You're probably sick of the family WhatsApp group, shared calendar or that noticeboard in the kitchen, which is why this thoroughly modern but surprisingly analogue solution from reTerminal might be of interest.

It takes the form of a 4-inch e-paper screen that can be magnetically stuck to things like fridges, letting you leave an e-paper note without blowing up family member's phones. Going for a run? Given the dog her medicine? Posted Grandma's card? Just leave it on the Sticky.

Using e-paper means that this device doesn't beam out like a tablet or smart display, instead offering that lovely paper-like surface with a long battery life. Once set, your note is in place so the rest of your family knows what's happening.

But how you get that note onto the devices is really interesting: you can press a button and talk to it, with AI interpreting what you say to display that on the screen. That means you say what you want (English and Chinese are supported) and that then appears on your Sticky.

Or there's an app for your phone or desktop so you can leave remote messages, which might be a nice way to let someone know you're thinking about them, or just to remind the kids to empty the dishwasher before you get home.

The in-built magnet makes it ideal for sticking to the fridge, but it can be mounted on the wall where it's most likely to be spotted, so it integrates with the rest of your household. It can be a clock, it can show the weather - it's a really versatile device.

But getting a little more techy, it supports open source tools, so it can be linked to Home Assistant. If you have any real smart home fans in your life, they'll know all about Home Assistant.

That means you can basically use the reTerminal Sticky as a display to do whatever you want in your smart home, from controlling devices to showing your train times and a whole lot more.

The reTerminal Sticky is available for $49.99 on preorder, with deliveries to the US, China or the EU. For those in the UK, you'll have to order from the Chinese warehouse.

The iPad mini is expected to get an update in October 2026 that includes water resistance, something that no iPad has so far offered.

The new compact iPad is expected to implement a new design that removes the speaker holes, instead using flat surfaces on the device to create the sound. While it's not known what IP rating it might carry, it's thought that it will offer water resistance for the first time, according to Macrumors.

The new speaker system was first reported in 2025, while it's also expected that Apple's smallest tablet will make the jump to an OLED display. It will join the iPad Pro in offering those higher quality visuals, although the impact on the price might see this tablet suffer.

The iPad mini is currently £599 / $599 making it more expensive than the standard iPad which offers a larger display. The iPad mini is more powerful using the A17 Pro chip compared to the A16 in the standard iPad, although the next iPad mini is expected to move to either the A19 Pro or unreleased A20 Pro.

That, combined with the OLED display, might see the iPad mini creeping up on the price of the iPad Air, perhaps priced at £699 / $699, which is a lot of money for an 8-inch tablet.

Sealing the tablet to give it water protection will boost its credentials, however, meaning that people will be more comfortable using it in adverse conditions. Its compact nature makes it great for travel, where a soaking in the rain might be more common than when sitting around the home.

But the iPad mini's compact form makes it more like a reading device and I'm sure that many have used it in the bath because if its handholdability. With an IP rating, if it does slip, it likely won't be a disaster, although using it at the beach probably won't work unless Apple gives it a really bright display - currently, it's only 500 nits.

There could be a drawback with that display too: it's only said to offer 60Hz, which means that this won't be the compact gaming tablet that some will want.

The iPad mini is a great tablet, but it looks like Apple plans to make it increasingly premium. It's expected to launch alongside refreshed Mac devices in October 2026.

There have been plenty of rumours surrounding the folding iPhone of late, with most suggesting we will finally see the device launch in September alongside the iPhone 18 Pro. It’s also thought that the iPhone Ultra, as it will likely be called, will have a slightly different aspect ratio to most folding phones, opening up to look similar to the iPad mini.

But speaking of the iPad mini, that device has also been the subject of the rumour mills recently. It’s previously been reported that the next generation of Apple’s smallest tablet will arrive before the year is out, but now Bloomberg has narrowed that window down.

When will the iPad mini with OLED arrive?

As picked up by 9to5Mac, the Bloomberg report says the iPad mini, which is rumoured to be upgraded with an OLED display, will launch as soon as October.

Bloomberg says: “Apple is preparing to unveil the new OLED iPad mini [code-named J510] as early as this fall, with a release planned by October.”

It also added that the Cupertino company is working on adding an OLED display to the iPad Air, too, but it is “not currently working on a base iPad with OLED". That will likely stick to LCD.

The iPad Air with OLED is expected to be released later than the iPad mini with OLED however, with Bloomberg claiming it'll instead arrive in "the first calendar quarter next year". We should also expect a new processor.

This follows a previous report where Bloomberg claimed Apple was working on updates to its Apple Pencil models, and those were mentioned again in the latest claims. It is also suggested the iPad mini price could increase.

It already starts at £599 today, following Apple's price hikes a few weeks ago. It's worth noting though, even if Apple bumps up the starting price for the OLED technology on the iPad mini, it's still likely to be considerably cheaper than the folding iPhone.

Of course, nothing is official until we hear it from the horse's mouth, so there will still be a few months to wait until we find out whether a new iPad mini is coming and how much it will be.

Apple will reportedly release a new iPad mini later this year, according to several rumours flying around, but one leaker has also revealed some less welcome news.

The iPad mini 8 could feature a significant upgrade by adopting an 8.4-inch hybrid OLED display – the current model comes with an IPS LCD panel. This would give it improved black levels and colour saturation, while an LTPS back panel could ensure it is capable of brighter images, too.

However, according to Korean tipster yeux1122 (via MacRumors), the OLED panel used will continue to be locked to 60Hz. This allegedly comes from the display supply chain, with "mass production" said to be "underway".

The iPad Pro models have used OLED panels for a while, but they're capable of 120Hz refresh rates. Same with the iPhone 17 models (bar the 17e). So it seems a shame that a device that is be seen as an all-rounder might miss out.

Can 60Hz still cut it in the face of the competition?

Rival tablets of its size often have panels capable of at least 120Hz. The gaming-centric RedMagic Astra goes up to 185Hz, in fact. And that sports an OLED display, as well.

Hopefully though, Apple will manage to keep the price down. It has recently raised prices across most of its products, in response to the ongoing global components crisis, but the iPad mini is traditionally its more accessible tablet.

And, with the iPhone Ultra looming large, which is effectively a foldable iPad mini, surely the actual iPad mini will be now seen as an alternative for those that can't justify the Ultra's expected costs (over $2,000, it is said).

We should find out soon enough, with previous suggestions that the new mini will arrive in October, along with a potential MacBook Pro refresh. We'll keep you up to date with any further goings-on in the meantime.

Amazon appears to have tweaked the Fire HD 10, its big screen value-focused tablet. The RAM has been bumped by 25%, but there are a couple of interesting things in the new listing to be aware of.

This appears to be a tweak to the Fire HD 10, with the higher RAM level listed with limitations: it's only available with 32GB storage and it comes with lockscreen ads. It's also listed separately to the 3GB version with has a couple more options to choose from.

Currently, this only appears to be in the US, with the 4GB model listed here, while the 3GB models remain here.

Typically, Fire HD tablets are listed with a couple of options. That allows buyers to move from the base model into more storage, while the other option is to have the adverts on the lockscreen or to disable those, usually for a small price increase.

It appears that this new version of the Fire HD 10 with 4GB RAM was listed on Amazon at the beginning of June and buyers need to make sure they're choosing the right version, as currently, both the 3GB and 4GB models offer 32GB storage at the same price.

However, the 3GB version at the $155 price has no lockscreen ads.

With a lack of changes elsewhere, it looks like Amazon is trying to boost the performance of the model without ramping up the price – and limiting the options seems to be the way to do this. With that said, Engadget notes that it can charge in four hours instead of five.

Admittedly, at the moment these listings are a little confusing and we're not seeing the same changes in the UK – where currently the Fire HD 10 is listed at £110 thanks to a 27% discount. That's for the 3GB RAM, 32GB storage version, with ads.

Amazon's Fire HD 10 is a respectable tablet for those looking for a cheap media device: it's great for streaming content with its 1080p display, but it's not hugely powerful and because it doesn’t support the Google Play Store, it's not ideal for those with greater demands.

One of the slightly rare features is that it supports microSD meaning that the base storage can be expanded. The 32GB model only has 24GB available to users which isn't much, especially if you start downloading apps that have higher storage demands. Even downloading movies from several streaming services and music from Spotify will quickly fill the available space.

Sadly, microSD cards have not been exempt from price rises, but for some users this will be a cheaper way to increase the capacity, with up to 1TB supported on these tablets.

As I said, this listing isn't currently showing on Amazon UK, but if you're interested in buying the tablet in the US make sure you pick the right version for you.

It's that time when your wages hit your bank account, meaning we've got a recommendation on what to spend some of that hard-earned cash on.

The Amazon Kindle Colorsoft is now down to $159.99 from its original price of $249.99, which is more than a third off for Amazon Prime Day deals week – and it's never been cheaper.

Check out the Amazon Kindle Colorsoft deal on Amazon.com

I've got one of these e-readers myself, and I'd say the color screen upgrade is well worth investing in – especially now it's significantly cheaper than ever before.

You get covers, illustrations, and photos in color rather than mono, plus you can use colors with your highlights too – which is very handy if you want to categorize different types of highlights and see the differences at a glance.

Reading through e-books on a Kindle couldn't be simpler, with Amazon refining the interface over the years to make it intuitive and straightforward. Something I make use of a lot is the X-Ray feature, which serves up a summary of plot, characters, and locations, so you never get lost (something you can't do as easily if you're reading a paperback).

The high-resolution 7-inch screen that the Kindle Colorsoft sports comes with an adjustable warm light, so you can easily adjust the tint of the screen and you don't need an additional light if you're reading after the sun goes down. It's waterproof too, which means less of a worry if you're taking this to the beach or the park.

An Amazon Kindle, in color

I initially wasn't sure about making the switch to e-readers, but the Kindles I've had – most recently the Colorsoft – have convinced me that this is the way to go. Text size and style can be quickly adjusted as needed, and these devices are just so much more portable than a stack of physical books, which is particularly important when traveling.

So, if you want my advice, you'll get yourself a Kindle Colorsoft while Amazon has it at this super-low discounted price. You can spend some of the money you save on a bit of reading material from the Kindle store – the 16GB of internal storage that this model comes with is enough space to fit in thousands of e-books.

The Kindle Colorsoft is what the Kindle always should have been. Yes, the majority of times you read a book, you don't need colour, but there's a reason printed books don't have black and white covers.

Right now for Amazon Prime Day, you can pick up the latest Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition for a similar price as a regular Kindle Paperwhite – just £166.24 (38% off) – or the regular Kindle Colorsoft for £154 (35% off). So why wouldn't you go for the colour option?

If you like reading illustrated books or comics, the colorsoft is a game-changer, but even for your standard book experience, it's a nice addition to browse the Kindle store and see those covers in full colour. You also get the benefit of highlighting text in colour, and you still get a super-long battery life of 8 weeks.

Don't forget, the Kindle has a web browser too, so you can browse the news in colour, or even play Wordle on the move.

So if you're planning to upgrade your Kindle or buying one for the first time, the Kindle Colorsoft is a little more luxurious. So why not spoil yourself?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Prime Day World Cup fun

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

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

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

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

I've got a routine at the moment, and it's quite a nice one; every morning, the moment I wake up, instead of reaching for my phone to see what's going on in the world, I instead grab my Honor MagicPad 4.

I head straight to YouTube, to the ITV Sport channel, to watch the highlights from the World Cup games I missed overnight due to their often impossible kick-off times. Each set of highlights is around eight minutes long, and I get through them all before opening any news or messaging apps, to avoid accidentally having scorelines spoiled.

Best of all, I get to watch those highlights on one of the best displays I've ever used, a gorgeous OLED panel at 3K resolution – this tablet is a genuine stunner, as befits the five-star rating we've given it. Here's the really good news, too: it's got an Amazon Prime Day deal right now, knocking £99 off.

I've had the tablet now for a few months, and it's been a really useful addition to my array of devices. I've already used it very successfully for travel, for instance, and used it to far outstrip the quality of the in-seat display you get on long-haul flights.

Now, though, it's becoming even more baked into my routine, and the need to watch highlights every morning is as good a reason as any. With a 12.3-inch OLED display, this table legitimately looks as good as anything else in the Android market, and its slimness means that even iPads don't necessarily look like clear upgrades.

It's also really powerful and has a bevvy of interesting Honor software features, from a PC mode that makes it more like a laptop to use, to some systems to let you transfer files wirelessly to and from a surprisingly wide range of devices.

So, if you want a stellar Android tablet that will almost certainly shock you when you realise how thin it is, now's your chance to get a tasty £99 off. You've probably got until the end of Prime Day tomorrow (26 June), so don't hang around.

I went to Bangkok for the launch of the Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro, a lovely (and rather capable) fitness tracker. To my surprise, the brand unveiled a whole range of new products I wasn't aware of, including a kids' smartwatch that seemed to captivate the journalists and content creators gathered.

Among these new products, one caught my eye for its remarkably slim, lightweight design and high-end specs. At just 4.7mm thick, Huawei claims the MatePad Pro Max is currently the world's thinnest 13-inch-plus tablet, with the standard model weighing only 499g.

The PaperMatte Edition I tested tips the scales at a mere 509g – impressively light for a tablet that's as big as my MacBook Air M1 (and weighs 1.29kg).

The MatePad Pro Max is Huawei's answer to the iPad Pro M5. It matches Apple's flagship tablet on premium materials, OLED screen technology and productivity accessories while going even thinner and lighter, but the Apple silicon-powered slate still has the edge in ecosystem support (more on that below).

Thin enough to make you nervous

The tablet uses a full-metal unibody chassis and introduces Huawei's new Cloud Falcon Architecture, which the company says delivers up to 60% greater bend resistance than the previous-generation MatePad Pro 13.2-inch (I must confess, I didn't test this). That extra structural rigidity helps the device feel reassuringly solid despite its wafer-thin profile.

The blue version I used features what Huawei calls a luminous finish, created with a "nano-level coating" applied to the metal body (a very Huawei thing to say). The brand says this is the first time such a coating has been used on a tablet, producing subtle light-and-shadow effects across the rear panel as the device catches the light.

The MatePad Pro Max has a beautiful 13.2-inch Flexible OLED PaperMatte Display with 3K resolution, a 144Hz refresh rate and up to 1,600-nit peak brightness. The tablet boasts a 94% screen-to-body ratio, giving it an almost edge-to-edge appearance.

The PaperMatte panel uses a "high-precision nano-etching" process to reduce reflections while maintaining image clarity, and Huawei says the latest generation is 20% clearer than the previous PaperMatte display.

The display is worth dwelling on. Huawei's 13.2-inch Flexible OLED PaperMatte panel is one of the nicest screens I've used on any tablet. Videos look phenomenal, colours pop, and the anti-glare coating means it's perfectly usable outdoors, even in direct sunlight. I also spent a fair bit of time reading books and comics on it, and it comes surprisingly close to the experience of reading on paper.

The hardware package is rounded out by a 9,760mAh high-silicon anode battery, a six-speaker audio system, four microphones, and support for the Huawei M-Pencil Pro, which offers 10,000 levels of pressure sensitivity.

Combined with the optional Glide Keyboard, the tablet is clearly designed to blur the line between a traditional tablet and a lightweight productivity machine.

My brief and unsuccessful art career

Needless to say, I had to give the setup a try, as I always fancied myself an artist, even though I can't draw, play an instrument or do anything else that's worth anything artistically. Nevertheless, I have always adored people who make it look like creating artwork on an iPad with Procreate is a piece of cake. Getting my hands on the MatePad Pro Max felt like my ticket into this exclusive club.

Huawei has its own version of Procreate called GoPaint, which is free and offers what feels like a quadrillion tools to make art easier. There are sketching, painting, watercolour and oil painting options, and it includes features such as Intelligent Colour Card, which generates custom palettes from real-world photos, as well as Fluid Brush and Splatter Brush.

A camera built for creators

Speaking of photos, to make the Intelligent Colour Card feature work, Huawei has equipped the MatePad Pro Max with a new True-to-Colour Camera that's designed to capture colours as accurately as possible, providing a reliable foundation for artists like me to reproduce real-world scenes in GoPaint.

Now, I don't know about you, but walking around town and taking photos with a 13-inch tablet does make me feel like a pensioner. Nevertheless, if you're creating art, you won't care whether people are looking at you while you take photos with your MatePad Pro Max, as long as the end results look good.

Of course, if you have a Huawei phone, you can use that to take photos and send them over to your tablet. I don't, so I used the camera, which surprisingly can reach up to 10x magnification. Admittedly, zoomed-in photos in low light can look a little rough, but having access to up to 10x magnification on a tablet is impressive in itself.

A testament to the tablet's user-friendliness and the GoPaint app is that I often found myself doodling in the evenings instead of scrolling on my phone. Most of my artwork involved tracing photos and using the Intelligent Colour Card to recreate a colour palette similar to the original image, but I still felt like an artist. Below, you'll find a selection of some of my finest pieces (please contact me if you'd like to purchase any).

[insert gallery]

The software problem Huawei still can't solve

Moving beyond creating artwork, things get a bit more dicey. Huawei says it spends huge amounts of money on R&D, but even that can't replace third-party app support. This is fine for the brand's smartwatches and audio products, both of which work well with Android and Apple devices, but tablets, laptops and smartphones really suffer from the lack of software.

Huawei's own apps are thin on content and entertainment, and without other companies providing those, there is only so much you can do on the MatePad Pro Max. For example, news articles are coming from Taboola, and Huawei Books is full of titles I've never heard of. Neither YouTube nor Netflix currently offers a native Huawei tablet app through AppGallery. You can't access WhatsApp, either. The list goes on.

The lack of third-party app support might also affect artists. It's one thing to create artwork in GoPaint, but many creatives rely on Adobe's ecosystem as part of their workflow. The lack of native support for some of these tools creates friction that simply doesn't exist on an iPad.

For now, Huawei doesn't offer a viable alternative to many of the apps people are used to using, which makes it hard to recommend the MatePad Pro Max to anyone who doesn't like bending the rules a bit.

Even if you are, there is simply no way to create a full Android experience on the tablet. There are platforms that let you download Android apps to your Huawei tablet (for example, GBox), but even these have their limitations. Some apps refuse to run – or even download – on the virtual user GBox creates, which further limits the MatePad Pro Max's versatility.

Luckily, these workarounds bring the tablet much closer to the standard Android tablet experience. You can download Netflix via GBox, which lets you not only watch movies but also play games. You can also download and run apps such as Google Play Books, which pairs nicely with the tablet's paper-like display.

Of course, none of this is officially recommended by Huawei. As you can imagine, the company won't start telling people to use sideloaded software on their flagship tablet, but it certainly makes the overall experience much smoother.

Brilliant hardware, frustrating software

You can use the tablet without Android apps, of course, but even apps as brilliant as GoPaint or Huawei Notes won't replace the complete software ecosystem that other tablets enjoy. And in all honesty, Huawei alone won't be able to plug holes in its app offering as quickly as new apps appear. Even Apple and Google don't have the resources to do that.

All that said, I love the MatePad Pro Max. From a hardware perspective, it's one of the most impressive tablets I've used in years. The display is gorgeous, the design is astonishingly thin and light, and GoPaint genuinely made me want to spend less time scrolling and more time creating.

The problem is software. Without full native app support, Huawei is fighting with one hand tied behind its back. The company has built a tablet that can rival Apple's and Samsung's best hardware, but the ecosystem still isn't there.

That's a shame, because if hardware were the only thing that mattered, the MatePad Pro Max would be one of the easiest tablets to recommend.

One thing is for sure: I enjoy having the tablet with me and look forward to creating more terrible artwork in the future.

The MatePad Pro Max is available now at Huawei UK for £899 (RRP £999). The keyboard is an extra £200. If you buy the tablet now, you'll also get a free M-Pencil Pro (worth £129) and a 12-month Extended Warranty Service (worth £19.99).

Honor is thought to be working on a compact but powerful tablet aimed at gamers and featuring a high refresh rate to make those games look great.

According to Digital Chat Station, the new Honor tablet is thought to be powered by Snapdragon 8 Elite hardware - although it's not clear which version - while it will also pack in an OLED display.

The device could be called the Honor Win Pad Mini. But before you get too excited about it being a compact Windows device, Win is Honor's gaming brand. It previously gave us the Honor Win phone series, which is currently only available in China.

The Honor Win Pad Mini's focus appears to be on the OLED display, beating Apple's iPad mini which currently uses an LCD screen. It's also said that the tablet will have really narrow bezels, something the brand is now pursuing on its devices, like the Honor 600 Pro.

The compact tablet segment is enjoying something of a resurgence, with the Oppo Pad Mini also offering an 8.8-inch OLED display and packing in powerful hardware. The RedMagic Astra is another in the same category.

There was a time when tablets had more mid-range specifications, but over the last couple of years we've seen more powerful Android devices to compete with iPad.

As part of the Win family, we might not see this tablet launch in the Europe or the US, but if the company's MagicPad 4 is anything to go by, expectations will be high.

Honor's current flagship tablet has a 165Hz OLED display with 2,400 nit brightness, paired with a 4.8mm thickness and Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 hardware. When we reviewed it, we found it to be a five-star Android tablet, which sets a high bar.

There may be some adaptations to make this tablet better optimised for gaming like existing Win devices from Honor. That could include advanced cooling, bypass charging and other features.

Currently, we'll just have to watch and wait to see if this tempting tablet does launch and if there will be a mini tablet released for global markets.

It might not always look like it, but being a tech journalist involves much more long-haul travel than you might think. I can't necessarily always explain why conferences like CES have been in Las Vegas for decades, although others, like Computex being in Taipei, are a little easier to trace.

Either way, it means that I've spent a lot of time on the road and in the air over the last few years, and that's made me intimately familiar with in-flight entertainment. It's always fun to sink into a movie that only just left cinemas while at 30,000 feet, but the sad fact is that you'll generally be doing it on a downright terrible screen.

When I flew to Taipei a couple of weeks ago, it marked the first time I took a really long flight since I got my hands on a loaner unit of the Honor MagicPad 4, which had been impressing me a lot in regular household use. So, to see whether it could upgrade my experience actually watching movies on some very long flights to and from Asia, I downloaded some movies on Now (where I have a Sky Cinema subscription) to put it through its paces.

While I fly a lot, those flights are almost never in business class, so the comparison I'm making here is very much against the standard economy and premium economy screens that most of us are familiar with, and it won't surprise you to learn that the MagicPad 4 completely destroys these from a quality point of view.

Its display is a bright and vivid OLED, and that means that when I glanced to my left to check out my neighbour's in-flight screen comparatively, the difference was almost embarrassing. This does mean that some brightness tweaking was needed when the cabin lights went down to let people sleep, but that's a small price to pay.

While I do have an AirFly Pro 2 from Twelve South to make Bluetooth connections a doddle with in-flight systems, it's also even easier to just use the tablet's built-in functionality without needing an extra accessory. That said, one tiny foible is that the MagicPad 4 doesn't have a 3.5mm audio jack, which is a slight shame as it makes audio setups a little more restricted.

That wasn't a factor on my flights, but when I'm travelling with my girlfriend, it means I can't use the AirFly Pro 2 to set up a dual-audio system where we can both connect our headphones to the tablet for a shared viewing session.

Still, that one quibble aside (and it's one that won't apply to most solo travellers), the MagicPad 4 was such a big upgrade in terms of viewing quality that I'm likely to now pack it on every long-haul trip while I still have access to it. The only downside is the loss of some more space in my backpack, even if the tablet's absurd slimness means it's really not much of a burden.

I'm not going to pretend to be surprised that a £600 tablet outperforms in-flight systems that have, in some cases, been around for a decade or more, of course. Anyone with a recent iPad is probably thinking that the benefits are obvious – but this was my first time verifying that for myself, and it was still a fun change to make. If you're staring down a long flight soon and have access to a tablet alternative of your own, consider this your warning to follow suit.

The Honor MagicPad family has quietly become one of the key series for folks who want a serious, big-screen tablet. Its latest MagicPad 4 is pretty strong competition for an iPad Pro or Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra, particularly if you want to spend less.

The MagicPad 4 is also unusually thin and light, and does not leave out any key features – bar a fingerprint reader. So what's the catch?

The Honor only has an upper-mid-table processor, but a lot of the time you’d be hard-pressed to notice. And some tablets in this class last a bit longer off a charge, too. But that's nitpicking, as the MagicPad 4 really is magic.

Price and Availability

The Honor MagicPad 4 was announced in February 2026, and comes in two colours, plus two spec flavours.

Mine is the silvery metal version with 256GB storage and 12GB RAM. It costs £599 before any discounts. This colour comes in a 16GB RAM and 512GB storage version too, at £699.

Honor makes a white edition – only in the lower-spec load-out. It will feel less metallic than this review model's finish, though, so bear that in mind.

There's also a £170 keyboard and stylus accessory package. If you bought the equivalent for an iPad Pro 13 you'd be looking at £1727 total; or £1038 for the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 bundle.

Design

• 4.8mm thick, 450g
• Aluminium casing

The Honor MagicPad 4 is the first tablet I’ve used to truly exploit silicon-carbon battery tech to get really, really thin. It’s just 4.8mm thick, down from 5.8mm in the last generation, outside of the thicker camera housing section.

That’s a rather undramatic-sounding 94% of the thickness of an iPad Pro 13. But it feels ultra-thin in person, even by modern tablet standards.

Weight is arguably more impressive. The MagicPag 4 weighs 450g, which is far lower than the 555g of the MagicPad 2 from 2024 – last year’s model was larger, so does not make for a fair comparison.

Considering it’s a 12.3-inch tablet, it’s surprisingly manageable, without any build compromises to get there. It’s effectively a 12-inch tablet at the weight of an 11-inch one.

Much like other high-end tablets, the MagicPad 4 has an aluminium casing and toughened glass screen. There’s no official water resistance, which is part of the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 series, if at significantly greater expense.

This is an unusual case where using tech that makes a device thinner has some real practical benefit – it improves the Honor MagicPad 4’s handling no end, and I really do feel the difference in person.

It’s also available with a keyboard case and stylus. Compared to the keyboard of the Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro, this one is a little perfunctory. There’s no touchpad, no laptop-style hinge or keyboard backlight. It’s a fairly simple fold-over case that uses magnets and a couple of strategically placed grooves to let the screen sit at one of two angles.

That’s not quite enough to fool my brain into thinking I’m using a laptop, but the actual key quality is very solid. There’s as much key travel as plenty of laptops, and nicely defined feedback as each key hits its actuation point.

Software and Stylus

• Android 16 platform
• Pressure-sensing stylus (optional)

Honor also makes some effort to try and trick you into feeling the MagicPad 4 is closer to a laptop in the software, compared to smaller tablets. But you do have to seek these features out.

The top one is called PC mode, which you can switch on from the settings drop-down toggle screen. It alters the scale of the app shortcut bar, so many more icons fit in, sticks to landscape view, and opens up apps as landscape-aspect windows too.

Honor’s aim is to make it feel like you’re using something at least close to a traditional laptop or Windows hybrid. And while Android is going to trip up those efforts a bit every now and then, it does at least offer multi-tasking that doesn’t seem basically the same as you get on a 6-inch phone.

The supported (but not bundled) stylus is good too, and is far more complex or feature-packed than it looks. From a glance the Magic-Pencil 3 appears as simple these styluses come, bar having a replaceable screw-in tip. But there’s more to it.

While there’s no clicky button, the side of the pen is a touch surface. It can be used to switch between pen and eraser tools in supported apps (sadly limited to Honor’s ones), or to scroll through articles or flick through slides in a presentation.

The pen can also be used as a laser pointer of sorts, as it’s a Bluetooth pen, not one that relies solely on close proximity with the Honor MagicPad 4’s screen. There’s no haptic feedback for those interactions, though, and the scrolling can feel a little awkward.

Most important, though, it feels great while working as a digital pencil or paintbrush. There’s no obvious latency, it’s pressure-sensitive (4096 supported levels) and can detect the angle used, for more naturalistic pencil shading in arty apps.

You can also use the pencil to write into Honor MagicPad 4 text input boxes directly using OCR (optical character recognition).

Display

• 12.3-inch OLED panel
• 3000 x 1920 resolution, 165Hz refresh rate
• 2400 nit claimed brightness (730 nits tested)

The Honor MagicPad 4 has a large 12.3-inch screen, sitting between the 11-inch Xiaomi Tab 8 Pro and the iPad Pro 13 in terms of scale.

Its aspect ratio is a little wider (landscape orientation) than either of those, even though you may hear all three described as 3:2 aspect ratio devices. That means you get fractionally less perception of size for your apps per screen inch – or at least I felt that. The screen size to square inch of this tab is stellar thanks to the ultra-skinny borders.

The Honor MagicPad 4 screen basically feels a bit smaller than that of an ordinary laptop. Image quality is above that of any laptop near this price, though.

Resolution of 3000 x 1920 pixels provides pixel density similar to that of a phone, even though you’ll likely hold this tablet further away. It’s an OLED panel, so colour and contrast are a guaranteed hit, and it has a refresh rate of up to 165Hz for smoother motion.

This is one of those smart panels that can use at a whole bunch of refresh rates when applicable: 60/90/120/144/165Hz, rather than just 165Hz and 60Hz.

The one part where the spec doesn’t quite match the reality is brightness. Honor says the MagicPad 4 can hit 2400 nits, but the best I saw was 730 nits. And that was when playing HDR video in strong lighting. It’s more than decent, though, and the norm for most good OLED screens at present, just not close to iPad Pro levels.

However, at this price the Honour MagicPad 4 is going to be hard to beat for tablet-based movie and video-watching.

There's no option for a matte-etched glass finish, though, which Xiaomi offers as a £30 upgrade in the top -pec Pad 8 Pro. It’s glossy all the way with the Honor.

Performance

• Qualcomm Snapdragon Gen 5 processor
• Adreno 829 GPU
• 12GB RAM

The Honor MagicPad 4 has a Qualcomm Snapdragon Gen 5 processor, which is a step below the Snapdragon Elite seen in the Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro and OnePlus Pad 3.

Annoyingly, Honor has blocked my particular model from running any of the sort of benchmark and testing apps that can (somewhat) reliably tell you how powerful a tablet really is. I do know roughly what we’re dealing with here, though, as the same processor has been used in the OnePlus 15R.

It scores around 10% less than the top-tier Elite in CPU tests, while you get up to around 40% extra graphics performance with the latest Elite for gaming, or 20% higher performance with the rival Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro – which uses the previous-generation version of the processor.

This is no weed, though, it’s just not quite at the level of an iPad Pro or the very top-tier Android slates in 2026.

To see how much this actually matters in the Honor MagicPad 4, I tried a few games of Fortnite, which recently returned to Google Play at the time of review. You can max the visuals out and still have the frame rate mostly dialled in at 60fps. The 120fps mode is greyed out, while being visible in the Snapdragon 8 Elite-equipped Xiaomi Tab 8 Pro, though.

There are minor compromises, then, and they are worth paying attention to for gamers, given the Xiaomi costs less than the Honor MagicPad 4 at each’s original price. It’s a question of lower weight and thickness – plus OLED contrast – versus greater power in the Xiaomi.

Don’t focus on this too much, though, as the MagicPad 4 still has a lot of power at its fingertips. It has loads more than the iPad 11, while not being in a totally different galaxy to the – granted – more powerful iPad Air 11in, which costs the same amount at its base spec.

Features and Battery Life

• 10,100mAh battery capacity
• 66W wired charging
• 8-speaker array 

The Honor MagicPad 4 has a large 10,100mAh battery. Unusually, Honor doesn’t make any eyebrow-raising claims about its stamina.

When watching video, seven hours and 20 minutes of streaming took 62% off the charge level, suggesting we’re looking at perhaps just under 12 hours per charge. Another test saw an hour of YouTube snip off 7%, pointing to a better result of around 14 hours.

The smaller (but thicker) Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro lasts longer in my experience, but this Honor is still going to power through a transatlantic flight no problem, especially as having pre-downloaded video should in theory take power consumption even lower.

You could argue Honor should have used its silicon-carbon battery tech to increase battery capacity rather than reducing thickness and weight, but it’s such a bonus for handling here that I mostly don’t agree. Especially as the tablet has fairly fast charging.

The MagicPad 4 supports Honor’s Supercharge standard at up to 66W, which sees the tablet reach 100% after 78 minutes. That’s almost 20 minutes swifter than Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S11.

This thing’s media cred is also boosted by a well-above-average speaker array. The MagicPad 4 has an eight-speaker system with great maximum volume and a top sense of cohesion between mids and treble, which is particularly impressive given the tablet’s size.

I was seriously impressed when I first played some YouTube videos and podcasts through this thing.

Compared to some of its peers, though, including potentially the old MagicPad 2, bass depth is just a little lacking. So while timbre and detail are great for a set of tablet speakers – not to mention how the low-mid beefiness fills out voices – it doesn't quite reach that space where it feels like you’re listening to a (small) Bluetooth speaker.

This may well be a case of Honor’s engineers butting heads with that old unbeatable rival, physics. After all, a 4.8mm thickness isn’t much to work with.

Cameras

• Single 13-megapixel, f/2.0 aperture camera to rear
• 9MP f/2.2 front selfie camera

It does feel like less attention has been given to the Honor MagicPad 4’s cameras, though. Perhaps that’s no bad thing when any half-decent phone will outclass the best tablet, even if some tech novices still mistakenly believe their bigger size somehow makes them better devices for photos.

Look at the rear camera array and you might assume this Honor has two rear cameras. But it doesn’t. There’s a single 13MP camera; the other little circle on the back is a blank. Yes, it's odd.

Photos taken with the camera have the usual solid HDR-boosting that we’ve taken for granted for years now, helping to mostly eradicate overexposure from backlit scenes. But detail really isn’t that impressive, the limits becoming obvious even from a quick pinch-to-zoom explore on the MagicPad 4 itself.

The front camera has a 9.2MP sensor, one sensibly arranged to feel good with the tablet held in landscape. Once again, we don’t really get the pixel count to avoid making the limits of this hardware apparent on the MagicPad 4’s big screen.

Its native pixel count when shooting in an aspect ratio to fill the display is not too different to that of the screen itself. And when you’re dealing with a small sensor, that’s not ideal for photography. Still, it’s going to be ideal for video chats – aside from the fact this screen is going to highlight how bad the person on the other end’s camera is too.

Honor Magicpad 4 review: Verdict

The Honor MagicPad 4 is not a cheap tablet. It’s no impulse buy. But when you compare it directly to the competition from Apple and Samsung, it does start to seem a bit of a bargain.

It’s a very large tablet with an excellent screen and a wonderfully thin and light design that significantly boosts handling. And its list of abilities is similar to those of far more expensive rivals – including the option of a smart stylus and a case with a good-quality keyboard.

Sure, you can get more powerful tablets, but this one still runs Fortnite like a dream and feels responsive. So do you really need more? Most people don’t. The Honor MagicPad 4 really is magic for the money.

Also Consider

Two key alternatives are the OnePlus Pad 3 and Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro. Both have more gaming power than the Honor. But neither has the Honor’s three key highlights – the OLED screen, sub-5mm thickness and very low weight per screen inch.

If your budget can go way higher, consider the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11. It costs hundreds more and has a smaller screen, but some of its software feels like it has had more work pumped into it – most notably Samsung’s DeX, which emulates the feel of a desktop PC, especially when connected to an external display.

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

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

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

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

Price and Availability

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

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

Design and Features

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Performance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Verdict

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

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

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

Also consider

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

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

Kobo has announced that from June 2026, its platform will seamlessly sync with StoryGraph for reading integration. The partnership will mean that progress is tracked, with readers getting instant access to their reading data across multiple devices.

StoryGraph is an independent, data-based book tracking website that allows readers to log and rate their reads, giving insights not only into reading behaviour, but also generating personal recommendations for their next book.

The move pairs Kobo with a big name in reading tracking, an alternative to the Goodreads service that Amazon offers with Kindle.

Goodreads is highly regarded for its huge social network while StoryGraph has gained popularity for its reading stats. For many, StoryGraph is more about personal reading habits, while Goodreads is about seeing what friends are reading.

StoryGraph will give readers access to things like pace and reading moods with lots of insights into reading habits.

While this move could be seen as something of a competitive coup against Kindle, Nadia Odunayo, founder and CEO of StoryGraph had something interesting to say: "We're proud to be partnering with Kobo as the first e-reader to integrate natively with StoryGraph" said Odunayo.

That at least leaves the door open for future manufacturers to have their devices sync with StoryGraph too. While Kobo has another string to its bow, this probably isn't the last we'll hear about partnerships with StoryGraph.

Kobo is often celebrated because it's outside the Amazon network, providing greater freedoms for where you source books. Kobo also offers a range of reading devices, often at cheaper price points than Kindle and was faster to start offering colour devices.

However, Kindle remains popular for its simplicity, thanks to integration with the Kindle Store, allowing seamless purchases of the next bestseller, as well as a range of free titles that come with Prime membership.

Kindle moved into colour with the Paperwhite Colorsoft recently, but many regard the Kobo Libra Colour as a better choice – not just because it is more affordable, but because it also features buttons, something that Kindle dropped from its selection with the departure of the Oasis.

For those loyal Kobo users, come June you'll be able to get some great insights into your reading habits, you'll be able to rate and review books to help other StoryGraph readers and you'll get great personalised recommendations for your next book.

If you're already a StoryGraph user, the good news is that you'll no longer have to log your reading manually.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How often might you replace your Kindle's battery?

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

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

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

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

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

Amazon has stealthily launched the Kindle Scribe without Front Light in the UK and Germany. The e-reader and tablet has been available in the US for a while, but it's finally rolling out elsewhere from 10 June 2026.

By ditching the front light, Amazon has managed to get the new Kindle Scribe down in price – offering a better value option for those who want the benefit of an E Ink notepad but without the elevated cost.

It will cost £389.99 in the UK – £60 less than the similar black and white model with a front light. And it's almost £200 cheaper than the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, so could be an option if you want to make your budget go further.

The Kindle Scribe without Front Light is an 11-inch device with a glare-free display and paper-like writing experience. You get a pencil stylus in the box, which enables you to draw or write on the screen with little to no latency, and there are built-in notebook and AI tools to interact with.

You can, of course, use it as a regular e-reader too, with a battery life that lasts for weeks on a single charge, and the ability to import your own documents via Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive.

The device is just 5.4mm thin and weighs just 400g. It comes with 16GB of storage – half that of the regular Kindle Scribe – but pretty everything else is intact. Indeed, thanks to the lack of the light, you get longer battery life for reading.

The beginning of September last year didn’t just see the announcement of new iPhones and Apple Watch models, it also saw Instagram finally reveal a native version of its app for iPad.

It took 15 years to arrive – Instagram launched as a platform in 2010, six months after the first iPad arrived in stores – but when the app did finally land in September 2025, it was surprisingly different to the iPhone version – its layout, anyway.

Instead, Instagram opted for a controversial Reels-first approach, opening up straight onto the short videos rather than photo posts like you got on iPhone.

At the time, the announcement post read: “With Instagram for iPad, we’ve redesigned the experience to reflect how people use bigger screens today – for lean back entertainment.

"Now, when you open the app, you’ll drop into Reels, so you can get the entertaining content you love on a bigger screen. You’ll also see Stories at the top, so you can easily connect with the people that matter to you, and messaging is one tap away.”

The Instagram iPad app now looks like what we wanted all along

Six months on though, and that’s changed.

A new update to the Instagram app on iPad sees three main changes and we are thrilled. First, the Home tab works in a similar way to iPhone, presenting a feed of posts from people you follow, along with suggested posts you might like.

Secondly, Reels have been pushed into a separate navigation tab, just like you’ll see on iPhone.

And now, the "Following" tab has disappeared from the iPad app altogether, resulting in a very similar basic layout and design to what you get on iPhone, but with the advantage of the larger display.

The update to the Instagram app on iPad has rolled out globally, so if you’re still seeing the older layout, head to the App Store on iPad and search for Instagram.

You should then be able to force the update to the latest design by tapping "Update".

It’s not fair, really. Amazon's best Kindles are so synonymous with e-readers that some folks don’t even seem to realise there are actually alternatives out there.

There’s Kobo, Onyx Boox, Pocketbook, ReMarkable and more. But perhaps a few are starting to have their heads turned. There was recently a backlash after Amazon ended support for a bunch of older Kindle models — and these e-readers seem to be able to outlast just about anything else, with vaguely decent treatment. They're tech's tardigrades.

I’m still a big fan of a Kindle. The Paperwhite series is an absolute classic, but some of the top rivals can do things a Kindle simply can’t. And this is what we’re going to focus on today. Not straight-up copies of Kindle readers, but ones that offer something a little different to the norm.

Kobo vs Onyx vs Hannspree - What’s unique?

The Kobo Libra Colour is the most normal of these three Kindle alternatives, but it still features a few elements you no longer get in the Kindle range. First up, something simple: page turn buttons. These let you carry on reading with virtually no movement of your hands or fingers at all. Bliss.

This otherwise normal-looking e-reader also allows for note-taking and text highlighting with a stylus, which is offered in the Kindle Scribe series but not the smaller Paperwhite family. A Kobo stylus isn’t bundled in as standard, but it makes the Libra a bit of an e-reading Swiss army knife.

For something completely different, check out the Onyx Boox Palma 2. This is a phone-shaped e-reader, made for one-handed reading, which may be ideal for use on public transport. It has an E Ink screen just like a Kindle, and runs Android, alongside a custom, simplified e-reader interface.

It’s not actually a phone, with no SIM support at all. But you can install all the Android apps you like. Onyx also offers a Palma 2 Pro with a colour screen and a SIM slot (data only), but it costs a bunch more and still isn’t a phone.

Spreading out further into the reaches of reader territory, the Hannspree Lumo is not quite like other traditional e-readers. While the screen is similar to E Ink in person, it’s actually an unusual type of LCD without a backlight.

This gives you the easy on the eye appearance of a Kindle, but with far better motion. No ugly refresh here, although resolution is significantly lower than that of the best upper-end e-readers, at 1024 x 768 pixels. It’s basically a very unusual Android tablet, letting you install all sorts of apps.

Kobo vs Onyx vs Hannspree - Design and Ease of Use

Build and materials are areas where you can get an upgrade by choosing a more unusual e-reader. The Hannspree Lumo is a classic example.

Where most e-readers have plastic casings and plastic screens, the Lumo has an aluminium casing and a lovely anti-glare glass screen. The old Kindle Voyage had a fab etched glass display, but even the top-end Paperwhite Colorsoft Signature Edition has a plastic display surface these days.

The Lumo’s big design issue is that it doesn’t have any official IP water resistance rating, though, so be careful if you decide to read in the bath. It also has a less rounded, perhaps less comfy, body shape — you may want to consider picking up a case for this one.

Hannspree also doesn’t put any special effort into the software. The interface is Android, as plain as it comes. Zero bloat, but you will need to hunt down your own ebook reader app from the Google Play Store. Amazon Kindle is just one option, among many others.

The phone-like Onyx Boox Palma 2 also has an anti-glare glass screen and has at least some level of water resistance. It’s also a candidate for the most handy e-reader in existence. Other e-readers might just about fit in a larger coat pocket. This one slides into your jeans and is smaller than plenty of phones.

It’s also an Android-based e-reader, but it has a proper ebook reader section to the interface, so you’re not just left with what feels like an Android phone. Compared to the Hannspree, the important part to note is that the apps you install are going to look and feel different to how they’d come across on a non-E Ink device.

These displays either suffer from afterimages with moving content or look slow and juddery if you use frequent screen refreshes, thanks to the way E Ink works. The Onyx Boox Palma 2 gives you deep control over this screen behaviour, per app, but it’s a sliding scale of compromise.

The Kobo Libra Colour’s design style is closest to that of a Kindle, even with those page-turn buttons. It has a plastic casing, a plastic screen, a simplified interface and a dedicated Kobo digital book shop built in.

One of its neater touches is the curved lip on the Libra Colour’s side, which hugs your thumb. Just like a Kindle, this one isn’t a particularly upmarket design, but it does feel great. And its trimmed-back feature set is ideal for avoiding distractions while you read.

Kobo vs Onyx vs Hannspree - Which is best for reading?

Here’s an interesting one. In the last few years, we’ve seen the rise of the colour E Ink ebook reader, and the Kobo Libra Colour is one of the very best examples of this type of device.

You get all the eyestrain-reducing characteristics of an old-school Kindle, plus colour book covers and much better presentation of comics and graphic novels. But there are some downsides to note.

Colour E Ink screens like the Libra Colour’s Kaleido 3 panel look quite undersaturated, and contrast is lower than that of a monochrome e-reader as the “white” background has a more grey-ish tone. Text still looks sharp, though, and the overall reading experience here is excellent.

The Libra Colour also has support for the OverDrive platform, which is used by lending libraries in the UK. This means you can rent books for free, remotely, which is pretty awesome.

One other point to note, though, is that the 7-inch screen is a bit small for graphic novels and comics, for which you really want a bigger, more tablet-like display.

You get some of the way there with the Hansspree Lumo, which has a 7.8-inch screen. Plus, as it handles motion an order of magnitude better than other e-readers, flicking around comic book pages feels far more natural if you don’t like the zoomed-out view you get here when reading full-on graphic novels.

The front-lit LCD panel used here is also surprisingly close to E Ink in the reading experience on offer. But there are some issues. Book fonts appear significantly more pixellated than they do in a Kindle Paperwhite or Kobo Libra Colour. And display contrast is even worse than a colour E Ink reader. We find we need to ramp up the front light to get a decent reading experience.

Despite having the most unusual shape for an e-reader, the Boox Palma 2 has the most traditional screen tech. Monochrome E Ink looks fab for novels, with top contrast (for this type of screen anyway) and excellent sharpness.

The downside here is an obvious one. You can only fit so much text comfortably on an 18:9 aspect 6.13-inch screen. It’s a much taller shape than the ebook reader norm, and feels far smaller than a 7-inch reader like the Libra Colour, even if its inch count doesn’t sound all that far off.

Kobo vs Onyx vs Hannspree - What is the best Kindle alternative?

The Kobo Libra Colour is the best all-rounder alternative to a Kindle. It’s as sharp and colourful as a Kindle Colorsoft, and has a simple and understandable interface. You get extra features too, like support for ebook lending platform OverDrive and a note-taker app.

Those page turn buttons are great, and we miss them in the Kindle range — they’re similar to those of the classic Kindle Oasis, which was a blinder of an e-reader.

Our second pick goes to the Boox Palma 2, which is fantastic for commutes and for travelling light. But we ultimately prefer the more paperback-like page shape of a classic e-reader design.

Bringing up the rear, the Hannspree Lumo is a bit more of a tech curio. While it gets rid of the dodgy motion of E Ink and should cause less eyestrain than a traditional LCD or OLED, book text isn’t as sharp or clear as it is in the other contenders here.

Honourable Mentions

Both Boox and Kobo have a wider range of e-readers you should consider, particularly if you are not bothered about colour screens.

The long-standing Kobo Clara BW has a super-clear screen that is ideal if, above all else, you want an e-reader to read novels. There's a Colour version of that 6-inch model too.

Over in Boox town, the direct alternative to the Libra Colour is called the Boox Go Color 7. It's more flexible thanks to its Android software, but we prefer Kobo's buttons and the simplicity of its more focused software.

Pocketbook's range is also well worth a look, especially if you want to spend a little less. The Pocketbook Era Colour is a neat 7-inch model that often sells for less than the rival Boox and Kobo models, and even has a built-in speaker for audiobooks.

How do you dig yourself out of a hole? Well, in ReMarkable's case, it looks like it's hoping the answer is "by improving affordability".

After years during which its writing tablets have been distinctly high-end propositions – but ones fans love, including us – it's now entering a slightly lower-priced part of the market with the ReMarkable Paper Pure.

That word "slightly" is key, though. This isn't a mass-market device by a long shot, and it doesn't add any features that completely change the ReMarkable offering. Rather, it's more price-approachable by some degree.

It'll be interesting to see whether that prospect changes ReMarkable's fortunes (given it has laid off hundreds of employees, including its CEO, in recent weeks). I've been using the Paper Pure to see whether it's the ReMarkable that's been missing.

Price and availability

The ReMarkable Paper Pure is available to pre-order today, direct from the maker, and it'll start to trickle through to other storefronts pretty imminently, too, ahead of shipping in June.

It's priced at £359 / $399 and comes with a ReMarkable Marker as standard (since a stylus is totally essential to the experience).

The extant ReMarkable Paper Pro sits at £599, while the older Paper 2 is £389 – and almost certainly superseded by the Paper Pure as a result.

You can also opt to upgrade and pay £399 for a bundle that includes an undeniably lovely folio slipcase (which I've tested but won't include in this review, since it's not a default inclusion) and a slightly fancier Marker Plus that also works to erase content when flipped around.

Design and Features

Take a turn around the ReMarkable Paper Pure, and it's hard not to admire the R&D work that's gone into it. It's a super-slim slab that rests on a surface atop four subtle rubberised feet that keep it rock-solid under your hands.

The tablet itself is finished on the back and sides in a nicely textured greyish plastic, but if that sounds unsatisfying, I'll defend it – this is a well-made piece of hardware, without too much flex, and a premium feeling to its materials.

Along the 6mm-thin edge of the tablet, you'll find only a couple of interruptions. One is a power and wake button, while the other is a USB-C port for charging. That lack of other buttons (since none are needed) makes it feel like the distraction-free device that ReMarkable is claiming.

The front of the tablet, meanwhile, is where the real action happens. It has a uniform white bezel on three sides, while one of the long edges sees this deepen so that you can grip it there without touching the screen. I'm a little torn on this, despite it being a feature of most ReMarkable tablets – would a universal bezel be that much worse for usability, despite its more satisfying looks?

Still, the overall look is a really satisfying one, and it's clearly an elegant addition to your workflow, weighing in at just 360g to ensure that it's no burden when in a backpack. The display itself is 10.3-inches on the diagonal, and the tablet is just under 23cm tall in portrait mode.

ReMarkable says that the Paper Pure has its "third-generation Canvas display", and the key thing here is that it's both black-and-white and not backlit. Those cuts are what mainly differentiate it from the more expensive Paper Pro, but they're not quite the end of that list.

The Paper Pure also has 32GB of internal storage, rather than 64GB, a 1.7 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A55 processor rather than a higher-spec version, older LPDDR3 RAM instead of LPDDR4, and a smaller 3,820 mAh battery (down from just over 5,000mAh).

Crucially, though, it's compatible with all the same file types and systems, so there's no difference in how you'll actually use the Paper Pure – it just might be a tad slower in some moments, and will require ambient light to be legible.

The included stylus attaches via a decently strong magnet along one long side of the tablet to charge wirelessly, and the folio case allows space for this, making it easier to keep track of your all-important writing implement.

ReMarkable is expanding some of the second-screen and cloud upload tools that its tablets can use, and debuting some of these with the Paper Pure, but it's worth knowing, as always, that plenty of these tools are paywalled behind its monthly subscription.

For £2.99 per month or £29 per year ($3.99/month or $39/year in the US) you get access to integrations with Slack and Miro, file conversion built into the share system, the ability to search handwritten files, and unlimited cloud storage rather than a cap on files older than 50 days. It's a canny offer that is likely to be required if your aims are professional, and that makes this tablet less affordable in the long run.

On the topic of its subscription, though, it's impossible to ignore the fact that ReMarkable just announced hundreds of layoffs and a change of CEO – if long-term guarantees of service are your thing, that might leave you feeling a little leery.

Performance

The whole point of a ReMarkable tablet, arguably, is to have the sort of subscription anxiety and specs-listing from the prior section fade away as you use it to spark ideas and free thinking. From that point of view, it's hard to see the Paper Pure as anything other than another solid piece of hardware from a brand that's increasingly experienced in this area.

The biggest variables here are how intuitive the Paper Pure is to use, and how it feels to write and jot on it. In both cases, I've been impressed. ReMarkable's interface is simple and clean, to start with, with a homescreen that make it really easy to start a new note or get back into one.

New integrations mean that you can go deeper into having notes associated with calendar events, which is a great idea, but it's also true that many of those integrations are fairly obviously aimed at enterprise-level use. Whether ReMarkable succeeds in seeding the Paper Pure to creative businesses could have a big say on the company's future, it would seem.

For personal use, though, I've found it smooth sailing, with the various ways to share documents ultimately coming up trumps. My partner found it a great place to design a linocut, for example, and being able to send a JPEG of the file to print off for cutting said lino was a really straightforward job.

The actual writing experience, meanwhile, remains best in class. I've used the Kindle Scribe plenty, and while it has a decent enough pencil-feeling, it's not in the same bracket as ReMarkable. The Paper Pure authentically just feels like paper when you're writing on it, in an intangible but actually very tangible way.

This is clearly the result of a lot of work and design choices over the years, right down to the fact that its pens' tips actually do degrade over time, since there's that much friction with the screen. Thankfully, you get plenty of replacements in the box. The handwriting feel that you get with the Paper Pure is every bit as satisfying as you could want, in short.

While doing that writing or drawing, you also have plenty of tools to use for custom controls, too. That might mean thinner lines or thicker, highlighters or marker-style lines, but all of them have been easy to find and use in my experience. Obviously, the lack of colour does mean that its use for illustration has a ceiling, but for sketching it's fairly reliable (caveat: I'm no artist).

It's easy to imagine the Paper Pure on an architect's desk waiting to be taken to a meeting, and ready for sketches screen-shared to a meeting room for notes, and in that context, it's a winning device. That said, with a fairly narrow set of uses, the Paper Pure is therefore by necessity a really niche option.

I asked ReMarkable recently whether e-reader capabilities were on the cards, as an example of how it could broaden the appeal, and it was clear the idea isn't a new one to it – but while that sort of addition remains remote, the Paper Pure's utility outside of a meeting room or personal workflow will similarly stay somewhat variable.

Verdict

The Paper Pure accomplishes one big thing for ReMarkable – it brings a lower price point for people looking to get a premium paper-like writing tablet. That's obviously also a fairly narrow purview, but I can't fault the hardware I've tested much, and I enjoyed my time trying to take more handwritten notes.

Whether you need a separate device for meetings and notes, of course, will be a totally personal question, and if you're in the market for one then I suspect the Paper Pure is a super strong option for you. I didn't miss the colour screen or extra battery of the Paper Pro, as all the utility you could want is present and correct on the Paper Pure.

It feels superb to write on and has an elegance of design that will likely see it become a favourite among ReMarkable die-hards. That said, a still-steep price means I can't see it becoming the breakout hit that the brand likely craves.

Also consider

The Paper Pro is the obvious step-up model if you want more features and a colour screen to make your notes and designs pop out more. It's also a good chunk more expensive, so your mileage may vary on that front.

The obvious competitor (and massively the bigger seller, according to third-party estimates) is the Amazon Kindle Scribe, and we'll be testing the newest model imminently. Even the 2024 version was very solid, though, and what it lacks in simplicity of purpose compared to a ReMarkable it makes up for by variety, with Kindle e-reading being the huge, obvious advantage. Plus, of course, it's cheaper.

A new Android tablet from tough tech specialist 8849 Tech, called Tank Pad Ultra, has been unveiled with a built-in high-res projector.

Yup, this show stopping tablet (or is that show starting?) can do everything a normal tablet can but a whole lot more.

The name gives away the fact this is a tough tablet, meaning you get IP68 and IP69K waterproofing ratings. So it's tough, but also built for outdoor adventures thanks to a whopping 23,400mAh battery that charges at a super fast 66W.

It'll also work with your needs outdoors, thanks to a 4-metre laser rangefinder and super powerful torch light, plus a 64-megapixel night vision camera. But that's just the start.

The extra feature is what really makes this super tablet stand out. Onboard is a 260-lumen 1080p DLP projector, despite this weighing in at 1,345g.

The projector offers auto focus calibrating and can throw from as close as 0.5m all the way to four metres. All that is a jump up on previous models that topped out at 100 lumens and 854x800 resolution.

Netflix and other streaming services should be possible to project even when in remote spots, with 5G connectivity onboard meaning up to 4.67 Gbps speeds. That's backed up with smooth running thanks to 32GB of RAM and a MediaTek Dimensity 8200 CPU.

Even the GPS is enhanced thanks to the dual-frequency support which means when in urban canyons or dense tree coverage areas, it should still be able to pinpoint your location. Ideal when sending out that invite to your fellow explorers for a Netflix movie night in the middle of the woods when wild camping.

The tablet also packs in more than 20 utility tools including bubble level, pressure gauge, noise meter and more.

What's the price and release date for the Tank Pad Ultra?

The 8849 Tank Pad Ultra is priced at $599, or £451, and is available to buy right now from the company's own website.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The iPad Air is in many ways the Goldilocks of tablets. It’s big but lightweight, fast but still affordable. It sits just below the iPad Pro, which now features the M5 chip and above the iPad mini, which runs the A17 Pro chip, and the standard iPad A16, which sits as the budget option.

Its price is identical to the MacBook Neo and the iPhone 17e, which gives users either an interesting choice for their money or the potential of two products for the price they might normally spend on one. Of the three, the iPad Air is the most powerful and arguably the most adaptable.

Thanks to the M4 chip, the iPad Air is powerful enough for all your computing tasks, and paired with a Magic Keyboard, it could replace your laptop. With an Apple Pencil, or even just your finger, it becomes the perfect creative tool for designers, sketchers or just those looking to take notes. It’s also perfect for watching movies, playing games or just browsing pages, wherever you are.

While changes from last year’s iPad Air M3 are minimal outside of the new M4 chip, those upgrading from older machines will see a huge boost in performance, especially when it comes to graphics and AI tasks. I spent a few weeks using the iPad Air M4, and I believe this is the best iPad for most people.

How much is the iPad Air M4?

The iPad Air M4 was announced on 2 March 2026 and went on sale on 11 March 2026. It comes in two sizes, with the smaller 11-inch model starting from £599 in the UK, $599 in the US, €649 in Europe and A$999 in Australia. The larger 13-inch model starts from £799 in the UK, $799 in the US, €849 in Europe and A$1349 in Australia.

Both sizes come in four colours, including space grey, blue, purple and starlight. There is a choice of four storage options from 128GB up to 1TB, and also between the Wi-Fi-only and the Cellular model, which adds the ability to use data from an eSIM.

Even with all options chosen on the larger 13-inch model, the maximum price is £1449 / $1449 (€1649 / A$2499), which is the same price as the MacBook Air 15-inch with the same storage. If you do want to get the most out of the iPad Air, you will want to add either the Apple Pencil Pro (£129 / $299) or the Magic Keyboard (from £269 / $269) – ideally both. Even with these, the price starts from under £1000 / $1000.

What’s new on the iPad Air M4?

Physically, there’s no change in the design of the iPad Air from the M3 model. It still features either an 11 or 13-inch liquid retina display, with P3 wide colour, true tone and an anti-reflective coating. It still has a centre-mounted 12MP Centre Stage camera on the longer edge and uses Touch ID for authorisation on the top button.

Small discrete volume up and down buttons still sit on the top right of the longer edge, and on the bottom is still a USB-C port for charging and a smart connector on the back for keyboard connectivity. Also on the back is a single 12MP wide-angle camera that can shoot 4K video.

It always surprises me how large the bezels still are on the latest iPad models, compared to the iPhone and MacBooks, and that’s still the case here. The only advantage of this is that it doesn’t require a notch to house the camera and light sensors.

One thing you’ll notice when holding the iPad Air is just how light it is. Even the larger 13-inch model weighs just 617 grams (1.36lbs). Unexpectedly, though, it’s heavier than the iPad Pro equivalent, which weighs 35g less than the 13-inch or 19g less than the 11-inch.

It’s also 1mm (0.04 inches) thicker than the iPad Pro, not that you’d really notice that when holding it. This size and weight likely come down to the screen tech on the devices, and it is minimal in practice. It perhaps says more about the iPad Pro’s advancements than anything against the iPad Air.

There’s only really one feature missing from the iPad Air, in my opinion, and that’s Face ID. Having had this on the iPad Pro for some time, and taking it for granted on all iPhones – even the iPhone 17e – it seems strange to revert back to Touch ID here. The same could be said for MacBooks, but as a device that sits halfway between a Mac and an iPhone, it makes sense to come here first.

Inside the iPad, the biggest change is the M4 chip, but there’s also two more new features. The N1 is Apple’s own wireless connectivity chip, and takes care of all Wi-Fi connectivity, as well as Bluetooth and Thread. It ups the standards to Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 for this model, giving you faster and more reliable connections.

The C1X chip is Apple’s cellular modem, and therefore only features on the cellular version of the iPad Air. This is also upgraded from the previous C1 chip, giving 50% faster cellular performance compared to the iPad Air M3.

iPad Air display

While the iPad Air doesn’t have the tandem OLED display of the iPad Pro, the Liquid Retina screen looks really impressive. I was testing the larger 13-inch model, which has 600 nits of brightness, while the smaller 11-inch model has just 500 nits. Both feature a True Tone display with P3 wide colour and have the same resolution density (264ppi). The display is also fully laminated with an anti-reflective coating.

What you don’t get on the Air is the nano-texture glass option, which gives a matte effect to the screen and extra-low reflections. Again, this feels a bit of a shame, as it makes the tablet more suited for creative stylus work and becomes an alternative to the Kindle Scribe Colourfast or ReMarkable Colour tablet.

It’s also worth noting that the iPad air display doesn’t feature ProMotion, meaning the refresh rate is limited to 60Hz rather than 120Hz. This is only really noticable with fast movement, such as gaming and video editing, though you can see the difference when scrolling fast through web pages too.

That said, I was really impressed how good content looked on the iPad Air M4. Colours really pop in photos and video, and even make ordinary websites stand out. Using the device on the move, including on trains and planes, I watched episodes of Disney+’s Daredevil Born Again and Apple TV’s new series of For All ManKind. I also played Civilization VII from Apple Arcade.

With the graphics and resolution set to their maximum on games and movies, the quality is very high, giving you crisp clear images with tons of detail, even in shadows. Watching shows on a 13-inch screen feels quite a luxury while travelling, compared to the 11-inch model I tend to travel with. It definitely gives you more impact.

It’s also worth noting that the sound from this iPad is very good. While it only uses stereo speakers, rather than the four-speaker system of the iPad Pro, there’s plenty of bass and it sounds good for both video and audio tracks.

Accessories for the iPad Air

There are two main accessories you will want to consider for the iPad Air. The Magic Keyboard is ideal if you want to use the Air for any form of writing. It turns the tablet into a very capable laptop, complete with a trackpad. While I didn’t use the Magic Keyboard on this test, I have previously used it with both the iPad Pro M5 and the iPad Air M3 and would highly recommend it. With this attached, the iPad Air becomes a worthy competitor to the MacBook Neo, and even the MacBook Air.

The second accessory I would recommend for the iPad Air is the Apple Pencil. This model is compatible with both the top-of-the-range Apple Pencil Pro as well as the more basic Apple Pencil USB-C. There are definitely creative benefits to the Apple Pencil Pro, including the barrel roll, to change the angle of your brush and a squeeze function to bring up the tool palette and haptic feedback. However, perhaps the most useful is that it will charge wirelessly when attached to the side of the iPad magnetically. For the USB-C model, you have to plug the stylus in.

Even if you don’t need the keyboard or stylus, it’s worth investing in a folio cover for the iPad Air. This protects the screen when not in use – essential if placing it into a bag – and also provides a stand for the device when in use. As nice as it is to use the iPad without any attachments, you do run the risk of accidental damage and tired hands from holding it.

How does it perform?

The iPad Air M4 might look the same as the older version on the outside, but under the surface, it’s very different. That is mostly down to the new M4 chip inside it, as well as the N1 wireless chip and C1X cellular modem.

The M4 chip in the iPad Air features an 8-core CPU with 3 performance cores and 5 efficiency cores, and a 9-core GPU. It also features a 16-core neural engine and hardware-accelerated ray tracing. This is a slightly less powerful chip than the one featured in last year’s iPad Pro models and MacBook models. The MacBook Air M4 featured a 10-core CPU, while the iPad Pro and MacBook Pro both ran 10-core CPUs and 10-core GPUs.

There is a step up in performance from the M3 chip, and if you push the device with processor-heavy tasks, such as video processing and editing, you will see improvements in speed. Equally, the graphics processor means it is more capable for everything from 3D imaging to AAA gaming.

For general use, the improvements are likely to be more subtle, unless you are upgrading from an older iPad. Compared to an M1 model, it offers 45% faster CPU performance and 65% faster GPU performance. If you are accessing AI features, the performance is three times faster.

To get some comparison, I ran the Geekbench 6 test for the CPU and the GPU. The iPad M4 produced a multi-core score of 13,230, which was 13.9% higher than the M3, or a single-core score of 3722, which is 21.9% higher. That’s quite a jump for one generation of chip, and shows just how much faster it can run. The M5 is another 11% to 17% higher again, but as to whether you really need that speed is questionable for most.

Equally on the graphics processor test, the iPad Air M4 scored 53,327 in the Metal test, which is a 16% increase on the M3 chip. The ray tracing allows for faster rending of 3D modelling, which helps not only for designers, but also for gamers.

While the chip is running faster, the battery life remains the same for the M4 model. It still offers a 10-hour runtime for watching video or surfing the web using Wi-Fi. If using a cellular connection, that reduces to nine hours, due to the modem use. Battery life is one area where MacBooks – with their space for a larger battery – beat iPads. Even the MacBook Neo can give you up to 11 hours of Wi-Fi use, or 16 hours of streaming.

Should I buy the iPad Air?

The iPad Air M4 is a seriously powerful tablet that combines a great screen with top performance. It strikes a nice balance between power and price that makes this an appealing option for anyone wanting a tablet capable of laptop tasks.

While the iPad Pro is a considerable jump up in both screen and power, the Air does more than enough for the majority of users. Arguably the standard iPad and iPad mini would also be plenty for most users, but the Air offers the larger screens without increasing the weight.

Apple is adamant that there is no canibalisation between the iPad and the MacBook, and while they do fulfil different tasks, I think some users will still be picking between the iPad Air and the MacBook Neo – especially as they are the same price.

In many ways, the Neo has carved out its own market, but that also includes those who were looking to buy an iPad in place of a cheaper laptop. Using an iPad in place of a laptop still requires some compromise, not least dealing with the limitations of iPadOS for those tasks – though this has improved and I suspect it will further with iPadOS 27.

The iPad Air, however does offer a few clear advantages over the Neo. It has a touchscreen display for starters, which opens up the potential, not just for touch control, but for full stylus creativity with an Apple Pencil – something not even the MacBook Pro can do. It also offers a more powerful processor in the M4. While the A17 Pro has proved more capable in a laptop than many imagined, there’s no disputing that the M4 is one of the best there is (apart from the M5 and the various Pro, Max and Ultra versions).

So while the iPad Air might no longer be the go-to device for users looking for a cheaper alternative to the MacBook Air, it is the best hybrid solution for the money. It’s a lot of tablet for the price, and this update will ensure it stays on top.

Also consider

As the iPad Air offers both 11-inch and 13-inch models, it covers a lot of ground, but there are always other options, especially within the Apple ecosystem. For those considering the smaller 11-inch model and not requiring the M4 firepower, the iPad (A17) offers the same screen size but with a more basic spec, while saving you nearly 50% of the price.

For those considering the 13-inch model, the MacBook Neo now offers one of the most compelling alternatives, at least for those looking for day-to-day tasks. While it doesn’t have the same level of power or the touchscreen, it’s a considerably cheaper option once you factor in the keyboard.

If, of course, the touchscreen and stylus capabilities are paramount and you want this as a creative tool, it’s the iPad Pro that offers the ultimate experience. While costing considerably more (by at least £400 / $400), it has a marked improvement in screen quality, a faster chip and is both thinner and lighter.

Oppo will be releasing its iPad mini rival on 21 April, offering a compact but premium Android tablet. With an expected 8.8-inch OLED display, the Oppo Pad Mini has seen plenty of leaks recently, building anticipation for what could be a breakthrough device.

There aren't a huge number of compact tablets in this space, with the iPad mini being the most obvious, and the Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 5 a recent addition.

The details of the launch come from Oppo directly, via its Weibo channel. Although the focus appears to be on China, it is listed as a "global launch" suggesting that everyone will get access to it.

The Oppo Pad Mini will widen the range of choices, with previously-leaked specs setting this up as a premium device. Starting with the display, it's thought that it will have an 8.8-inch OLED display, beating Apple to the OLED update, and offering a 144Hz refresh rate, ideal for gamers.

This display is thought to be a 3:2 aspect, which can be a little better for viewing websites or reading, but it's less efficient when it comes to watching traditional movies.

Elsewhere, we're looking at flagship hardware, with Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 at its heart, along an 8,000mAh battery and 67W charging.

The weight of 279g and the 5.39mm thickness means it will be thinner and lighter than the iPad mini too, while it should all be wrapped in an aluminium shell.

At the moment, most of the premium rivals are 11-inch models - there's the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11, the OnePlus Pad 3, Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro and Honor MagicPad 4 for example, but this smaller format should be great for those who want something more portable.

The killer factor will be the price: the iPad Mini costs £499 / €549 and the Lenovo tablet is around the same price point. But those 11-inch tablets I mentioned are around this price too – so will Oppo be able to undercut and offer a cheaper route to premium tablet goodness?

Apple is planning to move the display of its mid-range iPad Air tablet to OLED, joining the iPad Pro in offering this enhanced screen technology. Previous rumours had suggested that an OLED iPad mini is also in the works, which would see almost the entire iPad range featuring OLED, bar the entry-level, standard model.

That's the claim coming from ETNews, citing an industry source. It says that Samsung Display is preparing for mass production of the new panels for the iPad Air OLED, expected to be announced in March 2027.

Up to this point, one of the big differences between the iPad Pro and iPad Air has been the display type. While the LCD display that Apple has used has been great, the performance isn't as good as the Pro's OLED.

The shift in display technology will allow for better performance, with better handling of black levels, enhanced contrast and vibrant colours. It will presumably move to 120Hz supporting ProMotion, while boosted brightness would also be expected.

The source says, however, says that "the iPad Air will feature an OLED with lower specifications and manufacturing costs" (translated), so it's likely to remain a step below the iPad Pro.

Will we see the iPad Air price increase?

The big question is what impact this will have on price: while Apple will be looking to boost the experience for users, it's likely that the aim will also be to increase the average selling price of iPad models.

That might see the company push the price of the iPad Air closer to the iPad Pro, which is currently £999 / $999 / €1,099. The iPad Air, by comparison, starts at £599 / $599 / €649, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the iPad Air move into the price gap thanks to an enhanced display.

In turn, adding an OLED display to the iPad mini would likely see the already-expensive tablet (for its size) increase in price too. If the iPad Air moves up in price, it might be that the iPad mini crosses the £499 / $499 / €549 barrier.

That will be quite a shake-up for the iPad, which, despite getting updated to a fairly regular cadence, normally focuses on a new chip powering it, rather than anything else. Equipping more models with an OLED display will definitely be an incentive for some owners to upgrade.

Oppo is working on a compact premium Android tablet, thought to be called the Oppo Pad Mini. The new tablet will rival the iPad mini, with an official tease from the company suggesting that we're getting closer to launch.

Oppo's plans seem to include the 13.5-inch Oppo Pad 5 Pro – a replacement for the Oppo Pad 3 Pro – with this smaller 8.8-inch tablet coming in to give users something more compact, but without scrimping on the specs.

The company has shared an official teaser for the new tablet on Weibo (via The Verge), suggesting that you can lose yourself in a book while waiting at the airport. It's a whimsical video that doesn't tell us much about the tablet itself.

There have been a number of leaks surrounding this tablet, with Digital Chat Station sharing many of the core specs on Weibo.

It's said that it will be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, with an 8,000mAh battery and 67W charging.

The Oppo Pad Mini will have an 8.8-inch OLED display, offering 144Hz. The display will set this tablet apart from rivals, because OLED screens aren't that common, except on the most premium devices. It's also said to have a 3:2 aspect, so better suited for reading.

It's thought to be 5.39mm thick and weigh 279g. That makes it thinner and lighter than the iPad mini, with a slightly larger display, but using OLED might make it superior for gaming and watching movies on the move.

It's thought that the Oppo Pad Mini will launch in China within the coming weeks – a date of 21 April has been suggested – but there's no indication of whether it will be seen outside of China.

There's been an uptick in premium Android tablets recently and it could be that we see this device launching from OnePlus at some point in the future. We'll have to keep our fingers crossed, because this sounds like a compact powerhouse.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Kindle Fire models impacted includes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Xiaomi is best known for cramming huge spec into its devices and offering good value for money. That's always been the message on its phones – with sub-brands like Redmi and Poco taking that to an extreme – while latter years have seen something of a price creep for Xiaomi.

Its tablet range really landed internationally with the Xiaomi Pad 5, and a few years later we're looking at the Xiaomi Pad 8 and Pad 8 Pro – the latter on review here. This is a tablet pitched as the closest you'll get to an iPad Pro alternative, although that's a target many brands are now shooting for.

For Xiaomi, however, the price for a tablet of this power will certainly turn heads, undercutting the likes of Samsung and Apple where it matters. Does that make the Pad 8 Pro the perfect premium slate?

Price & Availability

The Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro launched globally (but not in the USA) on 28 February, following an initial launch in China.

It's available for £529 / €649 for the 8/256GB model, while there's also a 12/512GB model for £549 / €679. Additionally, Xiaomi offers a version with a matte display, which is £579 / €769.

However, there's a launch promotion in the UK, with the tablet at £449 on Mi.com, with the Focus Pen Pro also reduced to £59, a saving of £30. There are a full range of accessories available for the tablet, too, including keyboards and covers.

Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro vs Pad 7 Pro: What's new?

• Thinner and lighter
• More powerful
• Bigger battery

The Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro slims down a little, dropping 15g of weight and a fraction of a millimetre (from 6.18mm down to 5.75mm).

At the same time, there's a meaningful bump in the power, by moving from Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 to Snapdragon 8 Elite. Albeit being a previous generation of hardware – as we're now on the step-up Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 – it's a tier higher than the previous Pad model.

The battery capacity has also increased from 8850mAh to 9200mAh, which considering the decrease in thickness and weight is a great feature improvement.

Design & Build

• 5.75mm slim aluminium build
• Impressive quad speakers
• Plenty of accessories
• No IP rating

There's nothing surprising about the design of the Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro – not if you've seen an iPad recently. Squared edges and an aluminium shell frame the display with narrow bezels, plus a camera on the landscape edge.

There's a fingerprint scanner built into the power button, which offers a biometric unlocking option alongside face unlock. I found both to be generally reliable for easy access.

There are neatly drilled perforations on the short sides for the speakers, which give a good showing for themselves. They notionally support Dolby Atmos, which is far better than the Xiaomi Sound alternative.

Then there's an addition option for "immersive sound", which really widens the soundscape. I found this sound great for listening while in a hotel room, streaming Spotify music and watching movies.

The rear of the tablet has a square raised camera housing, which is larger than I'd like it to be, because without a case, it means the tablet won't sit flat on a desk.

The rear of the tablet also features pogo pins for powering compatible accessories, like the Focus Keyboard (£179), which is like Apple's Magic Keyboard with a self-supporting hinge and integrated trackpad.

I found the Focus Keyboard to offer a good typing experience, offering adjustable display angles. Although the keys are a little small, they're well enough spaced to be able to type fairly well.

There's also a standard Keyboard and Cover options, alongside the Focus Pen Pro, which enables drawing, while featuring haptics and pinch controls on the pen itself.

The Focus Pen will magnetically attach to the side of the tablet, connects via Bluetooth and has a lovely feel to it.

Display

• 11.2-inch LCD display, 144Hz
• 3200 x 2136 pixels (345ppi)
• 800 nits peak brightness

There's an 11.2-inch display here, which is nice and vibrant, presenting rich colours. It's not as nice as the OLED display of the iPad Pro or Galaxy Tab S11, but at this price, it's hard to complain.

The resolution of Xiaomi's tablet is higher, potentially delivering more detail, but Samsung's tablet is significantly brighter. That's where we come to perhaps the first negative of this device: while the quoted 800 nits brightness is reasonable, it's lower than those premium rivals.

The display is also a little glossy. Sitting adjacent to a window when writing this review, found the reflections to be a bit overpowering on a sunny day (see above). The screen doesn't seem to do much to disperse them – although there is the matte option for those serious about using it on the move.

The auto brightness is frustrating too, often wanting to dim the screen in bright conditions, even when in use. I found myself manually adjusting the brightness to get the best experience.

However, in other areas the Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro packs in impressive display specs. There's support for refresh rates up to 144Hz (if you can find supporting apps). There's also support for Dolby Vision and HDR10 to bring high dynamic range content to life, although I didn't find the sort of Ultra HDR brightening in Google Photos that really makes images pop – likely because of the conservative peak brightness.

Cameras

• Rear: 50-megapixel, 1/2.76in, f/1.8, autofocus
• Front: 32-megapxiel, 1/3.6in, f/2.2

Despite the large housing on the rear of the tablet, there's only a single camera. It's a 50-megapixel unit, but it's a small sensor compared to a phone equivalent – and that's what comes through in the performance. That's not really a concern, because you do have a phone in your pocket and that will almost certainly take much better photos.

Tablets are often used for ad hoc photography rather than anything regular or too artistic, so the slightly flat and dull images aren't a concern for me. If you're snapping a document, it's fine, if you're taking a picture of your dog, you won't do the good boy justice, so don't bother.

What irks me more is that Xiaomi insists on the bulbous camera housing on the back for no good reason.

The front camera is much the same. Although 32-megapixels, it's hardly the selfie snapper you'd choose. It's fine for video calling when you're told to turn the camera on – and that's what really matters here.

Performance & Battery

• Snapdragon 8 Elite
  • 8/12GB RAM
  • 265/512GB storage
• 9200mAh battery
  • 67W charging

There's no shortage of power from the Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro thanks to the Snapdragon 8 Elite under the hood. This is the chip that powered many of 2025's flagship phones, so it's no slouch, and I found that resulted in a wonderfully smooth experience across the device.

My review model had 8GB RAM and 256GB storage, but there's no option for microSD expansion – and there's no 5G model available either for a permanent connection.

Moving around the tablet is generally smooth, but I did find some slowdown in the animation when using Xiaomi's desktop-style floating windows and moving those around the display. But for the most part, everything I did on the Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro was nice and smooth.

If you want to run more intensive tasks then you might find it gets a little warm across the back, which I did experience during longer gaming sessions, but whether this is a problem really depends on the demands you'll put on the tablet.

There's that large 9200mAh battery in the Pad 8 Pro, supported by 67W charging – which is respectably fast (although there's no charger in the box) meaning you can top the tablet up rapidly when necessary.

The battery also lasts through a couple of days of use. I used it across two days without the need for a recharge, but having to ramp up the brightness to beat reflections will reduce the stamina.

Interface & Features

• HyperOS 3
  • Android 16
  • 4 years OS updates; 6 years security updates

The Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro runs HyperOS 3, the latest version of Xiaomi's mobile software, which runs on Google's Android 16 base system. Xiaomi offers 4 years of OS updates and 6 years of security updates – which isn't especially long compared to the 7 years that Samsung offers.

I also found the software to be less intrusive than it is on Xiaomi phones. Because of the way that tablets are used – slightly less intensively than a smartphone – I found Xiaomi's changes to be easy to accommodate. There's some preinstalled software and some that I opted not to install, but apart from the occasional notification to use Xiaomi's health software, it generally left me alone.

There are a range of adaptations to suit tablet use, including a dock for apps, and a handy Workstation mode that can be toggled on to make every app open in a window. This allows easy multitasking, on top of split screen views, picture-in-picture (so you can keep Netflix open while checking emails) and so on.

I found it a great alternative to using a laptop, although at 11.2-inches it's small and that has some impact on just how productive you might be. While most apps support the landscape orientation that productivity apps favour, you'll still find the occasional app that doesn’t use the full screen – such as LinkedIn, for example.

But the browser experience is generally good, with Chrome working well and Mi Browser an alternative if you find that something doesn't work in desktop mode on Google's alternative. Generally, HyperOS 3 in this tablet form works well and I found it a lot easier to live with than the same software on Xiaomi's phones.

In addition to the good Android experience, the Pad 8 Pro is one of a number of devices that now plays nice with Apple devices, so it can be used as a second screen for a Mac and send and receive files seamlessly.

Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro review: Verdict

The Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro joins a growing range of solid Android tablets that offer a premium experience. And that's precisely what you get here.

In a field that was once dominated by Samsung, Xiaomi makes its mark with the Pad 8 Pro, which offers a solid experience that doesn't suffer as a result of its HyperOS software.

Indeed, the options for Workstation mode – and a full range of accessories – makes this Android slate a slightly cheaper option than picking an iPad Pro as a laptop replacement.

But those accessories are expensive, the brightness isn't class leading, and the chunky camera seems a design oddity. The experience is generally a good one, though, with the positives outweighing a few negatives for a great all-round tablet experience – especially if you can buy at a discount.

Also consider

The OnePlus Pad 3 is an obvious alternative and is currently available for around the same price.

The Honor MagicPad 4 is another newcomer which is slightly larger with a much brighter OLED display and more power – so the discounted price looks like a steal.

In this price range the iPad Air would be the closest Apple alternative, not only matching the LCD display tech but much of the design too. Apple's M4 chip is powerful, while the app experience is a little smoother for iPad than Android, but the accessories are really expensive.

It has already been a busy month for the good folks at Apple. We saw a suite of product launches a few weeks ago, including the new MacBook Neo and the iPhone 17e, which offered more affordable options for those less concerned with top specs.

Some were suggesting that a similar ethos could come to the iPad lineup, with the launch of a new base model device there. That didn't happen – but fresh reports from Mark Gurman suggest it isn't too far away.

In the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Gurman says, "Since last year, Apple had been on track to launch a refreshed version of the entry-level iPad in the first half of 2026. The product has long been on the road map for a release in the iOS 26.4 time frame, which runs until May."

That suggests that we could still see a new version of the entry-level iPad, which would be a welcome boost for cost-conscious Apple lovers. As Gurman also notes, the major expected change is a new A18 chip, replacing the older A16 in the current iPad (11th Generation).

Notably, that change would enable the support of Apple Intelligence features, which would be marketed as quite the coup for such a budget device. Whether or not that's really adding value will depend on your perception of the software, but it's certainly opening the door to something which cannot currently be used.

It will also offer improved performance and efficiency, which is generally pretty handy for everyday use. With just a few weeks left until May is upon us, we shouldn't have to wait too long for more details.

While it's unlikely to be a ground-breaking release from the brand, it's probably quite a sensible one in terms of keeping its portfolio up to date.

There's no doubt about it, the market for gaming handhelds has grown massively in just a few years, with 100s of Linux and Android devices available for all budgets. Then there are the PC handhelds, with the Steam Deck prompting a huge shift in how many game on a daily basis.

Lenovo is one of the companies that has attacked this trend with aplomb – its Legion Go devices, especially the Legion Go S with SteamOS installed, provide excellent alternatives to home consoles. It's also one of the few manufacturers persisting with gaming-centric Android fare, such as its Legion Tab series of tablets.

On that front, it is thought to be bringing a successor to the Legion Tab (Gen 3) to other markets outside China, and there could be a device to follow that has the potential of making it one of the best Android gaming handhelds around.

Available in China right now is the Lenovo Legion Gamepad G9 (2026), which is a case for the Chinese version of the Legion Tab (Gen 5) – launched as the Legion Y700 in the last few days. Rather than just be an expandable controller, like a Backbone or Razer Kishi, you clip in your 8.8-inch device and it gives you a Legion Go-style experience.

That includes Hall effect joysticks and triggers, dual rumble motors, a D-pad, ABXY buttons, and RGB lighting. There's also a USB-C port to charge your tablet when inside.

Sadly, and this is the catch, it's only compatible with the Legion Y700 for now – it needs to connect via the tablet's USB port. It's also seemingly exclusive to China at present (priced at 499 yuan – around £55 / $72).

You can get a version of the Gamepad G9 for the Legion Tab (Gen 3) – the tablet released globally last year – but again need to order it from China.

We're also getting the Lenovo Legion Tab (Gen 5) this summer, as the global version debuted during MWC and runs on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor. Let's hope the new Gamepad G9 becomes available too.

It'd also be great if there was a similar, more universal accessory for mini tablets – such as the RedMagic Astra. With the Snapdragon 8 Elite processor and up to 24GB of RAM, it's a stunning Android gaming tablet that is also a retro gaming powerhouse.

I'd love to be able to use its 9.06-inch 165Hz display as my primary handheld.

We can only dream.

OnePlus could be preparing a brace of premium tablets, with the launch of a 13.2-inch OnePlus 3 Pro as well as a smaller 8.8-inch Mini. The launches could build on the strength of the OnePlus Pad 3 launched in 2025.

The details come from Digital Chat Station on Weibo (via 9to5Google), outlining the details of the OnePlus Pad 3 Pro as a 13.2-inch display, with a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor and huge battery.

That puts it in a premium position to challenge the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra (or the Tab S12 Ultra successor) and sees it joining an increased number of premium Android tablets, including the Honor MagicPad 4 and the Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro.

The smaller 8.8-inch tablet is perhaps even more interesting, as the Apple iPad mini has fewer decent rivals. It's thought to use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, the slightly lower tier hardware that's in devices such as the Motorola Signature and other sub-flagship phones. That would still likely make it more powerful than Apple's latest device, though.

The increased interest in the tablet segment poses more competition for Apple's iPad generally. Apple has dominated tablet sales for a number of years, while Android manufacturers haven't always responded with the most powerful hardware, opting for cheaper devices instead.

However, there seems to be a growing trend for more powerful tablets, looking to revive sales, with Google also boosting the software experience with increased focus on how Android behaves on a larger display.

There's no fixed timeline for the launch of the new tablets from OnePlus, but it's thought that the larger device will launch first, followed by the smaller iPad mini competitor.

When we reviewed the OnePlus Pad 3, we said that "this OnePlus slate is an excellent buy, out-speccing comparable iPad and Galaxy Tab products."

OLED displays remain rare – it’s mainly the top Samsung and Apple tablets that offer that tech – but offering powerful hardware at more agreeable prices is something that Chinese brands are good at.

While we praised the OnePlus Pad 3 for that great hardware, the accessories can't keep up – although it's worth considering that Apple's high-quality iPad accessories are devilishly expensive, increasing the overall price of investing in an iPad if you're serious about working on it.

Boox has announced the Go 10.3 (Gen II), an updated E Ink tablet that offers the large format and efficient battery life that you get from Kindle Scribe, while running on Android, to offer access to many more apps via Google Play.

The original Boox Go 10.3 was launched in 2024, with a 10.3-inch E Ink display. It's designed – like Kindle Scribe – for note taking and document work, with the advantage of long battery life, great readability in bright conditions and reduced eye strain that comes from E Ink compared to traditional LCD tablets.

In the updated model there's the option for a front light – the Boox Go 10.3 (Gen II) Lumi – or one without the front light that's a little cheaper, with both running Android 15. It may be an older version of Android than your phone is running, but it will give access to a range of apps to expand the experience.

That gets around a problem that Kindle Scribe has faced, because compatibility with other tools and services is as simple as installing an app. That means you can access Google Docs, Word and more.

Boox says that the addition of the front light was in direct response to customer feedback and that means it can be used in the dark and in low light, making for a much more versatile device. It will also allow for colour temperature changes to avoid disrupting sleep when reading in the evening.

There's a 300ppi display that supports pen input and this device will allow access to pdf, epub, mobi, docx and a whole lot more. There are speakers for audiobooks and files, 64GB of storage and you can connect an external keyboard for more serious writing.

While the 3,700mAh battery sounds small compared to a traditional Android tablet, it promises long battery life. While Boox doesn't confirm the figures for the new model, the previous would last for a couple of weeks of use.

There are also accessories, such as a magnetic case, to complete the package. The Boox Go 10.3 (Gen II) Lumi weighs 364g, is 4.8mm thick and costs $429.99. The regular model without the front illumination is $399.99.

Amazon's lineup of Kindle e-readers is deliberately extensive – ensuring that people can find the right device for them at a whole heap of different prices. Still, that also means that some of the more expensive Kindles are a little hard to recommend when they're sitting a full price.

A great example is the latest generation of the Kindle Scribe, which I reviewed in late 2024. This hulking e-reader has the broadest functionality of any Kindle, thanks to the included stylus and note-taking features, but it's normally off-puttingly expensive, making it harder to point towards. Now, though, Amazon's slashed that price to its lowest mark ever for its Spring Deal Days sale.

The Scribe shines if you're a note-taker – being able to annotate your books, peel off into documents to make your own designs, diagrams, handwritten memos and more. It's also much bigger than the standard Kindle or Kindle Paperwhite, which will be to some people's tastes.

The included stylus is an essential part of the equation, of course, but you don't need to have it with you at all times, since the Scribe can also function as a standard touchscreen Kindle when you need it to.

This makes it a bit of a jack of all trades, even if that label feels a bit incongruous given how expensive it normally is. I'd go so far as to say that when they're all full price, I'd actively tell people not to buy the scribe thanks to that price, in fact.

This discount is pretty big on that front, and is doubly rare because it's a new low for Amazon's device. It normally saves that sort of "first" for full Prime Day events, making this one of the best deals out there during this interesting sales event for Amazon.

If you thought the new iPad Air (M4) was the only exciting thing to happen in the world of tablets this month, then you thought wrong. Sure, the new iPad Air brings a bump in performance, extra memory and new connectivity upgrades, but there’s a new stand hub that could be the best accessory to accompany it.

The stand hub is named as such because it not only acts a stand for iPad, Android tablets or Windows tablets, but it has a hub at the bottom, giving you what is effectively a two-in-one accessory, and more really.

Made by Satechi and spotted by Yanko Design, the OntheGo Foldable Stand Hub claims to offer "every port you need on the go".

The base has a 3.5mm audio jack on the right edge, and a microSD 4.0 reader and SD 4.0 reader on the left edge. At the back, you’ll find a USB-C data port, USB-C PD port, USB-A data port and an HDMI 2.0 port.

The USB-C and USB-A data ports deliver 10 Gbps on supported devices, while the HDMI port supports 4K@60Hz for tablets, laptops, and smartphones. The other USB-C port, meanwhile, allows 100W pass-through to keep your tablet charged during any marathon work or watching sessions you plan to take part in.

Even as a hub alone, the OntheGo Foldable Stand Hub would be a valuable accessory to your iPad or Android tablet, but as its name suggests, there is also a stand built into it.

This can be folded up to rest your tablet against and folded back down flat when you’re finished. It means you can snap the OntheGo Foldable Stand Hub shut when work is over for the day, pop it in your bag and be on your merry way.

The OntheGo Foldable Stand Hub works with a range of USB-C devices too, including iPads with USB-C, tablets, smartphones, laptops with USB-C, gaming consoles and Samsung DeX-supported devices.

It comes in black only, or Space Black as it is officially called, and it costs $79.99 (around £60).

Amazon’s Spring Deal Days sale is now live, and among all the sales it's the retailer's Kindle discounts that are widespread, with multiple top-quality offers worth checking out.

Chiefly among these is the latest Kindle Scribe being dropped to its lowest-ever price. It might be the more niche Kindle for most people, given its stylus for note-taking, but those who love it do really love it.

Shop all Kindle deals in Amazon's Spring Deal Days

Elsewhere the core Kindle line-up is well discounted to equal-lowest or near-lowest levels too: from the Paperwhite to the Kids Edition, there are decent options. It's only the base Kindle that doesn't get a cut in this sale.

Below, I've collated all the best Kindle deals currently available on Amazon. Note that this is a UK sale, with the US equivalent anticipated at the end of March. At the end of the article I've embedded a shopping widget, just in case other retailers – such as John Lewis – offer similar or better prices for you to consider.

I've used every single one of the latest generation of Kindles – from the entry-level standard Kindle to the high-end Kindle Scribe and the newfangled Colorsoft, too. That leaves me pretty ruddy well-placed to tell you which ones are actually worth the money, and which ones might leave you with a bit of buyer's remorse sometime down the line.

The additional good news is that the equation really isn't that complicated, either. While most of Amazon's e-reader devices have some major factors going in their favour, there's no doubt that there's a clear winner overall for the vast majority of customers.

The Kindle Paperwhite should be almost anyone's default pick, in my view, and the good tidings don't stop there. It's on sale right now as part of Amazon's Spring Deal Days event, getting you a tidy saving.

Why does the Paperwhite win, in my view? Well, it basically offers the best pure reading experience you can get on a Kindle, at the right price. While the standard Kindle is no slouch, the Paperwhite is much sharper and therefore a little easier on the eyes, and it also has a far better backlight.

On the newest Paperwhite, you can not only select from a wide range of brightness levels, but also change the temperature of that brightness. This makes it a way nicer option for late-night reading in dim lighting and much easier on your eyes.

It's also super slim and portable, without necessarily needing a case or any additional accessories, which makes it a good deal more utilitarian than something like the Scribe, which is bigger.

That might not seem like the longest list of differences, but when you consider the price jump to something like a Colorsoft or Scribe, you'll see that you can save a good chunk by opting for the Paperwhite, and in my opinion you'll be getting by far the best value in the Kindle lineup – especially at this limited-time price.

The latest iPad Air is far more than just a tablet. This touchscreen device now features an M4 chip inside, making it more powerful than most high-end laptops. Just using this wafer-thin machine to browse the internet, watch movies and play the odd Apple arcade game feels almost reductive. However, with a starting price of just £599 / $599, you can do just that, and not feel like you've wasted your cash.

If your existing iPad is getting on in years, or looking worse for wear, there are a lot of reasons why you might pick the iPad Air M4 as your next model. Or maybe you've never made the jump to buying an iPad, and you're looking for your first model. These are the reasons I believe the iPad Air should not only be on your shortlist, but should be your best option.

1. M4 power

To give you a rough idea of how much power is in the M4 silicon chip, it's important to see where it's come from. First launched in May 2024, it originally powered the iPad Pro, MacBook Pro and iMac. It offers up to 1.5% the performance of the M2 chip and around double that of M1 devices.

If you've previously used a non-M-chip iPad, the difference is even greater. This iPad runs like a Mac, especially when you get into serious processing-heavy tasks. Want to edit video in Final Cut Pro? No problem. Create a 30-piece arrangement? Piece of cake. Create 3D renders of a new product? No sweat.

2. Game on

Another big advantage of the M4 chip is its ray tracing ability. This not only aids those creating 3D animations, but also means those 3D games look even more real.

Gaming on the iPad Air is next level experience thanks to the ray tracing, bringing exceptional levels of detail to games, allowing you to play even AAA titles in their optimum settings.

3. Laptop alternative?

While you might not want to completely replace your laptop with an iPad Air, it's certainly powerful enough to take on almost any task while on the move. By pairing the iPad Air M4 with a Magic Keyboard it behaves just like a Mac – especially if you use the Stage Manager tool in iPad OS 26.

With the keyboard attached it's easy to forget that this is still an iPad, as it runs most of the same programs and lets you work as you would on a MacBook. The 13-inch model is probably the best option for this, though an 11-inch model with a keyboard is a super compact solution for when you'd rather not carry a larger machine.

Apple refreshed almost all of its major product lines this week, with new additions to iPad, Mac and iPhone. It was only Apple Watch and AirPods that didn’t get a look in, but considering they both had new additions in September, that didn’t come as too much of a surprise.

What was slightly more surprising, however, was the lack of refresh to the entry-level iPad. Apple announced the iPad Air with the M4 processor, offering double the base storage, a performance bump, and some extra memory for good measure, but unlike last year, the regular iPad wasn’t updated at the same time.

Where is the iPad 12?

In the past, Apple has waited over two years between updates to the entry-level iPad so perhaps it shouldn’t have been quite as much of a shock, but given the Apple iPad (A16) is the only model in the lineup not to support Apple Intelligence, and with Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman suggesting we would see a successor announced alongside the other products, it is a little odd that a replacement remains absent.

Previous rumours have suggested that the iPad 12 will have a couple of key upgrades. A Mac Rumours report suggested it will include a faster A18 processor and support for Apple Intelligence. There has also been a suggestion of the latest A19 processor under the hood, which was announced with the iPhone 17 last year.

But for now, there is no sign of an update to the base iPad, so it could be several months more before it appears.

With the iPad (10th generation) launching in October 2022, followed by the iPad (A16) in March 2025, we wouldn’t be surprised if we have to wait until later this year, or even next year, for a refresh.

If you’re looking for more power, you might consider trying to find an iPad Air (M3) at a discounted price now that the new iPad Air (M4) has been released.

Honor's many announcements and unveils at MWC were fairly impressive, but the one bit of hardware that I've actually spent the most time with probably got the least attention. Because it was announced slightly earlier, the MagicPad 4 didn't get the same airtime as the Robot Phone or Magic V6 folding phone, but it's a beautiful tablet that might raise the game in the Android world.

Where Samsung's been a big name in Android tablets for a while, Honor's a newer arrival, but the MagicPad 3 was already a really accomplished bit of hardware. Now the MagicPad 4 has escalated matters further with a frankly gorgeous design and some Apple-friendly features.

Right now, there's a pretty crucial early-bird deal on the tablet, too, that knocks a whacking £100 off and gives you the option of some great-value extras for less than normal, too.

I've had the MagicPad 4 for a couple of weeks and will be giving it the full T3 review treatment pretty soon – but my initial thoughts are that it's the closest tablet I've ever used to an iPad that isn't actually an iPad. Honor might not say explicitly that it's aiming for a mimic job, but the features on offer speak volumes.

You can use the MagicPad 4 as an extended display on your MacBook, for example, and its quick-share features work nearly seamlessly with Apple devices to replace AirDrop. It's also visually pretty similar, but with the crucial difference that the MagicPad 4 is actually thinner than any iPad currently being made.

That's massive, and the absolutely gorgeous 165Hz OLED display will have you wondering how Honor's managed this all from a technical perspective. One of the few hangups is that at £600 the tablet isn't particularly affordable, but the deal in action right now does major work on that front.

So, whether you want those accessories or not, if you're remotely thinking of buying a MagicPad 4, it looks clear that now's the time to do it.

There has been plenty of speculation about a folding iPhone, which many expect to launch later this year, but there is also word that Apple continues to work on a larger foldable device.

The iPad and Mac are currently quite separate devices, running different software and form factors, but according to a new report, the “gigantic” foldable could blur the lines between the two ranges, and arrive in the next few years.

What could Apple's larger folding device be?

This comes from Apple expert Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter (via MacRumors) and suggests that while there were rumours claiming the large folding device had been paused, that’s not actually the case.

Gurman believes that problems with weight and display technology could see it being pushed back to 2029, rather than follow the initial rumoured timeline of 2028, but it is still in the works, he says.

Rumours suggest it will have an 18-inch folding display, which is said to be made by Samsung, and it is thought that Apple is focusing on reducing the crease visibility, which it has been rumoured to be doing for the iPhone Fold, too.

It’s thought it will look like a MacBook when closed, featuring an aluminium shell, but when open it will be around the same size as the MacBook Air 13-inch. There won't be a physical keyboard, though.

Current prototypes are said to weigh around 1.59kg, which is quite a bit heavier than the current 13-inch iPad Pro.

It is also expected to be significantly more expensive than the iPad Pro, with reports suggesting this foldable iPad, or all-display MacBook, will cost nearly $4,000 if components don’t reduce in the next couple of years. If true, it means this folding iPad could be nearly three times the price of the iPad Pro.

Nothing is confirmed on the folding iPad front for now, but Apple has announced a new iPad Air running on the M4 chip.

Apple has kickstarted its week of new product announcements with an iPhone 17e and a new iPad Air.

Now sporting the M4 processor, it's claimed that the new iPad is 30% faster than its predecessor. And, even though there's a global shortage on RAM and storage right now, Apple has bucked the trend and bumped the unified memory in its latest model – up to 12GB from 8GB.

Also new are the communications chips – Apple has used the N1 and C1X in the iPad Air M4 to support the latest 5G networks and Wi-Fi 7.

There are 11- and 13-inch models again, which will be available in several colours – Space Grey, Blue, Purple, and Starlight (gold). Storage sizes start at 128GB, with 256GB, 512GB and 1TB variants also on offer.

Prices start at £599 in the UK, $599 in the States for the 11-inch Air M4. The 13-incher starts at £799 / $799. Prices can rise all the way up to £1,299 / $1,299 for the 1TB version.

As before, the new iPad Air in either size is compatible with the Apple Pencil Pro and Pencil USB-C. You will also be able to order a Magic Keyboard if you want to use your new tablet as a laptop replacement, too.

iPad Air M4 pre-order details

Pre-orders will open this coming Wednesday, 4 March 2026, although you can see the pricing and other details on Apple.com already. There's no way to place either tablet in your basket at present, however.

The timing is undoubtedly to coincide with other devices Apple is expected to introduce in the coming days. There are rumours of new MacBooks, with an all-new entry-level model alongside more powerful MacBook Pro additions.

And we might even see something in the HomePod space, although that's unconfirmed at present.

Amazon has released a new software update for recent Kindle models, including the Kindle Scribe and Colorsoft. While some of the upgrades are detailed, there could be more to this update than meets the eye.

First of all, this update – 5.19.2 – is available for 11th Gen models and 12th Gen models. That's basically all the Kindles since 2022. For most models it details "performance improvements, bug fixes, and other general enhancements".

But for Scribe models, some benefit from added Google Drive and OneDrive settings, as well as Send to Alexa+ – remembering, of course, that Alexa+ is currently only available in the US and Canada, with other regions waiting with anticipation.

The previous update was 5.18.6, so there's a fairly hefty jump and that suggests there's quite a lot in this update, even if the release notes don't declare many changes.

What does the new Kindle update add?

According to The eBook Reader Blog, the only change found was a filter option for annotations. I checked my Kindle in the UK and the update hadn't arrived at the time of writing.

The eBook website suggests that new features are often switched on in Kindles once the software is in place – rather than rolling out the update to add that feature, the feature is already added in the background and then enabled.

The big missing thing from Kindle is the "Ask This Book" feature that launched on the Kindle for iPhone app in late 2025, as well as "Story So Far", which was announced at the launch of the new Kindle Scribe in 2025.

Both those features lean on AI to provide useful book services. Story So Far provides a summary so you can keep up with the plot – especially useful if you've had a break from a book series or large work and are coming back to it.

Ask This Book will allow you to find out specific information about a passage of text in the context of the book. Again, that might be more useful than the current Wikipedia searching or the X-Ray feature that's currently offered, allowing AI to give you details about a character or event.

These new AI features have been promised, but haven't yet materialised for Kindle. Indeed, the listing for the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft on Amazon says that "AI reading features Story So Far and Ask This Book, will roll out in 2026 via software updates", so it's definitely something that's coming.

The UK listing for that device doesn't have that information on it and while it's not listed on other Kindles, at the announcement of Ask This Book, Amazon said:"The feature will be enabled on Kindle devices and Android OS next year."

Fingers crossed – your Kindle could be getting smarter soon.

PocketBook has regularly provided an alternative to Amazon and Kobo with its e-readers and it's just announced a direct competitor to the Kindle Scribe.

The InkPad One is a 10.3-inch E Ink Mobius tablet that comes with a stylus and a premium build. This includes an aluminium frame and paper-like writing experience, as well as all the properties of a luxury eBook device.

Where it mainly differs from the Kindle Scribe is in price – you can expect to pay just £270 for the InkPad One in the UK ($360 in the States). That's more than £100 cheaper than the black and white Scribe.

The new PocketBook slate also supports a wide range of eBook types and files, including EPUB, FB2, PDF, and AZW, as well as CBR and CBZ for comic books. It is also able to display Adobe and LCP DRM-protected content, enabling the borrowing of digital books from local libraries.

There is audio support too, with built-in text to speech. This makes it ideal for listening to eBooks, as well as reading them. There's Bluetooth on board too, to connect the device to compatible headphones.

The 1404 x 1872 E Ink Mobius display is accompanied by SMARTlight, to illuminate the screen when light levels are low. This also helps when reading outdoors, as it can adjust the colour temperature as needed.

Other specifications include a 1.8GHz Rockchip RK3566 processor, 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage space. The 3,700mAh battery is claimed to last up to two months between charges.

There is dual-band Wi-Fi support (2.4/5GHz) and charging is through a USB-C port.

The InkPad One weighs just 400g and comes in a matte black colour. It should be available from PocketBook and other retailers now.

There have been a couple of rumours lately to suggest Apple is on the verge of a few new announcements. Last week, we heard plenty about new MacBook Pro models being just around the corner, with references of M5 Max and M5 Ultra chips appearing in the iOS 26.3 beta software. While this week, all eyes are on the iPad.

According to Mark Gurman of Bloomberg (via 9to5Mac), we can expect a new regular iPad and iPad Air early this year. Gurman claims both will see a performance increase compared to the current models, though that seems to be it.

What can we expect from the next iPads?

The regular iPad currently runs on the A16 processor, which means it doesn’t support Apple Intelligence – that requires the A17 Pro or later, like the iPad mini.

Gurman says the next model of this standard iPad will see a jump to the A18 processor, therefore, which will bring Apple Intelligence powers with it.

There was a time when that might not have mattered too much, but with the smarter Siri due to arrive with iOS 26.4, it could bring some worthwhile tricks to the base model.

Elsewhere, the iPad Air is expected to see a jump to the M4 processor, with the currently model running on the M3 at the moment. The iPad Pro sits on the more powerful M5, so it makes sense.

This may not make a huge difference to casual users, but the extra power could come in handy for those looking to do more demanding tasks, like image or video editing.

But based on Gurman’s report, there isn’t due to be a redesign for either the standard iPad or the iPad Air. That means there'll be no laminated display for the regular model or Face ID for the Air at the moment, although nothing is official as yet.

As to when we can expect these devices to launch, nothing is concrete. However, Apple announced the iPad (A16) and iPad Air (M3) in the middle of Mobile World Congress last year, and that starts at the beginning of March – so soon.

The world of technology can often feel split in half. As one half plows ahead with new innovations and technologies designed to make devices do more with less, others are limited to offering a single solution.

The latter portion includes devices like the Remarkable e-paper tablets, which charge hefty sums for very limited functionality. It's part of the charm of the digital detox era – and there's a new device which might just be even better for it!

The Zerowriter Ink may look like a keyboard with a small screen attached up top – and, to be fair, it is a keyboard with a small screen attached up top – but there's a lot more to it. Designed to be as 'dumb' as any modern device can be, this device is designed to act like a typewriter made for the modern age.

There's no AI, no subscription to pay, and a battery which will last for weeks. It's also an open source product, meaning the software can be improved by just about anyone, for a real community-led approach.

The device features a 61-key mechanical keyboard built-in, which makes use of Kailh Choc Pro Red switches. Each of the keys is also hot-swappable, meaning you can fine-tune the feel of the keyboard to your taste.

Beyond that, there's very little to say as there's not a ton it can actually do. That's no bad thing – it's actually the whole point of this device – but beyond typing and basic editing of text, you won't get far.

Still, I love the idea. As T3's resident hipster, I'm drawn to all manner of old technology. You'll often find me with film cameras, Polaroid cameras, vinyl records and cassettes – and yes, I've even been tempted by the prospect of a typewriter on occasion.

This feels like a great way to enjoy that experience and switch off from the digital world, without having to lug around a heavy, mechanical piece of tech from the 1960s.

Priced at US$269 (approx. £198 / €228 / AU$385) this certainly isn't cheap, though it is cheaper than other devices like the aforementioned Remarkable. Personally, I'd find this a better use for my cash.

Samsung Electronics has developed a brand new e-paper technology.

The 13-inch Samsung Color E-Paper is a world first, too – it's the first display designed with a bio-resin housing derived from phytoplankton. That essentially means it is part manufactured using plants.

Phytoplankton, aka microalgae, are a crucial and abundant part of the aquatic food chain, and so could end up being a key part of devices in future – including a potential rival to the Kindle Colorsoft.

The new display isn't designed for consumers just yet, but you might see a lot of them. Samsung is pitching the Color E-Paper to retailers and other businesses at present, as an alternative to traditional printed signage.

The 13-inch model is the smallest in the range, roughly the size of a sheet of A4, and has a resolution of 1,600 x 1,200 pixels. Samsung is also unveiling a 20-inch version, and currently sells a 32-inch model too.

Why is Samsung picking on plankton?

The new display has been made with sustainability in mind. Its housing mixes 45% recycled plastic and 10% of the phytoplankton-based bio-resin instead of the usual petroleum-based plastics, and according to Samsung that can reduce the manufacturing process's carbon emissions by more than 40%.

Also, because it's e-paper, it uses zero watts of energy between refreshes, so it's much more efficient than other forms of digital signage.

This device isn't quite ready for your ebook library yet though. It's purely a display and requires the use of an app on either iOS or Android or Samsung's cloud-based VXT system to update it.

But, it demonstrates some key features, including a new colour imaging algorithm that Samsung says delivers "a paper-like look and feel" by smoothing gradations and refining contours. An algae-rithm, if you like (I'm here all week).

The result, Samsung says, resembles traditional posters and point-of-purchase displays. That makes me hopeful that e-paper's going to keep getting better.

As much as I love the convenience of digital, I really miss the heyday of printed magazines – reading my various magazine subscriptions on my iPad isn't as tactile or as comfortable as settling down with print. So the closer e-paper can get to old-school magazines, the happier I'll be.

Apple Creator Studio is more of a collection of apps than one single offering. It puts its biggest applications for video, audio and photo editing into a single monthly or yearly subscription to put all the tools at your disposal.

There have always been both pro and amateur solutions for creative work. For video, iMovie provides a free solution while Final Cut Pro caters for the pro, and for audio, GarageBand is the consumer option while Logic Pro is more advanced. For most users, the free options are more than adequate, with editing now built into the Photos app and the office suite of Keynote, Pages and Numbers providing your presentation, word processing and spreadsheet options.

The Creator Studio, then, is for professionals, or at least those wanting professional results. It combines Final Cut Pro, one of the best video editing options available, with Logic Pro, a leading audio recording, editing, and mixing suite. Pixelmator Pro is an image editor that combines photo manipulation with graphic design and illustration, as an enhanced version of the free Pixelmator Classic. There are also versions of Keynote, Pages, and Numbers included in the package that offer more premium features than the free versions.

The subscription is designed for both Mac and iPad use, with all applications available for both platforms. Also included are three Mac-only apps: Motion lets you generate animation, Compressor provides output options for your videos, and Main Stage is designed for live music performances.

With such a comprehensive offering, it’s no surprise that it has garnered comparisons to Adobe’s Creative Suite. This also offers video, audio and photo editing, plus web and design tools in a more à la carte form. Premiere, Audition and Photoshop are largely equivalent to Apple’s offerings, though aside from Acrobat, Adobe doesn’t cover office products in the same way.

I spent a week trying out the new features both on iPad and on Mac to see how it performs. These were the five features that really stood out.

1. Beat detection in Final Cut Pro

Whatever video you’re creating, a soundtrack can really add to the effect, and a good editor always takes the music into account when cutting clips. When a scene changes on the beat, or you get a quick succession of clips that match that beat, it really lifts the video. What Final Cut Pro now offers is a way to make this process easier.

This isn’t a completely automated process, as you might expect, but it does take the hard work out of the edit. With your clips on the timeline and the soundtrack below it, selecting beat detection analyses the track and places markers on the timeline for the beat. You can then very quickly adjust the length of your clips, or slice up longer clips, to switch on those beat markers. The result is very effective.

2. Generative session players in Logic Pro

There are some newer tools in this version of Logic Pro, including the ability to import a video in order to create your own soundtrack, which is very cool. However, my favourite feature here remains the generative session players, which were introduced in version 11 last year.

This all starts with a chord track, which Logic Pro can generate from your first recording – whether that’s a guitar track, piano or other instrument. You can then fine-tune the chord track if needed to make sure it matches your intent. Then by adding a new track, you can introduce a session player, in the form of a drummer, bassist or piano player. This will follow your chord structure, tempo and time signature to create the relevant notes to play along.

It’s a very quick way to build up a full recording from a single track, and allows you to get a really professional finish in minutes.

3. Mock-ups in Pixelmator Pro

Pixelmator Pro is quite different from straight photo editors, as it feels more like a publishing tool. Yes, there are all the photo editing capabilities, but its strengths lie in creating pieces that are either ready for print, for online or for presentation.

Because of this, Pixelmator makes it really quick to create posters and social media posts, thanks to the included templates. One of the most interesting options though, is what it calls mock-ups. This is an easy way to display your created photo or graphics on a range of products.

The layers are already set up in such a way that, once you select your mock-up picture, you can just replace a layer with your creation in a single click, and then adjust the sizing to make it look how you want it. Mock-ups include t-shirts and bags, device screens, bottles, mugs and other product packaging, book covers, magazine covers and more.

4. Enhanced slideshow creations in Keynote

One of the biggest upgrades to the versions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote in Creator Studio is the Premium templates. These not only look great, but they also come with an option to generate your slides using what it calls Intelligent Content Creation.

This allows you to add the title and key points for the presentation, like speech notes. It then uses AI to summarise these into a number of slides and lays them out for you. You still need to then go in and adjust, as well as add images, but it’s a quick way to get started.

5. Content Hub for Pages

Another feature shared across Pages, Keynote and Sheets is the new Content Hub. This gives you access to royalty-free stock images, which can be used in your presentation, report, newsletter or whatever it is you’re creating. There are terms for image use of course. You can’t use them for corporate logos or trademark items, or use them on their own, outside of the program. However, they are still valid for commercial use in whatever you create – so you could use an image as part of a book cover.

Should I buy it?

The Creator Studio is available now from the App Store for iPad and Mac, priced £12.99 / $12.99 per month or £129 / $129 per year. Considering the price of the Adobe offerings and the individual prices of the included apps here, this is extremely good value for money. It’s also good to see that you can still buy the individual applications if you only want one of them.

Creating separate premium versions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote does feel a bit strange, though. These feel like a different offering to the main editing apps here (Logic Pro, Final Cut Pro and Pixelmator Pro). It’s a shame if the free versions of these don’t benefit from at least the AI generation tools.

There’s also a lack of a dedicated photo app here. While Pixelmator Pro is competent for editing, it needs an equivalent of Adobe Lightroom for the professional photographer. Apple used to offer Aperture, which was an excellent photo tool, and the Photomator tool has been a popular replacement. It would be great to see a Photomator Pro added to this package in the future.

Back in September, Amazon launched the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft. Billed as a full-colour, high-end version of its Kindle Scribe range, the model received mixed reviews owing to its high price tag.

Now, there's another update to the range – and its one which you'll probably either love or hate. That sees a new colour added to the range. "Fig" is a sort of burgundy-purple hue, which is coming later this month. There is a catch, though – it's only coming in the USA, with other regions on their own, later timelines.

The other caveat is that it looks to only be available on the most expensive 64GB version of the device. That means anyone looking to inject a little more colour into their e-reader is going to have to fork out £629.99 / €699.99 / US$679.99 (approx. AU$1,250).

Personally, I find it to be something of an odd choice. The colour is very stylised, which is a peculiar pick for a two-colour offering.

Amazon could just as easily have offered users a choice of colours with a more palatable second option like a pale blue or green hue. That could have appealed to more users, rather than a shade which is as likely to be seen on your Mum's winter coat as it is here.

Why is the Amazon Kindle Scribe Colorsoft so expensive?

There's no getting around the fact that – shiny new colour or not – this is a very pricey piece of kit. While it definitely goes beyond the e-reader capabilities which Kindle's of old would offer, it's still going to be a tough sell for many who can't see beyond the lack of features.

For me, this just screams 'affluent student'. The combination of reading and notetaking prowess fits right in with the needs of those who are studying, and while most would shudder at shelling out this much on a device with a limited range, some will see the appeal.

If you're looking for something to take notes with and read books on, this still feels like a luxurious, but appealing pick.

If you're a bookworm, the Amazon Kindle Coloursoft makes a compelling case for itself. A full colour display and paper-like display take the standard Kindle form and make it even more immersive – what's not to love?

Well, for some, it can feel like a bit of a waste. After all, the specs on those devices could do a lot more than just showcase words on a page.

It seems there's a brand out there which agrees with that sentiment, too. Enter the Hannspree Lumo 7.8 Reader Tablet. That's built on the same bones as any other e-reader, but with the capabilities of a tablet inside.

That makes use of something called ecoVISION Display technology, which "harnesses natural light reflection to create a flicker-free, anti-glare, and paper-like display."

That harnesses the ambient light around you to present an image on the screen, meaning brighter light around you will brighten the display. It'll also offer blue light reduction and an eye-friendly viewing experience.

That sits on the front of a device with a 7.8-inch display, which is just 6.6mm thick and 250g. The whole thing runs on a MediaTek MTK8781 processor, and operates on an open source version of the Android 14 operating system.

That's a little disappointing – Android 14 was released all the way back in 2023, so feels a little out of date in 2026. Still, it should allow you enjoy a range of the usual apps you'd snag on an Android phone or tablet, so that's a big plus.

For those who desire one, there's also an optional Active Stylus Pen which is compatible with the device. There's also a Folio case included, which should keep the device safe, while allowing users to prop the device up at two different angles.

Priced at £299 (approx. €345 / US$400 / AU$600), the Hannspree Lumo 7.8 Reader Tablet certainly seems like good value for money. The older software is definitely something to be aware of, but if you're looking for a Kindle with more capabilities, this might be it.