Anker’s Nebula Mars II Pro is a surprising little portable mini projector. And I do mean little. It’s small enough to hide completely under a six-pack of Coke. With built-in streaming and a battery good for around three and a half hours of projection, the Mars II Pro is a great companion for a movie night in the backyard or somewhere farther afield. And in addition to being a projector, it’s also a big Bluetooth speaker.

Video quality will be good enough for many viewers, but compared with a similarly priced home projector it’s far dimmer, with worse contrast ratio and color accuracy. Compared with other tiny, battery-powered projectors however, the image is very watchable and speakers sound surprisingly powerful. 

The main reason to get the Mars II Pro is if you want ultra-portable video, especially outdoors. It’s easy to put near a wall or screen and stream some Netflix within minutes, anywhere. If you plan to use it regularly in the same room inside, however, you’re probably better off with a more traditional projector.

Editor’s note, Dec. 1: Due to its performance, size and price, we’re giving the Nebula Mars II Pro our Editors’ Choice award as our favorite portable projector. While there are newer portable mini projectors that are brighter and easier to use, the ones that outperform this Anker — like the Xgimi Halo Plus — are also more expensive. The Mars II Pro is a great all-around projector for the price.

Basic specs

• Native resolution: 1,280×720 pixels
• HDR-compatible: No
• 4K-compatible: No
• 3D-compatible: No
• Lumens spec: 500
• Zoom: None
• Lens shift: None
• Lamp life (Normal mode): 30,000 hours

The Mars II Pro is smaller than you might think. It would fit easily inside any backpack with plenty of room to spare for a water bottle, hoodie or camera. Anker could have made the carrying strap out of cheap-feeling plastic, but has a faux-leather top and is soft underneath. It’s nice to touch.

There are buttons on the top for all the basic functions, but no controls for zoom or focus. This is logical since there’s no zoom and focus is automatic. An integrated slide-open lens cap also turns the projector on and off.

To get a 100-inch image, the Mars II Pro needs to be about nine feet from the screen. Resolution is 720p, which is pretty low for a projector these days and lower than the competing ViewSonic M2, which is 1080p. The LED lamp is rated at 30,000 hours. 

Max brightness is a claimed 500 lumens. I measured about 37 nits, which calculates out to about 337 lumens. For comparison, the ViewSonic M2 produces 349 lumens by my measurements, while the slightly more expensive, but far less portable, Optoma HD146X puts out around 1,146. 

Anker claims the internal 12,500-mAh battery is good for about three and a half hours viewing time, and about that long to charge back up again. If you keep it in the high brightness mode, that drops to one and a half hours. If you’re just using the Mars II as a Bluetooth speaker, Anker claims about 30 hours for audio-only playback.

Though not specifically mentioned as a feature by Anker, some apps treat the Mars II Pro as a mobile device, so you can actually download shows to its 8GB internal storage. 

Connectivity and convenience

• HDMI inputs: 1
• USB port: 1 
• Audio input and output: 3.5mm output
• Digital audio output: None
• Wi-Fi: 802.11a/b/g/n
• Remote: Not backlit

There is one HDMI input, which is plenty on a projector like this. The USB port lets you stream content from a USB memory stick, or you can charge a device (like your phone), using the Mars II Pro’s beefy battery. 

That’s it for physical connections, other than the power port, which requires a separate power brick. That’s a bummer: I’m a hardliner “everything portable should charge via USB.” If you want to charge the projector away from home, you’ll have to pack the brick too.

The Mars II Pro’s runs Android 7.1, which puts all the streaming capability inside the PJ. So all you need is to tether the projector to your phone or connect to some available Wi-Fi. 

You don’t get the full Google Play Store, however, or even Android TV. Instead, it’s Aptoide, a sort of culled or curated version of the Play Store. It’s a bit of a liability with the ViewSonic M2, and it’s no better here. There’s Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Disney Plus and others you may or may not recognize. There’s HBO Nordic and HBO Go, but no US HBO or HBO Max. Chromecast is not supported. Overall it’s not bad, but you might not be able to find every service you’re used to.

The remote is wafer thin, but not backlit. That’s fine because you’re probably not going to use it. Instead, there’s the Anker Connect app (Android and iOS), which connects easily and does all the same things. In fact, some of the apps actually require the app. Control in the projector’s menus works fine, but it’s a bit clunky in the Netflix app for instance. Not a big issue, but it could be smoother.

There are two side-firing 10-watt speakers and a rectangular passive radiator in the front. That doesn’t sound like much, but it’s fairly loud and the sound quality is better than I expected from such a small device. This is one of the few projectors I’ve actually turned down to achieve a normal listening level.

Picture quality comparisons

I compared the Mars II Pro to the ViewSonic M2, another portable projector, and the Optoma HD146X, a traditional plug-in PJ. The M2 is very similar to the Anker, can run off a battery and also runs apps from the Aptoide store. The Optoma is a very different projector, and only a direct competitor in one sense: price. 

I have a feeling the Mars II Pro might attract the attention of someone not typically interested in projectors, so the Optoma is here as an example of what similar money can get you in a non-portable, standard projector. I connected these via a Monoprice 1×4 distribution amplifier and viewed all on a 102-inch 1.0-gain screen.

First up is brightness. The M2 and Mars II are remarkably similar. Their light outputs and contrast ratios are basically identical. In both cases, this amount is “fine.” Considering the size and their ability to run off batteries, somewhere around 300 lumens is acceptable. When creating a 100-inch image that equates to about 37 nits. That’s enough for a watchable, albeit dim, image. You’re better off moving the Anker closer, which will create a smaller but brighter image.

The Optoma, on the other hand, is significantly brighter than either one. On a same size screen I measured over 127 nits, which is over five times brighter than the Mars II. The Optoma is much more watchable at 100 inches. And if you use the Optoma’s most color accurate mode, it’s still twice as bright as the other two. 

And we definitely need to talk about color. The Mars II Pro has some of the least accurate colors of any projector I’ve ever reviewed. Blue is the only color out of the three primary and three secondary colors that is accurate. Green is oversaturated. Yellow isn’t but is quite greenish-yellow. Magenta is oversaturated and too blue. The result looks like you’ve got the color control a few ticks above where it should be. It’s not weird, per se, and overall it still looks better than the M2, but overall it’s definitely more Speed Racer than The Grand Budapest Hotel. 

Side by side with the Optoma, it’s night and day. Or at least Technicolor and Kodachrome. The Optoma isn’t super accurate itself, and actually errs on the side of being undersaturated, but its colors look far more natural than the Anker.

Unlike the Optoma, the Mars II doesn’t have extensive picture settings. It has two. You can adjust the color temperature: Normal, Cool and Warm, and even the most accurate (Warm) is still way too cool. You can adjust the lamp settings: Standard, Battery and Auto. Standard is its brightest. Battery is dim but gets you that three-plus hour view time. Auto switches between the two other modes depending on whether or not the projector is plugged in. That’s it. No brightness, contrast, tint. One result is that you can’t adjust contrast to restore clipped details in bright whites.

Contrast ratio, like the brightness, is acceptable given the category. I measured an average of 354:1 across all modes. That seems low, and it is, but the majority of sub-$1,000 projectors are only two or three times that. The high end of that performance range, the BenQ HT2050A is 2,094:1. The ViewSonic is basically the same as the Anker, at 376:1. The Optoma is 568:1. 

The Anker’s image lacks punch but not as much as you might think. In fact, because the Anker’s black level is a little lower than the M2 it looks a little better. The M2 is very slightly brighter, which isn’t noticeable. That black level is even lower than the Optoma, but that projector is so much brighter this edge isn’t relevant. 

Lastly we come to detail. Both the M2 and HD146X are 1080p to the Anker’s 720p. On a 100-inch screen this is most noticeable if you’re close enough to notice the individual pixels, which are fairly large. If you shrink the image down to 60-80 inches, it looks detailed enough that it doesn’t look soft. 

Conclusion

Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much from the Mars II Pro. I’ve been underwhelmed with most battery-powered portable projectors I’ve reviewed. I’ve also found that companies not known for video gear tend to miss some important things when it comes to projectors. For instance, picture quality. 

Overall I’m impressed that Anker got a lot right with the Mars II Pro. At least when graded on the curve of price, size and battery power. Compared with an average home projector it comes up short in every performance metric, so If you’re looking for something that will never stray too far from an outlet, you’re better off with a more “traditional” projector. But if you want something portable to watch movies outside, the Mars II Pro has a great design, sounds good, is easy to use and has a more watchable image than the ViewSonic M2 — all for less money.

As well as covering TV and other display tech, Geoff does photo tours of cool museums and locations around the world, including nuclear submarines, massive aircraft carriers, medieval castles, airplane graveyards and more. 

You can follow his exploits on Instagram and YouTube, and on his travel blog, BaldNomad. He also wrote a bestselling sci-fi novel about city-sized submarines, along with a sequel.

Compact
soundbars
like the Vizio M-Series 2.1 and the Yamaha SR-C20A offer improved TV sound in a small package. 4K HDR streamers like the Chromecast with Google TV and Roku Streaming Stick Plus deliver better streaming to any TV. Until now, however, no product has combined the two into a single, do-it-all package under $150. That’s what the Roku Streambar does, and it does the job very well.

The Streambar follows the footsteps of last year’s Roku Smart Soundbar with a smaller size and more affordable price. Usually the biggest issue with hybrid devices is that they’ve compromised too much in some area, and while the Streambar isn’t sonically perfect — its lack of bass is its biggest weakness — it makes up for that with excellent sound for dialogue and an ability to fill a room that belies its tiny footprint. Sure, it lacks a subwoofer, but even without one it can still beat your TV’s speakers . 

Then again, so can a lot of other soundbars. If you want superior sound and don’t need streaming, the Yamaha SR-C20 or
Vizio V21
are better choices. The Roku Streambar is cheaper than either one, however, and makes perfect sense for people who don’t already have a good streamer hooked up to their TV. If you want to be able to hear your TV better, particularly vocals, and also enhance its streaming capabilities, it’s an excellent value. 

Editor’s note, Dec. 3: Due to its performance, size and price, we’re giving the Roku Streambar our Editors’ Choice award as our favorite budget soundbar. While there are newer soundbars that outperform the Roku, they are also more expensive, and none includes video streaming onboard. This review first appeared on Oct. 14, 2020.

What it is

The Roku Streambar is a 2.0-channel soundbar with side-firing “wide” speakers, and the company says its onboard streaming capabilities are equivalent to those of the Roku Streaming Stick Plus. The system will process 5.1 audio, which means you can upgrade the system at a later date with Roku’s wireless subwoofer and surround speakers or the Walmart-exclusive Onn products. 

The main differences between the Streambar and the original Roku Smart Soundbar are size and shape. The Smart Soundbar is 32 inches wide, while the Streambar is much more compact at 14 inches. Although I haven’t heard the two side by side, I can pretty much guarantee the larger cabinet generates more bass.

The Streambar includes
Roku’s
voice remote, which lets you issue commands by speaking into the clicker. On the side, the remote includes volume controls and mute. The shortcuts at the bottom include Netflix, Disney Plus and Hulu.

The Streambar offers “simple volume modes” which “lower loud commercials, boost the volume of voices and optimize the sound for night listening” as well as adjusting bass levels — handy for controlling an external sub. It’s worth noting that since I performed this review in October 2020 Roku has added a series of additional sound modes, which now include Music, Movie, Night, and Speech. I aim to test the new sound profiles as soon as I can.

Connectivity includes an optical digital input and HDMI with audio return channel capability. It’s designed to connect to a TV and if you have other devices, such as a game console, you’ll need to use your TV as a switcher. The soundbar is also equipped with
Bluetooth
and Spotify Connect, while Apple AirPlay 2 support is coming soon.

How it performs

The team at CNET has written at length about our experiences with Roku streamers so I won’t dwell on the bar’s streaming capabilities here. Suffice to say it’s our favorite streaming platform and the Streambar is more of the same. The menus were familiar and simple, the response speed and picture quality were as excellent as expected and the voice remote was a joy to use as always.

Instead I’m going to focus on sound quality. The Streambar is smaller than most soundbars but after I plugged it in I was struck by how naturally it performed with dialogue. There was no chestiness on male voices — a problem with some soundbar/subwoofer combos — and dialogue had the articulation that made it easy to follow the story. I had been listening to a pair of Elac Uni-Fi 2.0 speakers immediately preceding the Streambar and it was easy to imagine that I still was. Given that vocal articulation is the Elac speaker’s priority this is probably the highest praise I could give the Roku speaker.

Of course there were differences, almost certainly due to the Roku’s tiny cabinet. When I compared the Streambar with the Yamaha SR-C20 the Roku’s lack of bass or even midbass was immediately apparent. With Mad Max: Fury Road the Roku again made dialogue understandable while also making it appear to come from around the room. The Roku’s side-firing speakers really do help create a large image. In comparison the Yamaha speaker’s Virtual:X software did a similarly good job distributing sound around my listening space, but when Max spins up his Charger’s engines, the Yamaha pulled ahead.

The Roku is so physically tiny that the engines and onscreen explosions in Mad Max had little impact. The Yamaha was able to better capture the roar of the cars and the blast that catapults Max into the air. The Yamaha lacked the oomph that a dedicated sub can bring, but was a better fit than the Roku for people who want to watch more than the news and dramas.

The lobby scene from the The Matrix was next and the Yamaha offered more of a balanced sonic mix, with less high-frequency and more low-end. The Roku sounded a little shrill in contrast, particularly with the falling bullet casings. Changing the sound mode to bass boost helped a little, but the Yamaha was better.

Adding the $130 Onn subwoofer to the Roku helped quite a bit. Finally I could hear the chugging bass score, the shotgun blasts had more impact and the falling shell casings weren’t as piercing or irritating. If you are looking for an easy, economical upgrade to the Streambar, the Onn subwoofer is recommended. 

With music the Roku again lagged behind the Yamaha for the same basic reason — lack of bass response. There isn’t a dedicated music mode, which is a shame for people who want to use the Streambar for listening to tunes from their
phones
or music apps like Spotify. Songs like Doves’ Cathedrals of the Mind sounded hollow on the Roku, despite its excellent vocal articulation, and again the Yamaha made the song fuller and more engrossing.

Should you buy it?

If you want real home cinema thrills you still need to spend more than $130 on a soundbar — although the Roku’s ability to add the subwoofer and rear-channel speakers does give you a clear upgrade path if you want. The $130 Roku Streambar is for people who value small size and simplicity yet still want better sound and streaming for their TV. It’s easy to connect and set up (one cable!), it’s just as easy to use and its streamer behaves like an ordinary Roku in every respect. And that’s a good thing.

First published Oct. 16 2020.

There’s no missing a Range Rover. Whether it’s the prominent letters emblazoned fore and aft, or the unmistakable silhouette, this large luxury utility vehicle has capital-P presence everywhere it goes, and its latest generation is no different. The 2023 Range Rover holds true to the tenets that have kept this ute at the top of the luxo-barge pile, and its latest batch of changes will certainly keep it there for years to come.

At first, I thought the 2023 Range Rover’s aesthetic was a bit too close to that of its predecessor but getting up close and personal has changed my tune. The new model looks stunning in person. There isn’t a single overwrought design element on the exterior; the body panels are as smooth as glass and devoid of shouty features. The way the Range’s signature vertical taillights now integrate seamlessly into the tailgate’s horizontal black elements makes the new rear end look like a freakin’ spaceship. I’m especially a fan of my tester’s $7,450 satin-finish gold paint, which plays well against the blacked-out trim ($1,000), black roof ($1,000) and 23-inch black alloy wheels ($900).

The Range Rover’s cabin prioritizes simplicity over the last generation, and it works well. The busiest parts of the interior have all been smoothed over, starting with the vents that now comprise a single unbroken element between the dark and light parts of the dashboard. The window switches have been moved down near the door handles. The center console offers way more accessible storage, no longer shoving the cup holders off to the side while also making room for a cubby and a wireless device charger under the climate controls. The 13.1-inch touchscreen and 13.7-inch digital gauge cluster don’t look like tacked-on afterthoughts. The heated, cooled, massaging front seats are supremely comfortable on longer trips, keeping road fatigue at bay.

My tester is the short-wheelbase variant, so there are only two rows of seats, but those in the back may have it even better than the folks up front. The rear seats offer an impressive amount of recline, and the front passenger seat can be shoved forward so a chauffeured individual can make use of the foldable footrest. The middle seat is actually a mechanized center console, slowly descending and extending to reveal an additional control panel and, with a little extra motor motion, two cup holders. The short-wheelbase Range Rover still offers a meaty 43 cubic feet of cargo space, and the motorized tonneau cover means whatever is stashed back there will remain out of view.

All that serenity stays at the forefront, even when the 2023 Range Rover is in motion. My tester packs a BMW-sourced 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8 engine, making 523 horsepower and 553 pound-feet of torque. It’s enough to shove off from every stoplight with an alarming amount of authority, but the engine note never really rises to a clamor — it stays off in the distance, offering just enough rumble to remind you it’s there. The standard eight-speed automatic transmission does a good job on the upshifts, but it can feel a little janky on the way back down, mostly within the last few feet of stopping. It’s not really a major source of annoyance; if anything, it has me excited for how smooth the upcoming electric variant will be.

It’s impressive how every driving input is tailored for outright smoothness. The Range Rover’s gas pedal offers plenty of room for smooth, gradual starts, while the brake pedal’s long, squishy throw makes head-bob-free limo stops easy to execute. The steering is overboosted to high heaven, with a lightweight feel that makes it easy to make small adjustments without jostling the occupants.

The Range Rover’s ride quality is palatial, right up there with the Rolls-Royce Cullinan. The standard air suspension soaks up nearly every road imperfection and returns nothing but softness. Save for a bit of wind noise around the mirror and A-pillar at Michigan’s 80-mph average highway pace, the cabin is free of any clamor that isn’t coming from the standard Meridian surround-sound system. In fact, the noisiest part of the whole Range Rover experience comes at the beginning and end, when the flush door handles retract or extend from the body, which is a surprisingly loud affair. I’m kind of surprised they aren’t quieter.

The motorized door handles are cool, and while they undoubtedly contribute to better fuel economy, the numbers still aren’t great with a V8 under the hood. The EPA estimates this Range Rover is good for 16 mpg city and 21 mpg highway, numbers I had no problem matching over a few hundred miles of urban and interstate cruising. Then again, considering CNET’s long-term Hyundai Santa Cruz only offers 3 mpg more at freeway speeds, perhaps these numbers aren’t too shabby, given how much luxury the Range Rover drags along with it.

Cabin tech has long been a hit-or-miss affair with Jaguar Land Rover, but the 2023 Range Rover’s infotainment system is firmly in the former category. The 13.1-inch touchscreen runs JLR’s Pivi Pro telematics software. The aesthetics are good, the menus are easy to navigate and the responsiveness is better than it’s ever been. But it’s still not free of random frustrations. Over my week with the Range Rover, wireless Apple CarPlay stopped working mid-drive about a half-dozen times and wouldn’t work again until I turned the SUV off and back on. If you’d rather skip the phone-based software, the Range Rover’s embedded navigation works great.

The 2023 Range Rover is also loaded with all the standard safety systems its parent company can whip up. The adaptive cruise control is nice and smooth, and the hands-on lane-keep-assist system dramatically reduces the tedium on longer road trips. The surround-view camera and parking sensors make any parallel parking job a breeze, but you can always ask the car to handle that legwork, too, with available hands-free parking assist. My favorite part comes when reversing; the system will let me know when I’m parked too close to an object for the trunk to open fully.

While the 2023 Range Rover starts just a hair over $100,000, my V8-powered First Edition tester is loaded up with all the bells and whistles as standard, sending that starting price to an eye-watering $159,550, including $1,350 in destination. Throw in the aesthetic packages I mentioned earlier, and you’re staring down a bill of $169,900. The SV trim is still more expensive, nearly cresting the $200,000 mark in short-wheelbase form, but the First Edition isn’t far behind.

But you get what you pay for, and your money is not going to waste on the 2023 Range Rover. This car is, simply put, one of the best luxury-vehicle experiences money can buy right now. Its on-road demeanor is next to none, and it has a style and presence that many other luxury cars can’t match. 

Editor’s Note, Dec. 2022: New releases in the $30 HD streaming category, such as the Chromecast with Google TV HD, have outpaced the Fire TV Stick Lite in terms of both features and value. We have adjusted the rating of this product from an 8.1 to a 6 in order to reflect the changing landscape.

Roku
is the biggest name in streaming hardware, with multiple different streamers available right now, and even more TVs and soundbars. Amazon has been gunning for Roku’s slice of the pie ever since the first
Fire TV
appeared. The $30 Amazon Fire TV Lite is the company’s cheapest streamer, an answer to the $30 Roku Express and as you’d expect its biggest advantage over Roku is the Alexa voice assistant.

Amazon also has a $40 Fire Stick but I would argue that the Fire Stick TV Lite is the better deal. The main difference is that the more expensive Stick has a different remote with power, volume and mute buttons to control your TV. If you’re only using this streamer on a cheap TV anyway, it’s worth saving the money, unless you really want TV control.

So is the $30 Fire TV Lite better than the $30 Roku Express? They mostly have the same selection of apps, now that Fire TV has Peacock, so the important differences are in the menu systems and voice support. The Lite’s built-in access to Alexa is a big advantage if you like speaking instead of typing when you search for shows and launch apps. In the end, I liked the Fire TV Lite a bit better, although the Roku Express is still an excellent choice too. If your TV has an 
HDMI
 port, the Fire TV Stick Lite is a great way to equip it with a wealth of streaming for not much money.

What is it?

The Fire TV Lite is a USB stick-sized device which plugs into a spare HDMI port on your TV. For 30 bucks it offers a lot of features, including that dedicated voice remote that allows integration with the Alexa voice assistant. There’s also dozens of supported 
streaming services
 among its thousands of available apps.

The remote hasn’t physically changed much since the first Fire TV and I didn’t like the feel as much as the Roku remote or the new Google TV remote. Amazon’s clicker also lacks the shortcuts to 
Netflix
 or other often-used services, but it does include a new live TV button. 

Pressing that new bottom button brings up a grid-style live TV guide populated by default with “channels” of free shows from Pluto TV and Starz. Strangely Amazon’s own IMDb TV is not part of the live TV grid, even though it has its own program grid once you open the app. If you happen to subscribe to YouTube TV, you’ll also see shows and channels from that service in the guide, although it didn’t work with Sling TV (subscribers will have to use the Sling app as usual).

The stick itself comes with a power adapter which Amazon strongly recommends you use. While you could use the USB ports on your device to power it I found it could cause the unit could behave strangely. For example, Dolby Atmos content wouldn’t work at all when plugged into a TV USB port, despite the device declaring “Dolby Atmos” — the sound came out as 5.1.

One feature on the Lite’s feature list seems a little out of place: HDR compatibility. This is the first device we’ve seen to offer HDR but not 4K resolution, and it raises the question of what kind of TV it’s designed for. There are hundreds of 4K HDR TVs out there but, based on a search of the Best Buy site, there are only four 1080p TVs that can do HDR. For most people with 4K HDR TVs, we’d recommend getting a streamer that can actually do 4K instead of a 1080p streamer like the Lite.

Lots of streaming apps

Like other streaming devices the number of services that Amazon Fire TV supports is improving all the time. It can access almost all of the major streaming apps, including 
Amazon Prime Video
, Peacock, HBO Max, Netflix, Hulu, Sling TV, Crackle, Pluto TV, Tubi TV, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify and many, many more. 

What it’s like to use

The healthy complement of features, tightly integrated voice commands and its relative speed makes for a winning combination. In general opening apps was speedy, and only navigating the home page tiles could give a very occasional slow-down, but nothing that spoiled the experience. 

Using the Fire TV Stick Lite remote is easy, and Alexa searches with the microphone button were more responsive and relevant than using the Echo as a go-between. Only once in a while did I wish for a mute button, and that was usually during the autoplay videos that accompany the tiles on the home page.

I appreciated being able to use either the remote or an Alexa speaker for voice commands, but using an Echo speaker didn’t work with every app I tried. Asking for “Umbrella Academy” on Netflix failed, for example, and I just got a “check your skills” message (there is no official Netflix skill in the Alexa app). 

Using the remote instead of a speaker was more successful, but even that wasn’t infallible. Given that YouTube TV is now tightly integrated I hoped that voice search would work better than it does. For instance I asked for “Battle Bots on YouTube TV” and all I got were YouTube and Amazon “buy” links. Amazon Prime video worked well with Alexa voice, however.

In contrast, Roku may not have the same robust voice capabilities, but text and voice searches via the Roku remote are generally more targeted toward the free/included programs rather than simply pointing to “buy now” links.  

Picture and sound quality were also very good, but the lack of an audio format control beyond “Best Available” could lead to some odd problems. For example, The Legend of Korra on Netflix using the Lite only gave me stereo sound (though it should be capable of 5.1), whereas the new Fire Stick did give me the expected 5.1. Other programs, including Jack Ryan on Amazon, were played in Atmos on the Lite so it wasn’t likely a hardware capability issue. More likely a Netflix one, and when I reached out to Amazon for clarification, a spokesperson confirmed the device supports both 5.1 and 7.1. 

There are two different schools of thought when it comes to how streaming devices organize their content. App-centric menus like Roku and Apple TV just show you a grid of apps, so you can’t actually browse for something to watch without clicking through to each app. Amazon Fire TV and Google TV take a more content-focused approach, surfacing lots of titles on the home page itself. 

If you like to graze for content, the Fire TV might be more appealing, although the “live tiles” autoplay video can be jarring. If you know what you want already, or at least what app you want to watch, Roku is probably a better choice, in part because Amazon’s search results skew heavily toward its own content (often at extra cost). 

Watch this: All of the announcements from Amazon’s crazy fall event

11:11

Should you buy it?

If you want an ultracheap, capable streamer and are embedded with Alexa and the Amazon universe, this product makes a lot of sense. You may or may not miss the TV control functions but the Live TV Guide button is a real bonus for cord-cutters in particular. At $30 it’s a worthy streamer and a great stocking filler.

If, on the other hand, you have the 2019 Fire Stick, there’s absolutely no reason for you to buy either of the 2020 versions. Dolby Atmos and/or Dolby Vision are weird add-ons for 1080p devices, and if you have a decent 4K TV then you should get a real 4K streamer — it’s just another $20.

First published Oct. 8 2020, updated June 2021 with addition of Peacock.

“My name is Hummer, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

The GMC Hummer EV isn’t here to be practical. It’s a moonshot vehicle, an aspirational purchase that seeks to convince internal combustion, bro-truck holdouts that the cars of the future can be “badass,” too. But after a week behind the wheel of this brodozer, even with all the whiz-bang tech tucked away in here, the Hummer EV still feels like a relic of the past, desperately fighting against the tide while trying to fit into a more eco-conscious future where it probably shouldn’t exist at all.

I’ll start with the parts that I think GM got right — as “right” as a 9,000-pound electric truck can get, at least. While I prefer the silhouette of the upcoming SUV variant to this pickup-truck body, I will say that the Hummer EV looks every bit the beast that it is. The boxy fender flares comprise nearly half of the real estate on each side. It’s imposingly large in every dimension. The giant running light with “HUMMER” etched into it makes the vehicle’s presence known well before it blots out the sun for smaller vehicles as it passes by. It’s extremely in-your-face.

GMC rolled out its biggest, most powerful Hummer EV first, and it practically breaks physics when experienced. Two motors at the rear axle combine with one on the front axle to produce a net 1,000 horsepower and somewhere north of 1,000 pound-feet of torque. (I am not parroting GMC’s practically duplicitous use of five-digit at-the-wheel torque figures.) Even though the Hummer EV weighs as much as 1.5 GMC Sierra heavy-duty pickups, it’ll reach 60 mph in right about 3 seconds, which is supercar territory. It doesn’t make sense — and it’s even harder to parse this reality when you’re focused on keeping this rocket-powered aircraft carrier pointed straight — but it’s impressive that something can actually do this, especially repeatedly.

Another high point in the Hummer EV comes from GM tech that’s been kicking around for a while already. Super Cruise can control the vehicle’s driving, steering and braking on certain pre-mapped stretches of highway across the US, and it’s truly the best hands-free system on sale today. It feels no different in the Hummer EV; even with its Brobdingnagian footprint, Super Cruise keeps the car smack-dab in the center of its lane, whether the road is curvy or straight. It’ll even change lanes on its own now, and it does so with an impressive smoothness. It does an amazing job reducing the tedium of longer drives, and there were very few times when the system requested that I step in and handle a specific portion of road.

The rest of the Hummer EV’s cabin tech isn’t too shabby, either. Rising from the center of the dashboard is a 13.4-inch touchscreen running the latest iteration of GM’s corporate infotainment system. It offers wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, in addition to a whole bunch of integrated Google apps, including Maps. Epic Games’ Unreal Engine handles the graphics, and they’re damned good. The display is large enough to offer split-screen functionality, including the ability to run Google Maps alongside whatever smartphone mirroring is running. The 12.3-inch digital gauge display also offers some slick aesthetics, and it’s easy to customize using the steering wheel controls.

That’s it, though. Those are all the new tricks that this old dog knows. And once the veneer of physics-defying entrail rearrangement fades, all that’s left is a mediocre electric truck with the curb weight of a dying star. The Hummer EV becomes a bit of a Bummer EV, if you will.

As interesting as the Hummer EV’s cabin can look, going beyond a glance reveals some extremely middling material. Yes, I know the Hummer EV is a pickup that can be an open-air vehicle (more on its T-tops later), and thus some degree of durability is required in the cabin. But man, everything just feels so cheap. The dashboard and center console are made of cold, rock-hard plastic that feels like it was cribbed from a rental-spec Chevy Equinox. The use of leather pretty much stops and starts at the seats and steering wheel. What looks like leather on the door panels and center armrest is actually a unique rubberized material that, while it carries some interesting looks, again feels unworthy of a $100,000 price tag. Hell, when I open up the armrest to access the cubby, I’m met with more hard plastic and exposed bolts. On something that costs Range Rover money. Yeesh.

More than a few corners feel cut on the Hummer EV, even in its most expensive Edition 1 guise. The headlight and wiper stalks lack illumination, as do the physical switches that handle climate-control duties on the center touchscreen, so if you haven’t committed all that switchgear to memory, good luck trying to use it at night. Thanks to issues with its vertical windows, GM couldn’t get auto-up windows to work, so they just weren’t included — and yet, Ford’s supplier seems to build them just fine for the Bronco’s equally steep windows.

There are some strange ergonomics at play in the Hummer’s cabin, too. The shifter is twice as large as it needs to be, and my admittedly lanky hands still have a hard time gripping it comfortably. The rear glass is at the perfect angle to constantly reflect the infotainment screen in the rearview mirror at night, obstructing visibility. The passenger side mirror is weirdly zoomed in, presumably because it’s located two states away from the driver, which makes precision parking and lane changes more perilous than necessary.

Ride quality is good, but not great. I wouldn’t fault you for thinking that something with the mass of an office complex and thick, off-road-ready tires would absorb everything short of an earthquake. And while the Hummer EV’s standard air suspension does soak up a good number of pavement inconsistencies, something about the ride still feels flinty in execution, like there’s some inherent performance-oriented stiffness built in where it maybe shouldn’t be. Those tires do generate a good bit of road noise, as well, but thankfully that’s drowned out by the constant hiss of air sneaking through the T-tops and the sound of the wind slamming against the steep rakes of the windshield and mirrors. This is not a quiet car.

Perhaps GM’s greatest achievement in this entire exercise is that the company managed to build an electric vehicle that is extravagantly inefficient. While its battery is rated for a solid 329 miles per charge, it requires over 200 kilowatt-hours of capacity to do so, or about twice what most cars with big batteries have. Over my week with the Hummer EV, wintry weather did its best to kneecap that range, and I ended up seeing only about 230 miles until I had to seek out some juice. That comes out to a little over 1.1 kilowatt-hours per mile, about one-third the efficiency of a Hyundai Ioniq 5 tested in equally chilly weather.

Blissfully, the Hummer EV’s Ultium platform means it can accept the fastest charges currently offered. Plug this thing into a 350-kilowatt DC fast charger and it will do its best to hoover up every electron as fast as possible, which is good, seeing as how I’m basically charging two “normal” EVs back-to-back.

It’s all so damn wasteful. I just keep thinking about how the battery pack in one of these could instead be used to put not one, but two Equinox or Blazer EVs on the road. As most other automakers — including primary competitor Ford — focus on rolling out affordable electric vehicles that people need more than want, GM is over here throwing two batteries’ worth of rare metals into six-figure moonshots for the chronically insecure.

I could forgive some of the Hummer EV’s warts if it didn’t cost $110,295 including $1,595 in destination charges. And yes, there are lesser-equipped, lower-range Hummer EVs coming down the pipeline, which will carry more palatable price tags that better suit its interior quality. But my tester is sitting here asking for Range Rover or Mercedes EQS money, where you can still get oodles of propulsion, but you also get a cabin that doesn’t feel like a minimum viable product. When that’s considered, it doesn’t feel like a good use of that much money. Hell, you could buy two Ford F-150 Lightning Pro electric trucks for that price. Two!

The GMC Hummer EV is proof that electrification won’t change too much about our lives. There will still be room on our roads for something that is unnecessarily large and wasteful, something that looks like it could be for work purposes but decidedly is not, as is the American car-buying tradition. Being big and dumb for no good reason will not go gently into that good night, even though it probably should.