Thunderbolt Display Stock Limited at Apple Stores Ahead of WWDC
Thunderbolt Display stock is limited or unavailable at several Apple Stores in North America, Europe, Australia, and other regions ahead of new product announcements expected at WWDC 2016 in two weeks.
A spot check of Apple Stores in the U.S., for example, reveals that the Thunderbolt Display is available on a ship-to-store basis only at all or select locations in Albany, Buffalo, Columbus, Detroit, Indianapolis, Memphis, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Raleigh, San Antonio, San Diego, Syracuse, and many other mid-sized cities and their surrounding areas.
Thunderbolt Displays do remain available in some major cities, including most stores in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, and San Francisco.
Meanwhile, in Canada, the Thunderbolt Display is only available at more prominent store locations such as the Eaton Centre and Yorkdale in Toronto, Sainte-Catherine in Montréal, and the Pacific Centre in Vancouver. Thunderbolt Display stock in the U.K. is even more scarce, with Apple’s web-based Personal Pickup tool showing that Regent Street is the only location with in-store stock within 100 miles of London.
A reliable retail source informed us that the Thunderbolt Display has been out of stock for a month at all central and surrounding London stores, while a tipster claims that the 27-inch monitor has been pulled from sale, with stock “returned to warehouse,” at at least one U.K. retail store. A similar tip originating from Australia was received about Thunderbolt Display stock not being replenished.
With WWDC 2016 around the corner, limited in-store availability of the Thunderbolt Display will naturally stir speculation about a possible refresh to the standalone monitor. As always, however, the stock outage could simply amount to regular fluctuations within Apple’s inventory channels, or Apple could be making room for ongoing store renovations. Rumors about a Thunderbolt Display refresh have slowed since late 2014.
AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule Wi-Fi base stations are also at least temporarily out of stock at many Apple Stores, although only at U.S. locations and possibly because of a recent firmware update or FCC compliance.
Apple began shipping the five-year-old Thunderbolt Display in September 2011. In terms of prospective updates, the 27″ Retina 5K iMac could be the basis for a corresponding 5K Thunderbolt Display, which could feature the same 5,120×2,880 pixels resolution, USB-C ports for connecting Thunderbolt 3 peripherals, and possibly an ultra-thin design resembling the latest iMacs.
Only the late 2013 Mac Pro, late 2014 or newer 27″ Retina 5K iMac, and mid 2015 15-inch MacBook Pro with AMD Radeon R9 M370X graphics are capable of driving 5K external displays, however, and each setup requires using two Thunderbolt cables per display. The lack of support is due to bandwidth limitations of the DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 1.4 specs on current Macs.
DisplayPort 1.3 has increased bandwidth, but Skylake-based Macs with Thunderbolt 3 will not support the spec and Intel’s next-generation Kaby Lake processors on track for a late 2016 launch will not as well. Apple could opt to release a 4K Thunderbolt Display instead, but supply chain considerations make this unlikely, so the company’s exact plans for the future of its standalone display remain to be seen.
Related Roundups: Thunderbolt Display, WWDC 2016
Tag: Apple retail
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How to use Spotify: Building your library, downloading music and more – CNET
Spotify is confusing.
I’m a three-year veteran and still stumble upon features that have probably been there all along. (Song queue, anyone?) Spotify’s app makes me feel like I’m at Costco, looking for a giant block of cheese, but the people with the samples keep throwing me off course.
But I love Spotify. Most of the music I like is on the platform and its partnerships — with Apple CarPlay, Samsung Smart TV and lots of others — make it accessible almost everywhere. Plus, the family plan just got a price cut, giving you up to 6 users for $15.99.
Others seem to love Spotify, too. Spotify has about 30 million paying subscribers and nearly 90 million users total, which is more than any other music-streaming platform out there. Apple Music has about 13 million subscribers.
One thing is for sure: it’s not Spotify’s app that drew such an enormous crowd — and it’s certainly not the thing that will keep people around. I realized I wasn’t going back to buying music the old-school way, though, so I finally did the thing no one has done before: mastered Spotify.
You can, too. The tips here work for desktop, but if you’re following along, do so with the phone app.
All the ways to find music
You got Spotify because you want to play music. There are a bunch of ways to do that:
- Search for a song. This is where you go when all you really want to do is play “Love Yourself” on repeat. Tap the Search tab, type the song name or artist, and you’re set.
- Find a playlist. It’s easy to miss this one. Search for something like “best rolling stones” to see if anyone in the community has made that playlist. After searching, scroll allllll the way to the bottom to see Playlist results.
- Play a “Radio” station. Here’s Spotify’s attempt at giving you a Pandora-style option. You can go for one of the recommended stations, choose a genre, or tap the “+” button at the top to create a station based on a song or artist. That feature isn’t as good as Pandora, but it suffices when you just can’t decide on a playlist.
- Browse. If you want to get lost in a sea of music — or maybe let music find you — go here. The tiles at the top are playlists that Spotify thinks you’ll enjoy, based on your listening habits. The Genres & Moods section is a way to find playlists made by people on Spotify’s team. They tend to be well-curated and long — each one has at least 25 songs.
Building your library
The very last tab in the app is Your Library. It’s where you can store and organize all the music you find on Spotify, the way you might if you were buying the music and organizing it in a place like iTunes.
Here’s how to pile music into Playlists, Stations, Songs, Albums and Artists.
To get playlist into Playlists, you have to “follow” them. You can find the follow option at the top of every playlist. For stations, any that you created in the Radio tab will show up here, but you can also create a new station within this window.
Making playlists is easy. There are two ways:
- Tap the option button (circle with three dots) next to a song and hit “Add to playlist.” You can add it to an existing one that you created (not someone else’s you’re following) or create a new one.
- Go to the Playlists section in Your Music, tap the Edit button in the corner, then the “+” that appears in the upper-left corner.
For Songs, Albums, and Artists, you have to “Save” music. To save music, tap the options button (circle with three dots inside) next to any song. That song will show up under Songs, its artist under Artists and its Album under Albums.
Here’s where things get fun (as in, confusing). If you want to save an entire album or all of an artist’s music, you have to “follow” them, like you do with playlists. Go to an Album or Artist page (by searching or browsing) and tap the “Follow” button at the top. They’ll now show up in your library.
Useful features that are easy to miss
Download songs for offline listening.
Sharon Profis/CNET
Downloading songs. This is useful for when you don’t have reception or want to use less data streaming music — like when you’re traveling.
To download music, go to Your Library. At the top of any playlist, album, artist, or the entire Songs list, flip the switch to “Available offline.” I highly recommend connecting your phone Wi-Fi and charger first. Downloading songs sucks up data and battery power.
The song queue. You can queue up music on the fly by tapping the option button next to a song (circle with three dots) and choosing “Add to Up Next.” To view the queue, go to the Now Playing screen (tap the bar at the bottom of the app) and hit the icon in the upper-right corner (three lines).
Follow an artist. Use this feature to get notifications when an artist you like releases new music or adds it to Spotify for the first time. Just go to an artist’s page and hit “Follow” at the top.
A clever way to discover new music. One of my favorite features is the Related Artists section on every artist’s page. Head to an artist and just below the list of popular tracks, you’ll see a tiny section with a list of similar artists. Tap that and you can dive into the complete list. I’ve discovered some of my now-favorite artists using this feature.
Sharon Profis/CNET
The truth behind the lyrics. This one is extra easy to miss. RapGenius integrates directly into Spotify, so you can find out what those lyrics really mean without going to Google. Just go to the Now Playing screen (tap on the bar near the bottom of the app) and swipe down on the album cover.
Settings you should probably change
Go to to Your Library and hit the gear icon at the top. There are a lot of settings to choose from, so here are the most important ones:
- Stream and download quality. AKA, how to not kill your data plan. If you stream music in high quality, your ears will be happy, but your phone bill might feel otherwise. Set stream quality to Normal if you want to be thrifty about data. Download quality is even more important. Unless you commit to only download music over Wi-Fi do not select Extreme.
- Offline mode. This one’s useful for when you have a network connection, but don’t want to use it. For me, that’s at the end of every month, when I’m close to going over my data. Enable this mode and Spotify will only let you play downloaded music.
- Gapless playback. You can keep awkward pauses between songs from ruining your playlist with this feature. Turn it on and, if you like, adjust the crossfade slider to make the songs overlap a bit. It’s like you’re a DJ, but not at all.
Friends, your profile, and all that “social” stuff
Social features sometimes feel unnecessary, but the ones in Spotify make a lot of sense. By following friends in the app, you can view (and add) their playlists, see what music they’re listening to and directly send them music you like.
To find and add friends, go to Your Music and tap your photo at the top-right corner. Hit Find Friends. If you connected Spotify with your Facebook account, you’ll see your friends show up in the list. Tap on Featured to follow brand accounts, like Billboard, Last.fm, and MTV.
If you don’t see the person or brand you want to follow in these lists, go to the main search bar and look for them there.
Activity of anyone you follow will also show up in a stream on the desktop app in the Activity section.
Desktop features
All of the aforementioned features work the same on Spotify’s desktop app and web player. There are some extra features, like Local Files (we’ll save that for another tutorial). But my favorite Spotify desktop feature the remote control.
More Spotify tips
- How to choose the best streaming service for your family
- Why I ditched Apple Music for Spotify
- 6 things to consider when choosing a streaming-music subscription
When you’re playing music on your desktop, open the app on your phone. You’ll see a pop-up that says, “You’re listening on ______” (The blank being the name of your desktop computer.) Hit “Continue.” Then, tap the gray bar near the bottom and you’re controlling playback on your computer.
To switch playback to your phone, tap your desktop’s name (in green, at the bottom), and tap “This phone.”
Zotac Magnus EN980 Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
Small but mighty and VR ready.
Aloysius Low/CNET
I’ve always thought that you really needed a tower chassis to really get the most out of a PC. Having more space usually means better airflow, after all. And it leaves you room for components, such as an extra graphics card, that can boost its performance.
The Magnus EN980, Zotac’s liquid-cooled mini PC, quite easily proves me wrong. Zotac announced it a few months back, but it’s making its debut here at Computex in Taipei.
This powerful computer may not be big, but it packs a desktop-class quad-core 2.7GHz Intel Core i5-6400 processor and Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 980 graphics card. Other specs also include 16GB of RAM and a 240GB SSD. That should be enough for most people, though I’d prefer if there’s was room for an additional hard disk drive.
Key specs
- Small PC
- Uses two 180W power supply units due to limited space
- Liquid cooling helps keep component temperatures down
- Available from the end of June
The Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 and Intel Core i5 processor mean it’s more than powerful enough to meet the minimum requirements for VR. So you’ll be able to use this with the HTC Vive or the Oculus Rift.
Zotac says it plans to ship by end June with a starting price of $1,000 (which converts to about £685 or AU$1,380). That seems like a bargain to me. You could probably get the same specs for less with a tower PC, but they won’t fit as nicely into a small compact package.
Check out the rest of CNET’s Computex 2016 coverage.
Here’s what it looks like without the Zotac chassis.
Aloysius Low/CNET
Sony Xperia X review – CNET
The Good The Sony Xperia X is a winning compact phone for its high-quality camera and ergonomic in-hand fit. The dedicated camera button gives you a convenient quick-shoot option.
The Bad Battery life is constrained, and the fingerprint reader won’t work on the US version of the phone.
The Bottom Line A reliable and likable midrange phone, the Xperia X stands out for its palm-friendly build and strong camera, but we can’t recommend it for US customers.
Visit manufacturer site for details.
Well, well, well, Sony Xperia X. You are a conundrum. I admit that I like you more now than I did when we first met at your February debut, and that’s largely thanks to your sneaky-awesome trait of being really easy to operate one-handed. There aren’t a lot of phones out there these days that are compact enough and proportioned well enough to pull this off, especially for people on the smaller end of the hand-size spectrum.
But you do, and that’s extremely useful for all the times when I’ve got my arms full with my giant purse, work badge, groceries, a cup of tea, a handhold on the bus, whatever. With your square sides that are easy to grip and the fast-acting fingerprint reader built right into the power button on your right spine, you make it incredibly easy to whip you out of a back pocket to read the news or act on notifications without having to uncomfortably stretch my hands to reach your 5-inch screen. Since my thumb is larger than the fingerprint reader/power button, I don’t have to worry about precise positioning to unlock the screen, and your accuracy is spot on.
Sony’s Xperia X phone in all its angles
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But that fingerprint reader is also what gives me pause, Xperia X, because while it works flawlessly for your global variant, it won’t work in the US market at all. Sony is disabling it intentionally, just like it did on some of your brethren, like the Z5 and Z5 Compact. (“Sony Mobile has decided not to include fingerprint sensors in the US models at this time.”) This strikes me as a silly omission that will keep one large market from unlocking you this way and from quickly, conveniently authorizing payments through Android Pay, the Amazon app, their banking app and so on.
Because of your stingy ways stateside, I can’t recommend you for the US. You’ll get 4G LTE speeds on T-Mobile and AT&T if customers buy you directly from Sony’s website or from retailers like Amazon, Best Buy and B&H. But without that fingerprint reader, I just can’t recommend you over the Google Nexus 6P, which has a fast fingerprint reader as well, costs $50 less and will be first in line for Android software updates like Android N this fall, as well as compatibility with Google’s upcoming Daydream VR platform.
But for the rest of the globe, I do like you as a less expensive Android 6.0 Marshmallow option. You probably won’t be as fast as the same-size Xperia X Performance that’s coming out July 17, and you certainly won’t have its water-resistant body, but you do cost much less.
Sony Xperia X camera takes on Tokyo (pictures)
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Still, you’re pricier than the HTC One A9 (but you take better photos) and customers who prefer a larger screen should absolutely get the 5.7-inch Nexus 6P over you. Sorry, it’s harsh but true. ZTE’s newly-announced Axon 7 also looks promising, with a larger base-model storage capacity (64GB versus 32GB) and comparable camera specs (which doesn’t always equal better performance) — and it costs less than you do. (Read a full specs comparison breakdown with these phones below.)
So while I can easily hold you with one hand while giving your dimensions and camera a thumbs up with the other, you do face intense competition from less expensive phones.
Sincerely, Jessica
Well, that felt good to get off my chest, but I still want to walk about the Xperia X camera, battery life and hardware specs. Also, you should know that this review and specs apply to the 32GB version of the Xperia X. Sony will also offer the phone in a 64GB, dual-SIM model, but hasn’t shared pricing yet.
Whirlpool Vessi Beer Fermenter Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
Whirlpool
Whirlpool’s Vessi Fermenter looks like a large appliance, but it doesn’t wash your dishes or your clothes — it helps you brew beer. It’s a single tank that claims it can help your homebrew taste better by reducing contamination and taking control of the temperature and the pressure during fermentation. By controlling the pressure, it can supposedly speed up the carbonation process — that means you shouldn’t have to wait as long to sample the goods.
Beer brewing bots
- PicoBrew Pico
- Brewie
- Artbrew
Vessi flips the approach of the other automatic beer brewers we’ve seen. Instead of helping you through the labor intensive cooking stages like the PicoBrew Pico or Brewie, Vessi leaves that all to you, framing it as the fun part. Instead, the Vessi Beer Fermenter — which was developed by appliance giant Whirlpool and launches a crowdfunding campaign today on Indiegogo — takes over the process after you’ve crafted your wort.
It has an eye-popping price tag of $1,900 (no international availability for now, but that price converts to around £1,300 or AU$2,650). The high cost will limit its appeal to hobbyists, but as a full-blown and decent-looking beer-brewing appliance with Whirlpool’s backing, it could find a market with passionate homebrewers looking to add some professionalism to their craft.
Brewing basics
For the unaffiliated, you brew beer by steeping water with malted barley, then boiling it with hops. The resulting mixture is called wort. Making wort takes a couple of hours of fairly active cooking. Then you mix your wort with yeast, which eats the sugars from the malt and produces carbon dioxide and alcohol. Letting the yeast do its thing can take weeks and there’s not a lot you can do to help you beer along during this fermentation process. However, you will want to keep your beer at a certain temp during fermentation, because extra heat will introduce off flavors.
Measuring up
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Master brewing with the Brewie beer bot
We get a taste of the Brewie automatic beer maker at CES 2016.
by Andrew Gebhart
January 7, 2016
One of my issues with beer bots such as PicoBrew and Brewie is that by automating the first cooking stages, they end up compromising some of the artistry and craftsmanship that goes into brewing beer yourself. And you’re on your own when it comes to fermentation.
So I like the Vessi Fermenter, at least in theory, because you do still have to cook the beer yourself. The fermenter’s role is to help you watch over your beer during the downtime after the brew. And there’s a certain degree of reassurance that comes from a crowdfunding campaign with the backing of a major manufacturer.
In that sense, Whirlpool’s approach with Vessi reminds me of the experimental work GE is doing with First Build, a “microfactory” in Louisville where the manufacturing giant can design, build and sell small batches of experimental appliances in an effort to reach new niche consumer bases. The division of Whirlpool that developed Vessi is called W Labs. It’s an initiative by Whirlpool to test out ideas in areas it might not otherwise have explored on a full-scale production level.
My main hesitation is that price tag. You can control the temperature of your fermenting wort much more affordably with the upcoming $350 BrewJacket Immersion Pro. And most homebrewers do well enough by finding a cool spot in their basement for their fermenting container.
Outlook
I like that you can pour your beer right from the tap at the top of the Vessi fermenter, but since you may have to make room for it in your basement or garage, I’m not sure how convenient that feature will be at a party. The system supposedly also helps with more advanced steps such as secondary fermentation and controlling your alcohol by volume. It’ll need to be pretty advanced to be worth the price.
You can preorder the Vessi Fermenter via the Indiegogo campaign now, with early bird discounts available for the first batch of backers. The products are scheduled to start shipping before the Christmas holiday.
Asus Zenbook 3 preview: A superthin MacBook killer?
It seems every Computex Asus manages to get us to fall in love (or perhaps lust) with its latest Zenbook. And this year’s offering, the Asus Zenbook 3, is no exception.
It’s not only beautifully crafted, using aerospace grade alloy and the signature spun metal finish, but has an impressive set of specs. It is also extremely light at just 910g.
It’s quite clear that Asus has aimed to outperform the Macbook – the company certainly made no bones about it during the presentation. Its weight, being 10g lighter than the Apple device. is just the start.
Asus Zenbook 3: Superthin
It is also just 11.9 mm thick while the MacBook is 13.2mm and yet the display is larger than the Apple’s at 12.5-inches. The bezels are super slim, allowing the display to cover 82 per cent of the available space, and in the hand it felt superbly light. If you are looking for portable this is the new definition.
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Asus has gone all out under the hood too. The top-of-the-range model boasts Intel’s Core i7, 16GB of Ram plus a 1TB PCIe SSD.
Asus chairman Johnny Shih claims that the Zenbook runs two times faster than the recent MacBook, but we’re yet to test that in the real world.
As a consequence of the extra power, fan design has been a significant focus. Asus has managed to come up with possibly the world’s thinnest at just 3mm, and it seemed to be doing the job when we handled the device. It must be said though that the laptop wasn’t exactly running anything particularly intensive, so we’ll have to wait until we get hold of a test model to be sure.
Asus Zenbook 3: USB-C
The Zenbook 3 is powered by USB Type-C and promises to reach a 60 per cent charge on the 40W battery in an impressive 49 minutes. The battery should be good for nine hours, according to Asus.
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The display is covered in Gorilla Glass 4, as is the trackpad. There’s an edge-to-edge gold backlit full-size keyboard, which felt pretty responsive when we got to have a brief play around with it. You can log in using the fingerprint scanner to the left of the pad, for Windows Hello one-touch access (eliminating the need to enter/remember passwords).
In terms of ports, like the Macbook, Asus has gone for the single USB-C. The get-around for this is to use a port bank – which Asus also makes – to allow you the full range of ports should you need them.
First Impressions
This really looks like it is going to be a beauty of a machine. It will come in three colours, Rose Gold, Quartz Grey and the divine Royal Blue.
Asus has really pulled out the stops when taking on its main rival. Thinner? Check. Lighter? Check. Faster? Check. At least based on Asus claims. We certainly can’t wait to test the device itself to see if that really is the case. It’s certainly very promising.
If you’re similarly enthused you’ll be glad to know that you only need wait until August when Curry’s and PC World will be selling the lower spec (Core i5, 4GB/254SSD) model from £549.99 and the top of the range model for £799.99.
How to get free data, texts, and calls
Mobile plans aren’t exactly cheap. However, mobile carrier FreedomPop, which launched in the UK last year after first debuting in the US, is offering customers voice calls, texts, and mobile data at no cost. More specifically, you can get 200 minutes, 200 texts and 200MB of data, free of charge every month, making it perfect for most users. Even better, they have a new limited time offer that trumps their free plan in savings & value.
Top deal for Pocket-Lint Readers
FreedomPop has provided us at Pocket-Lint a special deal today: a free SIM Card that comes with unlimited minutes, unlimited texts, and 2250MB of data. There is a one-time 99p activation cost, but that’s all you’ll pay for the first month. Then, it’s only £6.99/month for continued service with the same monthly plan. This is one of the lowest-cost plans out there for a SIM Card with over 2GB of data! And remember, since there are no contracts and no commitments, you can always switch over to the 100% free plan at any time!
What is FreedomPop?
FreedomPop is a mobile phone service wireless internet carrier founded in 2011.
FreedomPop provides mobile services including voice calls, text, and mobile data. It also sells mobile phones, tablets, and broadband devices for use with the FreedomPop service. In the US, FreedomPop uses Sprint’s network, whereas in the UK, it uses Three’s 4G LTE and 3G network, covering 97 per cent of the population.
How does FreedomPop work?
Get a FreedomPop SIM card by first going to the FreedomPop website. Once you
complete your order and click the “Activate” button, FreedomPop will let you choose your phone number and will ship you a free FreedomPop SIM card within two business days. It will arrive fully activated and ready to use. Simply slide it into your phone, then download the FreedomPop messaging app, and use the FreedomPop service. You can use a FreedomPop phone or your own phone. Also, the FreedomPop service currently only supports Android and Apple devices running Android 4.0+ and iOS 7.0,respectively.
Is it really free?
Yes – as long as you don’t go over 200 minutes of voice, 200 texts, and 200MB of
mobile data when using the Basic 200 plan. And if you need more data, you can get extra at the rate of 2p per MB.
How do I start?
You need to select a FreedomPop plan in order to use the FreedomPop service,
naturally. The “free” plan is actually called the Basic 200 and comes with 200 minutes of voice, 200 texts, and 200MB of mobile data. It costs £0.00 a month. And for even more added savings, there is unlimited calls and texts between other FreedomPop phones, which is perfect when the entire family switches over! And remember, FreedomPop’s newest special offer of unlimited minutes, unlimited texts, & 2250 MB for 99p is a great way to try out their service!
Try FreedomPop Today!
Turn your GoPro into a 3D camera using this £35 Vitrima lens case
If you’ve already splashed out on a GoPro but like the idea of capturing 3D footage, there’s now an affordable way to do it – the Vitrima.
The Vitrima is a waterproof GoPro case that features a split with two mirrors in the front. This means that the normal camera is seeing the world from two slightly different perspectives, just like the human eyes do. So when you capture footage using the case it will not only be in 3D but will be ready to view and share immediately.
So all you need to go 3D with your recording kit is this $50 case, which is about £35. Then if you’ve not already got one, pick up a Google Cardboard or similar for £15 and slip your phone in to start viewing the footage. Although Vitrima is offering a free VR viewer for the $3 cost of shipping, but this is presumably US only and will only be available while stocks last.
Obviously this is a new type of solution that’s not been shown off in action yet so early adopters beware. That said it’s a far cheaper solution to many of the alternatives, including buying another GoPro and setting that up in a rig for the multi-perspective capture. Plus you can check out the final result in the 3D video below.
To be informed when the Vitrima becomes available you can sign up on the company’s website via the source link below.
READ: The best GoPro photos in the world, prepare to lose your breath
Asus Transformer 3 Pro preview: Gives the Surface a run for its money
Asus unveiled three new 2-in-1 devices at Computex this year. Having led the way in the detachable tablet market, it seems keen to maintain its lead and the Transformer 3 Pro suggests the company is right on track. Its a device that sometimes exceeds the Surface’s specs and looks classy in the process.
You wouldn’t be ashamed to walk into a meeting with the Transformer 3 Pro – which Asus describes as “the world’s most versatile PC”.
There’s Icicle Gold or Glacier Grey colour schemes to choose from and both look slick. The backlit keyboard dock – which doubles up as a cover, making a nice portfolio effect – comes in a choice of three colours to match.
It’s pretty darn thin at just 8.35mm but the aluminium structure feels solid in the hand. We’d guess the weight at around 800g although don’t have official figures yet to back that up.
Pocket-lint
The diamond cut detailing along the fold out line for the integrated kickstand is a nice touch too. The kickstand allows for viewing angles of up to 170 degrees. You’ll need both hands to flip it out, although that’s by no means a bad thing as it means that the stand will hold firm.
The top of the range model is powered by Intel Core i7 processing with up to 1TB SSD storage and 16GB RAM. That should be more than enough for most users’ needs. It has a sizeable 12.6-inch display (2880 x 1920) with a 275ppi density and an RGB of 121 per cent, which makes for lovely vivid colours.
Asus reckons that the five-way speakers are four times louder than the Surface’s, so combined with the display should make for a pretty pleasant viewing and audio experience.
The USB Type-C connector allows for speeds of up to 10Gbps for supported devices and the Thunderbolt 3 connection can achieve up to a blistering data transfer rate of 40Gbps. It can support dual external 4K displays. Speaking of which, you’ll find a full size HDMI plus a USB 3.0 port here too.
For people requiring more connectivity, Asus has a universal dock that provides USB-C 3.1, USB 3.0, HDMI, VGA, RJ45 LAN, and a 3-in-1 SD card reader.
Pocket-lint
The Pro comes bundled with the Asus stylus (1024 levels of precision) but oddly the staff on hand at Computex didn’t offer a solution for carrying it with the device. However, when we tried it the device fit snugly in the seam of the cover as you can see in our photos.
You can log on using Microsoft’s Hello facial recognition, although there is no fingerprint scanner as found on the Transformer 3 and Mini.
You can also use the ROG XG Station 2 – an external graphics card dock – to make the Pro VR ready.
All in all, this is a super portable work and entertainment horse. You can pick it up soon in Curry’s, PC World or John Lewis starting at £899.99 with Core i5-6200, 4GB RAM plus 256GB storage or £1,399.99 with a Core i7-6500 CPU, 8GB RAM and 512GB storage.
Volvo XC90 review: Setting the SUV standard
In car terms, half a decade is a lifetime. So the last Volvo XC90’s 12-year production run represents something of an unusual case. It sold well right to the end but was out-smarted by a new breed of big SUVs.
Enter the new XC90. The first production car to come from what, in effect is “new Volvo”. Now under the ownership of Chinese Geely, the XC90 sits on Volvo’s SPA platform — a new, front-wheel-drive architecture that will underpin all new Volvos from the S60 upwards.
Most importantly perhaps, it was designed under Thomas Ingenlath — a designer from the VW group who created some of Volkswagen’s best-known recent concepts. Ingenlath knew Volvo needed to be more premium.
But he knew it couldn’t be just like the Germans — a “me too” Audi wouldn’t cut it. It had to be Swedish; it had to be different. And the XC90 is a master class is Scandinavian success. Here’s why.
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Volvo XC90 review: A safe Swede named Thor
One area that Volvo is never going to approach differently is safety. It’s at the core of the company’s approach. Volvo is a human brand — it wants to make your life better and look after your life, rather than make you drive like you want to end other people’s lives.
To that end, Volvo plans to be one of the first on the road with so-called driverless cars. Indeed, it’s going to test them in the UK from next year. And that autonomous push goes hand-in-hand with a commitment that, from 2020, no one should die or be seriously injured in a Volvo. All of which is a long way of saying that the XC90 is one of the safest cars on the road today (so says Euro NCap) and is also loaded with technological kit, which gives you a taste of the driverless experience.
The XC90 is able to use a combo of the radar cruise control, camera and its electric power steering system to accelerate, brake and steer itself in certain situations — namely city traffic jams and motorways. It ticks you off and asks you to take hold of the wheel if you don’t touch it every 10 seconds or so, and its steering ability is limited. But for traffic jams — like on our daily commute — Volvo has created a car which, while not letting you sit in the back and read a book, can certainly take most of the load off. Our 8-mile suburb-to-city-centre drive saw us touching the pedals only six times on one occasion.
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It is fallible, of course. It can’t cope if the white lines on the road run out — it needs those to keep itself in a lane (a clue to perhaps some of the challenges to come for the driverless car in the future), but otherwise it works well. And Volvo’s radar cruise control — which you can use independently of the car helping you steer — is better than anyone except what you’ll find in a Tesla Mercedes.
Volvo XC90 review: German pricing
It’s not just safety that Volvo’s pushing though. To compete with the German brands, it needs to lead with technology. And that starts with the XC90’s exterior design.
Those piercing lamps carry a new brand signature. “Thor’s hammer” the design team call them, riffing off the Swedish culture. The lamps (on our test car) use the most advanced technology available — a matrix LED beam array that works incredibly — lighting-up dark roads like daylight but then seamlessly adjusting the beam pattern to block out chunks as they sense oncoming drivers.
The equipment packs are another area Volvo has notably learned from the Germans — in that it’s easy to rack-up the price, and there are lots of tempting options boxes to tick.
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Notably, if equipped with the £2,000 “Xenium pack” the XC90 also features a 360-degree park view system, can park itself parallel or 90-degrees into bays, and features a panoramic roof. Another £3,000 buys you an amazing 18-speaker upgraded Bowers & Wilkins system, plus the winter pack and head-up display (HUD) bundled is £950.
Our car also featured the family pack (£275), consisting of integrated booster seat, rear door locks, luggage net; blind spot and rear collision mitigation (£500); and Apple CarPlay (a steep extra at £300). Most of these features work very well and improve the car’s day-to-day usability. But you can see that, with these — and the other options packs available — it’s easy for the XC90 to get very pricey.
Volvo XC90 review: A Swedish luxe lounge
Regardless of the options you add on, in this D5 Inscription trim the soft nappa leather and lovely wood or metal trim is standard. Prepare to bask in an extremely Swedish, high quality interior. No surprise as Robin Page, Volvo’s chief interior designer, used to work at Bentley. And it does feel like a Swedish Bentley in here — there’s even crystal glass on the gearshifter in some versions.
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It’s like a Swedish loft inside, augmented by the huge aluminium speaker baffles in the doors, behind which you can just see peeking through a serious arsenal of Bowers & Wilkins woofers with their trademark yellow cones. Never mind the look, it all sounds and smells so good.
The seats themselves of course are supremely comfortable too. Some Volvo hallmarks still remain. But these units are thin and lightweight which saves on space.
The best news though — particularly for those who fondly took to the previous XC90 for its family-friendly arrangement — is that in the cabin you can fit in seven full size adults with ease. And there’s space for them to bring bags too. In that regard, it’s much better than a BMW X5 or Audi Q7.
Access to the third row in the XC90 is easy, even for adults. Dropping the seats and flipping them back up takes mere moments too, and there’s a flip-up board in the boot with a bungee strap attached to stop your shopping or loose items falling over.
All the while, little Swedish flags on the leather edges remind you just which country this stylish space was created in. There’s an array of USB ports too, and full, 3-pin plug power point (a £100 option) in the back.
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Previous generation XC90 owners might miss the Range Rover-like split-functioning boot, with a pop-up top glass section and fold down lower. But we guess Volvo had to save money somewhere.
Volvo XC90 review: In the driver’s seat
It is perhaps reflective of the high-tech content, auto-pilot tech and lounge interior that this car is better to ride and simply sit in than it is to drive. The XC90 is, of course, four-wheel drive — but this is fundamentally a front wheel drive architecture, which dynamically puts it at a disadvantage to cars like the rear-drive biased BMW X5. The XC90 can pitch about a little if you throw it around and you’re never really going to have amazing fun driving a huge SUV. Generally it’s very calm and relaxing and on 20-inch wheels it rides nicely.
The bigger issue concerns the engine. Our D5-badged car might trick you into thinking it’s one of Volvo’s unusual 5-cylinder diesels, but this is a new 4-cylinder diesel engine which makes 235bhp. Problem is, the XC90 is a fairly massive car. Throw seven, or even five chunky adults in and the car only just feels fast enough in some situations. As in, we couldn’t out-accelerate a Fiesta up a slip-road just fast enough. It sounds guttural when you work it too.
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For most uses it will be fine though. Over 400-miles in a mix of traffic types it returned 30mpg. And the power/noise is only really a problem when compared to the overly-endowed 3.0, twin-turbo diesel Audi Q7s and BMW X5s some customers may be used to.
If that’s you, potentially check out Volvo’s intriguing T8 hybrid engine option instead — a plug-in hybrid which offers 20-miles or so of full electric range, but 320bhp from a petrol engine and 87bph from an electric motor combines to move that XC90 about with some alacrity (and saves you a bundle in tax potentially, too).
Volvo XC90 review: A new Sensus
Volvo also introduced its new infotainment system in the XC90. Based on a new electrical architecture, in the XC90 this means you get a 9-inch, portrait format centre touchscreen and a 12-inch digital cluster display. Our car augmented this with the optional head-up display (HUD) that projects in the windscreen. Considered as a whole, while this system is a big step forward for Volvo and has some nice features, it isn’t quite the in-car user interface nirvana we were expecting.
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The gauge cluster presents a pair of digitised, traditional Volvo speed/revs gauges. These — in some circumstances — shrink in size slightly. But the whole screen display can’t be reformatted, like Audi’s virtual cockpit can, to let the map take over. In fact, the resolution quality is clearly worse than the centre screen and the colour palette is a bit old fashioned and limited. It feels like a wasted opportunity to have a digital display here and only do this much with it. What we did like were steering wheel control buttons which have a digital feel and allow you to pull-up menus to select previous navigation destinations and more.
The main centre screen interface is a mixed bag. Volvo’s using Infrared touch technology (not capacitive or resistive screens) which means the interface will handle multitouch inputs, swipe and pinch-to-zoom even when you’ve got gloves on. It’s fast, too. Not iPad fast, but fast for car fast — showing Volvo has spent money on decent processors.
It’s mostly easy to use, too. The home screen presents four tiles — navigation, media/radio, phone and a reconfigurable one for the last app / function you used (such as Apple CarPlay). Tap on a tile and it expands, taking over two-thirds of the screen and shrinking the others down. When you’re in an application like navigation, you can set it to take over the full screen.
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All of which is fine — expect for the fact that it looks rather like a wireframe design that hasn’t had any graphics designed for it. As you delve into menus, such as when setting a navigation destination, the structure and grid layout changes, buttons and colours start to take on random locations and attributes. The resolution is high, and it’s easy to jump around menus, while the constant presence of the climate controls at the screen’s base make the presence of no physical controls liveable.
What’s frustrating is that it feels about 15 per cent away from being great; as the best in-car touchscreen system yet. But its flaws irked us repeatedly. Ultimately we concluded that the BMW iDrive / Audi MMI setup — while having a higher barrier to entry and steeper learning curve — is better to live with over time.
Verdict
Volvo waited a long time to replace the XC90. The old car had a legion of fans, many of whom had owned more than one. When you replace such a loved design there’s a risk that these loyal customers become alienated by changes, while those who have moved to other brands ignore you and never come back.
So Volvo had to nail the XC90 by pleasing its customers and attracting new ones. It’s clearly confident, because the XC90 is boldly priced to match the premium German brands. But, with a couple of exceptions, that’s entirely justified.
The engine doesn’t feel strong enough in some situations, it won’t entertain the loan driver like a BMW, and the Sensus interface and infotainment system still needs some work. Yet everything else about this car works so well, makes life so easy and is so relaxing that it’s easy to forgive these small issues. It feels like a truly premium product.
Volvo has kept the qualities people love. The XC90 is confident but not aggressive in style. And it’s better set-up for family life than any of the opposition. It prioritises comfort over sportiness. And if were going to have a serious car crash in any vehicle on sale today and hope to walk away, you’d be better off in this than just about anything else. It’ll try quite hard to stop you having that accident in the first place, too.
But Volvos have long had these qualities. What’s brilliant about the XC90 is it adds engineering underpinnings and on-board technologies that lead, rather than follow the pack. And it wraps the whole lot up in an interior and exterior package that is unique and distinct from the German brands’ cold, Teutonic vision of what premium is. This is a warm, welcoming but still distinctly premium Swedish experience that’s easy to love and just makes you feel better about life.
Twelve years was a long time to wait for a new XC90, but it’s been worth the wait — because it now leads the class.
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