Inateck Lacerta earphones review

With such a saturated earphone market, companies have to work to make their products stand out. Inateck is one such company who seeks to stand out amidst the crowd with their Lacerta earphones. Do they succeed?

The area that Inateck seeks to make their earphones stand out most is in the design area. The Lacerta earphones have a premium feel that does not typically come with earphones at this price.

The earphones themselves have  full-metal-housings that feel very nice to the touch. The only issue this brings is that the earphones often fall out of your ear if they are even slightly out of balance in your ear. Also, if you use them while laying your head against something, the earphones are not the most comfortable. Still, the premium feel is nice and out of the ordinary. That outside of each housing also has a giant “R” or “L” to help tell the difference between each side.

The cord on the earphones is covered in a braided plastic that not only helps with the premium feel, but also helps keep the cord not tangle as much. Above the plug on the earphones is more metal, which is especially nice, since that will help the cord not fray there, something that occurs often with earphones.
Partway down the cord on the __ side of the cord is the mic, along with volume buttons and an answer/end call button. It also has a switch with an “A” and a “B” on it that supposedly allows the earphones to work with both iPhones and Androids, but more on that later.

With the earphones you receive the usual different fittings for the rubber pieces that go in your ear, but you also get a carrying case, an airplane adapter, a clothing clip, and a manual. The addition of the case, adapter, and clip are all nice touches, and go a long ways in helping the Lacerta earphones feel premium.

The earphones worked well, with the correct stereo playing through its respective earpiece. The mic worked whenever I used it to make calls. The case is nice, and the clothing clip is good. The only other place in terms of function are the buttons I mentioned previously, and the Lacerta earphones seem to drop the ball here.

On my Moto X (2014), the controls don’t work at all, even when I switch the A/B switch. I tried it with my Nexus 7 (2013), and it sort of worked – on one switch the answer/end call button could pause if you pressed it once, and go to the next track if pressed twice; on the other switch, it did the same thing but for all three buttons.

Essentially, whether or not the buttons will work the way they’re supposed to is slim, and how they will work at all seems to be a gamble. If you’re looking for earphones because of their playback/phone controls, these are not what you need.

The sound quality of the Lacerta earphones are nice. Inateck says the Lacerta earphones feature a dual dynamic driver that helps bring the sound together. As I’ve mentioned in other reviews, I’m not an audiophile by any means. However, I tend to have a better ear than the average person.

To be honest, the Lacerta, while having good sound, doesn’t really stand out a whole lot to me. Sure, the bass is full, the mids come through clearly, and the volume goes all the way without trading out sound quality. But the sound quality isn’t going to blow anyone away. Still, perhaps that the point. These earphones are reasonably priced, and as such deliver good sound. Something you don’t always get with earphones in this price range

Inateck Lacerta

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Overall, the Lacerta earphones bring a premium package in an affordable price range, without compromising sound. Using these earphones feels like more than just the typical earphones – it feels like earphones that will last. The controls don’t work at all, but if you’re not too worried about that (and still want a mic on your earphones anyways) then the Lacerta earphones will be a great purchase.

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TIDAL review: sweet HiFi to my ears

If you’re familiar with TIDAL’s streaming service, you’re probably also familiar with the frequent cold shoulder that it receives. I would argue that a lot of that stems just from the fact that people choose a service and stick with it, seeing no reason to switch. It also doesn’t help TIDAL’s case that it’s not the cheapest service out there.

But TIDAL does have something that no other music service has – HiFi streaming. “So what?” I can see most people saying. That makes me chuckle a bit because of the fact that pricey headphones are mainstream now. Okay, maybe the extra fidelity isn’t as apparent as lower quality content on a HD TV, but I can argue (from experience) that it can be discernible over time if we start to listen to the music instead of just hear it.

So in the respect of the extra enjoyment that TIDAL can provide to our ears, we’re gonna check out all that the Android app has to offer and if everything about TIDAL is as refined as it should be for its top-dollar subscription cost.

Design

If you’ve visited TIDAL’s website then I’d say you got a glimpse of what the app looks like. It follows a similar, dark theme throughout. Upon launching, you’re greeted with “What’s New” in TIDAL’s world.

You’ll see featured content at the very top and then newest videos, playlists, and albums (in that order) as you scroll downward. Nothing too mind-blowing here. I think it’s a bit odd that videos are shown first, but I figure it’s so the company makes sure you know that there is other content offered than just music.

At the very bottom is the current list of most popular tracks. You can just click the first track and it’ll play through them all. I think it’s a pretty good idea to have this list front and center, as it changes everyday.

What I particularly like in the UI of the app is that it honors Google’s slider menu method. Swiping from the left side presents you all the navigation options in the app.

Features

There are a few unique features here that helps TIDAL stand out from the crowd. Two of these are TIDAL Rising and TIDAL Discovery. Cleverly, these services benefit both the listeners and artists:

In case you don’t know much about TIDAL’s background, it has a strong stance to provide artists with the royalties that they’ve rightfully earned – something that other music streaming services are said to sidestep. Therefore, seeing these two programs in place makes me glad that TIDAL is thinking about the little guys as well as the big-name artists. Regardless, for the end-user, it means a chance to discover new music that you may have not otherwise – which is fantastic.

The Playlists feature is also a great option when you don’t know what specifically to listen to. The categories cover moods, activities, classics, holidays, or a tie-in with current events. Within each category, there are tons of relevant, pre-made playlists. You’ll never feel like there aren’t enough options.

There is of course a menu for music genres with all the categories you’d expect. When you choose one, the top of the page shows the genre you’re in and a Play button to start playing TIDAL’s compiled list of new tracks for that genre. The rest of the presented content follows the app’s launch page layout, albeit a slightly different order (playlists, videos, and then albums).

Continuing down the line, we have a dedicated areas for just music videos. TIDAL doesn’t just want to be an audio source; it has tons of relevant videos to share. The layout of the video section displays New, Recommended, Top 20, or Exclusive (to TIDAL) content.

Lastly, we get to the meat of the service – the music library. In the My Music section, you can organize your favorite content by Playlists, Artists, Albums, or Tracks. To get content in here, TIDAL uses a Favorite system (signified by a star within content you find). Click something as a Favorite and it’ll populate in this area.

Additionally, TIDAL allows you to save selected music in Offline Mode. Within the settings, you chose what fidelity you want the downloaded music to be. Only, when saving HiFi tracks, be conscious of how much storage space your device have.

Usability

As I’ve implied, navigating through the app is pretty intuitive. However, there are some particulars that need to be discussed when you go in to tailor the app specifically for you. One of these has to do with setting up playlists in the My Music section.

Being that TIDAL refers to its pre-made music sets as Playlists, it kind of interferes with the traditional definition of a “Playlist” – a user-built music compilation. Fortunately in TIDAL, you can throw in both kinds into that Playlists area under My Music. However, because there is a discrepancy between them, there is a toggle to allow the user to filter what’s displayed (All, Own, or Favorites).

Adding in TIDAL’s playlists are just like how you add in albums, by favoriting them. However, creating a self-built playlist is not as obvious. You have to long-press on content, then you’ll be shown a menu to add it to an existing playlist or create a new one for it. This is no problem once you realize it, but it’s a potential frustration for new users.

Another peculiar thing on the subject is from the fact that you can Favorite the playlists you create (so that they’re the only ones displayed when you filter the section to “Favorites” only). However, this creates an interference with saved TIDAL-made playlists, because you have to Favorite them to save them. In other words, you cannot separately display your own favorite playlists apart from the TIDAL-made playlists you’ve saved.

You can bypass this by long-clicking on a TIDAL playlist and selecting “Add to Playlist”, then creating a playlist with the same name. However, that playlist will then show up as your “Own” playlist when you go in to filter what’s displayed. In my opinion, TIDAL needs to either re-think the Playlist system or call its own mixes something else…like “Mixes”!

Once you realize the long-press options, the rest of the sections in My Music work just fine. This is how you place favorite Albums and Tracks in their respective spots. To build your personalized Artist list, just mark them as a favorite when you find them.

In case you were wondering, there is in fact a Radio function in TIDAL. You can initiate it via the popup menu when long-pressing on content. Alternatively, there’s a Radio button on the launch pages of artists.

Next up is the Player controls. Music that is currently playing is always shown on the bottom of the app. This is a standard affair, which shows the relevant song details (artist and album) and buttons to play/pause or move to the next track.

Clicking it pops up the full player. You’ll see the album art front and center and buttons for the previous track, play/pause, and next track.

Pressing on a space in the player will drop down a menu with shortcuts to that artist’s page, to that album, or to initiate the radio based on that track. Here, you can also set the Shuffle or Repeat functions, as well as favorite the track, share, or add to a playlist. For some reason there is no way to like/dislike music from what I can see.

On the top right corner, you’ll see another menu button. This takes you to your music queue. From here you can long-press on a track for interactions (remove track from queue, add to favorites or a playlist, start radio, etc.). Alternatively, you can add stuff into the queue via the popup menu when you long-press on content. Something to know is that the queue doesn’t restart when you select something else to play. It compounds everything you play. I don’t particularly like this, as the queue list grows lengthy with no purpose.

There’s a three-dot menu in the queue which lets you turn the queue into a playlist, empty the queue, or edit the queue. The queue editor is pretty nifty – where you can move the order of tracks around or trash them. But I’ll argue that this functionality should just be a part of the queue. Menu options like these are often unrealized because of their hidden-nature.

On last thing about the player is that there is a little “HIFI” light on the bottom right corner. Not to forget that one of TIDAL’s big selling points is HiFi streaming, this notification tells the user if they’re actually streaming the extra fidelity or not.

I’m really glad that TIDAL added this notification. By default, HiFi streaming isn’t toggled on in the settings, and the grayed out “HiFi” notification helped me realize this.

Also, in the settings, there’s a way to make the stream adaptive to the network connection. Therefore, if you don’t see “HiFi” lit, then you’ll know to go assess the problem with the connection. However, I must mention that there were a couple times that I didn’t see it lit when I had a great, reliable connection. It looked stuck, and I wasn’t sure if the bug meant that I wasn’t streaming HiFi or if the notification wasn’t working. Restarting the app fixed the issue. But this has only occurred a handful of times.

Saving content to use offline is pretty straightforward. You can either save playlists or albums for offline use. Within each playlist or album you’ll see a toggle to start downloading it. Alternatively, you can long-press on content and request to “Add to Offline”. And because you’ll potentially be storing loads to high-res data, TIDAL was kind enough to throw in a setting to offload the downloads to an SD card.

Practicality

I felt the need to create this section to discuss something very important when it comes talking about HiFi on a mobile device. We must understand that the practicality of using TIDAL at all highly depends on our hardware. In other words, you cannot use TIDAL with stock equipment (a phone’s DAC or inexpensive headphones) and expect results worth the price of paying extra for more detailed music samples.

TIDAL’s HiFi audio equipment test

Fortunately, phones with thoughtful DACs are beginning to surface (like the LG V10 and HTC A9), but they are still too few. Therefore, in order to really benefit from TIDAL on a mobile device, you’ll need an external DAC.

There a multitude of portable DAC solutions, of which the functionality is made possible by Android’s ability to audio out via OTG of the microUSB port. But the reality behind TIDAL is that the user must be willing to put forth the cost and inconvenience of extra gear.

If you’re cool with all this, then the benefit of the service is unrivaled. No other streaming service even gets close to offering this amount of audio detail. With the right gear, the experience of 1411 kbps audio data is staggering in comparison to the compressed rate that other music streaming services max out at – 320 kbps. HiFi music is richer, fuller, and more impactful and engaging.

Also, if you’re like me and don’t have a collection of Lossless audio files (and love the convenience of streaming), then that makes TIDAL your only option for getting the most out of your gear.

Final Thoughts

I hope that this review served as good insight into TIDAL’s world. The app itself is laid out well and has the asthetics and functionality to back the high-end image that the service conveys. You get all the features you’d expect from a music streaming service and some nice extras (videos, tons of pre-made playlists, and a great artist-discovery system).

Only, I emphasize the importance of having the right gear to make the experience worth the extra cost – a fact that’s stressed even further when speaking about a mobile version of the service. Phone DACs are generally not yet good enough to output the extra detail. But if the hardware is addressed appropriately, then outstanding capability should be recognized. As a music streamer, it is because of TIDAL that I can be an audiophile.

Play Store link for TIDAL

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Secure your connection simply with Supernet VPN (Review)

Online privacy is becoming more of a priority for people every day, and they are constantly searching for ways to secure their online information. Some of these people are searching for a security solution with tons of options to tweak their experience to the fullest, but others are looking for a simple and easy to use way to keep themselves private online.

Supernet VPN from the developers at Supernet is attempting to appeal to the latter group by creating an extremely simple VPN to protect their users while they are online. 

Setting Up Supernet VPN

Supernet VPN’s focus is on simplicity, and the experience of setting up the app shows this. There are no strange permissions or logins to get through. Instead, there are a few screens that discuss some of Supernet VPN’s features, and then you are taken directly to the app.

The only actual step to setting up is selecting a location from the drop-down menu in the app. You are given the choice between the United States and the United Kingdom, and since the only other words on the screen were “Select Location,” I assumed that I was meant to select the country where I lived. I quickly learned that this is not the correct thing to do. I selected “United States” and could not get the app to secure my connection even after waiting for 5 minutes.

On a fluke, I switched the location over to “United Kingdom,” and my connection was secured within seconds. While the setup is fairly simple in itself, it would be nice to have some sort of instructions or steps at the beginning to let users know what location they should select.

Using Supernet VPN

Once I actually had Supernet VPN setup correctly, using it was extremely easy. Aside from the location selection, there is only one other button in the entire app. Tapping the shield will secure your connection within seconds and change your IP address to the country of your choosing. I checked before and after turning on the VPN, and my IP address changed from Louisiana to London so I would say it works quite well.

Aside from just changing your IP address, Supernet VPN also lets you access content blocked in your country, protects you when connecting to public WiFi hotspots, and keeps your online information private. After finding a YouTube video that was blocked in the United States, I turned on SupernetVPN and could immediately watch the same video without any problems. You are given unlimited browsing with this app so there is no need to pay extra to get more protected data.

Supernet VPN is free, but it is supported by ads. Most of the time, these ads are totally unintrusive and are only at the bottom asking you to download a sponsored app. Since I have been using this app, I have only had one video ad popup after I tapped on the shield to turn the VPN on. While the video was not bad, it started with sound already playing which was annoying since there was no way to mute it or exit until the video was done. That being said, a couple of ads here and there is a small price to pay for your online security.

I love how simple Supernet VPN is to use because there are no extra features or buttons that could cause users difficulty. In fact, there is not even a settings menu in the app. What you see is exactly what you get. The location setup was somewhat confusing, but it is no reason for me to not recommend this app. The ads are mostly unobtrusive, and the app is free with no paid version with extra features.

If you are a power user, you will probably be looking for a VPN app with more features, but for those of you who are simply looking for an easy way to gain some protection online, Supernet VPN’s simplicity is hard to beat. You can download Supernet VPN for free from the Play Store.

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Shine Bluetooth headphones will light up your world

We at AndroidGuys don’t typically cover things on crowdfunding sites unless they are particularly interesting or we’ve been able to secure a pre-funding prototype. It helps a lot with the confidence of a crowdfunding campaign to know that the thing already exists and it helps people to know whether they want to help fund the project. Today’s instance is rather interesting in that it’s a Kickstarter campaign that is being done by an established company called IEC Technologies to do the pre-orders for the launch of their new Bluetooth headset, Shine.

The Fit/Feel

I have to admit, these are some of the best fitting/feeling Bluetooth earbuds I’ve ever used. Most of the time earbuds are really loose and they fall out of my ears, or they are really tight and become uncomfortable after a while. Even with the variable size buds, I’m never satisfied, but the Shine headset is different.

Shine not only has the regular earbuds and the hook for the inside part of your ear, it also hooks to the outside part of your ear and secures in place. You would think all of this extra equipment tacked on would make it uncomfortable, but it doesn’t and it doesn’t feel tremendously heavy, either.

Design

Design is actually one of the highlights of these earbuds. Admittedly, the huge rectangles protruding from the side of your head aren’t the most flattering, but the design strengths aren’t in the buds themselves, it’s in the wire that connects them. The wire that runs between the two earbuds has a clear casing, as opposed to normal black or braided casings. It then uses a colored LED to light up the wire in a spectacular of color, which is where Shine gets its name! You can set it to either surge to the rhythm of your music or your movement, which would be cool when you’re running.

The only real problem with this is that you don’t actually see it when you’re wearing them, so the show is for everyone else. It’s also not very bright, so you are better off showing them off at night.

Sound

My experience with these headphones is that they sound pretty good, maybe even above average. They aren’t an audiophile’s dream or nightmare, they’re just middle-of-the-road headphones, and that’s honestly what you should expect at the $60-80 price point that they’re selling it for on Kickstarter. Throughout the entire range, I would say that the sound is “good” – but it definitely favors the mid-to-high end and I would say that those are better than the sounds on the low-end.

What I would note, though, is that they do get rather loud while maintaining the same level of clarity and that’s definitely a huge plus.

Controls/Other Features

With most Bluetooth speakers, you get some sort of on-board audio controls and the case with Shine is no different. Across the top of the right ear you get four buttons: power/play/pause, vol+/music advance, vol-/music reverse, and shine control. On the side of the same earpiece there is a touch-sensitive area that also allows you to quickly play/pause music playback.

I think it’s a nice touch and I love having easy ways like that to control playback without having to feel around for the button. That’s actually the problem with this touch-sensitive area, though – it’s only a single (unmarked, not that it matters when it’s on your head) circle left of center of the earpiece and I found myself batting around trying to hit it with my finger.

Pro tip: you can smack the whole thing with your open palm to activate it pretty consistently, but that’s awfully cumbersome and makes me feel like I’m starring in a V8 commercial.

They also built an app to complement the entire experience with Shine and it’s supposed to be what makes the Shine shine. Unfortunately, and I’ve tried it on multiple phones, it basically doesn’t do anything. It’s an unreleased app, so you would expect it to be buggy but I literally can’t make it do anything of value and all of the main pages are in a foreign language. The app is supposed to help you keep track of your runs like an app such as Runtastic would do and give you granular control of the lights in the headset, but it just doesn’t. I wouldn’t let that take away from the overall experience provided by the headphones, because it isn’t necessary to enjoy all of the features of the headphones, but it’s still a disappointment.

Other notes/conclusion

The battery life on these headphones seems to be really good. I never actually wore them down and I used the headphones for at least 3-4 hours. I can’t speak for the seven hours that are advertised, but as big as the earpieces are, it wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a lot of battery packed in there. The flip side of that is that you won’t have to charge it often, because getting the rubber protection cover off of the charging port is next to impossible. I ended up prying the cover off with a screwdriver and subsequently throwing it into the trash because I never wanted to deal with that again. Back to the bright side: it uses a standard micro-USB plug to charge, and you probably have about 30 of those lying around your house.

Shine appears to be a good set of headphones for a reasonable amount of money. It’s definitely cool that it lights up in the dark and if they get the app working properly before release, that’s just value added. More than anything else, these aren’t just a half-baked project that will never come to Kickstarter backers – it’s already here. The Kickstarter campaign has about two weeks left at this point and you can still nab a pair for $60 – it wouldn’t be a bad gift (and according to their timeline it might be here in time for Christmas!)

If you’re interested in Shine, take a look at their Kickstarter campaign and help them bring it to the world!
Source: Kickstarter

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TYLT ENERGI 6K Smart Charger: a neat little battery companion

In case you’ve missed our past coverage on TYLT accessories, we’re a pretty big fan of its products. They aren’t cheap, but TYLT is a sure bet if you’re willing to put more moo-lah down for quality.

Most recently, we were provided the ENERGI 6K smart charger for our thorough run-through and opinion for you guys.

External battery packs are aplenty in the market, overwhelmingly-so. If you know TYLT, you can probably guess that there is something unique in the design. You’d be right, and this thing isn’t called a “smart charger” for no reason. Let’s see what the ENERGI 6K is all about.

Design

The design of the ENERGI 6K is fairly basic. This is no surprise. How interesting can a charger be? Also, TYLT typically focuses on a solid build rather than a flashy design. Therefore, when I pick up the 6K, it feels sturdy. TYLT’s devices always have a heft to them (in a good way) that makes them feel worth the price.

The build is plastic, but with a very nice-feeling finish. It’s soft to the touch – a quality that gets carried throughout TYLT’s lineup.

One of the things unique about this charger is that you don’t refill it with a separate AC adapter plug; it’s internal. There are embedded prongs that flip in and out, which means that the entire unit hangs off the power outlet when it’s time to charge.

And for those of us who don’t like carrying around a cable in addition to the charger, the 6K fortunately has an attached cable (this unit uses microUSB, but there’s also a variant with a Lightning connector for Apple users).

When not in use, it is nicely concealed within a groove along the sides. There’s a cutout where the microUSB connector is housed that lets your finger easily scoop it free.

The cable isn’t very long – only about 3″. There is also a full USB port on the side for charging other devices you have a cable for.

On the top, we only have a subtle TYLT logo and a small button with a smaller light next to it. As you can probably guess, this gives you an indication of the battery level.

Functionality

Speaking of the build, I love how sturdy the ENERGI 6K feels. It’s meant to handle your travels, and the robust-feel certainly implies that it can take the inevitable abuse.

And since the prongs are on the top of the device, you don’t have to worry about it blocking the other port on the wall outlet.

When the 6k is on the wall, you can use it like you would AC adapter to charge a device (recall that it has a USB port for power output to a mobile device). TYLT says that it gives priority to charging the attached device before it goes to charge the battery pack.

“The Intelligent Charging Technology prioritizes the charge to your device until your device is fully charged. It then charges the 6,000mAh battery onboard.“

One criticism is that I wish TYLT made the power output Quick-Charge compatible. All flagship phones these days have some form of fast charging, so when we’re reminded of the yesteryear charging rate, it’s somewhat annoying.

The 6K’s battery capacity is a modest 6,000 mAh. This is a decent amount (roughly twice the capacity of batteries in flagship phones). However, being that power banks are commonplace these days, there are tons of others with much more capacity for less money.

The battery indicator is a standard affair. An LED light essentially tells you if the charger’s battery is low (orange) or has a significant capacity (green).

I would’ve liked to see a more informative battery indicator. For instance, the larger ENERGI 10K uses five LED dots to give the user a better idea of the status.

Final Thoughts

I love TYLT’s little ENERGI 6K charger. It’s a no-fuss and efficient approach to a travel charger. The only issue I see is when putting the 6K up against a market that offers considerably larger batteries for less money. 6,000 mAh isn’t a lot of capacity for the asking price.

However, if you like to splurge for the extra quality and a well-thought design, I would definitely recommend this. It’s fantastic not having to deal with cables at all. Just throw this in your bag and you’re set. And being a TYLT product, it will hold up on your travels.

The ENERGI 6K comes in either a blue or gray color and goes for $69.99.

TYLT ENERGI 6K product page

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