VTech Safe & Sound Owl Digital Video Baby Monitor review – CNET

The Good VTech’s Safe & Sound Monitor performs the basics well. Its streaming connection is reliable, and its pan/tilt control is responsive. Plus, the owl design is a cute addition.

The Bad The monitor’s feature list is short, and the camera’s resolution is disappointingly low.

The Bottom Line Some odd design decisions, like the low-res camera and the owl’s glowing red eyes, mar an otherwise solid device. Plus, the price seems a little high for the basic features, no matter how reliable they are.

For anyone browsing baby monitors, it quickly becomes evident that VTech is a mainstay of the market. The company has developed many of the smartest audio-only monitors, and more recently, it has introduced video monitors to the mix. The VTech Safe & Sound Owl Digital Video Baby Monitor, VTech’s most feature-rich offering, sells for about $200 online and at retailers.

The Safe & Sound Monitor might fall in the middle of the market when it comes to price, but its feature list is one of the shortest around. While the basics of two-way audio, pan/tilt control, and night vision are there, there’s no app connection. Without app connection, there’s no push notifications or remote viewing on your phone. The device doesn’t offer any lullabies or stories. In fact, there’s no real special features that stand out at all.

The simplicity of the Safe & Sound Monitor is also a strength, though. While the bells and whistles of other monitors might not be part of this device, neither are the connection problems or latency issues. The streaming, although at a strange PlayStation Portable-level resolution of 480×272, is consistent. The pan/tilt control of the camera is responsive. All around, it’s a solid device.

One other strange design choice is worth noting: The camera that looks like an owl is a fun design feature for kids, but when the lights turn off and night vision is activated, the owl’s eyes turn red. My infant son was too young to really notice, but for older toddlers, having an creature with glowing red eyes watching them at night might not go over so well.

The VTech Safe & Sound is worth checking out if you know you’ll primarily use the monitor for in-home monitoring, and only on the most basic level. In that context, it’s reliable. But if you’re looking for fun features for the kid, or remote monitoring, look elsewhere.

Sony Xperia XA review – CNET

The Good With a super-skinny bezel, the Sony Xperia XA is a great-looking phone that’s comfortable to use in one hand.

The Bad Its low screen resolution, short-lived battery and meagre amount of built-in storage are major setbacks. Sony has loaded the phone with a horrible mess of bloatware.

The Bottom Line Unless slick style is your only concern, skip the Sony Xperia XA for a cheaper phone with better features.

Sony’s recent phones, such as the Xperia X, have been too blocky to be called truly stylish. Not so with the Xperia XA. This 5-inch phone has an edge-to-edge display with only the merest sliver of a bezel. It gives the XA a lusciously premium look that belies its affordable price tag.

The XA will set you back $280 in the US, £240 in the UK and AU$499 in Australia. Design this slick is not usually a high priority for phones of this price.

But that’s where my positive feelings for this phone end. The price is still too steep for its low-resolution display and unimpressive specs, especially when you compare it to the cheaper and more powerful Motorola Moto G4 Plus.

Yes, the XA has a cool design, but it comes at a too high a price.

Edgeless screen

• 143.6 by 66.8 by 7.9 mm
• 137 grams (4.83 ounces)
• Tiny bezel around the display

The almost total lack of edge around the sides of the screen strikes you immediately. It doesn’t curve at the side like the Galaxy S7 Edge. It gives it a classy look. It makes the XA feel smaller than you might expect from a 5-inch phone. I could comfortably stretch my thumb across the display to type with just one hand and it slid easily into my pocket.

The screen itself is a letdown, though. It has only a 720p resolution, resulting in a pixel density of 293 pixels per inch, which is low for a phone of this size and price. The Moto G4 Plus costs significantly less, but it packs a full HD panel with a much more impressive 401 ppi. While apps such as Twitter and Facebook look fine, small text is fuzzy and high resolution images lack clarity.

Colours don’t impress, either, and the display is not very bright. Though Sony was able to squash the screen into a small space, it picked the wrong screen to squash in.

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Andrew Hoyle/CNET

The back panel is plastic, but my white model had a pearlescent finish that glints with a pinkish sheen when it catches the light. Hardly a killer feature, but it’s a welcome touch and a key element of the XA’s aesthetic appeal.

What you won’t find on the phone is a fingerprint scanner, which is disappointing given that most of Sony’s recent phones, like the Xperia X, have it. It’s yet another point where the cheaper Moto G4 Plus wins out. If Motorola can add a fingerprint scanner without ramping up the price, why can’t Sony? Without a scanner, you’ll have to type in your PIN at the terminal when using Android Pay, for example. That’s just not as fast and easy as using your finger.

Sony Xperia XA spec comparison chart

Sony Xperia XA	Motorola Moto G4	OnePlus 3	Apple iPhone SE
5-inch; 1,280×720 pixels	5.5-inch; 1,920×1,080 pixels	5.5-inch; 1,920×1,080 pixels	4-inch; 1,136×640 pixels
294ppi	401ppi	401ppi	326ppi
5.7×2.6×0.31 in	6x3x0.39 in	6.01×2.94×0.29 in	4.87×2.31×0.3in
144x67x7.9 mm	153×76.6×9.8 mm	152.7×74.7×7.35 mm	123x58x7.6mm
4.8 oz (137 g)	5.47 oz (155 g)	5.57 oz (158 g)	3.99 oz (113 g)
Android 6.0 Marshmallow	Android 6.0 Marshmallow	Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow	iOS 9.3
13-megapixel	16-megapixel	16-megapixel	12-megapixel
8-megapixel	5-megapixel	8-megapixel	1.2-megapixels
1080p	4K	4K	4K
2GHz octa-core MediaTek Helio P10	1.5GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 617	2.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 820	Apple A9 chip (64-bit) with M9 motion co-processor
16GB	32GB	64GB	16GB, 64GB
2GB	2GB	6GB	2GB
200GB	Up to 128GB	None	None
2,700mAh (nonremovable)	3,000mAh (removable)	3,000mAh (nonremovable)	1,624mAh (nonremovable)
None	Below screen	Home button	Home button
Micro-USB	Micro-USB	USB-C	Lightning
None	Water-resistant	Notifications toggle, dual-SIM, Dash Charging	None
$280	$249	$399	$399 (16GB); $499 (64GB)
£240	32GB: £229; 64GB: £264	£329	£359 (16GB) £439 (64GB)
Converts to AU$390	16GB: AU$399; 32GB: AU$449	Converts to AU$540	AU$679 (16GB); AU$829 (64GB)

Clean software, with too much bloatware

• Android 6.0 Marshmallow
• Lots of preloaded bloatware
• 64-bit, octa-core processor

The XA runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow, largely untampered with — thank you, Sony, for not adding a special skin. That makes it easy to use for Android experts and novices alike.

What Sony has done, though, is load the phone up with a whole mess of software right out of the box. Beyond its own PlayStation app, there’s an Xperia Lounge app and something called What’s New (confusingly, all have different curated lists of games, music, movies and so on). There’s a handful of third-party apps too, including AVG antivirus, the Kobo ebooks app and Amazon’s shopping app.

The few widgets preinstalled on the home screen also make the phone feel somewhat cluttered from the first time you switch it on. Thankfully, you can uninstall some of them, but it’s a tedious process that you should be spared.

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Andrew Hoyle/CNET

It’s particularly annoying that the XA comes with a very limited 16GB of internal storage, of which fully 6GB is taken up by the Android system files and preinstalled nonsense. You’ll absolutely want to use the microSD card slot to save your images, videos and music as you’ll eat up the on-board space very quickly.

The XA runs on a 64-bit octa-core processor, which delivers enough power to make swiping around the Android interface a smooth experience. Apps open quickly and photo editing in Snapseed, for example, is smooth. It copes with gaming reasonably well — both Asphalt 8 and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas were playable, although frame rates noticeably dipped in more intense moments. Less demanding games such as Candy Crush will play fine.

Microsoft Project Scorpio Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

The shiny new Xbox One S was just a taste. Microsoft’s Project Scorpio — coming in the fourth quarter of 2017 — will be the true main meal. According to Microsoft, it’s both the future of Xbox and the most powerful game console ever made.

The catch: It doesn’t play any new games. Instead of trying to sell gamers on a brand-new generation of video game hardware, Project Scorpio is all about upgrades.

What do you mean, upgrades?

According to Microsoft, Project Scorpio won’t have any exclusive games. Not one.

Instead, Scorpio will play the same games you can play on an Xbox One or Xbox One S — but some of them at much higher fidelity.

With 4.5 times the power of an original Xbox One, Microsoft claims Project Scorpio can run those same games at ultra-high-def 4K resolution at a butter-smooth 60 frames per second. Compare that to today’s Xbox One, which still struggles to output many games at 1,920×1,080-pixel resolution (1080p).

Scorpio is kind of like sticking a new PC video card into your game console.

So all my Xbox One games will run at 4K?

Not necessarily. Games will need to be designed to take advantage of the higher resolution, and Microsoft claims it won’t force developers to actually do that.

However, Microsoft says some new games are already being developed with Scorpio in mind, and Scorpio will also unlock the potential of a handful of existing titles.

Games like Halo 5, The Division, The Witcher 3 and Doom dynamically dial down their graphics whenever the Xbox One can’t handle the load. With Project Scorpio, there won’t be a need to throttle. Microsoft says games which use dynamic scaling will consistently look better than before.

Check out Xbox’s Project Scorpio coming Holiday…
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Doesn’t the cute white Xbox One S already do 4K?

Yes and no. The Xbox One S can display 4K images to your TV, but that isn’t the same thing as rendering games at 4K.

Or, put more simply, you can watch 4K Blu-rays with an Xbox One S, but games won’t look much better.

Still, the One S does now support HDR (high dynamic range) with a handful of games, which should mean color saturation and contrast in those titles as long as you’ve got an HDR-compatible TV.

Why would developers bother supporting Scorpio instead of just the cheaper Xbox One?

Ah, but game developers already support a wide variety of Windows PCs, and Scorpio is just one more point on that continuum.

The same game that runs on an Xbox One (with an estimated 1.33 teraflops of graphical performance) needs to run on a 9-teraflop Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080, and on a 6-teraflop AMD RX480 graphics card as well. (That last comparison might be particularly handy, since the Scorpio also has a 6-teraflop AMD GPU.)

And don’t forget that Microsoft is trying to merge the worlds of PC and console gaming — some games will be designed for both Xbox and Windows from the very beginning.

AMD’s Radeon RX 480 graphics card.

Sean Hollister/CNET

But all my existing Xbox One games will work?

Yep, even the earliest ones. “This thing will play Ryse: Son of Rome, a launch game for your Xbox One,” Microsoft’s Phil Spencer told Eurogamer.

What about my Xbox One accessories? Will I need to buy new controllers?

Microsoft says every single Xbox One accessory should work, too. “Our commitment is to make sure every single game and every single accessory works across all of those platforms,” Microsoft’s Mike Ybarra told The Guardian in July.

How about the 200+ older Xbox 360 games that were updated to work on the Xbox One?

Microsoft hasn’t said so for sure, but presumably the growing library of backwards-compatible Xbox 360 titles — including Alan Wake, Mass Effect and Red Dead Redemption — will work as well.

What if I don’t have a 4K TV?

You might be better off with an original Xbox One. “Scorpio is designed as a 4K console, and if you don’t have a 4K TV, the benefit we’ve designed for, you’re not going to see,” Microsoft’s Phil Spencer told Eurogamer.

But you might play your Scorpio games in VR instead.

Virtual reality?

Yes. Microsoft says one of the reasons it’s using such a powerful graphics chip is so it can drive a VR headset. We’re not sure which headset, though.

Back in May, one rumor suggested Microsoft would partner with Facebook and support the Oculus Rift headset.

But when Project Scorpio was officially announced in June, Microsoft said it would be able to play Fallout 4 in VR — a title which has so far only been confirmed for the rival HTC Vive.

CNET’s Dan Ackerman plays Fallout 4 in VR.

Josh Miller/CNET

Or maybe the Scorpio will simply support any VR headset you plug in. After all, the Xbox One runs Windows 10, and Microsoft plans to make Windows 10 computers support VR headsets starting next year.

Either way, you shouldn’t expect VR experiences to be much better than an existing baseline VR-ready PC. In our review of the AMD RX480 graphics card (again, same 6-teraflop performance as Scorpio) we found it just barely good enough for today’s VR.

By the way, VR might be the exception to the “no-games-will-be-exclusive-to-Scorpio” rule. Since the original Xbox One and Xbox One S don’t support VR, any VR experiences could be exclusive to the console.

If the original Xbox One plays every game, and the Scorpio adds 4K and VR, why would I buy the intermediate Xbox One S at all?

It’s small and cute?

But seriously, if you don’t already have an Xbox One, and you can’t wait till 2017, the Xbox One S is great. It’s better than the original Xbox One in practically every way.

But if you already have an Xbox One, you’ll definitely want to wait.

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The Xbox One and One S side by side comparison
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Will the Scorpio be small and cute, too?

Unlikely. The only glimpse we’ve seen was of a jet-black monolith. And yet, Xbox operations boss Dave McCarthy told GameSpot that the “40 percent smaller” guiding principle behind the Xbox One S might “remain consistent when we move to Project Scorpio.”

Read what you will from that.

How much will Scorpio cost?

The only thing we know is that it’ll cost more than the Xbox One S — which currently starts at $300, £250 or AU$400 for the 500GB model and stretches up to $400, £350 or AU$549 for 2TB of storage.

“It’s going to be a premium price over what we’re selling this one for, and both of them will exist in the market at the same time,” Xbox boss Phil Spencer told Eurogamer.

Is it really going to be called “Project Scorpio”?

Nah, that’s probably just a codename.

Is this the end of game consoles as we know them?

Only if Scorpio is a success. Microsoft’s betting on a future where you never need to buy a new library of games, but the company’s Aaron Greenberg says it’s definitely a bet. ” We’re going to learn from this, we’re going to see how that goes,” he told Engadget.

What are Sony and Nintendo doing these days?

Sony may announce its own similar 4K-ready, VR-ready PlayStation Neo at an event this September, and the new, incredibly elusive Nintendo NX is coming next March.

Got any other burning questions about Project Scorpio? Send ’em along to sean.hollister@cnet.com.

HP Omen X VR PC Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

Besides finding a powerful enough computer, buying an expensive VR headset, and setting up sensors or base stations, playing virtual-reality PC games also means a serious chance of tripping over the dangling wires that tether the headset to its bulky desktop PC base.

HP is one of several companies working on a solution to that problem, via a VR backpack that lets you bring the entire computer with you, battery power and all. Dell, MSI and other PC makers are working on similar configurations.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Having seen it previously only in photo mockups, we’ve now had a chance to experience the HP Omen X VR PC in person, during a public HP gaming event held in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The device is best described as a portable gaming desktop, reconfigured as a wearable backpack.

The VR headset is still tethered to the computer, but in this case, the computer is strapped to your back, so it moves with you. This is primarily designed for use with the HTC Vive, but the Oculus Rift should work just as well, especially when the Rift adds motion controllers later this year.

The unit we tried was not connected to a working VR headset, but the components inside the backpack were complete, so it gave a good sense of the final product’s weight and size. The backpack PC is surprisingly small in person, and weighs around 10 pounds. The massive backpack straps and bulky battery pockets make it feel more unwieldy than just the PC itself, but when also wearing a Vive headset, it’s just one more thing strapped to you, so I could see this being a very usable way to play VR games.

One of the two removable battery packs.

Sarah Tew/CNET

For power, the current prototype uses a battery belt pack that contains two batteries and connects to the backpack via a cable. The estimated play time on a full charge is about one hour, but VR is meant to be played in short bursts. The batteries are hot-swappable, so you’ll be able to keep the system going while swapping one of the batteries out for a fresh one, but I also can’t imagine staying strapped into all that equipment for more than an hour at a time.

But before you get too excited about untethered virtual reality, keep in mind this is still a proof-of-concept prototype, and may or may not ever become a shipping product.

MyScript Nebo review – CNET

The Good MyScript Nebo does some unique tricks, such as reflowing handwriting, mixed text/handwriting operation and equation recognition. And when it’s good, it’s very, very good.

The Bad It requires one of the pricier tablets and like many digital note-taking systems, it can be finicky to the point where you may not think it’s worth the effort.

The Bottom Line If you own a tablet with a good active stylus and you take a lot of notes, it’s definitely worth giving MyScript Nebo a shot while it’s free. But your mileage may vary.

Visit manufacturer site for details.

The latest candidate in my continuing search for the best way to take notes comes from MyScript, the company formerly known as Vision Objects, which renamed itself to match its MyScript Notes Mobile app launched in 2012. Named “Nebo” (I think it should have stuck with “MyScript Notes”) the app extends its capabilities with the company’s updated recognition engine and new Interactive Ink technology. It works pretty well, but still doesn’t provide the seamless experience I’d hoped for.

It currently works on some iPad and Windows 10 devices — Android is forthcoming — but not all of them. It requires devices that support active pens, like the Apple Pencil or Surface Pen. And the company stresses it needs to be a good one. Passive styluses work by pretending to be your finger and lack the precision necessary to capture all the necessary stroke data.

The app, which normally costs $9 but is free for the moment, tries to simulate the real writing-in-a-notebook experience, albeit with some useful and unique capabilities like mixed font/handwriting editing and handwriting reflow, equation recognition (from its calculator app) and solving (like its calculator) and conversion of drawn shapes to digital vector objects.

Like all note-taking apps, Nebo uses notebooks and pages as its organizing metaphor; unlike a real notebook or many other note-taking apps, which basically offer freehand pages, you have to create blocks for nontext content: local images, camera shots, drawings, diagrams and equations. That can slow you down. The trade-off is that because it “knows” what the type of content it’s looking at, it can convert equations to text as well as solve them and turn basic shapes into objects for diagrams. It supports the same operations as other good apps, such as cross-notebook searches.

As the text flows

My biggest issue with handwriting recognition is, well, software finds my scrunchy, squiggly handwriting pretty tough to recognize. That’s unsurprising: Even I can barely read it. But it ultimately makes cleaning up my “recognized” notes more of a chore than just retyping them from a hard copy. Interactive Ink lets you make corrections to recognized text by writing with the stylus rather than having to jump to a keyboard.

Nebo can convert basic shapes in diagrams. If you want to leave objects like arrows as they are, you flag it as a doodle.

Screenshot by Lori Grunin/CNET

Nebo does the best job of recognizing my handwriting that I’ve seen to date. But, as we saw with optical character recognition software, you have to reach a tipping point where the number of corrections you need to make is small enough to counter the hassle of making them. So OCR software usually preserves the original scan for reference. With Nebo, once you’ve converted to text, the handwritten version is gone (or at least not displayable); it’s not even there while you’re making corrections. In many cases, some incorrect characters aren’t a problem. And in the preview it can autosuggest corrections.

Jabra Sport Pulse Special Edition Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

Jabra’s original Sport Coach and Sport Pulse in-ear wireless sports headphones were close to being excellent but fell a little short in a couple of areas, most notably their fit and sound quality.

Now Jabra’s announced the next generation of those models, labeling them “special editions,” with ship dates sometime in September.

On the outside, they look essentially the same as the originals, but Jabra’s made a few changes on the inside and now bundles in added ear tip options. The company says both models are more durable and the Pulse, which is equipped with an integrated heart rate monitor — it gets a pulse reading through your ear — has added a new feature: it can calculate your Vo2 Max level and automatically measure your fitness level.

Jabra bills its Sport Pulse Special Edition as the world’s first sports headphones with automatic fitness testing.

Sarah Tew/CNET

The Sport Pulse Special Edition lists for $160 while the Coach Special Edition lists for $120 (Best Buy has the original Sport Coach on sale for $100). No word yet on UK or Australian pricing, but the current Sport Pulse lists for £200 and the Sport Coach for £120, though both sell for less significantly less online.

Also new: Jabra is offering an extended three-year warranty against sweat (you do have to register the headphones), which is unusual. Most headphones offer one- or two-year warranties.

I did notice that the protective carrying pouch that’s included with the special-edition models isn’t as protective, but it does the job.

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Jabra Sport Pulse: A wireless headphone with a built-in heart-rate monitor
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Smart sports features

Jabra has sought to differentiate its headphones with its integrated fitness app, Jabra Sport Life.

With the Sport Pulse, you can do timed runs, and the app will track your current heart rate as well as your average heart rate over the the course of a workout. It saves your history, updates your distance and pace (GPS must be activated on your phone) with intermittent voice prompts, and includes some built-in tests and a music player that taps into your music library.

Alternatively you can use a music service such as Spotify while the Jabra app is running (the voice “coach” prompts will lower the volume of your music but not pause it). You can also use the headphones with other fitness apps like Endomondo and RunKeeper. The heart rate monitor works with a lot of fitness apps but not necessarily all of them. As I said, the VO2 Max data generation is new and Jabra bills the Sport Pulse Special Edition as the “The world’s first sports headphone without automatic fitness testing.”

Jabra’s Sport Life app.

The Sport Coach Special Edition doesn’t have the integrated heart rate monitor but it has a TrackFit Motion Sensor that now automatically counts your reps. You can follow a set of simple workouts integrated into the app that you can do in your home that mixes exercises such as high-knee running (in place), push-ups, squats, planks and stomach crunches.

Important note for owners of the original Sport Coach and Sport Pulse Wireless: Jabra says automatic fitness testing (for the Pulse) and automatic rep counting (for the Coach) will be available as free upgrade features via a software upgrade.

More ear tip options

Jabra talks about the headphones having “enhanced sound,” but I’m not sure it’s done anything to enhance the sound except to try to create a better fit by including a set of Comply foam tips along with the usual set of ear gels and ear wings, which do a good job locking the bud in your ear.

With in-ear headphones, getting a tight seal is crucial to getting better sound and the foam tips do help. I still wouldn’t call these fantastic-sounding headphones, but for in-ear Bluetooth headphones they sound quite decent, and if you can achieve a tight seal, bass response improves dramatically. I also thought the headphones worked quite well as a headset for making cell phone calls. That’s not surprising considering Jabra’s background in headsets.

The included tips, ear wings, cord shortener and carrying pouch (folded on the right).

Sarah Tew/CNET

It’s worth mentioning that these earphones are designed to seal out the ambient noise (they’re noise-isolating), so you won’t be able to hear traffic if you’re biking or running outside and are playing your music at modest to high volumes. That may be a safety issue, which is why a lot of runners prefer open headphones like Bose’s SoundSport Wireless (Bose also has a SoundSport Pulse coming out in September that has an integrated heart monitor).

While it’s good that Jabra has included the Comply foam tips, those can get dirty and break down over time. I’d personally would like to see Jabra redesign its gel ear tips, particularly the larger size, which is too flat and rounded (it should be more conical).

Jabra bills its Sport Coach Special Edition as the worlds’ first sports headphones with automatic rep counting.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Anyway, I’m going to take a few weeks to test the review samples I received before I render a final verdict, but my initial impression is that Sport Coach and Sport Pulse have indeed been improved and when you factor in the three-year warranties, they’re compelling wireless sports headphones that give Jaybird and other competitors a run for the money.

Here’s a look at their specs, courtesy of Jabra.

Jabra Sport Pulse Special Edition — $160, €160 (EU):

• New automatic (continuous) VO2 Max fitness testing
• In-ear biometric heart rate monitoring
• Advanced planning and tracking based on heart rate
• Resting and orthostatic heart rate tests
• Smart in-ear audio coaching
• Dust- and water-resistant (IP55)
• Lightweight (16 grams)
• Up to 5 hours of talk/music time
• Up to 10 days of stand-by time
• New Comply foam tips included
• New three-year extended warranty against sweat
• Ships in September 2016

Jabra Sport Coach Special Edition ($120, €160 (EU):

• NEW Automatic repetition counting with TrackFit motion sensor
• Smart in-ear audio coaching
• Dust- and water-resistant (IP55)
• Lightweight (16 grams)
• Up to 5 hours of talk/music time
• Up to 10 days of stand-by time
• New Comply foam tips included
• New three-year extended warranty against sweat
• Ships in September 2016

Kenmore Elite 81072 dryer review – CNET

The Good The Kenmore Elite 81072 dryer has attractive modern styling and intuitive controls that are easy to operate. The appliance also removes moisture from fabric quickly, has a large 9-cubic-foot capacity along with 14 separate dryer modes plus steam abilities.

The Bad Unlike other appliances that use an attached water line, the Kenmore Elite 81072 obtains the water for its steam modes from a small reservoir you must fill by hand. The Elite 81072’s lightweight door feels flimsy and can’t be slammed shut.

The Bottom Line Though you have to fill its steam feeder with water by hand, the Kenmore Elite 81072 dryer’s excellent performance, huge 9-cubic-foot capacity and included drying rack make this laundry appliance very enticing to big families.

Visit manufacturer site for details.

There aren’t many dryers for sale that can swallow 9 cubic feet worth of wet laundry at once, but the $1,400 Kenmore Elite 81072 can do just that. Thanks to its massive drum size and speedy cycle times, the Elite 81072 is a good fit for large families who need to power through hefty laundry loads often and quickly. The Kenmore Elite 81072 has other alluring attributes, too, including straightforward controls, plus numerous specialty drying modes and steam functions.

Saddled with a cantankerous door and manually fed water supply for making steam, however, this dryer isn’t perfect. If your weekly routine demands frequent laundering of monster-size bedding or handling enough dirty clothing to outfit a small army, the Elite 81072 will serve you better than sleeker but smaller units like the $1,500 LG DLEX 5000 and $1,099 Electrolux EFME617S Perfect Steam.

Kenmore’s Elite 81072 dryer is huge, fast…
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Design and features

Standing a full 40.8 inches tall, 29 inches wide and 33.9 inches deep, the Kenmore Elite 81072 dryer is positively massive. While roughly the same size as the also gargantuan 8-cubic-foot capacity GE GFDS260EFWW, this machine takes up more space than both the LG DLEX 5000 and Electrolux EFME617S Perfect Steam, which measure 7.4 and 8 cubic feet, respectively.

The benefit to the Kenmore Elite’s extra girth is that its roomy dryer drum that offers 9 cubic feet of capacity. It’s enough to accept two large washer loads simultaneously from its companion appliance, the Kenmore Elite 41072 washing machine. Additionally, the Elite 81072 dryer’s big format helps it to process bulky items like comforters, blankets and bath mats with less stress than with compact dryers.

The Kenmore Elite 81072 dryer offers a big 9-cubic-foot capacity.

Chris Monroe/CNET

I found the Elite 81072’s controls a breeze to operate as well. A central knob swivels and clicks softly in increments to select the dryer cycle you desire. 14 options in all, choices range from treating specific garment types such as Bulky/Comforter, Khaki/Jeans or Workout Wear, just to name a few. The appliance comes with steam modes, too, with labels such as Sanitize, Touch Up or Steam Refresh.

All these controls plus the dryer’s other buttons are backlit by blue LED lights or sport indicators of the same hue. A matching blue LED screen lives on the control panel’s right-hand side and displays the remaining cycle time in minutes. While small, the screen is bright and clearly legible from various angles or from across the room.

The controls are intuitive and fun to use.

Chris Monroe/CNET

Honestly, the Kenmore Elite 81072’s interface felt eerily familiar, and as it turns out, there’s a good reason. Like its matching Kenmore Elite 41072 washer, this dryer is really an LG appliance in disguise — specifically, the LG DLEX 8100. The smaller LG DLEX 5000 I reviewed also has a similar control panel.

The Elite 81072 dryer relies on a tiny water reservoir to supply moisture for its steam modes. While the machine will flash a warning light when the tank is running low, it’s a drag to have to fill it by hand. For an appliance this expensive, I expect the convenience of a dedicated water line. And like the lid on the LG DLEX 5000, this dryer’s door feels disconcertingly lightweight. You can’t slam the door shut either — an action I find deeply satisfying — but must gently push it closed. It’s a minor quibble but an annoyance nonetheless.

Nokia Ozo Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

Virtual reality isn’t going away. But it’s nothing without content.

That’s where cameras like the Nokia Ozo come into play.

Looking like something that stepped straight out of a sci-fi movie, this is a 360-degree stereoscopic camera ready for the VR revolution. We had hands-on time with the camera over several weeks, learning the ins-and-outs of creating 360-degree video with a professional setup worth US$45,000. (The camera was originally priced at US$60,000 when it was first announced back in December.)

Note that this isn’t a full rated review, but hands-on impressions of using the camera and what it’s like to navigate the Ozo workflow.

CNET

Let’s check the specs

Each of the camera’s eight lenses has a 195-degree field of view with a fixed aperture of f/2.4. Behind every lens is a 2K x 2K sensor. There is significant overlap from one lens to another which gives the user much more control at the stitching stage. The Ozo shoots at 30 frames per second, which is the “live video” standard rather than 24 frames you usually see with film.

The camera uses a global shutter as opposed to a rolling shutter, generally considered more accurate in representing motion. There are eight microphones dotted around the exterior to capture spatial audio synced to the video capture.

The eight eyes of Nokia’s Ozo VR camera (pictures)
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Apart from the camera unit itself, the Ozo needs additional components to complete the package. The first is a digital cartridge that contains both the battery and 500GB of storage. It holds around 45 minutes of footage and the entire cartridge slots neatly into the protrusion at the back of the camera. The second is a docking station that acts as a charging hub for the cartridge and as a transfer device to get footage to a computer.

All these components fit in a hard-shell rolling case that comes with the camera, which you’ll need because the unit weighs 9.3 pounds (4.2kg). The Ozo also has a removable cover that protects the lenses from the elements.

Ozo easy?

But wait, there’s more. On top of the camera and digital cartridge, you also need an SDI and Thunderbolt cable, a computer, plus a BlackMagic UltraStudio Mini Recorder to get things going. These components are not included with the Ozo.

The SDI cable sits in the back of the Ozo, feeding into the BlackMagic UltraStudio Mini Recorder. This BlackMagic box allows for real-time monitoring through the Ozo Remote app that can only run on a Mac Pro or a 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro with discrete GPU. The best part about this configuration is that you can actually live monitor the shot before you hit record.

Once everything is plugged in and ready to go, load up the Ozo Remote app to set the exposure, check framing and start and stop recording. Adjustments can also be made to the shutter speed and color temperature, though the camera’s ISO is set at 400.

Viewing footage from all eight individual cameras.

Screenshot by Jason Pepper/CNET

Using the Ozo Remote software is straightforward. Once you set exposure for lighting conditions, you don’t need to keep the computer tethered. That being said, it would be incredibly useful for Nokia to release a mobile app that could do away with the computer when shooting in the field.

All this equipment and the setup process might seem like a lot of hassle, but other professional-grade 360 cameras on the market like the Freedom 360 spherical camera rig have their own quirks. With six GoPro cameras, that means six microSD cards, six record buttons to press and six resulting video files that need to be stitched together in post-processing. (GoPro’s own 6-camera rig, the GoPro Omni, looked promising in an early demo, but we haven’t yet tried it ourselves.)

Processing and crunching

The Ozo can produce both monoscopic and stereoscopic video, with the user being able to select shooting with either the four cameras around the center ring or all eight simultaneously.

Monoscopic video is created from a 360-degree image where both eyes are seeing the same file. Stereoscopic video is when two separate files are viewed with each eye. This creates the appearance of depth, otherwise known as 3D.

Once you have the video file from the Ozo, it gets imported into the Ozo Creator software. Like Ozo Remote, this requires specific hardware to run. A late-2013 Apple Mac Pro 6-Core CPU, and either Dual AMD D500 or Dual D700 FirePro GPUs running OS X 10.10 Yosemite.

Stitch lines can be manipulated on the fly.

Screenshot by Jason Pepper/CNET

Stitching also happens at this stage. The software creates a default stitch although you can adjust the lines and the overlap as necessary by moving around the seams across the image. When you’re happy with the stitch, you have a number of export options such as creating an MP4 image or a DPX file for a cinema experience.

Once the software crunches the footage into a 360-degree image — this will take several hours or overnight depending on how much you’ve shot — it can be imported into an editing suite like Adobe Premiere. Alternatively, you can complete the cut within Ozo Creator.

For our workflow, we imported the footage from Ozo Creator into Premiere, which allowed us to add titles, and effects and also sync audio taken with an external recorder. The latest update to Premiere lets you view 360-degree footage, although it’s not as fluid as using a third-party plug-in like Kolor Eyes that reflects edits in real time.

Sample footage

We took the Ozo on three very different shoots. The first, which you can see below, involved attaching the camera to the interior of a car for CNET’s sister site Roadshow. The exposure was set for the exterior rather than the interior of the car to avoid blowing out highlights. For this shoot we also mounted the Freedom 360 rig with GoPro cameras to the exterior for an alternate viewpoint.

The second was at the manufacturing plant for Green Toys in San Leandro, California. With overhead fluorescent lighting and little natural light, it was a good test to see how the camera coped with interior shots.

Lastly, you can explore a vista of San Francisco from Crissy Field in the sample below.

Bear in mind that YouTube compresses video so these samples are at a different quality to the file that comes straight out of the camera.

So by now you probably want to know if this camera worth the $45,000 asking price?

As VR continues to evolve, you can use it to do much more than just create 360-degree footage — which is how we primarily used the Ozo. This camera will let the producer, filmmaker or studio grow into it. Even in our time testing the camera, Nokia continued to push out new software and updates to add functionality.

Admittedly, the Ozo is not a camera that’s designed for the hobbyist consumer. It’s for professional video makers and Hollywood studios who want to experiment with an all-in-one VR capture experience.

It’s easy enough to use once you understand the quirks of the workflow, but it’s not as straightforward as plugging it in and going on a shoot.

On the less expensive end of the spectrum sits a multi-cam solution like the aforementioned GoPro Omni. It consists of six GoPro cameras in a rig that automatically syncs recordings. While we haven’t yet fully reviewed the Omni, on paper the editing and post-production process appears to be much simpler than the Ozo, with the software quickly creating a stitch and render within a few minutes for a short 1 minute 4K video.

The Ozo is an incredibly innovative camera system. Given Nokia’s track record of rolling out new functionality and improvements (as well as a significant price drop) it’s definitely going to make waves in the VR production field, but whether it becomes industry standard or not remains to be seen.

The Ozo is available in the US for US$45,000 and Europe for €40,000. It will be released in September in China with equivalent pricing announced soon.

HP Omen X Desktop Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

HP is taking its Omen gaming brand very seriously, breaking out new, higher-end products as the Omen X. The flagship is the new Omen X Desktop, which is built into a giant black metal cube, complete with multicolored lights.

The cube sits perched on one edge, held in place by a small stand. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, it just looks cool; second, it exposes more of the surface area of the case, allowing for better airflow and increasing the thermal efficiency of the system.

Sarah Tew/CNET

And with the ability to pack in nearly any high-end PC gaming component, cooling is something to take seriously. Despite the unusual design of the chassis, this is essentially a modular desktop, starting with a standard micro-ATX motherboard and supporting current-gen processors and either one or two desktop graphics cards.

Both Nvidia and AMD options will be offered, including the new Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 cards. Liquid cooling is also an option, and probably a good idea if you’re running dual GPUs. Naturally, most of the hardware configuration options will be VR-ready.

The Omen X Desktop should be available to order very shortly through HP’s website, and prebuilt configurations start at $1,799 in the US (no international price or release details are available yet).

HP’s new gaming cube, the Omen X Desktop
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But besides just ordering a finished configuration from HP, there are a couple of other options. If you’re a DIY type, HP will sell you just the empty case for $599 — no motherboard, no power supply, no components. Or, if you want a very extreme configuration, HP will send you to Maingear, a well-known boutique PC builder, and that company will start with HP’s empty chassis and build in whatever sky-high configuration you want, including rigid tube liquid cooling systems and custom automotive paint jobs.

2017 Jaguar F-Type review – Roadshow

Aug 2016

The Good The 2017 Jaguar F-Type Coupe’s beautiful exterior design covers a stiff, dedicated sports car with exceptional handling, enhanced by all-wheel-drive. Its supercharged 5-liter V-8 engine creates 550 horsepower and makes a ferocious growl.

The Bad The infotainment head unit relies on the driver’s phone for connected features and does not support Android Auto or Apple CarPlay. Manual shifting with the eight-speed automatic transmission shows a little lag.

The Bottom Line With only two seats, the 2017 Jaguar F-Type R Coupe is a dedicated sports car, showing off remarkable exterior design coupled to impressive handling and power.

Few cars make you smile every time you see them. Today’s homogenous design makes it difficult to distinguish one car from another in mall parking lots, but the Jaguar F-Type is another story. It captures attention with its graceful, compact design.

Its nose may be shorter than an E-Type’s, but it works in proportion to the cab and the aggressive rear fenders. Nose and engine in front and cab at the rear makes for a classic sports car look with historic precedent.

The F-Type’s design makes it an exceptional car.

More exceptional are the performance dynamics of the 2017 Jaguar F-Type R Coupe I’m driving. Simply firing up the engine lets it sound off with an exhilarating growl. Set to Dynamic mode, this all-wheel-drive racer gives immediate power on throttle and scrambles through each turn like the big cat on its badge.

The Jaguar F-Type shows off exceptional sports car styling with its long nose and aggressive rear fenders.

Wayne Cunningham/Roadshow

Jaguar first launched the F-Type as a convertible in 2013, then followed up with the Coupe version. The sports car showed off a newly unleashed Jaguar design department following the company’s acquisition by India’s Tata Motors. Its base model comes with a 340-horsepower supercharged V-6 engine, but in R trim, its supercharged 5-liter V-8 makes 550 horsepower and 502 pound-feet of torque.

And it is quick: 3.9 seconds to 60 mph quick.

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The F-Type R Coupe is also a dedicated sports car, in that you won’t find any child-sized rear seats behind the front sport buckets. The rear track is almost 2 inches wider than the front, and an all-wheel-drive system, with a 63-to-37 rear to front torque split, comes standard.

The F-Type R Coupe is also a dedicated sports car, in that you won’t find any child-sized rear seats behind the front sport buckets.

Cruising down city streets, the powerful V-8 reacts well to the excessive stops and starts of low-speed traffic, with the eight-speed automatic transmission gearing towards smooth launches and economy. An idle-stop feature even steps in at stop lights to reduce fuel wastage, bringing the engine back online quick enough to avoid annoyance.

The smartly decked-out cabin helps mitigate a ride that, even with the F-Type R Coupe in comfort mode, proves a little too stiff for rough road surfaces. Low-profile tires do nothing to prevent curbing the 20-inch wheels.

Sitting in traffic, I get the occasional thumbs-up from other drivers, which I answer with a sport exhaust-enabled engine roar.

The Jaguar F-type’s all-wheel-drive system splits torque 63-to-37 rear to front.

Wayne Cunningham/Roadshow

Cruise control doesn’t include an adaptive function, so I’m on my own for braking, but a blind spot monitor system is a welcome addition, given the low roof. The dashboard holds an 8-inch touchscreen, not surprisingly standard in the upscale F-Type, but its navigation and entertainment software looks familiar from Jaguars of recent years. That means it’s a reasonably useful system, covering the basics, but it lacks a dedicated data connection for online services. Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are also missing.