Archive for May 28, 2018

Sonos Introduces Speaker Sets

Posted in Commentary with tags on May 28, 2018 by itnerd

There are a lot of things you wouldn’t have just one of: socks, friends, potato chips. They’re always better when you have more than one. This is true of Sonos speakers too. The real magic happens when you live with it in more than one room. But there are still a lot of people who are only listening on one speaker, in one room.

There will be 8 different sets ranging from two to four room sets with Sonos Ones and home theater sets with Playbase and Playbar. Speaker sets start at $469.

Starter sets for your whole home:

  • 2 Sonos Ones: $469 (vs. $498 separately)
  • 3 Sonos Ones: $679 (vs. $747 separately)
  • 4 Sonos Ones: $899 (vs. $996 separately)
  • 2 Sonos Play:5: $1,169 (vs. $1,298 separately)

Home theater:

  • 3.1 set-up: $1,649 (vs. $1,798 separately)
  • 5.1 set-up: $2,118 (vs. $2,296 separately)

For more information go to sonos.com

Leave a comment »

Review: 2018 Mazda CX-5 GT – Part 1

Posted in Products with tags on May 28, 2018 by itnerd

Marginal gains.

That’s the philosophy of Sir Dave Brailsford who used to run Great Britains cycling program and currently runs Team Sky which is one of the world’s top cycling teams. He has a philosophy called marginal gains. In short, if you take an entire cycling event and break it down into its individual pieces, and then figure out how to make a marginal gain in each individual piece. Even if that gain is 1%, when you add it all up you’ll make a big gain overall. Team Sky takes this philosophy in the way they choose their equipment, work with their athletes, and even in their choice of support cars and trucks. It sounds very detail oriented and kind of obsessive. But the fact is that it works for Team Sky as they’ve won five Tour De France titles, One Vuelta a Espana title, and a Giro d’Italia title among other major wins in cycling’s biggest races. And they’ve only been around since 2010.

Mazda is a company that believes in marginal gains. And that’s reflected in the 2018 Mazda CX-5 GT which I reviewed a year ago, and it scored an IT Nerd award. Mazda isn’t the type of company that sits on its laurels as they’ve made a major improvement to the CX-5 for 2018. But I will get to that improvement in part 2 of this review. Instead, let’s have a look of the exterior of this 2018 model that I have this week:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

It looks the same from a distance as the 2017 model. And that’s not a bad thing as it got lots of compliments during the week that I had it. Mazda has a winning formula with the Kodo design language, thus why change anything? Though there is one thing that I’d like to highlight:

IMG_1620

The 19″ wheels on this GT trim look sharp and generated as much attention as the whole vehicle did. Good call on Mazda’s part to include them on this trim level.

My review of the 2018 Mazda CX-5 GT will be done in five parts:

  • Exterior
  • Engine, transmission, handling, fuel economy, and driving comfort
  • Interior
  • Technology in the vehicle
  • Wrap up

The next part of this review will cover the engine, transmission and driving comfort. And it is here that I will tell you about the one major change for 2018 that will matter to anyone who is in the market for a compact SUV. Tune in tomorrow to find out what that is which fits in with the definition of marginal gains.

Leave a comment »