Fitness - Page 6 of 14

Apple Fitness+ vs Fiit: What do they offer, how much are they and which should you sign up to?

(Pocket-lint) – Apple Fitness+ is a paid-for service from Apple that lives within the Fitness app. Like Fiit and Peloton, it focuses on home workouts, with studio-style on-demand workouts available anytime and anywhere.

If you’re trying to decide between Apple Fitness+ and Fiit, we’ve got you covered. Here’s how the two services differ, how much they both cost and what they offer to help you work out which might be the right one for you.

Fitness+ vs Fiit price

Fitness+: $9.99/£9.99 a month
Fiit: $25.99/£19.99 a month

Apple Fitness+ is available as a standalone subscription, or as part of the Apple One Premier subscription. As a standalone, Fitness+ costs $9.99 or £9.99 per month, or $79.99 or £79.99 per year.

It is included within the Apple One Premier subscription along with News+, Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Apple TV+ and iCloud, though this is $29.99 or £29.99 a month.

Fiit meanwhile, offers monthly, quarterly and yearly subscription options. A monthly subscription costs $25.99 or £19.99, a quarterly subscription costs £44.99 or $57.99 and a yearly subscription costs £119.99 or $159.99.

Fitness+ vs Fiit features

Fitness+: Apple users, Burn Bar, variety of workouts, filters, music
Fiit: All users, leaderboard, Fiit points, live workouts, training plans, variety of workouts, filters, music, review system

Apple Fitness+ is based around the Apple Watch, and while you can do workouts without the Apple Watch, you won’t get the full experience.

With a compatible iPhone or iPad and Apple Watch, a Fitness+ workout will display your Apple Watch rings, heart rate, calories and the Burn Bar in the top left, along with the time left on the workout and the countdown timer when you are doing a HIIT workout for example. The Burn Bar will offer feedback during the workout as to how you are doing in relation to other users who have completed the workout before you. It’s possible to turn it off if you don’t want to see it.

Fiit is compatible with the Apple Watch, among other fitness devices like the Samsung smartwatches and Fitbit, which when linked up will allow you to see your heart rate on the workout screen, as well as your Fiit points. There’s also a dedicated Fiit device (a chest strap) to track heart rate, as well as reps on strength workouts for example. Similar to the Burn Bar though, the Fiit points help you compare your efforts with others who have taken the class prior to you. There is a main leaderboard too – something Fitness+ doesn’t offer.

Both apps offer a variety of workouts, trainers and training types, from Yoga to HIIT, though Fiit has a more accomplished catalogue at the moment. Fiit also offers training plans and challenges, like ’14 Days of Cardio’, or a six week ‘Lift’ plan, which Apple Fitness+ doesn’t yet.

There are also live workouts on Fiit, allowing you to schedule yourself onto a class with at least one every half an hour throughout the day. Currently, Fitness+ doesn’t offer live classes, though it does have dedicated audio workouts for walking.

Both Apple Fitness+ and Fiit have music built into their workouts (unlike Joe Wicks and the Body Coach app) and you can filter by music too on both apps, so if you’re someone who likes to workout to dance music, or RnB, both apps have you covered. The Fiit workouts have a bit more going on, with flashing lights in the background of the trainers, while the Fitness+ workouts keep things simple.

For Apple Watch users, both Fitness+ and Fiit automatically select the right workout type, and once you start, they will end automatically too, with a record in the Summary tab of the Fitness app and allowing you to see all your data from there.

One of the final things to note in terms of the difference in features between Fitness+ and Fiit is the way workouts are run. Fiit offers different workouts for different levels. Some workouts have two trainers, with one offering one level and the other a more advanced level, but otherwise, you would typically choose a workout from the options within your level.

Fitness+ meanwhile, takes a slightly different approach. Rather than have different workouts for different levels, Apple has three different trainers for each workout, with all offering the different levels and you follow the trainer that represents your capabilities.

Fitness+ vs Fiit app

Fitness+: Simple, curated sections, trainers section, summary section in different place
Fiit: More comprehensive, stats section, activity section, more filter options

Both the Apple Fitness+ and Fiit apps are easy to use and they both offer a filter function to help you select the workout that is right for you or what you are after.

The Fiit app is a little more extensive compared to Fitness+ at the moment and it has more filter options, with target body part, target area, and equipment and class level all options. Apple Fitness+ only allows you to filter by the type of exercise, followed by the time, music and trainer.

Both apps have curated sections within their apps, such as “New this Week”. Apple Fitness+ has more of these sections, with a Popular section, My Workouts section and Simple and Quick section.

Both have a Trainers section – allowing you to choose your favourite trainers. You’d be surprised how quickly you warm to certain people’s enthusiasm. We love Adrienne Herbert from Fiit for example, and we like Jamie-Ray on Fitness+, though he is also a Fiit trainer, as is Kim so there is some crossover.

Fiit has a Profile section on the app that will show you your All Time Stats, Stats by Studio, your favourite classes and your activity so you can see all the workouts you’ve done. It also has a rating system, allowing you to rate each workout after you finish it to help it work out which ones you like more, improving its algorithm. You can see your past workouts in the Summary tab of the Fitness app for Fitness+ but there’s no specific section within the Fitness+ tab itself, nor are there any stats or streak information.

Fitness+ vs Fiit conclusion

So which is right for you? Well, that depends on what you are looking for and how much you are willing to spend. If you’re not an Apple user and you don’t have an Apple Watch, then Fiit is a no brainer between these two.

If you are an Apple user and you have a compatible Apple Watch, Fitness+ is good, but it is lacking in a few features. It just depends if those features really matter to you or you don’t mind waiting as chances are, they will eventually come to the platform in some form.

Fiit is more expensive – double the price of Fitness+ in fact – but it offers more workouts, as well as more features. There are live workouts available, training plans, challenges, a leaderboard to keep you motivated, a section for all your activity and the option to review a workout when you have finished it to help the algorithm suggest others you might like. You can also AirPlay it to a compatible TV, or cast or stream using Apple TV, Chromecast, Amazon TV or Sky Q.

Fitness+ meanwhile has a good selection of workouts, it’s simple and therefore very easy to use and navigate, it has good curated sections, we love the Burn Bar and it works well with Apple Watch. The workouts are more subdued than Fiit, which some will prefer, while others will like the buzz the flashing lights bring to the Fiit workouts. Also, until iOS 14.5 comes out when AirPlay 2 compatibility is coming, the only way to get Fitness+ on your TV is if you have an Apple TV 4K or Apple TV HD. It doesn’t support Chromecast or Amazon TV.

At the moment, we would say Fiit offers more out of these two options, but so it should for double the cash.

Writing by Britta O’Boyle.

Oppo Watch review: More than just an Apple Watch clone?

(Pocket-lint) – For years Google Wear OS watches have been round in shape. That traditional watch look has been a big draw for smartwatch buyers, particularly with fashion watch brands (mostly from Fossil Group) building watches that look and feel just like watches should.

Despite that, round screens don’t necessarily make the best platform for apps and text fields that appear on screen. After all, it’s harder to get a lot of information on a display that gets narrower at the top and bottom, and so a square screen actually makes a lot more sense from that point of view.

The Oppo Watch is one such square-screened device. The question, then, is whether being this different shape acts as enough of a draw?

Familiar looks

Dimensions (46mm model): 46 x 39 x 11.35mm
Weighs 40g minus the strap
Ceramic & plastic underside
Aluminium alloy case
Fluororubber strap

Getting the elephant out of the room as quickly as possible: yes, the Oppo Watch looks a lot like a certain Apple-branded series of smart wrist wear. Of course, it’s not exactly the same, but if you glance at the Oppo from a distance then you’d likely assume it was an Apple Watch. Even some of the watchfaces are strikingly similar.

There are of course differences to point out. For instance, the glass on the front of the Oppo slopes down towards the left and right edges more noticeably – so it doesn’t have the completely even rounding around all four sides. It’s quite a long/tall display too, which means this 46mm model is going to be too big for smaller wrists.

Just like an Oppo phone the Watch also has very slim and long buttons on the side – with one of these featuring the company’s trademark green accent. These buttons are housed in the side of a very glossy metal case, which in this instance is a midnight blue colour, complimenting the black glass on the front and the matte black silicone strap.

The top button launches your apps screen when on the watch face – press it anywhere else in navigation and it’s a ‘back to watch face’ button. Or press-and-hold it to launch Google Assistant. The bottom button launches an activity by default – or, rather, launches the screen that lets you choose to start a workout. Press-and-hold it and you’ll launch the power/shutdown menu.

The watch itself is comfortable to wear for long periods, thanks to being quite lightweight, and the silicone band has just the right amount of stretch and grip to keep it in place without needing to be over tightened.

On the underside you’ll find Oppo’s take on heart rate monitoring. It’s an attractive setup, with five sensors/LEDs arranged symmetrically inside a glossy dome, with four contact points for the charging base underneath that. You also get a pill-shaped button on the top and bottom sides for releasing the strap.

It’s a little fiddly to get the strap halves removed, but it’s a method that makes a lot of sense from a visual perspective. It gives the strap the look of being a deliberate, seamless part of the watch’s design. With the button pressed in, you simply pull the corresponding strap half off the case to conveniently reveal the two catches that hold it in place.

But it’s also hugely inconvenient, purely because actually getting hold of additional band styles or new straps with this proprietary connection point is not the easiest of tasks. Oppo’s UK store doesn’t even seem to have additional first-party bands to choose from. And looking for third-party options usually leads to inexpensive unofficial ones from stores that we don’t necessarily have huge confidence in.

We think if Oppo is has gone to the trouble of creating this strap removal system, which is quick and easy, then the company also needs to give an appealing reason for customers to want to do that. And the only way to do it is to offer multiple materials and finishes of bands to go with the watch, which in the Western market don’t seem to exist.

Wear OS, but with Oppo flavour

Wear OS platform
Additional Oppo layers

With its own take on Google’s Wear OS platform, Oppo has full taken advantage of the additional screen space offered by its square panel. For instance, launching the apps screen reveals a 3×3 grid of small round icons, which you can scroll up and down through. That means nine app icons fit in one screen at a time without the awkward, curved list of maybe three or four that you get on round screens.

Similarly, dropping down the settings tiles from the top of the screen gives you nine easy icons with tap-to-activate features such as torch, do not disturb mode, Google Pay, find my phone, or access to other everyday settings.

Of course, it’s still very much Wear OS platform, so swiping left on the home watch face goes to your full screen widgets for tracking things like your heart rate, daily activity, or sleep. Swiping right goes to your Google Home Screen with useful shortcuts and updates. Swiping up goes to your notification – and, again, because it’s a square screen, you can see more text and more notifications clearly.

Want to install wearable apps? Easy. Just tap the Google Play Store icon in the apps list and you can find anything in there. Which – when it comes to fitness and health (which we’ll get to it in a bit) – is kind of necessary. There’s even NFC and support for Google Pay, which is accepted in a lot of retail locations and supported by a good number of banks these days.

All of this is displayed on a 1.9-inch curved AMOLED panel which is bright and vivid. It’s worth noting that the smaller 41mm model has a flat 1.6-inch display. Either choice is easy to see outdoors in daylight, while the always-on feature means you can glance and see the time whenever you like. The always-on display option does drain more battery, and switches off your tilt-to-wake functionality, but it gives a more natural watch-like experience.

Fitness and health

Oppo HeyTap Health + Google Fit installed
All day heart rate and sleep tracking
Step counter + GPS

Modern smartwatches are essentially fitness trackers with fancy screens, in the form of a watch. It’s the fitness and daily activity tracking element that makes one a worthwhile investment. It’s where a number of Wear OS manufacturers fall down, though, and why having an ecosystem of third-party apps is needed.

Oppo has built its own fitness tracking platform, however, which does offer all the essentials. It’s called HeyTap Health and it collects information from you including daily steps, estimated calories burned, your daily heart rate averages, and can show you how you slept the night before (providing you wore the watch to bed).

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It’s quite basic in terms of how it displays the data though. There’s not a lot you can dive into, although if you’re tracking a run with it, you do get to see useful metrics like distance, pace, heart rate, elevation and cadence. And it does seem pretty much on par with our other trackers in terms of location and data consistency.

If you’re into anything other than running, walking, cycling or swimming, you’ll not be served at all by Oppo’s fitness tracking options. Those are the only four workouts you can utilise, and so you’ll need to look at a different watch if that’s what you need.

There’s also Google’s own fitness tracking, Google Fit, which can also track the basics throughout the day. It’s neatly organised to show you how you’re doing versus your heart points and steps goals, while also showing easy-to-understand graphics for any workouts you’ve done. Run sessions, as an example, show up in the smartphone companion app as a neat map graphic with the route lined in blue. You also get to see your heart rate, weight and sleep duration in compact cards.

Performance and battery

430mAh battery – up to 30 hours smartwatch mode
Snapdragon Wear 3100 + 4G LTE
Ambiq Apollo3 Wireless SoC
Magnetic charging

On the whole, the Oppo Watch is a strong performer. We weren’t left waiting for ages for apps to download from the Play Store. Animations are relatively smooth and fluid, and apps load quickly enough.

The one area where improvements are needed – as with many smartwatches – is battery life. In our testing, with the always-on display switched on (showing a low power black and white watch face), and with the ’tilt-to-wake’ feature enabled (so we didn’t have to keep tapping the screen to wake it up properly), the watch gets through a full charge in less than two days. Realistically, then, that means charging it every night, which isn’t great – but then the Apple Watch is much the same.

It’s worth noting, this is without the 4G/LTE connection enabled, just using it as a regular smartwatch connected to our phone for notifications. Even on days where we didn’t do any workout tracking, it didn’t have enough juice left to make it through a full second day, which means sleep tracking being a feature is approaching pointless.

What is the Pocket-lint daily and how do you get it for free?

By Stuart Miles
·
3 February 2021

To charge it Oppo has designed a magnetic snap-on cradle which uses those four contact points for charging and not a wireless charging method. That’s both good and bad, like a few of Oppo’s choices on this watch. It’s good, because it’s quicker than typical wireless standards. It’s bad because the charging cradly is quite clunky and can be a inconvenient, if only because the plastic build is quite light and the magnets aren’t especially strong.

Practically speaking that sometimes means it’s tricky to get the watch lying on the cradle completely flat, but also that if it gets knocked it can detach quite easily. On the plus side, it does have some quite grippy silicon padding around the hole in the centre to help it not slip quite as easily once you do get it resting completely flat on a surface. But we often found ourselves double and triple checking it was stable and in position before leaving it to charge.

Verdict

With a few refinements and additional features the Oppo Watch could be a genuinely great smartwatch. It’s just a few tweaks short of getting it absolutely right. The lack of customisation choices from Oppo and the fitness features being a little light on data depth and quantity of workout types are the main downsides.

But it’s a good first go with a lot to like. Despite it’s Apple-a-like looks, there aren’t many other square Wear OS watches out there, and this does get all the basics right in terms of smartphone notifications and replying to messates on the fly. It also has Google Pay support and that display is bright and colourful. All for a fair price point indeed.

Also consider

Fossil Gen 5 Garrett

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For a classic watch look, full Wear OS feature list, and easy-swappable bands, there are few watches like the Gen 5 Garret. It looks like a watch should and offers pretty much anything you could need from a Wear OS smartwatch.

Read our review

Samsung Galaxy Watch 3

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Samsung went all-out on fitness with the Watch 3 and now offers some pretty impressive running data and a bunch of other fitness-focused features without losing any of the smartwatch features we’ve come to expect in this day and age.

Read our review

Writing by Cam Bunton.

Xiaomi says its ‘Air Charge’ technology works over several meters

Xiaomi has announced “Mi Air Charge Technology,” a wireless charging system that the company claims is able to charge devices “within a radius of several meters.” Multiple devices can be charged at 5W at the same time, according to Xiaomi, and physical obstacles apparently don’t reduce charging efficiency.

Xiaomi says the technology will also work with smartwatches and fitness bracelets. Another goal is to make “living rooms truly wireless,” with speakers, lamps, and smart home devices all being powered by the same remote system. A Xiaomi representative confirms to The Verge, however, that no commercial products will include the technology this year, and declined to provide a timeframe for release.

Here’s how Mi Air Charge Technology works, in Xiaomi’s words:

The core technology of Xiaomi’s remote charging lies in space positioning and energy transmission. Xiaomi’s self-developed isolated charging pile has five phase interference antennas built in, which can accurately detect the location of the smartphone. A phase control array composed of 144 antennas transmits millimeter-wide waves directly to the phone through beamforming.

On the smartphone side, Xiaomi has also developed a miniaturized antenna array with built-in “beacon antenna” and “receiving antenna array”. Beacon antenna broadcasts position information with low power consumption. The receiving antenna array composed of 14 antennas converts the millimeter wave signal emitted by the charging pile into electric energy through the rectifier circuit, to turn the sci-fi charging experience into reality.

Needless to say, you should be skeptical about the prospects of this technology making it to market until evidence suggests otherwise. Companies like Energous have been making announcements about “truly wireless charging” at CES and beyond for several years, but the technology is yet to gain serious traction. Xiaomi has demonstrated wireless charging engineering breakthroughs in the past, however, and has the advantage of owning a huge hardware ecosystem that it could theoretically leverage.

Apple surpasses $100 billion in quarterly revenue for first time in its history

Apple today reported its fiscal Q1 2021 earnings, which cover the final calendar quarter of 2020 and the holiday sales season. That means this is the first time we’re getting a real indication of how the new iPhone 12, iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max are faring with consumers. As it turns out, they’re doing very well. Apple crossed $100 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time in the company’s history: it brought in $111.4 billion in total, with earnings per share of $1.68.

The latest iPhones went on sale a bit later than normal, and Apple has had to again close some of its retail locations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But despite those obstacles, the iPhone business did extraordinarily well, tallying over $65 billion in revenue. The previous all-time record for iPhone revenue in a quarter was $61.58 billion, which Apple hit in the first quarter of fiscal 2018.

Alongside a tweaked, flatter design, the iPhone 12 series is the first to include 5G mobile data, which some have speculated could result in a so-called “super cycle” of upgrades from people who are still using iPhones that are a couple years old at this point. The strong early interest is certainly there; now we’ll have to see if it holds.

Apple’s Mac and iPad lines have seen rocketing sales during the prolonged period of working at home and remote education as a result of the pandemic. The momentum continued in this latest quarter, with iPad sales up a staggering 41 percent — during a holiday quarter, remember — and Mac sales up 21 percent year over year.

iPad sales were up a staggering 41 percent year over year.

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

The company’s MacBook Air, base-level 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini are now powered by its own M1 processors. Those three products officially kicked off a transition away from Intel chips that will extend to Apple’s other Mac products over the coming months. The popular iPad Air was also updated in the fall with a more modern design similar to the iPad Pro.

During an earnings call with investors, CEO Tim Cook said Apple crossed 1.65 billion active devices worldwide during the quarter. iPhones account for over 1 billion of those devices.

Unsurprisingly, AirPods / AirPods Pro and the Apple Watch were a holiday hit for another year running, boosting the wearables division up 30 percent year over year.

Just as 2020 came to a close, Apple launched its latest paid subscription service, Apple Fitness Plus, which joins Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Apple TV Plus, and Apple News Plus as ways of getting recurring profits from consumers who buy Apple hardware. The company has continued to extend the trial periods for some of those services — namely, Apple TV Plus — but the services unit as a whole continues to perform very well and was up 24 percent.

Executive shifts at the company also continue. Just this week, Apple announced that longtime hardware engineering SVP Dan Riccio will now focus on a new, unspecified project; John Ternus — who has publicly introduced well-received products like the revamped Mac Pro, iPad Pro, and M1 Macs — has replaced him as Apple’s hardware boss.

The company has also pushed forward with its social initiatives, announcing a number of racial equity investments earlier this month. Apple also removed conservative social media app Parler from the App Store, citing insufficient moderation policies and calls to violence from some users on the app.

Philips unveils new four-strong Go Sports wireless headphone series

(Image credit: Philips )

According to Philips, nearly two thirds of active sports enthusiasts (and over 90 percent of 16-24 year-olds) are using headphones while exercising, and in a bid to take the lion’s share of that market, the firm is releasing a new dedicated sports series focusing on sports-worthy fit, durability, great sound plus new safety and hygiene features.

The Philips Sports Headphones range will start with four products, which should hit shelves in April. All of them feature USB-C fast-charging, Bluetooth 5.0 and dust, sweat and waterproofing – but the firm promises there are 10 headphone models in the pipeline for the first half of 2021.

Ready for a quick breakdown of the incoming models in the Philips Sports Series lineup? The range rollout will comprise the A7306 flagship true wireless in-ears, A6606 wireless neckband bone conduction headphones, A4216 sports on-ear wireless headphones and a neckband in-ear proposition called the A3206.

(Image credit: Philips)

The new flagship Philips A7306 true wireless headphones (above) combine heart rate monitoring and UV cleaning technologies, meaning they can apparently be cleansed with ultra-violet rays in just 20 seconds, simply by popping them back in their case.

You get three different coloured wing-tips and three detachable ear-hooks for a run-worthy fit, 9mm drivers, two mics per earpiece for clear audio, an IP57 rating (meaning that as well as dustproofing, the buds can survive submersion in water up to a metre deep, for 30 minutes), tap-controls for playback and call-handling plus up to six hours of battery life on a full charge, with an extra 18 hours on hand from the charging case. Thanks to fast charge, you can get a claimed hour of playback in just 15 minutes too.

Sports enthusiasts can also track their performance with the A7036’s built-in heart rate monitor, which Philips says is compatible with most popular fitness apps currently available.

In addition, Philips promises users can stay safe out there thanks to a special one-tap awareness mode feature giving instant access to external sounds.

In terms of voice assistance, the A7306 supports Google Assistant and Apple Siri, and they’re compatible with Philips dedicated headphones app – which, says Philips, works with the most popular sports tracker apps.

(Image credit: Philips )

The Philips A6606 sports bone conduction headphones (above) offer a different way of listening. Unlike traditional headphones, the A6606 wireless model transmits sound vibrations to the ear via the user’s cheekbones, thus allowing you to enjoy music while leaving your ears free to hear background sounds, especially in busy environments or while running alongside traffic, say. It’s the first time Philips has produced such a design – and the company proud to present it.

The A6606 is designed to fit perfectly under a cycle helmet, and as an additional safety feature the headphones include a high visibility LED light that can be controlled via the Philips Headphones App.

Expect nine hours of playtime from a single charge, 15 minutes of charging to get one-hour playback, and a full charge in two hours.

The lightweight (but Titanium reinforced) neckband design completes a sleek aesthetic, which also boasts IP67 water, sweat and dustproofing.

You also get a carry pouch for easy storage and two built-in mics for calls on the move.

(Image credit: Philips )

The Philips A4216 (above) is a sports on-ear wireless option, boasting good passive noise cancellation and large 40mm drivers.

The model has been ergonomically designed for extra comfort, featuring memory foam inserts with a special cooling gel for those high intensity sessions, all covered in removable and washable fabric sleeves for extra hygiene protection. They also fold inwards for easy, compact storage in your gym bag.

A huge 35-hour playtime and quick charge feature (which boasts two hours after 15 minutes of charging) should ensure the A4216 are always ready to use, even for the most extended of workouts.

The IP55 rating means they can’t be fully submerged in water but they’ll survive a sweaty (or rainy) run, and there’s also a built-in microphone with echo cancellation for clear audio.

(Image credit: Philips)

Last but by no means least, for now, the Philips A3206 offers a wireless neckband design, ie. with a cable tying the two buds together so it’s nigh-on impossible to lose one when cycling or running.

A choice of three interchangeable comfortable wing-tips and three ear-hooks should ensure an unshakable fit, while a Kevlar reinforced, light reflective cable promises extra safety in low light.

Also on the spec-sheet is a 13.6mm neodymium acoustic driver in each earpiece, an IP57 sweat, dust and waterproof rating, three user friendly buttons on the remote control and shirt clip, and a push button to trigger voice control – with either Google Assistant or Siri at the helm.

All models will be available in black, from April 2021. At the time of going to press, prices are still to be confirmed, but as and when we know. so shall you…

MORE:

Read our pick of the best sports headphones 2021: keep active with these earbuds

See all our Philips reviews

Not looking for a sports set? Check out the best wireless headphones on the market right now

Peloton Bike Plus: an upgrade at a crucial time

The bike arrives at a time when many people want to work out at home

Last year was the year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the year sweatpants become acceptable workwear, and the year Peloton peaked. Mid-pandemic, the company announced two new devices: the pricier Bike Plus and a less expensive treadmill called the Tread. The Bike Plus started shipping in September and includes significant updates to the company’s signature hardware during an especially critical time when many people have shifted their fitness routines from gyms into their own homes.

I, for years, have been a dedicated Crunch gym-goer, usually taking five classes a week. But with gyms closing off and on and classes generally being canceled, I moved my routine indoors. First, I started with Peloton’s app workouts, using resistance bands and bodyweight. I then switched to Zoom classes taught by an instructor I enjoy from Crunch. For the past few months, I’ve been testing Peloton’s Bike Plus. To put it simply: I’ve loved my time with the Bike Plus. It’s become an important tool for my well-being. Anytime I need to sweat out stress or transition my day from work into leisure, the bike is my go-to. Peloton has built a truly reliable spin bike, but at $2,495, the price is still hard for me to accept, especially considering its ecosystem lock-in.

The main thing to keep in mind when assessing Peloton’s products is that you’re paying solely for new hardware. The Peloton software remains the same across both the old and new internet-connected bikes, similar to how most old and new iPhones receive the current iOS. You can also access that app content without any official Peloton equipment. To get people to upgrade, though, Peloton has to offer real hardware innovation in order to justify the Bike Plus’ nearly $2,500 price versus the original bike’s $1,895 cost. This time around, for the extra $600, riders get a new swiveling display, a fresh speaker system, automatic resistance calibration, and Apple Watch GymKit support.

Before fully assessing the bike investment, though, let’s first break the Bike Plus down by what’s new and how those features work:

THAT SWIVEL DISPLAY

The most obvious change with the Bike Plus is the new 23.8-inch HD touchscreen. The prior model included a 21.5-inch HD touchscreen with thick bezels on all sides. It effectively looked like an iMac bolted to a stationary bike. The Bike Plus places a speaker across the top of the display, augmenting those bezels. To be clear: there are definitely still bezels on the new display, but they feel unobtrusive. It’s a massive screen solely for workout content, and your attention is firmly planted at the center of the screen most of the time. However, for a display this size and at this high of a cost, its lack of an ambient light sensor is questionable. I work out at various hours of the day but particularly love an evening ride in a dark room. The screen should dim itself rather than me having to manually do so. (There’s a camera at the top of the display for video calls with friends, so it could easily detect light.)

As for the new swivel function, the main idea is people can take Peloton’s floor classes without having to uncomfortably stand behind their bikes. You can swivel the display out and away from the bike to face the rest of the room, allowing you to move around to complete yoga, strength, or meditation classes.

Peloton also launched a new class format, called Bike Bootcamp, to coincide with this bike’s release. The bootcamp is designed to give cyclers a chance to do it all — bike and strength train within the same class — without having to complete two separate workouts. And while the swivel display makes this option feasible, I still found these classes difficult to pull off for the first few weeks, namely because of the Peloton cycling shoes. When you ride on a Peloton, you clip into the bike with cycling shoes, and these shoes take time to clip out of the pedals, which requires lots of practice. For context, the Peloton employee who delivered my bike recommended leaving my shoes in the pedals and slipping my foot in and out to avoid a hassle.

Bike Bootcamp classes expect you to clip in and out to complete various portions of the class, which took me a while to get used to doing. Adding to the quick transition stress was the lack of a pause button, meaning that I often missed the demo portion of the strength routine and fell behind. Peloton says the missing pause button is because the bike is “designed to give you a great workout and ensure that you work as hard as you would in a live indoor cycling class,” but in a home context, it’s more of a pain than anything else. You can exit the class, but this means you’ll have to reenter it, which takes a while and is annoying to do. And if you accidentally tap that you want to restart the class entirely, there’s no forward or back button.

I also found the angling of the display to be slightly off. Working out on a mat means you want the display to tip as far down as possible to provide a good view of the content. But this display doesn’t angle far enough down, meaning I had to crane my neck to see the instructor. This didn’t prevent me from using the screen for mat workouts, but it did annoy me (and kind of hurt!) at times.

Still, the swivel is an essential upgrade, especially if you use your bike’s display as your main one for other workouts. I don’t have a TV, so I need the swivel, but Peloton also offers a suite of options for broadcasting to a TV, including a Roku app, Fire TV app, and AirPlay and Cast compatibility. If you have any of these options available to you in your home gym, the swivel screen likely won’t do much for you and isn’t worth the upgrade cost.

THE NEW SPEAKER SYSTEM

The new bike comes with 26-watt, front-facing stereo speakers, as well as woofers that face away from you. The prior bike only included rear-facing stereo speakers. The new speakers sound great, although I preferred to bike with Bluetooth-paired wireless earbuds. (There’s also a headphone jack for anyone who might want wired options.) Peloton lets you select between different audio mixes, either prioritizing the music, the instructor, or finding a balance between the two in the original mix. I always work out with the music prioritized and when I do this through my AirPods Pro, I have no problem also hearing the instructor. But when I listen through the speaker, I find the music mix to be almost unusable; I sometimes can’t hear the instructor at all and miss my cues. The music is loud and sounds fantastic, which is perhaps what Peloton wanted, but finding the perfect balance between thumping music and hearing directions was complicated. (I’ll also note here that the bike is remarkably silent. My roommate would ride next to my bedroom door, and I couldn’t hear anything apart from his breathing. It’s a great bike for a shared home where people want to exist in their own spaces.)

AUTOMATIC RESISTANCE DETECTION

This feature is undeniably cool. Typically, in a spin class, the instructor offers a range within which the riders should aim to set their resistance level. Spinners reach down to their resistance knob and turn it to the desired resistance whenever a new range is called out. The Bike Plus now adjusts the resistance automatically. It’s slick and convenient and absolutely the neatest feature of the Bike Plus.

I did encounter some bugs, though. Sometimes the cues were off, either with the resistance setting itself between a different range than the instructor called out, the timing of that resistance change being off, or the resistance dropping at times when it should have stayed consistent or even increased. This seemed to happen more frequently in older archive classes than new ones. With that said, though, the few times I ran into this problem weren’t a huge issue. I adjusted the knob myself and waited for the bike to catch the next instruction. I still find this feature hugely helpful, allowing me to concentrate more on the class rather than adjusting the knob to get to the right resistance, especially during climbs when the resistance can go up suddenly during an energy push.

APPLE WATCH GYMKIT

The Bike Plus is also the first device from Peloton to directly integrate with the Apple Watch through GymKit. I had a couple of problems with this functionality at first: the Watch wouldn’t pair with the bike, but then Peloton issued an update which seemed to correct the issue. Only one other time did I have a problem with pairing and had to restart my Apple Watch. Although these issues only came up a couple of times, they were particularly upsetting because when the bike is paired with the Apple Watch, your heart rate shows up on-screen during a workout, which I look to monitor as I’m moving through a class. With the Apple Watch paired, workouts are also tracked in Apple’s Health app with all the bike’s own data taken into account, like energy output, so the functionality not working 100 percent of the time is frustrating and actively takes away from my exercise. But on the whole, it’s remained mostly reliable.

The watch only directly syncs with the bike for spin or bike bootcamp workouts, meaning you won’t be able to see your heart-rate on the screen while you complete a strength or pilates class, for example. This isn’t great and feels like it defeats the purpose of having GymKit compatibility in the first place.

IS THIS THE BIKE FOR YOU?

The Bike Plus is an expensive, tough sell for Peloton and one that needs to be pulled off flawlessly, especially as new software competitors, like Apple Fitness Plus, enter the market, as well as cheaper hardware competitors like Echelon and Bowflex. The Bike Plus feels like the iPhone of spin bikes — it’s intuitive to use and works right out of the box. (But actually, there is no box because Peloton offers white glove delivery and setup with every purchase.)

For the person who doesn’t want to fiddle with a bike that isn’t totally built for Peloton’s software, meaning it doesn’t monitor output and all the other fancy fitness metrics, Peloton’s bikes are tempting. But buying one means committing to a $39-per-month subscription. The app itself only costs $12 per month but doesn’t include multi-account support, live classes, the leaderboard, and full metrics.

For some people, that $39 is a savings compared to what they used to spend for gym access, especially considering it provides access to an unlimited number of different profiles. For others, it’s a significant investment in their health and life. Either way, you’re committing to Peloton and its subscription plan forever. The display is useless without the subscription, meaning if you ever wanted to try Apple Fitness Plus or SoulCycle or any other on-demand cycling classes, you’d have to ignore the massive display and instead get a TV or laptop to watch.

As much as I loved my time with the Bike Plus, the high price and software lock-in is difficult to accept. Peloton has built undeniably great hardware. I just wish I could use it with any software I liked rather than only Peloton’s app. If I had a TV, this might bother me less because I’d plan to use whatever fitness app I liked on my TV and wouldn’t sweat losing the subscription. Although, of course, I’d then be saddled with a massive HD display that literally does nothing.

The question of whether I’d recommend this bike depends on how much you love Peloton’s classes and how much you want to work for your exercise bike. Other spin bikes exist, many of which are cheaper and allow you to swap in your own tablet. You can even use Peloton’s app with them, albeit with some compromises, like losing your place on Peloton’s competitive leaderboard.

There’s also Peloton’s notorious delivery delays to consider. The New York Times notes that buyers’ delivery dates are being rescheduled day-of with the actual equipment showing up months after the date they were first quoted. All of this is to say, if you’re considering this bike purely for pandemic workouts, prepare to wait.

Still, to me, the Bike Plus is a must-get for anyone who lives the true Peloton lifestyle and sees themselves loving the company and its software far into the future. It’s reliable, works well, and, broadly, my gripes didn’t take away from the experience; I’ve been riding nearly daily for months now.

I just can’t predict whether I’ll want to go back to the gym post-pandemic or if I’ll get used to working out at home indefinitely. To Peloton’s credit, however, I can’t imagine myself readily giving this bike back; it’ll hurt a little to watch it leave. That feels like a victory for the brand and an admission for me that I do want a Peloton bike in my life.

Apple adds walking with celebrities to Fitness Plus’ features

Apple is adding celebrity-guided walking workouts to Fitness Plus today, with new walks to be added every Monday through the end of April. The new feature, called “Time to Walk,” pairs music and inspirational monologues from famous musicians, athletes, and actors with the exercise tracking that Apple Watch and Fitness Plus are known for.

Today’s launch includes walks with Shawn Mendes, Dolly Parton, Draymond Green, and Uzo Aduba. Apple says each Time to Walk episode features “personal, life shaping moments” from each influential person’s life and career, along with lessons, memories, and moments of levity. The celebrities will also introduce a playlist of songs after their talk to keep the motivation going for the rest of your walk and beyond. Also interesting to note, Apple says each episode was recorded as the celebrity guests walked in a place that was personally meaningful to them.

An example of the kind of photos that can appear during a Time to Walk workout.

Image: Apple

On the technical side of things, Time to Walk episodes will be automatically downloaded to Fitness Plus subscribers’ Apple Watches and will play over Bluetooth headphones. Walkers will have access to the usual exercise metrics like time, pace, heart rate, and distance, and Apple says Time to Walk will display photos on your Apple Watch timed to moments in each guest’s story. Time to Walk is called Time to Push for wheelchair users, and it relies on watchOS’s wheelchair workout tracking to provide fitness information.

In terms of subject matter and tone, Time to Walk episodes sound like they’re more in the TED Talk school of inspirational audio than something you might hear on a laidback podcast, but for fans of each star or influential guest, they might be worth a listen and stroll.

Garmin Edge 830 cycling computer review: Hitting the data sweet spot

(Pocket-lint) – Ask any cyclist what the first thing you should update on a bike is and they will invariably say the wheels. While that’s likely to give you the biggest performance upgrades, it’s hard to quantify that without the humblest of bicycle accessories, the bike computer.

Being of techy mind and body, we’d say that a bike computer is probably one of the first places you want to look to boost your riding experience, and Garmin has long been the leader of the pack. So how does the upper-level Garmin Edge 830 perform?

Design, build and mounting

2.6-inch colour touchscreen, 246 x 322 pixels
Dimensions: 50 x 82 x 20mm / Weight: 79.1g
Varied mounting options in the box
IPX7 water protection

In terms of functionality, the Edge 830 is Garmin’s second-tier device, sitting under the Edge 1030 Plus and above the 530. The 530 is closely related – the biggest difference being the addition of touchscreen controls that you get on the 830 – but the design is essentially the same.

The Edge 830 isn’t the most compact thing around, but the bodywork is all there to support the 2.6-inch display as your visual gateway into a world of data and mapping.

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The design is robust enough, with IPX7 protection, which means it won’t be bothered by rain showers or a soaking when you hit a big puddle. The waterproofing should mean it can withstand complete submersion in water, but that might dampen your ride a little. Having been caught in downpours and some winter floods, the odd soaking certainly doesn’t hamper this device’s performance – you don’t even need to think about it, as you might with an adapted smartphone in a holder.

The 830’s bodywork is a substantial polycarbonate with the front dominated by the display, but still carrying what a smartphone fan would class as bezel. We don’t think the Edge 830 necessarily needs to be smaller, but we do think that in future versions Garmin might aim to either fill more of the surface with display, or reduce that slightly for a more modern look.

The display is colour and while the resolution isn’t high by smartphone standards, it’s good enough to show the details you need. It’s an LCD, illuminated so you can see it easily, dimming in lower light conditions and powering off to save battery life if you use the power saving feature.

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The body carries a power button on the left side, start/pause recording and lap buttons on the bottom, with a central cover opening up to reveal the Micro-USB connection that’s used for charging (USB-C and wireless charging next time please, let’s bring this kit up to date). The buttons mean you can use the device whatever gloves you’re wearing, although much of the interaction relies on the touchscreen.

There’s a twist mount on the rear of the Edge 830 with a number of mounts provided in the box, from handlebar or step mounts secured with the supplied bands, through to the out-front mount, which means you can move the computer out from your handlebars, which we find a better position for glancing when on the go – plus it means it’s not fighting against other handlebar-mounted devices.

The out-front mount has the advantage of allowing easy installation of the Charge Power Pack, which can clip onto the underside to extend the computer’s life by an additional 24 hours. As it is, the battery offers a realistic 15-20 hours of life, extending if you opt for the power saving mode that turns the display off (you can get it to communicate with a compatible smartwatch for at-a-glance views if you wish).

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Installation is quick and easy, while removing the Edge is simply a case of twisting to release it. It can’t be locked in any way, but the Edge 830 supports Garmin’s alarm function, whereby you will get a notification if your bike is moved while you’re away from it – perhaps in a café, for example.

Connectivity, setup and Garmin Connect

ANT+
BLE/Bluetooth
Wi-Fi

The biggest part of setup for the Edge 830 is connecting it to the wider world. The first aspect of this is smartphone connectivity and pairing with Garmin Connect is relatively straightforward. If you’re already a Garmin user – perhaps with a Forerunner for example – you have the advantage of being able to use the Physio TrueUp function to sync across devices so your efforts on one device are reflected in your stats on the other.

Garmin Connect plays a central part here, of course, and once connected to your phone, your details from Garmin Connect will sync to your Edge. If you’re new to Garmin, it’s highly recommended that you setup Garmin Connect in advance of linking to your devices, just to make everything smoother.

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It would be nice to have more customisation through Garmin Connect. As it is, if you want to change the content on the display, you have to set that on the Edge device itself – it would be far slicker if that could be organised in Garmin Connect and synced to the bike computer instead.

The connection with your phone gives the advantage of not only syncing rides and data once you’re done, but allowing smart functions on your ride – like Livetrack via your phone’s data connection (so others can follow your live route, if you permit), notifications and, in some cases, quick replies to those incoming messages so you can keep in touch with people without reaching for your phone (note: this is only available to Android users).

The connection is generally solid, although we’ve had a few occasions where we’ve set out, seen Livetrack fail and had to stop to ensure that the phone and Edge 830 are properly connected before setting off again.

Garmin does get a little confused if you change your phone, in which case the fastest way to connect with the device is remove it from Garmin Connect and then treat it like a new device and re-pair it. As long as you don’t reset your Edge it will then just connect to your device, sync and carry on as normal.

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On top of the Bluetooth connection that the Edge would use with your phone, there’s also Wi-Fi. This means that the Edge 830 can connect to your home Wi-Fi network to update without your phone doing everything. This will again let you sync data, as well as downloading routes.

More significant to its actual function, however, is the ability to sync with additional sensors. While the Edge 830 offers GPS, an altimeter and accelerometer which will provide most of the essential data, there’s support for Bluetooth and ANT+ sensors. This will mean you can use compatible sensors to provide more data, like heart rate, cadence or power – all of which are easily accommodated on the display of the device, and in the subsequent data analysis.

Mapping and routing

GPS
Cycling-specific basemaps
Route syncing, rerouting

While much of the data you might want from a bike computer would be available from something like the Garmin Edge 130 Plus – which is a lot less cash – the advantage that something like the Edge 830 offers is in the route guidance and mapping. The device contains cycling-specific route maps, allowing on-device navigation and browsing.

You can, for example, open up the map on the device, find a place you want to go to and have it plot a route to get you there. It’s a little slow and you don’t get to preview or customise that route, but at least it’s there.

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Navigation of the map when browsing is pretty good – you can drag it around and use the familiar pinch-to-zoom to adjust, but you lose the pinch zooming when you are actually following a navigation route. This makes it much harder to look around the map if you take a wrong turn or hit, for example, a closed gate on a private estate that the Garmin is trying to take you through.

Routes can be created or imported to Garmin Connect to sync to the Edge 830 too, as well as syncing from other apps, like Strava (although only the browser version of Strava currently makes this easy to do). Creating a route in Garmin Connect is easy, either creating an automated route in a particular direction for a given distance, or to somewhere specific you want to go.

Generally speaking it all works well, but we’ve found some anomalies – diverting you to an impractical cycle route over the main road that you’re on, routes through gates that are closed, some unpaved forest routes which don’t suit a road bike, and so on. Essentially, you need to be prepared to take a diversion, which is, again, why the lack of pinch-to-zoom during navigation is irritating.

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Diversions and rerouting isn’t the fastest either. Often you’ll be asked to turn around repeatedly before you’ll eventually be given a new route – but it will find that route.

Overall mapping and directions is good, as is GPS, all on that glanceable big display so you can easily head out and explore. A top tip is to search for and save your home location, so you can easily sort out a return route if you decide you just need to get back home again.

Advanced features and functions

Training and workouts
Strava Segment support

Outside of routing and all that data collection there’s a lot more that the Edge 830 will offer. Part of the Garmin family, it will offer the sort of performance tracking and training guidance that Garmin’s running watches offer. That means you’ll get recommendations for your recovery time after a ride, the opportunity to log food or water consumption during a ride, and a report on what sort of training aims your ride achieved.

One element that’s slightly under-represented is Garmin’s Training Status. While those using Garmin’s running devices get a training status update from just a couple of runs, for cyclists you only get that if you have a power meter – and to calculate FTP (functional threshold power) you also have to ride with a power meter and heart rate sensor), so this is definitely a device that offers more as you add accessories.

Best fitness trackers 2021: Top activity bands to buy today

Pocket-lint

You can structure workouts via your Edge, to ride indoors or outdoors, the former meaning you don’t have to worry about traffic on your intervals. The Edge 830 is compatible with smart trainers so you can pair your Wahoo Kickr with your Edge, for example.

There’s support for mountain biking, with integrated Trailforks routes so you can find something offroad to ride in your local area. There’s Strava integration too. Not only can you sync routes to the Edge, but you can setup Segments too.

This will let you compete against yourself or friends on Segments. That might spur you on to get a PB on a Segment, or be totally disheartened when you realise just how far off the pace you might be when you head out with a friend.

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While Segments will give you a report of how far you have remaining and how far ahead or behind your target pace you are for a favourite stretch, Garmin will also give you guidance on climbs. This is automated, giving you the ClimbPro display when you hit a decent uphill stretch. It might help you balance your effort, showing how much further there is to climb.

What all this accounts to is a comprehensive offering for those who want to just ride, those who want data, as well as those who want to take things a little further.

Verdict

The Garmin Edge 830 is one of the most appealing in the Garmin cycling computer line-up. A slightly more affordable price than the leading Edge 1030 Plus, plus the touch functionality over the Edge 530, sees it sit in a sweet spot.

The performance is generally very good, too, but there’s clearly room for improvement in order to draw this bike computer closer to the excellent performance that people are used to from smartphones. Faster rerouting, better map navigation, an increase in display quality, and wireless charging, are all easy targets for Garmin’s product development team.

Writing by Chris Hall. Editing by Mike Lowe.

Fossil’s first LTE smartwatch is now available from Verizon

Fossil’s LTE-enabled smartwatch is now available exclusively from Verizon. The company has previously seen much success making stylish Wear OS-powered smartwatches across its family of Fossil watch brands.

The smartwatch packs the Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100 platform and comes with 8GB of storage. There’s a 1.3-inch screen in the 44mm body and the watch comes in either black or pink color schemes. There’s a 400 mAh battery that promises 20 hours of use or up to 3 days of standby time when connected to Verizon’s LTE network. The Gen 5 LTE can make or receive calls without a tethered smartphone.

Fossil’s Gen 5 also has a rotating center button for scrolling through menus. It also features heart rate monitoring for fitness tracking, sleep tracking, and a fully customizable battery saving mode. NFC enables Google Pay and Google Assistant is built into Wear OS.

The Fossil Gen 5 LTE replaced the Mobvoi Ticwatch Pro LTE as the only LTE-connected smartwatch that’s offered by the carrier on the Wear OS platform. Sadly, the Fossil Gen 5 doesn’t pack the newer wearable chipset from Qualcomm. The Mobvoi TicWatch Pro 3 is the only Wear OS watch with the Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 4100 and the LTE variant hasn’t been announced for the US just yet.

The cellular enabled smartwatch is available from Verizon for $349 or $14.54/month for 24 months.

Source

TechStage | Guide: tablets for homeschooling and learning portals

Testing Tests overview Smartphone Oppo Reno 4 Pro in the test: Top smartphone for 500 € Motorola Moto G 5G Plus test: A lot of battery for little money Huawei P Smart 2021: Budget model with room for improvement Asus Zenfone 7 Pro: Turbo smartphone with flip camera Samsung Galaxy Xcover Pro in the test: hard but slow Oneplus Nord N 10 5G in the test: galloped in price Oppo Find X2 Pro in the test: performance bargain S martwatch Oppo Watch in the test: Great AMOLED Smartwatch from 240 € Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 in the test: competition for Apple? Huawei Watch GT 2 Pro in the test: Smartwatch with cross-country skiing Battery Apple Watch: Smartwatch with contract from 15 € per month Buy Apple Watch 6: All generations in the price check Skagen Falster 3 in the test: Smartwatch with Wear OS Test Huawei Watch GT 2: Noble fitness tracker in watch form Multiroom Ikea Symfonisk table lamp in the test: Sonos with lamp Ikea Symfonisk in the test: Sonos loudspeakers under 100 Euro Bose Portable Home Speaker in the test: battery, WLAN, Airplay 2 Sonos Move in the test: The robust all-rounder Musiccast: Multiroom from Yamaha in the test Denon Heos in the test: versatile multiroom system Flat soundbar Teufel Sounddeck Streaming in the test Keyfinder Tile Slim (2019): Key finder in credit card format Bluetooth key finder Tile Pro in the test: 122 m range! Key Finder Tile Pro in the test: the range champion Orbit Bluetooth tracker in the test: looking for wallet and keys Nonda iHere 3.0: smart key finder in the test Chipolo Classic and Plus: Bluetooth key finder in the test Musegear finder 2: Key finder without registration obligation Action-Cam DJI Pocket 2 in the test: Zoom and 64 – megapixels -Sensor Actioncam Insta 360 One R: 1-inch image sensor in the test Gopro Hero 8 Black in the test: back to the top Insta 360 One R in the test: The modular action cam Motorola Moto G8 Plus test: Great smartphone, but … Insta 360 Go: Micro-GoPro in the test Motorola One Action Test: Good hardware, bad camera microSD In the test: Kingston UHS-I U3 microSDXC Kit MicroSD card for smartphone: Samsung Evo Plus 2017 Test report: Lexar Professional 1800 x microSDXC Kit Test report: Intenso Premium microSDXC card with 64 GByte Android Sonos Move in the test: The robust all-rounder Honor 20: Inexpensive high-end smartphone in the test Xiaomi Mi 9: Top technology at a bargain price Doogee S 90 in the test: modular outdoor smartphone ZTE Axon 10 Pro in the test: high-end phone at a competitive price Motorola Moto G7 Power in the test: large battery, small price Sony Xperia 10: Smartphone with 20: 9 display in the test Adviser Advisor Overview Purchase advice The right cordless screwdriver for the home workshop Bargain: Which Fire TV Stick from 19 € is the right one? Purchase advice: What good is a leaf blower with a battery for 45 Euro? True -Wireless headphones: How much do you have to invest? Purchase advice water cooling: High-end PCs cool better Adviser: Air conditioning and fan against the heat wave Sony shows the Xperia 1: Is the predecessor XZ3 worth it now? Practice Caution, money away: Kickstarter & Co. are not shops Turn off Android notifications from annoying apps Here’s how: Install the new Android L keyboard now Tip: Use “Ok Google everywhere” in Germany In the test: Will the jailbreak work for iOS 7.1? Goderm a and mobile medicine: The doctor apps are coming! Instructions: Jailbreak for iOS 7 on iPhone 5S, 5, 4S and 4 Technology Importing technology from China, part 2: Customs, taxes and tricks Drones & copters: From toys to FPV Racer What does the end of an ecosystem mean? Smartphones with a flexible display: What’s the point? Overview of smartphone processors: Everything Snapdragon? Evolutionary dead ends: the a Worst mobile phones mpass: Pay with the NFC mobile phone – or the NFC toilet roll Display calculator pixel density, number and Calculate display portion Best list Test winner Price comparison Price comparison overview Smartphones from Android 7.0 Phablets with stylus Fitness tracker with GPS Bluetooth headphones with ANR Drones with GPS Video TechStage Adviser Guide: Tablets for homeschooling and learning portals Beginning What are … PC or tablet? Tablets for … Tablets Tablet with … Stylus Additional accessories Headsets Tablet stand … Keyboards Mice Conclusion Comments from Stefan // 21. 01. 2021 16: 19 Clock

Regardless of whether it is a sofa tutor, the Studienkreis Online-Lernbibliotek or the school minator – learning portals can be a useful alternative to traditional tutoring for school children of all ages. We show the best tablets for it.

If the child is weak at school, there are several alternatives. In addition to personal initiative, this primarily includes follow-up sessions in learning groups such as the study group or individual tutoring, as offered by many older pupils or students. However, especially in times of epidemics, contacts with strangers must be restricted as far as possible, so traditional tutoring is usually ruled out.

What are learning portals? In addition to homeschooling (guide: PCs for homeschooling from 150 Euro) there are also digital solutions for tutoring in the form of learning portals. Depending on the provider, they usually offer help for grades 5 to 10, which is usually available in text and video form for several subjects. Some companies go far beyond this and have offers for all classes and types of school as well as most of the subjects offered at the various types of school.

Sometimes there are also educational games and, in most cases, exercises to check and consolidate what has been learned. In addition, some portals also offer personal support via chat, help with homework or complete individual lessons via video chat.

Providers such as Lernwerk, Schulinator or Studyhelp even offer their services free of charge, most others charge between 5 and 25 Euro. Free test phases or even some videos published on Youtube offer first insights into the type and quality of the offer. Payment is usually made for several months in advance or in an annual subscription, some providers even give a money-back guarantee in the event of a lack of learning success.

PC or tablet? A PC is not always necessary, a much cheaper Android tablet is easily sufficient for learning videos. However, some criteria should be met so that the tutoring is fun on the technical side. This is how we see tablets with a display size below 10 inch (approx. 25 cm) critical and also a display resolution of 1920 × 1080 Pixel should not be undershot for sufficiently sharp display. The devices should have at least a quad-core processor and 2, better 3 GB of RAM so that inputs can be implemented without waiting time and videos can be played smoothly. Internally is a memory size of 25 GByte or Larger is optimal, so that apps and videos can also find space in the memory and can be used without direct Internet access.

WLAN as Internet access should be sufficient in most cases, so parents can safely ignore expensive LTE modules. For young students, it may be worthwhile to use particularly robust, but hardly available, children’s or outdoor variants. Alternatively, there are protective covers or tablets for children. Amazon offers the kids edition of its Fire HD tablets for this purpose. Not only do they last longer, they also allow parents to access and block certain distracting factors such as the app store and in-app purchases. For certain subjects or advanced students, purchasing a tablet with pen control can also be helpful. This enables sketches or handwritten notes to be digitized quickly. The requirements of the individual providers or the school are usually revealed on their homepages.

Tablets for children The kids editions of Samsung and Amazon offer, as mentioned, special protective covers that are supposed to protect the tablet even when used in rough conditions and also offer various parenting functions such as restricting the available apps. Unfortunately, the RAM is a bit tight at 2 GB. They are more aimed at children who are not yet in secondary schools. However, they are sufficient for the use of normal learning portals. The Fire HD 10 in the Kids Edition (test report) we have already tested it.

Tablets For round 150 to 200 Euro get those interested with the current models Odys Space One 10 LTE , Lenovo Tab M 10 Plus and Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 three 10 – Customs tablets that are up-to-date and meet the minimum requirements required by us. The Odys model not only offers a lot of memory (4 / 49 GByte), but also an LTE module. This allows learning sessions – a corresponding LTE contract (Article: Unlimited data volume from 20 Euro) provided – in good weather also in the park or at least in the garden. Android 10 is already available from the factory – this is far from normal with tablets.

That shows something like this Lenovo Tab M 10 Plus , which is currently only Android 9 offers. The remaining specifications are marked with 4 / 64 GByte memory similar, only LTE does not exist. This is also the case with the Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 so, also the memory is with 3 / 32 GByte slightly smaller. There are advantages for the chipset: The other two tablets also offer 8 cores, but Samsung uses a Snapdragon 662 that does not only delivers decent power, but also favors future updates and is less power hungry. Accordingly, auc h this model already has Android 10. With 10, 4 inches, the screen of the Samsung tablet is also the largest, this also applies to the battery with 7040 mAh.

We have other suitable tablets in our purchase advice: How many tablets do you need? sorted by price. The price scale is largely open at the top. If you don’t like Android, you should look around at iOS models, i.e. iPads. The cheapest current models are iPad Mini (test by Mac & i) and iPad (without name affix), they cost from 379 and 449 Euro. The larger and more modern models iPad Air (test by Max & i) and iPad Pro start at 649 and 879 euros. However, we would exclude the iPad Mini as a tablet for homeschooling because of the display size of only 7.9 inches.

Tablet with pen Tablets with additional pen control are available in a handful, current and Currently, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite . It not only offers advantages in terms of design and installation depth, but also a stylus with suitable software and more memory.

Stylus A stylus can be helpful to make drawings or handwritten notes directly on the tablet. With some models, such digital pens are already included from We rk, while others are prepared for operation, but the pen must be purchased separately. Such models are about d as Apple iPad ( from 6th generation) , iPad Mini (from 5th generation), iPad Air (from 3rd generation) or the iPad Pro , here the pens cost between 90 and 120 Euro.

Simple capacitive pins without egg Genetic power sources are much cheaper, they b e start at a few cents. They work on any device with a capacitive touchscreen and usually have a thick, soft rubber tip . So that become they recognized as finger replacement on current touchscreens . Special pens with rechargeable batteries or batteries, however, have a thin , mostly exchangeable Tip, which also recognize different pressure levels and often buttons for additional options (such as “erase” when Hold down ) bid. With them the handling is much more similar to a normal pen on paper than with the former Pens. Examples of high-quality tablet pens are Samsung’s S-Pen or Apple’s Pencil. In our guide to pens for the iPad we show cheaper alternatives to the Apple Pencil.

Additional accessories As with the PC, there are also peripheral devices for tablets. They are not absolutely necessary, but make everyday life easier.

Headsets If you want to concentrate on your work or if you have to understand everything in the video call despite the poor sound quality of your conversation partner, you should consider purchasing a headset. Many tablets also offer a 3.5 millimeter jack connection so that the cable headset from the smartphone can also be used in an emergency. Wireless headsets that are connected via Bluetooth are more practical and usually also of higher quality. Headphones with active noise suppression in particular (best list ANC headphones) can even promote concentration as they minimize external distraction.

Due to the design, over-ear headsets are best. They cover the whole ear, are usually still comfortable when worn for a long time and already shield something from the environment. They are also available with and without cables and also with ANC. The advantage of wired headsets: You do not have batteries that are always empty exactly when they are needed. But they are less flexible and the mandatory cable always hangs in the way.

Tablet stand and cover One advantage of tablets is their flexibility by comparatively low weight and size. However, if the children are to follow the learning video and complete test tasks, the device must be stable can be found. That works either with separate stands, Book c overn or equal to a keyboard cover. Stands are self-explanatory: They are external rne constructions that only serve the purpose of placing a tablet more or less straight in front of you on the table. A book cover protects the tablet during transport, thanks to the flexible cover usually also the display. In addition, the device can also be set up in front of you on the table, often there are even different adjustable angles.

Keyboards Thanks to Bluetooth, a keyboard can be wirelessly connected to any tablet, regardless of whether it is Android, iOS or Windows. You have a wide choice. This ranges from simple, classic keyboards to those that are extremely flat to ultra-compact TKL keyboards with mechanical switches. More on this in our keyboards guide: Mechanical, rubber dome or TKL? or multimedia keyboards for Smart TVs and Media PCs.

The keyboard or keyboard c over added to Bookcover another mechanical full keyboard, which connects to the tablet via Bluetooth. Especially when longer texts are to be written on the device s , is a mechanical keyboard significantly better than the onscreen cords of the T ablets. For home Bluetooth keyboards without a protective function are usually sufficient.

Mice What applies to a laptop is no different for a tablet: touchscreen and / or touchpad Operation is okay, mouse control is often more ergonomic in the long run. Since most tablets lack the large USB-A ports, mice with USB C (or adapter) or Bluetooth mice are required. With a keyboard and mouse, a cheap tablet almost becomes a real office PC, but for the sake of simplicity, users can simply leave the accessories at home for on the go. So you always have the best of both worlds at hand.

Conclusion It doesn’t always have to be a full-fledged PC, even comparatively cheap tablets can help improve school success. In addition to the appropriate learning portal, parents should also keep an eye on the right hardware – if you set too low, you may buy a new one after a short time.

Should it be a new PC for homeschooling? Then we have the right tips and recommendations in this article.

Permalink: https: //techstage.de/-4969716

EU Parliament: Employees should also be able to switch off cell phones and other devices

After work and on vacation, employees should be able to switch off their work and communication devices such as smartphones or laptops without any negative consequences. This is what the EU Parliament calls for in a report that was adopted by a large majority on Thursday. 472 MPs voted for the initiative, 126 on the other hand, 83 abstained.

The value of a healthy work-life balance In particular, teleworking from home, which has become part of everyday life for many Europeans during the corona pandemic, has according to the representatives of the people underlined the importance of a healthy work-life balance. They criticize the fact that there is currently no explicit EU legal regulation on non-availability outside of regular working hours. The EU Commission should therefore create a corresponding legal framework that the member states would then have to implement.

According to the decision, the EU countries should, for example, have clauses in Collective agreements ensure that workers can effectively exercise their basic right to shutdown. This is essential to protect the health of the working population. The culture of “always on” and the growing expectation that employees can be reached at any time could have a negative impact on the work-life balance, physical and mental fitness and well-being.

Digital Work tools also have significant disadvantages, emphasizes Parliament on the recommendation of its Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. Due to the constant “on-call duty” working hours could be extended. The boundaries between professional and private life threatened to blur. It must therefore be clear to all employees that they should refrain from work-related tasks and electronic communication outside of working hours.

A lot of work in the home office An impetus for the initiative was the increase in teleworking during the fight against the Corona crisis. According to a recent survey by the Eurofound Foundation for Better Living and Working Conditions, around a third of all Europeans have been working from home since the outbreak of the pandemic. However, many find it difficult to “leave” the home office on time. 27 Percentage of participants working at home stated that they also work in their free time in order to meet the demands of their job. Before starting work, an email is sent or a call from colleagues is accepted after work.

For jobs and vacancies in the IT industry, see also the job market on heise online:

The Commission must now submit a corresponding legal act or justify why it is not following Parliament’s appeal. At the Brussels government institution, the MPs are unlikely to fall on deaf ears. Nicolas Schmit, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Integration, emphasized at the beginning 2020: “The right to switch off is something completely normal, because we are not robots . ” In this country, the SPD in particular has been warning for a long time that employees must be protected “from excessive use and the requirement of constant availability or presence by the employer”.

(mho)

TechStage | Oppo Reno 4 Pro in the test: top smartphone for 500 €

Testing Tests overview Smartphone Oppo Reno 4 Pro in the test: Top smartphone for 500 € Motorola Moto G 5G Plus test: A lot of battery for little money Huawei P Smart 2020: Budget model with room for improvement Asus Zenfone 7 Pro: Turbo smartphone with flip camera Samsung Galaxy Xcover Pro in the test: hard but slow Oneplus Nord N 10 5G in the test: galloped in price Oppo Find X2 Pro in the test: performance bargain Smartwatch Oppo Watch in the test: Great AMOLED Smartwatch from 240 € Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 in the test: competition for Apple? Huawei Watch GT 2 Pro in the test: Smartwatch with cross-country battery Apple Watch: Smartwatch with contract from 15 € per month Buy Apple Watch 6: All generations in the price -Check Skagen Falster 3 in the test: Smartwatch with Wear OS Test Huawei Watch GT 2: Noble fitness tracker in watch form Multiroom Ikea Symfonisk table lamp in the test: Sonos with lamp Ikea Symfonisk in the test: Sonos loudspeakers under 100 Euro Bose Portable Home Speaker in the test: Battery, WLAN, Airplay 2 Sonos Move in the test: The robust all-rounder Musiccast: Multiroom from Yamaha in the test Denon Heos in the test: versatile multiroom system Flat soundbar Teufel Sounddeck Streaming in the test Keyfinder Tile Slim (2019): Key finder in credit card format Bluetooth key finder Tile Pro in the test: 122 m range! Key finder Tile Pro in the test: the range champion Orbit Bluetooth tracker in the test: looking for wallet and keys Nonda iHere 3.0: smart key finder in the test Chipolo Classic and Plus : Bluetooth key finder under test Musegear finder 2: Key finder without mandatory registration Action-Cam DJI Pocket 2 in the test: Zoom and 64 – Megapixel sensor Actioncam Insta 360 One R: 1-inch image sensor in the test Gopro Hero 8 Black in the test: Back to the top Insta 360 One R in the test: The modula re Actioncam Motorola Moto G8 Plus test: Great smartphone, but … Insta 360 Go: Micro-GoPro in the test Motorola One Action Test: good hardware, bad camera microSD In the test: Kingston UHS-I U3 microSDXC Kit MicroSD card for smartphone: Samsung Evo Plus 2017 Test report: Lexar Professional 1800 x microSDXC Kit Test report: Intenso Premium microSDXC – Card with 64 GByte Android Sonos Move in the test: The robust all-rounder Honor 20: Inexpensive high-end smartphone in the test Xiaomi Mi 9: Top technology at a bargain price Doogee S 90 in the test: modular outdoor smartphone ZTE Axon 07 Pro in the test: high-end phone at a competitive price Motorola Moto G7 Power in the test: large battery, small price Sony Xperia 10: Smartphone with 21: 9 display in the test Adviser Guide overview Purchase advice The right cordless screwdriver for the home workshop Bargain: Which Fire TV Stick from 19 € is the right one? Purchase advice: What good is a leaf blower with a battery for 45 Euro? True wireless headphones: How much do you have to invest? Buying advice water cooling: High-end PCs cool better Advice: Air conditioning and fan against the heat wave Sony shows the Xperia 1: Is the predecessor XZ3 worth it now? Practice Caution, money away: Kickstarter & Co. are not Shops Switch off Android notifications from annoying apps This is how it works: Install the new Android L keyboard now Tip: Use “Ok Google everywhere” in Germany In the test: Does the jailbreak work for iOS 7.1? Goderma and mobile medicine: The doctor apps are coming! Instructions: Jailbreak for iOS 7 on iPhone 5S, 5, 4S and 4 Technology Importing technology from China, part 2: Customs, taxes and tricks Drones & copters: From toys to FPV racers What does the end of an ecosystem mean? Smartphones with a flexible display: What’s the point? Overview of smartphone processors: Everything Snapdragon? Evolutionary dead ends: the very worst cell phones mpass: Pay with the NFC mobile phone or the NFC toilet roll Display calculator Calculate pixel density, number and display proportion Leaderboard Test winner Price comparison Price comparison overview Smartphones from Android 7.0 Phablets with stylus Fitness tracker with GPS Bluetooth headphones with ANR Drones with GPS Video TechStage Test Oppo Reno 4 Pro in the test: top smartphone for 420 € Beginning Design Display Camera Equipment Battery Price Conclusion Comments from Stefan // 18. 01. 2021 17: 07 Clock

Oppo is hardly known in this country, but some models offer real top performance. The Oppo Reno 4 Pro comes with about 12 / 256 GByte memory, great OLED screen and flagship camera.

Oppo, Vivo, Realme – all Chinese brands that have just hit the German market and want to cut a piece out of the Huawei cake. Thanks to great technology and chic design, it actually works very well. If the price is right, the manufacturer and customer are happy.

At Oppo it is a little different. For the Oppo Reno 4 Pro, the manufacturer demands a full 750 Euro in the RRP – and that, though no top chipset, no IP 68 certification and no wireless charging included. In the test, we show why the purchase is still worthwhile.

Design It is chic, the Oppo Reno 4 Pro, there will probably be little counter-argument. With a depth of only 7.6 millimeters, the smartphone is really thin and the remaining dimensions of 160 × 72, 5 millimeters is moderate for a device with a 6.5-inch display. In addition, the device weighs just once 172 Gram – for all heavyweights with 172 + grams this is very positive. In addition, there is a high-quality material impression. The frame with its stylish bevels on the front and foot sides is made of aluminum, the front and back are protected against scratches with Gorilla Glass 5. Because of the rounded sides, which are quite gentle for an edge display, the frame on the sides is very narrow and the smartphone looks even more delicate.

There is also a chic back with a matt finish and gradient. Our blue test device therefore changes between medium blue and turquoise depending on the incidence of light. Thanks to the matte surface, fingerprints and other ugly fat deposits are not an issue. The great overall impression is crowned by the very good workmanship. The transitions between the different materials can only be felt minimally, there are no sharp edges. The only exception here is the protective film that sticks to the screen at the factory. It can be easily removed. The keys embedded in the side of the frame sit tight and wobble-free, the pressure point and key travel are exemplary.

Together with the evenly narrow frame around the display, the punchhole notch and the chic design, the Oppo Reno 4G is currently one of the highest quality models on the market. It is a pity that the manufacturer only offers IP protection against water and dust 54 elects. A brief downpour is not a problem, but the device must not fall into water.

All pictures of the Oppo Reno 4 Pro in the test (23 Pictures) Display The screen has a diagonal of 6.5 inches. With a resolution of 2400 × 1080 Pixel results in an image sharpness of just over 400 ppi (pixels per inch), that’s sharp. In addition, thanks to OLED technology, the display shines with strong contrasts, an excellent black level and, if desired, strong colors. In the default setting, the color rendering is quite natural. Class is the brightness: are round 500 cd / m2 in manual Mode still not very impressive, it is the measured 696 cd / m2 in automatic mode. In combination with the very good viewing angle stability typical of OLEDs, users have no problems reading content even in direct sunlight.

We liked the display in the Oppo Reno 4 Pro: The screen has a refresh rate of 90 Hertz, provides moving content more fluidly than models with 60 Hertz. In addition, the smartphone’s always-on display and its general setting options for the display are a plus point.

Camera Oppo does without data sheet prettiness with macro or depth sensors and builds an honest triple cam into the Reno 4 Pro. It consists of the main lens with 45 Megapixels, optical image stabilizer and f / 1.7 aperture, wide angle with 12, 2 megapixels and f / 2.2 as well as telelens with 13 Megapixels and f / 2.4. In front comes an optic with 32 Megapixels used.

The main camera is very good, the additional lenses are good The quality of the main camera is convincing. Image sharpness, level of detail, color reproduction and image noise are all on a very high level, and the image dynamics are very good. This puts the main camera of the Reno 4 Pro at the top level. This also applies with only slight drawbacks in poor lighting conditions, but here some high-priced competitors are a bit better, for example the Huawei Mate 40 Pro (test report). Unfortunately there is one for telephoto and wide-angle lenses n slight decrease in quality, and the coordination of the individual lenses with one another is not perfect. The result is that the telelens, for example, captures images in the memory with a lighter color and less color – this shouldn’t really happen with a smartphone in the upper price range. Overall, the image quality of the additional lenses is still good, but they do not come close to the quality of the main lens. The main disadvantages are image sharpness and image dynamics.

All original recordings with the Oppo Reno 4 Pro (37 Pictures ) The same applies to the front camera. Although it delivers very attractive images overall, it looks a bit too fishy and the image sharpness should also be higher. The main camera delivers decent, but not overwhelming results for videos. This is also due to the fact that with 4 / 30 is over and pans are never sharp. The image stabilization, like the other image quality, is otherwise arranged in the upper third of the smartphone range and therefore fits the price.

Furnishing The quality of the Oppo Reno 4 Pro is excellent, the display is great and at least the main camera is top-notch – can the rest of the equipment keep up? Mostly yes, but not in all cases. Users have to make slight compromises with the chipset. Because despite the rest of the equipment of 12 GByte RAM (!) And 256 GByte of internal memory, the manufacturer does not use the top chip Snapdragon 865 (+), but “only” on a Snapdragon 765G. The eight cores of the chip clock at up to 2.4 GHz, one Adreno 620 ensures sufficient everyday performance. For gaming, the chip with a G in its name offers a few advantages that are supposed to provide more power and faster loading times compared to the same chip without a G.

Overall, most games can be played smoothly, but for a few exceptions an 8-series chip would have been desirable – also with a view to the RRP of the Reno 4 Pro. Unsurprisingly, multitasking is not a problem with the amount of memory, but it hardly has a positive effect in benchmarks. In PCmark Work 2.0 the device reaches around 7900 points, that is roughly on par with other smartphones with Snapdragon 765G. The same applies to Antutu, here the model reaches about 256. 000 Points.

Apart from that, the Reno 4 Pro offers a comprehensive technology package with WLAN ac, Bluetooth 5.1, location via GPS, Glonass, Beidou, Galileo and QZSS as well as LTE and 5G. Instead, savings are found in the details. The ample internal (non-expandable) storage only has a UFS 2.1 speed, Wifi 6 is missing and the USB-C port only offers 2.0 standard. There is dual SIM capability and stereo speakers for this. They are loud and powerful, but the competition is a bit better here at times. The fingerprint sensor in the display is well implemented. It works quickly and reliably with light pressure.

The user interface Color OS 7.2 is above Android 10, an update to Android 11 did not exist yet. The security patch is as of December 2020 pretty up to date. Compared to before, Oppo has improved its update supply and now regularly brings patches. The Color OS interface offers a number of additional functions, but does not appear overloaded, but modern. There isn’t much bloatware on the Reno 4 Pro.

Battery pack The 4000 mAh of the built-in battery does not sound particularly impressive and it is therefore not surprising that the Oppo Reno 4 Pro does not Is cross-country skier. Nevertheless, the smartphone achieves better endurance values than some competitors with a stronger battery pack. The device comes in the PCmark battery test at 200 cd / m2 on almost 9 hours with an active screen and a brightness of 80 to 20 percent – that is with activated 90 – Hz function of the screen is a decent value. The good benchmark result was confirmed in the test. Transferred to the test routine, the device is definitely good for one, with minimal restrictions even for two days without an external power supply.

A bit of a shame with the price shown: There is no wireless charging. But the Reno 4 Pro offers another highlight: fast charging with full 65 Watt. This means that the device fully charges again in barely more than half an hour and intermediate charging is like a sprint from Usain Bolt in his best days. This is impressive.

Price It already sounded: The EIA of the smartphone is proud 799 Euros, but the street price is now significantly lower – as long as it doesn’t have to be the newer color variant Green Glitter. Otherwise there is a choice of blue and black, there are no technically different variants.

Conclusion The Oppo Reno 4 Pro is a really great smartphone that you can hardly blame. The biggest point of criticism is the price: 799 Euro RRP for a manufacturer who does not yet have a name in this country, also no wireless charging, no IP 67 and no top chipset? It’s just too much. The situation is different with the street price at which the device has now leveled off. That is more or less significantly below 600 Euro, even offers just below 500 euros already existed.

In return, buyers receive an absolutely chic smartphone, which also impresses with a great display, an extremely large amount of memory, a top-quality main camera with good additional lenses and an extremely fast-charging battery. The device competes with models such as the Oneplus 8T (review) or the Oppo Find X2 Pro (review) from our own company. Models like the Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro (test report) show that models with top chipset can be significantly cheaper.

Permalink: https://techstage.de/-11801

TechStage | Ikea Symfonisk table lamp in the test: Sonos with lamp

Testing Tests overview Smartphone Motorola Moto G 5G Plus test: A lot of battery for little money Huawei P Smart 2021: Budget model with room for improvement Asus Zenfone 7 Pro: Turbo smartphone with flip camera Samsung Galaxy Xcover Pro in the test: hard but slow Oneplus Nord N 09 5G in the test: Galloped up in price Oppo Find X2 Pro in the test: performance bargain Asus ROG Phone 3 in the test: Perfect gaming smartphone Smartwatch Oppo Watch in the test: Great AMOLED Smartwatch from 221 € Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 in the test: competition for Apple? Huawei Watch GT 2 Pro in the test: Smartwatch with cross-country battery Apple Watch: Smartwatch with contract from 15 € per month Buy Apple Watch 6: All generations in the price check Skagen Falster 3 im Test: Smartwatch with Wear OS Test Huawei Watch GT 2: Noble fitness tracker in watch form Multiroom Ikea Symfonisk table lamp in the Tes t: Sonos with lamp Ikea Symfonisk in the test: Sonos speakers under 100 Euro Bose Portable Home Speaker in the test: battery , WLAN, Airplay 2 Sonos Move in the test: The robust all-rounder Musiccast: Multiroom from Yamaha in the test Denon Heos in the test: versatile multiroom system Flat soundbar Teufel Sounddeck Streaming in the test Keyfinder Tile Slim (2019): Key finder in credit card format Bluetooth key finder Tile Pro in the test: 122 m range! Key finder Tile Pro in the test: the range champion Orbit Bluetooth tracker in the test: looking for wallet and keys Nonda iHere 3.0 : smart key finder under test Chipolo Classic and Plus: Bluetooth key finder under test Musegear finder 2: Keyfinder without mandatory registration Action-Cam DJI Pocket 2 in the test: Zoom and 64 – Megapixel sensor Actioncam Insta 360 One R: 1-inch image sensor in the test Gopro Hero 8 Black in the test: Back to the top Insta 360 One R in the test: The modular action cam Motorola Moto G8 Plus test: Great smartphone, but … Insta 360 Go: Micro-GoPro in the test Motorola One Action Test: Good hardware, bad camera microSD In the test: Kingston UHS-I U3 microSDXC Kit MicroSD card for smartphone: Samsung Evo Plus 2017 Test report: Lexar Professional 1800 x microSDXC Kit Test report: Intenso Premium microSDXC card with 64 GByte Android Sonos Move in the test: The robust all-rounder Honor 19: Inexpensive high-end smartphone in the test Xiaomi Mi 9: Top technology at a bargain price Doogee S 90 in the test: modular outdoor smartphone ZTE Axon 10 Pro in the test: High -End-Phone at a competitive price Motorola Moto G7 Power in the test: large battery, small price Sony Xperia 09: Smartphone with 21: 9 display in the test Adviser Advisor overview Purchase advice The right cordless screwdriver for the home workshop Bargain: Which Fire TV Stick from 19 € is the right one? Purchase advice: What good is a leaf blower with a battery for 45 Euro? True wireless -Headphones: How much do you have to invest? Buying advice water cooling: High-end PCs cool better Adviser: Air conditioning and fan against the heat wave Sony shows the Xperia 1: Is the predecessor XZ3 worth it now? Practice Caution, money away: Kickstarter & Co. are not shops Android -Switch off notifications from annoying apps Here’s how: Install the new Android L keyboard now Tip: Use “Ok Google everywhere” in Germany In the test: Does the Jail break for iOS 7.1? Goderma and mobile medicine: The doctor apps are coming! Instructions: Jailbreak for iOS 7 on iPhone 5S, 5, 4S and 4 Technology Importing technology from China, part 2: Customs , Taxes and tricks Drones & copters: From toys to FPV racers What does the end of an ecosystem mean? Smartphones with a flexible display: What does that bring me ? Smartphone processors at a glance: Everything Snapdragon? Evolutionary dead ends: the very worst cell phones mpass: Pay with the NFC mobile phone – or the NFC toilet roll Display calculator Calculate pixel density, number and display proportion Best list Test winner Price comparison Price comparison overview Smartphones from Android 7.0 Phablets with stylus Fitness tracker with GPS Bluetooth headphones with ANR Drones with GPS Video TechStage Test Ikea Symfonisk table lamp in the test: Sonos with lamp Start Technical data Facility sound price Conclusion Comments Sonos loudspeakers combined with a table lamp, and the Ikea Symfonisk is ready. TechStage tests the multi-room loudspeaker and says who should strike and for whom other Sonos products are worthwhile.

In addition to the simple symphonic Speakers (test report) Ikea has developed a second device with Sonos. The big difference: There is an E on the speaker 14 – version, next to music it also emits light. Nevertheless, the idea is not bad and the price of the Symfonisk table lamp is on par with a Sonos One SL.

We test the network loudspeaker as part of our Multiroom theme world. Not only other tests on Sonos products appeared there, such as the Sonos Arc (test report), the Sonos One (test report) or the battery-powered Sonos Move (test report). We also take a look at other multiroom systems there, such as Denon Heos (test report), Yamaha Musiccast (test report), Teufel Raumfeld (test report) or speakers that connect directly via Spotify Connect.

Design and technical data The symfonisk light consists of three parts: A wide, plate-like base with the three control elements volume up, volume down and start / pause. The loudspeaker sits on top of it in a cylindrical shape, which is interrupted by the rotary switch for the light on the side. Finally, at the top is the lampshade. It has a broad base and tapers towards the top, reminiscent of a classic floor lamp. The lamp takes bulbs with an E 13 – socket with a maximum of 7W. This makes it bright enough to be used as a reading lamp. Opinions are likely to differ on design. In the editorial team and among friends, opinion fluctuates between “cool” and “looks like a toilet paper holder”. However, the device does its job well, both as a lamp and as a loudspeaker.

Left the Symfonisk light, right the Symfonisk loudspeaker. It is important to know that the lighting function is completely separated from the Sonos and Multiroom features. The audio is played back in the classic way via the Sonos app for Android, iOS, Windows or Mac OS. The lamp can be switched on or off using the rotary switch on the side. Smart functions or automatisms for light are missing. However, this can be retrofitted with smart lamps.

On the back, next to the power connection, is the typical Sonos network connector, but in most cases you will probably use the WLAN for access to the network use.

Setup and Sonos integration As with the Symfonisk loudspeaker, there is a complete Sonos system in the multiroom lamp from Ikea . In other words, the luminaire can be completely controlled via the Sonos app and is compatible with all of the manufacturer’s other products. Whether as a multiroom group, as a stereo pair or in combination with a soundbar, on the app side there is no difference between Sonos directly from the manufacturer and Sonos from Ikea.

The setup is accordingly simple. In the Sonos app, go to “Add system” via the settings and then follow the instructions in the app. It’s easy and done in a few minutes. Then you can choose the name and / or the location. If available, a firmware update will be installed.

The buttons for the typical Sonos commands are on the wide coaster. sound The sound body of the Symfonisk lamp creates a surprisingly good sound, especially in the bass range. Here the Symfonisk lamp even creates a little more bass than the comparable Sonos One SL. However, it lacks protection against splash water or the Alexa microphones of the Sonos One (test report). Still, the sound is very good, as you would expect from a Sonos device. In other words, streaming is not a problem, but anyone who prefers to listen to vinyl or is one of the particularly audiophiles will have to resort to another solution.

In addition, there is an equalizer in the apps for Android and iPhone, with which you can, for example, turn down the bass a little. Users of iPhone and iPad or other Sonos products such as the Sonos Arc (test report) can also use the Trueplay features to automatically measure the loudspeaker. This is particularly useful if you use the lights as back speakers for the Sonos soundbars to transform the virtual 5.1 into real surround sound.

Ikea Symfonisk table lamp (6 pictures) The Ikea Symfonisk table lamp combines Sonos speakers with a lamp.

Price The Sonos Symfonisk table lamp is available in two versions: one in white and gray, one in black.

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Conclusion Unlike the Symfonisk speakers, the Symfonisk table lamp has direct competition in the Sonos One SL, both cost about 181 Euro. Accordingly, you have to decide what you want. The Symfonisk table lamp is significantly larger than the loudspeaker, but has the great advantage that, thanks to its light, it is not only a loudspeaker but also a piece of furniture. If you want that, you can get a good table lamp with a very good multiroom speaker and one of the best apps for control.

If you are looking for a cheaper Sonos speaker, we definitely recommend the Symfonisk speaker (test report), which is less than 100 Euro costs. Otherwise, we recommend taking a look at the guide to multiroom systems: Sound in every room.

Permalink: https://techstage.de/-5025898

Samsung Galaxy Fit2, is an excellent alternative to Xiaomi's Mi Band: our test

Samsung’s bracelet doesn’t cost much more than the Mi Band and has everything you need on a product of the category, including an autonomy of over a week in common use. We have tried it and we will tell you how it is

by Nino Grasso published 16 January 2021 , at 16: 31 in the Wearables channel

Samsung Galaxy

That of wearable is a huge world, ranging from basic bracelets to the most advanced, passing from watches that can have a list price starting from a few tens of euros, up to literally thousands of euros for the most exclusive versions.

It is clear that the stra the vast majority of people prefer to spend as little as possible for several reasons: technology is not eternal, as a luxury watch can be handed down from father to son, and a watch to use every day (in the end, wearables are made for this ) tends to deteriorate a lot over time. And it is precisely in the economic market segment that the Samsung Galaxy Fit2
fits .

Samsung’s smart bracelet, or smartband, is one of the cheapest proposals from the South Korean manufacturer in terms of wearables. Light, thin and extremely comfortable, it is designed to be worn anytime, day and especially night, and to retrieve a large amount of data in every circumstance, or almost, to be exploited to check the state of well-being of your body. All at a list price of 39 ??, a factor that puts it in direct competition with one of the cornerstones of the category in terms of sales volumes: Xiaomi’s Mi Band 5.

It costs a little more than the latter even if in fact, in terms of functionality they are practically overlapping. While the purchase is certainly recommended for all users of Samsung devices who want to take advantage of a single ecosystem, on the other hand Galaxy Fit2 is an excellent alternative for everyone to the different Xiaomi Mi Bands. We tried the new bracelet from Samsung and we tell you how it is.

Samsung Galaxy Fit2 in try, our mini review

Samsung Galaxy Fit2 has a decidedly minimalist, almost anonymous, appearance, with the classic cup that can be extracted from the strap for a very quick replacement (or for cleaning). It weighs very little and does not even feel on the wrist, but inside it can boast a series of sensors that make it “smart”, together with the integrated hardware platform.

In 21 grams of weight, in size of 32. 6 x 15. 6 x 11. 1 mm, Samsung managed to implement an integrated mini-system with connectivity Bluetooth 5.1 , 1.1 “color AMOLED display (27, 8mm) with resolution of 126 x 294 pixels, and various sensors such as: accelerometer , gyroscope and optical heart rate sensor . For the more “nerds” we also mention the 2MB of RAM and the storage of 32 MB. The Samsung bracelet is offered with an operating system called FreeRTOS that offers the typical functions of the category.

Galaxy Fit2 uses a 3D curved glass to protect the display which gives a sporty look to the device. As is also the case on many other products of the same type, the display does not occupy the entire front surface of the box, but only a part of it: the dividing line between the frames and the display is visible even when turned off, but only in direct sunlight. , and does not bother in normal use.

As we have already said, the smartband from Samsung is meant to be worn all day and even night, and the particular lightweight and compact design helps in this regard. The strap also allows you to lock your wrist securely without squeezing it, to the benefit of the accuracy of the readings with the heartbeat sensor, placed in the compass along the side opposite the display. The strap also boasts a particular groove that prevents the accumulation of sweat or liquids.

Galaxy Fit2 can also be “cool”, despite its sober appearance. This is because the user can customize it as they see fit, with a total of 70 dials that show various information on the screen. The operation can be performed by pairing with a smartphone (including iPhone), through Bluetooth 5.1 technology (backwards compatible), and downloading the preferred watch face and, once paired with the smartphone (it is necessary to install some apps, to unless it is a proprietary Samsung device) opens up a world of possibilities.

The bracelet can of course receive notifications from any application and, with some apps, respond to them with pre-established sentences . It is also possible to control the musical reproduction of the smartphone, in addition to managing all the functions related to the fitness and general well-being of your body.

Through the integrated sensors, in fact, Galaxy Fit2 can collect data on the wearer’s training sessions, even automatically: the bracelet recognizes five different workouts, detecting time, pulse, calories burned and various other parameters at the start of the mode. Among the automatically identifiable modes we have running, walking, free movement, elliptical, and rowing activity. Curious, but now trendy, the option to remember to wash your hands: once the mode is activated, a timer will tell us when we can stop doing it.

Galaxy Fit2 is also water resistant up to 50 meters deep and offers a range declared by the manufacturer of 15 days (21 days with mild use). After our test we can say that, by also enabling sleep and stress monitoring (both present and verifiable through the Samsung Health app), it is certainly possible to reach 008 days, with company estimates being enough reliable. In short, autonomy is certainly not a problem with this device.

Samsung Galaxy Fit2, passed or failed?

The Samsung bracelet convinced us after our test. It is not as reliable as professional gadgets, of course, but for those who do not have extreme needs it proves to be a useful tool to keep track of their progress in the most basic activities. Not only does it help to keep fit, but it implements several functions that we have already seen on other products, such as stress or sleep analysis, which can actually help improve individual days. )

He also convinced us with regard to the fit, excellent and firm on the wrist thanks to the strap, and above all for the quality ratio- price. As for the price list, Xiaomi manages to do even better, however Galaxy Fit2 does not cost much more and in our opinion it is a more sensible purchase for those who are already immersed in the Samsung ecosystem. The build quality is also of an excellent level, for a product that knows how to be beautiful and functional in its extreme simplicity .

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Samsung Galaxy Fit2 in try, our mini review

Samsung Galaxy Fit2, passed or failed?

Samsung Galaxy S Smartphone 21 5G, Charger included, 6.2 “Dynamic AMOLED 2X Display, 4 cameras, 128 GB, RAM 8GB, 4000 mAh, Dual SIM + eSIM, (2021) , White (Phantom White)

Shoes! The price varies according to the number

is back Amazon Music Unlimited : 3 months of FREE music for listen to millions of songs in an unlimited way and without advertising Click here for all the details