Bragi
Ambition is the enemy of success. At least if you’re Bragi, the headphone maker whose first product, the Dash, did a thousand things without doing any of them particularly well. The Dash in-ear headphones slash head-mounted computer tried to tackle fitness, translation, gesture control, mixed-reality audio, and more. Which all might have been fine, except the Dash could barely hold a Bluetooth connection long enough to finish a song.
This time Bragi’s back with a pair of headphones that do a lot of headphone things and not much else. As if to prove the point beyond all doubt, they’re even called The Headphone. For $149, these truly wireless earbuds pop out of their charging case and into your ears, where they’ll connect to almost any device. And, praise be, they tend to stay connected. The Headphone may not be the ear-puter of the future, but it’s a perfectly good set of truly wireless headphones. And that’s no small feat.
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If you’ve never spent a day with truly wireless earbuds, you’re missing out. The Headphone, like a lot of the good models in this space, are just small and light enough that you forget they’re there. Eventually it feels like beautiful music is just playing inside your head. The quarter-sized Headphone buds are much easier to hide or disguise than the long AirPods or the large Beats Solo. They fit snugly in my ears, and the tips create a nice seal. (You should experiment a bit, though, to find which of the included options fits best in your ears.) Bluetooth connection is solid, if not quite flawless yet.
Once you get them working, these buds have reasonably dynamic, powerful sound, certainly more than I expected from a gizmo this small. Their neat audio-transparency feature lets you decide how much real-world sound you want to hear, You control playback with three buttons on the right earbud, which takes some getting used to but is much easier than the Dash’s inscrutable set of swipes and taps.
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Connecting the Headphone via Bluetooth is as simple as any pair of headphones, even if doesn’t have the one-touch magic of the new Apple devices. The Headphone’s battery doesn’t always hold up to the advertised six hours, and because the case doesn’t double as a charger you’re hosed if even one bud dies while you’re out. And oh, by the way, they don’t turn off when you put them in the case. I learned this the hard way.
It can be awkward to know where to put these headphones when they’re not in your ear, which is why Bragi put the case on a lanyard so you can have it with you always. (Don’t wear the case, folks.) The membrane buttons don’t click, they smush. All of the Headphone’s parts, from the case to the buds themselves, feel a little cheaper than I’d like from a $150 set of earphones. Like the Dash, the Headphone’s microphone isn’t even good enough to dictate text messages accurately. They’re water-resistant enough for a run, but not a swim.
RATING
7/10 – Their build doesn’t inspire much confidence, and some of the advanced tech needs some work, but The Headphone proves this kind of truly wireless earbud really can work.
Beats
You wouldn’t think there would be that many different ways to make a wireless headphone. But in recent months, as every company with an Amazon profile has scrambled to put something in your ears with fewer cables and more capabilities, every imaginable color, shape, and size has been tried. Most of them are so big they’re hard to wear, or so small their batteries only last through half a Brian Eno track. But Beats, which has been making wireless headphones a lot longer than most, knows what it’s doing.
The new Powerbeats3 Wireless earphones look just like the Powerbeats you already know from all those commercials. They’re not exactly understated; nothing from Beats ever is. And they don’t have the same sort of futuristic vibe you get from the totally wireless AirPods, either. But if you’re looking for a pair of headphones you can wear all day, every day, no matter the weather or your activity, these are pretty tough to beat.
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In addition to the buds that jam into your ear canals, the Powerbeats3 have big adjustable hooks on both sides that wrap over your ear to keep everything secure. As a result, they’re the most stable, comfortable wireless headphones I’ve ever tried. I can wear them all day without pain. The in-line remote is handy and useful, and the microphones in both buds are excellent for phone calls and Siri.
Beats
If you use Apple devices, the included W1 chip makes pairing absurdly easy and rock-solid, just as it does with AirPods and the Solo3 on-ear headphones. In two weeks of using the Powerbeats3, I’ve only had the audio drop out once, and only for an instant. The extra Bluetooth power means I can walk three rooms away and still be connected. The battery lasts at least the 12 hours advertised, which means I’ve only been charging them about once a week. They sound a little Beats-y, with big highs and lows that make everything a little more dramatic than it needs to be, but the mids come through really nicely and even out the sound a bit.
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Pairing the Powerbeats3 is really easy, but sort of opaque: you press the button on the headphones, hold them close to whatever device you’re pairing, and… wait for something to happen. It almost always works, but it’s still too much mystery. (If you pair it with any non-Apple device, it’s just like any other set of headphones.) The play/pause button on the remote is just mushy enough that I can never tell if I’ve actually pressed it. If you’re looking for true sound isolation, look elsewhere: the Powerbeats3 go into your ear, but not quite far enough to drown out the world. In Apple’s world of USB-C and Lightning, it’s dumb that these headphones charge with Micro USB. And, like all Beats products, the Powerbeats3 are both very expensive ($199) and very conspicuous.
RATING
8/10 – You’re paying a little too much for the Beats brand and getting a little too much of that Beats sound, but these are fantastic workout headphones—and great for everything else, too.
Typing on a mechanical keyboard is like driving a car with a manual transmission. It’s unwieldy at first and not for everyone, but there is no substitute for the immediacy and control. Sure, most people get by with the squishiness of those membrane keyboards Apple and Dell throw in the box, but those sheep live in a blissful state of unawareness. Mechanical keyboard people are woke.
Yes, they are noisy. That only makes typing more fun. Sentences flow like music. Rhythmic lines blast by in quick succession. Tempos ebb and flow, each percussive phrase punctuated by the sharp thwack of the Enter key—which, on a quality keyboard, sounds like a gunshot. Passages express the range of human emotion, from the crack of an angry email to the pitter-patter of a gossipy Slack.
Das Keyboard is among the premiere manufacturers of mechanical keyboards. Its latest, the Prime 13, is priced near the middle of the range at $149, but the Cherry MX Brown switches help it perform like a higher-priced model. These are quality German key mechanisms—the good shit. Under the keys, lies a soft backlight system powered by pure white LEDs. The black keycaps sport glowing white letters in a chunky typeface, and they’re nestled within a plate of matte-black anodized aluminum. In a product category that tends to skew garish and geeky, it’s refreshing to see something so austere. Just black and glowing white. So smooth. Even the 6-foot black braided cable looks the business.
The Cherry Browns are renowned for a tactile “bump” at the point where the keystroke registers. The keys provide just the right amount of friction under the fingertips, and just enough clack-clack-clack to stimulate the brain’s pleasure center. This choice of switch makes the Prime 13 eminently approachable. If you’re looking for a place to start with mechanicals, you won’t find a better point of entry.
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A comfortable and smartly designed mechanical keyboard that’s a joy to type on; one of the best I’ve tried. Fast typists will love that tactile Cherry brown action. Key clicks are quiet enough not to totally annoy cubemates, but can get satisfyingly loud if strokes are delivered with authority or emotion. Rugged build—the entire top of the shell is a nice, thick aluminum plate. USB pass-through cable for connecting a mouse or another peripheral.
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It’s heavy (nearly three pounds) and not at all compact. Mechanicals are always on the larger side anyway, but the girth here clashes with the minimal aesthetic of the black-on-black, backlit design. Desktop ergonomics are mostly good, but there’s no getting around the bulk. Properly mapping the function keys and media keys on macOS took some trial and error.
RATING
8/10 – Excellent. Your fingers deserve better than whatever you’re using right now, and this is a great upgrade.
Motorola
The first rule of smartphone photography is don’t ever, ever zoom. (The second rule is “When in doubt, selfie.”) Phones don’t use optical zoom, which re-focuses a camera on a smaller frame, helping preserve image quality. They use digital zoom, which is just cropping. When you fling your fingers apart to see the band bigger on your phone screen, all you’re doing is chopping your photo down to a teeny-tiny rectangle. It won’t get sharper, or brighter. It will just suck. Don’t do it.
Optical zoom is what you want, but optical zoom also requires a lot more lens hardware. Which would mean a bigger camera. Which would mean a bigger phone. Which you don’t want, most of the time. But “most of the time” is exactly what the Moto Z is trying to do away with. The modular phone lets you click on accessories when you need them, and yank them off when you’re done.
Moto’s newest mod? The Hasselblad True Zoom, which adds a big lens with 10x optical zoom, a shutter button, and a flash to the back of your phone. It costs $250 if you buy it at a Verizon store, or $300 straight from Motorola, which makes no sense at all. When you attach the True Zoom, it actually covers the Z’s internal camera — it uses your phone’s software, but its own hardware. It turns your phone into something much more versatile than your average Android.
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As soon as you put on the True Zoom, it just becomes part of the Moto Z. It’s black and gray and looks like a camera, rather than the crazy phone-accessory contraption it really is. Having a dedicated shutter button, and a physical button for launching the camera app, is amazing. The True Zoom launches the camera app automatically as soon as it’s attached, so you’re up and firing quickly. Somehow Motorola resisted the urge to add a million settings to its software, so the Moto Camera app is clean and simple. You can control the camera manually if you like, and even shoot RAW, but things are automatic.
Having 10x zoom (25-250mm, in 35mm terms) for smartphone photos is fantastic. It’s the difference between capturing the whole mountain, and the cool house at the top. The zoom is fast and smooth. It’s not just the zoom, either. All my photos look better through the True Zoom. All the specs are roughly equivalent to a decent point-and-shoot camera, but with this one you get access to Instagram, Google Photos, and every editing app you love.
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Your fancy new camera only shoots 1080p video, whereas the phone itself can capture in 4K. The True Zoom’s aperture range goes from f/3.5-f/6.5, which means your photos are going to look darker than you expect through this lens. A lot darker, in some cases, especially when you zoom all the way in. Don’t use this in low light. The shutter button’s a little mushy, and the image stabilization’s a little subpar, which together means I have a dozen otherwise in-focus photos that became blurry when I smashed the shutter trying to get it to work. Half-pressing the shutter to focus is nice, but it’s sloooow.
When you flip the Moto Z around to take a selfie, the True Zoom turns off. Then you want the rear camera again, and the True Zoom has to whir back to life. Everything about the operation—the zooming, the turning on, the capturing a photo—is a little slow and a lot loud. Both phone and mod are thin and light, but put the two pieces together and your phone’s barely pocketable at all. Also, regardless of how good the True Zoom is, you have to be truly committed to Motorola to be able to use it at all.
RATING
6/10 – Your phone deserves a better camera. This is a better camera, even if using it doesn’t always feel great.
The Zipp comes in two sizes. This is the larger one. Josh Valcarcel/WIRED
The first Libratone speaker I remember testing was the company’s debut product from 2011, an AirPlay sound bar called the Lounge that mounted on the wall. After that there were other speakers, all covered in cloth, all rather large, and offering premium sound. There was the Loop, the Live, and the smaller, portable Zipp. Now, Libratone has redesigned the Zipp from the inside out, and the speaker is currently the company’s only product. Libratone doesn’t sell any of those old, big speakers anymore—just portables. Consider this a rebirth, I guess.
The new Zipp is small, cylindrical, and battery-powered, all things that are very much in vogue. The speaker actually comes in two sizes, the 10-inch tall Zipp ($299) and the 8.8-inch tall Zipp Mini ($249). Both have little leather straps for handles, and both are covered in cloth. In fact, you can buy additional mesh cloth covers for $29 each, and you just (yep) zip them on.
This portable boombox has a couple of cool tricks that set it apart from other wireless speakers. First, you can link up to six speakers together via Wi-Fi and place them around the house to spread out the sound. You can make them all play the same music, or play different tracks in each room and control it all from a single phone app, sort of like Sonos. Second, it supports multiple wireless options: you can use it as a Bluetooth speaker, or (once you connect it to your Wi-Fi network using Libratone’s app) you can stream music via AirPlay, DLNA, or Spotify Direct.
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Great sound for a small speaker. Inside the larger Zipp, there’s a 100-watt Class D amp, a 4-inch woofer, two 1-inch tweeters, and two 4-inch passive radiators. These are all placed around the face of the cylinder so the sound spreads out in a circle. It gets very loud, and while some small speakers sound like a car horn when you crank them, the Zipp sounds pretty natural at higher volumes. I played a lot of bass-heavy jams (Erykah, Nicola Cruz, Peter Tosh) and the little thing really thumps. The Zipp Mini (60 watts, 3-inch woofer, and one tweeter) doesn’t sound nearly as good, and I can’t recommend it—spend the extra $50 and get the bigger one. App makes connecting to your Wi-Fi network easy. Battery lasts longer than the quoted 10 hours; more like 12 in my testing at moderate volume. Also the speaker can charge your phone via a USB port in the base.
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The on-board controls are a mess. All interactions—changing volume, skipping tracks, linking multiple speakers together, favoriting songs—are accomplished via a big button on the top. There’s a capacitive metal ring on the outside of this button that you run your finger around to change the volume, but it’s garbage. Swipes and taps simply would not register half the time. One thing that does work is the “Hush” feature: hold your hand over the button for a second and the sound mutes. But that’s not enough to make me feel better. I wound up using my phone for skipping songs and changing volume, which is actually just fine because that’s how most people interact with a wireless speaker anyway. Charging is accomplished with a proprietary, wall-wart-style charger. This means you have another chunk of plastic to pack with you on vacation, and it means you can’t charge it with a USB cable like every other gadget in your home.
RATING
6/10 Nice sound, nice features, but tough to really love.
The Beoplay A1 speaker from Bang & Olufsen Josh Valcarcel/WIRED
Danish consumer electronics maker Bang & Olufsen has a new Bluetooth speaker, the Beoplay A1. The aluminum sound-dome comes pre-accessorized with a quaint leather strap. Loop it through your belt, hang it on a door knob. Cute!
The A1 is the smallest Bluetooth speaker in B&O’s Beoplay line of mobile products. It’s about 5 inches in diameter and about 2 inches tall, or about the size of a Quarter Pounder with cheese. Inside you’ll find two drivers: a 3.5-inch aluminum cone for lows and mids, and a 3/4-inch dome tweeter to handle the tippy-top end. A pair of 30-watt class D amps powers them. The rest of the A1 is seemingly all battery (it weighs a hefty 1.3 pounds)—a 2200 mAh cell that B&O claims gives you 24 hours of playback. The bottom half is rubberized, and you place the A1 on a table perforated side up so it fills the room with a fountain of audio waves. It doesn’t look like a big silver hockey puck, but rather a beautiful big silver hockey puck. As I carried it around the office, colleagues showered it with an unbroken stream of praise. “Oh, it’s gorgeous” and “That’s too pretty to be a speaker” and “I don’t know what it is exactly, but I want it.”
That’s the nut of it. Smart design always has been the primary reason to buy a Bang & Olufsen product. You can find scads of excellent Bluetooth speakers for less than the $249 you’ll pay for an A1. But none of them will turn heads like an A1. Credit that to Cecilie Manz, who also designed the slightly larger Beoplay A2, and the lunchbox-like Beolit 15. The A1 and the A2, of course, share the same design language, right down to the leather strap and the perforations on the speaker grill. They display a visual sophistication that elevates these speakers above the slew of products that perform the same functions. So yes, if you want a speaker, there are many. If you want a beautiful speaker, this one’s among the beautifulest.
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Superb sound. B&O applies some gentle digital signal processing to keep the audio distortion-free as you crank it up, though it succeeds in keeping things crisp at all volumes. Music rarely sounds overly processed. The low end is far more powerful than expected from something this small; the fuzz bass in Ty Segall’s reading of “Diversion” rumbled the whole table. Gorgeous industrial design with a noticeable attention to detail. Leather strap makes it simple to mount on a wall, or anywhere really. Battery life is great—I got five days of heavy use out of it between charges. The USB-C charger blasts electrons to the battery with unmatched fury, bringing it from fully depleted to fully ready in less than 100 minutes. Works as a speakerphone. Choose between matte silver and mossy green.
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At $249, too pricey for most people. You’re buying this speaker because it sounds great and runs for a long time, but you’re mostly buying it because you like the way it looks. The cheaper UE Boom 2 ($200) doesn’t have the big bass or the big battery, but it is excellent in its own right and it’s waterproof. The Beoplay A1 is not waterproof—don’t hang it in the shower. The USB-C cable means that you can’t charge it with any of the 641 USB-not-C cables already in your home. What, no rose gold?
RATING
8/10 Great sound, great design, but that’s a lot of Satoshis.
Moleskine
Tons of people still prefer paper. Moleskine is living proof of this as a successful journal company whose revenue still chiefly comes from its paper products. But we live in a world where digital rules, and Moleskine knows it needs to participate. The Smart Writing Set ($200) caters to that segment of the population who still like jotting down ideas in an honest-to-goodness journal, but also want the convenience of automatically digitized notes. Pen, paper, and an app technically make up the writing set, but your smartphone provides much of the operating power needed to make the system work. Yes, there are other products that bridge the gap between analog and digital, letting you draw sketches or take notes then creating a shareable, editable version. (So many of them.) But how many can claim to be from a legendary brand?
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Moleskine has waded into digital products before, but it leveraged partnerships with other companies who already own a piece of that world (Evernote, Livescribe). The Smart Writing Set represents the company’s first effort to brand an entire pen-paper-and-app set by itself, and it’s clearly picked up a few smart things from experience. The black aluminum pen (a Neo smartpen) feels solid and sleek compared to Livescribe’s bulkier versions, and it incorporates some cool tech: a hidden camera that traces and digitizes your every stroke of the pen. The notebook itself—which Moleskine calls a Paper Tablet—is a big part of the offering, too, and it’s every bit a pleasure to write in as the company’s other journals. The app, meanwhile, lets you liven up your notes and sketches with colors or even erase portions of your notes. (It’s iOS only for now, with Android coming soon.) You can tag, search, or export each page, and sharing is compatible with a plethora of applications and devices, including iCloud, Google Drive, Evernote and Adobe. Oh, and the thing digitizes everything—and can even capture audio—as you write. There’s still something oddly hypnotizing about watching your pen strokes appear instantly on your mobile device, as if by magic.
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As a longtime Livescribe user, my biggest beef with Moleskine’s Smart Writing Set is that its recording capabilities are limited. There’s no way to hook up microphone earbuds, so I couldn’t use the paper tablet and pen to record phone calls—a crucial part of my job as a reporter. The system actually outsources much of its functionality to the smartphone. It relies on your smartphone’s mic to record audio, for one, and digitized notes take up smartphone memory—which is clever, since it allowed Moleskine to keep the pen’s design slim and sleek. But for $200, there isn’t a lot of tech on the pen itself. That also means constant fussing with the app to make sure your notes are being digitized properly. (Personally, I ran into problems with my notes going accidentally unrecorded when I forgot to power on the pen.) The pen’s battery lasts for five hours of continuous writing, which is pretty good—but it may have you running out of juice unexpectedly after a full day of note-taking. Basically, if you’re the kind of person who just wants to have fun occasionally digitizing or sharing your notes or drawings (a student, an artist), Moleskine’s Smart Writing Set will work just fine. But if your profession relies on your ability to take down highly accurate notes, you’ll be better off exploring other options.
RATING
7/10 – Will make you look like a serious design nerd—but the emphasis is on creative fun, not meticulous function.
Box Clever
Box Clever, the San Francisco design firm that created the Fade Task Lamp, is obsessed with detail. Just take a look at its configurations for the table-top light: Everything from the patterns cut into the hardware to the font used on its packaging are deliberate choices. Why so much work for just a lamp? Probably because the Fade Task Lamp isn’t just a lamp, it’s a functional piece of furniture that happens to be beautiful, and actually fun to use. Yes, a lamp that’s fun to use. The LED array is perched at the end of an articulated arm you can bend without any cranking or prodding. A thick metal ribbon serves as the structural backbone. It’s flexible, so you can bend and reposition the arm with a smooth, gliding action. Once you find a position you like, magnets hidden inside the arm’s body hold it in place. The base has a control that lets you not only dim or brighten the light, but also change hues, just by sliding around a toggle on the base. Of course, such attention to detail and build quality translates into dollar signs!
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It’s beautiful. The Fade Task Lamp has a super simple, utilitarian design, which makes the fact that this lamp has “features” even better. On the base, there’s an x-y controller that you push around with one finger to change the temperature of the light from warm to cool, and the strength from dim to bright. It’s surprisingly pleasing, much more so than twisting a sticky knob. Seriously: You think pushing a small circle around inside of a bigger circle won’t be that fun, but watching it transform the light in the room is hypnotizing. The armature has a ton of movement, so you can angle the lamp however you want, for whatever surface you put it on. And it’s not so big that it looks ridiculous on a desk, but not so small that if you had it totally vertical it couldn’t sit on the floor. Oh, and there’s a USB port in the base for charging a mobile device, which is the clincher.
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$250 is a lot to spend on a lamp that doesn’t take up a corner of your home. Sure, like I said, if it’s totally vertical, the lamp could take residence on your floor. But then, you lose the purpose of the base’s swivel function to dim and brighten and change warmth. The lamp’s only con is it’s fairly high price—but anyone willing to spend a little extra on the ultimate desk companion will be happy to spend it.
RATING
8/10 – There’s a higher end version of everything, right? Even lamps. This is that lamp. You will love lamp.
DXO
Your iPhone camera is pretty damn good, but it’s not as good as dedicated camera with a big lens. A smartphone rig earns you convenience and portability, but you give up quality and utility. That’s where the DxO One comes in. It’s a palm-sized camera assembly for iPhone and iPad that plugs into your Lightning port and gives your mobile photos a serious performance boost. The 1-inch, 20-megapixel sensor sits behind a nice lens with an f/1.8 aperture. The software offers a suite of shooting modes and gives you full manual control over the camera’s operation. Plug the $499 DxO One into your iPhone and fire up the companion iOS app, and all of a sudden, the photo frame on your phone’s screen suddenly looks closer to what you’d see in the viewfinder of a Nikon D.
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The photos it takes are stunning, and the tiny device is discreet enough to carry on any outing. The build feels sturdy and the device is comfortable to hold when attached to the phone. The app is incredibly easy to use, and within moments of downloading, plugging the camera in, and firing it up, you’re shooting photos that simply could not have been taken with an iPhone.
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It’s a $500 iPhone accessory, which is really steep considering you could get a capable pocket camera for around $600. But of course, that camera isn’t going to let you use your smartphone for everything, and it’s not going fit in your pocket as easily. We ran into some performance issues with the DxO One. It’s slower than our testing committee liked, it crashed several times, and it was prone to overheating. At one point, it overheated, shut down, and we weren’t able to wake it back up. Clipping it in easy, though I found it a little awkward to get it to switch on so it could be plugged in. You have to slide the panel covering the lens on the side down, hold it, and then the Lightning plug will swing out—don’t try to force the plug to pop up!
RATING
6/10 – The DxO One was super fun to use, and the photos we took with it are beautiful. But it’s a little expensive and a little crashy.
Josh Valcarcel/WIRED
Throughout its 70 years, the American audio company Klipsch has carried a reputation for innovation in design. From the famous Klipschorn design to the company’s signature copper-colored “Cerametallic” speaker cones, its products have swagger. The company’s new crop of excellent in-ear headphones, with their zinc flourishes and unique ear tips, carry the tradition. These in-ears are branded as “Reference” products—a term that, to audio nerds, signifies a flat frequency response and an un-messed-with sound free of the bass-boosting and audio-sweetening so prevalent today.
The Klipsch Reference X6i in-ears cost $179, the least expensive of the new line. The most expensive, the X20i, are $549. I’m almost always attracted to the most affordable option, so I tried these for a few months. Even for the “budget” end of the line, they’re phenomenal. The X6i are my new go-to recommendation for reference in-ear headphones under $200. They’ve unseated my previous pick, the $150 Etymotic hf3. The Klipsch’s have comparable sound, but better cables, better ear tips, and better overall design.
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The sound is pretty much perfect; crisp without being sterile and loud without being fatiguing. The unique oval ear tips (Klipsch holds a patent on the design) provide an excellent, no-fuss seal within the ear canal. That seal is what enables an in-ear headphone to deliver good bass, and in this case, the bass is clear and dramatic. The box includes tips of many sizes, including flange tips that also create an excellent seal. Light and comfy; all-day wear is no problem. The cable is thick and coils easily. It never tangled or knotted, even when jamming the headphones into my back pocket and sitting through a meeting, or balling them up and tossing them into my carry-on when it came time to board the plane. The remote is large and forgiving. $180 is a great price for in-ears this nice.
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That big thick cable means lots of microphonic cable noise. You’ll need to use the clothing clip to keep your Rachmaninov from being smothered by rubbing noises. There are zinc elements in the earpieces, but otherwise there’s just a lot of plastic here. Anyone looking for bling will be disappointed. The wallet-like carrying case is interesting—you coil up the headphones then slip them into a pouch that folds in half—but I miss a fully-closing zipper case. These are all teeny quibbles! They sound great.
Rating
9/10 Nearly flawless, buy it now
Mi
The Chinese company Xiaomi is probably best known to people in the West for making phones that look a lot like iPhones. And while that’s true (look!), the manufacturing giant produces much more than handsets. There have been a steady stream of TVs, routers, and audio products released over the last couple of years under the company’s consumer-facing Mi brand name. This November, Xiaomi released a new set of Mi in-ear headphones. They debuted in China for 99 yuan, which means they’ll be priced at around $29 when they make their way to US consumers in the new year. Not a bad price for a nice set of metal earbuds.
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The fit and finish is exemplary for something this inexpensive. The sound chambers of the buds are made of machined aluminum and not only feel sturdy, but look really nice. Visually, they’re restrained and sophisticated. Even the plastic pieces feel like quality. Inside each chamber are two drivers: one balanced armature driver for the highs, and one traditional dynamic driver for the lows and mids. This design gives them a walloping low end—if you’re always aching for more bass, these might make you happy. But unlike other bottom-heavy earbuds, the vocals and the high end of the mix have their own driver, so they’re not obliterated by all that low-frequency muscle. There are a few different sizes of rubber tips in the box, so you can find a comfy fit pretty easily. The cables are Kevlar-reinforced, in case you need to take a bullet for a friend.
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Kudos to the dual-driver design for keeping things tidy on the high end. But that low end is so big and boomy, it’s overwhelming—most music ends up sounding murky. I found myself rolling off the lows inside my iPhone’s EQ settings during testing, and I still couldn’t clean up that bass. The hardware is smart, but it’s tuned in a way that diminishes the design. The tiny and oddly-shaped buttons on the inline remote make it difficult to manage. The cables are coated in rubber from the ears to the Y-joint in the middle, but from there down to the plug, the cable is protected by a braided sheath. The result is a cable with two different weights and textures, which I found odd. For $29, they sound good, but there are better cheap in-ears for the same money (Mrice, JLab, Soundmagic) as long as you’re OK with a lower-quality build.
RATING
6/10 – A solid product with some issues
These sweet hi-tops are slippers, even though they look like sneaks. TIME
TIME’s new line of footwear began as a Kickstarter project to make high-end slippers designed to look like sneakers. They’re now available for sale to the public in three styles: lows, mids, and high-tops (I tried out the highs). They look quite a bit different than the Kickstarter prototypes (much better, in my opinion), but the basics are pretty much what the designers had in mind at the outset of their crowdfunding campaign: Super soft leather uppers that are both flexible and strong. Insoles made out of the same material as yoga mats. Linings that are cozy but don’t cause sweaty feet. Stretch laces that make the shoes easy to slip on.
The results are pretty great. TIME’s slippers are convenient, durable, and super comfortable. And while they’re pricey—you probably haven’t ever spent over $100 on slippers before—they look enough like outdoor shoes that you can easily get away with wearing them to hit the gym or go do errands. So you’ll get more use out of them than you would with standard house shoes.
WIRED
Straight up, these are just about the most comfortable things I’ve ever had on my feet. The soles are super flexible, but not flimsy. The wool lining is warm but breathable. And TIME’s designers made lots of smart choices that make these extra easy to wear. For instance, there’s a small slot above the heel that you grip with your thumb and use to take the slippers on and off. That might sound superfluous, but having the feature on these has made me want something similar on all of my high-tops.
TIRED
I really like these. And I don’t mind spending a little extra money on things that I really like. But $150 is a lot for high-top slippers! Even the low-tops are $95. If you do decide to wear them out into the real world, you’ll notice that the bright white midsoles will begin to look dirty pretty quickly, and that they’re a little difficult to scrub clean. I wish there was an option to get these in all-black. I’d like the look better, and black midsoles would keep the slippers looking fresher a little longer.
Rating
8/10 Excellent with room to kvetch
SteelSeries
If you buy a new Apple TV this holiday season, or suspect you’re about to unwrap an iPad Pro, there’s just one other accessory you need: a gaming controller. Both devices are meant for playing games, and that cheap little glass remote isn’t going to cut it when you really get going in Disney Infinity. Apple doesn’t make an official controller, and you can use lots of Bluetooth-enabled accessories, but the SteelSeries Nimbus is the unofficial controller of choice. It’s the one they’ll tell you to buy at the Apple Store.
For $50, you get a black controller that looks just like an Xbox or Playstation controller. The Nimbus has two analog sticks, a diamond of colored buttons, shoulder and triggers on each side, and a giant all-purpose Menu button. It doesn’t feel like a console-quality object; it feels like an add-on, not a critical piece of the experience. Still, it’s a solid controller, and it’s a whole lot better than mashing your fingers on the screen trying to thread your pass in FIFA. If you’re going to game on your new Apple device, this is a must-have.
WIRED
If you’ve ever played on a console—any console—you’ll figure the Nimbus out quickly. It works with iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and even Mac, so one controller will work for everything. Setup is insanely easy, just turn it on and pair it via Bluetooth. Charges via Lightning, so you almost certainly already have its charger plugged in to an outlet somewhere. Joysticks and buttons are solid and comfortable, and incredibly responsive in almost every way. You’ll finish Final Fantasy V long before the battery runs out. Companion app offers a running list of games that support the controller.
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The controls aren’t consistent across games, and it can be hard to figure out what does what. Many iPad and iPhone games don’t extend controller support through menus, so you’re still going back and forth to the touchscreen. The companion app is handy, but not optimized for the new devices. Shoulder buttons and triggers are mushy. The four numbered lights on the front are totally inscrutable—sometimes they mean battery, sometimes they show you’re connected, but you never know what you’re seeing.
RATING
7/10 – Very good, but not quite great
Apple
Seemingly out of nowhere, Apple created a battery case for the iPhone 6/6s. It may seem weird that Apple would release a new type of product unannounced, and it may also seem weird that the company chose to enter the competitive market of battery cases. But given Apple’s track record of trying out new things, and the fact that anything with that logo will sell, maybe this isn’t that surprising. Sure, you could speculate that Apple created the Smart Battery Case to supplement the unimpressive battery life of the iPhone 6s, but don’t mistake this as an admittance of failure. It’s more likely an attempt by Apple to branch out into a potential new market—right in time for the holidays. But is it worth your money?
WIRED
This case is designed to be forgotten about. Just put it on and enjoy the extra battery life. There are no indicator lights that show the case’s battery, and no on/off switch that will initiate charge, instead the case acts like it’s part of your battery. If you put your phone in the case when it has less than 100 percent, the case will start to charge it. When the case’s battery is gone, your iPhone will use its own battery. How do you know what percentage the case is at? Pull down the Notification Center and an icon will appear near the top telling you how much juice is left in your phone and case. It’s a cool little detail that shows off Apple’s inter-device compatibility, but it’s also the only way you can gauge the case’s battery. The case has a Lightning port for charging, which means you can plug in your iPhone in its case and charge both at the same time. This adds to the illusion that your case becomes one with your iPhone, and you never have to take it off.
Besides performance, the material is quite nice. The silicone is super soft and feels like much higher quality than a lot of cheap silicone cases on the market. The case also manages to walk the middle ground between the slipperiness of a naked iPhone 6s, and those high-friction cheap silicone cases that are hard to pull out of tight pockets. It isn’t too bulky either, like a lot of battery cases out there, so you might get accustomed to the way it feels in your front pocket (depending on how tight your skinny jeans are).
TIRED
OK, so there’s no ignoring that hump. Apple was so focused on making their new iPhones as sleek as possible that it seems comical that their battery case has a strange-looking growth on its backside. Personally, it reminds me of an Almond Joy, except Almond Joys are delicious.
But even if you get over the hump, the performance of the case isn’t that great. The 1,877 mAh battery won’t even give you a full charge from zero percent. Even if you don’t need that much charge, it puts the Apple case at a distinct disadvantage compared to other battery cases. And compared to other battery cases, this one is not cheap. The Smart Case sells for $99, which can get you a Mophie Juice Pack Air case with much better battery life (and no hump). Or you can buy a Mophie Juice Pack Reserve for $60 that has a comparable 1,840 mAh battery. It may seem harsh to keep bringing up Mophie, but you have to consider your options.
The lack of buttons and indicators on the battery case also mean you don’t have any say in when your phone should be charging. If you’re used to other battery cases, this lack of control may be unsettling. If you like to your battery case on and off to give it a little bit of juice when needed, this case isn’t for you. But if you just want a case to put on once and never think about, then maybe this is worth the $99.
RATING
6/10—A solid product with some issues
Josh Valcarcel/WIRED
Remember the Beats Pill? Of course you do—the speaker was a hit a few years ago, and it was everywhere. An extension of the headphone brand, it came with that brash sound, that brash red “b” logo, and of course it fit inside this thing, which is certainly the silliest accessory in the history of mobile audio. Oh yeah and also, that Pill didn’t sound very good. Now that Apple has bought the company, we’re starting to see some of Cupertino’s product design savvy rub off on the Beats hardware. This new speaker, the Pill+, features not only a revamped design, but also a revamped audio engine and feature set. It’s too pricey at $230, but if you’re all-in on Apple hardware, the Pill+ is a nice companion to your iOS devices.
WIRED
Sound is very good, and on par with the best of the Bluetooth speakers of this size. New design is sharp—it comes in white or black, and the “b” logo is now much more subtle (and no longer red). Mobile app to control it works on iOS and Android. It has that now seemingly ubiquitous feature where you can pair multiple devices so you and your friends can take turns playing songs. Works as a speakerphone. Wirelessly join two speakers into a stereo pair. Charges over Lightning, so the 12-hour battery rejuices quickly, and the speaker’s battery can be used to charge your iPhone—just flip the cable around.
TIRED
It’s too expensive. There are a few speakers with better battery and comparable sound (some fully waterproof) for $30 less. The inclusion of the Lightning cable and 12.5-watt Apple charger is probably the reason for this, but if you don’t own any iOS devices, those things don’t matter as much. The sound can get kinda crunchy if you turn it up to levels sufficient to be heard in a small gathering of chatty friends. It’s the same with many small speakers, but here it’s more noticeable.
RATING
7/10 – Very good, but not quite great
Bamboo Spark with Phone Pocket Wacom
The iPad Pro is an amazing device, and a big step forward for visual artists. But many artists still prefer to use a pen and paper to draw or sketch. Wacom’s latest product is something that might be a better fit for them. The Bamboo Spark ($160) bridges the divide between the analog sketchbook and the digital sketchbook by tracking your pen strokes on real paper, then transmitting the results to your device. It’s three pieces: a folio with a receiver inside, a ballpoint pen with a transmitter inside, and a pad of regular paper. We’ve seen devices like this before—products that let you write or draw something on a piece of paper, then create a digital copy—but few have been executed this successfully.
WIRED
The device pairs to a mobile phone via Bluetooth, and transfers take only a few seconds per page. (Wacom’s app works on iOS and Android.) Within the mobile app, you can “replay” each line in your drawing, undoing each pen stroke and stopping at any time to export the page in that particular state. The case’s memory holds 100 pages, so you can sync in batches. Wacom offers cloud storage for Bamboo Spark pages, and the files are easily shared to Dropbox, to Evernote, or as PDFs. The feel of the pen is nice; better than a cheap ballpoint pen, with a nice girth and weight. (Wacom knows pens!) Battery in the folio lasts weeks between charges. Folios come in three configurations to hold a phone, a small tablet, or an iPad Air 2.
TIRED
The system tracks each stroke with perfect accuracy—as long as you don’t accidentally bump your pad of paper. In that case, the digital copy of the drawing will be off. If you anticipate this happening, I recommend securing the pad with a binder clip or rubber band. Not ideal, but it keeps the thing put. If you don’t like the pen, there isn’t much for you here. The company is positioning the product not only as an artist’s tool, but also as a platform for visual thinkers in the business world. So, while the pen is ideal for sketching flowcharts and brainstorming concepts, those looking for a more refined drawing tool may feel constrained. Same with the size of the paper—there’s a slot in the case where you can insert a backing board for a tablet of standard A5 paper, but bigger pads won’t work, and neither will those thicker than 50 pages. If the battery runs out mid-drawing, Welp!
RATING
8/10 – Excellent, with room to kvetch
Soundfreaq Sound Kick 2 Soundfreaq
This is Soundfreaq’s second go-around for its Sound Kick compact Bluetooth speaker. The first version had an expandable back. When you popped out the box-like extrusion, it increased the interior volume of the speaker enclosure and improved the sound. It also changed the footprint of the speaker, allowing you to tip it back so the drivers were facing at an upward angle. This new Sound Kick 2 doesn’t expand or blow up or anything, but it does still tip back. The expanding enclosure has been replaced by a fixed enclosure that has a little kickstand. Overall, the updated speaker is more portable and has excellent sound, and it remains one of our favorite options at $100.
WIRED
Sound is crisp and well-balanced, and exemplary for a speaker of this size. New design is 1.5 inches thick, and has rounded edges. It’s also water resistant—I left my test unit out in the rain for two downpours and it still plays fine. There’s a USB port on the back that lets you use the speaker’s battery to charge up a dying mobile phone if needed. The kickstand on the back gives the speaker box some added stability. Touch controls on the top are convenient. Handsome looks.
TIRED
Doesn’t get that loud. It’s also not as small as other speakers at this price that tout portability as a primary feature. Battery lasted about 8.5 hours in multiple tests; fine, but over ten hours is standard within this category. Not fully waterproof (though it seems to handle wet environments just fine).
RATING
8/10 – Excellent, with room to kvetch
Logi
Logitech (or is it Logi?) is the ruler of the realm when it comes to iPad keyboards. So it shouldn’t surprise you that it’s the first out of the gate with an add-on to support the new, bigger iPad Pro, where these keyboards are more important than ever. The $150 Logi Create Backlit Keyboard Case with Smart Connector is cheaper than Apple’s Smart Keyboard, and adds a lot more functionality. (Logi also offers a virtually identical case, sans keyboard, for $80.) It’s not quite as sleek and well-integrated as Apple’s own case, but if you’re looking to buy an iPad Pro to replace your laptop, this is the keyboard accessory you want.
WIRED
The row of shortcut keys—for changing volume, going home, launching search, and the like—is unbelievably useful. The backlit keyboard will let you work even in dark rooms. If you’re not typing, the case folds almost flat for a better touchscreen experience. The clacky keys will feel familiar to anyone used to a laptop keyboard. Since it works with the iPad Pro’s Smart Connector, getting the keyboard set up and working takes no time at all, and you’ll never need to charge the accessory. Just close the magnetized case, and the tablet turns off too.
TIRED
Getting the iPad Pro into the case requires an uncomfortable amount of shoving and pushing. Keys are a little mushy. The rubbery design takes away from the sleek polish of the iPad Pro. Tablet plus case is a pretty heavy package to toss into your backpack. The case covers up the power and volume buttons with harder-to-press rubber ones, and obscures the speaker holes a little bit. The connector can be finicky, disconnecting for no reason sometimes. A few of the buttons are inscrutable; why are there two ways to switch to the on-screen keyboard?
RATING
7/10—Very good, but not quite great.
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