Reviews
Engadget's experienced review team thoroughly tests products and services across a wide range of categories.
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IKEA SYMFONISK review: Sonos speakers at IKEA prices
Although IKEA is mostly known as a purveyor of flatpack furniture and Swedish meatballs, it has dabbled in electronics as well. In years past, it's launched its own line of smart bulbs, Bluetooth speakers and a lamp with a built-in wireless charger. This year, it's upping the pedigree of its electronics offerings thanks to a partnership with Sonos. The new line of Sonos-powered speakers is called SYMFONISK -- apparently Swedish for "symphonics" -- and will feature two debut models: a bookshelf speaker and a 2-in-1 lamp-speaker combo. At just $99 and $179 respectively, the idea here is that they're able to offer Sonos-level quality without the Sonos-level price.
The best note-taking apps for students
Every student needs a good note-taking system. The human brain, after all, can only store and retain so much information. There's nothing wrong with relying solely on pen and paper (and if that's your preference, go for it!). But if you're reading Engadget, we suspect you're interested in some kind of digital equivalent: an app that can store those handwritten notes or, if you're ready to take the plunge, let you record everything with a keyboard or stylus. It should be fast, intuitive and, most important, accessible from all of your favorite devices.
NVIDIA RTX 2080 Super review: A modest, necessary upgrade
When NVIDIA announced its revamped Super RTX video cards earlier this month, the bulk of the attention was on its affordable midrange entries, the RTX 2060 Super and 2070 Super. For just $399 and $499, they delivered significantly faster speeds than their predecessors, and they arrived just in time to go head to head with AMD's latest Radeons. Then there's the RTX 2080 Super, which replaces the RTX 2080 at the same $799 price. Based on its specs alone, it didn't seem like a huge leap forward. That's something my testing confirms.
Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar review: A full bag of tricks
Sennheiser has spread the gospel of its Ambeo tech for years. The broad pitch is incredibly immersive audio for AR, VR and your living room. As far as consumers are concerned, though, Ambeo is just a headset that records 3D audio and headphones for Magic Leap. At CES 2018, Sennheiser revealed it was cramming the technology inside a soundbar, so we could all use it for a more common activity: watching TV. It took the company another year and a half to release the $2,500 Ambeo Soundbar, and the wait was mostly worth it.
Acer Predator Triton 900 review: Who needs a crazy swiveling screen?
Remember when we said gaming laptops were going to get wild this year? Behold Acer's Predator Triton 900, a massive 17-inch notebook with one of the craziest screens we've ever seen. It can swivel forward and backward to give you something like the flexibility of a standalone monitor. But is a funky screen hinge enough to justify a $3,800 starting price? Probably not.
Apple 13-inch MacBook Pro review (2019): This is the one
Last fall, Apple finally updated the MacBook Air. In doing so, it made choosing the best entry-level Mac laptop far more complicated than necessary. The Air was directly pitted against the 12-inch MacBook and the cheapest 13-inch MacBook Pro (sans Touch Bar). There was no clear-cut best option: There was too much feature overlap, and no one machine was a winner in all regards. Fortunately, Apple simplified things quite a bit last week by discontinuing the 12-inch MacBook and updating the Air and entry-level Pro. The Air simply got a $100 price drop and a True Tone display, but changes to the Pro were more extensive. But after about two years of status quo, the $1,299 MacBook Pro got some substantial changes: It now has an eighth-generation Intel quad-core processor, better speakers, a True Tone display and the controversial Touch Bar with Touch ID. Oh, and both laptops also have Apple's supposedly more reliable keyboard design, which the company first introduced in May. Now it's a lot easier to compare these lineups. If you want to save cash and aren't working on processor-intensive tasks, the Air is probably for you. But if you require more horsepower, the MacBook Pro's quad-core processor is a major improvement for an extra $200.
Sony Xperia 1 review: Powerful, but not sensible
I don't love admitting this, but it can be hard to take Sony's phones seriously sometimes. That's not because of a lack of effort on its part — it's more that the phones they do release often seem gleefully out of step with the mobile mainstream. Need further proof? Just look at the Xperia 1. This is the first high-powered flagship Sony has released in some time, and it's nothing if not unusual. Super-tall, super-high-res screen? Check. A vibration motor that plays along with your music? Uh-huh. A surprisingly small battery? Sadly, yes. There's little question that the Xperia 1 is the kind of device only Sony would make, and that no other smartphone maker out there is working with the same set of priorities. Occasionally, that means the Xperia 1 feels refreshing. The rest of the time, though, it's enough to make you wish Sony had just made a few decisions differently.
Petcube's Bites 2 and Play 2 are smart speakers in disguise
Unsurprisingly, most smart-home gadgets are fairly human-centric. But what about all the furbags that live with us? Don't they deserve a little slice of the connected dream? Petcube certainly thinks so. The company has two pet-camera products, the Bites and the Play. The former lets you sling treats at your cat or dog, while the latter has a laser allowing you to "play" with them remotely. Both models have just been refreshed, with a few interesting upgrades: a wider camera view (180 degrees, up from 138) and Alexa baked in. They're available starting today.
NVIDIA RTX 2060 Super and 2070 Super review
For once, AMD made NVIDIA sweat. NVIDIA's new RTX Super graphics cards are clearly a response to AMD's new midrange GPUs, the Radeon RX 5700 and 5700 XT. For months, AMD has been hyping how much faster they are than the first RTX cards. The only solution for NVIDIA was a surprise batch of faster cards, which, in turn, led to AMD announcing a price drop at the last minute. Witness the capitalist ideal of competition in action.
Zero’s SR/F electric motorcycle makes a great commuter bike
Zero has been on a roll for the past few years. Great electric motorcycles keep coming off their assembly line and the number I see on the streets of Northern California keeps growing. Before, if you rode an electrified motorcycle you got stares and questions. Now, not so much. Like Teslas, Zero is no longer an oddity.
The Jeep Gladiator is for truck buyers craving adventure
The Gladiator is essentially a Jeep Wrangler with a bed strapped onto the back. During my tests, I found it to be capable on both dirt and asphalt. But it's not for everyone.
The best free-to-play games
Gone are the days where free games equated to ropey puzzle games and knock-off clones of games that had a price tag. These days, courtesy of in-app payments and the ease of offering both a sample of title alongside its full-fat version, there's actually plenty of great games to play without spending a dime. Put your card away, and consider this your starting point.
Radeon RX 5700 and 5700 XT review: AMD brings the fight back to NVIDIA
The unveiling of the Radeon 5000 family and Ryzen third-gen chips at Computex made it clear this was going to be a special year for AMD. Its latest CPUs include a monster 12-core chip for just $499. And with its latest video cards, the Radeon RX 5700 ($349) and RX 5700 XT ($399), AMD is finally bringing its long awaited "Navi" architecture (now called Radeon DNA, or RDNA) to a consumer GPU. But NVIDIA was paying attention. Last week it announced beefed up "Super" versions of its RTX cards, which, on paper, seemed to erase AMD's performance advantage. All of this is great news for gamers, who now have a strong new lineup of affordable midrange graphics cards to choose from. But AMD is once again at risk of being overshadowed by its flashier competitor. (No wonder it rushed out a last-minute price drop.)
The best games for your smartphone
Sorry, but mobile gaming is the biggest player in the video game market. In 2018, it made almost half of the industry's global revenue. Smartphone games once existed separately from console and PC titles, but in the wake of titles like Fortnite, it's all got a little blurry. You'll find several games in our selection that are also available on your home consoles and PCs, but most of them sing on your smartphone, and the fact that you can play them absolutely anywhere makes up for any other pitfalls. Whether it's Android or iOS, here's some crucial games to start with. We'll be updating this list regularly -- this time, we welcome Pocket City to the fold.
The best games for PC
So how do you categorize a beast like gaming on the PC? With decades of titles to pluck from (and the first port of call for most indie titles, too), there's so much to choose from. Gaming on your PC adds the benefits of (nearly always flawless) backward compatibility and console-beating graphical performance -- if you've got the coin for it. We've tried to be broad with our recommendations here on purpose. There are so many great games out there for your PC, consider these some starting points. In our summer update, we've added Beat Saber which replaces Fortnite. With a busy few months for games coming up, expect more changes in the future.
The best games for Nintendo Switch
Nintendo's Switch is on a roll. The youngest of the games consoles is punching above its weight with a mix of core Nintendo games that have pushed iconic characters like Mario and Link into the modern gaming age.
The best games for Xbox One
A series of missteps put Microsoft in second place before the Xbox One even came out. While it's likely to remain there until the next generation begins, there are a lot of people out there who have never experienced what the console has to offer. With the Xbox One X having a clear advantage over Sony's PlayStation 4 Pro when it comes to gaming on a 4K TV, there's never been a better time to jump in.
The best games for PS4
Sony's PlayStation 4 is fast approaching its sixth birthday, and that poses a problem. You see, game developers have seen fit to release a game for almost every day the console has been available, leaving you with well over 1,500 titles to choose from. The sheer volume of games on offer, coupled with the subjective nature of the medium, makes it impossible to definitively name "the best," and that's not what this list is about.
Valve Index review: Next-level VR
Where does virtual reality go next? Right now there seem to be two paths: portable and self-contained headsets like the Oculus Quest or those connected to computers and consoles like the Rift and PlayStation VR. Valve is clearly betting on the second way with the Index, its first VR hardware. It crams in just about every feature you'd expect from a high-end headset, including some truly transformative finger-sensing controllers. It's too bad the entire Index package costs $999, putting it out of reach for most people. But maybe that's the point. It's a boundary-pushing headset meant to keep the VR industry from getting stale.
'Super Mario Maker 2' is another love letter to Nintendo’s 2D platformers
It's impossible to play Super Mario Maker 2 without having a huge smile on your face. It's a total deconstruction of what makes Nintendo's 2D platforming franchise so special. You're just a plumber, standing on a stage, hoping to make it to the goal intact. The real hook, of course, is that you can take everything you've learned from Mario games over the years and craft your own levels, with the freedom to make them as simple or thumb-numbingly complex as you'd like. And if you're just in the mood to play, you've got a practically endless supply of levels from Nintendo and the online community to feed on. There's no doubt Super Mario Maker 2 banks heavily on nostalgia, but it's also a way for both old and new players to truly grasp the power of 2D platformers.
