T3 India

review

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. 

Trifo Max Review

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Not just another robot vacuum cleaner
Rs. 21,990 (promotional price), amazon.in

Robot vacuum cleaners have been in demand in the last few months and Trifo is trying to kill two birds with one stone with its latest product. The Trifo Max not only works like any other robot vacuum cleaner but also comes with a camera at the top that can be used as a security camera.

Trifo Max looks like any other robot vacuum cleaner in the market. The circular robot vacuum features a bumper on the front, whereas the top hosts a camera along with physical buttons. The upper lid can be pulled up to reveal status lights for the Wi-Fi, reset button, a USB port (to charge gadgets!) and the dustbin. At the bottom is the side brush that sweeps everything towards the large main brush, which vacuums the dirt in the dustbin. The wheels let the Trifo Max roam around while it cleans the surface and even features sensors so it does not topple down from the stairs or higher ground.

The easy setup requires the use of the Trifo Home app, which also acts as a gateway to all the other things Trifo Max can do. Although vacuuming can be initiated by pressing the power button on the Trifo Max, using the app is preferable because you can use features like adjusting the suction power that goes up to 3,000 Pa. The suction power also determines how loud the robovac will be, so you can adjust it accordingly. The app allows manual control of the Max and even turn on the surveillance camera, which is a nice feature to have but feels inadequate compared to a proper home security camera. The motion detection works well, but the images seen from the camera are at an angle that makes looking at the feed a little impractical. The only advantage with it is that you get the mobility if you need to see something and talk via the 2-way chat feature.

The first couple of cleaning sessions seem like a bump-into-every-obstacle session, but what Trifo Max is doing is creating a virtual map of the room, which you can see in real time on the app. The robovac is learning the environment for a more efficient cleaning route. In short, the more it cleans the room, the better it gets. It’s handy, but only if you keep it docked in the same area. The app does not allow any geo-fencing (requires a physical obstacle) or naming different rooms in the house which means if you move the charging station to a new place, say, to another floor of the house, the Max needs to learn the new room and previous room again. Trifo has confirmed to us that the memorising feature will come, but no idea when.

Regarding its vacuuming performance, Max leaves the floor spick-and-span. It even comes with mopping pads and a tiny water tank that makes mopping possible, but in our experience, it was underwhelming.

Despite some of its shortcomings, Max is a formidable robovac that does its job well with the ability to adjust the suction power, up to 2 hours of battery life and controllable via Amazon Alexa.

RATING 4/5
WE’RE IMPRESSED Vacuum performance, easy to set up
WE’D IMPROVE App experience, camera
THE LAST WORD Trifo is pitching Max for its security camera feature, we prefer Max for its cleaning performance and adjustable suction power.

This review was originally published in the November edition of T3 India. Subscribe here.

Review: Jabra Elite Active 75t

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Jabra’s top-of-the-line TWS device scores on performance and quality
Rs. 15,999, jabra.in

TWS is the hottest category right now for audio accessory makers and while we have seen some affordable ones in the last few months, Jabra is aiming for the premium experience with the Elite Active 75t. But does it have enough to warrant a price tag of around Rs. 15,000? Let’s find out.

The Elite Active 75t has a simple low-key design, inspired by its predecessor and betters it with an almost no-stem design and super lightweight with each bud weighing about 5.5g. One of the biggest gripes with TWS devices is the fit and while it varies from person-to-person, the Elite Active 75t seem to offer one of the best fits. The soft plastic exterior coupled with silicon EarGels are not only comfortable but also helps to seal the ears that keeps the ambient noise out. In addition to this, the buds boast a dry film soft-touch grip coating, allowing the earbuds to stay in its original position, even during an intense workout and are IP57-rated, giving an added assurance of resistance to water and sweat. The compact case complements the earbuds’ rubberised texture and features a small LED at the back along with a USB Type-C port. The strong magnets inside the charging area helps to keep the earphones in place.

In terms of on-device controls, Jabra has gone with physical buttons that are soft enough to not push the earphones deep in the ear canal. The controls can be used to play/pause a track, adjust volume, accept or reject calls and more. Jabra also allows customising the buttons with the Sound+ app.

The Sound+ app needs a special mention because it’s not just ‘an’ app but allows to extract more from the Elite Active 75t. It enables users to upgrade the device’s firmware or show an approximate location of the earphones’ last location but the shiniest feature is the personalisation that helps elevate the Elite Active 75t.

The default sound signature of the Elite Active 75t is bassy which also tends to take over the midrange but with the MySound feature and a few taps, the Sound+ app creates a personalised hearing profile based on the age, gender and the frequencies you hear to improve the overall audio quality. After the personalisation, I found the audio to be much better with a punchier bass, boosted mids, treble, and excellent imaging. The app also offers an equalizer to further tweak the frequencies with pre-set settings or create a custom one. In short, depending on the songs, you may like the out-of-the-box bassy sound but the personalised profile certainly brings you closer to the one you prefer.

The Elite Active 75t is equipped with four built-in microphones and the call quality is excellent allowing the listener to hear you sans the background noise. Like most earphones, the Elite Active 75t also supports voice assistants like Siri, Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa. There’s no active noise-cancellation (Update: Jabra has promised to add ANC via a firmware update next month) but the tight fit helps to keep the ambient noise out, which is why the device also packs in a feature called HearThrough. Turning it on lets the ambient noise in and is adjustable via the app. 

A full charge gives the buds a play time of up to 7.5 hours. Place it back in the charging case again and it can last to up to 28 hours, which is impressive. 

The Jabra Elite Active 75t competes against the likes from Apple, Sony and Samsung but the thing that works for Jabra is its durability, thanks to the IP rated body and secure fit. The free companion app also improves the overall audio quality with its nifty features like audio customisation, controls and more.

RATING 4/5
WE’RE IMPRESSED Build quality, companion app
WE’D IMPROVE Bassy sound out-of-the-box, codec support 
THE LAST WORD The Jabra Elite Active 75t delivers good sound, longer battery life and durable body, making it the perfect companion for runs and workouts. 

Review: BenQ EX2780Q

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Gaming monitor with an entertainment card up its sleeve
Rs. 34,220, benq.co.in

Gaming monitors are available at varying price points, but if you are willing to part with the kind of money BenQ is asking, you’d want something immersive, right? Well, that’s the thing about EX2780Q. It’s a gaming monitor that offers good quality visuals and audio for an improved immersive experience that not only appeals to gamers but users who watch a lot of multimedia content.

EX2780Q’s design means business. It doesn’t try to attract anyone with flashy RGBs but keeps it minimal and classy. The large display and thin bezels on the three sides do the talking while a thick bezel at the bottom houses an ambient sensor and two speakers. The easy-to-attach metallic brown stand matches the monitor’s colour tone and features space in between that lets you keep things like the monitor’s remote control in between. The compact remote control allows controlling OSD settings, change input, volume without having to touch or fiddle with the buttons on the monitor. However, if you still prefer, there are buttons at the back with a 5-key navigator. There’s a volume wheel at the bottom of the left-hand side. In terms of connectivity, everything’s hidden at the back with two HDMI 2.0 ports, DisplayPort 1.4, USB Type-C and a 3.5mm audio jack. Overall, we like the design except for the part that the EX2780Q only tilts and does not allow any height adjustment or swivel.

When it comes to visuals, the EX2780Q does not disappoint. The 27-inch IPS panel supports QHD resolution (2560×1440) with a pixel density of 109ppi. The result is good viewing angles and crisp looking text. The colour reproduction is great with 95% of DCI-P3 colour space support and decent contrast. The high 144Hz refresh rate ensures smooth gaming along with FreeSync Premium support for tear-free gaming experience. The monitor also comes with features like black equalizer that expose the shadows and colour vibrance to give an edge during gaming.

The monitor features BenQ’s proprietary HDR implementation – HDRi that delivers three different HDR results, depending on the mode you choose. Display HDR delivers standard HDR10 output while the Game HDRi focuses on brightening up the dark areas, and Cinema HDRi improves colour saturation. The screen is certified with DisplayHDR 400, which is not great but not bad either considering it’s crossing the minimum threshold for HDR.

Audio in monitors is always an afterthought, but the EX2780Q is an exception. Powered by treVolo’s 2.1-channel audio, the front hosts two 2W speakers while a 5W sub-woofer is at the back. The audio isn’t loud enough to fill up a room but scores high on clarity and one of the best you’ll hear on a monitor.

RATING 4/5
WE’RE IMPRESSED Performance, audio
WE’D IMPROVE No height adjustment or swivel
THE LAST WORD The EX2780Q promises to deliver an immersive experience, and it does with a combination of good audio and video performance.

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Review: Asus ROG Phone 3

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Asus refines the phone to bring an improved gaming experience
From Rs. 49,999, asus.com/in

If sticking top-of-the-line hardware is the only way to bring an ultimate gaming phone, then the case for having a device dedicated to gaming is weak to begin with. However, as we have learned over the last couple of years, it’s the small refinements that set a gaming phone from other phones apart, giving players an advantage over others. This is what Asus’ ROG Phone 3 is all about.

On the design front, the ROG Phone 3 looks similar to the last two generations. The ROG Phone 3 loses its copper accents and adopts a more subtle look. There’s a large display on the front, winged by a front-facing camera, LED notification light, earpiece and a loudspeaker whereas the phone sides feature a power, volume buttons and AirTriggers 3 on the right, SIM card slot and USB Type-C ports on the left and the main Type-C port at the bottom. The back is where you see the most changes and the noticeable being the triple camera setup and the iconic glowing ROG logo. There’s a see-through heat sink too that adds to the design element. The phone dimensions are similar to the previous ROG Phone, which means the tall body design is uncomfortable when you are holding it vertically but feels perfect when you are playing a game in landscape orientation. The ROG Phone 3 is heavy and weighs 240g. That said, the build quality of the phone is premium with an aluminium frame around the sides and glass body at the back protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3.

The ROG Phone 3 is equipped with a 6.59-inch 2340×1080 FHD+ AMOLED display, but the cherry on the cake is the 144Hz refresh rate. The Asus phone is one of the few phones in the market today with such a high refresh rate that helps to deliver a fluid experience. Currently, there aren’t many apps and games that take advantage of 144Hz, but you will see the difference when you go about doing day-to-day tasks. However, if using the phone at 144Hz concerns you about the battery life, Asus allows to manually choose the refresh rate between 144Hz, 120Hz, 90Hz or 60Hz or you can leave it to the device to decide the best refresh rate for that app with the Auto option. However, the refresh rate is just one aspect to the many display improvements on the ROG Phone 3. The touch response and latency have also been improved and now has touch-sampling at 270Hz whereas the touch latency is reduced to 25ms with a slide latency 18ms. In simpler words, the touch response on the ROG Phone 3 is faster compared to other phones – instrumental when you are playing a fast-paced action game like PUBG Mobile or Call of Duty.

As far as viewing angle and colours are concerned, the display is great with excellent outdoor legibility, HDR10+ support and DCI-P3 colour gamut coverage of 113%. The in-screen fingerprint scanner works as intended and also features other display features like Always-on display, colour temperature adjustment, night light and more.

When it comes to performance, the ROG Phone 3 comes with the best hardware available right now. It is powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus processor and has a RAM option of 8GB, 12GB and 16GB (international variant only). The UFS 3.1 internal storage also varies between 128GB to 512GB. Now given the top-of-the-line hardware, games and apps work flawlessly, but it’s the other optimisations that elevate the gaming experience. First is AirTriggers 3. They are ultrasonic touch buttons that act as shoulder buttons, like in a real controller. The new thing this time, however, is the ability to swipe the AirTriggers or create a dual partition so they work like L1/L2 and R1/R2 buttons. Besides this, AirTriggers 3 now supports accelerometer-based motion control, thus giving players five touch inputs to be emulated with them. AirTriggers are configurable via the swipeable Game Genie that brings additional options like adjusting refresh rate, configure macro, record gameplay, crosshair and more. Game Genie also gives one-touch access to Armoury Crate, which has become a standard in Asus’ gaming-centric computers and phones.

Armoury Crate showcases all the installed games and the level of per-game customisation is impressive considering you can adjust settings like network, touch, display, performance, key mapping and macro. The console tab under Armoury Crate is where you can see the current temperature, CPU/GPU clock speed, RAM, storage and tweak system-wide settings with X Mode. Activated with a light squeeze of the phone when in portrait or just tapping the button in the notification panel, X Mode optimises a few things in the background for improved gaming performance. You, of course, don’t need it considering the phone’s powerful innards, but it’s a good thing to have.

The things that work in the background to improve the overall gaming experience is the GameCool 3 cooling system that is a combination of a graphite film, redesigned copper 3D vapour chamber, heat sink and a vent. There’s strategically placed Wi-Fi antennas for better, uninterrupted reception, mics that support “quad-mic noise-cancelling array” and GameFX that handles ROG Phone 3’s audio with dual front-facing speakers, Dirac support and exclusive Game mode.

Finally, there’s a choice of accessories that can be used with the ROG Phone 3. While the phone is compatible with most of the last year’s accessories, the phone also supports some new ones like the AeroActive Cooler 3, Kunai 3 Gamepad, ROG Gaming clip that enables to use a PS4, Xbox One or a Stadia controller, ROG Cetra headset and TwinView Dock 3 for dual-screen gaming.

Asus ROG Phone 3 Sample Shots

The phone features a triple-camera setup with 64MP Sony IMX686 sensor, 13MP ultra-wide and a 5MP macro camera complemented by a fast camera app and loads of features. The picture quality, however, could be better. Pictures taken in adequate light are packed with detail and good colours but tend to underwhelm in other scenarios. You will get a good shot eventually – one that’s good enough to be shared on social media – but will require multiple tries. On the video side, the phone can record videos to up to 8K and support features like HyperSteady, motion tracking, pro video and slo-mo. Handling the selfie department is a 24MP sensor on the front.

The ROG Phone 3 runs Android 10 and while it is based on stock Android, the OS uses the ROG UI that comes with its own set of customisations and features. Battery-wise, the 6000mAh battery on the ROG Phone 3 is a workhorse. The battery lasts for almost two days if you use it for productive tasks or about a day if you are gaming with moderate use. The phone comes bundled with a 30W hyper charger and supports Quick Charge 4.0. While fast charging is a must-have these days, the phone also features functions like custom charging limit that lowers the charge to say, 90%; slow charging for reduced battery wear and scheduled charging that can be used at night to slow charge but wake up with a full battery.

There’s no doubt that the ROG Phone 3 is a device that is packed to the brim, but the only chink in its armour is the camera performance. Although we believe it will be fine-tuned with software updates in the coming future, if you can make peace with it, for now, ROG Phone 3 will not disappoint.

RATING 4/5
WE’RE IMPRESSED Performance, battery life, customisation
WE’D IMPROVE Weight, camera
THE LAST WORD If you care about mobile gaming, there’s no other phone that comes close to the customisations and optimisations offered by the ROG Phone 3