Remember the Dyson Zone? The headphones with a built-in air-purifying system and mask? The company is back this year with a less flashy version that focuses solely on sound. Our audio expert Billy Steele spent weeks with the Dyson Ontrac and found it outlasted most of the competition. It even beat out Sony’s WH-1000XM5 by about 18 hours in his tests. Dyson had explained in a briefing that with all its experience working to reduce noise from its other wind-generating products (like hair dryers), it’s learned a lot about how to combat unwanted sound.
But thanks to Billy's experience with almost every other pair of headphones out there, I've also learned that the Dyson OnTrac's active noise cancellation is just average. As the young people of today say, it's middle of the road.
While these headphones look great and have some interesting hearing health features, Billy ultimately felt that they don't do enough to justify the $500 price tag, and gave them a fairly average score of 73. You'll probably find better from Master & Dynamic, Sony, or even Apple.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12: A top-tier business laptop that needs some tweaks
By Sherri L. Smith
Contributing journalist Sherri L. Smith was once editor-in-chief of Laptop Magazineand has years and years of experience reviewing laptops. So when he says the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 is the king of business laptops, I believe him.
While she liked the X1 Carbon's display and long battery life, Sherri noted that Lenovo's decision to place the power button on the edge rather than on the keyboard deck is a drawback. She also cautioned that the gap between the ThinkPad X1 Carbon and the competition is small and continually narrowing.
One year with the Google Pixel Fold
By Sam Rutherford
This week, the entire Engadget team was hard at work covering Google's hardware launch event, which means less time for writers and editors to publish reviews. Our reviewers often participate in hands-on and other launch coverage of the companies whose products they test, and while these aren't full-length reviews, I consider them relevant to this roundup.
Sam Rutherford, our reviewer of phones, laptops, gaming PCs, and more (a long time ago!), spent some time with the Pixel 9 Pro Fold in a hands-on session at Google. Sam is one of those people who actually went out and bought a Galaxy Fold when the first generation came out. That’s how deep his love for the category runs, and more importantly, his first-hand experience with it. To this day, he uses a foldable as his everyday device.
In fact, he’s been using Google’s original Pixel Fold for a full year now, and took the time to write up a durability report that was published this week. Flexible displays are still pretty fragile components, and early foldables were easily damaged. With the Pixel Fold, Sam was pleasantly surprised that it held up to life with his rambunctious (and adorable) toddler. Not only is this encouraging news for those considering purchasing a foldable device, but it’s also fascinating that the technology has advanced so much so quickly.
On the horizon: Upcoming reviews
Elsewhere on the site, we've published a hands-on review of the new Pixel Watch 3, and as the dust from Google's event begins to settle, it'll soon be time to expect full reviews of each new device announced. With the Pixels coming to market at various points throughout August and September, people will be getting their hands on them fairly quickly, and I expect we'll get reviews of them… soon.
We’re also still testing a slew of Copilot+ PCs (remember those?) from companies like HP, Dell, ASUS, and Samsung. Then there’s the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra, which is taking a bit longer to review considering many of its features require long-term testing. Plus, it’s almost September, which is when we typically expect Apple to release new iPhones. There will be plenty of reviews here soon, so stay tuned.
