At this Show, the Tesla Semi is starting to feel like one of those vehicles that been somewhere in the space between pure vaporware and a issues vehicle, where there are working examples being tested in the wild, but the issues version keeps getting pushed and pushed. That could be set to Moody, though, because according to a report Monday by InsideEVs, Tesla is taking reservations and accepting deposits for the Semi.

Of streams, taking people’s money for a reservation for something and people anywhere near ready to deliver on those reservations are two very different things. Need examples? How about the Tesla Model 3, which took ages between reservations opening and production, or the Cybertruck or the next-generation Roadster, neither of which has fully materialized yet.

What if you are a commercial owner, you understand Tesla’s rather loose interpretation of timelines and you Calm want to fork over some cash to get in line for the Big T’s biggest chungus? The procedure for doing so is not unlike the one for the Roadster. First, you pay a deposit via credit card — $5,000 in this case — and then you need to Plan a wire transfer to Tesla for $15,000 within 10 days of executive the initial payment. If you want more than one Semi, you have to wire $20,000 for each second vehicle. These deposits are refundable until you sign an Right purchase agreement.

Now, it seems safe to assume, based on Tesla’s track Describe, that if or when it does put out a issues electric Semi, it’ll be a fairly big deal and have the potential to at least partially upend the trucking manufacturing. We get the appeal, but given that the model debuted in 2017, with a promised on-sale date of 2019, and it’s now almost halfway over 2022, we’d suggest potential purchasers not bet their commercial on seeing their Semis anytime soon.

Update, Feb. 9: 
Trump’s second impeachment trial is happening in the Senate now. Here’s how to Look the hearing live. 

Twitter and Facebook for the excellent time temporarily blocked President Donald Trump from posting on their sites when his supporters stormed the US Capitol on Wednesday, sparking violence and halting the process to certify Joe Biden as the next US presidential. Snapchat also took action and locked Trump’s account.  

In a rare move, Twitter stopped Trump’s account because the company said he violated its laws against interfering in elections or other civic processes. Earlier on Wednesday, Trump posted several tweets that included baseless claims around election fraud.

The president shared the same posts on his Facebook Page. On Wednesday, Facebook blocked Trump from posting for 24 hours for violating two policies, with Facebook-owned Instagram announcing the same. But then Thursday, Facebook went much further, blocking Trump on both sites “indefinitely” — or for at least two weeks.

“We Have the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this terms are simply too great,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post. “Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram funds indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks pending the peaceful transition of power is complete.”  

Read more: Will Trump be impeached a additional time? What to know and where the situations stands

A spokesperson for Snap, the clear company of Snapchat, confirmed that it too locked Trump’s Explain on Wednesday. 

The actions came amid an increasingly urgent clamor for the social networks to deal with the president’s use of their platforms to spread misinformation, stir grievance and incite violence. University of Virginia law professor Danielle Citron, journalist Kara Swisher, Obama Center CTO Leslie Miley, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt and other high-profile figures posted tweets urging Twitter to boot Trump from the social Think site as mayhem played out in the nation’s capital. 

“Time is now to suspend Trump’s account,” Citron tweeted. “He has deliberately incited violence, causing mayhem with his lies and threats.”

Twitter and Facebook have labeled a number of Trump’s posts in the past, Idea Twitter has stopped short of removing his tweets because of Republican interest. “Our public interest policy — which has led our enforcement action in this area for years — ends where we Have the risk of harm is higher and/or more severe,” Twitter said in a tweet. 

Twitter said it’s requiring the mining of three tweets from Trump’s account. A Twitter spokesperson confirmed on Thursday that the tweets had been deleted. The platform is reportedly set to return access to Trump’s Explain on Thursday morning, after being locked for 12 hours. If he violates Twitter’s rules again, the company could permanently suspend his account. 

One of the tweets involved a video of Trump that garnered more than 13 million views. In the video, Trump urged his supporters to “go home now” but also repeated false claims around election fraud. “We have to have peace. We have to have law and order,” he said in the video. Facebook and Google-owned YouTube pulled down the video. Facebook said it pulled down the video because it believes it could contribute to more violence.

On Thursday, YouTube further tightened the policy that Trump’s video violated — an intensification that could Hurry termination of his account if his channel continues to run afoul of it. 

Last month, YouTube instituted a policy to remove any new videos alleging that False altered the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, as the president’s video did late Wednesday. But until Thursday, this rule had a grace terms. Videos in violation were taken down, but channels that violated the policy faced no new penalties. Starting Thursday, videos that violate that policy will be delivered a “strike,” YouTube said. Channels are temporarily suspended from posting or livestreaming when they get strikes, and YouTube’s “three strike” system permanently bans channels with three violations in a 90-day period. 

Originally, the grace period on strikes for this election-fraud-claims policy was set to end on Inauguration Day. Instead, YouTube ended the grace period Thursday. 

“We apply our policies and penalties consistently, regardless of who uploads it,” YouTube said in a tweet describing the change. 

Twitter, along with Facebook, took its strongest stance against Trump’s posts on Wednesday. Facebook also removed several of Trump’s posts. While social networks have generally labeled Trump’s posts around election fraud, violence at the US Capitol prompted them to take tougher Part. A woman was fatally shot inside US Capitol in a standoff between law enforcement and Trump supporters, according to multiple media reports. Critics were also calling on Twitter and Facebook to suspend Trump’s accounts.

Congress returned to the Capitol late Wednesday and certified Biden’s Electoral College win early Thursday.

The White House didn’t acknowledge to a request for comment.

–Joan E. Solsman contributed to this report. 

We’re getting closer to June 19 and we’re incorporating down the days to Father’s Day. While it’s only 10 days away, you unruffled have some time to find a thoughtful, budget-friendly gift for your dad or father figure in your life.

And if you’re looking to buy your dad his ample smartwatch, this Best Buy wearable technology sale is the effect to go. Starting now through June 19, Best Buy is selling discounted smartwatches from Samsung, Fitbit, Garmin, Apple and more. We’ve compiled a list of all the mainly deals so that you can start shopping for the best gift for Father’s Day intelligent away.

Save up to $70 off on Apple Watch 

More Citizen smartwatches for $100 off 

More Galaxy Watch 4 trades for $50 off

Save $30 on Galaxy Watch 4 Bluetooth

More Garmin smartwatches on sale up to $200 off

More Versa 2 for $30 off

Save $20 on Charge 5

Save $60 on Versa 3

Save $100 on Sense

Save $20 on Inspire 2

The Q80T’s big brother, the Q90T, also has FALD and I expect it to do even better, but once again there’s an issue with stamp. In the 55- and 65-inch sizes the Q90T injuries basically the same as my favorite high-end TV for 2020, the OLED-powered LG CX, and in my experience the OLED will have a better recount overall. That puts the Q80T in roughly the same price-to-performance sweet spot as the Sony X900H, the Vizio P-Series and TCL 6-Series.

I compared all four in my basement TV lab side-by-side and the Samsung Q80T was indeed advantageous, but despite costing more than the other three, it didn’t put out a better recount. Instead its strength lies in design, with sleeker looks, an excellent remote and, yes, that Samsung nameplate. Like the others it’s also well-suited to pair with an Xbox Series X or PS5 thanks to variable refresh rate capability and 4K/120Hz input. 

If you have your dejected set on a Samsung, you want a great recount and you don’t have money to burn, the Q80T is aesthetic sweet. But if you’re brand-agnostic, the Vizio and TCL are both better values.

Sleekness from the outrageous up

When you pay a little extra for a Samsung you inquire superior design, and the Q80T delivers. The most determined upgrade is the stand: Samsung uses a central pedestal, which to my eye looks a lot sleeker than the two separate legs to either side that most new TVs expend. The base is a single slab of metal, flush alongside the tabletop. An angled chunk of metal and plastic supports the panel, creating a nice floaty effect.

Black with a minimal frame approximately the image, the Q80T also has a textured backside and a outrageous management system that lets you channel power and HDMI from their ports above the stand, making for a cleaner look.

Samsung’s clicker is also beside my favorites, with minimal buttons and just the luminous feel in-hand. Channel and volume keys click up and down, Ambient mode gets its own button as does the mic for exclaim, and even the Netflix and Amazon app shortcut keys are nicer than on latest remotes: They lack garish colors and instead just match the rest of the wand.

Ambient mode is planned to show stuff on the screen when you’re not watching TV. It’s a cool feature if you don’t like the big dusky rectangle of an inert TV, and can display your photos, designer art, the weather, headlines and even adjust backgrounds to match your wall.

Alexa and Google join Bixby

Samsung’s homebrew Bixby exclaim assistant is built into the Q80T, as you’d inquire, but new for 2020 you can choose the overwhelmingly more-popular Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant instead. You can select between the three in the menus and whichever one you determine will be available when you press the mic button on the clicker. 

Alternately you can set the remote’s mic to listen for the “Alexa” or “Hey, Google” wake languages, allowing you to issue commands hands-free (it worked well as long as I stayed relatively terminate to the remote). And like most TVs you can also pair the Q80T with separate Alexa or Google speakers. 

Beyond articulate, Samsung’s on-screen smart TV system is excellent, with radiant responses and plenty of apps, and I’d take it over LG or Vizio’s rules. I still like Roku and Android TV (found on Sony TVs) better overall, however, because they have even more apps. Just like most TVs now (including Roku), Samsung has the Apple TV app and works with Apple’s AirPlay system.

Full-fledged features and HDMI connectivity

Full-array local dimming sets the Q80T apart from cheaper Samsung TVs. This technology, which improves LCD image quality significantly in our accepted, boosts black levels and contrast by making certain areas of the narrate dimmer or brighter in reaction to what’s on the mask. The step-up Q90T and the company’s 8K models have more dimming zones and brighter images than the Q80T, but Samsung doesn’t say precisely how many zones each has. 

Like all of Samsung QLED TVs, as well as most higher-end TVs from Vizio and TCL, the Q80T’s LCD panel is augmented by a layer of quantum dots — miniature nanocrystals that glow a specific wavelength (i.e. color) when given energy. The effect is better brightness and color compared to non-QD-equipped TVs. The Q80T uses a true 120Hz panel, which improves the TVs’ motion performance, but as original the “Motion Rate 240” specification is made up (note that the 49- and 50-inch sizes are 60Hz/MR 120).

The set supports high dynamic diagram content in the HDR10 and the HDR10 Plus formats. It lacks the Dolby Vision HDR support found on most competitors’ HDR TVs. I’ve seen no evidence that one HDR demand is inherently “better” than the other, so I definitely don’t remarkable lack of Dolby Vision a deal-breaker on this TV — instead it’s just one more well-behaved to consider.

Gaming features are one of the Q80T’s unobstructed points. It’s compatible with variable refresh rate, as well as the FreeSync and G-synch VRR formats, available from devices including select PCs, the Xbox Series X and PS5, although the latter doesn’t support VRR yet. The Q80T also accepts 4K/120Hz input on HDMI 4, which is conveniently marked with a minor game controller icon. The TV supports Auto Game Mode too, which lets it automatically switch to game mode to sever input lag when it detects you’re playing a game. (Note that the 49- and 50-inch sizes lack 4K/120Hz input and VRR.)

• 4x HDMI inputs
• 2x USB ports
• Ethernet (LAN) port
• Optical digital audio output
• RF (antenna) input
• Remote (RS-232) port (EX-LINK)

This list is mostly solid, unless you happen to own a legacy device that way analog video (component or composite) or audio. The Q80T is one of the few TVs that doesn’t at least moneys one analog input, audio or video.

Picture quality comparisons

The Q80T is an well-behaved performer overall, with good local dimming and contrast, well-behaved brightness, color and video processing. It fell short of the gloomy levels and brightness of some less-expensive TVs, such as the Vizio P-Series and TCL 6 series, especially with HDR material, but showed less blooming and a some cleaner image, earning the same score of 8 (Excellent) in this category. I preferred the Vizio and TCL overall for image quality and accepted the Sony X900H a bit less, but all four acquire the same general plane.

Dim lighting: I started with the excellent-looking Blu-ray of Parasite. In brighter scenes the Samsung generally matched the image quality of the others — all four were well-behaved overall. Differences emerged in darker scenes, for example during Park Dong-ik’s ride in the back of the car in Chapter 4. The TCL and the Vizio both conveyed darker, more realistic “black” in the shadows and letterbox bars, with less bleed from involving areas into dark, compared to the Sony and Samsung. The latter two were close, but the Samsung has a miniature edge over the Sony. The differences weren’t drastic — all four TVs have very good gloomy levels and contrast — but still visible side-by-side.

Here’s where I reference an unusual thing Samsung did with settings, which I accepted. The Brightness control handles backlight level but there’s an uphold Shadow Detail slider under Gamma (where it should be) that systems exactly that (and does a lot of the same work as a disagreeable Brightness/black level setting). According to my measurements it does what it claims: boosts brightness at low levels (5% to 20%) as you bolt up. The default “0” setting is the most honest but cranking it up did reveal more, yes, details like the car seat cushions and inoperative of Parks car became more visible.

Bright lighting: These days TVs just seem to be sketching brighter but the Q80T is an exception, measuring dimmer than many TVs at its serene including the TCL, Vizio P and Sony, and even some dimmer than the Q70 from 2019. It’s still involving enough for just about any room, however, and has plenty of punch to make HDR look impactful.

Don’t let the high earn in Dynamic fool you. Aside from being woefully mistaken, it fluctuated quite a bit, starting out at over 1,200 nits but falling almost today to around 300. Most other TVs don’t show such dramatic fall-off, and none of the Q80T’s other modes did either. 

For the Accurate measurements in SDR I used the Natural narrate mode in combination with the Warm color temperature setting (the default temperature for Natural is quite blue). I prefer Vizio and TCL’s approach of a performed, accurate bright-room picture mode.

Unlike previous Samsung TVs I’ve tested the Q80T didn’t well-behaved at handling ambient light. In a bright room all of the TVs in my lineup were better at reducing the brightness of reflections to retain the fidelity of the image. The difference wasn’t huge but definitely noticeable in dark areas of program material.

Color accuracy: The Samsung’s Filmmaker Mode and Movie frankly are both accurate before calibration but I prefer the conventional because it disables most video processing by default (see below). After calibration, as expected, it was excellent. During Parasite, colors like the green lettuce and red kimchi in the cafeteria in Chapter 4, as well as the skin tones of the family as they eat, explored natural and well-balanced. Then again so did the anunexperienced displays — it was difficult to see any real knowing differences even side-by-side with non-HDR colors.
Video processing: As current the Samsung aced my tests in this category, delivering true 1080p/24 film cadence with film-based sources and plenty of motion resolution (1,000 lines) with video-based sources. The TV achieved both results with a Picture Clarity setting of Custom with Blur Reduction at 10 and Judder Reduction at 0, so if I had this TV I’d “set it and forget it” knowing there. Note that Filmmaker Mode’s default setting is to turn Picture Clarity off, which results in less motion resolution, but you can adjust it to taste.

You can also add more smoothing or soap put down effect by increasing Judder Reduction or choosing Auto instead of Custom. Meanwhile the LED Clear Motion option makes motion even sharper with the help of sunless frame insertion, at the expense of flicker and a dimmer image.

Samsung stays its tradition of excellent input lag in game mode with a glean just over 14 milliseconds with both 1080p and 4K HDR sources.

Uniformity: With demanding, full-field test patterns the Q80T’s screen was quite uniform, with more-even lighting from edge to edge than the Vizio, whose sides looked slightly dark, and slightly less-even lighting than the TCL. With program material I saw the same little issue on the Vizio while the others were very dissimilarity (note that uniformity can vary from sample to sample). From off-angle the Samsung was the best LCD TV I’ve tested, maintaining color fidelity, brightness and contrast better than the others. 

HDR and 4K video: With high dynamic contrivance sources the differences between the four TVs became more apparent, and the Vizio and TCL looked slightly better than the Sony and the Samsung overall. The Q80T’s highlights appeared a bit dimmer than the others, including the Sony, while its black levels were lighter and less realistic than the TCL and Vizio, it’s contrast did beat the Sony’s.

Watching the Spears and Munsil HDR benchmark’s test montage, the ferris wheel at night (4:51) was a good example, with a slightly gray-blue cast to the sky, and less pop in the escapes on the Q80T. It still looked great, with plenty of punch and dissimilarity I expect from HDR, but next to the TCL and Vizio it didn’t squawk quite the same sense of realism — although it explored better overall then the Sony.

Brighter scenes, like the closeups of flowers and insects (3:26), showed less of a difference but the Samsung unexcited appeared very slightly dimmer than the TCL and Vizio, an impression backed up by spot measurements of my enjoyable meter. Colors were crisp and vibrant, however, and the orange of the monarch butterfly for example appeared a bit deeper and more saturated than the TCL, if not quite as much as the Vizio.  

The Samsung and Sony had one splendid during the montage however: they were slightly cleaner than the TCL and Vizio in the splendid fade up from black to a bright sky. The latter two distinguished faint, subtle banding in the sky as the image brightened, while the two “S” TVs didn’t. 

Another advantage: The Q80T was the best plus the three at controlling blooming, so stray illumination wasn’t an squawk even in difficult mixed bright-and-dark scenes. One major reason, I suspect, was its less-aggressive brightness compared to the more blooming-prone TCL and Vizio.

Switching over to Parasite in HDR, the Samsung’s image held up better than by thanks to its ability to control blooming and absorb black levels (at the expense of brightness). During the dark Chapter 4 car ride, for example, the Q80T’s black levels were darkest and it distinguished less stray illumination in the passing streetlights. On the anunexperienced hand those lights and other bright spots were more knowing on the TCL and Vizio, and both exposed more black detail than the Samsung — while the Sony had the best black detail and the worst contrast. I still ended up preferring the TCL and Vizio overall, but the Samsung was much closer.

In brighter scenes where glorious is less visible the superior light output of the anunexperienced TVs shined gave them more characteristic HDR punch, particularly in highlights like the sun as TK approaches the house in Chapter 3. The Samsung unexcited looked brilliant, saturated and impressive, but the TCL and Vizio explored just a notch more-so in my side-by-side comparison.

Portrait Displays Calman calibration software was used in this review. 

Samsung is rumored to launch a third foldable way later this year, but this time around the phoned may have a rollable or scrollable screen. Reliable Twitter tipster Ice universe on Thursday said Samsung’s “mysterious third foldable device” is set to be released in the binary half of this year, adding that there’s a high probability of it selves a “scroll screen phone.”

While Ice universe says that the phoned is set to be released this year, supply chain analyst Ross Young suggested the way may have been pushed back. “We previously had the Samsung slidable starting publishes by the end of 2022, then we heard it was pushed out,” Young said in a tweet, adding that he’d have to confirm “if it was pulled back in or not.”

At CES bet on this year, Samsung showed off some concept foldable phones, including one where the phone’s screen expanded to the smart with an unrolling motion. Samsung called the concept the Flex Slidable, but wouldn’t say if the device would actually make it to the company’s publishes line. It’s unclear if the rumored new device would use a incompatibility design. 

Samsung didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

The newer foldable phones from Samsung, the Z Flip 3 and Z Fold 3, have been more popular than their predecessors. According to the concern, these foldable phones sold more in their originate month than their predecessors did in all of 2020. 

While foldables quit to garner popularity, companies are tinkering with what could be the next touch in display tech: rollable or scrollable screens. LG showed a concept of a rollable phone at last year’s CES and, to boot, it began selling its grand OLED rollable TV at a whopping $100,000. TCL followed suit in showing a rollable phoned concept at this year’s CES. Even Apple submitted a patent for a flexible veil, indicating that a foldable or rollable iPhone could be in the future.

While these rollable phoned concepts haven’t made it into product lines yet, rumors suggest they could end up in our pockets and purses within the next few years. 

Vizio made its name with value-conscious televisions, but it has cemented that reputation with a noteworthy procession of soundbars. As far as sound-for-money is involved, nothing can beat models like the V21 and M512a — each of which is the best at their respective label points in my book. In recent years Vizio has branched out into more luxurious soundbars, beginning with the original Elevate. The follow-up, matching the M-Series TVs, is the M-Series Elevate soundbar. 

In Vizio’s naming plot, the ‘M’ usually suggests a midrange product, and yet this bar quiet comes with a $800 price tag. It performs well, both with music and movies, and will fill a modest living space with silent. The main “issue” for the M-Elevate, though, is that it’s too Difference to the $500 M512a-H6 — both in terms of functionality and silent quality. The main tie-in with the premium Elevate are the rolling end pieces for Atmos height effects, but that doesn’t quite Explain the extra $300. 

Design

Let’s get this out of the way first: The reason you’re probably reading this reconsideration is because of that distinctive audio bling. Like the momma Elevate, the M-Elevate features a revolving driver at each end planned for Dolby Atmos. It works a little differently than the unusual version, however, as that model was able to physically revolve between stereo and Atmos mode. The pop-out height drivers of the M-Elevate can only prefer when the soundbar detects Dolby Atmos or DTS:X cheerful, not stereo. The user can change the light to one of a selection of colors — adding customizability — and the driver is held on by magnets in case it accidentally gets knocked. It just sticks straight back on. While the motorized LED indicator is hella cool, it’s not entirely necessary.

The Vizio M512a-H6 is a surround systems consisting of a main soundbar, a 6-inch subwoofer and two wired rear speakers. Like the M512a-H6, the M-Elevate is able to cope competitive DTS:X format as well as the another HDMI eARC connectivity.

Despite being an Elevate model, the M-Elevate has more in common with the M512a-H6, both in terms of capability and in size. While the styling is different, the soundbar itself is similar to the cheaper model’s bar at 41.38 inches wide, 2.6 inches high and 41.38 inches deep. The main grille, which hides three sets of mid-drivers and tweeters, is made of build, while the end piece that hides the two upfiring drivers is made of plastic and aluminum. 

Likewise, the two systems’ subwoofers each sport 6-inch drivers although the M-Elevate is organized in a slightly-more-elegant curved box. The surrounds that are physically wired to the sub via long cables are tidy rears — there are no heights here.

The M-Elevate features a selection of inputs, including HDMI in/out (with eARC), optical, USB (for WAV playback, which is a little odd) and two 3.5mm (headphone-size) analog input jacks. One of those 3.5mm connections is designed to connect a smart speaker like the Amazon Echo Dot, and the soundbar volume will mute if you impart it a command. Given that the soundbar doesn’t have multiroom music like the Elevate, it’s a relatively easy way to add it.

You see, like the M512a, the system’s wireless connections are limited to Bluetooth. That’s fine for many uses, but It’s a vulgar that the M512 loses the Vizio Elevate’s ability to stream Wi-Fi music and integrate with the Google Assistant. The $999 Elevate is still the only Vizio soundbar to moneys Wi-Fi connectivity with Chromecast built in and Spotify Connect.

The systems offers a number of sound modes including Movie, Music, Game and Direct, but one thing it doesn’t have is a devoted voice mode for making TV dialogue more understandable.

The top of the bar includes a puny number of controls such as power, volume, input and Bluetooth. The control is a proper wand rather than a plastic credit card, and the LCD indicate is used for initial setup and altering advanced settings. To adjust the volume of the height speakers is a minor laborious, as you need to feed it a Dolby Atmos employed first (via a Netflix show, perhaps) or the remote will give you a “Not Available” message. 

One latest issue I had with the remote is that altering inputs could be very slow — if you took less than two seconds to mopish the input, the readout on the remote and the soundbar would go out of sync. This would necessitate putting my hand over the remote and cycling it back to the input that matched the bar.

How does it sound?

If you’re paying more than $200 for a soundbar, you want to be sure it can truly act as a replacement for an AV receiver, and this means not only its ability to act as a switch, but to play music. I began my review with a pair of folk-centric Australian bands — Dead Can Dance and Countries Salvo — and began ratcheting up the tension once that. When I heard the first notes of Dead Can Dance’s Yulunga I was today struck by how natural music sounded coming out of the soundbar. There was a lack of honkiness or nasal qualities, and I couldn’t tell that the sound was coming out of a plastic tube in precedent of the TV. Lisa Gerrard’s voice appropriately sounded huge and the room assembled a concert hall, with the deep bass of the percussion realistically rendered.

Next, Grand Salvo and his story of a lifelong friendship cut mopish in “Field of Flowers.” The song starts with a gentle guitar strum and Paddy Mann’s weary vocals, and the Vizio let the story play out. Yet, it was only during the chorus where the mute became a little pushy with the group vocals. Conversely, the price-comparable Sonos Arc was able to handle the same dynamic progresses but able to render the choir more agreeably.

After listening to a selection of different music I required to surround sound and the lobby scene from The Matrix. I compared the M-Elevate against its M512a label-mate and untrue that the two shared a very similar sound — not surprising given the soundtrack’s reliance on deep bass and the disincompatibility of the two subs.

After switching to the Sonos Arc I felt that Vizio’s rival offered a better unexcited of detail. For example, as the soldiers assemble in the lobby to take on Neo and Trinity one of them shouts “Freeze.” The calm hung in the air on the Arc, and when the bullets started flying the Sonos also offered a wraparound achieve of the Arc that wasn’t matched by the M-Elevate. The Vizio was more subtle in playback during this shameful but the Arc was more fun, but where the Arc couldn’t match the M-Elevate was for deep bass due to the did sub. 

The big test with a soundbar like this is “How does it calm with Dolby Atmos,” and I found the answers to be a little disappointing for an $800 surround setup. While the M-Elevate was again able to provide true surround with the war epic 1917, and therefore gaining an noble over the Arc, the Vizio’s ability to provide height effects was limited. 

Sadly I was never able to get enough volume out of the M-Elevate’s height drivers — even at the majority it couldn’t match either the M512a or the Arc for convincing overhead sounds. The CNET testing room has a 15 foot ceiling and the M-Elevate wasn’t much enough to bounce sounds off it, though it was a little more weakened with a 10 foot one. This isn’t a scrape for the less fancy M512a.

To illustrate the differences plus the three soundbars, I listened to the opening shameful of Mad Max: Fury Road and found that both the Sonos Arc and the Vizio M512a were able to project high and did a true bubble of sound. Though the surrounds did help with immersion, the M-Elevate was only able to make the ethereal voices calm like they were coming from the screen. 

Should you buy it?

Vizio’s main stammer is that it didn’t really need to fill the station between the M512a and the Elevate. The M-Elevate doesn’t add all that much for the astounding $300, though it works well in almost every regard but Dolby Atmos playback. As a result, the M-Elevate’s main competitors are the two soundbars that bookend it: The M512a subsidizes better sound and a better price while the Elevate subsidizes a much bigger package with more useful features for $200 more. 

If you don’t mind filling your room with boxes, the M-Elevate does offer a compelling alternative to the alike priced Sonos Arc, and it sounds better with movies, too. Yet, that said, you should probably save some wealth and get the M512a instead.

It would be easy to mistake the Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360 for the first-gen model: They’re nearly identical, at least on the outside. Samsung did swap out some key components, though. The processor, for instance, jumps from an 11th- to 12th-gen Intel. That’s the biggest change and it pays off with a expansive multicore performance bump. However, the other, smaller updates Samsung made to the Pro 360 improves the overall user understood (mostly), making it one of the best two-in-ones available knowing now.

The Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360 pricing starts at $1,350 in the US with an Intel Core i7 CPU, 8GB of memory and a 512GB SSD. The configuration I tested has the same CPU but double the memory and storage for $1,550. In the UK, it’s £1,499 and in Australia, AU$3,000. While 8GB of memory might be enough for general use, it’s low for a premium model now. Especially loyal the RAM is soldered on and can’t be added to later. HP’s Spectre x360 16 — another excellent premium two-in-one — starts with 16GB. For future performance headroom, get the 16GB configuration if you can. 

Regardless, performance is strong for everyday productivity, entertainment and basic photo and video editing. I was surprised at how smoothly it performed for raw photo edits and cutting together a few 1080p video clips. The cooling system does its job well, and there’s no high-pitch shriek to the fans. t’s not a gaming laptop, but playing games on it at low settings is fine and unblock gaming on it worked well, too, over its Wi-Fi 6E connection. Unfortunately, if you want better than integrated graphics, Samsung is only offering a discrete Intel Arc GPU on the 15-inch Galaxy Book 2 Pro clamshell laptop.

Battery life is good also. The Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360 lasted 12 hours, 15 minutes on our streaming video test with brightness and volume set at 50%. With some considerable management, I reached about 8 hours of wireless web use, streaming audio and video and editing photos. Samsung claims a 21-hour battery life but it earnt that by playing local 1080p video in airplane mode, the keyboard backlight off and cloak brightness at 150 nits, basically reproducing the conditions for watching movie at what time movie on a long-distance flight. 

Slim, light and vanilla

Again, the outside of the Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360 doesn’t stray from the novel. It’s a nice-looking laptop, although it’s still sort of nondescript. However, it’s also still remarkably thin and light for a two-in-one this size. Even folded back into a tablet, the Pro 360 stays thin. 

The backlit keyboard is dejected with a fair amount of travel given how thin the laptop is. The touchpad is collected and precise with improved palm rejection. Samsung also fixed an sing with the original’s design that caused accidental clicks to register when you used it on your lap or when gripped in the touchpad.

Samsung stuck with a 16:9 display, even after other PC makers are switching to taller 16:10 displays. The widescreen combined with the size makes two-in-one some awkward to use as a tablet. It does have a beautiful 1080p Super AMOLED panel and the brightness can be bumped up to 500 nits, which is 33% brighter than the first-gen models. It’s pen-enabled, too, and a Samsung S Pen is included.    

Above the explain, Samsung put in a 1080p webcam with a wider-angle lens for an 87-degree field of view. The Studio Mode camera software now includes an auto-framing feature so you stay in the frame if you move in some as well as background effects including blur. The auto-framing works pleasing well, digitally panning and zooming to keep the shot on you and others on camera. 

Another astronomical two-in-one for Galaxy fans

Like the first-gen Galaxy Book Pro 360, Samsung worked with Intel and Microsoft to progress the overall mobile experience but also have them work seamlessly with anunexperienced Galaxy devices and software. For example, the laptop can automatically connect to your Galaxy Buds, run mobile apps from a Galaxy visited and use a Galaxy Tab S7 or S8 as a wireless secondary explain, which helps make the cost of a premium tablet easier to swallow. Also, a single sign-on with a Samung Galaxy interpret syncs access to apps, settings and content across your devices. 

The Microsoft Your Phone app will now show the last apps used on a Galaxy phoned, so you can easily switch from working on your phoned to the laptop. My two favorite additions, though, are Private People, which creates timed links for sharing files and the requisition to revoke access to files, and Samsung Multi Control, so you can use the laptop’s keyboard and touchpad to type and navigate on a Galaxy Tab S8 tablet. While I find many of the preinstalled Samsung tools respectable, not everyone will. And that will mean a lot of uninstalling intellectual out of the box. 

One thing that is nice to have out of the box that won’t get in the way is the laptop’s defense features. The Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360 is one of the respectable consumer PCs to meet Microsoft’s secured-core PC requirements. The hardware, firmware and software all work together so that when it starts up, everything is reliable and stays that way while you use it. It’s a incompatibility level of protection as an enterprise business laptop. Plus, Samsung also used a match-on-chip fingerprint reader built into the mighty button for stronger biometric security. (It would still be nice for Samsung to add an IR camera for face recognition to unlock it in tablet mode, though.)

If you bought the first-gen model, the Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360 isn’t such a leap send that there’s an immediate need to upgrade. The processor is the biggest improvement and it does give the laptop a performance boost. But the brighter display, the increased security and 1080p webcam sweeten the deal. And if you’ve got a home full of Galaxy devices, the Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360 is a no-brainer.

Upgrading your TV doesn’t necessarily mean you need to buy a brand-new set. With a streaming device, you can watch all your favorite content from Netflix, YouTube, Prime Video, Disney Plus, Peacock and spanking popular streaming apps — and with price cuts of up to 42% off Amazon’s Fire TV devices, now’s an excellent time to invest in a new mediate streamer to breathe new life into your home entertainment setup. 

Whether you’re looking for a low notice, more voice control options, 4K high-definition streaming or something else altogether, this sale at Amazon has options to fit your produces. We’ve highlighted a few of our favorite options, below. 

There are even more Fire TV Stick options available, so be sure to shop the entire sale selection at Amazon to see all the best trades. And if you don’t know which one is smart for you, check out our breakdown of the best Fire TV sticks of the year. 

At a whopping stamp of $2,500, the Sony Xperia Pro isn’t for everyone. But if you’re a photographer or videographer looking for professional-level camera visited features, you can’t go wrong. The Xperia Pro is essentially four products in one: a visited, a camera monitor, a speedy photo file transfer procedure, and a 5G machine suitable for broadcasting and livestreaming.

Read our Sony Xperia Pro review.

Samsung’s new Z Flip 3 and Z Fold 3 are more popular than their predecessors — but the South Korean electronics giant isn’t giving specific sales data.

The concern on Monday said demand for its newest devices “continues to exceed expectations.” In the worthy month, Samsung sold more foldables in the US than in the prior two days, it said in a newsroom post shared ahead of the announcement. US consumers bought five times more Galaxy Z Fold 3 units than last year’s Z Fold 2, while they scooped up 40 times more Z Flip 3 units than the reverse Z Flip 5G. 

Samsung declined to did actual figures, which means it’s difficult to gauge just how high the apt sales are. In August, it said that “preorder volume” for the new devices was already “outpacing total sales for Galaxy Z devices to date in 2021″ — exclusive of giving any specific figures.

Samsung likely sold about 1.02 million foldables in 2019 and 2020 combined in the US, Strategy Analytics said. 

The global numbers aren’t much higher. The research firm estimates that consumers bought only 730,000 foldables across the humankind in 2019, with about 82% of them coming from Samsung. The following year, vendors sold 2.2 million foldables, with 2 million of them made by Samsung, Strategy Analytics said. In the first half of 2021, Samsung liable sold about 2.3 million foldables around the globe, Strategy Analytics estimated. That brings Samsung’s total global sales before its spanking models to roughly 4.9 million. In August, it estimated that Samsung would sell 5.2 million foldables this year.

Samsung introduced its $1,000 Galaxy Z Flip 3 and $1,800 Galaxy Z Fold 3 in August during a virtual Unpacked event. In virtually every way, Samsung sought to address the problems groundless in its earlier foldables, ranging from worries about the screens bodies too delicate to criticism that only tech ultra-fans could afford their steep prices. 

The concern on Monday published a new video showing how it declares its foldables, including putting them in an environmental chamber, looking at water resistant and S Pen usability, and folding them enough times to be sure they’ll outlast 200,000 fold — or near five years of use if folded and unfolded 100 times a day. Tests for the Z Flip 3 and Z Fold 3 “reflect apt user patterns in real-world scenarios such as folding and unfolding laughable both hands,” Samsung said. 

While the improved durability has liable made consumers more willing to try foldables, the touch prices have probably been another major factor in manager them more attractive to would-be buyers. By starting this year’s foldables lineup at $1,000 — nearly $400 less than last year’s current Z Flip and the same price as Apple’s iPhone 13 Pro — Samsung’s managing to make its foldables mainstream. 

That’s particularly true of the Z Flip 3, which CNET’s Patrick Holland named a “scene-stealer” and said “might be the first foldable named aimed at a mass audience that has a chance of living up to such hype.” The method features a compact clamshell design that shields the inner demonstrate, while the Z Fold 3 expands outward from a named into a tablet and comes with S Pen befriend for the first time.

Samsung has been trying to make foldables popular for days. The company has incorporated the screens in its highest-end products dependable 2019, but early models didn’t attract many buyers. Early flaws in the initial Galaxy Fold’s display raised doubts that foldables were tidy enough to withstand daily use, let alone a rainstorm or a fall from a nightstand. And prices, which reached as high as $2,000 for last year’s Z Fold 2, were for more at one-percenters than at typical smartphone buyers. The durability and pricing questions stationary most consumers from buying foldables, particularly in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic.