David Katzmaier

Roku Premiere doles out 4K HDR streaming for just $40

By now you’re probably aware of Roku. It’s a company that creates streaming video players — you know, little devices that play Netflix and YouTube on your TV — as well as an operating system for Smart TVs. We like Roku streamers and TVs a lot here at CNET. Most are cheap and good. Now …

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Amazon Echo Link and Echo Link Amp let Alexa power real audio gear

It’s official: Amazon is getting serious about audio quality. The retail giant announced three new devices that allow you to attach your own speakers: the $35 Echo Input and two devices that cost a lot more. Lacking the microphones of traditional Alexa speakers like the Echo, they’re basically small Alexa audio controllers with multiple inputs and outputs. Both let you …

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Amazon Echo Input is a tiny $35 Dot for your own speakers

Like the Echo but don’t like its speaker quality? Bring your own! That’s the promise of the Amazon Echo Input, a new $35 (£35) device that’s designed to connect to whatever speakers you want. Coming later this year to the US, UK, Australia and Germany, the little pancake-looking device lacks the built-in speaker found on the $50 Dot. (Australian pricing …

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Apple TV’s new TVOS 12 is available now: What’s new and how to get it

It’s Apple software update season, and along with iOS 12 for iPhones ($899 at Amazon) and iPads ($170 at Amazon), the latest update for Apple TV ($99 at eBay) and Apple TV 4K is ripe and ready to pluck. The new version of Apple’s operating system, TVOS 12, brings mostly minor improvements — unless you’re lucky enough to have a …

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iPhone pricing: The new iPhone XR, iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max compared

Apple on Wednesday announced official pricing for its newest phones, and as expected they aren’t… cheap.  At the base 64GB storage capacity, the entry-level iPhone XR starts at $749, while the highest-end iPhone XS Max begins at  $1,099. As the gigabytes increase, so does the damage to your wallet. Brace yourself. iPhone 2018 US pricing iPhone XR iPhone XS iPhone …

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Apple TV wishlist: 5 things we’d like to see on Sept. 12

While Apple’s event on September 12 should be packed with new iPhones and a new Apple Watch, rumors don’t point to a new Apple TV. Nope, no Apple TV 8K, not even any Fortnite. I hope Apple doesn’t ignore it completely, however. The Apple TV 4K is one of my favorite streaming devices already, thanks to its industry-leading format support, superb …

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Toshiba TVs with Alexa built

If you’ve been waiting to talk to your Alexa-enabled TV without having to pick up a remote, you might want to consider moving to Europe. At the IFA trade show in Berlin on Thursday, Toshiba announced that in 2019, most of its smart TVs aimed for Europe — OLED and LCD — will offer the ability to listen for Alexa voice …

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Samsung’s portable SSD X5 drives fast and rocks race car red

Are you a professional working with large multimedia files? Or an impatient amateur willing to pay money for time? Behold Samsung’s latest storage gadget, the X5 portable external solid state drive. Boasting boosted Thunderbolt 3 connectivity, the company says the X5 can achieve read speeds up to 2,800 megabytes per second (MBps). That’s up to 5.2 times faster than SATA …

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Free movies and TV shows on Roku are now even easier to find

Do you consider it worth watching a few ads in exchange for streaming some free shows? Do you own a Roku? If you answered “yes” to both, keep reading. Rolling out to Roku devices in the coming weeks is a new menu item, prominently placed right below “Home” and above “My Feed” on Roku’s main left-hand menu: Featured Free. Selecting …

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Vizio P

Would you pay two grand for a 65-inch Vizio? That’s the essential question posed by the all-new P-Series Quantum, which just started shipping for $2,100 from major retailers and Vizio.com.  Vizio certainly tempts picture quality aficionados with the right specs. The company claims a searing 2,000 nits of peak brightness, which, if true, would make it among the brightest TVs I’ve ever …

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