Jabra Elite 25e Bluetooth headphones: A solid middle of the road headset with a few compromises

Sometimes I’m a bit of a late adopter when it comes to tech. My first smartphone was a Blackberry at a time when the iPhone 3GS was gaining steam. I held onto my old Windows XP desktop until it no longer could keep up with my day to day needs. Its replacement was a Windows 7 laptop I bought when Windows 8 was the latest hot mess.

Bluetooth headphones was one of those things I never was convinced would be a good experience when I first saw them. The idea seemed simple enough, but I was concerned about a loss in sound fidelity and dropped signals.

Hobbies will change your perceptions overnight. I like to jog, and the most cumbersome part about it is dealing with headphone wires. Do I tuck them into my clothes, or wrap it carefully around my body? It started becoming a bit of a headache.

The Geordi La Forge earset

So I started to flirt with the idea of using Bluetooth headphones. But where to start? Obviously, I need something that won’t be a burden when I work out. Something with a bit of water resistance, but won’t fall out of my ears while I’m moving.

I decided to try out the Jabra Elite 25e headphones. To be honest, they’re a bit of a mixed bag. But I don’t hate them, and they serve their purpose for their price range.

The headphones consist of two in-ear buds with a plastic-like suction cups. The buds have magnets to attach themselves to each other, and are connected to a base that I only can describe as some weird Star Trek-esque neckband. The neckband has a microphone as well as buttons for power and volume.

The in-ear buds fit snuggly. A little 90-degree twist places them firmly into your ears and keeps them there. In my half-hour jogging sessions, I never had the buds fall out. That’s perfect for workouts. Sound quality is solid as well. The voice quality comes out clear, and the bass is average for small in-ear buds. I was able to walk about 100 feet away from them before the sound started to get intermittent crackling.

The neckband is a bit of an issue. It stays around your neck well enough, but every once in a while it’ll shift a bit, requiring you to readjust them. It’s especially annoying if you’re wearing a hoodie or anything that could cover the neckband. It’ll happen less frequently as long as you keep it free of obstruction. The neckband needs a way to adjust it so it can fit a bit more snuggly on anyone’s neck.

An app to download an app

The weirdest part of using the headphones was the software, though. I thought I could just pair the headphones using normal Bluetooth conventions. Boy, was I wrong. Jabra apparently requires you to use their apps to connect it to the headphones properly. The apps are available for Android and iOS.

Now I say apps because Jabra has several that confused me at first. The two major ones are the Sound+ and the Jabra Assist. First I tried using the Sound+, but it’s not compatible with the model I have. OK, that’s annoying. I’ll try the Jabra Assist. I downloaded it, only to find that there was another app it wanted called JabraService. Then I started to notice that both Sound+ and Jabra Assist began to drain my phone’s normally long-lasting battery by about one-percent… per minute. That crossed a line, which led to an immediate uninstallation of both apps. The phone’s battery has been fine since their removal.

Whatever they were doing is violating a major no-no when it comes to modern technology. The headphones work fine with just the JabraService app, so I couldn’t figure out why there was a song and dance just to get it going. Anyone with a short attention span that expects their technology to just work might get frustrated with this experience and return them. It shouldn’t be like that, either. I bought a Sony wireless speaker for my laptop, and the pairing process was your normal smooth Bluetooth pairing. No extra software needed.

If you’re prepared to deal with a byzantine app experience and don’t mind not having something as sleek and sexy as Apple AirPods or the Beats equivalent, these aren’t that bad at $50 USD. Just be prepared to make a bit of compromises. The Jabra Elite 25e are a great starter pair that will get the job done. But if you need something a bit less cumbersome and are more fashionable, then these aren’t the headphones you’re looking for.

Microsoft Edge is all but dead. Why did it fail?

Microsoft decided not to continue developing the rendering engine behind its Edge browser. This came as a bit of a shock, even though the browser admittedly was having difficulty picking up a significant audience. Microsoft will continue Edge, but it’ll run Google’s open-source Chromium rendering engine behind the scenes instead.

So what did Microsoft do wrong to see its once dominant browser drop to an insignificant number, and be reduced to an ongoing joke? Well, a lot, really.

First things first: I don’t think the average user will care about this. They just want a browser that works, and won’t notice if it’s running EdgeHTML (Microsoft’s rendering engine for Edge) or Chromium. Other browsers gave up the ghost and switched to Chromium, most notably Opera, which gave up its Presto engine years ago.

For a web developer, Microsoft’s decision either has them shrugging their shoulders in apathy, or deeply concerned about having an already large tech company controlling the web market again. But more on this later.

So back to where Microsoft made some major missteps, and how there probably wasn’t anything they could have done to change this course.

Enterprise

Although Internet Explorer floundered in the consumer realm, enterprise still held onto it stubbornly. Internet Explorer gave IT departments the ability to lock down enterprise portals via Windows Group Policy Editor. There’s also a heavy amount of legacy web apps that work only on older versions of Internet Explorer (much to the chagrin of web developers trying to modernize them).

Instead of Microsoft continuing to improve Internet Explorer, they decided to abandon it in all but name, switching all their development efforts to Edge. There were several problems with this though that made enterprises unable to fully embrace it.

First of all, Edge is a Windows 10 exclusive. Anyone working for a Fortune 500, FTSE 100, or any large established company knows how hesitant they are to upgrade. And they have legitimate reasons not to do so. Adopting a new operating system not only cost time and money, but also involves retraining staff and hoping that existing portals and servers work with it.

Large companies didn’t upgrade to Windows 10, and were limited to Windows 7. This was fine in 2015, when Microsoft stopped supporting Internet Explorer, but several years has passed, and Internet Explorer became increasingly dated compared to Firefox and Chrome. Google saw an opportunity here, and began to offer tools that provided IT departments worldwide controls that functioned like Windows Group Policy Editor. Now when they switch to Windows 10, there’s little incentive for them to switch to Edge as well. Chrome already has all the tools IT needs: it runs on Windows 7 and Windows 10, and it renders everything online correctly compared to Internet Explorer. It’s almost as if Microsoft didn’t realize they still had customers that were dependent on Microsoft’s browser.

Now I get why supporting Internet Explorer in the long run probably wouldn’t be a good thing. It had a lot of legacy code that could be exploited easily. But supporting it would have kept Internet Explorer alive in the enterprise world, rather than dying a slow death.

Consumer

On the consumer side, Edge failed mostly because it didn’t offer anything new that Chrome or Firefox didn’t do already. Not only that, but when it launched, it was an unfinished browser. Internet Explorer’s biggest problem was the lack of extension support. Edge didn’t support extensions until a year after it launched, and then only allowed selected extensions. Today Edge extensions hover around the hundreds, far fewer than extensions on Chrome and Firefox.

Microsoft marketed Edge as having a better battery life compared to Chrome and Firefox. But the battery gains were negligible. Eventually, Chrome launched with better battery support, and the negligible gains became microscopic.

Microsoft also touted the Cortana integrations. But the truth of the matter is most consumers see AI assistants as a gimmick as best, and a parlor trick on average. Your average consumer doesn’t care that Google Now doesn’t integrate with Chrome (at least on the desktop). Plus, Cortana eventually would have to use Bing to show results, which itself has a toxic branding (although it comes from being in a Catch-22 scenario of few users).

Why search for something online with Edge using Bing as its default, when you could just easily run the same query on Chrome and have it return a Google result? Sure, you can change your search engine in Edge, but the average consumer is just going to use what the browser provides. And they rather switch to their preferred browser that works as expected than learn to use another browser.

Mobile

Windows Phone was a failure. And I say that as a proud former owner of a Nokia Lumia 1020. Most of the web browser growth in the past decade came from iOS and Android. And consumers used the default browsers on their phones out of laziness. Microsoft tried their best to get Windows Phone established, but they launched too late, and never could make up the app gap once mobile developers settled into iOS and Android as their preferred platforms to support.

Had Windows Phone been around, it would have helped Edge adoption rates. With the exception of China, Chrome grew worldwide because it was packaged as a default browser in every Android device (although recent legislation from Europe might stem that growth). And Safari still has a sizeable chunk of the web browser market because Apple made Safari’s rendering engine the default. Yes, even your Chrome browser on iOS is just Safari with a coat of paint on it.

Plus Windows Phone would have made more sense for Edge’s long-term strategy. It would have given Windows users tighter integration with their desktop environment, much in the same way that Chrome and Safari talk to each other from desktop to mobile. And it would have helped consumers familiarize themselves with the brand in a way that desktop, with its freedom of choice, simply couldn’t.

Apathy

In the end, what cost Microsoft their dominance in the browser market was Microsoft not caring about browsers in the first place. Internet Explorer 6 was a terrible browser. When Firefox launched, it showed the world that web browsers didn’t have to suck. Microsoft never put enough energy into trying to be better than it, only making changes when they felt it was expedient. By the time Google launched Chrome, Microsoft was finally starting to figure out that they needed to put more energy into Internet Explorer.

But the damage was done. Chrome and Firefox updated faster, due to using an evergreen system not tied to the operating system itself. Internet Explorer only could update via major operating system upgrades. Eventually, Google began using its dominance in platforms like its eponymous search engine, Youtube, and Google Drive, to push Chrome down the throats of every person that visited them.

Users complained about Internet Explorer. They pointed out the issues it had. Some went beyond your typical online trolling and provided reasonable suggestions to fix it. Microsoft either ignored them or took a very long time to implement them. So users responded to Microsoft not caring by adopting another browser. Edge was too little, too late, and too confusing for anyone on both the consumer and enterprise realms to care about.

What does this mean in the long run?

Chromium already was the de-facto web standard, whether anyone wanted to admit that or not. With Microsoft eventually adopting Chromium to run Edge, it makes it something you can’t avoid.

For web developers, this is both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s good for web developers that don’t want to test for Internet Explorer or Edge. Now they’ll have one less browser to worry about. One less headache that might have them spending hours or even days trying to fix a simple problem.

It’s a bad thing in the long run, though, because now you have one company deciding how the web should look. And it’s starting to happen already. Google has sites that only work in Chrome, even if it’s only temporary. Google Earth is a prime example.

Chromium being open-sourced means that Microsoft can contribute to the code, and help to make improvements that Google wasn’t able to make. But in the end, Google controls the pull requests for Chromium, and can decide what they will and won’t accept.

And for lazy developers, there’s less of a reason to test cross-browser. If it works on Chromium, it most likely will work with WebKit (Safari’s web rendering engine), and that will cover close to 90-percent of the market. Why bother testing for browsers like Firefox, which remains the sole alternative browser engine? Developers can take advantage of Chromium specific tools that won’t work on Firefox, and get the desired results they want.

I don’t see how Firefox can compete in a browser world dominated by Google’s rendering engine. Firefox’s numbers already were falling worldwide, and its main source of revenue ironically comes from Google (it’s the default search engine). It doesn’t have the resources or the dollars to keep up with the juggernaut from Mountain View.

It wasn’t good when Microsoft dominated the market with Internet Explorer, and it won’t be good to have Chromium dominating either. The good thing about this, though, is that Chromium is open-source. Google has been very good at updating it, and if someone doesn’t like it, they can fork it and create a new browser. It’s not exactly like when Internet Explorer wasn’t updated for several years.

If you’re a fan of open-source software, it’s ironic to be lamenting the death of perhaps one of the most closed-source software to exist on Earth. But the lack of software diversity is something to worry about.

Fitbit Alta HR review: fitness tracker vs. smart watch comparison

15,000 steps. My fitbit’s vibrating to let me know I’ve achieved another milestone. Another vanity badge that I can parade around like a young boy scout. And you know what? It’s working. I want to see what the next milestone looks like. The next virtual badge to add to my collection of digital swag. Once you get sucked into achievement hunting, you begin to understand the magic of fitbit.

I’ve been using a fitbit Alta HR for a month to see what it’s like to use a dedicated fitness tracker over a smart watch. And it’s been a pleasant, if not bifurcated, experience.

One thing is for certain, a fitbit is not going to replace a smart watch. It is leagues behind a smart watch when it comes to basic functions. The notifications on the Alta HR are limited to texts with no notification shade to aggregate them. You’re stuck with several non-customizable pre-programmed watch faces. Don’t like it? Too bad.

And don’t bother trying to use your fitbit like some weird James Bond device. It won’t be a calculator, a remote for your phone, you can’t respond back to messages on it, you can’t get weather updates on it, and it won’t do searches.

It’s just here to do one thing, and one thing well: track your health. And it nails it out of the park.

One thing the fitbit Alta HR has over a smart watch like my Moto 360 Sport is automatic activity tracking. The fitbit will notice if you’ve been active for a brief amount of time and start logging your workout session. From a mundane walk to work to a full marathon, fitbit will log your heartrate, time spent exercising, calories burned, and more without human input.

Want to manually track your workout? If you have it paired with a smart phone (which you most likely do), you can start a workout session and get even more details, like a GPS map, map elevation information, and more.

To be fair to the Moto 360 Sport, it did automatically track you when you were moving. Plus the tracking on the Moto 360 Sport seemed more or less in line with what the fitbit was saying, so the sensors on the two devices will get you nice ballparks. But it didn’t have the ability to track your vitals unless you manually tracked a workout either through the built-in Moto Sport app or Google Fit.

Which brings up another thing a fitbit will do without asking: be your coach and motivator. Although I got notifications from the Moto 360 Sport when I would reach a milestone, it wasn’t nearly as in-depth as fitbit’s milestones and badges. It tracks daily steps and lifetime distances in addition to the daily active time goals. Fitbit will send alerts not only when you hit these milestones, but also will give you a summary of how you’ve been doing in either weekly or monthly reports.

And if having a digital coach isn’t enough to motivate you, then look to fitbit’s other options. They built up a sort of social media platform, where anyone with a fitbit account can sign up and find their friends that also bought fitbits. From that point, users can compare their friends’ stats with their own, and cheer or challenge them to keep them motivated.

A bit of a loner? No problem there. Fitbit has you covered. It has built-in challenges with solo adventuring in mind. If you wanted to make a day trip out of hiking at a national park or travelling through a city, you can see if there’s a solo adventure that you can track to get another achievement.

The Alta HR also will track your sleep, though be warned, it doesn’t give accurate results unless you’ve slept longer than three hours. It’ll keep track of your resting heartrate and give a ranking to let you know your progress. Plus you can log your food intake, weight, and the amount of water you drink.

Part of fitbit’s strength is having a comprehensive app available for Android, iOS, and Windows 10. They’re all polished, and unlike an Apple Watch or Android Wear, they can be used across all platforms without any restrictions or incompatibility.

The battery life is phenomenal on the Alta HR. They suggest seven days, and I believe it. After using an Android Wear device where I was lucky to get two days, this seems like a blessing.

If you’re looking to get a fitness tracker, this is the pinnacle of what you can expect. It’s light, water resistant, has a great battery life, works across all devices, and just works as intended.

But it’s not going to replace a smart watch. If you want a smart watch, go get one. Also keep in mind that once in the fitbit world, it’s difficult to take your data and migrate it to another platform. Fitbit built up a walled garden, and they don’t want anyone climbing the walls anytime soon.

MacBook Pro 2018 review: Controversy meets conformity

Apple has been tinkering with their MacBook as of late to usher them into the modern era. But even with all of the changes, Apple kept to a conservative design philosophy that shouldn’t shock most people, save for a very vocal minority.

I got the chance to use a 2018 MacBook Pro as a daily driver. It’s the 15.4 inch version with a 2880 by 1800 pixel display, an Intel UHD 630 GPU, a 2.9 GHz core i9 processor, and 16 gigs of RAM. It’s currently running High Sierra 10.13.6.

It weighs roughly four lbs., and feels comfortable to carry around in one hand or use on a lap. The high resolution screen makes sure everything is crisp and in focus.

On the surface, it looks like another run of the mill MacBook. But once you start playing around with it, you realize that there are some controversial changes.

The biggest one, in my opinion, is the keyboard. Apple chose to use the butterfly keyboard setup first pioneered on the MacBook 12-inch model. You know, the “I’m not a MacBook Air, but I’m totally a MacBook Air” replacement.

The keyboard just feels weird. But I will agree, it takes some getting used to. The key travel is too shallow, and it just doesn’t feel right if you’ve been typing on chiclet and mechanical keyboards your entire life.

It’s a design choice that only shaves off a millimeter of thickness. You have to wonder what Apple’s endgame is when it comes to practicality. The keyboards have had reports of dying due to dust getting in them, which Apple corrected by using membranes to keep out the dust. That’s a sign that they’re making too many compromises just for the sake of aesthetics.

The touchpad also borrows from the 12-inch MacBook. It’s comically huge, and feels very responsive. It also has the force touch ability, where a hard press on something like a word will make Mac OS do a dictionary lookup, among other things. This does get rather annoying after a while, but once you train yourself to anticipate it, you won’t accidentally trigger it.

The other big change is the inclusion of the touch bar. A weird gimmick designed to shut up those that want a touchscreen on a MacBook, the touch bar has received a lot of negative praise.

The touch bar is adaptive, and responds to any apps compatible with it. It replaces the function key row, which you can summon by holding the fn key. It also does auto correct suggestions if you’re typing, and brings up advance features like a scrubber on video editors.

I personally don’t see it as a bad thing. Not once did it get in my way. It always felt like an option, which is great, because more interface choices is better for consumers.

But I do think Apple should just bite the bullet and adopt a touchscreen for Mac OS. They have iPhones and iPads with touchscreens. Windows laptops have had touch screens for the longest time, and I much prefer a laptop with a touchscreen nowadays. Apple might be delaying adding one on a MacBook because they don’t want to cut into their iPad sales, which seems to be coming closer to being the MacBook’s successor in a decade.

Finally, we have the inclusion of four USB-C ports, with the exclusion of any USB-A ports. This is perhaps the one thing that has gotten the loudest criticism from the tech crowd, especially video editors. Truth be told, USB-C still is in pioneer territory, and trying to get current equipment to work with it usually means dongle heaven.

But I think adopting USB-C is a good thing. The only way it’ll receive more support is if more OEMs start switching over. This is the one feature that I’ll say Apple has had the courage to do.

But it was done aggressively on Apple’s part. My current daily driver, an HP Spectre x360, has two USB-C ports, and one USB-A. Plus it has an HDMI port and an SD card reader. The HP Spectre isn’t alone in giving users an option of both the old and the new.

Getting the new MacBook means revamping your accessories to make it work with your new laptop. And that means dongles. Of course, the smarter solution is to get a hub for it, but that’s only going to be useful if you have a desktop setup. If you’re on the go and need your MacBook to work with your equipment, you might find yourself making a lot of compromises.

I’m not affected by this, since my work requires just a laptop to do properly. But I understand the frustration video editors and others that use their MacBooks as a hub for their other equipment must be feeling.

Overall, I think the new MacBooks have been receiving more hate than they deserve. Truth be told, it’s going to be perfectly serviceable for the average Starbucks dweller using it to compose their blog and sign into Facebook. The battery life is great (I’m getting around 6 to 8 hours), it’s not too heavy, and frankly people like having a MacBook as a status symbol. That branding mindshare is something that even the higher end Windows laptops don’t have.

But the criticism from the vocal minority has some weight. Donglegate is a thing. The touch bar screams meeting half-way and not pleasing anyone. And the keyboard was changed only for the sake of looks, not functionality.

If you’re an Apple loyalist, then you won’t be disappointed. If you need to use a MacBook for work related reasons, and you’re on the fence, be prepared to make changes to work with this machine. If you’re willing to adapt to it, you’ll learn to love it. If you feel the changes are too radical, then you might want to pick up a 2015 MacBook while you can. Or maybe find a Windows laptop that meets your expectations.

 

Moto X4 review: A spiritual successor to the once great Nexus line

The Nexus line is dead. A shiny example of how to make an affordable quality Android phone, it didn’t really have a worthy successor to follow it.

Google dropped the reference devices in favor of its Pixel line. Though they are gorgeous phones, it’s clear from their efforts that they’re targeting disgruntled iPhone users that want an iPhone experience in an Android body.

Then there’s the OnePlus. Perhaps the best spiritual successor, they’re also in limited supply and not always readily available for those in need of a phone at this moment.

There are a smattering of other companies worthy of consideration. Motorola, who Google previously owned, kept a philosophy of building affordable Android phones with a clean interface with the Moto X line.

Motorola, now branded as Moto and owned by Lenovo, made the Moto X4, which is perhaps one of the best spiritual successors to the Nexus line.

This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone familiar with the Nexus line. Moto made the Nexus 6 phablet, my previous daily driver.

So, how does the Moto X4 compare to the Nexus 6?

Truth be told, my Nexus 6 didn’t age well. After using it for under three years, the phone became riddled with slowdown, weird camera bugs, and a battery issue that finally put the nail in its coffin.

When my Nexus 6 worked, it was an amazing phone. It was lightning fast, the screen was gorgeous, and I loved taking advantage of features like NFC, turning my phone into a way to pay for stuff.

The Moto X4 meets my expectations the Nexus 6 originally set. It’s slightly smaller than the Nexus 6, but the build quality is similar. Instead of a slippery metal case, the phone now has a slightly less slippery glass exterior.

It adds a fingerprint sensor, allowing easy access to open the phone. The sensor is good, but not as good as the sensor on my iPad. Luckily it’s quick enough to correct its mistakes.

The battery life is phenomenal. I get a day’s use out of it from casual activities like texting, checking the internet, and using Google Maps. The camera on it is OK at best. It snaps pictures in low light well enough, but it’s not as quick as the camera on an iDevice. The included camera software is way better than the Google Camera on the Nexus 6, though. The Google Camera was horribly basic, so that’s not much to write about.

Software-wise, the Moto X4 keeps itself as stock as possible. I wouldn’t even consider it to be a proper skin, since most Android skins drastically alter the overall aesthetics and add features designed to keep users in their walled garden.

The Moto X4’s skins is essentially stock Android with an addition of the Moto suite. The Moto suite adds a bunch of silly gimmicks to it, including twisting the phone twice to activate the camera. I turned off most of these, but I kept the feature to wave my hand in front of the phone to activate the glance screen. It feels satisfying to do, even though it’s very geeky.

The great thing about keeping its software stock is that the phone gets updates quicker than Samsung and Amazon would with their versions of Android. My Moto X4 shipped with 7.1.1 Nougat, and instantly updated to version 8.0 Oreo with a couple of security patches.

Android Oreo is great. Although it’s a gradual improvement compared to Nougat, its best feature is better permission controls for apps.

Everything else about the phone is standard fare for an Android device. And that’s not a bad thing. The real question is how the phone will hold up a couple of years from now. Whether it will continue to receive updates or not remains to be seen now that Lenovo is in the helm.

The Moto X line might not be the favorite child anymore. Lenovo seems to be promoting the Moto Z as the new flagship, and removed the X4’s Moto customization. And the Moto X4 has a hard time comparing itself to the OnePlus, Pixel, and other flagship lines when it comes to build quality.

But Moto really nailed it out of the park with this one. It’s an affordable phone with a good build quality, an OK camera that works great for the Instagram generation, and great quality of life features like NFC and a fingerprint sensor. For $350 USD (what I paid for it), you couldn’t ask for a better mid-range phone.

Google Home Mini review: Hey, Google Home, what is your purpose?

Everyone in the tech community is hyping smart home speakers as the next big thing. I don’t get it.

Don’t get me wrong, the server based tech behind it is impressive. But in the end, they seem to be nothing more than novelties that don’t add any real benefit except to show how “21st century” our lives have become.

At their current price range, I get why they’re taking off. Both Amazon and Google have smart home speakers selling for $30 USD. They make a perfect stocking stuffer this holiday season.

I decided to buy a Google Home Mini to see what the hype was about. The main reasons are because I’m already knee deep in Google services, and the Google Home Mini integrates perfectly with my Chromecast.

Setting it up was fairly easy. Users are directed to the Google Home app on iOS or Android and walked through some basic steps, including training it to your voice.

This brought up my first annoyance with the Home Mini: You have to tweak its settings using the Home app. There isn’t a web page or corresponding app for Windows or Mac. Although this will be a minor inconvenience for some, I really wish Google would provide its services across all devices instead of turtling in the mobile world. I don’t see them doing this any time soon in the current tech climate.

Once users set it up with compatible apps, their Google Home Mini is ready to receive commands. I plugged it into my Pandora and Netflix accounts, and it worked as excpected. The cool part is using it with a paired Chromecast to show Youtube videos, Netflix videos, or photos from your Google Photos album. Users can stop, pause, and play a new video with easy voice commands.

Another neat feature is having Google Home Mini read the news for you, turning it into an on-demand radio. I imagine it probably can do the same with podcasts, but I have yet to set it up to do that.

But what’s the point?

The main problem is that the Google Home Mini just does things that any user can do with a smartphone or laptop. Sometimes using a device is quicker, since Google Home Mini sometimes either can’t understand what you’re saying, or doesn’t have the capacity to execute a specific command.

The main rub is that it still feels like you’re talking to a computer. And people don’t like talking to a computer. It’s the reason why there still is a stigma when you see someone talking to Siri or Cortana in the open.

The speaker’s voice sounds natural enough, but within an uncanny valley. The voice detection is fast, but using the keyword to activate it still feels awkward. And the demographic I feel this is supposed to help the most, baby-boomers and older, really don’t get the point of talking to it except as a parlor trick.

But there is a point.

Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft probably don’t really care that their smart home speakers aren’t where they should be now. These devices are merely gateways to collect data they need for the next generation. And the thing that will improve the next generation is more voice samples. Whichever company gets the most voice samples will have the better algorithm in the end.

Right now it looks like Amazon’s Echo has the lead. They were the first to define this device, letting everyone catch up to them. Google so far looks like they might be the only worthy competitor to the Echo for the time being. Apple delayed releasing their HomePod, which will sell at a premium. And Microsoft’s partnership with Harman Kardon isn’t getting the advertising, marketing or mindshare it deserves.

You’ll most likely be seeing smart home speakers everywhere within a couple of years. And if you’re like me, you probably won’t get it. I see the current generation of smart home speakers becoming the next Nintendo Wiis, gaining a large following due to gimmicky innovations, only to collect dust on a desk.

Android Wear 2.0: Decoupling your smartwatch from your phone

The next version of Android Wear is a nice upgrade for those that can get it. Whether you can get it or not is a different story.

Android Wear 2.0 has been rolling out to supported devices over the past months. I recently got it on my Moto 360 Sport, and I have little issues with it so far.

Improvements all around

The biggest thing users will notice is the interface got a major overhaul. The Apple-white aesthetic gives way to a familiar old-school Android off-black.

The main screen accesses the watch faces. Normally, you’d have to gesture swipe to the right to access the watch’s apps, but now swiping in any direction will bring up a watch face selector. Users can peg their favorite watch faces to this new menu and switch them on the fly. Pressing down on certain watch faces brings up granular controls for changing the watch color or style.

Apps are now accessed using the watch crown. The apps menu now swipes clockwise from the bottom left, giving a satisfying dial feel when scanning the menu. Android Wear 2.0 added a new keyboard with swipe functions to search and type in apps. Some stock apps got a new coat of paint, including the alarm, contacts, messages, timer, weather, and Google feed.

Speaking of apps, users can download Android Wear apps without using a paired Android phone. The inclusion of the Google Play Store is a nice addition, even if the current repository is a bit thin.

Notifications are much richer now. They’re more unified and easier to interact with compared to the older method.

The settings menu got changed for the better. Before, users had to swipe through several sub-menus in the notification shade. Now the major settings like airplane mode, brightness, and do not disturb mode are on one page. The main settings has more granular control for things like notifications, Google hot word detection, and keyboard.

Performance wise, I haven’t noticed a difference between Android Wear 1.5 and 2.0. The watch hasn’t interfered with my workout routine, and the new timer and stopwatch only help to improve the experience. Battery life seems the same, roughly around two days.

The only issue I’m having so far with the watch is retraining myself to the new user experience. I’m accustomed to swiping to the right to access my Android Wear apps, and clicking the crown takes some getting used to. But this is a minor gripe.

Android in chains

It sucks to beat a dead horse, but the easiest way to get Android Wear 2.0 is to buy a watch with it preinstalled. Despite Google’s best efforts, getting up-to-date patches is a chore to do on an Android Wear device. Even though Google controls the Android Wear experience and doesn’t allow manufacturers to tinker with its vision, it’s the manufacturers that control when users receive updates.

It’s a shame. Android Wear 2.0 is a nice upgrade. And it’s a step in the right direction for an open-source platform.

Edge improves, but not fast enough to keep my interests

This is an ode to Microsoft Edge. A fairly competent browser, Edge does a lot of things right compared to its predecessor, Internet Explorer.

Edge supports proper extensions. It sips on battery life. It has a nice reading mode. And it works great in touch mode.

I wish I could go on, but my praise for Edge ends there. I’ve written before about how Edge has a bit of shortcomings. Microsoft addressed some of my issues and continues to improve the browser with every patch. They recently launched version 15 with the Creators Update, bringing some nice tab features and under the hood performance improvements.

But here I am using their biggest rival’s browser on a daily basis: Chrome. Google continues to churn out improvements to one of its flagship products, making it hard for people like me to switch.

And it’s more than extensions. Though Edge is missing some key extensions I would like to have (I miss using Chromium Wheel Smooth Scroller on Edge, for example) it has two key extensions I would want on a browser nowadays: An ad blocker and a translator.

Chrome not only has more extensions, but it has a few features that keep me coming back. I’m a big Chromecast user. Google has pretty much all but refused to provide a Chromecast SDK for Windows 32 and Store apps. Google improved its Chromecast service by including it as part of Chrome.

Also some of their web projects tend to be Chrome exclusives for a while before trickling down to other platforms. A recent example of this is the new launch of the web-driven Google Earth. This behavior of building websites that work only in Chrome frankly reminds some people of a time when Microsoft had a similar philosophy with Internet Explorer 6. But when you have the lion’s share of the market, you tend to get away with otherwise unfriendly stances.

And as a web developer, Chrome is just a better platform to use as a development tool. Chrome’s developer tools are great to use, making Edge’s tools look quite anemic.

In spite of this, I still try out Edge every once in a while. I was hoping for a great leap forward with the latest Creators Update in April, but saw little to convince me to make it my default browser.

And Edge did improve. Using html5test.com, Edge 15 scored a 468 out of 555 points, surpassing Firefox 52 by eight points. Chrome 58 still holds the lead with 518 points.

Where Edge falls short is in its CSS prowess. It scored a 42-percent on css3test.com, allowing Chrome and Firefox to pass it with 58 and 64-percent. As a developer, you’ll see some minor CSS oddities that show up from time to time on Edge, especially when it comes to animations.

Edge’s real claim to fame comes with its battery life. Microsoft ran another battery test, this time omitting Opera from the round. Edge unsurprisingly came in first again, but the major shock was that Chrome managed to get a pretty decent second after coming in dead last in the first test. Google made improvements to Chrome’s battery life as of version 53, keeping it competitive.

So what future does Edge have? It’s slowly gaining traction, according to StatCounter, but not nearly enough to catch up with Chrome or Firefox on the desktop. Meanwhile, the now dated Internet Explorer is hemorrhaging users, with no end in sight.

Edge being tied to Windows 10 only doesn’t help. Microsoft has no plans on porting it to Windows 7 and 8.1. They also have no plans on bringing it to a non-Microsoft platform like Android.

This is an ode to Edge. A browser with a lot of potential that can’t shake the legacy of its predecessor.

HP Spectre x360 15 2017 edition review: Leaves me in high spirits

The HP Spectre x360 15-inch 2017 model is a gorgeous device. It ticks all the check boxes I’m looking for in a laptop while sporting a premium coat of paint. And if you’re considering buying one, you should stop reading and get one right now. But if you’re on the fence, continue reading.

My previous laptop, a Lenovo Ideapad from 2012, broke its hinge for the second time to the point of no return. I decided to replace it with the HP Spectre due to it having similar specifications to the Ideapad.

An important feature for me is having a 15-inch screen, since I don’t own a desktop workstation and find 15 inches a great size between viewing and portability.

From old to new

The Spectre has a 512 GB SSD like my Ideapad, but comes with 16 GB of RAM, a 3840 by 2160 IPS touch display, and a dedicated 940mx dGPU. The Ideapad has 8 GB of RAM, a 1366 by 768 non-touch TN panel display, and an Intel integrated HD 4000 GPU.

The screen on the Spectre is gorgeous compared to the Ideapad. The higher 4k resolution makes text crisp, and the viewing angles are better than the TN panel.

Unfortunately, it comes with a major caveat: not every Windows programs support hi-dpi scaling. I’m having trouble with GIMP and VLC at the moment, and the workarounds to fix the tiny screens are a bit of a chore. Some other programs have blurry text, but I’m willing to deal with that as long as the user interface is accessible.

The Spectre is lighter compared to the Ideapad, at 4.42 pounds (2 kg) versus 5.84 pounds (2.65 kg). I didn’t have any issues carrying the Ideapad around, so the Spectre feels great to move one or two-handed. But I’m aware that you might consider the Spectre heavy if you’re used to carrying around something the size of a MacBook Air.

The Spectre’s battery blows my Ideapad out of the water. The Ideapad couldn’t go past 3 hours at best, making the power cord mandatory. I tested using the Spectre for a day doing web surfing and Youtube watching, and got a decent 8 hours out of it. It makes me confident taking it to any conferences or meetings and not having it die on me.

The two front facing Bang & Olufsen speakers sound pretty good on the Spectre. Invest in a good pair of headphones, though. The chiclet keyboard is very comparable to the Ideapad. Lenovo has a reputation for good laptop keyboards, and the HP Spectre’s keyboard feels identical.

Software wise, the Spectre doesn’t feel any different than the Ideapad. Part of that is because they’re both running Windows 10, which has done a great job of streamlining the experience from one machine to the next.

The Spectre comes with a bunch of bloatware, including Netflix, McAfee, and HP proprietary software. This stuff is removable, and if you want to be thorough, you can clean install Windows 10. I kept Netflix. Who wouldn’t at this point?

The Spectre has a big glass touchpad, around the size of the new Macbook Pros. It’s a bit awkward to get used to right-clicking it, but not a major issue. The touchpad is responsive and recognizes the new Windows 10 gestures and I have little issues with it aside from the size.

The convertible experience

The main selling point is the Spectre’s 360 degree hinge, allowing it to rotate for presentations or as a tablet. It’s pretty cool, but nine times out of ten, you’re going to use it as a laptop. Holding it as a tablet in one hand is a bit awkward, and I wouldn’t recommend doing that for extended periods of time. Laying it on a table or in your lap in tablet mode however is very useful for casual mode, or if using it with the included pen.

The pen works OK. It has two buttons that users can change with the included onboard software. It’s not quite a mouse replacement, but geared towards artists and business users needing to take notes.

Using the touchscreen is great. It feels natural, even in laptop mode. Steve Jobs was wrong about this. Chances are those complaining about touching their laptop screens have smartphones or tablets, and are missing the point. It’s an option. Users are never forced to use the touchscreen, but having it there makes scrolling and pinch to zoom a lot more natural for some users.

Microsoft Edge feels best when using the touchscreen, but Google Chrome isn’t too bad either. It has some resizing issues when dragging with your fingers, but the other functions work as expected. Firefox, on the other hand, needs a lot of work before I could recommend using it with a touchscreen on Windows.

Minor issues

I did run into a few issues, though. For one, the fan kicks in a lot. It wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but the fan is very noticeable at between 20-30 dB when running at full power. It seems a few un-optimized rogue programs were causing the fan to turn on, but deleting them has brought it back to acceptable levels.

Also, if you need more ports, then you might want to reconsider another machine. The Spectre comes with a USB 3.0, two USB-C (one of which supports Thunderbolt 3), an HDMI output, and a full-size SD card. If you need more USB 3.0 ports, you might want to look elsewhere. USB-C is the future, though, so the Spectre is a bit futureproof.

And as I mentioned before, dpi-scaling is a major issue on the Spectre. That’s something developers are going to have to fix. But it’s getting more noticeable as devices trend towards 4k and 8k displays.

Overall, these deficits don’t outweigh the pluses you’ll gain from the HP Spectre. It has a gorgeous black and gold finish, a solid keyboard, a great looking display, excellent battery life, isn’t too heavy, and can be used in both tablet and laptop modes. At $1,499 USD for the version I own, it hits a sweet spot of not too many compromises. If you find the price too expensive, you can downgrade the RAM and SSD to 8 GB and 256 GB each, or upgrade to a 1 TB SSD model. All versions come with a 4k display, pen, and leather carrying slip. This one’s a keeper.

Moto 360 Sport review: Android Wear invades your wrists

Smartwatches are in a weird situation. A jack of all trades, they tend to do several mediocre things at best. They’re quirky, geeky, and in some cases another device to keep track of on our laundry list of increasingly connected devices.

But they have some pluses as well. I decided to plunge into the smartwatch world with a Moto 360 Sport. And I like it, but not without some caveats.

The Moto 360 Sport is the fitness focused version of Motorola’s smartwatch line. The watch has a silicon band and exterior that’s pleasant to touch, but an awful lint magnet requiring daily cleanings.

I upgraded the Moto 360 Sport to Android Wear 1.5.0.336103 running Android Marshmalllow (6.0.1). There is Android Wear 2.0 to look forward to, but I’ve yet to receive an update to it.

The display is OK. I use the watch with dim settings to preserve the battery life, and everything is legible and clear. There’s only so much information you can fit on a display this small, so whatever it shows is good enough for me.

The battery life is also OK. I get roughly two and a half days of casual use before needing to charge it. The days of the batteries that would last beyond nuclear winter are long gone, and we have smartphones to thank for accustoming us to shorter battery lives.

It’s light, comfortable on my wrist, and never gets in the way when I’m typing or exercising. But these things are what one would expect from a watch.

Notifying you about your notifications

There seems to be two camps for who a smartwatch is for. One side is people that use it as an accessory to their smartphones. Pairing a smartwatch with a phone unlocks new features from supported apps. Notifications are the biggest bonus from the pairing. Your smartwatch will let you know everything your phone knows. From the latest news reports, to your friend’s pms about the new puppy they adopted, your smartwatch won’t miss a beat.

This seems like a futuristic idea at first. Unfortunately the notifications do very little for me. I can’t respond directly to any notifications with the current version of Android Wear on my watch. That would have been a cool feature, but I guess I’ll have to wait for Mountain View to add it later.

As it stands, the notifications are duplications of what’s already on my phone. My first thought is “cool, this will save me some time checking my phone”.

But truth be told, I keep my phone in my pants pockets most of the time, and reaching to check the notifications takes about the same amount of time as it does checking my wrist. Worst yet, it’s getting close to winter where I live, and as an honorary sun bird, I tend to bundle up when it gets cold. My watch ends up under a layer or two of clothing, making it a bit more challenging to check than my phone. If you kept your phone in a bag or another inconvenient spot, then this could be more useful. But I don’t, and I know several people that don’t either.

The app interaction on the watch tend to be hit or miss. For example, the Trulia app just brings up rental and home sale locations. Why this needed to be an Android Wear app is beyond me.

The Pocket Cast app gives you the ability to play and stop your podcasts, but only on the lockscreen. It just shows you a queue of what’s currently playing and what’s next on the list in the app itself.

The find my phone feature works great, and will be perfect for when I get drunk at a party and misplace my phone.

Google Now works beautifully on the watch, and is perhaps its only killer app. It’s pretty useful to tell your watch to set a timer or a reminder and have it taken care of for you. 

And OneNote on Android Wear is fairly polished, including a keyboard and voice dictation. Honestly though, I think I’ll stick with the tried and true methods my phone and laptop provide for taking notes.

Let’s get physical

Then there is the second camp of smartwatch users: the fitness trackers. This is a more pragmatic use for a smartwatch, and the main reason why I got one.

Fitness tracking, like smartwatch pairing, tends to be a hit or miss reason to get a smartwatch. Not everyone cares about having that much data. Others aren’t that physically active to warrant logging this information in the first place.

I happen to enjoy jogging regularly, so the fitness tracking appeals to me. The Moto 360 Sport comes with a companion fitness app called Moto Body. It’s rudimentary and simple to use, but I like it a lot. A word of caution: If you need a serious fitness tracker, then look elsewhere. Moto Body focuses on running, steps, heart rate, and calories burned. Nothing more. The app is perfect for a runner, but not so useful for gym rats tracking their crossfit routine.

The heart rate tracker is pretty good. It’s not as accurate as a chest monitor, but will give you some decent ballparks to let you know if you’re having a heart attack, or just a bad case of gas.

Plus, the Moto Body app will plug into other fitness trackers and share information it collects. It currently plugs into Fitbit, Strava, MapMy, UnderArmour Record, and Google Fit.

Unfortunately for me, there is a glaring omission: Runtastic. They haven’t caught up with making their services compatible with the Moto 360 Sport yet. I say yet because Runtastic is compatible with the Sony and Pebble smartwatches.

Another bummer is that Runtastic won’t recognize the Moto 360 Sport as a Bluetooth heart rate monitor. It would be game changing if Runtastic allowed me to collect my heart rate via the Moto 360 Sport.

The Runtastic companion Android Wear app is pretty useful, though. Instead of having to clumsily activate tracking via the phone, now I can start and stop sessions via the smartwatch. After stopping the session, I’m presented with a nice synopsis of my workout on the watch.

Niche to have

Wearables definitely are for a niche audience. It’s no secret that wearable sales have yet to reach gangbuster levels. Apple Watches are selling OK, but not at the same level as the first iPhone or iPad. Fitbits have cornered the market for fitness trackers, but even their sales aren’t up to the already mediocre Apple Watch sales. Pebble, the original smartwatch pioneer, decided to let Fitbit buy their business rather than continue the good fight. And there isn’t a standout smartwatch in the Samsung Gear/Android Wear camp to reach the same level of enthusiasm as the Apple Watch.

Yet I still feel there is an audience for these quirky little devices. As much as I know that they are niche, every once in a while I’ll see someone with an Apple Watch or Fitbit or Android Wear on their wrist. Of course living in a high population area with an equally high range of people with disposable income tends to skew your perspective on what’s going on in reality. But at the very least, when I see one of these devices on someone, I can take a moment to acknowledge that there is another kindred spirit willing to be a tech pioneer, even if it isn’t the latest craze.