Xbox One X will launch with a limited Project Scorpio Edition

The rumors were true. Microsoft is marking the launch of the Xbox One X by starting pre-orders for a limited Project Scorpio Edition for the console. It’ll cost the same $499 as the standard model, but this is more than a rehash of the Day One system that commemorated the Xbox One launch in 2013. On top of Project Scorpio lettering on the console and controller, the machine gets a “sophisticated and dynamic” pattern and an exclusive vertical stand to flaunt your early adopter status. Even the packaging has a twist — it harkens back to the 2001-era Xbox.

You can pre-order from retailers right now (including Microsoft’s own store), and you’ll probably want to consider it if you were already bent on getting the Xbox One X come November 7th. It’s possible that stock will linger around, but we wouldn’t count on it if there’s a rush.

As it is, there will be something if you’re content with “just” 1080p gaming. On top of the Minecraft console, Microsoft is prepping Xbox One S Middle-earth: Shadow of War bundles that include the fantasy slasher as well as 1 month of Xbox Game Pass and 2 weeks of Xbox Live Gold. Both models arrive on October 10th, when they’ll be available in nearly every market at $279 for a 500GB bundle and $349 for the 1TB system.

Source: Microsoft Store

Microsoft unveils ‘Minecraft’ edition Xbox One S

How devoted are you to Minecraft? Devoted enough that you want your console to be a living, breathing representation of the construction game? If so, you’re in luck. Microsoft has unveiled a limited edition Minecraft Xbox One S that drapes the entire console in Mojang’s blocky art style. There’s a grass block on the front, a transparent, redstone-laced bottom and a Creeper-themed green controller (there’s an optional pink, pig-themed gamepad). Naturally, it’ll include a copy of Minecraft (with the Better Together update).

The system arrives on October 3rd. Microsoft hasn’t detailed pricing or regional availability as we write this, but it’ll ship with a 1TB hard drive. We wouldn’t expect it to carry a significant premium over a plain Xbox One S with a bundled game, but don’t be surprised if this becomes the system to get among Minecraft players… well, those who don’t want to play in 4K, at least.

Source: Xbox Wire

Jeff Immelt could be Uber’s new CEO, and he has his work cut out for him

Why it matters to you

After months without a leader, Uber is eager for someone new to take the reins. And it could be Jeff Immelt.

After a tumultuous several months, complete with resignations, lawsuits, and plenty of bad blood, it looks like Uber is finally gaining new leadership. As first reported by Recode, it would appear that the former chairman of General Electric, Jeff Immelt, has emerged as the top candidate to take on the reins at Uber. According to sources, the majority of Uber’s board has decided to back the experienced executive.

While there are apparently two other contenders still in consideration, a final decision is fast approaching. Uber’s directors are expected to vote on a new CEO within the next two weeks, and whichever candidate wins the majority will certainly have his work cut out for him. Although the hope is that the final vote will be unanimous, it doesn’t necessarily have to be (nor is it guaranteed to be).

“We know it is never going to be a perfect choice, but everyone is becoming exhausted,” one person close to the situation said, as per Recode. “We need someone with the skills to move us along.”

And based on his resume, it certainly appears that Immelt has those skills. As another source told Recode, “[Immelt] certainly is not someone anyone can push around easily, which is probably his best characteristic. We all know Immelt’s not the dynamic entrepreneur that Travis is, but he can certainly settle things down.”

Even so, there’s quite a bit to be done at the beleaguered ride sharing giant. Competitors in both the U.S. and abroad seem to have made up ground in the wake of the leadership fiasco that has hijacked headlines for most of 2017. Uber faces more challengers than ever in international markets, and even at home, Lyft is proving that it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Moreover, Uber has plenty of lawsuits from disgruntled drivers to face, as well as some from disabled persons’ advocates. And while the company has a seemingly astronomical valuation, it’s still losing about a billion dollars a year.

So whether Uber’s next CEO is Jeff Immelt or someone else entirely, it would be nice to see the company make some improvements from within.

Best new songs to stream: LCD Soundsystem, Washed Out, and more

Every week, there are thousands of new songs hitting the airwaves — and it’s just too much for your two ears to handle. With all those options, you can’t be wasting your time on tracks that deserve a thumbs-down click — you want the best new songs to stream now.

But don’t worry, we’re going to save you the hassle. We listen to some of the most-hyped and interesting songs each week, and tell you which are worthy of your precious listening time.

Here are our five best new songs to stream this week. And don’t forget to subscribe to our Spotify page for a playlist of our weekly picks, which can also be found at the bottom of this post. Not sure which streaming service is best for you? Check out our post about the best music streaming services, or go in depth and learn the differences between Apple Music and Spotify to better weigh your options.

LCD Soundsystem — Tonite

LCD Soundsystem channel their love of ’80s synthesizers, drum machines, and VHS videotapes in the music video for Tonite, the most recent single off the band’s upcoming album American Dream. Band members spin around on a circular stage in the nearly six-minute video, with a wide assortment of percussion and synthesizer gear surrounding each member and providing a cool visual complement to the lo-fi dance track.

Washed Out — Floating By (Live on KCRW)

Afro-Cuban drum and piano grooves drive this live take from Georgia’s Washed Out. Thom Yorke-like vocals float over the top to create a heady but danceable single. The level of production is extremely high for a live-radio take, creating a compelling reason to check out the band if their current tour stops at a venue near you.

Julien Baker — Appointments

Over the past several years, Julien Baker has grown into one of her generation’s most heartbreaking songwriters. With a simple piano and guitar arrangement, and Baker’s signature vocal tone, Appointments — the lead single off of her upcoming sophomore record Turn Out The Lights — showcases the core of her songwriting ability. This is the kind of song that helps you through your worst moments, a beautiful ballad that offers just the right amount of hope.

(Sandy) Alex G — Bobby (Live on KEXP)

Prolific indie rocker Alex G recently appeared on Seattle’s KEXP radio, performing a smattering of easygoing rock songs with simple and elegant arrangements. Slide guitar lines and rhythmic lyrics make Bobby the catchiest tune from the live-on-radio set. It’s the kind of song to help you unwind as you head home from a long day at the office.

KMD — True Lightyears

Legendary underground rapper MF Doom originally launched his solo career after the tragic death of his brother, DJ Subroc, which marked the end of his original rap group KMD, in the mid-’90s. You can imagine listeners’ surprise when the group released its first new song in 25 years this week, via Adult Swim. The classic mash-up of vinyl samples and rhymes may feel a bit more like a Doom track than a KMD single — especially in that it showcases verses from Doom and Jay Electronica — but it pleasingly propels you through its short runtime.

That’s it for now, but tune in next week for more songs to stream, and check out the playlist loaded with our recent selections below:

Google can now erase watermarks from stock photos

Why it matters to you

If you’re trying to keep your photos safe, it helps to know that Google also figured out a way to counteract this.

Professional photographers and just about anybody who enjoys taking pictures should know the importance of watermarking their work. It’s a safe and easy way to make sure your pictures aren’t being used carelessly all over the internet. Artists in general prefer to receive payment for their work if someone wants to use it for themselves. Unfortunately, it looks like a team of Google researchers has some bad news for those folks.

It turns out they discovered an algorithm that allows them to automatically erase watermarks from images, including stock photography organizations, according to Gizmodo. They presented their findings at the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Conference recently. Though this can be upsetting for some, it may sound like a golden opportunity for others.

Before this, if you wanted to use an image but had to find a way around the watermark, you had to take it into Photoshop and spend a large amount of time trying to erase it. Either that or you could have just simply paid for it — but we all know how the internet works. If there’s a way to getting it without paying for it, someone will find a way. It’s why programs like Exif were created. But even with the latest versions of Photoshop, erasing a watermark completely is still a real chore.

Google, however, has found its way around this, as long as it can study several sample images that have all been touched with the same watermark or logo. The software scans a very large number of sample images from any given stock picture provider, carefully comparing them until it can find a repeating pattern that shows the watermark being used. Now that it knows what the watermark looks like, this makes it much easier for the software to simply remove it and leave behind a perfectly clean photo, without reducing the quality.

This only works on pictures from a stock photo provider with thousands of watermarked samples that can be analyzed. In addition, Google did create a way to counteract this. Randomly warping the watermark, ever so slightly, for each image will prevent the software from removing it entirely. Google did add that it’s possible someone will figure out a way around this method in the future, however.

Best Micro-USB Cables

Wherein we help you pick a great Micro-USB cable.

Whether you have a smartphone, tablet or wearable, odds are that you’ve got a Micro-USB cable (or three) laying around. They’re ubiquitous. Just in case you don’t, here are some of our favorites.

• EZOPower Micro-USB cable
• ReTrak Premier Series Retractable Micro-USB cable
• Anker 10-foot Nylon Braided Micro-USB cable
• Anker PowerLine Micro-USB cable
• iXCC Micro-USB cable
• Rampow braided nylon Micro-USB cable

EZOPower Micro-USB cable

If you need a longer yet inexpensive Micro-USB cable, the EZOPower Micro-USB cable works very well.

It’s six feet long, so you have plenty of length to play with, whether you’re charging your phone in your car or at home. With charging speeds of 2.1A, you’ll top up your battery in no time at all.

Additionally, with its data transfer rate of 480Mbps, you can sync music or other files from your computer to your phone in seconds. Grab it in white, green, or orange, starting around $5.

See at Amazon

ReTrak Premier Series Retractable Micro-USB cable

If you’re tired of dealing with messy cables while traveling, the ReTrak Retractable Micro-USB cable may be the one for you.

Available in black in addition to seven bright colors, this Micro-USB cable retracts neatly into a small case — forget about wasting time winding and unwinding cables — a light tug pulls the cable into its casing. When expanded, this Micro-USB cable reaches a length of 3.2 feet in total.

Also, it has a transfer speed of 480Mbps, so you can sync music, pictures, or anything else from your computer to your phone in no time at all. Pricing starts around $8.

See at Amazon

Anker 10-foot Nylon Braided Micro-USB cable

Anker’s 10-foot Nylon Braided Micro-USB cable is a good choice if you have limited power outlets in a large room and you need the reach.

Constructed of braided nylon, this cable is strong, durable, and resists tangling. Anker claims that this cable has a lifespan of more than 4,000 bends, and customer reviews seem to back this up. Its gold-plated connectors aid in resisting corrosion as well.

Another benefit of this cable is that it gives you a 480Mbps data transfer speed, as well as fast charging.

If you want a durable, extra-long Micro-USB cable that’s fast, the Anker 10-foot Nylon Braided Micro-USB cable is the one for you. And it’s only $8.

See at Amazon

Anker PowerLine Micro-USB cable

The Anker PowerLine Micro-USB cable is rated highly by consumers, as well as The Wirecutter, because it is very durable and performs its job well. It’s also rather inexpensive at only $5.

Made of Kevlar — the same stuff that bulletproof vests are made from — this cable isn’t going to fray or otherwise break down any time soon. In fact, Anker boasts that it has a 10,000 bend lifespan, which customer reviews appear to confirm.

Additionally, its heavier-gauge wires are able to charge your device fast.

If you’re looking for an inexpensive Micro-USB cable that will last for years without fraying and coming apart at the ends, the Anker PowerLine Micro-USB cable might be your best choice.

See at Amazon

iXCC Micro-USB cable

iXCC’s Micro-USB cable is the best-selling one on Amazon, with 75% of its 10,461 reviews being 5-star. It comes in 3, 6, and 10 feet, and you can get a 3-pack with all 3 sizes, so you have a cable for all occasions. iXCC claims a lifespan of over 20 thousand bends, and it has a reinforced boot so that you have added strength where it matters most.

If you’re concerned with value and want some durable, reliable Micro-USB cables, then check out a three-pack from iXCC for around $12. Single cables start around $6.

See at Amazon

Rampow braided nylon Micro-USB cable

If you’re looking for a durable option, then braided nylon is the best way to go. It holds up better to bending than rubber cables, and Rampow’s cables feature stainless steel connectors. Braided nylon cables also resist tangling better than other cables, so toss a Rampow cable in your bag as is and don’t worry about pulling out a rat’s nest.

The best part of Rampow’s Micro-USB cable is Rampow’s unconditional lifetime warranty. If anything at all goes wrong with your cable (aside from you cutting it up with scissors), give Rampow a shout and it’ll replace it for you. Comes in space gray or red starting at $8.

See at Amazon

And you?

We’ve laid out our picks for best Micro-USB cables, but how about you? Which Micro-USB cables are you using and why are they awesome? Let us know in the comments below.

Updated August 2017: Removed a discontinued cable and added iXCC’s and Rampow’s options to the list.

From the Editor’s Desk: Fun with HDR+

Port of Pixel camera app to other phones shows Google is still almost unmatched in computational photography.

One of the major trends in smartphones in the past year has been the rise of computational photography — using the vast computing power of modern phones to get better pictures from the tiny lenses and sensors in our devices. However wrong Vic Gundotra was in his recent tirade against Android cameras, he was basically right in saying that improvements in software processing were arguably more important than any recent breakthroughs in phone camera hardware.

The Google Pixel is a great example of this. If you follow this stuff, you know Google’s 2016 handsets as, among other things, phones with famously good cameras. Yet on paper, the Pixels’ cameras are inferior to the HTC 10. The reason we’re still talking about the Pixel cameras a year on, and not HTC’s, is HDR+. This is enabled by default in the Pixel’s camera software, and its history can be traced back to the “GCam” project, which began as Google looked for ways to improve image quality from Glass’s tiny cameras. After years of iterations on Nexus phones, HDR+ is one of the major pillars of the Pixel experience.

And that makes it fascinating to see the results of someone porting it to other Snapdragon 820, 821 and 835 devices. As reported by XDA this past week, forum user B-S-G was able to re-engineer the Android O (developer preview) Google Camera app to any device with the Hexagon 680 ISP — including HDR+.

And the results have been fascinating to see. Having played around with HDR+ on the OnePlus 5, HTC U11 and LG G6 (my GS8, alas, is the Exynos model), I’ve come away convinced that Google’s post-processing is the best out there — though it obviously isn’t perfectly tuned for all phone hardware.

First, a few quicks takeaways:

• The hacked APK doesn’t work reliably on all devices. Of the phones I’ve tried, the U11 has been the most stable, with no crashes so far. It’s been most crashy on the OnePlus 5. (And naturally, you can forget using the secondary lens on dual-camera phones like the OnePlus 5 and G6, nor save to your SD card on any devices.)
• Results vary wildly between devices, and often there isn’t a huge quality difference between the Pixel camera app and the stock camera, particularly in daylight.
• However, where we see the greatest difference is in low-light or very high dynamic range shots.
• Just like it does on the Pixel itself, the HDR+ camera app favors color detail over fine detail, so images often appear softer.
• On the G6, low-light shots are sometimes better, but on other occasions, images appear blown out and noisy.
• In daylight, the OnePlus 5 tends towards overexposing shots when using the Pixel camera app.

Now for the fun bit: Some sample shots to give you an idea of how HDR+ works on the camera hardware of 2017. This isn’t an exhaustive comparison by any means, but the selection of side-by-side comparison shots here is pretty interesting. (Note: I’ve captured many images where the stock camera app and Pixel camera app images are identical, so instead I’m highlighting shots where there is a clear difference between the two.)

HTC U11: A skyline scene at dusk, overlooking Taipei City from Bishanyan Kaizhang Shengwang Temple. The stock camera app image looks about the same as the “HDR+ Auto” from the Pixel camera app, but with HDR+ forced on, the Pixel app produces far more color detail with less noise, though in a softer image overall.

HTC U11: A daylight shot across a suspension bridge. The shot from the HTC app has a small amount of motion blur. Meanwhile, it’s clear the Pixel camera app has kicked HDR+ into high great to bring out more shadow detail in the landscape.

HTC U11: Temple rooftops. The Pixel app gives us a brighter, more vibrant image, though with some halo effects around the edge of the building. The HTC app produces a sharper, but darker image.

HTC U11: Another landscape shot and a similar story. The Pixel camera app does a better job of giving us an evenly-exposed image with less noise.

OnePlus 5: Mobile Nations Editor-at-Very-Large Simon Sage poses in a dark Taipei bar. The Pixel camera gives us a brighter image with more color detail, but struggles to keep the subject in focus. The stock OnePlus camera app produces a darker, but sharper image.

OnePlus 5: Another low-light shot. Unfortunately these two shots aren’t perfectly aligned, nevertheless, you can see the Pixel camera producing a brighter image with more shadow detail, and more color detail in some areas — for example, through the window on the right.

OnePlus 5: A street scene at night. The Pixel camera app has a telltale “HDR+” look to it, with a softness throughout the entire shot. The Pixel app produces an almost blurry image here, but with superior color detail compared to the stock OnePlus camera app. That said, OnePlus’s photo shows more fine detail when cropping in.

OnePlus 5: This shot is typical of the OnePlus 5 using the HDR+ camera app in daylight — a tendency towards overexposure, and a weird checkerboard pattern when you zoom in closely. The stock camera app produces the better photo here.

LG G6: The G6’s HDR+ performance falls broadly in line with the other phones I’ve tested, but this example deserves some special attention. The stock G6 camera app struggles to bring out any shadow detail in this night shot. Meanwhile, the Pixel camera app produces a brighter, but much softer photo.

LG G6: Finally, a full-size crop showing the difference in fine detail and sharpness between the LG and Pixel camera apps.

So there you go, some early findings from using HDR+ on three current, non-Pixel Android phones over the past week or so. (I’ve posted others on Twitter in recent days.) It’s worth remembering that the HDR+ camera app isn’t designed for use with any of the cameras here, so perhaps it’s unsurprising that it seems to work best with the HTC U11 — the phone with camera hardware closest to that of the Pixel.

In most cases, you’re still going to get the best results out of the camera app that ships on your phone. Still, seeing Google’s HDR+ magic running on other hardware is a fascinating, and shows that we’re nowhere near the ceiling in terms of computational photography on phone cameras.

Other odds and ends for a lazy August morning:

• Android 8.0 goes official on Monday, and the name will almost certainly be Oreo, in partnership with Nabisco. Despite attempts to walk back the Google+ snafu which apparently prematurely revealed the name, it seems far more likely that this wasn’t an intentional goof, considering the fallout it was handled. (I can 100% believe that Google itself has forgotten that image filenames are preserved when posting to Google+.)
• Keep it locked to Android Central Dot Com on Monday for some hot launch day content!
• I poked fun at the LG V30 a few days back for basically apeing the GS8’s front design wholesale — which it absolutely does. But hey, it actually looks good, and there are worse places to start. The V30 looks set to be the highlight of the show in terms of Android phone launches at IFA, a big deal for LG.
• I played with the ASUS ZenFone 4 at the Asia-Pacific launch event in Taipei a few days back. They’re nice! (the ZenFone 4 range actually consists of six phones right now.) ASUS’s software is getting better, and the cameras are great. But the external hardware doesn’t particularly stand out next to contemporary flagships particularly the bezel-free kind.
• At the other end of the spectrum, the Essential Phone is extremely interesting to the phone nerd in me, but many of the issues I went over in my previous Editor’s Desk still apply. As a regular consumer, I don’t really have any particular interest in this phone. (Oh hey, camera issues!) Were I a normal person with $700 to put towards a phone, I’d very quickly start to look elsewhere.
• I have a hard time reacting to leaks of the upcoming Sony XZ1 phones with anything but annoyed boredom. Sony has been making basically this exact same phone since 2013’s Xperia Z, almost five years ago.
• IFA is a week and a half away at this point, but the Mobile Nations team will start arriving in Berlin in just over a week. I made a video about what’s coming.
• Oh, and I guess Samsung is also doing a thing on Tuesday.

That’s it for me for a few weeks. Have a great Sunday!

Watch Microsoft’s Gamescom event at 3PM Eastern

Germany’s Gamescom expo may not capture as many eyeballs as E3 does, but it’s still crucial to the gaming industry. The event offers a better look at the titles and hardware that you first saw at E3, not to mention plenty of its own surprises. It’s a particularly big year for Microsoft with the Xbox One X on the horizon… and it wants you to see what the fuss is about. The company is streaming its Gamescom presentation live at 3PM Eastern with promises of games to show and, naturally, news to share. As for what’s on deck? Microsoft hasn’t shown all its cards yet, but there are a few clues as to what could be in store.

Microsoft isn’t shy about acknowledging that the Xbox One X will play a big role in its presentation — a booth tour video reveals as much. However, there have been murmurs of a Project Scorpio Edition Xbox One X that could be announced at the event — it’d be a cosmetic tweak to the One X that would lure in launch day buyers, but that may be all you need to know to get your interest piqued. There are murmurs of a Minecraft-edition Xbox One S, too. The game lineup for the event is still up in the air, but we’re not expecting to hear much about previously promised Age of Empires news at the Xbox event when the real-time strategy game is getting a dedicated event on August 21st.

Source: Mixer, Xbox Wire

Facebook patent reveals more details about its AR glasses

Mark Zuckerberg showed off a render of the AR glasses Facebook is working on last year, but he didn’t reveal a lot of details about the device. Now, we finally know a bit more about it, thanks to a new patent application filed by members of Oculus’ advanced research division. The application, obtained by Business Insider, is for “waveguide display with two-dimensional scanner” that “may augment views of a physical, real-world environment with computer-generated elements.”

Based on the info in the documents, the glasses will use a waveguide system that projects images and light into the user’s eyes. That’s similar to the technology behind Microsoft’s AR headset, the HoloLens, and Magic Leap’s still-mysterious mixed-reality device. In fact, as BI points out, one of the application’s authors is Pasi Saarikko, who worked on HoloLens before joining Oculus.

In addition to being able to superimpose photos and videos on top of a live image of the real world, the glasses will also be capable of playing audio when connected to a pair of headphones or speakers. It also seems like Facebook wants to make them look like ordinary glasses rather than adopt the chunky look of most VR headsets today. That means the company has to find or develop components small and slim enough to fit into them.

Zuckerberg made it pretty clear during last year’s F8 conference that he wants to use the device’s capabilities to put Facebook on your face. The Facebook chief admitted that it could take a while to make that happen, but he believes the next generation will share personal moments like their babies’ first steps through AR or VR for a more immersive experience.

Via: Fast Company

Source: Business Insider, United States Patent and Trademark Office

The best ice cream maker

By Marguerite Preston and Lesley Stockton

This post was done in partnership with The Sweethome, a buyer’s guide to the best homewares. When readers choose to buy The Sweethome’s independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read the full article here.

After researching for 95 hours, testing 16 machines, talking with pro ice cream makers and a food scientist, and churning gallons of the frozen stuff over the past four years, we think the Whynter ICM-15LS is your best bet for making consistently great ice cream at home. It’s not cheap, but because it’s so easy to use and it essentially guarantees success, it would likely get a lot more play in your kitchen than cheaper, more finicky machines.

Who should get this

An ice cream maker isn’t an essential kitchen tool, but if you love ice cream and like experimenting with unique flavor combinations, investing in one is worthwhile. Which type you should buy depends largely on how often you plan to use it and how much you want to spend. Generally, you’ll find three styles of ice cream makers: ice-and-salt, prefrozen bowl, and compressor. Of the three, we think most people should get a compressor because they’re the easiest to use, produce the smoothest textures, and are self-refrigerating, meaning you can make back-to-back batches. However, compressor machines tend to cost more than ice-and-salt or models with prefrozen inserts.

How we picked and tested

The compressor-machine contenders, clockwise from bottom left: Whynter ICM-15LS, Ariete Stainless Steel Ice Cream Maker, Whynter ICM-201SB, Lello 4080 Musso Lussino, Breville Smart Scoop. Photo: Michael Hession

The primary task of an ice cream maker is to produce creamy ice cream with few ice crystals. The faster the mixture freezes, the less time ice crystals have to form, which is why compressor machines tend to make smoother textures: They churn and freeze the ice cream base faster than those that rely on prefrozen inserts or ice and salt.

In our original 2014 test, we made a relatively low-fat recipe from Ample Hills Creamery using nine ice cream makers of all types. But for our 2015 and 2017 updates, we considered only self-refrigerating compressor ice cream makers. These models produced the highest-quality ice cream in our first test, and in surveying our readers we found that most respondents were looking to buy a compressor machine. We also decided to use a higher-fat vanilla ice-cream base, and experimented with making lemon sorbet and chocolate ice cream. The chocolate ice cream test was particularly helpful in testing how well each machine handled mix-ins added toward the end of churning.

Our pick: Whynter ICM-15LS

The Whynter ICM-15LS. Photo: Michael Hession

We like the Whynter ICM-15LS because it made smoother ice cream in a shorter amount of time than most of the other models. Although it didn’t create the absolute smoothest texture in our tests, it does hit the sweet spot of great results at a reasonable price. It’s also one of the quieter machines we tested, and one of the simplest models to use, scoop from, and clean. The simple, compact design makes it easy to store, as well. And because this Whynter model is a compressor machine, no prefreezing of any kind is required.

The ICM-15LS is simple to use. The 1½-quart removable bowl is easy to lift out, thanks to a built-in handle, so you can scrape out all the ice cream with ease. In our tests, setting up the Whynter machine was effortless and took less than three minutes.

One gripe we have with the ICM-15LS is that the opening for adding mix-ins is almost comically tiny at just 2½ by 1 inches. But because you can remove the lid entirely and the motor keeps turning, adding mix-ins is pretty easy without fussing with the opening in the lid.

Runner-up: Breville Smart Scoop

The Breville Smart Scoop. Photo: Michael Hession

For the price, we think the Whynter ICM-15LS is the best ice cream maker for most people, but the Breville Smart Scoop is a good—albeit substantially more expensive—option if the ICM-15LS sells out. In our tests the Breville model made slightly creamier ice cream than the Whynter, but we don’t think that makes it worth the price jump.

What the Smart Scoop really has going for it are more automatic options—basically a lot of extra bells and whistles that most people probably don’t need. It has an auto mode that lets you choose from 12 hardness settings, from soft sorbet to super-firm ice cream, and alerts you when it’s time to add mix-ins or when the the cycle is done. It also has a unique cool-down function that brings the temp of your base and the machine down to the perfect turning temperature before it starts to churn.

Upgrade pick: Lello 4080 Musso Lussino

The Lello 4080 Musso Lussino. Photo: Michael Hession

The Lello 4080 Musso Lussino is truly the most luxurious home ice cream maker we’ve ever used, and it was the favorite of nearly all our taste testers. For the price, however, it’s worth the investment only if you’re a serious connoisseur or you have cash to burn. The design of the Musso Lussino is sleek and simple with no bells and whistles, and it has just two buttons: one for freezing and the other for churning.

In our tests, this machine posted the quickest churning time of all the models we tested. What does that speed get you? Less ice-crystal formation and an intense creaminess that’s reminiscent of store-bought premium ice cream, thanks to a more powerful compressor that freezes the mixture faster. The difference is evident when you scoop out the finished product, as it’s stretchy, like gelato, and visually smoother.

Budget pick: Nostalgia ICMP400

The Nostalgia requires plenty of ice and salt. Photo: Lesley Stockton

If you’re not ready to commit to an expensive compressor machine, the Nostalgia ICMP400 offers good results, although it requires more work and won’t produce the creamiest textures. Of the two models we tested that required ice and salt, the Nostalgia was the winner. This simple machine can make up to 4 quarts of ice cream, easily twice the capacity of the others. Though the final product was a bit icy, it wasn’t the biggest offender in our testing lineup, and the flavor of the cream really came out in the finish. Keep in mind that this machine isn’t designed for you to add mix-ins while it’s running. In our tests the ice cream took about 30 minutes to churn, but the bucket was only a quarter full; at full capacity, the process would’ve taken longer.

For KitchenAid stand-mixer owners: KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker KICA0WH

Though we were not impressed with other prefrozen inserts, we found that the KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker KICA0WH attachment was the only frozen-bowl model that worked well consistently. It made perfect, fluffy ice cream, every time, and was faster than any other ice cream maker we tested. It’s a space-saving, affordable alternative if you have a KitchenAid stand mixer from 1990 or later.

This guide may have been updated by The Sweethome. To see the current recommendation, please go here.

Note from The Sweethome: When readers choose to buy our independently chosen editorial picks, we may earn affiliate commissions that support our work.