Facebook Portal 10-inch 2019 review: better design, familiar limitations - The Verge

Last year, Facebook released the Portal, a smart display that you put in your home and use to make video calls over Facebook Messenger. Unsurprisingly, the thought of having an always-connected camera and microphone that’s linked to Facebook gave many people pause, including me.

Despite those pervasive reservations — and undisclosed sales figures — Facebook is back with a new range of Portal devices for this year. A redesigned 10-inch model is joined by a new 8-inch version and a Portal camera that clips on top of your TV to use the biggest screen in your home for video calling. The 15-inch Portal Plus is unchanged and remains in the lineup as well.

Aside from the new design, the new $179.99 10-inch Portal has a lower price than last year’s model and comes with a few new software features that were missing the first time around. It’s available to order from Facebook and other retailers starting today. But if the reason you didn’t want a Portal in your home was because it’s a dedicated Facebook calling machine, then you’re not going to want this one either.

The most obvious change with this year’s Portal is its new design. The mini-TV look of the original has been replaced with something that looks more like a picture frame. It’s still obviously a screen, but it can blend in better with your home’s decor, and it has a smaller footprint while maintaining the same size screen.

The display is a 10-inch, 1280 x 800 pixel touchscreen, which seems like a low resolution, but it’s perfectly fine for the distances from which you’ll be using the Portal. It’s bright and colorful, with good viewing angles, and it has a Night Mode that cuts down on blue light in the evening, much like your phone’s night mode. It also has automatic brightness, but it doesn’t have the same kind of impressive color balancing you’ll find in Google’s Nest Hub smart displays.

Cleverly, the Portal can be rotated to either landscape or portrait orientations, thanks to the kickstand on the back that also provides some cable management for the power cord. You can switch orientations at any time, including in the middle of a call, and the software will rotate and adapt to fit the screen properly. It’s not quite as fancy as the larger Portal Plus’ rotating screen, but it takes up far less space and doesn’t look like a McDonald’s kiosk sitting on your counter.

Facebook also redesigned the speakers in the Portal with a 2.1 system using a rear-firing woofer and stereo front speakers that emit sound through the gap between the screen and the frame. The speakers sound fine for voice calls, but they’re disappointing for music, which has an echoey, hollow sound. It’s clear Facebook tuned these speakers for voices at the expense of music, and they don’t compare to the sound from Amazon’s 10-inch Echo Show.

The most important new hardware detail is the three-position sliding switch on the top of the Portal that lets you block the camera and mute the always-listening microphone. You can opt to block just the camera, which gets hidden behind a physical shutter, or both the mic and the camera for the full privacy treatment. It’s a much better solution than the little plastic camera cap the original Portal had, which felt like an afterthought.

I called the original Portal the best smart display for making video calls, so it’s no surprise that the new model is just as competent in that front. All of the features from last year, including the wide-angle camera that automatically frames subjects, the beam-forming microphones that home in on a speaker’s voice, and the integrations with Spotify and storybooks carry over here. Facebook has also expanded the AR masks to support multiple faces simultaneously and even change voices depending on the mask used. There are also new AR-based games you can play between two Portal devices.

Calls made through the Portal have clear video and audio and don’t require me to raise my voice unnaturally. The automatic framing feature, which Google has also adopted for video calls on its Nest Hub Max, makes it easy to casually make a call without having to stay in a rigid spot the entire time. I still don’t think that Portal calls feel the same as an in-person interaction, as Facebook would like you to believe, but they are still better than video calls on the smart displays from Amazon or Google.

Unfortunately, the Story Time mode, which lets you narrate stories with AR effects, is still limited to Portal devices and isn’t very practical for parents who are traveling and want to call home to read a story to their children. I’d have loved to see Facebook add the ability to host a Story Time session from a phone or tablet using the Facebook Messenger app.

The big new addition to calling is the ability to place WhatsApp calls in addition to Facebook Messenger. You can link your WhatsApp account to the Portal just like you can with a laptop or desktop and then make end-to-end encrypted calls from the device. (Facebook says end-to-end encryption is coming to Messenger calls next year.) WhatsApp calls don’t support all of the same features as Messenger, such as the AR masks and games, but they provide largely the same experience, which should make the Portal much more useful in places where WhatsApp is the dominant messaging platform.

Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it — contracts that no one actually reads. It’s impossible for us to read and analyze every single one of these agreements. But we started counting exactly how many times you have to hit “agree” to use devices when we review them since these are agreements most people don’t read and definitely can’t negotiate.

In order to use the Facebook Portal, you must have a Facebook account and agree to Facebook’s terms and conditions and data policy. In addition, the Portal has a supplemental terms and conditions and data policy of its own that you must agree to in order to use the product.

While setting up the Portal, you also are presented with the option to store voice interactions for the “Hey Portal” commands. Linking Amazon Alexa, Spotify, and Pandora accounts with the Portal requires providing Facebook with access to those accounts and services.

Final tally: four mandatory agreements and up to four more optional agreements, depending on how many services are linked to the device.

Aside from video calling, Facebook has expanded the Portal’s capabilities on other fronts. (The company says the software updates and improvements will be delivered to all Portal units once the new model is available for purchase.) It’s now using Amazon’s smart display SDK for Alexa, so it provides the same kinds of screens and information from Alexa voice requests as Amazon’s own Echo Show devices. I can view a summary of weather, recent sports scores, or my Alexa shopping list right on the Portal’s display. I can even call up video feeds from security cameras and doorbells that support Alexa integration, such as Ring products.

The Portal now has a full web browser, which you can access from the grid of app shortcuts on one of the home screens. It’s a bit clumsy to use, and it’s not something I’d even use every day. But for pulling up a website in a pinch, it gets the job done. It also supports YouTube and other video streaming sites, but unfortunately, Netflix doesn’t work.

Video streaming services are still very limited on the Portal, though Facebook says that Amazon’s Prime Video will be coming later this year. Still, video services are largely limited to Facebook’s own Watch platform, and you can’t use the Portal for watching Netflix, Hulu, HBO, or most any other streaming video service you might want. And you can’t “cast” video from your smartphone or tablet to the Portal, like you can with Google’s smart displays. A web browser doesn’t really make up for this lack of options, either.

Streaming music is a little easier since you can use Alexa to request songs and there are dedicated Spotify, iHeartRadio, and Pandora apps on the Portal. You can also use Spotify Connect to play music to the Portal from your phone. But as I noted earlier, the sound quality for music isn’t great, and it’s not something I’d recommend if you want to listen to a lot of music with it.

Facebook has also added the ability to send images from your phone to the Portal through a new mobile app, so you can use it as a digital photo frame. It also still can show slideshows of images from your Facebook or Instagram accounts. But compared to the Nest Hub’s Google Photos integration, the Portal’s photo features are far more limited.

Overall, although the new Portal has a much-improved design, costs less, and fits into more places in my home than the prior model, it’s still a Portal and it still has many of the same limitations as before. Unlike other smart displays, which act as information centers, smart home controllers, and video streamers in addition to making video calls, the Portal is primarily a video calling device that’s limited to Facebook’s services. And it’s still a camera connected to Facebook inside your home.

Photography by Dan Seifert / The Verge

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https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/15/20913653/facebook-portal-10-inch-2019-review-price-specs-features-whatsapp-video-calling

2019-10-15 12:00:00Z
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Microsoft Project xCloud hands-on: an early look at game streaming - The Verge

Microsoft has started publicly testing its new Project xCloud game streaming service, allowing Xbox players the US, UK, and Korea to get an early look at Microsoft’s vision for the future of gaming. I’ve spent the past few hours trying out xCloud on my home Wi-Fi network in London over a 1Gbps connection with an average latency of around 10ms to Microsoft’s Azure servers in London. I’m impressed with the early results, but there needs to be a much bigger game selection to really test the limits of xCloud and see what it’s actually capable of.

Microsoft has limited the xCloud preview to just four games initially, and they’re all Microsoft Studios titles. Gears 5, Halo 5: Guardians, Killer Instinct, and Sea of Thieves are all available, and I spent the most time in Sea of Thieves. The preview requires an Android phone or tablet, a Bluetooth Xbox One controller, and Microsoft’s new game streaming app. This particular application will be used both for xCloud streaming from Microsoft’s servers, and to stream your own content and games from your Xbox One console to anywhere.

The xCloud interface is extremely basic right now, with tiles to launch the games available. It takes around a minute or so to fully load each game, which feels like a long time on a mobile phone where you’re used to apps loading instantly. Once a game is loaded, you can navigate away to other apps and quickly resume. There’s an option to quit the game, but when you do it’ll still keep the instance running on Microsoft’s servers for a few minutes just in case you want to jump back in.

As you’re running games on Microsoft’s cloud servers, it’s basically like having a remote Xbox One console. Microsoft has a stripped down version of its Xbox One dashboard running on these xCloud servers, and you can use it to access a friends list, join Xbox Live party chat, or even view achievements for the game you’re playing. You can’t jump into other apps, or play around with settings here, it’s really basic and locked down for now.

I tested out Xbox Live party chat and it worked well, although microphones are muted by default so you have to toggle that setting if you want to use a mic in games like Sea of Thieves or party chat. That’s pretty much it when it comes to customizability or settings, though.

I had a mixed experience streaming games via xCloud. I loaded Sea of Thieves and the intro video stuttered, broke up, and the audio dipped in and out. xCloud doesn’t appear to play well with my 2.4GHz Wi-Fi network, and my router automatically handles either 2.4GHz or a 5GHz connection over the same SSID. I forced it over to the 5GHz option as a separate SSID, and this greatly improved things, but I’ve never experienced similar issues streaming content from Netflix in 4K or via other services.

Sea of Thieves ran really well after the initial connection issues. I was able to complete a mission, voice chat with fellow players, and roam around freely just like I would on a regular Xbox One console. Sea of Thieves isn’t a twitchy action game that requires a lot of movement and control, though. For a multiplayer gaming experiment, I decided to try Halo 5’s player-vs-player (PvP) mode. It’s not as fast paced as games like Overwatch or Fortnite, but it was a chance to test a first-person shooter.

I played a few rounds of quick play, and I definitely noticed input lag from time to time. It wasn’t extreme, but you could certainly tell there was a slight delay in movement speed or responses. I would be interested to test xCloud with something like Overwatch, but the testing is rather limited right now.

The biggest drawback to the xCloud experience right now is simply load times for games. Microsoft is using Xbox One S hardware on its servers, so it’s only as fast as a Xbox One would load the game via its regular hard drive. This is great for game compatibility, but I’d expect Microsoft will upgrade its xCloud servers to the new Xbox Project Scarlett specs once that console launches next year. Scarlett will dramatically improve load speeds thanks to SSD storage and a more capable CPU.

Another drawback is that this is limited to Android during this initial preview period. Microsoft has not mentioned or even demonstrated iOS compatibility yet, despite Apple providing PS4 and Xbox One controller support in iOS 13 recently. This support has already turned the iPad into a portable game console for titles like Fortnite, and with the addition of xCloud it would really open up the amount of games you could play on the go.

You also can’t use xCloud if you’re signed into an Xbox One console and it’s in use. So if your family is watching Netflix using your Microsoft Account on a physical console then xCloud will require you to log out of the console or turn it off to be able to stream games from Microsoft’s cloud. It’s a bizarre requirement, and hopefully it’s just a limitation of this early preview.

If you’re interested in trying xCloud for yourself, I’d highly recommend some type of mount for the phone and Xbox One controller combo. Trying to prop up a slippery phone isn’t ideal, and a clip or mount system removes that headache. You’ll definitely need an Xbox One controller, too, as Microsoft hasn’t implemented any touch controls for games just yet.

Project xCloud invites are rolling out in waves, and you can sign up to test Microsoft’s cloud gaming service right here.

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https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/15/20915220/microsoft-xcloud-game-streaming-preview-hands-on

2019-10-15 11:38:50Z
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Realme’s X2 Pro has a 90Hz screen and Snapdragon 855 Plus for under $400 - Circuit Breaker

Realme has made a major splash in 2019 with a series of impressively low-priced devices, but now the company is releasing its first phone that could seriously be described as high-end. The X2 Pro has Qualcomm’s fastest processor available, a screen with a high refresh rate, and a quad-camera array including a giant 64-megapixel sensor. All of this means it’s Realme’s priciest phone to date, but the spec sheet keeps it extremely competitive.

The X2 Pro’s industrial design is pretty boring, but there’s nothing really wrong with it either. There’s an unobtrusive waterdrop notch in the display, along with a bottom bezel that’s only very slightly larger than the other three. Realme has moved to a glass back panel for the X2 Pro, which feels better to the touch than the previous plastic designs but obviously compromises on durability.

Despite the small bezels, the X2 Pro manages to squeeze in stereo speakers that actually sound quite good; taken together with the above-average haptic feedback system, it’s clear Realme has made a point of including features that more expensive Chinese phones often skimp on. Unfortunately, though, that doesn’t extend to wireless charging.

The screen is a 6.5-inch 1080p OLED panel with an in-display fingerprint sensor and a refresh rate of 90Hz. Higher refresh rates are starting to become more common on flagship phones like the OnePlus 7T and (reportedly) the upcoming Pixel 4, and it really is hard to go back once you’ve been using a screen like this for a while. The Realme X2 Pro feels incredibly smooth in use, especially for basic actions like scrolling through timelines or swiping between home screen pages, where text remains readable in motion.

The speedy feel of the phone is bolstered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Plus processor, the fastest currently available on any Android phone. The X2 Pro comes with either 6GB, 8GB, or 12GB of RAM and 64GB, 128GB, or 256GB of flash storage.

The camera setup includes that same 64-megapixel sensor from Samsung along with a 13-megapixel telephoto, an 8-megapixel ultrawide, and a 2-megapixel macro lens. There’s also a 16-megapixel selfie camera. You can see how the 64-megapixel camera performed on last month’s Realme XT here:

The X2 Pro can fast-charge at up to 50W with Oppo’s proprietary Super VOOC technology, which Realme says should get you 80 percent of a full charge in half an hour. The phone has a 4,000mAh battery, so that’s not quite as fast as Oppo’s own new Reno Ace — with which it shares both battery size and almost identical industrial design — but it’s still right up there as far as fast-charging solutions go.

If you’re thinking this sounds a lot like the OnePlus 7T, another phone produced under the umbrella of BBK Electronics’ all-encompassing supply chain, you’d be right. The screen, processor, speakers, fingerprint sensor, and other aspects of the phone are all similar, if not identical. But the X2 Pro has an extra camera lens (of dubious value, admittedly), a bigger main camera sensor, and faster fast-charging. OnePlus’ main advantage is in its zippy OxygenOS software built atop Android 10. Realme uses Oppo’s ColorOS, which has quite a bit in common, but it’s more influenced by iOS and is still stuck on Android 9 in its current iteration.

That may not be as much of a concern when you consider this phone’s pricing. In China, the X2 Pro costs 2,699 yuan (~$380) for a 6GB/64GB model, going up to 2,899 yuan (~$410) for 8GB/128GB and 3,299 yuan (~$465) for 12GB/256GB. It probably won’t be quite that cheap when released outside of China, but it’s clear that the X2 Pro will undercut the OnePlus 7T, and will likely be a serious competitor to phones like Xiaomi’s Mi 9T Pro/Redmi K20 Pro.

The Realme X2 Pro is launching in China and Europe first and is set to follow in India in December.

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https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/10/15/20915214/realme-x2-pro-announced-specs-price

2019-10-15 09:30:00Z
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Watch the Fortnite Chapter 2 cinematic trailer now, ahead of the game's incoming re-launch - GamesRadar+

Fortnite season 11, or Fortnite chapter 2, or whatever it ends up being called, is expected to go live today across all available platforms, as Epic rolls out its ambitious  new update for the world's most popular battle royale game. 

Already, the Fortnite chapter 2 battle pass trailer has leaked, revealing a graphical overhaul, new map, gameplay features and much, much more, while the game's latest cinematic trailer has also found its way onto the internet in advance of launch, which you can watch for yourself below. 

Here's the cinematic trailer for #Fortnite Chapter 2 - Season 1! pic.twitter.com/6mYUWQ7bik15 October 2019

Once again, we get a in-depth new look at Fortnite Chapter 2's first season (this is starting to get confusing now), including some of the new cosmetic outfits that'll no doubt become part of Epic's latest battle pass system, a number of multi-manned vehicles that can be used to traverse the new map, and - uh - it looks like you can fish for weapons now? 

The cinematic trailer, which is anticipated to officially go live sometime this morning alongside the launch of Fortnite chapter 2, also provides more details into the terrain and environmental quirks of the game's first new map since it launched in 2017. 

It looks like we'll be able to drink radiated water from the local power plant as some sort of consumable buff, for example, while I can already see those mountain ranges being the perfect place for a sniper's perch as the ring draws in. 

Fortnite Challenges. #Fortnite #FortniteChapter2 via @iFireMonkey pic.twitter.com/WePwBqQiHj15 October 2019

The first set of the game's new Fortnite Challenges have also apparently leaked, and include a range of tasks - from winning matches to catching fish - that'll no doubt help you progress your battle pass for season 1. 

Hopefully, Epic will release the full set of Fortnite patch notes soon, as its userbase is champing at the bit to get back in after the studio took the game down on Sunday note via a world-shattering live event. We'll keep you updated here on GamesRadar as soon as we hear anything more. 

Check out the biggest new games of 2019 still on the way, or watch the Release Radar video below for a guide to everything else out this week.

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https://www.gamesradar.com/fortnite-chapter-2-trailer/

2019-10-15 08:55:00Z
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Fortnite's Black Hole Is Over [Updating] - Kotaku

After roughly a day and a half, Fortnite’s black hole is over. Despite the anticipation for a big event, the server simply went offline. There it is.

At around 4am Eastern, with thousands of people around the world staring at Fortnite’s swirling black hole, the game suddenly blinked to a loading screen, with a message reading “Fortnite servers are currently undergoing maintenance. Please try again later.” The servers currently read as “offline,” presumably undergoing maintenance for the next season.

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In a normal Fortnite season, this is pretty standard: developer Epic takes the game offline between roughly 4 and 6am to update things. I’m not surprised to see there be downtime here, but after all the waiting and social media blackout surrounding the black hole, this feels pretty anticlimactic. Was a big event inside us all along? I’m awake at four in the damn morning, so I’m going to say yes, because I need this.

Some folks on Twitter are saying the new cinematic trailer played for them in the lobby, but I was unable to access that, as pressing “relaunch” just took me out of the game, which is currently updating. Here’s what folks are seeing:

Following the game’s big end of season event, Fortnite turned from a game of weird characters and 10-year-old teammates into a swirling black hole. It then, to the internet’s collective shock, stayed that way. Confused players joined forces to decode mysterious numbers, play a hidden minigame, entertain themselves with speculation, and spend more than 35 hours staring at what basically amounts to a screensaver.

At last, we are free from the hole, and we’ll be getting a new season of Fortnite. There have been hints of a new map, and a supposed leaked battle pass trailer shows possible new weapons, a new way to level up, and new things to do. We’ll see what Fortnite’s new world looks like when the game comes back online, which for me is in 60%.

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Update 4:43am—My update finished, but I’m just seeing “servers offline.” I’m making a second pot of coffee.

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https://kotaku.com/fortnites-black-hole-is-over-1839050526

2019-10-15 08:08:00Z
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Fortnite down - live: Latest Season 11 news, has game ended, what happened and why is there a black hole - The Independent

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1. Fortnite down - live: Latest Season 11 news, has game ended, what happened and why is there a black hole  The Independent
2. ‘Fortnite’ Just Blew Up The Map And The Entire Game Is Now Just A Black Hole  Forbes
3. Fortnite Black Hole: Is this the end for Fortnite? Is Fortnite finished? When is it back?  Express
4. Fortnite black hole numbers: What do they mean and why are they there?  GamesRadar
5. Fortnite Black Hole Numbers Code Meaning and when will Fortnite Season 11 start?  Daily Star
6. View full coverage on Google News

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/gaming/fortnite-down-live-latest-season-11-news-game-ended-next-map-fix-black-hole-memes-a9154776.html

2019-10-14 12:00:00Z
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Fortnite down - live: Latest Season 11 news, has game ended, what happened and why is there a black hole - The Independent

[unable to retrieve full-text content]

1. Fortnite down - live: Latest Season 11 news, has game ended, what happened and why is there a black hole  The Independent
2. ‘Fortnite’ Just Blew Up The Map And The Entire Game Is Now Just A Black Hole  Forbes
3. Fortnite Black Hole: Is this the end for Fortnite? Is Fortnite finished? When is it back?  Express
4. Fortnite's latest season ends and now the game is gone  Fox Business
5. Fortnite Black Hole Numbers Code Meaning and when will Fortnite Season 11 start?  Daily Star
6. View full coverage on Google News

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/gaming/fortnite-down-live-latest-season-11-news-game-ended-next-map-fix-black-hole-memes-a9154776.html

2019-10-14 10:37:00Z
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