Wilson X Connected Football Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
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Sporting goods giant Wilson has created the world’s first smart football. The company, which released a connected smart basketball last year, will begin selling the ball on September 8 for $200 in both official and junior sizes. That’s a lot of money to pay for a football, but this isn’t an ordinary ball.
You wouldn’t know from looking at it, or even holding it, but the Wilson X Connected Football includes a built-in sensor that can measure throw speed, distance, spin rate and spiral efficiency. The ball can even detect if your buddy catches it or drops it.
Data recorded by the ball is synced to the Wilson X Football app on Android and iOS. In addition to viewing your stats and comparing them to others, the app lets you choose from a variety of game modes to test your efficiency under pressure. Game modes include Red Zone, Game Day and an Elimination challenge. You can even play for or against your favorite NFL team.
Wilson
As was the case with the Connected Basketball, the football doesn’t have to be charged. Before the ball starts recording, it has to be held vertically for two seconds to enable the sensor. This helps preserve battery life, which will last for approximately 200,000 throws or up to 500 hours of connected usage.
The Connected Football is available now for preorder from Wilson’s website. Included in the box is a wrist sleeve for your smartphone, giving you quick and easy access to plays and stats mid-game.
I will be testing the ball over the next few weeks and plan to have a full review posted prior to the launch on September 8.
JBL Boost TV review – CNET
The Good The JBL Boost TV offers simple set-up and better sound than almost any television. The unit is compact and includes the most-used connections. The speaker sounds better than many portable Bluetooth speakers at the same price.
The Bad The Boost can sound shouty at high volume or with bright music. There’s little stereo separation. You can buy a full soundbar and subwoofer system with streaming features for the same money.
The Bottom Line The JBL Boost TV offers a simple, effective upgrade to your existing television sound with the option of Bluetooth streaming thrown in.
As TV screens have gotten thinner, their speakers have shrunken accordingly. That often makes for audio that can sound less robust than some of the old tube TVs of yore. But there is something you can do about it. While home theater in a box systems and soundbars have been offering affordable alternatives for many years, we’re now entering a realm of “mini sound-bars.” Zvox has its upcoming 17-inch wide Accuvoice TV speaker. And Sony’s SRS-ZR7 is a supercharged wireless speaker with an HDMI input for doubling as a TV speaker. Now along comes a third option: the JBL Boost TV.
This is a foot-or-so long speaker which offers Bluetooth and TV connectivity all tied up in a tidy design. While it’s not perfect — it can sound a little harsh at volume or with the wrong music — the JBL does what it says it will: It amps up your TV’s volume.
The JBL Boost TV retails for $200 or £170 in the UK, putting it under the price of most good full soundbar systems, but in line with many of the top-notch Bluetooth wireless speakers you can buy. (It doesn’t appear to be available in Australia, but the price translates to about AU$262.)
Design and Features
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The JBL Boost TV is a compact speaker which offers Bluetooth connectivity is addition to an optical input
Sarah Tew/CNET
The Boost TV is shaped like a football and features two large bass ports at either end. The unit is smaller than most soundbars at 14.8-inches long and 3.3-inches high.
The speaker features two 50mm “transducers” which appear to wrap around inside the top and front of the unit. This arrangement was presumably designed so you could wall-mount the speaker, though it lacks any way to actually mount it.
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Sarah Tew/CNET
Connections include digital optical and 3.5mm analog, plus the aforementioned wireless Bluetooth, so you can play audio from nearly any smartphone, tablet or computer source. Bluetooth also allows “multi-room” connectivity via the JBL Connect feature. As a soundbar, the JBL does offer Dolby Digital decoding, though not anything greater than CD resolution. In other words, the best possible Blu-ray and hi-res music options are out.
The JBL has a Harman Display Surround feature but it’s a phasey-sounding wide mode. I don’t suggest you use it.
Logitech Marathon Mouse M705 review – CNET
The Good The M705 wireless mouse has a contoured shape that fits the natural ergonomics of your hand. Its Unifying Receiver makes it easy to pair with any computer (along with other Logitech peripherals), and the laser sensor offers precise, smooth scrolling across most surfaces.
The Bad Users with large hands may feel cramped on the surface of the mouse.
The Bottom Line The Logitech M705’s adaptive laser sensor and sculpted body will make your wrist happy for less than the cost of a few lattes.
Given the amount of time we all spend sitting at computers, it’s never too early to pay attention to your daily ergonomics — because, well, #wellness. You can stave off the impending doom of repetitive stress injury just by switching up your typical usage patterns, so take a second right now to survey your workspace.
If it’s time to upgrade your mouse to a design that follows the natural curve of your hand, the Logitech Marathon Mouse M705 will make your joints happy for less than the cost of a few lattes. It lists for $50 in the US, £45 in the UK and AU$80 in Australia, but you can find it online for $36, £36 and $AU59.
Your wrist should never be the pivot point for mouse movements so Logitech designed the M705 with a smooth contour that skews slightly left so your elbow does the work instead. The top surface is wide to accommodate a range of hand sizes but if you’re looking for something bigger, the company’s flagship MX Master Mouse is so big and comfy that it feels like a Lay-Z-Boy for your hand.
Logitech M705 Mouse (pictures)
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The mouse has six extra buttons in addition to the standard left and right clickers on top. You get two directional thumb buttons on the side that move you “back” and “forward” in a web browser or media player, a hidden button underneath the thumb pad on the left and three separate buttons on the scroll wheel that engage by clicking left, right and down.
The mouse works via plug-and-play as soon as you insert the USB dongle but — on Windows PCs, Macs and Chromebooks –you can also install Logitech’s SetPoint software to re-map the buttons to commonly used tasks like opening applications, navigating media or engaging shortcuts like full screen video. (The M705 will also work with Chromebooks, sans the custom software.)
One feature that stands out on the M705 is its speed-adaptive scroll wheel that lets users toggle between smooth and notched scrolling using the button on top. I generally prefer to have a notched wheel that navigates down a page click-by-click, but the ability to switch to a free-scrolling wheel is perfect for jumping back to the top of a long page with a flick of a finger.
Kenmore 13699 review – CNET
The Good The Kenmore 13699 is one of the best cleaning dishwashers we tested, and a fine dryer as well. It also outclasses its $700 price with six different cycles and a few appealing features.
The Bad The control panel feels cheap, the design is bland, and I wish it had stem holders for your wine glasses. The plastic tub is also a step down in terms of energy management from the stainless variety of higher end models.
The Bottom Line A great value for bargain hunters, this top performing Kenmore is a steal if you don’t mind the plain design.
Visit manufacturer site for details.
The Kenmore 13699 dishwasher proves one thing that’s sure to make budget shoppers smile — you don’t have to shell out big bucks to get a dishwasher that can clean well. This $700 Kenmore cleans like a champ and backs it up with all the basic cycles you’d hope for in a dishwasher and a few helpful extra features to boot.
The main reason this dishwasher costs less than competitors with similar features is the plastic tub. The stainless steel tub adorning higher end models saves energy during the cycle. This Kenmore also has a pretty bland design and a clunky control panel that feels cheap, so I can’t entirely brush away the cost cutting measures Kenmore took to trim the price of the 13699.
But especially given its cleaning power, if you’re looking for a dishwasher that’ll wash away whatever you throw at it and if you’re hoping to save some money in the process, I strongly recommend the Kenmore 13699.
Kenmore’s budget dishwasher has the heart…
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Dark Knight
Perhaps the plain black exterior of the Kenmore 13699 won’t be a negative for you. I like my superheroes wearing darker colors, and this dishwasher has fantastic cleaning powers. Plus, the same model is available in white or stainless steel, though the stainless costs an extra $50. Regardless of which color you pick, the look of the Kenmore 13699 doesn’t do much to stand out.
The interior has a little more going on, with red jets accenting the grey racks. The racks themselves feel a little cramped. The Kenmore 13699 only has space for 12 place settings, vs 16 in the $600 GE GDF610PMJES, so even with our test run of 10 place settings, following the manufacturer’s recommended loading pattern resulted in a little overlap of plates. But the tines themselves are positioned well enough so that the plates feel secure and we were still able to find a spot for large pans during anecdotal runs.
The red jets add a nice bit of color to the interior.
Chris Monroe/CNET
You can purchase the Kenmore 13699 at Sears or on Sears’ website. As is typical of the Kenmore brand, you can only purchase this model at Sears and it’s not available overseas. This particular model was manufactured by Whirlpool. As usual with large appliances, you can find it cheaper than the $700 price. Sears has it for $650 right now.
Making room
With only one set of fold-down tines, the Kenmore doesn’t have a lot of extras to help make the space feel flexible. Higher end dishwashers have third racks. That similarly priced GE GDF610PMJES has a silverware basket you can slot on the door or the edge of the lower rack and bottle wash jets for washing the bottom of taller glasses.
You can change the angle of that one set of movable tines on this Kenmore — the back row of the bottom rack. And you can raise and lower the upper rack a couple of inches. But that’s pretty much it.
You can raise and lower the upper rack.
Chris Monroe/CNET
The rack doesn’t get in the way of loading, as with the tedious $800 Bosch SHS63VL5UC or the $900 LG LDF7774ST. The Kenmore 13699 doesn’t win many points with usability perks, but it only lacks one thing that I really missed — wine stem holders. As a result, you can’t put wine glasses in the outer-most columns on the top rack, as the stems will lean over the rim and knock into the edge of the dishwasher when you push in the rack.
Other than those wine glasses, the Kenmore 13699 is easy to load and for the most part, it’s inoffensive to look at. It even has hidden controls on the upper rim — an increasingly popular dishwasher trend. Unfortunately, those controls look and feel like cheap plastic.
You can shift the angle of the back row of tines or fold it down entirely.
Chris Monroe/CNET
Other than the controls — the Kenmore 13699 does well to look plain instead of cheap, but the feel of the controls is a distinct step down from flashy touch panels of higher end models such as the $1,100 Frigidaire FPID2497RF.
Cycles for all occasions
Fortunately, though the control panel feels cheap, it’s intuitive to use and has all the basic cycles you’d hope for, even in a higher end dishwasher, along with a few helpful options you can add to your cycle.
GE GDF610PMJES review – CNET
The Good The $600 GE GDF610PMJES consistently delivers clean dishes, and the slate finish adds a nice touch to the overall design. For a lower-midrange price, it has a great mix of features that match some dishwashers that cost hundreds more.
The Bad The GDF610PMJES can’t get the stuck-on food in the curved spaces of spoons, so you’ll need to adjust your load pattern for better cleaning performance.
The Bottom Line The GDF610PMJES can handle anything you throw at it, as long as you get a handle on loading it. As a budget-friendly option, it’s worth the minor hassle.
Nothing about this GE GDF610PMJES is outstanding, but it’s a good dishwasher to compromise with.
At $600, this dishwasher kept up with feature packages you’d normally see on dishwashers closer to a thousand bucks. It has a respectable lineup of features, like the option to wash only the upper or lower rack, and it gives you double the space for your silverware with two baskets on the lower rack. The GE GDF610PMJES cuts costs with its plastic wash tub and push buttons on the front instead of on the upper lip, so the design is less than glamorous.
If it didn’t top our list for cleaning performance, it’s a solid cleaner, and tackled the majority of the food we threw at it. If you can look past a basic design and don’t mind rinsing your dishes before loading, you’ll get more than what you expected at a lower midrange price. I’d recommend this dishwasher as a budget option.
Deal in! GE dishwasher has great features…
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Design
The pocket handle and steam vent in the upper left corner of the GE GDF610PMJES reminds me of a dishwasher from the early 2000s. The two red tips for the jet sprayers are the only pop of color on an otherwise bland interior, but it’s not an ugly dishwasher by any means. The unique slate finish is an especially good get for the price and it helps this dishwasher stand out from the stainless-steel masses.
You can find the GE GDF610PMJES at AJ Madison and other large appliance dealers. Like most large appliances, you’ll find it cheaper than the $600 list price. Right now, AJ Madison has it for $443. The GDF610PMJES is not available overseas.
Features
Looking at the feature list, the price of this dishwasher looks even more appealing. GE packed so many features in the GDF610PMJES that it keeps up with other dishwashers we’ve tested that are twice the cost. It offers the standard cycles we normally expect to see — Autosense, Heavy, Normal and Light — but the amount of customization options for the price of this dishwasher was a pleasant surprise.
Choose from four standard cycles.
Chris Monroe/CNET
It features a Steam prewash to loosen the gunk on your dishes before the cycle starts. The Heated Dry is great, and left hardly any water spots on glasses or silverware. The Wash Temperature controls give the option to “boost” or “sanitize,” customizing how you can get your dishes clean. Along with the choice to delay the start of your cycle for up to 12 hours, it also gives you a countdown timer to let you know when the cycle will end. One of my favorite things about it, is the Wash Zones option that targets your choice of cleaning the upper or lower rack.
Mid-range dishwashers
- LG LDF7774ST
- Bosch SHS63VL5UC
- Electrolux EI24ID30QS
Inside, you’ll find two detachable wine stem holders on the top rack and two jet sprayers for deep containers. It also has two silverware baskets that can be placed in different corners of the lower rack or simply taken out if you need the extra space.
It’s not the quietest dishwasher, but at 51 dB, the noise level isn’t overbearing. The only thing missing is an express cycle. You won’t be able to get a quick clean with this GDF610PMJES if you need it, but considering the other features you get, losing an express cycle isn’t much of a sacrifice.
Usability
Even though it doesn’t have foldable tines, the upper and lower racks are still roomy, and together can fit 16 place settings. There’s plenty of usable space making it easy to fit standard dishes, yet big enough for most larger dishes as well.
Panasonic Lumix GX85 (GX80) review – CNET
The Good It delivers excellent photo and video for a Micro Four Thirds camera, especially at its price, plus a great feature set and fast performance.
The Bad The continuous autofocus occasionally fails to lock at all in burst mode, and the batter life is poor.
The Bottom Line LIke other Panasonic models before it, the Lumix GX85/GX80 packs a lot for its price, including great photos, 4K video and speed.
There’s a lot in the Lumix GX85 to appeal to family photographers and first-time mirrorless buyers as an alternative to a decent (as opposed to cheap) first dSLR like the Nikon D5500. It’s got a great feature set, very good photo and video quality for its class, pretty fast performance, and an attractive, relatively compact design.
With an electronic viewfinder, fast continuous shooting and 4K video, it fits right into that camera’s demographic: an enthusiast-friendly model with a feature set that should also appeal to families and travelers at a reasonable price.
The kit with Panasonic’s collapsible 12-32mm f3.5-5.6 (24-64mm equivalent) lens runs $800 and AU$1,200; in the UK, the model is the GX80, and costs £600 for the same kit. Like many Panasonic cameras, it’s not available in the US as a body-only version, but you can get it that way in the UK and Australia for £510 and AU$1,100. And in the UK, you can get it in a dual-lens configuration with the 12-32mm and 35-100mm lenses for £730.
A sharper image
Although it’s 16 megapixels rather than the new 20.3MP sensor that’s in the higher-end GX8, it’s a version of the Four Thirds-size sensor that forgoes an antialiasing filter (aka OLPF). Cameras use them to blur edges slightly, which removes some color artifacts (moire and false color) that would normally appear, but you sacrifice sharpness. The new version of the company’s Venus image-processing engine which is in the GX85 has moire-reduction built in to compensate.
Panasonic Lumix GX85 (GX80) full-resolution…
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As a result, JPEGs remain clean through ISO 1600, and depending upon light and subject, usable through the top of the camera’s ISO sensitivity range. It’s noticeably better than the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark II in this respect. If you process raw files, you can eke out some more detail at all sensitivity levels; the default Standard Photo Style applied to JPEGs pushes the saturation and contrast enough that you’ll lose some detail in highlight and shadow areas.
Its color rendering and white balance is excellent. The automatic white balance delivers some of the best results I’ve seen, even in cloudy weather, low light and multiple light sources, which are three of the trickiest conditions you’ll encounter.
The video looks great, too, though because of the sensor you’ll see moire on high-frequency patterns, which are surprisingly common on clothes. But even in high-contrast lighting (such a bright subway platform and dark track area) at midrange sensitivities, it does a good job.
Analysis samples
Because its sensor doesn’t have an antialiasing filter, it can retain detail at higher ISO sensitivities better than a Four Thirds sensor with an AA filter. JPEGs look very clean through ISO 1600.
Lori Grunin/CNET
You can see a little more loss of detail in JPEGs at ISO 3200 (there’s slight blurring in the white bristles), but it’s still pretty good. Noise and artifacts become a lot more obvious at ISO 6400.
Lori Grunin/CNET
Overall, the GX85’s colors look very good at the default settings, and it handles white balance extremely well even under cloudy conditions. It does push the contrast and saturation so you lose a little detail in highlights and shadows. It delivers almost perfectly neutral results in our lab tests, though.
Lori Grunin/CNET
You can regain some detail by processing raw at all ISO sensitivities, though the tradeoff is some grain.
Lori Grunin/CNET
Panasonic’s DFD (Depth from Defocus) autofocus technology is generally fast and accurate, and that holds true in the GX85 for individual shots; it locks focus and shoots quickly enough for most uses in bright and dim light. Its tested continuous shooting rate of 6.6 frames per second with autofocus for more than 40 shots or raw or JPEG is better than average, and even sustains a solid burst with raw+JPEG.
HP Chromebook 13 review: a great laptop that doesn’t come cheap
Just over a year ago, you basically had two options for buying a Chromebook: Spend $999 on Google’s excellent but overpriced Pixel or buy an inexpensive laptop that was inevitably compromised in one way or another. That’s starting to change, however. Dell’s Chromebook 13, which launched last fall, proved you could pack a sharp screen and keyboard into a device with strong performance and battery life. It was a bit pricier than the competition, but a little extra cash was well worth the upgrades.
Now HP is taking the idea of a “premium” Chromebook to the next level with the new Chromebook 13. It starts at $499 and can be configured up to a whopping $1,029. That cash gets you a much thinner and lighter design than Dell’s Chromebook, along with one of the best screens on the market. After spending some time with HP’s latest Chromebook, there’s no doubt it’s an excellent machine. The question is whether it (or any Chromebook, for that matter) is worth HP’s asking price.
Hardware
There’s no question in my mind that HP hit it out of the park with the Chromebook 13’s design. It’s the nicest Chromebook I’ve used outside the Pixel, which still costs significantly more than HP’s offering. Visually, the Chromebook 13 sticks pretty close to the MacBook Air stylings that continue to dominate the industry. However, a few design notes, including its brushed-metal texture, black screen border and shiny chrome accents (including an overly large HP logo on the cover), lend it some unique visual flair. It’s a nice-looking laptop, if a bit plain and derivative — something that’ll probably help it as a machine targeted at business customers. It’s no Spectre 13.3, though.
At 2.85 pounds and half an inch thick, it certainly has a lot in common with the many popular thin-and-light laptops available, and that’s a place where it diverts from the similarly business-targeted Dell Chromebook 13. That computer is as solid as a rock, but it’s a lot thicker and heavier than many other 13-inch laptops. The HP feels much more portable — but it’s not nearly as solid as the Dell. It’s easy to flex the screen and chassis if you’re so inclined. The screen flexing is particularly noticeable; my co-workers were pretty stunned at how easily I was able to bend the display. Obviously, this isn’t normal behavior, but it does make me concerned about the laptop’s long-term durability. Fortunately, the HP Chromebook 13 felt solid and comfortable in normal use. It’s just not the tank that Dell’s Chromebook is.
Indeed, for real-world use, the HP feels great from the moment you open it up. You can easily lift the screen open with one hand; the body of the computer stays put and doesn’t wobble on your lap or desk when you’re adjusting the display. And what a display it is: The 13.3-inch screen has a best-in-class 3,200 x 1,800 resolution. (You can also save some cash by stepping down to a 1080p panel.) By default, it’s scaled to an effective 1,600 x 900 resolution, but thanks to the pixel density, you get super crisp, readable text and wonderfully detailed images. And for me, 1,600 x 900 is a sweet spot in terms of having a large workspace and text that isn’t too tiny. 1080p feels a bit small to me on a display like this, but if you want more space, there are plenty of scaling options in the Chromebook’s display settings.
I have a couple big complaints about the display, though. After using the Pixel, I’ve grown to love having more vertical real estate; HP’s Chromebook 13 feels a little cramped in this regard. It doesn’t help that the bezel at the bottom of the display is particularly thick: It feels like a 16:10 panel could have fit here without an issue. Of course, basically every computer out there has a 16:9 display aspect ratio, so this is hardly HP’s fault.
More damning is the lack of a touchscreen. With Android apps coming to Chromebooks soon, there’s finally a good reason to have a touch panel, and it should be a default feature on an $819 computer. I could understand it being left off cheaper models in the lineup, but it should at least be offered as an optional upgrade. And while the viewing angles on this screen aren’t bad, it’s not an IPS display, so you won’t get the wide field of view that some other notebooks offer. Despite these few complaints, the screen is a high point. It’s about the best I’ve seen on a Chromebook. That should be the case for an $820 machine, but the fact that you can get the same display on a $500 version of this laptop is a big win.
Beyond the screen, the keyboard and trackpad are of utmost importance, and fortunately HP got both of these things right. I’ve been happily typing away on this computer for over a week, and it feels nearly as good as the Chromebook Pixel and equally as comfortable as the Dell Chromebook 13. There’s an adjustable backlight here, which feels appropriate for a computer in this price range, and the keycaps offer decent travel for a computer this thin. As for the trackpad, the only complaint I have is that, similar to the screen, I wish it were a bit taller. Other than that, it works fine. I’m glad to see laptop manufacturers starting to get touchpads consistently right.
HP touts stereo speakers from Bang & Olufsen, and while there’s only so much you can do with speakers in a smallish laptop, these sound pretty good to me. They’re not any louder than your average notebook audio setup, but they’re definitely crisper and less muddy than on most other computers. You’re still probably better off listening with headphones, but in a pinch these will do — just don’t expect any physics-defying sound here.
As for ports, the HP Chromebook 13 keeps things pretty minimal: There’s one USB 3.0 connection, a headphone jack, two USB Type-C sockets (either of which can be used for charging) and a microSD slot. I’m confounded by laptop makers that insist on microSD; a full-sized SD reader would be far more useful for most people. Having two USB Type-C ports is smart, though: You can dedicate one to power if need be and still have options for plugging in more devices, including the HP docking station designed specifically for this laptop.
Performance and battery life
HP’s Chromebook 13 is the first Chromebook I’ve tried that uses Intel’s newest generation of Core M processors. The $819 model I tested has a 1.1GHz Core m5 processor paired with 8GB of RAM and 32GB of storage space. We’ll talk more about whether this computer is worth that kind of cash, but for now, the most important thing to know is that HP is offering this computer in a variety of configurations.
The base $499 model pairs a Pentium 4405Y processor with 4GB of RAM; $599 steps that up to the Core m3-6Y30 processor with the same RAM allotment. If you’re feeling particularly crazy, you can upgrade to a Core m7-6Y75 processor with either 8GB or 16GB of RAM. HP says you can get that top-of-the-line model from “select retailers” for $1,029.
However, I only had the $819 model to test. At that price (more than nearly any other Chromebook on the market), I was expecting a great experience, and fortunately I was not disappointed. Anecdotally, I was able to run all of my usual apps (Inbox, Chrome, Google Play Music, TweetDeck, Slack, Keep, Docs, Wunderlist, Hangouts) plus more than a dozen tabs with few hiccups. Music would occasionally cut out slightly, and typing text in Keep felt a bit laggy while I was simultaneously doing a video call, but by and large I have no complaints about the performance. And from a benchmark perspective, the Chromebook 13 kept pace with the best you can get when running Chrome OS, including the Pixel.
| HP Chromebook 13 (Core-m5 6Y57, 8GB RAM) | 230ms |
27,908 |
1,053ms |
| Dell Chromebook 13 (Celeron 3205U, 4GB RAM) | 371ms |
14,430 |
2,242ms |
| ASUS Chromebook Flip (Rockchip RK3288C, 4GB RAM) | 700ms |
6,748 |
5,527ms |
| Chromebook Pixel (2015, Core i5, 8GB RAM) | 298ms |
23,907 |
1,428ms |
| Toshiba Chromebook 2 (Celeron N2840, 4GB RAM) | 967ms |
7,714 |
4,284ms |
| Samsung Chromebook 2 (11-inch, Celeron N2840, 2GB RAM) | 525ms |
7,223 |
3,936ms |
| Acer Chromebook 13 (NVIDIA Tegra K1, 2GB RAM) | 609ms |
7,051 |
4,816ms |
| Lenovo N20p (Celeron N2830, 2GB RAM) | 567ms |
7,288 |
4,287ms |
| ASUS C200 Chromebook (Celeron N2830, 2GB RAM) | 483ms |
7,198 |
4,291ms |
| Acer C720 Chromebook (Celeron 2955U, 2GB RAM) | 342ms |
11,502 |
2,614ms |
| Dell Chromebook 11 (Celeron 2955U, 4GB RAM) | 340ms |
11,533 |
2,622ms |
|
*SunSpider and Kraken: Lower scores are better. |
I will say that I’ve had one big issue that I can’t overlook, and that’s the battery life. HP claims that the Chromebook 13 gets 11.5 hours of runtime, with a big caveat: You need the model with the 1080p screen to achieve that result. HP doesn’t offer any estimates for the 3,200 x 1,800 screen I’ve been using, but I only got about 6 hours of battery life doing my normal work routine. This is a major disappointment, especially after enjoying incredibly long battery life on Dell’s Chromebook 13. HP’s machine is smaller and has a sharper, more power-hungry screen — but getting significantly less than eight hours of battery life is a serious bummer.
Our battery test (which involves looping an HD video with screen brightness fixed at 65 percent) bore similar results: The HP Chromebook 13 lasted for 6 hours and 33 minutes. And unfortunately, the computer didn’t charge as quickly as I’d hoped, despite HP touting USB Type-C’s quick-charging features. It took about two and a half hours while in use to go from nearly dead to 100 percent and a good 90 minutes to get to 50 percent.
Battery life
HP Chromebook 13
6:33
Surface Book (Core i5, integrated graphics)
13:54 (3:20 tablet only)
MacBook Air (13-inch, 2013)
12:51
HP Spectre x360
11:34
Apple MacBook Pro with Retina display (13-inch, 2015)
11:23
ASUS C200 Chromebook
11:19
ASUS Chromebook Flip
10:49
Dell Chromebook 13
10:25
Acer Chromebook 13
10:07
Chromebook Pixel (2015)
10:01
Microsoft Surface 3
9:11
Apple MacBook (2016)
8:45
Samsung Chromebook 2 (13-inch)
8:22
HP Stream 11
8:17
Dell XPS 13 (2015)
7:36
Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro
7:36
Lenovo LaVie Z
7:32
Microsoft Surface Pro 4
7:15
HP Spectre 13
7:07
Lenovo LaVie Z 360
6:54
Toshiba Chromebook 2
6:34
Acer C720 Chromebook
6:27 (Core i3) / 5:57 (Celeron)
None of this matters if Chrome OS doesn’t have the apps and services you need to get things done. Fortunately, as I wrote last fall, Chrome OS is pretty capable right now. There are tasks like photo and video editing that the platform is still not suited for, but for the majority of consumers, using a Chromebook might increasingly make sense. I rarely felt like I was hamstrung when using HP’s Chromebook 13, and the Android apps coming this fall will make the platform even more capable. It’s still worth making sure what you typically do on a laptop is feasible with a Chromebook, but Google has closed the feature gap in the past few years.
The competition
As I’ve mentioned multiple times by now, Dell’s Chromebook 13 is the computer most worth comparing to the HP Chromebook 13. HP’s model is the clear winner in terms of design and display, but the Dell counters with a much lower price and far better battery life. Dell also has a variety of configurations: You can step up to a full Core i3 processor, increase the RAM to 8GB and add a touchscreen. If you’re interested in HP’s Chromebook 13, I’d encourage you to also check out the Dell before making a final decision. Unless you really love the HP’s more compact design or its super sharp screen, the Dell wins on bang for your buck.
There aren’t a lot of other Chromebooks that have excellent screens, keyboards, performance and design. The Chromebook Pixel is one, of course — but at $1,299, there’s no way we can recommend that computer to most normal humans. Toshiba’s 13-inch Chromebook 2, released in 2015, is still a strong choice. About $340 gets you a 1080p display, decent construction and an Intel Core i3 processor. The battery life on that laptop isn’t outstanding, but performance will not be a problem. Most other Chromebooks beyond these are compromised in one way or another: cheap construction, small or low-resolution screens, or — worst of all — bad processors leading to poor performance.
Wrap-up
Similar to the Chromebook Pixel that appears to have inspired it, HP’s Chromebook 13 occupies an odd spot in the market. As tested, it’s hard to recommend anyone spend $819 on this laptop. It packs a wonderful screen and keyboard into a thin and light package, and it combines that with solid performance. But the battery life isn’t great, and $819 is still too much to spend on a Chromebook. Yes, they’re better than they ever have been, and they’re going to get a lot more useful this fall when they start supporting Android apps. But even as someone who has wanted a “premium” Chromebook option beyond the Pixel for a long time, I can’t justify the cost of this computer.
Fortunately, HP is making two models that are cheaper than this one. You can still get the same great package, just with less RAM and a slower processor, for the much more reasonable price of $499. I haven’t tested that machine yet, so I can’t give it a full-throated recommendation yet. But if you’ve been searching for a Chromebook with premium build quality like I have, it might be worth seeing if the cheaper versions of HP’s Chromebook 13 can meet your needs.
Photos by Edgar Alvarez.
2016 Honda CR-V review – Roadshow
The Good The 2016 Honda CR-V delivers and engaged driving feel, with good power and steering response. The small SUV form factor serves a variety of uses, from commuting and shopping to weekend recreation.
The Bad The available navigation system makes address entry tedious due to slow responses and piece-by-piece inputs. The collision warning creates false alerts and doesn’t sync up with adaptive cruise control. Ride quality suffers from a tightly-tuned suspension.
The Bottom Line The 2016 Honda CR-V sacrifices comfort for an engaged driving experience, not necessarily the right trade-off in a small SUV, while features such as navigation work poorly or in an unnecessarily quirky fashion.
Driving over mildly rough pavement, the 2016 Honda CR-V’s ride felt like the equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard. It subjected me to every nuance of the road when, in a small SUV like this, I would prefer some serious cushioning.
Heading down the freeway, I tried unsuccessfully to turn on the adaptive cruise control. It wasn’t until I pulled over on a surface street and could safely poke around that I figured out the button on the steering wheel labeled “Main” enabled cruise control.
The CR-V wasn’t making a good first impression.
I would like to say that the Honda CR-V finally won me over through sheer precociousness, but there was no Hollywood ending here. While I eventually gave the CR-V respect for its on-road handling, I wouldn’t buy a small SUV for fast cornering. That’s why the gods made sports cars.
Honda gave its CR-V small SUV an update for the 2015 model year, unfortunately too early for its latest navigation head unit, which supports Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.
Wayne Cunningham/Roadshow
As a small SUV, the CR-V has always been a practical alternative to a midsize sedan for families, offering seating for five and a good amount of cargo space, coupled with decent fuel economy. The upright seating position and ride height make for a nice view of the road, putting drivers on par with the rash of full-size SUVs hogging the lanes. Honda gave the CR-V a few upgrades for the previous model year, including a powerful yet economical engine.
However, unlike Honda’s most recently upgraded models, such as the Civic, the CR-V suffers from an older dashboard infotainment system that doesn’t include Android Auto or Apple CarPlay.
Honda
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A litany of quirks
I mentioned the “Main” button above, which most automakers would simply label “Cruise.” Pushing that button, then setting my speed, the CR-V used its radar sensor to automatically match speed with slower traffic ahead, a reasonable adaptive cruise-control system. But the CR-V also has collision warning, and these two systems don’t talk to each other.
For example, the cruise control sensed slow traffic ahead, so it began braking from 65 mph down to about 30 mph. At the same time, the collision-warning system sounded an alert and flashed me a “Brake” warning. Um, the cruise control had me covered here, although maybe the collision system was prepping me for the fact that the cruise control cuts out under 20 mph.
The collision system also proved error-prone, flashing its warning and even hitting the brakes as I approached one of San Francisco’s steep hills.
Figuring out how to turn on lane-keeping assist and adaptive cruise control will be a challenge if you don’t…RTFM.
Wayne Cunningham/Roadshow
Rather than a typical blind-spot monitor system, with a warning light to right or left when there are cars to the corresponding side, Honda insists on using its LaneWatch system, showing a right-side camera view on the center display when I hit the right turn signal. The left side merely uses a larger side mirror.
And don’t expect a volume dial for the stereo — I had to contend with plus and minus buttons on the head unit bezel and steering wheel.
As another quirk, putting down the rear seat backs to maximize the rear cargo area first requires lifting the seat bottoms. That may lead to a flatter load floor, but the overall cargo space of 70.9 cubic feet is only average in the segment. And most owners will likely prefer the simplicity of just pushing the seat backs down, as in the Ford Escape and Toyota RAV4.
Oreck Touch Bagless Vacuum review – CNET
The Good The Oreck Touch is a powerful performer from a long-trusted brand. At a price of $399, it flat-out beat the $649 Dyson DC41 in our basic cleaning tests.
The Bad A few minor design imperfections detract from an otherwise flawless build. Also, the Oreck isn’t quite as versatile a vacuum as the DC41 or the Shark.
The Bottom Line The Oreck Touch is an exceptional vacuum that left us all highly impressed. It’s an excellent choice for anyone looking to upgrade to a high-end machine.
When I was a kid, I remember seeing commercials for Oreck vacuum cleaners on TV. David Oreck himself usually starred in the ads, and when he did, he’d always cheerfully proclaim the merits of his machine, the 8-pound Oreck XL. The XL had the look of a complete clunker, with an ugly, dated design that seemed like it hadn’t been updated since 1963, when Oreck first started selling vacuums in Louisiana. All the same, there was just something endearing and perhaps infectious about Oreck’s unapologetic confidence. Sure enough, everyone I knew who used an Oreck XL swore by the thing.
Fast forward twenty years or so to today, and you’ll still see Orecks on the market (David Oreck, by the way, just celebrated his 90th birthday last month, and is still an active entrepreneur, lecturer, and philanthropist). You won’t, however, see anything quite like the good ol’ Oreck XL. It seems that somewhere between those TV commercials and the present day, the company finally caved in and decided to update its design — which brings us to the new Oreck Touch. I was almost disappointed as I took the thing out of the box. It looked… modern. It looked… great. Was this really an Oreck vacuum I was looking at?
Twist and go with the Oreck Touch Bagless…
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The Oreck Touch is as modern as the Oreck XL was vintage.
Colin West McDonald/CNET
By the standards of the many Oreck loyalists out there, I’m happy to say that yes, this is most definitely an Oreck vacuum, the kind of vacuum you’ll swear by. We put it through hours upon hours of tests, throwing everything from sawdust to Labradoodle hair at it, and in the end, we found that it was one of our top scoring vacuums, right up there with the most expensive, high-end models. At a price of $399, the Oreck Touch isn’t cheap, but as a high-quality appliance in a category with more variance than you might think, it still represents real value for consumers looking for a dependable, easy-to-use cleaning machine.
Design and construction The Oreck Touch is a vacuum cleaner built for the 21st century, and if Oreck was late to the party in this regard, it’s only helped it to make a big entrance. The minimalist, utilitarian design of fifty years ago is gone, replaced with something truly modern and elegant-looking. If there was an old chalkboard at the Oreck factory with the word “flourishes” boldly crossed out for all to see, it’s been thrown out the window
This is a vacuum with style to spare. The thick, pale blue bag is gone — the Oreck Touch uses a sleek-looking translucent blue canister, instead. The handle isn’t just a boring, industrial-looking loop of white plastic anymore — it’s a futuristic joystick buttressed by arcs of brushed steel. I hate when writers refer to appliances as “sexy,” but I’m really struggling to not call this thing a sexy vacuum.
Thankfully, these design touches have a degree of functionality to them. The brush roll is housed in a body with stylish cutaways that actually allow you to immediately see if you’ve missed anything on the floor as you’re cleaning. The great-looking canister is amazingly easy to take out, empty, and replace. And, of course, there’s the fact that the Oreck Touch conveniently relocates the power switch, along with the brush roll button, to the tip of the handle, where they sit just beneath your thumb. From start to end, you could clean with this vacuum and never need to bend over once.
This is a vacuum designed with maneuverability in mind.
Colin West McDonald/CNET
The most noticeable function of the new design is how maneuverable the Oreck Touch is. The curves of the machine’s body create a pivot point at the base, allowing you to turn the thing with a simple twist of the wrist, similar to how you would with a ball-based design, like Dyson vacuums use. The comfortable angle of the handle seems designed to make this kind of turning even easier — it juts out in front of the vacuum, giving your wrist more leverage.
It’s a subtle, surprisingly smart build, and I was struck with how much I enjoyed using it in comparison with other machines that we tested. It isn’t without its minor imperfections, though. I wish that the hollow loops connecting the brush roll to the back wheels were a bit sturdier, since these are what you’re supposed to step on in order to click the vacuum down out of its resting position. While we’re at it, a dedicated button or latch for this function would have left me feeling much more comfortable. All in all, when it comes time to criticize the build, minor quibbles are the best I can come up with.
One last design note: as Oreck vacuums go, the Oreck Touch is a heavyweight, weighing in at about 16 pounds. This isn’t to say that it’s noticeably heavy or difficult to lug around, but don’t expect to see David Oreck lifting one with a single finger the way he used to do regularly while hocking the 8-pound Oreck XL.
Performance So the Oreck Touch looks and feels great, but the real question is how well does it clean? After all, it’s going to spend most of its life stashed away in a closet. How… ugh… sexy it looks is a trivial concern next to knowing how much dirt it’ll suck out of your carpets. For $399, you want a vacuum cleaner that’s going to do the job, and do it well. So how does the Oreck stack up?
Cheerios, 1 oz. (percentage picked up)(Longer bars indicate better performance)
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92
97
95 Dyson DC41
92
97
93 Shark
73
88
97 Electrolux
93
88
92 Dyson DC50
80
83
Let’s start with cereal. For our purposes, we used Cheerios (Fruity Cheerios, to be exact — they photograph a little better against beige carpet and plus, they were on sale).
Our goal was to see how well the vacuums could handle lightweight particulates of a significantly larger size than your average dust mote. What percentage of the cereal would each vacuum manage to pick up? Would the cereal fit underneath the vacuum, or would it just get shoveled around? Would the vacuum grind it up and leave multicolored dust littered across the carpet? What about low-friction, hardwood floors — would any of the vacuums scatter the cereal across the floor?
See? I told you they photograph better.
Ry Crist/CNET
The Oreck Touch passed all of these tests with flying colors (or, in the case of that last one, with no flying colors.) Across all three surfaces that we tested on, the Oreck picked up more cereal than any other vacuum, averaging a very impressive 95 percent pickup rate, one percentage point better than the top-of-the-line Dyson DC41, which retails for $649. The Oreck didn’t leave any ground-up cereal dust behind, and it didn’t have any trouble on hardwoods, either. If you have a militant toddler in your home who loves lobbing his breakfast around, you’ll want to move the Oreck to the top of your list.
Neato XV Signature Pro review – CNET
The Good The Neato XV Signature Pro is simple to use, and it outperformed the competition in almost all of our cleaning tests, at substantial cost savings.
The Bad Compared with other robot vacuums, the Neato is a bit boring and feature-light.
The Bottom Line The Neato offers unmatched value in its field. Its performance, simplicity, and price make it an excellent choice for buyers seeking an effective, low-maintenance robot vacuum.
When people think about robot vacuums, the first word that probably comes to mind is “Roomba,” the signature offering from Massachusetts manufacturer iRobot. Take a look at today’s market, though, and you’ll find a variety of robot vacuums to choose from, all of which would love to make a run at the Roomba’s robo-reign over the living room. One particularly worthy competitor is the Neato XV Signature Pro, the latest model from a smallish, California-based manufacturer called Neato Robotics.
The first, most obvious contrast between the Neato and other robot vacuums we reviewed is the price. Despite being Neato Robotics’ newest and most advanced robot vacuum, the Signature Pro only costs $449.99. In comparison, the top-of-the-line Roomba 790 costs $699.99, while LG’s Hom-Bot Square costs $799.99. Those are some substantial savings, making the Neato an attractive choice for buyers who might have been curious about robot vacuums in the past, but who found the higher price tags to be a deal-breaker. But still, $450 is a lot of money — is the Neato worth it?
We say yes. After dozens of cleaning runs across multiple surfaces, and with multiple variations of debris scattered in its path, the Neato emerged as the clear favorite. In almost every situation we threw at it, the Neato picked up more debris than the competition, often in significantly less time. It’s an efficient, powerful little machine, and its laser-guided navigation system is one of the smartest you’ll find in any robot vacuum. It performed best on standard, medium-pile carpet, and impressed us with how well it picks up pet hair. If you’re a dog or a cat owner living in a carpeted home, the odds are good that you’ll love this vacuum. As for me — a non-pet owner who loves hardwood floors — it’s still unquestionably the robot vacuum I would buy for myself.
At 8.6 lbs., the Neato is the heaviest robot vacuum that we tested.
Colin West McDonald/CNET
Construction and design The Neato is sturdy and well-built, with a tough outer shell capable of withstanding the inevitable barrage of gentle bumps against the legs of your dining-room table. It sits low to the ground, too, for greater access beneath furniture and cabinetry. The bin lifts conveniently out of the top of the machine – you won’t need to flip it over or yank a drawer out to empty it, which makes for faster, easier cleaning than other models we tested. The backlit menu is easy to use, with a simple interface that makes scheduling a cinch.
At first glance, the Neato resembles the bottom section of your typical upright vacuum, at least in terms of its shape. It’s a design approach that might help the Neato feel familiar, but it’s also one that fails to highlight its modern, forward-thinking appeal. Throw in the black-and-white LCD menu that seems lifted from the very first generation of iPods, and the Neato actually feels downright dated, and certainly not as fun or quirky as other machines we tested.
Simply put, for all its smarts, the Neato feels a bit soulless. This might sound like an obtuse criticism, but for a machine that relies on artificial intelligence, subtle, playful touches of personality can really go a long way — something that iRobot seems to have mastered in the Roomba after several generations of development. The closest the Neato comes is when it offers text asking you to put it down on the floor or thanking you for cleaning its bin. It’s a polite machine, for sure, but not the life of the party.
Charging the Neato takes 2 to 3 hours. When it’s finished, the light will change from red to green.
Colin West McDonald / CNET
Usability For such a sophisticated device, the Neato is surprisingly simple to use. Just press the power button to wake it, then press it again to set the vacuum off on a floor-cleaning expedition. When it’s finished, the Neato will automatically find its way back to its charging station for a well-earned nap. It will also return home in the middle of a run if its battery is running low; once charged, it will automatically return to the spot where it left off and resume cleaning.
Even more convenient is the Neato’s scheduling ability. Just turn it on and tell the Neato what days and times you want it to clean, and it’ll take care of the rest. You can program it to skip days if you want, and you can even program it to run at different times on different days, a nice feature that you won’t find on a lot of other robot vacuums. The scheduling feature is particularly useful if you want the Neato to tidy up while you’re away at work during the day, or overnight, while you’re asleep. I wouldn’t recommend late-night cleaning runs, as the Neato was the loudest robot vacuum that we tested. While not as loud as a full-size vacuum, it’s still noisy enough to wake you up.
Performance
Rice (out of 2.5 oz) (Longer bars indicate better performance)
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2.05 2.33 2.13 iRobot Roomba 790 2 2.32 2.25 LG Hom-Bot Square 1.85 1.87 2.13 Infinuvo CleanMate QQ5 1.55 1.8 0.8
Pet hair (out of 0.2 oz) (Longer bars indicate better performance)
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0.15 0.15 0.18 LG Hom-Bot Square 0.083 0.02 0.08 iRobot Roomba 790 0.047 0.05 0.17 Infinuvo CleanMate QQ5 N/A 0.02 N/A
Sawdust/sand mix (out of 1.25 oz) (Longer bars indicate better performance)
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0.42 0.43 0.92 iRobot Roomba 790 0.3 0.23 1.12 LG Hom-Bot Square 0.23 0.27 0.75 Infinuvo CleanMate QQ5 0.15 0.13 0.07
In our tests, the Neato was the overall standout, dominating the competition on each variety of carpet and performing well on hardwood, too — though not quite as well as the Roomba when it came to picking up rice or our sand-sawdust mix. The data paints a very clear picture of the Neato’s considerable vacuuming power, and it’s hard not to like what you see. Pet owners in particular should pay attention — the Neato honestly blew the competition away when it came time for dander duty.
The Neato is also an effective navigator. It had no trouble mapping out our test spaces and covered them with ease, rarely getting stuck and needing us to intervene. At only 4 inches high, it was able to clean beneath our couches, coffee tables, and bookshelves, and also navigated beneath low-hanging curtains, an obstacle that regularly confused some of the other robot vacuums we tested.
AIVAnet 