Canon EOS-1D X Mk II review

The Canon EOS-1D X Mk II is a replacement not just for the original 1D X, but also for the EOS-1D C pro video camera. And while in some areas the Mk II seems like a modest upgrade of the tech in the 1D X, in others it breaks entirely new ground.

The big news stories are the Mk II's amazing continuous shooting mode, its improved autofocus system and its 4K video capability. Canon set out to deliver "the ultimate combination of image quality, resolution and speed" in a camera designed to give photographers a "competitive edge".

• Buy Canon EOS-1D X Mark II at Amazon for $5999.00

The EOS 1D X Mk II has a brand new sensor, but it offers only a modest increase in resolution over the original 1D X's, from 18.1 million effective pixels to 20.2 million. That may seem very low in comparison to the 50 million pixels of Canon's 5DS and 5DS R, but the 1D X Mk II is about speed and low-light shooting – it's designed to be a workhorse for professional sport and news photographers.

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Having fewer pixels on the same size sensor means each photoreceptor is larger, and therefore able to capture more light. As a result the image signal requires less amplification than it would with a highly populated sensor, and so images have less noise.

Canon has also integrated the A/D converter circuitry into the sensor, which means the analogue signal from the pixels doesn't have to travel as far before it's converted into a digital signal, and as a result there's less opportunity for noise to be introduced.

These facts combine to help keep noise levels down throughout the sensitivity range. Nevertheless, Canon has kept the 1D X Mk II's standard sensitivity range the same as the 1D X's at ISO100-51,200; however, the expansion settings take it to ISO50-409,600, whereas the 1D X tops out at ISO204,800.

While the maximum setting is high by most camera's standards, it's three stops lower than the ISO3,276,800 that's possible on the D5.

In addition to the new sensor design, the use of two Digic 6+ processors helps keep noise levels down by enabling the 1D X Mk II to apply complex noise-reduction algorithms. But of course, the main reason for this mighty processing power is to facilitate fast continuous shooting speeds.

The 1D X II can shoot at up to 14 frames per second (fps) with full exposure metering and autofocus operation (however it drops to 10fps at ISO102,400). The Nikon D5 can only match that rate if the mirror is locked up, and that rules out focusing and metering mid-sequence, as well as seeing the subject in the viewfinder. The 1D X Mk II can perform a similar trick, but it can then shoot at 16fps.

To help enable (and cope with) the fast shooting rates, Canon has given the 1D X Mk II a 'refined' mirror system that uses cams instead of springs. This gives much more control over the movement of the mechanical parts at high speeds, and helps control mirror vibration and noise.

When you're shooting at 14 or 16fps you really rattle off the shots, so a large buffer is needed. Where the EOS-1D X could shoot 180 JPEGs or 38 raw files in a single burst, the Mk II is able to record an unlimited number of JPEGs and up to 170 raw files. If you shoot at 14fps, 170 images will be captured in around 12 seconds.

This continuous shooting speed and buffer depth relies on the latest CFast 2.0 memory cards. The EOS 1D X II has one CFast memory card slot and one regular CompactFlash slot. This gives photographers the benefit of the latest memory card technology, and also compatibility with their existing memory cards. Interestingly, you'll also need a healthy battery to take full advantage of the burst rate – Canon says you won't get the top shooting speeds if the battery level drops below 50%.

Faster focusing

It's all very well having super-fast continuous shooting speeds, but you'll need an autofocus system that can keep up. At first sight, the AF system in the Canon 1D X Mk II looks the same as the 61-point AF system in its predecessor, with 41 cross-type sensors and five dual cross-type.

But Canon has made lots of changes under the hood, with an expanded AF area and a new AI Servo AF III+ system, which improves the tracking sensitivity for subjects that are moving erratically. Canon's latest adaptive 3D tracking system adjusts to your movements as well as the subject's, such as when you swivel to follow a subject moving past you, for example.

The autofocus tracking is aided by the 1D X Mk II's new 360,000-pixel RGB+IR metering sensor, which provides improved subject detection – an interesting example of how metering and focusing work closely together in the latest cameras. One further improvement will be big news for photographers who routinely use long telephoto lenses with teleconverters: all 61 AF points now work at f/8.

Canon has had Dual Pixel CMOS AF technology on APS-C format cameras like the 80D (and previously the 70D) before, but this is the first time that the technology has appeared in a full-frame camera. It means the 1D X Mk II has phase-detection autofocus points on the sensor to enable faster focusing in live view and video mode. However, because fast focusing isn't always an advantage when recording video, it's possible to reduce the speed via the menu.

4K video

The EOS-1D X Mark II can shoot stills faster, and for longer, than ever before, but it also introduces another major new feature: 4K video. This has been around on mirrorless cameras for a while, but it's the first time it's appeared on a stills-orientated Canon DSLR. It means the camera will appeal to the growing number of pro photographers now being commissioned to shoot video footage as well as stills.

Dedicated videographers, however, will be better served by a dedicated video camera that has an electronic viewfinder, more video-centric handling and contrast suppressing Log-modes. That said, it's great that the 1D X Mk II can shoot shoot 4K at 30fps and 60fps – that requires serious processing power, and it means you can record smooth 2x slow motion footage at 4K resolution.

Interestingly, the Mk II shoots 'real' 4K at 4096 x 2160 pixels, rather than the slightly smaller UHD format most other cameras refer to generically as '4K'. The one possible complication is that this 4K video is slightly wider than the standard 16:9 ratio used by UHD, full HD and standard HD – it's actually closer to a 17:9 ratio.

Another anomaly is that the 1D X II can't save 4K to an external recorder via HDMI – it's restricted to 1920 x 1080. 4K can only be recorded internally, which seems a little odd, but perhaps this aligns the camera more strongly with the occasional video shooter rather than the dedicated videographer.

Canon has chosen the Motion JPEG format for video capture, because this stores a full image for each frame of data and allows the extraction of 8.8-megapixel stills. It means photographers can capture good quality still images at 60 frames a second, albeit not at the sensor's full 20-megapixel resolution. Grabbing stills from video is being taken much more seriously with the advent of 4K.

The 1D X Mk II's new Dual Pixel CMOS AF sensor plays an important part in video recording, enabling fast and smooth autofocus during filming with the camera's Movie Servo AF and touch-panel autofocus point selection.

And the 1D X Mark II takes another step forward relative to its predecessor with the addition of a headphone socket. Sound is a major part of any video production, and it's important to be able to monitor the sound the camera is recording as you film in case you need to reshoot.

Shuttle XPC Cube SZ170R8 review

The last few years have seen a variety of form factors emerging. However, it's easy to forget that vendors have been trying to break away from the mould (the beige mid-tower format) for ages. One of the first was a Taiwanese manufacturer called Shuttle which pioneered small form factor cubes for ages. You will need a pair of them to fill an average mid-tower case and you don't lose any of the functionality or upgrade capabilities.

The Shuttle SZ170R8 cuts a very familiar shape, reminding us of the XPC SX38P2Pro and the SH55J2 amongst others – it has a similar rectangular shaped chassis with a square-ish fascia. Since it is a barebones model, it comes without a processor, system memory or storage.

It is available at Ballicom for about £286 (around $420, AU$580) all inclusive which is a lot for what is essentially a pretty case, motherboard and a custom fan. Shuttle aims it at the DIY enthusiast who may use it for a microserver, a portable gaming rig or even a home theatre PC (HTPC).

The front panel is essentially a brushed aluminium, anodised black panel with a couple of LEDs (activity, power) and the power button. At the bottom is a flap that hides two audio ports and two USB 3.0 ports. Note that it doesn't have an SD card reader.

There are plenty of holes on either side of the unit to facilitate air circulation, which is vital if you want to keep your system cool under load. Empty, it weighs around 3.5kg with a 14.2 litre volume.

Visible at the back of the device are the fan outlet (a 60mm unit) for the proprietary power supply unit and the air outlet for the processor heatsink fan plus a myriad of ports. There are six USB 3.0 ports, two DisplayPorts, an eSATA and HDMI connectors, a GbE LAN port, a CMOS reset button and 7.1 audio.

This means that Shuttle's little box will be able to drive two 4K monitors if required. Opening the chassis requires unscrewing three thumb screws and removing the U-shaped cover (which reminded us of how entry-level cases were in the distant past).

There's plenty of space inside, partly because the PSU is so small (and yet it is a 500W model with an 80% plus efficiency). The SZ170R8 can take up to four 3.5-inch hard disk drives (up to 40TB) with four expansion slots available (PCI-e x16, PCI-e x4, M.2 and Mini PCI-e) and four memory slots (supporting up to 64GB DDR4-2133 RAM modules).

The chassis will support dual-slot graphics cards, like the AMD R9 Nano, complete with a 6-pin connector, up to a size of 267 x 120 x 34.6mm.

Access to all the empty ports and the drive cage is pretty straightforward and the same is true when it comes to removing the CPU heatsink and fan. Underneath it is a Socket LGA 1151, which paired with the Z180 chipset, supports Skylake CPUs with a TDP of up to 95W. Note that Intel Xeon E3 v5 processors are not compatible.

The cooler uses Shuttle's signature ICE (Integrated Cooling Engine) technology with three pipes and a temperature controlled 92mm fan with noise reduction technology.

What surprised us was how easy it was to access the ports and empty bays. Sure, there are loads of cables and it was a touch tricky at times, but this is where Shuttle's two decades of expertise come to light, both as a case and a motherboard manufacturer.

Early verdict

A loaded SZ170R8 will have an Intel Core i7 processor at its heart, 64GB of RAM, up to eight SSDs (or four HDDs) and a dual-slot GPU. This spec will compete with ease when compared to much bigger desktop counterparts and the 500W power supply unit has the necessary firepower to handle all these components comfortably.

This is not, therefore, your usual barebones system – it bears all the hallmarks of one that has been fine-tuned for the connoisseur who will look to build a powerful and yet portable gaming rig or workstation that can crunch vast amounts of data.

The SZ170R8 felt premium despite the U-shaped cover, which we were not a big fan of. It is expensive but in the grander scheme of things, will only account for a fraction of what you'd expect to pay for a decent gaming base unit.

When a branded full-size gaming case with a quality power supply unit and a decent cooling solution costs a couple of hundred pounds, it doesn't feel ludicrous to spend a bit more to save on space.

The real competition though doesn't come from other vendors; there's barely anyone left in this space. Shuttle operates in a niche but lucrative market, one that has seen gaming laptops, like the Dell Inspiron 15 7000, emerge as realistic alternatives for gamers on the move.

Outside gaming though, this unit will shine as a more elegant and nimbler alternative to your standard workstation rig. The fact that you can slot in a top-end graphics card (Nvidia Quadro or AMD FirePro) makes it an interesting candidate for all sorts of exotic applications.

• Also check out: 10 best desktop PCs 2016: which computer should you buy?

WHAT IS A HANDS ON REVIEW?

'Hands on reviews' are a journalist's first impressions of a piece of kit based on spending some time with it. It may be just a few moments, or a few hours. The important thing is we have been able to play with it ourselves and can give you some sense of what it's like to use, even if it's only an embryonic view. For more information, see TechRadar's Reviews Guarantee.

Audeze Sine review

The Audeze Sine, unlike most other headphones, are ready for a future that actually may not come to fruition. I'm talking about the possibility of a 3.5mm-less iPhone 7 and how Apple's move could signal a big change in the way manufacturers make headphones.

If Apple does decide to juke the decades-old standard, Audeze will be prepared with the Sine. It's the latest model from the renowned audio company, with an on-ear, closed-back design and slick leather details.

While wireless is certainly the trend, Audeze is keeping things analog, or as analog as possible when you're passing audio through a Lightning cable, which is packed with an inline remote that functions as an all-in-one amplifier, digital signal processor and digital to analog converter.

iPhone users who are using anything newer than an iPhone 4S will have a Lightning port at their disposal and, so long as you don't need to charge your phone, you'll be able to take advantage of the features and hearty boost in audio quality gained with Audeze's clever amp-in-a-cord connector.

The Audeze Sine aren't cheap, coming in at $499 (£449, AU$799), which puts them on par in price to the Sennheiser Momentum Wireless, a rival in terms of comfort, styling and feature count. But the Sine are also up against literally every other wired headphone on the market.

For those who own an iPhone, the Sine are a sensible purchase. They sound amazing when connected through Lighting and they are snazzy and comfortable enough to wear around all day. But for everyone else, opting for the 3.5mm-only variation provides a comparably ho-hum experience that doesn't come close to justifying the slightly reduced $449 (£399, AU$699) price tag.

Design

The Sine's build exudes quality, with the sturdy frame and leather capped accents. Starting with the leather headband, it's stuffed on each side with plush cushions to aid in comfort. It fits nicely, even around my plus-sized noggin.

Stretching down, the adjustable arms slide smoothly from inside the headband to accommodate heads of all different shapes. These also operate as a swivel for the earcups to allow for a custom fit on your ears.

Touching on the cups themselves, they are almost completely made up of leather on the exterior. From front to back, these are smooth to the touch and supple when resting against your ears. Their shape cleverly contours, like theKoss Pro4S, to allow your ear to fit comfortably right in the middle.

The backs of each earcup houses a port where you plug in the corresponding cord for the left and right audio channels. Whether you're using the Lightning cable or the standard 3.5mm option, these connectors don't differ.

Performance

If you're an iPhone user, you should really be listening to the Sine through the Cipher Lightning cable, which features an amplifier, digital signal processor and digital to audio converter. It houses all of these components because the Lightning port bypasses the iPhone's default audio system, which means that the data coming out of the iPhone to the Sine hasn't yet been converted and processed.

When you first plug the Sine into a Lightning port, you'll be prompted to install the app. This is recommended, as it will keep the hardware up-to-date with the latest firmware and also because it lets you tune two equalizers to your taste. These are stored on the cable and usable on multiple devices.

To get the best impression of what the Audeze Sine is capable of, you really should listen through the Cipher cable. The sound is full of attack, warmth and detail. Everything sounds neatly balanced in the closed-back cup and, to my ears, nothing seemed out of place or disproportionate in the sound presentation.

If you have an Android phone, or are just listening through a non-Lightning port, the 3.5mm cable option is appreciated and totally serviceable, too. But, for as much difference as I wasn't expecting to exist between the two options, Lightning is clearly the way to go.

By comparison, audio coming through the 3.5mm cable sounded more reserved and didn't have the immediacy or the warm quality that I loved from the Cipher cable. Again, it's nice to have, but it's not how the Sine was meant to be experienced.

The Cipher Lightning cable gives the Sine all of the modern powers we love to see in a set of wired headphones. There's a multi-function inline remote that can adjust volume, pick up phone calls and switch songs. It also features a microphone so your phone can remain in the pocket.

Going back to the 3.5mm cable, the Sine really loses all of its interesting functionality. There's no microphone, no music control and a noticeable reduction in sound quality. It's a shame that non-iPhone users are getting the boot here because there's a lot to like about the Sine from a design perspective.

Final verdict

The Audeze Sine are potentially ahead of the curve, with its Cipher Lightning cable, which really boosts the sound over the 3.5mm option. It also enriches the experience with a capable inline remote.

But for non-iPhone users, there's not much to see here other than a set of expensive headphones that fault you for not being an Apple customer. Audeze could easily sell a 3.5mm version of its cable with the integrated controls as amplifier, but, until it does that, keep looking for other options.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 review

Or at least that's the theory.

Power up

At last I finally have my hands on Nvidia's latest and greatest GPU, the GeForce GTX 1080. Coming jam packed with 2,560 CUDA cores, 160 texture units, 64 ROPs, 8GBs of Micron's latest GDDR5X VRAM, and a GPU boost clock running in at a comfortable 1,733 MHz, is there any wonder why the PC enthusiast community is so abuzz?

For those less savvy with the technical jargon, the best way to compare these cards is simply by looking at how many TFLOPs they can produce. The GTX 980, manages a respectable 5.5 TFLOPs, the 980 Ti, 6.5, the Titan 7.

And the GTX 1080? 9 teraflops.

Yep, in essence it should be almost twice as powerful as its predecessor, and in nearly every scenario, it is. At least in our testing. So let's get to it.

Design and cooling

Overall it's a cool card. Not as cool as some of the GTX 980s we saw two years ago, but it still remains at a chilly 82 degrees C, or 91 if you bump the power limiter up, and let GPU Boost have access to that extra headroom. Overall it falls well within operating parameters.

What is interesting about this card in particularly, is the inclusion of the DisplayPort 1.4 connection standard. The biggest limiting factor currently with 4K gaming, is the lack of higher refresh rate monitors. DisplayPort 1.2 is limited to pumping out 3840x2160 at 60 Hz, meaning the buttery smoothness of 144Hz gaming panels has been unobtainable on higher pixel density screens.

Although there's no 4K 120 Hz panels out on the market just yet, Nvidia claims two 1080's in SLI will be able to push 4K resolutions at 144 Hz. DisplayPort 1.4 also supports resolutions as high as 8K (7680x4320) at 60 Hz with HDR, or 4K at 120 Hz with HDR

Panasonic TX-40DX700 review

There's no doubt about it, 4K looks its best on a 60-inch TV. But who has room for a traditional big screen? Not everyone obviously, which is why Panasonic has loaded this 40-inch edge LED-backlit LCD TV with all of its latest tech including, of course, 4K.

However, because the panel is so small, a 3840 × 2160 resolution isn't the main reason to buy Pana's 40-inch. No, that distinction goes to the inclusion of high dynamic range (HDR).

Promising brighter, more colourful and more contrasty images, HDR is the future – and it's not diminished by the size of your TV. Theoretically, that means the 40DX700, the smallest and cheapest HDR TV available from Panasonic, ought to wow us with era-defining colour. (It doesn't, but we'll cover that more in a minute.)

Don't expect any curves on the 40DX700, either – it's flat and slim, with a matte silver trim measuring just 5mm around the sides and top, and only 16mm along the bottom, which tapers backwards. Unusually, it's also got a choice of how it's supported.

Do you ever look at your TV and think, "Man, I wish its little silver feet were slightly further apart!"? No, nor me, but nevertheless the 40DX700 has two separate configurations for its triangular bracket-style feet: one at each end for an easel-like appearance, or both much closer to the middle of the set. The latter doesn't look half as good, though it's a probably a decision that will ultimately be left to size of the table on which you place the DX700.

The edge LED-backlit VA panel inside the 40DX700 offers local dimming and claims 14000Hz scanning. That number is more gimmick than hard-and-fast science, though.

In layman's terms, 14000Hz is merely backlight motion rate, or BMR for short, which uses the panel's frame interpolation feature to fudge a 14000Hz effect. Really, all that means is that you won't see much motion blur on the 40DX700 which, don't get us wrong, is crucial – a 4K TV with blurry moving pictures would be pretty useless.

Firefox OS is heating up

Although Panasonic calls its new operating system My Home Screen 2.0, it's actually built entirely around Mozilla's Firefox OS and is absolutely brilliant. Three large icons for TV, Apps and Devices float over whatever input is live, which makes it much easier to use than so-called smart TVs of years gone by.

It's all controlled by a large, silver remote control that sports large buttons and plenty of easy to use shortcuts. Chief among them is a red Netflix button, though the clear Apps and Home buttons are just as important. It's also possible to 'pin' almost anything to that screen. This works best if you add a favourite TV channel, though it's just as easy to add an input – perhaps HDMI1 – and rename it 'Blu-ray player' or 'Xbox One.'

Reach the apps page and there's one standout that begs to be pinned to that Home screen: Freeview Play.

It's nothing more than a hub app for the catch-up TV apps from UK broadcasters, but the chance to have the BBC iPlayer, ITV, 4 On Demand and Demand Five all in one place is excellent. The BBC's News and Sport apps come as a bonus. Other apps include Netflix and Amazon Instant (and, yes, the 40DX700 has HEVC decoding for 4K streaming), YouTube (complete with VP9 decoding for watching in 4K), AccuWeather, Wuaki.tv, Chilli Cinema, and many more squirrelled away in its Apps Market.

Happily, it's all powered by a quad core PRO processor, and so remains fluid and quick to update with apps loading rapidly.

The ins and outs

How many inputs do most people actually use on a TV? That question has obviously been asked, and answered, by Panasonic's TV designers because they've fenced-off what they consider the unpopular ones.

A small flap on the back of the 40DX700 lifts away to reveal an Ethernet LAN slot (sensible, since most of us use WiFi), a set of component video inputs (we're surprised these even exist on TVs nowadays), stereo phonos (ditto) and an optical digital audio output (OK, so that's where we disagree with Panasonic – the 40DX700's speakers aren't that good).

The oft-used slots are on an easy-to-reach side-panel on the TV's left-hand side as it's being watched. Three HDMI inputs are supplied in a line – two HDCP 2.2-compatible for 4K, the other one ARC-ready – alongside a USB slot, RF input to feed the Freeview HD digital TV tuner, a headphones jack and a Common Interface slot.

All of those ins and outs force cables sideways, which should make the 40DX700 easy to wall-mount, though, there are a couple more USB slots nearby, both of them rear-facing.

Also available

At a mere 40 inches in screen diameter, the 40DX700 is the little sister to its two stablemates in the DX700 series, the 50-inch 50DX700 and the 58-inch 58DX700. Unlike the recently reviewed TX-DX600 series, all include 4K resolution and HDR.

However, if you do want a 40-inch TV with the latest and greatest technology from Panasonic, trade up to the TX-DX750 range for niceties like Studio Master HCX picture processing and a twin HD tuner (to record one show while watching another) and you'll have to choose between the 50-inch 50DX750, 58-inch 58DX750 and 65-inch 65DX750.