In the modern world of movies there are myriad ways to promote a new release, and we're all now pretty used to the hype cycle of release date reveals followed by teaser trailers followed by longer full trailers. Prime Video has taken a slightly different approach for one of its biggest upcoming movies, though.

It just confirmed a streaming date later this year for Madden, its biopic of one of American football's biggest icons, and did it in a way I can't remember seeing before. The video features the film's star, Nicolas Cage, talking a bit about the project and what it means to him, before confirming that all-important date.

So, thanks to Nic we now know that the film will debut on Prime Video on 18 November this year, making it a few months away right now. What's surprising to me, though, is that the video really is something of a hybrid, since we also get some meaningful glimpses of scenes from the final film.

As Cage talks, we get to see him in character in a few different phases of Madden's career, most easily told apart thanks to the different fashion and amounts of weight borne on his face. We also get to see Christian Bale as Al Davis, Madden's long-time coaching partner and friend.

Perhaps the key thing to know about Madden, other than Cage's starring role, is that it's directed by David O. Russell, best known for Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, so this is a production with some real pedigree attached. Russell's also well-known for a reportedly abrasive directing style, having alienated some previous stars, but there are no rumours of a rift with Cage at this point.

In fact, Nic seems thrilled by the movie, and invested in its subject matter, which might make it slightly interesting that Amazon's going with a streaming-first release (or seems to be at this point). With this level of directing and acting talent in the film, it'l be curious to see whether it's a reflection of its final quality that it isn't being given a wider release.

Amazon has followed Netflix by adding games to its Prime Video service, but it's raced ahead in quality and quantity. That's because the new "Games" tab on the Prime Video app gives you direct access to its ever-growing library of Luna games.

That means you will be able to play the likes of the multiple award-winning Dispatch, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, EA Sports FC 26, and the Harry Potterverse RPG Hogwart's Legacy for free, straight from Prime Video itself.

Luna is Amazon's cloud gaming service, which gives all Amazon Prime members access to a catalogue of console and PC quality games to stream over the internet. The game is run on remote hardware with the video feed streamed to your TV, while the controller codes are sent in the opposite direction.

There's a small amount of lag (latency) in comparison with playing directly on a PS5, for example, but everything is still very playable. All you need is a Bluetooth controller connected wirelessly and away you go.

Some of the games can even be played using a mobile phone or tablet as the controller, including an expanding selection of party games for family and friends to enjoy together.

That includes the new season of Courtroom Chaos, with Arnold Schwazenegger as the judge.

Other games available on the platform include some of Amazon's own properties, such as the most recent Tomb Raider trilogy. Fallout 4 is also available, to complement the TV series on Prime Video.

The Games tab is now available on Fire TV models in the UK and US, with a wider rollout coming "in the months ahead".

Hopefully that will include Prime Video apps on TVs and streaming devices from other manufacturers. As things stand, you can play Luna games through a browser on most devices by heading to the dedicated website.

Okay, so it wasn't the best-kept secret in world history – Samsung had been openly teasing the new shape of its Galaxy Z Fold 8 for a couple of weeks. So, even without the many leaks that preceded it, we had a pretty good sense that the main Z Fold phone would be getting a new look.

Still, it's one thing to see leaks and another to get an entire Galaxy Unpacked event to check the phone out, and then the hands-on thoughts of our Tech editor, Mike Lowe. The phone looks like it's making a great impression on people in the first instance, although we'll doubtless get more context in the next few weeks.

I'll admit, though, that I've been a bit of a sceptic. The steep price tag attached to foldables makes them a non-starter for me, and I didn't see why a squatter design would change that. What I didn't expect was one moment in Samsung's presentation when they showed the phone opened up, but not in landscape mode – using a portrait orientation instead.

The photo at the top of this article shows that moment exactly, and that Samsung was using it to underline how the Z Fold 8 could be a great little e-reader alongside all the other more phone-like tools it offers. My surprise? I'm won over, at least moreso than before.

I've tested every Kindle released in the last few years, and I still regularly use the Kindle Paperwhite when I'm travelling, to cut down on the weight of a book (especially if I'm reading something chunky). Still, while I like an e-reader as much as the next reader, I'm mostly doing it for that weight reason.

So, if I had a phone that could be as satisfying to hold and as easy to read with, that would indeed be pretty tempting. There's a lot to wonder about in terms of ergonomics, still, and the biggest question for me would be how reliably I'd be able to read on the Z Fold 8 without worrying about battery life, but the concept it still quite a winning one.

The simple reality is that as long as these foldables stay this expensive, there's no way I'd ever commit to them – at £1,699, I just don't think the Z Fold 8 having a more adaptable aspect ratio is enough to move the needle. Still, this is the first time in a few years that I've even really perked my ears up at all in this area.

I'll be super interested in the folding iPhone we're likely getting later this year, but again will almost certainly never get my hands on one, if the rumoured pricing is to be remotely believed. Perhaps in half a decade, though, when folding phones are even more widespread, and the memory crisis has hopefully abated, I could end up not needing a Kindle at all – one less device is rarely a bad thing.

Alexa.com has officially arrived in the UK, allowing users to access Alexa+ straight from their web browser. Alexa+ first launched back in March as Amazon's biggest AI assistant upgrade yet, but at the time, the company only teased that browser access was on the way. Now, it's finally here.

Alexa.com brings the full Alexa+ experience to your computer, letting you manage your calendar, update to-do lists, control compatible smart home devices, ask questions and complete everyday tasks without needing to open the mobile app. It also means you don't necessarily need to be sitting in front of an Echo smart speaker to use Alexa+, as everything can now be accessed through your browser.

Alexa.com is available now, with Alexa+ Early Access customers able to head to Alexa.com and start chatting with the assistant from any supported web browser.

Amazon describes Alexa.com as a new way to interact with Alexa+, complementing the recently redesigned Alexa mobile app, which has also been updated with a more AI-focused interface. Together, they make it much easier to move between your phone, computer and Echo devices without losing the flow of a conversation.

Like Alexa+ itself, browser access is included at no extra cost for Amazon Prime members. If you already have access to Alexa+, you can start using Alexa.com today.

If you're curious about everything the upgraded assistant can do, be sure to check out the three things that impressed us most when we first tried Alexa+.

People sometimes like to gripe that there are no new ideas any more, especially when it comes to movie pitches, and while I think there's plenty out there to disprove that, the big streamers do have a certain predilection for familiar plots. I'm not trying to do The Runner down before it even has a chance, but watch its trailer (released this week) and you'll probably get where I'm coming from.

The film will hit Prime Video on 2 September, starring Gal Gadot as Maia, a successful lawyer gearing up for a massive day in court. She's going to have a wildly unexpected time, though, thanks largely to a remote kidnapper played by Damian Lewis, who's going to be dictating her actions with terrible threats.

Maia's a single mum, and she starts her day by dropping her son Dylan at school, before heading out on her morning run to clear her mind. She doesn't make it home, though, because midway around her route she gets a call from Dylan's phone. It's Lewis' mysterious criminal, informing her that he's got Dylan and the only way to get him back safely is to follow instructions.

Those instructions? They appear to involve Maia heading into the centre of London to pick up a weapon, then making her way to a hotel where the witness she's about to use in a major legal case is staying. She has to kill that witness or lose her son, according to the kidnapper, and that's quite the quandary to be shoved into.

It's fairly obvious from the trailer that Maia will do her best to avoid complying, but she'll also face nightmarish complications including having her (folding) phone stolen at one point. The voice-over from Lewis is slightly interesting for how clear and studio-recorded it sounds, but perhaps that'll feel different in the final film.

I'm mostly struck by the similarities to Run Lola Run, another movie about a woman having to run around a city at the behest of criminals, but if The Runner can get close to that film's cult following it'll be doing exceptionally well. We'll know more in early September when it gets added to the Prime Video library.

Here in the UK, the heat shows no sign of abating, even if we're all going to spend the week telling ourselves that 29 degrees is way better than 32 (it just about is). That means it's a great week to continue cowering inside, avoiding that heat with some good streaming.

Sure, if you have a portable air conditioner like me, then you'll be even happier, but the best news is that this is a really strong week for the best streaming services on the market (or, at least, the biggest ones). I've checked out everything being added to Netflix and Prime Video this week, to pick out three highlights that you're going to want to know about.

The Hawk

• Streaming from: 16 July

This looks like a real throwback from Netflix and Will Ferrell, who's picking things up again to play a somewhat forgotten fictional golfer trying to get back to the top level to complete the grand slam of majors that he never quite managed in his pomp. This time, though, he's going to have to contend against his own son, who's become the buttoned-up pro he never was.

Ferrell's character is called Lonnie "The Hawk" Hawkins, giving his name to the whole movie, and the project looks like an old-school comedy in the vein of Anchorman or Dodgeball, which means it might be fairly predictable, but also comforting. The real joy will almost certainly be in the ad-libs and seeing how far Ferrell is willing to take his performance – I'd bet way further than you think.

Heartstopper Forever

• Streaming from: 17 July

One of Netflix's most beloved series comes to an end not with another season, but with a feature film to send its characters off into the sunset. The story of Charlie and Nick's whirlwind school romance has captured millions of fans over the last few years, but with the two characters moving into a new phase of life, it's reached a natural stopping point.

That doesn't mean there's no tension to work out, though – far from it. With one going to university and the other staying at home, the big question will be how they keep their relationship going. Will they be up for the hard yards of long-distance love? Will one have to give up his dream for the other? Or will they call it quits? Expect this one to shoot up the charts as people tune in to find out when it arrives.

Ride or Die

• Streaming from: 15 July

If I had a dollar for every time a big streaming service made a movie about normal-seeming people who secretly live double lives as spies, I'd probably be able to buy a decent lunch by now – it's a topic that just can't seem to be left alone for more than a year without being brought back up. In fairness, this go-around from Prime Video does look a little more fun and inventive than some.

It stars Hannah Waddingham as that secret spy, alongside her best friend, played by Octavia Spencer, who's taken along for the ride when assassins target her bestie at the wrong moment. It's a classic fish-out-of-water gag that'll last for most of the movie, you'd guess, and Ride or Die will probably sink or swim based on the chemistry between those two leads.

Another week, another heatwave – here in the UK temperatures are creeping up into certifiably uncomfortable position once more, which means it's still the time of year when you want to close the curtains all day to keep cool air inside, and watch some streaming in the evenings to keep your mind off the heat.

If you're a Netflix or Prime Video subscriber, then you probably already know that you have access to some of the biggest streaming libraries on the market, but they're always getting bigger. I've checked out the full list of everything being added to each this week, and have chosen three highlights for you to know about. Check them out below.

Little House on the Prairie

• Streaming on: Netflix from 9 July

This one's been getting trailers and teasers for weeks now, because Netflix likely hopes that it'll be a genuine smash-hit in the US, where it's one of those cultural touchstones that almost every child reads. This long-running series of books is getting a bigger-budget adaptation than the last time it was turned into TV, and if it runs for half as many seasons, Netflix will be over the moon.

Its story of a resilient, loving family moving across America at a time of real possibility but also real and present danger in the wilderness is a classic. It's going to be particularly fascinating to see how it approaches some more dated elements now that it's 2026, but it's almost guaranteed to be warm and wholesome in the extreme.

Jeff Arcuri: Nice to Meet You

• Streaming on: Netflix from 7 July

Jeff Arcuri is one of those algorithmic wizards – he's gone from a fairly small name in the comedy circuit to a big star thanks to a nearly never-ending succession of viral clips on Reddit and YouTube. His speciality is crowd work, and this entire Netflix special seems to be geared around audience interaction as a result.

He'll light-heartedly find out about some of the oddest characters in his audience, underlining the fact that basically all of us are at least a little weird when we think about it. Expect belly laughs and quick improvised ad-libs, plus a healthy dose of confessional material when the special drops midweek.

The Ghost in the Shell Season 1

• Streaming on: Prime Video from 7 July

One of the most iconic manga ever, and one of the most beloved anime adaptations, is getting a new lick of paint – The Ghost in the Shell is a brand new adaptation of one of the definitive works of cyberpunk sci-fi. It's a show rather than a movie, this time, and is apparently hewing even more faithfully to the material in the source manga than previous versions.

That'll delight fans, but it's sure to entice some new viewers with a funky and neon-soaked visual aesthetic that really looks extremely entertaining. Whether it can make its complicated plots about corporations and spying a little more intelligible will be interesting to see, too. We'll know more this week, as it's now super imminent.

One of the perks many Amazon Prime members forget about – or simply aren't aware of – is the ability to play games on multiple devices through Luna. Amazon Prime includes a free Luna subscription and that means more than 100 games are available to play at no extra cost over the cloud.

There are party games for families and friends to play on a TV, using their mobile phones as controllers, and there are AAA and indie hits you'd normally only see on a console or PC.

The list is regularly updated and this month it includes one of my own personal favourite games of 2025 – the multiple award-winning Dispatch.

An interactive adventure game for adults, Dispatch puts you in the shoes of former superhero Robert Robertson, the "dispatcher" of a group of misfit heroes who fight crime around Night City. You're like a taxi cab controller sending them to trouble spots.

However, the team is made up of ex-supervillains and aren't exactly responsive to being bossed around.

The game is split into two styles and mainly hand animated. There are the interactive adventure parts, where your dialogue choices and actions determine the story, while the dispatching element is like a time-management game, in which you are scored at the end.

It makes for a fascinating blend of play. And it's hugely addictive, with the full game split into multiple episodes that you can't help continuing with long into the night.

In many ways, it's like an interactive version of Invincible – the animated series based on the comic books of Robert Kirkman and Ryan Ottley. It's adult and pulls no punches, but also with a sharp, dark sense of humour.

Voice actors include Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad) as the lead, seasoned video games and animation star Laura Bailey, and Casino Royale, The Last of Us and Westworld's Jeffrey Wright.

How to play Dispatch for free

You can play Dispatch anywhere Luna is available, either on PC or Mac by heading to the official web page and streaming from there, or on any other compatible device.

That includes streamed via Fire TV Sticks and Ember TVs; on iPhone, iPad and Android devices; or many Samsung or LG smart TVs.

You just need a Bluetooth controller for TV play, although you can also play using a mouse (trackpad) and keyboard on a desktop PC / Mac or laptop.

Amazon Luna also includes a wide variety of other great games, such as Death Stranding: Director's Cut, Control: Ultimate Edition, Alan Wake II, and another personal fave, Dave the Diver. EA Sports FC 26 can be played for free as well, right now.

Games stream at 1080p 60fps where possible, although you can drop the resolution down to 720p in the settings if you're worried about data usage. You will need minimum broadband speeds of 10 Mbps for 1080p gaming.

Prime members should also remember that Amazon gives away a big bundle of PC games for free each month, to download and keep. You can claim them on the same Amazon Luna homepage.

Having been a Kindle owner since they first emerged a couple of decades ago, I've had my eye on Amazon's most recent models – notably the Kindle Colorsoft range. However, I haven't really been that inspired to get one personally.

Two things changed that. First, I saw how comic books look on the full colour E Ink display – it makes a massive difference to see them as the artist intended. And second, Amazon slashed the price by a huge 38% for Prime Day.

At just £166.24 (over £100 off) it is actually cheaper than the usual price of a mono Kindle Paperwhite. And this is the Signature Edition we're talking about here, with wireless charging, an automatically adjusting front light and 32GB of internal storage.

The standard Kindle Colorsoft has an amazing deal too – down to £154.99 from £239.99. But considering that has half the storage, a manual "warm light", and doesn't support wireless charging, it's a no-brainer for less than £12 more.

I've always been a comic book reader (and collector), and do own an iPad Pro, but tablets aren't great on the eyes over extended reading sessions. And especially not at night when the lights are out.

The Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition is transformative therefore, allowing me to catch up on my graphic novels without impacting my subsequent sleep. And, with Kindle Unlimited being free for three months at the same price in a bundle, I can find the vast majority of my favourites to read for free.

The one thing you will need to keep in mind is that to get the deal, you will need to be an Amazon Prime member. But that's also available for free for 30-days, and you can cancel before needing to pay a subscription fee.

Prime Day World Cup fun

Prime Day is throwing up some other amazing deals too, including a trio of tech bargains picked by former England star and now pundit Theo Walcott – timely with the World Cup in full swing.

T3 has been sent his recommendations in the sale, which include the Oura Smart Ring 4 at just £199 – reduced from £349.99 (so 43% off).

There's the "All-new" Ring Battery Video Doorbell, which comes with a free Ring Indoor Camera for just £37.99 (a saving of 68%). And he also suggests taking a look at the Marshall Major V wireless headphones at £90.72 – down from £129.99.

You can also check out T3's own Amazon Prime Day picks right here, which should have something for everyone. We're not half as good with a ball at our feet though.

Amazon Prime Day is more than just a yearly event these days, but while the spring and autumn sales are very nice, this is the big one. The main event, the OG, the big dog – and hopefully, the one with the best savings.

The sale runs from midnight on Tuesday, 23 June to 11:59 pm on Friday, 26 June 2026. Expect a mix of Prime Deals that last the full event as well as some lightning deals that last just a few hours.

Each year, we bring you all the best deals we find across Prime Day on Amazon, from TV to toothbrushes, as well as a heads-up on some of the biggest bargains we spot on other sites.

You will need to be a Prime member to make use of the deals, especially on Prime Day itself, but if you're not already, you can sign up for 30 days for free.

Though the event is now over, if you're looking to buy now, you can get money off many purchases using these Amazon discount codes.

• Browse all Prime Day deals at Amazon.co.uk
• In the US? These are the Prime Day deals at Amazon.com

Here are our choices for the best deals around right now.

Prime Day quick picks

• 📱Amazon Kindle Paperwhite: 25% off, now £113.99
• 💡Philips Hue White and Colour Smart Light: 27% off now £62.40
• 🚀 LEGO Star Wars Logo: was £59.99 now £39.99 at Amazon
• 🚀 LEGO Star Wars Rebel U-Wing: was £59.99 now £37.89 at Amazon
• 🚀 LEGO Star Wars Death Star: was £899.99 now £725.79 at Amazon
• 🚀 LEGO Star Trek: U.S.S. Enterprise: was £349.99 now £309.99
• 📺 Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K: 58% off, now £24.99
• 👩🏻‍🍳 Philips: Dual Basket Airfryer 1000 Series, now 38% off
• 📷 Blink Outdoor 4 camera, 62% off, now £24.99
• 📺 Amazon Ember 55" 4-Series: 44% off, now £309.99
• 📺 Amazon Ember 75" Mini-LED Series: 38% off, now £999.99
• 💻 Apple MacBook Air 13-inch M4: 11% off, now £799
• ⛂ Eufy: Omni C20 robot vacuum all-in-one now 27% off
• 🎮 Meta Quest 3S 128GB: 15% off, now £271.99
• 🎧 SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless: was £329.99 now £199.99
• 🧑‍🍳 Ninja Foodi MAX Dual Zone Air Fryer: was £229.99 now £164.99
• 💍 Oura Smart Ring 4: 34% off, now £199
• 🎧 Apple AirPods 4 with ANC: 26% off, now £125.40
• ⌚ Apple Watch Ultra 3: 13% off, now £649
• 🏷️ Apple AirTag (2nd Gen) 4-pack: 15% off, now £84.55
• 📱 Apple iPhone Air 256GB: 4% off, now £719
• 💻 Apple MacBook Air 15-inch M4: 8% off, now £1099
• ✏️ Apple Pencil (USB-C): 29% off, now £56.05
• ⌚ Apple Watch Series 11: 23% off, now £307
• ⌚ Apple Watch SE 3: 9% off, now £199
• 🔑 Nuki Smart Lock Ultra: 26% off now £229
• 💨 EcoFlow Wave 3: 13% off, now £699.
• ⚡ Belkin BoostCharge 3-in-1: 15% off, now £59.49
• 💻 Asus Zenbook 14 OLED: 22% off now £849.99
• 💻 MSI Raider 16 HX: 21% off now £1,849
• 🕹️ Retro Handheld Game Console: 15% off now £33.99

TV deals

Laptops and tablets

Smart Home

Kitchen and bathroom

Outdoors

Toys and gaming

Sport and fitness

Fragrances

Amazon Devices

When is the next Amazon Prime Day?

The next Prime Day is right now. The sale will start at midnight on Tuesday 23rd and finish at 11:59 pm on Friday 26th June. That means you'll be able to get record-low prices across multiple departments, especially on Amazon devices.

The last Amazon Prime Day took place on 8-11 July 2025, with Amazon Prime Big Deal Days on 8 - 9th October 2024. We expect there to be another Big Deal Days event in October, just before Black Friday.

How to get a free Prime account for Prime Day

You might already know this (the clue's in the title), but you need to be an Amazon Prime member to shop the Prime Day sale.

However, not only do Amazon Prime members get to shop the Prime Day sale, but they also get early access to ALL Lightning Deals and extra offers on Prime benefits, like coupon offers, free Deliveroo Plus and plenty of other benefits. A Prime subscription is definitely something to consider, therefore.

If you're new to Prime, Amazon Prime is available on a 30-day free trial for all new members. If you're a student, there's even better news as Amazon offers a free six-month Amazon Prime trial on Prime Student and after that, it will only cost you £4.49 a month.

To shop the Prime Day sale, our advice would be to sign up for a Prime account a couple of weeks before the sales start so you can shop the sale for free - including any cheeky early offers.

You can cancel your account at any time if you're not happy with it and you'll have got the best deals from the Prime Day sale, free unlimited delivery and you won't have paid a penny for the membership fee. If you decide to keep your Prime account, see our guide on how to save money on Amazon Prime for money-saving hacks.

Sign up now for Amazon Prime and start shopping!

What were the best Prime Day deals last year?

Prime Day 2025 resulted in some great offers across multiple departments.

The best deals were on a range of tech, kitchen and beauty products. For example, the Samsung S90C TV was on sale with over 40% off, the Apple AirPods Max headphones were at their cheapest yet, and you could get a Philips Hue Starter Kit to begin your smart lighting journey for under £100.

Overall, Amazon devices had the biggest discounts, with Echo speakers, Blink cameras, Kindles and Fire tablets hitting record low prices. Alongside this, Ninja, Sage and Tefal kitchen appliances came with amazing offers, as did Xbox and PS5 controllers.

What brands had the best prices on Prime Day last year?

Plenty of different brands took part in the sales last year, with Sony and Bose being two of the most sought after. Speakers, earbuds and headphones were particularly popular.

Philips, Samsung and Shark all saw big price drops too, and makeup brands like Rimmel saw great sales.

Due to the cost of living crisis, we believe people use these sales to stock up on essentials for around the home - from washing-up liquid to coat hangers, teabags to cat food. Amazon delivers with incredibly low prices on these products, especially on its Vouchers page.

How much is Amazon Prime membership?

Amazon Prime membership costs £8.99 per month or £95 for a year when paid in advance. For students, the cost is £4.49 monthly and the annual subscription is £47.49.

So, if you want Prime to shop the Prime Day sale, we recommend signing up before the event and if you're new, you can shop with a free month's trial. You can then cancel Prime soon after and it won't cost you a penny more.

Will Prime Day be better than Black Friday?

Prime Day is heralded as Amazon's biggest sales event of the year. However, Amazon is also well known for its Black Friday sales. Last year, Amazon started its Black Friday sale early, weeks in advance of the official sales date. Many shoppers got to take advantage of early discounts and themed weeks that Amazon ran in the lead-up to Black Friday.

Having said that, there are a couple of key differences between Prime Day and Black Friday. The most obvious is that Black Friday isn't an Amazon-only sale. Retailers from around the world take part in the annual event and slash their prices during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend. Black Friday is also available for all shoppers and not just Prime members.

As Black Friday is the more famous shopping event, you might find cheaper prices. However, Amazon is a big component of the Black Friday sale and its Prime Day sales have some of the cheapest offers on the day. This isn't to say that Amazon won't have low prices on Black Friday but if you're a regular Amazon shopper or Prime user, you'll find the cheapest offers available during the Prime Day sale.

Best Amazon Prime Day Product Categories

Prime Member benefits to use on Prime Day

When you sign up to Amazon Prime, you not only get access to Lightning Deals and the Prime Day sale. Prime members also get other benefits like Prime Video, Amazon Music, Prime Gaming, Prime Reading, flexible delivery options, and shopping benefits like savings on prescriptions and groceries. So, if you want to save extra money in the Prime Day sale, here are the best Prime Member benefits you should definitely use this Prime Day.

Check your delivery options

While the main benefit of Prime is flexible deliveries, one delivery option that can help you save money is free no-rush shipping. If you’re not in a hurry for your items or you’re looking to save money, select the no-rush option at checkout and your order will be delivered within 3-5 days. It’s still free and to thank you for your patience, Amazon gives you an automatic discount on your next order.

Use Amazon Vouchers

Every day, new vouchers are added to the Amazon Voucher page which you can collect and use at the checkout for extra money off your orders. Head to the Amazon Voucher page, find the voucher you want to us – for example, a coupon for 30% off wireless earbuds – and click ‘Collect Voucher’. This will take you to a page with details on how to claim and the discount will be applied at checkout.

Try Before You Buy

Amazon Try Before You Buy is where Prime members can pick up to 6 eligible clothing items from the Prime Wardrobe and try them for free. You’ll have a week to try on the clothes or shoes to make sure they fit, and after the 7-day try-on period, you pay for what you want to keep and send back the stuff you don’t.

Subscribe & Save

If you buy repeat purchases on Amazon every week or month, use Subscribe & Save. This accumulates all your frequent purchases together like toiletries, cleaning products and beauty essentials, which makes checking out easier and offers up to 15% off the original price when you schedule repeat deliveries.

What kind of sales has Amazon run in the past?

Looking at last year's Amazon sales is a good indication of what to expect the next time they come around, including Prime Day, Black Friday and Prime Day 2 (Prime Big Deal Days). Amazon constantly has deals available site-wide on a range of products in its 'Today's Deals' section.

At T3, we like to consider ourselves experts on big sales events so by looking at the patterns from Amazon's 2025 sales, we've come up with a few predictions for what we expect to see in 2026.

Like most retailers, Amazon sticks to seasonal holidays, so during spring it offers a wide range of products, including laptops, air fryers, headphones and lawnmowers. As Prime Day traditionally happens in July, there are deals on absolutely everything, but especially on Amazon devices, air conditioners, vacuum cleaners and premium beauty.

Amazon also typically runs themed weeks throughout the year, and specifically in the run-up to its Black Friday event. In the past, there have been Gardening Week and Fragrance Week events. All of this gives us a strong indication that these deals could make a comeback during 2026.

Heatwave or no heatwave (and here in the UK, it's outrageously warm), the streaming wars continue without any let-up. In fact, those people lucky or farsighted enough to already have an air conditioner or cooling fan set up in their home will probably be looking for more streaming content than usual, as they cower inside to avoid the heat outside.

Well, if that sounds like it might describe how you're planning to spend your weekdays over the next few days, then you might, in turn, be wondering what's being added to the likes of Netflix and Prime Video this week. I've scoured through each listing to pick out three highlights getting added this week, so that you know what you can binge if you need to.

Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 2

• Streaming on: Netflix from 25 June

One of Netflix's very biggest shows is back this week, with a run of new episodes that almost certainly cost tens of millions to make, but at least do look likely to be impressively gorgeous and grand in scale. Following Aang and his friends as their adventures around the different kingdoms continue, it looks like we'll get more action and element-bending CGI than before.

That's good, too, because it's been a long wait for a new season, in a way that arguably has undermined the momentum of the show a little. That's a problem that's slightly plaguing Netflix at the moment, but it hopefully shouldn't change the fact that we've got a really enticing season to watch here.

Little Brother

• Streaming on: Netflix from 26 June

For those looking for more of a one-off to help them unwind one evening, Netflix has another big addition, a new comedy starring John Cena as part of his continuing renaissance as an actor. He's always been game to try fun material, and that looks like a great way to describe Little Brother. In the movie, he plays a guy with a successful family life who finds things going very wrong when a connection from high school returns.

That connection is played by chaotic comedian Eric Andre, a performer so unpredictable that there will almost certainly be some jaw-dropping moments in the movie. Whether he's allowed to be truly profane could be a big determining factor in the film's success, frankly. We'll know more when it drops on Friday.

See You At Work Tomorrow!

• Streaming on: Prime Video from 22 June

There's no two ways around it – Prime Video is having one of its leaner weeks this week, especially by comparison with Netflix, but that doesn't mean it has nothing to offer. Korean dramas and comedies have quietly become global cult sensations in recent years, and Prime Video is adding a new series called See You At Work Tomorrow! .

It's about the complicated dynamics of workplace demands and the search for love, and it seems to have its focus on a few different potential couples as they work out whether they could possibly be something together. This could be a really charming little show to distract you from the heat, so give it a look if you're in the mood for some lighter fare from today onwards.

Prime Day is steadily approaching now, and we’re just days away from the big event. The sale is taking place between 23rd and 26th June, giving shoppers the chance to save money on everything from the best coffee machines to the best lawn mowers.

However, if you want to get the absolute best value for your money, there’s one key piece of advice you really need to follow.

I’ve covered the best deals for years now, and this is the fourth Prime Day I’ve worked on specifically, so you could say I know what I’m talking about. So listen up and take note – whatever else you take away, this will be the most important piece of advice you’ll hear.

If you’ve previously heard that some brands will increase their prices on Amazon weeks or even months before Prime Day, only to 'discount' them back to their original RRP when the event arrives, you wouldn’t be wrong. It’s a tactic that can catch a lot of people out, and whilst we don’t see it as often with big-name products, it can still happen.

However, instead of constantly logging on to Amazon every single day in the lead-up to keep track of prices, there’s a much simpler solution – and it’s called CamelCamelCamel.

You may have heard of it before, but it’s essentially a free Amazon price tracker that helps you see exactly how prices have changed over time. It lets you create price watches and get email alerts when prices drop, as well as view the full price history of millions of Amazon products.

This means that if you find a product you like the look of and think the Prime Day discount seems decent, you can quickly check CamelCamelCamel to see its price history. You’ll be able to see how cheap it’s been in the past – and, crucially, whether the price was bumped up beforehand and then reduced for the event itself.

That gives you a much clearer idea of whether you’re actually getting a good deal, and if you’re not, it can point you in the direction of waiting or shopping elsewhere.

The other bit of good news is that CamelCamelCamel is completely free to use, and you can sign up via the website to access all the tools. If you think you’ll use it regularly, you can also add price history charts directly to your browser with The Camelizer extension to keep an even closer eye on prices.

Amazon has just upgraded its Echo Hub dashboard, making it quicker and easier to use and customise to your household’s needs. The updates include a redesigned home screen, easier controls, and fun customisations – here’s everything you need to know.

Amazon launched its Echo Hub in 2024, its centralised smart home hub that has all your smart devices, like lights, doorbells, cameras, plugs and more, in one convenient place. I tested it when it first came out and gave it five stars in my Echo Hub review, due to its attractive 8-inch touchscreen display and easy smart home controls and customisations.

Now, Amazon is enhancing these customisations with its refreshed design and interface. Now on the Echo Hub’s dashboard, users can add, remove, resize and rearrange sections, so you can choose which widgets, devices, groups and automations appear to you.

Previously, the Echo Hub would simply show you the devices you use the most on its home screen, but this update gives you more control, and better organisation – and as someone who loves to organise their calendar and devices, this brings me lots of joy!

Users can also group their devices by room and function to create a sleeker-looking dashboard and to trigger schedules much quicker. For example, you can create a group called ‘Bedroom’ and select the different devices you have within that room and what you want them to do. From there, you can add, remove or reorder devices, and easily set up schedules for specific times and events.

What’s better is having these groups there and ready on your Echo Hub dashboard means you can simply tap them to set off your schedule which saves you time scrolling through to trigger things manually. Aside from making your controls easier, Amazon has also made them more detailed.

A great example of this is with your smart lights. Now, you can select your smart light on your Echo Hub and you can precisely adjust their brightness and colours rather than just turning them on or off.

Another handy update is for Ring security camera users who have a Ring AI subscription and use Alexa Plus. If that’s you, you’ll be happy to know that this Echo Hub update means you can now get smart summaries of detected video events on your home screen. Users can also search through their videos on the Echo Hub using Alexa.

The new Echo Hub updates are being rolled out as part of a free software upgrade for existing users.

Prime Video is one of many out of the best streaming services right now to know that mining people's nostalgia is a great way to score hits, whether it's in the form of movies or shows. Remakes and reboots are in vogue in a big way, and have been for years, so it isn't the biggest surprise to see Elle, which takes on Legally Blonde and gives it an unexpected prequel series.

The show takes a look at Elle before she ever went to law school, and a new full trailer opens with her living the high life as a queen bee in LA, celebrating her birthday with a lavish party that's unsurprisingly pink from top to bottom. What she doesn't realise is that her life's about to be upended by a move to rainy Seattle.

We see parts of her arrival in this new, far less sunny city, as she struggles to adapt her bubblegum-coloured personality to a vibe that's far more laid-back and, for lack of a better word, cool. She'll face the classic question of whether she should pretend to be something she's not, in order to fit in with people that she doesn't even really know yet.

The trailer gives us a glimmer of hope, though, by hinting at how she'll start to make friends and gain a positive reputation – investigations and campaigning. Hinting at her later talent for legal work, it looks like she'll slowly make her way into a group of students who are looking into some local scholastic controversies, and find her passion driving her to figure out what's going on and who's to blame.

It all looks quite frankly idyllic, and with at least a couple of gags in the trailer that make it look like the writers have a good sense of what made the original movie so fun, it could be that this is a take on the character that's actually surprisingly faithful despite the passing of time.

Plus, in the form of Lexi Minetree the show has a young star who looks almost unbelievably similar to a young Reece Witherspoon – from certain angles I almost thought there was some CGI face-blending going on, which is a real boast for the casting director in this case. The series starts on 1 July, so strap in if you loved the movie some 25 years ago.

Despite 2025 already feeling like a lifetime ago, it was only last November that Ninja unveiled its French Door Premier Air Fryer, Convection Oven and Toaster. As the brand's first-ever French door air fryer, it immediately caught the attention of air fryer enthusiasts everywhere, and it's easy to see why.

However, that excitement was short-lived when Ninja confirmed the appliance would be launching exclusively in the US with a $279.99 price tag. Whilst it still hasn’t officially launched in the UK, there is now a way to get your hands on one sooner rather than later.

The French Door Premier Air Fryer has appeared on Amazon UK, where it’s available to order for £310 with free delivery. However, it’s worth noting that import fees may apply at checkout, which could push the final price up slightly. So, whilst you can buy it now, you may want to wait a little longer for the full UK retail launch

As the name suggests, the appliance's standout feature is its French doors, which open out into one large cooking cavity. Whilst it looks more like a compact oven or microwave than a traditional air fryer, it's packed with features that make it far more versatile than either.

In fact, it comes with 10 cooking functions, including Air Fry, Air Roast, Bake, Whole Roast, Broil, Reheat, Dehydrate and Pizza. It can even replace your toaster thanks to dedicated Toast and Bagel settings, making it a very impressive all-in-one countertop appliance.

For those who like to cook in larger batches, the Ninja French Door Premier Air Fryer, Convection Oven and Toaster also includes a 5.7-litre air fryer basket and a sheet pan. It uses 450°F air circulation technology to cook food quickly and evenly, and cyclonic airflow is designed to crisp food without the need to rotate trays or baskets halfway through cooking.

Amazon has released a new Kindle app for Windows 11, allowing Kindle users to keep reading Kindle ebooks on their PC.

There has been a Kindle desktop app for a number of years, but this older version is being discontinued with the new Windows 11 version taking its place. According to Good Ereader, it's compatible with both Windows 11 and Windows 10.

It will allow for the customisation of the page, so you can adjust the font, colour, margins and so on to get comfortable text on the screen, just like on your Kindle.

You can use lookup functions to explore characters, words or places, with Wikipedia integration and a built-in dictionary.

You'll be able to keep track of reading progress and sync that across all of your devices, one of the advantages of reading on the Kindle platform. It also allows you to drag and drop other documents, with syncing to other devices too.

The new app supports Kindle ebooks, as well as graphic novels, with support for Comixology Guided View.

It is supposed to be available in the US and UK first, but I found that it was listed as unavailable in the UK, suggesting it needs a little longer to come online. The old Kindle app will stop working on 30 June.

What's next for Kindle?

Amazon's Kindle family has widened its scope in recent years. While ebooks are still very much the focus for the normal Kindle and Paperwhite editions, the advent of Colorsoft has opened the door to more content types, especially those with illustrations that benefit from colour.

The latest addition to the family is the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, which offers a larger display with support for writing, while also being able to display colour content from things like graphic novels.

For many, Kindle remains about the original experience where I think that the Paperwhite is the best overall option, while the reception for colour devices has been somewhat muted, thanks to the original high cost and the drop in performance when viewing colour content.

While Amazon seems fairly settled with its current line of Kindle devices, there could be a change to support user-replaceable batteries, although this model might only be available in Europe.

Otherwise, many Kindle fans are still mourning the sad demise of the Kindle Oasis, with the current Kindle line-up lacking any models with page turn buttons.

It's time to get ready for a deal tsunami as Amazon has announced its annual summer Prime Day event.

This year's sales period will run from 23 to 26 June 2026, so is just a few weeks away. It'll once again see 1,000s of items heavily discounted across Amazon in multiple countries, including smart home gear, home appliances, TVs, tech and services, like Prime Video and Amazon Music Unlimited.

Amazon will also be slashes the prices of its own devices once more – including Fire TV Sticks, Ring video doorbells, Kindles, Echo smart speakers and Ember televisions.

As always, you will need to be an Amazon Prime member to get the deals, although you can sign up for free for 30 days if you're not currently a subscriber. That way you can snag all the deals you want and then decide whether you want to continue with your membership or cancel before the first monthly payment is taken.

Amazon Prime Day will also include limited-time deals on newly launched items, plus a zone for the top 100 deals, and Epic Prime Deals with the biggest bargains. And of course, you can also keep up with all the latest tech deal recommendations from the T3 team throughout the event.

Brands that are confirmed to be taking part include Samsung, Sony, LG, Sonos, Hisense and Lenovo. There will also be big deals from the likes of Ninja, Shark, De'Longhi, Instant Pot, Adidas and Lego.

There are even some early deals available now, including on Amazon Prime Video TV and movie purchases – you can get up to 50% off with discounts across the online store.

Hopefully, this will be a Prime Day to remember.

Streaming never stands still. While broadcast TV was never exactly a slow world, it still feels almost wild how much content the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime Video pump out on a weekly basis to keep their subscribers happy. If you're a paid-up member of either of those streaming services (or both), you're probably wondering what's coming this week, in fact.

Well, good news – both Netflix and Prime Video have a major new arrival to boast about, and one of them is long-awaited. I've taken a look at every new original project coming to the pair of them and picked out three that you should know about, and you'll find them below with trailers and release dates for your convenience.

Spider-Noir

• Streaming on: Prime Video from 27 May

This is a really big one for Prime Video – when it first announced that it would spin out Nicolas Cage's character from the Spiderverse movies, it was a little hard to visualise what that might look like. Now, though, we're on the verge of being able to watch Spider-Noir, and successive trailers have made it look like a really good time.

Uniquely, the show is going to be available to watch in two distinct formats – a traditional black and white version, but also a vivid colour version, and you can choose between the two as you go (or watch one after the other if you're sufficiently taken with it). That's a fun twist, but the core story also looks pulpy and enjoyable, so there's every chance this turns into a real hit.

The Four Seasons – Season 2

• Streaming on: Netflix from 28 May

First The Morning Show and now this – Steve Carell has a habit of appearing in the first season of shows before his role is much reduced moving forward. Luckily, that seems to work well for him and the shows both, and The Four Seasons seems to be going from strength to strength in this new season, with the rest of the cast all returning to pick up the story of adult friends.

They'll go on another series of trips through a year, processing grief and working out the kinks in their relationships. It looks like parenthood is in the crosshairs this time around, too, which means we could get some really touching moments as they work out what they want from the rest of their lives.

My 2 Cents

• Streaming on: Netflix from 27 May

For those who want something a little more out of left field, this Italian animated show looks like a perfect choice to experiment with. It comes from celebrated creator Zerocalcare, and tells what looks like a semi-surreal story of figuring out what your middle age is actually going to look like.

The main character is, in fact, a version of Zerocalcare, sharing his life with Cinghiale, a literal wild boar, in a world where some animals do live alongside humans (or possibly are just metaphors for the types of people you meet). They're trying to run a neighbourhood spot, but struggling with the weight of organised crime, financial demands and more. It's a melting pot and could just steal in as your favourite new show if you let it.

When I reviewed the last version of the Kindle Scribe a couple of years ago, I couldn't help feeling like the niche it was serving felt overhyped – are there that many people looking to write on the same e-reader that they use for reading?

Well, since using the ReMarkable Paper Pure I'm a bit more of a convert, so it's back to Amazon to see if it can win me over with an upgraded model for 2026.

That's exactly what the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is: an upgrade. This Kindle, with a new design and the relatively new colour display that Amazon is so proud of, is basically the most premium one it's ever made, with has an eye-watering price tag to match.

Having used the 2026 Kindle Scribe Colorsoft for a couple of weeks, I'm still just as conflicted about why it exists, but can't deny that as a luxury option it has its place – even if only for a small market niche.

Price and Availability

The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft got quite an old-fashioned rollout after its announcement last year, meaning it came quickly to the US but took much longer to reach UK shores. Now, though, the tablet is available in Europe, which is why I'm now able to review it.

That brings us to what it costs, so prepare yourself. In the UK, the Scribe Colorsoft comes in at a huge £569, while it's $629.99 in the US and A$999 in Australia. Those are full-fledged tablet numbers – all for the 32GB version. There's a 64GB model that costs even more too.

Design and Features

In late 2024, the standard, non-colour Scribe still looked much like the ones that had come before it, largely thanks to Amazon's decision to stick with one enlarged bezel along a long edge of the display, for you to grip onto without needing as much palm rejection.

Now, though, that's finally gone, and the Scribe Colorsoft looks like the modern tablet it actually is, with unified bezels all the way around. It's a massive improvement, in my opinion, although it's possible some people might miss the old grip area.

There are also handsome new colours to choose from – a dark plum one called Fig and a greenish-grey called Graphite.

The front of the e-reader houses the display and one small logo at the bottom right in portrait orientation. The back, meanwhile, has four small rubber feet to keep it stable on a surface, and the only interruption around the edge of the tablet is one power button, one USB-C port for charging, and a small groove to remind you where the included stylus will magnetise to charge.

That stylus is colour-matched and very simple, with a function button near its top and a rubber-style end for erasing. Its magnets are impressively solid, though, so it's nice and snug when out of use on the side of the tablet.

Those edges, though, are worth focusing on, since this is a hugely thin tablet – at just 5.4mm thick, it's gorgeous in the hand and consequently very easy to slip into bags and briefcases.

That 11-inch display, meanwhile, has some solid specs, and resolves at 300ppi when you're viewing black and white content, or 150ppi when in colour mode.

That difference in sharpness is something I'll come to later, but it is the same compromise you'll get on the Kindle Colorsoft compared to the Paperwhite, so is clearly an area for Amazon to concentrate on in subsequent iterations.

That colour screen is a big part of the attraction, though, and works in multiple ways. On the most obvious level, like the Colorsoft before it, you can use this e-reader to read comics, travel books and other books where colour adds to the experience. You can also use colours in notes and sketches, with a decent palette to use, but a heavy emphasis on pastels because of the way the display resolves.

Of course, it's also worth remembering that there are new versions of the standard Kindle Scribe (with and without a backlight for the display) – starting from £389.99, nearly £200 less than the Colorsoft version. That underlines the price of upgrading to get colour.

From a battery point of view, Amazon says you'll get around eight weeks from the Scribe Colorsoft if you're just reading, or around two weeks if you're writing, which is understandably vague for a multi-use device. I found the tablet lasted long enough when experimenting with it that charging was a non-issue, and it recharged fully in around two-and-a-half hours.

Performance

I'll cover the easy side of things for the Scribe Colorsoft first. As an e-reader, it's hard to fault, provided you know what you're getting into with the bigger display. Frankly, it's not a size I would choose for daily reading, not least since I do my reading in bed before sleeping.

Still, the display is sharp enough, and it does work really nicely for bigger-format stuff like comics. Page-turning is responsive, the whole device works slickly and quickly, and the Kindle store remains a really easy way to download new content to read in a matter of moments.

Really, though, the Scribe Colorsoft is less about the reading than it is the writing, and here it's a really interesting proposition. I'm getting more and more used to writing tablets, and the finish on Amazon's display is an interesting approach to the niche. It's textured in a really clear way, but far smoother and less high-friction than a ReMarkable's equivalent.

In practice, this means it's less satisfying to write on, but also that it's more straightforward to use certain controls on and to navigate around. The "pencil-feel" is solid but not outstanding, but that's likely to be enough for most people. It's also still textured enough that, like a ReMarkable, you get replacement nibs in the box here for your pen's tip as it eventually wears down.

Amazon's interface for taking notes and starting sketches is really simple and works nicely, though, and has some good searchability and indexing to make backing things up and accessing them through the cloud very solid. Again, ReMarkable streaks ahead here, though, with some of its newer screen-sharing and presentation features making its tablets far more professionally versatile.

That said, I don't think the Scribe Colorsoft is aimed quite as squarely at the professional world. Rather, I think it's intended to be a do-it-all notebook for the digitally-minded. You can read whatever you like, jot down thoughts, take notes in meetings for personal use, and access those notes easily online. That's still a fairly impressive offering.

As mentioned, though, it's hard to get around the fact that despite the Colorsoft display being a big step forward for Amazon, it's not the finished article yet. Just like when I tried the original Colorsoft at launch, I don't think the vibrancy on offer is really what people want, and it pales in comparison to any traditional tablet.

This isn't a huge issue for hand-writing and sketching, but it does make one of the big advantages of the Scribe Colorsoft ring a little hollow. Sure, it's great to have a colour display, but when the uplift in price is this steep to get it, it's hard to recommend it unless you have a really specific need for it.

Verdict

The Scribe Colorsoft is a marker of progress from Amazon, and a really good one at that, but it's not an unqualified success. The design, which is shared across the whole Scribe lineup, is a superb change, making it feel far more modern, sophisticated and subtle, and makes any of the new Scribes a great upgrade over what came before.

The unique selling point of the Colorsoft version, though, doesn't end up feeling justified at this stonking asking price. I think most people would probably get by just fine with the standard Scribe, saving a chunk of money along the way, and I'm fairly confident Amazon will improve its colour displays in the years to come.

That said, if you have a big comics collection and love taking notes, this could be a winner for you – if you have the budget to make it work. For the rest of us, there are far more sensible purchases waiting to be made.

Also consider

I've mentioned it a bunch in this review because it's such a recent release, but if you're really only interested in an e-paper device that feels amazing to take notes on, the ReMarkable Paper Pure is a better choice than the Scribe Colorsoft, in my view. It's more refined and more powerful from a productivity standpoint – but it doesn't work as an e-reader at all, which is hugely relevant for most people.

If, on the other hand, you're just looking at the Scribe because it seems to be the fanciest Kindle, I'd make sure you consider just getting the latest Paperwhite – espcially if you don't really take notes and just want a great e-reader. It's way more affordable, performs excellently and should last for years before you need to upgrade.

Amazon could be preparing to launch new Kindle models with a user-replaceable battery, to meet new EU rules that come into effect in 2027.

This is designed to reduce the number of products that are sealed with no access to the battery, making it difficult or impossible to service it without specialist tools.

The clues to this change come from Goodereader, which has uncovered details in firmware 5.19.4 that points to changes to the battery.

It's reported that there is text that says: "This battery cannot be recognised and may not perform as expected." It goes on on to recommend installing a battery that matches Amazon's specifications.

The user is then guided to replacement battery kits and instructions.

This all suggests that replacing the battery in a Kindle is going to be an option on future devices, and could provoke Amazon into replacing the entire portfolio of Kindle devices.

That's not to say that Amazon will change anything other than the battery situation: it could be that the devices keep exactly the same specifications as they already have. Indeed, there might not be any fanfare around the launch, they might simply come into stock with accessible batteries.

There's a question over where replacement batteries might be sourced and it's likely that Amazon could sell those batteries itself. The instructions mention scanning a QR code to "purchase a battery replacement kit", suggesting it's going to be an easy process.

How often might you replace your Kindle's battery?

How common will battery replacement be? Kindle batteries are only rated for a particular number of charging cycles, so they will decay over time.

That's only happened to me on one device, the Kindle Oasis from 2017, which I still rate as the best Kindle ever, thanks to its 7-inch display, great design and page turn buttons.

I used the 2017 Oasis extensively until the battery would barely hold a change and it needed to be plugged in almost every day – so Kindle battery degradation is definitely a thing.

The challenge for Amazon will be to keep updating the Kindle's features to encourage owners to upgrade to a new models rather than just buy a battery to replace in their existing model.

Exactly when this change will come in we don't know – as I said, Amazon might not make a big announcement if there isn't a big feature change elsewhere in the device.

Amazon announced Alexa Plus back in February 2025, although the AI-powered assistant has only recently arrived in the UK. Now, for those on the other side of the pond, it’s expanding to amazon.com, with a new service called Alexa for Shopping.

According to The Verge, US users that type a query into the search bar at the top of the Amazon website and app will get an answer from Alexa depending on the query.

If you simply type "Apple iPhone 17", you will get the same list of products as usual, but if you type something like “What’s a good skincare routine for men?”, you’ll get a more helpful answer that uses Alexa’s AI expertise.

What is Alexa for Shopping and what can it do?

Alexa for Shopping combines the product smarts of Amazon's previous assistant, Rufus, with the personalised knowledge of Alexa+. It pulls together your purchase history, browsing habits, and even conversations you've had with Alexa on your Echo devices to deliver relevant recommendations and assistance.

According to Amazon's announcement: "By bringing together Rufus's product expertise and Amazon shopping history with the personalised knowledge and context of Alexa+, Alexa for Shopping delivers a more personal, helpful shopping experience across a wide range of surfaces and devices."

It will help you compare products, give personalised recommendations, help you track prices, reorder essentials, and even buy products at your target price using a Scheduled Actions feature.

For example, you can set a condition like “add this sunscreen to my basket if the price drops to £10 and I haven't bought it in the last two months”. Alexa for Shopping will then handle the legwork and will either notify you or add items to your basket automatically.

“Alexa for Shopping is like having an expert personal shopper who already knows you and remembers your preferences, your past purchases, and your conversations, and carries that knowledge and understanding of you across your phone, laptop, and Echo devices,” said Rajiv Mehta, vice president of conversational shopping at Amazon.

“Whether you're comparing products, tracking a price drop, or continuing research you started yesterday, you don’t have to start over.”

Alexa for Shopping is rolling out to US customers on the Amazon app and website over the coming weeks. No Prime membership or Echo device is required – you can just sign into your Amazon account, and you’ll be good to go.

There’s currently no word on when it might come to the UK.

The age of steam is upon us, as far as I'm concerned. Sure, the real-life industrial revolution might now be long in the rearview mirror, but the world of streaming has had something of a revivalist attitude recently when it comes to, well, smut. Okay, perhaps that's a strong word for it, but people can't seem to stop hoovering up romance shows, and the likes of Amazon and Netflix have clearly figured that out.

You only have to look at Prime Video's recent output and its upcoming slate to get a sense of how much it's prioritising raunchy shows and movies, and a perfect case in point just arrived – a trailer for Every Year After. This new show is based on the first of a best-selling romantic novel series, and looks like it'll scratch that itch for fans of the genre.

The show stars Sadie Soverall as Percy, a young woman who finds herself coming back to the small town where she spent some memorable summers. She's back to attend the funeral of her first love's mother, a sad circumstance that brings her back into contact with that love, Sam, who clearly hasn't forgotten the time they spent together before Percy called it off to move to the city.

Now she's back and stirring up all sorts of confused emotions in them both, made even more awkward by the fact that he has a girlfriend that he loves and is considering proposing to. With an equally chiselled older brother watching out for his wellbeing, Sam's clearly going to have absolutely no idea how to navigate this thorny emotional situation.

The trailer ends by confirming that the show will start streaming on 10 June, so it's around a month away, and it looks like a canny new project from Amazon's commissioning team. After all, the Carley Fortune novels it's based on seem to come out at quite a clip, which makes this a real franchise in the making.

That's basically the dream scenario for any streamer right now – just look at Bridgerton on Netflix for the clearest template. Whether or not that comes to fruition this time, it certainly looks like some one-off raunchy fun is guaranteed as a minimum.

Vertical video is the hottest trend in streaming today, with the likes of Disney+ and Netflix jumping on board the bandwagon. Now another service has seen the potential in the TikTok style form factor, having added it in its latest update.

Amazon's Prime Video is currently rolling out vertical video "Clips" on its mobile app, first in the US and then, we assume, globally.

Appearing in a new Clips rail, the vertical snippets give you a glimpse of some of the content available on Prime Video, in order to help you choose your next binge.

It first launched with highlights from NBA games during the last season, but has now expanded further, to include shows and movies. They appear on your homepage and are perfectly suited to the mobile app – on iPhone and Android.

They also match the latest design that rolled out to all users of Prime Video, including those in other countries. This uses vertical imagery too, to allow more library content to be seen on the same screen.

US users can see the Clips rail by scrolling down the homepage. You can then tap on a clip to enter a personalised menu screen with additional vertical video. And you can access the full show or film directly from a clip, too.

Sharing is also possible, with a dedicated share button allowing you to post it to a social feed or email a link to friends and family.

At present, clips are solely of Prime Video shows and movies, although there's the possibility of dedicated vertical video content in future. The same is true with Netflix, which also now has a Clips menu.

With Netflix also investing heavily in podcasts for the future, we can see TikTok-like videos also appearing on the platform in the future. The same is true with Disney+.

Ironically, while YouTube is doubling down on horizontal videos and the TV experience (more now watch on TV than mobile), the streaming services seem to want to expand in the opposite direction.

How you feel about that will mainly come down to how you watch shows. My teenage daughter and her friends barely even watch on a television screen anymore, so there's an ever-growing market for this sort of thing.

If you scroll back in your mind to the early 2000s, you can probably think of a fair few movies that really do feel like they're from another era, and like the sort of project that just isn't getting made today. That's not because they're somehow inappropriate, but rather because Hollywood's finances have changed to make lower-budget films seem like rarer things.

In amongst those cult favourites, Legally Blonde is a total classic, telling a really enjoyable story of how people's looks can lead to misjudgements from others, starring Reese Witherspoon in the iconic role of Elle Woods. Now the character is coming back, just as pink as ever, in a charming prequel series that just got its first trailer ahead of arriving on Prime Video.

The show will pick up with Elle a little earlier in her life, well before she heads off to law school, in her home of LA in 1995. She's the queen bee, unsurprisingly, embedded in a gang of similarly fun-loving girls and living life with absolutely no troubles at all in constant sunshine. That will have to change, though, when her parents reveal that they have to move to the famously more rainy Seattle.

At the tail-end of this trailer we get a quick look at what that's going to look like, and it basically casts Elle as a dot of pink among a sea of blue and grey tones, making for a very fun contrast. She's sure to find friends and perhaps some rivals, though, and there will doubtless be plenty of fun to come.

The show looks really charming, and in Lexi Minetree as Elle it seems to have found a young actress who has the same charming ability to take the world at face value, like Witherspoon's version did back in 2001. Whether there's enough material here for a series to keep people's interest will be harder to know until the show comes out, of course.

It'll start streaming on 1 July, so there's still just less than a couple of months to go before then. We'll almost certainly get a lengthier trailer before that date, too, and I'd expect that one to tell us a bit more about what'll happen to Elle once she's in Seattle. For now, though, this is a pretty fun little teaser to get Legally Blonde fans hyped.

When a week starts with a bank holiday (like this one in the UK), it's always a good time. There's nothing quite like a shorter working week, and that blessing pairs even more perfectly with chilling out and bingeing some new shows or movies on your favourite streaming service.

If you're a Prime Video or Netflix subscriber then you're probably already accustomed to checking what's being added to the service most weeks. This time, though, I've taken that step for you, and whittled things down to three highlights that you should know about – two from Netflix, and one from Prime Video. They could give you a really enjoyable week of streaming if you're on the hunt for new content.

Legends

• Streaming from: 7 May on Netflix

I've been carping about Legends for a few weeks now, and it has every sign of being a sleeper hit from Netflix, in my opinion. I always like it when Netflix quietly funds British productions that wouldn't look remotely out of place on the BBC, and this fits that bill.

It tells a fictionalised account of a true story, one that saw the UK turn to customs and border enforcement agents to see if they would be interested in taking their efforts against drug traffickers to the next level. Finding undercover agents who were in jobs that didn't really stretch them, Legends seems to tell a fascinating tale, and has a great cast.

Remarkably Bright Creatures

• Streaming from: 8 May on Netflix

For those wanting something a bit less heart-pounding and bit more heartwarming, this looks like a surefire thing. Remarkably Bright Creatures stars the iconic Sally Field as Tova, an ageing woman living a quiet life as the cleaner for a small-town aquarium, who quietly has a tragic recent past.

When a young man joins her department and seems to have similarly emotional trauma rocking him beneath the surface, they start to forge a connection that looks sure to bring some tearjerking scenes. The twist is that the film's narrated by the octopus whose enclosure Tova cleans with such dedication, giving it an offbeat tone and some comedy chops.

No Place To Be Single

• Streaming from: 8 May on Prime Video

I'm not going to dress this up – No Place To Be Single looks cheesy in the extreme. Still, I can't pretend that people don't want this sort of shmaltz in their life now and then. It offers up a classic story that sees two city boys inherit a rural property, and despite their plans to sell it, start to fall in love with the countryside life.

It'll help that there will be plenty of beautiful people to catch their eyes, but it seems like one of the biggest stars will be the Italian scenery, which looks just gorgeous. The trailer embedded above shows that there will be a cheesily dubbed version in English, but I'm guessing the original Italian version will be a little better of an experience.

When you think sci-fi, there's a very good chance you think Star Wars. You'd be right, too – George Lucas' creation has become one of the biggest franchises in the world, and certainly one of the most influential science fiction universes ever created, shaping the imaginations of a few generations of kids.

Still, while there's more Star Wars than ever to enjoy on Disney+, at a time like Star Wars Day (every 4 May), you might be looking for a palate cleanser. While everyone and their nan's trying to remind you of where to watch Star Wars, we thought we'd instead point you towards some sci-fi streaming shows you might not have tried yet.

These are space-faring shows that have perhaps been a little underrated, and might scratch that Star Wars itch while still giving you something new.

The Expanse

• Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video

This show had a fairly classic streaming-era trajectory, in that it started as a Netflix original but got canned a few seasons into its run, before fan outcry led Amazon to pick it up for Prime Video, where you can now watch the whole series in most regions. It has six seasons in total, and adapts about two-thirds of an excellent series of source novels (all of which I've read).

Don't worry, though, that doesn't mean it ends on a cliffhanger. The showrunners knew they were likely to bow out after the sixth season, so things are tied up really nicely while leaving a bit of wiggle room in case it's ever revived. This is crunchier sci-fi than Star Wars, set in a version of reality much closer to our own, and looks at what human civilisation might look like after we spread through our own solar system, but no further (at least when the show opens). With fun, fast-paced mystery plotting and some great characters, The Expanse is a must-sample for any sci-fi fan.

Foundation

• Streaming on: Apple TV

If you're more into the grand, sweeping style of sci-fi than gritter fare, then Foundation is almost certainly something to check out. Based on Isaac Asimov's frankly incredible novels, it tells a story of the far-flung future, full of philosophical themes. In a semi-utopian time, if a branch of academics figured out how to foresee the future with near-total accuracy, what would actually happen?

That's the question Foundation poses, interrogated how an autocratic leader would choose to react, how the populace would approach the matter, and how those very academics would plan for a future in which even catastrophic collapses don't lead to the end of humanity. It's stirring stuff, but most crucially it's beautiful to look at, thanks to Apple TV's production values, which really are the best in the streaming business.

Dune: Prophecy

• Streaming on: HBO Max

The most recently-launched show in this showcase, Dune: Prophecy hoped to piggyback a little on the massive success of Denis Villeneuve's mainline Dune movie adaptations, which are simply fantastic. This is a prequel series, taking a look at how the witches of the Bene Gesserit order actually managed to line things up to ensure the arrival of Paul Atreides centuries later.

That's quite a grand description, but the show itself therefore concerns itself more with space politics and manoeuvring in a way that makes it more like Game of Thrones than some other more action-packed shows. There are still big moments, but this is classic HBO stuff, making for a slower pace and a more thoughtful approach than you might expect. With another season on the way, Star Wars Day might be a great opportunity to see if Dune: Prophecy is up your street.

There's never a moment to take a breather when it comes to the biggest and best streaming services in the world. If they leave it too long without adding something attention-grabbing or new to their libraries, smart viewers will take their subscription money elsewhere, and Prime Video is no exception.

Amazon's streaming service is one of the most reliable out there when it comes to the sheer volume of additions each month, so you're probably not going to be surprised that May is looking like a busy time on the platform. From movies to TV shows, I've taken a look at everything being added, to boil it down to just five highlights that you should keep on your radar as May passes.

Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan: Ghost War

• Streaming from: 20 May

I wasn't sure that John Krasinski was coming back as Jack Ryan any time soon – but it seems like he's not done with either the character or Prime Video. He's back in a movie continuing the series (which has bounced between films and streaming seasons), and it looks like it'll probably be a really enjoyable thriller.

It sees Jack Ryan heading to London (not for the first time) to help track down an international criminal with some terrible plans, and from the trailers we've seen he'll clearly encounter new allies, too. Siena Miller has joined as a hyper-professional British agent, so it'll be interesting to see if her character adds some newfound depth to the franchise.

Spider-Noir

• Streaming from: 27 May

Another massive addition to Prime Video comes at the end of the month, when Nicolas Cage's Spider-Noir arrives. This show looks like nothing else on the market, with a super knowing tone and a penchant for noirish cliches that should see it keep its tongue firmly in its cheek. Cage plays an alternate universe version of Spider-Man, one introduced in the Spiderverse films.

This is shot in live action, though, and even more remarkably will be available to watch in two different ways when it arrives. Prime Video is releasing the show in both black-and-white and colour versions, and it might be quite tough to pick between the two. We lean toward the classic monochrome look, but there's probably no wrong answer, in truth.

Good Omens Season 3

• Streaming from: 13 May

This is a finale that has been a very long time coming, with some disruption delaying the previous season of Good Omens and now a short third outing capping things off. In fact, it can't even really be called a season – it's a feature-length special to bid goodbye to the angel Aziraphale and demon Crowley.

They've become more than just friends as the show has unfolded, going well past where the source material left things ambiguous to give fans a whole lot to love. This final go-around seems like it'll wrap things up in a bow, so we're pretty confident it won't end too darkly, and should be a treat for longtime viewers.

No Place To Be Single

• Streaming from: 8 May

Now, this one has an interesting detail in its trailer – incredibly obvious English over-dubbing to try to get a wider audience for what looks like a fairly simple but potentially charming Italian romcom. It's a classic story of city boys out of their depth, with two brothers inheriting a rural property and swooping in on a small village to try to turn it around.

It's clear that their initial plan will horrify the quiet and spirited locals, including at least one extremely eligible beauty, but the more they all get to know each other, the more sparks will fly. Expect an almost guaranteed happy ending, some steamy love scenes, and stunning Italian countryside vistas – what's not to like?

Hunting Season

• Streaming from: 17 May

You don't see Mel Gibson in the lead role that often on-screen any more, but those who want a simple throwback action thriller might find he's on solid form in Hunting Season. He might now only be soft-cancelled, but Gibson clearly isn't back in the Hollywood fold in every way, since this looks decidedly like a B-movie of the old "straight to VHS" variety.

Still, with its story of criminals chasing down a kidnapped woman who's slipped through their fingers, and the ageing but hyper-competent property-owner who takes her in and fights back (that's Gibson), it'll probably be simple enough entertainment. If you want a revenge movie that doesn't have many pretensions, this could be one to bear in mind midway through May.

Amazon is rolling out an update to Kindle Colorsoft models – including the Scribe Colorsoft – that adds a feature many have requested for a while.

Arriving on supported Colorsoft devices in the coming weeks, an over-the-air update will add a Dark Mode to your device. This will allow you to change the background to black to reduce eye strain, especially in the dark.

The darker background can be used on the menu screens and also in eBooks and PDFs. That will be available across all Colorsoft Kindles.

The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft will also offer the ability to change the page theme for Notebooks, so you can have a different view to eBooks and PDFs. For example, you'll be able to have Dark Mode switched on for Home, Library and Settings, with Light Mode running in Notebooks.

The feature will be easily accessible too, through the Quick Actions menu that appears when you swipe down from the top of the screen.

Kindle Scribe owners also have another new feature that's recently been added. Your device will recognise when you draw a shape or line – including triangles, circles and rectangles – and sharpen them, making the lines more precise. This allows you to quickly sketch a shape and not have to worry about accuracy.

You can also add structured lines and shapes directly from the toolbar.

Amazon will start to roll out Dark Mode to Colorsoft models soon. Existing Kindles, including the latest Kindle Paperwhite, already support Dark Mode. This can be activated in the Settings menu under the Screen and Brightness options.

The Kindle Colorsoft and Scribe Colorsoft are currently available at full price, but if you are looking to get one soon it might be worth waiting until the Prime Day sales around June time. There are always great deals on all Amazon devices during that event.

The world of streaming is one of constant churn – people hoover up content at a crazy pace, which means all the biggest and best streaming services know that they need to keep pace and deliver more. Netflix and Prime Video stand as two of the biggest in the market, and they don't generally let a week go by without trying to bring something fairly significant out.

This week's no different, and if you've just finished up a series or you're looking for something new to sink your teeth into, I've done the hard work by looking at everything coming to these two platforms. I've narrowed things down to three must-watch picks, so check them out below.

Man On Fire

• Streaming on: Netflix from 30 May

This intriguing Netflix reboot updates a story and movie that many people associate extremely tightly with Denzel Washington, one of cinema's true titans. This time around, it'll instead star Yahya Abdul-Mateen as a troubled ex-soldier who now works privately in security, and has a storm coming even if he doesn't realise it.

What should be a simple protection job for a young woman in his care turns into something way bigger when sophisticated and coordinated attackers start to track his every move, and how he balances his responsibilities with his PTSD will be a core part of the character work in the show. It looks like a great action thriller that shouldn't be missed.

The House of the Spirits

• Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video from 29 April

For something much more emotional and sweeping, Prime Video is stepping up with an adaptation of a modern classic novel from Isabel Allende, and it's one that takes a look at much of the twentieth century of Chile, the country in which it's set. With a huge cast and a story that spans generations and time settings, this is an epic South American production.

It tells the tale of one family through decades of upheaval in Chile, charting emotionally-charged personal stories but also using them to explore the societal change that happened in those time periods, and looks like it's going to be sumptuous in terms of production design. If you want something liable to make you think a bit more, this could be a perfect pick.

UEFA Champions League Semi-Final 1st Leg – PSG vs Bayern

• Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video on 28 April

This one's only for those of us in the UK, but it's sure to be one of the great matches of the season. Prime Video gets one game per watchweek in the UEFA Champions League, but as the competition narrows these matches tend to get more and more desirable. This time around, there's no arguing with that.

The first leg between PSG and Bayern should be a super interesting match full of superstars – with the Ballon D'or currently in PSG's Dembele's hands, but potentially transferring to Bayern's Harry Kane next time around. That said, the outcome of that award might depend pretty heavily on this tie, so it's sure to be a thriller between two enormously attacking teams.

When Amazon first brought Citadel to Prime Video, it did so with the promise (or hope) of building out a whole cinemative universe around the show, taking spycraft into the near future with a slight sci-fi twist and making a mega-franchise that could sustain spin-offs and many seasons to come. Suffice to say, things haven't gone quite the way it was hoping.

Sure, we've had a couple of interesting spinoffs, but the main show has been waiting for a second season since its first in early 2023, leading some people to suspect that it might have been quietly canned. Not so, though, since we just got a trailer for its second season some three years later, with some extremely striking tonal differences from the first.

As you can see in the trailer embedded above, Stanley Tucci is returning to the part of Bernard Orlick, the handler who had a slightly more background role in the last season, and will in fact be taking part in at least a few big action set pieces himself. Where the last season was very much fronted by Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra, it looks like it's more of an event split this time.

In fact, going purely by how much airtime they get in the trailer, Tucci might just be the lead role, which is quite a big shift in focus. Equally striking is the way more lighthearted tone that the trailer strikes, from its choice of music to the prevalence of quips and jokes. Perhaps this is Amazon's way of trying to breathe new life into the Citadel franchise, which has previously been pretty po-faced.

It looks like the glitz and glamour is still retained, though, and doubtless those who enjoyed the mysteries of the first season will find a lot to grab hold of this time around, but I'm curious to see how the show fares from here. Will Amazon greenlight many more spinoffs if the main show doesn't become a genuine sensation?

Perhaps it's performed better than I realised, and the three-year gap between seasons was just down to scheduling and the scale of production. We might never get the lowdown on that side of things, but it's still fascinating to see a show that I thought was probably dead come roaring back to life like this. It'll arrive on Prime Video on 6 May, so you don't have long to wait.

Netflix pretty much never has a week off, but even by its standards there are big weeks for releases, and there are slightly smaller ones. You can tell this is a good week for the huge streamer, because my round-up normally includes Prime Video but doesn't really need to this time around.

That's right, Netflix has three huge additions of its own this week, and I'd argue that any of them could be the headliner, so whether you're looking for an action thriller, a creepy new series or a throwback to what you loved about Stranger Things, keep reading to find out what you'll be bingeing this week.

Apex

• Streaming from: 24 April

I've been looking forward to this one right from the first teaser trailer, and not just because I'm a huge fan of Taron Egerton. He's really been going for fun villainous roles recently, and Apex looks like it's going to take that to a whole new level, with Egerton playing a creepy Aussie who has Charlize Theron in his sights in the outback.

He sets her a crazed challenge, giving her the duration of a song to get as far from him as possible, before he starts to hunt her down as a twisted bloodsport. Luckily, it looks like she's grittier and more determined than he could ever know, and we'll get some gnarly fights, chases and survival sequences in what looks like a super fun new thriller for Netflix.

Unchosen

• Streaming from: 21 April

If you're looking for a thriller that veers into far darker and more psychological territory, then it's a good week for you, since Unchosen is also coming out, with a scary look at what life in a cult can actually look like. It stars Sex Education's Asa Butterfield as a controlling husband whose wife yearns for something she can't even really identify.

Her life is strictly regimented by the structures of the Christian cult that she's part of, but when a stranger comes to the community asking for sanctuary, she feels a bond with him that she can't quite understand. From there, it looks like things will get very twisty and potentially a little twisted, too. It seems like proper grown-up fare, and could be a sleeper hit.

Stranger Things: Tales From '85

• Streaming from: 23 April

Netflix was never going to let Stranger Things go completely – this is the biggest streaming service in the world, and it knows how to milk a franchise. That might be a slightly harsh framing, of course, and it overlooks the fact that Stranger Things: Tales From '85 looks pretty charming, filling in a gap between seasons when the kids were still kids.

It'll tell a story involving a couple of new characters, exploring how our main cast moved on from some of the events of the show's second season, and its animation style is really lush and detailed. We'll be hugely interested to see how the show lands, and what it signals about people's interest in the franchise.

Amazon has confirmed that future Fire TV Sticks will no longer allow app sideloading or run on Android. You won't even be able to download and install approved apps either.

That's because it is switching to its own Vega OS software for all streaming devices going forward, and as that is a cloud-based operating system, you will no longer have the ability to customise them.

The software was first installed on the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Select released last year and can also be found driving the all-new Fire TV Stick HD coming at the end of April.

Rather than host streaming apps on the device itself, Vega OS is entirely run on the cloud – so the likes of Netflix and Disney+ are installed on a remote server, including the front end, so you access the entire experience over an online connection, not just the content.

It's similar to the latest TiVo platform, which is found on multiple smart TVs and the Manhattan Aero Freely TV box, and the Titan OS smart TV system adopted by Philips and a few other manufacturers.

The benefit is that you don't have to download and run apps yourself, so every streaming service is updated remotely and you are always accessing the latest version. And the processing power of your TV or device is less important, as it's only required to run the video stream well.

It also enables Amazon to keep costs down for new Fire TV Stick releases, especially during the ongoing RAM chip crisis.

The downside is that you have far less freedom over what you choose to do with your device. Some sideload their third-party apps onto Fire TV Sticks, allowing them to operate services that are otherwise unsupported. You cannot do that on the Select or forthcoming HD Fire TV Sticks – or any other future models.

The confirmation was found on Amazon's developer site (via Cordbusters): "All future Fire TV Sticks will run on Vega," it says in a box-out about the operating system.

That will definitely upset some, although considering the clampdown on the illegal use of Fire TV Sticks (with content piracy being a real issue in the recent past), the switch always seemed inevitable.

Time will tell if it makes a difference to the wider consumer market, though.

Well, for sci-fi fans of a certain generation, it doesn't get much bigger than this. Sure, it's nice to see massive high-budget adaptations of the Dune books, and the enormous success of standalone sci-fi movies like Project Hail Mary, but for people over 40 there's nothing quite like Spaceballs, which parodied the whole genre but took particular aim at Star Wars.

Now, in what's come as a bit of a surprise to me, at least, it turns out we're getting another movie, with central involvement from the literally 99-year-old Mel Brooks, who seems to be in fine form in the announcement video that Amazon posted today. It confirms that Spaceballs: The New One will hit cinemas in April next year, and as an Amazon MGM Studios production, it'll almost certainly go to Prime Video swiftly afterwards.

We don't have a trailer to watch at this point, but we do have a charming little announcement video featuring Brooks explaining that the movie is a result of fans badgering him for decades at this point.

The video also addresses the one big asterisk attached to the project – its title. After all, one of the most famous jokes in the original Spaceballs was about a supposedly inevitable cash-hungry sequel, called Spaceballs: The Search for More Money. Brooks acknowledges this but brushes it off by confirming that he already found the money to make the new movie, even literally pointing it out.

It's a funny situation, really. Amazon clearly didn't quite have the cojones to make a joke about this decades-later sequel ultimately being an attempt to wring some money out of a quite long-dead joke, and that's ultimately a shame. If it had stuck with that original title, we would have all been able to enjoy the punchline to a joke set up nearly 40 years ago, which would have been remarkable.

Still, The New One is funny enough as a name in isolation, and with Brooks on board, you'd hope there will be plenty of silly and slapstick fun in the movie itself. We don't really know much more about it, though, since the release date is a year away (23 April 2027) and Amazon hasn't announced a cast or characters.

Most of the actors from the original are presumably now too old to appear again, and some of them have passed away, so it's a safe enough bet that we'll get some newcomers, but my biggest interest will be around which franchises it aims to skewer.

Had the movie come out even five years ago, the world was much more suffused in Star Wars movies and shows, but things have slowed down now, and the Skywalker Saga has been over for a while. Is this the best time to take shots at a semi-dormant mega-franchise? Maybe the Mandalorian movie will change that, and Brooks' timing will end up being perfect – we won't know for a good while yet.

Ring’s Familiar Faces feature has finally arrived in the UK, after first launching in the US late last year. It’s an opt-in feature that allows users to see who’s at their front door using a personal directory of up to 50 people, recognising familiar faces and sending more specific notifications.

It arrives just weeks after Alexa+ launched in the UK too, highlighting how strong Amazon’s smart home ecosystem is becoming across both devices and features. Just like Alexa+ rolling out across a wide range of Amazon devices, Familiar Faces will also be available on most of Ring’s best video doorbells and security cameras, including 2K, 4K and select HD models.

Familiar Faces will begin rolling out from today to Ring device owners with a Ring Pro (£15.99/month) and Pro Intelligence plan. Customers will receive a notification in the Ring app once the feature becomes available.

When you turn the feature on, your compatible devices will start detecting faces when people approach your camera. You can then label people you recognise directly in the Ring app, building a personal directory of up to 50 familiar faces. According to Ring, this is the "sweet spot" that should cover most households without becoming overwhelming.

How to activate Familiar Faces

As mentioned, Familiar Faces is an opt-in feature, so you’ll need to enable it in your Ring app settings before you can use it. Once switched on, you can head to your Familiar Faces library to start building your directory.

From there, you can add people easily by labelling them directly from your Event History or within the library itself. Once named, those labels will appear in your timeline and Event History, and both you and any shared users on your account will see them in notifications.

You can also manage your library at any time – adding up to 50 profiles, editing names, merging duplicates or deleting entries if needed. Unnamed faces are automatically removed after 30 days, helping keep things organised without you needing to do much.

We’ll be reviewing the feature on the site in due course, so stay tuned for our thoughts once we’ve spent more time with it.

A class action lawsuit has been filed against Amazon in the US which claims the company "purposefully" made older Fire TV Sticks fail to force customers into an upgrade.

The plaintiff claims the remote for his second-generation Fire TV Stick eventually became "inoperable" after Amazon ended updates for the 2016 device. Other customers have also complained that their first and second-generation streamers have also stopped working or slowed down considerably.

According to the New York Post, the suit goes on to say that Amazon wouldn't provide a refund or software updates for the failing devices. It also accuses the company of "deceptive" marketing, as it didn't inform customers of a cut-off date for software upgrades.

This is something that has been adopted more widely in recent years, especially by mobile phone manufacturers. The likes of Samsung, Google and Nothing often guarantee a period of software updates for their devices at launch. It wasn't common when the original Fire TV Sticks were launched, however.

It also begs the question of how long purchased technology is supposed to be supported. Sonos stoked the ire of its long-term customers a few years ago, when it announced it would no longer support older devices in its upgraded app. And Samsung prompted a flurry of complaints when Netflix became incompatible with its older smart TVs.

Simply put though, consumer technology is hardly ever built to last forever. A device released a decade ago is likely to have a far slower, less capable processor than a modern equivalent – RAM and storage, too.

So is it fair to expect a streaming device released in 2014 or 2016 to still perform as well today – especially one that cost around $40? That, it seems, is for the courts to decide.

While we're all still riding high from the excitement of the Artemis II mission, there's been another shift in the space race with Amazon and Globalstar announcing a merger agreement, expanding Amazon's satellite ambitions – while also outlining a new deal with Apple.

There's a lot to take in here: for a couple of years, Amazon has been building its low orbit satellite network, known as Amazon Leo. It's aims are to boost connectivity in areas off the grid, rivalling Elon Musk's Starlink, although currently not operating at the same scale.

The merger will see Amazon take control of Globalstar and in the process, take over and expand on the agreement that Globalstar had with Apple. For those who don't remember, Globalstar is the company that provides Apple's satellite services on iPhone and Apple Watch.

So in star wars terms, there's a lot happening. For Apple users, this sees an agreement with Amazon for current and future Apple devices to continue to use those satellites, as Globalstar gets integrated with Amazon Leo.

"We're excited to support Apple users through the Leo D2D [Direct-2-Device] system, and look forward to working with mobile network partners to help extend coverage to every corner of the planet," said Panos Panay, senior vice president of devices and services at Amazon.

Why does Apple need a satellite partner – and why not Starlink?

Apple first announced satellite connectivity in 2022 with the iPhone 14, choosing to work with Globalstar and investing in the company in the process. It reportedly rejected Starlink for the service following an ultimatum from Elon Musk, according to The Information (via 9to5Mac).

While Musk didn't get the agreement he wanted with Apple directly, Starlink and T-Mobile went on to announce their own connectivity agreement, something that Starlink has established with a range of mobile operators worldwide.

Amazon's challenge is to now grow Leo, with a mid-2026 scheduled launch date and plans to launch "a few thousand more" satellites in the coming years according to CEO Andy Jassy.

On top of that – and something that brings Amazon back into competition with Starlink – is Amazon's launch of an aviation antenna, which can supply up to gigabit download speeds for commercial aircraft. Delta has already signed, with the service expected to go live in 2028.

Starlink has agreements with airlines such as Qatar and British Airways to provide high-speed in-flight connectivity, but if nothing else, the growth of Amazon Leo is likely to lead to more colourful outbursts from Musk as various deals fall into place.

When Amazon announced the Ember Artline TV, it was keen to put the focus on the new matte finish and artwork that the TV would bring to people's lounges and living rooms. That's well and good, but, in some ways, the more important announcement was that when the TV arrived, it would also mark a massive branding change for Amazon.

That's right – Fire TVs aren't Fire TVs any more; or are they? Well, as it happens, now every TV that Amazon makes itself will be an Ember TV, drawing more of a clear line between 'a TV that Amazon makes that runs on Fire TV' as compared to 'the Fire TV ecosystem and software experience', if that makes sense. No more Fire TV Fire TVs, basically.

At an Amazon briefing last week, I was interested to question Emma Gilmartin, Director of Fire TV for Europe, about the change and what it means for consumers and customers. She explained that while this is a big tweak from Amazon's perspective, it's one that should result in less "confusion" for regular folks.

"I think there's a reason why we've moved away from just calling everything Fire TV – because Fire TV is, in itself, a user experience. And it's now on partner-branded TVs, on our streaming sticks, and our own-party TVs. So it becomes confusing for customers when everything is just Fire TV."

That's a rare level of honesty from a huge corporation like Amazon, albeit at a time when it can afford to say that its past branding was odd, since it's now changing the system. When I asked whether there was any anxiety internally about the swap, I got a bullish response, too, with basically no sense that there was risk to the name swap.

For my money, Ember's a pretty clean name, and the continuity of the "fire" image does make a smooth transition pretty likely. Plus, it's not like the Fire TV brand is going anywhere – it's still the umbrella under which the Ember hardware lineup will sit. In fact, Amazon has another little hardware launch to talk about, too, in the form of a new £40 Fire TV Stick HD.

Glimartin described the stick as "super, super fast", and I can attest that in person, the 30% boost in speed it's been given is impressive, especially given it's entry-level stuff. A bunch of recent Fire TV Sticks will also be getting the OS update that Amazon's rolling out, which should give them all a roughly 30% boost, too, so it's a great time to be a stick owner.

As Gilmartin put it, "the team took the opportunity to completely rewrite the code, which allows them to iterate much faster, and allowed us to scale and do different things in the future". That might mean that future updates are more frequently deployed, making for better future-proofing in the long run.

I've always been curious about which of Amazon's sticks sells the best, since there are plenty to pick from, and while Gilmartin wouldn't be drawn on any actual figures, she confirmed that from Amazon's point of view, there's no real drive to consolidate its lineup into fewer options.

"We also have this debate about how many sticks – but for some people, a jump of £10 or £15 is a lot, so for some people the Stick HD is perfect, [while] some people want to get the best, with the best Wi-Fi and connectivity". Crucially, as she puts it, "people are buying all of the sticks", so there's no single one that's likely to get chopped any time soon.

Regardless, the big Ember branding change is probably enough upheaval for one financial quarter at least, and Amazon will doubtless have multiple eyes on its analytics the moment it makes the swap. We'll be fascinated to see how it lands, too.

When Amazon announced the Ember Artline, its first foray into the extremely on-trend world of art TVs, it fairly obviously looked like it was pushing the boat out. After all, while it's been making Fire TVs for a while now, most of them haven't had a specific USP other than generally good value to offer.

Now, though, it's brought the Ember Artline out in the UK and EU, a little while after it arrived in the US, and the TV's arrival also ushers in a bit of a new branding era. All of its actual TVs are no longer Fire TVs – they're Ember TVs, with the Fire TV OS pre-loaded on them. That should make things a little simpler for people to understand, and being able to write "Ember Artline" without worrying about the "Fire TV" bit certainly is a small relief.

The Artline makes no secret of its aim, and basically takes one of Amazon's existing top-range QLED displays and then sticks a non-reflective matte coating on the screen, as well as a thinner body and cleverly recessed mounting system to allow you to get it really flat against a wall.

That sets it up to fulfil its primary purpose – looking like a matte painting when you're not using it as a TV. Whether you pick up the 55-inch version for £950 or the 65-inch one for £1,200, you'll get two extras in the package when you order it. The first is that low-profile mounting kit, which is nice to see, and the other is your choice of magnetic "frame" for the TV.

These are super simple to install, too, since they literally just click magnetically onto each edge of the TV to make it look like it has a perfectly-fitting frame. There are a couple of wood-like finishes, then a bunch of colours to choose from, and that should make matching it to your room of choice fairly doable.

Having seen the TVs in person a couple of times now, I've been impressed by their design, especially those magnetic frames. It'll remain to be seen how they stack up to other TVs in the same price bracket, though, with the comparison to OLED sets being particularly interesting. The fact that Dolby Vision and HDR10+ are both present and correct, though, is a great sign.

The TVs are available to order from today in the UK, so you can get your hands on them immediately if you like the cut of their jib. For those simply looking for a new Fire TV stick, though, Amazon has smaller news on that front, too.

It has a new version of its entry-level Fire TV Stick HD – and for £40 you'll get a great 1080p experience that should be around 30% faster than the last-generation stick in terms of operating speeds. It's also slimmer to more easily fit behind your TV without making it hard to arrange your HDMI ports, which is always nice.

Perhaps the biggest upgrade is the addition of passthrough power through a USB cable, though, letting you get power from your TV instead of needing to plug another wall socket in.

If there's one thing you can rely on in the world of entertainment, at this point, it's that all the biggest and best streaming services will reliably upload a whole heap of new content each and every week. From brand-new shows to fan-favourite movies, all these platforms know they have to keep the additions coming or risk people cancelling expensive subscriptions.

That's absolutely as true for Netflix and Prime Video as it is for any other service, and it means that this week, like many before it, is a big one for both streamers. There are some big series coming to Netflix, as well as a massive sporting event for Prime Video, so if you want to check out what your evenings could be in for this week, keep reading!

Beef Season 2

• Streaming on: Netflix from 16 April

Beef was a breakout smash hit for Netflix the first time around, telling a crazy story of escalating anger between Stephen Yeun and Ali Wong, but it also had a pretty darn definite ending. That means this new season of the show picks up an entirely new story, this time starring the ever-excellent Oscar Isaac opposite Carey Mulligan.

Rather than two strangers who fall into a feud, this time they're a married couple who have a properly explosive fight one evening, halted only when they realise that two young employees have witnessed them. That's the inciting incident this time, and it looks like the question of exactly who is "beefing" with whom will be more complicated and multifaceted this time around. Strap in for a tense and painfully personal ride.

Roommates

• Streaming on: Netflix from 17 April

For those looking to sink into the loving embrace of a heartwarming comedy series, Netflix has something a little easier than Beef for us this week, too. Roommates looks like a quintessential coming-of-age story about a relatively shy young woman going to college and hoping to reinvent herself – but finding that her relationship with her new roommate is far from simple.

Expect big laughs based on classic college tropes, but also an exploration of how friendships don't always conform to your expectations. Of course, those of us who lived through university hopefully also know that things aren't always as deep as they seem at that moment, and the show seems to know that – it looks like a really charming setup, so we'll see how it does on release.

UEFA Champions League Quarter-Final: Liverpool vs PSG

• Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video from 7PM on 14 April (in the UK)

This is a big fat game of football, and no mistake – Liverpool face an uphill struggle to avoid going out of the Champions League to French reigning champions PSG for the second year in a row. The Reds lost the first leg by two goals in Paris, and while they have the ultimate pedigree for comebacks in this competition, their squad isn't in the best shape.

Prime Video gets to pick the game it wants each Tuesday from the Champions League, so this is its only game from the round, but it's a wise choice given how games at Anfield can go. Put money on Liverpool losing, but don't be surprised if there are a couple of interesting twists along the way.

Amazon is playing catch-up when it comes to cloud gaming. While its Luna service launched in the US four years ago, it only recently started to live up to its potential at the tail end of last year.

That's after a much-needed refresh and relaunch, with AAA games being added to the free roster for Prime members, family party games, and a widening of supported devices.

However, while the service has improved to attract new Prime members to give it a try, earlier adopters have been dealt a less than welcome blow – games bought through the service since its original debut will no longer work from 10 June 2026.

That's because Amazon has ditched support for third-party game stores. Indeed, it will no longer allow any Luna player to purchase games to play on the platform. The only Luna games available to members going forward will be those on its curated game catalogue.

Players who have already purchased games in the past will still be able to access them until the deadline day in June, but even they will become inaccessible.

That has naturally upset many players who have purchased titles through Amazon, from the likes of EA, Ubisoft and GOG. Amazon has also ditched its Bring Your Own Library features, which allowed you to stream other compatible EA, Ubisoft and GOG games.

And it has closed both the Ubisoft+ and Jackbox Games add-on subscriptions.

However, it's worth noting that there is still a way to play games purchased through Luna over the cloud, even after the forthcoming deadline.

How to play games purchased on Amazon Luna after they are removed

Although you purchased your games through the Luna platform, you will still be able to play them on a PC if you have one, as they will still be assigned to your EA, Ubisoft and GOG accounts.

But the better news is that you should also still be able to play the majority of them over the cloud on most of the same devices. That's because Nvidia GeForce Now supports both GOG and Ubisoft's own games store.

Sadly, you can't play games bought digitally from EA (or EA via Luna) on GeForce Now, but if you link your GOG and Ubisoft accounts to GeForce Now, many compatible titles will be available to you.

In addition, if you don't already have a GeForce Now account you can sign up and play for free, with the entry tier available at no cost. That gives you an hour of playtime per session and up to 1080p 60fps gaming.

Alternatively, you can opt for a Performance (£9.99 / $9.99) or Ultimate (£19.99 / $19.99) subscription with longer playtimes, a wider library of available games, and better graphics.

In my experience, GeForce Now has lower latency than Amazon Luna anyway, and like I said above, you can run it across most of the same devices, including Smart TVs and Fire TV Sticks.

So, while Amazon might be blocking you from playing your purchased games online, you may find Nvidia is your saviour.

Amazon's Luna cloud gaming service might not be as well known as Xbox Cloud Gaming with Game Pass or Nvidia's GeForce Now, but it has one major advantage – it's completely free for millions of Amazon Prime members.

If you pay for Prime, you get Luna and Prime Gaming benefits for nothing. That includes a whole suite of free PC games to download and keep each month, plus access to Amazon's own cloud gaming platform.

Amazon Luna can be played on a Fire TV Stick or Fire TV model as long as you connect a controller via Bluetooth. Alternatively, you can play on mobile, tablet, PC, Mac or Chromebook using a browser, or on select Samsung and LG TVs. You can see the list of compatible devices here.

Some of the games are designed for families and friends to play using a mobile phone as a controller, and there are plenty of big name titles to get stuck into too – including one of the biggest around that has been newly added.

EA Sports FC 26 is now completely free to play on Luna for all Prime members. You just need to head to the dedicated app or web browser hub, click on the game and away you go.

Amazon's own Luna controller will work, as well as any other Bluetooth gamepad. I use an Xbox Wireless Controller connected to my Fire TV Stick 4K Max myself, but there are plenty of cheaper alternatives, too.

EA Sports FC 26 is the latest in the series that replaced FIFA after a falling out between EA and football's governing body. It allows you to play as just about every major football club from around the world, including men's and women's, plus international teams.

I personally prefer to play online against others through Ultimate Team, but there are plenty of single-player modes and options too.

There are plenty of other games available to play for free via Luna too, including Hogwarts Legacy – the RPG set in the world of Harry Potter – and the excellent supernatural horror, Alan Wake II. Also, as Amazon holds the rights to Tomb Raider, you can make your way through the many adventures of Lara Croft.

Just head to the dedicated Amazon Luna homepage to find out more.

Amazon has confirmed that support for certain Kindle models is coming to an end, meaning those models will no longer be able to buy, borrow or download content from Kindle Store. The move will mean that some older hardware will only have limited functionality.

The official date for support to end is 20 May 2026 and from that date onwards, there will be no Kindle Store access on some models of Kindle and Kindle Fire.

Those owners affected should receive an email from Amazon detailing the changes, but also offering a discount code for those who want to buy a new model. This will allow 20% off the price of a new Kindle – while a £15 book credit will also be added to your account.

The list of device affected includes some of the old models that Amazon offers, so the company estimates that this will only affect 3% of users, who could be using a device that's as old as 18 years.

The Kindle models that will lose support were released between 14 and 18 years ago and the list is as follows:

• Kindle 1st Generation (2007)
• Kindle DX and DX Graphite (2009 and 2010)
• Kindle Keyboard (2010)
• Kindle 4 (2011)
• Kindle Touch (2011)
• Kindle 5 (2012)
• Kindle Paperwhite 1st Generation (2012)

The Kindle Fire models impacted includes:

• Kindle Fire 1st Gen (2011)
• Kindle Fire 2nd Gen (2012)
• Kindle Fire HD 7 (2012)
• Kindle Fire HD 8.9 (2012)

While the end of support will come as a blow to a small number of owners, it's far in excess of typical smartphones and likely to be well beyond the lifespan of the average laptop.

The longevity partly comes down to the Kindle's simple approach to its task – as it's specifically for reading, the pace of change is slower than on many other types of device.

However, things have moved on and the Kindle has changed dramatically in the intervening years. Displays are larger, they all now offer front illumination to allow for easy reading in low light condition, while the designs are more refined.

The cheapest model is the Kindle (11th Generation), which is currently £74.99 on Amazon, while the model I recommend as a big user of the Kindle myself is the Paperwhite (12th generation), now £159.99 on Amazon. This has a larger screen with better lighting.

Those owners who want to keep their existing device will find that they can't download new content, but books downloaded already can still be accessed and read. There will still be access to all content through the Kindle smartphone app and on the web, too.

For owners of Kindle Fire tablets, it's only the Kindle functionality that's affected, other Amazon services will continue to be available.

As I said – all those affected should receive an email informing them of the changes, along with the details of the discount code.

Feel the heat when you sleep? Simba has come up with a mattress solution that’s cooling, affordable and exclusively available on Amazon. The new Simba Simbatex Cool Mattress is made of graphite-infused foam that keeps you cool and supported throughout the night – and prices start at just £349!

If you tend to sweat and overheat during the night, a cooling mattress could be the answer to your problems. The way mattresses do this is by increasing the airflow in its materials which makes it more breathable and less likely to trap heat within the construction.

This is exactly what Simba has done with its Simbatex Cool Mattress, an all-foam mattress which you can only buy on Amazon – that’s right, not even Simba’s own website has this new model. With a medium level of firmness, the Simba Simbatex Cool Mattress is 23cm deep which works to support and cradle your body.

Moving away from Simba’s traditional hybrid construction, the Simba Simbatex Cool Mattress is only made from foam. Featuring high density and Simbatex foams, the mattress has an open structure to provide five times more airflow than standard memory foam. The cooling foam layer is also infused with graphite to dispel heat away from the body while preventing build-up.

The foam base of the Simba Simbatex Cool Mattress offers seven support zones so it keeps each part of your body comfortable, aligns your spine and reduces aches and pains. Simba states that the Simba Simbatex Cool Mattress is good for all sleep positions, and it’s especially supportive for the hips and shoulders.

The Simba Simbatex Cool Mattress is finished with a soft, knitted cover which is breathable and removable and washable in a washing machine. It looks similar to Simba’s other mattresses and has handles on the sides so you can lift, flip and turn it easily.

Cooling mattresses seem to be Simba’s main focus this year, as the brand recently launched the Simba Cool Foam Mattress Topper, which is designed to sit atop your existing mattress. But if it’s a whole new mattress you want and you’re on a tight budget, the new Simba Simbatex Cool Mattress looks like an affordable, impressive option.

Exclusively available on Amazon, prices on the Simba Simbatex Cool Mattress start at £349 in a single size. It’s available in single, small double, double and king sizes.

April is upon us, but thankfully we've all been able to put April Fool's behind us by this point – we're now fully into the swing of the month, and here in the UK we're basking in a part of the year that brings a bunch of bank holidays with it. So, if you're mourning your return to work after the long Easter weekend, you might want some streaming action to take the edge off.

Anyone trying to recuperate from a heavy weekend of festivities or family exposure will probably be in the market for some new shows and movies, so I've done the hard yards for you all. I've scoured the listing of everything coming to Netflix and Prime Video both, and that's left me ideally placed to point you at the three highlights you need to know about this week. Check them out below, with trailers for your convenience.

The Boys Season 5

• Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video from 8 April

This might be the single biggest streaming launch of the month, let alone just this week, with millions of fans waiting rapt for the conclusion of The Boys, which has been wowing us all with profane and hyper-violent visions for years now. The superhero show has rewritten the rules about what we expect from adult shows on streaming platforms, and promises to keep doing that in its fifth and final season.

There are some huge showdowns in the pipeline, but while the B plots are plenty interesting, let's be honest; we're all here to see both whether Homelander dies, and how he does, if so. It'll be one of the most cathartic moments in recent TV history if it happens, but this show being the way it is, don't bet against some crushing character deaths along the way.

Big Mistakes

• Streaming on: Netflix from 9 April

Dan Levy's new project with Netflix has a really interesting trailer that made my ears perk up very directly. Like the excellent and much-loved Schitt's Creek before it, Big Mistakes will take a look at a dysfunctional family that's forced to work together when it hits hard times. While it's also a comedy, though, this new show does look a little darker in tone.

It'll see Levy's character and his sister get into very hot water when they fall into a world of criminality, with some organised criminals and others being rather less formal in their approach. That's going to make for some harem-scarem moments and a caperish tone that seems potentially very fun, all with what looks like a bigger budget than Levy's had before. The signs are very good, basically.

Sheng Wang: Purple

• Streaming on: Netflix from 7 April

While new shows and big launches are great, sometimes when a weeknight comes around, you just want to get a takeout and curl up with some nice, gentle comedy. Sheng Wang's work definitely falls into that category – he'll have you chuckling along nicely but is unlikely to head into massively complicated territory.

Of course, that's just going from his past work, and there's every chance he does something surprising during this comedy special filmed by Ali Wong. The trailer makes it clear that it's going to be lovely, though, full of jokes about adult life in all its complexities and idiosyncrasies.

After a few months in which the US has had them ahead of us, Amazon has now confirmed that the two most recent launches in its Kindle lineup, the refreshed 2025 Kindle Scribe and Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, are about to be available in the UK at last.

They'll both hit Amazon UK on 8 April, and you can actually pre-order each one if you like, as of today. The new Kindle Scribe is here, while the Scribe Colorsoft is here.

If you've tapped on that second link, you'll probably have instantly seen what is realistically the biggest factor when it comes to the Scribe Colorsoft – its absolutely whacking price, at £569.99. We knew it would be expensive since US pricing has been a matter of fact for months, but that's still an awfully big wedge to drop on any Kindle, to be fair.

The Scribe Colorsoft does exactly what it says on the tin, by bringing the tech behind Amazon's first colour Kindle displays to its largest version, letting you highlight, take notes, and read books all in colour.

I've tested the standard Kindle Colorsoft and found that the colour e-reader screen is pretty impressive, although there's no getting away from its compromises in terms of brightness and vividness compared to standard tablets of any description.

Frankly, even the standard Scribe requires a pretty hefty outlay at £449.99, but there's no doubt that its redesign is a pretty massive success from where I'm sitting. It's instantly modernised the Scribe very nicely, making the bezels the same size all around the screen to make it far more pleasing on the eye.

That 11-inch display is also the biggest in the Kindle lineup, so it's great for larger-format books and texts, including comics, albeit without the sort of super-responsive display or OS that you get from something like the Honor MagicPad 4, which is pricier but also much more of a traditional tablet.

For those who want the Scribe experience for a bit less, Amazon says that a version of the Kindle Scribe without a front light is on its way, too, although it doesn't have a precise launch date. It'll start at £389.99, so you save £60 by skipping on the lighting (which might be quite a big compromise, to be honest).

We're hoping to get hands-on with these new Scribes to see how they stack up to the other Kindles we've tested, so keep an eye out for T3's reviews in the next few weeks, to learn more about how they fare.

Call me a snob, but I'm always reassured when a big new show starts to get some publicity, and it's based on a celebrated novel. Sure, there's nothing stopping showrunners from accidentally butchering a literary classic, but it tends to be a good foundation from which to build, if they have a brilliant story to adapt.

That's exactly how you'd describe Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits, which is now coming to Amazon Prime Video as a Spanish-language show that could become something of a sensation if it matches the success of the source novel. It has a first trailer, now, and it's immediately obvious that this show will not be compromising in terms of its ambitions.

The show will tell us the story of the Trueba family over the course of generations, starting with one gifted young girl who has premonitions that lead her to accept a life she might not actually love living. We'll spool forward through time as the family's fortunes and trials give us a window into the way Chile, the country it's based in, is changing.

It's a story that brings in some famous figures, weaving its way through real-life history while telling a tale that at times blends the fantastical and the real, but at its core are a series of remarkable women who have things to learn from those who came before them. In fact, it's pretty obvious from this trailer that things will get pretty heavy for basically all of them before the show's done.

What'll be reassuring to fans of the novel is that it looks like Amazon isn't cutting corners when it comes to this adaptation. The sets, costumes and cast are all pretty immaculate from the looks of things, and it's rare to see one show offer up so many distinctive and different settings in one go.

It will also be fascinating to see if we're shown the story chronologically, or whether it'll jump back and forth in time to tease out our understanding of the characters more gradually. I'm loathe to investigate how the novel's structure, since I have every intention of reading it at some point. Regardless, the show will be streaming from 29 April, in about a month's time.

Another month is upon us, and I can't be the only one hoping that April really does bring the change in temperatures that March briefly flirted with – it's Spring here in the UK, but it hasn't really felt like that in the last week. Of course, fresh days and nights can make for the perfect atmosphere in which to indulge in some great streaming binges.

The month promises a lot of new additions to all the best streaming services out there, and Prime Video is no exception, as you'd imagine. I've looked through the long, long lists of what's being added, to pick out five varied and interesting highlights for you to keep an eye on this April.

The Boys Season 5

• Streaming from: 8 April

The Boys might just be Amazon's biggest show right now – or it's the one that captured the zeitgest best, at least. This superhero satire has kept lightfooted and managed to stay deeply relevant as the US has become more and more authoritarian, and its main villain (Homelander) has become more and more of a Trump analogue over time.

This final season promises a bloody denouement, and it's likely that some major characters won't survive the long-awaited confrontation between the ragtag Boys and their super-powered quarry. There will be moments that absolutely shock you, since that's always guaranteed with this show, but don't be surprised if its ending is also quite emotional.

Kevin

• Streaming from: 20 April

You might not have heard all that much about Kevin, and the show doesn't have a full trailer at the time of writing, but the above reveal of its title sequence is really promising. Amazon says this will be the story of a cat caught in the middle of a breakup, given a very different twist.

Kevin moves into a local pet rescue in Astoria, Queens after his owners part ways, and finds himself in a group of cast-offs and misfits that doesn't have a clear place in the world. Unsurprisingly, the show might just give us a glimpse of how these sorts of personalities can thrive and support each other, which seems like it could make for heartwarming stuff.

The House of the Spirits

• Streaming from: 29 April

Amazon's playing its cards quite close to its chest on a few of its April launches, and The House of the Spirits is another project that we haven't yet seen in motion (as I write this, anyway). This show adapts a modern classic of a novel by Isabel Allende and tells a sweeping, multi-generational story.

It follows the Trueba family through three generations, with each experiencing pivotal moments that tie into what happens further down the timeline, and emotions running high in all three slices of time. Showing how patriarchy and toxic masculinity can do damage over time, but also be pushed back against, don't be surprised if it's a word-of-mouth hit.

UEFA Champions League

• Streaming on: 7, 14, 28 April

Prime Video has made itself a major player in sports broadcasting, and getting hold of one Champions League match per matchweek has played a big part in that – especially since it gets to choose the biggest game each week. This April its offering will be arguably the best it's ever had, since we're into the Quarter-final phase which sees some giant teams face off.

In fact, across the month you'll get a couple of Quarter-finals and a Semi-final to watch, so this will be a pretty high-value month for football fans with Prime subscriptions. The fixture picks aren't confirmed yet, but they will doubtless be very soon.

Nippon Sangoku

• Streaming from: 5 April

This animated series from Prime Video will open up the month, and I'm including it because it has an art style I can't say I've ever encountered before – one that's perhaps more lifelike and almost realistic than many other shows you might have watched in your day.

It's a sort of historical fantasy set in the Japanese Sengoku Period, focussing on a cast of characters as they seek to have a massive impact on the future of the country. From the trailer I've embedded above, it looks like we'll get courtly intrigue and massive battles, along with a wide range of memorable figures to meet.

Just about everyone knows by now that Alexa+ has arrived in the UK, bringing with it a new and improved version of Alexa that’s designed to become one of the best AI assistants yet. It’s left many people eagerly waiting, especially after Amazon stated that the rollout would begin last week. However, for those who still haven’t seen it arrive on their device, things have felt a little unclear.

Over the past few days, it’s become pretty clear that Amazon is prioritising its newer models, particularly the range of Echo devices that launched last September. Owners of devices like the Echo Dot Max and Echo Show 8 (4th gen) received the update email almost immediately after the announcement, prompting them to start the update through the Alexa app. In some cases, Alexa has even initiated the process itself by asking users whether they’re ready to update.

However, for those who haven’t heard anything yet – or who received the email saying Alexa+ was coming but still don’t have access to the update – you’re probably wondering what’s going on.

As mentioned, it appears Amazon is rolling the update out to newer devices first, which is likely why many other models haven’t received it yet. Amazon has already confirmed that only a small number of devices won’t be compatible, but the unsupported models are mostly older devices released between 2014 and 2018, so the majority of users should still be eligible.

What this means is that if your device is newer than those early models but older than the latest Echo lineup, you may just need to wait a little longer. The rollout is happening in stages, and Amazon appears to be expanding access gradually. The good news is that the company is actively working on it, so if your device isn’t too old, you likely won’t have to wait much longer.

There's no such thing as an off week in the world of streaming. Netflix and Amazon (along with all the other best streaming services out there) know that they need to keep up a constant flow of content if they're going to keep people subscribed during a cost-of-living crisis.

If you're eyeing up this final full week of March and wondering what might be coming down the pike for you to watch, look no further. I've combed through the listings of what's being added to both Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, and picked out three highlights that are most interesting – you'll find them below with trailers for you to check out, too.

Detective Hole

• Streaming on: 26 March on Netflix

This one's been a long time coming for Netflix, and I can easily remember writing stories about the show when all we had was a moody teaser image and confirmation that it was being filmed. Now, the series is finally on the cusp of release, and promises to be one of the darker takes on detective fiction that you could care to find in the streaming era.

Based on Jo Nesbo's series of novels, the show will centre around troubled but gifted detective Harry Hole, as he tries to solve a grisly case but also starts to uncover truths about his colleagues and friends that trouble him even further. This should be almost gothic in how dark it gets, but also compelling in its plotting.

Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen

• Streaming on: 26 March on Netflix

More darkness comes Netflix's way on the very same day that Detective Hole arrives, making this a doozy of a week for those who like to feel unsettled while they watch their evening's streaming. Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen is more of an explicitly-marketed horror show, though, and looks like it could get pretty harrowing by the time you watch it all.

The show's been executive-produced by the Duffer brothers, of Stranger Things fame, but where that show's scariness was tempered by levity and its young cast, this one looks like it'll commit more to being purely terrifying. Telling the story of an ill-fated couple's marriage, it's got creepy family vibes painted all over it.

Pretty Lethal

• Streaming on: 26 March on Amazon Prime Video

To round out a week of scariness, Prime Video's getting in on the same act, on the same day, too. That said, its Pretty Lethal trailers so far make it really clear that the movie will lean way further into horror-comedy, making it perhaps the best choice for those who want to see tension broken by funny lines and silly moments.

The movie has a buzzy young cast of actresses all playing gifted ballerinas who find themselves in a crazy situation when they travel to a showcase in Europe. There, they discover that they're in over their heads and have to brutally fight their way out to safety, and that means some crazy action scenes and wisecracks, at a minimum.

Amazon could be about to have a second crack at the Fire Phone, with the company said to be looking at a new device – known internally as Transformer.

The Fire Phone first launched in 2014, but was discontinued a year later and widely regarded as a complete flop. One of big reasons it failed was because of apps, or a lack thereof, with Apple and Android having established dominance.

The latest report from Reuters suggests that Amazon is revisiting the idea with reports from people within Amazon's devices and services unit. The aim, it seems, is to provide a level of synchronicity through the day with Alexa's experience in the home.

The new phone is likely being planned to address Alexa+'s biggest weakness: it doesn't have a home on mobile devices. While the Alexa app will give access to Alexa+, iPhone users are more likely to use Siri and Android users Gemini rather than Alexa+, leaving a big hole in Amazon's AI experience.

It's thought that the new Amazon phone will prioritise Amazon shopping, Prime Video, Prime Music and other services, much like Amazon's Fire tablets, with AI at the core. It's thought that AI could eliminate the need for an app store, by offering services directly through Alexa.

It might be the case that this isn't a full smartphone, but an AI companion device, with inspiration said to have come from the Light Phone, which is a minimalist device, the antithesis of the modern smartphone.

That might see Amazon's new phone acting as a device that can complete a range of AI tasks, with many of Amazon's services behind the experience. It's not yet known what form the device will take or what platform it will run on.

Will Fire Phone be a Fire Brooch instead?

The issue is, previous AI devices have had something of a rocky ride, with the Rabbit R1 and Humane AI pin struggling to gain interest with customers. While these AI devices promise to simplify things using AI, they're secondary to smartphones and just become another half-baked device to carry.

The same fate might befall Amazon's second attempt at a phone, if it's not a single device that does everything.

With the cost of mobile devices set to rise, there's a prediction that we're about to go into a smartphone slump. Amazon's best bet might be to create a device that can competitively undercut existing rivals on price, while offering a complete Android experience so users don't have to compromise.