Being able to play your PlayStation 4 and 5 games all around your house via Remote Play streaming is a neat feature, but the small number of officially supported devices means you’re stuck with Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, or another PlayStation. Enterprising coders determined to get an open-source Remote Play client running on a wider selection of devices have had it happily streaming on Linux for a while, and the humble Raspberry Pi, with its Debian-based OS, is the latest target, as shown in this video from Philippines-based Evoneg Tech.
To get it going you’ll need a Raspberry Pi 4, and a fork of the Chiaki streaming app from Github. Remote Play needs to be activated on your PS5, and you should pair a Bluetooth controller with your Pi (a DualShock will work fine, but make sure it’s not still paired with, and within range of, your console).
You’ll need to install a few dependencies first, then build the app on your Pi, so don’t jump in unless you’re comfortable with typing console commands. There’s a full guide to Pi installation on the project’s Github wiki. You’ll also need your PSN account ID, which can be extracted by following the steps here.
It works on both wired and wireless connections, and with a good connection you’ll get a 1080p/60fps connection. The devs say it also works on the PS4 Pro, but there’s no mention of the original PS4 console. Nintendo Switch owners should note that there’s a build of the app for their console too, but it has some very specific installation instructions.
(Pocket-lint) – Audiophile brand Bowers & Wilkins has always taken its sweet time in adopting new technologies. It told Pocket-lint in the past that this is intentional – it likes to wait until the market matures and its own high audio quality standards can be met.
It was relatively late to market with a Bluetooth speaker and wireless heaphones. And, it only adopted active or adaptive noise-cancellation when it was sure its tech wouldn’t hamper audio performance.
That’s why it is also late to the party with true wireles in-ears. And, do you know what, we don’t mind. The flagship Bowers & Wilkins PI7 in-ear true wireless headphones are proof positive that a softly softly approach can reap dividends.
In many ways, these ‘buds remind us of the excellent Sony WF-1000XM3 earphones. Except smaller, more confortable, and with even more musicality. That’s the benefit of hindsight in effect right there.
The best Lightning headphones 2021 for your iPhone or iPad
By Dan Grabham
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Top headphones capable of handling lossless 48kHz digital audio from Apple devices.
What you get in the box
When you open the box, you see a tasty-looking, small-scale case. It’s a bit larger than an Apple AirPods equivalent but a lot smaller than many we’ve also had through the Pocket-lint testing bed.
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The case comes with a USB-C port and a couple of buttons, including a Bluetooth pairing button that allows you to connect it to your device without needing to take out the ‘buds.
A USB-C to USB-C cable is included, but you’ll have to provide your own charging plug. That does mean it is capable of being fast charged, though. It can also be charged wirelessly, if you have a Qi mat handy.
The case has a further neat trick up its sleeve too: it can also act as a Bluetooth transmitter. Using an additional included USB-C to 3.5mm mini jack cable, you can plug the case into any source and transmit audio to your PI7s wirelessly.
This feature could be great for listening to in-flight entertainment – rather than buying something such as the RHA Wireless Flight Adapter – for example, or for using with a Nintendo Switch, which doesn’t currently support Bluetooth headphones. The case will also pair with other Bowers & Wilkins wireless headphones – such as the B&W PX7 released in 2020 – so can simultaneously transmit audio to those too.
Design and fit
The Bowers & Wilkins PI7 in-ears are beautifully designed. We are testing the white version – they are also available in charcoal.
They are extremely comfortable and light, with a matte finish to the plastic and neat metallic element on the outer tips. It’s meant to be a gold finish but, depending on the light, can look gunmetal grey at times.
The eartips are silicone, with the medium sized tips on the earbuds as default. You get a couple of extra silicone tips in the box, in small and large.
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In our ears, they fit very well indeed and are extremely comfortable. We wouldn’t imagine getting earache from these over long periods, unlike some competitors (although these first impressions are based on having the PI7s for a few days, so a full, in-depth test is yet to follow).
What we will say though, is that as the larger plastic section needs to fit inside the bowl of your ear, some with smaller ears may struggle to place it successfully.
The ‘buds are water- and dust-proof, which is great for indoor workouts. But, we’re not sure they’re secure enough for running outdoors. Very few non-sport TWS in-ears are, to be honest.
There are touch controls on each of the earphones. You can tap to take a call, pause, play and rewind music, and adjust noise-cancelling and activate your chosen voice assistant. There are also wear sensors on each, so when you remove either, the music stops. It plays automatically when you put them back in.
Set-up and battery life
Setting up the Bowers & Wilkins PI7 in-ears is a doddle. For iPhone users, you just need to head to your Bluetooth settings screen and press the button inside the case for a couple of seconds. The headphones should appear in your list for connection.
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It’s even easier on Android devices with Google Fast Pair enabled. Just place the case nearby and open the case lid. Then follow the instructions on your phone.
You also need to download the Bowers & Wilkins Headphones app to control a couple of the features and/or update the PI7s or their case. Once paired via Bluetooth, you can search for your in-ears through the app – this will bring up a dedicated settings section.
The app will also show you the battery status of each earbud and the case. It gives you control over the adaptive noise-cancellation tech (switching it on or off, or choosing whether to have it automatically adjust depending on your surroundings). You can also change the strength of the noise-cancelling effect via a transparency slider.
Battery life is claimed to be up to 4 hours of playback for each ‘bud, with a further 16 hours from the case. We are yet to test that fully.
Audio performance
We’ve been hugely impressed by the audio performance and signature in our listening tests so far.
The B&W PI7 headphones support Qualcomm’s aptX Adaptive lossless wireless tech, although we’re yet to give that a thorough workout. We have, though, streamed plenty of Tidal Masters tracks via an iPhone 12 Pro Max.
Naturally, this isn’t the best we could get but it’s close to what we expect most users will acheive.
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Led Zeppelin’s Bring it on Home (remastered) sounded deep, involving, and with excellent separation. As too did The Kink’s Shangri-La (the stereo mix). While it is weird writing about the imperfections in a recording, they are often what makes a certain version so good, and every squeaky guitar slide is picked out by these headphones.
Bass is impressive too. Each earbud has its own amplifier, supporting a custom 9.2mm drive unit. This works greatly across all fequencies, but bass certainly benefits.
Aside from obvious hip-hop examples, the opening bars of the 2019 remix of Come Together by The Beatles are throaty and tangible. All from tiny in-ears with no cable attached. Amazing.
First Impressions
We want to investigate further before we give our full opinion, but so far, it seems like Bowers & Wilkins is onto a winner with the PI7 wireless in-ears.
These earbuds are extremely high quality and look tasty to match. Their musicality is right up there, but then so is the price, so you would expect as much.
That’s probably our only quibble for now – the B&Ws are almost twice the price of Apple’s AirPods Pro equivalents. Indeed, there are few high-end alternatives priced quite so highly.
Bowers & Wilkins does counter that with the less expensive PI5 – released at the same time – but we haven’t heard those yet to give you a decent comparison, and they don’t come with the Hi-Res Audio specifications.
Still, we’d imagine there are plenty willing to pay a premium price for premium performance. We’ll soon follow up with a full review to let you know if it’s justified. So far, so good, however.
Apple’s new Tile-like AirTags, long-rumored and finally announced at this week’s Spring Loaded event, are now available for preorder on Apple’s website. The small circular trackers work with Apple’s “Find My” app on iOS and have a built-in speaker, accelerometer, Bluetooth LE, and a replaceable battery. They cost $29 for one set or $99 for a four-pack.
Apple says the AirTags’ battery should be good for a year. They should start delivering between May 3rd and May 5th.
The existence of AirTags first became known nearly two years ago, in copies of the iOS 13 beta. Apple accidentally confirmed the AirTags name in a support video last year that has since been deleted.
Also revealed at Spring Loaded was the new purple iPhone 12. It’s identical to the other colors of the iPhone 12; it’s very fast, has a very nice screen, 5G, and great cameras, according to our review. It’s also available for preorder today on Apple’s website and will be widely available starting April 30th.
The 2021 iMac, new Apple TV 4K, and new iPad Pro models Apple showed off at the Spring Loaded event will be available for preorder starting April 30th.
Astell & Kern, highly decorated maker of premium portable high-resolution audio devices, has just introduced the SE180 portable music player. It is the third model in the company’s A&futura series following the inaugural A&futura SE100 and SE200, both of which gained What Hi-Fi? Awards in 2019 and 2020 respectively.
For 2021 however, Astell & Kern is trying something new: the SE180 is its first player to feature interchangeable DAC modules.
Expanding on the multi-DAC innovation first introduced with the SE200, music fans can now customise the sound with different audio-flavoured DACs to find the sonics that best suit their ears.
Furthermore, A&K says the A&futura SE180 is the company’s most advanced player yet. It is the first model to boast the firm’s new Teraton Alpha Sound Solution technology, promising improved audio, an enhanced user interface and advanced connectivity.
(Image credit: Astell & Kern)
The South Korean digital audio specialist says the new user interface is “more consistent with an Android smartphone experience”. There’s also AK File Drop for easier wireless file transfers, BT Sink function for simpler connection of the SE180 to an external Bluetooth device, and, of course, that innovative interchangeable DAC design to boast a new level of audio flexibility for the user.
By physically separating the main body from the all-in-one module, A&K claims that any power and radio frequency noise generated by the main unit is completely blocked. The DAC module should slot easily into place from the top of the player and features a pioneering double-locking mechanism that promises to securely connect each component.
But you don’t have to buy a separate digital-to-analogue converter to get the new SE180 up and running. The A&futura SE180 arrives with a default 8-channel module, the SEM1 ESS ES9038PRO. And it’s no slouch – audio file support is comprehensive, with the SEM1 DAC capable of playing up to 32-bit/384kHz PCM and native DSD256 files.
Want to start customising and upgrading though? The SEM2 Asahi Kasei AK4497EQ Dual DAC will be the first optional module available at launch, with the ability to play files up to 32-bit/768kHz PCM and native DSD512.
(Image credit: Astell & Kern)
Both modules support 2.5mm, 3.5mm and 4.4mm headphones connections for accommodating a greater variety of headphones and in-ears, while there is support for MQA playback via downloaded MQA audio files and Tidal.
A&K says the next DAC module will be released later in the year, with another model following in the first half of 2022.
Otherwise, the The A&futura SE180 features a Full HD 5-inch screen, the smooth, aluminium casework and rotary volume dial we’ve come to expect from Astell & Kern devices, plus a 256GB on-board memory that can be expanded up to 1TB via a microSD card slot.
The Astell & Kern A&futura SE180 with the SEM1 ESS ES9038PRO DAC module is priced £1399 ($1499, €1599) and will be available from May. The optional Astell&Kern SEM2 DAC (Asahi Kasei AK4497EQ Dual DAC Module) is priced £319 ($349, €379) and will also be available from May.
MORE:
Read all our Astell & Kern reviews
See our pick of the best portable MP3 players 2021: from budget to hi-res music players
Check out the best DACs 2021: USB, portable and desktop DACs
It looks like Oppo will be the next company to throw its hat in the Bluetooth tracking tag game, with a leak of the company’s new Smart Tag appearing over on XDA(via Weibo leaker Digital Chat Station).
Oppo’s tracker looks to distinguish itself in at least one key way from other major tracking tags by offering a USB-C port for recharging the tags, instead of requiring replaceable coin cell batteries (or even worse, nonremovable batteries, as is the case on some Tile trackers). That should make the new Oppo tags a bit more environmentally friendly, although it’s unclear what the impact on battery life will be compared to a more traditional battery system.
And while details are slim on the Oppo Smart Tag, the leak does confirm that the tracker will support ultra-wideband radio for more precise tracking, similar to Apple’s recently revealed AirTag tracker and Samsung’s SmartTag Plus (which was released earlier in April).
Of course, a Bluetooth tracker is only as good as the network of devices that can support it. Tile, the longtime leader in the tracking tag space, has spent almost a decade building up its network of tags, and Apple’s Find My network is able to leverage the hundreds of millions of iPhones and iPads in the world to track down AirTags.
With 9 percent of the global market share at the end of 2020 (according to Counterpoint Research’s data), Oppo can likely make a good case that it has the market saturation to make its tags effective, too, but it’ll likely heavily depend on where users are in the world and how popular Oppo’s phones are in that area.
Update April 22nd, 1:12PM ET: Updated the first paragraph to reflect that Garmin wouldn’t disclose how long its introductory price of $319.99 will last.
Garmin has upgraded its premium Venu smartwatch for 2021 (via DC Rainmakerand Ars Technica). It now comes in two sizes instead of a single 43mm-sized model. The 45mm Venu 2 houses a 1.3-inch 416 x 416 OLED screen. For smaller wrists (or those who just prefer a less wrist-dominating device), the 40mm Venu 2S has a 1.1-inch 360 x 360 OLED screen. Both watches have an optional always-on mode, and they are available now for an introductory cost of $319.99, which is $80 cheaper than the original Venu when it launched in late 2019. Garmin hasn’t shared how long this price will be in effect (the product pages mention a $399.99 asking price), and the company declined to disclose how long this lower price will last.
Other than the differences in case sizes, there isn’t much else distinguishing the Venu 2 lineup visually from the predecessor. They’re slick-looking touchscreen wearables with Gorilla Glass 3-covered touchscreens that feature two buttons. One of the biggest gen-to-gen improvements is its battery performance. The original Venu could last five days in smartwatch mode, but Garmin’s bigger 45mm Venu 2 watch doubles it (and then some) to a claim of 11 days of operation if you’re just using it for getting phone notifications with light usage otherwise. If you’re using its built-in GPS and streaming music from the watch to your headphones via Bluetooth, Garmin predicts up to eight hours of battery life, up from six in the previous model.
A close-up of the larger Venu 2.Garmin
Surprisingly, the smaller 40mm Venu 2S also has better battery life than the original, with 10 days of use expected in smartwatch mode or up to seven hours in GPS mode with music. Garmin has a whole page that backs up how it makes predictions on battery life, telling you what to expect depending on the kind of activities you’re doing. Garmin is also touting faster recharging for both models, with 10 minutes of charging giving you up to one day of use in smartwatch mode or an hour of GPS usage with music. Both models can store up to 650 songs from Spotify, Amazon Music, or Deezer, up from 500 in the Venu and the 2020 Venu Sq.
The Venu 2 watches are packed with sensors, featuring a heart rate sensor, GPS (GLONASS and Galileo), a wrist-based pulse ox sensor to measure blood oxygen, a barometric altimeter for altitude, compass, gyroscope, accelerometer, thermometer, and an ambient light sensor. Each watch also features NFC for the Garmin Pay contactless payment feature. These watches work with iOS and Android, but only on Android can you respond to text messages.
In terms of new software features coming to the watches, Garmin’s Sleep Score will give you an aggregate score based on tracking your sleep stages, heart rate, stress, respiration, and your blood oxygen levels. The Venu 2 series can estimate your “Fitness Age” based on your level of activity and can guide you through high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and advanced strength training.
Flagship features and a big, clear screen make this mid-priced mobile a good option for your pocket
For
Good for gaming
Detailed picture performance
Decent built-in speakers
Against
Screen could be subtler
Flat audio performance
Alec Baldwin may be the best known, and arguably most talented, of his siblings but as Trey Parker and Matt Stone once wrote: you know what sucks about being a Baldwin? Nothing! Thankfully for Billy, Daniel, Stephen and the OnePlus 9 smartphone, life always has room for a little brother.
With only two members of the OnePlus 9 family, finding a niche as the more affordable smaller sibling should be no problem at all. The OnePlus 9 is still a big phone and its 6.55-inch display means it can bring some serious scale to your portable viewing.
Not only does the OnePlus 9 have an HDR10+-supporting, 120Hz AMOLED screen, it also has a Hasselblad camera set-up on board too. And it charges so quickly that by the time you remember that you plugged it in, it’s probably full and ready to go.
Granted, there are a few nips and tucks to the specs compared with the OnePlus 9 Pro but, with around a quarter off the Pro’s price tag, this Android handset has the tempting promise of a flagship phone at a mid-range price.
Pricing
The OnePlus 9 is priced at £629 for the Astral Black and Arctic Sky versions, which come with 128GB of storage space and 8GB of RAM in the UK and Europe. The Winter Mist OnePlus 9 is £729 and comes with 256GB of storage and 12GB of RAM.
In the US, only the Astral Black and Winter Mist finishes are available, but both come with 8GB RAM and 128GB of storage. The US OnePlus 9 is priced at $729.
Features
(Image credit: OnePlus)
A phone with a 6.55-inch screen is just about small enough to carry out most of your operations one-handed without fear of dropping it, although swiping from the top and bottom without adjusting your grip makes for some pretty intensive thumb yoga. Laid next to the OnePlus 9 Pro, the standard OnePlus 9 is just 4mm shorter at 160mm long and a little thinner at 8.7mm rather than 9mm, but has the same 74mm width.
Despite its fibreglass polymer frame, the finish still feels premium for a non-metal phone. The three-way sliding switch for the silent, vibrate and ring profiles is a particularly nice touch. Underneath that, there is the power button, on the opposite side is the volume rocker with the USB-C port and SIM tray on the bottom edge. Sadly, there’s no 3.5mm headphone socket.
OnePlus 9 tech specs
(Image credit: OnePlus)
Screen 6.55in AMOLED
Resolution 2400 x 1080 (402ppi)
Rear camera 48MP, 50MP, 2MP
Front camera 16MP
Dolby Atmos Yes
Finishes x3
Dimensions (hwd) 16 x 7.4 x 0.9cm
Weight 192g
For wireless audio, there’s Bluetooth 5.2 with aptX and aptX HD included as well as LDAC technology, which allows hi-res audio streaming over Bluetooth at up to 24-bit/96 kHz.
As for that screen, it’s a 2400 x 1080 AMOLED panel with a fixed 120Hz refresh rate and a pixel density of 402ppi. Compared with the 9 Pro (525ppi), it’s a little less sharp and slightly dimmer too, with a peak brightness of 1100nits rather than the 1300nit display on the Pro. On top is a flat piece of Gorilla Glass, under which is a hidden fingerprint reader, though you can also unlock the phone using face recognition.
Those looking to dive into some on-the-go TV and film watching will appreciate the HDR10+ and HDR10 support with plenty of HDR compatibility to be found on Netflix and others. You can play locally stored MKV, MOV, MP4, H.265 (HEVC), AVI and other video file formats. The display proportions offer a maximum possible 20:9 aspect ratio, but while most content is edged by a pair of black bars, premium gaming titles use the whole screen width.
Game Mode Pro is a handy feature of Oxygen OS – an otherwise light skin on top of Android 11. It shuts off notifications from popping up on your screen, restricts background app use to divert as much processing power to your gaming as possible and prioritises your network use for game data. We also like the way it brings quick access to options such as WhatsApp messaging, Instagram and screen recording with a small, pull-down menu at your thumb.
(Image credit: OnePlus)
The gameplay itself is well handled. The fast refresh rate of the display helps your gaming feel lag-free, both on and off-line. OnePlus has installed its Cool Play vapour cooling system, but even after one round of PUBG Mobile, the handset still feels pretty warm.
Despite that, and the fixed 120Hz rate, the 4500mAh battery takes us well beyond a day of heavy use. Should you need to recharge more regularly, you’ll be pleased to note that the Warp 65T charger included in the box takes just under 30 minutes to fill your phone.
As with the OnePlus 9 Pro, owners of this handset benefit from a Hasselblad-calibrated camera array. Here, it is a three-lens set-up, with a main 48MP camera, a 50MP ultrawide and a monochrome shooter, but no telephoto. There is 12-bit colour depth stills imaging available in Pro Mode for RAW files and you can capture 8K video at 30fps and 4K video at 60fps.
Telephoto aside, the performance of the camera is right up there with that of the 9 Pro’s. The optical image stabilisation works a treat for the handheld tracking shots around our test facilities. The results look almost as if they were shot using a camera dolly and there’s the odd jump only with fast pans. The colours are bright and rich, if not quite as real-world accurate as the best smartphones.
As with its bigger brother, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chip orchestrates the action with great aplomb. There’s barely a glitch or stutter in our time with the phone and we’d expect it to stay that way with regular updates and fixes to the OS, the UI and third-party apps.
Screen
(Image credit: OnePlus)
If you’re expecting the performance of the OnePlus 9 to match that of the OnePlus 9 Pro, think again – that extra spend goes on more than just an aluminium frame and some curved glass. But there is a lot to like about the OnePlus 9’s picture performance.
It’s easy to lose ourselves in the story of The Witcher in HDR on Netflix. It’s a bright and engaging image with a decent degree of punch and no wanting for detail in light and dark areas of the screen. The opening shots across the shaded interior of a barn reveal lots of detail in the shadows without doing much damage to the black depth. Even when the frame becomes split between that darkness and the bright daylight on the faces of the young lovers outside the barn, the overall exposure levels remain well pitched.
We’re just as pleased with how the OnePlus 9 handles SDR. The Display P3 mode brings a good blend between the natural look of the Missouri countryside and the exciting colours of sci-fi space as we watch Guardians Of The Galaxy 2 in Full HD. If you’d rather not get your hands dirty in the settings, pull the colour temperature towards ‘cold’ or use the Natural preset.
As with the OnePlus 9 Pro, though, there’s room for improvement. The very best handsets maintain a slightly inkier black depth and add a bit more of a dynamic HDR feel, while some displays are a touch more careful with shading. It’s most apparent when looking at faces – the skin complexion of the lovers in The Witcher episode, for example, are fairly uniform in their production, when colour and lighting could be handled a little better.
But these performance compromises are in line with the 9 Pro, which also favours dark detail over black depth. The 9 Pro is sharper, a little brighter and the colours go a touch further before starting to look artificial but, given the difference in price, this is to be expected. The OnePlus 9 still makes for some worthy big-screen viewing at this point in the market.
Sound
(Image credit: OnePlus)
But while the screen can be classed as ‘good’, the audio performance of the OnePlus 9 is firmly in the average category. It plays your favourite tracks faithfully enough but is never going to thrill you. That doesn’t mean that it’s not without its charms, though.
OnePlus’s ‘Dual stereo speaker’ set-up is fine for listening to music or watching a film without headphones. Dialogue is clear and sound effects are identifiable, while music is balanced and not without a sense of presence. We’d recommend listening without the Dolby Atmos music processing, but both ‘Film’ and ‘Music’ modes come across well.
Listening to Biffy Clyro’s Many Of Horror, the OnePlus 9 conveys that powerful sense of emotion. There’s definition and clarity to the vocals and the squeaky slides up the guitar strings of the intro, even if it’s not the most detailed delivery we’ve heard. The volume on the device doesn’t go particularly high but reaches the top with hardly any distortion.
For headphones listening, it’s best to axe the processing and set the OnePlus 9 to ‘None’ under ‘Style Preference’ in the sound settings. It doesn’t do much to make up for this phone’s underwhelming dynamics but keeps music as rhythmic as possible. We play Blue Monday by New Order and the impact of the electro beats and synth sounds is in line with the OnePlus 9 Pro’s performance. The more expensive model has a better stab at organising the sounds but, paired with a decent set of headphones, there’s still plenty to enjoy here.
But with busier tracks, there’s more of a sense of what could have been, sonically. We hit play on Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden, hoping for a taste of moody grunge. But while all the instruments are there and tonally in balance, Chris Cornell’s voice comes across flat and expressionless. Nor is there a change of gear when the drum fills announce the chorus. Ultimately, this phone plugs the music gap while we’re out and about, but not an awful lot more.
Verdict
There aren’t many smartphones that offer so much screen real estate at this price. The fact that it’s such an involving picture performance is a compelling reason to buy the OnePlus 9.
Our doubts are mostly on the audio side, as some rival phones make music on the go a more exciting affair. If you use a dedicated music player or are looking for a mobile phone primarily for its video performance, then don’t let its sonic drawbacks put you off. Between the high-performing chipset, the lag-free gaming, the Hasselblad camera and the scale and quality of the screen, there are plenty of reasons why the OnePlus 9 is a good idea.
(Pocket-lint) – The original Garmin Venu was Garmin’s stab at something more like a smartwatch. It was designed to address the display above all things, sporting an AMOLED screen – and looking better than all the other devices in Garmin’s range.
That’s true of the Venu 2 too and we’ve had one on the wrist for a couple of days to bring you some first impressions.
Design and build
40 and 45mm sizes
45.4 x 45.4 x 12.2mm, 49g
Changeable straps
Stainless steel bezel
Glance at the Venu 2 and you might not know if you’re looking at a new watch or the old model. The overall design is pretty much that same – and it’s a safe design.
Pocket-lint
The watch case sticks to polymer, topped with a stainless steel bezel to give a premium look around the display. The big change is that there’s now two sizes – 40 or 45mm – so there’s a Venu 2 for every wrist.
That also sees a change in the straps you can attach to it, with 18mm and 22mm supported respectively, allowing you to chop and change to get the look you want.
As we said of the original Venu, the design is rather safe. It doesn’t quite reach to the premium looks that you get from the Apple Watch, but it’s conventional enough. We suspect much comes from the close relationship to the Vivoactive – with the Vivoactive 4 also coming in the same sizes.
There’s a difference, however. The case of the Venu 2 now appears to be one piece, whereas previous models had a separate backplate and body, not that that makes a huge difference. For those who like to examine sensors, there’s also a new arrangement to the Elevate heart rate sensor on the back, which we’ve not seen in other Garmin devices.
Pocket-lint
There are two buttons on the right-hand side of the body and these are oblong rather than the round buttons usually found on the Forerunner models.
Display
AMOLED, 33mm
416 x 416 pixels
Touchscreen
Always-on option
We don’t have the exact figures on for the display at the time of writing, but on the 45mm model, it’s about 33mm in diameter for the visible area (the same as the Vivoactive 4).
There’s some bezel area under the glass that’s not active display, but Garmin has now added some markers on this area which help to disguise the fact that not the entire area is display. Fortunately, because this is AMOLED, the deep black of the display and that surrounding area merge together so you really don’t notice it – or we haven’t so far.
Pocket-lint
There are plenty of watch faces on the device and many more available through Connect IQ, but we were quickly taken by the Matrix-style face.
There are three brightness levels and it doesn’t appear that there’s any sort of ambient light sensor to adjust the levels automatically. If you choose the top brightness you’ll get a warning that this will drain the battery faster – and it’s the display that’s likely to eat most of the battery life on your Garmin.
It’s a touchscreen display, allowing some interaction, while other functions will need the press of one of the two body buttons.
There’s a battery saving mode that will take you to a simple watch face to save power and also drop the brightness – again underlining the point that this display does have a hit on this watch’s endurance.
Pocket-lint
Of course, that’s something we really need to examine in more depth over the coming weeks. Garmin says you’ll get 11 days in battery saver mode, while 10 minutes charging will give 1 day of life – but we’ll be fully testing the realistic battery life. So far it looks like it will be good for 5 days based on wearing it so far.
There is the option for the screen to be always-on, but you’d have to select that. The default is to have the display fade to black fairly quickly, but to waken when you twist it to look at it.
Sensors and hardware
HR, GPS, ABC
Pulse Ox
Despite pitching this watch as a smartwatch, the Venu 2 is loaded with all the sensors to feed Garmin’s data machine. That will keep track of your activities from your steps to your HIIT workouts, and give you loads of information about what happened.
The mainstay is the heart rate sensor, which can keep track of your heart rate through the day and night to give you a complete picture of what’s happening within your body. It will help you get in the zone when you’re working out, it will help spot when you’re stressed and it will also measure blood oxygen levels – although be warned that this demands a lot of battery life, so probably isn’t worth the sacrifice.
Pocket-lint
GPS provides your location for accurate route tracing, so you know how far and how fast you went, for tracking all your outdoor activities. The accelerometer will detect motion, like steps or sleep movements, the barometer can detect altitude change while the compass can sense which direction you’re moving in.
All the data collected feeds a number of systems, like Body Battery which pitches your sleep against your daily activity to advise you about how well rested you are, while also giving you full breakdowns of your activity in the Garmin Connect smartphone app, so you know what you did and what benefit that will have.
Pocket-lint
New in this device are sleep scores and insights from Firstbeat Analytics as well as fitness age, which draws in a lot of information to estimate your age – or the impact that your lifestyle might have had on your body and make suggestions so you can do something about it.
They support a full selection of sports, but we’ve not had the chance to test them yet as we’ve only just strapped this watch on. There’s wider support for HIIT workouts and strength training – two areas that Garmin hasn’t been so great on in the past.
We’ll be testing all the functions in the coming weeks.
Smartwatch features
Custom graphics
Garmin Pay
Music support
Smartphone notifications
Garmin offers a range of features are less sporty and more smartwatchy. These aren’t new or unique to the Venu 2, indeed most have been refined across top Forerunner and Fenix models over the years.
But these do complete the picture and ensure that you’re not missing out on essentials. There’s support for downloaded music from Spotify, Deezer or Amazon Music, letting you sync up to 650 tracks, an increase over the previous Venu model.
That means you can arrange playlists and have them sync to your watch, so you can listen to music phone-free via Bluetooth headphones. You can also control music you might have on your phone.
Pocket-lint
Garmin Pay allows for mobile payments, so you can pay for that coffee on your way home from a long run – although there’s not a wide range of support for banks outside the US – so it’s worth checking to see if you’ll be able to use your card.
We’ve mentioned Garmin Connect a couple of times already and once setup on your phone, you’ll be able to control notifications on your watch so you can stay informed – and those using an Android phone will be able to use Quick Replies to reply to messages too.
Best Garmin watch 2021: Fenix, Forerunner and Vivo compared
By Chris Hall
·
Much of this will be familiar to Garmin users, but the Venu 2 does use some custom graphics and animations that are a little more exciting that you’ll find elsewhere. That makes better use of the display and while we’ve not had a chance to fully explore everything, we’ve already spotted some areas where the Venu 2 looks better than some other Garmin devices.
First Impressions
The Garmin Venu 2 is all about that display. For those who are turned off by the slightly muted displays you might find on the Vivoactive or Forerunner devices, the Venu is designed to deliver.
First impressions are great, with vibrancy and plenty of colour, giving the custom visuals a lift. That was true of the previous device too, so we’ll be looking at how this performs as a fitness device and a lifestyle device over the coming weeks.
The ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga is just half-inch thick computer that lags behind similarly priced competitors on productivity, but is supremely classy and convenient.
For
+ Extremely thin
+ Looks and feels classy
+ Great webcam
Against
– Priced for business, so more expensive
– Haptic touchpad can feel unresponsive
When it comes to portability, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga ($1,684.99 to start) is all business. It’s an enterprise notebook that puts thinness above all else, including power.
This is a smaller than half-inch convertible that still manages to stay within spitting distance of other similar competitors on productivity while being even smaller than some detachables (with their keyboards attached, to be fair). Combine that with Lenovo’s excellent keyboard and a classy design that’s easy to feel proud of, and it’s clear how the Titanium Yoga could become a respectable daily driver for casual users or certain trendy businesses that don’t require heavy computing from their employees.
But for the price of the unit we reviewed, which had an Intel Core i5-1130G7, you could easily get a speedier competitor equipped with a Core i7 but without the business trappings of ThinkPad. You’ll have to choose if power or portability is more important for your money, as well as whether you need enterprise features like extra durability and security.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga Specifications
CPU
Intel Core i5-1130G7
Graphics
Intel Iris Xe Integrated Graphics
Memory
16GB LPDDR4x-4266
Storage
512MB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
Display
13.5 inch, 2256 x 1504, IPS, Touchscreen
Networking
Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 11ax, Bluetooth 5.1
Ports
2x Thunderbolt 4, 3.5mm headphone/microphone combo jack
Camera
720p
Battery
44.5 Wh
Power Adapter
65W
Operating System
Windows 10 Pro
Dimensions(WxDxH)
11.71 x 9.16 x 0.45 inches (297.5 x 232.7 x 11.5 mm)
Weight
2.54 pounds (1.15 kg)
Price (as configured)
$1,684.99
Design of Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
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From its silver color to its textured faux leather lid to its titanium, carbon and magnesium chassis, the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga exudes class. Like a geeky version of a Rolex, this computer is clearly aiming to be a statement piece as much as a genuinely useful device, and for the most part, it succeeds.
That faux leather lid feels soft to the touch, and its texture almost gives the convertible a subdued glittery appearance. The lid’s detailing also makes the ThinkPad feel somewhat like a fancy moleskin journal, both to the eye and to the touch.
Decoration is otherwise minimal, with light ThinkPad branding on the lid and keyboard deck’s outer corners standing out the most. This serves to accentuate the case’s sturdy and solid build quality, which emphasizes the Titanium Yoga’s premium status.
The Titanium Yoga is also thinner than other Intel 11th generation convertibles we’ve tested, coming in at under half an inch of thickness. At 11.71 x 9.16 x 0.45 inches, it’s smaller than the HP Spectre x360 14 (11.75 x 8.67 x 0.67 inches) and the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 9310 (11.69 x 8.15 x 0.56 inches). It’s even smaller than the recent ThinkPad X12 Detachable with its keyboard attached, which sits at 11.15 x 8.01 x 0.57 inches.
This small form factor extends to weight as well. The Titanium Yoga is 2.54 pounds, whereas the Spectre x360 14 is 2.95 pounds, the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 is 2.9 pounds and the X12 Detachable is 2.4 pounds.
The small form factor approach doesn’t come without sacrifices, though. The Titanium Yoga is woefully low on ports, with the left side housing two Thunderbolt 4 connections and the right side simply giving you a single 3.5 mm combination microphone/headphone jack. The device doesn’t come with any dongles, so you’re either going to need to buy them separately or pick your accessories carefully.
The Titanium Yoga also comes with a Lenovo Pen, which magnetically attaches to the right side of the display. This is a secure fit, though it might take you a while to figure out that it can actually attach to the device if you don’t read the manual.
Finally, the Titanium Yoga has MIL-SPEC certification, meaning it can take a tumble or five. This isn’t always found on non-business laptops, giving the ThinkPad an edge up when it comes to durability.
Productivity Performance of Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
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Despite its stylish exterior, our review configuration of the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga packs lackluster performance compared to similarly-priced 11th generation Intel convertibles. The Intel Core i5-1130G7 processor is the same one you’ll find in the tablet based ThinkPad X12 Detachable, and it’s outclassed by the Intel Core i7-1165G7 that powers both the HP Spectre x360 14 and the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1. Our configuration also only came with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD.
It’s not too uncommon to see ThinkPads costing more, however, due to their business classification. And, you can configure the ThinkPad X1 Titanium with a Core i7, if you’re willing to pay a bit more.
On Geekbench 5, a synthetic benchmark for testing PC performance, the Titanium Yoga fell behind each of its competitors. It scored 1,328 on single-core tasks and 4,747 on multi-core tasks. That’s only slightly less performance than you’ll get from the ThinkPad X12 Detachable (1,334 single-core/4,778 multi-core), but other convertibles provide more serious competition with the higher-end chips. The HP Spectre x360 14 hit scores of 1,462 on single-core/4,904 on multi-core, while the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 9310 hit 1,532 on single-core/4,778 on multi-core.
The Titanium Yoga was largely on par with competition when we tested its file transfer speeds, where we tracked how quickly it transferred 25GB of data across its SSD. Here, it hit speeds of 409.26 MBps, which is slightly above the XPS 13 2-in-1’s 405.55 MBps and the X12 Detachable’s 408.39 MBps on the same test. The HP Spectre x360 14 was an outlier here, transferring its files at a speed of 533.61 MBps.
On our Handbrake benchmark, in which we use the free program to track how long it takes a computer to transcode a video file down from 4K to 1080p, once again saw the Titanium Yoga fall towards the bottom of the pack. It finished the task in 20:57, which was faster than the X12 Detachable’s 24:12 but slower than other convertibles. The Spectre x360 14 finished its transcode in 18:05, while the XPS 13 2-in-1 did so in 15:52.
We also ran the Titanium Yoga through Cinebench R23 for 20 runs in a row to simulate an extended intensive work session. Its average score was 3,397, while its CPU ran at an average clock speed of 2.1 GHz. During this time, the CPU hit an average 64.75 degrees Celsius (148.55 degrees Fahrenheit).
Display on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
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Like plenty of other recent ultraportables, the Titanium Yoga has a 3:2 aspect ratio screen, which means an image with more vertical headroom. This means more letterboxing on 16:9 content, but it also means you’re expanding your vertical resolution to display more, which is particularly useful for reading webpage content. The Titanium Yoga’s IPS touchscreen in particular has a 2,256 x 1,504 resolution image. That’s more detail than you’ll get on the more common 1920 x 1280 resolution found in the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 9310 and the ThinkPad X12 Detachable, but less detail than the HP Spectre x360 14’s 3000 x 2000 resolution.
When I watched the trailer for Nobody on the Titanium Yoga, I was impressed by how deep the blacks were, but not by much else. The screen was bright enough that I didn’t have to strain to view it, and while colors were accurate, they were not vivid. Viewing angles were also restrictive in a well-lit room, and I had to sit almost directly in front of the laptop to have a workable image. Turning off my lights solved this problem, but that’s not an applicable solution all of the time. I also noticed a mild glare on the screen even when holding it away from heavy light, but it was easy enough to ignore.
Of course, the Titanium Yoga’s aspect ratio is meant more for surfing the web or working on documents than watching a movie. In that respect, the Titanium Yoga exceeded, especially in tablet mode. Reading on it feels almost like browsing through a well put-together coffee table book.
Our testing found that, when it comes to color, the Titanium Yoga is roughly on par with competition. It covers 71.1% of the DCI-P3 color spectrum, which is about the same as the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1’s 70% DCI-P3 rating and the ThinkPad X12 Detachable’s 74.9% rating. The HP Spectre x360 14 stands as an outlier, hitting a vibrant 139.7% DCI-P3 rating.
The Titanium Yoga had a higher average brightness than most competitors in our testing. It registered at an average 425 nits, with only the XPS 13 2-in-1’s 488 nits beating it. The X12 Detachable had 376.2 average nits of brightness, where the HP Spectre x360 14 was the dimmest at 339 nits.
Keyboard, Touchpad and Stylus on the LenovoThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga doesn’t make any changes to the classic ThinkPad keyboard design, which makes it a great typer, but its unconfigurable haptic touchpad leaves it feeling unresponsive elsewhere.
The ThinkPad style keyboard is an old favorite among techies, and it works well on the Titanium Yoga. This keyboard has concave keycaps to help you easily touch-type without having to look at its buttons, which feel like they have reasonable travel distance for such a thin machine. I regularly hit between 80 – 85 words per minute on this keyboard, which is between five to ten points higher than I usually score.
The trackpoint nub is also back here, and you can press on it like an analog stick to move your mouse cursor. It’s kind of an old-fashioned solution, but it works well and is decent if you don’t like taking your fingers off home row. I even found myself using it a few times, despite generally preferring touchpads, since I found the Titanium Yoga’s touchpad lacking.
While my finger smoothly glides around the Titanium Yoga’s touchpad and multi-touch gestures are easy to perform thanks to its precision drivers, the touchpad uses haptic feedback and has no travel when you press it in. We’ve seen this option before on MacBooks and certain other PCs, but it’s unconfigurable here, and the amount of force I needed to actuate the touchpad feels awkward to me. Sometimes presses register, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes I right click when I mean to left click, and vice versa.
There are physical left, right and even middle click buttons above the touchpad, though those exist more for trackpoint users and are inconvenient to reach for when using the touchpad. Additionally, the 3.5 x 2.5 inch touchpad dimensions leave it feeling a little small, and it wasn’t uncommon for my finger to bump up against its sides.
The Titanium Yoga also comes with a Lenovo Pen, which tracks writing well and has three programmable buttons. One of those buttons is where you’d normally place an eraser, but unfortunately isn’t touch sensitive. Palm rejection is impressive here, as I could fully place my palm on the display while writing or drawing with the pen without having the ThinkPad pick it up. The only time palm rejection failed was when I tried to use Windows’ built-in feature that translates handwriting to text when you click on a text box with your stylus. In these situations, my cursor bounced all over the place.
Audio on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
Audio on the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga is loud and accurate, if not what I’d use to DJ my first post-lockdown party. The convertible has two top-firing speakers, one on each side of its keyboard, which I tested by listening to Leave the Door Open by Bruno Mars, Anderson .Paak and Silk Sonic.
This song’s full of drum beats and smooth vocal performances all over the pitch spectrum, but despite that, nothing sounded inaccurate, tinny or dropped on the Titanium Yoga. It could have sounded richer or fuller, but for such a thin device, not losing the bass tracks is enough for me.
As for volume, I could understand the song’s lyrics across most of my 2-bedroom apartment, though they did become muffled at the very edges of my space. When just sitting by myself in front of the Titanium Yoga, I tended to keep the volume at around 60%.
Upgradeability of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
The ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga is easy to open, though there’s not much point to doing so. All you have to do is loosen, but not remove, the six Phillips head screws on the convertible’s underside and gently lift off the case. Inside, you’ll see the battery as well as the networking chip. The M.2 SSD is hidden under a black flap, though it’s in an uncommon size (it looks like a 2242 form factor to us, though we don’t have official word on that) and there’s no slot for a second SSD.
You may be able to change out your SSD in the future, but for the other components, consider that you won’t be able to replace them.
Battery Life of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
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The ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga hit just under 10 hours of battery life in our testing, which while not the absolute minimum for an ultraportable, does put it behind most of its similarly powered competition.
Specifically, the Titanium Yoga had 9:58 of life on our battery benchmark, which continuously streams video, browses the web and runs OpenGL tests at 150 nits of brightness. That’s about an hour less life than we got on both the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 9310, which hit 10:52, and the ThinkPad X12 Detachable, which hit 11:05.
Heat on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
For such a thin device, the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga impresses on cooling. After 15 minutes of streaming video, the device’s touchpad only registered 73.4 degrees Fahrenheit (23 degrees Celsius), while the center of its keyboard in between the G and H keys only hit 81.5 degrees Fahrenheit (27.5 degrees Celsius). Its underside was just slightly hotter at 84.6 degrees Fahrenheit (29.22 degrees Celsius).
The only part of this laptop that even came close to pushing any boundaries was the keyboard deck, right above the f5 key. This hit 93.6 degrees Fahrenheit (34.22 degrees Celsius), which typically isn’t too concerning, but could get warm to the touch after a few seconds here.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga Webcam
The ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga comes with a single front-facing 720p webcam that’s usually color accurate and tends to avoid artifacting, but doesn’t always hold up to dark or overly lit rooms.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
During late afternoon in my office, the Titanium Yoga’s camera captured my face with no visible grain and no major alterations to my natural skin tone. All aspects of the photo are properly in focus, as well.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
In my much dimmer hallway, shots lost focus and fidelity and heavy grain started to appear. Colors still appear accurate, however.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Colors started to take a hit when I stood in front of my office’s window. Here, my face appears much paler than in real life. You also can’t see much of the scenery outside my window, though artifacting seems to be at a minimum.
Overall, that’s pretty impressive performance for a laptop webcam — no 720p webcam is going to perform perfectly under dim conditions or heavy light. And of course, the typical ThinkPad physical camera shutter is also here on the Titanium Yoga.
Software and Warranty on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
The ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga is mostly free of bloat, excluding typical Windows pre-installs like Skype and the Microsoft Solitaire Collection. Otherwise, the Titanium Yoga’s built-in software suite largely focuses on genuine utility.
Most of the Titanium Yoga’s functions are inside Lenovo Commercial Vantage, which is where you’ll update your BIOS and drivers, check your warranty, view your storage and RAM usage, find documentation and check Wi-Fi security.
There’s also Lenovo Pen Settings for programming various aspects of your Lenovo Pen, as well as Dolby Access, which lets you choose between equalizer and postprocessing presets for your display and audio settings.
The one program that does feel excessive here is Glance by Mirametrix, which you can turn on to try to get your computer to move windows to where your eyes are looking or go to sleep if someone looks over your shoulder.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga Configurations
Our configuration of the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga came with an Intel Core i5-1130G7 CPU (with integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics), 16GB of LPDDR4x-4266 RAM, a 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD and a 13.5 inch 2256 x 1504 IPS touchscreen. All of this currently costs $1,685 on Lenovo’s website.
That $1,685 is also the current starting price for this unit, though other configurations can reach up to $2,429. For these other configurations, your display will stay the same, but you’ll be able to select CPUs up to the Intel Core i7-1180G7 with vPro and RAM capacities ranging from 8GB to 16GB. Storage options range from 256GB to 1TB.
All configurations also come with the Lenovo pen.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga Bottom Line
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium’s focus on size and aesthetics makes this device especially appealing to casual users, but puts it behind other, similarly-priced convertibles when it comes to productivity.
In our performance tests, our Core i5-powered X1 Titanium Yoga fell behind some non-business competitors that have Intel Core i7-1165G7 CPUS and sell for similar prices (you can also get the Titanium Yoga with Core i7 for more money). These rivals also had thicker chassis, which allowed for longer battery life.
But that thickness does count harm portability, and the Titanium Yoga has the advantage of being a business-class device while those rivals are not. That means it comes with added durability, like MIL-SPEC certification, plus extra security and manageability features like vPro.
It also comes with an included stylus. While the HP Spectre x360 14 also has an included pen, the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 does not. You also get Lenovo’s excellent keyboard with the Titanium Yoga, plus a fashionable design and a moleskin-like finish.
Those features make the Titanium Yoga a great casual usage device, though thanks to its aesthetics, it will look equally at home in the boardroom, the classroom or the living room.
They work super well, and they’re one more thing keeping you on the iPhone
I was starting to get really worried that I wouldn’t find my friend.
For this first look at AirTags, I sent Vjeran Pavic off into an unfamiliar city with a single Apple AirTag and no phone, no smartwatch, or any other mode of communication. The challenge was to see if Apple’s Find My system for locating AirTags would be able to lead me to him.
Apple AirTags weren’t designed for an elaborate game of hide-and-seek. They can help you locate anything they’re attached to; most of the time you’ll be listening for their little chirps as you hunt down the keys you inexplicably left sitting on top of the fridge instead of on the hook where they belong. For that purpose they work incredibly well, right on down to a little arrow on the iPhone’s screen pointing in the direction and little haptic taps as encouragement that you’re getting warmer.
But this exercise was a very good stress test for the new $29 iPhone accessory ($99 for a four pack), because it meant that the only chance I had of tracking Vjeran down is if one of the near-billion Find My-enabled devices on the planet happened to pick up the AirTag’s Bluetooth signal and send it back to me.
After a half-hour of walking around, I finally found him. He was standing on a street corner with no foot traffic whatsoever, which meant that the intermittent signals I got detailing his location came from a couple of iPhones in cars that were driving by.
That’s impressive.
AirTags have been rumored for years but never seemed to materialize. They’re really here now and though I wouldn’t go so far as to say they’re worth the wait, I do think Apple has put together a thoughtfully designed system that goes a long way toward ensuring privacy and safety while still making it easier for you to locate your stuff.
AirTags are a very Apple-y Apple product, and that ends up being great but also just a little annoying (and, for third-party companies like Tile, troubling).
AirTags
The basics of AirTags are simple enough to understand: each one is a tiny little puck with a Bluetooth Low Energy radio and a U1 ultra-wideband (UWB) chip. You pair it with your iPhone just like you do with AirPods, holding it nearby and then tapping through a short setup process. After that, they’re available in a new “Items” tab in the Find My app.
From the app, you can set the AirTags to chirp, mark them as lost (which enables some different features), or just tap the button that lets you locate them in space. If you have an iPhone with UWB, it can locate the AirTag in physical space and point a little arrow at it when you get within four feet or so. It all works very well and is very satisfying.
From a design perspective, an AirTag is classic Apple. It’s a white and shiny silver little button, and you can have custom emoji or letters printed on the plastic. They are as cute as the buttons they resemble.
However, you’ll soon find the plastic is scuffed and the chrome on the back is scratched. Sincerely, do not expect these to stay looking pristine for long — not since the weird early days of the iPod nano has an Apple product gotten scuffed this easily.
One clever touch is that the plastic body itself serves as the speaker. It’s what vibrates to make the chirping noise. It gets plenty loud, though my old ears had a bit of a difficult time using just that sound to locate one. Also, if for whatever reason the AirTag is squeezed or compressed, that will dampen how loud it can get.
There’s also no hole on them for a lanyard loop. If you want to actually attach one to anything instead of dropping it in a pocket, you’ll need to buy an accessory. That, increasingly, also feels like a classic Apple move.
The one un-Apple part of the design is that the battery is actually user-replaceable. A little twist of the bottom reveals a standard CR2032 cell, which Apple claims should be good for a year of battery life.
The real trick — and the hidden complexity — arises when you are tracking an AirTag out in the world, when something is truly lost. Like everything in Apple’s Find My network, the AirTag’s location is end-to-end encrypted so only you can see its location. But any iOS device can send that location to you.
If somebody comes upon a lost AirTag, they can tap it via NFC to see information about it, including its serial number (which could be important if you think it’s being used to track you). If the owner has put it in “Lost Mode,” they have the option to have that information page show their phone number and a brief message so you can contact them. This NFC feature works equally well with iPhones and Android devices.
That means all it takes to locate an AirTag is for any iPhone with Bluetooth on to see it — even if that iPhone is whizzing by in a car. Apple is leveraging its huge network of devices as a competitive advantage here — along with the competitive advantage of directly offering this functionality as a system-level feature. Tile has asked Congress to look into that.
The pairing process for AirTags is just like pairing AirPods.
A Bluetooth device broadcasting anything is a potential privacy risk, so Apple is cycling each AirTag’s Bluetooth identifier “frequently.” More than that, though, Apple has also done some work to develop a system that also considers personal safety.
If the Find My network notices that an AirTag has been separated from its owner for a while and seems to be in the same place you are, it will alert you. If you’re an iPhone user, you’ll see a notification that says “AirTag Found Moving With You.”
A bunch of AirTags.
Apple says that there are options to disable these “Safety Alerts” if you are “borrowing” something. But the real purpose is clear: to protect you from somebody using an AirTag to surreptitiously track you.
When you see the alert, you can tap the notification to get a screen that will allow you to make the AirTag start beeping. The alert will also instruct you on how to disable the AirTag by removing the battery.
Finally, Apple says, “If you feel your safety is at risk, contact your local law enforcement who can work with Apple. You might need to provide the AirTag or its serial number.” Apple won’t be able to provide your location, but it could provide governments with information related to the person who registered the AirTag as theirs in the first place.
If you’re an Android user, well, virtually none of this is going to work for you. However, the AirTag does have at least one potential trick. If it’s been separated from its owner and then detects that it’s suddenly on the move, it will start beeping.
All in all, I think it’s a thoughtfully designed system, but it’s also definitely one that leverages Apple’s strengths.
An AirTag.
Really, the AirTag is the Most Apple Product I’ve seen in a while. It’s just a little more expensive than the competition. It’s beautifully designed, but its hardware still somehow fails to actually take the practical realities of our dirty, messy world into account. It’s very privacy-focused. It really only works with Apple devices. It offers features that no third-party device can really match thanks to Apple’s tight integration (or tight grip on its APIs, depending on your point of view). And since there’s no Android version of Find My, it’s another piece of the Apple ecosystem that’s going to keep you from switching.
An AirTag is a very Apple-y thing for Apple users who already live in Apple’s ecosystem. They work great — and will be great at keeping you in Apple’s world.
Apple’s AirTags have one feature not mentioned during the announcement yesterday: they’ll work with Android to a limited extent. As 9to5Mac noted, there’s a support article on Apple’s site that details how AirTags will work with an Android device if you don’t have your iPhone handy.
The way AirTags function is by securely communicating with Bluetooth devices and iPhones equipped with ultra-wideband that are in the area. If AirTags exclusively worked with Apple devices it would severely limit their effectiveness, particularly in regions where iPhones aren’t as popular as Android.
Any NFC-equipped phone should be able to just tap the AirTag to get more details.Image: Apple
AirTags won’t work out of the box with an Android device, nor can you use an Android device in lieu of an iPhone with one. Instead, it will only work with Android devices equipped with NFC and only communicate when the AirTags are in Lost Mode.
First, you’ll need to use your iPhone to activate Lost Mode, which is supposed to show you on a map where your AirTag has wandered off to. Then if someone with an Android device finds your lost AirTag, they can hold it up to their NFC-equipped phone and get details on how to contact you. They’ll only be able to get details if the Lost Mode is activated, which should help with privacy concerns.
The Android support makes AirTags way more useful, but if you want the full experience on an Android device, you’ll probably want to take a gander at Tile’s offerings. The company is reportedly working on an AirTag competitor that should work on both iOS and Android. Samsung also has its own AirTag competitor, Galaxy SmartTags. Like the AirTags and planned Tile offering, the Galaxy SmartTags use UWB to provide a more exact location for a lost tag. The Galaxy SmartTags only work with Samsung Galaxy phones, but unlike AirTags and the Tile tag, Galaxy SmartTags are available now and start at $29.99.
The Asus ZenBook 13 UM325SA packs some of the best value we’ve seen in an ultraportable yet, outperforming much more expensive Intel options thanks to new Ryzen 5000U chips.
For
+ Strong and cheap
+ OLED display
+ Surprisingly good audio
Against
– Need a dongle for a headphone jack
– Touch-based numpad feels gimmicky
The Asus ZenBook line usually tends to be a series of plain, mid-range ultraportables that hit respectable performance for strong value. The ZenBook 13 UM325SA ($749 to start, $999 as tested), is also somewhat unassuming and still maintains strong value, but its performance is anything but mid-range.
That’s thanks to its new Ryzen 5000U processor options, which bring the power of AMD’s latest CPU line to ultraportables and into competition with Intel’s 11th Gen “Tiger Lake” processors. The result is a stunningly strong computer that’s priced well below Intel and Apple alternatives, yet usually outperforms the former while coming within spitting range of the latter.
Asus ZenBook 13 Specs
CPU
AMD Ryzen 7 5800U
Graphics
AMD Integrated Radeon Vega Graphics
Memory
16GB DDR4-3733 MHz
Storage
1TB M.2 SSD
Display
13.3 inch, 1920 x 1080, OLED
Networking
802.11ax Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0
Ports
2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x microSD card reader
Camera
720p, IR
Battery
67Wh
Power Adapter
65W
Operating System
Windows 10 Pro
Dimensions(WxDxH)
11.97 x 7.99 x 0.55 inches
Weight
2.5 pounds
Price Range
$750 – $1000
Design of Asus ZenBook 13
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The Zenbook 13 is still a thin, light and minimally decorated machine that looks neither ostentatious nor exciting. Fitting that, color options include a blackish gray and a lighter, more metallic silver — the one we tested was gray.
The laptop’s lid is probably its most heavily decorated part, with a reflective, silvery Asus logo sitting off-center towards the laptop’s charging port side. A slight radial texture surrounds and emanates from the logo, although a glossy surface means it’s often covered by fingerprints. There’s also a small “Zenbook Series” logo on the laptop’s outer hinge.
Opening the laptop reveals a focus on functionality, as there’s not too much going on here visually aside from the chiclet-style keyboard and large touchpad. The keyboard does sit inside a sloping tray, which is nice, but what’s more noticeable is that opening the laptop’s lid also lifts the keyboard off your desk at up to a three-degree angle for easier typing.
The left side of the laptops houses two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C ports and one HDMI 2.1 connection. The right side similarly has just a single USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port and a microSD card reader. The big missing port is a 3.5 mm audio jack; you get a USB Type-C dongle in the box for that. You also get a USB Type-A dongle for RJ-45 Ethernet. Those adapters cut into the device’s portability. For instance, plugging in both dongles as well as the charger will use up all of your ports.
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The Zenbook 13 is on the smaller and lighter side when it comes to portability. At 11.97 x 7.99 x 0.55 inches and 2.5 pounds, it edges out similarly specced competitors on most measurements. The 13 inch MacBook Pro with an M1 chip is 11.97 x 8.36 x 0.61 inches and 3 pounds, while the HP Spectre x360 14 is 11.75 x 8.67 x 0.67 inches and 2.95 pounds. The Dell XPS 13 9310 comes the closest to giving the ZenBook decent competition on size, hitting 11.6 x 7.8 x 0.6 inches and 2.8 pounds.
Productivity Performance of Asus ZenBook 13
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The ZenBook 13 UM325SA is our first time looking at a Ryzen 5000U series chip, which brings AMD’s latest CPU generation to the ultraportable market. While our Ryzen 7 5800U ZenBook 13 configuration with 16GB of RAM and 1TB M.2 SSD didn’t quite beat Apple’s new M1 chip, it generally outperformed Intel Tiger Lake ultraportables like the i7-1165G7 HP Spectre x360 14 and XPS 13 9310. The Ryzen 7 5800U has eight cores and 16 threads, while Intel’s U-series Tiger Lake processors go up to four cores and eight threads.
In Geekbench 5, which is a synthetic benchmark that attempts to capture general performance, the Asus ZenBook 13 hit 6,956 points in multi-core tests and 1,451 points in single-core tests. That’s above the 5,925 multi-core/1,316 single-core scores earned by the MacBook Pro with an M1 processor running Geekbench via Rosetta 2 emulation. The M1 running a native Geekbench test performed much higher, although native M1 Geekbench isn’t exactly comparable to what we ran on the ZenBook. The ZenBook also generally beats our Tiger Lake competition. For instance, the HP Spectre x360 14 earned 4,904 multi-core/1,462 single-core scores and the Dell XPS 13 9310 earned 5,319 multi-core/1,521 single-core scores. Those single-core scores are closer to our ZenBook’s output, but the laptops fall far enough behind on multi-core to outweigh that benefit in most cases.
The ZenBook 13 led the pack in file transfer speeds. When transferring 25GB of files, the ZenBook 13 did so at a rate of 1,068.21 MBps, while the XPS 13 9310 followed behind at a rate of 806.2 MBps. The MacBook Pro M1 hit a rate of 727.04 MBps, and the Spectre x360 14 trailed behind with a score of 533.61 MBps.
The ZenBook 13 and MacBook Pro M1 were significantly faster than our Tiger Lake machines in our Handbrake video-editing benchmark, which tracks how long it takes a device to transcode a video from 4K to FHD. The ZenBook 13 completed this task in 9:18 and the MacBook Pro M1 did it in 7:44. Meanwhile, the Spectre x360 14 and XPS 13 9310 were much slower with scores of 18:05 and 18:22, respectively.
We also ran our ZenBook 13 through Cinebench R23 for 20 runs in a row to stress test how well it operates under an extended load. The average score among these tests was 7,966.40, and the CPU ran at an average clock speed of 2.43 GHz and average temperature of 66.72 Celsius (152.1 Fahrenheit).
Display on Asus ZenBook 13
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Aside from a new Ryzen 5000U chip, the ZenBook 13 UM325SA also packs a new 1920 x 1080
OLED
display. That’s an improvement over 2020’s
Tiger Lake model
, which had an
IPS
-level screen.
I tested this display by watching The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and was impressed by the color and brightness, but a little disappointed by the screen’s viewing angles and reflectivity. While the red on Falcon’s outfit popped and shadows and other blacks were deep, I found that the image tended to wash out when looking at the screen from over 45 degrees away horizontally. Vertical angles were more generous, but the issue with horizontal angles persisted regardless of whether I watched in a high or low-light environment. I also found that even in low light environments, reflectivity was an issue, as I could frequently see my outline on the screen. Still, this didn’t outweigh the excellent color and brightness for me.
Our testing backed up my experience, with the ZenBook 13’s color only being beaten by the HP Spectre x360 14, which also had an OLED screen when we tested it. The ZenBook’s DCI-P3 color rating was 96.5%, while the Spectre’s was 139.7%. The MacBook Pro M1 had a much lower 78.3% DCI-P3 color rating, while the Dell XPS 13 9310 followed behind with a 69.4% DCI-P3 color rating.
The ZenBook was closer to the bottom of the pack in terms of brightness, though given that all of our competitors were also packing bright screens, this isn’t really a mark of low quality. It had 375 nits of average brightness, which is above the Spectre’s 339 nits, but below the MacBook Pro M1’s 435 nits score. The XPS 13 led the pack with a score of 469 nits, but any of the screens are still plenty bright.
Keyboard and Touchpad on Asus ZenBook 13
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The ZenBook 13 UM325SA boasts a chiclet membrane keyboard that’s not too different from what you’ll find on most other ultraportables, but is nonetheless comfortable to use thanks to a slight angle and a cushiony feeling on keypresses.
The Zenbook’s lid is designed to lift its keyboard off your desk at up to a three-degree angle when opened, and while it doesn’t sound like much, that slight elevation helps for both comfort and typing accuracy. I wasn’t any faster than my typical 75 words-per-minute when typing on this keyboard, but I did find myself making fewer typos and my fingers didn’t feel as strained.
That comfort comes from keypresses that feel satisfyingly soft and pillowy, as well as wide keycaps that keep your fingers from feeling cramped or getting lost.
What’s perhaps more interesting than the keyboard is the touchpad, which is a generous 5.1 x 2.5 inches. It uses precision drivers and is perfectly smooth yet has enough friction for precise input, plus it tracks multi-touch gestures without issue. But that’s not what makes it interesting. What stands out here is the toggle-able touchscreen numpad built into it.
By holding the touchpad’s top-right corner for about a second, a numpad overlay will appear on the touchpad. You can still move your mouse cursor as usual in this mode, but you’ll also be able to tap on the overlay to input numbers as well as simple arithmetic commands like addition, subtraction and multiplication. Further, by swiping the touchpad’s top-left corner, your laptop will automatically open the calculator app.
This isn’t our first time seeing these features on a ZenBook, but they still remain novel here. The idea is to make up for the keyboard’s lack of a number pad, but unfortunately, this solution leaves much to be desired. The simplest issue is that touch input is unreliable and often requires users to self-correct by looking at what they’re touching. It also tends to lack comfort due to a lack of tactile feedback. Those two problems take away the major strengths tenkeys tend to have over number rows, but they’re not the only issue here.
While the numpad shortcut works well enough, the swipe to either bring up or dismiss the calculator can be finicky, and it’s not too unusual for it to not register a few times before working. It’s also unusual from a user experience perspective that the calculator shortcut uses a different input method than the numpad, and that the logo indicating where to swipe bears no resemblance to a calculator, but instead looks more like a social media share button.
While you can safely ignore the touch-based numpad without losing any utility over competitors, it doesn’t add much convenience to the device and comes across like a gimmick. At the very least, it does result in a larger touchpad than usual.
Audio on Asus ZenBook 13
The Asus ZenBook 13 UM325S comes with bottom-firing Harman Kardon speakers. And despite the ultrabook’s small size, they work well for both bass and volume.
I tested the ZenBook’s speakers by listening to Blinding Lights by The Weeknd, and they got loud enough at max volume to fill my whole 2-bedroom apartment, even through doors. Bass was also plenty present, capturing both the song’s drum beats and low synth without losing too much information. I couldn’t exactly feel it in my chest, but I also didn’t feel like part of the song was getting cut or drastically losing its impact, which is impressive on a laptop this size.
Unfortunately, the compromise here is that high notes did tend to get a little tinny as the volume got louder. While I had a decent listening experience at volumes lower than 60%, the distortion became noticeable and eventually annoying as I got higher than that level.
There’s also DTS audio software on board that lets you swap between different presets for music, movies and games, and lets you access a custom mode to boost certain parts of your audio like treble and bass. This mostly tended to affect sound mixing rather than quality, but helped me keep my general system volume down, which reduced tinniness to a minimum.
Upgradeability of Asus ZenBook 13
The ZenBook line has a history of being difficult to upgrade, and that’s the case here as well. That’s because some of the screws you’d need to remove to open up the device are hidden under the laptop’s feet. There’s no guarantee you’ll be able to get these feet back on after removal, so we skipped opening up the laptop for this review.
When we reached out to Asus, we were told that the ZenBook 13 UM325SA uses soldered RAM, though you can access and swap out the M.2 SSD if you wish.
However, given that you might end up having to replace your laptop’s feet in the process, we’d suggest being careful about your configuration choices before buying.
Battery Life of Asus ZenBook 13
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The ZenBook 13 UM325SA enjoyed a long 13 hours and 36 minute battery life in our benchmark, which continuously streams video, browses the web and runs OpenGL tests over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness. That put it well above the HP Spectre x360 14’s 7:14 score and the Dell XPS 13 9310’s 11:07, with only the MacBook Pro M1 beating it. That laptop lasted for 16:32.
Heat on Asus ZenBook 13
We took the ZenBook’s temperature after 15 minutes of YouTube videos, and found that the touchpad registered 73.4 degrees Celsius (164.12 Fahrenheit), the center of the keyboard between the G and H keys hit 83.3 degrees Celsius (181.94 Fahrenheit) and the laptop’s underside was mostly 84.7 degrees Celsius (184.46 Fahrenheit).
That said, the underside as a whole has a lot of surface area, and its rear-center (just in front of its underside vent) did hit 94.6 degrees Celsius (202.28 Fahrenheit).
Webcam on Asus ZenBook 13
The ZenBook 13 UM325SA has a single 720p webcam with IR capability for Windows Hello. While it has strong color accuracy, I found that photos I took with it suffered from low quality and a lot of artifacting. It also didn’t adjust well to heavy or low light.
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The colors were natural, but it still almost feels as if I have a filter on. I’d be nervous taking an important work call on this device.
Software and Warranty of Asus ZenBook 13
The Asus ZenBook 13 UM325SA comes with minimal utility software, excluding the extended McAfee total protection trial that’s turned on by default when you get the system. We uninstalled this fairly early on, as some antivirus programs can lower benchmark performance.
Aside from that, you have DTS audio processing for swapping between different presets that tune the speakers for music, movies or gaming. You also have AMD Radeon software, where you can adjust your PC’s power mode, view usage stats for different components and launch games.
Most of Asus’ utility software limited to the MyAsus app, which lets you run diagnostics, troubleshoot, perform updates and the like, all from one place.
There’s also typical Windows pack-ins like Spotify, the weather app, and Microsoft Solitaire Collection.
Configurations of Asus ZenBook 13
We reviewed the ZenBook 13 UM325SA with a Ryzen 7 5800U processor, integrated Radeon Vega graphics, a 13.3-inch 1920 x 1080 OLED display, 16GB of LPDDR4X-3733 memory and a 1TB M.2 SSD. That’s the top configuration for the AMD version of this laptop.
Official pricing info is still a little undefined at the moment, though we’ve been told that the price range for this line of Zenbooks is $750 – $1000. We’d assume that our laptop would come in closer to the top of that range. CPU options for this laptop include the Ryzen 5 5500U, the Ryzen 5 5600U, the Ryzen 7 5700U and the Ryzen 7 5800U. Some of those CPUs are split between the UM325UA and UM325SA models, though there isn’t much difference on these devices other than that CPU selection.
You can also choose to lower your RAM and SSD capacities for a cheaper price, although Asus hasn’t given us details on available options as of publishing.
Bottom Line
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AMD’s Ryzen processors have, as of late, had a reputation for strong productivity performance and value, and those features stand out in how the latest Asus ZenBook 13 leverages the new Ryzen 5800U chip. Despite costing a maximum of $1,000 at its highest configuration, it easily stands above Intel Tiger Lake competitors that reach as high as $1,600, all while touting a gorgeous OLED display.
In our productivity tests, the only ultraportable that beat the ZenBook 13 was the M1-equipped MacBook Pro 13, which we tested in an $1,899 configuration (and starts at $1,299). Yet despite costing slightly more than half of that price tag, the ZenBook was still in the MacBook’s general range, and never once lost to an Intel competitor.
Granted, some of those Intel competitors have special features. The HP Spectre x360 14 is a convertible, and the Dell XPS 13 has a premium design and a 1920 x 1200 resolution. But they also perform worse while costing more, and even though this ZenBook is still largely plain when it comes to bonuses, it does have a beautiful new OLED display.
There are a few quibbles here and there, like the slim port selection or the near-useless touch-based numpad. But overall, this device is the definition of punching above your weight class.
Apple’s new AirTag trackers are finally here after years of rumors. The $29 trackers work with Apple’s Find My network, utilizing both Bluetooth and UWB technology to help owners track anything from their keys to their bags.
But the design of the new trackers is somewhat controversial: unlike most Bluetooth trackers, Apple’s iteration doesn’t include a built-in key ring loop. The subsequent debate has shattered the tranquility of The Verge’s newsroom over whether Apple’s somewhat Spartan design is brilliant or bogus. Well, at least between two of the most genteel Verge staffers, Jon Porter and Chaim Gartenberg.
Artist’s rendering of an AirTag design featuring a keychain hole punch.Image: Apple
Jon Porter, reporter: Debate me, coward
Chaim Gartenberg, news editor: Gladly!
Jon: Let’s start with a point that we’ll definitely both agree on: it’s a relief to see the AirTags’ battery is user-replaceable. It sounds like such a basic point, but considering Apple’s track record with its AirPods, Magic Mouse, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, MacBook line, Magic Keyboard — wait does anything else Apple makes have replaceable batteries? — it wasn’t a guarantee. Tile’s keychain-focused Mate and Pro trackers have removable batteries, but its Sticker (which has a very similar form factor to the AirTag) doesn’t.
Chaim: I will grant you that easily accessible, user-replaceable batteries are always a good thing. And on a whole, the overall aesthetics of the AirTags are nice, with a two-tone shiny white plastic / chrome back that’s vaguely reminiscent of the old iPods to me. But the overly sleek Apple design highlights the biggest issue I have here: there’s no built-in loop or hole to attach a key ring.
The AirTag is a product that’s designed to track your keys, and yet it offers no way to actually attach itself to those keys out of the box, something that’s practically table stakes from Tile, Chipolo, and virtually every other Bluetooth tracker from the last decade.
Jon: I hear you, but I think Apple’s approach is better. It means it can sell just one version of the AirTag to track whatever item you want, rather than selling different devices whether you want to track your keys, or your bike, or your jacket. Just buy an AirTag and buy whatever accessory you need to attach it. And for what it’s worth, I really like the design of the little holder accessory they’re selling to attach the AirTag to a set of keys.
Chaim: That little keychain accessory costs $35, which is more than an entire AirTag. Even Apple’s cheapest AirTag case, the $30 plastic loop, which doesn’t look like it’ll even be useful for attaching to keys. This is just Apple’s typical accessory tax, forced onto customers because of an intentional choice of aesthetic form over useful function.
And don’t get me started on the Hermès accessories…
Jon: Okay fine, I’m not going to argue that the $349 Hermès key ring isn’t incredibly stupid, and it would be nice if the leather key ring actually included an AirTag at that price. The setup is too expensive, period, and hopefully third-party accessory manufacturers will step in to fill the demand for cheap keychain holders.
But more importantly, I think separating the tech bit from the holder bit makes sense for an accessory that’s going to have to withstand so much abuse on a daily basis. Keys can be sharp, and they beat up anything that shares a pocket with them, so I’d prefer it if that thing that gets beaten up is a holder rather than the core piece of technology.
Look at a Tile key fob tracker that’s been used for a couple of years, and it looks grimy as hell. I wouldn’t be surprised if some people end up replacing the whole device when the battery runs out, just so they can get a shiny new tracker. But when your AirTag keychain inevitably starts looking worse for wear, you just replace the holder rather than the tracker itself.
Chaim: These are all valid points, but you’re ignoring the fact that these accessories and protective cases could all exist in addition to including a cutout to directly attach a key ring. There’s already a similar cottage industry of accessories for Tile’s trackers for those who want them, and with the marketing power of Apple behind it, there’s no reason to think that AirTags wouldn’t have eclipsed that level of interest from accessory makers, even if it did have a cutout for a key ring.
It’s not that cases are bad — Apple’s leather option does look great and is almost definitely a more robust option than my hypothetical cutout. But it’d be nice to give customers the choice, instead of just forcing them into an option that requires spending more money right from the start.
Jon: At a certain point, though, you’re running up against physical limitations, and Apple has to pick its battles. I’m already seeing some of our esteemed colleagues in Slack complaining about how thick these trackers are, which I’d wager is because Apple prioritized building in a removable battery. Adding a loop with enough space for a key chain to go through adds yet more bulk. You have to draw the line somewhere.
Chaim: Fair enough. So, Jon, are you buying an AirTag tracker?
Jon: Honestly, I’m going to wait to see how the third-party accessories work out. If I can get a half-decent leather keychain holder for the equivalent of $20 or so, then I think it makes a lot of sense spending $50 all-in with the tracker itself. Yourself?
Chaim: I might buy one to stick in my luggage at some point, but I generally don’t lose my keys enough to need to invest in a tracker for them (famous last words, potentially). Especially not at the $65 price tag that Apple is asking for a full key ring setup.
Today, Bandai is announcing the Tamagotchi Pix: a combination of its classic Tamagotchi pet-rearing toy line with a new built-in camera for taking pictures with your digital pet.
The Pix is shaped like a hatching egg, with the top part of the “broken shell” working as a shutter button. Using the camera, you can insert yourself (and friends) into photos with your Tamagotchi, with appropriately cute photo frames. We’ve reached out to Bandai for more information about the camera quality.
Photos taken with the Pix are stored locally, and any photos you take will appear in a feed that documents your time with your pet. Bandai frames this as a sort of on-device social media, but because the Pix can’t connect to Wi-Fi and sharing photos is limited, it’s not actually social. Presale for the Tamagotchi Pix starts today for $59.99.
The Tamagotchi Pix’s top shell works as a shutter button when you’re taking photos.Image: Bandai
Past Tamagotchi, like the Tamagotchi On, have used Bluetooth to connect to other devices, but the Pix is taking a less high-tech approach. If you want to share images with other Pix-carrying friends, they can take a picture of a “Tama Code.” Bandai says these codes contain the entirety of what you are sharing, so you can basically exchange pictures via QR codes. Bandai also plans to award Tama Codes for in-game items if you play games on tamagotchi.com starting in August.
Besides the camera features, Tamagotchi Pix also has new touch-based buttons in place of the usual physical ones, and several new gameplay mechanics. Have you ever wanted to influence your Tamagotchi’s future employment status off-world? Apparently, how you raise your Tamagotchi and decorate its room will now affect its future profession and what other eggs you can raise after your first Tamagotchi grows up. Tamagotchi can also engage in new activities like painting, cooking, and ordering food for delivery.
The Tamagotchi Pix captures a little bit of the feeling of Pokémon Go’s augmented reality camera. It’s not as robust — you’re just pasting your pet on a photo rather than finding them moving out in the world — but some of that AR magic is there. Obsessively documenting your pet’s life in photos might re-create some of that parent-child bond, but I think what’s more powerful is the basic feeling the Pix’s little AR photos could conjure: that you exist in the same space as your Tamagotchi and that, in some way, it’s real — even if it’s confined to a plastic egg.
The Tamagotchi Pix comes in four different colored “shells”: “floral” (pink), “sky” (purple), “ocean” (blue), and “nature” (green). Pink and purple are available for presale today, and blue and green are “coming soon,” according to Bandai.
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