What you missed on CordCutters.com

New hardware, tough losses make for a long week.

It’s been a busy week in the world of cord-cutting. Amazon rolled out the Fire TV Cube, which could well replace a couple of pieces of hardware in many living rooms. And Apple announced some fairly significant updates to Apple TV 4K — but they won’t be ready for public consumption until the fall.

And understandably, many of us are thinking about chef/author/host/badass Anthony Bourdain this weekend. There’s still time to catch his Parts Unknown series on Netflix before it’s off that service.

Here’s the rundown of what you need to read:

• Amazon Fire TV Cube is here: It’s as if an Amazon Echo and Fire TV had a baby. Or something. We’ve got everything you need to know so far, including which Fire TV is right for you.
• What to do when your smart TV goes dumb: We’re seeing more sets with full-blown operating systems, like Android TV, webOS, Roku and Fire OS. But what happens when the TV manufacturer abandons the set before its time?
• Apple’s gorgeous screensavers on Android TV: Yes, you can do it. And, yes, you’ll want it.
• Sonos Beam is a less-expensive Sonos sound bar: Sonos isn’t known for inexpensive products. And while $399 ain’t cheap, the Beam is a welcome addition to the lineup.
• Apple TV 4K will get Dolby Atmos support: Dolby Atmos is the coolest audio feature you probably don’t have yet. (It takes compatible hardware, speakers, and source material.) But it’s coming to Apple TV 4K this fall.

Introducing CordCutters.com

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• How to watch sports
• Join the discussion

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Facebook isn’t the only company that plays loose with your data

Everyone focuses on the easy target when it comes to companies using your personal information, but it’s important to remember that it’s not just a Facebook thing.

Yes, it’s time for another post about Facebook, your privacy, and how everything is bad and makes us all want to hashtag things.

This time, I’m not railing on Facebook for the company’s vampiric harvesting of human dignity (I couldn’t resist) and instead want to remind us all that Facebook’s not alone when it come to reaping our personal information. And unfortunately neither is the company’s poor data handling practices.

There’s a good chance you’re using an Android phone to read this or at least have one in your pocket. That means you’re very familiar with a company that collects a copious amount of user data, even if you don’t know it. That company is, of course, Google.

But it sure takes a lot of it.

Google collects far more data about me than I am comfortable with, and I’m the type who reads all the small print and takes the time to opt out of things I think aren’t of benefit to me. Still, Google collects things like web history, search history, usage data for Chrome and Android and plenty of other seemingly useless information. That’s how the company makes its money.

Google has a clear and understandable document that says the what, how, and when about data collection.

But Google does two things that make me willing to share enough information for services like Google Assistant work: it tells me what it collects and what it does with it, then the company keeps to its word. Chances are that one day there will be a serious data breach on a Google server, but I’m confident that it won’t be because Google doesn’t care how my information is handled. I like that the company seems to be transparent about data collection and that it is willing to spend millions to keep my data secure once it has it.

Unfortunately, not every company is as diligent or as transparent. That becomes an issue when you consider that every single thing you do on every smartphone provides personal information to some company. The manufacturer of your phone collects tons of data, the companies that make the apps you use collect plenty of your data, and even the company that provides you with service is out to grab everything it can about you.

The Facebook logo is 2018’s wanted poster.

We saw that Facebook partnered with a slew of phone makers so that when users logged in on a phone, both Facebook and the manufacturer got a bunch of information about them and their friends. Huawei was singled out for its partnership with Facebook (because someone with a bit of power in the U.S. government hates Huawei) but the company wasn’t given anything that companies like HTC and Samsung weren’t.

Find Friends! Twitter would like to view your contacts. NOPE. NOPE. NOPE.

I know from a short stint with a BlackBerry 10 device (BlackBerry was also one of Facebook’s data sharing partners) how this worked — signing into Facebook let it plunder your address book and share information in many directions. That information included everything from date of birth to political and religious affiliations, as long as that information was shared on Facebook to begin with.

And this isn’t a Facebook thing, either. Services like Twitter and LinkedIn do the same thing and we all have seen those apps ask if we want them to rifle through our contacts to make some experience “better” for us. They don’t bother to tell you that better for you also means everything about you that can be learned through your phone is being kept on a server somewhere. That goes double when you see something like Flipboard Briefing or BlinkFeed as part of the operating system. If you’re asked to sign into a thing, that thing is collecting your data. Full stop.

Let the reaping begin!

I have a little test question I always ask myself whenever I see something in a terms of service agreement about taking my data: Does this thing offer me enough benefit to give away what it is asking for?

Make sure what you’re getting is worth it.

The answer to that question is going to be different for everyone. I give my information to Google so I can use Google Assistant. I meticulously go through Windows 10’s settings and stop the data collection wherever I can. You might prefer Cortana and would do the exact opposite. Or maybe you like both and are OK giving to both companies, or don’t use either and just say no at every turn.

The important thing to remember is that every time you are going to use something new that’s connected to the internet, you need to read and see what you’re giving away and decide if it’s worth it.

Where to buy a replacement Oculus Go controller

Pick me up a new one.

Whether your Oculus Go controller was lost, stolen, or broken, it’s a good idea to be able to find a new one before or after that happens. Maybe if it’s just a simple connection issue, you could possibly fix it instead of replacing it. It might not have been your fault if it was lost or even broken but maybe it was. Either way, replacement is key to get back into your virtual reality. Unfortunately, the only place you can get a replacement is from Oculus themselves.

Since Oculus sells the go as a bundle deal, they don’t generally sell the controllers on their own. The package deal is usually the only way to get on part of the headset, and there isn’t even a way to buy a controller on eBay. Luckily for you, the replacement controller through Oculus isn’t a huge price, as it comes in at only $25.

Seeing as the controller is dier to your Oculus enjoyment, you’re going to have to give over the money in order to play. It could be worse than what you have to pay, and at least you’re not picking it up at a third-party store that might charge you way more than Oculus does. Thankfully, if you’ve spent a few hundred dollars on the headset already, it won’t hurt to give up about thirty dollars.

See at Oculus

Oculus Go

• A parent’s guide to Oculus Go
• Oculus Go vs. Lenovo Mirage Solo
• Best Gamepad for Oculus Go
• Best Battery Backup for Oculus Go

Oculus Go 32GB
Oculus Go 64GB

Studio 19 Solo E500X-EQ review: This expensive speaker is close to perfect

In a world where you typically need to choose between outstanding sound quality or portability, the Studio 19 Solo EQ offers both.

There’s an abundance of speakers out there in 2018 to fit practically any need you have — top-end options from Sonos, smart assistant speakers from Amazon and Google, and a ton of Bluetooth speakers at practically every conceivable price point.

It can be hard to stand out from the pack — but Studio 19’s Solo speakers do not have that problem. From the design and sound quality to its portability, the Solo E500X-EQ is a cut above in the premium speaker market. It’s a top-end speaker for all your home entertainment needs that you can also take with you anywhere because it’s also a portable Bluetooth speaker — the best of both worlds.

Studio 19 Solo E500X-EQ

Price: £399.00 / $524 USD

Bottom line: The Solo is simply one of the most compelling Bluetooth speaker I’ve ever tested, and is by far the coolest piece of tech I’ve tested in 2018. It’s straight up one of the best sounding portable speakers no matter where you take it.

The Good

• Incredible sound quality for the size
• Customizable EQ
• Beautiful design
• Bluetooth support is useful
• Lots of inputs

The Bad

• Very expensive
• Not widely available outside the UK
• Not waterproof
• No smart assistant support

See at Amazon UK

A speaker unlike anything you’ve ever seen or heard before

Designed by Studio 19 from London, UK this speaker makes some really bold claims about its design and sound quality. Unlike other bookshelf speakers, the Solo EQ is designed to be placed on the floor. Standing at just under two feet tall, it’s the biggest standalone speaker I’ve ever used, but every inch of space seems designed to maximize playback quality.

Looking at the schematic on the side of the box, the majority of the speaker is a cavernous space used to boost bass — to great effect. When I cranked it to the max with some bass-heavy music I could feel the whole room shake with every thumping beat. The speaker array in the top section feature four speaker drivers arranged to deliver 360-degree sound that sounds as good as any sound system I’ve heard.

The distinct highs and lows from techno and hip-hop music, in particular, sounded fantastic on the Solo EQ, but anything you play through this speaker will sound amazing. There are distinct modes available for watching movies or playing videos which come pre-programmed to highlight different sound details. Movie mode will keep the ambient, dialogue, and soundtrack levels balanced while testing the gaming mode playing Half-Life 2 was somehow as immersive as playing the game wearing headphones.

There are three ways to connect the speaker to your favorite media — 3.5mm AUX input, HDMI, or Bluetooth. Connecting via Bluetooth is fast and secure, and thanks to the speaker’s size, the connection range is really strong.

Incredible sound that’s ultra portable

The most surprising part of the Solo EQ beyond how great it sounds is that it’s essentially a wireless Bluetooth speaker. It’s sort of shocking to use a portable speaker that sounds this good. Designed with an 8800mAh battery, you should be able to get up to 8 hours of playback before it needs to be charged via USB-C.

It’s sort of shocking to use portable speaker that sounds this good.

If you’re planning to use the speaker in a remote location where you won’t be able to easily recharge the speaker from a wall outlet, I’ve tested powering the speaker using a portable battery pack and it worked just fine. If you’re planning to keep this speaker in your home, you can leave it plugged in with a standard smartphone charger and USB-C cable — although it seems like a bit of an oversight to not include a hardwired option or the necessary charging equipment in the box (only a USB-C cable arrived with my review sample).

Designed to stand out and impress

I like putting any speaker I review through the paces in different real-life scenarios, and the Solo EQ performed beyond my expectations in every situation.

The Solo EQ managed to consistently fill the space with crystal clear audio.

Studio 19 claims its patented DPAC system will produce space-filling, high-fidelity sound with full bass that will match or surpass any conventional subwoofer you’ve heard before — and damn if it didn’t live up to those lofty expectations. Whether you plan to primarily use it in a smaller bedroom or office, as an all-in-one unit for your home entertainment setup in the living room, or take it with you outside or in bigger, cavernous spaces such as a community centre gym, the Solo EQ managed to consistently fill the space with crystal clear audio.

I’ve been bringing it along with me to my weekly dodgeball games to test how the speaker would contend in a bigger, noisier space. Not only did the speaker turn heads, it also performed amazingly at filling the entire gym with music that carried over the busy sounds of the game.

Not all sunshine and roses

As much as I’ve loved using the Solo EQ, there are some shortcomings that need to be addressed. For starters, there’s a somewhat weird bug where if you have your phone paired to the speaker via Bluetooth with nothing playing, occasionally the speaker will let out some troubling clicking sounds. It only seems to happen when the speaker is connected and left idle, but it certainly doesn’t sound healthy when it happens. It sounds like the speaker is dying, but I haven’t noticed any lasting effects from it.

Because of the analog graphical equalizer on top, there’s no waterproofing here at all. This is fine if you’re content with keeping it indoors, but with a portable speaker of this quality you’re going to want to take with you to the cabin, or outside for a patio party, and so it would have been a nice feature to include somehow. Another minor want: it would have been nice if the bottom light was customizable RGB, or could be synced to bounce along to the beat of the music.

The only other issue is that because this is a UK-based company, international shipping might be a bit of a pain. Studio 19 sells the speaker for £399 via Amazon UK, but for customers elsewhere in the world you’ll need to buy directly from the Studio 19 website. It’s also a premium product, starting at $534 USD before shipping costs which puts it in the same range as the Sonos Play:5 or Google Home Max except you lose out on the connected features of those speakers for the ultimate portability offered by the Solo EQ.

Final Thoughts: A worthy consideration

The Solo is simply one of the most compelling Bluetooth speaker I’ve ever tested, and is by far the coolest piece of tech I’ve tested in 2018. It’s straight up one of the best sounding portable speakers no matter where you take it.

4.5
out of 5

It’s a shame that Studio 19’s international distribution network is so limited, because I could see this speaker really catching on if people could hear it for themselves or buy it from a reliable source such as Amazon. Everyone I’ve shown this speaker to have been impressed by the sound quality and design. If this is your first time hearing about Studio 19 and their products, I’d say they’re a company worth keeping an eye on as they continue to refine their uniquely designed speakers.

See at Studio 19

How 20th century check fraud is helping prevent 21st century data theft

How do you prove you are who you say you are? That might seem like an easy question to answer, but in a world where your most personal of private information can be harvested from your credit agency or social networking account, that ease is a problem. Fraudsters and criminals can also prove they’re you, using surprisingly little information.

That’s the puzzle Ori Eisen is hoping to solve with the Trusona password-free authentication system. It offers middle-man validation services to companies all over the world, in hopes of improving the protection of everyone’s digital data. He’s using the expertise of 20th century fraudsters like Frank Abagnale, famously depicted in the movie Catch Me If You Can, to shore up our modern digital defenses against classic social engineering tactics.

Digital Trends: Frank Abagnale is probably known by most as the subject of the 2002 movie Catch Me If You Can based on his escapades in the ’60s with check fraud and impersonation. How did you two become involved together?

Ori Eisen: The short version is that while I was working for one of the largest credit card companies, I was asked in addition to my internet responsibilities, to learn about all about counterfeiting of cards, which I didn’t know anything about. There’s no book or university degree on that subject, so I asked, who can teach me? The name Frank Abagnale came up again and again, it’s just that he doesn’t take new students.

The “Money Men” visiting @FairFX -with the one and only Frank Abagnale. Let the #NoPasswords Revolution begin. @trusona_inc pic.twitter.com/soAYZ3Vn7u

— Ori Eisen (@orieisen) December 7, 2017

I begged him for months and months to meet me and help me because through me he could help curb crime because I would take his knowledge and go and beat the bad guys. Eventually he agreed to the meeting and we’ve been working together ever since.

Although today Abagnale operates a consultancy firm, his expertise comes from a time when computers were incredibly rare and incomparable to the digitally-enhanced world we enjoy today. How is his input useful in the modern age?

The word “Trusona” is a fusion of True and Persona and in order to know who the true persona is, you have to go through a process called identity proofing. First let’s establish who you are as a person [because…] there is no authentication without identity proofing. How can I authenticate it is you if I don’t prove it is you to begin with?

“There is no authentication without identity proofing.”

Frank is really good at helping us think through in that moment when you conduct identity proofing, how to spot a fake document. How a bad guy would replace a picture of Frank with a picture of Steven Spielberg. How would you beat the certificate or how would you beat the black ink on the document or all the fine microprint. He really knows a lot about those documents because governments use them in that process.

In the journey of devising a way to find out who the true persona is, in many cases where we would have come up with a solution, he basically showed us how you could beat it very easily. So it was like playing chess until you come to the point where he could not beat what we were doing.

What kind of systems did you develop that were protected against the kind of social engineering attacks that Frank Abagnale is so effective at implementing?

When Trusona debuted, we launched with a curve that says what are you trying to protect, and that is the level of service we provide. In all of them, there won’t be any kind of password.

Different service levels require different levels of reveal. Our basic level, called “Essential,” is only asking you to provide an email address that we send an email to verify you indeed have access to it. There’s no documents involved, no pictures, nothing like that. That can tie you to an account, for media streaming or similar. Because it’s good enough. It still uses our anti-replay technology, so that even if bad guys were listening in to it, they couldn’t reuse it.

Our next level is “Executive.” That level says, ‘ok you can still be in your house, but in addition to your email, I want you to scan remotely, either a passport or a driving license.’ It’s not Trusona telling you to do it, we’re only completing the request of our partners. So, you’re trying to do something with your bank or to do something with your healthcare, and on their behalf we do it. Trusona does not store any of this data, because we don’t want to become the next hot potato for a bad guy.

The third level is called “Elite” and it asks you for an email, and to scan your document remotely, and to show yourself up in person. We only ask you to do that once, to connect you to a very strong credential. It’s not that every time you need to take a selfie or video, because that’s the only level that an underwriter will insure. It’s not for mass market, it’s for unique situations, but that is the only way to know the true persona, which is what our business is all about.

What about the growth in deepfakes and AI-driven video manipulation software that makes it possible to create lifelike video and images of people on the fly? Does that pose a threat to your “Elite” level?

Companies like Adobe released the equivalent for Photoshop for live video. It can imitate voice and face […] To go beyond that, you would have to begin with in-person identity proofing, meaning I need to meet you in real life, and with your documents, to establish that it’s you. You can not do it remotely. But not every use case requires that. It really depends what you’re trying to protect. If HBO wants to allow you to watch a movie, they don’t need that level of security. But if Goldman Sachs wants to move $50 million for Steven Spielberg, they might need that level of security.

Did you ever have Frank Abagnale try to social engineer Trusona employees?

In order to become the world’s first authenticated company – nobody else has taken these steps, because it’s not simple — we have to first protect our own data from our own employees. What if you kidnapped one of them and told us ‘I’ll only release them if you give me access to the keys?’

Right from the get go we spent a year in stealth mode and designed a system that even if you put a gun to my head I can’t help you. That includes our head of engineering and everyone else who built the system, because I explained to them, in order to protect the world from the bad guys, we can’t be the weakest link in the chain and they understand. That’s why we have to take very special people to sign up to this mission.

“[We] designed a system where even if you put a gun to my head, I can’t help you”

We also don’t store any hot potatoes. If you hacked us today, and we’ve done a lot of pen tests with different companies, all you get is one way hash of data. If I took your email, it’s one way hash. If I took anything about a transaction, it’s one way hashed, so you can never revert it back to the data because we don’t know what the raw value is.

If we were hacked by a nation state, which I expect to happen any day now, they would find something that was useless. We announced our insurance on May 6 2016 – two years ago. Ever since, 13 percent of our web hits are coming from Russia. And we don’t have a single customer there, we don’t have a single sales person there. That’s a lot for people we aren’t doing business with!

The third is training. I can tell you that even at our support guy, who takes support calls […] we train them to take calls from people like ‘Donald Trump.’ We are very adept at faking phone calls and making it look really legit, to make it seem like the president is calling you. We know how to do that because we are hackers. It’s the steps, the questions, not just saying yes to everything, that makes us as strong as we can be. Because we realize that the more pervasive we become, we are ourselves becoming a target.

What about legitimate demands from government agencies? Is Trusona data protected from the real Donald Trump?

We have had many dealings with three letter agencies, but the design is such that I can’t do it, even if you wanted me to. I don’t know what the data is. You can subpoena me today, and tell me to give you all the data on [a client]. Ok I’ll get the subpoena and I’ll reply if you can tell me which ones of our records are theirs, then you can have it, but I don’t know.

One of the most talked about digital systems in recent years has been blockchain technology. Today it’s used by governments and organizations to protect the veracity of data. Is it an effective tool for improving privacy and data protection too?

Blockchain technology is one of the most amazing inventions of our time, hard stop. However, many people make the link that if it’s mathematically correct they are immutable in real life and that’s where Frank Abagnale will just laugh at you.

Data security is failing and there has to be a better system. Blockchain creates a secure, unalterable public record and is poised to dramatically improve the world around you, from voting systems to rental contracts.

If I make a fake document of Jon Martindale and I go to a bank and apply with it and they put into a blockchain, by the time you will figure out that it wasn’t you and you’ll try to undo it, how will you expunge it from the blockchain? It’s the “GIGO” principle, garbage in garbage out.

Making a technology that’s mathematically perfect, is wonderful. I actually think that everyone who buys a house should have it on a blockchain so you can never lose your house. There’s a lot of good applications for that, but to say that that will solve the core identity problem is a falsehood. The problem was never about how to store the data, it was: How do I know who is who in the zoo?

With so many major hacks and data thefts taking place, it’s easy for people to feel powerless in protecting their data. Do you have any security recommendations for our readers that they can use to help protect themselves?

There is a very simple tip I’ll give them. Until we live in a world with no passwords, my only advice is change your passwords. It doesn’t cost you anything. Even if passwords were stolen yesterday, changing them is like changing the lock on your door. For the most important things in your life, your bank your healthcare, put a calendar entry and every month, every quarter, at a minimum once a year, change your passwords. The fact that we are creatures of habit is working against us.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Meet the 21st-century game show in the form of the Hangtime app
• Comcast once again challenges Disney for 21st Century Fox movie and TV assets
• Before crypto nirvana, blockchain needs to solve these basic problems
• Is there horse in your hamburger? How blockchain could fight food fraud
• From the doctor to the DMV, blockchain can make governments swift and secure

Why a 19-year-old Bitcoin millionaire built a working Dr. Octopus suit

What would you do with $3.3 million in the bank? Actually, let us rephrase that: What would you do with $3.3 million in the bank as a 19-year-old kid? If you’re anything like Erik Finman, the answer is simple: you build a robotic suit. But more on that later.

If Finman’s name sounds faintly familiar it’s because he is known in certain internet circles for being the world’s youngest bitcoin millionaire. He’s that fabled — both fêted and jealously hated — of things: the “early adopter” success story. Aged 12, while most of us were still putting away childish things at middle school, Finman was being introduced to cryptocurrency in a somewhat unlikely way: at an anti-capitalist protest.

Erik Finman/Instagram

“My oldest brother took me,” he told Digital Trends. “When we were in the middle of getting tear gassed, I was learning about bitcoin. Bitcoin was revolutionary, it was all about ‘keeping down Wall Street, bro.’” A bit like the countercultural impulse which sparked the early personal computer industry, bitcoin arose out of a distrust of centralized government and politicians’ ability to manage the world. “Couldn’t we do a better job ourselves?” the early bitcoin enthusiasts wondered. And, at least as far as 12-year-old Finman was concerned, yes they could.

Bitcoin wasn’t, he said, too difficult to get into at the time, provided that you knew about it. Heck, there were things called bitcoin faucets, which handed out free bitcoin to whoever was interested. Finman was interested, and when his grandmother gave out $1,000 of inheritance money to her grandchildren, he spent it all on the fledgling cryptocurrency; then just three years old.

When his grandmother gave out $1,000 of inheritance money to her grandchildren, he spent it all on cryptocurrency.

“People knew it would go up, and thought they would make money on it, but they didn’t [necessarily] see it as an investment,” he continued. “People said it would go up to $100 one day, or $200, or $10,000 or $1 million. They’d say that, but they didn’t truly, truly believe that.” Finman likens the belief in bitcoin to our desire for world peace. “You hope for world peace, but you kind of don’t expect it at the same time.”

Elon Musk meets Martin Shkreli

Cash so worthless compared to Bitcoin I'm sleeping on it…

A post shared by ERIK FINMAN (@erikfinman) on Dec 21, 2017 at 9:33am PST

Before long bitcoin was everything to Finman. He hated school and his teachers. “School just wasn’t for me,” he said. “I had one teacher who told me to drop out and go work in McDonald’s, because that was all I was going to amount to in life.” Eventually he dropped out altogether, although he didn’t immediately take up the job of short-order fry cook. Instead, he spent hours studying bitcoin’s fluctuations online. When he started out, a single bitcoin cost around $10.

His $1,000 therefore gave him 100 bitcoins, which he worked hard to grow to hundreds of coins. “It was like in a video game where you’re trying to collect more and more points. I was collecting more and more coin.” Aged 15, he sold around $100,000 worth of bitcoin and started an online business, linking up different thinking students like himself with virtual teachers around the world. Naturally, his new business accepted bitcoin as payment. And the collection grew.

So did the valuation: creeping up all the time as more and more folks started to hear about it. “When it went up to $20, I was excited,” Finman said. “When it hit $100 and then $300, those were huge milestones. That was a fun time. It was unstoppable.” At its height, on 15 December 2017, a single bitcoin reached $17,900. (Its price quickly dropped by one-third in 24 hours, and today is around the $8,200 mark.) At present, Finman owns 401 bitcoins, which carries a current value of just under $3.3 million.

Finman made an agreement with his parents — both of whom hold Ph.Ds — that if he had made his first million by 18 he wouldn’t have to go to college. He did, so he didn’t. Instead, he did what plenty of young brash internet-savvy rich kids would do. He travelled. He took part in a Reddit AMA and gave a TedX talk. He was the subject of articles for websites like Bro Bible with titles such as “This 18-Year-Old High School Dropout Is Now A Millionaire Thanks To Investing In Bitcoin.”

He posted Instagram-filtered pictures of himself stepping off private jets or lounging on a bed covered in dollar bills like a figurative mashup of characters from American Beauty and American Psycho. When “haters” complained about the latter photo, he dismissed the picture as “sarcastic and satirical,” and issued a statement saying that, “I’m sorry for posting photos on a bed of dollars intead of a pile of bitcoin.” Which is to say, it wasn’t an apology at all.

He cultivated a personality online that was one part Elon Musk, one part gangsta rap cliché, one part “Pharma bro” Martin Shkreli, and the remainder one of those unskippable YouTube ads featuring a guy with expensive cars lined up in the background, talking about how you (yes, you!) can turn your life by following his example.

Turning to the light side

But this is where the robot suit comes into it and, with it, what hints at the maturation of Erik Finman. The suit, which is really more of a wearable robotic prostheses, is modeled on the four-armed contraption belonging to Doctor Octopus in the Spider-Man comics. The idea is that these highly advanced mechanical arms can give their wearer the ability to augment their abilities with the addition of four extra limbs.

Finman’s exosuit was created using 3D printing, with the arms controlled via rear-mounted microcontrollers and eight motors which power the thing; driving its arms and allowing it to lift objects. The user controls the arms using the two middle fingers on each hand, fitted into a glove which allow all four arms to be manipulated on multiple axis. But, crucially, this wasn’t created for Finman.

It was made for a 10-year-old kid named Aristou Meehan.

Meehan is the son of one of Finman’s mentors, who suffers from hypermobility issues. “He was incredibly strong because of that,” he said. “He came up with this idea — because he’s a huge comic book fan, a huge Spider-Man fan — of having his own Doctor Octopus suit. He said that would solve my problems. I thought that was such a smart idea and sweet. For me, it would have been so great if someone had helped me at that age. So I felt like a kindred spirit in a lot of ways.”

Finman invested some of his bitcoin money in building the suit, and worked with a “ragtag team of engineers” to make it a reality. Meehan couldn’t have been more thrilled with the result, which he debuted at Comic-Con to much acclaim. Right now, it’s not exactly practical as more than a tech demo (although Finman makes a point of noting that it’s made Meehan “incredibly popular at school”).

However, he hopes to expand the project into a more practical device which could be used in a variety of different ways. “Right now, it’s like a concept car,” he said. “But I’ve been talking with a lot of people who are interested in doing more with it.” He is additionally planning on open-sourcing the design in the near future.

Finman has also bought back his old company Botangle, the one he sold at 15 years old, and aims to make it into a leading education platform. What could be better than helping out other kids to get the education they deserve?

More moonshots, less Jäger shots

So is the self-styled teen bitcoin bad boy turning good? Perhaps. Ultimately, Erik Finman casts a light on the intriguing next generation of hopeful entrepreneurs: an internet-savvy iGen representative whose vision of success is a blend of Google moonshots and, well, Jäger shots. Will the former increasingly outweigh the latter in terms of his priorities?

Under the overcompensating bombast, Finman is a smart guy with his heart in the right place.

We think so, and the evidence is hopefully beginning to mount that it will. Under the overcompensating bombast, Finman is a smart guy with his heart in the right place — and the brains and resources to make a lot of his dreams happen.

Even if, secretly, his story just makes us wish we’d invested in bitcoin back in the day!

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• Google Home review
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Does wireless charging degrade your battery faster? We asked an expert

Wireless charging has been around for a long time, but it has taken a while to catch on for phones. There were some definite limitations when it first entered the scene, but problems like the need for precise placement or incredibly slow charging speeds have melted away as the technology has improved.

Samsung was quick to adopt wireless charging in its Galaxy phones, but the technology’s popularity has reached an all time high thanks to its adoption in Apple’s iPhones last year. A potentially tricky standards war also seems to have been won by the Wireless Power Consortium with the wide adoption of the Qi standard.

We’ve been big fans of wireless charging for a few years now. Not having to fumble around with a cable when you want to charge up your phone’s battery is great, especially if it’s dark and you’re trying to avoid waking your partner. But as wireless charging has taken off, a few people have started to ask if there’s a hidden cost. We’ve seen a few articles, forum discussions, and comments suggesting that wireless charging might degrade your battery faster than traditional wired charging. We decided to investigate and find out if there’s any truth to this supposition.

How does a phone battery work?

Our smartphones use lithium-ion batteries. Cells have two electrodes – a cathode and an anode — with an electrolyte in between which allows the lithium ions to move between the electrodes. When you charge they go from positive to negative, and when you discharge they move in the opposite direction.

Dr. Daniel Abraham

“Electrical energy is changed into chemical energy during charging and the reverse happens during discharge,” Dr. Daniel Abraham, senior scientist at the Argonne Laboratory, told Digital Trends.

The battery manufacturer decides how much energy can be stored in the cell, and that determines how much energy you have available to use.

“The manufacturer decides the upper cut off voltage and the lower cut off voltage, which are fixed, and cells cycle between the two voltage ranges,” Dr. Abraham explained. “As long as you choose the voltage range appropriately, you can cycle the cell thousands of times.”

“It doesn’t matter if you have a wireless or wired charger.”

It’s not possible to exceed these limits by leaving your phone on the wireless charging pad for too long, or by leaving it plugged in overnight. You also can’t drain the cell beyond the lower cut off limit dictated by the manufacturer. These limits don’t distinguish between power sources.

“It doesn’t matter if you have a wireless or wired charger,” Dr. Abraham said. “You won’t be able to overcharge or over-discharge a cell.”

What about cycle limits?

Different batteries have different standards, but it’s accepted that beyond a certain number of charge cycles, a battery is going to degrade. In the case of Apple’s iPhone devices, for example, batteries are designed to retain up to 80 percent of original capacity after 500 complete charge cycles.

One of the criticisms levelled at wireless charging, as explained in this ZDNet article, is that when phones charge via the cable the battery gets a rest, but when they charge on a wireless charging pad it doesn’t. Therefore, the battery goes through its limited number of cycles faster with wireless charging and degrades faster. But is this true?

Simon Hill/Digital Trends

“A phone’s battery is not drained when you use it while charging wirelessly,” Menno Treffers, chairman of the Wireless Power Consortium, told Digital Trends. “This is a misunderstanding.”

“A phone’s battery is not drained when you use it while charging wirelessly.”

If you want to slow down charge cycles, the simplest way is to cut the amount of power you use. A rogue app that’s continually sending data in the background, or an area of poor cell connectivity where your phone is trying to boost the signal to connect, are both potentially more damaging to your battery longevity than your charging habits.

As you would expect, the manufacturing process is also important in determining battery longevity.

“The quality of the materials used makes a big difference to how long the battery lasts,” Dr. Abraham explained. “You may end up getting what you pay for.”

Potential benefits of wireless charging

While there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that wireless charging degrades your smartphone battery faster than wired charging, there are a few tangible benefits. Wear and tear on the charging port is reduced, something that often leads to faults and requires repair.

“The chargers themselves also have no wear and tear,” Treffers said. “That is ideal for public charging infrastructure in hotels, vehicles, restaurants, and trains.”

Then there’s the idea that you should ideally keep your battery partially charged. We looked into whether it’s okay to leave your smartphone plugged into the charger overnight before, and got the advice that your battery will last longer if it stays between 50 and 80 percent.

“By continually topping up the phone battery during the day, as you might do with wireless charging, and not letting your phone battery dip below 50%, you will actually increase the lifespan of your battery,” Treffers claimed. “According to research we have seen, battery lifetime actually increases by 4x when the depth of discharge – or amount that the battery is drained – is limited to 50 percent, rather than 100 percent.”

So far, so good, but wireless charging isn’t perfect. Apart from the slower charging speed, it’s also important to consider temperature.

Feeling the heat

“Performance degradation of cells is affected by time, temperature, and voltage limit,” Dr. Abraham explained. “To increase the amount of energy stored in the cell, manufacturers keep pushing the voltage limits.”

We can’t stop time, and the voltage limits are set by the manufacturer, so that leaves temperature.

“Performance degradation of cells is affected by time, temperature, and voltage limit.”

Have you ever noticed your phone heating up when it’s wirelessly charging? If you charge it up with a case on, or you don’t have it properly seated on the charging pad, then you might notice that it gets even warmer.

“Most phone batteries are damaged by exposure to heat, which is why it’s important to ensure that the charger is Qi-certified,” Treffers explained. “Certified devices are tested rigorously to help ensure safety, interoperability and energy efficiency – this helps to ensure that temperatures do not rise to dangerous or damaging levels.”

It seems that temperature, rather than charging routine, is what we should be paying attention to if we want our smartphone batteries to last for as long as possible. Many of the best wireless chargers have fans and cooling systems built in. But it’s not an issue that’s confined to wireless charging – you probably notice your phone heating up when it’s plugged in too.

Amazon

If you’re concerned, then don’t leave your phone sitting in direct sunlight on the windowsill or in a hot car. Don’t use your phone to play a graphically-intensive game while it’s plugged in and charging. And don’t use uncertified wireless charging pads or wired chargers.

Ultimately, much depends on the manufacture process, the settings that phone makers select, and how you use your phone, but as charging speeds and battery capacity are pushed ever higher, battery longevity may be a casualty.

We’ve noticed that fast charging via wired chargers, technology that is getting speedier all the time, can make your phone very hot, which can’t be good for the battery, but that’s another question. As for this one – the short answer is no, wireless charging does not degrade your battery faster.

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Complete the new Developer Economics Survey: Voice your opinion and win a Galaxy S9!

Developers – Now is the time to share your opinions and enter to win amazing prizes like a Galaxy S9!

Is JavaScript giving you headaches? Do you wish other developers knew how important Swift and Rust will be in the coming years? It’s your chance to turn your opinions into a tool of change! The new Developer Economics survey is open NOW, calling out all software developers to take part. Start right away!

Don’t miss a chance to join over 40,000 developers from 160+ countries who take part in the Developer Economics surveys every year to tell the world where software development is going next.

Who can take the survey?

Pretty much everyone writing code and getting their hands on software development in Mobile, Desktop, IoT, AR/VR, Machine Learning & Data Science, Web, Backend and Games. It doesn’t matter if you’re a hobbyist, a startupper or an enterprise dev — the survey is open for all real developers out there!

What sort of questions are they asking?

The survey is designed to dive into real-life developer issues, from coding skills and favorite tools to satisfaction with learning resources and communities.

Expect questions like:

• Which are your favorite tools and platforms and why?
• Are you getting value from the available dev resources?
• What are your goals for coding?

Ready to take the survey?

Why should you take the survey?

It’s fun, for starters! The survey is designed to reveal your sci-fi profile, so the more you engage, the closer you get to finding out your place in the galaxy far, far away.

Then there are the PRIZES. This time, devs who complete the survey can win stuff like a Samsung S9+, an HTC Vive Pro, an iPhone X, GitHub Developer Plans, Amazon vouchers and other useful things to help you test your work or just play around. You can also take part in the referral program, which allows you to with up to $700 in cash by referring other developer friends to take the survey.

This year we’re introducing a novelty – SlashData will donate funds to a coding charity to support their mission. We want to give back to the community, and we hope this encourages developers to take our survey and be a part of something larger and truly meaningful.

And last but not least, everyone who takes the survey will get insights with key findings from the survey, as well as a free report with the highlights and up-and-coming trends.

If you have a few minutes to spare and want to have a quality time, then this survey is for perfect for you! You can start right here. Extra tip: if you need to take a break, just click to save your responses and then you can come back and continue where you left off.

Good luck!

Take the survey now!

Acer Chromebook Spin 11 review

Research Center:

Acer Chromebook Spin 11

Though more premium options keep popping up, Chromebooks were always meant to be a cheap alternative to Windows and Mac. So, if your budget is under $500 for laptop, they are a great place to start.

Acer’s new Chromebook Spin 11 is a budget-oriented 2-in-1 that goes for just $350. For that price, you get an Intel Celeron N3350 dual-core CPU, 4GB of RAM, and 32GB of eMMC storage. It’s a smaller convertible 2-in-1, with an 11.6-inch IPS display at 1,366 x 768 (140 PPI) and a bundled Wacom pen for drawing and taking notes on the touch- and pen-enabled panel.

Chrome OS is an increasingly popular platform for users with relatively light computing needs, but does the Chromebook Spin 11 bring enough 2-in-1 functionality to the table?

An all-plastic, nondescript design

While commercial versions of the Chromebook Spin 11 are designed to meet the rigors of MIL-SPEC 810G certification, our review unit was a consumer model with a thinner, lighter, and less robust build. That’s not to say it’s poorly built, and in fact, that’s not the case — outside of some minor flex on the bottom of the chassis, the Spin 11 is solid enough for the price. But some competitors, such as the Asus Chromebook Flip C101PA, offer metal chassis that offer a little bit extra for the money.

At the same time, both 2-in-1s have hinges that in our testing reliably allowed the displays to flip all the way around to a tablet format. The Spin 11’s hinge, in particular, was firm enough to hold the screen in place no matter the mode, whether clamshell, tent, media, or tablet.

Generally, the Chromebook Spin 11 is more than robust enough for a casual home user who’s looking for an inexpensive 2-in-1, and its light plastic chassis (2.76 pounds) is easy enough to carry around. It’s not the thinnest notebook at around at 0.79 inches, which given its smallish frame makes it seem like a rather chunky little machine. Once again, we’ll compare to the Chromebook Flip, which sports a 10.1-inch display and so is smaller, thinner at 0.6 inches, and lighter at just two pounds.

Comparing the Spin 11’s performance to other Chromebooks left us decidedly unimpressed.

Regarding its aesthetics, the Chromebook Spin 11 isn’t going to win any awards, but neither is it an embarrassment. The newest version has a silver cross-hairline pattern on the lid that gives it a slightly more premium texture and appearance, but otherwise, this is a simple silver-gray design that’s rather mundane.

In terms of connectivity, there’s plenty to go around. Two USB-C 3.1 ports supporting data, DisplayPort, and charging provide for some future-proofing, while two USB-A 3.0 ports provide for legacy support. There’s also a micro-SD card reader and 3.5mm combo audio jack to go with the 2X2 MU-MIMO 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2 radios.

Perfectly competent 2-in-1 input options

The Chromebook Spin 11 serves up the typical island keyboard with black keys and white lettering, and as mentioned earlier it’s spill-proof and so can withstand the occasional splash of water. The key mechanism offers plenty of travel with a soft bottoming action, but there’s less tactile feedback than we like resulting in a bit of a spongy feel. It’s typical for the class of machine, with the slightly more expensive Asus Chromebook Flip C302C offering a similar feel.

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

The touchpad is large relative to the available space on the small keyboard deck, and it provides a smooth and precise feel. General cursor control was just fine, with Chrome OS gesture support and good control over the platform’s most important environment, the Chrome browser.

Next, there’s an included Wacom EMR stylus that allows for taking notes, creating sketches, and generally doing all of the inking that Chrome OS supports. It’s not quite as complete an experience as you’ll find with Windows 10 Ink, but it’s nevertheless a nice value-add. Also, performance in Chrome OS apps was fine, but there was some lag when inking in Android apps like Microsoft’s OneNote. The stylus is unpowered and durable.

The display was fine for basic productivity, but its multimedia performance disappoints.

Notably, there’s no biometric login support, and so you’ll be relegated to typing in your Google account password. The touchscreen display is responsive and provides a satisfying experience when running Android apps, which are now available to download on all new Chromebooks.

A small display that’s not too sharp

The Chromebook Spin 11 gets its name from the 11.6-inch IPS panel that runs at a native resolution of 1,366 x 768, or 135 PPI. That means you’ll see some pixels in text and graphics won’t be the sharpest, and you won’t be able to enjoy Netflix at Full HD quality. And the extremely large bezels mean that the display seems even smaller than it is. Ultimately, this is what you’re going to get at this price point, as the very similar display on the Asus Flip C101 demonstrates.

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

The audio was equally underwhelming, with just enough volume but some distortion and a muddied experience when things are turned all the way up. Sound quality is fine for a quick YouTube video, but you’ll want to pull out some headphones for music, movies, and TV.

Sluggish performance mars the experience

The Chromebook Spin 11 uses a Celeron N3350 CPU, a low-end dual-core processor that runs at a base clock of 1.1GHz and tops out at 2.4GHz. We can’t run our usual battery of benchmark tasks on Chrome OS machines and so comparing to similarly equipped Windows machines is difficult.

Battery life was very good for productivity tasks, allowing for a full day at work or at school.

But comparing the Spin 11 to the similarly priced Asus Flip C101, not to mention slightly more expensive options like the Asus Flip C302, left us decidedly unimpressed. Chrome browsing was speedy enough with a handful of tabs open, but despite the generous 4GB of RAM, things slowed down significantly when we hit 10 or more tabs. Chrome OS apps like Google Docs were a bit sluggish on occasion, with intermittent lag when typing and editing.

Also, Android apps were particularly slow. That’s not the Spin 11’s native platform, of course, but we’ve seen better performance on many other Chromebooks. While the Asus Flip C101 was a similar performer, the $550 Samsung Chromebook Pro with its Intel Core M3-6Y30 CPU was significantly speedier when running Android apps.

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

To confirm our subjective experience, we ran Geekbench 4 for Android to compare to the Acer Chromebook 15 that uses a quad-core Pentium N4200. The Spin 11 scored 1,500 in the single-core test and a surprisingly low 1358 in the multi-core test. The Chromebook 15 scored 1,559 in the single-core test and 4,884 in the multi-core test, and even the Asus Flip C101 with its Rockchip CPU was faster in the multi-core test at 3,200.

The Spin 11 was equipped with 32GB of eMMC storage, which isn’t nearly as fast as the solid-state disks you’ll find in Windows and MacOS notebooks. It’s plenty fast for Chrome OS, though, and we didn’t find accessing files to be a bottleneck. There’s 19.7GB free after Chrome OS is accounted for, and users can expand storage via the micro SD card reader.

Acer Chromebook Spin 11 Compared To

Google Pixelbook

Acer Chromebook 15 (2017)

Asus Chromebook Flip C101PA

Asus Chromebook Flip C302CA

Acer Chromebook R 11

Lenovo Ideapad 100S Chromebook

Dell Chromebook 11 Touch

Lenovo Yoga 11e Chromebook

Lenovo N20p Chromebook

Samsung Chromebook 2

Acer C720P-2600

Acer Aspire P3

Acer C7 Chromebook

Samsung Chromebook Series 3

Panasonic Toughbook W2

Given the 2-in-1’s generally slow performance, don’t plan on running more graphically-intensive Android games. The CPU’s integrated Intel HD Graphics 500 solution works for some casual gaming, but we’d recommend avoiding anything more than the occasional game of Solitaire or Angry Birds.

Decent enough productivity battery life

While we were disappointed with the Spin 11’s performance, the combination of the Celeron CPU and small, low-res display provided more mixed results when it came to battery life. According to Acer, the 37 watt-hours of battery capacity should go for around eight hours when browsing the web and around 13.5 hours when playing video.

When running general productivity tasks, the Spin 11 mostly lived up to Acer’s expectations. On our most demanding Basemark web benchmark test, for example, it ran for almost four hours, which is considerably less than the almost six and a half hours scored by the Asus Flip C101 but roughly equal to the Acer Chromebook 15’s.

On our web browsing test, the Spin 11 exceeded Acer’s expectations, flipping through a variety of sites for more than nine hours before running out. The Flip C101 managed just eight hours while the Chromebook 15 was more impressive at eleven and a half hours.

Finally, on our video test that loops through an Avengers trailer with the display set at 100 lux until the battery dies, the Spin 11 was less impressive at just a bit under 10 hours. That’s less than Acer estimated, and it beat out the Flip C101’s roughly nine hours but fell flat against the Chromebook 15’s nearly 12 hours.

Overall, we found battery life to be very good for productivity tasks, allowing for a full work or school day away from a charge. The Spin 11 wasn’t as long-lasting for watching video, but almost 10 hours of binging isn’t exactly a terrible result — as long as you can live with the mediocre display, of course.

Our Take

The Acer Chromebook Spin 11 is a low-cost and reasonably solid Chrome OS notebook, with decent battery life and competent input options. Its performance and display were underwhelming, though, and there are better options for the same or just a bit more money.

Is there a better alternative?

The Asus Chromebook Flip C101 is a bit less expensive than the Flip 11, coming in at $300 for a configuration with a Rockchip six-core CPU, 4GB of RAM, and 16GB of eMMC storage. You’ll get slightly better performance and less battery life with the Flip 11, but you won’t get stylus support.

If your budget isn’t quite so tight, you could consider the Samsung Chromebook Pro at $550 for an Intel Core M3-6Y30 CPU, 4GB of RAM, 32GB of eMMC storage, and a much higher resolution (2,560 x 1,600) display. Performance will be much better, and battery life will be similar. Once again, though, you’ll be giving up the ability to write on the display.

Finally, you could allocate some additional funds and go for the upcoming Acer Chromebook Spin 13 that will offer a crazy-fast Intel Core i5-8250U quad-core processor, up to 16GB of RAM, and a 13.5-inch 2,256 x 1,504 resolution display in the productivity-friendly 3:2 aspect ratio. Pricing on that machine isn’t available yet and is guaranteed to be higher, but it’s likely worth the investment if you can swing it.

How long will it last?

The Chromebook Spin 11 is a solidly built 2-in-1 with a year’s worth of warranty protection and future-proof connectivity. Its performance is lacking, though, meaning that you might run out of headroom sooner than you’d like.

Should you buy it?

No. The performance is just too lackluster to make it good for anything other than simple web browsing, and that’s just not worth even the $350 you’ll spend on this 2-in-1.

we need a comparison to another similarly-priced Chromebook

Alienware 17 R5 review

Research Center:

Alienware 17 R5

With a 17-inch display and a chassis weighing in at nearly 10 pounds, the Alienware 17 R5 is truly massive. It’s thick, heavy, and incredibly sturdy. In most cases, a laptop of this size would be completely impractical for everyday use — if it weren’t packed to the gills with the most powerful hardware on the market.

Alienware threw everything it could at this laptop, cramming a 6-core Intel Core i9 processor in there, along with 32GB of RAM, and a GTX 1080 graphics card. It’s certainly outfitted like a gaming desktop so let’s find out if it performs like one.

Supermassive

On the outside, the Alienware 17 looks a lot like its predecessors. It features a soft-touch interior that still attracts fingerprints with every touch, a metallic shell on the top and bottom, along with a stylized grille on the front edge. Around back, you’ll find a big block of metal and plastic that houses a pair of vents for disposing of the enormous amount of heat generated by its powerful hardware.

Jayce Wagner/Digital Trends

It’s not a groundbreaking design, but it works well. It’s still distinctly Alienware — futuristic angles, RGB lighting on the chassis, an inlaid pattern on the back side of the display. The metallic finish is a bit darker than it has been in the past, but otherwise this is the same design you’ve likely seen on previous Alienware machines. It works, looks nice, but it is starting to show its age in one small area: The display bezels.

The 17-inch display is great, but we’ll get to that later, right now we’re talking about bezels. The frame around the display is almost an inch thick all the way around, and because of the shape of the chassis, the angled front-edge makes the top display bezel even thicker. It’s just an awful lot of wasted plastic and it looks dated compared to smaller, slimmer offerings. The Razer Blade 17 has thick bezels around its display, but because they’re recessed, part of the glass display itself, they’re less noticeable in everyday use. Unfortunately, big bezels seem to be par for the course when you’re shopping for a 17-inch laptop.

Space for ports

A credit to the Alienware 17 R5’s overlarge chassis, there’s an awful lot of room to fill with ports, and Alienware does just that. The power adapter plugs in on the back-side of the chassis, right beside an ethernet port, Thunderbolt port, HDMI port, and mini-DisplayPort. On the right-hand side there’s a single USB-A port, and on the left you’ll find a USB-C port, USB-A port, along with headphone and microphone jacks.

The port selection is pretty standard, with a couple appreciated inclusions like mini-DisplayPort, but it’s their placement that really makes the Alienware 17 stand apart from the crowd. By putting mission-critical ports on the back-side of the laptop, they’re always going to be out of your way when the Alienware 17 is sitting on a desk — which let’s be honest, is where it’s going to spend most of its life. This thing is a laptop in name only, so it’s an excellent design decision to position the ports so they won’t clutter up your desk.

The design is distinctly Alienware — futuristic angles, RGB lighting everywhere you look.

The keyboard offers a decent keystroke depth and quick snappy keys, it never feels too much like a laptop keyboard — none of that mushiness associated with membrane keyboards. Similarly, the touchpad works just as smoothly as it should, a credit to Windows Precision Touchpad support. It feels silky and smooth to the touch, but in an era of massive touchpads, it feels a bit small at times.

Another input the Alienware 17 features is a built-in Tobii Eye Tracker. Situated right below the display, the eye tracker has two functions: One, it’ll let you do some fun things in some games — but not very many. Secondly, you can use it for Windows Hello, Microsoft’s facial recognition login system. Windows Hello allows you to login by just opening your laptop and looking at the eye tracker, it’s a nice feature and definitely beats typing out a password every time you open your computer.

Regarding the Tobii Eye Tracker’s utility for gaming though, it’s a lot more hit-and-miss. Some games support it, but it’s still pretty rare to see. Using the Tobii software you can pop balloons by just looking at them though, so that’s nice.

Not the brightest star in the sky

We already covered the Alienware 17 R5’s awkward display bezels, but good news is the display itself is just fine. To the naked eye, colors are bright and vibrant without being washed out or too heavily saturated. The 120Hz G-Sync panel makes even the most basic mouse movements captivating. Seriously, just moving the mouse around is an absolute joy because of how liquid-smooth the motion is. That’s just an appetizer though, once you see this display panel in action, running your favorite games at high or ultra-high settings without skipping a beat, it’s going to be hard to go back to a plain old 60Hz display.

Jayce Wagner/Digital Trends

The resolution here is also worth mentioning. The 17-inch display panel features a 1440p display resolution, which is unusual given the high refresh rate. It’s an excellent pairing though, like chocolate and peanut-butter, the high resolution and high refresh rate complement each other beautifully. Games are impossibly smooth and fluid, and because of the resolution, they’re remarkably crisp.

The numbers paint a slightly more pedestrian portrait here, but the aforementioned aspects more than make up for the display’s shortcomings. Looking at color gamut, the Alienware 17 R5’s display hits 93 percent of the sRGB color space, which is the one you’re going to see most often. On the more finicky AdobeRGB color space, the Alienware’s display hits only 73 percent, which is about what we’d expect out of a laptop display that isn’t geared toward professional use.

Just moving the mouse around is a joy thanks to the high-refresh rate display, every animation is just liquid-smooth.

Moving on, we saw the Alienware 17 R5’s display top out at a contrast ratio of 560-to-1. That’s not bad, but it’s not great either. Overall it just means colors aren’t going to pop quite as much as they could, and that’s a side effect of the 120Hz display. To hit that high refresh rate, Alienware uses a twisted nematic or TN display panel, and they’re typically not as vibrant as more common in-plane-switching or IPS displays.

For comparison, let’s look at the Razer Blade Pro 17. Our review unit featured a 4K IPS display with a refresh rate of 60Hz. With a brighter IPS display, the Blade Pro 17 hit a contrast ratio of 900-to-1, managed to render 98 percent of the AdobeRGB color space, and featured slightly better average color error. This is the tradeoff between a 120Hz TN display like the one in the Alienware 17, or more vibrant, but 60Hz, IPS display.

Fastest in the galaxy

The Alienware 17 features a processor that’s a bit overkill for most uses. Not an Intel Core i5, not a Core i7, but a Core i9. For anyone unfamiliar, the Core i9 is Intel’s top-end consumer-grade processor. It’s marketed as a great processor for gaming — and it is — but it’s important to point out that gaming is not typically processor-intensive. Games rely more heavily on the GPU than the processor but having something as overwhelmingly powerful as an i9 in your machine has some important benefits.

First up let’s look at how it does in Geekbench.

Compared to regular 8th-Generation Core i7 processors, it’s clear the Core i9 is very powerful, but it’s hard to put it in context with just a couple scores. That’s why we ran a couple real-world benchmarks to give you a better idea of just how powerful this six-core processor really is.

For our Adobe Premiere benchmark, we rendered out a project file that stitches together a series of 8K videos and applies an unreasonable amount of adjustment layers, to really put the machine to the test. For reference, a decked-out MacBook Pro 15 takes about 25 minutes to run the same render, while our Alienware 17 here took a much more reasonable 98 seconds, or just over a minute and a half. The full-sized Core i9, residing in a desktop machine like the Alienware Area 51 R5 crunched the same benchmark in just 19 seconds.

Alienware 17 R5 Compared To

Razer Blade Stealth (2018)

Acer Predator Helios 300

Alienware 15 R3 (2017)

Asus ROG Strix GL553VD-DS71

Acer Predator 15

AVADirect Avant P750DM2-G

Asus ROG G752VS-XB78K

Acer Predator 17 X GX-791-73FH

Asus ROG G751JY-DH71

Origin EON 17-S (2014)

MSI GX70

Samsung Series 7 Gamer 700G7A

Alienware M17x R4

Maingear eX-L 17

Alienware Area-51 m9750

Clearly the Alienware 17 isn’t going to beat a desktop machine, but the contrast is important. The Core i9 inside the 17-inch Alienware laptop is capable of making short work of professional-grade workloads and doesn’t come too far behind its desktop-based cousin.

A generous cargo bay

The Alienware 17 features a 512GB SSD and 1TB mechanical hard drive, fairly standard options and the speed here is about what we’d expect. The 512GB SSD was relatively quick on its feet, hitting a read speed of 1,912 megabytes-per-second and a write speed of 1,313MB/s. Even swinging big files around, the SSD kept up beautifully.

As you can see it’s about as quick as you would expect from a laptop SSD, and it’s definitely quick enough that you’ll never notice it slowing you down when you’re handling massive files — or backing up your Steam library.

Stellar performance

When it comes to gaming performance, the Alienware 17 R5 packs enough power into its less-than-slender frame to run circles around similarly outfitted competitors. What does that mean in practice? Well, it means you won’t have trouble running games at 1440p with the settings maxed out, not for a while at least. Looking at our 3DMark scores, it’s pretty clear that the Alienware 17’s hardware configuration is fine-tuned for gaming performance.

The Alienware 17 R5 might not be as slim or stylish as the Razer Blade Pro or Asus ROG Zephyrus, but this thing can move. With the same graphics chipset as the Blade Pro and Zephyrus, the Alienware 17 R5 manages to outperform its slimmer competitors by a sizable margin. There’s a reason for that.

This laptop proves Alienware has earned its reputation for precision engineering. By including an Intel Core i9, and an overclocked Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080, the Alienware 17 R5 is able to kick into high gear and push past the performance we saw out of its competitors here.

When it comes to real-world results the margins narrowed a bit, but the Alienware 17 R5 still pushed past its competitors in most cases, a credit to the slight overclock its GTX 1080 graphics card features.

In Battlefield 1 for instance, we saw the Alienware consistently hit an average of 139 FPS at ultra-high settings at 1080p, and about 130 FPS at 1440p. The Razer Blade Pro came in just behind with an average 134 FPS at ultra-high settings on 1080p, and 126 FPS at the same settings on 1440p.

What this should show you is how robust the Alienware’s hardware really is. It barely takes a hit at all by stepping up to 1440p, and in the case of Battlefield 1 it’s still well above 120 FPS, which means your gameplay will liquid smooth on account of that 120Hz display panel we discussed earlier.

As always, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided illustrates what a more demanding game will look like on this hardware, and even though the Alienware 17 R5 doesn’t quite perform well enough to take advantage of the high-refresh-rate display panel, it still delivers exceptional performance here.

Power-hungry

All that power comes at a cost, though, the Alienware 17 isn’t exactly an all-day performer when it’s not plugged in. On account of its very powerful hardware, the Alienware 17 burns through its battery a lot quicker than something more modest like a Dell XPS 13 — a workhorse designed for all-day use. The Alienware 17 has a few factors working against it here, but let’s look at the numbers first.

As you can see, none of these gaming laptops really perform well when it comes to battery life, so it’s a good idea to keep that charger handy. That said, the Alienware 17 offers the kind of battery life we’d expect from a system with these specs. The six-core processor and overclocked GPU don’t help matters here — and neither does the UHD high-refresh-rate display.

Still, we ended up getting enough juice out of the Alienware 17 that we could do some light office work for a couple hours without worry, but that’s not exactly the kind of workload this laptop is designed for. If you need something that’ll see you through most of a workday without being plugged in, you’re probably not going to want a gaming laptop.

Alien engineering

The Alienware 17 R5 features the latest version of the Alienware Command Center, a software suite for customizing the R5’s lighting, performance, and power consumption settings. Just like the version Alienware ships on its latest desktops, like the Area-51 R5, the Command Center here is fully featured and easy to use. The UI is attractive and utilitarian, everything is where it should be, settings are clearly labeled and laid out, you’ll never have to dig for advanced settings if you need to get to them. They’re all  laid bare for you to customize.

Our Take

Taken as a whole, the Alienware 17 R5 delivers on everything it promises — exceptional gaming performance, unbelievable processing power, and a gorgeous display. It’s not without its flaws, but this is the laptop to beat if you need a gaming powerhouse that can — kind of — fit into a backpack.

Is there a better alternative?

When it comes to raw performance, there really isn’t a better alternative than the Alienware 17 R5. If you need exceptional power out of a portable gaming machine, the Alienware 17 is the way to go. However, if you want a gaming laptop that can also be your everyday driver — the thing you bring to work or class every day — you should probably look elsewhere.

For most games, even brand-new games, you’d do just fine with a more modest hardware configuration. Even the recent Dell XPS 15 2-in-1, with onboard AMD Radeon Vega graphics has enough horsepower for running games at 1080p at medium-high settings. It’s lighter, more portable, and a lot more affordable.

At the other end of the spectrum, you might want to look at the Razer Blade. With similar pricing and hardware, but a much slimmer build, it’s a bit more suitable for everyday use.

How long will it last?

As we mentioned, the Alienware 17 R5 is built like a tank. Alienware has a well-earned reputation for robust build quality and the 17 R5 is no exception. The chassis on this laptop will absolutely outlast its internal components and put up with the ravages of time.

Additionally, the hardware is powerful enough that it’ll see you through at least a couple years of gaming on the highest-possible settings. It also features a one-year hardware warranty protecting against manufacturer defects, which is fairly standard for this kind of laptop.

Should you buy it?

If you’re looking at a gaming laptop in the $3,000 price range, you can’t do much better than the Alienware 17 R5 in terms of raw performance — so you should definitely buy it. But if you’re looking to save a little, or pick up a laptop that’s a bit more general-purpose, and less gigantic and ostentatious, you should probably look elsewhere.