Clubhouse had an incredible year in one most of us would rather forget. The live audio app launched during a pandemic; gained more than 10 million downloads for an invite-only, iOS-only app; and succeeded to the point that most every social platform wants to copy it. Congrats to Clubhouse.
The company now faces its biggest challenges yet, however. For one, the pandemic is waning, and people might be more interested in real-life socializing instead of conversations facilitated through their phone. Anyone advertising their backyard as the next great Clubhouse competitor has a point. But for the people who do end up wanting to talk to each other online, they’ll soon have a lot more places to do so. In case you haven’t kept up: Twitter, Facebook (reportedly), LinkedIn, Discord, Spotify, Mark Cuban, and Slack have all launched or are working on their own attempts at social audio — the space is about to get busy.
The great concern for Clubhouse is that, as I postulated in February, social audio could follow the same trajectory as Snapchat’s Stories function: a brilliant social media-altering idea that goes on to live in every app to the detriment of the upstart that pioneered the format. And social audio is shaping up to go that way. With the threat growing, it’s worth looking at where Clubhouse is most likely to run into problems.
But first: what does Clubhouse have going for it? It was the first to social audio, and that’s something. Already, it counts millions of users who come to Clubhouse solely for social audio content, and that includes headline-grabbing names like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and other celebrities. Tech CEOs are even making announcements in Clubhouse, including Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield, who announced his company’s own copycat product in the app. The app generates news and discussions — that’s something much trickier for other companies to clone.
People have also built habits around Clubhouse, which is a positive sign for user retention. The team also plans to launch a creators program in the near future that’ll reward its most dedicated users with revenue and resources to beef up their shows.
And critically, the app has staffed up in just the past month. The company recently poached Fadia Kader from Instagram to lead its media partnerships and creators. At Instagram, she worked with musicians to help them optimize their work on the platform. Presumably, she’ll be doing something similar at Clubhouse. Already, I’ve seen her in a room with Justin Bieber talking about his most recent album. Clubhouse also hired Maya Watson from Netflix to become its head of global marketing, meaning it’ll soon dedicate resources to promoting Clubhouse rather than relying primarily on word of mouth. These are all important steps to keeping Clubhouse interesting and thriving.
But the app now faces competition from some of the world’s biggest platforms, which already have years of moderation experience, are available on iOS and Android, and have massive, loyal user bases to whom they can push social audio. Some companies, like Twitter and Discord, already pushed social audio features live to their millions of users with effectively the same interface as Clubhouse. Anyone who didn’t have an invite to Clubhouse, or an iPhone, now can access the magic of social audio with no association to Clubhouse whatsoever.
Maybe the most dangerous possibility for Clubhouse, however, is how easily it could lose the big names on its platform to challengers. Spotify, which announced this week that it acquired Betty Labs, the maker of the sports-centric social audio app Locker Room, plans to bring the app to Android, change its name, and broaden its coverage to music, culture, and sports. It could directly compete with Clubhouse for talent. Joe Rogan, for example, recently joined a Clubhouse chat, and although Spotify’s head of R&D tells me the company won’t restrict its podcasters from using other social audio apps, it’s easy to imagine the company encouraging the use of its own. Musicians, like Bieber, who maybe came to Clubhouse to debut music, might turn to Spotify’s app instead to maintain relationships with the streaming giant. As a point of reference, when Kylie Jenner tweeted that she barely opened Snapchat anymore, the company’s stock lost $1.3 billion. If stars like Tiffany Haddish decide to spend their time elsewhere, Clubhouse will falter, too.
At the same time, a few of these competitors are specifically interested in building native recording into their app, possibly to fuel the podcasting ecosystem and on-demand listening. Clubhouse has yet to do this. Fireside, which was co-founded by Mark Cuban, allows people to input sound effects, like music, and record their shows for distribution across podcasting platforms, as well as later playback on the app itself. Spotify will likely do the same with its app and rely on its Anchor software to handle hosting and distribution. Twitter’s head of consumer product told The Verge that it, too, would let people natively record their Spaces. Clubhouse hasn’t built that functionality, limiting its users to only live conversations, which can be hard to follow if they join them midway through. Context collapse will challenge every platform that focuses on live, but some of Clubhouse’s competitors are already working to solve that.
Stories made Snapchat a success. It pioneered the idea of ephemeral content and brought some semblance of authenticity back to social media. But it didn’t take long for the functionality to come to the same competitors Clubhouse now faces. To make its business work, Snapchat doubled down on its Android app, made the app more approachable to new users through a redesign, and aggressively pursued content partnerships with media and entertainment companies. It now pays users to make content for its TikTok competitor Spotlight and supports a growing ad business, but Instagram ultimately came away with the crown for Stories. Clubhouse hasn’t yet pursued ads or subscriptions, but that’ll be the next step to make it a self-supported platform. (Notably, though, its competitors, like Facebook, already rule ad targeting, possibly making Clubhouse’s job of selling ads or access to the platform itself tougher.)
None of this is to say Clubhouse won’t survive or build a strong business in the coming months and years. It just needs to stay in the conversation.
(Pocket-lint) – Setting out on a mission to find the very best gaming headsets was a daunting task. There are a multitude of options out there – wired, wireless, closed and open cup designs, stereo and surround sound headsets, oval and round earcups, leather and material finishes, the list goes on and on.
A lot of what makes a great gaming headset will be down to personal preference, but what we were looking for was a product that struck a perfect balance between quality of design, value for money and features that gamers would love. To create this shortlist, we worked through a mass of PC gaming headsets (many of which are also compatible with consoles) to whittle down to a list of finalists that we’re sure you’ll love.
If you’re looking for the best gaming headset for your money, then keep with us as we break down the very best we’ve seen and the reasons why you should consider adding them to your shortlist.
Overall best surround sound gaming headset
Audeze Mobius
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100 mm Audeze planar magnetic drivers
Waves Nx fully immersive 3D audio
Closed-back earcup design
10Hz–50,000Hz frequency response
24 bit, 96KHz sample rate and bit depth
USB-C, 3.5mm and Bluetooth connection options
Uni-directional Electret condenser microphone
This is one of the most interesting gaming headsets on our list thanks to Waves Nx head tracking technology that delivers “immersive 3D audio” by changing the sound to account for the tilt or turn of your head as you play. Combine this with 7.1 virtual surround sound and hi-res audio options and you have some seriously impressive positional audio.
The Mobius boasts awesome 100mm planar magnetic drivers which are capable of delivering a max of 50,000Hz frequency response, with 96Khz sample rate and 24-bit depth resulting in a rich, impressive and convincing sound.
Deep earcups, comfortable padding and a solid build quality round off a superb package.
Verdict
The Audeze Mobius is an incredibly interesting (and incredibly expensive) gaming headset that seemingly offers it all. A premium high-quality design, fantastic audio, brilliant comfort and more. All in one package.
Most versatile wireless gaming headset
SteelSeries Arctis Pro Wireless
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10–40,000 Hz frequency response via 40mm Neodymium drivers
102 dB SPL sensitivity/32Ohm impedance
Ski Goggle headband and AirWeave material earcups
20-hour battery life via swappable batteries
2.4Ghz wireless and Bluetooth 4.1 support
DTS Headphone: X v2.0 surround sound/Dolby audio via optical input
SteelSeries Arctis Pro Wireless continues to be one of the very best gaming headsets available, thanks to great sound and incredible versatility.
It has a variety of inputs including optical and USB for PC that allow you to take advantage of the Dolby audio and DTS virtual surround sound processing power inside the transmitter box. Built-in Bluetooth and an understated design mean it can also be taken with you out of the house in place of standard headphones.
Two batteries are included, one in the headset and one in the base station which means one is always on charge so you never need to plug the headset in. The result of all this is a marvellously comfortable wireless headset with a variety of inputs, features and functionality that deliver a superb sound quality whatever you’re doing and whatever gaming system you’re playing on.
Verdict
The SteelSeries Arctis Pro Wireless is an expensive option but you get what you pay for, with great sound and convenience.
The most comfortable wireless gaming headset
Astro A50 wireless gen 4
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Open Air Over-Ear design
Cloth ear cushions upgradable to leather
40mm Neodymium Magnet drivers with 20Hz – 20,000Hz Frequency Response
Tuned Astro Audio V2 and two years free access to Dolby Atmos
Game/voice balance button
Optical Pass-through, USB Power & Soundcard, USB Charging Port, AUX In / Mic out (TRRS 3.5mm) inputs via basestation
Compatible with Astro Gaming Command Center
Up to 15-hours battery life and up to 30ft wireless range
The Astro A50 wireless is an uber-comfortable gaming headset. Sporting velour style cloth ear cushions, we feel like we’re wearing small puffs of heavenly goodness resting on our ears. It’s also lightweight and easy to wear for hours and hours.
Astro A50 is also able to deliver fantastic sound quality with deep bass notes and impressively convincing surround sound. A number of equaliser settings tuned Astro Audio V2 and Dolby options give you plenty to choose from sound-wise.
When not in use, this headset is simply docked into the charging base which connects to your computer via MicroUSB for power and audio. Thanks to 15-hour battery life and convenient charging we found we were able to get a full day’s use out of this headset on a regular basis without any need for extra juice.
The microphone on the Astro A50 is a pleasure to use too. It has deep and warm tones and manages to cancel out a fair amount of the surrounding environmental noise during use. It can be tweaked and customised in the software and adjusted to your personal preference.
We liked the sidetone capabilities here that allow you to hear your own voice and gauge volume with ease.
Verdict
The Astro A50 is in our mind, one of the best PC gaming headsets available. It’s convenient, capable and brilliantly designed. It’s easy to pick up and use and equally easy to drop in the charging dock when you need to.
We’re rarely left wanting when using this headset and would happily recommend it to anyone who is looking for a gaming headset that delivers constant comfort throughout the day.
Best closed cup wireless gaming headset
EPOS GSP 670
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10–23,000 Hz frequency response
112 dB sound pressure level
Dynamic, closed transducer
Bi-directional mic with 10–7,300 Hz frequency response
If you prefer a tight-fitting, all-encompassing, passive noise-cancelling headset then look no further than the EPOS GSP 670. This is a gaming headset, that not only offers some serious style, but also great sound as well.
It’s tighter than other headsets, but that’s no bad thing as it won’t fly off your head if you turn too quickly. This, along with the closed-back design means it blocks out a lot of background noise and keeps you immersed in your games.
The GSP 670 also shines thanks to a dual-connectivity option where you can connect via both a low-latency dongle and Bluetooth at the same time.
20-hour battery, fantastic sound, convenient controls and more round off an awesome headset.
Verdict
This is certainly one of the best wireless gaming headsets available. If you want great sound, a good looking headset and something that’s as durable as it is feature-rich then the GSP 670 is it.
Best headset for pro gamers
Astro A40 TR with MixAmp Pro TR
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Dynamic, Open 40mm drivers with 20 – 20,000 Hz frequency response
48 kHz @ 16-bit game audio/16 kHz @ 16-Bit
Cloth ear cushions upgradable to leather
Tuned Astro Audio V2 with two years free access to Dolby Atmos
Optical Pass-through, USB 2.0 Full Speed and USB Audio 1.0, Aux port line in/out
3-metre Micro-USB and Optical cables, detachable 3.5mm audio cable
6.0mm Uni-directional boom microphone
Optional voice isolating upgrade, sidetone and noise gate settings in software
If you’re serious about sound and your gaming, then the Astro A40 Tournament Ready edition might well be for you. Another comfortable headset from Astro, but a wired one that includes the option to daisy chain multiple headsets together for LANs or eSports events.
The Astro A40 TR is an undeniably brilliant gaming headset. It’s snazzy, comfortable and packed full of great sound possibilities. Positional audio is great in-game and you can hear footsteps of your enemies or the rumble of a car in the distance with ease.
Other highlights include long connection cables, easy controls on the MixAmp and a decent noise-isolating microphone too.
Verdict
If you’re looking for a serious headset that’s as useful in an eSports arena as it is at home, then the Astro A40 TR might well be it. It’s comfortable to wear, fantastic to hear and easy on the eye too.
Best affordable wireless surround sound headset
SteelSeries Arctis 1 Wireless
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40mm drivers
20-20,000 Hz frequency response
32 Ohms impedance
SteelSeries classic cushion design
Wireless and wired options via MicroUSB and USB-C dongle
MicroUSB charging cable
3.5mm jack
Equaliser pre-sets, mic volume/sidetone settings
9-metre/30-foot wireless range
2.4GHz wireless
Approximately 20 hours battery life
Bidirectional Noise-Cancelling
100-6,500Hz frequency response
Detachable design
Mic mute button on the rear
If you’re the sort of gamer that likes to play on a multitude of different devices, then you might find the Arctis 1 wireless highly appealing.
This is a wireless gaming headset that not only works on PC, but is also compatible with PS4, Nintendo Switch and even your phone. You get all those connectivity options, plus the great sound of the Arctis range at a pretty incredible price.
The build quality isn’t quite as good as others we’ve seen but for the price this headset has surprisingly good and sound and plenty more to offer. That includes 2.4GHz wireless audio transmitted over a 30-foot range for up to 20 hours. Up to 20,000Hz frequency response also results in clear and rich audio thanks to the high-quality drivers.
Despite the lack of Dolby or DTS surround sound options, this headset sounds great in-game. If you want a headset that can connect to multiple devices, has a decent battery life and still has good audio too then this is it.
Verdict
We’re thoroughly impressed with the Arctis 1. It’s an affordable, comfortable and feature-packed headset that’s well worth considering. If you want a headset that can connect to multiple devices, has a decent battery life and still has good audio too then this is it.
There’s no Bluetooth, but the USB-C wireless dongle is multi-capable and a great alternative. If you’ve been eyeing the likes of the Arctis Pro Wireless but were put off by the price, then this headset is the one for you.
Most stylish gaming headset
Logitech G Pro X wireless gaming headset
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50mm Neodymium drivers with 20 Hz – 20 kHz frequency response
32 Ohm impedance and 91.7 dB sensitivity
Faux leather or cloth ear cushion options
1.8m USB-C charging cable
Virtual DTS Headphone:X 2.0 surround sound on PC
Noise-cancelling microphone with Blue Voice technology
20 hours battery life
If style and looks matter to you and you’re bored of the same old boring headsets, then this Logitech headset might be an option. Styled more like traditional headphones, the Logitech G Pro X wireless is far more understated, doesn’t have any RGB and as is pleasing to the eyes as it is to the ears.
It’s comfortable, thanks to a choice of faux leather and cloth styled ear cups. It also has large drivers that offer a good range of sound with deep bass levels and a brilliantly immersive sound quality that gamers will love.
One of the main selling points of this headset is the microphone. This headset makes use of the Blue Voice technology (within Logitech G Hub) that allows you to customise the live sound captured from the microphone and adjust it on the fly.
Verdict
All-in-all, the Logitech G Pro X wireless is an impressive headset for the money. It’s comfortable and delivers great sound, but most importantly it does so with style. Unfortunately, there’s no Bluetooth, 3.5mm connection and you can’t connect to your phone using USB-C either. But if you’re gaming on PC and that’s all you need it for then you won’t be disappointed.
We found this headset was capable of delivering rich sound, despite not having as high a frequency response as other headsets on this list. It’s also incredibly comfortable and the choice of (included) ear cup options makes it thoroughly appealing too. The added bonus of Blue Voice tech might be a bit of a gimmick for some, but is a nice touch.
Best high-fidelity gaming headset
Corsair Virtuoso RGB Wireless
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High-fidelity 96kHZ/24-bit audio
Hi-Res Certified
32 Ohms @ 2.5kHz impedance
109db sensitivity
20-40,000Hz audio response over wireless
RGB lighting on earcups
Equaliser pre-sets, surround sound, RGB illumination controls and mic controls in software
Corsair iCue compatible
Virtual surround sound
RGB lighting on both earcups and mic
Omni-directional microphone with 2.0k Ohms and 100Hz – 10,000Hz frequency response
If you think of yourself as a bit of an audiophile and only the very best audio is enough whatever you’re doing then the Corsair Virtuoso RGB wireless may be for you. The Virtuoso has a few different strings to its bow that make it highly interesting. Multiple connection options, high-fidelity audio, a premium design and hours of battery life are just some of the highlights.
It’s well designed and comes with a high-quality finish that includes faux leather ear cups, a padded headband and an adjustable size that can be easily tweaked to fit your head.
The Virtuoso sports 50mm custom drivers that are capable of delivering hi-res, high-fidelity (96Khz) audio when you plug into a PC. Alternatively, you can use it wirelessly with 40,000Hz audio for as long as 20 hours.
A high-quality, broadcast-quality microphone rounds off a superb package.
Verdict
The Corsair Virtuoso is our favourite high-res, high-fidelity gaming headset with audio that really floats our boat.
Best affordable 3.5mm headset
Fnatic React
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53mm stereo drivers
1.2m and 2.0m extension 3.5mm connection cables
20Hz-40kHz frequency response
Detachable distortion-free boom mic
Large protein leather ear cups with memory foam padding
Also compatible with Xbox One, Mobile, Nintendo Switch, Mac and more
Fnatic’s React headset is interesting proof that a good gaming headset doesn’t have to cost the earth. It also shows that you can have a good set of gaming cans without all the extra bling, RGB or over-the-top features.
Highlights to this headset are the large, all-encompassing earcups that cover the entire ear and boast a premium protein leather design with memory foam cushioning. This design is not only comfortable, but blocks out a lot of external noise and prevents sound bleed too.
We were pleasantly surprised to find that, despite its price, the Fnatic React is capable of delivering a pretty impressive soundscape with a rich sound experience for the money.
The detachable microphone is also superb too. Clear, capable and convenient.
Verdict
All told, the Fnatic React is the underdog but almost certainly one of the best value for money headsets money can buy. If you’re looking for a headset that sports large, capable cans without all the extra fluff and a 3.5mm connection, then look no further. However, we will say that if you want perfect positional audio then you might like to look at others on this list. However, even the React can be improved with the addition of Dolby Atmos.
Most personalisable
Pocket-lint
nuraphone + nuraphone gaming microphone
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Bluetooth aptX H3671301D and 3.5 mm connection options
Up to 20hrs battery life, recharged in 3 hours
Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) + Dual passive isolation
Soft-Touch silicone material with over-ear and in-ear design
Unique hearing profile
This is a fairly interesting bundle that takes the unique Nuraphone headphones and transforms them into a gaming headset. We enjoyed the Nuraphone design and sound when we originally reviewed them as earphones, so we were intrigued to see what this setup could bring to gaming.
If you don’t know already, Nuraphones selling points are sound and design. These are unusual headphones which use both in-ear and over-ear designs to immerse you in the sound. The technology contained within these headphones also allows them to be personalised to your specific hearing. On initial setup, the app measures the way your eardrum responds to sound and adjusts audio accordingly. The result is incredibly personalised audio that you really need to witness to appreciate.
The in-ear and over-ear design is then backed up by active noise cancellation to really immerse you into what you’re listening too. Plug into the nura gaming microphone and you can then take this personalised sound into the gaming world as well.
This connection uses a single 3.5mm jack, meaning you need a mixed mic/headphone jack on your PC, but the result is some really interesting gaming sounds and a decent microphone to match.
Pocket-lint
The design takes some getting used to, as you have silicone tips in your ears the whole time, but the way the audio surrounds you is undeniably excellent. You can also crank the immersion up within the app and get a much more bassy experience with a warble that’s close to sticking your head near a subwoofer or next to a trundling tank (perfect for first person shooters).
Verdict
This set up certainly won’t be for everyone. The fit of these headphones is undoubtedly unique and we aren’t entirely sold on comfort, but the sound of Nuraphone is certainly something special. If you’re already a fan, then adding a mic and plugging in is an awesome way to bring that rich, personalised sound to your gaming fun as well.
Others to consider
Pocket-lint
HP Omen Blast
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53mm drivers, 24-bit USB DAC
Retractable microphone
3.5mm connection options
Adjustable headband
The HP Omen Blast is a headset that’s perfect for those with larger heads. It’s got a large flexible headband and earcups to match. It also has a 24-bit USB DAC, 7.1 surround sound and drivers capable of delivering good quality audio too.
EQ settings in the software mean you can adjust sound to focus on footsteps and get the edge on the competition in FPS and Battle Royale games.
It’s not the best looking or sounding headset on this list, but it’s still worth considering if you’re looking for something that’s solidly built and easy to wear.
If you’re looking for a large flexible wired headset that doesn’t break the bank, this might be it.
Pocket-lint
HyperX Cloud II wireless
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Dynamic, 53mm with neodymium-magnet drivers
15Hz–20kHz frequency response
Closed-back design with memory foam cushioning and faux leather earcups
30 hours battery life with 2.4 Ghz wireless (20-meter range)
Detachable mic
The HyperX Cloud II is a bold looking headset with a comfortable fit and a great overall aesthetic. It’s solidly built with an aluminium frame, memory foam cushioning and nice large earcups.
This headset sports large 53mm drivers making it loud enough for a great gaming session and it also makes use of HyperX’s own virtual 7.1 surround sound.
We found this headset not only had a great battery life but sounded fantastic while listening to music, watching movies and more. The positional audio is great and it has a fairly decent microphone too. A great all-rounder but it lacks the audio richness and bass of other headsets on this list and the mic is a bit compressed.
Razer BlackShark V2 Pro
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12 Hz – 28 kHz frequency response
50 mm Razer TriForce Titanium drivers
THX Audio
Breathable memory foam cushion ear cups
Razer HyperClear Supercardioid Mic
This is a wireless version of Razer’s BlackShark headset that Razer pitches as an “eSports Wireless Gaming headset”. It offers an interesting design, comfortable fit and great sound thanks to large drivers and THX audio. The mic isn’t as good as we’d like, but if you’re a Razer fan and want a wireless headset, this is well worth considering.
Pocket-lint
Logitech G733 Lightspeed
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PRO-G 40 mm drivers, 20 Hz-20 KHz frequency response,
29 hours battery life
Lightweight design
Blue Voice tech
DTS Headphone X 2.0 surround sound
The Logitech G733 Lightspeed is a lightweight gaming headset which comes in various different colourways but also sports some other interesting highlights that make it stand out from the crowd. It has RGB lighting that you can show off on camera if you’re a streamer, a lightweight design that makes it comfortable to wear all day long and more besides. DTS headphone X 2.0 gives this headset great surround sound and it can also manage as much as 29 hours use before it needs recharging too. If you want something snazzy, give this one a look.
SteelSeries Arctis 9
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Neodymium Drivers 40 mm with 20–20000 Hz frequency response
20 hours of battery life
Dual connectivity with Bluetooth
DTS Headphone X V2
40-foot range
The SteelSeries Arctis 9 is essentially a more affordable version of the Arctis Pro wireless but with fewer features. Nonetheless, it’s a fantastic headset with great sound, a decent microphone, good looks and more besides. The highlight of the Arctis 9 is the connection options. It’ll work with PC, PS4 and PlayStation 5 as well as a multitude of other things thanks to Bluetooth connectivity. You can also use Bluetooth and wireless at the same time, playing audio from two different places. That alone is fantastic.
EPOS GSP 601
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10–30,000 Hz frequency response
112dB sound pressure
Dynamic closed back transducer
2.5 m PC cable / 1.5 m Console cable
The EPOS GSP 601 and GSP 602 are new models in the EPOS range, with a snazzy finish and a large, wired headset design. They’re closed-back, with ergonomic leatherette earpads that block out loads of surrounding noise and let you focus on the game at hand. We prefer the GSP 670, but if you want something with stylish looks and a wired setup, then this might be the one to turn to.
Sound BlasterX G6
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Dynamic Range: 130dB
Sampling rate: up to 32bit 384kHz
Dolby audio, SoundBlasterX sound, Scout Mode, various equaliser modes
Also works with Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PS4
Although not technically a gaming headset, the Sound BlasterX G6 can be considered as an alternative to buying a gaming headset if you already own a good pair of 3.5mm headphones. This snazzy looking thing is an external DAC that works not only as a USB soundcard but also as an amplifier too.
Plug it into your PC using a USB cable and you get a boosted sound for your headphones, Dolby audio and tuned Sound Blaster sound. The G6, therefore, adds virtual surround sound to any stereo headphones plugged into it, it also ups the levels too. Not only is this Digital-to-Analog converter able to produce a sampling rate of up to 32bit 384kHz it can also deliver 130dB.
We combined it with the Logitech G Pro X, which is already on this list, to see the difference it made. The volume difference alone was staggering. Then with the accompanying software (and easy access buttons) also gave us access to more sound customisation and tweaks that weren’t present on the headset alone. Everything from equaliser changes to voice-altering settings for mic capture. The Sound BlasterX G6 is a great upgrade to your gear as an alternative to a purchase of a new gaming headset.
Turtle Beach Elite Atlas Aero
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50mm Nanoclear drivers with Waves NX 3D audio technology
Superhuman Hearing Optimized For PC
On-the-fly sidetone adjustment
Pro Specs Glasses Relief system
Up to 30 hours of battery life
The Turtle Beach Elite Atlas Aero is, in our mind, one of the very best gaming headsets we’ve seen from the company. It has a number of features that make it fairly outstanding, not least of which is a rechargeable battery system that lasts for up to 30 hours.
Other highlights include ultra-deep, uber comfortable gel-infused memory foam cushioned ear cups that do a fantastic job of blocking out external noise without making your ears unnecessarily hot. Large drivers with Waves Nx and Maxx technologies offer an impressive 3D audio experience. While the software gives you access to a wealth of customisation options that include masses of EQ presets and custom options.
The Turtle Beach Elite Atlas Aero, unfortunately, doesn’t have the same wireless range of other headsets, but it has plenty of awesome features that we love. The glasses relief system allows you to tighten up the ear cups and create a channel for your glasses so you don’t get any unnecessary pressure on your face while you game.
A detachable microphone and the ability to use this headset with other devices via a 3.5mm cable make this a capable and delightful device to own.
HyperX Cloud Orbit S
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100 mm Audeze planar magnetic drivers
Waves Nx fully immersive 3D audio
Closed-back earcup design
10Hz–50,000Hz frequency response
USB-C and 3.5mm connection options
Uni-directional Electret condenser microphone
The Cloud Orbit S is essentially a more affordable version of the Audeze Mobius, that comes with most of the same features but no Bluetooth.
The HyperX Cloud Orbit S is undeniably an expensive bit of kit, but with large capable drivers, interesting 3D audio technology and a versatile design it’s also highly appealing.
This is a comfortable, great looking headset that delivers really rich convincing audio whatever you’re doing. It’s smashing for gaming and much more besides.
It might be time to add another supply issue to the list. Unizyx CEO Gordon Yang said the company is suffering the worst networking chip shortage in 30 years, DigiTimes today reported, and that it will likely have to raise its prices as a result.
Unizyx offers a wide array of networking products via its Zyxel and MitraStar DMS brands. Right now it’s seeing increased demand because several next-generation technologies—5G networks, Wi-Fi 6, and Wi-Fi 6E—are all becoming more popular.
Yang told DigiTimes that Unizyx can’t source enough networking chips to meet that demand. Even if it could, rising component and transportation costs would likely result in higher prices for Unizyx products anyway, according to the report.
That ought to sound familiar by now. Not just the networking chip shortage, although the global chip shortage is front-of-mind for many companies, but also the fact that transportation costs have risen as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The coronavirus made it much harder for the shipping industry to ferry raw materials, components, and finished products around the world. That difficulty naturally resulted in higher transportation costs for… pretty much everyone.
That might change this year. MSI chairman Joseph Hsu said in March that he expected transportation costs to fall as the shipping industry recovers from the pandemic, and those savings could eventually be passed on to consumers.
But for now, the networking chip situation Yang described sounds a lot like many other parts of the industry, from CPUs and GPUs to mobile processors and SSD controllers, along with other components we simply haven’t been able to cover.
Unlike those issues, however, it’s not clear how much the networking chip shortage will affect consumers in the near term. It’s nearly impossible to find the best CPUs or the best graphics cards, and the best SSDs are likely to follow in the near future. Gauging the effect this could have on 5G wireless or Wi-Fi 6 and 6E rollouts is harder.
Building on the success of its ‘Daily Mixes’ feature, Spotify is launching a new type of personalised playlist called ‘Spotify Mixes’.
Its name may sound ambiguous, but it’s designed to give users more clearly defined playlists based on songs they already like, with themes and names that are easier to remember and refer back to.
There’s three categories of mixes – artists, genres and decades – each containing several playlists based on the music you listen to most often.
Spotify says that the mixes you see will start with songs you already like and frequently update with new recommendations based on Spotify’s algorithm.
The feature follows the recent introduction of ‘Liked Songs’ filters. which offer users more options to curate to their mood while avoiding becoming stuck in a musical rut.
Starting today, Spotify is rolling out Daily Mixes to both free and premium subscribers; just head to the ‘Made For You’ hub within the search tab.
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Novelty of working from home wearing a little thin? Children climbing the walls? Missing those carefree double-kisses and bear hugs from relatives and acquaintances?
Or are you feeling something else? Whisper it lest she disappear, but might that something actually be the muse descending?
“An artist is always alone – if he’s an artist,” said author Henry Miller. “No, what the artist needs is loneliness.” As if in agreement, the very second lockdown measures kicked in, social media feeds filled up with news that Shakespeare managed to pen King Lear, Macbeth, and most of Antony and Cleopatra in quarantine during a plague outbreak. (No all-new Netflix Originals or Amazon Prime Video documentaries to distract him, eh?)
In 1665, Isaac Newton found himself working from home following the closure of Cambridge University during the Bubonic plague. After sticking blunt needles into his eye (seriously) and watching apples fall from trees for a bit, he managed not only to explain gravity, but also to develop theories on optics and calculus that irrevocably changed our understanding of the universe. Not bad considering all we’ve managed to do today is upload an Instagram story and watch three episodes of Unforgotten on ITV Hub.
So, what of the socially distant musician during this and other periods of solitude? Turns out they too have been busy. What follows is our curated list of bands and solo artists who, owing to a series of unfortunate events, managed to write, record and release superb albums in complete isolation.
And ultimately it means we have no excuse. Do not pass go, do not collect £200 and do not visit Twitter. Read these examples for inspiration, then pick up your instrument. Get to work.
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Cross Road Blues by Robert Johnson (1936)
(Image credit: Robert Johnson)
Robert Johnson died in 1938, aged 27, having recorded only 29 songs of which we know. Of these, 16 were taped alone in room 414 at the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, on a single-reel Grundig recorder, less than two years before his death.
Nobody knows for sure how Johnson died – theories include poisoning, a gunshot wound, pneumonia, syphilis and stabbing – but his rumoured Faustian pact with the devil at a crossroads (his soul in return for otherworldly guitar powers) is the stuff of music legend.
Johnson’s work was not widely played until at least 25 years after his death. Indeed, Johnson never received any royalties for his songs and was paid in cash by his record label. Yet, according to Eric Clapton and almost any other iconic guitar player you can think of, Robert Johnson is “the most important blues musician who ever lived”.
Clapton released not one but two collections of songs by Johnson: Me and Mr. Johnson and the EP Sessions for Robert J, alongside a TV documentary of the same name aired in 2004 by the BBC.
Johnson simultaneously used elements of Delta blues – fingerpicking, sliding, strumming – while layering his own unique techniques and forms found in flamenco guitar. And then he sang on top. Only Robert Johnson (and the devil himself, if you believe the legend) will ever know exactly how he performed some of the tracks recorded in that hotel room.
Only two photos of Johnson are known to exist, despite musicologists and historians scouring the globe for more. What we do have is his music – and most of it was recorded in glorious solitude, in a hotel now owned by Sheraton.
“Who is the other guy playing with him?” Keith Richards asked fellow Rolling Stone Brian Jones on first hearing a Robert Johnson song, “I was hearing two guitars – it took a long time to actually realise he was doing it all by himself.”
Richards later said, “His playing was like Bach.”
Listen to Robert Johnson’s Complete Recordings on Tidal
Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen (1982)
(Image credit: Bruce Springsteen)
What does Bruce Springsteen do after his fifth studio album – a double LP featuring stone cold bangers Hungry Heart and Cadillac Ranch alongside the full force of the raucous E-Street Band?
He buys a Teac four-track cassette recorder and lays down 15 songs alone, in his house, through the night on 3rd January 1982. He sings, plays guitar, and uses the other two tracks to add a harmony vocal or an alternative guitar.
He thinks he’s going to teach the songs to the rest of the band when they get into the recording studio. He carries that demo cassette around in his pocket, without a case, for “a couple of weeks”. Then, after a bit more thought, The Boss decides to release the demo as is, without the band – the songs are a little too personal to be altered.
Owing to the recording process, it was apparently hard to release the thing as a record (the needle wouldn’t track in the wax properly because of the distortion it picked up) to the point that the label nearly released it as a cassette-only affair.
Springsteen named the album after one of the songs, Nebraska (the birthplace of Kool-Aid, but hardly America’s most exciting State) and never toured to promote it.
And still, Nebraska is one of the most highly-regarded albums in Springsteen’s substantial back catalogue.
Even one of the tracks that Springsteen recorded for the album, then shelved, (eventually giving it the E-Street Band treatment and releasing it in 1984) isn’t bad – it’s called Born in the USA.
Listen to Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska on Tidal
Exile on Main Street by The Rolling Stones (1972)
(Image credit: The Rolling Stones)
Rolling stones gather no moss, but they do rack up ridiculously high tax bills. And so it was that, after becoming quite successful in the late 1960s, The Rolling Stones found themselves at a villa called Nellcôte in the south of France in 1972.
Keith Richards rented the house, where the band lived as tax exiles and sheltered their earnings in a Netherlands holding company.
Exile on Main Street was the band’s tenth album. The Stones were already well versed on recording nowhere near a proper studio – much of the recording of their prior album, Sticky Fingers, had been done at Mick Jagger’s country-pile Hampshire home using a mobile recording studio. The same mobile studio was simply transferred to Nellcôte and set up in the basement of the villa.
Keith Richards lived upstairs and the band had frequent house guests – so not self-isolation as we’ve become accustomed to, recently, but still.
Often, other musician friends would amble down to the studio to jam with Keith, or stay to record tracks with the whole band. Such daily recording sessions went on through the night. Without formal studio rules, there’s a delightfully bohemian, laissez-faire feel to the whole album.
Listen to The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street on Tidal
Original Pirate Material by The Streets (2001)
(Image credit: The Streets)
Recorded mostly within the confines of his Brixton home over the course of about a year, Skinner’s debut album as The Streets is an inventive collage of beats and lazily delivered lines about life among Britain’s working class that proves there is worth in music recording now being at every person’s fingertips.
In his autobiography, The Story Of The Streets, Skinner discusses how he cleared out a wardrobe to create a vocal booth, deadening its sound with duvets, pillows and mattresses.
The album got to number 12 in the UK Album Charts in 2002, but got another lease of life and peaked at number 10 in 2004 – after the release of The Streets’ chart-topping second album A Grand Don’t Come For Free.
The sobering cover artwork (main photo) is a night-time shot of the south face of the Kestrel House tower block on City Road, London, taken in 1995 by German photographer Rut Blees Luxemburg.
Listen to Original Pirate Material on Tidal
Greystone Chapel by Glen Sherley/Johnny Cash (1968)
(Image credit: Johnny Cash)
Although Greystone Chapel was the song that made Glen Sherley the most famous prison inmate and country-music singer/songwriter alive, Sherley wrote many songs in lock-up and even recorded an entire album in his cell.
Sherley was in and out of several prisons throughout the 1950s and ’60s. When Johnny Cash discovered him in 1968, Sherley was doing a bit for armed robbery in Folsom.
In a 1994 interview with Life Magazine, Johnny Cash said: “The night before I was going to record at Folsom Prison, I got to the motel and a preacher friend of mine brought me a tape of a song called Greystone Chapel. He said a convict had written it about the chapel at Folsom.
“I listened to it one time and I said: ‘I’ve got to do this in the show tomorrow.’ So I stayed up and learned it, and the next day the preacher had him in the front row. I announced: ‘This song was written by Glen Sherley.’ It was a terrible, terrible thing to point him out among all those cons, but I didn’t think about that then. Everybody just had a fit, screaming and carrying on.”
Greystone Chapel was recorded live, along with the rest of Cash’s At Folsom Prison album, on 13th January 1968 and released in May of that year.
After Greystone Chapel, country singer Eddy Arnold sniffed out Sherley’s music and recorded another Sherley song in 1971, Portrait Of My Woman. It became the title track of Arnold’s next album.
Sherley was given the permission by prison officials to record a live album, Glen Sherley, while still in jail. The album was released by Mega Records and was a big success.
When Sherley was released from Prison in 1971, Cash met him at the gates. Sadly though, the story doesn’t end well. In May 1978, two days after shooting someone, Sherley put a gun to his own head. He was 42. The funeral was paid for by Cash.
Listen to Glen Sherley on Tidal or Spotify
how i’m feeling now by Charli XCX (2020)
(Image credit: Charli XCX)
Charli XCX’s fourth album really is a product of the pandemic: conceived during the initial COVID-19 lockdown, made in collaboration with her fans over the following 39 days and released on 15th May 2020, thus elegantly encapsulating the confusion, loneliness and boredom of our first long stint at home.
On 6th April 2020, Charli XCX announced in a public Zoom call with fans that she would be working on a new album in self-isolation, stating, “The nature of this album is going to be very indicative of the times just because I’m only going to be able to use the tools I have at my fingertips to create all music, artwork, videos everything.”
Although the result will undoubtedly (and rightly) be used as a kind of sonic photograph in the years to come – owing both to its subject matter and how Charlotte Aitchison used social media to workshop the tracks – how i’m feeling now is a timeless triumph.
The Cambridge-born songwriter’s knack of finding an absorbing melody or phrase can’t be ignored. The first track, Pink Diamond, came to Aitchison during an At Home With Apple Music interview between herself, Dua Lipa and and Jennifer Lopez, after J. Lo recounted talking to Barbara Streisand about Ben Affleck’s gift of that iconic rock. The compelling DIY electronics should also be celebrated, whether or not we’re able to dance, mingle and talk freely again soon.
Listen to Charlie XCX’s how i’m feeling now on Tidal
20 of the best albums of 2020
OK Computer by Radiohead (1997)
(Image credit: Radiohead)
Radiohead recorded and self-produced OK Computer in a 16th-century, Grade I listed Tudor Mansion called St. Catherine’s Court in Bath, owned by actress Jane Seymour. She rented the house to the band on the condition that they feed her cat in her absence.
Almost every song on this third Radiohead album (the studio-recorded 1995 Lucky is the exception)was laid down in that house.
If ever a song perfectly captured dystopian, apocalyptic self-isolation, it’s Climbing Up the Walls. There’s nothing quite like that guttural scream at the end for the cabin feverish.
As if to emphasise its socially distanced rhetoric, Thom Yorke has compared the acoustic guitar-heavy opening of the song Exit Music (For a Film), to Johnny Cash’s At Folsom Prison (listed, above).
Listen to Radiohead’s OK Computer on Tidal
For Emma, Forever Ago by Bon Iver (2008)
(Image credit: Bon Iver)
Justin Vernon wrote, recorded and self-released his debut breakthrough Bon Iver
album, For Emma, Forever Ago, in his dad’s hunting cabin in the woods of Wisconsin.
Vernon, frustrated with trying to write songs and somehow pay the bills while working in a sandwich shop, left his place in Raleigh, North Carolina, and drove for 18 hours to the remote hunting cabin – set in 80 acres of land an hour northwest of his hometown, Eau Claire in Wisonsin – hoping for some time alone.
He recorded the entire album in the cabin, on an old Mac with ProTools, throughout the winter of 2006 into early 2007 – when he wasn’t hunting for food. He apparently killed two deer during his three month residence in the cabin and had one scary encounter with a bear, which was enticed by the smell of his cooking.
The album is focused on a break-up he’d struggled to get over.
“I had nothing but the sound of my own thoughts, and they were really loud when that’s all that was going on,” Vernon later said on his near-complete isolation. We’ve all been there.
Though he hadn’t intended to make an album, encouragement from friends did the trick and he self-released For Emma, Forever Ago – after a little help with mastering – in July 2007. He was signed to the independent label Jagjaguwar later that year and the rest, as they say, is history.
Listen to Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago on Tidal
461 Ocean Boulevard by Eric Clapton (1974)
(Image credit: Eric Clapton)
This was the album that gave Eric Clapton his first US number one LP and single – his cover of Bob Marley and the Wailers’ I Shot the Sheriff. It also marked Clapton’s return to recording after recovering from a three-year addiction to heroin. The album topped various international charts and sold more than two million copies.
The title of the record refers to a house in the small town of Golden Beach, Miami – the house that Clapton’s manager at the time, Robert Stigwood, paid for him to live in so that he might, perhaps, write and record new music. After overcoming his substance addiction, Clapton confessed that he’d wasted three years of his life, barely managing to do anything except watch TV and get out of shape.
Clapton worked on a farm for a little while, listening to music from artists such as Robert Johnson (featured above), and even lending his guitar skills to the rock opera Tommy – which you can read about in our 10 best musical theatre soundtracks to test your speakers feature.
He was given a demo tape by former Derek and the Dominos bassist, Carl Radle, which contained collaborations between Radle, keyboardist Dick Sims and drummer Jamie Oldaker. Clapton felt inspired and ready to write new material.
The whole album was recorded from April to May 1974. Although Clapton did venture into the Criteria studios in Miami to record, he wrote, practiced, recuperated and sang alone with Blackie, his Fender, in the Floridian rented house pictured on the album sleeve.
Listen to Eric Clapton’s 461 Ocean Boulevard on Tidal
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11 of the best musical soundtracks to test your speakers
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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.
(Pocket-lint) – The LG Gram 16 is never going to make sense to some people. For many, a large-screen laptop has to be a super-powered desktop-replacer. And if it’s not, why does it exist?
LG’s Gram series has quietly challenged that view for the last few years. And the LG Gram 16 should make this concept less of a leap for those still struggling.
The pitch: the LG Gram 16 costs around a grand less than the MacBook Pro 16, but still has a big screen, a colour-rich display and long battery life. Oh, and it weighs 800g less and has a better keyboard, for some tastes at least.
Suddenly LG’s weirdo huge-but-light Gram laptops don’t sound so strange. Indeed, this 16-inch version is quite the stunning proposition.
Design
Dimensions: 313.4 x 215.2 x 16.8mm / Weight: 1.19kg
Magnesium alloy casing
Interested now? Let’s start by slapping the LG Gram 16 down to earth with one of the big issues you need to accept.
While the LG Gram 16 is a nicely made laptop, it doesn’t feel like a four-figures slab of the future when you pick it up. Carry it around like a notepad, give it a light squeeze between thumb and finger, and the base and lid panels will flex a bit.
Pocket-lint
LG has not made the Gram 16 on a shoestring budget. But large, low-weight body panels come with compromises. And you feel them each time you pick the laptop up like this.
The LG Gram 16’s casing is magnesium alloy, which is the best material for the job. It’s lighter than aluminium for the same level of strength, and a lot nicer than plastic. Just don’t expect the dense unibody feel plenty of 13-inch laptops at this price level.
The issue is all about feel, not utility. The LG Gram 16’s touchpad doesn’t stop clicking because you lift it by one corner of the base. You can’t stop the internal fans spinning by pressing down on part of the keyboard surround. And, yes, we’ve seen these issues in laptops smaller and heavier than the LG Gram 16.
Its keyboard panel, the most important of the lot, is pretty rigid – if not immaculately so. A little outer panel flex is only a big issue if you think it is.
Despite being a new entry in this series, the LG Gram 16 nicks its style from its siblings. This is a very plain, serious-looking laptop that isn’t out to dazzle eyes or fingers with flashy finishes. All panels are matte black with a very light texture similar to a soft-touch finish.
There’s a kind of confidence to a lifestyle laptop this plain, one that weaves a style out of sharp-cornered keyboard keys and a semi-distinctive font. If anything, LG could actually go plainer on this key typeface, which looks a little close to that of a gaming laptop.
Pocket-lint
But the aim is pretty clear: the LG Gram 16 is a laptop that can fit in just about anywhere. You can take is anywhere too, as the 1.19kg weight is lower than that of the average 13-inch portable.
The footprint isn’t tiny, of course, but it couldn’t get all that much smaller considering the 16-inch display has fairly small borders on all four sides.
Display
16.0-inch LCD panel, 2560 x 1600 resolution
99.1% DCI P3 colour coverage (as tested)
Glossy plastic finish
The LG Gram 16’s screen also helps keep the shape sensible, as this is a 16:10 aspect display, one taller than the standard widescreen style. This maxes out the perception of space when you use apps, rather than video. There’s no issue with the quality of the panel either.
Pocket-lint
Colour depth is truly excellent, matching what you get in a top MacBook Pro. Brightness is strong enough for outdoors use, which is pretty impressive considering the sheer square inch count the LG Gram 16 has to light up.
Contrast is not the best around, but is still good for an LCD-based screen. And resolution is, well, the one LG should have chosen. It’s at 2560 x 1600 pixels, sitting above Full HD, but a way below 4K.
The MacBook Pro 16 has a sharper screen still, at 3072 x 1920 pixels. But the LG Gram 16 still adds the crucial pixel density it needs to avoid the obvious pixellation that can happen in a larger display like this.
If you use a 13-inch laptop at the moment that supersize boost is the first thing you’ll notice. The LG Gram 16 makes it seem so much more like you’re using a monitor that happens to be hooked onto a laptop, rather than a laptop screen. That’s great for dull work apps, even for games.
However, the actual character of the screen doesn’t quite make the most of the top-quality panel underneath, because of another concession made for size: its plastic screen coating. Plastic is often used in matte finish laptops, to scatter reflections. But this is a glossy screen, telling us weight is the issue here. Glass is the usual choice, but glass isn’t that light.
The plastic film is also far less rigid than glass, causing reflections to distort at the corners a little. And if there’s meant to be a reflection-busting coating here, it’s not a very good one. There’s also no touchscreen, and the hinge only folds back to around 130 degrees, to stop the thing tumbling off your knees through weight imbalance.
Like the flexy lid and bottom panels, the plastic surface is one you’ll have to suck up for the sake of low weight. But does the LG Gram 16 have a high quality screen with plenty of space that you can use outdoors? Absolutely.
Keyboard & Touchpad
Textured glass touchpad
Two-level backlight
1.65mm key travel
The LG Gram 16’s keyboard fills out the appeal of this laptop for us. We type all day, every day, more or less. Keyboard quality matters, and this is a keyboard made for that sort of work.
Pocket-lint
Key travel is excellent, and not just if you limit your comparisons to ultra-light laptops. The keyboard plate feels rigid, even if – sure – you can get it to flex slightly under significant finger pressure. And springy resistance offers good feedback with each depress.
We also like that LG has thinned-down the NUM pad, which lets the main set of keys sit more towards the centre of the laptop. Being shunted too far to the left rarely feels good. Here there’s just a mild lurch leftwards. Think universal healthcare, not a state-led redistribution of all wealth.
The LG Gram 16 also has a two-level backlight and a fingerprint scanner hidden in the power button, just above the NUM pad.
Plenty of space in the keyboard plate leaves plenty of room for a giant touchpad. This thing is huge – and you probably can’t appreciate it from photos alone, where it seems in proportion with the rest.
The LG Gram 16’s touchpad has a smooth glass surface, zero floaty wobble, and an easy-to-depress yet well-defined clicker. It’s on the loud side, but that’s it for negative points to note.
A larger laptop opens the doors to a different approach to the keyboard. But apparently it doesn’t allow for a better webcam. The LG Gram 16 has the same sort of stogy 720p video call camera we see in most other high-end laptops.
Pocket-lint
Its speakers aren’t even close to those of the MacBook Pro 16 either. LG uses familiar-sounding drivers with just the tiniest hint of low-frequency output and only moderate max volume. Their tone is pleasant, we could watch a movie using them happily enough, but it would be good to see LG improve this area in future generations.
The main grilles for the treble drivers also sit on the underside, giving them just a couple of millimetres of clearance provided by the tiny rubber feet. Put the LG Gram 16 on a thick carpet or your bed and the treble is attenuated, although it does seem impossible to block the sound fully, which is good.
Performance
Intel i7-1165G7 processor
16GB LPDDR4X RAM
1TB NVMe SSD
The LG Gram 16 is an Intel Evo laptop. This is a new standard introduced by Intel to make laptops with its processors seem more attractive than those with AMD or Apple CPUs. It’s marketing, but not useless marketing, as it means you know you get standards like Thunderbolt 4, an 11th Gen processor, and at least nine hours of battery life (if the screen is a 1080p one).
Pocket-lint
Our Gram 16 has Intel’s Core i7-1165G7 CPU, 16GB RAM, and 1TB of very fast SK Hynix SSD storage.
Some CPU overclockers who design their own water cooling systems will disagree, but we think this is enough to make the LG Gram 16 a viable desktop replacement for the vast majority of people.
Windows 10 feels great, there’s more than enough power to run apps like Photoshop well. So why would you buy a MacBook Pro 16 with a more power consuming 9th Gen CPU? Or a much heavier Windows laptop with an Intel Core i7-10750H?
The top-end Mac has around 60 per cent additional CPU power, in part because it has an “i9” equivalent processor. A Core i7 alternative made for the more traditional desktop-replacing laptop offers around 20 per cent more power, and these processors are designed to hold max power for longer. Because chunky laptops tend to have fans that can shift more air.
But if you’re not sure if the LG Gram 16 has enough power or not, and you don’t use apps that make your current laptop slow down during exports, imports – whatever procedures they do – then it probably does have enough to satisfy.
The LG Gram 16 also gets Intel’s Xe graphics, which is a fantastic addition for a laptop like this. It turns slim laptops from poor gaming machines to at least acceptable ones. GTA V? No problem. The Witcher 3? Sure, even at 1080p if you play with the settings a bit. Alien Isolation runs well at just below Full HD resolution with a mix of Medium and High settings.
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Absolutely loads of stuff is playable with Intel Xe graphics, because it gets to the level of separate entry-level gaming hardware from the last generation. And that’s not too shabby: it’s gaming skills you seem to get ‘for free’. If you buy an LG Gram 16 and find games don’t run as well as you hoped, make sure to try them at different resolutions. Intel Xe graphics chips may have a bit of punch to them, but 2560 x 2600 pixels is a bit much to ask in most console-grade titles.
There’s more good news. The LG Gram 16 is almost silent under all workloads, even if you max out the CPU for half an hour. There is a fan, but it’s barely audible if you play something through the speakers even at 30 per cent volume. This is probably the quietest laptop we’ve reviewed with one of these 11th Gen Core i7 processors. It’s another benefit of all that extra room inside: better airflow.
Battery Life
80Wh battery – up to 22 hour battery life (claimed)
65W charger
LG doesn’t sacrifice battery life for low weight either. More brownie points for LG’s engineers. The Gram 16 has an 80Wh battery, far larger than the 56Wh standard battery of the Dell XPS 15, if smaller than the more power-hungry (and powerful) 100Wh MacBook Pro 16.
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Match that sort of capacity with a processor already fairly light on the battery drain and you are guaranteed good results. The LG Gram 16 lasts roughly 14 hours 30 minutes when streaming video at moderate screen brightness.
LG claims 22 hours, but this is one of those cheeky claims that involves using a benchmark from 2014 – and letting it sit in standby mode half the time.
Still, it’s excellent real-world stamina for light work, and way above the nine hours the Intel Evo”sticker guarantees. That guarantee only applies to a lower screen resolution than you get here too.
Use it with the display maxed and the CPU pushed to its limits the whole time and the LG Gram 16 will last around three hours and 25 minutes. Which still isn’t bad – a gaming laptop wouldn’t give you a third of that.
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Want to know about the LG Gram 16’s connections? There are two Thunderbolt USB-C ports, and one is taken up by the charger while plugged-in. You get two classic USB ports, a microSD slot, a full-size HDMI, and a headphone jack too. So it doesn’t demand you keep a USB adapter handy, and you can plug it right into your TV or a monitor. Bliss.
Best laptop 2021: Top general and premium notebooks for working from home and more
By Dan Grabham
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Verdict
It’s a wonder the LG Gram concept hasn’t been nicked more times already. The LG Gram 16 is a large-screen laptop that’s genuinely light enough to carry with you everywhere, every day.
There are barely any substantive compromises involved. The LG Gram 16 is as powerful as smaller laptops that weigh more, it lasts as long off a charge as some of the best Intel-powered laptops, and the keyboard is no lightweight either.
You don’t get the ultra-dense metallic feel of some of the smaller-screened alternatives at a similar price. And, sure, the Gram 16 uses a low voltage processor designed to minimise heat and save battery life, not for blistering power. However, it has enough of it to work perfectly as a desktop-replacer for most people.
Sure, a 13-inch laptop is better for some. A more powerful, thicker one will be better for others. But the LG Gram 16 takes some elements from both and, through clever design, makes it work far better than you’d imagine. For the right user it’s a stunning proposition.
Also consider
LG Gram 17
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Want something even bigger? LG has made a 17-inch Gram for a few years now. All the appeals are the same: low weight, good screen, good keyboard. Battery life is slightly shorter as it has a bigger screen and the same battery capacity. But the choice is all about the screen size you’d prefer. We think 16-inch is a more accommodating size for the masses.
Read our review
MacBook Pro 16
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The 16-inch MacBook Pro isn’t really in the same category if you look right up close. It has a more powerful processor and weighs about 800g extra. Oh, and it costs a grand more. Ouch. However, the MacBook seems a more expensive laptop as it has that amazing Apple build, which feels like perfection. The glossy glass screen finish looks better too, making the most of its similarly brilliant colour depth.
Great news for high-end audio lovers and gamers alike: Bang & Olufsen has just announced its first-ever wireless gaming headphones, the Beoplay Portal. The high-end Danish firm promises that the Beoplay Portal brings the hallmarks of its design to a gaming headset.
Whether you plan on using them for gameplay, watching movies or enjoying music, Beoplay Portal offers an impressive set of features, including low-latency surround sound, Adaptive Active Noise Cancellation, Transparency Mode, Dolby Atmos for Headphones support, and on-ear touch controls (for volume, ANC, transparency, playback and call-handling).
Beoplay Portal was developed as part of the ‘Designed for Xbox’program, and it’s not the first time a collaboration between B&O and Microsoft has been touted. As such, the headphones connect seamlessly to Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One consoles via Xbox Wireless protocol for a high-bandwidth, low-latency connection. The Beoplay Portal headphones are also compatible with PC and mobile devices via Bluetooth 5.1, aptX Adaptive, and USB-C, allowing gamers to take their immersive audio experience on the go.
They sport two custom-designed 40mm drivers with neodynium magnets, with support for Dolby Atmos for Headphones processing adding virtual surround sound and texture to compatible games, movies and music.
There’s a new generation of the company’s adaptive active noise cancellation technology, plus something B&O is calling Own Voice. Thanks to the four voice mics and four mics for ANC (two per earcup), users should be able to hear their own voices while simultaneously cancelling out extraneous sounds.
(Image credit: Bang & Olufsen)
In terms of design, the earcups feature touch-sensitive aluminium discs; the jaw-supporting earpads are crafted from lambskin-wrapped memory foam; and there is a subtle protrusion on the rear of each cushion that conforms to the shape of the user’s head and promises to minimise sound leakage. The inner headband features offset padding designed to relieve pressure on the top of the head and it is covered with a high-quality bamboo fibre textile, chosen for its durability and breathability.
And at 282g, the Beoplay Portal headphones are quite light for the category, helped no doubt by a feature B&O calls an “all-new virtual boom arm”, which the company claims eliminates the need for the traditional (read: actual) boom arm found on most gaming headsets. Using Directional Beamforming technology, the array of microphones promises to isolate and amplify the user’s voice while eliminating background noise, allowing for clear conversations – whether calling out objectives to teammates or talking on the phone to friends.
The claimed battery life is strong, too, at up to 24 hours of continuous playtime using Bluetooth and ANC, or 12 hours of playtime using Xbox Wireless, Bluetooth and active noise cancellation.
Beoplay Portal will be available in three colourways – Black Anthracite, Grey Mist and Navy – from 29th April, priced at £449 (€499, $499, 3749 DKK), however a Black Anthracite finish is launching in the United States and Canada from today (30th March) exclusively at Bang & Olufsen, Best Buy and the Microsoft Store for a limited time.
MORE:
See our Sony PlayStation Pulse 3D Wireless Headset review
Read up on the best wireless noise-cancelling headphones 2021
Looking for a PlayStation 5? See PS5 stock and where to buy: latest PS5 restock details
Despite still being in its relative infancy, Sony’s PlayStation 5 games console is already serving up some stunning gaming experiences. The shift up to more consistent true 4K graphics at both 60Hz and, remarkably, 120Hz is joining forces with wider, better use of high dynamic range and the impressive efforts of Sony’s new 3D Audio sound system to make gaming worlds more immersive and beautiful than ever before.
However, getting the most out of this next-gen console isn’t just a case of plugging the PS5 into your TV and expecting everything to just turn out fine. In fact, between the secondary kit you might need and some of the PS5 set-up tricks you need to familiarise yourself with, getting the maximum impact out of your new console is anything but straightforward.
With this in mind, we’ve put together a comprehensive checklist of everything you need to do if you want to be sure you’re getting the full value from Sony’s new gaming beast. Starting with potentially the most expensive…
Get the right television
The single biggest source of trouble when it comes to the PS5’s new graphics capabilities is the currently messy television market – or more precisely, the confusing world of HDMI connections.
Getting the best picture quality (4K resolution at 120Hz refresh rates with HDR and, following an upcoming update, support for variable refresh rates) out of the PS5 requires a TV’s HDMI ports to support data rates of at least 32Mbps, and that’s something the vast majority of current TVs cannot do.
What’s more, there’s currently no easy labelling system to help you spot TVs that might be compatible with all of the latest gaming features. Even if a TV claims to be compatible with the latest 2.1 version of the HDMI input, that doesn’t guarantee 4K/120Hz/VRR compatibility. All you can do is try and trawl through a TV’s small print/detailed specs to see if 4K/120/VRR are included.
We can get the ball rolling, though, with some sets we already know support all the latest gaming features. For starters, all of LG’s OLED CX, GX, WX, ZX and upcoming C1, G1 and Z1 models feature four HDMIs with full PS5 compatibility. Samsung’s QLED models from 2020 and QLED and Neo QLED TVs for 2021 all have one or two HDMI ports that support all the PS5 features, with 2021 models from the Q95A series upwards carrying four PS5-friendly HDMIs.
At the time of writing, Samsung’s 2020 TVs aren’t able to play PS5 games in 4K 120Hz while retaining HDR. Samsung has stated, though, that this apparent ‘bug’ will be fixed by a PS5 firmware update.
Sony, ironically, has just one series in its 2020 range, the XH9005s, that support all of the PS5’s graphics features, via a single HDMI port. Thankfully, more Sony models will carry the requisite HDMI support in 2021.
Philips and Panasonic haven’t so far launched any TVs with next-gen gaming features, but both brands are set to do so in 2021. Cheaper TVs (and brands) in the UK have so far not embraced next-gen gaming features, but hopefully some will do so this year.
One final point here is that, in theory, the PS5 can support 8K. So if you want to be ready for that, you will need an 8K TV. These are relatively expensive right now, and it doesn’t seem as though 8K PlayStation content is going to become common any time soon.
For more guidance here, check out our rundown of the best gaming TVs you can currently buy.
Make sure you use the right input on your TV
(Image credit: Future)
As noted in the previous section, on some TVs only one or two HDMIs have enough bandwidth to support all of the PS5’s graphics features. So make sure you have your PS5 connected to one that does.
Some TVs help with this by labelling the relevant HDMI(s) as Game or 4K/120, but otherwise, you will need to refer to your TV’s manual.
Use the provided PS5 HDMI cable (or pick a replacement carefully)
(Image credit: HDMI Licensing Administrator, Inc)
It’s not just HDMI sockets that need to be able to handle enough data to unlock all of the PS5’s features. HDMI cables also vary in how much data they can carry. So you should stick with the HDMI cable provided with the PS5 where possible, as this is designed to carry all the data the console needs for its maximum performance.
If you really must use a different cable – because the official cable isn’t long enough, for example – look for one that carries the official Ultra High Speed HDMI Cable certification that you can see in the image above.
Make sure your TV HDMI port is set up for high data rates
Most TVs now will automatically switch their HDMI ports to so-called ‘enhanced’ modes for high data rates when a 4K HDR source is detected. There are still some budget brands, though (Hisense, for instance) where you need to manually switch HDMIs from Standard to Enhanced in the TV’s menus. It’s certainly worth checking the settings on your TV for the HDMI that your PS5 is connected to.
Set your TV to Game mode
Almost all TVs have a special Game mode setting that reduces the time a TV takes to produce its images. This can make as much as 100ms of difference, which could be a lifetime, literally, in gaming terms. Your TV might automatically switch into Game mode when the PS5 is detected, but if response times matter with the game you’re playing, you should check that it has.
Note that Game mode settings can reduce some aspects of picture quality with some TVs. So if you’re playing a less reaction-based title, such as an RPG, you may prefer the overall picture quality with Game mode turned off.
Check your PS5’s Video Output screen
In the System Software section of the PS5’s System menu, there’s an option called Video Output Information. This brings up a screen telling you what graphics capabilities the console thinks your TV is capable of handling, based on its ‘handshake’ with your TV’s HDMI port. This screen is handy for checking that your console and TV are talking to each other as you’d expect.
This Video Output Info can be particularly useful if you’re trying to feed your PS5 through an intermediary audio device, such as a soundbar or an AV receiver, and on from that to your TV. Many people forget that the PS5 will read the capabilities of the intermediary device’s HDMIs and determine supported graphics output based on that, rather than reading what your TV is capable of. So unless your audio device has full HDMI 2.1 4K/120/VRR pass-through support (which is currently very rare), it could limit the graphics you experience.
The best way around this is to connect your PS5 directly to your TV, and then use your TV’s ARC/eARC HDMI jack (if it has one) to output digital sound from the TV to your audio equipment.
Setting up your PS5
(Image credit: Sony)
The PS5 is proactive about HDR, prompting you to run through a trio of simple HDR set-up screens whenever you attach it to a new TV. The way the screens work, though, is rather questionable.
Before going through this HDR set-up, it’s worth checking whether your TV has a menu option called HGIG (HDR Gaming Interest Group) – if so, turn it on. This will make sure that your TV doesn’t try and apply its own automatic HDR optimisation (dynamic tone mapping) processes to pictures that you have already optimised via the PS5’s HDR set up system.
Once done, you can crack on with the console’s calibration, but you shouldn’t do exactly as you’re told. Two of the screens ask you to increase the console’s brightness/peak light levels to a point where you can only just see a relatively dark symbol against a white background. The other one asks you to adjust the console’s black level to a point where a lighter symbol against a dark background remains only just visible. In fact, you should adjust each of these screens to the point where the visible symbol just disappears. In other words, the points at which the first square goes completely white and the second completely black is where you want to set the console.
Even then, not all games are designed to work with the PS5 console’s HDR set-up system, preferring instead to use their own internal HDR calibration screens. Examples of these titles include Dirt 5 and Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. You should absolutely go through these game-specific calibration processes and it’s worth checking in these cases whether your TV’s HGIG setting (if it has one) is better switched on or off.
Another key aspect of gaming performance that requires care is frame rates. As with HDR, the PS5’s process for adjusting the frame rate a game uses varies from title to title. So with Dirt 5, the game’s own internal graphics options allow you to select whether you prefer to prioritise resolution or frame rates (there’s always a graphical trade off associated with switching from 60Hz to 120Hz). With Call Of Duty: Black Ops – Cold War, however, you have to choose in the console’s menus whether you want to prioritise ‘Resolution’ or ‘Performance’ (frame rates) before booting the game if you want to get 120Hz.
This ‘Performance Mode or Resolution Mode’ option, confusingly, is found in the Game Presets section of the Saved Data and Game/App Settings submenu of the PS5 itself.
A further refresh rate option of some sort will likely be added when the PS5 is finally enabled for variable refresh rates.
Choose the right audio options
(Image credit: Sony)
We’ll discuss the PS5’s 3D Audio gaming system shortly. First, though, we should note the mess concerning the PS5’s Dolby Atmos activation options. Specifically the fact that there are two of them: one for streaming apps, and a separate one for the built-in Blu-ray/4K Blu-ray player. The PS5 does not support Dolby Atmos for games.
The first Dolby Atmos option appears in the System/Sound menu, under Audio output. Scroll right to the bottom of this page and you’ll see an Audio Format (Priority) option, that will be set to Linear PCM by default. There’s an option to choose Bitstream (Dolby) or Bitstream (DTS) if you prefer that.
However, when you try and play a 4K or HD Blu-ray disc with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack, the console still does not output Dolby Atmos. To make it work you need to press the Options button on your PS5 joystick while playing a film disc, then click the ‘three dots’ icon and choose the Bitstream option under Audio Format.
Unlike Microsoft with its latest Xbox consoles, Sony has decided not to use Dolby Atmos for its premium game audio experience. Instead, it has developed its own new ‘Tempest’ 3D Audio system. It’s up to individual developers whether and how they deploy 3D Audio, but notable titles to use ‘full-on’ versions of it include Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Demons Souls.
At the time of writing, the new 3D Audio system can’t be output to any external multi-channel home theatre speaker/AVR system. Currently, it only works via headphones, though Sony has suggested that this will change at some point in the future.
To try out 3D Audio with headphones, first make sure that you have the Enable 3D Audio option in the Audio Output part of the Sound menu activated. Also, when you first use headphones with the PS5, be sure to check out the Adjust 3D Audio Profile option. This plays a ‘babbling brook’ test signal and asks you to pick which of five settings makes the sound feel most at ear level.
You don’t need special headphones to experience the 3D Audio effect – any wired pair will do the job once connected to the DualSense controller – but the quality of the headphones you use certainly impacts how effective 3D Audio sounds.
As you might expect, Sony’s own Pulse 3D wireless gaming headset, which has been designed for the PS5, is particularly effective – though at £90 ($100, AU$150) it certainly isn’t cheap. However, once you start using it that price actually starts to sound more than fair.
For starters, it’s able to deliver the 3D audio effect wirelessly; you don’t need to be tethered to the DualSense controller. It also carries nifty high-sensitivity microphones complete with noise-cancelling technology built into the main headset, rather than in the usual mic ‘arm’, as well as providing buttons for mixing the game sound and chat sound, and for monitoring your own voice.
The Pulse 3D is lightweight and reasonably comfortable, and it does an excellent job of getting both a precise and strikingly large sense of space from the 3D Audio system.
If you want a more luxuriously built wireless headphone option and you’d prefer a dedicated mic arm, Turtle Beach’s Stealth 700 Gen 2 (£130, $150, AU$250) could be up your street. Just bear in mind that while good-looking, great for chatting and more comfortable to wear for epic gaming sessions, they don’t sound quite as punchy as the Sony Pulse 3D models. They can’t be jacked into the DualSense controller when they run out of juice, either, but with an impressive 20 hours of battery life, that shouldn’t be a big problem. Plus you can use them while they’re charging.
If you’re on a tight budget, meanwhile, and don’t mind a wired rather than wireless headset, then the Xiberia V20D (£30) are good value.
For a few other possibilities, check out our Best Gaming Headsets 2021 feature.
Brace yourself
The number of things you need to think about and potentially invest in if you want to unlock the full capabilities of your PS5 is pretty intimidating. Rest assured, though, that Sony’s new console is more than capable of rewarding your effort and expense with truly next-gen thrills. Once you’ve experienced it in full, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.
MORE:
Read our full PlayStation 5 review
Considering your next-gen options? Here’s our Xbox Series X review
Check out our list of the best gaming TVs you can currently buy
(Pocket-lint) – The Google Nest Hub (second gen) updates Google’s first smart display, which originally launched as the Google Home Hub.
Sporting a 7-inch display, it rivals Amazon’s Echo Show models, looking to bring a visual experience to Google Assistant, and slot the Mountain View company into the centre of your home.
This time around, however, Google has eyes on your bedroom.
Design and build
120.4 x 177.4 x 69.5mm, 558g
Four colours
Floating display design
Glance and you’ll miss it. The design of the second-gen Nest Hub is essentially the same as the old, but there are some minor differences on the spec sheet – not that you’ll really spot that from across the room.
The new Nest Hub remains a cute smart display and we’ve always liked this design. It fits in with the mesh covered designs we’ve seen from other Google devices over the past few years, using safe fabric colours to help it blend into your home décor.
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It’s a 7-inch display, so not huge – but glance at the offering from Amazon and you’ll find it sandwiched by the likes of the Echo Show 5 and the Echo Show 8, although we do think it looks a little more sophisticated.
There’s some bezel to the display – now incorporating a range of expanded sensors and mics – while there’s a volume rocker on the rear right and a physical mute switch on the centre rear, within easy reach.
It’s still a great looking device and while some might think that a 7-inch display is too big to have on your bedside table, that’s exactly where Google wants you to put it.
Setup and introducing sleep sensing
Google Home app
Sleep tracking calibration
Setting up the Nest Hub is easy. You’ll need to have the Google Home app on your smartphone, as this serves to control the device and gets setup underway. Once plugged in, it’s a few simple steps to get the Nest Hub up and running – the important part being connecting to your Wi-Fi and logging in with your Google account.
If you’ve used any Google devices before, this will now be familiar – and like Amazon’s Echo devices, signing in gets Google Assistant ready and so you’re quickly connected with everything that you have setup without Assistant already.
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That’s great, because it means that all your connected smart home devices will now work from your Nest Hub, if you have Voice Match in Google Assistant active then it will know who you are and tailor results to you, so you’re good to go.
That would be just about it for a regular Google device, but sleep sensing brings with it some additional requirement: calibration.
Sleep sensing on the Nest Hub uses a range of sensors, including temperature, light, sound and the Soli radar chip we previously saw in the Pixel 4 phones. Together, these sensors will be able to give you a complete picture of how you slept and the conditions you were sleeping it.
But first and foremost you need to make sure that the Soli radar will be able to see you. It sends out low power short-range electromagnetic waves allowing it to detect motion. It’s important to understand that it’s not using cameras for this, so it’s not visually spying on your while you’re asleep.
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This means that positioning is important and there’s a calibration process you’ll have to run through to get the Nest Hub in the right position so it will work. It doesn’t take long and all you have to do is basically lie in bed with the device on your bedside table and it will do its stuff. If it’s in the wrong position, it will ask you to adjust it.
There’s a few things you need to know here: firstly, it needs to be focused towards your upper body and secondly, it actually needs to be about level with you. If it’s too low, it won’t be able to detect anything because it’s looking at the side of the bed, so it’s no good putting it on the floor or on a bookcase a metre higher than you.
For most, it should be simple and within a few minutes it was all setup – but you have to remember you can’t then move it too much and you can’t put things in front of it, like a glass of water, because you’ll block the view.
Sleep tracking and bedside performance
Sensors to detect sleep
Personalised sleep summary
Syncing to Google Fit
Using all the sensors, the Nest Hub gathers data and, using an algorithm, can understand what’s going on.
From this data it can tell when you get into bed, when you go to sleep, when you’re disturbed during the night and when you get up. It also knows when you’re awake but lounging in bed refusing to get up.
This is the first converged device to offer sleep tracking that doesn’t require any physical touch. We’ve seen and used sleep tracking from the likes of Apple, Fitbit and Garmin where you need to wear a watch. We’ve used systems like ResMed SleepScore and Withings Sleep Analyzer – but the Nest Hub is likely to be more popular.
The problem with wearing something is that it can disturb you as you move around – and you’re sweating into it all day and all night. The problem with some of the other detection devices is that they only do one thing – whereas Nest Hub is your familiar Google-based smart display and your sleep tracking buddy.
Pocket-lint
We’ve been sleeping with the Nest Hub over the last week and found the sleep tracking to be pretty accurate. But first of all, there’s no need to be concerned about having a 7-inch LCD display next to the bed – it dims really well so it’s not glowing at the side of the bed and keeping you awake.
Detection on getting into bed appears to happen at any point that you get into bed. Come back from a run and flop onto the bed while you check your Strava stats and you’ll see the on-screen notification telling you that it has detected you.
But the Nest Hub is smart enough to figure out what’s happening when. Because there’s processing to be done there are moments when you’ll be told that it’s processing – for example when you wake up. That’s mostly because it’s waiting to see when you leave bed so that it can report on how long it took you to get up and so on.
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Data is available to tap though on the display in the morning or you can ask Google Assistant. The results also sync to Google Fit so you can examine them on your phone, but again, these will vary and might change slightly depending on when you look at Google Fit and how that corresponds with any processing that the Nest Hub is doing.
The results are interesting and certainly accurate, but there’s no breakdown of heavy or light sleep like you’ll get from Fitbit. It also won’t think you’re asleep on the sofa when you’re watching a movie like Garmin sometimes does, but there are limits.
For example, on a disturbed night, you might try to sleep, then do some reading, toss and turn a bit and as a last resort, attempt to get to sleep by putting yourself into a meditative state. Anyone reading who suffers from insomnia will know what it’s like to clear your mind, calm your breathing and just lie still, hoping that you’ll get to sleep – and it’s here that Google thinks you are asleep, when you’re not.
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Otherwise, on normal sleeping days, we’ve found the reports to be accurate, detecting those middle of the night toilet breaks, and knowing when you’ve woken up earlier than you wanted to. It also detects snoring and coughing, which can be a bit thing that disturbs sleep.
Google’s analysis then attempts to give you feedback to improve your habits. For us, our average sleep time has been a little short and the Nest Hub tells us that we’re sometimes going to bed too early and staying in bed awake when we should be getting up in the morning. It’s trying to establish a better routine.
It all makes sense too: those days where we’re told sleep is “fairly restful” we’re awaking feeling refreshed; on the days when it’s been “restless”, we can feel that too. The thing is, we don’t need telling that. Whether this information is useful will be a personal decision.
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What Google doesn’t seem to be doing is putting this into context with anything else. There’s no relationship between sleeping and activity like you get from Garmin’s Body Battery. It’s also unclear what you might have to pay for this data in the future.
That’s right – it’s a free preview through to the end of 2021, but then Google says: “After the preview ends, paid subscription may be required.” Currently we don’t know what that cost might be. We also don’t know how this data might integrate with Fitbit, but Google has said it’s looking at how that might work.
Of course, if everything above fills you with horror, it’s an opt-in service. You don’t have to have sleep tracking at all.
Display, interface and sound quality
7-inch 1024 x 600 pixels
3 mics, 1.7-inch speaker driver
Google Assistant
There’s a 7-inch display on the front of the Nest Hub, with a 1024 x 600 pixel resolution. That’s not hugely high in terms of resolution, but we’ve nothing to complain about when it comes to quality.
There’s a visually engaging interface presented by Google and we think it’s better than Amazon’s equivalent on the Echo Show models: it just looks and feels a little more useful. Much of that comes down to the fact that Google has more information to pull in to serve you content you like, like relevant news.
Pocket-lint
You can swipe through the screens to access various sections – wellness, home control, media, communication, including the discover section. The media option will already be connected to your Spotify account (if you’ve linked the two) while YouTube is front and centre.
Google can also take advantage of Chromecast support, allowing you to cast content to the Nest Hub too – so it can be a little more dynamic than Amazon’s device.
Google Assistant remains as smart as ever and has progressive developed over the past few years. We’ve one criticism and that’s the hiss that accompanies spoken replies. That was detectable on the Nest Audio too – something that Google really should fix to increase the overall offering – it’s not something that Alexa does.
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Of the two, we’d say that Google is a little smarter, often being able to give smarter replies, but there are some services better optimised for Echo devices – like requesting the BBC news: it’s just better when Alexa serves that up.
When it comes to speaker quality, the Nest Hub has a single 1.7-inch driver. It has boosted bass over the previous version for a richer overall sound and we think it’s great as a bedside unit, perhaps a little weak if you’re planning to use it as a main speaker in a room – you’d want the Nest Hub Max for that instead.
Comparing that to Alexa briefly and the Echo Show 8 – slightly larger than this model – does have a bigger sound too. The smallest Echo Show 5 also has a 1.7-inch driver, giving you an idea of how these devices compare.
Smart home and expanded functions
Thread, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi
Chromecast built in
There’s no camera by design on the Nest Hub and Google had to opportunity to put one on this refreshed version and decided not to. For some people that will be a major downside, for others, a significant advantage.
There are a range of other connectivity technologies however and we’ve covered most already – Wi-Fi for the connection to the internet, Chromecast via the same route, Bluetooth to use your Nest Hub as a speaker or to connect it to a Bluetooth speaker.
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Then there’s Thread. Thread is a relatively new wireless smart home protocol which works on a mesh network. The Nest Hub can be part of a Thread system, just as the Apple HomePod Mini can be – very much working in the same was a Zigbee on the Echo models.
As this is a technology that’s just starting to establish itself, we haven’t tested it. We did test the Nest Hub with the wider set of smart home devices we’ve already linked to Google Assistant via the Home app and found no problems – and in the future, if you are buying Thread-equipped devices, the idea will be that you can control those directly from the Nest Hub without the need to a dedicated hub for whatever those devices are.
All in, the Nest Hub is still a super-connected device, able to play its part as the centre of your smart home, just as the name suggests.
Verdict
This new version of the Nest Hub only makes a couple of changes from the previous version: indeed, if you’re not interested in the sleep tracking, then you might be better off trying to find the older model at a discounted price, because you’re not missing out.
The sleep tracking adds a new dimension. As people are increasingly turning to technologies to track wellbeing, and sleep being a growing area. While the technology works, uncertainty about future subscription costs might give pause for though – or you might want to try it and cross that bridge in 2022.
Fundamentally, the Nest Hub 2021 is a good device. It’s connected, good quality, a refreshingly simple interface and offers the best voice assistant in the business. If you want your home to be smarter, this is a great place to start.
Alternatives to consider
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Lenovo Smart Clock
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The Lenovo is a compact bedside device that gives you all the advantages of Google Assistant in a small package.
Read the full Lenovo Smart Clock review
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Amazon Echo Show 8
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The Echo Show 8 is larger, but features a camera as well as the full skills of Alexa.
Pretty much the only wireless headset you should consider if you’re a PS5 gamer
For
Punchy and exciting sound
Convincing 3D audio
Comfortable over long sessions
Against
Mic picks up background noise
Extravagant design
One of the best features of the Sony PlayStation 5 is its support for 3D audio. Sony’s so-called Tempest Engine does all of the hard work so that any standard pair of wired headphones can deliver immersive 3D sound when plugged into the DualSense controller.
But what if you want to go fully wireless? Currently, the only wireless headset compatible with the PS5’s 3D audio feature is this, the official PlayStation Pulse 3D Wireless Headset.
Having just one option is rarely a good thing, but the Pulse 3D headset comes from good stock – its predecessor on the PS4 combined excellent core sound quality, excellent comfort and (limited) 3D audio to the tune of a five-star rating.
Comfort
(Image credit: Sony)
Sony has decided to visually tie the Pulse 3D headset to the controversial design of the PS5, opting for the same white finish for the headband as on the faceplates of the console. It is instantly clear that the two products are related, but the headset’s design may be too attention-grabbing to consider using it as a standard pair of headphones when out of the house.
The plastic band also feels a bit cheaper than the brushed metal of the Platinum Wireless Headset, but that can be forgiven because the Pulse 3D headset genuinely is cheaper by some margin. Besides, having now used the headset for several months, there’s no sign of the slightly cheap feel translating into flimsiness. We have no reason to believe that the headset won’t last for many years.
It feels comfortable, too. The earcups are firmer than some headphones, but they create a good seal around the ears and the headband provides just the right amount of pressure. There’s no obvious heat generated around the ears in use, either.
Build
(Image credit: Sony)
The Pulse 3D headset’s controls are located around the edge of the left cup. They include a rocker to adjust the balance between game audio and chat, a switch for turning monitor mode on or off (useful for ensuring you don’t speak too loudly), volume, mute and power on/off. Most button presses are accompanied by an on-screen notification, something you won’t get from third-party headsets.
Sony PS5 Pulse 3D Wireless Headset tech specs
(Image credit: Sony)
Compatibility PS5, PS4 and PC (wireless), Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S (wired)
Wired Yes
Wireless Yes
Surround sound Yes
Battery life 12 hours
Weight 295g
There’s no button to enable or disable the 3D audio feature as there was with the Platinum Wireless Headset, but that’s because the tech is built in more at a system level.
Using the headset wirelessly involves plugging a dongle-like USB transmitter into your PS5 (you can use the socket on the front or rear) and from that point, the console will automatically output sound to the headset whenever you switch it on. Battery life is 12 hours, which isn’t huge by Bluetooth headphone standards but should cover even the longest of gaming sessions. Charging is via USB-C.
As well as the PS5, you can also use the Pulse 3D headset wirelessly with a PC or PS4, and there’s also an included 3.5mm cable for when you run out of batteries or want to use the headset with an Xbox, phone or tablet. The microphone works in wired mode, too, but you only get 3D audio when wirelessly connected to a PS5 or PS4.
The microphone picks up and projects your voice clearly, but it’s also prone to picking up background noise more than most, which will be of concern to anyone who plays online while there are others in the room. We understand why Sony would opt for a slick and minimalist appearance, but an optional stalk mic would be a nice touch.
Sound
(Image credit: Sony)
While you probably won’t be using the Pulse 3D headset primarily as a standard pair of wired stereo headphones, there’s value in benchmarking against models in this class to get a sense of the core sound quality of the headset.
Surprisingly, despite all of the additional tech on board, the Pulse 3D headset more than stands its ground against sub-£100 wired headphones in most areas. There’s energy, enthusiasm and a crispness to the delivery that’s foot-tappingly enjoyable. While some go deeper, there’s still more than enough bass here and it’s punchy and tuneful.
The treble, meanwhile, has a sparkle and zing that never veers into brightness, and the midrange is textured and clear, with vocals delivered directly. Dynamics are decent, too, with the headset able to convey subtle shifts as well as epic crescendos, and there’s more than enough detail for a pair of headphones costing this much.
But they fall down slightly on timing. When music tracks become particularly busy, the Pulse 3D headset struggles to maintain a complete grip on each strand, and that can make these sections a little hard to follow. Luckily, though, this timing issue isn’t apparent when gaming and the generally strong core sound quality translates well when you use the Pulse 3D headset for its intended purpose.
(Image credit: Sony)
Of course, the quality of the 3D effect depends on the way it has been implemented into the game, but opt for Spider-Man: Miles Morales or even PS4 game Ghost Of Tsushima and you get not only a sense of the direction that each sound is coming from, but also how far away it is. The sonic presentation becomes all-enveloping and it’s easy to audibly pinpoint effects.
Switch to Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and the 3D audio gives a real sense of the cavernous nature of the CIA safehouse, the distance of each character as they speak and the echo as their voices hit the interior walls of the warehouse. You get none of this when listening in standard stereo.
Though you can get 3D audio by plugging a pair of standard wired headphones into the DualSense controller, the crispness and precision of the Pulse 3D headset makes for a more engaging and exciting experience than is offered by most similarly-priced wired headphones. It feels as though the 3D audio delivery has been tailored for the official headset – there’s every chance that in some cases it has been – which is a benefit of having just one product on the market.
That’s not to say that the Pulse 3D headset is an adequate replacement for your surround sound speaker package. The Pulse headset is surprisingly accomplished at creating a 3D soundfield, but the placement of effects is even better with a properly calibrated home cinema system. Effects placed directly in front of or behind the listening position are a particular struggle for 3D audio via headphones, which is no issue with physical speakers in those positions.
Verdict
The Pulse 3D Wireless Headset is really the only option here, but it’s also particularly good at what it does. Those slight timing issues aside, it boasts an accomplished core audio performance that can take your gaming to new levels when combined with the PS5’s 3D audio processing.
If you don’t have the money, space or circumstances for a home cinema system, this is pretty much the next best thing as far as PS5 gaming is concerned, and that makes it a great buy.
SCORES
Sound 5
Comfort 5
Build 4
MORE:
Read our guide to the best gaming headsets
Read our Sony PlayStation Platinum Wireless Headset review
Bang & Olufsen has announced Beoplay Portal, its first wireless gaming headset. The product maintains the company’s signature sophisticated look, and it has more features than your average headset.
These were created with the Xbox ecosystem in mind, and with a push of its pairing button, they can connect to the Series X, Series S, Xbox One, or to a PC that has the Xbox Wireless adapter plugged into it. Additionally, they support a concurrent connection via Bluetooth 5.1 for other devices (including other consoles if you supply the Bluetooth adapter). This way, you can take calls without totally detaching from game audio.
Similar to the Bose QC35 gaming headset that released last year, the Beoplay Portal look like high-end wireless headphones (and in many ways, act like them, too), and come with a high-end price. These cost $499 and are available now in the black colorway at Best Buy, the Microsoft Store, and through Bang & Olufsen’s site. Two other colors, gray and navy, will be available starting April 29th.
Made for the contemplative gamer.Image: Bang & Olufsen
This model has adaptive active noise cancellation (ANC) and a gaming audio mode that automatically activates when connected wirelessly to a console or when wired via USB-C to a PC (the port through which the headset also gets its charge). These also have a 3.5mm headphone jack.
The Bang & Olufsen app for iOS and Android has some new features that the Beoplay Portal benefits from, like microphone optimization and a game / chat audio balance. The company reports that its “Own Voice” feature allows for voice monitoring while keeping out extraneous noises thanks to its adaptive ANC. These have 40mm drivers with Dolby Atmos support for virtualized surround sound.
A peek at the Bang & Olufsen app’s controls for the Beoplay Portal.Image: Bang & Olufsen
Build quality is another area where Bang & Olufsen is trying to distinguish itself from other gaming headsets. The memory foam ear pads are wrapped in lambskin leather, and it uses bamboo fiber textile to cover the headband padding. Elsewhere, there are a few anodized aluminum details on the Portal, like the touch-sensitive discs on the outside of each ear cup that are used to control them. Impressively, the company says the headphones weigh 282 grams, which is lighter than the mostly plastic Xbox Wireless Headset that, until now, I considered to be lightweight at 312g.
This gaming headset can last up to 12 hours per charge when you’re connected through both Bluetooth and Xbox Wireless protocol, and using the active noise cancellation feature. If you’re just using Bluetooth and noise cancellation, Bang & Olufsen says you can expect up to 24 hours of use.
Given the high asking price, I’m skeptical that these will be worth the cost for most people — especially those who intend to use them exclusively for gaming. It seems like a better value if you want to use them as your everyday headphones, too.
The gray colorway shown here won’t release until late April.Image: Bang & Olufsen
I’m also skeptical about the “virtual boom arm” the Beoplay Portal employs instead of a traditional articulating boom mic. It says its beamforming microphones allow for “crystal clear” conversations, and help to amplify your voice while filtering out sounds in the background. This is something I’ll need to test to see if it’s as good as Bang & Olufsen claims.
Do you need a $500 gaming headset? Probably not. While there are plenty of differences in terms of features and build quality, most people should be suited well by Microsoft’s $100 Xbox Wireless headset. But I’ll be reviewing these to see for myself what five times that amount can get you in a gaming peripheral.
(Pocket-lint) – We’re probably showing our age here, but when someone says “Highlander” it’s hard to not visualise Christopher Lambert’s 1986 movie of the same name. That said, the Toyota Highlander – the marque’s biggest SUV – is hardly new, as it’s been around for over 20 years, since the turn of the millennium.
From a UK perspective, however, the Highlander is all new, with this Hybrid model representing this SUV’s first time on our roads. It’s only available with a hybrid powertrain on these shores, making for a fairly individual pitch. To paraphrase the movie (we just can’t help ourselves): “there can be only one!” – as you’re not going to find many other 7-seat hybrids, save for examples like the pricier and plug-in Volvo XC90 T8 and Audi Q7 TFSI e.
Design
So is the Highlander Hybrid as immortal as Lambert’s character? Given the sheer scale of this 7-seat station wagon it’ll be hard to not feel invincible when sat behind the wheel.
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From an outside perspective the look is very Toyota, with all the modern design cues, such as the trapezoidal grille and blue-tinted badge on the front (showing a touch of hybrid there).
There’s no escaping that the Highlander is a large vehicle; even its lowering roofline and those subtle curves to its sides can’t shroud the scale of this vehicle. That said, it’s not too outlandish either: there aren’t the off-the-charts quirky headlights like Toyota’s Prius.
Whether you think it’s as contemporary or European as a Volvo or Audi is a whole other question. And while you may have a preference one way or other, really the Highlander is mostly about practicality and space.
Interior Space
This is where the Highlander really sells itself. With three rows of seats – a pair up front, three to the centre, three to the rear – it’s a 7-seater as standard, driving appeal for families.
Or, who knows, maybe you want to drop the third row to reveal the gigantic boot space – it’s 1.13 metres long in that arrangement, which is huge – so you could easily fit a couple of dog crates in there for when you’re carting Mog and Molly, the Irish wolfhounds, out and about (there’s probably a joke here about West Highlander Terriers, but we wouldn’t dare, but of course).
The third row, when it’s up, is accessible through power-sliding the second row forwards to permit access. It’s not the biggest of spaces to sit, but if you’ve got a big family that’ll be on the road often then it’s perfectly fitting for young’uns.
The seats are comfy, too, with heated/cooled options available for the front pair. There’s a diamond-shape style throughout, providing cushioning where needed.
And to make everything feel airier a panoramic roof comes as standard. That’s usually thousands extra for some of the high-end brands, so is a nice touch to add to the sense of space.
Tech
Sat in the drivers seat, however, and the Highlander doesn’t feel at the top of its game when it comes to tech configuration and layout. This is where Audi rules the roost and the Highlander – while cheaper, for sure – doesn’t come anywhere close.
The main driver’s dials are all physical, mechanical objects – not built-in displays with adjustable options, as is so common these days. The mass of buttons surrounding the high-positioned integrated screen on the dashboard looks a bit dated already, too. Not to mention that for such a massive car and interior, that screen, at just 8-inches, looks small – and there’s no option for the 12-inch model in the UK, as you can find elsewhere.
Pocket-lint
Again, though, it’s all very practical. You won’t be digging through menus to find what you need. There are some great standards, such as a JBL soundsystem that’s rather decent, plus you can amp up the whole so-so navigation and infotainment experience with Apple CarPlay or Android Auto if you would prefer – so it’s got its good foot in the modern door. Even the air conditioning can be tri-zoned, so you can look after the temperature of all your passengers/family members.
Really and truly you don’t need several screens looking all fancy but not doing all that much. So the Highlander averts that, but in so doing it just appears a little last-gen. Which might also sound like something of a contradiction when there are oddities such as a digital rear-view mirror here (and unexpected and unnecessary surprise).
Drive
Don’t think of the Highlander Hybrid as you would a plug-in hybrid (PHEV), as the kind of range on offer here is very slight – you’re talking a mile or so of pure electric power, acquired from regenerative braking.
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Now that might sound approaching pointless, but it’s not: because it’s always regenerating while driving, it will bring an improvement to overall consumption figures (39mpg is quoted). Meanwhile combined CO2 emissions, at 163g/km, also place the Highlander into a reasonable bracket for such a large vehicle – it’s one lower down than a Volvo XC90 T5’s 184g/km, for example.
Having an electric motor driving this all-wheel drive system delivers reasonable power – it’s actually Toyota’s most powerful full-hybrid system yet – that will see the Highlander from 0-62mph in 8.3 seconds. Not that you’ll be racing this wagon around much. Really it’s the quietness of a near-silent electric pull-away that we found most refined.
The petrol engine, here a 2.5-litre four-cylinder arrangement, does kick in with a bit of noise thereafter – although Toyota is keen to point out how much dampening has gone into the engine compartment and even all the windows to deliver a, let’s say, not rorty driving experience.
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In terms of handling the Highlander is, well, effortless really. It’s comfortable, easy to manage, and we didn’t feel as though we were commanding a tank when on the roads – yes it’s large, but it’s not unwieldy. That’s the key boxes ticked for the whole family then.
Verdict
So can there be only one? Well, like we say, the Toyota Highlander Hybrid is a fairly individual pitch – as you won’t find many 7-seat hybrid SUVs on the market.
Yes, it’s still over £50K, so it’s no small chunk of change, and the hybrid system delivers very low genuine mileage from electric only. But the Highlander’s obvious competitors, such as the Volvo XC90 and Audi Q7, sit yet higher up the asking price ranks.
The Highlander’s overall tech experience already feels somewhat outdated, however, so it’s not the most future-facing car you’ll ever see. But it firmly ticks all the ‘practical’ boxes, ensuring heaps of space and comfort for carting around larger numbers of passengers/family members than you could in something smaller.
Which makes the Highlander Hybrid somewhat niche. But if 7-seats are a must and you want the mild benefit of a hybrid system then there’s few other places to go looking. Which ought to deliver a captive audience.
Cleer Audio has announced the follow up to last year’s super long life Enduro 100 over-ear headphones. The San Diego-based company’s new Enduro ANC headphones claim an impressive 60 hours of playback with noise-cancelling and Bluetooth engaged – around two to three times more than is typically offered by the class leaders.
And if you make it through 60 hours of listening and still want more, a quick five minutes of charging via USB-C should give you two further hours of battery life.
Cleer says the new model has been designed in response to customer frustration at not being able to use power-draining features like noise-cancelling for long haul journeys without keeping a charging cable handy.
The company has achieved this feat of power management courtesy of a close industry relationship with Qualcomm, allowing it to become one of the first brands to implement Qualcomm’s new QCC5126 chip.
In addition, to blocking out noise up to 30dB, Cleer’s Enduro ANC offers customizable noise cancelling levels based on your ambient surroundings to optimise the balance between limiting unwanted noise and audio performance. Using Cleer’s ‘Connect’ app, users can adjust settings for specific situations, such as travelling by aeroplane, working in a cafe or walking outdoors.
Designed with long listening sessions in mind, the Enduro over-ears are made from lightweight, high grade moulded plastic with a flexible headband and memory foam earpads.
The headphones feature Google Fast Pair 2.0, Bluetooth AAC and aptX HD, while the 40mm drivers utilise Cleer’s patented Ironless technology, which promises a bold and articulate sound.
The Enduro ANC comes in navy or light grey and are available now for £149/$149.
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“I suppose you can’t have true respect for something unless you’re willing to challenge it,” we posit to Nils Frahm. “Exactly,” he replies. “Exactly.”
It feels good to have Frahm agree with you. Not only because his music is as much part of our homes – and the What Hi-Fi? test rooms – as the light fixtures and soft furnishings. It feels good to have Frahm agree with you because he comes across as an expert on whichever topic he is speaking about in that moment.
He even makes his own soap. Because that devilish streak of tinkering with his instrument, which we celebrate today on Piano Day, is just symptom of a wider curiosity this exquisite composer applies to every part of his life. Whether or not he is an expert is almost moot, as that infectious interest in everything travels down the phone line to us.
Even Piano Day cannot be taken at face value when Frahm, the very man who appointed it as the 88th day of the year, discusses the instrument’s more menacing symbolism.
Nonetheless, it is clear that there is a lot of love in this relationship. To celebrate this year Frahm has today released Graz, the first album he ever recorded for Erased Tapes.
This grand piano recording has taken 12 years to surface – though certain pieces you might recognise from his live performances – and captures a more youthful musician nearer the start of a career, and nearer the beginning of this mischievously respectful relationship with his instrument that we hope is nowhere near its end.
Over half an hour, we managed to talk with Frahm about Graz, recording the piano and a heavily customised hi-fi set-up. Not that we’d have put him through it, but we could have spoken for hours upon hours longer.
Lisen to Graz by Nils Frahm, released to celebrate Piano Day 2021, on Tidal or Spotify.
An emotional reaction
(Image credit: Sebastian Rieck)
What Hi-Fi?: We should probably start by congratulating you on getting Erased Tapes to release your debut album, at last. We’ve listened to it a few times and it’s got that real sort of transformational quality that your music has; it goes through that metamorphosis depending on what time of day or when in the year you hear it. Is the album as recorded in 2009?
Nils Frahm: It was recorded in a place where there was a special setup. It was basically a big studio that has variable acoustics, realised through microphones in the room and speakers where there’s a custom-made reverb algorithm, which basically takes the sound from various points – I think it has about 16 microphones and 64 speakers – and you can change the the parameters of the ambience through this.
So the shortest reverb is maybe 1.8 seconds, then you can turn on the engine and it will generate a reverb which you would like to hear in that room. It can be quite impressive; when you close your eyes and you play, and somebody tweaks with the parameters of the settings, you basically travel through space. Basically, while I was improvising, my colleague was turning some knobs and dials from this reverb engine, and that was inspiring me to play in a different way maybe.
WHF?: Reverb, and natural reverb especially, has been a huge part of your playing; it was in All Melody you used a dry well that you had found on holiday. How important for a piano recording is it to hear the space that it’s been recorded in?
NF: I think the room for acoustic instruments plays a big role, because essentially the room makes stuff louder and sound more immersive. With reflections and some sort of ambience an acoustic instrument sounds like it’s floating around you. Coming from various points, it becomes more three-dimensional and big sounding.
This is why a piano or a symphony orchestra sounds much better in a room over being played outside; I still don’t understand why some festivals curate classical concerts outside, because strings or the whole classical ensemble without the natural reverb for me doesn’t blend. You can’t blend the elements together without ambience. So I think the same for the piano: you have a lot of different sounds and notes and things on a piano. With the acoustics you put all of this together in one concept, almost as if you would dress a person from tip to toe.
WHF?: The performance is obviously key, and a recording lives or dies by it, but what other things are important to get right when recording the piano?
NF: The performance. Because when the performance is well put and the balance between the notes and the balance in the voicing, the loudness of each finger, is put right then basically the recording is quite stable. And if you have an unstable performance you have to really work much more with the mixing, or focusing on the microphone position, or choice of reverbs and processing to get the performance organised. Basically that’s the case for every musical performance. When the performance has some integrity and is put well, then as a recording engineer or as a person listening back at home, it’s an easy task to transport that wonderful moment.
Because sound in the end is decoded in our brains into an emotional reaction somehow – I don’t know how that works – but I would say that if you hear something that doesn’t really get you emotionally, you will analyse more technically. And if something just haunts you or something strikes you, and you don’t know why, you will not really ask so many questions.
It’s like a phenomenon. When I listen to Chet Baker records and I hear the voice then hear the piano, the piano sounds kind of bad, honestly. But together with the voice, the quality of the piano and the quality of the voice becomes something that’s hard to explain why it works. I think it’s because Chet really just sings so beautifully, and the piano just really plays wonderfully, and that gives you so much freedom as a producer to put these elements wherever you want. When you play really good you can make that element 6dB louder or 6dB quieter: it will still be amazing. If you have a bad arrangement or a bad take, you will fiddle with the volume to fit it in, because it will never be right.
A rebellious angle
(Image credit: Leiter Verlag)
WHF?: You have what we would describe as an almost two-way relationship with the piano, in that it feels like it’s rewarding you for the care you put into its tone and its timbre. What makes it such a special instrument?
NF: I think all instruments are pretty special. The piano is so special because I think it has had such a big success in the history of music. Ever since it was invented it played a huge role in the creation of music, especially in the Western world. Not so much in other places in the world. The piano is also testimonial to an industrialised society, a Western capitalist industrialised society, because it’s very difficult to make unique heavy machinery; you need vast skill sets and machines to make a piano. And you need a lot of money!
And so the piano is a symbol for power as well. These are all components I am also aware of. I try to have the awareness to treat the piano with a certain respect, but also show a sense of humour. Because when you take the piano too seriously, you also take the society we live in too seriously. You might get more interesting results from the piano if you treat it with respect but also with a rebellious angle, because there are many things I don’t agree with. I don’t think the West created a fair world, or a better place for everybody. So if the piano is a statue or symbol for all of this, then whatever the critique is towards a society or towards our philosophy, or our culture, the critique also addresses the piano.
So that’s why I respect it but I also disrespect it, in terms of changing its sounds or putting things inside, or doing wrong things maybe with it. Because I think the piano shouldn’t rule us, we should rule the piano; in as much as the values of a capitalist society or a white supremacist society shouldn’t rule us, we should rule the society. So it’s very philosophically put, but the piano is a symbol also for all the things I don’t agree with, and it creates an interesting angle for me to approach this special instrument.
WHF?: You can’t have true respect for something unless you’re willing to challenge it.
NF: Exactly, exactly.
WHF?: As well as experimenting with your instrument, on Spaces in particular you have a lot of different ways of recording; it’s almost a collection of field recordings. Is using things such as reel-to-reel an experiment, or is there a particular sound to each medium that you really like and want to capture?
NF: For me it’s a little bit like with photography: the best camera is always the one you have with you. You can say the best recorder is always the one you can just work with in the moment, and is reliable and records the music. And true, they sound all a little bit different, but when I choose to record something on a cassette tape it probably reflects the approach of that session. I probably just don’t have real good equipment available and I take maybe just a really cheap USB junk sound card rather than my really high quality converter that I only have in one place.
I like to record on really interesting broadcasting master recorders. I like quality from all eras, and when I buy a cassette deck on eBay for 200 bucks, it’s maybe the Marantz PMD master recorder that was built for broadcasting documentaries. It has a certain quality: it will always turn on, it’s made out of metal, you can listen to the record head and you can definitely check what you’re recording. I really go with whatever sound comes out of it, if the machine is so well designed.
I’m a big fan of the Nagra tape recorder as well, or I record a lot on portable to track field recorders, made for film sounds. For me – tape, digital, analogue – whatever gets the job done and I feel happy with is my colour of choice. Because I know that whatever I do there is so much flexibility to treat material further in the mixing processes, and have more decisions. Of course, when I put something on tape I will never make it sound like a really good modern recording, but there’s still so many places that I could go with it that I just trust what will come out.
WHF?: It comes back to the performance being key; but if you set a certain recorder up do you think that affects the way you play?
NF: I don’t try to make the recorder a big inspiration or compositional element. I would rather record in a way that I can play loud notes without distortion, and if I play very quiet I will record in a way that I don’t just hear noise. But obviously the piano is a very dynamic instrument: if you want to get a good recording done, before you start playing you should think ‘is this a loud piece or a quiet piece?’.
I always turn the gain on the mic preamps to an according position, because the piano has over 90dB of usable dynamics. If I play super quiet and I have to crank the preamps up otherwise I will record almost nothing, and if I know I’ll play a loud piece or dynamic piece I have to turn the amps down knowing the quietest elements will not otherwise sound as good. So obviously I take this into account [but it doesn’t change the way I play].
WHF?: Do you have a list of favourite piano recordings that you go back to again and again?
NF: I think my favourite piano record, that I have gone back to for years, is one that doesn’t really sound like my style of recording. It’s actually the opposite: it’s a very far, distant sound. It’s a recording called Bagatellen und Serenaden by Valentin Silvestrov. He is a Ukrainian composer living in Kiev; I think it’s like nobody recorded the grand piano in such a loving way as ECM has done. Another mind-blowing recording from ECM is Der Bote by Alexei Lubimov. And there’s one piece [on that record], In the Landscape by John Cage, and that piece is just sounding unreal.
But again most of that is how the piano was treated and prepared by the piano technicians prior to the session. They really make the sound of the piano, these people, the piano tuners. They don’t tune the piano, they touch it in every possible spot; they put oil here, they sand down the hammers, they put needles inside the hammers to see whether the density should be different. So each note gets basically custom tuned, and so the whole piano becomes one thing that sounds like an instrument, which inspires the player. Because a piano that doesn’t inspire the player will not lead to a good take.
So all becomes like one beautiful thing: the room, the acoustics, how the piano is set up, who is the piano builder and the player, the performance. All that composition. And out of a thousand piano recordings, there are some that are just reaching far beyond what I thought was possible. That always sets imagined horizons, for me to remember: ‘wait, maybe we’ll get something else out of that wooden box, something more engaging than what we’ve heard.’
Principles and physics
(Image credit: Leiter Verlag)
WHF?: We want to talk to you about not just what you listen to, but how you listen at home. Do you have a mix of sources, amplifiers and things?
NF: At home I listen strictly to vinyl at the moment, just because I don’t need flexibility. I have the studio where I can listen to digital files. At home I just play records. I have a good pick up on a customised [Technics SL-1200] MK2. I just love that record player; I actually like how it looks also, people hate the Technics now but I still have mine and I’m very happy with it.
And that goes through a phono stage. I forgot the name: it’s a custom box from Sweden by a guy who put all the equaliser curves of all the different pressing plants – the Philips and Columbia and whatever – because I have a lot of original Columbia records for my US tours. I collect some original jazz records. And so I can just set the equaliser settings, because I realise that some of the records sound really much different when I change the EQ – and that makes sense when you know the history of that.
Then out of the phone stage I go into a… Jesus Christ, I’m so bad at names; I just bought this thing.. it’s an Air Tight, used 34-watt tube amp. I go straight into that and I need the boost to drive my 15 Ohm Klangfilm speakers. I made some custom wood panels for it so it’s not a closed chassis, it’s an open-baffle speaker. They have a coaxial driver with a tweeter in the centre, which is similar to the system I use in the studio, but it’s from the 1940s or something. And I made my own frequency divider for this with just an old British condenser, which sounds fantastic and takes the low out of the tweeter.
It’s very rough but it gives me such a good overall sound and tone. It isn’t very good with very low bass, and it’s not a fast speaker, but when you play resonant, atmospheric music like piano or jazz or old records especially, it sounds almost like people are in your room playing. It’s absolutely mind-blowing. Obviously it’s not a reference system, but it’s a very good sound system.
WHF?: It sounds a lot like the way you approach the piano, tinkering and tailoring to make it fit your own taste. Is that something you’ve always been interested in, on the listening side?
NF: Yes, every aspect in life for me is similar. I don’t want to buy brands, I think it’s boring when you just go ‘I like this brand and I like that brand’. I want to go beyond and when I like something I want to know why; I want to understand the principle, and often it’s not the magic of some brand. I mean, people think they should buy Bose speakers – I don’t want to bash Bose, they just don’t do the equipment I like – but if people trust the name, they think whatever they do will work.
Even if you listen to people with the everyday stuff, they say ‘oh, I have to buy the soap from this brand’ and ‘you have to buy the soap from that brand’. And I am always like, well let’s take that soap let’s look at the back: so it’s this, it’s this, it’s this… and then I go back and try to find the basic components. Usually it gets much easier without the additives and the weird colouring stuff, and it’s for the same for me with instruments or speakers.
I want to know, why do I like this? For example, why do I like coaxial speakers? The principal for me is much more important than the brand. All the forums that try to figure out how to make stuff sound good, they discuss brands and models; but people don’t really discuss physics, and they don’t really discuss principles, and types of signal flow. So there’s little knowledge about Class A, B, C, D – and so people try to remember what they should buy, and they think, ‘so I heard Class A sounds the best, so I need class A’. But often you don’t need class A. For me it’s always about looking under the bonnet.
WHF?: It’s testament to your creative mind that everything is an interaction rather than a consumable for you. Is it a similar tweaked set-up when you’re touring and on the move?
NF: No, my life is simple: when I don’t have a sound system that I like, I don’t really listen to music. I also need time away from sounds and away from music, nobody wants to listen to music 24/7. So if I’m not in the studio or not at home, I just stop listening to music. And if I’m in the car, I go with whatever sound system is in there. I would never spend money on that: it’s just a car. Maybe I listen to NPR or something like that, and it helps me also to listen to music on just a very average sound system, just for double-checking mixes.
So yeah, I’m not a picky type. Like I said, I value good-sounding records over a good-sounding sound system. Because I learnt a lot of people who are crazy about good speakers, they start buying CDs that are only made for good speakers, where the music was recorded through golden cables or whatever. And the musicians are not so good, but their sound recording is really good, and so they listen to reference where the music is not so interesting. For me, that is the point where I’m just getting lost, because the sound system is just there to play music from talented people with a message. Sometimes these moments are recorded great, and then if they’re recorded great I can also listen to that on a shitty sound system where it will cut through.
My first Radiohead experience was like that. I listened to a €100 or whatever, portable, shit CD player back in the day in the late 90s, designed for a children’s room. And I sat and I played Amnesiac, and it sounded huge. It sounded absolutely insane, it sounded completely different to all the other records I had, and I could never really get sound out of that box. I was at that point more interested in bypassing the quality of what people have as a hi-fi, and try to make music which transforms the speaker, whatever quality it is, into to what the composer or the artist wants from it.
I know examples of records that will sound good on every sound system I know, and that’s not 100 per cent what is important but it’s very interesting to learn about this. Especially when people don’t make music and they just buy equipment to play back, and they’re not so familiar with how music is made. They need to know that when something doesn’t really sound right in that room ,or something doesn’t really sound right in that moment, it’s mostly a problem with the producer. It should not be the problem of the consumer to help whatever didn’t work in the recording or production stage. So whenever we want to listen to good music, we just have to find the good music. It’s very easy and you don’t need to spend too much money on on anything
WHF?: Those recordings you know will sound good on any system, what are they for you?
NF: Basically anything Miles Davis recorded In the 50s and 60s, especially Kind of Blue and the soundtrack he did for the French film, Ascenseur pour l’échafaud. That will transform your iPhone into to a huge soundstage. And obviously the Chet Baker example is is the most convincing for me, because when you put Chet Baker on your iPhone and you put your iPhone into a Pringles box, it will also almost sound as good as if you listened on thousand euro speakers. Maybe just 90 as opposed to 100 per cent. It’s a rough statement to make, but people probably get the point.
MORE:
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40 of the best 1990s albums to test your speakers
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