Remember the Dyson Zone? Headphones with an air purification system and a built-in mask? The company is back this year with a less gimmicky version that focuses only on sound. Our audio expert Billy Steele spent weeks with the Dyson Ontrac and found it outperforms most of the competition. It even beat Sony’s WH-1000XM5 by about 18 hours in his test. Dyson explained in the brief that with all his experience working to reduce the noise of his other air-generating products (such as hair dryers), he has learned a lot about how to combat unwanted noise.
But from Billy’s experience with all the other headphones out there, I’ve also learned that Dyson OnTrac’s effective noise cancellation is only average. As the kids today say, it’s in between.
While these headphones look great and have impressive quality features, ultimately Billy didn’t feel like they did enough to justify the $500 price tag, giving it an average score of 73. You will probably find the best from Master & Dynamic, Sony or. I mean Apple.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12: A high-end business laptop that needs few fixes
by Sherri L. Smith
Contributing reporter Sherri L. Smith was once editor-in-chief at Laptop Magazineand has years and years of experience reviewing notebooks. So when he says the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 is the king of business laptops, I believe it.
While she liked the X1 Carbon’s display and long-lasting battery, Sherri pointed out that Lenovo’s decision to put the power button on the edge instead of the keyboard deck is a con. He also warned that the gap between the ThinkPad X1 Carbon and the competition is narrow and narrowing.
One year with Google Pixel Fold
by Sam Rutherford
This week, the entire Engadget team has been hard at work covering Google’s hardware launch event, which means less time for writers and editors to publish updates. Our reviewers are often involved in manufacturing and other product launches for companies testing their products, and while these are not full reviews, I consider them worthy of this roundup.
Sam Rutherford, our reviewer of mobiles, laptops, gaming PCs and more (he does a lot!), spent time with the Pixel 9 Pro Fold in a Google hands-on session. Sam is one of those people who went out and bought himself a Galaxy Fold when the first generation went on sale. That’s how deep his love and, most importantly, his first-hand experience of class goes. To this day, he uses a convertible as his daily driver.
In fact, he’s been using Google’s original Pixel Fold for a year, and took the time to write a durability report published this week. Flexible screens are still fragile components, and early folding devices are easily damaged. With the Pixel Fold, Sam was pleasantly surprised that it held on to life with his little (and adorable) baby. Not only is it exciting news for those thinking of buying a foldable device, but it’s also exciting that the technology has come so quickly.
On the horizon: Updates to come
Elsewhere on the site, we’ve published more information about the new Pixel Watch 3, and as the dust from Google’s event begins to settle, it will soon be time to expect full reviews of each new device announced. With the Pixels coming out in various locations between August and September, people will be getting them soon enough, and I expect we’ll have updates for those… soon.
We also continue to test a number of Copilot+ PCs (remember those?) from companies like HP, Dell, ASUS and Samsung? Then there is the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra, which takes a long time to test considering its many features that require long-term testing. Also, it’s almost September, which is when we usually expect Apple to launch new iPhones. There will be more updates here soon, so stay tuned.
Source link
