Just WHY are people sending more and more voice notes? Gen Z says telephone calls are microaggressions and sending an audio clip is more personal than a text
Voice notes are short audio recordings that people send to each other
A recent survey revealed 62% of Americans have sent a voice message, and about 30% communicate by voice message weekly, daily or multiple times a day
Voice notes have become the new way to communicate, especially among Gen Z, who say sending audio is more personal than texts, which can sometimes muddle the meaning, and phone calls can trigger their anxiety.
The messages, called 'voice notes' or 'voice texts,' are short audio recordings that people send to each other, and have been around in WhatsApp and Apple's iMessages for years, but have recently been growing in popularity.
People are seeing them pop up more and more in group chats and even being featured on dating apps, like Hinge and Bumble.
According to a recent YouGov survey conducted by Vox, 62 percent of Americans say they've sent a voice message, and about 30 percent communicate by voice message weekly, daily or multiple times a day. And 43 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds who responded to the survey said they use the feature at least weekly.
The use of the voice note technology may have been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic when those isolated at home longed for social interaction by hearing their loved ones' voices.
There are several studies that have shown that people feel more socially bonded when communicating through a voice message rather than texts.
'There is a fundamental mode of communication that connects human beings and their social needs, and that's hearing a voice,' Amit Kumar, an assistant professor of marketing and psychology at the University of Texas-Austin, told NPR.
However, Kumar says his research suggests that 'asynchronous' forms of communication like voice notes, that don't involve a back-and-forth dialogue, can't replace the benefits of 'synchronous' calls that allow us to pick up on linguistic cues to have a more seamless, responsive conversation.
Poll
Do you prefer sending voice notes or texts?
Voice notes25 votes
Texts195 votes
Now share your opinion
WhatsApp, which has been using the voice notes for years, said last year that users sent 7 billion voice messages on the app.
The audio feature has also started appearing on dating apps - first on Hinge in 2021, with the number of voice notes increasing by 37 percent between January and February 2023 compared to the same period in 2022, a spokesperson told Axios.
As remote work continued, voice notes were added to work chat platforms including Slack and Microsoft Teams.
Voice notes have continued to rise in popularity over the past year, especially with the younger generation who have grown up in front of screens.
Many Gen Zers say the voice note allows for tone and mood to come across, which doesn't always happen in a text. So why not just give someone a call? The idea of interrupting someone with a phone call gives many people anxiety.
Instead people are able to get out what they want to say without the anxiety of being interrupted themselves.
The notes allow you to get out 'everything you want to say without being interrupted' and 'let your thoughts flow,' Trinity Alicia, a 23-year-old program coordinator at Boston University, told Axios.
Alicia said she relies on voice notes to keep in touch with her boyfriend who lives in another time zone, as well as friends across the country.
Jim Broderick, a 22-year-old working in consulting in Washington, D.C., told Axios that with the voice notes, he's more inclined to listen and pay attention compared to when a group chat is blowing up his phone with texts that he has to read and analyze.
'This could be spicy,' Broderick said when he gets a voice note. 'It makes stories feel more real, and I feel closer to [the sender]. It just lands better when I hear someone's voice.'
However, there are some downsides to the form of communication, like having to listen and pay attention to long messages, which can be hard if you're on the go in a busy area or in a meeting, or can also be tedious if the recording rambles on.
'I absolutely despise it when people use voice notes over just plain old texting,' Talla Kuperman, a jewelry designer in her early 40s told The Wall Street Journal.
Having received drawn-out voice notes, she thinks that, in the absence of a universal etiquette for them, some are far too time-consuming. 'I actually find it very selfish,' she said.
Whether you like it or not, experts say there is a scientific reason for why people prefer voice messages to texts in some situations.
By hearing someone's voice, people can pick up on 'paralinguistic cues,' which cannot be done via text, Vox reported. The cues could include talking loudly when they're excited or a tone change if they are conveying sarcasm.
'Even though paralinguistic cues can be subtle, they're 'humanizing' reminders that whoever you're listening to 'is a thoughtful, feeling person,' Juliana Schroeder, a professor at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, said.
Schroeder's study found that when people listen to someone speak rather than read their writing, they perceive them as more 'mentally capable' — reasonable, emotional, and likable.
It has also shown that people are more likely to have 'empathic accuracy' when they hear instead of read what they're saying, finding the person more relatable.
It was while taking part in a medical trial for a new dementia ‘wonder drug’ that Genevieve Lane, 79, suffered a fatal brain seizure.
Her death, reported by The Mail on Sunday last week, came amid great hope for lecanemab, which experts had hailed as ‘the beginning of the end’ for Alzheimer’s – the degenerative disease that blights the lives of a million Britons.
But it also emerged that Genevieve, from Florida, was just one of three people who have died from problems which may potentially be linked to lecanemab, and has led to some experts calling for a pause to its rollout.
The drug is currently being assessed by the NHS spending watchdog, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which will soon decide if it will be offered to tens of thousands of Britons.
Now concerns about lecanemab are growing deeper. Today we can reveal further startling revelations that cast additional doubt on the integrity of the data used to prove the drug’s safety.
And experts are now telling The Mail on Sunday they believe rolling out lecanemab in the UK could put lives at risk.
The issues raised include:
lThat the severity of possible dangerous side effects, such as brain shrinkage, may have been underestimated;
lAlzheimer’s doctors have accused the drug manufacturer, Eisai, of withholding crucial information, including details of three patients who died after taking the medicine;
lClinicians have called for the full safety data to be available before US regulators meet next month to decide whether to approve lecanemab, although Eisai is under no legal obligation to do this;
lInsiders have raised concerns that Eisai failed to properly investigate Genevieve’s death, meaning the full extent of any side effect are not known;
lThe firm reportedly waited two months before informing US health authorities of the death – typically, trial deaths must be reported within a week.
Such is the worry over lecanemab that some experts are calling for an ‘urgent re-evaluation’ of the data collected by Eisai which was used to prove its safety.
‘The drug company has said lecanemab is safe, but these deaths could suggest otherwise,’ says Robert Howard, professor of old age psychiatry at University College London’s Institute of Mental Health.
‘There is a credible risk that, if rolled out on the NHS, more lives could be put in danger. Which is why there is a moral imperative to release the full data.’
Other brain experts agree. ‘The handling of the deaths raises doubts as to whether serious lecanemab side effects are being spotted and properly reported,’ says Dr Matthew Schrag, a neurologist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, who carried out Genevieve’s autopsy.
‘There are question marks over whether the published safety data is representative of the facts. It is crucial that Alzheimer’s doctors see this information before this drug is approved.’
The drug first attracted public attention in September when Eisai published the results of a major trial involving 1,800 participants and carried out over 18 months at 240 sites across the world, including the US, UK and Australia. It was found to slow cognitive decline by a third and was the first treatment proven to delay progression of the disease.
Elusive route to Alzheimer's cure
Lecanemab is the latest in a series of Alzheimer’s drugs that work in a similar way.
Many believe the disease is triggered by amyloid – a toxic protein. Normally these circulate in the blood, but for reasons not fully understood they can clump together in the brain and form plaques, which disrupt cell function and cause brain damage.
Anti-amyloid drugs such as lecanemab work by using the immune system to attack the plaques. The theory is that, in doing so, deterioration may be slowed or even halted. And a number of these drugs have been shown to be effective at removing amyloid plaque from the brain. However, until lecanemab, there was no evidence that this slows down the progress of the disease.
Some experts say this is because treatment is being given too late, meaning the Alzheimer’s has progressed too far to be stopped.
But others believe the theory that amyloid plaque triggers Alzheimer’s is incorrect. They argue that the build-up of amyloid is a by-product of the disease, rather than the cause, meaning that removing amyloid is unlikely to have an impact on slowing the disease.
An alternative idea is that faulty genes cause Alzheimer’s by triggering a mass die-off of brain cells.
Earlier this month, scientists said they had identified 92 genes that increase the risk of Alzheimer’s developing.
Professor Julie Williams, director at the UK Dementia Research Institute at Cardiff University, said that this could lead to a gene therapy capable of treating the disease by 2040.
Professor John Hardy, a dementia researcher at University College London, declared the findings the ‘beginning of the end’ for Alzheimer’s and said he hoped it would be available on the NHS within a year.
Lecanemab, given every two weeks as a drip via a vein in the arm until it stops working, clears a protein known as amyloid which builds up in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. Amyloid clumps are thought to cause the progressive brain damage seen in dementia.
But initial trials revealed that in some cases lecanemab can cause unwanted problems in the brain – including swelling, bleeding and inflammation, a condition known medically as amyloid-related imaging abnormalities, or ARIA. About one in ten participants in the trial developed brain swelling and one in six suffered brain bleeds, according to Eisai data.
Trial participants were monitored with MRI brain scans every three months, and those who developed ARIA were taken off the drug. The majority had no symptoms.
Eisai said lecanemab was not related to an increased risk of death as the fatality rate was similar to that of the group in the trial who were given a placebo.
‘No deaths were considered by the investigators to be related to lecanemab or occurred with ARIA’, said the study’s authors, from Yale University.
But autopsy investigators and an investigator on the trial have now identified three cases, including that of Genevieve Lane, where lecanemab patients died of unexpected symptoms likely connected to the drug. One case happened during the trial, the other two after it had been completed.
In two cases, the deaths were said to be related to an interaction between lecanemab and blood thinners – medicines which reduce the risk of strokes and heart attacks but can increase bleeding risk.
Genevieve was not on blood thinners and was relatively healthy. But shortly after her third dose, she suffered a massive seizure. Five days later, she died. An autopsy found lecanemab was the most likely cause of death. In all three cases, Eisai has either denied the death was linked to the drug or declined to comment.
Speaking to the MoS, Genevieve’s family claim the trial doctors – who worked for an independent clinical trial company employed by Eisai – missed vital warning signs, including worrying symptoms, that would have prevented her death.
‘We believe Mum told her doctor about headaches when she returned for her second dose. But he still proceeded to give her the treatment and did not suggest carrying out any scans,’ says Genevieve’s younger daughter, Charlotte Lane, 56. ‘It’s shocking to think that, on the trial of an experimental drug, it seems like no one was looking out for worrying symptoms.’
The family believe that the trial doctors failed to properly investigate their mother’s death.
When her children wanted to know more about what had led to her death, ‘we were surprised the trial company didn’t show any interest in carrying out an autopsy,’ says Charlotte. ‘It didn’t seem like they wanted to investigate anything more.’
Genevieve’s daughters eventually contacted researchers at Vanderbilt University, who agreed to carry out an autopsy.
Eisai said it could not comment on individual participants. ‘The wellbeing of patients enrolled in our studies is always Eisai’s top priority,’ said a spokesman. ‘Eisai has established rigorous safety monitoring process. This includes an independent data safety monitoring committee of external experts. Eisai promptly communicated important safety information to regulatory agencies, sites, investigators and subjects.’
But some experts have questioned this. One neurologist familiar with Genevieve’s case raised concerns her death may not have been reported to the US medicines watchdog, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), until December 2022 – nearly two months after Eisai announced lecanemab was safe and effective.
Eisai declined to comment. An FDA spokesman also declined to say when the information was received, citing ‘patient privacy’.
Researchers often closely monitor patients after studies end, to keep note of potential long-term side effects, known as an extension trial. Eisai will collect data on their lecanemab trial participants until 2027.
Did it cause these three deaths?
So far, three deaths related to lecanemab have been identified by medical reports.
The first two deaths are thought to be a deadly interaction between lecanemab and blood thinners – medicines given to about 700,000 Britons that reduce the risk of strokes and heart attacks, but can cause bleeding.
The first was a man in his 80s from the US. He suffered a major brain haemorrhage while participating in the early phase of the trial in June 2022, according to medical magazine Stat News.
An investigator reportedly concluded the death was related to the drug. But its maker, Eisai, has denied this and did not count the patient as a death in its trial results.
Next, in August, after the trial had finished, a 65-year-old woman from Chicago died after suffering several brain haemorrhages. She had previously suffered an unrelated stroke, according to the autopsy report – parts of which were published in medical magazine Science.
Lecanemab was said to have inflamed and weakened the blood vessels in her brain, and several of them burst when she was given blood-thinning drugs as treatment. The report concluded she would likely still be alive if she had not been taking lecanemab. Eisai declined to comment.
In September 2022, 79-year-old Genevieve Lane became the third person to die of suspected lecanemab side effects following a massive brain bleed. Genevieve’s family told the MoS she suffered problems almost immediately after taking the drug.
‘She was moving slowly, needed to spend a lot of time in bed and complained of headaches,’ says 59-year-old daughter Julie.
Two weeks after her third dose, she died.
Seven months on from the release of the initial trial results, Eisai has thus far declined calls to publish any follow-up data, which would include two of the deaths.
Speaking at a major neurology conference last week in Boston, US, lead investigator of the lecanemab trial, Professor Christopher van Dyck, would not answer questions or provide information about its extension trial results. Eisai also declined the MoS’s request to see the data.
Experts say it is crucial this information is made public as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, recent evidence has sparked further concerns about lecanemab. Last month, Australian researchers published a study showing patients taking anti-amyloid drugs, including lecanemab, experienced accelerated brain shrinkage. This is often an indicator that cognitive decline is worsening. Patients taking the drugs saw their brains shrink 40 per cent faster than those who didn’t have any treatment.
‘We currently don’t know which patients are most at risk of these sorts of side effects because we haven’t seen information that tells us about characteristics that might have made them more vulnerable,’ says Professor Scott Ayton, dementia expert at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health in Melbourne, Australia.
But one group, who carry a gene called APOE4 which has long been linked to dementia, could be six times more likely to see brain swelling after taking lecanemab and three times as likely to experience brain bleeds, according to a study in the medical journal Jama Neurology last month.
Researchers analysed available Eisai data, which showed genetic traits of patients who suffered severe side effects.
Importantly, studies estimate up to 65 per cent of Alzheimer’s patients carry the APOE4 gene and may be at risk.
‘We need to know whether patients with these genes who suffered bad side effects also had underlying conditions, so we know exactly who should not be taking lecanemab,’ says Dr Madhav Thambisetty, a neurologist at the US National Institute of Aging. ‘Researchers have asked for this information time and time again – and Eisai has refused.’
Genevieve’s family share these frustrations. They are yet to receive her full medical records from Eisai, even though they were requested in January. Last month the firm finally agreed to send the documents, but they haven’t yet arrived.
‘We felt ignored for months after Mum died,’ says Charlotte. ‘It’s only now we’ve started talking publicly about her death that they’ve agreed to anything.
‘We deserve to know what happened. There are missing pieces of the puzzle. We want someone to take responsibility.’
Microsoft has partnered with cloud gaming platform Nware for a new 10-year deal to stream "PC games built by Xbox" on its platform.
A press release further adds that this will include Activision Blizzard games "after the acquisition closes".
Newscast: Can Microsoft's Activision Blizzard deal appeal succeed?
Nware – self-described as "the only cloud gaming platform in the market that gives gamers the freedom to bring more than 20,000 video games from their current libraries to Nware" – enables users to access their favourite games on Steam, Epic Games, and Ubisoft clients, and playing them "in the cloud on any device", such as smart devices and TVs.
Both parties were otherwise taciturn on the arrangement – which it says "democratises access to play titles anywhere, anytime without the need for expensive dedicated hardware" – but Microsoft vice chair and president, Brad Smith, said: "While it’s still early for the emerging cloud segment in gaming, this new partnership combined with our other recent commitments will make more popular games available on more cloud game streaming services than they are today."
Xbox boss Phil Spencer added: "We are full speed ahead in our mission to bring players more ways to play their favourite games."
And there I was thinking that the Brexit rallying call of “take back control” did at least mean that the UK economy might finally free itself from the leviathan of oppressive, growth destructive, European regulation.
But what's this?
It is as though Britain is in competition with the EU over quite how punitively politically suspect – though entirely legitimate – business activity might be treated.
In both cases, this seems to be more a case of taking back control so as to exercise more of it than freeing business from the well-intentioned but enterprise-crushing burden of EU constraint.
To have left the European Union only to become more like it seems an odd path to tread.
It says a lot about the deficiencies at the heart of the UK economy that gaming and online gambling are in fact two of Britain's most successful industries.
According to the Competition and Markets Authority, the gaming industry alone is the UK's largest revenue-generating form of entertainment, with around £5bn in annual revenue, or more than pay TV, video streaming, cinema, music and books.
Only last week, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor hosted a celebratory event in Downing Street for Britain's gaming pioneers; the irony of the timing, just as Microsoft President Brad Smith was angrily accusing the UK of being “closed for business” and Activision warned it was reassessing its investment in Britain, was according to reports entirely lost on the Prime Minister, who gleefully immersed himself in an array of show cased made in Britain games, apparently oblivious to the blizzard of condemnation that had greeted the CMA's decision.
Microsoft President Brad Smith said the UK's intervention ‘discourages technology innovation and investment’ in the country
Credit: AP Photo/Virginia Mayo
Some of these strictures, which come overwhelmingly from the two parties with the most to lose, should no doubt be treated sceptically.
The CMA's decision has effectively scuppered the entire deal, with limited chances of reversal on appeal. It is understandable that Microsoft, which has been working on the transaction for the best part of two years and sees it as key to the company's future, should be angry.
But has confidence in the UK really been as “severely shaken” as Mr Smith claims?
This seems a little far fetched. There are surely much bigger threats to Britain's “world beating” position in gaming content – tax and the wider regulatory framework for business prime among them – than this.
Microsoft is substantially invested in the UK, and has spent decades building its presence here. It is not about to write this off in a petulant fit of pique, and nor is Activision, which is similarly a big employer in the UK.
In order to get the deal through, they could conceivably quit the UK market for cloud gaming, but this would be difficult, if not impossible.
The threat of such action none the less raises a serious point.
The European authorities have, perhaps surprisingly, taken a much more relaxed view of the Activision takeover than the CMA, and indeed seemed minded to accept the very same behavioural remedies proposed by Microsoft that the CMA has rejected.
Indeed, were it not for Brexit, the CMA would have had little or no traction on the merger in the first place, even if admittedly it could have fed into the European judgment.
As it is, the CMA is fast establishing itself as the world's most hawkish global enforcer, and what is more, one with the powers to ensure that its actions actually have some effect.
If the UK gets a reputation for constantly sticking its oar in, and unfairly prohibiting mergers that are regarded more favourably elsewhere, it will in time act as a deterrent to business investment in the UK.
Think of it like this: if Norway was to put its foot down and banned Microsoft from acquiring Activision, nobody would bat an eyelid.
Microsoft and Activision would simply close their businesses in Norway and move on, little or no harm done to their merger or ongoing business activity. Norway is too small to matter.
Yet if the EU were to do the same, the two companies would have no option but to abandon the merger. The EU is the biggest consumer market in the world, and even the mighty Microsoft cannot afford to be out of it.
The UK sits somewhere in between. It is too large a market for Microsoft to easily bypass, but not so large that it would be unthinkable.
If you believe your plans are going to be constantly scuppered by UK enforcers, you will in time take steps to disengage from the jurisdiction.
Nor is it just big multinational corporations where this way of thinking might apply.
Smaller, entrepreneurial ventures, like, say, the very same gaming content providers the UK is so good at spawning, might think twice about investing here if they thought attempts to sell the business might be blocked.
The CMA's actions also look disproportionate on the specifics of the deal.
The CMA finds no reason to block the takeover when it comes to console gaming, which currently accounts for the overwhelming bulk of the $280bn a year global market.
Rather it is Microsoft's potential for dominating cloud gaming – widely recognised as the future once current technical and capacity constraints are overcome – that the CMA worries about.
Those concerns are instructed by the network effects of Microsoft's already market leading positions in operating systems and cloud computing, and rightly so in some respects.
Furthermore, tech giants such as Microsoft are notorious for gobbling up innovative players in order to snuff out potential future competition.
Yet in effectively deciding that big tech should be banned from future takeovers, the CMA's Sarah Cardell has in essence substituted her own judgement for that of the markets, where for the moment there is no competition issue of significance.
Truth be told, the CMA has as little idea as you and me how these markets might evolve.
The only two significant complainants were Sony and Google, both of whom have skin in the game, and are not averse to using regulators to protect their own incumbent positions.
I note that Ian Livingstone, who as co-founder of Games Workshop can reasonably claim to be the godfather of British gaming, seems relatively unconcerned about Microsoft's ambitions.
Indeed, many UK content providers see Microsoft's assault on cloud gaming as more of an opportunity than a threat, opening up potentially vast new markets beyond the exclusivity and anti-competitive practices of consoles.
Let's protect consumers from egregious big tech by all means, but not on the basis of imagined threats or at the expense of desperately needed investment in UK tech.
I really thought we were done with Android tablets. Google itself hasn’t released one in years, though that’ll change soon with the forthcoming Pixel Tablet. Samsung has hit on a high-end formula that works pretty well, Amazon’s cheap Fire tablets technically run Android… and that’s basically it. Plenty of manufacturers have tried, but for various reasons Android tablets have never caught on.
Despite that market reality, OnePlus is taking its first shot at this market with the $479 OnePlus Pad. As the price hints, OnePlus isn’t going right after high-end tablets like Samsung’s Galaxy S8 lineup or Apple’s iPad Air or Pro. Instead, this tablet reminds me more of Apple’s 10th-generation iPad, in style, substance and price. And the fact that OnePlus is also making a keyboard folio and a stylus shows they’re serious about making a tablet built for more than just watching movies or browsing the web. But while OnePlus made a lovely piece of hardware, Android’s large-screen limitations continue to hamper the overall experience.
OnePlus
OnePlus Pad (2023)
Critics - Not yet scored
Users - Not yet scored
Pros
Great screen
Well-designed hardware
Stylus works well
Excellent battery life
Cons
Android remains ill-suited for large screens
Terrible multitasking experience
Keyboard and trackpad aren’t the best
Hardware
The OnePlus Pad makes a great first impression. That starts with its striking metallic green color and subtle rounded brushing of the metal that surrounds the centered camera bump on the tablet’s back. I’m a little surprised that OnePlus isn’t offering the Pad in a more generic color like black or silver, but the green makes it stand out a bit without being something most people will object to.
Despite having a relatively large, 11.6-inch display, it’s light and easy to hold with one hand. That’s due in part to the tiny 6.7mm bezel surrounding the display. That’s slightly thinner than the one on my 11-inch iPad Pro and noticeably thinner than the one on the current Air or 10th-generation iPad. OnePlus used a rather unusual screen ratio here, 7:5, but I definitely prefer that over the 16:9 ratio so common on other devices. Movies and shows will have more noticeable black bars, but everything else benefits from more vertical screen real estate.
Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget
Besides the screen, there’s nothing else of note on the front of the Pad aside from the landscape-oriented 8-megapixel camera for video chat. On the sides, you’ll notice the power button and two volume buttons, a USB-C port and four speakers. As with most successful tablet designs, it’s a screen-first device that is light and easy to hold, which is probably the most important thing.
There’s a lot to like about the OnePlus Tab’s screen besides just the size. OnePlus says it’s a Dolby Vision panel with HDR, and its 2,800 x 2,000 resolution works out to 296 pixels per inch. Even though it’s an LCD, lacking the extreme contrast ratios you’ll find on OLED or mini-LED panels, it’s still an extremely bright and vibrant display, whether you’re looking through photos, watching a movie or playing games. It also has a 144Hz refresh rate, though most apps max out at 120Hz. Still, that’s better than any iPad in this price range.
The four-speaker system is also much better than I expected, given the Tab’s svelte profile. It can get surprisingly loud, pumping out enough volume for watching movies on your own or with a friend. But more importantly than just the level, the sound is clear and balanced. You’ll still likely want to opt for headphones during any more serious listening session, but these speakers definitely do the job in a pinch.
On the inside is MediaTek’s Dimensity 9000, a Cortex-X2 processor which runs at 3.05 GHz; that’s paired with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.
Gallery: OnePlus Pad review photos | 13 Photos
Gallery: OnePlus Pad review photos | 13 Photos
Accessories
Unsurprisingly, OnePlus made a keyboard folio and stylus to go along with the Tab.Also unsurprisingly, the tablet isn’t bundled with either, so you’ll need to shell out extra cash to complete your rig. The $149 keyboard includes a trackpad and connects directly to the Pad via pogo pins, so it doesn’t need its own power or a Bluetooth connection. It’s thin and attaches easily to the Pad without adding any significant weight or bulk, which is a nice change of pace from the comfortable but heavy Magic Keyboard that goes along with my iPad Pro.
The keyboard is a bit of a mixed bag, though. On the plus side, it’s just big enough to be comfortable to type on for extended periods of time. Like the keyboard on the similarly-sized iPad Air or Pro, there’s a little learning curve, but the keys are a good size and have decent travel. The space key was a lot less reliable than I hoped, though (apologies to my editor who had to fix the numerous missing spaces in this draft). The trackpad, on the other hand, was a bit more problematic. It wasn’t great at rejecting input from the edge of my hands, so it often moved the cursor randomly around as I was typing this review. It was incredibly frustrating and almost made me give up on it entirely. I eventually managed to hold my hands to minimize the mistaken input, but it still happened often enough to be maddening.
Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget
The trackpad itself was generally fine for moving through the OnePlus Pad’s interface, but it felt just a little slow to respond to everything I was doing, whether scrolling, swiping or clicking on things. This is a recurring theme with the whole OnePlus Pad experience, unfortunately. The trackpad itself is small, but I’m plenty comfortable with a similar-sized one on my iPad.
The last nit I’ll pick about the keyboard folio is that you can’t adjust the angle of the screen at all. The folio holds it in a fixed position, so hopefully that works for you. This isn’t dissimilar to some other keyboard folios for other tablets in this price range, so I will only complain so much, but it would still be nice if it was adjustable.
There’s also a stylus available for the Pad, the $99 OnePlus Stylo. Like the second-generation Apple Pencil, the Stylo magnetically attaches to the top of the Pad for power and convenient storage. I love this trick on the iPad, and I love it here as well. The Stylo itself is a round (aside from the flat charging edge), fairly nondescript piece of hardware that serves its purpose well.
I have zero visual arts skills, so I can’t say exactly how it compares to using an iPad and Apple Pencil for serious creative work. But, OnePlus says it has 4,096 levels of pressure and 60 degrees of tilt, which should make it a versatile instrument. And in a little testing taking notes and scribbling around in the OnePlus Notes app, I was immediately impressed at the total lack of lag. If you can find the right drawing software, the OnePlus Pad and the Stylo could make a reasonably affordable and powerful drawing kit.
Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget
Software experience
As with basically every Android tablet I’ve ever used, the thing that is holding the OnePlus Pad back isn’t its hardware, but the software. The Pad runs Android 13.1 with OnePlus’ Oxygen OS on top of it. For the most part, Oxygen OS represents a minor re-skinning of the Android UI, along with a couple custom OnePlus apps as well as some handy tricks if you also use a OnePlus phone. Unfortunately, I didn’t have access to a OnePlus phone for this review, but these features are worth noting.
For starters, OnePlus has a cellular data sharing feature that lets the Pad jump onto the 5G signal from a OnePlus smartphone. It’s automatically enabled when the phone is near the Pad. Obviously, tethering another device to a smartphone signal isn’t new technology, but OnePlus is definitely trying to make it more seamless. Furthermore, OnePlus built in an “Auto Connect” feature between the Pad and a compatible phone, which means you can receive notifications, share clipboard data for instant copy and pasting, and see text messages and phone calls on the Pad. If you’re in the OnePlus ecosystem already, this is a solid reason to consider the Pad over another competing tablet.
OnePlus also did a decent job of including some apps that take advantage of the Pad’s screen – the Notes app uses multiple panes to show your list of notes as well as whatever you’re working on, or you can go into a full-screen focus mode. It also has a to-do app built in and works well with the Stylo if you want to draw or take handwritten notes. The Weather app, meanwhile, feels like a clone of what you might find on the iPad, but it’s still useful and takes advantage of a bigger screen, rather than feeling like a blown-up phone app.
Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget
Naturally, Google has done a great job of making its apps work on a larger screen, as well. Chrome, Gmail, Photos, Drive, Docs, Meet and basically anything else I tried from Google felt native, which goes a long way towards making the OnePlus Pad feel useful.
The experience isn’t so great once you start using third-party apps, though. If you’ve ever read a review of an Android tablet, you’ve heard this complaint before. There just aren’t enough Android apps designed to take advantage of a bigger screen. Comparing things like Slack and Twitter to their iPad counterparts shows that the developers haven’t taken larger-screen Android devices into account. On the iPad, both apps have multiple panes which makes it much easier to get things done. On the Pad, Slack just shows any conversation you’re in at full width. Similarly, tweets stretch across the entire screen and images or video aren’t scaled down at all. Todoist, another app I use constantly, has a sidebar, but it automatically hides whenever I tap on an item, so I have to keep resummoning it.
There are also numerous apps, like Reddit and Instagram, that simply don’t run in landscape orientation at all. Even worse, some apps throw you from landscape into portrait mode. For example, HBO Max seems to work fine in landscape mode, but when I exit a movie, the screen jumps to portrait mode. There are also plenty of strange bugs throughout the system. More than once, I tried playing a video in HBO Max or the Google TV app only to have it refuse to load. This happened in both apps back-to-back and was only cleared up after rebooting the tablet. Another fun one is the notification I get every single time I open up the keyboard folio that tells me to “configure physical keyboard,” which brings up a menu with basically nothing you can actually configure.
Probably the most frustrating thing for me was simply trying to work across multiple apps. Pressing alt-tab brings up a view of recently-used apps, but the implementation is poor. If you tap alt-tab once and don’t hold anything, all it does is zoom out of the app you’re in and then drop you back. On basically every other computer I can think of, this key command brings you straight to the last app you were using. If you keep holding alt and press tab again, you’ll start cycling through your recent apps – but there’s absolutely no visual indicator to show which you have selected, so it’s useless. Swiping up on the trackpad with three fingers and holding for a second also drops you into this view, and you can then swipe around with the trackpad and click on the app you want. That’s marginally better, but not having a reliable keyboard shortcut for moving between apps is infuriating.
Just as you can on an iPad, you can split an app view and run two apps side-by-side. This generally works fine – but if you exit out to the home screen, the only way to get that dual view back is by going into the aforementioned app switching view. Tapping the app’s icon on the home screen will bring that app back up in full screen, forgetting the configuration you had before
Despite all this, the OnePlus Pad is fairly responsive, at least. Websites and apps loaded quickly, but scrolling through sites or my long list of emails felt a little bit choppy. That’s despite the screen’s high refresh rate. Similarly, games I tried (including Genshin Impact, Asphalt 9 and my go-to Alto’s Odyssey) mostly worked fine, but had occasional moments where it felt the hardware was struggling slightly. For a tablet priced under $500, the OnePlus Pad more or less met my expectations – but it’s not as smooth as even the most basic iPad.
One area where the OnePlus Pad is definitively great is on battery life. I can get about 10 hours doing my normal work routine on the device, jumping between multiple apps, playing occasional games, watching some videos and streaming music. More extensive gaming sessions will always run the battery down quicker, as will jacking up the screen brightness, but I don’t think anyone who tries this tablet will need to worry about reaching for the charger too often.
Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget
Wrap-up
After using the OnePlus Pad for a few weeks, I’m left struggling with who this device is for. Die-hard Android fans are probably better served by a Samsung tablet, though people who use a OnePlus phone will appreciate the way the two devices work together. For the price, the OnePlus Pad does a fair few things well, at least. The battery is very good, the Stylo is a solid drawing tool and the screen is better than one you’ll find on a similarly-priced iPad.
But the app ecosystem for large-screen Android devices remains dire, and the experience of using Android on a tablet still does not feel fully baked. Most Android users who have a passing interest in using a tablet will likely still be better off with an iPad. They’re faster, less buggy and have a wildly better app ecosystem. And the price comparison doesn’t exactly work out well in the OnePlus Pad’s favor, either. The kit I tested cost $730, while you can get a 10th-generation iPad with its keyboard folio and pencil for $800.
If you’re absolutely not willing to consider Apple hardware, we’re just a few weeks away from Google taking the wraps off the Pixel Tablet. While that won’t solve the third-party app issue (after more than a decade, I don’t know what will), I do think it’s worth waiting to see what Google has in store before committing to new hardware. Unless, of course, you’re a die-hard OnePlus fan – but even those folks should think long and hard before pulling the trigger here.
The Dyson Zone is not the most practical device, but then again, did you really expect that from air-purifying noise-canceling headphones?
I was at a hole-in-the-wall pizzeria in downtown Manhattan, debating which slice I wanted to chow down on, when I felt a light tap on my shoulder. I turned, pulling down the metallic visor covering my mouth. In front of me stood the most New York of pizzeria owners. With the visor down, my headphones automatically switched to transparency mode. The sounds of the city flooded back into my ears, and I caught the last part of his question.
“... what is that?”
He was pointing at the $949 Dyson Zone on my head.
“Oh, this is the Dyson Zone.” I tried not to feel self-conscious. When you wear a mask that reminds people of a Batman villain, people are going to be curious.
“Oh my gawd,” he said. “You mean like the vacuum Dyson Dyson?”
“Yeah, it’s a wearable air purifier. And noise-canceling headphones. It’s a 2-in-1 sorta thing.” I explained the basics of how it worked. Air flows into the ear cups, which hide electrostatic filters. That gets funneled into the visor, which then blows clean air into your face. I whipped out my phone to show him the app. His eyes widened when I told him it can also monitor the air quality and noise levels around you — in real time, too.
“Holy shit,” the owner said. “We livin’ in da future.”
About 36 hours earlier, I picked up the Zone from my building’s package room. It was a surprisingly heavy box, but that made sense after I looked up the specs. The Zone weighs roughly 1.3 pounds without the visor and 1.47 pounds with it attached. Yes, you read that correctly. Pounds. (For comparison, Apple’s AirPods Max, wireless headphones that are widely considered to be “heavy,” weigh 0.85 pounds.)
My arm really hurt after holding this pose because, altogether, this weighs 1.47 pounds.
It’s been years since I felt like a kid while unboxing a review unit. Look at this thing. It’s an absurd gadget with an equally ridiculous price tag. After a few minutes of admiring this absolute beast, I twisted open the cans and installed the two air filters. Easy peasy. Pairing the Zone to my phone was also simple. All that was left to do was plug the Zone in to charge all the way up to 100 percent.
That took three hours.
Once I freed the Zone from its packaging, I may have thrown on a pair of sunglasses and posted a silly selfie to Slack of me wearing the Zone. I can neither confirm nor deny that I snuck up on my sleeping spouse and, in my best Bane voice, told them they had my permission to wake up. They were unimpressed.
I spent most of the first day learning the controls. There’s a button on the left that controls the airflow to the visor as well as Bluetooth pairing. On the right, there’s an audio joystick that you can use to pause and play tracks, control volume, and skip / go back a song. At first, I kept forgetting that you had to tap the side of either ear cup twice — but not too fast — to switch between noise canceling and transparency modes. Each time you do, there’s a whoosh sound that reminds me of airlocks opening and closing in sci-fi movies.
The electrostatic filters come included and last for roughly a year.
Dyson says this can filter 99 percent of pollutants as small as 0.1 microns.
Once I got the hang of it, I may have showed up to a team meeting in full Zone regalia. My colleagues mostly shook their heads and noted how big these looked on my head. In the Zone’s defense, the audio quality on the call was clear, and not once was I distracted by the dryer running in the background. I was actually flabbergasted at how quiet the world had become. Though perhaps I shouldn’t have been. Dyson says the Zone’s 11 microphones can reduce surrounding noise by 38 decibels. Just putting the dang thing on dampens sound by another two decibels for a total of 40.
After the meeting, I took off the Zone and gave my achy ears a good rub. I usually use the Sony WH-1000XM4 (0.56 pounds), and the weight difference was comical. My neck felt light as a feather, as if I were Son Goku after a bout of training in the gravity room. If I wanted to, I could’ve headbanged with 50 times more power.
Day two: Zone versus NYC
While packing my work bag, I debated wearing the Zone on the subway. Without the visor, it looked like any other pair of chunky headphones. You’d need eagle eyes to pick up on the Dyson logo on a crowded subway car — and we New Yorkers are experts at never making eye contact while commuting. But these are also $949, and I shuddered at the thought of explaining to Dyson how a subway yahoo snatched these off my head. So into the plush carrying case it went.
The explorer case fits the Dyson Zone, the visor, and not much more.
With the Dyson Zone safely stowed in my extremely green backpack, I felt and looked like a turtle. It didn’t help that I’d also packed the explorer case — a fancy crossbody case for schlepping the Zone around.
Upon arriving at the office, I was roasted — flambéed, even — as soon as I put these on. Once again, comments were made about how big they looked on my head. It was fine. With the active noise canceling on, their best roasts were met with sweet silence. But honestly, I was more hurt when I was informed that, despite looking like Bane, the Zone did not make me sound like him.
Some of my colleagues tried the Zone on for themselves. A few tumbled headfirst into a deep, abiding love. Others decidedly did not. A few co-workers attempted to put it on as one whole piece. It ended up with the visor falling off multiple times. That’s because the magnets were a double-edged sword. It made the visor simple to snap on, but if you didn’t remove it before the headphones, it could easily fall off.
For some reason, it sits lower on my face than it does on most other people who tried it.
One co-worker commented about the copper color being ugly. I disagreed. To me, it was far prettier than the other two versions, which are two varying combinations of blue and silver. (Sorry, Ultra Blue with either Satin Silver or Prussian Blue.)
When show-and-tell was over, I dragged our photographer Amelia outside on an adventure. (Look, I can’t take pictures of myself in this thing.) We headed to a nearby park, where I vogued among the blooming spring flowers. A fair number of people stared in passing, but this is New York. No one gave a flying frittata about the weird gal in the cyberpunk mask sniffing flowers. Everyone had most definitely seen stranger things, myself included.
Every few blocks, I checked the air quality in the MyDyson app. Apparently, New York City was less polluted than I thought. The exception was a single block on the way to the train station. I don’t know what it was about that block, but the air quality plummeted from “good” to “fair.”
The visor can be pulled down so you can talk to other people or eat pizza.
The nerd in me was excited because, finally, some proper pollutionto filter. I had the Zone set to auto and was chuffed to hear the Zone’s filters kick into a higher gear. Even so, it’s not like it blasted a powerful gust of air in my face. You’re supposed to keep a finger’s length of space between you and the visor, and it’s subtle enough that I didn’t really notice the clean air pocket in front of my mouth and nose — at least, not when I was outside. You can feel it more inside, but I wasn’t keen on wearing the visor indoors away from home. This doesn’t filter viruses, the specter of covid-19 still looms large, and I didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable by blowing my breath around the office.
The Zone’s sensors track nitrogen dioxide concentrations in your vicinity. Nitrous oxide emissions, according to the blurb in the app, stem from burning fossil fuels. In cities, that means things like heating, power generation, and car exhaust fumes. To test this, we descended into the subway. Lo, the platform at Whitehall Street station was firmly in the “fair” zone.
The air at Rector Street station was fine, though you can see it was very loud when the train left.
The train car was mostly empty, but the few who were there stared openly and then went back to minding their business. The train car stank of institutional neglect, but alas, there was no more fresh air blowing in my face. After about an hour of roaming around, the battery fell below 20 percent, which is too low to power the purifier.
We took a pizza break, and I already told you what happened there.
Day three: Zone at work
Day three was a work-from-home day, so I wanted to see how long I could wear the Zone in one go. I also took a break from the visor. While the visor is cool, Dyson told me back in December that it thinks most people will primarily use the Zone as noise-canceling headphones.
I wore the Zone for about three hours before needing a break. It’s not that it’s uncomfortable. The ear cups are soft, and there’s plushy cushioning under the headband. But even if you had the world’s strongest neck, you’re going to feel the weight eventually. Whenever I looked down, I could feel gravity’s pull on the Zone.
The ear cups are quite soft.
The left ear cup has a control for the air filter. The right has an audio control joystick.
I spent the majority of the day working on a draft I’ve since expunged from my memory, listening to music, and gabbing on a 45-minute call. My favorite singer sounded good, but his usually buttery smooth voice lacked some oomph, at least over wireless. He sounded much better if I plugged in the headphone jack, which is true of any headphones. I’m not an audiophile, but to my ear, I think the Sonys sounded better overall.
The equalizer settings can be tweaked in the Dyson app, but your choices are limited. There’s a bass-boosting mode, an enhanced mode, and a neutral mode. The differences between all three are noticeable, but they’re all fairly balanced. The bass boost made my favorite K-pop dance track thumpier, but did it reverberate in my skull? No.
There was one thing that annoyed the crap out of me. The headphone jack on my laptop is on the right side. The single USB-C port on the Zone is on the left ear cup. This left me with a dangly cord draping over my arms because my laptop sits to the right of my monitor. I got tangled up multiple times, which caught the eye of my cat. His Highness was miffed when I did not let him eat the cable.
The visor attaches with magnets.
The arms of the visor also extend. You can also see the vent here.
It was neat that every time I took the Zone off, it automatically shifted into low-power mode. It also woke up as soon as I put them on. It reminded me a lot of my spouse’s AirPods Max. The noise canceling on the Dyson was slightly better, and the ear cups were comfier for my ear shape. The AirPods weren’t as bulky and not nearly as heavy, though.
By the end of the day, I had worn the Zone for about four hours total. I took them off when I felt a slight headache coming on. Whether that was from the weight or the pain of reading my own writing, who can say.
Days four and five: in which no visor is worn
I spent the blessed weekend as an apartment goblin. I saw no humans other than my spouse. The cat and I did get into it, though, after he parked his fluffy butt on the Zone.
“Sir,” I said. “These are $949.”
I got a noncommittal meow, and the jerk left me to clean his fur off the ear cups.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge and Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Day four was spring cleaning day. The Zone did a good job of dampening the whirr of its cousin, my Dyson stick vac. I could still hear the dryer balls rattling around while I did laundry, but it was easy to ignore — even when I was between songs. Less good was my obliviousness to the beeps and boops of various kitchen appliances. I only discovered I burned my lunch in the air fryer after the smoke alarm went off.
Just when I started to feel like I was used to the Zone’s heft, I had a scare while cleaning the toilet. As I mentioned earlier, the Zone can feel like it’s about to fall off when you look down. It doesn’t quite fall, but I was grossed out enough at the possibility that I switched over to my AirPods Pro.
On day five, I was chained to my desk scrapbooking and handling the bureaucracy of adulthood. For the most part, the Zone was a fine companion, but I had to take periodic breaks. After a while, it felt like the ear cups were hugging my jaw a lil’ too tightly. When I finally stood up, my bones crackling, I was surprised to see I still had about half the battery left. The last time I had charged was day three.
I decided not to wear the Zone while cooking dinner. A neat chef, I am not. But really, I just didn’t want a repeat of day four’s lunch.
Day six: Zone versus NYC, redux
Day six was similar to day two. There were just fewer people in the office to roast me in person. In the afternoon, I headed out with our video producers to film some capital C content for The Verge’s social channels.
While I retraced a lot of the same steps, the Zone didn’t detect much pollution. The air quality was always good. I couldn’t believe that, so we trekked into two train stations, rode a train, and I even stood over a stinky grate through which dubious fumes billowed up straight into my face. It was disgustingly warm. But nope. Not a blip. Perhaps sewer fumes lack nitrogen dioxide. The only other thing I could think of was that it was a windier day.
The air at this station was unexpectedly unpolluted.
We are masters at avoiding eye contact.
People stared again, but I felt less conscious of it. The only person who made me feel uncomfortable was a young lady who kept openly gawping at me while on the train. Again, hard to complain when you look like you stepped out of a cyberpunk anime. An older lady who sat next to me noticed the Dyson branding, and we had a lovely little chat about the headphones: a New York moment, so to speak. She seemed quite nonplussed at the visor.
The battery died after about 30 minutes of using the purifier, but I hadn’t charged the Zone since day three. Still, it made me wonder when in my actual life I’d ever actually need air purifying while out and about. Perhaps I’m overly cautious, but I never felt all that comfortable wearing the visor in public when I was alone. Also, I started to wonder if the ANC was a little too good. The only things I could really hear were trains screeching, sirens blaring, and obnoxious honking.
While you can get around 50 hours with the Zone as headphones, you’ll get one to four hours with the purifier on, depending on the setting. You need 20 percent battery to operate the filter.
Which was why I probably had a heart attack when, on my way to dinner with my spouse, a man ran up to me. I was wearing the Zone without the visor but had forgotten to turn off noise canceling. I didn’t know this man had been chasing me until I felt a hand on my shoulder. It turned out he just wanted to know where I bought my jacket. (It was a spiffy jacket.) Lesson learned, I stuck the Zone back into my bag.
I’ve watched too many horror movies and listened to too many true crime podcasts. I know what happens to women who aren’t aware of their surroundings.
Days seven and eight: I merely adopted the Zone
Days seven and eight were spent writing this review. They were very much like all the other days that I used the Zone as headphones. My boss said I sounded tinny on a call, my spouse poked some fun when I couldn’t hear them, and as Dyson predicted, I mostly used them as regular headphones.
Looking back on the past week, I expected New York’s air to be dirtier. I went on another walk in my neighborhood to triple-check but nope. The air in my smelly-ass city is apparently less toxic than I thought. And if the air where I live is generally good, the battery drain didn’t seem worth it, which sort of defeats the purpose of the Zone compared to other ANC headphones. Perhaps if I lived in a more polluted city, like Beijing, I’d be inclined to use the visor more often.
We livin’ in da future.
I hardly expect most people to buy this thing. Audiophiles don’t blink at absurd prices, but I think we can all agree that the Zone isn’t the most practical device. But I don’t think it has to be. When I first heard about the Zone, I thought it couldn’t possibly work the way Dyson described. When I tried it in December, I had fun, but I was still skeptical since it wasn’t the final product. But holding the final product in my hands, having used it for a week, I can say it fit into my everyday life. Not perfectly. There were a few mishaps, but everything worked as described. It didn’t fall apart. The app wasn’t glitchy. I had no connectivity issues to speak of. The ANC was excellent. That’s wild when you think about it for more than a second.
Outside of this review, I wouldn’t pick these over my Sonys. After all, I merely adopted the Zone. At the same time, I don’t remember when I last put on a wearable and felt like I was holding a piece of the future. A ridiculous device this may be, but I don’t always want to be an adult and pooh-pooh something because it isn’t practical. For once, it was fun to embrace the absurd.
Agree to Continue: Dyson Zone
Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it — contracts that no one actually reads. It’s impossible for us to read and analyze every single one of these agreements. But we started counting exactly how many times you have to hit “agree” to use devices when we review them, since these are agreements most people don’t read and definitely can’t negotiate.
To use the Dyson Zone, you must pair it with an iPhone or Android smartphone. That includes the phone’s terms of service, privacy policy, and any other permissions you grant. You will also have to grant access to Bluetooth and location, if you’d like to see air quality data.
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And there I was thinking that the Brexit rallying call of “take back control” did at least mean that the UK economy might finally free itself from the leviathan of oppressive, growth destructive, European regulation.
But what's this?
It is as though Britain is in competition with the EU over quite how punitively politically suspect – though entirely legitimate – business activity might be treated.
Our now shackles-free British rulemakers have in short order prohibited Microsoft's $70bn (£56bn) takeover of the gaming company Activision Blizzard, and coincidentally proposed a plethora of nanny-state measures to crack down on a supposedly delinquent gambling industry.
In both cases, this seems to be more a case of taking back control so as to exercise more of it than freeing business from the well-intentioned but enterprise-crushing burden of EU constraint.
To have left the European Union only to become more like it seems an odd path to tread.
It says a lot about the deficiencies at the heart of the UK economy that gaming and online gambling are in fact two of Britain's most successful industries.
According to the Competition and Markets Authority, the gaming industry alone is the UK's largest revenue-generating form of entertainment, with around £5bn in annual revenue, or more than pay TV, video streaming, cinema, music and books.
Only last week, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor hosted a celebratory event in Downing Street for Britain's gaming pioneers; the irony of the timing, just as Microsoft President Brad Smith was angrily accusing the UK of being “closed for business” and Activision warned it was reassessing its investment in Britain, was according to reports entirely lost on the Prime Minister, who gleefully immersed himself in an array of show cased made in Britain games, apparently oblivious to the blizzard of condemnation that had greeted the CMA's decision.