LG WM3575CV review – CNET
The Good LG’s $1,100 WM3575CV washing machine cleans clothes surprisingly fast — it even has a 15-minute Speed Wash cycle.
The Bad The WM3575CV scored low on stain removal. Its control panel looks cluttered, and its Smart Diagnosis troubleshooting feature doesn’t come with clear instructions.
The Bottom Line The LG WM3575CV will work in a pinch, but I’d look elsewhere for something more well rounded.
For all of the things LG’s $1,100 WM3575CV washing machine gets right, it has one fatal flaw — poor performance. Out of all of the front-loaders we’ve reviewed so far, this model earned the lowest overall stain removal score. Given its subpar cleaning skills, I can’t recommend the LG WM3575CV. Look instead to the Electrolux EFLS617S or the Whirlpool WFW87HEDW.
Taking LG’s WM3575CV washer out for a spin
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Speed demon
Before I got the WM3575CV’s performance results, I was fairly impressed with it. This LG machine dominates when you stack its features against competitors in the same price range.
It comes in an attractive “Graphite Steel” finish (that’s code for gray), has a 4.5-cubic-foot-capacity, 12 cleaning cycles and a related Android and iPhone app for troubleshooting repair needs and other potential issues.
Here’s a closer look at the WM3575CV’s specs versus the Electrolux and the Whirlpool:
Comparing washing machines
| LG WM3575CV | Whirlpool WFW87HEDW | Electrolux EFLS617S |
| $1,100 | $1,199 | $1,099 |
| Graphite Steel, White (for $1,000) | Chrome Shadow, White (for $1,099) | White, Titanium (for $1,199) |
| 4.5 cubic feet | 4.3 cubic feet | 4.4 cubic feet |
| 12 | 10 | 9 |
| 90 kWh/year | 109 kWh/year | 85 kWh/year |
| 27×38.7×29.7 inches | 27×38.7×33.1 inches | 27x38x31.5 inches |
| 1 year, limited | 1 year, limited | 1 year, limited |
| 120V; 60Hz | 120V; 60Hz | 120V; 60Hz |
| Yes, Android and iPhone | No | No |
In addition to having a slightly larger drum capacity, slightly more cleaning cycles and an app, the WM3575CV can also complete a laundry cycle faster than the competition.
With help from its TurboWash setting, this LG model can wash a regular ol’ load of laundry in 30 minutes flat. It also has a 15-minute Speed Wash cycle that I used to wash some of my clothes in a hurry. Here’s a list of all of the WM3575CV’s available cleaning options:
- Cotton/Normal
In other washer news:
- So-so performance cramps this washer’s style
- This giant washer dominates its top-load competition
- Kenmore’s massive washing machine holds more
- How we test: Washing machines
- Bulky/Large
- Perm. Press
- Delicates
- Hand Wash/Wool
- Speed Wash
- Tub Clean
- Heavy Duty
- Bright Whites
- Towels
- Drain+Spin
- Small Load
Frigidaire FGID2466QF 24 In. Gallery Built-In Dishwasher review – CNET
The Good The smudgeproof stainless-steel finish helps the $650 Frigidaire Gallery FGID2466QF look like a much more expensive dishwasher. It backs up those looks with quality cleaning performance and plenty of cycles to choose from.
The Bad The interior of the FGID2466QF doesn’t have a lot of features to help you load your dishes. In fact, the arrangement of the upper rack makes fitting your bowls and glasses particularly tedious.
The Bottom Line If you’re willing to work with the tedious upper rack, sleek design and solid performance make the FGID2466QF a fine budget-friendly dishwasher.
One of these days, we’ll find the perfect dishwasher. Until that day comes, I present to you the $650 Frigidaire Gallery FGID2466QF. It joins a trio of budget dishwashers we’ve reviewed recently that prove you don’t need to shell out big bucks for good cleaning capability. Like the others — the $600 GE GDF610PMJES and the $700 Kenmore 13699 — this Frigidaire model has drawbacks. In particular, it has an upper rack that makes loading your bowls and glasses painful, it’s louder than its more expensive counterparts, and it has a plastic inner tub instead of stainless steel.
Also like the others, this Frigidaire Gallery dishwasher cleaned as well as models that cost twice as much. If you don’t mind spacing out your dishes on the top rack, it’s worth your consideration. In fact, if you prioritize looks, I’d recommend this model over both the GE GDF610PMJES and the Kenmore 13699. The smudge-resistant stainless finish and fully integrated control panel look great. The GE GDF610PMJES has the best feature list of the group, and the Kenmore 13699 cleans the best of the trio, but the Frigidaire FGID2466QF isn’t far behind on either, making it a well-rounded option at a reasonable price.
Stain free shine from the Frigidaire Gallery…
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Got no stains to hold it down
Low cost, good clean
- Kenmore 13699
- Bosch SHS63VL5UC
- GE GDF610PMJES
We’ve seen it on other Frigidaire appliances, but I was still impressed by how well the smudgeproof stainless finish on the Frigidaire Gallery FGID2466QF dishwasher kept fingerprints off of the front of the machine. Especially for $650, its appearance held up remarkably well throughout our rigorous testing.
As usual with large appliances, you can find this dishwasher for less than that $650 price. You can use the Frigidaire site to find retailers in your area. It’s available at major appliance retailers such as Best Buy, Home Depot, and Amazon. Best Buy and Home Depot both have it for just under $400.
Spider leg surprise
Despite the plastic tub, I still liked the look of the interior of the FGID2466QF. The stainless tubs of higher end models do save energy, but with this dishwasher, I didn’t notice a big difference as far as style is concerned.
The blue wheel of jets at the bottom of the tub accents gray racks and tines that look professional but not boring. Loading dishes into the racks, however, was less pleasant.
The blue wheel of jets at the bottom of the tub looks good and does a good job of covering every dish with water.
Chris Monroe/CNET
A few of the tines on the top rack look like spider legs. Folded in, they’re spaced such that you can fit bowls between them. Fold them out and the tines line up next to the exterior columns, leaving an open spot in the front middle of the upper rack where you could fit larger serving dishes. It’s a creative idea, but the spacing never actually made it easier for us to load the dishwasher in practice.
We follow the recommended loading pattern in our dishwasher tests, and doing so with this model resulted in tight spacing and awkwardly placed bowls. We had to squeeze glasses into the second and fourth columns and the sound of glass scraping glass as we shoved them past the bowls in the middle column wasn’t pleasant. The bowls themselves weren’t sitting securely in their spot, and ended up nesting next to each other often, though we did our best to prevent them from doing so.
The spider-leg-shaped tines make it tough to load your dishes.
Chris Monroe/CNET
The nested bowls resulted in missed spots on the cleaning tests — since the water couldn’t get between them. For the most part, the Frigidaire FGID2466QF is a good cleaner, but the poor upper rack tines prevented it from shining the bowls.
The arrangement of tines on the bottom rack is more run-of-the-mill and less offensive. The back two rows fold down, and the two middle rows of tines are shorter, encouraging you to fit small dishes between rows of larger plates on the outside.
The lower rack tines don’t add much, but don’t make it harder to load your dishes.
Chris Monroe/CNET
The Wii U revisited: Looking back on a forward-thinking console
Engadget is re-reviewing the current generation of game consoles, each of which has benefited from firmware updates, price drops and an improved selection of games. We’ve already revisited the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4. Now, at last, it’s Nintendo’s turn. Though we’ve raised our Wii U score to 74 from 70, you can still find our original review here, if you’re curious to read what we said at launch.
It’s hard to believe that the Wii U is only 4 years old. In the time since Nintendo released its last flagship console, we’ve seen four iPhones, as many Galaxy S handsets from Samsung, two models of the Xbox One and, of course, the PlayStation 4. All of which is to say, it feels like it’s been much longer since the quirky console came out. Compared with the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, the Wii U has changed the least. Nintendo didn’t release a slimmed-down version, nor has it offered additional storage options beyond the launch model’s 32GB. Firmware updates have slightly changed the UI as well as delivered performance improvements, but there otherwise hasn’t been a massive overhaul.
Even before it began teasing a new console, still codenamed “NX,” Nintendo seemed to have forgotten about the Wii U. Sure, the company released the poorly received Star Fox Zero in April, but until The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild comes out next year, the release calendar is devoid of first-party games. Of course, that’s not counting the throwback Classic Mini NES console, which arrives in November. Before the NX’s promised March 2017 launch, we wanted to revisit the system, just as we did recently with the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Think of this as both a re-review and a postmortem.
Hardware
The Wii U wasn’t supposed to go head-to-head with consoles from Microsoft and Sony — not the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and certainly not the PS4 and Xbox One. That’s evident by looking at both the system itself as well as the game selection. Unlike its competitors, which sport sleek, futuristic designs, the Wii U is understated, with cheerful rounded corners and a glossy finish — as clear a sign as any that the Wii U was intended for families more than avid gamers. All told, it’s about the size of a hardcover book, making it very unobtrusive indeed. Up front is the slot-loading DVD drive and under that a sliding door hiding two USB 2.0 ports and an SD card slot for additional storage. On the left, you’ll find the power and eject buttons.
Around back are two more USB 2.0 connections, an HDMI socket, power-supply input, a port for the Wii sensor bar (for backward compatibility with the original Wii) and analog video output. The lack of Ethernet means everything from downloading games to playing Fast Racing Neo online is done via the console’s archaic 802.11b/g/n WiFi radio — that is, unless you spring for a compatible USB LAN adapter.
If the 32GB of internal storage isn’t enough for you, or you don’t have a sizable SD card lying around, the system also supports powered external hard drives. Even then, I’ve had the system since launch, owned a number of downloaded games and have rarely come close to needing more space than the internal storage provided. Speaking of games, the type of stuff you’ll play on the Wii U underscores the limitations of its relatively low-powered internals. The IBM-Power-based multi-core processor and custom Radeon high-def GPU can’t crank out visuals on par with what the PS4 and Xbox One are capable of, but playing Mario Kart 8 in 1080p at 60 frames per second is still nothing to sneeze at. Strong art direction doesn’t need bleeding-edge silicon to power it either — just a development team skilled at using what’s available. And that’s what Nintendo does best.
GamePad
The GamePad is the heart of the Wii U; the thing that makes it so different from the hardware that came before it. Nintendo fused motion controls from the original Wii with the 3DS hand-held’s touch interface into one package, creating something truly unique. Perhaps someone else is using the TV in the living room, but you want to collect a few coins in Mario Kart 8? No problem. You can use GamePad’s 6.2-inch resistive touchscreen to play games, no TV required. Just plug in a pair of headphones to the 3.5mm jack on top and you’re all set. A majority of titles mirror their video output to the GamePad’s screen too, so your options aren’t limited to kart racing with an Italian plumber and his pals. The catch here is that to get the best experience, you need to be pretty close to the console itself (read: within 20 feet and with a clear line of sight).
While the touchpad takes center stage, there are also a bunch of physical inputs. Two clickable, convex analog sticks are equidistant on opposite sides of the touchscreen, with a D-pad below the one on the left. And there’s an NFC contact point for Amiibo figurines directly under that. Moving to the right, the system’s home button is centered below the screen. Next to that is a battery-indicator light, and buttons for TV control and powering the console on and off.
The diamond arrangement of A, B, X and Y face buttons sits awkwardly right below the right analog stick, with the start and select buttons below that. And I almost forgot: There’s a camera centered above the touchpad. I’ve never used it for anything, hence my nearly forgetting to mention it. Continuing our tour, a pair each of digital shoulder and trigger buttons rest on the backside. Those are joined by a volume slider for the onboard speakers, an IR blaster, headphone port and AC power connector.
I’ve never been able to hold the GamePad comfortably. I have big hands, and the device, though sturdy, isn’t easy to hang onto for extended periods of time. The ridge that juts out from the backside isn’t even the issue. I actually like resting the tops of my middle fingers against it while my pointer fingers lie on top of the ZL and ZR triggers. It’s the fact that half of my fingers don’t have any option other than lying flat against the back. Moreover, the symmetrical analog stick placement makes it difficult for me to reach the A, B, X, Y diamond during gameplay. Same with grabbing the stylus from its holster in the middle of playing.
Of course, the traditional joypad, the Wii U Pro Controller, doesn’t have any of these issues. My only gripes are the digital shoulder and trigger buttons: It’s hard to go back from the analog precision Microsoft has offered on its Xbox controllers since 2001. Hell, the GameCube controller had them too.
The other thing is that some games — especially those developed in-house by Nintendo — simply aren’t playable without the GamePad. Launch title Scribblenauts Unlimited relies on the touchpad for inputting text, for instance. Meanwhile, this year’s Star Fox Zero uses its motion controls and second screen extensively for targeting. Kirby and the Rainbow Curse has you drawing paths for the pink puffball to follow directly on the GamePad’s screen as well, without the need to even look up at your TV. Not using the controller isn’t exactly an option if you aren’t a fan of it and still want to play the Wii U’s exclusive games.
Anecdotally, I’ve discovered that the split of people who love or loathe the GamePad is pretty even. Personally, the ergonomic issues make it hard for me to go more than a few hours before my hands cramp up and I need to put the GamePad down. Which works out well because the battery on the controller lasts only around four hours at half brightness with the volume turned off.
Battery life isn’t as annoying an issue thanks to the GamePad’s pack-in charging cradle, though. Setting the controller in it after a session is effortless, due to the fact that it charges via contact points rather than a cable. I wish Microsoft and Sony would do something like this: The convenience of it can’t be overstated.
System software
Part of what makes the Wii U feel like it’s aged so much is that its software hasn’t been updated nearly as much as its contemporaries’. The system feels like we’ve had it longer because, aside from the addition of folders and a quick access menu (both of which are incredibly welcome), it’s basically running the same software as it did in 2012. The Xbox One, meanwhile, has undergone a total software makeover, and in less time.
We’re currently at system software version 5.5.1, and compared to 2012’s operating system, it’s dramatically faster. Is it as zippy as navigating the PS4’s home screen? No, but that console is a year newer and a great deal more powerful. A lot of things that required digging through a few submenus and exiting your game to access, like the friends list and Miiverse social network, pop up when pressing the Home button now. And that’s about it.
Game selection
The reason practically everyone buys Nintendo consoles is to play the latest versions of the company’s signature franchises. Very few third-party games take advantage of Nintendo’s various hardware features the way its in-house teams do. It’s a good thing, then, that for the most part, the tentpole Nintendo games on the Wii U are great — especially for parties. Splatoon, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, Mario Kart 8 and Super Mario 3D World offer the types of local multiplayer action you simply can’t get anywhere else. That’s to say nothing of revisiting remastered classics like The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD or its sequel, Twilight Princess HD, with more detail and new features, respectively.
The Wii U has given birth to a pretty active indie scene, too. Affordable Space Adventures, Runbow, Fast Racing Neo and Shovel Knight, among others, are all worth your time.
At this point in the console’s life, though, there’s really only one new game on the horizon: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. And even then, that doesn’t come out until sometime early next year. If you’re buying a Wii U today, there isn’t a lot to look forward to by way of new games, but at least there are plenty of quality experiences to catch up on.
Wrapup
While the Wii and 3DS that came before it popularized motion control and stylus input, the Wii U’s use of these technologies didn’t excite gamers the way Nintendo’s earlier consoles did. Still, the Wii U’s impact on the broader gaming landscape is undeniable. Mirroring gameplay to another device gave rise to Remote Play on PlayStation and game streaming on Xbox One. What’s more, Sony cribbed the idea of using your TV as a monitor for bystanders for its soon-to-be-released PlayStation VR. Nintendo has been ahead of the curve for a while, but what legacy its next hardware innovation leaves remains to be seen.
Photos by Will Lipman
Project Nursery Video Baby Monitor System review – CNET
The Good Nursery Project’s Video Baby Monitor System has reliable connection, crisp two-way audio and a creative design. Plus, it has a lot of extra features.
The Bad For the high price, the resolution feels a little low, the camera’s pan/tilt responsiveness is inconsistent, and the wrist monitor is a bit bulky.
The Bottom Line While the price might be too high for some customers, Nursery Project’s Monitor System is a solid product with a creative and unique design.
One of the perks of having an app-connected video baby monitor is that you don’t need to carry the base station screen around the house with you. Instead, you just pull up the app on your phone and get an instant update on your napping kiddo.
Project Nursery wants to bring together the best of both worlds — a secure, non-app-connected camera with a base station monitor that isn’t a hassle to carry around. Its solution: a 1.5-inch monitor that straps to your wrist like a smart watch. This mini monitor is included with the typical camera, a 5-inch base station viewing screen and a slew of great features. This creative design positions the $300 Project Nursery Video Baby Monitor System as one of the best on the market — and one of the most expensive.
Explore which video baby monitor is right…
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The first thing customers will probably notice when looking at Project Nursery’s product is the $300 price tag. This video baby monitor costs more than most wearable monitors, video monitors and even things like automated infant seats and computerized changing pads.
But Project Nursery’s monitoring kit will be worth the price for many parents. First, it has solid-but-not-incredible 800×640 resolution, a reliable connection, clear two-way audio, and plenty of extra features like motion alerts and lullabies.
Project Nursery really stands out because of its mini monitor, which shares all the features of the full-size base station. The 1.5-inch screen with a well-designed user interface is perfect for a wearable-type device. I used that monitor more often than the full-size one, especially when I did chores that required moving around the house.
View full gallery Chris Monroe/CNET
This new monitor system isn’t perfect, though. The $300 price will be prohibitive for many customers, no matter how many cool features are available. While the dedicated 2.4 GHz radio frequency keeps a consistent resolution, it has an 800-foot radius, which means you can’t do any remote viewing — a feature that would seem natural on a wearable wrist monitor like Project Nursery’s. Even within that radius, there is minor latency when panning and tilting the camera. Finally, the wearable wrist monitor is pretty bulky — especially for anyone who’s accustomed to sleeker smart watches.
For all its minor shortcomings, Project Nursery’s new monitor is a standout on the market. If parents can get past the price tag, it’ll be a solid investment.
The bottom line: Our quick verdict on the HP Chromebook 13
Until recently, if you wanted a Chromebook, you had two distinct choices: splurge on a Pixel, or settle for something cheap and pokey. Lately, though, we’ve seen a few entries that aim to do something different: offer better design and performance for just a modest premium. The latest is the HP Chromebook 13 ($499 and up), which brings a high-res 3,200 x 1,800 screen, comfortable keyboard and trackpad, up to a Core m7 processor and as much as 16GB of memory.
Obviously, though, the tricked-out version will cost you a little more than $499 ($1,029, to be precise). Indeed, we don’t recommend most people spend that much on a machine running Chrome OS. For most people, the base level model, which has a Pentium chip, will be enough. Even then, you can expect decent speeds for everyday use, along with the same sharp screen and comfy typing experience you’d get otherwise. That caveat aside, we’d also warn you about the battery life: It’s not as long as on competing Chromebooks, precisely because of that pixel-dense screen. That doesn’t mean we don’t recommend it — just that it’s not the all-around winner it appears to be on paper.
LG OLEDE6P series review – CNET
The Good With the exception of other 2016 OLED TVs, the LG E6 outperforms every other TV we’ve tested. It evinced perfect black levels, wide viewing angles, accurate color and a brighter picture than last year. It’s compatible with both types of HDR TV shows and movies, Dolby Vision and HDR10. Its striking design features a super-slim, glass-bordered panel.
The Bad The E6 is more expensive than the B6, which performs about the same.
The Bottom Line Unless you have even more money to burn than the typical OLED TV shopper, you should choose the less expensive version of this TV.
In 2016 LG greatly expanded its selection of OLED televisions, but not in the way that many buyers who want to take home one of these world-beating TVs have hoped.
You see, OLED TVs aren’t getting any cheaper. A perfect example is the E6 reviewed here. The image produced by this TV is phenomenal, head-and-shoulders better than any LCD-based television I’ve tested. So it should be a no-brainer recommendation for high-end TV shoppers who don’t want something larger than 65 inches, yes?
No. There is another.
The B6 I reviewed at the same time has pretty much the same picture quality as the E6, for a lot less money (relatively). The E6’s advantages over the B6, namely 3D capability, a sleeker picture-on-glass design, better sound courtesy of a speaker bar along the bottom and a redesigned remote, aren’t enough to be worth the substantial price difference. I would only recommend it to people who have money to burn, and those lucky folks might as well buy a G6. Perhaps they can put it in their other G6.
LG OLEDE6P (pictures)
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The rest of us still have a hard time convincing ourselves that high price of any OLED TV is worth it. That’s not going to change unless LG gets serious about making OLED affordable, which probably won’t happen until some other TV maker brings OLED TVs to market. Until then, if you can’t wait for prices to fall and you’ve managed to convince yourself to spring for an OLED TV, make it the B6.
Editors’ note: I tested a 65-inch LG E6 and a 55-inch B6 at the same time, and most of what I saw was very similar, so large parts of the two reviews are identical. Differences are noted where appropriate, but the main takeaway is that both have very similar picture quality.
Series information: I performed a hands-on evaluation of the 65-inch LG OLED65E6P, but this review also applies to the 55-inch OLED55E6P. Both have identical specs and according to the manufacturer should provide very similar picture quality.
For more information on LG’s other OLED TVs, see this section of the B6 review.
View full gallery Sarah Tew/CNET
Super-slim TV goes glass
Not content to let the ultra-slim panel OLED panel speak for itself, in 2016 LG augmented it with what it calls a picture-on-glass design on the E6 and G6 TVs. The OLED module — the thing that creates the picture — is applied to a glass back panel, leaving the edge of the TV made of a quarter-inch of glass bordering the black around the image. One result is that the thinnest part of the TV, the upper two thirds above the bulge housing the electronics, inputs and other stuff, is actually slightly thicker (by about 0.06 inches) than the step-down B6. The back of the TV is also subtly patterned.
Further separating the E6 from less expensive versions like the B6 is a horizontal strip of silver lines along the bottom, a grille of sorts, that fronts a more powerful sound system. It adds another touch of style, although personally I prefer the minimalist, more all-picture look of the B6.
View full gallery Sarah Tew/CNET
Nonetheless, the E6 is one stunning-looking TV, whether you mount it on the wall or use the low-profile stand. Unlike earlier LG OLEDs, which required a special add-on wall bracket, the B6 and other 2016 models can work with a standard VESA wall mount.
The remote is another design departure from other OLEDs. Longer, thinner and silver, it rearranges some of the buttons and trades the slightly bulbous shape for a ribbed bottom. LG kept its trademark motion control, which allows you to whip around the menus with a responsive cursor rather than a plodding directional keypad. That keypad is still available, too, if you want it, along with a slick rubberized scroll wheel. I like the new clicker, although if I had to choose between the two I’d probably opt for the older version because of its better-differentiated buttons and more compact size.
View full gallery Sarah Tew/CNET
Key TV features
| OLED |
| N/A |
| 4K |
| HDR10 and Dolby Vision |
| Flat |
| Web OS |
| Motion |
| Yes (Passive) |
Features and connectivity
OLED is the dark star of the show here. Its basic tech is closer to late, lamented plasma than to the LED LCD (SUHD or otherwise) technology used in the vast majority of today’s TVs. Where LCD relies on a backlight shining through a liquid crystal panel to create the picture, with OLED and plasma, each individual sub-pixel is responsible for creating illumination. That’s why OLED and plasma are known as “emissive” and LED LCD as “transmissive” displays, and a big reason why OLED’s picture quality is so good.
New for 2016 LG is claiming 25 percent higher light output and a wider color gamut compared with previous models like the EF9500. Interestingly, it also says all of its new 2016 OLED TVs, including the B6 and E6 I tested, have the same picture quality. In my tests all of those claims were essentially true; see Picture Quality below for details.
View full gallery Sarah Tew/CNET
The other big improvement over last year is support for both types of HDR video: Dolby Vision and HDR10. Today at least, that means TVs like the E6 can access more HDR TV shows and movies than other devices. The E6 and B6 share the same Web OS Smart TV system and access to the same streaming services, including Netflix, Amazon and Vudu with Dolby Vision HDR. See my B6 review if you’d like more details on that.
Unlike the B6, the E6 can support 3D, technically making it the cheapest (gulp) non-curved 2016 OLED with 3D. LG includes two pairs of passive 3D glasses. Note that I didn’t test 3D on this set, but I expect it to work as well as it did on the EF9500, which was the best-performing 3D TV I’ve ever reviewed.
The only other features difference between the B6 and E6 is the latter’s superior sound system.
- 4 HDMI inputs with HDMI 2.0a, HDCP 2.2
- 3 USB ports
- 1 component video input
- 1 composite video input (shared with component)
- Ethernet (LAN) port
- Optical digital audio output
- RF (antenna) input
- Remote (RS-232) port (minijack)
The selection of connections is top-notch. Unlike many of Samsung’s sets, this one actually has an analog video input for legacy (non-HDMI) devices.
Picture quality
If you’re looking for a reason to pay extra for the E6 over the B6, keep looking. The differences are pretty slim according to my tests, and neither had a clear advantage. In fact, most of the words below are identical in both reviews.
Both 2016 LG OLEDs evinced the same dominance over other TVs in my test lineup, with slightly better overall images than the EF9500 from last year, especially with HDR sources. The E6 did show a slightly brighter image than the B6, but I can’t say for sure whether that was due to the size difference between my review samples. The B6, for its part, did a bit better in a couple of video processing tests.
All of these OLEDs beat the best LCDs I’ve tested. To be fair, however, my comparison crop didn’t include the very best 2016 LCD TVs from Samsung (the KS9800) and Sony (the Z9D), so I can’t say for sure whether the E6 is better than them.
And in case you’re looking for a link to my picture settings, I’m not going to provide them for this review. Check out my calibration and HDR notes for details.
Comparison models
- LG 65EF9500 (65-inch OLED TV)
- LG 55EG9100 (55-inch OLED TV)
- LG OLED55E6P (55-inch OLED TV)
- Samsung UN65JS9500 (65-inch LCD TV)
- Samsung UN65KS8000 (65-inch LCD TV)
- Vizio P65-C1 (65-inch LCD TV)
Dim lighting: OLED was king here. All four of the OLED TVs in my lineup produced equally perfect black, compared with the variously lighter shades of black found on the LCD TVs. As usual the difference showed up most in dark scenes, for example in “The Revenant” Chapter 21 where Hugh emerges into the searchers’ torchlight. The black bars above and below the image, the shadows among the trees, and Hugh’s silhouette all appeared in true black or very dark shadow, and all looked blacker and more realistic than any of the LED LCD sets.
Another big difference between the OLED and LED LCD TVs was OLED’s immunity to blooming. The best LCDs, like the ones in my lineup, all use local dimming to improve contrast and deliver deeper black levels, but all suffer to a greater or lesser extent from stray light that leaks from bright areas into dark. It showed up most in onscreen graphical elements, like my Blu-ray player’s icons or the subtitles against the lower black bar in Chapter 4 of “The Revenant,” but also some normal program material. The KS8000 was the worst while the Vizio and JS95000 were very good, if not perfect. The issue worsened from off-angle and brighter picture settings, including HDR.
Kenmore 69133 Dryer review – CNET
The Good The Kenmore 69133 dryer pulls moisture from wet laundry with astonishing speed and offers a large 8.8-cubic-foot capacity to process hefty laundry loads. The appliance’s control panel is simple to use and flaunts updated styling that’s both modern and attractive.
The Bad The Kenmore 69133 has relatively few specialty cycles, fewer than what other advanced dryers offer. The appliance’s controls are mounted along its back edge, which rules out stacking it above washers to save space. You can’t place the dryer on top of a pedestal accessory either to gain extra storage or put its door within easier reach.
The Bottom Line If you value raw clothes-drying horsepower above all, then Kenmore 69133 dryer’s excellent performance will have you hooked, but take a hard pass on this machine if you plan to stack your laundry machines vertically or drop them onto pedestals.
Visit manufacturer site for details.
Top-loading washing machines and their similarly sculpted clothes-drying counterparts such as the $1,100 Kenmore 69133 dryer used to be the norm. This style of laundry appliance has been upstaged by flashier units of the front-loading variety. Fashionable and more convenient, you can stack them vertically in compact towers or sit them atop pedestal accessories to gain extra laundry room storage.
While the Kenmore 69133 dryer can’t perform any of those tricks, it does boast a few compelling abilities all its own, the most impressive of which are truly outstanding drying power and swift cycle speeds. Decked out in modern styling, this big 8.8-cubic-foot-capacity laundry machine is a real looker as well. However, if you have your heart set on a trendy front-loading model, the Kenmore 69133 won’t satisfy. In that case, the $1,099 Electrolux EFME617S Perfect Steam or $1,400 Kenmore Elite 81072 are better options. But big families and, frankly, anyone who’d like to spend less time doing laundry will love this appliance.
Kenmore’s spacious top-load style dryer serves…
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Design and features
Standing a full 42.9 inches tall, spanning 29 inches wide and reaching a depth of 32.2 inches, the Kenmore 69133 is one very big boy. A major contributor to the dryer’s large footprint is its huge drum, which provides 8.8 cubic feet of capacity. While not quite as accommodating as the Kenmore Elite 81072 (9-cubic-foot capacity), the dryer is spacious and certainly has enough room to process loads from its official washer counterpart, the Kenmore 29133. A monster in its own right, the front-loading washing machine offers 5.3 cubic feet of clothes cleaning capacity.
Made to match its companion aesthetically as well, the Kenmore 69133 mimics the washer’s classic front-load shape and has controls running along its back, topmost edge. Smartly curved, contoured and sporting a surface of glossy black, the control panel cuts a stylish profile.
The curved control panel is mounted on the back edge.
Tyler Lizenby/CNET
The panel’s capacitive buttons further heighten the dryer’s modern look. More like a smartphone than a typical home appliance, these keys activate with a mere featherlight touch. The contemporary product design continues with the machine’s sound alerts rendered in soft electronic chimes rather than shrill beeps or mechanical buzzes. All this adds up to an appliance that’s a breeze to use and fun to interact with.
I only have a few control-related complaints. First are the panel’s distinctive blue lights and indicators, which are small, faint and harder to see than the brighter LEDs on other dryers. Secondly, since this dryer’s control panel is back-mounted, you can’t stack it on top of another laundry unit such as a washer or vice versa.
This dryer uses capacitive buttons that activate at a light touch.
Tyler Lizenby/CNET
These vertical configurations are a great way to save space or shoehorn bulky appliances into cramped laundry rooms. Additionally, the panel’s location rules out setting the dryer on a pedestal accessory. Pedestals ergonomically raise washer and dryer doors so you don’t have to bend over as much when opening or closing them, but this would make the controls hard to reach.
Compared to the seemingly endless cycle choices many fancy dryers have, the Kenmore 69133 has a relatively tame selection of seven sensor-driven modes (10 counting basic timed cycles). For example, you won’t find exotic options precisely labeled for reducing allergens or treating sportswear or towels. Instead, the machine provides traditional cycles for items generally classified as “Normal,” “Casual,” “Delicates” and “Heavy Duty.”
The panel’s small lights and labels are hard to see from a distance.
Tyler Lizenby/CNET
LG G Pad X 8.0 review – CNET
The Good The LG G Pad X 8.0 only costs $50 with a two-year AT&T service contract. It has a lightweight and portable design, sharp screen and full-size USB port. The built-in IR blaster lets you use it as a remote control.
The Bad The $50 price tag is half the story. You still have to pay extra for monthly cellular service.
The Bottom Line Skip the LG G Pad X 8.0 if the thought of a tablet two-year contract seems ludicrous, but if you’re cool with a commitment, a $50 initial buy-in can’t really be beat.
Guess what! You can actually buy a decent tablet for only $50. Aside from the $50 Amazon Fire, there’s the LG G Pad X 8.0. The catch with the LG? It’s only offered for $50 with a two-year AT&T contract. Otherwise, it costs $250 retail, which, in my expert tablet-reviewer opinion, is way too much for such a simple tablet. But at $50? It’s a great deal. AT&T also offers monthly installment payments that end up costing you about $12.50 a month for 20 months.
LG’s G Pad X 8.0 is a steal for $50, but…
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Why buy the LG G Pad X 8.0 instead of the Amazon Fire? Because it has a full USB port to connect a flash drive, an IR blaster to use it as remote control, access to all of the apps in the Google Play store (Fire tablets have Amazon’s curated app store) and, in my opinion, it looks a lot better than the Amazon Fire. Unlike the Fire, it doesn’t feel like it’ll break in half if I sit on it, even though its design is attractively slimmer, and it has a sharper, brighter screen.
Perfectly portable for reading on a break.
Josh Miller/CNET
Most importantly, the LG G Pad X 8.0 has cellular service. This means you can access the internet on the go, just like your phone. With AT&T, adding a tablet to your plan costs you an extra $10 a month and it shares data with your phone. It’s important to note that although you’re only paying $50 for the tablet, a service contract means that you’re signing up to pay at least an extra $240 for the cellular service over the next two years. All tablets with cell service require you to, you know, pay for the cell service. So if you think you can get away with only paying $50 for the LG tablet, you’re wrong. If that’s what you want, the Wi-Fi-only Amazon Fire is your best alternative.
For $250, the LG G Pad X 8.0 is disappointing, but for $50, it’s impressive. It performs fine for casual use, like reading, rewatching “Stranger Things” and playing games. After two battery tests, the LG averaged 8 hours of battery life. Check back soon for the final result. It’s not as fast as the Asus ZenPad Z8, another great affordable tablet with 4G LTE, but that’s a more expensive model, starting at $149.
You can only buy the LG G Pad X 8.0 through AT&T with service, so if you’re not a customer, or unwilling to become one, you’re better off with the Fire. Otherwise, the G Pad X 8.0 is a hard deal to beat. Sure, it’s a rather vanilla tablet, but for $50, that’s the best you can hope for.
Specs:
- 1,920×1,200-pixel resolution 8-inch IPS screen
- Android 6.0.1
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 617
- 2GB of RAM
- Up to 32GB of internal storage
- MicroSD card slot expandable up to 128GB
- Micro-USB and full USB ports
Benchmarks compared
LG G Pad X 8.0
9,495
3,192
705
Amazon Fire
4,646
1,184
361
Asus ZenPad Z8
17,856
3,638
1,536
Apple iPad Mini 2
15,015
2,465
1,374
Legend:
3DMark Score (Ice Storm Unlimited)
Geekbench 3 Score (Multi-Core)
Geekbench 3 Score (Single-Core)
Note:
Longer bars indicate faster performance
Huawei P9 Plus review
Following the release of the 5.2 inch Huawei P9, Huawei has followed up with a larger 5.5 inch version, the Huawei P9 Plus. Along with a bigger display, the P9 Plus comes with an auto-focus front facing camera and an IR blaster.
Also check out:
- Huawei P9 review
- Huawei Mate 8 review
- Nexus 6P review
Like the standard P9, the P9 Plus comes with a dual-sensor camera from Leica, a fingerprint reader and more. But how does it fair overall? Does it have enough to challenge today’s flagships like the Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 Edge, HTC 10 and LG G5? Let’s find out, in this in-depth review of the Huawei P9 Plus.
Design
The design language of the P9 Plus is identical to the P9, which is in itself very similar to that of the P8. The Huawei P9 Plus has a full metal unibody along with chamfered edges and is basically a larger version of the P9. The P9 Plus has a slightly smoother brushed metal than that found on the Huawei P8 or the Nexus 6P and at just 6.98 mm it’s quite thin for a 5.5 inch device, yet while still managing to avoid any camera bump at all.
On the front you get a 5.5-inch display along with a discrete Huawei logo. There is no physical home button as all the navigation keys are on-screen. Going around the rest of the phone, the volume rocker and textured power button are on the right, while the SIM tray is on the left. At the bottom you will find the speaker grill, the headphone jack and the USB Type-C charging port for the fast-charging 3,400 mAh battery.
On the back is the dual-sensor rear facing Leica camera along with the flash and the fingerprint reader. The camera setup is contained within a black band including the extra sensor and the Leica logo.
Based on its looks alone, the Huawei P9 Plus is clearly targeted at the upper end of the market and it’s hard to deny that it’s quite a good looking handset. The P9 Plus comes in three colors: ceramic white, quartz grey, and haze gold. In the hand, the Huawei P9 Plus is definitely one of the nicest on the market and Huawei has done well to pack a flagship specs list in a profile so ergonomic and svelte.
Display
The Huawei P9 Plus comes with a Full HD 5.5-inch display and 2.5D glass. Although the screen size has been bumped up from the 5.2 inches found on the standard P9, the resolution remains the same at 1920×1080, this means the P9 Plus has a pixel density of 401 pixels per inch. However the P9 Plus does have one ace up its sleeve, it uses an AMOLED display and not an LCD display. The result is a display with the vibrant colors and deep blacks that we associate with AMOLED technology.
The display also includes “Press Touch”, which is built on Huawei’s screen pressure recognition tech. Using it you can preview images, magnify image details and access shortcut menus for some of the standard apps. For example, in the gallery you can press harder on the screen to activate a magnifying glass. On the home screen if you force press on the camera icon you will get access to a shortcut menu. These menus also appear for the dialer, contacts and messaging apps, among others. The pressure sensitivity is configurable in the settings, which also provides a test area so you can gauge how much pressure is needed at the different levels.
The display is bright, and works well indoors and outdoors. The screen is vivid and saturated with some great contrast, it also has good viewing angles. You can change the color temperature of the display in the Settings menu to a little warmer or colder to better suit your tastes, but for me the default settings were good enough. Overall, the P9 Plus comes with a great display that will provide a good experience regardless of what you’re doing on the screen.
Hardware and performance
The Huawei P9 Plus features an in-house Kirin 955 SoC build on 16nm FinFET. It is a slightly beefed up version of the Kirin 950 that featured in the Mate 8. The chip boasts an octa-core CPU configuration built from four Cortex-A72 cores, clocked at 2.5GHz, and four Cortex-A53 cores, clocked at 1.8GHz. The chip also features a Mali-T880 MP4 GPU, one of the most powerful graphics processors in Huawei’s armory. The P9 Plus comes with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage, along with possible expansion via the microSD slot.
In terms of every day use the P9 Plus is fast, fluid and great to use. The UI animations are smooth, apps open and close quickly, and multi-tasking being a breeze. Games also work well on this device and while there are handsets out there with more powerful GPU configurations, the Mali T880 is a fantastic GPU, even in this 4 core variant. Although the benchmarks show that the GPU has a lower performance than say the GPU in the Exynos 8890, for most users the 3D gaming experience on this device will be excellent.
The Cortex-A72 core is the latest, and highest performing, 64-bit core design from ARM. The use of a Cortex-A72 & Cortex-A53 octa-core SoC is reflected in the benchmarks. The Huawei P9 Plus scored 1829 on Geekbench’s single-core test and 6573 for the multi-core test. These are approximately the same scores achieved by the smaller Huawei P9. For some context, those scores are better than the Snapdragon 810 and the Exynos 7420. Compared to the Snapdragon 820 and Exynos 8890, the Kirin 955’s single core results are lower, however the multi-core score is higher. In other words, according to Geekbench at least, this is a leading flagship processor.
For AnTuTu the P9 Plus scored 97910, which ranks the device higher than the Samsung Galaxy Note 5, faster than the Huawei Mate 8 (as expected) and faster than the Galaxy S6. However it is slower than the latest flagships with Snapdragon 820 or Exynos 8890 processors. As for Epic Citadel the device manages a nice 59.3 frames per second in Ultra High Quality mode, you can’t really ask for more.
The fingerprint reader on the P9 Plus is very good and really I have come to expect nothing less from Huawei. The fingerprint reader on the P9 was excellent and the P9 Plus has followed suit. Since the fingerprint reader is on the back, you can wake and unlock your phone just by putting your finger on the reader. You can also use the fingerprint reader to trigger the shutter while taking photos, to swipe left and right when viewing photos in the gallery, or to answer a call.
The Huawei P9 Plus features a single speaker on the bottom edge, next to the Type-C USB port. The speaker is quite loud and the sound is reasonable considering it isn’t a front facing speaker. However, as with many smartphones, music can lack bass and sound a bit thin. I found that at full volume some tracks tended to distort and that the sound quality improved when the volume was actually turned down a notch or two.
The P9 Plus has a 3400 mAh battery, which is impressive when you consider how sleek Huawei have made the device. I ran Epic Citadel to test the battery life while playing 3D games. According to my calculations you will be able to play 3D games for over 4 hours from a single charge. As for simpler tasks like browsing the web, you will get around 11 hours from a full charge, or alternatively you can watch locally stored videos for at least 10 hours.
Overall you will easily be able to get through a full day without needing to reach for the charger. My tests show that you should be able to get around 6 to 7 hours of screen-on time during a 24 hour period, depending on your usage.
When it comes to battery charging, the P9 Plus supports fast charging and a fast charger is included in the box. Using the supplied charger, it takes 40 minutes to go from empty to 50% and 2 hours and 27 minutes to charge the phone from zero to 100%. The P9 Plus has a USB Type-C port for charging, however Huawei has been practical in that the charging cable has a USB Type-C plug at one end and a Type-A USB port at the other for connecting to the charger or your PC.
As you would expect the P9 Plus also includes the usual assortment of WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, and NFC connectivity options. The Huawei P9 Plus also comes with a plethora of LTE bands – just like previous Huawei devices – with support for most the major GSM bands in a single variant of the handset.
One of the extra features on the P9 Plus is the IR blaster. The bundled Smart Controller app allows you to control TVs, air conditioning units, set-top-boxes, DVD players, projectors and more. Device setup is easy enough, you just need to pick the type and make of device and follow the on-screen instructions. Overall the IR blasted worked as expect and in my opinion is a good addition.
Software
The Huawei P9 Plus runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box, complete with Huawei’s Emotion UI 4.1. For some people the lack of a stock Android experience will be a stumbling block, especially since EMUI doesn’t include an app drawer. If you haven’t heard of EMUI, the general look-and-feel is different to stock Android with colorful square icons, desktop folders and a re-designed settings page.
However besides the UI changes there are lots of additional features that you don’t get with stock Android including a floating dock, motion gestures, voice wake-up, a one-handed mode and Huawei’s own take on a “do not disturb” mode.
Under motion gestures you can enable motions like flip to mute, raise to ear to answer calls, and a tilt motion to move icons and widgets. The tilt motion feature works from the home screen editing mode. If you touch and hold an icon or widget you can move it to another screen by tilting the phone to the left or right. There is also the Knuckle gestures which allow you to take a screenshot by double tapping the screen with your knuckle, or drawing a letter to open an app. Both types of knuckle gesture can be disabled if you find they misfire.
See Also: Upgrading from Huawei Mate 7 to Huawei Mate 817
With the built-in voice wakeup you can talk to your phone when it is nearby. Its usage is limited to placing a call or locating your device, but it works quite well. The default phrase is “Okay Emy,” but can be changed to anything you like. A similar feature is “Quick calling” which allows you to initiate calls when the screen is turned off. However you need to press and hold the volume down button until you hear an alert tone, then you can speak the name of the contact you want to call.
Since the P9 Plus uses on-screen keys, Huawei as added the ability to customize the order of the navigation buttons. By default the recent apps is on the right and the back button is on the left. However this can be reversed. It is also possible to add a fourth button for opening the notification panel. Tapping the icon is the equivalent to dragging the notification shade down from the top.
There is also a theme engine that lets you easily change the look and feel of the UI to something that better suits your tastes. The theme store has dozens of free themes arrange in several different categories including Creative, Cool, Lovely, Cartoon and Sophisticated. Switching to a new theme is easy, you just need to download it and apply it, however you will need to register for a free Huawei ID.
Huawei has included a battery manager which gives you a high level of control over battery related features. For example you can set a power plan which will tweak the CPU according to your usage (and so save battery when possible). One interesting feature which I haven’t seen before is the ability to change the screen resolution from Full HD to 720p. According to the battery manager app this can help save power! Other battery related options include a whitelist function to ensure that certain apps keep running after the screen is turned off and a power usage firewall which warns you about power hungry apps.
There is also an ultra power saving mode which will disable everything except calls and messages plus activate a simply monochrome UI. When running low on battery power this mode can add several more hours of usage.
Camera
One of the key features on the Huawei P9 Plus is the camera. As with the smaller P9, Huawei has partnered with legendary German camera-maker Leica and included the same dual-sensor camera from the P9.
The P9 Plus has a 12 MP dual-lens setup on the back, one with an RGB sensor specifically for color reproduction and the other purely for capturing black and white detail. The camera setup was co-engineered with Leica as part of a long-term partnership that was announced back in February. As a result the f/2.2 dual lenses carry the Leica seal of approval.
The idea behind the dual-lenses is the ability to deliver greater verisimilitude and better light sensitivity. The built-in monochrome sensor promises a 200% sensitivity increase compared to regular sensors and a 50% bump in contrast. There are three different focus modes on board too: laser focus, depth focus and contrast focus as well as a dedicated depth measurement chip. This means that both lenses can focus individually and the P9 Plus’ image processor will automatically choose the best result.
Apart from the more standard modes like HDR and Panorama there are lots of camera modes available including a full manual mode (which offers greater control over ISO, exposure and shutter speed) and a special shallow depth-of-field mode. When using the shallow depth-of-field mode you get the added ability of being able to refocus pictures post capture. From the gallery you can enter the refocusing mode and change which object is in focus and the depth-of-field, i.e. how far away (in terms of depth) another object needs to be before it goes out of focus.
Other modes include night shot, time-lapse, slow-motion, and watermark. There is also a series of live filters available if you want to get a little fancy with your picture taking. Huawei also added a light painting mode, that lets you capture light trails created by things like moving cars, or the stars in the sky. The effect can be really interesting, but you will need a pair of steady hands, or a tripod mount, to get the perfect shots.
When in PRO mode you also get some extra options on the settings page, namely the ability to save images in both RAW and JPEG formats, plus an option to enable/disable the AF auxiliary light feature (which basically shines the flash LED like a torch while focusing in low-light conditions).
There are two things that detract from the overall camera experience. One is the lack of Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) and the other is the lack of 4K video recording. The good news is that there is a software based image stabilization option when recording video.
The 8 MP front-facing camera adds auto-focus, something missing from many smartphones including the standard P9. The auto-focus is a nice feature and should make selfie junkies happy. You will find the standard beautification mode available, plus the Perfect Selfie mode. This mode allows you to dial in a number of beauty presets that automatically get applied each and every time you take a selfie, making for a consistent look across all your self portraits, thus creating the perfect selfie!
My biggest complaint with the P9 Plus’ camera app is that it doesn’t rotate all the UI elements when you move from portrait to landscape. Although some elements do move, the settings page remains in portrait as do the “PRO” settings.
Here are some sample photos to help you judge the camera for yourself:
Plus a few low-light shots:
I also took some monochrome images (one of the modes in the camera app) which I guess/hope uses the monochrome sensor:
See also: 15 best camera apps for Android103
Specifications
| Display | 5.5-inch AMOLED panel 1920×1080 resolution Press touch tech |
| SoC | HiSilicon Kirin 955 |
| CPU | 4x 2.5GHz Cortex-A72 4x 1.8GHz Cortex-A53 |
| GPU | Mali-T880 MP4 |
| RAM | 4GB |
| Storage | 64GB + microSD |
| Cameras | Dual-sensor 12 megapixel rear camera co-engineered with Leica. 8 megapixel front facing camera with auto-focus. |
| Battery | 3,400mAh |
| Features | Fingerprint scanner, USB Type C, NFC, IR Blaster |
| OS | Android 6.0 Marshmallow with EMUI 4.1 |
| Dimensions | 152.3 x 75.3 x 6.98mm |
| Weight | 162g |
Gallery
Wrapping up
The Huawei P9 Plus certainly offers a lot. It’s thin, has a great battery, there is good performance, the dual-sensor camera and the nice 5.5 inch display. The only wrinkle I can foresee that could slow its wide spread adoption is EMUI.
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Our reviews of previous Huawei devices, like the Huawei P8 and the Mate 8, have highlighted flaws with EMUI. One concern has always been that with so many flagship devices on the market, EMUI may prove to be a stumbling block to some users, particularly in the west. However, I am not sure that I feel the same way about the software on the Huawei P9 Plus. I certainly liked the software on the P9 and the software on the P9 Plus is almost identical.
Like the P9 and the Mate 8, the Huawei P9 Plus has excellent hardware, but I also like the software. It isn’t stock Android and if you want stock Android then you aren’t going to be happy with EMUI. True the UI is different, but it is still Android and you still get access to Google’s services, you can install the myriad of apps from the Play Store, and so on. What isn’t there to like?
Having said that, it is also possible to replace the launcher with an alternative like the Google Now Launcher. The trick is to make the Google Now Launcher the default under Settings -> Apps -> Advanced -> Default app settings -> Launcher.
Huawei’s partnership with Leica means this is a great phone for photography enthusiasts, but also a great device for tech lovers, with a range of features that are befitting of any flagship device.
What do you think of the Huawei P9 Plus and do you plan to buy one? Let us know your views in the comments below!
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
It’s been a whopping four years since Canon first shipped its full-frame EOS 5D Mark III dSLR, a popular model for professional photographers who don’t need the speed of a model the size of, say, a 1D X Mark II. And even then the 5DM3 wasn’t a huge change from the Mark II. But for its update, the 5D Mark IV, Canon has made a lot of essential upgrades necessary to make it current for its core users — such as wedding, fashion and landscape photographers as well as videographers — especially if the company wants it to last another 4 years. These include a new sensor (with updated autofocus) and updated metering system, 4K and HDR video and built-in GPS.
For the body, the 5DM4 will run $3,500; Canon plans to offer two kits as well, one with the 24-70mm f4L lens for $4,400 and one with the new 24-105mm f4L II lens for $4,600. (Canon doesn’t set prices in Australia or the UK, but those convert directly to £2,650/£3,320/£3,473 and AU$4,600/AU$5,785/AU$6,050.) It’s about $900 more than the 5DM2.
Canon 5D Mark IV body displays some modest…
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Canon expects to ship the body and the 24-70mm kit during September, with the 24-105mm kit following in October.
What’s new
- Sensor and autofocus. With this model, Canon continues its trend of replacing the standard CMOS sensors in its dSLRs with versions that use its Dual Pixel CMOS technology — sensors with phase-detection autofocus points sharing each imaging pixel. The Dual Pixel CMOS architecture provides much better autofocus performance over older Canon systems, especially when shooting video or using Live View. The new sensor jumps to 30.4-megapixel resolution (from 22.3MP), and brings with it an update to the same second generation of its 61-pt High Density Reticular AF autofocus system that debuted in the 1DXM2, with a claimed AF sensitivity down to -4 EV in Live View, as well as its iTR face- and color-detection technology. The camera also gains the metering system found in the EOS 5DS models. Its image processor is the Digic 6+ which first appeared in the 1DXM2.
- 4K and HDR video. 4K recording has become essential in the current generation of high-end cameras; it delivers far more detail than HD and allows the ability to extract 8-megapixel images. Like the 1DM2, Canon skips the popular UHD 4K format (3,840 x 2,160), instead supporting just cinema-focused DCI (4,096 x 2,160). Most cameras that offer DCI also offer UHD, in part because the two formats have different aspect ratios: UHD’s TFV-friendly 1.78 vs. DCI’s 1.9. The 5DM4 also inherits the HDR movie capability Canon first incorporated into the 80D, which shoots each 1080/60p video frame at two exposures, then combines them for a single 1080/30p frame.
- Performance. Given the updates, the autofocus is likely faster, especially for Live View. However, its continuous shooting speed is only a bit faster — 7 frames per second vs. 6fps. That’s not bad in general for this class of camera, but here that rating is without autofocus, autoexposure and image stabilization. The buffer, too, is only a couple shots deeper for raw, which is disappointing.
- Features. In addition to Wi-Fi with NFC, Canon adds GPS; it can be used to sync the time across multiple bodies as well as geotag. And you can use FTP for file transfer via the Wi-Fi connection. Canon adds an intervalometer and a timer for bulb mode so your forefinger gets a break. There’s also a new file format, Dual Pixel raw, which will allow you to make sub-pixel adjustments in software for increased sharpness; since Canon is the last manufacturer to retain a softening antialiasing filter on its sensors — better for video but worse for stills — this is probably Canon’s workaround. The files are twice the size of a standard raw, however. In the same vein, you’ll now be able to shoot with its corrective Digital Lens Optimizer live rather than having to apply it in postprocessing.
- Design. Overall, the body design remains the same, save for a few tweaks. Perhaps most important, it has improved dust-and-weather sealing, on par with the 7D Mark II according to Canon. The remote terminal moves to the front to make room for a USB 3 connector, and it adds the much-easier-to-manipulate joystick control for selecting AF areas that we’ve seen in recent Canon models. The back LCD is similar to the one on the 1DXM2, but it supports touch for all actions (rather than just a limited number of operations). The shutter mechanism has a softer, less vibratory operation and the now-Canon standard Intelligent Viewfinder II overlay. You’ll have to buy a new battery grip, though, the BG-E20.
My take
Canon addressed many of the shortcomings from the previous model and seems to have brought it up to date appropriately. The biggest disappointment to me is the unchanged ISO sensitivity range; a high maximum usually means important improvements in noise reduction in the middle of the range. But it’s not surprising, since Canon usually targets maintaining image quality status quo when switching from standard to the Dual Pixel CMOS. Given that we’re approaching the Photokina (our coverage will appear at that link starting in September) announcement season it’s hard to judge how it will stack up against what competitors might be planning.
Given the new features, I suspect quite a few Mark III owners will be itching to upgrade; that means this fall should be a good time to pick up a used one.
Comparative specs
| Canon EOS 5D Mark III | Canon EOS 5D Mark IV | Nikon D810 | Pentax K-1 |
| 22.3MP CMOS8-channel readout14-bit | 30.4MP Dual-Pixel CMOSn/a14-bit | 36.3MP CMOS12-channel readout14-bit | 36.4MP CMOSn/a14-bit |
| 36 mm x 24mm | 36 mm x 24mm | 35.9 mm x 24mm | 35.9 mm x 24mm |
| 1.0x | 1.0x | 1.0x | 1.0x |
| Yes | Yes | No | No |
| n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| ISO 50 (exp)/100 – ISO 25600/102400 (exp) | ISO 50 (exp)/100 – ISO 25600/102400 (exp) | ISO 32 (exp)/64 – ISO 12800/51200 (exp) | ISO 100 – ISO 204,800 |
| 6fps18 raw/unlimited JPEG(with AF/AE fixed on first exposure and IS off) | 7fps21 raw/unlimited JPEG(with AF/AE fixed on first exposure and IS off) | 5fpsn/a(6fps in DX mode, 7fps with battery grip) | 4.4fps70 JPEG/23 raw(6.5fps in APS-C crop mode) |
| Optical100% coverage0.71x/0.71x | Optical100% coverage0.71x/0.71x | Optical100% coverage0.70x/0.70x | Optical100% coverage0.70x/0.70x |
| Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 61-pt High Density Reticular AF21 center diagonal to f5.65 center to f2.820 outer to f4 | 61-pt phase detection21 cross-type at f5.620 cross-type at f4 and f5.620 horizontal at f5.65 dual cross-type at f2.8 and f5.661 to f8; 21 cross-type | 51-pt15 cross type11 cross type to f8(Multi-CAM 3500-FX) | 33-point phase detection25 cross type(SAFOX 12) |
| -2 – 20 EV | -3 – 18 EV | -2 – 19 EV | -3 – 18 EV |
| 1/8000 to 30 secs; bulb; 1/200 sec x-sync | 1/8000 to 30 secs; bulb; 1/200 sec x-sync | 1/8000 to 30 secs; bulb; 1/250 sec x-sync | 1/8000 to 30 secs; bulb; 1/200 sec x-sync |
| 150,000 cycles | 150,000 cycles | 200,000 cycles | 300,000 cycles |
| 63-area iFCL | 150,000-pixel RGB+IR with 252 zones | 91,000-pixel RGB 3D Color Matrix Metering III | 86,000-pixel RGB |
| 1 – 20 EV | 0 – 20 EV(-4 – 20 EV in Live View) | 0 – 20 EV | -3 – 20 EV |
| H.264 QuickTime MOV1080/30p, 25p, 24p; 720/60p, 50p | QuickTime MOV Motion JPEG DCI 4K (4,096 x 2,160) 2160/30p @ 500Mbps, 720/120p; 1080/30p HDR | H.264 QuickTime MOV1080/60p, 50p @ 42Mbps, 1080/30p, 25p, 24p@ 24Mbps | H.264 QuickTime MOV 1080/30p, 720/60p |
| mono; mic input; headphone jack | mono; mic input; headphone jack | stereo; mic input; headphone jack | stereo, mic input, headphone jack |
| Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 29m59s | n/a | 20 minutes internal40 minutes (with external pack) | 4GB/25 minutes |
| Yes | n/a | Yes | Yes |
| Optical | Optical | Optical | Sensor shift5-axis |
| 3.2 in/8.1 cmFixed1.04m dots | 3.2 in/8.1 cmFixed touchscreen1.62m dots | 3.2 in/8 cmFixed921,000 dots plus extra set of white dots | 3.2 in/8 cmVariable angle1.04m dots |
| 1 x CF (UDMA mode 7), 1 x SDXC | 1 x CF (UDMA mode 7), 1 x SDXC | 1 x CF (UDMA mode 7), 1 x SDXC | 2 x SDXC |
| Optional(Wireless File Transmitter WFT-E7A) | Wi-Fi, NFC | Optional (WT-4A Wireless transmitter or UT-1 Communication Unit with WT-5A) | Wi-Fi, NFC |
| No | No | Yes | No |
| Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 950 shots(1,800mAh) | 900 shots (VF), 300 shots (LV)(1,865 mAh) | 1,200 shots(1,800 mAh) | 760 shots(1,860 mAh) |
| 6.0 x 4.6 x 3.0 in152 x 116 x 76 mm | 5.9 x 4.6 x 3.0 in151 x 116 x 76 mm | 5.8 x 4.9 x 3.3 in146 x 123 x 81.5 mm mm | 5.4 x 4.3 x 3.4 in137 x 110 x 86mm |
| 33.5 oz950 g | 31.4 oz (est.)890 g (est.) | 34.6 oz980 g | 35.8 oz1,014 g |
| $2,600 £2,400AU$3,350 | $3,500 | $2,800£2,140 (est.)AU$4,500 | $1,800£1,600AU$2,900 |
| March 2012 | September 2016 | July 2014 | April 2016 |
AIVAnet 