This week, Apple launched a new Apple TV 4K streamer complete with a shiny new Siri remote control. But there’s a kicker – the new Siri remote won’t work with motion-controlled video games, DigitalTrends reports.
That’s because it lacks a gyroscope and accelerometer, meaning no Wii-style motion gaming. According to MacRumors, if you try to play a motion-controlled game with the new remote you’ll see the following error message:
“To play this game on your Apple TV, you need to connect the Apple TV Remote (1st generation) or a compatible PlayStation, Xbox or MFi controller.”
Why the change? Apple Arcade is trying to position itself as a more serious gaming platform, with fewer motion-controlled titles, which are seen as frivolous by more hardcore gamers. It stopped insisting that games on the platform support the original Siri controller’s motion controls back in 2016, and in 2019 started supporting controllers from “proper” consoles such as the Xbox One and PS4. It will soon support PS5 and Xbox Series X/S controllers, too.
The new Apple TV supports high frame rate HDR with Dolby Vision at 60fps, and is powered by the A12 Bionic chip, which debuted in 2018’s iPhone XS. It also has a unique approach to setting the colour balance: it uses your iPhone’s sensors to optimise the video output for your particular TV. The light sensor in the iPhone compares the colour balance to “industry-standard specifications used by cinematographers worldwide”. The Apple TV 4K then automatically tweaks its picture output to allegedly deliver more accurate colours and better contrast based on the measurements it takes from your TV.
We can’t wait to try it for ourselves.
MORE:
Apple’s new TV calibration feature is coming to older Apple TV models
Apple launches new Apple iPad Pro with Liquid Retina XDR screen and M1 chip
G.SKILL is well known for its system memory and SSDs and has recently expanded into the peripheral market with gaming-oriented keyboards, mice, headsets, and more. It goes without saying that the company is well respected by the enthusiast community due in part to their high-quality memory. Regardless of whether it is their value lineup or Trident Z kits, the company’s entire portfolio of memory is well regarded. With a solid foundation to build from and a solid plan for expansion, which includes the recently announced ENKI series of liquid coolers, G.SKILL will continue to be a dominant force in the DIY PC market.
In today’s review, I put the G.SKILL ENKI 360 AIO through a battery of tests, comparing it to numerous high-end cooling solutions to see just what it’s capable of. While it does have an ARGB-illuminated pump, G.SKILL opted for black fans, giving the cooler a more subdued appearance. The company has also focused on the cooler’s performance by using a denser aluminium radiator for more surface area with fans that balance static pressure and airflow. That said, let’s take a closer look at what the G.SKILL ENKI 360 has to offer.
(Pocket-lint) – Audiophile brand Bowers & Wilkins has always taken its sweet time in adopting new technologies. It told Pocket-lint in the past that this is intentional – it likes to wait until the market matures and its own high audio quality standards can be met.
It was relatively late to market with a Bluetooth speaker and wireless heaphones. And, it only adopted active or adaptive noise-cancellation when it was sure its tech wouldn’t hamper audio performance.
That’s why it is also late to the party with true wireles in-ears. And, do you know what, we don’t mind. The flagship Bowers & Wilkins PI7 in-ear true wireless headphones are proof positive that a softly softly approach can reap dividends.
In many ways, these ‘buds remind us of the excellent Sony WF-1000XM3 earphones. Except smaller, more confortable, and with even more musicality. That’s the benefit of hindsight in effect right there.
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Top headphones capable of handling lossless 48kHz digital audio from Apple devices.
What you get in the box
When you open the box, you see a tasty-looking, small-scale case. It’s a bit larger than an Apple AirPods equivalent but a lot smaller than many we’ve also had through the Pocket-lint testing bed.
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The case comes with a USB-C port and a couple of buttons, including a Bluetooth pairing button that allows you to connect it to your device without needing to take out the ‘buds.
A USB-C to USB-C cable is included, but you’ll have to provide your own charging plug. That does mean it is capable of being fast charged, though. It can also be charged wirelessly, if you have a Qi mat handy.
The case has a further neat trick up its sleeve too: it can also act as a Bluetooth transmitter. Using an additional included USB-C to 3.5mm mini jack cable, you can plug the case into any source and transmit audio to your PI7s wirelessly.
This feature could be great for listening to in-flight entertainment – rather than buying something such as the RHA Wireless Flight Adapter – for example, or for using with a Nintendo Switch, which doesn’t currently support Bluetooth headphones. The case will also pair with other Bowers & Wilkins wireless headphones – such as the B&W PX7 released in 2020 – so can simultaneously transmit audio to those too.
Design and fit
The Bowers & Wilkins PI7 in-ears are beautifully designed. We are testing the white version – they are also available in charcoal.
They are extremely comfortable and light, with a matte finish to the plastic and neat metallic element on the outer tips. It’s meant to be a gold finish but, depending on the light, can look gunmetal grey at times.
The eartips are silicone, with the medium sized tips on the earbuds as default. You get a couple of extra silicone tips in the box, in small and large.
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In our ears, they fit very well indeed and are extremely comfortable. We wouldn’t imagine getting earache from these over long periods, unlike some competitors (although these first impressions are based on having the PI7s for a few days, so a full, in-depth test is yet to follow).
What we will say though, is that as the larger plastic section needs to fit inside the bowl of your ear, some with smaller ears may struggle to place it successfully.
The ‘buds are water- and dust-proof, which is great for indoor workouts. But, we’re not sure they’re secure enough for running outdoors. Very few non-sport TWS in-ears are, to be honest.
There are touch controls on each of the earphones. You can tap to take a call, pause, play and rewind music, and adjust noise-cancelling and activate your chosen voice assistant. There are also wear sensors on each, so when you remove either, the music stops. It plays automatically when you put them back in.
Set-up and battery life
Setting up the Bowers & Wilkins PI7 in-ears is a doddle. For iPhone users, you just need to head to your Bluetooth settings screen and press the button inside the case for a couple of seconds. The headphones should appear in your list for connection.
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It’s even easier on Android devices with Google Fast Pair enabled. Just place the case nearby and open the case lid. Then follow the instructions on your phone.
You also need to download the Bowers & Wilkins Headphones app to control a couple of the features and/or update the PI7s or their case. Once paired via Bluetooth, you can search for your in-ears through the app – this will bring up a dedicated settings section.
The app will also show you the battery status of each earbud and the case. It gives you control over the adaptive noise-cancellation tech (switching it on or off, or choosing whether to have it automatically adjust depending on your surroundings). You can also change the strength of the noise-cancelling effect via a transparency slider.
Battery life is claimed to be up to 4 hours of playback for each ‘bud, with a further 16 hours from the case. We are yet to test that fully.
Audio performance
We’ve been hugely impressed by the audio performance and signature in our listening tests so far.
The B&W PI7 headphones support Qualcomm’s aptX Adaptive lossless wireless tech, although we’re yet to give that a thorough workout. We have, though, streamed plenty of Tidal Masters tracks via an iPhone 12 Pro Max.
Naturally, this isn’t the best we could get but it’s close to what we expect most users will acheive.
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Led Zeppelin’s Bring it on Home (remastered) sounded deep, involving, and with excellent separation. As too did The Kink’s Shangri-La (the stereo mix). While it is weird writing about the imperfections in a recording, they are often what makes a certain version so good, and every squeaky guitar slide is picked out by these headphones.
Bass is impressive too. Each earbud has its own amplifier, supporting a custom 9.2mm drive unit. This works greatly across all fequencies, but bass certainly benefits.
Aside from obvious hip-hop examples, the opening bars of the 2019 remix of Come Together by The Beatles are throaty and tangible. All from tiny in-ears with no cable attached. Amazing.
First Impressions
We want to investigate further before we give our full opinion, but so far, it seems like Bowers & Wilkins is onto a winner with the PI7 wireless in-ears.
These earbuds are extremely high quality and look tasty to match. Their musicality is right up there, but then so is the price, so you would expect as much.
That’s probably our only quibble for now – the B&Ws are almost twice the price of Apple’s AirPods Pro equivalents. Indeed, there are few high-end alternatives priced quite so highly.
Bowers & Wilkins does counter that with the less expensive PI5 – released at the same time – but we haven’t heard those yet to give you a decent comparison, and they don’t come with the Hi-Res Audio specifications.
Still, we’d imagine there are plenty willing to pay a premium price for premium performance. We’ll soon follow up with a full review to let you know if it’s justified. So far, so good, however.
(Pocket-lint) – There’s a little thing in the car world called CMP – Common Modular Platform. While you won’t see it, it’s underpinning a number of cars coming from the PSA group – Citroën, Peugeot, Vauxhall, DS Automobiles, and for those in Europe, Opel.
That’s why you’ll find a number of cars with what look like similar specifications on the road, while the bodywork is all different. Basically, it’s different flavours of the same ice cream. The ë-C4 being Citroën’s flavour of this electric car. So just how tasty is it?
Design
Sitting in the crossover segment, the Citroën ë-C4 – and the combustion C4 versions – look to offer something a little different in terms of design. The C4 has always been slightly playful – we’ve seen the Picasso and the Cactus in previous years – and here we have coupe stylings, rather than just being another hatch.
We’ll come right forward and say that we like this design. It’s fresh and it’s different, the front half of the car swirling in some of the design elements we’ve seen from Citroën recently – with coloured trims and sculpting – while the rear drops off giving you a split rear window that’s reminiscent of the C4 Coupe of yesteryear.
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This big coupe design has often been the preserve of German premium marques – Mercedes, BMW and Audi have all made SUVs with coupe styles in recent years. Adding Citroën to this list makes a lot of sense: this isn’t just another C segment hatchback and it’s all the better for it.
What’s missing is a full glass roof – there’s a sunroof on the options list (it’s £800 in the UK) – but we can’t help feeling that with a glass roof this car would be even nicer in the interior.
The move to that faster coupe style back brings with it a couple of points to note. The rear window has a horizonal split, with a trailing spoiler on the exterior and that does cut across your rearview vision slightly, although we think Citroën should have taken the glass higher up the back to give better rear vision.
That also means you don’t have the same standing height in the 380 litre boot that you might in a regular hatch design, but it’s slightly deeper – larger than the DS 3 Crossback E-Tense – and potentially more usable as a family car as a result.
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At the same time, adding that split allows Citroën to keep the e-C4’s roofline slightly higher, meaning that interior space isn’t compromised and does give for an interesting design.
While it looks great, there are some minor quality concerns. The boot lid, for example, needs a really good slam and it just feels as though it’s not quite as substantial as you’ll find elsewhere.
A comfortable interior
Citroën puts a focus on comfort and the interior is a truly comforting space. There’s reasonable space in the front, while the interior gives respectable headroom for the rear passengers.
Comfortable seats get a cloth finish, leaving the leathers aside for the sake of affordability. There are touches of leather through the cabin, but the predominance is for hard- and soft-touch plastics. That lacks the premium feel that you’ll find in the DS 3, for example, but it doesn’t look cheap and has the attraction of being easy to clean.
There are colour details – with inserted blue stripes to remind you you’re in an electric car, while the only part we find that lets the side down is the glossy black plastics on the centre console. Gloss black leads to fingerprints and dust which always seems to be visible – you’ll be forever cleaning it.
The layout of the interior is similar to the DS Automobiles equivalent – you can see that these cars are related – although Citroën has minimised many of the controls. There’s a full spread of aircon dials and buttons, but other functions controlled though the display lack direct access buttons.
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There’s a home button and a button by the electronic brake toggle for the electric stats screen – but radio, satnav and other functions all require you to punch the home button and then use the on-screen control. That means you’re often having to press a number of buttons to use these functions.
There’s also a mite more convenience than the DS layout which puts all the window controls in the centre of the car – the Citroën leaves them on the door, which we think is sensible.
The c-ë4’s interior display sits nice and high on the dash for easy visibility. And although the driver display is a little small, the head-up display (HUD) adds a touch of class.
What you really take away from it, however, is the comfort. There’s plenty of space in the front and you’ll fit adults in the rear too, with enough headroom for taller passengers.
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There’s a false floor in the boot, but we like the fact that you can drop it to gain the maximum storage space – or keep it in place to keep your charging cables out of sight.
Talking about technology
The Citroën ë-C4 is reasonably well appointed with technology, but as we hinted at above, its biggest failure is in the lack of controls.
There’s a 10-inch display in the centre of the car, mounted on the top of the dash, so most of the interaction will be via touch. There’s a slight frame to it, like a shelf along the bottom edge, which gives you somewhere to rest your hand while tapping away – which makes it more usable.
The downside is that there are only a couple of physical buttons: the home button, which takes you home; a car button, which takes you the vehicle settings (which you’re unlikely to change once you’ve setup the car the first time you drive); and an electric button, which takes you through to see some of the electric stats, but little else.
Outside of this, you can scroll through pages, like the radio stations, using the steering wheel controls, but there’s no other direct controls via other buttons. Instead, you have to use touch – and often you’ll have to press the home button and then select what you want – navigation for example. There’s not even a home button on the display, so it’s a multitude of presses no matter what you want to get done.
That sours the experience slightly and really takes away from what is otherwise a decent offering. It’s in stark contrast to the DS 3 Crossback E-Tense which has massive buttons for every area. We can’t help feeling that somewhere between the two would be the more practical system.
Regardless, Citroën covers the basics pretty well, focusing on radio, navigation and calling. There’s support for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto via the USB connections, while the top trim will also give you a Qi wireless charger for compatible devices.
The navigation, visually, is ok, but the search isn’t very good. It’s just too hard to get to the essentials – like car charging stations. This should be front and centre on the satnav app, but buried in points of interest, somewhere after local helipads and other nonsense you’re never going to need to navigate to.
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The Citroën ë-C4 offers essentially the same information as the DS 3 E-Tense under its electric button – that’s a flow diagram showing the battery power driving the wheels, or a bar chart showing average consumption across recent trips. At least Citroën is using a scale that works, so you can see if you’re driving more or less efficiently than previously – but still, compared to the data you’d get from the Kia e-Niro, it just feels like it should be trying harder.
The ë-C4’s driver display doesn’t offer customisation and is on the small side, but we’re not hugely worried about that – it does the job well enough in cahoots with the HUD.
While we’re also talking tech, there’s one downside to all that plastic in the door panels: it can’t really handle stronger bass from the standard speakers, so if your music gets a bit heavy, the performance isn’t that good and you’ll get some vibration back from it.
Citroën also offers a voice command system. This can get around some of the problems: you an just ask for the radio station by pushing the button on the steering wheel. However, once you’ve hooked up Android Auto and found that the same button will also support Google Assistant, you’ll likely never use the native system again.
The ë-C4 is also hiding a small surprise for tablet users, with a mount for tablets on the dashboard. Pop open the drawer and you’ll find a cover with a privacy screen in the front, which will accommodate a range of tablet sizes, but it’s mostly built around normal iPad sizes.
Once your tablet is on the cover, you’ll be able to attach it to the dash on a mount so the passenger can watch at leisure, the privacy screen ensuring that the driver isn’t distracted. It’s great because it all neatly hides away when not in use.
Overall, it feels like there are some easy improvements to be made here. The lack of direct controls and the lack of home button within the touch system just makes eveything more fiddly than it could be.
Drive, range and performance
The starting point for Citroën is comfort. The Citroën ë-C4 wafts over broken roads and speed bumps rather more majestically than many comparable models which are setup with suspension so firm it will knock your teeth out when you hit a pothole. Instead there’s a sense of tranquillity: it’s soft, quiet, comfortable – actually a nice place to be without the boneshaking adrenaline of pretending you’re a rally driver.
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The important core specs of this car will sound familiar if you’re looking at cars in this segment. As we said in the opener, there are various flavours, so the 50kWh battery and 100Kw motor (136hp) will come as no surprise.
Yes, that’s not a huge battery and this is the thing that separates the Citroën ë-C4 from the likes of the Kia e-Niro (with its 64kWh battery) and longer range, or the likes of the cheaper Mini Electric (with its 32.6kWh battery) and shorter range.
Citroën says you’ll get 217 miles range from it (that’s the WLTP measure), but we found it easy enough to average 4.6-miles-per-kW, which comes in at 230 miles. More carefree driving might see that drop to around 170 miles from an average around 3.6 miles per kW, which is what we got in typical runs to the supermarket and other suburban chores – exactly what we expect this car to be doing.
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The absolute range will of course vary based on all sorts of factors – how you drive, the conditions you’re driving in – but with support for 100kW charging, you’ll soon be back on the road.
There are three driving modes – eco, normal, sport – each changing the drive slightly as their names suggest. After playing with the faster sport mode, we settled into eco, which gives better lift-off regeneration than the normal mode so it’s closer to one-pedal driving – although you can’t bring it to a complete halt without using the brake.
In addition there’s the option of both D (drive) and B (battery) modes, the latter again making the car a little more economical. It’s slightly irksome that to engage B mode you have to press a button, but to select D you just move the drive selector. Again, it’s hard to fathom why that additional step was added.
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The steering is light, with indicators for close front obstructions and a useful reversing camera to help you get into those tight charging spaces. It’s an easy car to manoeuvre and the visibility and road positioning is generally very good, even with that slight rear obstruction due to the split rear window. You can get a complete 360 vision system (£350 on the options list), though, which is a nice addition.
Verdict
The Citroën ë-C4 slots nicely alongside stablemates like the Peugeot e-2008, sitting around the same price and offering similar performance. Stepping up the range means moving to something like the Kia e-Niro, which will cost you more, so the Citroën feels like it’s about the right price for what you get – although it is about £10k pricier than the cheapest combusion version.
Overall, the Citroën ë-C4 is a great electric car. It sits somewhere in the middle of practical options available out there at the moment, offers a good balance of price to performance, all wrapped into a car that above all else is majestically comfortable for driver and passengers alike.
Alternatives to consider
Pocket-lint
Kia e-Niro
Those looking for more range will be attracted to the 64kWh e-Niro, one of the top EVs on the road, while the lower capacity e-Niro is around the same price as the Citroen, but with a smaller battery.
Read our review
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Nissan Leaf
The Nissan Leaf is one of the best EVs on the road, and certainly one of the most popular. For just a little more you can get the 62kWh version which will give you more range, although it lacks the appeal of the ë-C4’s crossover stylings.
Apple’s new Tile-like AirTags, long-rumored and finally announced at this week’s Spring Loaded event, are now available for preorder on Apple’s website. The small circular trackers work with Apple’s “Find My” app on iOS and have a built-in speaker, accelerometer, Bluetooth LE, and a replaceable battery. They cost $29 for one set or $99 for a four-pack.
Apple says the AirTags’ battery should be good for a year. They should start delivering between May 3rd and May 5th.
The existence of AirTags first became known nearly two years ago, in copies of the iOS 13 beta. Apple accidentally confirmed the AirTags name in a support video last year that has since been deleted.
Also revealed at Spring Loaded was the new purple iPhone 12. It’s identical to the other colors of the iPhone 12; it’s very fast, has a very nice screen, 5G, and great cameras, according to our review. It’s also available for preorder today on Apple’s website and will be widely available starting April 30th.
The 2021 iMac, new Apple TV 4K, and new iPad Pro models Apple showed off at the Spring Loaded event will be available for preorder starting April 30th.
(Pocket-lint) – MotoGP sits at the very apex of the motorbike-racing formulae, yet its officially licensed games have somehow never quite crossed over to a mainstream audience. The cognoscenti are aware, however, that developer Milestone – which has been crafting MotoGP games since 2007 – really knows its stuff.
For a number of reasons – not least the fact that making a motorsport game in the middle of a pandemic, when visiting circuits to scan them is somewhere between tricky and impossible, is a logistical nightmare – MotoGP 21 doesn’t offer much by way of surprises.
It’s the first MotoGP game to include the long-lap penalty, its management element has been expanded somewhat, and its tyre-wear model has been tweaked to offer even more realism. So is the 2021 edition worth the ride?
Preaching to the converted
But that there’s no major new feature isn’t vastly problematic, since Milestone’s MotoGP games have been consistently solid for a number of years, and MotoGP 21 continues that trend.
As we’ve come to expect from officially licensed motorsport games, it’s big, comprehensive and technically accomplished, and provides a meaty facsimile of the whole real-life MotoGP circus, encompassing the lower formulae, Moto2 and Moto3, and letting you indulge your team-management fantasies to an extent, as well as to showcase your bike-riding skills.
One reason why MotoGP games haven’t been huge hits among a mainstream gaming audience in the past instantly becomes obvious when you fire MotoGP 21 up: its target audience is clearly hardcore MotoGP fans and the sort of bike enthusiasts who might participate in track days.
It does have a tutorial, you can turn on driver aids, and there’s a rewind button for erasing painful wipeouts. But that tutorial is distinctly cursory when it comes to explaining the fundamentals of bike-riding, and much more detailed regarding esoterica like bike-setup.
Koch Media
MotoGP 21, then, preaches mainly to the converted, and those who are new to bike-racing games are likely to find it a tad intimidating, although it is easy enough to set things up so as to ease yourself in gently.
Carving out a career
In Career mode, once you have virtually created yourself as a MotoGP racer, you can choose whether to start in Moto3, Moto2 or the full-blown MotoGP. From then on, there’s a familiar calendar-based structure, so you can opt to participate in as many or as few testing and practice sessions and so on as you want.
Koch Media
If team management is your thing, you can start your own junior team after a season, and you can mess around with chasing the most lucrative contracts and swapping to the best teams.
But if you find all those aspects peripheral and just want to dive into the racing, MotoGP 21 delivers brilliantly. You can leave the Career mode to launch quick races in all the formulae, but if you don’t know the circuits, you’ll struggle in the races. So, it makes sense to participate in the Career mode’s free practice sessions in order to learn the circuits, before qualifying and the actual races.
If your bike-racing skills aren’t quite at a ninja level, it also makes sense to start off in Moto3: its less powerful bikes are much more forgiving and, in particular, easier to stop going into the corners – those used to four-wheel racing games will have to adopt an unfamiliar slow-in, fast-out style, and learn how to blend the throttle. Being the last of the late-brakers is a recipe for disaster.
Koch Media
MotoGP 21’s bike-feel is exemplary – the full-blown MotoGP beasts are a real handful, but once you develop confidence in the front-end of your bike, you can really flow round the circuits. Tyre wear is also very noticeable – as it is in the real-world MotoGP – and you must setup your bike carefully for the races, playing off tyre longevity against top-end power. You don’t necessarily have to fiddle around with bike settings yourself: you can tell your virtual engineers what you want, and they will make changes accordingly.
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Online play
Online, MotoGP 21 feels impressively solid in technical terms, although it can be difficult to tell pre-release, when servers are sparsely populated. But the online side of the game definitely isn’t for the faint-hearted: it tries to match riders with similar skill levels, but you’re still likely to be pitting yourself against gamers with expensive rigs rather than just a console and a gamepad. Inevitably, brutal racing results. Offline, you can crank up the AI to reflect that, but its default level is fairly forgiving: your rivals will be quick, but at least they won’t take you out with abandon.
Koch Media
Visually, MotoGP 21 is very good, but not exactly jaw-dropping. We played it on the Xbox Series X, and it didn’t feel like a game which was designed for the latest generation of consoles, then crunched down for the previous generation – understandably, given that new-gen consoles are still in short supply. Ironically, MotoGP 21 is at its visual best when you crash, and it switches perspective to a harrowingly realistic crash-cam.
Verdict
For hardcore, committed MotoGP fans, MotoGP 21 is absolutely spot-on: it doesn’t offer any major surprises or innovations, but it does let gamers fulfil their bike-racing fantasies in the most realistic manner imaginable. It’s technically solid, nice and flexible, and decent-looking.
Our main caveat would be that those who haven’t played a MotoGP game before might find it intimidatingly hard at first, although if you start off in Moto3 before working your way up the formulae, you should find that it constitutes a decent gateway towards becoming a seasoned virtual bike-racer.
Overall, though, MotoGP 21’s quality is on a par with the prestige of its official licence, which is pretty much all you could ask for.
Sony will start rolling out support for 1080p streaming (aka Full HD) on PlayStation Now from this week, thus levelling up the streaming quality of its cloud gaming service’s current 720p cap.
The Japanese gaming giant shared the news in a tweet on its official PlayStation account, which reads: “The rollout will occur over the next several weeks across Europe, US, Canada, and Japan, where PlayStation Now is available”.
PlayStation Now will begin rolling out support for streaming 1080p capable games this week.The rollout will occur over the next several weeks across Europe, US, Canada, and Japan, where PlayStation Now is available. pic.twitter.com/OEHWHtMTw8April 22, 2021
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As first noted by The Verge, Sony has yet to share a list of games that can actually be streamed in the higher resolution, but says support will soon roll out for “1080p capable games”.
Granting some PlayStation Now games 1080p streaming will bring the cloud gaming service up on a par with several of Sony’s competitors. Amazon’s Luna currently maxes out at 1080p, although Google’s Stadia can hit up to a 4K resolution. Microsoft, meanwhile, is currently trialling 1080p support for xCloud, its Xbox cloud gaming offering launched in September last year.
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Read our review of the Sony PlayStation Pulse 3D Wireless Headset
If you’re after the last word in clarity and insight in a high-end power amplifier, we can’t think of a better choice than the Ultima 5
For
Class-leading clarity
Agile and articulate presentation
Relatively compact design
Against
Not as muscular sounding as some rivals
Mention Chord Electronics and there’s a strong probability that one of its class-leading digital-to-analogue convertors will come into mind. And rightly so; the company has produced a long string of truly outstanding digital products over the last couple of decades and has a bursting trophy cabinet to prove it.
So successful has Chord been with DACs that it’s easy to overlook the fact that it started off as an amplification brand and has always made some excellent products in this field. Now, you can count the new Chord Ultima 5 stereo power amplifier among them.
Normally, we like to review complete pre/power combinations, but in this case we’re making an exception. Surprisingly, Chord doesn’t make a price-comparable preamplifier to go with the Ultima 5. Instead, most buyers use the terrific Chord DAVE DAC as a digital control hub, which offers volume and input-changing abilities.
That makes perfect sense if you have an all-digital set-up, and saves the considerable cost of a dedicated analogue preamp. Doing things this way also reduces the box count and simplifies the signal path. Of course, such an arrangement only works if the DAVE performs its preamp duties well. We have already reviewed the DAVE and it certainly does that, so here we’re concentrating on the new Ultima 5 power amplifier.
Build
(Image credit: Chord)
Few companies can match Chord when it comes to making a bold visual statement – the scoops, the glitzy LED lighting under the top panel, and the extrovert styling make the Ultima 5 stand out in a generally conservative part of the market.
Chord Ultima 5 tech specs
(Image credit: Chord)
Type Stereo power amplifier
Inputs Balanced XLR, single-ended RCA
Output power 300W RMS per channel (8ohms)
Dimensions (hwd) 18 x 48 x 36cm (with legs)
Weight 22.4kg
That bold appearance is supported by truly excellent build quality, just as this elevated price point demands. The Ultima 5’s front panel is an immaculately crafted 28mm thick slab of aircraft-grade aluminium and every part of this amplifier, from those trademark cylindrical legs to the rear panel that doubles as a heatsink, oozes quality.
Take a look inside and you’ll find that the Ultima 5 differs from most rivals. This is mostly down to the use of Chord’s unusual high-frequency power supply arrangement. This does away with conventional bulky mains transformers and large power supply reservoir capacitors and replaces them with something the company considers more efficient, responsive and load tolerant. It’s a compact solution that is central to the brand’s DNA and has been used in its amplifiers from the beginning.
But the big news in the new Ultima 5 is the use of a dual-feed-forward circuit topology, which is claimed to produce a faster, more dynamic sound with improved transparency over the already capable previous generation Chord designs. The Ultima 5 uses no less than 64 proprietary MOSFET output devices and the result is a claimed power of 300W per channel. We doubt whether anyone will need more, but if they do there is also an identical-looking mono version of this amplifier called the Ultima 6, which is rated at 180W each.
Features
(Image credit: Chord)
When it comes to connectivity, power amplifiers tend to be simple things, and that proves the way here. There are stereo inputs in both single-ended RCA and balanced XLR forms, plus a set of chunky multi-way speaker binding posts.
A power amplifier at this level demands a top-quality system. Our main sources are Naim’s ND555/555 PS DR music streamer and a Technics SL-1000R/Kiseki Purple Heart MC record player feeding Nagra’s excellent Classic Phono (which, unsurprisingly, is a phono stage).
We also use our usual reference preamplifier, the Burmester 088/911 Mk3, alongside a Chord DAVE digital controller, and we complete the set-up with our trusty ATC SCM50 speakers. We also have Wilson Benesch’s Precision P2.0 floorstanders and ProAc’s K1 standmounters on hand to see how the Chord responds to alternative speakers.
Sound
(Image credit: Chord)
In use, the Ultima 5 is a strikingly capable power amplifier. It’s impressively transparent, taking on the character of whatever’s in the signal chain in front of it. If you’re looking for clarity, agility and detail resolution, it can rightly be considered class leading.
Most high-powered amplifiers tend to sound muscular all the time, irrespective of the music being played. So we’re pleasantly surprised that the Ultima 5 doesn’t do that. Given intimate music, such as Found Songs by Ólafur Arnalds, this Chord sounds suitably delicate and fleet-footed. There’s simply no hint of the huge power reserves on standby.
It delivers a tightly focused sound that brims with subtlety and texture. Some of Chord’s past efforts could sound a little clinical and cold, but this power amplifier avoids that charge, delivering the natural warmth and body of instruments convincingly.
Even so, the Ultima 5 could never be accused of sounding lush or rich. It’s a taut and highly analytical listen, able to take apart recordings without much effort. It’s not in this amplifier’s character to carry you away on a wave of exuberance (with suitable music, of course), but if you want to hear deep into the mix or track a low-level instrumental strand, this Chord is outstanding.
Switch to more bombastic music and the Ultima responds effortlessly. That huge claimed power output figure is easily believable when it pounds out Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. It is rare to hear a power amplifier sound so composed and controlled when confronted by such demanding music played back at high volume levels. There’s never a hint of sonic stress. At most, that casework gets warm – though not unreasonably so – rather than anything obvious happening in the sound.
Listening to this symphony, we’re aware of how even-handed and neutral the Chord sounds. We’re also struck by how it sets up a huge, open stereo image and populates it with impressively layered and crisply focused sounds. Most importantly, it is capable of organising the mass of information it resolves into a cohesive and musical whole.
Verdict
We listen to a broad range of music in our time with the Ultima 5 and it never fails to impress. Sure, there are rivals that will sound livelier when playing Kanye West’s Yeezus set by displaying more in the way of low-end punch and rhythmic drive. Others will even sound smoother and easier on the ears with less than perfect recordings. But, none we’ve heard can match the Chord’s cut-glass clarity or resolve low-level information with as much skill.
The Chord Ultima 5 is not an overtly characterful amplifier; it doesn’t try to sound ‘musical’. All it does is attempt to pass on the signal as cleanly as possible. And in that aim, it’s hugely successful.
Silicon Power is a Taiwanese hardware manufacturer founded in 2003. In enthusiast circles, they are well known for providing high-quality flash storage products at reasonable pricing. Silicon Power’s various product lines include DRAM modules, SSDs, flash drives, and portable storage.
Today, we are taking a look at the Silicon Power UD70, which is a highly affordable QLC-based M.2 NVMe SSD. The UD70 is based on a combination of a Phison E12 controller paired with QLC flash from Micron. A Kingston DRAM chip provides 512 MB of storage for the mapping tables of the SSD.
The UD70 is very similar to the Corsair MP400 and the Sabrent Rocket Q. They all use the same controller and flash chips—the difference is in the size of DRAM cache: 1 GB on the MP400, 512 MB on the UD70 we’re reviewing here, and 256 MB on the Rocket Q. Since they’re based on the Phison E12, all three of these drives take advantage of PCI-Express Gen3 x4, not the newer Gen 4 x4.
The Silicon Power UD70 comes in capacities of 500 GB ($55), 1 TB ($110), and 2 TB ($210). Endurance for these models is set to 120 TBW, 260 TBW, and 530 TBW respectively. Silicon Power includes a five-year warranty with the UD70.
The University of Minnesota has been banned from contributing to the Linux kernel by one of its maintainers after researchers from the school apparently knowingly submitted code with security flaws.
Earlier this year, two researchers from the university released a paper detailing how they had submitted known security vulnerabilities to the Linux kernel in order to show how potentially malicious code could get through the approval process. Now, after another student from the university submitted code that reportedly does nothing, kernel maintainer and Linux Foundation fellow Greg Kroah-Hartman has released a statement calling for all kernel maintainers to reject any code submissions from anyone using a umn.edu email address.
In addition to not accepting any new code from the university, all of the code submitted in the past is being removed and re-reviewed. It seems like it will be a massive amount of work, but Kroah-Hartman has made it clear that the developer community doesn’t appreciate “being experimented on” and that all of the code from the university has been called into question due to the research.
The university has put out a statement, saying it’s been made aware of the research and its subsequent ban from contributing. It says it has suspended that line of research and will be investigating how the study was approved and carried out.
In a statement meant to clarify the study, the researchers said they intended to bring attention to issues with the submission process — mainly, the fact that bugs, including ones that were potentially maliciously crafted, could slip through. Kernel developer Laura Abbot countered this in a blog post, saying that the possibility of bugs slipping through is well-known in the open-source software community. In what appears to be a private message, the person who submitted the reportedly nonfunctional code called Kroah-Hartman’s accusations that the code was known to be invalid “wild” and “bordering on slander.”
It’s unclear if that submission — which kicked off the current controversy — was actually part of a research project. The person who submitted it did so with their umn.edu email address, while the patches submitted in the study were done through random Gmail addresses, and the submitter claimed that the faulty code was created by a tool. Kroah-Hartman’s response basically said that he found it unlikely that a tool had created the code, and, given the research, he couldn’t trust that the patch was made in good faith either way.
There’s been criticism from some in the open-source community, saying that Kroah-Hartman deciding to pull any patches submitted by U of M personal is an overreaction, which could lead to bugs fixed by legitimate patches being reintroduced. It is worth noting, however, that the plan is to re-review the patches and to resubmit them if they’re found to be valid.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed a lawsuit against the remote testing company Proctorio on behalf of Miami University student Erik Johnson. The lawsuit is intended to “quash a campaign of harassment designed to undermine important concerns” about the company’s remote test-proctoring software, according to the EFF. It’s the latest legal battle for the software company, which has publicly sparred with online critics throughout the last year.
The lawsuit intends to address the company’s behavior toward Johnson in September of last year. After Johnson found out that he’d need to use the software for two of his classes, Johnson dug into the source code of Proctorio’s Chrome extension and made a lengthy Twitter thread criticizing its practices — including links to excerpts of the source code, which he’d posted on Pastebin. Proctorio CEO Mike Olsen sent Johnson a direct message on Twitter requesting that he remove the code from Pastebin, according to screenshots viewed by The Verge. After Johnson refused, Proctorio filed a copyright takedown notice, and three of the tweets were removed. (They were reinstated after TechCrunch reported on the controversy.)
In its lawsuit, the EFF is arguing that Johnson made fair use of Proctorio’s code and that the company’s takedown “interfered with Johnson’s First Amendment right.”
“Copyright holders should be held liable when they falsely accuse their critics of copyright infringement, especially when the goal is plainly to intimidate and undermine them,” said EFF Staff Attorney Cara Gagliano in a statement.
Proctorio is one of the most prominent software platforms that schools use to watch for cheating on remote tests. Its use exploded last year with the rise of remote learning; the platform proctored over 16 million exams. The software records students through their webcams as they work and monitors the position of their heads while they take exams. It flags “suspicious signs” to professors, who can review its recordings. It also enables instructors to track the websites students visit during the exam period and to bar them from functions like copying and pasting text.
Students and instructors around the country have volleyed numerous criticisms against Proctorio, claiming it violates student privacy and has the potential to discriminate against marginalized students. The Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a complaint against the service (and four others) in December, calling it “inherently invasive.” A coalition of US senators, including Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Cory Booker (D-NJ), cited similar concerns about Proctorio in an open letter last year.
Proctorio has engaged critics in court before, although more often as a plaintiff. Last October, the company sued a technology specialist at the University of British Columbia who made a series of tweets criticizing the platform. The thread contained links to unlisted YouTube videos, which Proctorio claimed contained confidential information. The lawsuit drew ire from the global education community: hundreds of university faculty, staff, administrators, and students have signed an open letter in the specialist’s defense, and a GoFundMe for his legal expenses has raised $60,000 from over 700 donors.
“We disagree that sharing confidential information is the same thing as criticism,” Olsen told The Verge at the time. “Posting these kinds of things…it risks students learning how to circumvent the software, and it risks the safety and security of millions of students who use the software.”
Proctorio did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the EFF’s lawsuit.
Flagship features and a big, clear screen make this mid-priced mobile a good option for your pocket
For
Good for gaming
Detailed picture performance
Decent built-in speakers
Against
Screen could be subtler
Flat audio performance
Alec Baldwin may be the best known, and arguably most talented, of his siblings but as Trey Parker and Matt Stone once wrote: you know what sucks about being a Baldwin? Nothing! Thankfully for Billy, Daniel, Stephen and the OnePlus 9 smartphone, life always has room for a little brother.
With only two members of the OnePlus 9 family, finding a niche as the more affordable smaller sibling should be no problem at all. The OnePlus 9 is still a big phone and its 6.55-inch display means it can bring some serious scale to your portable viewing.
Not only does the OnePlus 9 have an HDR10+-supporting, 120Hz AMOLED screen, it also has a Hasselblad camera set-up on board too. And it charges so quickly that by the time you remember that you plugged it in, it’s probably full and ready to go.
Granted, there are a few nips and tucks to the specs compared with the OnePlus 9 Pro but, with around a quarter off the Pro’s price tag, this Android handset has the tempting promise of a flagship phone at a mid-range price.
Pricing
The OnePlus 9 is priced at £629 for the Astral Black and Arctic Sky versions, which come with 128GB of storage space and 8GB of RAM in the UK and Europe. The Winter Mist OnePlus 9 is £729 and comes with 256GB of storage and 12GB of RAM.
In the US, only the Astral Black and Winter Mist finishes are available, but both come with 8GB RAM and 128GB of storage. The US OnePlus 9 is priced at $729.
Features
(Image credit: OnePlus)
A phone with a 6.55-inch screen is just about small enough to carry out most of your operations one-handed without fear of dropping it, although swiping from the top and bottom without adjusting your grip makes for some pretty intensive thumb yoga. Laid next to the OnePlus 9 Pro, the standard OnePlus 9 is just 4mm shorter at 160mm long and a little thinner at 8.7mm rather than 9mm, but has the same 74mm width.
Despite its fibreglass polymer frame, the finish still feels premium for a non-metal phone. The three-way sliding switch for the silent, vibrate and ring profiles is a particularly nice touch. Underneath that, there is the power button, on the opposite side is the volume rocker with the USB-C port and SIM tray on the bottom edge. Sadly, there’s no 3.5mm headphone socket.
OnePlus 9 tech specs
(Image credit: OnePlus)
Screen 6.55in AMOLED
Resolution 2400 x 1080 (402ppi)
Rear camera 48MP, 50MP, 2MP
Front camera 16MP
Dolby Atmos Yes
Finishes x3
Dimensions (hwd) 16 x 7.4 x 0.9cm
Weight 192g
For wireless audio, there’s Bluetooth 5.2 with aptX and aptX HD included as well as LDAC technology, which allows hi-res audio streaming over Bluetooth at up to 24-bit/96 kHz.
As for that screen, it’s a 2400 x 1080 AMOLED panel with a fixed 120Hz refresh rate and a pixel density of 402ppi. Compared with the 9 Pro (525ppi), it’s a little less sharp and slightly dimmer too, with a peak brightness of 1100nits rather than the 1300nit display on the Pro. On top is a flat piece of Gorilla Glass, under which is a hidden fingerprint reader, though you can also unlock the phone using face recognition.
Those looking to dive into some on-the-go TV and film watching will appreciate the HDR10+ and HDR10 support with plenty of HDR compatibility to be found on Netflix and others. You can play locally stored MKV, MOV, MP4, H.265 (HEVC), AVI and other video file formats. The display proportions offer a maximum possible 20:9 aspect ratio, but while most content is edged by a pair of black bars, premium gaming titles use the whole screen width.
Game Mode Pro is a handy feature of Oxygen OS – an otherwise light skin on top of Android 11. It shuts off notifications from popping up on your screen, restricts background app use to divert as much processing power to your gaming as possible and prioritises your network use for game data. We also like the way it brings quick access to options such as WhatsApp messaging, Instagram and screen recording with a small, pull-down menu at your thumb.
(Image credit: OnePlus)
The gameplay itself is well handled. The fast refresh rate of the display helps your gaming feel lag-free, both on and off-line. OnePlus has installed its Cool Play vapour cooling system, but even after one round of PUBG Mobile, the handset still feels pretty warm.
Despite that, and the fixed 120Hz rate, the 4500mAh battery takes us well beyond a day of heavy use. Should you need to recharge more regularly, you’ll be pleased to note that the Warp 65T charger included in the box takes just under 30 minutes to fill your phone.
As with the OnePlus 9 Pro, owners of this handset benefit from a Hasselblad-calibrated camera array. Here, it is a three-lens set-up, with a main 48MP camera, a 50MP ultrawide and a monochrome shooter, but no telephoto. There is 12-bit colour depth stills imaging available in Pro Mode for RAW files and you can capture 8K video at 30fps and 4K video at 60fps.
Telephoto aside, the performance of the camera is right up there with that of the 9 Pro’s. The optical image stabilisation works a treat for the handheld tracking shots around our test facilities. The results look almost as if they were shot using a camera dolly and there’s the odd jump only with fast pans. The colours are bright and rich, if not quite as real-world accurate as the best smartphones.
As with its bigger brother, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chip orchestrates the action with great aplomb. There’s barely a glitch or stutter in our time with the phone and we’d expect it to stay that way with regular updates and fixes to the OS, the UI and third-party apps.
Screen
(Image credit: OnePlus)
If you’re expecting the performance of the OnePlus 9 to match that of the OnePlus 9 Pro, think again – that extra spend goes on more than just an aluminium frame and some curved glass. But there is a lot to like about the OnePlus 9’s picture performance.
It’s easy to lose ourselves in the story of The Witcher in HDR on Netflix. It’s a bright and engaging image with a decent degree of punch and no wanting for detail in light and dark areas of the screen. The opening shots across the shaded interior of a barn reveal lots of detail in the shadows without doing much damage to the black depth. Even when the frame becomes split between that darkness and the bright daylight on the faces of the young lovers outside the barn, the overall exposure levels remain well pitched.
We’re just as pleased with how the OnePlus 9 handles SDR. The Display P3 mode brings a good blend between the natural look of the Missouri countryside and the exciting colours of sci-fi space as we watch Guardians Of The Galaxy 2 in Full HD. If you’d rather not get your hands dirty in the settings, pull the colour temperature towards ‘cold’ or use the Natural preset.
As with the OnePlus 9 Pro, though, there’s room for improvement. The very best handsets maintain a slightly inkier black depth and add a bit more of a dynamic HDR feel, while some displays are a touch more careful with shading. It’s most apparent when looking at faces – the skin complexion of the lovers in The Witcher episode, for example, are fairly uniform in their production, when colour and lighting could be handled a little better.
But these performance compromises are in line with the 9 Pro, which also favours dark detail over black depth. The 9 Pro is sharper, a little brighter and the colours go a touch further before starting to look artificial but, given the difference in price, this is to be expected. The OnePlus 9 still makes for some worthy big-screen viewing at this point in the market.
Sound
(Image credit: OnePlus)
But while the screen can be classed as ‘good’, the audio performance of the OnePlus 9 is firmly in the average category. It plays your favourite tracks faithfully enough but is never going to thrill you. That doesn’t mean that it’s not without its charms, though.
OnePlus’s ‘Dual stereo speaker’ set-up is fine for listening to music or watching a film without headphones. Dialogue is clear and sound effects are identifiable, while music is balanced and not without a sense of presence. We’d recommend listening without the Dolby Atmos music processing, but both ‘Film’ and ‘Music’ modes come across well.
Listening to Biffy Clyro’s Many Of Horror, the OnePlus 9 conveys that powerful sense of emotion. There’s definition and clarity to the vocals and the squeaky slides up the guitar strings of the intro, even if it’s not the most detailed delivery we’ve heard. The volume on the device doesn’t go particularly high but reaches the top with hardly any distortion.
For headphones listening, it’s best to axe the processing and set the OnePlus 9 to ‘None’ under ‘Style Preference’ in the sound settings. It doesn’t do much to make up for this phone’s underwhelming dynamics but keeps music as rhythmic as possible. We play Blue Monday by New Order and the impact of the electro beats and synth sounds is in line with the OnePlus 9 Pro’s performance. The more expensive model has a better stab at organising the sounds but, paired with a decent set of headphones, there’s still plenty to enjoy here.
But with busier tracks, there’s more of a sense of what could have been, sonically. We hit play on Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden, hoping for a taste of moody grunge. But while all the instruments are there and tonally in balance, Chris Cornell’s voice comes across flat and expressionless. Nor is there a change of gear when the drum fills announce the chorus. Ultimately, this phone plugs the music gap while we’re out and about, but not an awful lot more.
Verdict
There aren’t many smartphones that offer so much screen real estate at this price. The fact that it’s such an involving picture performance is a compelling reason to buy the OnePlus 9.
Our doubts are mostly on the audio side, as some rival phones make music on the go a more exciting affair. If you use a dedicated music player or are looking for a mobile phone primarily for its video performance, then don’t let its sonic drawbacks put you off. Between the high-performing chipset, the lag-free gaming, the Hasselblad camera and the scale and quality of the screen, there are plenty of reasons why the OnePlus 9 is a good idea.
I would like to thank Phanteks for supplying the review sample.
Phanteks first introduced the fine 1-mm mesh front panels with the Eclipse P400 and P500 series enclosures. Both of these live in the $100+ segment and squarely cater to the mid-range, or mid to high range of system builders. Below that price point is the P300 Mesh edition with an MSRP of $60, still able to hold an ATX motherboard. Today, with the release of the Eclipse P200A, Phanteks is offering an even more compact ITX option for the Eclipse series, further lowering the barrier of entry to $50 even with the current tariffs in place. So, it will be interesting to see where Phanteks had to trim features and functionality to hit that price point without loosing the Eclipse DNA that makes the series so popular with consumers. We are reviewing the Phanteks Eclipse P200A Performance, which clocks in at that budget price point, but you may also opt for the Eclipse P200A ARGB variant with a glass side panel and ARGB elements out of the box.
(Pocket-lint) – The original Garmin Venu was Garmin’s stab at something more like a smartwatch. It was designed to address the display above all things, sporting an AMOLED screen – and looking better than all the other devices in Garmin’s range.
That’s true of the Venu 2 too and we’ve had one on the wrist for a couple of days to bring you some first impressions.
Design and build
40 and 45mm sizes
45.4 x 45.4 x 12.2mm, 49g
Changeable straps
Stainless steel bezel
Glance at the Venu 2 and you might not know if you’re looking at a new watch or the old model. The overall design is pretty much that same – and it’s a safe design.
Pocket-lint
The watch case sticks to polymer, topped with a stainless steel bezel to give a premium look around the display. The big change is that there’s now two sizes – 40 or 45mm – so there’s a Venu 2 for every wrist.
That also sees a change in the straps you can attach to it, with 18mm and 22mm supported respectively, allowing you to chop and change to get the look you want.
As we said of the original Venu, the design is rather safe. It doesn’t quite reach to the premium looks that you get from the Apple Watch, but it’s conventional enough. We suspect much comes from the close relationship to the Vivoactive – with the Vivoactive 4 also coming in the same sizes.
There’s a difference, however. The case of the Venu 2 now appears to be one piece, whereas previous models had a separate backplate and body, not that that makes a huge difference. For those who like to examine sensors, there’s also a new arrangement to the Elevate heart rate sensor on the back, which we’ve not seen in other Garmin devices.
Pocket-lint
There are two buttons on the right-hand side of the body and these are oblong rather than the round buttons usually found on the Forerunner models.
Display
AMOLED, 33mm
416 x 416 pixels
Touchscreen
Always-on option
We don’t have the exact figures on for the display at the time of writing, but on the 45mm model, it’s about 33mm in diameter for the visible area (the same as the Vivoactive 4).
There’s some bezel area under the glass that’s not active display, but Garmin has now added some markers on this area which help to disguise the fact that not the entire area is display. Fortunately, because this is AMOLED, the deep black of the display and that surrounding area merge together so you really don’t notice it – or we haven’t so far.
Pocket-lint
There are plenty of watch faces on the device and many more available through Connect IQ, but we were quickly taken by the Matrix-style face.
There are three brightness levels and it doesn’t appear that there’s any sort of ambient light sensor to adjust the levels automatically. If you choose the top brightness you’ll get a warning that this will drain the battery faster – and it’s the display that’s likely to eat most of the battery life on your Garmin.
It’s a touchscreen display, allowing some interaction, while other functions will need the press of one of the two body buttons.
There’s a battery saving mode that will take you to a simple watch face to save power and also drop the brightness – again underlining the point that this display does have a hit on this watch’s endurance.
Pocket-lint
Of course, that’s something we really need to examine in more depth over the coming weeks. Garmin says you’ll get 11 days in battery saver mode, while 10 minutes charging will give 1 day of life – but we’ll be fully testing the realistic battery life. So far it looks like it will be good for 5 days based on wearing it so far.
There is the option for the screen to be always-on, but you’d have to select that. The default is to have the display fade to black fairly quickly, but to waken when you twist it to look at it.
Sensors and hardware
HR, GPS, ABC
Pulse Ox
Despite pitching this watch as a smartwatch, the Venu 2 is loaded with all the sensors to feed Garmin’s data machine. That will keep track of your activities from your steps to your HIIT workouts, and give you loads of information about what happened.
The mainstay is the heart rate sensor, which can keep track of your heart rate through the day and night to give you a complete picture of what’s happening within your body. It will help you get in the zone when you’re working out, it will help spot when you’re stressed and it will also measure blood oxygen levels – although be warned that this demands a lot of battery life, so probably isn’t worth the sacrifice.
Pocket-lint
GPS provides your location for accurate route tracing, so you know how far and how fast you went, for tracking all your outdoor activities. The accelerometer will detect motion, like steps or sleep movements, the barometer can detect altitude change while the compass can sense which direction you’re moving in.
All the data collected feeds a number of systems, like Body Battery which pitches your sleep against your daily activity to advise you about how well rested you are, while also giving you full breakdowns of your activity in the Garmin Connect smartphone app, so you know what you did and what benefit that will have.
Pocket-lint
New in this device are sleep scores and insights from Firstbeat Analytics as well as fitness age, which draws in a lot of information to estimate your age – or the impact that your lifestyle might have had on your body and make suggestions so you can do something about it.
They support a full selection of sports, but we’ve not had the chance to test them yet as we’ve only just strapped this watch on. There’s wider support for HIIT workouts and strength training – two areas that Garmin hasn’t been so great on in the past.
We’ll be testing all the functions in the coming weeks.
Smartwatch features
Custom graphics
Garmin Pay
Music support
Smartphone notifications
Garmin offers a range of features are less sporty and more smartwatchy. These aren’t new or unique to the Venu 2, indeed most have been refined across top Forerunner and Fenix models over the years.
But these do complete the picture and ensure that you’re not missing out on essentials. There’s support for downloaded music from Spotify, Deezer or Amazon Music, letting you sync up to 650 tracks, an increase over the previous Venu model.
That means you can arrange playlists and have them sync to your watch, so you can listen to music phone-free via Bluetooth headphones. You can also control music you might have on your phone.
Pocket-lint
Garmin Pay allows for mobile payments, so you can pay for that coffee on your way home from a long run – although there’s not a wide range of support for banks outside the US – so it’s worth checking to see if you’ll be able to use your card.
We’ve mentioned Garmin Connect a couple of times already and once setup on your phone, you’ll be able to control notifications on your watch so you can stay informed – and those using an Android phone will be able to use Quick Replies to reply to messages too.
Best Garmin watch 2021: Fenix, Forerunner and Vivo compared
By Chris Hall
·
Much of this will be familiar to Garmin users, but the Venu 2 does use some custom graphics and animations that are a little more exciting that you’ll find elsewhere. That makes better use of the display and while we’ve not had a chance to fully explore everything, we’ve already spotted some areas where the Venu 2 looks better than some other Garmin devices.
First Impressions
The Garmin Venu 2 is all about that display. For those who are turned off by the slightly muted displays you might find on the Vivoactive or Forerunner devices, the Venu is designed to deliver.
First impressions are great, with vibrancy and plenty of colour, giving the custom visuals a lift. That was true of the previous device too, so we’ll be looking at how this performs as a fitness device and a lifestyle device over the coming weeks.
TP-Link’s mid-range AX6000 offers Wi-Fi 6, 2.5Gb WAN and lots of ports at a reasonable $270. While the software is simple and 2.4 Ghz performance isn’t great, this is a solid option, if you don’t expect too much.
For
+ Affordable Wi-Fi 6 option
+ Abundant Ethernet ports
+ Ease of setup and interface
+ Supports Link Aggregation
+ Excellent compatibility across all clients tested
Against
– Dual-band only
– No Wi-Fi 6E
– Simplistic software
– Unexceptional 2.4 GHz throughput speeds
TP-Link’s Archer AX6000 Next-Gen Wi-Fi Router sits somewhere between a full-tilt gaming router like the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AXE11000 and basic budget options like TP-Link’s sub-$70 Archer A7 AC1750. The Archer AX6000’s ‘middle of the road’ approach results in a router that’s larger than some, with lots of antennae (8) and gigabit Ethernet ports (8, plus a 2.5GB WAN). You also get Wi-Fi 6, though not the newer 6E that makes use of the less-cluttered 6 GHz band.
But the Archer AX6000 doesn’t feature the red accents and dancing LED’s that often adorn gaming routers. It also does not have a ridiculously high price tag. As of publication, it was selling for about $270–a far cry from flagship gaming options that often sell in the $500 range.
Is this more general-purpose approach to a router setup still perform well enough for serious gamers to take notice? Read on as we delve into the Archer AX6000’s full feature lest and performance testing to find out.
Design of the TP-Link Archer AX6000
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The AX6000 takes a more subtle approach to design than its flamboyant gaming counterparts (like the flagship Archer AX11000). While it comes with eight permanently attached antennae and a horizontal design, it goes with a black plastic exterior that looks more business than gaming. But there’s some flash here, in the form of an LED on the top center, behind a shiny gold TP-Link badge, that glows blue when all is working (and red when it isn’t). But the light is easily disabled with a dedicated hardware button–important if your router lives near your TV or in a bedroom.
AX6000 is on the larger end of the spectrum at 10.3 × 10.3 × 2.4 inches (261.2 × 261.2 × 60.2 mm), and it weighs 3.5 pounds (1.59 kg). That’s nearly as big as the Asus Rapture GT-AXE1000, at 10.4 x 10.4 x 2.9 inches and 3.94 pounds. But the Archer AX6000’s antennae are shorter than on most routers, and they come permanently attached, so all you have to do when taking the router out of the box is flip them up.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Specifications of the TP-Link Archer AX6000
In terms of hardware specs, the AX6000 can definitely go toe-to-toe with higher-end routers. You get a 1.8 GHz quad-core processor with two additional coprocessors, 1 GB of RAM and 128 MB of flash storage.
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Ports are also ample, with the WAN port a speedy 2.5 Gbps, plus eight gigabit LAN ports, basically giving you an integrated switch for plenty of wired connections. Link Aggregation is also supported, should you want to give extra bandwidth to a particular device. There are also a pair of two USB 3.0 ports (one Type-A and one Type-C) for connecting things like external storage to share on your network.
All that aside, the wireless department is where the AX6000 starts to show its mid-range limitations. The router is dual-band, rather than the more robust tri-band options found on higher-end gear. That means the AX6000 has a single 2.4 GHz option, rated at up to 1148 Mbps and a single 5 GHz for up to 4804 Mbps of throughput–hence (with the help of the usual rounding) the 6000 designation. Also, this router supports Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), but not the newest Wi-Fi 6E spec. So your devices get to live in the more crowded and mainstream bandwidths, rather than in the newly opened (and therefore much-less crowded) 6 GHz band.
That said, the aforementioned Asus ROG Rapture router is the only model we’ve tested so far that supports Wi-Fi 6E, and there are still very few devices (aside from some new phones) that are out there waiting for a 6E router to connect to.
Setup of the TP-Link Archer AX6000
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Setup of the TP-Link Archer AX6000 is fairly simple and took less than 10 minutes. After the requisite unboxing, we appreciate that the eight antennas come pre-attached, so just have to be rotated into their vertical position (although a few may be disappointed that they cannot be manually fine-tuned and adjusted to maximize reception).
Software setup can be done via the TP-Link app for the smartphone, or via the web browser, with the latter as our method of choice. We were given opportunities to choose a router password, the Wi-Fi password, and upgrade the firmware. This got us dialed in right away and was a painless and efficient process.
Features of the TP-Link Archer AX6000
We found the software for this router to be a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the interface is easy to use; we doubt more novice users will get confused using it. The converse for this is that compared to actual gaming routers, it’s less robust. You get fewer fine controls and not as much flexibility as some other offerings.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The Quality of Service (QoS) offers a reasonable solution to allow for some adjustability. The choices include Gaming (which was used for our testing), Standard, Streaming, Surfing, and Chatting. There is also a Custom setting to allow for finer control of prioritization of traffic when your network needs don’t fit into a preset setting. There is also an option for Device Prioritization, so for example you can make sure your Gaming PC gets a higher priority than other clients on the network.
Security of the TP-Link Archer AX6000
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The security functionality on the Archer AX6000 also strikes a delicate balance between simple and capable. We do like that the AX6000 has integrated network security, and are glad that the subscription is included, taking it a notch above budget routers. The security is powered by Trend Micro, but the functions are limited to just three: a Malicious Content Filter, an Intrusion Prevention System, and Infected Device Quarantine. There’s also a Parental Controls function to limit screen time for younger family members.
Performance of the TP-Link Archer AX6000
2.4 GHz near
2.4 GHz far
5 GHz near
5 GHz far
132 Mbps
76 Mbps
789 Mbps
301 Mbps
The TP-Link Archer AX6000 proved to be quite stable during our testing. We connected a variety of clients to it, including laptops with Intel chips, an iPhone, and multiple Android smartphones. All devices connected easily and consistently to the AX6000.
Throughput testing with an Intel AX201 Wi-Fi 6 chipset showed decent, although unexceptional Wi-Fi 6 speeds. At the time that this router was introduced the speeds were quite solid, but given newer Wi-Fi 6E gear and the significantly faster speeds offered, the AX6000 feels more mid-range than it did in 2019. While the 5 GHz near speed of 789 Mbps is certainly solid, the throughput on the 2.4 GHz of 132 Mbps when close, and 76 Mbps on the far test offered no significant advantage over even older 802.11ac routers.
Testing Configuration
QoS
FRAPS Avg
Max
8K Dropped Frames
Pingplotter Spikes
Latency
Ethernet
no
123.7
158
n/a
0
235
Ethernet + 10 8k videos
no
96.8
121
34.90%
3
259
Ethernet + 10 8k videos
yes
119.4
146
28.80%
2
259
5 GHz
no
127.3
149
n/a
0
249
5 GHz + 10 8k videos
no
119.3
147
14.10%
0
275
5 GHz + 10 8k videos
yes
120.7
140
49.90%
1
257
2.4 GHz
no
123.6
156
n/a
0
68
2.4 GHz + 10 8k videos
no
45.2
91
16.30%
9
156
2.4 GHz + 10 8k videos
yes
88.8
123
47.20%
11
306
Again, the AX6000 showed its strengths and weaknesses in our testing. We did obtain some definitely fast gaming scores on our test game of Overwatch, such as 123.7 fps when wired, and an even slightly faster frame rate of 127.3 fps when connected via 5 GHz, both with nothing else running.
From a gameplay standpoint, when connected via 5 GHz, the fps were well maintained, both without the QoS at 119.3 FPS, and a slightly faster, and close to wired speed of 120.7 fps with the QoS activated with our ten 8K videos streaming in the background.
We also had some concerns, such as the high latency on all of the wired connection testing situations that went as high 259 milliseconds. The 2.4 GHz gaming score with background video congestion without QoS dragged to a much slower 45.2 fps. While activating the QoS improved the frame rate to 88.8 fps, we were disappointed to see how much the video streaming got sacrificed as the dropped frames went from 16.3% to a stuttering 47.2%.
Pricing of the TP-Link Archer AX6000
A strong point of this AX6000 is the pricing. At a suggested retail price of $299, it’s an affordable way to acquire a robust higher-end Wi-Fi 6 router. And street price seems to consistently hover at $269 at the time of this writing, dropping this router more solidly into the mid-range category in terms of pricing.
Conclusion
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The TP-Link AX6000 is a decent mid-range router, offering good value for the dollar. We like the solid 5 GHz throughput speeds, the high fps gaming scores when connected via Ethernet or 5 GHz, the integrated 8 port switch, and the included security subscription.
But there are some shortcomings, including slower 2.4 GHz throughput (at this point only really an issue with older devices), the high dropped frame rate on video streaming with QoS activated for gaming, the simplified interface, and the lack of tri-band. Overall, for a general-purpose, mid-range router, there is plenty to like about the AX6000, including decent overall gaming performance.
But if maximum gaming speed is your priority and your network is often congested by lots of people and devices vying for bandwidth, you may want to spend more on something that handles this better, with less latency and frame drops. TP-Link’s own Archer AX11000 performed better on that front for about $100 more, while also delivering an extra 5 GHz band to ease congestion. But that router also suffered from a fair amount of dropped frames in our congestion testing.
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