
Forget Dyson — I tried this smart fan and it proves you don't need to spend a fortune
Not only is it smart with remote controls I can access through an app, but it delivers a potent stream of cool air when I need it — plus, it acts as an air quality monitor. My only issue is that it costs a fortune.
That's why I've switched to the Shark FlexBreeze for the last year, which I love for its ability to work off battery power. While it's way cheaper than Dyson, it's still pricey for an indoor fan with its $179 cost.
Shark used to be my favorite Dyson alternative until I tested out the Dreo TurboPoly Fan 508S for the past month. And you know what? It proves how Dyson is overrated.
The Dreo TurboPoly Fan 508S is a feature rich smart fan that runs ultra quiet at 20dB, while still delivering a powerful stream of air to cool rooms in no time at all. It also features a unique 3D oscillating design that flows air all throughout a room. There's also ambient lighting courtesy of the LED light ring that outlines the back.
First of all, let me tell you what this $129 priced smart fan has to offer. Most notably, it features a unique design that makes it look like it's an ordinary fan at first glance, but it rotates horizontally and vertically up to 120-degrees — allowing it to better distribute fresh air evenly.
This is different from my Dyson Pure Cool that rotates left and right, since the Dreo TurboPoly Fan 508S can move up and down. In fact, it can point itself towards the ceiling to draw air from beneath and spread it across the ceiling. In my experience, I found this method much more effective at quickly cooling down the room faster than either the Dyson or Shark fans.
Secondly, it runs much quieter than the Dyson because it operates at 20dB. Even when I set it to its fastest speed, it's nowhere as loud as the Dyson, which is perfect for when I'm trying to nap. I can't tell you enough about why this matters because it makes a huge difference, like being able to take video calls without my audio sounding distorted due to background noise.
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Another unique feature about the Dreo TurboPoly Fan 508S is that it doubles as an ambient light source. I really like the LED light ring outlining the back of the fan. Not only does it add some ambiance to a room, but it's great that I can switch it to just about any color I want — or even set it to rotate between all of the colors. It's a function I didn't think would be helpful at first, but I was proven wrong.
Just like my Dyson, the Dreo offers controls remotely through the Dreo app, allowing me to remotely turn it on, make quick adjustments to its speed, and even set how far it oscillates. I've also integrated it into Google Home, offering me greater control by speaking voice commands.
It's not different from what I can do with the Dyson, but it doesn't cost a fortune either. There's a big difference between $129 for the Dreo and the $400+ you'd fork over for the Dyson.

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USA Today
30 minutes ago
- USA Today
Got 'range anxiety'? Trump halts massive EV charger project
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Tom's Guide
a day ago
- Tom's Guide
The Sony Bravia 10 is the TV I'm most excited to see in 2026 — and it could make OLEDs look obsolete
Sony makes some of the best TVs on the market, but its most exciting yet isn't bound for debut until 2026 with a model called the Sony Bravia 10. This next-generation TV leverages RGB LEDs to deliver exciting performance enhancements over its rivals. It will purportedly take advantage of MediaTek's MT9131 chip alongside Sony's XR Backlight Master Drive algorithm to deliver exceptional results in color handling, contrast, and brightness. The special RGB backlighting, which we saw in person at an event hosted at Sony's Tokyo HQ, could be the secret sauce needed to elevate Mini-LED TVs to ever-new heights. If so, the Sony Bravia 10 could far surpass even some of the best OLED TVs in the market. But with so much hype swirling around it, can the Bravia 10 ultimately deliver next year? And, more importantly, are RGB Mini-LED TVs truly the future of OLED killers, as claimed? RGB Mini-LED TVs are gaining popularity rapidly, but remain largely unknown at present. Hisense unveiled its own version at CES 2025, calling its technology TriChroma LED, and Samsung has also developed its own RGB display, which kicked off its production nearly two months ago. But, they're both essentially the same technology Sony is working into its Bravia 10. How it works is a bit complex if you're not already familiar with the makeup of a QLED TV. Both traditional QLEDs and Mini-LED TVs rely on an LED backlight, which often sports either white or blue LED lights in conjunction with quantum dot filters that produce colors on a display. Sony's RGB Mini-LED design drops those colored filters and instead uses tri-colored red, green, and blue LED lights — hence, "RGB LED" — built directly into the backlight. These then act as the color source for content displayed on the screen, ensuring colors (and brightness) can be controlled across all dimming zones. This means that colors and brightness can both act uniformly. It's quite a remarkable feat of engineering when you think about it, offering some impressive results with the help of Sony's XR Backlight Master Drive algorithm and, purportedly, the MediaTek MT9131 processor. The latter is what will control the RGB Mini-LED backlight in the Bravia 10, which Sony confirmed in a press release. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. But what does this all mean for the consumer? And how exactly does it relate to the long-standing OLED vs Mini-LED debate? Sony explained to Tom's Guide during its event in Tokyo earlier this year that the prototype Bravia 10 had a color volume four times larger than the Sony Bravia A95L OLED TV. Color volume can best be described through the lens of the color gamut tests we approach each TV with in our reviews, and how well those colors are maintained at various brightness levels. This means the Bravia 10 could not only boast more colors but also more accurate colors in both SDR and HDR content. Managing editor Kate Kozuch, who was at the event and saw Sony's prototype RGB Mini-LED TV side-by-side with the A95L, explains it best: "...I witnessed in real-time how the RGB version keeps colors rich and saturated even in darker areas. It also maintained detail in shadows where traditional displays tend to lose it." I witnessed in real-time how the RGB version keeps colors rich and saturated even in darker areas. It also maintained detail in shadows where traditional displays tend to lose it. It's not just making colors more realistic and life-like. Sony also claims its RGB Mini-LED TV will have better off-axis viewing, too. This has proven a major boon for many QLEDs over the years, often being the make-or-break aspect in many of our TV reviews, right next to glare mitigation. Poor off-axis viewing is also most notable in larger screen sizes, which have ballooned in popularity over the past two years. Brands like TCL and Hisense have made a name for themselves in the 75-inch and up range, offering budget prices on large-screen TVs with some of the worst off-axis viewing potential. However, the Bravia 10 aims to put these woes to bed by limiting the gradation of color across the screen. Sony explained it as a byproduct of the Bravia 10's cell structure, which includes components like its LCD panel, transistors, and the RGB backlight in question. Herein is the promise not just in the Bravia 10 itself but RGB Mini-LED TVs on the whole: larger screen sizes with improved off-axis viewing. But the biggest obstacle these TVs, most especially the Bravia 10, will face is pricing. It's widely known that Sony's TVs take cinematic presentation seriously. Look no further than the Sony Bravia 8 II, which just secured the crown as king of OLEDs in Value Electronics' annual TV shootout. But Sony TVs aren't exactly known for their budget pricing. In fact, Sony and "premium" go hand in hand. Given its technological advancements, it stands to reason that the Bravia 10 could be the TV to beat next year, and that comes with an unfortunate side effect. Pricing on this RGB Mini-LED TV could make it a tough sell, even if it's better than most OLEDs. It's a similar problem in the realm of MicroLED TVs, which were also referred to as the "OLED killers" for the longest time. Today, major players in the MicroLED sector, primarily Samsung, have dramatically slowed production on these TVs, which often start at over $100,000. Hopefully, the Bravia 10 doesn't come anywhere close to that, but knowing Sony, it could be in the $40,000+ range, depending on size variations. For reference, the 116-inch Hisense UX RGB Mini-LED TV launched at a whopping $30,000— but, hey, at least you can get it for $24,999 on Best Buy right now. We don't know if Hisense aims to make similar TVs in smaller sizes, but that could prove to be the thorn in Sony's backside next year. If Hisense can deliver RGB Mini-LED TVs at a similar cost to its more conventional Mini-LED TVs, Sony and Samsung will have a lot to worry about. That's all to say that Sony's Bravia 10 will have its run of competition, and its most debilitating aspect could be its breakout price. We'll just have to wait and see how RGB Mini-LED TVs shake up the market next year, and CES 2026 might be where we'll get our first taste of these next-gen displays. Follow Tom's Guide on Google News to get our up-to-date news, how-tos, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.


Tom's Guide
2 days ago
- Tom's Guide
Samsung RGB MicroLED TVs are coming — but should OLED makers be worried?
Micro-LED TVs are tipped to be a major shift in the world of display technologies — offering the same pixel-level control as OLED panels, but without the burn-in risk and with a much higher peak brightness. And Samsung could be the first manufacturer to make them. It made some big announcements related to Micro-LED at CES 2025, and if new rumors are anything to go off, we could finally see more from the company in the near future. If Samsung does finally show off a Micro-LED TV that's available in a reasonable size, it could pave the way for the end of OLED. But how quickly could that really happen? Micro-LED tech isn't exactly straightforward — and marketing terms have made it even harder to understand. Here's a primer. True Micro-LED tech is a massive step forward for LED tech. Mini-LED TVs use small LEDs in layer behind color conversion layers. On Mini-LED TVs, the LED layer is the backlight. Those LEDs aren't as small as a pixel, which means lighting zones have to control the luminance of thousands of pixels at a time. Micro-LED changes that a little. Micro-LEDs are self-emissive pixels, each made up of red, green, and blue (RGB) sub-pixels. That allows a TV to individually control the color and brightness of each pixel — the same level of control as an OLED TV. But Samsung's RGB MicroLED technology isn't quite there yet. While true Micro-LED TVs have self-emissive pixels, Samsung's 'RGB Micro-LED' TVs use a fancy RGB micro-LED layer as the backlight. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. Samsung's 'RGB Micro-LED' backlight could have 'at least three times as many' LEDs in the backlight compared to a traditional LED TV, but nowhere close to a one-to-one parity with each pixel. According to reports, the 'RGB Micro-LED' backlight could have 'at least three times as many' LEDs in the backlight compared to a traditional LED TV, but nowhere close to a one-to-one parity with each pixel. To be clear, the tech is still cool. The backlight technology Samsung is using will make for a TV with better lighting control and brighter colors than traditional mini-LED TVs. But, it's not the Micro-LED TV that we've necessarily been waiting for. Instead, it's actually closer to the RGB Mini-LED TVs that the likes of Hisense have been touting. Samsung's RGB MicroLED TVs will allow for brighter colors and better lighting control, thanks to the RGB LEDs in the backlight, and the fact that those LEDs are smaller than a typical Mini-LED TV. But, those TVs still won't have pixel-level control, like you can get on an OLED TV. That's really the superpower of OLED TVs — they can turn individual pixels off when portions of the image are black, allowing for true deep blacks. Their downside is that they're not as bright as LED TVs, but with newer brighter OLED panels and the increased usage of tech like Tandem OLED, even the brightness of OLED TVs is improving. True Micro-LED TVs will be a force to reckon with, however. They'll have the pixel-level control, the super-bright highlights, and eliminate the burn-in risk that has plagued OLED TVs since they were first introduced. Unfortunately, true Micro-LED TVs likely won't be widely available for some time. We've seen some much larger Micro-LED TVs, which technically have the self-emitting pixels with RGB sub-pixels — but those models get around technical limitations by simply having larger individual pixels. But those true Micro-LED panels are extremely expensive, and are mostly used in corporate installations. Samsung is seemingly set to move ahead with its own RGB 'MicroLED' TVs. But where will those TVs sit in the market? In their current iteration, they'll probably sit slightly below Samsung's best TVs. They'll replace Samsung's high-end mini-LED TVs — the QN90F Neo QLED — but probably not its highest-end QD-OLED TVs, the Samsung S95F and S90F OLED. That goes for other RGB LED TVs that aren't marketed as Micro-LED TVs too — they'll make for brighter, more vibrant LED TVs that have better contrast and deeper black-levels, but won't quite have the same advantages as high-end OLED TVs. Pricing is still very much up in the air, but it's likely we'll see higher prices than we currently see with Samsung's Neo QLED TVs. We'd be shocked if we didn't see a Hisense TV with a similar number of zones as Samsung's RGB Micro-LED TVs at some point in the next year or two. Perhaps competition will change that, however. The likes of Hisense and TCL have been quick to adopt new LED technologies, and Hisense even started showing off RGB Mini-LED TVs at CES earlier this year. Those TVs were more focused on increased brightness and more vibrant colors than more dimming zones, which Samsung's TVs will likely be focused on, given the fact that they'll have those smaller LED lights. We'd be shocked if we didn't see a Hisense TV with a similar number of zones as Samsung's RGB Micro-LED TVs at some point in the next year or two. That still leaves true Micro-LED TVs on the table though. Those TVs likely won't come to consumer products for some time — and when they do, they'll be exorbitant in pricing. They could end up serving as the ultimate in TV technologies — and could truly kill off OLED TVs. LG won't let its preferred panel types go down without a fight, though, and there's no telling how its new four-stack OLED panels will change in 2026. For now, we'll just have to wait and see what's available by the time Micro-LED TVs are realistic. Until then, there's a place on store shelves for both technologies.