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Review: Beyerdynamic Phonum

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Price: ₹24,999

Handsfree calling devices are often a great blessing especially when you need to discuss something and access another device at the same time in addition to facilitating group calls. Beyerdynamic is a German audio brand with almost a 100-year history behind it, and the Phonum is a Bluetooth speakerphone for conference calls.

The Phonum is beautifully designed, with a cylindrical cross-section, flat base and a mesh speaker dome on top. The flat base is metal with soft anti-slip padding, while the main unit has a polycarbonate exterior. The speaker dome is surrounded by a ring-shaped touch-responsive control panel that gives access to Bluetooth connection, Volume control, Microphone mute/unmute and Microphone mode control, which are permanently marked, in addition to Accept Call and Reject Call buttons that light up when you receive a call on your connected device. There are also eight LEDs indicating the microphone pick-up direction. The power button and USB-C port are at the side. Contrary to the most likely perception, the upward-facing speaker dome houses a 360-degree downward-firing speaker, which allows all participants to hear clearly. The speaker is designed for clear vocals and offers distortion-free output with optimal volume. The speakers feature echo cancellation for speech legibility. The Phonum can be connected with a smartphone or laptop via Bluetooth or with a non-Bluetooth device via USB.

Apart from the regular features of a speakerphone, what makes the Beyerdynamic Phonum special is the Gecko 360-degree technology and the intelligent microphone system. This system lets you customise the microphone pick-up pattern to suit the conferencing setup. The Microphone Mode Control button cycles between three modes of voice tracking. The Gecko Fix mode switches the microphone to single direction pick-up, which is ideal when there is only one speaker participating in the call. This filters out disturbances from other directions. In Gecko Follow mode, the microphone follows the speaker even if the person moves around, making it perfect for situations where one person has the floor. In Gecko 360-degree mode, the microphone assumes omnidirectional pick-up so that all people gathered around a table can freely participate in the conversation and is clearly audible. In each of these modes, the LEDs around the touch panel illuminate, indicating the microphone’s active pick-up direction. The strongest pick-up direction is indicated by the brightest LED, while the peripheral LEDs are dimmed, and those in the direction of least pick-up remain off. In omnidirectional mode, all LEDs remain switched off.

We found the Beyerdynamic Phonum to be extremely portable and quite responsive to touch input. Connection proved quick and seamless, facilitating quick set-up. In Follow mode, the microphone quickly changes direction according to the speaker’s position, making it a versatile conference device. If you plan to use this as a music player, you will be disappointed simply because the device is not designed for that purpose, and the volume is quite low for music playback. The device offers 12 hours of operating time on a single charge and features quick charging via the USB-C port. The Phonum is sold in India via headphonezone.in .

RATING

WE’RE IMPRESSED Light, portable and sturdy design, responsive touch panel, Gecko 360-degree system, good battery life, sturdy case

WE’D IMPROVE Speaker volume

THE LAST WORD Beyerdynamic Phonum is an extremely versatile speakerphone for any type of conferencing situation with a highly functional intelligent microphone system

Review: Ambrane FitShot Zest

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Price: ₹2,999

Smart wearables are flooding the market, especially entry-level models at the lower end of the price band. Ambrane’s FitShot Zest smartwatch joins the melee with a few advanced features.

The FitShot Zest is available in black, blue and pink colours and has a rectangular design similar to Apple watch. The watch has a predictable Chinese origin but is well made, unlike many products in this price band. A metal frame and a neat-looking sensor unit underside instil confidence. The device uses a 22 mm silicon strap, which also feels of good quality. The FitShot Zest carries an IP67 ingress protection rating and hence it is water and dust resistant. The watch uses a 1.7-inch display, which appeared sharp and bright with legible font and design elements. The watch can be paired with an Android phone using the FitShot Wear companion app. You get some neat watch faces to choose from. The control wheel has the single function of switching between the installed watch faces. On the flip side, the slightest brush of your hands can change your chosen watch face.

The watch includes advanced features Bluetooth calling, health monitoring and voice assistant compatible with Google Assistant and Siri. Apart from the regular health tracking features like SpO2, blood pressure, stress, sleep and heart rate, it also includes menstrual cycle tracking. It also tracks sports such as Running, Walking, Climbing, Treadmill, Cycling, Spinning, Yoga, Basketball, Football, and Basketball. Activity tracking records include steps, kilometres and calories burnt. Many of these may not be accurate but are close enough for all practical purposes. There are of course the regular features like stopwatch, alarm and others. You can also play and pause music or operate the camera on the smartphone with the watch. The watch provides up to seven days of battery life.

RATING

WE’RE IMPRESSED Good value for money, neat design, good features for the price

WE’D IMPROVE Accuracy of sensor

THE LAST WORD An entry-level smartwatch that exceeds expectations

Review: Asus Vivobook K15

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Price: From ₹46,990

Asus Vivobook laptops have been value-for-money offerings, and the K15 takes this a notch higher by bringing an OLED screen to affordable levels. As Asus says, the K15 is designed with Gen Z users in mind.

The Vivobook K15 features a polycarbonate and aluminium alloy chassis that appears tough for a budget-friendly laptop. The device is thin and light for a 15-inch laptop, about 18 mm thick and weighing 1.8 kg. The laptop is available in Indie Black, Transparent Silver, and Hearty Gold colours. The touchpad includes a fingerprint scanner for Windows Hello login, and it proved quite responsive. The keypad offers good feedback and is quite comfortable for long-form typing with 1.4 mm key travel. I found the compromise in arrow keys a little frustrating at the start, but then it became less of an annoyance after a few days of use. The keyboard offers three levels of backlight and the Enter key has a neon green backlight. The touchpad felt somewhat lagging. The device offers a full suite of I/O ports including three USB-A, one USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, two USB 2.0 Type-A, one HDMI and a MicroSD card reader along with a 3.5mm headphone jack. It provides up to Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) dual-band and Bluetooth 5.0.

Coming to the main USP of the laptop, the Vivobook K15 features a 5.6-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080) OLED display that provides 100 percent DCI-P3 colour gamut, ideal for videos. The display proved to be vibrant with true blacks and rich saturation. The panel is certified by TUV Rheinland for low blue light and flicker-free operation to reduce eye fatigue. The display has been validated by Pantone and comes pre-calibrated by Asus. However, we felt the factory calibration had over-saturated the warm tones, making it even more strenuous to look at for a long time. So, we attempted a hardware calibration using the i1 Display Studio device to DCI-P3 and found the pre-calibrated setting to be off by a wide margin. If you are into photography or colour-critical use, we would not recommend this display in its native calibration setting. We hope Asus would take care of this in future since the buyers of this laptop are not likely to have a colorimeter lying around to calibrate their displays.

The K15 is available in various configurations. The options in processor include 11th Generation Intel Core i3, i5 and i7, while Asus also offers up to 16GB DDR4 RAM, up to 512GB of SSD and up to 1TB of HDD. We received the i5 variant with 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD and the review is based on this configuration. The laptop features Intel UHD or Intel Iris Xe graphics. We used the K15 for photo editing and multimedia other than the regular light tasks, and the device handled all these without any problems. The laptops are equipped with an upgraded 8 mm heat pipe and a new fan to dissipate heat more efficiently. We did not feel any uncomfortable heating while using the device, and the fan ensured near-silent operation.

The K15 uses a 42 Wh battery, which lasted for about 5 to 6 hours in our use. The charger tops up the battery in about an hour. The MyAsus app lets you customise power, performance, audio and other parameters according to your use.

The Harman Kardon certified audio system provides good sound output for video calls and presentations, though this is not the best we have experienced. The camera also provided image quality of the expected levels. The laptops come with Windows 10 pre-installed but are eligible for a free Windows 11 upgrade.

RATING

★★★★

WE’RE IMPRESSED Lightweight, full-sized keyboard, good response, excellent display

WE’D IMPROVE Display calibration, Touchpad response

THE LAST WORD The Asus Vivobook K15 is a competent value-for-money laptop that exceeds the usually expected specs by a wide margin.

Review: Optoma P2

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Rs. 4,99,999, optoma.com
Optoma returns with its high-end laser projector successor

It was exactly a year ago when we got a chance to use the Optoma P1 and came back mighty impressed. Now right on schedule, Optoma has launched the aptly named Optoma P2 that promises improved picture quality.  

Design-wise, there’s not much to differentiate the Optoma P2 with its predecessor. Except for the colour, which is white for the P2, there’s hardly any difference in the product design. The NuForce soundbar covered in soft mesh fabric is on the front, the glass-covered lens at the top and the host of ports at the back like two HDMIs (one of which supports ARC), USB, RJ45, S/PDIF and audio out. There’s one more HDMI and USB Type-A port along with ventilated sides for heat dissipation and airflow.    

The Optoma P2 is an ultra-short throw projector that enables a large 120-inch projection from a distance of just 14.5-inches. The projector automatically adjusts the keystone and focus, but if you need to fine-tune it, one can do it from the button on the remote control.

Equipped with a DLP projection chip, it supports 3840×2160 native resolution along with a light brightness of up to 3000 ANSI lumens, which is good enough for 30,000 hours in eco mode. The projection quality is top-notch. The P2 supports over a billion colours with a 120% Rec. 709 gamut coverage and 6-segment colour wheel for realistic colour reproduction. It also has HDR10 for HDR content and PureMotion for reduced motion blur when you are watching fast-paced content. 

The P2 is a smart projector and the fact that Optoma underplays this feature is a good thing because the smart experience is underwhelming. It runs on a forked Android version that does not have access to Google Play Store or its associate services. Instead, it comes with a third-party app store that has a limited number of apps. That said, wirelessly connecting via iOS or Android and casting to the projector is easy, provided you have fast and stable internet. The projector also supports Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. 

The NuForce 40W soundbar was the highlight in last year’s projector and it’s no different in P2. The audio quality is excellent with crisp, room-filling audio and supports Dolby Digital 2.0. There’s a dedicated audio mode that allows the projector to stream music via your connected Bluetooth device. 

All said and done, the Optoma P2 is a solid follow up to the P1. The smart features can be improved but considering its overall performance, the ultra-short throw projector delivers excellent projection with amazing audio quality. 

RATING 4.5/5
WE’RE IMPRESSED Performance, audio
WE’D IMPROVE Smart features
THE LAST WORD Optoma P2 is an easy-to-use ultra-short throw laser projector that delivers top-notch projection and audio.

This review is originally published in the January 2021 edition of T3 India. Subscribe here.

BenQ GV1 Review

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The new BenQ projector is travel-friendly and comes with smart feature
Rs. 30.990, benq.co.in

Customers now understand the advantage of installing projectors at home versus going with a large-size television. But when it comes to portable projection, there’s still some ground to cover. We have seen some solutions from ViewSonic, Sony and Asus in the past and now BenQ has launched its offering, the GV1.

Off all the portable projectors we have seen recently, GV1 is the most portable. As compact as a small soft drink bottle, the GV1 is tiny and well-designed. Equipped with a travel case, the 708g GV1 goes for a dual-tone design with the top quarter of the device housing the projector essentials like the controls at the top, focus ring at the side and the lamp on the front whereas the remaining three-fourth of the device goes with a mesh grille design that conceals the back-firing speaker and a USB Type-C and power port at the bottom. Overall, the design is slick and premium-looking. 

Being a smart projector, GV1 is as easy as setting up an Android smartphone but this is where the similarities end. It runs a custom version of Android and since it does not have a Google certification, there’s no access to Google Play Store and related services. Instead, it comes with Aptoide TV app store. The app store allows downloading popular entertainment apps, but the library is sparse. If you use Netflix, Prime Video or Disney+ Hotstar, the projector can play the content but going through the menu and settings are laggy, given the slow Snapdragon 210 processor and meagre 1GB RAM that powers the forked Android OS. There’s a delay in registering the commands while using the remote control. Connecting an external device is one way to watch content on this projector, but you will have to use the bundled Type-C to HDMI port since the projector does not come with a full-sized HDMI. Another way is to wirelessly project, which works well with PC and Android but was a hit-and-miss with iOS.

GV1 can project images to up to 35-inches from a distance of 1m, which is good enough for such a small projector, but it can project up to 100-inches in size. However, the experience is underwhelming considering the FWVGA (854×480) resolution support and 200 ANSI lumens brightness that goes dimmer if you use the projector with the integrated battery. The 15-degree tilting lens is a nice touch along with the auto keystone that ensures the projection is straight, irrespective of the angle. Users can adjust manually, as well. The 5W back-firing speakers offer good crisp audio, good enough to fill a small room and even has a dedicated Bluetooth mode allowing the GV1 to function as a Bluetooth loudspeaker. 

GV1 is an interesting device. While BenQ has nailed the portability factor with its compact and handy design, this same compactness compromises on the picture quality. Adding insult to injury is the laggy user interface. 

RATING 3/5
WE’RE IMPRESSED Design, portability, audio
WE’D IMPROVE Performance
THE LAST WORD A decent attempt by BenQ to appeal to customers looking for portable projection but falls short in terms of its smart features and picture quality.