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Wow. What a journey this has been.
I have a lot of devices. Currently on my desk, you'll find the following: Nexus 5, Nexus 6, Nexus 6P, Nexus 7, Nexus 9, Pixel C, Blu Vivo 5, Huawei Honor 5X, and a Blu Life One X…and that goes without mentioning everything that's on the bookcase beside my desk. I never know which one I'll need on any given day, so it's imperative that they're all juiced up all the time.Now, I realize that my situation is uncommon for one person, but I don't think it's uncommon for a family to have multiple devices — aside from my slew of devices, my wife has a phone and tablet, my oldest son has a phone and tablet, and my youngest son has like four tablets. And they all have to be charged up.For that, you have a couple of choices: use roughly every outlet in the house to charge stuff, or — probably the better option — get a charging station. I've reviewed a couple of different charging stations in the past, but I was especially interested in TYLT's Energi Charging Station ($80) because of the compact design and removable 3,200 mAh battery pack — such a great idea. The company started the project on Indiegogo, where it did very well, and now it's out for the masses.
JBL Everest Elite 700 Bluetooth Headphones Review: Solid Wireless Headphones At A Decent Price Point
I'm a huge fan of what JBL has been doing in the portable speaker scene here lately — the Xtreme ($299), Charge 2+ ($139), and Flip 3 ($99) are all absolutely incredible at their respective price points. There's no doubt in my mind that JBL is at the top of the Bluetooth speaker game right now.
Creative Labs iRoar Bluetooth Speaker Review: An Overpriced Speaker That's Still Somehow Pretty Good
While my initial impressions of Creative Labs as a speaker company weren't so great, the company made me a believer in the Roar brand with the first speaker to carry the namesake. After the Roar 2 came out and once again impressed, I knew this would be one to keep an eye on moving forward. So when the iRoar ($370) was announced — the self-proclaimed "most intelligent speaker on the planet — I knew I had to check it out.
I'm going to be real with you guys: it's been a long while since I've flashed a ROM on any of my devices. Stock Android has gotten so good for me personally that I just haven't really gotten around to experimenting with anything new. That said, I definitely appreciate that the option is there for everyone out there who isn't happy with their device's software. And if I were to flash something right now, there's about a 100 percent chance that it'd be CyanogenMod.
You know what sucks? Not watching basketball. I absolutely hate when I have something else going on while the Bulls are playing and I don't get to watch the game. Being able to listen to the game makes that a little easier to tolerate, which I currently do from the official NBA app if that's the only option. If you're a TuneIn Radio Premium subscriber and an NBA fan, though, things just got a bit easier for you: TuneIn has reached a deal with the NBA that will allow it to stream all game audio from the app starting globally with the 2016-2017 season. That's pretty awesome.
Life One X
When it comes to iconic video games, there are few that stand out more than the Metal Gear series. I was instantly hooked when I first played Metal Gear Solid, and have been a huge fan of the franchise since. While Solid Snake is basically the character who makes the whole thing, I learned to appreciate and even like Raiden in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (after my initial irritation that the game wasn't playable as Snake). It took me a while to get there, but I finally did.
USB Type-C is the new hotness, and we're already seeing several manufacturers adopt the new (and improved) technology. The newest Google handsets and tablet all have Type-C, the LG G5 will have it, and even companies like Blu have moved to this tech for its newest Vivo phones. Whether we're ready or not, this is something that we'll see even more of moving forward.While USB Type-C is essentially superior to its predecessor in every way, it's still a huge pain to move from something that's been around as long as microUSB. There's a good chance you have cables and chargers aplenty, and giving up the luxury of having multiple chargers pretty much sucks. I know, because I just did that very thing. Ugh.
I still don't get the whole Inbox thing — I've tried it, and it's just not my cup of tea. Still, I get why people love it (even if it just doesn't go well with my workflow), and I'm glad that it exists. I like options. If you're one of the folks who happen to use Inbox, you may be interested in some new stuff Google has been cooking up and just implemented into the app: "later this week" and "weekend" snooze options. I'm not sure why you'd want to put an email off till the weekend, but you know what, that's your choice and I respect that. You weekend warrior, you.
Before Google Play Music, YouTube Music, Spotify, Rdio, or any of those other music services, there was Pandora. I've pretty much been using it since the beginning (albeit off and on), and no matter how many other music streaming/discovery services show up, I always keep coming back to it for all my radio needs. I use it as a supplement to Play Music — when I don't know what to listen to, Pandora is always there to hook me up. My thumbs-up library is so vast at this point, it's really difficult to even think about letting go.
Back at CES, Blu announced two phones: the Vivo XL and Vivo 5. While we've already taken a look at the former, the latter is the one we've really been waiting for. I've had it in-hand for about a week now, and there's honestly a lot to talk about with this handset. From the specs to the design, this definitely offers more than a $200 handset should, though there are definitely some quirks with the software.But I'm getting ahead of myself now. Let's start at the beginning. And when we get to the end — stop.
It's no surprise that guys and girls do things differently when it comes to tech, but that couldn't be more true in my own relationship — the way I use my phone versus the way my wife does things is actually pretty dramatic, including what each of us looks for in a new phone. Where I want to know how the fast the processor is, how much RAM it has, and what the display's PPI is, she's more interested in how "good" the camera is and if it charges quickly for those times when our three-year-old inevitably kills the battery. (He's not allowed to use my phones, so I don't have to worry about that. Plus I do a good enough job of killing batteries on my own.)
LG likes to do this thing where it announces devices and accessories before the trade show where they'll actually get announced or shown off, and late last night the company did just that with the new X series smartphones. Basically, this is a new line of mid-range phones from LG that will offer "one exceptional feature." It kind of doesn't make sense until you actually see what each of these phones is all about.
Password protection is no joke, and if you can remember all of your passwords, then you're doing something wrong. The most likely option is that you're using the same password (or a few variations) across every site on the web. That's not a thing anyone should do.
My first desktop PC was an Acer many years ago. If I recall correctly, it ran Windows 95, AOL was my ISP, and it was the coolest thing on the planet to me at the time. It was like the Wild West—the rules hadn't yet been established, so the internet was just a huge playground for…whatever. I could get into a nostalgic post about all the stupid stuff I used to do on that computer when I first got the 'net, but that's another story for another day. (Or maybe never.) Either way, those were good times.Ever since that computer, though, I've had a bit of a soft spot for Acer—oftentimes not unjustified. I've had a few Acer laptops since then (I currently have an Acer Chromebook 13, in fact), and have gone hands-on with the majority of the tablets the company has released in recent years. While I always want to like what they're doing in the mobile department, that doesn't always work out the way I want it to. The Predator 8 is a great example of that.Given that this is from Acer's Predator line, that automatically means it's designed for gaming. That in itself sets some notions about what should be expected from the device, with killer performance being the top one in my mind. Turns out Acer sees the whole Android gaming landscape differently than I do, because things like haptic feedback and the audio experience have taken precedence here—even the company's Predator 8 landing page doesn't really mention performance. It focuses on audio, touch, and the display.After using the device, I can kind of see why. While the audio, display, and touch are all quite good, things like ergonomics, performance, and battery life all fail to impress.
AT CES earlier this month, Blu announced two new phones: the Vivo 5 and Vivo XL. Today, we're taking a closer look at the lower-end of the two, the Vivo XL, which is the first one to hit the market. This one isn't a dramatic difference from some of the other more recent stuff we've seen from Blu — like the Life One X, for example — but it does continue the company tradition of offering a lot of phone for the money.
Let me get this out of the way right out of the gate: I love Chrome OS. I wanted to love it back when I reviewed the original Chromebook Pixel some years ago, but it just wasn’t where it needed to be for me. Fastforward a bunch of months, and Google made a ton of useful and thoughtful changes that made Chrome OS a legit desktop contender (for me at least). So, like I said in my recent What We Use post, I made the leap to Chrome OS as my main laptop about 18 months ago (or so) and haven’t looked back. I still have a Windows desktop for all the “heavy lifting,” but for the most part Chrome OS does everything I personally want.One of my favorite things about Chrome OS is just how versatile it is—it requires such limited hardware, it can run on almost anything. Low-powered Chromebooks are everywhere these days, and while once upon a time we probably would’ve told users to stay away from these underwhelming systems, they are legitimate laptops at this point in time. Hell, I use my Chromebook Flip as my main laptop now. It’s mind blowing.Now, that was a little long-winded, but I feel like a little bit of backstory was necessary before we get into my time with the new ASUS Chromebit. This is a new sort of device for the Chrome OS family—it’s not quite a desktop and not quite a laptop, but something sort of in between? It’s super portable—about the size of a candy bar—and can plug into any HDTV or monitor. It uses Bluetooth to connect to a keyboard and mouse, so it’s incredibly versatile.Even as far as Chrome hardware goes, it’s slightly under-powered in the RAM department, but otherwise it’s pretty damn solid for just $85.Note: I use all my Chrome OS devices on the dev channel, and the Chromebit wouldn’t sync my apps, extensions, and bookmarks until it was also on the dev channel. I don’t feel like this affected the outcome of the review in any way, but wanted to make it known.