Jurang Tayo

Sabtu, 06 Juli 2019

Nebula Capsule II mini projector review: TV in a can - The Verge

The new Nebula Capsule II projector is a portable can-shaped mini projector. It can create an HD, 720p image that’s up to 100 inches diagonally. But like all mini projectors, it doesn’t get bright enough to work anywhere but in dark spaces. It has a speaker built in so you don’t have to fuss with Bluetooth. It also has Android TV built in so you don’t have to fuss with HDMI or casting from your phone (though you can do those things, too).

I could see it fitting into people’s bags as a portable projector that ticks a lot of boxes. I also could see most people balking at its cost: $579. Anker’s predecessor to the Nebula Capsule II was our pick as the best mini projector last summer. This new one is so much better that it’s a shame that it costs so much. It’s a great little gadget.

Unless you want to watch Netflix with it.

I love mini projectors. (You can also refer to them as micro or pico projectors, so I’m playing fast and loose with the terminology for this category.) The basic idea is that you have something radically smaller than a traditional bulb-based projector that you might mount to your ceiling. You could take a mini projector camping or use it in your backyard.

The Capsule II is portable enough to put anywhere, but it’s quite a bit bigger than the old one was. (Imagine one of those giant Foster’s beer cans, then make it just a little taller.) You can hold it in one hand, and you can throw it in most bags, but you’ll feel the one and a half pounds it weighs.

Even if you don’t know exactly what you’d want it for, it’s fun to imagine where you might create a gigantic screen on a whim — even if it’s just projecting a horse on your friend. But use any mini projector for even a little bit, and you’ll find they are still stuck in a particular phase of technological development: the fiddle zone.

There’s just so much to fiddle with on a mini projector! You have to find a spot to use it that’s dark enough (not to mention a surface that’s large and flat enough to project on). You have to ensure it’s aligned and straight and focused. You have to figure out how to get the video you actually want to watch on it. You have to figure out how to get enough sound out of it so everybody can hear it.

With a regular projector, you do all of that fiddling ahead of time. You create a permanent setup somewhere in your home over a weekend (or three) so that using your projector is as simple as turning on a traditional TV. With a portable mini projector, you face those challenges pretty much every time you want to use it.

The whole premise of the Capsule II is that it reduces the number of things you have to fiddle with. It is almost entirely successful in that — with a few unforced errors that are annoying but don’t ruin the experience.

On a practical level, the Capsule II solves two problems that few other portable projectors manage. First, it has a decently loud, decently good 8W speaker built in, which means you have one less thing to worry about when you set up to watch a movie. You can even use it in a Bluetooth Speaker mode, which has the added benefit of lasting way longer than the standard three-ish hours it can run in projector mode.

The second problem the Capsule II solves is just getting content into the projector so that it can project it. It has an HDMI-in port, but most of the time, you don’t need it because it runs a clean, native version of Android TV. That means you can use standard smart TV apps downloaded directly from the Google Play Store. As long as you can get a Wi-Fi connection, you can stream video from any app that’s installed on the device.

It will support Chromecast from several apps if you have the video saved locally on your phone. The device itself has very little local storage, and Android TV apps aren’t designed for downloaded content anyway. You can also play video via other means, including sideloaded apps that aren’t available in the Google App Store for Android TV or directly from video files saved on a USB thumb drive. (If you know what I mean, and I think you do.)

There’s an included remote control, so you can use this projector like you would any smart TV. In fact, it comes with the Google Assistant built in, so you can speak into the remote for searches. If you take nothing else away from this review, remember this: it’s a portable projector that’s nearly as easy to use as your smart TV, and that’s wonderful.

All of this simplicity made the Capsule II’s most serious limitation all the more frustrating: the only way to play Netflix on it is a ridiculously hacky workaround. Netflix, you might recall, is very picky about what devices it will certify for its video, and the Capsule II hasn’t made the cut yet. Netflix’s certification block also applies to casting video, unfortunately. So to watch Netflix, you either have to be clever enough to sideload it yourself or you have to do it Anker’s way.

Anker’s way is to install the smartphone app controller app, then send you through a series of convoluted steps to sideload Netflix on the device directly. (If you were hoping to just use Cast for Netflix, sorry, that doesn’t work either.) Then from now on, you can only run Netflix by hitting the button in the smartphone app. It all works, technically, but it’s an awful experience. It’s pretty rough to ask users to install a literal file browser app, and it’s just as rough to have to use a button on the phone to launch Netflix.

Speaking of rough: Amazon Prime Video is not compatible with this device, either. Aside from those limitations, I was able to watch all sorts of movies, HBO shows, and YouTube videos on it. Hulu, Spotify, Pandora. Sling, Showtime, CBS All Access, and a bunch of other standard smart TV apps are also available.

Beyond finding the content you want to watch, there is still the challenge of getting a clean, rectangular, focused image. When you set down the Capsule II, it is able to use lasers to autofocus. So far, so good. Unfortunately, the likelihood that you’d get the picture exactly where you want it on the first try is going to be low, so you’ll move the capsule a little to fix it. Once you do, it’ll go out of focus.

Anker set up the software to trigger autofocus when the device is moved, but it doesn’t work very well. The fix is to hold down the HDMI button on the remote to activate the autofocus, which is fine. But if you don’t have the remote handy, the only way to fix the autofocus — and this is what Anker suggested — is to pick the thing up and shake it.

The last fiddly thing with getting a good picture is the “keystone” adjustment, the thing that makes your picture look like a proper rectangle instead of a trapezoid. The Capsule II can only do vertical keystone adjustment, not horizontal. That means that you will need to position your projector centered directly in front of the surface you want to project on.

Getting both vertical and horizontal keystone adjustments in something this small would be difficult, and Anker also tells me that “comply with the Android TV certification regulations, we had to use only a vertical keystone.” It’s not a big deal, but you should be aware of it. There is a standard tripod mount on the bottom of the projector, so I just use it with a standard Joby GorillaPod tripod to make it easier to place in the right spot.

This all sounds dire, but in practice, it’s not — at least not if you have the remote and something good to set the Capsule II down on. You center it on a wall, point it up, hit the button to autofocus, and you’re done. Then it’s time to start playing a movie, and so long as you’ve got some kind of Wi-Fi, that’s as easy as doing it on your TV (minus Netflix and Amazon Prime video). Pro tip: make sure that Google Play movies is hooked up to your Movies Anywhere account so you can access movies that were purchased on Amazon or iTunes.

Once a video is going, the experience is nice. The picture can get really big and doesn’t seem to drift out of focus over time. Battery life really can reach just short of three hours in my experience, though you might want to have a charger or backup battery (it charges via USB-C) handy just in case. There is a fan that you can definitely hear inside, but it’s not loud enough to distract from the actual sound of the video you’re watching.

As for picture quality, don’t expect this to be as good as your TV. You’ll need a dark area, and the larger you make the screen, the darker your room should be. Anker rates it at 200 ANSI lumens, which is to say it’s brighter than many other tiny projectors, but nowhere near as bright as a dedicated projector you plug in. I projected it on lots of different surfaces and as long as the surface was flat, it produced a clean and sharp 720p image.

A portable projector is definitely an “aspirational” gadget. You can easily imagine all sorts of situations where you would be the hero with a TV in your bag. I personally like having it because I don’t want a TV in my bedroom but sometimes, you know, you just need to be in bed all day and binge something. Or maybe you have a backyard and want to have a little s’mores-and-movie time.

All that sounds great! But it also sounds like the sort of thing you’d daydream about but probably won’t do as much as you’d imagine. If this were a cheaper gadget, I’d say go on and buy your dream — you only live once — but $579 is way too much to spend on a daydream.

If the price doesn’t put you off and you’re also the sort of person who isn’t worried about those video content workarounds (I don’t judge), I think it’s a pretty great little TV in a can. I’m glad I have one. But as I’ve said before: if you have to pile on a bunch of caveats and if-thens before you recommend a product, that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement.

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https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/6/20683533/nebula-capsule-ii-mini-projector-review-tv-netflix

2019-07-06 13:00:00Z
CAIiEK1kU7jkfNGqS6jC9pTVFmEqFggEKg4IACoGCAow3O8nMMqOBjD38Ak

Samsung really can't afford any blunders with the Note 10 launch - Wired.co.uk

The next big mark on the smartphone calendar is August 7, the date of Samsung’s next Unpacked event in New York, where it will announce the Galaxy Note 10. It's set to be the latest in Samsung’s stylus series, the "oversized phone with a pen” line. And after the Galaxy Fold debacle, the Note 10 launch needs to pass with the mannered precision of an animatronic ice skater to avoid us looking back on 2019 as a year to rival 2016 as an embarrassing pile-up of Samsung blunders.

2016 was the year of the Galaxy Note 7, a phone that seemed superb on paper before it was revealed to be too dangerous to be allowed onto planes. It had an unfortunate habit of catching fire and/or exploding.

Those looking for smartphone catastrophe this year will have had their head turned recently by Huawei. It was “blacklisted” by the US government, and consequently by key American partners including Google, Intel and Qualcomm. This is a Huawei problem, but it affects Samsung too. The ban, and subsequent "chip downturn", has been blamed for a huge 56 per cent dip in Samsung’s Q2 profits. In the phone components space Samsung is best-known for its OLED screens. Huawei reportedly no longer uses them (much), having largely switched to Chinese manufacturer BOE. But Samsung is still a primary provider of the RAM and storage memory chips used in phones, including Huawei’s.

Perhaps Samsung should be grateful for Huawei’s problems, though. They're likely to boost its smartphone sales in most countries, and pulled focus from the disaster it created with the Galaxy Fold, its first folding phone.

Now redesigned and back on track to launch – at an unconfirmed date – the Galaxy Fold ran into problems with its screen and hinge in the lead up to its original planned release in April. Firstly, it has a plastic screen and, as Apple realised just before it launched the first iPhone, plastic display layers are not a good fit for expensive phones. Within days reviewers found the Galaxy Fold’s screen became creased and if what appeared to be a screen protector was removed, the phone stopped functioning. Samsung claims to have redesigned the £1,800 phone, but this is the stuff of nightmares.

But will the Galaxy Note 10 be affected by the same lack of rigour that allowed this to happen in the first place? “It was embarrassing. I pushed it through before it was ready,” Samsung co-CEO DJ Koh told reporters recently. Rushing a school project or job interview prep can result in embarrassment. But designing a £2,000 phone that has fundamental flaws so glaring they are exposed within days? That’s something else.

There’s an obvious defence. The Samsung Galaxy Fold is part of a bold new category that poses extremely difficult design challenges. Flexible substrates and electronics are, clearly, not there yet with Koh remarking, "give us a bit more time". And the Note 10 appears to be a much more conventional phone. It likely has a mostly flat screen.

But there are signs Samsung plays things too fast and loose with its most familiar and bestselling models too. The company is being sued in Australia by the Competition and Consumer Commission. It suggests that Samsung adverts effectively implied the Galaxy S10 could be used in swimming pools and the sea and that an asterisked disclaimer on its website saying it could not be used in salt or chlorinated water is not good enough. (Our advice on this specific point: do not deliberately submerge any gadget with water resistance below 5ATM.) The ACCC seems to suggest Samsung takes a sloppy approach to the promises it makes.

You could argue sloppiness caused the Galaxy Fold’s immediate plunge into engineering Hades. You could also argue sloppiness was behind the Note 7’s self-short-circuiting battery. What can go possibly wrong with the Note 10?

So far we have seen a few leaked photos of the phone, some renders and an invite featuring a stylus and camera lens sitting on a white background. The most obvious tyre-shredding pothole is a feature we think belongs in the “not gonna happen” pile. A few commentators believe Samsung may put a camera inside the Galaxy Note 10’s stylus. This has the potential to be completely creepy and a good reason for Samsung not to try to introduce such a feature.

Samsung did make the S-Pen a fully wireless Bluetooth accessory with 2018’s Galaxy Note 9, and did so with all the careful attention to detail it passed over in the Galaxy Fold. But there’s no obvious use for a stylus camera that would overcome problematic optics.

The camera lens of the Note 10’s invite more likely refers to the “Infinity-O” punch hole on the phone’s front. These are used in Galaxy S10 and S10+, as a way to fit in a selfie camera without a notch or a motorised pop-up camera. The OnePlus 7 Pro, Oppo Reno 10x Zoom and Asus ZenFone 6 use the latter. And given how easily such new mechanical designs could go wrong, it’s somewhat surprising no major stories have emerged about any problems yet. But the Note 10 side-steps that possibility.

These are the best Android phones in 2019

The Galaxy S10’s punch hole is crammed in the corner, where it can just about get out of the way of anamorphic aspect ratio content. Samsung is expected to move the punch hole from the side of the display to the centre in the Note 10. That’s a better position for taking selfies, but a worse one for watching video. This produces a phone-wide shuffle. The Galaxy Note 10’s rear cameras move to the side, instead of sitting in the middle like the S10's. You can think of internal phone design as a Tetris-like game of packing the car for a camping holiday, only if you get it wrong, the car might catch fire.

So why is Samsung focusing on the front camera? Oppo and Vivo have already teased (almost) invisible under-screen front cameras, and a standard punch hole now seems quite conservative. Punch holes are already boring. However, this may be an unusually high-end camera. Leaked images suggest it won’t have to contend with the S-Pen or the rear cameras for space inside the shell, leaving more room for a higher-quality lens and sensor. There seems to be only one front camera whereas the Galaxy S10+ has two.

Leaks suggest the Note 10 will have four rear cameras, though, matching the 5G version of the Galaxy S10. We’re likely to see zoom, ultra-wide and standard-view cameras, as well as a ToF (time of flight) depth-mapping camera. The Oppo RX17 Pro was the first phone to arrive in the UK with one of these, in January 2019, and while this hardware is still almost completely useless, it may one day be indispensable for AR.

But will all Note 10s have these features? There will, for the first time since 2014, reportedly be more than one core version of the Note, including a higher-end “Pro” model. “Given the economies of scale Samsung can reach, adding a model offers the ability to widen the addressable market with not much added costs,” says Carolina Milanesi at Creative Strategies.

The differences may well mirror those we saw in the S10 family, the Pro version adding 5G support and the ToF camera. 5G has gone public in a big way. Vodafone and EE have launched their 5G services, and Three will do soon, but adding it to a phone still comes with significant added cost. Is the Qualcomm Snapdragon X50 5G modem really that expensive? No doubt the early adopter tax is alive and well. Other features to expect on the upcoming Galaxy Note 10 include at least 128GB storage, the same Snapdragon and Exynos CPUs as the S10+ and a complete absence of headphone jacks and expendable storage.

When it arrives, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 is likely to be one of the best phones of the year, and among the best-selling. It seems there is plenty of appetite for the brand’s top phones too.

Despite recent stories of diminished Samsung profits and a contraction of the phone market in general, the Galaxy S10 family’s sales have in fact outpaced the Galaxy S9 generation’s. And the top-end Galaxy S10+ is the most popular of the lot. An even higher-price Note 10 Pro or “+” variant will once again test how much Samsung fans are willing to pay, though, and potentially the appetite for 5G at a time when coverage is limited. The Samsung Galaxy Note 10 will almost certainly be launched on August 7, hopefully without spy camera pen and without incident.

Jumat, 05 Juli 2019

Konami says Sony made the call to drop 'PES 2019' from PS Plus freebies - Engadget

Realistic new renders give us our closest look yet at Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10+ - BGR

Samsung on Friday morning announced that the company expects its second-quarter operating profit to plummet by a gut-wrenching 56% on-year to $5.6 billion. To make matters even worse, that figure includes a one-time payment from Apple of nearly $700 million because it failed to meet its minimum commitment for iPhone OLED displays. Samsung’s chip business had been booming and the Galaxy S10 series was supposed to be a huge help to its slumping smartphone division. And yet the first full quarter of Galaxy S10 sales turned out to be a dismal one, and the company’s Galaxy Fold debacle certainly didn’t help either.

Considering the Galaxy Note series has never sold anywhere near as well as the Galaxy S series, we’re not sure how much of a boost the upcoming new Galaxy Note 10 and Galaxy Note 10+ will be for Samsung’s bottom line. What we are sure of, however, is that Samsung’s soon-to-be-released Galaxy Note 10 series is shaping up to be its most impressive new smartphone series yet. And now, thanks to a new set of leaked images shared by an insider, we just got our closest look yet at both upcoming new Galaxy Note 10 phones.

When Samsung saw that Apple was planning to release a new “entry-level” iPhone model alongside its flagship iPhones in 2018, the company was quick to copy the strategy. While overall Galaxy S10 sales didn’t do much to help Samsung’s plummeting profit in Q2 this year, word on the street is that the less expensive Galaxy S10e has been the best-selling Galaxy S10 model ever since the S10 series was first released back in March.

With that in mind, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Samsung is using the same strategy next month when it launches the new Galaxy Note 10 series. High-end smartphones have gotten so expensive that companies like Apple and Samsung now have to dial back some of the features in order to offer stripped-down versions that are at least somewhat affordable. So instead of just releasing one new Galaxy Note phone in 2019 like Samsung has done in previous years, the company plans to release an “entry-level” Galaxy Note 10 and a high-end Galaxy Note 10+. Now, model upcoming new models have been shown in great detail thanks to a fresh leak.

Twitter user Sudhanshu Ambhore is somewhat new on the scene, but he has already been the source of several smartphone leaks that ended up being accurate. On Friday, he posted newly leaked renders of both the Galaxy Note 10 and Galaxy Note 10+.

Here’s a closer look at the Galaxy Note 10:

Image Source: Sudhanshu Ambhore, Twitter

And here’s the Galaxy Note 10+:

Image Source: Sudhanshu Ambhore, Twitter

Both models might look the same at first glance, but you can tell them apart by the back of each phone. The Galaxy Note 10 has an LED flash next to its new triple-lens rear camera, while the Galaxy Note 10+ has a fourth TOF sensor and one other sensor in addition to the LED flash. The plus version of the Note 10 is also expected to have a larger display.

The new Galaxy Note 10 and Galaxy Note 10+ will both be unveiled during a press conference in New York on August 7th, and they’re expected to go on sale in the weeks that follow.

Image Source: Zach Epstein, BGR

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https://bgr.com/2019/07/05/galaxy-note-10-release-date-soon-new-leaked-images/

2019-07-05 13:36:00Z
52780326100937

Samsung salivates over projected 5G phone prices, touts the Note 10's S-Pen - Phone Arena

During its Samsung Investor Forum 2019 keynote, company chiefs took the stage to express their confidence in the future of the cell phone industry that will apparently be shaken up by foldables with 5G connectivity. "5G will trigger the demand to replace people’s phones, and will serve as a driving force for the smartphone market," according to Lee Jong-min, a senior vice president of Samsung Mobile.

So much so, that Samsung is already expecting to pull ahead in average phone selling price (ASP), after it was one of the first to market with the excellent Galaxy S10 5G. By the time 5G phones (and networks) become ubiquitous in 2022, Samsung expects them to add so much value that they would command almost double the ASP of regular phones on the LTE standard.

As you can see in the slide below, Samsung pegs 5G phones to go for $534 on average, which could easily mean that the retail price of the high-end models is expected to surpass the psychological $1000 threshold. The S10 5G, for instance, carries a tag of $1300 over at the Samsung US store.

Samsung salivates over projected 5G phone prices, touts the Note 10's S-Pen

While Samsung is salivating over the prospects of higher 5G phone prices, it is working hard to be first with true 5G modem integration into its Exynos chipset, which would be bad news for Qualcomm, whose next-gen modems are still a separate affair. Moreover, Samsung plans to double down on foldable form factors, it turned out.

In addition to the tablet-type first-generation Galaxy Fold, there’s going to be other types available soon. I’m using the Galaxy Fold in order to check e-mails and watch videos, and it’s beyond useful.

Last we heard, the Fold 2 may bend over the horizontal axis like the upcoming foldable Motorola RAZR, and have a much smaller, 6.7" footprint than the original Fold which is yet to be officially launched in the first place. Samsung's exec also had a few good words to say about its next high-end phone, the Note 10, that is about to be unveiled on August 7.

The S-pen in the upcoming Galaxy Note 10 scheduled to be launched in August will show a much improved performance.

We can't wait to see the Note 10 stylus in action, too, but Samsung doesn't just have plans for its top-shelf phones. Its strategy to equip the midrange A-series with unique features like flip cameras or under-screen biometry first seems to be paying off, at least according to Mr Lee.

Our decision to apply innovative functions to low-end products first proved to be right. We will continue to release products based on the market response.

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https://www.phonearena.com/news/Samsung-5G-phone-prices-foldables-Note-10-S-Pen_id117300

2019-07-05 13:35:36Z
52780326100937

Apple may launch new MacBook Air with a new keyboard that doesn't stick, top analyst says - CNBC

The new MacBook Air

Todd Haselton | CNBC

Apple may replace the controversial butterfly mechanism keyboards that it has used in all modern MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air computers introduced since 2015, according to a note from top Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

The keyboard, which Apple has tried to keep improving, is known for sticking or creating multiple keypresses and has been a problem for some users. Apple has said that only a fraction of users have problems with their keyboards, but it's widespread enough that the company began fixing all laptops with the butterfly keyboards for free in May.

Kuo said Apple will launch a MacBook Air with a new scissor-style keyboard this year, followed by a new MacBook Pro with the updated keyboard in 2020. It might also help Apple increase margins. "The cost of a butterfly keyboard is much higher (by 250–350%) than that of a general notebook keyboard because of low production yields," Kuo said.

Kuo said Apple is turning to a scissor mechanism to replace the butterfly mechanism, which was created to help keep MacBooks as thin as possible.

"There have been successful developments in the new scissor keyboard," Kuo said. "The new keyboard could improve the typing experience by offering longer key travel and durability by adopting glass fiber to reinforce the keys' structure."

Apple said a new keyboard design in the latest MacBook Pro, launched in May, would improve reliability by employing new materials. However, the design of the keys remains the same, and they may still stick.

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https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/05/apple-to-release-new-macbook-air-with-new-keyboard.html

2019-07-05 12:49:51Z
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Jurang Tayo

Sabtu, 06 Juli 2019

Nebula Capsule II mini projector review: TV in a can - The Verge

Samsung really can't afford any blunders with the Note 10 launch - Wired.co.uk

More great stories from WIRED

Jumat, 05 Juli 2019

Konami says Sony made the call to drop 'PES 2019' from PS Plus freebies - Engadget

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Realistic new renders give us our closest look yet at Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10+ - BGR

Samsung salivates over projected 5G phone prices, touts the Note 10's S-Pen - Phone Arena

Apple may launch new MacBook Air with a new keyboard that doesn't stick, top analyst says - CNBC