Alcatel A3 XL Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
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Phonemakers, put up your fists! Because there’s a serious rumble starting over which phone gets to be the best entry-level contender in 2017. After an early start to unseat the reigning champion, Lenovo’s Moto G4, both Huawei and now Alcatel have introduced budget models.
The Alcatel A3 XL here comes in at $200, which converts to about £164 and AU$277. Its specs:
- Huge 6-inch display with 1,080×720-pixel resolution (that’s low for a screen this big)
- 8-megapixel rear camera, 5-megapixel front-facing camera
- Android 7.0 Nougat (up to date; good!)
- 8GB internal storage with 1GB ROM (very low) and up to 32GB external storage
- 3,000mAh battery (good)
- 1.1GHz quad-core MediaTek processor (slower speeds)
- Fingerprint reader
The Alcatel A3 XL is a big phone on a budget
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Comparatively, the new Honor 6X costs about the same ($200/£225/not selling in Australia), but it gives you two rear cameras, a larger battery, much more storage and a more promising processor. The Honor phone lacks the A3 XL’s current Android version and has a smaller screen — but hey, it’s still 5.5 inches.
We have yet to see Samsung’s Galaxy A7 in the flesh, or to hear about its refreshed J series for 2017. Plus, Lenovo has yet to respond with its Moto G5, or whatever the G4 successor turns out to be. While it’s no doubt that these phones all skimp somewhere to save you money, it’s clear that the budget-minded are in for another year of plenty.
Anova Precision Cooker Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
Anova Culinary’s new cooking products includes (from left) the Anova Nano, the Anova Precision Cooker, the Anova Pro and the Anova Precision Oven.
Anova Culinary
Want to sous vide? A small appliance manufacturer is coming out with a slew of products to make water-bath cooking more accessible to newbies and enthusiasts.
The $99 Anova Nano will be available in summer 2017.
Anova Culinary
Anova Culinary will release a $99 version of its popular sous vide immersion circulator this summer, the company announced at CES in Las Vegas. The device, called the Nano, will include Bluetooth so you can control it through Anova’s Android and iOS app. The $99 machine is part of a new line of products that will include a revamped version of Anova’s Precision Cooker with Bluetooth + Wi-Fi, a $299 Pro model (that converts to around £242 or AU$410) with a built-in touchscreen, and the Anova Precision Oven. The appliance, which is set for release in summer 2017, a countertop oven that will sear, convection bake, steam cook and connect to the company’s precision cookers.
Before we go any further, let me explain this relatively new way of cooking. To sous vide (which is French for “under vacuum”), you put a cut of meat or another food item into a plastic bag. You put the bag into a container of water. A sous vide machine will heat that water to the temperature you need and maintain that temperature while your food cooks inside the plastic bag.
It’s easy to spend a lot of money when you decide to bring sous vide to your kitchen. Full sous vide systems (countertop appliances with a container for your water) can cost $500 or more. Immersion circulators (columns that attach to the side of a container you already have) like the Anova Precision Cooker are cheaper, but you can easily spend $200 or more. Anova’s $99 connected sous vide machine, however, could change the game. It’s cheaper than comparable products, which could make the immersion circulator more appealing to folks who want to give sous vide a try without throwing down a lot of cash.
The Anova Pro precision cooker will have a touchscreen control panel.
Anova Culinary
The cheaper model won’t be as powerful as the other two, nor is it equipped with Wi-Fi. But it’s “something people can start off with and explore,” and they can eventually upgrade to another version, Anova spokeswoman Jordan Houston said.
Anova’s pro model is also noteworthy. It will be the same size as the traditional precision cooker, but its controls will resemble the Anova One, the company’s first venture into sous vide machines. The control panel will be a full-color touchscreen that will let you access sous vide instructions, controls and guides that are similar to what you’d find in the Anova app. This the opposite approach of ChefSteps, a company that recently released a competing connected sous vide machine. Whereas Anova throws everything onto the body of the Pro, the Joule immersion circulator only has one button, so you have to control the device with your phone.
“We’re making the device smart on its own without needing your phone in your hand,” Houston said.
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Arcus Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
The Arcus is designed to take on all of your urban adventures.
Moshi
Choosing the right bag can be just as tough as choosing the right clothes. At CES 2017, Moshi made that choice a little easier with the release of its Arcus backpack.
The Arcus takes its name and shape from arcus clouds. While its design comes from the sky, its purpose is firmly rooted on the ground: the urban adventurer.
The Arcus has three main compartments including one that can hold a 15-inch laptop. That means there’s room for your workout clothes and shoes as well as a separate crush-resistant compartment for your smartphone or perhaps the Snapchat Spectacles.
There is a separately sold camera insert that slides into the main body with access through a side pocket.
Patrick Holland/CNET
If you’re a photographer, there is a separately sold camera insert with access through a side pocket. The camera insert can easily hold a dSLR-sized camera and a couple zoom lenses.
More from CES 2017
- LG’s amazing ultrathin OLED is wall art that happens to be a TV
- All the smart home products at CES 2017 (so far)
What stuck me most about the Arcus was its looks. There is a rugged minimalism about it. Its unique shape will appeal to many.
A spokesperson said that Moshi’s designers sought to create a backpack they would actually use. You can see that with the little thoughtful tweaks throughout the bag. There are hidden pockets for a bit more security. The straps and lumbar area are generously padded with breathable fabric.
The Moshi Arcus comes in two colors black and a very attractive light gray. It retails for $230 (which roughly converts to £185 and AU$315). The separate camera insert is $50 (which converts to £40 and AU$70).
During CES, Moshi is running a special where the Arcus is just $200 (which converts to £160 and AU$275) or if you buy it with the camera insert it costs $230 (which converts to £185 and AU$315).
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Dell Latitude 7285 Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
Dell’s newest premium detachable laptop/tablet hybrid is the Latitude 7285. Because it’s from the Latitude line, it’s meant for business users, but there are enough cool features that it’ll be interesting for anyone looking at a high-end hybrid.
Like popular hybrids such as the Surface line, this starts as a standalone tablet. But while the Surface, and some other Dell hybrids, have slim clip-on keyboard covers, this model connects to a more traditional keyboard dock. That means when the two parts are together, it looks and feels a lot more like a regular clamshell laptop.
Sarah Tew/CNET
Unlike some other detachables, there isn’t a second battery in the keyboard base, but it still plays a big role in charging the battery. This is the first Dell product to work with its own charging base. This sold-separately accessory works like charging bases available for a handful of phones, and uses the same Qi wireless charging standard as many of those.
You simply place the tablet and base on the large, square charging pad, and the system gets power, without having to plug directly in. This is the only Dell system that supports this for now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we see it expand to more products later on.
This charging base only works with the Latitude 7285 for now, but Dell says future systems will also be compatible.
Sarah Tew/CNET
There’s no price for this one yet, for either the system or the sold-separately charging base, but Dell expects this will be available at the end of May.
Dell Canvas 27 Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
We’re seeing a lot of innovative new designs aimed at helping artists, video editors and other creative types get the most out of technology. The new Dell Canvas is one of those tools. It’s a huge 27-inch combination of a drawing surface and a secondary display, designed to sit nearly flat in front of you, like a drafting table.
Sarah Tew/CNET
It looks and feels a bit like Microsoft’s big Surface Studio all-in-one, which folds its 27-inch screen down to a drafting table angle, but this isn’t a full stand-alone computer. Instead, you connect the Canvas to your existing computer, and it works as a second screen for pen and touch input, while you can keep other things, like reference materials or even email, on your laptop or desktop’s main monitor.
The built-in display is QHD, which means a 2,560×1,440-pixel resolution. In our brief eyes-on time with it, the display looked bright, but not too glossy, which is important, as your fingers may end up all over it.
The Dell Canvas 27 includes its own onscreen control dial.
Sarah Tew/CNET
Like the Surface Studio, the Canvas also has a dial, and in fact works with the same dial APIs as the Microsoft version. But unlike the Surface Studio, the dial included here only works when it’s touching the screen — it’s not a Bluetooth accessory, but the system will also come with a second mini-dial (for something like volume control, or example) and a stylus.
Dell Canvas 27
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There’s no set price for the Canvas yet, but Dell guesses it’ll cost less than $2,000, and it should be available at the end of March.
Dell XPS 27 (2017) Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
I don’t really need words to express my opinion about the audiophile update to Dell’s XPS 27 all-in-one for 2017. A picture will suffice.
Steve Steigman/Maxell
But I must use my words.
The XPS 27 is mostly about your ears, boasting the most sophisticated audio system built into a PC, at least that I know of. It has 10 speakers. You can see six of them, lined up prominently under the screen, but there are also two down-firing and two passive radiators (the latter for better bass).
The goal of the audio design seems to be bleeding-ear, furniture-vibrating loudness with minimal distortion, a broad frequency-response range and good surround sound directionality. Achieving just one of those is difficult for an all-in-one, much less all of them simultaneously. The closest competitors in this respect are the recent HP Envy all-in-one models, which incorporate four front-firing Bang & Olufsen speakers.
And Dell achieves those goals. When cranked up all the way, it’s loud enough that I couldn’t hear myself singing at the top of my lungs. (Thankfully, the office was deserted.) Music ranging from soft to loud, high frequencies to low and instruments and voices with complex overtones all sounded great cranked to the max.
The speaker grills are based on the Fibonacci sequence, chemically etched in stainless steel and have a mesh with 48 percent open area. Shiny!
Sarah Tew/CNET
I could feel “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” even in the middle of the volume range, and it produced rich sound at the lower volumes, even in an environment with horrible acoustics. The surround-sound rendition in movies and music seemed quite accurate during my brief check. I do find the highs a little too bright for my taste, but that’s personal preference, and the rest of the frequency range sounds a bit warmer.
To incorporate PC-shaking audio, Dell had to create a rigid cabinet for the system. It remains to be seen whether the bass vibrations will affect the system in any way over time.
The audio is what makes the XPS 27 stand out. Otherwise, it’s a pretty typical Windows all-in-one. Our unit was reasonably fast, but not a monster.
Prices start at $1,499 (directly converted, about £1,460 and AU$2,500), with the initial processor choices being 6th Generation Core i5 and i7 processors (Skylake). You can also get it with integrated graphics or discrete AMD R9 M470 or M485X GPUs and up to 64GB RAM. It’s got three drive bays that you can configure with a single m.2 PCIe SSD (up to 1TB), 2 SATA drives up to 2TB each and/or a 2TB SATA drive bolstered by 32GB M.2 SSD. In total, the system has 4 USB 3.0 ports — one on the side and the other three inset behind the display, though you lose one to the Bluetooth mouse dongle– and 2 Thunderbolt 3.
The touch display on the unit I looked at has a really bright 27-inch display. Your display choices are are a UHD 4K (3,840 x 2,160) touch panel or a nontouch panel of the same resolution but 50 nits brighter and using Dell’s thin-bezel Infinity Edge. Similar to the Microsoft Surface Studio, the stand for the touch version lets it fold flat, while both the touch and nontouch versions can tilt back by 30 degrees. However, the touch version doesn’t support a stylus.
Out of the box, the colors looked aggressively saturated, but after calibration they were accurate enough for photo editing and covered 100 percent of the Adobe RGB color gamut. (I couldn’t find a way to manually set the color temperature.)
Unfortunately, I found the display far too reflective, even when tilted to try to reduce the light incidence. The guts of the computer reside in the display section, like an iMac, but I prefer them in a base, like the HP Envy or Surface Studio. The cables run out the back through an opening in the stand — only a single USB port, SD card slot and headphone jack grace the sides of the display. That’s fine if you’re a set-it-and-forget-it hardware user, but it’s a pain if you need to get into the back USB ports on a regular basis.
Polk Signa S1 Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
Polk
Polk continues its aggressive assault on the budget end of the sound bar market here at CES with the Signa S1, which somehow manages to pack in a separate slim-line subwoofer despite only being $179.
The main sound bar is a compact unit standing at 2 inches tall, and it comes with all of the sound processing you’d expect, including Dolby Digital and Polk’s own modes: Voice Adjust, Movies, Music and Night.
The sound bar also includes Bluetooth streaming and optical connectivity, and the company will even throw in an optical cable in the box. At that price, I hope it throws in batteries for the remote too!
All the cool new gadgets at CES 2017
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The Signa S1 follows the excellent $299 MagniFi Mini, which is one of our favorite budget sound bars. We look forward to testing the S1 and seeing how it stacks up. It could be one of the best values in home theater yet.
Availability and international pricing is yet to be announced, but $179 converts to roughly £145 or $245.
AKG N60 NC Wireless Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
The AKG N60 NC Wireless ships in April.
David Carnoy/CNET
I’m a fan of AKG’s N60 NC, which may be the best on-ear noise-cancelling headphone available, so I was pretty stoked to see AKG’s N60 NC Wireless, its Bluetooth sibling, here at CES 2017.
It’s due to hit stores in the US in April for $300, which isn’t cheap, but it is a really nice wireless headphone — and pretty compact, too.
On-ear models aren’t everybody’s cup of tea (usually not mine), but from the few minutes I spent with it, the N60 NC Wireless is about as comfortable as you get for an on-ear headphone.
This new model does have some design tweaks to the ear cups (improved padding) and headband (less clamping), which leads to a more comfortable fit.
AKG has made some design tweaks to the ear cups and headband.
David Carnoy/CNET
The wired AKG N60 NC sounds very good for a noise-cancelling headphone, with clean, well-balanced sound, and my early impression of the AKG N60 NC Wireless is that it also sounds impressive for a wireless NC headphone. And if you’re looking to get a little better sound or want to tap into an in-flight entertainment system, you can attach a cable and go wired.
All the cool new gadgets at CES 2017
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AKG N60 NC Wireless features
- Noise cancelling technology fine-tuned for flying
- Up to 30-hour battery life
- Fully accessorized travel package: flight adaptor and carrying pouch included
- One button universal remote/mic cable and bypass cable for continuous listening pleasure
- 3D-Axis folding mechanism for convenient storage
- Protective carrying case included
- Charges via microUSB
- Available for purchase in black for $299.95 at AKG.com and select retailers beginning April 2017
From another angle.
David Carnoy/CNET
Das Keyboard 5Q Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
Das Keyboard
Do the words “cloud-connected keyboard” excite you? Manufacturer Das Keyboard hopes they do with the official announcement here at CES of its 5Q keyboard, which connects to the internet. The keyboard originally debuted on Kickstarter in June.
OK, so its cloud connectivity means it can pull down email and other notifications, but it displays these with a series of colored lights, not actual text. Green = You’ve Got Spam! It will get notifications from IFTTT, Zapier or any cloud application with a public API.
More from CES 2017
- LG’s amazing ultrathin OLED is wall art that happens to be a TV
- All the smart home products at CES 2017 (so far)
If the software doesn’t exactly sound thrilling, this actually looks like a decent piece of hardware. It has a new Gamma-Zulu mechanical switch developed by Das Keyboard in conjunction with Omron of Japan. It has a 1.5 mm actuation point (compared to the MX Brown’s 2 mm) which may make it more attractive to gamers.
Das Keyboard says the RGB-backlit switches will last twice as long as traditional switches, with up to 100 million actuations.
Finally, it wouldn’t be a Das Keyboard without an oversized knob, and so the 5Q comes with a “Q button” that controls the cloud-based software in addition to functioning as a volume knob.
The Das Keyboard 5Q is currently available for preorder for $229, which converts to about £185 or AU$310.
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