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ReviewsWearablesFitness Trackers
How a $70 Smartwatch Can Still Be a Waste of Money
With smartwatches, as with other technologies, you expect them to get more advanced with each iteration. The Apple Watch Series 4 introduced ECG measurements right onto the wrist. Since its Ionic smartwatch, Fitbit added red LED Sp02 sensors to each of its devices for some future sleep apnea-related feature that it hasn’t revealed. Samsung brought … Continued
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ReviewsVR
The Nintendo Switch’s Labo VR Kit Is Cheap VR That Doesn’t Suck
Considered Nintendo’s biggest failure and the butt of endless jokes, the $180 Virtual Boy delivered an embarrassingly limited virtual reality experience when it debuted in 1995. But the console’s quick death didn’t discourage Nintendo from taking risks, and 24 years later its second attempt at virtual reality leverages the Switch hardware to deliver a series … Continued
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ReviewsPhonesLG
LG G8 Review: Sleek in the Streets, Wannabe Tech Wizard in the Deets
It’s been a while since I’ve used a phone with such wildly different personalities living in the same device, but here were are. On the outside, the LG G8 features a fantastically sleek and minimalist design as good or better than other phones on the market. But on the inside, the G8 dreams of being … Continued
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ReviewsPhonesSony
Sony Xperia 10 Review: My Adventure With an Extremely Lanky Phone
Smartphones screens have been getting taller (or wider depending on how you hold them) for a little while now. But Sony has taken that idea to a whole new level with these lanky devices: the Xperia 10 and Xperia 10 Plus (not to mention the forthcoming Xperia 1). Priced at $350 and $430, the new … Continued
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ReviewsTablets
Why Would Anyone Buy an iPad Mini in 2019?
The iPad Mini is not the best tablet Apple makes (that’s the 11-inch iPad Pro). It’s not the good enough tablet either (that’s the iPad Air). It’s the awkward one. A little too small, but a little too big, and demanding a fairly radical change to how you operate a tablet if you’ve been using … Continued
By Alex Cranz -
ReviewsWearables
I Was Ready to Dunk on the Bose Frames… But I Actually Like Them?
Smartglasses have a bad rep—you can thank the glassholes for that. To this day, most people still can’t help but think of the first iteration of Google Glass when anyone brings up the topic of smart eyewear. That also means people start thinking about being recorded against their will, dorky design, and absurd prices for … Continued
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ReviewsFirst Look
The New Truly Wireless Powerbeats Pro Seem Like the Better AirPods We Wanted All Long
If the second generation of AirPods seemed underwhelming, the new Powerbeats Pro by Beats might just get your blood moving. They’re truly wireless earbuds designed for sports and equipped with the new Apple-made H1 chip, superior sound quality, as well as an eye-popping nine hours of battery life. In other words, the Powerbeats Pro earbuds … Continued
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ReviewsPhonesMotorola
The Moto G7 Is So Close to Budget Perfection
For years Motorola has had a stranglehold on the budget phone market, especially in the U.S where phone buyers don’t have quite the same access to all the low-cost handsets available overseas. It’s gotten to the point where it’s as if you could just change the headline on previous reviews, update a few numbers and … Continued
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ReviewsHeadphones
The New AirPods Are Fine
The conversation is getting old. You know, the one about how Apple isn’t innovating with new hardware because the future of its business is in services and streaming video and this new Apple credit card that blah blah blah. But a lot of people point out one exception, one new Apple product that feels truly … Continued
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ReviewsWearablesSmartwatches
The First Smartwatch to Read Your Blood Pressure Is an Ugly Marvel
There’s a reason they call high blood pressure the silent killer. The Center for Disease Control says 75 million Americans suffer from hypertension, a sobering one in three adults. Worse, it says only 54 percent have their condition under control—a fact made more awful by the fact that hypertension is a contributing cause for about … Continued
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ReviewsFirst Look
Huawei Put a Bonkers-Big Zoom on a Phone
I’ve been waiting a long time for some company, any company, to bring a big zoom to a smartphone. Two years ago, Oppo showed off a prototype handset with a 5X zoom at MWC. But alas, after all this time, Huawei has finally brought 5X optical zoom to the real world on the new P30 … Continued
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ReviewsLaptops
The 2019 Huawei MateBook X Pro Is Still the Better MacBook Pro with Windows
When Huawei released the original MateBook X Pro last year, I’m not entirely sure the company knew what it had created. Huawei has only been in the laptop business for about three years, a relatively short time compared to industry veterans like Apple, Dell, Lenovo and others. So when it made a premium 14-inch laptop … Continued
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ReviewsFirst Look
Here’s an Incredibly Slick and Surprisingly Affordable Way to Convert Paper Drawings Into Digital Files
One day, the idea of making marks on sheets of flattened tree guts to share ideas with others will be laughable. But for now, the experience of writing or drawing on a piece of paper still feels more natural than it does on a glass or plastic tablet. Moleskine’s new Adobe Creative Cloud connected Paper … Continued
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ReviewsFirst Look
The Most Exciting Update to Dyson’s New Cordless Vac Is… a Battery Meter?
If something runs on batteries, you’ll find a battery meter somewhere on it. Your smartphone, your vape; even batteries themselves can tell you how close they are to dying. So why am I excited about Dyson’s inclusion of a redesigned battery meter on its new V11 cordless vacuum? It finally alleviates the anxieties of not … Continued
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ReviewsFirst Look
Dyson’s Daylight Tracking Lamp Matches the Light Outside So You Don’t Feel Like Such a Shut-In
We’ve spent decades bathed in the glow of artificial light, but it’s only recently that we’ve started to realize our bodies are naturally tuned to the sun, and exposure to the fake stuff can throw off sleep schedules and even damage our eyes. Dyson, which has re-engineered everything from vacuums to hair dryers, is introducing … Continued
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ReviewsWearablesSmartwatches
Samsung’s New Smartwatch Is Almost Perfect, But Its Health Tracking Is a Disaster
When Samsung announced the Galaxy Watch Active smartwatch at its Unpacked Event a few weeks ago, I was cautiously optimistic. Sure, it did away with the company’s signature rotating bezel, but otherwise, it was sleek, had all the right specs, and honestly, Samsung has consistently put out some of the best Android-friendly smartwatches over the … Continued
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ReviewsFirst Look
HP’s Reverb Headset Brings Us Closer to Crystal Clear VR
The VR revolution hasn’t swept the world like a lot of people thought it would, and though I still have confidence in the medium as a whole, modern VR also has a lot of room for improvement when it comes to comfort, optics, and affordability. Enter the Reverb. Designed for both commercial and home use, … Continued
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ReviewsWearables
Fitbit’s Newest Inspire Fitness Trackers Fail To Do Just That
Despite what wearables makers would have you think, it’s not just all smartwatches. There’s still a place for the humble fitness tracker. For starters, they’re much cheaper than smartwatches, provide accurate fitness tracking, have better battery life, and are perfectly adequate at delivering push notifications. This basically sums up Fitbit’s new flagship fitness trackers, the … Continued
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ReviewsWearablesFitbit
You Won’t Miss the Features Cut From the Fitbit Versa Lite
Buying a smartwatch can be intimidating. They’re expensive, most of them come with similar features, and it can be difficult for first-timers to navigate the technobabble marketing speak to find a smartwatch that suits their needs. That’s exactly the issue Fitbit is trying to solve with its Versa Lite Edition. At $160, it’s less than … Continued
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ReviewsHeadphones
Samsung’s New Galaxy Buds Almost Give AirPods a Run for Their Money
Everybody loves to compare the new Samsung Galaxy Buds to Apple’s AirPods. It’s pretty obvious. Samsung and Apple make popular phones, and now both companies have truly wireless earbuds to pair with them. I’ve spent two weeks with the $130 Galaxy Buds. They’re frankly pretty awesome. But are they better than AirPods? That depends on … Continued