ZTE Grand X Max 2 Review
Smartphone enthusiasts may know ZTE for its flagship Axon line, but ZTE has long delivered phones to the prepaid market in the United States. By offering a multitude of affordable yet functional smartphones on prepaid carriers such as Cricket Wireless, ZTE has become the most successful Chinese smartphone manufacturer in the US by a wide margin.
More ZTE content:
- ZTE Axon 7 hands on
- ZTE announces Z-Community Forums
- Nubia Z11 Mini announced
- Interview with ZTE at CES 2016
ZTE’s Grand X Max 2 is the latest of these smartphones, but is it worth it? Let’s find out in our ZTE Grand X Max 2 Review!
Buy the ZTE Grand X Max 2 now!
Design
In terms of design, the ZTE Grand X Max 2 is slightly reminiscent of the recently announced Axon 7, as it shares the same port and button locations as well as a subtle curve to help with handling. Instead of an aluminum unibody however, the Max 2 is composed of a glossy plastic rear cover fixed to a plastic band with a number of clips. ZTE’s material choices could be described as not unlike those from the three-year-old Samsung Galaxy S4.
Overall, the phone looks very nice with its blue color scheme and subtle pattern on the rear. Despite its larger form factor, the Grand X Max 2 feels quite nice in the hand. It seems that the phone doubles as a fingerprint magnet at times, but this is nearly inevitable with either a plastic or glass rear. Although plastic is generally more durable than glass, we noticed many scratches on our Max 2 review unit after only a week of use.
Our unit also suffered from an approximately one meter drop onto concrete, and, although the plastic rear fared well, the side band was easily chipped in several locations. Build quality seems about average for the price, so you may want to consider also purchasing a case, as accidents do happen.
The three illuminated capacitive keys at the bottom of the phone match Google’s standard layout out of the box (back-home-multitask), but can be reconfigured in the settings for users wishing to have the back button to the right.
The confusion associated with the indeterminately labeled buttons wears off surprisingly quickly
This is a great setting to have, and the confusion associated with the indeterminately labeled buttons wears off surprisingly quickly. Now if only every smartphone manufacturer gave users this option…
Display
The Max 2 proves itself worthy of the “Max” tag with its beautiful 6-inch 1080P display. That’s considerably larger than most smartphones currently on the market, and surpasses virtually every prepaid option. While the Max 2 seemed small to me at first after coming from the 6.44-inch Xiaomi Mi Max, the Grand X Max 2 can definitely be unwieldy, especially if you have smaller hands. The phone is narrow enough to make one-handed use somewhat comfortable, however, and if you’re considering the Max 2, you’ve likely already been sold on the more immersive media consumption experience.
All things considered, I was quite impressed with the Max 2’s display, as it is one of the best I have seen for less than $200. It has great color reproduction, very good contrast, just the right amount of saturation, and is reasonably readable outdoors.
Performance
Powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 617 – the successor to last year’s Snapdragon 615 – the ZTE Grand X Max 2 offers fairly good performance. It’s not going to crush any benchmarks by any means, but, paired with 2 GB of RAM, should be enough for the majority of users. Day-to-day performance is still quite good too, and the phone rarely had any UI hiccups during my testing.
Outside of the several preloaded resource-light games, the Max 2 can struggle a bit with its ageing Adreno 405 GPU. Although demanding titles like Asphalt 8 are still very playable, they can take some extra time to load and may exhibit some minor frame drops during gameplay.
Hardware
The ZTE Grand X Max 2 includes everything you’d expect from a modern smartphone: 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1, and GPS are each on board. Call quality seemed to be excellent during my time with the Max 2 on the Cricket network. There’s also 16 GB of internal storage, which can be expanded with the phone’s microSD card slot, up to 64 GB.
It sadly lacks a fingerprint reader
Although the Max 2 adopts a Quick Charge 2.0-enabled USB Type-C port for charging and syncing, it sadly lacks a fingerprint reader, a feature which we are beginning to expect, even from budget phones. Its absence may not be a deal breaker for those upgrading from an older smartphone without a reader, but I would personally find it difficult to switch over entirely.
Check this out: Best USB Type-C cables13
The Max 2’s single side-firing speaker sounds very good, with minor distortion at high volumes. It’s a bit above what I would expect at this price point, and will do the job when wanting to watch videos or casually listen to music. There is a Hi-Fi audio chipset on board as well, which will appeal to those wishing to use headphones.
After reviewing the results of four battery life tests, it seems that the Grand X Max 2’s battery life can vary significantly, but the notable outlier I had (the one with less than three hours of screen on time) was a direct result of my heavy usage.
With an hour and a half of Google Maps navigation and a forty minute Google Hangouts video call, it’s easy to see why I didn’t get the same results I did on prior days. With that said, I never worried about having to charge the Max 2 before my day was over, and some users may be able to achieve two full days of light use.
Camera
ZTE has made a very interesting move by including a dual-camera setup on the rear of the Grand X Max 2. It seems that the second camera functions only when using the software bokeh mode, which attempts to emulate a professional photo’s depth of field. Unfortunately, this feature did not work well at all in my testing, and I see no other use for the secondary camera beyond as a marketing tool.
Image captured in bokeh mode
What’s worse is the actual quality of the images that the Max 2 produced. Its 13 MP camera appeared to be promising when first glancing at the spec sheet, but after taking a look at the photos, I am very disappointed. Even when factoring in the price, the Max 2’s camera is slightly below average.
Some of these images are simply out of focus, but that can be blamed on the phone’s slow and inaccurate autofocus
Firstly, many of the images that I took are noisy and distorted, something that is generally not expected in the well-lit environments that I was in. The images are also very soft, especially near the corners. Granted, some of these images are simply out of focus, but that can be blamed on the phone’s slow and inaccurate autofocus. The processing is incredibly inconsistent, with some images appearing over sharpened, with others appearing under sharpened. In addition, color reproduction can be rather bad, especially when capturing warmer colors like red and orange.
ZTE Grand X Max 2 camera samples:
Low-light performance was also not so great. The phone couldn’t focus correctly for virtually every shot, and, when it did, images came out extra noisy. It seems that the camera here is just not where it should be relative to the competition.
On a positive note, ZTE’s camera app is quite good, and offers an easy-to-use automatic experience. The bundled time lapse and panorama modes are welcome additions, and the manual mode is surprisingly comprehensive.
Software
ZTE is shipping the Grand X Max 2 with a lightly skinned version of Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. It’s similar to stock Android in many ways, with only a few notable changes. One of which is the unlocking mechanism for the lock screen. Instead of swiping up, you just press and hold the screen for a second. That’s nice since you don’t have to move your finger back down to access your apps, but I did notice the phone unlocking, launching apps, and placing calls while in my pocket. You’ll want to be careful unless you use a passcode, which will add an extra step, of course.
The notification panel is similar to the one found in iOS in that it blurs the background as you pull it down, which, although different from stock Android, looks pretty good. The app drawer is also slightly transparent, and with the exception of a clear all button in the multitasking menu, there are really no other major UI changes. The app icons have been replaced with ZTE’s icons, however, but those still look nice.
My Cricket Wireless variant did ship with a some bloatware, but the three of ten apps that weren’t uninstallable were genuinely useful for Cricket subscribers. This sort of bloatware is definitely less than other carrier branded devices, with the number of uninstallable apps often numbering double digitis.
Gallery
Price
The ZTE Grand X Max 2 is now available exclusively from Cricket Wireless, for $199.99 with activation. There is currently only a single model, which comes in blue and includes 16 GB of internal, but expandable storage.
Conclusion
The ZTE Grand X Max 2 is an excellent choice for those on Cricket looking for a large affordable smartphone. Although I would have liked to see a much better camera and stronger build quality, it’s hard to fault the Grand X Max 2 given its price.
The Max 2 exceeds where it needs to with a beautiful display, great battery life, and an excellent software experience
The Max 2 exceeds where it needs to with a beautiful display, great battery life, and an excellent software experience. If you don’t take many images, you can avoid the achilles’ heel altogether and will likely be very happy with this phone.
Buy the ZTE Grand X Max 2 now!
So what do you think of the ZTE Grand X Max 2? Is it worth the money, even if the camera isn’t the best in its class? Leave a comment below to let us know!
GE GFWS1700HWW review – CNET
The Good Not only is $900 a very good price for a front-load washing machine, the GE GFWS1700HWW manages to hold its own alongside more expensive models in terms of options and ease of use.
The Bad The display is better than the one on GE’s $1,100 GFWS2600FWW, but it still looks too cluttered.
The Bottom Line GE’s GFWS1700HWW is a well-rounded washer and a reasonable upgrade over the most basic of models, but it doesn’t excel in any category.
As one of GE’s least expensive front-load washing machines, the $900 GFWS1700HWW isn’t fancy. Even so, I wouldn’t call this washer entry-level. Complete with 10 cleaning cycles, a steam function and a large-capacity tub, it’s competitive with plenty of pricier models, even GE’s own $1,100 GFWS2600FWW.
Overall, the GFWS1700HWW combines powerful stain removal with solid features and design. I don’t love the look of its overcrowded control panel, but it’s a definite improvement over the GFWS2600FWW’s tough-to-use interface.
Consider GE’s GFWS1700HWW if you’re in the market for a simple washer upgrade that’s still relatively affordable
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This GE washer can handle your laundry needs…
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Does this ‘budget’ washer stack up?
It’s hard to call a $900 appliance low-cost, but the GFWS1700HWW is one of GE’s most budget-friendly front-load washers. And you actually get quite a lot for the price. Its 10 cleaning cycles are all accessible from the dial on the display panel. They are:
- Active Wear
- Basket Clean
- Bulky/Bedding
- Colors/Normals
- Delicates/Hand Wash
- NSF Sanitize
- Quick Wash
- Rinse & Spin
- Towels/Sheets
- Whites
The GFWS1700HWW also has a steam function that you can enable for select cycles to target tough stains. Its 4.3-cubic-foot capacity isn’t quite as large as the 4.5 cubic-foot norm for front-load washers, yet it’s close enough to not make a significant difference in your load size. Overall, the GFWS1700HWW can hold its own alongside more expensive front-load options like the GE GFWS2600FWW and even Electrolux’s $1,099 EFLS617S. Here’s a closer look at the GFWS1700HWW versus the competition:
2016 Bentley Continental GT review – Roadshow
The Good Luxury coachwork and a powerful yet economical V-8 engine make the 2016 Bentley Continental GT V8 S a choice car for long drives. The Naim stereo adds to aural luxury to the driving experience.
The Bad The navigation system tracks the car too slowly, making it difficult to follow guidance with frequent turns, and its antiquated audio interface doesn’t offer a built-in USB port.
The Bottom Line Well-heeled buyers who eschew chauffeurs will find the 2016 Bentley Continental GT V8 S an engaging and powerful car, suitable for long trips, but they should consult their phones for navigation.
For British automaker Bentley, the name Continental implies Europe, where drivers can log many more miles than the distance between John ‘o Groats and Penzance, about as far as you can go in the UK without crossing seas. As such, Bentley designed the 2016 Continental GT V8 S for a trip from Plymouth to Prague, or Barcelona to Rome, likely with a stop in Monaco.
To get some sense of its long-range behavior, I took the 2016 Continental GT V8 S on a run from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and back again, traversing both the long highway and crowded urban centers.
The test brought to light the efficiency of Bentley’s powerful V-8 engine, a newer option for the still-available W-12 cylinder, the comfort of its cabin and chassis, and the accuracy of its navigation. And cruising through Los Angeles and San Francisco showed bystanders’ reaction to the Continental’s subtle styling and can’t-ignore-it Monaco Yellow paint job.
The Bentley Continental is designed for longer trips and enthusiastic driving on engaging roads.
Wayne Cunningham/Roadshow
Bentley currently offers the Continental in 10 variations, including coupes and convertibles, cruisers and a race-ready edition. The Continental GT V8 S comes in coupe layout, two doors and four seats with a metal roof overhead, and sport tuning. Base price for the Continental GT V8 S comes to $210,000, meaning that if you have to ask, you can’t afford it. A mix of styling and other options brought the US example I drove to $257,254.
Elegant muscle
The ineffable and subtle styling of the Continental looks at once simple yet striking, a lesson for automotive designers everywhere. Unadorned surrounds for headlights and air intakes up front make the car unmistakable, while a few contour lines on the sides give an impression of momentum. The body shows muscle, hinting at the power under the hood.
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Superb interior coachwork includes high-quality leather with body-colored stitching and polished metal switchgear. Double-paned glass in the side windows keeps out unwanted noise. Driving the Continental, it felt like I was sitting in an airport’s VIP lounge, a much calmer and more relaxing environment than general seating at the gate.
Bringing down the cabin refinement, plastic buttons prevailed for climate control, suspension settings and the navigation head unit.
Seemingly at odds with its nicer appointments, the Continental GT V8 S is essentially a muscle car. When I stepped into the throttle, the twin turbo 4-liter V-8 engine sounded off with a ticking growl, putting 521 horsepower and 502 pound-feet of torque to all four wheels. At over 5,000 pounds, the Continental takes a half second to get itself together, then blasts off the line, pushing you back into its seats.
The eight-speed automatic transmission, by ZF, has a creditable sport mode, able to keep the revs high and downshift aggressively.
Wayne Cunningham/Roadshow
On Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles and Skyline south of San Francisco, I experienced how that all-wheel-drive system, the Continental’s air suspension and its 20-inch Pirellis gave it nimble handling. Dropping the shift lever for the ZF eight-speed automatic transmission into Sport mode kept the engine speed high, making the throttle more responsive, and the electric power steering made for easy, precise turn-in.
The Continental isn’t the kind of car you drift around the corners — its tail stays firmly planted — instead weight and grip conspire to make hard cornering feel almost casual.
Turn-by-turn
Crawling along in LA and SF traffic, I absorbed a bit of the Continental’s panache. While it exudes presence, the subtle styling defused any ire from bystanders that might otherwise be aimed at a peacocking venture capitalist or Hollywood mogul. And the powerful engine proved perfectly manageable, letting me gently throttle off the line or maintain distance from the bumper of the car ahead.
While the Continental’s cabin furniture blunted the sting from traffic congestion, the navigation system added its own frustrations. The plastic buttons below the 8-inch touchscreen look pedestrian, not up to the coachwork’s caliber, and entering an address or looking up a location revealed the slowness of older generation electronics. I found myself double-tapping buttons when I wasn’t rewarded with immediate results. Trying to keep up with the times, Bentley adds an online search feature, shoehorned in with a search button on the map screen, but it wasn’t operational in the example I drove and would still suffer from the general system slowness.
2016 Mini Cooper Clubman review – Roadshow
The Good The 2015 Mini Clubman is the largest Mini yet, but is still quite compact. The larger footprint directly manifests as improved interior space. The more premium Mini offers amenities such as semiautonomous parking, remote-opening rear doors and a well-appointed cabin. Both the new 1.5- and 2.0-liter turbocharged engines offer excellent performance that is well matched for the sport-tuned suspension.
The Bad The infotainment system lacks support for Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, and the destination and music search interfaces are needlessly tedious. This more premium Mini’s price easily crests $40,000. Some buyers may find that a big pill to swallow for such a small car.
The Bottom Line The 2016 Mini Clubman is the biggest and most premium Mini yet, but it’s still a Mini: quite small, playful and quirky. This odd balance of lilliputian luxury puts the Clubman in a class of its own.
Let’s start with a superlative. The 2016 Mini Cooper Clubman is the longest Mini model yet. Stretching to 168.3 inches from nose to tail, it’s just over a foot longer than the previous Clubman model. Heck, it’s more than 6 inches longer than the Countryman CUV.
But it almost had to be this way. The dimensions of the new Cooper four-door that joined the lineup this generation are so close to the first-generation Clubman that the new model had to grow significantly to justify its existence.
Grown-up style
But Mini didn’t just physically scale up the Clubman; the automaker is also taking the vehicle’s style, amenities and image upscale as well. This is a more grown-up Mini. One that is less “quirky and cutesy” and more “premium compact.” One Mini representative used the term “flagship” when describing the Clubman, which makes me think of it as the BMW 7er of the compact class.
The elongated profile preserves and exaggerates the Clubman’s characteristic low and wide proportions. Its track is about 2.5 inches wider than before (overall width is up by 4.6 inches) and the wheelbase is 4.8 inches longer, but the roof sits within a quarter inch of the older car’s. These proportions make the Clubman look hunkered down to the ground and still appear compact when viewed curbside.
The new Clubman is longer from nose to tail than even the Countryman small crossover.
Antuan Goodwin/Roadshow
For comparison’s sake, the new Clubman is about an inch longer than the Mk7 Volkswagen Golf, but its roof sits about an inch lower.
The increased dimensions pay off in the cabin, where the Clubman has 2 more inches of knee space in the second row and more head and shoulder room all around. Of the current Mini lineup, this is the one that should be easiest to load a car seat into. There’s also significantly more cargo volume than before, both with the rear seats occupied and especially when they’re folded flat, when the Clubman’s 47.9 cubic feet of cargo volume bests the Countryman by 5.7 cubic feet.
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In growing up as a Mini, the Clubman loses the asymmetrical design that it debuted with. The first generation featured a small, rear-hinged coach door only on the passenger (right-hand) side. The new model uses a more traditional four-door configuration. Well, technically, a six-door configuration, since the Clubman retains its dual rear doors on the hatchback — only now, those doors can be opened remotely with the touch of the key fob, which is pretty sweet to see in action, or by kicking a foot beneath the rear bumper while the key fob is on your person.
Modular TwinPower engines
The Clubman is available with two turbocharged engine options, and it should come as no surprise that they’re largely identical to the ones in the hardtop two- and four-door models that debuted previously.
Base Cooper models feature a 1.5-liter TwinPower turbocharged three-cylinder engine that makes 134 horsepower and 162 pound-feet of torque. Before you pooh-pooh the idea of a premium three-cylinder engine, I should say that BMW’s two-stage turbocharging does an excellent job of making this feel like a much larger engine and eliminating throttle-response lag. Everyone I’ve spoken to who’s driven the 1.5-liter agrees that it’s a good little motor.
Beneath the clamshell hood is Mini’s new modular 2.0-liter turbocharged engine. The 189 horsepower, 207 pound-foot mill is sourced from BMW.
Antuan Goodwin/Roadshow
With the aid of either a six-speed automatic transmission or a six-speed manual, power reaches the front wheels. The manual gearbox is the more efficient of the two, with an estimated fuel economy of 25 mpg city, 35 mpg highway and 28 combined, but only just so. The automatic, which I was able to test, only loses 1 estimated mpg on the highway by comparison.
The TwinPower engines are of a modular design, so just slap an extra cylinder onto the end of the three-banger and you’ve got the more potent Cooper S with its 2.0-liter TwinPower turbocharged four-cylinder engine. (OK, it’s probably more complex than just slapping it on.)
The extra displacement nets the Cooper Clubman S extra output, which now sits at 189 horsepower and 207 pound-feet of torque. The S can be had with either a six-speed manual transmission or a new eight-speed automatic transmission with optional paddle shifters and launch control. With the eight-speed in place, the S is good for an estimated 24 city, 34 highway and 27 combined mpg. The six-speed loses 1 to 2 mpg across the board.
Mini has also announced that it will be making the Clubman S available with the All4 all-wheel drive system, which it borrows from the Countryman and Paceman crossovers, as a $1,800 option.
I first drove the manually shifted example and found it pleasing, yet a bit odd. For starters, the shifter throw feels ridiculously long — especially the 4-5 shift which I had to lock my elbow to reach. The clutch pedal is a much better built piece of the puzzle with a good weight that’s not too light and not too heavy, and really good engagement. The Mini will also auto rev-match when shifting (blipping the throttle on downshift and holding on ups) which allowed me to be a bit lazy getting it into gear. The upshot is that this is the sort of car you could shift all day and not get tired, which I think works well with the Clubman’s laid-back attitude.
The Clubman S is available with either a six-speed manual or eight-speed automatic transmission. Both options are good with unique strengths and weaknesses.
Antuan Goodwin/Roadshow
Later, I was able to add to my experiences with more extensive testing of the eight-speed automatic transmission. As slushboxes go, this one is a peach. Shifts were quick and well-defined when the system detected that I was driving aggressively, particularly when in the Sport mode. Paddle shifters proved to be useful and easily accessible when needed for more spirited driving or to preselect a lower gear in anticipation of a pass. When driving in a more relaxed manner around town, those same quick shifts translated into smooth acceleration.
Both the Cooper and Cooper S feature three drive modes, which are selected with a ring around the shift lever. The first mode is Green, which adjusts the throttle mapping, climate controls and other vehicle systems to save fuel. The instrument cluster displays a readout indicating how many additional miles you’re getting per gallon when in Green mode.
Mid is the odd name for the Mini’s normal, baseline drive-mode setting. Think of it as the default. Finally, there’s Sport, which livens up the performance, sharpens the throttle response, and on the Cooper S model, amps up and deepens the exhaust note. On Clubman models equipped with the optional adaptive suspension, the drive modes adjust the ride characteristics as well.
Owlet Baby Monitor review – CNET
The Good The Owlet Baby Monitor is well-designed and easy to use. It’s comfortable for kids, and sends alerts very reliably.
The Bad For the $250 price tag, the features just seem way too sparse.
The Bottom Line The Owlet is reliable enough to help some parents relax, but it doesn’t offer as many features as the price tag might indicate. It won’t replace a more conventional baby monitor, either.
Visit manufacturer site for details.
When you hear the phrase “baby monitor,” the first thing you might think of is a set of old walkie-talkie-type devices that let you hear your sleeping child (along with some static). But the Owlet Baby Monitor, along with a wave of new devices like it, are redefining that term.
The Owlet is a two-part device. It includes a small bootie that fits on your child’s foot and a base station that sits next to your bed. These two components communicate, so when the monitor senses abnormal oxygen levels or heart rate for your child, the base station then sets off an appropriate alarm. After working with the Owlet for a few days, I love the concept and performance. My wife and I really did sleep easier knowing our son’s vitals were being monitored.
That said, I can’t recommend the Owlet to everyone, simply because the $250 price tag is so much higher than what its straightforward features seem to justify. Plus, it just won’t replace more traditional monitors that let you know if your kid wakes up at night.
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The Owlet’s components are well designed and durable. The socks are comfortable for babies, and they fit snugly and reliably even on squirmy children. They measure heart rate and oxygen levels with pulse oximetry — a technology used in many hospitals.
I like the dual devices of the system. The plug-in base means the bootie recharges, rather than using replaceable batteries like some other monitors of this sort. Plus, having a separate piece for alarms lets me leave my phone silenced at night, so I don’t mix up alerts regarding my son’s well-being with, say, a retweet or favorite on social media.
Still, I want to see more smarts for the price before I’ll be comfortable spending $250 on the Owlet. Right now, it doesn’t include alerts if your child flips onto their stomach, or if your child has woken up and is crying. It also doesn’t help you track any sleep patterns over time. All of these features can be found in other monitors for lower prices, and most of them wouldn’t take significant changes to the Owlet’s hardware.
So while I like the Owlet Baby Monitor, I can’t recommend it as a priority purchase until the price drops or the feature list grows.
Epson Home Cinema 5040UB Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
Epson
True 4K projectors are coming down in price at a glacial pace, but lower-resolution units that claim to benefit from being fed 4K TV shows and movies are much more affordable.
Epson’s Home Cinema 5040UB is the latest example, coming this August for $2999.
It three LCD chips have a native resolution of 1080p, but it can accept 4K resolution sources via its HDMI and convert them for display. Epson says its 4K Enhancement technology, which shifts each pixel diagonally 0.5 pixels, can “double the resolution to 3840 x 2160 and surpass Full HD image quality.” I tested the feature on last year’s Epson LS1000 laser projector and the improvement was negligible.
HDR, on the other hand, delivers a much more visible improvement than 4K, and the 5040 can handle it too. Epson claims an impressive 2500 lumens and improved black levels for better contrast compared to previous units like the 5030 we reviewed. The company also says the 5040 can render all of the DCI color gamut used for today’s HDR TV shows and movies.
The projector has a pair of HDMI inputs that work with the HDMI 2.0a transmission and HDCP 2.2 copy protection standards, so it work can handle the full capabilities of playback units like the Samsung UBD-K8500 4K Blu-ray player.
Epson is also selling a version of the projector, model 5040UBe ($3299) that uses an outboard HDMI connection box that communicates with the projector via the WirelessHD standard.
Epson gave me a demo of the new 5040UB projector with the “Kingsman: The Secret Service” 4K Blu-ray, and it compared well to a much more-expensive native 4K projector from Sony. Of course I’ll reserve full judgement for a CNET review.
In the meantime, here are some other specs and features for the 5040UB.
- 1080p native resolution with 4K Enhancement Technology
- 2500 lumens brightness
- Full DCI color gamut
- Auto Iris
- Power zoom, focus and lens shift (10 memories)
- ± 96.3 percent vertical axis, ±47.1 percent horizontal axis lens shift
- Wireless HDMI (5040UBe only)
A pair of related models will also arrive in August as part of Epson’s Pro Cinema line for the custom installation market. The 6040UB ($3999) has basically the same specs as the 5040UB, but with a black instead of white body, and built-in ISF calibration tools as well as SF Day and ISF Night picture memory modes. The company will also release the Pro Cinema 4040 for ($2699), which is dimmer than the other three at 2300 lumens, but is otherwise similar to the 5040UB.
Canon imageCLASS LBP151dw review – CNET
The Good The Canon LBP151DW is adept at printing high quality text documents with respectable print speeds. With the help of its 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi print server, it can also connect to the cloud to print directly from mobile devices and Google Chrome Web browsers.
The Bad The printer can’t scan or copy documents; doesn’t support Apple AirPrint; the toner refills are more expensive than average.
The Bottom Line The Canon LBP151DW is a competent workhorse laser printer, but rival models offer more features and lower ink costs for the same price.
Single-function printers — those without scanning or copying capability — are a rare species these days, but a simple monochrome laser printer like the Canon imageCLASS LBP151dw ($169, £119, AU$230) is all you really need if you print mostly text documents and don’t have a need for color output. The printer is fast to spit out jobs and it’s great for connecting to a variety of computers and mobile devices. But printers are ultimately judged by the cost of their consumables, and the LBP151dw will ultimately cost you a lot more to refill the toner than competing devices.
Canon imageCLASS LBP151dw
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Design
The imageCLASS LBP151dw is your basic black box of a printer. You can load 250 sheets of basic white paper into the tray on the bottom, or you can also feed different types of media like card stock or envelopes into the manual feed tray.
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Canon imageCLASS LBP151dw
Sarah Tew/CNET
The unit measures 15.4-inches (39.1 cm) wide, 13.2-inches (33.5 cm) deep and 9.7-inches (24.6 cm) tall, which means it’s bigger than the HP LaserJet Pro P1102W and not quite as compact as the Brother HL-L2360DW, but it should still fit just fine on a small desk without taking up too much space.
There’s no display on the front so you can’t monitor the progress of a multi-page job, but that’s to be expected for a monolaser printer. There is, however, an indicator button that lights up on the control panel if you’re out of paper, or if there’s a jam to clear. To that end, I never experienced a single paper jam in the few days I spent testing the Canon.
Canon imageCLASS LBP151dw
| $84, £59 UK, $114 AU |
| 15.4″ x 13.2″ x 9.7″ (39.1 cm x 33. cm x 24.6 cm) |
| 1 black toner cartridge |
| Yes |
| No |
| No |
| USB, Ethernet, Canon PRINT Business app, Mopria Print Services, Google Cloud Print |
| 250 Sheets |
| None |
Features
The LBP151dw was designed for the economic-minded and has a built-in auto-duplexer, which is just a fancy way of saying that it can flip a sheet and print on both sides before spitting out the paper.
BabyBit Baby Monitor Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
BabyBit
It can be tough to leave infants or toddlers with a caretaker while you’re out, whether they’re family members, friends, or hired help. But that’s exactly what millions of parents have to do when they go back to work soon after delivering a child. One developer, launching their Indiegogo campaign today, is hoping to make that prospect just a little less scary for new parents.
The $159 BabyBit Baby Monitor isn’t like other monitors. Instead of offering information to caretakers who might just be a few rooms away from a sleeping child, the device sends information to parents who are away from the house while their child is under another’s supervision.
Here’s how it works. The monitor clips to a child’s onesie and connects via Bluetooth to the caretaker’s phone. From there, it can offer some basic information — like if the child is crying — for the caretaker who’s watching the child. But the app also monitors things like a caretaker’s distance from the child, whether the child has been crying inconsolably for a longer period of time, and other important reasons for concern. Then, in the case of any of these, the app sends a notification to parents, who can check in with the caretaker to find out how they can help.
It’s a pretty simple mechanism, but it’s one no other device has done. And if it works, it could be an important addition to the current market. One of my biggest fears as an absentminded parent is accidentally leaving my son in the car while I’m thinking about a work project or talking on the phone with someone. And as research has indicated, it’s a mistake that can happen to anyone.
But with a device that not only notifies me if my phone goes out of close range with my son, but also notifies my wife if I stay out of range for more than, say, 3 minutes — that could actually save lives. And if BabyBit’s prototype car integration, which turns on the AC in the case of a child being left inside, also comes to fruition, the smart monitor could be a must-buy for many parents.
One of my big questions for BabyBit is whether the Bluetooth technology that responds to the proximity of users’ phones will be reliable. If the notifications for parents are simply based on signal strength, then depending on the quality of the signal and the nature of the environment, it could lead to too many false alarms, or too few real alarms. I’ll just have to wait to actually test BabyBit before knowing how well this feature works.
Crowd sourced projects always involve risk for investors, but according to the BabyBit team, they have a working beta unit of the monitor, and an app that is being tested and honed right now. That in combination with their backing by Jaguar Land Rover’s start-up incubator gives me hope that the November release date for BabyBit is attainable. Of course, it all depends on whether the project gains support.
Huawei Honor 5C Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
Huawei offshoot Honor is bringing its latest smartphone to Europe. The Honor 5C is all about wowing potential buyers with the killer combination of high-octane power and an eye-catchingly low price. It’s just £150 in the UK — that converts to about $220 or AU$295, although a release has yet to be announced in the US or Australia.
Available in grey, silver and gold, the phone’s all-metal body is clad in brushed aluminium and from the back is reminiscent of the HTC One M9 — a slick-looking phone that really nailed it in the design department. The square 13-megapixel camera that sits on the rear not only promises to take great photos, but has a special coating that Honor says will reduce glare and prevent fingerprints from causing blur. It’s accompanied by an 8-megapixel selfie snapper on the front.
The 5C isn’t all about photography though. It has impressive features and specs across the board. These include two quad-core processors and a dual SIM-card slot, which will come in particularly handy if you’re a frequent traveller.
The 5C has been out in China for some time now, where dual SIM-card slots are common. This is not so much the case in Europe, even though there are undoubtedly phone users here who might appreciate the option to switch between SIMs. All the better for Honor — being able to offer this unusual feature will help it stand out in the otherwise crowded European smartphone market.
Honor 5C brings two SIMs and octa-core power
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Another major selling point is the 5C’s £150 price tag. From 20 June you can buy the phone SIM-free online from Honor, Amazon and a number of other retail sites. Alternatively, the 5C will be available on pay as you go or on contract from Three starting in August.
Key specs
- Quad-core 2.0GHz processor, plus quad-core 1.7GHz processor
- 2GB of RAM
- 16GB of onboard storage (expandable with a microSD up to 128GB)
- 3,000 mAh battery
- 5.2-inch Full-HD IPS display
- 13-megapixel rear camera with flash-capable HDR mode
- 8-megapixel front-facing camera
- Dual SIM-card slots
Mini review video: Our verdict on the OnePlus 3 in a minute
While you were refreshing Engadget to see all the new stuff Apple, Microsoft and Sony announced this week, you may have missed the fact that OnePlus came out with a new phone. The OnePlus 3 — yes, that would be its third-generation flagship — comes in at a reasonable $399 and as usual, boasts some impressive specs for the price. In addition to offering top-notch internals, it brings a more premium-feeling aluminum design as well as dual SIM support.
That said, we wish it came with more storage options (just one 64GB version) and the supposedly fast-charging charger isn’t always that fast. If money is no object, we still prefer the Samsung Galaxy S7 and HTC 10 — at least in absolute terms. But if you want a flagship-caliber phone but don’t have flagship money to spend, this is your best bet.
AIVAnet 