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  • This Portable Music Player Sounds Great, Looks Boring

    This Portable Music Player Sounds Great, Looks Boring

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    Acclaimed portable audio brand Astell & Kern has engaged in what I’m going to call a “reverse Toyota.” The Japanese hero of affordable, reliable motoring wanted a piece of the premium automotive action, and so developed an entirely new luxury brand called Lexus. (Fun fact: The brand name stands for “Luxury Export US.”)

    Astell & Kern, having established itself as the planet’s leading purveyor of high-performance, high-bling, high-priced, high-resolution digital audio players, has developed Activo. It’s a subbrand that allows Astell & Kern to compete in those areas of the digital audio player market it has long since abandoned in its remorseless drive upward.

    Mind you, when you line up this P1 device against competitors from the likes of FiiO and Sony it doesn’t really seem all that affordable. Entry level is relative, and the P1 has been pitched into an area of the market that is, if anything, even more competitive than the rather rarefied areas Astell & Kern is contesting these days.

    But then it’s not as if the Activo P1 hasn’t been equipped to compete; a quick glance at its specifications is enough to confirm it has what it takes. Is it worth the extra cost for Astell & Kern lite? That depends on how much you care about looks.

    Photograph: Simon Lucas

    Great Converters

    The crucial digital-to-audio conversion of the P1 is taken care of by an ESS ES9219Q Sabre dual-DAC arrangement that’s able to handle digital audio files of up to 32-bit/384-kHz and DSD256 resolution. Amplification comes via the Astell & Kern Teraton Alpha system, which the company deems good enough for taking care of business in digital audio players costing 10 times as much as the Activo P1.

    An octacore processor promises a slick and responsive user experience, and the interface itself will be familiar enough to anyone familiar with Android devices. The inclusion of the Google Play store as an embedded app means it’s easy to add to the collection of music-playing apps (Apple Music, Qobuz, Spotify, and Tidal, as well as a dedicated Activo player). Sixty-four gigabytes of internal memory is low, but the SD card slot can expand that by as much as 1.5 TB if you supply your own card.

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    Simon Lucas

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  • LG’s Ultragear Ultrawide Gaming Monitor Has a Crazy Curve

    LG’s Ultragear Ultrawide Gaming Monitor Has a Crazy Curve

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    I’m really starting to like ultrawide monitors. I’m the kind of guy who usually prefers to work in full-screen mode to reduce distractions, and a 21:9 aspect ratio is a bit silly for that. But the LG Ultragear 34GS95QE monitor has been persuading me. It’s stylish and dramatic, but it took me a while to realize why this screen resonated.

    This Ultragear monitor has an 800R curvature. That number refers to the radius, in millimeters, of the circle the monitor’s curve conforms to, and let me tell you, 800R is a low number for ultrawide monitors. Like really low. That means this monitor is exceptionally curved. The MSI QD-OLED model I tested a while back had a much more subdued 1,800R curvature, which is a more common number for curved monitors.

    That made the LG Ultragear striking the moment I pulled it out of the box. The longer I used it, the more it just felt right. It’s not without its annoyances, but now that I’ve used such a curved OLED display, it’s hard to go back.

    Perfect Placement

    The LG Ultragear 34GS95QE achieves perfect black levels and striking contrast, which isn’t too surprising given its OLED panel. The 800R curve made it feel a little sharper than I was expecting. It took me forever to figure out why, but it’s because the sides of the monitor are physically closer to my eyes.

    Photograph: Eric Ravenscraft

    That might not sound like a huge deal, but consider how often you’re looking at something other than the center of your screen, especially while gaming. In Overwatch 2, one of my most-played games, the elimination feed is a crucial element that sits in the upper-right corner of the screen. Meanwhile, my health is on the bottom left, and my abilities are on the bottom right. Heck, almost all of the game’s HUD elements are in one of the four corners.

    It’s an extremely subtle change, but with curvature this stark, all those elements felt easier for my eyes to focus on. This is likely true in a literal sense, since my eyes are roughly the same distance from every part of the screen, something that’s not quite true of flat-panel displays. Making micro-readjustments in fast-paced games dozens of times a minute can wear on the eye muscles.

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    Eric Ravenscraft

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  • KitchenAid’s Evergreen Stand Mixer Deserves to Be Seen and Used

    KitchenAid’s Evergreen Stand Mixer Deserves to Be Seen and Used

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    The ubiquitous KitchenAid stand mixer—domestic icon, home cook must-have, subject of tattoos and even master’s theses—has rarely been controversial. Content to sleep tucked away within cabinets waiting to make cookies or birthday cakes, this century-old staple has garnered little public criticism for anything other than its price. (The standard 5-quart tilt-head Artisan costs $350; stand mixers from other brands run around $100.)

    That all changed with this year’s Design Series release: the Evergreen. Unveiled in September, this zhuzhed-up tilt-head Artisan model is an appealing matte army green with a brass attachment insert cover, 5-quart pure walnut bowl (sustainably certified by the European Union Timber Regulation), and three steel accessories: paddle, dough hook, and whip.

    It also costs $700—twice the price of a “standard” Artisan. Still, it’s hard to argue when KitchenAid has succeeded in making what might be the most attractive stand mixer of all time. And perhaps its most popular—KitchenAid says it sold out of its first run within a week.

    Photograph: Kat Merck

    Regardless, the negative headlines popped up faster than a batch of buttermilk biscuits. The Atlantic christened the Evergreen “the $700 kitchen tool that’s meant to be seen, not used.” Food & Wine said the wood bowl had divided their staff, and The Washington Post said bakers find the walnut bowl “perplexing at best, a gesture at aesthetics that renders the product useless.”

    The accompanying promotional video, featuring hikers and more than one instance of performative fern fondling, does little to dispel the opinion that this might be for people who don’t actually bake.

    It was not immediately clear, though, whether many of the critics had actually used the mixer. As a longtime home cook and baker who has helped line-edit and recipe-test for several bread-related cookbooks, including a James Beard award winner, I know my way around a KitchenAid mixer (and have used an Artisan model multiple times a week for more than 15 years). I also use unlined wooden bannetons regularly for proofing bread, as well as wooden spoons and wooden cutting boards on a daily basis, so the idea of a wooden mixing bowl isn’t exactly farfetched to me.

    For four weeks, I used the Evergreen as I would any other mixer, on a range of recipes—from meringues and cookies to bread and whipped cream—to see once and for all if the offending bowl is actually usable or if the Evergreen is, as other reviews have insinuated, simply a kitchen cosplay prop for the well-off.

    Hey Good Lookin’

    It didn’t take me long to find one problem: Unlike on the Artisan’s traditional stainless steel mixing bowl, the Evergreen’s wood bowl has no handle. However, in practice, this didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would, as I realized I’m really only ever using the handle to wrench the bowl off its base or to steady it when an especially difficult bread dough threatens to unseat it.

    Second, the bowl’s increased maintenance needs cannot go unmentioned. The mixer comes with a card that says to wash and dry the bowl immediately after use—in other words, no soaking off cookie dough in the sink overnight—and to regularly season the bowl with food-safe mineral oil, wood polish, or walnut oil.

    This raises another problem: Many baking recipes, like meringues and soufflés, require whipping egg whites to what’s called stiff peak stage, where a whisk dipped into the concoction and lifted leaves peaks that stand tall and do not flop over. This strength lends needed structure and body to baked goods, but stabilizing whipped egg whites is a notoriously finicky process, and any kind of fat, including oil, can prevent them from reaching this stage. (In fact, KitchenAid’s Evergreen FAQ explicitly says not to attempt “whipped egg creations” in the wood bowl.) Would the oiled walnut bowl really preclude Evergreen owners from making soufflés in their $700 mixer?

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    Kat Merck

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  • The Renault 5 EV Is an Instant Smash

    The Renault 5 EV Is an Instant Smash

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    Credit where it’s due, former Renault-Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn—the man who was later smuggled out of Japan in a double bass case—was quick to identify electrification as the key paradigm shift in the 21st-century car industry. Cue the cute Renault Zoe, forward-thinking in terms of design and propulsion, but perhaps too aloof to capture hearts and minds.

    The new Renault 5 EV is unashamedly nostalgic in look, mining a design trend that’s been around so long that retro is almost retro. Yet when you see it in the flesh for the first time resistance is futile. Here, surely, is the electric car that will demolish any lingering preconceptions, a surprisingly sophisticated conduit for all-round feel-good vibes that’s packed with big-car tech.

    Current Renault boss Luca de Meo is certainly bullish. “Some products are magical,” he notes. “You don’t have to hold endless discussions, everybody is always in agreement on what needs to be done. And they do it. There’s no inertia.”

    Courtesy of Renault

    As one of the masterminds of the noughties Fiat 500 revival, De Meo has solid instincts on this stuff. Even if you’d never driven one, you knew what the classic Cinquecento stood for. The same applies to the Renault 5: It arrived into an early ’70s world in which the Middle East was in convulsions, energy was suddenly scarce, and conspicuous consumption was unfashionable. Context matters, and this one has a distressingly familiar feel.

    Design Winks

    The new R5 aims to brighten your day via its candy colors, and an exterior and interior design that prompts an expertly executed Proustian rush. The silhouette might be familiar, but the new car has fuller proportions and imaginative postmodern touches galore.

    There’s a cheeky little four-corner graphic in the headlights that “winks” as you approach. The fog-lights below mimic that motif, while the vertical taillights are another echo of the original. They’re now designed for a degree of aerodynamic efficiency that would have boggled the minds of Renault’s engineers back in the day.

    The chunky wheel arches call to mind the mid-engined R5 rally car, and the new car’s roof can be had in a variety of treatments. It’s a five-door car but the rear door handles are cleverly hidden away. And the old car’s hood vent reappears here as a state-of-charge indicator. Each strip represents 20 percent of the available energy.

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    Jason Barlow

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  • Even Realities G1 Could Be the Smartest Smart Glasses Around

    Even Realities G1 Could Be the Smartest Smart Glasses Around

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    I’ve been wearing the Even Realities G1 glasses for four months, and while many people have commented on my new frames, only two friends asked if my glasses were “smart.” For someone who wore Google Glass in public and lived to tell the tale, this technological anonymity is high praise indeed. They look like glasses you might actually want to wear, and they don’t draw unnecessary attention to your (OK, my) face.

    But as Clark Kent accessed his superpowers after taking off his spectacles, inversely, this mild-mannered reporter benefits from real-time language translation, access to AI, turn-by-turn navigation, and a personal assistant, all by keeping his glasses on.

    Most smart glasses, like the Ray-Ban Meta, rely on Bluetooth audio, but the G1 features a small but brilliantly effective heads-up display called the Holistic Adaptive Optical System, or HAOS. Look carefully at the lenses and you’ll see a faint rectangle in each eye. This is where a micro-LED optical engine projector displays crisp, green digital text (640 x 200 pixels). Glance up (choose the angle via the app) and a seemingly two-foot-wide text homepage appears to float around five feet in front of you. Considering all this, it’s astonishingly clever given how light and, well, normal the frames feel.

    The digitally surfaced lens is actually two bonded lenses but manages to be no thicker or heavier than a standard design. Prescription lenses cost $129 extra and, aside from the occasional glimpse of the projector screen in bright sunshine, works as well as any glasses I’ve ever owned.

    Nestled on the end of each arm you’ll find two rubbery nodules. These contain the battery, buttons, and antennae that exchange real-time data with your phone over Bluetooth. They’re marginally heavier than standard glasses, but because the weight is kept away from the nose, they feel good. The frames are made from solid magnesium and have a cool matte finish, with the temples coated in silicon for added grip. Add in screwless hinges and a classic oval shape, and you’ve got a stylish proposition even before you charge them up.

    Photograph: Christopher Haslam

    The charging case is equally well designed and holds enough power to recharge the glasses 2.5 times. The 60-mAh battery in the glasses has enough power for 1.5 days.

    So, they’re nice glasses—but what do they actually do?

    Virtual Assistance

    The idea of the G1 is not to replace your smartphone but rather to offer a pared-back interface that gives you help and information when you need it, then vanishes when you don’t.

    After installing the app and syncing the glasses, when you glance up you will see a screen with the date, time, battery level, and upcoming diary dates (assuming you’ve given permissions). You can also receive messages and alerts from social and messaging apps. You can’t respond to any messages, though, which seems both odd and a shame given the onboard microphones and the transcription software used.

    The right side of the main display is for QuickNotes. If you pinch the small box on the right arm, a note will flash up saying “Quick Note Recording.” When you speak, your words will be saved and displayed on the screen when you next look up. If you mention a date, time, or place, the AI assistant will add it to your diary. It’s great if you are a fan of voice notes. I’m not, but as someone who meets new people all the time but remains terrible at remembering names, I loved being able to have names, and even job titles, on display, for my eyes only.

    Translation

    Open up the Translate box on the Even Realities app, choose from one of 13 languages (including Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean), decide what language you’d like things translated into (in this case English), and press Engage. If someone then speaks to you in that language, the G1 glasses will listen, translate, and write the words on your HUD.

    Annoyingly, however, it’s no Babelfish. With one-on-one conversations it worked OK, and I enjoyed understanding my wife’s rusty Spanish. Similarly, I had success rewatching Squid Game without subtitles. But without someone wearing their own pair and translating my English, it is one-way traffic.

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    Chris Haslam

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  • The Trek Slash+ 9.7 SLX/XT Electric Mountain Bike Is Oh So Quiet

    The Trek Slash+ 9.7 SLX/XT Electric Mountain Bike Is Oh So Quiet

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    To take up the slack, Trek routed the chain through not one but two idler pulleys. The result looks a little like a three-ring circus near the chain ring, but that added idler pulley allows the derailleur to do what it’s supposed to do, which is keep the bike shifting well.

    Love at First Ride

    I loved this bike off the bat because it felt nimble and fast and gave me the confidence to sail over a few steep lines that I normally avoid. On trail, I never felt the need to ride beyond level-two power, even on climbs, which added to its acoustic feel. The only place I could have used more of a boost was when riding home straight uphill on city street with a 13 percent grade.

    Photograph: Stephanie Pearson

    After multiple subsequent tests, I felt the same joy with one caveat: There was a consistent and nagging rattle that sounded like a loose wheel, but I could never isolate the source of the noise, which likely indicates that it was internal and perhaps coming from the battery or a cable rattling in the downtube.

    To give the Slash+ a more robust test, I passed it on to Samuel Hayden, a former collegiate gravity rider at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. After a 20-mile ride in mostly turbo mode on the double blacks of Piedmont (stuff I never ride), Hayden returned with a huge grin and with more than 65 percent battery power left in the tank.

    On its weight and handling, Hayden reported that the Slash+ melded substantial power with a surprising lightweight build, noting it had a solid and reassuring connection with the trail and maintained stable flight during jumps.

    His only major gripe? The 9.7 lacks a SRAM transmission, which tends to be more reliable for e-MTBs. But that problem is easily solvable, if you have an extra $4,000 on hand, by upgrading to the Slash+ 9.9 XO AXS T-Type.

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    Stephanie Pearson

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  • Review: A rap trio fights the power in Gaelic

    Review: A rap trio fights the power in Gaelic

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    Belfast rapper Móglaí Bap was baptized under the searchlight of a British military helicopter. That’s how the movie Kneecap, a semi-dramatized biopic about the Gaelic rap group of the same name, begins. Bap’s father tells the young boy that “every word of Irish spoken is a bullet fired for Irish freedom,” and the movie initially seems like it will play that theme straight.

    The rappers use their language to outwit and snub British authority in Northern Ireland—or “the occupied six counties,” as they call it. Detective Ellis, a policewoman out to silence the rappers, makes the perfect villain. Even the name Kneecap is a reference to Irish guerrillas punishing enemies with a shot to the knee.

    As their music gains popularity, Kneecap finds a new enemy. Irish nationalist prudes think that songs about “antisocial behavior” give Gaelic a bad name. Washed-up Irish Republican Army guerrillas, rebranded as antidrug crusaders, threaten to kneecap the members of Kneecap for promoting ecstasy and hallucinogens.

    Meanwhile, sound mixer DJ Próvaí has to hide his role from his girlfriend, a pro-Gaelic activist who can’t afford any political scandals, and from the stodgy Catholic school where he teaches music. Kneecap shows how liberation is a two-front battle: The state may be the most heavily armed threat to freedom, but it’s not the only one.

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    Matthew Petti

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  • The Soundpeats Capsule3 Pro+ Solid State Earbuds Are Amazing

    The Soundpeats Capsule3 Pro+ Solid State Earbuds Are Amazing

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    If you’re willing to spend more than $100, great headphones abound. Once Apple breached the wireless earbud dam with its initial AirPod model, excellent-sounding buds with noise-canceling, great mics, and high-fidelity sound have flooded the market. Put a list of name brands on a board, throw a dart, and buy the pair it makes that’s closest to $150. You’ll probably find something that’s reasonably good.

    That’s why I’m so impressed with a new pair of headphones from relative newcomer Soundpeats, the Capsule3 Pro+. The name might be a mouthful, but for $90 retail, these earbuds offer adaptive noise canceling and high-resolution audio via a pair of drivers, including one dynamic piston for bass and one groundbreaking solid-state driver for everything else.

    The combination of a tried and true AirPods-style design and modern technology inside the buds makes them my favorite cheap earbuds right now, and possibly of all time. I have never heard a pair that sounds this good for this cheap. The Soundpeats Capsule3 Pro+ wipe the floor with most—not just many—more expensive models.

    Standard Looks

    Elon Musk would call these “Dark AirPods Pro,” and he’d be frustratingly right. A black AirPods Pro imitation case is perfectly paired with two black-and-gold AirPods Pro imitation headphones, right down to the little gold hinge on the back of the buds’ case. (It’s silver on the Apple model it imitates.)

    Photograph: Parker Hall

    The benefit of such blatant design reproduction is that the buds are sleek and comfortable in my ears, just like the version that’s “designed in California.” The black colorway actually makes them more discreet in public.

    I didn’t have any trouble getting a good seal in my ears, thanks to three sizes of included silicone eartips. Anyone with any experience fitting AirPods or other earbuds in their ears should have similar luck.

    Setup and pairing are as instant as you can expect of any modern earbuds. I just scrolled to find them on my Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra’s Bluetooth menu and they immediately connected.

    Amazing Audio

    The real belle of the ball is inside these otherwise bland buds. A dynamic driver works alongside a solid state xMEMS driver and Sony’s LDAC high-resolution audio codec to create some of the most lifelike audio I’ve heard from a pair of earbuds, and easily the best sound I’ve ever heard this side of $100.

    Solid-state drivers don’t have the same range of physical motion as piston-like dynamic drivers, like the ones you’re used to seeing in speakers. That means the phase and speed at which the solid-state drivers can respond is superior, which in turn gets you huge separation between instruments and the ability to really hear each sound when you focus on it. xMEMs drivers can react faster across the frequency spectrum, so you get essentially the clearest possible view into what the artist wanted you to hear.

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    Parker Hall

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  • You Need a Shark Stick Vacuum With a Self-Emptying Bin

    You Need a Shark Stick Vacuum With a Self-Emptying Bin

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    When my husband first saw me vacuuming with the Shark stick vacuum, he asked me dubiously, “Is that a Dyson?” The British company has become so synonymous with cordless stick vacuums that it just didn’t seem possible that we wouldn’t have one. It’s like buying the generic brand Q-Tips. Who does that? Even the Shark’s color scheme deliberately echoes Dyson’s.

    I’ve been testing Shark’s latest cordless stick vacuum for a month in order to answer my husband’s, and also your, question: No, the Shark isn’t a Dyson. Overall, the engineering and attention to detail that makes the Dyson the best premium vacuum isn’t quite there. The display isn’t as nice. The build quality isn’t as solid. I do have to regularly unclog one section of the vacuum tube with a chopstick.

    But does it keep my house sparkling clean? Does it have a bunch of things that most Dyson vacuums don’t? And does it have all the functionality that you need, and more, for a quarter of the price? Also yes. This vacuum is absolutely worth it—”it” being not very many dollars.

    A Place to Land

    As you can see, the Shark vacuum is comparable in dimensions to the Dyson V15s Detect Submarine, which is the Dyson I currently have. The Shark is just a few inches shorter, but overall it takes up more space because it comes with a freestanding cleaning station. I loved this cleaning station. While every Dyson does come with a mount that you can easily screw into a wall, I’ve had a hard time finding just the right place in my house that’s also near a working electrical outlet.

    If you’re not inclined to rewire your laundry room, a freestanding docking station makes it much easier to plug and go. It’s also a convenient place to store the extra vacuum accessories, like the different cleaning heads—the Shark comes with a crevice tool and a small pet multi-tool head for getting into hard-to-reach places.

    I also particularly like that it has a 2-liter self-emptying bin in the base. One of the most inconvenient parts of the Dyson design is how you have to unlatch the tube to empty the bagless bin from the bottom. You have to stick your beautiful, premium vacuum in your filthy, possibly damp garbage bin and knock it around, getting it dirty and knocking dust and dog hair everywhere.

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    Adrienne So

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  • Apple’s Latest iPad Mini Is a Small but Future-Proofed Update for the AI Future

    Apple’s Latest iPad Mini Is a Small but Future-Proofed Update for the AI Future

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    I like the Pencil Pro mainly for its new “squeeze” capability that triggers the tool palette. It feels more intuitive than double-tap, especially while quickly jotting notes down. It also has a built-in gyroscope sensor, which lets you change the orientation of the tools as you twist them, giving you finer control. You could save some cash and get the Apple Pencil USB-C instead, which the iPad Mini also supports, but that model skips many important features like wireless charging, pressure sensitivity, double-tap, and squeeze.

    The Pencil Pro often dips to $95 on Amazon, so the $26 difference is easily worth it. But it bears repeating: Would it have killed Apple to maintain second-gen Apple Pencil support?

    Snappy and Smart(ish)

    Powering the iPad Mini is the A17 Pro, nearly the same processor as the one in the iPhone 15 Pro. Nearly. The chip inside the iPhone 15 Pro has a six-core CPU and six-core GPU, whereas the iPad Mini has a six-core CPU and five-core GPU. That means a small hit to graphics performance, but in reality, you’ll likely never notice this unless you’re playing the most graphically demanding games.

    Not too long ago, I started reusing the older 2021 Mini (I needed a small tablet to watch TV on during a hospital stay with a family member), and honestly, I haven’t noticed a big leap in performance with the 2024 model—at least, with the everyday tasks most people are using these tablets for. I’ve used the seventh-gen Mini for note-taking, streaming Gilmore Girls in the background throughout the workday, checking emails when I don’t feel like grabbing my laptop, reading an ebook on the Kindle app, and watching YouTube videos. It can handle all of these tasks with ease.

    Photograph: Brenda Stolyar

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    Brenda Stolyar

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  • GoPro’s Hero 13 Black Sets the Stage for an Upgrade-Worthy Successor

    GoPro’s Hero 13 Black Sets the Stage for an Upgrade-Worthy Successor

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    GoPro has a few tricks here and there worth mentioning, though. As someone who likes to handle color grading in postproduction software, the new, improved Log video support is very welcome. I would go so far as to say this is the best Log profile I’ve seen in an action camera. The Hero 13 Black also has a new slow-motion burst mode which can record 5.3K footage at 120 frames per second. It pulls that off for only five seconds, though, so this is best used for situations like your kid going off a jump on their bike or diving in the pool—quick moments you want to slow down later.

    Another big video improvement is HDR support and hybrid log-gamma (HLG) HDR video. The Hero 12’s HDR support was not great, but HLG HDR is a widely used open source HDR format that offers much better compatibility with non-wide-color-gamut displays. The footage also looks much better than the previous version.

    I said above that the Hero 13 is the same size, which is true on the outside, but internally that’s not the case. GoPro has enlarged the battery compartment to fit a bigger battery that the company claims will last 10 percent longer than the Hero 12’s battery. I found this to be roughly true. Shooting a 4K video with the Hero 13, I consistently coaxed it for about an hour and 45 minutes, sometimes up over the 1:50 mark if there was more ventilation (riding a bike for example).

    GoPro Hero 13 Black: Ultra Wide Lens

    Photograph: Scott Gilbertson

    The GoPro Hero 13 Black a small camera with a digital screen on the left and a circular lens on the right

    GoPro Hero 13 Black: Macro Lens

    Photograph: Scott Gilbertson

    The opposite was also true. Shooting through the window of a vehicle for instance, with almost no ventilation, saw recording time go down to around an hour. I have not had a chance to test it in cold weather, but GoPro claims improvements there too. Overall that’s about 15 to 20 minutes longer across the board than I generally get with the Hero 12, which is great, but it’s well behind the new DJI Action 5 Pro, which had no trouble running well over 2 hours and 30 minutes in the 4K test. The Hero still has the worst battery life in the action camera market and the new battery, while improved, also means your old batteries won’t work, adding a sizable cost to those looking to upgrade.

    One interesting battery-related addition to the Hero 13 Black is the new magnetic charge door, which GoPro calls Contacto. It’s a USB-C pass-through door with a magnetic charger on the outside, allowing you to power the GoPro using an external battery without keeping the battery door off. There have long been USB-C pass-through doors available from third-party sellers, but this is the only one I’m aware of that’s waterproof, which means if you forget you have it on and jump in the ocean, you won’t fry your GoPro.

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    Scott Gilbertson

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  • This Vizio Soundbar Offers Cheap, Quality Surround Sound

    This Vizio Soundbar Offers Cheap, Quality Surround Sound

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    It shouldn’t be this cheap to thoroughly enjoy the sound of John Wick as he breaks a real-life NBA player’s neck with a book. Yet for around $200 (a penny less if on sale), you can get a 5.1 soundbar system from Vizio that lets you hear the subtle crack of his vertebrae as a mildly stabbed Keanu Reeves twists his leather-bound enemy just so, in the intro to the franchise’s third installment.

    This kind of immersion used to cost you hundreds more, if not thousands. Now, just plug in a single HDMI cable to an eARC port of a chosen screen (or in my case, the 130-inch Hisense laser projector I’m also testing) and you can be drawn further into the action than you possibly could with a single central soundbar.

    As long as you’re ok with a few stray wires from the surround speakers to the subwoofer, it’s as easy as setting this system up, plugging it in, and enjoying your favorite content with new immersion. Been on the fence about getting a soundbar because you’re saving up for a full-blown home theater? Start here and you’ll buy yourself a long time to upgrade.

    You’re Surrounded

    A slim, nondescript main soundbar that’s 33 inches long pairs with small wired surround speakers and a wireless subwoofer to create this 5.1 system. The only aftermarket thing you might need is a pair of stands for the rear speakers, unless you plan to mount them to the wall (it has included mounting holes for this).

    One benefit that is exclusive to those who have Vizio TVs is the quick fit system, which allows you to pop this bar easily onto the bottom of compatible late-model Vizio TVs. This makes this bar a particularly good choice if you are also considering a TV like the latest Vizio 4K model we just reviewed (7/10, WIRED Recommends).

    Photograph: Parker Hall

    The main downside to this system, and the reason why it costs significantly less than other options I’ve tested that produce sound of this quality, is those wires. They’re about 20 feet long, which is long enough to work in most average living rooms or apartments, but having to route cables is much more annoying than wireless systems.

    Once you get it set up, it’s as easy as plugging in a single HDMI cable from the main bar to your TV, at which time the magic of eARC takes over and you can use the bar to your heart’s content. As long as your TV is new enough to have ARC or eARC, you can use your TV remote (or in my case, a TV and then laser projector remote) to adjust the volume of the soundbar without having to touch the Vizio remote that’s included.

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    Parker Hall

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  • Elehear’s New Beyond Hearing Aids Will Make Your Ears Feel Elephant-Sized

    Elehear’s New Beyond Hearing Aids Will Make Your Ears Feel Elephant-Sized

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    My first encounter with Elehear, an over-the-counter hearing aid brand, earlier this year was positive. The company’s Alpha Pro hearing aids are traditional behind-the-ear devices designed for users with mild hearing loss. They come with an online audiologist session to help new users get up to speed and a “remote sound” feature that lets you drop your phone in front of an audio source and have it piped directly to the hearing aids. At $459, they’re solidly priced and were good enough to earn a runner-up spot on my Best Hearing Aids guide.

    Now the company is back with a follow-up: the Elehear Beyond. Outfitted with a larger operational frequency range, better noise cancelation, and a tinnitus mode, on paper the Beyond aids look like everything you get with the Alpha Pro and more. Unfortunately, as I discovered after a few weeks of testing, more doesn’t always mean better.

    Photograph: Christopher Null

    Let’s start with the hardware because it’s a big change, and I mean that literally. Elehear’s Alpha Pro hearing aids, weighing about 4 grams, aren’t exactly tiny, but the Beyond aids are even bigger. At 4.75 grams each, they’re nearly double the weight of Jabra’s 2.56-gram Enhance Select 500 aids, though both have a traditional behind-the-ear (BTE) design. I was taken aback by the size from the moment I unboxed them, and even more so after I looked in the mirror. There’s no hiding these gargantuan teardrops—they caused my ears to visibly stick out from the side of my head.

    But let’s say you’re not as vain as me. What about the audio quality? Here, the Beyond aids didn’t overly impress me either. From the moment I put them on, these hearing aids exhibited a noticeable level of background noise, audible even at fairly low amplification levels. It’s better described as closer to a rattle than a hiss, a bit like an old desk fan nearby that’s grinding on bare metal as it spins.

    Screenshot from the Elehear Beyond Hearing Aids app to control settings such as speech enhancement and volume

    Photograph: Christopher Null via Elehear app

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    Christopher Null

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  • The Predator-Proof Chicken Coop That Makes Backyard Farming a Cinch

    The Predator-Proof Chicken Coop That Makes Backyard Farming a Cinch

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    And the wheels, attached to a piece that acts as a lever and tilts the coop at an angle, allow for chicken tenders like me to ask my husband to easily reposition the henhouse at any time—which is likely welcome news for those who free-range their flock on grass and regularly need fresh pasture for the girls to scratch. The wheels make moving the coop easy in comparison to coops without wheels; I just couldn’t muscle it myself.

    At the time we introduced our flock to the Eglu Pro, the Phoenix area was experiencing what seemed like unending heat, setting a new record of 117 degrees Fahrenheit in late September. In that kind of heat, any type of coop is going to be toasty, so we’re well-practiced at making sure the girls have water to splash in and shade to tuck under.

    While the Eglu Pro coop incorporates twin-wall insulation, utilizes UV-stabilized polyethylene, and was designed to allow for cross-flow ventilation, we wanted to further mitigate heat-related discomfort. What I loved about the coop’s design is it gave us the option to remove a back panel from the roosting area to allow for additional airflow to keep the girls as cool as possible.

    A hot breeze was better than no breeze, we figured.

    In a more rural setting, with more active predators, this might be frowned upon. We do live in a state that is home to coyotes, after all. But our coop is positioned inside a fenced garden area, kept securely separated from our pack of three blue heelers and a single border collie. It’s clear, though, that the Eglu Pro was designed with protection in mind.

    If you’re the type to close up your coop at night, a single swinging panel acts as a door at the top of the ladder. And the door to access the nesting box has a push-and-turn application to its knob, offering extra security. A fogged panel allows daylight to enter come morning, and an app-based, smart-door feature allows you to control security and set a wake-up call. These smart features are an upgrade to the basic set we received.

    Taking It Easy

    Backyard chickens, like any bird, make a mess. But we found that cleaning that mess is insanely easy with the Eglu Pro’s design. Sliding panels beneath the nesting boxes and the roost are super easy to remove, spray off, and slide right back in. It takes minutes.

    Cleaning our previous coop, made with wood and metal, was a chore no one wanted to do. And using a hose was out of the question. Also, our current boss chicken likes to hang out on the coop’s roof at night, so we love that we’re able to easily spray away any evidence of her moonlit escapades.

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    Lisa Abelar

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  • The MSI Vision Elite Gaming PC Is a Sight to Behold

    The MSI Vision Elite Gaming PC Is a Sight to Behold

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    If the MSI Vision Elite RS could walk, it would walk into every room like it owned the place. It’s got attitude, it’s got flair, and it’s got the horsepower to back it up. It’s also got a price to match. If you’re looking for a desktop gaming PC to last for years, but still leave room for upgrades, this one is a strong contender.

    The Vision Elite boasts powerful hardware, but a spec sheet doesn’t tell the full story. This desktop’s gorgeous curved glass panel houses a spacious interior, lit up with a cornucopia of RGB LEDs. While there are other curved glass cases on the market, most either use multiple glass panels to achieve the effect or add distracting button panels. MSI’s approach is minimalist, drawing focus directly to the internals. It’s not just a desktop. It’s a statement piece.

    Photograph: Eric Ravenscraft

    Under the hood, the unit I tested comes with an Intel Core i9 14900KF CPU, 64 GB of DDR5 RAM, and the beastly Nvidia RTX 4090 graphics card. In terms of storage, there’s a 2-terabyte M.2 NVMe solid-state drive, with an extra slot for another M.2 SSD, plus four SATA 6G ports, giving you plenty of options to expand storage in the future.

    As someone who’s been upgrading the same PC for 20 years, this thing ticks all my boxes for a prebuilt gaming PC. It’s powerful out of the box, has style that’s hard to replicate with off-the-shelf parts, and plenty of room to grow over the years.

    Flourish and Flair

    As soon as I turn on the Vision Elite RS, it commands attention from anyone in the room. The curved glass panel encompasses two sides of the PC, giving it almost an aquarium look. I half-expected to see exotic fish swimming around inside this thing. The striking RGB LEDs are crammed into every corner of the rig, with two rows of three RGB-laced fans along the side and top of the device, with a seventh light-up fan on the rear. The CPU uses a 360-millimeter liquid cooling system, but these fans still help ensure the system stays cool.

    All the RGB lighting is a bit much. I wouldn’t recommend putting this thing in any room where people are likely to sleep or want to relax and watch TV unless you switch the lighting off. However, with a little tweaking to turn down the impact, it’s easily one of the most eye-catching PCs I’ve ever used.

    It’s slick, eschewing the angular, edgy Gamer Aesthetic, and its open design makes it feel like it takes up less space than it does. This is particularly helpful since the Vision Elite RS is huge. At nearly 50 pounds, it’s a monster to lug around, so wherever you put it in your home, you’re probably going to want it to stay there.

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    Eric Ravenscraft

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  • On’s Spray-On Shoes Promise More Bounces for Less Ounces

    On’s Spray-On Shoes Promise More Bounces for Less Ounces

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    I tore the top of the Strike LS because I was wearing a slightly thicker pair of socks than normal and was struggling to put them on. I had my toes in, and in the attempt to get the rest of my foot in there, I pushed a little too hard while holding the sprayed-on membrane. The bit I was holding tore. It was the fourth time I’d ever put them on. Oops.

    It is generally not a good sign when a product breaks after four uses, especially not when that product costs more than $330. (That’s roughly $82 per run.) But I should note that even after that, I have run in the CloudBoom Strikes for about two months and put more than 100 cumulative miles on them. In all that time and wear, that little tear is basically the exact same size. The bioplastic holds its form and hasn’t ripped further or affected the fit when I run in them. A rip isn’t ideal, and perhaps something bigger might have caused real problems, but in my experience On’s material holds. It just means I felt the need to be a lot more careful putting them on than with normie shoes.

    Companies have certainly been pushing this laceless shoe thing. For instance, Nike’s $350 self-lacing Adapt BB could be controlled by an app that has since been shut down. The question, really, is whether the extra 15 seconds you save every day by not tying your laces warrants the extra cost and careful attention.

    Elite Athletes Only

    The CloudBoom Strike LS are very, very good shoes. They are cool, comfy, and also technical marvels, and all that visionary scientific endeavor is laudable. (Go watch that video again. It’s neat!) Their potential environmental impact is worth remarking on, too. You can probably find more environmentally friendly running shoes, like those made from algae, but On’s additive process for constructing these kicks has the potential to be much more efficient than standard shoe manufacturing—no leftover fabric scraps to toss in the trash.

    Photograph: Boone Ashworth

    Running in the CloudBoom Strikes is magnificent. They’re lighter than any shoe I’ve worn before, even many barefoot shoes, and they feel so squishy that I can almost fool myself into thinking I’m bouncing in my moon boots. But you know what else makes me feel like that? Other On shoes, and ones that cost considerably less money. If you’re not an elite marathoner for whom every ounce counts, you get just as much squishiness out of On’s Cloud Monster, which, at $180, are nearly half the price of the sprayed-Ons. As a bonus, you don’t have to treat them like delicate sponge cakes when you’re shoving them on to head out on your run.

    But boy, if you aren’t worried about the cost, you’ll enjoy these lightweight future shoes. They’re the lightest shoe you’re going to get with the amount of cushion they offer. Once you get them wiggled on, you’re going to have a hard time wanting to ever take them off.

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    Boone Ashworth

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  • Lenovo’s Windows and Android Hybrid Is Impressive but Egregiously Expensive

    Lenovo’s Windows and Android Hybrid Is Impressive but Egregiously Expensive

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    Windows 2-in-1s have been doing the tablet-laptop hybrid thing for a while now, but the tablet part of that equation always feels lacking. While iPads and Android tablets have refined the experience for more than a decade and have vast ecosystems of tablet-optimized apps at the ready, Windows remains a bit of an ugly duckling.

    But what if you combined a Windows laptop with a full Android tablet? That’s the idea behind the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus (Gen 5), and it’s an interesting beast.

    The closest analogue to the ThinkBook Plus (Gen 5) is Microsoft’s now-dead Surface Book line but without the need to split shared hardware between the screen and the base. Instead, the ThinkBook packs all of its laptop internals into the keyboard base and the separate tablet hardware in the display. What you end up with is a laptop that can instantly (well, nearly instantly) switch between Windows and Android at the press of a button, or operate separately when you detach the screen.

    Photograph: Daniel Thorp-Lancaster

    The hardware is no slouch either. My review unit Lenovo has an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor, 32 GB of RAM, and a 1-terabyte solid-state drive for storage. The tablet portion of the machine includes a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset (the flagship Android processor from 2022), 12 GB of RAM, and 256 GB of storage. Those are fairly beefy specs on both ends of the equation and help keep the ThinkBook Plus (Gen 5) feeling snappy with both Windows and Android.

    As you’d expect from a $3,500 machine, the build quality of this ThinkBook Plus is exceptional, with an all-metal chassis that feels like it can survive being run over by a pickup truck (please don’t do that). It features a 2,880 x 1,800-pixel-resolution 14-inch OLED touchscreen display that looks as good as you can get in a premium laptop. Combined with a set of robust speakers tuned by Harman Kardon, you have a great overall media experience.

    Front view of Lenovo ThinkBook Plus a tablet and keyboard combination with the tablet sitting on an easel and the...

    Photograph: Daniel Thorp-Lancaster

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    Daniel Thorp-Lancaster

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  • Sony’s New Linkbuds Open Have More Bass and Better Battery

    Sony’s New Linkbuds Open Have More Bass and Better Battery

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    Even after I got the fit right, I noticed a darker, fuzzier sound signature than what I experienced in the original pair. This seems to be by design, as one of the main complaints before was a lack of bass, something with which nearly all open earbuds struggle. The new buds add some more punch down low, but it comes at the cost of clarity and presence in the midrange and treble.

    Luckily, Sony’s Sound Connect app provides a capable EQ, and after some tinkering with the Excitement preset, including lowering the Clear Bass feature and raising the midrange a notch or two, I was able to squeeze out more crispness in instrumental attacks for everything from snares and guitars to vocals and horns. I still never got things as clear or vibrant as Bose’s pair, but at $100 less, that’s not all that surprising, and I think Sony gets the win for bass.

    Open Season

    You’re not really buying open earbuds for their sound quality, especially if you’re a picky audiophile like me. They’re much more about melding the vibes of your two realities: blasting podcasts or your favorite ‘80s playlist while keeping in touch with the world (and other humans). WIRED editor Adrienne So loves open earbuds for the gym or other public places where she feels more assured no one is sneaking up on her.

    They’re also great for situations where regular buds simply don’t cut it. Like my beloved Bose Frames or the Ray-Ban Meta audio sunglasses, the Linkbuds are great for staying safe while cruising on your bike or ebike on a crisp fall day, where the wind shear would naturally overwhelm the tiny microphones in traditional buds using transparency mode.

    I was also genuinely amazed at how well the Linkbuds Open suppressed exterior sounds during calls. On a recent chat with my mom, I could barely hear my own voice as I rolled the dumpsters in from the street, but she hardly noticed the bellowing of the plastic tires covering my voice–and she always lets me know when I’m too loud.

    If I could only afford one pair, I’d still choose more rounded earbuds that can snuff out or let in the ambient world with noise canceling or transparency mode respectively, like Apple’s excellent AirPods Pro (8/10, WIRED Recommends). I’d also consider the cheaper original Linkbuds, though the battery life is more limiting. Otherwise, if you’re looking for a pair that keeps you naturally present in virtually any scenario, and you don’t mind all the chaos that comes with it, the Linkbuds Open are a solid new option in this still-evolving segment.

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    Ryan Waniata

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  • Fellow’s Aiden Precision Coffee Maker Is Feature-Rich but Not Overengineered

    Fellow’s Aiden Precision Coffee Maker Is Feature-Rich but Not Overengineered

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    Coffee requires only two ingredients to be made at home, yet the industry surrounding the world’s favorite beverage has been hell-bent on making things as complicated as possible for decades. An endless barrage of sexy gadgets promises to optimize every step of the process, and yet to many consumers, the finished product ends up tasting remarkably similar.

    No shade to the people who maximize their morning ritual with aesthetically pleasing trinkets like a $2,650 coffee grinder or a $208 electric kettle, but the fact that McDonald’s sells 8 million cups of coffee a day speaks to an unavoidable truth: Most people just want to get the coffee in their body with as little fuss as possible.

    Given the tension between a quality cup and the time and effort spent brewing it, a coffee machine’s ability to brew delicious coffee with as little friction as possible should be the primary yardstick of greatness. The Fellow Aiden drip coffee machine has plenty of esoteric bells and whistles to tickle the fancy of design-minded coffee geeks, but it also makes really good coffee with minimal hassle. You could replace your dad’s grimy old Mr. Coffee with this handsome 9 x 9 x 12-inch black cube and he probably wouldn’t complain for more than five minutes, which says a lot about its user-friendly interface and ease of use.

    Photograph: Pete Cottell

    Keeping It Simple

    Fellow offers an app to accompany the Aiden, but you don’t need it to start brewing. Smart devices have been elbowing their way into kitchens for a decade now, to wildly varied results. Preheating your oven from the grocery store parking lot is pretty cool and useful, but do you really need a smart blender? And how much time is really saved in the end when countless hours are lost to troubleshooting smart home connections, thumbing through settings, and downloading clunky apps—many of which ask to track your location and force you to check a box on a terms-of-use page that includes questionable arbitration clauses? Is all this really necessary for a batch of muffins or a cup of coffee?

    One could easily get lost in the weeds dialing in settings like roast type, elevation, or presets for beans from iconic roasters like Onyx and Verve, but it’s just as easy to skip all that and start brewing. To test this theory, I attempted to brew a cup of coffee without reading the manual or connecting to the proprietary app. This took me about eight minutes, which is a remarkable feat considering how the Aiden’s “smartness” was a focal point of its prerelease press.

    After rinsing the pot and the water reservoir, I turned the single black knob to “wake up” the machine and scan its menu on the vibrant LED screen. I selected “Guided Brew,” dialed in how many ounces of coffee I wanted, popped in the corresponding color-coded brew basket, set the water dial above to match, added the recommended dose of grounds, hit Start, and that was that. Eight ounces of 200-degree-Fahrenheit perfection in about three minutes.

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    Pete Cottell

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  • Laura Dern Meets Cute With a Hemsworth in ‘Lonely Planet’

    Laura Dern Meets Cute With a Hemsworth in ‘Lonely Planet’

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    There’s an old Irish blessing that goes something like this: May you go on a free trip to Morocco and fall in love with a Hemsworth. Until it comes true for us all, we’ll have to live vicariously through Laura Dern in the new film Lonely Planet (Netflix, October 11). Dern plays novelist Katherine, who is invited to a retreat at a gorgeous estate in the Atlas Mountains. She hopes to shake off her writer’s block there—but instead (or also), she meets a young private equity hunk named Owen (Liam Hemsworth).

    The private equity thing does reduce his hunkiness significantly; in the film, he’s in the middle of purchasing a coal mining company, and writer-director Susannah Grant allows for just a little skepticism about his noxious industry. Otherwise, we are meant to be as swept off our feet as Katherine, whose heart gradually opens to romantic possibility after a difficult breakup, and whose mind is cleared to make way for a new book.

    We’ve seen this sort of thing before—Lonely Planet, instead of aping the title of a travel book series, could have been called Under the Marrakech Sun. Or how about Eat, Write, Love Liam Hemsworth? Though there isn’t a ton of eating in this film, save for a sandwich that gives Owen narratively convenient food poisoning.

    Owen is on the trip as the guest of his girlfriend, budding young novelist Lily (Diana Silvers), whose enthusiasm for the experience is strangely treated as rudeness to Owen. Accidentally or not, Lonely Planet makes the compelling case for not bringing a significant other on certain sorts of work trips. (Especially when there are cute Libyan memoirists to be flirting with.) But there Owen is, and the script must find ways to separate him from Lily so that he can banter with Katherine.

    They wind up the only two people on an excursion, the setup being that Katherine wants to get some writing done in the backseat of an SUV as it bumps down mountain roads—I’m surprised Owen is the only one who vomits in the movie. In sequences like these, Grant leans into the hoary exoticism that has long plagued stories like this; surrounded by humble Moroccan village folk, two wealthy white people form a palpable connection.

    Lonely Planet is full of such cliché, from Owen’s constant work interruptions—why can’t we just unplug, man—to the myriad generic literary references meant to smarten things up. This is not as sophisticated a movie as it would like to be. And yet it has its pleasures. The film’s romanticized setting is, indeed, awfully alluring, as is its dreamy idea that some unexpected love affair may be waiting just a free business-class plane ride away.

    It’s also remarkable, if also depressing, that this is Dern’s first lead film role in six years. That is far too big a gap, and we should be grateful that the drought has ended. Dern brings the earthiness and wistful insight that the script tries for but can’t quite conjure. She sharply plays a person gradually letting herself go, giving into the moment despite a well-earned guardedness. I found myself craving some Enlightened-style (or, maybe more aptly, Best Exotic Marigold Hotel-style) voice over, anything that might give us more of Dern in a movie seriously in need of her.

    Hemsworth is perfectly tall and handsome in his role, but he doesn’t do quite enough to shape a former quarterback turned corporate raider into someone likable. It’s never clear why we should side with Owen in his arguments with Lily—at least until Grant drops in a plot device that perhaps unfairly tilts the scales. Still, we understand Katherine’s dawning infatuation: here is someone completely different from those in her literati circles, a friendly basic who is surprisingly open to deep conversation. Maybe he’s not so basic after all!

    Lonely Planet goes pretty much exactly where one it expects it to, but this is a formula that is popular for a reason. Fantasies like this can satisfy even in creaky packaging. All it takes, really, is some nice scenery and a pair of actors who can sell their chemistry. Lonely Planet checks those boxes, even if it makes one yearn for a more elegant vehicle for Dern—one in which her romantic adventure might prove genuinely inspiring.

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    Richard Lawson

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