y this matters: Ironically, I’ve been calling Best Buy a lot this week, trying to schedule maintenance for a busted Samsung dishwasher. Every time the automated operator kicked in, I was first asked if I was calling about the Note 7. Clearly, Samsung has a “thing” here.
y you might want the Note 7
gave the Note 7 4.5 out of 5 stars in our review, praising its finessed chassis design; an improved S-n with better pressure sensitivity; an upgraded camera—among other great features. But the real bottom line is this: If you want a super-big phone that’s appropriate for both artistic doodling workhorse productivity, Samsung’s Note remains the only serious option available. There’s even a new Iris scanner, which unlocks your phone with a gaze. And it works.
Gear IconX: wire-free but will they thump?
For starters, the IconX are completely wire-free. They’re tethered neither to each other, nor your phone. Second, they seat quite well inside your ears—or, at least, inside my ears. I couldn’t shake them loose no matter how violently I throttled by head during a quick 5-minute demo. Third, they have onboard step heart rate sensors (a robot voices your data directly through the ‘buds). Beyond that, they boast 4GB of onboard storage for music tracks, or you can stream music from your phone over Bluetooth. Battery life is rated for 3.6 hours of continuous music if you only listen to onboard tracks. The IconX may be poised to be great workout companions, as you can leave your phone at home still listen to music. During my demo, I found the touch interface to be challenging, bass response to be worryingly low. That said, I only listened to a single music track, so it will be interesting to see how the IconX fair during extended testing.
