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ReviewsHome Entertainment & Smart HomeApple TV 4K Is a Damn Good Set-Top Box
In the years since its release, Apple TV has often lagged behind competitors, seemingly forgotten by Apple in favor of phones, computers, and even watches. And the Apple TV’s status as the “other” on Apple’s list of sales feels evident when you notice how late to the 4K party it is. Roku launched a 4K box … Continued
By Alex Cranz -
ReviewsHome Entertainment & Smart HomeSamsung’s $3,500 QLED TV Almost Feels Like It’s Worth It
Huge, detailed, brightly colored images flickered across the screen, illuminating the whole room like the lights off one of those laser light disco balls at the skating rink. My brother’s eyes bulged. “It’s too much,” he gasped as I scrambled for the remote just to pause the vivid assault on our eyeballs. He’d just come … Continued
By Alex Cranz -
ReviewsHome Entertainment & Smart HomeThe Frame by Samsung Is Not a Work of Art, But It Sure Is a Fine TV
The Frame by Samsung is about as pretentious as a television could be. It’s a $2,000 4K TV that doubles as a digital display for works of art. You can even hang it on your wall with a “no gap” mount and attach faux wood panels to the sides so that it looks like painting. … Continued
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ReviewsHome Entertainment & Smart HomeI Wish All Smart Home Upgrades Were as Easy as This Light Bulb
There’s an entire standup routine waiting to be written about how smart home accessoriescan be incredibly dumb and complicated. But one of the easiest smart home upgrades, smart lighting, has just gotten easy enough for even your parents to install without calling you—if they’re living in Apple’s ecosystem. Smartphone-controlled light bulbs were one of the … Continued
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ReviewsHome Entertainment & Smart HomeThis Treat Camera Gave My Cat Trust Issues
My cat, Artemis, is a bustling career woman. She has many jobs that she juggles between stealing my hair ties and spilling her kibble; in addition to serving as the Mayor of Fluffingsville, she runs a network of freelancers as Editor-in-Chief of Catmodo. Since both of us are busy most of the day at our … Continued
By Rae Paoletta -
ReviewsHome Entertainment & Smart HomeLG’s Modular Sound Bar Is Good, Newfangled Fun
With the new Sound Bar Flex, LG didn’t make the world’s best sound bar. It’s actually a bit of a stretch to call the modular, three-piece speaker system a sound bar at all. And at $430, the (mostly) wireless setup isn’t quite a bargain either. You know what, though? The Sound Bar Flex sure is … Continued
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ReviewsHome Entertainment & Smart HomeThis TV Backlighting System Fucked Me Up
This is opulence. Suddenly, there is extra light blasting from behind my TV screen, making a day-glow title sequence positively atomic. The DreamScreen, a backlighting system that’s designed to make your TV viewing more immersive, is a luxury that I absolutely don’t need. In theory, the supplementary lights change color based on the pixels on … Continued
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ReviewsHome Entertainment & Smart HomeThe Biem Butter Sprayer Solves My Most Pressing First World Problem
I hate getting anything greasy on my hands. That includes moisturizer, sunscreen, olive oil, margarine, and butter. Until recently I had reserved myself to living a life of dry toast and flavorless corn-on-the-cob, but then a one-trick kitchen gadget came along with exactly the one-trick I desperately wanted. You might assume there are only two … Continued
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ReviewsHome Entertainment & Smart HomeEero’s Latest Router Is So Easy I Don’t Care How Much It Costs
Let me make one thing brutally clear: I love Eero’s wi-fi routers. I love how the company brought mesh networking into the mainstream. I love how the hardware’s designed. I love how elegant the software is. But Eero’s promise isn’t new any more. So when it came time to test out the company second-generation tech, … Continued
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ReviewsHome Entertainment & Smart HomeTCL’s New Roku 4K TV Is Very Good and Beautifully Cheap
The TCL P-Series sounds too good to be true. At almost half the price of similarly outfitted sets, these Roku-powered 4K TVs feature high-end features like full-array local dimming, high dynamic range (HDR), and Dolby Vision. All that, and a 55-inch model will only set you back $650. So is it really too good to … Continued
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ReviewsHome Entertainment & Smart HomeThe Amazon Echo Show Is the Best Dumb Smart Machine in My Home
The first night the Amazon Echo Show was in my bedroom I had to carefully lay it face down on my nightstand. The display, which was cycling through my upcoming meetings, most recent news, and the weather, was simply too bright. It was like having a little super informative sun shining in my face. The … Continued
By Alex Cranz -
ReviewsHome Entertainment & Smart HomeA $400 Smart Tea Machine Gave This Brit an Existential Crisis
When Americans are trying to rib me for being British, they tend to go for at least one of three jokes. They act like I love or have an intimate knowledge of the royal family, which I don’t; they mention terrible British food, which is fair, (though y’all invented spray cheese); or they’ll bring up … Continued
By Libby Watson -
ReviewsHome Entertainment & Smart HomeWhat on Earth Makes a $500 Router Worth It?
Once upon a time you could squeak by in life with a $60 router, which would do the simple job of blanketing your house in a respectable cloud of wi-fi. But in 2017, a satisfactory home network isn’t just a single cheap box tucked away in a corner. For many homes, it’s a whole system … Continued
By Alex Cranz -
ReviewsHome Entertainment & Smart HomeThe Nvidia Shield Might Be the Best Set-Top Box You Can Buy Right Now
The original Nvidia Shield looked cool and had some neat ideas behind it, but its cost and use of the neglected Android TV operating system left the set-top box/console fusion feeling more like Frankenstein than legitimate answer to either Roku, PS4 or Xbox One. A major software update and some much needed changes to the … Continued
By Alex Cranz -
ReviewsHome Entertainment & Smart HomeRoku Premiere+ and Ultra Are Better Than the Competition and a Third the Price
Last month, Roku unleashed a whole slew of new set-top boxes meant to cater to every single person ever. There’s the box for people with old TVs (Roku Express+), the slightly different box for cheapskates (Roku Express), the boxes for regular joes (Roku Stick and Roku Premiere), and the coolest boxes—the two meant for people … Continued
By Alex Cranz