Of the two speakers Sonos announced earlier this month, the Era 100 is much easier to sum up: it’s a replacement for the Sonos One, which was first introduced in 2017. Unlike the Era 300, there’s no need to ponder the value of spatial audio; the Era 100 is a relatively straightforward mono speaker, just like the One and the Play:1 before it. Don’t let that simple description deceive you, though – the $250 Era 100 is a complete redesign, inside and out, and the end result is a worthy upgrade and a very versatile speaker.

Design

At first glance, the Era 100 looks quite similar to the One, but upon further examination you’ll notice a number of small but meaningful changes. That starts with the vertically-oriented Sonos logo that you’ll find on most of their other speakers like the Roam and, naturally, the Era 300. The Era 100 is slightly taller and deeper than the One; it’s also slightly deeper than it is wide. But it should fit basically anywhere the older speaker did.

The most significant external change is on top of the speaker. There, you’ll find a redesigned set of touch controls, including dedicated track forward and back buttons for the first time. Those surround the play / pause button instead of the volume controls that you’ll find on the One. Volume has been moved to a touch slider in the center of the touch panel. Tapping either side of it raises or lowers the volume, or you can slide your finger left and right. Using the slider takes a little practice, and it’s far too easy to go from silent to deafening, but there’s no doubt it’s better for rapid adjustments than tapping a button repeatedly. There’s also a spot to mute the mic, just like on the One.

There are also some major changes on the Era 100’s back. There’s no more ethernet jack or setup button. Instead, there’s a USB-C port you can use to plug in the $20 line-in adapter or the $40 combo line-in / ethernet adapter. On the one hand, it’s annoying to have to shell out extra cash for these adapters – but this is the first time Sonos has offered line-in at all on a speaker in this price range, so it’s not a total bummer.

Aside from the USB-C port, you’ll find another switch for muting the mic. Unlike the top button, which just mutes it with software, this physically disconnects the mic for additional privacy. Finally, there’s a Bluetooth button that puts the speaker in pairing mode.

As with most Sonos products, the company has done a good job here marrying clean, attractive design without compromising on functionality. Yes, the loss of the Ethernet jack will rankle a small number of users, but for the most part these changes are improvements. I wish that they just put a line-in right on the speaker instead of requiring a dongle, but I’m more glad that the feature is here at all than I am annoyed at needing to buy an extra piece of plastic.

Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Setup

Getting the Era 100 up and running is pretty simple, even if you don’t already have a Sonos system. You’ll need to download the Sonos app to your phone and set up an account; from there, the app will look and see if there are any speakers plugged in it can add. You’ll also need to log in to your audio services of choice, but after that you should be good to go. Obviously you can search for and play music through the Sonos app, but there are also options if you’d rather stick with the music apps you’re used to, like AirPlay 2 and Spotify Connect.

There are a few optional but useful things you can do while you’re setting up the Era 100, though. The first is Trueplay, a feature that tunes your speaker’s audio output based upon where it’s placed in your room. Trueplay has been around since 2015, but in the past it required you to have an iPhone. You’d have to walk around your room slowly raising and lowering the phone while the speaker played a test tone.

The Era 100, though, can use its built-in microphones to listen and optimize its output – that process is much simpler and faster than the old technique, and Android users aren’t left out either. I’ve been extremely happy with Trueplay’s results in the past, so I’d recommend that everyone try this out. That said, I did find that the old, manual tuning process yielded slightly better results.

You can also add a voice assistant to the Era 100. Amazon’s Alexa has been supported since the One launched back in 2017, and last year Sonos added its own music-focused assistant. Setting up the Sonos assistant is a little easier than Alexa, because you don’t need to link your Amazon account, but both are pretty straightforward at this point. Sadly, where past Sonos speakers supported Google Assistant the Era 100 does not. This is likely due to the ongoing patent battles between Google and Sonos. I personally prefer Google Assistant to Alexa, so this is a bit of a bummer.

Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Audio quality

While new features like easier Trueplay and new controls are important, what I really wanted to find out was how the Era 100 compares to the One it replaces. (I’ve also been comparing it to Apple’s latest HomePod as well as the Era 300.) So far, I’ve been extremely impressed. It’s immediately obvious that the Era 100 is a notable upgrade over the One.

First off, the Era 100 is loud. Surprisingly so – it’s significantly louder than the One and the HomePod, and the Era 300 isn’t that much louder. Even a single Era 100 should provide enough volume for just about any room in your house. If you have a large open floor plan, you’ll probably want a couple speakers to cover the space rather than cranking a single, relatively small speaker to its limit. But in the vast majority of use cases one Era 100 should be sufficient.

Obviously, there’s a lot more to good sound than just volume. The Era 100 has significantly improved bass performance when compared to the One, again exceeding what I’d expect from a compact speaker. Bass-heavy tracks like Dua Lipa’s “Levitating” and Dragonette’s “T-shirt” had a solid thump without being overwhelming, especially at higher volumes. It doesn’t match the Era 300 or HomePod, both of which have more dynamic bass performance, but Sonos is getting a lot out of the Era 100.

Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

While I’m glad the bass has improved, I’m more impressed with the speaker’s overall clarity. The two tweeters definitely help make higher frequencies more defined. The sound profile is crisper and more dynamic than that of the One. The nuance and sheen of “California” by Chvrches and Metric’s “Formentera” came through wonderfully, while standard four-piece rock or metal like Metallica’s self-titled classic and Tool’s AEnima sounded lively and powerful. I also checked out my go-to film and game scores from Lord of the Rings and The Last of Us, and the intricate compositions were full and well-balanced. The One now sounds somewhat muddy by comparison, with both the highs and lows less distinct. The Era 300 sounds clearer still, thanks to the many drivers it has on board, but the 100 again is doing a lot with its comparatively limited speaker array.

If you have a larger space or just want increased volume and detail, I recommend getting two Era 100s and pairing them in stereo. While the Era 100 technically has left and right tweeters, the small size means there’s no real stereo separation to speak of. Putting two of them together naturally yields a much wider soundstage and brings out lots of details that get erased when you squish a stereo mix down to one channel.

A pair of Era 100s can also be used as rear surround speakers in a setup with one of Sonos’ soundbars. I didn’t test this, as I don’t have a great living room setup and I was more interested in the music performance, but it’s worth mentioning this feature. Sonos has long offered the option to use basically any of its music speakers as rear surrounds, and I’m glad they’ve continued with that here.

The Era 100 (and 300) are the first non-portable speakers that include Bluetooth connectivity. It’s exceedingly simple: just hold the Bluetooth button on the back of the speaker to put it in pairing mode and it should show up for your phone or other device to connect to it. I had no reason to use Bluetooth, but the fast setup and pairing process could be useful if you have a friend who quickly wants to play a tune over your speaker, for example. It’s not essential, but having more options never hurts.

Wrap-up

Sonos made a lot of smart decisions with the Era 100. The improvements it offers over the One are immediately obvious, both in sound quality and new features like line-in, Bluetooth and easier Trueplay setup. I don’t think Sonos One owners should necessarily run out and replace their speakers, but Sonos is now offering a better product at a $30 price increase, one that I think is justified for what you get.

Of course, Sonos makes things a little complicated because there are two generations of the One; they’re identical in terms of audio components, but the gen 2 model has more memory and a faster processor. If you have the One from 2017 or 2018, replacing it with an Era 100 will provide better sound and more future-proof internals.

The Era 100 isn’t the most exciting speaker I’ve listened to – I still have fond memories of being blown away by the Sonos Play:5 (now just called the Five) in 2015, and the Era 300 is also a delight. But when you take into consideration what most people will need from a speaker, the Era 100 provides impressive performance at a reasonable price.

Editor's note: This article contains heavy spoilers for season one of The Last of Us and minor spoilers for the game The Last of Us Part II.

Last night’s finale of the first season of HBO’s The Last of Us turned out to be a microcosm of everything that worked across the nine episodes, as well as a reminder of what showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann will want to work on when they pick things up for season two. Throughout the season, The Last of Us has been exceedingly faithful to the original story — but Mazin and Druckmann smartly expanded on the stories of everyone surrounding Joel and Ellie to make the world much richer. In a perhaps too-tight 44 minutes (the shortest episode of the season), the show wrapped up the first part of the story, ending with Ellie’s “Okay,” just like the game.

That single word that tells us Ellie accepts Joel’s lies about what happened between him and the Fireflies, that he’s being honest when he says that they stopped looking for a cure and that her immunity doesn’t mean anything. Joel’s ostensibly off the hook for his murderous rampage through the Salt Lake City hospital to save Ellie from having her brain dissected by the Fireflies. Of course, Ellie being a cure for the cordyceps infection was the whole point of their journey — but not the point for Joel. And the look on Ellie’s face throughout the episode’s coda tells us she’s not convinced, despite what she says before everything cuts to black.

Really, there was no other place it could have stopped. Throughout the season, Mazin and Druckmann made plenty of deviations from the game’s main story, but things always came back to the most important beats in the relationship between Joel and Ellie. The importance of these events in the Salt Lake City hospital cannot be overstated, as they form the basis for everything that follows in the game The Last of Us Part II. As such, some expected to get some hints of how the hospital bloodbath will tie into events to come, but the show stayed firmly focused on the events in the first game. That’s for the best, as Part II has a sprawling, complicated story of its own; shoehorning in a few teases of what’s to come probably would have taken away from the immediacy of what happened between Joel and Ellie.

Before Joel’s killing spree and Ellie’s acceptance of his lies, we were treated to another of the flashbacks that Mazin and Druckmann have masterfully dropped throughout the season, this one going all the way back to Ellie’s birth. People who checked out the many collectibles in the game surely found Ellie’s letter in her backpack from her mother, Anna, who writes to her newborn knowing that her life is about to be cut short.

Liane Hentscher/HBO

The game doesn’t make it explicit, but here we see that Anna (played by Ashley Johnson, who plays Elle in the games) is both infected and about to give birth. We also get to see Firefly leader Marlene promise to keep Ellie safe before ending her friend’s life. (Also, we now know that Anna gave Ellie her trademark switchblade, something I always assumed but wasn't explicit in the game.) Given how important Marlene’s presence is in this episode, it was the right time to see the very beginnings of her relationship with Ellie. And, as with every other supporting actor on the show, Johnson crushes her limited time onscreen – she’s much more than an easter egg for fans of the game. The glimpses of lives beyond just Joel and Ellie that we’ve seen throughout the season have made the world of The Last of Us feel far richer, whether they take up a whole episode (like Bill and Frank in “Long, Long Time” or Riley in “Left Behind”) or just a few minutes.

My only complaint about this flashback is that Johnson’s story eats into the precious little time we have left for Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey to share the screen together. Throughout the season, the two actors have had marvelous chemistry – but in episodes seven and eight, the story dictates that they spend very little time together. In the finale they share some of the strongest moments of the entire season, but there are so many plot points to get to that I wished for even just an extra five minutes to let things breathe a bit. But moments like the famous giraffe scene and Joel telling Ellie how he really got that scar on his head were just a couple more emotional high points between the two characters (and actors) in a season full of them.

With the first season (and adaptation of the first game) now in our rear-view, I can’t help but wonder how Mazin, Druckmann and the rest of their team will set about adapting The Last of Us Part II. While the first game told a fairly linear story, Part II is full of twists, flashbacks and changes in perspective – without getting too much into spoilers, the game devotes a third or more of its 24-ish hour playtime to a totally new set of characters. It’s an essential part of the story, but it should also present a major challenge for the showrunners to integrate it and keep the story’s emotional impact without leaving behind familiar characters for hours at a time.

Fortunately, Mazin showed his narrative chops in the first season, skillfully deploying a number of flashbacks — some new to the story and some straight from the game. As for the divergent stories, I’d have to imagine there will be a lot more intercutting between them than there is in the game. A good example is what director Peter Jackson did in The Two Towers and Return of the King. The original books both split time between two ongoing stories, and you stay with one set of characters for half the book before catching up with another group in the second half. Rather than leave Frodo and Sam for major chunks of screen time, he cross-cut between the stories as they progressed.

If Mazin does something similar, it’ll require some major re-thinking about how to make the game’s dramatic moments land, but that comes with the territory of being showrunner. Whether he can pull it off or not will be critical for future seasons of The Last of Us – the acting, set design, effects and everything else should continue to be top-notch, but it won’t matter if the narrative doesn’t hold up. Of course, a vocal subset of those who played Part II were intensely negative about the game’s story, so we’re likely to see future seasons be significantly more divisive than the first.

It’s also worth considering how the show will treat Ellie’s quest for revenge that makes up the bulk of Part II’s story. In the game, she’s as much an unstoppable killing machine as Joel is in the original game. But in season one, human-on-human violence was significantly curtailed compared to the game. That doesn’t mean Joel is shy about using violence to protect Ellie (see the infamous torture scene in episode eight or his calm dispatch of the Fireflies in the finale), but he's not an invincible video game superhero, a necessary change to ground the show more in reality. It seems inevitable that Ellie’s body count will be similarly scaled down once the show hits her John Wick phase, but it’s still going to be a tricky balance between showing her how far she is willing to go without the violence losing its emotional weight.

Regardless of how it all plays out, it’s going to be a while before we get to see how the HBO adaptation takes on the second game. Pascal recently said there was “a chance” filming starts before the end of 2023, and Mazin has hinted that the “remaining story” that they’re looking to adapt will take more than a season to tell. That means we’re likely to get a serious cliffhanger at the end of season two – even though I know where the story is going, I’m already preparing to yell at the screen when things cut to black.

For the last few years Sonos has focused most of its efforts on two categories: portable speakers, like the Move and Roam; and home theater products like the affordable Ray and more extravagant, Atmos-capable Arc soundbars. The company’s main pair of music-focused speakers, the One and Five, still sound great but are getting a little long in the tooth.

That changes today with two new options: the Era 100 and Era 300. The $250 Era 100 is a totally redesigned replacement for the One with a number of improvements over its predecessor, while the $450 Era 300 is the first Sonos speaker capable of playing spatial audio. As with most Sonos speakers, you can use a pair of either of them in stereo or as rear surround speakers in a home theater setup. If you have the Sonos Arc or gen-2 Beam and Sub, adding a pair of Era 300s as your rear surrounds gives you a wild 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos experience. (If you’re willing to spend roughly $2,600 for that setup, anyway).

Sonos

The Era 300 looks unlike any speaker Sonos has released before, though it still has the company’s familiar clean design language. Its somewhat unusual knocked-over hourglass shape is largely functional: it allows for the upward-facing tweeter to fire at a slight but specific angle, which the company says will deliver more room-filling reflections for spatial audio. There are three more tweeters: one dead-center and forward-firing as well as two pointing left and right. Finally, a pair of woofers on either side of the speaker provide plenty of bass.

The Era 100, on the other hand, is more obviously a tweak to the Sonos One, itself acoustically identical to the Sonos Play:1 that was released all the way back in 2013. Put another way, an upgrade was long past due. The Era 100 features a pair of tweeters for left and right stereo channels in a single speaker, as well as a woofer that’s 25 percent larger than the One’s. It may not have the spatial audio capabilities of the Era 300, but it’s still a significant update to its predecessor.

Despite the very different price points and capabilities, both of these speakers have a lot in common. Both feature USB-C ports that let you plug in a turntable or other audio equipment with an optional line-in adapter. More significantly, they both also include Bluetooth, the first time Sonos has put the feature in a non-portable speaker. They also have a redesigned set of touch controls on top – instead of taping on either side of the play / pause button to adjust volume, there’s now a little ridge you can swipe your finger across as well as dedicated forward and back buttons. Sonos also included a physical switch to disconnect the microphones. This actually cuts the connection to the mic for additional security, rather than just muting it via software.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Both the Era 100 and Era 300 also can use those microphones for Trueplay tuning, which optimizes audio for where you place the speakers in your living space. Previously, Trueplay required an iOS device; its microphone was used to listen for optimizing the sound. If you used Android, you were unfortunately out of luck. But even though Sonos has been putting microphones in its speakers for years now, you couldn’t use them for Trueplay. This new feature means a lot more people will likely take advantage of the feature – that’s good news, because Trueplay does make a big difference.

Sonos

I got a chance to listen to both speakers in a variety of configurations at a Sonos press event last month, and they both unsurprisingly sounded great – but that was in a carefully arranged environment that Sonos had total control over. Obviously, we’ll need to review these speakers to see how they perform in the real world, but I was impressed by the short demo I got. The Era 100 doesn’t sound totally different from the One, but the larger woofer definitely gives it more bass presence. The two tweeters don’t give it true stereo separation, since they’re so close to each other, but they definitely provide more clarity in the high ranges than you hear in the One.

The Era 300, however, sounds quite a bit different. Sonos first showed us its chops playing back standard audio, and it has significantly more volume, bass and presence than the Era 100. Not a shock, considering it costs $200 more and has twice as many drivers. We then got to hear how the single speaker did at playing back spatial audio tracks. They didn’t sound radically different, but did less like they were coming from a single point in a room; instead, the audio was more balanced and enveloping. Of the few songs we got to hear, “A Concert Six Months From Now” by Finneas was the most impressive. His multi-layered focals felt like they were coming at me from multiple angles, but it didn’t feel like a gimmick – it was just a more immersive and more intimate presentation.

Sonos

While it’s easy enough to see how the Era 100 fits into the Sonos lineup, the Era 300’s higher price tag and focus on spatial audio makes the speaker a big bet on an unproven market. For starters, the only spatial audio service it supports is Amazon Music Unlimited, which means the millions of people using Apple Music are out of luck. Apple has pushed spatial audio harder than just about anyone in the past few years, highlighting it both on its music streaming service and AirPod line of headphones. And with a new full-sized HomePod, Apple now has both speakers and headphones that can play back Atmos mixes. So, it might not be inclined to support competing Sonos hardware.

Regardless of the competition, Sonos clearly sees spatial audio as the future of music playback. The company said there’s major interest in the format from artists and producers, and claimed that the Era 300 will be the best way to hear the details of spatial audio mixes without needing a room full of audio gear. Of course, there’s only so much we can expect from a single speaker, no matter how advanced its driver array is. And while Amazon is the only service that’s compatible with the Era 300 for spatial music, Spotify, YouTube Music and others will likely start offering spatial audio sooner than later – though again, that doesn’t mean it’ll necessarily work on Sonos hardware.

Of course, the Era 300 also is an extremely capable speaker even when playing back stereo mixes. As with the outstanding but expensive Sonos Five speaker, the Era 300 will probably be a more niche product in the company’s lineup. But if the spatial audio wave is about to crest, it makes sense for Sonos to be ready for it rather than play catch-up.

Generative AI is absolutelyeverywhererightnow, so it’s no surprise to see Spotify putting it to use in its latest feature, simply called “DJ.” It’s a new way to immediately start a personalized selection of music playing that combines Spotify’s well-known personalization tools that you can find in playlists like Discover Weekly as well as the content that populates your home screen with some AI tricks. I got early access to DJ and have been playing with it for the last day to see how Spotify’s latest take on personalized music works, but the feature is available as of today in beta for all premium subscribers in the US and Canada.

While Spotify has loads of personalized playlists for users, I’ve found that the app lacks a simple way to tell it to just play some music you like. On Apple Music, for example, I can ask Siri to play music I like and it’ll start a personalized radio station based on music I’ve played alongside some things it thinks I’ll enjoy but haven’t played before. It’s a reliable way to jump right into my collection. In the same vein, Spotify’s DJ pulls together a mix of songs you’re currently listening to, old favorites you might have forgotten, and new tunes that fit in with what it thinks you’ll like.

The AI twist to DJ comes in the form of a literal DJ, which speaks to you in an AI voice generated by Sonantic, a startup that Spotify bought last year with a focus on generating realistic speech. In this case, the DJ’s voice model was trained on the voice of a real human, Spotify’s own Head of Cultural Partnerships, Xavier “X” Jernigan. Jernigan hosted “The Get Up,” Spotify’s morning show that combined recorded segments with music tailored to your tastes.

The DJ’s voice is generated through AI, and so are the things it says to you. When you first kick off a DJ session, you’ll get a quick overview of what you might expect to hear. For example, the first time I started up DJ, “X” came on and told me that it was a DJ designed for music and that it knew what I liked and for starters it was going to play me some Jenny Lewis. Sure enough, Lewis’s “Do Si Do” kicked things off, along with a few other songs with a similar vibe. At the top of the now playing screen, you’ll see a little info on how the song was picked, like “based on recent listening,” “throwbacks,” “recommended for you” or “from your past.”

Once you start a segment, you’ll generally hear a handful of songs that fit into the category, but if you want to change things up you can just tap the DJ button in the lower right corner of the now playing screen. At that point, X the DJ pops back up to give you some info about what’s coming up next. When I just tapped it, X said, “OK, changing it up. Here are our editor’s picks for the best in hard rock this week, starting with Motionless In White.”

Spotify says that none of the dialog you hear from X is pre-recorded; it’s all generated on the fly by OpenAI. However, the company wanted to make it clear that it looks at generative AI as a tool for its music editors, not something that it is just trusting to get everything right. Spotify’s VP of personalization Ziad Sultan told Engadget in a product demo that the company put together a “writers room” of script writers, music editors, data curators and engineers, all of whom are working together to make sure that the bits of info that the AI DJ drops are useful, accurate and relevant to the music you’re hearing.

Sultan stressed that Spotify’s usage was a lot different than implementations like free-form text, image generation and other such AI use cases. “We’ve built a very specific use case, and we’ve made a few choices about how it’ll be implemented,” he said. “The most important one is the creation of that writer’s room – we’re taking this [AI] tool and putting it into the hands of music experts.”

What’ll make Spotify’s DJ work or fail is whether it can pull up music you want to hear. From that perspective, Spotify isn’t doing anything wildly different than it already does: analyzing your listening history and finding stuff it knows you like and things it thinks you’ll enjoy. And as with everything else you do on Spotify, your DJ usage will be analyzed so that it can get better at serving you tunes you want to listen to. At the beginning, anyway, the AI DJ aspects are being used as small augmentations to a personalized music channel – and as long as Spotify can continue to know what songs you love and which ones you’re likely to fall in love with, DJ should be a useful addition.

It's no secret that the huge tech companies are still making money hand over fist, but there's also a noticeable slowdown going on. Google's parent company Alphabet is not immune — the company just reported its earnings results for Q4 of 2022, and just barely grew revenue year over year. The $76 billion the company pulled in during the quarter is up only one percent from Q4 of 2021. 

Google's ad business is the backbone of the company, and revenue slipped there by about 3.5 percent compared to a year ago. But eight percent growth in the "other" category (which includes products like Google and Nest hardware and revenue from the Play Store) and 32 percent yearly growth in in Google Cloud made up for those ad losses. Overall profits, meanwhile, dropped significantly: Quarterly net income of $13.6 billion is down 34 percent year-over-year.

Of course, the backdrop for all this is that Google announced a few weeks ago that it is laying off about 12,000 employees; that makes up about six percent of the company's overall workforce. At the time those layoffs were announced, we didn't yet know what Google's financials for last quarter looked like, but now we can see that things are slowing down. 

That's all relatively speaking, though. Net income of $60 billion for 2022 as a whole was down significantly compared to the $76 billion in profit Alphabet made in 2021 — but it's still far ahead of the $40 billion the company pulled in for 2020. It looks like the big numbers Alphabet posted in 2021 weren't exactly sustainable, and obviously we don't yet know what 2023 will bring. But we'll be tuning into the company's call with investors, which starts at 4:30PM ET, to see what additional details CEO Sundar Pichai can share about the state of Alphabet in the year to come.

I’ve been captivated by The Last of Us since I first played it shortly after it was released for the PS3 way back in 2013. Its ruined, dangerous but somehow beautiful post-pandemic world was compellingly rendered by developer Naughty Dog, and the tense combat driven by stealth and a need to conserve your resources felt more brutal and realistic than the Uncharted series the developer was known for.

But the relationship between protagonists Joel and Ellie is the true heart of the game. The story of a broken father reluctantly taking responsibility for a child who ends up becoming a surrogate daughter isn’t wildly original, nor is the game’s post-apocalyptic setting. But the development of Joel and Ellie’s relationship is filled with humor, hope, sadness and conflict, and it was brilliantly written by creators Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley. Performers Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson, along with the entire Naughty Dog team brought it to life, and the game has stuck with me ever since.

It’s the kind of video game that’s been begging for some sort of on-screen adaptation. Now, almost a decade after the game was released, HBO’s The Last of Us series will premiere on January 15th. The first season is led by a deep and talented cast (headlined by Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as Joel and Ellie) and an equally strong creative team, including Druckmann and Craig Mazin (best known for his outstanding Chernobyl mini-series, also on HBO).

Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO

I’m happy to report that The Last of Us should satisfy fans of the game, and might even bring in a fresh audience. It deftly walks the line between paying loving tribute to the source material while not feeling overly devoted to it. The structure of the show is essentially identical to the game: Joel and Ellie meet in a Boston quarantine zone some 20 years after a fungal infection destroys the world as we know it. Circumstance shoves the pair together on a cross-country journey that spans the better part of a year, as Joel tries to safely get Ellie to the Fireflies, a revolutionary militia that’s been trying to find a cure for the infection.

If you’ve played the game, you’ll be familiar with the season’s nine-episode arc. But in each act of the story, Mazin has smartly identified where to expand the narrative and what to leave out. The biggest thing missing are many of the huge action set-pieces that come up throughout the game. It’s an unsurprising change, as it wouldn’t feel realistic for Joel and Ellie to survive the number of battles they face in the game; it also wouldn’t make for compelling TV. There’s still plenty of action in the show, but it’s meted out more carefully and generally only when it moves the story forward.

Unsurprisingly, everything about The Last of Us reflects the high-budget, flagship status the show seems to have at HBO. Sets and environments are epic in scale and detail, and the combination of prosthetics and digital enhancements bring the Infected to life in terrifying fashion. Although there seems to be less of an emphasis on encounters with these creatures than in the game, seeing them on screen is distressingly memorable. Details like cinematography and music (composed by Oscar-winner Gustavo Santaolalla, who scored the games), are also masterfully executed; this is a show that oozes quality and attention to detail — much like the game itself.

Photograph by Shane Harvey/HBO

More interesting is how The Last of Us expands on the world and its inhabitants. We immediately get a more extensive look at the pre-pandemic life that Joel and his daughter Sarah inhabit. The showrunners give us more backstory and a better understanding of the different ways people survive: cooped up in a dreary Boston quarantine zone, fighting the government in a Kansas City lost to a violent militia group, or a peaceful settlement out west. The world feels a lot more nuanced than the one in the game, where almost everyone is an enemy to be overcome. Don’t get me wrong — most of the inhabitants of HBO’s The Last of Us will shoot first and ask questions later – but most encounters are about tension rather than brutal violence.

A lot has been written about the show’s two stars, Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal, both of whom have some big shoes to fill. Finding two performers with on-screen chemistry who could successfully embody their respective characters was surely not an easy task. But Pascal and Ramsey’s performances both immediately connected me with the original characters while also feeling vital and essential on their own. Fans of the game should immediately find things to draw them in, while those new to the series should be quickly won over by the pair.

Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO

Pascal’s Joel has a lot more emotional depth than Joel the video game character. Part of that is due to scripts that put more focus on his vulnerabilities and insecurities, but Pascal skillfully portrays a broad range of emotions. He’s able to show the cold, violent and skilled survivor side of Joel who’ll do anything to get what he needs while also embodying the broken spirit of a man who’s spent 20 years doing whatever it takes to stay alive. Watching Ellie bring out Joel’s more vulnerable side, and seeing how that conflicts with the hardened survivor, is at the heart of Joel’s character journey, and Pascal simply nails it. Joel is both more vulnerable than ever — and also more terrifying.

Meanwhile, Ramsey charms from their first moment onscreen as Ellie. We’re afforded a little more of Ellie’s backstory in the first episode, and it’s a great introduction to the character that immediately shows her brazen attitude toward anything that gets in her way. Much of the humor and levity comes from Ellie, and Ramsey’s performance captures the innocent resilience that only a 14-year-old could have in the face of abject horror and seemingly inescapable doom. The weight on Ellie’s shoulders grows throughout the series, and Ramsey is always up to the task of taking Ellie to the brink of breakdown before she comes back to the sense of duty she feels to care for the people she’s chosen to let into her life. Ellie’s naivety and sense of wonder gets bruised time and time again throughout the series, but both Ramsey and the scripts never let her lose it entirely.

Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO

While both Pascal and Ramsey deliver excellent performances in their own right, the magic really happens when the two are playing off each other. Naturally, the characters start out skeptical of one another, with Joel straight-up calling Ellie “cargo” to her face. But Ellie’s fascination with seeing the world beyond the quarantine zone she’s been stuck in slowly breaks Joel down. Pascal does a great job flipping between those two sides of the character, offering up hints of compassion and concern for Ellie as a person, only to retreat into an emotionally distant protector role.

Meanwhile, Ramsey embodies the spirit of Ellie as she opens up to Joel, and seeing this side of Ellie's character is a delight. Ramsey’s ability to convincingly show Ellie’s goofy and rebellious exterior is masterfully done; it’s the tool Ellie uses most to try and win over Joel, as if she knows he’s going to give in with a smile or laugh sooner or later. Watching Pascal slowly warm to her brings out a host of different ways for the two actors to play off each other. But Ramsey is also just as convincing when demonstrating Ellie’s drive for survival is just as strong as Joel’s. That leads her to some dark places, and Ramsey shows their range as the series progresses and the challenges facing Ellie and Joel mount.

The rest of the cast doesn’t get as much screen time, but they all contribute to some compelling plot lines. The stories of Bill and Frank (played by Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett) as well as Keivonn Woodard’s interpretation of Sam are two of the finest examples in the series where Mazin and Druckmann deviate a bit from the original text to do something that might not work in a game but is extremely successful in a show. Their episodes are undeniable standouts, and probably the best examples of why The Last of Us is such a successful adaptation.

Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO

The show whiffs a little bit on the pacing, as the back half of the season feels rushed. The pace naturally accelerates throughout the season toward the story’s climax, and the last two episodes are among the shortest in the season. I wish that some of the many dramatic moments near the end had more time to breathe. I don’t think a whole additional episode is necessary, but an extra ten minutes in each of the final episodes might have made things feel less constricted.

Also, it’s worth remembering that The Last of Us was an extremely violent video game, and the show does not shy away from brutality and occasional gore. It’s less overt than I expected, but each episode generally has at least one moment that’s not for the squeamish. That said, much of the human-on-human violence is pared back. With a few exceptions, it’s not too gratuitous or graphic, and a lot is implied. Regardless, I respect that large swaths of people might not be in the mood for a violent and often grim post-pandemic drama after three-plus years dealing with a real-life pandemic.

Despite those concerns, the end result is the best kind of adaptation, one that’s faithful to the spirit of the origin that also makes smart changes to fit the medium. In that way, it reminds me a bit of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, another personal favorite. While those movies made numerous deviations and changes, Jackson always framed them as a way to make the story work as well as possible in the film medium.

I feel the same way about The Last of Us. It’s not a one-to-one retelling, and I’m thankful for that – it wouldn’t have made for good TV. Instead, Craig Mazin took his love for Druckmann’s story and converted it to a show that many will enjoy, regardless of whether they’ve played the game. And for those of us who already love The Last of Us, this adaptation stands toe-to-toe with the original. There are tons of stunning moments that bring me directly back to what I love, but each episode also has a number of moments that surprised and delighted me, even though I know the overarching plot inside and out. It’s more than I could have hoped for, and I’m very excited that people who don’t play video games will get a chance to experience Joel and Ellie’s story through this excellent series.

Last fall, turntable Victrola released the $799 Stream Carbon, a record player that could wirelessly connect to Sonos speakers so you can play records all around your house. As a vinyl nerd who also has a bunch of Sonos speakers, this product felt like it was made for me — and while it's undeniably nice, it's also quite expensive. Just a few months later, though, Victrola is making good on its promise to expand its Sonos-compatible lineup with the Stream Onyx. Visually and functionally, it's very similar to the Stream Carbon, but it costs $599, 25 percent less than the Carbon.

It seems the main difference between the two turntables are the materials used, though Victrola's spec sheets note that the Stream Onyx is built with a "low-resonance" MDF plinth (or base) combined with metal turntable components. The tonearm here is aluminum, rather than the carbon fiber variety found on the Stream Carbon. The Carbon also has an aluminum headshell for the cartridge, while the Onyx appears to use plastic. 

The all-black design of the Stream Onyx does away with the striking silver front that made the Stream Carbon a distinctive piece of hardware — but if you're not in it for looks, the Onyx seems like a solid way to get the same streaming experience while saving some cash. The Onyx has the same simple counterweight system for the tonearm that I found extremely easy to set up, and it retains the large and useful volume knob right up front. 

And naturally, this turntable can connect to basically any Sonos speaker (or group of speakers) that has been released in the last decade. I tested the Stream Carbon with my old Play:1 speakers from 2015, as well as some newer models, and everything worked seamlessly — I expect that'll be the case with the Onyx, as well. If you already have a good set of wired speakers, the Onyx retains the classic RCA output in addition to its wireless capabilities.

Somewhat surprisingly, the Stream Onyx will be available very soon. Victrola says that it'll be up for pre-order directly, on Amazon or from a number of audio gear retailers for $599 starting on January 7th. The turntable should ship in February. 

iPadOS 16 launched a little later this year than its predecessors, and a few key features weren’t quite ready. With iPadOS 16.2, which just arrived this afternoon, I think Apple has caught up with what it planned. There are two major new features on board here. First, Stage Manager multitasking now works across an external display, provided you’re using an iPad with an M1 or M2 chip inside. Second, the collaborative brainstorming and productivity app Freeform is now available on the iPad (and on the iPhone and Mac, as well). 

Freeform is one of the more flexible and customizable apps Apple has made in a long time. For me, the first thing it reminded me of is a more ambitious version of Apple’s own Notes app. Over the years, Notes has become capable at handling a lot more than text — you can scan documents, add images, draw with the Apple Pencil on the iPad and more. The same can be said about Freeform, though it’s much less of a text-first app.

When you start a new document, you’re met with a ever-expanding blank canvas. At the top of the screen are just a few interface elements, most significantly the five items that let you add content to your board. Those main categories are Apple Pencil; sticky notes; a library of about 700 shapes and icons; text boxes; and a general-purpose “import” button that lets you pull in things from the Files app, your photo library or URLs you can paste in.

These features all seem pretty straightforward, but there’s a lot of underlying complexity to them. A text box opens with simple black text on the white background, but you can adjust size, fonts, colors, format and drop in three different types of lists. The shapes you can add are numerous and varied; most of them are flat, 2D representations of things like geometric shapes, animals, people, food, and so forth. But you can break apart a shape into its component pieces and move them around individually, resize them, change the colors or just use the one part of it that you really want. And any time you interact with an element in Freeform, guide lines will appear to help you line it up with the content around it. You can also group individual elements (like a text box and a photo) so that they respond as a single object.

Freeform is also pretty great at accepting different files and attachments. Links to things like articles on a web site or a YouTube video show up with the page title and a preview (unfortunately, YouTube videos don’t play right in Freeform itself). Some things, like photos and audio files, do work right in Freeform though — you can tap a photo to see it full screen or an audio file to hear what’s in it.

While Freeform works fine when using it on your own, Apple has clearly pitched it as a collaborative tool. I haven’t been able to try that yet, but now that the software is out of beta I should get a chance soon. But like the other collaboration features Apple included in iPadOS 16 this year, it’s easy to bring other people into a Freeform board. There’s a share button in the top right corner of the app, and you can invite people via email, the Messages app or just by sharing a link. 

When adding people via Messages, everyone in the thread is automatically added to the board as an editor (though you can change that if you want it to be read-only). Then, as people add their own content to the board, you can see what has changed via an activity feed. And for real-time collaboration, you can kick off a FaceTime call with everyone working on the document.

The updates to Stage Manager are more straightforward, mostly because we’ve had a chance to test them already. If you’re using an iPad with an M1 or M2 chip, you can connect an external display and extend your iPad’s screen, rather than just mirror it. This means you can have different groups of apps running on both the iPad’s built-in screen as well as the external monitor, just as you can on a Mac (or most other computers). 

When you connect to a monitor, the external display is blank by default. But if you move your cursor on to that screen and launch an app from the Dock, it’ll pop up there. You can also click any open apps on the iPad screen and send it to the other display via the three dot menu at the top of the screen. 

Just as on the iPad display, the layout of apps on your external display isn’t fully customizable. Instead, there are a wide variety of sizes you can set them to, and as you add more apps to a space they dynamically rearrange themselves. You have some flexibility to move things where you want, but pixel-perfect manipulation like you’re used to on a Mac isn’t possible. 

Despite these caveats, there’s no doubt that using an iPad with an external display is a lot more useful than it was before. Previously, you could only mirror your iPad’s display — being able to extend your iPad to a much larger screen is another big step towards making the tablet better suited for “real work.” 

As for Freeform, its usefulness will probably depend on how many Apple users there are in your orbit. If your workplace depends heavily on devices like Macs or iPads, it could gain some traction. But breaking a new tool into a workflow that’s already been established can be difficult, so how popular Freeform will get remains a big question mark. Of course, it’s not restricted to workplace use — maybe families where two partners are already using iPads will enjoy organizing vacations or other, more mundane life events with Freeform. 

In a world where most laptops are entirely sealed, with no real way to tweak the hardware, Framework’s modular devices stand out. The company’s first Windows laptop was a solid computer considering the price – and that’s before you factor in the fact that you could swap ports, easily add more storage or RAM or even upgrade the processor down the line.

It’s been a little over a year since the first Framework laptops launched, and now the company has a new model, the Framework Laptop Chromebook Edition (which I'll refer to as the Framework Chromebook from here on out). It offers the same benefits as its Windows sibling – namely, solid industrial design and specs coupled with the promise of customization and future expandability. That said, it’s also one of the more expensive Chromebooks available, starting at $999. That’s a lot of money for a Chromebook – but if it can last you five years or more, it might be worth the cost.

Hardware

Visually, the Framework Chromebook has little to distinguish it. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is very utilitarian, with a silver aluminum chassis that resembles so many other devices out there. Still, it’s a pretty compact device, less than two-thirds of an inch thick and weighing under three pounds. A classy reflective Framework logo on the lid is the only thing distinguishing it from an Acer, ASUS and other brands’ laptops.

A day or two later, I discovered that the Framework Chromebook does have one bit of flair: the black bezel around the screen is magnetic and easily removable. Framework actually provided me with a fun orange option, which I left on. You can also get a silver bezel if you want, but orange is a personal favorite. I’m hoping the company adds a few more colors in the future as well.

Inside that bezel is a 1080p webcam that’s totally fine for video calling. Also of interest is the fact that there are hardware switches for disabling the camera and microphones. This isn’t just a software trick either; the switches actually cut the power to those modules, making it a fairly secure option (though a physical cover over the camera would be pretty impenetrable, too).

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

While Framework devices are upgradeable, a few things are more permanent – namely, the display and keyboard. (You can replace both if they break, but there aren’t more advanced versions to upgrade your laptop with at this time. That could change, of course). Fortunately, both are excellent, as you’d hope for in a laptop at this price. The 13.5-inch display has a high resolution of 2,256 x 1,504, which translates to  a taller 3:2 aspect ratio that I wish were more common.

The main downside is that it’s not a touchscreen, something you’ll find on most Chromebooks. That makes installing touch-driven Android apps less appealing, though at this point most of the apps I use (Lightroom, Todoist, Spotify and video apps like Netflix) work fine with a keyboard and mouse. That minor disappointment aside, the screen is great. Text and images are sharp, and its 400-nit max brightness is more than sufficient unless you have sunlight coming through and shining right on the display.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

As you’d expect, Framework swapped out the Windows keyboard layout for one that will feel familiar to Chromebook users, with the “everything” button on the left in place of caps lock and the function row shortcuts like back, refresh and screenshot right where I expected. There’s no Google Assistant key, but you can easily access the Assistant in the ChromeOS search bar if you’re so inclined. The keyboard itself is excellent; the backlit buttons have 1.5mm of travel and are solid and precise. The key caps are a bit small, but it didn’t take me long to adjust. I do wish that Framework included the fingerprint sensor found on its Windows laptop, though. Given that plenty of other Chromebooks support fingerprint unlocking, I’m surprised it isn’t available here.

At $999, the Framework Chromebook isn’t cheap, but the company didn’t spare any expense with the processor. It features Intel’s 12th-generation Core i5-1240P CPU, along with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage on the base model. Most Chromebooks with comparable specs are similarly priced, so Framework’s laptop isn’t excessively expensive – but the question, as always, is whether spending that much money on a ChromeOS device is a good idea at all.

Swappable ports and expansion

Let’s get into what makes the Framework Chromebook unique. Instead of having a set of unchangeable ports, there are four slots for user-selectable Expansion Cards. Framework offers sockets for USB-C, USB-A, HDMI, DisplayPort, Ethernet and microSD. Additionally, you can use those connections for easily-swappable storage; Framework offers 250GB and 1TB modules. All the Expansion Cards are USB-C based; the ports on the laptop itself are just four recessed USB-C openings. This means you could use the storage cards with other computers to easily move files around.

I went with two USB-C ports (one on each side), USB-A and HDMI. Framework helpfully included an LED light on each side of the laptop so you confirm when you’re charging and when the battery is full. Everything functioned as I would have expected: the HDMI port worked just fine with my external monitor, and my old USB-A flash drive showed up with no issues. I also tested out the Ethernet Expansion Card, which was plug-and-play simple (though it’s bigger than the other cards and thus sticks out of the side of the machine).

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

I’m of two minds when it comes to these modules. On the one hand, the ability to customize what ports are available on your computer is pretty damn cool. If I used microSD or Ethernet more, for example, I’d love the ability to swap those in, or just load up on USB-C ports if I had a lot of compatible peripherals. But there are also plenty of Chromebooks that have USB-A, HDMI and microSD slots, which makes the Framework’s modular slots a little less compelling to me.

However, the fact that my needs are modest doesn’t change the fact that there are probably lots of people who want more flexibility in their laptop. Being able to drop an Ethernet port in for when you’re doing a lot of downloading and then swap it for USB-A if you’re hooking up older accessories is undeniably useful. It also future-proofs this laptop quite a bit. If you get rid of all your USB-A gadgets, for example, just throw in another UBC-C port or add more storage. There are tons of possibilities here that you just don’t get from a standard laptop.

These swappable ports are only one facet of the Framework Chromebook’s flexibility. Using the included Torx T5 screwdriver, I was able to loosen the five screws on the underside of the laptop and then lift the keyboard deck right off, exposing the laptop’s innards. It’s all laid out clearly and everything is labeled, and there are QR codes you can scan to go directly to upgrade guides. I didn’t change much under the hood, but Framework provided me with a second 8GB memory chip that I was able to install in about five minutes. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been able to upgrade my laptop’s RAM like this, and with two slots I could shove in up to 64GB of memory. That’s something that will make this Chromebook a useful machine for a long time.

And that’s to say nothing about upgrading the processor. The Framework Chromebook has Intel’s latest-gen chip on board, so there’s no need to change it now. But, Framework has already started offering new “mainboards” for its Windows laptop, which originally shipped with an 11th-generation Intel CPU. It seems likely that in a few years, when Intel has newer chips available, Framework will let you swap them in and give your old laptop a nice performance bump.

Another cool point about the swappable mainboard is the fact that if you decide ChromeOS isn’t for you, you could pick up a Windows-compatible mainboard and move on with your life running Microsoft’s OS. Framework says that the Chromebook has some ChromeOS-specific parts and firmware, which is why you can’t just wipe the device and install Windows. But being able to swap the mainboard and keyboard for Windows-compatible is another example of the customization at the heart of Framework.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

In use

As you’d expect, using the Framework Chromebook was basically identical to any other Chromebook with these specs. It’s a snappy, responsive laptop that can handle basically anything you might want to do in ChromeOS, including those aforementioned Android apps as well as web apps and a ton of Chrome tabs.

Battery life is the main downside here. I only got a little over six hours unplugged doing my normal work routine, and the battery lasted about eight hours and 15 minutes when looping playback of an HD video stored locally on the laptop. Framework did note there’s a battery-draining bug when using the laptop with either the HDMI or DisplayPort expansion cards installed; that should be fixed in a future software update. But even without those cards installed, I still got the same six or so hours of battery life.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Wrap-up

After my time with this Chromebook, I”m officially a fan of what Framework is doing. The laptop has few compromises compared to most other ChromeOS devices, namely battery life and a rather pedestrian appearance. But don’t mistake the lack of flash for poor design. The Framework Chromebook is extremely repairable for ordinary humans while still keeping a relatively small and light frame. And it also has a great screen and keyboard to go along with its powerful, upgradeable internals.

At $999, it’s one of the more expensive Chromebooks on the market, and you could get a comparable device like the Asus Chromebook Spin 714 for the comparatively low cost of $729. But, that device isn’t repairable or upgradeable at all, while the Framework Chromebook can easily be fixed by most people who buy one – and owners can also add more storage, RAM and hopefully even replace the processor down the line to keep it alive for a lot longer than your average laptop. For some people, especially those who feel like our gadgets shouldn’t be disposable things we replace every few years, that makes the Framework Chromebook worth the premium.

I am one of those obnoxious people who loves technology, but also occasionally listens to music on large slabs of vinyl. As such, I’m probably the target audience for Victrola’s Stream Carbon turntable. The $800 record player boasts some lovely industrial design and has the expected RCA jacks for connecting to standard speakers – but it can also wirelessly link up and stream music to any Sonos speakers in your house. It’s an unconventional marriage of analog and digital, but one that had me intrigued. And after spending some quality time with the Stream Carbon, I can say it sounds great and works as advertised, though it does feel a tad extravagant – especially at this price.

Visually, I found the Stream Carbon to be pretty striking, mixing mid-century modern minimalism with more recent flourishes. It’s certainly much lighter and less of an imposing presence than my Audio Technica AT-LP120 turntable (which itself closely resembles the classic Technics SL-1200). There’s a large, tactile knob on the front, which adjusts volume for your entire Sonos system. On the top, there’s not much to see besides the platter, a minimally adjustable tonearm, and a 33/45 RPM selector switch. (78 RPM is not an option.) Around back is a power port, Ethernet jack and RCA plugs for using the turntable with non-Sonos speakers.

My only complaint about the Stream Carbon’s design is its somewhat wonky dust cover, an unremarkable piece of plastic that covers the platter and tonearm. It’s not connected to the turntable in any way, and I often found myself wondering what to do with it when I was actually playing records. Not a huge deal, but worth knowing about ahead of time.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Setup was quite simple. The tonearm counterweight has two marks on it, each of which corresponds to the cartridge the Stream Carbon includes; my review unit came with the Ortofon Red 2M. Then it’s just a matter of putting the belt into place and dropping the platter and mat over the top. If I were using standard speakers, I’d just plug them in, but the whole point of testing the Stream Carbon was to get it hooked up to my Sonos network. Fortunately, that too was easy.

After installing the Victrola Stream app on my iPhone, it was just a matter of tapping “add a turntable” and adding it to my WiFi network. You then need to tell the turntable which Sonos speaker or group to use by default; I had set up two Play:1 speakers next to the turntable for this test. At that point, I didn’t need to do anything else in the Victrola app as everything playback related went through my Sonos system.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

I kicked things off with my bright pink Carly Rae Jespen EMOTION record; moving the tonearm automatically started the record spinning, and after a short delay the tunes started coming through my Sonos speakers. From there, I could use the Sonos app to bounce that music anywhere I wanted in my house. I have speakers on each floor of my home and could play all of them at once, or just a single set. It felt pretty weird and rather indulgent to put on a record on the first floor and listen to it up in my third-floor office, but it is definitely something I tried. Putting aside that somewhat odd use case, though, the Stream Carbon reliably worked with any and all Sonos products I have in my house – that includes a pair of older Play:1s, some gen-2 One speakers and the first-gen Beam soundbar.

After getting set up, I realized there was no real need to have a pair of speakers located directly next to the Stream Carbon. That should have been immediately obvious when I started setting things up, but it felt a little weird to have music automatically start playing on the Beam below my TV (the only other Sonos speaker in my living room). But there’s definitely something freeing about being able to place the Stream Carbon anywhere you want without having to worry about the physical proximity of the speakers you’re using. It didn’t make sense to put the turntable anywhere else in my living room, but I’d definitely consider a less traditional placement if I was building my setup from scratch.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

As for audio quality, that depends on your speakers and the condition of your records. When playing my newer vinyl, though, the Stream Carbon sounded great. I jumped between the sparse acoustic tones of Gustavo Santaolalla’s score for The Last of Us Part II and Howard Shores majestic orchestral compositions for the Lord of the Rings films to pop tunes like the aforementioned Carly Rae Jepsen record and a greatest hits compilation from Canadian electro-rock outfit Metric.

I’m no audiophile, but I was consistently impressed with the detailed soundscapes I heard with the combo of my Sonos speakers and the Stream Carbon. Noise from the records themselves was also minimal – my older albums like an original pressing of Metallica’s Master of Puppets and a late ‘70s copy of Pink Floyd’s Animals didn’t sound nearly as pristine, but the crackles and other sounds you hear from well-kept records were barely noticeable.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

One of the more unusual things about sound quality I noticed while using the Stream Carbon was that the Sonos Trueplay speaker tuning applies to record playback. If you haven’t used it before, Trueplay uses the microphone on an iPhone or iPad to listen to how a Sonos speaker sounds and adjust the audio to optimize it for the speaker’s placement in a room. Once you do this, the setting applies to anything being played through the speaker, whether it’s streaming audio through the Sonos app, audio from a connected TV or the Stream Carbon turntable.

While I almost always use Trueplay on my Sonos speakers, having it turned on while using the turntable felt like it further abstracted the concept of “listening to a record.” I was already turning the analog audio into ones and zeros by streaming it to the Sonos, and now I was applying a layer of digital enhancement to that music. At this point, I might as well have just streamed an album directly from Spotify or Apple Music to my speakers.

This gets at the heart of the questions I have about the Stream Carbon. Anyone who’s willing to spend $800 on a turntable is probably pretty serious about playing their record collection, and chances are they already have good speakers dedicated to that pursuit. That said, the Stream Carbon’s RCA outputs can easily be connected to traditional speakers, and the Sonos connectivity could just be a nice-to-have feature that you only occasionally use. But the market for people like that seems pretty small.

The Stream Carbon could also make sense for someone who already has Sonos speakers but wants to get into collecting records. But again, $800 for a turntable is a lot of money when you’re just getting started with a hobby. Then there’s someone like me, who has a bunch of Sonos speakers and a decent stack of records. My turntable and speakers are fine, but nothing to write home about; the combo of the Stream Carbon and my Sonos speakers was definitely an upgrade. But, would I spend $800 of my own money on it? Probably not. Instead, I would probably spend half that and pick up some speakers like the Audioengine A5+ or any number of other quality bookshelf speakers out there and get a comparable audio upgrade.

Even so, there’s a lot to like about Victrola’s Stream Carbon. It’s well-built, easy to set up and sounds great. And for Sonos fans, this is probably the easiest way to play records through the company’s speakers. It’s certainly a better option than shelling out $700 for the Sonos Amp, a component that you can attach to passive speakers to essentially turn them into Sonos-compatible speakers. But the Stream Carbon’s high price means that it’ll remain a niche product that could have a hard time attracting much of an audience – even among people like me, who still love playing records even in a world where listening to digital music is far easier.