Speakers - Page 5 of 58

Deezer

Our Verdict

Its ambition is to be applauded, but Deezer falls between the two stools of Spotify and Tidal and struggles to justify itself over either

For

Vast catalogue and device support
CD-quality HiFi tier
Envelope-pushing 3D audio

Against

No hi-res streaming
Spotify does discovery better
Tidal does hi-fi better

Deezer appears to be stuck with a bit of an identity crisis. When we first reviewed the music streaming service in 2015, it clearly saw itself as a Spotify rival, bringing a vast library of music to a mainstream audience as efficiently as possible.

By the time of our re-review, in early 2018, Deezer had begun courting the hi-fi crowd with a comprehensive catalogue of CD-quality tracks and murmurings of hi-res MQA support to come.

In 2020, with hi-res yet to appear on the platform, Deezer hopped into bed with Sony and started offering 360 Reality Audio streaming to subscribers to its HiFi tier.

And now here we are in 2021 and 16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC files (ie. CD quality) is still the pinnacle of Deezer’s HiFi offering. Yes, it is a solid step up from the 128kbps MP3 files of “standard streaming services”, but those are now few and far between. As both Apple (with Apple Music Lossless) and Spotify (with Spotify HiFi) become well and truly embroiled in a hi-res music war and Amazon Music quietly drops its premium tier by £5 per month to just £7.99 if you’re a Prime Member, where does that leave Deezer?

Clearly, the French streaming service is trying its best to find a USP, and that’s to be applauded, but the result is that it falls short of matching Spotify’s mainstream appeal and Tidal’s hi-fi credentials.

Features

(Image credit: Apple / Deezer)

While Spotify held on resolutely to its compressed music streams until its 2021 HiFi tier announcement, Deezer has offered ‘CD quality’ tracks in the 16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC format since 2017.

These tracks are available to those who subscribe to the £14.99 ($14.99) per-month HiFi tier – which used to cost £19.99 until roughly a year ago – and while initially you also needed to own one of a handful of specific devices, they can now be enjoyed on almost any device that supports the core Deezer experience. In fact, Deezer now comes pre-loaded in kit such as Mobee-K’s new smart USB-C headphones while Apple’s own HomePod and HomePod Mini support Deezer voice control, and Deezer tracks can be downloaded to enjoy offline on your Apple watch, too.

It once looked likely that Deezer would add hi-res streaming to its repertoire, but the company has since decided to go down the 360 Reality Audio route. Think of this as a Dolby Atmos rival but specifically for streamed music, and you’ve got the idea.

Deezer was the first music streaming service to offer 360 Reality Audio, but it has since been joined by Tidal, Amazon Music HD and nugs.net (for the uninitiated, that is a streaming service dedicated to live concerts). Back to Deezer and the tracks available in the format are included as part of its HiFi subscription. You will need to download a different app, called 360 by Deezer, if you want to listen to them all, but this extra app also gives access to all of the non-360 tracks of the standard app so you don’t have to constantly switch between the two.

The bad news is that 360 by Deezer is only available on iOS and Android devices. There are eight playlists, including ‘New on 360 by Deezer’ that can be enjoyed on a computer or hi-fi via the desktop app as teasers – but not the full package.

Pricing

(Image credit: Apple / Deezer)

Below Deezer HiFi there are three tiers. Premium (£9.99/$9.99 per month) shares features with HiFi – no ads, unlimited streaming and control on mobile apps, and offline access – but limits sound quality to 320kbps.

Deezer Family (£14.99/$14.99 per month) gets you everything on Premium for up to six profiles. There’s also a free, ad-supported tier with 128kbps streaming and limited mobile app use.

Compatibility

(Image credit: Apple / Deezer)

As well as smartphones and computers, the Deezer app is also available on many other devices: TVs from the likes of Samsung, Sony and LG; wireless speakers by Sonos, Amazon, Bluesound and Bose; and even cars via Android Auto or Apple CarPlay. And that’s far from an exhaustive list.

What’s more, Chromecast and AirPlay allow you to send tunes to yet more devices. Deezer might not quite match Spotify’s ubiquity (it’s missing from Cambridge Audio’s streamers, for example), but it’s close.

Regardless of the device used, subscribers can access a catalogue of over 56 million songs, more than 52 million of which it claims are in the CD-quality FLAC format. It’s an impressive figure, but with all music streaming services making similarly huge claims, the numbers game is rendered a little academic.

What matters is whether the tracks you’re looking for are available and, in our experience, Deezer produces the fewest blanks after Spotify. It’s very rare to find a song in Spotify’s catalogue that isn’t also available in Deezer’s – and usually in that higher-quality format. One nil to Deezer.

We find Deezer stocks pretty much every track of the diverse range we search for, and all in CD quality too. Just be aware that, unlike Apple Music and Tidal, Deezer doesn’t have artist or album window ‘exclusives’, although it does occasionally release its own live sessions with big artists.

Ease of use

(Image credit: Apple / Deezer)

As HiFi subscribers, we mostly use the desktop and iOS mobile apps, and the ability to flick from one to the other is made easy by the fact each platform offers a very similar interface.

Deezer’s appearance is perhaps best described as stripped-back – almost brutally so. The interface is clean and clear, but also a bit bare, particularly on desktop. Music streaming services are generally similar in layout, with a bottom playback bar and a few left-hand side tabs bordering the centralised chunk of content – and Deezer doesn’t stray too far from this template.

Since our last review update, things have been slightly tweaked. ‘Home’ has been replaced by ‘Music’, although it does the same job as before: presenting users with personalised playlists as well as the opportunity to browse music by charts, new releases, popularity and various moods. Radio stations still appear at the bottom of this page, but podcasts now have their own tab.

‘Favorites’ has replaced ‘My music’, but again, the purpose is unchanged: it’s a gateway to your saved playlists and ‘favourite’ tracks, albums and podcasts.

Performance

(Image credit: Apple / Deezer)

We play the What Hi-Fi? January 2021 playlist, and are pleased to hear Deezer HiFi (CD-quality) streams are clear, full-bodied and, perhaps most importantly, an upgrade from the ‘Better’ (320kbps) quality streams. It’s worth noting sound quality can be changed between ‘Standard’ (128kbps), ‘Better’ (320kbps on wi-fi and 128kbps on mobile data), and ‘High Fidelity’ (1411kbps).

The HiFi streams cling more committedly to the textures of the ‘80s-style keys, percussion and synths underpinning Chaka Khan’s Pallion (aka Hot Butterfly), and those of the affected backing track and vocals in Dua Lipa’s Levitating.

However, we find Tidal’s CD-quality streams a little crisper, cleaner and more precise. There’s more fuel driving Tiny Giant’s Draw Me a Line, and greater space around the instrumental and vocal accompaniment. Timing of the drumbeats and underlying cymbal rhythm is noticeably more accurate, too, with Tidal’s version of Donald Fagen’s I.G.Y. springing into life with a touch more bite.

That said, listening through Grado SR325e headphones plugged into a MacBook Air, the differences are admittedly subtle. And it’s only when we up the transparency of our set-up with a Chord Hugo 2 DAC that these discrepancies become really significant, helped by Tidal’s fancy options for taking exclusive control of the DAC and bypassing the MacBook’s audio processing and volume control. Deezer has no such options.

Of course, the ace up Deezer’s sleeve is 360 Reality Audio, which isn’t offered by any other streaming service. 360 Reality Audio offers a 3D sound space by creating multiple virtual speakers and can be listened to via most standard headphones – although the experience has been optimised for Sony’s range.

At its best, it’s really rather impressive, immersing you in the music and surrounding you with spatially distinct instruments in a way not previously experienced. As a technological showcase it’s very effective, and gives you fresh insight into some of your favourite tracks (although the selection is fairly limited at this point).

But whether the 360 version of a track will replace the stereo version in your affections is debatable. For one, even the best tracks sound comparatively lacking in punch and weight when compared to their stereo equivalents, and some other tracks just don’t seem to have made the transition to 3D particularly well, coming across as rather flat and compressed in terms of detail and dynamics.

It’s worth remembering that 360 Reality Audio is still in its infancy and there’s already so much to like. In time it could be absolutely brilliant – it’s just not a hugely persuasive reason to opt for Deezer over Tidal right now.

Verdict

(Image credit: Apple / Deezer)

While we prefer Tidal’s comprehensive layout and slightly superior sound quality, the main chink in Deezer’s armour is its current lack of hi-res audio.

After all, subscribers to Tidal’s HiFi tier get access to over a million (typically 24-bit/96kHz) hi-res Masters in addition to CD-quality streaming – although they have to pay a little more for it at £19.99 ($19.99) per month – and Amazon Music HD delivers hi-res tracks for £7.99 ($7.99) per month for Prime members and £9.99 ($9.99) per month if you don’t have an Amazon Prime account.

Deezer may still have hi-res in its sights, but all has gone quiet on that front since the announcement of its partnership with MQA back in September 2017. And until it comes as part of a competitive package, it doesn’t shine brightly enough to be the leading light in music streaming.

Its core, non-HiFi subscription, meanwhile, falls just a whisker short of Spotify when it comes to ubiquity, discovery and presentation.

But, while Deezer rather falls between the two pillars of Tidal and Spotify right now, the addition of hi-res streams (and some of the hi-fi-focused features of Tidal) could actually one day see it become the best of both worlds.

SCORES

Performance 4
Features 4
Ease of use 4

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HP’s Introduces its First 16.1-inch Omen Laptop, New Victus Brand

HP is revitalizing its Omen gaming notebooks with a new 16.1-inch size, the latest processors and a new sub-brand called Victus. All of the laptops announced today are scheduled to release next month.

The new laptop competing with the 16.1-inch display is the HP Omen 16, which is very close in size to the older 15-inch model, due to thinner bezels on the top and sides.

Competing for a spot on our

Best Gaming Laptop

list, versions of the Omen 16 with Intel processors will start at $1,149.99, while AMD options will begin at $1,049.99. The machine will go up to 115W with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 GPU (HP also mentions “next-gen” AMD graphics). You will be able to configure it with up to a 1TB

PCIe

Gen 4×4

SSD

, Wi-Fi 6E networking options and an 83WHr battery. The 16-inch screen will go up to

1440p

resolution (2560 x 1440) resolution with a 165 Hz refresh rate and 3ms response time.

Specifications

	HP Omen 16	HP Omen 17	HP Victus 16
CPU	Up to Intel Core i7-11800H or AMD Ryzen 7 5800H	Up to Intel Core i9-11900H	Up to Intel Core i7-11800H or AMD Ryzen 7 5800H
GPU	Up to Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070, “next-gen” AMD GPUs	Up to Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080	Up to Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060, AMD Radeon RX 5500M
RAM	Up to 32GB DDR4-3200	Up to 32GB DDR4-3200	Not specified
Storage	Up to 1TB PCIe Gen 4×4 SSD (Intel) / Up to 1TB PCIe Gen 3×4 SSD (AMD)	Up to 1TB PCIe Gen 4×4 SSD	Up to 1TB PCIe Gen 4×4 SSD
Display	16.1-inch, 2560 x 1440	17.3-inch, 2560 x 1440	16-inch, up to 2560 x 1440
Networking	Up to Wi-Fi 6E	Up to Wi-Fi 6E	Not specified
Availability	June 2021	June 2021	June 2021
Starting Price	$1,049.99 (AMD), $1,149.99 (Intel)	$1,369.99	$799.99 (AMD), $849.99 (Intel)

The Omen 17 desktop replacement is also getting a refresh, but only with Intel. It will start at $1,369.99 and be slightly smaller than the previous 17-inch Omen, including 2.9mm thinner and 15% lighter. With an improved cooler at more outlets for air, HP claims the keyboard will be 5 degrees Celsius cooler than the older model.

(Image credit: HP)

The bigger laptop will have a keyboard optical mechanical switches featuring 1.7mm of travel and per-key RGB lighting. There will be a specialized panel to easily access the SSD and RAM for upgrades. HP is offering up to 1TB PCIe Gen 4×4 SSD or 2 1TB PCIe M.2 SSDs in RAID0. The 17-inch screen will go up to QHD with a 165 Hz IPS panel.

Meet Victus

The new Victus brand is meant to put a focus on performance and graphics at a cheaper price. HP has literally sliced part of the logo out of the Omen mark to show its place in the lineup. As of this announcement, there’s just one Victus laptop, the HP Victus 16. It features the “V” logo, has similar design elements, like the screen size marked on the chassis, and comes in mica silver, performance blue or ceramic white.

Like the 16.1-inch Omen, the Victus’ 16-inch screen will fit in a near 14-inch chassis, thanks to thin bezels on three sides. Its V-patterned speakers, turned by B&O, bear a striking resemblance to HP’s Spectre ultraportables.

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(Image credit: HP)

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(Image credit: HP)

Besides offering both Intel and AMD processors, there will also be configurations up to Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3060 graphics or AMD Radeon RX 5500M. The IPS display goes up to 2560 x 1440 and 165 Hz.

It appears that Victus won’t take over the extreme low-end. HP said that Pavilion Gaming isn’t going away, which suggests we’ll still see the Pavilion name on entry-level laptops.

Deezer subscribers can now listen offline through the Apple Watch

(Image credit: Deezer)

You can now download Deezer playlists to your Apple Watch. That means you can leave your iPhone 12 at home while you go for a run without missing out on your favourite tunes.

The new feature comes as part of an update to the Apple Watch app. It lets you download all playlist content to your timepiece – that includes your favourite tracks playlists, editorial playlists, and any personal playlists you have created.

To get your Deezer playlists onto your Apple Watch, you’ll have to use your mobile network or the same wi-fi network as your phone or tablet.

If your phone is nearby, your mobile network will automatically handle the download and transfer the data to your watch via Bluetooth or wi-fi. If it isn’t, or it’s in airplane mode or turned off, your Apple Watch can handle the download itself providing it’s connected to wi-fi, or it has a mobile connection of its own.

According to Deezer, you can store “several gigabytes” of tracks on your Apple Watch, though that will depend on which Apple Watch model you have and how much space it has free.

To use the new feature, you’ll need an Apple Watch Series 3 (or newer) running at least Watch OS6.

The update gives the app a new look and feel. Plus it lets Deezer Free customers listen to tracks, albums, and playlists in shuffle mode and access their Queue list, all from their Apple Watch.

This is a shot across the bow of arch-rival Spotify, which currently doesn’t let you download playlists to the Apple Watch. Earlier this month, Deezer added support for Apple’s Siri voice assistant to the HomePod and HomePod Mini smart speakers.

MORE:

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B&O Beosound Explore wireless speaker is built for the great outdoors

(Image credit: B&O)

With freedom ever-nearing and summer in sight, the arrival of Bang & Olufsen’s new outdoor Bluetooth speaker is a timely one. The B&O Beosound Explore is built to withstand the elements – it’s IP67 waterproof and dustproof (meaning it’s completely dust-tight and can withstand immersion in up to a metre of water for up to 30 minutes) and has a scratch-resistant, twice-anodised aluminium chassis that flies the flag for durability.

It also has an aluminium carabiner to hang it from your rucksack during hikes, along with an integrated strap. And at just 631g, it shouldn’t weigh you down.

Despite all this ruggedness, the Beosound Explore promises to deliver the signature B&O sound through dual 1.8-inch drivers. The grill is cut in 360-degree lines to offer omnidirectional sound, so everyone around the campfire should get a face full of music.

(Image credit: B&O)

Its design is apparently “reminiscent of forests, glaciers and fjords typically found in Scandinavian landscapes”, and the speaker comes in Black Anthracite, Green or Grey Mist finishes. We think it looks rather swish. Handily, its top-mounted controls are also easily usable when wearing gloves.

With up to 27 hours of playing time from a single charge, too, it should last the length of your whole excursion, from the early excitement right through to the “why did I ever agree to this?” stage.

The Black Anthracite and Green finishes are available now, while the Grey Mist model is coming this summer. It costs £169 (€199).

Will it earn a spot in our list of best Bluetooth speakers? Stay tuned to find out…

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Bang and Olufsen’s first Bluetooth 5.2 speaker has 27 hours of battery life

Bang and Olufsen’s latest Bluetooth speaker is the Beosound Explore, a $199 (£169) speaker that’s rated to run for 27 hours “at typical listening volumes” before needing a charge.

That’s an impressive amount of battery life for a small (roughly 5 x 3 x 3 inch) Bluetooth speaker like this. For comparison, JBL’s slightly larger Charge 5 speaker goes for 20 hours, while even the much larger UE Hyperboom tops out at 24 hours.

Bang and Olufsen tells me that the Beosound Explore’s battery life is thanks to a couple of things. It’s one of the first speakers to support the new Bluetooth 5.2 standard, which offers a more power efficient way to receive audio from your devices. This combines with the Explore’s innards, which are tuned with power efficiency in mind. It means the speaker should get a lot of playback out of its modest 2,400 mAh battery.

It comes with a small carabiner for attaching it to a backpack.

Image: Bang and Olufsen

Beyond its battery life, the Beosound Explore offers a more typical range of features for a Bluetooth speaker. It’s IP67 water resistant, so it should survive being briefly submerged, it supports being paired in stereo if you have two Explores, and in supports Apple, Google, and Microsoft’s fast pairing standards. Charging is handled over USB-C and takes around two hours, the company says.

The Beosound Explore is available from today in black and green, with a gray model following this summer.

Google details how interconnected Matter smart home standard will work on Android and Nest

Google is one of the major companies behind the upcoming interconnected cross-platform smart home standard Matter, and today, the company has explained how it’ll work to support Matter with its Android devices and Nest smart home products.

To start, the company is promising that all of its Nest displays and speakers will be updated to enable them to control Matter devices. That means once the update arrives (Google isn’t giving a timeframe yet), you’ll be able to use Google Assistant to control any Matter device, whether it was previously part of Google’s smart home platform or not.

Additionally, newer Google smart home products with Thread built in, like the Nest Wi-Fi, Nest Hub Max, and second-gen Nest Hub, will also serve as Matter connection hubs. That will make it easier to set up and use Matter-branded smart home products throughout your home.

And in what might be the biggest piece of news: Google is promising that it’ll update the latest Nest Thermostat to support Matter, meaning users will be able to — in theory — control their A/C and heat setups with other Matter-certified platforms (like Siri or Alexa, pending Apple and Amazon’s own updates). Disappointingly, Google is only making that promise for the entry-level Nest Thermostat, not the more powerful Nest Learning Thermostat (at least for now).

Google’s support for Matter is also coming to Android phones. The company promises that it’ll add built-in support for Matter, making it easy to set up and control Matter-enabled smart home gadgets through Android apps, Google Assistant, the Google Home app, and more with “just a few taps.”

As part of that support, Thread-enabled Matter devices — like Nanoleaf’s Essentials Bulb — will be supported on Android, which could open up a wave of new smart home devices based on the local connectivity standard to Google (and other smart home platforms). Right now, there are still products like Eve’s HomeKit-exclusive lineup that rely on Thread but can’t be used with Android devices at all. Matter could potentially change that.

If everything works as well as promised (again, there’s plenty of software updates and agreements that will still have to be followed through), Matter could be the magical solution for smart home owners: a set of devices that is easy to set up and use with any (or all) smart home software setups.

In addition to Matter details, Google is also announcing a new Google smart home directory, which will include a list of Assistant-compatible products, Q&As, educational videos, and reviews. Lastly, the company also announced that it will add Nest cameras to its automated routines, allowing owners to automatically toggle on (or off) their cameras when they’re coming and going.

With Apple and Amazon offering lossless streaming for no extra charge, what now for their rivals?

(Image credit: Apple)

When Tidal began offering hi-res audio streaming in 2017, becoming only the second streaming service to do so after Qobuz broke that ground the year before, we didn’t expect hi-res streaming to be a two-player game for quite so long.

Now though, not only have their rivals caught up but they are attempting to leapfrog the established players. And this could change the game significantly.

Higher audio quality, lower subscription prices

Apple Music has just embraced hi-res streaming with open arms – and isn’t asking people to pay a penny more for it. Its all-encompassing individual subscription plan is sticking at £10 ($10, AU$12) per month, significantly cheaper than the monthly hi-res tiers from Tidal (£20, $20, AU$24) and Qobuz (£15, $15, AU$25).

In response to Apple, Amazon has now bundled its Music HD hi-res tier, which arrived in 2019, into its standard plans rather than asking a £5 ($5) premium. That means the monthly subscription has dropped from £13 ($13) to £8 ($8) for Prime customers, and from £15 ($15) to £10 ($10) for everyone else.

Meanwhile, Deezer offers CD-quality for £15 ($15, AU$20) per month, and Spotify plans to begin offering CD-quality – no mention of hi-res so far – later this year for a fee expected to be equal to or perhaps even higher than its current £10 ($10, AU$12) per month asking price.

Maybe Apple’s bold move means that Spotify won’t ask a premium price or shun hi-res audio for its imminent Spotify HiFi tier. Realistically, Spotify’s popularity and class-leading usability mean it can probably afford not to match or undercut its rivals and still remain competitive. Even ‘only’ CD quality may be enough to keep its loyal subscribers onboard.

The wider adoption of hi-res audio streaming by big players such as Apple and Amazon has brought better sound quality into the mainstream. The fact you can have unlimited access to it for as little as £8 ($8) per month is great news for those who care for sound quality.

With Apple offering hi-res at no extra charge, and Amazon readjusting its offering accordingly, the streaming service competition has reached a crossroads, with all ways potentially pointing to tier simplicity and affordability.

Do USPs justify premium prices?

So how will the competition justify charging extra – in Tidal’s case, double? Perhaps rivals will now have to reconsider their current monthly fees, and if they don’t, hope that their unique selling points are enough.

Tidal, for example, uses MQA to power its hi-res audio streams. It’s a technology that arrived as a handy enabler for hi-res streaming back when; a method of efficiently packaging and transporting high-resolution (and therefore large) files without lossy compression.

Now that Amazon and Apple have used other methods to do this (Amazon doesn’t disclose specifics, while Apple uses its ALAC format), MQA isn’t quite as fundamental to hi-res streaming as it once seemed. However, as it is now licensed to many hi-fi brands, MQA-powered Tidal Masters tracks can be played through an increasing amount of audio hardware, via app support or Tidal Connect. If you own a compatible device that doesn’t play ball with Amazon Music HD or Apple Music, you may well be swayed to stick with Tidal.

Naturally, device support will play a part in people’s subscription decisions. While desktop and mobile apps are par for the course as far as lossless support is concerned, some services also have their own quirks. For example, Qobuz has recently become the first to bring 24-bit hi-res streaming to Sonos speakers, and its vast hi-res catalogue is also accessible via the widely supported Chromecast (which supports transmission up to 24-bit/96kHz).

Apple Music is only an attractive proposition for owners of Apple devices – and even then, its hi-res implementation isn’t without its frustrations. We wonder whether Apple Music’s hi-res streaming will be supported by AirPlay 2 (or 3!) in the future to open up the device ecosystem, or even by some new Apple-developed Bluetooth codec for inter-Apple device wireless transmission.

You can bet that Spotify HiFi will have almost universal support upon, or soon after, launch, too.

Tidal also has a burgeoning catalogue of immersive 3D tracks, thanks to its support for Dolby Atmos Music and Sony 360 Reality Audio. That said, Amazon Music HD also supports these two formats, Deezer supports the latter, and Apple will have its Dolby Atmos-powered Spatial Audio catalogue. Who knows whether Spotify has any immersive audio plans up its sleeve for its HiFi tier?

Qobuz is the audiophile’s choice for its hi-res catalogue, as well as the fact its most premium tier (Sublime) also includes discounts on hi-res downloads. But it has a comparatively limited catalogue and has long been a more niche option compared to its rivals.

Over to you, Spotify et al

Right now, Apple Music appears to offer the best-value hi-res streaming proposition for iOS users, while Amazon Music HD does that for everyone else, especially Prime members. It’s the service we’d pick right now for mobile and desktop listening.

Spotify could, of course, outdo all of them with an excellent value, hi-res HiFi tier, but even if it doesn’t, the likes of Tidal, Deezer and Qobuz are still being significantly undercut by their competition.

So will the latest moves by the streaming giants be nails in their coffins or a necessary force for change? We very much hope it’s the latter.

MORE:

Our pick of the best music streaming services

The lowdown on Spotify HiFi: quality, price, release date, and latest news

10 of the best hi-res albums on Tidal Masters

Apple Music lossless: which devices will (and won’t) play lossless, Spatial Audio

iPad Pro (2021) review: dream screen

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How much do you care about having a great screen?

That, really, is the only question that matters with the new 12.9-inch iPad Pro. It has a new kind of display so good I think it is the best thing for watching movies that isn’t a high-end television. It starts at $1,099 for a 128GB version, but increased storage and accessories like a keyboard or the Apple Pencil can shoot the price up fairly quickly.

Both the 12.9 and the smaller 11-inch iPad Pro (which starts at $799) feature Apple’s M1 processor and some other updated specs, all of which are excellent. But even that fancy processor — the same as you’ll find in the new iMac, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini — doesn’t fundamentally change the story of what the iPad Pro is and what it can do.

It is an iPad, after all.

But the 12.9-inch version of the iPad Pro is an iPad with a very beautiful display. And so again, the question is what that screen means to the experience of using an iPad, especially since the price has jumped $100 compared to the last model. How much do you care about having a great screen?

Here is a very brief, wildly incomplete, and necessarily oversimplified education on flat panel screen technology. (Chris Welch has a longer one.)

There are two basic types you usually see, LCD and OLED. Both have pixels that combine red, green, and blue subpixels to create colors, but in order for you to actually see those colors the display pixels need to be lit up. OLED pixels are self-lit; LCD panels light up the display pixels by putting one, several, or many LED backlights behind them.

The benefit of LCD panels with LED backlighting is that they’re relatively inexpensive, long-lasting, bright, and unlikely to burn in. The benefit of OLED is that the black pixels are not lit at all, meaning you get superb contrast, but they are relatively expensive and don’t get as bright. Each technology’s strength is the other’s weakness.

Mini LED, the technology powering the 12.9-inch iPad Pro display, is designed to bring the LCD panel as close as possible to OLED’s contrast and black levels. Its display pixels are not self-lit, but instead lit from behind. The trick is that they’re lit by 10,000 tiny LED lights split up by software into 2,500 local dimming zones. It’s almost like the backlight itself is a lower-resolution screen behind the screen, tracking the image and making sure the black parts of the picture aren’t lit up.

I would never call the display on the 11-inch iPad Pro bad, because it’s a stellar display. But because it uses a more traditional LCD backlight system with fewer dimming zones, you can see that the blacks are actually just a little gray. On the 12.9-inch version, Mini LED lets blacks be truly black, offers a high contrast ratio, and can also get very bright.

Apple is calling this screen the “Liquid Retina XDR display.” And it has all the benefits of Apple’s previous iPad Pro displays: it’s very high resolution, color-accurate, and it has fairly good viewing angles. It supports ProMotion, Apple’s term for a variable refresh rate to increase smoothness and match the frame rate of videos. (“Liquid Retina,” as far as Apple has ever told us, refers to the Apple-specific method of making round corners on an LCD.)

The funny thing about the 12.9-inch iPad is that it is very easy to miss the benefits of Mini LED in normal day-to-day use. At first you don’t see it.

Sure, there’s great contrast when you’re browsing the web, texting, playing games, and so on, but really it’s not very different from any other iPad. Apple still limits the max brightness in most scenarios to 600 nits, which is bright enough but not eye-popping (the iPad and iPad Air max out at 500 nits).

The magic kicks in when you are viewing videos or photos in full-screen. When you do that, the iPad Pro kicks into a different HDR mode (or in Apple’s parlance, XDR, for “Extreme Dynamic Range”) that really is stunning. The overall max brightness of the screen jumps up to a powerful 1,000 nits and peak brightness for certain lighting can hit 1,600 nits.

You don’t see it until you see it — but then you see it.

The iPad Pro with the Liquid Retina XDR display

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

The joke I’ve been telling people is that the display is so good that Tenet actually makes sense when you watch it on this iPad Pro. HDR content is incredible on this screen. I am not a display quality enthusiast, but this screen is functionally equivalent to a high-end OLED TV to my eyes, especially in a dark room.

If you are also not a display quality enthusiast, you might be left unimpressed with descriptions of nits and contrast ratios. I get it, but there are intangibles to the screen that I struggle to describe and have struggled even harder to capture in photos and video. For example, some colors just look better and more accurate to me, especially textured yellows. It just does a better job showing fine detail in situations where dark and light elements get mixed together, like with hair or a building reflecting sunlight.

Both Kindle and Apple Books in dark mode, in a very dark room, have a weird gray halo around text not due to normal blooming (Photo edited to best replicate what I saw with my eyes)

Dieter Bohn / The Verge

The display isn’t perfect, of course. If you run a local dimming test you will see blooming on brightly lit pixels against a black background. I only noticed this when running tests that are specifically designed to surface blooming, though. In regular use, everything looked great, sharp, and evenly lit across the entire screen.

There was one odd bug I experienced. Putting either the Kindle app or Apple Books into dark mode and viewing them in a near-pitch black room, I noticed a strange gray haze around all of the text blocks. It’s too big to be blooming; it’s more like the local dimming algorithms got a little confused. It’s a minor thing that I hope gets fixed.

For me, the quality of the display when watching video on the 12.9-inch iPad Pro is impressive, but it’s also not at the top of my list of priorities when picking a computer. I care a little more about portability, weight, and — yes — functionality.

So let’s talk about that M1 chip.

The iPad Pro is great for video editing

Photo by Kayla Murkison / The Verge

What does it really mean that the iPad Pro now has the same chip that powers Apple’s latest Mac computers?

It does not mean that iPads will be able to run Mac apps now. While Apple is happy to let the Mac run iPad apps and generally let you do whatever you want on it (except touch the screen), the iPad Pro continues to be a more, shall we say, curated experience.

One interesting consequence of the M1 is that for the first time in the history of iOS devices, Apple is publicly disclosing how much RAM these devices have. It’s 8GB on models with 512GB or fewer of storage and 16GB on models with 1TB or more. Whether or not that’s actionable information is another matter.

The M1 is obviously fast, and in benchmarks it’s faster than the last A12Z Bionic that Apple put in the previous iPad Pro models. But in my usage, I didn’t actually perceive any speed improvements in any of the apps that I use — because everything was already very fast on the iPad Pro. I got the exact same export speeds in Premiere Rush on the brand new 12.9-inch iPad Pro with the M1 as on my 2018 iPad Pro.

Both the RAM and the M1 processor are specs that won’t make an appreciable difference to the vast majority of iPad users. They’re specs that will matter to certain “pro” users who have found specific apps and workflows that push the limit of what an iPad can do.

Apple touts soon-to-be released capabilities in apps like LumaFusion and AR effects, and I have no doubt that there are benefits for power users of those apps. For the rest of us, the reasons to get an iPad Pro are less about speeds and feeds and more about the overall experience.

Another consequence of the M1 is that the USB-C port now supports Thunderbolt accessories. In theory, that’s great. I plugged my iPad into my very fancy CalDigit TS3 Plus Thunderbolt dock and was gratified to see my monitor light up right away. From there, though, I ran into the same old iPad problems.

I have a USB microphone interface hooked into the dock, and for whatever reason I was unable to get any audio out of it on the iPad, just silence. I also tested out some admittedly old LaCie Thunderbolt 2 drives with an adapter and couldn’t get them to show up in the Files app. Oh and just to remind you: the monitor still can only mirror the iPad Pro — it can’t serve as a second display.

Similarly, the dock has an audio-out so it shows up as a speaker. On the Mac, I can easily change settings to let my computer know to play audio out of its own speakers since I don’t have anything hooked up to the dock for sound. Nothing doing on the iPad Pro — if there’s a setting that would let me move the audio back to the iPad’s own excellent speakers, I couldn’t find it. (Long pressing on the AirPlay icon in Control Center only listed the dock as an option.)

Seemingly every new iPad Pro inspires an admittedly exhausting but also necessary discussion about whether or not iPadOS is actually capable enough to justify the price of the hardware that runs it.

The M1 processor sharpens that discussion. To me, the biggest difference between the Mac and the iPad at this point isn’t the touchscreen, it’s Apple’s approach to the operating system. On the iPad, Apple would rather not offer a feature than have it work in a non-iPad way. That’s noble, but it means the company has committed itself to reinventing a lot of wheels in computing: files, peripheral support, multi-window interfaces, and all the rest have to be re-thought and re-done.

Sometimes that reinvention results in some genuinely great features. The iPad’s “windowing” system takes some getting used to and has its limitations, but it can be a joy to use and makes organizing your digital stuff a bit easier. The problem is that all that reinvention is taking a very long time — it’s been six years since the original iPad Pro.

Center Stage works very well to keep you in frame. And as a bonus, the camera doesn’t blank out when you multitask in Zoom calls anymore.

GIF: Dieter Bohn

One new invention I love is the Center Stage feature. It zooms and follows human faces to keep them centered in the frame of the iPad’s wide-angle front facing camera. It works in any video conferencing app without the need for setup and it performs very well, better than similar features on smart displays like the Echo Show or Facebook Portal.

I’d love it even more if the front-facing cameras on the iPad Pro weren’t still in the wrong spot when attached to a keyboard — off to the side instead of centered on top. It’s great that the camera can keep my face centered in frame, it’s not so great that I am literally giving my coworkers the side-eye because I’m looking off to the right of where the cameras are to see their faces.

One more note: Apple has said that the original 12.9-inch Magic Keyboard “may not precisely fit when closed” as the new iPad Pro is slightly thicker. But when I tested it, I couldn’t discern any difference between the fit on the original and the new, white Magic Keyboard. Both worked — and closed — fine.

In any case, set aside the “What’s a computer” argument and let’s be more pragmatic. A 256GB 12.9-inch iPad Pro with a Magic Keyboard costs $1,548. A 256GB MacBook Air with the same processor costs $999. And just to be realistic: most people can get more done on the Mac than on the iPad. Taken strictly as a work machine, the Mac wins out on both price and functionality.

That includes battery life, by the way. Both iPad Pros have good battery life, but it’s not significantly improved over previous iPads. And as many people have discovered during the pandemic, if you actually use the iPad for work all day (especially if you do a lot of Zoom calls), the iPad Pro can conk out in eight hours or less. The MacBook Air edges it out.

Last and certainly not least, Apple’s refusal to offer multi-user support on the iPad has gone from being mystifying to obstinate. The company clearly intends this to be a single-user device, despite the fact that it would theoretically make for an even more compelling family computer than the pastel-colored iMacs that share the same processor.

Typing on the iPad Pro

Photo by Kayla Murkison / The Verge

But to give Apple the benefit of the doubt here, if you’re looking strictly at the iPad Pro as a work machine, you’re probably missing the point. The iPad Pro is simply a more beautiful, more premium object than even Apple’s own laptops.

It’s easy to take for granted, but the hardware in this tablet really is amazing: Face ID, dual rear cameras that are quite good and paired with LiDAR, quad speakers with superb sound and decent volume, excellent microphones, support for the Apple Pencil, the best screen you can get on a portable device, and on and on.

The reason to get the iPad Pro 12.9 (or even the 11) is simply to get the best, nicest iPad. Unless you can specifically answer right now which app in your workflow is slowed down by the specs on a lesser iPad, the $599 iPad Air or even the $329 base iPad offer the same core features that most people really use.

Except for a slim minority of people, the justification for getting an iPad Pro isn’t its feature set, it’s the experience of using a well-made, high-end object. Until I hit the limits of iPadOS (which I hit regularly), I enjoy using an iPad Pro more than I do any other computer.

The wonderful Mini LED display on the 12.9-inch iPad Pro doesn’t change any of those equations, it just makes the nicest iPad Pro even nicer. And so my yearly refrain about the iPad Pro remains. If you want the very best iPad, this is the very best iPad.

Just remember, it’s an iPad.

HP Elite Folio Review: Pleather for the Pros

Our Verdict

The HP Elite Folio is a long-lasting, quiet laptop/tablet combo, but it offers a middling performance for a high price.

For

+ Versatile design
+ Runs very cool and quiet
+ 3:2 Display
+ Full-sized stylus charges in keyboard
+ Long battery life

Against

– Display could be brighter
– Windows on Arm has app compatibility issues
– Middling performance
– Few ports
– Pricey

There are a few laptops that fall into what I call an “executive notebook.” These are high-end, sometimes overly designed business laptops that you rarely see the rank-and-file office worker use. The new HP Elite Folio ($1,747.20 to start, $2,063.36 as tested) seems destined, with its vegan leather exterior and high price tag, for the C-suite.

HP has gone with Windows on Arm here, which means that the laptop runs quiet and has excellent battery life. But even as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors get more powerful and Windows on Arm slowly improves, there are still compatibility and performance sacrifices, so it’s not always fitting for the

best ultrabooks

But for those who rely on a stylus for writing on-screen or want a versatile form factor for various situations, you may be able to overlook that as long as you don’t use compute-heavy software. And if you value style, of course.

Design of HP Elite Folio

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HP’s new Folio means business. Or at least, it looks like it. The HP Elite Folio is a new, more professional take

on a previous design

. This laptop isn’t clad in metal, but rather polyurethane vinyl — or, as you might call it, vegan leather. Or as I call it, “

pleather

.” Unlike the old

Spectre x360 13

, which used real leather and came in brown, this is a more subdued black.

The result is a notebook that looks a bit like a briefcase, minus the handle, of course. If it didn’t have an HP logo on the lid under some stitching, I’d expect to see an intern carrying their resume in it. There’s no place to put your thumb to easily open the laptop, so I typically found myself requiring two hands to do so, which was a pain.

With the laptop open, it looks more traditional. There’s a 13.5-inch, 1920 x 1280 display in a 3:2 aspect ratio with a surprisingly thick bezel on the top. The deck features a backlit keyboard and also includes a spot to store and charge the included HP Slim Pen. This is a page straight out of the playbook Microsoft used with the

Surface Pro X

But the Surface Pro X is a true 2-in-1 detachable, and the Elite Folio has a different trick up its sleeve. The screen is on a hinge, and it can be brought forward into an easel mode that covers the keyboard but leaves the touchpad clear. You can also slide it further forward to be a tablet. (You could, if you wanted, also flip the screen upside down on the back of the device and use the display to watch videos or give presentations. This isn’t listed among HP’s options, but it works.)

The laptop looks like leather, but it doesn’t feel like it. It’s soft to the touch but definitely has a plasticky feel. For those wondering, yes, I did smell the laptop. While it pulls off a leather look, it can’t match the real thing’s fragrance.

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I can’t speak to how well this will hold up over months and years of use. In the immediate sense, it did manage to pick up minor scuffs or schmutz on my desk, but I could wipe it off with a damp cloth.

Port selection is extremely minimal, with a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C port on either side of the laptop and a 3.5mm headphone jack on the right side.

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HP’s notebook is 2.92 pounds and measures 11.75 x 9.03 x 0.63 inches. That’s similar to the Lenovo Flex 5G (2.9 pounds, 12.7 x 8.5 x 0.6 inches), a convertible 2-in-1. The Microsoft Surface Pro X is 2.4 pounds (with the keyboard attached) and 11.3 x 8.2 x 0.3 inches. An Intel-based clamshell, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano, is 2 pounds and 12.7 x 8.5 x 0.6 inches.

HP Elite Folio Specifications

CPU	Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2
Graphics	Qualcomm Adreno 690 (integrated)
Memory	16GB LPDDR4-4266 SDRAM
Storage	512GB PCIe NVMe SSD
Display	13.5-inch, 1920 x 1280 touchscreen
Networking	Qualcomm QCA639X Wi-Fi 6 Dual Band and Bluetooth 5, Qualcomm Snapdragon X20 LTE Cat 16
Ports	2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C, 3.5mm headphone jack, nano SIM card slot
Camera	720p IR
Battery	46 WHr
Power Adapter	65 W
Operating System	Windows 10 Pro
Dimensions(WxDxH)	11.75 x 9.03 x 0.63 inches / 298.45 x 229.36 x 16 mm
Weight	2.92 pounds / 1.32 kg
Price (as configured)	$1,998.72

Windows 10 on Arm

The HP Elite Folio uses the latest Windows on Arm platform, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2. That comes with its benefits (long battery life, quiet), but in terms of performance and app compatibility, it’s certainly lacking.

To be clear, that’s the case on all Windows on Arm laptops at the moment. Apple has used Arm too on its most recent laptops with its

chips, with far greater success.

Windows on Arm can run 32-bit apps, but not 64-bit apps. That functionality is coming but is currently limited to Windows Insider builds, which you’re unlikely to see in a business environment. An increasing number of apps are running natively on Windows on Arm, including Office, browsers like Edge and Firefox, and some of Adobe’s, but the rest require emulation. Others that run natively include the popular media player VLC, Netflix, Twitter, Skype, and Windows Terminal.

Perhaps the most reliable place to get apps that work on the processor, native or not, is through the Windows store, which largely filters apps that don’t work with Arm.

Productivity Performance of HP Elite Folio

Here, we’re comparing the Folio, which has an 8cx Gen 2, with two other Arm laptops, the Lenovo Flex 5G with the last-gen Snapdragon, and the Microsoft Surface Pro X with SQ1, Microsoft’s entry-level offering. We also tossed the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano in the mix for a business notebook using an x86 platform, namely Intel’s 11th Gen processors.

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On Geekbench 5, which measures overall system performance, the HP Elite Folio notched a single-core score of 792 and a dual-core score of 3,115. The Lenovo Flex 5G’s 729/2,923 suggest the newer chip has its advantage in multi-core workloads, though this test is run through emulation, which has to be kept in mind. The Surface Pro X isn’t in this test, as we were still running Geekbench 4 when we tested it. The ThinkPad X1 Nano’s scores were 1,473/5,155, with the test running natively.

The Elite Folio transferred 25GB of files at 666.5 MBps, faster than both the Flex 5G and ThinkPad X1 Nano. The Surface Pro X was run on an older, 5GB version of the test, and that was the slowest of the batch.

Our Handbrake test currently doesn’t run on Arm chips, though it is starting to be included in early “nightly” builds. Our Cinebench R23 stress test is also incompatible with Arm. These will change when 64-bit support becomes a finalized part of Windows 10.

Display on HP Elite Folio

I’m glad that HP went with a 3:2 display on the Elite Folio. Simply put, 3:2 is the best aspect ratio for productivity laptop displays because the extra height lets you see more content on your screen at once. This 13.5-inch touchscreen has a resolution of 1920 x 1280.

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I found the laptop to be bright enough for productivity, but when you switch to multimedia, it’s a mixed bag. In the trailer for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the color red popped in car paint, lights and a number of outfits. But a series of dim scenes in a montage made me wish I could turn up the brightness (though the dimness made for great contrast in a scene with purple backlighting).

HP’s screen covers 70.7% of the

DCI-P3

color gamut, which is just about in line with the Surface Pro X and ThinkPad X1 Nano. The Lenovo Flex 5G was more vivid at 81.4%

The Folio was the dimmest of the bunch with an average of 390 nits. The Surface Pro X was the brightest, measuring 448 nits.

Keyboard, Touchpad and Stylus on HP Elite Folio

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HP has implemented a keyboard with 1.3mm of travel into this small device. I didn’t have any issues with travel, but when I typed, I felt that the keys were a bit too stiff. It didn’t stop me from typing quickly; I hit 110 words per minute on the 10fastfingers.com typing test. But accuracy suffered slightly.

The 4.2 x 2.6-inch touchpad uses Windows precision drivers, and with a smooth, metal surface, I found it responsive and easy to glide my fingers against. Simple navigation and more complex gestures worked on the first try. It clicks a bit louder than some other touchpads, but I can get over that.

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HP’s Slim Pen lives in a dock above the keyboard, which also keeps it charged. It’s long and flat, more like a carpenter’s pencil than your standard writing instrument. It has a rocker on the side, which can be unwieldy because of how thin the buttons are. The button on the top, however, is easy to access. That comes at the expense of using it as an eraser like the Surface Pen, however.

I found that the Elite Folio’s screen offered solid palm rejection. The Pen uses Wacom drivers and offers 4,096 degrees of pressure sensitivity. HP claims it fast charges in 30 minutes, though in my use, it’s home in the laptop meant it was always topped off.

Audio on HP Elite Folio

HP’s partnership with Bang & Olufsen on its speakers continues to bear fruit. While there’s no software to tune the speakers yourself, they sound decent considering how thin this device is.

For instance, when I listened to Chvrches’ “He Said She Said,” the crashing drums, synths melodies and vocals were loud, clear and crisp. There was, however, a distinct lack of bass, which is a problem on many laptops.

One downside, however, is that the speakers vibrate a lot, and I could feel it under my hands on the touchpad and keyboard. While this isn’t unique to this laptop, it was far more distracting on the Folio than other devices.

Upgradeability of HP Elite Folio

In theory, the HP Elite Folio is upgradeable. HP has a video showing the process:

This is aimed at service technicians, and for good reason. The design means you have to do things in a weird order, like removing the pen slot from the keyboard before opening the

chassis

The RAM is soldered to the motherboard, but the SSD is upgradeable. The only rub there is that to actually change out the storage, you have to remove the entire thermal system. Some enthusiasts may be comfortable with that, but for most people, that’s a step too far.

Battery Life

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The Elite Folio’s Arm processor excels in the one place you would expect it: battery life. On our test, which involves browsing the web, running OpenGL tests and streaming video over Wi-Fi, all at 150 nits, the Folio lasted for 15 hours and 21 minutes. It was outclassed only by the Lenovo Flex 5G, using a last-gen Snapdragon processor, which ran for 17:30.

Microsoft’s Surface Pro X with the SQ1 ran for 9:30, while the Intel-based ThinkPad X1 Nano lasted for 12 hours flat.

Heat on HP Elite Folio

Because we couldn’t run our Cinebench R23 workload due to compatibility issues, we took the HP Elite Folio’s skin temperatures following 15 minutes of streaming video from YouTube. The fanless system was quiet and kept very cool.

The center of the keyboard, between the G and H keys, measured 27.8 degrees Celsius (82.04 degrees Fahrenheit). The touchpad was cooler at 26 degrees Celsius (78.8 degrees Fahrenheit).

The hottest point on the bottom of the laptop measured 30.3 degrees Celsius.

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720p

webcam in an executive notebook after more than a year of white-collar workers have been doing their jobs from home? Excuse me?

Stills and trial video from my desk, even in good lighting, were grainy. And colors, like a blue shirt I was wearing, were overly dark.

There is a physical webcam privacy switch, which covers the camera but doesn’t cut power to the hardware like some other HP laptops. It’s very small, and you need to use your fingernail to move it in either direction.

There are also IR sensors to log in to Windows 10 with facial recognition. This worked well, with the exception that you need both the cameras and the IR sensor for this to work. If you close the privacy cover, you can’t use it to log in. That’s a choice you have to make between privacy and convenience.

HP has limited the amount of software it includes on this laptop, which is a benefit, especially on an enterprise laptop. There are no crappy antivirus software trials or ports of phone games.

The two big pieces of software are HP Pen Settings, which lets you pair the included stylus and customize its functionality; and HP QuickDrop, which lets you send files and photos across your laptop and smartphone.

HP Pen Settings has a number of clever options, including assigning commands that would be useful to go through slides or play media while giving presentations. There’s also a way to get a virtual dial on the screen when holding a button down.

While this laptop has Microsoft Office preinstalled, at least it doesn’t include links to sponsored Microsoft Store applications.

HP sells the Elite Folio with a 1-year warranty. It can be boosted to three years for an extra $75.

As of this writing, HP is selling the Elite Folio in both a ready-to-ship configuration and customizable configurations.

The quick-ship one is $1,889 with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2, 16GB of RAM and 256GB SSD, as well as an LTE modem.

We reviewed it with 16GB of RAM, a 512GB storage and an LTE modem. That runs for $2,063.36.

If you want a 1,000-nit display with HP’s Sure View privacy, that’s an extra $169. A 4G modem is $201, while a 5G modem is $444.

The base model, with Windows 10 Home instead of Pro, 8GB of RAM, 128GB SSD and no mobile connection is $1,747.20.

Prices on the Folio seem to be fluctuating on HP’s website, so they may vary after this article was published.

Bottom Line

The HP Elite Folio review has a versatile design and, if you’re into the office chair aesthetic, a fake leather exterior that fits in any office.

HP’s Slim Pen is nice, and the fact that it is full-sized and can still charge by sitting in the system is a big plus for anyone who does a lot of writing on screen. The different screen modes will also be helpful for people who use touch screens a lot.

But while relying on the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 means long battery life and quiet operation, there are a series of small sacrifices that are made, largely based on Windows on Arm and app compatibility. Some apps work, some are emulated and 64-bit apps, while coming, aren’t ready for prime time right now, without downloading a beta version of the OS. These aren’t problems unique to the Elite Folio — they’re the same on the Lenovo Flex 5G and the Microsoft Surface Pro X.

If the chassis, touch screen and functionality allowed by the display-on-a-hinge design will make your job easier, this is worth considering. But for many, an x86 business notebook, like the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano with an Intel processor, can run more software, do it faster, and is cheaper in some configurations.

‘HiFi’ icon spotted in Spotify’s iOS app suggests a Spotify HiFi launch is imminent

(Image credit: TheMonarc/Reddit (Spotify) )

Hot on the heels of Apple announcing Apple Music lossless and Spatial Audio earlier this week, we have a new clue that suggests the previously announced Spotify HiFi lossless tier could be with us soon.

One Reddit user, TheMonarc, has apparently been able to find the Spotify HiFi menu in a song in its iOS app, indicating that Spotify’s long-awaited higher quality offering may launch imminently. So far, the only official word from the green streaming giant is that it’ll arrive sometime this year.

According to the Reddit user, a glitch in the Spotify app for iOS meant that they were able to access the HiFi menu. As first reported by 9to5Mac, the user explains: “I successfully opened the ‘HiFi’ menu by quickly tapping the glitched icon upon app launch.” The tipster shared some screenshots, which feature a small HiFi button in the bottom right of the screen to deploy Spotify HiFi.

Spotify announced in February that it had designs on a CD-quality subscription tier, initially saying the HiFi service would launch later this year as an add-on for Spotify Premium subscribers. However, considering the popular streaming platform has since raised its prices, while arch-rival Apple Music has just announced it’s making lossless – CD quality and 24-bit hi-res – and Spatial Audio listening free to subscribers from June, it’s unclear what Spotify’s current stance on pricing is.

Again, the HiFi icon on Spotify apparently appeared in the lower right corner of the app. Clicking on it led to the advice: “Use wired devices or speakers that are capable of playing lossless audio, 16-bit/44.1kHz quality or higher, to successfully listen to music in HiFi.”

If Spotify HiFi is indeed about to launch, the premium music streaming war will be ready. Amazon just made its HD subscription tier free to all Amazon Music users and Apple Music is not going to charge more for lossless. Tidal, our current favourite service and 2020 Award winner, still charges £20 ($20) per month for its HiFi membership, while Qobuz also asks a significant premium over Amazon and Apple. So, the ball’s in your court, Spotify…

MORE:

Understand why Spotify HiFi is missing something – but will it matter?

And Apple Music’s new service isn’t perfect either… Apple Music lossless: which devices will (and won’t) play lossless and Spatial Audio

Not sure which deserves your subscription fee? See best music streaming services 2021: free streams to hi-res audio

Deezer beats Spotify to Apple Watch offline listening

Music streaming service Deezer has revamped its Apple Watch app to let you listen to music without an internet connection, the company has announced. Previously Deezer’s Apple Watch app has only been able to control music playback on a paired iPhone, but now paid subscribers can download songs for offline listening when they’re away from their phones.

Offline listening has previously been available with Apple Music as well as Pandora, but similar functionality is yet to appear in Spotify’s Apple Watch app. Spotify recently added the ability to stream music from Apple Watch without needing a paired iPhone, but the feature still requires a cellular or Wi-Fi connection. Meanwhile, Google just teased that Spotify users will soon be able to download tracks to Wear OS smartwatches, which makes it even more strange that it doesn’t offer a similar feature on Apple’s wearables.

Subscribers can download both Deezer playlists as well as their own personalized playlists for offline listening. Naturally, you’ll need enough storage on your Apple Watch to hold the files for offline listening. The streaming service doesn’t explicitly say which models of Apple Watch support the new feature, noting only that it requires the “latest Apple watch software.” Presumably this is referring to watchOS 7, which is available on Apple Watch devices going back to 2017’s Series 3.

The new Apple Watch feature follows Deezer’s upgraded integration with Apple’s HomePod smart speakers released earlier this month. The new functionality lets users control playback with Siri voice controls, and even make Deezer their default music service. Spotify is yet to offer the same option. Then again, with a fraction of Spotify’s market share, Deezer has to work a lot harder to try and catch up.

Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5 Review: Team Red’s Blasting Off Again

Our Verdict

The Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5 is so good that it makes us wonder why Dell didn’t team up with AMD on a laptop sooner.

For

+ Strong gaming performance
+ Excellent productivity performance
+ Unique chassis
+ Not too costly for it power

Against

– Internals run hot
– Middling audio
– Bad webcam

It’s been 14 years since Alienware’s used an AMD CPU in one of its laptops, but AMD’s recent Ryzen processors have proven to be powerhouses that have generated a strong gamer fanbase. It also doesn’t hurt that AMD-based laptops have frequently undercut Intel in price. Point being, times have changed and now Team Red can easily compete with the best gaming laptops that Intel has to offer.

So it makes sense that Alienware’s finally been granted permission to board Dell’s UFO. And with the Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5, it’s getting a first class treatment.

Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5 Specifications

CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 5800H
Graphics	Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 6GB GDDR6, 1,702 MHz Boost Clock, 125 W Total Graphics Power
Memory	16GB DDR4-3200
Storage	512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
Display	15.6 inch, 1920 x 1080, 165Hz, IPS
Networking	802.11ax Killer Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2
Ports	USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 x 3, HDMI 2.1, USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 x 1 (DisplayPort), RJ-45 Ethernet, 3.5mm combination headphone/microphone port
Camera	720p
Battery	86 WHr
Power Adapter	240W
Operating System	Windows 10 Home
Dimensions(WxDxH)	14.02 x 10.73 x 0.9 inches (356.2 x 275.2 x 22.85 mm)
Weight	5.34 pounds (2.42 kg)
Price (as configured)	$1,649

Design of the Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5

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Unlike other recent Alienware laptops, the m15 R5 Ryzen Edition only comes in black. The “lunar light” white isn’t an option here. Still, it’s a bold design that puts the emphasis on the laptop’s build quality rather than on decoration, and it pays off. The m15 R5 feels sturdy in the hand and its smooth edges give it a unique premium flare. It’s not too plain, since lighting options for the Alienware logo on the lid plus a circular LED strip along the back rim add a touch of flair. On that note, the stylized “15” on the lid is stylish, though it can look a bit much like a “13” from the wrong angle.

Hexagonal vents that sit above the keyboard and along the back also give the m15 R5 a bit of functional decoration and help make up for the small and well hidden side vents. The keyboard on this model has four-zone RGB, but it can be a little dim in well-lit areas.

This laptop veers on the large and heavy end for systems with an RTX 3060. At 14.02 x 10.73 x 0.9 inches large and 5.34 pounds heavy, it’s generally bulkier than the Asus TUF Dash F15 we reviewed, which has a mobile RTX 3070 and is 14.17 x 9.92 x 0.78 inches large and weighs 4.41 pounds. The Acer Predator Triton 300 SE, which manages to fit a mobile RTX 3060 into a 14 inch device, is also especially impressive next to the m15 R5. Granted, both of those use lower-power processors designed for thinner machines. Specifically, the Acer is 12.7 x 8.97 x .70 inches large and weighs 3.75 pounds.

The Alienware m15 R4, which has a 10th gen 45W Intel Core i7 processor and an RTX 3070, is 14.19 x 10.86 x 0.78 inches large and weighs 5.25 pounds. That leaves it not as bulky as the m15 Ryzen Edition R5, but about as heavy.

Port selection is varied, although distribution differs from my usual preferences. The left side of the laptop only has the Ethernet port and the 3.5mm headphone/microphone jack, which is a shame as that’s where I typically like to connect my mouse. The back of the laptop has a few more connections, including the DC-in, an HDMI 2.1 port, a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port and a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port that also supports DisplayPort. The right side of the laptop has two additional USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports.

Gaming Performance on the Alienware M15 Ryzen Edition R5

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Our review configuration of the Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5 came equipped with an 8-core, 16-thread Ryzen R7 5800H CPU and an RTX 3060 laptop GPU. It’s the first time we’ve tested a 45W CPU with an RTX 3060 and, to that end, we’ve decided to compare it to one 35W laptop with an RTX 3070 CPU, the Asus TUF Dash F15 with an Intel Core i7-11370H, and one 35W laptop with an RTX 3060 GPU, the Acer Predator Triton 300 SE with an Intel Core i7-11375H. We’ve also thrown the Alienware m15 R4 into the mix, which has a 45W 10th gen Intel CPU and an admittedly more powerful RTX 3070, plus a significantly higher price tag than any other competitor even on its cheapest configuration (the thing starts at $2,149).

I played Control on the Alienware laptop for a half hour to get a personal feel for gaming on the system. I tended to fall between 60 – 70 fps at high settings throughout, and turning ray tracing on using its high preset dropped that to 30 – 40 fps. The fans are certainly noticeable but aren’t ear-splitting, and the laptop neither got hot-to-the-touch nor did it spray hot air on my hands.

In Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s benchmark running at highest settings, the m15 Ryzen Edition R5’s CPU seemed to do it a favor, as its 73 fps average only barely fell behind the m15 R4’s 77 fps average. The Acer laptop was next in line with 61 fps, while the Asus laptop was significantly behind all other options at 54 fps.

Scores were a bit more even in Far Cry: New Dawn’s benchmark running at ultra settings. While the m15 R4 hit 91 fps, everything else was in the 70s. The m15 Ryzen Edition R5 had an average of 79 fps, while the Asus scored 74 fps and the Acer reached 73 fps.

The m15 Ryzen Edition R5 fell to third place in the Grand Theft Auto V benchmark running at very high settings, where it hit an 82 fps average and the Asus laptop achieved an 87 fps average. The Acer laptop was significantly behind at 72 fps, while the m15 R4 was significantly ahead at 108 fps.

Red Dead Redemption 2’s benchmark running at medium settings saw the m15 Ryzen Edition R5 once again stay in third place, though by a more significant margin this time. The R5 achieved a 53 fps average, while the Asus led with 61 fps score. The Acer was once again behind at 48 fps, while the m15 R4 stayed ahead at 69 fps.

We also ran the Alienware M15 R5 Ryzen Edition through the Metro Exodus RTX benchmark 15 times in a row to test how well it holds up to a sustained heavy load. During this benchmark, it hit an average 56 fps. The CPU ran at an average 3.63-GHz clock speed while the GPU ran at an average clock speed of 1.82 GHz. The CPU’s average temperature was 90.36 degrees Celsius (194.65 degrees Fahrenheit) and the GPU’s average temperature was 82.02 degrees Celsius (179.64 degrees Fahrenheit).

Productivity Performance for the Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5

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While Alienware is a gaming brand, the use of a 45W AMD chip does open the Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5 up to high productivity potential.

On Geekbench 5, which is a synthetic test for tracking general PC performance, the m15 Ryzen Edition R5 hit 1,427 points on single-core tests and 7,288 points on multi-core tests. While its single core score was on the lower end when compared to the Asus TUF Dash F15’s 1,576 points and the Acer Predator Triton 300 SE’s 1,483 points, the Alienware blew those laptops away on multi-core scores. The Asus’ multi-core score was 5,185, while the Acer’s multi-core score was 5,234.

The Alienware m15 R4 was a bit more even with its AMD cousin, scoring 1,209 on single-core Geekbench 5 tests and 7,636 on the program’s multi-core benchmarks.

Unfortunately, the m15 Ryzen Edition R5 couldn’t maintain that momentum for our 25GB file transfer benchmark. Here, it transferred files at a 874.14 MBps speed, while the Asus hit 1,052.03 MBps and the Acer reached 993.13 MBps. The m15 R5 hit speeds of 1137.34 MBps.

The m15 Ryzen Edition R5 was the fastest contender in our Handbrake video encoding test, though, where we track how long it takes a computer to transcode a video down from 4K to FHD. The m15 Ryzen Edition R5 completed this task in 7:05, while the Asus took 10:41 and the Acer was even slower at 11:36. The m15 R5 almost caught up to its AMD cousin with a time of 7:07.

Display for the Alienware M15 R5 Ryzen Edition

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Our configuration for the Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5 came with a 15.6 inch 1920 x 1080 IPS display with a 165Hz refresh rate. While it boasted impressive gaming performance and strong benchmark results, it still proved problematic for viewing content.

I watched the trailers for Nomandland and Black Widow on the m15 Ryzen Edition R5, where I found the blacks to be shallow and the viewing angles to be restrictive. In my office during the daytime, I couldn’t easily see the screen’s picture unless I was sitting directly in front of it. Turning my lights off and closing my curtain only extended viewing angles to about 30 degrees. Glare also proved to be an issue in the light, although turning lights off did fix this problem.

Colors were bright enough to pop occasionally but not consistently, with bolder tones like reds and whites holding up better than more subdued ones. Here, Black Widow came across a bit more vividly than the naturalistic style of Nomadland, so this screen might be better suited for more colorful, heavily produced films.

Our testing put the m15 Ryzen Edition R4’s color range above its closest competitors, the Asus TUF Dash F15 and Acer Predator Triton 300 SE, though not by much. With an 87.3 DCI-P3 color gamut, it’s only slightly ahead of the Asus’ 80.6% DCI-P3 score. The TUF Dash F15 had a starker difference, with a 78.5% DCI-P3 color gamut.

Our brightness testing saw the Alienware pull a more solid lead. With an average of 328 nits, it easily surpassed the Acer’s 292 nits and the Asus’ 265 nits.

The Alienware m15 R4 blew all of these systems out of the water, although the OLED screen our configuration had makes the comparison more than a bit unfair. Its DCI-P3 gamut registered at 150% while its average brightness was 460.2 nits.

To test the m15 Ryzen Edition R5’’s 165Hz screen, I also played Overwatch on it. Here, I had a much more pleasant experience than I did when watching movie trailers. The game’s bright colors appeared quite vivid and the fast refresh rate was perfectly able to keep up with the 165 fps I was hitting on Ultra settings.

Keyboard and Touchpad on the Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5

The Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5 configuration we received has a 4-zone RGB membrane keyboard, though other configurations do offer mechanical switches made in collaboration with Cherry. You can currently get that upgrade for an additional $98.

The membrane nature of this keyboard didn’t mean it wasn’t impressive, though. Keys have a noticeable resistance when pressed and 1.7mm of key travel gives you plenty of tactile feedback. I consistently scored around 83 words per minute on the 10fastfingers.com typing test, which is impressive as my average is usually around 75 wpm.

In an unusual choice, the Alienware’s audio control keys sit on the keyboard’s furthest right row rather than being mapped to the Fn row as secondary functions. Instead, the Page Up and Page Down keys that would normally be found there are secondary functions on the arrow keys.

The 4.1 x 2.4-inch touchpad doesn’t fare as well. While it has precision drivers and is perfectly smooth when scrolling with one finger, I felt too much friction when using multi-touch gestures to pull them off comfortably or consistently. For instance, when trying to switch apps with a three-fingered swipe, I would frequently accidentally pinch zoom instead.

Audio on the Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5

The Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5 has two bottom firing speakers that are loud with surprisingly decent bass, but tend to get tinny on higher notes.

I tested the m15 Ryzen Edition R5’s audio by listening to Save Your Tears by The Weeknd, which easily filled up my whole two bedroom apartment with sound. I was also surprised to be able to hear the strum of the song’s bass guitar, as it’s not uncommon for other laptops to either cut it out, make it quiet, or give it a more synth-like quality. Unfortunately, higher notes suffered from tinniness and echo.

Upgradeability of the Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5

The Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5 is easy to open and has plenty of user customizability. Just unscrew the four screws closest to the back of the laptop, then loosen the four screws on the front (we used a PH0 Phillips Head bit).

Gently pry the case off, and you’ll see the networking card, two swappable DIMMs of RAM, the M.2 SSD and a second, open M.2 SSD slot (if you don’t buy the laptop with dual SSDs).

The only tradeoff here is that the SSDs are in a smaller, less common M.2 2230 form factor (most are 2280) , so you’ll probably need to buy a specialized drive for this laptop.

Battery Life on the Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

The Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5 is a power hog, with half the non-gaming battery life of the RTX 3060 and RTX 3070 35W laptops we tested it against. This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, since it also has a 45W CPU, but don’t expect to be able to spend too much time away from an outlet.

In our non-gaming battery test, which continually streams video, browses the web and runs OpenGL tests over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness, the M15 Ryzen Edition R5 held on for 3:29. That’s about 3 hours less time than we got out of both the Asus TUF Dash F15, which had a 6:32 battery life, and the Acer Predator Triton 300 SE, which lasted for 6:40.

The Alienware m15 R5, with its 45W Intel chip, also had a shorter battery life than our 35W laptops, though it was slightly longer than the m15 Ryzen Edition R5’s. It lasted 4:01 on our non-gaming test.

Heat on the Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5

The Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5’s surface temperature was impressively cool during non-gaming use but could get toasty in select areas during our gaming benchmarks. For our tests, we measured its temperature both after 15 minutes of streaming video and during the sixth consecutive run of the Metro: Exodus extreme benchmark.

The laptop’s touchpad proved coolest during the video test, registering 81.1 degrees Fahrenheit. This was only slightly behind the center of the keyboard’s temperature, as the typer hit 85.5 degrees Fahrenheit in between the G and H keys. The bottom of the laptop was warmer, hitting 90.9 degrees, although the center-left of the display hinge is where it was hottest, registering 101.1 degrees Fahrenheit.

Our gaming test saw a mild jump in temperatures in all areas except the bottom and the hinge, where numbers spiked much higher. The touchpad was 83.3 degrees Fahrenheit and the center of the keyboard was 90.9 degrees Fahrenheit. By contrast, the bottom of the laptop was now 121.5 degrees Fahrenheit and the hot zone on the hinge was now 136.1 degrees Fahrenheit.

Despite these higher numbers, though, the laptop never became too hot to touch while gaming. It did feel pleasantly warm, however.

Webcam on the Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5

The Alienware M15 R4 Ryzen Edition’s 720p webcam is, like many premium gaming laptops, a bit of an afterthought. Regardless of lighting conditions, its shots always have a blocky and fuzzy appearance. Adding light also adds a distracting halo effect to silhouettes, while dimming your surroundings will just bring down detail even further.

Software and Warranty on the Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5

The Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5 comes packed with software, although most of it serves a genuinely useful purpose.

Most of these are apps like Alienware Command Center, which lets you customize lighting and thermals as well as set up macros. Some are less useful than others — Alienware Customer Connect simply exists to get you to fill out surveys — but apps like Alienware Mobile Connect, which lets you easily mirror your phone’s screen, transfer its files or take phone calls from your laptop are definitely a standout. It might be easier to navigate these functions if they were all centralized into one hub app rather than being their own standalone programs, though. My Alienware tries to be this hub app, although it’s mostly just a redirect to Alienware Command Center with a bunch of ads on the side.

This laptop also comes with typical Windows pack-ins like Microsoft Solitaire Collection and Spotify. Its default warranty is limited to one year, although you can extend it at checkout.

Configurations for the Alienware M15 R5 Ryzen Edition

Our configuration of the Alienware M15 R5 Ryzen Edition came with an AMD Ryzen 7 5800H CPU, an RTX 3060 laptop GPU, 16GB of RAM, a 512GGB SSD and a 1920 x 1080, 165Hz display for $1,649. That actually puts it towards the lower end of what’s available.

You can upgrade this laptop’s CPU to the Ryzen 9 5900HX, which has the same thread count but boosts up to 4.6 GHz, and its GPU to an RTX 3070 laptop card. Memory options range from 8GB to 32GB, while storage options range from 256GB to 2TB. You can also add on an additional SSD with the same range of options, making for up to 4TB of total combined storage.

There’s also a 360Hz version of the FHD display available, as well as a QHD version with a 240Hz refresh rate and G-Sync support.

Perhaps the most interesting option that wasn’t included on our configuration is the mechanical keyboard, which features physical ultra low-profile switches made in collaboration with CherryMX.

These upgrades can raise your price up to $2,479, with the display and keyboard upgrades being the most costly components in Dell’s customization tool. The Cherry MX keyboard will add $98 to your price at checkout, while the QHD display costs $78. The FHD @ 360Hz display is only available on the highest preset option, which locks you into a Ryzen 9 5900HX chip and starts at $2,332.

By contrast, the low end of this laptop starts at $1,567.

Bottom Line

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

The Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5 proves that Team Red and Alienware make a strong pairing . While it’s not quite the beast that the minimum $2,149 Alienware m15 R4 is, it still manages performance that equates to and sometimes beats peers in its price range on most titles, all while rocking Alienware’s unique premium looks. At $1,649 for our configuration, it’s an easy premium choice over the $1,450 Asus TUF Dash F15. And if you prefer power over size, it’s also a better option for you than the $1,400 Acer Predator Triton 300 SE.

While it’s certainly not the most portable contender and could do with more even port distribution and stronger audio, its 45W CPU lends it just enough of an edge on power to make it a solid first step into Dell’s flagship gaming brand.

Apple Music lossless supported devices: what will (and won’t) play lossless and Spatial Audio, and why

(Image credit: Apple Music)

Apple Music is being upgraded in a big, big way. From June, the music streaming service will support CD-quality and hi-res lossless audio as well as Dolby Atmos-powered Spatial Audio, offering subscribers much higher quality, immersive playback.

Both lossless and Spatial Audio will be available to Apple Music users at no extra cost. Apple describes these two additions as Apple Music’s “biggest advancement ever in sound quality” – which we’d have to agree with. “Excellent news. Well done, Apple!”, we thought upon hearing the news.

But here comes the (rather large) downside.

Apple’s own headphones don’t support lossless audio. None of them. That means even if you’ve spent £549 ($549, AU$899) on a pair of AirPods Max, you can’t listen to Apple Music in the highest quality. Miffed? We don’t blame you.

That’s not the whole story, though, and not the only Apple device not able to take advantage of the new Apple Music features. Let’s take a look at which devices can benefit from hi-res audio, which don’t, and why…

What is Apple Music Lossless?

Essentially, it’s Apple embracing hi-res audio. Apple’s lossless streams use ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) to offer more detail and information in a recording.

Apple offers three tiers of higher resolution audio: CD quality (16-bit/44.1kHz), Apple Music Lossless (24-bit/48kHz), and Hi-Res Lossless (up to 24-bit/192kHz). You can choose your quality through the Settings > Music > Audio Quality section of Apple Music.

As of next month, all of Apple Music’s 75-million-strong music catalogue will be available in CD quality or Apple Music Lossless. At launch, 20 million will be accessible in the highest quality Hi-Res Lossless format, with the whole catalogue following “by the end of 2021”.

Apple Music isn’t the first service to offer lossless streaming, of course. Tidal, Qobuz and Amazon Music HD all offer CD-quality and hi-res listening, while Deezer offers the former. The Spotify HiFi lossless tier is due to offer CD-quality streams later in the year too.

What is Spatial Audio?

Another new addition to Apple Music is Spatial Audio, which is an Apple technology designed to provide “multidimensional sound and clarity”; to deliver surround sound and 3D audio via your headphones.

Spatial Audio was initially launched as part of iOS 14 and iPadOS 14, and the newer Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos feature for Apple Music is coming as part of the iOS 14.6 and iPadOS 14.6 updates that are due in June 2021.

Spatial Audio is a slightly different beast to this new Dolby Atmos-powered Spatial Audio for Apple Music in that it also utilises the sensors in Apple’s own headphones to enable head-tracking. Because the implementation for Apple Music of spatial audio is sound-only, there’s no head-tracking involved.

“Thousands” of Apple Music tracks will be available in Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos at launch, with more being added regularly.

Which Apple devices work with Apple Music lossless?

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The big news is that no model of AirPods will support lossless audio. In the case of the AirPods and AirPods Pro, that’s not exactly surprising, seeing as they’re both completely wireless and Apple only supports the AAC (rather than ALAC) codec over Bluetooth – that’s a step up from MP3, but nowhere near the quality of lossless.

The AirPods Max can be wired to an iPhone, so one might hope that that could be a way to get lossless audio. But actually they only work with analogue audio sources in wired listening mode. Which again means no lossless listening.

Its HomePod range of smart speakers also won’t support lossless – that’s the now discontinued HomePod and still-very-much-current HomePod Mini.

Apple’s iPhones (since the iPhone 7) natively support lossless – but only Apple Music Lossless, and not the highest quality Hi-Res Lossless (which delivers up to 24-bit/192kHz). If you want to listen to Apple Music tracks above 24-bit/48kHz on your iPhone, you’ll need to connect an external DAC and use a wired pair of headphones. Check out our guide for how to listen to hi-res audio on an iPhone.

The same is true of the Apple TV and iPad families, which are listed as supporting Apple Lossless, with no mention of Hi-Res Lossless.

Which Apple devices support Spatial Audio?

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Apple devices are much better represented when it comes to Spatial Audio through Apple Music. Some – like the AirPods Pro and Max – already support it, after all. And it will come to the standard AirPods 2 in due course.

In fact, it will be available on all AirPods and Beats headphones with an H1 or W1 chip. (That’s the AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, BeatsX, Beats Solo3 Wireless, Beats Studio3, Powerbeats3 Wireless, Beats Flex, Powerbeats Pro, and Beats Solo Pro.) But you don’t have to line Apple’s pockets to hear the Dolby Atmos tracks: it will also work on any headphones connected to an iPhone or iPad. You just have to enable it manually.

To do so, head to Settings on your iPhone or iPad and then to Music – once the update has landed next month, a new Dolby Atmos option will be available. This will be set to Automatic by default, which means Dolby Atmos tracks will play correctly when you’re listening via any W1- or H1-enabled pair of Apple or Beats headphones, but not when you’re using third-party headphones. However, if you switch this option to Always On, even non-Apple headphones will play back Dolby Atmos tracks in all their sonic glory.

However, this only applies to Dolby Atmos Spatial Audio tracks on Apple Music, and not Spatial Audio content from other apps like TV. (Remember, Spatial Audio in the TV app is a slightly different beast in that it also utilises the sensors in Apple’s own headphones to enable head-tracking.)

The HomePod and HomePod Mini also support Spatial Audio, so you can fill your room with virtual 3D sound from a single device. As do the iPhone 11 onwards and iPad Pro (but not iPad, iPad Mini or iPad Air).

Playing from an Apple TV 4K into a Dolby Atmos soundbar or system will work too.

MORE:

Check out the best wireless headphones around

3D sound from a soundbar: Best Dolby Atmos soundbars

Try 30 Apple Music tips, tricks and features

Need new music? 10 Apple Music playlists to listen to right now

Apple’s new iMac brings M1 goodness to the desktop

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This is an iMac unlike any other iMac we’ve seen before, and it all comes down to the M1 chip.

Sure, there are some other differences between this 24-inch iMac and the 21.5-inch model from 2019 that it’s replacing. There are better microphones and better speakers. There are fewer ports, and some of them have moved around. The screen is bigger and better. The keyboard now has TouchID. But the M1 is the star of the show.

It’s not just the performance increase. It’s not just the fact that you can run iOS and iPadOS apps natively on the system. It’s not just the new advanced image signal processor, which helps create better low-light images than I’ve ever seen from an integrated webcam. It’s also the groundbreaking efficiency with which this processor runs, which has enabled Apple to create a slim, sleek, and quite unique iMac chassis.

Whether you actually get every upgrade here depends on the configuration you choose. The entry-level iMac is $1,299 for 256GB of SSD storage, two Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports, 8GB of unified memory, and a seven-core GPU — but that’s only available in four colors and doesn’t come with TouchID. The model I tested bumps the storage up to 512GB and the memory up to 16GB. It has two USB-3 ports in addition to the two Thunderbolt, an eight-core GPU, Touch ID, and a gigabit Ethernet port (which is in the power brick). I also received both the Magic Mouse and the Magic Trackpad with my model. You’d need to pay a total of $2,028 to get everything Apple sent me (and which I’ll be sending back, for the record).

In short, this device costs money. And it’s true that you’d get similar performance and save a few hundred bucks, if you just plugged a Mac Mini into an external display. But this iMac has almost everything that most people need in one package: processing power, sure, but also a camera, speakers, microphones, a keyboard, a mouse, a trackpad, and a display. And they’re all good. This is a computer you can plonk on your desk and never think about again. And for some of the iMac’s target audience, that’s probably worth the extra money. You’re paying for simplicity.

The new iMac is completely redesigned, but instantly recognizable

The M1 processor uses what’s called a “hybrid” configuration. The easiest way to conceive of this is that most competing Intel and AMD chips have a number of equally “okay” cores, where Apple’s M1 has four very fast cores and four lower-powered high-efficiency cores. This allows M1 devices to deliver arguably the best performance-per-watt in the world. It also means that they’re nearly unbeatable in single-core workloads.

That advantage bore out in our benchmark testing. This iMac model achieved a higher score on the Geekbench 5 single-core benchmark than any Mac we’ve ever seen before — even the iMac Pro. That means if you’re looking for a device for simpler everyday tasks that don’t scale to every available CPU core (and that largely seems to be the demographic that Apple is trying to sell this machine to), there has literally never been a better iMac for you to buy.

You can see the rest of our benchmarks below:

Apple iMac 24 (2021) benchmarks

Benchmark	Score
Benchmark	Score
PugetBench for Premiere Pro	372
Cinebench R23 Multi	7782
Cinebench R23 Single	1505
Geekbench Multi	7668
Geekbench Single	1739
Geekbench OpenCL	19114

These results help illuminate where this iMac fits into Apple’s all-in-one lineup, and where its limitations are. The 24-incher is a significant improvement over the 21.5-inch iMac in both single-core and multi-core workloads. And it’s very comparable in graphics tasks — which is quite impressive, given that the 21.5-inch iMac has a discrete GPU and this one relies on what’s integrated with the M1.

On the other end, these results (with the exception of single-core performance) are not close to what we’d expect from the 27-inch Intel iMac with discrete graphics. In this comparison, multi-core results are more important. They indicate that the 27-inch iMac is going to do much better on the types of tasks that owners (or prospective buyers) are likely to be doing: intense multitasking, computations, design, video work, and other more complex loads that may leverage the GPU.

There are other limitations that may put some workloads out of reach. As is the case with the MacBook Pro and Mac Mini, you can’t configure the iMac with more than 16GB of memory and 2TB of storage; we wouldn’t recommend those specs to anyone who regularly edits 4K or 8K video, for example. The memory and storage are soldered, so you can’t upgrade them after purchase. Only one external display is supported (up to 6K resolution at 60Hz). Ports are also bizarrely limited; the base model has just two Thunderbolt / USB-4 ports and a headphone jack, while more expensive models have an additional two USB-3 ports and Gigabit Ethernet. These all may be reasons Apple is pushing this iMac as a “home and family” PC, even though its processor is clearly capable of all kinds of professional work.

The M1 processor’s efficiency allows the iMac to get away with a thin design and minimal fan noise, and still maintain performance

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Another way to interpret these numbers is that I was getting effectively the same performance out of this machine as we got from the M1 MacBook Pro and the Mac Mini. That’s completely unsurprising, since these devices all use the same processor. But it’s a good proxy for gauging whether the iMac can handle your work: if you expect you could get a task done with the M1 MacBook Pro, you should be able to do it on this.

More anecdotally, I was able to use my test unit for all kinds of daily tasks, from emailing to YouTube to amateur photo and video work. I was able to hop between over 25 Chrome tabs with Cinebench looping in the background, with no stutter or slowdown whatsoever. If you’re buying the iMac for this kind of thing, I can’t imagine you’ll see too many spinning wheels.

During this testing process, I also got a sense of just how well cooled this chassis is. On thinner laptops that I test often (including the fanless MacBook Air), you’ll see performance decrease if you run heavy tasks over and over again. None of that on this iMac: I looped Cinebench R23 as well as a Premiere Pro 4K video export several times over and never saw scores go down. It took a lot to get the fans going — they were checked out during my daily office multitasking. When they did spin up, mostly while I was working in Premiere, I could barely hear them. They were quieter than the background hum of my refrigerator. That’s quite a quality-of-life improvement over prior Intel iMacs.

The M1’s advantage, after all, has never been raw power; it’s the combination of power and efficiency. We saw much better battery life in the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro than we did in their Intel predecessors. Battery life obviously isn’t a concern with the iMac, but efficiency certainly is. Chips are limited by two things: the power available and how well their systems can keep them cool. They vent almost all the energy they use as heat, and because the M1 has such incredibly high performance per watt, Apple doesn’t need a heavy-duty cooling system to keep it from frying itself. Because it doesn’t need that heavy-duty cooling system, Apple has finally been able to redesign the iMac from the ground up.

The iMac’s chassis is so thin it looks like a big iPad minus the touchscreen

This iMac is sleek. Even though it has a 24-inch screen, it’s close in size to its 21.5-inch predecessor. Apple reduced the screen’s borders by close to 50 percent in order to squeeze the bigger screen into the compact chassis. This device is also 11.5 millimeters thick, or just under half an inch — which is quite thin as all-in-ones go. Next to the 27-inch iMac, it looks like a tablet on a stand.

Size isn’t everything; this iMac also comes in seven colors. There’s blue, green, pink, orange, purple, yellow, and the boring silver we know and love. I’m not quite convinced that the jazzier models will fit in outside of especially stylish homes and offices. But I will say: I’ve never seen so many of my friends, or so many people on TikTok, as excited about a tech product as they seem to be about the colored iMacs. The hues are a nice change, aren’t obnoxious, and are clearly a hit with certain crowds.

Some traditional iMac touches remain, of course. The bezels are still substantial compared to those of some modern monitors. You can’t raise or lower the display height — the built-in stand only allows tilt adjustments. (You can also buy it with a built-in VESA mount adapter.) And there’s still that pesky chin, though it’s no longer emblazoned with the Apple logo.

Pretty much every other notable part of the iMac has been upgraded in some way. There’s a 4.5K (4480 x 2520) Retina display, a step up from the predecessor’s 4096 x 2304 Retina display (though both have effectively the same pixel density). It has Apple’s True Tone technology, which automatically adjusts colors and intensity based on your surroundings.

But the screen is also another reminder that this iMac doesn’t have “Pro” in its name. Twenty-four inches is on the small side as screens go; most of the best external monitors are 27 inches or larger these days. Professionals on The Verge’s video team also noticed some vignetting on the sides of the screen, which caused issues with off-angle viewing — we had a similar issue with Apple’s Pro Display XDR. Of course, neither of these limitations were a problem for my untrained eye; I thought the display looked great, with sharp details and plenty of room for my Chrome tabs and apps.

Elsewhere, Apple has upgraded the camera, microphones, and speakers. The company claims that they’re the best camera, mic system, and speaker system that have ever appeared in a Mac. I’d believe it. The six-speaker sound system is easily on par with a good external speaker. I played some music in my kitchen, and it was audible all over the house. Percussion and bass were strong, and I felt very immersed in the songs. It also supports spatial audio when playing video with Dolby Atmos.

The new camera has a higher resolution and better picture quality for video calls

I don’t have too much to say about the three-mic array except that nobody on my Zoom calls had any trouble hearing me. But the webcam was a very pleasant surprise. The iMac has a 1080p FaceTime HD camera, which has a higher resolution than the 720p shooter that lives in the 21.5-inch iMac (as well as the MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and many other AIOs). The M1 also lends a hand here: its built-in image signal processor and neural engines help optimize your picture in low-light settings.

I wouldn’t say I looked amazing on my Zoom calls — parts of my background were sometimes washed out, and the image looked processed in some dimmer areas. But I was visible and clear, which is better than you get from most webcams these days. And the difference between this webcam and the grainy mess the MacBook Pro has is night and day.

The iMac is the computer to get if you just want to buy it and not think about it for the next five to ten years

When I review a computer, my task is usually to figure out for whom that computer is made.

But all kinds of people use iMacs, from college students to accountants to podcast producers to retired grandparents. And this model has arguably the most widespread consumer appeal of any iMac that Apple has made in recent years. So it’s much easier to figure out for whom this iMac isn’t made.

It’s not for people who can’t handle dongles and docks; I kept a USB-C to USB-A dongle next to me on my desk while I was testing the iMac, and I used it very frequently. It’s not for people who already own a 27-inch iMac, because it would be a downgrade in display size and quality, port selection, upgradability, and raw power. And it’s not for people with serious performance needs.

It’s not for people who are looking for the very best value for their money. Most folks won’t need the specs and accessories that I tested here, but even $1,299, the base price, is certainly more than plenty of people want to spend on a computer. The base Mac Mini is $600 cheaper than the base iMac; plug that into a monitor and some speakers (you can find plenty of good ones for well under $600), and you’ll get the same M1 performance at a massive discount.

And that, right there, is the biggest reason that this iMac, despite its power, is primarily targeting the family market. Because it’s asking you to pay more in order to do less. You’re paying $600 not to have to research and budget out monitors, speakers, webcams, docks, keyboards, and mice. You’re paying not to have to arrange thousands of things on your desk. You’re paying for a device where everything, out of the box, works well. You’re paying to eliminate fuss.

Tech enthusiasts (especially those who want to pop their machines open and make their own upgrades) may see that as a waste of money. And for them, it probably is. But they’re not the target audience for this Mac — even if its specs might suit their needs.

Could Apple have done more with this iMac? Of course. I was hoping to see a 30-inch, 6K iMac with a powerhouse 12-core workstation chip this month as much as the next person. But I have faith that we’ll get one in the future — and in the meantime, I’m glad Apple released this. It’s not earth-shattering in its design; it doesn’t redefine its category. But it’s fun. It improves upon the 21.5-inch iMac to offer a simple, attractive, and very functional device for users across all kinds of categories. It’s not the iMac to beat — but it is the iMac for most people to buy.

Amazon’s Echo Frames can now come with sunglass or blue light filtering lenses

Amazon is launching new lens options today for its Echo Frames smart audio glasses: two types of polarized sunglass lenses for use outside, and blue light-filtering lenses for staring at bright screens. The blue light and blue mirror sunglass options will ship on May 18th, and the “Classic” dark sunglass lenses will arrive later on June 9th. All three varieties will be available in the black version of the Echo Frames for $269.99.

Echo Frames are far simpler in comparison to other smart glasses, like Google Glass. Essentially, they’re a glasses frame with Amazon’s Alexa assistant built-in, along with some microphones and downward firing speakers. In our review of the Frames, we found Alexa’s abilities to be pretty limited (especially on the iPhone) because the assistant defaults to Amazon’s services. Frames are much more compelling as a straightforward audio device, which is where these new lens options seem to come in.

Echo Frames with blue light filtering lenses.

Image: Amazon

Take the sunglasses variety. Echo Frames might not make sense as a smart assistant you interact with all day, but for a bike ride or hike, it could be very helpful to have your sunglasses pull double duty as headphones for music or podcasts.

You could use the same kind of logic for the blue light-filtering lenses. Say you’re going heads down on a long project and you know you’re going to look at screens for an extended period of time. Having a way to listen to music or take calls while still keeping your ears free could be handy. (Keep in mind blue light might not be as damaging or eye-straining as some headlines suggest.)

Echo Frames with mirror blue sunglass lenses.

Image: Amazon

The limit on either of these use cases is the battery life of the Echo Frames. When we originally reviewed the Frames we weren’t able to make it through a full day, despite Amazon’s more open-ended battery life claim of 14 hours of “mixed use.” For an afternoon outdoors, it seems like the sunglasses should last, but using blue light glasses inside, listening to music all day, you might have to keep a closer eye on the Frames’ battery.