Origin upgrades its towers of power to aluminum design, with a slew of options

Origin PC has a trio of new gaming PCs on show at this year’s CES and all of them are designed to give gamers and hardware enthusiasts easy access and easy upgradeability through magnetic side panels and tool-less thumbscrews. Because of that, the side panels and front door can be swapped out for one with a different paint job or material if you so choose, meaning whatever your PC looks like when you buy it, it needn’t stay that way.

Although most new system announcements, especially in the gaming segment, focus on the new hardware options you can include in your PC, Origin’s latest systems are focused on the practicalities and physical features of the new iterations on its Genesis, Millenium, and L-Class PCs. If you look at its customization pages for these existing rigs, you’ll see that you can effectively create any sort of PC you want, from entry-level gaming systems equipped with AMD Ryzen 3 CPUS and RX 560 graphics cards, all the way up to monster desktops with overclocked Intel Core i7 CPUs and Nvidia Titan V graphics cards with 12GB of memory.

Don’t worry about the hardware for now. Take a look at some of the fancy features the new builds will feature that will make using and upgrading that much more pleasurable.

Millenium

Key Specs

Newly designed, streamlined aluminum chassis.

Variable mounting for standard, inverted ATX, 90-degree or 90-degree inverted motherboard.

Magnetic side panels and thumbscrew internals for tool-less use.

Swappable side panels to change the look or add a window.

Fully convertible to Genesis with Super Tower Bottom expansion kit.

Remote controlled LED lighting.

Although the Millenium is one of the smaller of Origin systems, it’s still impressive inside and out. The Millenium has a newly streamlined aluminum exterior, which should be a big improvement over the plastic build of the previous version. There’s also options for various side panels and paint jobs. Because everything is magnetically mounted, you can easily hot swap one side panel for another, so if you feel like having a window sometimes and sometimes not, it’s easy to add.

Even the front door panel is customizable, giving buyers the option of having it swing open one way or the other. Although a reverse door would be eye-catching in its own right, Origin’s patented alternative mounting system for the motherboard is sure to turn even more heads. You can have your system mounted in a standard or inverted configuration, opening up the right-hand side for window-viewing if you want. Alternatively, cant the whole thing at a 90-degree angle, offering better cooling by placing your graphics cards near the roof and giving your PC’s insides a unique look.

In the future, should you wish you had more space for storage drives or cooling, you can simply purchase the Super Tower upgrade kit to turn your system into the new “Genesis” with free labor from Origin.

If at any point you aren’t happy with your build, you can contact Origin directly and make use of its 24/7, lifetime, U.S. support service.

Find out more about the new build options on the main Origin web page.

Asus debuts ROG desktop, mechanical keyboard, cool lighting accessories at CES

Asus unloaded a truckload of announcements prior to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, some of which fall under its Republic of Gamers label. One product is already on the market, while another device – a limited-edition laptop – finally received a launch date and price. Everything else listed here appears to be sparkly new products.

The company’s game-centric portfolio for the show isn’t exactly robust. For starters, we have a new desktop supporting up to an overclocked eighth-generation Intel Core i7 processor, and up to a GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card. The lineup also consists of a new mechanical keyboard that relies on Cherry MX RGB switches, while all other products are cosmetic in focus and bring illumination to your physical gaming space.

ROG Strix GL12 Desktop

Key Specs

CPU: Up to an overclocked 8th Gen Intel Core i7

Graphics: Up to a GeForce GTX 1080

Storage: Easy-swap SSD tray

Lighting: Customizable Aura Sync RGB

Release date: April 2018

Starting price: TBD

The first product in the gaming-themed batch is the ROG Strix GL12 desktop. According to the company, it will be configurable with up to a six-core eighth-generation Intel Core i7 processor with an out-of-the-box overclocked maximum speed of 4.8GHz. That tease points to the Core i7-8700K chip released in the third quarter of 2017 with a base speed of 3.7GHz and a maximum speed of 4.7GHz. It’s joined by graphics options of up to a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 add-in card.

Outside the processor and GPU aspects, Asus says the new desktop includes an easy-swap SSD tray for quick storage upgrades. It also supports the Aura Sync platform for synchronizing colors and lighting effects across all compatible platforms. Supporting more than 16 million colors, this platform illuminates two angular “slashes” embedded in the front, and the water block’s red ROG logo seen through the left side’s transparent panel.

Unfortunately, that’s all the information we have prior to the official reveal during the show. Product images show two USB-A 3.1 Gen1 ports, two USB-A 2.0 ports, an SD card reader, and a headphone jack on an I/O panel mounted at the top of the front panel. We expect to hear more details in the following months.

The new Onewheel has more power, more torque, and twice as much range as before

Future Motion, the company behind the infamous Onewheel rideable, announced at CES 2018 today that it’s now taking pre-orders for it’s latest product: the newly-announced Onewheel+ XR. While the new board doesn’t look any different than the previous model that was announced at CES 2017, it boasts a number of improvements under the hood. In addition to a bit more power and torque for climbing hills, a single battery charge on the XR will get you between 12 and 18 miles of use — more than double the range of earlier models.

To make a splash at the show (which Future Motion is known for — just ask the Chinese company that attempted to copy them at CES 2016), the company is attempting a three day, 300-mile trip from Los Angeles to Las Vegas to prove the XR’s abilities. We’ll report back if the endeavor is successful.

Of course, these new long-range capabilities don’t come cheap: Whereas the Onewheel+ will set you back $1,500, the XR costs an additional $300 — which puts it out of the price range for most average consumers. That said, our Emerging Tech Editor Drew Prindle reviewed the Onewheel+ last year, dubbing it not “just a fun toy, but a legit commuter vehicle.”

That’s something Future Motion’s chief evangelist Jack Mudd says the company is hearing from its early adopters. “We’re hearing more and more customers talk about leaving their cars at home and riding everywhere, it’s really a vehicle replacement,” he says.

Future Motion says that it’s not  is talking up the extended range of the XR combined with the smoothness and stability that made the Onewheel+ a much better product. The original Onewheel wasn’t the smoothest, but was still a riot to ride (especially if you already have board sport experience). But of course, not all of us are that coordinated, so the extra smoothness and stability of Future Motion’s new Onewheel devices are definitely welcome.

While you’d think doubling the battery power might add quite a bit of additional bulk to the board, it actually adds just one extra pound of weight. Future Motion says this is thanks to an improved battery system developed in-house using NMC cells. NMC batteries are ideal for applications where there is frequent recharging as they have a longer usable life and better efficiency.

Future Motion has not immediately set a release date for the board beyond the pre-order announcement.

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How to watch LG’s CES 2018 press conference

While CES 2018 doesn’t officially start until tomorrow, January 9, that won’t stop major brands from jumping the gun with their own press conferences, and it doesn’t stop our coverage either. LG’s press conference kicks off today, and you can watch it right here.

Given the sheer number of product lines coming out of LG, expect a fairly diverse spread of topics throughout the stream. The company has already announced its 2018 line of TVs, as well as its new smart home appliances. That said, we can expect to see them covered here as well, if only briefly, along with the company’s new ThinQ sub-brand, which ties together all of LG’s smart and A.I.-driven products.

Any of the announcements the company has already made will likely be featured as well, but we can likely expect a few surprises to be thrown in, too. Will we see anything as impressive as the 65-inch UHD rollable OLED the company introduced over the weekend? Hopefully.

The press conference kicks off January 8 at 8 a.m. PT/11 a.m. ET at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, and can be watched in the embedded video once it kicks off.

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Intel RealSense Depth Camera D415 & D435 review

In recent years the humble webcam has enjoyed something of a renaissance. Thanks to the proliferation of streaming and vlogging, there’s now a need for better cameras with more high-tech features. Webcam manufacturers have responded by putting out tons of affordable, high-quality cams designed for professional broadcasting use, and companies like Razer are even releasing streamer-centric cams with built in light fixtures.

But Intel has entered the premium-webcam arena with something of an unusual offering, the RealSense D415 and D435 webcams. There’s a bit more to these cameras than meets the eye, though — these guys are depth cameras, meaning they can distinguish you from your background.

Could they be the ultimate solution for streamers? Maybe — but here’s why they probably aren’t ready to take that title.

How they work

Normal webcams just sit on top of your monitor and record visible light, just like the front facing camera on your smartphone. Intel’s RealSense cameras go one step further, they record visible light — and invisible, infrared light. This gives these cameras the ability to create a three dimensional depth map of your surroundings. That’s right: These cams don’t just see you, they know where you are, the dimensions of your surroundings, and how perilously close that soda can is to your keyboard.

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Both of these cameras feature the same output resolution and framerate, 1920x1080p at 30 frames-per-second, both feature the same tripod mount underneath the camera body, and they have solid, brushed aluminum bodies. But the similarities end there, internally, the cameras have very different capabilities.

The Intel RealSense D415 is the entry level model, starting at $149 and has a slightly pared down feature set than its more expensive cousin, the RealSense D435. More significantly, the depth sensor inside the RealSense D415 is limited to a 69 degree field of view horizontally, and ten meters of depth, which is a fairly narrow range. But it’s all right if you’re just going to be sitting right in front of it for a Twitch, YouTube or Mixer stream.

RealSense offers an intriguing glimpse at the future of depth tracking, but that’s about it.

Sure all that sounds cool, but why would one of these cameras, in the future, be worth buying? Well, like we stated earlier, the first thing that comes to mind would for professional streamers. With the right software, one of these cameras could make your surroundings disappear without the use of a green screen.

Instead, the cameras would use their depth sensors, IR blasters, and digital witchcraft to separate you from your background. Sure beats wrestling with a green sheet or collapsible greenscreen you’ll have to clamp to some kind of stand behind you.

Plus, the Intel page describing the capabilities of the cameras strongly suggests that they could be used for some really cool gesture tracking. Now have we seen them do any of these things in our time with the devices in our office? Unfortunately, not at all.

The bottom line

Here’s the truth: If you bought one of these cool cameras today, you’d end up with a device that doesn’t really do much of anything. Right now, its software suite is literally just a development kit. So, to use them in any capacity, you would have to write the software yourself.

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Let’s be very up front about something: These cameras are probably not for you. If you want a new webcam for streaming, look elsewhere, these things are cool but they’re essentially just fancy development tools. I know, we were disappointed too. These cams are just development tools, and for most people, they’re just empty promises at this point.

They’re designed for developers who want to use depth sensing for a variety of different applications — all of which will not be ready to test out for quite some time. That said, we might get a closer look at Intel’s plans for the RealSense depth cameras at CES this year, so stay tuned.

Thing is, there’s a lot of cool stuff these cameras could do, but not very much they can do currently. Because of the impressive technology they’re built on, they could, for instance, be used for gesture tracking, and all kinds of Minority Report-style interactivity. There are even some apps you can download from Intel’s GitHub to test these features out. And yes, that’s right, this project is so early in its development that the software it uses is all available on GitHub rather than some clean and tidy Intel-hosted installer file.

These two cameras offer an intriguing glimpse at the future of depth tracking, but that’s about it. If you’re a developer, head over to Intel’s developer portal for the RealSense cameras and see if they might be right for your project, but for everyone else, there’s nothing to see here folks. These aren’t products, they’re tools.

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Intel’s new Realsense depth cameras work just as well outside as they do indoors

For its next-generation of Realsense depth-sensing cameras, Intel has upgraded them to be just as capable outdoors as they are indoors, meaning you can use them for video calls and Windows Hello logins even when you’re in your sunny backyard. They also operate at longer range than their predecessors and have their own dedicated image signal processor for adjustments and scaling color data.

Although once the reserve of spy movies, facial recognition technology is as simple today as sticking a stereoscopic 3D webcam on your laptop, and Intel’s Realsense depth-sensing cameras have proved one of the most popular ranges. The latest generation is likely to continue that trend with significant improvements to all of their most important features.

Indeed making sure you’re running the latest hardware and software can make Windows Hello much more secure.

The two new options in the D400 range, the D415 and D435 cameras were shown off at this year’s CES and are available to buy now from Intel’s store. No word yet if they’re going to end up helping Intel make VR movies, though.

Intel Realsense D415

Key Specs

Use environment: Indoor/Outdoor

Depth technology: Active IR Stereo (Rolling Shutter)

Depth FOV (HxVxD/degrees): 69.4 x 42.5 x 77

Depth output resolution: 1280 x 720

RGB resolution: 1080p @ 30 fps

Maximum range: 10m+

Physical dimensions (LxDxH): 99mm x 20mm x 23mm

The D415 might be the lower-end model of this new generation of depth-sensing cameras, but that doesn’t mean it lacks for features. Like its bigger brother below, it sports the same 10-meter maximum range in ideal conditions, and full depth output of 1280 x 720 up to 90 frames per second. For more standard video calling and images, it goes up to 1080p at 30 fps.

Whatever you use it for, it’s powered by just a single USB connection and has a UNC screw mount should you wish to mount it on a tripod and a pair of M3 thread mounting points.

Those stats combined make this a very capable camera for both facial detection systems like Windows Hello and more traditional video calls. The fact that it works so well outdoors now will be a boon to those who like to work and play on their system in their yard. Instead of having to step back inside for a video call on a bright day, you can stay where you’re most comfortable and enjoy the outdoors while conversing with someone anywhere in the world.

As well as end users, Intel is marketing this camera to professionals, suggesting that integrators and developers should consider utilizing the camera to integrate depth sensing into their new application. Any such developers will be able to leverage the support of Intel’s RealSense SDK 2.0, too.

Available now on Intel’s store, you can pick up one of these cameras for $150.

iHome Voice is a Google Assistant-powered alarm clock that adds a dot-matrix display and buttons

This feels like a natural expansion.

Google Assistant is poised to be a major talking point at CES 2018, and iHome is taking a swing at its own device running Google’s AI experience. The iHome Voice is basically a wide-looking Google Home with a few extra buttons and a dot-matrix style display on the front that makes it perfectly positioned to be an alarm clock.

Just like the old iHome docks we all know, it has a set of buttons on the top to perform basic functions, but it also has this simple display on the front showing the time, upcoming alarm and volume level. This immediately makes it more appealing as an alarm clock than the all-voice Google Home and Home Mini. It also has a USB port on the back to charge your phone at night, and since it’s only a 1A output it won’t be useful for more than overnight charges anyway.

The rest of the experience rounds out basically like a regular Google Home. It has far-field array mics for voice commands, and a big speaker in the base for music, podcasts or news reports in the morning while you get your day started.

Pricing is set at $139, a $10 premium over the standard Google Home. That may be a slightly steep price to pay for something that’s not as sleek and versatile as the Home in terms of placement, but getting an actual display and some physical buttons that make it far better as an alarm clock is probably worth the extra money if that’s your plan for this kind of device.

See at iHome

What’s in Hayato Huseman’s gear bag?

It takes a lot of gear to be a versatile and efficient tech blogger.

I do a decent amount of moving around for my job here at Android Central. When I’m writing or editing video, I usually stay home, but it can be hard to stay on task with my games and guitars sitting just a few feet away — so when I get stir-crazy, it’s time to pack up and migrate to the local coffee shop. Then there’s the trade shows and press events that pull me away from Indianapolis entirely for days at a time.

No matter where I am, I need to be able to carry all of my gear with me. You never know when a photo or video opportunity might arise, and there’s never a bad time to write or listen to music. Here are the things I carry whenever I travel for work.

The bag: Peak Design Everyday Backpack

I’ve been searching for the perfect backpack for years, and I think I’ve finally found the one from Peak Design. The Everyday Backpack comes in two sizes — 20 liters or 30 liters — and boasts one of the cleverest designs I’ve ever seen in a bag.

The Everyday Backpack is clever, convenient, and weather-sealed.

The Everyday Backpack features three adjustable dividers for organizing your things, with foldable subdividers that help keep smaller items from moving around. They attach with velcro, meaning you can move the dividers around to best fit the contents of the bag. You can unzip the Everyday Backpack from the sides, making it easier to access your things at the bottom without having to take everything else out first. The top of the bag is attached by a large magnet, making it easy to attach but locking it in place to prevent unwanted access.

If backpacks aren’t your style, Peak Design makes a few other bag styles, too. Andrew Martonik uses the Everyday Sling, and the company offers a number of messenger bags, totes, and pouches.

See at Amazon

The laptop: MacBook Pro with Touch Bar (Late 2016)

Around this time last year, Apple released the first iteration of its new lineup of MacBook Pros … yep, the ones with the weird Touch Bar that replaces the function row. It’s usually not recommended to buy first-gen products, but my previous laptop was on its last leg, so against popular advice I ordered one as soon as it was available. While it’s certainly not perfect, I’m glad I bought it — especially now that I’m regularly editing 4K video.

I’ve gone all-in on USB-C, so the lack of Type-A ports doesn’t bother me, but a year later I’m still constantly frustrated at the omission of an SD card reader on an otherwise professional-grade laptop. Still, the specs inside are plenty capable for my workflow; a 2.6GHz Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and an Intel HD 530 GPU.

Despite what you might’ve heard about the Touch Bar MacBook Pro’s battery life, I’ve actually been really happy with how long mine lasts. When it does finally run down, I absolutely love that I can charge it with a USB-C cable, since that allows me to carry just one charger for my laptop, my phone, and pretty much everything else I use. Touch ID is super convenient as well, though it doesn’t always work as well as I’d like.

The Touch Bar MacBook Pro is unconventional and often inconvenient, and if Final Cut Pro X worked on Windows I might’ve opted for something like a Dell XPS 15 instead, but overall I’m happy with my purchase. It handles large 4K videos seamlessly, and it’s light enough that I hardly notice it in my bag.

See at Amazon

The phone: OnePlus 5T

It doesn’t have the glitz of the Galaxy Note 8 or the insane camera of the Pixel 2, but the OnePlus 5T has been my phone of choice for the last few months. Before it, I carried the OnePlus 5, so I’ve been spending a lot of time with OxygenOS this past year. It’s almost identical to stock Android, but a bit more customizable without having to go as far as flashing a custom ROM.

Face Unlock has been great for the winter.

I love the 5T’s 2:1 aspect ratio, and I’m surprised at how much I’ve really been enjoying the new face unlock software — especially now that we’re regularly dipping into subzero temperatures here in Indianapolis, and fingerprint sensors aren’t exactly known to work through gloves.

The rest of the phone is stellar, too; the Snapdragon 835 and 8GB of RAM mean that it’s going to take a lot to slow the 5T down, and its upcoming Oreo update will bring some nice features over from the Pixel, like picture-in-picture Google Maps and YouTube. If you’re shopping for a new phone and you’re sitting around a $500 budget, it’s really hard to go wrong with the OnePlus 5T.

See at OnePlus

The carrier: T-Mobile

As far as the SIM card that goes into my phone, that duty belongs to the Un-carrier. Full disclaimer: I worked for T-Mobile off and on for nearly four years. While I don’t get the employee pricing anymore, I do still appreciate features like free WiFi on airplanes and free international data roaming (though the speeds you’ll get overseas are abysmal).

It also helps that I have a GSM carrier handy for this job, since most of the review units we handle won’t work with CDMA carriers like Verizon or Sprint. Luckily, T-Mobile works great in most of the parts of Indianapolis and Chicago that you’ll normally find me … but I’d be lying if I said it’s good everywhere. My last few visits to Manhattan and Brooklyn were full of 3G speeds. I don’t want to talk about it.

The camera: Panasonic GH5

I spent every day of 2017 going back and forth between sticking with Panasonic or moving to Sony for my next camera upgrade. My Panasonic GH3 was still a great workhorse video camera, but it didn’t shoot in 4K — an increasingly desirable feature these days, even if you export in 1080p. It also didn’t have a lot of the software features many filmmakers today would consider essential, like focus peaking or histograms.

The GH5 is one of the most versatile cameras I’ve ever used.

When I started at Mobile Nations, one of my first assignments was pretty video-centric, which meant it was time to finally upgrade. It made the most financial sense for me to stick with Panasonic since I already had a fairly expensive lens for my GH3, so I finally decided on the GH5, and I’m really, really glad I did.

The GH5 has just about everything you could want on a prosumer level; 4K video at 60 frames per second, a flat color profile for more flexible grading in post, dual SD card slots for redundancy, and even USB-C so I can copy my footage to my computer without a stupid dongle. The image quality looks incredible, and with a fast enough lens, it’s even pretty decent in low light.

Most of the time, I carry my GH5 with a Peak Design Slide Pro strap. It connects with small quick-release anchors attached to the camera, and the adjustment system is designed for one-handed use, which is super convenient.

See at Amazon

The lens: Panasonic 12-35mm f/2.8

Yep, just one lens. I’ve been using Panasonic’s popular 12-35 exclusively for the last couple of years now, and it’s been an incredibly versatile piece of glass. With an f/2.8 aperture, it’s bright and sharp, and you can really pull some great bokeh out of it under the right conditions. On top of that, it’s relatively compact, and I absolutely love the built-in stabilization.

I won’t lie, though — I’ve been eyeing Sigma’s new native 16mm f/1.4 lately. Maybe it’ll show up in my next bag post.

See at Amazon

The mic: RodeLink Wireless Filmmaker Kit

It’s hard to beat the convenience of wireless audio. When I was with Daniel Bader and Andrew Martonik for the OnePlus 5T event a few months ago, we used Daniel’s wireless lav kit from Rode for all of our audio, and it worked out great. The sound quality was excellent, and to my surprise, the wireless signal had no discernible latency, so I was still able to monitor audio directly from my GH5’s onboard headphone jack.

The RodeLink lav kit comes in three parts: a receiver that attaches to the hot shoe mount on your camera, a transmitter that clips onto the talent, and of course the lavalier microphone itself. All three pieces fit pretty easily into my bag, so I never have to go anywhere without a way of capturing high-quality audio.

See at Amazon

Everything else

For the sake of versatility, I like to carry as much video gear as I can without weighing my bag down too much, and the Edelkrone SliderOne is a perfect example. It’s a 6″ video slider that I can use either on a table or on my tripod to get smooth movement in my shots.

Attached to the bottom is the Motion Module, which adds a bit of heft to the SliderOne but allows me to automate its movements with an app on my phone. It’s a bit finicky, but this combo has helped me get some nice-looking shots in my videos, and being able to carry a slider around with me is just so damn cool.

If you have a USB-C laptop, you owe it to yourself to get a portable battery bank like this.

I also don’t go anywhere without my Tylt Portable Battery 10X, which carries a whopping 20,100mAh and charges in and out with USB-C. It’s a hefty battery and takes up more space in my bag than I’d sometimes like, but the massive capacity means I’m never worried about running out of juice on any of my gadgets — it even charges my 15″ MacBook Pro, which has been a lifesaver for mobile video editing.

Speaking of lifesavers, Sony’s newest noise-canceling headphones, the WH1000XM2, have become an essential part of my everyday life — backpack or not. Like the Bose QC35, these cans have incredible active noise-canceling, which is especially handy for working in loud coffee shops or blocking out engine noise on a plane. On top of that, they sound great, too, and the battery lasts for days at a time.

Once you try the Samsung T5, it’s hard to go back to slower storage.

For storage, I carry around a 1TB Samsung T5 SSD. It’s lighting fast, well-built, and it’s about as small as a credit card. I was hesitant to pick one of these up because of the hefty price, but the first time I transfered a 20GB file in less than a minute … well, it’s pretty hard to go back to anything else after that. The T5 plugs in through USB-C, and comes with both a double-sided Type-C cable and an A-to-C cable.

Finally, let’s touch on the loose ends. I carry a few cables around; the two cables included with the T5 SSD, and a longer USB-C cable to charge my laptop or phone with the Tylt battery bank. I also use that longer cable to plug the GH5 into my laptop for file transfers, but I also carry a Hootoo Shuttle USB-C hub with a built-in SD card reader just in case.

There are always a few spare batteries in the side compartment of my bag — two Canon LP-E6 batteries for my slider, and a Panasonic BLF19 battery for my GH5. I also carry a variable ND filter from Platinum in case I need to shoot in direct sunlight.

That’s everything I carry when I’m traveling for work! Have any recommendations for new gear I should try, or how your carry might differ from mine? Spill it in the comments!

What Pixel 2 color do you like the best?

Just Black and Black & White take the cake for most buyers.

Similar to the first Pixel, the Pixel 2’s design has proven to be a bit polarizing. Some people love the look of the phone, but others aren’t so keen on it.

The use of glass and metal on the back certainly is unique, and one of the things that help to keep the phone looking as good as can be are the different colors that you can choose from. Between the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, available colors include Just Black, Clearly White, Kinda Blue, and Black & White.

Some of our forum users recently got to talking about which color they preferred and why, and this is what they had to say:

hallux
01-07-2018 10:15 PM

“

I have a “Panda” with a clear Spigen Liquid Crystal case on it. Liking it. I haven’t been a fan of white phones before because of the white bezel on the front, with this now having a black bezel I decided to take a leap…

Reply

EMGSM
01-07-2018 05:49 PM

“

I got the black one and love it. If I want a different look, I’ll just put a skin on it. It’s your money and your choice.

Reply

Prath09
01-07-2018 06:55 PM

“

I like the Black look actually. Although I have had the cement fabric case on it since I got it. The colour plus the mint button is nice ;), although id prefer it naked but i’m not risking it :p

Reply

oks10
01-07-2018 07:33 PM

“

I have the panda bc I just don’t like black phones. My last phone was an S7 Edge. Had to get black in order to meet a promo deadline so I ended up putting a skin on it. I got a skin for my Panda one too but just for the back glass piece to keep dust/dirt from scratching it if it happened to get in the case.

Like others said though, get what you like and if you don’t want to trade phones then…

Reply

What about you – Which Pixel 2/2 XL color is your favorite?

Join the conversation in the forums!

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International Huawei P10 and P10 Plus get Android Oreo beta

Here’s how to join.

Save for the strangely absent oleophobic coating underneath the pre-installed screen protector, the Huawei P10 and P10 Plus proved to be excellent phones in early 2017 with great cameras, long battery life, and strong hardware design. Both phones shipped with Android 7.0 Nougat, but now in January 2018, Huawei is rolling out an official Oreo beta.

Android Oreo’s already arrived in a stable form to the P10 and P10 Plus in China, so this beta is for the international variant of the phones. Supported units must have software versions VTR-L09C432B180, VTR-L29C432B180, VKY-L09C432B181, or VKY-L29C432B181, and assuming you have one of the following, enrolling in the beta is quite simple.

With your P10 or P10 Plus, install the Huawei Beta app, open it and log into your account, and then go to Personal -> Join project -> Available projects. Once you do this, you’ll receive an OTA update for the Oreo beta to immediately download and install onto your phone.

Huawei hasn’t said when a stable version of Oreo will launch for the international P10 and P10 Plus, but seeing as how there’s already a beta, our guess is that it should be here within the next few weeks.

Huawei P10 + P10 Plus review: Great phones, with one fatal flaw

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