T-Mobile announces a new platform for enterprise customers. It is launching three new products that leverage T-Mobile’s 5G network and a partnership with Dialpad. Among the products announced, T-Mobile will begin offering “Home Office 5G Internet” plans that compete with cable providers.
It will also be getting into the cloud-based collaboration business that can replace an office-based PBX, video and voice conferencing, and integrates with Office 365 apps. Finally, there’s a full enterprise solution that includes unlimited 5G data.
Starting with T-Mobile’s Home Office 5G, this will come with a dedicated 5G router. With the way T-Mobile is wording this, it looks like Home Office 5G is a dedicated internet connection for office work that’s designed for customers whose regional internet connection may be slow or unreliable. A Home Office 5G line will start at $90 per month and depending on tower congestion, they may be throttled after 50GB of usage during the month. As well, video streaming will be optimized for 480p resolution. This is certainly not a plan to replace your home internet.
T-Mobile Collaborate is a work platform that’s meant to replace a typical office PBX (switching phone box system). With more employees working from home, this solution would let businesses set up video meetings, conference calls, and would let employees transfer calls to other departments of the business. All these solutions are cloud-based so they virtualize the way an office communicates within or across departments.
T-Mobile Home Office 5G router
Collaborate will also integrate with Office 365 apps to further leverage an existing office suite subscription with Microsoft.
Finally, Enterprise Unlimited requires an account with 11 mobile lines or more. This will come with unlimited 5G/4G data, 10GB of tethering per line (after which you’ll be reduced to 3G speeds), and it comes with access to T-Mobile’s Collaborate.
These plans certainly do not cater to consumers, and the Home Internet 5G will not replace a home internet plan since there’s a data cap. These solutions may be beneficial for some small and medium sized businesses who might pay a lot to receive business internet and landline services, which are always priced at a significant premium compared to consumer plans.
It’s interesting to see how corporate solutions are changing to serve businesses who have switched to working almost completely from home. Mobile carriers might continue to take business from regional service providers as 5G becomes more and more able to support massive data infrastructures. We should see a jump in home 5G internet in the coming years.
The Samsung Galaxy A52 5G has not been officially announced yet – that is expected to happen later this month – but a retailer in Saudi Arabia has put the phone on sale already, listing the full specs and everything.
The A52 5G has a 6.5” Super AMOLED display with 1,080 x 2,400 px resolution. We’re not seeing a refresh rate listed but it should be 120Hz (the rumors were right about everything else). The fingerprint reader is built into the display and the whole thing is guarded by Gorilla Glass (we’re not 100% clear on the version).
The Snapdragon 750G is the brains of the operation, as expected. It is hooked up to 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB storage and there’s a microSD slot for up to 1 TB more (the dual card slot has a hybrid design). Only one memory configuration is listed, but that’s something that varies by region.
Samsung Galaxy A52 5G (in Black)
Anyway, the Galaxy A52 5G has a 64MP main camera that can record 4K videos. Next up is a 12MP camera (presumably ultrawide) and two 5MP modules (macro and depth is our bet). The selfie camera has a 32MP sensor.
The phone’s 4,500 mAh battery is charged over USB-C at 25W. There’s no 3.5 mm headphone jack by the looks of it, but the phone does have NFC.
Note that the OS version is listed as Android 10, but we believe this to be a mistake – the phone ran Android 11 when it went through Geekbench.
The retailer is charging SAR 1,650 for the Galaxy A52 5G, which works out to $440/€365. This matches the rumored prices. There should be a 4G model as well, but that one isn’t showing up yet.
(Pocket-lint) – Think ‘Montblanc’ and in your mind’s eye you could be picturing any number of things: wallets, pens, jewellery, watches, bags, belts, or even notebooks. The one thing that they all have in common (apart from often being made from black leather) is that they’re luxury items and aren’t cheap. A Meisterstück gold-coated Classique ballpoint pen could set you back hundreds.
So when Montblanc launches a Wear OS smartwatch it’s best to go in with the expectation that it won’t be cheap. But actually, if you compare this second-gen watch – here the Summit Lite – to other Montblanc watches, it’s relatively cost efficient. That means there’s still definitely some appeal here for anyone wanting a luxury smartwatch but who doesn’t wish to spend more than a grand.
Design
Colours: Grey or black
43mm aluminium case
Straps: Fabric or rubber
Anti-scratch crystal glass
Water resistant to 50m (5ATM)
Rotating crown and 3 push buttons
Montblanc’s first smartwatch, the Summit, was pretty but underwhelming. From a design perspective there was a missed opportunity – it had a stylish looking crown, but it didn’t rotate and it was the only button on the side; and we found the whole device too big.
Pocket-lint
The company improved things considerably with the Summit 2, which launched in 2019, and now there’s the new Summit Lite model – hence that slightly more affordable price point.
The Summit Lite has three buttons on its side. Each of them feels sumptuous when pressed, giving a lovely ‘click’ and feeling just like a proper watch with proper buttons should. But the best thing about these buttons is that the middle one has a proper rotating crown.
Rotating it is smooth and effortless without it feeling too loose. Doing so enables you interact with elements on the screen. For instance, you can use it to scroll up and down lists or messages, or – when on the watch face – bring up notifications or the quick settings tiles.
Our only complaint about the rotating crown – as pretty and shiny as it is – is the surface is just a little too smooth and shiny. That means you need a little firm pressure to make sure you finger gets enough traction to turn it. A slightly toothier edge would have made this a little easier.
Pocket-lint
What’s great about traditional fashion and design companies getting involved in the smartwatch market is that they deliver decent case designs. For its full-fat Summit watches, Montblanc uses stainless steel for the case material. With the Lite model it’s aluminium.
The 43mm case isn’t too big and sits comfortably on the wrist. The contrast between the glossy bezel and buttons with their softer anodised finish on the case is eye-catching. It has that glint of dress watch that looks great just subtly poking out from under your blazer or cardigan sleeve.
There are some subtle angles on the lugs that make the edges softer in appearance, while they curve downwards towards the strap to create a skinny side-on profile. It’s nice and lightweight too thanks to that shift from steel to aluminium.
It’s not just about being pretty though. The casing feels like it’s well put together, while the screen is capped off with crystal glass to help avoid scratches from when you inevitably brush it against all manner of hard surfaces in your daily activity.
Pocket-lint
Our unit shipped with a thick black rubber strap which had something of a ‘sticky’ feel when we first put it on, but that sensation has since tamed. Other fabric strap options are available too. However, the case will fit any 22mm strap and the quick-release catches mean it’s super simple to swap for one you really want.
Turn the Summit Lite upside down and you’ll see its well-considered underside. Right in the centre is the optical heart-rate sensor – built within a subtle protrusion that’s surrounded by a metal ring – and accompanied by a four-pin connector for the charging base.
It looks and feels more purposeful than a lot of other Wear OS undersides and, happily, it snaps onto its magnetic charging cradle with ease. It holds the watch in position well and – thanks to having a rounded cutout for the rotating crown – only fits the watch one way, so there’s no chance you’ll ever find yourself placing the watch in the wrong way.
If there’s any criticism it’s that the cradle itself is relatively lightweight plastic and so – because of the strong connection – if you try and remove the watch one-handed you’ll more than likely take the cradle with you. You need to hold both in order to separate them.
Pocket-lint
On the plus side, the underside is coated in an almost-sticky rubber-like material that helps it not to slide around all over the place.
Display and software
1.2-inch circular AMOLED display
390 x 390 resolution
Wear OS software
For the most part, the software situation with the Montblanc Summit Lite is the same as pretty much every other Google Wear OS watch. The main interfaces and preinstalled apps are the same, but it comes with Montblanc’s own watch faces.
Pocket-lint
Press the middle button and it launches your apps list, and the top and bottom buttons can be customised to launch any number of functions or apps. By default, however, they launch two elements of Montblanc’s own activity tracker screens. And this is where the Summit Lite is slightly different to some of the other Wear OS devices.
The activity app can be used to manually track any workout, but will also track your movement, heart-rate and stress levels throughout the day, and your sleep quality at night. Combining that information it can also measure how well rested you are and give you an Energy Level reading. It’s similar in theory to Garmin’s Body Battery feature.
Go running and it’ll work out your VO2 Max (that’s blood oxygen saturation) and judge your fitness level. It’ll even give you the time frame you need to rest for in order to recover for you next workout session. Interestingly, there’s also a Cardio Coach function which tells you what you should aim for in terms of heart rate intensity and duration for your next activity.
There are some pretty glaring holes in this workout software though. Firstly, there’s no mobile companion app. That means all that useful data and detail just stays on the watch. Secondly, if you go on a run or bike ride, there’s no map to look at afterwards to see if it tracked your route properly.
The solution to these issues is to use third-party apps – like Strava for running/cycling – or just use the Google Fit app that’s built-in as standard to all Wear OS watches.
Pocket-lint
For those who want those features it makes more sense to completely bypass Montblanc’s offering. It’s a shame really, because otherwise that data and information on the watch could be really useful. It’d just be nice to get access to it from a phone.
Otherwise accuracy seems on point. Comparing the Summit Lite’s data to that captured on the Garmin Vivoactive 4 reveals that the average heart-rate was within one or two beats-per-minute away from matching. There was a slight difference in distance measured and, as a result, pace – but not enough that it made any serious difference to the tracked activity. It was about 10-20 metres out on a 25 minute 4km run, which is a pretty standard discrepancy between watches.
All of this software and detail is shown on a fully round AMOLED panel. It’s a 1.2-inch screen, and boasts 390 pixels both vertically and horizontally, making pretty much on par with the latest hardware from the likes of Fossil.
Hardware and battery performance
Snapdragon Wear 3100 platform
1GB RAM + 8GB storage
Tech aficionados will complain that a watch in 2021 doesn’t feature the newest Snapdragon Wear 4100 processor. Nonetheless, there’s not a huge amount wrong with the way the Montblanc Summit Lite performs.
The Wear 3100 processor here ensures that the interface and animations are mostly smooth and responsive. There are elements that still feel a little laggy and slow, however, which is usually when extra data is required – like when browsing the Google Play Store on the wrist to download apps. There’s a little bit of a wait launching most apps, too. You’ll maybe need to wait three seconds for Google’s Keep Notes to launch, for example.
Pocket-lint
As far as connectivity and modern tech goes, the Summit Lite has pretty much everything you’d want from a smartwatch. There’s NFC (near field communication) to enable Google Pay for contactless payments. There’s Wi-Fi for direct downloading apps on to the watch. And there’s GPS for location tracking.
Best Apple Watch apps 2021: 43 apps to download that actually do something
By Britta O’Boyle
·
Battery life is pretty standard for a Wear OS watch too: you’ll get roughly two days between charges. We managed to get through two work days even with the always-on display switched on – because the watch faces run a lower brightness and lower refresh rate than the main watch face.
Verdict
The Montblanc Summit Lite’s side buttons have been purposefully redesigned with a proper rotating crown for enhanced interaction, paired with a great all-round display, plus all the features you’d expect from a Wear OS watch.
Despite being a ‘Lite’ model it’s still expensive, though, so you’re very much still paying for the Montblanc brand name. Furthermore Montblanc’s otherwise useful activity tracking doesn’t have a companion phone app to download and view your data in much detail. So it’s more decoration than designed for those super serious about tracking fitness.
Overall, things have improved dramatically since the first Montblanc Summit watch. The Summit Lite is really well designed, with its subtle, stylish and almost minimalist look, while also featuring practical material choices and the durability you’d expect from any modern smartwatch.
Also consider
Pocket-lint
Tag Heuer Connected 2020
squirrel_widget_231495
Compare the prices and the Montblanc starts to look like good value for money. The Tag is about double the price, but it’s still the luxury smartwatch champ that has a lot going for it.
Read our review
Pocket-lint
Fossil Gen 5 Garrett HR
squirrel_widget_307331
On the complete opposite end of the scale, but with a similar approach to style, Fossil’s Garrett is one of the nicest looking and more affordable options from the popular fashion brand.
(Pocket-lint) – Think ‘Montblanc’ and in your mind’s eye you could be picturing any number of things: wallets, pens, jewellery, watches, bags, belts, or even notebooks. The one thing that they all have in common (apart from often being made from black leather) is that they’re luxury items and aren’t cheap. A Meisterstück gold-coated Classique ballpoint pen could set you back hundreds.
So when Montblanc launches a Wear OS smartwatch it’s best to go in with the expectation that it won’t be cheap. But actually, if you compare this second-gen watch – here the Summit Lite – to other Montblanc watches, it’s relatively cost efficient. That means there’s still definitely some appeal here for anyone wanting a luxury smartwatch but who doesn’t wish to spend more than a grand.
Design
Colours: Grey or black
43mm aluminium case
Straps: Fabric or rubber
Anti-scratch crystal glass
Water resistant to 50m (5ATM)
Rotating crown and 3 push buttons
Montblanc’s first smartwatch, the Summit, was pretty but underwhelming. From a design perspective there was a missed opportunity – it had a stylish looking crown, but it didn’t rotate and it was the only button on the side; and we found the whole device too big.
Pocket-lint
The company improved things considerably with the Summit 2, which launched in 2019, and now there’s the new Summit Lite model – hence that slightly more affordable price point.
The Summit Lite has three buttons on its side. Each of them feels sumptuous when pressed, giving a lovely ‘click’ and feeling just like a proper watch with proper buttons should. But the best thing about these buttons is that the middle one has a proper rotating crown.
Rotating it is smooth and effortless without it feeling too loose. Doing so enables you interact with elements on the screen. For instance, you can use it to scroll up and down lists or messages, or – when on the watch face – bring up notifications or the quick settings tiles.
Our only complaint about the rotating crown – as pretty and shiny as it is – is the surface is just a little too smooth and shiny. That means you need a little firm pressure to make sure you finger gets enough traction to turn it. A slightly toothier edge would have made this a little easier.
Pocket-lint
What’s great about traditional fashion and design companies getting involved in the smartwatch market is that they deliver decent case designs. For its full-fat Summit watches, Montblanc uses stainless steel for the case material. With the Lite model it’s aluminium.
The 43mm case isn’t too big and sits comfortably on the wrist. The contrast between the glossy bezel and buttons with their softer anodised finish on the case is eye-catching. It has that glint of dress watch that looks great just subtly poking out from under your blazer or cardigan sleeve.
There are some subtle angles on the lugs that make the edges softer in appearance, while they curve downwards towards the strap to create a skinny side-on profile. It’s nice and lightweight too thanks to that shift from steel to aluminium.
It’s not just about being pretty though. The casing feels like it’s well put together, while the screen is capped off with crystal glass to help avoid scratches from when you inevitably brush it against all manner of hard surfaces in your daily activity.
Pocket-lint
Our unit shipped with a thick black rubber strap which had something of a ‘sticky’ feel when we first put it on, but that sensation has since tamed. Other fabric strap options are available too. However, the case will fit any 22mm strap and the quick-release catches mean it’s super simple to swap for one you really want.
Turn the Summit Lite upside down and you’ll see its well-considered underside. Right in the centre is the optical heart-rate sensor – built within a subtle protrusion that’s surrounded by a metal ring – and accompanied by a four-pin connector for the charging base.
It looks and feels more purposeful than a lot of other Wear OS undersides and, happily, it snaps onto its magnetic charging cradle with ease. It holds the watch in position well and – thanks to having a rounded cutout for the rotating crown – only fits the watch one way, so there’s no chance you’ll ever find yourself placing the watch in the wrong way.
If there’s any criticism it’s that the cradle itself is relatively lightweight plastic and so – because of the strong connection – if you try and remove the watch one-handed you’ll more than likely take the cradle with you. You need to hold both in order to separate them.
Pocket-lint
On the plus side, the underside is coated in an almost-sticky rubber-like material that helps it not to slide around all over the place.
Display and software
1.2-inch circular AMOLED display
390 x 390 resolution
Wear OS software
For the most part, the software situation with the Montblanc Summit Lite is the same as pretty much every other Google Wear OS watch. The main interfaces and preinstalled apps are the same, but it comes with Montblanc’s own watch faces.
Pocket-lint
Press the middle button and it launches your apps list, and the top and bottom buttons can be customised to launch any number of functions or apps. By default, however, they launch two elements of Montblanc’s own activity tracker screens. And this is where the Summit Lite is slightly different to some of the other Wear OS devices.
The activity app can be used to manually track any workout, but will also track your movement, heart-rate and stress levels throughout the day, and your sleep quality at night. Combining that information it can also measure how well rested you are and give you an Energy Level reading. It’s similar in theory to Garmin’s Body Battery feature.
Go running and it’ll work out your VO2 Max (that’s blood oxygen saturation) and judge your fitness level. It’ll even give you the time frame you need to rest for in order to recover for you next workout session. Interestingly, there’s also a Cardio Coach function which tells you what you should aim for in terms of heart rate intensity and duration for your next activity.
There are some pretty glaring holes in this workout software though. Firstly, there’s no mobile companion app. That means all that useful data and detail just stays on the watch. Secondly, if you go on a run or bike ride, there’s no map to look at afterwards to see if it tracked your route properly.
The solution to these issues is to use third-party apps – like Strava for running/cycling – or just use the Google Fit app that’s built-in as standard to all Wear OS watches.
Pocket-lint
For those who want those features it makes more sense to completely bypass Montblanc’s offering. It’s a shame really, because otherwise that data and information on the watch could be really useful. It’d just be nice to get access to it from a phone.
Otherwise accuracy seems on point. Comparing the Summit Lite’s data to that captured on the Garmin Vivoactive 4 reveals that the average heart-rate was within one or two beats-per-minute away from matching. There was a slight difference in distance measured and, as a result, pace – but not enough that it made any serious difference to the tracked activity. It was about 10-20 metres out on a 25 minute 4km run, which is a pretty standard discrepancy between watches.
All of this software and detail is shown on a fully round AMOLED panel. It’s a 1.2-inch screen, and boasts 390 pixels both vertically and horizontally, making pretty much on par with the latest hardware from the likes of Fossil.
Hardware and battery performance
Snapdragon Wear 3100 platform
1GB RAM + 8GB storage
Tech aficionados will complain that a watch in 2021 doesn’t feature the newest Snapdragon Wear 4100 processor. Nonetheless, there’s not a huge amount wrong with the way the Montblanc Summit Lite performs.
The Wear 3100 processor here ensures that the interface and animations are mostly smooth and responsive. There are elements that still feel a little laggy and slow, however, which is usually when extra data is required – like when browsing the Google Play Store on the wrist to download apps. There’s a little bit of a wait launching most apps, too. You’ll maybe need to wait three seconds for Google’s Keep Notes to launch, for example.
Pocket-lint
As far as connectivity and modern tech goes, the Summit Lite has pretty much everything you’d want from a smartwatch. There’s NFC (near field communication) to enable Google Pay for contactless payments. There’s Wi-Fi for direct downloading apps on to the watch. And there’s GPS for location tracking.
Apple watchOS 7: All the key new Apple Watch features explored
By Maggie Tillman
·
Battery life is pretty standard for a Wear OS watch too: you’ll get roughly two days between charges. We managed to get through two work days even with the always-on display switched on – because the watch faces run a lower brightness and lower refresh rate than the main watch face.
Verdict
The Montblanc Summit Lite’s side buttons have been purposefully redesigned with a proper rotating crown for enhanced interaction, paired with a great all-round display, plus all the features you’d expect from a Wear OS watch.
Despite being a ‘Lite’ model it’s still expensive, though, so you’re very much still paying for the Montblanc brand name. Furthermore Montblanc’s otherwise useful activity tracking doesn’t have a companion phone app to download and view your data in much detail. So it’s more decoration than designed for those super serious about tracking fitness.
Overall, things have improved dramatically since the first Montblanc Summit watch. The Summit Lite is really well designed, with its subtle, stylish and almost minimalist look, while also featuring practical material choices and the durability you’d expect from any modern smartwatch.
Also consider
Pocket-lint
Tag Heuer Connected 2020
squirrel_widget_231495
Compare the prices and the Montblanc starts to look like good value for money. The Tag is about double the price, but it’s still the luxury smartwatch champ that has a lot going for it.
Read our review
Pocket-lint
Fossil Gen 5 Garrett HR
squirrel_widget_307331
On the complete opposite end of the scale, but with a similar approach to style, Fossil’s Garrett is one of the nicest looking and more affordable options from the popular fashion brand.
RedMagic, the gaming brand of ZTE subdivision Nubia, has launched a new smartphone in collaboration with Chinese tech and gaming giant Tencent. The RedMagic 6 and 6 Pro are high-end devices available to order now in China, with a global launch coming later this month.
The RedMagic 6 has an Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor, active fan cooling, and a 6.8-inch 1080p OLED display with a refresh rate of 165Hz, making it the fastest phone screen on the market today. RedMagic is also claiming a single-finger touch sampling rate of up to 500Hz, or up to 360Hz with multitouch. The touch-sensitive capacitive “shoulder triggers” on the side, meanwhile, are sampled at up to 400Hz.
The RedMagic 6 Pro is mostly identical, but it comes with up to 18GB of RAM and has a faster 120W charging system that RedMagic says can fully charge the 4,500mAh battery in just 17 minutes. The non-Pro 6 has a bigger 5,050mAh battery but a slower 66W system that takes 38 minutes for a full charge.
The Tencent collaboration is quite unusual. RedMagic says that the phone’s software is optimized for Tencent apps like WeChat and QQ, with 50 percent faster read and write speeds. Tencent’s Solar Core gaming software is also preloaded, and the company promises it improves game response speed, frame rates, and network latency.
The RedMagic 6 starts at 3,799 yuan (~$585) for a model with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, but you can pay almost twice as much for a fully loaded 18GB/512GB RedMagic 6 Pro — that’ll cost 6,599 yuan (~$1,020). Global pricing will likely be different, however; RedMagic will announce international release plans on March 16th.
Apple’s Find My app might get a new safety feature to help prevent someone from using the kinds of devices tracked in the app to stalk you instead. “Item Safety Alerts”, spotted in the iOS 14.5 beta, will notify you if an unknown device being tracked on Find My is “moving with you” so you can remove it or disable it, 9to5Mac reports.
The feature seems designed to counteract a scenario where a Find My-compatible device is hidden in a pocket or bag and then used to track someone’s movements. The Item Safety Alerts setting was found in early versions of iOS 14.3, according to AppleInsider, but was removed until its reappearance in iOS 14.5. The setting is enabled by default in the beta and Apple seems to want it to stay on. If you turn off the setting off, the system will warn you that unknown devices can see your location without you being notified, Apple blogger Benjamin Mayo shared on Twitter.
Something I hadn’t considered before: new beta includes a Item Safety setting in Find My. This is how Apple is trying to prevent ‘stalking’ with AirTags. If someone secretly hides a tag in your possessions, your phone will notice and warn you about it. pic.twitter.com/NVJyAZlthw
— Benjamin Mayo (@bzamayo) March 4, 2021
Addressing the risk of stalking in Find My is newly important because of Apple’s plans to open up the app to third-party accessories. Hiding an iPhone, iPad, or MacBook in someone’s bag to track them is difficult, but a small keychain-sized device like Samsung’s Galaxy SmartTag or Tile’s upcoming ultra wideband (UWB) tracker could be a lot easier. Apple’s rumored AirTags could also be a candidate for misuse, and reintroducing this feature into iOS might mean they’re on their way to release.
Find My settings screen with ‘Item Safety Alerts’ turned on.Image: 9to5Mac
While it’s not necessarily as powerful as a GPS beacon with a cellular radio, Apple’s Find My network may have more reach than you’d think. If an Apple device comes near one of these supported trackers, it can update its location, even if the tracker doesn’t have its own connection to the internet. Tile’s “Community Find” feature works similarly. AirTags could theoretically expand the reach and precision even more, with an added UWB signal in the tag that can make items easier to find behind walls and in other rooms.
There are at least a few examples where gadgets like this have been abused: In 2018, a woman in Texas noticed her ex-partner kept showing up at restaurants, other people’s houses, and even an out-of-town trip, without a clear way of knowing where she was, ABC 13 reported. She’d later learn her ex had stashed a Tile tracker in the front console of her car, and was using it to find her. A Texas beauty queen shared a similar stalking story in 2016.
T-Mobile has been busy hawking its 5G network, recently spending many additional billions to expand it, which makes it kinda awkward that it’s also been caught telling users to turn off 5G to save battery life (via Sascha Segan). Didn’t Verizon just make this same gaff mere days ago? It sure did. But instead of learning from the example, T-Mobile appears to have pulled a hold-my-beer: where Verizon told users to switch to LTE, many of T-Mobile’s support documents tell users to go all the way back to 2G.
In case you’re not aware, switching to 2G (which T-Mobile handily tells you how to do) will make your phone next to useless as a data device: the maximum theoretical speed you could get from a 2G connection would be around 1Mbps (though many top out at closer to 256Kbps). Even 1Mbps is 25 times slower than what the FTC considers to be acceptable broadband speeds, and 300 times slower than the average 5G mid-band speeds T-Mobile has bragged about.
(Never mind that T-Mobile is also in the midst of phasing out 2G signals for good, though the 2G shutdown has reportedly been postponed to 2022.)
From the support page for the Samsung Galaxy S21 5G. Screenshot: The Verge
T-Mobile probably realized that this kind of advice was not a great look, but the company’s cover-up has also been amusingly slow. Earlier today, it removed the “Toggle from 5G/LTE to 2G” advice from the first example PC Magazine found (the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G), and the second one (the Samsung Galaxy S21 5G) had its support page updated shortly before we wrote these words. It also didn’t take long to find the advice to turn off 5G and/or 4G on the pages for the LG Wing, OnePlus Nord N10 5G, Galaxy S20+ 5G, and the Pixel 4a 5G (which weirdly only mentions turning off 4G, not 5G). That’s likely an incomplete list, but you get the picture: the nudge to pick T-Mobile’s slow 2G network showed up a bunch.
(Here’s a Google Cache version of the first T-Mobile support page from March 1st.)
I will say that T-Mobile is right in one way: turning my phone down to 2G would likely make it so slow that I’d just give up trying to use it, and my phone probably would last a lot longer. If you’re struggling with battery life on your phone, there are plenty of things you can try that don’t involve slamming the brakes quite that hard.
Realme has announced the GT 5G, built with Qualcomm’s top-tier Snapdragon 888 chipset. It comes with plenty of other flagship-esque specs, too, like a 120Hz screen, up to 12GB of RAM, and a 4,500mAh battery with 65W fast charger included. What it doesn’t have is a flagship-like price; it’s on sale in China for 2,799 yuan currently, or about $430.
The Snapdragon 888 is currently Qualcomm’s most powerful processor, announced in December of last year. Samsung has included it in its S21-series phones, and it’s expected to appear in many more Android flagships this year. At the moment, though, only a handful of (mostly pricey) devices are available with it, and with a 100 yuan introductory discount, the Realme GT 5G ties the Xiaomi Redmi K40 Pro as the least expensive of them.
The GT 5G offers a 6.43-inch OLED screen and a triple rear camera array with a 64-megapixel main camera, an 8-megapixel ultrawide, and a 2-megapixel macro camera. It comes with 5G and Wi-Fi 6 connectivity, and sells in three colors, including the striking “dawn” yellow version with a textured racing stripe down the back. While it’s not confirmed whether the GT will be sold outside of China, it might be telling that Realme UK retweeted coverage of the phone’s announcement.
Qualcomm has introduced a new system-on-chip platform that supports 24-bit/96kHz audio over Bluetooth.
Currently, Qualcomm’s aptX HD and flagship aptX Adaptive Bluetooth codecs can transmit music up to 24-bit/48kHz, but the new Qualcomm Snapdragon Sound takes that to 96kHz – the sampling rate studio music is often recorded and, as digital hi-res files, distributed at. (That said, as Snapdragon Sound utilises aptX Adaptive codec technology, transmission is still slightly compressed – the bitrate scales dynamically from 279kbps up to 860kbps.)
Depending on manufacturer take-up, this means we could see 24-bit/96kHz Bluetooth passthrough between a variety of headphones and smartphones very soon.
This higher data transmission support is only one element of Snapdragon Sound, which is a package of audio-related technologies that promise to deliver high-quality wireless sound end-to-end across the chain, from source (a phone) to receiver (headphones).
Qualcomm’s goal here is to offer manufacturers of headphones, phones, tablets and other consumer electronics components a hardware and software solution that provides their products with best-in-class audio quality, latency and connectivity robustness.
(Image credit: Qualcomm)
In addition to expanding aptX Adaptive to support 96kHz with 89-millisecond latency (“45% lower than a leading competitor”, says Qualcomm), Snapdragon Sound also incorporates the company’s Active Noise Cancelling and aptX Voice wide-band technologies to offer its optimal noise cancellation and voice calling experience.
Away from wireless device use cases and geared towards wired listening with a phone, is Snapdragon Sound’s incorporation of the Qualcomm Aqstic DAC, which supports native playback of PCM files up to 32-bit/384kHz PCM, as well as DSD.
Qualcomm says we should see the first products with Snapdragon Sound in the second half of this year, with phones and headphones to initially appear before PCs, watches and XR glasses. Presumably, they will be higher-end devices in their fields and, as confirmed by their launch partnership, Xiaomi phone(s) and Audio-Technica headphones will be in that first batch.
“We believe that with Snapdragon Sound we get closer to our mutual vision of providing wired quality sound wirelessly, and are excited to be one of the first manufacturers to get our products to consumers,” said Kotaro Narihara, Audio-Technica’s director and general manager of marketing headquarters.
Snapdragon Sound – available to OEMs from today – will be offered within Qualcomm’s latest QCC514x, QCC515x and QCC3056 series of Bluetooth audio SoCs, which have been geared to enhance the true wireless headphones experience.
With 24-bit/96khz music increasingly prevalent thanks to the hi-res support from streaming services such as Tidal, Qobuz and Amazon Music HD, Qualcomm hopes to encourage and improve the hi-res audio listening experience. It has also partnered with Amazon to launch a collaborative (and celebratory) ‘Snapdragon Sound’ playlist of hi-res streams on the Amazon Music HD service, available today.
MORE:
High-resolution audio: everything you need to know
aptX HD Bluetooth: What is it? How can you get it?
(Pocket-lint) – Redmi is fast becoming a key disruptor in the affordable phones market. The company’s Note 10 Pro, as reviewed here, makes it clear to see why: it’s dripping with specification that puts it a cut above its nearest of competition.
The brand name might not be instantly recognisable to all – Redmi is an offshoot of Xiaomi, hence no surprise the Note 10 Pro is like a watered-down Xiaomi Mi 11 in many respects – but when affordability is your main goal, and it simply functions as well as this, that’s not going to be a major barrier.
So if you’re seeking a phone that costs around a couple of hundred, is the Redmi Note 10 Pro appealing enough to knock the likes of the Motorola G30 out of contention?
Design & Display
6.67-inch AMOLED display, 1080 x 2400 resolution, 120Hz refresh rate
Upon pulling the Redmi Note 10 Pro from its box – here in “Onyx Gray”, which has a soft, almost blue hue about it – it’s comes across as a pretty good-looking slab of glass and plastic. There’s Gorilla Glass 5 to protect the front, and not a mass of bezel cutting into the screen either.
What is cutting into that screen more prominently than most is the punch-hole camera. It’s not even the scale of it – it’s a smaller diameter than you’ll find on recent Motorola handsets, for example – but because it’s got a silvery, shiny ring that can catch light and is a bit distracting. We’d rather it was pushed to the left side, more out of sight, and darkened please.
The Note 10 Pro’s rear is plastic, but not in a budget-looking way. Indeed it catches fingerprints in a similar fashion to glass, but it’s easy enough to wipe clean. And Redmi has chosen some pretty classy colour options too – none of the “Pastel Sky” (read: pink and mud-green) nonsense that Motorola opted for with the G30.
The only bother of the rear is that protruding camera bump. Not only is it large, it’s off-centre and, therefore, the phone wobbles about all over the place when laid upon a desk. Not that the main goal of a phone is to use it flat on a desk – you’ll normally have it in the hand – but it’s still a bugbear. A different camera enclosure would have negated this little aspect of the design.
The Note 10 Pro’s side-mounted fingerprint scanner is very neatly integrated, though, and we’ve found it to function very rapidly for logins. There’s also face unlock by using that front-facing camera, should you prefer. Oh, and if you’re still part of the wired headphones gang then the 3.5mm jack will prove a point of appreciation for you too.
And so to the screen. This is one aspect of the phone that really helps to sell it for a number of reasons. First, it’s large, at 6.67-inches on the diagonal. But, more important than that, it’s got a Full HD+ resolution that puts it a step beyond many of its near competitors. Motorola, for example, has dropped to just HD+ in its lower-end Moto G family (so around 50 per cent fewer pixels).
The Note 10 Pro’s screen is AMOLED based, too, meaning it can have an always-on display activated – which illuminates the edges in a subtle fashion when there’s a notification, as one example – for visuals to be available without actively needing to turn the display on.
That screen tech also means deep blacks, while colour is decent. As the software allows a brightness selection for night use we’ve not found the auto-brightness to be of any bother here either – which is refreshing, as it’s been a pain in basically every other MIUI software-based handset of recent times.
The other big feature of this screen is that it offers a 120Hz refresh rate. The theory here is that it can run at double the rate – 120 refreshes per second – to give a smoother visual experience. That can often be the case, too, just not in every single aspect of use. That’s the oddity of higher refresh rates: if you don’t have the hardware-software combination to handle it, then it’ll come a cropper. Thankfully it’s not too bad here, but there are some moments where the ultra-smooth swiping in, say, the Photos app gets stuttery when moving over to a different app instead.
Faster refresh is one of those nice-to-haves, sure, but 120Hz it’s not on by default – and even when you do go to activate it, MIUI describes it as a “medium” level refresh. It’s “low” for 60Hz, apparently, despite that being perfectly fine. And, um, there is no “high” – so the scale doesn’t make huge amount of sense. But it’s all a distraction really, from what’s an otherwise perfectly decent screen.
Performance & Battery
Qualcomm Snapdragon 732G platform, 6GB RAM
5,020mAh battery, 33W fast-charging
MIUI 12 software (over Android 11)
Even with the 120Hz refresh rate activated, the Redmi Pro doesn’t suffer from limited battery life. We’ve been using the phone for the week prior to the launch event as our own device – and in that time there’s usually 50 per cent battery remaining by bedtime. That’s 16 hours a time, so it’s on the edge of being a two-day laster.
The battery capacity is large, which is part of the reason for this longevity, but there’s also the instance of the processor and software combination. With Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 732G platform under the hood the Redmi hits that sweetspot of reasonable performance, limits overheating, and there’s no 5G possibility to grind it down either.
As chipsets go, the SD732 is capable of handling multiple apps, including games without particular graphical insufficiencies, meaning whether you want to run Zwift on your phone, dabble in a bit of PUBG Mobile, or hit some South Park: Phone Destroyer, it’s all within the Redmi Note 10’s reach.
The only slight stutters – and we mean very slight – tend to appear when jumping between apps. That’s when you can visually see a lowering of the frame-rate, hence the question over whether 120Hz is actually all that important here.
Running everything is Xiaomi’s MIUI 12 software, skinned over the top of Google’s Android 11 operating system. We’ve had very mixed experiences with this software in the recent past – with the Xiaomi Mi 11 it was limiting, in the Poco M3 it was irksome – but, oddly, in the Redmi Note 10 it’s caused us no significant issues. We’ve previously criticised Xiaomi’s software for being wildly inconsistent between devices (sometimes even on the same software version), but at least the Redmi gets the upper hand here.
That said, MIUI 12 does need some ‘training’, if you like. By default it battery limits every app, which you need to dig into in individual settings to rectify and ensure there’s no issue with limiting what an app can do and when, or how much power it can or can’t use in the background. However, even with the default option selected we’ve not had notification delays like we did have with the Xiaomi Mi 11. So there’s greater stability here.
In the past there’s been criticism for targeted ads in Xiaomi software, but that’s no proven a bother in this Redmi setup either. Yes, there’s still a separate Xiaomi store in addition to Google Play – which sometimes means apps will update from one, some from the other – but it’s enough in the background and out of the way that you basically needn’t worry about it.
So while we’d usually be criticising the software experience as the thing to hold a MIUI handset back, the Redmi Note 10 Pro actually fares well. In combination with its hardware loadout that makes for a generally smooth experience, too, plus a long-lasting one. Can’t say much better than that.
In terms of cameras the Redmi Note 10 Pro features what it calls a quad rear setup. That’s a bit of a stretch, really, as the depth sensor isn’t really needed or useful at all. And the ultra-wide angle isn’t the best of quality. But that’s most of the bad news out of the way.
The 5-megapixel macro sensor that’s on board is, just like that of the Mi 11, rather good fun. It’s not wildly accurate with autofocus, but at least it offers some. And sharpness isn’t pristine either – but it’s far better than what we’ve seen from umpteen lower-resolution so-called macro sensors on other phones.
The real take-way of the setup, however, is the 108-megapixel camera. If you can really consider it as that. While most makers use a four-in-one pixel methodology to gather more information and produce an image a quarter the size of the headline resolution, this Redmi goes with a nine-in-one pixel method. That means you’ll get 12-megapixel results as standard instead.
By using these nine pixels – think of it as a three by three row in a square – there’s the prospect of adding lots of comparison, more colour data, all of which can be processed into a sharp looking shot. Even in low-light conditions the Redmi Note 10 Pro’s results hold up well. We’ve been impressed.
There are limits though. As there’s no optical image stabilisation here, you’ll need a steady hand. And the Night Mode – which uses long exposure to combine multiple frames into one ‘brighter’ shot – doesn’t work well as a result. Without the stabilisation here things just don’t line-up well, making for soft, ‘mushy’ results. MIUI
No, there’s no zoom lens, so you don’t get any optical zoom fanciness, and the camera app is a bit compartmentalised in its approach, but the overall take-away from the Redmi Note 10 Pro’s camera is that the main lens delivers a lot from an affordable device. You could do a lot worse elsewhere.
First Impressions
As we said up top, Redmi is becoming a key disruptor in the affordable phone market. The Note 10 Pro makes it clear to see why: this device doesn’t just have a decent specification, it comes good on delivery too.
There’s more resolution here than on close rival Motorola handsets, the software is more stable than we’ve seen from other MIUI 12 handsets (although Motorola’s approach is clearly better), and that main 108-megapixel camera is most capable unit (although it does output at 12MP by default).
The shortcomings are only few and far between – that punch-hole camera is weird, the lack of optical stabilisation is a shame, and the camera bump (which causes ‘desk wobble’) jars somewhat – making the Redmi Note 10 Pro the most accomplished affordable phone we’ve yet seen in 2021.
Also consider
Moto G30
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Motorola always delivers better on software experience – and it’s the same here – but you’ll have to accept a lower-level processor and less attractive overall design as part of this otherwise well-priced budget handset.
Amazon has announced a new feature for its Halo fitness-tracking gadget: Alexa integration. With this new feature, Halo owners will be able to ask Alexa devices for various health stats, such as their sleep score or activity points obtained during the day. The integration will be off by default and owners will need the latest firmware on their Halo bands and the latest version of the iOS or Android app to enable it. Amazon says the feature rollout is starting today, March 4th, and will be continuing over the next week or so.
The Halo band is Amazon’s first fitness-focused product and it’s had a less than stellar reception since it was announced last fall. Aside from the standard fitness things of tracking your movement and sleep patterns, the $99.99 Halo also has the ability to police the tone of your voice and tell you when you’re being dismissive or condescending with your words. The companion Halo app also has a feature to 3D scan your body through your phone’s camera and measure your fat composition. These two unconventional features have been criticized by reviewers at publications like TheNew York Times and Washington Post (which is actually owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos) for both their invasiveness and inconsistency.
Alexa integration options in the Halo app.Image: Amazon
Weirdly, even though the Halo has been available for purchase since the middle of December (it first launched with a limited, invite-only rollout), it is out of stock in all sizes and colors on Amazon right now, with no information on when it might return. I’ve asked Amazon about this and the company declined to comment, though other retailers such as Best Buy appear to have plenty of stock. As of this writing, the Halo has a 3.7-star rating from Amazon customers, compared to the 4.6-star rating the similarly sized and priced Fitbit Inspire 2 holds.
Amazon notes that the Alexa integration only allows for Alexa to provide information related to health data captured by the Halo — Alexa will not be able to do the tone analysis itself. It also will not store the Halo data as part of its responses. There is an option to set a voice PIN to protect access to the Halo data and you’ll be able to opt for a five-minute timeout window after the PIN is entered for easier access to the Halo data in subsequent requests.
Though the Halo integration works with all Alexa-enabled devices, including smart displays, it doesn’t have any special optimization for those that have screens. If you want to see any charts or graphs of your fitness data, you’ll have to go to the Halo smartphone app.
Amazon says Halo owners will be able to disable the integration at any time from the Halo app should they decide they no longer want it, and they can manage and delete voice recordings from their Halo requests in the privacy hub of the Alexa app.
Eve Systems, a maker of smart home products that work with Apple’s HomeKit platform, is announcing an expanded range of devices that support the Thread smart protocol. The news consists of updated versions of its existing smart plug, a forthcoming firmware update for the company’s smart sprinkler, and a new outdoor weather station.
Thread is a wireless communication standard that was developed from the ground up for smart home purposes and is designed to replace legacy technologies such as Z-Wave and Zigbee. Benefits of Thread include more reliable connections between devices, faster response times, and longer battery life.
Though Thread support has existed in a handful of devices for quite some time, Apple’s HomePod mini is the first one to really make Thread a viable option in the smart home. It can act as a bridge between Thread-enabled accessories and connect them to the internet, which they can’t do on their own. Thread is also one of the pillar technologies of the Connected Home over IP (CHIP) project, a cooperation between all the major smart home platform and device providers to standardize around an interoperable wireless protocol.
It’s with that in mind that Eve is updating and expanding its device portfolio. The new Eve Energy, which will be available in either US or UK versions, is an updated version of Eve’s smart plug. It will support both Thread and Bluetooth and will be available in the US starting on April 6th and the UK starting on May 4th. The Energy is unique in that it can act as a repeater for the Thread network, letting it extend the signal to devices even if they are out of reach of a HomePod mini. In the US, the Energy will cost $39.95.
The latest version of the Eve Energy smart plug adds Thread support.Image: Eve
A forthcoming firmware update will add Thread support to the $99.95 Eve Aqua, the company’s smart sprinkler system. Thanks to Thread’s greater range, the updated Aqua can maintain its connection to the network better than it could with just Bluetooth. Eve says support for Thread will be released in April.
Lastly, the all-new Eve Weather is a wireless outdoor weather station that allows you to track the exact outdoor temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure at your home. It is a replacement for the Eve Degree, a similar product that relied solely on Bluetooth for its connectivity. The Eve Weather has a monochrome display that shows the current temperature, humidity, and weather conditions; the Eve app provides access to trends over time and more specific data. The Weather also has Siri integration for voice queries.
Eve claims the Weather is IPX3 water resistant and is specifically designed for outdoor use. It runs on a coin cell battery which should last between six and 12 months before needing to be replaced. The Eve Weather will be available starting March 25th for $69.95.
The Eve Weather shows current temperature, humidity, and weather trends on its monochrome display.Image: Eve
These aren’t the only products in Eve’s portfolio that support Thread. The company has already issued firmware updates with Thread support for its door and window sensors and European-spec Energy smart plug, and it says everything it has released since June 2020 has the hardware necessary to work with Thread. It is one of the first companies to really throw its hat into the Thread ring in a meaningful way.
Eve is a unique company in the smart home market as its products only work with Apple’s HomeKit platform and don’t support Amazon Alexa, Google Home, or any of the other platforms out there. That’s different from most other smart home companies, which try to reach the broadest possible audience by supporting the most popular platforms, which often means Amazon Alexa and Google Home. The HomeKit device ecosystem is much smaller in comparison, largely thanks to an onerous hardware certification that Apple used to require and has since rolled back. HomeKit is also completely inaccessible from outside of Apple’s ecosystem, so if you have an Android phone, you can’t control Eve devices.
Eve System’s CEO Jerome Gackel told me the company’s goal isn’t just to be a HomeKit accessory maker. It’s just that Apple’s platform is the only one that allows Eve to focus its efforts on its devices and apps without having to also maintain a cloud service to allow them to connect to the internet. All of the processing for Eve devices happens locally on your home network or between your own devices, without sending data to the cloud, which helps the company achieve its goal of a privacy-first smart home. (You can still remotely control Eve devices through Apple’s Home app, provided you have a HomeKit hub, such as an Apple TV, HomePod, or iPad running in your home.)
Gackel hopes that support for Thread and its key role in the CHIP project will open the door to working with the other smart home platforms in the future. But Eve won’t work with Alexa or Google Home so long as they continue to require a cloud connection to their platforms.
Eve’s bet on HomeKit has been successful so far — the company already has 18 products in its lineup and claims sales of over 1 million units by 2019, with two-thirds of its customer base in Germany and the rest in the US. Its lineup for 2021 will make it the largest provider of HomeKit accessories, with Thread support being a recurring theme throughout.
Xiaomi has announced its Redmi Note 10 line, the latest in its phone series that’s titanically popular in India and beyond. As is tradition for the Redmi Note phones, the 10 series brings some high-end features to much lower price points.
The Redmi Note 10 Pro is the main attraction here, with several variants including the Note 10S, Note 10, and Note 10 5G adjusting various specs to meet different price points. The Note 10 Pro’s standout feature is its 6.67-inch 1080p OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate.
The Note 10 Pro also has a 108-megapixel primary camera alongside an 8-megapixel ultrawide, a 5-megapixel “telemacro”, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. On paper, that puts its camera setup in reach of Xiaomi’s new Mi 11 flagship, though the Note 10 Pro’s 1.55-inch 108-megapixel sensor is a little smaller. The holepunch selfie camera, meanwhile, is 16 megapixels.
Other specs include a Snapdragon 732 processor, 6GB or 8GB of RAM, 64GB or 128GB of storage, a 5,020mAh battery, 33W fast charging, a microSD card slot plus two separate SIM card slots, stereo speakers, a fingerprint sensor in the power button, and a headphone jack. The biggest omission is wireless charging, but that’s not a surprise for a device in this price range.
Xiaomi wouldn’t provide full international pricing details ahead of the launch, but the Indian variant of the Redmi Note 10 Pro is called the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max and starts at Rs. 18,999 (~$260) for a model with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. The non-Max Indian Note 10 Pro is identical but has a 64-megapixel main camera instead and starts at 15,999 (~$220) for the 6GB/64GB model.
(Pocket-lint) – Fitbit offers numerous devices in the activity tracking market, from the plain and simple Inspire 2 to its top-of-the-range smartwatch Sense.
The Charge 4 is an activity tracker that sits in between the Fitbit Inspire range and the Fitbit Versa range.
We’ve compared it to its predecessor – the Charge 3 – as well as the older Charge 2 to see how the Charge devices differ and help you work out if you should upgrade.
Which Fitbit is right for me?
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Design
Charge 2: OLED tap display, buckle, stainless steel, interchangeable straps
Charge 3: OLED touchscreen, buckle, aluminium, interchangeable straps, water resistant
Charge 4: OLED touchscreen, buckle, aluminium, interchangeable straps, water resistant
The Fitbit Charge 3 and Charge 4 are virtually identical in design on the surface, but they offer a number of refinements compared to the Charge 2. Not only do they add water resistance up to 50-metres, making them both swim proof, but they also trade the stainless steel body of the Charge 2 for aluminium, resulting in 20 per cent lighter devices.
The Charge 3 and Charge 4 have smoother, sleeker finishes overall compared to the Charge 2, and they also have a more refined mechanism for changing the straps. Additionally, the Charge 3 and Charge 4 trade the physical button found on the left of the Charge 2’s display for a neater inductive button.
The Fitbit Charge 2, Charge 3 and Charge 4 all have OLED displays, but the Charge 2 is just a tap display, while the Charge 3 and Charge 4 both have touchscreen displays. The Charge 3 and Charge 4 also have 40 per cent larger displays than the Charge 2.
The three devices all have buckle fastenings and they all feature a PurePulse heart rate monitor that sits on the underside of their main bodies – more on that next.
Fitbit Charge 3 review
Specs and sensors
Charge 2: PurePulse HR monitor, connected GPS
Charge 3: PurePulse HR, SpO2 monitor, connected GPS, NFC in some models
All three Fitbit Charge devices being compared here have a PurePulse optical heart rate monitor, offering automatic and continuous heart rate tracking. They also all have an accelerometer, altimeter and vibration motor.
The Charge 3 and Charge 4 both have relative SpO2 sensors too, allowing users to view a graph in the Fitbit app to see an estimate of the oxygen level variability in your bloodstream, which is designed to help show variations in your breathing during sleep.
In terms of GPS, the Charge 2 and Charge 3 both offer connected GPS, using your smartphone for the GPS signal meaning you’ll need to bring it with you when you go for a run or walk if you want detailed map data. The Charge 4 however, offers built-in GPS. There are seven GPS-enabled exercise modes to choose from.
The Charge 3 and Charge 4 also both have NFC on board, allowing you to pay with your activity tracker at contactless terminals through Fitbit Pay. While the NFC chip comes as standard on the Charge 4 however, it’s only available in the Special Edition models of the Charge 3.
Features
Charge 2: Activity and sleep monitoring, auto exercise recognition, multi-sport tracking, smartphone alerts
Charge 3: Adds swim tracking, goal-based exercise, run detect with auto stop, accept/reject calls, quick replies, NFC (Special Edition), Active Zone Minutes
Charge 4: Adds Spotify support, Smart Wake
The Fitbit Charge 2, 3 and 4 all feature all-day activity tracking (steps, distance, calories, floors climbed, activity minutes, hourly activity, stationary time) and sleep monitoring with sleep stages and sleep score. They also all allow you to see daily stats on their displays, along with smartphone notifications – the latter of which are more advanced on the Charge 3 and 4.
Other features found on all three devices include SmartTrack, which automatically recognises when you exercise, Multi-Sport tracking, Cardio Fitness Level, which allows users to see a personalised Cardio score and Guided Breathing, which offers personalised breathing sessions based on your heart rate.
In addition to all the features offered on the Charge 2, the Charge 3 and Charge 4 also both have swim tracking on board, Goal-Based Exercise, Run Detect with auto stop, a timer option and weather information. It’s also possible to accept or reject calls and send Quick Replies if you are an Android user.
There’s also a feature called Active Zone Minutes. This feature uses your personalised heart rate zones to track your effort for any energising activity, allowing you to earn credit towards the recommended 150-minute weekly goal for each minute of moderate activity in the fat burn zone and double the credit for vigorous activity in cardio and peak zones.
Adding to the Charge 3’s features, the Charge 4 offers Spotify support for control of Spotify on your phone, as well as Smart Wake, which uses machine learning to wake you at the optimal time – a feature that was previously only available on Fitbit smartwatches.
Price and conclusion
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The Fitbit Charge 2 and Special Edition models aren’t available through Fitbit anymore, but you can still get hold of it online at retailers like Amazon. We’d recommend looking at the Charge 3 before you do though as that is the superior device in many ways and there might not be much difference in price.
The Fitbit Charge 3 could be a good option for some, especially given the design is the same as the Charge 4. It has a great feature set and you might find it at a decent price compared to the Charge 4.
With built-in GPS on the Charge 4 however, and the extra additional features like Spotify control, that’s the model to go for if your budget allows. The built-in GPS means it also makes for a decent upgrade, to both the Charge 3 and 2 but you’ll see an even bigger difference if you have the Charge 2.
CircuitPython, Adafruit’s enhanced fork of the MicroPython language, runs on nearly 200 different microcontroller boards, including the Raspberry Pi Pico, and it could soon become an operating system for regular (non-Pico) Raspberry Pis. While appearing as a guest on the Tom’s Hardware Pi Cast this week, CircuitPython Programming Lead Scott Shawcroft told us that he wants to create a version of the language that single-board computers like the Raspberry Pi Zero, Pi 4 and Pi 400 can boot straight into, without the overhead of a full operating system.
“I’d like to get CircuitPython running on the Raspberry Pi alone, without Linux underneath it,” Shawcroft said in response to our questions about whether he plans to add Pico VGA output support to the languages. “So, when I think of ‘I want to interface with a TV’ sorts of tasks, I want to actually go the route of getting CircuitPython running the A series chips on the regular Raspberry Pis instead of putting my time into the VGA sorts of things on the Pico, because that’s super limited.”
Recently, a number of Raspberry Pi Pico projects have used the chip’s ability to output to VGA. Ben Stragnell created a Pico-powered NES emulator and, on another recent episode of the Pi Cast, Raspberry Pi Pico SDK author Graham Sanderson showed off a BBC Micro emulator he had created for the microcontroller. However, to Shawcroft’s point, the Pico and its 133 MHz RP2040 processor will never provide the kind of high-res, high refresh rate video out that a regular Pi can.
“If we can get CircuitPython running on a CM4, a Pi 4 or a Pi 400, that means that you can have that nostalgia programming experience on a 4K display or two 4K displays and, if we’re running native on the devices, we can still have that experience of like plug it in and it shows up as a drive, depending on how its connected,” Shawcroft said.
Aside from just allowing better video out than a Pico can handle, bringing CircuitPython to Raspberry Pi as an OS would have other advantages. It would likely allow a regular Raspberry Pi to act more like a microcontroller, booting and running its default program almost instantly and turning off without the need for a safe-shutdown process.
We got more details about this idea from Shawcroft after the show was over and he noted that, while he thinks that bootable CircuitPython for Raspberry Pi will happen, it’s just an idea at this point with no scheduled rollout.
A more immediate priority, which Shawcroft is starting to work on now, is creating the framework for users to edit CircuitPython over Bluetooth LE from mobile devices. So anyone who only has access to a phone or tablet will be able to edit code on a Bluetooth-enabled microcontroller using a mobile app or perhaps a browser. This will allow children, who may not have PCs, to get in on the programming experience.
Whenever bootable CircuitPython comes to Raspberry Pi, its workflow could take one of several forms. First, if the Pi supports USB host mode as Pi 4 and Zero do, you would be able to connect it to a PC and have it appear as a storage device you can write files to, much in the way you write files to CircuitPython-powered microcontrollers.
However, it’s also possible that the Pi could boot to a command interpreter that looks and acts similar to the way people programmed in BASIC on a Commodore 64. Shawcroft has actually played around with this mode of Python input and placed a demo of it, along with an animation of the demo in action, on his github. You also might be able to program the Pi via Bluetooth LE.
Even though there’s no bootable version yet, Raspberry Pi users do have a way to use CircuitPython right now. The Adafruit Blinka library for Python, which you can install via pip, allows you to add CircuitPython code to regular Python programs.
While Shawcroft may not have time to work on bootable CircuitPython for a while, he noted that other developers are free and encouraged to take up the project.
“If folks like this idea, then I’d encourage them to reach out to help make it happen,” he said. “We’re always looking for more CircuitPython contributors. My highest priority is always to support others working on CircuitPython so I’m happy to give guidance and get things merged into CircuitPython proper. I’d love to see CircuitPython supported directly on Pis and other single board computers.”
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