September is one of my favourite times of the year. Not just that, but it’s also one of the best months for new clothes, when lightweight summer pieces finally give way to proper jackets, heavier fabrics, and shoes that don’t look completely ridiculous with trousers.

This week has been particularly strong, with heritage styles cropping up everywhere, although not necessarily in the form you might expect.

Gramicci has revisited its climbing roots with cult Korean label thisisneverthat, and Vans has covered one of its most famous skate shoes in pearls.

Barbour and Paul Smith have given classic British outerwear a considerably more playful makeover, and JJJJound has turned to Italy for one of the nicest approach shoes I’ve seen this year

Timex has dragged a wonderfully complicated moon phase watch out of 1990, and Butter Goods a menswear staple into something genuinely cool. So, busy week! Here are the six pieces that caught my eye.

Gramicci x thisisneverthat Washed Wind Jacket

£170 | Gramicci

Gramicci and cult South Korean label thisisneverthat are back together for a third collaboration, and the Washed Wind Jacket might be my favourite piece from the collection.

It takes Gramicci’s long-standing connection with climbing clothing and filters it through the slightly faded, vintage-inspired aesthetic that thisisneverthat does particularly well, resulting in something that looks as though it could have been pulled from a particularly good 1990s outdoor catalogue.

It also sits nicely between technical outerwear and everyday streetwear, which makes it considerably easier to wear than some hardcore mountain jackets.

The wider collection includes a reversible fleece vest, Pertex insulated jacket, knitwear, denim and accessories, and launched on 11 September.

Vans Premium Old Skool 36 Pearlized Yacht Club

£115 | Vans

There are understated trainers, and then there are Vans covered in pearls and crystals.

The new Old Skool 36 Pearlized Yacht Club belongs firmly in the second camp, pairing brightly coloured, nautical-inspired panels with pearl and crystal embellishments and a deliberately distressed upper that makes them look as though someone has already spent several years skating in them before pulling out the jewellery box.

Underneath all that decoration is Vans’ Premium version of the Old Skool 36, itself based on the Style 36 introduced in 1977, with an updated fit, materials and comfort. They're objectively quite ridiculous, but that is precisely why I like them.

Paul Smith Loves Barbour Transport Windowpane Waxed Jacket

£429 | Paul Smith

A brown Barbour wax jacket should be one of the safest items of clothing imaginable, but Paul Smith has made this one considerably more interesting without ruining what makes the original so appealing.

The Transport Windowpane Waxed Jacket uses Barbour’s relaxed, relatively short Transport silhouette, rendered in traditional waxed cotton and covers it with a large windowpane pattern.

It's part of the latest Paul Smith Loves Barbour collection, which mixes Barbour's Scottish heritage with Paul Smith's usual injections of colour and slightly eccentric detailing, and the Rustic/Bark colourway feels particularly appropriate now that autumn is approaching.

JJJJound x Diemme Movida

€343.44 (~£295) | Diemme

Approach shoes have completed the journey from specialist climbing equipment to full-blown fashion item, and JJJJound's latest collaboration with Italian footwear specialist Diemme demonstrates why the silhouette works so well away from the mountains.

This version of the Movida is handmade in Italy with a rich brown suede upper, full leather lining and chunky Vibram outsole, giving it enough outdoor DNA to feel rugged without looking as though you're about to clip into a harness.

As you'd expect from JJJJound, branding is kept deliberately quiet, while the predominantly brown and black colour scheme is interrupted by an optional bright red lace. Wear them with straight-leg jeans or cords, and you're essentially sorted for autumn.

Timex 1990 Moon Phase Reissue

£250 | Timex

Timex has been raiding its archives with considerable enthusiasm recently, but the new 1990 Moon Phase Reissue might be one of the most interesting watches it has brought back so far.

Rather than relying on minimalism, the 37mm watch crams a moon phase, day and date information onto its cream dial, surrounded by additional calendar markings and housed inside a polished gold-tone stainless-steel case.

There's a lovely amount going on without the whole thing becoming illegible, and one of my favourite details is the tiny old-school Timex Quartz wave logo hiding on the dial, which helps sell the illusion that you've found a particularly well-preserved watch from 1990 rather than something released in 2026.

Butter Goods Polartec Reversible Trapper Cap

£50 | Welcome

Trapper caps have been creeping back into menswear for a while, but Butter Goods has made its version considerably more useful by turning it into two hats in one.

The Australian skate label has paired a forest-camo nylon ripstop outer with a navy Polartec 200 fleece lining. It's reversible, so you can switch between the technical shell side and the warmer fleece depending on the weather or how conspicuous you're feeling.

You also get proper ear flaps, a five-panel construction and an elastic cinch at the back. It's exactly the sort of slightly odd but genuinely functional accessory I want once the temperature starts dropping.

YETI might still be synonymous with indestructible coolers and enormous insulated mugs, but quietly, its bag range has become almost as extensive.

The company makes backpacks for the daily commute, waterproof packs designed to be soaked, proper hiking bags, wheeled luggage, duffels, and little crossbody bags for the handful of things you don't want rattling around in your pockets.

Shop all YETI bags

I've been using and testing YETI gear for years, and if there's one trait that carries across almost everything the brand makes, it's that YETI rarely does delicate.

Its bags tend to be substantial, heavily built and considerably more expensive than the generic equivalent, but they're also designed for people who expect their gear to take a beating.

Below, I have collected nine bags from YETI's current collection that I would recommend for everyday activities, travelling, hiking and other outdoor activities.

Everyday

Outdoor

Travel

LG has been making consumer OLED TVs for a long while now – since 2013, in fact – and it shows no sign in slowing down. There's just one kink in the road – the ongoing RAM crisis.

As with just about every tech firm right now, LG is forced to navigate its way around the rising prices and scarcity of components due to AI data centres gobbling them up like Hungry Hippos. Anything that requires RAM or storage has been affected, and that includes TVs.

"That is a very big challenge," revealed the company's head of customer display experience, Baek Sun-pil, to T3 during IFA in Germany.

However, he also explained that LG is managing to counter some hardware barriers with software optimisation: "From our side, our homework was, 'how can you make our operating system more optimised?'

"We managed to get the same performance from lower memory. Higher performance, even."

LG has also been working further with its hardware partners to lessen the impact: "We are in free discussion with the memory guys," he added.

"We are in discussion for the next year and the years later. So we are well prepared."

But like everyone in the tech industry, Baek is looking forward to when the crisis finally abates. Something he told us could happen in a year or so: "I think it's not because of the TV industry, but because of HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) and other things.

"But end of next year or early 2028," he predicted as a possible timescale for the industry to start to normalise again.

Future OLED TV innovation

Thankfully, reducing the costs of components isn't LG's only drive to make OLED TVs more accessible.

The display executive also explained to us that he wants to see larger screen sizes reduce in price in the coming years: "How can we deliver a bigger screen size for a more affordable price?" he asked.

"I think that's also very challenging. For example, the 97-inch OLED is something like £20,000, while a normal OLED TV is just £1,000. That's too much of a gap."

Certainly, it could be the next bastion for OLED development, to help encourage existing OLED TV owners to upgrade: "When changing, we see them changing from 65 (inches) to 75, 75 changing to 80, so bigger screen sizes.

"And AI will help drive [upgrading] too, of course. We support AI functions and TVs will soon include more agentic AI features."

But what about 8K? The industry has largely gone quiet on the next-gen resolution: "4K is the major stream. Hollywood studios currently have greater interest in 4K than 8K, as content production and distribution remain largely centred on 4K."

The upshot of this is that, buy a new 4K HDR OLED TV today – such as the LG C6 or new Wallpaper TV for 2026 – and you shouldn't need to worry about an upgrade for half a decade or more.

There's no sign of 4K being superseded anytime soon, while LG is doing everything in its power to keep the impact of RAMageddon away from consumers. The only question you'll likely still have is, "Will my wall fit an 80-inch TV or above?" Especially when prices start to come down.

And that's not a bad quandary to face.

After months of reaching for T-shirts, the temperature is finally heading the other way, which means one of my favourite pieces of outdoor clothing is coming back into rotation.

I’ve been testing outdoor gear for nearly a decade, and while the basic idea behind the best fleece jackets hasn’t changed much, the category itself has become surprisingly varied.

You can still buy the thick, fluffy retro-style fleeces many of us picture when we hear the word, but there are also highly breathable grid fleeces for moving fast in the mountains, ultralight active insulation, natural wool alternatives and increasingly sophisticated designs that look just as comfortable in town as they do on the trail.

With that in mind, I’ve picked eight of the jackets and midlayers that stand out to me in 2026, covering everything from technical Polartec to Sasquatch-covered pile.

Patagonia Nano-Air Light Jacket

£230 | Patagonia

Patagonia is one of the biggest names in fleece, so naturally I’ve chosen something that technically isn’t one. The Nano-Air Light swaps conventional fleece for 40g FullRange synthetic insulation, sandwiched between stretchy, air-permeable recycled polyester fabrics.

The idea is to provide enough warmth when you slow down without immediately becoming unbearably hot when you start working hard again. It weighs just 332g, has an articulated cut for freedom of movement and can even stuff into its own chest pocket.

For hiking, scrambling and other stop-start autumn adventures, it’s a fascinating alternative to simply throwing on another fleece.

Peak Performance Freelight AOP Polartec Alpha Half Zip

£160 £80 | Peak Performance

Polartec Alpha was originally developed as active insulation, and the Freelight AOP Half Zip demonstrates why the material has become such an interesting alternative to conventional fleece.

Peak Performance uses an exposed Polartec Alpha Direct knit that provides insulation while staying exceptionally breathable and quick-drying, making it the sort of layer I’d reach for when I know I’m going to generate plenty of heat.

The half-zip lets you dump even more warmth when required, while its unusual all-over pattern gives it considerably more personality than most technical midlayers.

Klättermusen Balderus Jacket

£260 | Klättermusen

Synthetic fleece dominates outdoor clothing, making the new Balderus one of the most interesting jackets on this list. Klättermusen has instead used a dense fleece made from recycled Italian wool, creating a substantial 575g layer designed for cold-weather hiking and mountain use.

Nylon reinforcement is added to exposed areas to improve durability and provide extra wind protection, while the construction retains freedom of movement when climbing or reaching.

This isn't the fleece I’d choose for fast-and-light missions, but when warmth takes priority, the heavyweight wool construction offers something genuinely different from the sea of polyester alternatives.

Mountain Hardwear Polartec Power Grid Full Zip Hoody

$190 (~£140) | Mountain Hardwear

If your idea of a fleece involves mountains rather than coffee shops, Mountain Hardwear’s Polartec Power Grid Full Zip Hoody is probably the most technical option on this list.

The gridded construction is designed to trap warmth while helping moisture move away from the body, which is exactly what I want from a midlayer when I’m hiking hard in cooler weather.

It also has a fitted three-piece hood, thumb holes, stretch panels, and zipped hand and chest pockets, while the relatively slim fit makes it easy to layer under a shell. At 427g, it provides plenty of substance without becoming excessively bulky.

Haglöfs Buteo Mid II Jacket

£70 | Haglöfs

Not every good fleece needs an elaborate fabric technology, unusual construction or premium price tag. The new Haglöfs Buteo Mid II is a refreshingly straightforward full-zip fleece that does exactly what most people need a midlayer to do.

The latest version uses lightweight Polartec Micro Series fleece made from 100% recycled polyester, which is designed to dry quickly, manage moisture and provide warmth without too much weight. At around 300g, it should also disappear easily beneath a waterproof shell.

I particularly like the new Standard Issue Black colourway, which gives the Buteo a clean, uncomplicated appearance that should work pretty much anywhere.

KAVU Teannaway Fleece

£80 | Kavu

Technical outdoor clothing is becoming increasingly serious, which is precisely why I like KAVU’s Teannaway.

This is fleece in its most gloriously old-school form, with 7.5oz fabric, reinforced taffeta elbow panels, a kangaroo-style pass-through pocket and the sort of colourful patterns that make minimalist Scandinavian outdoor clothing look positively miserable.

My pick is the wonderfully named Sasquatch Sighting, which is covered in sunglasses-wearing Bigfoots wandering through the wilderness.

KAVU describes the Teannaway as its bestselling fleece, and it isn't difficult to understand the appeal. It’s warm, uncomplicated and, most importantly, doesn’t take itself remotely seriously.

Montbell CLIMAPLUS Shearling Jacket

£145 | Montbell

Montbell is famous for pursuing its “Light & Fast” philosophy, but the CLIMAPLUS Shearling Jacket demonstrates that the Japanese outdoor specialist isn't afraid of something a little more substantial.

Its thick synthetic CLIMAPLUS fleece has a wool-like texture and is backed by a smooth 40-denier nylon taffeta lining, which helps block wind far more effectively than an ordinary porous fleece.

That construction pushes the weight to 594g, but it also makes the CLIMAPLUS feel more like a proper standalone autumn jacket than a midlayer destined to spend its life underneath a shell.

On Ascent Fleece Jacket

£180 | On

On might still be best known for running shoes, but its increasingly ambitious clothing range has produced one of my favourite-looking fleeces here.

The Ascent Fleece avoids the exaggerated pile and colourful contrast panels normally associated with retro outdoor clothing, instead opting for a restrained design, tonal embroidered logo and subtle reinforced elbow patches.

Underneath the clean appearance is On’s lightweight ThermaTec thermal fabric, while an adjustable hem and elasticated cuffs help keep warmth in. It’s fairly substantial at 530g, so this isn't an ultralight performance piece, but that almost misses the point.

The ID. Polo marks a change of direction for VW, which sees the use of established brand names in its fully electric range. Though the ID. line-up has been successful – not least the ID. 4 and ID. Buzz – this new approach aims to prove more appealing to existing users.

With the Polo, VW has created its cheapest electric car to date. Much as the Polo once was the cheapest car in the range when it was first released back in 1975. Popular with new drivers and those wanting a well-built city runaround, it’s arguably the perfect car for an electric platform.

It is based on the VW MEB+ platform, which is also used by the ID. Cross and the Cupra Raval. This is a front-wheel-drive system, designed to reduce complexity and weight, while offering space for both passengers and luggage.

There’s a newly designed electric motor on board with three power options, from 116 to 135 horsepower and a top 211 horsepower model. There’s also a sportier 226 horsepower model in the works.

I took a drive around Vienna in the Style Launch Edition model, which features the 211 horsepower motor and the 52kWh battery. While it’s undoubtedly a lower-priced car, it feels sturdy and well finished. VW claims this is a ‘true Volkswagen’, which translates to ‘people’s car’ in English, but could it be the perfect city car too?

Price and availability

UK prices for the VW ID. Polo start from £23,945, while in Europe it costs just under €25,000. There are two variants available in the UK, the Life and Style models, each with a choice of motors and batteries. A Trend model is only available in Europe.

The launch editions are the Life with either a 37kWh or 52kWh battery, and the Style model with a 52kWh battery. The model I drove was the Style Launch Edition, which is priced at £32,995. This has the 211 horsepower motor and 52kWh battery for a range of up to 274 miles.

There is a choice of seven paint colours: a solid paint in candy white and six metallic colours, including a python yellow metallic, which really stands out, and a celestial blue metallic that my test car was finished in.

How does it look?

Seeing the new ID. Polo in person for the first time, it looks very familiar. Though slightly taller and with a few updates, it's unmistakably a Polo and close to the sixth-generation car that was released in 2017. The rear door handles are hidden behind the window, making it look more like a two-door model than a four-door one.

The front headlights are connected by an LED bar that runs the width of the car, with only the front VW badge to divide them. At the rear, it follows recent models with an LED that goes the full width of the car too, along with square LEDs at the corners and an illuminated red VW badge.

Inside the Polo

Inside, the cabin has been kept clean and simple to enhance the feeling of space. A driver display sits behind the steering wheel, while a large centre screen stands alone in the middle.

The dash and doors are finished in a textile material that feels soft to the touch, much like a soundbar speaker. Under the centre display is an array of physical buttons providing tangible control of the climate functions, while a volume dial sits lower down the centre console.

There are mirror controls in the door mount, and a neat door opener that sits around the electric window controls. It’s a welcome return to real buttons and dials, while still offering the digital functionality on the screen for other tasks, such as driving modes.

For a small car, there’s a decent amount of space in the back of the ID. Polo. It will seat five at a push, though it is more than comfortable enough for a family of four. There’s plenty of luggage space too, with 441 litres of storage in the boot. That’s a 25% increase on the petrol model thanks to the MEB+ design. You can also get up to 1240 litres with the back seats down.

Tech

A 13-inch touchscreen display sits in the middle of the dash, somewhat dominating the space. This high-resolution screen is an update on the original ID screens, and no longer features the sliding volume control along the bottom. Instead, there is a dedicated volume dial in the centre console and proper buttons for the climate controls just below the fans.

The driver information is shown on a 10-inch screen just behind the steering wheel and offers a choice of viewing styles, including a retro display. This is based on the dials of the Mark I Golf, complete with speedometer and odometer, and shows a power output/recovery in place of the rev counter.

The retro styling also carries through to the centre screen, with an old TV surround on the map, an old-style fuel gauge for the battery charge and a radio/cassette deck graphic for the media player.

Both retro displays are very stylish, but I did find the information harder to read, so after a few minutes, swapped back to the modern displays, which are clean, simple and stylish. I suspect this will be the case for most drivers, but it’s a nice novelty feature to have.

The entertainment system is bolstered by a Harman Kardon sound system, with 10 speakers, 12 channels and 425 Watts of power. It’s a solid system for this car, with good volume and clarity.

For such an entry-level position, there’s a lot of driving tech on the ID. Polo. The IQ Drive system is an optional extra on both variants and includes the Connected Travel Assist. This provides level 2 acceleration, braking and steering assistance, alongside speed limit detection, either from road signs or mapping. This is a truly impressive system with great lane centring, like something you’d expect to find on a flagship model.

The system also includes traffic light recognition and assisted lane changing. On standard traffic lights, the system works really well, bringing the car to a stop, even with no cars in front. However, on more complex junctions with lights on filter lanes, it can at times get confused, so it needs monitoring more closely.

VW’s mapping software is provided by TomTom and is mostly decent; however, I did find the directions slightly confusing at times. Like most OEM systems, it’s still no match for Google Maps or Apple Maps, even if it provides integrated benefits such as charging locations on route.

Driving

For a small car, the ID. Polo feels great on the road. The spacious interior means you don’t feel penned in or exposed on motorways. In standard comfort driving mode, the acceleration feels a little slower than some electric cars, but it’s nippy enough off the line and put it into sport mode, and it can really go. The 211 horsepower model I was driving has a 0-62 mph time of 7.1 seconds, which isn’t bad for this type of car.

Suspension is firm but not rigid, and the braking is responsive. The model I was driving was the premium offering, so I couldn’t comment on how the more affordable Life edition feels, though I suspect the overall driving experience is much the same. The lower-powered motors will feel slower, though potentially still quicker than you’re used to if you’re moving from a petrol car of a similar size.

Depending on the battery size you go for, the ID. Polo has up to 281 miles of range with the 52kWh battery. If you opt for the base-level 32 kWh battery, you will get up to 206 miles. If you’re looking for a city runaround, that’s still plenty of range. The larger battery, though, gives you more options, allowing you to take on longer journeys without worrying about charging along the way.

Charging speed is just 105kW on the 52kWh battery and 90kW on the smaller 37kWh battery, though that still means a charge time of 23-24 minutes (10-80%), which is less time than a normal service station stop.

Should I buy the ID. Polo?

VW has done a great job creating an electric Polo. This car has the spirit of the petrol model and yet brings advantages thanks to its MEB+ electric platform. It’s compact but spacious inside, premium in finish and fun to drive.

There are now a few great options around this price point that compete directly with the ID. Polo. The Renault 5 E-tech has proved hugely popular and costs a little less, while the new Cupra Raval, which sits on the same platform as the Polo, comes in at almost the same price but offers a very different styling.

What the ID. Polo offers a sense of reassurance; a trusted model from a trusted brand. That kind of pitch may appeal to an older audience looking to move over to electric for the first time. The retro element reinforces this, but could also help it appeal to a younger crowd too.

I’m really pleased to see the Polo brand not only going electric but such a faithful interpretation of it in electric form. While it might not be the most exciting of compact electric models, it’s a great little car for the money and one that is likely to stand the test of time.

Over the weekend, I tucked into a superb Warner Bros. 4K Blu-ray remaster of Mars Attacks! – which has just been released on a 30th-anniversary steelbook edition.

I've always loved this movie; it's one of Tim Burton's best in my opinion, much as others might disagree (and its Rotten Tomatoes score certainly supports that).

But this remaster is an absolute belter that streaming can't even pretend to match – indeed, there's no access to a 4K version from such services.

I could barely believe that the original is now 30 years old, as the sheer quality that's been pulled from this high dynamic range (HDR) rework is really special.

Honestly, it looks like a modern-day movie in many respects. I was nervous that the Martians might look really dated under the lens of today's more advanced effects – but their design and delivery show just how well thought-out they always were.

There are a couple of versions of the Mars Attacks! 4K Blu-ray: you can buy it as a single disc, or the more lavish 30th anniversary collector's edition with steelbook (and Blu-ray bundled into that package, too). It's the latter that I have, as you can see in the pictures below:

Even the box set is lavishly thought out, complete with a steelbook that's shrouded in a transparent coating with Martian Girl showing – and revealing a classic Martian head once you slide it off. Ack ack!

The other box within the package has a series of postcards and a duo of posters, hence it being a collector's item. I'll be keeping those safe and sound rather than putting them up on my office walls, mind.

Warner Bros. has used a 100GB disc for this version of Mars Attacks!, which really shows in its visual fidelity. That's outputting a massive 84.5 megabits per second of HEVC-encoded visuals for the movie's 106 minutes.

To put that in perspective: it's crunching through around 630MB of data per minute to bring you those rich visuals. The sharpness is incredible, the colours pop more than ever before, with higher dynamic range than the movie has ever presented.

The audio track has been remastered too, with the 4K disc delivering a Dolby Atmos mix for even greater immersion, one-upping the standard Blu-ray's 5.1 mix. It's the audio treat that carries those visuals even further.

Diving back into this sci-fi classic rekindled childhood movie memories for me. That said, the message – as much as the satire and the comedy – is just as relevant today as it was back in 1996!

Mars Attacks! is a 4K Blu-ray treat and another entry in my '4K Blu-ray club' of watching one physical release per month. This one felt like a blast from the past, delivered in a modern-day quality that shows off just how good movie-making was in the mid-90s.

A big week beckons in the world of streaming, if you're keeping up with things, and I've been through the (long, long) lists of releases coming this week to see what you should know about this time around. Normally, these round-ups tend to skew in Netflix's favour, since it has a more fulsome release schedule than Prime Video, but this week's an exception.

Amazon's queued up a couple of big new additions for people to sink into, but Netflix is certainly keeping things fresh on its own front too. So, if you want some ideas about what new arrivals could fill your evenings with action, romance or more this week, keep reading. You'll find a trio of highlights along with their trailers and release dates for clarity.

Crew Girl

• Streaming on: Netflix from 10 September

Crew Girl has all the ingredients to be a smash for Netflix, largely because it's continuing what might just be the most popular genre in the world right now – steamy romances set around sports teams. This time, rather than ice hockey or some other wintery sport, though, it's a rowing team that's stepping into the spotlight.

Our main character will become the female cox to an all-male team when she joins a new school without a women's rowing programme, and that is a pretty obvious setup for romantic complications. It wouldn't be much of a drama without a love triangle, and one looks like it'll spring up almost immediately after she joins.

In The Grey

• Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video from 9 September

Guy Ritchie seems to find time to make multiple films a year, and that's before you consider his renewed commitment to TV and streaming series. This movie looks like a characteristically fun one, and reunites him with Henry Cavill after The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare a couple of years ago. Where that was wartime action, this is a modern spy thriller.

Cavill's part of a team (along with Jake Gyllenhaal and Eiza Gonzalez) who specialise in helping people recover what's been stolen from them, whether it's in a kidnapping or a robbery. This time they're chasing down literal billions, and that means the stakes will be super high. It's still a Ritchie flick, though, so expect repartee throughout.

Drawn Together

• Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video from 9 September

If you want your dose of steamy romance this week but don't have a Netflix subscription or don't fancy rowing-themed fun, then this Spanish-language option on Prime Video looks enticing. It's a classic bodyguard setup, where a rich young woman is forced to accept a new guard when she's kidnapped and then mysteriously released.

The trailer makes it obvious that sparks will fly between them almost immediately, especially since they have to live together in really close proximity. Don't be too shocked when they fall for each other, or when plot twists make any potential relationship fraught with risk. Prime Video has a great track record for romances in languages other than English, so this could be the start of another big franchise if it finds an audience.

If I think of one soundbar to rule them all – in terms of being the best-suited option for many people's spaces and, indeed, their TV sizes – then it'd have to be the Sonos Beam.

After two successful previous Beam product launches, the third soundbar in the series – replete with new Beam Ultra moniker – is now available for pre-order, ahead of its 29 September on-sale date.

I was able to test out Sonos' latest soundbar ahead of that launch date, attending a dedicated event in Berlin, which ran adjacent to the IFA tech expo's calendar, to see what new audio upgrades and enhancements it offers.

1. Better Dolby Atmos for more immersive delivery

While the Sonos Beam (Gen 2) does offer Dolby Atmos surround decoding, it's achieved through psychoacoustic processing to 'trick' your brain into hearing sounds across a broader, taller soundstage.

While the Sonos Beam Ultra also deploys a lot of processing, this new soundbar's 7.1.2 channel arrangement dedicates two upfiring channels to its setup – which deliver more notable height and surround sensibility.

These use waveform guides to project their output upwards and forwards, giving a greater sense of sound that envelops you. Even in the large space at The Apartment in The Hoxton Hotel's Charlottenburg location, this small soundbar was able to project.

That's a massive and obvious step up for the Beam series, closing the gap between what it and its bigger brother, the Arc Ultra, can deliver. The latter option is much larger, louder, more enveloping and (of course) more expensive – and therefore not suitable for everyone.

2. Improved physical surround upgrade options

One of the Beam 2's most obviously successful features is the capacity to upgrade it with rear speakers for a true surround sound output – and it works really well with a pair of Sonos SL-100 speakers, which is precisely how a colleague has upgraded his setup.

While the Beam Ultra can also absolutely be setup in that way, with a pair of wired rears, it also launches in tandem with the Sonos 27 app and the ability to integrate wireless surrounds using a pair of Sonos Wi-Fi-capable speakers – either the Move 2 or Play.

I was able to experience the process of setting this up at my demo setting – and it's a total cinch. Introduce a pair of speakers, powered on, and Sonos' new system is able to detect them when there's an HDMI signal output to the soundbar, communicate without you pressing a button, and create a rear pair.

There are caveats to that, though. It can only be a pair of the same speaker – so two Move 2 or two Play units. It also can't be a singular unit to act as a sole rear – it has to be a pair. And that might be costly. In the same breath, if you already have one Play then it's a good reason to purchase a second one.

Whether you choose wired or wireless, there's no further Sonos TruePlay setup required for this integration. You can casually insert the speakers into a home cinema grouping and remove them for separate use as you wish.

3. Enhanced dialogue, improved customisation

This one is part of considerable consumer feedback and a new app-controlled feature that's key to the Sonos 27 app – and will make all of Sonos' soundbars better at dialogue delivery, thanks to a four-step system (Low, Medium, High, Max) to dynamically boost its output.

In the Beam Ultra, however, there's a big hardware change to the central driver, which is one of the nine inside this soundbar's shell. Its positioned front and centre, but integrates a mid-range driver with embedded tweeter, to ensure that mid-to-upper output can really push dialogue.

I joked with the Sonos team that it ought to have five settings, with 'Nolan' being the upper end of the setup, because modern movies are increasingly dependent on huge theatrical output that just becomes compressed and muddied on a home setup. This new feature, however, helps resolve it.

Interestingly, the 'Max' setting is aimed at those who have particular difficulty in hearing, so will sound excessive to your average listener – but is exactly what a significant section of hard-of-hearing users have long been requesting from Sonos. So here it is!

4. Bigger bass for smaller spaces

The Beam Ultra's nine drivers mean it's got an additional four compared to the earlier Beam 2. That gave Sonos the opportunity to spread the low-end share among more of those units for a bigger, broader bass delivery.

My initial demo just showed off what the soundbar can do, no subwoofer or surrounds added – that came later, showing off the ultimate Beam setup – and it's clear that there's a bigger articulation of bass from this new product.

That said, maintain your expectations. The Apartment space is large and, realistically, too big for a Beam product – an Arc Ultra would be happier in such an environment. I'm yet to try it, but I suspect my smaller living room will give that bass the physical space it requires to sound bigger.

However you look at it, though, the Beam Ultra is designed, arranged and tuned to deliver more low-end across its soundstage than the earlier Beam (Gen 2) model. Which is precisely what many people will be looking for – no separate subwoofer cost or loss of floor space to concern.

5. Maintains small footprint design

My last big positive about the Beam Ultra might seem kind of obvious, but is nonetheless worth pointing out: the product's size.

The Beam series' success has been hinged on its relatively small scale. That's critical for people's living room sizes, their TV sizes, and simply not wanting a huge soundbar eating up lots of their personal space.

While the Beam Ultra adds more drivers, more bass and better Atmos delivery, it doesn't add much more in terms of physical dimensions. Yes, it's a bigger soundbar – but we're talking in centimetres rather than greater equations.

I think that's integral to the ongoing success of the Beam series. The Ultra is clearly the ultimate addition to the range, without reinventing the wheel with regard to what made the first two models such great successes.

Should I buy the Sonos Beam Ultra?

While I've not yet lived with the Sonos Beam Ultra as my own – that's incoming, as the brand is set to deliver review samples imminently – and therefore can't give specific praise for how it'll function in an average home setup, what's clear to me is what a major upgrade this new soundbar will be for many people.

Even Beam (Gen 2) owners have a genuine reason to upgrade, thanks to my points made above, but particularly with regard to the upfiring channel output, broader soundstage, enhanced bass potential, and future-proof upgradeability.

Any downsides? The ongoing lack of an additional HDMI passthrough is going to be a nitpick for any Sonos soundbar. And the higher price for the Ultra might see some consider the Beam (Gen 2) as a bargainous alternative that makes more sense.

Sonos' Beam series has long been the soundbar for many. In the Beam Ultra, however, the audio brand has not only produced an obvious upgrade for its current users, it's also created an exquisite offering for those seeking a massive TV audio enhancement for the first time.

Apple’s September event invites are now out in the wild, finally putting an end to speculation and confirming the major keynote will take place this week – on Wednesday 9 September (at 18:00 UK time; 10:00 PDT and 13:00 EDT).

For anyone who hasn’t been following the news – or maybe just missed it amid the flurry of Mac announcements last week – it will be the first time the new CEO, John Ternus, takes to the stage at Apple Park, rather than former CEO Tim Cook.

But the “Surprise and Shine” event has raised one big question: will an iPhone 18 launch this year, or will it all hang on the foldable Ultra model? The rumour opinions differ, so here's a breakdown of what to expect this week:

First folding iPhone

I’m not convinced the “surprise” in the event tag refers to the first folding iPhone, because at this point it’s been so heavily rumoured that it would be more surprising if it wasn’t revealed.

That said, everything about it so far has only been a rumour, so I suppose the surprise could be what Apple’s first foldable iPhone actually brings to the party – and how it stacks up against the competition.

Speculation suggests it will have a similar format to the recently announced (and adorable, might I add) Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 – which features a squarer, wider build than the best folding phones previously.

What colourways will Apple offer in the folding iPhone? What camera capabilities will it offer? Indeed, how intuitive the software will be? Those will all come as potential surprises – and that's what keeps it exciting.

Here’s hoping there’s a hero colour rather than just black and white (the first folding iPhone deserves to be as recognisable as the iPhone 17 Pro was last year).

I also hope Apple has a trick up its sleeve for the folding iPhone that makes the Steve Jobs Theatre react the same way it did when Apple revealed Dynamic Island in 2022. That was actually a surprise – and a good one, too.

No standard iPhone 18?

Another key moment might not be what is revealed, but rather what isn't.

Apple has released a new standard iPhone every year – and in September since 2012 (ignoring "that year" of 2020 anyway) – for the last 19 years. But there’s a good chance this year will be the first time it doesn’t.

Last year, despite the iPhone Pro models featuring a new design, the iPhone 17 stole the show, offering a wide range of upgrades, from an Always On Display to a better ultrawide camera.

If Apple does launch a folding phone, it may not want to overshadow it with a 'cheaper' device. It’s hard to convince people to buy a £/$2,000+ phone when there is another new one at a third of the price.

The iPhone 17e launched in March 2026, just 6 months after the iPhone 17. It’s possible Apple will push the standard iPhone 18 into that launch window instead, allowing the folding iPhone and the iPhone Pro models plenty of time to “shine”.

While this has long been rumoured, it would be a genuine surprise not to see a regular iPhone in its September reveal slot for many years. The general consensus, however, is that the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max models will arrive.

First iPhone with a mechanical aperture

The Apple iPhone 18 Pro models will need to pull something pretty special out of the bag to compete with a folding iPhone.

As I mentioned, the iPhone had a redesign last year, so that’s unlikely to happen for a second year in a row, aside from a couple of new colour options, while a bump in speed alone probably won’t be enough to prompt anyone with a 17 Pro to upgrade.

But the Pro has always been about the camera and performance, and there’s speculation that the 'shining light' on the invite could indicate a mechanical aperture for the first time on an iPhone.

That's been rumoured for a couple of years now – though it’s said this feature may only come to the iPhone 18 Pro Max, which would be a shame for those who prefer the smaller Pro model. Who knows, maybe there will be three Pro models.

Following the invite, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman suggested that the bright light could suggest a variable aperture, adding weight to the idea. If true, it would allow you to manually adjust the aperture, similar to a mirrorless camera, allowing for better control of depth of field.

Gurman also suggested that the blue could indicate a Sky Blue colour for the iPhone 18 Pro, matching the MacBook Air.

What else is expected?

Of course, Apple’s September event is never short of announcements, so while I think the above will be the key moments – "surprises" might be a bit of a stretch – I’d also expect to see more later this year and into next.

An Apple Watch Series 12, an Apple Watch Ultra 4, and updated AirPods 5 are all obvious upgrades.

I don’t think this will be the year for AirPods with built-in cameras, however, and while I think the HomePod with Display could be mentioned as a ‘One More Thing’ moment, I’m not convinced this week's event will see that happen.

Nothing will be known for sure until the event itself, but at least there isn’t too long to wait. I’ll be there to report on the latest, so keep your eyes on T3 for my first impressions and thoughts, direct from Cupertino.

It's been another incredibly busy IFA show this year at the Messe Berlin exhibition grounds, with thousands of tech companies showing off their wares across five days – we've seen laptops, robots, TVs, supercars, drones, VR headsets, lots of AI, and much more.

Even at such a hectic show though, there are certain products that stand out from the rest, and we're celebrating them here in our best of IFA 2026 awards. These are the gadgets and gizmos that did something special to grab our attention among the crowds.

We're predicting big futures for all of these products, and you might find at least some of them earn a place on your gadget wishlist. In no particular order (they're all winners)...

Acer Swift Blade 14

There are light laptops, and then there are really light laptops: the Acer Swift Blade 14 is as ultraportable as they come, weighing just 799 grams (1.76 pounds) without feeling flimsy or fragile. It's truly a laptop you can take anywhere.

Despite the lightness and thinness (12.99 mm or 0.51 inches), there's a lot of power here, led by the Intel Core 7 processor 350. A 50Wh battery will keep you going for long stretches, while the screen can be upgraded to a 3K, 90 Hz, OLED panel for blisteringly good visuals.

Until you've actually held a laptop this light in your hand(s), it's difficult to appreciate just how much difference it makes to on-the-go computing. You'll barely know it's there (and we mean that as a compliment).

Belkin UltraCharge Pro with BoostSolid Cell Power Banks

We can always rely on Belkin for kit that's impressively elegant and reliable, and the UltraCharge Pro with BoostSolid Cell Power Banks are no different. Belkin describes them as a "new generation of portable power", and there's certainly a lot to talk about.

They use semi-solid-state battery tech for a start, enabling a slimmer profile and longer-lasting stability, and bring with them stable charging between 0°C-40°C (32°F and 104°F). Built-in temperature sensors make sure your gadgets are always safe from harm.

You get super-slim designs, outstanding engineering, reliable safety, and long-term performance, with either 5,000 mAh or 10,000 mAh banks to choose from. Proof if you needed it that not all power banks are created equal.

DJI Osmo 360 II

The latest DJI camera model to throw down the gauntlet to its competitors is the DJI Osmo 360 II, and this 360-degree camera keeps everything that was great about the original model while also improving on some of its flaws and weaknesses.

It's the first 360-degree camera to offer native 8K/60fps video (thanks to the dual 1/1.1-inch square sensors), while the 14.5-stop dynamic range is a new record too – capturing double the brightness range of the camera's predecessor.

From low-light shooting capabilities to a better protected chassis, the DJI Osmo 360 II excels. What's more, when you've got all your footage captured, there's AI-powered editing to help you turn your 360-degree clips into a movie that will really wow viewers.

EcoFlow STREAM 2 Series

Modular solar and battery storage tech should be easier for the average home owner (or renter) to understand, and that's what the EcoFlow STREAM 2 Series achieves: with app control, local operation, and seamless third-party integrations, it just works.

The models in the range let you connect direct to solar panels (the STREAM 5000) or retrofit a rooftop solar installation you've already got (the STREAM AC 5000), but either way you're saving money on your electricity bill.

With plug-in solar becoming more common worldwide, the STREAM 2 Series is arriving at the perfect time. It also integrates with the EcoFlow Oasis smart home management system, for automatic adjustments and energy efficiency optimisations.

Lenovo IdeaPad Vibe

The vibes are certainly good with this lovely looking Windows 11 laptop series from Lenovo, which brings with it Snapdragon X processors, Copilot integration, and smooth performance for the everyday tasks that you depend on your portable computer for.

Lenovo is promising all-day battery life, so you don't need to stress about finding a power outlet, and with 14-inch and 15-inch screen variations available, you can decide how you want to balance display size and portability.

You can tell that real thought has been put into the aesthetics here, and there are seven fresh colour options for you to choose from and match your style with, developed in consultation with the Pantone Institute (from Dreamy Violet to Radiant Coral).

Mammotion LUBA 4 AWD Robot Lawn Mower

You don't want to trust your lawn to just any robot mower of course, but the LUBA 4 AWD is a machine you can rely on. It combines both top-tier cutting performance with unbeatable navigation (powered by 360-degree LiDAR and four cameras with integrated AI).

Mammotion says the LUBA 4 AWD (All Wheel Drive) tackles three common shortcomings of robot mowers: unreliable navigation, turns that damage your turf, and inconsistent cutting on uneven ground. All three are tackled head-on by this new mower.

From effortless slope handling (up to 80% or 38.6 degrees) to dual 165W high torque motors, it's hard to find a weakness here: you get great results in all conditions, on any lawn topography on the first pass.

Nanoleaf Smart LED Monitor Stand

This is one of those products that you can tell has actually been thought through carefully from a consumer perspective: it's a sleek monitor stand with integrated smart lighting that upgrades your desk setup from meh to magical.

It'll unclutter your desktop (via a multi-port structural mounting system), offer versatile viewing (with a 10-cm or 4-inch elevation), and work seamlessly with your other smart home gear (supporting Matter and many other smart home standards).

Then there are the lights: a front task light combined with rear ambient light so you can pick your perfect illumination configuration and change it over time. And it's all finished in natural walnut veneer with embedded capacitive touch controls.

Plaud One

AI is moving from apps to hardware devices, and the Plaud One is the perfect example of it: you record the audio of your day through the earbuds or the companion case, and then Plaud Intelligence sifts through all the data to keep you organised.

For example, it can produce properly formatted notes of your meetings and voice calls, and help you to keep your thoughts in order through voice memos recorded at any time – all put in context and arranged as needed.

There are also AI integrations with services such as Slack and Gmail so you can actually get stuff done, while the 4G/LTE connection means Plaud One can operate independently too. It's a modern gadget for our new AI age.

Reolink OMVI 2i Ultra Security Camera

Building on what is already an impressive product portfolio, the new OMVI 2i Ultra from Reolink offers some impressive tricks for a home security camera, including a dual-camera system that can zoom in and pan to track while keeping a wide-angle view too.

So, it can automatically and intelligently follow a person or vehicle without losing sight of everything else that's happening. It's wire-free, it boasts a 4K video resolution and a 130-degree field of view, plus 355-degree rotation and an intuitive control system.

On-board storage means you don't need to pay out for a subscription every month, while the integrated AI can tell you more about each frame. For power, the 10,000 mAh battery can last six months on its own, with extra energy supplied by the integrated solar panel.

TCL P80 Ultra

TCL's latest innovation is the P80 Ultra, a phone that offers a fundamental rethinking of mobile displays: it can switch between a vibrant AMOLED display and a toned down e-reader style screen with the push of a button, so you can switch as needed.

Use the conventional display for all your regular smartphone tasks, and then the more subdued mode when you want to give your eyes and mind a rest – and perhaps catch up on your reading and avoid the normal distractions.

There's much more here too: a 50MP 3x periscope telephoto camera system, a nature-inspired, premium design, and plenty of performance power provided by a MediaTek octa-core chipset and up to 24GB of RAM.

TECNO Next-Gen Bezelless Concept Phone

With the TECNO Next-Gen Bezelless Concept Phone we've got a glimpse at what the future of phones could look like: as you may be able to guess from the name, it achieves a zero-bezel design through some sophisticated and smart engineering.

The entire assembly process and display structure has been rethought to achieve the invisible bezel look that no other phone manufacturer has managed, and at IFA 2026 attendees were able to get hands-on time with the concept device.

There's a 6.78-inch OLED screen on the front here running at a 1.5K resolution, and it's a real statement – don't be surprised to see the likes of Apple, Samsung, and Google follow Tecno's lead with these types of displays in the future.

Winmau Autodarts

It's taken a few years, but darts has finally been given a modern-day digital upgrade with the launch of Winmau Autodarts. The ecosystem combines high-quality physical dartboards with connectivity that lets you play anyone in the world, at any time.

You get intelligent auto-scoring, a full rundown of stats to analyse your performance, an AI darts referee, and interactive online play experiences. There's also an existing global community of more than 200,000 players, including a 40,000-strong Discord.

There's a companion phone app too, which helps you capture the action from all angles. Whether you're a veteran or a newcomer to the game, this is a complete experience that gives darts a much-needed tech upgrade.

XGIMI AURA 3 Max

XGIMI is another tech brand with products that you'll find have been very well reviewed on T3 in the past, and the AURA 3 Max 4K ultra-short-throw laser projector looks very promising too – right from the first moment you set eyes on it.

It promises high-end picture performance for all use cases (movies, gaming, audio), and boasts up to 8,000:1 native contrast, 120 Hz refresh rates, and lumens that can hit 5,700 ISO, as well as Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HLG, IMAX Enhanced, and Filmmaker Mode support.

There's the powerful and versatile Google TV platform on board, while sound is taken care of with an 80W Harman Kardon sound system with Dolby Atmos. It even supports 3D viewing. A premium home projector in every aspect.

Hypershell Halo

You couldn't exactly describe exoskeletons as mainstream just yet, but the Hypershell Halo is evidence of just how quickly they're evolving in terms of their performance, how lightweight they are, and how straightforward they are to use.

This is the first ever full-leg exoskeleton for all terrain types, designed to "support the entire lower limb kinetic chain" rather than simply propelling you forward faster. It sets a new standard for Hypershell in both comfort and advanced assistance.

Some highlights: HyperIntuition motion intelligence, a highly adjustable fit, a combined, single load-bearing system, powerful motors, and a lightweight design (using aerospace-grade carbon fibre and titanium) that weighs just 2.6 kg (5.7 pounds).

Particula GoChess Wizard Alive

If you meet someone who says there's nothing left to innovate on when it comes to chess sets, point them towards the Particula GoChess Wizard Alive. This set offers a Harry Potter level of magic, with pieces that move across the board all by themselves.

It works through a carefully engineered system of magnets, and you've got a variety of ways to control the pieces too, including voice commands. Despite all this advanced tech, the board doesn't lose any of the charm or elegance of a conventional setup.

Besides the magically moving pieces, the GoChess Wizard Alive has all the features you could wish for, including interactive learning tutorials and the option to compete against the board across 32 different difficulty settings.

SwitchBot Lock Ultra Max Vision Pro Combo

Smart locks get levelled up with the arrival of the SwitchBot Lock Ultra Max Vision Pro Combo, which marries fast, quiet, reliable operation with a number of smart extras for upgrading your home security setup.

You get a lock, a keypad, and a hub in this combo, and they combine to offer 19 unlock modes, from passcodes to NFC cards to palm vein recognition. There are also three different power options for extra peace of mind.

In addition, there are on-device voice alerts and in-app notifications covering doors left open, low battery warnings, and even bad weather alerts, plus more besides. It's just about the most comprehensive smart door lock we've seen yet.

Canvas HiFi and Samsung S99H

How do you make the flagship Samsung S99H OLED TV even better? By integrating it with a Canvas HiFi system of course, and the two premium brands have joined forces to create this rather impressive centrepiece for your living room.

The most appropriate word here is "seamless", because you wouldn't know this is two products combined into one by looking at it (or by using it). You've also got a choice of 55-inch, 65-inch, 77-inch, and 83-inch sizes for the television.

In terms of performance, there's no compromise at all when it comes to picture or audio quality, so whether you're watching sports, movies, or games, you're guaranteed a gorgeous and immersive experience from this setup.

Birdfy Nest Duo

The Birdfy Nest Duo is a premium, AI-powered smart birdhouse that gives you an intimate yet respectful up-close view of the entire nesting journey – from the first signs of nest building to the moment that young birds fledge.

Among the many special features here we have a dual-camera architecture for a more complete view of what's happening, external controls for operating the cameras without touching the birdhouse, and video editing help courtesy of AI.

There's high-quality 1080p video footage throughout, a companion app that keeps you updated with news and alerts, and a carefully made, environmentally friendly design to blend into whatever surroundings you're putting it in.

Govee Sky Ceiling Light

We're always looking out for firsts at IFA, and the Govee Sky Ceiling Light caught our attention as the first AI-driven, mood-responsive ceiling light on the market: it'll actually change colour based on what you need at any particular time.

So, if you need to focus and work, you get a special sky-blue wavelength designed for maximum concentration, whereas if you need to relax and chill out for a while, you'll get something softer and warmer.

There's all the usual Govee goodness included here as well, including effortless app control, and you can even get the ceiling light to simulate the effects of natural daylight, with shifts that reflect the time of day and current weather conditions.

Hohem Eyepic 2-in-1 Pocket Gimbal Camera

You've got the best chance of capturing top-quality video footage on your travels with the Hohem Eyepic 2-in-1 Pocket Gimbal Camera: you can use the gimbal for class-leading video stabilisation, or detach the camera if you want to go GoPro-style.

Even when detached, you still get a 1080p live preview on the handle, up to 10 metres (32.8 feet) away, which means you can continue to make sure everything's in frame. It means flexibility and versatility you just don't get with other cameras.

There's lots more to like here, including waterproofing for the camera module, 4K video recording that works in vertical mode too, and a control system that's intuitive and straightforward enough for anyone to pick up.

The beginning of September was huge for Sonos, which revealed a new Sonos 27 app architecture, new Sonos Beam Ultra soundbar, and new Sonos Ace Ultra headphones.

It's the last of those that I got to try in Berlin, at an event running adjacent to the IFA tech expo's calendar. These new headphones play nice with other Sonos products, able to handover audio with ease – which is what I was keenest to test out.

The feature is thanks to the new Headphones Engine 2, which sees the Ace Ultra act, in part, like other Wi-Fi-capable Sonos speakers to connect to the wider Sonos system – something that previous Ace product couldn't deliver.

I had many questions about how the feature would function, however, so have broken down in Q&A style below to explain how it all works.

What is Headphone Linking?

If you have a variety of Sonos speakers in your home, whether setup individually or as groups, then you're able to pass over what you're listening to on the Sonos Ace Ultra to those – it's called Headphone Linking.

There's no restriction on the product, so long as it's a Wi-Fi-capable Sonos – the Bluetooth-only products, like Roam, won't function in this way (just as they don't function in the same way in Sonos' overall setup).

To action this is simple: you simply press-and-hold the physical action button on the Ace Ultra, wait until it beeps, then it'll ping over to your nearest Sonos system. It's really simple to use.

What if I've got multiple groupings?

But what if you've got multiple groupings in your home? Say one kitchen setup, one bedroom, and another larger home cinema system in the lounge?

This is where the new Sonos 27 app will identify through your Wi-Fi network the nearest signal to you.

Can you fool it or can it mess up? I asked a Sonos engineer and the answer was only if you were perfectly equidistant would the system need to make a 'choice', but the company spent a long time testing to deliver the most fluid result.

Can you play on headphones and speakers?

As Ace Ultra have the hardware on board to act like a speaker, can you listen on the headphones whilst other Sonos speakers output audio – in a separate room in the house, for example?

While this could theoretically be possible, Sonos took the decision to disable such functionality. The Ace Ultra are either playing your source audio, or you hand it over to another system – you can't run the headphones in tandem with a speaker grouping.

What about the original Ace headphones?

Will this functionality be coming to the original Sonos Ace headphones? The short answer here is 'no'.

That's because the Headphones Engine 2 is part software, part hardware solution. And the chip required to run the calculations and Wi-Fi operability isn't in the original headphones.

If you want the most functionality, you'll therefore want the Ultra headphones, not the original product.

Has the TV Audio Swap feature changed at all?

One thing that the original Ace did do – and while niche, it's a feature that many love – is TV Audio Swap. This enables you to nab the audio from your soundbar and deliver it straight to the headphones.

It's also activated by a press-and-hold of the action button on the Ace Ultra (just as it is on the original Ace), but rather than functioning Headphone Linking and passing the audio over to another Sonos grouping, the app will know that audio is via an HDMI signal.

It's that HDMI hard-wiring that overrules the usual functionality, enabling the Ace Ultra to run TV Audio swap in the same way as the original Ace. As the majority processing is done on the soundbar, not the headphones, there's no disparity between Ace and Ace Ultra here.

Should I buy the Ace Ultra?

I'm not going into detail about how the Ace Ultra sound in this feature – a quick listen and I think they're superior to the original product thanks to a new driver and new tuning – but should you consider buying the latest headphones?

Absolutely. If you're a Sonos power user then the new Headphone Linking feature will expand your usability considerably. TV Audio Swap remains in tact and is still great. And the comfort of these headphones is second to none.

I'll be reviewing the new headphones in the coming weeks ahead of their 29 September on-sale date, digging into the design differences, long-term wear functionality, sound quality and ANC in minutiae detail.

September has arrived, which means autumn collections are coming thick and fast, and this week’s Style Edit has ended up with a distinctly outdoorsy flavour.

That doesn’t mean everything here belongs halfway up a mountain, though. Salomon continues to blur the distinction between trail equipment and sneakers, Brompton has joined forces with one of Japan’s coolest outdoor brands, and Db has somehow managed to make fly-fishing equipment look like something you might see on the streets of Tokyo.

There’s also a reassuring reminder from Uniqlo that interesting clothes don’t necessarily need interesting price tags, plus a beautifully strange gold-and-brown G-Shock and one of my favourite pieces from Klättermusen’s new autumn collection.

Salomon XT-Evo

£175 | Salomon

The XT-6 has become such a familiar sight that it’s easy to forget just how unusual Salomon sneakers looked a few years ago. The new XT-Evo pushes things in a new direction.

It takes the proven tooling of the XT-6 and adds a much more aggressive racing-inspired upper, combining breathable mesh with liquid rubber to create the cage-like structure across the foot.

Underneath, you still get proper Salomon hardware, including an Agile Chassis System, EnergyCell cushioning, Mud Contagrip and Quicklace.

There are three colours, but the Black / Fiery Red / White version is easily my pick. If Salomon’s older XT models now feel almost conventional, this makes them look positively restrained.

Uniqlo:C Barrel Jeans

£39.90 | Uniqlo

This is probably my favourite reminder this week that good-looking clothes don’t have to cost the earth.

Uniqlo:C’s new Barrel Jeans cost just £39.90, but there’s a surprising amount going on here. Clare Waight Keller has given them a loose, curved leg with prominent front pleats and unusual L-shaped pockets.

The result looks more like an oversized pair of tailored trousers than conventional jeans. There are clear similarities to Levi’s £230 Blue Tab Wide Pleat Crop Jeans, although these aren’t intended to be a direct copy.

I particularly like the olive version, which takes the design even further away from traditional blue denim. Black and navy are also available.

Db x Purple Mountain Observatory Sling Bag

£300 | Purple Mountain Observatory

I singled out the modular vest when Db and Purple Mountain Observatory unveiled their Gone Fishing collection, but the enormous Sling Bag might actually be the piece I’d be most likely to use.

It’s made entirely from ALUULA Graflyte, an incredibly light composite material designed to deliver high strength without adding much weight.

The bag itself weighs only around 240g and uses a huge roll-top body that can expand or compress depending on what you’re carrying, along with an adjustable sling strap and Db’s Hook-Up system.

It was supposedly designed around fly fishing, but with its translucent material, oversized proportions and flashes of purple, it looks more like experimental Japanese luggage than an angling accessory.

Brompton x and wander Poncho

£125 | Brompton

Brompton’s new collaboration with and wander contains a £2,999 G Line, bags, trousers, a hoodie and plenty of other things I’d happily wear, but this wonderfully oversized poncho might be the best-looking thing in the entire collection.

And wander has been making versions of its Sil Poncho for years, using lightweight Cordura nylon with a silicone coating to protect against showers while staying extremely packable.

There’s even a loop inside the front for your thumb, helping prevent the poncho from blowing upwards when you’re cycling into the wind.

The bright green version shown in Brompton’s campaign is particularly good. It’s functional, slightly ridiculous and almost cape-like, which is exactly why I like it. The collaboration launches on 10 September.

Casio G-Shock Mudmaster GG-B100XMH-5A

£365 | Casio

Gold G-Shocks aren't exactly unusual, but there’s something about combining gold with brown that completely changes the character of this enormous Mudmaster.

The new GG-B100XMH-5A is part of Casio’s Horizon Gold collection and pairs a gold-tone stainless-steel bezel with a carbon fibre-reinforced resin case and dark brown resin strap.

Thankfully, Casio hasn’t sacrificed the Mudmaster part of the equation. You still get shock resistance, 200-metre water resistance, compass, altimeter, barometer and thermometer sensors, step tracking and Bluetooth connectivity.

It’s big, complicated and completely unapologetic, but surprisingly handsome too.

Klättermusen Balderus Jacket

£260 | Klättermusen

Synthetic fleece dominates outdoor clothing, so I’m very happy to see Klättermusen doing something slightly different with the new Balderus.

The £260 jacket uses a heavy knitted fleece made from recycled Italian wool, reinforced with nylon in areas that need extra durability and wind protection.

It also has raglan sleeves to aid movement, two zipped hand pockets, and ventilation to help dump heat when you start moving faster.

What really earns it a place here, though, is the design. The contrasting panels across the shoulders and chest make the Balderus look much sharper than your average wool hiking layer, especially in the natural-looking Dark Moon colourway. It feels old-fashioned and thoroughly modern at the same time, which isn't an easy trick to pull off.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and while Elden Ring hasn't exactly been absent in the last few years, it's nonetheless been disturbingly long since I've played the game. After finishing the brutally hard Shadow of the Erdtree expansion a couple of years ago, that was that.

Now, though, I'm back in the grip of an Elden Ring obsession, thanks to the release of the game's Tarnished Edition on Nintendo Switch 2 – a port that we thought would probably have been here a year ago, but only just arrived.

FromSoftware quite rightly chose to take the time to make the game performant on the system, rather than rushing it out of the door sooner to the console's launch, and it's been striking how each wave of previews has highlighted improved stability over the last year or so.

Now, finally, millions of gamers get the chance to play what I think is probably the finest game of the last decade, on the Switch and at a smooth but obviously not totally optimal 60FPS. The Tarnished Edition packages in Shadow of the Erdtree, too, along with a couple of new starting classes, to make this technically an all-in-one of the game and all its possible content.

What a game, too. Diving back into Limgrave (the starting area) again, I'm struck immediately by how absolutely immersed I was in this whole environment the first time around. I dutifully avoided guides and discussion of the game for weeks to make sure that I didn't just follow others' tips, which actually meant I spent dozens of hours in Limgrave without even breaching the next area, Liurnia.

It's unbelievably impressive to see the game, something of a performance hog even on the PS5, running like this on a portable console this small and thin. The Switch 2's power might become a running topic once it's been around a little longer and games start to outstrip it, but for now this is a good example of how scaling things down can still make for a wondrous experience.

Sure, things are a little blurrier here than on any other platform, and sure you don't have the choice of a 60FPS mode to make combat smoother and more responsive, but it's hard to get too irate about that when I'm exploring a crystal mine on the overground, or making one more attempt at a boss while lying in my bed.

Plus, look at the header image that I captured for this story, and tell me it's not an awesome vista – part of the visual genius of Elden Ring is how it uses technically simpler distant sights to beg you for more exploration, and I just love how that's been preserved here.

Playing it once again is a genuine treat, and a good example of why I find it almost impossible to leave on holiday without packing my Switch 2 as a contingency against boredom or an idle flight.

Plus, quite frankly, half a dozen hours back in Elden Ring have made me check its release date (and that of its DLC) multiple times. Time flies, and I couldn't be more excited about any game than I will be when Elden Ring 2 is announced, as I'm realising it might be in the next couple of years.

Here in the UK we've just enjoyed a long weekend thanks to the late-August bank holiday, which means it's a shorter week than usual. Thankfully, though, Prime Video and Netflix have both stepped up to the plate with a pretty interesting slate of additions through the rest of the week, in case you're wondering what you'll be watching in the evenings to come.

In fact, as a trio of additions, these will make for one of the highest-profile weeks I can remember from Netflix and Prime Video in a joint capacity. If you're a subscriber to either (and they're both among the best streaming services going), then you'll probably want to check out the highlights below. Each is showcased with a trailer and its release date for your convenience!

The Gentlemen Season 2

• Streaming on: Netflix from 3 September

Guy Ritchie has found a real renaissance in a TV career, although that's not to say he's done with movies by a long stretch. The Gentlemen proved with its first season that his snappy dialogue and fast action can work terrifically when elongated over the course of more time for streaming, and now it's back for a second season that promises to be a big deal for Netflix.

The show will return to the story of Theo James' reluctant drug kingpin, a Duke who found himself inheriting a weed empire last time around. Now he's fully used to the idea and indeed the market, he's starting to get ideas about expansion, and that means conflict. Expect dirty dealing and plenty of action when this drops midweek.

The Runner

• Streaming on: Prime Video from 2 September

If you want a thriller that's open and shut in a couple of hours, rather than offering up an entire season of episodes to get through, then you might want to turn to Prime Video this week for The Runner. This Gal Gadot film is a one-off release and looks like it could spin a really quite entertaining yarn through the streets of London.

Gadot plays a bigshot lawyer whose life gets put in the tumble dryer when her son is kidnapped. The criminals want to change the outcome of her biggest case (which is ongoing) and they're happy to force her into submission with twisted theats. She'll have to run through some crazy sequences to keep her son safe, and it looks like pretty hair-raising stuff.

The Grand Tour

• Streaming on: Prime Video from 4 September

One of the biggest early swings that Prime Video took was poaching Top Gear's talent after the implosion of that show on the BBC, and repackaging it into The Grand Tour. Now that era's over and there'd been some anticipation building about what would follow it. The answer? Francis Bourgeois. It's not just the trainspotting sensation, though, but also YouTube powerhouses from Throttle House.

The show will be pretty fascinating to observe, with the chemistry of those three new faces being key to its potential success. Either way, this season looks really high-budget and globetrotting, which is basically the whole point of a motoring show like The Grand Tour. Prime Video will be hoping this is the start of something huge.

After Sony said it had new Ult speakers for me to check out at a hands-on event in late August, it was a bit of a surprise to walk into their event space and see speakers about ten times bigger than I was expecting.

I was faced with the new Ult Tower lineup – the Tower 5, Tower 7 and Tower Max, and from where I was seated, even the smallest was a little hard to imagine making sense in my admittedly compact living room.

These are party speakers that make absolutely no apology for their size or scale, not least because they're aimed squarely at those who want such power. Listening to each one in turn, it was pretty easy to see the appeal, too.

The "smallest", the Tower 5, was still hefty enough to need a sensible approach when you pick it up to move it, and had impressively full and rounded sound in its default "flat" mode, which still has more bass than many other speakers would tune for.

Swapping up to the Tower 5, which expands the size of its main driver and adds some more tweeters for precision, you indeed get a pretty significant boost in overall volume and depth. That middle size looks relatively modest in the lineup photo below, which is pretty hilarious – it would be the biggest speaker anyone you know owns, and only looks small because the Ult Tower Max is so absurdly massive.

The Tower Max was my favourite demo of the three, not least because I got to choose a track to listen to. Justice's Waters of Nazareth is a go-to for bass testing, and its crackly yet precise beats were fairly monstrous, in a good way. This sort of track can help sift out speakers that dial up the bass while losing any detail, and the Tower Max passed that test with flying colours.

That said, its chunky price and enormous size mean that it's really only going to make sense for professional use. That might mean DJs who bring their own kit to venues, touring companies, or party planners, but it does also ensure that any event with sound running through Tower Max speakers will be able to get ridiculously loud.

In a soundproof basement, each speaker tended to be running at around 60% of its maximum volume, and that was generally more than enough to be antisocial in the wrong setting. My downstairs neighbours wouldn't thank me for testing any of them, frankly.

I was also thoroughly impressed by the new design of the three speakers, unified with their metal front grilles and LED fringes. Party speakers can often be a little too poppy and unserious for my tastes, whereas these are among the more mature and industrial I can remember seeing.

That said, I'm always fascinated by the concept of party speakers in the first place, from a marketing and sales perspective – how many units will these Ult speakers sell? It's a question I probably won't get an answer to, but I'd love the insight. Speaker-makers clearly know something I don't, though, because they keep on making new ones.

From what I've seen, the Ult Towers will be impressive new competitors in the market when they arrive later this month.

Every month is a big month when you're one of the biggest and best streaming services on the planet – and Netflix most certainly ticks both of those boxes. It knows that it has to keep up a steady cadence of releases if it wants to keep its subscribers locked in, which means never having a slow month.

So, now that we're looking down both barrels at September, you might be wondering what's coming down the pike from Netflix this month. Well, it's good news, since this is going to be a really busy few weeks on the streamer, with some of its biggest shows dropping new seasons, and some very intriguing brand-new additions, too. You'll find the five key highlights below with trailers and release dates.

The Gentlemen Season 2

• Streaming from: 3 September

Guy Ritchie created something of a sensation when he took the British gangster material he's best known for, and transplanted it into a longer-form TV setting. The result was a blockbuster hit for Netflix, and it's absolutely no surprise to see it get a swift second season.

The Duke (Theo James) is back and he's just as keen as ever to keep his weed empire on top of the various other criminal cartels he's so far interacted with. In fact, the more experienced he gets, the more he seems likely to start lashing out at those who think they can control him. The stage is set for him to start some hostile takeovers, and the trailers we've seen suggest the show will go from strength to strength.

Crew Girl

• Streaming from: 10 September

Another guaranteed hit for Neflix comes in the form of Crew Girl, which takes the tried-and-true format of high school sports and romance blended together. This makes it probable a little tamer than the more mature Off Campus, which was set at college, but there's still every chance that things will get pretty heated in this one.

Crew Girl makes rowing its sport of choice, which is a great excuse to put its lead characters in skintight aerodynamic rowing suits. Our main character Teagan is new to a high-end school, but has a talent that takes her right into the men's rowing squad as their new cox, and which also fires up an almost immediate love triangle.

Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story

• Streaming from: 17 September

Netflix is making a real thing of its Monster shows, which dramatise real-life killings and give us a look at the psychology of the world-famous killers in question. This time around it's Lizzie Borden, a famous potential axe-murderer whose case has long lived in the collective imagination of Americans (she's less famous here in the UK).

We'll get to see her domestic environment and the challenging situation she lived in, all with a huge dose of creative license. Since this story is from well before the time of TV news or documentary footage, expect this to be the loosest and potentially most colourful Monster yet.

Unabomber

• Streaming from: 25 September

Jacob Tremblay became a sensation for starring in Room as just a precocious 8-year-old, but now he's 19 and getting to choose his own projects – and Unabomber is definitely an interesting choice. He'll star as the eponymous bomber in his younger days, giving us a look at the origins of a man who did terrible things.

The show itself, though, will seemingly jump into two timelines. In one we'll see the bomber's adolescence, and in the other we'll follow the enormous manhunt that eventually located him, with the perspective of police but also at times his victims. Expect some harrowing stuff, but what a treat of a month for true-crime fans.

Stranger Things: Tales From '85 Season 2

• Streaming from: 17 September

Although the first season didn't get the most rave write-ups from critics, it clearly got enough viewers for Netflix to keep going with this animated spin-off from Stranger Things. Where the show got darker and darker as it unfolded, this one stays a lot lighter and promises more concise stories, too.

It has a really fun art style that emphasises the character of all the gang's faces, and gives us a bit more time to get to know some of those who only joined it after a season or two. If you loved your time in Hawkins and want some more of that nostalgic vibe, this could be perfect for you.

The tide of videogames shows no sign of abating – with September now hoving into view and promising a genuine deluge of new games, many of which are hugely anticipated. Capcom has one of the earliest slots in the month, with Onimusha: Way of the Sword arriving on 4 September, and I've played a whole heap of it on my PS5 Pro over the last 10 days.

It's a return for a franchise that hasn't had much love recently, other than some recent remasters of older titles, and it brings Onimusha kicking and screaming into 2026 with a pretty interesting approach to character action gaming.

Playing as Miyamoto Musashi, a samurai trying to become the greatest swordsman alive, you'll soon run into trouble and find yourself, well, dead. Revived with an Oni gauntlet on your arm, you'll be tasked with hunting down demons across a version of Kyoto that's been infected with miasmic nastiness.

It's a simple setup in some ways, but it's a little bit of a drag that the first couple of hours of Way of the Sword involve a heap of cutscenes for you to watch. The gaps between combat tutorials can feel torturous at times, even though those cutscenes are pretty terrific in production quality.

The facial animation on hand here is some of the most expressive I've ever seen in a major videogame, with Musashi's expressions in particular routinely causing me to chuckle. He's a refreshingly grumpy and curmudgeonly hero, although his real strength is with the sword.

On that front, Way of the Sword is impressively traditional. While it has moved to an over-the-shoulder camera that you can freely manipulate, its adherence to a core system of parries, dodges, light and heavy attacks really works nicely. You get special moves to earn during fights, and a variety of items to find that can help you, but the combat loop is actually quite simple.

It's dead effective, though, thanks to enemies whose attack patterns can often be surprising and deadly – in particular any time you face off against a boss. These tend to come when you find rifts of particularly concentrated evil energy, and the ones I've fought have all been memorable and rewarding.

The game's visual design is also really quite lovely in places – although it does suffer from the fact that the cuts between cutscenes and gameplay often involve obvious lighting downgrades.

On the PS5 Pro, though, Way of the Sword comes with a heap of graphical options to choose from. You can toggle between a 30FPS quality mode or a 60FPS performance one, but also up to a 120Hz option, too, while a separate frame-rate limiter is a rare addition on console.

It includes a 40FPS mode that might be a favourite for some people, and you can also choose to toggle ray-tracing on or off, as an added tweak. I've been playing at 60FPS with ray-tracing on, and have found the game pretty great to look at, albeit some recent Capcom releases (like Resident Evil Requiem) have wowed me more.

I'm keen to get further into Way of the Sword to discover whether its combat system has more surprises to keep things switched up, but from the roughly five hours I've played so far, it's been really fun and old-school. A semi-open hub area that funnels you towards objectives is fun to explore, but I prefer the linear levels even more.

These are where the game feels closest to its older PlayStation 2 roots, but you can still detect this elsewhere. It's there when you, for example, keep attacking in one direction while an enemy moves, and realise that you're not just going to magically magnetise onto them for continued hits.

These touches make Onimusha: Way of the Sword feel like a clever reinvention of the franchise for a modern world in which people love retro gaming. People want games to feel like they're still a continuation of what came before, even if they're actually substantially modernised in most ways, and this first massive release of September ticks that box smartly.

September is one of those months that sometimes feels like the start of autumn, but in other years can very much just be a dose of late summer vibes. Who knows which it'll be for you this year, but you're guaranteed one thing, at least – a significant set of additions to Prime Video if you're a subscriber.

Amazon knows that it can't rest on its laurels where new content is concerned, since the only way it'll keep the subscriber numbers it needs is if it can keep adding new stuff on a regular basis. To that end, it's got an impressive month in the planning, with new series and movies on the way. I've gathered five that you should know about, with trailers and release dates for your convenience.

Neagley Season 1

• Streaming from: 16 September

You know a show's done exceptionally well for its creators when it gets a spinoff, and that's what Neagley is to Reacher, the uber-popular Prime Video show based on Lee Child's long-running series of mystery novels. This series will focus on Reacher's old colleague and sometime ally Frances Neagley (Maria Sten).

She's always been a cold and calculated operator, and part of what's so fun about her character is that it's heavily implied that she gets up to plenty of mischief in Reacher's absences between their interchanges. So, this time around we'll get to watch as she gets entangled with some proper wrong'uns before inevitably sorting them out (violently).

The Runner

• Streaming from: 2 September

Gal Gadot stars in a London-set movie that looks heavily inspired by films like Run Lola Run and others, as a mother who's about to participate in a huge legal case but finds her life turned upside down by a conspiracy surrounding it. On her morning run the day of a big moment in the trial, her son's kidnapped.

She's forced to follow instructions to avoid harm to her child, and that takes her down some dark paths. It looks like this will be a textbook fast-paced thriller that will only ramp up the action as it goes on. Whether Gadot can finally score a hit after a string of iffy streaming releases will be very interesting to observe right at the start of the month.

The Grand Tour

• Streaming from: 4 September

A show that's gone through a few different iterations for Prime Video gets its most radical transformation yet with an all-new crew helming it, including the really interesting swing that is Francis Bourgeois, who became so famous for his viral trainspotting antics. He's also a proper motorhead, though, so will hopefully undercut the blokishness of everything.

He's going to be joined by James Engelsman and Thomas Holland, creators of YouTube's Throttle House, and the key will be whether they have chemistry as a trio. If so, then the motoring antics of this season could secure a long future for the show as a globetrotting showcase of all the makes cars great.

The Love Hypothesis

• Streaming from: 23 September

This charming romance has a really classic hook at its centre – what if two colleagues pretended to be in a relationship for reasons of their own, but started to fall for each other as they spent more time together? It's really quite a clever idea to kick things off, but it too will thrive or shrivel depending on the on-screen chemistry.

The film will star Lili Reinhart as Olive Smith opposite Tom Bateman as Adam Carlsen, her boss in the lab she's studying in. That makes even their fake romance a little dramatic, but that's nothing compared to the drama they'll cook up once they start to catch feelings. This looks like a great cozy September watch.

Drawn Together

• Streaming from: 9 September

If you want your romance to be just that little bit steamier, then perhaps this is the one for you, earlier in September. A Spanish-language movie, its main character Marfil Cortés is born into a life of privilege. That's shattered when she's kidnapped then released mysteriously, which ends up with her needing a bodyguard.

What do you know, though, he's a beauty himself and there's immediate sexual tension between them. It's another fairly textbook setup for romance, but there might be some major twists in the plotting eventually, if Drawn Together has anything like the inventiveness you'd hope for.

The Casio F-91W was never designed to become a watch icon. When it launched, the goal was to create a reliable digital watch that was affordable, easy to use, and wearable by almost anyone.

More than three decades later, that same watch has become one of the most recognisable timepieces in the world, proving that sometimes the products that last the longest are the ones that never try too hard.

At a time when watches are becoming increasingly smarter, with built-in health sensors, GPS, AI features and smartphone connectivity, the F-91W has stayed almost exactly what it has always been. It tells the time, offers a stopwatch and alarm, and keeps going for years on a single battery.

Speaking to me, Casio Senior Marketing Campaign Manager Warren Halliwell explained that watches such as the F-91W and A158 have developed an identity that goes far beyond simply being affordable options in Casio’s range.

“It’s easy to assume they’re just entry points into the brand, but the reality is they’ve developed their own identity and following over the years,” Halliwell said.

The art of doing nothing

The F-91W is one of the clearest examples of Casio’s broader philosophy of creating products that solve everyday problems.

“It delivers accurate, reliable timekeeping, useful everyday functions and exceptional durability at a price point that’s accessible to almost everyone,” Halliwell explained.

That sounds simple, but creating something that remains relevant for decades is surprisingly difficult. The technology industry is built around constant improvement, where products are expected to become smarter and more capable with every new generation.

To avoid getting caught up in the constant update mill, the F-91W has taken a different route. While Casio has improved the manufacturing process behind the scenes, it has avoided changing the fundamental experience of wearing the watch.

According to Halliwell, that is one of the hardest decisions for Casio’s product teams. “There’s always a temptation to add features, improve specifications or modernise certain elements,” he explained. “But every change has consequences.”

“With something like the F-91W, I think the question isn’t ‘Can we add this?’ It’s ‘Would people still love it for the same reasons?’” That question may be why the F-91W has survived. The watch doesn't try to compete with smartwatches or pretend to offer something it doesn't; instead, it focuses on doing a handful of things well.

The icon nobody designed

The most interesting thing about the F-91W’s story is that Casio never set out to create a design classic. “When the F-91W launched, the focus was creating a practical, affordable digital watch that people would find useful,” Halliwell said. “The goal wasn’t to create a design icon.”

The watch became important because people kept choosing it, year after year. “What happened over time was that people kept choosing it,” Halliwell said. “As years turned into decades, it became clear that the design had connected with people in a way that went beyond its original purpose.”

The appeal comes from the fact that the F-91W doesn't try to come across as more premium than it is, or add unnecessary decoration to hide the fact that it is simply a tool. “Part of it is undoubtedly the design itself,” Halliwell said. “It’s simple, lightweight, functional and feels incredibly honest as a product.”

That simplicity has allowed it to move between different worlds: it can be a nostalgic childhood watch, an affordable everyday timepiece, a collector’s item or a fashion accessory depending on who is wearing it.

Different people, same watch

While it remains popular with people who just want a simple, no-frills digital watch, the F-91W has also found fans among collectors and designers who discovered it long after its original launch.

“You’ll still find customers buying them for the same reasons they always have: affordability, practicality and reliability,” Halliwell said. “But today you’ll also see fashion-conscious buyers, design enthusiasts, collectors and younger consumers who weren’t even born when some of these watches first appeared.”

That is unusual for such an accessible product. Many affordable gadgets are treated as disposable, replaced as soon as something newer appears. The F-91W has managed to become something people keep, wear and attach memories to.

“The same watch can mean something completely different to different people,” Halliwell said. “That’s part of its enduring appeal.”

Casio has also explored ways to refresh its classic designs through collaborations and new materials, but the company believes these updates work best when they do not change the identity of the original product.

“The beauty of innovations like bio-based resin is that they can introduce fresh perspectives while keeping the core design intact,” Halliwell explained.

The long life of a short feature list

In the age of smartwatches, the F-91W’s limited feature list could look like a weakness, but in reality, it might be one of its biggest strengths. Simply put, the watch just works.

When designing a watch at this price point, Casio says it can simplify things, but it can't compromise the essentials. “The module needs to be dependable. The display needs to be clear. The buttons need to work. The watch needs to withstand everyday life,” Halliwell said.

However, behind the scenes, the watch has changed more than many people realise. Casio says manufacturing methods, production efficiencies, testing procedures, and quality-control systems have evolved over time, allowing the F-91W to keep being produced reliably without changing the design or user experience.

The price of being timeless

The F-91W also challenges the age-old idea that value is inherently linked to price. Some products become important because they are expensive and exclusive, while others become meaningful because almost anyone can own one.

Casio believes its affordable watches are some of its most important products because they often represent someone’s first experience with the brand. “For many people, an affordable Casio is their first experience with the brand and sometimes their first experience of owning a watch at all,” Halliwell said.

Accessibility has always been part of Casio’s approach. The company believes innovation is not just about creating more advanced products, but also about finding ways to make useful technology available to more people.

The F-91W’s success ultimately comes down to a combination that sounds almost too obvious: simplicity, reliability and affordability.

“The F-91W has remained relevant because it solves a universal problem in a straightforward, dependable way,” Halliwell said. “As long as there are people who value that combination of simplicity, reliability and accessibility, I think there will always be a place for watches like it.”

The F-91W is available now at Casio UK for £19.90.

With August – and summer – coming to an end, it’s time to look back on the best men’s fragrance launches from this past month. Just like July, August has been another intensely hot month, and we’ve seen lots of exciting releases, inspired by the warmer weather.

The majority of August’s fragrance launches have been summer themed, although there has definitely been a shift towards richer, autumnal tones. Notes like chocolate, vanilla, bergamot, ginger and cinnamon have been more prominent which has been getting us excited for the upcoming fall season.

Below, I’ve rounded up the nine best men’s fragrance launches from August to round off the summer and kick start autumn with. These include Tom Ford, Maison Margiela, Valentino, Montblanc and more.

Men’s fragrances from August 2026

While most of us tend to choose a hotel with a decent gym when going away, Chris Hemsworth proves that if you want to squeeze in a workout on holiday, a lack of a gym or equipment doesn't need to stop you.

Then again, when you're weeks away from filming Extraction 3, there's probably no such thing as completely switching off.

While holidaying in Costa Rica, the muscle-bound Marvel star braved the Costa Rican heat, grabbed a kettlebell and a resistance band and put together a 17-move full-body circuit designed to hit every muscle, with barely any equipment.

"I'm in Costa Rica at the moment, having a little break before I start Extraction 3 in a couple of weeks, and wanted to get a little workout in,” he said, “so I created a minimal equipment program or session, which was pretty damn effective, especially when it feels like it's 150 degrees out. Check it out.”

The workout combines resistance-band, kettlebell, and bodyweight exercises to target the upper and lower body while hitting your core, too.

So, if you're heading away and don't fancy losing precious suitcase space to your gym kit (and wouldn't mind looking a little more like the Hollywood star), this could be one to save.

Chris Hemsworth's 17-move circuit workout

Hemsworth performs 17 consecutive exercises to complete one round, then rests for two minutes and goes again. He completes two rounds in total. The moves are as follows:

1. Banded kettlebell curl

Reps: 10

Loop your resistance band around the kettlebell to add resistance as you curl, targeting the biceps and forearms.

2. Banded reverse fly

Reps: 12

A great move for targeting the rear delts and upper back while helping strengthen the muscles that support good posture.

3. Banded kettlebell side bend

Reps: 10

With your kettlebell looped, lower the bell toward the floor by hinging at the hips, then return upright. This move works your obliques and entire core.

4. Banded kettlebell suitcase carry

Reps: 30-40m each side

Hold your looped kettlebell on one side and walk, resisting the urge to lean or twist from the pull of the bell. This move challenges your grip, obliques and overall core stability.

5. Banded glute kickback

Reps: 12 each side

This lower-body exercise isolates the glutes while requiring your core to keep your pelvis stable.

6. Banded hip abduction

Reps: 12 each side

Moving your leg out to the side against the resistance of the band targets the outer glutes while challenging hip stability.

7. Banded single-arm fly

Reps: 10 each side

This upper-body move targets the chest while requiring plenty of control and stability through the shoulder.

8. Banded Pallof halo press

Reps: 6 each side

Combining resistance with controlled movement around the body, this move puts your core stability to the test.

9. Banded single-arm row

Reps: 10 each side

This pulling exercise targets your lats and upper back while challenging your core to keep your torso stable.

10. Banded rotational punch

Reps: 10 each side

Punch against the resistance of the band while rotating through your torso to challenge the shoulders and rotational core.

11. Half-kneeling kettlebell press

Reps: 8-10 each side

Pressing from a half-kneeling position works the shoulders while forcing your core and hips to stabilise your body.

12. Half-kneeling kettlebell woodchop

Reps: 8-10 each side

This rotational exercise challenges the obliques and teaches your core to transfer force across the body.

13. Push-up into mountain climber

Reps: 20

Combining push-ups with mountain climbers works the chest, shoulders, triceps and core while sending your heart rate soaring.

14. Kettlebell jackknife

Reps: 10

Holding the kettlebell overhead as you bring your legs up towards your upper body turns this into a pretty challenging core exercise.

15. Back extension

Reps: 10

This move targets the posterior chain, particularly the lower back, glutes and hamstrings.

16. Back extension with rotation

Reps: 8 each side

Adding rotation to the back extension brings the torso into play while continuing to challenge the posterior chain.

17. Cross-body dead bug punch

Reps: 10 each side

Holding the kettlebell in one hand while moving the opposite leg challenges your abs as your upper and lower body work in sync.

Once you've completed all 17 exercises, take a well-earned two-minute breather before repeating the whole thing for a second round.

Why this workout works so well

Hemsworth's workout is built around the idea that you don't need a fully equipped gym to train your entire body.

By combining resistance-band exercises with kettlebell movements and bodyweight exercises, you're able to hit multiple movement patterns within one session.

The program includes pulls, presses, and rotational exercises for the upper body; carries and glute work for the lower body; and plenty of ab exercises to keep your core busy and help build a body that performs well and looks even better.

The resistance band is particularly useful when equipment is limited. Unlike a dumbbell or kettlebell, where the load remains relatively constant, a resistance band generally provides more resistance the further you stretch it.

That means your muscles keep working as tension increases, even without access to a full rack of weights.

Then there's the core work. Functional exercises such as the suitcase carry, Pallof halo press and dead bug punch require you to resist unwanted movement and keep your torso stable, while the side bends and woodchops introduce lateral (side-to-side) and rotational movement.

In other words, your core isn't just working forwards and backwards. It's resisting, rotating and stabilising in several different directions, which is much closer to what it has to do during sport and everyday movement.

And while this is primarily a resistance-based circuit, Hemsworth hasn't forgotten about bodyweight work and conditioning. The push-up into mountain climber recruits multiple muscle groups at once, while moving through the 17 exercises with little rest between moves should keep the heart rate high and the session moving at a decent pace.

That's also what makes it such a handy holiday workout. You get strength, core, coordination, and cardio in one session without hunting down a fully equipped hotel gym, proving that minimal equipment doesn't have to mean minimal effort.

We're living through an era of price hikes right now, and gaming consoles are acting as some of the most obvious and visible examples of how the memory crisis is affecting consumer prices. While Xbox relentlessly raises the price of its own consoles, and PlayStation broadly keeps pace, Nintendo has been taking things slightly more slowly.

It announced earlier this summer that it would be raising the price of the Switch 2, but it gave us all plenty of time to get ready by confirming that the price hikes would only come into force on 1 September.

In case you weren't concentrating, though, we're now in extremely late August, which means you don't have much longer to grab a Switch 2 for its launch price.

The real point here is that anyone thinking about buying a Switch 2 would almost certainly be well advised to do so now, or at least before this month is out. I'm normally a big fan of advising people to wait until their budget allows for a splurge like this, but the fact is that I don't think it's ever going to be this price again.

In the US, we know that the console will go from $449.99 to $499.99, while Europe will see it go from €469.99 to €499.99. We actually don't yet have a confirmed new price for the UK, but you can fairly reasonably conclude that it'll go up by at least £30 and possibly as much as £50.

The real worry, though, is that this won't be the final price. Nintendo announced these changes a few months ago, in May. Even since then, the price of memory has continued to go up, and giants like Xbox have indicated that every indication is that we can expect it to continue rising through all of 2027.

That means the new price of the Switch 2 might realistically only hold for a number of months before it, too, has to be revised upwards to account for the new cost of bulk memory orders for Nintendo.

Sure, we might also get a Switch 2 OLED at some point, but that console is likely to be even pricier still, thanks to a fancier display, and it all starts to add up to a really grim scene eventually.

I love the Switch 2, and its flexibility is why it's my default console for massive RPGs that I can play over a series of weeks, and I want as many people as possible to experience what it has to offer. Right now, I think that means buying it sooner rather than later, though.

August has gone by in the blink of an eye, and despite it being one of the quietest months out of the year, it’s been packed with smart home launches.

The biggest announcement from August is that plug-in solar is now officially legal in the UK. Available for millions of households around the country, compliant systems can now be legally connected to a standard household socket, so you can generate some of your own electricity without having to install a traditional rooftop solar panel.

Alongside home solar batteries, August has seen lots of security camera and video doorbell releases, as well as sensors and lighting. I’ve rounded up the best August smart home launches from the likes of EcoFlow, Tapo, Philips Hue, Govee and more, in case you missed them.

1. EcoFlow Stream 5000

Shortly after plug-in solar became legal in the UK, EcoFlow launched the Stream Series, its first home solar battery. The standout of the line-up is the EcoFlow Stream 5000, a compact 5kWH battery that offers up to 5,000W of solar and 3,000W of AC outputs.

Currently available for pre-order, the EcoFlow Stream 5000 is much smaller than similar home solar systems, but its power means it’s able to run many large appliances, like washing machines. It’s priced at £1,599 / $2,200.

2. Tapo TC34 Indoor/Outdoor Dual Lens Pan/Tilt Security Camera

With IFA coming up in September, many brands are announcing their new product line-ups, including Tapo. Ahead of the event, Tapo has launched its latest dual lens camera which stacks two cameras atop of one another to offer a wider field of view.

For both indoor and outdoor use, the Tapo TC34 is easy to install, and after the initial cost, there are no subscription fees to worry about. The top camera stays fixed and offers a wide angle lens with 125° of coverage, while the bottom is a 6mm telephoto lens which automatically pans and tilts up to 135° vertically and 360° horizontally to track and follow movement.

3. EZVIZ CP8 Battery Video Doorbell

Taking on brands like Ring and Arlo, EZVIZ has launched the CP8, one of the most affordable video doorbells currently on the market. With 5MP resolution, the EZVIZ CP8 has a wide field of vision, and works to minimise blind spots so it can clearly capture what’s happening outside your home, even towards the edges of the frame.

My favourite feature of the EZVIZ CP8 is its built-in spotlights. They shine out from the top and bottom of the doorbell, and help power its colour night vision. It also works alongside the EZVIZ CP8’s PIR sensor which uses motion detection to recognise people and other objects, like pets and packages.

4. Wyze Indoor Cam Pan

Another indoor camera launch, the Wyze Indoor Cam Pan is a great budget option that gives even Blink, one of the cheapest security brands on the market, a run for its money. Priced at $39.98, the Wyze Indoor Cam Pan rotates a full 360° while the lens has 103° of vertical movement.

To protect your privacy, the Wyze Indoor Cam Pan has a physical privacy mode where you can tilt the lens down and retract it into the camera’s body. This means the camera will no longer see or record your home when you don’t want it to.

5. Philips Hue HDMI Sync Box Lite APR

Philips Hue looks to be dropping a cheaper edition of its HDMI Sync Box. As spotted via an early listing on Very, the Philips Hue HDMI Sync Box Lite APR has a lot of the same features as its predecessor, but it’s significantly cheaper.

What we know so far about the Philips Hue HDMI Sync Box Lite APR is it has one HDMI input and supports 4K up to 60Hz and 1080p up to 120Hz. It’s slightly less advanced than the 8K Sync Box, so this could be better suited to households with single devices.

6. Govee Strip Light 2

Govee has been launching many new smart lights recently, and its newest launch from August is the Govee Strip Light 2. Building on its original 2022 Strip Light, the Govee Strip Light 2 uses RGBWWIC and LuminBlend+ technology, so you get a combination of colour and white-light options.

Another notable upgrade of the Govee Strip Light 2 is you can cut it to fit your home, making it much more flexible and versatile. It’s currently available in four sizes in the US, with prices starting from $49.99, while a UK five-metre version is priced at £59.99.

7. Shelly Flood S Gen4

Expanding its Gen4 line-up, Shelly launched the Flood S Gen4 in August. The smart water leak sensor has three stainless steel sensors on its base, giving it a wider contact area to allow it to pick up even the smallest amounts of water.

The Shelly Flood S Gen4 is minimalist and petite, so it can easily fit near and underneath sinks, toilets and appliances, like dishwashers. If it detects water, the sensor sends an alert to your smartphone, and it even makes a noise via its built-in alarm.

Well, it took a bit of time but here we are – living in a post Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look world. Rockstar waited almost as long as it could to showcase the next GTA game properly, and almost certainly wishes it had gone a little earlier, given the plague of leaks in August.

Now, though, we can all sink in to watch the Extended Look for free on YouTube, after its maddening Netflix exclusivity faded. What a showcase it is, too, fully 27 minutes of cut-together gameplay that makes the game look like possibly the most accomplished console release in ages, at least visually.

Still, for as much as the preview obviously does give us a clear look at the game and its structure, particularly where main missions will be concerned, it still leaves quite a lot vague. Here are three things I think were missing from the showcase, ranging from the technical to the stylistic.

1. Performance details!

Rockstar ends the Extended Look by clarifying that it was captured on a PS5 (not a PS5 Pro), which confirms what everyone suspected – the game is going to look fairly unbelievable.

However, beyond that one fact we don't really know much at all about its approach to performance. In interviews with influencers released just after the showcase, Rockstar apparently confirmed that the game will target 30FPS on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, with no 60FPS mode available at launch.

We still don't know what might differ on the PS5 Pro, though, which is a major variable, and I would have loved to find out more about the wizardry being employed to get such a dense world working.

There's clearly some degree of ray-tracing going on in the lighting engine, for one, but there are also some moments where what I can only assume is upscaling gives some blurriness in busy moments. I'd have loved Rockstar to give us a more precise readout on this all, although such details might still come down the line.

2. Proper introductions to our main characters

Sure, those with a smattering of media literacy who've watched the previous trailers and now the Extended Look can easily build out a picture of Jason and Lucia, but still – why not give us firmer details?

These two characters are clearly going to be the centre of the game, and we'll be able to swap between them with relative freedom outside of scripted moments. Maybe they're blanker slates than I realise, but I'd have been interested to learn more about them this time.

Is their motivation pure capitalistic greed? Do they have a social mission that's simmering under the surface? Is Lucia really going to be this much more lively to watch than the somewhat morose Jason? All these questions and more are lingering after watching the showcase, and I do think Rockstar could have grounded us in their characters a little more, given the length of the showcase.

3. Where's my darn voiceover?

Okay, this might start off sounding daft, but stick with me. Some of my clearest memories of gaming trailers from my younger life have been Rockstar's showcases of its games, using serene and calm voiceovers to explain the game world and the technical advancements being shown.

Check out these trailers for Red Dead Redemption and its sequel, Red Dead Redemption 2, for instance. Both feature lovely voiceovers explaining the times the games are set in, and the things you'll be able to do in each. Sure, they're a little bit more old-fashioned as a result, but by golly, they're informative.

I get why Rockstar didn't take this approach for the Extended Look, from a marketing point of view, since it left the showcase open-ended and gave the impression of limitless activities in-game, but I really missed some explanation. This was Rockstar's chance to control the narrative more carefully and to actually go into detail, but it stuck to the broad brush instead.

I'm now left hoping that subsequent trailers will return to that old style, so we can actually get some more concrete details about what we're looking at.

We need it for everything from carrying groceries and opening stubborn jars to lifting heavier weights in the gym. But when I recently had my grip strength measured using a hand dynamometer – a little device you squeeze as hard as you can – I was surprised by just how much that little number could reveal about my health.

Let's be honest, until it gives up on your final set of pull-ups, how often do you actually think about your grip strength when training? Until recently, I certainly didn't think much about mine. I just accepted that when my hands and forearms started screaming at me, it was time to give up.

Yet research has linked lower grip strength with a higher risk of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular disease. At the same time, experts increasingly use it as a simple marker of overall strength, physical function and healthy ageing.

Of course, grip strength isn't set in stone. Just like any other aspect of fitness, it can be trained. So I asked experts what they'd do to improve theirs over the next 30 days.

Interestingly, the same exercises kept coming up, and you’re probably pretty familiar with them already. Here's what they recommended.

Why is grip strength so important?

“Grip strength isn't just about the hand,” says Ashley Katzenback, Doctor of Physical Therapy and owner of Cape Concierge Physical Therapy.

“It reflects the integrity of the entire musculoskeletal system and correlates strongly with lean muscle mass, neuromuscular efficiency, bone density, and the body's ability to recover from illness or surgery.”

“It also tells us a lot about our ability to generate and control force – and often mirrors overall muscle quality and total body strength capacity.”

“Research shows that people with low grip strength fall more, fracture more easily, recover more slowly, and are more likely to develop sarcopenia – the age-related loss of muscle that quietly accelerates functional decline,” she says.

In fact, a landmark study of nearly 140,000 adults across 17 countries found that lower grip strength was associated with a significantly higher risk of death from all causes, including cardiovascular disease, with each 5kg reduction in grip strength associated with a 16% higher risk of all-cause mortality.

The good news? Grip strength is highly trainable, which means there's plenty you can do to improve yours. Here's where the experts recommend starting.

The three exercises experts recommend for improving grip strength

1. Farmer's carry

Farmer's carry is incredibly simple – walking while carrying a dumbbell or kettlebell in each hand – yet extremely effective for challenging your grip under fatigue, as you continuously squeeze the weights to make sure you don’t drop them.

To do it, hold a heavy dumbbell or kettlebell in each hand, stand tall and walk, keeping your core braced and shoulders back.

How many? 3–4 rounds of 20–40 seconds. As your strength improves, experts recommend aiming to carry a combined load equivalent to around 50% of your bodyweight for one minute. Men can work towards around 70%.

Rest: 60–90 seconds between rounds.

2. Dead hang

As the name implies, all you have to do for a dead hang is hang from a pull-up bar for as long as you can. It’s simple and brilliant for building grip endurance while challenging your shoulders and upper body at the same time.

Take an overhand grip on a pull-up bar, lift your feet from the floor and hang with your arms extended.

How long? "Start with 10 seconds and gradually increase the duration as your grip improves," suggests Katzenback. Complete three sets.

Rest: 60 seconds between sets.

3. Bent-over row

Heavy lifting is one of the best ways to challenge your grip strength. What’s great about the bent-over row is that, while your back and biceps are doing plenty of work, your hands and forearms also have to work hard to resist gravity and avoid dropping the weight as you complete the rowing motion.

Katzenback suggests choosing a weight “you can row for five reps with good form.” Hinge forwards at the hips, keeping your back flat, then row the barbell towards your belly button.

How many? 5 sets of 5 reps using a challenging weight.

Rest: 60–90 seconds between sets.

One more grip exercise worth trying

Another type of grip can easily get overlooked: the pinch grip. This involves holding an object between your thumb and fingers without using your palm – think gripping a weight plate by its edge. Research suggests pinch strength may also decline with age.

To train it, hold a weight plate between your thumb and fingers and stop it from slipping. No handles or edges to hook your fingers under – that's the whole point. Start lighter than you think, because pinch grip is usually weaker than people expect.

No weight plates? A hardcover book works too. Pinch it shut by its covers and hold.

Do: 3 sets of 20–30 seconds per hand.

Rest: 60 seconds between sets.

Let's not forget about mobility

With extra grip work, include simple wrist flexor and extensor stretches, gently stretching your fingers down and up to maintain mobility in your wrists and forearms.

You can also work on your grip away from the gym. Samantha Cubbins, strength and conditioning coach and Lifting Club Ambassador at Gymshark, recommends practising “wringing a towel twice a day,” which you can easily do at home.

“For this exercise, roll a hand towel tightly and, with each hand at different ends of the towel, twist your hands back and forth for about five seconds each way and aim for 15 reps each time, and see how your grip strength improves,” adds Cubbins.

“This exercise is perfect as it can be done at home, with just a towel and won’t take more than a few minutes.”

Ultimately, improving your grip strength doesn’t require hours of extra training. Building overall strength can help too, as stronger muscles give you a better foundation for lifting, carrying and holding onto heavier loads.

Add these exercises to your usual workouts, practise the towel drill at home and progressively challenge your grip little and often. You might just find it’s not only your hands that get stronger – your lifts and your physical independence as you age could benefit too.

And let's not forget your handshake. First impressions really do count.

Samsung has just revealed its newest Galaxy phone, the S26 FE – those two letters standing for 'Fan Edition', but you'd be forgiven for wondering if it's 'Familiar Edition' this time around – which I got to test out ahead of its worldwide reveal.

The FE version of Samsung's flagship has always targeted bringing a slightly more diluted feature set for a more affordable price tag to the market. It might look akin to 2026's best phone, the Galaxy S26 Ultra, but the FE is further down the pecking order.

Now, call me superficial, but before I get to the nuts and bolts of what the Galaxy S26 FE is all about, let's just take a moment to admire its all-new finish, as pictured, in Blueberry. I think it's the nicest-looking finish I've seen – all bright and punchy and fresh.

Most other brands have gone with more mellow, pastel-like tones this year. From the Google Pixel 11 Pro in Olive, to even Samsung's own foldables from its Unpacked summer 2026 launch opting for a more genteel Lavender or deep green hues. For me, the Blueberry takes it.

Galaxy S26 FE vs S25 FE: What's different?

Despite its 'Fan Edition' name, the S26 FE isn't really one for the upgraders. As you can see from my table of comparisons to last year's model, above, the year-on-year changes are really quite minimal.

Indeed, it's the same design, with the same display, just some marginal adjustments to hardware thanks to a newer Exynos chipset, battery optimisation meaning charging is quicker (70% in just 30 minutes), a new ultra-wide sensor in the cameras, and the latest Samsung software adding some capture features.

How much does the Galaxy S26 FE cost?

The Samsung Galaxy S26 FE will go on sale on Friday 4 September, available in Blueberry, Pistachio or Graphite finishes – there's no Samsung.com exclusive colourway.

In the UK, pricing starts at £699 for the 128GB storage model. That increases to £799 for 256GB and £949 for 512GB. Whichever capacity you choose, all feature 8GB RAM.

I don't possess other regions' pricing at this stage, but assume similar year-on-year prices for the USA, Europe and Australia.

Speaking of year-on-year, the price has jumped from the respective £649 / £699 / £799 asking price of the S25 FE upon its launch – showing just how pricey storage has become due to this ongoing supply and demand issue.

Design & Display

Blink and you'll miss it: the Galaxy S26 FE looks nigh-on the same as the S25 FE. You could see that as criticism, but it's as much an assertion of its established nature – this is one good-looking phone and it knows it.

Its 6.7-inch panel is of scale – 'the norm' for now, if you like – and plenty bright, resolute and smooth in its playback. It's the same as its predecessor for all intents and purposes, but what more do you really need at this level?

The design is the FE's big win, ultimately. The metal edging and reinforced glass – it's Enhanced Armor Aluminum and Corning Gorilla Glass Victus+, respectively – are largely flagship in their nature. It looks refined, but it's a fairly tough handset designed to be used.

Funnily enough one of the lesser features about the S26 FE is an improvement over the S26 Ultra – and that's the cameras. Not the spec of this trio of lenses, not by any means, but the simple fact that it protrudes less. That's a byproduct of its lesser spec, but avoiding that 'desk wobble' when using the phone flat on a desk is a nice bonus.

I spent most of my time exploring the Galaxy S26 FE in its other finish, Pistachio, which is also very of the moment. I'd debate whether it looks truly pistachio in hue, given the blue, perhaps turquoise-esque finish, so I would lean towards Blueberry each and every time.

Performance & Battery

There was a rumour that the S26 FE would adopt the Silicon-Carbon battery type of the most recent Galaxy foldables. Alas, that's not the case, the battery here is the very same 4900mAh lithium-polymer setup of its predecessor.

Now that's not a bad thing: it's an ample capacity with a middleweight processor attached (the Exynos 2500 – noting that's one generation behind Samsung's latest 2600 version) and the charging protocol has been tweaked to be a little faster.

From my experience with previous FE phones, I'd say you can expect a good innings from the S26 version. It'll handle games and apps with ease, too, even if it's not top-tier in terms of current power – but that'll affect very few users, realistically.

The latest One UI 9 software does also bring some extras that no S-series has offered up to this point (although that'll likely change with future updates). The My FanCam, for example, offers auto-cropping of videos for best social application (depending on service choice), while the horizon lock keeps a level and steady video throughout capture.

The cameras might not be as supreme as the best on market, but the FE's push in offering a trio of optics means that you'll get a broad range available at your fingertips. From ultra-wide to the higher-quality main camera, there's even an optical zoom to get closer to the action.

Samsung Galaxy S26 FE: First Impressions

While the Galaxy S26 FE certainly isn't designed for upgraders, those looking for a less pricey entry point to Samsung's S series have a solid, good-looking option here.

No, it's barely any different from last year's equivalent and the price has also increased, but if top-tier cameras are less of a demand for your wants and needs, then this otherwise flagship-in-appearance handset has plenty to offer.

That said, the wider Android market has plenty of alternatives to consider, too. The S26 FE's Blueberry finish might be enough to entice you to buy in an instant, but broader contemplation for this FE model is warranted perhaps more than ever before.

Also Consider

Given the annual price rise, you might be thinking of looking elsewhere for a bargain. Already the pricier S26 Ultra is a little cheaper – closing the gap between the 512GB version of the FE and its entry 256GB model.

Otherwise, looking back might be the best way forward. After all, the S25 FE is barely any different in spec. No, there's no Blueberry finish, but for the cost savings this near-identical handset has obvious appeal.

As a total alternative, yet still within the Android market, take a look at Nothing's Phone 4a Pro, which is finished in metal, has a more considerable zoom camera, but will save you a chunk of spend.

At this point in the summer (at least here in the UK), you've probably had tips for how to get through a heatwave from just about everyone and their nan – it's been the favourite topic of small talk and advice columns alike for at least a couple of months.

Still, it never hurts to get another pointer, and I recently made a change to my bedding that had an actual impact on my overnight comfort levels in the heat. Sure, it's not 30 degrees right now in London, but those mid-twenties can still be fairly brutal overnight.

I got a set of new bed linen from Simba (one of our favourite sleep tech firms), and while I can only imagine the transformative effect of an actual mattress with cooling tech, it's been amazing what just some new sheets can do.

Simba's Cotton Percale linen is a little unlike the bed linen I've owned before, in that it's incredibly smooth to the touch. Its thread count of 200 isn't the most unbelievable, but in use it's just so cool compared to most linen I've used recently, including even some linen sheets.

The last few nights have been fairly hot and stifling in my top-floor flat here in London, but amazingly we've been able to have the duvet on the bed despite that. It's spent weeks banished while we sleep under sheets or blankets, and despite being decently weighty, these sheets really do help it feel less overbearing.

Plus, because Simba specialises in mattress toppers as well as mattresses, the fitted sheet on the bottom of the set is really nice and deep (at 40cm), meaning it'll almost certainly fit on even the most stacked of mattresses. On a similar note, though, you might want to check your pillows' sizes and how they'll fit the pillowcases, which are similarly generous in their proportions.

I've got the sheets in the off-white Soft Oat colour, but there are also a bunch of other nice colours to choose from, making it a great option if you want your bedding to complement the aesthetic of your bedroom or guest room.

That said, you might have noticed in the box above that there's a big discount on the bedding set – it's not just on that one bundle, either. Simba has a pretty chunky set of deals live on literally its entire range, so if you've been eyeing up some of its stuff for a while now, you've picked the right time to buy.

Check out the full sale on Simba's site here and see if you can't find a bargain – it legitimately shouldn't be too hard given the savings on offer. Frankly, I'm having to try quite hard to avoid spending money I don't have on some new Hybrid Pillows, since the upgraded sheets are making my crumby pillows seem pretty weak by comparison!

Plug-in solar has officially become a reality for millions of households across Great Britain. From today, compliant systems can legally be connected to a standard household socket, offering a simpler way to generate some of your own electricity without committing to a traditional rooftop solar installation.

However, there's a little more to it than buying the first kit you see and plugging it into the wall. To find out exactly what you need to know, I spoke to Luke from Plug-In Solar Register, who talked me through the rules around which products qualify, how much electricity they can supply and even how many systems you're allowed to have at home.

So, if you're thinking about giving plug-in solar a go, here are the key things you should know before buying.

1. They're legal from today – but not everywhere in the UK

Plug-in solar is legal from today, but only in England, Wales and Scotland. The change doesn't extend to Northern Ireland, and you shouldn't plug a system in before the legislation comes into effect, even if you've already bought a compliant device.

2. Check the ENA register before buying

Don't rely solely on a retailer describing a product as 'UK-ready' or compatible with the new rules. Instead, check that the exact device is listed as compliant on the Energy Networks Association's Type Test Register.

The register is changing quickly as manufacturers submit new products, so it's worth checking it as close to the point of purchase as possible.

3. Not everything on the register is actually compliant

Appearing on the ENA register doesn't automatically mean a product has passed.

Of the 23 plug-in solar devices assessed so far, only seven are currently listed as compliant. With new products being added regularly, make sure you're looking at the device's compliance status rather than simply checking that its name appears.

4. The 800W limit isn't about the size of your panels

You'll probably see 800W mentioned a lot, but that doesn't mean the solar panels themselves can only have a combined rating of 800W.

Instead, the limit applies to the amount of AC power the device can feed into your home's electrical wiring. A kit containing 900W or more of solar panels could therefore still comply, provided its output into the home is limited to 800W.

5. You can use a standard wall socket

One of the biggest differences between plug-in solar and a conventional rooftop installation is that a compliant system can connect through a standard 13A household wall socket.

However, it needs to be plugged directly into that socket. Extension leads and multi-way adaptors aren't part of the permitted setup, so don't assume you can simply run one from wherever is convenient.

6. It's one plug-in solar device per household

Under the current G98 network connection rules, the practical limit is one plug-in solar device per household, rather than one per socket. You also can't link multiple kits together to get around the limit.

The rules may develop as the plug-in solar market grows, but that's the requirement buyers need to follow at launch.

7. Plug-in batteries aren't included

This is where things can get slightly confusing. Although plug-in solar panels are now legal, that doesn't mean plug-in home batteries are as well.

Battery-integrated plug-in kits designed to store electricity for later use aren't covered by the current Great Britain framework. You can still buy a home battery, such as the recently launched EcoFlow Stream Series, but this needs to be professionally installed and can be used alongside a permanent solar panel setup. That's a different system from the new plug-in solar devices, so it's best to treat the two separately for now.

8. You'll need to notify your electricity network operator

Plug-in solar removes a lot of the installation work associated with conventional solar, but it doesn't remove all of the paperwork.

You'll need to notify your Distribution Network Operator (DNO) under G98, either before switching the system on or within the permitted period afterwards – generally 28 days, or 30 days for SP Energy Networks. You'll also need to notify them if the system is permanently removed.

The Plug-In Solar Register's DNO notification guide walks you through finding your operator and the current notification process for each area if needed.

9. Finding your network operator only takes a couple of minutes

If you're wondering who your DNO even is, you're probably not alone. Your network operator is separate from the energy supplier you pay for your electricity, so its name might not be particularly familiar.

The easiest way to find it is through the Energy Networks Association's postcode lookup. Alternatively, check the MPAN or long 'S number' on your electricity bill – the first two digits identify your electricity distribution area.

10. The notification process isn't the same everywhere

How you actually notify your DNO depends on where you live. Six network groups cover Britain's 14 distribution licence areas, and their processes aren't completely standardised.

Some have relatively simple online forms, whilst others require you to download and email paperwork. Some guidance is also still geared towards professional installers, so I'd check your operator's current instructions before buying rather than leaving it until afterwards.

Take a look at our guide on how much can plug-in solar panels really save you on your energy bills next.

One of my favourite gaming franchises of recent years has been A Plague Tale, a great example of how humble beginnings can lead to great things. The first game was a fun little stealth adventure with a rat-based twist, and the second took that to its zenith with expanded gameplay and some genuinely ravishing visuals.

Now the series gets a rat-free prequel in the form of Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy, and for all that I think the title is clunky, I've had a really fun time with this action-adventure title.

Resonance takes the enigmatic pirate Sophia from the second game and gives her a prequel that's frankly crazy in its storytelling ambition. It explains how she came to be so knowledgeable about curses and secret islands, and weaves a tapestry that takes in Greek mythology and the story of Theseus and the Minotaur in really fun ways.

Crucially, though, it's no longer a stealth title (barring some brief sequences), instead juggling between puzzle-solving as you explore and combat arenas. The new combat system is simple but generally pretty fun, although I can't pretend to love it as much as the old The Last of Us-style stealth from previous games.

Sophia is a fun central character, though, and has obvious overlaps with Amicia from the older games, including her insurmountable ability to come through harrowing moments without just dying on the spot.

What's really taken me aback as I've played through Resonance, though, has been its visuals. As I already said, I think the Plague Tale games already punched way above their weight, and that trend has continued in some style here.

This is straight-up one of the loveliest games I've ever played, with vistas that'll have you rubbing your eyes each time you round a corner to see them. Whether it's the crumbling ruins of a massive ancient arena, the dramatic clash of waves against a rugged coast, or the charming beauty of a cliffside nunnery, there have been too many gorgeous sights to really list.

I mean, just look at the screenshots below – all the images in this article are shots I took while playing, but they don't half look like marketing shots, eh?

Crucially, I've been playing the game on an ultrawide monitor that I can't quite name yet, for media embargo reasons, and it's been an added treat that really confirms what's great about PC gaming. Sure, I love my PS5 Pro and play it multiple times a week, but there's nothing quite like playing a game at a frankly silly aspect ratio for ludicrous immersion.

Since ultrawides generally come at silly resolutions, it's also a great way to stress test your PC and a game's optimisation, and I've been having a lovely time playing Resonance at maxed-out settings and a steady 60fps – all at 5120 x 2160. That's on my Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, so I'm not even boasting about a 5090 here.

I'll be able to be clearer about my monitor of choice later this week, but back to Resonance. I'm just a big fan of the way Asobo Studio structures and unfolds a story, and how cleverly it pipes a player through areas that sometimes feel more open than they actually are.

The game is a bit of a throwback, frankly – like an Xbox 360 action game, but with the visuals and sound design of a 2026 release, which is intended as a compliment. I think that the move from a really fleshed-out stealth system to a far simpler combat model is ultimately one that makes things less memorable, but that hasn't stopped the game from getting its hooks into me.

I've finished it, at a time when there are about five other titles sat on my various platforms waiting to be played – and ahead of a busy September, that's an even more thorough recommendation than it sounds.

I've had plenty of portable power banks in my time, and it's been a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine to upgrade them every few years. Generally speaking, that's involved the batteries getting smaller, as the tech behind their casings has slowly but surely shrunk over time.

For a couple of years, my default pick when packing a backpack for a working day or a short trip was an Anker 10,000 mAh battery that had a built-in retractable USB-C cable, and it worked a treat right up until I lost it a couple of months ago (I wish I knew where).

So, when Lisen offered to send me a battery pack to test, the timing was good – but so was the feature list. Lisen's power bank comes in at a decent premium of £49.99 at full price (although it often gets discounts), so I was curious to see whether that price could be justified.

Well, a few weeks later, I'm hugely impressed – by its compact design, but also by how much its Qi2 magnetic charging option has been useful even in a bigger battery. I've long known that ultra-slim magnetic chargers can be amazingly convenient, but hadn't banked on finding the same for a bigger one.

Lisen's power bank can charge at up to 25W wirelessly if your device supports it, too, which is pretty remarkable and banishes the one major downside to wireless charging (speed). The other occasional issue can be heat, but I've also been impressed by how well it dissipates heat while in use.

Where the magnets have come into their own, though, is not just for actual charging use. With my iPhone 15 Pro, I've found the best combination has been to use the magnets to secure the battery pack in place on my phone, but then to still use the short included USB-C cable to actually charge over a wired connection.

This bumps the charging power up to 45W at maximum, and means even faster charging with much less heat generated. It's the best for a quick top-up, but unlike my old Anker battery, I don't have to worry about keeping hold of two devices, since it's magnetised to my phone.

At 206g, I'm also impressed by how lightweight the battery is while still offering 10,000 mAh of capacity, which has made it all the easier to keep it in a sling bag or even my pocket at a stretch.

If you're in the market for a new battery pack and want one that marries magnetic convenience to good charging speeds and dimensions, I'll give this one my seal of approval.

Despite being T3’s resident air fryer expert, it took a lot to convince me to actually have an air fryer in my kitchen. But now that I have one, it’s quickly become one of my favourite kitchen appliances, thanks to these three features – and in spite of this one setting.

The ever-growing popularity of air fryers has always surprised me, and I initially held off getting one as I saw them as something that took the joy out of cooking. My kitchen also has two ovens, so it seemed a waste not to use them. However, after testing a few models, I came to appreciate the speed and convenience of using an air fryer, as well as the quick clean-up.

This summer is what’s really turned me into an air fryer convert, as both of my ovens have recently had issues, and the heatwaves have made it too hot to cook. I’ve been using mine constantly, and have found three air fryer features that I love and one that I never use, and quite frankly, don’t see the point of!

Air fryer features I love

1. Viewing windows

If I had to recommend any style of air fryer, I’d always say to go with a viewing window. Having a viewing window at the front or top of your air fryer allows you to quickly check on your food’s progress without disrupting the cooking by opening the drawers. Most models come with built-in lights to illuminate everything which enhances visibility.

This is the one feature that I felt was missing from air fryers, and for me, it gave ovens an edge. But now that viewing windows are more common, it definitely puts air fryers ahead of the traditional oven more than before.

2. Max Crisp

Available on select Ninja, Cuisinart and Philips air fryers, Max Crisp adds an intense burst of high heat towards the end of cooking to give your food an extra crispy texture. Most Max Crisp settings deliver temperatures up to 240°C / 450°F, and they also increase the fan speed so your food cooks quicker.

I’ve found Max Crisp to be especially helpful with cooking frozen foods. I’ve often had inconsistent results with chips and chicken goujons as they never come out as crispy as I’d like them to be, so Max Crisp has really helped with this.

3. Sync & Match

The Sync & Match feature is a real game changer. For dual basket air fryers, both drawers can be used to cook independently or at the same time, so you can make two different foods using different settings. But what makes this feature invaluable is Sync & Match which automatically sets both compartments to finish cooking at the same time.

For meal prepping or large family meals, Sync & Match means there’s no waiting around for everything to finish cooking. It also ensures your food comes out as fresh and hot as possible.

The air fryer feature I never use

1. Shake reminder

I might get some backlash for this, but I really don’t see the point of the Shake Reminder feature, and in fact, I rarely use it. On the air fryers I’ve tried, I haven’t found it to be very precise, and oftentimes, the Shake Reminder hasn’t sounded at all.

I, of course, understand the appeal of the Shake Reminder feature, especially if you chuck food in your air fryer and then go about doing other household tasks. However, I tend to stay in my kitchen while my air fryer is on to fix other parts of my meal, so I can clearly see when my food’s cooking time is at the halfway point.

Essentially, I haven’t had the best luck with the Shake Reminder feature, so it’s not a setting I’m excited about or would look for when buying an air fryer.

For more air fryer advice, check out these 7 common air fryer settings, what they mean and what foods they’re best for.

After I finished Star Wars Jedi: Outlaws back in 2024, I'd have been more than a little surprised if you'd told me that the next major Star Wars game I'd play wouldn't be until 2026, and that it would be a tactical strategy game.

Still, that's how things have unfolded – although I'm sure there's a third Jedi game on the way, nothing much of note has come out in the last couple of years. Now, though, the dry spell is finally over, and it's ending with a quite surprising new game, Zero Company, which has been compared widely to the modern XCOM games.

Like them, it's a turn-based tactical strategy game that sees you assembling a team of soldiers with varied characteristics, constantly hounded by the threat of permanent death if any of them dies in combat. That one feature makes it stressful at times to play, but in about five hours of in-game progress, I've had a really enjoyable time exploring the combat arenas that it's thrown my way.

Zero Company is set during the Clone Wars, when the Republic is starting to resemble the Empire in its clothing and uniforms, but is still on the right side of the moral divide. You play the leader of a ragtag mercenary group called Zero Company, and the game opens with you in severe debt to the Hutts with no way out.

So, a job offer from Republic intelligence services is too good to turn down, even if it quickly takes you down a rabbit hole, chasing after a mysterious cult that seems to be spreading powerful new abilities among its faithful.

The story that I've sampled so far has been told in a sprightly way for the most part (though some cutscenes can drag a little), albeit without doing anything particularly shocking or surprising. What's more impressive, though, is the gameplay on offer.

Zero Company drops you into your home base between missions to let you recruit new team members, tweak your loadouts, level up and choose your next operation. Some of these are just text-based decisions that you make to earn rewards, while others are full tactical incursions.

The latter offers the real meat of the game, in turn-based battles against droids, enemy soldiers and more. Sometimes you'll be tasked with simply taking out every enemy on the map, but it's just as likely that you'll have an objective like planting a bomb and evacuating, or reaching a wounded ally to add them to your squad.

Each turn, then, you'll control a squad of Zero Company soldiers, consuming their small stores of Action Points to move, attack, use items or abilities. Your decisions about how to position them, when to attack and when to wait for enemies to advance, and how to help them support each other, will basically determine whether you're successful or not as a mission unfolds.

At a time of year when a simply ridiculous volume of gaming releases are hitting the market, I can't pretend to have got more than my five hours into Zero Company, which leaves me with one big unknown – whether the game will get more challenging at some point.

I have a medbay for injured teammates, and I know that permanent death is on the cards for them, but so far none of my soldiers has ever left a mission in need of recovery. I'm generally pretty mediocre at strategy games, too, so I don't think that's down to my genius play.

One interesting side note has been performance on my undoubtedly powerful PC, which has been relatively mediocre. I have an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, and while the game's been looking great, it's run at a fairly chugging frame rate with quite noticeable screen tearing, even with VSync on and a framerate limit set. Big hitches are also present during transitions – a classic Unreal Engine bugbear.

It's a little surprising to find this is the game that's taxed my system the most since I installed it, but there we are. Luckily, footage I've seen of the game on PS5 looked really smooth, and dialling my settings down a little on PC hasn't been too harsh a compromise.

All that said, the visuals do look terrific – it's a great-looking game with some impressive visual design and environments in particular. Frankly, if you're a Star Wars fan this is a great moment for you. A surprise game that comes in with its story nailed down, and its gameplay loop completely tuned and ready to go doesn't happen all that often. It's the best Star Wars game for years, by default, but a great little title in its own right regardless.

When Katie Becker first saw Arc’teryx at a trade show in 1998, the brand stood out because it was doing almost everything differently.

At the time, snowboard and outdoor clothing was dominated by bright colours, oversized fits and bold graphics. Arc’teryx had taken a different approach.

Sitting on a pedestal was a simple, one-colour jacket that looked almost out of place among everything around it. It was the Alpha jacket, and what caught Becker’s attention was not just the appearance, but the thinking behind it.

The jacket featured waterproof zippers, a new approach to Gore-Tex construction, and a three-dimensional design inspired by the way climbers move. Even then, Arc’teryx had looked at the problems with existing products and tried to solve them from the ground up.

Almost three decades later, Becker, now Chief Creative Officer at Arc’teryx, sees that same mindset behind System 0, the brand’s attempt to tackle one of the most difficult problems facing the outdoor industry: how to create high-performance equipment while reducing the amount of waste created throughout a product’s life.

System 0 is not a single jacket, material or technology. Instead, it is a broader approach that brings together product design, manufacturing, repair, and end-of-life solutions, aiming to create products that last longer, are easier to repair, and, eventually, easier to recycle.

As Kyle Wood, Arc’teryx VP of Strategy, explained during the System 0 presentation, circularity is a highly complex, systemic problem, and it won’t be solved with a single product or strategy overnight.

For Arc’teryx, the project extends what the company has always tried to do: solve difficult problems with real consequences.

Starting with the hardest problem

Arc’teryx’s approach to product development has always been based around a few simple filters. Is the product authentic to the brand, does it solve a genuine problem, is it beautiful, and does it meet the company’s standards around responsibility?

That final point has become increasingly important as the brand has looked at what responsibility means beyond simply making durable products.

“We have people that love our product that have been wearing the same jacket for 12 years, 15 years,” said Becker. “And we really started to look at what does responsibility really mean? How do we build it to repair it? What are we doing about end of life?”

That thinking eventually led to System 0, a four-year project exploring how Arc’teryx could approach circularity in a way that matched its existing standards.

The team quickly realised that creating a circular product couldn't mean simply making a jacket with different materials. It required a wider system around the product, including repair services, manufacturing changes and a way to recover materials when the jacket eventually reached the end of its useful life.

Alex Plante, Arc’teryx’s VP of Advanced Concepts, explains that the team wanted to avoid treating circularity as a separate sustainability project.

“We knew that circularity wasn’t going to be about a product alone,” she said. “We knew that a product needed to be created, because that’s what we make, but it needed to be a product that was a proof point for a new system that we wanted to drive forward.”

The team could have started with a simpler product category, but that would not have been the Arc’teryx way. “We don’t start with easy problems,” said Plante. “Hard problems are generally the most rewarding.”

The chosen product was a waterproof jacket, one of the most technically demanding categories in outdoor clothing. A shell has to protect users from rain and snow, allow freedom of movement, work with climbing equipment, and remain durable after years of use.

And, as Arc’teryx found out, it also happens to be one of the hardest products to make circular.

Learning from products that came back

One of the biggest advantages Arc’teryx had when developing System 0 was ReBIRD, the brand’s repair programme. It gives customers the option to repair damaged equipment rather than replace it, but it also gives Arc’teryx something equally valuable: information.

Because returned products come back through the company’s Vancouver facility, designers can examine where products fail, which components wear out, and what customers need from their equipment after years of use.

“We were able to learn and understand how people use our hardshells,” said Plante. “We were able to learn what breaks first, what people loved about them, so that we could design out failure points right from the very beginning.”

The first version of the jacket pushed the idea of recyclability much further than the final product. One early prototype removed zippers completely because zippers are one of the biggest challenges in recycling garments.

However, when Arc’teryx tested that design with athletes and professional users, the response was clear: it was not practical. “It was sustainable, but it didn’t make sense,” explained Becker.

The jacket became easier to recycle, but it lost the functionality that made Arc’teryx products useful in the first place. That became one of the key lessons of System 0: circularity could not come at the expense of performance.

No compromises on performance

For Andrew Yip, Senior Director of Materials in Advanced Concepts at Arc’teryx, the biggest challenge was creating a jacket that could use more recyclable materials while still meeting the same performance standards customers expect.

“The common theme, especially from the beginning, was an uncompromising approach,” said Yip. “We knew that we wouldn’t be able to create something that we weren’t proud of, and that meant not sacrificing performance in any way.”

The project involved working with several industry partners, including Aquafil, GORE and Toray, to create a new three-layer laminate using post-consumer waste.

Aquafil supplies the recycled nylon used in the jacket, produced through chemical recycling. Unlike mechanical recycling, which melts materials down and can reduce their quality over time, chemical recycling breaks nylon back down into its original components before creating new material.

Yip compares the process to ice cream. “If you’ve ever had ice cream melt and refrozen it in your freezer and tried to eat it again, you know that ice cream doesn’t taste or feel the same,” he explained. “That’s mechanical recycling.”

Chemical recycling works differently because it breaks the material down further, allowing it to be rebuilt with performance closer to the original material. The jacket isn't made from a single material, though, because the company found that a completely mono-material approach would require too many compromises.

“We knew that really wasn’t an option for us because of our standards in performance and durability,” said Yip.

Some components, including zippers and reflectors, still need separate handling at the end of life. The important change is that Arc’teryx has designed the jacket so those parts can be removed and processed as efficiently as possible.

Even small details were considered. The black zipper teeth, for example, were chosen because changing colours during manufacturing creates additional waste.

Designing a product people want to return

One of the hardest parts of creating a circular system isn't just recycling materials, but collecting and sorting products when people no longer want them.

This is where Arc’teryx believes ReBIRD gives it an advantage. “The idea is that we’re building the garment that people want to bring back to us,” said Yip. “They want to bring it back to us because they want to keep it, and they want to repair it, and they want to use it as long as they can.”

Eventually, when a product can no longer be repaired, Arc’teryx wants to use that existing repair network to identify when it is ready to be recycled. This is a crucial part of System 0 because collecting and sorting old textiles is one of the biggest challenges in creating a circular clothing system.

Testing beyond the laboratory

Given Arc’teryx’s history, it is perhaps unsurprising that System 0 involved extensive testing, including placing jackets in a cement mixer with gravel to simulate abrasion, then checking whether they remained waterproof.

Another test looked at contamination from human oils, which can eventually affect the bond between a waterproof membrane and the outer fabric. These tests were designed to understand how long it could realistically remain functional.

The final product was also tested by professional users, including search and rescue teams, who helped shape the design. Their feedback sometimes meant choosing function over recyclability. More pockets, for example, were necessary because rescue teams need space for medical equipment and additional supplies.

The beginning of a bigger project

Arc’teryx sees the Sperro SV as a starting point, with lessons that can eventually influence more product categories and services. “This is really the beginning of our journey,” said Plante.

The ambition is not simply to create more sustainable products, but to change how people think about their relationship with equipment. “We’re really looking to change the way that people think about their products from a customer or consumer to a custodian of a product,” she said.

System 0 aims to keep those products in use as long as possible while reducing the impact created along the way. It is a complicated problem, and Arc’teryx is clear that this jacket will not solve it alone. But that has always been the company’s approach to innovation: start with the hardest problem, test relentlessly, learn from failure and keep looking for a better way.

Dragon's Dogma 2 was one of the great surprise pleasures of 2024, at least for me – a sprawling, mechanically complicated RPG that did things in different ways from the vast majority of the competition. Its commitment to those foibles made it feel really unique and special, so its upcoming expansion is naturally alluring.

Dark Arisen repeats the trick that worked for the first Dragon's Dogma by updating the base game and also adding a large new area at the same time, and I was super interested to get my hands on it at Capcom's UK office a couple of weeks ago.

After over an hour with the game, it immediately convinced me that more Dragon's Dogma 2 is a good thing, with the added bonus that it's coming to Switch 2 in a pretty impressive way.

The new expansion is set in Norgan, which you can basically think of like Skyrim – it's the snowy northern region of the landmass you've been exploring. That means icy terrain, snowstorms and generally frigid climes. These look lovely, especially on PS5 Pro, and give some fun new traversal challenges and obstacles.

To the victor, the spoils

I had around an hour to run around an open starting area, beginning in a small village with some quest-givers, a hub that I'd return to a few times. Dark Arisen introduces a new loot system called Spoils, and it'll be familiar to Diablo or other ARPG fans. As you explore and kill foes, you'll collect generic loot called Spoils, in various rarities.

Only by returning to this base can you pay a vendor to reveal these items of loot before choosing to keep or sell them according to their worth to your build. Even in just an hour's play, I uncovered some really powerful new items this way, and it's clear that it opens up a world of loot grinding that wasn't really in the base game at all.

After pootling around for 45 minutes finding enemy camps and completing some side quests, I realised the time and mainlined my way to the boss arena that would close the demo out.

Along the way, I had to fight a giant, horned giant that proved quite a formidable foe on its own, frankly, but with my memory of the base game flooding back, I was able to chop off its horns and eventually best it with the help of my NPC pawns.

From there, it was a short hop to a dark arena inhabited by a sort of zombified dragon, which I got to fight up to a certain point – once I whittled its health down by a certain amount (chopping off limbs and even its head, only to watch them regenerate), a cutscene ended my fun.

This Fallen Dragon seems to clearly be central to the plot of the expansion, along with the mysterious woman Eir who showed up to help me with it. I'd imagine the encounter I played won't be the only time you get to clash with the beast.

While the reality of more Dragon's Dogma 2 was indeed just as fun as I'd hoped, and the new region was great to explore, perhaps the bigger treat was getting to play the game on Switch 2 after my main demo ended.

This far more limited demo, the one now on the show floor at Gamescom, let me choose between a few boss fights, with a 15-minute timer to limit things. I played the most advanced available, battling against an ice dragon with a pretty sinister voice, and had a great time beating it.

Some 12 minutes later, I left massively impressed by how smooth the 30fps-capped gameplay had felt in a boss fight with a lot of particle effects, weather, powers and stuff flying around the screen. Whether it's truly representative of performance in the open world, I can't say, but I definitely know that the game will be extremely playable on Nintendo's console.

Pending final testing, that looks like another major notch in Capcom's belt, underlining how impressive its Switch 2 strategy has been compared to basically any other multi-platform publisher. Day-and-date launches keep coming, and they keep being barely compromised compared to more powerful consoles' versions.

I don't know if I'll have time to fully replay Dragon's Dogma 2 on the Switch 2, but the fact that people will have the option to, along with its expansion, feels like a pretty great thing. That said, they'll have to wait for its release date on 9 October.

There are few things more humbling than having to retry a boss for fifteen minutes straight in the middle of a press preview, but at least I wasn't the only one. With just three stages available to play from the newest Mega Man, the first fully new title in the series since Mega Man 11 in 2018, the pressure was on to get through them unscathed.

This is Mega Man, though, and if there's one thing the series is known for, it's relentless challenge. More on that in a moment, though.

Dual Override is a curiously low-key arrival in terms of Capcom's slate, and it was unveiled last year with a short trailer that didn't necessarily light the world on fire. Dropping the number from its title probably hasn't helped with people's understanding of the game's intended place in the pecking order.

It's definitely the newest full Mega Man game, though, and that's exactly how it felt when I went hands-on a couple of weeks ago. This is Mega Man in 2026, still just as sprightly and tightly-coiled as ever, with controls that ensure you're always able to make split-second adjustments, and that you know your death was definitely your own fault every single time.

This means that the game will be extremely familiar if you've played literally any Mega Man game, going right the way back to the first couple, but it does have its own twists. Principally, you get a pair of power-ups that you earn by dealing damage to enemies with your blaster.

The loadout I chose (from a couple of choices) let me put up a temporary shield to absorb one hit, while saving up for more power could activate the override mode from the title, which basically takes whatever attack configuration you're in and supercharges it.

This gives you something to aim towards in boss fights, in particular, and can be huge for swinging a fight your way, given how much damage you take per hit (loads). If you want, though, you can play with these power-ups disabled, for the brutally retro purists' experience.

I played through three stages, each one ending in a boss fight, but of these, the first two were mini-boss rooms, while the third stage ended with a proper showdown against Twinkle Girl. Don't believe the name; she was evil, and it was her fight that took me 15 minutes to conquer.

Generous checkpointing ensured that I could try again from the start of the fight, nice and quickly, rather than replaying the whole stage, but the total time of all my attempts was included in my stage summary, so I was still a little ashamed there.

The fight itself was all about pattern recognition and figuring out weaknesses, though. Once I realised that my secondary power mode, which made me into a sort of drill man, could powerfully counter one of Twinkle Girl's attacks, the fight swung around my way, and it didn't take long to win.

It helped that I was bopping along the whole time to a zippy and enjoyable soundtrack that felt nice and old-school, and looking at visuals that were impressively crisp and readable. Is this 3D style quite as charming as the old sprites? No, but it's more approachable and still really clear, which isn't saying nothing.

I played the game on PS5 and found it unsurprisingly buttery-smooth, but didn't have time to try it on Switch 2, which is where I'm certain I'd intend to actually play it once it's out in 2027. That handheld mode seems a natural fit, if Capcom can deliver it at 60fps.

Three stages is hardly anything, of course, and I was probably done with the demo content in about 30 minutes all told, but that half-hour left me really excited to play more of Dual Override. Frankly, beating a boss fight you've struggled with almost always leaves you either wanting to put the game down and take a walk, or to push right into the next level, and it's a pretty great sign that I landed on the latter.

The mid-sized SUV is definitely the sweet spot right now for buyers looking to go fully electric and there’s no shortage of choice. This is Mercedes’ offering though, and it’s extremely appealing.

The Mercedes-Benz GLC electric is an important car for the brand. Its new electric-first design has replaced the Mercedes-Benz EQC and provides a fully electric drivetrain alternative to the GLC 300e plug-in hybrid model.

As with many of its competitors, the mid-size SUV is the sweet spot for Mercedes, making it one of its most popular models. There’s a huge amount of competition out there right now, with new electric models including the BMW iX3 and the Volvo EX60 – both of which offer a range of over 500 miles on their larger battery models.

While the GLC’s electric range is still respectable at up to 405 miles on the 400 4MATIC model (and 389 miles on the GLC 250), it also excels in other areas, such as technology, performance and build quality. The showpiece being its 39.1-inch Hyperscreen, which covers the dash.

I tried out the flagship Mercedes-Benz GLC 400 4MATIC Premier Edition to see how this new model holds up. Overall, I found this to be the best Mercedes electric model to date and definitely one to consider.

How much is the Mercedes GLC electric?

The Mercedes-Benz GLC starts from £55,495, that’s slightly below the base Volvo EX60 though around two grand more than the BMW iX3. US prices for the GLC are still to be confirmed.

There are two main versions of the GLC, the rear-wheel-drive GLC 250 and the all-wheel-drive GLC 400 4MATIC, which starts from £60,350. The top-specced GLC 4MATIC electric Premier Edition starts from £73,350 and features the larger 94kWh battery to deliver 489hp and a 0-62mph acceleration of 4.3 seconds.

The model I drove was the GLC 4MATIC electric premier edition in Patagonia Red, priced at £73,350. This featured the MBUX Hyperscreen display, augmented head-up display and the Burmester High-End 4D Surround Sound System.

Design and build

This new electric GLC is built on a different platform than the petrol, diesel, and hybrid models, though at first glance, it’s still easy to identify as a GLC. On closer inspection, though, the external design has had a few tweaks.

That front grill is much deeper, enveloping the number plate into the mix and is made up of hundreds of LEDs. The front headlights are the new digital light design with the Mercedes star. This carries through to the rear lights too, which now form a solid bar to include the rear badge.

Otherwise, the profile looks slightly more aerodynamic, with a bigger slope on the rear windows and a longer sloping rear. The 400 4MATIC also sits on larger 21-inch multi-spoke alloys, while the base model has 20-inch alloys.

The car is more curvaceous, with shaping along the door panels and in the bonnet. There’s a large panoramic glass roof too, with liquid crystal molecules that allow you to change between transparent and opaque at the touch of a button, with nine segments and Mercedes logos available to display.

Design wise, it’s perhaps more classic than space age, but that’s no bad thing. It’s a great-looking car, and the Patagonia red metallic finish is particularly striking. It also comes in a Lavender silver colour, which gives a subtle purple finish that is particularly unique.

Inside the Mercedes GLC electric

The interior feels very premium in this model. Seats and upholstery are finished in black leather with a red top stitch, while silver-coloured details highlight the door handles, fans and phone tray.

It’s hard to escape the Hyperscreen though, as this takes over the entirety of the dash, from pillar to pillar. The single glass surface creates a 39.1-inch display with an 8k resolution. I’m sure the actual displays beneath it are separate, but it certainly gives the impression of a singular unit when you use it.

Despite this singularity, there are still three main areas of the display for the driving dynamics, the centre screen and a passenger screen. You can change the driver display between three main views and turn off the rest of the display if you want to remove all distractions, but the idle screen that displays while driving is actually quite calming and I didn’t find it distracting at all.

There are multiple backgrounds to pick from which extend across the full width of the display, so you can customise the look of the Hyperscreen, too.

The system is running the latest MBUX, which features Mercedes’ AI voice assistant and a wide range of applications, from video streaming and gaming to work productivity. The centre area provides a large map when driving, which can also be displayed in the driver area.

For the front passenger, the left side of the screen can be used independently, providing web browsing, video streaming, gaming and more while the car is moving. Cameras ensure that the driver is not distracted by this, though, and will either dim or interrupt the content if they are trying to watch it on the move.

Paired with the Hyperscreen is the Burmester High-End 4D Surround Sound System, with 19 speakers, 7500W and Dolby Atmos capability. Like the picture on the screen, the sound is very impressive, both in power and clarity – especially when playing Spatial Audio content from Apple Music.

Driving

Despite the sheer power and acceleration that the GLC offers, the driving experience is cool, calm and collected. Even when you put your foot to the floor in Sport mode, there’s a refinement to the way the car moves.

Suspension is gentle, even with Sport mode selected, though never wallowy. It holds its place around bends but never shakes you. You can also opt to have Airmatic air suspension on the GLC – the same system as on the S Class – if you want really smooth, but even without it, the car feels likeyou’re driving on a cloud.

For a mid-sized SUV, the GLC does feel big. The size of the car has grown slightly over the ICE models and it’s noticeable on the road. For me, it feels considerably wider than the Volvo and BMW, even if the difference in measurements is small.

Despite this, the car felt extremely agile. It offers a tight turning circle, allowing you to easily manoeuvre it around car parks and other small spaces. In addition to the air suspension option, the ‘refinement package’ adds rear axle steering to the mix, to give the car even greater turning ability.

In addition to the huge Hyperscreen, there’s also a head-up display in the GLC, to allow you to keep your eyes on the road. This is large and clear, encompassing speed and navigation information, as well as speed limits and automated driving control settings.

On the automated options, the GLC offers the Distronic distance assist adaptive cruise control, to control acceleration and braking. It also has standard lane keeping functionality, though not the full steering assist on this model, which provides lane centring.

Other clever driving tech includes the Parking Assist with 360-degree cameras to give you a complete view around the car while parking – or just allow the system to park itself. Meanwhile, the Digital Light headlights do a great job of illuminating the road in the dark, and offer the adaptive high beam assist plus, which uses the LED technology to block certain areas of the beam to avoid dazzling other drivers. It’s a very clever system to watch in action.

Charging and range

Just a year ago, having a range of over 400 miles on an EV would seem impressive, and it’s only down to a few 500+ cars that it seems less so. The fact of the matter is, though, that 400 miles is still a solid number, and still puts it among the longest-range EVs on the market.

The model I tested gave a 393-mile range but without a long drive planned, I didn’t get through a full charge in a week of driving. For most drivers, that could mean charging just once a week if needed. Of course, greater range would reduce any range anxiety almost completely, but for most, the GLC’s range should be off-putting.

Another good thing here is that the GLC has fast charging. Thanks to the 800V battery system, it can reach charging speeds of up to 330kW. That means charging 10-80% in just 22 minutes. It can also charge at slower speeds on 400V DC charging systems and on AC chargers up to 11kW.

Should I buy the Mercedes GLC electric?

With the GLC, Mercedes has made perhaps its most successful move to date from an ICE vehicle to an electric car. This car feels every bit the premium Mercedes, and it’s easy to forget that it’s an EV at times, which is perhaps the biggest compliment for electric cars these days.

It’s a good-looking car, inside and out, and has been beautifully finished. While not everyone will love the Hyperscreen display, for tech fans it’s probably the most impressive dash out there right now – even compared to the BMW’s panoramic vision.

The Mercedes-Benz GLC electric feels like the more refined choice of electric SUV. While it’s quick and heavy on the tech, it projects class over just practicality. For previous GLC petrol or diesel owners, this fully electric version is the perfect step up. Like the Volvo EX60, it’s also going to convert a lot of drivers looking for an electric car that doesn’t shout about being electric.

I say this every week, but it never stops being true – there's no such thing as a slow week in the world of Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, two titans of the streaming world. Each platforms knows it needs constant additions to hold people's interest, let alone their hard-earned subscription cash.

That means that nary a week goes by without them both adding something pretty interesting to their respective libraries. This is a great example, too, with Netflix adding one of its biggest new series of the year, and Prime Video serving up some properly steamy romance – two shows that are sure to be hits. Check them out, with one surprise extra, below, along with trailers and release dates.

The Whisper Man

• Streaming on: Netflix from Friday 28 August

This dark thriller, based on a best-selling novel, has a pretty stacked central cast, in the form of Adam Scott, Robert De Niro and Michelle Monaghan. It looks impressively twisty and unpredictable, too, with a plot that revolves around the question of what would happen if a notorious serial killer, imprisoned for life, somehow got out and started out for revenge.

The show theorises that he'd probably go after the family of the cop who put him in prison – and in this case that means taking on his son, since De Niro plays the older retired cop, and Adam Scott is his estranged adult child. Watch the trailer and you'll get a pretty quick sense of how the movie's going to feel to watch, which is to say, grimy and scary.

The Last Sunrise

• Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video from Wednesday 26 August

If you want something a little more encouraging to pick you up midweek, then Amazon's got a romance that could do the trick. The Last Sunrise is also a movie, so it's a one-off binge to fill an evening, and stars Maia Reficco as Ry, a young American who relocates to Spain with her mother in the hope that it could help her chronic illness.

She discovers a coastal wonderland that promises a whole heap, along with a specific boy who she can't help but be magnetised towards. Their relationship will start out testily thanks to her outsider status, but it clearly won't take long for them to fall for each other, even despite some complications.

All the Truth in My Lies

• Streaming on: Netflix from Friday 28 August

This one won't capture the same number of eyes and headlines as the other two on my list for the week, but it still looks like a pretty charming addition to Netflix's library. It's a five-episode miniseries in Spanish, portraying the chaotic hen party of a bride with her friendship group. What's meant to be a campervan trip in a small group soon balloons past that.

As new additions join the party and love triangles start to take centre stage, this looks like a fun exploration of how relationships and friendships change as we age. I think it's a safe bet that it'll end in a heartwarming way, even if there's some emotional strife on the way to that conclusion.

Whether you call a network test a beta, a demo, or just a network test, it's generally the first opportunity that most of us get to go hands-on with a FromSoftware game, making it a thrilling moment. The Duskbloods has been a mysterious concept for well over a year at this point, but this past weekend I was able to play it for a couple of hours to see what it actually involves.

A Switch 2 exclusive from FromSoftware is always going to be an eye-catching prospect, but I didn't expect the game to begin with quite such a cinematic introduction. In fact, it opens much like a single-player game from the studio, with an enigmatic cut-scene, and a journey through some very scenic areas before a boss who'll likely kill you.

Before long, you'll have the controls down, but you'll need to complete at least a few more tuturials before you understand what the game actually is. The answer? It's a lot like Elden Ring: Nightreign, but way slower and more digestible.

A match of The Duskbloods starts with you selecting an area of the map to spawn into, at the same time as seven other players. Over the course of three rounds, you'll explore that map, killing enemies to level up, but also completing objectives that accumulate a currency called Virtue.

At the end of each round, the players with the least Virtue will be culled, and the game ends with the top three players fighting in a small PvP arena, each with two lives. That's the broad strokes of the game, but there's a lot to learn as you explore. There are a bunch of ways to gain Virtue, for instance.

Some players will naturally gravitate towards basically hunting down their rivals, and this can be profitable. Thankfully, death doesn't set you back too far, since you respawn quickly with no lost progress – your loss is more in the form of others' gain.

If you want, though, you can largely play the game as if the other players are just high-level enemies you want to avoid. My first match, for instance, saw me doing just that, simply exploring the map and killing high-value enemies to eventually enter the final battle with more Virtue than anyone else despite never having killed a human enemy.

I won that battle, largely by having something resembling a brain and just holding off while the other two players ground each other's health pools down. I can't pretend it wasn't thrilling, though, and it was also pretty funny to take a photo of the post-match screen with its series of confusing tallies – breaking down where I got my Virtue with symbols that I still don't understand.

While exploring the map, you can find Kin, which are basically summons that you can level up if you concentrate on it. They're hugely helpful in both PvE and PvP, and I found at least three different ones to experiment with. That's one layer of build-craft, with another being the character you choose to play as. This test had six, but there will apparently be fully 10 at launch.

This is a huge differentiator from Nightreign. There's no scrambling to find good weapons, since your base attacks and even your magic powers are determined by your character pick. Instead, the main variable is how far you manage to level up, what Kin y you use, and whether you can earn some upgrades to branch out your stats and resistances.

The reality is, though, that with only a few hours of in-game time under my belt (largely thanks to the network test's very precise windows), I still feel like there's a huge amount to learn.

What I can say is that I thought the game ran well and looked lovely, though I only played it in docked mode since I was at home. It's targeting a frame rate of 60fps, which is key for smoothness, and while I saw some stutters, given it's not yet out, I'm pretty happy with performance.

Elden Ring hits Switch 2 this very week, and I think that game's far larger map and open areas could be more of a challenge for the hardware, but either way I'm thrilled to get major FromSoftware games on Switch 2 at all.

The Duskbloods already feels like one of the most intriguing games I've played this year, and we don't even know exactly when it'll be released. When it does, I can't wait to dive in to find out just how all of its many hidden systems work.

Depending on who you are, Call of Duty has either spent the last few years ruthlessly specialising in exactly the quick-paced twitchy action you love, or has become so rapid and relentlesss as to alienate you a little bit. With the arrival of Battlefield 6, I'm in the latter camp – wall-running and omnimovement made the last couple of COD games feel too challenging for my little soul.

That's meant I've been quietly quite excited for Modern Warfare 4, which sees developer Infinity Ward return to centre stage. I want a return to the smooth but methodical action of Modern Warfare 2019, but a weekend of open beta action with MW4 has confirmed I won't be getting that, quite.

A few matches of multiplayer confirmed that the game is, at least, slower than the frenetic Black Ops games from the last couple of years, and that's a huge step. Once again, footstep audio feels key, and far more limited starting ammo also meant I had to manage my shots more carefully and pick up other people's guns more often.

The movement tech here is a middle ground between older, slower styles and newer crazes. Mantling and jumping over obstacles is super quick, and the same goes for sprinting and sliding; you can also now climb pipes and jump to edges more freely, which actually feels quite cool to control.

Gunplay, meanwhile, does feel great, albeit I only sampled a handful of weapons. Rattling through killstreaks remains compelling, and as the first game to abandon the PS4 and Xbox One generation, MW4 looked pretty excellent in motion on my PS5 Pro.

Most intriguingly, though, this is the first time the open beta for a COD game has included a single-player mission. This might be Activision's way of trying to convince people that the dire campaign of Black Ops 7 was just an aberration, and to be fair, it might achieve just that.

The mission, called Entrenched, is a fairly classic slice of COD, seeing you start with trench-to-trench warfare before moving into a vehicle for some tank action, then back on foot for more close-quarters interior fighting and a final run through climbing sections to escape a burning reactor.

It's a great little demo, and it makes the open beta feel more like just that – an old-school demo disk that gives you the chance to really sample the final game, rather than purely its multiplayer component. A good COD campaign is a real thrill, after all, and we haven't had a properly consistent one in a surprisingly long time.

I think MW4 will still have a hard time pulling me away from Battlefield as it stands, though, and most shooter fans will know what I mean when I say there's only really room for one of them in my life. Since these games are where I play socially with my friends, it's a proper tussle for supremacy.

With my mates largely scarred by BO6 and BO7's outrageously fast pace of play in multiplayer, COD has its work cut out for it in convincing them to come back for another try. This beta is a good start, to be fair, but the fact that I'm most captured by the single-player element is probably a sign for caution, still.

Hybrid cars have exploded in popularity over the past decade, and are now more sight-after than ever, thanks to how they blend the efficiency of an electric car with the long-range abilities of a petrol or diesel vehicle.

The general premise is that a hybrid car has both an engine and an electric motor. Sometimes the car drives in pure-electric mode, while other times the engine fires up and drinks fuel from the tank in the conventional manner.

Some hybrids can travel dozens of miles on battery power alone, while others only use the moto occasionally – and some have an engine that isn’t really attached to the wheels at all.

Understanding which hybrid is best for you can be tricky. Manufacturers like to describe some systems as “self-charging”, while others quote enormous efficiency figures, such as over 100 miles per gallon, that are rarely achievable during normal, real-world driving. Below we’ve gathered up the four most common hybrid systems and explained exactly how they work, along with examples of cars that use them.

Mild hybrid

Often shortened to MHEV, this is the hybrid technology pioneered by the original Toyota Prius, all the way back in 2000. A quarter of a century has refined the tech, but the fundamentals remain the same. Mild hybrid cars are predominantly driven by their petrol or diesel engine in the conventional way, but their drivetrain also incorporates a small electric motor.

That motor is ready to draw from a small battery and help the engine in certain situations, but cannot drive the car alone. Mild hybrids mostly use their battery and motor to assist the engine during acceleration from low speed, and restarting the engine when the stop-start system is enabled.

Powered by petrol or diesel engines, these cars cannot be plugged in to charge, as instead the small battery is topped-up using regenerative braking whenever the car is coasting is slowing down. Mild hybrid batteries operate at just 48 volts (compared to the 400 or 800 volts of EVs), and tend to be just 0-5 to 1.0 kWh in capacity, which is tiny compared to the circa 50-120 kWh batteries used by most fully-electric vehicles.

Full hybrid

Known as an FHEV, a full hybrid electric vehicle works in a similar way to a mild hybrid, but with a key difference – the motor and battery can drive the car directly.

They can only do so with the engine off for short bursts, but it means a full hybrid car can set off from standstill and handle slow, stop-start city traffic, without the engine. The engine also frequently shuts down when coasting, such as on the motorway, and the battery is then charged by regenerative braking, or by the engine itself. Full hybrids can usually manage just a couple of miles of electric range, but in city traffic that can make a big difference to tailpipe emissions and fuel efficiency.

These are the cars manufacturers like to describe as “self charging hybrids”, since regenerative braking and the engine are used to refill the battery, and they cannot be plugged in for a top-up.

Plug-in hybrid

Now to the hybrid everyone is familiar with – the plug-in hybrid vehicle, or PHEV. These hybrids have far larger batteries than the models covered so far, with capacity generally between 10 and 30 kWh. This means a much larger range too, with dozens of electric-only miles possible in some cases – enough for most drivers to complete their daily commute engine-free, potentially for several days at a time, before plugging back in.

Pair a plug-in hybrid with a cheap home electricity tariff, and you have the potential for incredibly cheap commuting, since charging at night costs significantly less and the engine will barely ever fire into life during shorter local journeys. Some PHEVs can even manage motorway speeds for dozens of miles without consuming a drop of petrol.

Like other hybrids, and EVs, plug-ins use regenerative braking to top up the battery when coasting and braking. The engine can also be used to refill the battery, but this isn’t a particularly efficient use of petrol. These cars also have a ‘hold’ function, where battery use is paused; press this on the motorway, use the engine at its most efficient, then reactivate the hybrid system when you reach city traffic, and drive about with electric power alone.

Manufacturers like to attach enormous, three-figure miles-per-gallon figures to plug-in hybrids. But these are only achievable if you use the battery as much as possible without it running out. That said, regular charging can easily make a PHEV more efficient, and cheaper to run, than an equivalent non-hybrid.

Range-extender hybrid

Now for a lesser-known type of hybrid, but one that is likely to become more popular in the coming years. An early example of the range-extended (also known as the REX, REEV and EREV) is the original BMW i3. As well as being an EV, this car was also available with a small, range-extender engine. This didn’t drive the wheels, but instead acted as a generator that ran on petrol and topped up the battery, increasing range.

That generation of i3 died without a successor, but today several manufacturers are again looking at range-extender tech as a way to improve EV range and alleviate the dreaded range anxiety. Lotus recently announced the Eletre X, a version of its electric SUV with a 2.0-litre turbocharged engine that feeds the battery, boosts range to over 750 miles, and can drive the front axle during motorway cruising.

Volkswagen is also looking at the tech as part of its ID Era concept from 2025, and Mazda builds a range-extender hybrid called the MX-30 R-EV. Chinese brands are also experimenting with range-extender hybrids, and BYD, Yangwang and Leapmotor all make such cars.

Formula E’s new GEN4 racing car can accelerate from 0-62 mph in approximately 1.8 seconds, but the technology behind that performance could eventually help road-going electric cars become faster and more efficient.

The permanent all-wheel-drive car produces up to 600kW, or approximately 815bhp, and recovers energy under braking at rates of up to 700kW.

Although manufacturers do not develop the entire vehicle, they are responsible for areas including the electric motor, inverter, gearbox, differential and the software controlling them.

These are also among the components with the clearest relevance to road-going EVs.

“At the end of the day, the physics you’re dealing with are identical,” Jaguar TCS Racing team principal Ian James told me at the Tokyo E-Prix. “Whether you’re racing on track or developing an electric vehicle for the road, the physics don’t change.”

James describes the relationship as a two-way exchange, with engineers and technology moving between Jaguar’s racing and production-car programmes.

Jaguar’s forthcoming Type 01 provides a particularly tangible example. The company says its all-wheel-drive control software and fast-switching silicon-carbide inverters were informed by Formula E.

An inverter converts the battery’s direct current into the alternating current used by the electric motors. Improving its switching speed and efficiency can sharpen power delivery while reducing energy lost as heat.

Jaguar also says Formula E knowledge has influenced the Type 01’s regenerative braking, range and fast-charging capabilities.

Chasing the final percentage

The challenge is that modern electric racing drivetrains are already exceptionally efficient. James puts Jaguar’s current figure at approximately 97.5%, meaning less than 3% of the energy passing through the powertrain is lost before reaching the wheels.

“The marginal gains we can make through future hardware development will probably begin to tail off,” he explains. “When you’re already in the high 90s, it becomes much more difficult to take the next step.”

Formula E’s powertrain hardware is approved for two-year periods, but manufacturers can update their software between races and make adjustments during a race weekend.

Software determines how efficiently the car deploys its available energy, controls regenerative braking, and manages power delivery across the front and rear axles.

“What underlines Formula E significantly is the work that goes into software,” explains Nyck de Vries, who has raced in both Formula 1 and Formula E.

“I would say it is far ahead of any other championship in terms of software development, because that’s where we can find a small edge over our competition.”

FIA Formula E technical manager Vincent Gaillardot is careful not to claim that the championship invents every component it uses.

Its role is often to take existing technology and operate it in conditions far beyond those experienced by a production vehicle.

“The aim of motorsport is to push everything to the limit,” he says. “We use the cells and the battery in a territory completely outside mass-production usage.

“I’m not sure we say we are developing the technology. We show how far it can go.”

That accelerated development environment may be Formula E’s greatest value to road cars. Engineers can experiment, take risks and evaluate new ideas under the constant pressure of competition.

“Our learning is extremely fast in motorsport,” James says. “Without Formula E, that development would slow down.”

The average EV will never require 815bhp or 700kW of regenerative braking, but learning to control that performance efficiently could help manufacturers make road cars that respond faster, travel further and waste less energy.

Find out more about what the new GEN4 car is capable of at Formula E.

Compared to the other months of the year, August is the month which sees the worst attendance in the office. Simply put, the summer holidays means more people are taking annual leave, staying home to be with the kids, and schools and universities are closed.

I’m sure commuting and going back to school is far from your mind right now, but with September on the horizon, it’s a great time to upgrade your bag with a stylish new briefcase. A briefcase or laptop bag gives an air of professionalism, and they pack a surprising amount of storage under their stylish hoods.

To help you get ahead of next term or your return to the office, here are five briefcases that’ll level up your work, commuting and studying.

Best briefcase overall

1. Carl Friedrik Dunloe Briefcase

My top pick for the best briefcase overall is the Carl Friedrik Dunloe Briefcase. Available in four stylish brown colours, this briefcase is relaxed yet sophisticated, and it holds a huge amount of essentials, including a 16-inch laptop. Made from full-grain leather, it has a rough texture and is complimented by polished hardware.

I gave it five stars in my Carl Friedrik Dunloe Briefcase review, and found it to be the perfect companion for office commutes and work trips. My husband still uses it every time he goes into the office, and it has a good amount of spacious pockets and compartments to keep everything organised.

Best luxury briefcase

2. Montblanc Meisterstück Briefcase

Nothing screams luxury like the Montblanc Meisterstück Briefcase. Described as an ‘elegant companion for business trips’, this briefcase is available in Meisterstück black leather or Sfumato brown leather which is durable, stylish and robust.

The Montblanc Meisterstück Briefcase is inspired by writing culture, more specifically fountain pens which Montblanc is known for. The handles, zips and stitching are designed in the shape of a pen nib, and it comes with multiple carrying options with its removable leather strap. For £1,800 / $2,250, it’s not cheap but it’s sure to last a long time.

Best budget briefcase

3. Moss Saffiano Attache Bag

A budget briefcase doesn’t have to be basic, and the Moss Saffiano Attache Bag proves that in handfuls. Made from black faux leather, the briefcase has a modern Saffiano-style print to give it more texture and style.

The Moss Saffiano Attache has great internal pockets, including organiser compartments and a padded laptop sleeve. It has an adjustable strap for comfortable carrying, and a trolley sleeve, making it the ideal bag for abroad work trips to sit atop your suitcase.

Best briefcase and backpack

4. Stubble & Co The Hybrid Backpack

If you like switching between handles and straps, the Stubble & Co The Hybrid Backpack gives you the best of both worlds. This hybrid briefcase and backpack has a 20 litre capacity, and breaks up into three split compartments, so you can take it with you from work, into your next gym session and on to your weekend trip.

Inside, the Stubble & Co The Hybrid Backpack can fit a 16-inch laptop and other gadgets with its separate organisers. As a backpack, its straps are comfortable on the shoulders, and it has a main handle on the side so you can carry it like a briefcase – because why not have the option to choose both?!

Best briefcase for storage

5. Briggs & Riley Expandable Briefcase

If storage is what you’re after, the Briggs & Riley Expandable Briefcase has it in spadefuls. Made from durable, recycled materials, this briefcase is the king of organisation, with two large pockets at the front, a 15.6-inch tech sleeve for your laptop, and divided internal compartments.

The Briggs & Riley Expandable Briefcase can also be expanded by unzipping the side to make it bigger by 1.5 inches. It’s a great option for travel, and has a slip-through back panel to fit onto your suitcase.

Welcome to T3’s Weekly Style Edit, our regular roundup of the clothes, accessories and watches that have caught my eye over the past seven days.

This week’s selection is all about the meeting point between performance, heritage and everyday style, from On transforming one of its most recognisable running shoes into a completely new mule silhouette to PUMA and SAYSKY proving that technical running kit can look just as good away from the start line.

There are also plenty of pieces with a strong story behind them, including Levi’s recreating a wartime version of the legendary 501, Seiko revisiting its mountain-inspired Alpinist heritage and M&S teaming up with Aries for one of the more unexpected collaborations of the year.

Add in norda’s understated trail shoe update, and this week’s edit proves that the best gear doesn’t always need to shout to stand out.

On Cloudmonster 3 Mule

£170 | On UK

On has spent years refining its running shoe silhouettes, but the Cloudmonster 3 Mule proves the Swiss brand is ready to step outside its comfort zone.

Developed as part of the AW26 collaboration with FKA twigs, the slip-on silhouette takes the oversized cushioning and distinctive shape of the Cloudmonster franchise and turns it into something much more lifestyle-focused.

The result keeps the exaggerated proportions that made the Cloudmonster popular, including the chunky midsole and recognisable CloudTec cushioning, but removes the traditional heel counter to create a mule-like shape that is easier to throw on.

The Cloudmonster 3 Mule sits somewhere between recovery footwear, a travel shoe, and an everyday sneaker, offering the kind of comfort runners already appreciate without looking like a pair of trainers designed purely for the track.

PUMA x SAYSKY Ultraweave Singlet Men

£85 | Puma

Running apparel has become increasingly fashion-conscious in recent years, and the PUMA x SAYSKY collaboration is a perfect example of that shift.

The Ultraweave Singlet takes the lightweight performance expected from race-day kit and gives it the Copenhagen brand’s distinctive minimalist aesthetic.

Made from PUMA’s Ultraweave fabric, the singlet is designed to feel barely there while still offering the breathability needed for hard sessions and summer races. The slim vertical stripe pattern gives it a classic athletic look, but the subtle branding keeps it from feeling like traditional club kit.

Levi's Vintage Clothing 1942 501 Jeans

£TBC | Levi's

The Levi’s 501 has been around for more than a century, but few versions tell a story quite like the Vintage Clothing 1942 reissue.

Recreated from an original pair made during the Second World War, these jeans capture a moment when material shortages forced Levi’s to rethink one of its most iconic designs.

Wartime details include simplified construction and period-correct features introduced as part of the government’s conservation efforts, giving the jeans a character that modern reproductions often struggle to replicate.

M&S x Aries Pure Cotton Striped Shirt

£45 | M&S

M&S collaborations are not usually the first thing that springs to mind when thinking about fashion’s most exciting partnerships, which is exactly why the new Aries collection feels so refreshing.

The Pure Cotton Striped Shirt is a great example of what makes it work. Aries brings its streetwear sensibility to a classic wardrobe staple, adding subtle branding and a relaxed silhouette without turning the shirt into a statement piece.

The soft striped pattern gives it a vintage feel, while the clean cut means it works just as easily with jeans and trainers as it does dressed up slightly.

It’s a smart example of how high-street staples can be elevated when the right creative minds are involved.

norda 005 (Stealth Black)

£285 | norda

Canadian brand has built its reputation around premium materials, understated design and obsessive attention to detail, creating footwear that feels equally at home on a mountain trail or in a city street.

The latest 005 Stealth Black colourway takes that philosophy even further with its monochrome finish that strips the shoe back to its essentials, highlighting the distinctive silhouette without the brighter colours often associated with performance footwear.

Underneath the minimal aesthetic is the same technical approach that made norda popular, including durable Dyneema construction, a lightweight build, and a design built for moving quickly across challenging terrain.

Seiko Prospex Alpinist 39.5mm (SPB507)

£800 | Seiko

I’ve always had a soft spot for watches that feel connected to exploration, and few Seiko models have as much adventure heritage as the Alpinist.

First launched in 1959, the collection was created for Japan’s “Yama-otoko” mountain men, designed to be dependable companions in challenging terrain.

The latest 39.5mm Prospex Alpinist keeps that spirit alive while adding the kind of refinement that makes it just as suitable away from the mountains.

The deep green dial, gold accents and classic leather strap give it a timeless look, while the automatic movement and 20 bar water resistance ensure it remains a practical tool watch rather than just a pretty object.

The Alpinist is exactly the kind of piece that makes you want to plan an adventure, even if the nearest mountain is a long way away.

It's been quite the year for focusing the lens on folding phones, with the summer Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event revealing the all-new Z Fold 8 device.

Having reviewed that handset, I since moved over to the Z Fold 8 Ultra. Which, as the Ultra name implies, is even more impressive – in some ways, at least – and demands an even taller asking price.

Indeed, using such a phone, which is worth a couple of thousand, is often in the back of my mind. So when Benks sent out its latest protective case for Samsung's 2026 foldables, I was intrigued as to what they'd offer.

I was sent the "Armor Grand Combo" set, which comprises a GlassWarrior screen protector, plus ArmorGrid Air protective case.

Check out the gallery above for the box and what's in the trio of compartments – it's effectively a screen protector plus two-part protective case.

The Magnetic Phone Grip, which is sold and therefore packaged separately, was also included – but you can use that with any number of handsets, not just the Z Fold 8 Ultra.

Benks offers these cases in either Black or Blue, so the colours don't necessarily match the device – I've got the Violet Shadow foldable, which is like a deep purple, and quite different to the black case, as pictured.

I was really drawn to the Benks case as I love the modern camo-like patterning. It looks pretty classy in pictures, although I've found the front case adds such a lip that it's changed how I use my new foldable.

There are positive changes in my use, though, as I'm now more rugged with how I handle the phone – which provides a feeling of relief, knowing this super-pricey handset is shrouded in Kevlar for the ultimate protection.

That magnetic phone grip is also super handy for creating a mobile stand, meaning I can sit the unfolded phone up in its own right, like a private mini cinema when I'm on relevant public transport.

Like the look of it too? Check out the Benks website for more information. The ArmorGrid Pro and ArmorGrid Air cases are also available on Amazon, with the latest best price in the widget below:

When you go to the doctor for a checkup, you probably expect them to check your blood pressure and cholesterol. What they're less likely to test is whether you can get up from the floor without using your hands, balance on one leg for a minute or hang from a pull-up bar.

As we get older (and wiser, of course), it’s not just about those health markers, but how well we can actually move matters too. After all, living longer is one thing. Living well, and staying strong, mobile and independent enough to enjoy those extra years is another.

That's where functional fitness comes in. Simple movement tests can give you a useful snapshot of the strength, balance, mobility and physical resilience you're taking into your forties and beyond. And, crucially, they give you something you can measure and work on.

Inspired by a post from Men's Health & Performance Coach Rob Morgan, these six tests won't tell you whether you'll live to 100, but together they can reveal plenty about how well your body is functioning right now. Best of all, you don't need a lab or doctor to test them - you can do them at home yourself.

1. Deep squat hold

Target: 2 minutes

Drop into a deep squat, keeping your heels on the floor, chest lifted, and feet planted, then hold the position for as long as you can comfortably.

The deep squat challenges mobility through your hips, knees and ankles, while also testing lower-body and core strength.

Can't do it? Start by holding onto a sturdy support or TRX, then gradually increase your squat depth and the time you can comfortably hold the position.

2. No-hands get-up

Target: Get down to the floor and back up without using your hands

This one sounds ridiculously simple until you try it.

From standing, lower yourself to a seated position on the floor without using your hands, arms or knees for support. Then stand back up without using them to boost yourself.

The movement combines lower-body strength, mobility, balance and coordination - all physical qualities we want to hang onto as we age.

Some interesting research supports this, too. In a study involving more than 2,000 adults aged 51 to 80, lower sit-to-stand scores were associated with a significantly higher risk of all-cause mortality over a follow-up period of about 6 years.

In other words, being able to get yourself off the floor could reveal more about your health and longevity than you might think.

Can't do it? Sit down on the floor and practise getting back up. It may be totally ungraceful at first, and you might need to roll onto your side or use your hands. That's OK. Keep practising.

3. Single-leg balance

Target: 1 minute per leg

Stand tall, lift one foot off the floor, and see how long you can stay balanced without putting it back down or grabbing something for support. Then swap sides.

Balance might not get the same attention as strength or cardio, but it becomes increasingly important as we get older. Staying stable on one leg requires coordination between your muscles, joints, vision, vestibular system, and nervous system.

Good balance also matters for something considerably less glamorous but increasingly important with age: staying steady on your feet.

Can't do it? Standing on one leg is one of the easiest things to practise because you don't need any equipment. Try it while brushing your teeth or waiting for the kettle to boil, and add more single-leg and unilateral exercises to your gym workouts. There's nowhere to hide when you take one leg away, so embrace the wobble and keep working on becoming more stable.

4. Fists to floor

Target: Touch your fists to the floor without bending your knees

Stand tall with your legs straight, hinge forwards and see whether you can reach your fists towards the floor without bending your knees.

It's a quick test of mobility through your hamstrings, hips, and spine, and it can highlight stiffness that creeps in after years spent sitting at desks, driving, and generally moving less.

Don't force your way to the floor, though. Mobility is something to work on progressively and consistently.

Can't do it? It might be time to stop neglecting those basic stretches. Lying hamstring stretches can help, or simply bring the floor closer to you - and start by folding forwards and placing your hands on yoga blocks to get that yoga stretch. You can then gradually reduce the height as your mobility improves.

5. Push-ups

Target: 20 perfect reps

There's a reason the humble push-up always pops up.

Twenty clean repetitions require upper-body strength, muscular endurance and core stability, without the need for a dumbbell, barbell or even a gym.

Research also links push-up capacity to cardiovascular health. One study of active adult men found that those who could do more push-ups had a lower incidence of cardiovascular disease events during the subsequent 10-year follow-up.

That doesn't mean doing push-ups prevents heart disease, of course, but your ability to perform them can provide another useful snapshot of your overall physical capacity.

For this test, quality counts. Keep your body in a straight line, lower your chest towards the floor and fully extend your arms at the top. Twenty half-reps don't count.

Can't do it? Do as many clean reps as possible before dropping to your knees. Over time, aim to increase the number of full push-ups you can complete before switching to the modified version.

6. Dead hang

Target: 1 minute

Grab a pull-up bar with an overhand grip, lift your feet off the floor and hang.

Simple? Yes. Easy? Give it 30 seconds. Still with us?

The dead hang challenges grip strength and upper-body endurance while requiring you to support your entire body weight from your hands.

Grip strength has become one of the biggest talking points in longevity research because lower grip strength is consistently associated with poorer health outcomes as we age. It doesn't mean hanging from a bar for 60 seconds will make you live longer, but maintaining strength through your hands and upper body can indicate overall strength and physical capacity.

Can't do it? Start by hanging for as long as you can and aim to add a little more time each week. You can also use a resistance band to support your body as you build grip and upper-body strength.

What if you can't pass all six?

Firstly, don't panic. These aren't pass-or-fail medical tests, nor are they a crystal ball for longevity. Think of them as a starting point - and a way to identify which areas of your fitness might need a little more attention. After all, you can't manage what you don't measure.

It's exactly why I strength train, get around 10,000-15,000 steps a day and prioritise mobility. I'm not only exercising for what my body can do now; I'm investing in what I want it to do decades from now.

One day, my kids might have kids of their own, and I want to be the grandma who can confidently get down on the floor with them - and, importantly, get back up again. I want to carry my own shopping, climb the stairs, travel, and keep doing the things I love without relying on somebody else.

Because the goal isn't simply a longer life. It's staying strong and capable enough to enjoy it.

Due to the recent UK heatwaves and wildfires, disposable barbecues have been banned for the rest of the summer. Putting this year’s unpredictable temperatures aside, disposable barbecues have always been harmful to the environment, as they scorch the grass they sit on, and as single-use products, they create a lot of waste.

Aside from costs, the main reason for using a disposable barbecue is because you don’t have immediate access to gas or electricity while you’re camping, on the beach or at the park. As disposable barbecues mainly use charcoal to fuel its fire, the solution seems obvious.

Rather than using a disposable one, pick a portable, reusable charcoal grill instead. Aside from producing delicious food, this type of barbecue is less harmful to the environment, easy to use and take with you on-the-go, and the base and stability ensures it stays off the ground while you cook to prevent fires.

Here are five on-the-go charcoal barbecues you should use instead of a disposable one – and it goes without saying that you should be as careful and safe as possible when barbecuing, especially around open, grassy and wooded areas.

P.S. For easy-to-use barbecues on the go, check out our portable barbecue round-up, including gas, pellet and electric options.

Portable charcoal barbecues

1. Weber Go-Anywhere Charcoal BBQ

Starting off strong, the Weber Go-Anywhere Charcoal BBQ has a spacious, porcelain enamelled design that retains heat for consistent cooking. As the name states, this charcoal barbecue can quite literally go anywhere with you, thanks to its carry handle and lock-in legs. Inside – and when not on – the Weber Go-Anywhere can store your cooking tools, and its cooking and fuel grates can withstand high temperatures.

2. CosmoGrill Tapan Portable Charcoal BBQ

Designed for ‘authentic coal grilling’, the CosmoGrill Tapan Portable Charcoal Barbecue is a small, portable grill that’s perfect for camping trips or outdoor picnics. It has an oil drum shape that locks in the heat, and it features a main grill and warming rack for plenty of cooking space. The CosmoGrill Tapan also has a foldable stand to keep it off the ground, and it’s also small enough to fit on a tabletop.

3. George Foreman Portable Briefcase Charcoal BBQ

If something lightweight is what you’re after, the George Foreman Portable Briefcase Charcoal BBQ weighs just 3.6kg. It may be small but it can cook for up to three people at a time on its chromed steel grill area. When it comes to portability, clue is in the name – the design, including its legs, folds down into a briefcase, and its heat-resistant handle makes it easy to carry.

4. Tower Portable Barrel Grill

Another barrel-like design, the Tower Portable Barrel Grill has two grill racks so you can make multiple foods in one place. It has a bright silver colour with a wooden handle, and its stand is extremely robust and can be folded away when needed. For enhanced safety, the grill has a locking mechanism to seal in flavours while keeping your family and surroundings safe.

5. Everdure Cube Portable Charcoal Grill

Arguably the most stylish option on this list, the Everdure Cube Portable Charcoal Grill is available in multiple colours, and features a porcelain enamel firebox and charcoal tray. The chrome grill can be positioned in three different ways for even cooking, and the bamboo lid of the Everdure Cube doubles as a chopping board.

Back in June at this year’s WWDC event, we first discovered what was in store for the next incarnation of Apple’s operating systems. The upcoming iOS 27, iPadOS 27, WatchOS 27, VisionOS 27 and macOS 27 Golden Gate will all feature the new Siri AI; a reinvented voice assistant with Apple Intelligence.

The new Apple Foundation models that power this new system have been built with Google Gemini but run on-device or via a private cloud. The data is only ever used for requests and never stored; it also can’t be accessed even by Apple.

The foundation models are deeply integrated across the operating systems and cover language, images, voice and text. This means that it can interact with you through every part of the operating system and almost every application.

More than just a voice assistant

Siri now has its own app in iOS 27 and across all of this year's new platforms. This allows you to revisit past conversations you’ve had, pick them up again, and start new ones. You can also still access Siri through the voice prompt of ‘Hey Siri’, by clicking on the Siri floating symbol or by holding down the main button on the top right of your phone.

Siri now has a more conversational interaction and allows you to ask follow-up questions or react to context. So if you’re in your messages, mail or music, you can easily ask questions around what’s in front of you for Siri to answer.

This same technology follows across iPadOS and even MacOS, where you can use the Spotlight tool to engage Siri and even use visual intelligence by selecting an area of the screen to reference.

Better image editing

The advances in Apple Intelligence aren’t limited to just Siri. The photo editing tools are now also powered by AI to deliver more advanced adjustments and generation. Firstly, the clean-up tool can remove larger objects, with more accurate results. There are now three options for the process, with ‘fast’ using on-device processing and ‘high quality’ using private cloud computing. There’s also an ‘auto’ option which will pick the best option depending on your current data connection.

A new ‘extend’ tool allows you to generate content beyond the edges of the photo for when you want to zoom out or change the ratio of the image. Meanwhile, the ‘spatial reframing’ tool lets you virtually adjust the angle that the picture was taken from, keeping the subject in the same place but changing the background. Both of these functions make use of private cloud computing for the full image generation.

These functions don’t just work on newly taken photos; you can apply them to older pictures in your library, even those not taken on an Apple device. The tools are also available directly in the lock screen wallpaper selection, so that you can better adjust your images to fit.

Image Playground gets more real

One area I’m quite excited about is the expansion of Image Playground in iOS 27 and beyond. This contains new generative models to enable it to produce a range of new image styles, including photorealistic images. This is achieved using private cloud computing and images contain IPTC metadata and hidden SynthID watermarks to show it’s been digitally generated.

As before, you can pick from people in your photo library (including multiple people) or from individual photos. The results can be output in different image ratios, such as landscape, portrait or square. While you can’t pick from your labelled pets in your library, you can take an individual picture of your pet and use that as a basis.

Notifications and context

Two new Apple Intelligence features are designed to save you time and help you avoid missing updates. Call context can surface helpful information when you’re on a call or messaging. So confirmation details for a hotel or flight booking can be easily surfaced without searching through past emails, and quick actions from messages can be set as reminders in a single click.

Notify Me is a function within Safari that can be used to stay up to date on changes within your favourite websites. The function can be set to check back monthly, weekly, daily or hourly, and you can ask it to look for things like a price change, a new feature or service or a registration or ticket sale opening. You could even set it to tell you when T3 writes something new about Apple – though expect daily updates!

Premium benefits

All the Apple Intelligence features will be made available to all users when the new versions of the software launch later this year, though initially in a beta form. There will, however, be some limits on the number of operations you can perform each day. Those with iCloud Plus memberships will have higher limits and will therefore be able to perform more AI operations.

This is a similar setup as we’ve seen with Google Gemini and ChatGPT, so it’s no surprise Apple is also adopting it. I also suspect those who will want to use it the most will already have one of the higher iCloud tiers, for all the other benefits it gives, so those hitting that daily limit should be minimal.

Historically, Apple has released its new line of iPhones in early September and this year is likely to be no different. New iPhone 18 models are expected, along with iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max handsets, as well as a possible iPhone Fold.

If you want to try out some of the new iOS 27 features, you can download the public beta on your phone today. Our article shows you exactly how to do it.

Honor's Robot Phone almost has dibs on the "most interesting phone" conversation at the moment, despite Samsung's valiant effort with the new shape of the Galaxy Z Fold 8. We simply haven't ever seen anything quite like a handset with a built-in motorised gimbal arm, after all.

After getting to wave at the phone at MWC in Barcelona earlier this year, I finally got to actually go properly hands-on with it in London this week, and there's a big gulf between those two experiences. Actually using the Robot Phone underlines just how much of a fun tool its gimbal is, although it still left me with questions about its long-term viability.

An engineering marvel

At this point, the Robot Phone has been trailed and unveiled so many times that its design is far from a surprise, but finally getting to go up close with it, to actually check it out from every angle, it really is an impressive bit of engineering.

This is a phone that's traditional in most ways, but completely different in one big, obvious element. The phone itself is slightly thicker than most modern flagships, but there's only one reason for that – the gimbal that collapses into its camera unit.

Amusingly, there are regular cameras here, for ultrawide shots and zooming in, but I don't think most people are coming to the Robot phone to use them.

Far more important is that robotic arm, which requires a couple of steps to use. First, you manually swipe open the protective cover that normally keeps the dust off it. Then, in the phone's camera app, you tap a little gimbal icon to activate it, and watch it pop up ready for shooting.

Once it's open, you have a huge range of control options available to you, including a virtual joystick to manually move the camera and direct it. This is responsive and easy to get to grips with, but it also moves the lens quite slowly.

More impressive is the automatic subject-tracking. Double-tapping on an object, building or person in the viewfinder will lock the camera onto it (if the subject-tracking mode is turned on). This will let you move the phone around pretty freely without it letting your subject out of the shot.

It's pretty brilliant, and I tested it on trains, a passing helicopter, and much more, all from a rooftop vantage point. It's clearly going to be ideal for those who'd otherwise pack an extra action camera into their gear pack, albeit it has a few limitations that those cameras don't (more on that later).

The footage I was able to review was really impressive, too, and did a decent job of selling the whole concept, frankly. That said, selling the phone is an interesting topic – it's only confirmed for sale in China at this point, and I can't help but feel it's really unlikely to make it to the UK in this guise.

Kinks to be ironed out

The sheer fact that Honor has managed to get a gimbal onto its phone makes the Robot Phone basically peerless – no other handset can match this one big feature.

That said, that lack of competition makes it hard to judge how good the gimbal is, and it does have clear limitations. One is that its freedom of movement isn't total. Because the camera's on an arm, it can move a lot more freely to the right than it can to the left.

This is hard to describe, but it means that if you lock a subject directly in front of you, then turn the phone to your right, you can keep going for ages before the gimbal reaches its maximum and you lose your subject. Turn to the left, though, and you'll hit that limit way more quickly.

I can see how that sounds like a tiny issue, but I think it's the sort of thing that you'd have to work around basically any time you shoot some dynamic footage, and it isn't a problem that I'm aware of many full-on gimbal cameras having.

If that gimbal does have limitations, then, it's also fair to say that the software experience I tinkered with doesn't feel quite final. It was fairly common to encounter small bugs or features that didn't want to work the first time around.

That's obviously entirely forgivable on a phone that isn't yet shipping, but in China the Robot Phone is now a real consumer product, and I'd be a little irked by some of the kinks in the system if I'd paid for it.

Then again, just like with the first generation of folding phones some years back, this is also very much an early-adopter type of phone, one that you know is doing something unique. It won't be an enormous surprise when it's a little quirky as a result.

I also have real reservations when it comes to durability – I obviously couldn't do any drop-testing with what remains a rare phone, but I'm extremely curious about how the gimbal would fare if you dropped the phone. It's also likely to be a stress point for mechanical failure, and I'd assume that a normal phone would have a far better chance of surviving for a longer span of years.

In some ways, that sums up how I felt about the Robot Phone after finally getting to actually use it. The novelty factor is huge here – that camera is unlike anything else on a phone right now, and it's really fun and rewarding to explore its abilities and limits.

That said, without any firm hints on a US or UK release, and therefore no pricing to contextualise it, it still feels like a bit of a mirage right now, even after having held it. Will this be a flash in the pan, or is there a genuine mainstream lineage of Robot Phone successors to come?

From ceiling and tower to tabletop and handheld, a good quality fan is a must during the summer. For the past few months, the UK has been experiencing heatwave after heatwave, so I’ve learnt a thing or two about fans and how to use them to the best of their ability.

Fans have some fairly obvious functions, including speeds, oscillations and night modes. But there are a few underrated features that can take your fan’s cooling power to a whole new level, and expand their usage to all year round rather than just summer.

Here are three underrated fan features you should try to make your home feel cooler.

1. Reverse mode

Reverse or winter mode is an underrated feature found in ceiling and Dyson fan hybrids. For ceiling fans, reverse mode changes the direction to clockwise rather than counterclockwise. When a ceiling fan rotates counterclockwise, it blows cool air down to create a cold breeze. In reverse mode, the clockwise rotation pulls air upward which makes your home warmer – a handy feature for the winter.

For Dyson fans and air purifiers, its reverse or diffused mode means you can change the direction of airflow to the back instead of the front. What this does is allow the Dyson fan-hybrid to still purify the air in your room, but it doesn’t expel cold air directly towards you.

2. Temperature react mode

Many fans from the likes of Dyson, DREO and Blueair have built-in sensors that automatically read and react to temperature changes in your home. This temperature react mode which is often called auto mode allows your fan’s airflow to speed up or down to correlate with the current climate. Sometimes, you’ll have to switch this mode on which you can do via the fan’s remote or app.

3. Power button ‘cycling’ for Dyson fans

If you’ve lost the remote for your Dyson fan and you don’t want to download the app, you can try this power button ‘cycling’ feature. While Dyson fans have LCD screens and button controls, they don’t actually change your fan’s settings, unless you try this trick.

On your Dyson fan, hold down its power button and this should automatically cycle your fan’s speed from 1-10. When the fan reaches your preferred speed, simply let go of the button and it should stay on that level.