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Thermaltake Divider 300TG Review: Dividing Opinions

Our Verdict

Thermaltake’s Divider 300TG is attractive, but lacks the quality and performance needed to stand out in today’s market. It didn’t perform well thermally or acoustically in our testing, making it tough to recommend.

For

+ Unusual, but fresh design
+ Complete front IO

Against

– Thermally disappointing
– Intake fans have little effect on temps, are noisy, and speed cannot be controlled
– Material quality lacking
– Glass frame is closer to turquoise than white
– 5.7-inch max CPU cooler height
– Difficult to remove sticker on glass side panel
– Frustrating side panel installation
– No support for top-mounted radiators

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Features and Specifications

The vast majority of new ATX cases these days come with large slabs of tempered glass as side panels. The alternative seems to be a solid steel panel, but what if you want something in the middle?

That’s the idea behind Thermaltake’s Divider 300TG. Specifically, today on our test bench is the Divider 300TG ARGB Snow Edition. This chassis has both tempered glass and steel for its side panel, creatively slicing both in half for a fresh look. Pricing is set at $115 for this Snow Edition (or about $5 less for the black model) with all the bells and whistles, which sets expectations high.

So without further ado, let’s dig in to find out whether it’s worthy of a spot on our Best PC Cases list.

Thermaltake Divider 300TG Specifications

Type	Mid-Tower ATX
Motherboard Support	Mini-ITX, Micro-ATX, ATX
Dimensions (HxWxD)	18.7 x 8.7 x 18.1 inches (475 x 220 x 461 mm)
Max GPU Length	15.4 inches, 14.2 with front radiator (360 mm, 390 mm without front radiator)
CPU Cooler Height	5.7 inches (145 mm)
Max PSU Length	7.1 inches, 8.7 inches without HDD cage (180 mm, 220 mm)
External Bays	✗
Internal Bays	2x 3.5-inch
	5x 2.5-inch
Expansion Slots	7x
Front I/O	2x USB 3.0, USB-C, 3.5 mm Audio + Mic
Other	2x Tempered Glass Panel, Fan/RGB Controller
Front Fans	3x 120 mm (Up to 3x 120mm)
Rear Fans	1x 120mm (Up to 1x 120mm)
Top Fans	None (Up to 1x 120mm)
Bottom Fans	None
Side Fans	Up to 2x 120mm
RGB	Yes
Damping	No
Warranty	3 Years (2 years for fans)

Thermaltake Divider 300TG Features

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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

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Touring around the outside of the chassis, two things immediately stand out: One is of course the slashed side panel, but on the other side you’ll spot an air intake. As we’ll see later, you can mount two extra 120mm fans here or mount an all-in-one liquid cooler.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

However, while all may look okay in the photos, the quality of the materials is quite disappointing. The sheet metal is thin, and the glass’s frame isn’t actually white – it’s closer to turquoise, which is a bit odd given that the chassis is named ‘snow edition,’ and it’s not a great look contrasting with the actual white of the rest of the chassis.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

The case’s IO resides at the top, cut through the steel panel. Here you’ll spot two USB 3.0 ports, a USB Type-C port, and discrete microphone and headphone jacks – a complete set that’s much appreciated. You’ll also spot the power and reset switches. But as we’ll find out later, the reset switch doesn’t serve as a reset button.

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To remove the case’s paneling, you first remove the steel part of the slashed side panel, and then the glass. The steel part is removed by undoing two thumbscrews at the back, after which it awkwardly falls out of place. The same goes for the side panel on the other side; undo two screws and it falls out of the chassis – and re-installation is just as clunky, as the screws don’t line up nicely with the threads. The glass panels are clamped in place by a handful of push-pins, so de-installation and re-installation is as easy as pulling the panels off or pushing them back into place.

Thermaltake Divider 300TG Internal Layout

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

With the chassis stripped down, you’ll spot a fairly standard layout with room for up to an ATX-size motherboard. The only unusual thing about the main compartment is the cover on the right, which either houses three 2.5-inch drives or can be removed to make space for two extra intake fans and an AIO.

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Switch to the other side of the chassis, and you’ll spot the fan bracket we spoke of, along with two 2.5-inch SSD mounts behind the motherboard tray. In the PSU area there is also room for two 3.5-inch drives.

Thermaltake Divider 300TG Cooling

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

While there wasn’t much to talk about regarding the case’s general features, there is plenty to discuss when it comes to cooling. From the factory, the chassis comes with a total of four fans installed, which seems quite lavish. The front intake fans are three 120mm RGB spinners, while the rear exhaust fan is a simple 3-pin spinner without any lighting features.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

But, behind the motherboard tray there is also a fan controller hub, where you can spot the reset switch header plugging in at the bottom. All four fans can be plugged into this hub, though the front trio come plugged in from the factory with very unusual connectors. As we’ll detail further on later, the RGB is controlled through the reset switch, and the fans offer no speed control.

The hub is powered by SATA power. There is an LED-out header on the hub, and an M/B-in header for connecting the RGB up to your motherboard with the included cable. The RGB effects included with the chassis’ controller are quite jumpy with infrequent changes, so it’s nice to see it tie into your motherboard’s control system.

The exhaust fan can be plugged into the motherboard, as it’s a 3-pin spinner but other than that, it’s safe to say that the chassis’ intake fan speeds cannot be controlled, which is a real let-down as they’re quite noisy.

Graphics cards can be up to 14.2 inches (360mm long), or 15.4 inches (390 mm) without a front radiator in place. This is plenty, but the space isn’t very wide: CPU coolers can only be up to 5.7 inches (145 mm) tall due to the side panel design, which isn’t much. Our Noctua cooler barely fit, so you’ll want to be careful with wide GPUs and tall CPU coolers.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

For liquid cooling, it’s tight, but there is space for a front-mounted 360mm radiator or a side-mounted 240 mm radiator–but you’ll have to pick between one or the other. Also, be careful with side-mounted radiators, as they’ll likely bump into long GPUs. Most standard-length GPUs shouldn’t have an issue here, but if you’re using a bigger GPU, you’re probably better off using the front mount, as counterintuitive as that might seem.

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Features and Specifications

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LG’s latest Gram 17 makes a stellar case for 17-inch laptops

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I’ve read plenty about what it’s like to use, hold, and type on an LG Gram before, but that didn’t take away from the impressive first impression it made when I used the new Gram 17 for the first time — especially this larger model. The Gram 17 has a grandiose 17-inch display, yet it’s only three pounds, which is light enough for me to carry around one-handed. Its keyboard is a joy to type on with a surprising amount of tactility and travel in the keys, and the battery life outlasts a whole day of work, even much of a second one, too. It’s a quiet laptop, and even under pressure, its fans weren’t loud enough for me to hear once.

The Gram communicates its biggest selling points — lightness and longevity — so effectively that it outshines some persisting minor problems. Those include a keyboard layout that can be difficult to adjust to. For instance, the num lock is too easy to press accidentally, being right next to backspace, and the only function key is located too far away from the most essential function row buttons, making it a stretch to adjust the volume one-handed. Lastly, the large trackpad isn’t always good at palm rejection. These are important things for any laptop to get right, let alone one that has a bunch of extra real estate that should be used to avoid flaws like these.

This new model for 2021 is mostly a spec update, not a design overhaul compared to the 2020 version. But it’s a good update, at that. Inside of LG’s sole $1,799 Gram 17 configuration (it’s been available for $1,699 since late March), there’s now an 11th Gen Intel Core i7 quad-core processor that promises — and actually delivers — better performance and longer battery life than the 2020 model my colleague Monica Chin reviewed. Additionally, this model’s faster 4,266MHz LPDDR4X RAM, of which it has 16GB, likely plays a role in that speed boost. It’s not a drastically different computer to use than before, but it can hold its own more reliably this time around.

While running my usual collection of around 10 tabs in Microsoft Edge for work, with Slack and Spotify running in tandem, performance didn’t stutter at all. This is the bare minimum of competency tests for laptops, so for something more demanding, I exported a five-minute, 33-second test file from our Verge video team through Adobe Premiere Pro. Last year’s model took 30 minutes to do this, but this one gets it done in around 11 minutes. That doesn’t hold a candle to laptops that put more of an emphasis on power usually at the expense of heft, but it’s enough of an improvement to make the Gram 17’s price a little easier to justify. Razer’s Book 13 with the same processor fared just about a minute faster with this test, but the Gram is on par with the latest Dell XPS 13 and Asus ZenBook 14.

The battery is also mystifyingly good — and better than before. With that same batch of apps I mentioned earlier, the Gram 17 lasted an entire workday and well into the next, around 12 or so hours later. If you’re looking for a laptop that can go a full day of work without its charger, whether you have video calls or not, this is one for your shortlist. It features the same 80Wh battery as last year’s model, which is still impressive considering the Gram 17’s lightweight profile.

Also similar to the 2020 version is its USB-C charging. LG now includes a 65W USB-C power adapter instead of the 48W charger that shipped with the previous model. It can more quickly recharge with the included brick (which is no bigger than a compact power bank), but it still takes a few hours to refill it completely.

That sums up the biggest changes to this year’s Gram 17. There are a few smaller tweaks I liked, too. The arrangement of ports has been shifted around in a more logical layout. On the left side, there’s a Thunderbolt 4 port (it can be used for charging, data, or connecting to a display), one USB-C 4.0 Gen 3 port, a headphone combo jack, and an HDMI port. Over on the right is where you’ll find two USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports next to a microSD card slot and a Kensington lock.

If you’re shopping around for 17-inch laptops, you’ll be hard-pressed to find anything lighter than the Gram. It’s 2.98 pounds, which is just a little heavier than the 13-inch MacBook Air. The Dell XPS 17 is one of LG’s main competitors in this space, yet its baseline model weighs over a pound and a half more. If you get an XPS 17 model like the one we reviewed in July 2020, it’ll weigh almost as much as two Gram 17s at 5.53 pounds. That added weight does bring more power and a dedicated GPU in the Dell, but if you just want a big, portable screen for productivity, the Gram is more than capable.

As my colleague Monica Chin mentioned in her review of the 2020 LG Gram 17, this laptop isn’t a looker. It still doesn’t stack up next to the high-end design of the XPS 17, which features an aluminum chassis. The Gram has a tough magnesium alloy-clad body, but it looks and feels plasticky. That said, there’s technically nothing flawed about its design, and it seems better than most black aluminum laptops I’ve tried at resisting fingerprints. Some people might actually prefer that its design doesn’t stick out much, even when its backlit keyboard is on.

Something minor that I wish LG offered with this model is the option for a matte display. It’s rare for ultrabooks to have them, but I find it hard to stay focused on what’s happening on the screen when I can see a reflection of all my apartment’s happenings staring back at me. Wherever you use this laptop, glare could be a big problem, like it can be with a TV. This doesn’t take away from the Gram 17’s display being sharp and vivid. It’s a WQXGA (2560 x 1600) IPS non-touch panel from the company’s own display division, and it makes everything look excellent with 99 percent DCI-P3 color gamut coverage. If a touchscreen is important to you, LG’s Gram 2-in-1 laptops feature them. LG was one of the first Windows laptop makers to move to a 16:10 aspect ratio, and the Gram 17 has one, too. It gives you a little more vertical real estate to work with on the screen compared to 16:9 displays. It’s most beneficial for productivity (you see more info at once, so less scrolling is necessary), but you’ll have black letterboxing for most full-screen videos you watch.

The Gram is short on bloatware, which I love to see. It ships with Amazon’s Alexa built-in, though it requires activation before you can use the service. A few other preinstalled apps include McAfee LiveScan and a suite of creator tools from CyberLink. Compared to some other laptops I’ve used recently, like Acer’s Predator Triton 300 SE, the Gram doesn’t shove pop-up notifications in your face seemingly every time you use it.

There are few 17-inch laptops to choose from and even fewer models that are as lightweight as this one. This year’s LG Gram 17 is unique in the sense that it’s more powerful than ever, but it doesn’t give up its portability. Oddly enough, the only competition it faces at the moment comes from within LG. The 16-inch Gram is lighter and less expensive, yet it features the same design, screen size, port selection, battery capacity, and specs (aside from having significantly less storage) for $1,399. You can find one that has the same 1TB storage as the Gram 17 for $1,599. If the Gram 17’s $1,799 price is too expensive, at least you have an alternative that’ll likely deliver the same great results.

But if the price isn’t an issue and you want a surprisingly portable and powerful laptop with an oversized screen, the Gram 17 is in a class of its own.

Photography by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge

Vergecast: WWDC rumors, Clubhouse competition, and the cookiepocalypse

Every Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where co-hosts Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn discuss the week in tech news with the reporters and editors covering the biggest stories.

This week, Nilay and Dieter talk with Verge deputy editor Dan Seifert about this week’s rumors about the next big Apple product announcements after invites were sent out for the company’s annual WWDC event, which will again be virtual-only. After more AR headset leaks, the crew also discusses whether Apple has the bandwidth to support all of its product categories, especially with the Apple TV left alone for some time.

Later in the show, senior reporter Ashley Carman joins to discuss her coverage of social audio platform Clubhouse. Recently, we’ve seen a rise in potential competition in the social audio space from already-established platforms like LinkedIn, Slack, and Spotify. Ashley analyzes whether there is a winner-takes-all scenario or a more segmented space dedicated to genres of content.

There’s a whole lot more in the show — like Dieter’s explanation of the “cookiepocalypse” brought by Google Chrome’s changes to ad tracking on the browser — so listen to the full discussion here or on your preferred podcast player to hear it all.

Microsoft won’t fully reopen its offices until September 7th at the earliest

Microsoft is delaying the full reopening of its offices — the company’s “Stage 6” phase of its hybrid workplace plan — until September 7th at the earliest. This marks a delay from its originally planned July window.

“Based on our continued consultation with health and data experts, we’ve shifted our earliest date for the full opening of our U.S. worksites to September 7, 2021. We continue to review the situation on a local basis in each region/country/state where we work and will adjust dates by country as needed,” a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to The Verge.

Microsoft’s hybrid workplace dial.

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft executive vice president Kurt DelBene explained the decision to delay the full reopening in an email to staff obtained by Business Insider: “We believe this date will afford additional flexibility for employees to make summer plans, and we’ll continue to keep you updated if the date moves out.” Additionally, the email notes that Microsoft will give regional office leaders leeway to further push back that date, depending on health and safety conditions in their local area.

The company has already started to reopen in a limited capacity. Earlier in March, the company noted that roughly 20 percent of its staff worldwide were back in the office, and it started to slowly reopen its Redmond and Seattle, Washington-based headquarters on March 29th.

That said, the shift to a more remote workplace at Microsoft caused by the COVID-19 pandemic looks to be a permanent change to the company’s culture. Going forward, it plans to make the option to work from home for up to 50 percent of the week standard for most positions, with the option to discuss more substantial shifts to remote work with managers.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged all of us to think, live, and work in new ways,” says Kathleen Hogan, Microsoft’s chief people officer, explained in a note last October. “We will offer as much flexibility as possible to support individual workstyles, while balancing business needs, and ensuring we live our culture.”

Louqe Raw S1 Review: the Future of Minimal Mini-ITX

Our Verdict

Although Louqe’s Raw S1 lacks a few basic amenities, it’s a stunning display of ITX minimalism, design, and craftsmanship.

For

+ Stunning minimalist design
+ Excellent Thermal Performance
+ Very compact, even by Mini-ITX standards
+ Oozes quality from every corner
+ Easy Mini-ITX
+ PCIe 4.0-Capable Riser Cable
+ No RGB

Against

– No front IO or air filtration
– Expensive

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Features and Specifications

Easy mini-ITX? Who would ever have thought you’d hear those words strung together? Not me, that’s for sure, and a lot of the PC building community would be inclined to agree. But despite that, the folks from a small Swedish company called Louqe have just conjured a new chassis that is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. It is, above all else, minimalist, elegant, beautiful, and to my surprise, possibly the easiest Mini-ITX case the world has ever seen, all while also being incredibly compact and thermally capable.

But there’s a lot missing in this equation for simple perfection too. For example, there’s no watercooling or radiator support, and nor air filtration. Heck, there’s not even any front IO beyond a USB Type-C port – and that’s at one of the back corners of the chassis. And it’s expensive, carrying an MSRP of $329.

The Louqe Raw S1 is, in that way, not a versatile case. There’s only one layout. But in not trying to be everything at once, I believe the Louqe Raw S1 may have come close to mini ITX perfection, fitting for our Best PC Cases list. Let’s get to know it, shall we?

(Image credit: Niels Broekhuijsen, Tom’s Hardware)

Specifications

Type	mini ITX
Motherboard Support	Mini-ITX
Dimensions (HxWxD)	14.9 x 6.8 x 7.5 inches (379 x 172 x 191 mm)
Max GPU Length	12.6 inches (320 mm)
CPU Cooler Height	2.95 inches (75 mm)
Max PSU Size	SFX, SFX-L
External Bays	✗
Internal Bays	1x 2.5-inch
Expansion Slots	2x
Front I/O	USB-C
Other
Front Fans	✗
Rear Fans	Up to 1x 120mm
Top Fans	Up to 1x 140mm
Bottom Fans	✗
Side Fans	✗
RGB	No
Damping	No

Features

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(Image credit: Niels Broekhuijsen, Tom’s Hardware)

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(Image credit: Niels Broekhuijsen, Tom’s Hardware)

As you tour around the Louqe Raw S1, it’s immediately obvious that there’s not much to this chassis. It’s incredibly compact at just 14.9 inches tall, 6.8 inches wide and 7.5 inches deep. In ITX terms, this chassis has a volume of 12 liters, which is indeed very small – for context, very, very few cases achieve a volume below 10 liters, and any that do have to make significant sacrifices to pull it off. Even the small Meshlicious case from Lian Li spinoff Ssupd is noticeably larger at 14.67 liters.

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(Image credit: Niels Broekhuijsen, Tom’s Hardware)

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(Image credit: Niels Broekhuijsen, Tom’s Hardware)

Coming back to the Raw S1’s outer shell: It’s made from a single piece of milled, bead-blasted, etched and anodized aluminum in a classy ‘Rhodium Gray’ color. Along its sides are large cutouts from the milling process, creating a mesh-like intake with a playful, yet strong industrial look.

This design, paired with the thick shell makes the Raw S1 ooze quality like few other cases do. It might not come with filtration, but the ‘Raw’ part of its name is very appropriate. It’s aggressively open on the sides, allowing for plenty of fresh air intake.

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(Image credit: Niels Broekhuijsen, Tom’s Hardware)

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(Image credit: Niels Broekhuijsen, Tom’s Hardware)

Circle to the rear of the chassis, and you’ll spot the same mesh pattern, but only at the top. This is the exhaust location. The top of the chassis is almost entirely closed off, but with an assisted exhaust at the rear, I don’t think this will be a problem.

You’ll notice that there is no immediately visible front IO. This is because the Raw S1 basically doesn’t come with any, other than the Type-C port at the back. Of course, this isn’t really an issue, as the system is light and it’s easy to tip over to access the full-glory IO at the bottom, but it’s something to keep in mind when planning a desk setup.

A Quick Comparison

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Placing the Raw S1 between my trusty first-gen NCase M1 (I know it looks a little worse for wear, it has served me well) and the Phanteks Evolv Shift 2, it’s clear that the footprint of the Raw S1 is smaller than both these cases. It’s also significantly more expensive than the other two, with the NCase M1 currently costing about $210 and the Evolv Shift 2 just $100. But the materials quality of the Raw S1 is miles ahead of both these alternatives, so I wouldn’t say that the $330 price is unjust for what it is.

Opening up the Raw S1

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(Image credit: Niels Broekhuijsen, Tom’s Hardware)

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(Image credit: Niels Broekhuijsen, Tom’s Hardware)

To open up the chassis, you start by laying it upside down on a cloth. Then, you undo four securing screws on the outside of the chassis and undo the locking mechanisms on the USB Type-C port and power button and budge these out of place.

Then, using the handle in the middle, you simply pull the core out from its outer shell.

(Image credit: Niels Broekhuijsen, Tom’s Hardware)

Internal Layout

(Image credit: Niels Broekhuijsen, Tom’s Hardware)

The case’s core is built with a red spine to house the sandwiched layout system. On its left side you’ll spot room for an ITX motherboard and the SFX power supply at the top, and the right of the spine is where you’ll install the graphics card.

But there’s room for a little more. At the top, behind the power supply, you’ll be able to install a cooling fan, and underneath the PSU there’s room for a 2.5-inch drive – though chances are you’ll want to use an M.2 drive, as space is a scarce commodity here. You can install a 140mm fan at the top exhaust, but it will require taking apart the top of the outer shell to reach the mounts. And connecting the cable will be challenging, as it would be the only component that’s not fixed to the main core of the chassis itself.

(Image credit: Niels Broekhuijsen, Tom’s Hardware)

Confusing? Worry not, the build on the next page will make it a lot easier to visualize a system in this case.

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(Image credit: Niels Broekhuijsen, Tom’s Hardware)

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In designing this chassis, Louqe also wanted to ensure native PCI-Express 4.0 support, which is why that blue ‘ribbon’ cable looks as funky as it does. Traditional PCIe Riser cables generally have a lot of issues with PCIe 4.0, and even those claiming to support Gen 4 often don’t. Louqe claims that this is one that really does support PCIe Gen 4, but because I don’t have a Gen 4 GPU nor a Gen4 ITX motherboard & CPU on-site to test with, the best we can do is take their word on it.

A Tiny Collection of Included Accessories

(Image credit: Niels Broekhuijsen, Tom’s Hardware)

What you see here is the entirety of the box and contents of the accessory bag. You get the chassis, four screws to secure the PSU, and eight (mine included one too many) more general-use screws for securing the motherboard is all you get. But chances are you won’t need even half of them – I only needed four.

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Features and Specifications

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WD Black SN850 M.2 NVMe SSD Review: Top-Tier Storage for Gamers and Pros (Updated)

Our Verdict

With a robust design and major improvements to nCache 4.0, WD’s Black SN850 is among the most responsive drives we’ve seen. If you’re after the absolute best performance, we pick the 2TB WD Black SN850 over the 2TB Samsung 980 Pro.

For

+ Competitive performance
+ Large, fast-recovering dynamic SLC cache
+ Attractive design
+ Software package
+ 5-year warranty

Against

– Can get hot under heavy load
– High idle power consumption on desktops
– Lacks AES 256-bit hardware encryption

Go to page:

Features and Specifications

April 1, 2021 Update: We’ve updated this article with new testing for the 2TB WD Black SN850 M.2 NVMe SSD on page 2.

Original Review published December 11, 2020:

Boasting bleeding-edge PCIe Gen4 performance and available in up to 2TB of capacity, WD’s Black SN850 is a beast of an SSD that rival’s Samsung’s 980 PRO for the best SSD. If you got the cash, it is a great choice for gamers and enthusiasts looking for top-tier, quality storage.

WD’s Black product line has adapted quite a bit over the years. When it came to the company’s mechanical HDD line, Black traditionally meant uncompromising performance and reliability. Still, when it comes to the company‘s SSDs, WD’s Black product line emphasizes gaming above all. However, that doesn’t mean that the company forgot about those that need consistent prosumer storage for their applications.

The last WD Black SN750 was a data-writing powerhouse, with sustained write speed that could make nearly any other SSD jealous, making it perfect for video editors and those who often move large data sets around. But its read performance lagged most of its competition in most of our application benchmarks. The new WD Black SN850 aims to put on a much better showing this time around, with much of the company’s focus on optimizing the new SSD’s read speed as much as improving its already-strong write speed.

Specifications

Product	Black SN850 500GB	Black SN850 1TB	Black SN850 2TB
Pricing	$149.99	$229.99	$449.99
Capacity (User / Raw)	500GB / 512GB	1000GB / 1024GB	2000GB / 2048GB
Form Factor	M.2 2280	M.2 2280	M.2 2280
Interface / Protocol	PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4	PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4	PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4
Controller	WD_BLACK G2	WD_BLACK G2	WD_BLACK G2
DRAM	DDR4	DDR4	DDR4
Memory	BiCS4 96L TLC	BiCS4 96L TLC	BiCS4 96L TLC
Sequential Read	7,000 MBps	7,000 MBps	7,000 MBps
Sequential Write	4,100 MBps	5,300 MBps	5,100 MBps
Random Read	800,000 IOPS	1,000,000 IOPS	1,000,000 IOPS
Random Write	570,000 IOPS	720,000 IOPS	710,000 IOPS
Endurance (TBW)	300 TB	600 TB	1,200 TB
Part Number	WDS500G1X0E	WDS100T1X0E	WDS200T1X0E
Warranty	5-Years	5-Years	5-Years

With peak sequential performance up to 7/5.3 GBps of sequential read/write throughput and upwards of 1,000,000/720,000 random read/write IOPS, the WD Black SN850 delivers top-tier performance over the PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe 1.4 interface. WD’s Black SN850 is available in capacities of 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB with street pricing listed at $150, $230, and $450, per respective capacity. If you want the model with a heatsink, it will cost an extra $20.

WD’s Black SN850 features a revamped SLC caching implementation, nCache 4.0. It now comes with a hybrid SLC caching that’s similar to Samsung’s TurboWrite but larger in capacity, much like we’re accustomed to with SSDs powered by Phison’s latest controllers. The total dynamic SLC capacity spans roughly one-third of the available capacity (300GB on our 1TB sample) with a small and quick-to-recover static SLC cache (12GB on our 1TB sample) that’s designed to provide the most performance and endurance.

With a multi-gear Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) ECC engine, RAID like protection for full multi-page recovery, internal SRAM ECC and end-to-end data path protection in its ECC scheme, along with the company over-provisioning the SSD by 9%, WD’s Black SN850 comes equipped with plenty of mechanisms to ensure your data is safe on the flash. WD backs the Black SN850 with a five-year warranty and rates it to endure up to 300 TB of writes per 500GB of capacity, or up to 1.2PB writes on the 2TB model.

We were able to quickly and securely wipe WD’s Black SN850 by initiating a secure erase from within our Asus X570 Crosshair VIII Hero (WiFi) motherboard’s UEFI. But, while it supports secure erase, the SSD lacks a now-common security feature that Samsung has supported on its drives for years – hardware-accelerated AES 256-bit full drive encryption. The Black SN850 does support both Trim and S.M.A.R.T. data reporting as well as Active State Power Management (ASPM), Autonomous Power State Transition (APST), and the PCIe L1.2 power state for low power draw at idle on mobile platforms, drawing only <5mW.

Software and Accessories

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WD supports the Black SN850 with WD Dashboard, the company’s SSD toolbox that includes analysis tools, a firmware updater, and RGB lighting control on the heatsink model. WD also provides customers with Acronis True Image WD Edition for cloning and data backup.

A Closer Look

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WD is tightlipped when it comes to revealing information about the hardware that powers the Black SN850 and didn’t divulge many details about its next-gen controller when questioned. Still, we could deduce a few things based on the scraps and crumbs we were given.

From our external analysis, we can see the drive comes in an M.2 2280 single-sided form factor with an NVMe flash controller, a DRAM chip, and just two flash packages because of the large size of the controller package, measuring 17 x 17mm, taking up most of the PCB space.

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To power the SSD, WD uses a proprietary Arm-based multi-core eight-channel PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe SSD controller that leverages a Micron DDR4 DRAM chip to deliver responsive performance. WD references the controller as its WD_BLACK G2. Outfitting the WD Black SN850 with a faster Gen4 PHY is great for performance, but with such fast bandwidth, power draw and heat output were a concern at 28nm. Thus, like the controllers from competing manufacturers, WD opted to build the WD_BLACK G2 on a newer process node to better control those variables with TSMC’s 16nm FinFET technology.

WD paired the second-generation controller with the company’s newer Kioxia BiCS4 96L TLC flash operating at Toggle DDR3.0 speeds of 800 MTps. Both the 500GB and 1TB models leverage 256Gb dies while the 2TB leverages 512Gb dies. This flash has two planes (regions of independent access) for better performance than just a single plane, but it’s not quite as fast as the company’s next-generation quad-plane BiCS5 112L flash that we will see become more prevalent next year. The new flash has twice the performance along with a Circuit Under Array (CUA) implementation.

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In contrast to BiCS3, BiCS4 flash is not only faster thanks to a string-based start bias control scheme and smart Vt -tracking for improved reads, but has the benefit of improved efficiency over its predecessor with a low-pre-charge sense-amplifier bus scheme and sips down just 1.2V instead of 1.8V. WD’s Black SN850 leverages even-odd row decoding and shielded BL current sensing with this flash to enhance read throughput, too.

To scale the flash to new heights, the manufacturing process includes string-stacking two 48 wordline layer arrays on top of one another. While this is an easy way to increase cell array size, inefficiencies stem from additional circuitry, and wasted dummy layers. Concurrently, there is a risk of low yield due to stack misalignments. Scaling up to 96 wordline layers means using a total of 109 layers, including dummy gates and selectors in this instance, which is less efficient than Samsung’s V-NAND, which has yet to leverage string-stacking at up to 128 worldline layers (136 total layers).

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Study Shows How Fragile Semiconductor Industry Still Is

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) published a report today detailing the, well, semiconductor industry’s weaknesses as the entire world attempts to figure out how to respond to the ongoing chip shortage.

Many enthusiasts probably know the biggest issue: The semiconductor industry relies on many companies around the globe, but most operate within a very specific niche, giving them significant influence over their domain. This results in a supply chain that is both dangerously small and dazzlingly large, geographically speaking.

“There are more than 50 points across the supply chain where one region holds more than 65% of the global market share,” SIA and BCG said in their report, adding that manufacturing is “a major focal point when it comes to the resilience of the global semiconductor supply chain.” They went on to explain:

“About 75% of semiconductor manufacturing capacity, as well as many suppliers of key materials — such as silicon wafers, photoresist, and other specialty chemicals — are concentrated in China and East Asia, a region significantly exposed to high seismic activity and geopolitical tensions. Furthermore, all of the world’s most advanced semiconductor manufacturing capacity — in nodes below 10 nanometers — is currently located in South Korea (8%) and Taiwan (92%). These are single points of failure that could be disrupted by natural disasters, infrastructure shutdowns, or internal conflicts, and may cause severe interruptions in the supply of chips.”

We’ve seen numerous examples of those dangers in the last few months. Natural disasters? See the December 10 earthquake that shut down two Micron fabs in Taiwan or the February storm that shut down a Samsung fab in Texas. Infrastructure shutdowns? See the ongoing water rationing in Taiwan caused by record droughts.

Those examples alone have already resulted in supply issues for flash memory, in Micron’s case, as well as SSD controllers in Samsung’s. The droughts in Taiwan have threatened production related to CPUs, GPUs, single-board computers, and display panels, among other things, despite manufacturers’ efforts to mitigate their effects.

There are significant barriers to reducing that risk, SIA and BGC said, one of the most important being the fact that those companies have very complicated specialties. They explained in the report:

“Specialization across the supply chain allows the deep focus required to innovate, often pushing the boundaries of science. There are more than 30 types of semiconductor product categories, each optimized for a particular function in an electronic subsystem. Developing a modern chip requires deep technical expertise in both hardware and software, and relies on advanced design tools and intellectual property (IP) provided by specialized firms. Fabrication then typically requires as many as 300 different inputs, including raw wafers, commodity chemicals, specialty chemicals, and bulk gases. These inputs are processed by more than 50 classes of highly engineered precision equipment. Most of this equipment, such as lithography and metrology tools, incorporates hundreds of technology subsystems such as modules, lasers, mechatronics, control chips, and optics. The highly specialized suppliers involved in semiconductor design and fabrication are often based in different countries. Chips then zigzag across the world in a global journey.”

The Argument Against Self-Sufficiency

The chip shortage has prompted governments around the world to question their reliance on this global network. The European Commission said in December that it planned to invest $170 billion (145B€) to increase its production, for example, and U.S. President Joe Biden ordered a review of critical supply chains in February.

China has also pushed its chip industry towards independence and enjoyed a series of wins despite U.S. restrictions on chip-making equipment meant to impede its progress. In recent months it’s announced its first DDR4 memory, first domestic SSDs, and first 7nm data center GPU; it’s also made progress on a chip fabbing tool.

Yet true self-sufficiency is nearly unattainable, per SIA and BGC, at least to governments that aren’t willing to spend a lot more than they are now. Just check out the estimate SIA and BGC shared in the exhibit below:

(Image credit: SIA-BGC)

That’s a global upfront investment of somewhere between $900 billion and $1.2 trillion accompanied by an incremental annual cost between $45 and $125 billion. SIA and BGC said the annual cost alone “would all but wipe out the profits of the industry, which amounted to $126 billion across the entire value chain in 2019.”

SIA and BGC said this could lead to “an average increase of 35-65% in the price of semiconductors” if the manufacturers’ higher costs are fully passed on to their customers. That would almost certainly lead to higher costs for consumers, too, so you still wouldn’t be able to buy the best CPUs or best graphics cards on the cheap.

But the real cost would be even higher. “Furthermore, it is also likely that siloed domestic industries shielded from foreign competition and deprived of global scale would lose in efficiency and ability to innovate,” SIA and BGC said. “Ultimately, it would reverse the decades-long trend of making increasingly powerful and more affordable electronic devices access fo consumers around the world.”

And that’s assuming various governments simply wanted to meet the demand for chips in 2019. SIA and BGC estimated that “the industry will have to almost double its capacity by 2030 to keep up with the expected 4% to 5% average annual growth in semiconductor demand.” That would make self-sufficient supplies even more costly.

A Proposed Solution

SIA and BGC proposed an alternative solution to fully self-sufficient supplies for major regions: targeted investments. They called for the U.S. to implement a $20 to $50 billion program, for example, that would support domestic production of semiconductors used in devices critical to national security and other vital areas.

They also said that “governments with significant national security concerns related to control over semiconductor technology should establish a stable framework for restrictions on semiconductor trade” that clearly defines policy goals, restrictions, and “the expected second-order impacts on industry players” that could result.

Their final plea was for policy makers to “significantly step up the efforts to address the looming shortage of high-skill talent that threatens to constrain the semiconductor industry’s ability to keep the current pace of innovation and growth.” It turns out that we haven’t yet developed an autonomous chip industry — and probably never will — which means the human factor can’t simply be ignored.

Will any of those solutions help in the short term? Not really. Increasing production capacity is an incredibly expensive process that also takes time to complete. TSMC didn’t make a plan to spend $100 billion over the next three years for no reason; if it could reduce either the financial investment or the length of time it needs, it would.

But at least now it’s clearer than ever why this chip shortage is happening, why it’s not going to be solved over night, and how industry players think it can be addressed in the near future.

Specifications
CPU Support:	10th / 11th Gen Intel Core Processors
Power Design:	CPU Power: 14-phase Memory Power: 2-phase
Chipset:	Intel Z590
Integrated Graphics:	Dependent on installed CPU
Memory:	4x DIMM, supports dual-channel DDR4-4800+ (OC) MHz
BIOS:	AMI UEFI BIOS
Expansion Slots:	3x PCIe x16 slots (x16/x0/x4 or x8/x8/x4) 1x PCIe 3.0 x1 Slots
Storage:	6x SATA 6 Gb/s ports 3x M.2 ports*
Networking:	1x Killer E3100G 2.5 Gb/s LAN 1x Intel I219V Gigabit LAN 1x Killer AX1675x WiFi 6E
Rear Ports:	2x Antenna Ports 1x HDMI Port 1x DisplayPort 1.4 1x Optical SPDIF Out Port 1x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A Port 1x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C Port 6x USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A Ports 2x USB 2.0 Ports 2x RJ-45 LAN Ports 5x 3.5 mm HD Audio Jacks
Audio:	1x Realtek ALC1220 Codec
Fan Headers:	7x 4-pin
Form Factor:	ATX Form Factor: 12.0 x 9.6 in.; 30.5 x 24.4 cm
Exclusive Features:	ASRock Super Alloy XXL Aluminium Alloy Heatsink Premium 60A Power Choke 50A Dr.MOS Nichicon 12K Black Caps I/O Armor Matte Black PCB High Density Glass Fabric PCB 2oz copper PCB Killer 2.5G LAN Killer 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6E Killer DoubleShot Pro CPU Direct Source LAN ASRock steel Slots ASRock Full Coverage M.2 Heatsink ASRock Hyper M.2 (PCIe Gen4x4) ASRock Ultra USB Power ASRock Full Spike Protection (for all USB, Audio, LAN Ports) ASRock Live Update & APP Shop

NlZ Plum x87 35g Keyboard
Layout:	TKL form factor in a US ANSI layout
Material:	ABS plastic case, PBT plastic keycaps, steel plate
Macro Support:	Yes
Weight:	0.8 kg/1.75 lbs.
Wrist Rest:	No
Anti-ghosting:	Full N-Key rollover USB
Media Keys:	Available as a layered/assignable function
Dimensions:	133 (L) x 361 (W) x 38 (H) mm
Cable Length:	6 ft/1.8 m
Software:	Yes
Switch Type:	35 gf tactile NIZ Electro-capacitive switch
Backlighting:	No
Interface:	USB
Warranty:	One year

Garmin Vivosport review: Unobtrusive tracking

(Pocket-lint) – The Garmin Vivosport is in no ways new – it launched back in 2018 – but it landed in our lap as we wanted an affordable way to track heart-rate from the wrist without the fuss of wearing a chest strap device during exercise.

Since buying the Vivosport on a tame budget, it’s grown to become part of our daily life, an always-on tracker that helps with move motivation, step- and sleep-tracking, among other measures, all while being small and unobtrusive to wear.

If you’re looking for a relatively budget fitness band and aren’t tempted by now-Google-owned Fitbit, does the Garmin Vivosport fit all your needs?

Design & Display

Dimensions: 21mm wide by 10.9mm thick
Circumference: 122-188mm (large) / 148-215mm (small)
Display size: 9.7 x 19.3mm / 72 x 144 pixels resolution
Weight: 27g (large) / 24.1g (small)
5ATM water resistance (to 50m)

The Vivosport is in no way watch-like – which, as non-wearers of such a device in the past – is a massive positive for us, because once the band is on you’ll more or less forget it’s there.

Sure, it needs to be reasonably tight in order to get an accurate heart-rate reading, but with multiple openings in the non-removable band – that’s why there are small and large sizes (it’s the large pictured) – you can easily find one that’s most comfortable.

Best fitness trackers: The top activity bands to buy today

We’ve even found the Vivosport fine to wear during the night, for sleep tracking, should you so wish. The automated backlight doesn’t constantly come on too easily – as we’ve suffered with some other smartwatches over the years – so there’s not unwarranted extra light during night-time.

Even when the backlight does kick in – giving a sort-of blueish hue to the colour screen – the display is rather small anyway, so not a major distraction. You’ll likely only look at the Vivosport when it vibrates alerting you to something – which can be customised or switched off – or actively want to engage with some data on the panel itself.

Pocket-lint

We like that it’s not a distraction: wear the device, forget about it, let it track at all times. In the same breath, however, the display is small to the point that it can be fiddly, while data doesn’t exactly have a lot of room to play with – so you’re best to view the output through Garmin Connect instead.

Fitness Features

Tracks: Steps, Calories, Floors Climbed, Distance, Intensity Minutes, Sleep
Exercise: Walk, Run, Cycle, Strength Training, Cardio Training, Aerobic
Bluetooth Smart and ANT+ connectivity
Garmin Elevate heart-rate monitor
GPS, Altimeter, Accelerometer
VO2 Max (blood oxygen)

For a small band, the Vivosport comes with a fair chunk of features. There’s the daily stuff – step tracking, sleep tracking, stairs climbed, calories burned, stress level – and the active stuff that you’ll need to actively engage with when commencing exercise (an auto mode is available, but it’s hit an miss in our experience).

Pressing-and-holding a finger on the screen will open the swipeable menu, the first graphic being for exercise. Tap this to open the various options, including walking, running, cycling, and more. Some of these will offer outside/inside options for GPS tracking, as relevant, which can sometimes take a little while to grab ahold of a signal – and until it does you can’t commence that exercise.

The Vivosport commences with a default set of goals that auto-adjusts based on your lifestyle. If you walk miles everyday then the 5,000 step goal will automatically increase without you needing to do anything. Or you can set a personal one – whether realistically achievable everyday or not – to give you some added drive.

For us, however, it’s the wider detail of what the Vivosport can do that’s most appealing. We’ve integrated it as part of a Garmin Edge 1030 Plus cycling computer setup – also with Vector 3 power pedals to measure cadence and power – to act as our heart-rate monitor. You’ll need to open a different menu to transmit such live data, but once synched you can let the band do the reading – which will display on the Edge’s screen should you want it to.

Pocket-lint

Sure, wrist-based tracking is never going to be as accurate as a chest-based tracking product. But the fact the Vivosport can communicate with a high-end Garmin setup is good enough for us to get reasonably accurate comprehension of our heart-rate zones during cycling sessions. Sometimes it’ll drift off the mark and get stuck at 148bpm whilst we’re going flat out up a hill – knowing it’ll be over 170bpm in reality – but it soon catches back up.

Not only does it perform this real-time tracking, however, but the Vivosport also houses a blood oxygen monitor (VO2) which, in this context, has genuine use: because the Edge 1030 Plus will take a read at the beginning and end of a workout automatically it can assess how well you’re progressing based on previous sessions and advise on recovery time.

Outside of our cycling sessions we’ve been using the Vivosport to track weekend 5-mile walks, with the dedicated GPS tracking proving to be better than our phone-based Strava alternative (which, on some handsets, can time-out mid session). It paints an accurate picture of route, along with base/max/average heart-rate to give a real understanding of low intensity workouts.

Pocket-lint

The heart-rate accuracy seems to be on point too – based on our count-it-out fingers-to-neck comparison – and it’s only really sleep tracking that’s a bit over-optimistic, as it’ll base sleep patterns on what you tell the watch and often it’ll think you’re asleep when you’re just being lazy in bed one morning. Still, seeing light/deep/REM sleep is kind of fascinating, whether or not it’s data that you’ll really need.

Oh, lastly, it’s worth pointing out the lack of swim tracking. Which seems like an oddity for a waterproof device that features an accelerometer. If you’re looking for a band to assist with triathlon training then you’ll need to look further afield to a more advanced (and pricier) watch product.

Performance

Up to 8 hours non-stop GPS tracking for exercise
Smart notifications (iOS & Android app)

For an always-on fitness tracker the Vivosport lasts for a pretty decent length of time too. Garmin quotes up to eight hours of use with GPS tracking, i.e. when engaged in exercise activity. But it’s much longer if you’re not tracking specific exercises.

Pocket-lint

In our use that’s equated to charging the Vivosport every three days. In the meantime that provides daily tracking, including an hour of heart-rate data transmission via Bluetooth, an hour of GPS-tracking while walking in the evening, and overnight sleep tracking.

Best fitness trackers 2021: Top activity bands to buy today

By Britta O’Boyle
·
2 March 2021

Our guide to the top fitness trackers available, helping you count steps, track calories, monitor your heart rate, sleep patterns and more.

It does lead to the oddity of knowing when to charge, though, as we’ve ended up with it conking out at 5pm on a Wednesday, or warning of 10 per cent remaining at lunchtime. For us, really, it’s best plugged in overnight, abandoning the sleep tracking, to provide day in day out data without the sleep information.

Plugging it in, however, is based on a proprietary cable and fitting. Lose that cable and you’re stuffed as it’s like nothing else you’ll possess. The cable is also really short, which seems to be an oddity. We’d much rather have a charging cradle or mat instead to work with, which could always be plugged in bedside, with a backup direct charging port on the device itself.

Part of the longevity is down to the screen being dimmed the majority of the time. There’s little need to engage with the panel really, as the captured data is best presented through Garmin Connect – available for Apple iOS and Google Android, or via a web browser – in an easy-to-understand format.

You can engage with a calendar view, select specific exercise activities to gain greater understanding of your efforts, view bigger picture month-long summaries, or a comprehensive breakdown in My Day – which, as you probably guessed, collates all the data throughout a given day (from the Vivosport and other connected Garmin devices, as applicable).

Garmin Connect is best in app form, but can be accessed via a browser if you wish, and can also be setup to automatically push exercise data to third-party solutions, such as Strava. It’s a robust platform with enough flexibility to allow you to go light or dig deeper.

Verdict

The Garmin Vivosport is a small, comfortable-to-wear and capable fitness tracker that lasts a long time and avoids the over-complexity of a watch-like product.

We’d rather it had a non-proprietary cable for charging, the lack of swim tracking might seem odd for a waterproof device, while the small screen can be a little fiddly.

But the fact the Vivosport can communicate with our Gamin Edge cycling computer for comprehensive sessions and is always tracking our daily output in the interim has made it a daily driver with much wider appeal.

Sure, it might not be brand new – indeed it’s a couple of years old at the time of writing – but that’s an extra bonus in its appeal: as it’s available at some great price points right now (we found ours new for £69/$89).

Also consider

Pocket-lint

Fitbit Charge 4

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Perhaps the most obvious comparison, the lifestyle nature of its tracking features makes it an attractive wrist-wearable proposition for anyone looking to increase their activity and monitor their progress, with the new Active Zone Minutes being a lot more useful than step counting.

Read our review

Pocket-lint

Garmin Forerunner 45

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Looking for something with a larger screen that’s a little more comprehensive as a result? Garmin’s affordable watch ought to be a good shout.

Read our review

Writing by Mike Lowe.

MSI MPG Gungnir 110M
Case Type:	Mid-Tower
Material:	Steel, plastic, and tempered glass
Weight:	7.9 kg
Slots:	7
Drive Bays:	2x Internal 2.5/3.5″ 2x Internal 2.5″
Motherboard Form Factors:	Mini-ITX, Micro-ATX, and ATX
Dimensions:	215 (W) x 430 (D) x 450 (H) mm
Front Door/Cover:	N/A
Front Fans:	3x 120 or 2x 140 mm (3x 120 mm Auto RGB fans pre-installed)
Rear Fans:	1x 120 mm (1x 120 mm fan pre-installed)
Top Fans:	2x 120 or 140 mm (optional)
Bottom Fans:	N/A
Side Fans:	N/A
Front Radiator:	360 mm / 280 mm
Rear Radiator:	120 mm
Top Radiator:	240 mm
Bottom Radiator:	N/A
Side Radiator:	N/A
I/O:	1x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C 2x USB 3.0 1x Headphone 1x Microphone
Fan/LED Controller:	LED control button built-in (no controller)
Compatibility:	CPU Cooler: 170 mm GPU: 340 mm PSU: 250 mm

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Sony’s new SRS-RA5000 is a $700 single-unit speaker that is filled to the brim with drivers, has convenient features like Spotify Connect and Chromecast built in, and is capable of producing immersive 360-degree audio.

Though it’s only coming to market now, the RA5000 dates back to CES 2019, where Sony exhibited it as a prototype speaker for its new-for-the-time 360 Reality Audio format. So it’s been in the hopper for a while. Same goes for the smaller, less expensive RA3000, which Sony demonstrated a year later at CES 2020. Now they’ve both evolved into consumer products and look practically unchanged.

At 13 inches tall, the RA5000 is much bigger than any smart speaker. And yes, from the top, it absolutely looks like an oversized electric razor, thanks to the three round speaker grilles. If this thing was all white, you might confuse it for some kind of futuristic humidifier or air purifier. But Sony has stuck with the mix of black and rose gold that has been the signature look for many of its recent headphones and earbuds. I continue to dig the contrast this creates, and the speaker’s sides are covered in a knitted fabric that hides the innards. There are touch-sensitive buttons on the left and right sides. You get volume and play / pause on the right, with the left side handling power, mode selection (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or aux input), and a calibration feature that tweaks the sound for whatever room the RA5000 is in.

There’s no denying the electric razor resemblance.

The internal layout breaks down like this: there are three up-firing speakers, three outward-facing speakers positioned at the middle of the speaker’s sides, and a single subwoofer at the bottom. Around back is a 3.5-millimeter input and a little NFC icon, which you can hold an Android phone to for quick pairing. Underneath the speaker is where the power cord plugs in, and the RA5000 comes with a big honking external power supply. That’s something I didn’t expect to see considering how large the product already is. It needs to be plugged into power at all times, so Sony’s fancy speaker is wireless but by no means portable.

The setup process is… a lot. Sony’s mobile app guides you through numerous steps like adding the RA5000 to the Google Home app, bringing it aboard your Wi-Fi network, linking it to Amazon’s Alexa platform, and more. The speaker initially had a lot of trouble connecting to my home Wi-Fi, but with some persistence, eventually it worked. As is standard for Sony, the app isn’t very polished or pretty, but it gets the job done.

The RA5000 has touch-sensitive capacitive controls.

The RA5000 offers a ton of flexibility for how you play music on it. You can pair a device to the speaker via Bluetooth — AAC and SBC codecs are there, but not LDAC — but you’ll get far better quality when the music is coming over Wi-Fi. There’s built-in Chromecast support for audio casting, and the RA5000 can also be added to a speaker group with either Google Home or Amazon Alexa. I’d have loved for Sony to round out the streaming options with AirPlay 2, but no such luck. The speaker hardware includes a microphone, but this is only used for the calibration feature. You’ll have to rely on another device to get music playing on the RA5000 with your voice, but since it’s compatible with both Alexa and Assistant, this can be done wirelessly with a cheap smart speaker or your phone.

When in traditional stereo mode, this speaker is a powerhouse, though you might expect more bass for the size. (There are EQ options in the Sony app if you want to boost the low end.) It easily blanketed both my living room and bedroom with sound; the up-firing drivers help give it a very full presence. In my average listening, I never pushed volume beyond the 60 percent range. Going much higher would probably result in some very annoyed neighbors if you’re in an apartment. But despite its big, boisterous sound, there’s no mistaking the RA5000 for a proper set of stereo speakers. It sounds every bit like the single enclosure it is.

It dwarfs most other smart speakers.

And that leads us to the standout trick: 360-degree audio. Sony’s 360 Reality Audio uses object-based spatial audio to try to build a captivating soundscape. The pitch is that it can feel “as real as if you are there at a live concert or with the artist recording in a studio.” When you close your eyes and listen to 360 Reality Audio, the RA5000 definitely sounds bigger and wider than its physical footprint. It’s a noticeable change from plain stereo. But does it put me in some mind-blowing sphere of music coming from all directions? No, not really.

When you hop between 360 tracks, you’ll notice that not all content really takes advantage of its scope. It remains unclear how involved and invested most artists really are when it comes to these 360 mixes, so I’m skeptical of any claims that this is how songs were meant to be heard. Jazz sounds fantastic; the instrumentation really benefits from bouncing off walls and your ceiling. Concert recordings, like Liam Gallagher performing Oasis hit “Champagne Supernova” with an enthusiastic sing-along crowd, also have an impressive breadth to them that feels distinct from regular stereo sound. The LED at the bottom of the speaker illuminates green when you’re playing true 360 Reality Audio music.

The speaker supports music over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or aux input.

Only a few music streaming services, including Tidal, Deezer, and Nugs.net, support Sony’s 360 Reality Audio at present. Amazon Music HD will also let you play 360 audio on the RA5000 as of April 6th. You can cast 3D audio directly from these apps to the speaker. But even among services that offer 360 Reality Audio, adoption from musicians and labels has a long way to go. Not a single song in Tidal’s “Top Tracks” section had 360 Reality Audio, nor did any of the Top Albums. That really speaks volumes. There’s a dedicated section in the explore tab where you can easily browse through playlists and albums that do support 360-degree audio. A vast majority of it is older stuff, but recent records like Haim’s Women in Music Pt. III are there, too, as are hit singles like Harry Styles’ “Watermelon Sugar.”

The unconventional looks fit the novel 360-degree sound.

To make up for the lack of content that’s truly mixed for 360, Sony includes an “immersive audio enhancement” setting that attempts to re-create the same effect for two-channel music tracks. This algorithm-powered approach doesn’t work nearly as well. Toggling it on adds an obvious layer of artificial reverb and ambience to everything that you play, and you lose the soundstage precision that’s there with genuine 360 Reality Audio content.

At its eye-popping price of $700, finding direct “competitors” for the RA5000 is complicated. There’s a HomePod-looking device in Sony’s promotional video, but that Apple speaker was less than half the price and is now history. The $500 Sonos Five is my favorite single-unit speaker, but it sticks to stereo audio. Then you’ve got high-end, luxury audio alternatives like the $900 Formation Wedge speaker from Bowers & Wilkins, but again, that’s aiming for an audiophile-grade stereo experience. Sony’s speaker outperforms the $200 Amazon Echo Studio and can crank much louder — but that’s exactly what I’d expect considering the huge price gulf.

So the question I’m left with is this: who is this speaker for? It sounds excellent, can satisfyingly fill any normal-sized room, and 360 Reality Audio is a fun party trick. But the asking price is hard to get over. A lot of people who are serious about audio gear would sooner pay for a nice pair of stereo bookshelf speakers than drop $700 on this single unit. I think Sony’s trying to make the RA5000 a jack of all trades — led by immersive sound and an array of convenient streaming options. But I come away feeling like this speaker just tries to do too much, especially when the worth of its headline feature remains unproven and often inconsistent.

Photography by Chris Welch / The Verge

Our Verdict

For

Against

Features and Specifications

Thermaltake Divider 300TG Specifications

Thermaltake Divider 300TG Features

Thermaltake Divider 300TG Internal Layout

Thermaltake Divider 300TG Cooling

Our Verdict

For

Against

Features and Specifications

Specifications

Features

A Quick Comparison

Opening up the Raw S1

Internal Layout

A Tiny Collection of Included Accessories

Our Verdict

For

Against

Features and Specifications

Specifications

Software and Accessories

A Closer Look

The Argument Against Self-Sufficiency

A Proposed Solution

Introduction

How Resizable BAR Works

Introduction

Specifications

Introduction

Specifications

WHERE TO BUY THE ONEPLUS 9

WHERE TO BUY THE ONEPLUS 9 PRO

Design & Display

Fitness Features

Performance

Also consider

Fitbit Charge 4

Garmin Forerunner 45

Introduction

Specifications