ARCHEER 25W Bamboo Stereo 2.1 Bluetooth Speaker (review)
I received an interesting speaker from a company called ARCHEER to review. It’s ARCHEER’s 25 watt Bamboo stereo 2.1 wireless speaker that got its design cue from House of Marley’s Get Together Bluetooth speaker. I reviewed the House of Marley Get Together recently and found it to be one of my favorite Bluetooth speakers under $200.
The ARCHEER speaker is similar where it is made from similar materials and has quite a bit of sound output with it’s subwoofer and dual tweeters.
Let’s get into the review.
Design
It’s very clear that ARCHEER saw a popular design with House of Marley’s Get Together speaker when it put together its 25W Bamboo Stereo 2.1 wireless speaker. It’s made primarily of bamboo with canvas wrapped around the center portion of the speaker. The bamboo gives the speaker a real solid feel while the canvas gives the ARCHEER speaker a high-quality modern look.
The speaker has dual drivers that deliver the mids and highs which surround the center woofer that provides the bass. The bass is further enhanced with a port on the back allowing for more airflow.
Controls and connections are pretty standard, similar to what you would find on other wireless speakers. On the top of the speaker is where you will find separate buttons for power, play/pause, volume up/fast forward, and volume down/rewind. At the rear you will find a 3.5mm auxiliary port for a direct connection, a reset button, charge indicator light and a microUSB input slot for charging.
It also has a large internal battery rated at 5200mAh which is designed to last up to 11 hours at 50% maximum volume.
ARCHEER did a good job at recreating the House of Marley speaker in a smaller package.
Sound
If you are a bass aficionado, the ARCHEER Bluetooth speaker was made just for you. The lows on this speaker are very powerful which goes great with certain genres of music where bass is emphasized. The center woofer paired with the rear bass port make this speaker one of the loudest speakers I’ve heard priced under $100.
The two drivers manage to deliver crisp highs with mids to match. I’m not joking when I say the lows are the main focus of this speaker. At times, if you are are not directly in front of the speaker, the lows can drown out the mids rather easily. When you are in front of the speaker though, it does sound clear and detailed, there’s just an emphasis on the low end.
The power rating for the ARCHEER wireless speaker is 25W which is enough to get very loud. The size and power make it perfect for entertaining crowds in large rooms where it won’t be overpowered by people talking and laughing.
What is nice about the sound quality, is no matter what volume you have it set to, the sound scales well. At low volumes the bass maintains the same ratio as it does when it’s at the highest setting. Many speakers that focus on bass don’t sound good at lower volumes because all you hear is the bass, but this one sounds great across the entire power spectrum.
When it comes to the bass port, it sure does serve its purpose. The air it displaces is very noticeable when you put your hand behind it.
The bass port displaces enough air to move tissue paper with ease.
If you find yourself wanting to reduce the bass for other genres of music, you can set the speaker on its back and the sound becomes much more balanced. Quite honestly, when the speaker is on its back is when I actually love the sound output the most.
Battery
The ARCHEER Bluetooth speaker easily meets the 11 hour playback rating with its 5200mAH battery. When played at higher volumes for long periods of time, it drains the battery at a much faster pace. Using it outdoors, I turned mine up to about 80% of maximum volume and frequently pulled down six hours of playback.
If you’re listening to it indoors there almost no need to turn it up beyond 50% due to the incredible power behind each driver.
Summary
ARCHEER did an excellent job of mimicking House of Marley’s Get Together wireless speaker with its 25W Bluetooth 2.1 speaker. It managed to build a high quality speaker, with an emphasis on the low frequency sound range while maintaining clarity and crispiness.
I’m glad ARCHEER didn’t throw in the typical microphone for taking calls, because there is almost no way calls would sound good with this much power output. It’s one of the most powerful speakers I’ve listened to sub $100, and think it’s a great option for using around the house or outdoors. If you like bass, this speaker has loads of it when you want it. And when you don’t, simply place it on its back for a balanced sound output.
I think this speaker would make for a perfect gift for college students who live in dorms or apartments.
Check out the ARCHEER 25W Bamboo Stereo 2.1 Bluetooth Speaker at Amazon to learn more.
‘Mr. Robot’ star Rami Malek wins Outstanding Lead Actor Emmy
The USA series Mr. Robot has more than just surprisingly realistic hacking scenes, as it now can claim an Emmy win. Series star Rami Malek snagged the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series award tonight, beating out Kevin Spacey, Bob Odenkirk and others. After double checking to make sure we were all seeing this too (good call), Malek said he wanted to “honor the Elliots…because there’s a little bit of Elliot in all of us.” The show’s season finale airs Wednesday night, and if the breakdown of its hacking scenes hasn’t turned you into a fan yet, take a look at our interviews with show creator Sam Esmail.
Other notable winners include Tatiana Maslany’s Lead Actress in a Drama win for her multiple Orphan Black characters (14 at last count), a writing award for Aziz Ansari’s Master of None Netflix series, and a pair of Emmys for Amazon Prime’s Transparent. The complete list of nominees and winners is available here.
What an #Emmys moment! @ItsRamiMalek of @whoismrrobot just won! pic.twitter.com/U4XdK2ue6V
— Television Academy (@TelevisionAcad) September 19, 2016
One person can change the world.@ItsRamiMalek has won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor. #MrRobot pic.twitter.com/CvHJrHw8G5
— Mr. Robot (@whoismrrobot) September 19, 2016
CONGRATULATIONS to @TatianaMaslany for her Emmy WIN! It’s been a long time coming! #OrphanBlack pic.twitter.com/83PNl1bgW9
— Orphan Black (@OrphanBlack) September 19, 2016
.@jeffreytambor takes it home for the second time. #TransparentTV #Emmys pic.twitter.com/X4HmKX0hvs
— Amazon Video (@AmazonVideo) September 19, 2016
Winner winner chicken parm dinner! Congrats to @AlanMYang and @AzizAnsari! #Emmys pic.twitter.com/jiKI5DK5Fi
— Netflix US (@netflix) September 19, 2016
Source: Emmys.com
Artificial molecules fight drug-resistant ‘superbugs’
Scientists are clearly picking up the pace in their quest to kill antibiotic-resistant “superbugs.” Teams at the Universty of Melbourne and UT Southwestern Medical Center have developed composite molecules that overcome the defenses of stubborn bacteria, promising treatment for illnesses that have built up their immunity over the years.
The University of Melbourne solution uses star-shaped peptide polymers, or short protein chains, to directly destroy bacteria through techniques such as ‘ripping apart’ the cell wall. The approach is not only effective, but safe: in tests involving red blood cells, it would have taken a 100 times larger dose to be toxic.
At UTSW, researchers used PPMO compound molecules (peptide-conjugated phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomers) to block a bacterial pump that kicks out antibiotics. They imitate DNA or RNA, binding to a key genetic sequence in the bacteria and preventing it from building proteins. The PPMO approach isn’t a solution by itself, but it renders bacteria vulnerable to antibiotics that were previously ineffective — even for medicine that never worked before.
In both cases, the universities have a lot of refinement to do. They need to both progress toward human trials and see if their approaches work on a wide variety of bacteria, not just those in the early experiments. If these molecules prove to be reliable, though, they could give hospitals a much-needed reprieve when fighting MRSA and other resistant illnesses. Your doctor could either use a one-two combo treatment to defeat bacteria or skip antibiotics entirely.
Via: SCMP, Phys.org
Source: University of Melbourne, UT Southwestern Medical Center
Mobile Nations Weekly: Sevens
You might have heard about the hot new thing in tech…
Samsung’s Note 7-shaped hole, err, recall just keeps getting deeper — the recall of the potentially-explosive phone got “now the government’s involved” official. If you’re still using a recalled Samsung Galaxy Note 7 (if you’ve not exchanged your phone, that’s you), please go to the nearest store for your carrier and exchange it. It doesn’t matter if you’ll have to use a different phone for a week or two while we wait for replacement Note 7s to become available in mass quantities — this is a safety thing we’re talking about.
As we’ve been saying since the news first broke, the timing couldn’t be worse for Samsung: Apple rolled into town with the iPhone 7 launch and sucked all of the oxygen out of the room (we hear that’s good for putting out fires), along with a major update to iOS. Of course, if you’re not into Apple stuff, that won’t change your mind, but it’s worth noting that while there are a lot of people that read sites like this one, there are a lot more people that don’t, and the only mainstream news about the Note 7 is that it blows up while the worst the iPhone 7 gets in the midst of another huge launch is that there’s no headphone jack.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is staying quiet while the Note 7 and iPhone 7 storm rages on by (don’t doubt that they’ll have plenty to say about both in comparison once the dust settles). We saw new preview builds for the next major update to Windows 10 and a neat PC-phone-bridging feature coming to Skype. And with the new HP Elite x3 stepping into the spotlight as the new most powerful Windows Phone, it was put to the test with a week of using the phone with a monitor and keyboard instead of a PC.
Android Central — Note 7: Total recall
The Note 7 recall really came to a new level this week, with even more reports of phone fires being capped off by an official recall with the U.S. CPSC. Samsung has a few ideas for how to deal with those who just won’t turn in their Note 7, but this is bound to take a while to be resolved.
Even as this all goes on, we stand by our original Galaxy Note 7 review.
As we near an expected launch of Google’s new “Pixel” phones, a leaked version of its launcher shows off some awesome new features. The same event is rumored to include new Google-branded Android Wear watches, which is interesting since the other big manufacturers seem content to wait until 2017.
- How much faster are Samsung’s Fast Wireless chargers?
- OnePlus 3 vs Honor 8: When $399 is a bargain
- OnePlus developer exodus forced merge of OxygenOS and HydrogenOS
- What makes a phone battery explode?
- Honor 8: Challenges and opportunities and sales pass 1.5 million
- The Xperia XZ gives me hope that Sony can turn things around
- Who do I contact when I need help with my phone?
CrackBerry — Definitions
As announced this week, BlackBerry’s Q2 fiscal 2017 results are coming up on September 28th so we’ll be getting a closer look at where they stand these days soon. The confidence at BlackBerry is showing ahead of the results, though, as BlackBerry COO Marty Beard stepped to the plate to defend the organization in a new post on the company blog. On the Android side of things in the BlackBerry World, BlackBerry has now opened Hub+ Suite beta testing to Android devices.
- BlackBerry COO Marty Beard: We’re not letting one product or idea define us
- BlackBerry to announce Q2 fiscal 2017 results September 28th
- BlackBerry opens BlackBerry Hub+ Suite beta testing to all Android devices!
iMore — Seven, Ten, Plus
Big. Week. iOS 10 is here! watchOS 3 is here! tvOS 10 is here! (macOS comes next week!) Apple Watch Series 1 and Series 2 are here! And iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are here! Yeah. BIG. WEEK.
We’ve got an enormous number of guides all ready and waiting for you — and for family members that we can support so you don’t have to — and we’ve already plunged into our reviews, so check it all out and share away!
- iOS 10 review
- 28 new iOS 10 features you need to know!
- watchOS 3 review
- iPhone Upgrade Program FAQ
- How to transfer data from your old iPhone to your new iPhone 7
- How to switch from your old Android phone to your new iPhone
VR Heads — VR for all!
There’s a lot to be said about the intensity and immersion of desktop-class VR, but there are so many other experiences out there worth considering! For example, You can take a Google Cardboard headset and check out Steam VR or Oculus Rift experiences, which is a crazy concept to wrap your head around. Check out our full tutorial for more!
- Steam VR through Google Cardboard is weird and kinda great!
- PrioVR and what it means for Oculus Rift
- Wrath of Loki review: Stop Ragnarok before it’s too late!
Windows Central — P-p-p-previews!
The optional integration of Skye and SMS is starting this week as Microsoft released a new Preview version of the messaging app. The update is only available on the Fast Ring, but it lets users relay messages from PC to phone and vice versa. More features are on the way as well for Skype, which Microsoft detailed this week.
Back to OS news: Windows 10 build 14926 (Redstone 2) is available for PC and Mobile. The Fast Ring update added some new features like ‘Snooze’ to Edge and unified Wi-Fi settings.
Phone as a PC? The HP Elite x3 smartphone was further tested as Zac used its Continuum mode for a week. The phone is also again available for pre-order and some are even shipping in the U.S.
Don’t forget to enter our Lenovo Yoga Book contest as we’re giving away one of the super cool devices.
- The $300 Kangaroo Notebook adds a modular kick to the traditional laptop
- What is an SSD and why would I want one?
- Best 2-in-1 Laptops
- Huawei Matebook makes the iPad Pro upset and uncomfortable in latest ad
Terabit fiber optic speeds just came closer to reality
Sure, researchers have been showing off terabit data speeds in fiber optics for years, but they’ve seldom been practical. That exotic technology may work over long distances, but it can quickly fall apart when you throw typical network loads in the mix. However, it’s about to become much more practical. Nokia Bell Labs, Deutsche Telekom and the Technical University of Munich have shown off 1Tbps data speeds in a field trial that involved “real conditions,” with varying channel conditions and traffic levels.
The secret was a new modulation technique, Probabilistic Constellation Shaping. Instead of using all the networking’s constellation points (the “alphabet of the transmission”) equally, like typical fiber, it prefers those points with lower amplitudes — the ones that are less susceptible to noise. That helps transmissions reach up to 30 percent further, since you can adapt the transmission rate to fit the channel. It’s so effective that the team got close to the theoretical peak data speeds possible for the fiber connection.
You’re likely not going to see these terabit fiber lines in regular use for a while, since there’s a large gap between a field test and making commercially available lines. The timing might be ideal, mind you — 5G cellular data is just gathering momentum, and telecoms will need gobs of bandwidth to cope with the increased demands. A realistic 1Tbps fiber option would make sure that the internet’s wired backbones don’t collapse under the load.
Via: FossBytes, ZDNet
Source: TUM
Valve pulls games after studio plans to sue critical players
If you ran a game studio and faced a slew of very negative (and sometimes threatening) user reviews, what would you do? Strive to improve your work? Rig the reviews? Ignore the haters? Digital Homicide decided that it would be better to sue the reviewers… and now, it’s facing the consequences. Valve has pulled all of Digital Homicide’s games from Steam in response to a developer subpoena forcing Valve to reveal the identities of 100 users who posted harsh reviews, paving the way for an $18 million personal injury lawsuit. Digital Homicide’s legal action is “hostile to Steam,” a Valve spokesperson says.
The lawsuit, filed by Digital Homicide’s James Romine, comes alongside a separate claim against YouTuber Jim Sterling, whose videos have frequently roasted the developer’s games. Some of Sterling’s fans have supposedly harassed both James and his brother Robert through the mail.
Not surprisingly, Digital Homicide has a different take on the situation. It claims that it’s only suing after Valve did little to moderate user game reviews, at least some of which included death threats. The company deserves a “safe environment” to do business, it says, and Valve is reportedly showing a “reckless disregard” for the Steam community.
The truth might be somewhere in between the Valve and Digital Homicide positions. There’s no question that at least some of the reviews are uncalled for, and that Valve didn’t clamp down on them quickly (even if they weren’t likely serious). However, it’s not clear that all of the reviews were so hostile, and Digital Homicide doesn’t exactly have a squeaky-clean reputation. It has been waging a war against Sterling for many months, including doxxing and questionable YouTube takedown requests, in response to videos that do little more than highlight the studio’s shady practices. On top of producing shovelware (it posted 18 games on Steam Greenlight in one year), Digital Homicide has allegedly masqueraded as different developers and offered game keys in exchange for rigging Greenlight votes. The company may have already been on the road to a Steam ban — the subpoena could just be the last straw.
Via: Polygon
Source: Rami Ismail (Twitter), Digital Homicide, SidAlpha (YouTube)
From the Editor’s Desk: Lucky number 7
What’s been rumbling around in Daniel’s brain this week.
Odd, I know, but it was only this week the Galaxy Note 7 was officially recalled in the U.S. It’s a strange thing to write after spending what seems like the past month typing that same sentence, but what was presumed and informal was made concrete on Thursday after the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued its decree.
Now, along with Korea and my home country of Canada (the phone was not launched in Europe before a voluntary stop-sell was issued on September 1), Note 7 replacements should be on their way to consumers in the next week. Great.
We’ve talked about the recall at length — from the middling initial response, to the nearly 100 victims themselves, to the long-term effects on Samsung’s brand — and will continue to do so. But the one query that really stuck with me through all of this, which few people are talking about, is whether this very public process will give people some perspective on just how complex is the manufacturing, marketing, and selling of piece of technology like a phone.
What I want to know is whether this very public process will give people some perspective on just how complex is the manufacturing, marketing, and selling of piece of technology like a phone.
We’re more than 10 years into this computer-in-a-pocket revolution (though some ardent BlackBerry and Windows Mobile loyalists will argue it’s been longer) and, like most things in our lives we take for granted, we are largely blind to how the so-called sausage is made. Vertically integrated companies like Samsung, Apple, and LG are able to perform feats of manufacturing magic that few others can achieve, but even they rely on outside vendors for essential components — such as batteries.
Samsung SDI, the company that manufactured roughly 65% of the batteries inside the Note 7 (and reportedly all of the defective ones), may share a first name with the company from which you buy your phones, but it operates independently. Samsung has similar relationships with many Korean vendors, but also sources a number of its components from companies you and I have likely never heard of.
The push to increase vertical integration is as much about quality control and oversight as it is about cost savings. If Samsung Electronics designed and manufactured its batteries, displays, processors, cameras, and a dozen other minor components that go into its phones, it would have a considerably closer understanding of everything that goes into its flagship products. It’s already halfway there — Samsung already creates some of its processors and cameras, and all of its displays. But even the biggest tech companies in the world struggle to do this at scale. Which is what lead us to the Note 7 battery recall in the first place.
At the same time, we’re seeing Apple emerge with the iPhone 7 in, for all intents and purposes, its third iteration of a well-worn design. But the implication that the company merely removed the headphone jack and adjusted some antenna lines (and on the larger model added a second camera) misses the same point that Samsung has been trying to make with its flagship line since 2015: evolution is the new normal.
The push to increase vertical integration is as much about quality control and oversight as it is about cost savings.
We’re in an era of unprecedented innovation from a hardware perspective, but there are some known quantities, and design is one of them. Do you really want change for change’s sake? Even Samsung realized that it leaned too hard in that direction with the Galaxy S7 edge, further tightening the curved glass on the Note 7 to make it more usable. Samsung, like Apple, wants you to be able to immediately identify one of its phones in a crowd. That recognition takes years to achieve, and it starts with a distinct, consistent design.
That’s why I want Samsung to come back from this. It will, I know, but I really want its next move to blow us out of the water. OK, that’s maybe the wrong idiom to use in this case, but you get the idea. Samsung has an opportunity to prove us all wrong, to be the most upstanding, mature, apologetic technology company in history. To take the criticisms to heart; to compensate people for their inconvenience and, in some cases, their misforurtune. It mustn’t let class-action lawsuits pile up and lead to protracted, miserly wrangling over settlements. In short, it must be good before it can be right.
And now, this:
- I’ve been playing with a bunch of $400 phones lately, including the excellent OnePlus 3 and Honor 8, and this week I’m looking at the incredible Moto Z Play, which is far better than its spec sheet would suggest.
- That means it’s getting far more difficult to justify spending $700 on a new phone.
- Alexa is coming to more things, and for less money. Amazon has such a head start in the living room that it’s hard to see Google make any inroads, even if Home is a far better product — which it should be.
- I’m super happy with our new news brief product. What a relief to finally ship that after a frustrating false start. One day I’ll tell you the story — it’s all about brilliant people trying to solve a problem through iteration. Really proud of the team, especially Alex Dobie, who prototyped it and put it all together.
- We’re also starting to publish a lot of stuff that probably wouldn’t have been welcome on the site a couple of years ago. I understand some people are frustrated by the diluting of core Android content here, but deal with it: This is happening. Everything is mobile, and our Android phones are at the center. These posts are out of place only if you’re unwilling to expand the definition of what Android Central is, and will become.
- Speaking of Android Adjacent, I think I’m going to pick me up a PS4 Pro when it ships in November.
- Another thing that happened last week? I picked up a Jet Black iPhone 7. My thoughts are coming, but I think it can be a great phone for people in the Google ecosystem. Google makes top-notch iOS apps, and there’s no reason you can’t be both a fan of Apple and Google. And that glossy finish is super slick — and scratch-prone.
- Not a fan of the iPhone, but still want a kick-ass unlocked phone? We still like the Galaxy S7 best. Just to bring things full circle.
- Oh, and I agree with Andrew on this one.
Be safe out there, folks. Have a great week!
Daniel
Watch how ‘Star Wars: Battlefront’ portrays the Death Star
Ever wanted to blow up the Death Star in Star Wars: Battlefront? If the answer is a resounding “yes,” you’re in luck. EA has revealed that its Death Star paid DLC will arrive on September 20th, and has released a gameplay trailer to match. Suffice it to say that this will rekindle plenty of memories from the original Star Wars movie — including things you might have wished for, such as a fight with a Star Destroyer and an on-foot assault against the Death Star.
The extra content has three core sections: space battles, the firefight inside the Death Star, and a trench run that has you shooting torpedoes down the Death Star’s exhaust pipe. The DLC will also have new playable heroes (Chewbacca and the bounty hunter Bossk) as well as new weapons, Star Cards, a new game mode, and five additional maps.
This third major expansion further tackles one of Battlefront’s biggest early gripes: the relative lack of variety. Previous DLC added new maps and characters, but the core experience was ultimately the same. You can argue that Battlefront should have had a lot of this on day one, but it’s good to see the additional depth all the same.
Via: GameInformer
Source: EA Star Wars (YouTube)
Windows Preview build prevents Edge tabs from piling up
The latest Windows Insider Preview build for PC and mobile comes with an extensive list of bug fixes and improvements, but one feature in particular has the potential to become a procrastinator’s BFF. Microsoft has armed Edge’s tabs with an experimental “Snooze” action that you can use to set a Cortana reminder. Once time’s up, the reminder will pop up as a notification and in Action Center. You don’t even have leave that tab open, since clicking on the reminder automatically loads the website.
Microsoft says people are inclined keep their tabs open indefinitely with the intention of going back to it later. Think about it — when you suddenly become too busy to fill out a website’s registration page or to read an interesting long-form story you find, you tend to leave the tab open. Sometimes you even forget about it until it gets buried under dozens of other tabs. The snooze button sounds like a much better option than leaving multiple websites open or digging for URLs in your History.
Besides the snooze action, the new build also introduces new Edge extensions, including a smart shopping cart that you can use to set price alerts for products you save. More importantly, if you’re running an older Preview build on your PC, expect to get a notification to upgrade once a day. If you still don’t update by October 1st, your computer will reboot every three hours. And if you insist on putting it off, your PC won’t even be able to boot up by October 15th. You should probably set a snooze reminder to make sure it doesn’t get to that point.
Source: Windows
This in-app training Chrome extension will make you a Google Docs master
Whether you’re just getting started with a Chromebook or your office is one of the millions switching to Google Docs — or maybe you’re just curious, that’s OK, too — if you need to know all the tricks to becoming a Google apps wizard, this Chrome extension is for you.
Formerly known as Synergyse Training, the Training for Google APPs extension will walk you through everything you can do, and how to do it, for Google Docs, Sheets, Calendar, Slides, and Gmail with interactive videos and tips. Best of all, it works inside the apps themselves so you can learn by doing while you’re watching.
After you install the extension (and refresh any currently open Google app tabs or windows) you’ll notice a small rainbow Google-rific button in the top right. Clicking it opens a menu where you can search out how to do just about anything.
When you choose one of the entries, a sizable floating window with an interactive video will play that walks you through all the steps and explains why you’re doing them. The videos are fairly short, ranging between three and five minutes, and very concise and focused. The one thing I didn’t like was that the next new video in the series will autoplay after a short warning time. There seems to be no way to adjust this setting.
The content itself is awesome. I’ve been playing with it for a few days since a friend at Google tipped me about the new update. I’ve not only found out how to do things I didn’t know I could do but also that I’ve been doing some things a clunky and roundabout way when a simple more direct approach is available. And I’ve been using Google Docs every day for almost seven years.
The extension is free from Google, and can be installed right through the Chrome browser on Windows, Mac, or Linux, or on your Chromebook. It’s really worth a look if you need to use Google’s apps!
Donwload from the Chrome Web Store
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