Reviews
Engadget's experienced review team thoroughly tests products and services across a wide range of categories.
All Reviews
Beats Solo Pro review
Both Apple and Beats have benefited greatly from their relationship over the last five years. Since Apple bought the headphone company in 2014, Beats has improved its gear on all fronts, from design to audio quality and even adding useful features. There's no doubting the Apple influence, especially since the latest Beats headphones pack the same chip that powers AirPods. With the Solo Pro ($299.95), we get the best intersection of the two companies yet, in a set of headphones that look good, sound great and pack in powerful features.
Uber may have to pay Waymo or redesign its self-driving software
In 2017, Waymo accused Uber of stealing its autonomous driving trade secrets. You may have thought the Uber-Waymo legal battle was over when, in 2018, the companies reached a settlement and Uber agreed to pay around $245 million. But as part of the settlement, the parties brought in an independent software expert to review Uber's software and make sure it didn't misappropriate Waymo's intellectual property. Now, the review is complete, and Uber admits that the findings are not good.
Sony A6600 review: A rare misstep for Sony's cameras
As Sony's new flagship APS-C camera, the 24.2-meagpixel A6600 has a lot to live up to. First of all, it had to follow the A6500, launched in 2016 with innovative features like 4K 30 fps video, fast 11 fps shooting speeds, in-body stabilization and face- and eye-tracking. For a couple of years, nothing else on the market could touch it. What's more, the A6600 arrived just after Sony's 61-megapixel A7R IV full-frame mirrorless camera -- possibly the best camera I've ever seen. From a competition standpoint, Sony is also under pressure to top Fujifilm's X-T3, which has a higher-resolution sensor, more 4K video features and much better handling than the A6500. The A6600 has in-body stabilization, a key feature that its rivals lack, and packs other promising features like a bigger grip and battery, along with improvements to its famous AI-powered autofocus system. However, Sony did not upgrade the three-year old sensor. Can it can hold its own against its full-frame stablemates? Can it beat the X-T3?
Google Nest WiFi review: A solid mesh network with built-in Assistant
Google's been trying to make the perfect WiFi gear for nearly five years, and Nest WiFi is its third-generation attempt at it. Like its predecessor, Nest WiFi, Google hopes, is pretty enough that you won't shove it in a cupboard or behind your TV. After all, operating in plain sight is better for wireless performance. And Google had nailed ease of use and power last time around. But Nest WiFi isn't just about celebrating a new name, it's a big departure from what went before. And it comes with a voice assistant, built-in -- whether you want one or not.
AirPods Pro review: Apple’s latest earbuds can hang with the best
As true wireless earbuds continue to evolve, companies are making them smaller and adding powerful features like active noise cancellation (ANC). They're more reliable and offer better battery life than when they first burst on to the scene, and they're becoming increasingly popular. Apple clearly knows all of this. The company's AirPods have been the most popular true wireless earbuds for a while now, despite their polarizing design. And even though the company just debuted version 2.0 back in the spring, it held something back for the holidays. The AirPods Pro were hardly a surprise. We'd heard rumors about a refined design and ANC for months. Perhaps the only real surprise is that they weren't announced at the big iPhone event in September, but instead, they quietly revealed in a press release on a Monday afternoon. The Pro model introduces a host of new features, but that comes at a cost. And the question is: Are the AirPods Pro ($249) worth the extra $50?
macOS Catalina: A month with Apple's latest desktop update
Apple has settled into a comfortable cadence for macOS upgrades. Every fall, an updated version drops with a host of new features, most of which make life easier but don't radically change the experience of using a Mac. That's not necessarily a bad thing; there's something to be said for steady iteration. At first glance, Catalina falls into that bucket. As has often been the case, some features from iOS have been ported over to the Mac, including major updates to the Photos, Notes and Reminders apps. Apple Arcade went live as part of the Mac App Store, and the Screen Time monitoring features that arrived last year in iOS are now part of the Mac experience as well. But some changes are potentially more significant. Apple finally removed iTunes, splitting its features into three new apps: Music, TV and Podcasts. Sidecar lets you use an iPad as a secondary display or an external drawing tablet with the Apple Pencil. There's a host of significant new accessibility features. And perhaps the biggest change: 32-bit legacy apps are no longer supported, which could be disruptive if you rely on older software. As with all recent versions of macOS, Catalina is a free upgrade -- so it's not a question of value. Rather, it's about whether the changes Apple made enhance your Mac experience or hamper it. I've been using Catalina daily since just before launch day, starting with the final public beta, and the good news is that it has proven to be a solid, stable update with a number of little additions that I find quite useful.
Portal TV review: Facebook invades the living room
Facebook's Portal video chat displays have faced quite a bit of scrutiny over the past year due to the company's terrible record when it comes to privacy, security and lack of transparency. Perhaps as a result, reports have surfaced that Portal products are not selling very well. But that hasn't stopped Facebook from moving forward with the idea.
Surface Pro X review: Gorgeous hardware marred by buggy software
For years now, the Surface Pro has been the best Windows 2-in-1. It delivers a useful, familiar desktop environment for multitasking in a lightweight tablet body. But the line hasn't changed much physically since the Pro 4. A serious redesign is beyond overdue, and thankfully Microsoft is ready to show us something new.
Amazon Echo review (2019): Low-priced, but not low-end
Amazon might be a bit Echo crazy at the moment, judging from the sheer volume of Alexa-powered devices it announced last month. But the company clearly hasn't forgotten about the device that started it all: the Echo smart speaker. It proved that voice commands were more than just a gimmick — they just needed connected devices with a ton of microphones to work well. In its third generation, the $99 Echo sounds better than ever, thanks to new audio hardware lifted from the $150 Echo Plus. In fact, the Echo sounds so good it makes its more expensive sibling practically irrelevant.
LG G8X ThinQ review: More screens aren't always better
As far as smartphone makers go, LG is an oddball. It takes a certain degree of chutzpah to design, build and market devices that completely defy convention. And this company has been responsible for more than a few of those over the years. The modular G5 springs to mind. So does this year's G8 ThinQ, which offered a gesture-based control scheme that seemed silly until it didn't. And now there's the G8X, which ditches some of the gimmicks that made the original G8 so divisive and embraces a few of its own. See, rather than build a proper foldable that would be inherently compromised, LG decided there was a better way to make smartphones more flexible: cases with secondary screens built into them. The V50 ThinQ was the company's first phone to get one of these cases, but now the G8X is going on sale around the world with one of these nutso accessories in tow. I have a deep, abiding respect for companies willing to embrace weirdness, but I'll be clear up front: LG's vision doesn't work. It's not because the underlying idea is bad; it's because LG hasn't figured out how to use this bizarre, dual-screen setup to its fullest.
BMW’s Z4 M40i is a powerfully fun roadster
Roadsters are fun vehicles. They're top-down, nimble little cars that are summertime molded into steel, rubber, and glass. BMW's latest incarnation of the Z4 is all of those things and more. While we were sent the more powerful version of the car, it's hard to imagine the smaller-engine model not delivering the same amount of smiles. But it's not all windswept hair and sunshine. There's the inevitable exposure to sunburn and BMW has a few tech versions of that in its roadster.
Echo Buds review: Alexa smarts packed into a mediocre AirPods rival
By the time Amazon got around to announcing its Alexa-powered earbuds in September, the rumors had already been swirling for months. They were hardly a surprise. The online retail giant has a solid track record of keeping upcoming products under lock and key, but word of these voice-controlled true wireless earbuds first surfaced way back in April. Now that they're here, the Echo Buds ($129.99) are poised to take on Apple's AirPods with hands-free Alexa, touch controls, Bose's active noise reduction and more.
Google Pixelbook Go review: Function over form
Google has been building its own Chromebooks for a while now -- first, there were two iterations of the Chromebook Pixel, and then there was 2017's Pixelbook. All three were great laptops with one glaring flaw: They cost way too much money. We're talking $1,000 or more, at a time when most Chromebooks were $500 or less. Google is back at it this year with the new Pixelbook Go -- but for the first time, the company is no longer aiming for absolute quality regardless of price, just to prove a point. Instead, Google is trying to build a Chromebook that anyone can use and afford: The Pixelbook Go starts at $649, a full $350 less than the original Pixelbook. It's still a lot of money for a Chromebook. But there are plenty of other manufacturers building premium Chromebooks in that price range now. The Pixelbook Go certainly can hold its own against just about any other Chromebook out there. But unfortunately, in its quest to get the price down, Google also sacrificed a lot of what made the original Pixelbook so intriguing in the first place. The question is whether those trade-offs are worth it.
Canon M6 Mark II review: Incredible performance from a flawed flagship
The newest addition to the Canon lineup is the EOS M6 Mark II APS-C mirrorless camera, proving that the company isn't just about full-frame EOS R cameras. The M6 II is now the flagship in the EOS-M series, replacing both the M5 and M6 models. The most impressive part of the M6 II is the all-new 32.5-megapixel sensor, making it the highest-resolution crop-sensor camera you can buy. It also delivers some of the fastest shooting speeds I've seen on any mirrorless camera. And to keep those shots sharp, you get updated autofocus tech with Canon's impressive Dual Pixel system, along with face- and eye-detection. Unlike the previous M6 model, it delivers full-sensor, rather than cropped, 4K, making it more useful for videoographers and vloggers. It's priced competitively with rival models like Sony's A6400, the Fujifilm X-T30 and Nikon's first-ever APS-C mirrorless model, the Z 50. However, despite the impressive specs, the M6 Mark II is also hobbled by the lack of some key features.
GoPro Max review: Much more than a 360 camera
360-degree video has not caught on. GoPro knows this, and honestly, I don't think the company is really trying to change that. At least in the context of viewing it in a VR headset, or by moving your phone. Despite this review being about the Max -- the company's second stab at a 360-degree camera -- it's clear that regular old "flat" video is the primary focus here. The $499 Max appears to be an attempt at an even-more versatile GoPro, that happens to be pretty capable in the 360-degree world (no pun intended). While I can say right away that Max is a great improvement on Fusion and it doubles as a regular GoPro, it's not for everyone (and that's okay).
Surface Pro 7 review: USB-C upgrade, battery downgrade
The Surface Pro line hasn't changed much over the years. Each new generation brought incremental spec bumps and slight design changes. And this time around is pretty much the same. Microsoft is giving us newer processors, improved microphones and some Surface Pen software updates. Most important of all, though, there is now a USB-C port. At last! But when the biggest update here is the new socket, you need to ask yourself whether the Surface Pro 7 is still an option worth considering.
Google Pixel 4 and 4 XL review: A slightly flawed taste of the future
After Google started making its own smartphones in 2016, it quickly fell into a predictable pattern: Those devices would pack clean software, take surprisingly good photos and launch sometime in October. Sure, Google added features here and there over the years, but it never strayed too far from that original formula. Until now, that is. With this year's Pixel 4 and 4 XL, Google is charting a new path for itself. Beyond those hallmark features -- which we still see here, by the way -- these new Pixels respond to hand gestures in addition to just taps on a screen. They're better at interpreting and acting on your voice commands. They even have super-fast screens, so the things you do on them just look better. I don't think Google has ever been this ambitious with a pair of Pixels before, and if some of its gambles pay off, there's a chance the company could reshape what it means to use a smartphone entirely. That's a pretty big "if," though. I can't say Google got everything right here, but I do know that these Pixels are fast, weird and very much worth a closer look.
HTC Vive Cosmos review: Too late, too expensive
The battle for at-home virtual reality started with the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive -- but these days things are getting complicated. The Oculus Quest proves solid standalone VR is possible, and Valve is pushing the limits of high-end VR with the Index. Now here comes the Vive Cosmos, HTC's first true successor to the Vive and business-focused Vive Pro. Technically, the Cosmos is an upgrade in just about every way, but there's just one problem: It costs $699, which makes it far more expensive than the Oculus Quest ($400) and Rift S ($400). The Cosmos's price is a baffling strategic decision by HTC when the competition is so strong.
Facebook Portal review (2019): A redesign doesn't ease privacy fears
When Facebook debuted its Portal video chat devices last year, they were met with a great deal of skepticism. After all, the company doesn't exactly have a stellar reputation on security and privacy. Following their release, Facebook faced even further scrutiny when it sent confusing messages on whether the devices collect data (they do) and when employees were caught leaving five-star reviews for them on Amazon. Oops.
The Samsung Galaxy Fold, again: Hard to love, even harder to hate
The Galaxy Fold lives. I don't just mean in the vague "Samsung bounces back from a fiasco" sense, either. My Galaxy Fold, which I've been tossing around for weeks, opening and closing it like a madman, mostly works the same as it did the day I unboxed it. Had the Fold failed again the way it did earlier this year, it might have been enough to seriously derail Samsung's grand, foldable ambitions. This review would've been totally different, too. I could've gotten on my high horse and said a few things about innovation at the expense of usability, with a dash of pro-consumer indignation to spice things up a bit. It would've been a fun read. But reality can be pretty banal sometimes. Because of that, we instead have to face a more complicated truth about the Galaxy Fold: You shouldn't buy one. Not because it's expensive or because of its long-term potential for failure, although those are valid concerns. No, you shouldn't buy one because it's just not quite as thoroughly thought-out as a $2,000 phone should be. When I wrote our original review, I said that people who did splurge on one were paying for the privilege of being Samsung's guinea pig. Despite the company's thoughtful design fixes, that simply hasn't changed.
