Apple iPhone 14 Pro review: More of the same with just enough change

Whether you’re a first-time iPhone buyer or a seasoned iOS veteran, the Apple iPhone 14 Pro is a smartphone that you can count on for practically all situations. It is the best iOS smartphone you can purchase, but it isn’t the one that offers the most value, so the recommendation leans on you being a power user.

If you’re someone that has an iPhone 12 Pro or iPhone 13 Pro, this upgrade isn’t going to add that much on top of what you already have. If you’re an iPhone user with an iPhone 11, 12, or 13, or something even older, the Pro model is going to be a worthy upgrade. If you’re an Android user that’s curious about the world of iOS, the Pro model is great, but it isn’t the best smartphone out there on the market when you consider other ecosystems.

In short, the iPhone 14 Pro is a solid smartphone. It offers a refined design that won’t turn any heads, but Apple still manages to add little things here and there that make the experience feel refined and refreshed. However, don’t let buzzwords like Dynamic Island or Crash Detection lure you into making a purchase.

Apple iPhone 14 Pro

The iPhone 14 Pro features an Always-On Display, Dynamic Island, new 48MP camera, and more.

Features:

Pros: Cons:

Buy from Best Buy

Apple iPhone 14 Pro: Specifications

	Apple iPhone 14 Pro
CPU	Apple A16 Bionic 6‑core CPU with 2 performance and 4 efficiency cores 5‑core GPU 16‑core Neural Engine
Display	6.1‑inch OLED display, 2556‑by‑1179-pixel resolution at 460 PPI 120Hz ProMotion technology with an adaptive refresh rate HDR display, True Tone, Wide color (P3) 1000 nits max brightness, 1600 nits peak brightness (HDR), 2000 nits peak brightness (outdoor)
Camera	48MP Main: 24 mm, ƒ/1.78 aperture 12MP Ultra Wide: 13 mm, ƒ/2.2 aperture 12MP 3x Telephoto: 77 mm, ƒ/2.8 aperture
Battery	3,200mAh rated for up to 23 hours of video playback, 20 hours of streaming video, up to 75 hours of music playback
Storage	128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB
Sensors	Face ID with LiDAR Scanner, Barometer High dynamic range gyro High-g accelerometer Proximity sensor Dual ambient light sensors
Ports	Apple Lightning port
OS	iOS 16
Colors	Space Black, Silver, Gold, Deep Purple
Dimensions	147.5 mm x 71.5mm x 7.85mm
Weight	206 grams
Price	$999 (128GB) $1,099 (256GB) $1,299 (512GB) $1,499 (1TB)

About this review: I purchased the Apple iPhone 14 Pro for personal use. Apple did not have any input into the contents of this review. As a bit of added perspective, I have used the iPhone 13 Pro as my daily driver since launch, prior to upgrading.

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Apple iPhone 14 Pro: Price and Availability

The iPhone 14 Pro is now available directly from Apple, wireless carriers, and electronics retailers globally. Be sure to keep an eye out on our deals page to get the best possible pricing. The iPhone 14 Pro is priced at:

• $999 for the 128GB model
• $1099 for the 256GB model
• $1299 for the 512GB model
• $1499 for the 1TB model

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Design

It’s hard to get excited or compliment the look of the Apple iPhone 14 Pro because, in my eyes, after so many years, the shape, while refined, just looks spent. If you didn’t have the Dynamic Island as a hint, you could easily mistake the iPhone 11 Pro for the iPhone 12 Pro, the iPhone 12 Pro for the iPhone 13 Pro, and so on. Now, this is where you have to give credit to Apple for being able to refine a look over several years and have millions of people come along for the ride with cash in hand. Apple’s quite masterful in this respect, knowing just when to add something new so that people feel comfortable enough to part with their money and move on to a new model.

For the iPhone 14 Pro, Apple keeps the same size display as the previous model but uses a new 6.1-inch 120Hz OLED LTPO panel that has a variable refresh rate that can go as low as 1Hz. Implementing this kind of technology was necessary so that it could introduce the world to its interpretation of an Always-On Display. The notch at the top has been replaced with a hole and a pill cutout that’s disguised by the new Dynamic Island, which cleverly conceals the miniaturized 12MP TrueDepth camera. The company once again relies on surgical-grade stainless steel for the frame and textured matte glass on the rear. This year, three noticeably thicker camera lenses sit on a more pronounced camera plate. This added thickness accommodates Apple’s move to a 48MP main camera sensor after years of sticking with a 12MP sensor.

In hand, the iPhone 14 Pro feels solid, hefty, and sharp due to its flat edges. The display is crisp and bright, even under the most demanding conditions, achieving a claimed 2000 nits at peak brightness. While I don’t get excited about the look or the design, it’s become a timeless classic in the minds of many. The years of refinement have brought it to this point, and I think for most, the iPhone 14 Pro sits on solid ground.

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Camera

While the iPhone used to take the crown for its photo and video prowess year after year, in more recent times, it has vacated the thrown to competitors like Samsung and Google. This year, Apple finally ditched the 12MP main sensor in exchange for a 48MP quad-pixel sensor. The quad-pixel sensor works by combining every four pixels into one large quad pixel resulting in enhanced optical quality and better low-light captures. Needless to say, if you’re shooting with the main camera, the pictures look good. The quality of the photos taken with the ultra-wide and telephoto are also improved from last year’s model. This is most likely due to the new “Photonic Engine,” which makes use of computational photography.

But where Apple really shines is with their video, and this year’s model is no exception. In addition to great image quality, the iPhone 14 Pro offers impressive stabilization, taking things even further with its new Action Mode. Action Mode can capture the smoothest handheld video, even when shakes or bumps get violent. I liken the experience to shooting a video with a gimbal. The footage is so smooth that it really is a game changer. Now, there are caveats with this mode, like requiring a lot of light and only being able to shoot in 2.8K at 60 fps, but it’s a great feature to have in the tool bag.

Apple hits the sweet spot with its camera, offering good to great quality photos and video. The iPhone 14 Pro offers a simplified experience where you just point, shoot, and feel good about the results. Whether it’s a bright sunny day or a dimly lit interior shot, the iPhone usually gets it done. Now, is it going to be better than what you might find on a top-of-the-line Android handset? Probably not, but for the majority, it’ll be more than enough. But I’ll let you be the judge by checking out the samples. If you’re looking for a more in-depth deep dive, I’d recommend checking out my colleague Ben Sin’s iPhone 14 Pro Max review, as that phone also has the same sensors found in the iPhone 14 Pro.

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iOS 16

With the latest iOS update, Apple continues to build on its OS platform, keeping much the same but adding little features and enhancements. For iOS 16, the company is putting a focus on its customizable Lock Screen, its updated notification system, new Focus modes, and enhancements to messages. But what makes the experience unique on the iPhone 14 Pro is the inclusion of Dynamic Island. The Dynamic Island is a new piece of software that camouflages the hole and a pill cut out of the new 12MP TrueDepth camera.

As the name suggests, it’s dynamic and responds to different apps and situations, expanding when needed to house more icons or information. This is still a new addition, and the functionality is quite limited, but it gives users a new way to interact with notifications or apps, as we have never seen before. Now, as far as usefulness is concerned, this will vary from person to person. But for my daily use, I rarely see the Dynamic Island react, and rightfully so, as there is limited support for third-party apps at the moment. That means when you use apps like WhatsApp, Slack, Gmail, Twitter, Google Chrome, YouTube, and TikTok, the Dynamic Island will remain dormant. Now, do I yearn for the notch, no, but did I expect more from the Dynamic Island, certainly.

But being let down by iOS 16’s new additions doesn’t really paint the whole picture, as iOS has never been about just one feature. The true strength of iOS lies in its cohesive experience and excellent integration with its hardware components, whether it’s an iPhone or smartwatch, it all works together like a well-oiled machine. On the flip side, this cohesive system comes at a cost, with its super-rigid UI that lacks any kind of flair and the restrictive nature of the OS itself that some have referred to as having features that make it a walled garden. Again, you can either love it or hate it, but it’s just one of those things that consistently just works, and for someone like me, that’s perfect.

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Performance

With its A16 Bionic processor and 6GB RAM, the iPhone 14 Pro is an all-around excellent performer. The phone can process anything that you can throw at it. Whether it’s games, web browsing, video editing, taking pictures and videos, you name it, it can be done. During my time with the phone, there hasn’t been a moment that I feel things are sluggish. If there is a complaint, it would be when running intensive processes, as the back of the phone does tend to get really hot. This can happen during intensive gaming sessions or using an app that requires a lot from the SoC.

For those that like to look at benchmark numbers, you can see the results from 3DMark and Geekbench above. The scores should speak for themselves, but this is a capable smartphone, and there really isn’t much out there that can slow it down. With the Apple silicon, what you get is not only a capable performer right now, but also one that ages gracefully, marking it as one of those devices that you should consider if future-proofing is higher on your priority list.

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Charging and battery life

Although Apple doesn’t provide battery numbers, sources have found that the iPhone 14 Pro has a 4,323 mAh battery, which is just a touch smaller than its predecessor. Apple states that the phone can offer video playback for up to 23 hours, streamed video playback for up to 20 hours, and can do audio playback for up 75 hours on a single charge.

What really changed the experience for the better was turning off the Always-On Display, it was like night and day, with the iPhone 14 Pro providing all-day battery life without breaking a sweat.

Unfortunately, these numbers mean nothing outside of a controlled environment. With just under a week of use, the battery life is pretty bad when compared to the previous iPhone 13 Pro. Despite Apple’s use of an OLED LTPO panel that can go as low as 1Hz, the battery life still gets hit pretty badly when the Always-On Display is enabled.

For those that tend to eat through battery on their phones, you won’t be happy to hear that the iPhone 14 Pro offers a rather sluggish charging rate, going from zero to 50 percent in roughly 30 minutes if you’re using a 20W adapter. The phone can also charge wirelessly using a MagSafe wireless charger at 15W or a Qi wireless charger at 7.5W. This is far from the fastest charging speed available, but it’s adequate enough, considering that depleting the battery can sometimes be a challenge in day-to-day use. This experience is obviously going to be different, as everyone uses their phone in their own unique way.

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Is the Apple iPhone 14 Pro the right smartphone for you?

You should buy the iPhone 14 Pro if:

• You want the latest and most powerful iPhone from Apple
• You are an iPhone user that has been looking to upgrade and owns an iPhone 11 or older
• You are looking to switch from an Android smartphone and want the best iPhone experience

You should not buy the iPhone 14 Pro if:

• You are just interested in the Dynamic Island or Apple’s new AOD
• You already own the iPhone 12 Pro
• You own an iPhone and can hold out another year

When you peel back all of the layers of the iPhone, what are you left with? In fact, I think the better question is when you peel back the layers of any smartphone, what are you left with? At its core, to me, a smartphone is about communication, entertainment, and connectivity. In our current climate, pretty much any smartphone, Android or iOS, can easily deliver on these core values. So I’ll say the obvious at this point: it’s just a matter of preference because there are plenty of choices out there.

I keep gravitating back to an iPhone because the experience is reliable and consistent.

Now, as I said before, the iPhone 14 Pro isn’t exciting, but in my day-to-day use, I keep gravitating back to an iPhone because the experience is reliable and consistent. This also applies to other iOS devices, no matter what kind of device or how old it is, the experience is always the same. It works well for the things I do, and it can keep doing it for prolonged periods of time. There are lots of other scenarios I can expand on, but the bottom line is that it just consistently and reliably works.

Apple iPhone 14 Pro and Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max

The iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max are the latest devices from Apple featuring the A16 Bionic SoC and Dynamic Island

iPhone 14 Pro at Best Buy

iPhone 14 Pro Max at Best Buy

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This case offers three different color options to choose from, in addition to a minimalistic, slim build.

Buy for the iPhone 14 Pro

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The post Apple iPhone 14 Pro review: More of the same with just enough change appeared first on XDA.

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What is an AI Image Generator and how does it work?

In 2022, we’ve seen the advent of some incredible text-to-image generators. The first to set off the big wave was Dall-E 2, with Stable Diffusion arriving a short while later. Since then, we’ve seen other tools arrive too, including Midjourney, Craiyon, and even TikTok to a certain degree. There are growing concerns when it comes to AI image-generating tools, pertaining primarily to the ethics of such tools when they can generate images of real people in places or situations that they were not actually in.

However, there aren’t only ethics to consider, either. AI image generators are trained on millions and millions of photos and have learned to identify things by way of actual existing photos created by real people. When does it become a copyright violation? If your AI accidentally generates an image that looks very similar to another design, and the creator of that image goes on to share it commercially, is someone liable for any damages? If so, who? Who is even the “artist” in this case?

There are a ton of reasons to be wary of AI image generators, and these ethical and safety concerns are merely scratching the surface. These tools can be used to create fake images that can be used to push a narrative, and they’ll only get worse with time as well. Given the incredible capabilities of these image generation tools already, it’s scary to think what they’ll be capable of doing very soon. However, if you want to make pretty images and have some fun, then there’s absolutely no harm in that.

Stable Diffusion

Stable Diffusion is the inspiration behind this article and a tool that I’ve been playing around with a lot recently. It runs locally on your computer (so you’re not fighting for resources with other users of some online tool) and it’s one of the most powerful that you can currently use. Not only does it allow you to fine-tune a ton of parameters, but you can also control the entire generation process.

I recently started playing around with Stable Diffusion, a text-to-image model similar to Dall-E 2.

The fact an AI made these based on text prompts is blowing my mind. pic.twitter.com/vjiQQwCgek

— Adam Conway (@AdamConwayIE) September 26, 2022

Stable Diffusion suffers from all of the same AI pitfalls, with the added “danger” of accessibility. Anyone with a powerful enough computer can set it up and have it running quickly. With an i7-12700KF, an RTX 3080, 32GB of RAM, and gigabit internet, I was able to set up Stable Diffusion and generate my first images within an hour. My PC is definitely on the higher end, but you can get away with running it on weaker hardware (though you can’t generate as large images with lower vRAM and it’ll take longer).

The best thing about Stable Diffusion is that it’s entirely open source. You can implement support for it in any of your projects today if you want to, and there are already plugins such as Alpaca that you can use to integrate with Photoshop. It’s not perfect yet, but it’s extremely early in the development of these programs. You can use Dream Studio either if you’d like, though that costs money and is a bit restrictive versus setting it up locally.

What’s more, if you set up Stable Diffusion locally, there are forks such as AUTOMATIC1111’s Stable Diffusion WebUI that come with a built-in upscale tool that can increase the resolution up to four times higher. While you can generate images at higher resolutions, it is often much quicker to generate an image at a lower resolution and then upscale it. All of the images below are upscaled from smaller resolutions.

Stable Diffusion was trained on a cluster of 4,000 Nvidia A100 GPUs running in AWS and took place over a month. It has the ability to generate images of celebrities and has a built-in NSFW filter as well. You can disable this NSFW filter on local installations, as it actually saves on resources by decreasing VRAM usage. As for what “Diffusion” means, it’s the process of starting with pure noise and refining over time. It makes the image incrementally closer to the text prompt over time until no noise is left. This is the same way that Dall-E 2 works.

Finally, another fun feature that Stable Diffusion has is “img2img”. In this, you give it an image as a prompt, describe what you want the image to be, and then let it give you a proper drawing.

I gave it a template to work with and got back a pretty decent image. I’m sure with better prompts (mine is somewhat contradictory), you could get even better. Still, not bad at all for something that took me about five minutes to make.

In short, Stable Diffusion is free, easy to set up, and the biggest issue is how accessible it is. If you don’t have a powerful enough PC, you’ll need to pay to use this through the likes of Dream Studio.

Craiyon

Craiyon was previously known as DALL·E Mini, though despite the name, is of no relation to Dall-E 2. It was created in order to reproduce the results of OpenAI’s DALL·E text-to-image model. Craiyon is available to the public and can be used to generate images that are surprisingly decent, though the images aren’t as accurate, nor are they as high-quality. Image resolutions max out at 256×256, and there are no upscaling tools, either.

Craiyon is completely free to use and accessible through its website. You can generate any image via any prompt, and the only catch is that the images are lower quality and that you’ll need to wait two minutes or so for each batch of images generated. Craiyon started as an open-source model aimed at reproducing the results of the initial DALL·E model. The model now being used is known as DALL·E Mega, and it packs several improvements.

Craiyon, unlike the other options here, is supported by advertisement revenue. As a result, you’ll see paid sponsorships and other advertisements on their website when you visit. There is also an app for Android smartphones. It’s not the most sophisticated, but it’s fun, easy to use, and accessible.

Craiyon - AI Image Generator (Free, Google Play) →

Dall-E 2

Dall-E 2 is a product of the OpenAI research lab and is the most well-known AI image generator that people think of. It’s a closed-off tool with limited access, but for those that can access it, some of the results that it can come up with are incredible. It was initially closed off due to concerns surrounding the ethics and safety of such a tool, though it has expanded gradually over time.

Gm #community

Been working alot on @OpenAI dalle-2 #AI image generation. It is only bounded by your imagination.

Mainly experimenting now with the outpainting feature, which is wild

Prompt: “A brige between universes, as seen from the surface of a planet, milkyway”. pic.twitter.com/dallb4qe6O

— Karaki (@thebarengineer) September 19, 2022

One of the biggest advantages that Dall-E 2 has is the ability to create photorealistic images that, at a glance, are indiscernible from real photographs. It can generate paintings, images that look to have been captured on real cameras, and entirely made-up scenarios. It represented a huge jump in the capabilities of AI when it was first announced, both in its abilities to make images and in its Natural Language Processing, known as NLP. This is thanks to its implementation of GPT-3, which is one of the most advanced language models out there and is also authored by OpenAI.

Just like with Stable Diffusion, Dall-E 2 also has its own ability to take existing images and modify them based on a prompt. You can edit photos through it by asking it to add something to an image, or even ask it to remove something or to change the lighting. While it only creates square images, OpenAI announced Outpainting last month that can expand your images wider, taking into account the context of what’s already available in your square image.

Dall-E 2 is available for all to try out.

Midjourney

Midjourney is an interesting one as it’s a public platform that can generate images, though you do it through a Discord server. Not only that, but after you generate 25 images, you’ll need to subscribe to the service to continue generating new ones.

While Midjourney is probably the most accessible platform here (given you can access it from any device with a Discord account), it also costs you money. However, you do get quality out of it. A user of the service, Jason Allen, created a piece that he dubbed “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial”. He entered it into the Colorado State Fair art competition… and won.

Unlike these other projects, Midjourney is a proprietary artificial intelligence program. There is no source code that you can look at, and its entire purpose at this point in time is limited to usage within a Discord server. As for why it’s a Discord server only, David Holz, founder of Midjourney, said the following to The Verge in an interview.

We started off testing the raw technology in September last year, and we were immediately finding really different things. We found very quickly that most people don’t know what they want. You say: “Here’s a machine you can imagine anything with it — what do you want?” And they go: “dog.” And you go “really?” and they go “pink dog.” So you give them a picture of a dog, and they go “okay” and then go do something else.

Whereas if you put them in a group, they’ll go “dog” and someone else will go “space dog” and someone else will go “Aztec space dog,” and then all of a sudden, people understand the possibilities, and you’re creating this augmented imagination — an environment where people can learn and play with this new capacity. So we found that people really like imagining together, and so we made [Midjourney] social.

Back then, you also would have trouble steering it away from the default “Midjourney” style, so to say. That’s according to Holz, anyway, in the same interview.

[W]e have a default style and look, and it’s artistic and beautiful, and it’s hard to push [the model] away from that.

However, since then, the company has rolled out two new models — “test” and “testp”. “test” is a general purpose model, and “testp” is focused solely on photorealism. As a result, you’ll be able to get away from that more default look and generate images of more types if you’d like.

The dangers and ethics of AI-generated art

AI-generated art, while cool, imposes a number of dangers on society at large. In an age where it can be hard to tell at times when the news is taken out of context or straight-up fabricated, there comes a danger when images can be made in a matter of minutes that look and feel real. For example, take a look at the photos that I generated below. One was generated using Stable Diffusion, and the other was generated with Craiyon.

Prompt: “crashed UFO at Roswell, 1947, lighting, army general investigating, studio lighting”

The above photos depict a crashed UFO at Roswell and the first image shows what looks like a person walking on top of the crashed UFO. While the image here was generated for the purpose of showing a fake photo, it looks like it could be real. Any artifacts can be explained away by the fact that photos in 1947 would have been of a poorer quality anyway, and both images could pass the eye test at a quick glance at being real. You don’t even need one of the best computers to do something like this, as Craiyon is a free application.

Where it gets even murkier is that you can actually specify an artist that you want the algorithm to take inspiration from. A common artist is Greg Rutkowski, who has spoken outwardly against the usage of his name in AI-generated art. His name ranks as one of the most common prompts used in image generation. “A.I. should exclude living artists from its database,” Rutkowski told artnet in an interview, “focus on works under the public domain.” Searching Rutkowski’s name will often return AI art that’s been generated to look like his work but isn’t actually his work.

Even worse is that AI-generated art can often highlight the biases of the human race. Craiyon even has a warning at the bottom of its home page in the FAQ, stating that “because the model was trained on unfiltered data from the Internet, it may generate images that contain harmful stereotypes.” As a result, entering prompts such as “company executive” will most often return images of white men in suits. Likewise, entering “teacher” as a prompt will almost always return women in classrooms.

The future of AI-generated art

Given that it appears the industry isn’t slowing (and regulation isn’t catching up) we expect to see even more advancement in these areas. The fact that we’ve gone from the capabilities of Dall-E 2 (even if it was private) to Stable Diffusion in just a few months shows how big an industry this is, and how big of an industry it can potentially be. Images that could previously have been contracted to a team of artists can now be generated in seconds, with a single artist instead involved in the process for correctional purposes. We’ve already seen how Midjourney can help win you an art competition, for example, though the U.S. Copyright Office currently says that you can’t even copyright AI-generated images.

As Holz also stated in his interview, the current cost of training each model is around $50,000 — or more. Images also cost money as they are generated on incredibly beefy servers, especially when huge numbers of users come to generate their own images. It’s going to be massively cost-prohibitive for any new players entering the space, which may in turn actually put some companies off as well. However, initial efforts such as Stable Diffusion being open source do bode well.

As a result, we’ll be waiting excitedly to see the future of AI images. The space has evolved so quickly in the last year, and it seems that new advancements are being made daily. However, with glimpses of AI-based image manipulation even coming to our smartphones, there’s a lot that could happen in the next year or two.

The post What is an AI Image Generator and how does it work? appeared first on XDA.

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Botslab NaviClean S8 Plus robot vacuum review: Mid-price sweeping and mopping robot with an auto-empty station

People buy robot vacuum cleaners to make their daily cleaning easier and effortless. But standalone robot vacuums have a small dustbin, which is good for a few cycles but it does require human intervention regularly to empty. And emptying the onboard dustbin on a robot vacuum cleaner can become a tedious task if you have a lot of carpets, dusty floors, or pets, since these inherently attract more dirt and dust. The Botslab NaviClean S8 Plus robot vacuum with its auto-empty station means that you only need to change the dust bag about once per month, which is good news for people who cannot do it on the daily. The robot vacuum also has a decent-sized water tank if you want to sweep and mop your floors at the same time too.

Botslab NaviClean S8 Plus

The Botslab two-in-one robot vacuum and mop automates the tedium of your daily cleaning routine

Features:

Pros: Cons:

Buy from Amazon

Navigate this review:

• Pricing and availability
• What’s in the box?
• Design and features
• Who should buy one?

Botslab NaviClean S8 Plus: Pricing and availability

Botlsab is the new brand name for the 360 range of robot vacuums and the branding has not settled across all online stores. Currently, Botslab only seems to deliver two products, a robot vacuum, and a smart camera. However, the Smart360 brand offers a range of well-performing robots across a range of prices. The Botslab NaviClean S8 Plus is a mid-priced robot offered for sale. It is available from Amazon at $499.99

Specifications	Botslab NaviClean S8 Plus
Dimensions	L*W*H 340*340*95 mm (13.4*13.4*3.7 inches)
Rated Voltage (V)	14.8 V
Rated Power (P)	30 W
Battery (mAh)	5000 mAh
Working Time (min)	250 | 210 | 140 | 110
Suction (Pa)	600 | 1000 | 1500 |2700
Dust Bin (L)	0.35 L
Water Tank (L)	0.3 L
Noise (dB)	59 | 61 | 63 | 65
Obstacle Climbing	20 mm (0.79 inches)

About this review: This review was written after testing a Botslab NaviClean S8 Plus for a period of three months, provided by the company. Botslab did not have any input in this article.

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Botslab NaviClean S8 Plus: What’s in the box?

The Botslab NaviClean S8 Plus robot vacuum comes in one large box containing everything you need to get started. There is the robot vacuum cleaner with an onboard dustbin and water tank, an auto-empty station, a mop bracket, and a mop pad. There is also a spare dust bag, a roller cleaning tool, a brush, and a user manual.

To use the robot vacuum cleaner, connect the auto-empty station to your power supply, remove any packing from behind the bumper and film from the robot vacuum, switch on the power to the robot vacuum and place it on the auto-empty station to charge. You also need to press the power switch on the top of the robot vacuum if this is not already on. The robot will announce that it is charging in an irritatingly friendly voice. There should be a white LED light on the auto-empty station to indicate power to the station.

The Botslab NaviClean S8 Plus robot vacuum bundle contains everything you need to get started with automated cleaning and mopping - all controlled by an app.

You can start the robot by using the switch on the top of the robot and send it home by another switch – but to get the best out of the NaviClean S8 Plus, install the Botslab app and configure your preferred settings.

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Design and features

A robot vacuum and auto-empty station that can be controlled by an app and which integrates with Alexa, Siri, and Google Home.

• Simultaneous mopping and vacuuming
• Comprehensive app
• Multi-map management
• 2D and 3D map views
• Room division and no-go zones

The Botslab NaviClean S8 plus is simple to pair with the app on your mobile phone. Download the Botslabb app and create a user account. Scan the QR code in the user manual or search for the robot vacuum on the list of devices to connect to.

The app will connect to the robot over a 2.4GHz Wi-Fi network (most smart apps work best over a 2.4GHz Wi-Fi connection). The app saw the robot and quickly connected without issues.

Fully featured app

The app has a lot of configurable features for the NaviClean S8 Plus. You can configure the app to get the robot to clean a room, the whole house, or simply an area. You can specify whether you want to clean the area once or twice, set no-go zones, and divide a room. You can specify how much water you want to use when the mop module is installed and set whether you want the robot vacuum to mop, vacuum, or vacuum and mop.

Customized settings

You can further customize the app for fully automated cleaning. You can specify the do-not-disturb time so that the robot will not operate during this period. You can specify that the robot increases suction power when crossing any carpet it detects and turn the button light off if you think that the robot light is too bright.

You can set a range of different schedules for cleaning specifying if you want the robot to clean daily, on weekdays, weekends, or once only, and what time you want cleaning to start. You can also specify which area or room to be cleaned – or set the cleaning for the whole house.

When the robot is operating, you can change the schedule, pause, change settings or send the robot back to its charging station. You can even use your mobile device as a remote control to send the robot to a specific area to clean.

Minor irritation: The voice chime is annoying

The biggest irritation for me is the over-cheerful, saccharine sweet voice of the robot. It sounds like an over-enthusiastic sales assistant desperately wanting to make a sale. If I paused the cleaning cycle and restarted it, the robot would announce “Cleaning makes me happy!” whilst setting off. I wanted to stamp on it. Fortunately, you can change the volume of the voice notification. However, if you turn the voice down by too much, you will not be able to hear it cheerily announce “ I’m here!” when you tap the ‘find robot’ icon.

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Who should buy a Botslab NaviClean S8 Plus robot vacuum?

• Buy a NaviClean S8 Plus robot vacuum if you want to have two-in-one sweeping and mopping
• You should buy this robot vacuum if you hate emptying the on-board dustbin every couple of days
• Buy the Botslab NaviClean S8 Plus robot vacuum if you like to manage the vacuum cleaner via a fully featured app

There are other robots for sale at a similar price point. However, if you bought a Yeedi Vac 2 Pro at a similar price, you would additionally have to buy an auto-empty station at an additional cost. If you have mainly carpet in your home, consider buying a robot vacuum with higher suction power such as the Dreame Bot D10 which has 4000Pa suction power.

Other brand leaders offer competing products at similar price ranges. Neither the Roborock Q5 for $429.99  nor the Ecovacs Deebot T8 AIVI for $499.99 has an auto-empty station making the Botslab good value if you like to buy the entire unit as a bundle.

Why I like the Botslab NaviClean S8 Plus robot vacuum

I found the Botslab NaviClean S8 Plus robot vacuum easy to connect to the app and configure the cleaning and mopping patterns to suit my living patterns. Floor mopping is reasonable for daily mopping although once in a while, I had to resort to manually scrubbing the floor to remove ingrained dirt before continuing with the daily mopping.

The NaviClean S8 Plus is not the cheapest robot vacuum you can buy. But with its auto empty station and large capacity dust bin, for hands-off cleaning and minimal intervention, it is certainly worth a look

Botslab NaviCleanS8 Plus

A two-in one sweeping and mopping robot vacuum cleaner with a long battery life and a large capacity auto-empty station

Buy from Amazon

The post Botslab NaviClean S8 Plus robot vacuum review: Mid-price sweeping and mopping robot with an auto-empty station appeared first on XDA.

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Can the Apple Watch Series 8 detect falls?

In addition to bringing a host of new features to users, the Apple Watch Series 8 also retains all the features available on older models in the lineup. For instance, all Apple Watch models following the original Apple Watch SE and Apple Watch Series 4 offer fall detection, and the Series 8 models are no different. The Apple Watch Series 8 utilizes its accelerometer, gyroscope, and GPS to accurately detect falls and lets you easily connect to emergency services or send a message to your emergency contacts. If you’ve just bought yourself a shiny new Apple Watch Series 8 and want to enable Fall Detection, follow the steps provided below.

Enable Fall Detection on the Apple Watch Series 8

Fall Detection turns on automatically if you’re 55 or older according to the birthdate you enter while setting up your Apple Watch Series 8. If you’re younger, however, here’s how you can enable Fall Detection.

• Open the Settings app on your Apple Watch Series 8.
• Navigate to the Fall Detection setting in the SOS section.
• Enable Fall Detection.
• Select the “Always on” option if you want Fall Detection on at all times or “Only on during workouts” if you only want to use it when you start a workout.

Alternatively, you can enable Fall Detection by navigating to the Emergency SOS section in the Apple Watch app on your iPhone. Note that if you turn off wrist detection, your Apple Watch Series 8 won’t attempt to call emergency services automatically even after detecting a hard impact fall.

Once Fall Detection is set up, you will see the following message on your Apple Watch Series 8 when it detects a fall. You can drag the Emergency SOS slider to contact emergency services or dismiss the alert by pressing the crown, tapping the Close button in the top left corner, or tapping the I’m OK button. If your watch does not detect any motion for about a minute, it will make the emergency call automatically.

After the call ends, your watch will also send a message to your emergency contacts with your current location, alerting them of the fall. The Apple Watch Series 8 gets your emergency contacts from your Medical ID, so make sure you set that up as soon as you start using your new Apple Watch.

Apple Watch Series 8

The all-new Apple Watch Series 8 uses its accelerometer, gyroscope, and GPS to detect falls and alert emergency contacts.

Buy from Best Buy

Buy from AT&T

Although Fall Detection on the Apple Watch Series 8 is quite a handy feature, it might not work if the fall damages your watch. To make sure it works when you need it, we recommend picking up one of these Apple Watch Series 8 cases.

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Foldables are cool, but they’re not as good as Samsung wants you to think they are

When many people think about the best foldable phones, I think the idea that resides in their minds is a smartphone that can transform into a tablet. It is the ultimate blend of productivity and portability. While the technology is still young right now, in the future, the dream is that you will have a device without compromise. That means what you will have in your hand will be a powerful, compact, durable, and, most importantly, affordable foldable smartphone. Samsung is widely hailed as one of the pioneers in the foldable smartphone space, and rightfully so, as it has four iterations of its Galaxy Z Fold and also four iterations of its Galaxy Z Flip line. Millions of customers have experienced foldables in a mass-market product, and Samsung takes credit for it.

But Samsung is also often criticized for not innovating, and in recent years, this is probably true. With little competition in the United States, the company has had no reason to really push the boundaries on its flagships and on its foldables. But on the flip side, its iterative updates year after year give it the most mature and refined lineup out of any manufacturer offering foldable devices. While there’s a case for foldable smartphones like the Galaxy Z Fold, I feel like the same can’t really be said about the Galaxy Z Flip. Samsung delivers its latest Galaxy Z Flip 4 with the taglines:

“More compact. Improved battery. Faster processor. Tougher design. Better low-light pics.”

These are five pillars that Samsung is leveraging when it comes to advertising why you should buy its Galaxy Z Flip 4. It focuses on the size of the phone, how much battery life it has, its computational power, tougher design, and a camera that can perform in all scenarios, but especially in low light. But I’d argue that most of these are the reasons why the Galaxy Z Flip 4, or the  Galaxy Z Flip line for that matter, shouldn’t even exist. Although the Galaxy Z Flip series has become popular, I think it’s mostly due to it being a novelty and, more importantly, its affordability.

As a long-time user of the Galaxy Z Flip 3, I made the choice to skip the Flip 4 and move on to something different, despite Samsung offering tremendous trade-in promotions on its latest foldable models. For me, the Galaxy Z Flip 4 just simply didn’t match the expectations or the experience of a traditional smartphone. I think for all of us, there’s a baseline expectation at this point, and the Z Flip just doesn’t meet that standard for me. Some might think that the opinions expressed here are blasphemous, but I urge you to have an open mind, and I also urge you to share your experiences with the Z Flip because I’d love to hear them. 

Short and stout

I can still remember the rush that I felt when I unfolded the Z Flip 3 for the first time. But just as quickly as the feeling had come, it quickly dissipated as soon as I folded it shut. Was it supposed to be like this? I imagined my first time with a foldable would feel more surreal. Maybe my expectations were too high. Not really thinking too much of it, I went through the setup process, looked through menus, and spent some time getting to know the phone. From that day forward, it was going to become my primary device, replacing my Galaxy S20 Ultra. 

Perhaps one of the first things that I noticed was that I didn’t like the thickness of it in my pocket. It’s probably something that I should have been expecting looking over the specifications. While the phone had a smaller footprint, in my pants, it didn’t feel more compact. The fact that the phone had become twice as thick made it difficult to stash in a pant pocket compared to a regular smartphone. Now, you can stow it away into a bag, and this scenario is a bit better, but again, you run into the same issue of thickness. The volume of the phone remains the same, it’s just changed shape, and I think not for the better.

Folding a phone doesn't change its volume. It has just changed shape, and I think not for the better.

This part is purely subjective, so you either prefer a smartphone that is tall and thin or one that is short and thick. At this point in time, you really can’t have the best of both worlds, but Samsung doesn’t even really hit the sweet spot, but I think eventually we’ll get there.

Battery life was always something to watch out for

The Galaxy Z Flip was the phone that I relied on every single day. I’d have train commutes where I’d listen to a couple of hours of music and sometimes even hop on Google Maps for navigation. Sometimes I’d need to perform translations, and of course, there was communication through apps like WhatsApp, Line, and Google Voice. Sometimes I’d watch videos or get in some light gaming, pretty much just normal everyday use. I’ve never been a power user when it comes to smartphones, and I have generally been able to get by with just moderate battery drain after a full day’s use. But with the Galaxy Z Flip, things were different.

I never managed to kill the battery, but I was always forced to be mindful, sometimes even enabling the power-saving mode to ensure that it would get through a full day when out and about. Sure, the phone packed a lot of power with its robust processor, but on the flip side, the battery life felt insufficient. Maybe my experience was a bit skewed, especially coming from a device that had a 5,000mAh battery and dropping down to a phone that has 3,300mAh. But looking back, plenty of phones that came out during that time had batteries large than 3,300mAh. I know there’s obviously a limitation when it comes to the construction of a foldable, but I think when you’re plopping down $1,000 for a phone, it should have a battery larger than 3,300mAh.

Imagine if Samsung released a traditional Galaxy phone for $1000 that looked amazing and it came with a battery that size, you wouldn’t hear the end of it. I think a lot of people give the Z Flip a pass because the phone folds, but in the end, it’s the consumer that has to sacrifice. This is a classic case of form over function. But the sad part is that the form doesn’t really add anything to the experience. I’m well aware of Flex Mode. But come on, I don’t think anyone really needs their app to be squished into a small window just so we can get access to clunky controls and features that make the experience go backward. 

Tougher shell, but the display still was relatively delicate

The Galaxy Z Flip is touted as having a tougher design, fortified by Corning’s Gorilla Glass, offering IPX8 water resistance and an Armor Aluminum frame. As far as the display goes, Samsung’s Ultra Thin Glass provides enhanced durability that has been tested through 200,000 folds. Perhaps the best thing foldable phones have going for them when it comes to durability is the fact that they can fold up to protect the display. But when you open the phone, it’s a different story.

I don’t know about everyone else, but when I used the phone for the first few months, I felt like I had to baby it. After a while, I got used to the experience, but no matter how much I tried to treat it like a normal phone, there was always a part of me that was concerned. It never felt like it was on par with a normal phone. Maybe I was overly protective of the display? But seeing enough horror stories online made me realize that no matter how protective I was, the display was just another part to be concerned about when I really shouldn’t. 

Better low-light pics

The image quality of the Z Flip hasn’t been the best and was always a little bit behind Samsung’s flagships. The same applies to the Z Flip 3, and the same can be said about the Z Flip 4. This part is a little trickier to discuss because, in the past, Samsung has made a conscious effort to offer a lower-quality experience from its higher-end lines as a cost-cutting measure. It’s hard to say whether that kind of practice is still occurring in its latest model, but regardless, the quality of the cameras is good, it’s just not going to beat out other phones in the same price group. I hate to sound like a broken record at this point but again, for a $1000 phone, we are looking at sacrifice and compromise, and in one of the worst ways possible.

Foldables have their own compromises, so know what you are getting into

Galaxy Z Flip 3 (back) and Z Flip 4 (front)

I think we can kind of see a trend and where my mindset is after exploring just some of the pillars about the latest Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 or the Z Flip line as a whole. When it comes to owning or using a foldable smartphone like this, there are just compromises. You’re either okay with that somewhere in the middle, or you aren’t. But I think where I tend to get hung up the most is the amount people are paying for this experience.

Of course, maybe the compromises mentioned above aren’t dealbreakers for you, but for me, I just can’t stand it when I’m actively using it every day. But, I’m grateful that I got to experience it because without actually living with a foldable smartphone, you really just won’t know.

These are just some of the personal reasons why I think the Galaxy Z Flip line doesn’t need to exist. If Samsung is just taking a slab phone, a design that has been pretty much refined to the point of perfection, and then just adding a crease to it at the expense of convenience, battery life, durability, and features, this is when I think we need to step back, rethink the product line as a whole and ask ourselves how the Z Flip line can be better.

As a reminder, this isn’t a piece written to try and incite ill feelings, it’s just an opinion, and after all, these are just products. But I’d love to hear your thoughts on the Z Flip line, especially if you’ve found that the phone actually improves your experiences on a day-to-day basis.

The post Foldables are cool, but they’re not as good as Samsung wants you to think they are appeared first on XDA.

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