When Apple introduced its controversial MacBook Pro redesign in 2016, the company probably didn’t know it was setting itself up to get sued — but not only is a class-action lawsuit now underway for their infamous butterfly keyboards, it’s looking likely there’ll be a second one for their notoriously fragile display cables, too. Judge Edward Davila has decided to let the “flexgate” lawsuit go forward, ruling that Apple should have known that they would fail and yet kept selling them anyhow.
“The court finds that the allegations of pre-release testing in combination with the allegations of substantial customer complaints are sufficient to show that Apple had exclusive knowledge of the alleged defect,” the judge wrote (via Law360 and 9to5Mac). You can read the full order at the bottom of this post.
To see what the issue looked like, just take a peek at our picture atop this post; it’s sometimes called the “stage light” issue because of how the cable damage would produce those dark spots.
Part of the flexgate controversy is around how Apple addressed the issue when it first got publicity in late 2018 — first by silently swapping a new, slightly longer cable into newer MacBooks, and only opening up one of its typical free repair programs months after 15,000 users signed a petition and it was called out in the press. The company’s been a lot more responsive with issues ever since, such as with this free battery replacement program for a small number of those 2016 and 2017 MacBook Pro laptops that won’t charge anymore.
Unlike the butterfly keyboard suit, the flexgate one doesn’t appear to be a certified class-action lawsuit yet — but there are now nine different plaintiffs lined up in this single case, and the judge is inviting them to submit a new amended complaint. We’ll be watching to see where it goes from there.
Samsung announced its Galaxy SmartTag line of item trackers in January, and at the time, it said the premium SmartTag Plus, which has ultra-wideband (UWB) technology that enables more precise tracking of an item in relationship to you than Bluetooth does, would be releasing later this year. Now, though, there are some clues that the SmartTag Plus could be coming out soon, possibly as early as April 12th.
Perhaps the most telling hint pointing to the SmartTag Plus’ imminent arrival is that retailer B&H Photo already has the black model of the device available for preorder, with an “expected availability” of April 12th. Here’s a link to the B&H listing if you want to try to preorder a SmartTag Plus for yourself. But since Samsung hasn’t shared this date itself just yet, it’s possible B&H could shift this expected date if it’s not accurate.
Image: B&H Photo
The upcoming item tracker also appeared in Federal Communications Commission filings made public on Wednesday. That can be an indication that a product will be available for sale in the near future, but it’s no guarantee.
Samsung isn’t the only company interested in UWB tech. Apple has long been rumored to be working on a UWB-equipped item tracker of its own, supposedly called AirTags, and Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said in January that Apple plans to release them this year. Tile is also reportedly preparing its own item tracker with UWB, too.
Apple has also built its U1 chip that enables UWB into the iPhone 11 and 12 series and even the Apple Watch Series 6, but so far, it hasn’t used the technology for much except for more a precise AirDrop. The U1 chip will also let BMW iX owners wirelessly unlock their cars when the vehicle is released later this year in Europe.
Casio has announced the first Wear OS smartwatch in its long-running G-Shock lineup: the GSW-H1000. The watch will retail for $699 in the US or £599 in the UK, and it will be available in red, blue, or black. With shock resistance and water resistance up to a depth of 200 meters, Casio says the GSW-H1000 is a fitness-focused wearable designed for everything from surfing to snowboarding.
The watchmaker has been releasing devices using Google’s smartwatch OS since 2016, when it released the Android Wear-powered Casio Smart Outdoor Watch. But this is the first time Google’s software has appeared on a G-Shock watch. The G-Shock lineup dates back to the 1980s, and the watches have a reputation for being some of the hardest-wearing around.
Its dual-layer display includes one monochrome and one color panel.Image: Casio
The GSW-H1000 comes with many of the features expected on a fitness-focused smartwatch. There’s an optical heart rate sensor, and Casio’s built-in software supports 15 activities and 24 indoor workout options. The watch supports GPS and has a built-in compass, altitude sensor, accelerometer, and gyrometer. Wear OS means there’s Google Assistant and Google Fit support, and you can download apps from Google Play.
In terms of hardware, the watch has a 1.2-inch 360 x 360 dual-layer display that combines a monochrome always-on LCD display with a color LCD panel. Battery life is rated at around one and a half days if you’re using the color display, extending to up to a month if you only use the watch for timekeeping and sensors. A full charge takes around three hours, according to Casio.
With rumors of an extreme sport-focused Apple Watch on the horizon, Casio and other rugged smartwatch manufacturers could soon be facing a lot more competition. But on paper at least, the GSW-H1000 looks like it could be up to the challenge.
(Pocket-lint) – The Garmin Vivosport is in no ways new – it launched back in 2018 – but it landed in our lap as we wanted an affordable way to track heart-rate from the wrist without the fuss of wearing a chest strap device during exercise.
Since buying the Vivosport on a tame budget, it’s grown to become part of our daily life, an always-on tracker that helps with move motivation, step- and sleep-tracking, among other measures, all while being small and unobtrusive to wear.
If you’re looking for a relatively budget fitness band and aren’t tempted by now-Google-owned Fitbit, does the Garmin Vivosport fit all your needs?
Display size: 9.7 x 19.3mm / 72 x 144 pixels resolution
Weight: 27g (large) / 24.1g (small)
5ATM water resistance (to 50m)
The Vivosport is in no way watch-like – which, as non-wearers of such a device in the past – is a massive positive for us, because once the band is on you’ll more or less forget it’s there.
Sure, it needs to be reasonably tight in order to get an accurate heart-rate reading, but with multiple openings in the non-removable band – that’s why there are small and large sizes (it’s the large pictured) – you can easily find one that’s most comfortable.
Best fitness trackers: The top activity bands to buy today
We’ve even found the Vivosport fine to wear during the night, for sleep tracking, should you so wish. The automated backlight doesn’t constantly come on too easily – as we’ve suffered with some other smartwatches over the years – so there’s not unwarranted extra light during night-time.
Even when the backlight does kick in – giving a sort-of blueish hue to the colour screen – the display is rather small anyway, so not a major distraction. You’ll likely only look at the Vivosport when it vibrates alerting you to something – which can be customised or switched off – or actively want to engage with some data on the panel itself.
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We like that it’s not a distraction: wear the device, forget about it, let it track at all times. In the same breath, however, the display is small to the point that it can be fiddly, while data doesn’t exactly have a lot of room to play with – so you’re best to view the output through Garmin Connect instead.
For a small band, the Vivosport comes with a fair chunk of features. There’s the daily stuff – step tracking, sleep tracking, stairs climbed, calories burned, stress level – and the active stuff that you’ll need to actively engage with when commencing exercise (an auto mode is available, but it’s hit an miss in our experience).
Pressing-and-holding a finger on the screen will open the swipeable menu, the first graphic being for exercise. Tap this to open the various options, including walking, running, cycling, and more. Some of these will offer outside/inside options for GPS tracking, as relevant, which can sometimes take a little while to grab ahold of a signal – and until it does you can’t commence that exercise.
The Vivosport commences with a default set of goals that auto-adjusts based on your lifestyle. If you walk miles everyday then the 5,000 step goal will automatically increase without you needing to do anything. Or you can set a personal one – whether realistically achievable everyday or not – to give you some added drive.
For us, however, it’s the wider detail of what the Vivosport can do that’s most appealing. We’ve integrated it as part of a Garmin Edge 1030 Plus cycling computer setup – also with Vector 3 power pedals to measure cadence and power – to act as our heart-rate monitor. You’ll need to open a different menu to transmit such live data, but once synched you can let the band do the reading – which will display on the Edge’s screen should you want it to.
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Sure, wrist-based tracking is never going to be as accurate as a chest-based tracking product. But the fact the Vivosport can communicate with a high-end Garmin setup is good enough for us to get reasonably accurate comprehension of our heart-rate zones during cycling sessions. Sometimes it’ll drift off the mark and get stuck at 148bpm whilst we’re going flat out up a hill – knowing it’ll be over 170bpm in reality – but it soon catches back up.
Not only does it perform this real-time tracking, however, but the Vivosport also houses a blood oxygen monitor (VO2) which, in this context, has genuine use: because the Edge 1030 Plus will take a read at the beginning and end of a workout automatically it can assess how well you’re progressing based on previous sessions and advise on recovery time.
Outside of our cycling sessions we’ve been using the Vivosport to track weekend 5-mile walks, with the dedicated GPS tracking proving to be better than our phone-based Strava alternative (which, on some handsets, can time-out mid session). It paints an accurate picture of route, along with base/max/average heart-rate to give a real understanding of low intensity workouts.
Pocket-lint
The heart-rate accuracy seems to be on point too – based on our count-it-out fingers-to-neck comparison – and it’s only really sleep tracking that’s a bit over-optimistic, as it’ll base sleep patterns on what you tell the watch and often it’ll think you’re asleep when you’re just being lazy in bed one morning. Still, seeing light/deep/REM sleep is kind of fascinating, whether or not it’s data that you’ll really need.
Oh, lastly, it’s worth pointing out the lack of swim tracking. Which seems like an oddity for a waterproof device that features an accelerometer. If you’re looking for a band to assist with triathlon training then you’ll need to look further afield to a more advanced (and pricier) watch product.
Performance
Up to 8 hours non-stop GPS tracking for exercise
Smart notifications (iOS & Android app)
For an always-on fitness tracker the Vivosport lasts for a pretty decent length of time too. Garmin quotes up to eight hours of use with GPS tracking, i.e. when engaged in exercise activity. But it’s much longer if you’re not tracking specific exercises.
Pocket-lint
In our use that’s equated to charging the Vivosport every three days. In the meantime that provides daily tracking, including an hour of heart-rate data transmission via Bluetooth, an hour of GPS-tracking while walking in the evening, and overnight sleep tracking.
Best fitness trackers 2021: Top activity bands to buy today
By Britta O’Boyle
·
Our guide to the top fitness trackers available, helping you count steps, track calories, monitor your heart rate, sleep patterns and more.
It does lead to the oddity of knowing when to charge, though, as we’ve ended up with it conking out at 5pm on a Wednesday, or warning of 10 per cent remaining at lunchtime. For us, really, it’s best plugged in overnight, abandoning the sleep tracking, to provide day in day out data without the sleep information.
Plugging it in, however, is based on a proprietary cable and fitting. Lose that cable and you’re stuffed as it’s like nothing else you’ll possess. The cable is also really short, which seems to be an oddity. We’d much rather have a charging cradle or mat instead to work with, which could always be plugged in bedside, with a backup direct charging port on the device itself.
Part of the longevity is down to the screen being dimmed the majority of the time. There’s little need to engage with the panel really, as the captured data is best presented through Garmin Connect – available for Apple iOS and Google Android, or via a web browser – in an easy-to-understand format.
You can engage with a calendar view, select specific exercise activities to gain greater understanding of your efforts, view bigger picture month-long summaries, or a comprehensive breakdown in My Day – which, as you probably guessed, collates all the data throughout a given day (from the Vivosport and other connected Garmin devices, as applicable).
Garmin Connect is best in app form, but can be accessed via a browser if you wish, and can also be setup to automatically push exercise data to third-party solutions, such as Strava. It’s a robust platform with enough flexibility to allow you to go light or dig deeper.
Verdict
The Garmin Vivosport is a small, comfortable-to-wear and capable fitness tracker that lasts a long time and avoids the over-complexity of a watch-like product.
We’d rather it had a non-proprietary cable for charging, the lack of swim tracking might seem odd for a waterproof device, while the small screen can be a little fiddly.
But the fact the Vivosport can communicate with our Gamin Edge cycling computer for comprehensive sessions and is always tracking our daily output in the interim has made it a daily driver with much wider appeal.
Sure, it might not be brand new – indeed it’s a couple of years old at the time of writing – but that’s an extra bonus in its appeal: as it’s available at some great price points right now (we found ours new for £69/$89).
Also consider
Pocket-lint
Fitbit Charge 4
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Perhaps the most obvious comparison, the lifestyle nature of its tracking features makes it an attractive wrist-wearable proposition for anyone looking to increase their activity and monitor their progress, with the new Active Zone Minutes being a lot more useful than step counting.
Read our review
Pocket-lint
Garmin Forerunner 45
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Looking for something with a larger screen that’s a little more comprehensive as a result? Garmin’s affordable watch ought to be a good shout.
Intel officially positions its Rocket Lake CPUs as the best CPUs for gaming today, yet like all desktop chips it will inevitably be used for a wide variety of applications. Nonetheless, Asus this week made a surprising move and introduced a small form-factor low-power desktop powered by Intel’s latest Rocket Lake CPU.
Measuring 175×175×42 mm, the Asus Mini PC PB62 can be equipped with Intel’s Rocket Lake processor with up to eight cores as well as a 35W or 65W TDP, up to 64 GB of DDR4 memory, two M.2-2280 SSDs with a PCIe 3.0 and 4.0 x4 interface, and one 2.5-inch HDD. Since the Asus PB62 is even smaller than Apple’s Mac Mini, it naturally cannot accommodate a discrete graphics card, so the owner will have to stick to Intel’s UHD Graphics based on the Xe architecture.
Gaming is arguably Intel’s main focus when it comes to its latest Rocket Lake CPUs, but Asus positions its Mini PC PB62 primarily for business and commercial applications, such as office PCs, digital signage, point-of-sales, and vending machines.
(Image credit: ASUS)
To address different requirements, Asus equipped its Mini PC PB62 with a plethora of connectivity technologies, including Intel’s AX201 Wi-Fi 6 + Bluetooth 5 adapter, a GbE port, seven USB Type-A connectors (including USB 2.0, USB 3.2 Gen 1, USB 3.2 Gen 2), a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C port, two DisplayPort 1.2 outputs, audio connectors, and one configurable port (HDMI 2.0/VGA/COM/DisplayPort/LAN).
(Image credit: ASUS)
Depending on exact configuration, the Asus Mini PC PB62 may come equipped with a 90W, 120W, or a 150W external PSU.
Asus did not touch upon pricing of the Mini PC PB62.
Novelty of working from home wearing a little thin? Children climbing the walls? Missing those carefree double-kisses and bear hugs from relatives and acquaintances?
Or are you feeling something else? Whisper it lest she disappear, but might that something actually be the muse descending?
“An artist is always alone – if he’s an artist,” said author Henry Miller. “No, what the artist needs is loneliness.” As if in agreement, the very second lockdown measures kicked in, social media feeds filled up with news that Shakespeare managed to pen King Lear, Macbeth, and most of Antony and Cleopatra in quarantine during a plague outbreak. (No all-new Netflix Originals or Amazon Prime Video documentaries to distract him, eh?)
In 1665, Isaac Newton found himself working from home following the closure of Cambridge University during the Bubonic plague. After sticking blunt needles into his eye (seriously) and watching apples fall from trees for a bit, he managed not only to explain gravity, but also to develop theories on optics and calculus that irrevocably changed our understanding of the universe. Not bad considering all we’ve managed to do today is upload an Instagram story and watch three episodes of Unforgotten on ITV Hub.
So, what of the socially distant musician during this and other periods of solitude? Turns out they too have been busy. What follows is our curated list of bands and solo artists who, owing to a series of unfortunate events, managed to write, record and release superb albums in complete isolation.
And ultimately it means we have no excuse. Do not pass go, do not collect £200 and do not visit Twitter. Read these examples for inspiration, then pick up your instrument. Get to work.
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Cross Road Blues by Robert Johnson (1936)
(Image credit: Robert Johnson)
Robert Johnson died in 1938, aged 27, having recorded only 29 songs of which we know. Of these, 16 were taped alone in room 414 at the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, on a single-reel Grundig recorder, less than two years before his death.
Nobody knows for sure how Johnson died – theories include poisoning, a gunshot wound, pneumonia, syphilis and stabbing – but his rumoured Faustian pact with the devil at a crossroads (his soul in return for otherworldly guitar powers) is the stuff of music legend.
Johnson’s work was not widely played until at least 25 years after his death. Indeed, Johnson never received any royalties for his songs and was paid in cash by his record label. Yet, according to Eric Clapton and almost any other iconic guitar player you can think of, Robert Johnson is “the most important blues musician who ever lived”.
Clapton released not one but two collections of songs by Johnson: Me and Mr. Johnson and the EP Sessions for Robert J, alongside a TV documentary of the same name aired in 2004 by the BBC.
Johnson simultaneously used elements of Delta blues – fingerpicking, sliding, strumming – while layering his own unique techniques and forms found in flamenco guitar. And then he sang on top. Only Robert Johnson (and the devil himself, if you believe the legend) will ever know exactly how he performed some of the tracks recorded in that hotel room.
Only two photos of Johnson are known to exist, despite musicologists and historians scouring the globe for more. What we do have is his music – and most of it was recorded in glorious solitude, in a hotel now owned by Sheraton.
“Who is the other guy playing with him?” Keith Richards asked fellow Rolling Stone Brian Jones on first hearing a Robert Johnson song, “I was hearing two guitars – it took a long time to actually realise he was doing it all by himself.”
Richards later said, “His playing was like Bach.”
Listen to Robert Johnson’s Complete Recordings on Tidal
Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen (1982)
(Image credit: Bruce Springsteen)
What does Bruce Springsteen do after his fifth studio album – a double LP featuring stone cold bangers Hungry Heart and Cadillac Ranch alongside the full force of the raucous E-Street Band?
He buys a Teac four-track cassette recorder and lays down 15 songs alone, in his house, through the night on 3rd January 1982. He sings, plays guitar, and uses the other two tracks to add a harmony vocal or an alternative guitar.
He thinks he’s going to teach the songs to the rest of the band when they get into the recording studio. He carries that demo cassette around in his pocket, without a case, for “a couple of weeks”. Then, after a bit more thought, The Boss decides to release the demo as is, without the band – the songs are a little too personal to be altered.
Owing to the recording process, it was apparently hard to release the thing as a record (the needle wouldn’t track in the wax properly because of the distortion it picked up) to the point that the label nearly released it as a cassette-only affair.
Springsteen named the album after one of the songs, Nebraska (the birthplace of Kool-Aid, but hardly America’s most exciting State) and never toured to promote it.
And still, Nebraska is one of the most highly-regarded albums in Springsteen’s substantial back catalogue.
Even one of the tracks that Springsteen recorded for the album, then shelved, (eventually giving it the E-Street Band treatment and releasing it in 1984) isn’t bad – it’s called Born in the USA.
Listen to Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska on Tidal
Exile on Main Street by The Rolling Stones (1972)
(Image credit: The Rolling Stones)
Rolling stones gather no moss, but they do rack up ridiculously high tax bills. And so it was that, after becoming quite successful in the late 1960s, The Rolling Stones found themselves at a villa called Nellcôte in the south of France in 1972.
Keith Richards rented the house, where the band lived as tax exiles and sheltered their earnings in a Netherlands holding company.
Exile on Main Street was the band’s tenth album. The Stones were already well versed on recording nowhere near a proper studio – much of the recording of their prior album, Sticky Fingers, had been done at Mick Jagger’s country-pile Hampshire home using a mobile recording studio. The same mobile studio was simply transferred to Nellcôte and set up in the basement of the villa.
Keith Richards lived upstairs and the band had frequent house guests – so not self-isolation as we’ve become accustomed to, recently, but still.
Often, other musician friends would amble down to the studio to jam with Keith, or stay to record tracks with the whole band. Such daily recording sessions went on through the night. Without formal studio rules, there’s a delightfully bohemian, laissez-faire feel to the whole album.
Listen to The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street on Tidal
Original Pirate Material by The Streets (2001)
(Image credit: The Streets)
Recorded mostly within the confines of his Brixton home over the course of about a year, Skinner’s debut album as The Streets is an inventive collage of beats and lazily delivered lines about life among Britain’s working class that proves there is worth in music recording now being at every person’s fingertips.
In his autobiography, The Story Of The Streets, Skinner discusses how he cleared out a wardrobe to create a vocal booth, deadening its sound with duvets, pillows and mattresses.
The album got to number 12 in the UK Album Charts in 2002, but got another lease of life and peaked at number 10 in 2004 – after the release of The Streets’ chart-topping second album A Grand Don’t Come For Free.
The sobering cover artwork (main photo) is a night-time shot of the south face of the Kestrel House tower block on City Road, London, taken in 1995 by German photographer Rut Blees Luxemburg.
Listen to Original Pirate Material on Tidal
Greystone Chapel by Glen Sherley/Johnny Cash (1968)
(Image credit: Johnny Cash)
Although Greystone Chapel was the song that made Glen Sherley the most famous prison inmate and country-music singer/songwriter alive, Sherley wrote many songs in lock-up and even recorded an entire album in his cell.
Sherley was in and out of several prisons throughout the 1950s and ’60s. When Johnny Cash discovered him in 1968, Sherley was doing a bit for armed robbery in Folsom.
In a 1994 interview with Life Magazine, Johnny Cash said: “The night before I was going to record at Folsom Prison, I got to the motel and a preacher friend of mine brought me a tape of a song called Greystone Chapel. He said a convict had written it about the chapel at Folsom.
“I listened to it one time and I said: ‘I’ve got to do this in the show tomorrow.’ So I stayed up and learned it, and the next day the preacher had him in the front row. I announced: ‘This song was written by Glen Sherley.’ It was a terrible, terrible thing to point him out among all those cons, but I didn’t think about that then. Everybody just had a fit, screaming and carrying on.”
Greystone Chapel was recorded live, along with the rest of Cash’s At Folsom Prison album, on 13th January 1968 and released in May of that year.
After Greystone Chapel, country singer Eddy Arnold sniffed out Sherley’s music and recorded another Sherley song in 1971, Portrait Of My Woman. It became the title track of Arnold’s next album.
Sherley was given the permission by prison officials to record a live album, Glen Sherley, while still in jail. The album was released by Mega Records and was a big success.
When Sherley was released from Prison in 1971, Cash met him at the gates. Sadly though, the story doesn’t end well. In May 1978, two days after shooting someone, Sherley put a gun to his own head. He was 42. The funeral was paid for by Cash.
Listen to Glen Sherley on Tidal or Spotify
how i’m feeling now by Charli XCX (2020)
(Image credit: Charli XCX)
Charli XCX’s fourth album really is a product of the pandemic: conceived during the initial COVID-19 lockdown, made in collaboration with her fans over the following 39 days and released on 15th May 2020, thus elegantly encapsulating the confusion, loneliness and boredom of our first long stint at home.
On 6th April 2020, Charli XCX announced in a public Zoom call with fans that she would be working on a new album in self-isolation, stating, “The nature of this album is going to be very indicative of the times just because I’m only going to be able to use the tools I have at my fingertips to create all music, artwork, videos everything.”
Although the result will undoubtedly (and rightly) be used as a kind of sonic photograph in the years to come – owing both to its subject matter and how Charlotte Aitchison used social media to workshop the tracks – how i’m feeling now is a timeless triumph.
The Cambridge-born songwriter’s knack of finding an absorbing melody or phrase can’t be ignored. The first track, Pink Diamond, came to Aitchison during an At Home With Apple Music interview between herself, Dua Lipa and and Jennifer Lopez, after J. Lo recounted talking to Barbara Streisand about Ben Affleck’s gift of that iconic rock. The compelling DIY electronics should also be celebrated, whether or not we’re able to dance, mingle and talk freely again soon.
Listen to Charlie XCX’s how i’m feeling now on Tidal
20 of the best albums of 2020
OK Computer by Radiohead (1997)
(Image credit: Radiohead)
Radiohead recorded and self-produced OK Computer in a 16th-century, Grade I listed Tudor Mansion called St. Catherine’s Court in Bath, owned by actress Jane Seymour. She rented the house to the band on the condition that they feed her cat in her absence.
Almost every song on this third Radiohead album (the studio-recorded 1995 Lucky is the exception)was laid down in that house.
If ever a song perfectly captured dystopian, apocalyptic self-isolation, it’s Climbing Up the Walls. There’s nothing quite like that guttural scream at the end for the cabin feverish.
As if to emphasise its socially distanced rhetoric, Thom Yorke has compared the acoustic guitar-heavy opening of the song Exit Music (For a Film), to Johnny Cash’s At Folsom Prison (listed, above).
Listen to Radiohead’s OK Computer on Tidal
For Emma, Forever Ago by Bon Iver (2008)
(Image credit: Bon Iver)
Justin Vernon wrote, recorded and self-released his debut breakthrough Bon Iver
album, For Emma, Forever Ago, in his dad’s hunting cabin in the woods of Wisconsin.
Vernon, frustrated with trying to write songs and somehow pay the bills while working in a sandwich shop, left his place in Raleigh, North Carolina, and drove for 18 hours to the remote hunting cabin – set in 80 acres of land an hour northwest of his hometown, Eau Claire in Wisonsin – hoping for some time alone.
He recorded the entire album in the cabin, on an old Mac with ProTools, throughout the winter of 2006 into early 2007 – when he wasn’t hunting for food. He apparently killed two deer during his three month residence in the cabin and had one scary encounter with a bear, which was enticed by the smell of his cooking.
The album is focused on a break-up he’d struggled to get over.
“I had nothing but the sound of my own thoughts, and they were really loud when that’s all that was going on,” Vernon later said on his near-complete isolation. We’ve all been there.
Though he hadn’t intended to make an album, encouragement from friends did the trick and he self-released For Emma, Forever Ago – after a little help with mastering – in July 2007. He was signed to the independent label Jagjaguwar later that year and the rest, as they say, is history.
Listen to Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago on Tidal
461 Ocean Boulevard by Eric Clapton (1974)
(Image credit: Eric Clapton)
This was the album that gave Eric Clapton his first US number one LP and single – his cover of Bob Marley and the Wailers’ I Shot the Sheriff. It also marked Clapton’s return to recording after recovering from a three-year addiction to heroin. The album topped various international charts and sold more than two million copies.
The title of the record refers to a house in the small town of Golden Beach, Miami – the house that Clapton’s manager at the time, Robert Stigwood, paid for him to live in so that he might, perhaps, write and record new music. After overcoming his substance addiction, Clapton confessed that he’d wasted three years of his life, barely managing to do anything except watch TV and get out of shape.
Clapton worked on a farm for a little while, listening to music from artists such as Robert Johnson (featured above), and even lending his guitar skills to the rock opera Tommy – which you can read about in our 10 best musical theatre soundtracks to test your speakers feature.
He was given a demo tape by former Derek and the Dominos bassist, Carl Radle, which contained collaborations between Radle, keyboardist Dick Sims and drummer Jamie Oldaker. Clapton felt inspired and ready to write new material.
The whole album was recorded from April to May 1974. Although Clapton did venture into the Criteria studios in Miami to record, he wrote, practiced, recuperated and sang alone with Blackie, his Fender, in the Floridian rented house pictured on the album sleeve.
Listen to Eric Clapton’s 461 Ocean Boulevard on Tidal
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Sony’s new SRS-RA5000 is a $700 single-unit speaker that is filled to the brim with drivers, has convenient features like Spotify Connect and Chromecast built in, and is capable of producing immersive 360-degree audio.
Though it’s only coming to market now, the RA5000 dates back to CES 2019, where Sony exhibited it as a prototype speaker for its new-for-the-time 360 Reality Audio format. So it’s been in the hopper for a while. Same goes for the smaller, less expensive RA3000, which Sony demonstrated a year later at CES 2020. Now they’ve both evolved into consumer products and look practically unchanged.
At 13 inches tall, the RA5000 is much bigger than any smart speaker. And yes, from the top, it absolutely looks like an oversized electric razor, thanks to the three round speaker grilles. If this thing was all white, you might confuse it for some kind of futuristic humidifier or air purifier. But Sony has stuck with the mix of black and rose gold that has been the signature look for many of its recent headphones and earbuds. I continue to dig the contrast this creates, and the speaker’s sides are covered in a knitted fabric that hides the innards. There are touch-sensitive buttons on the left and right sides. You get volume and play / pause on the right, with the left side handling power, mode selection (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or aux input), and a calibration feature that tweaks the sound for whatever room the RA5000 is in.
There’s no denying the electric razor resemblance.
The internal layout breaks down like this: there are three up-firing speakers, three outward-facing speakers positioned at the middle of the speaker’s sides, and a single subwoofer at the bottom. Around back is a 3.5-millimeter input and a little NFC icon, which you can hold an Android phone to for quick pairing. Underneath the speaker is where the power cord plugs in, and the RA5000 comes with a big honking external power supply. That’s something I didn’t expect to see considering how large the product already is. It needs to be plugged into power at all times, so Sony’s fancy speaker is wireless but by no means portable.
The setup process is… a lot. Sony’s mobile app guides you through numerous steps like adding the RA5000 to the Google Home app, bringing it aboard your Wi-Fi network, linking it to Amazon’s Alexa platform, and more. The speaker initially had a lot of trouble connecting to my home Wi-Fi, but with some persistence, eventually it worked. As is standard for Sony, the app isn’t very polished or pretty, but it gets the job done.
The RA5000 has touch-sensitive capacitive controls.
The RA5000 offers a ton of flexibility for how you play music on it. You can pair a device to the speaker via Bluetooth — AAC and SBC codecs are there, but not LDAC — but you’ll get far better quality when the music is coming over Wi-Fi. There’s built-in Chromecast support for audio casting, and the RA5000 can also be added to a speaker group with either Google Home or Amazon Alexa. I’d have loved for Sony to round out the streaming options with AirPlay 2, but no such luck. The speaker hardware includes a microphone, but this is only used for the calibration feature. You’ll have to rely on another device to get music playing on the RA5000 with your voice, but since it’s compatible with both Alexa and Assistant, this can be done wirelessly with a cheap smart speaker or your phone.
When in traditional stereo mode, this speaker is a powerhouse, though you might expect more bass for the size. (There are EQ options in the Sony app if you want to boost the low end.) It easily blanketed both my living room and bedroom with sound; the up-firing drivers help give it a very full presence. In my average listening, I never pushed volume beyond the 60 percent range. Going much higher would probably result in some very annoyed neighbors if you’re in an apartment. But despite its big, boisterous sound, there’s no mistaking the RA5000 for a proper set of stereo speakers. It sounds every bit like the single enclosure it is.
It dwarfs most other smart speakers.
And that leads us to the standout trick: 360-degree audio. Sony’s 360 Reality Audio uses object-based spatial audio to try to build a captivating soundscape. The pitch is that it can feel “as real as if you are there at a live concert or with the artist recording in a studio.” When you close your eyes and listen to 360 Reality Audio, the RA5000 definitely sounds bigger and wider than its physical footprint. It’s a noticeable change from plain stereo. But does it put me in some mind-blowing sphere of music coming from all directions? No, not really.
When you hop between 360 tracks, you’ll notice that not all content really takes advantage of its scope. It remains unclear how involved and invested most artists really are when it comes to these 360 mixes, so I’m skeptical of any claims that this is how songs were meant to be heard. Jazz sounds fantastic; the instrumentation really benefits from bouncing off walls and your ceiling. Concert recordings, like Liam Gallagher performing Oasis hit “Champagne Supernova” with an enthusiastic sing-along crowd, also have an impressive breadth to them that feels distinct from regular stereo sound. The LED at the bottom of the speaker illuminates green when you’re playing true 360 Reality Audio music.
The speaker supports music over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or aux input.
Only a few music streaming services, including Tidal, Deezer, and Nugs.net, support Sony’s 360 Reality Audio at present. Amazon Music HD will also let you play 360 audio on the RA5000 as of April 6th. You can cast 3D audio directly from these apps to the speaker. But even among services that offer 360 Reality Audio, adoption from musicians and labels has a long way to go. Not a single song in Tidal’s “Top Tracks” section had 360 Reality Audio, nor did any of the Top Albums. That really speaks volumes. There’s a dedicated section in the explore tab where you can easily browse through playlists and albums that do support 360-degree audio. A vast majority of it is older stuff, but recent records like Haim’s Women in Music Pt. III are there, too, as are hit singles like Harry Styles’ “Watermelon Sugar.”
The unconventional looks fit the novel 360-degree sound.
To make up for the lack of content that’s truly mixed for 360, Sony includes an “immersive audio enhancement” setting that attempts to re-create the same effect for two-channel music tracks. This algorithm-powered approach doesn’t work nearly as well. Toggling it on adds an obvious layer of artificial reverb and ambience to everything that you play, and you lose the soundstage precision that’s there with genuine 360 Reality Audio content.
At its eye-popping price of $700, finding direct “competitors” for the RA5000 is complicated. There’s a HomePod-looking device in Sony’s promotional video, but that Apple speaker was less than half the price and is now history. The $500 Sonos Five is my favorite single-unit speaker, but it sticks to stereo audio. Then you’ve got high-end, luxury audio alternatives like the $900 Formation Wedge speaker from Bowers & Wilkins, but again, that’s aiming for an audiophile-grade stereo experience. Sony’s speaker outperforms the $200 Amazon Echo Studio and can crank much louder — but that’s exactly what I’d expect considering the huge price gulf.
So the question I’m left with is this: who is this speaker for? It sounds excellent, can satisfyingly fill any normal-sized room, and 360 Reality Audio is a fun party trick. But the asking price is hard to get over. A lot of people who are serious about audio gear would sooner pay for a nice pair of stereo bookshelf speakers than drop $700 on this single unit. I think Sony’s trying to make the RA5000 a jack of all trades — led by immersive sound and an array of convenient streaming options. But I come away feeling like this speaker just tries to do too much, especially when the worth of its headline feature remains unproven and often inconsistent.
Apple announced Wednesday that it’s building a big battery storage project at a Northern California solar farm it spearhead in 2015. But what the company didn’t share is that the battery packs will come from Tesla, The Verge has learned.
The newly-announced setup, which will store up to 240 megawatt-hours of energy, was approved by the Monterey County Board of Supervisors in 2020, according to documents submitted last year. It will consist of 85 Tesla lithium-ion “megapacks” and be used to help power the company’s corporate headquarters in Cupertino. Monterey County’s planning chief confirmed that Apple will use the Tesla batteries in an email to The Verge. Apple declined to comment. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
Tesla first announced the megapack battery system back in 2019. The 60MW storage setup Apple will be using is not Tesla’s biggest, though. The company has built bigger overall battery storage solutions in Australia and south of Houston, Texas of around 100MW in size. Still, Apple touted it as “one of the largest battery projects in the country” in a press release, saying the battery system could power more than 7,000 homes for a whole day. The Tesla batteries will make it possible for Apple to store energy generated by its 130-megawatt solar array at the farm, which is called California Flats.
“The challenge with clean energy — solar and wind — is that it’s by definition intermittent,” Apple VP Lisa Jackson told Reuters on Wednesday. “If we can do it, and we can show that it works for us, it takes away the concerns about intermittency and it helps the grid in terms of stabilization. It’s something that can be imitated or built upon by other companies.”
While Apple uses lithium-ion batteries in many of its products, it’s not known to be working on any grid-scale projects. The company is reportedly developing a lithium iron phosphate battery for its electric car project, though.
Apple and Tesla don’t have much overlapping history, though each company is notorious for poaching talent from the other. Tesla CEO Elon Musk also said in December that he tried to pitch the idea of Apple buying his company back in 2018, but that Apple CEO Tim Cook “refused” to take the meeting.
Tesla is best known for its electric cars, but it’s spent years trying to build up an energy storage business to compliment the solar products it acquired when it bought Solar City. It has gotten increasingly involved in large-scale energy storage projects like Apple’s over the years in addition to its home battery business.
While it’s still modest compared to the billions of dollars generated by Tesla’s car business, the energy storage division’s products has already netted at least one other strange bedfellow customer: in 2019, Volkswagen announced it was using Tesla batteries at some of its Electrify America charging stations.
Apple will try to fix battery drain and reduced performance issues that have affected some iPhone 11 devices by recalibrating their batteries in an upcoming update (via MacRumors). According to an Apple support document, the process will happen when you update an iPhone 11, 11 Pro, or 11 Pro Max to the upcoming iOS 14.5.
It might take a few weeks for the battery health system to figure out how much capacity your battery has left, and how much performance it can provide, according to the document. It doesn’t seem like users should notice too much of a difference during the process, though there will be a message in the battery health section of the settings menu explaining what’s going on.
The process is currently being tested in the latest release of the developer beta, but given that Apple has a support page already up for it, there’s a good chance it’ll make it into the final release. If the recalibration fails, for some reason, Apple says it or an authorized service provider will replace the battery for free. Hopefully, if you were experiencing battery issues with your iPhone 11, this process will help alleviate them when 14.5 is finally released.
It’s not unusual that Apple would release a document about a battery change before it starts happening. The company has been a lot more transparent when it makes changes to the iPhone’s power delivery system ever since it was caught throttling the performance of older iPhones to protect the battery.
Apple will remove the female voice as the default for its Siri assistant, according to TechCrunch. The change is effective as of today’s release of the sixth iOS 14.5 beta. Once this latest update is publicly released to all customers, iPhone and iPad users will be prompted to choose their preferred Siri voice during device setup. Previously, Siri defaulted to a female voice, and users could pick between other voices in settings after the fact.
Alongside this change, Apple is also introducing two completely new voices for Siri that, according to TechCrunch, “use source talent recordings that are then run through Apple’s Neural text to speech engine, making the voices flow more organically through phrases that are actually being generated on the fly.” Those new voices are available to English speakers globally.
The news is the latest example of big tech companies trying to remove any gender associations from their digital voice assistants. Studies have found that when assistants use a female-sounding voice by default, it can reinforce bias and negative stereotypes. Some embarrassing mistakes have been made along the way as these technologies develop, but Apple’s latest step is one of the most significant yet.
“We’re excited to introduce two new Siri voices for English speakers and the option for Siri users to select the voice they want when they set up their device,” Apple told TechCrunch in a statement. “This is a continuation of Apple’s long-standing commitment to diversity and inclusion, and products and services that are designed to better reflect the diversity of the world we live in.” Siri takes on over 25 billion requests monthly across 500 million devices, according to TechCrunch.
Ring’s new $249.99 Video Doorbell Pro 2 is the best video doorbell yet from a company that has nearly become a household name for video doorbells. It has an excellent field of view and video quality; plenty of customizable features for notifications and recording zones; and speedy performance, whether that’s sending alerts to your phone or smart speaker when someone rings the bell or pulling up the live feed from the Ring app on a phone. If you can tolerate the price tag, are able to install a wired doorbell at your door, and aren’t put off by Ring’s Neighbors app or police partnerships (both of which you can opt out of), the Video Doorbell Pro 2 is one of the best video doorbells you can get right now.
The new Video Doorbell Pro 2 is Ring’s top-of-the-line model, replacing the original Video Doorbell Pro from 2017. Unlike Ring’s other doorbells, the Pro 2 does not have a battery option; you have to have wiring running to it for power. But because it doesn’t have to house a battery, the Pro 2 is much smaller than Ring’s battery-powered options and has faster response times when you want to pull up the feed on your phone or an Echo Show smart display. It also can work with an existing doorbell chime in your home if you have one.
Despite its higher-than-average price tag, the Pro 2 doesn’t really look all that much more premium than other Ring models. The housing is made entirely of plastic, and there’s a big Ring logo stamped on the bottom. If sleek design is what you’re after, Google’s Nest Hello or the Logitech Circle View Doorbell are better choices.
Ring has added a number of new features this time around, but the most significant change is how the Video Doorbell Pro 2 captures video clips. Unlike the prior model and every other Ring doorbell before it, the Pro 2 shoots 1536 x 1536-pixel square video, which lets you see visitors from top to bottom. It also makes it much easier to see if packages have been left at your doorstep because you can see the ground right in front of the doorbell.
On my doorway, the Pro 2’s wide and tall field of view was able to let me see the entirety of my small porch much better than the older 16:9 format Ring doorbells or others that have a tall but not as wide aspect ratio, like Logitech’s Circle View Doorbell. The Pro 2 captures a sharp and detailed image, complete with HDR for balancing bright skies and visitors’ faces. It also has a dedicated infrared night mode that will come on automatically if the light levels are low enough. The porch light I have at my doorway was sufficient enough to keep the Pro 2 in normal video mode, so I was able to have full-color video captures at night without blinding visitors with a light on the doorbell itself like what happens with the Circle View Doorbell.
Thanks to support for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi, pulling up the Pro 2’s video feed through the Ring app on my phone is a painless process that just takes a couple of seconds. Likewise, asking an Echo Show to display the feed is quick and easy. The Echo Show and Fire TV devices will even automatically display the feed from the camera whenever the doorbell is rung. Older video doorbells used to take an agonizing amount of time to show their video feeds. I’m glad to see this newest crop is much faster than before.
The Pro 2 also has a new “3D Motion Detection” feature that lets you see the movements of someone on your property even if they are out of frame of the camera. The name oversells what this is doing a bit: the app will show a top-down view of movements represented as colored dots on the map of your home overlaid over the recorded video clip. It’s designed to let you see where someone has been on your property before they show up on the primary camera. But the range for this feature is limited to only 30 feet — that’s about enough to reach a third of the way down my driveway — and while it’s a neat demo of technology, I didn’t find much utility in it.
The Video Doorbell Pro 2 shows more of my front porch than other doorbells. The new 3D Motion Detection feature provides the bird’s-eye view of movement on my property, seen in the right image.
The other thing I didn’t find much use for is the Alexa Greetings feature, which lets you have Alexa answer the door through the Ring doorbell if you don’t get to it within a set amount of time.
There are two reasons I didn’t really like this feature. One is since we’re still spending the majority of our time home due to the pandemic, I don’t really need someone else to answer the door for me — I’m always there. The other is the idea of having Amazon’s Alexa robot speak to a visitor in my place. Alexa can ask couriers to leave a package in a particular place you specify or record a message from other visitors that will be sent to your phone. In my tests, it works like a typical Alexa interaction, with a slight delay between each prompt.
But in general, it feels a bit off-putting and rude to force visitors to interact with an unexpected robot. I feel the same way about using the two-way audio to talk to someone at the door through my phone. While there may certainly be great accessibility use cases for these features, they weren’t helpful for me, and I left them turned off. I think basic package detection and notifications, which other doorbells offer, would be more useful, but Ring doesn’t have any features like that.
The Alexa responses feature requires a subscription to Ring’s Protect plan, which starts at $3 per month and enables other features such as a six-second pre-roll recording for motion alerts, the option to only get alerted when a person is detected, video history for up to 60 days, and the ability to save and share clips. You can use the Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2 without paying for this subscription, but you’ll be limited to motion alerts, live view, two-way talking, and six preset responses if you’re not home. Neither one of Ring’s plans, paid or free, offers continuous 24/7 recording. If that’s something you want, Google’s Nest Hello is a better choice.
The Video Doorbell Pro 2 has a traditional grayscale infrared night mode (right), but if you have enough light, it will fall back to its color feed at night (left).
Since Ring is an Amazon company, the Pro 2 works best and offers the most utility if you have Amazon Echo speakers or smart displays. In addition to the ability to automatically show the feed when the bell is pressed, you can have Echo speakers announce when someone’s at the door so you never miss a visitor. This feature isn’t available with Google Nest smart speakers or displays; again, the Nest Hello would be a better choice if you’re running a Google smart home. (Likewise, if you’re running an Apple HomeKit smart home, the Logitech Circle View Doorbell is a better choice.)
Lastly, I can’t cover a Ring product without mentioning its controversial Neighbors app and police partnerships. The Neighbors app is a separate app that collates crime and safety reports from other Ring owners in your neighborhood. By default, the Neighbors feed is integrated into the Ring app, allowing you to see other posts and share video clips from your camera.
Similarly, the Public Safety feature allows police and other public service agencies to request video clips from your camera to aid in solving crimes. You then have the option to approve or deny the request.
Ring has made it easier to manage these features. Both of them are controlled in the app’s Control Center section, where you can disable the Neighbors feed and block public agencies from requesting clips from your video camera. You can also enable end-to-end encryption, which will disable these features and limit the ability to share video clips with others. But I wish Ring would go even further and disable both of them by default, letting owners decide if they want to opt in or not during setup.
Ring’s portfolio of video doorbells has grown significantly over the past couple of years, and it can be confusing to figure out which one is right for your needs. The Pro 2’s pitch is simple: this is the best video doorbell camera Ring sells, provided you have the ability to hook it up to existing doorbell wiring or run new wiring to it. If you want the best performance and are in Amazon’s Echo ecosystem, the Pro 2 is the doorbell to get.
(Pocket-lint) – The LG Gram 16 is never going to make sense to some people. For many, a large-screen laptop has to be a super-powered desktop-replacer. And if it’s not, why does it exist?
LG’s Gram series has quietly challenged that view for the last few years. And the LG Gram 16 should make this concept less of a leap for those still struggling.
The pitch: the LG Gram 16 costs around a grand less than the MacBook Pro 16, but still has a big screen, a colour-rich display and long battery life. Oh, and it weighs 800g less and has a better keyboard, for some tastes at least.
Suddenly LG’s weirdo huge-but-light Gram laptops don’t sound so strange. Indeed, this 16-inch version is quite the stunning proposition.
Design
Dimensions: 313.4 x 215.2 x 16.8mm / Weight: 1.19kg
Magnesium alloy casing
Interested now? Let’s start by slapping the LG Gram 16 down to earth with one of the big issues you need to accept.
While the LG Gram 16 is a nicely made laptop, it doesn’t feel like a four-figures slab of the future when you pick it up. Carry it around like a notepad, give it a light squeeze between thumb and finger, and the base and lid panels will flex a bit.
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LG has not made the Gram 16 on a shoestring budget. But large, low-weight body panels come with compromises. And you feel them each time you pick the laptop up like this.
The LG Gram 16’s casing is magnesium alloy, which is the best material for the job. It’s lighter than aluminium for the same level of strength, and a lot nicer than plastic. Just don’t expect the dense unibody feel plenty of 13-inch laptops at this price level.
The issue is all about feel, not utility. The LG Gram 16’s touchpad doesn’t stop clicking because you lift it by one corner of the base. You can’t stop the internal fans spinning by pressing down on part of the keyboard surround. And, yes, we’ve seen these issues in laptops smaller and heavier than the LG Gram 16.
Its keyboard panel, the most important of the lot, is pretty rigid – if not immaculately so. A little outer panel flex is only a big issue if you think it is.
Despite being a new entry in this series, the LG Gram 16 nicks its style from its siblings. This is a very plain, serious-looking laptop that isn’t out to dazzle eyes or fingers with flashy finishes. All panels are matte black with a very light texture similar to a soft-touch finish.
There’s a kind of confidence to a lifestyle laptop this plain, one that weaves a style out of sharp-cornered keyboard keys and a semi-distinctive font. If anything, LG could actually go plainer on this key typeface, which looks a little close to that of a gaming laptop.
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But the aim is pretty clear: the LG Gram 16 is a laptop that can fit in just about anywhere. You can take is anywhere too, as the 1.19kg weight is lower than that of the average 13-inch portable.
The footprint isn’t tiny, of course, but it couldn’t get all that much smaller considering the 16-inch display has fairly small borders on all four sides.
Display
16.0-inch LCD panel, 2560 x 1600 resolution
99.1% DCI P3 colour coverage (as tested)
Glossy plastic finish
The LG Gram 16’s screen also helps keep the shape sensible, as this is a 16:10 aspect display, one taller than the standard widescreen style. This maxes out the perception of space when you use apps, rather than video. There’s no issue with the quality of the panel either.
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Colour depth is truly excellent, matching what you get in a top MacBook Pro. Brightness is strong enough for outdoors use, which is pretty impressive considering the sheer square inch count the LG Gram 16 has to light up.
Contrast is not the best around, but is still good for an LCD-based screen. And resolution is, well, the one LG should have chosen. It’s at 2560 x 1600 pixels, sitting above Full HD, but a way below 4K.
The MacBook Pro 16 has a sharper screen still, at 3072 x 1920 pixels. But the LG Gram 16 still adds the crucial pixel density it needs to avoid the obvious pixellation that can happen in a larger display like this.
If you use a 13-inch laptop at the moment that supersize boost is the first thing you’ll notice. The LG Gram 16 makes it seem so much more like you’re using a monitor that happens to be hooked onto a laptop, rather than a laptop screen. That’s great for dull work apps, even for games.
However, the actual character of the screen doesn’t quite make the most of the top-quality panel underneath, because of another concession made for size: its plastic screen coating. Plastic is often used in matte finish laptops, to scatter reflections. But this is a glossy screen, telling us weight is the issue here. Glass is the usual choice, but glass isn’t that light.
The plastic film is also far less rigid than glass, causing reflections to distort at the corners a little. And if there’s meant to be a reflection-busting coating here, it’s not a very good one. There’s also no touchscreen, and the hinge only folds back to around 130 degrees, to stop the thing tumbling off your knees through weight imbalance.
Like the flexy lid and bottom panels, the plastic surface is one you’ll have to suck up for the sake of low weight. But does the LG Gram 16 have a high quality screen with plenty of space that you can use outdoors? Absolutely.
Keyboard & Touchpad
Textured glass touchpad
Two-level backlight
1.65mm key travel
The LG Gram 16’s keyboard fills out the appeal of this laptop for us. We type all day, every day, more or less. Keyboard quality matters, and this is a keyboard made for that sort of work.
Pocket-lint
Key travel is excellent, and not just if you limit your comparisons to ultra-light laptops. The keyboard plate feels rigid, even if – sure – you can get it to flex slightly under significant finger pressure. And springy resistance offers good feedback with each depress.
We also like that LG has thinned-down the NUM pad, which lets the main set of keys sit more towards the centre of the laptop. Being shunted too far to the left rarely feels good. Here there’s just a mild lurch leftwards. Think universal healthcare, not a state-led redistribution of all wealth.
The LG Gram 16 also has a two-level backlight and a fingerprint scanner hidden in the power button, just above the NUM pad.
Plenty of space in the keyboard plate leaves plenty of room for a giant touchpad. This thing is huge – and you probably can’t appreciate it from photos alone, where it seems in proportion with the rest.
The LG Gram 16’s touchpad has a smooth glass surface, zero floaty wobble, and an easy-to-depress yet well-defined clicker. It’s on the loud side, but that’s it for negative points to note.
A larger laptop opens the doors to a different approach to the keyboard. But apparently it doesn’t allow for a better webcam. The LG Gram 16 has the same sort of stogy 720p video call camera we see in most other high-end laptops.
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Its speakers aren’t even close to those of the MacBook Pro 16 either. LG uses familiar-sounding drivers with just the tiniest hint of low-frequency output and only moderate max volume. Their tone is pleasant, we could watch a movie using them happily enough, but it would be good to see LG improve this area in future generations.
The main grilles for the treble drivers also sit on the underside, giving them just a couple of millimetres of clearance provided by the tiny rubber feet. Put the LG Gram 16 on a thick carpet or your bed and the treble is attenuated, although it does seem impossible to block the sound fully, which is good.
Performance
Intel i7-1165G7 processor
16GB LPDDR4X RAM
1TB NVMe SSD
The LG Gram 16 is an Intel Evo laptop. This is a new standard introduced by Intel to make laptops with its processors seem more attractive than those with AMD or Apple CPUs. It’s marketing, but not useless marketing, as it means you know you get standards like Thunderbolt 4, an 11th Gen processor, and at least nine hours of battery life (if the screen is a 1080p one).
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Our Gram 16 has Intel’s Core i7-1165G7 CPU, 16GB RAM, and 1TB of very fast SK Hynix SSD storage.
Some CPU overclockers who design their own water cooling systems will disagree, but we think this is enough to make the LG Gram 16 a viable desktop replacement for the vast majority of people.
Windows 10 feels great, there’s more than enough power to run apps like Photoshop well. So why would you buy a MacBook Pro 16 with a more power consuming 9th Gen CPU? Or a much heavier Windows laptop with an Intel Core i7-10750H?
The top-end Mac has around 60 per cent additional CPU power, in part because it has an “i9” equivalent processor. A Core i7 alternative made for the more traditional desktop-replacing laptop offers around 20 per cent more power, and these processors are designed to hold max power for longer. Because chunky laptops tend to have fans that can shift more air.
But if you’re not sure if the LG Gram 16 has enough power or not, and you don’t use apps that make your current laptop slow down during exports, imports – whatever procedures they do – then it probably does have enough to satisfy.
The LG Gram 16 also gets Intel’s Xe graphics, which is a fantastic addition for a laptop like this. It turns slim laptops from poor gaming machines to at least acceptable ones. GTA V? No problem. The Witcher 3? Sure, even at 1080p if you play with the settings a bit. Alien Isolation runs well at just below Full HD resolution with a mix of Medium and High settings.
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Absolutely loads of stuff is playable with Intel Xe graphics, because it gets to the level of separate entry-level gaming hardware from the last generation. And that’s not too shabby: it’s gaming skills you seem to get ‘for free’. If you buy an LG Gram 16 and find games don’t run as well as you hoped, make sure to try them at different resolutions. Intel Xe graphics chips may have a bit of punch to them, but 2560 x 2600 pixels is a bit much to ask in most console-grade titles.
There’s more good news. The LG Gram 16 is almost silent under all workloads, even if you max out the CPU for half an hour. There is a fan, but it’s barely audible if you play something through the speakers even at 30 per cent volume. This is probably the quietest laptop we’ve reviewed with one of these 11th Gen Core i7 processors. It’s another benefit of all that extra room inside: better airflow.
Battery Life
80Wh battery – up to 22 hour battery life (claimed)
65W charger
LG doesn’t sacrifice battery life for low weight either. More brownie points for LG’s engineers. The Gram 16 has an 80Wh battery, far larger than the 56Wh standard battery of the Dell XPS 15, if smaller than the more power-hungry (and powerful) 100Wh MacBook Pro 16.
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Match that sort of capacity with a processor already fairly light on the battery drain and you are guaranteed good results. The LG Gram 16 lasts roughly 14 hours 30 minutes when streaming video at moderate screen brightness.
LG claims 22 hours, but this is one of those cheeky claims that involves using a benchmark from 2014 – and letting it sit in standby mode half the time.
Still, it’s excellent real-world stamina for light work, and way above the nine hours the Intel Evo”sticker guarantees. That guarantee only applies to a lower screen resolution than you get here too.
Use it with the display maxed and the CPU pushed to its limits the whole time and the LG Gram 16 will last around three hours and 25 minutes. Which still isn’t bad – a gaming laptop wouldn’t give you a third of that.
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Want to know about the LG Gram 16’s connections? There are two Thunderbolt USB-C ports, and one is taken up by the charger while plugged-in. You get two classic USB ports, a microSD slot, a full-size HDMI, and a headphone jack too. So it doesn’t demand you keep a USB adapter handy, and you can plug it right into your TV or a monitor. Bliss.
Best laptop 2021: Top general and premium notebooks for working from home and more
By Dan Grabham
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Verdict
It’s a wonder the LG Gram concept hasn’t been nicked more times already. The LG Gram 16 is a large-screen laptop that’s genuinely light enough to carry with you everywhere, every day.
There are barely any substantive compromises involved. The LG Gram 16 is as powerful as smaller laptops that weigh more, it lasts as long off a charge as some of the best Intel-powered laptops, and the keyboard is no lightweight either.
You don’t get the ultra-dense metallic feel of some of the smaller-screened alternatives at a similar price. And, sure, the Gram 16 uses a low voltage processor designed to minimise heat and save battery life, not for blistering power. However, it has enough of it to work perfectly as a desktop-replacer for most people.
Sure, a 13-inch laptop is better for some. A more powerful, thicker one will be better for others. But the LG Gram 16 takes some elements from both and, through clever design, makes it work far better than you’d imagine. For the right user it’s a stunning proposition.
Also consider
LG Gram 17
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Want something even bigger? LG has made a 17-inch Gram for a few years now. All the appeals are the same: low weight, good screen, good keyboard. Battery life is slightly shorter as it has a bigger screen and the same battery capacity. But the choice is all about the screen size you’d prefer. We think 16-inch is a more accommodating size for the masses.
Read our review
MacBook Pro 16
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The 16-inch MacBook Pro isn’t really in the same category if you look right up close. It has a more powerful processor and weighs about 800g extra. Oh, and it costs a grand more. Ouch. However, the MacBook seems a more expensive laptop as it has that amazing Apple build, which feels like perfection. The glossy glass screen finish looks better too, making the most of its similarly brilliant colour depth.
Snap, the company behind Snapchat, is planning to continue its push into hardware devices with a new pair of augmented-reality glasses and a drone, according to a report by The Information. The Spectacles will reportedly include displays so the wearer can see the AR effects without having to use their phone — a feature that was notably missing from the all the Spectacles that came before.
One of The Information’s sources says that the new Spectacles will be meant for developers and creators, rather than consumers — though you could probably argue that, at $380, the Spectacles 3 are already mostly limited to that market as well. As the article points out, though, the intention is likely to have the developers make lenses and experiences that consumers will use at some point in the future.
If the new Spectacles act as an AR headset, it could be the culmination of what the company has been working towards with the first three versions of the product. Currently, the Spectacles are mainly capture devices, acting as head-mounted cameras with the bulk of the processing being done on the user’s phone. This hasn’t necessarily been a recipe for success: the company lost $40 million when it was stuck with unsold inventory of the original pair, and the company’s hardware head left shortly after the second-generation glasses came out.
If the reports about the new Spectacles are true, it could indicate that Snap isn’t backing down from its hardware dreams — the company’s CEO has said that AR hardware will be part of what defines Snap by the end of this decade. If it wants to continue pushing its AR glasses, it seems like it will have to contend with competition from the likes of Apple and Facebook— both companies seem to be developing their own face-mounted wearables.
As for the drone, there’s precious little information about it. There have been rumors about Snap working on a drone for years, and back in 2017 it acquired a drone company. The Information also reports that Snap invested $20 million into a Chinese drone company as well. There’s no information on when the drone will ship, but the report’s sources say that it’s recently been made the priority of Snap Lab, a hardware group at Snap.
In other AR headset news, The Information also reported today that the headset teased by Pokémon Go creator Niantic is actually a reference design made by Qualcomm — the two companies announced that they were partnering back in 2019. Niantic is also reportedly looking to go the developer-first route as well.
Apple’s built-in web content filter for iOS and macOS has apparently been blocking any searches containing the word “Asian” for almost a year, and the error is finally getting fixed, according to a new report from Mashable. The issue shows up when you’re using a device that has the “Limit Adult Websites” content restriction turned on. But it’s not just blocking adult websites; it’s blocking almost any searches relating to Asian culture, including “Asian market,” “Asian culture,” and even “stop Asian hate.”
The Verge was able to confirm that the above searches were blocked on devices running current versions of Apple’s software (iPadOS 14.4.1 and macOS 11.2.3) with the content restrictions turned on. The searches are blocked on both Safari and Chrome on iOS devices, but Chrome was able to perform them on macOS. Devices without the content restrictions turned on can perform the searches and receive results.
The error message shown when a search is blocked by the content restrictions on an iPad.
The good news is that the issue should soon be resolved. The searches work on devices running the iOS 14.5 beta, Mashable reports. Still, it’s ridiculous that it took this long to fix: there are reports of the issue from February 2020, and it shouldn’t have been an issue in the first place. Of course, creating a filter for adult content is extremely difficult, but almost entirely blocking a word used to describe 60 percent of the world’s population is obviously incorrect.
In current, non-beta software, the filter behaves very strangely. “Asian restaurants” is blocked on macOS but not iOS, while “Asian food” is blocked on both. And while the issue has been around for a while, it’s especially embarrassing for Apple in the current moment, when anti-Asian sentiment and violence have been on the rise. It’s good to see it should be solved in the next versions of iOS, but it shouldn’t have taken this long.
To help make travel during the pandemic a little less stressful, Apple Maps will now display travel guidance information provided by the Airports Council International (ACI) so you know what to expect before you take off or land at your destination.
The travel guidances — like mask requirements, health screenings, and quarantine guidelines — will be displayed on an individual airport’s place card in Apple Maps, with links to official airport guidance websites as well. The information should be viewable on iPhones, iPads, and Macs — though, currently, only airports that are participating in the ACI’s Health Measures Portal will feature the new information.
Travel guidances in Apple Maps on iPhone.Image: MacStories
Apple Maps has been updated to display other useful COVID-19 information over the last year, like the location of testing sites and available vaccine providers. You can check Apple Maps to see if the airport you’re traveling to has guidance, or use the ACI’s Check & Fly tool to find participating airports.
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