This week on The Wrap, find out when Windows 11 is coming, what’s on the horizon for new Macs, Samsung’s big camera, and a bunch of new hearables from Jabra, Bose, Nothing, and more. All in five.
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For the first week of September 2021, the first week of spring if you’re someone who goes by the beginning of the month, you’re tuned into The Wrap, Australia’s fastest technology roundup, and with much of Australia still in lockdown, you might think that the news was a little slow.
And you’d be wrong, with so much technology this week, we had trouble keeping up.
Starting with Windows which has a release date. Not the Windows you have right now, but the next generation, which will be coming to select PCs from October 5. Windows 11 will look a little like what Apple has in macOS and will eventually work with Android apps and games.
As for the computers that’ll be able to run it, you’ll want to check with your brand as October draws near, because while many will, some will not work with Microsoft’s latest and greatest. Windows 10 support won’t end until 2025, so you’ve got some time, but it does mean your next PC will likely run Windows 11, or maybe even Mac.
In fact rumours and rumblings are suggesting new Macs are on the horizon, with a new variant of Apple’s M1 silicon chip, which offers some of the best battery life of any laptop out there.
Battery life is a big deal in laptops, and one of the features gradually improving, with computers these days offering as little as five and sometimes as high as 12 and beyond depending on what you do with them, but it’s obviously not the only thing we care about in devices.
There’s also the importance of feature sets, such as mobile capability. That’s less of a big deal these days, with every phone pretty much acting as a hotspot, and more phones connecting with very fast speeds to mobile networks.
5G is, of course, the fastest network you can connect to, boasting speeds as high as two gigabits depending on where you are, which if you can get it, means real-life data speeds of 250 megabytes per second. To put it simply, it means very, very fast downloads. If you can get it.
You probably already know that to connect to 5G, you need a 5G phone, and they come in lots of price points, from the very high, and now to the quite low. So low, in fact, that this week in Australia, 5G has dropped to $329 on prepaid for Telstra, or just under $350 unlocked. That’s coming in the Samsung Galaxy A22 5G, what is easily one of the most cut-cost 5G phones around.
Samsung also has another big deal this week, and it’s kind of a preview for next year’s Galaxy S22 phone, announcing a 200 megapixel smartphone sensor. This year, it was a 108 megapixel sensor, but next year, we might see a bigger sensor all around, and one that can get better quality 12 megapixel photos by using 16 pixels for every one. If we had to guess, that’s exactly what Samsung will do next year, and what to look out for.
And while we’re talking about what to look for, this week was filled with audio gadgets to look out for. Specifically, earphones, headphones, and even music services.
If you listen to a lot of classical, Apple has just bought Primephonic, and will be boosting its Apple Music service with even more classical, and launching an Apple Music Classical app later on, as well. That adds to the launch of Dolby Atmos and lossless sound Apple Music had earlier in the year, which was bundled in for the same cost, and may have taken the wind out of Spotify HiFi’s sales. That hasn’t launched yet, but when it does, you have to hope like Apple that it will be included in the cost.
Regardless of whether on Spotify or Apple Music, or even Tidal, lossless is a great experience, but one not made for most wireless headphones. Fortunately that’s on the verge of changing, as Qualcomm announces a new chip coming that will support Bluetooth high-res via AptX Lossless.
That means high-res will soon work wirelessly and without an extra bit of hardware, save for a new pair of headphones, and there are more of those coming, too. We don’t know whether these will support AptX Lossless at first, but we’d be surprised if some of these didn’t.
One is from Bose, and it’s the latest QuietComfort noise cancelling headphones, the QC45, boasting a familiar design from Bose’s other noise cancelling headphones, plus new noise cancellation technology made to be adaptive, analysing the outside world and cancelling it out.
Jabra also has a pair of noise cancelling earphones coming in the $300 Elite 7, while it also tackles entry level wireless earphones in the $119 Elite 3. No noise cancellation there, though the price is clearly the star.
And finally we’re checking out a pair of earphones, the Nothing Ear 1. It’s Nothing’s first pair, and a surprisingly well priced pair at that, offering truly wireless noise cancellation for $150 in Australia.
For the price, you get a neat transparent design unlike any other, a warm sound like a speaker, and support for noise cancellation. Unfortunately you also get bugs, because the Nothing Ear 1 can cut out rather unexpectedly, but we still like what’s found here. If Nothing can just fix up the connection issues, we’d be set.
For now, you’ve been listening to The Wrap, Australia’s fastest technology roundup. A new episode can be found every week at Listnr, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. Otherwise, have a great week, and we’ll see you next time on The Wrap. Stay safe, stay sane, and take care.
