Oppo Sonica Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

Oppo Digital

Just when you thought that all of the players had showed their hands, where all of the companies that were going to release proprietary wireless speakers already had, along comes Oppo Digital.

Most well-known for its line of videophile disk players, and then a bunch of mobile phones through its sister company, Oppo is now extending its AV know-how into every room of your house. The Oppo Sonica is a thoroughly 2016 version of the wireless speaker with a host of connectivity options in addition to built-in room correction.

The Sonica was designed by Igor Levitsky, who was also behind the Oppo PM-3 planar magnetic headphone. This is a stereo speaker with two wide-band drivers mated to three (!) separate bass drivers — a 3.5-inch “long displacement bass driver” and two 3-inch balanced bass radiators. This speaker takes its bass very seriously.

In addition to Bluetooth, the speaker includes Wi-Fi — with AirPlay and iOS and Android support via the Sonica app — as well as USB and a 3.5mm auxiliary input.

If you want to play music in high-res, the app features 24bit/192kHz playback of most file formats (though not DSD). It currently includes streaming from Tidal while other services have yet to be announced.

Related Links

• Oppo BDP-105: Not your average Blu-ray player
• Oppo PM-3 headphones review
• The best Wi-Fi music systems for 2016

The speaker will enable multiroom playback to other Sonica speakers (only at this stage) as well as enable you to hook up two speakers side by side as a stereo pair.

At $299 the Oppo Sonica speaker is relatively affordable for its size and the number of features it has. While we’ve yet to confirm which system the speaker uses, it appears they’ve chosen not to go with Play-Fi, and this is kind of mysterious; if any company is going to be successful at taking Sonos on at its own game, it’s surely through compatibility with other stuff you already own. No one likes DRM or the walled garden approach. Your music should just play. And Play-Fi is the largest and best alternative to Sonos yet.

If you are a fan of Oppo’s headphones and Blu-ray players, and don’t mind a lack of intercompatibility or streaming services, the Sonica could be worth a look.

Oppo has yet to announce pricing or availability in the UK or Australia, but at current conversion rates this equals £203 and AU$415.

2016 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid review – Roadshow

The Good The 2016 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid’s powertrain offers good midrange torque and respectable fuel economy. The plug-in model adds 27 miles of electric range to the mix. The sedan’s driver aid suite is highlighted by one of the smoothest adaptive cruise control systems I’ve tested in a while.

The Bad The Sonata Hybrid seems to lack the Android Auto and Apple CarPlay connectivity that is boasted by the non-hybrid model.

The Bottom Line Whether you go plug-in or self-contained, the 2016 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid is a solid performer in this class and an excellent tech value.

Hyundai follows up its redesign of the Sonata midsize sedan with a one-two-punch combo of efficiency. First is the jab that is the hybrid variant, followed up with right cross of a plug-in hybrid model that boasts fantastic EV range. Like the opener, these electrified models boast excellent dashboard tech, a very modern suite of available driver aid and safety systems, and a more mature design that — while maybe a bit less exciting than the previous generation — is sure to appeal to a broader audience.

A solidly performing hybrid

Just behind the more mature fascia of the 2016 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid, the engine room is home to a 2.0-liter Atkinson-cycle gasoline powerplant making 154 horsepower and 140 pound-feet of torque. It’s not alone; the combustion engine is mated to a 38 kW e-motor that adds 51 horsepower and 151 pound-feet of torque to the mix, bringing total system output to 193 horsepower. The hybrid power flows through a six-speed automatic transmission before meeting the road at the front wheels.

The 2.0-liter hybrid powertrain boasts really good midrange torque, which makes the sedan feel responsive around town and allows for smooth passing without much drama. The six-speed automatic transmission can be a bit of a fun-damper. The gearbox can take a second or so to downshift when more immediate passing power is required and seems to get a bit confused when asked for spirited performance on twisty B-roads. To be fair, most owners don’t buy hybrids for their performance chops, so I won’t knock the Sonata too much here.

In its defense, toggling the Drive Mode selector to the Sport mode tunes a bit of the hesitancy out of the electronics, and slapping the transmission into its manual shifting mode and forcing it to stay in, for example, third or fourth gear for a twisty bit eliminates the gear hunting altogether. If you choose the ratios yourself, the Sonata Hybrid can feel surprisingly alive, thanks to its torquey electric assist, but even then the gearbox can be sluggish to change speeds, and without paddle shifters, it’s a little more trouble than it’s worth.

Tested at 38.5 mpg, I got close to the EPA’s fuel economy estimates even with a significant number of my miles tested miles being spent sussing out the sedan’s performance envelope on back roads. The stated numbers are 39 mpg city, 43 mpg highway and 41 mpg combined. It’s no Prius, but those are respectable numbers that I believe I could have easily met with less-aggressive driving.

Antuan Goodwin/Roadshow

At the Limited trim level that I was able to test, the Sonata Hybrid rides on 17-inch wheels shod with 215 mm wide all-season tires. Between the body and the wheels is a MacPherson strut suspension at the front end and an independent multi-link rear.

Handling is pretty good, with a nice and planted feel. The steering is direct enough but lacks engagement and feeling. The Sonata’s fraternal twin, the Kia Optima, has slightly better fingertip feeling, while Ford’s newly refreshed Fusion Hybrid feels significantly better than either. That said, the Sonata’s steering isn’t bad, merely uninspired.

Plug in, turn on, green out

Hyundai doesn’t just offer a traditional gas-electric hybrid — there’s also a plug-in model available. With an MSRP starting at $34,600, it’s only a couple of hundred dollars more expensive than the top-trim gas model, the Limited 2.0T. If you want that same Limited trim level, the price jumps to $38,600.

Packing an enlarged, 9.8kWh battery, the Sonata plug-in promises 27 miles of all-electric range. And it’s easy to achieve that figure, so long as you’re not cranking the HVAC system on the highway. In fact, the highway was not kind to the Sonata Plug-In’s range. I regularly saw two miles of range disappear for every mile driven.

If you’re limited to short trips in the city or suburbs, though, the Sonata Plug-In is a peach. If you don’t have the infotainment system set to display the real-time distribution of power between battery, electric motor and gas engine, you’ll have a hard time telling when the gas engine kicks in. It’s a seamless, quiet transition.

There are multiple modes available, depending on what you’re after. You can max out your range in EV-only mode, keep more of a balance between gas and electric in hybrid mode, or put the gas engine to work charging the battery. The latter mode is nice when you know you’ll be transitioning from highways to city roads, where electricity will get you a fair bit farther.

The engine revs up to charge the battery, which does lead to some strangeness as you might only be going 25 mph, but the engine sounds like it’s racing along at a higher RPM. Not that you can tell what the engine’s speed is, because the car lacks a tachometer, replacing it with a gauge that displays current charge status and power output.

In a mix of charge-building mode and pure EV mode, I achieved approximately 53 mpg, with most of my miles being on the highway. I spent the first few days in EV mode alone, so the computer constantly displayed average fuel economy as 99.9 mpg (the readout doesn’t go any higher — although I wish it did, like in the Chevrolet Volt). Had I been driving a more balanced route, there’s no doubt I would have seen my economy rise to 60 mpg, if not more.

One downside about the larger battery, compared to the Sonata Hybrid, is the space it requires. It eats up a fair bit of trunk space, but I still managed a trip to the garden center just fine, bringing home several bags of mulch and a whole load of perennials of various shapes and sizes without issue.

Dell 43 Ultra HD 4K Multi-Client Monitor Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

The Dell P4317Q.

Dell

You’ve always wanted a desktop covered with monitors — your own personal command center to control multiple computers, watch the game, and play Xbox all at the same time. But actually hooking up multiple monitors could be a logistical nightmare. Enter the Dell P4317Q: a 43-inch, 4K screen with four video inputs so you can have four screens in one.

While the new $1,350 monitor (roughly £918 or AU$1,876) is primarily targeted at financial traders and software developers who need charts, graphs or a whole lot of code on screen at any given time, it’s got the ports for other use cases as well: two HDMI 1.4 sockets; DisplayPort and Mini DisplayPort; and a VGA jack for legacy applications. You can assign each port to any corner you want, place two side by side or even fill the entire screen with the push of a button, according to Dell’s product page.

Audio is piped to a pair of 8W speakers, and there’s a headphone jack if you need. If you use the DisplayPort, it should support 4K resolution at 60 hertz, fast enough for many PC games.

That’s a lot of charts.

Dell

With a fairly average 8 millisecond grey-to-grey response time and an 82 percent color gamut, the P4317Q likely won’t be terribly impressive visually, but Dell does claim wide-viewing angles of 178 degrees in any direction.

We’ve never seen a monitor quite like this, and it’s a smart idea from Dell. You may or may not know that every 4K screen is technically the same as four 1080p screens — but you’ve never been able to put four separate video sources in each corner of a giant 4K screen until now.

Fisher-Price Newborn Rock ‘n Play Sleeper with SmartConnect review – CNET

The Good Fisher-Price’s SmartConnect Sleeper makes calming your baby easy and hands-free. The movement patterns work well, the cradle itself is soft and comfortable, and the sound quality is great for this type of product.

The Bad You can’t play your own music through the speakers with either an auxiliary cable or via Bluetooth.

The Bottom Line Every parent should consider buying the SmartConnect Sleeper. It’s a device you’ll probably use for at least a few hours every day, and one that calmed my baby better than any other I’ve tested yet. At only $100, it’s a steal. The app connection and flexible settings are just an added bonus.

I started reviewing baby-related technology a few weeks after my wife delivered our first child. But dealing with the forced frugality of early parenthood (our “Friday-night-movie” money has been reallocated into “diapers-and-wipes” money) at the same time as testing the trendiest and priciest infant tech has made me reluctant to label any products “must-buy.”

Then I put my infant son in the Fisher-Price Deluxe Newborn Auto Rock ‘n Play Sleeper with SmartConnect (or if you hate long product names like I do, the SmartConnect Sleeper). It’s a simple sleeper that works during the first year or so of your baby’s life. It keeps them comfortably on their back to avoid SIDS, and features a curved base so parents can rock their children to sleep. More notably, the SmartConnect Sleeper offers automated movement that helps soothe your child as well as a Bluetooth-connected app so you can do so hands-free. And did I mention the cost? The sleeper is $100, a surprisingly reasonable price when similar products without the smarts can cost as much as $150.

Every baby’s needs are different, but the SmartConnect Sleeper offers enough features to appeal to most parents. Personally, after testing and living with the sleeper for a couple weeks, my family’s having a hard time adjusting to life without it. It’s well worth a $100 investment if you’re in need of a little calm in the hectic life of new parenthood. For that reason, the SmartConnect Sleeper has earned CNET’s Editors’ Choice Award.

This Fisher Price Sleeper boasts low-key…
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What it does

The Fisher-Price SmartConnect Sleeper has a pretty standard basic design. The plush material that cradles your baby is comfortable and breathes well. The sleeper rocks on the curved tracks at its base. You can even attach the included textured plastic rings to the harness so your baby can receive tactile stimulation while falling asleep.

Here’s where the smarts come in: On the side of the sleeper, a control panel allows you to queue music, ambient sound, vibration and rocking. This control panel is replicated on the iOS and Android-compatible app with more precision — you can control vibration patterns and intensity, rocking speed and even specify particular environmental sound effects.

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This control panel lets you toggle music and sounds, rocking speed, volume and vibration.

Tyler Lizenby/CNET

Other devices feature vibration and speakers (although SmartConnect’s are better than most of the competitors’ I’ve tried out). The novel addition is the automatic rocking. A short leg extends from the bottom of one of the sleeper tracks and rocks the baby. It’s a simple mechanism, but it moves the baby like you do when you’re rocking them to sleep.

ZTE Axon 7 Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

The word “elegant” doesn’t usually come to my mind when I think of ZTE (the Chinese phone manufacturer is mostly known for its inexpensive, midtier handsets), but with the announcement of its latest Axon 7 flagship, I can’t help but think the phone looks, well… pretty elegant.

While ZTE still stuck to a competitive price (the device costs $450 unlocked, or approx. £346, AU$604), it features powerful enough hardware to satisfy Google’s recently announced virtual reality platform, Daydream. And compared with its other high-end competitors, it’s one of the cheapest marquee handsets on the market.

The phone will be available today in China and then roll out to other markets in mid-June. There will be two variants: One with 64GB of internal memory and 4GB of RAM, and another that has 128GB of storage and 6GB of RAM. The former, however, will be more widely available and it’ll be the only one sold in the US.

ZTE’s Axon 7 is its prettiest phone yet (pictures)
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I had a chance to spend some meaningful time with the Axon 7, but it didn’t have its final software version loaded just yet. That being said, I was still able to get a good look at the device and I ran some preliminary tests too. Of course, once we get a final model in, I’ll update my impressions with a full review. If you also want to see how the handset’s specs compare to its competitors, head down to the comparison chart below.

(PS: And, if anyone out there is wondering what exactly happened to Axon 2 through 6, don’t worry — there weren’t really any. ZTE decided to include its Grand S and Star series in the flagship lineage and then jumped to 7 because reasons ¯_(ツ)_/¯ ).

Fit for a Daydream

A week ago during its annual developer’s conference, Google announced a new VR initiative called Daydream, which was a hardware and software platform that would guide Android phone companies to make VR headsets. (For a deeper dive of the endeavor, check out our feature with Google’s VR chief Clay Bavor.) The tech giant said a bunch of manufacturers are already on board with Daydream-ready phones including LG, HTC and ZTE.

A sketch of the Daydream headset and remote.

Google

The Axon 7 is one of these handsets that fulfill Google’s VR standard. This includes hardware like a 9-axis gyroscope, Hi-Fi audio (which I’ll get into later) and a powerful processor. Though it will be some time until anyone gets their hands on a Daydream headset, ZTE gains a lot by throwing its name behind Google’s. By being Daydream-ready, the Axon 7 will be able to keep up with its competitors and attract users who are already interested in VR.

Easy on the eyes

With its unibody design, metallic aesthetic and solid build quality, the Axon 7 is the best-looking phone ZTE has created so far. Its 5.5-inch display has a sharp 1,400-pixel resolution and the screen is bright enough to view in the sunlight outdoors.

Given its luxe looks, though, I did notice that it felt heavy in the hand. Tipping the scales at 6.52 ounces (185g), it weighs more than any of its competitors (again, see chart below). However, it’s still comfortable to hold and maneuver in general.

With its luxe aesthetic, the Axon is ZTE’s best-looking phone.

Josh Miller/CNET

Similar to the LG G5, the device features a fingerprint reader in the back, which you can use for extra security. The sensor works quickly, and I didn’t notice any lag from when I pressed the reader and when the screen unlocked. If you don’t want to use your fingerprint, you can also use your voice to say a pre-programmed phrase and unlock the handset that way.

On the front top and bottom bezels are the dual audio grilles. ZTE put a big emphasis on the phone’s audio experience. In addition to the two speakers, the Axon 7 is decked out with Dolby Atmos audio technology and an advanced chipset that will allow the device to both play and record crisp, high-fidelity audio. When I played a few music tracks and movie clips on the handset, audio was indeed loud and clear. It also had a lot of depth and didn’t come off as “crunchy” as phones with small, narrow audio grilles usually do.

Software goodies with optional stock Android

The Axon 7 runs Google Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. This newest version of the mobile OS includes more emojis, security updates, and you can launch the camera by double pressing the power key.

Aside from a few new voice and gesture controls (you can activate the camera shutter, make a call, get the device to read out texts just by speaking to it), the handset doesn’t have anything particular new or compelling in terms of software.

If you don’t like ZTE’s MiFavor interface, you can switch it up to stock Android.

Josh Miller/CNET

It will give users, however, the option to switch from ZTE’s own MiFavor user interface to stock Android. Because the unit I have doesn’t have the final software version loaded, I wasn’t able to check out this feature yet. (When I do, I’ll be sure to update this piece.) Until then though, I welcome this option. I’m a big fan of vanilla Android due to its clean aesthetic and simplicity, so the ability to switch to it is great. However, because this isn’t a Nexus phone (they also run the stock UI), it won’t receive software updates from Google as soon as they are available.

New camera, new tricks

The Axon 7 is equipped with an 8-megapixel front-facing shooter and a 20-megapixel camera in the rear that can record 4K video. Last year’s Axon had two rear cameras (a 2- and 13-megapixel) that enabled users to adjust and refocus the background and foreground after they captured an image. Though this year’s device only has one camera, ZTE loaded it up with software that still lets users change an image’s focal point. For the most part, this tool isn’t totally necessary (especially if you like to get your photos right the first time), but it was pretty fun to play around with when I wanted to make my pictures look more dramatic.

Overall, the camera was fast, and images were sharp and in focus. Colors looked true-to-life and lighting was exposed properly and evenly. For more about photo quality, check out the pictures below. And be sure to click on each image to see them at their full resolutions.

In this sunny outdoor photo, objects are sharp and clear.

Lynn La/CNET

Though the right side of this photo is very dim, the camera exposed the back light coming from the windows well.

Lynn La/CNET

With the phone’s blur tool, you can adjust a photo’s focal point after you’ve taken the image.

Lynn La/CNET

Other features include short live photos that turn pictures into moving GIFs and timelapse video. The latter isn’t new to high-end handsets in general, but it is new for a ZTE phone.

Checking out the hardware

The Axon 7 runs smoothly and tasks like fingerprint unlocking, launching the camera and returning to the home screen were executed quickly. Its 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 820 processor is the same used in other flagships and it clocked in some of the highest benchmark results we’ve seen. In fact, it was on par with the Samsung Galaxy S7 with our 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited test, as well as both Geekbench 3 tests. It also edged out the HTC 10, the G5 and the Google Nexus 6P. Anecdotally, though, all the devices performed comparably, and when it comes to day-to-day tasks, I couldn’t really tell that the Axon 7 is any “faster,” than the rest. Its impressive benchmark numbers, however, is a notable indicator of how far ZTE handsets have come in terms of hardware performance.

ZTE Axon 7 preliminary benchmark scores

ZTE Axon 7

2406

5532

30,005

Samsung Galaxy S7

2323

5429

29031

LG G5

2313

5345

27758

HTC 10

2316

5014

27724

Google Nexus 6P

1286

4313

24224

Legend:

Geekbench 3 Single-Core
Geekbench 3 Multi-Core
3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited

Note:

Longer bars indicate better performance

Battery life

ZTE beefed up the battery just a tad going from last year’s Axon Pro’s 3,000mAh capacity to 3,140mAh. During our lab test for continuous video playback on Airplane mode, the phone clocked an average (out of two trials) of 11 hours and 18 minutes (compared to last year’s 8 hours and 8 minutes). It also has Quick Charge 3.0 technology from Qualcomm, which promises a 50 percent charge in 30 minutes. When I tested this claim, the device had a 47 percent charge in half an hour. A full charge takes about an hour and a half.

For comparison, ZTE’s handset didn’t outlast the G5’s 12 and a half hour scour, nor the Galaxy S7’s 16 hours. But it did edge out the HTC 10 and Nexus 6P, both of which lasted 11 hours and 15 minutes.

ZTE Axon 7 spec comparison

5.5-inch; 2,560×1,440 pixels	5.1-inch; 2,560×1,440 pixels	5.3-inch, 2,560×1,440 pixels	5.2-inch; 2,560×1,440 pixels	5.7-inch; 2,560×1,440 pixels
538ppi	576ppi	554ppi	564ppi	515ppi
5.98×2.95×0.34 in	5.6×2.7×0.3 in	5.88×2.90×0.30 in	5.7×2.8×0.35 in	6.3×3.1×0.28 in
151.8x75x8.7 mm	142.4×69.6×7.9 mm	149.4×73.9×7.7mm	145.9×71.9×9 mm	159x78x7.3 mm
6.53 oz (185g)	5.4 oz; 152 g	5.61 oz; 159g	5.7 oz (161g)	6.3 oz; 178 g
Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow	Android 6.0 Marshmallow	Android 6.0 Marshmallow	Android 6.0	Android 6.0 Marshmallow
20-megapixel	12-megapixel	16-megapixel, 8-megapixel wide	12-megapixel	12.3-megapixel
8-megapixel	5-megapixel	8-megapixel	5-megapixel	8-megapixel
4K	4K	4K	4K	4K
2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 820	2.15GHz + 1.6GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapgradon 820 processor	2.15GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor	2.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 820	2GHz eight-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 810
64GB, 128GB (varies by region)	32GB, 64GB (varies by region)	32GB	32GB, 64GB (varies by region)	32GB, 64GB, 128GB
4GB, 6GB (varies by region)	4GB	4GB	4GB	3GB
Up to 128GB	200GB	2TB	2TB	None
3,000mAh (nonremovable)	3,000mAh (nonremovable)	2,800mAh (removable)	3,000mAh (nonremovable)	3,450mAh (nonremovable)
Back cover	Home button	Home button	Home button	Back cover
USB-C	Micro-USB	USB-C	USB-C	USB-C
Dual Sim; Daydream-ready	Water-resistant	Pull-out battery, two rear cameras	OIS on front-facing camera; BoomSound	“Pure” Android; Daydream-ready
$450	AT&T: $695, Sprint: $650, T-Mobile: $670, Verizon: $672, US Cellular: $672	AT&T: $689, Sprint: $576, T-Mobile: $630, Verizon: $624, U.S. Cellular: $636	$699	$499 (32GB); $549 (64GB); $649 (128GB)
Converts to £346	£569	TBA	£569	£449 (32GB); £499 (64GB); £579 (128GB)
Converts to AU$604	AU$1,149	TBA	AU$1,099	AU$899 (32GB); AU$999 (64GB); AU$1,099 (128GB)

ZTE’s time to shine

Though I’ll hold out any final judgements until I get my hands on a final post-production unit, the ZTE Axon 7 has a lot of potential. The fact that it performs comparably well to the flagships of Samsung, LG, HTC and Google is a testament of how far the company has come in just the last year with its Pro predecessor. In addition, by being compatible with Daydream, the phone will keep up with the mobile wave as it makes its way into VR waters.

At $450 unlocked (which converts to about £346, AU$604), the device’s low price tag and high-end specs — like its 20-megapixel camera, Snapdragon 820 processor and booming audio speakers — make it a tempting buy. True, it won’t fit everyone’s needs (for instance, you can’t take out the battery, and its stock version of Android won’t get updated as quickly as a Nexus handset) and ZTE still struggles with low brand recognition. But so far, the Axon 7 certainly hits a lot of the right marks that goes into a solid flagship.

Razer Turret review – CNET

The Good The Razer Turret’s mouse magnetization is a nice touch, and the lap-board is great for web surfing and light gaming sessions.

The Bad Not apt for intense, competitive gaming sessions, considerably more expensive than similar (though less stylish) options.

The Bottom Line If you like to play single player content then the Turret is a more usable piece of tech, but it’s just not stable enough for anything competitive.

Not designed to be a pure gaming keyboard, the Razer Turret is a lap-board best used on the couch with your PC or streaming device hooked up to a big screen. At $170, AU$280 or £150, it’s globally available on Razer’s online store.

The Turret consists of a “gaming grade” keyboard and a 3,500 dots-per-inch mouse. The higher the dots-per-inch, the more accurately the mouse registers movement — giving the Turret more than enough precision for all but the most competitive of gamers.

Aloysius Low/CNET

According to Razer, the big innovation here is the integrated magnetic mouse mat. The mat connects to the keyboard via a foldable hinge and prevents the included mouse from sliding away. Thankfully, the mat’s magnetic pull isn’t too strong, so picking up the mouse when I needed to was never an issue. And while the mat’s surface area is a little small for my taste, it’s perfectly apt for more casual gaming sessions.

The device is light, so using it on your lap for long periods of time wasn’t an issue for me. Build quality, usually an issue with lap-boards, is surprisingly decent. The keyboard has a nice amount of give and typing is as good as you can expect on a keyboard sitting on your lap — though it’s not at the level of a laptop, which has the advantage of extra weight and stability.

A great touch with the Turret is its sleek included dock, which plays double duty as charger and organiser. It allows the Turret to look at home amongst even the most impressive home entertainment consoles.

Aloysius Low/CNET

While the Turret is great to use for web surfing and casual gaming, it’s hampered on the gaming front by its natural habitat…the lap. Games like Call of Duty and League of Legends, while perfectly playable, force you to constantly keep an eye out for the position of the keyboard on your lap, as any minor adjustment could spoil muscle memory. If you favour more mouse-intensive genres, or are a particularly competitive gamer, it’s best to look elsewhere.

HP Omen (15-inch) Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

HP is streamlining its PC gaming offerings, putting new and revamped products under the Omen brand umbrella. New 15-inch and 17-inch laptops are joining a rebranded VR-ready desktop formerly known as the Envy Phoenix, and future gaming products will also be part of the Omen brand.

Sarah Tew/CNET

A pair of new laptops

The Omen line has, since its 2014 launch, consisted of a single high-end 15-inch gaming laptop. That system has remained one of our favorites for slim, attractive PC gaming rigs, and it’s being joined by two new systems, with similar or better specs, but lower prices.

The company calls these both simply Omen laptops, and the 15-inch and 17-inch versions have nearly all-black bodies with red accents. There’s a subtle pattern, which HP calls “shadow mesh,” and the keyboard is backlit not in simple red, but in “Dragon Red” (lest you think “Game of Thrones” has a lock on all things dragon-related at the moment).

The available graphics options run from the Nvidia GeForce 950M to the newer 965M, which is a couple of steps down from the current top of the line, but still good enough for any contemporary game at mid-to-high detail levels. Both 1080 and 4K display options will be available, along with an option for Intel’s depth-sensing RealSense camera.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Like most other current HP systems, the audio carries a Bang & Olufsen logo, which means the famed audio company tuned and signed off on the sound, although it didn’t actually design or make the speakers.

The 15-inch model is under 25mm thick, while the 17-inch model is less than 30mm thick. To help keep heat under control in these relatively slim (for a gaming laptop) bodies, the internal battery has been pushed toward the front, allowing the dual fans to push hot air out from the rear more efficiently.

Both new laptops are coming to HP.com and Best Buy on July 10, starting at $899 for the 15-inch and $979 for the 17-inch in the US. International price and availability details were not yet available.

Sarah Tew/CNET

A desktop built for virtual reality

If this gaming desktop looks familiar, that’s because it’s a revamped version of the HP Envy Phoenix. That system was built with VR in mind, and designed in collaboration with HTC for use with the HTC Vive virtual-reality headset.

This new version, simply called the Omen by HP desktop, keeps the vertical light-up strip that runs down the front of the chassis. That light can be set to reflect system performance or temperature, using multiple colors and patterns.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Again, the main focus is the HTC Vive, and HP says the Omen is specifically tuned for a great out-of-the-box experience with that VR headset, but there’s nothing stopping it from working with the Oculus Rift or just playing standard 2D PC games.

CPUs go up to the overclockable Intel Core i7-6700K, and the graphics cards will include the just-announced Nvidia 1080 series of desktop GPUs, as well as AMD R9 Fury X options. Liquid cooling is also an available option. As VR headsets require a lot of ports and connections to operate, the Omen has plenty, including six USB ports (two 3.0, four 3.0), USB-C and dual HDMI outputs.

HP is also offering a new 32-inch monitor as a perfect pairing with this desktop. The Omen by HP display has two HDMI inputs, plus DisplayPort and a built-in USB hub, and it supports AMD’s FreeSync technology, which (with the right hardware) can sync GPU output with the display’s refresh rate for smoother gameplay. The resolution on the display is 2,560×1,440.

The Omen desktop and monitor are coming in August, but we don’t yet have precise dates, outlets or prices.

Linksys EA9500 AC5400 Tri-Band Wi-Fi Router with MU-MIMO router review – CNET

The Good The Linksys EA9500 has a whopping eight Gigabit LAN ports and stellar Wi-Fi performance and supports seamless roaming, which is useful if you need to extend your network The router’s Parental Control feature can block https websites.

The Bad The router is expensive and extremely bulky and its specs are overkill for most homes.

The Bottom Line If you have an extremely fast broadband connection and want an all-powerful home network, the Linksys EA9500 fits the bill. But a different router with more modest specs will satisfy most.

Visit manufacturer site for details.

I often receive questions from CNET readers asking “What’s the best router on the market if money is not an issue?” This is a hard question to answer. For most, money is an issue and how good a router is depends on what your needs are.

However, if you have $400 to burn, the Linksys EA9500 Max-Stream AC5400 Tri-Band MU-MIMO is one of the fastest consumer routers on the planet, rivaling the speed champions Asus RT-AC5300 and Netgear R8500. That is if you have a large enough space to host it. Yes, this new router takes up that much room.

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The Linksys EA9500 is a very large and powerful router that has eight LAN ports.

Josh Miller/CNET

Powerful hardware, stellar performance

The EA9500 is a tri-band, quad-stream router with a combined Wi-Fi bandwidth of up to 5,333Mbps. Specifically, it has two 5GHz bands, each with a top on-paper Wi-Fi speed of 2,166.67Mbps and its 2.4GHz band tops out at 1,000Mbps. (Read more about Wi-Fi standards here.) The reality however is that you won’t experience speeds of this magnitude with the EA9500, at least not today. That’s because the fastest Wi-Fi clients (such as tablets, smartphones or laptops) top out at just 1,300Mbps. But the powerful specs don’t hurt and they also put you in a good position for when clients can reach those ungodly levels of performance.

The router supports Multi-User Multiple Input Multiple Output (MU-MIMO), which is a technology designed to efficiently handle Wi-Fi bandwidth in homes with clients of different speed grades. Each client can connect to the router at its highest speed without adversely affecting the speeds of others.

CNET Labs AC5300/5400 5GHz Wi-Fi throughputs

Linksys EA9500

685.2

496

Asus RT-AC5300

643.6

345.2

Netgear R8500

632

329.6

Legend:

Close range
Long range

Note:

Measured in megabits per second. Longer bars mean better performance.

If all that background info bores you, here’s an important take-away: the EA9500 blew away the competition in real-word testing, topping the charts with a sustained Wi-Fi speed of nearly 700Mbps at a close range of 15 feet. Even more impressive, from 100 feet away, with one wall in between the router and the testing client, the router delivered a sustained speed of some 500Mbps. The router’s maximum range was around 150 feet in a residential setting (with walls and other obstacles.) And it passed our stress test of operating for 48 hours with no disconnections.

CNET Labs AC5300/5400 2.4GHz Wi-Fi throughputs.

Linksys EA9500

243.6

120

Asus RT-AC5300

228.6

101.7

Netgear R8500

179.4

66.6

Legend:

Close range
Long range

Note:

Measured in megabits per second. Longer bars mean better performance.

Eight Gigabit LAN ports, ‘Seamless Roaming’

Eight Gigabit LAN ports is a lot (most routers top out at four; the Asus RT-AC88U is currently the only other router with as many.

While four LAN ports are sufficient for most households, it’s always nice to have extra ports in case you want to plug more wired devices ino your network and the truth is wired network connections are always faster and more reliable than Wi-Fi.

Stack LED Downlight Starter Kit review – CNET

The Good Stack’s smart bulbs are both feature-rich and relatively easy to use. You can schedule lighting changes, sync them up with IFTTT or Nest, or just set them to automatically adjust brightness and color temperature on their own throughout the day.

The Bad Though you can adjust the color temperature, you can’t change colors like you can with Lifx or Philips Hue. App-initiated lighting changes can also be a touch sluggish at times.

The Bottom Line These bulbs aren’t cheap, but they cost less than Lifx or Philips Hue and arguably do more thanks to the built-in sensors for presence and ambient light.

Visit manufacturer site for details.

About 17 months ago at CES 2015, we got our first look at a prototype of Stack Lighting’s Nest-compatible, sensor-equipped smart bulb, known at the time as the Alba LED. Since then, Stack has ditched the “Alba” moniker (it’s just the Stack Downlight now, with A-shaped “Stack Classic LEDs” on the way this September). The price of a two-bulb starter kit is lower now, too, down from $150 to $99, with additional bulbs selling for $45 a piece.

Stack’s smart LED downlights are downright…
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That makes Stack more affordable than both Lifx and Philips Hue — and I’d argue that Stack’s bulbs are smarter than both. No, they won’t change colors, but they will change color temperatures, offering a yellowy 2,700 K, a bluish-white 6,500 K, or anything in between. Put the bulbs into “Auto Mode,” and they’ll automatically adjust their own brightness and tone throughout the day using built-in ambient light sensors. There’s also a presence sensor in each bulb — if they see you walking into a room, the lights will fade on automatically to light your way.

There’s really not much to dislike about these bulbs. They offer a good mix of features that all work as promised, with app controls that do an admirable job of hitting the sweet spot between comprehensive and easy-to-use. What’s more, they’ll work with your Nest thermostat, cleverly telling it to crank the heat a little higher if they spot you in a room that tends to stay colder than the rest of the house. You can also automate the bulbs on IFTTT, which lets you sync them up with a wide variety of other popular smart home services and gadgets, including Amazon’s Alexa. At $45 a piece, Stack’s bulbs aren’t cheap, but they still make one of the strongest cases for smart lighting we’ve seen to date.

Tyler Lizenby/CNET

First impressions

Getting started with Stack is pretty simple — just download the app and plug in the hub (it’s yet another hunk of white plastic, but hey, at least it’s hexagonal). From there, the app will ask you to name each room where you’ll be installing smart lights. Once you do, you’ll add bulbs to each one.

And that’s how the app keeps things organized: by room. That applies to the controls, too. Instead of controlling individual bulbs, you control an entire room’s worth of bulbs at the same time. I’m not a fan of this blanket approach — there are definitely times when you want to be able to turn one light on in a room without turning all of the lights on. Of course, you could list each individual bulb as its own “room” as a workaround, but that’s a pretty clunky solution.

The Stack app divides your bulbs up by room. Pulling up a room lets you control all of the bulbs in it at the same time. If you want to control a single bulb, you’ll need to assign it to its own “room,” which is a bit counterintuitive.

Screenshots by Ry Crist/CNET

Once you’ve gotten your lights organized, you can dial the brightness and color temperature of each room up and down or assign them to one of three color temperature presets. There’s also an Auto mode that will let each bulb adjust its own brightness and color temperature settings throughout the day based on the time and the ambient light conditions in the room.

By default, the lights will automatically turn on when they detect motion, then automatically turn off after motion is stopped. If you want, you can tell certain rooms to stay lit for longer after motion stops, or just disable the auto-off feature altogether.

You’ll find a similar depth of control with the rest of Stack’s features. An alarm feature lets you set the lights to wake you up at a certain time each morning — you can customize things like the quality of light, the range of brightness and the amount of time it’ll take to fade to full blast. In the app’s scheduling mode, you can program the lights to behave in different ways at different times of the day. Put the app into sleep mode, and any bathroom or hallway lights will switch into a fully customizable nightlight setting when they detect motion.

Stack’s app offers plenty of settings to help you customize your smart lighting setup, but never so many that things feel overwhelming.

Screenshots by Ry Crist/CNET

The controls aren’t perfect, though. I couldn’t find a way to set that sleep mode to run automatically each night, for instance, or a way to trigger it from outside of the app. And manually adjusting each room’s lighting felt sluggish to the touch, with narrow, over-sensitive sliders that make it tough to hit precise settings.

Pebble 2 Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

Pebble might not be the largest name in smartwatches, but it was one of the first brands in the category, and its watches still do things that others don’t: Always-on screens. Battery life that lasts about a week for most models. You can swim with them. They work equally well with Android phones and iPhones, but also work independently as fitness watches when the phones aren’t nearby. And, on average, they’re more affordable than most premium smartwatches.

Pebble’s new duo of watches arrives this fall, and while they look different, they still deliver all of those great features while adding heart rate monitoring to the mix. Combined with Pebble’s ever-improving fitness and sleep tracking, these could end up being the best everyday fitness tracker smartwatches we’ve seen yet…especially if you care about not having to charge your watch every day.

Pebble Time 2 (left), and the more affordable Pebble 2 (right): similar function, step-up design.

John Kim/CNET

The original Pebble, revamped

The Pebble 2 is a long-overdue reboot of the original plastic Pebble, adding many features that were in the Pebble Time that debuted last year. It’s got a black-and-white display, but it’s now covered in Gorilla Glass. It has a microphone for voice responses to messages, something that Time watches can do but the original Pebble couldn’t. It has optical heart rate monitoring. All it lacks is fancier looks and a color screen.

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Even with its pared-down plastic design, the Pebble 2 has sharp looks. It’s small, too: I tried both the black and white models on (it comes in five colors), and I loved the way it felt on my wrist. At $129 (that converts to about £90 or AU$180), or less if you preorder it via Pebble’s current Kickstarter campaign, it’s one of the most affordable smartwatches around. It will run Pebble’s current timeline-based OS, and will get all the software features on their way later this year, too.

Pebble 2 has a clean, basic design.

Scott Stein/CNET

CEO Eric Migicovsky doesn’t seem concerned about making Pebble a more feature-packed smartwatch as much as a more efficient watch, one that handles fitness tracking and notifications better while focusing on long battery life. His focus is on speed. “If you’re gonna spend more than 5 or 10 seconds on your watch, then you might as well take out your phone.”

That said, one nod to battery life is how the heart rate tracking is implemented. It passively monitors every ten minutes, and then switches to active monitoring during exercise. (It wasn’t clear if the shift happened automatically or needed to be toggled manually, because I didn’t get to test the prototypes I wore briefly.)

Two new OS features seem like welcome additions. Pop-up notifications will peek up below the watch face instead of taking over the whole screen, and a new Actions menu will pick quick tasks faster and assign roles to the Pebble’s buttons. Checking weather or calling an Uber should be faster, skipping app-opening completely.

Pebble Time 2: larger screen, similar look to Time Steel.

Scott Stein/CNET

Step-up Time 2 adds a larger color screen and steel

The more expensive Pebble Time 2, at $199 (that converts to about £135 or AU$275), is like the big brother of Pebble 2. It has the same functions, the onboard heart rate, plus longer battery life (10 vs 7 days) and a larger color screen (53% bigger than the current Pebble Time Steel). Otherwise, it looks exactly like the Time Steel, but at a lower price. It arrives this November, instead of the September debut of the Pebble 2.

The Pebble 2 and Time 2 are like a casual and premium version of the same watch. They work with the same magnetic Pebble Time charge cables, and are both compatible with future Pebble smart straps, should you choose to get one.

What about smart straps? Good question. Pebble’s promised that extra features could come via straps that connect to the Pebble’s data and power, and a few small projects have debuted so far. But Pebble’s not making its own smart straps. Not yet.

Could these be the perfect casual fitness watches we’ve been waiting for?

Pebble’s automatic fitness tracking software updates on its existing watches has gotten pretty good. With heart rate, these could be great. But these are modestly improved, enhanced Pebble watches. Not radically different watches. They lack touchscreens, and speakerphones. Some people might find that’s a very good thing.

But the smartwatch and fitness-tracker landscape has gotten a lot more competitive and a lot less forgiving. Later this year there will be a new wave of Android Wear watches, and possibly Apple and Samsung watch updates, too. The Pebble 2 and Pebble Time 2 might face the closest competition from Fitbit Blaze, a fitness watch that does some smart things too.

There’s no way to tell how Pebble will fare, but at least the watches are sticking to what works…and doing things a bit differently. It’s hard to tell if that will be enough, but I want to wear one.