Sony has officially launched Bravia CORE, its 4K lossless video streaming service. The bad news? It’s currently exclusive to those with a Bravia XR TV and a very fast internet connection.
As we reported in January, Bravia CORE uses Pure Stream technology to serve up the latest box office films at bitrates of between 30 Mbps – 80 Mbps, along with immersive DTS sound. In other words, similar or higher quality than that of most 4K Blu-ray discs.
Now, Sony has revealed that the Bravia CORE app will come pre-loaded on all new Bravia XR models including the A90J, Z9J, A80J, X95J and X90J. Lucky owners will get access to over 300 4K lossless titles such as Venom, Ghostbusters, Blade Runner 2049 and Jumanji: The Next Level.
Just how much ‘access’ depends on how much you splurge. Buy a range-topping A90J or Z9J and you’ll get free access to the service for 24 months and 10 credits to spend on lossless CORE titles that are otherwise available on pay-per-view basis. Buy any other Bravia XR model and you’ll get five credits and 12 months free access.
You’ll need a nippy broadband connection, too. While Netflix recommends a 25 Mbps connection for streaming 4K movies, Sony says Bravia CORE “requires a minimum internet speed of 43 Mbps.” In fact, streaming the highest quality lossless movies requires a minimum internet speed of – drumroll, please – 115Mbps. Holy smokes.
The service also claims “the largest IMAX Enhanced movie collection” – over 50 films remastered by IMAX and Sony Pictures to boost the image and sound on Bravia XR TVs. The selection appears to be pretty decent, and includes the likes of Baby Driver, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and Little Women. Sony has also revealed that CORE will provide users access to a “separate library of movies to stream any time and as many times as they like, in up to 4K HDR quality.”
At this point, you might be wondering what happens when the free 24/12 month subscription expires? Will Bravia CORE continue to be free? That’s yet to be confirmed but according to Sony, “you may watch the movies you have redeemed via Bravia CORE until February 23, 2026”.
MORE:
Take a look at the best streaming services for TV and movies 2020
Our guide to the best TVs you can buy
Here are the best Apple TV+ shows and movies to watch right now
If you’re finding that background noise is disrupting voice or video calls made from your computer, then a new piece of software from Nvidia might help (provided you have the necessary hardware to run it). Released in April 2020, RTX Voice uses the hardware found in Nvidia’s RTX (and more recently, GTX) GPUs to process your incoming and outgoing audio and eliminate almost all background noise.
Below, you’ll find a quick demonstration I recorded to show how it works. This was recorded from a Blue Snowball microphone using the built-in call recording functionality in Zoom. When I don’t have the software enabled, you can hear the loud clacking of my mechanical keyboard in the background of the call. But when I turn on RTX Voice, the sound completely disappears.
As well as processing your microphone’s input so that the people you’re speaking to can’t hear any background noise around you, you can also set the software to eliminate background noise coming in from other people. So you can save yourself from your colleagues’ loud keyboard as well as protecting them from your own. It’s a win-win.
How to use RTX Voice to reduce background noise
RTX Voice is pretty simple to use, but the big caveat is that you need the right hardware. In order to run it, you’ll need an Nvidia GeForce or Quadro RTX or GTX graphics card since the software uses this hardware to process your audio. That means you’re out of luck if you’ve got a Mac, or a Windows machine without a dedicated GPU.
As well as hardware requirements, the other thing to note about RTX Voice is that since the processing is being done by your graphics card, it might take system resources away from any games or other graphically intensive applications you’re running. I ran some quick and dirty benchmarks to try to gauge the performance impact and found that running RTX Voice on my Discord microphone input reduced UniEngine’s Heaven Benchmark by just over 3fps or around 6 percent, rising to over 8fps or 14 percent if I used the software to process incoming audio as well. That more or less tracks with YouTuber EposVox’s report of a 4 to 10 percent reduction when using it on his microphone, rising to 20 percent with both mic and speakers.
I think that makes RTX Voice a much better option for calls where you’re unlikely to be running something graphically intensive at the same time, like a work conference call, rather than while you’re running a game simultaneously. If you’re looking for something more gaming-specific, Discord recently launched its own noise suppression feature, which might be a better alternative.
RTX Voice can be set it up in just a couple of minutes.
First, update the driver software of your graphics card if it’s not already running on version 410.18 or above
Download RTX Voice from Nvidia’s website and install it
Once the software is installed, you can configure it to improve your incoming audio, outgoing audio, or both. Nvidia recommends only turning it on for your input device (read: microphone) to minimize the impact the audio processing will have on the performance of your system. You can also select how much noise suppression you want. I left it at 100 percent, but you might want to play around to find what works best for you.
You can set RTX Voice to work on your microphone input and / or your speaker’s output.Screenshot by Jon Porter / The Verge
Once installed, “Nvidia RTX Voice” will appear as an audio input and / or output device for your PC. That means you can go into your voice chat app of choice and select it as though you’d plugged an extra microphone or set of speakers into your PC. Check out Nvidia’s site for specific instructions on how to configure the software for individual applications; here’s what the setting looks like in Zoom.
Once enabled, most chat apps will let you manually select RTX Voice as though it’s an input or output device.Screenshot by Jon Porter / The Verge
Nvidia’s software isn’t unique. In addition to Discord’s feature, Microsoft also plans to add a similar piece of functionality to Teams later this year. The advantage of RTX Voice, however, is that it works across a much broader range of apps. Nvidia’s site lists 12 apps that it’s validated. However, I tested out audio recording app Audacity, which Nvidia doesn’t list as being supported, and found that RTX Voice worked just fine, so there are likely to be other unlisted apps that also work.
Not everyone will have the hardware to take advantage of this latest feature, and for others, the performance hit won’t be worth it. However if, like me, your gaming PC is mainly being used as a work computer these days, then using RTX Voice is a no-brainer.
Correction: This article originally stated that RTX Voice won’t work on a Windows machine with a dedicated GPU when it should have read that it won’t work on a Windows machine without a dedicated GPU. We regret the error.
Update 10:31AM, April 6th: Nvidia has extended RTX Voice support for earlier GTX, Quadro, and Titan-branded graphics card, so we’ve updated this post with relevant info.
Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. For more information, see our ethics policy.
(Pocket-lint) – Sonos Roam is the second portable Bluetooth speaker in the company’s portfolio, but really it’s the first when talking portability – because the Sonos Move isn’t all that portable by comparison.
A Bluetooth speaker by day, Sonos speaker by night, or vice versa, the Sonos Roam is very portable, very smart and has some excellent features on board. It’s more expensive than your average Bluetooth speaker, but then it isn’t your average Bluetooth speaker.
So should you buy the Sonos Roam? Yes. Why? Let us explain.
Design
Dimensions: 168 x 62 x 60mm / Weight: 430g
Finish options: Shadow Black, Lunar White
IP67 water- and dust- resistant
Triangular prism design
The Sonos Roam is a triangular prism shape, which is surprisingly great for carrying around. Its curved edges are smooth and comfortable to hold, while the soft-touch finish, super-light weight and rubbered ends make it feel durable and more than capable of withstanding a knock and tumble.
It can also handle a dunk. Falling into the Ultimate Ears Boom 3 and Megaboom 3 category – both of which are waterproof – the Roam is IP67 rated for dust and water. That means you can submerge Roam in up to 3ft of water for 30 minutes. Like Sonos Move, sand and dust are no match for Roam either, and though we didn’t dare try – Roam should also be able to withstand drops too.
The Roam is pretty much the same size as a 500ml water bottle – and significantly more portable and lighter than Move. It’s also smaller than competitors like the UE Boom 3.
As Sonos users would expect, Roam follows similar design traits to the rest of the Sonos portfolio. That means controls up top, very small holes making up the plastic speaker grille for a clean look, and black or white colour options. We had the Lunar White model in for review and while we’d love to see some special edition colours at some point – like Sonos offered with its limited edition Sonos One Hay collection – the off-white option is still lovely looking.
It’s worth mentioning that the Roam does deter slightly from Sonos’ more recent speakers in that it offers raised tactile controls rather than capacitive ones. There’s a play/pause button, volume increase and decrease buttons, and a microphone on/off button as usual – but the symbols are embossed on the rubber finish. It’s also worth noting that this finish – while really lovely to the touch – does seem to dent, so press the buttons with fingers not nails.
Pocket-lint
The Sonos Roam can be positioned horizontally or vertically – just like the Sonos Five. There’s one power/Bluetooth button on one edge next to the USB-C port and there are also four small circular, rubber feet to help the Roam sit properly when positioned horizontally.
Sonos Roam vs Sonos Move: What’s the difference?
Features
Google Assistant/Amazon Alexa
Automatic Trueplay
Sound Swap
The Sonos Roam will function as any other Bluetooth speaker when in Bluetooth mode – with a few extras. When connected via Wi-Fi though – which it will switch to automatically – it has all the features that come with other speakers in the Sonos system, which is the main thing that sets it apart from other Bluetooth-only speakers.
Sonos system features include support for over 100 music services, easy grouping, stereo pairing and control through voice assistants like Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, among plenty of other features like equaliser (EQ) adjustment. Like the Sonos Move, however, the Roam cannot be used as surrounds with the Sonos Arc or Sonos Beam, and it can’t be bonded with the Sonos Sub either.
Pocket-lint
The Roam does have an additional feature over other Sonos speakers: Sound Swap. This allows users to bring a Sonos speaker into an existing group by pressing-and-holding the play/pause button on top of the speaker you want to add to the group.
Bring it into a group with other Sonos speakers already playing, or by continuing to hold the button (for around five seconds in total) it will transfer the music on the Roam to your nearest Sonos speaker. This is done using an ultrasonic frequency, with the strongest signal determining the closest speaker. You can read more about Sound Swap in our separate feature.
It’s an excellent addition – one that’s really useful when you’re bringing Roam in from the garden and want to continue what you’re listening to in your living room, for example.
Other features on Sonos Roam include both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa support – although you’ll have to choose between them rather than use both at the same time, which is the case for other smart Sonos speakers. We use Google Assistant in our home and Roam delivered as we’d expect, turning our lights off when requested and answering questions and responding efficiently.
Pocket-lint
An LED light on top of the Roam above the microphone icon lets you know when Roam is listening. There’s another LED above the Sonos logo to indicate power, as well as Bluetooth pairing mode. At the bottom of the speaker – when it’s vertically positioned – an orange LED light appears when the battery is low.
Roam also offers Auto Trueplay tuning – just like the Move – to automatically tune its sound to its surroundings. It uses spatial awareness to adjust the sound for the speaker’s orientation, location, and content. Auto Trueplay tuning has been improved to work over both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. You can read more about Auto Trueplay in our separate feature.
Hardware and specs
Bluetooth 5.0, Wi-Fi (802.11ac), AirPlay 2
10-hour battery claimed
The Sonos Roam can automatically switch between Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections – there’s a button to switch between the two modes so the Roam delivers a seamless experience when moving in and out of your home. There’s also AirPlay 2 support.
There’s a rechargeable battery under the Roam’s hood, which is recharged using the USB Type-C port, or via a Qi compatible wireless charging dock. Sonos has its own official wireless charging dock available to purchase separately, which the Roam will magnetically snap onto. Otherwise, a USB-C cable is included in the box – but not the power adapter itself.
Best Alexa speakers 2021: Top Amazon Echo alternatives
By Britta O’Boyle
·
Pocket-lint
The battery is said to last 10 hours – one hour less than the Move – or 10 days when in sleep mode. This is a slight over estimation in our experience though. We got around eight-and-a-half hours from the battery when the volume was set to 50 per cent, though this is still pretty good going considering the Roam’s size.
When the music stops playing the Roam goes into sleep mode automatically – but it only takes around a second to wake it back up using the multi-functional power button positioned on the back of the device. We have a separate feature on how to put Roam into Bluetooth pairing mode.
Sound quality and performance
Two class-H amplifiers
Custom racetrack mid-woofer
Single tweeter
Under the hood of the Sonos Roam are two amplifiers tuned to the speaker’s acoustic architecture, along with a single tweeter for the high-end, a mid-woofer for everything else, along with a high-efficiency motor to increase power and range.
There’s also a far-field microphone array that uses beamforming and multi-channel echo cancellation in order to best hear your voice-based commands.
Pocket-lint
What all this means is the Sonos Roam sounds incredible for its size. As is typically the case with Sonos speakers, it’s on the bassy side, but we love that about it and if you don’t then you can always adjust the EQ in the Sonos app to suit your preference.
Roam has some serious punch for how small it is too – more than filling a decent sized room or smaller garden with sound, even at 50 per cent volume. Of course it doesn’t match the Sonos Move for output clout, but if you’re choosing between the Sonos One and Sonos Roam, the latter gives the former a good run for its money in terms of sound, while also offering smarter features.
We listened to a range of tracks in testing, from The Eagle’s Hotel California and Massive Attack’s Teardrop, to Pink Floyd’s Time and Laura Marling’s Soothing – just some examples – and we were continually impressed with the Roam’s capabilities during testing.
Vocals and acoustics sound great; the speaker delivers rich bass, while also handling treble well. As far as small Bluetooth speakers go the Roam more than delivers on the sound quality front.
Verdict
The Sonos Roam is a little pricey when compared to other Bluetooth speakers, but in the same breath it does a lot more than most Bluetooth speakers.
Its portable and lightweight design is met with excellent sound performance, plus all the features that come with the Sonos system, a choice of smart assistants, along with extra – and great – features like Sound Swap to seamlessly switch between other Sonos speakers and groups.
For those already invested in Sonos, the Roam is a no-brainer as an addition. It allows you to bring your Sonos system with you wherever you go, without you having to think.
For those considering a Bluetooth speaker and wondering if the Roam is worth the investment over others – it delivers everything a Bluetooth speaker should, plus so much more.
Also consider
Pocket-lint
Ultimate Ears Boom 3
SQUIRREL_WIDGET_148748
This cylindrical speaker is IP67-rated for water- and dust-resistance just like the Roam, plus it delivers great sound for its size – and through 360 degrees. It’s cheaper than Roam, but it doesn’t offer as many connected features.
Read our review
Pocket-lint
JBL Xtreme 2
SQUIRREL_WIDGET_145677
If you want loud and crisp sound, plus impressive bass, the JBL could be for you. Again, however, it doesn’t have as many features as the Roam, but it’s a great party speaker that comes with a practical carry handle too.
Read our review
Pocket-lint
Sonos Move
SQUIRREL_WIDGET_167282
The larger Sonos has many of the same features as the Roam but delivers much bigger sound in a not-as-portable design.
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The Sonos Roam is the most focused, calculated product from Sonos yet. It’s a small $169 speaker that’s meant to compete with portable Bluetooth speakers that people so often carry everywhere without a second thought. But it’s also designed to slot into Sonos’ multiroom audio platform and showcase the versatility that comes with it. In fact, excluding the co-branded speakers that Sonos makes with Ikea, the Roam is now the cheapest way into the company’s ecosystem.
The Roam supports hands-free voice commands, has Apple AirPlay 2, includes wireless charging, and features a rugged design that lets you use it practically anywhere. There’s a lot riding on this speaker; Sonos only releases a couple new products per year, so they all have to deliver. So let’s examine how the Roam stacks up against similarly sized speakers and whether it should replace whatever you’ve got now.
At 6.61 inches tall, the Roam actually stands shorter than popular Bluetooth speakers like the UE Boom 3 and JBL Flip 5. And at under a pound, it’s lightweight enough to toss into your backpack or tote. The Boom is bigger all around: you could pretty much fit the Roam right inside it. UE’s Megaboom 3 and the new JBL Charge 5 both increase the size advantage further, and they’re still close to the Roam in price. Going up from there, you get to the real giants like the UE Megablast. For this review, I’ll keep it simple and focus on speakers that resemble the Roam in size.
The Roam retains what’s become the standard Sonos aesthetic, with hundreds of precision-drilled holes in the speaker enclosure. But this is not a cylinder-style speaker that shoots audio in all directions. The Roam has a curved triangle shape that naturally projects sound both forward and up when it’s laid horizontally. It comes in either black or white, and I’ve noticed that when the black one is in bright lighting, you can actually see a hexagon pattern behind the holes. That plate is there for structural reasons, but it’s not really visible on the white speaker.
Battery life tops out at 10 hours.
This is the first Sonos speaker to earn an IP67 dust and water resistance rating. By certification standards, that means it should survive up to 30 minutes in three feet of water. In practical terms, it means you can use the Roam in the bathroom while you shower and near pools without fretting about damage. It’s probably a good idea to keep it on a floaty if you insist on bringing it into a deep pool, though. This speaker doesn’t float. Yes, I checked.
The Roam has the best water resistance of any Sonos speaker.
I’ve also managed to drop my two review units a few times, and they’ve come away with only light blemishes and a couple nicks you really have to hunt for to notice. I chalk that up to clumsiness; there’s no built-in handle like the Move, but in general the curved triangle shape is easy to grip. Both sides of the Roam have silicone end caps to help with ruggedness. From what I’ve seen, it should be able to withstand a tumble off a bicycle and the wear and tear that comes with being a truly portable speaker.
It’s rated IP67 and has silicone at both ends to withstand bumps.
On the top (when vertical) or left (horizontal) is where you find the controls, which are actual clicky buttons beneath the silicone instead of the usual capacitive sensors that Sonos tends to use. Going with real, tactile buttons for this product was absolutely the right decision. They’re easy to feel for and hard to press accidentally. There are four buttons: play / pause, two for track controls, and a microphone button for enabling or muting the built-in microphones that are used for voice assistant commands with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant.
On the back of the Roam is a USB-C port and power button. Aside from wired charging, you can also juice up the speaker using any Qi-compatible pad that it’ll fit on. My Anker dual-charging station handled the task well. Sonos also sells a wireless charger that attaches to the Roam magnetically, but I didn’t get a chance to test that. The included USB-C-to-USB-A cable is nicely angled on the Roam’s side so that it doesn’t get in the way no matter how it’s oriented. Neither the cable nor the Sonos wireless charger are water resistant, so you’ve got to keep those dry. If you’re in a hurry, definitely go wired; Sonos says it takes “about two hours” for the Roam to go from 0 to 50 percent when charging wirelessly compared to “about an hour” when plugged in. Higher-power chargers can cut down on both of those times.
You can use either Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant with the built-in mics.
Now onto the main agenda: sound quality. Sonos has built a favorable reputation with its past speakers, but the question is whether the company can make good on its name with a speaker this small and portable. What I’ll say is that the Roam is one of the clearest, most pleasant portable speakers I’ve used. Others like the UE Boom 3 can come off muddy and lack depth. There’s little about their sound and articulation that stands out.
The Roam seems to make a priority of ensuring that the texture and vibrancy of music comes through with maximum clarity. Vocals sound crisp, and strings in classical music come through lush without getting pitchy. Like other Sonos speakers, the Roam features automatic room optimization called Trueplay, and Sonos says it’s constantly adjusting to optimize sound for whatever environment it’s in. This does actually make a difference in an echoey bathroom, but it’s not some magic cure-all for an acoustically challenged room. (Auto Trueplay works with music both streamed over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.)
Let’s face it: while Sonos claims that the Roam “defies expectations,” it can’t defy physics. This is a relatively small speaker, and perhaps the best-sounding one in its size class, but it has weaknesses. At the top of that list is bass, which can’t quite match that of the Sonos One and is roundly defeated by the much larger, heavier Move. Even the barely larger JBL Flip 5 has more assertive bass that gets noticeably boomier than the Roam. It can go louder, too. Larger Bluetooth speakers like the UE Megaboom and JBL Charge 5 will almost certainly trounce the Roam at bass response, but I don’t consider that surprising.
Sonos’ speaker has some low-end resonance — you’ll feel the vibrations if it’s on a table — but it’s clear that the company has opted for balance over boom factor. The Roam can also only do so much when you’re using it in a wide open space outdoors with no walls for the sound to bounce off of. It’ll crank loud without much distortion but can’t reach the same fullness as the Move. It’s when you really turn up the volume that you’ll be left wanting some added oomph. A party speaker this is not.
Two Roams paired together can produce an excellent stereo soundstage — but only on Wi-Fi.
Using two Roams at the same time as a stereo pair brings out even more detail, and the bass also benefits from two of them playing together. There’s no beating proper stereo separation, and two Roams do a better job blanketing a bedroom or living room in music than one alone. Unfortunately, the process of creating a stereo pair can get tedious. You have to manually do it from the Sonos app every time. This makes sense since you have to select which speaker is on what side. But I’d love it if there were a button shortcut to more quickly form a stereo pair — or at least a prompt when you power on a second Roam that asks if you want to pair them instead of leaving both to their lonesome by default.
To the frustration of some Sonos customers, the Roam doesn’t allow you to use the stereo pair feature when listening over Bluetooth. This is also the case with the Move, but considering how much Sonos is hyping the portability of its new speaker, it feels like a fumble on the company’s part. Maybe this poses engineering challenges, but other Bluetooth speakers like the UE Wonderboom 2 can already link together as a stereo pair without needing an app to get there. Bluetooth stereo might be a compelling reason for some people to own two Roams, but right now the feature isn’t there.
The $169 Sonos Roam beside the much bigger, heavier $399 Sonos Move.
Sonos has at least introduced some new tricks with the Roam when using it around the house. The first is called sound swap, which lets you quickly pass off audio from the Roam to whichever of your other Sonos speakers is closest. You just hold the play button for a few seconds, and the currently playing music hops over. Repeat the process, and audio moves back to the Roam. This has worked well in my experience so far, and Sonos goes about locating the nearest speaker in a clever way. When you activate sound swap, all of your speakers briefly emit a high-frequency tone that your ears can’t hear — but the Roam can. When you venture outside, the Roam does a solid job automatically pairing to your phone once you’re outside Wi-Fi coverage.
The other new feature that debuts with the Roam is the option to play Bluetooth audio over your entire Sonos system. In the Sonos app, you can add your other speakers as a group with the Roam that’s playing the Bluetooth audio source. My turntable doesn’t do Bluetooth, but if yours does, this will be an easy way to play your records in multiple rooms — at the cost of fidelity, of course. There are other ways of integrating vinyl into a Sonos system if you care more about audio quality. I did test this feature using content from a friend’s phone over Bluetooth, and it played just fine across my other Sonos speakers. The Move can’t be updated with this feature because the Roam has a new antenna that can connect to Bluetooth and Wi-Fi simultaneously. The Move only supports one or the other at a time.
But even with these new capabilities, there are still those occasional times where a Sonos system falls out of step. Maybe music playback inexplicably starts seizing up, or maybe the volume controls in the app you’re casting from — like Spotify — stop working. Even after shifting to its new S2 platform, Sonos hasn’t completely ironed out the blips when its mobile app goes on the fritz or seems to momentarily lose control over everything. The bugs are rare, but they happen.
A useful, delicious size reference.
What’s worse in the case of the Roam is how poorly Sonos handles moving between Wi-Fi networks. Everything works just great at home, but if you want to use the Wi-Fi features of Roam at someone else’s place or when traveling, it’s a real headache. The process of adding another “trusted network” in the Sonos app didn’t always work in my experience. I hope this is something Sonos will focus on more now that it’s selling a speaker that’s portable in a way that the Move never was. Music on the Roam sounds best over Wi-Fi, and it’s also needed for features like AirPlay 2. Bluetooth is right there as a fallback, but the Roam really has to get friendlier with guest networks.
The estimated battery life of 10 hours is also on the low side: the UE Boom 3 gets 15 hours and JBL’s Flip 5 hits 12. Wireless charging helps make up for this to an extent. It’s pretty rare among Bluetooth speakers, and you can play music as the Roam sits on the charger replenishing its battery. But I still wish Sonos could’ve eked out some extra playing time. The company says you can reach up to 10 days of standby time, but that strikes me as optimistic. My review units have held their charge for quite a few days, though.
There’s also a battery drain bug if you set up Google Assistant on the Roam that Sonos warned reviewers about, and it’s bad enough that the company is encouraging customers to power the speaker down when it’s not being used to conserve juice. Sonos says it’s working with Google on a fix and that customers using Alexa won’t encounter the same issue. The beamforming microphones generally picked up my voice commands without obvious mistakes the vast majority of the time, and aside from the Google battery bug, both voice assistants worked as expected.
The Roam’s many features make it among the best portable speakers at its size.
It’s best to think of the Sonos Roam as a personal speaker. It’ll do fine on your desk pumping out the soundtrack to your day. It can handle picnic duty for a small group at the park or come for a ride-along on your bike. And yes, it shines in the shower. But if you’re leading a dance class or trying to entertain guests at a barbecue, these are the types of situations where the larger Move easily wins out and proves its worth. Think of it this way: the more people that will be listening, the sooner you’ll turn to a speaker that isn’t the Roam.
But even with that understood, the Roam has a lot going for it. When in the comfort of your home, features like AirPlay and voice assistants do make it feel more capable than other speakers that are equally small and easy to carry. That and convenient wireless charging are where the $170 price gets easier to accept.
The Roam can fill in any nook of your living space — the bathroom, the garage, wherever — that doesn’t have another full-time Sonos speaker in it. On the go with Bluetooth, it’s easy to use and kicks out clear, satisfying sound for its size. Sonos needs to work on keeping the Roam’s smarts together when you’re on different Wi-Fi, and stereo pairing over Bluetooth should’ve been a feature on day one. But neither is enough to sink the overall value of Sonos’ latest speaker. As long as you don’t expect miracles from its compact size, I think you’ll end up happy.
Google has started rolling out the April Android security update for Pixel phones, and it looks like it’s brought some performance improvements to the most recent devices. Google says the update includes “performance optimizations for certain graphics-intensive apps and games” on the Pixel 5 and 4A 5G, and, as noted by XDA Developers, some testers are noticing substantially improved GPU performance on the Pixel 5.
Anandtech previously found that the Pixel 5 turned in much worse GPU results than other phones using the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G chip. Now, the site’s reviewer Andrei Frumusanu says that performance on his Pixel 5 has been “essentially doubled” from the review’s initial figures and is now “in line or better than other 765G phones.” Benchmarks don’t necessarily translate into real-world results, of course, but combined with Google’s reference to optimizations for graphics-intensive apps, it does sound like GPU performance should be better with the new release.
In addition, Google says that the Pixel 5 and 4A 5G should receive “improvements to camera quality” in some third-party apps. There’s also a fix for a startup freezing bug on Pixel 4 and 5 devices, as well as one for missing home grid settings on the Pixel 3 and 4 generations of phones.
Sennheiser’s latest premium wired earbuds certainly have their strengths, but class-leading insight isn’t one of them
For
Excellent build and comfort
Impressive bass depth
Lush, full midrange
Against
Lacks class-leading subtlety
Rhythmically and dynamically outclassed
No in-line remote
In a headphones market that revels in innovative features such as true wirelessness, active noise-cancelling and voice control, the spec sheet for a pair of wired earbuds can seem rather prosaic – like a Henry vacuum cleaner in a field of cordless Dysons.
But such features have little to do with sound quality, and in the context of performance-per-pound value, wired models usually have the advantage over their wireless peers.
The Sennheiser IE 300 are the latest wired earbuds from the German brand, and despite not ticking some of the boxes in terms of popular features, there’s plenty to talk about where technical design and performance is concerned.
Build and comfort
(Image credit: Sennheiser)
Sennheiser says every component inside these lightweight (4g without cable) in-ear headphones has been carefully tuned to produce optimal performance, from a low resonance membrane foil to the resonator chamber, which is designed to compensate for the masking effects of trapped air in the ear canal with the buds in use.
Sennheiser IE 300 tech specs
(Image credit: Sennheiser)
Finishes x1
Cable length 1.25m
Eartips 3x memory foam, 3x silicone
Weight 4g (without cable)
The company has refined the 7mm ‘Extra Wide Band’ drive unit also found in the IE 800, as well as the chamber-within-a-chamber structure that helps manage airflow in an effort to produce a defined bass and equally satisfying midrange.
Its pro audio-inspired design is most obvious in the quality of its detachable cable; the inclusion of memory foam eartips in addition to silicone (three sizes of each are provided); and the availability of optional balanced (2.5mm or 4.4mm) cables. Everything from the earbud casing’s glitter-speckled finish to the thick 1.2m cable, which has been reinforced by para-aramid fibre for its durable characteristic, is an illustration of the IE 300’s build quality, too.
While the compact, hard-shell carry case doesn’t exude quite the same luxury as the earbuds, it is pocket-friendly and hardy, and undoubtedly a practical accessory. The same could be said for an in-line remote, the absence of which is a small negative mark here.
The earbud housings are practically compact too, and while a little fiddling is required to bend the thicker top part of the cable around your ears, when they’re in, they stay in – and you’d be just as likely to remove them from your ears due to interruption from a natural disaster than because of any discomfort. When it comes to physical build and ergonomic comfort, Sennheiser’s formidable reputation has been maintained here.
Sound
(Image credit: Sennheiser)
What’s less certain with Sennheiser earbuds is the sound character we’re going to be met with. The company has nailed class-leading insight and tonal neutrality in countless models, but has also shown an inclination towards richer, fuller and not so universally appealing sonic signatures. Unfortunately with the IE 300, it’s more a case of the latter.
The IE 300 make a great first impression, producing the depth of bass, frequency-wide solidity and general scale of sound that is hard not to be impressed by from such tiny units. We play Mogwai’s Ceiling Granny and there’s meat and grubbiness behind the oppressive guitar lines, not to mention hefty sting to the blistering electric squeals. The Sennheiser’s low-end weight, which isn’t particularly agile but not exactly ponderous either, can really anchor a song that warrants it in ways earbuds rarely do, such as LNZNDRF’s Barton Springs At Dusk.
The lows are rather overstated, though, stealing the spotlight like a lead singer in a band and relegating the treble to the role of the drummer at the back of the stage. The varied instrumental that rides above the bedrock of deep, uncompromising bass in the 20-minute track – the keys, percussion and series of kaleidoscopic synths – is somewhat muted in comparison. Richness at the low-end comes at the expense of some midrange crispness, shedding excitement as a consequence.
Meanwhile, the class leaders at this level, the Award-winning Shure Aonic 3 (£179, $199), set a better example, trading the Sennheiser’s impressive richness for a more agreeable neutral tonality. They may not match the IE 300’s bass depth or the midrange solidity – these Sennheisers sound wonderfully full and smooth with voices – but they offer greater clarity, crispness, agility and, in turn, a snappier presentation.
Play the vocal-led Cassandra Jenkins’ Michelangelo, and while the Sennheisers showboat with a bold soundfield filled with lush-sounding acoustic guitars and warm, solid vocals, the intricacies of Jenkins’ delivery and the fine instrumental textures are overlooked in comparison.
The Shures are notably more rhythmically and dynamically proficient. Playing the first track of Black Country, New Roads’ debut album, Instrumental, they offer the more compelling listen; cymbals are convincingly cutting as opposed to softened, there’s greater texture to the oboe and trombone melodies, and the drum rhythm is tighter and faster, propelling the track’s rightful frenetic energy.
They focus on every musical strand, even as new ones come in. It would be unfair to call the Sennheisers boring or vague, but they are notably less astute and more subdued than their more talented, more affordable rival.
Verdict
Without having to concern itself with contemporary features, Sennheiser has been able to prioritise the fundamentals for the IE 300 – build and sound quality. It nails the former, and there’s plenty to like in the latter: they’re bolder and more authoritative-sounding than most, with majestic bass depth and wonderfully rich vocals among the highlights.
However, they aren’t convincing all-rounders, and just fall short of the transparency and entertainment of the more affordable, class-leading competition at this level.
My previous two encounters with MSI’s gaming headsets went rather well. Both the $50 analogue Immerse GH30 (reviewed here) and $70 USB-powered Immerse GH50 (reviewed here) had some minor quirks, but ended up offering great value for the money in their respective price brackets.
The Immerse GH61, which will be the focal point of this review, takes things to a higher level. It’s equipped with a pair of 40-millimeter dynamic speaker drivers which have been installed by the famous hi-fi brand Onkyo. They’re powered by an ESS Sabre USB DAC and headphone amplifier, but MSI didn’t stop there; they’ve also added a retractable microphone, two pairs of ear pads made out of different materials, and a massive hard-shell carrying case. With all that in mind, you’re probably mentally preparing for a massive price tag. However, that’s not the case—the MSI Immerse GH61 is priced at $100, which isn’t at all unreasonable if going by the specifications alone. Even though it comes with a USB DAC/headphone amp, the headset also offers 3.5-mm analogue connectivity, making it easily pairable with a wide variety of gaming platforms.
Specifications
40-mm Onkyo dynamic drivers (neodymium magnet)
32 Ω impedance
20–40,000 Hz frequency response (specified by the manufacturer)
Closed-back over-ear design
Retractable, unidirectional microphone
7.1 virtual surround sound
1.2 m audio cable (3.5 mm) + 1 m USB cable
In-line ESS Sabre USB DAC/amp with microphone mute, volume, and surround sound buttons
If you had to choose: would you choose a sharper screen on your smartphone, or a smoother-scrolling one? This year, budget phone buyers may be asking themselves that question: the OnePlus Nord N100, Moto G50, and the new Samsung Galaxy F12 and M12 all refresh their screens 90 times per second (which is good!) but with a lower-than-optimal screen resolution of 720p. That’s the same resolution as a Galaxy Nexus from 2011.
Compared to your average iPhone, that’s a paltry number of pixels. Since the iPhone 4 debuted in 2010, every Apple handset has offered at least 326 pixels per inch (PPI), enough so you can’t make out those individual pixels with the naked eye at typical viewing distances. (The marketing term is “retina display.”) Here, the PPI would be more like 270.
And yet Apple has never offered an iPhone with a high-refresh-rate screen, which we’ve often found to be one of the most desirable features on high-end and mid-range smartphones since it makes everything you do (not just games) feel much smoother. (Apple might make it happen later this year.)
But the Galaxy F12 and M12, the OnePlus and Moto all show that high-refresh doesn’t need to be a high-end feature at all, or even a $300 one like we recently saw with the OnePlus Nord N10 5G. The Samsung phones in particular cost under $150 each, as long as you’re willing to sacrifice pixels to get there.
In other ways, the 9,999-rupee handsets seem like they might be decent picks too: they’re based on the same basic platform as the Galaxy A12 and its four-camera array, but with a larger 6,000mAh battery that dwarfs many others on the market. You get a sidemounted fingerprint sensor. Just note while its 8nm Exynos 850 processor might sound shiny and new, it’s not comparable with Qualcomm’s recent 800-series Snapdragon chips. It’s closer to 2019’s Snapdragon 665 in performance.
It’s not clear whether either of these phones will come to the US quite yet. The OnePlus Nord N100 already has, and the G50 launched in Europe late last month.
The LG V30.Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
The US smartphone market just got more boring
If you’re reading this on a phone, chances are, LG didn’t make it. The Korean tech giant has been losing money and market share with its smartphone division for years, so it wasn’t a surprise when it finally announced plans to pull the plug today. You could be forgiven for shrugging.
But LG deserves to be remembered as more than just an also-ran. Its phones were rarely big hits, much less often the kind of polished product we’d ever recommend to most over its competitors. Despite this, LG did introduce several features and innovations that the phone world would be worse off without. The company was the first to put ultrawide cameras on its phones, for example, and it pioneered the kind of all-screen, no-button smartphone designs that dominate the market today.
And particularly in the US, where Android competition is extremely low, the loss of LG will only further entrench the Apple-Samsung duopoly at the high end. LG is the third-biggest phone vendor in the US, with roughly 10 percent of market share, although much of that was midrange prepaid devices sold through carrier stores. LG might not have been at the top of your smartphone shopping list, but if you live in the US, that list just got a lot more boring.
The LG Velvet in its Dual Screen case.Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge
LG did have some claim to being a tastemaker in the pre-smartphone world. Its Chocolate and enV phones were stylish devices that helped LG expand its brand recognition around the world. But after the iPhone and Android changed everything, LG struggled to adapt. I’m duty-bound here to mention the original LG Prada, which had a capacitive touchscreen and was technically announced just before the iPhone, but its true legacy is mostly people pointing that out in online comments.
LG’s early Android phones weren’t impressive. The 2011 Nitro HD, for example, was its first splashy flagship device in a long time, but it was saddled with outdated, clunky software and poor battery life. Its successor, the Optimus G, represented a degree of refinement, and by the time the G2 came along in 2012, LG’s new G-series was a fairly credible alternative to the likes of Samsung or HTC. The G2 was one of the first flagship smartphones to attempt to cut down on bezel size, for example, and LG made on-screen buttons a core part of its design long before most others.
It was also around this time that LG found a new partner in Google, releasing two Nexus phones in a row. The 2012 Nexus 4 was built around the guts of the Optimus G, and it had its fans despite its crippling lack of LTE, weak battery life, and unimpressive camera. The next year’s Nexus 5 found an even stronger cult following despite it too having a poor camera and bad battery life. (The red version did look great, and the $349 price didn’t hurt.)
The modular LG G5.Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
LG’s mobile division kept on ticking on, turning out respectable phones like the G3 and G4 without ever really challenging Samsung. The software was still a heavy-handed customization of Android, and LG continued to lag behind peers with its pace of updates, but the hardware was solid. It was the 2016 G5 where things really started to fall apart. Designed around a series of swappable modular accessories called “Friends,” the phone flopped, and LG quickly pretended it never happened. Suffice it to say that if you bought a camera grip or a DAC Hi-Fi audio accessory for your G5, it wouldn’t be able to make Friends with 2017’s G6.
It’s unfortunate that LG focused on gimmicks with the G5 because that phone did introduce one new feature that would become ubiquitous in the smartphone market years later: the ultrawide camera. Ultrawides on smartphones let people capture pictures that were previously restricted to camera gearheads, and it’s hard to imagine buying a new phone without one today. But it took a long time for other phone makers to figure out the utility; Apple introduced its first in 2019, for example.
The V20, released the same year as the G5, had another unique feature that would become a hallmark of the company’s phones for years: an honest-to-God headphone jack in the year that Apple decided to ditch it. And not just any headphone jack — one that worked with a built-in quad DAC designed to boost sound quality and appeal to audiophiles. Did this sell many phones? Well, no. But it became a hallmark of LG’s high-end devices ever since, providing an option for wired headphone enthusiasts who despaired as other phone makers followed Apple’s lead one by one.
The LG G6.Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
The 2017 G6 got the G-series back on track. It was the first major smartphone released with a now-familiar taller aspect ratio, with an even stronger focus on eliminating bezels than ever before. Of course, not many people noticed as Samsung followed immediately with the similar but sleeker Galaxy S8 and its “Infinity Display.” Later that year, LG released the V30, which had a completely new (and very nice) design, but it’s always going to be a hard sell when your most differentiated feature is your (also very nice) haptics system.
From here on out, LG’s flagship phones mostly blurred into one. The G7 was a pretty good facsimile of an iPhone X, even winning an Editor’s Choice designation from Verge editor Dan Seifert. The V40 pioneered the now-common triple-camera setup. The G8X came with a dual-screen case that, in hindsight, Microsoft’s Surface Duo really didn’t improve much upon a year later. But all of these phones looked basically identical to each other, and none of their key features were viewed as much more than gimmicks at the time.
For every good idea LG had, there’d be something pointless like the G8’s vein-sensing “Hand ID” unlock. Despite the company making a big announcement about a new Software Upgrade Center to increase the pace of Android updates, nothing changed. And in the face of Samsung’s unstoppable marketing machine, LG’s best attempt at a brand identity was to add “ThinQ” to the name of each flagship phone.
The LG Wing.Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge
In its final year, LG’s mobile division did move to address its problems. The Explorer Project was intended to produce more innovative designs, like the beautiful but underpowered Velvet and the oddball dual-screen Wing. At CES this year, the company announced a Rollable concept phone that it said it planned to take to market.
That’ll never happen now, and it’s hard to say it’s a huge loss with companies like Oppo and TCL likely to pick up the slack with their own versions. But in the context of the US phone market, there’s going to be fewer choices, and whoever ends up accounting for LG’s lost market share is unlikely to be as creative a replacement.
LG’s phones were rarely, if ever, the best available, but the company did make a significant impact on the smartphone world at large. With its mobile division’s demise, the US market becomes even more homogenous.
Having announced its new flagship OLED, the JZ2000, at CES back in January, Panasonic has now released the details of the rest of its 2021 TV line-up. It comprises four OLED models and three LCD TVs and includes the brand’s first-ever 48-inch OLEDs – in fact, there are three of them!
The JZ OLED series replaces the mixed success of 2020’s HZ models. We were impressed by the general picture quality and motion handling of the HZ1000, awarding it five stars, but while the HZ2000 proved even more accomplished in the picture department, its expensive speaker system proved a disappointment. Wisely, this year’s JZ2000 has a revamped sound system. What’s more, unlike in 2021, this year you can get Panasonic’s enhanced Professional Edition panel without going right up to the flagship 2000-series TV.
Panasonic has also sought to address the lack of next-gen HDMI features right across the range, which should prick up the ears of gamers who’s been put off Panasonic TVs in the past.
For the LCDs, the JX models replace the successful HX range. At the top is a flagship model that gets the same processing treatment as its OLED sibling, while at the bottom is an entry-level model that utilises the Android TV operating system.
Want to know everything there is to know about Panasonic’s 2021 TV range? Allow us to run down all of the tech highlights before breaking down the individual models in full.
More affordable ‘Professional Edition’ OLED TVs
(Image credit: Panasonic)
In previous years Panasonic’s custom Professional Edition OLED panels have been the preserve of flagship 2000-series models (the HZ2000 in 2020 and GZ2000 in 2019). However, Panasonic is now bringing its best picture quality to the more affordable 1500-series, which is this year called the JZ1500. That’s excellent news for people who already have a sound system and don’t want to fork out for the JZ2000s price-increasing, bulk-adding in-built Atmos speakers.
Only the 65-inch and 55-inch JZ1500 get the upgrade, though; the new 48-inch model (more on which below) has a standard, non-Professional Edition panel.
Compared to standard OLED screens, Panasonic’s Professional Edition OLED panels are brighter, punchier and more vibrant, offering even better HDR performance. Panasonic will also be the only manufacturer in 2021 to use this top tier panel in more than one range, meaning that, depending on price, the JZ1500 could potentially undercut other brands top of the line models.
Additionally, all the 2021 OLEDs benefit from an enhanced colour profile courtesy of Panasonic’s ‘Hollywood’ tuning overseen by Stefan Sonnenfeld, post-production colourist on films including Wonder Woman 1984 and Beauty and the Beast.
Panasonic’s first 48-inch OLEDs
(Image credit: Panasonic)
LG (which manufactures all of the OLED panels currently used by all TV brands) begun manufacturing 48-inch panels in 2020 and shortly thereafter launched its own 48-inch OLED TV, the excellent OLED48CX. Sony and Philips quickly followed with their own 48-inch OLED TVs, but Panasonic has held off until now.
Perhaps keen to make up for lost time, Panasonic is offering not one but three 48-inch OLED models – a JZ1500, JZ1000 and JZ980. While the larger versions of each range will have Pro, Master and standard OLED panels respectively, all three 48-inch TVs will have standard OLED screens.
The other main difference the 48-inch models have compared to their bigger siblings is mounting. Although the bigger versions of the JZ1500 and JZ1000 will have Panasonics popular adjustable swivel stand, the 48-inch JZ1500 has a central, fixed pedestal, while the 48-inch JZ1000 and JZ980 will have a pair of adjustable feet to allow for the addition of a soundbar.
New HCX Pro AI processor
(Image credit: Panasonic)
All of Panasonic’s OLED TVs and the top LCD model have received an upgrade in processing power with the new HCX Pro AI processor. It supports an Auto AI mode that can analyse the type of content being played and adjust the picture accordingly. You’ll still be able to make manual adjustments, but if you leave the TV in its Auto AI mode, it will work to automatically get the best out of everything you watch, from movies to sports and games. The top of the line JZ2000 is the only model that also benefits from Auto AI sound quality adjustments.
The JX850 LCD, meanwhile, has a new HCX AI Processor – note the absence of the word ‘Pro’ – whilst the JX800 gets last year’s standard HCX processor.
Enhanced gaming performance and features
(Image credit: Pansonic)
Gaming has typically been a lower priority for Panasonic than for some other manufacturers, but the company is looking to redress that in 2021. All models with the HCX Pro AI processor support a new low latency input setting called Game Mode Extreme. Panasonic claims input lag will be amongst the “very lowest in the industry”, with their own live demo producing an impressively short lag time of 14.4ms.
The entire range, except the JX850 and JX800, sport four HDMI ports, two of which are HDMI 2.1 (though one of these is also eARC), adding specs such as HFR (aka 4K@120Hz), VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) and AMD FreeSync Premium on top of the ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) that Panasonic’s sets already have.
Panasonic has openly stated that at launch, the TVs will only display half the vertical resolution for 4K HFR and 4K@120Hz VRR with a firmware update to arrive later in the year to restore 4K HFR fully. An announcement on an update for 4K@120Hz VRR will be made “in due time”.
Dolby Vision IQ and HDR10+ Adaptive
(Image credit: Pansonic)
Panasonic has long supported both Dolby Vision and HDR10+, and it’s adding HDR10+ Adaptive to the 2021 range.
Like Dolby Vision IQ, this new format adjusts HDR10+ picture characteristics in accordance with both the source material metadata and the ambient lighting conditions of the room. All 2021 models will have Dolby Vision and HDR10+ Adaptive, and Dolby IQ will be supported on models down to the JX940. Panasonic is the first manufacturer to produce TVs with both Dolby Vision IQ and HDR10+ Adaptive on board.
Panasonic’s unique application of Filmmaker Mode returns to all models in the lineup. Filmmaker Mode overrides the TV’s processing (such as motion smoothing and detail enhancement) to allow content to be displayed at the aspect ratio, colour and frame rate intended by the content’s creator. Panasonic adds an ‘Intelligent Sensing’ component to the feature ’, which dynamically adjusts HDR10+, HDR10, HLG or SDR pictures based on the lighting in your room.
We’ve so far been very unimpressed with the soft and dull performance of Filmmaker Mode on various TVs, so it’ll be interesting to see if Panasonic’s 2021 models can bring us around to the format.
My Home Screen 6.0
(Image credit: pansonic)
All models down to the JZ850 will feature a new version of Panasonic’s own operating system, which promises to be “much more intuitive and much more usable” than before and includes a ‘my Scenery’ feature that lets you display a selection of restful images and videos, or set your own, to match your mood.
Last year Panasonic TVs were missing several key streaming apps at launch, and despite updates, Disney+ still won’t be included in 2021, although Panasonic says it is “in discussions” with Disney to rectify this.
All models down to and including the JX850 support both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa built-in, while the JX800 only has Google Assistant.
The JX800 is also Panasonic’s first TV with Android TV OS, which it apparently combines with some of the aspects of Panasonic’s own ‘My Home Screen’ operating system. It’s good to see the company adding Android TV to its lineup. Could this be just a toe in the water ahead of a broader rollout next year?
Panasonic 2021 TV range breakdown
So that’s the overview of the technology and features behind Panasonic’s 2021 TV range, but what about specific models? While pricing is yet to be unannounced, you’ll find all other details below.
Panasonic JZ2000 4K OLED TV
(Image credit: Panasonic)
Panasonic’s flagship OLED for 2021 is the JZ2000, which has the same bright, punchy Master HDR OLED Professional panel as last year’s HZ2000, which we described as having “excellent all-round picture quality”.
New for this year is an upgraded HCX Pro AI processor, which can analyse what type of content is being played and adjust picture settings automatically. While all the OLEDs in the lineup benefit from this AI mode, the JZ2000 is the only model that will also offer AI sound quality adjustments.
As with previous generations of the 2000-series, one of the main features of the JZ2000 is its integrated speaker system with front- and upward-firing drivers as well as a rear-mounted subwoofer. Panasonic has added a pair of side-firing speakers to make the sound even wider and more room-filling.
This setup, which Panasonic calls ‘360° Soundscape Pro’, has once again been developed with Technics and utilises Dolby Atmos. The speaker system is actually less powerful than last year, at 125W compared to 140W, but power isn’t everything and we’ll be curious to see what progress has been made given that we found the sonic performance of the HZ2000 lacked clarity and excitement. The JZ2000 will be available from June 2021.
Panasonic JZ2000 specs:
Display type: Master HDR OLED Professional Edition
The JZ1500 is an exciting proposition. It features the same Professional Edition panel as the JZ2000 but does without the fancy speaker system, potentially making it the perfect high-end TV for someone who already has (or is intending to buy) a proper home cinema system or quality soundbar.
Not only will the JZ1500 come in cheaper than the JZ2000, it’s thinner, too, to the tune of over 5cm.
It’s worth pointing out that the 48-inch version doesn’t get the Professional Edition OLED panel or swivel stand of its bigger brothers, but it does have a central pedestal, unlike Panasonic’s other 2021 48-inch models. The JZ1500 will be available from June 2021.
Panasonic JZ1500 specs:
Display type: Master HDR OLED Professional Edition (65-inch and 55-inch models) Master HDR OLED (48-inch model)
All sizes of the JZ1000 have the same Master HDR OLED Panel as the 48-inch JZ1500 but otherwise, there’s very little to differentiate between the JZ1000 and JZ1500; it has the same HCX Pro AI Processor, Auto AI, Game Mode Pro and raft of format support.
The in-built speaker system is a step down in power, 30W compared to the JZ1500’s 50W, and the JZ1000 series’s 48-inch model will come with adjustable feet to accommodate a soundbar.
The JZ980-series is the entry-level OLED for Panasonic in 2021, but it maintains the same HCX Pro AI processor as the rest of the range, and its 30W in-built speakers pack the same punch as the JZ1000 models.
The panel is a lower grade than the JZ1000, described only as ‘OLED’. It still promises natural colour and high contrast though we expect it to lack some of its more expensive siblings’ visual punch.
The 65-inch and 55-inch models don’t have a swivel stand to let viewers angle the screen freely, featuring a fixed pedestal instead, and the 48-inch has the same adjustable feet as the JZ1000 version. The JZ980 will be available from June 2021.
The JX940 is Panasonic’s premium LCD TV for 2021. Available in 75-inch, 65-inch, 55-inch, 49-inch sizes, it has the same HCX Pro AI Processor as the new OLED models and includes the full complement of HDR adaptive technologies, as well as Auto AI, Game Mode Extreme and VRR support.
The 120Hz HDR Cinema Display Pro panel apparently boasts excellent colour reproduction and contrast as well as wide viewing angles and ‘Intelligent Clear Motion’ to smooth out dynamic action for flicker-free viewing. Of course, whether it delivers on those promises will only become clear once we’ve had the JX940 in for review.
All features are consistent throughout the range except the mountings, the 75-inch has a flexible pedestal, and the smaller models have adjustable feet to allow a soundbar to neatly slot underneath. The JX940 will be available from May 2021.
The processing chip in the JX850 doesn’t have the Pro features of the OLEDs and the JX940, so there’s no Dolby Vision IQ, though HDR10+ Adaptive remains, as well as standard Dolby Vision, HLG, and HDR10.
Game Mode Extreme is replaced by a standard Game Mode, and gamers won’t have the advantages of 4K High Frame Rate (aka 4K@120Hz) or Variable Refresh Rate as there are no HDMI 2.1 sockets. The JX850 will be available from May 2021.
There will also be an alternate model, the JX870B, exclusive to John Lewis & Partners.
Panasonic JX870 prices (exclusive to John Lewis & Partners):
Panasonic TX-40JX870B – £TBC
Panasonic TX-50JX870B – £TBC
Panasonic TX-58JX870B – £TBC
Panasonic TX-65JX850B – £TBC
Panasonic JX800 4K LCD TV
(Image credit: Panasonic)
The JX800 is the most budget-friendly TV in Panasonic’s 2021 line-up and will use, for the first time, the Android TV operating system, which Panasonic says will include ‘a very wide range’ of streaming services. Dolby Atmos and Alexa are dropped for this model, but Google Assistant and Chromecast are on board.
Panasonic has bequeathed its previous generation HCX chip to the JX800. It won’t offer the AI technologies of the other 2021 models, but it still supports the same array of HDR formats and as the JX850, as well as sharing the equivalent HDR Bright Panel Plus.
Pamper the Leben CS600X and you have one of the most musically beguiling integrated amplifiers money can buy
For
Detailed and expressive sound
Beautifully made
Lovely to use
Against
No remote
Speaker matching requires care
Leben’s CS600X integrated amplifier could be described as distinctly retro, if you’re being polite, or old-fashioned if you aren’t. The mix of wooden side cheeks, glowing gold front panel and valve circuitry certainly harks back to times long gone. But is that a bad thing? We’re not so sure, particularly when the product is as talented as this.
Leben isn’t a particularly well-known manufacturer. Founded in 1992 by an ex-Luxman engineer, this small Japanese company hand-makes a small range of valve-based amplifier products in limited numbers. The current product range includes a pre/power combination, a phono stage and, of course, integrated amplifiers, of which the CS600X is the range-topper. It’s a line-level-only unit, so if you play records or need digital inputs, you’ll need to budget for extra boxes to do those jobs.
Build
(Image credit: Leben)
The CS600X is no powerhouse, as the 28W per channel output figure shows. If you want to drive inefficient speakers, or need high volume levels in large spaces, this is not the amplifier for you. But if nuance matters more than muscle, and you’re prepared to pamper this amplifier with sympathetic speakers, it’s capable of turning in a terrifically musical performance.
Take a look inside that well-constructed casework and you’ll find that this is a push-pull device that comes with a quartet of EL34 output valves as standard. Part of the appeal of this product is that it is easy to change those to 5881 valves and raise the output to 32W per channel.
That marginal increase on poke isn’t the reason to make the swap though. Changing valves affects the sonic signature of the amplifier, so it’s possible to fine-tune the CS600X’s sound to your tastes. There’s a pair of internal toggle switches that change the circuit conditions to allow the output valve swap to happen.
Leben CS600X tech specs
(Image credit: Leben)
Line-level inputs x5
Phono stage No
Tape loop Yes
Headphone output 6.3mm
Power output 28W per channel
Dimensions (hwd) 14 x 45 x 36cm
Weight 23kg
It doesn’t stop there. Read the manual and you’ll find that the CS600X can also be used with all types of output valves from KT66/77/88s to 6550As. This kind of flexibility is extremely rare and those who like to tweak are in for a treat here.
This ability to accept a wide range of valves also makes any assessment of this product less precise than usual, because the sound can be tweaked so much. With this in mind, we’re concentrating on the CS600X as it comes out of the box, and that’s with the EL34s.
Elsewhere, you’ll find two 12AU7A and two 12BH7A small signal valves used in the line stage, and a 6CM3/6DN3 in the power supply section. With all those tubes running inside, this amplifier gets pretty hot so make sure it has plenty of ventilation.
Overall build quality is truly excellent. This product feels reassuringly solid and has the air of something built to last decades. Every control has substance and precision, while the chassis has an impressively chunky feel. We love the quality of the gold finish on the front, and the way the solidity of the casework inspires confidence. The wooden side panels are made of Canadian white ash, chosen for its hardness and mass – it’s often used to make baseball bats or rowing oars. Overall, this Leben is an expensive product and feels it too.
That said, on purely aesthetic grounds we can’t help feeling that the trio of chunky plastic switches for muting, switching between speakers and headphones, and changing the CS600X from integrated to power amp mode look a little out of place next to the immaculately crafted metal rotary controls. The same applies to the power switch that looks like it belongs on some small computer appliance rather than a high-end valve amplifier. But this is a purely appearance-based judgment on our part, and you might disagree.
Take a close look at the CS600X’s front and you’ll find a number of unusual controls. Alongside the usual volume, balance and input selector controls there’s also a two-step Bass Boost and a stereo reverse function that inverts the signal phase 180 degrees. In some systems, the inverted phase could give more focused results.
Features
(Image credit: Leben)
Provided line-level inputs are fine for you there’s little to complain about on the features front. The CS600X is surprisingly accommodating for a product of this type, with no less than five single-ended inputs, a tape loop for anyone who still records and a direct feed into the power amplifier section for those who want to bypass the integrated preamp circuitry.
Above the single set of speaker outputs, there’s a rotary control to match the nominal impedance of the partnering speakers. The adjustment covers 4, 6, 8 and 16ohm options. While it makes sense to start with the control set at the value of your speakers, there’s no harm in trying any of the other settings. It’s possible that the slightly different sound it brings may be preferable.
This is an amplifier that needs care in partnering so you can hear just how good it can be. An output of just 28W per channel means the Leben is no powerhouse, so we’d go for relatively sensitive speakers that are easy to drive. While we suspect that the CS600X would excel with one of the bigger horn-loaded speakers around, we still get good results with the likes of Wilson Benesch’s Precision P2.0 and KEF’s LS50 Meta.
Our reference ATC SCM50 speakers don’t fare so well – the combination produces fine sounds from the midrange upwards but suffers from soft low frequencies and restrained dynamics. No wonder, given the SCM50’s low 85dB/W/m sensitivity and ability to soak up the watts.
The best option turns out to be partnering the Leben with ProAc’s Award-winning Response D2R standmounters. This pairing produces sweet, well-balanced and entertaining results.
But that isn’t what we hear initially. Our CS600X unit takes the best part of a week before it starts to sing – until then, the results are congested, rhythmically stunted and dynamically restrained. If you hear this amplifier sound anything like this, give it at least a week of use before you judge it. After that time it will shine.
Sound
(Image credit: Leben)
Anyone expecting the typical soft and rich valve sound will be in for a surprise. If partnered with care, this is a relatively taut, punchy-sounding performer, particularly when compared with other valve designs. We’re a little surprised to be listening to Kanye West’s Yeezus set and enjoying ourselves.
This is an integrated amp with enough guts and punch to charge along to New Slaves, delivering the song’s hard-charging beat with a fair bit of conviction. It’s far better than most valve alternatives we’ve come across in this respect, though it still falls short of giving the likes of rhythm and timing champs Naim sleepless nights. That said, it’s certainly good enough for us to tick those boxes and move on.
Switch to other kinds of music and the Leben’s excellence comes to the fore. We listen to Debussy’s Clare De Lune and fall in love with the piece all over again. Rarely do we hear an amplifier at this level that sounds so clear and expressive. Dynamic nuances are explored rather than ignored and the centrepiece piano is rendered with its harmonic richness and musical coherence intact.
Most transistor-based alternatives sound tonally grey and dynamically bland in comparison. We love the way this amplifier renders instruments in such a palpable and full-bodied way, making them sound more lifelike than a recorded facsimile.
This rings true when we switch to Nina Simone’s My Baby Cares For Me, where the Leben sounds positively enchanting, delivering Simone’s powerful and distinctive voice with all the power, finesse and expression it deserves. All the time, the backing instrumentation is organised and energetic.
Larger scale recordings such as Mahler’s Symphony No.2 are handled almost as well. We love the natural way this Leben renders instrumental textures. Its detailed yet fluid delivery is utterly convincing, as is the way the acoustic information that defines the recording venue is described. There’s little to complain about when it comes to scale (with appropriate speakers, of course), but it’s certainly possible to get a more authoritative presentation and higher volume capability at this level.
We give the CS600X’s headphone output a listen with a pair of Grado RS1 and Beyerdynamic’s T1 Mk2, and are really impressed. The amplifier sounds crisp and clear through headphones, retaining all the finesse and insight we so enjoy through the speaker outputs.
It seems odd to talk about compromises at this price level, but they exist at all levels to some extent. If you have this kind of money to spend on an integrated amplifier, you can buy rather fine examples, such as the Krell K-300i or Mark Levinson’s No.5805.
Both of these are far better equipped, with digital inputs, optional streaming modules and even Bluetooth on the menu, and that’s without mentioning three-figure power outputs that are capable of driving pretty much any speaker to high levels. These are powerful tools that bludgeon recordings and partnering speakers into submission, but perhaps lose a little charm in the process. That sonic charm is something that the Leben has aplenty.
Verdict
The CS600X doesn’t chase the same customer. Anyone seriously thinking of buying one will love its simplicity and the sheer joy of operating something so tactile. The lack of remote control won’t be an issue, and neither will the need to take care with speaker matching.
Such a customer would revel in the amplifier’s clarity and exceptionally nuanced dynamic behaviour, while overlooking its relative shortcomings. Having spent considerable time with this amplifier we could well do the same. Consider us smitten.
Personal data from 533 million Facebook accounts has reportedly leaked online for free, according to security researcher Alon Gal. Insider said it verified several of the leaked records.
“The exposed data includes personal information of over 533 million Facebook users from 106 countries, including over 32 million records on users in the US, 11 million on users in the UK, and 6 million on users in India,” according to Insider. “It includes their phone numbers, Facebook IDs, full names, locations, birthdates, bios, and — in some cases — email addresses.”
If that 533 million number might sound familiar to you, that’s because this information is apparently from the same dataset that people could pay for portions of using a Telegram bot, which Motherboard reported on in January. Now, though, it appears that those who want to get their hands on the data won’t have to pay anything at all.
Details include:
Phone number, Facebook ID, Full name, Location, Past Location, Birthdate, (Sometimes) Email Address, Account Creation Date, Relationship Status, Bio.
Bad actors will certainly use the information for social engineering, scamming, hacking and marketing.
— Alon Gal (Under the Breach) (@UnderTheBreach) April 3, 2021
Facebook told Insider that this data was scraped because of a vulnerability that it fixed in 2019. The company gave a similar answer to Motherboard in January. “This is old data that was previously reported on in 2019,” Facebook told BleepingComputer. “We found and fixed this issue in August 2019.” Facebook has not replied to a request for comment from The Verge.
Troy Hunt, the creator of the Have I Been Pwned database, said on Saturday that “I haven’t seen anything yet to suggest this breach isn’t legit.” In the data, he found only about 2.5 million unique email addresses (which is still a lot!), but apparently, “the greatest impact here is the phone numbers.” Here’s what that might mean, in Hunt’s words:
But for spam based on using phone number alone, it’s gold. Not just SMS, there are heaps of services that just require a phone number these days and now there’s hundreds of millions of them conveniently categorised by country with nice mail merge fields like name and gender.
— Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) April 3, 2021
If you can, I strongly recommend taking a couple minutes to read Hunt’s full Twitter thread about the breach.
Hunt has already loaded the leaked email addresses into Have I Been Pwned, meaning you can check to see if yours was included as part of the dataset. He is still considering whether or not to make the leaked phone numbers available through the service.
Should the FB phone numbers be searchable in @haveibeenpwned? I’m thinking through the pros and cons in terms of the value it adds to impacted people versus the risk presented if it’s used to help resolve numbers to identities (you’d still need the source data to do that).
Working from home gives you more opportunities to spend time with your family – pets included. My office is upstairs and occasionally my dog wants to go outside. I could put a bell on the door that she could ring, but why waste the opportunity to build an over-engineered solution.
This project uses a field of machine learning known as object detection. Fortunately if you’re not familiar with machine learning, it’s a relatively easy project to get started with. We’ll be using a pre-trained model, meaning we won’t need a graphics card, sample data, or hours of time to train a model – just the things listed below.
What You’ll Need For This Project
RaspberryPi 4 or Raspberry Pi 3 with power adapter
8 GB (or larger) microSD card with Raspberry Pi OS. See our list of best microSD cards for Raspberry Pi.
Raspberry Pi Camera and cable for doing the object detection
Raspberry Pi Wide Angle Camera Lens, or a zoom lens depending on how far away your camera will be placed.
Desktop Speakers or megaphone with 3.5mm input jack
Monitor & Keyboard (optional) with HDMI and power cables
How to detect when your pet wants to go outside with a Raspberry Pi
1. Set up your Raspberry Pi. If you don’t know how to do this, check out our story on how to set up your Raspberry Pi for the first time or how to set up a headless Raspberry Pi (without monitor or keyboard).
2. Connect your raspberry pi camera to your pi.
3. Enable your camera with raspi-config. You do this by entering sudo raspi-config from the command line and then navigating to Interface Options > P1 Camera.
4. Reboot.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
5. Test your camera’s focus using the following command. The image can be viewed if you have a monitor connected to your desktop. If you’re using a headless version of raspbian, you’ll need to use scp to move the image to a computer where you can view it.
raspistill -o /home/pi/focus.jpg
6. Install git. We need git to download code and scripts from a remote repository. Run the following command to install it:
7. Clone the pet detector repository to your home directory. This contains custom code that will take care of the detection for us.
cd ~/
git clone https://github.com/rydercalmdown/pet_detector
8. Install the requirements for the repository. The install script will install low-level dependencies, set up a virtual environment, and install python dependencies within it.
cd ~/pet_detector
make install
9. Download the pre-trained machine learning models. We’re using the YOLOv3 model trained on the COCO dataset. This model is able to recognize a variety of household objects – dogs and cats included.
cd ~/pet_detector
make download-model
10. Connect speakers to your raspberry pi. We’ll use the speakers to play a sound effect you can hear whenever your pet steps into the frame. I’m using a megaphone but desktop speakers should work just fine. Test your speakers with the following command:
say “this is a test”
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
11. Edit your /etc/rc.local file so this script runs on boot. Open /etc/rc.local by entering the sudo nano /etc/rc.local command and then adding the following line to the bottom of the file:
source /home/pi/pet_detector/env/bin/activate && cd /home/pi/pet_detector/src && python app.py &
12. Set up your camera so it faces the door. My pets wait by the door when they want to be let outside – so we work on the assumption that if they step into frame, they want to go outside.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
13. Let your pets go outside. When your cat or dog steps into the frame, the model will detect it, and play a text to speech message letting you know they want to go outside.
Until recently, the default voice for Apple’s Siri assistant has been stereotypically female-sounding. However, studies have found that having AI assistants default to female-sounding voices can reinforce harmful stereotypes, so Apple has tried to fix that in its upcoming iOS 14.5, which is now in beta.
When you update your phone to iOS 14.5, you’ll be prompted to pick a default voice for Siri — and Apple is including two new voice options. However, if you’ve changed your mind and want to use a different voice (or are using the 14.5 beta and weren’t prompted), this guide will show you how to change the voice after setup.
It’s a reasonably simple process. First, go to the Settings app, then to Siri & Search, and tap Siri Voice. There, you’ll be presented with the list of options.
Tap Siri Voice to be taken to the list of options.
At the moment, the American variety is the only one with four voice choices; Australian, British, Indian, Irish, and South African versions only have two. The four US voice choices are:
Voice 1, which is a soft-spoken male-sounding voice
Voice 2, an energetic, confident female-sounding voice
Voice 3 is similar to Voice 2 but male-sounding
And finally, Voice 4, which is similar to the default Siri voice that’s been around all these years
If you want to hear what the voices sound like for yourself, they’re in the embedded tweet below.
Tapping on a voice will play a snippet of it saying “Hi, I’m Siri. Choose the voice you’d like me to use.” If you choose voices 1–3, it will have to download them before you can use them, but you don’t have to stay in the Settings app while it does so. Once it’s finished downloading, Siri will respond with your chosen voice.
This process is unlikely to change in the final version, but if it does, we’ll be sure to update this how-to.
You may come across the occasional writer who will claim (wrongly) that they don’t need an editor, but you will seldom, if ever, meet a writer or editor who will say they don’t need a copy editor.
The role of a copy editor is often misunderstood or underestimated by those not in the business. Kara Verlaney, senior copy editor for The Verge, when asked to explain the role of a copy editor, put it this way: “Copy editing is about maintaining consistency and accuracy, which is what gives sites like The Verge the authority to tell our audience about a subject. Beyond checking for grammatical errors and extolling the Oxford comma, copy editors also monitor things like sensitivity and tone, style, source diversity, and clarity. The Verge’s process has copy editors checking pieces right before publish, so we’re often the last line of defense before something goes up on the site.”
We talked to Kara to find out how she does her job and what tools she uses.
What is your job at The Verge?
I’m a senior copy editor, and I’ve worked here for five years. My day-to-day responsibilities vary, but a large portion of my time is dedicated to editing… everything we publish. That includes news stories, longform features, Instagram captions, video assets — there are a lot of words!
What hardware tools do you use?
My sound preferences vary depending on the length and / or topic of the piece I’m editing. Sometimes I blast music; sometimes I enjoy silence while I read. While working remotely, I mostly rely on my AirPods Pro, which allow me to control the level of noise transparency. I also tend to move around my space a lot while I work, so I’m essentially glued to my 2019 MacBook Pro during the workday.
What software tools do you and your colleagues use for your work?
Various publications have created stylebooks to guide writers and editors — examples include The Chicago Manual of Style and the MLA Handbook. Each stylebook’s rules and formats differ slightly based on the content and audience, but consistency is universal.
Like many news organizations, our style largely follows The Associated Press Stylebook (otherwise known as the AP). Its online topical style guides and Ask the Editor sections can be great language resources (although sometimes the answers are confounding). The Verge’s default dictionary is Merriam-Webster’sUnabridged. It produces weekly vocabulary quizzes that are super fun, if that’s your thing. I have AP and M-W open at all times.
I do a majority of my editing in Google Docs or Vox Media’s CMS (content management system) Chorus, so I can leave comments and track changes.
What other tools do you use?
One facet of managing the copy desk is updating and maintaining The Verge’s style guide and communicating those rules to writers. Some of our house style is unique to our publication, so we differ somewhat from AP style. Language is constantly evolving and changing, so I need to stay on top of what other publications and style guides are doing to ensure our language stays relevant and inclusive.
I love using physical style manuals — any time I can avoid staring at a screen, I do! — but most of my hard copies are still gathering dust at the office. I did bring one home with me, though: Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, whichis essentially the lifeblood of any editor. The illustrated edition pictured at the top of this article was given to me as a gift, particularly due to its cover. (As my co-workers will tell you, I solicit pictures of dogs and other pets as a form of emotional currency.)
What advice do you have for people who are considering copy editing as a profession?
Being a copy editor is a very involved job. You have to communicate well with the writers, editors, and creators you work with; operate efficiently under some tight deadlines; and try to understand the essence of every story you read, cataloging some of that information to reference later. It’s fairly nuanced work for being so prescriptive.
I’d recommend reading as much as you can and refreshing your grammar skills. (The New York Times creates copy edit quizzes; I’ve gotten a perfect score on very few.) There are also tools like Grammarly that will highlight and explain various parts of speech and language rules, which some people find really helpful.
Mostly, you need a willingness to relearn (and unlearn) a bunch of rules you were probably taught in fourth grade English class. Language is learning!
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