapixel camera does fine. Beauty mode is turned off by default when you switch to the selfie camera, and thank goodness for that.
There’s no telephoto camera here, just digital zoom. On the camera shooting screen, there’s an icon to jump to a 2x 16-megapixel “lossless” digital zoom to crop in quickly, which works okay, but it isn’t much reach, and it just makes the limitations of the small sensor and lens more obvious.
On the whole, the camera system is good but not great. The lack of true optical zoom or a telephoto camera is a disappointment, but you can’t have everything on such a small device, and I’d personally take an ultrawide before a telephoto any day.
The ZenFone 8 fills a void in the Android market for a full-specced, small-sized device. The Google Pixel 4A is around the same size, but it’s decidedly a budget device with a step-down processor, plastic chassis, and fewer niceties like an IP rating or a fast-refresh screen. Aside from battery life, which is manageable, you give up very little in the way of flagship features to get the ZenFone 8’s small form factor.
You have to look to iOS for this phone’s most direct competition: the iPhone 12 mini, which it matches almost spec-for-spec from the IP rating down to the camera configuration. The 12 mini is actually a little smaller than the ZenFone 8, and when you factor in storage capacity, it’s likely to be the more expensive choice at $829 for 256GB. However, when you consider that the 12 mini will probably get a couple more years of OS and security support, it may be the better buy in the long run, if you’re flexible in your choice of operating system.
I like the ZenFone 8 a lot, but I’m not sure it’ll find a big audience, at least in the US. Apple is having trouble selling the iPhone 12 mini, and if there’s one thing Apple is good at, it’s selling phones to US customers. As much as I hate to entertain the idea, maybe we’ve gotten used to giant phones. I love how the ZenFone 8 feels in my hand and in my pocket, but I do notice how much smaller the screen and everything on it seems compared to the bigger phones I’ve used recently.
There are also a few important considerations, like the lack of compatibility with Verizon and the comparatively short support lifespan of the phone. If you need the absolute best in battery life the ZenFone 8 can’t offer that, and if you want a class-leading camera, you’ll need to look elsewhere.
All that said, the ZenFone 8 will be the right fit for a specific type of person, and I can heartily recommend it to my fellow small phone fans. You’ll get flagship-level build quality and performance quite literally in the palm of your hand.
Photography by Allison Johnson / The Verge
Slate is getting into the audiobooks business. The online magazine and podcast subscription seller is launching its own audiobook store today in partnership with multiple publishing companies. The store will list and sell popular titles but with the added benefit of making the audio accessible through listeners’ preferred podcast app instead of a separate audiobook-only platform. This is likely its biggest sell for listeners, although Slate will compete on price, too. Listeners also will buy these books a la carte, meaning they don’t have to subscribe to an ongoing membership as they may through Audible, the biggest name in audiobooks.
The store and its functionality are powered through Slate’s Supporting Cast, its technology that powers recurring revenue audio services, like subscription podcasts. This means that on the back end, Slate is hosting publishers’ audiobooks on its servers and creating private RSS feeds for them, which can then be inserted into any podcasting app that supports them, like Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, and Overcast. The process basically looks like this: Listeners navigate to Slate’s store, buy a book, and can then either listen online or they can tap on the app of their choice to have the feed automatically inputted. They can also manually copy and paste the feed.
David Stern, vice president of product and business development, tells The Verge that its software automatically looks for suspicious activity and will revoke access if it suspects someone is sharing their private RSS link outside of a “very small flexible range.”
Initial partners include Penguin-Random House, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, and Hachette. Slate wouldn’t disclose its royalty agreements with these companies. The initial catalog is small, especially compared to Audible’s thousands of titles, but Slate seems to be interested in books that its team has reviewed for the website. As evidence for why Slate thought it should pursue an audiobook business, the company says it’s generated more than $1 million through its book affiliate business, and that it tested selling Danny Lavery’s Something That May Shock and Discredit You audiobook and sold 500 copies.
Slate’s move into audiobooks continues the trend of podcast-oriented companies looking to audiobooks and audiobook companies looking to podcasts. Spotify launched audiobooks in its app, hosted by celebrity talent, earlier this year and has reportedly put the founder of Parcast in charge of its audiobook efforts, per a Bloomberg report. Audible also brought podcasts to its app for the first time last year. (Apple, for its part, sells audiobooks through its Books app, not Podcasts app.) The broader bet seems to be that people who enjoy listening to things will want to do so from one app.
“It’s sort of a no-brainer,” Stern says.
Slate is positioning itself to let people choose what app they want to listen within, although neither Spotify nor Audible support private RSS feeds.
(Pocket-lint) – Sonos added a new soundbar to its range in 2020 – the Sonos Arc – succeeding the then seven year-old Playbar. You can read how the two compare in our separate feature.
Arc is a full-fledged, Dolby Atmos sound system, with HDMI eARC, Alexa and Google Assistant support, plus several other bells and whistles. The Sonos Beam meanwhile, is a smaller, more compact and cheaper soundbar.
So which is the better Sonos soundbar for your setup? We compare the Arc and the Beam to help you decide.
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You only need look at the two soundbars to see that there’s an obvious difference in design aesthetic. Both can be wall-mounted or set on a TV stand, but the Beam is more likely to be found on the latter. It is small enough to be fairly anonymous when sat in front of a television.
The Arc is much longer and more soundbar in shape.
The Beam is very much designed for use with a smaller television – 32 to 50-inches, for example. It greatly enhances the sound experience when compared to a smaller set’s built-in speakers, and happily sits out of the way when placed in front.
The Arc, on the other hand, looks more like a traditional soundbar and is likely to be matched with much larger TVs.
In terms of connectivity, both devices have 2.4GHz Wi-Fi and Ethernet ports to hook up to your home network and the internet, but the Arc ups the ante when it comes to connection to a TV.
That’s because it comes with a HDMI port supporting HDMI eARC, with the Beam’s port supporting the older HDMI ARC standard instead.
This is mainly because the Sonos Arc requires more bandwidth to receive Dolby Atmos and higher resolution audio streams. A HDMI ARC connection can do, but the TV must support Dolby Atmos itself.
Naturally, the Beam is not as capable when it comes to audio presentation as its newer, larger sibling.
It sports four mid-range drivers and one tweeter for a clean, clear front-facing audio experience. That provides a better soundscape than most TVs are capable.
In comparison, the Sonos Arc has eight drivers and three tweeters, with angled speaker units left and right, plus two angled upwards specifically for use with Dolby Atmos soundtracks.
This effectively means that the Arc provides a wider, taller soundscape that is clearly going to be more immersive.
Both speakers though can be added to, with the Sonos Sub a great option for extra bass and a couple of Sonos One or Sonos One SL speakers good options to provide rear channels to a home cinema setup.
Both the Arc and Beam are Sonos speakers first and foremost, so while they are great at expanding and enhancing TV viewing, they also work well to play music through, either standalone or as part of a Sonos multiroom system.
Both have Alexa and Google Assistant support, so can be voice controlled and work as voice assistants for search and even controlling the rest of your smart home devices.
Both also have HDMI CEC capabilities, allowing you to control your TV, soundbar and any other connected devices with just one remote (you can also opt for IR control, if you so desire).
Basically, the only main difference in features (apart from eARC support and Dolby Atmos) is that the Sonos Arc has audio sync an automatic option, while you have to enable it on the Beam.
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Naturally, considering the Arc has more speaker units inside, is larger and has more audio functionality, it is more expensive. And that might be a major factor in your purchasing decision.
The Sonos Beam is usually £399 / $399, for example, in comparison to £799 / $799 for the Sonos Arc. That’s half the price. If you have a smaller TV/living room, you might never need the extra oomph of the Arc and therefore can save yourself a packet.
However, for a smart Dolby Atmos-capable soundbar, with Alexa and Google Assistant on board, and the enter suite of Sonos streaming abilities, the Arc is actually very reasonable if you do fancy splashing out more on your home entertainment.
The biggest decision to make is what you actually want your soundbar to do. If you simply need something to improve the audio performance of your TV viewing, while also presenting all the cool music streaming features of a Sonos system, the Beam could be more than ample for you.
But, if you are looking for a neat home cinema system that has plenty of room for new features in future, the Arc is a very compelling offering – one without compromises. Albeit at a heftier price point.
Writing by Rik Henderson. Editing by Britta O’Boyle.
A mysterious chip running DOTA 2 at 120 frames per second seems to be the first glimpse of Alder Lake-S, AKA Intel’s 12th-generation desktop CPUs. As spotted in the CapFrameX database by German tech site ComputerBase, the CPU identifies itself as Alder Lake, but is running at just 2.2GHz. As this is unverified information it is best taken with a pinch of salt.
The DOTA 2 benchmark took place on April 5, and has taken this long to work its way out of the system. And while the game, a MOBA from 2013 favoured by esports types, may not be the most stressful test of the rig – which was also equipped with an RTX 3080 and 32GB of DDR5-4800 RAM – the presence of an engineering sample in a real-world situation is a good indication that Intel is on course to release its 12th-gen chips later this year.
Alder Lake, you’ll no doubt recall, marks a change for Intel, in that it will be the firm’s first 10nm chip design, made up of a mix of high-performance cores built on the Golden Cove architecture that succeeds the 11th-gen Core chips’ Cypress Cove, and power-saving cores utilising Gracemont cores that have more in common with Atom processors. This is the same trick phone manufacturers have been using for a while now, and is also behind the choice of Firestorm and Icestorm cores in the Apple M1 SOC.
The new chip also brings a next-generation hardware scheduler with it, which will require an update to Windows to use, along with support for DDR5, PCIE 5.0, and a new LGA 1700 socket that’s 7.5mm longer than existing Intel CPU sockets, and will require new cooling solutions as a result.
(Pocket-lint) – Gaming phones have become something of a fixture in the Android space; while many flagship devices push their gaming prowess, for a select few, gaming is their raison d’être, their everything.
The ROG Phone is one such device, pushing Asus’ Republic of Gamers brand and weaving into that the experience Asus has gained from its regular phones. And in the fourth-generation of this phone Asus is more ambitious than ever.
Here’s why the Asus ROG Phone 5 is not only a great gaming phone, it’s a great phone outside of that too.
Gaming phones often show their colours when it comes to the design. Aside from being large – which the ROG Phone 5 definitely is – you’ll often find more overt graphics and emotive finishes rather than just being a safe black or grey.
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The ROG Phone 5 doesn’t go to an extreme though: from the front it just looks like a normal phone. Flip it over and you’re treated to subtle design touches etched into the rear glass, which also gives some indicator of where the touch points are for the AirTriggers (which Asus describes as “ultrasonic sensor zones that can be customised to perform different functions, such as reproducing actions in specific games and launching specific apps”. We touch upon these in more detail in the last section of this review).
The thing that gives the game away is the ROG Vision display on the rear of the phone. There are two different versions of the display, with a dot display on the regular ROG Phone models and a slightly smaller but more sophisticated display panel on the Pro and Ultimate models – the Pro is shown in this review.
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That blows the subtlety out of the water, allowing you to have RBG illumination on the back of the phone – with the Pro and Ultimate models offering a wider range of graphics and animations – all of which can be controlled through the Armoury Crate app on the phone, just like Asus PC components.
That control includes turning the Vision display off if you don’t want it – but you’ll soon forget it’s there until people mention it. It’s on the back of the phone and it’s rare to be looking at the back of the phone when you’re doing something, so let’s not dwell on it.
There are a couple of other quirks around the body: The USB-C on the base of the phone is offset to one side rather than central (and we don’t know exactly why), while there’s a secondary USB-C on the side of the phone. This secondary USB sits alongside the contact point to power the AeroActive Cooler 5 – the clip-on fan – and both have a rubber seal that presses into the side to keep out dust.
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This cover is probably the worst piece of design implementation on the ROG Phone 5. The fact that there are a couple of spares in the box tell you everything you need to know: you’re going to lose this cover, because it’s a separate piece of rubber.
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We’ve found it flapping off when pulling the phone from a pocket, and just when handling the device. We’re constantly pushing it back into place and a couple of times we’ve found it missing and then located it in the bottom of a pocket.
One of the great things about gaming phones is what you get for your money. There are a whole range of phones on offer and none are really expensive compared to flagships from brands like Samsung and Apple. The ROG Phone 5 starts at £799 in the UK – and that’s for a 12GB RAM model with 256GB storage, not the bottom of the range loadout.
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But it’s not just about the core device, it’s about the rest of the experience. Lavishly packaged, opening the ROG Phone 5 is an event. From the cool comic book graphics of inside of the box, that flow through into the startup process for the phone, there’s a sense of theatre. It’s a reward for your custom and it’s so much better than just sliding a phone out of a box.
You also get more in the box: the 65W charger that will deliver a fast charge; the case that brings some grip to what is, admittedly, a slippery phone given its massive size; and the clip-on AeroActive Cooler 5 fan, which integrates a kickstand, two physical buttons, and another RGB logo.
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Some might baulk at this as more landfill, but some companies will make you pay for the charger – and here you’re getting a powerful charger you can use with your other devices too.
There’s a 6.78-inch display in the ROG Phone 5. It’s big by any standard, with Asus hanging onto the bezels top and bottom. The top bezel integrates the front-facing camera, so there’s no need for a notch or punch-hole.
It’s also a flat display, all practical design decisions made to give you the best gaming experience, ensuring that you get as much visual space as possible. Given how problematic we found the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra’s display, we’re just fine with the ROG Phone 5 going flat.
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The ROG Phone 5 models all stick to a Full HD resolution and while devices like the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra can technically produce finer detail, generally speaking that makes little difference. We can’t fault the ROG Phone’s display for detail.
It also offers refresh rates up to 144Hz (if you have any games that support that, there’s a full list on the ROG website), with options to select 60 or 120Hz – or Auto, which will pick the refresh rate based on the content.
HDR 10+ is supported to bring pop to the visuals for high dynamic range content, while that AMOLED panel provides rich colour visuals, with the option to tune that to your preferences.
It’s a great display and about the only thing that separates it from the best displays on the market is the peak brightness. It offers 800 nits, which is still bright enough for most, but Samsung’s top-end offerings will outshine this model – most notable when outside in sunny conditions.
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Flanking the display top and bottom are dual stereo speakers, while there’s also a 3.5mm headphone socket for those wanting to go wired. The speaker performance is stellar, amongst the best you’ll find on a smartphone. It’s rich and immersive, with substantial bass and volume that means you don’t need headphones to get the most from your content.
The fact the ROG Phone 5 houses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 platform makes it especially good value for money – as you’re getting the latest flagship hardware that will embarrass some other phones.
Of course it comes in at different price points, with RAM and storage leveraging the price, although not all models will be available in all regions. We actually tested the 16GB/512GB model (the ROG Phone 5 Pro – a model that isn’t planned for the UK; although there’s a 16GB/512GB version of the standard ROG Phone 5, the only difference being the type of display you get on the back of the phone).
The performance is also exemplary. There are a number of elements to this. It’s got that great hardware and, as a result, we’ve found the gaming performance to be outstanding.
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This is a phone that eats hours of Call of Duty Mobile or PUBG Mobile, giving solid gameplay, combined with those design elements and some software enhancements that feel like they give you edge, or at least give you the opportunity to establish new preferences thanks to the bespoke gaming options offered.
We also didn’t find the ROG Phone 5 to get excessively hot under load, despite the option of the clip-on fan.
But the important point about performance is that the ROG Phone 5 also runs fast and smooth outside of gaming. We’ve seen gaming phones that drop the ball when it comes to simple tasks, because of poor software. The ROG Phone 5 is stable, which makes for a great experience.
There’s a huge 6000mAh battery, which is fitting for a phone of this size, again with Asus splitting the battery and enabling 65W wired charging. That makes for really fast charging, with the option to bypass charging – and just have the power used for the system rather than recharging the battery.
Again, this is an option for gamers, so you’re not charging (which produces heat) and loading the system (which produces heat) and could potentially lead to a drop in performance.
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A big battery means big battery life. In regular use the ROG Phone 5 will easily see you through the day and into the next. It’s not a charge every night type of phone. Even with a couple of hours of gaming thrown in – at top brightness and max settings – battery life isn’t a worry. That’s a great position not just for a gaming phone, but any smartphone.
There are power modes available, with X Mode firing up full power to let things rip, and a Dynamic Mode to keep things balanced. You can customise the power modes to suit your preferences with things like network, display, performance, and other controls all selectable.
There’s an under-display fingerprint scanner that’s fast to unlock, while calls comes through loud and clear too – with no detected problems with Wi-Fi or 5G connectivity.
The camera on any gaming phone is often something of an afterthought. The focus is on the experience of gaming – so the camera is seen as less of a focus. Despite that, Asus is pushing the ROG Phone 5 as having a triple camera system.
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The main camera is a 64-megapixel sensor, using pixel combining to produce a 16-megapixel image as standard. You can shoot in full resolution, but you have to dig into the menu to find that option, which no one is ever going to do.
There’s an ultra-wide lens, giving the equivalent of 0.6x, although the quality isn’t great, with visible blurring around the edges if there’s any detail there – but fine for open shots of expansive landscapes.
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1.0X MAIN CAMERA
The final camera is a macro camera, which we’re generally non-plussed about. As on other devices, macro cameras seem to be thrown in to make up the numbers – and that’s what it feels like here too.
So back the main camera and the performance is reasonable, producing naturally balanced pictures, although perhaps not getting the most out of scenes and not showing as much pop as other cameras we’ve seen can offer.
Low-light shooting offers that slow exposure so you can watch the image get lighter, which we like – and it will take those shots automatically in low light, which means people will actually use it.
There’s a portrait mode for blurring the background that works well enough, although it seems to soften the background with over-exposure which makes results look a little clumsy.
Portrait works on the front and back cameras and we generally prefer the results without portrait mode – and you can’t adjust the levels of blur after the fact, so it’s worth taking a few photos and figuring out what gives you pleasing results so you can change the settings before you take the picture. The selfie camera is generally good, although images quickly get softer in lower light conditions and aren’t good when it gets dark.
There’s no optical zoom on offer here, although you can pinch-to-zoom from the main camera out to 8x. It’s not an especially elegant system and the results are typical of digital zoom, with quality dropping as you increase the “magnification”.
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One of the reasons for the high-resolution sensor – apart from for the benefit of the spec sheet – is to allow 8K video capture, on top of the 4K 60fps option.
The important thing about the camera is that it gets the job done: while other phones will sell themselves on camera features above all else, that’s not really the ethos behind the ROG Phone 5. This phone is all about the power and the gaming experience. So, yes, there are more engaging cameras elsewhere, but at the same time, this Asus will give you perfectly good results in most situations.
As we’ve said previously, the software on the ROG Phone 5 runs smooth and fast. We’ve experienced no problems with the tweaks and changes that Asus has made over Google’s Android operating system, and it’s easy to swing in with Google versions of apps rather than supplied alternatives.
It’s running Android 11 too, so the latest version of Google’s OS – although Asus doesn’t quite have the update record that a company like Samsung now offers, so there’s no telling how long it would be before it moves to Android 12 once that’s released later down the line.
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What’s more relevant here is the gaming software and the options that controls. We’ve mentioned Armoury Crate, which will let you control things like the ROG Vision display on the back of the phone, and act as a launch pad for your games.
Within each game you can see how long you’ve spent playing that game, but more usefully you have a record of profiles for that game. You can, for example, restrict background CPU usage when playing a particular game, change the touch performance, turn off background network syncing – all designed to ensure you have the optimal gaming experience.
That you can customise this to each game is great. For something like a shooter where connection and touch matters more, you might want to restrict everything else. For something casual like Pokemon Go, you might be happy to have everything else on your phone happening. It’s freedom to choose, rather than one gaming mode fits all.
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Within games you have access to the Game Genie dashboard too, allowing you to perform essential things, like tweak the brightness, turn off alerts or calls, speed up your phone – and block navigation gestures so you don’t accidentally exit the game.
There’s the option to have stats always showing – CPU and GPU usage, battery, temperature, fps – and you can drag these to anywhere on the screen so they are out of the way.
But it’s the AirTriggers that are the biggest differentiator from other phones, giving you a range of touch zones around the body of the phone that you can customise. That also includes two physical buttons on the AeroActive Cooler accessory too – which might convince some people to use it, as those buttons feel more positive than the touch areas of the phone’s casing.
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The Cooler buttons are great for things like dropshotting in shooters, because you can hit the deck while still firing, and get back to your feet, all without having to touch anything on the screen – which is a real advantage during games.
There are two ultrasonic buttons on the top of the phone, like shoulder buttons, with haptic feedback. These can offer a full range of programmable options – taps, swipes, slides – and they can be divided into two buttons each side, or you can programme and assign a macro to that button for a sequence you might use in a game.
Then there’s motion support, which you can assign to controls in the game – like forward tilt to reload, or whatever you like.
There’s also (on the Pro and Ultimate models only) rear touch zones you can use for slide input for your fingers on the rear of the phone.
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The challenge is how you incorporate all these tools to make things easier for you during games – although setting them up is easy enough and each setup is unique to each game.
Even if you just find one thing that’s useful, then you’re a step ahead. That might be using an additional AirTrigger for an on-screen control you find hard to hit – or that you can then remove from the display so you have less UI in the way of the game.
Verdict
The thing that really hits home about the Asus ROG Phone 5 is that it’s not just a great gaming phone: it’s a great phone full stop.
Yes, you can’t avoid the fact that the majority of phones are now based around the camera experience – and that’s one area that the ROG Phone 5 doesn’t really go to town on. But with huge battery and display, this is a great media phone in addition to a gaming delight.
For keen gamers, there’s a market of phone choices out there – and the ROG Phone 5 should definitely be high up your shortlist. For everyone else, if you can accept that this Asus is designed for gamers first, it’s still an awful lot of phone for the money.
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This gaming phone attempts to steal the show with a 165Hz display. Despite being a powerful device that’s good value for money, it does oversell the cameras and also brings with it some software quirks you’ll need to work around.
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Writing by Chris Hall. Editing by Mike Lowe.
The new Atom’s headline ability is headphone playback, but don’t underestimate its value as a preamplifier. It’s a classy and versatile addition to Naim’s Uniti range.
Sound+Image mag review
This review originally appeared in Sound+Image magazine, one of What Hi-Fi?’s Australian sister publications. Click here for more information on Sound+Image, including digital editions and details on how you can subscribe.
UK-based Naim Audio became first renowned for its amplification, proving the importance of power quality from the early 1970s. Three decades later Naim was also quick to recognise the future of file-based and streaming music, and today enjoys great success with its Mu-so wireless speakers, while the Uniti range of all-in-one streaming systems deliver simple but definitely hi-fi ‘just-add-speakers’ solutions.
In a way the Uniti players brought together everything Naim has learned – the wireless, multiroom and control elements of the Mu-sos, with the solid hi-fi amplification developed over decades, including more recent trickle-down tech from the developmental fillip of investment made in the company’s no-holds-barred Statement amplifier project.
Now here comes the Uniti Atom Headphone Edition (£2399/$3290/AU$4299), which takes the smallest of the existing Uniti all-in-ones and does something rather unexpected for Naim – it throws out the part on which the company built its reputation, the amplification.
Well, that’s not entirely true. There are no amplifiers for loudspeakers, as provided on the other Uniti units (excepting only the Uniti Core, which adds networked hard-drive storage to the range).
But as the ‘HE’ of the new name suggests, it caters instead to headphones. On the front there are headphone outputs for jacks of full-size quarter-inch (6.5mm in new money) and 4.4mm Penteconn balanced connections, while round the back there’s a second balanced connection on 4-pin XLR.
We’re told that for this product Naim has used an all-new amp implementation designed especially so it delivers the best headphone amplifier experience, including a new transformer design to provide power tailored to the needs of the headphone amplification.
But this is not only a headphone amp. It’s also a preamplifier, and Naim has optimised its preamplifier performance also, “including elements originally used in our flagship Statement Amplifier” it says.
As a preamplifier it offers one analogue input pair on RCA sockets, and then digital inputs: two optical and one coaxial, plus USB-A slots both front and rear. There’s also Bluetooth available, which includes the aptX codec.
What doesn’t it have? It loses from the original Atom the HDMI ARC connection which was handy to play audio from your TV, and there’s still no USB-B connection to play direct from computer.
But its outputs are expanded, its variable preamplifier output available on both unbalanced RCA and balanced XLR outputs to feed your downstream amplification. This could play straight to power amps, since there is full volume control in the Atom HE – either from the remote, from its app, or from the heavenly Naim knob which sits on top, the only disadvantage of this positioning being that it is hidden when the unit goes on a good rack shelf, though its minimal height of 9cm means you should still be able to squeeze your hand in there for a knob spin when the urge presents itself.
And in addition to physical inputs, this Naim has all the streaming prowess of other Uniti members, and that’s to say as complete a set of protocols as you’ll find anywhere – so many, indeed, that when the range originally launched, it was significantly delayed by the paper trail for all the licensing involved.
So this includes being easily addressed from any Spotify app, free or paid, or using Apple’s AirPlay 2 to stream the output of a Mac or any app on an iOS app, and Chromecast too, for point-to-point streaming from Android devices. Those with music libraries on a PC can use its UPnP ‘server’ function. It’s also Roon Ready, and although the Roon-direct licensing was still going through when it arrived for review, it was nevertheless available in Roon via its Chromecast and AirPlay abilities.
Then there are the services available within the Naim app itself. These include internet radio and podcasts, Tidal, and Qobuz (the latter newly available to Australia). You may note these are services which offer higher-quality subscriptions; Naim emphasises this quality also in its internet radio app, with a section devoted to higher-rate streams than the often grungy desk-compressed pop stations.
And one last batch of capabilities – the Atom HE is multiroom-capable with other Naim equipment including the Mu-so wireless speakers, so you can have music playing in unison (and Uniti) throughout your home. Chromecast and AirPlay 2 offer other paths to multiroom and multi-device playback.
Having previously reviewed the standard Uniti Atom, we found set-up here to be a breeze. You have to pair the remote control by holding it to the full-colour five-inch front-panel panel display while you push ‘Home’ for three seconds. Our Naim app, already installed on an iPad Pro, needed a reinstall before it saw the Atom HE on the network and delivered it a firmware update, losing contact until the update was complete.
Beyond that, we had absolutely zero operational issues, and indeed throughout our testing we were able to generate no criticisms at all – not one – because Naim has honed its highly versatile and potentially complex operation to something near perfection.
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The Naim app presents all its streaming services on one screen, the inputs on a scrolling second screen; if that doesn’t appeal you can use the settings to reorder the inputs to your preference, banishing unused ones to the second screen.
We had connected a Thorens turntable via a phono stage into the analogue input. We connected our computer to an optical input, using a DAC between them as a USB-to-SPDIF converter.
To kick off, we ran the Atom HE’s unbalanced pre-outputs to our resident power amps, always a slightly nervous connection to make when the preamp is digitally controlled and might flick the output to max accidentally. (Once we had Roon connected, we specified a safety level beyond which the volume slider then can’t go.)
We addressed it first from Tidal on the Naim app, then from the Tidal app itself, then from Roon.
Indeed during the Atom’s visit it may have be physically located in one room, but it seemed omnipresent. Wherever we accessed music – on the music room computer, on our Chromebook, the iPhone, a tablet – there was the Naim Atom as a playback device waving at us as if saying ‘Play to me! Play to me!’ There are so many ways to play that surely any current preferred path to playback will fit right in.
We can fully believe Naim’s claim that the preamp of the Atom HE is actually superior to those of the current Uniti range. Even in our initial set-up without the benefit of the balanced connections, all the cues from our favourite tunes poured from power amp and speaker references, dynamically delivered, cleanly resolving the good and the bad.
The effect on Alex the Astronaut’s main vocal for Split the Sky can sound curiously excessive on systems lacking resolution, degenerating into a mush. Here it could be discerned separately, part delay, part reverb. More to the point, the music and the emotion were entirely unchecked. The quite awful subject matter of her remarkable I Like To Dance is chilling; her Triple J cover of Mr Blue Sky – The Go-Betweens’ Lindy Morrison on drums – is sheer joy.
The Tidal stream through the Atom HE easily outperformed Spotify’s relatively softened sound. Naim’s Uniti platform does not support the MQA encoding which Tidal uses to ‘unfold’ its high-res Masters to their high definition – Naim could change this by firmware update, it has said, but is being led by demand.
Whatever you might think of MQA, it may be that uncompressed FLAC high-res streaming as offered by Qobuz and Deezer represents a purer future – after all, with today’s bandwidths defined by streaming 4K video, what need for data compression of high-res music any more?
So with Qobuz newly launched in Australia, we took the opportunity to connect our Roon to Qobuz, and our Roon to the Uniti. Roon’s excellent quality check pop-up box reminded us that Roon via Chromecast dropping the high-res to 48kHz, so we switched to Qobuz direct inside the Naim app. And what a joy that was. Fleetwood Mac’s Go Your Own Way was almost alarmingly crisp; details on Toto’s Africa (the left-channel chuckle on the intro) astoundingly apparent, especially as our usual playback preference for this slice of soft rock is the vinyl 45.
On Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill, the continuous rolling drums’n’bass were entirely segregated from the other parts, and the emotional lift of multitracked Kates as we reached the first ‘Come on baby, come on darlin’ was thrilling at an almost tactile level. We began regretting our agreement to return the Atom HE to distributor BusiSoft AV within an unusually brief two weeks; we were barely getting started and we were missing it already.
Naim Uniti Atom Headphone Edition specs
Inputs: 1 x analogue RCA, 2 x optical digital, 1 x coaxial digital, 2x USB-A
Streaming: Apple AirPlay 2, Chromecast, UPnPT, Spotify Connect, TIDAL, Qobuz, Roon Ready, Bluetooth, Internet radio
Headphones outputs: 6.35mm, 4.4mm Pentaconn, 4 pin XLR
Audio outputs: preamp unbalanced (RCA); preamp balanced (XLR)
Also visiting from Naim’s Australian distributor were the Final Audio D8000 Pro headphones, themselves a mere AU$4999 (£3995, US$4299) with their silver-coated cables trailing away to the Atom HE’s full-size headphone jack like weighty twisted tinsel.
The Naim had not the slightest trouble driving these esoteric 60-ohm planar magnetic headphones to their maximum ability, whether delivering a tight and punchy kick drum under the guitar and synthscape of The Triffids’ Wide Open Road, or highlighting the curiously lo-fi elements opening Gotye’s Somebody That I Used To Know.
The Naim and Finals delivered a mind-meltingly zingy portrayal of The Go-Betweens’ Streets of your Town, currently resurrected for advertising purposes by Ampol but here crisply separated to the point where our attention was constantly darting around the soundstage to small sonic elements like the cunning combination of panned rhythm guitars, the tight block hits in the left, each element easily individually selectable by the mind’s ear, yet held together in a finely musical whole.
We also ran more affordable headphone references – open AKGs, closed Sennheisers – and there wasn’t a pair which didn’t display their full abilities or receive more than enough power on tap from the Atom HE – enough, indeed, to achieve quite worrying levels without any hint of congestion or distortion.
The relevant figures are 1.5 watt-per-channel output into 16 ohms (from all headphone outputs), and output impedance of 4.7 ohms. The headphone amp remains in pure Class-A except for lower impedance headphones pushed to the extremes of volume, when a Class-AB circuit is “seamlessly” invoked.
If you like it loud (bearing in mind the dangers of so listening), the Atom HE will at least ensure you get your music with a minimum of damaging distortion.
After a head-pumping serve of Wolfmother’s The Joker and the Thief we wondered if we should take a rest, but Qobuz continued serving such delights that we didn’t, instead diverting to some high-res classical. This confirmed the dynamic reserve of the headphone output and a remarkable ability to stay tonally accurate across different impedance headphones. All this was from the standard unbalanced quarter-inch headphone socket; the balanced outputs could potentially lift the Atom HE’s game still higher.
Having an assortment of active stereo speakers in residence for our group test this issue, it occurred to us that the Atom HE’s abilities as a preamp perfectly complemented just such devices. The ELAC Navis, for example, has balanced XLR inputs, to which we connected the Atom HE’s balanced outputs.
The result was wildly successful – a brilliant pair of speakers provided with a perfectly-pitched preamp output backed by physical inputs, streams galore, an app, a physical remote control and Naim’s big knob. Adding good active speakers to the Atom HE makes for a wonderfully compact yet versatile system, boosted by its particular powers to make your headphones sing when privacy is required.
The Atom HE is an excellent addition to the Naim Uniti range – something genuinely different in offering a streaming preamplifier with a top-quality headphone amplifier. Use it alone with headphones, with power amps, or with active speakers, and you have a system just as versatile in its streaming abilities as the Mu-so, more versatile in its connections, and far higher in its hi-fi quality. And it comes with the best knob in hi-fi. It’s a big thumbs up from us.