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Engadget review recap: An iMac, a coffee maker and an Amazon tablet
Plus some testing of Sony's cloud-streaming for the PlayStation Portal.
It's almost Thanksgiving week here in the US, and that means gift-shopping season is in full swing. As the hardware launches slow down while companies wait for you to buy their wares, so, too, can our reviews team take a tiny breather. That respite will unfortunately be brief, as we begin to prepare for CES 2025 in earnest while getting some year-end retrospectives ready. Many of our team members will be taking meetings all through December ahead of the consumer electronics show in Las Vegas, which is officially starting on January 7 this year, and the news will be coming as early as January 5.
In the meantime, our team's holiday gift guide and Black Friday shopping content have been dominating our site, thanks to the relentless hard work of everyone that works at Engadget. There are many people behind-the-scenes involved in the process, as we try to find the best deals this season to better serve our audience. I myself have gone to CamelCamelCamel to make sure a standing-mirror-shelf was indeed 30 percent off, and not just marked as such while being listed at the same price as during non-sale periods. You've got to be so careful with your money and not falling for deceptive deals, and our commerce team is truly adept at sussing out the good stuff versus the bad.
Between all the work for our holiday gift guides, planning for CES and taking some well-deserved time off, our team of reviewers has still managed to deliver some great reads, just in time for the holidays.
Apple M4 iMac review
by Steve Dent
Apple
Apple’s 2024 iMac comes with the powerful M4 chip and starts with 16GB of RAM, making it a better value than past models.
- Powerful M4 processors
- 16GB of RAM comes standard
- Much improved webcam
- Nano-textured display option
- Upgrades still too expensive
- Needs more screen size options
- No vertical height adjustment
Steve's one of our expert photographers and videographers, and his review of the new iMac as a content creator is super insightful. I've always admired Steve's depth of knowledge, and his background brought a different perspective to our review that I found relevant and helpful.
One of the biggest takeaways from Steve's review is that Apple is finally offering more RAM in the entry-level model, and that's somehow the most intriguing upgrade here. Though the webcam now has a sharper 12-megapixel sensor, and the display can be configured with a nano-coating, having twice the RAM in the base configuration is the most significant improvement. Steve clearly lays out why.
Fellow Aiden review
by Billy Steele
Fellow/Engadget
The Aiden is an automatic drip coffee machine that actually delivers on its promise of hands-off pour-over quality brewing. It offers tons of customization options and controls, plus guided brewing for novice users.
- Excellent pour-over performance
- Lots of customization
- Reconfigurable for single-cup use
- Carafe pours easily
- One-button interface slows you down
- Some app features are still in development
Whenever Billy files a draft that's for something outside the audio category, I know I have to be prepared. His mouthwatering descriptions of the meats he smokes or pizzas he makes with the cooking appliances he reviews often evoke FOODMO (food-induced FOMO) and, weirdly, so did this review of the Fellow Aiden. It's an automatic coffee maker that promises to replicate the quality of brews you'd get using a pour-over cone. I am a casual coffee lover, in that I know my preference for darker roasts and can kind of tell the difference when a cuppa has been prepared well. But aside from convenience, I couldn't tell you exactly why I prefer my pour-over cone to a French press or drip machine.
Billy's review clearly explains why the Aiden is the best of the coffee makers that claim to bring pour-over quality in an automatic system. While simultaneously making me somehow crave an expertly crafted cup of morning joe. Be warned, if descriptions of beans can make your mouth water, definitely make sure you have a mug of your favorite beverage nearby before reading this.
Loop Switch 2 review
by Billy Steele
Loop/Engadget
The Switch 2 delivers on Loop's promise to safely filter loud noise without overly muffling the sound for social gatherings, concerts, commuting and more.
- Easy to adjust while wearing
- Very comfortable
- Priciest model from Loop
- Noise levels on vary by 3dB
We don't typically review earplugs, but Billy had done fairly deep testing of the Loop Switch 2, and had enough experience to also compare it to some competing products. That's why we felt confident about assigning these noise-filtering earbuds a score. You might notice that the scorecard is smaller than usual — this is something you'll see more of moving forward. It represents reviews that involved first-hand, in-depth testing, but for products that for a variety of reasons may not rise to the level of our full reviews. Rest assured that a scored review on Engadget will always involve thorough first hand testing and thoughtful criticism and evaluation.
Billy's piece on the Switch 2 had me intrigued, especially as I recently went to a concert and was concerned about the loud music and potential damage to my hearing. I never knew earplugs had gotten so advanced, and learned a lot from Billy's description of how you can change between levels of noise-filtering without having to take these buds out of your ears.
Amazon Fire HD 8 tablet review
by Jeff Dunn
Amazon
The Fire HD 8 remains a decent value for a casual media consumption tablet, particularly when it’s on sale, but its iffy display and ad-heavy software make it less appealing at full price.
- Cheap, and frequently discounted
- Lightweight and comfortable to hold
- Improved performance over prior generation
- Good battery life
- Has a microSD slot and headphone jack
- Fire OS is ad-heavy and Amazon-centric to the point of hostility
- Limited app selection
- Display needs a refresh
- Poor cameras
- Still only powerful enough for light gaming and media consumption
Many Amazon tablets fall under the category of products that we would like to review but don't typically have the time or bandwidth to get to. That's why I was excited when Jeff was able to find time to test the Fire HD 8, especially since he is familiar with the Amazon product ecosystem. There are plenty of Android tablets out there, and the Fire series are among the most affordable, making them a popular choice. That's why it's important for us to test them, to get a better sense for what people are using and also to inform our other coverage and reviews. Though Jeff didn't like Fire OS, he did find the HD 8 to be just good enough to be a decent value. As long as you can put up with an ad-heavy interface and a limited app selection, you'll probably find this to be a competent device for, say, your child to use on the go.
Sonos Arc Ultra review
by Billy Steele
Sonos/Engadget
Sonos’ latest premium soundbar relies on new technology to improve audio quality and the upgrade delivers more than just a bass boost.
- Improved bass performance
- Crisp, clear and immersive sound
- Expanded Speech Enhancement
- Compatible with Ace headphones
- Still just a single HDMI port
- Expansion remains pricey
- Large footprint
Sonos' Arc Ultra manages to deliver better bass and sound than the original, and thanks to Billy's explainer on the company's latest Sound Motion technology, I have a better understanding of how it's different. According to Billy, the acoustic improvement is significant, and the company's improved app makes for a greater overall experience that could be worth the extra $100. Considering the Sonos Arc is now on sale for $699 and the Ultra costs $999, though, the greater difference in cost may be harder to justify.
Sony's PlayStation Portal gets a cloud-streaming upgrade
by Devindra Hardawar
Sony announced this week that it was bringing cloud-streaming to the PlayStation Portal, a handheld gaming console that was previously only capable of playing games that were on the PlayStation in your home. Since this drawback was one of the major complaints Devindra had when he reviewed the Portal last year, he dusted off his Portal and got to testing the new cloud-streaming feature and was generally impressed by the performance and latency. It's nice to see companies deliver features after a product launches, and even nicer when they work well.
But since Devindra still has some unaddressed griped with the Portal, like some clunkiness and lag in connecting to a PlayStation, the cloud-streaming addition doesn't yet warrant an update to our original review and score. If Sony further updates the Portal and genuinely improves the experience, we will revisit our evaluation. For now, though, Devindra just says he has "started to hate this thing a bit less."
On the horizon: Upcoming reviews
We're still awaiting a review unit of the new Kindle Scribe that Amazon announced in October, and continue to work through our backlog of gadgets that includes a Roku, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 and the Apple Watch Ultra 2. We're also taking some time to revisit some older products so we can review them with some time after launch, which should give us a better view of how the things we test hold up over time. Stay tuned for all that, and feel free to send us your feedback and suggestions on what you'd like to see us review. In the meantime, happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it, and we'll see you soon!
