Ever since British tech startup Nothing sprang up five years ago, its focus has largely been on releasing quality devices, with high-level components but at very competitive prices.

That has permeated its Android phones, earbuds and, more recently, over-ear headphones. The Nothing Headphone (1) was slightly different, in that it was more at the premium end of the spectrum – not least thanks to its partnership with audiophile brand KEF. But ultimately Nothing still managed to undercut similarly spec'ed rivals.

Now it looks like it's back for another stab, but this time it seems to be taking on the big boys directly.

The Nothing Headphone (1) Pro has leaked, with a report by Dealabs claiming that a follow-up is imminent. And considering it's specifications and, most significantly, the suggested price, we could be looking at the brand taking the next step.

According to the French tech site's sources, the Headphone (1) Pro will feature a triple-driver architecture, with bass, precision and XMEMS type treble drivers. This has the potential for a more refined and solid sound performance, to compete with the likes of Sony, Bose and Bowers & Wilkins.

It'll have Hi-Res Audio and LDAC support, it's claimed, along with spatial audio and sound customisation capabilities. And there will be improved noise cancellation, with real-time ANC using 10 microphones to block ambient sounds more effectively.

Battery life is said to last up to 60 hours of playback in the headphones themselves, while Bluetooth 6.1 will be on board for wireless streaming. Physical touch controls will also feature on the headset's aluminium shell, the the earcups will be covered by scratch-resistant glass. IP52 water and dust proofing rounds up the leaked specs.

Perhaps the most surprising element to the early information is its price. It is claimed that the Nothing Headphone (1) Pro will cost $399 / €349. That's also likely to translate to £349 in the UK too.

That's naturally a step up on the £299 of the original Headphone (1) and is considerably more than the Headphone (a) price, which started at £149.

Indeed, if genuine, it puts the Headphone (1) Pro on a par with the Sony WH-1000XM6 and Bose QC Ultra 2 alternatives. So it'll be interesting to hear them in action to find out whether they can match or even beat those hugely popular pairs.

We have a few weeks to wait before then though – Dealabs says that the launch won't be until 29 September. We'll keep our ears to the ground until then.

Apple introduced variable aperture as the highlight feature of the new iPhone 18 Pro, underlining that the camera is still a hugely important part of a smartphone. You don't need to tell Honor that though, as it has started teasing its next flagship phone with some new camera features of its own.

Introducing the Magic 9 Pro Max, which is due to be officially launched on 28 September in China, Honor is leaning into its partnership with Arri – a veteran of the cinema industry. Its camera systems were used for films like The Revenant, 1917, Gravity, and more.

The pairing first came to light with the development of Honor's Robot Phone, but it seems that Arri's experience will also benefit the 2027 flagship phone too.

The Honor Magic 9 Pro Max was shown off at the Venice International Film Festival, with Arri branding on the back of the device in the camera array, while it has also been teased on Weibo.

Although the phone physically has adopted the rear segmentation that was ushered in for the iPhone 17 Pro, using a separate rear panel and huge camera island, the layout of the camera's lenses seems to have drawn inspiration from an old Arriflex camera.

The result is a massive round blob of camera sitting next to two other lenses. It's bold, but I have to say I kind of like it. Looking closer, it seems that much of that larger surround is just there to decorate the telephoto.

From the video on Weibo we learn a little more about Honor's accessories for this camera, with what looks like a clip on cover to support a larger telephoto extension – the sort of thing we've seen from Vivo with the X300 Ultra or the Oppo Find X9 Pro.

We know that the Honor Magic 9 Pro Max will have three cameras developed with Arri, and what it looks like. And we also know there will be a fetching green colour. That's about the end of the official information that we currently have.

So let's move onto speculation: the timing of the launch suggests that it will be equipped with Qualcomm's next-gen Snapdragon hardware, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 – or the rumoured "pro" version of the chip that might also appear.

That hardware is expected later in September and typically Chinese brands immediately announce new phones using it straight after launch.

A wider global launch is likely to follow, probably around February 2027.

An additional leak from Digital Chat Station suggests that the Honor Magic 9 Pro Max has an 8,800mAh battery, which is absolutely huge.

Elsewhere, a video of the new phone has also been shared, which appears to be official, showing the design a little more, while there seem to be plenty sharing the design online already, likely part of Honor's teaser campaign.

Included around the lenses of the camera, it's revealed that there's a 200-megapixel cam, with a 1/1.28in type sensor and 3 degrees of OIS, while it also says there will be a 200-megapixel, 1/1.4in sensor with 4 degrees OIS – it's not clear which cameras the details apply to, but it's likely to be the main and the telephoto.

All will be revealed on 28 September, but it looks like the Honor Magic 9 Pro Max is going to be a serious phone. Especially for fans of photography.

Motorola could be the next brand to release a wider folding phone, looking to quickly shift its strategy from flip to fold.

It launched its first book-type folding phone in 2026, the Motorola Razr Fold, having first re-entered the folding phone phone market in 2019 with the rebirth of its iconic Razr line.

While Samsung has led the charge in larger format devices, Motorola has been reluctant to move from flip to fold – and has seen success with its Razr models in some markets, particularly the US.

But as Apple has just announced the iPhone Duo, its £2,000 folding phone, Motorola hasn't missed the chance to point out that it's been in the folding phone game for a long time, and highlight its "next move".

Posting on social channels, the brand has run with the tagline "New in their hands. Iconic in ours", leading with the V3 Razr from 2004, before jumping to the 2019 version and then through iterations of the flip phone until the 2026 Razr Fold.

At that point something interesting happens, because a silhouette of a device appears which is a fold style, but shorter, looking like an obvious tease for Motorola's next folding phone.

With Apple joining the folding phone market, it's likely that everyone in the folding phone segment will adopt the format.

Samsung launched its wider folding phone in July 2026 – the Galaxy Z Fold 8 – while Huawei was there slightly earlier with the Pura X, and Xiaomi is also entering the fray with the Xiaomi 18 Fold.

Motorola, having just made the transition to a larger folding device, doesn't want to be left behind.

Samsung currently dominates the global market for folding phones with a 40% share, according to recent Counterpoint research. Huawei – thanks to its profile in China – took 30% of the share in 2025, Motorola, Honor and Google all had a slice of the pie.

It's expected that Apple's entry into the folding phone market will not only drive a lot of attention to folding phones, but reinforce the advantages of a wider device, rather than the larger-format devices that open with an almost square display.

With expansion expected across the segment, brands will want to make sure they have an iPhone Duo alternative to benefit from the wave of enthusiasm that's likely to come.

It's not clear when Motorola might launch this new phone. Typical launch windows – like Lenovo Innovation World that just took place in Berlin – have passed. It's likely then that Motorola will cast its eye on CES 2027.

In 2026, Motorola showcased the new Signature and Fold models in Las Vegas, before releasing them a few months later.

Building a compact laptop in 2026 is a complicated thing. Spikes in component prices have turned overall pricing into a nightmarish gauntlet. Consumers are now more demanding than ever in an age of AI agents that hoover up computing capacity and browsers that chew up RAM like there's no tomorrow.

I've tested a few of the best laptops this year that already feel as though a last-minute price hike killed off their potential, but I think Asus has just about avoided that fate with this Snapdragon-powered Zenbook 14. This is a great laptop that I think stands pretty proud in its entry-level specification, with a design that makes it super easy to cart about too.

Price and Availability

The Zenbook 14 comes in quite a few flavours, which is no surprise based on previous models, but I've had the Qualcomm Snapdragon X version, which is available to order now, with shipping generally estimated for late September 2026.

That version starts nice and competitively at £799 here in the UK and $799 in the US, although it's worth knowing this comes with 8GB of RAM; to up that to 16GB you have to jump to £/$1,199.99, which is quite sizeable. I'll expand more on the specs below.

Design and Specs

The Zenbook 14 is a familiar machine in most main ways – Asus hasn't ripped up the design principles it's been working from for the last few years. In fact, it shouldn't shock anyone to learn that the Zenbook 14 is exactly like a smaller version of the Zenbook A16 that I tested earlier this year.

This means that Ceraluminum takes centre stage again – Asus' in-house branding for ceramic aluminium, the main material on the outside of the laptop's casing. It's a really interesting material that has grown on me over time, and in a weird way I like it better on this smaller laptop than I did on the larger one.

It's miles lighter than most metal finishes, but with a matte, almost dusty finish that I think looks really attractive in the blue colour of the model that I've been testing. It also doesn't attract fingerprints too badly, unlike most other laptops on the market. This also keeps the laptop super light at just 1.15kg by my scale.

In terms of design, once you open up the laptop, you'll be greeted by a 14-inch OLED display running a 1080p resolution – which is a panel type that I'm really pleased to see at this starting price.

It also has a generously proportioned keyboard with decent spacing between the keys, and a big trackpad to go with it.

The left edge of the laptop houses a few ports – an HDMI, two USB-C with power delivery, and a 3.5mm jack for audio. The right edge, meanwhile, has a single USB-A port. I'd have loved to see an SD card slot here, too, but I'm sure there are a whole heap of people who don't mind that omission, either.

The laptop runs on a Snapdragon X (X1-26-100) 8-core chipset, which is far from the newest of Qualcomm's chips, but remains a reliable performer. At this price, I think it's a fair choice from Asus.

To go with that, you'll start with 8GB of RAM, as mentioned, and that's a little stingy, for all that RAM is a particularly sticky subject right now where pricing is concerned. The starting spec also has a 256GB SSD, and upgrading to 16GB of RAM does at least bump this to 512GB, too.

I tested that beefier, specced-up version, so I can't speak directly to the performance of the 8GB variant, but we realistically know that 8GB is starting to feel like a stretch for the AI age on Windows.

Regardless, the Zenbook 14 comes with just about the precise specs that I'd expect at this point in 2026, and a design that I think succeeds in some ways that other more heavyweight rivals don't quite match.

Performance and Display

How does that Snapdragon chipset actually fare when in use, then? Well, with a 16GB configuration, I've found the Zenbook 14 a super zippy performer that's happily coped with everything I've thrown its way as part of my working day.

That's included plenty of image editing, juggling multiple browsers with a dozen or so tabs, streaming video and letting all of these run in the background the whole time. That's a pretty good indication of the multi-tasking potential that this machine harbours.

I've also been impressed by its cooling, which really hasn't been too loud and hasn't stopped the laptop from getting burning hot like some others I've used in the last couple of years.

Perhaps the laptop's biggest strength, especially in that entry-price configuration, is the OLED display. It's a real looker, elevating this laptop nicely into a more premium-feeling bracket. The bezels are impressively slim on the right and left, too.

One slight downside is that it's only a 60Hz panel, but that's not much of a gripe for regular productivity use, even if it's still worth knowing about before you take the plunge on buying.

Battery life is really solid here, too – Asus says it can stretch to 30+ hours, and while I haven't eked out quite that much from it, it's consistently gone through a workday happily enough, which is the most important threshold.

Sound is also impressively solid – the stereo speaker system won't have you writing home, but it's better than it could have been, and ensures you won't be wincing while watching videos, either.

Verdict

It's hard to poke many holes in the Zenbook 14, which does exactly what it says on the tin – and makes a lot of sense as a result.

It's a great little laptop for those who need something to power their productivity and work, with a lightweight design that's a little unlike the majority of alternatives (in a good way).

It's a shame that upping the ante from 8GB base to 16GB RAM requires such a steep jump in price, because that configuration is the more attractive for future-proofing against further Windows performance issues.

Still, the entry asking price of the 8GB variant means that Asus is neither embarrassing any of the competition nor itself – it's basically exactly the price you'd expect to pay right now. Which marks this out as a very viable option for your shopping list.

Also consider

If you want a Windows laptop that's light and sleek, and you have similar money to spend on it, you'd probably better check out the Dell XPS 13 that launched recently. Its starting price has already dipped lower thanks to an early sale, which makes this design marvel even more tempting.

Of course, to spend a little less and jump into the Apple ecosystem, you could also turn to the MacBook Neo, which promised to tear up the market before getting a price hike of its own. Even with that, it's still a very solid buy for a MacBook that should be good for quite some time, at a price that doesn't cause too much stress.

I've always been a massive fan of rhythm games over the years, kickstarted mainly by a 90s infatuation with PaRappa the Rapper. So when the Guitar Hero and Rock Band phase kicked off in the mid-2000s, I was really in my element.

I even have my original and special edition guitars, still.

However, like most gaming trends, it was bound to trail off eventually, and while Activision had a second stab at it in 2015, the days of wanging around a truncated plastic axe were over. Until now.

It seems we are about to enter a new era of physical gaming. The free, open source PC game Clone Hero is gaining traction and this December, a brand new release will arrive for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC and Nintendo Switch 2 to get you rocking again.

Stage Tour is a bone fide successor to the guitar and band games of the 2000s. Indeed, it's from RedOctane Games – the team behind the original Guitar Hero – and the heritage is right there on the screen and in your hands.

I got to play a few tracks during Gamescom a couple of weeks ago and can safely say that, even on an early build, it has all the hallmarks of an excellent revival for the genre.

I chose to play using the Kramer wireless guitar controller that comes bundled with the game, but was told that you can also use older Guitar Hero and Rock Band alternatives if you can connect them to your system. That should be easy on PC, maybe not so much on PS5, say.

There will be additional compatible controllers too, made by CRKD (the accessory manufacturer behind the Switch Nitro Deck). They're licensed by Gibson too, and have different designs depending on your system.

And that's not all... Stage Tour also works with drums, and the official kit to be released was in my demo as well. It can even come with symbols, and thanks to a modular design, you can replace any element if it wears out.

But I digress – I'm useless on the drums (always have been), so I stuck to what I remembered most fondly and strummed along to Smash Mouth's All Star like it was the noughties all over again.

Needless to say, I was rusty. Choosing a medium level was foolhardy for my first such play in over a decade, and I soon remembered how difficult it can be to whip my fingers across four fret buttons (let alone the five on offer). One thing I noticed though, that was markedly different this time around, is that the trademark latency and lag of yesteryear has seemingly vanished.

TVs and wireless technologies have dramatically improved in just a few years, let along 20 or so. The game therefore felt significantly more responsive. I was still rubbish, but I couldn't blame my tools anymore.

Also impressive was that you can play the game using a conventional gamepad, too. So if you have friends over but just one guitar, you can still play multiplayer. Not that it's any easier – or as much fun – but it does work effectively.

I didn't get to see many of the game modes that are promised for launch, including the single-player campaign, but there's certainly a lot of hindsight being employed in the development of Stage Tour. It will seemingly be packed with so much content, I can see it appealing for a long while.

And there's no Guitar Hero Live subscription element, hurrah! You get scores of tracks available at launch – with 48 already announced and many more to come. There's also something for everyone, from the recently revealed Parklife by Blur, through the pop of Olivia Rodrigo's Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl and Ed Sheeran's Bad Habits, all the way to classic rock from the likes of Def Leppard and Metallica.

From what I've seen so far, Stage Tour is packed with potential and, most importantly, fun. It will be interesting to see if the modern gamer is willing once more to pick up a plastic accessory and wiggle around in front of the telly, but one thing's for sure – from my brief demo play – the joy while doing so is thoroughly rewarding.

Stage Tour will be available from 10 December 2026 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC and Nintendo Switch 2. You will be able to buy the game separately or with a guitar bundle from multiple retailers.

Sony has announced the new batch of games coming to the PS Plus game catalogue over the next few weeks, and it's a very solid lineup.

PS Plus Premium and Extra members will be able to play WWE 2K26 at no extra cost from Tuesday 15 September, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

As well as the best WWE wrestling game in years, which is exclusive to PS5 and PS5 Pro, subscribers will also be able to download and play Ball x Pit – one of my absolute favourite indie games right now.

A cunning blend of Arkanoid, tower defence, shoot-em-up and town building, the roguelite sees to take on ever increasing waves of monsters using charged, bouncing balls.

It's crazily addictive and simple to pick up and play, so is a must for every collection, I feel. It'll be available in the game catalogue from 22 September in the UK, US and Japan (15 September everywhere else).

Also coming to PS5 is Runescape: Dragonwilds (15 September). It's an open-world co-op survival game set in the Runescape universe and is brand new to PlayStation.

Another particular favourite, Dungeons of Hinterberg, will arrive on 29 September in the UK, US and Japan. The action-RPG is packed with puzzles and dungeon quests, and is something of an unsung hero in my eyes.

And then there's Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound – the 2D action-platformer that we've raved about in the past. That'll also be available on the same day.

Finally, PS Plus Premium and Extra members will also soon gain access to Sniper Elite: Resistance, and Slitterhead. While Date Everything! has recently been added, too.

Premium members with a PS5 or PS4 will also get Mega Man X Command Mission, and Metro Redux from 15 September, as part of the classics catalogue.

Although Apple didn't mention it during its iPhone Duo launch presentation, the release date for iOS 27 has been officially revealed.

It appears in the footnotes under the press release for the iPhone 18 Pro, but will be made available for all supported iPhones before that device is made available. It'll be downloadable from next Monday 14 September, in fact.

This includes the new Apple Intelligence features, which will be available for "users with an Apple Intelligence-enabled device set to a supported language". That includes devices in English-speaking countries, plus multiple other regions and languages across Europe and the rest of the world.

The new Siri AI is slightly different. While also available from 14 September, it will launch in beta form for English-language devices only. Apple will then roll out the AI-powered assistant in French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish from October.

Is iPadOS 27 coming too?

It hasn't yet been confirmed, but it is more than likely that iPadOS 27 will also roll out on Monday for iPads, with Apple's other operating systems potentially joining it. Some of them have been known to be staggered in the past though, such as macOS.

As for the new iPhones, the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max models will be available to pre-order from Saturday 12 September, with an on-sale date of 18 September.

Apple's first foldable iPhone – the iPhone Duo – will follow, with pre-orders opening on 16 October for a 23 October release date.

All of the new iPhones will come with iOS 27, Siri AI and Apple Intelligence pre-installed.

Apple has officially unveiled the Apple Watch Series 12, and while it looks broadly familiar, there are some significant changes underneath.

The biggest upgrades focus on health, fitness and Apple Intelligence, with a new sensor system, much more frequent heart-rate tracking, and a Readiness score finally joining the mix.

Here are the six biggest things you need to know.

1. Heart-rate tracking is much more frequent

Series 12 introduces Apple's new Health Sensing System, with larger green LEDs, redesigned photodiodes and an increased electrode surface for ECG readings.

Background heart-rate readings can now be taken every five seconds, which Apple says is 60 times more frequent than before, while HRV can be sampled as often as every five minutes.

Apple also claims the new system offers the “most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable”, based on its own testing against an ECG chest strap.

2. Readiness finally arrives

Apple is also introducing Readiness, which combines recent activity, sleep and vital signs into a daily score.

Apple categorises your status as Recover, Pace Yourself, Ready or Go For It, and the score can change during the day as new data comes in.

3. The S11 chip powers new AI features

Series 12 gets Apple's new S11 chip, which includes CPU, GPU and Neural Engine technology derived from the A20 Pro.

Its always-on processor powers a new group of Audio Intelligence features designed to work directly from your wrist.

4. Siri can rewind conversations

One of the strangest additions is Live Rewind, which lets you double-press the Digital Crown to retrieve and transcribe the previous 15 seconds of speech.

There's also Siri Recap, which can generate summaries and key points from conversations such as meetings, while Sound Recognition can identify things like alarms, sirens and doorbells.

5. Ceramic Apple Watch is back

Series 12 is available in aluminium, titanium and, surprisingly, ceramic.

Aluminium colours include Space Grey, black, light gold and new dark bronze, while ceramic comes in pearl white and night blue.

6. The screen is tougher, but battery life is unchanged

Aluminium Series 12 models now use Ceramic Shield 2, which Apple says makes the front glass 60% tougher than the previous Ion-X glass.

Battery life remains rated at up to 24 hours, however, so the standard Apple Watch still isn't becoming a proper multi-day smartwatch.

The Apple Watch Series 12 starts at $399 / AU$649, with pre-orders open now and availability from 18 September.

Announced alongside the new Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4, Health Age is one of the headline additions to Apple's completely redesigned Health app.

It takes metrics collected by Apple Watch and turns them into an estimate of how your health compares with your chronological age.

It puts Apple in territory already explored by Garmin, which has offered Fitness Age for years.

Oura also provides what's called Cardiovascular Age, and Whoop also has its own version called Whoop Age.

Apple's approach looks particularly comprehensive, though, because Health Age isn't built around a single measurement.

Apple says metrics including VO2 max and sleep can contribute to the calculation, while users can go deeper by adding biomarkers from recent blood tests.

The app shows your Health Age history and breaks down which factors push the figure in either direction.

Apple is going all-in on longevity

Health Age sits in a new Longevity section of the Health app, bringing together information on sleep, movement, and heart health.

The interface uses coloured segments to show how you're performing across different areas, while Apple Intelligence generates summaries and personalised recommendations based on your data.

In the US, Apple Watch users will be able to order a Quest laboratory panel with more than 50 biomarkers for $119, with the results integrated alongside Apple Watch and iPhone data.

Given the sheer number of Apple Watches already sitting on people's wrists, Apple's move into longevity could be the one that pushes the concept firmly into the mainstream.

The redesigned Health app is due to arrive later this year, initially in US English, with additional languages set to follow.

Apple has unveiled the Apple Watch Series 12, and while it looks similar to its predecessors – which was to be expected – there are some exciting updates for the fans of Apple's mainline wearable.

The biggest upgrade is the Health Sensing System, a redesigned sensor array shared with the Apple Watch Ultra 4 that Apple claims significantly increases the amount of heart-rate data the watch can collect throughout the day.

Background heart-rate readings are now taken every five seconds, including while you’re moving around, which Apple says is 60 times more frequent than before.

Heart-rate variability, or HRV, can meanwhile be sampled as often as every five minutes, 24 times more frequently than previously.

Apple has also redesigned the hardware sitting against your wrist, increasing the surface area of the electrodes to improve skin contact during ECG readings.

The photodiodes are now arranged in a ring to capture light more efficiently, using larger, more power-efficient green LEDs for optical heart-rate sensing.

Apple is making a fairly substantial claim about the results, too, saying the new system delivers the “most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable.”

The company says it reached that conclusion after testing the Apple Watch head-to-head against other wearables, using an ECG chest strap as the reference while hundreds of participants ran, cycled and completed HIIT workouts.

It is an Apple study rather than an independent comparison, of course, so we'll see how the Series 12 performs against the latest Garmin, Coros and Polar watches in real-life tests.

Apple Watch finally gets Readiness

More frequent heart-rate and HRV measurements also feed into one of the most significant new fitness features Apple has introduced in years.

Readiness may already be familiar to Garmin, Oura, and Whoop users, but it's a brand-new addition to the Apple Watch.

Each morning, Apple Watch analyses your recent activity, sleep, and vital signs before producing a single score that indicates how much capacity your body has for exercise and everything else the day might throw at it.

Apple groups the results into straightforward recommendations, including Recover, Pace Yourself, Ready, and Go For It.

Apple says your Readiness can change throughout the day as new information comes in, and the result can be viewed either directly on Apple Watch or through the Fitness app on iPhone.

HRV is also being added to the Vitals app, where users will be able to see both overnight and daytime information.

Apple says this should make it easier to spot changes in your physiological state before they show up in your overnight metrics.

The Apple Watch Series 12 starts at $399 / AU$649, with pre-orders opening today ahead of availability from 18 September. Apple has not yet given UK or EU pricing in the presentation.

Apple has announced the iPhone Duo at last. Previously dubbed the iPhone Fold or iPhone Ultra in speculation over the last year, it is the company's first foldable smartphone and it's everything we expected and more.

A similar shape and size to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8, the iPhone Duo is small and squat but has a 7.6-inch 4:3 OLED display when unfolded. This allows for better viewing of video content and is more like an iPad mini than a traditional book-style folding device.

There are some caveats to the new form factor. It only has two camera units on the rear, without the telephoto lens you'll find on the new iPhone 18 Pro, and it doesn't support Face ID. However, you do get Touch ID on the power button and when open, this is the slimmest iPhone ever made (even thinner than last year's iPhone Air).

Also, you do still get a FaceTime camera behind the inner display, with a small lens in the top right of the front screen too.

The software has been tweaked especially for the device, to seamlessly work across the front display and its unfolded equivalent. There are multitasking capabilities, app swiping to swap between screens and dedicated features that work when the device is partially folded or when set down on a desktop.

The outer screen is 5.4-inches and has the same aspect ratio as the inner version. While the build quality is typically Apple – grade 5 titanium has been used for the frame, with ceramic on the back and front.

We're yet to see the display ourselves, but Apple claims that it has one of the strongest bendable displays in the industry. And it suggests that the crease is almost eliminated.

In terms of the other specs, the Duo runs on the A20 Pro chip, much like the iPhone 18 Pro also just announced. It also includes a vapour chamber to keep the chip cool, as well as a C2 5G modem for cellular reliability.

Battery life is claimed to be up to 22 hours when using both screens simultaneously, while fast charging (through USB-C) allows for 50% charge in just 15 minutes.

There are two cameras on the rear, with the main camera capable of up to 4K 120fps video recording, and the 48-megapixel Fusion ultrawide is the same as on the Pro models. As mentioned though, there is no telephoto here.

It will also run Siri AI and the latest Apple Intelligence, of course. And one extra surprise is that the foldable will be compatible with Apple Pencil post launch. That's a big win for those with the stylus already.

The iPhone Duo will be priced from $1,999 / £1,999 / AU$3,499 for the 256GB model (as previously rumoured) with larger storage options up to 2TB becoming available too. Pre-orders open on 16 October for a 23 October release date.

Apple has announced its fifth generation AirPods and they blur the line between the entry and pro models more than ever before.

More durable and with live translation capabilities – much like the AirPods Pro – the AirPods 5 also feature better active noise cancellation. Apple claims that it works 50% more effectively than the last-gen, and with improved audio playback.

The design is largely the same, but the new AirPods are now rated IP57 for dust and water resistance. There's a bigger battery offering up to five hours of playback time with ANC activated, while the USB-C charging case expands that to up to 20 hours.

Another new feature of the upgraded buds is that they support the new Siri AI functionality coming with iOS 27. And there are two models that will be available – with a standard variant and a step-up pair that come with a wireless charging case.

This additional version also features volume controls on the stem of the right AirPod – a feature also migrated from the AirPods Pro.

The standard Apple AirPods 5. are priced at $129 / £129 and they're available to pre-order from today. They'll ship on 18 September 2026.

The step-up model with on stem audio controls, wireless charging case and longer battery life are priced at $149 / £149.

There is no new AirPods Pro version announced as yet, but with the features added to these entry buds, you have to wonder whether we need a new Pro. At least until the variant with an AI camera in the buds arrives (likely early next year).

T3 is covering all of the new Apple announcements live – just follow the news as it happens in our regularly updated blog.

This is a developing story, and we'll be updating with further details as they emerge.

Apple opened its 9 September event by dropping straight into its unveiling of the iPhone 18 Pro, confirming a few weeks of leaks by showing off two striking new colours for the new phone.

It'll come in burgundy and glacier, the latter being an icy blue, along with the more traditional silver and black options that have been around for years.

In wider design terms, the phone's a clear case of continuity – it looks extremely similar to last year's 17 Pro, with a shelf on the rear again housing that triple camera unit. Those cameras have been given a nice upgrade, though, while the Dynamic Island has also shrunk down to be smaller than ever.

Unsurprisingly, the showcase of the phone was dominated by explanations of how Siri is evolving in its new "Siri AI" iteration. Apple showed how it can interact with apps and services to give you more voice control than before. It also showed a far more expressive and customisable voice model, something that Siri's been crying out for for years.

Of course, that AI upgrade goes hand in hand with a new chipset powering the phone, the A20 Pro. Seeing Apple talk in terms of "compute" requirements does underline how AI lingo is going mainstream, but the details are important here. The chip is built on a 2-nanometer infrastructure, a big step, and has upgraded CPU and GPU performance.

In practice, that'll mean more power in graphically demanding situations like gaming, but also improvements in AI performance in image generation. Hopefully that means Apple's AI editing tools get a little quicker.

Under the hood, we got a look at a new thermal management system that should help the 18 Pro keep cooler and therefore more performant – a whacking great vapour chamber, something that's becoming increasingly popular as a solution in flagship phones.

For the first time, Apple also talked about its battery tech changing, with the "largest increase ever" between two generations of iPhones. It didn't explicitly say this was down to silicon carbon technology, but it might expand on that at some point.

The new 48MP main shooting lens on the iPhone 18 Pro has a new variable aperture control system that should make it a little more customisable and controllable. This is the closest we've seen Apple get to just sticking a traditional camera lens in its phone, and we'll be fascinated to see how it performs. It'll be a great addition for photography nerds, as will newly expanded controls in the Camera app (which might kill some third-party apps overnight).

Of course, we knew that the phones would also get a price hike – and that was confirmed by a new price for the 18 Pro at $1,199 in the US, and the 18 Pro Max at $1,299. In the UK, as was predictable, we're getting a worse deal – the 18 Pro is £1,199, and the Pro Max is £1,299. Those are chunky £100/$100 hikes. Still, pre-orders start on 12 September, with an on-sale date of 18 September.

One of the most exciting retro games console reissues was unveiled in April this year, with the NeoGeo AES+ to be a faithful recreation of SNK's iconic 1990s machine.

It proved to be a hugely popular announcement, with pre-orders flying in for the new version and the multiple game cartridges to go with it. All in the hope of getting hold of one before the end of this year.

However, we have learned from distributor Plaion that the NeoGeo AES+ has now been delayed – by almost 12 months. We've been told that it won't ship until 16 September 2027.

Sadly, there's a common reason for its delay: the RAM and components crisis.

"The response to NeoGeo AES+ has been extraordinary, but global component supply constraints mean we simple cannot manufacture enough systems to deliver the worldwide launch our community deserves," said Plaion in a statement sent to T3.

"Rather than launch with severely limited availability, we're taking the extra time to expand production, secure the components we need, and invest in an even bigger future for NeoGeo AES+.

"If you've already pre-ordered, your order remains secure and keeps its priority place. There is no price increase and no action is required."

Existing orders will also get a "Founding Supporter Bonus". Standard and Anniversary Edition orders will receive a free NeoGeo AES+ Gamepad, while those who have paid for the Ultimate Edition with get 30% off future NeoGeo AES+ games.

As for new orders, they are being accepted now (albeit with a much lengthier shipping estimate). The NeoGeo AES+ will cost £179.99 in the UK without a game. It's compatible with old NeoGeo AES cartridges from the 90s, along with new reissues priced around £69.99 / €79.95 each.

The Ultimate Edition bundle also still available. Priced at £799.99, it includes 10 classic NeoGeo games in a cartridge set, with the likes of Metal Slug, The King of Fighters 2002, and Samurai Shodown V Special part of the pack.

Today, Wednesday 9 September, marks the date of newly appointed Apple CEO, John Ternus, in delivering the tech giant's Surprise and Shine event.

We've been live-blogging about that all day long ahead of its 18:00 (BST) kick-off time. But Ternus' second-ever 'Tweet' – on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter – was a biggie.

The new CEO only joined X on 1 September, to coincide with his new role, with a simple 'hello' message and nothing more – until now. His second post is far more telling, as it's in animated video form:

I think what we're looking at here is the much-rumoured variable aperture of the incoming iPhone 18 Pro Max – a feature said to be exclusive to this phone alone in this year's line-up.

That's because, look closely, and you'll see the opening to that light source has six sides. In a lens formation that's precisely what a six-blade aperture looks like.

And a six-blade aperture is ideally designed to physically adjust, pushing and pulling the aperture petals to adjust the opening size – and the amount of light let in to expose the sensor.

If you re-watch the animated video's closing moments, you'll see what appears to be that aperture shrinking in size. One of the key reasons for a smaller or wider opening is to control the light and how that will affect an image – a wider opening will deliver more background blur, for example, further exaggerated in a longer focal length.

That's why it's been long rumoured that Apple's Portrait mode was likely to get an upgrade from a variable aperture lens. And this could be the first glimpse we have of just that.

It's not the first time this kind of technology has been deployed in a smartphone. Xiaomi did it with its 14 Ultra handset a couple of years ago – which we described as "a photographers' dream".

Others have already taken to the web to cast other theories, though. "Vision Pro 2?" queries someone in the X thread, among a swathe of memes and AI-generated videos for your amusement.

One thing is clear, though: Apple hasn't – or, moreover, didn't – tease product releases in this way. But this is 'The New Apple', with Ternus at the helm, so could be a hint of more changes in its practice to come.

I've not even mentioned the folding iPhone – whether named as Ultra or Duo is now up for debate – up to this point, so the tease-and-distract method certainly has its own value...

The internet got itself into a tizzy over the past few days, when users started sharing stories about how the screen on the Galaxy Z Fold 8 flexes at the corners.

This all started with fairly innocent questions about whether others found that the corners could be pushed inwards slightly. As is often the case, some pile-in with confused information (one referring it to the Galaxy Z Fold 7, which was a completely different design), while others provided useful information – such as confirming how the glue was applied from the JerryRigEverything teardown.

Reddit went down the same rabbit hole, before Samsung came forward to detail that it's a design feature, not a flaw. That hasn’t stopped the sensationalist reactions on X, with people claiming it's a quality control issue and highlighting that Apple will do better. But that's the internet folks.

According to Samsung, talking to Business Post (via 9to5Google), it's an intentional flexibility designed to protect your device from damage if something does get caught in the corner.

Samsung said in a reply to one user: "When you press the outer corners of the foldable main display on the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Fold 8 Ultra, there is a slight indentation. This means that the main display of the foldable product features a cushioning structure applied to the outer corner areas for durability and protection."

The reply goes on: "This is a normal design feature applied to protect the display and enhance durability, and it does not affect the product performance, so please use it with confidence."

That, it seems, is much to the disappointment of many online who thought they had found Samsung's fatal flaw with its popular new device.

While many were suggesting that Apple wouldn't have the same "flaw", we're now only hours away from the launch of the "iPhone Duo", which is the expected name of the folding iPhone.

We're just hoping it's more successful than the Surface Duo that seems to be the inspiration for its name.

After a recent trial, Sky has launched a new version of its Sky Go app – this time for Sky Glass and Sky Stream customers exclusively.

Sky Go has long enabled Sky subscribers to download and stream programming remotely, on mobile devices or tablets, but the new version is better targeted at the TV giant's streaming customers. The regular Sky Go app is still available for those with Sky Q and legacy satellite boxes.

The new Sky Go – which is listed on app stores as Sky Go (Glass / Stream) – gives you a similar user experience to your Sky TV device. You can continue watching content started on your Sky Glass or Stream box, and you can see the shows you've stored in your shared watchlist.

There's also the option to switch watchlists to those stored under different profiles, so family members can each see their personally listed shows and movies on their own devices.

The new app also allows you to 'watchlist" content from your phone or tablet, which will then show under your profile on a Glass or Stream, too. And, you can stream TV channels and catch-up shows on any of your devices just by tapping on it.

Upgraded downloads – now Full HD

One other main upgrade is that Sky Go (Glass / Stream) now allows you to download and watch content at 1080p (Full HD). The legacy app is restricted to 720p.

That won't matter much on a smartphone, where the screen is much smaller, but will ensure the picture quality looks much sharper on a larger tablet, say. I watch a lot of content on my 11-inch iPad Pro, so this is very welcome in that case.

Also, sports fans now get a dedicated section of the app to find live matches and other broadcasts. That includes sports documentaries and live feeds of the Sky Sports channels if you subscribe to them.

The Sky Go (Glass / Stream) app is available to download on iOS and Android now, with the original Sky Go (Q / +) having also been recently refreshed and renamed. The latter has received a similar facelift, but retains some of the important features for satellite customers – such as the ability to set recordings on a Sky Q box remotely.

We have been writing and discussing Apple's first foldable iPhone for many months – years, even – and it's mainly been called the iPhone Fold or iPhone Ultra in that time. However, it seems that the internet speculation was wrong.

While Apple is almost certainly going to reveal the device later today, the names we've been using have seemingly been incorrect.

According to Bloomberg's resident Apple expert, Mark Gurman – who is generally right about these things – the foldable will be called the iPhone Duo, instead.

This is backed up by fellow trusted leaker, Ice Universe, who posted an "iPhone Duo" teaser on his X feed.

To be honest, the name allegedly chosen doesn't sound like an Apple product. It's more Microsoft, which used a similar name for its own, ill-fated foldables in the early 2020s. But there was also some who suggested that calling the new iPhone "Ultra" would also be misleading.

It's believed that it'll have a lower spec camera unit than the iPhone 18 Pro, with the telephoto lens missing. And it's also thought that it'll cut Face ID from the equation, being that it'll be so slim when unfolded.

Those omissions mean that while you gain a fold-out screen, the new iPhone can hardly be called the best of the best. It'll be different rather than superior.

Someone might want to tell the accounts department that though, as Gurman also suggests that the starting price will be $2,000 (£2,000, if Apple's pricing convention continues as normal).

That's actually less than some reports and leaks have claimed, although it is also said that the 2TB model could rise to as much as $3,000.

Setting the entry point at $2K (rather than the tipped $2.5K) does allow Apple to better compete with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8, however. Samsung's similarly-sized starts at $1,899 – just $100 less – so the difference could be forgiven by many.

It'll be more stark in the UK, of course, as Samsung doesn't match prices like-for-like over here – the Galaxy Z Fold 8 starts at £1,699 – and there are discounts at networks already. But it could have been much worse.

We'll find out for sure in just a few hours, when the Apple event kicks off. T3 will be covering all the news live and throughout the day, so stay with us.

Marantz has just revealed its latest compact music system, the MCR 60n, which combines CD player with network streaming, Phono (MM) and HDMI eARC for connecting your other hi-fi kit.

Marantz, the world-renowned Japanese audio brand, is no stranger to making some of the most desirable high-end hi-fi kit on the planet – and the MCR 60n updates the earlier MCR 612 with a bunch of enhancements.

CD players are hugely in demand at the moment, as an increasing movement towards 'proper album listening' has seen more artists releasing on the format – and more listeners enjoying the experience of taking in a full release, track by track.

The MCR 60n offers one of the more luxurious ways in which to enjoy your CDs, thanks to a built-in player, which now offers a dual-plate design for greater rigidity and better isolation for improved playback.

The brand's latest HEOS model, meanwhile,supports PCM up to 384kHZ/32bit and DSD up to 11.2MHz for streaming, should your preference be the highest available audio formats on a network-attached drive.

Much as the CD format is in demand, the vinyl resurgence hasn't slowed either – and the MCR 60n can cater for this format, whatever your kit. The Phono connectivity supports Moving Magnet (MM), if that's the kind of record player that you possess.

Marantz has souped up the audio quality in the MCR 60n, too, with more linear Class D amplification than its 612 predecessor, at two lots of 65W stereo output (marking a 30% increase). There's a subwoofer output with adjustable crossover settings, too.

The Marantz MCR 60n will be available from 15 September, priced at $1000 in the USA. The UK/European version gains DAB radio, too, with its asking price set at £800 / €900.

Apple's annual iPhone launch event is taking place today, Wednesday 9 September 2026, and you can watch it live right here on T3.

Dubbed "Surprise and Shine", the event will be the first hosted by new CEO John Ternus and should debut the much-talked about iPhone Duo – Apple's first foldable phone. You can watch it live below.

In addition, we should see the launch of the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, Apple Watch Series 12, Watch Ultra 4, and AirPods 5. There'll be a whole lot about Siri AI too, as it'll arrive with iOS 27 in the coming days.

So, expect a jam-packed show with maybe a surprise or two along the way.

Here are all the details.

When will the Apple iPhone Ultra event start?

Apple will stream its iPhone launch event today, Wednesday 9 September 2026.

As is tradition, it will kick off at 10:00am PDT, local time for Apple's HQ in Cupertino.

Here are the start times for your location:

• US West Coast: 10:00 PDT
• US East Coast: 13:00 EDT
• UK: 18:00 BST
• Central Europe: 19:00 CEST
• India (New Delhi): 22:30 IST
• China (Beijing): 01:00 CST (10 September)
• Japan (Tokyo): 02:00 JST (10 September)
• South Korea (Seoul): 02:00 KST (10 September)
• Australia (Sydney): 03:00 AEDT (10 September)

How to watch the new Apple iPhone launch event

You can watch the event stream live right here (via the video further up this page).

Alternatively, you will be able to watch it on Apple's own website, or through Apple TV devices.

What to expect

The main focus this year will undoubtedly be on Apple's first foldable phone – commonly referred to as the iPhone Ultra, but seemingly arriving as the "iPhone Duo". So much has been written and said about it that it would be a major shock if it didn't appear.

There will also be an iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max announced, although we expect to have to wait until early next year for a new standard iPhone 18 model.

In terms of smartwatches, we understand the Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 will be unveiled, along with new AirPods – the AirPods 5, at the very least.

Oh. and there will be plenty about iOS 27 and Siri AI, which will soon be available for existing devices as well as the new ones.

We'll be watching along like everyone else, of course, and covering the whole shebang live. Why don't you join us?

I've been working a lot with mini PCs in the last year, turning them into retro games consoles, Steam Machine alternatives, and generally using them for work and home applications.

There are models for all manner of budgets, from the cheap and cheerful, all the way up to powerhouse workstations, and GMKtec is one of the brands that pops up regularly with new devices.

Such was the case at IFA 2026 in Germany, where the manufacturer launched arguably its most capable mini PC yet (if you can really call it that). Crammed into a compact aluminium case, the EVO-X5 Pro is more than a convenient computer – it's a powerful agentic AI PC that can run LLMs locally and with considerably speed.

That's because it is spec'ed through the nose. You get the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 495 processor running the show, with its 16 Zen 5 CPU cores and 32 threads. Then there's the integrated Radeon 8065S GPU, featuring 40 compute units and hardware ray tracing support.

There's a dedicated AMD XDNA 2 NPU integrated too, with 55 TOPS of AI performance for local workloads.

On top of this, the PC sports 192GB of unified LPDDR5X RAM, running at 8533MT/s. Up to 160GB of that can be assigned as VRAM too, so this is a monster of a machine.

It's not really designed for gaming – it's a more enterprise-focused machine with an eye on running AI applications and hardware creativity tools. However, those specs are more than capable of playing AAA games at 1440p with very decent frame rates.

To be honest though, while GMKtec is yet to reveal full pricing, I was told that it will not be cheap during my booth visit at the show. Indeed, if you aren't as bothered by the use of high-end AI models, and are looking more for a powerful all-rounder, I'm currently testing the brand's NEO-X1 Pro compact tower which is purposely designed for that purpose and is very much a more suitable option.

As for the EVO-X5 Pro though, the units on show proved so popular at IFA the team found them missing on the last day – the dummy versions had been stolen.

Hopefully they'll turn up. But even if not, it shows that GMKtec has something of a desirable hit on its hands.

Pro controllers are one heck of an investment for most people, but they really can make a substantial difference to how it feels to game on your platform of choice. Most of them bring features like extra buttons or paddles to the table, but SteelSeries is hoping that it's big headset innovation can now work for a controller, too.

It's just announced the Aeon Pro, a controller that has a feature list as long as my arm, but the one I'm most interested in is its battery-swapping option. Like the Arctis Nova Pro Omni headset, it has a swappable battery system with a charging dock so that you're never caught short with a dying gamepad.

That dock also lets you swap between connected devices, so that you can switch between Xbox and PC at will – although the pad won't work with PlayStation 5 consoles. That's a Sony issue, though, since its DualSense haptics basically killed off any chance of third-party controllers working on the platform. Still, it's always annoying.

As well as that battery and device-swapping system, the controller features Hall Effect thumbsticks, which are drift-proof for better longevity. It also has four programmable back buttons and a little onboard OLED screen to make swapping between profiles and modes easier.

You can easily swap out thumbsticks for your preferred options (including convex/concave and different heights), and the controller features some grippy rubberised texture for more of a feeling of control even if you're in a tense moment.

I think that battery system will be the ace in the Aeon Pro's sleeve, since I still forget to charge my controllers pretty regularly. SteelSeries already solved that problem in its high-end headsets, so it's a great shout to add it to a controller. The lack of PS5 support is an Achilles' heel, but it can take solace in the long list of other gaming brands in the same boat.

Of course, all this comes at quite a price, with the Aeon Pro launching at $259.99 in the US, £229.99 in the UK and €259.99 in Europe. You should be able to order it from SteelSeries' site now, and it'll trickle through to retailers imminently.

Nothing has put out a call for its Community Review Program, which is where fans of the brand can play their part in testing and reviewing its products.

There's a whole range of stipulations about what you'll have to do, but it's basically a reviews programme where you'll have to share those impressions through your own channels as part of the Nothing community.

It's made perfectly clear that you'll have to agree to an NDA – non disclosure agreement – and you'll be given dates when you can share your thoughts and findings.

For those dreaming of being an influencer, this could be the opportunity: you'll be sent a Nothing device, you get to test it and then you can create the content. For you it's a bit of fun – you'll have to return the phone as it's only a loan – while for Nothing it's a bit of community engagement and free marketing.

Nothing has outlined some specific types of people it's interested in, saying that those interested in 3D animation, graphic design, music and sound products, or product reviews are encouraged to apply.

The announcement is topped by Lanturn, originally appearing on a teaser a few days ago. It's not clear if Lanturn refers to a product or just to the Review Program itself, but the appearance has set speculation running.

Some community members think that it refers to a premium Nothing watch, while others pick up on the symbology and think that it refers to the Glyph interface because of the light. Others see the electric type Pokémon as some sort of battery or charging device.

Nothing has already had a busy year and the company has publicly said that it will have a wider selection of phones in 2027, which could include a new flagship phone, the Nothing Phone (4).

We've had the Nothing Phone (4a) and (4a) Pro, as well as the Nothing Phone (4b) this year – alongside new earbuds.

Rumours persist that there's a Nothing Watch in the making, with previous watches limited to the CMF brand.

While the upcoming launches aren't clear, those selected for the Review Program will get access to devices in advance, for a chance to have a say and directly impact on the direction that Nothing is moving.

With Apple due to host its annual iPhone launch event tomorrow, it comes as no surprise that the rumour mill has gone into overload – especially where the company's first foldable is concerned.

We've seen an official case manufacturer reveal its new, related products early, and now there are reports on iPhone Ultra pricing. But before I continue, I suggest you sit down. And maybe call your bank manager.

An online leaker, EVDownunder, claims to have discovered the pricing details for the iPhone Ultra from a source within Vodafone Australia. As expected, it's a lot higher than many would have hoped.

According to his X post, the 256GB model will cost AU$3,699 at launch, the 512GB version will be AU$4,199, and the 1TB AU$4,699.

In comparison, the iPhone 17 Pro Max starts at AU$2,199 in the country – so the difference is profound.

Using today's exchange rate, the 256GB iPhone Ultra will cost the equivalent of £1,970 / $2,663 if the leaked prices are correct. However, Apple doesn't really work that way. I'd expect it to be around $2,500 in fact, and considering the firm translates its prices like-for-like in the US and UK, you can expect to pay around £2,500.

Step up the storage sizes and it could run anywhere over £3K.

And sadly, for those hoping the leak turns out to be wrong, this matches previous estimations from seasoned analysts and Apple experts. Being an early adopter in Apple world has never come cheap.

It'll really come down to pre-order deals and network price plans, I feel. Or maybe the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 is looking more attractive by the day.

We can't be sure until new CEO John Ternus takes to the stage tomorrow. T3 will bring you all the news (and confirmed pricing details) as they're revealed.

Last week I attended the IFA tech expo in Berlin, where I was shown Dreo's latest heating products – with the Whole Room Heater 720S being the one to really catch my eye.

However, it's been so hot in the UK that the thought of buying a heating product might've seemed absurd. Today, as if on cue, the rains began to fall and the temperature has dropped.

With darker evenings drawing in, a clock change on the not-too-distant horizon, and an unpredictable winter incoming, I already want this versatile heater for my home office.

That's because Dreo's Whole Room Heater 720S – there's also the step-down 725 model – caters for both whole-room output and personal space heating.

The brand describes it as the world's first "adaptive 360-degree whole-room heating" product, which uses a duo of motors – one to control airflow, the other to manoeuvre the lifting structure – for controllable heated airflow.

I've heard the product in action, too, and it's very quiet indeed. The quote is 25dB, which is towards 'whisper quiet' – to the point I couldn't notice it at all.

In an office space like mine, the Dreo can heat to over 28C in half an hour. When it's really ramped up, it can output airflow at 4.1m/s to get that heat everywhere – unless you prefer it localised.

I love the Dreo's design, too. The stepper motor powering the lifting structure almost gives it a personality, while the five integrated illuminations cycle between colours to show the level of heat.

The Dreo Whole Room Heater 720S will be available from Argos in the UK, priced at £119.99 (although it's not yet on sale). It'll be an ideal, affordable and smart-looking purchase to offset those incoming cooler temperatures.

Also at IFA, Dreo revealed its Convection Heater 711S, which is akin to a portable glass radiator, along with a variety of new Air Purifier products, asserting its increasing prominence in the smart home space.

The Apple Watch Series 12 and Watch Ultra 4 are expected to be announced on Wednesday, carrying with them watchOS 27. But hidden in the details is something strange – the suggestion of 128GB of storage.

That sounds like a lot of storage for a wearable, especially when some phones have the same capacity. And it begs the question of what Apple thinks you'll be doing with all that space, especially when it comes to the cost – storage is really expensive at the moment, after all.

However, the details come from a forum member on MacRumors, who has discovered through the latest beta that the storage profile for the Watch Series 12 and Watch Ultra 4 in watchOS 27 refers to both 64 and 128GB. Previously, watchOS26 only referred to 64GB.

That suggests that there's going to be a higher storage capacity on the new watches – or perhaps one model that offers more storage.

Storage on Apple Watch is used for the OS and the system data, as well as all the apps you download and any offline media, like music or podcasts. But for most people, filling that storage would be a challenge and, in most cases, unnecessary.

Exactly why the Apple Watch would offer so much storage is difficult to fathom, unless it's going to be used as a cache for AI functions, offering near instantaneous recall of particular things.

Elsewhere, it's said that there will be a new Readiness app, which sounds like Apple is going to plug the gap in its tracking to give you a daily score, using your activity and sleep data – just like Garmin and Fitbit do.

Strength workouts are also inline for a refresh, while there's also some evidence that there's a new optical heart rate sensor, which could make it more accurate.

We're not expecting a change to the design, with previous editions making it slightly slimmer and making the display larger, while generally, the design is the same as it was when it announced in 2014.

The new Apple Watch models are expected to launch alongside the iPhone Ultra – the folding model – that's expected to get all the attention, while the iPhone 18 Pro is expected to launch as the new flagship for 2027.

We have one more sleep before Father Apple brings some lovely new iPhones and Watches down the chimney, but that hasn't stopped case and accessory manufacturer ESR Tech from revealing its own new lineup early.

It has posted a video clip on its X feed that shows the iPhone Ultra, along with a selection of new cases that it claims will be essential for your new £2K+ foldable.

It has provoked one X user, Pedder, to repost it with the tag: "ESR: What NDA?"

In all honesty, considering just how many leaks, images and videos there are out there now, this is a small drop in the ocean. But considering ESR makes a vast selection of Apple (and Samsung) add-ons, it's a good indication of what to expect from a source that should be in the know.

In all likelihood, the iPhone Ultra in the post is a dummy unit. Indeed, the camera depth on the rear looks wrong in one of the shots – the lenses protrude too much, in my opinion.

However, considering everything else that's been released about Apple's new foldable to date, we can pretty much take it as read that this is near to the real deal.

If you also take a scroll through ESR Tech's other recent X posts, you'll also get a glimpse at the Dark Cherry iPhone 18 Pro Max and a black variant of the iPhone Ultra. The brand will no doubt also have Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 bands and cases available too.

And while Apple might be none too pleased about it, there's no doubt that this helps ramp up the hype even more. Tomorrow's event will be significant enough, being as it'll mark the debut of John Ternus as CEO, but throw the company's first foldable into the mix and it's turning into an unmissable keynote for tech lovers.

Folding phones are big news right now, with one expected to be announced in Cupertino on 9th September. But it’s not the only folding phone being announced. Today Xiaomi has unveiled its new flagship folding device, the Xiaomi 18 Fold, and it might just give Samsung and Apple a run for their money.

I got an exclusive hands-on with the device at the IFA show in Berlin and was seriously impressed. Finished in a bright red (also available in black, white and ceramic), the 18 Fold is passport-sized with a 2:1 ratio and unfolds to reveal a 7.58-inch tablet-like screen, much like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 and, as the Apple device is rumoured to.

Measuring 117.8 x 83.6mm folded, it’s slightly shorter and wider than the Samsung and a little thicker, but the differences are negligible. I really liked the roundness of the corners and the fact that you can open it with one hand (at a stretch).

Both the internal and external screens on the Fold 18 are Xiaomi Hyper RGB panels with 4,000 nits peak brightness and an adaptive refresh rate of up to 120Hz. There’s Xiaomi Shield Glass 3.0 on the outer screen and back panel to add strength and drop resistance, while the frame is an aluminium alloy.

The 18 Fold also boasts a Leica triple-camera system with a 200MP main camera and a 50MP periscope camera for a 3x zoom (80mm equivalent) or a sensor crop to allow a 6x (160mm equivalent). The cameras are lined up horizontally across the back of the phone in a chunky bump, similar to rumoured iPhone Fold designs.

Xiaomi’s new folding phone and its tablet, the Xiaomi Pad 9 Pro Max, are both powered by the latest XRING 03 system-on-a-chip (SoC), the company’s second in-house developed chip. This combines a 10-core CPU with a 16-core GPU and supports the latest LPDDR6 RAM. It promises 60% higher performance and 25% lower power consumption than the previous version.

For power, it uses a 6000mAh silicon-carbon battery, though the precise usage time was not revealed. It does support 50W wireless changing though, along with 67W wired.

The HyperOS allows multi-window operation, with both a two-way split on each side of the fold and a three-way split if you really need to see more apps. From my quick play with the phone, not every app allowed this but there are some useful hand gestures to pull the apps into the split-screen view.

What I really like about this phone – as I do the Samsung – is that it offers something in between the larger devices and the smaller flip models. It feels more compact in the hand, yet still offers that giant screen when unfolded, and in a more useful ratio. I also like that the outer screen is fully functional, so for day-to-day tasks you can use the phone folded.

The downside is that while the Xiaomi 18 Fold looks to be hugely appealing, it’s currently only available in China. There’s no word on whether this will come to the UK and Europe in the future, but at this stage I would guess not.

Prices in China for the 18 Fold start from 10999 Yuan, which is around £1200, €1400 or $1650. If this did make it to Europe, I would expect it to be closer to €2000 or £1700, but that would still be competitive.

Late last week, Xbox confirmed that it is to limit the amount of hours Xbox Game Pass subscribers will be able to play games over the cloud. That even includes members who pay for Ultimate. However, it has now revealed that some regions will be exempt.

Sadly, that doesn't include the UK, US and Canada – residents in those zones will still have their perk curbed from November. Instead, it has seemingly rolled back the restrictions in countries where it is legally prohibited to change a subscription mid-contract.

Existing subscribers in Australia, Brazil, Poland and Germany have reportedly received emails saying that they will not face limitations as long as they continue to subscribe. According to VGC, the changes will only apply to new accounts in those regions – or if a subscriber leaves the service and rejoins.

"At this time, these changes will only affect new purchases and will not affect your current subscription for the market in which you reside, as long as you are on an auto-recurring plan," it says in the email.

"Should you choose to cancel your plan and repurchase, you will receive a set number of cloud gaming hours each month, based on your plan.

"If for any reason there may be changes to your existing account, we will notify you at least 60 days in advance and you will have the option to cancel or change your subscription plan at any time."

This is in stark contrast to the email I've received in the UK: "Beginning in Nove‌mber, Xbox Game Pass subscriptions will move to a set number of cloud hours each month, based on your plan."

I have been informed that, as an Ultimate member, I will be restricted to 15 hours of play per month. Premium members get 10 hours, while Essential subscribers get just five.

In all honesty, I don't use Xbox Cloud Gaming for 15 hours as it stands anyway, so it won't affect me. Nor will it affect 96% of Xbox Game Pass subscribers, claims the company – only 4% use more than that per month, it says.

It's still a shame that another perk is being stripped back (after new Call of Duty games) and does raise questions about the future for the service. It certainly hasn't taken off as Phil Spencer had once hoped.

Sometimes you have to hold your hands up and admit when you've made a device so good that retiring it makes no sense. Sony's basically doing that by acknowledging that its flagship headphones from two generations ago, the WH-1000XM4, remains its most popular model ever. Now it's bringing them back.

The WH-1000XM4 has apparently sold over 10 million units by Sony's own reckoning, which is a fairly huge threshold for some headphones that were really quite premium in price for much of their shelf-life. As a result of the enduring popularity of the design (since modernised in the XM5 and XM6 models), Sony's now launching the WH-1000XM4C, which changes very little about the older cans.

Sony says the new model is "based on" the older one, but in truth it's almost identical, featuring the same sound and noise-cancelling from back in 2016. You will now get 10-band EQ control, though, which could be welcome, and a new RRP accompanies the launch – £219.

It'll be fascinating to see whether bringing in this newer tier of essentially an older headphone will undercut the momentum of the XM5 and XM6s, but maybe this is a sign that said momentum wasn't all that powerful in the first place.

It's not the only set of headphones Sony is putting out this month, either. It's also launching the £100 WH-CH730N, a revision that puts a surprisingly lovely design on some affordable over-ears. Then there's the £50 WH-CH530, an on-ear option that similarly refreshes an existing model.

This all adds up to mean Sony's headphone lineup covers pretty much every price bracket from the very high-end (represented by the super-premium WH-1000XX The Collexion) right down to the very entry-level, and it's hard to argue with the idea behind that move.

At a time when people are watching prices get hiked on all manner of tech devices and launches, having options for those who want to spend less is hard to argue with. That said, this is also the first time I've seen a big tech brand bring out a new version of a 10-year-old product like this, so it'll be fascinating to see whether the XM4's popularity waxes or wanes as a result.

All of these headphones will be available later this month, according to Sony's estimates.

If you’ve been following smartwatch news in the last year and a bit, you might have heard that Pebble is back. If you don't know the story, here's a quick summary.

After becoming one of the defining smartwatch brands of the early 2010s, Pebble ran into financial trouble and shut down in 2016, with Fitbit acquiring its software, intellectual property and other assets. Fitbit kept Pebble's online services alive for a while, but they were eventually switched off in 2018.

Rebble emerged from the existing developer community almost immediately after the shutdown and effectively became the platform's unofficial custodian during the dormant years.

The group preserved a copy of the Pebble app store, including roughly 13,000 apps and watchfaces, created a new developer portal, and reverse-engineered services including weather, Timeline and voice transcription.

Then, years later – and miraculously, I might add – Google, which had acquired Fitbit in the meantime, decided to make PebbleOS open source, essentially giving the software back to the community.

Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky and several fellow ex-Pebblers jumped on the opportunity. Through his newly formed company, Core Devices, he set about reviving Pebble and picking up where the original company had left off nearly a decade earlier.

Pebble Time 2 was one of the first two watches Core Devices announced in March 2025 (alongside the simpler Pebble 2 Duo).

Now, almost a year and a half later, I managed to get my hands on one, which made me very excited. Not just because reissued watches – smart or otherwise – are in vogue, but also because I came to be very fond of Pebble as a company.

As such, I was looking forward to trying the wearable and seeing whether someone like me (i.e., a person with no interest in creating my own watch face or rewriting my smartwatch's code) could use and enjoy the Time 2.

And guess what? It’s a fun gadget that works as intended and looks the part, too.

Sure, it might not be as cheap as you’d imagine for something that’s not even remotely on par with modern smart wearables, but that’s not the point. The Time 2 gets you involved in a good initiative and lets you have a good time. And that's worth the money.

Pebble Time 2 review

Price and availability

Pebble announced the Time 2 in March 2025, and it's now available directly from Pebble for $225, which works out to roughly £166 / €194 / AU$312 at current exchange rates. There’s no official UK price, though, and British buyers will pay more once shipping and VAT are added.

Pebble ships international orders from its fulfilment centre in Asia using Delivered Duty Paid (DDP) shipping, meaning any taxes, duties and associated fees are collected before the watch is dispatched rather than appearing as an unexpected customs bill on delivery.

After spending much of its life as a pre-order, the Pebble Time 2 is finally in stock, with Pebble currently quoting dispatch within 48 hours. It comes in four colour combinations: Black/Grey, Black/Red, Silver/Grey and Silver/Blue. I used the Black/Red version for this review.

Design and build quality

The Pebble Time 2 looks exactly like you’d hope a modern Pebble would look. It’s square, slightly nerdy (and utilitarian), but there’s enough metal and detailing here to stop it feeling like a novelty throwback.

The case is CNC-milled from 316 stainless steel with a hardened PVD coating, while the front is covered by a flat Gorilla Glass lens, which I would say is solid specs for any watch in 2026.

It feels nice on the wrist, and considerably more premium than the plasticky smartwatches Pebble was best known for during its first life.

Four physical buttons surround the case, also made from CNC-milled stainless steel and given the same knurled finish Pebble used on the old Time Steel. They’re one of my favourite things about the watch.

After years of swiping around tiny touchscreens, there’s something wonderfully straightforward about being able to move through menus, dismiss notifications or control music without looking particularly closely at what you’re doing.

The Time 2 does have a touchscreen, but Pebble remains very much button-first, and almost everything can be accomplished without touching the display.

The other star of the show is the 1.5-inch, 64-colour e-paper screen. It has a modest 200 x 228 resolution, but judging it by pixel count rather misses the point. Unlike the OLED screens used on most modern smartwatches, it reflects ambient light rather than constantly blasting light towards your eyes.

As a result, it’s genuinely always on, but luminosity isn’t quite on par with modern AMOLED panels due to the softer contrast. The RGB backlight helps when things get darker or brighter, and you can activate it with a wrist flick, but still.

Colours are muted, and animations look distinctly retro compared with an Apple Watch or Pixel Watch, but that’s why it works. The transition animations, in particular, are fun to watch, with a mouse sneaking into your screen when you turn on the quiet mode.

Pebble includes a silicone strap in two lengths, covering wrists from 15 to 24cm, and thankfully hasn’t gone down the proprietary-band route. The watch uses standard 22mm quick-release straps, so swapping it for leather, fabric or pretty much anything else is straightforward.

Water resistance is rated at 3ATM, which Pebble says is suitable for casual swimming and showering, although the company explicitly warns against diving, hot water and high-pressure jets.

Features and PebbleOS

PebbleOS itself is wonderfully straightforward. Press the middle button on the right, and you’re presented with a simple vertical list containing things such as Music, Settings, Notifications, Alarms and weather. The buttons above and below scroll through the list, while the button on the left takes you back.

It took me very little time to get used to, and after a few days I found myself navigating the Time 2 without really looking at what my fingers were doing. There is a touchscreen, but I rarely felt the need to use it. The companion Pebble app is almost the opposite – once you dig into it, there are options everywhere!

You can alter the behaviour and intensity of the backlight, decide whether a wrist flick activates it, change vibration strength, adjust notification behaviour, configure Quiet Time, assign Quick Launch shortcuts and even reverse the controls for left-handed use.

There are thousands of watch faces to choose from (remember when I talked about 13,000 watch faces saved from the original app store above?), ranging from extremely simple digital faces to colourful retro designs, weather displays and wonderfully silly creations. Installing them from the Pebble app takes seconds, and many have their own settings.

I spent quite a lot of time swapping between them, partly because that's a major part of the fun of owning a Pebble. It’s nice that you don't have to write code or design your own watchface to appreciate the community behind the platform.

There is a downside, though. Watchfaces can have a surprisingly large impact on battery life. I tried one called Cat by Dalpek, featuring a 60s-inspired cat with animated eyes, and watched the battery drain much faster than it did with a simpler face.

Thankfully, Pebble gives you a detailed explanation of where the battery is going. The app breaks consumption down between the system, backlight, heart-rate monitor, Bluetooth, touch input, health tracking and applications/watchfaces, and even highlights periods of heavy usage.

Timeline

Timeline is another headline feature on the Pebble Time 2, which you can conjure by pressing down from the watch face. This lets you scroll chronologically through upcoming information.

In theory, that can include calendar appointments, weather, reminders and information added by third-party apps. In practice, I found mine rather sparse: most of what I saw consisted of upcoming meetings and sunset information.

That's useful, but I wouldn't describe Timeline as some forgotten smartwatch superpower that Apple and Google have somehow failed to replicate, and its usefulness certainly depends heavily on which apps and services you're using.

Health tracking

Pebble has also added some fitness and health functionality, although the company itself stresses that the Time 2 isn't a fitness watch.

The optical heart-rate sensor enables continuous heart-rate monitoring, while the watch records steps, distance, calories and sleep. The Pebble app offers far more health information than I expected, with day, week, and month views covering steps, heart rate, and sleep.

You won’t find any gamification in the app or on the watch (e.g. sleep score), and exercise tracking is also limited. There are essentially three choices – Run, Walk and Workout – and there's no onboard GPS or elaborate training ecosystem hiding underneath them. Nobody should be buying a Pebble Time 2 instead of a Garmin watch because they want to train for a marathon.

Sleep tracking is harder to excuse. I found it pretty inaccurate, to the point where I'd question whether it's currently worth having at all. Pebble could potentially improve it through software, and the company is continually updating PebbleOS, but right now it feels strangely at odds with the otherwise disciplined approach to features.

If you're going to make a virtue out of not cramming every conceivable smartwatch function onto your wrist, the few extras you do include should ideally work well.

Battery life and charging

Battery life is one of the Pebble Time 2’s biggest selling points, although there’s a sizeable asterisk attached to the headline figures.

Pebble says the current median is around 21 days between charges, with the hardware ultimately designed around a 30-day target. The company is still optimising PebbleOS, and points to the Pebble 2 Duo as evidence that there’s room for improvement; software updates apparently increased that watch from around 17 days to more than 30 days.

My experience with the Time 2 shows just how dramatically your setup can affect those numbers.

At one point, with 59% battery remaining, the Pebble app estimated that my particular configuration would manage only 11.4 days from a full charge. That’s nowhere near Pebble’s median figure, but the app also did a good job of explaining why.

It breaks battery consumption down by component and, during that period, the backlight accounted for a whopping 54.6% of my usage. The system itself accounted for 20.4%, while the heart-rate monitor used 10%, health tracking 7.6%, Bluetooth 3.8% and touch input 2.1%.

More importantly, the app doesn’t just dump those numbers on you. It identifies things that are hurting battery life and tells you what you can change. Mine pointed out that I had the backlight set above Medium, for example, and that my backlight timeout was longer than the default three seconds.

The small supplied dongle handles charging, which Pebble says was designed with help from Nomad Goods. It reminded me of Coros’ approach, and even though I appreciate the minimalist approach, it wouldn’t be too hard to lose the dongle considering how small it is. It works, though, and charges the watch pretty fast.

Verdict

The Pebble Time 2 is more of an enthusiast gadget than a mainstream smartwatch, and that’s exactly why it works for me. It deliberately gives up advanced fitness, payments and other modern conveniences in favour of great battery life, physical controls and endless customisation. Not essential, perhaps, but undeniably fun.

The iPhone 18 Pro should be announced on 9 September with a design that's expected to be the same as the iPhone 17 Pro. But a new video gives us a closer look at this year's unique colours, even though these aren't real retail units.

The video shows the phone in Dark Cherry and Sky Blue, two new colours that are generally agreed upon for the next-gen iPhone. That's what raises some doubt about this leak – why isn't the third colour shown?

It might be that no one can decide if it's going to be black or silver, so rather than get it wrong, sticking to the most strongly-rumoured colours might seem like a safer bet.

With the iPhone 18 Pro expected to be the same overall design as the iPhone 17 Pro, much of the focus of these devices has been on the colour. We're sure it will have the A20 Pro chip and there could be a variable aperture on the Pro Max model, but from a design point of view it's expected to be much the same.

The phones are said to be dummy units, with the video originally appearing from Lanzuk on Naver, but shared on X.

This isn't an isolated appearance: it appears that some Russian retailers are showing off these dummy units in advance of the announcement. The second video shows them on a table with a sign that translates to "touch the future now".

If nothing else, this gives us a good sense of the general look and feel of the new phones, but as we outlined above, they're basically the same as the previous iPhone model.

Apple is expected to have a bumper launch over in Cupertino, with the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, iPhone Ultra, Watch Series 12, Watch Ultra 4 and AirPods 5 all expected to be announced this Wednesday.

If you thought that smartphones were getting a bit samey, you're right. But the Ikko MindOne Pro wants to offer something different with its square body and flip camera.

Rather than packing cameras into the back and front of the phone, it just has one rotating camera that will act as both. It's designed to give you a better selfie experience from the 50-megapixel camera.

Ikko, the company behind the MindOne Pro, pushes this as a card-sized "AI smartphone", looking to shake up the status quo with something a little different.

It's currently on pre-order (for £324) but it found its way onto the test bench of JerryRigEverything, which probably seemed like a good way to promote the new device, seeing as one of the highlights is a sapphire display cover.

There's a 4-inch AMOLED display, the camera has a 50-megapixel Sony sensor and it's all powered by a MediaTek 8781 chip. It runs Android, but a big part of this phone's identity is based around the AI OS that it also offers.

There's the boast of free AI internet, which appears to be just for using the AI functions, while it will support a regular nano SIM or vSIM for regular connectivity. It's an odd arrangement – with testing by Zack Nelson revealing that the AI was so slow it was barely worth using.

It appears that the display cover is indeed sapphire so provides good protection, but that doesn't extend to any other part of the phone. It has an IP54 rating and the camera itself doesn't get the sapphire protection.

The result is a strange little square phone, a bit like using the external screen of a flip phone without the advantage of being able to open it up.

Somewhere, this probably seemed like a good idea, but as many entrepreneurs will discover, the norm usually exists for a reason – because it's the best compromise of all factors.

The MindOne Pro looks interesting – especially as there's a plug-in keyboard which some might enjoy – but it's full of compromise compared to a normal phone. Still, at least someone is innovating in this space – even if the promise of an AI operating system seems to have fallen flat, as it has on so many recent attempts.

The Samsung Galaxy S27 could come with 60W charging, taking speeds higher than anything it has offered before. For many years, Samsung has been conservative with charging speeds.

Fast charging has been championed by the likes of Xiaomi and Oppo, while brands like Apple, Samsung and Google have stuck to slower charging rates over the years.

That's seen recent Samsung phones offering 45W, but that could see a bump to 60W in the Samsung Galaxy S27 Pro and Galaxy S27 Ultra.

The details come from UniverseIce, a reliable source, but this bump in charging speed also matches changes that Samsung has recently made. The move from lithium-ion to silicon-carbon battery tech happened in the latest Galaxy Z devices and looks like it will continue into its flagship 2027 phones too.

Silicon-carbon isn't needed for faster charging: for many years, brands have offered charging up to 120W with lithium-ion, but the advantage that silicon-carbon offers is that the cells are more compact for the same capacity, meaning there's more room for cooling.

Fast charging generates a lot of heat, so dispersal of heat is needed to use higher powers, while heat build-up also leads to faster battery decay. That's likely to have been the reason that Samsung avoided it, so that the battery lasted longer and matched customer expectation.

Indeed, that's something we noted with the launch of the Galaxy Z 8 devices – they’re now rated to 1,200 charging cycles, rather than the 2,000 charging cycles previously supported. That's the cost of moving to silicon-carbon: batteries don't last as long.

However, slower charging speeds give rivals a competitive advantage and as we enter a tough time for smartphone sales, it looks like Samsung is looking for a better balance.

Apple might be better insulated against such competition, as it's much easier for a Samsung user to decide to jump over to a Motorola or Honor phone because the biggest part of the ecosystem is supplied by Google.

So while Apple only supports 40W charging on the iPhone 17 Pro – and rumoured to be 45W on the iPhone 18 Pro – the company may decide that keeping a slower charging speed to preserve battery longevity is more important to retain customers.

Faster charging will be welcomed on Samsung's 2027 phones: it will help close the gap with the competition. The side effects of that change might only be felt in a few years' time when the battery needs replacing because it no longer lasts as long as expected.

A lot has been made of Grand Theft Auto VI seemingly playing at a locked 30 frames per second on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, but if you have a new Philips TV, you probably won't care.

That's because the brand's new flagship OLED model will be the first with a dedicated 30fps game mode. This uses advanced picture processing to ensure the lower frame rate runs smoothly, without visible stutter.

It is common knowledge that modern games run better at 60fps or above. They look smoother and, more importantly, reduce input lag when they do so. Most console games therefore offer multiple graphics modes, generally offering a choice between playing in a higher resolution and fidelity at the cost of frame rate, or higher frame rates at the sacrifice of clarity or graphics options (such as ray tracing).

GTA 6 is unlikely to do this, it seems. Like its predecessors, the game is said to be sticking to 30fps as standard – at launch, at least.

That shouldn't be an issue on the Philips OLED+951 though. The company claims that it is using its proprietary, powerful P5 AI Picture Engine to compensate: "We've adapted our AI engine – the P5 Engine – to add a low frame game mode," explained Dieter Verlinde to T3 during a demo at IFA 2026.

Verlinde is the team lead for picture quality innovation at TP Vision, which operates the Philips TV brand in the UK and Europe.

"If you don't use it, you have stutter. If you do, it's fluent again.

"We could have just adjusted our natural motion or motion system for gaming, but in this case it would add a lot of latency – up to 200 milliseconds, which you would feel. But we adapted that mode for gaming especially, to go to 10ms."

That's not applicable for games running at 60fps or higher – the Philips OLED+951 uses a 165Hz Meta OLED panel – but it should prove more effectively in running lower frame rate games than existing TVs.

Taking games seriously

Funny enough, while the new mode should benefit Rockstar's latest it was partly born through a partnership with Ubisoft and its Assassin Creed franchise instead. TP Vision has been closely working with the French software giant and, specifically, its latest release – Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced.

There's even a dedicated picture mode for the game that comes preloaded, which ensures it looks its best on screen and around the frame thanks to Ambilight.

Indeed, one of the additional game centric features being added to Philips' latest TV range is the option to program different settings for different games, which will then switch on automatically when that game is detected by the television's AI-powered software.

"You can manually populate these profiles, and the moment the game starts it will detect what it is," Verlinde added.

Alternatively, for those who don't want to tinker too much, the TV comes with a reference mode that should offer the best out-of-the-box settings.

Certainly, TP Vision and its Philips brand is taking gaming seriously this year. And with the new Grand Theft Auto around the corner, who can blame it?

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

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

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

1. Better Dolby Atmos for more immersive delivery

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

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

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

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

2. Improved physical surround upgrade options

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

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

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

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

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

3. Enhanced dialogue, improved customisation

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

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

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

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

4. Bigger bass for smaller spaces

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

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

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

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

5. Maintains small footprint design

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

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

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

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

Should I buy the Sonos Beam Ultra?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First folding iPhone

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

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

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

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

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

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

No standard iPhone 18?

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

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

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

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

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

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

First iPhone with a mechanical aperture

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

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

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

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

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

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

What else is expected?

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

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

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

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

Huawei announced its latest foldable phone in China this morning and it comes with a couple of surprises.

The Huawei Mate XT 2 is a new tri-fold phone, but the brand has opted to change the design from its former model. Rather than a large screen that folds in on itself to create the front display, it now resembles the Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold.

That means it has a separate front screen and the main tablet-like display is now better protected. And that's not the only feature "borrowed" from Samsung.

The Mate XT 2 also comes with a privacy display, as featured on the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra. But this is the first time a hardware level privacy solution has been used on a foldable, says Huawei.

For those who haven't seen Samsung's version of the tech, it can stop snoopers from seeing either the whole of your phone's screen, or even just individual apps, such as a video pop-up. The person sitting directly in front of the display can see it, but not those at an acute viewing angle.

Also new on the Huawei triple-fold phone is a built in stand, to prop it up when watching content on the inner screen.

As for other specs, Huawei has announced that it runs on a Kirin 9050 Pro processor, has an included ECG (electrocardiogram) sensor to read your heart rate, and comes preinstalled with the all-new Harmony OS 7 software.

It's not yet known when (or even whether) the Huawei Mate XT 2 will be available outside China, or how much it costs, but we'll update when we have more information.

A week of foldables

Of course, the Mate XT 2 isn't the only foldable to be launched this week. Apple is fully expected to unveil the iPhone Ultra on Wednesday – its first foldable device.

This will be a single fold phone, but with a similar wider design to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8. That gives a larger iPad mini-like display in the middle.

T3 will be covering the Apple launch event live.

It feels as though hardly a month goes by without DJI launching another new product, whether it be an action camera, a stabilised camera, a portable power station, a remote microphone, a robot vacuum cleaner or, far more commonly, a new addition to its huge roster of amazing camera drones.

In fact, as of writing, there are currently eight categories of drones in DJI’s ever-expanding catalogue, and one of them was added only a few months ago. It’s called the DJI Lito, and there are two models in the range – the Lito 1 we’re looking at here and the DJI Lito X1, which we have already reviewed.

In a nutshell, the Lito range was designed to make drone flying more accessible to the masses by offering two compact, highly capable models aimed at beginners and content creators who want impressive aerial footage without the cost or complexity of a high-end professional drone.

The Lito 1 and Lito 1X offer remarkable value for money, packing impressive flight performance, capable cameras and many of DJI’s cleverest features into two resoundingly affordable packages. For the price, beginners get an extremely polished drone experience that makes aerial photography and videography far more accessible.

DJI Lito 1 review

Price and availability

The DJI Lito 1 starts at £299 in the UK and comes with the RC-N3 controller and a single battery, and that’s all. The Fly More Combo, meanwhile, costs £429 and comes with two extra batteries, a charging hub and a few other accessories.

The Lito 1 is available now from DJI and major retailers including Amazon – where it’s shifting for an even more attractive £254 – Argos and Currys.

Specifications

• Dimensions (L×W×H): 183×251×79mm (unfolded); 149×94×62mm (folded)
• Flight time: 36 mins (typical 23-25 mins)
• Max transmission range: 15km‌
• Max flight speed (Sport mode): 40mph / 65km/h
• Max Wind Speed Resistance: 24mph / 38.5km/h (Level 5)
• Built-in GPS: Yes
• Obstacle avoidance: Omnidirectional monocular vision system
• Intelligent QuickShot modes: Multiple
• Tracking: Yes
• Internal storage: No
• Camera sensor: 1/2-inch CMOS
• FOV: 79˚
• Max aperture: f1.8
• Max photo resolution: 48MP JPG
• Max video resolution: 4K (3840×2160) at 60fps (horizontal); 2.7K (1512×2688) at 60fps (vertical); Slow Motion 4K at 100fps
• Image stabilisation: 3-axis mechanical gimbal (tilt, roll, pan)
• Connectivity: WiFi / Bluetooth

What's best for you? DJI Lito 1 or Lito X1?

Before we get down to the nuts and bolts of this incredible little budget drone, I should point out that DJI has also released a slightly upgraded version that retails for just £70 more. It’s called the Lito X1, and you can read all about it in Matt’s review (linked in the intro).

The DJI Lito 1 and Lito X1 share the same compact sub-250g design, flight performance and raft of intelligent features, but the X1 gains a slightly larger 1/1.3-inch sensor for better low-light performance, HDR, 10-bit D-Log M video, forward-facing LiDAR for improved obstacle detection in low light and 42GB of internal storage.

The cheaper Lito 1 uses a smaller 1/2-inch sensor; it doesn’t have LiDAR, and it relies entirely on microSD storage. Both drones are incredible value for money, but which one floats your boat?

If you’re a total beginner, especially an adult who simply wants a drone to take on holiday for a few videos on the beach, snap a few aerial shots of your home – perhaps checking the condition of the roof while you’re at it – or occasionally video a family gathering with no real plans to fly it at night or edit any of the files into a seamless video, then the Lito 1 is your best bet and you’ll save yourself some money, which could perhaps go towards an extra battery.

Its ultra-low price of just £299 is an absolute bargain given all the things it can do, and you won’t feel too worried about losing it, especially if you take out DJI’s reasonably-priced Care insurance package.

Careful pixel peeping on a MacBook Air, on the other hand, does show a slight improvement in video quality from the Lito X1, but it is much harder to notice when watching the footage on a phone screen.

However, the Lito X1 is definitely better at low-light shooting and obstacle avoidance when the sun’s gone down. It also comes with 42GB of internal storage, which can be a godsend when you arrive at a great shooting spot only to discover you forgot to bring a MicroSD card.

If you think you’ll benefit from the small amount of upgrades the X1 offers, including shooting at night and not having to worry about packing a MicroSD card, then opt for the X1.

Design and features

To give you some idea of just how far DJI has advanced in the sphere of camera-carrying drones, a decade ago this writer and a mate spent a ridiculous £5,000 on a DJI S-900 – a monster drone designed for carrying DSLR-style cameras.

This six-bladed drone had no mobile app integration. Instead, it came with a crap monitor that produced a very glitchy, low-res video stream from a not-very-good Sony NEX-7 camera.

It also had a huge, delicate gimbal, more wires than a BT street box, and a massive strap-on battery that kept the whole package aloft for just 15 minutes.

The whole package had to be transported in a box big enough for a lawnmower, and it took about an hour to set up. Flying it was terrifying, and it was compounded by the fact that we crashed it on its very first flight.

Fast forward to today, and the comparatively tiny sub-£300 Lito 1 I’m reviewing here annihilates that hulking pile of Meccano in every conceivable way, including image quality, believe it or not. That’s progress for you.

The DJI Lito 1 weighs just 249g, which means anyone can fly it with an easy-to-obtain Flyer ID and Operator ID (those under 12 need to be in the presence of a guardian aged 16 and above). At 149×94×62mm when folded and 183×251×79mm when unfolded, this drone is easy to pack and therefore more likely to be taken with you regularly.

For a drone at such a low price tier, the Lito ships with a veritable banquet of amazing flight features normally reserved for much higher-end models.

Sure, there are some omissions like gimbal settings – which I admit to missing most of all – and some other deep-dive flight parameter adjustments, but everything’s so well dialled straight out of the box that it’s very hard to complain. You can even set this drone to automatically turn on or off as you open or close the propeller arms.

The Lito 1 even comes with omnidirectional obstacle avoidance, which is just about the best thing for any beginner because it will simply come to a halt whenever it detects a large obstacle in front, behind, below, above and side to side.

However, I wouldn’t rely on any obstacle avoidance system to avoid tree branches when not in leaf, since the drone’s obstacle detection might not spot a branch in its path. I’ve learned that the hard way.

I discuss the camera in more detail below, but one of the main differences between the Lito 1 and the cheaper DJI Neo 2 is that the Lito 1 has a proper 3-axis mechanical gimbal, while the Neo 2 has to make do with a 2-axis gimbal plus digital stabilisation. Mind, I’m not especially keen on the Lito 1’s fiddly gimbal and camera protector.

To keep costs down, the Lito 1 ships with the older-style DJI RC-N3 remote controller, which requires you to dock your phone (iOS or Android) and use the DJI Fly app. However, the drone also works with the DJI RC 2, which has a built-in screen.

The RC-N3 provides all the key functions to fly the Lito 1, including screw-in joysticks, a gimbal control wheel, instant access to the three main flight speeds – Cine, Normal and Sport – a photo/video capture button and a function button to set your own preset, like instant gimbal tilt. This tried-and-trusted control system works as well as most of DJI’s other controllers.

I’ll leave this section with a shout-out to DJI’s R&D bods for creating one of the quietest drones I’ve ever tested. One shouldn’t underestimate the importance of having a quiet drone when flying it anywhere within earshot of other people.

Some folk won’t mind at all, but there are plenty of others who see drones as a scourge, and they will stomp over to berate you for either spying on them, creating a racket in a peaceful setting or possibly accuse you of breaking the law.

Thankfully, the Lito 1 is so quiet that you simply can’t hear it once it’s 20 metres in the air, and that means you can fly it safely in the knowledge that you won’t attract any unwanted attention.

Flight performance

The Lito 1 delivers impeccable flight performance that feels remarkably polished for such a compact, affordable drone. Normal mode offers smooth, predictable handling, Cine mode slows everything down for more controlled cinematic movements, and Sport mode unlocks an impressive maximum speed of 40mph (65km/h) for fast, dynamic flying.

For a sub-250g drone, it also handles wind surprisingly well, as I discovered when flying it in winds of up to 25mph. Battery performance is also impressive, with DJI claiming up to 36 minutes of flight time, although real-world results naturally vary. I managed to eke 30 minutes of flight time out of it, though some of that was spent hovering in one spot while I took some photos of it.

As is the case with all DJI drones, the Lito 1 also sports rock-solid video transmission – up to 8 miles (15km) in low-interference areas like open countryside – with zero issues to report.

If you're a complete beginner looking for a lightweight travel companion, you can stop right here because this little air tyke is just so confidence-inspiring – and reliable – once it’s up in the air.

Camera performance

The DJI Lito 1 delivers impressive camera performance for its price. Its 1/2-inch 48MP CMOS sensor features a wide f/1.8 aperture and captures surprisingly detailed stills and sharp, vibrant 4K footage at up to 60fps, while its 4K/100fps slow-motion setting adds extra creative flexibility.

Likewise, the drone’s 3-axis mechanical gimbal does a sterling job of keeping all video footage hummingbird-steady, even in a gusty crosswind.

The Lito 1’s camera can also be used in vertical profile mode (2.7K at up to 60fps) for those of you who love using this hideous format in your social media circles. Please stop this and stick to landscape mode, as the eyes see the world.

No, the Lito 1 cannot match the larger 1/1.3-inch sensor of the DJI Mini 4 Pro or the superb 1-inch 50MP sensor in the DJI Mini 5 Pro, particularly in challenging low-light scenes, but that is hardly surprising given the size of the camera's sensor and the drone’s low price.

For everyday aerial video and photography, however, the Lito 1 punches well above its price point. After setting its exposure compensation to -0.3 to prevent the sky from blowing out, I snapped some great shots of our local church and the images and video straight out of the drone were pleasingly sharp with excellent colour rendition.

Although you will inevitably notice some degradation when pixel-peeping on a desktop computer, I think the video and stills quality from this drone is sharp and dynamic enough for social media and ideal for viewing on a phone, tablet, or laptop.

Autonomous QuickShots

Aside from DJI’s popular ActiveTrack function, you also get a cornucopia of intelligent shooting modes with the Lito 1 that make cinematic aerial footage remarkably easy to capture.

Its six QuickShots include Dronie, which flies backwards and upwards from the subject; Rocket, which climbs vertically while pointing the camera down; Circle, which orbits the subject; Helix, combining an orbit with an ascending spiral; Boomerang, following a sweeping oval flight path; and Asteroid, which creates a dramatic rising shot before transforming the scene into a tiny-planet-style effect.

It also comes with DJI’s impressive MasterShots sequence, which takes automation even further by performing a series of cinematic flight movements before producing a fully edited sequence.

MasterShots is an impressively simple way for inexperienced pilots – and many pros – to create polished, dynamic footage without requiring advanced flying skills. Believe me, pulling off these types of shots manually is very much a hit-and-miss affair.

Verdict

The DJI Lito 1 is a stunning little drone that punches way above its bargain price point. It’s incredibly easy to fly, impressively stable and packed with loads of big-boy stuff like omnidirectional obstacle avoidance and the sort of clever automated shooting modes you’d normally expect to find on much pricier DJI models. True, the camera won’t trouble the DJI Mini 5 Pro, but for beginners and budget-conscious flyers, this drone is exceptional value.

T3 doesn’t hand out five-star accolades willy-nilly but, having tested this drone extensively over the past two weeks, I think it definitely deserves the highest praise, especially given the amount of tech onboard and, of course, the attractive price. At this rate, could we feasibly see a similar drone next year for the psychologically magic price of £199? Go on, DJI, you can do this.

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

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

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

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

What is Headphone Linking?

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

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

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

What if I've got multiple groupings?

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

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

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

Can you play on headphones and speakers?

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

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

What about the original Ace headphones?

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

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

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

Has the TV Audio Swap feature changed at all?

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

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

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

Should I buy the Ace Ultra?

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

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

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

If you've been using Xbox Cloud Gaming as an easy way to play without downloading games or owning an Xbox, there's some bad news coming.

Microsoft has announced that Game Pass subscribers will soon have a monthly limit on how much time they can spend gaming in the cloud. The change is due to arrive in November and applies to both existing and new subscribers.

The amount of cloud gaming you get will depend on your Game Pass plan. Ultimate subscribers get 15 hours a month, while Premium subscribers get 10 hours and Essential subscribers just five.

That's a significant change from the current system, where cloud gaming doesn't impose a monthly playtime allowance.

Microsoft says the change is necessary because the cost of providing cloud gaming increases as more people use the service and spend longer playing. It also says that the new limits will affect around 4% of Game Pass subscribers, suggesting the majority won't regularly hit their allowance.

For those who do burn through their allowance, there's another option: buy more cloud gaming time through the Xbox Store. Microsoft hasn't announced how much those additional hours will cost yet, with pricing expected to be revealed closer to the November launch.

That could make sense for occasional players who don't want another monthly subscription. But for existing Game Pass subscribers, particularly Ultimate members who use cloud gaming regularly, it means a service that was previously bundled without an explicit time limit is about to become another metered part of the subscription.

And with Xbox continuing to push cloud gaming onto TVs, phones and other devices, the timing is curious. Microsoft is expanding access to the service at the same time as it puts a ceiling on how much subscribers can use it.

The good news is that this doesn't limit the amount of Game Pass gaming you can do on an Xbox or PC. The restriction is specifically on games streamed through Xbox Cloud Gaming.

Still, if cloud gaming is one of the main reasons you're paying for Game Pass, it's worth keeping an eye on how much you actually use it. From November, 15 hours might sound generous, until you realise that's only around 30 minutes of cloud gaming a day.

AWOL Vision has unveiled a new flagship ultra-short-throw projector at IFA 2026, and it's packing some serious home-cinema credentials.

The LuxVision delivers 4K resolution at 120Hz, with a claimed 6000 ISO lumens of brightness and a maximum image size of 200 inches. Its 0.18:1 throw ratio means you don't need to sit the projector particularly far from the wall or screen.

Most ultra-short-throw projectors rely heavily on digital keystone correction to get the picture properly aligned. LuxVision instead offers one-touch vertical optical lens shift, allowing you to reposition the image while retaining native 4K detail.

For gamers, the 4K/120Hz performance is backed by 1ms input lag, VRR and ALLM, plus Dolby Vision Gaming. There are three HDMI 2.1 ports, a DisplayPort and four-channel HDMI Multiview for multiple sources.

AWOL is also promising impressive picture quality from its RGB triple-laser system, with 110% Rec. 2020 coverage, Dynamic Tone Mapping and a seven-level dynamic iris. Dolby Vision, IMAX Enhanced, Filmmaker Mode and 3D are supported too.

The company says its second-generation Anti-RBE technology is designed to reduce the rainbow artefacts that can affect some laser projectors, particularly during fast-moving, high-contrast scenes.

There's plenty of flexibility beyond the picture, too. A motorised lens cover helps protect the optics when the projector isn't being used, while AWOL says its zero-light-leakage lens is designed to minimise unwanted light.

The LuxVision is due to launch around October, priced at $6,499 / €5,999 / £4,999.

That's premium territory, but if you're after a huge home-cinema picture without installing a conventional long-throw projector, the combination of 4K/120Hz and optical lens shift could make this one worth keeping an eye on.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Philips Fidelio name has been around for years, generally attached to more premium audio kit. The new L5 headphones take some of that high-end heritage and put it into a much more affordable pair of wireless cans.

The L5 use custom 36mm ceramic-coated dome drivers with woven silk suspension, designed to deliver detailed sound with controlled bass and natural mids. There’s also support for LDAC, Bluetooth 6.0 and Auracast, while USB-C lets you listen to lossless hi-res audio at up to 24-bit/96kHz.

The L5 also get Philips’ most advanced active noise cancelling system yet. Adaptive Noise-Cancelling responds to changes in your surroundings, while a new leakage-detection system monitors the seal between the earcups and your ears and adjusts the ANC accordingly.

There’s also an Adaptive Awareness Mode, which can automatically switch on in quieter environments when you need to hear more of what’s going on around you.

The headphones use memory-foam ear cushions and a soft protein-leather headband, with touch controls and wear detection that automatically pauses playback when you take them off.

Battery life is another strong point, with up to 60 hours of playback or 50 hours with ANC enabled. A five-minute quick charge adds up to eight hours of listening.

The L5 support multipoint connectivity, allowing two devices to remain connected at once, while Spatial Audio modes are available through the Philips Headphones app. The app also includes AI Neural EQ, which gives you a simple way to adjust the headphones’ tonal balance, alongside Adaptive EQ.

Philips has also made the ear cushions and rechargeable battery replaceable by the owner, which should help extend the life of the headphones.

The Philips Fidelio L5 launch in October 2026 for €199.99 / £179.99.

CDs might not be enjoying quite the comeback they were promised, but there’s still something appealing about a proper stereo system, especially when it doesn’t require a rack of separates to house it.

Philips’ new Fidelio FA7 takes that approach, squeezing a serious hi-fi setup into a compact system. As such, this should appeal to those who still have a CD collection but spend plenty of time streaming too.

The FA7 is a genuinely stereo-focused system, with two separate amplifiers delivering a total of 120W RMS through an active crossover.

Each speaker gets a 5.25-inch woven glass-fibre mid/woofer and 1-inch titanium dome tweeter, with dedicated amplification for the two driver types. Philips says the result is a wider soundstage, controlled bass and more precise treble.

The speakers also get a tapered bass port and can be used with or without their magnetic grilles, while the main unit has a brushed-aluminium finish designed to echo traditional hi-fi separates.

The FA7 isn't stuck in the past, either. Alongside CD playback, there’s DAB+ and FM radio, internet radio and podcast support.

For streaming, it supports AirPlay 2 and Google Cast over Wi-Fi, alongside Spotify Lossless, Tidal Connect and Qobuz Connect. Bluetooth 6.0 adds multipoint connectivity, LDAC and LC3 support, while Auracast lets compatible devices share audio with multiple speakers.

There’s also optical, RCA, USB-A and 3.5mm connectivity, plus a headphone output, giving you plenty of options for hooking up a TV, turntable or other kit.

The Philips Fidelio FA7 launches in October 2026 for €599.99 / £509.99.

While attending the IFA technology show in Berlin, Germany, I visited Lenovo at a behind-closed-doors event to see what the tech brand has got cooking.

Amid the myriad laptop reveals from the company, however, it was one of the prototype concepts that really caught my eye – but rather for what you can't see.

The Lenovo AeroBlade Concept laptop showcases a fanless design. It also showcases a world-first design: debuting Lenovo's Active Flow solid-state cooling, no fans required.

So just what is this new system and how does it work? Using technology from Frore Systems, based out of California, this prototype laptop makes use of the brand's AirJet technology – which was first revealed last year.

The AeroBlade Concept, however, makes it a reality, positioning an AirJet module – which measures just 2.65mm thin – over the processor within the device.

This module has ultrasonic membranes that vibrate – and to such a frequency that it's beyond human hearing – to pull air through it, channelling the heat away from the processor and onto a copper base.

The result is warm air, which is ejected from the laptop, but which doesn't require any large vents as part of the design. All of which makes for a neat and tidy design.

The system functions in both passive and active modes, as and when it's required, and in the AeroBlade Concept can sustain 20W+ workloads. It's quiet, too, with a 31dBa maximum output equating to a library environment.

As the module is so thin, the AeroBlade Concept benefits from a trim design and weight as a result – at just 10mm thick and weighing around 830g in this 14-inch format.

So what does this all mean? I think we're potentially looking at the future of portable computing here. A fanless design that can cater for powerful workloads in ultra-portable designs is a dream.

And in Lenovo's product it's a dream that looks ever so close to reality. It's a fully functional working product, after all. And one that I wouldn't be surprised if we see in a shelf-ready updated form in 2027 or the year after.

Motorola has a new Watch model, looking to challenge some of the biggest in the game with the Moto Watch Ultra.

The Moto Watch Ultra builds on the Moto Watch that was announced earlier in the year, with a stainless steel body and advanced tracking metrics developed with Polar.

There's IP68 protection as well as 5ATM waterproofing - boosting the 1ATM of the previous model - so this watch is perfectly happy to get submerged in water during the 50 hours of activity tracking that the battery supports.

This model is powered by the Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1 chip, designed specifically for wearables, while it has a 1.5-inch OLED display which supports up to 2700 nits, remaining visible in the brightest of outdoor conditions.

The screen is protected with Gorilla Glass 3 to keep scratches at bay, but while this is an "ultra" watch, it doesn't have the same chunky action watch aesthetic that Apple and Samsung used for their own devices.

Instead, there's a thick but elegant 46mm stainless steel case, which supports 22mm straps and of particular excitement is that you get two straps in the box - a premium leather strap and a silicon sports strap.

Naturally, there's Pantone colour coordination with the silicone band available in Black Beauty and Mountain View (green), while the leather options are Black Beauty and Nuthatch.

Running WearOS, there's a button and crown arrangement, as well as touch support on the screen to help you navigate the user interface, with all the goodness that Google has poured into its smartwatch platform.

That means access to the Play Store for apps, as well as access to Gemini for when you need that AI answer in quick time. On top of Google's AI offering, the Moto Watch Ultra will also work with Lenovo's AI assistant Qira, the first wearable device to do so.

Back to the Polar collaboration, and the Watch Ultra will track your activity, sleep and stress, to help optimise your training, leaning on Polar's long experience in this area.

There's advanced sleep tracking, giving the wearer a sleep score derived from time spent in different sleep stages, while the full suite of activity tracking will ensure that your training is on point.

There's also a running coach, while the integration of LTE will ensure that you remain connected on the move, able to get messages and answer calls even without your phone.

The Moto Watch Ultra will retail at £369, available from Motorola.com.

Lenovo is a dab hand at creating concept prototypes – which is exactly what the PC-maker was showcasing at its Innovation World event, set in tandem with the IFA technology show in Berlin.

Having already seen the future of laptops in its fanless solid-state cooling concept, the AeroBlade, the brand's other laptop concept was a familiar idea – but impressive nonetheless.

Under the Project Swan Concept moniker, this latest laptop prototype is able to transform from a 14-inch 4:3 aspect ratio into a 17-inch 16:9 panel at the press of a button. Quite literally.

That's down to Lenovo's ongoing work with rollable display types, which use the benefit of OLED's flexible potential to its fullest extent.

Here, the laptop is a little thicker than normal, but even so that expansive screen scale made my 13-inch MacBook Air's1 16:10 aspect screen just seem inferior.

A simple press of the Insert key along the device's F-keys row activates the display's expansion, no other prompting required. It forms the new widescreen format in mere moments (complete, for this demo, with an animated swan ).

I can see why this is still a concept, however, as close-up you can see the flex in the rollable display. And there's always the risk of dust and grime causing damage across the rollers and the display itself.

It's not the first time that Lenovo has shown off expanding displays, of course, with the CES show in Las Vegas earlier this year showcasing the brand's Legion Pro concept – which expands into 16-inch gaming laptop.

Project Swan, however, just seems more feasible. It's better balanced than the Legion Pro concept was, for starters, and while the thickness is more than your average to cater for that roll-back display, it's still portable overall – at 17.9mm total.

With each new step in its rollable concepts, Lenovo is clearly working towards a conclusive, shelf-worthy product that you can actually buy. This one isn't that, but it shows yet more progress towards that goal.

So, who knows, maybe come 2028 we'll be living in a world where you needn't pick the 13-inch or 16-inch model – you might be able to buy a single device that caters for both. And all at the touch of a button.

This year, perhaps more than prior, we've seen the trendy-yet-affordable laptops market really pick up. Apple's MacBook Neo was a major catalyst in that movement, but now there are other viable Windows alternatives incoming.

Case in point: Lenovo's just-revealed IdeaPad Vibe line, which comes in seven largely vibrant colours, each with an affordable $699 starting price attached for the Windows 11 powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon option.

While there's no broader pricing options for the UK and Europe at this time – which you can expect will be higher than the US equivalent – that goes head to head against Apple's proposition, giving Lenovo a viable Windows option for a broad market.

Lenovo isn't pitching the IdeaPad Vibe as a 'just for students' kind of option, though, stating this new release "wasn’t created for one type of user". The base Qualcomm Snapdragon X processors will be joined by step-up AMD Ryzen 400 and, at a later date, Intel chip options.

Choice is a clear factor in the IdeaPad Vibe. With 14- and 15-inch sizes available, you can spec up to 24GB of memory, while an OLED display (with optional touch control for the 15-inch) is available for the 'Lowkey Grey' and 'Moody Blue' colourways.

Style is a major component of this line-up, though, as those Pantone-marketed colours tell you. Joining the above pair is 'Dreamy Violet', 'Spicy Gold', Zen Green', 'Chill Blue', and Radiant Coral – providing an eye-catching something for everyone.

Lenovo and its Motorola mobile division have been working with Pantone for years to deliver defined and different colour options to your norm. Beyond just the chassis colour, the option to purchase customisable keycaps can further hyper-colourise and customise your purchase.

Such configurability could, of course, see the IdeaPad Vibe's entry price swell. But as a starting point there's clear appeal in what Lenovo is delivering here. Especially during a time where supply and demand for memory is at an all-time high, which has created pricing complexity in the market.