Reviews - Page 21

With the flood of full-featured Thunderbolt 3 docks about to hit the market, it's time to take a look at Belkin's Thunderbolt 3 Express Dock HD, one of the major contenders users have been waiting for in addition to the OWC Thunderbolt 3 Dock and CalDigit TS3 that we've also recently reviewed. As with the other docks we've looked at, Belkin's offering includes a variety of ports and even charging ...

Elgato recently updated its Eve lineup of HomeKit-connected products with the Eve Degree, a temperature and humidity sensor that joins the existing Eve Weather and the Eve Room. Priced at $69.99, the Eve Degree feels like an iteration of the cheaper Eve Weather. It monitors temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure like the Eve Weather, but it's smaller, better designed, and it...

While Apple's latest MacBook Pro with support for Thunderbolt 3 has been out for over six months, the first full-featured Thunderbolt 3 docks are only just now starting to hit the market. Last month we took a look at OWC's Thunderbolt 3 Dock that should begin shipping out very shortly, and today we're taking a look at a pair of similar docks from CalDigit that help expand the capabilities of the...

Earlier this month, Apple purchased its first company that develops health-related hardware, Beddit. Beddit makes an iPhone-connected Sleep Monitor that tracks a wide range of sleep-related metrics, from heart rate and sleep time to room temperature and respiration. When Apple acquires a company, the company in question typically shuts down and stops selling whatever product it makes as Apple...

ExoLens and Zeiss have teamed up to create some high-quality lenses designed to take iPhone photography to the next level. At $200, the ExoLens PRO with Optics by Zeiss Wide-Angle Kit for the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus is almost the price you'd pay for a standalone camera, but the lens is distortion free, compact, and enhances the range of images you can capture with your iPhone. There are...

Introduced in January, the PD2710QC from BenQ is the first USB-C display that comes equipped with an integrated USB Type-C dock, which offers an array of ports for MacBook and MacBook Pro owners. The 27-inch display is aimed at designers and engineers, offering a 2560 x 1440 resolution with support for 100 percent sRGB color accuracy and specific modes for use with CAD and animation software. ...

Last November, longtime Mac vendor OWC was among the first wave of companies to announce Thunderbolt 3 docks designed to expand the capabilities of the new MacBook Pro. It's taken a while to finalize the product design, testing, and manufacturing, but OWC's Thunderbolt 3 Dock is now just about ready to ship and we've had a chance to spend some time with a production-ready unit. Priced at...

Connected home security cameras have been on the market for quite some time, but D-Link recently began selling the first HomeKit-compatible security camera. Priced competitively at $199, the D-Link Omna 180 Cam HD camera has several perks over competing cameras that don't offer HomeKit integration -- it's guaranteed to have Apple's required level of encryption, it works with Siri, and it can...

Redesigning an input device is a risky business. When Apple introduced its latest MacBooks, some users complained that the new butterfly mechanism in the keys was a turnoff. They criticized the keyboard for its lack of travel, and said the experience of typing was not much different to tapping on a touch screen. Other users felt okay with the change. Whichever side people fell on the debate,...

We've already looked at LG's UltraFine 5K and 27UD88 displays as companions for Apple's latest notebooks, and today we're taking a look at another USB-C display option that brings something quite different: LG's 38UC99 curved "UltraWide" display. This is a desk-filling display in the truest sense of the term: 37.5 inches on the diagonal with a 21:9 aspect ratio and a native resolution of...

Headphone jack controversies aside, Apple's cord-free AirPods have contributed to a recent surge of interest in "truly wireless" earphones, with several companies vying for a piece of the market. Denmark-based audio outfit Jabra has embraced the freedom-of-movement appeal of wireless buds more than most with its Elite Sport headphones ($250), which it calls "the most technically advanced true ...

Bragi announced its Dash earphones at CES way back in 2015, when wireless Bluetooth headsets were still relatively niche. Since then we've seen Apple, Samsung, and a host of other companies launch their own "truly wireless" headphones, prompting Bragi to give the market another pop with "The Headphone" ($149), a less expensive, more awkwardly named variant of its original cord-free buds....

Olloclip has been making lenses for the iPhone since 2011, expanding the range of tools at an iPhone photographer's fingertips. For the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus, Olloclip has redesigned its product lineup, offering the same lenses in a new package that better fits the latest iPhones and provides more utility, like a stand. I've been using Olloclip to spice up my iPhone photographs since...

Nanoleaf started out in 2013 as small company offering a Kickstarter project for an energy efficient light bulb, which led to the launch of the HomeKit-enabled Nanoleaf Smarter Kit, a set of three standard-style bulbs connected by a hub. Nanoleaf's first HomeKit accessory worked well but was rather ordinary, something that can't be said about its newest product, the Aurora Smarter Kit....

A few weeks ago, we took a look at LG's new 27-inch UltraFine 5K display designed in partnership with Apple to pair with the new MacBook Pro. While it's a high-quality screen that offers a sharp, spacious, Retina desktop, the overall design has generated mixed reactions, particularly in comparison to Apple's design standards. At a standard price of $1299 and even Apple's discounted price of...

Nomad has been a well-known third-party Apple accessory manufacturer for a few years, creating leather cases for iPhones and iPads, Apple Watch bands, and battery packs that integrate directly into charging cables. The company's newest product is the $99.95 Nomad Advanced Trackable PowerPack, a 9,000 mAh mobile battery that is built with Nomad's usual "ultra-rugged construction," with an added...

ZENS recently debuted its latest product, an iPhone/Apple Watch Power Bank that has a built-in Apple Watch charging puck and a USB port, allowing you to charge all of your devices at once. Priced at €69.99 (or $78.00) the 4,000 mAh ZENS Power Bank is about the size and shape of a chocolate bar, though perhaps a bit wider. Because it's neither short nor particularly flat, it doesn't fit well...

Digital image and video stabilization features have been included in modern smartphones for a while now, with each new generation offering improved correction for jumps and jitters that typically occur during handheld shooting. Still, even the latest handsets can't quite match the benefits that can be gained from using a motorized mount specifically designed to reduce vibration and unwanted...

The heated debate over whether an iPad can replace a Mac as a day-to-day workhorse shows no sign of abating. One way of evading the crossfire is to plump for both, but to do that you need a bag that can conveniently accommodate the two devices for when you're on the move. Pad & Quill's Small Briefcase ($219) is one of the Minneapolis company's latest compact leather and canvas solutions for...

The wireless headphone market has been shaken up so much recently that it's hard to know where to begin when a new entry appears on the stage and announces itself as the next big thing. Fortunately this latest Bluetooth offering from Sony is targeting a very specific market segment best referred to as "premium noise cancelation", and the company seems pretty confident that with the MDR-1000X...