The UltraFine 6K is also a Nano IPS Black display, which is something the Asus model is not. Nano IPS Black is actually a combination of two technologies that improve the image quality of IPS in different ways. Nano IPS enhances color coverage, while IPS Black cranks up the contrast. The combination of the two is pretty spectacular, especially on a monitor this sharp. It covers sRGB and AdobeRGB at a full 100 percent, something I’ve never seen on an IPS monitor before. The color accuracy is also incredibly strong. Right out of the box, I measured the average color error at a Delta-E of 0.62. Anything under 1.0 is considered excellent, even for professional color graders. No further calibration needed here.
In terms of brightness, my review unit topped out at 480 nits in standard dynamic range (SDR), which is quite bright. The screen has an anti-reflective, matte coating that deters glare and reflections without dimming the screen too much. This is probably going to bother some people coming from a glossy, older LG 5K display. Although I’d also prefer a glossy display, LG’s solution is subtle enough. And while this is certainly not a proper HDR monitor in that it uses a conventional LED IPS panel, I was able to measure 640 nits of peak brightness in HDR. That’s far from what OLED or mini-LED can do. Remember: The HDR effect is created by higher brightness and contrast. That’s what makes OLED displays attractive. The UltraFine Evo 6K has a 2,000:1 contrast ratio, but I only got 1,720:1 in my testing. That’s still better than the average, though, as monitors like the Dell UltraSharp 32 4K use an enhanced IPS Black in order to push the contrast closer to 3,000:1.
The refresh rate is the one big problem with the UltraFine Evo 6K’s picture. It’s only 60 Hz. It doesn’t matter how sharp, vibrant, and color-accurate your image is if the motion feels stiff. Even fairly affordable monitors like my favorite, the Dell 27 Plus 4K ($300), have a 120-Hz refresh rate. That’s likely not the fault of LG, as Asus’ 6K monitor is also stuck at 60 Hz—but it’s a current limitation of the resolution on offer. I have no doubt that future 6K monitors will come out with a 120-Hz refresh rate, but as of now, that’s a trade-off you’ll be making for the extra pixels.
Pricey Proposition
Photograph: Luke Larsen
The LG UltraFine Evo 6K costs $2,000. While that’s not as much as Apple’s ridiculous Pro Display XDR, it also lacks the HDR capabilities that make that monitor special. The price feels especially egregious when you consider how cheap OLED monitors are getting. Dell’s first nongaming OLED, the Dell 32 Plus QD-OLED, is only $850 and is often on sale for under $700. It’s only 4K, but it’s better for both watching and producing HDR content.
Lastly, if you’re set on 6K, there’s also the Asus ProArt PA32QCV to consider. I haven’t tested it yet, but it’s $600 cheaper than LG’s model, despite using the same 6K panel. What does that extra $700 buy you? A flashier design, for one, but also more up-to-date ports. Although I like where Asus has placed its ports better than LG, it uses old specs such as Thunderbolt 4 and DisplayPort 1.4. The biggest difference is the lack of Nano IPS Black, which means it likely doesn’t have the color performance and contrast of the LG model. These differences aren’t insignificant, but are they worth $700? That’s tough to say, especially since they are otherwise the identical panel. I can’t say for sure until I’ve tested Asus’ model, but on the surface, the LG UltraFine 6K does feel a little overpriced by comparison.
On the other hand, if you’re already dropping this much cash on a 6K monitor, image quality is paramount, and the inclusion of Nano IPS Black makes the LG UltraFine 6K a better alternative to OLED or the Pro Display XDR.
Space is the right environment for a TV with this level of staggering contrast, and it’s not just the dramatic moments, but also the more subtly lit scenes that stand out. Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 is full of searing highlights and colorful bursts of space glow, but moments like the crisp sunrise on the Guardians’ plumb-brown shirts or the dark corridors of their small ship were just as impressive thanks to the Z95B’s masterful color gradients and shadow detail.
That meticulous touch comes through in everything you watch, including plain old HD sitcoms like The Office, where I found myself oddly enamored with moments like the auburn highlights of Jim’s hair or the gleam of Andy’s tie. This may not be the reason you buy a premium TV, but it’s lovely to find joy in the little things. Skin tones look almost touchably natural and clean, enhanced by the TV’s knockout image processing, and even lower-quality video looks good with its improved upscaling.
That’s not to say you won’t find plenty of bombast here; the Z95B gets as bright as anyone should need when properly tasked. Playing Mad Max: Fury Road on 4K HDR Blu-ray with the Panasonic DP-UB9000 elicited the perfect dichotomy between the dull desert backdrop and the catastrophic lightning storm. The storm’s jagged bolts split the sky with precision, erupting with blistering shocks of orange and white, right down to that sputtering white-hot flare.
Part of the Z95B’s potency comes from its excellent glare reduction. Like the LG G5, it’s able to reduce everything but direct reflections while preserving its obsidian backdrop for a more dramatic contrast in brighter rooms than Sony’s rival Bravia 8 II QD-OLED. I think the Bravia beats both TVs for image clarity, but it’s close. Only Samsung’s similar S95F offers a more potent way to kill the glare while still preserving contrast.
The Z95B and G5 are unsurprisingly similar, given that they share the same panel. The Z95B feels slightly more natural in its color and lighting, and a bit better for off-axis viewing, but that may be recency bias. I’d need to see them back-to-back to point to any real differences. Some extra color banding in Dolby Vision streaming content and a bit of image stuttering are the only noticeable flaws I saw in the Z95B over two weeks. (Note: I reviewed the G5 after LG addressed initial complaints of HDR color banding.)
All four premium OLEDs provide knockout performance, each with its own specialty. I’m partial to the G5 and Z95B over the Samsung and Sony for their balance of fiery brightness with jet-black backdrops—and the G5 has an edge with its four HDMI 2.1 ports and better smarts. The Z95B is hard to deny, though. If you’re after an all-in-one screen that elevates everything to showcase levels, this is the TV to take home.
The windows are down, the sun is a kaleidoscope through the reddening leaves, and I’m listening to Saves the Day’s Stay What You Are on the car CD-player, on the way to play Soul Caliber and hold hands with my boyfriend after school … It’s cold, and you can still hear the dull thud of the music from the goth club in the basement under the sushi bar, and I’m wearing a cheap polyester corset, and I think I’m about to be kissed in this parking lot under a full moon … It’s Homecoming, and I’m talking with the friend I’ve known since we were three, because we both came with guys who are in fact a couple, but one of them has parents who can’t find out he’s gay, so we’re their covers so they can meet up at the dance …
I don’t know what it is about adolescence—maybe it’s something to do with those underbaked prefrontal cortexes—but I doubt I’m alone in retaining memories from my teenage life that still feel as vivid, twenty-plus years on, as last week’s. It’s another world, in almost every sense another person, and at the same time its tiniest details, ecstatic or embarrassing, are still definitive, ephemeral and yet indelible.
It’s this sensation—a feeling of swimming through waters that long ago flowed on and out into the ocean—that the playwright Else Went captures so potently in Initiative. Developed over the last ten years with the collaboration of their wife, the director Emma Rosa Went, as well as many of the actors who are now on stage in its premiere at the Public, the show has both the patience and the pain of maturity. It feels slow-cooked, basted in rich juices and allowed to simmer. That the production is five hours long—three 90-minute acts unfolding over the course of the central characters’ four years in high school, plus intermissions—is certainly crucial to this quality, but it’s the pace and texture, rather than the length per se, that really distinguish Initiative. A play can run a marathon (see Gatz) or it can brew like tea, building a somatic experience that concentrates and darkens over time. This steeped and tannic quality is what keeps the Wents’ project—notwithstanding the Jimmy Eat World and Sugarcult blasting during the preshow, the dramatized AIM chats of its characters, and the Dungeons & Dragons sessions that become central to its story—distinct from nostalgia. Nostalgia is about consuming a version of the past as comfort food. Initiative is—to steal a “good 50-cent word” from one of its characters—elegiac. It’s about loss and survival and the way in which imagination can become as tangible and critical as a climbing rope on a cliff face.
If, unlike the play’s characters, you weren’t experiencing your own high-school odyssey over a fistful of D20s, here’s a brief nerd primer: Most role-playing games are a mash-up of make-believe and chance. You play a character with “ability stats,” number scores that represent things like Charisma, Strength, and Intelligence, which in turn determine how successful you might be at performing certain actions during the game (like seducing an innkeeper or smashing a skull). But to generate those stats and perform those actions, you’ve always got to roll a die. “Initiative” is rolled for when your party of characters enters combat: In the face of a threat, who gets to make the first move? Who will attack and who will defend? Who’s got the agility to maneuver or the constitution to endure, and whose fate comes down to luck alone?
The whole endeavor—the danger, the thrill, the arcane rules and the fun of breaking them, the conscious, experimental creating of self—presents a meaty metaphor for coming of age, and, like all seasoned D&D players, the Wents and their actors take its stakes entirely seriously. Initiative is no parody, nor is it rarefied content meant solely for former Wizards of the Coast aficionados. Its characters don’t even begin “the game,” as they call it, until almost a third of the way through. Before, during, and after, they’re fighting the comparatively banal yet infinitely more harrowing battle of their own young lives, weathering high school while facing down the new millennium and, soon enough, a new war, from their home in “Coastal Podunk” California.
“Nothing happens here,” says the aspiring writer Riley (the fantastically malleable Greg Cuellar, reminiscent of a young Alan Rickman) to his English teacher, Mr. Stone (played in live voiceover by Brandon Burk; adults have no physical presence in this world). Riley dreams of escape, and, in their own ways, so do all the characters of Initiative — the driven, pure-hearted former homeschooler, Clara (Olivia Rose Barresi), who’s aiming for Yale by way of perfect SATs; the brothers Lo (Carson Higgins) and Em (a heartbreaking Christopher Dylan White), who take opposite tacks as they cope with an absent father and opioid-addicted mother; the free spirit Kendall (Andrea Lopez Alvarez) and the shy, sweet misfit transfer student Ty (Harrison Densmore). Even Em’s big lug of a buddy Tony (Jamie Sanders), who casually throws slurs around (like a true early-2000s gamer bro) and groans over how long it takes to download porn on dial-up, is desperately looking for a way out. Like the others, he needs a path toward a solid sense of self, a place where wounds aren’t simply being triaged but can begin to heal.
It’s this desire for some control over their own destinies—especially in what, says Clara, panicking in the face of post-9/11 American aggression, feels like its own “really horrible time to be alive in America”—that draws the wandering young souls of Initiative toward D&D. Getting to be a brilliant spell-caster or a divinely inspired paladin doesn’t hurt either. Confronted with a real world that hardly makes the case for the existence of love or kindness, let alone magic or God, who wouldn’t choose fantasy? (The show’s creative team, especially projection designer S. Katy Tucker, does rich conjuring work where this fantasy is concerned, and my only regret is that they and their director are confined to the LuEsther, a theater that clearly partitions action and audience in a way that saps some of the energetic potential of Initiative’s emotionally immersive story.)
As if in refutation of the puritanical outcry over D&D in its early days, Went’s characters use the game to attempt to construct a more just moral universe. In this sense, the play’s location in time is crucial, not simply for the facts of that moment—George W. Bush, Lil John and Avril Lavigne, shouting at your mom who wants to use the phone that you’ll be done with the internet in “LITERALLY ONE MINUTE”—but for its ethos. Millennials are, at least for now, the last generation of believers. We grew up wanting to “fix the world” and thinking it could be done. We didn’t know the word “problematic.” Clara and Riley—with their big hearts and weak armor, untempered by irony, vulnerable to the catastrophes of disillusionment—might as well be our patron saints.
These smart, soulful best friends are at the heart of Initiative, and their conversations, whether casual or charged with heartbreak, showcase some of Went’s most sensitive writing. (Though, the play is full of gems, like this one from Kendall to Em: “How come every time we hang out I feel sad? … Like… it’s comforting kinda. Like I can be myself with you, and myself is actually kinda sad, and that’s okay.”) Barresi and Cuellar hold each other up with palpable tenderness, each one crafting a long, poignant arc from innocence through the fogs and thorns of experience. A scene in which Riley (who naturally becomes the Dungeon Master in the game) narrates a solo campaign for the suffering Clara—literally taking her out of herself by leading her through an adventure as the paladin Andromeda—is profoundly moving in its generosity. Likewise the care that Lo, an increasingly aggressive jock and in plenty of outward ways a “bad kid,” shows as he shields his recessive younger brother from the brunt of their mother’s violent illness. Or the gentleness with which Kendall applies makeup to Ty’s face to hide a bruise. Initiative is stitched through with moments like these, like colorful patches on a heavy pall, little saving throws against the dark. Depending on when you were born and how much time you’ve spent rolling dice in basements, it might take you back, but its real achievement, bracing and compassionate, lies in its encouragement to keep walking forward.
Initiative is at the Public Theater through December 7.
The device has no moving parts, with just a 3.5-inch touchscreen that covers its face and a few buttons on each side. These include power and volume buttons, and the now standard pair of “talk” buttons—one to recognize your partner’s voice and one for your own. In many modes, you won’t need to use these, however. Like most handheld translators, the unit includes a preloaded SIM 4G card that gives it near-global usability. (Vasco says it works “in nearly 200 countries,” which is a lot, since there are only 195 widely recognized nations today.) 2.4-GHz and 5-GHz Wi-Fi are also available when you’re in range of a hot spot or at a hotel.
The 2,500-mAh battery charges via USB-C. Vasco claims that the Q1 offers “many hours of intensive use” and up to 160 hours on standby—though note the battery will drain faster than you might expect even when it’s idling. “Many hours” in my testing was less than eight, but the 160-hour standby metric was roughly accurate.
Language support is robust, but details vary based on how you use the device. For voice-to-voice translation, it supports 86 languages. For text-based translation, that goes up to 108. Oddly, photo-based translations work with 113 languages. Lastly, real-time call translation has support for just 53 languages. I’ll get to each of these in a bit.
After a quick setup, the Q1 drops you into a straightforward interface that lines up its six functions, one over the other. In addition to the four modes mentioned above, the system offers a group chat feature that can support up to 100 participants in their own languages, and a basic learning mode that simply quizzes you on vocabulary, Duolingo style.
Chatty Cathy
Photograph: Chris Null
Most users will likely spend the bulk of their time in conversation mode, which lets you carry on a one-on-one voice discussion with a real-life partner, each in the language of your choice. As is common for handheld translators, holding down one of two buttons—either the pair on the side mentioned earlier or another pair that appears on the touchscreen—lets you tell the Q1 who is talking.
Tom Hanks in This World of Tomorrow at the Shed. Photo: Marc J. Franklin/Courtesy The Shed
Whatever is happening at the Shed right now, it’s not really a play. It’s play-shaped, and actors put on costumes and wander around onstage for a couple of hours, repeating words they’ve memorized. But I’d be more comfortable calling the staging of This World of Tomorrow — starring Tom Hanks, written by Hanks and his collaborator James Glossman, directed by Kenny Leon, and based off elements of Hanks’s short-story collection, Uncommon Type — something more along the lines of “a flight of fancy,” “a doodle on a napkin,” or “a college-drama-club project with the express purpose of making one person happy.” There are plenty of talented folks around Hanks who have been roped into making this, and plenty of people in the audience who might be paying a lot to see him, but they don’t factor into the equation. This thing is entirely about admiring its star. Hey, at least there are some fun hats.
This World of Tomorrow is not malicious in its intent. Tom Hanks, the moral nice-guy mayor of Hollywood, is the closest thing the film industry has to a Jimmy Stewart, and I’m happy to believe that his forays into writing have developed out of genuine artistic interest in good-hearted Americana. (Inevitably, a character speaks admiringly about a typewriter.) Whether a theater company should spend its time and resources developing and staging what he has written is another question. (No.) This World of Tomorrow, largely based on the Hanks story “The Past Is Important to Us,” has him playing Bert Allenberry, a rich tech titan from around the year 2100 who keeps taking expensive daylong trips to the 1939 New York World’s Fair via a company called Chronometric Adventures. He justifies the cost by telling his colleagues that he’s enthralled by the way the past imagined a better future than the one we got, but it becomes clear very quickly that he’s really doing it because he’s infatuated with a winsome divorcée named Carmen Perry (Kelli O’Hara, at home in any role where she wears gloves). Carmen is visiting the fair with her spunky niece, Virginia (Kayli Carter, fumbling for any texture to play and landing on “loud”), and Hanks runs into her by accident, then comes back again and again. In each time loop, Carmen doesn’t remember Bert, he so keeps reseducing her, using a little more information each time, an unsettling dynamic that’s a blend between Groundhog Day, Midnight in Paris, and maybe even the deranged sci-fi drama Passengers, all films that aren’t known for their sensitivity toward women’s agency.
There’s where you might expect a play to develop some dramatic friction, perhaps as a commentary on the dangers of nostalgia or on one extremely rich man’s sense of entitlement. Any such turn might be a current, if obvious, direction for a play like this. But one thing you can say about This World of Tomorrow is that it doesn’t do much of what you might expect. There’s little tension anywhere or really any significant attempt to undercut Bert’s rosy gaze on the past. Hanks and Glossman have written a few throwaway lines that acknowledge the racism of the 1930s — Black members of the ensemble are often called upon to roll their eyes at Bert’s cheeriness about 1939 — and in the play’s announcement, Alex Poots, the Shed’s artistic director, told the New York Times that “there is reference to the rise in authoritarianism,” which I can translate as “there is a line about how Bert should have used time travel to kill Hitler.”
I wouldn’t say that This World of Tomorrow embraces Bert’s nostalgia, either, so much as it just lets his quest for Carmen happen. The script is too rudderless to navigate toward any specific theme, and Leon, who has become the go-to director for soggy celebrity-drivendrama, hasn’t pushed his cast toward any specific idea. (According to a conversation in your program, Leon said the play is about “time and love”; one is a concept an actor can’t play, and the other is something no one is convincingly playing.) Somehow, despite what must have been a substantial budget, the set looks cheap. Derek McLane’s design resembles a cybernetic wilderness, a spare set of moving columns that indicate new locations and settings through screens and projections. If Bert’s so enamored with the innovations of the World’s Fair, couldn’t we see re-creations of a few of them onstage? Why not show us the famous robot or the celebrity cow?
Instead, in the space of where it could allow for wonder and enthusiasm, This World of Tomorrow tends toward overexplanation. The script is remarkably heavy on the technobabble and the scenes in which Hanks’s colleagues from the future throw nonsense time-travel-related nouns around while wearing Star Trek outfits. I couldn’t care less about the acids that supposedly accumulate when you go back and forth in time. The script’s most engaging indulgence is a series of scenes that occur in the second act as Bert and Carmen meet in the 1950s at a Greek diner, which is run by a grumbly Jay O. Sanders. Sanders almost convinces you that you’re watching a real play about a real man, commanding the stage with a gruff bark and mining humor from his character’s insistence on teaching everyone Greek vocabulary as he picks up some English. I’m not sure how his presence is supposed to relate to the rest of the story or why Hanks felt it was necessary to include it — perhaps his wife, the Greek American actress and producer Rita Wilson, had his ear — but at least it’s an interestingly idiosyncratic gesture.
Yet the audience isn’t at the Shed for idiosyncrasies. Hanks is the be-all and end-all of This World of Tomorrow, and, sure, when you’re sitting in the audience a few dozen yards away from him, it’s hard to deny his loping movie-star magnetism. He has something of the energy of a beloved and aging family dog, padding up to you to lay his paws on your lap. It’s hard to judge Hanks’s strengths as a stage actor given that this script gives him so few challenges, but when he delivers several jokes about Bert’s discovery that they have real milk at the World’s Fair — presumably, an unspoken environmental collapse has eliminated dairy — he is deeply charming. In those moments, the audience lets out a sigh of relief, as if to say, Ah, yes, the celebrity we’re here to see is giving us the performance we wanted. It’s his own persona he’s performing, not a character. We come to see plenty of stage actors for a taste of their familiar forms, from Kristin Chenoweth to Laurie Metcalf, but perhaps putting a movie star onstage and asking them to actually perform in a play is an extra hurdle we needn’t ask them to clear. Why not just revert to something more direct, more medieval and churchy? Do away with the scripts, with the directors, with the rest of the ensemble, with the pretense. Have them stand there, in pristine and golden-lit silence for two hours at the center of the stage, and bask in the awe and admiration. Audiences could think of it as a pilgrimage to visit a holy relic — or its own act of sacramental theater. He’s not performing, after all. You are.
This World of Tomorrow is at the Shed through December 21.
How do you spell joy? For New York theatergoers this fall, it’s “S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G B-E-E.”
You could make a credible case that “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” was the best-written musical of the 21st century until “Hamilton”—and watching its buoyant 20th-anniversary Off-Broadway revival, you might find yourself believing it. Few musicals from the era are as airtight, inventive, or downright lovable. William Finn’s vibrant, emotionally tuned score and Rachel Sheinkin’s Tony-winning, slyly compassionate book remain a model of musical-theater integration.
For the uninitiated, “Spelling Bee” unfolds as an actual elementary school spelling bee—complete with an onstage word pronouncer, escalating vocabulary, and a handful of audience volunteers who join the competition. As six quirky young contestants spell their way toward the trophy, the musical gradually opens up their anxieties, home lives, rivalries, and aspirations. It’s both a satire of academic pressure and a tender coming-of-age story, structured as one continuous, intermission-less event in real time. Much like “A Chorus Line,” once the bee starts, it never stops—and the emotional stakes deepen even as the jokes fly faster.
The revival, which arrives in the wake of Finn’s recent passing, feels like an unexpected but deeply welcome reunion with an old friend. In my experience—having seen the musical Off-Broadway, on Broadway, in regional theaters, and at schools—“Spelling Bee” tends to hold up under almost any conditions. But the show thrives when performed in a compact proscenium space like New World Stages. The intimacy sharpens the jokes, heightens the pathos, and restores the electricity that sometimes dissipated in the wider, in-the-round staging at Circle in the Square during its Broadway run.
Back in 2005, the kids of “Spelling Bee” lamented that “life is random and unfair” and “life is pandemonium.” Two decades later, the lyric hits with startling new weight. Today’s adolescents navigate the lagging shadows of a pandemic, the omnipresence of social media, the existential fog of AI, impending climate doom, and a political climate that would rattle even William Barfée’s magic foot. The show always understood that childhood isn’t cute—it’s treacherous. This production simply meets the moment more directly while preserving the joyfulness, heart, and full-throttle silliness that made the original so irresistible.
Director-choreographer Danny Mefford doesn’t attempt a radical reinterpretation, nor does he need to. The material is bulletproof. But he infuses the evening with a welcome sense of kinetic play, giving each scene and musical number a brisk, physical charge. “Magic Foot” remains a guaranteed showstopper, and the decision to run without an intermission—keeping the show at a tight 1 hour and 45 minutes—maintains the breathless pacing that makes the bee feel like a single, unbroken event.
The ensemble approaches the characters with fresh instincts rather than nostalgic mimicry. Kevin McHale (Artie on “Glee”) gives William Barfée a moody, snooty confidence and a diva-sized belt. Justin Cooley (so memorable in “Kimberly Akimbo”) offers a blissfully chilled-out Leaf Coneybear, so relaxed he seems permanently mid-microdose.
Jasmine Amy Rogers, who recently stole the spotlight as the title character in “Boop! The Musical,” makes a near-total 180 as Olive Ostrovsky. Her Olive is tremulous, frightened, and heartbreakingly open—a performance so vulnerable it nearly re-centers the musical around her. Autumn Best’s Logainne is bright and manic, frayed from political and parental pressure, while Leana Rae Concepcion’s Marcy also arrives in crisis mode, a model student cracking under the weight of expectation.
Philippe Arroyo brings a puffed-up swagger to Chip Tolentino, whose downfall remains one of the show’s most reliable comic detonations. Jason Kravits, as the sardonic Vice Principal Panch, proves that a perfectly delivered definition can be as funny as any punchline.
And then there’s Lilli Cooper, delivering one of her most assured performances as Rona Lisa Peretti. Cooper gives Rona the poise of a pageant host, the warmth of a beloved teacher, and the gravitas of a narrator who understands she’s shepherding us through a formative ritual. She grounds the evening with confidence and a touch of glamour. Vocally, the cast is uniformly sharp, and the sound design allows Finn’s harmonies—and his jokes—to land with crisp clarity.
The one character who has been consciously reconceived is Mitch Mahoney, traditionally a “comfort counselor” doing court-ordered community service. In a smart, culturally sensitive update, Matt Manuel plays him not as a former convict but as a personal trainer whose gym went under—still brusque, still deadpan, but without the baggage of stereotype.
Because audience participation remains core to “Spelling Bee,” the performers lean liberally into spontaneous riffs, calling out everything from the government shutdown to Mayor Mandami, Pelosi’s retirement, AOC, microdosing, pronoun debates, and even the fact that the spelling bee is happening next door to a production of “Heathers.” My audience was particularly game—screaming support for the volunteer contestants and erupting into mid-scene ovations that turned the evening into a communal pep rally. When a crowd is this alive and responsive, the show’s humor and heart land twice as effectively.
This revival premiered last year at the Kennedy Center, before the Trump Administration’s takeover of that institution shuttered the very musical theater series from which this production originated. With “Schmigadoon” (also produced by the Kennedy Center) now Broadway-bound, one can’t help wondering what else might have emerged from that program in a different political landscape.
New World Stages, 340 W 50th Street, spellingbeenyc.com. Through April 12.
Under the surface are 11 individually powered speakers, including two five-inch woofers, two midrange drivers, two tweeters, and five “full-range” drivers. The collection includes both side-firing and upfiring drivers to bounce sound off your walls and ceiling for surround sound and 3D audio formats like Dolby Atmos and DTS:X.
Around back, you’ll find solid connectivity, including HDMI eARC/ARC for seamless connection to modern TVs, an HDMI passthrough port for connecting a streamer or gaming console, Ethernet, RCA analog connection for a legacy device like a turntable, and a traditional subwoofer that lets you side-step Marshall’s available wireless sub. There’s no optical port, but since optical doesn’t support Dolby Atmos or DTS:X spatial audio, that’s kind of a moot point.
Setup is pretty simple, but the bar’s hefty size adds some complications. At three inches tall, it’s a tough fit beneath many TVs. Conversely, the rubber feet that diffuse its 43-inch long frame from your console offer almost zero clearance at the sides and, unlike bars like Sony’s Bravia Theater 9 or System 6, there’s no way to extend it. That makes it tough to set the bar down properly with all but the thinnest pedestal TV stands, which are becoming common even in cheap TVs. All that to say, there’s a good chance you’ll need to mount your TV to use the Heston.
Like the Sonos Arc Ultra, there’s no remote, meaning adjusting settings mainly relies on the Marshall app. The app is relatively stable, but it froze up during a firmware update for me, and it usually takes a while to connect when first opened. Those are minor quibbles, and your TV remote should serve as your main control for power and volume.
Wi-Fi connection unlocks music streaming via Google Cast, AirPlay, Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect, and internet radio stations, with Bluetooth 5.3 as a backup. Automated calibration tunes the sound to your room (complete with fun guitar tones), and in-app controls like a multi-band EQ provide more in-depth options than the physical knobs.
Premium Touch
Photograph: Ryan Waniata
The Heston 120’s sound profile impressed from the first video I switched on, which happened to be an episode of Bob’s Burgers. The bar immediately showcased a sense of clarity, openness, and overall definition that’s uncommon even from major players in the space.
One of my favorite new additions isn’t on the desktop app, though. NordVPN recently introduced scam call protection on Android, with an iOS version planned for the future. I’ve been using it for months, and it has easily flagged more than a hundred spam calls to my phone. It works a treat, even if it’s not one of NordVPN’s big advertised features.
Almost the Fastest VPN
NordVPN is fast. It’s not the fastest VPN I’ve tested—that’s Proton VPN—but that’s more of a rounding error than a notable difference in speed. Across five US locations, NordVPN dropped 15.32 percent of my unprotected speed on average. For context, Proton dropped 15.23 percent. Surfshark, which is also owned by Nord Security, dropped 18.84 percent, while Mullvad closed in on 24 percent.
So, NordVPN is fast, but more importantly, it’s consistent. Across the locations I tested, it never posted a slowdown of more than 20 percent, and in one location (Chicago), it only dropped a meager 6.6 percent of my unprotected speed. Overall, though, that 15 percent drop is a good representation of the speeds you can expect, at least in the US.
Speed testing with any VPN is tricky. There are a ton of factors that influence speeds beyond the server you’re connecting to. My speed testing—and any VPN speed testing, for that matter—is a snapshot in time. It provides insight into the kind of speeds you can expect on average, not a concrete number you should expect from every server at every time of day. To get the most accurate snapshot possible, I tested across five US locations at three different times of day over the course of a week. Before each test, I ran three passes of my unprotected speed to get an accurate comparison, and I threw out any results with a greater than 10 percent deviation between passes.
The best way to get around speed hurdles is to change servers, and NordVPN is solid on that front. It has around 7,400 servers, but the exact number is constantly changing. It maintains a database of its servers and locations, complete with details on the features those servers support and whether they’re virtual or physical servers.
NordVPN lives up to its monumental name. It still has a massive network, fast speeds, and a ton of features, and despite its infamous data breach, it has continued to double down on security measures. The main issue with Nord is the price. You can score a good deal on a two-year discount, but that price jumps up significantly when it comes time to renew. This is why I rank it slightly below Proton VPN, despite the two services going toe-to-toe on features and speeds. Proton Unlimited clocks in at the same monthly price as NordVPN Basic, and it comes with Proton Pass, Proton Mail, and a handful of other apps.
Breaking open the mouse requires only four screws: two covered by one of the mouse’s adhesive feet, and two underneath the removable puck. Covering two of the screws with an adhesive panel limits repairability, since it will slowly lose stickiness over time. After removing the screws, there are two plastic clips up front and two in the back that need to be released. Like any plastic clip, you risk breaking them during disassembly.
Inside the mouse is a single-sided printed circuit board that houses the sensor, micro switches, and the mouse wheel. The overall design is simple; with replacement parts and some soldering skills, repair should be straightforward. The battery is attached to a removable section on the top shell of the mouse using a rubbery adhesive. This adhesive panel stretches and sticks to itself when removed, making it nearly impossible to reuse with a new battery, but it leaves no residue on the actual plastic of the mouse. A new battery should be easy to install using double-sided tape.
The Cobra HyperSpeed’s simple internal design has nothing unnecessary, and no added confusion or failure points. While some other models, like the Logitech MX Master 4 or the Razer Basilisk 35K, boast a lot of premium features (with added complexity), it’s always refreshing to see something only as complex as it needs to be.
Alongside the $100 Cobra HyperSpeed, Razer also offers the $35 Cobra and the $130 Cobra Pro. Compared to the Pro model, the HyperSpeed’s slightly less responsive sensor and scaled-back RGB aren’t huge hits to performance or usability, and the HyperSpeed’s lower weight is a distinct advantage. Compared to the standard wired model, the addition of wireless is a major benefit to both performance and usability. The HyperSpeed’s optical scroll wheel is a definitive improvement over its siblings.
Overall, this mouse is a solid workhorse for gaming and general browsing. It’s fast, comfortable, and compact. The simple yet robust build will stand up to normal day-to-day use. While it doesn’t push the limits of performance or functionality like some of the more expensive esports-focused mice available today, the Cobra HyperSpeed is a great option for someone who doesn’t need cutting-edge specs but wants a mouse that gets things done.
On days with light use, I have 70 percent left by bedtime. When I spent more time on the phone, using it for music streaming, navigation, and Instagram Reels-ing, I often ended with around 60 or 50 percent. I’d leave it on my nightstand without bothering to plug it in, a refreshing change of pace. Over the course of two days, I hit an amazing 10.5 hours of screen-on time.
This might be the best battery life on a flagship smartphone today in the US, especially when you pair it with the incredibly fast recharge times. OnePlus remains one of the only companies to include a charger in the box—mostly because it’s the only way to take advantage of its SuperVooc fast-charging technology. I was able to ramp from 15 to 80 percent in 30 minutes (50 percent in 15 minutes). It’s hard to worry about a dead phone if you don’t mind keeping the bulky charger on your person (is a folding prong too much of an ask?).
But there’s always a compromise somewhere. If you’re a fan of wireless charging and are especially interested in Qi2 smartphones that use magnets (like Apple’s MagSafe) for more convenient and faster charging, you’ll be disappointed here. The OnePlus 15 supports wireless charging, but only the standard Qi technology. OnePlus is selling magnetic cases as a salve, but unlike Samsung’s current crop of top-end phones, this doesn’t even turn it into a Qi2 Ready phone. It will only charge at slow Qi wireless charging speeds. (You can buy OnePlus’ proprietary wireless charger to fast-charge, but that’s a separate purchase, and that wireless charger will only recharge select OnePlus devices quickly.)
The beefy battery and super-fast wired charging may outshine the lackluster wireless charging, but now it’s time to talk about the second most impressive feat of the OnePlus 15: performance.
Power Play
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
This is the first smartphone in the US to employ Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, a processor we’ll see in most high-end Android phones in 2026. The benchmark numbers are excellent. In a Geekbench 6 test, the OnePlus 15 is officially the first phone to pass 10,000 in multi-core CPU performance, even besting the iPhone 17 Pro Max. However, the iPhone still had a slight leg up in single-core performance (it’s also generally more efficient).
The 5,000-mAh battery is ample for most days, and the Nothing Phone (3a) Lite could maybe even last two days of light use. You’ll have to plug in when it runs low (there’s no wireless charging), and the rate tops out at 33 watts. That’s not bad, enabling you to go from zero to 80 percent in less than an hour. There’s 5G, Wi-Fi 6, and Bluetooth 5.3 support, but expect the battery to drain much faster on 5G networks.
Where the MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Pro chipset and 8 GB of RAM really struggled for me was the camera. On several occasions, it took seconds to open, and I had to reboot the phone at one point to get the camera app to load at all. I encountered occasional lag on opening and switching apps, but the camera performance was jarring because general use feels relatively slick for a budget phone.
It doesn’t help that the camera system is disappointing. The main 50-megapixel shooter is capable, if a little slow, with a large-ish 1/1.57-inch sensor and an f/1.8 aperture that handles a range of scenarios quite well. But the 8-megapixel ultrawide is poor, and the 2-megapixel macro is a complete waste of time. Comparing a close-up with the macro and the main camera (see the flower photos) shows how useless it is. There’s a 16-megapixel shooter around front that’s fine for selfies and video calls.
You’d think a design-led company like Nothing would be more calculated in adding features that only add value. If the ultrawide and macro are only going to offer lackluster results, cut them and stick with a single, solid primary camera.
I have personally owned LG-brand refrigerators for the past 15 years. When I bought my first refrigerator from LG (an acronym for “Life’s Good”), in 2011, the French door model was highly rated, and the combination of price and features was unmatched by other brands. In fact, I loved it so much I bought a second, identical one when I moved seven years later. Which is why I was dismayed when it suddenly stopped freezing earlier this year. “We get this call all the time,” the mechanic explained as he swapped out the apparently faulty compressor.
Sadly, he was not wrong. Even a cursory internet search brings up reams of damning evidence of LG’s history of faulty linear compressors. A class action lawsuit was settled in 2020 over the LG compressors in refrigerators manufactured between 2014 and 2017 (my second fridge was, unfortunately, within this range, and I was unaware of the lawsuit), but more were filed in subsequent years for fridges manufactured in 2018 and beyond, for both compressor issues and malfunctioning craft ice makers. It’s not a good look.
That said, LG sells hundreds of thousands of refrigerators a year—LG sales make up one-third of the appliance market, behind only Samsung, according to data platform OpenBrand—and other brands are on the hook for class action lawsuits as well. (In fact, Consumer Reports says that of all new refrigerators purchased since 2014, regardless of brand, 50 percent have experienced a problem.)
I decided to give LG another shot by testing one of its new Studio refrigerators, from the brand’s premium, designed-focused line that came out around 2015. Newer LG fridges have smart capabilities through LG’s ThinQ system, and, according to LG, a different linear compressor than my old model. The Studio Smart 3-Door French Door Refrigerator has been installed in my home kitchen for the past five months, where my family has been using it like any other fridge. There’s no denying it looks good both in person and on paper, but will it last?
Color Me Interested
Photograph: Kat Merck
I specifically settled on testing a Studio in LG’s proprietary Essence White, as I’ve noticed stainless steel is appearing less in high-end home builds and remodels. (If you’ve had any kind of stainless steel appliance, you know it’s a magnet for fingerprints and stains.) Cabinet-fronted SubZeros have always been de rigeur in custom luxury homes, but until recently, there haven’t been a whole lot of non-stainless options for what appliance manufacturers call the “mass premium” market, aside from retro-inspired designs by brands like Smeg and Big Chill. And in fact, the trend toward lighter woods and colored cabinetry paves the way for a more contemporary version of white, softer than the institutional tone of the ’80s and ’90s.
“Essence White is not a traditional stark white,” explained Dean Brindle, LG’s head of product management. “It’s not a blue-white that you traditionally see in white appliances. It’s a warmer white, so a little bit of yellow.”
Indeed, I can see it—the Essence White Studio is matte, almost glowy, with sharp edges and squared, bronze hardware. It wouldn’t look out of place among luxury European appliances like La Cornue or Bertazzoni. I’m into it. I have read complaints that the hardware looks gold in online promotional photos but is actually rose gold-ish, and this is true—the color is not how it appears in photos. It definitely wouldn’t be a direct match with gold hardware elsewhere in the kitchen. Brindle said the unusual hardware tone was deliberately matched to the fridge’s hue.
The OLED looks great, but one of the benefits of OLED is HDR in gaming, thanks to the incredible contrast from being able to turn off individual pixels. OLED isn’t known for being bright, but lately, that’s improved on laptops and external monitors. The OLED display on the Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 10, for example, can be cranked up to over 1,000 nits, creating an impressive HDR effect. The Razer Blade 14, however, only maxes out at 620 nits in HDR and 377 nits in SDR. Because of that, I could hardly tell HDR was even turned on. It’s still a pretty screen, and OLED has other benefits over IPS panels, including faster response times, less motion blur, and higher contrast.
Unfortunately, the Razer Blade 14’s OLED panel is not as colorful as the one I tested on the Razer Blade 16, with a color accuracy of 1.3 and 86 percent coverage of the AdobeRGB color space. Also, the 120-Hz refresh rate is standard for OLED laptops, but you can get 240-Hz speeds on laptops that use IPS, like the Alienware 16X Aurora, which happens to be a much cheaper device.
The Razer Blade 14’s biggest competition is the ROG Zephyrus G14. I haven’t tested the latest model yet, but it’s a laptop we’ve liked for years now, and it’s on sale often enough for less than the Blade 14. The only real difference is that the Blade 14 uses a more powerful AMD processor, the Ryzen AI 9 365. Not only does it perform better in anything CPU-intensive, such as certain games and creative applications, but it’s also a more efficient chip.
That leads to some improved battery life—at least, better than your average gaming laptop. I got 10 hours and 19 minutes in a local video playback test, which is about the most you can expect to get from the device. On the other hand, Asus offers higher-powered configurations of the Zephyrus G14, including one that includes the more powerful Ryzen AI 9 HX.
The RTX 5070 Takes Charge
Photograph: Luke Larsen
Bad news: The RAM is no longer user-upgradeable on the Razer Blade 14, so you’ll have to configure it up front with what you need. My review unit had 32 GB, but you can also choose either 16 GB or 64 GB. Because it’s soldered, the memory speeds are faster. As for internal storage, you still get one open M.2 slot to expand space if you need it, supporting up to 4 TB.
The Omni looks nice. It’s a step up from your average office chair design, with a bit of class and a design language on the backrest that resembles the spine-like look of the Herman Miller Embody. It comes in Midnight Black or Space Gray (creative names), and my unit is the latter. The company says the Omni can support people up to 300 pounds.
I don’t think I’ve sat on an office chair with softer padding than the Omni. The multi-density sponge cushion material of the seat and backrest is plush without feeling like you’re sinking in, because it isn’t super thick. It’s very comfortable, and the softness of the material is still what surprises me the most about the Omni after sitting on it for weeks.
It’ll be interesting to see how the fabric holds up after more than a year of use. So far, it still looks great after close to a month of sitting, though it likes to collect hair. It’s hard to gauge breathability as we’re now in the cooler months, but my back feels a little warm after a few hours on the chair. If you’re in a hot environment, you’ll likely feel sweaty. It’s not as bad as the vegan leather-covered foam on most gaming chairs, but it won’t offer the breathability of a true mesh.
The armrests aren’t much to write home about—you can move them up or down, forward and back, and angle them inward or outward. You can’t push them toward or away from your body like on the Embody, but this is standard for a chair at this price (which is $1,099 MSRP, though the company seems to have a persistent sale of $848). I appreciate that the arms don’t easily shift or slide around, which is a common problem with many chairs. The armrest itself isn’t too hard, and the material feels fairly durable.
A Battery-Powered Chair
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
The Bionic FlexFit Backrest is the Omni’s highlight, which uses the battery-powered ErgoPulse Motor System for configuration. It’s essentially a motorized way to ensure the backrest lines up perfectly against your back; no need to fiddle around with an awkward lumbar support. There are three buttons on the left armrest. The front two shift the backrest support up or down, and the third is a spinal massage function, which I’ll address later.
Aura has been trying for years to get us to mount its frames. The Aura’s first frame back in 2017, the Aura Classic, was wall-mountable, and then Aura’s latest frames, like the Aura Aspen, have had a flat, wall-mountable design. But the downside was the cord running below it for all of these models, which takes away from the clean gallery-wall design it’s otherwise well-suited for, and limits the locations it can be hung.
Now, with the Aura Ink’s truly cordless design, it’s possible to hang it without any cord clutter. The 13-inch screen makes it a little larger than the 12-inch Aura Aspen but smaller than the 15-inch Walden, and is a nice size for hanging. The Ink comes with a little mounting kit of two nails and a small hook that the digital frame clicks into, and it can easily click back off for charging (the charging port is on the side if your hanging spot is near an outlet). I was able to hang it on one of my existing pushpins without issue, and the frame easily blended into my existing gallery wall.
Overall, it’s an impressive feat of technology, though I wouldn’t call it perfect. I’d like to see the front light get a little brighter. It’s considerably more expensive than other digital photo frames, too. But as I look at it on my gallery wall, I have to say that if you didn’t already know it was digital, you’d likely have no idea. If you’re looking for a frame like that for your home, this is the one to get.
As I wore them on one of my walks through San Francisco, on the shore of Ocean Beach, I came upon a dolphin-like fish that had washed up on the sand. Though I got my camera glasses close enough to the thing that I could smell it, Meta’s AI assistant could not tell me what kind of animal it was. It correctly identified that it was very dead and that I should not touch it. It was then able to direct me to a number to call for city animal control services.
Beyond instances like that, I tend to avoid the AI voice interaction because I haven’t gotten to the point where it feels natural. Getting it to search something is usually very quick, but doing so requires you to stop dead in your tracks, stare directly at another person’s purse or something, and say out loud, “Hey Meta. HEY META. Is this bag Gucci?”
The glasses’ AI features are both its best asset and biggest weakness. Features like live language translation and whispered map directions are very helpful. But if you’ve spent any time curating the AI slop out of your Facebook feed lately, you’ll know that Meta just can’t help pack a firehose blast of AI features into everything it does.
The software features are funneled through the same app as Meta’s AI services. That’s where pictures and videos go by default, and sometimes you have to go into the app to import the files from the glasses. There’s a very clear problem with using the app: bad vibes.
The Vibes Are Off
When you go into the Meta AI app to look at the pictures or videos you’ve taken, the first thing you’ll see is Meta’s terrible new Vibes service. It’s a constant barrage of AI slop videos that Meta just one day foisted upon its app users. Vibes is akin to OpenAI’s dubious Sora app, but somehow even worse quality.
Granted, this is probably only the case for big people like me (6’ 4”, 255 pounds, and with very broad shoulders) and it might not even register for average-sized people. In fact, at 6’ 4”, I’m an inch too big for the XP4, at least according to the brand, which says the bike fits riders 4’ 10” to 6’ 3”. But that extra inch feels negligible, as, over my first 150 miles on the bike, my legs have yet to feel hemmed in by my saddle height.
Speaking of that saddle, the bike’s seat post features an integrated suspension coil, offering 40 mm of travel. While, in theory, some rear suspension is welcome, I felt as though, every time the coil compressed, it was actually my seat tube slipping down into the frame. It was a strange sensation and one I must admit that, some 200 miles into riding the bike, I haven’t quite gotten used to.
Something else I don’t love about the XP4 is its old-school, one-sided kickstand. A bike of this heft should feature a motor-scooter-style stand that retracts from beneath the bottom-bracket, giving even support to both sides of the machine. The one-sided kickstand, however, often finds itself (and me!) fighting gravity when I’m trying to lock the bike up on anything resembling an incline.
All told, those very few shortcomings are hardly enough to make me not love the XP4 750, as it’s smooth ride, extra-long range, handsome design, and litany of aftermarket add-ons make this a bike I would commute with for a long, long time.