Swiss watchmaker H. Moser has returned with another cheeky spin on the iconic Apple Watch design with the Swiss Alp Watch Final Upgrade. It’s a $30,800 Vantablack-infused creation that mocks not just Apple’s design but the loading wheel found on Apple’s macOS, iOS, and watchOS products, via Hodinkee.
“No updates required, no lousy autonomy, no unnecessary features, no annoying notifications, just the only reminder you ever really need: To disconnect from all the noise and cherish each and every moment,” Moser boasts.
Moser has been making its Alp Watch series of Apple Watch-esque timepieces for years, going back to the original model (which launched a few months after Apple’s original smartwatch). The company is known for its edgy design choices in the watchmaking world: at one point, it created a watch made of actual Swiss cheese in protest of watchmaking standards, for instance.
Image: H. Moser
Since 2016, Moser has released several variants on its Alp Watch in a variety of colors and materials. But the Swiss Alp Watch Final Upgrade model (as the name implies) is apparently the final time the company will be poking fun at the folks in Cupertino.
The Final Upgrade model might be the most entertaining of all the pastiches, though, with a Vantablack face (which absorbs 99.965 percent of visible light) that promises to be an even darker black than even the “true blacks” of Apple’s OLED panels. The hands of the watch are actually also black; they just don’t look it in comparison.
But the cleverest aspect is the “loading wheel” at the 6 o’clock position that apes Apple’s boot indicator. The wheel is actually a fully functional mechanical second hand indicator. It’s comprised of cutouts in the Vantablack face, behind which the rotating gradient second hand wheel creates the loading effect.
For all the lightheartedness, though, the Swiss Alp Watch Final Upgrade is a serious piece of hardware: Moser is still a top-tier watchmaking company, and the hand-wound HMC 324 Manufacture movement inside is an incredible piece of machinery.
The H. Moser Swiss Alp Watch Final Upgrade is a limited edition model, with just 50 pieces planned — if you can afford the $30,800 price tag.
A speed demon that prioritizes raw performance, the Alienware m17 R4 puts plenty of pop into a sleek but bulky chassis.
For
Unrivaled performance
Snappy keyboard
Attractive design
At present, RTX 3080 is the fastest laptop graphics card around, but not all RTX 3080-powered laptops are created equal. Many vendors use Nvidia’s Max-Q technology, which prioritizes power efficiency and low fan noise over high performance. Alienware’s m17 R4, however, seeks to pump out every possible frame, deploying a special cooling system and eschewing Max-Q to make its top-of-the-line configuration one of the best gaming laptops,
But the Alienware m17 R4 is not just a speed demon. Starting at $2,106 ($3,586 as tested), this laptop has a snappy keyboard, a sleek sci-fi inspired design with plenty of RGB and an optional 360 Hz screen. You just have to live with a heavy chassis and the occasional bout of fan noise.
Editor’s Note: The Alienware m17 R4 review unit we tested came with a 512GB boot drive and 2TB RAID 0 storage drive. While this hardware is for sale, it is normally shipped to consumers with the 2TB RAID 0 drive as boot drive.
3x USB Type-A 3.2, 1x HDMI 2.2, 1x mini DisplayPort 1.4, 1x Thunderbolt 3, 1x microSD card reader
Camera
1280 x 720
Battery
86 WHr
Power Adapter
330W
Dimensions (WxDxH)
15.74 x 11.56 x 0.87 inches
Weight
6.6 pounds
Price (as configured)
$3,586
Design of the Alienware m17 R4
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The Alienware m17 R4 has the same sci-fi inspired “Legend” design as both its immediate predecessor, the m17 R3, and its sibling, the Alienware m15 R4. Available in “lunar light: white or “dark side of the moon” (black), the m17 R4 looks like a giant starship, rocketing through space. The body (ours was white) has a black rear end that juts out like the jet engine on the back of an imperial cruiser. The number 17 on the lid appears in a sci-fi font that you might find adorning a secret warehouse at Area 51.
There’s a honeycomb pattern for the vents on the back, above the keyboard and on the bottom surface. We can only assume that Alienware aliens live in some kind of hive where they are all doing CUDA core calculations.
And, of course, there’s lots of RGB lights to brighten the mood in outer space. The keyboard has four-zone RGB and there are customizable lights on the back edge and in the alien heads on the back of the lid and the power button.
The chassis is made from premium materials: a magnesium alloy with matte white or black paint, covered by a clear coat for extra durability. The interior uses Alienware’s cryo-tech cooling technology which has 12-phase graphics voltage regulation, 6-phase CPU voltage regulation and a CPU vapor chamber.
At 6.6 pounds and 15.74 x 11.56 x 0.87 inches, the Alienware m17 R4 is not exactly light or thin, not that would you expect that from a 17-inch laptop with a Core i9 CPU and RTX 3080 graphics. By comparison, the Gigabyte Aorus 17G (5.95 pounds, 15.9 x 10.8 x 1.0 inches) and Razer Blade Pro 17 (6.1 pounds, 15.6 x 10.2 x 0.8 inches) are both significantly lighter, though the Aorus is thicker. The Asus ROG Flow X13, which we’re also comparing to the m17, is much thinner and lighter (2.87 pounds, 11.77 x 8.74 x 0.62 inches), because it’s a 13-inch laptop that gets its RTX 3080 graphics via an external dock.
The Alienware m17 R4 has plenty of room for ports. On the right side, there are two USB 3.2 Type-A ports, along with a micro SD card reader. The left side contains a Killer RJ-45 Ethernet 2.5 Gbps port, a 3.5mm audio jack and another USB Type-A port. The back holds a Thunderbolt 3 port, a mini DisplayPort 1.4, an HDMI 2.1 connection, Alienware’s proprietary graphics amplifier port and the power connector.
Gaming Performance on the Alienware m17 R4
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Sporting an Nvidia RTX 3080 GPU and an Intel Core i9-10980HK CPU, our review configuration of the Alienware m17 R4 is as fast of a gaming laptop as you can get right now. Thanks to Alienware’s strong cryo-tech cooling solution and the company’s willingness to include a full version of the RTX 3080, rather than the Max-Q variants in some thinner notebooks.
When I played Cyberpunk 2077 at Ultra RTX settings, the game ranged between 61 and 72 frames per second, depending on how intense the action was at any given time. The frame rate improved to between 85 and 94 fps after I changed to Ultra settings with no RTX. In both cases, the fan noise was really loud by default. Changing the fan profile to quiet improved this somewhat while shaving only a couple of fps off, and only in intense scenes.
The Alienware m17 R4 hit a rate of 120 fps in Grand Theft Auto V at very high settings (1080p), eclipsing the Gigabyte Aorus 17G and its Max-Q-enabled RTX 3080 and Core i7-10870H CPU by 20%. The Asus ROG Flow 13 with its Ryzen 9 5980HS CPU and external RTX 3080 dock, was also a good 13% behind while the RTX 2080 Super-powered Razer Blade Pro 17 brought up the rear.
On the very-demanding Red Dead Redemption at medium settings, the m17 R4 achieved an impressive rate of 79.7 fps, besting the Aorus 17G and ROG Flow X13 by more than 20%. Saddled with last year’s card, the Razer Blade Pro 17 was a full 29 % behind.
Alienware’s behemoth exceeded 100 fps again in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, hitting 103 while the Aorus 17G and the ROG Flow X13 hovered in the mid 80s and 60s. On this test, surprisingly, the Razer Blade Pro 17 came close to matching the m17 R4.
Far Cry New Dawn at Ultra settings also provided a great example of the Alienware m15 R4’s dominance. It hit a full 105 fps where its nearest competitor, the Gigabyte Aorus 17G could only manage 92 fps with the Asus ROG Flow X13 and Razer Blade Pro 17 were both in the 80s.
To see how well the Alienware m17 R4 performs over the long haul, we ran the Metro Exodus benchmark at RTX, the highest settings level, 15 times at 1080p. The laptop was remarkably consistent, averaging 75.6 fps with a high of 76.2 and a low of 75.4. During that time, the average CPU speed was 4.19 GHz with a peak of 5.088 GHz. By comparison, the Gigabyte Aorus 17G, got an average frame rate of just 59.6 fps with an average CPU speed of 3.47 GHz and the Asus ROG Flow X13 managed a slightly-higher 65.2 fps with an average CPU speed of 3.89 GHz.
Productivity Performance of Alienware m17 R4
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With its Core i9-10980HK CPU, 32GB of RAM and dual storage drives, which include both a 2TB RAID 0 PCIe SSD (2 x 1TB) and a 512GB SSD, and that RTX 3080, our review configuration of the Alienware m17 R4 can be a powerful work tool.
On Geekbench 5, a synthetic benchmark that measures overall performance, the m17 R4 got a single-core score of 1,318 and a multi-core score of 8,051, which wa slightly ahead of the of the Core i7-10870H-powered Gigabyte Aorus 17G on both counts but behind the Asus ROG Flow X13 and its Ryzen 9 5980HS on single-core performance while creaming the Razer Blade Pro 17, which we tested with a Core i7-10875H.
The storage in our review unit came misconfigured slightly, with a 512GB NVMe PCIe SSD as boot drive and a significantly faster 2TB RAID 0 drive made from two 1TB NVMe PCIe SSDs. Dell sells this hardware, but consumers receive units with the 2TB as boot and the 512GB SSD as a secondary, storage drive.
In our tests, copying about 25GB of files, the 512GB drive managed a mediocre 379.7 MBps, but the 2TB drive hit an impressive 1305.5 MBps, which beats the Aorus 17G (869 MBps), the ROG Flow X13 (779.5 MBps) and the Blade Pro 17 (925.2 MBps).
The Alienware m17 R4 took just 6 minutes and 44 seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p in Handbrake. That time is 21% faster than the Aorus 17G, 18% quicker than the Flow X13 and a full 29% ahead of the Blade Pro 17.
Display on Alienware m17 R4
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The Alienware m17 R4 comes with a choice of three different, 17-inch display panels: a 1080p panel with 144 Hz refresh rate, a 4K, 60 Hz panel and the 1080p, 360 Hz panel in our review unit. Our panel provided sharp images and accurate but mostly unexciting colors, along with smooth, tear-free gaming.
When I watched a trailer for upcoming volcano-disaster-flick Skyfire, the red-orange of lava bursts was lively and the green trees in a forest seemed true-to-life. Fine details like the wrinkles in actor Jason Isaacs’ forehead also stood out.
In a 4K nature video of a Costa Rican jungle, details like the scales on a snake and colors like the red on a parrot’s feathers were also strong, but not nearly as strong as when I viewed it on the 4K, OLED panel from the Alienware m15 R4 I tested recently. On both videos, viewing angles on the matte display were strong as colors didn’t fade even at 90 degrees to the left or right.
In Cyberpunk 2077, details like the threads on a rug or the barrel of a gun were prominent and colors like the red and yellow in the UI seemed accurate but didn’t pop.
The Alienware m17 R4’s display registered a strong 316.2 nits of brightness on our light meter, outpacing the Aorus 17G (299.6), the Razer Blade Pro 17 (304.4) and the Asus ROG Flow X13 (281.6). According to our colorimeter, the screen can reproduce a solid 80.6% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which is about on par with the Aorus 17G and slightly behind the Razer Blade Pro 17, but miles ahead of the ROG Flow X13.
Keyboard and Touchpad on Alienware m17 R4
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With a deep, 1.7mm of travel, great tactile feedback and a full numeric keypad, the Alienware m17 R4 offers a fantastic typing experience. On the tenfastfingers.com typing test, I scored a strong 102 words-per-minute with a 3% error rate, which is a little better than my typical 95 to 100 wpm and 3 to 5% rate.
Not only does the keyboard have a full numeric keypad, but it also sports four customizable macro keys above the pad on the top row. The Alienware Command Center software allows you to set these to launch a program, enter text or use a pre-recorded set of keystrokes when you hit them. I found programming them very unintuitive, however.it. Alienware Command Center also allows you to set RGB colors or lightning effects for four different zones on the keyboard.
The 3.1 x 4.1 glass touchpad, which uses Windows precision drivers, offers great navigation with just the right amount of friction. Whether I was navigating around the desktop or using multitouch gestures such as pinch-zoom or three-finger swipe, the pad was always accurate and responsive.
Audio on Alienware m17 R4
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The Alienware m17 R4’s audio system outputs sound that’s loud enough to fill a mid-sized room and rich enough to dance to. When I played AC/DC’s “Back in Black” with the volume all the way up, the sound was mostly accurate, but some of the high-pitched percussion sounds were a little harsh. Earth, Wind and Fire’s bass-heavy “September” sounded great, with a clear separation of sound where instruments such as the horns section appeared to come from a different side of the notebook than, for example, the drums.
Gunshots and the sound of my NPC friend Jackie yelling at me to stay down sounded sharp and clear in Cyberpunk 2077. However, I had to turn the volume way up to compensate for the fan noise when the system was on high performance settings. Even on the “quiet” thermal setting, fan noise was quite prominent.
The preloaded Alienware Command Center app has an audio section that lets you tweak the sound settings and choose among profiles such as Music, Movie, Shooter and Role Play. I found that the default “Alienware” profile sounded about the same as the Music one, but disabling the audio enhancement definitely made the sound flatter.
Upgradeability of the Alienware m17 R4
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The Alienware m17 R4 has three different M.2 SSD slots, all of which are accessible and user upgradeable. The first slot is an short 2230 length and the other two are both the normal 2280 size. Unfortunately, the RAM is soldered onto the motherboard and therefore not replaceable.
Opening the Alienware m17 R4 should be easy: there are eight Philips-head screws, some of which come out and the others of which you can just loosen, on the bottom panel. In our testing, getting the screws loosened was easy by prying off the bottom panel was challenging and required several minutes with a spudger. Once the panel is off, all three SSDs are visible, but are covered by copper heat sinks you can easily unscrew.
Battery Life on Alienware m17 R4
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Forget about using the Alienware m17 R4 without a power outlet for any length of time. The laptop lasted just just 2 hours and 5 minutes on our battery test, which involves surfing the web over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness. That’s awful in comparison to all of its competitors as both the Gigabyte Aorus 17G and Razer Blade Pro 17 lasted for an identical 4 hours and 41 minutes. But this is a 17-inch, 6.6-pound laptop so portability isn’t a primary concern.
Heat on Alienware m17 R4
The main touchpoints on the Alienware m17 R4 stay relatively cool when you’re not gaming and remain warm but tolerable when you are. After we streamed a YouTube video for 15 minutes, the keyboard hit a reasonable 35.5 degrees Celsius (95.9 degrees Fahrenehitt), the touchpad was a chilly 26.2 degrees Celsius (79.3 degrees Fahrenheit) and the underside was just 36.6 degrees Celsius (97.9 degrees Fahrenheit).
After running the Metro Exodus benchmark for 15 minutes to simulate gaming, those temperatures were obviously higher. The keyboard hit 35.5 degrees Celsius (112 degrees Fahrenheit), the touchpad measured 35 degrees (95 degrees Fahrenheit) and the bottom hit 50 degrees (122 degrees Fahrenheit).
When I played Cyberpunk 2077, the area around the WASD keys measured about 40 degrees Celsius (105 degrees Fahrenheit) but the key caps themselves didn’t feel uncomfortably warm to touch. At performance settings, the fan noise was extremely loud.
Webcam on Alienware m17 R4
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The Alienware m17 R4’s 720p webcam is nothing special. Even when I shot it in a well-lit room, an image of my face was filled with visual noise and fine details like the hairs in my beard were blurry while colors such as the blue in my shirt and the green on the walls were muted. You’ll get by with this built-in camera if you need to, but you’d be better off springing for one of the best webcams.
Software and Warranty on Alienware m17 R4
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The Alienware m17 R4 comes preloaded with a handful of useful first-party utilities.
Alienware Mobile Connect allows you to control your Android handset or iPhone from your laptop, taking calls and texts for the desktop.
Alienware Command Center lets you control all the RGB lighting effects, set keyboard macros, tweak audio settings and even modify the performance settings and thermals to go for better performance or quieter and cooler temps. You can even change the max frequency, voltage and voltage offset for the CPU manually if you have an unlocked CPU and want to try overclocking.
As with any Windows laptop, there’s also a small amount of preloaded bloatware, including a trial of Microsoft Office, links to download Photoshop Express and Hulu and free-to-play games like Roblox.
Alienware backs the m17 R4 with a standard one year warranty on parts and labor that includes in-home service (if there was already a remote diagnosis). You can pay extra to extend the warranty up to five years and you can add accidental damage protection with no deductible.
Configurations of Alienware m17 R4
When you purchase the Alienware m17 R4 from Dell.com, you can custom configure it with your choice of a Core i7 or Core i9 CPU, RTX 3070 or 3080 GPU, up to 32GB of RAM and up to 4TB of storage. You can choose white or blackcolor options and you can also pay extra to get per-key RGB lighting instead of the standard 4-zone lighting we tested.
You also get a choice of screens that includes 144 Hz and 360 Hz 1080p panels, along with a 4K, 60 Hz panel that promises to hit 100 % of the Adobe RGB color gamut. If you value image quality over fps, we recommend the latter, because the color on our 360 Hz panel was ok, but not exciting.
Our review configuration of the Alienware m17 R4 currently goes for $3,586.79. For that price, you get the Core i9-10980HK, RTX 3080 graphics, the 360 Hz display, 32GB of RAM and a combination of storage drives that includes two, 1TB M.2 PCIe SSDS in RAID 0 and a 512GB M.2 SSD by itself for a total of 2.5TB of storage. Dell lists the RAID drive as the boot drive in its store but our review model came with the 512GB drive as boot and the 2TB RAID drive as storage, which seems odd.
Bottom Line
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At this point, it’s hard to imagine someone making a gaming laptop that’s significantly more powerful than the Alienware m17 R4 we tested unless they use desktop parts. The RTX 3080 is currently the fastest mobile GPU around, especially since Alienware didn’t opt for Nvidia’s more power efficient Max-Q technologies.. Using a strong cooling system, pairing it with a Core i9-10980HK, and you have performance that’s often 20% faster than competitors that also use RTX 3080s.
In addition to its strong performance, the Alienware m17 R4 offers a deep, tactile keyboard and a unique, attractive design that’s all its own. The 360 Hz screen is more than capable, but unless you’re a competitive gamer, you can go with the default screen or, better yet, go for the 4K panel which promises much richer colors.
The biggest drawbacks for this epic laptop are those which are kind of inherent to any 17-inch laptop which turns the performance volume up to 11. It’s heavy, has short battery life, emits plenty of fan noise. It’s also quite expensive. It would be nice if, for this price, you got a better-than-awful webcam, but most laptop webcams are terrible.
If you want to save a few dollars or you need a little more battery life, consider the Gigabyte Aorus 17G, which goes for $2,699 with similar specs (but just 1TB of storage) to our Alienware m17 R4. The 17G lasts more than twice as long on a charge and weighs 0.65 pounds less than the m17, but its gaming performance isn’t as good.
If you don’t feel attached to the 17-inch form factor, consider the Alienware m15 R4, which has the same design and keyboard but is much more portable, albeit hotter. It also has an optional, 4K OLED panel which has incredibly vibrant output. However, if you want the ultimate 17-inch gaming rig right now, the Alienware m17 R4 is your best choice.
The iPhone 12 Mini delivers a hugely satisfying iOS experience in a tiny package
For
Excellent OLED picture
Entertaining sound
iOS as slick as ever
Against
Battery life not outstanding
No charger supplied
If you have big hands, big pockets and a ‘bigger is better’ outlook on life, then the iPhone 12 Mini probably isn’t for you.
This is a smartphone for those who prefer a more subtle and discreet design, where pocket space is at a premium and you’d rather not pull a thumb muscle every time you attempt to write and send a text one-handed.
But, just because it’s been shrunk in the wash, doesn’t mean all its features have been diluted. On paper, you’re looking at virtually all the same ingredients that make the standard iPhone 12 so great, including the OLED screen tech and excellent camera. If the iPhone 12 Mini turns out the same way, we could quite easily be looking at another five-star performer.
Pricing
The iPhone 12 Mini might not be the cheapest iPhone Apple currently makes (that honour goes to the iPhone SE (2020)) but it is the most affordable handset in the current ‘12’ range.
The iPhone 12 Mini costs £699 ($699, AU$1199) for the 64GB model, and £749 ($749, AU$1479) for the 128GB model, while the range-topping 256GB variant will set you back £849 ($849, AU$1449). This makes it around £100 ($100, AU$150) cheaper than the equivalent iPhone 12.
Features
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If you’re used to wielding a standard iPhone 11 or a Pro or Pro Max, the iPhone 12 Mini appears almost toy-like when you take it out of the packaging. It’s the smallest and lightest iPhone in Apple’s current line-up and in your hand, it feels like it.
But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. If you’re looking to downsize or want a premium iPhone experience in a device that won’t take up a huge amount of space, then this could be at the top of your shopping list.
The beauty of the iPhone 12 Mini is that it gets the same flat-edged design as its bigger siblings, such as the standard iPhone 12. This means it not only feels premium, but it’s easy to get a grip of the aerospace-grade aluminium enclosure even if the curved edges of the iPhone 11 sit more comfortably.
Apple iPhone 12 Mini tech specs
(Image credit: Apple)
Screen size 5.4in
Type OLED
Resolution 2340 x 1080
Operating system iOS 14
Finishes x5
Battery life 15hrs video, 50hrs audio
Dimensions (hwd) 13.2 x 6.4 x 0.7cm
Weight 133g
Thankfully, the iPhone 12 Mini gives off the same premium impression as the other models in the line-up whether it’s in the black finish of our review sample or the alternative white, blue, green or Product Red options.
The big attraction of the iPhone 12 Mini is the fact that it shares virtually the same features as the standard iPhone 12. This includes the OLED Super Retina XDR display, which measures 5.4in across the diagonal. By contrast, the standard model measures 6.1in.
Looking through the specs, you’ll also see that the 12 Mini is shorter and narrower than the cheaper iPhone SE (2020) but its screen is actually bigger (5.4in versus 4.7in), thanks to black bars encroaching into the top and bottom of the SE’s screen. The SE has to accommodate a Touch ID sensor, while the 12 Mini uses Apple’s Face ID tech, like the rest of the iPhone 12 range.
The resolution of the Mini is 2340 x 1080 with an accompanying pixel density of 476ppi (pixels per inch). This compares to 2532 x 1170 and 460ppi on the iPhone 12. It’s a True Tone and Wide colour display and there’s HDR support for HDR10, Dolby Vision and HLG content. As a result, it’s possible for the iPhone 12 Mini to reach a peak brightness of 1200 nits (compared with 625 nits for SDR content).
As is the case with the standard 12, the Mini’s screen also features Apple’s Ceramic Shield front cover, which Apple claims boosts the phone’s durability by making it less likely to crack on impact with hard surfaces. However, it attracts fingerprints and dust, a fact that’s regularly highlighted on the darker finishes.
The iPhone 12 Mini may not have the bulk and heft of the other iPhone 12 models, but it doesn’t sacrifice any power under the hood. It gets Apple’s new A14 Bionic chip and next-gen Neural Engine. We find it provides a wonderfully quick and satisfying user experience in both the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro Max, and the same can be said for the iPhone 12 Mini.
If you’re familiar with Apple iOS, it won’t take long to get to grips with the Mini. It takes multi-tasking in its stride and never puts up any resistance to having a large number of apps open all at once. Whether you’re opening and streaming from Apple apps, such as Apple Music and Podcasts, or third-party services, including Netflix or Amazon Music, the iPhone 12 Mini fires them all up and gets the ball rolling with minimal fuss.
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Apple has also squeezed in the exact same camera set-up on the Mini as on the standard 12. That means a 12MP dual-lens set-up on the back that’s perfect for those who want to point and shoot high good quality pictures with minimal fuss in both decent and sub-optimal lighting conditions. The iPhone 12 Mini can also record video in Dolby Vision at 30 frames per second, which gives the phone an extra string to its bow for those who do the occasional bout of vlogging.
So far, it’s been pretty much plain sailing for the iPhone 12 Mini, but there is one drawback to this tiny iPhone. To get that smaller, more pocketable design, Apple has had to sacrifice battery life. Apple refrains from quoting the actual size of its batteries, but a quick look at its website reveals a drop in both video playback (15 hours versus 17 hours) and audio playback (50 hours versus 65 hours) compared with the iPhone 12.
On an average day, using a mix of video streaming, audio streaming, web browsing and taking calls, the battery regularly drops below the level of our iPhone 12. Though never in danger of running out completely, it’s worth bearing in mind that regular charging will be required.
A dedicated charger could come in handy here but, disappointingly, Apple ships its latest iPhones with just a USB-C to Lightning cable. There are no Earpods in the box, either, which is at least a good excuse to check out our guide to the best wireless headphones.
Screen
(Image credit: Apple / Tredstone, Amazon Prime)
We play Stranger Things Season 3 and, as the Soviet scientists try to open a gate to the Upside Down, their laboratory is lit up as their mighty machinery spins into life. As all the components start to move, the iPhone’s screen bursts bright with huge sparks of bright white electricity that contrast nicely against the darkness of the dingy-looking lab.
As the Soviet general watches on, the iPhone 12 Mini manages to dig out plenty of detail in his face and uniform, from his pock-marked skin to the fine stitching on his uniform. The balance the iPhone strikes makes video inviting and watchable. The picture mimics that of the iPhone 12 and, despite the slight drop in resolution, the increased pixel density means you never feel as though you’re missing out on detail.
As the episode shifts location to the Starcourt Mall with its neon exterior and brightly lit interior, the iPhone 12 Mini treats this burst of colour confidently and fairly. Colours burst into view as the camera pans through the mall, but they’re also perfectly judged, whether it’s the striking shade of blue that dominates the Scoops Ahoy sign or the colourful 80s clothing worn by the hoards of shoppers.
Sound
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Like its bigger sibling, the iPhone 12 Mini supports Dolby Atmos and Apple’s own spatial Audio processing, which you can experience if you own a pair of AirPods Pro or AirPods Max headphones.
Unsurprisingly, the Mini sounds like a slightly smaller-scale version of the iPhone 12. The balance is similar – you don’t notice any real reduction in quality or tone apart from a slight drop in solidity and weight. It also starts to sound stressed a little sooner when you start to ramp up the volume. What you get, though, is still a perfectly listenable performance by smartphone standards.
During the Stranger Things scene in the Russian lab, as the machine whirs and spins into life, the mechanics sound crisp and there’s a good sense of detail and spread of sound. Dialogue is clear and easy to understand and the phone will easily dispatch an episode of your favourite Netflix series or a quick Spotify stream without issue.
Hook up a pair of wireless headphones and the Mini sounds mighty. We start with a Tidal stream of Billie Eilish’s Bad Guy and the bassline and drums stomp along with power and intent. But it also captures the delicacy and fine detail from Eilish’s vocals. The claps and clicks are crisp and refined too. We tend to find iPhones talented when it comes to timing and following rhythms and the 12 Mini is no different.
Switching to Dual Of The Fates from Star Wars The Phantom Menace soundtrack, the iPhone handles its speed and sprightly nature with confidence and composure. All the different orchestral elements can be picked apart, but the listener can also bask in the music as all the strands come together as a wonderfully cohesive whole.
The phone has multiple changes of pace to contend with and also sudden shifts in dynamics from quiet moments to huge crescendos, but none of these fluster the iPhone 12 Mini.
Verdict
If a super-sized handset is out of the equation, but you still want a premium Apple experience, the iPhone 12 Mini could be the smartphone for you. It offers all the top features of the iPhone 12, but in a smaller, more pocket-friendly package.
It is smooth and speedy to use, camera quality is great and picture and sound performance are both excellent for the money. The battery life takes a small hit, but that doesn’t really detract from this hugely talented tiny iPhone.
The iPhone 12s Pro gets a renewed screen with a smaller notch and an under-display Touch ID sensor. Renders show the new Apple smartphone in detail.
New Apple smartphones are being released every year around September. The iPhone 12 series was introduced last year. Relatively minor changes are expected in 2021, therefore Apple may decide not use the name “iPhone 13”, but will opt for “iPhone 12s” instead. Regardless of which model name Apple chooses, there seem to be four models in the planning. Just like last year, a mini, a base model, a Pro and a Pro Max is expected.
Although it will take several months before Apple will announce the new models, a lot of information has already appeared online about the iPhone 12s series. One of the most frequently heard changes compared to 2020; the notch finally seems to be getting smaller. In this publication we will limit ourselves to the Pro model.
iPhone 12s Pro with updated screen and Touch ID under the display
The design will remain almost identical, after all, the design of the iPhone 12 series has already been renewed. The display size of the iPhone 12s Pro will probably remain the same, however the 6.1-inch OLED display will be improved. The new Pro models will support a high 120 Hertz refresh rate for the first time. It is an LTPO display, which enables an adaptive refresh rate. This allows considerable savings on battery consumption.
Another important change from previous years; Apple will likely implement an under-display fingerprint sensor. The Touch ID functionality that Apple incorporated in the home button for years was praised for a long time. Afterwards, Apple started to focus on advanced 3D Face ID technology. As a result no iPhone models have been released with a fingerprint sensor since 2017 – except for the iPhone SE 2020.
The iPhone 12s Pro / Pro Max will likely be the first smartphones from the US manufacturer to feature a fingerprint sensor under the screen. Apple will probably use a sensor from chip manufacturer Qualcomm. The 5G modems that Apple uses also come from Qualcomm. The Face ID functionality will be maintained, which will simply give users additional options to secure and unlock their smartphone.
The Dutch designer Jermaine Smit, aka Concept Creator, has made a new YouTube video in collaboration with LetsGoDigital in which the expected iPhone 12s Pro can be seen from all sides. The product renders used for this publication are also designed by Jermaine.
Improved camera and new hardware
Apple also seems to make the necessary changes when it comes to the camera. Industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reported some time ago that the two Pro models will have a greatly improved ultra-wide angle lens (f / 1.8) with autofocus. In addition, Apple seems to want to use larger image sensors this time.
In terms of design, no major changes are expected, although the camera system may be slightly thicker. In addition, in contrary to last year Apple will not make any difference between the camera system of the iPhone 12s Pro and that of the Pro Max. Thus, these two models will mainly differ in display size and battery capacity.
It goes without saying that the new models will also be equipped with the latest hardware and software. The Silicon Valley company seems to integrate a 5nm A15 Bionic chipset this time that makes 5G and WiFi 6th support possible. The iPhone 12 models already offered 5G support, but WiFi 6E is new.
The recently introduced Samsung Galaxy S21 smartphones also support the new WiFi 6E technology. As with WiFi 6, this allows you to achieve higher performance, lower latency and faster data rates. The improved WiFi 6th variant uses the 6Ghz band, which offers more space than the existing 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz frequency bands.
With the new 6Ghz band it is easier to send a lot of data in one go, but the range is more limited than with the already existing 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz frequency bands. The latter bands also remain available with WiFi 6e.
Battery and MagSafe charging accessory
As for the battery, last year the Pro model was equipped with a 3,046mAh battery. This guarantees 17 hours of video watching or 11 hours of video streaming. The device supports 20W wired charging and 15W wireless charging. The 12s Pro will probably have similar battery specs.
It has long been rumored that Apple wants to introduce at least one phone model without a charging port. This device will only support wireless charging. This is where the new MagSafe charging system comes in handy, which was announced at the time of the iPhone 12 series. With this accessory you can charge the device wirelessly with a maximum charging power of 15W.
Incidentally, it recently became known that both the iPhone 12 smartphones and the MagSafe accessories can pose a danger to people with a pacemaker or other medical implants. The many magnets can create an electromagnetic field, which disrupts pacemakers and defibrillators.
Apple therefore advises to keep a minimum distance of 15 cm between the pacemaker and the mentioned Apple products at all times. A minimum distance of 30cm is recommended during wireless charging. Obviously, it is not only iPhones that suffer from this. Electronic products are increasingly fitted with magnets, all of which can pose a hazard to medical devices.
You will probably have heard that since the launch of the iPhone 12, Apple does not include a charger or EarPods in the sales package. Now that Samsung has also decided to no longer supply a charger or earplugs with the Galaxy S21 series, this trend seems to be continuing. Despite this decision, Apple can look back on a very successful launch, the sales numbers of the 12 series are significantly higher than in previous years.
Recently published quarterly figures show that the sales numbers of the 12 series are no less than 17% higher than those of the 11 series, in the same period a year earlier. Consumers have therefore not punished Apple for omitting the charger and earphones. In contrast, the addition of 5G seems to have been a reason for many to buy a new iPhone.
iPhone 13 or iPhone 12s series?
When it comes to the naming, earlier this month Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman reported that Apple is considering opting for an “s” upgrade this year as no major changes are being made. This is partly due to COVID-19, due to the continuing pandemic Apple engineers can only be found a few days a week, in limited numbers, at the Silicon Valley offices. This makes product development a lot more complicated.
Shortly after the publication of Gurman, Apple analyst Jon Prosser confirmed that this time the name will indeed be iPhone 12s. Obviously nothing has been confirmed yet, but it does not sound entirely unlikely. After all, Apple has used the addition “s” more often when it came to minor upgrades. Consider, for example, the iPhone 6s / 6s Plus and the more recently introduced iPhone Xs / Xs Max.
Jon Prosser also claims that Apple will probably never release an iPhone 13 series. Superstition would play an important role in this. Because “13” is an unlucky number in Western countries, Apple would immediately want to opt for iPhone 14 next year.
No concrete information is yet known about the price of the new iPhone models. The iPhone XS, the one year later announced iPhone 11 Pro and the even more recent iPhone 12 Pro all came at a starting price of € 1,160. With the latter model, the minimum storage capacity was doubled to 128GB.
The iPhone 12s Pro will probably have a similar suggested retail price and will also be offered in the same memory variants: 128GB, 256GB and 512GB. Apple is expected to announce the four new smartphone models in September 2021.
Note to editors : The product images in this publication are created in collaboration with Jermaine Smit, aka Concept Creator. These 3D renders are for illustrative purposes only. This product is not for sale, Apple is expected to launch the iPhone 2021 series in September. The images are copyright protected. Feel free to use these materials on your own website, please be so respectful to include a source link into your publication.
With the superb construction, elegant design and perfectly natural sound of the Michi P5 and S5 combo from Rotel, the only question left to ask is ‘how much?’ The pair offer awesomely low noise with huge output and do so in a gorgeous package.
For
Superb sound
Prestige appearance
Great built-in DAC
Against
No AES/EBU input
Cross-talk between each unit’s remote
Incredibly heavy and bulky
Aus Hi-Fi mag review
(Image credit: Future)
This review and test originally appeared in Australian Hi-Fi magazine, one of What Hi-Fi?’s sister titles from Down Under. Click here for more information about Australian Hi-Fi, including links to buy individual digital editions and details on how to subscribe.
Rotel Michi S5 tested at £3299 (AU$5999). Rotel Michi P5 tested at £5399 (AU$10,399).
Can a famous brand be a victim of its own success? Ask any professional marketing person that question and their answer will be a resounding “Yes!” Take, for example, one of the world’s most famous motor vehicle manufacturers, Toyota.
Toyota is not only one of the most famous car companies in the world, it also sells more passenger vehicles than any other car manufacturer. But when it first tried to enter the luxury vehicle market to compete against the likes of Rolls Royce, Mercedes Benz and Daimler, with its fabulous – and famous – Century model, it could not gain any traction on the world market.
No-one wanted to buy one, despite its technical superiority and the provision of luxury fittings no other vehicle had, such as reclining rear seats with built-in massage systems, and doors that opened and closed electronically at the touch of a button. Still in production, the Toyota Century is the vehicle that is used to transport both the Japanese Emperor Naruhito and the former Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzō Abe.
It wasn’t the money that stopped those who could afford it from buying a Toyota Century (the current model will set you back more than AU$250,000), it was the badge on the bonnet. Because anyone could own a Toyota, it seems that the rich didn’t want to be seen in one. Motoring enthusiasts didn’t want to be seen in one either. Imagine if, when asked what type of exotic vehicle they drove, they had to answer “a Toyota”.
So what did Toyota do? It started building luxury vehicles that didn’t have the Toyota badge on them, but another one. That name?
You know it already: Lexus. And they sold like hot cakes (and still do), because, quite frankly, not everyone can own a Lexus.
Which brings us to Rotel.
At the start of the hi-fi era, in the 70s, Rotel was by far and away the best-selling hi-fi component manufacturer in Japan and, indeed, in all probability the best-selling hi-fi brand right around the world, with a well-deserved reputation for delivering top quality at reasonable prices.
However, as more and more manufacturers entered its particular niche in the hi-fi market, Rotel’s market share diminished, so that in the early 90s, the company decided to start building high-powered, high-performance ‘luxury’ models to compete against the likes of Luxman and Accuphase in its home market, and against the likes of McIntosh and Audio Research on the world stage.
The models it built were undeniably fabulous and were certainly completely different visually from all other Rotel products, exemplified by the appearance of the RHC-10 preamplifier and RHB-10 dual mono power amplifier, to name but two. The company also learned from Toyota’s marketing faux pas and branded the models ‘Michi’, which is often translated from the Japanese as meaning ‘Righteous Way’. But instead of leaving it at that, it marketed the brand as ‘Michi by Rotel’. You can guess the rest.
This time around, twenty years into a new century, the Michi brand name is just ‘Michi’, the marketing is for ‘Michi’ and the brand writ large on the front panels is also just ‘Michi’. It’s only if you look around the back that you’ll find small lettering that says ‘By Rotel’. “Michi is taking Rotel’s values of excellent performance and value into the high-end segment with models that offer new levels of engineering, build and design while setting new reference standards for audio performance,” says managing director Peter Kao. “We have used all of our 55 years of design and manufacturing experience to create our best-ever products.”
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Michi S5 preamplifier
The front panel of the Michi S5 Control Preamplifier’s austere exterior, with its black glass plate and two large rotary controls gives absolutely no clue as to the complexity of what’s inside it… at least it doesn’t until you switch it on and its brilliant full-colour OLED panel springs into life.
Then, if you spin the left-most control to see what sources might be on offer, you’ll discover that the P5 has no fewer than six line level inputs, four of which are unbalanced (via RCA inputs) and two of which are balanced (via XLR) plus a single phono input which you can switch between being most suitable for either moving-coil or moving-magnet cartridges.
On the digital side, you get six SPDIF inputs, three optical and three coaxial, as well as USB and Bluetooth. Curiously, there is no AES/EBU input.
The Michi S5’s extensive menu system allows owners sophisticated customisation options for all inputs, so you can switch off the ones you’re not using so they don’t appear when you’re scrolling through inputs, rename any or all of the inputs to more accurately reflect whatever component you have connected to them, plus you can use the Michi’s bass and treble controls to make specific tonal modifications attach to the specific input you’re using.
You can also fix a specific volume level to each input that will override any other volume setting and cannot itself by changed using the front panel volume control or the infra-red remote control’s up/down buttons. Michi says of this feature: “This is useful for input sources that include their own volume setting like common Apps on phones or tablets.”
Look around the rear of the amplifier and you’ll find some additional digital connections, but the network port is only for firmware updates and control over IP, and that USB-A socket is only there to power external devices. It has no digital signal capability. The RS232 connector is there, of course, to facilitate custom installation integration.
Also on the rear panel are six pairs of stereo line outputs, labelled ‘Line Out’, ‘Mono Sub Out’, ‘Pre Out1’ and ‘Pre Out2’, ‘Balanced Out1’ and ‘Balanced Out2’. The ‘left’ and ‘right’ subwoofer outputs are not stereo: as the labelling suggests, each one outputs a summed signal derived from both channels. You also get two digital outputs, one coaxial and the other optical.
The USB input supports 16-bit and 24-bit PCM from 44.1kHz up to 384kHz as well as DSD64 and DSD128, but to do this via a PC, you’ll have to load a Windows Driver, which Michi helpfully supplies on a USB stick. Mac users, of course, don’t need a driver: their computers will just work properly with the Michi. The SPDIF inputs support 16/24 PCM up to 192kHz. Digital decoding is accomplished using an AKM4490EQ 32-bit/768 kHz dual DAC, one of the best of the currently available devices.
Whereas Rotel equipment was once manufactured in Japan, like the great majority of Japanese hi-fi manufacturers (and many other hi-fi manufacturers around the world), it is now manufactured in China, and the same is true for components bearing the Michi name. However, Rotel retains a point of difference from most manufacturers because it owns its own factory in Zhuhai in China, which it established in 2005. Rotel says that although Michi components are manufactured at that same facility, they are made in a separate section of one of the factories.
(Image credit: Rotel)
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Michi P5 power amplifier
Me saying earlier on that the front panel of the Michi S5 was austere doesn’t leave me much to say about the Michi P5 stereo power amplifier’s front panel because, as you can see for yourself, it’s even more umm… austere.
There’s just a single button at the bottom centre of its front panel, which is actually a standby power switch, since the main power switch is on the rear panel. Since power amplifiers consume a lot of power even when they’re not being used, and particularly so in the case of the Michi P5, which is rated with a power output of 500-watts per channel into 8Ω, you can choose to have the Michi P5 switch itself off automatically after a no-signal period of 20 minutes, 1, hour, 2 hours, 5 hours or 10 hours. Alternatively, you can disable the automatic power-down circuit completely so it never switches off.
As with the S5, the P5 has a very bright OLED display whose primary feature is its ability to act as a spectrum analyser, showing the spectrum of the music being played in your choice of 8, 12 or 16 bands, or you can choose to have the display act as a VU meter, for which there are four different options (VU/x2/x4/x8). For either setting you can choose between four different brightness levels, or you can choose to switch the display off entirely.
The display also shows the input voltage at the top right of the display and the temperature of the heatsinks at the top left. The voltage shown on the display (240V) didn’t actually reflect the mains voltage in my home at the time, which was 244V, so it might just show the intended operating voltage, rather than the actual voltage being delivered to the amplifier.
Being a power amplifier, all the action is around the rear, and you should be able to see from the photograph that the Michi P5 has two sets of inputs, one balanced (XLR) and the other unbalanced (gold-plated RCA). The rocker switch that selects which of the two will be active is located above them, with a network port and RS232 to its left, and 12V trigger inputs and outputs to its right.
There are two pairs of high-quality speaker terminals that are colour-coded and have collars that make it very easy for the knobs to get a grip on bare wire, plus you can also use banana plugs. In a really welcome move, the knobs are completely removable, so you can use ultra-secure insulated eye terminal terminations on your speaker cables if you like.
As you might have guessed from the size of the Michi P5’s chassis, the rated power output into 4Ω (800-watts) and the relatively limited amount of heatsinking – along with the fact that the heatsinks are covered by a protective layer of aluminium – the output devices are fan-cooled, for which purpose there are two large (90mm diameter) holes in either side of the rear panel.
These holes are the exits for air-cooling ducts at the other end of which are located ultra-quiet, low-speed fans that switch on when the output transistors reach a temperature of 39°C. These fans are so quiet that when they’re operating you’ll only be able to hear them by putting your ear up to the duct exit, and even then you’ll hear only a very soft sound; one that sounds uncannily as if someone is exhaling softly through their fully opened mouth.
As for those output transistors, there’s quite a few of them to be cooled – 32 of them, in fact. The power delivered to them issues from a pair of 2.2kVA transformers made in-house by Rotel itself. This is not surprising, because Rotel has been making its own mains power transformers for many years. What is rather surprising is that the four 47,000µF capacitors linked (two each via regulators) to each of these transformers are made in the UK.
I say “surprising” because Rotel is also famous for making its own capacitors, but its website informed me that it “always sources the best capacitor for each specific application”, which means that in the case of its Michi components, it uses slit-foil and T-Network electrolytic capacitors from the UK; Rubycon electrolytic capacitors from Japan; and LCR polystyrene capacitors from Wales. The integrated circuits come from Analog Devices, Texas Instruments and Burr-Brown, companies that are all domiciled in the USA.
Can I warn you in advance not to attempt to lift – or even manoeuvre – a Michi S5 on your own? Its dimensions (485x238x465mm) would make it an awkward lift at the best of times, but no matter what its dimensions, its dead weight of 60kg would make it impossible… unless you’re an Olympic weightlifter.
Performance
Rather unusually these days, Michi includes interconnects with its components. I say “unusually” because most manufacturers try to cull favour with their retailers by not including interconnects, so those retailers can make additional profit by adding interconnects to the sale.
While I have to admire Michi for doing this, the quality of the interconnects it supplies would have me asking my friendly retailer what other interconnects he might have available. The quality is, however, a moot point, because Michi provides only unbalanced interconnects, and given the choice between using balanced or unbalanced connectors to link a pre-amplifier with a power amplifier, I’d choose balanced connectors every time, so that means I’d have to spring for balanced interconnects anyway.
Each component comes with its own remote control, but the two are identical, so you can keep one for a spare. The remotes are of extremely high quality and very attractive. If only Michi had seen fit to supply high-quality name-brand alkaline (or even lithium) batteries to install in them rather than the ones it does provide. I didn’t chance it, and used my own Eveready batteries instead. Why Eveready? Because the company guarantees that its batteries will not leak, and a remote control can be ruined by a leaking battery as, to my chagrin, I once discovered.
Both units not only have identical remote controls, those controls also use identical infra-red remote codes. This has the advantage that the same remote signal turns both units on and off, and adjusts display brightness, for example. But in this case it also introduces a curious quirk so that when you’re using the remote to tell the P5 to do something, the same remote signal will tell the S5 to do something completely different… which may be, for example, to switch the display from spectrum analysis to VU.
Since any changes implemented on the P5 by this behaviour are completely benign (i.e. they have absolutely no affect on the amplifier’s sound quality or its performance or, in fact, anything that could affect the music playing at the time) I didn’t worry about it and just regarded it as a quirk. However, if you’re particularly bothered by it, you could just obscure the P5’s IR receiver so it couldn’t receive the signal.
Set-up is quite intuitive, so you are unlikely to have reason to have recourse to either of the two Owners’ Manuals, but if you do you’ll be pleased to find that they’re well-written, well-illustrated and highly informative. During set-up please resist the temptation to place the P5 on top of the S5, despite the obvious physical and visual temptations to do so. Both devices will return better performance if they’re placed side by side, or one above the other on separate racks of a proper hi-fi component shelving system.
My review units were obviously relatively new, so I made sure to burn them in continuously for several days using pink noise at relatively high volume to do so, avoiding any sonic annoyances by wiring one of the two speakers out of phase then facing it directly in front of the other loudspeaker so almost everything cancelled out. (If you haven’t ever tried this, it’s not only a great burn-in aid, but also a great party trick!)
After the long wait I was pretty eager by the time the listening sessions were scheduled and I’m here to tell you it was well worth the wait. The sound was absolutely enthralling, totally realistic and completely captivating.
I knew I was in for a treat because there was no need to acclimatise myself to anything or work my way into the listening session. Right from the outset it was all just wide smiles and toes a-tapping and allowing tracks to play right through, rather than switching to other tracks to evaluate different areas of performance.
The result of all this was that I spent rather more time listening to the Michis than I really should have given the time constraints involved in preparing a review for this issue, but there were no complaints from me. If the Michis had been performers, I would would certainly have been on my feet calling for an encore.
This same high level of performance proved true for whatever input I used, because the Michi P5’s digital and phono stages are truly excellent. If you’re a true vinylista you’ll want to use an external phono stage that enables greater precision with cartridge matching than the P5’s ‘one input fits all’ phono stage, but if you play vinyl only irregularly, I think you’ll be more than happy with the sound of the phono stage… I certainly was. I couldn’t fault the digital inputs either, whether I used SPDIF or USB. They’re so good that there would be absolutely no need to invest in an external DAC unless you’re one of those audiophiles that actually likes fiddling with different filter settings and oversampling rates. So full marks to Michi here as well.
What did I find so enthralling about the sound? Everything really. But overall, I’d have to say that what’s most impressive is the totality of the very real and tangible feeling that a musical event is taking place right there in your own room. The sonic presentation is so lively and so true-to-life it will take your breath away.
And if you’re into trying to achieve true-to-life listening levels, then the Michi S5 is amongst those very few amplifiers that will be able to realise this for you effortlessly, without stress, without distortion, without impacting on your mains power bill… and without its chassis becoming so hot you need to ruin the ambience by turning on the air-conditioning.
That said, the Michi S5’s chassis can become warm if you work it very, very hard, so do give it some room to breathe, but that said, I found that it runs far cooler than most amps of its ilk.
‘Massive’ would be the best descriptor for the bass I heard from this Michi combo, but it was at the same time delicate and tuneful. I can think of no better demonstration of these twin virtues than to suggest that you listen to the tympani in the second movement of Beethoven’s Ninth, the famous Choral Symphony.
Yes, their sound is impactful, impressive and thunderous, but many high-end amplifiers can do this. What most can’t do is reveal that there’s only two being played, or that they’re tuned an octave apart. But using this Michi duo, I could hear this instantly… and that’s a metric I’d call not just revealing, but a revelation.
But if the Michi’s ability to reveal minutiae in the bass regions is impressive, its ability is equally impressive across the midrange… if not more so. And if you want to check the midrange ability of any component, one of the best albums to use is the one that debuted Chick Corea on electric keyboard but also has two of my favourites, Joe Farrell and Flora Plurim. Despite being recorded in 1972 (or perhaps because of it), the recording is stunningly good, whether it’s Plurim’s rich scat singing or the clarity with which Corea’s staggeringly lyrical electric piano playing is revealed, and the Michis revealed everything with crystal clarity.
On this album, you can really hear how an amplifier’s ability to deliver air in the midrange aids one’s ability to hear multiple instruments clearly, no matter how closely they compete for space. Whereas I think that many of the once-revered jazz fusion albums now sound dated, ‘Return to Forever’ sounds as though it could have been recorded yesterday.
The Michis’ high-frequency performance didn’t disappoint either. I’m generally a great fan of Ludovico Einaudi (though perhaps not of his more minimalist stuff) and his album ‘Elements’ from 2015 is one of my favourites for testing the extreme highs, and most particularly the second track, Night. Just listen to that ethereal opening synth as it loops and then the way Einaudi layers all the other sounds over it. The stabbing piano notes are interjected at the perfect moments. It’s a great example of why timing is everything, and why component-chain timing is crucial for an authentic high-fidelity listening experience.
Great stereo separation and magnificent stereo imaging are crucial to tricking the ear and the brain into imagining the reproduced sound is ‘live’, and the Michis demonstrated both to perfection when replaying Canadian chanteuse Holly Cole’s Train Song, from her 1995 Tom Waits tribute album ‘Temptation’. Although it’s also a great tester of bass, I prefer to use the myriad sounds of Cyro Baptista’s tinkly percussion to evaluate high-frequency reproduction, stereo imaging and, for amplifiers, channel separation. And what I heard from the Michis was as good as I’ve ever heard from any pre/power combo. Bravo!
(Image credit: Rotel)
Final verdict
You need to see the Michi P5 and M5 in the flesh to see how superbly they’re built. Words can’t really begin to describe that. But you also need to hear for yourself how music that’s played through them sounds, because words can’t even begin to describe that… though if you started off by saying “totally and completely natural”, you’d be off to a very good start.
This Michi P5/S5 combo gets it right. Really nails it, in fact. If you want good looks, insanely high power output, low noise, superb performance and, most importantly, great sound, you’ve arrived at your destination.
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Laboratory test report
Before going into detail about the results of Newport Test Labs’ test results, it’s extremely important to note that for the purposes of this test, Australian Hi-Fi specified that all tests had to be conducted with both the Michi S5 and Michi P5 in the ‘test loop’. Therefore there are very few results that can be compared with Michi’s own specifications, which are gained by testing the components individually, or indeed against the results from any other audio test laboratory that has not tested the two amplifiers as a ‘combo’.
It means that, in effect, we’re reporting ‘worst case’ results because for results such as distortion, the inherent distortion of the Michi S5 are here added to that of the Michi P5, which obviously does not occur if the components are tested individually.
One of the few outcomes that would not change is power output, of course, and Newport Test Labs measured the power output of the Michi S5 at 612-watts per channel (27.8dBw), both channels driven into 8Ω, when it was delivering a 1kHz test signal. It was also able to deliver this exact same power when delivering a 20Hz test signal.
However, when Newport Test Labs used a 20kHz signal to test power output, the Michi P5’s protection circuitry kicked in when the output voltage reached 45 volts RMS, which is around 253-watts (24.0dBW) into 8Ω, and around 506-watts (27.0dBW) into 4Ω. The fact that the protection circuit kicked in was not a surprise in itself, because 20kHz is a very high frequency to use for testing power output, and the power spectrum of music is such the Michi P5’s rated output power (500-watts into 8Ω) would never be required at this frequency.
But because the protection kicked in a little earlier than we expected, we checked with Michi, which told us: “The S5 has been engineered and tested for continuous power output of 20Hz–20kHz but as you noticed we have protection circuitry to monitor what is considered abnormal operating conditions including short circuit, d.c. voltage on the outputs and over-current. As normal operations would not typically have a signal of this type (frequency/power) we do shut down the unit into protection at high power outputs at high frequency. We found it best practice to monitor and use an abundance of caution with the power output generated by the S5.”
When Newport Test Labs tested the power output of the Michi S5 into 4Ω loads, the same protection circuitry kicked in with 20kHz test signals, but the Michi S5 easily delivered 1052-watts (30.2dBW) per channel with 1kHz test signals, both channels driven into 4Ω and 1,024-watts (30.1dBW) per channel with 20Hz test signals (both channels driven into 4Ω). These independent laboratory test results at 1kHz and 20Hz show power output levels that are well above Michi’s power output specification for both loads.
It should also be noted that if Newport Test Labs had tested dynamic (short-term) power output, the Michi S5 would have delivered its rated power output, because the test signal used for this purpose is so short-term that it would not have triggered the protection circuitry, but the Australian amplifier power measurement standard specifies that the power output of high fidelity audio amplifiers must be measured (and stated) on a continuous, rather than a dynamic basis.
Frequency response is one test that would certainly be impacted by measuring both the P5 and S5 as a combo, yet as you can see from the tabulated results, the Michi combo delivered superlative performance, with Newport Test Labs measuring a response of 5Hz to 480kHz –3dB. The Michi combo’s frequency response across the audio band, which is shown in Graph 7, was measured as 20Hz to 20kHz ±0.18dB, which is self-evidently an excellent result.
The frequency response measured when the Michi S5 was driving a test load that simulates the load that would be presented to it by a typical hi-fi loudspeaker system is shown by the black trace on Graph 7, below.
(Image credit: Australian Hi-Fi Magazine)
You can see that it tracks the response gained with a non-inductive load almost perfectly, which shows that the Michi S5 will sound the same no matter what speakers you connect to it, and will also be able to perfectly control the back-emf from speakers that have large bass drivers. Although the Michi S5’s damping factor was more than will be required by any speaker system, it’s not overly high, with Newport Test Labs reporting it as DF61, on the back of an output impedance (at 1kHz) of 0.13Ω.
Channel separation was outstanding at low and midrange frequencies, as shown in the tabulated results, with the Michi combination returning test results of 105dB at 20Hz and 98dB at 1kHz. The 72dB result at 20kHz is excellent, and more than will ever be required in order to deliver perfect stereo imaging and separation, but a little short of what I might have expected.
However, this could easily have been influenced by where the amplifiers were placed on the test bench relative to each other, as well as by the interconnects connecting the two, so even-better results might be achieved under different conditions. The same could be said for the inter-channel phase results, even though these, too, are really excellent results.
Channel balance was amazingly good. Taken merely on its value of 0.019dB, no-one would ever have guessed this would be the result of testing a pre/power combination; It’s more like you’d get by testing a state-of-the-art stereo power amplifier on its own. This is a superb achievement by the engineers responsible for designing the Michis.
Newport Test Labs measured the A-weighted signal-to-noise ratio of the Michi P5/S5 combination as 76dB referenced to an output of 1-watt, and 103dB referenced to rated output. The 103dB result is excellent, but further suggests that the result at 1-watt, although good, could be further improved by careful component placement and interconnect routing.
(Image credit: Australian Hi-Fi Magazine)
Graph 1 shows the total harmonic distortion measured by Newport Test Labs when the Michi combo was delivering 1-watt into an 8Ω load. You can see there’s a second harmonic component at –95dB (0.00177%) and a fourth harmonic at –110dB (0.00031%) and that’s it: otherwise the noise floor above the fundamental is perfectly clean, and also sitting right down at –115dB (referred to one-watt). This is an excellent result, as both harmonics are harmonically related to the fundamental, which will ensure good sound.
(Image credit: Australian Hi-Fi Magazine)
Graph 2 shows the total harmonic distortion measured by Newport Test Labs when the Michi combo was delivering 1-watt into a 4Ω load. You can see the second harmonic component has increased slightly, to –88dB (0.00398%), and the fourth to –112dB (0.00025%) plus a third harmonic has appeared at –108dB (0.00039%) and a fifth at –113dB (0.00022%). Once again, this is excellent performance.
(Image credit: Australian Hi-Fi Magazine)
Graph 3 shows the total harmonic distortion measured by Newport Test Labs when the Michi combo was delivering 20-watts into an 8Ω load. As you’d have expected given the increase in power output, additional distortion components have been introduced, but the essential structure of the lower-order components is maintained, with the second harmonic component at –93dB (0.00223%), the third at –110dB (0.00031%), the fourth at –112dB (0.00025%) and the fifth at –115dB (0.00017%).
The difference in the visual appearance of the graph is due to the noise floor of the amplifier having dropped down to around –130dB, which speaks for itself.
You can see that the noise that contributed to the overall result mentioned previously and tabulated in the results is low-frequency in nature, as evidenced by the spikes at the extreme left of the graph.
(Image credit: Australian Hi-Fi Magazine)
Graph 4 shows the total harmonic distortion measured by Newport Test Labs when the Michi combo was delivering 20-watts into a 4Ω load.
Essentially the distortion components are the same as when driving an 8Ω load, but interestingly, there’s a slight increase in the noise floor. This, together with the one-watt results, would seem to suggest you should prefer 6Ω or 8Ω designs when choosing loudspeakers to partner with the Michis.
(Image credit: Australian Hi-Fi Magazine)
CCIF-IMD distortion (19kHz and 20kHz test signals at equal levels) into an 8Ω load is shown in Graph 5. As you can see, there’s nothing to be seen at all. Sensational performance! Not only are there not any of the side-bands around the high-frequency test signals I normally expect to see, there’s also no sign at all of a regenerated difference signal down at 1kHz.
(Image credit: Australian Hi-Fi Magazine)
When Newport Test Labs used the same CCIF-IMD test signal, but increased the power output to 20-watts (Graph 6, above), both the side bands and the regenerated signal were introduced into the output, but at very low levels: around –90dB (0.00316%) for the two primary side bands at 18kHz and 21kHz, and at around –105dB (0.00056%) for the regenerated signal. Once again, these are all outstandingly good results.
(Image credit: Australian Hi-Fi Magazine)
The tone control action of the Michi P5 is shown in Graph 8. You can see the bass control delivers around 11dB of boost that is nicely shelved at 20Hz, then rolls off below this, which is excellent design. It delivers rather more cut: around 17dB. This same graph also shows the action of the treble control, and you can see it offers 9dB of boost that shelves nicely at 20kHz. Again, this is excellent design.
As with the bass control, the treble control offers rather less high-frequency attenuation, but still a more-than-adequate 13dB at 20kHz. If you attenuate both bass and treble you will also reduce the overall volume slightly across the midrange, but this is of no import, as it could be easily corrected by increasing the volume slightly.
(Image credit: Australian Hi-Fi Magazine)
The Michi combo’s distortion at the S5’s rated power output (500-watts per channel into 8Ω) is shown in Graph 9. Once again, Michi’s engineers have excelled themselves, with distortion completely under control, such that the second-order component is at 93dB (0.00223%), all the even-order components are more than 100dB (0.001% down, and all the odd-order components are more than 120dB down (0.0001%).
All these distortion components are too low in level to be audible, but even if they were, even-order distortion is pleasing to the ear, so it wouldn’t be an issue. Note on this graph that the noise floor right across the audio spectrum is now down at –140dB, and even the low-frequency noise at the left of the graph, which is higher in level, is still more than 110dB down. Once again, excellent performance.
(Image credit: Australian Hi-Fi Magazine)
Square wave testing using a 100Hz square wave revealed what the frequency response already showed, with the tilt on the waveform indicating the Michi combo’s frequency response rolls off at low frequencies and does not extend to d.c. The slight curvature in the tilt also shows a tiny amount of group delay.
The overshoot on the leading edge shows that there is a rise in the Michi’s frequency response at an ultrasonic frequency. Further investigation into this by Newport Test Labs revealed that the rise was 3dB, and that the frequency of the peak was at 302kHz. This is interesting, and obviously measurable, but will have zero affect on the amplifier’s sound quality.
(Image credit: Australian Hi-Fi Magazine)
The 1kHz square wave shows the same h.f. overshoot, and some slight tilt on the horizontals, so it’s not a perfect result, but it’s so close to perfect as really doesn’t matter.
(Image credit: Australian Hi-Fi Magazine)
The 10kHz square wave’s horizontals are on the other hand, perfectly flat, and the rise-time is super-quick, so if it were not for the overshoot caused by the high-frequency rise to 302kHz, it would be a perfect result.
(Image credit: Australian Hi-Fi Magazine)
Newport Test Labs determines amplifier stability by placing a 2µF capacitor in parallel with an 8Ω load and driving the amplifier into this load using a 1kHz square wave as the test signal. As you can see from the oscillogram, the Michi was beautifully behaved, with just a quarter wave height overshoot that was completely damped within three cycles, so I can say that the S5 will be completely stable into even the most highly reactive loudspeakers.
When both units are in standby mode, they will still draw 2.41-watts from your mains power supply, which is rather higher than the Australian Government’s mandate for standby power consumption, but low enough that it would have almost zero effect on your utility bill.
When you’re using this Michi combo to listen to very loud music, the two will pull somewhere around 200-watts from your power supply, which is surprisingly modest considering the S5’s power rating. Combined power factor was measured at +0.627.
Overall, Newport Test Labs measured outstandingly good performance from this high-powered, low-distortion pre/power combination.
Philips has produced a brilliant OLED television, but the partnering soundbar isn’t quite at the same level
For
Tidy and appealing build
Punchy HDR and SDR pictures
Fabulous 4K detail
Against
UI a little dated
Mediocre motion processing
Sonically short on dynamics
Combining a television with an integrated soundbar can be a double-edged sword. It’s the height of TV sound convenience, but unless the soundbar is top quality, then you’re stuck with it. Enter the Philips 65OLED935 – a sleek, powerful television that aims to get around this inherent pitfall by having hi-fi specialist Bowers & Wilkins design and build the speaker system.
This isn’t Philips’s first combined television and soundbar. The company’s 2019 flagship OLED, the OLED934, was a similar creature, but with a far bigger Bowers bar built into a large floor stand. It proved to be a match made in AV heaven, so why break up the partnership?
This time, looks and price tag are considerably more modest, but its fresh take on the 3.1.2ch Dolby Atmos soundbar design makes this a tempting solution for those who like to keep things simple to use and easy on the eye.
But to describe the Philips 65OLED935 in those terms alone is doing it a disservice. Underneath that sculpted steel exterior, there is a TV with impressive specs that could even outperform its soundbar-less sibling, the five-star-rated Philips 65OLED805.
Now with a dual AI engine inside its top-of-the-line P5 processor, Philips is confident enough to describe the performance of the 935 as “OLED+”.
Build
(Image credit: Future)
Philips 65OLED935 tech specs
(Image credit: Future / Modern Love, Amazon Prime)
The Philips 65OLED935 is a classy looking set. It comes with a choice of two different chrome brackets in the box, one for wall-mounting and the other to use as a stand. The cable tidying system means that the join between the soundbar and the TV itself is seamless, leaving only your HDMI cables and power lines to tuck neatly away behind.
The stand and bracket are pretty heavy and highly polished, so take care they don’t slip out of your grasp when you’re putting this together. Fortunately, the wafer-thin OLED panel is nice and light. The stand needs a surface that’s at least 88cm wide and 26cm deep to accommodate it and if you choose to use the bracket, it stands 15cm proud of the wall.
There’s little to no bezel, just an even 2mm metal bead around the edge of the glass. On the back of the panel, you’ll find four HDMI sockets. Next-gen HDMI features are thin on the ground, though: there’s no support for 4K@120Hz (also known as HFR), VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) or eARC (Enhanced Audio Return Channel), although standard ARC and ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) do feature.
As well as the HDMIs there’s an optical audio-out, ports for connecting headphones and an external subwoofer, plus two USB slots. It’s Bluetooth-enabled for audio, too.
The soundbar houses ten separate drive units. There are two 5cm midrange cones plus a 19mm titanium-dome tweeter for the centre channel, one of the same cones and tweeters each for the left and right, and then a single racetrack-style 10cm x 6.5cm subwoofer unit on the top surface, ported to the rear. Also along that top edge are the two 5cm height speakers facing upwards for that Dolby Atmos effect.
The tweeters are decoupled from the main enclosure, with the centre one in a metal case of its own in B&W’s tweeter-on-top style. There’s a micromesh to protect those drivers on the upper surface and Philips’s acoustically transparent wool blend cloth, Kvadrat, across the front of the array.
Made from glass fibre-reinforced polycarbonate ABS, the enclosure is braced with internal rib sections to control resonance. It’s mounted to the TV with a stiff metal plate. If that sounds like an appealing level of attention to detail, you’ll also be pleased with the remote control, which is backed in Muirhead leather and feels very much the part for a premium OLED TV.
Features
(Image credit: Future)
Functionally, the remote is the same as we’ve had from Philips over the last few years. Much like the Android 9.0 operating system itself, all the right options are there but they’re not presented in a particularly wonderful, intuitive or user-friendly fashion.
Other manufacturers such as Samsung and LG are slicker and more progressive on this front and while it’s just about acceptable here, we’d expect to see the company up its game on this front before it falls too far behind the promised UI advances from Google TV and LG’s webOS 6.0.
The benefit of the Android OS is its app offering. All the UK catch-up services are present, along with Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and Netflix. During testing, we experienced a little bit of crackling through the speakers when using the Netflix app, but restarting the app sorted that out.
There’s no Apple TV or Apple Music on Android TV. For that, you’ll need to add an Amazon Fire TV Stick, Apple TV or other media streamer. Instead, your pay-as-you-go film and TV options are Rakuten and Google Play Movies & TV, neither of which is up there with the Apple TV app. You’re better covered for sport, though, with BT Sport and Now TV both on board.
In terms of picture technology, the OLED935 gets one or two bumps over the soundbar-less OLED805 thanks to the improved Philips P5 processor with its AI dual picture engine. The big one is AI Machine Learn Sharpness, a local level picture sharpening tool that enhances the textures and patterns of specific parts of the image, rather than applying a blanket tightening up across the whole display.
Another is AI Smart Bit Enhanced 2.0, which should remove colour banding without sacrificing detail. Last, but not least, is a boost for the Philips Perfect Natural Reality processing which aims to boost standard-def material so it looks more like Full HD.
The other picture tech of note is an anti-burn-in logo detection feature, which recognises permanent screen logos, such as those of TV networks, and dampens their effect. In testing, this works very well – we try out a Dolby Atmos test disc and the bright white intensity of the Dolby logo in the corner of the screen is dropped to a level that won’t tire the pixels so rapidly.
On the sound front, the big news is the 3.1.2 speaker arrangement, the Dolby Atmos support and upmixing, and the involvement of hi-fi specialist Bowers & Wilkins. The TV is also compatible with the DTS Play-Fi hi-res streaming standard, meaning you can set-up your soundbar to work as part of a multi-room system along with any other Play-Fi-enabled kit you might own.
No review of a top-end Philips TV is complete without a tip of the hat to Ambilight. The company’s delightful LED lightshow tech comes in its four-sided variety for the OLED935. You can set it to change colour according to the on-screen image, to music or even to mimic a national flag for sporting events. It’s a great feature and long may it last.
Picture
(Image credit: Future / Modern Love, Amazon Prime)
The Philips 65OLED935 supports both Dolby Vision and HDR10+ alongside HDR10 and HLG. We see what it makes of the first of these by slotting Spider-Man: Homecoming into our 4K Blu-ray player and the results are impressive.
Using the Dolby Vision Bright setting, the upgrades to the picture quality over the Philips OLED805 are small but clear. The scene where Peter gets stuck in the Deep Storage Vault has plenty of monochrome textures, bright colours and a large depth of field, but right from the off, the Philips AI processing works alongside the Dolby metadata to make a brilliantly punchy and vivid HDR picture.
The spidey suit really pops against a nicely detailed and defined set of greys in the background. The AI Machine Learn sharpening tech enhances the textural differences between the rough raw concrete slabs of the hangar entrance, without doing the same to the soft marbling of the polished floor. There’s a strong sense of colour precision to the hero’s mustard yellow backpack and the different red and blue shades of his outfit.
All the same, we prefer Philips’ take on the film with the TV’s HDR AI preset, which is an excellent quick-fix solution for getting the most out of Dolby Vision films. This setting keeps things simple but leaves the user with the five main Philips processing modes to experiment with. Keep the Perfect Motion and Perfect Contrast settings at a minimum and you won’t go far wrong.
The HDR Personal mode squeezes every last drop of the excellent picture performance from this TV. Once balanced for brightness, the OLED Contrast slider offers the best customisation. The higher you go, the more zing you’ll add to the colours, however, you lose a little of the sense of depth to the picture.
Heading to the film’s climax, there are some healthy levels of dark detail on show alongside some lusciously deep OLED blacks. We can still make out the folds and the feel of the material of the Vulture’s leather jacket and sheepskin collar. Those details are just shy of the best LED-backed TVs, but the trade-off for those blacks is worth it here.
(Image credit: Future / Modern Love, Amazon Prime)
Philips has upped its motion processing game for its most recent TVs by adding a couple of extra modes. All the same, the actual quality of the underlying tech is similar to what we’ve found in previous years – perfectly decent, but not in the same league as the likes of Sony and Panasonic.
We prefer the light touches of either Pure Cinema or Movie mode, although many will prefer to turn the processing off altogether. Watching Peter rush to the rescue of his friends in the Washington Monument, we’re happy to put up with some judder in the faster panning shots in order to avoid the soap-opera aesthetic.
That decision is harder when watching SDR, where judder can be more significant. Viewing the opening scenes of Jack Reacher in Full HD on Blu-ray, there’s a case for setting the motion to Standard to avoid the over-processed look, although there are plenty of artefacts every time the car disappears and emerges again under overhead freeway signs.
Philips recommends its Vivid preset as a good starting point for SDR material, but you’ll need to step back quite far on most settings to get the right blend. Colour, Brightness and Sharpness should be below their halfway marks and the Perfect Natural Reality (fake HDR) and Perfect Contrast filters are best switched off.
Once stripped back, you’ll achieve a watchable picture. The overhead shot of the riverside crime scene is excellently handled. There’s a good feel to the paving stones, a believable colour palette to the nearby flowerbeds and plenty of dark detail as the uniformed SWAT team arrives on the scene. For SDR, it has a remarkably punchy look.
Watching standard-def material is obviously less of a treat, and you’ll struggle to pick up Philips’ good work on colour blending and image sharpening. No TV can work miracles, of course, but watching BBC News, the colour of the clothing appears faithful and the newsreader’s skin tone retains a natural feel.
Sound
(Image credit: Future)
Our expectations of TV sound are usually tempered, but here things are different. While there are small picture quality advantages of the OLED935 over the OLED805, the integrated soundbar makes up most of the difference in price.
There are plenty of sound presets to choose from, including Personal mode, which allows access to an EQ. ‘Movie’ gets our vote for the majority of our viewing. It’s not quite as clear as the AI or Original modes, but this is a speaker array with plenty of precision and we’re happy to sacrifice a little of that for the extra spatial boost.
We watch the bombing raid sequence of Unbroken in Dolby Atmos and the B&W soundbar projects an excellent soundstage, adding plenty of height and breadth to the sound. Even with our eyes closed, it’s easy to picture the planes flying across the screen and the bullets zipping by.
The agility of the drivers makes for a good separation of the effects, unveiling all the details in the clicks and clinks of the military equipment, and the creaks of the pilots’ leather jackets. But clarity isn’t quite everything when it comes to great TV sound and this set-up is missing one of the other crucial ingredients – excitement.
Dynamically, there just isn’t enough going on, with differences in scale between the various sounds too small to deliver much in the way of drama. Everything’s rather flat and lacking in impact. We hear the bombers fly over our heads, but without that level of involvement, we’ve no urge to duck whatsoever. The bullets offer little threat from our perspective, even as the cockpit becomes riddled with bullet holes.
Similarly, voices lack expression, which sells short the tension of the sequence. The young servicemen seem all too relaxed on their mission deep into the heart of enemy territory, rocked by the lifeless pops of flack exploding just inches from their heads.
The audio from the OLED935 is clearly superior to the OLED805. You won’t struggle to hear dialogue or appreciate music with more rhythm, but the results are far less enthralling than those of even a relatively affordable soundbar, such as the Sonos Beam. Compared with a more expensive Dolby Atmos-supporting soundbar, such as the Sonos Arc, the contrast is even less flattering.
Verdict
Philips has done a superb job to make improvements on what was already a first-class picture performance with this OLED+ TV. Watch 4K material on this set, whether Dolby Vision or otherwise, and it looks stunning. The picture is sharp and colourful with deep blacks and a great level of tonal detail – however, you can get almost all of that joy with the far more affordable OLED805.
Integrating a soundbar into the design of a TV brings the expectation of audio excellence and the OLED935 doesn’t quite deliver that. While there are plenty of plus points for the spatial smarts and the coherence and clarity of the sound, there just isn’t enough impact or drama.
Ultimately, while the price gap between the two TVs remains this wide, there’s a strong case for recommending opting for the OLED805 and investing in a dedicated soundbar, such as the Sonos Arc or even the much cheaper Beam. The 935 is clearly a more elegant solution and a step up in picture quality but, currently, that comes at too high a premium.
Samsung Electronics has reported its fourth-quarter earnings, confirming that the company made more money in 2020 than the year before despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Operating profit was up to 35.99 trillion won ($32.1 billion) off 236.81 trillion won ($211.5 billion) in revenue, increases of 29.6 percent and 2.78 percent respectively.
Samsung says its fourth-quarter results were helped by its “company-wide efforts to ensure a stable supply of products and services globally” in the pandemic environment. Quarterly profit was up 26.4 percent year-on-year, largely driven by the display and memory businesses, though the latter was down quarter to quarter.
Samsung’s display business had its highest ever quarterly earnings, which the company mainly attributes to high demand from major smartphone manufacturers. (Samsung doesn’t spell it out, but this was the quarter that Apple outfitted its entire new iPhone 12 lineup with OLED panels.) Samsung also reduced its losses from larger displays like TVs and monitors, and calls out a greater demand for contactless services as a contributing factor.
Samsung expects mobile profit to increase this quarter thanks to the launch of the Galaxy S21 series, and says it plans to expand its lineup of foldable devices. The display division, meanwhile, expects OLED penetration to continue to increase throughout the smartphone market and beyond, with wider applications in laptops, tablets, and cars. The company will also pursue growth with foldable and slidable displays.
(Pocket-lint) – Philips frequently refreshes its TV lineup, with new designs and updates, and 2021 will be no different.
A new range of Philips OLED TVs are coming soon. While, at the top end of its LED TV range, it will also introduce Mini LED tech for the first time.
Here then are Philips’ top TVs, from the new 2021 models to 2020 sets you can still buy now – sometimes at a discount.
We’re not covering all of them, just those that stand out based on their features and positioning.
Philips OLED TVs
TP Vision
Philips OLED 806/856
Available: TBC
Screen sizes: 48in, 55in, 65in, 77in
OLED, 3840 x 2160 pixels, HRD10+ Adaptive, Dolby Vision, HLG, Filmmaker Mode, Dolby Atmos, DTS Play-Fi, Android TV
Philips will stick with its OLED+ 935 as the flagship model for the foreseeable future, but last year’s 805 and 855 will be replaced with OLED TVs with a few new features and improved picture processing.
The difference between the 806 and 856 is largely aesthetic – coming with different stands, basically. In addition, the 856 will only be available in 55 and 65-inches. The 806, on the other hand, adds 48 and 77-inch variants – the latter being the largest OLED TV from the Philips brand yet.
One of the main additions is the P5 AI Intelligent Picture Engine – a processor that analyses images and cross references different picture situations to apply the best settings. It also has a superb anti-screen burn technology that recognises and dims static logos on screen.
In addition, each of the new OLEDs come with 4K 120Hz and variable refresh rate (VRR) technology for gaming. Those combined with ALLM (auto low latency mode) ensure that those with next-gen consoles get the most from their machines. HDMI eARC and Dolby Atmos are on board too, for audio support.
The final string to each set’s bow is four-sided Ambilight.
While it has been around for a while, the current flagship comes with many of the tech functionality of the newer models above. That includes the anti-screen burn technology that can greatly help to reduce screen retention.
This TV also comes with a class-leading Bowers & Wilkins sound system that provides a 3.1.2 surround effect, including two Dolby Atmos elevation speakers that heighten audio.
Like the 806/856, the 935 has Filmmaker Mode. It is also DTS Play-Fi enabled, which means it can link to other Philips Wireless Home System speakers to either create a wider home theatre (with rear channels) or sync music around the home.
Philips Mini LED TVs
TP Vision
Philips MiniLED 9506
Available: TBC
Screen sizes: 65in, 75in
Mini LED, 3840 x 2160 pixels, HRD10+ Adaptive, Dolby Vision, HLG, Filmmaker Mode, Dolby Atmos, DTS Play-Fi, Android TV
Philips has embraced Mini LED technology for its top-end LCD/LED TVs this year. That means the backlight uses thousands of tiny LEDs in its backlight, which are grouped into 1,000 zones. These zones can be turned off, brightened or dimmed idependently, leading to more accurate colours and better contrast than previous LED panels.
ALso, thanks to the size of the LEDs, there is less light bleed, so black levels can be much deeper and darker than ever before. It’s the closest the tech can get to OLED, yet remains more affordable.
The MiniLED 9506 comes with four-sided Ambilight and the same P5 AI Intelligent Picture Engine as the 2021 top-end OLEDs. It is also 4K 120Hz, so is capable of playing PS5 and Xbox Series X games at their best. VRR and ALLM are on board too.
HDR10+ Adaptive is added to the HDR suite of standards, which adapts the picture depending on lighting conditions.
TP Vision
Philips MiniLED 9636
Available: TBC
Screen sizes: 65in, 75in
Mini LED, 3840 x 2160 pixels, HRD10+ Adaptive, Dolby Vision, HLG, Filmmaker Mode, Dolby Atmos, DTS Play-Fi, Android TV
The MiniLED 9636 is almost identical to the 9506 above, apart from the fact that it also comes with a Bowers & Wilkins sound system built into its stand.
This 3.1.2 system provides 70W of power across all channels, while two upfiring units provide extra height for Dolby Atmos tracks.
Like all of Philips premium models in 2021, it comes with DTS Play-Fi so can hook up to other wireless speakers around the home and become part of a multiroom audio setup.
Not one to be left behind, Philips has introduced its own set of Mini LED TVs to arrive in the shops this year.
The Philips 9000 series consists of two distinct lines, the Philips 9639 MiniLED TVs, which come with an integrated Bowers & Wilkins soundbar, and the Philips 9506 MiniLED which is TV-only.
The 9000 series Mini LED TVs come in a choice of 65in or 75in sizes and with the beating heart of Philips’s very latest TV chip, the fifth generation P5 processor. They both also feature four-sided Ambilight technology.
They’re designed to offer close to the top-end picture quality of Philips’s OLED TVs but at a more affordable price point. Their Mini LED-backed VA panels are split into an impressive sounding 1000 dimming zones with the 9506 boasting a 1500 nit panel and the 9639 a little more peak brightness still at 2000 nits.
As ever, Philips is agnostic about HDR support, meaning that customers can benefit from both Dolby Vision and HDR10+ given compatible disc and streamed source material. Also included is HDR10+ Adaptive which combines real-time ambient light information with the HDR10+ metadata to optimise screen brightness on a scene-by-scene basis.
The 9000 series TVs are also fitted with a suite of HDMI 2.1 features on certain ports, including eARC, ALLM and VRR for 4K content from 40Hz to 120Hz at 48Gbps speeds (4:4:4, 12 bit colour).
Gamers will also appreciate the AMD FreeSync Premium Pro anti-tearing compatibility. Philips claims that, together, the gaming experience should offer lag times of less than 18ms, apparently less than the blink of an eye.
(Image credit: Philips)
Both TVs come with an Android TV 10 OS which includes Google Assistant built-in as well as compatibility for Amazon Alexa. They also support DTS Play-Fi high resolution multi-room.
Aside the bump in picture quality, the other main difference between the two lines is that 3.1.2 Bowers & Wilkins sound system. Just as with the Philips OLED+935 from the 2020 range, it combines Dolby Atmos height speakers with the Bowers isolated tweeters and Tweeter-on-Top technology.
Philips’s Mini LED launch will begin with the 9506 series which is set to arrive in June 2021.
MORE:
Best HDR TVs 2021: the ultimate high dynamic range TVs
Philips has just taken the wraps off its first 2021 TVs and, above the company’s new miniLED sets, there are new OLED models to get excited about.
One area where 2020’s excellent OLED805 sets were lacking was next-gen HDMI features, so it’s good news that Philips has addressed this with the new OLED806 and OLED856, which boast 48gbps HDMI 2.1 sockets. These HDMIs can handle eARC (Enhanced Audio Return Channel), 4K@120Hz (also known as High Frame Rate or HFR) and VRR (Variable Refresh Rate), all of which were absent from last year’s sets. ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode), which was available last year, is included again.
On the tech front, Philips has also enhanced its P5 chip. The new 5th Gen P5 AI will make its debut with the OLED806 and OLED856 and, as well as handling the intelligent anti-burn-in technology first seen on 2020’s OLED935, it will introduce a new Fast Motion Clarity mode for “ultra-realistic motion smoothing with exceptional sharpness”.
On top of all that, the OLED806 and OLED856 also get a fourth side of Ambilight, so Philips’s brilliant coloured light tech will now surround the entire TV. This will be especially cool for those people who wall-mount the TV.
If you’re wondering what the differences are between the OLED806 and OLED856, it comes down to the stand and available sizes. The OLED806 has dainty little feet and is available in 48-inch, 55-inch, 65-inch and 77-inch versions, while the OLED856 has a T-shaped stand and is only available in 55-inch and 65-inch sizes.
Both the OLED806 and OLED856 will be available at the start of June. Pricing is to be confirmed.
There’s also going to be a new OLED706 model that sits below the OLED806/OLED856. This model sticks with three-sided Ambilight but gets the same processor and HDMI features of its more premium siblings. It will be available in 55-inch and 65-inch sizes.
Samsung’s latest flagship, the Galaxy S21 Ultra, is its first phone to feature Samsung Display’s new power-efficient OLED panels. In a press release, Samsung says the new display consumes 16 percent less power thanks to a “just-developed organic material” that means “electrons flow faster and more easily across the display’s organic layer.”
“In other words,” Samsung explains, the technology means its “OLED panels can create brighter light while consuming less power, which improves the battery lifetime.” A smartphone’s display is typically one of its most power-hungry components, so efficiency gains here can have a big impact on the overall battery life of the device. In our review, we remarked that the S21 Ultra has excellent battery life that lasts “beyond a full day.”
Samsung confirmed to The Verge that the S21 Ultra uses an LTPO (aka a Low-Temperature Polycrystalline Oxide) display, but it’s not the first of Samsung’s phones to do so. Last year, The Elec reported that Samsung’s Galaxy Note 20 Ultra also used LTPO display panels, which Samsung brands as HOP (Hybrid Oxide and Polycrystalline silicon). However, this week’s announcement says the S21 Ultra is the “first” to use the more efficient panels, suggesting Samsung Display has further refined the technology compared to the Note 20 Ultra.
Prior to appearing in smartphones, LTPO displays have been used in smart watches. The Elec notes that the Apple Watch Series 4 featured an LTPO display produced by LG, while Samsung’s Galaxy Watch Active 2 used an LTPO display produced by Samsung Display.
If reports are accurate, Apple’s next flagship iPhones could soon benefit from Samsung Display’s power-efficient panel technology. Earlier this year, The Elec reported that the South Korean company is in line to supply LTPO panels for Apple’s 2021 iPhones. According to the report, Apple will use 120Hz LTPO OLED displays in two of its four iPhones in the second half of the year, while the other two will have more traditional OLED panels.
Sony has today announced its most advanced mirrorless camera yet: the $6,500 Alpha 1 features a new 50.1-megapixel full-frame sensor, is capable of continuous photo shooting at 30 images per second, and can record 8K video at 30fps. It’ll ship beginning in March.
The powerhouse camera is priced significantly above the highest-end mirrorless cameras from Canon and Nikon, but Sony promises that customers who buy in will be rewarded with “the most technologically advanced, innovative camera” it’s ever made.
It sounds like a dream for sports and action photographers: even with its large sensor, Sony says the buffer lets you shoot “up to 155 full-frame compressed RAW images or 165 full-frame JPEG images at up to 30 frames per second with the electronic shutter while maintaining full AF and AE tracking performance.”
That autofocus and autoexposure system can make up to 120 calculations per second. And you’ll be peering through a high-resolution OLED electronic viewfinder with a refresh rate of 240Hz — something Sony claims is a world first. The Alpha 1 offers five-axis, in-body image stabilization and a standard ISO range of 100–32,000 (expandable to 50–102,400 for stills).
Sony’s autofocus system is still perhaps the best in the game, and the company says the Alpha 1 speeds up Eye AF even further when focusing on humans and pets. And with this camera, Eye AF will also work on birds. If you can justify a $6,500 camera for your nature forays, Sony says that “optimized algorithms ensure that tracking is maintained even if a sitting bird suddenly takes flight, or the framing suddenly changes.”
Flash sync speeds have been pushed up to 1/400 sec. (with mechanical shutter), and the silent electronic shutter supports sync speeds of up to 1/200 sec. Rolling shutter has been reduced due to high-speed sensor readout, and Sony says you can unleash that full 30fps continuous shooting without any blackout. Flicker under LED lighting conditions is also mitigated, as the Alpha 1 can match the shutter speed to flicker frequency.
As for video, the Alpha 1 can shoot 8K30 and 4K120 — both in 10-bit — and recording 4K at up to 60fps allows for full-sensor readout without any pixel binning. Adding an external recorder to the mix lets you capture 16-bit RAW video.
The Alpha 1 represents Sony’s very best, and the price clearly reflects that. You’re looking at a price several thousand dollars above the Canon R5. But considering the reputation that Sony has earned with its full-frame mirrorless cameras past and present, there will be a lot of pro photographers itching to get this $6,500 beast in their hands come March.
The Xperia Pro, Sony’s first smartphone with 5G in the US, is launching today for $2,499.99. Sony is targeting the device at professional users, who it hopes will use its HDMI input to turn the phone into an external camera monitor and its 5G connectivity to quickly upload or live-stream footage. Sony says it currently has no plans to release the Xperia Pro in Europe.
Outside of its HDMI input and US 5G support, the Xperia Pro’s hardware is very similar to last year’s Xperia 1 II (which shipped with 5G support in Europe but was limited to 4G LTE in the US). That means it’s powered by a Snapdragon 865 processor with a 4,000mAh battery, and around the back, there are the same 12-megapixel wide, telephoto, and ultrawide cameras. The Xperia Pro also includes a tall 6.5-inch 21:9 aspect ratio OLED display, which Sony is once again describing as 4K but actually has a sub-4K resolution of 3840 x 1644.
At $1,200, the Xperia 1 II was already an expensive smartphone, and the Xperia Pro is over double its price. But Sony argues its 5G support and HDMI input could be incredibly useful to professional users.
Let’s start with the HDMI input, which is located on the bottom of the phone where the Xperia 1 II’s USB-C port. (The Xperia Pro’s USB-C port is still on the bottom of the device, but it’s shifted to the left.) Sony says it’s capable of taking up to a 4K 60fps HDR video stream and should work with any cameras that have an HDMI output.
In practice, what this means is that you can connect the Xperia Pro to a camera’s HDMI output, for example, and use its bigger screen to get a clearer view of whatever’s being filmed or photographed. You can pinch to zoom into the image displayed on the screen or overlay gridlines to help with framing.
Where this functionality gets especially interesting is with the Xperia Pro’s 5G connectivity, which enables it to act as a live-streaming link for your camera in addition to being an external monitor. The Xperia Pro can stream footage from its HDMI input to YouTube directly, and it supports StreamLabs and StreamYard for streaming to other platforms like Twitch and Facebook Live.
The phone supports both Sub-6GHz and mmWave 5G, and Sony claims that it has a unique four-way mmWave antenna array to maximize reception. There’s also a built-in network visualizer app that can be assigned to its shortcut key to help you find the best position to get a signal. Hopefully Sony’s software and hardware are enough to mitigate mmWave’s problems with limited coverage.
Ever since it started teasing the Xperia Pro early last year, Sony has emphasized that it’s a device for professional users, and its $2,499.99 price tag makes this more obvious than ever. When I asked Sony why it hasn’t released a 5G device aimed at consumers in the US, it told me it’s waiting for the technology to be more broadly implemented by carriers. Until then, Sony says it’s focusing on professional users who it thinks can get more use out of it.
(Pocket-lint) – The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S have been out for a little while now, not that getting hold of one is getting any easier than it was at launch. Still, if you’re the proud owner of a new console, or know your TV is a little old, you might want to upgrade your display to go with it.
Xbox Series X vs PS5: Battle of the powerhouses
But which TV should you go for? The new consoles bring a bunch of interesting new (and less new) features to the table that depend on your TV, from HDR to Ultra HD 4K resolutions and high refresh-rates. Some of these depend on your hardware, so picking the right TV can be a minefield.
We’ve selected some of the very best options, though, to help guide you to a stellar gaming experience for years to come.
Our pick of the best Ultra HD TVs for PS5 and Xbox
LG
LG CX series
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LG’s CX line of TVs comes in a few sizes, and is quite simply the standout choice of basically everyone in the industry when it comes to next-gen gaming, with good reason.
It’s one of the few TVs that brings all the bells and whistles that Sony and Microsoft have been mentioning, including high-refresh rates, HDMI 2.1, HDR and stunning OLED picture quality. That said, you’ll pay for it all – these are mighty pricey sets, and their prices really haven’t come down much at all since release.
This is one of very few widely available TVs out there that ticks every box, so jump on it if it fits your budget!
Sony
Sony Bravia KD-XH9005
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You’d hope that Sony would be able to make a TV that can maximise the power of the PS5, and it’s popped up with the KD55XH9005 to show what it can do.
It’s a gorgeous TV, that’s for sure, an LED panel that’s still got great blacks and crystal-sharp 4K to boot, with HDMI 2.1 on board. However, the TV will only be able to handle faster refresh rates once an incoming software update lands, which is something to bear in mind if that’s a high priority for you.
Samsung
Samsung QEQ90T
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Samsung’s right up there with the best when it comes to picture quality, its QLED tech making for gorgeous detail and great colour, with impressive blacks that perhaps don’t quite match an OLED.
Still, the Q90T is a beauty that caters to high refresh rates and embraces HDMI 2.1, making for a brilliant package, albeit one that’s still pretty expensive. Samsung’s Tizen OS is also nice and simple to use, and its game mode is a reliable automated little wonder. It all adds up to a superb option.
Samsung
Samsung TU8500
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You don’t normally associate Samsung with lower-cost options, and it’s fair to say this is still on the pricier end of the whole market, but if you want a TV that’s got some next-gen features without breaking the bank completely, it’s a good choice.
You’re getting Samsung’s Crystal UHD display rather than QLED, which is the big cost-saver, but the picture is still superb and 4K games look excellent. You also miss out on 120Hz compatibility, but we genuinely think that many people won’t mind that at all when they can have 60FPS gaming that looks this good.
Samsung
Samsung Q950TS
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Returning to the other end of the affordability spectrum, if you really want to feel like you’re living in the future you could opt for an 8K TV – the next-gen consoles can output at that level technically, although we don’t think you’ll see many games that actually do so.
This mammoth Samsung set is still great for 4K content, though, and upscales really nicely to make for crisp and gorgeous images. It’ll cost you an arm and a leg, but 8K will probably roll out to be normal eventually, so you could choose to jump aboard now, if you like.
Writing by Max Freeman-Mills. Editing by Dan Grabham.
(Pocket-lint) – Throughout 2020 the battle for dominance in the mid-range smartphone market burned fierce. With one group of companies in particular showing it was more than willing to add some competition to a market that had grown a little stagnant in the wake of manufacturers chasing that four-figure price bracket.
That group, of course, is BKK. For those unaware, that’s the family that contains Oppo, OnePlus and Realme. Look at the volume of phones released by those three brands in 2020 and you’ll see there are quite a number of devices.
One of the more affordable from that offering is the Reno 4 Z. It’s one of Oppo’s most accessible smartphones and one with plenty about it to make it more than useful for most people.
Sleek and shiny
Dimensions: 163.8 x 75.5 x 8.1 mm / Weight: 184 g
3.5mm input/output for headphones
Side-mounted fingerprint sensor
In this day and age, we’ve stopped being surprised when phones are included in certain families of phones but without really looking like they belong. Look at the Reno 4 Pro, then look at the Reno 4 Z, and you’ll likely assume the two phones aren’t related at all. They just don’t look the same.
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The most obvious differences are apparent from the back, where the Reno 4 Z has square camera housing with a diagonal raised element in the middle. The 4 Pro features a nicer looking rectangle panel. Still, there’s something quite eye-catching about the Z’s arrangement. At least, there is if you go with the white and gold model. We were sent the navy and black model which doesn’t have that same visual ‘pop’. Although, in the right light, the way the dark blue gradients into silver is attractive.
Being a more affordable device means more affordable materials have been used. In this case, that means there’s a glossy plastic on the back and – unlike the Pro – it’s completely flat. You don’t get any fancy curved glass here, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. After all, it’s less likely to crack or break, but it being flat does mean it’s not the most ergonomic feeling phone in the world. It’s quite wide too, so definitely feels more like a two-handed device than a smaller, rounder phone would.
One other thing that’s worth noting about this glossy navy blue version: it attracts fingerprints like crazy. Hold it once and that shiny plastic soon turns into a grease-smudged mess, and being a dark colour also means it shows up any dust or pocket-fluff too. The panel on the front, covering the screen, seems to suffer from that same ease of smudging, but being glass it’s really easy to wipe off with a microfibre cloth.
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The Reno 4 Z features Oppo’s trademark super-slim individual volume buttons on the left and – because it has an LCD display (which we’ll get to later) – there’s a physical fingerprint reader built into the power button on the right side. We’ve found it really quick to unlock and very responsive, so it’s certainly not a negative compared to an under-screen solution.
Those who want to can also use facial recognition using the dual camera system built into the front of the phone. That reliability makes unlocking the phone convenient, and there are other practicalities to consider. It has a 3.5mm input/output port for wired headphones and headsets and the removable SIM tray has space for a microSD card slot if you want to expand the onboard memory.
Screen and software
6.57-inch LCD display
1080 x 2400 resolution
Android 10 – ColorOS 7.2
The Reno 4 Z has an LCD panel on the front and that means a few things in terms of features. You don’t get the always-on display – which shows a clock and notification badges when it’s in standby – because, unlike OLED, an LCD display doesn’t switch off individual pixel lighting.
But that’s not really a problem, it just means you don’t get that one useful feature. The main issue with the display is that it doesn’t appear to have any sort of oleophobic protection over it. That means fingers leave smudges, and even when wiped clean, that can cause some unusual rainbowing patterns which is most noticeable on mostly white screens.
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It’s worth noting this is true after removing the pre-applied screen protector. Not that a film is any better at reducing fingerprint smudges, but be aware that removing it won’t necessarily improve clarity or finger oil resistance like it would on properly coated glass.
Otherwise, it’s a decent enough display. It’s Full HD+ in resolution, so it’s plenty sharp enough for anything you’d want to use it for. Text is clear and colours – while lacking a tad in vividness – are natural enough, with whites coming through clean. It’s big enough and bright enough to make streaming Netflix or YouTube shows a pleasant experience.
It’s not great in brighter conditions – like outside in brighter daylight – and seems to struggle with reflections quite a lot. Even in rooms indoors with bright ceiling lights we had to adjust the angle often to avoid that reflective glare made worse by those aforementioned fingerprint smudges.
Of course the screen is mostly just the platform for the software which – in Oppo’s case – seems to be leaning more towards European or Western preferences with each iteration.
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That’s to say, it utilises more of Google’s default apps and doesn’t seek to add too much of its own influence. Even to the point now where it has Google’s own Snapshot screen on the left of the home screen, collating news and weather relevant to you, rather than the old Oppo-made version that did a similar thing, but in a slightly less useful way.
The main interface is still very much Oppo-esque, with its square, green quick settings button icons in the drop down menu. Learning from its cousin, OnePlus, Oppo’s ColorOS has more customisation tools here as well. You can change app icon size and shape as well as using system-wide themes. It’s worth noting though that this is ColorOS 7 based on Android 10, not the new Android 11 based software that it’s currently rolling out across Oppo’s flagship devices.
MediaTek powered – and that’s just fine
MediaTek Dimensity 800 5G processor, 8GB RAM
128GB storage, microSD card expansion
4,000mAh battery capacity
18W fast-charging
We often speak about compromises when discussing mid-range phones that are available for lower prices than premium handsets. It goes without saying that when you buy more affordable devices, the parts inside them are reflective of being able to obtain that lower sale price.
One such ‘compromise’ – as you might first think – is Oppo opting to go with a MediaTek processor. Specifically, this phone is powered by the Dimensity 800 5G. It may be seen as a bit of a bargain-basement 5G chipset by many, but with its 7nm process and eight powerful cores, it’s certainly no slouch.
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As you’d likely expect from a more accessible product, the phone doesn’t especially feel zippy, but in our experience it’s reliable and doesn’t seem to struggle all that much with anything. We played a few of our favourite games like Forza Street, Mario Kart Tour and Sky, and it was responsive enough that it didn’t detract from the overall experience.
There was the odd occasion when we noticed some stutter and delay in action on screen, but it wasn’t hugely significant. Although saying that, it does seem to load lower resolution graphics in order to keep it feeling relatively smooth. It doesn’t seem all that sharp when loading games, with edges of items on screen looking quite rough at times. This is fairly typical of similar devices.
For important stuff like keeping in touch with friends on Messenger, WhatsApp or via Facebook, it’s a perfectly fine device. We didn’t have any issues with connectivity or any major problems with loading times and overall speed of such apps. It gets the job done – which is what you want from a phone at this price range.
Best smartphones 2021: The top mobile phones available to buy today
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It’s a similar story with battery life. You’ll get plenty of mileage from the 4,000mAh cell inside the Reno 4 Z. Given its relatively low-powered internals, it’s not uncommon on a moderate day of use to get all the way through to bedtime with 40 per cent left over, but then mileage will certainly vary depending on user. For most users it’ll be more than enough to get you through the day.
More cameras than required
Quad rear camera system:
Main: 48-megapixel, f/1.7 aperture
Wide (119-degree): 8MP, f/2.2
Depth sensors: 2MP each
Dual selfie camera system:
16MP main & 2MP depth sensor
Sadly, one trend that’s stuck in 2020 – and one we hope dies in 2021 – is the compulsion for phone makers to put four cameras in the back of their phones, just to say it has a quad camera system. Truth is, for most of them – at least, most of the more affordable ones – is that they have one relatively decent camera, with the other three either being mostly useless, or poor quality. It’s the same with the Reno 4 Z.
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This phone has not one, but two low resolution depth sensors in addition to the 8-megapixel ultra-wide and 48-megapixel primary camera. Having used it a number of times in testing, we can safely say that it’s the primary camera you’ll want to be using nearly all of the time. The dual depth sensor is really pointless.
With that out of the way, the primary lens is certainly good enough to keep any buyer happy. It’s perhaps a little happy to overexpose when left to its own devices, but a quick adjustment using the exposure gain slider on screen is enough to get it looking good again.
In good lighting conditions the main sensor takes good looking shots that represent colours naturally without being overly saturated nor muted. Similarly, when you get close to a subject, it focuses and is able to produce some nice-looking, soft background blur that blends evenly with the foreground. It doesn’t need the exaggerated portrait mode for that (although it does have it, of course, as those depth sensors are doing some work).
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The option of the ultra-wide angle lens means you get a bit more versatility, but the quality from this lens just isn’t quite as good as the main camera. Colours, light and contrast combine to make for a less vivid and harsher looking result. But that’s something that seems to be normal for a lot of mid-rangers with multiple cameras.
In the end, you’ll probably want to stick with the main camera, and if you do you’ll be more than happy with the shots that it produces in good outdoor daylight.
Verdict
The Reno 4 Z is capable phone that won’t let you down in all the ways that really matter. It’ll snap a photo, let you play pretty much any of your favourite games, and go all day without an issue. But even at this end of the market it’s not hugely competitive.
As with a few of Oppo’s phones, the Reno 4 Z is curiously positioned in terms of price. Compare its features and capabilities with sister brand, Realme, and you’ll feel you don’t get as much for your money. As an example, you could get the Realme 7 Pro; a phone with much faster charging, smoother performance, a bigger battery and an AMOLED display.
The one thing the Oppo does have over the Realme phone is 5G support which – depending on where you live – could be the clincher. Still, in our testing so far, 5G hasn’t proved all that essential in everyday life and – despite being much faster than 4G – still isn’t close to offering the reliable and consistent coverage required to make it necessary. At least, not in the UK just yet.
Writing by Cam Bunton. Editing by Mike Lowe.
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