Echobox Explorer Review: Intoxicating sound (with a heckuva hangover)

You’ve got to love the weird world of Android. I mean, where else can you shell out half a grand for a portable Hi-Fi player that looks like the product of a drunken evening between an expensive hip flask and a budget mid-2011 smartphone?

Fortunately, the distinctively shaped Echobox Explorer isn’t just an excuse to make halfhearted booze jokes; it’s a portable audio player that kicks out genuinely great sound thanks to a potent combination of powerful DAC and a capable headphone amp. Unfortunately, where Echobox splurged on the sound it skimped on the basics: a poor Wi-Fi radio makes it slow to stream; bad shielding on that radio makes for prominent earphone interference; and an ancient Android version with no Play Store makes for a subpar user experience.

If you’re enough of an audiophile to consider a Digital Audio Player in 2018, the Echobox Explorer is probably already on your radar — so should you take a hit off this faux flask? The answer’s right up above, in the MrMobile Echobox Explorer review!

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‘The Evil Within 2’ has a new first-person mode for up-close horror

Originally released in October of last year, The Evil Within 2 is a bleak, tense take on the horror genre, where exploration and discovery are just as important as the scares. The game was designed as a third-person experience, much like producer Shinji Mikami’s famous Resident Evil series. Now, however, developer Tango Gameworks has launched a free update that will make the entire game playable in first person perspective.

Switching from third- to first-person perspective is a simple menu option. You can change back and forth easily at any point in the game, too. Even the free trial has the feature so you can see how it looks even if you haven’t purchased the full game.

“A lot of players like playing horror games in first-person, so for those who want to see some of the game’s situations through Sebastian’s eyes, it’s a really neat experience,” said Tango Gameworks’ Shinsaku Ohara in a statement. “I think exploring Union in first-person makes the scale feel even bigger than it does when you’re in third-person. Also, being able to see our environments and enemies up close allows players to get an even better look at how much effort went into their designs.”

Via: Polygon

Nothing says Happy Valentine’s Day like a ‘Black Mirror’ dating app

So, it’s Valentine’s Day, and what better time to check on the potential end date of your romantic relationship? It’s easy to do over at coach.dating, a fun little web app based on the dating AI, Coach, that manages dating relationships in the Black Mirror episode, “Hang the DJ.”

Written by show creator Charlie Brooker, the fourth episode of Black Mirror‘s current fourth season revolves around a Tinder-like dating app and managing AI that pairs people off into trial romantic relationships, then uses the data collected during this period to find their “ultimate compatible other.”

The web app, then, plays off this scenario, having you send a link to your partner so they can connect at the same time. Once they load the custom link you send them, the Coach app ask you both to get ready, then click a fingerprint onscreen, ostensibly to measure your reaction time. The app then starts acting like it’s gone crazy, cycling through various error messages and “re-calibrations.” At the end of this process, you’ll get an end time on your relationship. I sent the link to two partners and got 4 minutes and 6 minutes as our results. Needless to say, they were a bit miffed.

This isn’t Netflix’s first tie-in app, ever, of course, but the connection to Black Mirror is a bit less obvious (and less deep) than the Stranger Things game, for example. If nothing else, Coach will give you and your loved ones a good laugh as you play with the app and check to see how long you can plan on being together. For me, we’ve already outlasted the predictions, so Valentine’s Day isn’t ruined.

Source: Coach

Netflix’s ‘Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’ returns May 30th

The fourth season of Netflix’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt has a premiere date, or at least the first half of it does. The show is taking a different route than it has before, releasing the first six episodes ahead of the rest of the season, and the first half will be available to stream starting May 30th. Jane Krakowski, who plays Jacqueline on the show, told the Today show, “We’re going to shoot them and get them out as quickly as possible so we don’t have to make our fans and audiences wait so long.” Season three debuted in May last year.

🛑STOP🛑… in the naaaame of Season 4! Part 1 streams May 30th! pic.twitter.com/ey0mHQ5DDM

— Kimmy Schmidt (@KimmySchmidt) February 14, 2018

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt was created by Tina Fey and Robert Carlock and its first three seasons have been consistently nominated for Emmy awards. The show itself has been nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series every year while main cast members like Tituss Burgess, Jane Krakowski and Ellie Kemper have garnered Emmy nods as have guest actors Tina Fey and Jon Hamm.

There’s no date set yet for the second half of the season. Netflix says it will debut later in 2018.

Source: Netflix

Video game records are broken. Can anyone fix them?

After a period of relative quiet, Twin Galaxies recently found itself thrust into the spotlight. The arbiter for video-game recordkeeping played an intrinsic role in disputing two long-standing achievements hosted on its forums: Todd Rogers’ unbeatable Dragster time and Billy Mitchell’s Donkey Kong high score. Both records have had their share of challenges over the decades, but before users on the TG forums raised their concerns the other week, nothing was done to officially dispute them.

In 1982, Rogers sent Dragster developer Activision a letter saying he’d finished a race in 5.51-seconds — without proof — and in return, he received a certificate saying he held the record.

For many, Mitchell is the “King of Kong” thanks to his appearance in a documentary by the same name. He has recorded higher scores since, but allegedly, Mitchell’s 2010 best wasn’t recorded on an actual Donkey Kong cabinet, but in MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator). (We reached out to Mitchell and Rogers for comment, but they haven’t responded.)

According to Jace Hall, TG’s head custodian of records, it was only a matter of time before these disputes happened.

“This [scrutiny] is absolutely something that has been much needed and is part of our controlled process of making sure that the public can control and can trust the data that’s in our database,” he said.

Hall bought TG in 2014, and since then his “administration” has been working to clear the company’s reputation. During the organization’s early days in the 1980s, founder Walter Day would go around arcades in his native Iowa recording high scores from arcade cabinets and organizing state-level tournaments. These were published in a few places, most notably The Guinness Book of World Records.

After Day retired in 2010, ownership changed hands a few times, and at one point, there was an entry fee for score submissions. There were reports of impropriety on TG’s part (pay-offs, referees that weren’t impartial), some of which fueled the Dragster controversy. Which brings us back to Hall and the present day TG.

Billy Mitchell (David Greedy via Getty Images)

“This is a legitimate administrative effort for Twin Galaxies to avail itself to the gaming community,” he said, referring to Rogers’ and Mitchell’s (above) disputed scores. “There has to be one sort of church that cares about the hyper-details of these things, that is constantly learning and growing its knowledge base” he said, “because cheating is a very, very real thing in video gaming.”

After reopening TG’s defunct website and leaderboards in 2014, Hall and co. went about designing a system that would meet the gaming community’s standards and would combat forgery head-on. It’s called the Twin Galaxies Submission and Adjudication Process (TGSAP) and it’s pretty simple: When you create an account and make a claim of a score, you have to submit video evidence.

Adjudicators from the community look over your submission and if enough people vote to accept your proof, it lands on TG’s scoreboards along with the evidence. Should the video of your score ever disappear (say if YouTube or Twitch removes your clip) the score is immediately disqualified. To avoid those types of situations, soon all footage will need to be uploaded directly to TG.

Each time you vote for a score, your reputation is on the line. Every new account starts with 1,000 reputation points. Each score you weigh in on that successfully passes muster, earns you another three points. And the more reputation points you have, the more weight your vote carries.

Todd Rogers playing Dragster

You can’t start a dispute until you have 4,000 points in your account, either. Once a dispute is filed though, other verified members (TG has their name, address, phone number) can join in the vote. If you vote against a score being valid and a majority of adjudicators do not, you’ll lose five percent of your total reputation points. The Dragster and Donkey Kong disputes, Hall said, are examples of the process he helped build working exactly as it should. “This machine is going to keep on going,” he said. “Over time there will be nothing in the database that’s not legit.”

On the back-end, TG has ways of tracking user behavior and how a person has built their reputation. Admins know every vote someone has made and can even track things like collusion between members. “It’s a very tough system to beat,” he noted. “No one’s beat it yet.”

If there’s a historic score that doesn’t have any evidence to go along with it, and hasn’t been disputed, Hall said those are probably safe and accurate. It’s just that there was “a lot of consternation” building up for a few decades over Mitchell’s and Rogers’ scores.

Under this system, the contested Donkey Kong and Dragster submissions would’ve been scrutinized and, most likely, thrown out before making the public leaderboards.

Once Rogers’ was disputed in January (the process began last August), his scores were stripped and he was banned from TG’s forums, people started trusting that Hall and co. were doing things the right way, which made people comfortable coming forward to challenge Mitchell’s scores. “The Billy [Mitchell] stuff is a sign that TG is operating in a fair and balanced way, because prior to it, they never brought it up,” Hall said. Now things are different.

Until the verdict came out, people didn’t believe that the admins were actually going to do something, given the site’s reputation. How long the adjudicators took to come to their decision was a point of contention, too.

But the dispute process must remain public and transparent for it to build trust from the community; anonymous accusations have no place under his leadership. “Sending me a private message means nothing,” Hall said. “TG is not doing anything and will not do anything behind the curtains in any sort of way.”

Under this system, the contested Donkey Kong and Dragster submissions would’ve been scrutinized and, most likely, thrown out before making the public leaderboards. Sure, Rogers could post his score today, but the community wouldn’t accept it. For starters, TG staff doesn’t weigh in on the validity of what’s submitted — that’s up to verified adjudicators. Furthermore, every modern submission needs a video of some sort to pass muster.

Denver Post via Getty Images

“This system has created so much trust that it’s also put pressure on the previous systems of referees and verifications,” Hall said.

The kinks should eventually work themselves out, and keep the system functioning as designed. Raising a dispute takes a “serious time investment” and the way the system is designed, it guards against angry internet mobs disputing any score they see fit. Keeping an accurate, trustworthy database is necessary for TG’s next step: Creating a one-stop record-keeping shop for pro gamers and hobbyists alike. Think of it like the Elias Sports Bureau, but for video game stats and records instead of baseball.

Scrutinizing scores is an increasingly complicated task. There’s no training manual for picking apart a video submission; examiners have to rely on their knowledge of the game and associated hardware to make an educated guess. It’s like watching the Olympics on a TV screen and trying to decide if any of the athletes used drugs.

Inevitably, then, mistakes will be made. Records will be handed out incorrectly. TG is doing its best to minimize those risks, though, and provide a community where memory and dexterity alone are rewarded. “It’s never going to get easier,” Hall sighed. Still, he’ll keep trying.

Verizon gives a year of free Netflix to new FiOS customers

Telecoms have been handing out free video services like candy in a bid to win you over, and Verizon is finally following suit. The network is offering a year of free Netflix if you sign up online for a FiOS “triple play” (internet, TV and phone) at $80 per month. This includes both new and existing accounts, and Verizon will cover Netflix costs up to $10.99 per month.

The move comes right as Verizon is adding direct access to Netflix from FiOS set-top boxes — you only have to tune into channel 838 and sign in. You probably won’t need this when there’s a good chance something in your living room already plays Netflix, but it’s helpful if you’re new to Netflix or just want to cut back on device clutter.

Naturally, there are catches. You’re only guaranteed that price if you commit to a 2-year contract, and this is just a year of Netflix versus T-Mobile’s in-perpetuity deal. And since it’s a triple play, you’re locking yourself into three services. If you decide to drop TV or have no use for a fixed phone line, you’re stuck. This beats nothing, though, and it’s clear why Verizon is doing this. Streaming services are increasingly must-haves in US homes, and Verizon doesn’t want to lose customers to other providers (or risk you cutting the TV cord) just because they’ll give you no-extra-charge access to Altered Carbon.

Source: Verizon

MIT has a new chip to make AI faster and more efficient on smartphones

Just one day after MIT revealed that some of its researchers had created a super low-power chip to handle encryption, the institute is back with a neural network chip that reduces power consumption by 95 percent. This feature makes them ideal for battery-powered gadgets like mobile phones and tablets to take advantage of more complex neural networking systems.

Neural networks are made up of lots of basic, interconnected information processors that are interconnected. Typically, these networks learn how to perform tasks by analyzing huge sets of data and applying that to novel tasks. They’re used for now-typical things like speech recognition, photo manipulation, as well as more novel tasks, like reproducing what your brain actually sees and creating quirky pickup lines and naming craft beers.

The problem is that neural nets are big, and the computations they run through are power-intensive. The ones in your phone tend to be tiny for that reason, which limits their ultimate practicality. In addition to power decreases, the new MIT chip increases the computation speed of neural networks by three to seven times over earlier iterations. The researchers were able to simplify the machine-learning algorithms in neural networks to a single point, called a dot product. This represents all the back and forth movement of various nodes in the neural network and obviates needing to pass that data back and forth to memory, like in earlier designs. The new chip can calculate dot products for multiple nodes (16 nodes in the prototype) in one step instead of moving the raw results of every computation between the processor and memory.

IBM’s vice president of AI Dario Gil thinks this is an huge step forward. “The results show impressive specifications for the energy-efficient implementation of convolution operations with memory arrays,” he said in a statement. “It certainly will open the possibility to employ more complex convolutional neural networks for image and video classifications in IoT in the future.”

Source: MIT

‘Where The Water Tastes Like Wine’ arrives on February 28th

Two years ago, a trailer dropped at The Game Awards that promised a story about stories. In Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, players would trek across a dusty America, meeting vagabonds and trading tales while folk music trailed in the background. We knew the title was coming early this year even as more exciting news stole headlines, like adding Sting to the voice cast. But we won’t have to wait much longer: Where the Water Tastes Like Wine will arrive on February 28th and retail for $20 on Steam for PC, Mac and Linux.

Where the Water Tastes Like Wine will be released on February 28! That’s… That’s not very far away. https://t.co/QqHrQv5eFv

— Johnnemann

There’s also a special ‘Wayfarer’ edition for $27, which includes digital copies of both an art book for download and the game’s soundtrack by Ryan Ike. Which is pretty cool given how central music is in the game — yes, in setting the tone for your character’s peripatetic jaunt across America, but also in speaking about the American people themselves, eager to remix and reinterpret their histories. The title of Where The Water Tastes Like Wine notably surfaces in a late 60s song by the band Canned Heat, but it formulated much earlier.

“The title comes from a song, but really it comes from a whole tradition of songs,” Johnnemann Nordhagen, founder of the game’s studio Dim Bulb, told Engadget back in 2015. “The earliest known version of the song was recorded in 1924, and doesn’t include the ‘where the water tastes like wine’ lyric. Other musicians added that later, as they took the song and changed it or molded it into new forms. And that’s one of the major themes of the game — this history of folk culture, of sharing ideas and adding your own take. It’s hard to understand, in our current copyright regime, what sharing music and stories used to look like.”

Source: Where the Water Tastes Like Wine (YouTube)

Some HomePod Owners Still Plagued With Setup Issues

Days after the HomePod was released, there are still some new HomePod owners who are unable to use their new speakers due to HomeKit and Wi-Fi-related setup errors.

Because it’s controlled entirely through Apple’s Home app, HomePod connects to HomeKit and relies on a functional HomeKit setup to function properly. Based on reports on Reddit, the Apple Support Communities, and the MacRumors forums, there are a handful of different errors people are running into.

The most common issue seems to be error -6722 or a blank white screen when setting up HomePod, caused by a bugged HomeKit setup. According a HomePod troubleshooting document Apple published this week, there are several possible fixes for the issue.

Image via AppAdvice
First and foremost, devices need to be running the latest version of iOS (iOS 11.2.5 or iOS 11.3 if you’re on a beta) and both the Music and Home apps need to be installed on your device. HomePod also requires both two-factor authentication and iCloud Keychain to be turned on.

If these settings are enabled and you’re still seeing the error message and a screen in the Home app that says “Loading Accessories and Scenes,” Apple says to let the Home app load for 30 minutes or longer until an option to erase and reset app comes up. It’s not immediately clear that you need to run the app for so long to get to that erase option, so make sure to leave it open and running for the full period of time to get to the reset menu.

We had our own issues here at MacRumors, and one of our HomePod setups wasn’t fully functional. We weren’t running into the error message above, but none of the HomePod’s settings were available. We were able to fix this issue by opening up the Home app, tapping the location arrow at the top left of the device, and choosing the “Remove Home” option to nix our current HomeKit setup.

After doing that and creating a new Home with a HomeKit device before attempting to re-add the HomePod, we were able to successfully set up the HomePod with HomeKit, so that’s something other HomePod users with issues might want to try.

Other people have had success resetting the HomePod and trying again, logging out of iCloud, and resetting Wi-Fi, but redoing the HomeKit setup entirely seems to be the most reliable fix. There are. however, instances where even these fixes have not worked for a bugged HomeKit setup, and in that situation, you’re going to need to get in touch with Apple Support for more advanced troubleshooting.

If you’re running into a different setup issue, such as a failed Wi-Fi connection, it’s worth noting that HomePod requires a WPA/WPA 2 Wi-Fi network. Some MacRumors readers were having problems with HomePod not properly recognizing their WPA network, and a reliable fix appears to be unplugging the HomePod and tweaking Wi-Fi settings to disable both auto join and audio login. HomePod does not work with Enterprise Wi-Fi setups or public or subscription networks with sign-in requirements.

Having ongoing HomePod issues with your own HomeKit setup? Let us know in the comments.

Related Roundup: HomePodBuyer’s Guide: HomePod (Buy Now)
Discuss this article in our forums

ASUS, Project Tango, and what could have been (ASUS ZenFone AR Review)

Dat leather, tho.

Though it was released back in the second half of last year, the ASUS ZenFone AR remains an intriguing device, sporting Google’s now-defunct Project Tango on board. Though Tango is gone, its spirit will live on in ARCore – and we can, perhaps, derive a few insights on the ARCore from the apps and functionality built-into Tango on the ZenFone AR. What follows is an honest and unbiased assessment of ASUS’ Project Tango phone, both in the perspective of the past and with the benefit of hindsight.

Build

The last few months of smartphone releases have seen a rather sudden about-face in design standards. Where we used to see unibody, milled alloy frames we now see full-body glass designs – Samsung, HTC, and LG are all firmly on-board that train, because absolutely no one pays attention to Apple’s terrible decisions from 2012, apparently. Crafting a shell out of of glass – no matter how “durable,” as if that’s a thing that a millimeter thick piece of glass can be – was an awful idea when Apple did it, and remains an awful idea with the iPhone X, Galaxy S8, V30, and U11/+. Glass frames may be gorgeous and feel fantastic and absolutely reek of premium, but let’s be blunt with ourselves – when you build a phone with glass, the first thing anyone is going to do is slap a case on it, eradicating all that Fancy in one fell swoop.

Fortunately, the ASUS ZenFone AR wasn’t released in the last few months, so it missed the memo. Instead of that shiny-but-fragile glass exterior that’s en vogue, it’s got the milled, alloy unibody of yester-month. In addition, the back surface is also covered in a soft, burnished black leather that’s quite delightful to the touch. I honestly didn’t know I wanted this in a phone until I handled the ZenFone AR – now I never want to put a case on it.  Unfortunately, my review unit also came stamped with a Verizon logo (which is really a nice touch, but a carrier quite literally imprinting its name on a phone reeks of insecurity to me – and insecurity is not sexy), which hurts the aesthetic a little.

A BUTTON.

Side controls are very standard.

Yup. Side controls.

Type-C and a 3.55mm jack!

Super boring top.

Craziest camera sensor ever.

Dat leather, tho.

Carrier interference aside, the ZenFone AR is a handsome device – sturdy in the hand and with a feel that’s truly pleasing in-hand. I can’t say there’s many phones I’ve touched just to feel them in my hand, but this is one of them.  The phone is mostly made of sleek, clean lines, with two exceptions – the camera bump, and the fingerprint sensor. The former of these is understandable; in a phone that has invested so heavily into its camera – detailed below – it’s perfectly reasonable that it’ll have a larger-than-average impact on the overall frame of the phone. The camera itself is surrounded by a heavy-duty-looking metal plate, which gives it almost an industrial look.

Now for that latter problem; instead of a soft button, a la OnePlus, or a recessed hard-key, like LG’s V30, the fingerprint sensor/Home button is a raised, rectangular hulk of a key that shatters the otherwise elegant profile so lovingly crafted by ASUS.

In older Android devices, we saw a lot of protruding physical buttons – the original devices even had trackballs. But for the most part, we’ve seen a shift to capacitive, software or (at the very least) flat buttons in lieu of physical ones to keep the sleek profile and flat surfaces of a phone unblemished. Why, then has Asus deigned it necessary to have a physical button as its fingerprint sensor/Home button? On a phone with a front face that’s otherwise 100% smooth, there is one, single rectangular button that crushes the dream. Asus likely made it protrude to make the sensor easy to find by touch – and I totally accept that design logic. But after using the OnePlus 3T and its flat, capacitive fingerprint sensor rimmed by a barely-perceptible plastic bumper, the ZenFone AR’s solution just feels like a blunt instrument.

Display

The display on the ASUS ZenFone AR is among the prettiest I’ve ever seen on a smartphone, point blank. It doesn’t have the edge-to-edge display or the 18:9 aspect ratio that’s become so popular since the Galaxy S8 was released, but the quality of the display itself is excellent. At 5.7″, the Super AMOLED screen displays colors with startling vibrancy and, while the 2560 x 1440 resolution renders graphics with great clarity. It’s got solid maximum and minimum brightness settings, performing equally well in bright sunlight and darkened rooms.This performance can possibly be attributed to ASUS’ integrated Tru2Life technology – which sounds suspiciously like a buzzword, but it can call it whatever it likes when the screen looks this good.

Build-wise, the display is a little disappointing when viewed through the lens of modern trends. It’s got a mere 79% screen-to-body ratio, which is a fairly far cry from the 90% we’re seeing on newer releases. Viewed from the time of release, though the display is perfectly adequate. ASUS went with Corning Gorilla Glass 4 on the ZenFone AR – always a good decision when looking to shore-up the (relative) durability of a smartphone’s display. It likely won’t survive a direct drop, but Gorilla Glass 4 is definitely scratch resistant and weathers everyday use admirably.

Internals

When it comes to internal hardware, the ZenFone AR is an interesting beast. It runs a Snapdragon 821 processor with a whopping 8GB of RAM (6GB on the lower tier model), meaning that it can handle all but the most system-intensive apps and multitask like an absolute champ, even in split-screen. Two iterations of Snapdragon processors have hit the market since the 821 was released (with the 845 having just been announced in December), but the 821 is no slouch. Even when pitted head-to-head with LG’s latest and greatest – the V30 – ASUS’ ZenFone AR more than holds its own. While it isn’t quite the bleeding edge, the 821 is still a formidable processor in today’s market. It’s the same chip used in the original Pixel, OnePlus 3T, and LG G6, and a step up from the 820 used in the Galaxy S7, LGV20, and Moto Z Force. The upper tier of the ZenFone AR also features 128GB of storage (64GB on the lower); more than I, personally will ever need and more than enough for most users.

In terms of connectivity, the AR features modern, though not bleeding-edge, standards; Bluetooth 4.2 and 802.11ac Wi-Fi. It would have been great to see Bluetooth 5, since the standard became available for implementation last year – and, apparently, can be enabled via software update – but we can’t rightfully blame ASUS for going with the more mature 4.2 standard when the ZenFone AR was released back in July.

The USB-C connector on the ZenFone AR features QuickCharge 3.0 and BoostMaster Fast Charging which, according to Asus, can take the AR’s  3300mAh battery from 0 to 60(%) in just under 40 minutes. Not quite the speed of Dash Charging on OnePlus phones, but still impressive. That same USB-C connector is also Display-Port compatible, meaning it supports Video Over USB – something that early USB-C adopters like the Nexus 6P didn’t support, much to my chagrin.

Sound-wise, ASUS throws a bunch of buzzwords at consumers to make the ZenFone AR sound like an audial beast; 5-magnet speakers (how many magnets to smartphone speakers normally have?), 140% louder (than…what, exactly?), 17% low-frequency extension (what, even?), and 7.1 channel virtual surround sound (hey, I know what that means!). In practice, the AR’s speakers are noticeably louder than those on my trusty OnePlus 3T, and there’s even a toggle-able “Outdoor Mode” that boosts volume further for use in loud environments – though, why they didn’t just make that boosted volume the top-end of the volume slider, I’ll never know (maybe ASUS’ version of turning the volume up to 11, perhaps?).

The AR also sounds fantastic when plugged into good quality headphones – so while I can’t independently confirm the fancy buzzwords above individually, I can sing the praises of the sound performance of the ZenFone AR as a whole – it’s great. Best, perhaps when plugged into the 3.5mm jack with a high-end, over-ear headset to take advantage of those aforementioned buzzwords, but solidly performing regardless of how you listen – be it the internal speakers, Bluetooth buds, or a full-size headset.

Camera

Craziest camera sensor ever.

Aside from – or perhaps because of – Project Tango, the ZenFone AR’s most impressive feature is its camera – or rather, cameras. Many higher-end phones these days have dual rear cameras for producing Bokeh and Depth-of-Field effects; the ZenFone AR adds one more. The primary sensor is a 23MP beast designed to make your photos look as good as the real world does to your eyes. The other two sensors are more specialized; a depth sensor and a motion-tracking sensor. Individually, these sensors are neat little tricks – combined, though, the trifecta allows the ZenFone AR to track itself in space, measure distance, and – in ASUS’ words – “…to a create a three-dimensional model of its surroundings and track its motion, so it can see the world just like you do.”

In practice, I’ve found the camera to be very impressive, albeit a bit convoluted. There are a total of 17 modes across the rear and selfie cameras, each with its own set of completely customizable options; Auto, Manual, HDR Pro, Beautification, Super Resolution, Children, Low Light, QR, Night, Depth of Field, Filter, Selfie, Panorama, Miniature, Time Rewind, Slow Motion, and Time Lapse. Some of these (like QR, for example) are so wonderfully obvious its a small marvel that Google’s own AOSP app doesn’t have it yet, while others (Child) seem like they should have been left on the cutting room floor.

Modes

• Automatic: Detects the environment and dynamically scales settings for the best possible image. In my experience with the camera, this setting works well for 90% of all the pictures you’ll take.
• Manual: Tweak all the settings in the Automatic mode (of which there are Legion) to your heart’s content to find that perfect shot.
• HDR Pro: “Expands the dynamic range and enhances details in high-contrast or strongly backlit screens” – think shooting into the sun. Honestly, I didn’t notice a whole lot of difference with this mode from Automatic.
• Beautification: Takes your face – with all its beautiful flaws and perfect imperfections – and makes you look like a china doll. When people talk about Instagram filters ruining our perception of beauty, this is what they’re talking about.
• Super Resolution: According to the description of this mode, the camera takes multiple shots and stitches them together to form the best possible image – which sounds a lot like the HDR Burst that Google uses, with a different name.
• Children: This mode takes a picture of people’s faces when they stand still for a moment – why it’s called Children mode, I don’t know. But it works as advertised.
• Low Light: Rather self-explanatory; this mode enhances light sensitivity for clearer pictures in low-light environments without using the flash.
• QR: This one should be in literally every camera app known to man. Scan a QR code.
• Night: This mode features a slower shutter speed – and longer exposure – to capture more light in night-time shots.
• Depth of Field: This is what the cool kids are calling Bokeh – in-focus foreground, out of focus background.
• Filter: Apply one of a dozen or so overlays to your photos.
• Selfie: While it sounds fairly standard, this mode is actually one of my favorites. Using the 23MP rear camera and its sensors, the ZenFone AR detects a number of faces you determine, then starts an audible countdown when everyone is in focus. Very useful for taking group selfies.
• Panorama: Android’s had this one a while.
• Miniature: As someone that likes to paint pewter and plastic miniatures, I assumed this one would help me take pictures of them – in reality, it’s designed to make life-sized objects look like small-scale model. Why? I’m not actually sure.
• Time Rewind: This mode essentially functions as a pre-emptive burst, taking photos up to 3 seconds before and a full second after the shutter is pressed. The phone automatically analyzes the resulting images and shows you the best one – but allows you to choose from any of them. Very interesting, though I have not found a real-world application for it yet.
• Slow Motion: I was really happy with the result of this mode, which is like standard video, but slows down fast-moving objects into slow-motion.
• Time-Lapse: A classic. Renders video in a slower-than-normal framerate and plays it back at normal speeds, so it looks like time is moving much faster than normal.

She organized our books. By Color.

Ooooh, glowy.

Puppy.

Sleepy puppy.

Wine is love.

Look at those greens!

I am Groot.

We are Groot.

Me, no filters.

Me, “Beautified.” It somehow got worse.

Me, using selfie mode – this was auto-detected and auto-taken using the rear camera.

A 28mm fantasy miniature taken on Auto Settings.

Here’s that same miniature with Depth of Field enabled.

Apparently miniatures can be Beautified, too.

Standard HDR picture.

“Super Hi-Res” picture. Looks PRETTY similar.

Terribly creepy wooden bunny that magically appeared in my closet.

Said creepy bunny, in Low Light Mode. Decent improvement.

Project Tango

The idea behind Project Tango was great; pair robust, innovative hardware with software to turn your phone into an augmented reality playground sophisticated and fine-tuned enough for games applications alike. Google saw Tango as a platform that would revolutionize gaming, design and, really, how we interact with the world. Though no longer in development (having been unceremoniously dumped for ARCore last year), we can still glimpse what Tango could have been by exploring the fledgeling ecosystem in the last of the ‘Tango’s – the ASUS ZenFone AR. Even with the project dead, Tango still has a number of functional apps and games still available for download; games. floor-plan mapping, interior design, and virtual reality are all represented in the Store, making use of the ZenFone AR’s additional sensors to craft immersive experiences.

In practice, though, it’s easy to see why Google decided to go in a different direction. Project Tango is a cute trick, but it hardly justifies the need for a ridiculously high-tech camera on a phone that will likely not make near enough use of it. Project Tango, as shipped on the ZenFone AR, is a niche product – it was never going to make a splash with the common consumer, and probably not even with its intended audience. Google’s new solution, ARCore, shouldn’t need the specifications that Tango did – and as such, will not require the (likely expensive) extra hardware that ASUS managed to admirably cram into a smartphone.

Value

At $600+, the ZenFone AR is no budget phone – but with a strong CPU and 6GB of RAM (at minimum!), it still competes with some of the heavyweights on the market at a price that’s a bit lower than most of them, with the added benefit of the very impressive (albeit now-defunct) Google Tango technology. With Tango no longer in development, this is a hard purchase to justify, but the ZenFone AR is an extremely well-performing phone for its price point with gorgeous build quality, an impressive camera, and a beautiful display.

Buy the ASUS ZenFone AR at Amazon