Samsung Notebook 7 spin (15-inch) Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

Samsung

Despite pulling out of both Europe and Australia, Samsung is still selling laptops in the US and it’s doing a pretty good job of it. The Notebook 7 Spin is actually a range of the three different two-in-one laptops hitting Best Buy and Samsung’s online store on June 26.

The “Spin” part of the name refers to the 360-degree hinge that lets you fold the screen all the way over for tablet mode or somewhere in between for tent mode. There are three models: two 15.6-inch screen versions with similar configurations and a 13.3-inch lower-end model. That one starts at just $799 while the larger sizes come in at $999 and $1,199.

Samsung is hyping up the Notebook 7 as being “designed for multimedia enthusiasts” and the company has a Video HDR mode built in that will sharpen and enhance colours and textures when turned on. All three models have a Full HD (1,920×1,080-pixel) screen, and the differences break down as such:

The Notebook 7 Spin also has fast-charging technology. Twenty minutes of charge equals 2 hours of battery life, while the device will be fully charged in 90 minutes for the 15.6-inch versions and 100 minutes for the 13.3.

Samsung

A base 1TB of storage even on the low-end model is a welcome touch, as is the LAN port for both the 15.6-inch models. There’s a USB-C port across the board, along with two USB 2.0 and one USB 3.0 ports. If you’re wondering if there’s a drawback to all this, it’s probably in the weight. At 5 pounds for the big screen and 3.9 pounds for the smaller model, the Notebook 7 spin is pretty hefty, especially compared to the Samsung Notebook 9 which tips the scales at just 2.9 pounds.

JBL Charge 3 review – CNET

The Good The JBL Charge 3 is a well-designed, fully waterproof portable Bluetooth speaker that features good battery life and doubles as an external charger for your portable devices. It also has built-in speakerphone capabilities, and plays loudly with strong bass for its size and price class.

The Bad While it plays louder than the JBL Charge 2+ it doesn’t sound as good.

The Bottom Line The JBL Charge 3 is larger than its predecessor, fully waterproof, and plays louder — but it should sound a little better.

There are a zillion wireless Bluetooth speakers you can buy these days, but three brands rise to the top of the heap: Bose, Ultimate Ears and JBL. And of those three, only JBL makes models that also double as backup batteries for phones and other USB-powered devices: the Charge line.

The JBL Charge 3 looks similar to the highly rated JBL Charge 2+ and has the same list price of $150 and £150. (It’s not available in Australia, but that US price converts to about AU$200.) While the Charge 2+ is water resistant, its successor model is fully waterproof, with IPX7 certification, which means it can be completely submersed in water for a short period. Like its predecessors, you can lay it flat or stand it up vertically. And, for better or worse, the new model is about 20 percent larger and heavier.

It delivers an impressive 20 hours of battery life and also has speakerphone capabilities. Using the JBL Connect app you can wirelessly link think this to other JBL Connect enabled speakers to amplify the sound and widen the soundstage.

HP Spectre review – CNET

The Good The HP Spectre is remarkably thin while still managing to fit in Core i5 and Core i7 processors. The keyboard is excellent for such a slim body, and the bold design stands out in a sea of thin ultraportables.

The Bad The lack of a touchscreen is a big omission for a premium Windows laptop, and the limited ports may force you to carry extra dongles and accessories.

The Bottom Line If you can work with USB-C ports and a nontouch display, the HP Spectre offers a great design and excellent performance in the world’s thinnest full-power laptop body.

To touch or not to touch. That is the question asked of many Windows laptops, from bulky budget boxes to the slimmest premium systems. HP has two new high-end, very thin laptops, and it answers that question differently in each model.

While the 12-inch EliteBook Folio G1 is available with a 1080 or 4K touch screen (there’s also an entry-level nontouch version), the much-buzzed-about 13-inch Spectre has only one display option, a 1,920×1,080 nontouch screen.

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It’s a trade-off, the company says, required to hit the Spectre’s most noteworthy feature — that it’s the world’s thinnest full-power laptop, at just 10.4mm thick. That’s despite offering current-gen Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processors, rather than the lower-power Core M CPUs in the also-impressive HP EliteBook Folio G1 (and 12-inch Apple MacBook).

With a Core i7-6500U processor, 8GB of RAM and a decent 256GB SSD, the Spectre costs $1,249 in the US. A Core i5 version knocks the price down to $1,169. In the UK, configurations start at £1,149, and AU$2,299 in Australia. Whichever model you choose, just be ready to jump fully into the world of USB-C, the new multipurpose data, power and accessory connector. The Spectre has three USB-C ports along the back. All three can carry data or power, and the two center ones also act as Thunderbolt ports for high-speed data transfer.

HP Spectre

Just how thin is the 10.4mm Spectre? Apple’s aforementioned 12-inch MacBook and the recent Razer Blade Stealth are both around 13mm thick at their thickest parts, while a 13-inch Dell XPS 13 is about 15mm thick. Since the MacBook is tapered, it’s slimmer in the front, thicker in the rear. Down at the 13mm-and-under level, the differences are more about bragging rights than anything else.

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From the top: 12-inch MacBook, HP EliteBook Folio, HP Spectre.

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At 2.4 pounds (without its power cable), it’s also very light, but not the lightest 13-inch laptop we’ve tested (that distinction may belong to the Lenovo LaVie). At the very bleeding edge of laptop design, you generally have to choose between thickness and weight, especially when trying to support full Core i-series processors. In this case, HP went for shaving millimeters from the chassis, at the expense of weight and features (such as touch and ports other than slim USB-C ones).

A bold color scheme also helps the Spectre stand out, ditching the usual silver and gray for a dark, smokey gray with gold accents. The entire hinge is a bright, jeweled gold, which just draws more attention to its unusual design (and which picks up fingerprints pretty easily). To avoid unnecessary bulk, the hinge has moved in from the very rear edge, and is instead inset by a tiny bit.

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That hinge mechanism is aluminum, as is the laptop’s lid, while the bottom panel is carbon fiber. HP says the mix of materials serves to give the Spectre the right balance between weight and stiffness, especially in the lid. After all, you don’t want your very thin tech to feel flimsy and flex under the slightest touch.

Part of making the Spectre this thin was accomplished by flattening the battery into four separate cells that fit across much of the bottom footprint, rather than having to find space for one large battery. The heatsink has been moved off the CPU as well, and instead the Spectre uses small fans to pull air in through bottom vents and funnel it out through the rear. It’s a version of a cooling scheme from Intel called hyperbaric cooling.

A surprisingly good keyboard

Compared with other very thin, very light laptops, such as the 12-inch MacBook, the keyboard on the HP Spectre really stands out as excellent. The keys are a little shallower than on a more full-size 13-inch laptop, such as HP’s own Spectre x360, but this is still a standard island-style keyboard that doesn’t have the learning curve of something like the very flat keys on the MacBook.

Apple MacOS Sierra Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

The operating system working behind the scenes on your computer is at least as important as the hardware itself, and that’s especially true for Apple products, where the same company makes both the hardware and software.

For years, MacBooks and Mac desktops have run on the operating system Apple calls OS X. That’s about to change, as as Apple has rebranded its computer software as MacOS, a new name more in line with iOS, WatchOS and TVOS.

New Macs should include the first version of MacOS, code-named Sierra, starting in the fall of 2016, while a public beta is expected in July. For now, this preview covers some of the new features included with the current developer’s build (not available to the general public), as well as promised features coming to the final version.

CNET/Dan Ackerman

Cleaning up space on a Mac is a lot easier

Space has always been an issue, especially if if you get a laptop with only 128GB of storage. With Optimized Storage, you can easily save some space with the click of a button. The trick here is that Apple is making use of iCloud and iCloud Drive. You can keep your watched iTunes content in the cloud and only save recent mail attachments on your physical drive. It will also automatically empty your trash after 30 days, and it has a new interface that displays a comprehensive list of what’s taking up space on the hard drive and allows you to delete files in a snap.

Picture-in-picture is now built-in

The struggle of having to open a video in a new window and rearranging your desktop is over. Picture-in-picture is coming with MacOS Sierra — it will be available within Safari and iTunes, as well as websites that use HTML5 video. In our testing, it has worked really well with Vimeo and ESPN. This will not be automatic for all websites, though. Apple is releasing a developer API that web developers can implement, so here’s hoping that YouTube, Netflix, and Hulu will take advantage of this.

Messages is on a new level with rich links and tapbacks

All of those new Messages features from iOS 10 are making their way to the Mac. While you won’t be able to send digital touches, invisible inks, stickers or handwritten message from the Mac, you can see them and interact with them if sent from an iOS device. But, the best feature out of Messages for the Mac will be those rich links, which includes being able to watch the video or read the first part of the story inline. With tapbacks you can provide your own quick color commentary on what people are sending you.

Apple Pay is on the Mac, but not physically

No, Apple is not putting NFC inside of all its hardware. Instead, websites that have Apple Pay integrated into checkout, like Shopify, will let you use your iPhone or Apple Watch to complete a transaction via the Mac. If your device is close by, the site will ask for authentication through your Apple Watch or iOS device.

iTunes has a small but helpful redesign

The look and feel of Apple Music continues to take over iTunes. Under Music, you now have menu options for library, “for you,” browse, radio and the iTunes Store.

Desktop and Documents are now in iCloud

If you own multiple Macs, getting files from one device to the other will now be easier than ever. By checking off a new checkbox in the iCloud settings menu, files on the desktop or in the documents folders of multiple Macs can now be automatically synced. Drop a file or add a screenshot to the desktop of one MacOS system, and a few seconds later, it pops up on the other ones. The documents folder, the other place you’re likely to store important files, works similarly, but each machine gets a named folder within the documents folder on its sister machines.

Photos is smarter and will curate your memories

Photos is the other application, besides iTunes and Messages, that’s getting a big update in Sierra. For starters, using new identifying technologies, you can search for photos by subject. Similar to Google Photos or HTC’s Zoe feature, Photos also has a feature called Memories, which pulls different sets of photos and makes a video or album out of them.

What you copy on your iPhone can be pasted on your Mac

Universal Clipboard is another one of those signature Apple features — it just works out of the box, as long as both devices have the same Apple ID. This feature allows you to copy and paste across devices, so if you copy an image on your iPhone, you can paste it into a Keynote slideshow on your Mac, and the same goes for blocks of text or URLs.

You can unlock your Mac with your Apple Watch

If you own an Apple Watch, it will become even more useful with iOS 10 and MacOS. When wearing the Apple Watch, walk up to your Mac, and you can wake it from sleep without manually entering a password, because the Watch securely authenticates with the Mac.

Siri is now on the Mac

People have been waiting for this one. After all the rumors, it’s now official. With MacOS Sierra, Siri will be on the Mac.

Instead of holding down the home button, you can click the dock icon, the button in the top-right corner, or by hitting function-space (as of now in the developer preview).

On the Mac, Siri can search the web for an image, then you can then drag and drop it into a document. Siri can also search for files, for example, finding all images with a specific word in the file name from the last week or month. One interesting bonus: you can use it to get the serial number and information from your hardware.

The new MacOS Sierra operating system will be launching this fall, but the developer preview is available now, and a public beta is coming in July.

Misfit Ray review – CNET

The Good Slim design, water-resistant, long battery life thanks to replaceable batteries. Tracks activity automatically. Vibration alerts.

The Bad Uncomfortable fit won’t feel great on all wrists. Minimal look means no buttons or display, except for one glowing light. Misfit app not as good as competing fitness apps.

The Bottom Line Misfit’s tube-shaped Ray fitness tracker looks stylish and gets the job done, but it does too little for what it costs.

It looks like a bracelet, or some space-age tube. But the Misfit Ray’s a fitness tracker. One of a vast number of track-your-steps, pair-with-an-app gadgets that keep popping up. Fitness trackers — the standalone ones that aren’t smartwatches — have started shrinking down to aspire to be jewelry, sort of. That’s been Misfit’s formula for years. But now, that formula feels a little commonplace.

The original Shine, a metal disc that automatically tracks steps and sleep and has good battery life, was innocuous. But also, easily lost. It could pop into accessories and be worn lots of places. I liked the Shine a lot when it first debuted in 2013, because it was unique and small. But there are more fitness trackers now, and most of them are unnecessary. The Shine 2 only made a few advances over the Shine. Its main appeal — being simple and automatic — has been adopted by many other competitors, including the king of the hill, Fitbit.

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Misfit Ray in two colors, with Misfit Shine 2 in the middle. Same functions, different design.

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Now the Ray is the same idea as the Shine 2, but in a tube. Like those earlier Misfit products, the Ray tracks steps, sleep and short activity sessions. It can be worn as a bracelet (it comes with a band), or turned into a necklace pendant. But it’s not really attractive enough that you’d wear it if you weren’t “using” it.

LG LTNC11121V review – CNET

The Good LG’s smallest full-size refrigerator looks more expensive than it really is, and it holds accurate temperatures in the body of the fridge. It also holds more groceries than we expected it would.

The Bad Some parts of the interior feel a bit flimsy. Also, the door shelves and the crisper bin ran warm in all of our tests.

The Bottom Line The compact-sized LTNC11121V is worth considering if you’re looking for a second fridge, or if you’re tight on space.

Visit manufacturer site for details.

We’ve tested a lot of refrigerators over the past few years at CNET Appliances, and fridge for fridge, the brand that’s impressed us the most is LG. The Korean brand’s refrigerators have consistently outperformed the competition in our cooling tests, and many of the higher-end models offer the kinds of designs and features that make upgrading exciting.

The LG LTNC11121V is not one of those higher-end models. In fact, at $700, it’s the least expensive fridge that LG sells, and the smallest, too: just 24 inches wide, with a total capacity of just 11.1 cubic feet. It’s about as compact as refrigerators come without venturing into mini-fridge territory, but with good performance and a decent design for the price, it might be good fit for a back room or a tight kitchen.

Here’s a teeny-tiny top freezer fridge from…
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With the exception of those two 12-packs, I was able to squeeze all of our test groceries into the fridge.

Chris Monroe/CNET

Design and features

The LTNC11121V almost looks more like a locker than a refrigerator. At 24 inches wide, it’s as skinny as full-size fridges come, so if you’re trying to fill a tight space in your kitchen, there’s a good chance it’s up to the task.

Looks-wise, it’s a good design for the price, with a stainless-steel finish and recessed handles. It doesn’t scream luxury, but then again, neither do most other compact-sized refrigerators.

With 11.1 cubic feet of total storage space inside, 8.5 of which are allocated to the fridge, you’ve got less than half the space for fresh groceries than you’ll get with LG’s largest top freezer model (which, incidentally, happens to be our top top-freezer pick). That’s not a lot of room to work with, so if you’re thinking of using this thing to keep a family fed, think again.

Then again, the LTNC11121V did better than I expected it would when I started stuffing groceries into it. The door shelves were big enough to accommodate a pair of two-liters along with a few other large beverages, and the shelves were deep enough to hold two 1-gallon jugs of milk — though not deep enough to fit either of the 12-packs of soda from our standardized load of test groceries. They were the only two things I couldn’t fit inside.

As for features, you don’t get much — just the one crisper bin, along with a “Pull-Out Tray” that sits a few inches below the top shelf and slides out for easy access. Up in the freezer, you’ll find a manual ice maker with a pair of smallish ice cube trays that you can twist to dump the cubes into a bin. It’s an interesting approach, though it feels a bit flimsy. Also, you can’t take those trays out to fill them at the sink. Instead, you have to bring the water to the freezer, and I had a hard time pouring it in without spilling.

Mondevices MonBaby Smart Button review – CNET

The Good MonBaby is easy to use, and its design cleverly makes clipping it to baby’s clothing easier than comparable devices. The Android app’s ability to track sleep patterns over time is a cool addition.

The Bad Its reliance on motion detection means MonBaby’s performance isn’t perfect. Plus, you can’t use it with a sleeper or rocker that would register movement even if the child has stopped breathing.

The Bottom Line MonBaby is a useful gadget, but like other devices of its type, its features can’t replace traditional monitors or quite justify its $170 price tag.

There are two types of baby monitors: traditional ones that let you listen while your child is sleeping in the other room, and newer connected ones that monitor your child’s vitals and send mobile alerts if something goes wrong. I love that technology has increased safety for kids and peace of mind for new parents. But here’s a question for these high-tech monitors: Can the new features justify the raised price?

MonBaby makes sure your baby’s sleeping well
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Developer Mondevices makes one of these connected gadgets called the MonBaby Smart Button, a wearable for your infant. MonBaby pairs simple motion-sensing hardware with algorithms to track children’s breathing, overall activity and physical orientation. The app notifies parents if the device detects any concerning change (like halted respiration or a child lying on their belly).

Mondevices’ product is well designed. It snaps onto your kid’s clothing and connects to your phone via Bluetooth. MonBaby’s measurements are pretty reliable, but because they all depend on motion-sensing, they can be inaccurate if used with certain sleepers or rockers.

Accessing the information on the app is quick and easy. You can personalize when you receive notifications and also track your child’s activity levels over time on the Android app (this feature is coming for the iOS version within a few months, according to Mondevices).

At $170, MonBaby is a little more affordable than some of its competitors, but it certainly isn’t cheap. And it falls into the same trap as other devices like it: It can’t replace traditional monitors, and its added smarts won’t justify the price for many parents. MonBaby is nice to have around, but not necessary for most kids.

Pros

• Cheaper than some competitors
• Tracks data over time
• Sends alerts if your child flips onto their belly

Cons

• Bluetooth reliance means limited range
• iOS app is less developed than Android version
• Motion sensing isn’t reliable when used with certain sleepers

Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016) review – CNET

The Good The inexpensive Samsung Galaxy J3 runs the current version of Android and takes nice daylight photos. It has a long-lasting, removable battery and the camera app launches with a double-click of the home button.

The Bad Its underpowered processor makes the photo-capture slow enough to miss action shots.

The Bottom Line Light users will do fine with Samsung’s entry-level Galaxy J3, but you’ll want a higher-powered phone if you plan to keep it around for two years or more.

There aren’t many new phones you can compare to the 5-inch Samsung Galaxy J3. An extremely inexpensive device with parts to match, the phone nevertheless performed better than I expected, but never stellar. Battery life was strong, it ships with the current version of Android (6.0.1) and its daylight photography is good enough to post online despite the camera’s low 5-megapixel resolution (selfies, low-light shots, and indoor photos aren’t quite as good).

At $110 to $180 in the US (pricing varies by carrier), £140 in the UK (for the 8GB version, from Carphone Warehouse) and AU$329 in Australia, the J3 also earns points for its immediate global availability. In the notoriously carrier-controlled US, for example, it sells on five networks (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile).

The J3 is likable enough in its looks and feel, and its battery kept going long after I expected the phone to conk out — it lasted 15 hours in CNET’s looping video drain test. Phone calls were also problem-free on the AT&T model I tested in San Francisco on medium-high volume. There’s plenty of room to expand storage (up to 128GB with a microSD card) and you can replace the battery if that’s your jam. Where the J3 falters is mainly in its quad-core processor, which makes gaming slightly less smooth and the camera a half-beat late to capture and process photos.

The sub-$200 Samsung Galaxy J3 handles well
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In the short term, the J3 will serve wallet-watchers well enough, especially if you plan to use the phone lightly. But if you have the cash to spare, jumping up to the next price bracket will get you a phone that will wear better with time, as we expect the Motorola Moto G4 to. This J3, by contrast, leaves you with a slower processor, photos that suffer in larger formats and less on-board storage for photos. (See the specs comparison chart below.)

Roost Smart Water and Freeze Detector Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

Roost

If something goes wrong in your home, Roost wants you to know about it wherever you are. Place the Roost Water and Freeze Detector in vulnerable spots in your house, and you’ll get a push notification if it senses water, or if the temperature goes below a warning threshold.

Roost announced the $50 sensor today. You can head to the Roost site to preorder the US-only device. The Smart Water and Freeze Detector should ship out this fall.

Other leak detectors

• Fibaro Flood Sensor
• FortrezZ Water Sensor
• SmartThings Water Leak Sensor

The California-based startup’s previous product, the Roost Smart Battery, fits inside your smoke detector and sends you an alert when the alarm sounds. The company also has a standalone smoke detector on the way.

With the Smart Water and Freeze Detector, Roost wants to help your smart home be ready for any potential disaster. With three years of battery life and a humidity sensor built-in with the temperature and water sensor, you’ll be able to place Roost under your sink or toilet, or in the laundry room.

The Smart Water and Freeze Detector has built-in Wi-Fi, so it’ll talk directly to your router and that should help keep setup time to a minimum. And it has an IFTTT channel, letting you create recipes to trigger other smart devices when something goes wrong. So if Roost senses water, your Philips Hue bulbs can flash red, for instance.

For now, the $60 Fibaro Flood Sensor is our leak detector of choice, but we’ve been impressed with Roost’s take on smart home safety, too. If the new sensor is responsive and reliable enough to warn you before pipes freeze, before mold builds up, or before a leak has time to do serious damage, then it might make for a worthwhile addition to a connected home setup.

Hasselblad X1D Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

Pro photographers and well-off enthusiasts who want top-flight photo quality but need portability take note: Hasselblad joins the march toward mirrorlessness, debuting the world’s first medium-format interchangeable-lens camera. Its new X1D series launches with the X1D-50c, essentially an adapted-for-mirrorless version of its HDC-50c, and two new lenses specifically designed for the X1D’s mount.

Hasselblad’s stylized X1D medium-format mirrorless
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While it’s not cheap, it’s not nearly as expensive as you might expect: $8,995 or £5,990 for the body, $11,300 with the XCD 45mm f3.5 lens or $14,000 with both the 45mm and XCD 90mm f4.5 lenses. (Pricing for the UK and Australia wasn’t available for the kits. The US prices convert to £7,685 and £9,520, or AU$11,975, AU$15,040 and AU$18,640.)

Roughly the same size as the full-frame Leica SL but smaller and lighter than Hasselblad’s HDC models, the X1D-50c incorporates the same 42.8 x 32.9mm sensor as the HDC-50c, but couples it with an electronic viewfinder instead of an optical one. While the 50c-size sensor isn’t large for medium-format, it’s certainly larger than that of a full-frame camera. Its benefit lies in providing more control over background blur and much larger pixels for a greater dynamic range; 14 stops, as with the other Hasselblads.

Relative sensor sizes for medium format vs. full frame. The X1D has the same sensor as the H6D-50c.

Lori Grunin/CNET

In fact, many of its specifications match that of the reflex (mirrored) model, including the touchscreen and interface, 1.7-2.3fps burst speed, and 1080/30p video recording. It’s dust-and-weather sealed, with an ISO range of ISO 100-ISO 12800 and dual SD-card slots.

Though the company is shipping the two aforementioned XCD-mount lenses for the X1D, it will also offer an H Lens adapter so that you can use all of its H lenses with it.

The camera has autofocus, but medium-format focus performance is typically not quite as fast as what we’ve become accustomed to; that may pose a challenge for Hasselblad as it takes on smaller, far less-expensive full-frame models like the Sony A7R II.

I’ll be getting some time with the camera this afternoon, so stay tuned for an update with my hands-on impressions.