I've used a fair few high-end laptops in the last few months – it's been a busy time in the PC laptop market, and now Apple has added to things by launching its most significant MacBook Pro revision in a while.

The MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR display and Touch is quite the name, but in fairness to Apple, it does describe exactly what's new about the laptop. It's the MacBook Pro, but with some telling upgrades, in the form of a gorgeous new OLED display, Dynamic Island and a touch screen for the first time on any Mac.

Crucially, it also starts from £2,899 or $2,899, making it the sort of laptop that most people probably can't really countenance picking up. That pricing isn't really a surprise, given the weeks of leaks and rumours, but it makes for an interesting comparison to the PC market right now.

Apple has always had the advantage of clarity compared to Windows laptops, where there are dozens of big brands making laptops, all of them with one of dozens of different chips from Intel, AMD, Qualcomm and now Nvidia. The RTX Spark just launched, bringing a new wave of expensive laptops that run Nvidia's first laptop chip, muddying the waters even further.

I spent a week using the gorgeous Asus ProArt P14 with the RTX Spark powering it, and while I came away with the impression that Nvidia's new hardware is a serious factor for the laptop market moving forward, its pricing still didn't really wash out for me.

That laptop starts at £2,699.99 or $2,599.99, actually making it a little cheaper than Apple's new machine, which is quite a surprise in isolation. It really calls into question, for me, who these machines are for.

I say "calls into question", but I actually think most tech enthusiasts will know the answer. These laptops are for developers and those with creative processes that really need the best and most powerful processors, along with the most accurate screens and controls.

The simple fact is that easily 95% of people looking for a new laptop would be better off plumping for the latest MacBook Air, saving more than £1,000 or $1,000 compared to these high-end options. The Air will do everything you want from it, unless what you want is non-stop 4K video processing and deeply complex AI pipeline work.

Perhaps you had already intuited that answer just from watching the way Apple launched its new MacBook Pro – with an in-person event and some teasers on social media, but nothing globally live to rival the way it debuted the iPhone Duo. That's because the Duo, despite its own chunky price, will actually be a mainstream product.

The new MacBook Pro will not, in my view; it'll be for those who need the latest and greatest, but its innovations will now trickle down to more reasonably-priced Apple laptops over the next couple of years. A great example is that Dynamic Island – there's no way it remains exclusive to this machine for long.

Still, I can't help but feel that we're in a period where tech launches can involve a little bit of misdirection. Apple knows full well that this laptop isn't for the masses, but the price hikes that have hit across the board mean that it's increasingly hard to work out what laptop is for normal people.

It's easy to make marketing spiels about touch screens and OLED panels, but as long as they're this expensive, they're likely to continue being side notes for normal customers. It turns out that goes for Apple just as much as it does for Nvidia.

My Arcade has been making retro gaming devices for many a year, with classic games appearing on mini arcade machines and all manner of form factors. However, it really struck gold with its Atari Gamestation Go handheld released a year ago.

Now it's back with a follow-up, and this edition is arguably even better. The Gamestation Retro Go has a similar form factor, with an 8-inch 4:3 high-resolution display, additional buttons, and more than 200 officially licensed games.

This latter aspect is important. Most retro gaming handhelds – Evercade aside – come packed with emulators and if games are included, they are generally sourced in a highly dubious manner. Yeah, you often get a microSD card packed with thousands of roms, but the chances of any of them being legitimate is close to zero.

Not so the Gamestation Retro Go. Thanks to deals with Bandai Namco, Capcom, Jaleco and Piko Interactive, every game available on this particular handheld is fully authorised.

That includes Street Fighter II, Final Fight, 1942, Pac-Man, Galaga and Dig Dug. We're still awaiting a full list, but considering the licensees are among the biggest arcade game manufacturers of all time, you can bet it'll include many favourites.

The console is set for release on 18 December 2026, with a US price of $199.99. We're still awaiting UK pricing and release details, but it's now on pre-order at GameStop in the States.

Canadian gamers can also pre-order one from EB Games in your homeland, for CA$279.99.

Hopefully, a UK retailer will emerge soon, too. Amazon and Argos currently list the Atari Gamestation Go for £149.99, so that could be an indication on how much and where we could see the new handheld over here.

And who knows what price that might end up at around Black Friday time?

How much is too much for a Kindle? It's a question that feels more relevant than ever now that Amazon has launched its 2026 lineup – which are more expensive than ever.

With the Kindle Paperwhite (typically our top choice) and Colorsoft due out in November, the first to actually go on sale is the standard Kindle.

It's been given its most substantial makeover in years, too, with an all-new aluminium option (32GB only, as reviewed) that really does make this ereader feel more premium.

However, with a price hike on not just this new model but also older ones, the question of whether it's worth it has become more complicated than ever. Here's my take:

Price and Availability

The new Kindle is available now, and comes in a few flavours, complicatedly.

Its standard, plastic-backed version (not on review here) comes with a new flush screen, bringing it in line with its fancier siblings, but you can also upgrade to the Aluminium model (on review) that's significantly fancier-feeling in the hand.

For the standard version with ads, you'll be looking at £134.99 here in the UK, or $149.99 in the US, with 16GB of memory. If you want it without ads, that'll be £149.99 or $169.99 in the US.

For the Kindle Aluminium, which comes with 32GB of memory as standard, you'll instead need to pay £169.99 or $189.99 – and there's no version of this one that comes with ads, so it's just a single upgrade option.

Navigating these different versions on Amazon's storefront is honestly pretty confusing, and I suspect the giant retailer is going to have a hard time directing people to the right option when they search for "Kindles".

What's most surprising about this roll-out, though, is that it's brought price hikes to older Kindles, too. For example, the last-gen Kindle is now also £134.99 – up from £84.99 just a few weeks ago. That's almost 60% more.

Finally, this all means that the gap between the Kindle Aluminium and the cheapest new Paperwhite is now really quite slim, at just £25 here in the UK, and that's again a really troublesome purchasing dilemma.

Design and Features

Amazon sent the metal version of the new Kindle for this review, meaning I can't provide hands-on comments about how the non-metal version holds up. Therefore, treat this as the 'Kindle Aluminium' review – that's what Argos is calling this model.

As the entry-level option, the Kindle has spent a long time feeling plastic and cheap in the hand, all about function over form, but that's banished by this new design.

Aluminium now means it's hard to argue with the impression that this is the best-feeling base Kindle ever. It's weightier and feels far sturdier than the last-generation Kindle I tested in 2024, but is also sleeker and easier to fit into pockets and sleeves.

It comes in two finishes: Seagrass Green Aluminium or Alpine Sky Aluminium (the Graphite and Ube options aren't aluminium, so disregard those). The green model I've been using is really quite lovely, and catches the light gorgeously.

It features just a single button, to the upper-right edge of the screen, which wakes and sleeps the device. The bottom edge of the reader houses the USB-C port for charging and connecting it, along with two screws that gesture at its replaceable battery (per EU rules) – a welcome change that means one of these Kindles could last far longer.

On the front, meanwhile, things are now very flat. There's a tiny raised edge right around the perimeter of the device, to help it lie flat without scratching its screen on surfaces, but otherwise it's one big pane.

The display is a 6-inch one, just like before, and it retains many of the same features as the last-generation Kindle, for better or worse.

This means it's almost identical in terms of clarity and sharpness, and packs the same sort of backlight, which can be dimmed but not changed in terms of warmth.

There's also still no weatherproofing in the design, despite the big revamp, so you won't want to drop this in the bath or anything like that. Fancier Kindles do cater to this side of things better.

It is, however, faster, thanks to new internals. Amazon reckons books open around 30% quicker, but I still found it a little slow in general use compared to my Paperwhite. That said, you get used to its cadence very quickly, so it's hardly an issue at all.

Battery life still stands at up to six weeks of regular reading between charges, so there's no real change there, and the software hasn't changed significantly, either. This means that the experience of using this new Kindle is familiar and fairly intuitive.

There are some new accessories, though. A remote clicker is useful for those who want to prop their Kindle up and turn pages with a little pointer – but at £31.99 or $34.99 it feels pretty steep.

The same goes for Amazon's (admittedly lovely) fabric or leatherette cases. The latter attaches magnetically to the Kindle Aluminium really brilliantly, but is another steep ask from the outset.

Performance

I used the Kindle as my daily reading device for a week to see how it held up under normal conditions, and the short version is that it was a bit of a star.

I switch between paper books and e-books depending on the circumstances (with travel in particular making the latter useful), and have always defaulted to the Paperwhite since it marries some extra durability and speed to its reading features.

This is the first standard Kindle to threaten that supremacy in ages – I think its new design makes it drastically more satisfying to use, hold and read from, and banishes the spectre of cheap construction that's haunted it for a while.

Crucially, the Kindle's screen remains really impressive, regardless of what's going on around it. It's sharp and crisp, and very readable in all lighting conditions.

The built-in backlight is even and reliable, but that does bring us to the biggest outstanding absence – warm light.

This really makes reading in low light drastically more comfortable on your eyes, and I think it's the main reason why the Paperwhite will still wins out in my personal ranking.

I understand that putting it in the basic Kindle would reduce the Paperwhite's advantage to just waterproofing and little else, but when the base Kindle's price pushes up as it has, it feels a little cheeky to have no big new features to go with it.

Not having weatherproofing is less of a concern for me, although I'd still love to see it added to bring parity across the Kindle range. However, I simply don't read in the rain, and it's not like 'pool life' is a thing in the UK, so it's not a feature limitation for me.

The magnetic case that Amazon sent with my loan unit is also a bit of a delight, but it raises another small eyebrow: from my searching on Amazon, I can't find a version of the new Page Turn case that will fit the base Kindle – it only exists for the Paperwhite and Colorsoft.

That's a huge shame, as this case featuring buttons for page-turning is likely to be the single best addition to the Kindle lineup this year, for my money (even though it, too, is pricey). Again, though, with pricing closer than ever, it's another string to the Paperwhite's bow.

Verdict

The 2026 Kindle lineup is poised to be the most conflicting and confusing in years, thanks to a blend of price rises and design changes that make its e-readers more difficult to assess than in previous generations.

In the same breath the Kindle Aluminium is the best model to release in ages. This upgraded, more expensive version is quite delightful when examined in a vacuum. It's more robust-feeling, sophisticated-looking and slick in every meaningful way. I love it.

However, beyond the fancier metal finish, there's basically nothing to justify the huge price rise, other than the memory crisis in the background. So it's demonstrably nicer to use, but also demonstrably worse value than previous models at launch.

Also Consider

The price hikes that Amazon has retroactively applied to 2024's Kindle models is a tough one to take, and it means that reverting a couple of years no longer guarantees you a better deal.

The used market is where I'd probably go first for another option, though, and picking up the 2024 Paperwhite in good condition might be a big money-saver compared to this new Kindle. Or await the best Black Friday deals.

Alternatively, the 2026 Kindle Paperwhite – which also has an aluminium version – is a lovely bit of kit. The fact that you could add the page-turning case is a winner, too, while its waterproofing and warm light options further widen the appeal.

'Tis the spooky season and to celebrate, Xbox is giving you one of the most successful multiplayer horror games of the last decade to play for free.

Dead by Daylight is completely free to download and play this weekend, allowing you to spend Hallows' Eve running away from slasher killers – or even stalking a bunch of frightened survivors yourself.

As the game celebrates its 10th anniversary, Xbox has included it as part of its FreePlayDays promotion this week. That means you have until the end of play this Sunday, 1 November, to play it as much as you like on Xbox One, Xbox Series X or Xbox Series S at no cost whatsoever. You don't even need Xbox Game Pass – just download and enjoy.

And, if you fancy continuing after the weekend is done, you can either subscribe to Xbox Game Pass Premium or Ultimate, or purchase the full game with a very decent discount. It's just £10.31 / $11.99 (down from £25.79 / $29.99).

There are also big discounts on DLC packs, with up to 60% off right now.

FreePlayDays games for Xbox Game Pass members

If you are a member of Xbox Game Pass – Essential, Premium or Ultra – you also get the chance to play an additional four games for free this weekend.

Another chills-filled game is up for grabs in Darkwood. It's a top-down survival horror with a suitably spooky art style. The developer promises that it's jump scare-free, but don't think that means it won't unnerve you.

Also available is the Soulslike action-adventure Wuchang: Fallen Feathers. Released this past summer, it too throws supernatural horrors at you, but at least you have a sword to dispatch them with.

Spirittea is a bit calmer. Featuring stunning pixel art, it's more in the vein of Stardew Valley – albeit with a touch of spookiness for good measure.

And finally, space shooter Everspace 2 is included because, well, why not?

All of the games are available to download and play now, with the free period lasting until the end of Sunday 1 November 2026.

Autumn is well and truly upon us, and daylight hours are only going to keep shrinking until Christmas rolls around. There are obvious downsides to shorter days and inevitably moodier weather, but the big plus is that you’ll never have a better excuse to lose yourself in a monumental time sink of a video game.

There are countless games out there that offer total escapism when it’s dark and wet outside, but here are three open-world epics to get cosy with.

Go on, you’ve earned it.

No Man’s Sky

When it launched back in 2016, space exploration and survival game No Man’s Sky quickly became infamous for what it failed to deliver, with developer Hello Games accused of over-promising.

However, rather than Homer Simpson bush meme-ing it straight out of there, the studio vowed to improve the experience, and over a decade later it’s still adding new, free features to what is now a seriously compelling package.

Over the years, Hello Games has introduced base-building, vehicles, a more in-depth story, more variation in planets and eventually full multiplayer. And following the game’s big 10th anniversary update earlier this year, you can now own your own space station, join galactic alliances and mine hulking space wrecks for resources.

All of this is to say that there has never been a better time to get lost in No Man’s Sky’s vast universe on PS5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch or PC, and it helps that the game is frequently on sale for a hefty discount.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered

We likely still have a lengthy wait to endure before the The Witcher 4 arrives, but in the meantime, the ever-generous CD Projekt Red has given its more than 10-year-old predecessor the remaster treatment, ahead of the game’s third expansion arriving next year.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered includes both of the original game’s previous expansions and features upgraded visuals, a redesigned skill tree and some quality of life tweaks. And it’s completely free if you own the original.

In truth, none of the new additions will kid you into thinking you aren’t playing an RPG that originally came out in 2015, but when that game remains one of the best ever made, any excuse to go back is one you should take.

Geralt of Rivia’s search for his adopted daughter takes place in one of the richest and most stunningly realised open worlds ever committed to code, and even now very few RPGs can hold a candle to its quests and writing. Even a seemingly minor side story can have you gripped for hours in this game, and there’s barely a character you’ll meet who isn’t worth talking to.

Despite countless imitators, The Witcher 3 set such a high bar for fantasy RPGs that even its sequel has its work cut out to top it.

Forza Horizon 6

After taking its open-world racing series to Mexico, Australia and even good old Blighty in previous entries, Forza Horizon 6 finally addresses years of fan clamour by heading to Japan. And it was worth the wait.

While many games have set themselves in feudal Japan in recent years, Playground Games’ recreation of some of the modern-day Land of the Rising Sun’s most famous locations is on another level.

Whether you’re whipping a 1986 Honda Civic Si around the neon-lit streets of downtown Tokyo City, taking endless near identical landscape shots of Mount Fuji in photo mode, or battling the elements in the snowy alps situated at the top of the map, the sixth Forza Horizon is virtual tourism at its most thrilling.

If you’ve played previous Horizon entries you’ll be very familiar with Playground’s formula by now. Very quickly your map will be overwhelmingly covered in event markers, from standard races to stunt opportunities and narrative-driven side quests that actually teach you something about Japan and its storied car culture.

The game is always showering you with something, whether that’s general praise, achievements, or new icons of interest. Sometimes it would be nice if it just left you to the driving for a bit, but there’s simply no other racing game that is so abundant with content and incredible attention to detail.

Klipsch has applied its long-established expertise to a thoroughly modern streaming system concept – and while The Sevens II might be a dog’s dinner of a model name, it’s attached to a product that’s very serious indeed.

Price & Availability

The Sevens II is on sale now. In the United Kingdom a pair is priced at £1799. The going rate in the United States is $1999. Australian customers, meanwhile, will have to part with something like AU$3999.

Features & What's New?

Take the magnetically attached grille off one of the Klipsch and you’re confronted by a quite assertive driver array.

At the top, recessed into Tractrix horn geometry that’s an integral part of the baffle, there’s a 25mm titanium tweeter of the company’s proprietary ‘linear travel suspension’ vented design.

Beneath this is a 165mm mid/bass driver – it’s one of Klipsch’s ‘Jet cerametallic’ designs, which means it’s made of aluminium that’s been anodised and electrochemically treated in order for a layer of ceramic to form on its outer surfaces.

This line-up is augmented by an unsurprisingly large bass reflex port that vents at the rear of the cabinet through a rather more strongly defined horn than the tweeter uses.

Between this port and the two-driver array, Klipsch is claiming a frequency response of 39Hz - 25kHz, which comes about thanks to a total of 200 watts of Class D power. Each mid/bass driver receives 80 watts of amplification, each tweeter gets 20 watts to drive it.

Naturally, there’s a primary speaker and a secondary speaker here. The secondary speaker features a connection for mains power, that bass reflex port, and an RJ45 socket for connection to the primary on its rear panel – the primary has a fair bit more going on back there.

Physical sockets consist of line-level and moving magnet phono inputs on stereo RCA sockets, digital coaxial and digital optical inputs, USB-A and USB-C slots, and two HDMI sockets.

Both the HDMI input and the eARC output are a 2.1 standard, and this means that not only are gaming features like ALLM and VRR catered for, but The Sevens II can also deal with Dolby Atmos audio and pass through HDR10+ and Dolby Vision HDR content too. The system offers virtualised height channels when spatial audio content is detected.

There’s a pre-out for a subwoofer, a 3.5mm input for use with the supplied calibration mic, an RJ45 for connection to the secondary speaker, and an Ethernet socket.

Those who prefer as much wirelessness as possible will be pleased to hear that dual-band Wi-Fi is on board, giving access to Apple AirPlay 2, Google Cast and the ‘Connect’ versions of Qobuz, Spotify and Tidal.

The speakers can be also connected wirelessly, although this cuts the resolution from the system’s native 24bit/96kHz to 24bit/48kHz. There’s also Bluetooth 5.4 available, with SBC and AAC codec compatibility.

The streaming platform, incidentally, is supplied by Onkyo. Which goes quite a long way towards explaining the Klipsch’s facility with the more cutting-edge HDMI technologies and specifications.

Performance

Whether or not you’re intrigued by what I’m about to say about the way the Klipsch The Sevens II performance depends a fair bit on the sort of attitude you like in the way your music is delivered.

If you enjoy a vibrant, upfront, spirited account of music, The Sevens II have plenty that will appeal to you. That they sound big and bold and punchy is only to be expected – these are Klipsch speakers, after all, and not especially small ones.

The Sevens II summon considerable low-frequency presence and hit with the sort of merciless intent of a heavyweight boxer – but they have plenty of detail to go along with it, so there is appreciable variation in the way bass sounds are presented.

They are controlled with a fair amount of care too, so the presentation is confident and naturalistic where rhythms are concerned. It’s a similar story through the rest of the frequency range, despite the fact that the frequency response is tilted more than a little towards the bottom end.

The midrange is communicative and direct, and there’s a fair amount of attack at the top end too – and throughout, the same attention to detail and the same facility with tonal variation is apparent. The fundamental tonality is on the mildly toasty side, mind you.

The soundstage on offer here is broad and well-defined, the layout allowing even those recordings with numerous participants the sort of space required for each element to fully express itself.

There’s a fair amount of dynamic headroom available – the Klipsch system is capable of switching between ‘quite quiet’ and ‘absolutely thunderous’ without any appreciable stress or even effort.

Between this facility and the system’s ability to put transient detail into proper context, it’s almost possible to overlook the fact that the Klipsch is wont to gloss over the finest, most subtle details in a recording in favour of emphasising drive and attack.

In fact, this is basically The Sevens II attitude in its entirety. Its front-foot, energetic attitude and character is very welcome indeed when playing music that benefits from it – but switch to something quiet and/or understated and the system’s impatience is almost audible.

If it’s nuance and delicacy you’re after, if your favourite music can be described this way, then this Klipsch system is probably not the most sympathetic way to hear it.

Neither is its phono stage the most enjoyable of its inputs. Everything I’ve written up to this point can be applied to the sound through each of the other inputs, both wired and wireless – but the moving magnet phono input lacks some of the positivity of the other methods of playback, and sounds rather two-dimensional by comparison.

The HDMI loop proves very useful indeed for those who want to put a rocket up the sound of their TV but don’t have the inclination to use a dedicated soundbar (though the physical size of The Sevens II make it slightly tricky to accommodate as part of a home theatre set-up).

It’s true to say the ‘virtualised’ height channels served up when the system is in receipt of Dolby Atmos content are mild in their effect, but the overall attitude of the Klipsch suits a lot of movie soundtracks, and its ability to project the midrange with some force helps with dialogue intelligibility no end.

Design & Usability

Control of the system is available via some physical controls on the top of the primary speaker – or, at least, volume control is. There’s also a ‘multifunction’ button here, the purpose of which can be defined in the ‘Klipsch Connect’ app.

The app is a very thorough interface. In addition to volume and playback control, it features five EQ presets plus the ability to define a custom preset using a five-band equaliser, ‘movie’, ‘music’ and ‘direct’ audio adjustment settings, the chance to define the primary speaker as the left or the right channel, adjust latency for lip-sync and plenty more besides.

There’s also a small remote control handset that takes care of some of the headline functions. It has a touch of backlighting, which is a rarity and for which Klipsch is to be commended.

As far as design is concerned, it’s fundamentally Klipsch business as usual here – whether or not that’s a good thing is entirely a matter of taste.

The Sevens II are fairly big (381 x 206 x 318mm, HxWxD), fairly boxy speakers that, with the exception of the front baffle, consist of straight lines and pointy corners.

The main body of the cabinet is made of real wood veneer over MDF – the speakers in the pictures are in the most recent, ‘red oak’, finish – but if you prefer, there’s ‘ebony’ or ‘walnut’. No matter the colour you select, it arrives as part of a very high standard of construction and finish.

The rather more curvaceous front baffle is made of bulk moulding compound – Klipsch has specified this material because of its density and rigidity, and for the strong resonance rejection characteristics it offers.

Its curved radius helps extend the width of the soundstage and also improves the off-axis performance. Of course, if you don’t fancy the sight of the drivers and their surround, Klipsch supplies magnetically attached grilles that cover the entirety of the baffle.

Verdict

There’s a lot to be said for the excitement and energy the Klipsch The Sevens II bring to bear when reproducing music.

When you factor in the system’s facility with scale, dynamism and broad-strokes insight, it follows that, given the right stuff to work with, this can be a thrillingly involving listening experience.

But its relative lack of subtlety – or, more accurately, its relative lack of interest in the notion of subtlety – means these Klipsch speakers won't be the complete article for all musical tastes.

Also Consider

It’s rather longer in the tooth than The Sevens II, but nevertheless the KEF LS50 Wireless II system remains the product to beat – and thanks to its longevity it’s now down to more or less the same money as the Klipsch. Visually distinct, sonically exceptional and extremely easy to live with, it’s been the market leader for this long for good reason – but it doesn’t have the breadth of connectivity the Klipsch offers.

I've always loved the Steam Machine concept, but like many have been disappointed by the sacrifices Valve had to make to get the thing out of the door. It looks great, runs on SteamOS – which is a big plus for me – but the hardware just isn't powerful enough, especially for the price.

At £1,149 / $1,349 for the 2TB model with no controller, I couldn't shake the feeling that saving up just a bit more cash would get me a far better compact gaming PC. And I was right.

Having spent some time with the GMKtec NEO-X1, there's no comparison. Yep, it's a fair bit larger – although only as tall and deep as a PS5 – and yes, I've mainly tested the Pro model so far. But considering the standard version starts at £1,629.99 with the company's current on-site discount (and is down to $2.199.99 on Amazon in the US) it's definitely worth considering upping your budget.

The NEO-X1 Pro I've been testing is considerably more than that – at £2,489.99 on GMKtec's own UK website, and currently $3,199.99 on the official GMKtec site in the US – but it's a veritable powerhouse in a reasonably-sized case. Made from aluminium, it measures 350 x 165 x 310mm with the top and bottom handles attached. Remove them and it's 55mm shorter.

The case is 14.6L – a far cry from the Steam Machine's 3.8L – but that's because it houses a full desktop graphics card and a monster of a liquid cooling system. And it remains considerably smaller than a regular desktop gaming PC.

You get an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti in the NEO-X1, while the one I've been testing runs the RTX 5070 with 12GB of VRAM. The Pro version also ups the memory to 64GB of DDR5 5600MHz from 32GB.

There's 1TB or 2TB of storage depending on the model.

Another difference between the two is the processor – the standard version is powered by the AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX, while the Pro sports the Ryzen 9 9955HX3D. Both feature 16-cores, 32-threads, but the latter chip also has 128MB of 2nd Gen 3D V-Cache, which is particularly noticeable when gaming. Both are going to knock the Steam Machine for six.

It's also worth noting that you can expand both PCs, up to 96GB in RAM terms and up to 16TB for storage. There are two M.2 NVMe slots inside.

GMKtec NEO-X1 Pro: design and connectivity

I've always found GMKtec to be one of the best mini PC manufacturers for design. Its products look great, with a proprietary aesthetic running through its higher-end models.

I particularly like the trademark green flourishes, which make the NEO-X1 Pro really stand out. The whole cabinet is constructed from aluminium and looks classy, while the top matches the power button with a bright green finish.

There are carry handles installed from the off, although you can remove them, and they double as feet on the bottom too.

You need to keep the PC in a vertical position for airflow, but it looks good enough to be sat next to a TV as well as a gaming monitor.

The left-hand side is removable to expose the mammoth liquid cooling unit and RTX 5070 (in the Pro). unscrewing and moving them out of the way allows for access to the memory and two SSD slots.

There's an abundance of connectivity options This includes two USB-A 2.0 and a USB-C port next to the power button on the front, plus a 3.5mm audio jack. Around the back you get another two USB-A 2.0 ports, two USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, a USB-C, 2.5 Gbps Ethernet, three 3.5mm audio jacks, a DisplayPort 4 (8K@60Hz) from the main board, as well as a HDMI 2.1.

The graphics card also supplies its own video ports – HDMI 2.1b (8K@60Hz) and three DisplayPort 2.1b. In total, you can run four displays at 8K simultaneously.

Wireless connection options include Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. There are two removable antennas packaged for stronger reception.

The whole shebang comes with Windows 11 Pro preinstalled.

GMKtec NEO-X1 Pro: power where you need it

Both NEO-X1 variants are capable of up to 160W TDP, which is when running in performance mode (they can actually reach 170W at peak, but I've not seen it).

There are silent (54W) and balanced (85W) modes too, but I immediately switched it over to performance in the bios when I first started up the Pro.

Admittedly, in performance mode you can get a fair bit of noise generated by the fans and cooling in certain circumstances, but it really depends on where and how you plan to use the PC. I personally didn't mind it when attached to a TV in my office, the game audio running through a Dolby amp and Atmos sound system easily drowned it out. However, if you do plan to use it in a living room environment, you might need to tone down settings a notch.

It also depends on the demands of each game, of course. Many ran at their highest settings in up to 4K without ever hearing a peep from the fans. Some though, such as Grand Theft Auto V: Enhanced Edition running at 2160p in Ultra RT, made it whir like a Dyson during a heatwave. For me, the performance and frame rates were worth it, but it's easy to adjust to something a little less aggressive.

Certainly, there is enough grunt on board to play games at their best, especially if you run them with some form of image scaling – such as Nvidia DLSS. I found that most of the games ran at over 100 frames-per-second at 1440p and high or ultra settings. Some achieved that at 4K.

Many of them were equally capable with ray-tracing features activated. One or two with path tracing (at 1440p).

Cyberpunk 2077, for example, ran at just over 60fps in 1440p with High settings and path tracing switched on, and between 90-104fps at Ultra RT settings. I ran both tests with DLSS set to auto, but no frame generation. Both setups are very playable.

As for CD Projekt Red's other masterpiece – the recently updated The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered edition – I had to be a bit more realistic with my expectations. It ran at over 70fps at 1440p in High settings with ray-tracing switched on, but required DLSS to be set at Balanced. To achieve path tracing at anything like a decent frame rate, the other option was to add x2 frame gen as well.

Even though it's now eight years-old, Red Dead Redemption 2 still gives PCs a decent workout, so I was pleased to see it running at approximately 140fps at 1440p in the maxed out Ultra settings (with DLSS on and set to auto). Switching up to 2160p (4K) achieved an average of 111fps with the same settings – still very impressive.

And finally, another new game I tested was the new Gears of War: E-Day, which gave me just shy of 100fps at 1440p in High settings, with DLSS set to Quality and with no additional frame generation. It also ran at 60fps in 4K on the exact same settings.

In all occasions I played on a 65-inch Philips OLED+950 TV which supports refresh rates up to 144Hz and, more importantly, variable refresh rate (VRR) tech. This kept the action silky smooth even when jumping around the frame rates.

Of course, the NEO-X1 non-pro edition wouldn't achieve quite those results, but from my experience with the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti it wouldn't be too far off.

As it stands, the Pro model is an absolutely beast of a machine. It even aced the Cinebench test, with its 16-core, 32-thread Ryzen 9 9955HX3D CPU achieving a score of 8,474 for multiple threads, putting it a fair distance above an Apple Mac powered by M4 Max silicon.

This means the NEO-X1 Pro isn't just a gaming beast, it's more than capable for everyday work tasks too, plus video rendering and even running on-board AI models. You're probably better looking elsewhere if the latter is all you want to do, but I'm basically saying this is a superb all-rounder.

Oh, and its 3DMark Time Spy score of 20,100 (21,803 graphics, 13,934 CPU) is particularly impressive in the grand scheme of things. I suspect there's even wriggle room to get that higher.

GMKtec NEO-X1 Pro : experience and upgradability

All of my testing was done through the preinstalled Windows 11 Pro, although I would have also liked to have tested the PC with Steam OS. However, Valve is yet to add its promised Nvidia GPU support and I didn't want to go down the Bazzite route in this case.

I'll come back to it once Steam OS officially works with Nvidia drivers.

Windows is fine if you're using the NEO-X1 Pro as a desktop machine, less so when attached to a TV as a Steam Machine alternative. I still had to keep my keyboard and mouse nearby.

If you do want to use it as a living room console, you can have it boot straight into Xbox mode or Steam Big Picture, and even turn off the PIN screen Windows forces upon you on boot. But it never quite feels as smooth an experience as a dedicated OS for gaming.

Most won't worry about that, though. Connect it to a gaming monitor and you're flying. It's small enough to sit on the desk without looming over you, yet also packed with power.

Remove the side and you can even upgrade the SSD and memory, although doing so can be a bit of a pain to the uninitiated. To get to the dual M.2 NVMe slots you have to remove the liquid cooler and GPU. The two DDR5-5600 SO-DIMM memory slots are a bit more simple, they are just under the cooler, but the RTX 5070 hides the second M.2 slot so that has to be taken out first too.

That being said, considering it comes with a 2TB SSD and 64GB of DDR5 RAM anyway, with costs of additional storage and memory continuing to be ludicrous, it's only power users that will likely want to expand.

Certainly, GMKtec keeps everything super tidy inside to give you the option and leeway.

GMKtec NEO-X1 Pro: conclusion

The NEO-X1 Pro is a great example of a "mini PC" without compromises. It is a fraction of the size of a full tower, yet performs like one.

I admittedly have spent my time with the Pro rather than the lesser spec'ed model, but considering much of the DNA is the same, aside from a few of the components, I am nigh-on certain that it continues to be much better value than a Steam Machine. Especially if you take your gaming seriously.

As for the Pro itself, it's a beautifully built bit of kit. Yeah, it's double the price of the Steam Machine, even with a discount, but it offers quadruple the performance. And when Steam OS finally enables full Nvidia GPU support, it might even become the PC games console Valve had originally set its own heart on.

As it stands, I don't see the need for full, chonky gaming rigs today when this kind of thing is available. It's a more home-friendly way to get into high-end PC gaming, and I'm happy to say that this, and its RTX 5060 Ti sibling, are well worth saving up that bit more for.

PlayStation has just unveiled arguably its best looking PS5 side plates and DualSense controllers yet. The Prism collection includes three console covers and controllers in transparent Flare Orange, Emerald Green and Graphite Grey.

They'll be available to purchase from the PlayStation Store online from 10 November and are likely to be extremely popular. I particularly like the Flare Orange version – the console cover is especially eye-popping.

However, there's one special edition PS5 that tops those and then some.

Goldgenie is renowned for its luxury customisations of consumer tech, often replacing the shells of iPhones and other smartphones with pure gold and leather. The end results can run into the thousands of pounds and dollars, making them as bling as you can imagine.

And that's the case with its latest – a pure 24k gold PS5.

The atelior brand first released a gold PlayStation 5 in 2020, when the console originally debuted. But this latest version is different. Where that one had a golden skin, this is plated in 24k gold.

Goldgenie has used the casing from each model, plus its included DualSense controller. So you're not getting a skinned console, you're getting the shop bought model cased in real gold.

Also, the version chosen this time is the PS5 Slim with the disc drive. It is a limited edition and once all units are sold out, there will never be another of that type.

Of course, it's not exactly in the same price bracket as PlayStation's new accessories. Even with the latest pricing of the PS5 taken into account, you're going to have to dig a bit deeper.

The Goldgenie 24k Gold PS5 will set you back £9,997 in the UK, $13,585.92 in the States.

It's available to order from the brand's own website now and will ship within 14 days to anywhere in the world.

If that's a bit too steep for your liking though, Sony's transparent PS5 covers start at £64.99 / $74.99, with the matching DualSense priced at $84.99 / £74.99.

As a retro games enthusiast, I own a sizable collection of gaming handhelds of all shapes and sizes – and at all budgets. But there are few that offer as much value for money as the R36S.

Capable of comfortably playing games up to PlayStation One, it comes packed with emulators for all the classic systems. And it's always worth hunting out each major sales period.

In fact, you can often find bargains on the build up to the likes of Black Friday, as I have. Amazon is currently selling the R36S with more than 20,000 games to play for under £30 right now.

It's not the most powerful or famous retro gaming handheld out there, but has a decent display and workable user interface to get to and start each game. I own a couple of them already, in fact.

One thing to note is that as the R36S is such a popular device, whenever I find it for under £30, it gets snapped up sharpish. So be quick with your order – it's unlikely to hit a price much lower than this.

Also, while the white model is at the unbelievable price of around £28, you can pay a tiny bit more to get the colour of your choice. That includes the great-looking transparent black model for just £29.98.

What is the R36S retro gaming handheld and is it worth it?

The R36S is a decently spec'ed gaming handheld with a 3.5-inch 640 x 480 4:3 display. It runs on the Rockchip RK3326 processor, which has been the bedrock of retro gaming devices for a few years.

That means it is capable of playing all the 8-bit and 16-bit games comfortably – such as NES, SNES, Master System and Mega Drive – as well as original PlayStation titles.

You might even be able to eke a bit of PSP or N64 gaming out of it.

Most suppliers include a card filled with dubiously sourced ROMs (the games) and so it comes largely plug-and-play.

PlayStation's next batch of free games for all PS Plus subscribers will arrive on 3 November, and it's one of the best lineups for a while.

All three releases are worth sinking time into, with the headliner being one of the most underrated action-adventures in recent times, in my humble opinion. Another of them is an extremely addictive deck-builder, while the last is literally three games in one.

Dead Island 2 might not live up to Techland's original, but its famed development woes were ironed out when Deep Silver and new developer Dambuster Studios finally managed to get it out of the door.

The first-person RPG (of sorts) is a zombie-filled hoot that doesn't take itself too seriously, and provides a whole lot of fun combat and exploration. There's a deep crafting mechanic to customise outlandish weaponry, and solid co-op options to take on the hordes with friends.

Available for PS5, PS5 Pro and PS4 owners, Dead Island 2 will be completely free to download until 30 November. As with all the PS Plus monthly games, you can keep it as long as you retain Essential, Extra or Premium membership.

The same goes with Monster Train 2, which is being included for PS5 owners only.

A roguelite deck-builder, it's the sequel to one of my favourite Slay the Spire clones. You are all that stands between the forces of Heaven and the gates of Hell and, in a twist, you are essentially the bad guy.

You must stop the angelic attack using different demons, spells and abilities as you ride along the train tracks to damnation. As with all good deck-builders, that includes picking up new units, action cards and power-ups to repel increasingly stronger enemies. Lose the heart driving your train and it's over.

I went through a period of playing this game daily, so it's inclusion with this month's batch lets you find out why.

Finally, Tomb Raider IV - VI Remastered collects Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, Tomb Raider: Chronicles, and Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness in the one collection for PS5 and PS4.

The graphics have been cleaned up – although you can also play with the original graphical presentation, too – and there are other quality of life tweaks to the three classic games.

Oh, and don't forget that until the end of play 2 November, you can also download F1 25, Hunt: Showdown 1896, and Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 if you haven't done so already.

Standing out in the world of gaming monitors is no easy task – at a time when OLED panels are finally coming down in price, refresh rates are pushing up past the 1000Hz threshold, and people are connecting consoles as well as their PCs to their displays.

Still, when big new tech like Nvidia G-Sync Pulsar comes along, it's an opportunity for monitor-makers to push for further upgrades. It's the latest in display tech, helping to eliminate levels of motion blur you might not have even really been worried about.

If you're a competitive gamer, however, it's therefore big news – but is it enough to make you buy a whole new monitor? I used the Asus ROG Strix Pulsar XG27AQGNV for a week for this review to find out how it stacks up.

Price and Availability

The XG27AQGNV was unveiled at the very start of this year, in the halls at CES 2026, and trickled out for sale in various regions, starting roughly back in May. That means it's been around for a good few months, but it's the first Pulsar monitor I've had in for detailed testing.

It's priced at £629 here in the UK, $599 in the US, and €599,99 in the EU, which makes it objectively pretty expensive for a 27-inch, 1440p gaming monitor at this point. Whether it's worth that cash will be what I explore below, but it'll also come down to your priorities, as always when it comes to gaming hardware.

Design and Specs

You might think there's not a huge amount to talk about when it comes to the design of a 27-inch monitor, and on some level you'd be right. Asus has kept things pretty simple here, too, with a panel that has pretty even bezels on the right, left and top – but with a bit more of a chin on the bottom.

On the back of the monitor on the right-hand side, you'll find controls in the form of a control knob that you can use to navigate through the monitor's settings menus, as well as a few shortcut buttons to make things like turning it on and off, or swapping inputs, a little faster.

Then, at the back of the monitor, you'll find its I/O options: one DisplayPort 1.4 port, two HDMI 2.1 ports, and three USB-A ports for accessories and charging. That makes it relatively light on the connectivity front, to be honest – I'll always advocate for more HDMI ports where possible.

These ports can be hidden behind a removable cover that makes the back of the monitor nice and clean, with one large ornament in the form of a ROG logo that lights up with RGB (which you can control).

I don't love the aesthetics of it, but if there's one bit of tech where the back panel doesn't really matter, it's a monitor. There's more cable tidying using a gap in the stand, which has a modest footprint, making this easy to get on a smaller desk.

That brings us to the actual specs of this display. It's a 27-inch, 16:9 aspect ratio IPS panel, at 2560x1440 resolution, with an anti-glare matte finish to help make it impressively resistant to reflections. It has HDR 10 compatibility and a refresh rate cap of 360Hz.

That refresh rate is made far more impressive, though, by the inclusion of not just AMD FreeSync and Nvidia G-Sync, but also the far newer G-Sync Pulsar, which basically eliminates a huge amount of motion blur when gaming. It's really quite hard to describe, but it's a big step up compared to standard G-Sync if you're gaming at high frame rates.

Another of the most impressive specs, on paper, is the 500 nits of peak brightness – a long way beyond much of the competition. This means that if you crank this monitor to its maximum value, you'll have a bit of a beacon of a display on your hands. While this will be uncomfortable for many home gaming scenarios, it makes the monitor very adaptable to harsher conditions.

Of course, given the price tag attached, it's probably worth clarifying some of the things you don't get with the XG27AQGNV, too. It's not an OLED panel, to be clear, so you won't get quite the same inkiness in its blacks.

It's also not 4K. That 1440p resolution cap is really no issue for most sensible PC gamers, but it does mean that a console like the PS5 Pro can't output its maximum resolution to the monitor, which may well matter to you.

Performance

I've said it before, and I'll say it again – with a monitor, more than perhaps any other form of tech that I've reviewed, it's really all about the performance, and barely about the design.

So, turning the XG27AQGNV on, how's it been to actually game on? Well, in a word: smooooth. I last tried G-Sync Pulsar more than six months ago at an Nvidia event, and had limited time one-on-one with the feature. Now, using it for a whole week at my leisure, it's made quite an impact.

I don't play too many games competitively on PC, to be frank, but dipping into the likes of Counter-Strike 2 to get a feel for where the feature's impact could really be felt, the amount of clarity I was able to perceive was quite striking.

To be clear, Pulsar isn't making your game smoother – it's just making it clearer in motion, and the magic behind that is really quite something.

That's a huge plus point in favour of the XG27AQGNV, then, but it's also impressive in other areas. It's really crisp at 1440p, without text fringing that I could perceive, and while it can't quite match an OLED for blacks or vivid colour, it's one of the best IPS panels I've seen in ages on both counts.

It's also wildly bright. That 500 nits of peak brightness is hard to describe in a monitor, but it meant that when I cranked it up to its maximum value I was pretty much instantly in discomfort, and brought it back down quickly. That's something I've never encountered before, and means those with bright rooms will find a real ally in this hardware.

Of course, the way I test monitors doesn't just involve PC gaming. I also connect my MacBook Pro for my daily working routine, and my PS5 Pro for a lot of my social multiplayer gaming. In both cases, the XG27AQGNV is a very solid performer, although when a PlayStation 5 is connected it obviously can't offer the full 4K experience.

That's most likely not an issue for you, if you're a PC user first and foremost, but at a time when makers like Alienware are catering to both PC and console, it's worth bearing in mind.

Verdict

The XG27AQGNV is a niche monitor, but a highly impressive one. If you're on the lookout for an IPS panel featuring G-Sync Pulsar, it's your only real option right now (all the others are OLED). That makes its fairly steep price far more understandable, since it sits on the cutting edge.

That said, Pulsar really isn't something that many of us need, and that means plenty of people might be better off spending less on their 1440p monitor, or getting a more adaptable screen for the cash. If you care about clarity above all, though, what a legendary option this is from Asus.

Also consider

I've tested some highly impressive monitors in recent months, and one of the best has been from Dell – the Alienware AW3226Q. This is a huge, 32-inch OLED, so it's not quite the same proposition as Asus' offering, but it comes in at a similar price. Crucially, it's 4K and more reliable for switching between PC and console.

A more direct comparison could be made to the LG UltraGear OLED 27GX790B-B, which is a stunning 27-inch OLED. It lacks the Pulsar tech that Asus packs into this panel, but is a bit more impactful in terms of colour, making it something of a dealer's choice.

After many months of speculation, Apple has finally lifted the lid on its touchscreen MacBook.

Retaining the MacBook Pro name instead of adoption "MacBook Ultra", the new model comes with 14- and 16-inch sizes, with each featuring when Apple calls a PROLED XDR display.

This uses Tandem OLED technology and boasts a claimed 2,000 nits of HDR and SDR brightness. It is also said to have a contrast ratio of 10 million to one, 120Hz refresh rate, and sports more accurate pro-level colour presentation and deeper blacks than ever before (on a MacBook).

It is also touch-enabled, of course, allowing users to manipulate macOS manually for the first time.

Another first is the Dynamic Island, which replaces the notch on the conventional models around the 12-megapixel Center Stage camera. This can therefore double as an extra utility for notifications and the like, much as it does on iPhone 18 Pro.

The new Mac can be spec'ed with either an M5 Pro or M5 Max chip, and up to 128GB of unified memory. Storage options run up to 16TB.

A lighter, thinner design has been implemented with both MacBook Pro sizes, with the 14-inch version weighing just 1.3kg and the 16-inch just 1.8kg. These are lighter than their standard equivalents.

The bezel around the display is slimmer too, resulting in a 14.2-inch screen for the smaller variant, 16.3-inch for the larger.

Apple also claim that the sound system on the new MacBook Pro is "industry-leading". It features a six-speaker array with deeper bass and new tweeters for greater clarity and dispersion. Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos is supported.

Battery life is claimed to last up to 24 hours, and the lid sees the return of the glowing Apple logo.

The new MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display and Touch, to give it its full name, is available to pre-order now starting at £2,899 / $2,899 for the 14-inch model, £3,399 / $3,399 for the 16-inch. Shipping starts next week, on 6 November 2026.

Apple's updated iPhone family isn't quite complete with the iPhone 18 and iPhone 18e expected in early 2027 to offer a more affordable route to iOS than the iPhone 18 Pro and the iPhone Duo.

There could be a lot of interest in the iPhone 18e as the entry-point to the family, and we're starting to get a picture of what this phone might offer.

It's said to have a 6.12-inch OLED display, but stick to the a 60Hz refresh rate. While most phones offer 120Hz, even on basic models, Apple still uses this as a point of differentiation, even on high-end devices like the new iPad mini.

Powering the phone is the A20 chip, according to Digital Chat Station on Weibo, which is 2nm like the A20 Pro that powers the iPhone 18 Pro, but a small step down. The A20 is thought to miss out on the A20 Pro's dual neural engine, and move to 9GB RAM, while it likely loses a GPU core compared to the Pro.

Elsewhere, the new device is thought to keep the 48-megapixel single camera on the rear of the phone, but upgrade the FaceTime camera to 24-megapixels. This might be to enable Centre Stage functions, better supporting group selfies and FaceTime calls.

This could be the headline update for the iPhone 18e, widening the appeal to younger users, and making for a much better selfie experience.

The design of the phone is expected to be the same as the iPhone 17e, while the move to a 2nm chip will probably be used to claim longer battery life from that same cell due to inherent efficiencies in the new hardware.

The new iPhone 18e might also be announced alongside a new iPhone Air, the slim phone that comes with a premium price. Rumours suggest it could have a dual rear camera – likely similar to the iPhone Duo – while getting a slimmer design, A20 Pro chip and an increased battery capacity.

Apple is in the process of announcing a lot of new hardware at the moment, but at least the iPhone 18e – and a new MacBook Neo – are designed for those with less cash to spend.

Apple is planning to update the MacBook Neo – its cheapest laptop – in the first half of 2027, meaning that those shopping for a cheaper Mac experience won't be left behind.

The MacBook Neo was announced in March 2026, launching at £/$599, but then seeing the price revised upwards to £/$699. Still, even with the price increase, it's the most affordable MacBook that Apple has released for a long time.

No details are known about the new model, but it's expected to continue with a run of bright colours. While the other models in the Mac family are expected to move to the M7 chip in 2027, it's likely that the MacBook Neo will get updated to the A19 Pro chip.

The details come from Bloomberg, where Mark Gurman has a good track record of sharing future Apple plans.

Apple is in the middle of a major refresh of its Mac line-up. That's seen the Neo introduced in 2026, but is expected to announce MacBook Pro model with an OLED display and supporting touchscreen – a first for the MacBook family.

To clear space for the big announcement, Apple has already unveiled the M6 MacBook Pro update, bringing performance updates to Apple's Pro workhorse, while also updating the iMac.

The announcement of the new iMac might give us a clue to Apple's plans for the MacBook Neo, because like the Neo, the iMac comes in a full range of colours.

However, Apple decided not to change these colours, but update it to the M6 chip and enhance the connectivity with the N1 chip. So, while it's an update, the design remains exactly the same.

Alongside the launch of the new MacBook Neo in 2027, we're expecting the MacBook Air to get an update and this is likely to be more meaningful, with a move to the M7 chip, although that's not confirmed.

Sitting behind these updates, there has previously been the rumour that Apple will introduce a new design with the OLED MacBook Pro, something that will filter down to refreshed M7 MacBook Pro models in 2027 too.

There's so much happening on the hardware side at Apple it's hard to keep up. We've had the iPhone Duo announced with the regular iPhone 18 expected in early 2027; we've had the move into smart home with the HomeView; and now we're looking at a real shake-up for MacBooks too.

Even Realities has always steered clear of controversy with its smart glasses. While fingers are pointing at other brands and their use of built-in cameras, its display glasses range has been catering for an altogether different type of user.

Featuring neither cameras nor speakers, the Even G2 range is sophisticated, light and designed for everyday use. They feature a heads-up display with a range of different capabilities, and are arguably more for professional use.

That being said, the range has just been extended to add a new colourway to expand their appeal. The Even G2 glasses now also come in a Brown 2 colour that's similar to the tortoiseshell effect you'll find on regular pairs.

This makes them less stark on the face, perhaps, and gives users more choice. But what's clever is that the maker has managed to achieve the affect without having to resort to an acetate frame.

The new style – which is available in both Even G2 A and G2 B shapes – uses a new material that has been shaped, pressed, tumbled and polished for 20 hours. This gives each pair a unique pattern, yet retains the lightness and build quality of the originals.

Even Realities has also added a couple of accessories to its lineup, which can be used on all styles. There are new polarised clip-on sunglasses lenses – the existing clip-ons weren't polarised. And there's a new Even G2 chain for wearers who like to remove their glasses throughout the day.

New software features

The software experience is the same in all Even G2 models, although that too has been updated in the last few days. It now has an upgraded AI – Even AI 2.0, which can deliver more relevant answers based on new Knowledge Base tech.

The Knowledge Base essentially imports past Conversate sessions and uploaded files (with your permission) and enables the AI system to use that information when delivering answers to your questions.

Other new features include a Conversate Pro Mode & Insights. Currently in beta, this goes beyond providing summaries of recorded meetings, to indentifying priorities and recommending next steps.

The Brown 2 Even G2 glasses are priced at £649 / $649, with the G2 Clip (Polarised) at £139 / $149 and the G2 Chain at £69 / $79.

The standard Even G2 glasses start at £599 / $599.

Nostalgia is a powerful force. We all have fond memories of people, moments, sounds and even smells, and when we experience them again, it can take us right back. Most of us also remember our first mobile phone, game console, even music player. And many of us strive to replicate the experience.

Thankfully, we can. The retro tech market is booming, with myriad devices giving us classic designs with a modern twist. Be it for gaming, audio, photography or phone use, there's something out there that harks back to yesteryear with the features of today.

Here are 15 great examples of neo-retro devices that deserve your attention and money today.

Taken from issue #391 of T3 magazine.

TECHNICS SL-1200 55TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Not so much a neo-retro release as a special edition, this turntable is the real deal. Re-released to celebrate the model's 55th anniversary, this particular SL-1200 has been built as a limited run of just 1,200 units available worldwide, including a gold-coloured variant for those who want a bit of bling with their vinyl.

£TBC, technics.com

KODAK CHARMERA

There are plenty of retro-inspired cameras on the market, but the collectable Charmera range from Kodak combines the old and new in arguably the cutest fashion. Designed to clip onto a keyring, or the strap of a bag, these digital cameras don't have the biggest sensor, but there's something fun about having a shrunken snapper wherever you go.

£35, kodak.com

CLICKS COMMUNICATOR

Clicks has made a name for itself over the last couple of years, with its cases that add physical keyboards to iPhones. However, its Communicator handset goes one better, bringing back the BlackBerry for those who miss having a more tangible typing experience on their device. And as it runs on Android, you get a modern suite of apps too.

$499 (around £370), clicks.tech

ACEMAGIC RETRO X3

Mini PCs come in all shapes and sizes, but Acemagic has become well-known for creating models that look like consoles from the 1980s. The Retro X3 is one of its cheaper options, but is great value for what you get. All you need to do is install Retrobat or Batocera and you have yourself a retro games machine that's more than capable of playing up to PS2.

£699, acemagic.com

TINY VINYL PLAYER

Tiny Vinyl releases miniature records of classic tracks that have become highly collectable. And while they can be played on any deck, it's great that they now have their own dedicated turntable too. The Tiny Vinyl Player is as compact as the four-inch discs it plays, and while it's only available in the US for now, it should arrive in the UK soon.

$50 (around £37), tinyvinyl.com

FUJIFILM INSTAX MINI EVO CINEMA

Not only does the Instax Mini Evo Cinema camera look about as retro as it's possible to be, but it can record video in the styles of different eras too, from the '30s to modern day. Clips are stored in 15-second chunks, so are perfect for sharing on social sites, and there's even an Instax printer built-in to provide physical copies of your favourite stills.

£329.99, instax.co.uk

FIIO DM15 R2R

The vinyl resurgence has been nothing short of miraculous, but now it seems that CD is starting to have its time in the sun too. The FiiO DM15 R2R is a great example why, with portability and lengthy battery life coupled with high-end hi-res audio capabilities, thanks to its built-in R2R DAC.

£249, fiio.com

WE ARE REWIND X PINK FLOYD WE-001

We Are Rewind has carved out a niche by recreating tape-based music systems for a modern audience, and its WE-001 portable cassette players are keeping the Walkman dream alive. There are plenty of collaboration versions too, with this Pink Floyd edition even coming with a remastered version of Dark Side of the Moon.

£159, wearerewind.com

HYPERKIN SUPABOY

There are plenty of retro gaming handhelds available today, with most requiring you to add your own game ROMs on an SD card. The Hyperkin SupaBoy, however, celebrates the cartridges of the Super Nintendo, and has a slot at the back for you to insert your original physical games into. It's been around for a while, but has finally arrived in the UK, along with new retro-inspired colourways.

£119.99, hyperkinstore.com

GADHOUSE WESLEY HEADPHONES

It's fine to own a Walkman-alike in 2026, but to get the most authentic experience it's advised you match it with retro-style headphones. These Gadhouse wired on-ears feel about as '80s as shoulder pads and ‘Frankie Says' T-shirts, yet also come with a USB-C adapter to connect them to modern gear.

£50, gadhouse.com

LEGO DONKEY KONG ARCADE

Okay, so this isn't tech exactly, but the Lego Donkey Kong Arcade set not only delivers a recreation of one of the best coin-ops of all time, you can roll barrels at Mario through a slot in the side. It's also reasonably priced for one of Lego's retro gaming builds, especially as you get 1,367 Lego pieces in the box.

£149.99, lego.com

SHANLING M0 PURA

Yes, you can listen to countless digital music tracks on your phone, but who doesn't miss the simplicity of an iPod? And especially the portability of an iPod nano. Well, the Shanling M0 Pura is essentially just that, it even comes in multiple colours like one of Apple's discontinued players, but better still is that it comes with Bluetooth and is capable of hi-res audio playback, too.

£129, en.shanling.com

COMMODORE CALLBACK 8020

After relaunching the Commodore 64, reimagined with HDMI and modern connectivity, the resurrected company has turned its hand to a phone. The Commodore Callback is a flip phone that harks back to when handsets were simpler, yet it still gives you access to some of the most popular social networks. You even get a 48-megapixel camera on the rear to help capture new memories.

From £294.58, commodore.net

8BITDO RETRO 87 KEYBOARD

Renowned for its game controllers, 8BitDo also has a fine collection of mechanical keyboards in a variety of retro-inspired colours. There's one that looks like an NES console, another in the distinctive hues of a Commodore 64, and you can even get a special edition version that apes the translucent green design of the original Xbox and is compatible with Windows and Android.

From £85, 8bitdo.com

GAMERCARD

The superthin GamerCard gets double retro points by being able to emulate retro games on its stunning four-inch screen, and also being the brainchild of Grant Sinclair – the nephew of the genius behind the ZX Spectrum, Sir Clive. And yes, you can play classic Speccy games on it too, it even comes with a couple preinstalled.

From £99, grantsinclair.com

RETRO COOL OR RETRO FOOL?

There's no doubt that retro-inspired devices can look cool, but unless you want some modern quality of life upgrades, you might be better off looking at second-hand original hardware. After all, you can still get film for a Polaroid Sun 660 camera from the 1980s, and it might give you more authentic images in comparison with a current model.

It can also be argued that well-maintained speakers and audio equipment from the 1970s and 80s is just as good as today's, if not better.

You could also be doing the planet a favour – upcycling gear that would otherwise be heading to landfill is surely better than encouraging manufacturers to make disposable tech similarly destined for the bin.

For example, there seems to be a trend right now for disposable cameras once more – that are designed to be used until all the exposures are gone and then discarded. That's one side of retro we'd rather see stay in the past, to be honest, like CFC-laden hairsprays and deely-boppers.

The latest MacBook Pro 14-inch model now has a new chip inside. Today's announcement sees the new M6 chip with a 12-core CPU and 12-core GPU to deliver breathtaking speeds for everything from gaming to AI engines.

This is the smaller of the two MacBook Pro models, and there's something big expected for the larger model tomorrow. However, for those who want an extremely powerful machine that you can take anywhere, this model could be a winner.

Apple's new M6 chip also features in the new iMac released today, but this looks to be the more powerful version. It promises 30% faster graphics performance than the M5 model and 25% faster on-device AI performance.

The MacBook Pro 14-inch offers up to 24 hours of battery life and a Liquid Retina XDR display with 1600 nits peak brightness and a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio. There's the option for a nano-texture display here too, to remove reflections.

This new model uses the latest generation of Apple N1 communications chips too, so it offers WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 6 connectivity, in addition to 3x Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI, MagSafe power port and SDXC card slot.

The 14-inch MacBook Pro M6 starts from £1999 in the UK, $1999 in the US and A$3199 in Australia.

The iPhone Duo has been on sale for a couple of days, but reports of the screen cracking are flooding the internet as users share their experiences.

There seem to be a number of cases where damage appears in the about a third of the way up the folding display, causing a break that means the screen no longer illuminates properly.

That's been shared on Reddit, on X, on TikTok while YouTube is awash with commentary too. As reported by Mark Gurman on X, Apple has now responded to rising reports of failed screens.

The full statement reads as follows: "We are aware of an issue impacting the inner display on a small number of iPhone Duo units. If users experience issues with their iPhone Duo display, they should contact AppleCare for a replacement."

It's not exactly clear what's behind the problem, but looking at the location of the damage on a lot of units, and the iFixit teardown, it looks like one of the springs in the hinge could be the culprit.

It's also unclear how widespread this problem will be, whether this is down to a design flaw or if it's a limited manufacturing problem for early devices. For those with affected devices, Apple should replace it under warranty without quibble.

It's hardly the start that Apple wanted for its new £2000 phone. Joining the folding phone market in 2026 was a big step for the brand and always going to garner attention that other brands - including Samsung - don't get.

Crackgate joins Antennagate from the iPhone 4, Scuffgate from iPhone 5, Bendgate from the iPhone 6, all of which effectively petered out as the devices went on to enjoy success, having initially suggesting there was a bigger problem.

It's likely that within a couple of weeks, crackgate will be old news, and plenty of people will be happy with their new iPhone Duo.

For all those who aren't happy or have had their confidence shaken, there's always the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 that you might consider instead.

It's been two years since the last update, but now the iMac is back with a new chip. The 2026 version now features an M6 chip inside, either with a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU, or an upgraded model with 12 cores of each.

Once again coming in a choice of seven colours, the iMac features a 24-inch 4.5 K Retina display with 500-nit brightness and a 12MP Centre Stage camera.

Other notable upgrades include a move to WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 6, thanks to the Apple N1 chip onboard, as well as a 2.5 Gb Ethernet port option.

The new M6 chip also offers a dual 16-core neural engine, making the iMac up to 5x faster for on-device AI performance. This is something that we're seeing on all of Apple's latest chips, and it means that whether you're vibe coding or running local AI models, there's more than enough power without having to use remote servers. It also means that Apple's own Siri AI can work effortlessly across the device.

Storage has also had an upgrade here, with up to 2x faster read and write performance. There are four options, starting from the base 256GB, going up to 1TB or 2TB for the higher-spec chip model.

The iMac can also be purchased with a desk stand or on a VESA mount adapter, allowing you to place it on an adjustable arm or mount it to a wall.

Keyboards for the seven versions of the iMac are all colour-matched and include Touch ID. These and a Magic Mouse come included with the device, though you can upgrade to a trackpad or larger Magic Keyboard with a numeric pad before purchasing.

Prices for the new iMac M6 start from £1499 in the UK, $1499 in the US and A$2399 in Australia. Pre orders open tomorrow (28 October) with availability from 6 November 2026.

It's a little hard to really get a grip on the Nvidia Spark N1X's importance. From some people's points of view, this is a real revolution in the world of the PC, bringing in a new generation of ARM-based machines running Windows.

On the flip side, the launch prices of said machines make them niche prospects. The Asus ProArt P14 is one of the more approachable laptops in the range of new options, but is still a pricey beast, especially in the configuration I've just spent a week using.

This is a laptop that can really sing when it's used the right way, but I'm not quite sold on Nvidia's new chip being a silver bullet against the dominance of the MacBook Pro and its own M-series silicon.

Price and Availability

Nvidia unveiled the RTX Spark back in May, at Computex in Taiwan, but machines featuring the chip are very fresh. They largely went on sale in mid-October, and you can generally buy either directly from their makers or from retailers in your area.

In the case of the Asus ProArt P14, the starting price is set at £2,699.99 here in the UK for a version with 24GB of RAM. That's instead $2,599.99 in the US.

If you raise that to 32GB of RAM (like the version I've been using), you'll instead need to pay £3,199.99 / $3,099.99. That's quite a chunky hike just for another 8GB of RAM, it must be said, especially given that there's no change in SSD capacity here in the UK, which stands at 1TB in both versions.

In the US, the SSD appears to be capped at 512GB in both versions, even more perplexingly. All of this applies to the 5120-core GPU and 18-core CPU version – there's a more powerful version that pushes prices well past the $5,000 mark if you want it.

Design and Specs

I'll start with the design of the ProArt P14, because it's quite frankly a considerably more straightforward part of assessing this laptop. Asus has fairly transparently built a competitor for the MacBook Pro here, and that aim has led it to a pretty darned lovely design.

I've been using the silver version, although it also comes in a matte black that looks extremely fetching. Each one is finished in a beautiful metallic material that leaves a far more premium impression than the Ceraluminum that Asus prefers for its slightly more accessible everyday laptops.

Closed, and from the back, the laptop looks so much like a MacBook Pro, in fact, that it's only really the ProArt logo that gives it away – and that logo is quite cool, since it's a bit more vague than a full-on brand logo.

Opening the ProArt P14 up, you'll find a gorgeous 3K OLED touch display topped by a webcam and with slim bezels.

Below that, there's a generously spaced keyboard with a good amount of key travel. It has a power button with a fingerprint reader above it for biometric security, and a huge trackpad below. This is a full haptic pad, and it's quite something to use, with an extremely glossy finish.

To the right and left of the keyboard are stereo speakers, with an interesting cut-out design that makes them catch the eye a little more than in some of the competition. That brings us to the ports; on the left edge of the laptop you'll find an HDMI port, two USB-C ports for display and power delivery, and a 3.5mm audio jack.

The right-hand edge houses another of these same USB-C ports, a USB-A port and a full-sized SD card reader. That's a good amount of I/O for a creator-focused laptop, with that SD card reader in particular being the sort of thing that can get missed off lower-cost laptops (albeit the MacBook Pro very much has one).

Back to that display for some more spec: it's a 2880×1800 OLED panel at 16:10 aspect and with 120Hz refresh, offering 100% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut – all of which should make it a great pick for colour-accurate work in creative fields, whether that's photography, video or something else.

Meanwhile, the whole thing runs (of course) on the RTX Spark N1X, Nvidia's latest and greatest. As I've already covered, the variations in the specs that you can find for the ProArt P14 are pretty wide, and I'm surprised that Nvidia is making two versions of its chip available without giving them a proper named differentiator (like the M5 and M5 Max, for instance). That can't help with potential customer confusion.

Here in the UK, the basic spec will come with the N1X packing a 5120-core GPU and 18-core CPU, along with 24GB of RAM, but I've been using the version with a 6144-core GPU and 20-core CPU with 32GB of RAM. Whether that uplift is worth it to you will come down to a few factors, but I strongly suspect that most people will end up going with the more affordable version.

The crucial thing to know is that, much like a laptop powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips, these laptops run Windows on ARM. That means some benefits (most generally in the form of power consumption and battery life), but also the occasional spectre of compatibility issues, which have become rarer and rarer over time.

Performance and Display

The ProArt P14 is a beautiful bit of hardware, but when you're paying this sort of money, you're likely to be far more concerned with how it performs than how it looks (at least above a certain baseline that it clears).

Using the P14 as my daily driver for a week was an interesting process, not least because the vast majority of my work encountered absolutely no issues. It sort of goes without saying that a chipset Nvidia's touting as the future of computing can handle general productivity without any hitches or issues, but there we are.

The N1X, in all its glory, had no problem whatsoever when it came to my daily workflow, across a Chrome browser stuffed to the brim with tabs, high-resolution YouTube videos, and Photoshop instances. That's really just about the limit of what I work with most of the time, and on my personal M3 MacBook Pro it's never been an issue, either.

Performance was pretty smooth throughout my week using the laptop, although there have been odd hitches now and then, often the first time I've opened or used an application. That might be a familiar tune for those with Qualcomm-based laptops, but the landscape is miles better now than it was a couple of years ago.

That said, the trap here is that every so often you might just stumble upon an app, game or programme that doesn't want to run well on ARM, and it can be pretty hard to know when that might happen.

Speaking of gaming, with Nvidia's hands all over the RTX Spark, you might assume that it would be a doozy of a mobile gaming chip. Well, not really. It's competent enough, and with the right tuning (especially lowering your resolution) you can get solid results, but it's nothing to ruffle major feathers at Intel or AMD.

On Cyberpunk 2077, I found the Steam Deck preset was the most reliable choice at 2880x1800 resolution, but even with Frame Generation turned to Dynamic, I still topped out at 60fps on the dot.

That's solid, as I've said, but nothing to make you drop your jaw, although it's also running at a pretty high native resolution. Dropping this will clearly get you some sizeable performance gains.

Finally, it's also worth noting that the amount of fan noise you get with high-stress tasks like gaming is pretty significant, to keep all that new hardware cool under the laptop's hood.

Reassuringly, though, the display that you'll do this work and gaming on is a genuine beauty. Asus has a long history of putting stunning screens on its laptops, and this OLED is no different. It's pin-sharp, super bright, lovely to use as a touchscreen, and basically doesn't have any flaws that I discovered.

Verdict

Much like with the recent arrival of the first Googlebook laptops, it's a bit complicated to separate out the laptop from the tech underpinning it. In this case, Nvidia's new RTX Spark N1X is a major new arrival, but in the Asus ProArt P14 it doesn't necessarily feel that groundbreaking.

This is partly a good thing – using the ProArt P14 is much like using any other high-end creative productivity machine, and that's a testament to the power on offer in Nvidia's chip. On the flip side, it's not exactly an experience that's blown me away, and the price being asked for these machines might mean you'd want more from them.

In particular, the fact that its gaming performance is middle-of-the-road, rather than class-leading, feels like a missed opportunity from a computing brand so strongly associated with GPU performance.

I think most people won't find that this ProArt P14 is the best choice for them in 2026, frankly, especially with Apple having established such a clear position when it comes to high-end laptops. Still, it's a very solid start from Nvidia, and it's fascinating to speculate where things could end up in a few years' time.

Also Consider

For those who want oodles of power in a sleek, metallic frame, but don't fancy dicing with Windows on ARM, there's an obvious pick – the latest MacBook Pro. Sure, you could upgrade the M5 to one of its fancier variants if you have the cash, but for the vast majority of professionals, the standard M5 will be brilliant, and it looks like good value compared to Asus' offering.

If you do want Windows, though, with a 14-inch screen and a lovely design, then I'd point you at the 2026 version of the Dell XPS 14. It's a seriously gorgeous laptop, with pricing being its only real flaw, but it still looks like solid value when put next to an RTX Spark machine. Power comparisons might be worth delving into, but again, for most people this will be a simpler, winning pick.

The new issue of T3 is here, and yes, we know, we said the C word. But listen up – if you want to be ready for the festive season, now is the time to get planning your list (or getting the one your kids cooked up six months ago) and making those crucial tech purchases, not three days before the big day.

Our Christmas Gadget Gift Guide is packed with over 70 amazing tech gifts for all tastes, whether they're outdoor adventurers, fitness fanatics, or retro gadget lovers. And there's something for kids, too (including grown-up ones).

Plus, it's 30 years of T3 magazine! So we're celebrating the big one with a birthday tech bash, highlighting the best gadgets and innovations over the last three decades. We've also rounded up six luxury carry-on suitcases – perfect for short haul flights. And we rate some of the hottest tech around, including the iPhone 18 Pro, AirPods 5, and DJI Lito 1.

Browse the interactive edition of T3 magazine on Apple News

Get this issue in our iPad edition

Read us on Android phones and tablets

Read T3 and 100s of other top mags at Readly

What’s inside the latest T3?

In the latest issue of T3, you’ll find:

• Christmas Gadget Gift Guide – the most luxurious tech wishlist in the universe
• Rated: iPhone 18 Pro – the most premium iPhone just got more powerful, with a stunning new colourway
• 30th anniversary of T3 – we look back at the best 30 gadgets, and the top innovations since T3 launched
• Rated: Sonos Beam Ultra – this compact soundbar gets a premium audio upgrade
• Smart carry-on suitcases – pack light and save time at the airport with hi-tech luggage that fits in the overhead lockers
• Rated: Apple AirPods 5 – the legendary wireless earbuds are back, and better than ever

And so much more!

So discover all the transformative tech and cutting-edge gadgets you can get your hands on by subscribing to T3 today.

Fujilfim has upgraded arguably its most popular Instax camera, with a bigger screen, a wider field of view, and an Immersive Movie feature that automatically captures clips when you're taking photos.

The Instax mini Evo 2 has a tweaked retro design, not least to fit a 4.5-inch LCD display on the rear – up from the 2.7-inch version on the previous model. It also includes a new Instax Expanded View camera feature to capture wider shots.

As for Immersive Movie, this records up to four seconds leading up to each photo taken by the camera. It's an optional feature, but allows for memories to be stored beyond each still.

Other features include 10 lens effects and 10 film effects to alter the look of images and video. The camera itself owes much to the heritage of analogue photography, with controls that work and feel authentic.

There's a macro mode for close-ups, while images can be taken in up to 600 dpi. Exposure is adjustable too.

As this is an Instax camera, it can not only take and store digital photos, you can print them through the built-in Instax printer. And you can connect your smartphone and print images that are stored on your device (via the Instax mini Evo app).

Your smartphone can also be used to control the camera for remote shooting.

The Instax mini Evo 2 charges through USB-C, accepts 2 x 3-inch Instax mini film, has a microSD card slot to expand the storage, and comes with a shoulder strap in the box.

It is priced at £229.99 and will be available from the end of November. You'll be able to pre-order it from numerous UK retailers, including Amazon, John Lewis and Jessops. It'll then be available to purchase more widely, including from Argos and Very.

It's been a hot minute since a Call of Duty game managed to really grab me. The last couple of entries felt rushed at the best of times, but even if you were a Multiplayer-only type of player, you'd have to gel with the way they pushed into quicker and quicker territory. I'm not into movement shooters, so the return of a slightly more grounded style with Modern Warfare 4 has been a real pleasure this past weekend.

That said, it's the campaign that I mainlined the most efficiently, which is never too huge a challenge given COD's generally modest single-player runtimes. After the enormous disappointment of MW3, I was at least a little interested to see how Infinity Ward innovated and switched things up.

To be honest, I'm not sure this is the return to form that it's been greeted as, having rolled credits on it. While there are some great missions and the production value is right back up there, I still didn't really do anything that felt unlike something from previous games – including the open-world "Stranded" mission that felt like a glimpse into how boring a huge COD could really be.

That's harsh, of course, and the story ripped along at a good pace, but I was disappointed by how little time I spent with a new team of interesting and well-acted South Korean marines, instead repeatedly getting hooked back into the overarching storyline driven by Captain Price.

Price is now a full-on war criminal, for the uninitiated, and it's quite funny to watch the recap video included in the game, showing us a principled and straightforward operator, before dropping into the campaign and watching him be at first complicit and then fully participating in large-scale civilian death.

Still, while its story continued to get sillier and sillier, it's undeniably true that the COD mission format still feels exhilarating to play. As you push through front lines, accompanied by dozens of other marines, the sense of scale is often really impressive, and it crucially all looks pretty stellar.

In fact, playing on my PS5 Pro I was reminded time and again that Infinity Ward really know how to push the COD game engine to its limits. From night-time lighting that's impressively realistic, to explosions that shake your very bones when they hit, this is a really impressive-looking campaign.

It features a few locations that are just insanely detailed if you stop and take the time to soak them in, too. The Korean convenience store from the game's opening moments is perhaps the most photorealistic storefront I've ever seen in a game.

On the PS5 Pro, this is all rendered extremely sharply, too, with the console able to keep things even smoother than its less powerful sibling, without cutting back on the level of detail. Since my friends all game on PlayStation, this is another title that's pulled me away from my gaming PC right now.

As I've come to expect from Infinity Ward, the sound design is excellent. I'm playing with the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite connected, and the booming soundscapes of each battle are quite something to hear. Of course, next up is a multiplayer binge for me, and I'll be interested to see how reliable the audio is on this front.

If you've sat out the last couple of COD games, like me, because they just got too twitchy and were a little far from the traditional gameplay you enjoy, then I'd say this is one to take a look at. It's the biggest step back to basics that COD has made since 2019, and I can only hope it teaches Activision a lesson about leaning too far into competition with Fortnite.

The iPhone Duo is now available, with many discovering Apple's take on the folding phone format for the first time. While the presentation by John Ternus and friends showed some of the great experiences the phone would offer, not everything is quite that tidy.

Included on that list is Instagram, which currently struggles to take advantage of the space. Called out on Threads, the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, replied to agree, saying "it's a bit of a tricky form factor".

This comes as a bit of a surprise considering Instagram is one of the apps designated by Apple as being optimised and "Made for iPhone Duo".

Apple made a major shift in the user interface on the Duo, using the right-hand edge of the display for various control elements. That means that apps need to be optimised to really take advantage of the Duo's format.

For Instagram that's what we see, with controls on the right-hand edge rather than across the bottom when you're browsing your feed.

When you open up the Duo, Instagram just sits in the middle of the screen, swimming in space and not using the additional real estate.

On rotation to portrait, the video or image naturally fills the screen better, but then controls move back to the bottom. That also highlights an inconsistency, with the back navigation to get out of a video shifting from the right to the top left.

The home screen of Instagram in portrait also doesn't fill the width of the phone with fairly large gutters left and right, while stories also don't fill the screen.

Why are some apps having issues on iPhone Duo?

While most of the attention on the iPhone Duo focuses on the folding screen and getting a larger view on the inside, there's a lot of optimisation that needs to happen to really take advantage of the space.

Some will just create columns, basically giving a two screen view, which for Instagram could see the content on one side and comments on the other, although it's debatable how many people are that invested in comments. For a creator it's a big deal, but for a casual browser, it probably isn't.

It's not just the iPhone Duo that needs app optimisation – in many cases all folding phones do and that's evident on the Galaxy Z Fold 8 too. The first case in point here is Samsung's use of screen space with its default keyboard, which eats half the cover screen leaving little space to see what you're actually doing.

This will all come together over time, but with so many apps designed around 20:9 displays (more or less), there's a bit of work to be done to fill the space, make the controls make sense, and offer a better experience.

The OLED iPad mini is finally official. Long rumoured, Apple's smallest iPad has received its biggest upgrade in years, with an all-new OLED display that's also larger than ever.

Measuring 8.5-inches thanks to thinner bezels, the Super Retina XDR display is capable of displaying much deeper black levels and more accurate colours than previous mini models. It also features a peak brightness of up to 1,200 nits and a two million to one contrast ratio.

You can also order the new tablet with a nano-texture display, as featured on the iPad Pro and most recently, the iPhone Duo. This reduces reflections and makes the display feel and look more paper-like.

In addition, the new iPad mini gets a processor lift to the A20 Pro that you'll find in the latest iPhone 18 Pro phones (and the Duo). This allows the device to work with Siri AI and Apple Intelligence without compromises.

It's also a powerful chipset that's great for gaming, including ray tracing support.

The front-facing camera has been improved, too. It's now a 12-megapixel Center Stage camera that offers higher resolutions than before, while also being remounted into the horizontal edge of the tablet – much like the iPad Pro.

This makes it better for use when you're holding the iPad in landscape mode.

Finally, the other significant enhancement is in thickness and weight. The iPad mini is now lighter than before and just 5.4mm thick.

Pre-orders for the new iPad mini will kick off on Wednesday 28 October (ie, in a couple of days). It'll then start to ship next week, from Friday 6 November.

Prices start at £699 / $699 for the 128GB Wi-Fi only model in either starlight or midnight colours. There are other storage options that will be available – 256GB and 512GB – and you can also buy it with cellular connectivity, starting at £849 / $849.

The nano-texture coating on the display can be added at checkout for an additional fee.

OnePlus has announced the OnePlus Buds Clip, as it joins the expanding range of brands offering an open-ear design.

The Buds Clip – much like the Motorola Buds Loop and Bose Ultra Open Earbuds – clip to your ear, leaving the ear canal free.

That means you can have greater awareness of what's happening around you and avoid that plugged-in and cut off feeling.

The new open-ear buds have been developed with Dynaudio and have a clever trick up their sleeve – they can be worn on either ear.

Because these buds clip to your ear, it doesn't matter which you wear on the left and which you wear on the right – they will automatically detect how they are being worn and adjust the sound to account for that.

OnePlus isn't the first to do this: the Huawei FreeClip 2 also support this function, as do the Moto Buds Loop, but it's not something that Bose offers. It is, however, something that in-ear buds and regular headphones don't offer.

There are dual drivers in the Buds Clip, with an 11mm woofer and 9mm tweeter packed into each unit, with dual DACs. There's support for LDAC for Hi-Res music, while OnePlus also promises a Private Soundstage, where reverse waves are emitted to ensure that others aren't disturbed by what you're listening to.

Each bud weighs 5.2g, with 40 hours of battery life promised – that's 9.5 hours from each charge with the case topping it up. If you choose to use LDAC over AAC, the usage drops to a total of 36 hours.

The OnePlus Buds Clip are IP55 protected, while also offer an AI Translate function and touch controls.

The boom in open-ear buds is driven by the desire to remain connected without being cut off. In recent years, the quality of the sound that you get from this type of earbuds has increased, with people choosing not to use traditional buds with transparency mode, but use an open design instead.

Open ear headphones have been popular for those exercising for some time, so you can enjoy music without losing awareness. But the rise in AI interactions gives this type of design another use case – you can wear a light and unobtrusive clip, but still interact with AI without having to block your ears.

With OnePlus withdrawing from the UK or US, the availability of these might be limited and as such price is currently unknown.

UK viewers could soon find something strange happening to their smart TVs, with new regulations potentially arriving to slow down start-up speeds.

The British government is considering plans to bring the UK in line with the EU when it comes to standby and off mode technologies. It could impose a cap on how much power a TV can use when in standby mode, which will affect how quickly you can turn on your set and start watching.

According to The Independent, the measures are in the consultation phase, meaning the government is assessing whether to introduce them. If so, it will not only affect televisions but other devices that use a standby mode, such as games consoles, air fryers, security cameras, and other smart home products.

The aim is to reduce household power consumption and potentially reduce energy bills. The EU has already implemented its own regulations, which the UK is looking at closely.

The consultation document (which can be found on the official gov.uk website) claims that the current regulations on smart devices and energy usage are outdated: "GB's current minimum standards for standby, off mode and networked standby have not kept pace with technological progress – meaning new types of products and more complex features often fall outside our rules or exploit outdated definitions, leading to avoidable energy waste," it says.

"We are therefore proposing to repeal and replace the two current GB regulations covering standby, off mode, networked standby and simple set-top boxes."

Any changes are unlikely to affect your existing tech. They will more likely be imposed on future TVs and other devices, with manufacturers having to adhere to new standards.

How this will also affect the likes of HDMI CEC – which autoswitches between devices – is unclear. However, if the UK does follow the EU in enforcing similar regulations and requirements, at least it would make it easier for manufacturers to synchronise its product lines for the two regions.

The consultation period is set to end on 24 December this year. We should find out more soon after.

I'm always blown away by the licensing agreements that Lego puts into place – and quickly. From Daft Punk to F1, Mario and Sonic The Hedgehog, to a series of sets inspired by Netflix's Wednesday show.

The Lego Wednesday sets only launched this month, just in time for Halloween, but I've already spotted a minor discount on the Nevermore Academy kit on Amazon. That makes it the ideal build for spooky season this weekend.

See the Lego Nevermore Academy deal here

It'll arrive on time, too. Lego demand is so high right now that many other appropriate sets aren't available from the retailer – including the La Catrina Day of the Dead model that I wrote about last week (you'll have to wait until November to obtain that now).

While the Netflix show is certainly not for young kids – it's rated a 12A by the BBFC in the UK, and is a TV-14 rating in the USA – this particular Lego set is aimed at ages 10 and above. Seeing the show isn't a prerequisite!

The model number is 76788, containing 890 pieces total, so it's not a huge multi-thousand-piece build like some of the more complex kits designed for adult builders. Included in that is, of course, a separate full-size Wednesday Minifig.

The included Enid and Wednesday characters are smaller than classic Minifig models, each able to fit onto a single Lego brick stud protrusion – perfect for the full build's scale. They're even small enough to keep within the pull-out drawer that's part of the set.

The overall Nevermore set doesn't present too massive a footprint, at 17.6cm tall, 19.1cm deep and 21.4cm long. Although I'm not sure I'd be able to find anywhere to put it at the moment – as I'm already trying to reserve some shelf space for my Project Hail Mary purchase.

Making a great gaming headset is as complicated as you want to make it for yourself, and while the very best on the market sometimes do have oodles of features, there's a lot to be said for keeping it simple.

That's not an approach that I really associate with Razer, which has long made a habit of adding feature after feature to its accessories. Still, with the Barracuda V2 Pro it's taken a rare step back and just made a gaming headset without frills.

Don't get me wrong – it has the features I want given the price bracket that it's landing in, but this isn't full of RGB lighting, haptics or anything else. It gets the job done – and done well. I've been using it for a couple of weeks to see how it stacks up.

Price and Availability

The Razer Barracuda V2 Pro was unveiled in October 2026, and you can order it now from a range of stores, and directly from Razer itself if you like. It's priced £199 in the UK and is also $199 in the USA.

A few years ago, I'd have said that made it a really premium option, but the simple fact is that the headset market has shifted into a more expensive bracket now. In a world where headsets with a 50%+ higher asking price are available from most big brands, this Razer sits at the top end of the mid-range sector.

Design and Features

The Barracuda V2 Pro looks a heck of a lot like the previous-generation Barracuda Pro, and that's no bad thing. Some of Razer's most premium headsets can be a little, well, massive, but this one skips any issues on that front by remaining pretty slimline and restrained.

Right now you can only get it in black, although I wouldn't bet against a white version arriving at some point. It's a headset that's marketed almost entirely without any images of its microphone attached, but don't worry – that removable mic is very much included in the box.

Once it's attached, this is a headset that arguably looks exactly like the image an AI generator might spit out if you asked for one, only a little more restrained and with a blessed absence of RGB frippery. I actually mean that as a compliment, too: it's stealthy and simple.

The Barracuda V2 Pro is pretty light, at 285g, and that means it's got a fairly plastic build to cut down on weight. This has upsides and downsides, unsurprisingly.

It feels nice to wear for decently long periods, with a good amount of cushioning on the ears and headband, but does have a hint of flimsiness to it thanks to the materials chosen. Its armbands and their adjustment ratcheting are sturdy enough, though.

On the right earcup you'll find a pairing button for the Bluetooth connectivity on board, as well as a mode-switching toggle to turn active noise-cancellation (ANC) on and off.

The left earcup is busier, featuring a textured power button, volume keys, and a mute switch, as well as the USB-C charging port and mic connector.

Without that microphone you can use beamforming mics instead, but you'll be inflicting needless annoyance on your teammates, since the upgrade to the proper microphone is massive.

That ANC is worth mentioning, meanwhile. While I think at this price you really do need to be including the feature now, not every comparable headset does so, and it's great to therefore see Razer squeezing it into a slim package.

With ANC switched on, you'll get 50 hours of battery life, while turning it off ups this to 70 hours, both of which are very impressive figures.

Finally, for standard console connectivity you'll want to use the included USB-C dongle (there's also a USB-A adapter), which actually stores away in the earcup of the headset, behind a removable panel. This confused me on the first unboxing, but I suppose is a neat enough choice if you're ever going to travel with the headset.

Sound and Performance

A headset looking nice and stealthy isn't worth a huge amount if it can't back that up with good sound, though, and the Barracuda V2 Pro does a very solid job on that front, too.

Razer has popped 40mm drivers into the earcups, and they're pretty darned impressive. I played about half a dozen hours of Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen on them, along with hours of Battlefield 6 and some Ace Combat 8, and never had a complaint about their rendering of in-game audio.

Spatialisation is really quite strong in the right game (and thanks to a recent update, BF6 is such a title), while the overall volume and detail are both in the right spot. In fact, I often found I had to turn down the headset a little when it got too loud – and that's one small duff note, since it didn't seem to save my choice of sound level when turned back on (on my PS5 Pro anyway).

It's worth saying, though, that I'd put this sound quality pretty confidently at the right level for the price being charged, rather than it being a hack or shortcut to a better deal. That is, you're getting sound that's impressively worthy of this asking price, but you get a clear improvement when you move to something pricier yet, such as the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Omni.

The inclusion of ANC is welcome, as it really does help with immersion. I think this sort of ANC can be its best implementation, making gaming more absorbing than ever, and in this case it was pretty capable when fighting against a robot vacuum or the washing machine in the background.

The removable microphone is, as I've mentioned, miles better than the included beamforming mics, but it's still not the most persuasive piece of the puzzle here. Having used the Logitech G Pro X3 Lightspeed recently, it's clear that Razer's microphone is merely fine, rather than being exemplary like Logi's version.

This Razer's comfort levels are very solid, though, and that does mean that this feels like a slick enough headset when you're wearing it. I also like that Razer permits you to tweak settings via its app on iOS or Android, making it easier for those with just a console to get their EQ dialled in precisely.

Verdict

It's quite rare, in my experience, to see Razer do so little to mark a headset of this type out from the crowd, but I think its approach to the Barracuda V2 Pro is the right one.

It can jam crazy features into other models, but having a headset like this – which keeps things really simple – is an attractive counterpoint.

It's handy that it does the basics well, too, with really solid sound and comfort, and build quality that impresses despite the relatively modest material choices.

The microphone is nothing to write home about, though, and its price does feel a little high, but that doesn't stop this from being a very solid headset option for those who like its design.

Also Consider

I've mentioned the two headsets I'd offer as alternatives already in this review. The first is the Logitech G Pro X3 Lightspeed, which doesn't have ANC but broadly outdoes the Barracuda V2 Pro in a few other ways. I prefer its sound, marginally, but its microphone is a big upgrade. Still, it's a little more expensive.

If you do have a bigger budget, my top pick for the best gaming headset (bar none) is the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Omni, which works with every device you could care to name, and sounds phenomenal doing so. It's also incredibly comfortable, has great ANC, and a swappable battery system that keeps you gaming forever. All that for a fairly chunky price, mind you.

I have a soft spot for gadgets that do one thing well, and the Pieni III has already caught my eye. It's a tiny digital camera from Japanese brand Kenko Tokina that looks like a miniature old-school film camera, weighs just 18g and is small enough to wear around your neck.

Available in four colours – Soda, Strawberry, Milk and Black – it looks more like a cute accessory than a serious bit of camera kit. But it does take photos and record video with sound, so it's more than just a pretty little trinket.

The clever bit is that there's no screen or viewfinder. You point it roughly at whatever catches your eye, press the shutter and trust your instincts. You'll only discover how the picture turned out when you transfer it to your phone or computer. That means wonky framing and unexpected details are part of the fun.

Lo-fi photos and a few clever extras

The Pieni III isn't going to replace your smartphone camera. Its tiny 0.32-megapixel sensor produces low-detail images, saved at 1440 x 960 pixels through digital interpolation. The results have a soft, grainy, early-digital look that's a big part of the appeal.

It can also shoot video with audio at 720 x 480 resolution and 30 frames per second. There's a magnet built into the back, too, letting you attach it to compatible metal surfaces for hands-free recording. A neck strap comes in the box, while USB-C handles charging and lets you transfer files directly to a compatible smartphone using the supplied cable.

You'll need to buy a microSDHC card separately, and the camera supports cards from 4GB to 32GB. The Pieni III launched in Japan on 9 October for ¥6,600 (around £33), although UK availability and pricing aren't confirmed.

For a camera that's more about capturing the feeling of a moment than producing a technically perfect image, I can see the appeal. And at just 18g, I'd happily keep this on me for those little moments that usually pass by without a picture.

I'm all for finding ways to spend less time staring at a screen, but I'm not entirely convinced that building an entirely new phone is the answer. That's the idea behind ADHD ONE, a gloriously chunky handset from Cologne-based designer Kevin Noki that looks like it's escaped from the 1980s.

The name stands for Anti Distraction Handset Device, and its purpose is pretty straightforward. Rather than replacing your smartphone, it connects to an iPhone over Bluetooth, allowing you to make and receive calls while leaving your actual phone tucked away in a drawer or another room.

It has a physical 19-key keypad, a small OLED display, a microphone and a speaker, but none of the apps, social media feeds or notifications that make modern phones so difficult to put down. You can also use your iPhone's Do Not Disturb settings to decide which contacts are allowed to get through.

There is, of course, a catch. ADHD ONE has no independent mobile connection, so your iPhone still needs to be nearby and within Bluetooth range. It's less a replacement for your phone than a way to make calls without having the usual distractions within reach.

3D-print your own retro handset

The ADHD ONE s that is not just a retro-looking shell around a modern phone. Noki has designed the handset from scratch, using Autodesk Fusion to create the enclosure before 3D-printing its components.

Inside, a Raspberry Pi Pico handles the device's functions, while a Bluetooth module takes care of call audio. There's also a rechargeable battery, charging controller and custom circuit board, all packed into that wonderfully oversized housing.

The design comes with a few customisation options, too. You can choose between three speaker grille styles and three antenna designs, including the sort of oversized aerial that makes the whole thing look like a prop from an old action film. There's even an alternative housing without an antenna, although that feels like missing half the fun.

If you fancy making one yourself, Noki sells the digital build files for €29.99 (around £26). The package includes the 3D-printable STL files, firmware, circuit board manufacturing files, a parts list and a quick-start guide. You'll need to source the electronic components and do the assembly yourself, though, and the files are licensed for personal use.

So, is this a clever way to cut down on smartphone distractions or an elaborate solution to a problem that could be solved by putting your phone in another room? Honestly, probably a bit of both.

The fact that it's been over six years since the launch of the five-star WH-1000XM4 from Sony is a little mind-bending, not least because they remain, anecdotally, the headphones I see on actual heads in public more than any other model in that time.

Their popularity has been huge, clearly, and Sony has been open about how successful they've proven – which explains why it's brought them back in a new guise.

The headphones' design never really went out of style, and while the 1000XM lineup has moved on to a new look, Sony is rolling the clock back with the new WH-1000XM4C, a revised version of the XM4.

The C doesn't change as much as you might think, though. It has some familiar, excellent features – but now at a mid-range asking price. Here's how it's held up to sustained use in my testing.

Price and Availability

The WH-1000XM4C arrived on the market in September 2026, fresh from Sony revealing them, and came in at a price of £219.99 in the UK, $299.99 in the US, and €249.99 in Europe.

That sees them land in the upper reaches of the mid-range market, at a time when headphone makers are pushing into more and more expensive territory for their flagship models (Sony included with its Collexion top-tier model).

For some added context, though, you can currently grab the next generation on from the original XM4, the Sony WH-1000XM5, for £199 on Amazon UK – so Sony's pricing lineup is likely to be a little confusing for the foreseeable future, with various generations of headphones getting different discounts during sales.

Design and Features

This isn't the first time I've tested headphones that really don't look at all different from the generation they're replacing, but it might just be the single most invisible set of changes I've ever encountered.

The WH-1000XM4C looks like the WH-1000XM4 in literally every way, from its dimensions, to how it folds, and where its various ports and buttons are located.

It's made from the sort of soft-touch recycled plastic that Sony has been using for years, and you can grab it in a few colours – black, beige and purplish-pink. Whichever you choose, you'll get a lightweight set of headphones (at 253g) made almost entirely from that plastic.

This gives them the feeling of robustness that can come from sticking to simpler materials, and they really don't feel in danger of breaking as you fold them, stick them in a bag, or treat them however you like.

That said, I shouldn't bury the lede here – they're actually not as durable as I'd hope for, still lacking any form of IP resistance rating, meaning there's no official weatherproofing.

The headband is old-school style, meaning it only has cushioning in the centre, but the earcups themselves are pretty plush and feature a few controls – in addition to the brand's beloved touch controls, which I'll talk about further down.

On the right earcup, all you'll find is a USB-C charging port, but the left has a 3.5mm jack, a power button and a toggle for turning active noise-cancelling (ANC) on and off.

There's a lot to like about this design, though, and it bears repeating that it's already stood the test of time – and over 10 million sales – for a reason. It's super comfortable, and has enough flex to feel durable, even before you consider the hardshell case.

This case comes in the box and it's impressively small thanks to the folding mechanism. It makes it all the more mad in retrospect that the XM5 didn't fold down in the same way, honestly.

In terms of features, though, what's new? Well, possibly the biggest change comes in the battery department, and it might partly explain why this headphone is being launched at all.

To comply with EU regulations, this new model has a user-replaceable battery that's a little less capacious than the old one, so that sees battery life shrink a little to 27-ish hours with ANC turned on, down from 30 hours before. That makes the battery life "solid" rather than terrific, although you can boost it to 34 hours with ANC off.

Sony isn't pointing at much else in terms of changes, though, which means crucially that you're getting basically the exact same headphones as you would have a few years ago.

That means the ANC is on the same level, and the hardware behind the sound is the same, although the tuning has been tweaked a little.

In terms of codec support, you do get LDAC, but not aptX, while Sony's in-house DSEE upscaler is also here if you want it. The Sound Connect app gives you access to an expanded 10-band EQ system, too.

All of this makes the WH-1000XM4C genuinely quite fascinating – are they a new set of headphones, or are they not? Either way, the feature set is simultaneously retro and entirely appropriate for their new price tag, so there aren't any objections on this front.

Sound and Performance

Slipping on the XM4Cs was a bit like stepping back a few years, which is no surprise, but it's worth remembering that back in 2020 these were rightly considered flagship-level headphones. This means that while their sound has been surpassed more recently, they're still extremely impressive and musical headphones.

As always, I listened to a variety of material in my testing, and found the XM4Cs handled all of it really capably. Justice's new track for GTA VI, Flower in a Hurricane, had all the 80s verve and depth I was looking for, for instance.

Django Django's recent single Cameos was, by contrast, delicate and acoustic, with the right amount of tonality and character.

Michael Kiwanuka's Small Changes underlined that latter point, with a lovely sense of presence and detail – although it's fair to point out that swapping back to the XM6s that I reviewed last year did provide a small boost on both fronts.

I also find the XM6s more comfortable, which perhaps isn't a surprise given their extra development time comparatively. The XM4Cs are still great to wear, but their design does centre some of their weight in the middle of the headband, where the cushioning is, making for more of a pressure point in that spot.

They're still phenomenally usable, though, especially with how well they fold up – a feature that makes the hardshell case feel optional for plenty of outings, rather than an essential to keep them safe in a bag.

Much like the overall sound quality, I have no complaints about the noise cancellation in the XM4Cs, but I can also acknowledge that it's been improved on since their first release.

These headphones do a very solid job of blocking out background noise, especially the drones of engines or public transport, but swapping to the XM6 – which have three times the microphones – again makes the upgrade pretty clear.

The story here is really that a flagship does indeed start to feel like a fair mid-range option after a few years, and that's normally just a matter of discounts and price cuts, rather than a re-release like this one from Sony.

This is basically just a rubber-stamping of what we already knew about how the XM4 had aged, and in that light it's a pretty honest approach.

Verdict

So, what does the WH-1000XM4 look like in 2026? Well, like the WH-1000XM4C – a set of headphones that underline how changing very little can sometimes be the right play. I think that despite their superb success over the years, though, this new reissue does indicate that some things have changed since they came out.

Their design remains great, but refinements have made it more comfortable since, and it's a very similar situation where sound quality is concerned. For this price, they're a great buy, and I'm arguably most excited to see what sort of price they're listed for in six months' time and more – these could be a Black Friday classic for a few years.

Still, in the here and now I think the WH-1000XM4C are a great option for those looking to stick with Sony's most tried-and-tested choices, even if some of its more recent launches have actually raised the bar past what these headphones can now muster.

Also Consider

Well, there's one very obvious comparison to make here, and it's one that I've made a few times in my review – the current reigning Sony flagship is the WH-1000XM6, and in a straight shootout it wins on most points. Its sound is beefier, its ANC is more comprehensive, and it's more comfortable, while also being a whole heap more expensive. That makes it the best choice if your budget is actually a bit higher than the WH-1000XM4Cs' level.

If you're sticking in the mid-range, though, I'd point you towards Nothing's Headphone (1), which I think does things very differently – in a good way. Its noise-cancelling is pretty comparable to Sony's (despite being years newer), but its design and controls are polar opposites. It's a palate cleanser of a headphone, and won't be for everyone, but when the sales hit, it's a genuine bargain.

I spend enough time staring at screens as it is, so a wearable that reminds me to take a break without adding another screen to my life sounds very appealing. That's the idea behind Arc, a silver bracelet from Belgian design studio Futurewave that gives your wrist a gentle vibration when you've spent too long on your phone.

Arc has you use a portal on your phone to select the apps you want to monitor and set a time limit, like 30 minutes of uninterrupted use. Once you hit that threshold, the bracelet delivers a discreet pulse. Keep scrolling and it'll give you one more nudge before falling silent and starting a new interval.

There's no display, no audible alarm and no running tally of your screen time to make you feel guilty. Futurewave says the system doesn't store usage history or require an account or subscription, either. It's a simple reminder to break the spell of the endless scroll, rather than another app demanding your attention.

Smart tech hidden inside a sculptural silver bracelet

What makes Arc great is that it doesn't look like a fitness tracker or another bit of tech strapped to your wrist. Its open, rounded form takes inspiration from the ancient torc, a type of metal ornament worn around the neck or wrist, with an organic shape that draws on everything from rib cages to seed pods.

The bracelet is designed to be cast in Argentium silver, an alloy chosen for its premium finish. Inside, a piezoelectric element produces the vibrations, while a low-power microcontroller handles the Bluetooth connection to your phone. A curved 25mAh battery and flexible circuit board are tucked away within the sculptural design, keeping the technology out of sight.

Futurewave wants Arc to remain a piece of jewellery in its own right, even if the electronics eventually stop working. So, unlike a smartwatch that becomes obsolete when its software or battery gives up, the bracelet could still have a life as a piece of silver jewellery.

There's just one catch, Arc is currently a concept, developed through 3D-printed studies and prototypes, with no confirmed price or release date. That means you can't buy one just yet. But if Futurewave brings it to market, I'd for one be very interested.

It hasn’t taken WiiM all that long to establish itself as a digital audio force to be reckoned with, and it doesn’t take much deductive power to work out why: compact, well-made, affordable products that perform to a standard in excess of the asking price, and a properly sorted ecosystem.

No wonder the company is feeling bold enough to expand into the spatial audio soundbar market. The Bar (and who wouldn’t have wanted to be at the marketing meeting when that model name was decided on?) is a first effort – but it wouldn’t be the only time WiiM has hit the bullseye at its first attempt...

Price & Availability

The WiiM Bar spatial audio soundbar is on sale now, and in the United Kingdom it’s priced at £449, while in the United States it sells for $479, and Australia gets it for AU$769.

Sonos may have moved its Beam soundbar upmarket with the launch of the Ultra, but that still leaves the WiiM to face down some very credible alternatives...

Features & What's New?

The WiiM Bar is configured to deliver an impression of 3.0.2-channel spatial audio. Obviously it uses an element of digital signal processing to achieve this, but it also deploys physical drivers pointing in a number of directions to create this sonic character.

So there are three 110 x 52mm ‘racetrack’ mid/bass drivers and three 52mm tweeters deployed across the front surface of the Bar – these take care of the left, right and centre channel information within the soundtrack.

On the top of the soundbar, out near the ends and positioned behind a little perforated section, are a couple of 52mm full-range drivers that are angled up and out in an effort to bring the required ‘height’ to the soundstage.

In an effort to give the sound a little more heft there are four 110 x 50mm passive radiators serving up some low-frequency presence – two face forwards, two face backwards.

These eight powered drivers get an all-in total of 135 watts of Class D amplification to deal with.

Physical inputs are all arranged in a little recess at the back of the chassis. There’s an Ethernet socket and an HDMI eARC input, naturally, and WiiM also provides a USB slot, a 3.5mm analogue input and a digital optical socket.

Wireless connectivity is handled by Bluetooth 5.4 (with SBC, AAC and LC3 codec compatibility) and by triple-band Wi-Fi 6 – which means the ‘Connect’ version of every popular streaming service, Google Cast, internet radio and most other online goodies are easily accessible. Odd, however, is the lack of AirPlay compatibility.

Performance

There’s really only one place to start with a spatial audio soundbar, and that’s with some spatial audio content. And with some Dolby Atmos-soundtracked stuff streaming from one of the world’s more popular services, the WiiM Bar wastes very little time in letting you know what it’s all about.

Fundamentally, that turns out to be punchily robust, impressively dynamic and remarkably positive sound. It’s far from unsubtle, and it's more than happy to ramp up the tension when the going gets especially quiet and creepy – but you somehow know it’s itching to get to the jump-scare, so that it can showcase its remarkable dynamic headroom and low-frequency control.

At the bottom of the frequency range the WiiM is solid, square-edged and weighty. Bass sounds don’t enjoy the same level of detail and variation as information higher up the frequency range, but if it’s a sturdy foundation you want – as well as the outright wallop some many movie soundtracks rely on – you’ve come to the right place.

The midrange projects well, is a sight more detailed than the bottom end, and exists in a nice little pocket of space that the Bar’s soundstaging abilities always earmark for dialogue.

At the top of the frequency range the WiiM attacks with crisp determination – but its treble presence is substantial rather than flimsy, so even during the biggest dynamic upheavals the top end never edges towards ‘hard’ or ‘glassy’.

Oh, and given that 135 watts of power in total is not, on paper, the most encouraging number, WiiM is to be congratulated for making the Bar so vaultingly and effortlessly dynamic. It never sounds stressed when dealing with big chances in volume or intensity and never alters its fundamental sonic character.

The tonal balance is pretty neutral, despite the fact that the lack of variation at the bottom end can make things sound a little warmer than they otherwise would. The control factor of the low-end is good, though, so rhythms in soundtracks (or when streaming music in straight stereo) are realistically expressed.

In fact, the Bar is one of the best pound-for-pound soundbars out there when it comes to music playback. Some of this is to do with the fact that you can enjoy true stereo, produced by just two of the tweeters and two of the mid/bass drivers, if that’s your preference when listening to stereo recordings.

Most soundbars insist on using all their drivers no matter if they’re playing two-channel content, and it’s seldom a good policy. Mostly, though, the quality of music playback is to do with the fact that the WiiM’s balance and direct nature makes for a spirited and engaging account of your music.

When listening to music mixed in Dolby Atmos, though, or to a movie with a spatial audio soundtrack, the WiiM Bar can’t quite hit the literal and metaphorical heights. For all of the space and careful organisation of its soundstaging, it never really manages to position sound up much beyond the top of your TV – even if you really got to town in the ‘height audio’ section of the control app, where a boost of up to 12dB is available for the height channels.

It’s the one rather tentative aspect of the bar’s performance, and it’s unfortunate that it should concern the aspect of performance that many listeners are going to be most preoccupied with.

Design & Usability

WiiM has always kept things neat and tidy where the design of its products is concerned, and at a usefully compact 74 x 1060 x 105mm (HxWxD) the Bar doesn’t look overgrown even when accompanying a TV as titchy as my 48in Philips OLED.

The standard of build and finish is well up to par, the gentle curves at either end of the chassis keep the look nice and friendly, and the main choice of finishes (matte white or the matte black of my review sample) make a bit more sense than the super-refelective gloss black that’s available as a limited edition in some territories.

When it comes to using the Bar, WiiM has supplied more options than are probably necessary. There are four little touch-surfaces on the top of the chassis, for example, which take care of ‘play/pause’, ‘volume up/down’ and input selection.

However, as is key to the design, there's also a 53mm circular display, bursting gently through the top of the soundbar. Here you can also action the same controls as above, and plenty more besides, by using the touch-screen – it puts you in charge of everything from EQ settings to accessing favourites, as well as offering visual confirmation of your actions.

There’s also a little aluminium remote control handset that is a cut above the norm in both look and feel. It covers all the fundamentals of operation, and has a 'mic’ button that can put you in touch with your Amazon Alexa voice assistant if you so desire.

Best of all, though, is the ‘WiiM Home’ control app that’s free for iOS and Android. The stable, logical and extensive nature of its app has been one of the (many) reasons WiiM has achieved this level of credibility in double-quick time – and here it’s just as useful and just as thorough as it is in every other implementation.

The app lets you integrate your favourite music streaming service(s), internet radio providers and what-have-you. It lets you build, quickly and easily, multi-channel and/or multi-room systems using other WiiM products – if you want your Bar to be accompanied by rear speakers and a subwoofer, it’s the work of a moment once you’ve powered them up.

The app's got a whole lot of sonic adjustability options in the form of both EQ and PEQ interfaces, height channel adjustment and so on, too. There’s even a very effective room correction EQ that uses your smartphone’s mic to help the soundbar calibrate itself to your specific environment.

So if it’s wide-ranging and granular control of the performance of your soundbar/speaker you’re after, and you want it from an interface that’s intuitive and rock-solid, don’t look any further.

Big, bold sound from a usefully compact and relatively affordable spatial audio soundbar? Numerous options when it comes to incorporating the soundbar in question into a multi-room or multi-channel system? A real facility with music and one of the very best control interfaces in the business?

All the above applies to the WiiM Bar, and it serves to carry it most of the way – if it could be as assertive where the ‘spatial’ aspect of 'spatial audio' was concerned, it could become a default choice. As it stands, though, it needs to be judged as a fine first effort and the sort of thing that committed WiiM owners will love in a multi-room setup.

Also Consider

The is the opposite of the WiiM Bar, at least when it comes to the control app experience. But get beyond that and the Heston 60 has plenty to recommend it, quite apart from its chunky and expansive sound - it has that Marshall aesthetic, for instance, and it can be used in two different orientations. It’s no slouch when it comes to music, either. But it can’t lay a glove on the WiiM experience when it comes to multi-channel or multi-room usage…

Sometimes it takes a chunk of time for the right decision to be made – and credit to Konami, it made the right one for Castlevania. After years out in the cold, this beloved franchise finally got a new game this month, in the form of Belmont's Curse, and rather than bashing its head against the wall trying to reinvent the series, Konami took a smarter path.

It looked at the phenomenal success of Dead Cells, from a French team (Evil Empire) that openly professed its adoration of Castlevania, and asked why that same team couldn't just make the next mainline game. Fast-forward a few years, and we have Belmont's Curse, from that same developer, showing that you really can manifest your own destiny sometimes.

I spent pivotal parts of my childhood and teenage years playing Castlevania games on the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS, so I've basically been waiting for a new 2D game in the series for years and years. Now it's finally here, and that heritage of portable play meant that I was only ever interested in playing it on one console – my Switch 2.

As it happens, there's one small wrinkle there. While Belmont's Curse launched with a Nintendo Switch version on day one, it doesn't yet have a native Switch 2 port. While the game does run better on Switch 2, with a frame rate cap raised from 30fps to 60fps, it's still not the sharpest, and it's a bit disappointing that we'll have to wait for an upgraded version at some point down the line.

That foible aside, though, I've been having a brilliant time sinking into the game's vision of a ruined Paris, complete with a haunted castle to explore and a carefully laid-out map to discover. It's classic Metroidvania stuff, right down to its surprisingly brutal difficulty curve.

Belmont's Curse sees you take up the mantle of Rose Belmont, at the time of the game, the youngest of her famous family's line, as she and her father, Trevor, journey to Paris to investigate an uprising of demons and monsters. On arrival, they discover the city in disarray and split up.

Taking control of Rose, you'll find her a capable warrior, but a newly acquired Tarot deck is her secret weapon. It's basically a roster of weapons and skills that she can expand over time (much of that expansion happening through mastery challenges). These skills don't just change how you fight, but also double in many cases as traversal methods, giving you the classic step-by-step upgrades to how much of the map you can explore at a given time.

While Evil Empire is best known for its roguelike work, this is a traditional game in the genre, so while there are moments that let you choose where to explore next, much of the progression is slightly more linear than it might appear. Still, the map's proving really fun to explore, and it's more challenging than I expected, with even the most common enemies demanding some care when you fight them.

Bosses, meanwhile, are entirely another question, and I haven't blitzed any of them in one attempt so far. For me, the ideal boss in this genre takes me about five or six tries – enough to make me pay attention and learn its attacks, but not so many that I get really frustrated. That metric has roughly applied to Belmont's Curse so far, which has been really fun.

In a period of absolutely non-stop releases (with more games coming every week and a behemoth called GTA VI just around the corner), I've been sneaking an hour here and there on my Switch 2 with Belmont's Curse, and it might just have its hooks in deep enough to make me finish it before I move on.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you'll know that Apple's anticipated folding phone – the iPhone Duo – is now seeing its first reviews, with the official launch date having finally arrived.

That's seen a series of comparisons to the other folding phone of the moment, the Galaxy Z Fold 8. Both have a similar passport-style design, but there are number of differences.

Looking to close the gap, there's now an app for the Galaxy Z Fold 8 that mimics one of the features that the Apple devices offers – tent mode.

This comes courtesy of an app called Foldy (via 9to5Google) that aims to give you the same sort of standby functions that Apple is known for. For whatever reason, Samsung doesn't really go in for this sort of standby functionality, but Apple seems to think you'll be using your phone as a bedside clock.

That's what Foldy offers: customisable screens, so you can have your phone standing next to you showing various details at a glance.

Is that copying? Not really: Samsung has carried the folding phone segment since 2019, with only really Huawei offering any competition. During that time the Korean firm has refined the hardware, expanded screens, reduced creases and optimised Android use on these phones.

Apple has had the benefit of learning from its rivals, before coming in with a fresh take. It was to be expected that Samsung would develop its own folding devices in response, even if it's the developer community that got there first.

There are a couple of takeaways in early comparisons of these devices: Apple's keyboard is a lot more compact, giving more screen space for typing than Samsung typically does. However, Apple's persistent controls down the right-hand edge mean apps can't be as wide as Samsung offers.

Samsung's device remains thinner and lighter, but Apple's hinge allows more precise positioning.

Then you have the display, which is dividing opinion. The matte finish works wonders for cutting out reflections and ensuring daylight visibility, but it's less contrasty and can look a little softer compared to Samsung's display when out of direct light.

In short, there's enough of a difference here for everyone to get the experience that they want. What I am hoping for, however, is that some of the optimisation that app developers do for iPhone Duo will also benefit the Galaxy Z Fold 8 – especially with that fancy Netflix app.

I've called the release of Google's new laptops, Googlebooks, a bit of a revolution – and I stand by that, since this clearly signals a big change in how Google approaches the laptop market.

Still, after having worked with Acer's launch Googlebook for a week to review the first past the post, it's fair to say that moving into a different machine, this time from Asus, sort of takes some of the shine off.

After all, once you're over the shock and awe of the new, the fact that Google has set minimum standards for the internals for all these machines means that they're pretty similar in terms of components and power.

So, the difference between the various models comes down to design and the extra features that each maker might squeeze in. How, therefore, does the Asus Googlebook 14 stack up? It took me another week of use to answer just that.

Price and Availability

The Asus Googlebook 14 is available now, with Google having launched the whole ecosystem in recent weeks, and you can order it from local retailers or directly from Asus if it's going to come to your region at all.

Here in the UK, it starts from £1,199.99 with an Intel Core Ultra 5 325 chip; in the US, you can grab it from $1299 for the same spec. Since I've done so with previous Googlebook reviews, I'll just politely point out that the US price actually translates to £973 by conversion at the time of writing – so the UK is getting its usual raw deal.

Design and Specs

If you put Asus' Googlebook 14 next to one of its Zenbook 14 models from earlier this year, I think you might struggle to notice the difference at first glance – unless your eye is drawn straight to the Glow Bar on this new Google-flavoured machine.

The Googlebook laptop very much hews to the same design principles that Asus has been working with for a few years now, and the biggest tip on that front is its main material – ceraluminium, the ceramic-aluminium compound that Asus so loves. It remains a really impressive material, too, since it's nice and durable, with a soft-touch finish, but crucially is extremely lightweight compared to simpler metal options.

It seems like each manufacturer got some freedom when it came to the placement of the Glow Bar, but Asus played it pretty straight – it's right at the top of the lid, near where you open the laptop. Like in every other model, it does very little beyond some waking and sleeping animations, but showing your charging progress is its neatest trick.

Opening the laptop up, you're greeted by a 14-inch 3K OLED panel that's really quite gorgeous to look at, and possibly the single best display in any of the launch Googlebook models, thanks partly to its excellent anti-reflective coating. This is a properly matte screen, but it's still a proper touchscreen, too, just with less fingerprinting than some rivals.

Above it, there's a webcam with a privacy shutter, while the other half of the laptop houses a generously sized keyboard, complete with the fingerprint reader that Google insists on (to make Googlebook grade). Below that is the large touchpad, and in this case it is indeed haptic, whereas Acer's feels mechanical.

That keyboard is flanked by speakers, while each edge of the laptop houses some ports. On the left, you get a USB-C port with power delivery, a full HDMI port, a USB-A port, and a 3.5mm jack. The right edge holds another USB-A port and a USB-C port, making this one of the more fulsome I/O offerings in the lineup – although the lack of an SD card reader limits its creative utility.

Under the hood, the Asus Googlebook 14 runs on an Intel Core Ultra 5 325 chip, but you can upgrade to a Core Ultra 7 355 if you want a boost in power. With 16GB of RAM as standard, though, I don't think most people need that, or would find it cost-effective. The base spec is rounded out by a 512GB NVMe M.2 SSD (I'd hoped for 1TB at this price, but accept that those days might be gone).

Of course, the whole laptop is interesting from the point of view of its features, because Googlebooks are still a very new thing. It's going to be your first Googlebook, should you buy one, and the experience is meaningfully different from that offered up by a Chromebook, for instance, as I'll get into in the next section of this review.

Performance

From the off, that Intel chip and 16GB of RAM mean that the Asus Googlebook 14 runs very snappily, but the real utility of its OS will be something that Android phone users will have to probe and test over time. Some of its features, like having access to your phone's storage without any screen mirroring, are really slick, and it's great being able to pick up tasks from one device to the other seamlessly.

Apps open really promptly and run fluently, and in my normal workflow – which involves a whole heap of Chrome tabs open at once, something that can cripple a weak Windows laptop – I never really encountered any hitching or issues multitasking. One tiny hitch there is that Asus' laptop did get a little warm when running some tasks, but not to the point of any discomfort.

That said, how useful you find Googlebook OS will be a pretty personal question, one that's hard to assess until you've tried your own productivity on one properly. In my case, it's a good showcase of the good and the bad. Much of my work is browser-based, and all of this is extremely responsive, with built-in AI features that can be genuinely useful if you want them. I don't, really, but trying some Gemini queries never really let me down in terms of responses.

However, I process my own images for reviews like this one, and doing so was a bit of a pain on the Asus Googlebook 14, just like it was on Acer's. The Android version of Photoshop is a lightweight one, and even though Google seems to be trumpeting a partnership with Adobe, it just can't really compete with the proper laptop experience on Windows or Mac – right now, anyway.

That's a limitation that can be fairly hard to get past, but I do think that Googlebook OS can be really slick when you're in the zone and not demanding such levels from it. The touchscreen interface is quite dreamy (especially on Asus' matte display), and while the screen can wobble when tapping on it, it still works quickly and as desired pretty much the whole time.

The keyboard is very solid, the trackpad's actually pretty great, and the whole laptop has a lightweight design that makes it feel really quite futuristic when paired with this all-new OS (the first of its kind in a long while).

It leaves me with basically no complaints about how Asus has approached the Googlebook challenge, but the same reservations about how ready Google's laptop rewrite is for the big time.

If you're sticking to simple productivity, then it might just be a slick and quick option for you, but those with more involved workflows are unlikely to find it all that adaptable right now.

Verdict

Asus' Googlebook is a tidy little laptop – and while it can't match the 2-in-1 situation offered by the Acer Googlebook 14, it feels a little more premium in some other ways. Better ports, a gorgeous matte display, and a really lightweight build make it potentially the more straightforward laptop to integrate into your workflow.

That said, it's also really pricey, and with thinner software support than Windows and Mac right now, there's no doubt that it currently feels like early adopters will be making some compromises. This could be a superb laptop once more apps are properly adapted to the OS, but for now it's probably quite hard to justify over a more established alternative.

Also Consider

Speaking of alternatives, if you're really into the Googlebook concept, then the other one we've reviewed so far is the Acer Googlebook 14, which is just as impressive in different ways. It's more affordable to start with, and has a more adaptable hinge (a true 2-in-1). Still, it has all the same software drawbacks.

For those who decide a more established OS is probably the safer move (as I would echo), I still think the latest MacBook Air is the way to go for most. It's not as affordable as it was before the memory crisis, but it'll last for absolutely years and is a gorgeous slice of machine for a very similar price to what Asus wants for its Googlebook.

If you are an aficionado when it comes to listening to your favourite music cuts, you might want to consider upgrading your headphones. And if you really care about getting the best performance you might also want to consider Audio-Technica's new flagship closed-back pair.

The Audio-Technica ATH-AWX7000 headphones are a high-end option with a supreme level of design detail. Crafted using premium Japanese materials, including Kiso cypress wood and Echizen lacquer, they are also the first in the brand's range to use its new, proprietary True Closed-back Acoustic (TCbA) design.

This has been developed to take advantage of the air pressure generated in the enclosed earcups to deliver greater transparency across the mid and high frequencies, while also providing a wider dynamic range.

There are also two Audio-Technica technologies applied in each ear to maximise sound performance – a Hybrid Matrix Diaphragm (HMD) and High-Concentricity X Dynamic Transducer (HXDT) technology.

The HMD uses thin films of different materials bonded into one diaphragm that moves as a single unit. While HXDT is a manufacturing process that ensures the baffle, magnet, voice coil and diaphragm are perfectly aligned.

The company claims that this enables "exceptionally precise diaphragm movement, revealing subtle details even within complex and familiar recordings".

The earpads are made from soft leather, while the frame is a lightweight magnesium construction. This is matched with aluminium sliders and, of course, the rare Japanese wood finish on the exterior of each cup.

You get a 2.5-metre balance cable with Neutrik XLR connectors in the box, along with a 3-metre unbalanced cable ending with a 6.3 mm stereo plug.

There is also a professional studio-standard, hardcore carry case included for transportation. This is a premium, luxury product so is treated as such.

The Audio-Technica ATH-AWX7000 headphones are available from today, 23 October, priced at £3,299 / €3,799. It debuted during the Paris Audio Video Show which is currently taking place.

We awaiting US availability and pricing.

Yesterday's announcement about BioWare's closure has been followed with a leaked trailer for the Mass Effect game it was working on at the time.

Now confirmed as genuine, the trailer shows pre-production footage of Mass Effect Universe – the fifth entry in the hugely popular sci-fi RPG franchise. And considering its spy thriller themes, it also underlines exactly what we'll be missing.

After it was originally posted on Reddit, renowned industry expert Jason Schreier confirmed its validity: "Can confirm that this is a real trailer of the Mass Effect game that BioWare was developing up until its closure yesterday," he wrote on Bluesky.

The trailer shows a new lead character with a bit of backstory. There seem to be some returning favourites too. It starts by detailing that the footage is all taken from in-game, using pre-production assets.

Bar any further leaks that appear over the coming days and weeks, this could be the last we see of Mass Effect in the games-sphere. It was announced yesterday that EA had closed the much-loved role-playing specialist BioWare, leaving its staff facing unemployment and its IPs – including Dragon Age, as well as Mass Effect – in limbo.

It has naturally caused an outcry in the gaming community. Canadian studio BioWare has been responsible for some of the best RPGs in gaming history, including Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights, and of course, the Dragon Age and Mass Effect series.

It is cited as having influenced The Witcher games and many more besides. It will be sorely missed.

One tiny bit of solace is that Amazon is reportedly ploughing ahead with its Mass Effect TV series. And hopefully, something will emerge from the developer's obviously talented team elsewhere.

Either way, let's just hope all those impacted manage to find further employment soon.

Amazon has rebranded Kindle Unlimited, its subscription service that gives access to "millions" of eBooks for one monthly fee. And it's added an additional perk for the same price – but not in every country, as yet.

Now called Kindle+ (because every service is adopting the "plus" suffix these days), the platform continues to offer books, comic books, and magazines for just $11.99 in the US, but it now also includes "thousands of audiobooks".

Sadly, that's not the case for British readers. The name has changed to Kindle+ in the UK, too, but the audiobooks are currently excluded.

So for £9.49 per month, you still get access to a vast library of eBooks and magazines, but only to read yourself. You'll still need a separate Audible subscription to listen to audiobooks from Amazon.

Another restriction that remains after the transition is that you are still limited to lending just 20 titles at a time, but I've personally never found that an issue. Even with family sharing, that's a decent amount of books and magazines to read. You can then easily replace any that have been finished or forgotten about.

There's a deal on Kindle+ for new subscribers too, with 30-days free before the payments start. Alternatively, you can pay just £3.99 in the UK for two-month access at the beginning of your subscription.

You'll notice that Amazon has purged the "Kindle Unlimited" name from its entire website in your region, replacing it with the Kindle+ branding. And you can filter titles to those available with the service by just hitting the Kindle+ tag on the Kindle eBook store page.

Hopefully, select audiobooks will start to be available in other territories as well soon, as Amazon told The Verge that it plans to expand availability to other markets "over time".

The iPhone Duo is the phone many Apple users have waited years for. You only need to look at the Duo Pre-orders to know that this handset is seriously in demand, with shipping times now slipping into 2027.

Unlike the iPhone 18 Pro, the iPhone Duo only comes in two colours: Star White (white) and Night Sky (dark blue), so if you want to make it feel individual, a case is the way to go.

Here, though, there's not as much choice as you might expect. Apple offers two case designs, both available in just two colours. There's the standard polycarbonate case in either Sand (cream) or Navy Blue, and there's the TechWoven Folio case in either Taupe or Navy Blue.

That gives you just eight combinations between phone and case. Third-party cases have been slower to come through too, but some of the biggest names do have offerings to give your folding phone some more character. All of which you'll find below.

While it seems a shame to hide such a beautiful new design under a case, the last thing you want to do is scratch or smash your new Duo, especially considering the potential cost of repair. So putting a case on it gives you some extra protection.

All of these cases are designed specifically for the latest iPhone Duo model. You can find cases for the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max models here.

Best cases for the iPhone Duo

Apple cases

Best of the rest

There’s lots of excitement around the launch of the iPhone Duo, as it’s the very first folding device that Apple has produced. That means a significant change from the single-screen design of iOS to an adaptive display that can switch between the smaller portrait front display and the large landscape format central display, and also factoring in the folding nature and the ability to offer multi-screen.

This has created an opportunity for app developers not seen since the launch of the iPad. While developers of legacy apps rush to offer fixes to make use of the new features and real estate, new apps are springing up even faster.

While some of these offer genuinely useful features brought about by the iPhone Duo’s design, others are just about having fun. It reminds me of the classic iBeer app for the iPhone, which uses the phone’s sensors to make it look like you were drinking a glass of beer as you tipped your phone up, or the augmented reality Star Walk app for the iPad, allowing you to identify stars and planets.

Below are seven new apps that make the most of the new Duo screen that are worth trying. Plus some that haven’t made it to the App Store yet.

In the app store

1. Battlefleet Duo

The classic game of Battleships is brought to life in this app for a fun take that makes use of the folding display in almost a laptop-like position. The top half of the screen becomes your enemy's waters, showing where you've aimed, while the lower half shows your own fleet. You can also play it fully open, or on the outer screen, but that's not quite as fun.

Download Battlefleet Duo from the Apple App Store for free.

2. PianoFold

This tap-the-tiles-in-order game has hints of Guitar Hero and Beat Sabre, but it's designed especially for the iPhone Duo. With your Duo folded into a laptop-like position on a desk or surface, the top half augments the notes coming towards you in a highway arrangement. The bottom half becomes your piano keys, with four large coloured keys that must be pressed in time to match the oncoming notes.

Download PianoFold from the Apple App Store for free.

3. Foldhide

This app takes the virtual wallet to a new level by recreating a real leather bi-fold wallet. It's interactive in the fact that you can select each card to remove from the wallet and flip them around to see the back. You can also pull out the receipt and the banknote. By clicking on the pen, you can edit the cards to match your real accounts and store your details (just the last four numbers). It's a shame you can't then use the cards in here instead of the Apple Wallet, but that would require a lot more security. This is, after all, just a bit of fun.

Download Foldhide from the Apple App Store for free.

4. Deck-Man

Possibly the best new app we've seen so far, Deck-Man (originally Duo-Man) turns your iPhone Duo into an 80s-style portable cassette player, like the Sony Walkman. The great part of this app is that you can select music from your Apple Music library to play or from local files. You can use the pause, fast-forward and rewind buttons to skip through your tracks, all with mechanical clicks. On the central screen, you can see the cassette playing, while the outer screen shows the closed player, with a choice of designs. Occasionally, tapes will get tangled and need winding back in, just like the real thing. This is a must for your Duo.

Download Deck-Man from the Apple App Store for $4.99/£4.99.

5. Fold Accordion

This clever little app turns your iPhone Duo into a playable accordion. As with an accordion, your right hand plays the melody on the keyboard and the left hand plays the bass notes using the buttons. To make the sound, instead of squeezing, you fold and unfold the device to push the air through the bellows. Pick a song from the list, and it will guide you through the notes too.

Download Fold Accordion from the Apple App Store for $2.99/£2.99.

6. Tiny Computers

This is certainly one of those novelty apps that show off the features of the new iPhone Duo. Tiny Computers turns the Duo into one of 10 computers, including the original Macintosh, Commodore 64, Amiga 500, Window 95 machine, iBook G3 and more. you can do a few basic things on each screen – the Windows model even crashes to a Blue Screen of Death – but there's no practical use here. Just fun.

Download Tiny Computers from the Apple App Store for $3.99/£3.99/

7. Tesla

Though not specifically for the iPhone Duo, Tesla's updated app has native support for the larger screen, giving you almost like a split screen effect with the features down the left side and a large image on the right. It looks much more like the display you see in-car and will look excellent on either iPad or iPhone Duo.

Download the updated Tesla app from the Apple App Store from 23 October.

Coming soon (maybe)

8. CalibReader

One of the nice things about the NanoTexture display used for the centre screen on the iPhone Duo is that it's nicer for reading, and this app makes full use of that. The CalibReader app is coming soon to both Apple's App Store and the Google Play Store. It works for iPhone and iPad, but it's on the iPhone Duo where it really excels. It gives your phone a real book feel, with a clean full-screen layout, dark and light backgrounds and animated page curls as you turn a page. The outer screen gives you the book cover when closed, and when you open it again, it takes you straight to your page. You can import your own book library or link to your cloud storage, with pricing at $9.99 for lifetime use, or the first three books for free.

See more about CalibReader on its website.

9. Crate

Another musical app hoping to make it through to the App Store, Crate is an AI-powered music sampler. It uses a split-screen layout to divide the sample pads from the sequencer window, and uses the hinge to add special effects to the sounds. You can also use a text input to find the right samples and sounds to use.

10. TranslateCat

Another clever use of the dual display, TranslateCat is a two-sided interpreter, giving you the ability to type in one language at the bottom and see your translation at the top. Then, on the outer screen, your translation text is shown to whomever you're conversing with. Designed to work with eight languages, including English, French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Portuguese, it's a neat idea. No hint of when or if it will go live right now, though.

11. Monster Ink

While this appears to be an 8-bit city builder game, it's actually a clever tool to stop you using your phone too much. The idea with Monster, Ink is that while your phone is closed the helper cats build the city for you, but open your phone up and the Kaiju cats start to tear it down. You get a warning when you peek at the inner screen, but look too long and things go downhill for the city. A really clever idea that I'd love to see make it to the App Store.

Smart glasses seem to be everywhere at the moment, they're the hottest of trends both for the right reasons and the wrong reasons. But this innovative pair has a unique solution to the camera problem.

The INMO GO3 glasses include a camera, which can be used to feed AI in the usual way so it can identify what's around you, as well as capturing images. But it also comes with a physical shutter, so you can completely block it off.

Given the accusations being pointed at those wearing "pervert glasses", covering the camera completely might go some way to reassuring people that they aren't being filmed covertly.

Of course - just like notification lights - they'll have to be quite close and able to see that the camera is covered, which they might not be able to do.

Aside from this privacy feature, the INMO GO3 comes with a lightweight design, just 58g says 9to5Google, which is great for a set of glasses that include a display.

That's right, not only can these glasses provide those audible responses from Gemini or ChatGPT, but you can have information beamed into your eyes. There's no need to reach for your phone or glance at your smart watch, because you've got it right before your eyes.

Those displays are MicroLED with a peak brightness of 1,500 nits, so they should be good for use in daylight.

There are some unsurprising features here: translations are included (is it even AI if there's no translate function?), along with the display supporting turn-by-turn navigation.

But on the list of accessories there's a speaker, which can apparently use an AI clone of your voice to reply to people in different languages. That sounds great, but in a world where privacy is a huge concern, I'm not sure how many people are going to want their voice cloned by AI.

Equally, on the listing page for the INMO GO3 smart glasses, it says "The GO3 records every conversation, call, and meeting automatically, then transcribes and summarizes it the moment you are done," which again, sounds like it could raise some privacy concerns.

There's an interesting battery feature, however. The battery plugs into the end of the arm and thanks to a charging case, can be hot swapped for a new one when it runs down. That's should make sure that your smart glasses keep going as long as you do.

The INMO GO3 smart glasses are available now, currently priced at $509.

Écoute Audio is back with a new pair of valve-toting over-ears that are more akin to strapping a hi-fi system to your head than conventional headphones.

The Écoute TH2 are a wireless pair that uses genuine valve pre-amplification, along with a DAC and separate left and right-channel amps for a fully discrete, dual-mono signal path from end to end.

This results in headphones with more character and old-school musicality than most. You can even see the Nutube 6P1 valve through a display window in the left ear cup, to leave onlookers in no doubt that you're wearing something quite different.

Also on-board are dual 40mm titanium-coated Mylar drivers – one for each ear. These ensure clarity and precision is maintained, even with the unique tonal presentation of a valve-based system.

Écoute has also tweaked the design a little since the TH1 headphones, with a new resonance chamber format that delivers punchier bass than before. There is also enhanced shielding to ensure the valve is better isolated from radio frequency interference.

In terms of connectivity, the Écoute TH2 pair carry Bluetooth 5.3 with LDAC and AAC wireless support, you also get a USB-C port to connect to a compatible source. This is compatible with Hi-Res Audio transmission up to 32-bit / 384 kHz.

An analogue 3.5mm port is available for good measure.

In terms of other specifications, the headphones feature hybrid ANC tech to block out ambient noise, have a built-in microphone for voice calling and phone assistant compatibility, plus a 1,600mAh battery that provides up to 20 hours of playback time.

They come in three colourways – charcoal, gunmetal and nickel, with fabric and leather trim options. Pricing starts at £999 in the UK, which is for the fabric trim. The leather version will set you back £1,099.

If you've long been dreaming of a phone with a huge battery, then things have slowly been moving in your favour. The launch of the Honor Win2 gaming phone, with a 10,100mAh battery could be of interest.

It's a huge battery that joins huge spec, including a 10,000 nit peak brightness display with 185Hz refresh rate, a 200-megapixel main camera and IP ratings up to 69K, with the details shared by 9to5Google.

To make sure that huge battery doesn't take an age to charge, there's 100W wired and 80W wireless charging. The bad news is that the Win models often don't launch outside China – and this phone might face regulatory problems too.

For those paying attention, phones in China often launch with a higher battery capacity than global partners and that often comes down to regulation. The European Union has plenty of rules on battery size, as well as transport restrictions.

As T3's Tech Editor Mike Lowe found out when checking out the global version of the Vivo X500 Pro Max, such restrictions mean that the battery capacities of devices in Europe are lowered to meet regulations.

In this case, the 8,000mAh battery of the Chinese Vivo is reduced to 6,750mAh, reportedly a reflection of transport restrictions in Austria where the device will be sold.

The EU rules set a transport limit on single cells in smartphones. That limit is 20Wh, which is about 5,200-5,400mAh in a single cell. Manufacturers often get around this by using multiple cells in a device. This not only meets the restrictions, but also allows for better thermal control while charging.

So there are considerations for devices that come to the EU – and by extension the UK which uses the same regulation framework. It's not just a case of changing the software and keeping the hardware that China uses.

While you might damn EU rules, there is a consumer-leaning benefit coming into force too, which has seen a change in many devices. From 18 February 2027, devices like smartphones must have a user-replaceable battery, able to be accessed without specialist tools – while spare cells need to be sold for five years after the launch of a phone.

There's an exemption though, which comes in the form of a performance guarantee as part of the EU's ecodesign rules. If a device retains 83% of its rated capacity after 500 charge cycles – and at least 80% after 1,000 charge cycles – then the replacement requirement doesn't have to be met. For these devices, they must also be at least IP67 rated, meaning that many major smartphone brands are already compliant.

This is all about making sure that batteries in devices are safe in transit – limiting "thermal runaway" where a combusting cell fuels itself and basically burns out of control – while also ensuring that the battery in your phone lasts for a long time to reduce the rate of redundancy in electronic devices.

So, if you don't get phones with huge batteries and you're envious of those devices in China, then at least you know there are reasons why.

Grado Labs is renowned for its audiophilic attention to detail when producing headphones and turntable cartridges, and its Signature line sits at the top of the tree.

The Signature wired headphones are usually priced from around the £1,000 / $1,000 mark though, so haven't been truly accessible... until now.

The Grado Signature S150 are its most affordable pair in this range yet. Priced at just £295 / $295, they maintain the brand's quality standards, yet in a more presentable form.

You get Grado's proprietary 44mm S driver in each ear, which utilises the same paper-composite diaphragm design used for the 52mm drivers in the S950 and HP100 SE flagships – and those run into the thousands.

This ensures the S150 open-back headphones exhibit similar clarity and precision, with natural presentation of the original source material. There is also a clean handling of bass, with more balanced delivery than, say, many closed-back equivalants.

The Grado Signature S150 pair also feature the company's detachable cable system and a new Signature Bronze cable in the box. This connects to each ear through a 3.5mm jack for true stereo spacing, with another at the end for device use. A 6.3mm adapter can also be found in the box for connection to a music system at the other end.

The headphones weigh just 220g and a padded leather strap is provided for comfort over long listening sessions. Grado's F cushions are provided for each ear.

Audio specifications include a frequency response of 16Hz to 34kHz, nominal impedance of 38ohms, THD of 0.3% @100dB, and SPL (1mW) of 104 dB.

The Grado Signature S150 headphones are available to pre-order for £295 / $295 from select independent retailers and Grado's own website. There you can also find out more about the Signature range, including the high-end models further up the food chain.

Wireless microphones aren't exactly the most exciting gadgets to look at, but Insta360 has been doing its best to change that.

The company's latest wireless microphone, simply called the Insta360 Mic, looks more like a tiny smartwatch than a traditional recording accessory, thanks to its circular, customisable E-Ink display.

It's not the first Insta360 microphone to feature the colourful screen, but the new model brings much of the flagship Mic Pro's functionality to a more accessible price point, with a few surprises of its own.

Positioned between the premium Mic Pro and entry-level Mic Air, the new Mic completes Insta360's three-tier wireless microphone lineup.

And while it might look almost identical to its more expensive sibling, its most interesting feature is tucked away inside.

Small screen, big personality

Like the Mic Pro, the new Insta360 Mic features a 1.22-inch, six-colour E-Ink display that can be customised with images, logos, emojis and even pictures of your pets.

The new transmitter is nearly the same size as the Mic Pro and weighs just 19.4g, compared to the flagship's 19.7g.

Unlike the Mic Pro, which has 32GB of fixed onboard storage, the new Mic lets you use your own memory cards for internal recording, including 32-bit float audio.

You also get AI-powered noise cancellation, automatic gain control and three voice presets: Regular, Rich and Bright.

There are some compromises, though. The Mic Pro features a three-microphone array with four selectable pickup patterns, whereas the new model uses a single omnidirectional microphone.

The cheaper model has more stamina

Interestingly, the new Mic actually outperforms its flagship sibling when it comes to battery life (maybe thanks to its simpler pickup pattern).

Insta360 claims up to 13 hours of recording per transmitter, compared to 10 hours for the Mic Pro. With the charging case, that figure rises to 34 hours, four hours more than the flagship.

Wireless transmission range remains unchanged at up to 400 metres, and the system supports up to four transmitters connected to a single receiver.

The Mic also supports Insta360 Direct Connect, which lets compatible cameras, including the Insta360 X5, Insta360 X6, Insta360 GO Ultra and Insta360 Ace Pro 2, receive audio directly over Bluetooth without a separate receiver.

(Sadly, the more affordable Insta360 X4 Air isn't listed among the cameras supporting Direct Connect.)

The new transmitters are compatible with the Mic Pro system, allowing creators to mix and match microphones without replacing their existing equipment.

The Insta360 Mic launches globally today, 22 October 2026, with prices starting at £75 / $79.99 / €85 / AU$129 for a standalone transmitter.

The single-transmitter and receiver bundle costs £129 / $139.99 / €149 / AU$229, while the two-transmitter kit with receiver is priced at £229 / $249.99 / €269 / AU$399.

The new microphone is available through Insta360, Amazon and authorised retailers.

When Apple unveiled the iPhone Duo in its September presentation, it also mentioned that Apple Pencil support would be coming "later this year". Well, now it looks like we'll have it before many customers even have their new foldable devices.

The full rollout of iOS 27.2 is reportedly due "next week" and it'll include the ability to use an Apple Pencil on the Duo's internal display.

There is one catch, however – the iPhone Duo will only support one specific model of the Pencil, and it might not be the one you own already.

It was revealed that the iPhone Duo will only work with the Apple Pencil (USB-C). There will be no support for the Pencil Pro, which might bonkers considering the target market for the Duo and its price point. However, the Pencil Pro requires magnetic charging, which can only be done on the side of a supported iPad.

At least the Apple Pencil (USB-C) is reasonably priced. It's currently £79 on Amazon UK and actually has $10 off right now on Amazon US, making it just $69. You might find other deals come Black Friday at the end of November.

As for the iOS 27.2 rollout, that's likely to happen before many have even got their hands on an iPhone Duo. I ordered mine from Apple one or two minutes after the pre-orders started last week and was still bumped by a couple of weeks – so it's coming early November.

Others will have to wait anywhere up to January next year for theirs. You might be able to get one from a physical Apple Store this Friday (23 October), but there's no guarantee.

And so, by the time you actually have one in your hands, it's highly possible that Pencil support will already be applied. You might find that many third-party app updates have arrived too, to address the numerous optimisation complaints early reviews have highlighted.

I’ve reviewed plenty of TVs – and seldom do I get to the end of one without at some point having said something along the lines of “remember to budget for a soundbar – even an affordable model will improve the sound".

Sharp obviously wants to be the company I think of when I start banging on about “affordable soundbars’, as its new HT-SWB320 2.1-channel system is perhaps the least expensive soundbar/subwoofer combo I’ve ever heard.

So am I right? Is a soundbar that’s about as affordable as it gets an improvement on the sound of that TV you spent proper money on?

Price & Availability

The Sharp HT-SWB320 2.1-channel soundbar system launched at the end 2025, and in the United Kingdom the asking price has already fallen from £179 to £149.

It’s a model that’s intended specifically for sale in continental Europe, so a like-for-like equivalent in territories like the United States or Australia is not especially easy to come by.

What seems nailed on, though, is that any Sharp two-channel soundbar with wireless subwoofer that’s offered for sale outside Europe is going to be extremely competitively priced.

Features & What's New?

The HT-SWB320 is a 2.1-channel system that’s compatible with both Dolby Atmos and DTS Digital Surround.

Obviously any hint of spatial audio comes from signal processing rather than physical speaker drivers, though, as the soundbar features a pair of 32mm neodymium tweeters and a couple of 30 x 104mm racetrack drivers, all of which face forwards, while the subwoofer has a 133mm bass driver.

This line-up is driven by a total of 120 watts of Class D power. Incoming signals can be adapted by a suite of EQ presets – voice, movie, sport, music, game, night, and one user-defined custom setting – and spatial audio information is given the once-over either by Dolby Speaker Virtualiser or DTS Virtual:X processing depending on what type of signal it is.

As well as a selection of physical inputs – the USB-A slot can also be used to charge external equipment, as well as being available for audio playback, which is nice – the Sharp features Bluetooth 5.3 with SBC and AAC codec compatibility.

So there’s nothing new or remotely innovative about the HT-SWB320. But then no one’s really expecting that sort of thing at this part of the market, are they? And besides, the Sharp has one minor flourish where its features xare concerned: it’s Roku TV Ready, which means set-up should be super-simple when the system is paired with one of Sharp’s Roku TV models.

Performance

The Sharp HT-SWB320 is a punchier, more expansive, more dynamic listen than the vast majority of televisions I’ve heard in the last 18 months or so. The soundbar is a rather coarse-sounding system, though, and its ‘surround’ feature is of negligible use.

On the plus side, the HT-SWB320 creates respectably deep, nicely varied low frequencies that punch with fair determination – and don’t hang around or bog down everything that’s going on above them in the frequency range.

Low-end presence like this is basically unheard-of in the sound your average television makes, and it means the Sharp creates a far fuller, more robust sound than your TV has a hope of managing by itself. This alone could be reason enough to buy, for a bass upgrade.

The frequency range is quite nicely balanced from the bottom end upwards, and while the system sensibly projects the midrange just a little (the better to make voices and dialogue easy to follow) it doesn’t unduly impact on the low or high end.

The handover between subwoofer and soundbar is achieved smoothly, and the overall presentation sounds of a whole, rather than being too obviously the results of two different speakers working in tandem.

There’s a fair amount of dynamic headroom available, so when the on-screen action shifts from ‘whisper’ to ‘enormous explosion’ the Sharp breathes deeply enough to put meaningful distance between these two positions. And, again, it doesn’t hang around as it does so – there’s no slurring here.

Tonally, though, the system is on shakier ground. There’s a hint of edginess to the way the midrange is reproduced, and by the time you reach the top of the frequency range the Sharp has become undeniably coarse.

There’s a grittiness and graininess to the treble reproduction here that is noticeable at low volumes, obvious as an average level, and actively unpleasant if you decide to listen at high volume. ‘Abrasive’ is not too strong a word.

And while I’m dealing with shortcomings, the ‘surround’ setting that can be activated via the remote control handset is barely worth the effort of pushing the button. The sound gains a hint of extra width when it's engaged, but the trade-off is a reduction of focus and the introduction of a rather vague, hazy character that’s far from welcome.

Design & Usability

A product of this type, selling for this sort of money, can very seldom be said to have been ‘designed’. ‘Constructed’ tends to be what happens – and sure enough, the Sharp HT-SWB320 has managed to dodge the ‘design’ stage of product development almost entirely.

That’s not to say it’s in any way deficient when the standard of build or finish is concerned, you understand – in fact, in the context of the asking price the Sharp is put together very acceptably indeed.

The soundbar, which is a usefully compact 36 x 651 x 73mm (HxWxD) and an equally unburdensome 900g, is a fabric-covered little slice of robust plastic that can happily be positioned beneath all TVs but those that sit super-low on their feet.

The subwoofer, meanwhile, is a 258 x 105 x 370mm (HxWxD) MDF box that weighs 3.35kg. Like the soundbar, it must be plugged into the mains – but it connects wirelessly to the soundbar, which makes positioning it as simple as can be.

It does so automatically, too. The moment both elements of the system are powered up, they start looking for each other. In my experience the search doesn’t take long at all, and once a wireless connection is made it’s robust.

In a little recess on the rear of the soundbar there’s a socket for the mains adapter, an HDMI eARC socket, a digital optical input, a 3.5mm analogue input and a USB-A slot for software updates and audio playback.

The USB-A is compatible with WAV, FLAC and MP3 files, and is compatible with drives up to 64GB. Obviously anyone with a reasonably modern TV will make one connection via HDMI and that will take care of business.

Operating the system can be done using the physical controls on top of the soundbar – they cover power on/off, volume up/down, input selection and Bluetooth pairing. There’s also a little remote control handset – like the product it controls, it’s really nothing special in terms of ergonomics or build quality but is entirely fit for purpose.

As well as duplicating the functions available on the soundbar, it also offers play/pause, mute, a button to turn the ‘surround’ feature (such as it is) on or off, and independent ‘bass’ and ‘treble’ controls.

Confirmation of what the system is up to comes via a white LED alphanumeric segment display on the front of the ‘bar – it’s quite short, though, so virtually all information will scroll.

Sharp HT-SWB320 review: Verdict

As an affordable way of bringing a bit of scale, dynamism and low-frequency presence to your TV’s sound, the Sharp HT-SWB320 has plenty going for it. And if you can find it at a super-low price then the bass upgrade may make it a worthy addition.

But while it’s hardly fair to expect a product of this type costing this sort of money to be flawless in every way, its edgy treble tonality, and the vague presentation that results from selecting ‘surround’ mode, means that it’s not the complete budget-conscious solution to your TV’s terrible sound.

Also Consider

The Amazon Fire TV Soundbar Plus travels without an accompanying subwoofer, and it costs a little more than the Sharp – but it remains an affordable option and fairly compelling too.

Or if you don’t mind upping the box-count, have a listen to the Hisense AX5125H – soundbar, subwoofer, and rear surround speakers all at a price that’s typically Hisense in its aggressive nature.