The first 5 things you should do with the Xbox Series S

The new Microsoft Xbox Series X and Series S consoles are officially up for purchase. Stocks continue to remain low, but if you haven’t managed to get your hands on one, then do check out our restock guide. For the ones who did manage to purchase one, specifically the Series S, we’ve got some pointers for setting up your new gaming console. Hooking up the console to your TV or monitor is fairly simple. Plug the power cable and connect the console to your display using the HDMI cable and hit the power button. The inbuilt system should guide you to easily create/connect an Xbox account using the dedicated smartphone app. Once you are done, make sure you download the latest Xbox November 2020 update that recently began rolling out for all users. Additionally, there are few things that you can tinker with for the best and optimized experience. Here are five things you should do with your Xbox Series S:

Configuring TV Settings

One of the first things you should be doing, before beginning your gaming journey, is checking in your TV settings to ensure the best experience.

The Xbox Series S is optimized for 1440p at 120Hz so that is what you should be aiming for. However, it can stretch to 4K at 60Hz as well. Now depending on your TV or monitor, you can choose the correct output. If you are unsure about the specifications of your display, then you check that by going to Settings > General > TV & Display Options > 4K TV Details option. This will give you all the capabilities of your display including the resolution, refresh rate, as well as HDR support. You can also fine-tune the picture quality with the Calibrate TV option that lets you tweak colors, brightness, and contrast levels for your display.

Additionally, you can power up your TV when you turn on your Xbox thanks to HDMI CEC (consumer electronics control). To do so, head over to Settings, General, and then Power mode & startup. Scroll down and select TV & A/V power options under which you can enable HDMI CEC. Here you will find options to power up your TV using the Xbox along with other controls.

Voice Assistant setup

Did you know that the new Xbox consoles can be controlled using digital assistants? To set up Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa with your new Xbox Series S head over to Settings and scroll down to Devices & Connections. Under that, there should be an option for Digital Assistants. Once you enable support for digital assistants, you will have to finish your setup using the digital assistant app on your phone.

Once you have connected the digital assistant with your new Xbox, you can give voice commands to your preferred choice of assistant. Some of these include:

• Hey Google, play Forza Horizon on Xbox
• Hey Google, turn on/off Xbox
• Hey Google, pause/resume on Xbox
• Hey Google, mute Xbox
• Hey Google, record that on Xbox
• Hey Google, take a screenshot on Xbox
• Alexa, tell Xbox to turn on/off
• Alexa, tell Xbox to pause/resume
• Alexa, tell Xbox to turn volume up/down
• Alexa, tell Xbox to launch Forza Horizon
• Alexa, tell Xbox to launch Netflix

Transferring Games

Most of the Xbox One games are supported on the new Xbox Series S. If you already have an Xbox account synced with your older console, the transition should be seamless. Right after you sign in to your account on the new console, you should easily get all of them under your games library along with the save files. Make sure you check for updates before launching them so that they are optimized for the new console.

You can additionally transfer your games manually if you don’t want to put a load on your internet bandwidth. The easiest way to do that is by using an external hard drive. Just transfer your compatible games to the drive and plug it into your new Series S and copy them. Since you are essentially only moving to the same Xbox ecosystem, the new console should recognize your games. You can also directly transfer your games using a local network. For that, turn on both your new and your old Xbox consoles. Open Settings and head to System on both the consoles. You should see a Backup and Transfer option where you need to select Network Transfer and enable it. On your new Xbox, head back to Network Transfer where you should see your old console that is connected to your local network. Select your old Xbox and select the games that you want to move. It should take a while before all the games are transferred,

Note: The Series S does not come with an optical drive which means that if you have physical copies of your games, then you cannot use them. You can only use those on the Xbox Series X which comes with a built-in blue-ray drive.

Get an External SSD for your Xbox Series S

The Series S comes with a 512GB NVMe SSD out of which only 364GB is accessible. Considering the size of modern gaming titles, it can fill up rather quickly. Yes, the games are relatively smaller compared to the Series X (since they aren’t 4K), but you won’t be able to have more than 6-8 titles at a time. Microsoft does offer a 1TB storage expansion card that basically becomes a part of your internal storage but that costs about $220. Now for that extra money, you could just go for the Series X, and get added performance along with larger storage. It is best to make use of an external hard drive if you have one lying around. Sure, the internal SSD and expansion cards are going to be faster than any external storage medium, but you could meet that halfway by investing in a fast external SSD like the Samsung T7, which is a very decent option if not the best. Currently, the Samsung T7 is selling for about $80 for the 500GB version and $150 for the 1TB version.

Parental Controls on the Xbox Series S

If your Xbox Series S is going to be shared by your entire family, especially with kids, then Microsoft offers a pretty useful set of parental controls. You can set timers for when and how long a child can play, monitor, and manage their activity as well as set limitations on specific content. To set it up, head over to Settings, and then click on Account > Family Settings. There is also the dedicated Xbox Family Settings app that includes all the necessary tools accessible easily on your Android or iOS smartphone. This a more convenient way to gain control over your child’s experience from almost anywhere and the best part is that it only required a Microsoft Account. Once you sign in, you add your child’s profile and grant certain permissions. The app also shows stats of your child’s usage so you can restrict the usage in case he or she is spending too much time gaming.

Xbox Family Settings (Free, Google Play) →

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The year 2020 has been pretty interesting for gamers. Apart from the new consoles from Microsoft and Sony, PC gaming enthusiasts were also enticed by NVIDIA and AMD who launched their new GPU upgrades, both of which are unsurprisingly very high in demand, but low in supplies. Additionally, AMD is also heating up the competition against Intel in the CPU segment with its new Ryzen 5000 series that focuses on high-performance thanks to its Zen 3 architecture based on the 7nm node. While the new GPUs make sense for PC gamers and enthusiasts who don’t mind getting into their systems, the new consoles are the way to go for many average users. Just plug in, and play. But do pay some attention to these smaller changes that we list above.

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The Huawei FreeLace Pro are a fantastic alternative to the FreeBuds Pro

The Huawei FreeLace Pro launched at HDC 2020 alongside a slew of other Huawei products. I enjoyed the Huawei FreeBuds Pro which launched at that event and crowned them as the best TWS earphones I’ve ever used. Huwaei was kind enough to send us a pair of the FreeLace Pro for review just a couple of weeks back, and they sound just as good. Both the FreeLace Pro and the FreeBuds Pro offer 40dB active noise cancellation. At a starting price of €119 in Europe, these are significantly cheaper than the FreeBuds Pro.

About this review: We received the Huawei FreeLace Pro from Huawei UK for review in the middle of November. Huawei had no input on the contents of this review.

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Specification Overview

The Huawei FreeLace Pro are quite similar to the Huawei FreeBuds Pro in a lot of ways; but as the naming would imply, the FreeLace Pro have a neckband design while the FreeBuds Pro are truly wireless earbuds. Interestingly, they don’t pack the same chipset. In fact, Huawei hasn’t specified what chipset is in use here, so it’s unlikely to be the Kirin A1 which has made its way not just to the FreeBuds Pro, but to Huawei’s latest wearables as well. There’s Bluetooth 5.0 (no Bluetooth 5.2 here), a USB-C charging connector that you can plug into your phone, and each earphone is equipped with a 14.2mm driver. The FreeBuds Pro actually only had an 11mm driver, and a larger driver typically means more bass. However, driver design is actually more important than the size, which is why the FreeBuds Pro can achieve similar results despite the smaller size.

The FreeLace Pro feature a neckband design – that is, they wrap around your neck, and the neckband itself is designed to sit on your shoulders. They’re light and comfortable to forget that they’re even there, which is a design intention as these are more suited to those who may want a pair of wireless earphones for running or other sports activities. These are less likely to fall out and land on the ground somewhere than true wireless earphones, and the eartips themselves sit a lot more snug in my ear than any of the other included tips in the FreeBuds Pro.

On the right side of the neckband are the button controls, while the left side houses the USB-C connector that you can use to charge the earphones. You can charge the earphones through any USB-C port, which includes your smartphone. In fact, connecting the earphones to a Huawei or Honor device will automatically pair them with that device. They charge relatively quickly from your smartphone, though I find the integrated Type-C connector both incredibly convenient and incredibly inconvenient. In the case that you want to charge your earphones when you’re out and about, it’s super simple. In fact, Huawei says that a 5-minute charge from your smartphone will get you 5 hours of playback. The problem comes when you want to charge them anywhere else, as you’ll need to find a USB-C port on another device instead. There is an included USB-C to USB-A adapter in the box so that you can charge them in any normal USB port, but that’s an extra cable to carry around for that convenience. Personally, it’s not a big deal, but I can understand that may put some people off.

On the same side as the USB-C port are the controls. They’re clicky and tactile, though they can be a bit fumbly as they all feel the same. The power button can be double-tapped to connect to the previously connected device as well.

If anything, my biggest gripe with the Huwaei FreeLace Pro is the lack of automatic playback detection. Rather than pausing audio automatically and playing it again when you remove them from your ears and put them back, they’ll continue playing until you magnetically reconnect both of the earbuds together. As well, to turn on and off ANC, or to enable transparency mode, you need to hold down on the left earphone only while it’s in your ear to cycle through the three modes.

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Design and Comfort

The Huawei FreeBuds Pro have an interesting design, as the earpiece itself sticks out more than I’ve seen from other wireless earphones. The ones that I have are pretty dark green, and if I’m honest, I’m not a huge fan of the color. Aside from personal preference, the shiny metal at the end of each neckband is a nice touch, and the neckband is, as already mentioned, quite comfortable to wear. It’s easy to forget that you’re wearing it, and the earphones themselves are comfortable to wear in-ear for long periods of time without worrying about making your ears uncomfortable. They’re a pretty unique design, which I don’t care about but I know that many do. There are other types of tips that come in the box too, so you can mix and match to find your fit if the ones pre-installed don’t fit your ears.

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Huawei FreeLace Pro – Audio Quality, Active Noise Cancelling

This is the most important section of any audio review, and a lot of this is going to be reiterating the same points that I made in my review of the FreeBuds Pro. For €119 wireless earphones, these are fantastic. You don’t get the convenience of true wireless or the benefit of the Kirin A1 which is why these are cheaper, but Huawei certainly hasn’t skimped on the audio quality. As I’ve always said though, a pair of expensive wireless earphones will probably be easily bested by any decently specced pair of wired headphones. Remember when I said driver size doesn’t matter? That’s not quite true, as a much larger driver (such as the 40mm drivers in my Sony WH-1000XM3) will knock anything significantly smaller out of the park. When we’re in the realm of a couple of millimeters though, the driver design certainly matters more.

The Huawei FreeLace Pro are a pretty luxury pair of wireless earphones, and as is always the case with wireless earphones, they have a particular use case. Do you listen to a lot of music on the go, and are you active enough that true wireless earphones can get annoying? The Huawei FreeLace Pro will stay put in your ears, and they sound really good in all situations. These earphones are good enough to serve a day-to-day use, however, when I get home, I’ll instantly switch back to my Sony wireless headphones instead. That’s not a slight against the FreeLace Pro – that’s just to give you an idea of the difference in utility between headphones and earphones.

Comfort, noise cancellation, and audio quality are all exceptional here. If you want to check out the playlist that I’ve been listening to when testing the Huawei FreeLace Pro, you can check that out here. Songs like The Suburbs and Conductor sound as good as ever, and the bass is strong but clean. Overall, I’m a massive fan of the audio on these.

Just like the FreeBuds Pro, the ANC is brilliant, but it’s the same experience in both the good and the bad. For starters, it can be somewhat aggressive in how it cancels surrounding sounds. If you’re not familiar with ANC, it’s basically a tech that analyzes sounds around you and then creates a “counter” sound that cancels out the sound waves that it’s detecting with the microphones. When I’m on a train or in a car, it can become quite violent when it tries to cancel out audio, and the audio “shakes” as a result. I generally leave the noise canceling on “dynamic”, which lets the earphones decide which ANC option will work best. I found that changing it from dynamic to “cozy” works fine in situations such as a train or a car, and eliminates most (but not all) of the shaking. I haven’t really noticed any differences between the different ANC modes apart from that.

The audio codec is just as important as the hardware though, and on Android and Windows, the Huawei FreeBuds Pro will default to streaming with the SBC audio codec. The lower quality was immediately noticeable, though I was able to switch the codec over to AAC in the Bluetooth settings of my phone. On Windows, you’re not going to be able to switch over to AAC, though.

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Battery life on the Huawei FreeLace Pro

Huawei says that on a single charge, the FreeLace Pro should last for about 22 hours of music playback. This will obviously differ depending on whether ANC is on or off, and will also differ depending on the volume of the media that you’re playing. This rated time for music playback is with ANC switched off, and with it switched on, you’re looking at a still respectable playback time of around 12-14 hours from my testing. It’s roughly half of the rated battery life, but it’s still certainly good enough to get you through the day, especially when you can charge them up quickly from your smartphone. If anything, battery life matters even less here considering you can effectively always charge them quickly in a pinch. USB C ports are commonplace on smartphones now, so you will spend no real time away from your music.

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Conclusion – The Huawei FreeLace Pro are great wireless earphones

As I expected going into this review, the Huawei FreeLace Pro are pretty much just as good as their true wireless counterparts. Sure, you lose out on some of the convenience of a set of truly wireless earphones, but Huawei has made up for that with a cheaper price tag and useful features. Being able to charge from your smartphone pretty much anywhere is, 90% of the time, incredibly useful, and the battery life is nothing short of exceptional when compared to the much smaller 3-4 hours on the FreeBuds Pro. I’ve been really impressed by how good the Huawei FreeLace Pro are, and for €119, they’re a stellar choice for anyone who doesn’t want to go truly wireless.

Huawei FreeLace Pro

The Huawei FreeLace Pro are a fantastic set of wireless earphones, featuring active noise cancelling and a comfortable but functional design.

Buy from Huawei

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Chrome OS 87 adds tab search, Bluetooth battery levels, and more

A few weeks ago, Google released Chrome 87, which included performance improvements and other new features. The company is now rolling out some of the same features to Chrome OS.

There are three main components to the Chrome OS 87 update: tab search, Bluetooth battery level in settings and quick settings, and new wallpaper options.

With tab search, users can quickly search their open tabs across open browser windows. If you’re someone who regularly has dozens of tabs open at once, finding what you’re looking for is now much easier. Simply click the drop down menu button in the top right corner of your browser and begin searching.

The Bluetooth battery level in settings and quick settings is pretty self-explanatory. Once you connect Bluetooth headphones to your Chromebook, you can see the remaining battery level by opening the Quick Settings or Settings menu. Chrome OS 87 will also display your headphones’ battery level at the bottom right hand side of your screen when they’re connected.

Finally, Google said it added 36 new wallpapers in Chrome OS 87. Google recently highlighted the design capabilities of Chromebooks, commissioning artists to create the new wallpapers using Chrome OS. If you do wind up using a Chromebook for content creation, Google said it’s offering perks that include access to premium apps for free.

Chrome OS 87 also includes other new features:

• Saving to Google Drive has been updated with the ability to rename the file and selecting what folder to store it in
• Chrome OS devices now support switch accessibility devices
• Google has updated language settings to be easier for multilingual users to navigate
• The Alt+Tab window switcher now supports mouse, touch screen, and stylus input
• Version 87 makes visual improvements when renaming Virtual Desks and Launcher folders

Google said systems will be receiving updates over the next few days, so keep your eyes peeled.

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Samsung to end support for select smartwatches and fitness trackers in 2021

Upgrading to a new device is nice, isn’t it? Except when that new device stops supporting your aging wearable. That’s reportedly what’s going to happen when the Galaxy S21 series launches early next year.

According to Galaxy Club, a handful of Samsung smartwatches and fitness trackers flat-out won’t work with the new Galaxy S21 series, which we’re expecting to launch at an Unpacked event in early January.

Here are the wearables that allegedly won’t work with the Galaxy S21:

• Samsung Galaxy Gear
• Samsung Galaxy Gear 2
• Samsung Galaxy Gear 2 Neo
• Samsung Gear S
• Samsung Gear Fit

Galaxy Club claims these devices will continue to work with older Samsung smartphones. But if you plan on using your Galaxy Gear with the Galaxy S21, you may be out of luck. Samsung has provided excellent support for these devices in the past, but there comes a time when the company must move on.

If you plan on continuing to use the Gear Fit with the Galaxy S20, well, this news doesn’t really apply to you. But it might help you prepare for the future, because you might not be so quick to update your smartphone if it means losing support for a wearable you cherish. Or maybe you don’t quite have the funds for a new smartphone and new wearable, in which case you should stick with what you have.

As 9to5Google points out, it’s unclear what Samsung has planned for the Gear S2 and Gear S3, both of which are over a few-years-old by now. We should know more after Samsung unveils its Galaxy S21 series, which you can read all about right here.

Samsung has plenty of newer smartwatches and fitness trackers available, so there’s no shortage of options. Recently, the company launched the Galaxy Watch 3 in a sleek titanium, which you can find in the U.S. for $599.

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Tell us how You Use Your Phone over Christmas Break and Win a Huawei P40 Pro [Open to All Countries]

With the Christmas Holiday quickly approaching, Huawei wanted to give XDA users to chance to share their smartphone Holiday habits. This is also an opportunity to win the Huawei P40 Pro, which is one of the best smartphones of 2020. To participate in this giveaway, leave a comment detailing your Holiday smartphone habits.

Win a P40 Pro!

As technology is changing our lifestyle, HMS Core can also change our Christmas style. On Christmas day, everyone spreads the Christmas spirit in their own unique way. How are you going to send your Christmas message this year? Using the integrated Scan Kit service app, users can get an exclusive Christmas message by scan a QR code, which is customized by the developer.

While you and your family are waiting for the Christmas dinner, spend your time playing a Christmas game. Remember to use Hand Keypoint Detection to move the sleigh and catch more presents from Santa Claus. Try it!

After dinner, people get together and share Christmas gifts. Remember the Christmas message? You can use the Nearby Service to share the blessing, if the Wi-Fi is weak.

Use HMS Core to make the season a bit brighter this year, by taking advantage of their large selection of developer kits.

How do you use your phone to get through the Christmas season? Are there shopping apps you like to use? How do you plan your Christmas party?  Let us know in the form above, and one lucky winner will be chosen to win a Huawei P40 Pro.

The Huawei P40 Pro is one of the top photography phones of 2020. With a 50+12+40MP camera, you’ll be able to capture the Holidays in amazing detail. The ultrawide 40MP camera makes for great group or family photos. It’s the best way to capture your Holiday get together. Enter to win, by filling out the form above.

We thank HUAWEI for sponsoring this post. Our sponsors help us pay for the many costs associated with running XDA, including server costs, full time developers, news writers, and much more. While you might see sponsored content (which will always be labeled as such) alongside Portal content, the Portal team is in no way responsible for these posts. Sponsored content, advertising and XDA Depot are managed by a separate team entirely. XDA will never compromise its journalistic integrity by accepting money to write favorably about a company, or alter our opinions or views in any way. Our opinion cannot be bought.

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YouTube Music rolls out ‘2020 in review’ playlists

YouTube Music is celebrating its first ‘proper’ Christmas with the release of personalised ‘2020 in review’ playlist, currently rolling out to users. The offering is much the same as Spotify offers with its “Wrapped” synopsis of your activity through the year. However, unlike Spotify, YouTube Music is simply collating your Top 25-100 songs into a playlist, without any stats or insights.

This is the first year that YouTube Music has been the default music service for Google users, following the slow, painful depreciation of Google Play Music during 2020. Indeed, it has only been the flagship service for a few days, following the final switch-off of its predecessor in many regions. Of course, YouTube Music has been around a lot longer – five years, in fact, but it has taken this long to get close enough to feature parity with the outgoing service, during which time the vast majority of users chose not to migrate over to something that was, in essence, inferior.

The news has been rumored for a few months now but there had been no announcement from Google. First spotted by Reddit user u/downtown3641 and picked up by Android Police, ‘2020 in Review’ is just one of the year-end playlists being added to YouTube Music. There is a ‘Top Songs of 2020’ list, and a number of genre-specific Top 20s are also starting to appear. How many we’ll end up with is just one more holiday surprise.

It would be easier to complain at how rudimentary the offering is compared to Spotify Unwrapped, but in the spirit of seasonal goodwill, let’s remind ourselves that despite being around for five years, YouTube is still very much under development, and there’s every chance that by next year, we’ll have a lot more features and a much more impressive year-end offering. In the meantime, anything is better than nothing.

If you’d like to see your list (and why wouldn’t you?) then just click on this link. If you like what you see, click “Add to Library” to have it stored as a playlist in your YouTube Music account. That said, why anyone would want to remember this dumpster fire of a year, beggars belief.

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Microsoft Edge Canary gets Chrome’s Tab Group Collapse and Auto Create features

Microsoft Edge has seen a whole bunch of new features since it first reinvented itself as a Chromium-based browser earlier in the year. Even if you’re not a regular user, it’s always worth seeing what’s new because Microsoft has committed to contributing to the Chromium codebase, meaning whatever is new in Edge, may end up in Chrome, or Opera, or one of the other myriad Chromium browsers in a few months time. But it works in reverse too, and today we’ve seen the Tab Grouping feature recently introduced to Google Chrome appear for the first time in the Microsoft Edge Canary channel, suggesting it will arrive more generally in Edge early in 2021.

Tab Groups are already part of Chromium’s core code, but so far, Microsoft Edge users have had to manually switch them on in the flag settings. Google added the ability to expand and collapse the tab groups in Chrome, along with an auto-group feature and its these augmentations that are now testing in Microsoft Edge.

As reported in Techdows, Tab Groups are already proving popular with Chrome users, not least of all because it makes it easier to find the “expendable” pages, versus the ones you want to keep constantly open. Being able to expand/collapse the groups adds extra valuable real-estate to the browser, both visually, and in terms of the memory footprint, something that has always been a bugbear for Chromium browsers.

Microsoft Edge has a very similar release schedule to Google Chrome and features appearing in the Canary channel this month will usually move to the Beta channel next month and become part of stable builds a month after that, so we should likely see it in full effect in February 2021. Microsoft Edge Canary users should download build 89.0.722.0 or above, and then toggle on the features in the edge://flags menu.

It’s worth saying, however, that until that happens, there’s no guarantee that Microsoft will decide to officially support the feature. Testing to see what works is kind of what betas are for, after all.

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