Logitech Pop Keys: design 

The Pop Keys come in three funky colour dressings: daydream (mint, yellow and lavender), heartbreaker (rose) and blast (black and yellow). Whichever colour you pick, you can coordinate with a matching Logitech Pop Mouse.

The keyboard is made from thick plastic. For years now, I been using a very sturdy chunky mechanical keyboard and this gives a totally different flair. I would term it a playful design rather than a premium design and have no complaints about it. This is the way Logitech had intentionally made it, and it does justice to the idea. It is a compact small keyboard with a dimension of 35.4 x 321.2 x 138.47mm. It won’t eat up much of your desk space. It weighs 799 gms. In spite of the small size, it still has a row of function keys and arrow keys.

What I really liked about this is the reminiscence of the good old typewriter but in a colourful avatar. The keys are rounded like in good old days, they bit close to each other. In my initial testing period, I fumbled with lots of mistyping, till you get used to the small frame and rounded keys. Moving from a full-sized big keyboard, it does need a bit of adjusting period. On the right of the keyboard, there are five programmable keys designed for typing different emoji symbols, which I would talk about in a while.

The mechanical keys give a satisfying click with a pleasing sound. If you prefer the quietest keyboard, you should stay away from mechanical keyboards in general. There are no underside legs if you prefer an inclined elevation.

Setting up the Logitech Pop Keys

I had no issues setting up the keyboard, it’s a completely wireless keyboard but pairs super quick. The box comes with a Logi Bolt USB receiver or you can simply connect to your PC using Bluetooth. It can have 3 devices paired at once, so shifting between devices is a breeze using the device’s keys along the top of the keyboard.

Logitech Pop Keys: features 

The star attraction of the Pop keys apart from the design elements are the array of swappable emoji keys. Logitech has chosen eight popular emojis including heart, thumps up, smileys, fire etc we most likely use in our online conversation. You can place four of them on board at once for direct access There’s a fifth emoji key on the keyboard to access the whole OS level emoji library. So basically, if you are on a Windows machine, you don’t have to press the Windows + semicolon key for the emoji library but you get a dedicated key to access it. For those who mix emojis a lot in your conversation, this would be cool stuff. Strictly not everyone’s cup of emoji though but Logitech believes emojis are part of our daily vocabulary and this would be a key selling point for this keyboard.

Again first time you are using the Pop keys, you need to install the Logitech Options Software and configure the emoji keys with their corresponding emoji from the OS level emoji library. Also you need to programme the first time, on different machines you use. So, yes bit cumbersome effort for starters.

You can also use the Logitech Options Desktop app to remap all of the keys on the keyboard to your preferences.

Battery life of Logitech Pop Keys

Logitech uses two AA batteries. Logitech claims a 3 years of battery life. Well, I would just have to trust their words here, since I can’t wait 1095 days to test. But it definitely would last longer.

Logitech Pop Keys Review Verdict

What I liked

Good Stuff

• Unique eye candy retro design
• Three-year battery life
• Swappable Emoji for the new age conversations
• Good multi device support

What could be better

• The round keys are not for everyone
• No incline support or wrist rest
• No backlighting

Box contents:

• Printer
• Power Cable and USB Cable
• Ink Bottles – (1x 127ml BK, 3x 70ml CMY) , Extra Black
• User manual, Quick Setup Guide, warranty card

Epson L6490 Design

Most printers come as a monolithic block but L6490 has a refreshing design. It has very good aesthetics and has a modern design appeal. The print and copier/scanner bed has a good amount of separation between them, with the copious paper output zone dividing them. The printer has a dimension of 44 x 41 x 42 Centimeters, an almost square design. At 7.3 kg, it is slightly on the heavier side, but once kept at its place, very rarely the printers are moved around. . The build quality and finish are good.

Like most eco tank/ink tank models, refilling the ink is convenient and easy. You just need to open the tray and place the ink bottle head into the respective grooves for a spill-free refilling.

There is a large cassette tray that holds up to 250 papers.

The rear has an additional tray, suppose you need to stack photo papers instead of opening the front tray.

Epson EcoTank L6490 Features

This is a multi-function printer – so it can print, scan, copy and also work as a fax machine. While you can run it with the touch control panel on board, it also supports Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, Ethernet, mobile connectivity.

It is equipped with a 2.4-inch LCD touch screen. The touch experience is not that smooth, don’t expect fluid touch like you get on your mobile phones. The screen, gets the job done though. There is standard power and home buttons on the side of the screen. It also provides an animated tutorial to guide you through.

Wifi connectivity is pretty straight forward and once connected to your local network you can easily shoot prints from your smartphones and computers, which is what I did when I was testing the printer.

The EcoTank L6490 supports mono as well as colour printing. It uses pigment dyes. The printer is more for document printing, and not for photo printing. You can print photos but this machine is not made for photo print in mind., Being a pigment dye machine, the printed documents have Longer lasting print and better colour stability. The inks are also more smudge and water resistant.

Epson EcoTank L6490 Printing Speed & Performance

Here is the list of paper formats the printer supports: 9 x 13cm, 10 x 15cm, 13 x 18cm, 13 x 20cm, 20 x 25cm, 100 x 148mm, 16:9, Letter Legal, No. 10 (Envelope), DL (Envelope), C6 (Envelope), B5 (17.6 x 25.7cm), A6 (10.5 x 14.8cm), A4 (21.0 x 29.7cm), and A5 (14.8 x 21.0cm).

It offers duplex printing, which is very convenient with an automatic document feeder. For starters, the Epson L6490 offers three printing modes.

1. Draft Mode: Ideal for testing page layout before printing the final copy. This is the fastest, but lowest-quality mode on most printers. Apart from testing and measuring print speeds, Draft Mode can be used to print low-priority documents such as grocery lists.
2. Standard Mode: This is the default setting for most printers. It offers a balance between quality and speed that works fine for most printing needs.
3. High-Quality Mode: If you want to squeeze out the best possible quality from your printer, this is the setting to opt for. However, the quality improvement comes at the cost of print speeds

Black and White printing

When it comes to speed, for a single page printout it took 7 seconds in monochrome Draft Mode. The standard mode takes around 9 seconds, whereas it shoots up to 24 seconds in High-Quality Mode.

And now let’s take a look at the PPM or Pages Per Minuter, you can expect around 22 pages in Monochrome Draft Mode, 16 pages in the Standard Mode and if you are opting for all our high-quality prints, it takes a bit of time churning 2 prints per minute.

Color Printing

Here, it takes around 9 seconds for Draft, 14 seconds for Standard Mode, and 46 seconds for High.

Talking about PPM, on draft mode, the printer’s color print output is 9 pages per minute. In Standard Mode, you get 7 pages per minute. In High-Quality Mode, it prints one full image in a minute.

Overall, it was in my expected lines for multifunction printer speed. The print quality is good, the texts are sharp even in standard mode, the standard mode I feel would suffice for most printing requirements.

Copier and Scanner

The L6490’s flatbed scanner uses a Contact Image Sensor (CIS) and an LED light source to deliver great results. The 300dpi setting is good enough to scan documents. For images, 600dpi is a sweet spot. There’s also a software-based 1200dpi mode, which slightly improves the scan quality, but is painfully slow. Scanning a monochrome chart takes 9 seconds to scan at 300dpi, 15 seconds at 600dpi, and a whopping five minutes at 1,200dpi.

Epson EcoTank L6490 Print Cost

This was the Eco tank print economy kick. in. Since the machine does not use ink cartridges and uses refillable ink tanks, the effective running costs come down. As per Epson, the 70ml black ink bottle has a yield of up to 6,000 pages. Epson also offers a 127ml version that can print up to 7,500 monochrome pages. The remaining Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow ink bottles have a composite yield of 6,000 pages. The refill bottles are very affordable, the black ink bottle costs ₹309, whereas the colour ones are pegged at ₹449 each in India.

Epson L6490 Printer Verdict

When I checked Amazon, as on the date am writing this review, the Epson Ecotank L6490 is available for ₹29,688. It is a versatile multifunction printer that offers colour print, copier, scanner and fax functionality along with a plethora of wired and wireless connectivity options. The automatic duplex printing is convenient, anytime. If you are not looking at photo printing, this would be an ideal printer for a small business and home office setup.

Pros of Epson Ecotank L6490

• Modern design, looks good.
• Good build quality.
• Great for printing documents
• Plenty of connectivity options
• Duplex printing support
• Low printing cost
• Large voluminous printing tray

Cons of Epson EcoTank L6490

• Not ideal for photo printing

At home, I use Canon G3000 which lacked a display and wireless functionality. Later models in the 3000 series did add these missing features. The G3060 has a two line display and Canon says the printing speed is a bit better on this, well let’s find out how faster it is in my real test.

Box contents:

• The G3060 printer
• Black and Color heads
• Black Original Ink Bottle x 1
• Cyan Original Ink Bottle x 1
• Magenta Original Ink Bottle x 1
• Yellow Original Ink Bottle x 1
• Power cord
• USB to printer cable
• CD with drivers
• Documents

Setting up the Canon G3060

The setup is fairly easy but if you are doing it for the first time, it might overwhelm you but trust me it is an easy job. The Canon documentation gives you pictorial guide to walk through the setup. You can also watch my video if that makes it easier.

Compared to how I had to squeeze the ink bottles of my Canon Pixma 3000 to get the ink flow into the smart tank, the new design of the bottle makes it very easy and smooth. You just pop the bottle into the nozzle. The spill free design does the job neat without any ink dripping outside plus no squeezing either. As usual with most printers these days, installing the print heads is no-brainer, simple plus and shut job.

Of course the display would let you know if there is any error happened.

Canon G3060 Design

The printer weighs approximately 6.4 kg. If you would want to know the dimension to see if it fits wherever you are going to place it, out of the box it measures 445 x 330 x 167 mm. With the tray extended it measures 445 x 555 x 238 mm.

The display and buttons are all laid out on the top for easy access. It has got a 5.08 cm LCD display for easy navigation and confirmation of print settings. It’s a monochrome display supporting two lines. Underneath the display is the navigation buttons. You also find power button, menu, scanner copier, WiFi etc in an array of assortments.

The ink maintenance cartridge can be easily accessed from behind in case of any issues. It is easily replaceable. The paper tray is tucked in at the rear. When closed, there is a lid that makes sure dust doesn’t go inside through that gap. On top, we have the Scan bed.

Connectivity & Features

Apart from the USB wired connectivity, the G3060 is WiFi-enabled and provide smart wireless connectivity for printing. There is no dual-band support and works on 2.4Ghz. It also supports remote printing via Canon Canon PRINT Inkjet/SELPHY. This feature is very handy both at work and home, where multiple users or family members can print without having to login to a connected computer. The G3060 does not have the automatic two-sided printing option. It allows for duplex printing but you need to do reverse feeding.

The copy mode offers many features like enlarge, reduce, print intensity etc. The display offers many useful features to access right on the printer.

How to connect the Canon G3060 to Wifi?

The printer can be connected to your Wifi router via the cableless connect button or by WPS push method or by manually. I got it done easily via the cableless connect button option.

• Press and hold the cableless connect button for 3 second
• You will get a prompt in the display
• Then go to your mobile Wifi settings, choose the Canon Wifi temporary Wifi that would be visible, select it and connect to that Wifi
• Open the Canon Printer App, it will detect the Canon printer and would prompt you to add the device. Add it.
• After adding the screen would prompt you to add the home Wifi network, add it back.
• The printer would show it connecting and finally press the OK button to complete the setup

Canon G3060 Specs, Speed and Cost per print

The G3060 is compatible with both Windows machine as well as Mac system. The G3060 is a Thermal Inkjet and Canon’s product page states it has a duty cycle of Up to 3,000 pages/month. This makes it ideal for home and small office. If you have page volumes more than these monthly numbers, you should be ideally looking at different models. For those not sure what duty cycle means printer duty cycle also called the monthly duty cycle, is the absolute number of pages that can be printed per month at the rated print quality of a machine and without errors/jams.

The maximum support document size is A4 / LTR. The supported paper quality are Plain Paper, Photo Paper Plus Glossy II (PP-201/PP-208), Photo Paper Pro Luster (LU-101), Photo Paper Plus Semi-Gloss (SG-201), Matte Photo Paper (MP-101), Glossy Photo Paper(GP-508)

Let’s see the claimed IPM values. IPM is Images Per Minute. Canon uses IPM instead of PPM, IMP values are comprehensive with a mix of word, excel and pdf print averages. For G3060 Canon claims 10.8 IPM or prints per minute in black and 6 IPM or prints per minute in colour. Canon says you can take 6000 black and white prints and 7700 prints with the refill bottles. The cost of each subsequent refill bottles would be around Rs 400 in India, so the print cost would be very affordable in this printer.

The print quality including photos come real good. The print speed in my real practical test varied a bit a color print of 4*6 size took close to a minute, an A4 color document print took around 34 seconds. For a home use this should be manageable.

Verdict:

Canon G3060 offers lots of features including wireless easy printing for home needs. This would be an ideal printer for home use and for small business with less than 3000 pages printing requirements.

To begin on a lighter note, I would have appreciated if Sennheiser would have chosen a nicer compelling name like Momentum for the younger sibling rather than an alphanumeric naming – CX 400BT.

Design and Build Quality of CX 400BT

One of the key highlights of the Momentum True Wireless 2 (including their first gen) was their pleasant, nice looking fabric lined case. It instantly hits a premium note to the product. That visual vibe is missing with the CX 400BT where they have opted for a more generic plastic case. It is available in both black and white color options. It measures 59 x 33.8 x 42.3 mm and weighs 49 grams with the buds. It is noticeably smaller and slightly taller than the Momentum case but compact.

Top of the lid has the Sennheiser logo engraved. The back of the case has a USB type-C port, a pairing and status button and a lone LED indicator for charging and battery status.

Coming to the design of the buds, the Momentum TWS 2 had a prominent circular design, the CX 400BT features a rectangular design with rounded corners. They are still a bit chunky, though at 6gms they are lightweight. When you wear it, they would be still noticeable on your ears. It fits well into the ear and remain secure and comfortable.

Controls on CX 400BT

The buds has a capacitive touch surface and worked to be simple and responsive to use. You can play / pause, answer / end / reject calls. You can also change tracks to next or previous by double tapping either the left or right earbuds. Long press on either buds controls the volume up or down. Triple tap launches the voice assistant on your phone. The controls are smooth to use.

You can also rearrange the touch controls in the Sennheiser “Smart Control App”. You can also play around with the EQ settings in the app.

Sound quality of Sennheiser CX 400BT TWS

While they might have compromised on the look and feel of the case and buds, the Sennheiser did not compromise much on the awesome sound quality we get in Momentum 2 TWS. They state a frequency response of 5Hz- 21,000 Hz. The supported codecs and profiles are SBC, AAC, aptX™ and A2DP, AVRCP, HSP, HFP via Bluetooth 5.1 retaining the same 7mm dynamic drivers.

It offers a very commendable space and instrument separation. Sennheiser again demonstrates their superiority in handling a prominent bass without damaging the mids and trebles. You get every detail without bass overbearing on the rest. In short, the listening on this pair of earbuds is an enjoyable and gratifying experience for an audiophile. A b it on the call quality, it is something you can manage through the calls. No one complained about any poor call issues while I spoke to them.

The CX 400BT misses out on the ANC and Transparent Hearing which the Momentum 2 TWS offered but that is a compromise you make for the slightly lower pricing of the CX 400BT. It also lacks any water or sweat resistance, which I feel Sennheiser should have offered some sorts for this price. Though it should not matter if you use using it for your regular work or walk but not sure how the lack of sweat resistance will matter if you really sweat out in sun or in workouts.

There is no wear detection, a feature I like to in TWS earbuds. So if you take out the buds from the ear, it doesn’t pause the music. You can use the right buds as stand alone with the other bud in the case, so essentially the right earbud is the “master” and the left is dependent on it.

Battery life

Sennheiser claims a total of 20 hours of battery life including both the case and earbuds with earbuds offering seven hours of battery life per charge. In my test it almost covered 7 hours. It is a good duration for an average listening in one go and we would rarely use it on a 7 hour stretch without keeping in in case. So battery life is satisfactory.

Verdict

Pros: What works for Sennheiser CX 400BT

• Great Sound
• Appreciable sound staging
• Decent battery life
• Codec supports
• Customizable controls
• Responsive controls
• Comfortable to wear
• Stable connection

Cons: What doesn’t work for Sennheiser CX 400BT

• No ANC or transparent hearing
• No wireless charging
• No wear detection
• No splash proof

 On a final note, if you are an audiophile, the Sennheiser CX 400BT would definitely excite you for its stellar almost well tuned audio profile. It might lack few extra add-ons, but when it comes to audio signature, it is almost closer to the Momentum 2 TWS.

Box contents of Smart Tank 530

• HP Smart Tank 530
• 135-ml Black Original Ink Bottle – 3 Nos.
• HP GT52 Cyan Original Ink Bottle
• HP GT52 Magenta Original Ink Bottle
• HP GT52 Yellow Original Ink Bottle
• Power cord
• USB to printer cable
• Setup guide
• Black and Color heads

Setting up the Smart Tank 530

Even if you are a novice, it should be an easy straight forward setup and the pictorial setup guide comes very handy. I found filling the ink bottles easier than what I did on my Canon Pixma 3000, where I had to squeeze the bottle for the flow but in Smart tank you just pop the bottle into the nozzle. The spill free design also makes sure it is not a messier job. Even installing the print heads was simple plug and shut case. The touch display initially gives an easy display instruction step by step and also shows error message if you did something wrong. It’s a stress free easy job getting this printer ready to go.

HP Smart Tank 530 Design

The Smart Tank 530 weighs 6.19 kg. It has a dimension of 449 x 373 x 198 mm that can go to maximum 449 x 605.65 x 258.7 mm when the feeder tray is opened up. The touch display is a neat addition for the touch generation to navigate through the menus. The ink levels are clearly visible in front which is very convenient.

The paper tray is tucked in at the rear. When closed, there is a lid that makes sure dust doesn’t go inside through that gap. On top we have the Scan bed and above that is a automatic document feeder (ADF) for copying. Though do note, it is not doubled side ADF.

Connectivity & Features

Apart from the USB wired connectivity, the Smart Tank 530 is dual band WiFi-enabled and provide smart wireless connectivity for printing. It also supports remote printing via HP Smart app. This feature is very handy both at work and home, where multiple users or family members can print without having to login to connected computer. The Smart App available on both PC and mobile is versatile and also allows customizable smart tasks for regular printing needs.

Dual-band WiFi uses two frequencies 2.4 GHz (frequencies used in normal home Wi-Fis) and 5 GHz. The Smart Tank 530 also has an additional connectivity option of Bluetooth LE, if in case WiFi is not available.

The 530 does not have the automatic two-sided printing option. It allows for duplex printing but you need to do reverse feeding. It is the case with the ADF too for copying.

HP Smart Tank 530 Specs, Speed and Cost per print

The 530 is a Thermal Inkjet and the HP’s product page states it has a duty cycle of up to 1000 pages and recommended monthly volume of 400 to 800 pages. This makes it ideal for home and small office. If you have page volumes more than this monthly numbers, you should be ideally looking at different models. For those not sure what duty cycle means printer duty cycle also called the monthly duty cycle, is the absolute number of pages that can be printed per month at the rated print quality of a machine and without errors / jams.

Print quality is listed as: Black: Up to 1200 x 1200 rendered dpi Color: Up to 4800 x 1200 optimized dpi color (when printing from a computer and 1200 input dpi) The input tray can handle 100-sheet input tray and output tray can accommodate 30 sheets. The ADF can handle 35 sheets maximum in its tray. The paper sizes supported are A4; B5; A6; DL envelope, legal and supports file format JPG, BMP, TIFF, PDF, RTF, TXT, PNG. Maximum scan size supported is 216 x 297 mm.

The cost of print works out as 10p for black prints and 21p for coloured prints.

Verdict:

HP Smart Tank 530 is a easy to use printer ideal for home and small office with requirements less than 1000 pages per month. The multi connectivity options including the wireless connectivity makes it a smarter printer for smart homes.

With a battery crazy good, a well balanced sound signature and water proof as added bonus, Lypertek Tevi shines through the crowded TWS market. At a price of Rs ₹ 6,999 it may not really be the affordable pairs but it punches about its weight with what it delivers. If you want to buy it after reading this review or want to take a look at the current price, click over to Headphone Zone for the product page HERE

Box contents:

1. Case
2. Earbuds
3. User guide
4. 3 pair of extra ear tips
5. Type C cable for charging

Design

The case is wrapped with fabric, which reminiscences Moments buds, which is not a bad idea though. I quiet like the suit-type fabric cover to the case which gives it a premium, sophisticated look unlike all plastic cases. The pill-shaped case measures 8cm x 3cm x 4cm not the smallest size out there but it is still very much pocketable but considering the battery it offers, I have no complaints. Also, not many manufacturers provide a lanyard cable to their case like the one we see here. You can of course remove it if you don’t fancy it.

There is the convenient Type C port for charging. It also offers quick charging which I would talk about in a while.

There are 4 LED light indicators to determine the battery level which is convenient and something even big budget brands skip these days.

The buds sit pretty neatly inside, the magnetic points make sure they are securely fitted inside when not in use. There clear left and right markings in case you keep fumbling on the correct one.

The pair itself has a minimalist design language and snugs in neatly into the ear canal. It is made of plastic and the outer side has a metalic ring around it and the Lypertik logo completes the picture. Overall, the design of Tevi is desirable, functional and also fits well so practical too.

Power house CODECS

Lypertek has made sure the TEVI is not left behind in any of the required CODEC offerings. The Lypertek Tevi features 6mm graphene drivers, a frequency response range of 20-20,000Hz, Bluetooth 5, and support for the SBC, AAC, and Qualcomm aptX Bluetooth codecs. There is also Qualcomm cVc 8.0 microphone for the noise canceling while taking calls.

Functions

While there is no app support. The buds have a clickable button on the outer plate.

• Play / Pause – single click on either buds
• Volume up – double click on left bud
• Volume down – double click on right bud
• Next track – Triple click on left bud
• Previous track – Triple click on right bud

Oh you can also activate the voice assistant on your phone. There is no wear detection, so the songs doesn’t pause when you take a bud off the ear. The buds can be used as a mono headset, while keeping the other pair on the case.

Audio quality of Lypertek Tevi

It is very difficult to find a balanced headphones these days leave alone the TWS segment. The usual tendency is to amp up the bass or bass and treble. Lypertek Tevi brings balanced sound signature which most audiophile would appreciate.

I am an android guy so have tested the buds with my Android phones but you should be at ease with apple ecosystem too with its AAC offering. With the aptX codec supported devices, the definitions are really good on Android smartphones.

The neutral tuning means all the notes are detailed and have its own place in the scheme of music and nothing is over powering one another. It picks fairly good fine details though Momentum 2 TWS has spoiled me a lot when it comes to picking distinctive feeble elements. Still, Tevi does a fairly better clarity for it’s segment. Though a tad bit of bass would have been more to my listening priorities. It does a decently good job at sound staging and I quiet liked the sound separation it offers.

Below 80 percent of volume, the sound is pleasant but push it beyond this it tends to be shrill but hey listening on that high level is not good for your ears too. So I have no qualms about it either.

We don’t always just listen only to music these days, I had no trouble with Lypertek Tevi while watching movies on Netflix, or random Youtube videos. There was no latency issues while gaming too. Call clarity was good and no one had any complaints so far.

I could pair only one device at a time, there seem to be issue with multi-device connectivity. I was not able to do dual pairing / ability to quick switch between two devices Looks like you have to unpair the existing one to join the next device, which is kind of a bummer.

Battery life of Lypertek Tevi

You can charge the case to 100% once and forget the refueling for long long time. The Lybertek Tevi states a 10 hour battery life per charge on the buds. I could easily sail through 9 hours in my test. Additionally, the case offers in total a mammoth 70 hours. This is quiet a lot of hours for you to burn before you charge it next.

Lypertek Tevi review Verdict:

Pros of Lypertek Tevi

• Impressive battery life both on buds and case
• Neutral sound signature
• good sound separation and decent staging
• packs good codec support
• Call quality is good
• good design and fit

Cons of Lypertek Tevi

• multi-device connectivity
• If you are sucker of bass, this doesn’t offer the bass boost you might like

For a name unheard, Lypertek Tevi was a surprise offering – I would rate the best I have come across this segment taking over the 1More TWS. If you are more of a bass guy, you could opt for 1More but if you love good neutral sound signature and the other goodness I listed especially the battery life, this one takes the cake.

If you want to buy it after reading this review or want to take a look at the current price and availability, click over to Headphone Zone for the product page HERE

What you get out of the box?

• Charging Case
• MTW2 Earbuds
• Silicone Ear Adapter Sets (In Size XS, S, M, L)
• USB-A to USB-C Charging Cable

How is the Momentum 2 Design and Fit?

Thankfully, the Moment 2 retains the very characteristic one of a kind grey fabric-wrapped exterior charging case. It stands out in the crowded TWS segment filled with plastic cases. It gives a good texture and a premium look to the device at first look. There is a USB Type-C port for charging at the back, flanked by a button and indicator light that shows you the charge status. Green is there is good amount of charge and red to remind you to charge. Nothing in-between.

The case has a magnetic lid and the earphones fit in magnetically and securely. The magnet is strong enough to keep the lid intact and the earbuds in position.

Coming to the earbuds design, again the familiar design flows into here but the Momentum 2 buds are slightly smaller than the original buds, which is a good thing. It is made of plastic but of good quality. Each buds weigh 6gm which is not only lighter than the previous but also deceiving to its size. I didn’t expect it to be this lighter when I looked at it first. The Sennheiser logo is engraved on each buds on a metal sheet with concentric circles in the front. I have tested more than a dozen earbuds since the beginning of this year and by no means this is the compact buds out there. I had seen quiet smaller tiny buds and also bigger buds that Sony dished out. The buds stick a bit out making it prominently seen. The fit is secure, again it sees a marginal improvement here and also offers slightly better passive noise cancellation.

Controls and Features of Momentum 2

Each buds come with indicator lights and proximity sensors on the inside of each one. They offer wear detection so while listening if you take out one buds out of ear, the music pauses and continues once you fit them back to the ear. It comes handy in many situations. Of course you can touch the controls and play/pause. Talking about controls, it has a touch sensor on the flat surface on the front. You can use gesture controls to navigate through.

By default the left side has play back controls play/pause and to accept/reject calls and the right side gets you into noise cancellation, transparent hearing mode and voice assistant. But all this can be customized via the app. If you are using an iPhone or Android phone, you can download the Sennheiser Smart control app. Both the buds can be individually customized for play/pause, answer / reject calls, next or previous track, volume up or down, voice assistant / transparent hearing or ANC. You can assign single tap, double tap or triple tap functionality.

Sound Quality of Momentum 2

The proof of the pudding is in the eating or in this case the listening. There are three parts to it – the general sound profile of the buds, the noise cancellation feature and the call quality.

On the technical front, The Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 2 earphones is equipped with custom 7mm dynamic drivers, a frequency response range of 5-21,000Hz, and a single microphone in each earphone for active noise cancellation. It makes use of Bluetooth 5.1 for connectivity and supports SBC, AAC, and Qualcomm aptX Bluetooth codecs.

Let’s begin with the sound profile of the buds. The hallmark of the original Momentum was it’s distinctive clean audio profile. There is a good clarity on what you hear giving justice to individual notes. There is no artificial boosting of bass and it sticks close to the original the way music was composed. It handles well even complex music and the sound staging is good too. Even cranking the volume doesn’t hurt the ears though I would not suggest you to keep the volume high and damage your ears on a longer run regardless of whatever earphones you use. The vocals are clearer too.

I attend quiet a few calls with my earphones at work and no one complained while I was talking with these buds. I could hear them clearer too.

Then there is the new addition of noise cancellation to the buds which was not in the original. Along with that it also offers transparency hearing. Honestly it would have been tested better if life was normal and I was flying and using this buds to keep off the low humming noise of the flight. I find the noise cancellation works better for such scenarios. While I always believe with my experience, the TWS are yet to reach the same level of noise cancellation the canned headphones offer, the Momentum 2 still manages to limit the low rumbles. It does cancel out the ambient muffles. And the sound quality doesn’t take a noticeable hit too while the noise cancellation works. Then there is also this transparent hearing mode that allows ambient sound in so you can hear better while having them.

The app also has a very distinct equalizer with wave form to change how you want the music to be. You can add presets of your individual wave signature.

Battery life and connectivity of Momentum 2

One main grouse we had with the original Momentum was its poor battery life, with the Momentum 2 that part has been fixed. Sennheiser promises 7 hours of music playback per charge on the earphones with 28 hours in total on the charging case. It takes 1.5 hours for full charge of the case and a 10 min charge of the earbuds can give you 1.5 hours music playback.

In my usage, I got around 6 hours of use per charge which was pretty good. Do note the battery life takes a dip with noise cancellation on and depending on the volume levels you listen to music. With three additional charging cycle on the case, the battery life is pretty sorted on the new Momentum.

Verdict

Pros: What works for Momentum 2

• Excellent Sound profile
• Active Noise cancellation
• Battery life
• Transparency mode
• Premium finish on the charging case

Cons: What dampens Momentum 2

• Expensive
• No wireless charging

Having used the previous gen Amazon Echo, the notable differences is in the audio experience having borrowed the speaker internals from the Echo Plus

Echo 3rd Gen design: Plus Factor

The third generation has got a wee bit stouter, slightly shorter and a tad bit wider than the previous Echo. It’s still the same cylinder and measures 5.8” x 3.9” x 3.9” and weighs 1.3kg. It is wrapped in the fabric around the sides of the speaker. While the blue and gray models have white plastic top panels and bases, the black and dark grey models have black ones.

The top panel houses the controls – four buttons to be precise (Alexa, microphone mute, and volume up/down), there are six pinholes for the far-field microphone. A rubber base keeps the Echo firm. The back of the speaker has a connector for the included power adapter and a 3.5mm audio combination input/output.

The top panel has a translucent light ring that glows blue when Alexa is listening or communicating, red when you mute the microphone or orange when it’s updating software or ready for setup.

3rd Gen Echo sound – Getting Better at it

Like I quoted in the beginning, the Echo has got better at the audio experience now. It sounds better and richer now. Not surprising because it now packs a downward-firing 3-inch woofer, 0.8-inch tweeter and Dolby Audio. If you are upgrading your second-gen, the difference is instantly noticeable. The 360-degree sound makes it a good smart speaker at its price. The bass has improved and roomier and rounded now.  It is good to see Amazon upping the ante in delivering a smart speaker that sounds good too.

Amazon Echo Features- Alexa at its heart

Like the rest of the Echo lineup, the heart of the Echo devices rests on Amazon’s smart assistant, Alexa. You can communicate with it, ask it to play songs, tell stories,  ask questions (of course it politely says sorry if it’s beyond its comprehension) and there are thousands of skills developed by others to make use of the Alexa assistance. It’s an echo system that works fairly well and is growing.

The Echo can also pair with other Alexa speakers and if you have a couple of them you can create a stereo cluster of smart speakers. The Drop In  feature allows you to communicate between the Echo devices.

Echo lacks what the Echo Plus has – built-in Zigbee smart home hub and temperature sensor. It may not be a deal-breaker if you are using Echo only as a smart speaker but if you are planning to interconnect different Alexa supported Smart devices from various brands in your home, it’s slightly at disadvantage but can be overcome by using an external smart home hub. Frankly, I use Echo as a smart speaker and only as a smart speaker and it doesn’t hinder me.

For those who are paranoid about Alexa eavesdropping always, there is a control for microphone and you can turn it off but when you do so the Echo would only be a bluetooth speaker deprived of its smartness. The Echo needs to listen actively and constantly to be at your call of service. Still, there is toggle control for your assurance.

Amazon Echo 3rd Gen Review | Verdict

Amazon has expanded its Echo portfolio vastly, there are multiple devices now and am lucky to have experienced most of them. The all-new Echo (3rd Gen) is currently my favourite one and Amazon has got it’s pricing right vis-à-vis its smartness and the audio experience. The new Echo sounds like an Echo Plus now and definitely the Echo I would recommend for you.

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Features and performance of Model Zero

Specs:

Battery Life of Model Zero:

Verdict:

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