Speakers - Page 24 of 58

Our 14 favorite gadgets and hacks for working at home

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It’s been nearly a year since many of us started working from home due to the pandemic, and if you haven’t yet adjusted your workspace to accommodate your needs, then it’s probably time to get to it. Whether you’ve set yourself up in the guest bedroom, on your living room couch, or in a walk-in closet, you may need a little extra to make it possible to type comfortably, meet online, or just concentrate. Sometimes it means buying a new desk, lamp, or monitor; sometimes it just means finding a household item that will make life a little easier.

We asked the staff of The Verge what they’ve been using to make their work-at-home situations more practical, more pleasant, or simply more possible. Here are some of the answers we got.

Tech products

Apple AirPods Pro

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

I basically live in my AirPods Pro during the day. They let me listen to music, catch Slack pings, and take calls, all with the added benefit of some noise cancellation to help drown out outside noise. Their range is also great for my apartment — I can be anywhere in the house without losing connection to my computer, which is really nice if I need to step away from my desk to, say, microwave my second cookie of the afternoon. —Jay Peters

Apple AirPods Pro

Phone as webcam

Turning my phone into a fully functional webcam was surprisingly easy and cost-effective. I already had a Nexus 6P sitting around, and with these steps that work on most Android and iOS devices, I now have a phone-meets-webcam. It’s got video quality that’s roughly on par with a standalone webcam that would probably cost $200 right now. What makes it even better is that my iOttie car mount connects perfectly to my glass desk, so I don’t have to awkwardly arrange the phone to get a good angle on my face. —Cameron Faulkner

Satechi Aluminum Multi-Port Adapter V2

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

While I’m working off a MacBook, this Satechi hub has been a lifesaver for plugging in podcasting mics and any other gear I’m suddenly using on my own. —Adi Robertson

Satechi Aluminum Multi-Port Adapter V2

Rechargeable batteries

I go through tons of batteries with my flash when photographing at home and I find that these rechargeable batteries last so much longer than regular single-use batteries. Not only do they save me trips to the store and keep more batteries out of the landfills, but they also save me money in the end. —Amelia Holowaty Krales

Panasonic AA NiMH 2,550mAh rechargeable batteries

CalDigit TS3 Plus Thunderbolt 3 dock

Photo: CalDigit

This Thunderbolt 3 dock lets me switch my whole desk setup (keyboard, mouse, speakers, Ethernet, display, external storage drives, and microphone) from one computer to another by just moving one cable. I plug all of my peripherals into the dock, and then just use the one Thunderbolt cable to hook up my Mac or whatever Windows machine I need to test at the moment. It also has a very useful high-speed SD card slot on the front, which is great for whenever I need to dump images from my camera onto my computer. —Dan Seifert

CalDigit TS3 Plus Thunderbolt 3 dock

Google Nest Wifi Router

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Last year, I installed a Google Nest Wifi router with a mesh point. I’ve had a lot of networking equipment over the years, and this was immediately the best. And it was extremely easy to set up. —TC Sottek

Google Nest Wifi router

Ultrawide monitor

Photo: LG

An ultrawide monitor is the best purchase I ever made for working from home. It’s so big I have to physically lean from side to side to see it all. I can have three full-size windows up at the same time or countless windows overlapping. (Right now, I have nine different windows open and it doesn’t feel cramped at all.) Mine is an old LG 34UM94-P that they don’t make anymore — it looks like there is an updated version, the LG 34BL850-W. However, any monitor that is at least 34 inches in size with 1440p or better resolution is what I recommend. —Dan Seifert

LG 34BL850-W 34-inch QHD monitor

Home office helpers

Fully Jarvis Bamboo Standing Desk

Photo: Jarvis

We heard from three staffers about this desk:

The Jarvis from Fully was recommended to me by my colleague Christian Mazza, and it’s been far and away my best work-from-home purchase in years. It’s rather pricey by desk standards, but cheap by standing desk standards.

Assembly was far less cumbersome than I thought it would be. Just having the option to sit or stand, when you’re cooped up in your room or home office all day, makes a big difference. Plus it looks great and has some nice customization options for color and desk material. —Nick Statt

I love my Jarvis desk for all of the same reasons Nick does. If you’re considering one, I highly recommend spending the extra $20 for the extended-range height, which lets the desk get lower for sitting and higher for standing, and the extra $35 for the programmable height switcher, which lets you preset heights that you can switch back and forth to just by pressing a button.

I also sprung for the $29 casters so that I could wheel the desk around my apartment, which lets my wife and I use it as a mobile entertainment system. When we’re done working for the day, we can roll the desk over to our comfy chairs and watch Netflix or play Animal Crossing on the desk’s monitor. —Jay Peters

I have the Jarvis, too, just in a larger size. It has served me well for about four years now. It’s a comfortable, stable, spacious desk that has more versatility than typical desk options. —Dan Seifert

LapGear Designer Lap Desk

Photo courtesy LapGear

I should work at a desk more, but I spend a lot of time working from a couch. It’s bad for me, but also very comfortable. Using a lap desk like this one helps me at least pretend to be a little more conscientious about my posture; plus, it’s helpful for writing on physical paper (or when my laptop gets too hot). —Chaim Gartenberg

LapGear Designer Lap Desk

Huanuo monitor mount stand

Photo: Huanuo

This monitor mount brings my screen up to a nice height so that I don’t hunch over, and it’s the tallest one I’ve found. Other monitor arms I tried just weren’t tall enough for me when I was standing while working — and I’m not that tall at five feet, 11 inches. The mount also lets me adjust my monitor to exactly the right height for movies or Animal Crossing when I’m using my desk as a mobile entertainment center. —Jay Peters

Huanuo monitor mount stand

Nespresso Inissia Espresso Machine

Photo: De’Longhi

I’m hopelessly addicted to iced lattes and I finally invested in this espresso machine with my stimulus check. It makes waking up in the morning a little more exciting when I don’t have to French press my coffee. And it came with a milk frother! —Makena Kelly

Ello Devon Glass Tumbler

Photo: Ello Products

I never drink enough water. I just seem to forget to and I get headaches from dehydration, but something about this bottle helps remind me. Maybe it’s the design? I love it! —Amelia Holowaty Krales

Ello Devon Glass Tumbler

Herman Miller Sayl Chair

The Herman Miller Sayl is a common chair — Vox Media’s NYC office has hundreds of them. I bought one without arms, though, because it works a little better for my posture. I’m tall, and it’s hard to find chairs that don’t encourage me to slouch. Also, I like the red. —Sam Byford

Herman Miller Sayl Chair

Notebook and pen

While all of my work and most of my writing happen on my computer, sometimes it’s easier (especially for sudden phone calls or when I don’t want to switch out of a video) to simply turn to the notebook I keep next to my laptop and jot down a note or two. And I’ve found that using a classy pen is not only good for my morale, but makes it a lot less likely that I’ll find myself out of ink (or with a hand cramp) when I need to get something important written quickly. Currently, I’m using a True Writer ballpoint pen from Levenger that I got as a birthday present, but any pen that makes you feel good will do. —Barbara Krasnoff

Update February 4th, 2021, 2:37PM ET: This article was originally published on April 28th, 2020, and has been updated to include changes in prices and circumstances.

BenQ Mobiuz EX2510 Monitor Review: A 144 Hz Steal

Our Verdict

If you’re shopping for 144 Hz and 25 inches, the BenQ EX2510 is one of the best IPS panels we’ve seen for under $300. There’s no extended color, but it delivers top-notch gaming and surprisingly good HDR. Users seeking a high performance-to-price ratio should definitely check it out.

For

Good contrast and color accuracy
Decent HDR
Good gaming performance
Strong build quality

Against

No extended color
No dynamic contrast in HDR

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Features and Specifications

The price of a good gaming monitor is generally dictated by screen size, resolution and refresh rate. Other gaming features, like Adaptive-Sync, are pretty much a given for any display marketed to enthusiasts. And color accuracy and build quality do not necessarily go hand-in-hand with cost.

BenQ may not be as well known for its gaming screens as brands like Asus or Acer, but it offers products that deliver performance, quality and value. Lately, it has brought out new models with interesting names like Zowie and Mobiuz. But these creative monikers don’t attempt to make up for any shortfall. The new Mobiuz EX2510 is a great example. It’s a 25-inch, 1080p resolution IPS panel with a 144 Hz refresh rate, FreeSync and G-Sync compatibility and HDR with BenQ’s HDRi emulation mode. At publication time, it’s selling for around $250, making it much more affordable than many of the market’s best gaming monitors.

BenQ Mobiuz EX2510 Specs

Panel Type / Backlight	IPS / W-LED, edge array
Screen Size / Aspect Ratio	24.5 inches / 16:9
Max Resolution & Refresh Rate	1920 x 1080 @ 144 Hz
	FreeSync: 48-144 Hz
Native Color Depth & Gamut	8-bit / sRGB; HDR10
Response Time (GTG)	2ms
Brightness	400 nits
Contrast	1,000:1
Speakers	2x 2.5w treVolo audio w/DSP
Video Inputs	1x DisplayPort 1.2
	2x HDMI 2.0
Audio	3.5mm headphone output
USB 3.0	None
Power Consumption	15.8w, brightness @ 200 nits
Panel Dimensions WxHxD w/base	22 x 15.5-20.5 x 8.5 inches (559 x 394-521 x 216mm)
Panel Thickness	2 inches (51mm)
Bezel Width	Top/sides: 0.3 inch (7mm)
	Bottom: 0.8 inch (21mm)
Weight	12.4 pounds (5.6kg)
Warranty	3 years

The 25-inch gaming monitor category is filled with super-fast 1080p resolution models running above 240 Hz and priced at the premium level. The 360 Hz Asus ROG Swift PG259QN is a perfect example. It’s a 25-inch, 1080p IPS monitor that costs an eye-watering $700. But if you’re OK with 144 Hz, you can save quite a bit of money. In fact, the BenQ EX2510 is a great alternative to 27-inch 1080p and 1440p monitors that typically cost about $75-100 more.

The EX2510’s 144 Hz refresh rate is achieved without overclock. The monitor’s AMD FreeSync-certified, and we were also able to run Nvidia G-Sync on it, even though it’s not certified (to do this yourself, check out our How to Run G-Sync on a FreeSync Monitor tutorial).

Though it’s compatible with HDR10 signals, the EX2510 does not include an extended color gamut. Color depth is a true 8 bits achieved without Frame Rate Compensation, and the backlight is flicker-free.

Assembly and Accessories of BenQ Mobiuz EX2510

The EX2510’s build quality is apparent when you unpack its three parts. The base is nicely finished in silver with an orange rubber accent across the front. The upright is quite heavy and solid. Just attach it to the base with a captive bolt. The panel then snaps in place. A 100mm VESA mount is included for aftermarket hardware.

In the box, you’ll find an HDMI cable and IEC power cord for the internal power supply. There’s also a snap-on cover for the input panel. You can pass the cables through a hole in the upright for a tidier look.

BenQ Mobiuz EX2510: Product 360

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(Image credit: BenQ)

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(Image credit: BenQ)

The BenQ EX2510’s styling is somewhat blocky and understated for a gaming monitor., but it’s all about function. Straight lines dominate its shape with the only curve being a smooth taper across the back. The bezel is flush and free of physical framing, but you can see a thin 7mm border when the power’s on. The bottom trim is 21mm wide and features the BenQ logo and an HDRi button (more on that later). The front anti-glare layer is free of grain and presents a sharp image without reflecting any room light.

The stand features 5 inches of height adjustment plus 20-degree swivel each way and -5/20 degrees of tilt. There is no portrait mode. Movements are very firm and solid with no play at all. Even if you shake up your desk during intense frag sessions the EX2510 will stay put.

In addition to the HDRi button on the front, there are two more keys in the back-right corner, plus a joystick for menu navigation. One key toggles power, its status indicated by a white LED, and the other changes the signal source. The controls click firmly and respond quickly to user input.

In the bezel’s center, you can see a small protrusion that houses the sensor for BenQ’s Brightness Intelligence Plus (BI+) feature. It works with two of the HDRi modes to adjust brightness and color temperature to the environment. It responds quickly to changes and, in most cases, you won’t see it working.

The input panel includes two HDMI 2.0 ports and a DisplayPort version 1.2 (for help picking one, check out our HDMI vs DisplayPort article). You also get a 3.5mm audio jack for headphones or powered speakers.

OSD Features of BenQ Mobiuz EX2510

The on-screen display (OSD) appears when you press the joystick button and scroll down to the menu option. You can configure the quick menu to the user to allow easy access to commonly used options like brightness or picture mode.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

The EX2510 includes three HDR and seven SDR presets. Standard is the default and most accurate choice with good out-of-box color and access to all picture options, like gamma and color temp. Other features include Light Tuner, which changes highlight and shadow detail levels. You can also access a low blue light mode from the Eye Care menu, along with the aforementioned BI+ feature, which engages the light sensor to change brightness and color temp automatically for different ambient lighting conditions.

There are five gamma options and three preset color temps, plus a very precise user mode, which we used to calibrate the EX2510 to a high standard. Also here is AMA, BenQ’s term for overdrive. It worked well on the highest of three settings to curb motion blur without ghosting artifacts. If you want to try the backlight strobe for blur reduction, you’ll have to turn off FreeSync.

For HDR content, the EX2510 will automatically switch to its default HDR mode, which is the best of the three. Cinema and Game turn the color temp quite blue, though the effect varies if you use the BI+ sensor. For testing purposes, we left these automatic enhancements off.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

To engage the bezel’s light sensor, turn it on in the Eye Care menu. It can vary brightness and color temp in the HDRi modes, as well as adjust itself over time to prevent eye fatigue. BenQ also includes red and green filters with 20 steps each to compensate for varying levels of user color blindness.

BenQ Mobiuz EX2510 Calibration Settings

In its Standard picture mode, the EX2510 is very accurate in the sRGB color space with no need for calibration. But a few gains are possible with adjustment of the RGB sliders in the user color temp mode. Gamma is spot-on with no adjustment necessary. Other picture modes are less accurate but may appeal to users playing specific game types. Using the HDRi emulations makes SDR content punchier but at the expense of some clarity in shadow and highlight areas. On page four, we’ll show you its effect with a few measurement charts.

Below are our recommended calibration settings for the BenQ Mobiuz EX2510 and SDR content. They produce perfect gamma with very accurate grayscale and color tracking.

Picture Mode	Standard
Brightness 200 nits	56
Brightness 120 nits	25
Brightness 100 nits	18
Brightness 80 nits	10 (min. 53 nits)
Contrast	50
Gamma	3
Color Temp User	Red 97, Green 99, Blue 100

For HDR, the best picture comes in the default mode.

Gaming and Hands-on with BenQ Mobiuz EX2510

One of the EX2510’s most unique features is its HDRi HDR emulation mode. It’s accessed by a button on the front panel and can give an HDR look to SDR content. HDRi works by manipulating gamma to increase perceived contrast. While not strictly accurate, it may appeal to some.

BenQ simplified the EX2510’s image options by eliminating any sort of dynamic contrast feature and leaving the HDRi modes the task of altering contrast for SDR content. We tested the three HDRi modes — HDR, Game HDRi and Cinema HDRi — with Windows apps and various games. It’s also possible to use the Cinema and Game modes with HDR-encoded content.

In SDR mode, we booted up Tomb Raider, and all three HDRi modes degraded the image to varying degrees. HDR was the least offensive but darkened the picture too much overall. Brighter scenes looked about the same, but dimly lit indoor areas were too hard to make out. Game and Cinema HDRi made the effect worse and created a blue tint over everything. With these observations in mind, we recommend avoiding the HDRi HDR emulations unless the content is predominantly bright, like a sports game or animated movie.

Turning on HDR in the Windows Control Panel had a positive effect. Very few HDR monitors actually look good running things like word processors and spreadsheets, but the EX2510 is an exception. By default, the monitor is set to 100% brightness with HDR content. That isn’t as harsh as you might think, given that it’s peaking at around 450 nits. Small highlights in photos and YouTube videos popped nicely, but the overall picture was very pleasing to look at.

Our only complaint is elevated black levels. Though perceived contrast is very good, dark material looked a bit too gray and washed out. A Harry Potter film, for example, looked murky. You’re better off watching your HDR movies in SDR mode. Since there’s no extended color gamut, you won’t see any difference in saturation between SDR and HDR. But in terms of color overall, the monitor has very accurate color tracking, so we didn’t miss the DCI-P3 color space too much.

With Windows HDR on, we played a few rounds of Call of Duty: WWII. This title makes great use of HDR, which is why we use it for testing. Bright cutscenes looked incredibly lifelike with sharp highlights and loads of detail on the EX2510. Darker areas were a bit gray, but detail was still easy to see.

In all cases, we had no trouble with video processing. You can set overdrive to its highest value without ghosting, and blur was a non-issue. Adaptive-Sync worked perfectly on both AMD and Nvidia platforms (even though it’s not G-Sync-certified) with or without HDR. Frame rates stayed maxed at 144 frames per second (fps) in all the games we played. Input lag was also a non-issue with snappy control response and no stuttering or flicker. At this price, it’s hard to imagine finding superior gaming performance.

BenQ put extra effort into its audio by tuning the built-in speakers with a technology called TreVolo. It’s a digital signal processor (DSP) devoted to tweaking the frequency response and phase of the speakers. There are three sound modes, and though they don’t deliver thumping bass at ear-bleeding levels, they sounded better than the average monitor speakers.

Another bonus feature is in the ability to engage a sensor to alter brightness and color temperature to better suit the room’s lighting. This is also something that will deviate from accepted imaging parameters but won’t degrade the picture.

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KEF unveils Mu3 true wireless headphones with active noise cancelling

(Image credit: KEF)

UK Audio specialist, KEF, has just introduced the Mu3: the company’s first set of true wireless headphones that also boast noise cancelling. They’re designed by Ross Lovegrove – of KEF’s high-end Muon speakers and bijou Bluetooth Muo fame – and engineered by the firm’s Maidstone acoustic team.

2021 sees KEF celebrating its 60th anniversary too, so why not mark it with some new high-spec wireless headphones to rival Apple’s AirPods Pro? The audio performance benefits from KEF’s specially tuned active noise cancellation technology, promising to eliminate external noise without altering the details that bring your music to life.

Each of the Mu3s’ sculptural enclosures contain an 8.2mm full-range dynamic driver and the ergonomic design also promises a comfortable and secure audio experience. The Mu3s are apparently balanced in the ears by smart weighting, which KEF assures us stops them from falling out. They also come with a choice of four subtly different sized ear tips to give the most tailored fit for your ears – ie. the perfect seal for noise isolation and security.

The Mu3 also boasts Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity further enhanced by the introduction of simultaneous transmission, where both earphones receive a signal at the same time (rather than the more common approach where audio is sent to one earpiece and relayed to the other, therefore running the risk of latency) for improved true wireless audio on both Android and iOS devices.

(Image credit: KEF)

KEF promises a simple setup, automatic pairing and an ambient mode too, where at the touch of a button active noise cancellation is disengaged and instead, the audio picked up on the microphones is filtered in, providing the wearer with instant awareness of their surroundings. The IPX5 splash-proof rating actually beats the AirPods Pro’s IPX4 rating for water ingress and the high-capacity, quick-charge batteries boast a full day’s listening (a claimed nine hours of playtime with a further 15 hours in the charging case) even with noise cancellation engaged.

They’ll be available by the end of February, priced at £199 ($230, AU$300) – slap bang in AirPods Pro and Sony WF-1000XM3 territory. Are they set to become the best AirPods alternatives on the block? There’s tough competition at that level, but we’re very interested to find out…

MORE:

Read all our KEF reviews

See our pick of the best wireless noise-cancelling headphones 2021

Touch of insomnia? Peruse the best headphones for sleeping 2021: wired wireless and noise-cancelling

HP’s Spectre x360 14 review: the best 2-in-1 you can buy

HP’s Spectre x360 14 is a luxury worth paying for.

I have used a heck of a lot of laptops in the past year, and some of them are quite nice. MacBooks have nailed the “premium” look and feel for years, and I’ll never waste an opportunity to gush about the build quality of Dell’s XPS line.

But I’ve never touched a consumer laptop as gorgeous as the Spectre x360 14. The new Spectre’s sturdy black body, lustrous accents, and boldly sharp edges would make it a standout among convertible laptops across the board, even if it didn’t have a slew of other excellent qualities — which, from its 3:2 screen and packaged stylus to its stellar performance and battery life, it absolutely does.

With a starting MSRP of $1,299.99 ($1,589.99 as tested) the Spectre x360 is easily my new favorite 2-in-1 laptop. Today’s market is full of capable convertibles that look good, work well, and do certain things really well. But while the Spectre x360 14 isn’t a perfect laptop, it tops the pack in almost every area. It’s a stylish chassis, premium panel options, stylus support, a powerful processor, and fantastic battery in one. It’s proof that you can have it all — for a price.

The HP Spectre line is second to none when it comes to design, and this latest model is no exception. Like its 13-inch predecessor, the Spectre x360 14 is made of CNC-machined aluminum. Also like its siblings, you can get the 14 in “nightfall black,” “Poseidon blue,” or “natural silver.” Take a look at some pictures before selecting your color because they each have pretty different vibes. The nightfall black option has a sophisticated, svelte aesthetic that looks tailor-made for a boardroom. Poseidon blue is friendlier and probably the one I’d go for myself.

The accents, though, are what make the Spectre stand out from the legions of other black laptops out there. Lustrous trim borders the lid, the touchpad, and the deck. The hinges share its color, as does the HP logo on its lid. It’s bold without being obnoxious. The two rear corners are diamond-shaped, and one of them houses a Thunderbolt 4 port on its flat edge. (On the sides live an audio jack, a USB-A, a microSD slot, and an additional Thunderbolt 4, which is a decent selection — gone is the trapdoor that covered the USB-A port on the 13-inch model.) And the edges are all beveled, making the notebook appear thinner than it actually is (it’s 0.67 inches thick). Careful craftsmanship is evident here — I’m not exaggerating when I say this Spectre feels like artwork.

Take it in.

And, as the “x360” moniker implies, the Spectre is a 2-in-1. At 2.95 pounds, it’s a bit heavy to use as a tablet for long periods, but it’s smooth and easy to fold and the hinges are quite sturdy. Unlike with many convertibles, there’s barely any wobble when you use the touchscreen. The display is also stylus-compatible; the Spectre ships with HP’s MPP2.0 pen, which attaches magnetically to the side of the chassis.

Despite its design similarities, this Spectre looks noticeably different from its ancestors, and that’s because of the screen. The new model has a 3:2 display, which is 13 percent taller than the 16:9 panel on last year’s device. (It’s kept the same 90 percent screen-to-body ratio.)

Microsoft’s Surface devices have been using the 3:2 aspect ratio for years, and I’m glad that the Spectre line is finally making the switch. If you’re used to using a 16:9 display (which many modern Windows laptops have) and you give a 3:2 a shot, you’ll see what I mean. You have significantly more vertical space, which means less scrolling up and down and less zooming out to fit everything you want to see. It makes multitasking significantly easier without adding much size to the chassis.

This 3:2 panel can come in a few different forms. My test unit has an FHD option that HP says should reach 400 nits of brightness. I measured it multiple times, but it only reached 285 in my testing — which is dimmer than I’d hope to see from a device at this price point. I’ve reached out to HP to see what’s up and will update this review if it turns out to be a bug. (Of course, 285 nits is still more than enough for indoor office work.)

The OLED panel is certified for “low blue light.”

In addition to the FHD display, you can opt for a 3000 x 2000 OLED panel (HP didn’t provide a brightness estimate for this one; LaptopMag measured it at 339 nits) or a 1,000-nit option with HP’s Sure View Reflect technology, which makes the screen difficult to read from the sides. This will mostly be a benefit for business users.

In terms of other specs, the base model pairs the 400-nit screen with a Core i5-1135G7, 8GB of memory, and 256GB of storage (plus 16GB of Intel Optane). Then, there are a few upgrades you can go for. My test unit, priced at $1,589.99, keeps the base model’s screen but has a heftier processor (the quad-core Core i7-1165G7) and double its RAM and storage. I think this model is a good option for most people — it gets you a top processor and a good amount of storage without too stratospheric of a price tag. If you want to get fancier, you can get the OLED screen and 1TB of storage (plus 32GB of Intel Optane) for $1,699, or the Sure View screen and 2TB of storage for $1,959.99.

Of course, laptops aren’t just for looking at, but you’re not compromising on performance to get this build quality. The Spectre is verified through Intel’s Evo platform, which means that it offers a number of Intel-selected benefits including Thunderbolt 4, Wi-Fi 6, all-day battery life, quick boot time, fast charging, and reliable performance. In my testing, it more than surpassed those standards.

The system handled my heavy workload of Chrome tabs, downloads, and streams speedily with no issues. Battery life was excellent; I averaged 10 hours of continuous use with the screen around 200 nits of brightness. That means if your daily tasks are similar to mine, the Spectre should make it through your workday with no problem. (You’ll likely get less if you opt for the OLED panel.) The processor also includes Intel’s Iris Xe integrated graphics. While you wouldn’t want to use those for serious gaming, they’re capable of running lighter fare.

Elsewhere, I have almost no complaints. The backlit keyboard is snappy with a solid click — it’s easily one of my favorites. The speakers sound good, with very audible bass and percussion. There’s a fingerprint sensor to the left of the arrow keys and a Windows Hello camera, neither of which gave me any trouble.

Apart from the dimness, there are only two things about this laptop that I’m not in love with. They’re both minor; the fact that I’m even mentioning either of them in this review is a testament to how excellent this device is.

The first is the touchpad. It’s quite smooth and roomy (16.6 percent larger than that of last year’s Spectre x360 13) and handles scrolling and gestures just fine. But it’s noticeably stiffer than some of the best touchpads on the market. The press required to physically click is firm enough that I ended up doing it with my thumb most of the time. On the likes of the Dell XPS 13 and the MacBook, clicking with a finger is much less of a chore. When I first clicked with the integrated buttons, I also had to overcome some initial resistance to hit the actuation point (put plainly, every click felt like two clicks). This issue resolved itself during my second day of testing, but it’s still a hiccup I generally only see with cheaper items.

My complaints are minor — this is almost perfect.

Secondly, bloatware. There are a number of junk programs preloaded onto the Spectre and several pinned to the taskbar. Dropbox, ExpressVPN, McAfee, and Netflix are all on here, and I got all kinds of notifications from them. This is an oddity at this price point, and seeing cheap McAfee alerts popping up on the Spectre is like seeing really ugly bumper stickers on a Ferrari. This software doesn’t take too long to uninstall, but I’m disappointed to see it nonetheless.

But those are really the only two complaints I have, and neither of them should stop you from buying this laptop. It’s beautiful to look at and a dream to use. I found myself using it in my free time instead of my personal device (which almost never happens with review units — I really like my products).

When we’re evaluating a convertible laptop at the Spectre’s price point, the big question is how it compares to the gold standard of Windows convertibles, the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1. The XPS has a few advantages: it’s a bit thinner and lighter, its touchpad is less stiff, and it has a more modest look that some users might prefer.

But for me, the ball game is close but clear. The Spectre x360’s meticulous craftsmanship, classy aesthetic, and 3:2 screen put it over the top. It also edges out the XPS in a few key areas: the keyboard is more comfortable, the battery life is better, and Dell’s closest-priced configuration to this unit only has half its storage. The Spectre’s smaller amenities that the XPS lacks — like the bundled stylus, the USB-A port, the blue color, and the OLED option — are icing on the cake.

If you’re looking for a premium Windows convertible with a classy aesthetic, that makes the Spectre a no-brainer purchase. This is HP at its best; it’s a luxury laptop in pretty much every area. I can’t imagine that it won’t be the next laptop I buy.

Photography by Monica Chin / The Verge

Bang & Olufsen wants its new Beosound Level to outlast your average connected speaker

Bang & Olufsen’s Beosound Level is the Danish brand’s latest battery-powered connected speaker. It supports voice controls via Google Assistant, Bluetooth, and you can also stream to it via the AirPlay 2, Chromecast, and Spotify Connect standards. B&O says the Beosound Level uses a modular construction that it claims will make it usable far into the future. It’s a welcome feature, considering the speaker’s high $1,499 (£1,099) starting price.

While many stereos and amplifiers from the middle of the last century can still be used today, the average lifespan of modern integrated audio systems is far shorter. If your music system contains a computer, then it’s inevitable that it’ll eventually become outdated. B&O’s hope is that the modular design it’s using for the Beosound Level will help the company keep it supported for longer, as well as making it easier to repair when components fail.

Central to this modularity is the Beosound Level’s streaming module, which houses the speaker’s digital signal processing (DSP) chip, wireless connectivity tech, and antenna array. It’s B&O’s first speaker to use it, but the company says it won’t be the last; it’ll be standardized across its future lineup of home speakers. B&O says there’s enough processing headroom in the hardware that ships with the Beosound Level that it should be able to handle updates in the immediate future. But when the hardware reaches its limit, the company plans to offer an upgrade service for users who are prepared to send their device in to the company to have the streaming module replaced.

The Beosound Level’s battery is also modular, and unlike the streaming module, it’s user-replaceable. However, its form factor won’t be standardized across B&O’s speaker lineup, so replacing it will require a battery made specifically for the Beosound Level. Battery life is rated at up to 16 hours with volumes at moderate levels, dropping to four hours at max volume.

Other features include a built-in accelerometer that allows the Beosound Level to adjust its sound depending on whether it’s standing vertically, horizontally, or hanging on a wall. (A wall bracket is available separately for $119, or £89.) Internally, the speaker has five drivers: two 4-inch woofers, one 2-inch full-range driver, and two 0.8-inch tweeters.

Charging is either handled via a USB-C port on the speaker itself or by attaching a small magnetic plug (which is powered over USB). The speaker has an IP54 rating for dust and water resistance, touch controls, and it’s available with wood or fabric finishes.

We’ve seen companies try to take modular approaches with their devices before, but success has been elusive so far. Modular smartphones have never really gotten off the ground, and Alienware’s promises about a modular future-proof laptop fell apart after just one year. Bang & Olufsen tells me it hopes to support the Beosound Level for years after it eventually stops producing the speaker, so it might be some time before we see if it’s able to deliver on its goal.

The Beosound Level is available starting today.

33 Spotify tips, tricks and features

(Image credit: Spotify)

As of February 2021, Spotify boasts 155 million Premium subscribers and 345 million monthly active users. The platform has long been the world’s most popular music streaming service, and with good cause – it got in on the ground floor and its simple interface and vast library make it a compelling choice even in the face of stiff competition from Apple Music, Tidal, Deezer, YouTube Music, Amazon Music Unlimited and others.

But are you getting the most from your Spotify membership?

We’ve compiled a list of our favourite Spotify features, tips and tricks to help you get the most out of the service – from mastering offline listening to getting the best possible sound quality, sharing your music to filtering your recommendations. Some of these are only for Spotify Premium subscribers only though, so if you want the full experience, you’ll have to cough up the £9.99 per month…

Spotify Connect: what is it? How can you get it?
Tidal vs Spotify: which is better?

Set up

1. Get the best sound quality

First things first: head to the settings menu (below your account name, top right, and although it’s set to ‘automatic’ by default, you can change the music quality – choose Low (24kbps), Medium (96 kbps), High (160 kbps) or Very High (320 kbps). Admittedly, these aren’t going to sound as sweet as lossless Tidal Master or Qobuz files, and taking the Very High path might take up more of your data allowance to stream. But that’s a small price to pay for better listening.

2. Save music for offline listening

Spotify Premium users can download tracks to listen to offline. Not only does this save you valuable data, it also means you can listen where you don’t have mobile reception. Win-win. Save your playlists in the best possible quality, naturally. Hit the three dots then select ‘download’ on Android, or select the playlist then hit ‘download’ at the top on Apple.

3. Create a new playlist

To create a new playlist, head into the playlist category in ‘Your Library’. At the top you’ll find an music icon with a plus sign on it (Android), or tap ‘Edit’ and then ‘Create’ (iOS) start your brand new playlist. On the desktop app, you’ll see a plus-sign and ‘New Playlist in the bottom-left, underneath any playlists you’ve already created.

4. Transfer your music from other apps

You can transfer your existing playlists on other music services to Spotify. The Soundiiz website is a great way to get it done and supports all the services you’d expect.

Interface

5. See your stats

Click on your profile icon in the top left to see who’s following you and who you’re following. It will also show your most recently listened-to artists and public playlists.

6. Sort your now-playing queue

Cue tracks in Spotify by selecting ‘add to queue’ from the three dots next to the track title. On iOS? You can also swipe right on a track to add it to your now-playing playlist.

7. Search for your favourite tunes

Want to find a track from your own library? On mobile, pull down on the screen when you’re in any of the sub-categories (albums, playlists, artists) in the ‘Your Library’ tab to reveal a search bar at the top, complete with filter options. This searches your own saved tracks rather than the whole of Spotify (which is done via the main ‘Search’ icon at the bottom).

8. Listen using the web interface

Not allowed to install software on your work computer? No problem. Head to play.spotify.com and you can listen without installing the Spotify desktop app (or relying on your phone). Take that, overzealous IT department.

9. Master keyboard shortcuts

Did you know you can control Spotify using just your keyboard? The Space bar is play/pause, next track is Control-Right (Control-Command-Right on a Mac), back is Control-Left (Control-Command-Left on a Mac), Volume is Control-Up or -Down (Command-Up or -Down on a Mac) and to create a new playlist press Control-N. And that’s just scratching the surface.

Check out the full list here.

Organising your music

10. Build your own library

There are a couple of ways to build your music library. Adding your favourite tracks to playlists is one way, saving music to your own library is another. Add tracks, albums, artists radio stations, podcasts and playlists by hitting the plus/save sign (either next to the song in the desktop app, or by tapping the three dots on mobile), then access your music via ‘Your Library’.

11. Add music that isn’t on Spotify

Missing out on those artists that are absent from Spotify? Add them yourself. Go to Spotify’s ‘Preferences’ on the desktop app, scroll down and click ‘Add a Source’, then select a folder containing your own music files. You can then see them in your Spotify library – they’ll be under ‘Local Files’ in the left sidebar.

12. Recover a deleted playlist

Spotify’s Account website can help restore playlists that you’ve deleted. Log in, go to ‘Account Settings’, and select ‘Recover Playlists’. Hey presto.

13. Find clean and explicit versions of songs

If you think a lyric sounds unlike the witty line you remember, chances are an expletive was swapped out in favour of a less explicit word. Spotify can help you track down the original. Scroll down and select the pull-down menu on the right-hand side. If it says ‘1 More Release’, that could well be the explicit version.

Music curation

14. Follow some friends

Is your pal always first with the best new music? You can piggyback off their hard work by following them on Spotify. This way you’ll be able to see what they’re listening to, and pass those killer tracks off as your own discoveries. (We suppose they are, in a way.) Select ‘Find Friends’ to locate them, and instantly expand your listening.

15. Share music with friends using Spotify Codes

Spotify Codes is another way to share music. Scan a code on your friend’s phone to download a tune, or import a code posted by an artist to hear their latest single. You can also scan a code from a poster, flyer or billboard. Tap the ‘…’ context menu next to a song, and you’ll see a Spotify Code appear at the bottom of the album artwork. Use the ‘Camera’ icon to scan it, or tap the Code-enhanced artwork and save it to ‘Camera Roll’ for uploading to a social network.

16. Make a collaborative playlist

Maybe you’re putting together a set list for a friend’s wedding or a party. Start a collaborative playlist and everyone can chuck in their tuppence-worth, no matter how misguided. Right-click on the playlist name, and it’ll give you the option of making it collaborative. Then grant friends access to it, and brace yourself for some terrible choices. Alternatively, you can make a playlist secret, too.

17. Let the Radio option open your ears to similar artists

Stuck for what to listen to? ‘Radio’ can help. On desktop, select it from the left-hand pane, then choose ‘Create new station’ and pick an artist, album or playlist you like. Radio will then serve up a selection of artists/songs similar to your choice, that you’ll (hopefully) like. On mobile? Hit the three dots top right when on an artist, album or song and then select ‘Go to Radio’.

18. Filter out the chaff

Yes, of course you want to listen to James Brown. No, you don’t want anything from his Lost ’80s years. Thankfully you can filter out the wilderness era. Type the artist name in the search bar followed by the years that you want to hear (with no spaces). For example “James Brown year:1970-77”.

19. Sort out your search

Use the word “Not” after your search term to omit artists you don’t want, and the “+” symbol or “And” to include those you do.

20. Listen to Spotify’s Weekly Discover Playlist

This is a playlist of 30 tracks Spotify compiles based on your listening habits. It tends to be scarily good. It updates every Monday and sits in the ‘Made For You’ section (or in Browse – Discover, or you could simply type ‘Discover Weekly’ into the search bar). There’s also the Release Radar playlist that updates every Friday with brand new music releases.

21. Listen to your Daily Mixes

Too impatient to wait a whole week? Spotify now offers six Daily Mix playlists that are tailored to users’ listening habits.

22. Check out the What Hi-Fi? playlist

And we have to mention our own playlist… Each month, we update our Spotify playlist so you can see what we’ve been listening to over the past four weeks. It’s a great mix of tunes we use to test our review kit, as well as a few personal favourites from the team. You know it makes sense.

Connecting other devices

23. Listen through your home cinema speakers

Using the Google Chromecast streaming dongle, you can play Spotify through the speakers attached to your TV. Just select ‘Chromecast’ from the ‘Devices Available’ section of the Spotify app and get playing.

24. Control it with your voice

Good news. The Amazon Echo and Echo Dot speakers play nice with Spotify. Just connect your Spotify account in the Alexa app, and then start barking commands like “Alexa, play me some Bowie on Spotify!” and the Echo will do as it’s told. You’ll be grooving to Let’s Dance in no time. If you set Spotify as your preferred streaming service, you won’t even need to request Spotify by name, either. Apple users can control music playback by asking Siri, too.

25. Send music to your speakers with Spotify Connect

Premium subscribers can use their phone as a remote control and play music on connected Spotify Connect speakers, such as Sonos – although certain devices (the PlayStation 4, for example) are happy to work with Spotify Free. Play a song on your phone and make it fullscreen. Select the ‘speaker’ icon at the bottom of the screen, then select your speakers. Instant house party.

26. Listen in your Uber

Connect your Spotify account in the Uber app and you can then take control of your car’s stereo (assuming your driver has allowed it). They’ll love your choice of music, we’re sure…

More features

(Image credit: Spotify)

27. Share songs instantly with anyone

Heard a song you just have to send to a friend? Tap the three dots, then ‘Share’, then send it on to the social media platform (Facebook, Instagram Stories, Skype even), your WhatsApp groups, or simply copy the song link.

28. Preview music on iOS

Tap and hold the title of a track, album or playlist, and you’ll get a preview. On a playlist or album you’ll see the first five tracks – slide over each piece of cover art and you can preview each song.

29. Use private listening to hide your guilty pleasures

Not everyone needs to know about your love of Wang Chung. If you want to keep your listening private, click ‘Settings’ (top right), then ‘Private Session’ on Android or ‘Settings’ then ‘Social’ then ‘Private Session’ on iOS. That way, friends won’t know you’ve spent all morning blissing out to big-haired saxophone-heavy ’80s cheese.

30. Make a playlist tailored to your running speed

Spotify can also pick tracks that are close to the same tempo as your running speed. Start running, pick a running playlist from the ‘Browse’ screen, and Spotify will use your phone’s sensors to select songs to suit your stride. See it in action here.

31. Link to a specific part of a track

If there’s a great solo you want to alert someone to, you don’t have to tell them to skip to 2:53 in the track. Just send them a link and they’ll jump right in at the relevant part. On desktop, copy the track’s URI (uniform resource identifier) by right-clicking the track and selecting ‘Copy Spotify URI’. Then paste it into an email or text message, and add ‘#time2:53’ to the end. When the respondent clicks it, they’ll be transported to exactly the part you were talking about. Magic.

32. Find out about live gigs

OK, large gatherings aren’t the thing right now, but looking ahead: Spotify can help you see your favourite act in the flesh. To see when an act might be playing near you, click ‘Browse’ on your desktop app, then ‘Concerts’ to see which acts you’ve listened to are playing nearby. Going to be out of town? Just change your location to see what’s happening near you.

33. Listen to podcasts

Did you know you can listen to your favourite podcasts on Spotify? Well, now you do. Head to ‘Browse’ and then ‘Podcasts’ (on desktop) to follow your faves, and go to the Podcasts section in ‘Your Library’ to find all your saved podcasts.

Best music streaming services 2021: free streams to hi-res audio
11 of the best Spotify playlists to listen to right now
25 of the best podcasts on Spotify
Listen to the What Hi-Fi? playlist

Primephonic enriches its classical music streaming with Maestro listening guides

(Image credit: Primephonic)

Classical music streaming service Primephonic has just announced the launch of Maestro, an in-app listening guide offering detailed, step-by-step “walkthroughs” of classic works.

With Maestro, you can listen to classical music alongside a written description of the musical passage and the instruments, as and when they are heard.

The Dutch American classical music specialist added the dedicated music streaming string to its bow in 2017 and it now boasts over 3.5 million classical tracks from 170,000 artists across almost 230,000 albums and 2400 labels. As such, it’s considered the world’s largest specialist library of classical music – and Primephonic says that no other streaming service offers a feature similar to Maestro.

Furthermore, the firm’s smart search is built from the ground up and uses eight parameters to organise its music (instead of three which, according to Primephonic, is the format used by some streaming sites), where each piece of metadata is entered manually by one of Primephonic’s team of classical music fanatics.

Speaking of the new streaming service enhancement, Primephonic’s CEO, Thomas Steffens, said, “We are so pleased to introduce Maestro. Much like our digital CD booklets, an easily digestible listening guide like Maestro is a must-have for classical music enthusiasts. Our subscribers are passionate about the genre and, therefore, want to absorb as much information about the works as possible.”

Interested? You can activate a 14-day free trial at Primephonic or take out a full subscription for £9.99 (Premium) or £14.99 (Platinum) a month.

MORE:

Read our best music streaming services 2021: free streams to hi-res audio

Trying to decide? Tidal vs Spotify: which is better?

Check out 8 of the best classical music tracks for testing speakers

Ruark R3

Our Verdict

While we thought its radio sources need a little tonal attention, the highlights here are playback from CD, from streaming music services and Bluetooth.

For

Compact music system
Endless paths to music
CD and streaming

Against

Edgy sound on radio sources
Variable results for ‘3D audio’

Sound+Image mag review

(Image credit: Future)

This review originally appeared in Sound+Image magazine, one of What Hi-Fi?’s Australian sister publications. Click here for more information on Sound+Image, including digital editions and details on how you can subscribe.

We don’t recall a product ever ‘coming good’ during a review to the quite same extent as did the Ruark R3 Compact Music System. It positively alarmed us when we first turned it on. But by the end of our time with this streaming tabletop music system we were using it daily for pleasure as much as for assessment. Join us in our journey with this timeless design from a UK company which has made this genre of smart radiogram-like music system something of a specialty.

Build & facilities

The R3 is a table-top audio system (£629, $790, AU$1299) which stands some 42cm across and 17cm high, bringing together CD replay, reception of DAB+, FM and internet radio, streaming via network and Bluetooth (with aptX), Spotify Connect, Tidal and other music services… pretty much everything, in short, that the modern music world has to offer.

You can plug in additional sources – there’s one optical and one analogue input, also a minijack headphone output and a ‘line out’ at full level, so you could run the whole gamut of sources into a hi-fi amp or a recorder.

Ruark’s great skill is in offering this potentially overwhelming profusion of sources in a friendly box – old-style, you might even call it, with its grey cloth grille and walnut casing, though a more modern-looking soft-grey lacquer finish is also available.

On top is the company’s longstanding Rotodial for control, while a small infrared remote is also included, along with app control from a smart device. And if it’s going bedside, you can avail yourself of the useful alarm clocks, snooze and sleep timer functions.

Ruark’s other skill is sound quality. This is a company we can still remember of old as Ruark Acoustics, making fine British loudspeakers with thrusting names like Sabre and Swordsman through the 1980s and 1990s. Then in the 2000s when digital radio was trending, Ruark developed the little R1, which the UK’s Sunday Telegraph hailed as “the Aston Martin of DAB radios”.

Such was the R1’s success that traditional loudspeakers fell by the wayside (though “never say never”, says owner Alan O’Rourke), and the reinvented Ruark Audio now has a range of radio and streaming solutions, from the latest Mk4 version of the R1 ‘deluxe’ up to a large four-legged radiogram of the future, the highly desirable R7 Mk3.

So Ruark has a heritage of hi-fi sound, and we’ve enjoyed many of its players in the past, so were looking forward to this new R3.

(Image credit: Ruark Audio)

Setting up

We had no problems setting up the R3; we gave it Ethernet and attached the antenna required for radio reception; this may confuse newbies by flopping around loosely, but we knew from previous Ruark visits that there’s a special aerial spanner in the packaging for this very purpose!

We began our listening by sampling its skills with radio. We selected digital radio and, being fresh from the box, the R3 scanned Sydney’s airwaves and found some 70 available DAB+ stations all awaiting selection via a shuttle of the R3’s top Rotodial. And all were sounding pretty unpleasant – very spitty in the treble, artificial-sounding, with voices thin in their midrange content, and music lumpy in the bass.

We changed to internet radio – it was no better, indeed slightly worse on low-resolution stations. We were worried by this, to be honest: it was not the sound we expect from Ruark devices, which normally present a warm friendly radio sound.

We hastened to the tone controls through the menus. There are four elements to the tone controls: bass and treble adjustment, a loudness option which was ‘on’ by default, and – ah! – a ‘3D’ option. This 3D option was also on by default. Switching it off went a long way to removing the artificial spittiness from the radio sources.

We further tamed the treble by a few notches, left the loudness on, and kept the bass in its central position. This brought the radio sections back to what we’d expect from Ruark – full and friendly, just a teeny bit fizzy up top but no longer distractingly so.

The remote control has three large preset buttons, which are available separately for each source, so three for FM, three for DAB+, three for internet radio. You store them by simply pressing and holding the button when listening to a station.

But in fact there are 10 presets for each type of radio; you can access the rest by pressing and holding the ‘preset’ button then pressing the left-right buttons to reach presets 4 to 10. Recall them the same way, without the holding. It’s easy, versatile, and very useful.

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App control

For those with less than 20/20 vision who can’t read the small lettering on the front display across the room for source selection (let alone the tinier menu options), there’s a handy free app available for control. This is Undok, the control app from Frontier Silicon, maker of the smart module within the R3.

We’ve long enjoyed Undok, and are pleased to see it back after an unexplained hiatus. Undok controlled the R3 effectively, though not entirely. For example, there’s access to bass, treble and loudness, but not the all-important ‘3D’ option, for which you’ll need to use the remote and/or Rotodial to switch on or off.

App quirk two: we tried to rename the R3, but it refused to change to ‘Ruark R3’… yet when we jokingly tried ‘Simon’, that was OK. Turns out that you can only pick a one-word name, e.g. Ruark.

App quirk three: the bass slider in the app was glitchy, advancing a few notches, then jumping back again, up then back – very odd.

But otherwise the app is very useful for local control, for switching sources, for saving presets. One tip for internet radio: if there’s a station you can’t find (our local community station, for example, was not listed), you can head to Frontier Silicon’s site https://smartradio.frontier-nuvola.net, set up an account, link your R3, ‘manage favourites’, and enter the URL manually. The station then appears under ‘My Favourites’. Nice flexibility!

Best Bluetooth speakers 2021: portable speakers for every budget

(Image credit: Ruark Audio)

Streaming

Ruark R3 specs

(Image credit: Ruark Audio)

Drivers: 2 x 75mm NS+ full-range

Quoted power: 30W Class-AB

Inputs: RCA analogue, optical digital, USB-C, FM, DAB+ radio, Bluetooth (SBC, AAC, aptX), Wi-Fi/Ethernet, internet radio, Spotify Connect, Tidal, Deezer, Amazon Music, DLNA/UPnP

Outputs: line out, headphone minijack out

Dimensions: 420 x 220 x 167mm

Weight: 5.3kg

Radio listening completed, we switched to music streaming. For Spotify you use the Spotify app and point it at the Ruark for playback – we were pleased to find this works with free Spotify as well as paid (which isn’t the case for many streaming platforms and products).

And it was immediately evident that for all the other inputs – music services, CD, Bluetooth streaming – the R3’s sound balance was completely different. Gone was all the spittiness, gone the bass lumpiness. So we headed back to the tone controls, put the treble and bass back to zero, left the loudness on – and turned the 3D sound on.

And with these sources you should definitely try the 3D sound option. It gives the sound a real lift, a widening, an additional enjoyability, though it still occasionally has deleterious effects on certain tracks. We played Paul Simon’s You Can Call Me Al from Spotify Free and all was good.

But on the next track, Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard, the janglier right-channel guitars became nastily edgy and artificial until we turned ‘3D’ off again. We tried the same track from our own CD-quality collection sent by Bluetooth (which supports both AAC and aptX), and this softened the edginess somewhat, but it still sounded better with 3D off.

The more we played, the more songs reacted badly to the 3D setting, and we ended up keeping it off, with one notch down also on the treble slider to prevent residual fizziness in the treble.

So for best sonic results, adjust the tone options whenever you switch from file-based playback to radio, and vice versa – especially disabling the 3D sound for radio sources. It’s a shame the R3 can’t remember your tone preferences for each source (as it can for input levels, which are trimmable for each analogue and digital input), and we’d go so far as to suggest Ruark should simply disable 3D sound entirely for FM, DAB and internet radio sources, as its effects there are particularly nasty. Better still, a big ‘3D Sound’ button on the remote control would allow easily toggling of this sound mode, as on, say, a soundbar.

But if you’re happy to pop over to the R3 and switch this manually each time, you can enjoy the best which the R3 has to offer, which is considerable. It’s a delightful CD player, for example, those full-quality files filling the room with well-balanced sound. And the louder you play, the happier the R3 seems to be; the bass available from the two 75mm drivers is remarkable as you raise the level; its response begins in the 40s of hertz and rises impressively smoothly.

Soft recordings get a boost from the treble lift of the sonics here; Paul McCartney’s My Valentine has rarely sounded so well-defined. And as with all Ruark units we’ve tested, the R3 is adept with classical music, and we blasted forth the London Musici’s 1991 Conifer/Technics recording of Prokofiev’s ‘Classical’ symphony to confirm the R3’s adherence to this track record, pushing up the bass a tad to underpin this dynamic piece.

The R3 proved equally enjoyable from streaming music services. From Apple Music we streamed Neil Finn’s 2010 solo concert at Sydney’s intimate Seymour Centre, and the Ruark did a lovely job of presenting Finn’s voice and the decay of both artificial and venue reverb as he switched from guitar to piano, serving the latter with both percussive attack and pianissimo softness, as required.

There is a ‘Music Player’ option which you can use to play either from USB or from music shares on the network, although unfortunately the R3 couldn’t see our NAS drive of music (only our PVR, from which it bravely offered to play episodes of Home and Away etc., but of course couldn’t). From USB it was able to play MP3, AAC, WMA, WAV and FLAC, the last two up to 24-bit/48kHz, so no support for higher-res PCM or DSD.

Note that Ruark has chosen to include not a standard USB-A slot but rather a USB-C 5V charging connection, very up-to-date of it, except that you can’t plug in normal USB sticks and drives. USB-C sticks are widely available, so that’s what we used. Adapters are also available, though when we tried one, the R3 announced that ‘USB hubs are not supported’. Sticks must also be formatted in FAT-32 format.

(Image credit: Ruark Audio)

Verdict

So quite the journey we enjoyed with this versatile music system. While we thought its radio sources need a little tonal attention, its highlights are playback from CD, from streaming music services and Bluetooth, and overall it’s an impressively easy-to-use and attractive table-top unit which accesses pretty much every kind of music under the sun, delivered effectively under local, remote or app control.

Best AirPlay speakers 2021: wireless streaming for Apple devices

Our Verdict

Epson’s EH-LS300 UST projector is practical for everyday use, with some limitations, as well as for truly immersive bigscreen movie nights.

For

Powerful bright image
Free-to-air TV catch-up services
Convenient way to get a really large picture

Against

No Netflix or Prime support
No Ethernet
1080i/50 and 576i/50 issues

Sound+Image mag review

(Image credit: Future)

This review originally appeared in Sound+Image magazine, one of What Hi-Fi?’s Australian sister publications. Click here for more information on Sound+Image, including digital editions and details on how you can subscribe.

Ultra-short-throw projectors are going great guns. Even mainstream companies not previously or not recently involved in projection (LG, Samsung, Hisense) have realised that a projector sitting on a bench can deliver a large-screen ‘TV-like’ experience with a convenience that a conventional projector cannot when it has to be pushed back in the room or hung on a ceiling.

As a consequence the ultra-short-throw is rapidly evolving. Since it’s going to work like a TV, shouldn’t it have speakers? Shouldn’t it be smart, like a TV? Yes it should. So here comes Epson, a company which declares itself the world no.1 in projection (on the reasonable basis it has been declared so by Futuresource Consulting for the last 17 consecutive years), with models for just this space. The ‘4K Pro UHD’ EH-LS500 arrived first, and now this EH-LS300, which offers Full-HD resolution of 1920 x 1080. With such underlying expertise, but a lower resolution, does it deliver the promised new age of UST?

Build

Ultra-short-throw projectors use a combination of lenses and mirrors to cast the picture up onto a screen almost immediately above them. The Epson EpiqVision EH-LS300B is a fairly compact specimen at 467mm wide and 400mm deep. Inside there are three 15.5mm LCD projector panels using Epson’s C2 Fine technology, and a laser diode. That kind of light engine works by firing the laser into some phosphor, which then produces a bright white light.

The use of this kind of light engine means several good things. Firstly, long life. The projector is rated at 20,000 hours of lamp life. Secondly, the projector turns on fast – 5.5 seconds when in standby, according to our stopwatch, or 6.5 seconds if it has been disconnected from power. It goes off fast as well.

And the lamp can be controlled in level to help darken scenes. Epson says that the dynamic contrast ratio is as much as 2.5 million-to-1 (on the datasheet) or 1.5 million-to-1 (in the US manual we found online).

There are two HDMI inputs, a USB socket for playing back video content from a USB stick, and Wi-Fi for the smart TV stuff. Surprisingly, there’s no Ethernet connection – we’d prefer that option rather than having to rely on Wi-Fi in our somewhat RF-congested modern environments. But it is dual-band Wi-Fi – 2.4GHz and 5GHz – supporting the 801.11ac standard, so it may well outperform the usually-installed 100Mbps Ethernet of many devices. (Our 100Mbps test clip was pretty choppy… but we do have an extremely busy Wi-Fi environment.)

Best projectors 2021: Full HD, 4K, portable, short throw

(Image credit: Epson)

Sound

A nice touch: built-in sound that is quite good. As always, we believe that the sound of your system should match the scale of the video. Since the Epson EpiqVision EH-LS300B delivers big vision, a decent external sound system should be in order. But absent that, we were quite impressed with the audio built into the projector. Epson relied on the audio expertise of Yamaha for this: a 2.1-channel forwards-firing audio system with 20W of power, better than any actual TV that we’ve used – and we’ve used plenty. We also checked the Audio Return Channel capability via HDMI to a connected home theatre receiver, and it worked perfectly well.

Setting up

The projector is available on its own at £2500 ($2000, AU$4000). But in Australia you can also get it as a package with an ‘Ambient Light Rejection’ screen in 100 inches (AU$5099 package) or 120 inches (AU$5699). These employ a surface treatment which reduces the reflection of light coming from above or directly in front, increasing their contrast ratio when there’s light in the room. These screens weren’t available to us at the time of review, so we used our regular viewing screen.

Epson EH-LS300 tech specs

(Image credit: Epson)

Projection technology: 3 x 15.5mm C2 Fine LCD panels

Resolution: 1920 x 1080 pixels

Aspect ratio: 16:9

Lamp: Laser diode

Lamp life: 20,000 hours (Normal and Quiet modes)

Brightness: 3600 lumens (both white and colour); 1800 lumens (ECO mode)

Inputs: 2 x HDMI, 1 x USB, Wi-Fi

Outputs: Optical digital audio

Control/other: Mini-USB (Service)

Dimensions (whd): 467 x 133 x 400mm

Weight: 7.2kg

In a couple of ways an ultra-short-throw projector is a little trickier to set up than a regular projector. There is no zoom lens, for example, so the size of the picture is determined entirely by the distance between the projector and the screen – far less than a conventional projector, but still significant for the largest screen sizes. For a 100-inch screen, the distance from the wall to the back of the projector (the side facing the wall) should be 26.6cm. With the largest recommended screen size of 120 inches, the distance is just 38.6cm. The projector itself is getting on for 40cm deep, so its front will end up more than 75cm from the wall – which is a lot of bench depth.

The other slightly tricky thing is that the image is cast at such an extreme angle you have to adjust everything with better-than-millimetre precision. The slightest angle to one side and you have a marked trapezoid of a picture. You really don’t want to be nudging the projector when you’re dusting.

But there is a clever adjustment system for picture geometry. There’s even a dedicated button on the remote. With this you can drag the corners of a box to make sure everything’s square. It’s kind of like a supercharged keystone correction system. But like keystone correction, it’s done digitally, which means that Full-HD input signals are no longer directly mapped onto the display pixels, so detail is lost. So it’s best avoided if you can.Get the physical placement right instead.

Last thing on physical set-up: we found the focus adjust lever quite spongy, so a bit tricky to get the focus exactly right. With perseverance we did succeed. (One of the oddities about this kind of projector: focus adjustment has basically no effect at all at the bottom of the screen, which is always in focus, and a massive effect at the top.)

As for the smart set-up, Android TV has this well under control. You just use the Google Home app on your phone – it works on iPhones as well – which talks you through with very little fuss. We had the unit connected within a couple of minutes.

(Image credit: Epson)

Performance

It turns out that 3600 lumens allows a surprisingly viewable picture even under the full glare of our room’s fluorescent tubes! Not that we did any kind of critical viewing that way, we hasten to add. But we suspect that kids would be perfectly satisfied with afternoon cartoons served this way, especially onto an Epson directional screen. And it’s fine for the news and such. So consider this not just a home cinema device, but a (kind of) everyday TV.

Then, when night fell, we started to use it as a real home cinema projector. And we were impressed. What impressed us? The colour and the black levels. The subjective black levels were entirely satisfying. Which is to say that with all the material we viewed – including HDR content from 4K Blu-ray – the black elements of the picture seemed, well, entirely black. And yes, 4K Blu-ray, because even though the projector delivers 1080p output, it supports Ultra-HD inputs including HDR (and Dolby Vision, which it treats as HDR).

We jammed in as much night-time viewing as we could in the time available, and we must say that we found it entirely satisfying: bold, accurate colours; sharp, detailed image.

The EpiqVision quickly demonstrated that it’s not really one for interlaced video in Australia. With both 576i/50 and 1080i/50, it seemed simply to assume that all such signals were video-sourced. So it applied motion-adaptive deinterlacing, rather than checking to see if a simple weave might be better for any given bit of video. Most of the time you won’t notice this, but occasionally there’ll be some lines or grid in the picture which adversely interact with the processing and develop distracting moire patterns. The solution, as always: use a source with good quality deinterlacing.

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Network streaming

When you first set the Epson up, you’re offered a default bunch of apps, including (in Australia) TV station apps such as iView, SBS On Demand and so on. There’s YouTube, Google play Movies & TV, Disney+ and Stan, Vimeo, Spotify and Tidal and a whole lot more. Even after we’d finished the setting up, it took a little while to download and install them one by one. It was kind of fun watching them pop up in the list of apps as they were loaded. When it had finished, we went to fire up Netflix – one of the paid video services to which we subscribe. We couldn’t find it.

So we figured we’d try Google Assistant to help us find it. A press of the microphone button on the remote and the utterance of the word Netflix, and the projector announced in the familiar Google Assistant voice, ‘Here’s Netflix on the Google play Store’. And there was, indeed, the play Store entry for Netflix. Only problem was, at the bottom of the screen it said, ‘Your device isn’t compatible with this version.’ This was also the case for Amazon’s Prime Video.

We checked the projector’s website and, sure enough, there it was in the fine print: “Not all streaming apps are natively available on the EpiqVision EH-LS300B. An external streaming media device is required to stream some services, including Netflix. Netflix cannot be streamed using Chromecast from Android TV, iOS, Mac or Windows devices.” (We assume by that ‘Android TV’ that Epson actually means Android, as in an Android phone.)

In other words, not only does this projector not support Netflix, apparently you can’t stream Netflix from your phone to the projector via Chromecast. We tried. In fact, we could kind of stream Netflix from our phone, but only in the slowest, choppiest most broken-up way. To compare, we plugged an actual Chromecast with Google TV device into one of the EpiqVision’s HDMI inputs, and found that Netflix would stream fairly smoothly via that route.

YouTube, by contrast, streamed smoothly via either route, as did iView and SBS On Demand and Stan. We did find it quite puzzling why any version of Android TV would not support Netflix and Prime, the second and fourth most popular streaming services (that’s counting YouTube as being number one).

Apparently the projector is also able to support video calls using the Epson Online Meeting app – powered by Zoom. You’ll need to plug a camera and microphone into the USB socket for that.

(Image credit: Epson)

Verdict

Aside from the inability to play Netflix and Prime Video direct, we were impressed. The Epson EpiqVision EH-LS300B delivers a bright and impressive image to a large screen – and we would indeed recommend using a screen such as one of Epson’s, rather than a non-flat non-reflecting bit of wall, because we assure you, walls will never get the image truly flat. Plus the good quality sound and the extremely long-life light source makes this unit practical for everyday use, with some limitations, as well as for truly immersive bigscreen movie nights.

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