Mobvoi’s Ticwatch E and S are affordable smartwatches that run Android Wear 2.0
Why it matters to you
Looking for a smartwatch, but don’t want to break the bank? Mobvoi has swapped its smartwatch operating system to Android Wear and its latest watches have all the features you want.
Mobvoi, a Chinese company backed by the likes of Google and Volkswagen, has launched two new smartwatches — the Ticwatch E and the Ticwatch S — and they are some of the most affordable new Android Wear 2.0 watches on the market.
Mobvoi is primarily known in China for its voice assistant and search service, Chumenwenwen, which is used in apps like WeChat. Android Wear smartwatches in China have been using this technology because Google and its services are blocked by the Chinese government — it is why it is one of the first Chinese companies Google has backed since it left the country in 2010.
Last year, the company released the Ticwatch 2, which ran a proprietary operating system called Ticwear. The new Ticwatch E and Ticwatch S, short for Express and Sport, run Android Wear 2.0 instead. The reason for the change? Apps.
“Our international community has helped us in improving Ticwear a lot.”
“Our international community has helped us in improving Ticwear a lot, but one of the critical value add for them is a stronger ecosystem,” Ying Zhou, business director at Mobvoi, told Digital Trends. “After deliberating internally, we recognize that — especially with the overseas market — we should understand our position in the overall ecosystem and contribute to it instead of replicating or competing with it. That’s why we decided to switch to Android Wear: To provide a better ecosystem to the user, but also keep our own apps like fitness apps and the music player, and contribute to the Android Wear ecosystem as a strong choice.”
It is difficult for small companies to provide a robust mobile ecosystem without supported apps — even big companies have had poor luck, like Microsoft with Windows Mobile, or Samsung’s Tizen. Android and iOS are the reigning platforms and it is tough to convince a developer to port an app to an operating system that does not have a large user base.
Zhou said the Ticwatch E and S are more like a Ticwatch 2.5, rather than the Ticwatch 3. Apart from having unique designs and dimensions, both the Express and Sport have almost the same internal specifications. They are powered by MediaTek’s MT2601 processor, have a 1.4-inch OLED display, 300mAh battery, 512MB of RAM, as well as 4GB of internal storage. They each pack a heart-rate monitor, proximity sensor, accelerometer, gyroscope, GPS, and have an IP67 water-resistance rating. There is only one button and it is on the left of the watch case.
So what are the differences? The 45mm Ticwatch S GPS is “slightly more accurate,” because it is embedded in the silicone band itself. That means you can only swap out bands with the 44mm Ticwatch E. Visually, the two look quite different. The Ticwatch E has a transparent plastic cover over the watch case, whereas the Ticwatch S looks more sporty and rugged.
Both devices will come with Mobvoi’s apps pre-installed and you will get native Android Wear features like Google Assistant. Sadly, the watches do not have NFC so you will not be able to use Android Pay.
Regardless, the real spotlight is the price tag. Mobvoi is offering pre-orders on Kickstarter, where the early-bird price will start at $100. The retail price for the Ticwatch E is $160 and the Ticwatch S will cost $200. Early-bird pricing aside, the retail price makes the two watches some of the most affordable Android Wear smartwatches on the market.
Crowdsourced Eve V 2-in-1 tablet delayed due to issues with display
Why it matters to you
If you’ve been waiting for your Eve V to arrive, then you’ll have to keep being patient — the company is making sure you get the best display possible.
The Windows 10 2-in-1 market has exploded in recent months, with manufacturers of all stripes making a variety of versatile machines that morph from notebook-like to tablet-like with the flip of a screen or snap of a keyboard. The detachable tablet, epitomized by Microsoft’s Surface Pro, has a number of strong contenders, and now there’s a unique crowdsourced version on the way as well.
At least, that’s been the intention with the Eve V, which was supposed to have shipped by now after a lengthy development process that was informed by copious amounts of community input. Unfortunately, the Eve V has been delayed due to some supply issues, as Pocketnow reports.
The news came via the Eve Community, which has long served as the place for Eve employees and excited future buyers of the 2-in-1 to engage in extensive back and forth on exactly how the Eve V should be designed. The community is also the best place to stay up to date on the tablet’s status, including the current situation involving the display that was originally sourced for the machine.
The issue is simple and not uncommon for nontraditional development and distribution concepts. The original display supplier failed to produce displays that met the community’s high standards, specifically high-resolution IGZO panels meant to challenge the excellent screens that Microsoft uses for its own Surface line.
“As you know, having struggles with our screen distributor (first quality issues, the followed by unforeseen delays on supplier’s side, confidentiality agreements) we decided to consider other screen options out there,” said Eve co-founder Konstantinos Karatsevidis. “Weekly, we have had conversations around this topic with the manufacturers. We have constantly been searching for plans B, C, etc. And with Computex electrifying the industry about the V, screen manufacturers have started to listen!”
Eve is currently looking into options for replacing the supplier, including Sharp and AUO, both of which, according to Karatsevidis, would represent an upgrade to the current display. The company is receiving samples and will evaluate them for any changes that might be needed to align with the machine’s existing design.
Shipment timelines range from the end of July if the current supplier is retained and can produce the required displays to sometime in the August to September time frame if a new supplier needs to be selected. The machines won’t ship until Eve can get the right displays. And, if you’re an Indiegogo backer, you’ll get the new display in spite of any component price increases, although future buyers could pay a bit of a premium.
Virtual reality study could help teach self-driving cars ethics
Why it matters to you
Research could one day help autonomous cars make moral and ethical decisions like a human.
If you ever worry that technology isn’t moving fast enough, imagine telling someone 25 years ago that a project involving the use of virtual reality to train self-driving cars to behave ethically would one day be a real thing. That is exactly what a team of German researchers has been working on in a study published in the journal Frontiers in Behavioural Neuroscience. And it is actually a whole lot more serious than you might initially think.
The idea, essentially, is to explore the kinds of challenging moral questions that self-driving cars will at some point have to make — for example, whether it is better to risk the lives of everyone in a packed car by steering off the road at high speed than to hit a child who has run out into the road.
“Our paper outlines a two-step process comprised of an assessment of human moral behavior and subsequent modeling of the observations made,” Leon René Sütfeld, a Ph.D. candidate in cognitive science at Osnabrück University and lead author of the study, told Digital Trends. “We developed a virtual reality environment depicting a road traffic scenario, in order to assess the moral behavior in the same context as a model of it may be applied. After running the experiment [on 105 human participants with Oculus headsets], we trained three different computer models of different complexities to see how well each of them would describe the observations. The main finding is that one-dimensional value-of-life models are able to describe or predict human behavior in these situations with good accuracy.”
The paper is interesting on its own merits to help unpack some of the decisions we make under stress regarding a sort of hierarchy of life value. Roughly speaking, this equates to children at the top, followed by adults, followed by animals.
However, it is interesting because it hints at some very real work that will be part of vehicle makers’ immediate future — if it’s not already part of what they do.
“Whether or not something like this is missing in current self-driving vehicles is a little tricky to answer,” Sütfeld said. “First off, we don’t know what systems exactly are used in those cars, and how they function in detail. Second, with the low number of self-driving vehicles today, situations like the ones outlined earlier are extremely rare. However, with increasing market saturation, these cases become more and more probable, and that’s when such ethical decision-making systems become more and more important.”
Sütfeld notes that these are still early days for the project, and really serves as a baseline for future studies — rather than in any way a definitive solution to the problem. (If such a thing can ever exist.) Still, it’s fascinating to see how much a part of AI the subject of ethics is becoming.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 review
Research Center:
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (2017)
Microsoft wanted Windows 2-in-1s to happen so badly that it stopped waiting for the OEMs and built its own. After years of mixed results, devices like the Surface Pro and the Surface Book are widely regarded today, showing the world just how useful a Windows tablet can be. That has left computer manufacturers in the odd position of trying to catch up with Microsoft, their longtime partner – and increasingly, they’re succeeding.
Lenovo’s latest Surface competitor, the ThinkPad X1 Tablet, is currently in its second generation, and could be one of the recent success stories. The device, which comes complete with a ThinkPad keyboard and ThinkPad Pen Pro, starts at $1,449 with a seventh-generation Intel Core i5-7Y54 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 128G SSD. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet review unit we received, priced at $1,689, was upgraded to Intel’s Core i5-7Y57, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. That places it at about $130 less than the price of the similarly equipped Microsoft Surface Pro.
Can the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 manage to be a tablet and a ThinkPad, all at once? And is there any reason to get this over a Surface Pro?
Effective, though confusing at first
The ThinkPad brand has had a particular look since the 90s, and Lenovo has always been careful to respect that aesthetic. The ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 brings that look to the tablet market, with some obvious influence from the Surface Pro line thrown in. The result is exactly what you’d expect when you hear the words “ThinkPad tablet,” right down to the defined corners and the iconic face of the keyboard, complete with the obligatory red dot.
When we first picked up the ThinkPad X1 Tablet, we were slightly puzzled. The keyboard attachment and the tablet were easy to identify, and putting them together isn’t rocket science by any means. A secure magnetic latch snaps into place and holds firm. But to sit everything on a desk or table, the user needs to unlock the metal kickstand on the back of the tablet that serves as a sturdy counterweight. The mechanism’s workings aren’t obvious at a glance.
Once you work this out, using the ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 is easy. To adjust the angle of the screen, users must avoid the urge to tilt the screen itself and instead adjust the kickstand. The hinge is solid, and its presence means the keyboard doesn’t have to serve as counterweight to the tablet, which saves both space and weight. Overall, the design is just as solid as typical for the ThinkPad line, with the machine tested to meet MIL-SPEC 810G requirements for durability.
Bill Roberson/Digital Trends
Bill Roberson/Digital Trends
Bill Roberson/Digital Trends
Bill Roberson/Digital Trends
This otherwise top-heavy tablet works comfortably docked on a desk, or even your lap. The Lenovo also differs from the Surface Pro and similar machines in that the kickstand hinge is at the bottom rather than the middle of the chassis. The kickstand therefore levers downward to lay flat on a surface — which does tend to make it a more comfortable laptop experience than Microsoft’s design.
The tablet is 11.45 by 8.24 inches, and weighs 2.4 pounds with the keyboard attached, dimensions that are the same as the original model. The tablet itself is .33 inches thick, which is the same as the Surface Pro and slightly thicker than the iPad Pro’s .27 inches. The ThinkPad X1’s keyboard attachment is .20 inches thick, so everything is just over a half inch thick when docked and closed.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (2017) Compared To
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (2017)
Acer Aspire VX 5-591G 5652
Dell Latitude E5470
Dell Inspiron 15 7000 (2017)
Lenovo Yoga 910
Dell Precision 15 3510
Lenovo Ideapad 710S
HP Spectre
Dell Latitude 12
LG Gram 15 Z960
Lenovo ThinkPad T450s
Acer Aspire E5-471G-53XG
Dell Inspiron 14 7000 Series
Lenovo IdeaPad U400
Lenovo IdeaPad V460
These dimensions make the ThinkPad X1 Tablet relatively large and heavy for a 2-in-1. However, a total thickness of a half-inch with keyboard isn’t massive, and the size never annoyed us. Overall, the ThinkPad X1 manages to be like a tablet and a ThinkPad all at once, which isn’t easy to pull off.
All the input devices, please
Our ThinkPad X1 Tablet came with five distinct input devices. There’s the touchscreen, the optional ThinkPad Pen Pro, and the keyboard attachment, which in addition to its keys offers a touchpad and a trackpointer.
The touchscreen felt great in our tests. The surface was smooth and consistent, as you’d expect, and gestures were all correctly identified. And if you want more precision than your greasy fingers can offer, the ThinkPad Pen Pro delivers. It makes stylus input quite natural, and works well with the Windows 10 desktop thanks to its built-in buttons for right and left clicking. Hover a bit above the screen and you’ll see a pointer, which makes it easy to avoid accidentally tapping a button or icon. Naturally, the Pen Pro supports all of the usual Windows 10 Ink functionality.
The design is just as solid as usual for the ThinkPad line, highlighted by MIL-SPEC 810G durability testing.
While the ThinkPad X1 Tablet keyboard doesn’t quite measure up to the keyboard on a ThinkPad laptop, it comes close. The keys are what you’d expect from a ThinkPad. They’re well-spaced, and give enough feedback for touch typists to develop a flow. Of course, certain compromises had to be made to fit a keyboard into a small cover, so don’t expect the full ThinkPad keyboard experience. The depth of each keystroke is noticeably shorter, which dampens the tactile experience. Having said that, this is the closest thing to a ThinkPad keyboard available for any tablet, and is among the nicest tablet keyboards we’ve used.
The keyboard is backlit with two brightness levels and an ambient light sensor for automatic brightness, though backlighting is disabled by default. To enable it, you’ll need to hold “Fn” and hit “Space,” which are easy enough keys to find in the dark. Speaking of the keys, some were in odd places, such as the left Fn and Ctrl keys that are reversed and take some real getting used to.
Some magnets placed in the keyboard cover snap onto the bezel, giving you a pleasant angle for typing. Typing is easier at an angle, but this arrangement does create some keyboard flexing that makes typing a bit louder. That could be a problem if you’re using the tablet beside a sensitive neighbor.
Bill Roberson/Digital Trends
The touchpad is quite small, two by three and a half inches. Input was accurate, and the texture is pleasant. As with most ThinkPad touchpads, it’s smaller than it could be because of the need to offer buttons to trackpointer users. Speaking of, there’s the trackpoint, the longtime staple of the ThinkPad line. It honestly seems like an anachronism on a tablet, but we’re sure longtime ThinkPad fans will enjoy its inclusion. It works well, as usual, with smooth tracking that offers another efficient control option.
Users hoping to login to their tablet without a touchpad will enjoy the Windows Hello compatible fingerprint reader. It’s located next to the display on the right-hand side, so it’s readily accessible no matter how you’re using the 2-in-1 device.
Not many ports, but you can buy attachments for more
The ThinkPad X1 Tablet offers one USB 3.0 port on the side of the tablet itself, alongside a USB type-C port for connecting the tablet to a power supply. A mini-DisplayPort makes it possible to connect external displays, and a headphone jack works with external speakers. There’s also a microSD port.
Battery life was improved over the previous model but could certainly be better.
There are no ports whatsoever on the keyboard, but Lenovo has left room for more with a unique module system. You can snap attachments between the keyboard and the tablet, giving you extra features. A $150 productivity module gives you an HDMI port, a Onelink+ Port for docking, another USB 3.0 port, and a two-cell battery rated for five additional hours of usage. Another attachment offers a built-in projector. We weren’t able to try any of these attachments out, but they’re interesting in concept.
Wireless capabilities are handled by the Intel 8265AC+BT card, which provides 2×2 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.1 connectivity. There’s also a NanoSIM port for adding in cellular connectivity.
The display gets the job done
The 12-inch display offered by the ThinkPad X1 Tablet offers a resolution of 2,160 by 1,440, which is generous. The display is unchanged on the updated version. Despite being relatively small, there always seems to be room to work.
graphs: display performance
At full brightness, the ThinkPad X1 puts out 389 nits, which is exceptional. Using this device outside shouldn’t be a problem. The contrast was 740:1 at max brightness, which is fairly average today and nowhere close to the absurd 381,430:1 rating of the Samsung Galaxy Book 12 (which has an OLED display), and also considerably behind others like Microsoft’s Surface Pro at 1180:1.
Color is more of an issue. Our results showed the Tablet X1 Gen 2 hitting just 69 percent of the AdobeRGB standard, which isn’t terrible, but is one of the lower results we’ve seen among high-end devices lately. The sRGB scale rating was 93 percent, which is also below average for the class. Microsoft’s Surface Pro hit 71 percent and 96 percent, and Samsung’s Galaxy Book 12 hit 98 and 100 percent, respectively. Color accuracy wasn’t bad, however, at 1.99, although scores less than 1.0 are considered excellent in this test.
Bill Roberson/Digital Trends
Numbers are one thing. Experience is another. While the X1 doesn’t quite measure up on paper, it’s still good enough to deliver an enjoyable experience, and it’s certainly a great productivity experience with its sharpness and solid — albeit slightly muted — colors.
Moving on to live action, we watched the trailer for Star Trek Beyond. It was easy to make out every detail of the unnecessary chaos and carnage, even in darker scenes with a lot of shadow. The spirit of exploration and hopefulness that once defined this franchise could not be detected, but that is no fault of the display.
If anything, the ThinkPad X1’s lackluster showing is evidence of how far mobile PC displays have come. You might think it’s fine if it’s all you ever saw. When placed next to a Surface Pro or Samsung Galaxy Book, though, its flaws are easy to notice.
Grab your headphones. Seriously.
Audio is a different matter. Everything is clear and easy to make out, but bass and midrange tones are muddled. You can’t really rock out to these speakers, but you’ll be able to make out music or podcasts from across the room. External speakers or headphones are highly recommended.
Of course, many small PCs suffer speaker woes. Yet we’ve noticed some improvement in this area. The Samsung Galaxy Book was very strong, and Huawei’s super-thin Matebook X laptop delivers incredible volume for its size.
A powerful mobile processor
The ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 is now powered by a seventh-generation Intel Core i5-7Y57 processor. The Core Y-Series (which used to be labeled with the M designation) isn’t as powerful as the better-known Core i5 and i7, as it seeks to balance performance with better battery life.
graphs: processor performance
In Geekbench 4, the ThinkPad’s single core rating was 3,837 and the multi-core score was 7,163, which are both competitive with the comparison group, excluding the excellent score posted by the new Surface Pro and it’s full-speed Core i7. The ThinkPad X1 can keep up with most Windows 10 tablets on the market right now, at least in this benchmark.
Performance was good enough that we forgot this entire machine was crammed into a tablet form factor.
Our more demanding Handbrake test, however, which encodes a 420MB video file to H.265 format, tells a different story. In this test, The ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 took 1,810 seconds to complete the run, which is second only to the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 that, surprisingly, uses the somewhat faster Core i7-7Y75. Other Intel Core-based systems posted much stronger scores, demonstrating that there’s a reason why the Core Y-Series is reserved to thin systems.
In day-to-day usage, however, performance was good enough that we forgot this entire machine was crammed into a tablet form factor. Browsing the web and writing were no problem, and neither were more demanding productivity tasks. We just wouldn’t suggest you consider the machine if you need to perform more processor-intensive tasks such as video encoding. For that kind of work, the Surface Pro is a much better tablet choice.
Another important note is that this version of the ThinkPad X1 Tablet is fanless, just like the previous version. That means it stays completely silent no matter the workload. The back of the machine does become hot, however. That’s not as much of a concern with this class of machine when it’s upright on your lap, but it can get uncomfortable when you’re holding it in your hands.
Very solid state performance
The ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 stepped up to the excellent Samsung PM961 solid-state disk (SSD), which is an improvement over the previous model’s Samsung M.2 2280 SSD. Our review unit was equipped with the 256GB version of this drive, which is important, because the 128GB model uses the much slower SATA connection.
graphs: disk performance
How fast is the drive? Simply put, it’s a significant improvement over the previous model. Our CrystalDiskMark benchmark showed a read speed of 1,478 megabytes per second, which is a very good score, although a little low for this SSD. Write speed came in at 1,237 MB/s, which is simply an excellent score. That places the ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 on solid footing compared to its competition.
In practice, the machine was just as fast as expected. It boots quickly, and opening and saving files was quick and efficient. You won’t find storage speed to be an issue with this detachable tablet.
Not much for gaming
There’s not a lot of room for dedicated graphics cards inside tablets, so they’re powered by on-board graphics. The ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 uses Intel HD graphics 615, which isn’t a powerhouse.
graph: gaming
Not surprisingly, the Lenovo met our very low expectations. Its Fire Strike score of 688 is about what you’d expect, and slightly below the typical tablet. The Surface Pro’s Intel Iris Plus graphics were far more powerful in this test, as was the discrete Nvidia GeForce 940MX GPU in the much larger HP Spectre x360 15 2-in-1.
To see how this 2-in-1 handles real-world gaming, we fired up Civilization VI. We started at Full HD (1,920 x 1,080) resolution and Medium graphics options and not resolution, and proceeded to watch what was essentially a slide show. The ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 could only manage 7.7 frames per second (FPS) on these settings, which dropped to a little more than half when we ran the benchmark on Ultra graphics settings.
Obviously, detachable tablets aren’t meant for running modern games, and Lenovo’s latest version is no different. You can play some casual games and older titles if you like, but certainly don’t grab a tablet if hardcore gaming is anywhere on your horizon.
Light on its feet
This tablet weighs 2.4 pounds when docked with the keyboard, and is just over a half-inch thick total. It can easily fit in your bag, and is light enough that you’ll wonder multiple times during a long trip whether you’ve forgotten it somewhere. The ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 retains the 37 watt-hour battery of the previous model, which was a bit underwhelming in terms of longevity.
graph: battery performance
Lenovo’s upgrade to Intel’s more efficient seventh-generation CPU did improve battery life. On our Peacekeeper battery benchmark, which runs several browser-based tasks on a loop until the battery ultimately dies, gave us five hours and two minutes, a stronger score than the last version’s three hours and four minutes of battery life. That puts the machine in a much more competitive position.
The new model fell off a bit in our web browsing loop, during which a number of popular websites are loaded automatically until the battery dies. It lasted only five hours and 20 minutes, compared to the previous model’s five hours and 46 minutes. The Gen 2 model battery redeemed itself a bit while looping a movie trailer, lasting eight hours and 16 minutes compared to the first generation’s seven hours and 40 minutes.
Bill Roberson/Digital Trends
The improvements put the ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 in somewhat better standing against its competition. The Surface Pro, for example, ran for five hours and 21 minutes in our Peacekeeper test, just 19 minutes longer than the Lenovo, with an almost identical difference in our web browsing test. And the ThinkPad X1 Tablet surpassed the Samsung Galaxy Book 12 on both tests.
The Lenovo did fall short in our video looping test, however. Both the Surface Pro and the Samsung Galaxy Book 12 exceeded 10 hours, while the ThinkPad X1 Tablet barely broke the eight-hour mark. That’s not a terrible score but it does fall short of its main competition.
Overall, battery life was improved over the previous model, but could certainly be better, which is probably why Lenovo is selling an attachment with an extra battery.
Software
Lenovo didn’t overburden the ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2, a Microsoft Signature Edition unit, with much extraneous software. In addition, to the usual Microsoft first-party Windows 10 apps and handful of games, there are a couple of useful Lenovo utilities. The Lenovo Settings app, in particular, is handy for getting at specialized settings like the Intelligent Cooling function that can keep things from getting too hot and the microphone settings to suppress keyboard noise while recording and optimize for voice communications.
Warranty
Lenovo offers a one-year warranty for the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2, which is standard for laptops and tablets.
Our Take
The ThinkPad X1 Tablet is not a perfect 2-in-1, but it is a good one. It offers a robust build that’s more resistant to dings and dents than most tablets, and its detachable keyboard is superior to most. It’s held back, however, by a mediocre display and so-so battery life, two traits important to every tablet.
Is there a better alternative?
The most obvious competitor to the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 is Microsoft’s new Surface Pro. They’re both priced similarly, for example. Our X1 review unit with an Intel Core i5-7Y57 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB SSD came in at $1,689. A similarly equipped Surface Pro with a faster Intel Core i5-7200U CPU goes for $1,299. However, Lenovo includes the keyboard and pen, while Microsoft’s Signature Type Cover is $160 and Surface Pen is $100. That means the ThinkPad X1 Tablet is just $130 more.
The Surface Pro wins out in terms of performance and battery life, however. It’s significantly faster, particularly in more processor-intensive tasks, even though it uses a full-power processor, it also lasts longer on a charge thanks to its larger battery. And, its display is significantly better than the one used on the ThinkPad X1 Tablet — really, it’s not even close. Unless you need the ThinkPad’s more robust design, then it’s hard to recommend over Microsoft’s offering.
A 360-degree 2-in-1 is also a viable alternative to a detachable tablet today, and they tend to be a little more reasonably priced. The HP Spectre x360 13, for example, is one our favorites, and it runs a more compelling $1,090 with the same components and a 4K UHD (3,840 x 2,160) display. The Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 is another great option, and it too is a bit more attractively priced at $1,400.
How long will it last?
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 benefits from its USB Type-C port, generous connectivity add-ons, and durability. Its performance and battery life are enough to keep you going for years, at least in today’s and tomorrow’s productivity tasks. All in all, the machine is a solid long-term investment.
Should you buy it?
Only if you need a MIL-SPEC tested tablet with numerous connectivity options. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 is durable, and has many useful add-ons that most competitors don’t even try to offer. However, the X1 falls behind the Surface Pro in key areas, and it’s incredibly expensive.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 review
Research Center:
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (2017)
Microsoft wanted Windows 2-in-1s to happen so badly that it stopped waiting for the OEMs and built its own. After years of mixed results, devices like the Surface Pro and the Surface Book are widely regarded today, showing the world just how useful a Windows tablet can be. That has left computer manufacturers in the odd position of trying to catch up with Microsoft, their longtime partner – and increasingly, they’re succeeding.
Lenovo’s latest Surface competitor, the ThinkPad X1 Tablet, is currently in its second generation, and could be one of the recent success stories. The device, which comes complete with a ThinkPad keyboard and ThinkPad Pen Pro, starts at $1,449 with a seventh-generation Intel Core i5-7Y54 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 128G SSD. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet review unit we received, priced at $1,689, was upgraded to Intel’s Core i5-7Y57, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. That places it at about $130 less than the price of the similarly equipped Microsoft Surface Pro.
Can the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 manage to be a tablet and a ThinkPad, all at once? And is there any reason to get this over a Surface Pro?
Effective, though confusing at first
The ThinkPad brand has had a particular look since the 90s, and Lenovo has always been careful to respect that aesthetic. The ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 brings that look to the tablet market, with some obvious influence from the Surface Pro line thrown in. The result is exactly what you’d expect when you hear the words “ThinkPad tablet,” right down to the defined corners and the iconic face of the keyboard, complete with the obligatory red dot.
When we first picked up the ThinkPad X1 Tablet, we were slightly puzzled. The keyboard attachment and the tablet were easy to identify, and putting them together isn’t rocket science by any means. A secure magnetic latch snaps into place and holds firm. But to sit everything on a desk or table, the user needs to unlock the metal kickstand on the back of the tablet that serves as a sturdy counterweight. The mechanism’s workings aren’t obvious at a glance.
Once you work this out, using the ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 is easy. To adjust the angle of the screen, users must avoid the urge to tilt the screen itself and instead adjust the kickstand. The hinge is solid, and its presence means the keyboard doesn’t have to serve as counterweight to the tablet, which saves both space and weight. Overall, the design is just as solid as typical for the ThinkPad line, with the machine tested to meet MIL-SPEC 810G requirements for durability.
Bill Roberson/Digital Trends
Bill Roberson/Digital Trends
Bill Roberson/Digital Trends
Bill Roberson/Digital Trends
This otherwise top-heavy tablet works comfortably docked on a desk, or even your lap. The Lenovo also differs from the Surface Pro and similar machines in that the kickstand hinge is at the bottom rather than the middle of the chassis. The kickstand therefore levers downward to lay flat on a surface — which does tend to make it a more comfortable laptop experience than Microsoft’s design.
The tablet is 11.45 by 8.24 inches, and weighs 2.4 pounds with the keyboard attached, dimensions that are the same as the original model. The tablet itself is .33 inches thick, which is the same as the Surface Pro and slightly thicker than the iPad Pro’s .27 inches. The ThinkPad X1’s keyboard attachment is .20 inches thick, so everything is just over a half inch thick when docked and closed.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (2017) Compared To
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (2017)
Acer Aspire VX 5-591G 5652
Dell Latitude E5470
Dell Inspiron 15 7000 (2017)
Lenovo Yoga 910
Dell Precision 15 3510
Lenovo Ideapad 710S
HP Spectre
Dell Latitude 12
LG Gram 15 Z960
Lenovo ThinkPad T450s
Acer Aspire E5-471G-53XG
Dell Inspiron 14 7000 Series
Lenovo IdeaPad U400
Lenovo IdeaPad V460
These dimensions make the ThinkPad X1 Tablet relatively large and heavy for a 2-in-1. However, a total thickness of a half-inch with keyboard isn’t massive, and the size never annoyed us. Overall, the ThinkPad X1 manages to be like a tablet and a ThinkPad all at once, which isn’t easy to pull off.
All the input devices, please
Our ThinkPad X1 Tablet came with five distinct input devices. There’s the touchscreen, the optional ThinkPad Pen Pro, and the keyboard attachment, which in addition to its keys offers a touchpad and a trackpointer.
The touchscreen felt great in our tests. The surface was smooth and consistent, as you’d expect, and gestures were all correctly identified. And if you want more precision than your greasy fingers can offer, the ThinkPad Pen Pro delivers. It makes stylus input quite natural, and works well with the Windows 10 desktop thanks to its built-in buttons for right and left clicking. Hover a bit above the screen and you’ll see a pointer, which makes it easy to avoid accidentally tapping a button or icon. Naturally, the Pen Pro supports all of the usual Windows 10 Ink functionality.
The design is just as solid as usual for the ThinkPad line, highlighted by MIL-SPEC 810G durability testing.
While the ThinkPad X1 Tablet keyboard doesn’t quite measure up to the keyboard on a ThinkPad laptop, it comes close. The keys are what you’d expect from a ThinkPad. They’re well-spaced, and give enough feedback for touch typists to develop a flow. Of course, certain compromises had to be made to fit a keyboard into a small cover, so don’t expect the full ThinkPad keyboard experience. The depth of each keystroke is noticeably shorter, which dampens the tactile experience. Having said that, this is the closest thing to a ThinkPad keyboard available for any tablet, and is among the nicest tablet keyboards we’ve used.
The keyboard is backlit with two brightness levels and an ambient light sensor for automatic brightness, though backlighting is disabled by default. To enable it, you’ll need to hold “Fn” and hit “Space,” which are easy enough keys to find in the dark. Speaking of the keys, some were in odd places, such as the left Fn and Ctrl keys that are reversed and take some real getting used to.
Some magnets placed in the keyboard cover snap onto the bezel, giving you a pleasant angle for typing. Typing is easier at an angle, but this arrangement does create some keyboard flexing that makes typing a bit louder. That could be a problem if you’re using the tablet beside a sensitive neighbor.
Bill Roberson/Digital Trends
The touchpad is quite small, two by three and a half inches. Input was accurate, and the texture is pleasant. As with most ThinkPad touchpads, it’s smaller than it could be because of the need to offer buttons to trackpointer users. Speaking of, there’s the trackpoint, the longtime staple of the ThinkPad line. It honestly seems like an anachronism on a tablet, but we’re sure longtime ThinkPad fans will enjoy its inclusion. It works well, as usual, with smooth tracking that offers another efficient control option.
Users hoping to login to their tablet without a touchpad will enjoy the Windows Hello compatible fingerprint reader. It’s located next to the display on the right-hand side, so it’s readily accessible no matter how you’re using the 2-in-1 device.
Not many ports, but you can buy attachments for more
The ThinkPad X1 Tablet offers one USB 3.0 port on the side of the tablet itself, alongside a USB type-C port for connecting the tablet to a power supply. A mini-DisplayPort makes it possible to connect external displays, and a headphone jack works with external speakers. There’s also a microSD port.
Battery life was improved over the previous model but could certainly be better.
There are no ports whatsoever on the keyboard, but Lenovo has left room for more with a unique module system. You can snap attachments between the keyboard and the tablet, giving you extra features. A $150 productivity module gives you an HDMI port, a Onelink+ Port for docking, another USB 3.0 port, and a two-cell battery rated for five additional hours of usage. Another attachment offers a built-in projector. We weren’t able to try any of these attachments out, but they’re interesting in concept.
Wireless capabilities are handled by the Intel 8265AC+BT card, which provides 2×2 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.1 connectivity. There’s also a NanoSIM port for adding in cellular connectivity.
The display gets the job done
The 12-inch display offered by the ThinkPad X1 Tablet offers a resolution of 2,160 by 1,440, which is generous. The display is unchanged on the updated version. Despite being relatively small, there always seems to be room to work.
graphs: display performance
At full brightness, the ThinkPad X1 puts out 389 nits, which is exceptional. Using this device outside shouldn’t be a problem. The contrast was 740:1 at max brightness, which is fairly average today and nowhere close to the absurd 381,430:1 rating of the Samsung Galaxy Book 12 (which has an OLED display), and also considerably behind others like Microsoft’s Surface Pro at 1180:1.
Color is more of an issue. Our results showed the Tablet X1 Gen 2 hitting just 69 percent of the AdobeRGB standard, which isn’t terrible, but is one of the lower results we’ve seen among high-end devices lately. The sRGB scale rating was 93 percent, which is also below average for the class. Microsoft’s Surface Pro hit 71 percent and 96 percent, and Samsung’s Galaxy Book 12 hit 98 and 100 percent, respectively. Color accuracy wasn’t bad, however, at 1.99, although scores less than 1.0 are considered excellent in this test.
Bill Roberson/Digital Trends
Numbers are one thing. Experience is another. While the X1 doesn’t quite measure up on paper, it’s still good enough to deliver an enjoyable experience, and it’s certainly a great productivity experience with its sharpness and solid — albeit slightly muted — colors.
Moving on to live action, we watched the trailer for Star Trek Beyond. It was easy to make out every detail of the unnecessary chaos and carnage, even in darker scenes with a lot of shadow. The spirit of exploration and hopefulness that once defined this franchise could not be detected, but that is no fault of the display.
If anything, the ThinkPad X1’s lackluster showing is evidence of how far mobile PC displays have come. You might think it’s fine if it’s all you ever saw. When placed next to a Surface Pro or Samsung Galaxy Book, though, its flaws are easy to notice.
Grab your headphones. Seriously.
Audio is a different matter. Everything is clear and easy to make out, but bass and midrange tones are muddled. You can’t really rock out to these speakers, but you’ll be able to make out music or podcasts from across the room. External speakers or headphones are highly recommended.
Of course, many small PCs suffer speaker woes. Yet we’ve noticed some improvement in this area. The Samsung Galaxy Book was very strong, and Huawei’s super-thin Matebook X laptop delivers incredible volume for its size.
A powerful mobile processor
The ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 is now powered by a seventh-generation Intel Core i5-7Y57 processor. The Core Y-Series (which used to be labeled with the M designation) isn’t as powerful as the better-known Core i5 and i7, as it seeks to balance performance with better battery life.
graphs: processor performance
In Geekbench 4, the ThinkPad’s single core rating was 3,837 and the multi-core score was 7,163, which are both competitive with the comparison group, excluding the excellent score posted by the new Surface Pro and it’s full-speed Core i7. The ThinkPad X1 can keep up with most Windows 10 tablets on the market right now, at least in this benchmark.
Performance was good enough that we forgot this entire machine was crammed into a tablet form factor.
Our more demanding Handbrake test, however, which encodes a 420MB video file to H.265 format, tells a different story. In this test, The ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 took 1,810 seconds to complete the run, which is second only to the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 that, surprisingly, uses the somewhat faster Core i7-7Y75. Other Intel Core-based systems posted much stronger scores, demonstrating that there’s a reason why the Core Y-Series is reserved to thin systems.
In day-to-day usage, however, performance was good enough that we forgot this entire machine was crammed into a tablet form factor. Browsing the web and writing were no problem, and neither were more demanding productivity tasks. We just wouldn’t suggest you consider the machine if you need to perform more processor-intensive tasks such as video encoding. For that kind of work, the Surface Pro is a much better tablet choice.
Another important note is that this version of the ThinkPad X1 Tablet is fanless, just like the previous version. That means it stays completely silent no matter the workload. The back of the machine does become hot, however. That’s not as much of a concern with this class of machine when it’s upright on your lap, but it can get uncomfortable when you’re holding it in your hands.
Very solid state performance
The ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 stepped up to the excellent Samsung PM961 solid-state disk (SSD), which is an improvement over the previous model’s Samsung M.2 2280 SSD. Our review unit was equipped with the 256GB version of this drive, which is important, because the 128GB model uses the much slower SATA connection.
graphs: disk performance
How fast is the drive? Simply put, it’s a significant improvement over the previous model. Our CrystalDiskMark benchmark showed a read speed of 1,478 megabytes per second, which is a very good score, although a little low for this SSD. Write speed came in at 1,237 MB/s, which is simply an excellent score. That places the ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 on solid footing compared to its competition.
In practice, the machine was just as fast as expected. It boots quickly, and opening and saving files was quick and efficient. You won’t find storage speed to be an issue with this detachable tablet.
Not much for gaming
There’s not a lot of room for dedicated graphics cards inside tablets, so they’re powered by on-board graphics. The ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 uses Intel HD graphics 615, which isn’t a powerhouse.
graph: gaming
Not surprisingly, the Lenovo met our very low expectations. Its Fire Strike score of 688 is about what you’d expect, and slightly below the typical tablet. The Surface Pro’s Intel Iris Plus graphics were far more powerful in this test, as was the discrete Nvidia GeForce 940MX GPU in the much larger HP Spectre x360 15 2-in-1.
To see how this 2-in-1 handles real-world gaming, we fired up Civilization VI. We started at Full HD (1,920 x 1,080) resolution and Medium graphics options and not resolution, and proceeded to watch what was essentially a slide show. The ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 could only manage 7.7 frames per second (FPS) on these settings, which dropped to a little more than half when we ran the benchmark on Ultra graphics settings.
Obviously, detachable tablets aren’t meant for running modern games, and Lenovo’s latest version is no different. You can play some casual games and older titles if you like, but certainly don’t grab a tablet if hardcore gaming is anywhere on your horizon.
Light on its feet
This tablet weighs 2.4 pounds when docked with the keyboard, and is just over a half-inch thick total. It can easily fit in your bag, and is light enough that you’ll wonder multiple times during a long trip whether you’ve forgotten it somewhere. The ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 retains the 37 watt-hour battery of the previous model, which was a bit underwhelming in terms of longevity.
graph: battery performance
Lenovo’s upgrade to Intel’s more efficient seventh-generation CPU did improve battery life. On our Peacekeeper battery benchmark, which runs several browser-based tasks on a loop until the battery ultimately dies, gave us five hours and two minutes, a stronger score than the last version’s three hours and four minutes of battery life. That puts the machine in a much more competitive position.
The new model fell off a bit in our web browsing loop, during which a number of popular websites are loaded automatically until the battery dies. It lasted only five hours and 20 minutes, compared to the previous model’s five hours and 46 minutes. The Gen 2 model battery redeemed itself a bit while looping a movie trailer, lasting eight hours and 16 minutes compared to the first generation’s seven hours and 40 minutes.
Bill Roberson/Digital Trends
The improvements put the ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 in somewhat better standing against its competition. The Surface Pro, for example, ran for five hours and 21 minutes in our Peacekeeper test, just 19 minutes longer than the Lenovo, with an almost identical difference in our web browsing test. And the ThinkPad X1 Tablet surpassed the Samsung Galaxy Book 12 on both tests.
The Lenovo did fall short in our video looping test, however. Both the Surface Pro and the Samsung Galaxy Book 12 exceeded 10 hours, while the ThinkPad X1 Tablet barely broke the eight-hour mark. That’s not a terrible score but it does fall short of its main competition.
Overall, battery life was improved over the previous model, but could certainly be better, which is probably why Lenovo is selling an attachment with an extra battery.
Software
Lenovo didn’t overburden the ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2, a Microsoft Signature Edition unit, with much extraneous software. In addition, to the usual Microsoft first-party Windows 10 apps and handful of games, there are a couple of useful Lenovo utilities. The Lenovo Settings app, in particular, is handy for getting at specialized settings like the Intelligent Cooling function that can keep things from getting too hot and the microphone settings to suppress keyboard noise while recording and optimize for voice communications.
Warranty
Lenovo offers a one-year warranty for the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2, which is standard for laptops and tablets.
Our Take
The ThinkPad X1 Tablet is not a perfect 2-in-1, but it is a good one. It offers a robust build that’s more resistant to dings and dents than most tablets, and its detachable keyboard is superior to most. It’s held back, however, by a mediocre display and so-so battery life, two traits important to every tablet.
Is there a better alternative?
The most obvious competitor to the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 is Microsoft’s new Surface Pro. They’re both priced similarly, for example. Our X1 review unit with an Intel Core i5-7Y57 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB SSD came in at $1,689. A similarly equipped Surface Pro with a faster Intel Core i5-7200U CPU goes for $1,299. However, Lenovo includes the keyboard and pen, while Microsoft’s Signature Type Cover is $160 and Surface Pen is $100. That means the ThinkPad X1 Tablet is just $130 more.
The Surface Pro wins out in terms of performance and battery life, however. It’s significantly faster, particularly in more processor-intensive tasks, even though it uses a full-power processor, it also lasts longer on a charge thanks to its larger battery. And, its display is significantly better than the one used on the ThinkPad X1 Tablet — really, it’s not even close. Unless you need the ThinkPad’s more robust design, then it’s hard to recommend over Microsoft’s offering.
A 360-degree 2-in-1 is also a viable alternative to a detachable tablet today, and they tend to be a little more reasonably priced. The HP Spectre x360 13, for example, is one our favorites, and it runs a more compelling $1,090 with the same components and a 4K UHD (3,840 x 2,160) display. The Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 is another great option, and it too is a bit more attractively priced at $1,400.
How long will it last?
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 benefits from its USB Type-C port, generous connectivity add-ons, and durability. Its performance and battery life are enough to keep you going for years, at least in today’s and tomorrow’s productivity tasks. All in all, the machine is a solid long-term investment.
Should you buy it?
Only if you need a MIL-SPEC tested tablet with numerous connectivity options. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2 is durable, and has many useful add-ons that most competitors don’t even try to offer. However, the X1 falls behind the Surface Pro in key areas, and it’s incredibly expensive.
Microsoft continues push to reduce digital divide with rural internet drive
Why it matters to you
If you or someone you care about lives in a rural community with poor internet access, Microsoft is hoping to change that over the next five years.
Microsoft is continuing its plans to bridge the digital gap between rural and urban areas by driving a national initiative to bring high-speed internet to those in areas where current connection options are poor and few in number. To aid that effort, it is investing in technology that will leverage so-called white spaces in the spectrum, to provide solid wireless connections to rural communities.
White spaces are the unused frequencies allocated to various broadcasting networks that sit idle and arguably wasted. Microsoft wants to make use of those in its latest efforts, though this is not the first time it tried something like this. Earlier in 2017, it prototyped such a system with its “Homework Network” in rural Virginia, which brought high-speed internet to those who live near schools.
But that was just the start of Microsoft’s plans. Moving forward, it plans to expand this scheme to many more rural communities, fronting the costs for local telecommunications companies and then drawing some of the revenue from the service once it is up and running. Those funds will then, in turn, be reinvested in similar communities to continue the practice.
Microsoft’s chief legal officer Brad Smith made it clear that the company has no plans to enter the telecoms market, nor make a profit from these initiatives, according to WinSuperSite. Indeed, much of the project will be managed by Microsoft’s philanthropy arm, which will work in tandem with organizations like National 4-H Council to provide digital skill training to rural communities.
It wants other companies to get involved though. While Microsoft’s white-space internet plans will help reach as many as 2 million people by 2022, that is less than 10 percent of the current U.S. population who do not have access to high-speed internet. To that end, Microsoft is also calling on other large American tech companies to aid in the effort and ease people’s access to broadband services.
That could prove crucial, as the cost of compatible hardware with white-space technology is one of the largest hurdles, as The New York Times points out. However, Microsoft has already made big in-roads in this area, helping to lower the price of compatible hardware by as much as 80 percent in some cases.
Other plans will see Microsoft call on federal and local legislators to remove the red tape and encourage uptake by not only companies but communities too, who may as yet not understand the benefits white space internet access can grant. Helping smaller, local telecoms companies thrive in the hotly competitive industry could also go a long way to easing current issues with rural broadband connections.
Netgear Orbi RBK40 review
Research Center:
Netgear Orbi RBK40
The networking market is taking a detour from the traditional one-unit-provides-it-all setup. Mobile devices are increasing in number within the home and office environment, meaning these spaces need to provide coverage no matter where they reside locally. Routers are no longer feasible as the sole wireless solution, and extenders do nothing but repeat weakened signals. Our Netgear Orbi review reveals one way hardware providers are dealing with that reality: networking kits meant to salve your aching Wi-Fi.
The Orbi system doesn’t use the traditional router/repeater setup, but instead consists of identical units with one serving as the hub/router and the second as a remote satellite. Both units include a third wireless connection that’s solely used for Orbi-to-Orbi communication. In theory, this is better than recent mesh networking tech because the Orbi and client devices aren’t sharing the same 5GHz connection. But how does it fare during our testing?
A different way for whole-home coverage
Each Orbi unit resembles a desktop-sized nuclear power plant, only not as circular. They include four gigabit Ethernet ports on the back although for the router unit one port is assigned to the modem. The back panel also plays host to a sync button for reconfiguring the network, a paper clip-sized reset button, a power connector, and a power button. A ring of LEDs resides on the “roof” of each unit to provide a visual status of the network.
On the inside, each Orbi unit includes 512MB of system memory, 4GB of storage dedicated to the operating system (firmware), and four high-performance antennas capable of coverage up to 2,000 square feet. Each unit measures 6.57 × 3.27 × 8.03 inches and weighs 1.65 pounds, making them smaller and lighter than the original RBS50 kit.
Kevin Parrish/Digital Trends
Kevin Parrish/Digital Trends
Kevin Parrish/Digital Trends
Kevin Parrish/Digital Trends
When we previously took the larger RBS50 kit for a test drive, we mistakenly placed it in the mesh-networking group along with Luma Surround, Eero, and Google WiFi. Technically, that’s inaccurate given that Orbi doesn’t create a blanket of coverage in the same way. Netgear’s kit uses a dedicated “highway” for Orbi-to-Orbi communication whereas mesh-based kits talk to each other on the same congested highway as all the connected client devices.
Even more, Orbi doesn’t require a mobile device with Bluetooth to install the kit. We’ve seen several instances where Bluetooth can cause problems and even prevent users from installing mesh-based kits. Adding to that, these mesh kits don’t provide an alternate setup method, driving customers to technical support. Netgear’s Orbi system sticks to the reliable Ethernet-based setup OR lets you use a wireless device’s web browser, whichever is easier.
Leave your Bluetooth in the blue cheese, please
Setting up the Netgear Orbi network was super simple. First, we attached the unit labeled “router” to the modem, and then connected a smartphone to the unit wirelessly by using the password plastered on the router’s disposable label. Once the smartphone connected, the web browser automatically loaded to start the setup process.
Customers should definitely consider Netgear’s new Orbi RBK40 kit if they’re looking for solid, whole-home connectivity.
Note: if the browser doesn’t automatically launch, users can open the app and type “orbilogin.net” to continue setup. Also, Netgear does offer the “Orbi” app for installing the kit, adding Orbi satellites, and getting very limited info. We didn’t use this app given the setup process automatically pulled up the internet browser.
In the first stage, the router connected and verified its connection to the internet. We then powered up the satellite unit (located in the living room) and waited for its LED ring to turn blue, indicating a good Orbi-to-Orbi connection (magenta means the connection sucks – go move your satellite). The web browser on the phone then indicated that the satellite was good to go, and pushed on in the setup process for creating login credentials, changing the network name, changing the password, and updating the firmware. Did we forget to mention that no Bluetooth was involved in the setup process?
With everything up and running, we could log into the Orbi web interface from any local wireless device. This interface is visually clean and split into two tabs, Basic and Advanced. The Basic home screen is the default panel, providing five tiles to quickly glance at the internet connection, the wireless name and password, the number of attached devices, the status of parental controls, and the status of the guest network.
Kevin Parrish/Digital Trends
In addition to the Home page, the Basic tab serves up additional details and settings for those five tiles along with an option to add another Orbi satellite. The big deal here is that owners can fully customize their wireless network, which is not something you’ll find with the hockey puck-sized mesh networking kits. Orbi is the full router experience.
This isn’t another plug-and-play solution
On the Advanced side, users will see a more robust library of settings for tweaking the network. Here you can establish port forwarding, port triggering, allow or block access to the network, block specific keywords and websites, change wireless channels, and even change what kind of network traffic gets priority over other streams (such as online games preferred over web browsing), and more.
Orbi sticks to the reliable Ethernet-based setup OR a wireless device’s web browser, whichever is easier on the user.
One Advanced feature we’d like to note is the ability to remotely manage the network. Orbi doesn’t solely rely on a cloud-based interface and settings; from the router’s web interface you can enable PC-based access from another external location. It’s found on the Advanced tab under the Advanced Setup section. You can choose to lock remote access to one specific device or add a range of addresses.
Orbi owners can manage the network using the Genie app, too (iPhone or Android). During the setup process, you create a Netgear account to register the product, which can also be used for managing the network outside the Orbi network, and thus doesn’t require you to manually turn remote management on within the router’s control panel.
But don’t get too excited: the app isn’t quite as robust as the web interface. With Genie, local and remote administrators can change the Wi-Fi channels, create a guest network, modify the parental controls, and even reboot the router. The app also includes a network map to see all connected client devices, “turbo” transfer files from a connected device, and even turn a wireless device into a media server.
A third connection your device will never directly use
The big selling point with Orbi is that it has a third 5GHz connection dedicated to the communication between Orbi devices. Consider it a “private” 5GHz backroad specifically used for all Orbi units to send data to each other and the ISP’s modem. Meanwhile, all wireless client devices connect to the Orbi units through the “general” 5GHz broadcast, and are not allowed to use that private backroad.
Kevin Parrish/Digital Trends
Thus, according to Netgear, each Orbi RBK40 unit includes two “private” Orbi-to-Orbi streams of up to 433Mbps each on the 5GHz band (867Mbps combined). They also provide two 5GHz streams at 433Mbps each for client use, and two 2.4GHz streams at 200Mbps each (400Mbps combined) for client use. In theory, that means if a Wireless N device is only transmitting up to 400Mbps, its data will get on the express train to the internet once it leaves the Orbi unit.
In reality, users will need an interference-free environment to get even close to those theoretical speeds. Getting actual numbers to test throughput speeds on Android is somewhat difficult, but we can find out just how speedy that backend is using Jperf and two Windows 10 devices: one wired to the router (server) and one wired to the satellite (client). In out testing, both had wired gigabit Ethernet connections. But before we do, we need a disclaimer.
Don’t buy into those advertised big numbers
Before we get into the numbers, there needs to be some clarification about theoretical speeds, device reporting speeds, and real-world speeds. Theoretical is what you see advertised: 876Mbps max and 400Mbps max. This is a possible limit but not necessarily something you will ever experience. Meanwhile, device operating systems will report a speed based on the hardware and software conditions at the time of the connection (and refreshes thereafter).
The actual speed of moving data through the air is rarely close to those numbers, however. Actual real throughput speeds on Wireless N resides between 40Mbps and 50Mbps, while Wireless AC generally hits between 70Mbps to somewhere just over 100Mbps. A Windows 10 device sitting next to the signal source (router, hub) may even see speeds just past 200Mbps in perfect, sterile conditions.
With that out of the way, this is what we saw using the default out-of-the-box settings in the router. Note that the router resided in one room (office) and the satellite resided in the next room over (the living room), so at most there were two walls blocking the dedicated 5GHz stream:
0.0 – 1.0 sec
199Mbps
1.0 – 2.0 sec
179Mbps
2.0 – 3.0 sec
125Mbps
3.0 – 4.0 sec
187Mbps
4.0- 5.0 sec
187Mbps
5.0 – 6.0 sec
170Mbps
6.0 – 7.0 sec
197Mbps
7.0 – 8.0 sec
205Mbps
8.0 – 9.0 sec
200Mbps
9.0 -10.0 sec
200Mbps
After that, we disconnected the client PC from the wired port on the satellite unit and accessed the network through its Wireless AC component (2×2) that’s capable of 867Mbps. Keep in mind that in this test, we were seated next to the satellite unit for the best possible connection. We also didn’t have any additional wireless devices connected to the Orbi network:
0.0 – 1.0 sec
98.4Mbps
1.0 – 2.0 sec
101Mbps
2.0 – 3.0 sec
98.9Mbps
3.0 – 4.0 sec
104Mbps
4.0- 5.0 sec
96.4Mbps
5.0 – 6.0 sec
101Mbps
6.0 – 7.0 sec
98.1Mbps
7.0 – 8.0 sec
101Mbps
8.0 – 9.0 sec
94.1Mbps
9.0 -10.0 sec
90.8Mbps
These numbers may stem from how data actually traveled to and from the server. The client PC connected wirelessly to the satellite, which in turn connected wirelessly to the router at up to 205Mbps. The server was connected to the router via a gigabit Ethernet connection, which sent data back to the client via one wired and two wireless connections. Given the path, the numbers shown above aren’t too shabby at all.
For clarification, this is the path: Client PC > Orbi satellite > Orbi Router > Server PC < Orbi Router < Orbi Satellite < Client PC
Next, we moved the client PC next to the router itself to see if the numbers would improve. Again, we’re still using a Wireless AC connection:
0.0 – 1.0 sec
162Mbps
1.0 – 2.0 sec
173Mbps
2.0 – 3.0 sec
161Mbps
3.0 – 4.0 sec
167Mbps
4.0- 5.0 sec
165Mbps
5.0 – 6.0 sec
180Mbps
6.0 – 7.0 sec
184Mbps
7.0 – 8.0 sec
176Mbps
8.0 – 9.0 sec
154Mbps
9.0 -10.0 sec
173Mbps
With that, we decided to grab the client PC and sit down in a position between the router and satellite unit. We didn’t move the satellite unit from the living room area given that the typical scenario will see the router and satellite sitting in separate locations in a house. So, for this test, two walls resided between the router and satellite units. We suspect the client PC connected to the satellite instead of the router, but there was no way to confirm the actual Orbi-to-client connection.
0.0 – 1.0 sec
94.4Mbps
1.0 – 2.0 sec
90.3Mbps
2.0 – 3.0 sec
92.1Mbps
3.0 – 4.0 sec
99.0Mbps
4.0- 5.0 sec
99.7Mbps
5.0 – 6.0 sec
104Mbps
6.0 – 7.0 sec
101Mbps
7.0 – 8.0 sec
99.4Mbps
8.0 – 9.0 sec
97.3Mbps
9.0 -10.0 sec
99.2Mbps
Ultimately, users can walk away from this information knowing that while the dedicated Orbi-to-Orbi communication isn’t 867Mbps, all data passed to and from the router does speed along at a reasonable rate. Even more, because no additional wireless devices have access to this private backroad, there should be no additional obstacles preventing dataflow outside the typical physical obstructions and general interference.
Still, big numbers look pretty
Next, we decided to see what Android had to tell us. Typically we use the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge smartphone, which has a Wireless AC component (2×2) capable of 867Mbps. We also use Netgear’s WiFi Analytics app for signal strength numbers, and the potential throughput speeds based on signal strength and the hardware communication between phone and router/satellite.
Just like our Windows 10 experiment, we sat directly between the Orbi router and satellite units, which is in the living room. Then we moved to sit next to the router unit in the office, the bedroom adjacent to the office, and the kitchen residing between the office and living room. After all of that, we sat down next to the satellite unit in the living room to see how it performs up close.
Living Room
Office
Bedroom
Kitchen
Satellite
Possible Speed:
526Mbps
866Mbps
234Mbps
351Mbps
866Mbps
Strength:
-60 dBm
-33 dBm
-60 dBm
-59 dBm
-33 dBm
Based on our Android numbers, the router and satellite units appear to provide the same broadcast strength and throughout speeds, but our Windows 10 test showed a definite distinction between the two on the throughput front. That could be the result of anything, really, such as interference sneaking in through the nearby window, a mounted base station for the HTC Vive virtual reality headset, and so on. Then again, the Android test doesn’t send packs of data between server and client, but seemingly measures the environment based on signal strength.
Warranty
Netgear provides a limited hardware warranty for products that ship in their original packaging. It protects against “defects in material and workmanship when the products are used normally for their intended purposes.” There’s no indication of how long this warranty lasts, as the product page links to an FAQ that links to a generic warranty disclaimer that says the warranty duration is based on the product.
Our Take
While some solutions rely on a single router and smaller stand-alone extenders to blanket the whole home with coverage, Orbi takes a different approach that should spark a new trend in the wireless networking market. And it provides a great connection when you’re within reasonable range of the two Orbi units. Seated next to the router, data moves at up to 184Mbps, which is great. Speeds are on the higher end of true Wireless AC systems, meaning the Orbi really performs as a multi-unit wireless networking kit.
Is there a better alternative?
For a higher price, there may be several single-router products that outperform the Orbi kit. One possible candidate is Netgear’s own $450 Nighthawk X10, which packs six gigabit Ethernet ports and a 5GHz band that moves along at up to 1,733Mbps (4×4). But those products are more expensive, and Orbi is more flexible.
How long will it last?
Netgear is taking a unique multi-unit approach to wireless networking by blanketing the home with coverage without the use of wireless repeaters. The problem Orbi faces is the 866Mbps cap, and emergence of faster Wireless AD technology. Newer wireless devices with more than two internal antennas and/or support for Wireless AD connectivity will see the Orbi system as somewhat obsolete. Until that time comes, the Orbi kit should be a solid performer for the next few years.
Should you buy it?
Customers should definitely consider the Orbi RBK40 kit if they’re looking for solid, whole-home connectivity. While we liked the RBK50 kit released late last year, that two-unit kit was rather pricey at the time costing a hefty $400 (it’s $350 now). The newer RBK40 kit is slightly smaller in size and in price, retailing for $300 for the two units (was $350).
This is (probably) the LG V30
Surprise: On the outside, it’s pretty much a bigger, curvier G6.
LG looks set to follow up the well-received G6 with a new member of the big-screened V series, and noted leaker Steve Hemmerstoffer (aka @onleaks on Twitter) has teamed up with MySmartprice to reveal a full 3D render of the device, based on CAD specs given to accessory manufacturers.
The design shares many common elements with the G6, with notable changes including 2.5D glass on the front and back panels, and a subtle camera bump, likely to accommodate a beefier pair of shooters. The display itself also appears to have an extremely subtle curve to its edges, though in these renders the angle is less pronounced than the Galaxy S8’s edge display.
We already know, thanks to Google, that the V30 will support Daydream VR, so some kind of OLED display is likely.
With a 6-inch display, the LG V30 would sit between the Galaxy S8 and S8+ in terms of size.
Size-wise, it would seem LG’s new phone isn’t going to be as physically huge as the S8+, or the upcoming Note 8 — the report claims a 6-inch display diagonal for the 18:9 screen, with dimensions of 151.4 x 75.2 x 7.4. That puts it squarely in between the S8 and S8+ in terms of physical heft.
Bottom-firing speakers seem to be included too, along with a 3.5mm headphone jack. The report is unclear, however, on whether wirelss charging will make it to all V30 models. The secondary display, however, appears to have been killed off — not a surprising move, though it’s possible LG may in some way build that extra functionality into the main screen.
An August 31 launch date, ahead of the IFA trade show in Berlin, is reportedly on the cards, so we shouldn’t have to wait too long to see the LG V30 in the flesh.
Huawei Watch 2 with 4G now on sale in the UK for £259
This Android 2.0-powered smartwatch is currently on sale at Amazon UK for Prime Day.
The Huawei Watch 2 is the company’s second-gen smartwatch and to get in on the Prime Day action, Huawei has discounted the wearable in the UK. What makes this promotion interesting is how the Bluetooth and 4G model, which is usually the more expensive option over the Bluetooth-only variant, is currently the cheapest option by £10. That means you can bag a watch with 4G connectivity for even less at £259.
While we weren’t overly impressed by the release of the Watch 2 by Huawei, feeling that it wasn’t much of an upgrade to the original, this is still a good deal if you like the look of the wearable and need to strap one to your wrist. This second-gen smartwatch is more sports-focused, with a wealth of workout tracking features built atop Android Wear 2.0, ideal for those looking to get back into shape.
See at Amazon
Amazon Echo Show review: Alexa gets fancy
The quick take
Amazon adds a touchscreen and camera to a couple of decent speakers, giving us the best Echo yet for only $50 more than what the original Alexa device is selling for. Video calling is an easy-to-use (if still novel) feature, and Amazon’s paving the way for developers to make use of the 7-inch display. Now it just has to get them to update those thousands of skills to take advantage of it.
The Good
- Alexa as you’ve come to know and love
- Not prohibitively expensive
- Good sound and video quality
- A reasonably attractive design
The Bad
- Third-party skills taking advantage of the touchscreen
- Amazon’s Alexa app is still a little clunky
- Video “drop-ins” are fraught with danger
- Alexa calls and messaging are still a walled garden
Watch this
Amazon Echo Show Video Review
Two round speakers and a microphone (and a display and a camera)
Amazon Echo Show Full review
The Echo Show is the best Alexa-enabled device Amazon has made yet. Let’s just get that out of the way. If you’re considering between the original Echo and the Echo Show, find the extra $50 and get the newer one with the display.
Yes, there’s still reason to keep reading. Because while the Echo Show is the best Amazon has done so far, it’s not perfect. Far from it. In fact, it’s entirely possible to have an Echo Show — with its 7-inch display and camera and integrated speakers — and very quickly realize its shortcomings. It is an imperfect device that simultaneously excites and occasionally infuriates. It’s yet another example of Amazon beating everyone else to market, but with a product that in a number of ways still feels incomplete.
And that, I think, actually is a good thing.
This is the Amazon Echo Show.
See at Amazon
About this review
I’ve been using the Amazon Echo Show (as purchased from Amazon for the two-for-$500 deal) for nearly two weeks as of the time of this review. They’ve been on software 581231520, for what that’s worth, and have lived in my kitchen, living room, bedroom, and office during that time.
Echo meets tablet
Amazon Echo Show Hardware and setup
At its simplest, the Echo Show is this: a 7-inch touchscreen at 1024×600 resolution, with a 5-megapixel camera and a pair of 2-inch speakers at the bottom. On top you’ll find a trio of buttons — from left, there’s a kill switch for the microphones and camera, then volume down and volume up. (I’d have put the mute button in the middle, but no one asked me.) And there’s a round hole on the back of the Echo Show for the proprietary power plug. Eight microphones are hidden within the device.
And that’s it. It’s a very nicely designed, if cleverly simple Echo. It’s just big enough — about 7.5 inches tall and wide — to be conspicuous without being so large that it gets in the way. It fits on a nightstand or into a kitchen nook or alongside living room knickknacks. And that’s a key feature, because as the name implies the Echo Show will show you things as well as talk to you in the traditional sense of Alexa.
The matte plastic body comes in any color you want, so long as it’s either murdered-out black or a white body with a black face for the display and speaker grille. I’ve leaned toward liking the black-and-white model a little more — I think it blends in to the background a little better — but I’ve also liked having the darker model on my nightstand in the bedroom. The white one definitely hides dust a little better, though.
The resolution of the display isn’t exactly anything to write home about. But then again, you shouldn’t expect it to be. A mere 600 vertical pixels might not seem like a lot in this age of 4K and “retina” and all that. But remember that you’re not going to have your nose up against the Echo Show like you would a phone or tablet. Most of the time I’m barking orders at the Echo Show from a good 6 or 8 feet away in the kitchen. So the display is just fine. It’s bright enough and the colors are accurate enough for this sort of use.
I love that you can use your own pictures for the background on the Echo Show and have it display your own albums. But I’m not sure I love it enough to start using Amazon Prime Photos as my photo storage system.
Echo Show is Alexa with a display and a camera. Don’t overthink it.
The speakers also are just fine for what I’d expect in a $229 device. No, it’s not as good as the more expensive Sonos Play:1. This is decent directional sound, but it won’t be filling a room like a Sonos can. There’s enough bass to keep things interesting but not so much as to make this a primary entertainment device. Music sounds fine, as do podcasts and other spoken-word events. This is another one of those times when “good enough” is good enough, particularly in the kitchen, which tends to get noisy.
Setup is excellent. Chances are you ordered directly from Amazon, and so your Amazon account will be preloaded. Just enter your Wi-Fi and confirm your Amazon password and you’re up and running. The initial boot may take a few minutes, though, depending on whether a Day 1 software update is in order. (If you had any lingering doubts whether this was an Android-based OS, the post-update boot time should confirm that suspicion.)
From there you’re run through a couple of instructional videos of what to do and how to do it — tl;dr: You talk to the Echo Show most of the time and tap the screen some of the time — and through the new video calling features.
Plug-in baby
Using the Echo Show Eyes, ears and now a screen
Echo Show is, above all else, an Alexa device. So you can talk to it just like you can the OG Echo or Echo Dot or Tap or even the strange little Echo Look. And Alexa will talk right back to you. There’s really nothing new here, except to say the eight microphones generally pick out my voice just fine, even when I’ve got music playing through the Show. (That’s an important thing to be able to do, of course.)
The game-changer here is the display. Now Alexa can, as the name implies, show you information and content. That’s maybe not as easy as you might expect. It’s easy to clunk up a display with too much or too little information or with horrible fonts or an otherwise unusable user interface. (Look at pretty much any car stereo interface and you’ll know exactly what I mean by that.) But Amazon has adopted an excellent design aesthetic here.
Nobody likes to read about fonts and UX (except for those of us who have to deal with such things for a living), so I’ll just say that there’s nothing haphazard here. The mix of serifs and san-serifs and italics help the time and weather stand out from headlines, and headlines (and their keywords) stand out from the prompts for how to get more information out of the Echo Show. It’s all understated, easy to read, and ultimately very well-done. The transitions between cards and fade in/out times are damn near perfect.
My only real complaint here is that a lot of the time I just don’t find what’s on the screen to be all that informative. Time and weather? OK. Actual news? Fine, I guess. (Though I’d argue that “news” and “what’s actually important” are two very different things these days.) Upcoming calendar events? Definitely helpful (assuming you’ve connected your calendar to Alexa).
Echo Show’s home screen looks great. The problem is it’s wasted real estate so far.
Dive in and turn off …
I’d recommend turning off a couple things. First is the “Trending Topics” content. I rot my brain plenty of other ways, thanks. I’d also turn off the option to have cards continuously repeat. (At least until they time out and are replaced by something else.) Those two sort of go hand in hand, though. I guess maybe it’s fine to see the fluff once. But not over and over again.
How do you change settings like this on Echo Show? Pull down from the top of the screen like you would a phone or tablet. This is where you’ll find options for the display settings — including the all-important do-not-disturb mode — and themes, as well as for what you see on the cards themselves. Most of these settings can be changed in the Alexa app on your phone, too, save for what you see on the screen. (Which is sort of a weird thing to leave out.) In any event, it’s worth taking a few minutes to look around these parts, though it shouldn’t be something you have to come back to very often.
The exception to that would be the “Home” icon. If you have Alexa read you news or stories or get into one of the thousands of “Skills” available (more on that in a minute), you’ll want a way to get back to the main home screen. For that, just say “Alexa, go home.” Or you can pull down from the top of the screen and use the on-screen button. I think I might prefer a hardware button for this, though — say, short press for Home, long press for mute. That’s not a huge deal, though.
Those really are the basics. A lot of this is self-explanatory. And I’m not going to spend and real time here on playing music and videos. Echo Show plays music — though Amazon Music or Spotify or Pandora or iHeartRadio — just fine over Wi-Fi. For anything else you can connect via Bluetooth. (I still greatly prefer Google’s Chromecast or Apple’s AirPlay, but Bluetooth is simple enough.) And Amazon Prime Video is front and center, and you can tell Alexa to show you videos from YouTube, with the touchscreen serving as a decent way to let you pick exactly what it is you were hoping to see.
That’s table stakes, though, and it’s actually pretty limited by design. You’re relying on Alexa to understand you — there’s no on-screen way to launch music or video, you have to use your voice — and return the right result, and then you chose what you actually want. It’s like you’re using a tablet, with a couple of extra steps thrown in, including voice commands. (Want some bedtime music? You’ll need to tell Alexa first. Just try not to wake anyone who’s sleeping next to you while you and Alexa are chatting away.)
There aren’t really any rough edges on Echo Show in terms of software. Things tend to work really well, and it’s obvious there was a lot of time spent on getting them right. But what we have is a tablet-like interface without the usual tablet-like paradigms.
We had a saying in the newsroom of my newspaper when I was younger. “Less yapping, more tapping.” The opposite often is true of the Echo Show. You’ll talk to it more than you will tap to get to where you want to be. That’s not necessarily a bad thing — it’s quicker to say “Show albums by Muse” than it is to tap into an app, and then either type out “M-u-s-e” or drill through a menu system.
But it’s a bit like going to a restaurant and needing to have some idea of what’s available, instead of being handed a menu. I might know I want the grilled salmon. But then again the blackened snapper looks pretty good, too. You lose that sort of discovery this way, and the interaction is much slower than if you see another option.
And you have to remember to be specific. If I say “Show me Tesla Model 3 videos,” Echo Show will return results from Amazon Prime Video, which isn’t actually what I want. User error? Maybe. But better might be to show results from multiple sources and then let me choose which one is best.
Skills start to fall short pretty fast
Then there’s the issue of Alexa’s “skills.” Think of these as apps for Alexa that bridge gap between traditional apps and the voice-only interface of the previous Echo devices. But now we have a display. And a touchscreen, at that.
The good news is that all the skills pretty much still work. (At least in my testing.) The bad news is that as I write this in early July 2017 (a week after the Echo Show shipped) there’s very little that actually takes advantage of the display. And that goes for some of Alexa’s native features, too.
A few examples that I’ve run up against:
- Flash Briefing: One of my favorite early features of Alexa, this news roundup reads you content from any number of sources. Seems like a perfect opportunity for video. Only there isn’t any yet. Not even a basic slideshow.
- Audio books: Echo Show hooks into Amazon’s Kindle and Audible services just fine. (Alexa is still a lousy narrater, though.) … The screen is wasted here, too. Or at least it was on the examples I used. Music — some of it, anyway — gets the lyric treatment. Why not books?
- Dominos Pizza: Ordering a pizza by voice is easy and doable. Better would be to be able to actually see what it is you’re ordering. Amazon’s done it with its own listings. Third parties need to as well.
- Recipes: An Echo Show in the kitchen is a very good thing, and being able to view recipes is key. But you immediately get kicked into the Allrecipes skill. And if the specific recipe you want isn’t available, there’s no way to get to it. No web browser. Just frustration.
- Security: I was extremely excited to see the Ring doorbell as a launch partner for Echo Show. Turns out all you can do is tell the Echo Show to show you the live view from the camera. It doesn’t pop up the feed when someone triggers the motion sensor or hits the doorbell. Ring says they’re working on it.
And that’s just for starters. The point is that in these very early days, the Echo Show is still a very long way from being the sort of whole-home digital hub that I so badly want it to be. Nobody else has come close yet. Especially not in an affordable package like this.
Should skills on the Echo Show actually be full-fledged Android apps? Maybe. And there’s really no reason they couldn’t be. It’s just that it’s disappointing there’s not more available at launch that takes advantage of the hardware. Amazon’s skills are pretty robust, and I’ve no doubt that developers will improve on what we have now.
And they’ll need to.
Drop in any time. Or don’t.
Echo Show Camera, calls, drop-ins and privacy
Another area of great potential — OK, a really big deal I’ve said previously — on the Echo Show is video calling. Amazon sort of eased us into this with messaging and voice calling a couple months ahead of the Echo Show’s release. And all that still stands today. You can call another Echo device — or a phone with the Alexa app — exactly the same way as we could previously.
Now? We have video. In its simplest form, it’s video calling just as we’ve come to know with Skype and FaceTime and Google Hangouts.
Do you really want someone to be able to turn on your camera?
Where things get interesting is with Drop-in.
This feature lets you literally “drop in” on someone who has an Echo device. As in, you call them, they don’t touch anything, and then you can talk at them. Sort of like an intercom.
This works from one Echo device to another or from a phone (via the Alexa app) to an Echo device, video or no video. It works for any devices that are on a single account — so I or my family can drop in on any of my devices wherever they may be located. This turns all your Echo devices into an intercom. And that’s kind of cool, actually.
The drop-in
Drop-in also works for any contact in your Alexa app — but only after you give that person permission to drop in on you in the individual contact listing. So while it’s still very bad that Amazon doesn’t give you better control over who can contact you on your Echo, it does keep random folks from dropping in.
This all might seem a little unnerving at first. In reality, it’s not that bad.
Back to dropping in on an Echo Show, though, which is where things get a little interesting. Because the Echo Show has a video camera, it’s much more intrusive — particularly if you decide to keep an Echo Show in the bedroom. But this really is true for any camera anywhere in your home.
So when you drop in on someone else, you won’t see them at first. Instead, you’ll get a mostly opaque view of what’s going on. After 10 seconds or so the pictures clears up. In that time, anyone on the other end can choose to nuke the connection. Of course, that’s assuming they’re paying attention and weren’t doing something more fun than answering their Echo Show.
So drop in on someone at your own risk. Conversely, teach your kids to drop in on your Echo Show at their own risk.
Alexa Messaging: Neat, but not very useful yet
In any event, video calling on Echo Show is very cool. Voice calling on any Echo is still very cool. The ability for a youngster or an aging parent to get ahold of me anywhere without the complication of a phone or tablet is a big deal — especially when you consider all you need is a $50 Echo Dot.
Messaging and video calls are great. Now Amazon just has to get you to use them.
What Alexa messaging is not, thus far, is ubiquitous. At this point it’s still just one more means of messaging in an era in which we already have too many ways to do it. Phone calls. SMS. MMS. Facebook Messenger. iMessage. FaceTime. Whatsapp. WeChat. Telegram. Signal. Skype. Slack. Duo. … The list goes on. Right now the only differentiator for Amazon is that it’s easy to use on a $50 Echo Dot.
What I’d really love to see happen is for Amazon to get one of the big players to come on board. But everyone has their own interests, and this isn’t something I’d expect to see anytime soon.
So for now, Echo Show-to-Echo Show video calling is a novelty, not a necessity, even if it’s done very well.
Oh, Alexa …
Amazon Echo Show The bottom line
Almost 3,000 words ago I said that the Amazon Echo Show is the best Alexa you can get today. That hasn’t changed. First, it looks cooler than the original obelisk Echo. It also does all the things that the OG Echo does. The addition of the touchscreen is what really opens it up.
Or, rather, I think it will. Like I first said about the OG Echo, there’s a ton of potential here. Back then it was needing skills to be built out. That’s true again, but for different reasons. Now skills need to be refined for the touchscreen.
This is the best Alexa yet — and makes headless speakers seem tired.
The simple act of adding lyrics to music is good. Being able to see what Alexa is ordering from Amazon is a great improvement. Rudimentary integration with smart home tech is a nice start, though it needs to go much further. And video calling is a vast (if natural) improvement — now Amazon needs to get it to more people.
But you can see how Amazon is sort of coming in through the back door. A $50 Echo Dot gets the Alexa app onto your phone. And now you’re on your way to messaging and video calling with anyone else via Alexa. It’s not WhatsApp, but you can tell there’s a strategy in there.
What the Echo Show is now, however, is inexpensive at $229. But it’s easily the best, and it looks like it will be for some time.
See at Amazon
Modern Dad
- Subscribe on YouTube
- Newsletter
- See the gear
AIVAnet 