Dell is releasing two new Alienware-branded monitors this fall. Before you ask, they don’t feature QD-OLED panels like the drool-worthy . The more interesting of the two new monitors is the 27-inch AW2723DF. It features an LG Nano IPS panel with a 2560 x 1440 resolution, a native 240Hz refresh rate and a claimed 1ms gray to gray response time.
A factory overclock lets you push the refresh rate to 280Hz for games like Valorant and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. For more immersive gaming, the monitor comes with support for AMD FreeSync Premium Pro and NVIDIA G-Sync. It doesn’t feature local dimming, but for what it’s worth, HDR performance was good enough for the AW2723DF to earn VESA’s DisplayHDR 600 badge .
Dell
Alienware is billing the AW2723DF as the perfect monitor for gamers who do content creation on the side. The AW2723DF’s screen covers 95 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut. A toggle found in the monitor’s OSD menu allows you to switch to sRGB when doing work for the web. As with most Dell-made monitors, the AW2723DF won’t leave you wanting for ports. On top of the usual DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.0 connections, the monitor features multiple USB 3.2 Gen 1 inputs, as well as a headphone jack and audio output. All that’s missing is an . New to the Alienware design is a retractable headset hanger. The stand offers swivel, pivot, tilt and height adjustment. You can also VESA mount the AW2723DF if you want to use it with a monitor arm.
For the competitive gaming crowd, there’s the AW2523HF. It comes with a 25-inch LG IPS panel that features a Full HD resolution, 360Hz refresh rate and up to 0.5ms gray to gray response time. The screen covers 99 percent of the sRGB color gamut and is FreeSync Premium Pro certified. Like its sibling, the AW2523HF features a retractable hanger for storing your gaming headset. The AW2523HF also comes with a hexagonal stand instead of the V-shaped one that you find on most Alienware monitors. Dell says the design gives the AW2523HF a smaller footprint.
Dell
Of the two monitors, the AW2523HF will arrive first. It will go on sale on September 7th for $450. Meanwhile, the AW2723DF will cost $650 when it hits store shelves on October 6th.
All recommended products by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Music is all around us, and if you happen to hear a tune that you like—in an advert, a film, or a prestige television show—then you’re going to want to know what it is. Or perhaps you’ve got something stuck in your head that you need a title for. Thanks to the magic of the digital devices at our fingertips, getting an answer shouldn’t be too difficult.
Apps to find out what song you just heard
There are numerous apps to choose from if you need to identify a piece of music, and they can often get a match in just a few seconds—even if there’s some dialog or other sounds playing over the top. You might want to have a couple of options on hand for those times when you need this kind of service.
Google Pixel phones are very good at this, thanks to the Now Playing lock screen widget that they come with. From Settings, pick Sound and vibration and Now Playing. Turn on the Identify songs playing nearby toggle switch and the lock screen will show matches for songs that your phone can hear. Enable Show search button on the lock screen to get a manual search option too, and Now Playing history to keep a log of identified songs.
The Now Playing history on Pixel phones.Screenshot: Now Playing
G/O Media may get a commission
Over on iOS, Shazam is now built in, as Apple owns it: Open the Control Center with a drag down from the top right corner of the screen, then tap the Shazam button when you need song recognition. If you can’t see the button, choose Control Center from Settings and add Music Recognition. Shazam is also available as a separate app for Android.
Another capable song identification app is SoundHoundwhich is free to download and install for Android and iOS: Finding the name and artist for a song is as simple as tapping the big button on the Search tab, and you can even sing or hum the tune if you like. You can also get help from Google Assistant or Siri, simply by saying “ what’s this song?” while it’s playing in the background.
Check for a song on a database
Apps don’t always work, and can’t always be used—like when you’re in the theater, say—but you’ve still got other options for identifying music. There are some very comprehensive databases on the web, for example , that dutifully log music that shows up in advertising, movies, shows, and just about anywhere else it might be heard.
Take the appropriately named TV Advert Musicwhich has information on a host of different ads, with the newest ones listed first on the homepage. If you don’t immediately see what you’re looking for, try running a search for a brand. Then there’s Adtuneswhich is more community driven: You can post requests for help or identify a song someone else has asked about, and it covers TV shows and films as well as ads.
Tunefind is one option for tracking down songs.Screenshot: Tunefind
Tunefind is another good bet, and the site covers TV shows, movies and video games. The database is a massive one, and you have the option to browse through what people have been looking for recently, or run a search of your own. Television shows are helpfully split up into individual episodes for you, and there are listening links included so you can quickly jump to YouTube or Spotify to make sure you’re got the right track.
We’d also like to mention Whatsongwhich lets you create and customize a personalized list of music that you’re interested in. Tunes are split up by the movie or the TV show that they appeared in, and by subscribing to updates for individual shows, you can get lists of songs before you even know what it is you want to look for. As with Tunefind, listening links are embedded in the database so you can launch your streaming service of choice with a click.
Find the soundtrack
There are yet more ways of tracking down a particular piece of music based on where you heard it or what it sounded like. Maybe try searching your favorite music streaming service for the soundtrack accompanying the relevant television show or movie, for example: This can be a useful way of finding an alternative version of a song or a more obscure tune that isn’t picked up by an app or listed on a database.
If you’re dealing with a film or show episode, then it will of course be listed somewhere on the Internet Movie Databaseand it’s likely that you’ll be able to find several clues about the music used from these listing pages. There should be a dedicated Soundtracks section on each page, and other details about tunes included in the film or show might be found in the Trivia or user review sections.
IMDb can shed some light on soundtracks.Screenshot: IMDb
Wikipedia is always a useful resource for just about anything, and it has detailed pages for a lot of movies and television shows. A lot of the time, you’ll find dedicated sections on music that’s been featured, and there might even be some background on why particular tunes were chosen or how they were recorded. It’s definitely worth a look if your other avenues of inquiry aren’t going anywhere.
Lastly, if you can bear it, there’s always the social media option. Twitter is perhaps the best option here: You could put out a request for help with identifying a particular track, though how successful it will be is likely to depend on the size of your following. Running a Twitter search might bring up some results, if people with more followers than you are also asking about a particular song that just featured in a particular TV episode—the more popular the show, the higher the chance that people are talking about it.
We may be only a few months away from the launch of Google’s Pixel 7, but those who can’t wait for a new smartphone can save a bunch on the Pixel 6 Pro right now. Amazon has the current flagship for $649, which is $250 off its usual rate and the best price we’ve seen — even cheaper than it was on Prime Day last month. That’s what you’ll pay for the base, 128GB models, but the 256GB versions are also $250 off, so you can pick one up for as low as $749. The standard Pixel 6 is also on sale for $499.
Buy Pixel 6 Pro (128GB) at Amazon – $649 Buy Pixel 6 Pro (256GB) at Amazon – $749 Buy Pixel 6 at Amazon – $499
We like the entire Pixel 6 series, but the Pixel 6 Pro earned a score of 91 from us and earned a spot on our list of best smartphones you can get right now. It’s an attractive handset with a striking camera bar on its back, along with a 6.7-inch 120Hz OLED display. It’s powered by Google’s Tensor Processing Unit, which provides excellent performance while also being efficient — we were able to eke roughly 17 hours of battery life out of this smartphone, so it should easily last all day for most people.
But the Pixel 6 Pro really shines when taking photos. It has a triple rear camera array with a 50-megapixel main sensor, a 12MP wide-angle lens and a 48MP telephoto shooter, and those are in addition to the 11MP, 4K front- facing camera. We consider it to be the best smartphone for photography right now, as it handles all kinds of photos well including large group shots, wide landscapes, close ups, and more. Google’s Night Sight also does a fantastic job of producing solid images in low light, and its computational photography features enable things like Magic Eraser, Face Unblur and Long Exposure.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
All recommended products by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Russia decommissioned its last self-run space station, Mir, in 2001. Now Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, has shared a model of the country’s future station, as it prepares to move out of the International Space Station. Nicknamed ROSS by state-controlled media, it would launch in two phases, starting with four modules and expanding to six with a service platform. The design would accommodate four people in rotating tours and reportedly offer better monitoring of Earth than Russia gets from the ISS today.
State media claim the first phase will launch between 2025 and 2030, with Russia expected to leave the ISS in 2024. It announced its departure from the ISS in July in response to sanctions and other measures following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.
— Mat Smith
The biggest stories you might have missed
The newest Odyssey Ark is $3,500.
Engadget
Samsung has gone all-out on its next-generation monitor. Samsung claims the Ark is the world’s first 55-inch monitor with a 4K resolution, a 165Hz refresh rate and a 1ms response time. You also get support for HDR 10+ and Dolby Atmos audio, and it’s got six built-in speakers that create a dome of sound. Oh, and you can use it vertically.
Continue reading.
The software is out of beta and brings some small but useful new tools.
Android 13 is coming out of beta and will start rolling out to Google’s Pixel phones today, with devices from Samsung, ASUS, Nokia (HMD), Motorola, OnePlus, Oppo, Sony, Xiaomi and more expected to get the update later this year.
The latest version of Google’s mobile operating system brings more granular privacy controls, a new photo picker, Bluetooth LE audio and more. Messaging app streaming might be the most notable new feature, letting you cast your messaging apps to your Chromebook so you can chat with your friends on your laptop. Google said this works with Messages “and many of your other favorite messaging apps.” The company added you’ll “soon be able to copy content — like a URL, picture, text or video — from your Android phone and paste it on your tablet,” or the other way around.
Continue reading.
From a company that worked on the movie trilogy’s special effects.
Wētā Workshop is working on a new Lord of the Rings game alongside publisher Private Division. The game is in early development and few details have been announced, but Wētā Workshop has “the broadest creative license to interpret the underlying lore of the books,” according to to a press release. If you’re wondering who or what Wētā Workshop is, it worked on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings movies as well as The Hobbit trilogy. The special effects powerhouse is also collaborating with Amazon on The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. It set up its gaming division in 2014.
Continue reading.
It’s a very, very simple version of DALL-E.
Getty
TikTok has introduced a basic AI greenscreen effect in its Android and iOS apps that turns your text descriptions into artwork. It’s much simpler than OpenAI’s DALL-E 2, producing abstract blobs rather than photorealistic depictions — which makes it a lot less interesting. However, AI art tools like DALL-E are usually limited to a select group of users. TikTok, meanwhile, has over a billion monthly users — while few of them are likely to ever use AI-generated art, the addition brings the technology to a much wider audience.
Continue reading.
The company is also redesigning its bikes for home assembly.
Peloton may soon allow users of competing fitness equipment to stream its workouts to their bikes and treadmills. In an interview with BloombergCEO Barry McCarthy said the company is “rethinking” its digital strategy. Peloton could adopt a freemium model offering some features and workouts in its mobile and TV app for free. Currently, the software costs $13 per month. In the future, people with stationary bikes or treadmills from companies like Bowflex, Echelon and NordicTrack could also stream Peloton’s content to their equipment’s display.
Continue reading.
All recommended products by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
We’ve always liked the idea of home internet based on 4G/5G, and T-Mobile steadily expanded its service to cover “40M homes” last month, according to the company.
Yet, T-Mobile is ready to expand its Home Internet Service to the whole country or wherever it has a working wireless network with a slightly different service called Home Internet Lite.
That said, there’s a caveat because the Lite internet service comes with usage caps. It’s because it’s more akin to a large phone data plan than a proper “Home Internet” plan as people imagine them.
The full-speed access has caps of 100/150/200/300GB depending on how much you pay ($55/$80/$105 and $155). Based on the capacity, this is pretty expensive, and it’s not clear what the download/upload speeds are.
That said, depending on your location and needs, it might be enough for (very) basic Internet usage. To give you some context, a 720p zoom call uses 1GB per houraccording to zoom. Full-HD streaming from Netflix uses 3.1GB per hour.
If you go above your data cap, the connection won’t stop, but it will significantly slow down to 128 Kbpsreminding you of 2002 wireless modems. That’s terrible speeds you typically get while roaming abroad, for free.
Clearly, T-Mobile’s Home Internet Lite isn’t as great as the $50, no caps, standard T-Mobile Home Internet. That said, it might make sense if there’s nothing better around. As 5G coverage grows, there’s an excellent chance to go from Lite to standard Home Internet.
Filed in Cellphones >Home. Read more about Internet, Social Hit and T-Mobile. Source: cnet
Last Wednesday, OnePlus launched its newest OnePlus 10T smartphone during a successful event in New York City we attended. We recommend reading the launch article as we explain some background information that we won’t cover again in this article.
The OnePlus 10T is a $649+ smartphone optimized for high-performance, and speedy battery chargingsomething that OnePlus feels was a vital market to address.
In the past, the OnePlus “T” series was the highest-end OnePlus phone, but today, the OnePlus 10 Pro fulfills that role with a fancier camera, a slightly larger battery, etc. It’s essential to understand the 10T positioning because it was built for a purpose: extreme performance at a reasonable price.
Design
Our new OnePlus 10T unit comes with a “Moonstone Black” textured glassbut there’s also a smooth glass version with a green color. The green is visually more appealing to me, but the textured glass is almost fingerprint-proof, which can be important for users who don’t have a case.
The overall design language is very similar to the OnePlus 10 Pro. Still, there are some slight differences, including the smooth camera slope and the flat display on the 10T instead of the curved display of the 10 Pro.
For long-time OnePlus fans, the lack of an “alert slider” is “the” thing to notice because it’s been an iconic OnePlus feature for years. You will probably not care much about this change if you’re not in that crowd. It’s a matter of personal preference, and I typically never used it, even back in the day.
Overall, the design is clean, and the phone is agreeable in your hand. It doesn’t look as luxurious as more expensive phones, but given the $649 price, it’s hardly something we can hold against this handset.
Display
The OLED display features a 6.7-inch FHD+ flat screen, one of the cost-cutting measures OnePlus uses to divert some budget towards computing and battery speed. Oneplus does an excellent job of hiding this with the default black wallpaper, and the curve display is not overly critical if you want to squeeze the best value out.
Still, the display supports 60/90/120 Hz refresh rates, providing a great experience in any scenario. Fancier displays offer a more significant refresh variability, but this is great in this price segment.
With a peak brightness of 950 NITs, the screen is readable in any condition, including on a bright sunny day, like we experienced around the launch event.
Sound quality
The OnePlus 10T can deliver audio loud enough that people nearby might complain (that’s a good thing). That said, at the maximum volume, there is some slight distortion that you wouldn’t find on a more expensive phone like the Galaxy S22 Ultra and other more expensive phones. Still, even at maximum volume, the speaker remains entirely usable.
OnePlus 10T Camera
The camera system is very decent, although it does not try to compete with high-end phones. The
The primary camera sensor is a Sony IMX766 That is paired with a modest 8MP Ultrawide camera and a 2MP macro camera. The latter doesn’t contribute much to the overall camera performance, but OnePlus can claim to have a “triple camera” module.
There’s no dedicated optical zoom camera and lens, but the 10T can use a Primary camera sensor crop to simulate a 2X zoom.
Device
Ubergizmo CAMERA HW Score
OnePlus 10T
134
OnePlus 10 Pro
164
Pixel 6 Pro
197
Galaxy S22 Ultra
203
The overall OnePlus 10T Camera HW score could have been higher with a better two-cameras system. The OnePlus 9 Pro had a better camera combo, although at a much higher price point.
The primary camera yields relatively good image quality, which is why it is featured in devices such as the recent Asus Zenfone 9 and many other smartphones in the $650-$800 price range, making this OnePlus 10T one of the more affordable handsets with the IMX766 camera sensor.
From a software standpoint, OnePlus includes a newer version of its Image Clarity engine 2.0 and Nightscape, which is great.
This model has no Hasselblad co-branding, apps, or color science, unlike the OnePlus 10 Pro. That could be related to the fact that Hasselblad charges a license fee on a per-unit basis, but it’s just speculation.
We’re posting some sample photos, which are generally decent. As for the aesthetic (or “style”) of the camera, it is a bit processed and will not always closely match what you see (extra bright), so it is less predictable (or controllable) than other camera experiences.
OnePlus 10T Speed
Thanks to the Snapdragon 8+ Gen1 hardware platform, the OnePlus 10T exhibits an excellent performance profile, especially for graphics applications, including but not limited to, Gaming.
While the benchmarked CPU performance isn’t much higher than previous high-profile devices, being able to do so at a $649 MSRP price is impressiveand Ubergizmo’s unique “Value” metrics such as Performance/Dollar shows this very clearly.
OnePlus was right to promote the Gaming use case because it illustrates the value of the 10T very well. Conceptually, it would also be great for anyone or any organization interested in 3D/VR applications at scale (Education…)
OnePlus 10T Battery & charging speed
The 4800 mAh battery capacity of the OnePlus 10T is slightly below the 5000 mAh of the OnePlus 10 Pro, but is still very large. The new 10T can charge at a theoretical power of 150W, giving it a significant advantage.
Two important notes:
1/ the Power supply can draw 160W, but the phone can charge at a maximum power of 150W if used with a 220V outlet. In the USA, we have 110V outlets, which lowers the full charging power of SUPERVOOC charging to 125W.
2/ The fastest charging only works between the OnePlus 10T and the original OnePlus charger. The 10T falls back to a 40/45W charging via USB PD standard when paired with another charging device. Likewise, the 150W charger won’t be able to charge a laptop beyond 45W. Hopefully, USB PD (power delivery) will someday encompass these insane smartphone charge speeds.
In the real world, we clocked the charging at an effective maximum of 115W, which is close to the specs. We measured the device from 1% to 80% in 13mnwhich is impressive (384 mAh/mn at peak), especially against much more expensive handsets.
If your device is down to 0%, the charge will typically start very slowly (6W), probably to avoid battery shocks. But you’ll hit the maximum wattage from 1% to 40%. Beyond that, we noticed that the power draw went down to 77W, then lower. That’s probably to keep the charging safe.
So, the first 40% comes very fast in five minutes. Then you’ll need eight more minutes to reach 80% (13mn total) and almost 20mn to have a 100% charged phone. We’re most interested in the first 80% charge and measured an awesome 295mAh/mn charging speed.
When I have easy access to power plugs, I don’t always push the charging to 100% to prolong the battery’s overall life. OnePlus also has software features that will do some of that at night, and they have considered these issues and satisfactorily addressed them.
On the downside, there’s no wireless chargingwhich may or may not be a big issue for you. I’ll let you judge this, but it’s once again something that would have consumed space dedicated to cooling and antennas.
Conclusion
We’ve shown that the OnePlus 10T (official page) objectively fulfills the role OnePlus created it for. First, it brings extreme performance at a very affordable price point. Secondly, it can charge at incredible speeds when said performance has depleted its battery.
As an affordable phone, it doesn’t check all the boxes for everyone, and that’s the whole point of creating specialized devices. It does not have an Alert Slider, and Wireless Charging is not featured.
Also, its camera configuration is not as performant as the OnePlus 10 Pro, nor the OnePlus 9 Pro, for that matter. However, it can compete with many other phones in the same price range.
Specialized devices will shift some budgets towards specific features, and if you want a better well-rounded device, perhaps the OnePlus 10 Pro or other more expensive devices would work better.
That said, this level of performance is not easy to obtain at this price range, especially when the manufacturer commits to four years of software updates. Overall, we think the OnePlus 10T is an excellent device if you buy it for the intended reason (extreme perf and value).
Filed in Cellphones >Reviews. Read more about Android, Editorspick, OnePlus and Smartphone Reviews.