The Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 ($399) is the most unique tablet I’ve ever reviewed. It delivers exceptional sound thanks to the enormous JBL-9 speaker on its back. You could be forgiven for thinking it’s a speaker with a tablet attached! This is the most defining feature, but there’s more to like about Lenovo’s entertainment-focused tablet.

The bright, colorful 12.1-inch 2K display is ideal for watching your favorite videos and movies. The Tab Plus Gen 2 is also great for reading and web browsing. The large speaker can make the tablet uncomfortable to hold for too long, but the handy built-in kickstand balances that out, and you can rotate it for vertical or horizontal viewing.

If you’re looking for a powerful tablet for work, this slate isn’t for you, thanks to its relatively weak MediaTek Dimensity CPU and 8GB of RAM. But if you’re looking for an excellent entertainment machine with the best tablet sound, you should seriously consider the reasonably priced Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2. Find out more in my full review!

Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? The Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 is an Android tablet built for entertainment.
• Who is it for? For folks who want a tablet to watch videos and that can deliver stellar, punchy sound.
• What does it cost? The Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 is typically $399 but is often discounted. At the time of writing, it’s on sale for $289 on Lenovo’s website.
• What do we like? We like the giant speaker that pumps out phenomenal sound, the handy kickstand, and the vivid 2.5K display.
• What don’t we like? We don’t like that the tablet can be cumbersome to hold for long periods and that its performance isn’t suitable for productivity.

Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 review: Specs

Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 review: The ups

The Tab Plus Gen 2's giant speaker and rotatable kickstand instantly draw attention, but it also features a sharp, vibrant 12.1-inch display and long-lasting battery life.

Incredible speaker sound

Speaker quality is, at best, a footnote in my tablet reviews, since slates generally produce less-than-stellar sound. With the Tab Plus Gen 2, this is the first thing I want to discuss as it’s the standout feature—so much so that I had already written an entire piece about how the gargantuan speaker on this Android tablet isn’t a gimmick. If you’ll pardon the cliché, the speaker quality is music to your ears.

The JBL 9-Unit Pro speaker system is what makes the magic happen. As its name suggests, there are nine speakers: four tweeters, three woofers, and two passive radiators. Those last two speakers deliver deep bass, while the tweeters handle higher-frequency sounds.

Sound is great out of the box, but to make everything truly sound spectacular, you’ll need to head into the Dolby Atmos sub-menu in sound settings. There are three presets: Dynamic, which identifies the content and automatically adjusts for the best sound; Movie, which provides surround sound and clearer dialogue; and Music, which delivers detailed audio so every note and beat sounds punchy. Music also has presets: Detailed, Balanced, and Warm, plus a manual equalizer.

I’m a hard rock and heavy metal fan, and I’m almost always disappointed by the thin, flat sound from most tablets when listening to these genres. That wasn’t the case here, as everything from death metal bands like Amon Amarth to ‘80s tunes like Stan Bush’s “The Touch” sounded rich, punchy, and loud. Movies and podcasts also sound incredible in Movie Mode, with dialogue coming through clear and crisp.

The presets let you quickly enjoy whatever you’re listening to, but you can also dive into the equalizer settings to truly fine-tune how things sound. Regardless, your ears won’t be disappointed.

Built-in, rotatable kickstand

The other notable design feature is the built-in kickstand. Attached directly to the speaker, the kickstand can rotate 360 degrees clockwise or counterclockwise. This lets you comfortably orient the slate horizontally when watching movies or vertically for reading.

While the rotating kickstand moves smoothly, it firmly stays in place once you’ve set it to your preferred position. And when you’re ready to travel with the slate, the kickstand snaps back into place when you push it inward. This might be a minor thing to some, but rotating the kickstand is also enjoyable since you can feel small bumps along the way.

I enjoy reading digital comics, so I love propping the tablet up on my table in portrait orientation so I don’t have to hold it while I read. The 16:9 aspect ratio is relatively close to a real comic’s trim size, which also helps. Naturally, this is also a great way to read books.

Like the kickstand, the tablet is made of sturdy aluminum that doesn’t bend or flex easily. Even if you won’t hold the tablet very often (more on why shortly), its smooth metal body feels nice against your fingers. I also like how the concave volume and power buttons are on the back and easy to reach when it’s in the horizontal position.

Vivid display

The 12.1-inch (2560 x 1600) display on the Tab Plus Gen 2 might not stand out as much as the huge speaker, but it’s also no slouch. Even without an OLED panel, you get sharp image quality that’s bright and colorful.

When watching the latest trailer for the Street Fighter movie, I was impressed by how good everything looked. The detail and colors on the costumes and super moves pop. And thanks to the smooth 120Hz refresh rate, all the action moved smoothly. For watching movies, TV shows, and other videos, this display gets the job done.

Our lab test confirms what my eyes saw. Color reproduction (sRGB and DCI-P3) is generally oversaturated, which accounts for the vivid colors. Color accuracy (Delta-E) is also on par with other tablets. Those colors truly stand out thanks to the bright SDR and HDR brightness.

As you can see, Lenovo’s tablet quite literally outshines Apple’s iPad 11 and the OnePlus Pad Go 2 in both SDR and HDR brightness with adaptive brightness disabled. In fairness to the iPad, it delivers more natural hues than both Android tablets, since its sRGB and DCI-P3 values are closer to the 100% target.

Epic battery life

If you’re going to spend hours watching videos, then you’ll want a tablet that can last for the long haul. Thankfully, that’s the case here, as the Tab Plus Gen 2 offers astonishing battery life.

In our battery test, which involved continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi with the display set to 150 nits of brightness, Lenovo’s slate lasted 16 hours at 60Hz and 13 hours and 39 minutes at 120Hz. While the OnePlus Pad Go 2 lasted almost 40 minutes longer, Lenovo’s tablet outlasted the iPad by nearly four and a half hours.

I should note that the Tab Plus Gen 2 takes a while to fully charge. In our testing and in my own experience, it took 30 minutes to charge the tablet to 20%. Though you won’t have to charge the battery very often, just keep in mind that you’ll have to wait a while to fully juice it up.

Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 review: The Downs

While the Tab Plus Gen 2 excels as an entertainment device, it falls short in some key areas.

Awkward to hold

The giant JBL speaker is the Tab Plus Gen 2’s main selling point, but it can also be a hindrance.

Because the speaker adds bulk to the tablet’s bottom, holding the slate like a traditional tablet can be burdensome. While 1.69 pounds doesn’t sound that heavy, the weight distribution makes the tablet feel heavier.

If you rest the tablet on your lap or use the kickstand to prop it up on your desk, then its weight won’t be an issue. However, this isn’t a slate you can easily hold with one hand, let alone two, for long periods.

Basic performance

I don’t consider this a major drawback since this is an entertainment-focused tablet. Still, if you plan to do serious work on the Tab Plus Gen 2, you might not get the smoothest or fastest experience because of its lackluster performance.

The Tab Plus Gen 2 handles basic tasks like scrolling websites in Google Chrome and reading books on Kindle without issue. However, when I opened multiple apps or Chrome tabs, performance suffered. If I wanted to use this for work, where I typically have 20 to 30 Chrome tabs open, I wouldn't have the smoothest experience.

While the Tab Gen 2 matches the OnePlus Pad Go 2 in both CPU performance (Geekbench 6) and gaming performance (3DMark), these MediaTek Dimensity-powered Android tablets still can’t compete with Apple’s entry-level iPad.

Again, you won’t have a sluggish experience when using this tablet for its intended purpose. Just keep your expectations in check if you try to run heavier workloads or graphically demanding video games.

Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 review: Verdict

I’m an iPad Pro user, so an Android tablet truly has to go above and beyond to impress me. And that’s exactly what the Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 has done thanks to its amazing sound quality, versatile kickstand, and crisp image quality.

Sure, it’s not powerful for heavy workloads, but if you mostly watch videos or read, this tablet has everything you’d need. The fact that it tops out at $399 is just icing on the proverbial cake. If you’re looking for an iPad alternative for your entertainment needs, don’t ignore the Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2.

Apple's major "Surprise and Shine" event is behind us and the iPhone Duo, Apple's first foldable, is finally official. But there were some omissions based on the rumors, including a lack of smart home devices.

Those devices could still be on the way. Apple typically announces new MacBooks in October, and we could see some other products then as well. Here are the seven new Apple products that we could see next month.

Touchscreen MacBook Ultra with OLED

Apple has already released a surprising number of Mac laptops and desktops this year. We had the MacBook Neo, M5 MacBook Air, and M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pros way back in the spring, plus late refreshes of the Mac mini and Mac Studio.

Next month we're expecting an M6 version of the iMac, which also might get some new colorways, and an M6 MacBook Pro.

But the headliner should be a new MacBook Pro (or Ultra). The big change here should be a new OLED touchscreen display, which would make it the first OLED MacBook.

OLED panels are thinner, so the Ultra should be both slimmer and lighter in both 14- and 16-inch versions. It could be powered by the as-yet-unannounced M6 Pro and M6 Max chipsets. This does mean that we might not see the Ultra until early 2027, as Apple has pushed announcing those chips into the first half of the year.

Unfortunately, all these new features and higher-tier silicon mean that the Ultra could have a starting price around $2,499 for the 14-inch model, up from $2,199 for the current M5 Pro models.

iPad mini with OLED

The iPad Pro has had an OLED display since 2024, but we could finally see an iPad mini with OLED this October. Coincidentally, the mini hasn't received an update since October 2024, when the iPad mini 7 was released.

It will likely get a faster chip, probably the A19, if not the new A20, so it can run Apple Intelligence, especially the new Siri AI. It's not clear from rumors if any other design changes will be made. However, it might be thinner and lighter since the OLED panel is thinner.

We should also see an updated entry-level iPad. As far as we're aware the only update here would be new chips.

Smart Home Devices

We warned before the iPhone event that rumors about Apple's smart home options need to be taken with a grain of salt. For years, leaks and rumor mongers have suggested that Apple is planning to introduce a suite of smart home devices, including a revamped HomePod and an AI-powered Apple TV 4K set-top box.

Rumors suggested that Apple would announce these devices during the iPhone event, which obviously did not come to fruition.

Apple seems to have finally figured out Siri AI with iOS 27. If it releases and works as pitched, we could finally start seeing Apple Home.

HomePod Home hub

Previously, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, long a reporter of the rumored HomePod updates, believed that a new HomePod mini could launch with the iPhones alongside the rumored HomePod Home hub.

However, right before the iPhone event, Gurman cheekily tweeted, "If you don't see the Apple TV, HomePod mini, home display and touch MacBook today, don't worry. It's only September."

Several different iterations of this device have been rumored, including one with a $1,000 robot arm. The most common version involves a wall-mounted touchpad or a HomePod speaker with a touch display about the size of an iPad mini.

This device would have a FaceTime camera for video calls and presence sensors to initiate smart home routines.

HomePod mini 2

A new HomePod mini might also debut, but it might not be as big of an upgrade as the Hub. Most rumors suggest that it will feature a new chip and audio improvements. It will probably get new colors.

The HomePod mini 2 has been on our rumor radar since at least 2023. The current version debuted in 2020, and like the next device, is long overdue for an update.

Apple TV 4K 2026

Like the HomePod series, Apple hasn't released a new version of the Apple TV 4K since 2022. We're long overdue for an upgrade — even if it's only a more powerful chip for stronger performance.

Previously, it was suggested that a new Apple TV could feature the A17 Pro chip, but it's more likely it'll get the new A20 or, to save some money, last year's A19. The device should also get the rumored N2 chip for better Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity.

Outside of chips, the big upgrade would be Siri AI, which could let you connect the Apple TV as a hub for smart devices. One rumor suggested that Apple might release a set-top box with a camera, which would allow for FaceTime calls and gesture-based controls.

However, a rumored refresh of the Apple TV has been making the rounds for multiple years now. I won't believe this one until it actually happens.

More from Tom's Guide

• I interviewed Apple CEO John Ternus on the making of the iPhone Duo — here's what made him say 'yes, that's it'
• People are freaking out about the new 'always-listening' Apple Watches — here's what Apple CEO John Ternus told us
• Apple Event recap — Hands-on with the iPhone Duo and all the big announcements

I’ve tried my best to get into PC VR gaming in the past, but my main gripe has always been the size, weight and ease of setup. It just becomes a big old hassle (emphasis on the word “big”), as you can barely wear these monstrosities for longer than an hour without really feeling it on your face and neck.

It gets doubly problematic when I’m hoping to take part in an endurance sim race, which as you may know, I prefer the VR experience for being able to look into apexes and corner exits more effectively than on a flat screen. It more closely mirrors my real-life racing experience.

But the pain has been well and truly remedied by the Pimax Dream Air. You may have seen that I got to have my mind blown by this headset back at CES. Now, I’ve been using it for the past three months, and can happily say that it is one of the best PC VR headsets I’ve ever used…provided you’ve got the money for it.

This is a pricey system to get. But if you are properly invested into VR gaming, it’s a no-brainer for its stellar picture quality, versatility and pure comfort even in the most intense of movements.

Pimax Dream Air: Cheat sheet

• What is it? This is a premium PC VR headset.
• Who is it for? It's perfect for sim experience perfectionists and serious VR enthusiasts.
• What does it cost? Prices for the Dream Air start at $1,999 with Lighthouse tracking. To get this SLAM version, it'll set you back $2,299.
• What's good about it? That small, lightweight design just can't be beat
• What's not so good? There's no getting around that high price and a couple of odd software quirks

Pimax Dream Air: Specs

Pimax Dream Air: The ups

It’s a VR headset that was actually comfortable to wear for a 12-hour race. The Dream Air transcends the stereotype of enthusiast VR headsets being humongous and unwieldy to become something that is wearable for long periods of time.

Supreme PC VR ergonomics

The visor of the headweight weighs less than 6 ounces, with the total weight fully assembled coming in at 10.6 ounces. Now if you’re aware of the monster enthusiast headsets Pimax has made in the past, you’ll know just how much of a big deal this is — not just to the company but for PC VR gaming as a whole.

It’s a game-changer for comfort and wearability, all while still giving you the same gorgeous display and optics that you get in the bigger headsets (more on that later). Cramming everything into such a small headset feels like unlocking quicker, more human levels of head turning, and a deeper immersion because of it.

And that cushioned front gasket is more than comfortable enough to handle even the longest sessions, such as the aforementioned endurance race or another playthrough of Hitman VR and Half-Life: Alyx.

I’ve seen some of the criticisms — namely about the thinness of the straps and the cabling being fed through the back rather than the side. The first one I can understand, but don’t believe it’s as big of a problem as people say (given the lightweight nature makes it super comfortable).

But the second one I’d disagree with, as having them feed out the back does ensure a nice even weight distribution across the headset, rather than having your head dragged down a little with it.

Gorgeous clarity

But in my mind, while the size is the most visible win, it’s not the main star of the show. That belongs to those gorgeous Sony Micro-OLED panels pushing an 8K picture at a 90Hz refresh rate with a 110-degree field of view.

Whether it’s blazing through the streets of Japan in a VR-modded version of Forza Horizon 6 and witnessing the flash flood of color, or stretching the deep contrast ratio of those panels with the darker, scarier parts of Half-Life: Alyx, these displays are incredible.

Throw in high-quality pancake lenses that ensure no distortion or reflections, alongside the prescription inserts and you’re onto a winner for escaping to faraway places right in your gaming den.

Really smart features

Then there’s the other nice-to-haves that really enrich the experience and make this one of the best ways to play (needed because that price is steep). First is the audio, which these tiny speakers are really impressive with strong bass production and spatial sound adding to the immersion.

The controllers have a nice ergonomic feel to them and I had no problem with tracking them. And shout-out to the gesture tracking, which may not be the best in gaming, but unlocks a more intuitive user interface experience when I was working or just watching videos.

And then, there’s full 120Hz eye tracking — following your line of sight 120 times per second. This enables something called dynamic foveated rendering, which cuts the amount your GPU has to work to render a massive virtual space around you by keeping things in your distant peripheral vision at a lower rendered quality.

In the games that support it, it’s an effect you don’t really see, and it means you can get away with higher resolution settings in these titles too.

Of course with this vast amount of tech inside, the headset visor itself can get hot, as well as the cable box attached to it. Luckily, these are a decent distance away from your face and with the dual integrated fans for active cooling, I never found myself feeling uncomfortable — neither was there any thermal throttling over the entire race.

Pimax Dream Air: The downs

So I hit the checkered flag in my race, played a few more games and started to really think about my experience using it. The rose-tinted spectacles started to come off a little when I remembered two key things.

Janky software at times

Now don’t get me wrong — the Pimax Play app does the job. The issue is it doesn’t do the job all the time.

Some of the UI decisions are a bit weird (such as having two different windows for headset settings from two different locations), and when you do alter particular settings (like stopping the PC from defaulting the audio source to the headset rather than speakers), there’s a 50/50 chance that checkbox actually does the job.

There were some frustrations and moments where I had to close the app through the task manager and reopen it or restart the headset service multiple times. Those kinks are smoothed out eventually, but the persistence requirement of it all did start to bug me.

Very expensive

And then we get to the big one. The Pimax Dream Air starts at $1,999 for the model with Lighthouse tracking (sensors on poles you set up to track around you), and to get this SLAM model (cameras built into the headset tracking from the inside out) that takes the cost up to $2,299.

Make no mistake about it, this one is definitely for the serious enthusiasts. The quality of the experience and the build of the headset itself is going to be really enticing to those who chase that next-level of absorption into their sim games or VR titles.

But if you’re the kind of person who only casually flirts with VR every now and again, the Quest 3 + Link cable is definitely good enough.

Pimax Dream Air: Verdict

I’ve tested my fair share of big, bulky PC VR headsets, and the Dream Air is the breath of fresh…well, air, needed to make this niche enjoyment of mine make sense. Sim racing is a pure joy on something so lightweight, and when you are up and moving around, those dimensions make gaming so much more accessible.

Throw in gorgeous display tech and surprisingly strong audio and things are looking good, but do watch out for the janky software and be prepared to pay a pretty price for it.

I’ve tested nearly 100 keyboards, at the time of writing, and the Tecware Spectre 75 is one I’ve boxed back up the quickest. The keyboard costs just $79, and offers a great typing experience. It’s great for hardcore typists who want nothing but responsive switches for a day’s worth of work — but its issues are too hard to ignore.

The Spectre 75 features a built-in LCD screen you can display GIFs on, but frustratingly, its companion software (needed for customizing the screen) is finicky to use. The build and design are nothing to write home about, neither is its limited stock switch choice. But my biggest issue with the Spectre 75 is how it becomes unresponsive after being in sleep mode.

To find out why it isn’t one of the best mechanical keyboards, read my full Tecware Spectre 75 review.

Tecware Spectre 75 review: Specs

Tecware Spectre 75 review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? A 75% layout, hot-swappable mechanical keyboard with either tactile or linear switches
• Who is it for? For hardcore typists and casual gamers
• How much does it cost? The Tecware Spectre 75 costs just $79
• What do we like? The typing experience, LCD screen to display GIFs on, and 1KHz polling for gaming
• What don’t we like? The plasticky build, the lackluster design, janky companion software, and limited stock switch choice

Tecware Spectre 75 review: The ups

The Tecware Spectre 75 is lovely to type on, it sounds good, and it features a built-in LCD screen you can display GIFs on. It’s a decent keyboard for gaming, too, thanks to 1KHz polling.

Lovely to type on

The Tecware Spectre 75 is a fantastic keyboard to type on, so it’s great for hardcore typists (like myself). The keyboard comes fitted with pre-lubed Cocoa Brown (tactile) or Candy Red (linear) mechanical switches. I tested the Candy Reds which require 45g of force to activate. They’re slightly heavier than the 35g Sea Salt linears in the Epomaker RT100 ($115) but even so, I’ve found the Candy Reds non-fatiguing to type on. I wrote this review and another on the Spectre 75!

The Candy Reds feel smooth and responsive to type on. Combined with the double-shot PBT keycaps, the gasket mount, and several layers of foam padding, the Spectre 75 sounds lovely, too. It’s got a deep, creamy sound which isn’t too loud that it disturbs your coworkers, but it isn’t too quiet either, so you can appreciate it.

Speaking of, the double-shot PBT keycaps feel soft to touch. By their nature, the PBT keycaps are more resistant to oil and wear and tear than their ABS counterparts. They don’t get shiny like the ones on the expensive Turtle Beach Command Series KB5 ($149) either.

As soon as I unboxed the Spectre 75, I took a typing test at 10fastfingers.com (as I always do). Straight out of the box, I was able to achieve 93 words per minute with 90% accuracy. Though a little slower than what I’m used to, like 109WPM on the Epomaker Glyph ($139), I’m happy anytime I get over 90WPM, so I’m pleased with the Spectre 75’s performance.

Good gaming performance

The Tecware Spectre 75 is a competent gaming keyboard, packing a 1,000Hz polling rate over a wired connection. Over Bluetooth, this naturally drops to just 125Hz. 1KHz polling is more than plenty for 99% of gamers. I played Counter-Strike 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 on the Alienware 16X Aurora, and I didn’t notice any latency issues or input lag.

Linear switches are usually great for gaming, and the same is true for the Spectre 75’s Candy Reds. I found them extremely responsive in my testing. Tecware doesn’t specify the switches’ pre-travel distance, or how far down the switches need to be pressed to activate them. Even so, I felt they only required light taps to activate.

You also get N-key rollover which ensures consistent and accurate key registration when you’re typing and playing. You can basically hold down several keys at once and all of them will be registered by the keyboard’s hardware and executed on screen. In Cyberpunk 2077, I was able to sprint, jump, reload my weapon and activate my Sandevistan cyberware to slow down time, all at once. This gave me a slight competitive advantage and I was able to run circles around enemies.

For competitive gamers or esports players, I’d recommend a Hall Effect keyboard with adjustable actuation and 8,000Hz polling, like the Epomaker HE68 ($59) or the Epomaker HE65 Mag ($99). If you’re a casual gamer, though, the Spectre 75 should more than suffice.

Customizable LCD screen

If I had a nickel for every keyboard I’ve tested that features a built-in LCD screen, I’d have many. Similar to the likes of the Turtle Beach Command Series KB5, the Epomaker RT100 Pro ($119) and the Corsair Vanguard Air 99 Wireless ($259), the Tecware Spectre 75 features a customizable LCD screen.

Located between the volume knob and Function row, the screen is tiny but bright. By default, it displays a pre-installed GIF, and the knob lets you adjust the volume. If you hold down Fn and the knob, you can enter LCD Menu Navigation mode. Twisting the knob thereafter lets you cycle through the keyboard’s various settings. You can use the screen (and the knob) to adjust the RGB lighting’s effects, speed and brightness, and swap between macOS and Windows layouts.

I found the screen responsive in my testing — it's the Spectre 75’s companion software (that’s needed to upload GIFs) that I have a problem with. More on that later, though.

Low price

One of the best things about the Tecware Spectre 75 is that it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. It retails for just $79 at Amazon U.S. which makes it one of the cheapest keyboards I’ve tested so far. It’s cheaper than some of our favorite budget mech decks, like the NuPhy Node75 ($99) and the Keychron V1 Ultra 8K ($114). It’s priced similarly to the Royal Kludge L75 ($79) and the Keychron V1 8K ($74) — though the latter is wired-only.

Tecware Spectre 75 review: The downs

The Tecware Spectre 75 isn’t perfect. Its lackluster design, plasticky build, janky companion software, and limited stock switch choice leave a lot to be desired.

Lackluster design

I’ll preface this by saying that there’s nothing wrong with the Tecware Spectre 75’s design — it’s just very dull and very boring to look at. There’s nothing special about the design. The Spectre 75 comes in either black or white, and they’re… fine? This is a decent-looking keyboard for anyone who prefers something low-key. There’s flashy per-key RGB lighting that adds a splash of color, though.

If you want a keyboard that pops, or utilizes a combination of different colors at the least, I’d recommend the Royal Kludge L75, the GravaStar Mercury K1 Lite ($89) or the MCHOSE K99 V2 ($99). Of those, the Mercury K1 Lite is the polar opposite of the Spectre 75, with a garish, loud design. I’d stick to the Royal Kludge L75 if I were you.

Plasticky build

The Tecware Spectre 75 isn’t the best built keyboard out there. Its body is made entirely of plastic which feels a little too cheap for my liking. It looks like a reskinned Keychron V1 ($94) but without the steel plate. The plastic case feels slightly flimsy, and there’s some flex when you twist the Spectre 75 by its sides. It does feature a metallic knob in the top-right corner which feels premium, though.

Its all-plastic build makes the keyboard fairly light, though, so it’s good to travel with. The Spectre 75 weighs 1.87lbs so it’s lighter than the Keychron V1 8K (2.19lbs). But if you want an even lighter keyboard that also feels premium, I’d recommend the NuPhy Node75 (1.45lbs).

Janky companion software

I’m no stranger to janky companion software, having tested many gadgets with finicky apps, but great snakes is the Tecware Spectre 75’s app infuriating. You’ll need to download the Spectre 75’s dedicated software from the Tecware website, and it’s not available on macOS, even though the keyboard itself is compatible with Apple’s laptops. If you own a MacBook, you won’t be able to customize the LCD screen or upload GIFs to it — it’s worth considering a keyboard like the Epomaker RT75 ($91) instead.

Speaking of GIFs, uploading one to the Spectre 75 feels like an uphill climb, or like Sisyphus pushing a heavy boulder up said hill, only to watch it roll back down. The process seems simple enough at first. Navigate to the GIF tab, click on the + icon, and add your preferred GIF. When I did so, the software told me that the GIF had 61 frames and only 44 were allowed. You can delete specific frames within the software itself, but you can’t do so in bulk. You have to delete each frame individually — and this includes confirming every time that you’re certain you want to delete said frame.

It took some time, but I managed to trim the frames down to 44. I clicked ‘Upload to Keyboard’ and watched the progress bar fill up… and then the software crashed. I booted up the software again and repeated the process, only this time the software didn’t say that the frames were limited to 44 — strange, but at least it saves me a gazillion steps. Again, I clicked ‘Upload to Keyboard’ and this time, it worked (thankfully).

But that isn’t where my troubles stopped. I wanted to test the software’s macro recording feature but for some reason, none of the options in the macro tab were clickable. I reinstalled the software and the issue persisted. I even checked if the Spectre 75 had the latest firmware installed (it did).

The Spectre 75’s LCD screen is capable of displaying CPU and GPU stats, too, but the software needs to be running in the background — again, impossible to do on macOS. Overall, the software left a sour taste in my mouth, and it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Limited stock switch choice

The Tecware Spectre 75 comes with pre-lubed switches that are made in-house. Unfortunately, you’re limited to just two stock switch sets. You can choose either Cocoa Brown tactile or Candy Red linear switches. There are no clicky or silent switches, and you’ll have to buy your preferred ones separately.

Thankfully, the Spectre 75 is hot-swappable and compatible with south-facing 5-pin mechanical switches. It’s nice to see a budget keyboard offering hot-swappability when some pricey keyboards don’t (looking at you, Turtle Beach Command Series KB5). If you want more stock switch choice at checkout, I’d recommend the Keychron V1 8K.

Not the most responsive when waking

The last nail in the Tecware Spectre 75’s coffin is its tendency to not respond when it’s waking from sleep mode. In my testing, over Bluetooth and a wired connection, the keyboard wouldn’t respond after my laptop — and therefore, the Spectre 75 — had been asleep for a while. Though it didn’t happen all the time, I had to reconnect the keyboard a few times to get it working again. I tested this on macOS and Windows machines and had the same issue each time.

I haven’t had this issue with other mechanical keyboards I’ve tested. For that reason, and everything else I’ve mentioned up until now, I’d recommend the Keychron V1 8K or the Royal Kludge L75. I’ve tested both keyboards extensively and neither of them have given me this much grief.

I've reached out to Tecware's representative about this issue, to see whether it's limited to my review unit alone.

Tecware Spectre 75 review: Verdict

The Tecware Spectre 75 is a decent mechanical keyboard for typing and casual gaming, thanks to its responsive linear switches and 1,000Hz polling rate. It features an LCD screen that you can view keyboard and system stats on, or display GIFs on, too.

But there isn’t much else to like about the Spectre 75. The companion software needed to customize the screen is janky and frustrating to use, while the keyboard itself sports a lackluster design and plasticky build. You’re limited to just two stock switch sets, too. I also struggled with the keyboard becoming unresponsive in my testing.

While $79 isn’t a high asking price, you can get better value for your money elsewhere. The Keychron V1 8K and the Royal Kludge L75 are fantastic keyboards under $80, and are much better choices if you want a feature-packed deck.

The Dell UltraSharp U3226Q is one of the best monitors for professional photographers, videographers, editors and creatives, period. This 32-inch beast features self-calibration that ensures superb color accuracy day in and out. With wide color coverage as well as an array of color modes, it doesn’t give you much to complain about. It also hosts more ports than you could ask for, and for casual gamers, there’s the 120Hz refresh rate and 0.03ms response time.

Is there anything wrong with it? Not particularly. Its 4K panel is neither the brightest nor the dullest in its weight class, and the price tag may make your eye twitch. Neither of these are outright dealbreakers, though. If you’re a professional looking for a monitor that doesn’t skimp on features, this is the one.

For the complete breakdown, read my full Dell UltraSharp U3226Q review.

Dell UltraSharp U3226Q review: Specs

Dell UltraSharp U3226Q review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? A 32-inch QD-OLED monitor with a 4K UHD resolution
• Who is it for? For professional photographers, editors, creatives and everyone in between
• How much does it cost? It ain’t cheap — the Dell UltraSharp U3226Q costs $2,499 / £2,404
• What do we like? The built-in colorimeter, outstanding color coverage and accuracy, 120Hz refresh rate, and the wide array of ports
• What don’t we like? The eye-watering price tag

Dell UltraSharp U3226Q review: The ups

The question isn’t, “What can the Dell UltraSharp U3226Q do?” It’s what it can’t do. Excellent color coverage and accuracy, a built-in colorimeter, plenty of color modes and ports, 120Hz refresh rate, 0.03ms response time. It’s got it all.

Pro features for the pros

There’s no doubt that the Dell UltraSharp U3226Q is a pro monitor meant for pros, and one quick glance at its specs sheet tells you as much. Alongside outstanding color coverage and accuracy (more on that shortly), the U3226Q features seven color factory-calibrated modes as well as six customizable ones. The seven modes include DCI-P3, Display P3, sRGB, BT.709, BT.2020, and Adobe RGB (with D50 and D65 white points). These make the U3226Q excellent for digital as well as print editing.

The U3226Q is a self-calibrating monitor, which means that it features a built-in colorimeter that automatically tests and adjusts the display’s color accuracy. You can choose between Express and Comprehensive self-calibration via the U3226Q’s menu. Once you’ve selected it, the U3226Q will calibrate itself to maintain its outstanding performance day in and out. This is very handy for professional editors, and it’s something that isn’t even offered by expensive monitors, like the Apple Studio Display XDR ($3,299).

Other key features for those who plan on staring at the screen for up to eight hours a day include a TÜV 4-star certification for enhanced eye comfort, and low blue light technology which reduces harmful blue light emissions to ≤35%. The 4K UHD panel features an anti-glare coating, too, which ensures clear visuals and consistent colors in any lighting conditions. Having used the monitor for a week, I can confirm that my eyes didn’t feel fatigued at all.

Dell also includes a monitor hood in the box which you can magnetically snap on to the U3226Q’s bezels. It helps minimize glare from overhead lighting, negates visual distractions, and helps improve color accuracy. All in all, the U3226Q is a fantastic package and really doesn’t give you much to complain about.

Outstanding color coverage and accuracy

Now we’re on to the meat of this review. How’s the Dell UltraSharp U3226Q’s color coverage and accuracy? Outstanding, in one word. The U3226Q’s 4K QD-OLED panel has a resolution of 3840 x 2160, and it’s gorgeous to look at. It features 10-bit color depth which means it’s capable of displaying 1.07 billion individual hues.

Dell says that the U3226Q “delivers vibrant visuals and true-to-life colors,” and my lab tests confirmed it. I’ve lab-tested plenty of monitors, and the U3226Q boasts the best color coverage and accuracy. As you can see from the table above, it covers 188.8% of the sRGB space and 133.7% of the wider DCI P3 gamut. It upstages the Apple Studio Display XDR (which doesn’t even cover 100% of the DCI P3 color space), and all of BenQ’s monitors on the list.

Color accuracy is phenomenal, too. The U3226Q achieved a Delta-E score of 0.08 in my lab test. Delta E is a numerical representation of how much two colors differ, and it tells you how close the color relayed on the monitor is to the output from the source or laptop. You ideally want the score to be as close to zero as possible. 0.08 is, then, excellent, as it ascertains that the colors the U3226Q is displaying are extremely accurate. Again, Dell’s offering trumps the pricier Apple Studio Display XDR. The only monitor that beats it is the Dell Pro P3426WEV ($749) with its 0.05 score — but the difference is negligible.

In real-world use, I’ve loved using the U3226Q for work, watching 4K YouTube videos, and playing games. Colors appear bright and vivid. Blues and greens are deep; reds are rich; and blacks are inky and deep. Highlights don’t appear too sharp in 4K videos either, making for an enjoyable and immersive watching experience. I used the monitor to edit some photos for my photography Instagram account, too, and knowing that the colors were as accurate as they could be helped me color-grade confidently.

Ports galore!

Dell hasn’t skimped on the UltraSharp U3226Q’s ports, and you get everything you could ask for and more. Most of the ports are located on the back. There’s obviously a power port and located next to it are two HDMI 2.1, one DisplayPort 1.4, and two Thunderbolt 4 ports. One of the Thunderbolts is an upstream, DisplayPort Alt Mode port with 140W of power delivery, while the other is a downstream, daisy-chaining port with 15W of power delivery.

Just like on the Dell Pro P3426WEV, the DisplayPort Alt Mode enables the USB-C port to receive video signals using the DisplayPort protocol. It offers higher data bandwidth, and allows you to daisy-chain multiple monitors from a single port, too. Not only does this help you cut down on cables (who doesn’t love a bit of effective cable management?), it’s also handy if you’re routing graphics through a docking station via USB-C as you can continue accessing DisplayPort’s high resolutions and refresh rates.

In addition to that, two USB-A downstream ports with 10Gbps speeds are also located on the back, as well as an RJ45 Ethernet one. Similar to the P3426WEV, the U3226Q features a pop-out port housing on the monitor’s bottom edge. Pushing it reveals a panel with a downstream USB-A and two USB-C ports (27W power delivery), each with 10Gbps speeds.

Similar to the BenQ Creative Pro PD2732U ($799), the U3226Q packs Smart KVM, too, which enables you to use a single keyboard and mouse with two computers when they’re hooked up to the monitor. It’s great for those who work across multiple computers.

For the casual gamers, too

Though the Dell UltraSharp U3226Q is a monitor for professionals, it’s a competent gaming machine, too. It packs a 120Hz refresh rate and a 0.03ms response time, which is more than sufficient for most casual gamers.

Motion isn’t as silky smooth as on monitors with extremely high refresh rates, like the MSI MPG 341CQR QD-OLED X36 (360Hz, $949) and the MSI MAG 272QP QD-OLED X50 (500Hz, $749), but it’s still excellent. I didn’t notice any choppiness while playing Forza Horizon 5 and Counter-Strike 2, and I was comfortably running 100-115fps in the latter. Thanks to the 0.03ms response time — same as on the MSI X36 — I didn’t experience any motion blur or noticeable ghosting either.

Dell UltraSharp U3226Q review: The downs

The Dell UltraSharp U3226Q doesn’t have many flaws. It’s expensive, and the 4K panel’s brightness is neither the best nor the worst.

Middle-of-the-road brightness

The Dell UltraSharp U3226Q is neither the brightest nor the dimmest monitor — it does well against some competitors while not performing that formidably against others. In my lab tests, the U3226Q achieved a peak brightness of 295.4 nits in SDR and 425 nits in HDR (10% window size).

When it comes to both SDR and HDR results, the U3226Q upstages the BenQ PD2732U, the Dell Pro P3426WEV, the BenQ PD2730S ($1,199) and the BenQ PD3226G ($1,099), as you can see in the table below. The P3426WEV doesn’t even support HDR, giving the U3226Q a leg-up.

However, the BenQ MA270S ($999), the Apple Studio Display ($1,499) and the Apple Studio Display XDR outperform the U3226Q when it comes to Standard Dynamic Range. It isn’t surprising that the Apple Studio Display XDR does this (as it’s more expensive) but it’s disappointing that the U3226Q doesn’t get as bright as the MA270S, which is half the U3226Q’s price.

I don’t think this is necessarily a dealbreaker as you shouldn’t have your brightness turned all the way up anyway when editing photos, and this is a professional studio monitor after all. In real-world use, I had no problem using this monitor and clearly seeing what was on screen under bright studio lights. Of course, if you want a monitor with a brighter panel, I can’t recommend the MA270S enough.

Ridonculous price

As you’ve seen so far, the Dell UltraSharp U3226Q is not your average monitor, and it packs pro features that make it suitable for professionals… and it’s got a price tag to match. The U3226Q doesn’t come cheap. It has a retail price of $2,499 at B&H Photo / £2,404 at Dell U.K., making it one of the most expensive monitors I’ve tested so far.

This makes the U3226Q more expensive than some of the other productivity- and photography-focused monitors I’ve tested, like the BenQ MA270S ($999), the BenQ PD2732U ($799), the Dell Pro P3426WEV ($749) and the Alogic Edge 40-inch 5K Ultrawide ($1,499). The U3226Q is slightly cheaper than the Apple Studio Display XDR ($3,499), though, if that’s any consolation.

Dell UltraSharp U3226Q review: Verdict

For professional photographers, colorists and editors, the Dell UltraSharp U3226Q checks nearly every box. Stupendous color accuracy and coverage, self-calibration, a stunning QD-OLED display, and more ports than you could ask for make it a winner. For casual gamers, there’s a 120Hz refresh rate and response time of 0.03ms, too, so what more could you want?

You’re paying a premium for all the pro features, though, and the U3226Q costs $2,500. While it’s a lot, I think the U3226Q does plenty to justify it. The built-in colorimeter for self-calibration ensures color accuracy over time, thereby increasing the monitor’s lifespan. At the end of the day, the U3226Q is the monitor for professionals, and it’s the display I’d personally buy.

The best gaming keyboards have come leaps and bounds in recent years, and the Turtle Beach Command Series KB5 hopes to join the ranks. Packing highly responsive linear switches, 8,000Hz polling, and features like ReacTap in a sturdy, aluminum body, the KB5 is a formidable performer. It’s great to type on, too, and it features a handy touchscreen for on-the-go customization.

But is that enough to be considered one of the best in 2026, when the competition is so fierce? The KB5 is competent but its flaws are difficult to overlook when it costs nearly $150. It’s wired only; it isn’t hot-swappable; and its touchscreen can be sluggish. Of course, if none of those matter to you, and you’ve got the cash, the KB5 is still an okay choice for gaming and productivity.

For the complete breakdown, read my full Turtle Beach Command Series KB5 review.

Turtle Beach Command Series KB5 review: Specs

Turtle Beach Command Series KB5 review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? A full-size mechanical keyboard with a customizable touchscreen
• Who is it for? Gamers and typists alike
• How much does it cost? The Turtle Beach Command Series KB5 is available for $149 / £139
• What do we like? The sturdy build, 8KHz polling for gaming, responsive switches, and customizable touchscreen
• What don’t we like? The wired-only and non-hot-swappable design, sometimes sluggish touchscreen, and hefty price tag

Turtle Beach Command Series KB5 review: The ups

The Turtle Beach Command Series KB5 is well-built and it’s a joy to type on. 8,000Hz polling and ReacTap make it great for gaming, and the customizable touchscreen lets you make changes on the fly.

Sturdy construction

The KB5 is part of Turtle Beach’s Command Series, so it shares a lot of similarities with the KB7 TKL ($199) — one of them being the sturdy construction. Just like the KB7 TKL, the KB5 is made of an anodized aluminum top plate and a plastic chassis. There’s no flex in the body and no rattling. The aluminum plate gives the keyboard some heft too, as the KB5 weighs 2.43lbs (with the included palm rest). Though a little heavy, the KB5 is nowhere near as gargantuan as some of Keychron’s all-metal keyboards, like the Q65 Max (5.33lbs, $209) and the Q3 Ultra 8K (3.9lbs, $229).

As a full-size 100% keyboard, the KB5 has a large desk footprint too, measuring 18.78 x 10.12 x 1.06 inches (with palm rest), so it’s best suited to staying put at your desk. Given its length, the KB5 didn’t fit into my day bag. The keyboard’s wired-only nature may make you reluctant to travel with it anyway.

Adding to the KB5’s appeal are its double-shot PBT keycaps which are more resistant to oil, wear and tear compared to their ABS counterparts. It’s nice to see Turtle Beach do away with the ABS keycaps its Vulcan II Max ($229) uses — they get very shiny with fingerprints.

I also like the notched clickable volume barrel located right above the first four Function keys. You can use this to adjust the volume and mute playback (or remap it completely in Swarm II). Rolling its barrel is what I’d imagine the thrust lever on an airplane would feel like.

Excellent for typing

Though the Turtle Beach Command Series KB5 is primarily a gaming keyboard, it’s a sheer delight to type on. While its clacky, hollow sound profile is nothing to write home about, it still offers an enjoyable typing experience. Its Titan low-profile mechanical switches have a pre-travel distance of 1.2mm (total 3.1mm) which means that they don’t need to be pressed all the way down to activate. This helps you type faster, and even after a full day’s worth of typing, my fingers and hands didn’t feel fatigued.

I put the KB5 through its paces by taking a typing test at 10fastfingers.com as soon as I unboxed the keyboard. I wasn’t expecting to type as fast as I did, because the KB5 isn’t marketed as a productivity deck, and yet, I was able to achieve 108 words per minute with 97% accuracy. The keyboard upstaged all but one deck when it came to sheer speed: the Epomaker Glyph ($139). Color me impressed!

8,000Hz polling and ReacTap

The Turtle Beach Command Series KB5’s biggest selling point is its 8,000Hz polling rate. Though impressive, 8KHz polling is overkill for 99% of gamers, and is an unnecessary drain on system resources. For most gamers, including myself, 1KHz polling is more than sufficient. You won’t notice latency issues or input lag regardless.

Still, I tested the KB5’s 8KHz polling by playing Counter-Strike 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 on the Alienware 16X Aurora. As predicted, there were no latency issues to make a big song and dance about. All of my commands were promptly registered. I found the Titan low-profile linear switches extremely responsive too, and their 1.3mm pre-travel distance meant that I could lightly tap one key after another to execute a series of actions in quick succession.

You can also enable ReacTap by tapping the screen’s left edge and swiping left. ReacTap is Turtle Beach’s term for Last Key Prioritization (LKP), and it’s a type of Simultaneous Opposite Key Detection (SOCD) resolution. As you can probably tell by the name, it prioritizes the last key pressed, and I primarily use it for counter-strafing. Basically, if you hold down A and press D, the LKP resolution overrides A and instantly registers D (or vice versa). Doing so results in an immediate end to movement and therefore accuracy penalties in titles that have inertia in their movement mechanics, like Counter-Strike 2 (where LKP will get you kicked) and Valorant.

The KB5 features five dedicated macro keys too, located on the keyboard’s left-hand side. These can be configured to execute commands with just the tap of a button. You can use these to launch another program, record the last 30 seconds of gameplay, what-have-you. Four different commands can be bound to each key, and these layers can be accessed via key combinations, such as holding down Caps Lock / Easy Shift [+].

These macro keys are useful in both gaming and productivity, and you can assign work- or game-specific commands and save them to five customizable profiles.

Built-in touchscreen for on-the-fly customization

LCD and even OLED screens are becoming more and more common on keyboards. We’ve seen them on the likes of the Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro ($189), the Epomaker RT100 Pro ($119), and now the Turtle Beach Command Series KB5. Unlike the large 4.3-inch touchscreen on the Turtle Beach Command Series KB7 TKL, the KB5’s 2.4-inch is much smaller but useful nonetheless.

The KB5’s touchscreen enables you to make adjustments to the keyboard’s settings on the fly and without having to launch Swarm II every time. You can use it to record macros, swap between five profiles, launch apps, manage audio playback, and more. Annoyingly, though, you can’t adjust the polling rate via the screen itself, and this can be done via Swarm II only.

The touchscreen’s layout can be changed, too, and you’ll need to download the user-friendly Swarm II in order to do so. Via the Windows-only software (sorry, macOS users), you can add your preferred widgets to the screen, or select a preset template (productivity- or gaming-focused). If you play a lot of Counter-Strike, you might like the ‘KB5 CS’ preset, which displays stats like equipped weapon, bullets remaining, and total kills.

Turtle Beach Command Series KB5 review: The downs

The Turtle Beach Command Series KB5 isn’t hot-swappable, can’t be used wirelessly, and its touchscreen can be finicky at times, so is it worth the premium? I’m not convinced.

Sluggish touchscreen

While the Turtle Beach Command Series KB5’s touchscreen is useful and behaves well for the most part, I found it sluggish at times. In my testing, I found that the touchscreen would randomly freeze and get stuck on one page, and I also noticed that my commands weren’t always registered. I had to tap a couple of times to get the touchscreen to skip the song I was listening to, for instance. Yes, even after updating the keyboard’s firmware, these issues didn’t magically disappear.

Wired-only

Sadly, the Turtle Beach Command Series KB5 is a wired-only keyboard so there’s no Bluetooth wireless connectivity. That also means the keyboard is designed to stay put at your desk. This isn’t necessarily a flaw but it’s disappointing given that so many mechanical keyboards today are wireless. This becomes an even bigger problem when you realize how expensive the KB5 is (more on that in a second).

If you want a wireless mechanical keyboard with 8,000Hz polling, I’d recommend the Keychron V1 Ultra 8K which features high polling over both wired and wireless connections. However, as I said earlier, 8,000Hz polling is overkill for most people anyway.

Not hot-swappable

Okay, so the Turtle Beach Command Series KB5 is wired-only. Big deal. But my biggest gripe with the keyboard is that its switches aren’t hot-swappable. I find that surprising in 2026, when most keyboards (especially in this price range) are hot-swappable. Because the KB5 isn’t, you can’t change its switches by simply popping them out — you’ll need to de- and re-solder them to the PCB which is not only time-consuming, but it requires specialist tools and skill, too.

This means that if, say, one switch stops working, you’ll have to take the entire keyboard apart. I also feel like if you’re spending short of $150 on a keyboard, the least you should expect is hot-swappable switches. If this irks you as much as it does me, I’d again recommend the Keychron V1 Ultra 8K, the Keychron C1 Pro 8K ($54) or the Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro (which does enough to justify its $189 price tag).

Expensive for what you get

This brings me to my last argument: the Turtle Beach Command Series KB5’s price tag. The keyboard retails for $149 / £139 at Amazon, which is quite steep given that the keyboard is wired-only and isn’t hot-swappable. Its touchscreen, though useful, can be sluggish and is also heavily reliant on Swarm II, which isn’t available on macOS.

When brands like Epomaker and Keychron continue making powerful keyboards for a fraction of the KB5’s price, Turtle Beach’s offering is a hard sell. The Keychron V1 Ultra 8K, the Keychron C1 Pro 8K, and the Epomaker P65 ($119) are much easier to recommend. Heck, even some outstanding Hall Effect decks, like the Epomaker HE68 ($59), offer exceptional value for money while being cheaper than the KB5.

Turtle Beach Command Series KB5 review: Verdict

The Turtle Beach Command Series KB5 isn’t a bad keyboard — quite the opposite in fact. It boasts strong gaming performance thanks to features like 8,000Hz polling and ReacTap. It’s good for typing, too, and it’s fitted with a responsive touchscreen that lets you make adjustments on the go.

At the end of the day, though, are those features enough to justify the $150 asking price? The KB5, though well-built and capable, isn’t hot-swappable, and when its competitors are offering 8KHz polling over wireless connections, the KB5’s wired-only design leaves a lot to be desired. The sluggish touchscreen is frustrating at this price point, too. You’d be better off with the Keychron V1 8K, if it’s a bang-for-your-buck mechanical deck you’re after.

Sony’s elite esports gaming monitor just got, well, even more elite. The Inzone M10S II succeeds (you guessed it) the original M10S — a monitor I know well. I attended the original M10S launch at Gamescom 2024, where I spoke with the Fnatic esports team, who were heavily involved in its design, and the Sony engineers who brought Fnatic’s requests to life.

The new model shares the same core objectives as its predecessor: to provide professional esports gamers, or those aspiring to be one, with everything they need. As such, the core formula remains largely unchanged: blazing refresh and response rates; an array of features tailored entirely to esports; all combined with Sony’s premium design.

This time, refresh rates have been boosted in QHD and FHD modes; there’s a new anti-glare coating and a brightness boost, at least on paper. So, is this the best gaming monitor for elite players? Find out in my full Sony Inzone M10S II review.

Sony Inzone M10S II review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? An elite esports gaming monitor
• Who is it for? Pro esports gamers, or those aspiring to be
• What does it cost? $1,099 / £1,199
• What do we like? Be-all, end-all gaming performance and features; premium and thoughtful design
• What don’t we like? Not the brightest compared to other OLED monitors; USB-A and -B ports only

Sony Inzone M10S II review: Specs

Sony Inzone M10S II review: The ups

The M10S II has one job: to be the ultimate gaming monitor for esports players. With its impressive specs and an extensive array of performance and quality-of-life features, it succeeds. And as a Sony product, it boasts premium looks and a high-quality build.

Ultra-fast performance

The M10S II packs so many gaming features that I’ll have to break them up. First, I’ll cover the hardware side of things. And that refresh rate! With 540Hz in QHD mode and up to 720Hz when dropping to 720p (HD), this monitor is absolutely rapid, relaying enemy movement as accurately as possible, with no motion blur or lag.

With an ultra low response time of 0.02ms gtg (gray to gray, which means how fast the pixels can change color), plus Sony’s Motion Blur Reduction, ghosting is effectively removed. There’s also G-Sync to remove tearing, especially in situations with rapidly changing frame rates. All this means the enemy you’re shooting at is more likely to be exactly where you’re seeing it, and you aren’t shooting its ghost trail or some other artefact.

I’m not an esports pro, of course, but playing Counter-Strike 2 at 600fps was a smooth experience — though not particularly enjoyable at 720p. Our TG testing rig couldn’t hit the maximum 720fps, even with Counter-Strike set to low and running at 720p, but topping out at 600fps was still pretty cool. At 1440p with Counter-Strike on high settings, our testing rig still hit around 400fps.

The original M10S looks like a tortoise in comparison, topping out at only 480Hz and a mere 0.03ms response time. Our favorite high-refresh-rate monitor (up to now), the MSI MAG 272QP QD-OLED X50 ($749), manages just 500Hz.

Plethora of gaming features

The M10S II also offers a comprehensive array of gaming features designed to suit elite gamers — like the Fnatic team. There’s a 24.5-inch tournament crop for competition practice, and two FPS modes, FPS Pro (which simulates an LCD) and FPS Pro+, which adjust contrast ratios to make enemy detection easier, especially in dimly lit game scenarios. I especially enjoyed using FPS Pro when playing Hell Let Loose, particularly on darker nighttime maps, as it lifted the blacks a little to help me spot enemies hiding in bushes.

Those aren’t the only game modes, though, as there’s a specific MOBA/RTS mode, as well as a general game mode for casual play.

There’s also an on-screen crosshair with a variety of crosshair types to choose from. I found this really handy in Counter-Strike 2, where many guns have no ADS mode and the in-game crosshair expands and contracts with movement and movement penalties. It was also super useful in Hell Let Loose, as it allowed me to more accurately fire from the hip and score reflex kills on enemies popping up from bushes or around corners, which I might otherwise have missed.

On that note, there’s also a black equalizer mode to brighten shadows without affecting lighter areas of the screen. This is handy if you’re already in a game-specific mode and only want to boost shadows, or if affecting highlights would hamper your performance.

Plus some useful QoL features

I also appreciate some of the quality-of-life (QoL) features found in the M10S range. The M10S II, like its predecessor, is designed with setup flexibility as a key consideration, and plenty of attention has been paid to the details.

In particular, there’s the stand. The M10S II features the same cantilevered stand as its predecessor. I actually spoke to the engineer who designed this stand at the original M10S press briefing — the stand was his passion project because he was trying to solve an issue he had with monitors. The cantilever channels all the weight into the center for perfect balance, allowing Sony to keep the base small.

The M10S II is therefore much easier to position than many other monitors. The M10S II replaced my Lenovo Legion R27qe Gen 2 (£199, U.K. only), with its enormous tripod stand — with the Sony, my desk felt so much more spacious and open, and for once I had room for other products I was testing. The base is also extremely thin, deliberately designed so you can slide your keyboard over it and keep your desk tidy when not in use. The arm swivels, so you can adjust the monitor's rotation without having to pick up and move the whole assembly. And there's a neat cable tidy to, well, keep your cables tidy!

I’m also a big fan of the anti-glare coating on the screen. I work with a window behind me in the office, along with overhead lighting. I was able to game and work on the M10S II for hours without eye strain or headaches.

Accurate color rendition

While the M10S II isn’t a production monitor, it’s still important that the panel reproduces color accurately. Thankfully, the M10S II does! As you can see in our lab test results below, the M10S II achieved a Delta-E score of 0.26. This score measures how closely the on-screen color matches the color sent to the display by the computer, and the lower the better.

A 0.26 Delta-E isn’t as good as some of the other gaming monitors we’ve tested, such as the Alienware AW2525HM, MSI MAG 272 QP, or MSI MPG 341CQR QD-OLED X36. But it’s still fairly respectable, and it means the colors you’re seeing on screen are rendered accurately.

The M10S II also covers both the sRGB and DCI-P3 color gamuts. What does that mean? Games are mastered in sRGB for SDR and in DCI-P3 for HDR, so the M10S II can reproduce every unique color in every game you play.

Now, an ultra-wide gamut can cause oversaturation in those spaces, resulting in an unnatural, neon effect. So, more technically isn’t always better. But while colors appear very bold and vivid on the M10S II, they didn’t feel overdone. And besides, there are sRGB and Cinema (for DCI-P3) color modes if you want to ensure strict accuracy to those gamuts.

Sony’s typically premium design

Unsurprisingly, as this is a Sony product, the M10S II is built extremely well. The monitor looks and feels premium, with high-quality materials used throughout.

The rear of the display is finished in textured metal rather than plastic. The stand and base are also made from metal and feel extremely sturdy. It simply feels built to last, and there’s a three-year warranty to back it up anyway.

Arguably good value

This might sound a little odd given that the M10S II costs $1,099 / £1,199, but I’d argue it’s fairly good value. It’s not uncommon for gaming monitors to push well beyond the $1,000 mark. The Lenovo Legion Pro 34WD-10 OLED, for example, launched at $1,099. The Samsung Odyssey OLED G9, meanwhile, launched at $1,799.

I know: those are ultrawides, and their prices have dropped since launch. But what I mean here is that the M10S II isn’t priced beyond the pale. And yet it offers superb performance for elite gamers. If you’re one of those people, the M10S II could make strong financial and competitive sense.

Sony Inzone M10S II review: The downs

The Inzone M10S II doesn’t have many faults. However, it’s not the brightest OLED we’ve lab tested, and the USB ports on the underside are pretty dated.

Not the brightest

We don’t like to rely on manufacturer claims, which are often best-case scenarios and can be a tad (to say the least) unrealistic. As such, as part of our lab testing process, we also measure peak SDR and HDR brightness.

As you can see in the test results, the M10S II isn’t as bright as other OLED gaming panels we’ve tested and is well below the (rather ambitious) 1,500-nit peak brightness claimed by Sony.

Still, when you think about it, this monitor’s primary purpose is to be used in a dark room. And besides, figures alone don’t always tell the full story, and I certainly wouldn’t let our measured peak brightness put you off buying this monitor. I’ve had no issues using it in bright environments, largely thanks to the anti-glare coating. And I never struggled with darker in-game scenarios, thanks to the different color modes and black point equalizer.

Dated USB ports

My only other gripe with the M10S II is that it uses fairly dated ports, at least when it comes to USB (with HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.1, the video ports are just fine). There are two USB-A downstream ports and a USB-B upstream port. These are outdated, and it would’ve been nice to see at least a USB-C port or two.

Again, it’s important to remember use cases here. I’m not going to complain about the lack of a Thunderbolt port or KVM controller on a monitor that isn’t designed for productivity, but come on, it’s 2026… how can Sony fit a Type-B but not a single Type-C?

Sony Inzone M10S II review: Verdict

If you want the fastest and most feature-packed gaming monitor around, especially if you’re an elite competitive player or aspiring pro, I wholeheartedly recommend the Sony Inzone M10S II.

Its flaws are very few and fairly minor. What’s more, it not only delivers blazing-fast hardware performance but also a huge roster of genuinely useful gaming tools and thoughtful quality-of-life features! Then there’s Sony’s usual build quality and a fairly reasonable price tag, all things considered. I’m genuinely rather sad to be giving it back to Sony!

Donning a pair of AR glasses lets you carry a massive virtual screen anywhere you go, and after trying the new RayNeo GT Max, I could easily see myself wearing them for hours.

I’ve been wearing a pair of the best smart glasses from both Xreal and Viture while traveling and at home for almost a year now. Doing so has made a huge difference, as I no longer need to haul a portable monitor around when I want a larger display. However, after wearing them for hours at a time, comfort always becomes an issue.

After trying RayNeo’s new GT Max AR glasses at IFA 2026, I was completely taken aback by just how comfortable they were. At 78 grams, they’re not the lightest on paper — the Viture Pro 2 at 63 grams still wins there — but by ditching the traditional birdbath optical design, they don’t feel front-heavy on your face at all.

Here’s what it was like trying out the RayNeo GT Max, and why they might be the perfect display glasses for long sessions.

Curved in all the right places

With a launch price of $399, the RayNeo GT Max are somewhat more expensive than budget options like the $299 Viture Pro 2 or the $299 Xreal XBX a01, but you’re getting a lot of premium features you often have to pay extra for.

For instance, you get built-in three Degrees of Freedom thanks to their dedicated Zone 360 3DoF Chip. As such, the glasses track rotational movement like pitch (tilting up and down), yaw (swiveling left and right), and roll (tilting side to side). This lets you pin the GT Max’s screen in place or set it to follow your line of sight as you move around. There’s also a Steady mode that follows you with a slight delay, which I found to be much more comfortable — especially if you’re prone to motion sickness while wearing one of the best VR headsets.

Just like with other AR glasses, you get built-in audio on the GT Max. Tuned by Bang & Olufsen, the four-speaker system delivered great sound during my time wearing them. However, RayNeo also includes Whisper Mode 2.0 for low-volume private listening. There’s even an optional accessory called Sound Tubes that clip onto the frame to focus the audio straight toward your ears for a more private, headphone-like experience.

While you have dedicated volume and brightness controls on the left temple arm, there’s an orange Mode Button on the right to toggle between spatial tracking modes. Switching between them was fast, and I really liked how clean all of the on-screen menus looked.

One major element that sets the RayNeo GT Max apart from the competition is its wider field of view. While the Viture Pro 2 and Xreal XBX cap out at 50 degrees, the GT Max pushes all the way up to 59 degrees. Just like their balanced weight distribution, this comes down to their prism architecture. While birdbath optics beam light down off an angled mirror into your eye, prism optics pass light through a solid, thin piece of glass that sits flush against the frame.

I’ll admit that the optics on the GT Max looked a bit different to me at first, given that all the AR glasses I’ve tried up until now use birdbath setups. However, once I had them on my face and was watching a movie, everything clicked. I didn’t feel the frame weighing down on the bridge of my nose, and they were light enough that I could easily see myself wearing them for long stretches. Of course, I’ll need to get a pair in for testing at home to see how they perform beyond a brief run on the IFA show floor.

Peering through a prism

When it comes to AR glasses — or more accurately, display glasses — we’re still very early on in their evolution. In fact, this current wave of consumer-focused glasses didn’t really start hitting the mainstream until around 2022. In the brief time since, we’ve seen dramatically thinner and lighter designs, wider fields of view, and more recently, onboard spatial tracking powered by dedicated chips inside their frames.

The RayNeo GT Max feels like a standout entry point for anyone looking to get into display glasses. While they are a bit more expensive than some of the other recent budget options, you’re getting a stack of premium features that genuinely elevate the day-to-day experience.

At the end of the day, if you want to use a pair of glasses like these for more than just watching a movie on a long flight, comfort is king. Having used both the original Viture Pro glasses and the upgraded Pro 2s, shaving off extra weight makes a world of difference. Yet compared to the GT Max, I was genuinely impressed by how RayNeo’s glasses managed to feel lighter on my face despite technically being heavier on paper.

If you haven't tried a pair of AR glasses yet, there’s never been a better time to dive in now that we have both solid budget choices and feature-packed premium models to pick from. The RayNeo GT Max hits that sweet spot between capability and everyday wearability, and I can’t wait to spend more time testing them out beyond the show floor.

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College studies have changed a lot since I was there, but in some ways, it’s remained the same. Because sure, there are now local AI tools to help with your studies. However, whether it was in the early 2010s for me or 2026 for you: RAM is always the key bottleneck.

And that’s been put to the test in the current pricing crisis we find ourselves in, which gave birth to the MacBook Neo, and subsequently all the budget Windows laptop competitors. Out of all of them that’s launched, the £799 Asus Zenbook 14 is one I’m particularly excited about throwing in my rucksack!

That’s because this is a fantastic frame — definitely feels cheaper than its more expensive brother the Zenbook A14, but quite the looker and solid ergonomics. Plus the OLED screen is a real difference maker from the competition, and that Snapdragon X chip ensures zippy single-core speeds for opening apps fast.

However, it’s worth noting that the model I was given comes packed with 16GB RAM (priced at £1,199 at the time of writing). For running Windows 11 and your broader study load — a bunch of Chrome tabs, a Spotify playlist and AnythingLLM, this is enough. However, I wanted to go deeper, so I went into the bios and restricted RAM usage of Windows to 8GB.

Put simply, it’s ok-ish, but clearly only for the basics at this level. Windows 11 eats memory in a different way to macOS, and you can really feel it in some sluggish app opens and especially when you’re trying to do the classic 20+ Chrome tab study session, or the time taken to get a response from a local chatbot about your ingested coursework.

None of this is to say this is a bad laptop. Asus has taken one of my favorite Zenbooks and made it cheap — this is a great system with solid entry-level performance that outstrips the Neo, and good battery life to boot. But there’s definitely a mistaken identity in what it is and who it’s for.

That £799 model is strong for a very specific kind of studier: the ones who are focused solely on essay writing with a little bit of web research.

Until Microsoft starts optimizing memory usage (which is coming), it’s going to be tricky. No, I’d point you more towards that 16GB option as the sound investment here for not just your studies but your extracurriculars too like creating projects on CapCut or some super casual gaming on the side.

Oh and P.S. This will be launching in the U.S. We just don't know when and for how much!

Asus Zenbook 14: Cheat Sheet

• What is it? This is a budget Windows laptop — made to compete with the MacBook Neo.
• Who is it for? This is an entry-level system for the kinds of students with casual workloads.
• What does it cost? Pricing starts at £799, but the option I snagged is £1,199. No pricing has been announced for U.S., but expect it to be similar (starting from $799).
• What do we like? I’m a big fan of the design — looks premium and feels durable with solid ergonomics. And with enough memory, Snapdragon X is a good performer that slow-sips battery life.
• What don’t we like? Windows 11 is a RAM hog, which makes an 8GB capacity tricky to recommend to students.

Asus Zenbook 14: Specs

Asus Zenbook 14: The ups

So I spoke to a few students at my local university, to figure out (and replicate a various course load demands). In case you’re curious, these were history, science and media studies. The Zenbook A14 kept up with a lot more of it than I expected.

More premium than the price

For all the beef I had with the Zenbook A14 and A16 earlier this year, one thing I loved about them is the lightweight, durable design and great-feeling ergonomics. And while this Zenbook 14 doesn’t quite have that same premium-feeling ceraluminum surface, it takes enough of the A-series’ essence to be a well-built system.

It’s lightweight, feels durable enough to stash in a backpack, and comes with a nice-feeling keyboard for rapid note taking or essay writing, alongside a sizable touchpad with good click ability. Oh, and shout-out to the color finishes — I love this blue option.

Ports-wise, you’ve got everything you’d need for your standard array of accessories, and while the screen side of the clamshell can flex a bit (like the A-series laptops), the keyboard deck has very minimal flex when pushing down on it. All-in-all, this felt like a system that could keep up with the demands of college.

Good for the eyes and ears

I’ve tested a fair few of these MacBook Neo alternatives, and one place they all fall down is that college dorm job of being the central focal point of both working by day and chilling out by night. That means a good screen and speakers are a must — something that’s nice on the eyes and can fill a room with sound.

The speakers on the Zenbook 14 are surprisingly loud with zero noticeable distortion (thanks to Snapdragon Sound), which meant I could keep a room of my friends entertained with my Spotify playlist (which descended quickly into finding Vine compilations to reminisce about being young).

And let’s not forget about that 1080p OLED, which has a decent level of sharpness, a good level of brightness and mightily impressive color reproduction. Great for your work, and great for binge watching by night.

Decent performance and strong battery life

All this talk of Intel Wildcat Lake has almost made people forget about Snapdragon X — a stellar budget-end chipset that is quite the formidable foe to the A18 Pro in the Neo with better multicore processing to crunch tasks and zippy speeds across media encoding and app opens.

What this means in practice is fast program opens, decently quick hot-swapping between different apps and browser tabs, and even a little bit of light photo editing in Photoshop or CapCut edits.

It’s also strong in AI processing too when you go for the 16GB model. There’s a lot of tools out there for keeping on top of your study materials in a convenient way that enhances your learning, and with the headroom of RAM, these run zippy enough.

Finally, the battery life demands of being on campus means you can spend a lot of time away from any outlets. All-day usage is necessary, and in my battery life testing, it’s clear this will keep up with your demands.

Asus Zenbook 14: The downs

But as I got into the more intensive coursework demos here with that reduced memory profile to the 8GB baseline, I realized that the macOS and the MacBook Neo has a serious leg-up on the competition. And there’s one reason why.

Windows 11 is the problem

Yes, I said it. Microsoft is improving Windows 11 over time, but the key thing of memory utilization is still an issue that can cripple performance of that Snapdragon X chip when you try to do too much.

On 8GB, for example, I found myself being able to play a Spotify playlist, have a Google Docs tab for an essay and a few other tabs with research notes. The moment I hit the seventh tab, I started to feel a little stuttering. And then the moment I opened up AnythingLLM, it all froze up working through the tasks one by one.

It’s a sticky situation, which makes the 16GB the only real option if you’re wanting to stretch your legs a little more than the bare essentials.

Pricing can get out of hand fast

And if you do, things can spiral fast pricing-wise because of the memory crisis going on right now. That jump to 16GB with additional SSD storage is a £400 uplift, and going further causes more problems.

This is entering M5 MacBook Air territory, which becomes an issue. When you go up against the ultrabook king, you best not miss, and those pros from before come with some flaws that prove fatal.

For example, the MacBook Air (and Neo for that matter) are aluminum builds, whereas the Zenbook feels a little cheaper in the hand. The MacBook Air benefits from seriously fast Apple Silicon, but Snapdragon X can’t keep up.

The math stops mathing at a particular point.

Asus Zenbook 14: Verdict

So I find the Zenbook 14 is ideal for a very particular kind of student in very particular courses.

If you’re working in essay-centric/coursework-heavy fields with some light local AI use like transcribing lectures and processing notes, you’ll find enough here for what you need to do.

But if you’re a serious studier with multiple tabs and various apps, this is going to be an issue. I can’t deny this is a great laptop for most learners and beyond, and a breath of value fresh air (provided you only need the baseline model).

And if you fit in that category, this is a seriously good looker and good worker that comes in gorgeous color finishes.

macOS Tahoe was one of the worst updates I’ve used in years. Not since Windows Vista have I seen so many design and usability mistakes—unusual for Apple, of all companies. Long known for its reputation in design and thinking about the user first, 2025’s Tahoe update for the best Macs felt like a huge misstep. But macOS Golden Gate feels like a redemption for Tahoe’s mistakes.

I’ve owned a Mac since 2005, when the computers transitioned from PowerPC processors to Intel processors. For several years, I’ve owned an M1 Pro MacBook Pro, and it’s one of the best laptops I’ve ever owned. From its keyboard to the display, everything felt like a home run after years of strange hardware design choices, like the butterfly keyboard.

But as we get close to the iPhone 18 Pro and the rumored iPhone Ultra/Duo foldable, I’m also looking forward to finally updating my Mac to macOS Golden Gate, the newest update that fixes almost all of Tahoe’s mistakes. However, its other design changes have me wondering what comes next for the Mac. So, with rumors of a touchscreen Mac allegedly called the MacBook Ultra, here’s why I’m very tempted to upgrade when Golden Gate officially launches.

Golden Gate redeems macOS

After trying the macOS Golden Gate public beta over the summer, I was struck by how good Liquid Glass finally looks on my Mac. Tahoe showcased the new design in all the wrong ways—from bizarre layers that separated columns within windows to mismatched window sizes. In Golden Gate, that’s nonexistent, with everything looking sharp and far easier on the eye when you’re working with multiple apps on one screen.

It’s restored my faith that Apple has clearly realized what a mistake Tahoe was in its design, and whilst I’ll be upgrading my current MacBook Pro to Golden Gate once it’s out, it also feels like it’s laying the foundation for the MacBook Ultra.

For anyone unaware, this rumored Mac seems to be the opposite of the MacBook Neo. Instead of being an entry point, the MacBook Ultra seems aimed at those who want the ultimate portable Mac at a high price. Alleged features include an OLED touchscreen, a first for the Mac to accept touch input, as well as coming with M6 Pro or Ultra chips that give even better performance and battery life.

Apple silicon has been a huge leap for the Mac. It’s hard to think back to a time when an Intel MacBook Pro could barely manage 4 hours under heavy load, or struggle with games like BioShock Infinite that were then 3 years old since their PC release. Now, even in 2026, my M1 Pro MacBook Pro can still play games like Resident Evil 4 Remake and others with ease, and I rarely hear the fan whirl. So thinking about what a 5-year leap could do for my Mac gaming, alongside everything else, has me excited.

These rumored features, combined with macOS Golden Gate, make me consider the Ultra as my next Mac, since it replaces two devices in one go.

The Ultra could also be an iPad replacement

I’ve been a fan of the iPad since its 2010 debut, and whilst recent software updates, especially iPadOS 26, have made Apple’s tablet far more productive, its locked ecosystem has always made me go back to the Mac.

But there are moments when a touch-screen can work well, such as editing videos for TikTok via LumaFusion, or reading comics from my childhood. It’s why I can see these two examples, and many others, working well on a touchscreen Mac, without macOS leaving the mouse behind.

Golden Gate clearly hints towards a touchscreen Mac—from being able to slide down to refresh in Safari and Mail, to every button designed as if they’re meant to be touched by a finger. Even Siri AI lets users send an email, record a voice note, take a selfie, and more with their voice or via the Siri app. The newest macOS update looks set to be ready for the MacBook Ultra.

Outlook

When an ultra-high-end Mac seems like it will improve on what my M1 MacBook Pro offers, while replacing the use cases I’ve had for my iPad Pro for several years, it feels like the natural next step for me and how I work. Even for Mac gaming, with ways to play Windows games via Crossover or decompilations like Donkey Kong 64 or GoldenEye, the extra power thanks to the M6 architecture will be a huge step up from what I’ve been using since 2021.

So while many will be excited to own an iPhone Ultra or an iPhone 18 Pro model, I’m more excited to use the MacBook Ultra. From the much-improved macOS Golden Gate update to the OLED touchscreen, it feels like the MacBook Ultra could be one of the best Macs to use for at least another five years. If that happens, then I'll have to say goodbye to my M1 MacBook Pro.

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A picture of my children at the beach, my son playing soccer or even my entire family, smiling in front of our house are all examples of photos I've posted to social media. I know I'm not alone, considering just how often I've seen similar images highlighting the goings-on of modern lives.

But AI has created a disturbing new risk that allows the use of ordinary photos of real children like the ones I mentioned above, to be manipulated into sexual abuse imagery without the child — or their parents — ever knowing.

To be clear, this is not a theoretical threat.

332 AI-generated child sexual abuse ads slipped through

A new investigation from the Tech Transparency Project (TTP) found hundreds of ads containing AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) running across Facebook and Instagram. Researchers identified four real children whose ordinary photos had been manipulated, according to WIRED, including two teenage influencers, a preteen whose image appeared on a stock-photo site and a young member of a European royal family.

In total, TTP found 332 ads containing AI-generated child sexual abuse material, or CSAM. Most depicted a child whose photograph had been manipulated using AI to make it appear they were performing a sexual act.

The findings are an alarming reminder of how generative AI has changed the risks around sharing photos of children online. Creating convincing fake imagery no longer requires an explicit photograph in the first place. An ordinary picture can provide the raw material.

How ordinary photos become AI-generated abuse

Generative AI image tools can take an existing photograph and modify parts of it while preserving recognizable features of the person in the original.

That's what researchers say happened to several of the children identified in the Meta ads.

According to WIRED, researchers were able to trace images of four minors back to their original sources. Two were teenage influencers with public social media accounts. Another was a preteen whose photograph was available through a stock-photo website. The fourth was a young member of a European royal family.

None of those original photographs needed to contain sexual material for them to be misused.

"AI apps are making it far too easy to create realistic criminal imagery of child sexual abuse, creating the new risk of everyday photos of children being taken and transformed into sexual content," Emma Hardy, director of communications at the Internet Watch Foundation, told WIRED.

Once an ordinary image is publicly accessible, someone can potentially download it and feed it into an AI tool designed to alter photographs.

Meta's AI didn't catch hundreds of the ads

The scale of the latest investigation also shows how difficult the resulting content can be to stop.

In August, TTP researchers initially uncovered 53 ads containing child sexual abuse material across Meta's platforms. Meta subsequently said many of those ads had appeared before the company introduced new AI technology intended to improve its ability to detect violating ads when they were uploaded.

However, researchers kept finding them. In fact, TTP says it ultimately identified 332 ads containing AI-generated CSAM, with hundreds appearing after Meta had announced its improved detection technology.

That is particularly significant because these weren't simply Facebook or Instagram posts that escaped moderation. They were paid advertisements.

Meta says ads are reviewed before they're allowed to run and that automated systems play a major role in that process.

Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton told WIRED that the company does not tolerate nudify apps or child exploitation, whether the imagery involves real children or is generated by AI. Meta said bad actors deliberately attempt to evade its detection systems and that some of the videos were harder to detect because images of children appeared only briefly or were blurred.

The company said many of the ads researchers identified had already been removed, most received fewer than 200 impressions and it received less than $5,000 in payments from the ads. But researchers documented instances in which exposure increased after an ad was reported.

TTP says one ad involving a real teenager had reached four European accounts when it was reported to Meta. Several days later, when Meta removed it, the ad had reached more than 330.

The investigation shows the tools are mainstream

Researchers found ads directing people toward nearly 50 apps available through Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store. Around 300 of the roughly 350 ads examined in the broader investigation promoted AI image or video generators, according to WIRED.

Apple told WIRED that some developers initially submitted compliant versions of their apps before subsequently adding prohibited nudification capabilities. Apple said it removed 17 of 20 apps identified by researchers and took action against the remaining three, as well as seven additional apps WIRED identified.

Google said it removed all apps included in the report and suspended hundreds of other apps for violating its policies.

Still, these finding reveal a problem that extends beyond any single platform because AI can be used to create the imagery. An app store can distribute the tool used to make it. An advertising platform can then distribute ads promoting it.

Each layer may have its own safety systems, but abusive material only needs to slip through those systems once to reach users.

What to do if you find an AI-generated image of your child

If you discover sexualized AI imagery involving your child, don't repost or widely share the image in an attempt to warn others.

Instead, preserve information that can help identify where the material appeared, such as the account name, page address and other surrounding details, and report the content directly to the platform.

In the U.S., suspected child sexual exploitation can also be reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's CyberTipline.

Parents can also use NCMEC's Take It Down service, which is designed to help stop the online sharing of nude, partially nude or sexually explicit images or videos involving someone who was under 18. The system creates a digital fingerprint, or hash, from an image without requiring the image itself to be uploaded.

Since AI-generated imagery creates newer and more complicated scenarios, parents who aren't sure whether a manipulated image qualifies should still report what they've found rather than trying to determine that themselves.

The takeaway

Parents have been warned about "sharenting" and children's digital footprints for years. Sharenting is a term that combines "sharing" and "parenting" and is the practice of parents sharing images, videos and personal details about their children on social media.

Although parents can't entirely eliminate the risk of AI abuse on the images or videos they post, but reducing the number of publicly accessible photos of your children and being more selective about what you share, can reduce the amount of material available to people who might misuse it.

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I’ve been through a handful of magnetic‑switch boards over the last few months, and in that time I’ve figured out what I actually want from them — precise actuation, a clean, non‑ringy acoustic, and a weighty, stable case that keeps the sound consistent. MelGeek’s Made68 Ultra V2 is the closest to that sweet spot I’ve tested so far: the magnetic action hits the right balance of smooth and snappy, the chassis keeps resonance in check, and the overall sound leans towards deep and satisfying rather than bright or clacky.

It also looks the business, with a simple yet stylish vibe that’s undeniably aimed at gamers — its translucent keycaps and personalised lighting are testaments to that — but still manages to bring a level of refinement and precision that’d let it slip onto the desk of the average ultra‑modern professional without looking too out of place.

As someone who hardly ever uses a numpad, 75% keyboards are typically my favourite layout. However, the Made68 Ultra V2’s 65% layout doesn’t feel compromised to me — it’s compact without feeling cramped, and every key is within easy reach for smooth, accurate typing.

As for gaming, the Ultra V2 delivers all the high end features you’d expect from a keyboard with Hall effect switches, along with some sweet AI-powered lighting control options that give the board a personality all of its own.

While I can think of a couple of small additions that would make it the perfect keyboard for me, I could easily see myself using the Made68 Ultra V2 as my daily driver for years to come — here’s why.

It sounds fantastic and feels remarkably precise

The Made68 Ultra V2 I tested arrived with magnetic KOM Lite switches pre-installed, which lend the board a slightly lighter, more relaxed character. They land in a good middle-ground between creamy and snappy, leaning more towards a brighter sound than a deep thick one. The magnetic action feels smooth and predictable, with switches that provide a consistent, uniform press across the layout. That said, there’s no plasticky clack — just a clean, crispy sound that’s easy to settle into.

A big part of that comes down to MelGeek’s 6‑way silicone dampening and the use of a silicone gasket mount. I prefer it to the “foam everywhere” approach that some keyboards employ — the board feels cushioned without being mushy, and the silicone layers do a great job of minimising resonance. You get a firm, planted bottom‑out rather than a soft bounce, and the sound stays tight even when you’re typing furiously.

Compared to some of the creamier magnetic boards out there, the Made68 Ultra V2 is more focused on a clean, consistent feel. I recently tested GravaStar’s Mercury V60 Pro, and while I did prefer that keyboard’s deeper, chocolatey thock, the Ultra V2’s calmer, more controlled tone is admittedly easier to live with day‑to‑day — and far less distracting to those around you.

Exceptional gaming performance

As great as the Made68 Ultra V2 is for typing, it truly soars for gaming. Its magnetic switches provide adjustable actuation and rapid trigger functionality as expected, and you can really dial them into your ideal settings using MelGeek’s browser-based Hive 2.0 software. You can drop actuation right down to 0.1mm for quick reactions or push it higher if you prefer a firmer, more deliberate press. The board tracks movement with 0.01mm precision, so even tiny lifts or taps register straight away.

Rapid Trigger is just as sharp. Keys reset the moment you lift them, even slightly, thanks to an adjustable RT range that goes all the way down to 0.01mm. At those extreme low settings it can feel a bit too sensitive — you’ll occasionally fire an input just by brushing a key or shifting your hand. Thankfully, you can tailor it to your liking — in my experience, bumping actuation or RT up even a fraction gives you a more controlled feel without losing the speed that makes magnetic switches great for fast‑paced games.

Latency is properly low, with 8,000Hz polling, a 16,000Hz scan rate, and a listed 0.125ms response time. In practice, the board keeps up whether you’re flicking through menus or right in the thick of a battle, instantly responding to your inputs in a clean, predictable manner.

AI-powered lighting and personalisation

You can take personalisation even further with the hardware itself. The Ultra V2’s light bar can be customised to match whatever theme you’re running, though its purple tint does prevent certain colours from showing as intended. MelGeek also sells 3D‑printed light guide panels, which (in theory) let you shape how the RGB spreads across the sides of the case, as well as swappable side panels which can be easily screwed on, though both products have been sold out on MelGeek’s website for as long as I’ve been testing the Ultra V2.

The board’s AI‑powered lighting layer sits over the top of the usual RGB controls, adding a bit of smarts without turning the whole thing into a light show. Instead of cycling through random effects, it reacts to what you’re doing and keeps the lighting feeling relevant rather than noisy. In practice, it tends to make small, practical adjustments as you move between tasks or games, giving the keyboard a sense of personality without demanding constant tinkering.

Hive 2.0 gives you solid control — per‑key colours, simple dynamic effects, macros, profiles and all the usual tuning options are there, even if the lighting system itself is still pretty limited compared to what the hardware could do. You can set up game‑specific profiles (and cycle through them using a physical ‘mode’ button underneath the lightbar on the right side), adjust brightness curves or just keep things simple with a single clean theme, and once you’ve saved a profile the board switches between them quickly and reliably. If you want more traditional control of the Ultra V2’s RGB, Hive 2.0 handles that too, though it’s a bit more basic than competing software, with only per‑key static lighting and no support for layered or multi‑zone effects.

Real‑Time Game Sync (VCT) is the arguably the flashiest part of the package, but it’s handled with a light touch. Instead of blasting the whole board with rainbow effects, it reacts to in‑game events, like health changes or the use of skills and abilities, making your game feel more immersive without pulling your eyes off the screen.

Two small misses

On a board that otherwise nails fundamentals, there are two design choices that stand out as avoidable compromises. First, there’s no dedicated volume knob or rocker. Once you’ve used a physical control, its absence sticks out straight away. Sure, you can bump the volume up or down by holding Fn and tapping the arrow keys, but I can’t imagine anyone on this blue planet choosing that over a simple knob — it’s one of those small conveniences that matters more than you expect, especially when you need to drop the volume in a hurry.

Second, the stock transparent keycaps are a mixed bag. They look distinctive, but they don’t diffuse RGB softly — the LEDs appear more direct and clinical than the warm glow you get with thicker, opaque PBT caps. On top of that, the transparency and dark purple text can make the keys harder to read if you do ever need to look down. And while I love how the Ultra V2 sounds, the clear caps don’t help the board reach its full potential — I haven’t had a chance to test it myself, but I bet that swapping to a denser PBT set will deepen and tighten the sound even further than it already is.

The Made68 Ultra V2 is a refined, well‑built keyboard that prioritises consistent feel, controlled acoustics and high-level gaming precision. It may not be the loudest or most characterful option, but it has consistently delivered one of the most comfortable and dependable typing experiences I’ve had recently. If you value typing comfort, stability and a mature build, it’s worth considering — just be prepared to use shortcuts for volume control or different keycaps if those two omissions matter to you.

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• Corsair’s Vanguard Pro 96 keyboard has convinced me that magnetic switches aren’t just hype

Labor Day is not only the unofficial end of summer, but it's also an excellent time to upgrade your laptop or desktop. Now that Dell's Labor Day Sale is live, I'm spotting a handful of laptop deals on our favorite gaming rigs, monitors, and more.

If you're looking for a last-minute back to school laptop, my colleague and Tom's Guide senior computing writer Tony Polanco says you can't go wrong with the new XPS 13 for $699. (Note: Students can get it for $599, which is cheaper than the competing $699 MacBook Neo).

The base XPS 13 packs a 13.4-inch 2.5K (2560 x 1600) 120Hz touch display, Core 5-320 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. If you can, I recommend upgrading the RAM to 16GB for $899 total ($799 for students). But either way, you're getting an excellent machine for the price.

I'm also a big fan of the Alienware 16 Aurora w/ RTX 5050 for $1,099. That entry-level RTX 5050 should offer enough power for casual PC gamers. It's accompanied by a 16-inch WQXGA 120Hz display, Core 7-240H CPU, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD.

Below I've rounded up my favorite Dell Labor Day sales. For more discounts and recommendations, check out our Labor Day sales guide and our Dell coupon codes page.

Quick Links

• shop the entire Dell sale
• Monitors: deals from $94
• Laptops: deals from $599
• Desktops: deals from $699
• Alienware: deals from $1,099
• Alienware 32" Gaming Monitor: was $299 now $249
• Dell 16: was $1,099 now $939
• Alienware 16 Aurora w/ RTX 5050: was $1,999 now $1,099
• Dell 14 Plus: was $1,579 now $1,399

Louis' Top Picks

Laptops

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MSI has updated its Roamii BE Lite mesh platform for peak performance with the Roamii BE Pro by employing the 6GHz transmission band and many of Wi-Fi 7’s best tricks to speed the flow of data. Its nanocarbon coated heat fins keep the units from overheating while the BE Pro ups the mesh hardware’s top speed and network security stance. The mesh set comes with the bonus of well-designed wall brackets for easy mounting.

Unfortunately, you can only get Romai BE Pro units, like Noah’s ark, two at a time. But, at half the price of other tri-band Wi-Fi 7 mesh gear, the Roamii BE Pro is a cheap thrill that has the power to turn a home into a Wi-Fi palace.

My MSI Roami BE Pro review will help you decide if this is the best mesh Wi-Fi system for your home along with one of the best Wi-Fi 7 routers for those who haven’t upgraded to the latest wireless standard yet.

MSI Roamii BE Pro review: Pricing and availability

Following on the heels of the inexpensive dual-band Roamii BE Lite, MSI’s tri-band Roamii BE Pro stays true to its predecessor’s value-oriented roots but isn’t available on its own or in a three-pack. MSI sells $280 Roamii BE Pro two-packs versus the Roamii BE Lite’s $200. A single Netgear Orbi 770 node sells for $300.

The Roamii BE Pro pair is rated to cover 6,000 square feet, about equal with the Orbi 770 pair’s 5,500 square feet.

MSI Roamii BE Pro review: Design

In the spirit of creative destruction, MSI has rewritten its Wi-Fi rulebook with its economical Roamii BE Pro mesh kit. At half what competitors’ charge for mesh units, the Roamii BE Pro outdoes the BE Lite’s “meh” performance with higher data speeds, extra range and handy wall brackets.

At 9.9 x 4.7 x 4.3 inches, the white triangular Roamii BE Pro towers are slightly taller than the BE Lite units but smaller than the bulbous Orbi 770 oval devices. The big “7” inscribed on its side describes its Wi-Fi rating and MSI provides matching plastic wall brackets that make the units seem to float in space.

For most, the Roamii BE Pro will be well connected with a 2.5 Gbps input and three 2.5 Gbps downstream wired networking connections. The well-networked among us might miss an additional port, though. Still, the Roamii BE Pro’s USB Type A port can make the contents of a storage device available across a network; the Orbi 770 can’t do this. Neither the BE Pro nor Orbi 770 can provide internet backup service with a mobile phone during a broadband blackout, something several Asus routers do.

There’s a small LED that glows white up front when online, but flashes if there’s a connection problem and turns orange when offline. The LEDs underneath can show any of 10 flashy patterns but offer nothing to indicate performance. Thankfully, it can be turned off.

Based on Qualcomm’s IPQ5322 Wi-Fi 7 platform, the system’s 1.5GHz quadcore processor can connect 200 devices – overkill for the typical digital household. Its six internal antennas produce a spherical transmission pattern to connect over the 2.4, 5.0- and 6GHz bands for a theoretical throughput of 10.975 Gbps, just about matching the Orbi 770’s potential.

The mesh devices have 320MHz data channels, 4K Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) and Multi-Link Operations (MLO) but Automated Frequency Control (AFC) for maximizing its 6GHz transmission strength. Its optimized passive cooling uses ultra-efficient black nanocarbon-coated heat sinks that pull heat away from its components. The top vent hit a peak temperature of 108 degrees Fahrenheit during testing.

The Roamii BE Pro can protect as a Virtual Private Network server. Plus, MSI’s FortiSecu online defenses use Trend Micro software, for everything from parental control software to defenses against recent exploits. Unlike competitors, there are no subscription fees for updates.

Its three-year warranty beats mesh sets at double its price and MSI promises personalized technical support for the product’s life, not just 90-days. The support site includes new firmware and MSI’s 76-page manual to help with the VPN server.

MSI Roamii BE Pro review: Performance

A big step up from the MSI Roamii BE Lite, the BE Pro pair still couldn’t fill my 3,500 square foot home with Wi-Fi. Likely a third (and obligatory fourth) unit would have helped. Based on results from Keysight’s IxChariot networking benchmark set to mimic 10 data-hungry users and an HP Envy X360 test machine, the Roamii BE Pro was surprisingly powerful.

With 15 feet of Cat 7 cabling connecting the router and test system, the benchmark reading of 3.711 Gbps makes it perfect for those with multi-gig data plans. It was short of the TP-Link Archer GE800 at 4.449 Gbps of wired throughput, however. Its 2.299 Gbps close-up Wi-Fi test result was just as impressive and 20% ahead of the more expensive Orbi 770’s 1.920 Gbps.

At the real-world wireless distance of 15 feet, the Roamii BE Pro delivered 1.885 Gbps, nearly double the BE Lite’s 970.3 Mbps but equivalent to the eero Pro 7 at 1.905 Gbps. Bottom line: it should satisfy a data-hungry connected family.

Its 815.2 Mbps of throughput at 50 feet was among the best in class and only outdone by the eero Pro 7’s 994.4 Mbps. At 75 feet, the Roamii BE Pro moved 197.9 Mbps, putting it roughly level with the Orbi 770’s 199.2 Mbps but behind the eero Pro 7’s 234.7 Mbps.

At the terminal distance of 90 feet, it registered 66.3 Mbps, leading the field, including mesh kits costing twice as much. It performed well on our wall penetration test where the signal is sent across a 25-foot room and through a wall. The Roamii BE Pro moved 1.280 Mbps, just off the Orbi 770’s 1.318 Gbps.

With a range of 110 feet, it is a mesh set that should fill a modest sized home with fast data and linked well with its mesh node set up a floor above the host router. With the test system 40 feet away, the network moved 642.0 Mbps, handily beating the Orbi 770’s 404.4 Mbps.

Over two weeks of daily use, the Roamii BE Pro doled out data for 4K video, gaming, heavy downloads and everyday emails. Along the way, the router and node used 9.4 and 8.6 watts, translating into an annual electricity bill of $27.60 if they’re left on 24/7 and you pay the national average electricity of 17.5 cents per kilowatt hour. It’s spot on with the eero Pro 7’s $27.90 under the same conditions.

MSI Roamii BE Pro review: Setup

Out of the box, the Roamii BE Pro units are identical. I picked one as the host router and the other as the network’s node and set them up using MSI’s Router 2.0 app with my Samsung Galaxy S25 phone; there are versions for both iOS and Android. Alternatively, I could have set it up using “msirouter.login” and a browser.

After snapping the QR code underneath, I added my network name, admin password and answered two challenge questions. I was in, added the node upstairs and ran a firmware update. I was done in 15 minutes.

Roamii BE Pro review: Configuration

Like the installation, monitoring and configuration changes can be done through the app or the device’s browser interface. The app’s Dashboard screen shows how many Roamii devices are online, up- and download speeds and offers a WiFi Share QR code for a trusted friend or if you rent out a property.

Below are tabs for Security and Parental while Advanced includes LED Management for selecting the lighting effect or turning it off. There’s no brightness control, though.

The Roamii BE Pro’s similar browser-based dashboard has IP details, number of clients and processor usage gauge. Its traffic analyzer is great for viewing the data flow.

MSI Roamii BE Pro review: Verdict

MSI’s Roamii BE Pro takes a big networking step forward with a sharp design aesthetic and its ability to efficiently move data around a small to midsized house. Its security is thorough and the Roamii BE Pro’s 2.5 Gbps networking connections should satisfy most digital families, although a fourth port would have been appreciated.

With performance that led the pack at times, it lacks Automated Frequency Control to push this further. The Roamii BE Pro’s stratospheric throughput is all the more amazing considering its down-to-earth price. At $280 for two Roamii BE Pro devices, it’s not a bad idea to get an extra two-pack and have nodes to fill in dead zones. Afterall, it’s cheap enough.

For eight grueling months leading up to the end of last year, engineers from Microsoft and Nvidia worked side by side from the silicon bootstrap level upward. And the goal? Making Windows 11 play nice with an unprecedented architectural shift: an Arm-based CPU sharing massive unified memory with a desktop-class Nvidia RTX GPU.

And then, the first RTX Spark machine finally booted. The red LED lit up, and as Microsoft's Principal Product Manager, Peter Dawoud, recalls it: “half of Santa Clara was jumping.” This was a huge undertaking, but now the real work begins: fine-tuning everything.

RTX Spark isn’t just another laptop sticker; it pushed Microsoft to fundamentally overhaul five foundational subsystems inside Windows 11 to bridge the gap between low-power Arm efficiency, top-tier AAA gaming, and local agentic AI.

I spoke to Dawoud about the software underpinning Team Green’s hardware because, as he said, “Windows kind of had to get all these subsystems right all at the same time, so that you can enjoy an RTX Spark device and take the most advantage out of it.”

A Prism Emulator overhaul

Take it from someone who has watched the many attempts to run Windows on ARM chips (and covered the Snapdragon X Elite launch): emulation has always had an Achilles’ heel when it comes to gaming: micro-stuttering and frame pacing.

“When you're playing video games, it's not just about your average FPS. 1% lows, stuttering is really critical, and your CPU actually plays a very big role in stuttering control,” Dawoud explained.

While average frame rates look acceptable, CPU timing can get erratic when you try to emulate a game and play it at the same time, which can make fast-paced gaming feel jerky. When somebody buys an Nvidia laptop in October, the chances are likely that they will want to play games on it — it’s an RTX GPU after all.

So work needed to be done, and Microsoft has overhauled the Prism emulation layer for RTX Spark’s pipelines. By shoring up how tasks are assigned to each of the CPU’s threads, frame rates are much more stable in my testing, and the improvement over past versions is night and day.

UI polish & the agentic future

If you’re going to make what I believe could be a MacBook Pro killer, you need to make sure the UI is ready for power users as well as casual users. And the mission in Dawoud’s mind to do this is clear: “make the OS kind of get out of the way, for you to do the work that you want to do.”

Microsoft is cleaning up Windows 11 for this kind of user: native taskbar customization, customizable notifications, killing unwanted widgets, and remembering displays you connect to—to preserve specific screen layout settings.

Then we turn our attention to the “reinvent the PC” part of the RTX Spark, which comes down to local agentic AI. I saw a demo of Hermes Agent connected to a user’s Google account that acted like his personal chief of staff: setting an agenda for the day, drafting email responses in Gmail, and updating a project tracker in Google Docs. And it all happened on-device without a single bit of cloud AI.

But without guardrails, this could get scary. “Having an agent that you can't control is probably the thing you don't want,” he stated. So the answer is Microsoft Extension Containers (MXC) — isolated sandboxes for your local models to act across your desktop securely without sensitive system control leaking.

Killing OEM bloatware

It’s always been a dream of mine to have a laptop that doesn’t come packed with OEM-specific power management software or an antivirus scanner. While this may not fix the latter, it goes a long way toward killing the need for the former.

Dawoud emphasized the need to eliminate the clunky tug-of-war between Windows and external software. Currently, there are several ways to tweak power management across different apps, but RTX Spark uses the open-source Modern Power and Thermal Framework—letting Windows natively control all thermal and power tuning.

“Users, when they want to set the best performance, they can do it in Windows, and they'll know that the OEM's tuning for best performance has now been set,” he said. “They don't need to go to another app and be like, 'Okay, is that app saying good performance and Windows is saying good performance at the same time?'”

This also helps these laptops maintain the same performance on and off the charger.

The UMA secret

On paper, a Unified Memory Architecture (UMA) sounds great — a big pool for both the CPU and monstrous GPU to dip into at leisure, and take however much (or little) they need. But in reality, CPUs and GPUs digest memory completely differently.

CPUs crave small memory chunks (4-kilobyte pages) to distribute tasks across their many cores. They take a pizza, pull all the ingredients off of it, and share them around. GPUs, however, take that entire pizza, fold it in half, and eat it taco-style. They need massive blocks (up to 2-megabyte pages) to plow through parallel 3D rendering or AI tasks.

“RTX Spark has a very powerful GPU, so making sure that we give it as much memory as possible when it needs it, but also give it the right page sizes, is really critical,” Dawoud commented.

So Microsoft's fix is to add variable page sizing directly to the memory manager. This is a bit complex, but it means Windows can dynamically read the pages of data flowing through and send them to the right places—the 2MB to the GPU and 4KB to the CPU simultaneously.

“Optimizing that is the way you can weaponize the entire stack to get the most performance out of it,” He emphasized.

Taming Nvidia’s custom CPU cores

Unlike Qualcomm’s standardized Snapdragon X chips, Nvidia’s 18- and 20-core Grace CPUs use a proprietary cluster arrangement of performance and efficiency cores to maximize speed while delivering all-day battery life.

Dawoud explained that Nvidia's core configuration is entirely unique, and “previous Arm cores that have run on Windows are not like that.”

Now, historically, supporting an exotic CPU layout required rewriting the entire kernel underpinning Windows — a risky move for sure. But Windows 11 has a new profiling stack that can tune itself dynamically on the fly, meaning the scheduler that throws tasks everywhere can adapt to Nvidia’s unique chip here without breaking legacy compatibility.

The PC has finally grown up

The 14-year partnership between Microsoft and Nvidia finally feels like it is paying off. Dawoud pointed out that this wasn't a sudden alliance — the journey started over a decade ago with the Tegra-powered Surface RT.

But this specific launch represents a fundamental shift in how the two giants collaborate. By letting Microsoft engineers rebuild the OS from the silicon bootstrap level upward, RTX Spark gave Windows the foundation it needed to finally make Arm-based PC gaming a reality.

Microsoft and Nvidia haven’t just bolted a GPU onto an Arm processor; they’ve rewritten the rulebook beneath the surface. This is a huge moment for both companies, and if Windows on Arm succeeds where previous attempts faltered, it will all be traced back to that one moment Microsoft spent eight agonizing months building the foundation to make it feel effortless.

More from Tom's Guide

• I held the Asus ProArt P14 next to my MacBook Pro 14 — and Apple should be genuinely terrified of Nvidia’s RTX Spark
• I tested Acer's wild Project DualPlay Mini — and it's a gaming handheld and laptop in one gadget
• I wanted to hate Nvidia’s DLSS 5 ‘AI filter’ — but the real DLSS 5 is photorealistic black magic

So while NBA 2K27 is officially the first game to launch with Nvidia’s newly launched DLSS 5, you’ve probably already seen it pop up in hundreds of more games than that. And I’ll say it again just like I said it before — in photorealistic games, it’s fantastic. But If you venture out of that into anything more stylized, it’s going to look weird.

That’s why it makes the world of sense in 2K27, but during my hands-on testing with my Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (armed with an RTX 5070 Ti), I noticed something bizarre. The moment I entered a menu or triggered a replay, it suddenly felt like it was trudging through molasses.

I dug into the raw telemetry data to figure out what was going on, and what I found completely changed my understanding of Nvidia’s “3D-guided neural rendering.” That intensive new graphics pipeline of DLSS 5 may indeed be a graphical revolution — but on my humble laptop (and lower end desktops), I get the sense Frame Generation is a requirement to make it playable.

The laptop I’m playing on

I’m seeing a lot of people test it on massive desktop rigs. I’ll of course get round to doing this when I’m not on my honeymoon (my wife will kill me if I started benchmarking DLSS 5 in Cancun), but first I wanted to show you some numbers on something that isn’t really being covered here — my Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop.

Nvidia’s been talking about how the model running this mode of neural rendering has been made super efficient over the past few months. In fact, when it first debuted, it ran on a separate RTX 5090 desktop GPU; whereas now, it’s able to run on a single card with the game.

So let’s give it a go in a notebook with a lower power level running through those graphics.

By the numbers

To figure out why the game was suddenly stuttering, I ran the telemetry on three different game states with DLSS 5 turned on and off. And as you can see, while the gameplay numbers are very close matching, elsewhere, the difference is pretty significant.

In fact, this kind of lines up with PC Gamer’s report of a 50-60% drop in performance. So what’s going on here? Let’s talk about it.

The heavy cost of the transformer

So why does turning off the new tech triple frame rate in menus and replays? Because DLSS 5 is not just an upscale filter. It is a highly complex transformer model that interacts with the on-screen geometry and injects neural rendering.

Speaking to Nvidia, it’s clear that this AI pipeline is a heavy one, and the answer to why you don’t see that same impact in gameplay is a simple one: Frame Generation.

During live gameplay, I engaged the 6x Frame Generation multiplier to take that slower neurally rendered base and fill the gaps. However, developers typically disable frame gen during static menus, UI-heavy pause screens or camera-cut replays.

You can see how much this first iteration of DLSS 5 is sweating the system by looking at a couple of factors in the gameplay. Yes, the framerate is barely touched, but the 1% Lows takes a dip and the latency is upped quite drastically, as well as the GPU utilization spiking.

In a controller-centric game like NBA 2K27, that’s not necessarily a noticeable hit, but I can imagine that when this in its current form is moved to games that require faster inputs with a keyboard and mouse, it could become more apparent.

Take away the prop of frame generation in menus, and you see the DLSS 5 penalty more realistically on an RTX 5070 Ti laptop GPU.

But it looks incredible

Like I said in my first impressions, when faced with photorealistic graphics, DLSS 5 is undeniably impressive. There is one very specific takeaway when I looked at these “before and after” pairs of screen captures: the core game look is preserved impressively.

DLSS 5 does a flawless job of preserving the game’s visual integrity. The shots of Jalen Brunson and Victor Wembanyama show off the micro-details on the skin and the way the sweat catches the harsh stadium lighting. The upscaler isn’t adding any aggressive smoothing or plastic-looking artifacts — it’s remarkably lifelike.

Then there’s the fabric and material textures. Brunson’s Knicks jersey and the fabric of the couch in the cutscene get an upgrade to show off the stitching more with high-resolution clarity, and without any noticeable AI-induced blurring.

The lighting reacts to on-screen characters more realistically, there isn’t any noticeable AI “fizzing” or ghosting around finer textures like hair — something upscalers have had problems with in the past.

Is this a frame-generated future?

DLSS 5 integration proved to me that the uncanny valley is dead, but it also proves that native frame rates are on their way out with it.

Nvidia themselves keep saying that Moore’s law is dead, and getting crafty with AI is what will bridge that generational gap. That threshold has been crossed — photorealism is getting too heavy for high-end silicon to render natively.

And DLSS 5 proves that future of photorealism isn’t just about rendering better pixels; it’s about accepting that a good chunk of the frames you see on your screen aren’t technically going to be “real” at all.

We’ve been coming to this moment in the PC gaming space for a while now, and it’s also happening on consoles too.

And personally, I have no problem with it if it looks this good — provided it’s used the right way (such as in photorealistic games).

More from Tom's Guide

• Best of IFA 2026: We found the 26 top new gadgets
• I held the Asus ProArt P14 next to my MacBook Pro 14 — and Apple should be genuinely terrified of Nvidia’s RTX Spark
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Despite how hard I try, I always end up bringing too many gadgets when I travel. With a transforming device like Lenovo’s new Project Swan, though, those days may be done for good.

Alongside one of the best laptops, I often pack a portable monitor for those times when I need extra screen real estate. This setup has served me well in the past, but between chargers, power banks, and cables, my tech bag gets unwieldy fast. In fact, on my last trip to Taiwan for Computex, my carry-on ended up weighing more than my checked bag.

At IFA 2026, Lenovo unveiled two new concept laptops. While Project AeroBlade was remarkably thin and light, Project Swan transforms from a compact 14-inch laptop into a 17-inch workstation with the push of a button. We saw a similar horizontal expansion mechanic with the company’s Legion Pro Rollable concept back at CES, but that machine was built strictly for gaming.

Now, Lenovo is taking that same core idea — using a streamlined motor array — and tailoring it to a business laptop. Here is everything you need to know about Project Swan, and why it could mark the end of portable monitors (if you’re willing to pay up, of course).

Wider but not unwieldy

With its screen retracted, Project Swan looks like a standard, highly portable 14-inch notebook weighing about 3.5 pounds. While that’s slightly on the heavy side for a 14-inch laptop, keep in mind that this is a concept — and having it in your bag means leaving a secondary display at home.

The idea is to give mobile power users a workspace that expands only when required. You can comfortably use the 14-inch screen on a cramped airplane tray table, then expand the display once you get to your hotel desk or a coffee shop.

While full internal specs haven't been released yet, the physical layout includes two side-mounted USB-C ports and a headphone jack. A rear USB-C port handles charging, flanked by a tiny LED status indicator. Despite housing a rolling screen assembly, the chassis stays surprisingly trim at 17.9mm (0.7 inches).

As with the AeroBlade concept, you get Lenovo’s signature keyboard with generous key travel, paired with a spacious trackpad. Toggling between retracted and expanded modes is effortless: just tap the Insert key, and the laptop’s motors handle the rest.

Fully extended, the display rolls out into a wider 16:9 layout. That extra horizontal space is built for running two full apps side-by-side. As someone who writes with dual windows open, even on a 16-inch MacBook Pro, that added horizontal space would make an immediate difference.

The second screen's swan song?

I still catch myself wishing Project Swan rolled out even further. As someone who uses an ultrawide monitor at home, stretching out to a full 21:9 aspect ratio to fit two uncompressed, full-sized browser windows side-by-side would be the dream.

Even as a 16:9 expansion, having a single laptop that stretches on demand feels like the ideal solution for business travelers who hate setting up an external monitor. I’ve tried solving this issue with display glasses connected to a mini PC, but even a pair of the best smart glasses can lead to eye fatigue over a long workday.

Although Project Swan is technically a concept right now, I wouldn't be surprised to see a retail version hit the market relatively soon. Unlike companies that showcase flashy concepts never meant for production, Lenovo actually ships them. Case in point: their vertical rollable concept at CES eventually made its way to store shelves as the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable.

If Project Swan makes the jump to a retail product, it will undoubtedly carry a steep price tag. But for business travelers who want maximum screen real estate without pulling extra gear out of their bag at airport security, it might be worth every penny.

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• Best of IFA 2026: We found the 26 top new gadgets
• This tiny AI box could save me from upgrading my perfectly good laptop
• Best laptops of IFA 2026: Wild colors, ultrathin designs and rollable displays

There's been a sudden surge of AI agents that can help you perform tasks on your PC, even while you're away. You've probably heard about tools like OpenClaw, which can run autonomously on your behalf. But one of the problems with running these kinds of agents locally is that they often require plenty of hardware resources to function properly.

I'm not someone who changes laptops every year. I still use a MacBook Air M3 from 2023, and I'll probably continue using it until it gives up on me, which hopefully won't be for another five to seven years. But that also means my laptop isn't necessarily built for running powerful local AI agents, and upgrading my entire computer just for that doesn't make much sense.

Well, for people like me, Violoop might have an interesting solution. The company has just showcased its new hardware AI agent at IFA 2026, and unlike software agents that run directly on your laptop, use its resources, and potentially drain more battery, Violoop is a separate device that connects to your computer and handles much of the AI processing itself.

Similar to software-based agents, Violoop is screen-aware. It can understand what's happening on your display and help perform tasks based on that context. For example, if someone asks you to send them an address, Violoop can pull up the relevant information and fill it in for you. If you're looking at a long PDF that you don't have time to read, you can ask it to summarize the document instead.

The idea is that the device gradually understands you better the more you use it. Violoop builds what the company calls a continuous memory graph, which learns about your workflows, preferences, and patterns over time so the agent has more context when you're asking it to do something.

Of course, having an AI constantly looking at what's on your screen and building a memory around what you do immediately raises some privacy questions. Violoop says it has taken a local-first approach here. Screen data is processed directly on the device and, according to the company, is never transmitted to the cloud.

Inside, there's an 8-billion-parameter local AI model with 26 TOPS of on-device AI performance handling these tasks. When Violoop does need to use the cloud, the company says it sends "only the information necessary" to complete the task, while your screen itself is never streamed.

There's also a dedicated STM32H563 security processor for handling approvals around sensitive tasks. The company says you'll be able to connect your preferred AI services, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and others.

The hardware itself is also pretty interesting. There's a small display on the front showing things like the time and what the AI agent is currently doing. The whole thing almost looks like a tiny old-school computer monitor sitting next to your laptop, which I actually quite like.

One thing worth noting is that Violoop isn't powered directly through your laptop's USB-C port. It requires its own external power source. Around the back, you'll find three connections: USB-C, HDMI, and a dedicated power input.

There's also a physical button on top that acts as a hardware-level approval key. When the agent wants to perform a sensitive action or something that involves multiple steps, you can physically press the button to approve it rather than letting the AI simply go ahead on its own.

Perhaps the most interesting part for me is that Violoop isn't tied to one operating system. The company says it works with both Windows and macOS, and setup is supposed to be largely plug-and-play. At least, that's what Violoop tells me.

Violoop is launching on Kickstarter on September 15, 2026, with an introductory price of $399. The company expects to begin shipping in mid-October, after which the device is expected to be more widely available for $799.

More from Tom's Guide

• Best laptops of IFA 2026: Wild colors, ultrathin designs and rollable displays
• I tried Acer's new 7-inch gaming handheld at IFA 2026 — this might be the sweet spot
• I used Dell's latest MacBook Neo rival — and I'm not complaining about having another one

The new Alienware 16 Area-51 gaming laptop is largely a refresh of last year’s model, but it includes the one feature I wanted: a glare-free OLED panel. Toss in the latest Intel and Nvidia components, along with the otherworldly design, and you have one of the best gaming laptops on the market.

As with 2025’s Alienware 16 Area-51, this gaming laptop has serious flair, thanks to the Liquid Teal finish on the anodized aluminum chassis, which gives it a dark, iridescent sheen that shifts colors under different lighting conditions. The Gorilla Glass window on the bottom lets you see the internal components, while the RGB lighting enhances the laptop’s otherworldly appearance.

You can configure the Alienware 16 Area-51 (from $2,529, $3829 as tested) with up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus Arrow Lake Refresh CPU, an Nvidia RTX 5090 GPU, 64GB of RAM, and 12TB of SSD storage. My review unit, with its RTX 5080, Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus, and 32GB of RAM, had no issue handling even the most demanding PC games.

The star of the show is the new OLED panel, which provides rich contrast between dark and light elements. The anti-glare does rob the display of some of its luster, but the bright HDR and vibrant colors make up for that. You won’t complain much given how beautiful games look on this 16-inch 240Hz display.

While this laptop is still too bulky for my liking and has worse battery life than the previous model, this is undeniably a powerful gaming laptop with a fetching design like no other. If you have the cash for this beast, you won’t be disappointed. Find out more in my full review of the Alienware 16 Area-51 (2026).

Alienware 16 Area-51 (2026) review: Cheat sheet

• What was it? The Alienware 16 Area-51 is a high-end gaming laptop.
• Who is it for? The Alienware 16 Area-51 is for hardcore gamers who want a machine that can easily play graphically demanding modern games and look good doing it.
• What does it cost? The Alienware 16 Area-51 starts at $2,529 on Dell’s website at the time of writing. This configuration has an Intel Core Ultra 7 270HX Plus CPU, an Nvidia RTX 5060 GPU, 16GB of RAM, and 1TB of SSD storage.
• What do we like? We like the futuristic design, killer performance, and stunning OLED panel.
• What don’t we like? We don’t like the laptop’s bulkiness and poor(er) battery life.

Alienware 16 Area-51 (2026) review: Specs

Alienware 16 Area-51 (2026) review: The ups

The Alienware 16 Area-51 finally features an OLED panel while retaining the best aspects of its predecessor, including the eye-catching design, monstrous performance, and mesmerizing RGB lighting.

Futuristic design

Alienware didn’t change the design here, which is good, since this is still one of the most distinctive gaming laptops on the market. The rounded corners, Liquid Teal finish and RGB lighting on the keyboard deck make you feel like you’re using a laptop from the future. The smooth, sturdy aluminum chassis also feels good to touch and hold.

The model I reviewed came with a Cherry MX ultra-low-profile mechanical keyboard. Thanks to that, I had a great experience typing, as the keys are clicky and have a short travel distance. The touchpad is still relatively small, but it didn’t ruin my flow. I also like that the spacious keyboard deck gave my hands plenty of room to move.

You’ll find the lion’s share of the laptop’s ports on the back, with the 3.5mm headphone jack and an SD card slot located on the left-hand side. There’s a good selection of ports, including three USB-A, two USB-C, and an HDMI port. It’s not always easy to connect and reconnect peripherals when the laptop’s lid is open, but if you always keep everything connected, then it shouldn’t be an issue.

Powerful gaming performance

The Alienware 16 Area-51 I reviewed is purpose-built for high-end gaming performance, thanks to powerful components such as its Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX CPU, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 laptop GPU, and 32GB of RAM. If you want to play games at native resolution with high graphics settings, you won’t be disappointed.

At native resolution and default graphics settings, with frame generation disabled and the laptop’s performance mode enabled, I got Cyberpunk 2077 to generally run at around 110 frames per second. This includes both walking and driving. Frame rates dipped into the low 90s in some of the denser downtown areas, but it’s hard to complain about a game running at 90 fps.

Using a game’s built-in benchmarking tool, we saw impressive results when we tested the laptop in our lab. At native resolution and maximum graphical settings, with the laptop’s performance mode disabled, Cyberpunk 2077 ran at 38 fps—certainly lower than when I ran it with performance mode on and at default graphics settings. Other titles, such as Assassin’s Creed Shadows and Doom: The Dark Ages, ran much better under these same conditions.

The Alienware 16 Area-51 also fared well against competing laptops with better specs. This includes the Razer Blade 16, which has a more powerful RTX 5090 GPU, and the Asus Zephyrus G16, which has the same CPU and GPU but double the RAM.

Even with frame-boosting DLSS disabled, you can still enjoy extremely high frame rates with performance mode enabled and medium-to-high graphics settings. You’ll get fantastic performance out of the box thanks to the Alienware 16’s powerful components.

Vivid OLED display

This is the big update for the Alienware 16 Area-51, and it’s a welcome one, as the lack of an OLED panel on last year’s model was one of its few setbacks. Now, games look as glorious as they perform, making the overall experience even better.

A game like Cyberpunk 2077 literally shines on this 16-inch OLED panel. The contrast between dark and light elements helps the colorful neon signs and holograms really pop out during the in-game night cycle. The scorching sun during the day is also impressive, with dark shadows contrasting nicely against the daylight.

The model I reviewed has an anti-glare screen that effectively reduces glare from light sources. While that’s a plus, it can also make the overall image look less vibrant than on a glossy screen. This is a minor setback, and one I can overlook since I’d rather have an anti-glare screen than not.

How did the Alienware 16’s display perform in our lab tests? As you can see above, it has strong color reproduction (sRGB and DCI-P3) and solid color accuracy (Delta-E). Hues are somewhat oversaturated, which benefits games like Cyberpunk 2077. SDR and HDR brightness are also good for an OLED panel.

Games run buttery smooth thanks to the fast 240Hz refresh rate. I didn’t encounter any stuttering or flickering during testing. The response time is now 0.2ms, which is much lower than last year’s model’s 3ms. Granted, you likely won’t notice a major difference unless you’re a competitive gamer, but the lower response time will benefit you regardless.

Fun RGB lighting

Like last year’s model, this Alienware 16 laptop has some seriously impressive RGB lighting. And I don’t say that lightly since I’m not typically an RGB fan. But the way it’s implemented here complements this laptop’s unique design.

The Gorilla Glass bottom allows the RGB lighting to cast an underglow. And this same lighting also spills out through the top of the keyboard deck. As before, I haven’t seen other gaming laptops match this effect.

Naturally, you can customize the lighting effects however you prefer via the Alienware Commander Center app. The app is easy to use if you just want to use presets, but it’s also very granular for more in-depth fine-tuning.

Alienware 16 Area-51 (2026) review: The downs

Though the Alienware 16 Area-51 has a lot going for it, it has some noticeable drawbacks.

Poor battery life

I never expect gaming laptops to have stellar battery life, as they’re usually lacking in that area. The Alienware 16 Area-51 is no different, except that it actually runs out of juice faster than last year’s model.

In our testing, Alienware’s gaming laptop lasted an hour and two minutes on the PCMark 10 gaming benchmark and three and a half hours while surfing the internet. That’s about an hour less on both tests than before, which is a bummer.

You’re likely going to keep the laptop plugged in for better performance, so battery life won’t be an issue in that instance. However, if you plan to use this laptop on the go, don’t expect it to last as long as you’d need it to.

Cumbersome to carry

There’s no denying that the Alienware 16 Area-51 is an attractive laptop thanks to its unique design. Unfortunately, the main downside is that at 14.37 x 11.41 x 1.12 inches and 7.92 pounds, it’s not exactly portable. Yes, you can take it with you, and it will fit in a standard backpack, but you’ll feel it.

I typically take the laptops I’m reviewing home, but because of this notebook’s weight, I kept it at the office throughout the entire testing process. I also kept it in one of our lab rooms because even carrying it around the office isn’t pleasant.

Granted, the laptop’s weight won’t be an issue if you’re not going to travel with it and mainly plan to have it as your primary at-home computer. But if you want to take it on the road, then I suggest you build some muscle first.

Alienware 16 Area-51 (2026) review: Verdict

While the Alienware 16 Area-51 is mostly a refresh of the previous model, the inclusion of an OLED panel is a significant addition that makes an already fantastic gaming laptop even better. Thanks to that, it’s hard not to recommend this laptop to anyone willing to spend top dollar for a high-end gaming experience.

Alternatives like the Razer Blade 16 and Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 are solid choices if the Alienware’s design is too outlandish, though you’ll still pay a similar price for both. So given that, why not go for a gaming laptop with a truly unique design?

As with its predecessor, the Alienware 16 Area-51 comes with my highest recommendation. Forgive the cliché, but it truly is out of this world.

Alongside massive TVs, home robots, and all sorts of futuristic tech, PC makers came out in a big way for IFA 2026 — and for good reason. With Nvidia’s new RTX Spark chips on the horizon and local AI ramping up fast, we saw tons of fresh silicon and hardware in Berlin this year.

What we didn’t expect was for them to be so colorful, thin, and experimental. From budget-friendly laptops in every shade imaginable to designs so impossibly slim they’d make Steve Jobs jealous, and even the return of the netbook in a totally new form factor, this year’s show was an absolute blast for computing.

Here are our 7 favorite laptops from IFA 2026, including models landing before the holidays and wild concepts that show us where PCs are heading next.

Best laptops of IFA 2026: The ones you can buy soon

Lenovo Yoga Flip 9n 2-in-1

If you’re an artist who needs a powerful machine to work on, the Lenovo Yoga Flip 9n 2-in-1 is the convertible laptop to watch. Packing an Nvidia RTX Spark chip for handling AI workloads on-device, and the ability to draw on its OLED screen or haptic touchpad, this is one seriously versatile notebook for busy doodlers on the go. And for work, it even packs a full keyboard and plenty of ports.

We don’t yet have a price or release date, but the Yoga Flip 9n 2-in-1 could be the perfect fit for creatives.

Tony Polanco

Dell 14S

Dell’s adding another MacBook Neo competitor to its lineage after the stellar XPS 13, and this one's aimed more at the college student/those just entering the world of work. The Dell 14S has gone through a huge upgrade since the last time I heard that name last year!

Instead of a cheap plastic build, we’re now to an all-aluminum build in a selection of fresh colors. The keyboard feels great on it, you’ve got display options starting from a 2K resolution all the way to 2.8K OLED, and the pricing will be “complementary” to the XPS 13 — Dell’s words not mine.

Take from that what you will…but also…$699 is my prediction.

Jason England

Lenovo IdeaPad Vibe

The Lenovo IdeaPad Vibe aims to be the next MacBook Neo killer, and it certainly has a decent shot at dethroning Apple’s affordable laptop. Lenovo’s machine features a sturdy metal chassis available in seven unique colors to match your personality. It also packs a wide range of ports — more than the MacBook Neo and Dell XPS 13 — and even swappable keycaps.

Configurable with AMD, Snapdragon, and eventually Intel CPUs, the IdeaPad Vibe, with its expected $699 asking price, is hard to ignore.

Tony Polanco

Acer Swift Blade 14

Yes, I know there’s the Acer Vero 16, and it’s modularity/repairability chops. All great and nice. But I’m here for the laptops that blew my tiny mind, and the 799g Swift Blade did indeed blow my mind, because it’s insanely lightweight.

You get a full-blown OLED display, decent build quality Intel Core Series 3 chipsets and the RAM and storage you need in something that’s lighter than two cans of soup. It’s really quite the shocking piece of kit to hold in your hands.

Jason England

Best laptops of IFA 2026: The prototypes

Lenovo Project Aeroblade

Lenovo’s Project AeroBlade gives off serious MacBook Air vibes thanks to its ultraportable design. At under 10mm thick and just 1.83 pounds, it feels like a screen with a keyboard attached. It achieves this with a fanless design. Instead, four tiny Frore AirJet modules use silent ultrasonic vibrations to cool an Intel Lunar Lake chip without sacrificing sustained performance. You still get OLED, Thunderbolt 4, Wi-Fi 7, and Lenovo’s excellent keyboard in a magnesium-aluminum shell.

It’s only a concept for now, but if this ships, it could be a game-changer for thin-and-light laptops.

Tony Polanco

Lenovo Project Swan

Lenovo didn’t want its Legion Pro Rollable gaming laptop to have all the fun when it comes to horizontally expanding screens, so this year at IFA, it unveiled a more business-friendly solution using upgraded tech.

Project Swan starts out as a small and compact 14-inch productivity laptop but with the push of a button, its screen extends out on either side to become a 17-inch display. That way, instead of bringing a portable monitor with you on your next business trip, you can just pack one device.

Just like Lenovo’s incredibly light laptop, Project Swan is only a concept for now but as we saw a few years ago with the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable, this design could find its way into a product you can actually buy sooner than you’d think.

Anthony Spadafora

Acer Project DualPlay Mini

Now I know the initial thoughts here. “This is a gaming handheld, wtf are you thinking!?” Well, actually, this is a netbook…you can’t see it yet but when you open the handheld like a clamshell and flip the display, you’ve got that QWERTY keyboard inside.

As someone who has missed using something like my Asus Eee PC in the mid 2000s, this was a serious trip back in time to a better time. And when you think about the versatility of it, not only does this mean “work by day, play by night,” but it also means wider gameplay accessibility. Have you ever played an RTS with a controller? …that’s what I thought!

Jason England

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