We’ve known that Brazilian soccer star Neymar was coming to Fortnite since March, when he was teased as part of the battle royale’s latest season — and now we finally know what he’ll look like. Today, Epic revealed Neymar’s video game look, which, in traditional Fortnite fashion, gets pretty outlandish, with unlockable outfits that look ripped straight out of Power Rangers.
Curiously, Neymar isn’t sporting jerseys for either the Brazil national team or his club, Paris St. Germain, despite the fact that licensed team kits were introduced earlier this year. You can check out Neymar’s accessories in the image below. Neymar and his gear — including some new quests — will be available on April 27th for anyone who purchased the current pass.
Neymar is the first pro athlete to be featured in Fortnite, but he’s far from the first celebrity. In addition to plenty of fictional characters, the battle royale has added skins based on music stars like Travis Scott and Marshmello, along with streamers, including Ninja, Loserfruit, and TheGrefg.
(Pocket-lint) – When they first came onto the scene, it’s fair to say people were pretty sceptical of smart fridges. The question of why you’d need to be able to look at a screen on your fridge or give it voice commands came up often.
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Fast-forward a few years to now though, and plenty of top-line fridges being released now do have smart tech in them — it’s clearly a trend that consumers have got on board with over time. That said, it’s largely still the preserve of more premium models, for reasons of cost-efficiency.
So, we’ve taken a detailed look at the best smart fridges out there, and have compiled this list for you to have a look at if you’re thinking of giving your kitchen a bit of smart home pizazz.
Our pick of the best smart fridges to buy today
Samsung
Samsung Family Hub
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Samsung’s Family Hub fridges are the only ones on our list that look like the image you might have of a “smart fridge” in your head — namely, because of that big screen on one door. Whether you want it to play videos, display your music controls, or use internal cameras to show you what you’ve got stocked inside, the smartscreen can do it all.
You can even order restocks and online shops right from it, and use the screen as effectively as family noticeboard where you can leave reminders and notes for each other.
If you’re okay with the visuals of a screen in your kitchen like this, the Family Hub does feel a lot like living in the connected future, and that’s pretty high praise.
LG
LG InstaView Door-in-Door
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LG’s line of fridges has a whole bunch of models, and not all of them are smart — but there are some that pair its Door-in-Door easy-access drinks shelves with with its InstaView technology to bring fridges into the 21st Century.
By knocking twice on the glass of that distinctive window in the fridge’s door, you’ll be shown what’s inside your fridge. That might sound unimportant, but it means that you don’t have to disturb the fridge’s delicately balanced temperature by opening it all the time. Similarly, that Door-in-Door panel is effectively an anteroom for the fridge, where you can store your most-used drinks or condiments for access without impacting on the wider storage efficiency.
It’s a fridge with some smart, connected features, but which doesn’t push them onto you too much — a great balance.
Bosch
Bosch Serie 6
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From here on out, the remaining fridges are a lot more traditional-looking, we think you’ll agree, starting with Bosch’s Serie 6 double-door option. What makes it smart is the inclusion of Home Connect, a platform to let you control various aspects of the fridge’s performance from your phone.
That means checking in on its temperature, and changing it remotely if you need to keep a certain key item ready. You’ll also be able to get alerts if the door’s left ajar, a potential life-saver. Sadly, it’s only installed on this large variant of the fridge, so if you want a smaller option you’ll have to sacrifice some smarts.
Siemens
Siemens iQ500
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The differences between this Siemens fridge and other Bosch options are pretty minute — they’re all almost identical in terms of capacity and features, even down to their mutual inclusion of Home Connect.
However, we’re including both because you might want to keep an eye on their respective prices to get a bargain if one goes on sale. Or, of course, if one shade of stainless steel finish particularly catches your eye over the other.
Beko
Beko CXFG3691V
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This fridge from Beko might not have quite the same degree of connectivity as some of the others on this list, but it’s got some lovely features that make it “smart” in our eyes, and a great price to boot.
The centrepiece is its HarvestFresh drawer, which simulates a 24 hour sun cycle to keep your fruit and vegetables fresh for up to five days longer that normal. There’s also a door alarm and a frost-free freezer system that’s impressively effective.
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Lenovo’s Ideapad Flex 3 Chromebook is one of the tiniest Chromebooks I’ve ever used. It’s also one of the cheapest, retailing for just $349.99.
Any laptop that costs that little is going to have some serious drawbacks — and the Flex 3 certainly does. On the other hand, if you’re the sort of shopper who’s willing to set those aside, this little IdeaPad also has a number of pleasant surprises up its sleeve. There are even a few areas (in particular, the battery life) where it gives significantly more expensive devices a run for their money.
I’ll start with the pleasant surprises. The Flex 3 offers a more modern port selection than I’d expect at its price point — there are two USB 3.1 Type-C Gen 1 ports and two USB 3.1 Type-A Gen 1 ports (one on each side, which is really handy for charging and connecting accessories), as well as a microSD reader, an audio combo jack, and a lock slot. There’s a 720p webcam that works decently well if you’re not in low light. And the touchpad is surprisingly sturdy — I often find that touchpads in this price range feel plasticky. The Flex even comes with a Google Security H1 chip, which encrypts sensitive on-device data.
There’s a power button on the side, as well as a volume rocker.
There are two features that really impressed me (in addition to the battery life, which I’ll discuss later on). First, I can’t stop talking about the keyboard. It’s great, with tons of travel and a satisfying click. The keys have a slightly rough texture that really grew on me. I got one of the highest scores I’ve ever gotten on my usual typing test, with almost no errors. The only note is that it lacks backlighting, a feature you’ll find on more expensive devices like Acer’s Chromebook Spin 713 (our current top Chromebook pick) and Lenovo’s Flex 5 Chromebook.
God, I love a good keyboard.
Second, audio. The balance and volume that these 2W stereo speakers deliver are on par with those of any number of more expensive Chromebooks. They easily beat the Spin 713, which sounds tinny and thin. There are caveats, of course: There’s very little bass, percussion is weak, I heard a bit of distortion at max volume, and you’ll want an external speaker for any crowded setting. But the Flex is great for video conferences and regular music-listening, and certainly beats what I’ve heard from all kinds of Windows laptops that are over $1,000.
Now, for the major drawbacks. First, this thing is a clunker. It’s not too heavy, at 2.65 pounds, but it’s 0.7 inches thick, and it’s not too far from the size of many modern 13-inch laptops despite having just an 11-inch screen. My main turnoff, though, is the bezels. Good lord, the bezels are enormous. When I’m using the Flex 3, I feel like I’m looking at a small window of screen floating in an abyss of black. It looks like a device you’d have bought in 2014.
I wish Lenovo had sprung for a better screen.
I do like some things about the chassis, though. It doesn’t feel at all flimsy, with an aluminum cover and a non-plasticky finish. The display and keyboard are free of flex (despite the laptop’s name). And the 360 hinge is sturdy, with very little wobble.
Speaking of the display, though: That’s the second major drawback here. It’s cramped — I often use two windows side-by-side and I’ve been squinting at tiny text in order to make that work on the Flex 3. Moreover, it’s dim (maxing out at 250 nits), kicks back a ton of glare even indoors, and is quite low-resolution (1366 x 768). I’m gonna be real: It’s pixel-y to look at. I’ve been using the Flex 3 as my primary driver for a week, and while I will miss the keyboard and audio when I send it back, I can’t wait never to have to look at this terrible screen again.
That’s the lowdown on the chassis — let’s look inside. This Ideapad Flex 3 Chromebook configuration is powered by Intel’s dual-core Celeron N4020. That’s the bottom of the barrel as Intel processors go, and it comes with just 4GB of memory (LPDDR4-2400, soldered) and 64GB of eMMC 5.1 storage.
On a Windows machine, these specs would be a hard pass. But Chrome OS is a lighter load, and I can vouch that the Flex 3’s screen is a bigger limit on multitasking than its horsepower is. I was able to use the laptop for a substantial workload, jumping between dozens of Chrome tabs and some apps, but the experience was cramped enough that I wouldn’t recommend it.
The color is called “almond”.
Scrolling got a bit sluggish when I tried to work on top of a Spotify or YouTube stream, and the transitions between laptop and tablet mode were a bit slower than I would’ve liked. The only task where I ran into real trouble, though, was sorting through a batch of shots in Google Photos (with a couple other apps running on the side). The Flex 3 did get the job done, but it was quite slow. The one Zoom meeting I tried (on top of some other tabs I needed) was also a bad experience — audio randomly cut out a couple times, and video was stuttery throughout.
Overall, this device is best if you’re looking to do basic office or school tasks, and don’t think you’ll need to have more than a few things open at a time. (And in case this doesn’t go without saying, you’ll want to stay far away from this thing if you plan on doing anything fancy with Linux.)
The flipside of the weak processor is that the Flex 3 has excellent battery life. I averaged eight hours and 45 minutes to a charge with brightness at 50 percent — and I was pushing the thing harder than most people probably will be, as noted above. You can expect that this thing will last all day, and certainly longer than many more powerful Chromebooks. The 45W charger is acceptably quick, juicing the device up to 60 percent in 52 minutes.
Six rows of keys.
The Flex 3 runs Chrome OS, which means it can run Android apps natively. Some of these have improved since the last time I used this operating system — Messenger is now functional and no longer a complete disaster that bricks the machine, for example. But most of the services I use daily (Slack, Twitter, Gmail, Reddit, etc.) are just better experiences in a browser, so I didn’t use the dedicated app functionality all that often. There’s also still a double-notification problem — every time I got a Slack message, I got a notification both from the Slack Android app and my browser.
The Flex 3 also supports Chrome OS’s tablet mode, which has gotten quite good. It supports Android-esque gesture controls, which should help flatten the learning curve for new Chromebook users (though they were a bit sluggish on this device).
Deciding whether to buy a $350 Chromebook comes down to understanding what the big drawbacks are. In this case, there are two: The screen is cramped, and the processor is weak. So the question to ask is: Given those caveats, can you get your stuff done?
If you’re just using this device to pay bills, email people, and run some YouTube videos, I would say you can. It’ll be a little cramped, but you can. And if you can stomach that, the Flex 3 does deliver some great benefits in other areas, from the great keyboard and convenient ports to the outstanding battery life and respectable audio. In these categories, it rivals or surpasses our top Chromebook pick (the Spin 713). If you’re okay with its flaws, you’ll find that the Flex 3 offers quite a bit for its budget price.
(Pocket-lint) – Audiophile brand Bowers & Wilkins has always taken its sweet time in adopting new technologies. It told Pocket-lint in the past that this is intentional – it likes to wait until the market matures and its own high audio quality standards can be met.
It was relatively late to market with a Bluetooth speaker and wireless heaphones. And, it only adopted active or adaptive noise-cancellation when it was sure its tech wouldn’t hamper audio performance.
That’s why it is also late to the party with true wireles in-ears. And, do you know what, we don’t mind. The flagship Bowers & Wilkins PI7 in-ear true wireless headphones are proof positive that a softly softly approach can reap dividends.
In many ways, these ‘buds remind us of the excellent Sony WF-1000XM3 earphones. Except smaller, more confortable, and with even more musicality. That’s the benefit of hindsight in effect right there.
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What you get in the box
When you open the box, you see a tasty-looking, small-scale case. It’s a bit larger than an Apple AirPods equivalent but a lot smaller than many we’ve also had through the Pocket-lint testing bed.
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The case comes with a USB-C port and a couple of buttons, including a Bluetooth pairing button that allows you to connect it to your device without needing to take out the ‘buds.
A USB-C to USB-C cable is included, but you’ll have to provide your own charging plug. That does mean it is capable of being fast charged, though. It can also be charged wirelessly, if you have a Qi mat handy.
The case has a further neat trick up its sleeve too: it can also act as a Bluetooth transmitter. Using an additional included USB-C to 3.5mm mini jack cable, you can plug the case into any source and transmit audio to your PI7s wirelessly.
This feature could be great for listening to in-flight entertainment – rather than buying something such as the RHA Wireless Flight Adapter – for example, or for using with a Nintendo Switch, which doesn’t currently support Bluetooth headphones. The case will also pair with other Bowers & Wilkins wireless headphones – such as the B&W PX7 released in 2020 – so can simultaneously transmit audio to those too.
Design and fit
The Bowers & Wilkins PI7 in-ears are beautifully designed. We are testing the white version – they are also available in charcoal.
They are extremely comfortable and light, with a matte finish to the plastic and neat metallic element on the outer tips. It’s meant to be a gold finish but, depending on the light, can look gunmetal grey at times.
The eartips are silicone, with the medium sized tips on the earbuds as default. You get a couple of extra silicone tips in the box, in small and large.
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In our ears, they fit very well indeed and are extremely comfortable. We wouldn’t imagine getting earache from these over long periods, unlike some competitors (although these first impressions are based on having the PI7s for a few days, so a full, in-depth test is yet to follow).
What we will say though, is that as the larger plastic section needs to fit inside the bowl of your ear, some with smaller ears may struggle to place it successfully.
The ‘buds are water- and dust-proof, which is great for indoor workouts. But, we’re not sure they’re secure enough for running outdoors. Very few non-sport TWS in-ears are, to be honest.
There are touch controls on each of the earphones. You can tap to take a call, pause, play and rewind music, and adjust noise-cancelling and activate your chosen voice assistant. There are also wear sensors on each, so when you remove either, the music stops. It plays automatically when you put them back in.
Set-up and battery life
Setting up the Bowers & Wilkins PI7 in-ears is a doddle. For iPhone users, you just need to head to your Bluetooth settings screen and press the button inside the case for a couple of seconds. The headphones should appear in your list for connection.
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It’s even easier on Android devices with Google Fast Pair enabled. Just place the case nearby and open the case lid. Then follow the instructions on your phone.
You also need to download the Bowers & Wilkins Headphones app to control a couple of the features and/or update the PI7s or their case. Once paired via Bluetooth, you can search for your in-ears through the app – this will bring up a dedicated settings section.
The app will also show you the battery status of each earbud and the case. It gives you control over the adaptive noise-cancellation tech (switching it on or off, or choosing whether to have it automatically adjust depending on your surroundings). You can also change the strength of the noise-cancelling effect via a transparency slider.
Battery life is claimed to be up to 4 hours of playback for each ‘bud, with a further 16 hours from the case. We are yet to test that fully.
Audio performance
We’ve been hugely impressed by the audio performance and signature in our listening tests so far.
The B&W PI7 headphones support Qualcomm’s aptX Adaptive lossless wireless tech, although we’re yet to give that a thorough workout. We have, though, streamed plenty of Tidal Masters tracks via an iPhone 12 Pro Max.
Naturally, this isn’t the best we could get but it’s close to what we expect most users will acheive.
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Led Zeppelin’s Bring it on Home (remastered) sounded deep, involving, and with excellent separation. As too did The Kink’s Shangri-La (the stereo mix). While it is weird writing about the imperfections in a recording, they are often what makes a certain version so good, and every squeaky guitar slide is picked out by these headphones.
Bass is impressive too. Each earbud has its own amplifier, supporting a custom 9.2mm drive unit. This works greatly across all fequencies, but bass certainly benefits.
Aside from obvious hip-hop examples, the opening bars of the 2019 remix of Come Together by The Beatles are throaty and tangible. All from tiny in-ears with no cable attached. Amazing.
First Impressions
We want to investigate further before we give our full opinion, but so far, it seems like Bowers & Wilkins is onto a winner with the PI7 wireless in-ears.
These earbuds are extremely high quality and look tasty to match. Their musicality is right up there, but then so is the price, so you would expect as much.
That’s probably our only quibble for now – the B&Ws are almost twice the price of Apple’s AirPods Pro equivalents. Indeed, there are few high-end alternatives priced quite so highly.
Bowers & Wilkins does counter that with the less expensive PI5 – released at the same time – but we haven’t heard those yet to give you a decent comparison, and they don’t come with the Hi-Res Audio specifications.
Still, we’d imagine there are plenty willing to pay a premium price for premium performance. We’ll soon follow up with a full review to let you know if it’s justified. So far, so good, however.
(Pocket-lint) – There’s a little thing in the car world called CMP – Common Modular Platform. While you won’t see it, it’s underpinning a number of cars coming from the PSA group – Citroën, Peugeot, Vauxhall, DS Automobiles, and for those in Europe, Opel.
That’s why you’ll find a number of cars with what look like similar specifications on the road, while the bodywork is all different. Basically, it’s different flavours of the same ice cream. The ë-C4 being Citroën’s flavour of this electric car. So just how tasty is it?
Design
Sitting in the crossover segment, the Citroën ë-C4 – and the combustion C4 versions – look to offer something a little different in terms of design. The C4 has always been slightly playful – we’ve seen the Picasso and the Cactus in previous years – and here we have coupe stylings, rather than just being another hatch.
We’ll come right forward and say that we like this design. It’s fresh and it’s different, the front half of the car swirling in some of the design elements we’ve seen from Citroën recently – with coloured trims and sculpting – while the rear drops off giving you a split rear window that’s reminiscent of the C4 Coupe of yesteryear.
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This big coupe design has often been the preserve of German premium marques – Mercedes, BMW and Audi have all made SUVs with coupe styles in recent years. Adding Citroën to this list makes a lot of sense: this isn’t just another C segment hatchback and it’s all the better for it.
What’s missing is a full glass roof – there’s a sunroof on the options list (it’s £800 in the UK) – but we can’t help feeling that with a glass roof this car would be even nicer in the interior.
The move to that faster coupe style back brings with it a couple of points to note. The rear window has a horizonal split, with a trailing spoiler on the exterior and that does cut across your rearview vision slightly, although we think Citroën should have taken the glass higher up the back to give better rear vision.
That also means you don’t have the same standing height in the 380 litre boot that you might in a regular hatch design, but it’s slightly deeper – larger than the DS 3 Crossback E-Tense – and potentially more usable as a family car as a result.
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At the same time, adding that split allows Citroën to keep the e-C4’s roofline slightly higher, meaning that interior space isn’t compromised and does give for an interesting design.
While it looks great, there are some minor quality concerns. The boot lid, for example, needs a really good slam and it just feels as though it’s not quite as substantial as you’ll find elsewhere.
A comfortable interior
Citroën puts a focus on comfort and the interior is a truly comforting space. There’s reasonable space in the front, while the interior gives respectable headroom for the rear passengers.
Comfortable seats get a cloth finish, leaving the leathers aside for the sake of affordability. There are touches of leather through the cabin, but the predominance is for hard- and soft-touch plastics. That lacks the premium feel that you’ll find in the DS 3, for example, but it doesn’t look cheap and has the attraction of being easy to clean.
There are colour details – with inserted blue stripes to remind you you’re in an electric car, while the only part we find that lets the side down is the glossy black plastics on the centre console. Gloss black leads to fingerprints and dust which always seems to be visible – you’ll be forever cleaning it.
The layout of the interior is similar to the DS Automobiles equivalent – you can see that these cars are related – although Citroën has minimised many of the controls. There’s a full spread of aircon dials and buttons, but other functions controlled though the display lack direct access buttons.
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There’s a home button and a button by the electronic brake toggle for the electric stats screen – but radio, satnav and other functions all require you to punch the home button and then use the on-screen control. That means you’re often having to press a number of buttons to use these functions.
There’s also a mite more convenience than the DS layout which puts all the window controls in the centre of the car – the Citroën leaves them on the door, which we think is sensible.
The c-ë4’s interior display sits nice and high on the dash for easy visibility. And although the driver display is a little small, the head-up display (HUD) adds a touch of class.
What you really take away from it, however, is the comfort. There’s plenty of space in the front and you’ll fit adults in the rear too, with enough headroom for taller passengers.
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There’s a false floor in the boot, but we like the fact that you can drop it to gain the maximum storage space – or keep it in place to keep your charging cables out of sight.
Talking about technology
The Citroën ë-C4 is reasonably well appointed with technology, but as we hinted at above, its biggest failure is in the lack of controls.
There’s a 10-inch display in the centre of the car, mounted on the top of the dash, so most of the interaction will be via touch. There’s a slight frame to it, like a shelf along the bottom edge, which gives you somewhere to rest your hand while tapping away – which makes it more usable.
The downside is that there are only a couple of physical buttons: the home button, which takes you home; a car button, which takes you the vehicle settings (which you’re unlikely to change once you’ve setup the car the first time you drive); and an electric button, which takes you through to see some of the electric stats, but little else.
Outside of this, you can scroll through pages, like the radio stations, using the steering wheel controls, but there’s no other direct controls via other buttons. Instead, you have to use touch – and often you’ll have to press the home button and then select what you want – navigation for example. There’s not even a home button on the display, so it’s a multitude of presses no matter what you want to get done.
That sours the experience slightly and really takes away from what is otherwise a decent offering. It’s in stark contrast to the DS 3 Crossback E-Tense which has massive buttons for every area. We can’t help feeling that somewhere between the two would be the more practical system.
Regardless, Citroën covers the basics pretty well, focusing on radio, navigation and calling. There’s support for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto via the USB connections, while the top trim will also give you a Qi wireless charger for compatible devices.
The navigation, visually, is ok, but the search isn’t very good. It’s just too hard to get to the essentials – like car charging stations. This should be front and centre on the satnav app, but buried in points of interest, somewhere after local helipads and other nonsense you’re never going to need to navigate to.
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The Citroën ë-C4 offers essentially the same information as the DS 3 E-Tense under its electric button – that’s a flow diagram showing the battery power driving the wheels, or a bar chart showing average consumption across recent trips. At least Citroën is using a scale that works, so you can see if you’re driving more or less efficiently than previously – but still, compared to the data you’d get from the Kia e-Niro, it just feels like it should be trying harder.
The ë-C4’s driver display doesn’t offer customisation and is on the small side, but we’re not hugely worried about that – it does the job well enough in cahoots with the HUD.
While we’re also talking tech, there’s one downside to all that plastic in the door panels: it can’t really handle stronger bass from the standard speakers, so if your music gets a bit heavy, the performance isn’t that good and you’ll get some vibration back from it.
Citroën also offers a voice command system. This can get around some of the problems: you an just ask for the radio station by pushing the button on the steering wheel. However, once you’ve hooked up Android Auto and found that the same button will also support Google Assistant, you’ll likely never use the native system again.
The ë-C4 is also hiding a small surprise for tablet users, with a mount for tablets on the dashboard. Pop open the drawer and you’ll find a cover with a privacy screen in the front, which will accommodate a range of tablet sizes, but it’s mostly built around normal iPad sizes.
Once your tablet is on the cover, you’ll be able to attach it to the dash on a mount so the passenger can watch at leisure, the privacy screen ensuring that the driver isn’t distracted. It’s great because it all neatly hides away when not in use.
Overall, it feels like there are some easy improvements to be made here. The lack of direct controls and the lack of home button within the touch system just makes eveything more fiddly than it could be.
Drive, range and performance
The starting point for Citroën is comfort. The Citroën ë-C4 wafts over broken roads and speed bumps rather more majestically than many comparable models which are setup with suspension so firm it will knock your teeth out when you hit a pothole. Instead there’s a sense of tranquillity: it’s soft, quiet, comfortable – actually a nice place to be without the boneshaking adrenaline of pretending you’re a rally driver.
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The important core specs of this car will sound familiar if you’re looking at cars in this segment. As we said in the opener, there are various flavours, so the 50kWh battery and 100Kw motor (136hp) will come as no surprise.
Yes, that’s not a huge battery and this is the thing that separates the Citroën ë-C4 from the likes of the Kia e-Niro (with its 64kWh battery) and longer range, or the likes of the cheaper Mini Electric (with its 32.6kWh battery) and shorter range.
Citroën says you’ll get 217 miles range from it (that’s the WLTP measure), but we found it easy enough to average 4.6-miles-per-kW, which comes in at 230 miles. More carefree driving might see that drop to around 170 miles from an average around 3.6 miles per kW, which is what we got in typical runs to the supermarket and other suburban chores – exactly what we expect this car to be doing.
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The absolute range will of course vary based on all sorts of factors – how you drive, the conditions you’re driving in – but with support for 100kW charging, you’ll soon be back on the road.
There are three driving modes – eco, normal, sport – each changing the drive slightly as their names suggest. After playing with the faster sport mode, we settled into eco, which gives better lift-off regeneration than the normal mode so it’s closer to one-pedal driving – although you can’t bring it to a complete halt without using the brake.
In addition there’s the option of both D (drive) and B (battery) modes, the latter again making the car a little more economical. It’s slightly irksome that to engage B mode you have to press a button, but to select D you just move the drive selector. Again, it’s hard to fathom why that additional step was added.
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The steering is light, with indicators for close front obstructions and a useful reversing camera to help you get into those tight charging spaces. It’s an easy car to manoeuvre and the visibility and road positioning is generally very good, even with that slight rear obstruction due to the split rear window. You can get a complete 360 vision system (£350 on the options list), though, which is a nice addition.
Verdict
The Citroën ë-C4 slots nicely alongside stablemates like the Peugeot e-2008, sitting around the same price and offering similar performance. Stepping up the range means moving to something like the Kia e-Niro, which will cost you more, so the Citroën feels like it’s about the right price for what you get – although it is about £10k pricier than the cheapest combusion version.
Overall, the Citroën ë-C4 is a great electric car. It sits somewhere in the middle of practical options available out there at the moment, offers a good balance of price to performance, all wrapped into a car that above all else is majestically comfortable for driver and passengers alike.
Alternatives to consider
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Kia e-Niro
Those looking for more range will be attracted to the 64kWh e-Niro, one of the top EVs on the road, while the lower capacity e-Niro is around the same price as the Citroen, but with a smaller battery.
Read our review
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Nissan Leaf
The Nissan Leaf is one of the best EVs on the road, and certainly one of the most popular. For just a little more you can get the 62kWh version which will give you more range, although it lacks the appeal of the ë-C4’s crossover stylings.
If we were to make a list of the most important stereo amplifiers of all time, there’s every chance that NAD’s original 3020 would feature. It is widely claimed to be the best selling integrated amplifier ever, which would be reason enough for it to rate highly on our list, but we believe the 3020’s contribution to hi-fi is about more than mere sales figures.
Launched in 1979, the 3020 cost just £71 and single-handedly established the fledgling New Acoustic Dimension (NAD) brand as a serious player in the world of audio. It wasn’t the first product the company had made, but time has proven it to be the most important by a mile.
The 3020 set the frills-free visual template NAD has followed ever since and established the company as a value-for-money brand. More than that, though, it jump-started the market for high-performance budget amplification.
The NAD 3020 had a clever power supply design that allowed it to sound way more muscular than its modest claimed power output of 20W per channel would suggest. It was engineered to perform well with complex, real-world speaker loads rather than just produce good results in a lab.
(Image credit: NAD)
The NAD didn’t measure outstandingly, but that didn’t matter as nothing else at the price came close to it in sound quality. Once people had a listen, the 3020’s advantage over the opposition was clear.
It was decently equipped, too. The earliest version came with a moving magnet phono stage, and a moving coil option was added in later generations. There were also two line-level inputs and a tape loop, which was enough at a time when vinyl replay was king. Unusually, the pre and power sections were connected with an easily removable external link, so it was possible to use either separately if the urge to upgrade struck.
Look around the back and there’s an unusual upward-facing connection panel. Here you’ll find a choice of power amp inputs. The one marked ‘Normal In’ is bandwidth limited to remove unwanted noise both below and above the audible frequency range. The idea is to prevent the power amp circuitry from having to do undue work boosting these unwanted signals.
The other power amp input is called ‘Lab In’, and is a direct, unfiltered connection. Compare the two and the ‘Lab-In’ certainly sounds a little cleaner and clearer, but also a touch harder-edged with it.
(Image credit: NAD)
The other feature of note is called ‘Soft Clipping’. The idea of this switchable circuit is to gently limit the 3020’s output when it is being pushed to high volume levels, thus avoiding huge amounts of harshness and distortion. After a quick comparison, we leave the switch off, as the sound becomes a little too soft and compressed for our tastes.
Early in its life, the 3020 didn’t have a great reputation for build quality and reliability. It was considered adequate at best in these respects, but such issues weren’t severe enough to affect its success. As the build got better over subsequent generations, even those nasty spring clip speaker terminals made way for proper speaker cable binding posts.
NAD continued to evolve the design with better sounding, more purist versions that boasted cleaner signal paths by deleting the tone controls and other switches considered unnecessary. The 3020’s circuit was even split to make a preamp-only version called the 1020.
(Image credit: NAD)
The company kindly supplied us with a pristine early example for this feature and, even after four decades, it looks good enough to have just rolled off the production line. Everything works perfectly, apart from the power LED that refuses to shine.
There’s real pleasure in using something as basic and functional as this. With no remote control, it’s as hands-on as hi-fi gets. The operation of the rotary controls and press buttons can hardly be called sophisticated, but there is a disarming charm about how everything works.
We give the amplifier a few days to warm up and then get down to some serious listening, using a range of sources and speakers from our reference Naim ND555/555PS DR music streamer and ATC SCM50 floorstanders to the more price-appropriate Marantz CD6007 CD player and Dali’s Oberon 1 standmounters. We use a Rega Planar 3/Elys 2 record player to test the NAD’s performance with vinyl, too.
The 3020’s phono stage was much vaunted at the time – and rightly so. It still sounds full-bodied, lively and expressive with it. Noise levels are kept in check, leaving little to get in the way of our enjoyment.
(Image credit: NAD)
This isn’t a particularly detailed sounding amplifier by current budget standards; things have certainly moved on in terms of clarity, dynamic expression and rhythmic precision in the decades since. But that doesn’t stop the 3020 from being fun. It remains a hugely entertaining proposition with a smooth, big-boned presentation that grips the listener from the first note of a song to the last.
The line inputs share the sonic characteristics of that phono stage. This NAD integrated sounds way more powerful than that paltry 20W per channel power output figure suggests. The 3020’s presentation is meaty and authoritative – it’s a sound with real substance.
While the overall resolution is nothing to get excited about, this amplifier is great at delivering the information it uncovers in a cohesive and musical way. This is the kind of product that just gets out of the way and leaves the music in the spotlight.
Even during its lifetime, there were criticisms that the bass was a little overcooked and stereo imaging wasn’t expansive or particularly focused, and these things are even more obvious today. But, perhaps surprisingly, neither of these shortcomings come close to spoiling our enjoyment.
(Image credit: NAD)
The stereo imaging issues improved when NAD’s engineers realised they had made a small mistake in the first generation’s circuit board that increased crosstalk between the channels. Once discovered, this was, of course, corrected. Oddly, some reports at the time suggested the amplifier had lost a little of its sonic charm with this revision. There’s no pleasing some people!
No product is perfect, and expecting that from a 40-year old budget design isn’t realistic. However, we are utterly charmed by the 3020. Our test room is packed with excellent, far more capable alternatives, yet we carry on listening to the little NAD way longer than we need to.
We love its enthusiasm and the way it encourages us to play just one more track. That’s the true mark of greatness, and make no mistake, the NAD 3020 belongs up there with the very best the industry has ever made.
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Sennheiser has announced another reason to consider its five-star Ambeo Soundbar: Sony 360 Reality Audio support.
A new firmware update, available today, means Ambeo owners can enjoy 360 Reality Audio tracks via Google Chromecast. Live concert streaming service nugs.net is the first to work, with “additional services and content expected to follow”. Hopefully, this means Deezer, Tidal and Amazon Music HD are just around the corner, given all of these boast a number of tracks available in 360 Reality Audio.
For the uninitiated, Sony’s object-based ‘360 Spatial Sound’ technology aims to put the listener smack bang in the middle of an immersive 360-degree music listening experience. The Ambeo Soundbar already has 3D movie sound covered thanks to its Dolby Atmos, DTS:X and MPEG-H support, so it’s great to see that expand to music.
Sony offers a handful of homegrown 360 Reality Audio-compatible speakers including the recently-launched SRS-RA3000 and SRS-RA5000. The Japanese giant’s homegrown audio format is also supported by a smattering of third-party products including the Amazon Echo Studio smart speaker, McIntosh’s MX123 AV processor, and now, Sennheiser’s high-end soundbar.
Commenting on today’s news, Maximilian Voigt, Product Manager at Sennheiser, said: “Our customers can now stream music and enjoy exceptional spatial audio by simply downloading the latest firmware update without the need to purchase any additional equipment.”
Sony is keen to expand the number of compatible 360 Reality Audio devices, and to help it achieve this, the company recently announced that customers in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain can enjoy 360 Reality Audio content on Sony’s premium home wireless speakers via Amazon Music HD.
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If you’re after the last word in clarity and insight in a high-end power amplifier, we can’t think of a better choice than the Ultima 5
For
Class-leading clarity
Agile and articulate presentation
Relatively compact design
Against
Not as muscular sounding as some rivals
Mention Chord Electronics and there’s a strong probability that one of its class-leading digital-to-analogue convertors will come into mind. And rightly so; the company has produced a long string of truly outstanding digital products over the last couple of decades and has a bursting trophy cabinet to prove it.
So successful has Chord been with DACs that it’s easy to overlook the fact that it started off as an amplification brand and has always made some excellent products in this field. Now, you can count the new Chord Ultima 5 stereo power amplifier among them.
Normally, we like to review complete pre/power combinations, but in this case we’re making an exception. Surprisingly, Chord doesn’t make a price-comparable preamplifier to go with the Ultima 5. Instead, most buyers use the terrific Chord DAVE DAC as a digital control hub, which offers volume and input-changing abilities.
That makes perfect sense if you have an all-digital set-up, and saves the considerable cost of a dedicated analogue preamp. Doing things this way also reduces the box count and simplifies the signal path. Of course, such an arrangement only works if the DAVE performs its preamp duties well. We have already reviewed the DAVE and it certainly does that, so here we’re concentrating on the new Ultima 5 power amplifier.
Build
(Image credit: Chord)
Few companies can match Chord when it comes to making a bold visual statement – the scoops, the glitzy LED lighting under the top panel, and the extrovert styling make the Ultima 5 stand out in a generally conservative part of the market.
Chord Ultima 5 tech specs
(Image credit: Chord)
Type Stereo power amplifier
Inputs Balanced XLR, single-ended RCA
Output power 300W RMS per channel (8ohms)
Dimensions (hwd) 18 x 48 x 36cm (with legs)
Weight 22.4kg
That bold appearance is supported by truly excellent build quality, just as this elevated price point demands. The Ultima 5’s front panel is an immaculately crafted 28mm thick slab of aircraft-grade aluminium and every part of this amplifier, from those trademark cylindrical legs to the rear panel that doubles as a heatsink, oozes quality.
Take a look inside and you’ll find that the Ultima 5 differs from most rivals. This is mostly down to the use of Chord’s unusual high-frequency power supply arrangement. This does away with conventional bulky mains transformers and large power supply reservoir capacitors and replaces them with something the company considers more efficient, responsive and load tolerant. It’s a compact solution that is central to the brand’s DNA and has been used in its amplifiers from the beginning.
But the big news in the new Ultima 5 is the use of a dual-feed-forward circuit topology, which is claimed to produce a faster, more dynamic sound with improved transparency over the already capable previous generation Chord designs. The Ultima 5 uses no less than 64 proprietary MOSFET output devices and the result is a claimed power of 300W per channel. We doubt whether anyone will need more, but if they do there is also an identical-looking mono version of this amplifier called the Ultima 6, which is rated at 180W each.
Features
(Image credit: Chord)
When it comes to connectivity, power amplifiers tend to be simple things, and that proves the way here. There are stereo inputs in both single-ended RCA and balanced XLR forms, plus a set of chunky multi-way speaker binding posts.
A power amplifier at this level demands a top-quality system. Our main sources are Naim’s ND555/555 PS DR music streamer and a Technics SL-1000R/Kiseki Purple Heart MC record player feeding Nagra’s excellent Classic Phono (which, unsurprisingly, is a phono stage).
We also use our usual reference preamplifier, the Burmester 088/911 Mk3, alongside a Chord DAVE digital controller, and we complete the set-up with our trusty ATC SCM50 speakers. We also have Wilson Benesch’s Precision P2.0 floorstanders and ProAc’s K1 standmounters on hand to see how the Chord responds to alternative speakers.
Sound
(Image credit: Chord)
In use, the Ultima 5 is a strikingly capable power amplifier. It’s impressively transparent, taking on the character of whatever’s in the signal chain in front of it. If you’re looking for clarity, agility and detail resolution, it can rightly be considered class leading.
Most high-powered amplifiers tend to sound muscular all the time, irrespective of the music being played. So we’re pleasantly surprised that the Ultima 5 doesn’t do that. Given intimate music, such as Found Songs by Ólafur Arnalds, this Chord sounds suitably delicate and fleet-footed. There’s simply no hint of the huge power reserves on standby.
It delivers a tightly focused sound that brims with subtlety and texture. Some of Chord’s past efforts could sound a little clinical and cold, but this power amplifier avoids that charge, delivering the natural warmth and body of instruments convincingly.
Even so, the Ultima 5 could never be accused of sounding lush or rich. It’s a taut and highly analytical listen, able to take apart recordings without much effort. It’s not in this amplifier’s character to carry you away on a wave of exuberance (with suitable music, of course), but if you want to hear deep into the mix or track a low-level instrumental strand, this Chord is outstanding.
Switch to more bombastic music and the Ultima responds effortlessly. That huge claimed power output figure is easily believable when it pounds out Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. It is rare to hear a power amplifier sound so composed and controlled when confronted by such demanding music played back at high volume levels. There’s never a hint of sonic stress. At most, that casework gets warm – though not unreasonably so – rather than anything obvious happening in the sound.
Listening to this symphony, we’re aware of how even-handed and neutral the Chord sounds. We’re also struck by how it sets up a huge, open stereo image and populates it with impressively layered and crisply focused sounds. Most importantly, it is capable of organising the mass of information it resolves into a cohesive and musical whole.
Verdict
We listen to a broad range of music in our time with the Ultima 5 and it never fails to impress. Sure, there are rivals that will sound livelier when playing Kanye West’s Yeezus set by displaying more in the way of low-end punch and rhythmic drive. Others will even sound smoother and easier on the ears with less than perfect recordings. But, none we’ve heard can match the Chord’s cut-glass clarity or resolve low-level information with as much skill.
The Chord Ultima 5 is not an overtly characterful amplifier; it doesn’t try to sound ‘musical’. All it does is attempt to pass on the signal as cleanly as possible. And in that aim, it’s hugely successful.
The Xbox Series S isn’t perfect and won’t be for everyone, but it delivers a near next-gen gaming experience for a reasonable price
For
Attractively priced
Solid AV and gaming performance
Responsive controls
Against
Over-complicated AV set-up
Doesn’t support native 4K gaming
Small hard drive
The Xbox Series S is a tough console to nail down. It’s next-gen, but with one rather large drawback; it isn’t a 4K games console, which will undoubtedly rule out some potential buyers from the off.
But it is about more than just resolution. The Xbox Series S brings features and performance benefits to a price point we’ve never seen a high-tech console hit at launch before. And, after resolution, the price of the Series S is arguably the big talking point.
Price
The Xbox Series S is a remarkably cheap console, costing just £250 ($300, AU$500) – no wonder there was a collective gasp from members of the media when pricing was finally revealed. This compares to £450 ($500, AU$749) for the Xbox Series X.
Using Xbox All Access, where you can pay for the console in instalments, you can get a new Series S on a 12-month contract for £21 ($25, AU$33) per month, compared with £29 ($34, AU$46) per month for the Series X.
Its main rival, the PS5 Digital Edition, comes in at £359 ($399, AU$599). It is also missing a disc drive, but the difference is that it gets all the same 4K gaming performance and specs of the standard PS5 console, whereas the Series S has various performance downgrades on the Series X.
Build
(Image credit: Future)
It’s not just the price tag of the Xbox Series S that catches your attention. Open up the box and you’ll be taken aback by the size of the console. It’s tiny compared with its big brother, the Xbox Series X, but also the PS5 and PS5 Digital Editions too.
Positioned horizontally, the Series S measures 28cm wide and 15cm deep. This is in stark contrast to Sony’s disc-less rival, the PS5 Digital Edition, which is 39cm wide and 26cm deep. This makes the Series S ultra-portable, and you’ll be more than happy to sling it into a rucksack and take it to a friend’s house. The ‘S’ and its relatively small frame will also take up less space on your AV rack.
Xbox Series S tech specs
(Image credit: Future)
Resolution 1440p at 60Hz, 120Hz
Storage 512GB
Outputs HDMI, 3.5mm headphone jack, USB (Type-A) x3
The chassis is essentially an off-white plastic. It doesn’t feel particularly expensive, but that’s hardly a surprise, given the bulk of Xbox’s budget has been spent on what’s inside.
Compared with the striking PS5, the Xbox Series S looks anything but flamboyant. Its only distinctive feature is a circular black grill for the fan, which makes it look more like a wireless speaker than a cutting-edge games console.
In terms of connections, the Xbox Series S doesn’t throw up any real surprises. On the front, there’s a USB (Type-A) socket, a 3.5mm headphone jack and the power button. On the rear, there are power, ethernet, HDMI and a pair of USB (Type-A) inputs.
The only socket we haven’t really encountered before is a slot for expanding the amount of storage on the Xbox Series S. And, depending on the number of enhanced games you intend to buy, there’s a chance you might have to use it sooner than expected.
In fact, storage is one of the biggest drawbacks for the Xbox Series S. On the box, it says it has 512GB of storage, but when you boot up the console and go into the system’s menu, that figure is nowhere to be seen. Before installing a single game, we are down to 364GB. Download a few enhanced games at 60GB+ and you’ll soon be reaching for an expansion card.
Be warned – the official Seagate Storage Expansion Card costs a whopping £220 ($220, AU$359). The good news is that if you already own an external hard drive with backwards compatible games on it for an Xbox One S, you should be able to plug it into the Xbox Series S and use it straight away.
Home screen
(Image credit: Future)
Power up the console and you’re greeted with the traditional Xbox GUI. On the one hand, it’s nice and familiar but we can’t help but think it’s a missed opportunity. Couldn’t Xbox have created a more exciting and inviting interface to wow its customers and usher in its next-gen consoles?
The tile system is still in play and so is the horizontal navigation. You can reach all the relevant areas, such as games and system settings, with minimal button presses. It’s quick to respond to your commands too. This could be down to a combination of more powerful CPU processing, the super-fast solid-state hard drive and even the new low-latency controller.
What’s even more noticeable is the speed at which games load. Compared with the previous generation of Xbox consoles, the Series S is much quicker. Not only does it get you through loading screens with a greater sense of urgency, with Quick Resume, you can now pick up games from where you left off in a matter of seconds. Xbox claims you can have three or four games on the go at any one time.
Controller
(Image credit: Future)
Like the X, the new Xbox Series S gets a new control pad. It’s supposed to be slightly smaller, although the difference is hard to spot. Irrespective of whether it’s shrunk, the controller still feels good in hand. The bumpers are more rounded, while the triggers have been given more sculpted grips and a new texture that also spreads to the rear of the controller.
Your hands and fingertips get better purchase when pressing down hard, and it feels like the texture pattern from the back of an Xbox Elite Wireless Controller (Series 2) has been placed onto the Xbox Series S controller. Which is no bad thing.
The controller also features what Xbox calls Dynamic Latency Input (DLI), which immediately synchronises each controller input with what you see on screen. Of course, your TV’s own lag is also part of the equation here, but at least the console is doing its bit to reduce lag. It feels as though the console is quick to respond to commands, whether navigating the console’s home screen and in-game too.
Another addition to the controller comes in the shape of a new dedicated ‘Share’ button, which means you can capture screenshots and clips and share your gameplay on social media. Those with older legacy controllers from an Xbox One S (or One X) will be pleased to know you can pair them with the Series S.
Features
(Image credit: Future)
According to Liz Hamren, Head of Platform Engineering and Hardware for Xbox, the Series S delivers “four times the processing power of an Xbox One console”. On paper, the figures are 4 TFLOPS of power for the Xbox Series S, compared with 12.15 TFLOPS for the Series X.
The Series S is “similar in CPU” to the Series X, but not identical. The Xbox Series X uses an 8-Core AMD Zen 2 CPU running at 3.8GHz (3.6GHz with SMT enabled) while the Series S uses the same CPU working at 3.6GHz (3.4GHz with SMT enabled).
The ‘X’ is powered by a 52CU (compute unit) RDNA GPU running at 1.825GHz, while its cheaper sibling has a 20CU, 1.565GHz GPU.
The Series S doesn’t have the graphics grunt of its sibling, meaning that resolution is a big difference between the consoles. The Xbox Series S has been geared towards outputting 1440p at 60Hz, up to a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. It can upscale the picture to 4K to match your 4K TV, but you won’t be able to see next-gen games in native 4K. You can only play games in native 4K resolution (at up to 120Hz) on the Xbox Series X.
But we wouldn’t write off the Xbox Series S just yet. While it does lose out on graphical power and resolution, it still has a range of features that will appeal to anyone looking to make the jump from, say, an Xbox One S.
You can still enjoy refresh rates to up to 120Hz. The console also supports VRR, variable rate shading and ray-tracing just like the Series X. You get the same Quick Resume feature, so you can pick up where you left off at the touch of a button, a faster SSD hard drive and a speedier user experience. All of these mean the Series S is a big step up from the previous generation Xbox One S.
All the streaming apps you need are there too, including Netflix, Spotify, Sky Go, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV and Disney+.
Picture
(Image credit: Future)
When it comes to playing games on the Xbox Series S, it’s difficult to find a lot to grumble about for the money. While it’s not native 4K, what it does dish out is easy on the eye. Play Madden 21 and the intro video bursts into life with a colourful and vibrant display of NFL uniforms and impressive-looking stadia shots.
Detail on jerseys and boots is good. The reflections on player helmets are glossy and add polish to the presentation. The motion of the players, whether they’re walking slowly into formation or blitzing the opposing team, is stable and we don’t notice anything in the way of tearing, judder or artefacts.
Gears 5 looks good too, even though it isn’t being rendered in true 4K. Compared with the Xbox Series X, the more powerful console delivers a picture with more ‘wow’ factor, but the Series S is by no means embarrassed. The on-screen detail is good enough, with decent texture on chiselled faces and war-torn body armour. Motion is stable, and there’s good insight in the shadows.
As a streaming device, the Xbox Series S presents a solid case too. Playing Altered Carbon via Netflix, the Series S produces a watchable picture, with none of the artificial appearance that can sometimes be served up by poorer streaming devices.
There’s a good sense of clarity and motion, with detail and definition both excellent too. As Quellcrist Falconer makes Angelfire rain down on her pursuers, the screen lights up with bolts of blue neon. As each soldier is struck down, the flames turn to embers, small pin pricks burning briefly, but ever so brightly, in Dolby Vision HDR. The detail in the shadows as she hides behind a fallen tree is nicely judged and not overly dark.
We’d say the Xbox Series S is comparable to an Apple TV 4K for picture quality, which is a great video streamer in its own right. That’s quite impressive for a games console.
Sound
(Image credit: Future)
Despite being a next-gen console, we’re still left scratching our heads at the way some audio settings have been implemented.
Instead of being able to pass unadulterated audio from your streaming service of choice through to your AV amp, the Xbox needs to decode and re-encode it. You need to navigate the console’s audio settings and pick one format which the console will then apply to everything. You can select from DTS Digital Surround, Dolby Digital, Dolby Atmos for Home Theatre or DTS:X for home theatre. It’s not a particularly next-gen way of going about things.
Click on DTS:X and you’re told you need to download the DTS Sound Unbound app. This unlocks DTS:X for home theatre, but you still need to pay a further £17 to unlock DTS Headphones:X. Similarly, you need the Dolby Access app to get free Atmos support for your home theatre, but if you want Dolby Atmos for Headphones, that will cost you extra too. Seriously?
However, the Dolby Access app is handy for setting up a Dolby Atmos soundbar, AV receiver or TV. You can customise your audio settings and even switch on a built-in audio upmixer if you want some of the Atmos experience, but don’t happen to own a Dolby Atmos speaker package.
Oddly, during set-up we are greeted by a pop-up from the console asking if we want to pass Blu-ray audio directly to our AV receiver – someone clearly forgot that the Xbox Series S is a disc-less console.
Once set up, you get is a perfectly acceptable sonic performance. The console sounds punchy and lively with a decent sense of clarity, and an even tonal balance. It’s not as subtle or refined as a dedicated budget 4K Blu-ray player, such as the Sony UBP-X700, nor does it have the same sense of timing and natural flair with music. But it sounds lively enough when firing out the 80s soundtrack to Cobra Kai and the dialogue sounds clear and relatively weighty.
Switch to the opening chapter of Gears 5, and as Kait, Marcus et al arrive at the opening to the cave, the detail and definition in the whirring rotor blades is impressive. Combine this with the strings of the soundtrack, and the sound of the birds circling around the huge opening and the console creates a fine sense of immersion and atmosphere as you head underground.
Verdict
Xbox has been pretty smart with the Xbox Series S – the price tag alone will be enough for some to give it serious consideration. However, if true 4K resolution gaming or playing 4K Blu-rays matters to you, it won’t even be on your radar.
If you aren’t fussed about those and just want to play Xbox exclusives with some of the other game enhancements, such as VRR and the high frame rates, then the Series S isn’t a bad shout.
It could also be an affordable console for a second room or to keep the kids happy. After all, you still get a huge chunk of future-proofing and day-to-day performance upgrades that make it a decent jump up from the Xbox One S.
The Xbox Series S isn’t perfect. The user interface feels a little dated for a next-gen console and there are still too many quirks when you want to use it as part of a proper home theatre system. While it won’t necessarily appeal to everyone, if you’re happy with what the Series S can offer, you won’t be disappointed.
Astell & Kern, highly decorated maker of premium portable high-resolution audio devices, has just introduced the SE180 portable music player. It is the third model in the company’s A&futura series following the inaugural A&futura SE100 and SE200, both of which gained What Hi-Fi? Awards in 2019 and 2020 respectively.
For 2021 however, Astell & Kern is trying something new: the SE180 is its first player to feature interchangeable DAC modules.
Expanding on the multi-DAC innovation first introduced with the SE200, music fans can now customise the sound with different audio-flavoured DACs to find the sonics that best suit their ears.
Furthermore, A&K says the A&futura SE180 is the company’s most advanced player yet. It is the first model to boast the firm’s new Teraton Alpha Sound Solution technology, promising improved audio, an enhanced user interface and advanced connectivity.
(Image credit: Astell & Kern)
The South Korean digital audio specialist says the new user interface is “more consistent with an Android smartphone experience”. There’s also AK File Drop for easier wireless file transfers, BT Sink function for simpler connection of the SE180 to an external Bluetooth device, and, of course, that innovative interchangeable DAC design to boast a new level of audio flexibility for the user.
By physically separating the main body from the all-in-one module, A&K claims that any power and radio frequency noise generated by the main unit is completely blocked. The DAC module should slot easily into place from the top of the player and features a pioneering double-locking mechanism that promises to securely connect each component.
But you don’t have to buy a separate digital-to-analogue converter to get the new SE180 up and running. The A&futura SE180 arrives with a default 8-channel module, the SEM1 ESS ES9038PRO. And it’s no slouch – audio file support is comprehensive, with the SEM1 DAC capable of playing up to 32-bit/384kHz PCM and native DSD256 files.
Want to start customising and upgrading though? The SEM2 Asahi Kasei AK4497EQ Dual DAC will be the first optional module available at launch, with the ability to play files up to 32-bit/768kHz PCM and native DSD512.
(Image credit: Astell & Kern)
Both modules support 2.5mm, 3.5mm and 4.4mm headphones connections for accommodating a greater variety of headphones and in-ears, while there is support for MQA playback via downloaded MQA audio files and Tidal.
A&K says the next DAC module will be released later in the year, with another model following in the first half of 2022.
Otherwise, the The A&futura SE180 features a Full HD 5-inch screen, the smooth, aluminium casework and rotary volume dial we’ve come to expect from Astell & Kern devices, plus a 256GB on-board memory that can be expanded up to 1TB via a microSD card slot.
The Astell & Kern A&futura SE180 with the SEM1 ESS ES9038PRO DAC module is priced £1399 ($1499, €1599) and will be available from May. The optional Astell&Kern SEM2 DAC (Asahi Kasei AK4497EQ Dual DAC Module) is priced £319 ($349, €379) and will also be available from May.
MORE:
Read all our Astell & Kern reviews
See our pick of the best portable MP3 players 2021: from budget to hi-res music players
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Update April 22nd, 1:12PM ET: Updated the first paragraph to reflect that Garmin wouldn’t disclose how long its introductory price of $319.99 will last.
Garmin has upgraded its premium Venu smartwatch for 2021 (via DC Rainmakerand Ars Technica). It now comes in two sizes instead of a single 43mm-sized model. The 45mm Venu 2 houses a 1.3-inch 416 x 416 OLED screen. For smaller wrists (or those who just prefer a less wrist-dominating device), the 40mm Venu 2S has a 1.1-inch 360 x 360 OLED screen. Both watches have an optional always-on mode, and they are available now for an introductory cost of $319.99, which is $80 cheaper than the original Venu when it launched in late 2019. Garmin hasn’t shared how long this price will be in effect (the product pages mention a $399.99 asking price), and the company declined to disclose how long this lower price will last.
Other than the differences in case sizes, there isn’t much else distinguishing the Venu 2 lineup visually from the predecessor. They’re slick-looking touchscreen wearables with Gorilla Glass 3-covered touchscreens that feature two buttons. One of the biggest gen-to-gen improvements is its battery performance. The original Venu could last five days in smartwatch mode, but Garmin’s bigger 45mm Venu 2 watch doubles it (and then some) to a claim of 11 days of operation if you’re just using it for getting phone notifications with light usage otherwise. If you’re using its built-in GPS and streaming music from the watch to your headphones via Bluetooth, Garmin predicts up to eight hours of battery life, up from six in the previous model.
A close-up of the larger Venu 2.Garmin
Surprisingly, the smaller 40mm Venu 2S also has better battery life than the original, with 10 days of use expected in smartwatch mode or up to seven hours in GPS mode with music. Garmin has a whole page that backs up how it makes predictions on battery life, telling you what to expect depending on the kind of activities you’re doing. Garmin is also touting faster recharging for both models, with 10 minutes of charging giving you up to one day of use in smartwatch mode or an hour of GPS usage with music. Both models can store up to 650 songs from Spotify, Amazon Music, or Deezer, up from 500 in the Venu and the 2020 Venu Sq.
The Venu 2 watches are packed with sensors, featuring a heart rate sensor, GPS (GLONASS and Galileo), a wrist-based pulse ox sensor to measure blood oxygen, a barometric altimeter for altitude, compass, gyroscope, accelerometer, thermometer, and an ambient light sensor. Each watch also features NFC for the Garmin Pay contactless payment feature. These watches work with iOS and Android, but only on Android can you respond to text messages.
In terms of new software features coming to the watches, Garmin’s Sleep Score will give you an aggregate score based on tracking your sleep stages, heart rate, stress, respiration, and your blood oxygen levels. The Venu 2 series can estimate your “Fitness Age” based on your level of activity and can guide you through high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and advanced strength training.
Flagship features and a big, clear screen make this mid-priced mobile a good option for your pocket
For
Good for gaming
Detailed picture performance
Decent built-in speakers
Against
Screen could be subtler
Flat audio performance
Alec Baldwin may be the best known, and arguably most talented, of his siblings but as Trey Parker and Matt Stone once wrote: you know what sucks about being a Baldwin? Nothing! Thankfully for Billy, Daniel, Stephen and the OnePlus 9 smartphone, life always has room for a little brother.
With only two members of the OnePlus 9 family, finding a niche as the more affordable smaller sibling should be no problem at all. The OnePlus 9 is still a big phone and its 6.55-inch display means it can bring some serious scale to your portable viewing.
Not only does the OnePlus 9 have an HDR10+-supporting, 120Hz AMOLED screen, it also has a Hasselblad camera set-up on board too. And it charges so quickly that by the time you remember that you plugged it in, it’s probably full and ready to go.
Granted, there are a few nips and tucks to the specs compared with the OnePlus 9 Pro but, with around a quarter off the Pro’s price tag, this Android handset has the tempting promise of a flagship phone at a mid-range price.
Pricing
The OnePlus 9 is priced at £629 for the Astral Black and Arctic Sky versions, which come with 128GB of storage space and 8GB of RAM in the UK and Europe. The Winter Mist OnePlus 9 is £729 and comes with 256GB of storage and 12GB of RAM.
In the US, only the Astral Black and Winter Mist finishes are available, but both come with 8GB RAM and 128GB of storage. The US OnePlus 9 is priced at $729.
Features
(Image credit: OnePlus)
A phone with a 6.55-inch screen is just about small enough to carry out most of your operations one-handed without fear of dropping it, although swiping from the top and bottom without adjusting your grip makes for some pretty intensive thumb yoga. Laid next to the OnePlus 9 Pro, the standard OnePlus 9 is just 4mm shorter at 160mm long and a little thinner at 8.7mm rather than 9mm, but has the same 74mm width.
Despite its fibreglass polymer frame, the finish still feels premium for a non-metal phone. The three-way sliding switch for the silent, vibrate and ring profiles is a particularly nice touch. Underneath that, there is the power button, on the opposite side is the volume rocker with the USB-C port and SIM tray on the bottom edge. Sadly, there’s no 3.5mm headphone socket.
OnePlus 9 tech specs
(Image credit: OnePlus)
Screen 6.55in AMOLED
Resolution 2400 x 1080 (402ppi)
Rear camera 48MP, 50MP, 2MP
Front camera 16MP
Dolby Atmos Yes
Finishes x3
Dimensions (hwd) 16 x 7.4 x 0.9cm
Weight 192g
For wireless audio, there’s Bluetooth 5.2 with aptX and aptX HD included as well as LDAC technology, which allows hi-res audio streaming over Bluetooth at up to 24-bit/96 kHz.
As for that screen, it’s a 2400 x 1080 AMOLED panel with a fixed 120Hz refresh rate and a pixel density of 402ppi. Compared with the 9 Pro (525ppi), it’s a little less sharp and slightly dimmer too, with a peak brightness of 1100nits rather than the 1300nit display on the Pro. On top is a flat piece of Gorilla Glass, under which is a hidden fingerprint reader, though you can also unlock the phone using face recognition.
Those looking to dive into some on-the-go TV and film watching will appreciate the HDR10+ and HDR10 support with plenty of HDR compatibility to be found on Netflix and others. You can play locally stored MKV, MOV, MP4, H.265 (HEVC), AVI and other video file formats. The display proportions offer a maximum possible 20:9 aspect ratio, but while most content is edged by a pair of black bars, premium gaming titles use the whole screen width.
Game Mode Pro is a handy feature of Oxygen OS – an otherwise light skin on top of Android 11. It shuts off notifications from popping up on your screen, restricts background app use to divert as much processing power to your gaming as possible and prioritises your network use for game data. We also like the way it brings quick access to options such as WhatsApp messaging, Instagram and screen recording with a small, pull-down menu at your thumb.
(Image credit: OnePlus)
The gameplay itself is well handled. The fast refresh rate of the display helps your gaming feel lag-free, both on and off-line. OnePlus has installed its Cool Play vapour cooling system, but even after one round of PUBG Mobile, the handset still feels pretty warm.
Despite that, and the fixed 120Hz rate, the 4500mAh battery takes us well beyond a day of heavy use. Should you need to recharge more regularly, you’ll be pleased to note that the Warp 65T charger included in the box takes just under 30 minutes to fill your phone.
As with the OnePlus 9 Pro, owners of this handset benefit from a Hasselblad-calibrated camera array. Here, it is a three-lens set-up, with a main 48MP camera, a 50MP ultrawide and a monochrome shooter, but no telephoto. There is 12-bit colour depth stills imaging available in Pro Mode for RAW files and you can capture 8K video at 30fps and 4K video at 60fps.
Telephoto aside, the performance of the camera is right up there with that of the 9 Pro’s. The optical image stabilisation works a treat for the handheld tracking shots around our test facilities. The results look almost as if they were shot using a camera dolly and there’s the odd jump only with fast pans. The colours are bright and rich, if not quite as real-world accurate as the best smartphones.
As with its bigger brother, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chip orchestrates the action with great aplomb. There’s barely a glitch or stutter in our time with the phone and we’d expect it to stay that way with regular updates and fixes to the OS, the UI and third-party apps.
Screen
(Image credit: OnePlus)
If you’re expecting the performance of the OnePlus 9 to match that of the OnePlus 9 Pro, think again – that extra spend goes on more than just an aluminium frame and some curved glass. But there is a lot to like about the OnePlus 9’s picture performance.
It’s easy to lose ourselves in the story of The Witcher in HDR on Netflix. It’s a bright and engaging image with a decent degree of punch and no wanting for detail in light and dark areas of the screen. The opening shots across the shaded interior of a barn reveal lots of detail in the shadows without doing much damage to the black depth. Even when the frame becomes split between that darkness and the bright daylight on the faces of the young lovers outside the barn, the overall exposure levels remain well pitched.
We’re just as pleased with how the OnePlus 9 handles SDR. The Display P3 mode brings a good blend between the natural look of the Missouri countryside and the exciting colours of sci-fi space as we watch Guardians Of The Galaxy 2 in Full HD. If you’d rather not get your hands dirty in the settings, pull the colour temperature towards ‘cold’ or use the Natural preset.
As with the OnePlus 9 Pro, though, there’s room for improvement. The very best handsets maintain a slightly inkier black depth and add a bit more of a dynamic HDR feel, while some displays are a touch more careful with shading. It’s most apparent when looking at faces – the skin complexion of the lovers in The Witcher episode, for example, are fairly uniform in their production, when colour and lighting could be handled a little better.
But these performance compromises are in line with the 9 Pro, which also favours dark detail over black depth. The 9 Pro is sharper, a little brighter and the colours go a touch further before starting to look artificial but, given the difference in price, this is to be expected. The OnePlus 9 still makes for some worthy big-screen viewing at this point in the market.
Sound
(Image credit: OnePlus)
But while the screen can be classed as ‘good’, the audio performance of the OnePlus 9 is firmly in the average category. It plays your favourite tracks faithfully enough but is never going to thrill you. That doesn’t mean that it’s not without its charms, though.
OnePlus’s ‘Dual stereo speaker’ set-up is fine for listening to music or watching a film without headphones. Dialogue is clear and sound effects are identifiable, while music is balanced and not without a sense of presence. We’d recommend listening without the Dolby Atmos music processing, but both ‘Film’ and ‘Music’ modes come across well.
Listening to Biffy Clyro’s Many Of Horror, the OnePlus 9 conveys that powerful sense of emotion. There’s definition and clarity to the vocals and the squeaky slides up the guitar strings of the intro, even if it’s not the most detailed delivery we’ve heard. The volume on the device doesn’t go particularly high but reaches the top with hardly any distortion.
For headphones listening, it’s best to axe the processing and set the OnePlus 9 to ‘None’ under ‘Style Preference’ in the sound settings. It doesn’t do much to make up for this phone’s underwhelming dynamics but keeps music as rhythmic as possible. We play Blue Monday by New Order and the impact of the electro beats and synth sounds is in line with the OnePlus 9 Pro’s performance. The more expensive model has a better stab at organising the sounds but, paired with a decent set of headphones, there’s still plenty to enjoy here.
But with busier tracks, there’s more of a sense of what could have been, sonically. We hit play on Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden, hoping for a taste of moody grunge. But while all the instruments are there and tonally in balance, Chris Cornell’s voice comes across flat and expressionless. Nor is there a change of gear when the drum fills announce the chorus. Ultimately, this phone plugs the music gap while we’re out and about, but not an awful lot more.
Verdict
There aren’t many smartphones that offer so much screen real estate at this price. The fact that it’s such an involving picture performance is a compelling reason to buy the OnePlus 9.
Our doubts are mostly on the audio side, as some rival phones make music on the go a more exciting affair. If you use a dedicated music player or are looking for a mobile phone primarily for its video performance, then don’t let its sonic drawbacks put you off. Between the high-performing chipset, the lag-free gaming, the Hasselblad camera and the scale and quality of the screen, there are plenty of reasons why the OnePlus 9 is a good idea.
(Pocket-lint) – The original Garmin Venu was Garmin’s stab at something more like a smartwatch. It was designed to address the display above all things, sporting an AMOLED screen – and looking better than all the other devices in Garmin’s range.
That’s true of the Venu 2 too and we’ve had one on the wrist for a couple of days to bring you some first impressions.
Design and build
40 and 45mm sizes
45.4 x 45.4 x 12.2mm, 49g
Changeable straps
Stainless steel bezel
Glance at the Venu 2 and you might not know if you’re looking at a new watch or the old model. The overall design is pretty much that same – and it’s a safe design.
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The watch case sticks to polymer, topped with a stainless steel bezel to give a premium look around the display. The big change is that there’s now two sizes – 40 or 45mm – so there’s a Venu 2 for every wrist.
That also sees a change in the straps you can attach to it, with 18mm and 22mm supported respectively, allowing you to chop and change to get the look you want.
As we said of the original Venu, the design is rather safe. It doesn’t quite reach to the premium looks that you get from the Apple Watch, but it’s conventional enough. We suspect much comes from the close relationship to the Vivoactive – with the Vivoactive 4 also coming in the same sizes.
There’s a difference, however. The case of the Venu 2 now appears to be one piece, whereas previous models had a separate backplate and body, not that that makes a huge difference. For those who like to examine sensors, there’s also a new arrangement to the Elevate heart rate sensor on the back, which we’ve not seen in other Garmin devices.
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There are two buttons on the right-hand side of the body and these are oblong rather than the round buttons usually found on the Forerunner models.
Display
AMOLED, 33mm
416 x 416 pixels
Touchscreen
Always-on option
We don’t have the exact figures on for the display at the time of writing, but on the 45mm model, it’s about 33mm in diameter for the visible area (the same as the Vivoactive 4).
There’s some bezel area under the glass that’s not active display, but Garmin has now added some markers on this area which help to disguise the fact that not the entire area is display. Fortunately, because this is AMOLED, the deep black of the display and that surrounding area merge together so you really don’t notice it – or we haven’t so far.
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There are plenty of watch faces on the device and many more available through Connect IQ, but we were quickly taken by the Matrix-style face.
There are three brightness levels and it doesn’t appear that there’s any sort of ambient light sensor to adjust the levels automatically. If you choose the top brightness you’ll get a warning that this will drain the battery faster – and it’s the display that’s likely to eat most of the battery life on your Garmin.
It’s a touchscreen display, allowing some interaction, while other functions will need the press of one of the two body buttons.
There’s a battery saving mode that will take you to a simple watch face to save power and also drop the brightness – again underlining the point that this display does have a hit on this watch’s endurance.
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Of course, that’s something we really need to examine in more depth over the coming weeks. Garmin says you’ll get 11 days in battery saver mode, while 10 minutes charging will give 1 day of life – but we’ll be fully testing the realistic battery life. So far it looks like it will be good for 5 days based on wearing it so far.
There is the option for the screen to be always-on, but you’d have to select that. The default is to have the display fade to black fairly quickly, but to waken when you twist it to look at it.
Sensors and hardware
HR, GPS, ABC
Pulse Ox
Despite pitching this watch as a smartwatch, the Venu 2 is loaded with all the sensors to feed Garmin’s data machine. That will keep track of your activities from your steps to your HIIT workouts, and give you loads of information about what happened.
The mainstay is the heart rate sensor, which can keep track of your heart rate through the day and night to give you a complete picture of what’s happening within your body. It will help you get in the zone when you’re working out, it will help spot when you’re stressed and it will also measure blood oxygen levels – although be warned that this demands a lot of battery life, so probably isn’t worth the sacrifice.
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GPS provides your location for accurate route tracing, so you know how far and how fast you went, for tracking all your outdoor activities. The accelerometer will detect motion, like steps or sleep movements, the barometer can detect altitude change while the compass can sense which direction you’re moving in.
All the data collected feeds a number of systems, like Body Battery which pitches your sleep against your daily activity to advise you about how well rested you are, while also giving you full breakdowns of your activity in the Garmin Connect smartphone app, so you know what you did and what benefit that will have.
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New in this device are sleep scores and insights from Firstbeat Analytics as well as fitness age, which draws in a lot of information to estimate your age – or the impact that your lifestyle might have had on your body and make suggestions so you can do something about it.
They support a full selection of sports, but we’ve not had the chance to test them yet as we’ve only just strapped this watch on. There’s wider support for HIIT workouts and strength training – two areas that Garmin hasn’t been so great on in the past.
We’ll be testing all the functions in the coming weeks.
Smartwatch features
Custom graphics
Garmin Pay
Music support
Smartphone notifications
Garmin offers a range of features are less sporty and more smartwatchy. These aren’t new or unique to the Venu 2, indeed most have been refined across top Forerunner and Fenix models over the years.
But these do complete the picture and ensure that you’re not missing out on essentials. There’s support for downloaded music from Spotify, Deezer or Amazon Music, letting you sync up to 650 tracks, an increase over the previous Venu model.
That means you can arrange playlists and have them sync to your watch, so you can listen to music phone-free via Bluetooth headphones. You can also control music you might have on your phone.
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Garmin Pay allows for mobile payments, so you can pay for that coffee on your way home from a long run – although there’s not a wide range of support for banks outside the US – so it’s worth checking to see if you’ll be able to use your card.
We’ve mentioned Garmin Connect a couple of times already and once setup on your phone, you’ll be able to control notifications on your watch so you can stay informed – and those using an Android phone will be able to use Quick Replies to reply to messages too.
Best Garmin watch 2021: Fenix, Forerunner and Vivo compared
By Chris Hall
·
Much of this will be familiar to Garmin users, but the Venu 2 does use some custom graphics and animations that are a little more exciting that you’ll find elsewhere. That makes better use of the display and while we’ve not had a chance to fully explore everything, we’ve already spotted some areas where the Venu 2 looks better than some other Garmin devices.
First Impressions
The Garmin Venu 2 is all about that display. For those who are turned off by the slightly muted displays you might find on the Vivoactive or Forerunner devices, the Venu is designed to deliver.
First impressions are great, with vibrancy and plenty of colour, giving the custom visuals a lift. That was true of the previous device too, so we’ll be looking at how this performs as a fitness device and a lifestyle device over the coming weeks.
(Pocket-lint) – The Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite joins the Mi Watch as a part of a duo that wants to put smarts on your wrist for significantly less money than an Apple Watch or a Samsung smartwatch.
If the Mi Watch is considered affordable, then the Mi Watch Lite is proper cheap, going toe-to-toe with a raft of Amazfit Bip watches available around this price – and other budget options you should probably steer clear of.
For that cut price, the Mi Watch Lite offers a mix of smartwatch and fitness tracking features and battery life that can make it through a week. You’ll inevitably have to live with some shortcomings, but it feels like ones that don’t detract from what is a decent budget smartwatch.
Design & Display
Measures: 41 x 35 x 11.9mm / Weighs: 35g
1.39-inch display, 320 x 320 resolution
Size options: 41mm
5ATM waterproof
Like the first Mi Watch – the one that never made it out of China – the Mi Watch Lite is a square affair, featuring a 41mm case made from plastic.
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It weighs in at 35g, so it’s by no means a heavy watch, and it’s paired up with a TPU strap that’s removable. It just takes a bit of time to get it off and get something else on there.
There’s your pick of black, ivory or navy blue case colours, or the choice of five ‘fashionable’ Morandi colours including olive, pink and ivory.
On the wrist, the Mi Watch Lite doesn’t look hugely different from other budget square smartwatches out there and the colour options are nice – but it would be stretch to say it gives them a more stylish look. It’s pleasant enough looking, but the larger Xiaomi Mi Watch is visually more appealing.
The Lite offers a single physical button on the side of the case that’ll wake the screen up and launch the app menu screen. That screen is the touchscreen kind of course. It’s a 1.4-inch TFT LCD type, so not the AMOLED kind you get on the more expensive Mi Watch.
It’s a good quality screen for the price and certainly doesn’t have that washed-out look you sometimes find on smartwatches this cheap. The backlight offers 350 nits of brightness, so it’s not one you’re going to struggle to see at night or during the day. It still offers good colours and it’s generally a nice screen to glance down at.
What’s more problematic is the controls: tapping is prioritised over swiping through screens. You can scroll through some screens, but it’s slow moving when you do it. It’s generally less of a problem if you’re checking a notification or looking at one of the widgets, but when the sweat comes during exercise, it’s more problematic and frustrating to handle.
Like the round Mi Watch, Xiaomi has made the Lite suitable for swimming and showering by slapping it with a 5ATM water resistance rating, which means it’s good at depths up to 50 metres.
Software & Performance
Works with Android and iOS
No third-party app support
Xiaomi uses its own in-house operating system for the on-watch software experience and it has Xiaomi Wear (Android) and Xiaomi Wear Lite (Apple) apps for that time spent away from the watch itself.
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Our screen control frustrations aside, it’s a very easy watch software to get to grips with. Swipe left and right to see widgets showing off data like heart rate and weather forecasts. The main menu screen is a mere button press away.
Like the Mi Watch, that main menu screen doesn’t include any text, so it’s up to you to quickly establish what launches what here. There’s some simple settings you can tinker with on the watch like screen brightness, watch faces, do not disturb mode, idle alerts, and setting up a password for security.
The companion Xiaomi Wear app is broken up into three sections letting you dig into your health and fitness stats, track workouts from and adjust settings. There’s no third-party app support here, so if you’re thinking of connecting it to the likes of Apple Health or Google Fit, you’re out of luck.
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The app itself – much like Zepp Health’s Amazfit and Mobvoi’s TicWatch – doesn’t feel the most polished or slick, but it does make it easy to adjust watch settings and delve deeper into your data if you want.
Sports & Fitness Tracking
GPS and GLONASS
Built-in heart rate monitor
24/7 fitness tracking and sleep monitoring
Like the Mi Watch, the Lite is one that’s built to track your fitness and health – and has the key sensors on board to deliver that.
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There’s built-in GPS and GLONASS satellite support to map outdoor activities. There’s accelerometer and gyroscope motion sensors for indoor tracking. And there’s 11 sports modes in total, including running (indoors and outdoor), cycling, trekking, swimming (pool and open water) and freestyle modes for those activities it doesn’t cover.
What you’re missing out from the Mi Watch are the Firstbeat-powered training features, stress tracking, the ability to take blood oxygen measurements, automatic exercise recognitio, and wider satellite support.
As a stripped-back sports and health monitoring watch, the Lite performs pretty well. GPS accuracy during our testing was reliable in comparison to a Garmin running watch. For indoor workouts, heart rate data was usually closely in-line with a chest strap monitor for HIIT and indoor rowing sessions – although we didn’t have to raise the intensity too high outside to see some odd spikes in heart rate.
If you’re less concerned about smashing out burpees and nailing 5K PBs, the Lite’s core fitness tracker features work well without really offering ways to make improvements or motivate you to move more.
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Step counts during our testing were within acceptable range of the Fitbit Sense, and it’ll capture distance covered and calories burned. It offered similar accuracy to the bigger Mi Watch for sleep monitoring, though doesn’t capture REM sleep stages or offer any kind of insight or advice to improve sleep.
If you choose to continuously monitor your heart rate, then based on our experience, resting and average heart rate data seemed high compared to the data captured on a chest strap and a heart rate monitoring pulse oximeter. While there’s no stress monitoring here, you do still get guided breathing exercises, though there’s nothing groundbreaking on that front in terms of how it’s delivered.
Smartwatch Features
Over 120 watch faces
View notifications
Music controls
For this low price you’re obviously not going to get an Apple Watch equivalent here, so you won’t be able to make payments, put music on it, or even download apps.
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What you can do is view notifications from a paired Android or iPhone, control music playing on your phone from native and third-party apps, check weather forecasts and set alarms.
Notifications can only be displayed and not acted on and some messages can look a little messy at times in the manner they’re displayed. Music playback controls work well and dedicated screens to show-off weather data work without issue, so there’s definitely some nice elements here.
You do get a nice array of watch faces too, with the ability to store multiple faces on the watch itself and download more from the watch store, which you can find in the companion app. There’s a good mix of analogue and digital faces and additional ones if you want to pack it with data or keep things simple.
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That’s really your lot though. Aside from some timer and alarm features, Xiaomi keeps it basic, which some will be satisfied with and others possibly not so much.
Battery Life
Up to 9 days in typical use
10 hours GPS battery life
The Mi Watch Lite comes packing a 230mAh capacity battery, which Xiaomi says will get you up to 9 days in typical use. That typical use is based on lab tests where heart rate monitoring was set to be the biggest interval option, 100 notifications were received by the watch, and it tracked one 35-minute outdoor exercise session a week.
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The likelihood is that most people are probably going to be working out more than once a week or wanting to monitor heart rate with more detail. Our testing time didn’t reflect Xiaomi’s lab testing conditions. We had continuous heart rate monitoring on at 5 minute intervals, had notifications turned on and tracked five outdoor and indoor workouts a week. It ended up lasting about 5 days in our testing time, which is short by 4 days of that claimed 9 days life per charge.
Those GPS battery life numbers seem to add up as well, offering the kind of drop off in 30 minute and 1 hour outdoor runs that suggest it could reach to those 10 hours when you want that hit of mapping data.
Best fitness trackers 2021: Top activity bands to buy today
By Britta O’Boyle
·
Our guide to the top fitness trackers available, helping you count steps, track calories, monitor your heart rate, sleep patterns and more.
When it comes to charging, there’s a large cradle that clips around the back of the watch and you’ll have no concerns it’s going to budge or fall out when it’s charging. It’s pretty well locked in place.
Verdict
The Xiaomi Watch Lite is a cheap smartwatch that is surprisingly nice to live with once you accept the compromises you have to make with it.
You’re not going to get that same high-quality display or some of the richer health and fitness features and insights you’ll get on the Mi Watch, but what remains offers a familiar and good experience.
It’s a solid albeit basic fitness tracker, competent smartwatch, and doesn’t do too badly as a budget sportswatch all considered. Compared to smartwatches in and around it at this price, the Mi Watch Lite stands out for the right reasons.
Also consider
Pocket-lint
Amazfit GTS 2
If you can stretch to spend more, the GTS 2 will get you a more impressive hardware and richer fitness tracking and smartwatch features.
For years, tech companies like Facebook and Amazon have faced the brunt of antitrust criticism by Congress, and Apple has gotten far fewer questions. But that changed on Wednesday, when Congress finally sunk its teeth into Apple as part of a hearing titled “Antitrust Applied: Examining Competition in App Stores.”
The hearing brought in representatives from companies like Spotify, Tile, and Match Group, a dating app company, to explain how Apple’s App Store fees and walled-garden business strategy harms their companies. All three companies gave harsh testimony, accusing the iPhone-maker of anti-competitive behavior over the burdensome fees it charges some app developers on its App Store.
The timing couldn’t be worse for Apple, coming just a day after the company announced an iPhone-linked item tracker called the AirTag in direct competition with Tile. Speaking to Congress, Tile’s General Counsel Kirsten Daru said that once Apple decided to develop its own item-tracking devices and services in 2019, the two companies’ friendly relationship dissolved.
“If Apple turned on us, it can turn on anyone,” Daru told lawmakers. “And Apple has demonstrated that it won’t change unless someone makes them, making legislation so critical.”
Apple’s shifting platform relationships were a theme in the hearing, with each company testifying to how quickly Cupertino’s collaborative outreach could turn competitive. Match’s Chief Legal Officer Jared Sine told lawmakers that app store fees amount to the company’s single largest expense, totaling around a fifth of the company’s total sales. Spotify’s Head of Global Affairs and Chief Legal Officer Horacio Gutierrez said that Apple’s business model equated to “a classic bait and switch,” luring developers into its app store and suddenly changing the terms to benefit the iPhone-maker.
“We all appreciate app stores and the roles that Apple and Google have played in helping to create many of the technologies that have defined our age,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, chair of the subcommittee, said on Wednesday. “We’re not angry about success… It’s about new products coming on. It’s about new competitors emerging. This situation, to me, doesn’t seem like that’s happening.”
WHAT IT MEANS
Sen. Klobuchar, who chairs the committee, is using these hearings to build support for her Competition and Antitrust Law Enforcement Act, which she introduced in February. The bill’s provisions don’t line up perfectly with the App Store problem, but there are a few key provisions that would make it easier for companies like Tile to push back against Apple. In particular, the bill would make it less difficult for law enforcement to bring cases against tech companies for engaging in “exclusionary” conduct, something Sen. Klobuchar has been eager to highlight in interviews.
“I don’t think people realize there’s this 15 to 30 percent tax on major companies people enjoy getting music from, like Spotify, that Apple or Google assesses, that there’s all this exclusionary conduct going on,” Klobuchar told Axios on Wednesday.
For the most part, the companies giving testimony seemed happy to agree. Throughout the hearing, all three representatives argued that legislation is necessary for companies like Apple to change their behavior. But Spotify and Tile argued that the committee should also look into proposing federal legislation specifically targeting app stores.
“We respectfully request that some consideration be given to app stores right now,” Tile’s Daru said in light of discussion over Klobuchar’s larger bill.
Outside of federal legislation, states like Arizona have introduced their own measures to make developer-friendly changes to Google and Apple’s app stores. Many of these bills, like Arizona’s, have failed following intense lobbying efforts by tech.
“They are fighting so hard because it’s core to the maintenance of their monopoly,” Sine said.
THE HIGHLIGHT
Biden’s nominee to be the next Democrat on the Federal Trade Commission is also ready to turn up the heat on the App Store. At Lina Khan’s confirmation hearing Wednesday, Klobuchar asked Khan about the power companies like Apple and Google have in regards to their app stores:
Khan: It’s really the source of the power. Basically, there’s two main options so that gives these companies the power to really set the term in this market in some cases. I think you’re absolutely right that certain terms and conditions really lack any type of beneficial justifications. So, I think in those cases we need to be especially skeptical and really look closely.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Earlier this year, Klobuchar said that the committee would hold a series of hearings aimed at competition in the tech sector, including Facebook and Google’s dominance in the ad market. The hearings have yet to be scheduled.
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