Apple’s iPhone 11: News, rumors, specs, and more

Even though Apple just released the iPhone X, rumors are already beginning to swirl about the next iPhone. While we don’t know exactly what the next iPhone will be called, we’re assuming it’s not going to be called the iPhone 9. For now, we’re calling it the iPhone 11.

Display

According to a report on Korean site The Investor at least two of the next iPhones will likely have OLED displays. Earlier this year Apple placed an order with Samsung for 5.28-, 5.85-, and 6.46-inch displays. However, a report in September stated that Apple canceled the 5.28-inch display order, possibly due to low marketability.

In addition to the OLED order, the Wall Street Journal reports Apple made a panel order with Japan Display for a 6-inch-plus model. Japan Display makes Full Active LCD displays which are less expensive than OLED displays yet offer many of the same features. iPhones with Full Active LCD display will feature darker blacks than on a traditional LCD display and can be used with wet hands.

Finally, it looks like 2018 will be the year that Apple finally discontinues its 4.70-inch iPhone. With reports that it canceled an order for 5.28-inch displays due to low marketability potential, it seems unlikely that the company is going to release another 4.7-inch model.

It remains to be seen if iPhone will keep a 4-inch model like the iPhone SE in 2018. The iPhone SE price point makes it an excellent seller in emerging markets and the company recently began manufacturing the devices in India due to high demand.

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Camera

According to a story on Mashable, the next iPhone will not feature TrueDepth 3D rear cameras. The story, based on a report from KGI Securities, states that Apple will instead focus on launching new models with the front-facing TrueDepth cameras and stabilizing shipments. While KGI originally reported that the next iPhones would feature the TrueDepth 3D rear cameras, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes that Apple’s current cameras are about two-and-a-half-year lead over current Android phones.

Battery

This year’s iPhone X was the first to feature an L-shaped battery. The new L-shaped battery allows Apple to make more efficient use of the limited space inside the chassis. KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said this design also allows the battery to charge more quickly.

A report earlier this year in Chosun Ilbo confirmed Apple had chosen LG Chem to supply the L-shaped batteries in 2018 iPhones. While Apple relies on a number of companies to supply batteries for the iPhone, LG Chem is the only company that makes L-shaped batteries.

Although LG Chem has not publicly commented on Apple’s 2018 order, industry insiders believe the company will be the sole-provider for the next iPhone.

Charging

This year Apple finally included wireless charging on its iPhones. This is a welcome addition that has been many Android phones for the last several years. In 2018, Apple may be upping the ante by including an entirely new type of wireless charging for the iPhone 11.

Apple has been rumored to be working with a company called Energous since 2015. Energous created a charging method that would allow you to charge your iPhone 11 up to 15 feet away from one of its transmitters. While there were rumors that this year’s crop of iPhones would include Energous wireless charging, the company was unable to ship its transmitters in time.

Energous, however, announced its wireless charging transmitters will be shipping by the end of 2017. With the company finally bringing its transmitters to market, it is possible that next year’s iPhones will be the first to feature the technology.

Cost

Although the iPhone X is Apple’s most expensive phone the company may be focused on bringing down costs in 2018. A report from KGI securities states that Apple wants to “reduce costs and selling prices” before the release of the next iPhone.

This would not be the first time Apple focused lower-priced iPhones. In 2016, the company introduced the iPhone SE for budget conscious consumers. Apple cut the cost of the SE even further in September from $400 to $350.

While we don’t know how much Apple will charge for iPhone 11, it’s a pretty safe bet that it will be less expensive than the iPhone X and we may even see a replacement for the aging iPhone SE.

Other rumors

AppleInsider reports that Apple has developed a relationship with LG Innotek to create flexible circuit boards for the next iPhone. These flexible circuit boards, already used in some devices like the Samsung Galaxy, would allow Apple to create an iPhone with a curved display.

The next iPhone may offer 5G technology, dramatically increasing data speeds. Business Insider reports that Apple applied with the FCC to begin testing a new wireless technology called millimeter wave. This technology allows devices to access more bandwidth than is currently possible on existing cellular networks.

Earlier this year we reported that Apple may be creating a special version of the Pencil for at least one model of next year’s iPhone. While the Pencil debuted with the iPad Pro in 2015, the company has yet to make a Pencil that is compatible with the iPhone. If the next iPhone does include a Pencil, it will place the phone in direct competition with Samsung’s Galaxy Note 8.

Editors’ Recommendations

• No cables, no hassle: Wi-Charge’s in-room wireless charging is coming next year
• Samsung patent filing reveals interest in a dual wireless charging mat
• iPhone 11 2018: News and rumors
• Apple finally embraces wireless charging with new iPhones, AirPower charging mat
• iPhone 8 Plus vs. Google Pixel XL: How do the two flagship phablets differ?

Apple Pay Cash gets you money fast, but spending it will be tricky

Want to send cash without leaving the comfort of your iMessage screen? Apple released Apple Pay Cash earlier this week in the iOS 11.2 beta 2. The new feature allows iPhone users to send and receive payments to each other through the iMessage app.  

Apple joins a host of other services including Venmo, Zelle, PayPal, and Google Wallet in the peer-to-peer payment industry. It partnered with prepaid debit giant Green Dot to offer free payments between iPhone users. Even though Apple is coming late to the game with Apple Pay Cash, the company is trying to make the product a standout in terms of convenience and ease of use.

While Apple Pay Cash joins number of other payment services, there are several big differences that makes the service unique. The biggest difference is that the service only available on the iPhone. iPhone users who want to make payments to Android users will have to use an alternate service to process peer-to-peer payments.

You’re also unable to transfer Apple Pay Cash payments to your bank. Credits in your account can only be used at places where Apple Pay Cash is accepted. Although the limitation may not be a big deal for smaller transfers, it could make using it for larger transactions less attractive to some users. It  also means smaller businesses that are not set up to accept Apple will not be able to process these payments.

One of the most interesting features of Apple Pay Cash is the ability to send and receive funds in real time. While Zelle began offering almost instant transfers earlier this year, it involves a lengthy verification process with your bank on your first use. Apple chose to go an alternate route, using the credit or debit card in your Apple Wallet to fund transfers.

If you want to try Apple Pay Cash, you’ll need to be part of the iOS Beta Program; you can join by clicking here. You’ll also need to have two-factor identification enabled. Finally, you’ll need to have a credit or debit card in your Apple Pay Wallet.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Apple Pay Cash could be available in iOS 11 by the end of October
• Everything you need to know about Android Pay
• Here are all the places that support Apple Pay
• Venmo competitor Zelle is finally launching a mobile app
• Don’t wait for a money transfer in Venmo — just use its debit card

Snapchat risks a redesign to create a more user-friendly interface

Snapchat is willing to risk potentially offending current users with a redesign hoping to attract more users. After disappointing third-quarter financial results that NASDAQ called a “train wreck” in Snap Inc.’s first year on the New York Stock Exchange, the company said on Tuesday, November 7, that it will be redesigning the app with a more user-friendly interface and a bigger focus on content. The upcoming redesign aims to bring more users to the platform, an effort that will work alongside the announcement that the company will soon start paying content creators with a monetization system for Stories. The news also comes alongside lower-than-expected profits due in part to unsold Spectacles.

“One thing that we have heard over the years is that Snapchat is difficult to understand or hard to use, and our team has been working on responding to this feedback,” Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel said during the company’s earnings conference call. “As a result, we are currently redesigning our application to make it easier to use. There is a strong likelihood that the redesign of our application will be disruptive to our business in the short term, and we don’t yet know how the behavior of our community will change when they begin to use our updated application. We’re willing to take that risk for what we believe are substantial long-term benefits to our business.”

Snap isn’t providing details other than that the interface will be changing. The company says that, with the change, it is aiming to grow its user count by attracting a larger number older users, more Android users, and more users in other countries. The app’s current design relies heavily on word-free graphic icons and swipe actions, which makes it difficult for new users to find where all the features are located. The app is also still heavily used by younger generations — with 70 percent of people ages 13 to 34 using the app in the U.S., France, the U.K., and Australia.

For Android, the redesign will be from the ground up, Snap said. The company reported an all-time low crash rate for Android devices along with increasing app startup time by 20 percent. Those changes were a result of creating a device lab to test the application across multiple models since Snapchat was used on 60,000 different model variants for Android phones. The company is aiming to continue that growth.

The upcoming changes are in hopes of raising the user count. Snapchat grew from 153 million to 178 million in the last quarter, but that growth rate was less than the original predictions.

Along with focusing on increasing the user base, Snap Inc. will also drive efforts in content and augmented reality. Part of the redesign will focus on making it easier to discover new content, Spiegel said, from both content companies like ESPN and NBC as well as other Snapchat users. The company plans to use artificial intelligence to deliver personalized content, a change the company says won’t compromise the current nature of Snapchat content.

The company’s final focus for the upcoming year will make it possible for more users to create their own Snapchat Lenses. Lens Studio is already in testing with a select group of businesses and next year the platform will roll out to more users in order to “democratize Lens creation so that anyone anywhere can create and publish their own Lenses.”

Spiegel’s announcement of upcoming changes focused largely on software with no mention of hardware — that could be because Spectacles haven’t sold quite as well as the company had hoped. Snap Inc. has about $40 million in expenses related to unsold Spectacles.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Just swipe to swap out that cloudy sky for a sunset in latest Snapchat update
• Like that restaurant pic on Snapchat? Now you can book a table within the app
• You can now see a dedicated Trending News section on Facebook’s mobile app
• Snapchat Spectacles: Everything you need to know
• Snapchat Spectacles sales aren’t looking too hot these days

Sounds crazy, but this wall of lava lamps keeps you protected from hackers

Computers are supposed to be predictable. In 99.9 percent of cases, that’s exactly what we want from them. The exception to that rule? When we’re trying to get a computer to generate a truly random number, which is crucial for things like encryption. We’ve previously covered some innovative ways to solve this problem, ranging from quantum physics to carbon nanotubes — but Silicon Valley-based web performance and security company Cloudflare has a different and far more fun, solution: lava lamps.

In the lobby of Cloudflare’s global headquarters in San Francisco, there’s a wall packed with 100 lava lamps of various colors. These lamps are recorded with a camera and a live feed sent to the company’s server, so that lava-related data can be extracted from the image and used to generate packets of unpredictable bits. These unpredictable bits are then sent to Cloudflare servers around the world to help generate cryptographic keys, which ultimately encrypt data for around 10 percent of all web requests.

In other words, when you browse the internet, the security of the data you’re sending and receiving is, in part, provided by a wall of lava lamps.

Dani Grant

“True randomness is difficult to achieve in computers because computers are designed to be predictable,” Nick Sullivan, head of cryptography at Cloudflare, told Digital Trends. “When a computer executes a program, it follows series of predetermined steps. To get truly random numbers, you have to involve the physical world. Most companies rely only on their computer’s operating system to provide randomness, which can sometimes lead to security issues like the recent ROCA vulnerability. It’s always best to mix in multiple sources of randomness.”

Sullivan said the idea for the lava lamp came about in the early days of Cloudflare in discussions between himself, CEO Matthew Prince, CTO John Graham-Cumming, and other early employees — all of whom wanted both to achieve high levels of security and also create some groovy functional art for their office design. “In true startup fashion, we iterated,” he continued. “We started with a single orange lava lamp in the kitchen of the old Cloudflare office, and when we moved to our global headquarters we built an entire wall of them into our lobby.”

News of Cloudflare’s unorthodox (but effective) approach to encryption was recently shared with the world in a video by YouTuber Tom Scott. “I make videos about science, technology, and interesting things in the world — and this was all three,” Scott told us. He’s certainly not wrong on that front!

Editors’ Recommendations

• Quantum encryption used Chinese satellite to protect international video call
• Hide your kids, hide your Wi-Fi! Vulnerability found in WPA2 encryption
• The world’s tiniest truly random number generator is made with carbon nanotubes
• Protect your privacy with the six best VPN for the iPhone or iPad
• Swing and a miss: 6 ambitious tech ventures that failed miserably

Amazon Echo vs. Google Home: Which voice assistant answers questions best?

Being able to talk to these things is important, but the answers are even more important.

Amazon Echo and Google Home are the two big names in connected home tech right now. While it’s important to see which one sounds better in your room if you’re into music or which has the most features you might actually use, there’s one bigger thing. When you ask Alexa or Assistant a question, the answer needs to be useful. Those answers need to be plentiful, useful, and easy to digest.

Here’s how the Amazon Echo (and Alexa) and Google Home (and Google Assistant) compare in our tests.

See Home at Google   See Echo at Amazon

‘What’s the weather like tomorrow?’

The ultimate softball question for any digital assistant, and it shouldn’t surprise you to see Google Home and Amazon Echo give basically the same answer. The response from these assistants confirm your location, let you know if it is partly cloudy or raining or sunny, and then give you a high and low temperature.

In our tests, these two platforms responded almost identically. The answer had all of the right information and was delivered in a way that makes sense. One point awarded to each.

Alexa ✔️ | Assistant ✔️

‘What is the traffic like right now?’

When asked, Google Home immediately responded with any traffic issues or delays within my zip code. At the time of day I asked, there were several slowdowns on local roads because the schools had just let out. Google Home didn’t tell me about the school buses, but the delays were all accounted for.

Alexa doesn’t have an automatic response to this question. Instead, it asks you to go to the Alexa app and add your commute information. When you do that, Alexa will tell you about any traffic on what it now knows is your commute to or from work. All of the information Alexa gave in this situation turned out to be accurate.

The difference between these two answers is important. Alexa doesn’t have a mechanism for giving you traffic details in your general area, and Google doesn’t immediately try to give you traffic information relevant to your commute. You can ask Google Home “What is the traffic like on the way to work?” and get that information as long as you have added a work location in Google Maps, but there’s no prompt anywhere to do so. One point awarded to Google, with the caveat that it needs some improvement still.

Assistant ✔️

‘Can you find me a recipe for fried chicken?’

Google Home immediately responded with information it found on the web. Specifically, it started reading me the recipe found in the Google Search card for Friend Chicken recipes. Google Home read through the entire recipe in about 45 seconds, and then stopped.

Alexa offered me several options for recipes, and when I chose one with my voice it read the first few steps in the recipe and then offered to either keep reading or send the recipe to my phone. When I asked for the recipe to be sent to my phone, it was immediately available in the Alexa app.

While both of these systems had the “right” answer, the way Google Home delivered it was mostly useless to me. I didn’t retain any of the information, and had to search for the recipe on my phone even thought Google Assistant knew what I was listening to and could have had that information available to me quickly. No doubt about it, one point to Alexa.

Alexa ✔️

‘Who won the Ravens game?’

Google Home quickly points out the Ravens loss, final score, and what team they played against.

Alexa quickly points out the Ravens loss, final score, and what team they played against. Alexa then let me know what team the Ravens were playing next and when that game would be.

While both answers are correct, the answer Alexa gave is more complete and in this situation more useful. One point to Alexa.

Alexa ✔️

‘How much does an apple weigh?’

Google Home found an answer from the web, and read a detailed explanation of what someone on a blog somewhere thought was the average weight of an apple.

Alexa immediately gave me a numerical answer to this question, sourcing Wikipedia.

While both answers were correct, Google Home took way longer to get to the actual numerical answer. On top of being longer, the answer didn’t contain any information that was more useful. One point to Alexa.

Alexa ✔️

‘What is 13 X 9?’

Google Home answered immediately with the correct answer.

Alexa answered immediately with the correct answer.

Not a lot to discuss here. One point to each!

Alexa ✔️ | Assistant ✔️

‘How do I make my feet warm?’

Google Home found an answer on the web, which happened to be from a blog with useful information and step-by-step instructions. The answer wasn’t too long, and in the end, I clearly understood what I needed to do.

Alexa had no answer to this question at all and quickly apologized.

Clearly, one point to Google Home for this one.

Assistant ✔️

The results!

This covers a small fraction of the wealth of knowledge accessible from these assistants, but gives you a reasonable cross-section of the kinds of answers these assistants are capable of delivering.

Google Home relies heavily on the web, specifically on the cards Google creates when you do a web search on your phone or PC. Just like searching the good ol’ fashioned way, these cards can be hit or miss when it comes to how useful they are.

Alexa doesn’t have every answer every time, but the answers it does have tend to be a little more thought out in the delivery. Those little details tend to matter quite a bit when someone less technical is using something like a connected home speaker.

While there’s still plenty of room for growth with both of these assistants, it’s clear Alexa is a little more prepared to consistently answer your questions in a useful way. That’s why Amazon Echo wins this little contest for now!

Google Home / Assistant ✔️✔️✔️✔️

Amazon Echo / Alexa ✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️

See Home at Google   See Echo at Amazon

Amazon Alexa

• Which Amazon Echo should you buy?
• Get more Alexa Skills
• How to enable and disable Alexa Skills
• How to customize Flash Briefing
• How to get sports updates
• How to sync your calendar with Alexa
• How to shop with Alexa
• Send voice messages with Alexa

See more at Amazon

Google Hardware

• Google Wifi review
• Google Home review
• Everything you need to know about the Chromecast Ultra
• Chromecast vs Chromecast Ultra: Which should you buy?

Google Wifi:

Google
Amazon

Google Home:

Google
Best Buy

Chromecast Ultra:

Google
Best Buy

Peek into tight spaces with this flexible endoscopic camera!

Typically when you hear the word endoscopic camera it’s being said by a doctor for the purpose of looking inside a patient. But these bendable snake cameras can be used for many everyday things beyond medical applications.

Get your very own endoscopic camera for only $18.99! Learn more

The versatility of an endoscopic camera can allow you to investigate what’s clogging a drain, peer inside the tight spaces of your car, or give you an inside look at any tough to reach areas of your home. The camera head is adjustable and waterproof, making it perfect for inspecting underwater areas, gaps or holes.

Best of all, you can get your very own waterproof endoscopic camera for just $18.99! The camera cable is a meter long, meaning this camera can snake its way into the tight and dark spaces our fingers or eyes can’t and send a feed right back to your Android phone or PC via the convertible microUSB/USB connector

Typically, endoscopic cameras like this are sold for $49.99, but you can get yours and save 62%! What a deal!

Save 62% on this HD endoscopic camera! Learn more

So what are you waiting for? You never know when you may need a versatile endoscopic camera to get you out of a jam. But act fast — this deal won’t be around forever!

Chrome updates set to kill annoying redirects and trick-to-click popups

New user protections coming with Chrome 64 and Chrome 65.

The team behind Google Chrome knows there are a lot of things that we all hate about the internet. One of those things is the way a website can force you to a completely different page or even open a new tab because you clicked on something you wanted to see or went to a URL that was supposed to be something cool. And these are more than an annoyance — it’s a great way to distribute malware and trackers from adware. Ugh.

While sometimes page redirects are an accident, the behavior is still something that needs to die in a fire. Solutions like blocking all scripts are bad because they block plenty of things we want to see. The Chrome team just might have the solution, and it’s coming with updates to Chrome 64 and Chrome 65 for both the desktop (including Chromebooks) and Android.

With Chrome 64, Google plans to tackle auto-redirects. We’ve all been there: you open a new tab or web page and just as it starts to load you get whisked away to a different page, often filled with nonsense or surveys or any other thing you didn’t ask for an never wanted to see. It’s frustrating, especially when you can’t go back or you get prompted to download random suspicious stuff. All you can do in those situations is close the page or tab and try to find your way back to where you wanted to be before the foolery happened.

Mostly, this comes from third-party content that has been embedded in a web page. It could be an ad or some sort of widget or almost any embedded iframe causing it, but that shouldn’t matter to the end user. It’s just bad.

This is all great news for anyone who regularly uses the internet. Which is all of us.

With Chrome 64, every redirect from a third-party iframe will show an info bar instead of sending you off to some other page. This way we can decide if we want to navigate away or stay on the page we’re looking at. If we’re interacting with an iframe, like clicking an embedded YouTube video to open it on YouTube in a new tab, the request goes through as normal — this only applies to things you didn’t click and didn’t expect to send you off.

We can get more than we asked for when we are interacting with a web page, too. Google has two things planned that should help.

With Chrome 65, websites that try to circumvent Chrome’s pop-up blocker by opening a new tab for a thing you clicked while navigating the original tab to some other page will be blocked with the same style of info bar. This gives us the choice of taking a look versus being forced.

Some abusive experiences are harder to autodetect, but Google plans to use the same type of data as its Safe Browsing feature to kill off deceptive page elements.

Two examples given are a hotlink disguised as a play button that opens a new tab instead of playing a video, and an invisible link over a close button which can open anything when what you’re trying to do is close some ad or overlay.

These changes come in January 2018 and to help web developers prepare Google is building out an Abusive Experiences Report tool that site owners can use to see if anything that would cause a bad experience has been found so they can fix it. If a web page is found to have this sort behavior and isn’t fixed in 30 days, Chrome will prevent it from triggering any new windows or tabs.

These sound like great features, and should help make the web a better — and safer — place!

Chromebooks

• The best Chromebooks
• Should you buy a Chromebook?
• Google Play is coming to Chromebooks
• Acer Chromebook 14 review
• Join our Chromebook forums

How to fix voice search problems on Gear VR

How do I enable voice search for my Gear VR?

When it comes to browsing the web in VR, Samsung has made it easier than most with the Samsung Internet app for Gear VR. The ability to surf the web and watching anything you come across is generally pretty easy, though reading isn’t always the best experience.

A key part of this experience is voice search, making it so you don’t have to type every character out by pointing your face at a key on a virtual keyboard. On occasion, this feature can become interrupted by other apps on your phone. Thankfully it’s an easy fix, and one that can be handled in just a few minutes.

Read more at VRHeads

This LIFX BR30 smart LED bulb has 16 million colors for just $40

Put smart light bulbs everywhere in your home.

Is this deal for me?

The LIFX BR30 Smart Wi-Fi LED light bulb is down to $39.99 on Amazon. These bulbs regularly sell around $60 and have never dropped below $45 on Amazon before.

This deal is a price match of Best Buy’s, which also includes the LIFX A19 bulbs on sale for $40. BR30 and A19 bulbs are very similar, but BR30s cast more downward light and are therefore better in ceiling lamps and light fixtures.

Features include:

• Works with Amazon Alexa to support dimming, shades of white, and color settings through voice control
• 16 million colors and warm to cool whites
• Easy to set up, built in wifi – no hub required
• Bright – equivalent to 75W bulb
• Works with Alexa, Apple HomeKit and Google Assistant

You don’t need a hub to control these lights, but it can make your life easier especially if you plan on getting more than one. Get an Amazon Echo Dot or take advantage of this huge sale on Samsung SmartThings devices that includes the hub.

TL;DR

• What makes this deal worth considering? – This is the lowest price by far for the BR30 LIFX smart bulb. It has never gone below $45 before.
• Things to know before you buy! – You don’t need a hub to control these bulbs, but life is easier with one. Grab an Echo Dot so you can use your voice to turn them on and off.

See at Amazon

Happy Thrifting!

Bowers & Wilkins PX wireless headphones review: Essential sounds

A great, forward-thinking set of over-ear headphones.

You’re probably familiar with headphones by companies that command the most attention: Bose Sennheiser, Sony and others. They’re popular because they’re great products, but also because they have great marketing departments.

Other deserving headphones fall under the radar. Enter the Bowers & Wilkins PX.

Most important: they sound amazing.

They are a pair of over-ear, closed back wireless headphones with aptX HD that can charge, update and carry audio through a USB-C port. They feature different levels of noise cancellation, including a mode that can pipe in surrounding noise. Most importantly, they sound fantastic.

See at Amazon

I’ve been wearing and listening to the Bowers & Wilkins PX headphones for the past two weeks. On most days, I had the headphones on for at least eight hours per day taking helpdesk calls at my day job and listening to music and podcasts. All the music I listen to consists of MP3s originally purchased from iTunes, Google Play or Amazon. I also listened to those same music files from my home computer with audio routed through a Dragonfly Black USB DAC. For mobile use, I listened to music through my OnePlus 3T running Open Beta 15, which features the aptX HD codec.

In terms of sheer song count, my music library primarily consists of Johnny Cash (older country), Rosanne Cash (pop/alternative country) and Lily and Madeleine (folk/pop), with a smattering of other rock, pop and country artists. This is an important note, because the way the headphones have been tuned will represent certain instruments and genres better than others.

I was able to hear details in my songs that I haven’t heard from any other pairs of headphones I’ve tried. For example, I just noticed background instruments in My Chemical Romance’s “Welcome to the Black Parade” — a song I’ve been listening to regularly for the last 11 years — that I never picked up on other speakers or headphones. And this was while writing this review and responding to instant messages, where my attention isn’t solely focused on listening to music. My current benchmark for great sounding headphones is my pair of TMA-2 headphones configured with the S02 speaker module, and the PX headphones easily match that. More impressive, they match those headphones while streaming wirelessly.

Noise cancellation

Three noise cancellation modes can be accessed in the companion app, and that app is the only way to actually toggle between them. The three modes are “Office,” where surrounding noises will be piped into the headphones, “City” which blocks certain frequencies but amplifies others, and “Flight” which blocks everything.

I didn’t get a chance to test these headphones on an actual flight, but the “Flight” noise canceling mode was sufficient to drown out a crowded coffee shop concert. Flight mode does have a negative effect on the quality, but not so much that it takes away from the music’s overall fidelity.

The three noise cancellation modes are effective for most situations I found myself in.

The Office mode is fantastic. I use it every day to hear my coworkers over the sound of my music, and it works well enough that I haven’t had to remove my headphones while listening to a conversation. Listening to podcasts in that environment can be troubling, but that’s because my brain is trying to decipher two separate and unrelated conversations at once. Bowers & Wilkins estimates 22 hours of music listening while using any of the noise cancellation modes, and that lines up with my experience.

Build quality

These wireless headphones sound better than many wired headphones I’ve tried.

The controls and ports for the headphones all live on the right earcup. From top to bottom, there is the volume up button, play/pause, volume down, noise canceling, the 3.5mm-in port and the USB-C port. Holding down the play/pause button will activate Siri or Google Assistant, while double tapping that button will skip forward and triple tapping the button will skip backward.

I spent the previous six months using gesture controls on the Sony MDR-1000X headphones, and I was more than happy to move back to solid buttons. The buttons all feel solid with no wiggle, activate with just the right amount of force, and seem like they’ll hold up to the test of time. Speaking of holding up to the test of time, the earcups are held on with magnets and can be easily swapped out.

The headphones are mostly made of metal, with plastic used for the top of the headband and leather for the bottom of the headband and the ear cups. Vlad Savov of The Verge noted he had problems with the long-term comfort of the headphones, but they’re perfectly comfortable to me. I definitely get a case of headphone hair after wearing them for eight hours a day, but that happens with every pair of over-ear headphones I use.

Smart features

The PX headphones can pair with as many as eight devices, and will automatically switch the audio source depending on what’s playing music. For example, if I’m listening to music from my phone and decide to fire up my favorite YouTube channel on my Chromebook, my music will automatically pause on my phone and I will start hearing the audio from the YouTube video.

Only needing to bring one USB-C cable with you for charging is a huge plus.

Another great feature is that these headphones detect when they are sitting on your head. If not, music is automatically paused. Even moving an earcup off of your ear is enough to trigger this. Again, this feature is included on other high-end Bluetooth headphones, but the PX are the first set where this feature has consistently worked for me. The companion app lets you make this feature more or less sensitive if it isn’t working, but the default setting was sufficient. The feature can also be disabled entirely if you’d like.

Next on the list of things other headphones do but the PX does better: routing audio over the USB port. Because the PX’s use the newer USB-C standard, users can use the same cable that came with their phone for wired USB audio rather than needing to use an adapter. For those without a headphone jack, this is great way to avoid the #donglelife.

That may not sound like a huge deal, but as someone who hates any and all clutter it’s another huge win for these headphones. I tested the audio routing with my OnePlus 3T, a Samsung Chromebook Plus, a Google Pixelbook and Pixel 2 and my brother’s iPhone 7, and it worked every time.

Should you buy them? Definitely

I do have one minor complaint about these headphones, and one larger one. The minor complaint is that I wish the battery was easily removable so that a new one could be popped in a few years down the road.

The major complaint is that Bowers & Wilkins don’t include a hard case. The included soft case is nice, with a magnetic clasp and interior pouch for cables, but anyone taking these on vacation or a business trip would want more protection. And at $400, they should come with one.

Those complaints aside, these are fantastic headphones. The USB-C port means you’ll only need one charger for both phone and headphones, and being able to route audio through the USB port will better prepare those without a headphone jack on their phone. Automatically having my music pause when I take them off is a great convenience and, above all, they sound amazing.

At $400, they’re definitely at the higher end of what you’ll spend for headphones, but I feel they are well worth it.

See at Amazon