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Now is the time to buy true wireless earbuds
Almost four years ago, Bragi burst on the scene with what seemed a crazy idea: true wireless earbuds that also had on-board storage, activity tracking, heart rate monitoring and more. It was an ambitious effort, and it wasn't without flaws. Bragi and many other companies took a while to work out the issues, like reception, that made the early versions unreliable. Within months, though, tech giants began introducing their own take on the emerging tech with options like Samsung's Gear IconX.
What's next for fitness wearables?
At IFA this year, we've seen devices, like Withings' Move ECG and ASUS' VivoWatch SP, that bring more ECGs to more people -- technology that first appeared in mainstream wearables with Apple's Watch Series 4. I've been thinking about the future of wearables, and it increasingly looks like we're at the final frontier of what fitness wearables can do. Five years from the announcement of the first Apple Watch, and it looks like, soon, there's not going to be much to distinguish one wearable from another.
Companies distanced themselves from foldable phone hype at IFA
Samsung may finally be ready to launch the Galaxy Fold, but other smartphone makers seem to be collectively experiencing commitment phobia. At IFA 2019, companies like Huawei, LG and TCL cooled their efforts on the foldable flagship race in various different ways. While Samsung saw IFA as the venue to show the world how it's attempted to mitigate the problems with a folding screen, most other players are sitting out the hype.
Audio-Technica's $99 true wireless earbuds sound amazing
Audio-Technica is no stranger to the true wireless game, and at IFA this week, the company debuted two new models. For me, the $99 ATH-CK3TW is the more compelling of the two, mostly because it's great to see one of the audio giants introduce a set that won't break the bank. Audio-Technica's other new model, the ATH-CKS5TW, is also affordable at $149. However, I was most curious to see what the company could accomplish for under $100. As it turns out, the ATH-CK3TW is a really great-sounding pair that I can't wait to spend more time with.
TCL is experimenting with a personal cinema visor
TCL turned up at IFA this year with a couple of prototype devices that it hopes will inform the future direction of its products. The first was a "wearable display concept" that looks an awful lot like the personal cinema headsets that pop up every 18 months or so. It's a pair of smart glasses with two OLED displays hovering over your eyes to try and trick you into thinking you're sat in a cinema.
Panasonic's high-contrast dual LCD does a great impression of an OLED
Panasonic's cavernous IFA booth had everything from high-concept beauty products through to cameras and TVs. Regarding the latter, it had two prototype TVs, an advanced transparent OLED that Panasonic has showed off at tradeshows in the past, and a "mega contrast" TV that could, one day, power movie production house mastering monitors.
Watch Huawei’s IFA 2019 event in 11 minutes
Even if you somehow managed to get up to watch Huawei's IFA 2019 keynote, what you saw likely didn't give you a jolt of energy. That's because compared to past Huawei keynotes, the company's latest had a more subdued atmosphere. With a US ban that's unlikely to lift anytime soon, Huawei's Richard Yu wasn't his usual boisterous self. Huawei started things off with its new Kirin 990 chipset, which the company says is the world's first mobile system-on-a-chip with built-in 5G modem. Huawei also showed off its new noise-canceling FreeBuds 3 in-ear Bluetooth headphones, two 'new' P30 Pro models designed to cleverly skirt the company's Android ban and a new router.
Sony's WI-1000XM2 wireless earbuds cater to the neckband crowd
Sony's 1000XM3 duo offers stellar sound and powerful noise cancellation in both over-ear and true wireless options. The 1000X line also includes a set of neckband-style wireless earbuds, the WI-1000X. Here at IFA, the company debuted the next version of those with the WI-1000XM2. The one key upgrade is to the noise cancellation tech inside.
Everything Lenovo announced at IFA 2019 in less than 10 minutes
In case you missed Lenovo's IFA 2019 press event, or you want to watch the highlights again, we've condensed the whole thing down to just under 10 minutes. Lenovo's Yoga laptops will now have Intel's 10th-generation CPUs, and the Yoga C940 got a few additional AI-based updates. Lenovo revealed its Smart Display 7, its latest take on the Nest Hub. That seven-inch display comes with a built-in camera, which could be handy if you like to make video calls. And the company announced an Avengers game, called Dimension of Heroes, for its Mirage AR headset. That's good news considering at launch the headset only came with one game: Star Wars: Jedi Challenges.
Sony’s headphone app will soon analyze your ears for 360 audio
Back at CES, Sony unveiled 360 Reality Audio, a new standard/format/ecosystem for immersive sound on headphones and speakers. The headphone demo at CES was very technical and quite sensitive as calibrating sound profiles to your ears required a thin wire underneath some studio-grade cans. The company was clear in January that the goal would be for anyone to do the calibration with their phone, by taking a picture of their ears. At IFA, Sony is showing off how that feature will work inside its current Headphones app.
ASUS’ ProArt StudioBook One is a breathtakingly powerful laptop
You know a company is feeling confident when it has industry-standard benchmarking software pre-installed on its demo PCs. ASUS' new ProArt StudioBook One is the first to offer NVIDIA's class-leading Quadro RTX 6000 pro graphics. And it had Futuremark's 3D Mark 11 just sat there, practically begging us to try and see how fast thing could run. Turns out that it had a Performance score of 24,438, making this laptop faster than 98 percent of all computers it's ever benchmarked.
Sony's Xperia 5 isn't the triumphant return of the compact flagship
Sony's Xperia phones have increasingly slid into the shadows, as Samsung, Apple and Chinese challengers carve up the smartphone market. Last year, the Xperia 1 got weird. With a 21:9 ratio OLED screen, Sony was going hard on the cinematic appeal and it resulted in a phone that was best described as long, worst described as really unwieldy. The Xperia 5 resurrects the notion of a smaller Sony flagship phone and I think it makes its latest phone design work a little better.
Netgear's WiFi 6 mesh router comes with a $700 price tag
Netgear made a number of announcements at this year's IFA tech show in Berlin, including details on a new WiFi 6 mesh extender, the first cloud-configurable commercial grade mesh network, and a new router that comes with an eye-watering price tag.
The first Braun speakers in 28 years are unexpectedly modern
When the news broke in July that Braun Audio's speaker line was making a comeback, pretty much everyone at Engadget was immediately hooked. Thanks to a deal with Proctor & Gamble, Pure Audio now has the rights to the iconic speaker name. While many of us expected a similar aesthetic to the Dieter Rams-designed devices from 1959, Pure is taking a decidedly modern approach with the revival of the LE line. They still have a minimalist look, but have been entirely redesigned both inside and out. This means that all the modern features are along for the ride. And it means the company is taking direct aim at Sonos.
Adidas’ workout headphones sound almost as stylish as they look
I'll admit that when I saw Adidas' latest headphones, I expected them to be stylish but unsatisfying, the brand covering for any flaws in the hardware itself. And then I spent five minutes wearing a pair of the RPT-01 on-ear wireless headphones while flicking through my own Spotify selection. I went from hardened cynic to wondering if I can somehow tactically break my current pair to justify an upgrade. Plus, I've suddenly gotten an urge to throw out all of my shoes and buy five pairs of Primeknit sneakers.
Huawei's Kirin 990 is a mobile CPU with 5G built in
Let's play a game of technicalities. A few days ago, Samsung announced the Exynos 980, the company's first processor with an integrated 5G modem. In February, Qualcomm also sort of announced it had an integrated 5G mobile platform that supports millimeter wave (mmwave) technology. Today, at IFA 2019, Huawei is unveiling the Kirin 990 5G, which it is calling the "industry's first 5G SoC." The new chipset has, you guessed it, a radio onboard that makes it compatible with the networking standard that's being lit up worldwide, although Huawei's system doesn't support mmwave.
Huawei’s FreeBuds 3 are noise-canceling AirPods for your Android
Huawei has been making truly wireless earbuds for several years now, inspired (if that's the word) by Apple's literally traffic-stopping AirPods. While we wait for Apple to upgrade its headphones (probably in a week or so), Huawei unveiled its third-generation Freebuds, and they're an interesting proposition -- especially if you're an Android phone owner.
Diesel and Emporio Armani also release new Wear OS watches
Looks like Fossil Group is refreshing its stable of smartwatches across the family of brands it owns in preparation for the fall. After updating the Fossil Touchscreen Smartwatch in August to the fifth-generation model, the company unveiled a trio of new Michael Kors devices, as well as Puma's first-ever smartwatch. Today, it's announcing a pair of new watches, namely the Diesel On Axial and the Emporio Armani Smartwatch 3.
LG’s G8X ThinQ Dual-Screen is a multi-screen compromise
The rumors both are, and aren't true. LG has built a dual-screen smartphone that drops around the same time as Samsung's Galaxy Fold and Huawei's Mate X. But it hasn't, because it's an upgraded G8 with a secondary display case similar to what we saw on the V50 ThinQ. Will this mix of flagship specs and a quirky screen case be enough to tempt you?
Sony's 40th anniversary Walkman is a cassette-free nostalgia fail
Even though it's a long time since cassettes have truly been in vogue, it's still disappointing Sony's 40th anniversary Walkman doesn't let you play music from magnetic tape. If you do pick up the NW-A100TPS, you'll have to make do with a cassette tape interface and screensaver, the color of which changes depending on the type of file you're playing.