Bose QuietComfort 35 review: The perfect travel companion

When it comes to travelling, Bose has long been the headphones king. Its QuietComfort range, with active noise-cancellation (ANC), has improved flights and train rides immeasurably over the years.

That’s because the US firm’s ANC technology is considered one of the best around. It is class-leading and clever in its implementation. It’s also the reason why we’ve used the QC15 headphones on just about every trip we’ve been on since their introduction almost seven years ago.

They were replaced by the QC25s in the company line-up, but in truth Bose merely tweaked a winning formula – and we didn’t like the lack of a built-in battery (an AAA battery? C’mon).

The QuietComfort 35 headphones are an entirely different kettle of halibut. While they look similar to former models, even feel the same on the old noggin when worn, they take the company’s leading ANC tech and put it in a wire-free Bluetooth environment with, finally, a built-in rechargeable battery.

Does that make the QC35 the best travel headphones ever made?

Bose QC35 review: Cutting the cord

Bluetooth connectivity is most welcome in an age where headphone jacks on smartphones are threatening to be a thing of the past – and easy to pair with multiple devices.

The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are significant examples; they both have adapters to connect to conventional wired headphone types, and there are some Lightning headphones out there, but really they are primarily designed to make use of Bluetooth. It’s the start of a massive sea change in premium phones.

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Not only does it free the headset in terms of movement – something we’ve found very useful when travelling on a long-haul flight – it means they will suit all devices and smartphone types, no matter whether they dispense of socketry or not.

Some will bemoan the absence of aptX compatibility, for the best lossless performance, but considering that’s only supported by a handful of phones and, most notably, ignored by Apple, we can see why Bose thought it unnecessary for its main target audience.

That’s not to say it turns its back on Android and the rest of the smartphone market. The QC35s have NFC built-in for easy pairing to devices that support it. And there’s a Bose Connect app for Android as well as iOS, which helps matters further and gives you finer control over which device is paired from multiple options.

Bose QC35 review: Design

In style terms, coming in all black or silver means the QC35 pretty much suit any device you might own. Unlike previous models in the range these are fairly monotone in look, with ear cups matching the headband. They are, therefore, less aesthetically interesting as some rivals but they’re not designed to be a fashion statement.

Besides, in comfort they are up there with the very best. That includes the ear cups themselves, which are made of synthetic leather soft as a pillow made of dreams about unicorns. The headband is durable and has enough spring to clasp your bonce tightly without any feeling of pressure.

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Comfort also stretches to the active noise-cancelling tech too. We find that some ANC ‘phones can cause earache when used over a long period – not ideal for lengthy flights. Bose QuietComfort models, on the other hand, have always managed to block out ambient noise superbly with no nasty side effects. It’s like pixie magic and the QC35s continue the trend.

Bose QC35 review: Powered listening

There is one drawback. Unlike many rivals, the Bose headphones only work when ANC is switched on. You cannot listen to music or any other kind of audio without it being activated. That’s not a big deal considering how natural and comfortable they feel with it working, but if you run out of batteries you are unable to use these cans at all.

That’s not the case with some other Bluetooth headphones, which come with included cables to let you continue even if battery power is kaput – they simply switch off Bluetooth and ANC. The QC35s also come with a cable, to conserve battery power by only using it for the noise-cancellation, but if there’s no charge at all, you’re screwed.

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Thankfully, we’ve never found that to be much of an issue. Along with Bluetooth, the QC35s add a rechargeable battery with enough capacity to last up to a quoted 20 hours with wireless functionality and ANC both in full flow.

We’ve found that to be a decent estimate too, having done a couple of hops over the Atlantic without needing a recharge. And considering many planes have USB power points these days, you’ll probably never be stranded with no charge anyway.

Bose QC35 review: Audio quality

The final and possibly most important aspect of the QC35s worth discussing is the audio performance.

The ANC uses a couple of mics to asses and counter ambient noise, and a built-in digital equaliser ensures clean, accurate audio representation. We find them to be satisfyingly neutral in playback, especially at a time where many manufacturers seem to favour throaty bass.

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If anything, music can sound a little too clear at times, exposing poorer quality files when others might hide the foibles. But that’s an unfair accusation really, and you’ll just have to encode your tracks at higher bitrates.

They are excellent with video tracks and speech in movies too.

Bose has also put great effort into ensuring the headset is clean and clear for phone calls, both in receiving audio and transmitting your own voice. They can also be used to wirelessly speak to Siri, if you favour Apple devices.

Verdict

As QC15 users for many years we were really looking forward to a Bluetooth version and we’re not disappointed by the QC35s. They are as keen when it comes to audio playback and excellent in their active noise-cancellation, and all without the wires.

A rechargeable battery is also much welcome, with days of hunting down the back of drawers for a spare AAA cell blissfully over.

The QuietComfort 35 ‘phones are certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, considering they aren’t particularly fashion-conscious or able to playback grime with the growly thump of bass focused peers, but they are perfectly suited to the travelling lifestyle of their target audience.

A plane journey will never feel quite the same without them.

The NES Mini will have ‘Pixel Perfect’ display mode and game-save feature

Nintendo’s NES Mini Classic Edition is due for release on 11 November but before then, we’ve just been treated to a few more details about the much-anticipated console.

• Nintendo’s new console available to order, but it’s not what you expected

Nintendo has released a three minute promotional video for the console which details some new features, such as three different display modes and a save feature that will be welcome by NES gamers far and wide.

The three display modes are Pixel Perfect, which uses square pixels to make the picture pin-sharp and detailed, 4:3 ratio to simulate an old-school television and CRT filter which adds simulated scan lines.

The original Nintendo Entertainment System wouldn’t let you save moments in a game, so if you got far into one and then had to turn the console off, you’d lose your progress. With the new model, you’re now able to save the game at four different points per game and lock those saves to ensure they don’t accidentally get deleted.

It’s also been reported that you can access original instruction manuals for each of the games by scanning a QR code on screen.

The NES Mini Classic Edition will be released next month for £49.99 and comes supplied with an HDMI controller, a controller, USB cable and 30 games pre-installed.

Sony ZD9 4K TV review: The HDR master

The pages of AV history are littered with “here today, gone tomorrow” features only truly memorable for the amount of hype that surounded their launch. We have no doubt, though, that the latest feature on the AV block, high dynamic range (HDR) playback, isn’t going anywhere. Which is why we’re rather excited by the Sony KD-65ZD9BU.

This is a TV, after all, that’s been conceived, designed and manufactured with HDR right at the heart of everything it does. For instance, it’s capable of pumping out unprecedented amounts of brightness, outgunning by a few hundred nits even the mighty efforts of Samsung’s ground-breaking KS9500 SUHD TVs.

Even more excitingly, it delivers its huge brightness via an LED lighting array positioned directly behind the screen which is driven by the most advanced local dimming system the LCD world has seen to date. Every single one of its LEDs can have its output adjusted individually, to potentially deliver unfathomable blacks right alongside those unprecedentedly bright whites and retina-searing colours.

Is the Sony ZD9 the best LCD-based 4K HDR TV on the market right now then? It might well be, if you have deep pockets: the 65-inch model on review here costs £3,999.

Sony ZD9 4K HDR TV review: Bettering the competition

There are other TVs out there, of course, that use direct LED lighting and local dimming systems. Panasonic’s DX902 TVs can even also control each LED light individually. Look to the alternative tech, OLED, and the LG E6 is also outstanding, albeit less bright in the HDR stakes.

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However, the ZD9 has a couple of extra tricks up its sleeve compared to the Panasonic: Calibrated Beam technology, and X-Tended Dynamic Range. The first of these enables the TV to focus multiple LEDs as a group on particularly bright image element, to boost its on-screen intensity. The second, X-Tended Dynamic Range, allows Sony to redirect the power available to the 65ZD9’s screen away from where it’s not needed (dark image areas) to where it is.

The extra brightness and contrast the ZD9 is designed to deliver should also feed into its colour performance, making it easier to achieve the expanded colour spectrums that HDR sources like Ultra HD Blu-ray and, now, Netflix and Amazon also deliver. The 65ZD9 also beneftis from Sony’s Triluminos technology, which has for the last two or three Sony TV generations done an excellent job of boosting colour satuation.

Sony KD-65ZD9BU TV review: Android TV limitations

We know you’re keen to find out just how well all of the 65ZD9’s intriguing screen technology translates into picture quality, but there are few other features to quickly cover first. Kicking off with its Android TV smart system.

Sony

We continue to be unconvinced by Android TV, though. It feels old-fashioned and cumbersome thanks to its full-screen presentation, lack of customisation options, and frustratingly sluggish responses. Android does, though, provide a vast library of apps for you to explore, including the 4K and HDR-capable versions of both Netflix and Amazon.

Thankfully Sony has also added YouView support to its UK TVs to get around Android TV’s ongoing failure to carry the catch-up apps for all of our main terrestrial broadcasters.

Sony ZD9 4K HDR TV review: Setup

Setting the 65ZD9 up is not a job for the faint hearted. Its brushed aluminium stand is awkward to attach to the TV, and its remote control is a horror show thanks to its use of buttons that sit almost flush with the remote’s front edge. It also takes a painful amount of time to get the Android-related features up and running.

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It’s not all bad news, though. The 65ZD9’s picture presets are unusually thoughtful, giving you a number of genuinely useful out-of-the-box presets for both HDR and SDR (standard dynamic range) viewing. Though if you do want to tweak things or even pay a calibrator to do it for you, the 65ZD9 certainly isn’t short of fine tuning tools.

Sony ZD9 4K TV review: HDR peaks

Settling down to see what the 65ZD9 can do, the first word that comes to mind is “wow”. The brightness the screen is capable of pumping out is breath-taking, for instance, delivering an instant impact with HDR sources that can only be described as transformational. HDR’s killer brightness peaks look more explosive than we’ve seen them look before, even on Samsung’s KS9500 series, while UHD Blu-ray’s wider colour gamuts look both explosively vibrant but also beautifully subtle thanks to the way the extreme brightness brings out even the tiniest tonal differences.

It’s a big relief, too, to see the 65ZD9’s HDR pictures looking entirely free of the colour striping issues that have hindered a number of rival HDR sets this year – including Samsung’s KS9500s.

Sony

Crucially, though, the 65ZD9 doesn’t push brightness at the expense of all the other traditionally key aspects of picture quality. In particular, its unique LED backlighting system does a better job than that of any other LCD screen to date of minimising light pollution around HDR highlights when they appear against dark surroundings.

There are none of the vertical bands of light running down the screen you get with edge-lit LCD HDR TVs, and while the set isn’t immune to light halos around ultra-bright objects, these halos are both less intense and smaller in scale than those seen on other TVs that use direct LED lighting technology. This is impressive indeed considering the 65ZD9’s ground-breaking brightness, and in ensuring that the unwanted side effects of HDR on LCD TVs are less distracting it makes the experience instantly more engaging and immersive. Which is, of course, exactly what HDR is supposed to be.

The 65ZD9 is also jaw-droppingly good at making its 4K resolution count. Its ground breaking light control combines with all those pixels and some stunning colour finesse courtesy of the Triluminos engine and X1 Extreme chipset to deliver pictures of sublime detail, crispness and depth. So much so that pictures often look three dimensional without the need for any pesky glasses.

Sony

The sharpness holds up unusually well during sport and action scenes too, thanks to what’s arguably the most effective motion processing engine in the TV world right now. The True Cinema processing mode, in particular, does a terrific job of reducing judder and motion blur without making the picture look unnaturally smoothed out or troubled by unwanted digital side effects. This motion clarity makes the 4K experience feel fantastically consistent and emphatic.

Sony KD-65ZD9 review: It does 3D too

The 65ZD9 is the first TV we’ve tested for an age that also ships with 3D glasses included. Indeed, you get two pairs. Its 3D pictures – delivered using the full resolution active shuttering system – are pretty strong, combining an engaging sense of depth and space with an excellent colour response and plenty of detail.

There can be some fairly noticeable crosstalk ghosting noise around bright 3D objects, but this rears its head fairly rarely by active 3D TV standards.

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The main problem with 3D on the ZD9 is how dull it looks compared with the set’s spectacular 2D HDR images. So much so that we can imagine many previous 3D fans feeling increasingly reluctant to sacrifice HDR’s thrills for 3D’s extra depth. It was only a matter of time before 3D was more-or-less killed off.

Sony ZD9 review: Content, what content?

Unfortunately, of course, while the 65ZD9 performs like no TV before with HDR sources, such sources are currently pretty elusive. But fear not, for the 65ZD9 is also a superb performer with standard dynamic range content.

It still produces a lovely blend of colour intensity and subtlety with SDR colours, still serves up an excellent SDR contrast peformance only bettered by LG’s OLED TVs, and SDR pictures still look phenomenally detailed.

Sony

Even HD sources look something like native 4K thanks to the outstanding ability of Sony’s upscaling processing to boost the resolution of non-4K content without exaggerating source noise.

Sony ZD9 TV review: Slim on the sound

Aside from the quirky application of a gold colour to its outside edges, the most eye-catching thing about the 65ZD9’s slightly bland design is that it doesn’t incorporate any of those spectacular sounding but huge magnetic fluid speakers found on the past two or three generations of Sony flagship TVs. While this may make aesthetic sense, it certainly doesn’t do Sony’s sound quality any favours.

The biggest issue is that there’s hardly any bass. This leaves treble sounding over-exposed and can lead to quite a brittle presentation of loud action scenes – especially if you try to push them to the sort of volume levels many scenes typically benefit from.

Sony

To be fair, vocals are always easy to make out and reasonably well-rounded, and the TV is built well enough to avoid issues like speaker crackle or cabinet rattle. If ever a TV deserved to be accompanied by a decent external audio solution where finances permit, however, it’s the 65ZD9.

Verdict

The 65ZD9 is not a perfect TV (if such a thing could ever exist). Its Android smart engine is more of a hindrance than a help, its sound is pretty average, and there’s still some evidence of backlight haloing around stand-out HDR objects, despite Sony’s exciting new LCD illumination technologies.

None of this, though, stops the 65ZD9 from winning hook, line and sinker when it comes to HDR content though. Its unprecedented combination of colour, brightness, sharpness and contrast is virtually addictive, and undoubtedly adds up to what is simply the most spectacular and convincing next-generation TV picture performance of 2016.

It’s a long way from affordable, but if LG’s ultra-slim OLED options aren’t on your radar and you want the ultra bright peaks that high dynamic range content can offer then, hands down, the ZD9 is the HDR master.

RIP Nexus: A brief history of all the Nexus handsets

With Google set to release its first Pixel-branded phones, the Nexus smartphone range is expected to be resigned to history. With that move comes the end to one of the handset series’ most loved by Android purists, and the end of manufacturers having any branding or headlining of any kind.

• Google Pixel and Pixel XL: Release date, specs and everything you need to know

The new phones will be “Made by Google”, in marketing at least. In reality, Google has contracted HTC to build its phones. But it seems as though they’ll launch with just a simple “G” logo on the back. No manufacturing brand, and no Nexus stamp. 

With its Nexus range, Google aimed to build phones that showed off all the best and latest features of its Android operating system. And while its experience was pure and unmatched, the Nexus phones have never been a runaway market success. Without the marketing budget and widespread availability of devices like the Samsung Galaxy range, it has never been a best seller. 

Before the Nexus name disappears off the back of phones for good, take a walk through our gallery to remember all the Nexus phones released so far.

Click here to dive into the Nexus gallery.

Drobo’s USB-C drive array is tailor-made for your new PC

You haven’t had a whole lot of options for very high-capacity external drives on computers with USB-C ports. How are you supposed to archive the video projects from your MacBook? Drobo wants to help: it’s launching the Drobo 5C, a five-bay self-managing drive that, unsurprisingly, plugs into your system’s USB-C port. You won’t gain a speed advantage over a USB 3.0 box (it averages 250MB per second if your drives are fast enough), but that’s not the point. This is about giving you future-proof storage that you can upgrade at any time. As with other Drobos, you just have to swap in a new disk if you’re running low on space or encounter a failure. There’s no need to shuffle files or configure a RAID array.

The 5C is about $50 more expensive than the standard Drobo at $349, although you are gaining an extra bay for your trouble. There’s no going back, at any rate. The 5C replaces the standard Drobo in the lineup — you’ll have to buy a specialized model like the Mini or 5D if you’re determined to hang on to the older USB interface. It’s a bit of a gamble for the company, but it makes sense when the new Drobo will have to last several years or more.

Source: Drobo

Apple Pay Now Available in 10 Countries Following Russia Launch

Russia joined the Apple Pay club today, becoming the 10th major region to gain access to the mobile payment service (via Reuters).

The introduction of Apple Pay was announced on Apple’s regional website, where it was revealed that the system would come via Mastercard and through Moscow-based Sberbank.

According to Sberbank, Apple Pay can be easily set up in the Sberbank Online mobile application, which will be familiar to all Sberbank cardholders. Users can then use the contactless payment service while continuing to receive all the benefits from using their credit and debit cards.

If rollouts in other countries are any indication, additional credit card operators and regional financial institutions are expected to gain access over the coming months.

Upon launch of Apple Pay in Russia, participating retailers include ATAK, Magnit, Media Markt, Auchan, Azbuka Vkusa, bp, M.Video, TsUM and authorized Apple reseller re:Store. Contactless payments are expected to roll out at Electronics store Eldorado and Burger King in the near future.

With the introduction of macOS 12.12, web-based payments have become another feature of Apple Pay. However it remains to be seen when Russian apps and online vendors will support this or other in-app methods of online payment.

Apple announced its intention to bring the system to Russia during its iPhone 7 event last month, where it also said New Zealand would see Apple Pay come to its shores in the near future.

The ten countries Apple Pay is available in include the United States, United Kingdom, China, Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Hong Kong, France, and Singapore. Apple Pay vice president Jennifer Bailey has said Apple is “working rapidly” to expand the service to additional countries in Asia and Europe.

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Metro Bank and The Co-Operative Bank Now Support Apple Pay in the U.K.

Two more U.K. banks adopted Apple Pay technology today, with The Co-Operative Bank and Metro Bank announcing support for the mobile payment platform that works on iPads, iPhones, and Apple Watch devices (via Engadget).

In announcing the service’s launch on its systems, The Co-Operative Bank chose to emphasize that its existing customers can still earn Everyday Rewards if they are already registered to use the scheme, provided they are eligible for that month.

Meanwhile, Metro Bank highlighted the fact that it’s currently the only bank that allows new customers to start using Apple Pay as soon as their account has been opened.

We’re excited to announce that from today our customers can use Apple Pay with any Metro Bank card! https://t.co/inkuqvOG9h #ApplePay pic.twitter.com/DDRSt3wfCh

— Metro Bank (@Metro_Bank) October 4, 2016

The Co-operative Bank and Metro Bank became the 21st and 22nd financial institutions in the U.K. to support Apple’s mobile payment platform, following the recent roll out to Clydesdale Bank and Yorkshire Bank. The U.K. now has the widest support for the service outside of China and the U.S. Today also saw Russia become the latest major market to gain access to the payment system.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay
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Marvel’s ‘Iron Fist’ hits Netflix on March 17th, 2017

The final piece of the Defenders puzzle will be slotting into place on March 17th, 2017. We’ve known about the Iron Fist TV show for some time, and was finally greeted with a teaser trailer at San Diego Comic-Con. The Marvel superhero is an expert in martial arts, much like Daredevil, but can also wield the mystic energy of — you guessed it — the Iron Fist. The character, who goes by Danny Rand during the day, will be played by Finn Jones, who you probably know as Loras Tyrell from Game of Thrones. Eventually, he’ll be teaming up with Matt Murdock, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage for their own superhero squad, called the Defenders, on Netflix.

Here’s the first trailer, if you need a quick refresher:

Source: Netflix (Twitter)