Dutch social enterprise Fairphone is best known for making repairable phones that receive long-term support and which are made at least partially from ethically-sourced materials. But a few years ago the company also branched out into accessories with the introduction of the a set of true wireless earbuds that sell for €100 (about $109). Now […]
audio
JBL Tour Pro 2 earbuds come with a charging case that has a touchscreen display
The new JBL Tour Pro 2 earbuds are a set of premium wireless audio buds with support for active noise cancellation Bluetooth 5.3 LE Audio, and up to 10 hours of battery life. What makes them really stand out though is the “smart charging case” that comes with the earbuds. It has a 1.45 inch touchscreen display […]
Lilbits: Steam Deck Dock updated ahead of launch, Google kills call recording on Android (again), and more
Valve’s Steam Deck is a gaming PC designed to be held in your hands. But if you want to use it for desktop-style gaming, you can always connect an external display, keyboard, mouse, or other hardware. And the company plans to begin selling an official Steam Deck Dock later this spring that will make it […]
Lilbits: New Surface hardware, and more on what Windows 11 will and won’t run on
Microsoft is has announced it’ll hold an event on September 22 to show off “what’s next” from the company, and it’s widely expected to be a hardware event. Maybe that means the Surface Duo 2 will become official. Maybe it’s time for the company to update its Surface Book 2-in-1 laptop. An updated Surface tablet […]
Lilbits: Windows 11, Qualcomm’s next flagship chip, and Walmart & Target’s Prime Day counterprogramming
Two big leaks today – Microsoft might finally be ready to retire the Windows 10 brand name and replace it with something new, and Qualcomm’s next-gen flagship processor could be a doozy. First, the chip. ARM says chips based on its new ARMv9 architecture will bring big boosts in overall performance and efficiency, and even bigger […]
Lossless music isn’t a premium feature anymore (Apple Music and Amazon Music offer it for no additional cost)
Once upon a time lossless audio was a premium service that helped set music streaming services like Tidal apart from the competition… and helped justify higher prices. And by once upon a time, I mean as recently as yesterday. But today two major players in the music streaming space have announced that lossless, high-fidelity audio […]
This Bluetooth speaker looks like a Walkman and your phone is the tape cassette
While a handful of companies are still making portable audio players, for the most part smartphones have replaced MP3 players these days. But before there were MP3 players, there were portable CD players, MiniDisc players, and the grandparent of them all – the Sony Walkman and similar portable cassette players. From time to time smartphone […]
THX enters the consumer electronics space with the $200 Onyx USB-C digital-to-analog converter
THX, a company best known for bringing high fidelity audio and video to movie screens. But the company has also worked with consumer electronics companies to bring THX certification and/or tuning to home theater and audio products as well as laptops headphones, and more. Now THX is launching its first consumer electronics device that will […]
Lilbits: Leaks (GPD Win Max 2, MS Surface Laptop 4, Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 Lite?)
Every GPD Win handheld gaming PC to date has been powered by an Intel processor. The company started with low-power Intel Atom chips, but last year’s GPD Win Max shipped with a 25 watt Intel Core i5-1035G7 Ice Lake processor and this year’s GPD Win 3 is supports up to an Intel Core i7-1165G7 chip […]
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Sound aims to bring better audio to mobile devices
Smartphone audio can be a bit hit or miss. Some phones ship with HiFi digital audio converters (DACs) capable of delivering high quality audio to headphones and speakers while others take a something-is-better-than nothing approach. Now chip maker Qualcomm is introducing a new Snapdragon Sound set of technologies designed to bring high-quality, low-latency audio to […]