Technology

Sonos Beam Ultra review

The Sonos Beam Ultra doesn’t merely feel like an evolution of the pre-existing Beam products. Instead, it feels like something of a middle child between the Sonos Beam Gen 2 and the Sonos Arc Ultra. After all, it sits bang in between its sibling models when it comes to channel configuration, boasting a 7.1.2 setup with nine drivers, and while it has up-firing drivers for true Dolby Atmos, it still maintains a fairly compact design.

But the Beam Ultra certainly isn’t an awkward middle-child; it’s a highly capable mid-range option that provides striking cinematic sound, while still being able to fit into a smaller setup. But is the Sonos Beam Ultra worth its $699 / £699 / AU$1,099 asking price?

Like most of the best soundbars, the Sonos Beam Ultra supports Dolby Atmos (though notably Sonos omits DTS:X), and it handles the format very effectively. When watching a 4K UHD Blu-ray of The Mask, the soundbar seamlessly tracked the titular character as he tornadoes across the screen, with audio sounding as if it far exceeded the limited confines of the soundbar. When The Mask jumped upwards, diagonally, his upward trajectory was captured with precision.

(Image credit: Future)

And the Beam Ultra continued to impress me with its height effects across multiple movies. For instance, in Godzilla Minus One, the sense of a plane flying overhead was replicated more naturally than I expected from a mid-range bar. When Godzilla first appeared, the width of the kaiju’s movement was handled brilliantly — it sounded as if the creature’s stomping and destruction were emanating from different corners of the testing room, rather than a set of speakers, even without the help of surround speakers.

What’s more, the Sonos Beam Ultra nails the fundamentals. Watching Top Gun: Maverick, the roar of jet engines was palpable, and I found this to be the case across multiple films. For a mid-sized standalone bar, the Beam Ultra produces incredibly regimented, deep, and responsive low-end sound, which is excellent for movies with high-octane action sequences and dark, impactful scores. The Beam Ultra can also get seriously loud if you want to fill a more open space, but I never noticed any tinniness or harsh compression.

Still, this doesn’t come at the expense of sounds elsewhere in the frequency range. I found dialogue to be generally clear and detailed too, though I will note that turning on the Speech Enhancement mode and setting it to Medium gave me the best results. This means you can bring voices forward without hampering the fidelity of other elements in the mix.

The Beam Ultra even proved to be a hit for music, whether I was listening to an Atmos or stereo mix. With an Atmos mix of I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little More Baby by Barry White, there was tremendous width to the guitars, the vocals were perfectly clear in the center, and the bass had pleasant warmth to it. Moving over to First Summer by H.K., deep bass came through with attention-grabbing impact, sounding more full-sounding than I’d anticipated, yet keys and vocal chops in the mid-range still maintained excellent clarity, as did articulate drums in the treble.

(Image credit: Future)

The Sonos Beam Ultra isn’t just a great performer; it’s also rammed full of useful features. TruePlay is here, which can optimize sound for your room in mere seconds, but there are also ways to manually adapt audio. For instance, you can adjust height effects to your choosing, and there’s even a height-effect simulation mode if there’s less than four inches of space above your soundbar — ideal if you’re placing the Beam Ultra on a shelf in your TV stand, say.

I've already mentioned the Speech Enhancement mode, which has multiple levels to emphasize speech as little or much as you need, but there’s also a Night mode if you don’t want to disturb others. You can turn these options on in the Sonos app, but there’s also an option to add a voice assistant if you want to make adjustments on the fly.

The Beam Ultra can, as you'd expect, also interact with other components in your Sonos system. You can pair compatible speakers, such as the Sonos Play, and use them as surround speakers. TV Audio Swap is also back, and enables you to transfer sound from your Beam Ultra to your Sonos Ace or Sonos Ace Ultra headphones. I tried this out with the latter cans, and found that switching was speedy and responsive, while the quality of spatial audio was exceptional — make sure to read my Sonos Ace Ultra review for a deeper dive.

There are a fair few ways to connect to your Sonos Beam Ultra too. Of course, HDMI eARC is the most important — this is what you’ll use to hook the soundbar up to your TV and experience Dolby Atmos movies in all their glory. There’s also Wi-Fi 6 for streaming content over a local connection, allowing you to use services like Tidal Connect and Spotify Connect. And, unlike with the Beam Gen 2, you also get Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity as well as USB-C line-in.

One thing I would have really have loved to see, though, is an HDMI input, which has been left off of the Sonos Beam Ultra. Given that connecting the soundbar up to your TV already takes away one precious HDMI slot, it would’ve been great to get a passthrough port on this model — it’s something I use on my Marshall Heston 120 at home, given that I have multiple game consoles connected up.

Something that does not disappoint, though, is the Beam Ultra’s design. It’s sleek, modern, and stylish — but understated enough to seamlessly slot into just about any living space. It also has a great standard of build, intuitive touch controls, and handy status indicator lights to signify connection status. There’s also a microphone slider, which you can deactivate if you don’t want your soundbar listening in on you.

But here comes the big question: is the Sonos Beam Ultra actually worth the money? While $699 / £699 / AU$1,099 is by no means cheap, I still think the answer is yes. It’s priced right in between the Beam Gen 2 and Arc Ultra, and feels like a true best-of-both-worlds option — the height channels give it much more convincing Atmos performance than the Beam Gen 2, but you also get amazing power in a single, compact package.

Sure, you could get a soundbar and sub combo like the Samsung HW-Q800F for a similar price, and that will give you even deeper, more cinematic bass. But that model has a more restrictive 5.1.2 configuration, and if you want something more low-profile, it won’t fit the bill. You also get an excellent suite of features from the Beam Ultra, and you can add a compatible sub and other other Sonos speakers for surround sound if you wish.

As a result, the Sonos Beam Ultra might just be the best compact Dolby Atmos soundbar I’ve tested. In spite of its modest size, it plates up powerful, immersive, and clear audio, so if you want a simple plug-and-play solution to get amazing audio into just about any space, this is my top recommendation.

(Image credit: Future)Sonos Beam Ultra review: Price and release date

• Priced at $699 / £699 / AU$1,099
• Released in September 2026

The Sonos Beam Ultra is priced at $699 / £699 / AU$1,099, placing it mid-way between the Sonos Beam Gen 2 and the Sonos Arc Ultra. While you can get some multi-box options for a similar price, like the Sony HW-Q800F, for instance, the Beam Ultra features an extensive 7.1.2 driver configuration, and its compact nature is a central part of its appeal.

Sonos Beam Ultra review: specs

Dimensions

29.5 x 2.6 x 4.1 inches / 750 x 65 x 105mm

Speaker channels

7.1.2

Connections

HDMI eARC, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, USB-C

Dolby Atmos / DTS:X

Yes / No

Sub included

No

Rear speakers included

No

(Image credit: Future)Should I buy the Sonos Beam Ultra?

Attribute

Notes

Score

Features

Good connectivity options, great sound modes, can add sub and surrounds, no DTS:X or HDMI passthrough.

4.5/5

Performance

Expansive sound in a compact package with imposing bass and clear dialogue.

5/5

Design

Stellar looks, slim build, neat touch controls.

5/5

Setup & usability

Plug and play set-up, easy to connect to via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

5/5

Value

Not cheap, but a perfect marriage of the standard Beam and Arc that’s priced accordingly.

4.5/5

Buy it if…

You want a compact soundbar with amazing Dolby Atmos
So many compact Dolby Atmos soundbars fall flat when it comes to Dolby Atmos. Often, that’s due to a lack of dedicated up-firing drivers to provide convincing height effects. But the Beam Ultra has those — and it also conjures up an impressive sense of width.

You already own a Sonos system
If you already have a compatible sub and speakers like the Sonos Play or Sonos Era 100, you can connect them to the Beam Ultra to open up even more immersive, three-dimensional audio. TV Audio Swap is also available if you’ve got the Sonos Ace or Sonos Ace Ultra headphones.

Don’t buy it if…

You need HDMI passthrough
The Sonos Beam Ultra does not offer HDMI passthrough, which might be troublesome if, like me, you have multiple games consoles, a 4K Blu-ray player, and other devices that use HDMI.

You need DTS:X
The Sonos Beam Ultra supports Dolby Atmos, but not DTS:X, much like other Sonos soundbars, including the Sonos Arc Ultra. A number of 4K discs make use of DTS:X, so if you’re someone who often makes use of that format, it may be worth looking elsewhere.

Sonos Beam Ultra review: also consider

Sonos Beam Ultra

Samsung HW-Q800F

Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar

Price

$699 / £699 / AU$1,099

$1,099 / £799 / AU$1,099

£899 / $899 / AU$1499

Dimensions

29.5 x 2.6 x 4.1 inches / 750 x 65 x 105mm

Main soundbar: 43.7 x 2.4 x 4.7 inches / 1110.7 x 60.4 x 120mm; subwoofer: 9.8 x 9.9 x 9.8 inches / 249 x 251.8 x 249mm

2.3 x 41 x 4.2 inches / 58 x 1045 x 107mm

Speaker channels

7.1.2

5.1.2

5.1.2

Connections

HDMI eARC, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, USB-C

1x HDMI input, 1x HDMI eARC, digital optical, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.3

HDMI eARC, digital optical, Ethernet, USB (service only), Bluetooth, Wi-Fi

Dolby Atmos / DTS:X

Yes / No

Yes / Yes

Yes / No

Sub included

No

Yes

No

Rear speakers included

No

No

No

Samsung HW-Q800F
This multi-box Samsung soundbar can now be found for a similar price to the Sonos Beam Ultra, if not less. It supplies exceptional sound, with impeccable bass from its dedicated sub, clear dialogue, and engrossing Atmos effects. It doesn’t offer the Beam Ultra’s compact size, but it does have DTS:X and HDMI passthrough. Read my full Samsung HW-Q800F review.

Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar
The Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar is a great 5.1.2 soundbar with wide, detailed sound, excellent build quality, and an effective companion app. It doesn’t quite offer the height or bass weight of the Sonos Beam Ultra, but it can often be found on sale for less than $700 / £500. Read our full Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar review.

How I tested the Sonos Beam Ultra

(Image credit: Future)

• I spent one week testing the soundbar in our TV testing space at Future Labs
• I watched a variety of movies, and listened to music in both Dolby Atmos and stereo formats

I spent one week testing the Sonos Beam Ultra at our TV testing space at Future Labs, during which time I exhausted its various features, watched a variety of movies, and listened to music in both Dolby Atmos and stereo formats.

To test the Beam Ultra, I hooked it up to the Samsung R95H TV via HDMI. I also made use of the Panasonic DP-UB820 to view Dolby Atmos-enabled 4K UHD Blu-rays. When listening to music, I streamed tunes over Tidal Connect via Wi-Fi, and made use of the TV Audio Swap feature to transfer audio from the soundbar to the Sonos Ace Ultra headphones.

I also compared the Sonos Beam Ultra directly against the Sonos Beam Gen 2 to assess improvements to height effects, expansiveness, and general functionality.

I’ve spent several years testing audio-visual gear at TechRadar, where I'm a Senior Reviews Writer. I’ve tested a vast number of soundbars specifically, from compact models like the Marshall Heston 60 to grand surround systems like the LG Sound Suite Immersive Suite 7 Pro.

• Read TechRadar’s reviews guarantee
• First reviewed: September 2026

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Whether it's at work or with my family, all I've been talking about recently is shocking six-part ITV crime drama The Blame.

Led by Michelle Keegan and Douglas Booth, it follows the murder of a teenage skater, which not only draws detectives down a dark, treacherous path, but also forces them to investigate their own team.

The call is coming from inside the house, as the kids say. DI Emma Clare (Keegan) is not just the only member of the force to work out what's really going on, but she's the only person brave enough to call out (the fictional) Wakestead police force on its biggest issue: misogyny.

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I won't lie to you, it's a really difficult watch. The Blame's approach to its subject matter is incredible heavy-handed, but I think it needs to be. However, if you need some time out — or to swap to a crime drama that doesn't feel as bitingly real — I've got you covered.

In fact, Keegan and Booth are the ones that have you covered. If you're looking for more of the same vibe, they've got the perfect recommendation for you to stream next. Not only can you watch it for free, but there's a hidden link between the two shows.

The Blame on ITV is secretly linked to BBC's Happy Valley — and it's what you need to stream next

"That's a hard question," Booth responded, before he added: "Just because it's my favourite one and Nicola [Schindler] produced it, Happy Valley, but they're obviously very different. It has another great female lead at the heart of it."

To me, that's an understatement. The UK market is flush with cimpeccable crime dramas, but Sally Wainwright's Happy Valley might just be the best of the 21st century so far (at least, it is according to me).

Available to stream for free on BBC iPlayer or on Netflix internationally, we follow West Yorkshire police sergeant Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire) as she balances local crime in Calderdale with her fierce pursuit of Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton), the violent criminal she holds responsible for her daughter's suicide.

It's fast-paced, quintessentially Yorkshire, and gritty at every turn — to the point where it's almost unbelievable what one woman can physically and mentally endure.

What's even better is the hidden link that Happy Valley has with The Blame.

"We had Lisa Farrand, who was a police advisor," Keegan explained. "She was with us for the interrogation and investigation scenes, where we were out looking for the body, things like that. She was brilliant. Very matter of fact, and if something wasn't working, she would pull it up straight away, speak to the director, and sort of steer us and help navigate the scene.

"She worked on Happy Valley and actually Catherine Cawood was loosely based on her. She's a real character... a tough cookie."

If Catherine Cawood herself isn't a good enough sign of a crime drama being unmissable, I don't know what is. Maybe give yourself some breathing space in between them both, though.

• Researcher Patrick Wardle finds zero‑day in Meta’s new Muse AI assistant,
• Dubbed not‑a‑mused, the exploit requires local compromise, voice dictation, and app integrations; attackers can hijack tokens and exfiltrate data
• Meta has been informed but no patch yet; flaw highlights risks of AI assistants with broad permissions

Meta’s new Artificial Intelligence (AI) assistant Muse reportedly carried a zero-day vulnerability that allowed attackers to gain access to people’s apps, such as WhatsApp or email.

However, it’s not as straightforward as your usual zero-day - to exploit it, simply deploying malware will not suffice. Certain features need to be enabled, and certain integrations established before the bug could be leveraged.

Not-a-mused

A little background, for context: Meta recently released Muse, describing it as an assistant that can “book appointments, fill out forms, and handle customer service.” It says the tool, available exclusively for the Mac ecosystem for now, “proactively takes tasks off your plate” and makes purchases, generates images, and creates documents.

To do that, however, it needs to connect to apps such as email, WhatsApp, calendar, or social media accounts - and this connection is the first prerequisite needed to exploit the flaw.

The second prerequisite is voice dictation. The vulnerability was found in the way Muse handles commands received via voice, meaning the attacker must piggyback onto voice commands in order to escalate privileges and access other apps and their content.

Now for the flaw itself. It was discovered by security researcher Patrick Wardle, founder of nonprofit Objective-See. He named it “not-a-mused” and says it hides in an undocumented setting called endo_voyager_dictation_endpoint. When a user narrates a voice command, that instruction is sent and processed in the cloud, where Meta can log it. This setting allows the user to change which endpoint receives the dictation.

Which brings us to the third prerequisite. The threat actor must have local access to be able to change this setting in the first place. In other words, the device must already be compromised in some way, either via remote monitoring and management tools, or via low-level malware (or with physical access).

For the sake of the report, let’s say that a theoretical user checks all the right boxes - they’re running a compromised machine and are talking to Muse that’s already connected to other productivity apps. Instead of reaching Meta’s endpoints, the voice commands are first sent to attacker-controlled infrastructure, where the AI assistant, together with the instructions, also sends authentication tokens for the tool.

If the attacker reacts fast enough, they can grab the token and access their target’s AI tool. If it’s connected to other apps, such as WhatsApp or calendar, they can simply prompt it to extract whatever sensitive information is found inside.

Not-a-mused is therefore a combination of data exfiltration and privilege escalation.

Ironing out the kinks

“We can manipulate the agent and leverage its privileges to do whatever we want,” Wardle told Ars Technica.

“So instead of us having to write a very comprehensive Mac malware stealer, we can just leverage the AI assistant itself.” Wardle said he has developed several proof-of-concept attacks that do things like writing malicious files to disk and snapping pictures, in many cases with no indication to even an alert user.

Meta has been informed, but is yet to comment, or issue a patch.

AI assistants are all the rage nowadays. They’ve turned elaborate answer machines into tools that can complete assignments, even more complex ones. They can book flights and restaurant tables, make purchases, schedule and reschedule calls and meetings, and more. However, to do that, these tools need extensive permissions - something the security community is warning of.

While they’re not openly speaking against it, they are advising caution. There are many stories of AI agents either going rogue, or simply being tricked by malicious actors. For example, a hidden prompt in a phishing email can trick an AI agent tasked with summarizing the message into exfiltrating all .PDF documents from the victim’s inbox.

In the early days of agentic AI, there were reports of assistants simply deleting people’s inboxes.

Assistants are likely here to stay, but there are still quite a few kinks to iron before they can hit the mainstream.

As more creators edit on the go, Adobe is making Premiere compatible with more devices, including foldables.

Playing the upcoming Cairn: On the Trail DLC with one of its creators looking over my shoulder was incredibly humbling. It had been months since I’d completed my gruelling ascent of Mt. Kami, and my skills were more than a little rusty. When Aava slipped and plummeted into the sea for the fifth time in less than 20 minutes, I was worried they’d lean over, close the laptop, and walk away shaking their head in disgust.

Luckily, I was allowed to play on, and slowly but surely I (quite literally) found my feet, more confidently and successfully finding the handholds and footholds to make progress on one of the three new challenges found in this first piece of free DLC for the excellent climbing adventure.

The one I was currently dramatically failing at features a piton-shaped rock in the middle of the ocean. You start on a wooden path surrounding this peculiar natural structure, before falling into a familiar pattern where you’re scoping out the potential routes to find a good place to climb it. It’s immediately clear, though, that these DLC environments are even more experimental than what we saw in the main game.

Rising up

“On the Trail is pretty much built on ideas and desires we had but decided not to put on Kami for the sake of consistency,” explains Emeric Thoa, creative director of Cairn.

“Because Kami is a very coherent experience, as you climb a single immense mountain, we wanted the On the Trail DLC to explore more variety in the climbing fantasy.”

(Image credit: The Game Bakers)

That breaks down as follows. This first is the level I’m playing now, with its tough climb up a unique structure. There’s also one set in a climbing gym full of more technically demanding challenges and one on a small island featuring various perilous overhangs over the sea.

You can also now play as Marco, who is less flexible than Aava, but he has a longer reach, stronger arms, and a new climbot model.

Whoever you pick, none of the new stages sound very easy, even for veterans who have successfully reached the top of Kami.

“It’s aimed at people who finished the main game, but it’s not especially difficult,” Thoa assures me. “It’s not like you must have finished in free solo mode with zero falls playing with a Guitar Hero controller. But I would definitely recommend playing the main game before starting On the Trail.”

I would, too, considering I scored it four stars and called it ‘an extremely good and beautifully made climbing game’ in our Cairn review.

And while it was the determination to complete the climb and the satisfaction of achieving it that was a main draw of Cairn, it was also the atmosphere that was one of its strongest points.

As you ascend, you learn more not only about Aava as a character, but also about the civilization that used to live on the mountain and some of its secrets. These neat asides are a wonderful break from the intensity of the rest of the game.

“We definitely tried to keep that exploration and treasure hunt vibe that Kami offers,” confirms Thoa. “It’s a bit different as the climbing spots are smaller. So, for instance, we added an energy mechanic to replace the survival elements.

“Instead of risking your life in a huge ascent over several days, you tackle a one-day challenge, and you have to manage your fatigue and resources in order to climb the spot before getting too tired. But that’s also where exploring becomes useful, as you can find items to get you back on your feet.”

(Image credit: The Game Bakers)

I found I needed them too, as a useful way to restock key resources such as chalk and energy to make these tougher climbs more achievable. It still didn’t prevent me from repeated failures, but I felt that same rush of stubbornness and perseverance that gripped me in the original game coming back. It’s a feeling Thoa wants players to feel when they return to Cairn.

“They should first experience the bittersweet nostalgia of coming back to the unique experience of Cairn, and then they should quite soon after find out that it’s still a game that makes your hands sweat! The thrill should still be there.”

I definitely felt it even in the short demo I had. Truth is, I’ve been keen to return to the game since the DLC was first announced, and even though a delay has meant I’ve had to wait a little longer, The Game Bakers recently confirmed that Cairn: On the Trail - Deep Water will launch on October 29 on PC and PS5.

• Amazfit has unveiled the T-Rex Dual Solar smartwatch
• It offers solar charging on an AMOLED watch — a feat not even Garmin has managed
• As well as charging from the front, the innovative back plate allows the wearer to invert the watch for maximum light absorption

In a world in which most smartwatches now have the same features and similar specs, it's always nice to see something innovative. The Amazfit T-Rex line is a range of rugged adventure-focused smartwatches that are generally — like almost all of Amazfit's products — great value alternatives to more expensive wearables such as the best Garmin watches.

Despite focusing on solar charging, as seen on some top-tier Garmin watches such as the Fenix 9 Pro, the T-Rex Dual Solar brings innovation all of its own. Amazfit's newest smartwatch not only provides battery-lengthening solar charging from the front, but also a secondary, more efficient solar charging plate on the back of the watch. With enough sunlight, this back plate can reportedly revive a completely flat battery. That means if you're out of power, you could invert the watch and wear it inside-out, or leave it on a rock with the back plate facing the sun, to bring it back to life.

Amazfit says that "for those who adventure at the edge of the map, solar offers something more: a way to bring a completely depleted watch back to life using sunlight when traditional power isn’t available, helping users regain access to essential functions like maps and route information."

However, the most interesting bit is that Amazfit has finally cracked what Garmin has not been able to, as yet: bring solar charging to an AMOLED watch. The Amazfit Dual Solar, as its name suggests, charges from both sides, even though it's got a bright AMOLED screen, as long as you're in conditions of 50,000 lux or more for three hours or more. Without exception, Solar charging Garmin watches uses lower-power memory-in-pixel displays in conjunction with Garmin's Power Glass solar charging tech.

Sara Webster Wylie, VP of Global Marketing at Amazfit, says: “With T-Rex Dual Solar, we didn’t want users to have to choose between the bright, premium display they want every day and the battery endurance they need outdoors. Bringing AMOLED and solar together for the first time lets us deliver both.”

Other specs & pricing

(Image credit: Amazfit)

In normal conditions, the watch packs up to 25 days of battery life, extended up to 35 days in optimal solar conditions, and 41 hours of use in 'accurate GPS mode'. A flashlight with red and white modes is built into the titanium casing, while its sapphire crystal screen is capable of up to 3,000 nits of brightness.

With full color preloaded maps (including ski maps), intelligent route planning with turn-by-turn directions and Apple Watch Ultra-style waypoints, and LiveShare (Amazfit's equivalent of Garmin's LiveTrack location-sharing feature), it's certainly a powerhouse of a watch.

Unusually for Amazfit, it's also very expensive, priced at $649.99 in the US. Other regions' pricing is TBC, but that's around £500 / AU$900. Having seen what Amazfit can do with budget devices such as its five-star Amazfit Active 3 Premium, I'm excited to get my hands on a high-end model.

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A desktop PC makes a lot of sense when you want plenty of processing power, storage and connectivity without paying over the top. Best Buy has reduced the price of the HP OmniDesk, a powerful, modern computer that stands out thanks to its distinctive dark wood case.

• Best for: Creatives and professionals who want plenty of processing power and memory for demanding applications without paying for a dedicated graphics card they don't need.

• The deal: The HP OmniDesk is $1,398 (was $1,499) at Best Buy, saving you a solid $101, or around 7%, off the usual price.

• Why it matters: It looks good and inside you get a 20-core Intel Core Ultra 7 265 processor, 32GB of DDR5-5600 memory and a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD with support for up to 64GB of RAM and two M.2 slots for future storage expansion.

Omnidesk Desktop: was $1499 now $1398
The HP OmniDesk features a 20-core Intel Core Ultra 7 265 processor, 32GB DDR5-5600 memory, 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD, integrated Intel Graphics, Wi-Fi 6, Ethernet and ten USB ports.View Deal

Why we recommend it

The OmniDesk looks distinctive and classy with its dark wood finish, but it's definitely not a case of style over substance. Inside, the 20-core Intel Core Ultra 7 265 can boost up to 5.3GHz and has 30MB of L3 cache, providing plenty of processing power for demanding workloads. There's 32GB of DDR5-5600 memory and a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD. You also get 10 USB ports split between eight USB-A and two USB-C connections, as well as HDMI, DisplayPort, Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth.

Price context & historical value

The $101 reduction from $1,499 to $1,398 isn't enormous at around 7%, but it's still a decent saving on a relatively expensive desktop. It isn't the cheapest we've seen it however. The desktop was on sale at Best Buy for $930 earlier in the year.

For further choices, take a look at our round up of the best business computers we've tested.

Should you buy it?

✅ Buy the HP OmniDesk Desktop if...

You want a desktop with a powerful processor, 32GB of DDR5 memory, and a fast 1TB SSD. The dark wood finish adds warmth and personality, meaning the PC will fit beautifully into home offices or living spaces, blending in with furniture rather than clashing with it.

❌ Skip the HP OmniDesk Desktop if...

You need powerful performance for GPU-intensive rendering and 3D work that will benefit heavily from a dedicated graphics card. This configuration relies on integrated Intel Graphics rather than a discrete GPU.

• Shop all desktop PCs at Best Buy

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• BigCommerce confirms supply‑chain breach via compromised Ribon app credentials affecting merchant storefronts
• Master of Malt notified customers: names, emails, phone numbers, and addresses were exposed
• Attack ran Sept 13–17 2026; ICO notified, law firm warns of phishing risks for affected retailers

Ecommerce platform BigCommerce was recently hit with a cyberattack in which it lost sensitive data belonging to some of its users.

One of the users - online spirits retailer Master of Malt - confirmed the hit and notified its customers that their personally identifiable information (PII) was accessed in the attack.

BigCommerce is an ecommerce platform relatively similar to Shopify. Businesses use it to build and operate online stores without needing to develop the entire commerce infrastructure themselves. It offers features like storefronts, shopping carts, integrations with different payment providers, product inventories, SEO and marketing tools, and more.

The platform has been around since 2009 and according to a late 2024 SEC filing, serves 5,884 accounts with at least one unique enterprise plan subscription. A 2025 press release says BigCommerce is used by “tens of thousands of B2C and B2B companies across 150 countries.”

Software supply chain attack

BigCommerce allows its users to install, among others, a third-party app called Ribon, an ecommerce app providing tools that improve the online shopping experience. Some merchants integrate Ribon into their stores to add different functionality to the customer-facing storefront, and to optimize how visitors interact with different elements of their website. We don’t know exactly how many stores use Ribon.

According to Master of Malt, unidentified threat actors managed to compromise a BigCommerce Application key held by Ribon, and used it to access customer data that was held on their system. The attack took place on Sunday, September 13 2026, until the access was finally revoked four days later, on September 17.

Speaking to BleepingComputer, BigCommerce said credentials for Ribon and Ribon 1.5 were compromised:

"On September 17, 2026, Commerce confirmed that credentials belonging to third-party applications Ribon and Ribon 1.5, owned and operated by 'Be A Part Of,' a Fastr company, had been compromised and used to inject malicious scripts into a small number of merchant storefronts,” the statement reads. "Acting in the best interest of our customers and their shoppers, we uninstalled the application from affected stores to revoke the attacker's access, notified those merchants directly, and are providing log data to support the developer's investigation," the company told the publication.

The keyword in this statement is “small number of merchant storefronts.” BigCommerce hints that the attack was relatively small in scope and, consequently, in damage. However, in its report Master of Malt says otherwise:

“It’s now clear that we weren’t the target of the attack. The attack was against Ribon, which was installed on hundreds of BigCommerce stores. Once the attackers compromised an access key from Ribon, they used it to access data held inside BigCommerce.”

Names and emails

Whether or not this transforms into a new Snowflake fiasco remains to be seen.

In the meantime, Master of Malt also said BigCommerce notified it that the attack had been stopped and that there was no further risk of compromise. All companies affected by the breach were contacted. As for the spirits retailer, here is what it said about the data exposed in the hit:

“I’m sorry to say that the attackers had access to your name, email address, phone number, and address. However, they were not able to access your password, credit card or other payment information as they are held in a separate system which was never compromised.”

Master of Malt reported the attack to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Law firm Emery Reddy is calling for potential claimants to the incidents, saying that “several retailers” are currently notifying customers about data exposure related to the incident, BleepingComputer reported.

“A number of online retailers that use the BigCommerce e-commerce platform have begun notifying customers of a data breach that originated not with the retailers themselves, but with a third-party application called Ribon,” the law firm says. Emery Reddy also warned of potential phishing and scam attacks.

One of the unexpected consequences of freely available AI tools like Gemini, Claude, and ChatGPT has been the rise of what’s quickly becoming known as ‘grandmaslop’. It seems that grandparents are filling their family albums with AI versions of pictures of their grandchildren and sending them to their kids.

When it comes to using generative AI on family photos, at least, the trend has exposed a striking generational divide.

“I'm Gen X, but my Boomer mom made a whole AI book for both of my kids. It was bizarre,” said one Reddit user, commenting on the rise of grandmaslop. “I think the weirdest part is, if photos are our way of immortalizing a moment in time for the sake of our memories, then what is an AI-generated image, if it's a moment of time that never existed?” asked another user.

Storybooks of slop

The ease of use of AI tools means that grandparents are creating whole storybooks of slop featuring their grandkids and emailing them to their kids.

“The books are crap, all have the same AI slop cartoon styling and the stories make no sense and have horrible meter”, said another Reddit user. “One was a rhyming book that had words that didn’t rhyme.”

The new phenomenon of 'grandmaslop' seems to be a perfect example of a topic that reveals the generational divide in approaches to AI. One user suggests that perhaps for a lot of people the concept and proof of a relationship is more important than the execution of an art project.

Another user agrees and wryly adds, “My father is the proudest grandparent in the world. He tells everyone how much he loves the grandkids he never sees, so that tracks”.

What’s interesting is that when it comes to the workplace, a Randstad report measuring AI adoption rates put Millennials as the quickest adopters of AI in their jobs, significantly more than GenZ, Gen X, and Boomers, with 50% of Millennials using AI compared to just 19% of Boomers and 34% of Gen X. “Their proficiency with Generation AI tools surpasses other generations, marking them as key players in the current AI landscape within workplaces”, says the report.

When it comes to their kids, however, Millennials apparently would rather leave AI out of the picture.

(Image credit: Shutterstock / Studio Romantic)A generational divide

I think there’s something else going on here. Digging deeper into the thread on Reddit, it quickly descended into general grievances about the lack of effort grandparents show with their grandkids.

There seems to be a general level of resentment for the privileges that Boomer grandparents have enjoyed due to growing up in different economic circumstances and the general lack of effort parents perceive in them wanting to see their grandchildren, despite having the opportunities to do so. For example:

“My parents never miss an opportunity to say how much they miss the grandkids and wish they could see them more often, and it takes every ounce of my strength not to point out they're both retired and in good health, have $80k/yr worth of pensions and social security, investment accounts worth close to $1mm, and live in a paid-off house.”

Perhaps the visceral reaction to ‘grandmaslop’ is really just the most visible tip of a much larger iceberg of resentment about the lack of effort put into grandparenting, and a generational divide that’s as much economic and cultural as it is to do with attitudes to AI.

After all, there’s nothing inherently wrong with a grandparent making a silly AI picture of their grandkids riding a dinosaur or flying through space. Some children will probably love it. But when an AI-generated storybook arrives from a grandparent who rarely turns up in person, it can start to look like another shortcut.

And perhaps that’s why ‘grandmaslop’ has touched such a nerve. The problem isn’t really that Grandma has discovered ChatGPT. It’s that, for some parents at least, generative AI has made it possible to simulate the effort they wish their children were getting for real.

• Creative Assembly says Alien: Isolation 2 is still influenced by the iconic film, despite the outdoor setting
• Principal environment artist Archie Whitehead says the environment had to be showcased "through the lens of someone from the 1970s"
• Principal UI artist Laura Mouther says the team is "not reinventing the wheel" and is still using a lot of inspiration from the first movie and game

Alien: Isolation 2 is still inspired by the first Alien movie, even though the game features a new outdoor setting, but Creative Assembly had to make sure the environment felt authentic to its iconic retro-futuristic aesthetic.

Like Ridley Scott's 1979 Alien, Alien Isolation takes place inside a space station, isolating the player in a claustrophobic environment as a Xenomorph hunts them. However, the sequel features an outdoor colony world and the confines of a Weyland-Yutani outpost, giving the studio a new opportunity to expand exploration and find new ways to adapt the movie's iconic style.

Speaking to TechRadar Gaming at Gamescom, principal environment artist Archie Whitehead didn't want to spoil the setting too much, suggesting players are in for some surprises as they explore the game's outdoor mining colony, with principal UI artist Laura Mouther explaining that the team is "not reinventing the wheel" and is still using a lot of inspiration from the first movie and the first game.

"The first movie is the lens we're looking through everything at," Mouther said. "It's our guiding step. And when it comes to new, we're really excited about introducing new retrofitting tech," she added before using a CRT computer as an example of how it would be damaged in an outdoor setting.

"I can maybe give you an idea of our approach to it," she said. "We think about it now that you have to be indoors and outdoors; obviously, things need to adapt. I have a CRT monitor on my workstation as my third monitor; there are holes on the top in the back. Obviously, if I put that outside and it's raining, it's gonna go kaput, right? So, we need to make sure that we're adapting the things that we have seen in the first movie and in the first game to be believable in this outdoor environment. [So] it makes sense."

Whitehead added that it has to be showcased "through the lens of someone from the 1970s" because things like LEDs and LCD panels didn't exist back then.

"As an environment artist, I'm making design decisions all the time when modeling something about the shapes used; where's a vent, where's this?" Whitehead said, adding that it would be easy to add "generic" shapes, but he and the team used movie set photos and imagery to "dissect" how to build these assets players will see in the environment.

"Sometimes it feels like yogurt pots," he joked. "It's a lot of vacuum form shapes. They even had some parts of it; I think it was a bomber from the Second World War. They got some stuff from the scrapyard.

"So looking at what they had and working out how to recontextualize those things when creating a new design, and just making sure that whenever we reference stuff, we don't reference anything from beyond that point because those manufacturing techniques and those materials didn't exist yet, so they shouldn't be here."

Alien: Isolation 2 will be available on PS5, Xbox Series X and Series S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC. A release date hasn't been announced.

Around half of the cameras that shot the baseball game were new iPhone 18 Pro Max units, some of which sent footage over 5G.

• The second iOS 27.2 developer beta has landed, and code points to several upcoming features
• These include an anti-snatching tool, so the phone locks itself if it detects a sharp grab or when disconnected from your Apple Watch
• There are changes hinted at for Shortcuts, Apple Music, and CarPlay Ultra too

The second iOS 27.2 developer beta has now landed, and while on the face of it this doesn’t look much different to the first beta, behind the scenes there’s quite a lot of new stuff to find.

Digging into the code, 9to5Mac has found more details of an anti-snatching feature that we’ve previously reported on. This as-yet-unannounced feature is apparently called ‘AutoLock’ internally at Apple, and is designed to lock your phone if a thief grabs it.

It sounds similar then to Android’s Theft Detection Lock, and the code in this beta suggests that it would use various signals to tell whether an iPhone has been stolen, such as a sharp acceleration (which could happen when a phone is first snatched), loss of connectivity to a paired Apple Watch, a paired Apple Watch being unreachable, prolonged loss of network activity, or the device remaining unlocked for a certain period of time.

Any of these things could trigger an iPhone to automatically lock itself, but there are also references to safeguards aimed at preventing false positives. These include things like successful biometric authentication, and certain innocent app activities that could otherwise be signs of theft.

Other hidden features

Here’s the new album release countdown on iPhone, coming soon to Apple Music.Featuring a very satisfying numeric text content transition. https://t.co/SIwlvlt9lB pic.twitter.com/stuBUYPoWJSeptember 19, 2026

On top of this, as spotted by X user @itspdfu (via 9to5Mac) iOS 27.2 beta 2 also includes code for a new album release countdown in Apple Music, and for the ability to support actions from third-party apps in Shortcuts new ‘Describe a Shortcut’ tool. So you’ll be able to include third-party apps in shortcuts built using natural language, rather than having to use the old shortcut builder.

Finally, @aaronp613 has found evidence that CarPlay Ultra will soon offer a ‘Drive Mode Theme’, allowing you to change things like the gauge style and color. Though right now CarPlay Ultra is only available on Aston Martin vehicles, so this might be of limited usefulness.

Of course there’s the usual caveat with all this that while Apple is seemingly working on these features, we can’t be sure of if or when they’ll actually launch. But they all sound like worthwhile upgrades, so hopefully they will roll out — and soon.

Amazon blocked Meta’s Muse AI agent from shopping on Amazon.com, exposing new tensions over browser access, AI agents, and online commerce.

The post Amazon Blocks Meta’s Muse AI Agent From Shopping on Amazon.com Over Bot Access appeared first on TechRepublic.

• iOS users are seeing ‘ads’ for other Apple products on their iPhones
• The banners promote services like iCloud+, Apple Music and AppleCare+
• The messages often can’t be dismissed and stick around for weeks

If you were to ask iOS users how they felt about Apple’s decision to insert ads into Apple Maps, it would quickly become obvious that it was not a popular move. So when iPhone fans discovered that Apple has been inserting prompts for its own products into iOS, the reaction was predictably swift and furious.

The ‘ads’ in question appear in the Settings app in iOS. They can be found near the top of the iPhone’s display and promote several products to the user, including paid-for iCloud+ storage, free trials for services like Apple Music and Apple TV, and the AppleCare+ extended warranty.

Infuriatingly for iOS users, the only way to disable these promos is to either let them expire — which in many cases could take weeks or even months, leaving a persistent notification badge on the Settings app in the meantime — or pay for the service being offered. There is not always a “dismiss” button to shoo them away for good, and when there is, some people have reported that it doesn’t seem to work.

Many people have taken to social media to vent their frustrations with Apple’s actions. “I’m feeling like this is nearly on-par with the ens***ification that Microsoft introduced with Start menu ads,” said one aggravated user. “I wish Apple would just stop that crap,” stated another. Many other people have taken to Reddit to express their exasperation, suggesting that the discontent is widespread.

Some of these ads and offers — such as the one for Apple Music — appear after you’ve bought a new Apple product. With the company launching the iPhone Duo and iPhone 18 Pro range recently, it’s perhaps unsurprising that we’re seeing a sudden influx of posts flush with irritation and indignation.

Apple’s services push

(Image credit: Future)

On the face of it, Apple’s decision to include promotions like this in its operating system might seem like a strange one. After all, Apple has long positioned itself as a premium company where the user experience is paramount. From that viewpoint, repeatedly attempting to prod customers towards even more of the company’s products might seem cheap, even distasteful. And when you’ve just shelled out a record fee for an iPhone after Apple’s painful price rises, that can just feel like nickel and diming.

But Apple has been putting increasing emphasis on its services in recent years, of which products like iCloud+, Apple Music, Apple TV and AppleCare+ are all a part. With limited room for growth in the smartphone market, the company is turning to areas where it thinks it can make more progress.

And unfortunately for users, that means more ads like this on their devices. While they are far from the most obnoxious ads around, the fact that many cannot be dismissed is clearly rubbing users the wrong way — as is the fact that the promos even exist at all in an Apple product.

There is also the possibility that at least some of these adverts are appearing due to a bug. The iCloud+ one in particular has drawn comments from users who are already subscribed to iCloud+ and thus, one would think, should not need to see any ads like this. Time will tell how that plays out and whether Apple fixes this ‘bug’ or leaves the ads in place. If the latter transpires, it would suggest that they are not appearing erroneously.

With Apple’s services push showing no signs of slowing down and further ads supposedly planned for the likes of the firm’s Visual Intelligence system, don’t expect Apple to have a change of heart any time soon.

The M5 Max Mac Studio starts at $2,499, while M5 Ultra costs $5,499. Here's what the extra $3,000 adds and which workloads can use it.

The post Mac Studio M5 Max vs M5 Ultra: Is the $3,000 Upgrade Worth It? appeared first on TechRepublic.

• Principal environment artist Archie Whitehead says Alien: Isolation 2's custom lighting and audio tech allowed it to create a more "realistic" atmosphere
• He says just using Unreal Engine 5 wasn't enough, since the engine is "optimized for usually quite bright scenes"
• Custom lighting allowed the team to design "reactivity" in the environment

Alien: Isolation 2's custom audio and lighting technology has enabled Creative Assembly to create a more authentic atmosphere that it couldn't fully achieve with just Unreal Engine 5.

In an interview with TechRadar Gaming at Gamescom, Creative Assembly principal environment artist Archie Whitehead and principal UI artist Laura Mouther shared more about developing the sequel with Unreal Engine 5 and the studio's custom technology, which it previously told us was an "evolution" of what fans are familiar with.

"For horror, audio and lighting are the two Powerman things," Whitehead said. "Unreal gave us a great base, but we felt that to do certain things, it [custom tech] really, really helps."

One of those things, particularly with lighting, was "reactivity," which would offer visual effects from things like weather and other environmental assets, creating a more realistic atmosphere.

"We wanted a thunderclap, like fire flickering, sirens spinning, all of that stuff," he continued. "We felt that a custom solution would give us that perfect frame response that you want in that really, really dark environment. You know, Lumens [UE5's global illumination and reflections system] is optimized for usually quite brighter scenes."

The developer explained that the team struggled with showcasing metals in the game's darker exterior environment, saying, "Metals in virtual worlds are really difficult."

He added, "The color of metal is actually just what's being reflected, right? And the problem is all of our scenes are really dark, so for the metal to behave properly, it's quite a tricky balance to strike. So that's one of the things that our lighting system helps us with."

The game's audio system has also improved, with Whitehead reiterating that it's an "evolution" of what the first game offered, but was iterated on again and again.

"Since then, it's been used for other CA projects, so it's quite mature," he said. "And it creates a kind of spatial setup of the world. And what that means is, when a sound happens in a room that is — a vent away from you or something — that sound is being reverberated around, and you get a really, really realistic response, and hopefully a really, really terrifying version of that sound."

Alien: Isolation 2 is now in development and will launch on PS5, Xbox Series X and Series S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.

• Apparently Nvidia's not launching RTX 6000 GPUs until 2028
• A leaker claims that these graphics cards have been delayed from the 2027 debut Nvidia originally planned
• Pushing back these GPUs makes sense given the RAM crisis, and some gamers are happy to wait anyway

Nvidia has pushed back its timeframe for launching next-generation graphics cards for gamers, and we're now hearing they won't arrive until 2028.

As ever, all this is theoretical – Nvidia hasn't uttered a peep about its RTX 6000 GPUs officially – but according to Kopite7kimi, a well-known leaker on X (via TweakTown), these products are now destined for a 2028 release which "means they have postponed again."

In other words, Nvidia was supposedly looking at a launch for next year, but the leaker now believes that isn't the case.

Another leaker, Moore's Law is Dead on YouTube, recently said that Nvidia is planning a 2027 launch for the RTX 6000 series, so this directly contradicts that idea. However, it's possible that this was the case, but Team Green has only just changed its mind.

Analysis: a sensible move

(Image credit: Shutterstock / Monkey Business Images)

Of course, both of these assertions are just rumors, and we need to regard them with an equal amount of caution – but I think it makes more sense for Nvidia to delay the release of its next-gen GeForce GPUs until 2028.

Why? I have three predictable words for you: the RAM crisis. With the memory shortage – which also impacts video RAM – rapidly worsening as 2026 progresses, and predicted to descend further into nightmarish pricing territory in 2027, next year seems like a bad move for launching a family of next-gen GPUs.

Especially when you consider that the first graphics cards to emerge will doubtless be the flagship RTX 6090 and the 6080. How expensive will they be in such a climate, given that the RTX 5080 is already exorbitantly priced? The latter has reached around $1,500 in the US at this point, and is at similar levels in other regions, such as £1,350 in the UK (that's the cheapest GPU in both cases at the time of writing, I should make clear). And let's not even talk about the RTX 5090 which has got completely ridiculous.

Remember that these next-gen GPUs are going to require more memory to be an upgrade over their predecessors, and are also likely to use more expensive VRAM modules.

3GB modules will likely be used by Nvidia, or maybe even 4GB or 6GB chips, which as Wccftech reports, are rumored to debut in the next year or two (which would align with a 2028 release for RTX 6000, in theory). That's according to another prominent leaker over in Asia, Golden Pig Upgrade, as posted on Weibo.

All expectations are for the RTX 6000 series to be pricey, which is why launching them at what might be the height of the RAM crisis – 2027, going by current predictions – doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The following year seems a lot more likely, when hopefully the crisis has started to settle down and pricing is at least stabilizing to some extent (although some believe we're looking longer term for that to happen, more towards 2030).

Whatever the case, some gamers are getting jaded with the market. One of the replies to Kopite7kimi's post on X simply says of the next generation of Nvidia GeForce GPUs: "Nobody cares, nobody can afford it anyway." Others – like this Redditor, who says "I'd rather they delayed the launch to consumers" – indicate that they're happy enough to wait due to pricing or stock issues (launch quantities of GPUs would likely be thin on the ground).

The other question is whether we'll see those RTX 5000 Super refreshes that have been long rumored. I'm doubtful at this point, and I think Nvidia may be inclined to rely more on the AI and software side of the equation, principally DLSS 5, to impress gamers, rather than new (stupidly pricey) hardware.