ZTE Warp 7 (Boost Mobile) Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
The Warp 7 is ZTE’s latest offering for Boost Mobile.
ZTE
ZTE’s latest affordable handset is the Warp 7, a $100 phone available on September 5. The device is compatible with carriers using both CDMA and GSM technology, but it will be sold through Boost Mobile, which uses Sprint’s CDMA network.
The Warp 7 features a 5.5-inch display (720-pixel resolution), a 1.2 quad-core processor and a removable 3,080mAh battery. For your photo needs, it has a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 5-megapixel shooter in the front. It runs Android Marshmallow 6.0 and has 16GB of memory that you can expand up to 64GB with a microSD card.
The Warp 7 follows ZTE’s other $100 prepaid handset, the ZMax Pro, which was announced in July for MetroPCS. Despite a similar price tag, the ZMax Pro has slightly better specs, including a 6-inch screen with a sharper 1,080-pixel resolution, an octa-core Snapdragon 617 processor and a 3,400mAh battery.
Still, Boost Mobile’s handset is a pretty decent deal and we’ll know more once we get our hands on it. But on paper, the ZMax Pro looks to be the better choice (for now) if you’re looking for an inexpensive prepaid phone.
Kwikset Kevo 2nd Gen Bluetooth Smart Lock (2016) Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
Tyler Lizenby/CNET
Pair the Kwikset Kevo Bluetooth Deadbolt with your phone or with a keychain fob, and you can unlock your front door just by tapping on it. It’s a cool, convenient, one-of-a-kind smart lock, and we liked it a lot when we first tested one out back in 2013 — but a vulnerability to a very specific kind of brute-force attack kept us from recommending it outright.
Now, three years later, Kwikset is back with a second-gen Kevo. Save for a smaller, sleeker interior design, it looks largely the same as before, but Kwikset is promising a host of subtle improvements — including easier installation and better defense against those kinds of brute attacks.
At a retail price of $229, the second-gen Kevo costs $10 more than the original Kevo did back in 2013. That’s the same price you’ll pay for the newest version of the August Smart Lock, so it looks like we’ve got a bit of a smart-home showdown coming to your front door.
We’ve already installed a second-gen Kevo at the CNET Smart Home, and we’ll have a full review in the coming weeks — including a look at how it holds up to the sort of torque attacks that defeated it before. For now, here are our first impressions.
The inside half of the second-gen Kevo is noticeably more compact than before.
Tyler Lizenby/CNET
Smart, subtle tweaks
The new Kevo isn’t much different than the old one. You’ll still pair it with your Android or iOS device, then touch the lock when you want it to open. If the Kevo detects your phone in close proximity outside the door, it’ll flash green, unlock and let you inside. You can still control it remotely using the app whenever you’re in Bluetooth range, and you can still pair it with the optional Kevo Plus Bluetooth-to-Wi-Fi plug-in bridge accessory if you want to control it from anywhere. From outside of your house, as before, the Kevo Kwikset second-gen still looks like a normal, everyday dumb lock.
The Kevo app does a nice job of walking you through the setup process. All you really need is a screwdriver and a tape measure.
Screenshots by Ry Crist/CNET
The key differences (sorry) are on the inside. Most noticeable among them: the interior design, where the battery housing is much smaller than before. It’s also a full metal enclosure now, an upgrade from the first Kevo, which had a plastic housing. There’s also a new screw that you can tighten to lock the interior housing shut — that’ll help prevent people from opening the lock and resetting it.
Kwikset worked to make the installation easier, too. You’ll still find a helpful, step-by-step walkthrough in the Kevo app, but now it’s beefed up with interactive graphics, animations and videos. Inside, the two halves of the lock now connect using a single wire that’s less finicky than before. The separate calibration process — an annoying but necessary part of the setup last time around — is gone now: the second-gen Kevo will automatically calibrate itself.
You can manage users and view each lock’s activity history in the Kevo app for Android and iOS devices.
Screenshot by Ry Crist/CNET
App-enabled entry
Something that bugged us last time around was that Kwikset charged $1.99 for each “eKey” you created to allow someone else to unlock your Kevo. That’s roughly as much as you’d pay to make someone a copy of your key, but it still felt pretty stingy, given that an eKey is really just an email from Kwikset that grants a user permission to access your lock in the Kevo app.
Three years later, Kwikset handles eKeys a little bit differently. They come in three types: Anytime eKeys, Guest eKeys, and Scheduled eKeys. Like the name suggests, Anytime eKeys will work indefinitely until you revoke access — you get two for free, and then you’ll pay $1.99 for each one after that.
Guest eKeys are just Anytime eKeys that only work for 24 hours, then expire. You get as many of those as you want for free.
Scheduled eKeys come with optional schedule restraints — you can give them an expiration date, or restrict them to work only on certain days or at certain times. They cost $1.99 each.
That’s a step in the right direction, but still, it’s disappointing that Kwikset sees fit to charge you for the luxury of using the luxury smart lock you already spent hundreds of dollars on. Full user management should be a default smart lock feature, not a pay-as-you-go add-on.
Kevo has also added some notable third-party smart-home integrations since last time around. You can sync it up with the Nest Learning Thermostat or with the Honeywell Wi-Fi Thermostat to trigger your HVAC system as you come and go. It’ll also work with the Ring and Skybell HD video doorbells, letting you use the phone to unlock the door for people who need to get in.
Let’s talk about the lock
Like with the first Kevo, the deadbolt at the heart of the lock is Kwikset’s SmartKey deadbolt, which comes with a special tool that allows owners to re-key the lock without need for a locksmith.
As far as security, the SmartKey deadbolt has a lot going for it. For starters, it uses a patented horizontal slider in place of the traditional key and pin tumblers, which means that would-be thieves can’t get in by “bumping” the lock. It also passes UL 437, the most stringent test against lock picking conducted by the independent researchers at Underwriters Laboratories. Even security expert Marc Weber Tobias, a vocal Kevo critic, told us that the SmartKey deadbolt was nearly impossible to pick.
Kwikset claims the Kevo’s SmartKey deadbolt is stronger than before.
Josh Miller/CNET
Tobias was the one who identified the SmartKey deadbolt’s vulnerabilities to brute-force torque attacks in 2013. No single lock is going to prevent someone from breaking into your home if they’re determined to do so, but we were concerned with what Tobias found, since it’s a SmartKey-specific attack that relies on common tools like a screwdriver and a hammer. When we tested it for ourselves, we were able to use the technique to successfully bypass the first-gen Kevo in less than a minute.
Now, Kwikset tells us that the SmartKey deadbolt in the second-gen Kevo is an updated model — and the company assured us that the same bypass technique won’t work this time. If that’s the case, it’ll be a legitimate security upgrade, and a useful addition to the lock’s existing protections against picking and bumping.
Of course, with smart locks, you have to consider security against hacking and other cyber threats, too. Kwikset deserves some credit here. A recent investigation into Bluetooth lock security found flaws with several smart padlocks and deadbolts, including the August Smart Lock (a hack we were able to verify). Despite their best efforts, those same researchers were unable to hack the Kwikset Kevo at all.
Outlook
Kevo’s unique touch-to-open approach sets it apart from other smart locks and makes it a tangible convenience upgrade for your front door. On top of that, Kwikset’s approach to handling eKey access, while still not ideal, seems easier to swallow than last time around. If it works as reliably as last time and also performs better against brute force attacks, it could be the new smart lock to beat. We’ll have the full verdict from the CNET Smart Home after we’ve had some more time to test it out.
AEG ComfortLift Dishwasher Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
Electrolux
Between easy-to-use wine glass racks, fold-down tines, and third racks for silverware, lots of dishwashers bend over backward to make it easier to load your dishes. Electrolux’s newest innovation will make it easier to unload them.
The ComfortLift technology in Electrolux dishwashers raises the bottom rack to an easy-to-reach height as you pull it out of the tub. You won’t have to bend over to reach your plates and bowls anymore. The rack swings up to about waist height, and you can swing it back down into the dishwasher by pulling the lever beneath the front handle.
Feature-rich dishwashers
- LG LDF7774ST
- GE GDF610PMJES
- Kenmore 13699
Dishwashers with the ComfortLift rack will roll out to various European markets starting this month, as part of the AEG Mastery range of appliances. Electrolux is showing off models with the tech at the IFA trade show in Berlin this week. Unfortunately, there’s no word on pricing yet, and no official plans to bring the technology to the US.
The high-end AEG ComfortLift Dishwashers that’ll first bring the tech to the public also tout lots of other premium perks. Beyond ergonomic loading, the AEG ComfortLift Dishwasher supposedly runs at a whisper quiet 39 dB and offers an energy efficient cycle and an extra-quiet cycle that runs at 37 dB.
Electrolux has been working on the ComfortLift technology for a couple of years, and I’m happy to see tangible dishwasher innovation finally reaching the marketplace. However, the creative features of the Frigidaire FGID2466QF I tested recently got in the way more than they helped. Hopefully, ComfortLift will prove as neat in practice as it is in theory, and Electrolux will roll out the feature worldwide before too long.
AEG SenseCook Oven Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
AEG
Can an oven produce restaurant-quality food, even if the home cook at the helm is lousy? AEG is making a case for that with its SenseCook oven, a built-in wall oven the German brand will introduce at this year’s IFA trade show in Berlin. The SenseCook oven includes control screen that lets you select how you want your food cooked, such as the doneness of a steak or the internal temperature of a casserole, and a temperature probe called the Food Sensor that monitors the progress of your food so you don’t have to.
More IFA 2016 coverage
- Need a phone or a refrigerator? Here’s where you’ll find it
- Fitbit unveils Charge 2, Flex 2, Fitbit Adventures and updates to Blaze
- Philips Hue promises better greens, but you’ll need to buy new lightbulbs
AEG, which is a part of the Electrolux Group of appliance manufacturers, is the latest company to attempt to remove the guesswork from cooking with the addition of temperature probes and smart cook settings. We’ve seen this feature in ovens from high-end brands such as the Dacor DYRP36D and the Jenn-Air Connected Double Wall Oven and no-frills connected temperature probes in mainstream options like the Kenmore 92583. What makes AEG’s SenseCook oven stand out is the Command Wheel. Rather than relying on a touchscreen to control your cook settings, the wheel provides a more solid way to control your oven. This could help folks adjust from traditional ovens with control knobs, and it could be useful when your hands are too greasy from cooking to operate a touchscreen.
There aren’t any concrete plans to bring the SenseCook to the United States, AEG says. The appliance will roll out across Europe beginning in September. The company hasn’t finalized pricing.
Check out CNET’s full coverage of IFA 2016 here.
AE Electrolux 9000 Series washing machine Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
The AEG Electrolux 9000 Series washer softens water for gentler cycles.
Electrolux
Imagine if your laundry appliances could ruthlessly rid dirt from clothes yet be gentle enough to never damage their delicate fabric and fibers. It may sound like an unrealistic dream but AEG Electrolux says its new line of washers and dryers are built to do exactly that. Freshly announced at IFA 2016 in Berlin, the new 9000 Series Washing Machine is especially capable of preserving laundry items.
According to the company this advanced washer actually filters and softens its water supply to clean more efficiently but at extremely low temperatures. The benefit of this approach claim AEG Electrolux is a washing machine which launders without leaching bright colors or deep blacks from your favorite garments even after scores of laundry cycles.
Use the app to choose a cycle
Another clothes-friendly tool in the 9000 Series Washer’s arsenal is the My AEG app, a mobile application which provides specific care advice based on the type of cloth you plan on cleaning. The app also chooses a recommended cycle plus tweaks its individual settings accordingly for optimal performance.
Built into the application as well are general tips and a guide to interpret the often cryptic symbols you see on clothing labels You can download versions of the software for either iOS or Android depending what platform suits your needs best.
Get laundry handling help from the My AEG mobile app.
Electrolux
Along with the 9000 Series, AEG Electrolux also unveiled the 8000 and 7000 Series washing machines though both are less sophisticated and lack water softening technology. In addition neither have the ability to link to the My AEG mobile application.
Better than air
AEG Electrolux pulled the tarp off of a pair of new dryers too designed to pair with their fancy washer siblings. Named the 8000 and 7000 Series Tumble Driers, the most notable is the 8000 series machine. It boasts cycles Electrolux claims safely dries items sown from unforgiving materials such as silk and wool.
An “Outdoor” mode is supposedly as safe as air drying and handles water-resistant, windproof, and breathable sportswear lightly enough to remove moisture but is hot enough to flatten wrinkles. That said the cycle won’t harshly strip away chemical coatings or destroy synthetic fabrics.
AEG Electrolux hasn’t yet disclosed pricing for these appliances nor did it release specific availability beyond sometime in 2017. The company does plan to have its connected laundry app up and running by, “mid-2017.”
YI 4K Action Camera review – CNET
The Good The YI 4K Action Camera is a remarkable camera for the money, offering great features and performance in an easy-to-use package. It has long battery life for its size. A touchscreen gives you full control of the camera or you can use the high-speed Wi-Fi to connect to your phone and control via an app. App handles shooting, editing and sharing. YI continues to add features through firmware updates.
The Bad You’ll need to buy accessories such as a waterproof housing. Though YI used Gorilla Glass, the touchscreen is not shatterproof. The microSD card slot is a little hard to access. Parts of the English app are still in Chinese.
The Bottom Line An action cam with a lot of features, excellent video quality and a more affordable price, the YI 4K is undeniably a good deal.
GoPro might be the undisputed leader in the action cam market, but its cameras are not without weaknesses. The greatest of those at the moment is age: GoPro’s top Hero4 Black camera was released nearly two years ago.
The YI 4K Action Cam kicks the cane right out from under that elderly camera by using the newest versions of the tech found in the Hero4, including an Ambarella A9SE75 chipset, a Sony IMX377 image sensor and a high-speed Broadcom BCM43340 dual-band Wi-Fi module.
These specs translate into a camera that has the same shooting options as the Hero4 Black, such as recording high-bit-rate 4K-resolution video at 30 frames per second (fps), 1080p at 120fps and 720p at 240fps, but it runs cooler and has better battery life. The performance is so much better that YI even put a touchscreen on the back — something only available for the Hero4 Black as an attachment or on the step-down Silver model.
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High performance on the cheap, YI’s 4K-resolution camera packs a lot of features into its tiny body.
Sarah Tew/CNET
On top of that, the YI 4K is $250 (roughly AU$330 or £190), around half the price of Hero4 Black, which is still selling on GoPro’s site for its original $500 (though Amazon has it for about $70 less). Having high-end components doesn’t guarantee great performance, but in the case of the YI 4K the result is an excellent little camera and a lower-cost substitute for a GoPro Hero4.
YI has continued to issue firmware updates for the camera, too, improving performance and adding shooting options. This includes a flat color setting for easier color adjustments when editing and an “Ultra” resolution setting that, like GoPro’s SuperView setting, takes a 4:3 aspect ratio video and digitally stretches it to 16:9 to get more of a scene top to bottom in your shot. The complete list of capabilities is extensive to say the least and is available on YI’s site.
Unfortunately, what it doesn’t correct for is the amount of chromatic aberration (purple fringing) around high-contrast subjects, such as the buildings against the sky in the above video. In general, you probably won’t see it when squeezed down for viewing on a smartphone or tablet. But blown up on a computer screen it’s easy to see. Also, like most small-sensor cameras, highlights can easily be blown out, costing you details in bright scenes.
Android 7.0 Nougat review: All about getting things done faster
After a surprise debut and months of previews, Android 7.0 Nougat is ready for primetime. The broad strokes haven’t changed since we first met Nougat back in March (when it was just “Android N”), which means it’s still not the game-changer of an update some people have been hoping for. Instead, what we got was a smattering of big (and overdue) features mixed with lower-level changes that make Android more elegant. That might not make for the most viscerally exciting update, but that doesn’t make Nougat any less valuable or useful.
The caveat
Before we go any further, let’s get on the same page about a few things. Yes, it might be a while before you get your OTA Nougat update. Yes, that wait will stretch out even longer if you’re not using Nexus hardware. Carriers and OEMs are keeping mum about their specific Nougat update plans, but if you do have a Nexus device, you can enroll it in the Android Beta program and install a full-fledged Android 7.0 build.
The first taste
I hope you weren’t looking of a dramatic revamp of Android’s stock look and feel — that definitely wasn’t in the cards for this first release. (Bigger interface changes might come with the launch of Google’s new Nexus devices, which will probably sport a sleek new launcher.) In fact, once you’re dumped onto your homescreen, you might notice anything new at all. That changes very quickly as you start to swipe around.
For all that Google has added to the Android formula in this release, there are two features that fundamentally changed how I used my Nexus. The first, dull as it might seem, is an improved take on notifications. In prior versions of Android, notifications would fill up the pull-down shade and just sort of sit there until you interacted with them. Then, pfft — they’d disappear. Nougat, however, does a much better job of bundling them up by app and let you get things done.
In the midst of writing this paragraph, two new emails popped up in my inbox. On a Marshmallow device, all I could do is tap on the notification to jump into Gmail and see what people were asking me. Fine. Under Nougat, though, I can expand that notification to see the full sender names and subject lines of a handful of my recent emails. Another tap lets me see the first few sentences of the email and (more importantly) archive or reply without ever jumping into another app. Google’s own apps all play nice with these expanded notifications, and other apps crucial for my life — like Slack, mostly — do the same. Even better, you can manage notifications for individual apps just by long-pressing one of their notifications. Your mileage may vary, but these changes have become crucial to me.
Then there’s split-screen multitasking, a feature that’s a big deal for big phones and gives Android tablets an extra edge. Here’s how it works: if you’re in a compatible app, you can long-press the Recent or Overview key (also known as “that square one”) to squeeze it into the top half of your display. The bottom half is taken up by the usual view of recent apps, and tapping one finagles it into the remaining free space. (If you’re working on a tablet, replace “top” and “bottom” with “left” and “right”.) In my experience, most apps worked in their diminutive forms pretty well. Sometimes they will make a fuss and proclaim they “might not work” properly running in a reduced size, but they’re usually fine — you’ll just notice some kludginess while apps try to figure out how to operate with such limited room.
Just for giggles, I ran Shazam in one window and Spotify in another, and wouldn’t you know it? The former could easily tell the latter was pumping out some Jacques Loussier. It’s a silly example, certainly, but it worked despite Shazam struggling to render all its interface bits in the right places. In time developers will (hopefully) smooth out the rough edges. The thing is, it can be tricky to work with both windows at the same time. I tried copying a bit of text from a Chrome window to a Hangouts window on the Nexus 6P for instance, and more often than not the necessary pop-up menus never appeared. Check this process out: I made Chrome full-screen, copied the text, went back to the split-screen view and then tried to paste into Hangouts. I didn’t get the pop-up option to do so, though, so I had to make Hangouts full-screen and finally pasted the text.
Of course, some apps don’t even try to adapt to smaller sub-displays. Games that take over the screen and obscure Android’s navigation keys certainly don’t and neither does image-heavy Instagram. When you try to force one of them into split-screen mode, they just sort of balk and refuse. Now, it’s understandable why the examples above don’t allow themselves to be contained in half a window: if they did, the experience would downright suck. What’s more puzzling is why Google didn’t extend this split-screen functionality to its own search app. You can have two Chrome windows working next to each other just fine, but you’re out of luck if you want to glance at info gleaned from Google’s search bar. It’s silly, arbitrary and more than a little annoying.
Thankfully, there are a few subtle features that help mobile multitasking work better. There’s an option to change the display size, for one, which scales everything on-screen up or down. For the people with lousy eyesight, display size can be cranked up three levels. For the folks who want maximum screen real estate, though, there’s a “small” setting below default size that neatly shrinks text, icons and more.
I always hated how big app icons were rendered on the Nexus 6P (one of the actual reasons I stopped using the phone), and this feature just fixed it all for me.
There’s also an option to clear all running apps when you’re sifting through the familiar stack of app cards (just like most other Android skins in recent years). Perhaps the single most useful Nougat addition falls under this category too — you can double-tap the Recents key to jump straight back into the app you were using last. It took maybe an hour for this to become second nature, and as far as I’m concerned, there’s no going back.
Diving deeper
Still other handy — though less exciting — features become apparent once you start digging around a little more. Nougat still offers the option of customizing your quick settings options, for instance. They’re arrayed in a 3×3 grid, with extra icons shunted onto another page. For even quicker access to your five most used settings, look to a new bar at the top of the notifications shade. It’s useful enough, especially when you’re in a rush to turn that flashlight or get that WiFi going.
For whatever reason, everyone finds themselves in their device’s settings eventually. Luckily for them, Google finally overhauled it a bit. While the old settings layout was basically just a list of categories you could dive into, the new one peppers the list with really helpful bits of context like remaining battery life, current ringer volume and how many apps were blocked from sending notifications. Settings sections like Display and Battery offer most of the same options, but now you can bring up a navigation sub-menu that lets you jump between those sections. Handy, but easy to miss. The main settings menu also offers suggestions that aren’t really all that helpful. It can tell you about setting up a fingerprint (on compatible devices) and change your wallpaper, but did we really need this? Most of the time Nougat just suggested I add another email account. Thanks, but no thanks.
The revamped Settings page, by the way, is where you’ll find more of Google’s new handiwork. Consider Data Saver, for instance: the feature lets you define which apps can use your data plan without limits and which ones can’t, which is all too handy if you haven’t migrated onto one of those unlimited data plans carriers have started talking up lately. And if you’re one of those fortunate polyglots, Nougat added support for 100 new languages. Maybe more important is how you can now also have multiple languages enabled at the same time, creating what Google calls a “multi-locale” — when Google searching, for instance, you’ll get results back in whatever enabled language you typed your query in.
Then there’s all the other stuff — the smaller changes that help Nougat feel more thoughtful and polished. At long last, you can set different lockscreen and homescreen wallpapers in stock Android. How it took this long to implement, I’ll never understand. There are 72 new emoji here because of course there are! (They’re part of the Unicode 9.0 standard). You can display emergency info like your name, blood type and allergies on your phone’s lockscreen, too, and Android Nougat also allows you to block calls and text messages from specific phone numbers. Oh, and the best part? Those numbers stay blocked across different apps.
Meanwhile, not everything Google planned for Nougat made the final cut. Remember that Night mode that showed up in the first developer preview? Well, it’s gone — sorry, folks. Google apparently chalked its excision up to poorer-than-expected performance, though you can re-enable it pretty easily if the thought of Dark Android does it for you.
Under the wrapper
Just as important in Nougat is all of the stuff you can’t “see”, strictly speaking. These foundational changes aren’t as eye-catching as some of Nougat’s other new features, but they’re more important — and more useful — than you might think. The most obvious of these low-level changes is Doze on the Go, which builds off of a similarly named feature that debuted in Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Think of it as a light sleep — when the device is locked but in motion, a set of rules kicks in that limit what apps can do and restrict their network access. Then, when the device can tell it’s staying put for a while, the original Doze rules from the Marshmallow update kick in, leading to still more restrictions meant to preserve battery life even further. The one-two punch of Doze and Doze on the Go might not blow your mind, but it should still move the needle — my Nexus 6P seemed to gain about an hour or two of standby battery life.
This year’s Android updates also folds in support for Khronos’ Vulkan API, which should make for some seriously good-looking mobile gaming. There’s a dearth of compatible games right now, though; here’s hoping more developers get to pushing performance and graphical limits soon. You might also notice apps installing and launching a little faster than usual, depending on what kind of hardware you’re working with. That’s thanks to Nougat’s just-in-time compiler, which works with existing systems to determine when to compile an app’s code.
The arcane stuff goes on. Encryption has been moved to the file level, which — among other things — means your secured device can boot up and compatible apps can do their thing before you even unlock your gear. It should also mean lower-end phones can be partially encrypted (and run a little better) since full-disk encryption can really screw with performance sometimes. Alas, I didn’t get to try this out on a low-end phone because who knows when Nougat will make it beyond the Nexus playground.
The value of other features won’t be apparent for a while, either. Consider the case of seamless updates: Nougat can support two system partitions, one for handling your day-to-day work and another that can install big software updates that quietly download in the background. Once those updates are installed, you’ll be told that Android will update itself next time it restarts, at which point the device starts using that updated partition (complete with all your stuff). It’s possible that some phone makers will never embrace this feature and existing devices like the Nexus 5X or 6P don’t play nice with it either. But we can at least assume it’ll pop up in this year’s new batch of Nexuses.
Those Nexuses, by the way, are likely to be the first devices to fully embrace features Google revealed at its 2016 I/O developer conference. Nougat ships with a VR mode, for instance, a sort of high-performance system that drives down the time gap between your head’s motion and the image on-screen updating. Neat, certainly, but we’ll get a better sense of the benefits VR mode brings to the table when Google’s Daydream virtual reality platform launches this fall. Meanwhile, we know that Google’s new intelligent Assistant will be baked into the company’s Allo messaging app and the Amazon Echo-like Google Home speaker, but recent evidence suggests it’ll also be made part of Android thanks to an upcoming maintenance release.
Wrap-up
After playing with Nougat for a week, one thing has become abundantly clear: Android is smoother, smarter and more elegant than ever. That doesn’t mean it’s completely issue-free — split-screen multitasking isn’t nearly as elegant as it could be and it kind of sucks that seamless software updates won’t happen on older hardware — but the platform’s foundation is in great shape. It’s a good thing, too. The version of Nougat you’re playing with now is just the first step, and you can bet the features we’re really looking forward too, like Daydream and Assistant, will build off of what was wrought in this update. Yes, chances are you’ll have to wait for a taste of Nougat, and yes, that blows. Just know that the improvements here, subtle though they may be, are worth the wait.
Garmin Fenix Chronos Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
Garmin isn’t the first name that comes to mind when you think of luxury, but the fitness company is trying something new with its latest sport watch. The Fenix Chronos is a $1,500 (£1,100) multisport GPS watch with a titanium body and band, an ultra-durable sapphire crystal display, heart-rate sensor and a ton of tracking features. It’s strong, yet lightweight, but also very expensive and very big.
The Chronos also comes in a stainless steel option that is slightly more affordable: $900 (£850) with a leather strap or $1,000 (£950) when paired with a 316L stainless steel band. Aside from the titanium and stainless steel casing, all units are based on Garmin’s high-end Fenix 3 HR watch and have the sapphire crystal display, heart-rate sensor and other features.
Unboxing Garmin’s elegant Chronos sport watch…
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Features
The Chronos has an omni-directional GPS and GLONASS antenna for tracking a variety of different activities, including running, biking, swimming, triathlons, hiking, climbing, skiing, rowing, paddle boarding and golfing.
Other features include all-day activity tracking for things like steps, distance, calories burned, sleep and heart-rate, as well as smartphone notifications when connected to an iPhone or Android phone. The watch also includes auto stop, auto pause, running dynamics (a feature that can provide feedback on your runs when using a special heart rate chest strap), a recovery advisor, an altimeter, barometer and compass, and is waterproof up to 100 meters (about 328 feet).
Sarah Tew/CNET
The Chronos is essentially a Fenix 3 HR (a watch I like a lot but find a bit too big) in a slimmer and more premium shell with some key differences. The optical heart-rate sensor on the back doesn’t bulge out as much, which makes it a little more comfortable to wear. It also doesn’t include Wi-Fi (it relies solely on Bluetooth to upload data) and has a smaller battery (180mAh on the Chronos compared to 300mAh on the Fenix 3 HR).
Battery life
You’re trading style for performance with Chronos when it comes to battery. Battery life is good, but not as good as the Fenix 3 HR. The Chronos will last up to 13 hours with an active GPS signal (3 hours less than the Fenix 3 HR) and up to a week as a watch and activity tracker.
A special UltraTrac mode will extend battery life to 25 hours when using GPS, but it disables the heart-rate sensor and reduces how often the GPS is pinging the satellite.
Sarah Tew/CNET
Premium from the start
The Chronos is like no other Garmin device before it. Similar to the Huawei Watch and higher-end Apple Watch models, all three Chronos watches are packaged in a premium wood box. In addition to the watch, the box contains an instruction manual, charging cable and a second silicone watch strap (the straps have a quick release which makes swapping them quick and easy).
I’ve really enjoyed wearing the stunning Chronos the past few days. It has all of features that you could ever need for training, competing or walking around town, plus it doesn’t look like a normal sport watch. The Chronos can easily be paired with a dress shirt or suit jacket, although it is big and could look a little funny on smaller wrists.
Here’s the Chronos with the silicone watch band on.
Sarah Tew/CNET
Should you buy it?
Almost everyone reading this is better off getting a Fenix 3 HR or one of Garmin’s other watches. Technology is changing at a rapid pace, and $1,500 (or even $900) is a lot of money to spend on a device that will be outdated in the next two or three years.
The Chronos doesn’t do anything new, but if you put a premium on design and have some extra cash laying around, the watch has everything a budding athlete with a large checking account could ask for.
Alcatel Fierce 4 Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
Alcatel
Who says a big phone has to cost the moon? Alcatel’s Fierce 4, a 5.5-inch beast, offers large-screen lovers a budget deal. Really budget. In the US, it sells for $69 with prepaid carrier MetroPCS. T-Mobile will sell it in the fall, but we don’t have pricing yet.
That’s a shockingly low price. And with it comes the typical specs trade-offs to make the phone more affordable. Like the 720-pixel screen resolution, which is low for an expansive display, an 8-megapixel camera and the lower-powered processor. This is a phone for first-timers, for casual users and for people who really just need an inexpensive phone.
Hardware inside
- 5.5-inch HD display with 1,280×720-pixel resolution
- 8-megapixel camera
- 5-megapixel front-facing camera
- 1.1GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor (MSM8909)
- 16GB storage; 2GB RAM
- 2,500mAh battery
- MicroSD card up to 128GB
- Android 6.0 Marshmallow
The bottom line: Our quick verdict on the Samsung Galaxy Note 7
Samsung’s enormous, pen-toting Galaxy Note was something of a curiosity when the original came out five years ago — unwieldy and built for a niche audience. Since then, big phones have become the norm, and the Note line in particular has become ever more comfortable to hold. The new Note 7 is surprisingly easy to grasp one-handed, despite its 5.7-inch screen — not to mention well built and attractively designed with fast performance, long battery life and a top-notch camera.
Even if you choose to disregard the pen features, then, this is still a nearly perfect handset. In fact, one of our biggest complaints has little to do with the device itself: the steep $849 asking price. Other drawbacks include the not-always-accurate eye scanner and the fact that the updated S Pen feels a little flimsier than the last-gen version. Those few cons aside, this is the company’s best phone yet — of any screen size.
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