TechRadar Reviews

Lenovo Legion Tower 5: Two-minute review

The Lenovo Legion Tower 5 is a high-end gaming PC with a formidable spec designed to handle modern games without sacrificing much in the way of graphical fidelity.

It looks understated yet elegant as far as tower PCs go, thanks in no small part to the matte finish and rounded corners. The vibrant yet tasteful RGB lighting on the fans and through the front panel logo also adds to its allure.

What’s more, its premium appeal is more than skin deep: the Legion Tower 5 can lay claim to having one of the best gaming PC cases in terms of build quality. Every material feels solid and durable, including the glass side cover.

The only aspect I disliked was the top ventilation panel, since its sharp undulating design is uncomfortable to hold. Thankfully, there’s a grab handle at the front for when you need to move the Legion Tower 5; and you’ll certainly need the purchase it provides, since it’s a monstrously heavy unit.

There’s some scope to expand the potential of the Legion Tower 5, but not by much. Three M.2 drives and one HDD can be installed simultaneously, but 32GB is the maximum RAM allowance. I could see two spare SATA ports and one PCIe slot free, but that’s all.

(Image credit: Future)

The usual ports can be found on the Legion Tower 5, with plenty of USB-A ports and audio ports on the rear. The front panel is quite sparse though, and the inclusion of a USB-C port at this end might be disappointing to some, depending on the peripherals they have.

As you would expect given its components, the general performance of the Legion Tower 5 is excellent. It’s also free from bloatware, with Lenovo’s bundled software proving unintrusive and even useful. Lenovo Vantage offers some useful system functions and details, while LegionSpace is a simple and effective way to adjust performance settings and fan speeds.

Gaming with the Legion Tower 5 is a joy. It effortlessly runs AAA titles with fps figures in the hundreds. What’s more, it does so in near-silence and without approaching temperatures beyond the mildly tepid.

All this quality and performance does come at a price, but it’s not as eye-watering as some rivals. There are cheaper 5070 builds, but considering the quality of the case and components, not to mention its exceptional cooling abilities, the Legion Tower 5 might just be worth it for those after top-draw performance without sacrificing peace and quiet.

Lenovo Legion Tower 5: Price & availability

(Image credit: Future)

• Starts from $1,449.99 / £1,395 / AU$2,069
• Available now
• Decent value

The Legion Tower 5 is available now in the US, UK, and Australia, starting at $1,449.99 / £1,395 / AU$2,069 for the AMD Ryzen 10th Gen builds, while the Intel-based Tower 5i Gen 10 starts at $1,319.99 / £1,116 / AU$2,519.

For the AMD builds, numerous configurations are available, peaking at builds with a Ryzen 9 7950X3D and an RTX 5070 Ti, while the Intel builds feature up to an Intel Core Ultra 7 265F and an Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti. Maximum capacities for RAM and storage are 32GB and 2TB, respectively – although the latter is expandable with separately purchased drives, thanks to its three M.2 slots and an extra space for a HDD (although storage bays are only available on some models).

This isn’t a bad price considering what’s on offer, but there are still cheaper alternatives. The HP Victus 15L and HP Omen 16L cost significantly less, but you will have to settle for much lower specs. However, we found their performance capable enough for 1080p gaming and their relatively small size and generous front port selection add to their appeal.

A more closely-matched rival to the Legion Tower 5 is the NZXT Player PC, which is similarly priced to the Legion Tower 5 and likewise features an RTX 5070. Like the Legion Tower 5, it’s built to a very high standard, yet it just about undercuts it on price in some regions.

• Value: 4 / 5

Lenovo Legion Tower 5: Specs

(Image credit: Future)Lenovo Legion Tower 5 (30L, Gen10) review specs

CPU

AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D (8 cores), 4.2GHz

Graphics

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070, 12GB

RAM

32 GB DDR5-5600MT/s (UDIMM) - (2 x 16 GB)

Storage

1TB NVMe M.2 SSD

Ports

Front I/O: 1x USB-A (5Gbps), 1x USB-C (5Gbps), 1x combo audio

Back I/O: 1x RJ45, 1x USB-C (10Gbps), 2x USB-A (5Gbps), 4x USB-A (hi-speed USB), 3x audio

Wireless

Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3

Lenovo Legion Tower 5: Design

(Image credit: Future)

• Superb case
• Very heavy
• Limited expandability

The Legion Tower 5 makes a good first impression, with its steely but elegantly designed case. The bright RGB lighting of the fans and front “Legion” logo livens up the unit without being brash.

It’s built to a high standard, too. The materials feel as premium as they look, and every panel feels sturdy and durable, even the glass side cover. The downside, however, is that the Legion Tower 5 is quite large and very heavy, so moving around can be difficult.

And you won’t want to grab it from the top, as the ventilation mesh has a spiked design that can dig uncomfortably into the hand. Fortunately, there’s a useful grab handle just behind the front ports you can hold instead.

There’s some scope for expanding components, but not much. There are four DDR5 memory slots, but only a maximum of 32GB is supported. Up to three M.2 SSDs and one HDD can be installed simultaneously, and there are two spare SATA ports and a spare PCIe 4x slot.

On the rear you’ll find the usual selection of ports. There are six USB ports, although only two of them utilize the SuperSpeed standard. There are also the obligatory headphone, microphone, and line-in connections.

(Image credit: Future)

Oddly, the PSU is located at the top, resulting in a dangling power cable: this is never ideal, but here it can potentially obscure other rearside connections, too. What’s more, this placement effectively shortens the length of the cable if your outlet is close to the floor.

At the front, port selection is more scarce. There are two USB ports, although one is type-C, which could prove contentious depending on what you’re connecting. Personally, I would’ve preferred both to have been type-A, given most of my peripherals use this standard – and I suspect many others’ do as well.

My Legion Tower 5 review unit came with a mouse and keyboard: basic affairs that were perfectly functional, but clearly designed for productivity rather than gaming. The keys’ short travel and lack of feedback make them better for typing than WASD use, while the mouse has no DPI selector or even side buttons. Needless to say, Lenovo certainly hasn’t provided the best gaming keyboard or the best gaming mouse here.

• Design: 4.5 / 5

Lenovo Legion Tower 5: Performance

(Image credit: Future)

• Excellent AAA performance
• Impressively cool and quiet

Lenovo Legion Tower 5 Gen 10 (30L AMD) CPU benchmarks:

Benchmark

Score

Geekbench 6.4 Single-core

2,594

Geekbench 6.4 Multi-core

13,554

Crossmark Overall

1,846

Crossmark Productivity

1,734

Crossmark Creativity

2,127

Crossmark Responsiveness

1,454

Cinebench R23 Single Core

1,693

Cinebench R23 Multi Core

17,376

Cinebench R24 Single Core

104

Cinebench R24 Multi Core

934

The performance of the Legion Tower 5 is excellent, with the RTX 5070 in my review unit delivering on its promises.

As you would imagine, everyday tasks are handled equally well. Document and spreadsheet workloads are processed instantly, while 4K streaming is seamless, lacking the significant buffering times that can plague less capable machines.

Lenovo Legion Tower 5 Gen 10 (30L AMD) GPU benchmarks

Benchmarks

Score

3DMark Fire Strike

43,845

3DMark Steel Nomad

5,495

3DMark Solar Bay

107,638

3DMark Solar Bay Unlimited

105,290

3DMark Speed Way

5,960

3DMark Port Royal

14,302

3DMark Wild Life Extreme

43,652

3DMark Wild Life Extreme Unlimited

42,947

More impressive, however, is just how quiet the Legion Tower 5 is. During my entire time with it, the fans never rose above a gentle whir, even when the system was set to Performance mode.

What’s more, the unit remained remarkably cool throughout, never exceeding lukewarm temperatures. The Legion Tower 5 is exclusively air-cooled, utilizing six fans that offer up to 180W of power – and they certainly seem effective.

Lenovo Legion Tower 5 Gen 10 (30L AMD) gaming benchmarks

Game

Average FPS

Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p, Ultra)

72

Shadow of the Tomb Raider (Highest, 1080p)

208

F1 2024 (Max, 1080p)

119

Total War: Warhammer III (Ultra, 1080p)

172

Thankfully, the Legion Tower 5 isn’t saddled with bloatware. In fact, the two included utility apps, LegionSpace and Lenovo Vantage, are unobtrusive and quite useful; the former for viewing detailed system specs and performing functions such as BIOS updates, and the latter for adjusting performance and fan settings.

The Wi-Fi card was also exemplary. My connection speeds were fast, and I experienced no dropouts or instability.

• Performance: 5 / 5

Should I buy the Lenovo Legion Tower 5?

(Image credit: Future)

Attributes

Notes

Rating

Value

The Legion Tower 5 is expensive, but the value is good considering the performance and build quality.

3.5 / 5

Design

The case feels very premium and durable, although it’s very heavy. It’s not the most expandable, either.

4.5 / 5

Performance

The Legion Tower 5 tears through AAA titles without breaking a sweat. It’s also eerily quiet.

5 / 5

Average rating

The Legion Tower 5 is a top-tier gaming desktop that delivers superb gaming performance. It’s large and heavy, and not the most expandable, but the premium design and its hushed operation might be enough to justify its cost.

4.34 / 5

Buy it if...

You want great build quality
The case is as premium as they come, looking smart and seeming very durable.

You want excellent gaming performance
The 5070 in my review unit blasted through AAA games without issue, all the while staying perfectly cool and incredibly silent.

Don't buy it if...

You want plenty of expandability
You can only have up to 32GB of RAM, and there aren’t many other slots left spare for upgrading.

You want minimal real estate
The Legion Tower 5 is no mini PC; it’s large and heavy, and the sharp vent panel on the top doesn’t exactly help with ergonomics.

Lenovo Legion Tower 5: Also Consider

Here are some equally desirable alternatives to the Lenovo Legion Tower 5:

NZXT Player PC (5070 Intel Edition)
Despite having the same RTX card and the same RAM capacity, but twice the installed storage, the NZXT Player PC is a little cheaper than the Legion Tower 5. It doesn’t skimp on quality, either: we were impressed with its ample ventilation and smart, solid construction. The lack of visible expansion slots was about the only drawback we could find.

Read the full NZXT Player PC (5070 Intel Edition) review

Alienware Aurora (ACT1250)
The Alienware Aurora ACT1250 offers an excellent experience at 1440p and beyond, as well as a host of configuration options that allow you to build up the perfect gaming PC for performance needs. It's not great on expandability, though.

Read the full Alienware Aurora (ACT1250) review

How I tested the Lenovo Legion Tower 5

• Tested for two days
• Used for gaming and benchmarked
• Plentiful PC gaming experience

I tested the Legion Tower 5 for a couple of days, during which time I used it for a variety of tasks.

I used it for working, browsing, streaming video, and, of course, gaming. I played AAA titles such as Cyberpunk 2077 at various settings, including the highest preset. I also ran TechRadar’s series of benchmarks, to assess various aspects of its performance.

I’ve been PC gaming for over a decade, and have used a variety of systems and components during that time, and have built my own machines. I’ve also reviewed plenty of gaming hardware and laptops.

• First reviewed October 2025

if you’ve been considering storing your data in the cloud, Internxt - a cloud storage service focusing on privacy and security - is a great option. We've evaluated the service's pricing, features, interface, security, and support so that you can determine if it's the right choice for your cloud storage needs.

(Image credit: Internxt)Internxt: Plans & pricing

Internxt’s basic free plan offers 1GB of storage, while more storage can be added for free by completing certain tasks. These include installing the Internxt mobile or desktop app (1GB each), sharing a file via a link (1GB), and inviting up to 5 friends (1GB each).

Beyond that, seven other pricing plans are available for individuals and businesses. Personal customers can subscribe to 200GB, 2TB, 5TB, or 10TB when billed monthly for $5.49, $10.99, $22.99, or $34.99. There are also discounted annual and lifetime cloud storage plans, although the former don't extend to business licences.

For those, Internxt offers an Enterprise plan, with access for unlimited team members. Contact the support team for a quote based on your needs.

As of October 2025, there's an 80% discount on 5TB of Internxt's lifetime cloud storage available, with the final cost being just €380 (the offer wasn't presented to us in any other currency, regardless of territory) , an excellent long-term value proposition.

All plans offer complete use of Internxt’s secure services, including Internxt Drive, a zero-knowledge file storage service; Internxt Photos, which enables you to store photos privately and securely; and Internxt Send, a platform for sending files safely and seamlessly.

Internxt's pricing, even when converted to other currencies, is incredibly competitive compared to some of the game’s key players, including Apple iCloud and Google Drive.

To ensure accessible and hassle-free transactions, Internxt provides multiple payment methods to cater to various preferences. They accept payments via credit and debit cards (including Mastercard, VISA, American Express, and more), PayPal, bank contact, iDEAL, and SOFORT.

All plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, and since you need to already have an account to sign up, we recommend trying out the free features first before handing over your credit card details.

Internxt: Features

As a relatively new offering, Internxt’s features are pretty basic. We’ve broken down some of the key ones here.

Internxt is available on desktop, mobile, or tablet, so you can conveniently access your files on any device. With its automatic syncing capability, Internxt ensures your information will be updated and saved regardless of the device you’re using.

It offers its users handy offline access to their files. This means that you don’t have to frantically search for a network connection in order to access your documents out of range. You can enable selective offline access to all the files in your inventory.

One of the company’s strong points is its commitment to security, however a lot goes on behind the scenes. Internxt wants to make the process as normal as possible while maintaining the best protocol.

For business users, the service enables you and your team to store files with total security. You can collaborate privately with other members and toggle your admin features. You can even decide how many times you want a given link to be valid/shared so that your file won’t be accessible outside of its intended audience. This is particularly useful for sensitive documents.

All plans have derestricted file sizes, which is great for people working on videos and other large media types.

(Image credit: Internxt)Internxt: Interface & experience 

Choosing a plan and creating an account on Internxt is quick and fuss-free. In fact, of all the cloud storage providers we reviewed, this is by far the fastest sign up. Simply enter your e-mail address and chosen password to log in immediately to the web interface.

Upon doing this, you’ll find a handy introductory guide that you can access to get a quick tutorial on how the service works, which we thought was a nice touch. You can also click your account profile at the top right to download the desktop app for the device. You’ll receive 1GB extra storage for your trouble.

Internxt’s interface on mobile, web, and desktop is clean, intuitive, and user-friendly. On its main page, you can view all your files at a glance. You can also easily customize your folders with different colors and icons similar to the native tagging features in macOS and Windows. A useful search function helps you quickly locate files without having to spend time scrolling through your entire drive.

Uploading new files onto the cloud is also a breeze with a drag-and-drop interface. Similarly, you can easily share your files through a link. Overall, Internxt’s intuitive dashboard is easy to use and streamlines your workflow.

There are two aspects to the desktop client. First is the tool that sits in the status bar, allowing a certain degree of control and an insight into your syncing activity. Unlike many competitors, there is no option here to throttle bandwidth usage, which would be useful for companies and individuals processing large amounts of documents alongside other streaming activity.

The second aspect is the built-in support for your computer’s native file management system - in our case, Finder for macOS. You can use the newly created 'Internxt' folder in your home directory to continue life as normal with plenty of dragging and dropping, while keeping things synced.

You can also use the desktop client to launch the web interface, which is necessary for certain operations. On first launch the screen is grayed out except for the "upload files" button. During our tests we noticed that this also happened even when we'd already uploaded some files, forcing us to click the button, then 'cancel' on the explorer window that opened. This was a small bug but could prove irritating if you have to upload many files.

While Internxt’s primary focus is on cloud storage, there is a cloud backup service available to all free and paid accounts too - though remember the limitations of free accounts. You can also pick which folders to sync and any changes made in these will be updated online. We have previously complained about cloud drives that occupy a single folder, so being able to sync multiple folders across various locations is kindly welcomed.

Internxt: Support

In terms of support, a pop-up live chat box will instantly appear when you navigate to Internxt’s site. Chat support is pretty responsive—we got a reply in eight minutes. If you’d prefer to troubleshoot on your own, you can access Internxt’s Help Centre from the same pop-up box as the live chat function. On the search bar, type any keyword that you’re looking for and you’ll be greeted with dozens of helpful articles from the team.

If you still can’t find what you’re looking for, Internxt’s support team is contactable via email 24/7 and provides support in English, Spanish, and Russian.

(Image credit: Internxt)Internxt: Security

Security is where Internxt shines. The zero-knowledge file storage service is based on absolute privacy and uncompromising security. When you upload a file on Internxt, it’s instantly encrypted on your device. Unlike other mainstream services that encrypt customer data in transit or at rest, the service encrypts all your data before it leaves your device. When data is downloaded from the file to your device, it's also automatically decrypted.

Additionally, Internxt doesn’t store user data in any central location. Instead, data gets fragmented prior to being uploaded, and the encrypted file shards are then uploaded onto servers based in different locations around the world. A single server never holds a whole file, making the cloud storage very secure, robust, and private.

With its AES-256 CTR encryption model, no one else other than you holds the key to your data. If Internxt were to be hacked, intruders wouldn’t be able to access your data either.

On the consumer’s end, two-factor authentication (2FA) is easy to enable. There is no support for SMS authentication. This can be handy for people with phone and computer integration and autofill but is actually a point in Internxt's favor as SMS messages are much easier to intercept than codes generated by legitimate authenticator apps.

Even users without an account have access to the company’s free virus scanner which works by uploading a document - up to 1GB in size - to the website in order for it to be checked.

Internxt also provides a free password checker, which shows any relevant information such as that it is a frequently used or easily guessed, as well as the amount of leaks that this password has been found in and how long it would take for somebody to crack your password. It also lets you know if your password has been leaked in any public hacks recently.

There’s some handy guidance, too, for creating the ultimate password, though we still recommend using six or more words generated by Diceware.

One of the best security aspects of Internxt though is its commitment to open source. This means that the company has released the source code used to make its app so knowledgeable programmers can verify that end-to-end encryption has been set up correctly, as well as the fact that data is split into multiple clusters.

Internxt: Alternatives 

We found Dropbox gives Internxt a run for its money thanks to its advanced file-sharing capabilities and software integration. Similarly, Microsoft OneDrive is a great alternative with its files-on-demand feature.

The two competitors offer a range of useful tools and great functionality at about the same price point. To enjoy these features, however, you may have to compromise on privacy and security: Dropbox and OneDrive do not offer zero-knowledge encryption. Unlike other products which do claim to offer 'zero knowledge' Internxt is also open source, which means you don't have to take your word for it that your data's safe.

Internxt: Our tests 

We ran three critical tests for Internxt, measuring sync speed, file recovery, and versioning.

Our testing was conducted on a Windows 11 virtual machine using the Internxt desktop client. The virtual machine was connected to the internet through fiber broadband via a VPN server, which consistently demonstrated an average upload speed of 900 Mbps in our speed tests.

Measuring metrics like upload speed, results can vary depending on how many share the broadband connection, how busy the cloud providers' servers are, and your connection speeds.

(Image credit: Future)

• Test 1 - Sync speed

After closing all third-party and internet apps, we transferred a 589 MB folder containing various files, such as images, PDFs, and Microsoft documents. The folder had 232 files spread across six folders.

Instead of using the Internxt desktop client, we used the web interface to upload the files. During the upload, we monitored the progress, and we were pleasantly surprised to see that the encryption process did not slow down the upload speed. The entire 589MB upload on our 900 Mbps connection only took 3 minutes and 39 seconds, comparable to other cloud storage services we've tested that do not use encryption.

• Test 2 - File recovery

We deleted the ‘Sync’ folder from the application directory, which removed it from the device. Then, I checked if the files had been removed from the cloud drive and if they could be recovered.

If the cloud provider offers a way to store files in the cloud without keeping them on your device, we also test this feature.

After deleting the test files from the ‘Sync’ folder, they moved into the ‘Trash’ folder. Despite this, the files were still counted towards our data quota. However, with two clicks of the mouse, the data was decrypted and downloaded back to the device within 90 seconds.

(Image credit: Future)

• Test 3 - Versioning

If you're working on lengthy or crucial documents, the last thing you would want is to make changes that cannot be undone. Many cloud providers address this issue by regularly saving different file versions. If you make an undesired change, you can revert the file to a previous version.

We transferred a Microsoft Excel file to the cloud application folder to test this. After synchronizing, we deleted a tab in the spreadsheet, saved the changes, and closed the file. We then attempted to restore it to its original form, with all tabs intact.

We placed our test document into the Internxt folder and removed some text. However, when we logged into the web interface, we were unable to find a 'file version' feature. It seems that Internxt does not save multiple copies of edited files.

We also explored the 'Preview' feature but found it did not work for the Microsoft Word document or an MP3 file we attempted to open.

Internxt: Verdict 

Internxt is an excellent cloud storage service due to its affordable pricing plans, intuitive interface, and reliable support. While it may not offer advanced features like file versioning found in Dropbox and OneDrive, it excels in security measures and commitment to privacy, making it a top choice for personal and business users prioritizing security. Internxt's useful features are highly rated, including a familiar interface, the option to backup folders elsewhere on your computer, and free virus and password tools.

Edifier MR5: Two-minute review

Active monitor speakers were at one point the near-exclusive haunt of the audio professional, casual listeners leaning more to desktop computer speakers or to hi-fis of their own design. A recent deluge of more accessible, feature-rich monitor designs has attempted to bridge the gap, often at the expense of practical utility to the people they were first designed for – but the Edifier MR5, in my opinion, does a great job at bucking that trend, making them some of the best stereo speakers I've tested recently.

For the low low price of $349.99 / £279.99 (approx AUS$570), you get a delightfully demure set of desktop-friendly speakers that achieve remarkable neutrality, incredible high-end clarity and a satisfying low end that trumps the capabilities of many larger competitors.

This is possible by virtue of Edifier’s smart new three-driver design, incorporating a downward-facing woofer, a bi-ported chassis and a tri-amped, active-crossover architecture. The results speak for their balanced, broad and crystal-clear selves.

There’s a shedload of tech backing up these fundamental smarts too. Digital EQ controls and customization are available via the Edifier ConneX app, including some one-click acoustic tuning options that compensate for corners of your desktop. I feel like these features sometimes get in the way of the MR5’s essential excellence, but that’s just me.

With Bluetooth 6.0, LDAC support for hi-res streaming and four options for analog inputs, it’s understandable that their design budget couldn’t stretch to including the kitchen sink.

(Image credit: Future)Edifier MR5 review: Price and release date

• Released on July 1, 2025
• $349.99 / £279.99 (approx AU$570)

Edifier is a Chinese brand that’s had its mitts in the monitor market for a long time, and has consequently made a reputation for itself as one of the best budget brands going. Its products are often inexpensive and in possession of unusual cheer, particularly for the quality of sound they offer against the MSRP they’re able to pitch their products at.

This pair of active monitors, the MR5, is the latest in the still-quite-new MR series, and every bit an improvement on the prior models with which it shares an umbrella. Against the Edifier MR4, they add dual-device Bluetooth 6.0 connectivity – and, more importantly, a daring new three-way driver design.

The Edifier MR5's price is $349.99 / £279.99, which coverts to roughly AU$570 in Australia although the speakers don't seem to be releasing there.

Between these and the expanded digital control of EQ settings and other features, suffice to say there’s a great deal crammed into these unexpectedly-dinky active monitor speakers. Can they stick the landing, though?

(Image credit: Future)Edifier MR5 review: Specs

Drivers

5” woofer, 3.75" mid driver, 1" silk dome tweeter

Analogue connectivity

Dual XLR, dual TRS, RCA, 3.5mm aux; 3.5mm headphone out

Digital connectivity

Bluetooth 6.0 (two devices) with LDAC support

Power

110W RMS

Frequency range

46Hz - 40kHz

Extras

x1 3.5mm to 3.5mm aux cable, 1x RCA to 3.5mm aux cable

Edifier MR5 review: Features

• Three-way active crossover
• Four analog inputs, dual-device Bluetooth 6.0
• App control for voicings and room EQ

The Edifier MR5 monitor speakers are a veritable bag of nifty cross-disciplinary tricks, with features and fripperies that speak to casual listeners, young-buck music producers and burgeoning professionals building a versatile control-room setup.

On the connectivity front, there’s balanced XLR inputs and TRS inputs, plus RCA inputs and a front-facing 3.5mm aux port, for a total of four analogue connectivity options and the absolute elimination of any roadblocks to integrating the MR5 with your studio. Couple this with dual-device Bluetooth 6.0 (and LDAC-supportive) connectivity for ease of passing the digital aux, and you’ve five powerful ways to get what you want out of these – plus a 3.5mm headphone output for quiet-time.

For the pros, there’s the extensive 46Hz - 40kHz frequency range and flat frequency response out of the box, alongside manually-adjustable high- and low-shelf filters for adjusting to the acoustics of your space. Speaking of which, there’s the option for further DSP customization via Bluetooth using the proprietary Edifier ConneX app, including more granular low-cut control, and room compensation algorithms for better performance in reflective spaces.

For everyone else, there’s expressive hi-fi-leaning options for speaker voicings, and digital control of both those voicings and audio playback via the same proprietary app. In short, there’s a boatload to discover – and the discovery doesn’t stop here either. These speakers are also trend-buckingly maximalist with how they approach their core modus operandi.

Smaller bookshelf style monitors like these traditionally have two drivers – a mid-woofer and a tweeter – and use smart chassis design or an optional subwoofer output for low-end coverage. Here, though, Edifier’s somehow managed to squeeze in three drivers in a tri-amped, active-crossover system, comprising a 3.75" mid driver, 1" silk dome tweeter and a side-ported, downward-facing 5” woofer for low-end coverage.

The result is a small set of desktop-friendly active monitor speakers, with an outsized feature-set and a smooth sound output that seriously challenges the demureness of its form – more on which right now, actually.

(Image credit: Future)

• Features score: 5/5

Edifier MR5 review: Sound quality

• Controlled bass with body
• Detailed and dimensional high-mid range
• Limited by size, despite smart crossover design

The Edifier MR5 have three distinct voicings you can switch between, at a press of the single knob on the front: ‘Monitor’, ‘Music’, and ‘Customized’. For the uninitiated, ‘Monitor’ mode would attempt as neutral a frequency response as possible, for a clinical representation of sound as recorded. ‘Music’ adds a hi-fi sheen, sculpting the EQ for a more exciting representation, and ‘Customized’, as I’m sure you’ve surmised, is a do-it-yourself mode for saving your personal EQ settings (dialed in via app).

For this review, I spent the vast majority of my time using the ‘Monitor’ voicing. As someone who frequently uses monitor speakers in a professional capacity more so than a personal one, the neutral frequency response is far more useful to me day-to-day. I have some thoughts about the other settings later on, but until then you’re getting my impressions of these monitors at their essential best.

Small caveat for the bargain-seeking audio pros amongst you, too: my listening environment was not that of an acoustically-treated studio control room, and as such my observations should be taken with a pinch of semi-casual salt. It’s a hard line to tread between the exacting expectations of the career-minded and the vibey sensibilities of the rest, and yet it’s a line both this reviewer and these speakers are determined to tread.

Given that unique downward-facing driver design, you might be expecting an avalanche of desk-shaking bass. It is my utmost pleasure to report that no such misrepresentation occurs – at least, unless you push the MR5 to the upper limits of their volume range, at which point you can immediately quell it using the helpfully-named Desktop mode.

Instead, that bold woofer is put to use in delivering body over boom. There’s a little bloom with more outrageously-arranged pieces – Falle Nioke’s Falle Le Le Le features a low end that sounds like it’s already blown the speakers it was blasted through, and even that edgy, crunched-out kick and bass synth is presented with a level of welcome restraint. Distorted, low-tuned guitars a la Greet Death’s Die In Love are full and forceful, to gratifyingly torrential ends.

(Image credit: Future)

The ported sides of each speaker give airy movement in the ultra-low end, allowing kicks and thumpy bass guitars to breathe. Unfortunately, despite the clever design principles on display here, you’ll still experience the same limitations imposed by small-form nearfield monitors – namely, a compressed low-middy boxiness at higher volumes, that’s hard to design your way out of even with nifty acoustic tuning options and customizable EQ.

As a probably-intentional byproduct of this restrained approach to bass, the Edifier MR5 are phenomenal midrange communicators. Pile’s Bouncing In Blue, from latest heavy-folk stunner Sunshine And Balance Beams, is a phenomenal showcase of this, primarily through the Biscoff-spread smoothness of Rick Maguire’s drawled voice.

Uneasy, which follows immediately after, is a tactile delight, setting panned staccato guitars and kick-snare-kick-kick-snare percussion against one another with gratifying gusto beneath Maguire’s actually-quite-affected sneer. Indeed, there’s magic in that high-mid and high end, with stunning voice translation and a beautiful reediness in sustained strings and the like.

The MR5’s handling of transients isn’t as cutting or sharp as other speakers, but still reassuringly immediate. At the tippity-top, there’s no bite, spike or scratch, but rather a forthright resolution that puts anything flicky, ticky or indeed scratchy in glorious magic-eye-picture 3D before your ears. Hi-hats, auxiliary snaps, maracas – all presented with a delicate touch and a brilliant sense of in-the-room presence. This impressive soundstaging is a triumph both of the tweeters themselves and the clever acoustic design surrounding them.

Water From Your Eyes’ Playing Classics is one of the driest, most up-front songs going at the moment, and an excellent bellwether for the matter-of-factness these MR5 monitors are capable of. Bluntly-presented digital cymbals, dry DI-ed guitars and sampled-piano melodies make a compelling case for the high-end clarity these are capable of – even if that airy low-end starts to encroach a little.

In ‘Music’ mode, the MR5s add a heaped cup of extra bloom to the low end, along with some characterful contouring that gives a little more hi-fi excitement to proceedings. I get it, particularly for the additional presence it (of course) gives to kicks and hi-hats, but I don’t necessarily love it. With the Customized mode, the graphic EQ makes it easy to select for problem frequencies, but makes vibes-based EQing a tad fiddlier. Nonetheless, EQ moves were expressive enough to give you some control over your ideal outcomes.

• Sound quality score: 4.5/5

(Image credit: Future)Edifier MR5 review: Design

• Extensive connectibility
• Handy, feature-filled companion app
• Digital settings are slow on the uptake

Thanks to the MR5’s prodigious I/O, setting up for analogue playback is about as simple as it could be: plug thingies you have into thingies they’ll fit. Unlike many professional monitor speakers, the MR5 hosts most of its hardware in one speaker, and sends audio to the other using a unique 9-pin connector cable; as such, you only need one plug socket to run the two of them.

Bluetooth connectivity is similarly fuss-free, and much the same as you’ll find anywhere else. A dedicated button on the rear puts the speakers in discovery mode, and connecting is as simple as looking for the good Edifier name on your transmitting device.

Bluetooth control is also how the Edifier ConneX app is able to work its remote-control magic. From the app you can mess with various features, including switching between voicings, acoustic tuning settings, and even selecting which speaker receives left or right channels of audio.

The MR5’s techy maximalism can sometimes get in its own way, though. An over-eager auto-standby can catch you off guard if you pause music for a phone call or a brew – a half-pointless mini-feature that does more to vex than it does to save energy. Thankfully, you can de-activate it using either the encoder knob or the app, rendering this particular gripe half-pointless itself.

Perhaps more vexingly, the customisable EQ settings are communicated through the ConneX app via Bluetooth, and there’s some significant latency between the sliding of a digital fader and a real-terms change in the volume of a given frequency. This latency makes hunting tuning problems a little more difficult and time-consuming than it really ought to be – but, again, if you’re just here for the room compensation, there’s a low-cut knob right there on the back of the speaker.

As for visuals, there’s some understated class to the MR5. The dimpled waveguides around the tweeters add some fun as well as some practical high-end widening; the bronze flourishes on the mid-woofer dustcaps, around the tweeters and via that knurled encoder knob are tasteful, but only just. For my taste, they toe the line between cool and cringe – and toe it all the better in your periphery.

• Design score: 4/5

(Image credit: Future)Edifier MR5 review: Value

• Astonishingly feature-rich for the price
• Signifiers of cheapness few but obvious
• A stunning choice for desktop nearfields

The Edifier MR5 are a truly maximalist affair, and arguably worth every penny on the features front alone. It’s nice to see monitor speakers, particularly at this higher-end-of-cheap price point, not just meeting practical expectations but exceeding them. You can connect to these speakers five different ways, switch between three different sound profiles and control a lot more of its sound and functionality than you might reasonably expect.

Some elements of the MR5’s price point are more obvious than others. For instance, the only part of the speaker with which you actually, actively interface every time you use it is the plastic knob adorning the sole rotary encoder on the front. The encoder itself has a solid and reassuring mechanical feedback, but it’s transmitted through a cheap-feeling tactile surface. It’s a miniscule part of the greater MR5 whole, but nonetheless a shame that this no-brainer of a cost-cutting angle is so necessarily present in, and even central to, the user experience.

I mention this not to dock marks from the MR5, but to highlight just what it’s managed to achieve. That a plastic knob, some delayed EQ adjustment and an optional auto-standby feature constitute the majority of my criticism should tell you everything you need to know about these highly-accessible, multi-disciplinary, pint-sized works of well-priced magic.

I will say that I’m a personal fan of them as an at-home set of trustworthy nearfield monitors. They’re fine mid-field hi-fi operators, but really shine in a desktop or small-office environment, and as a jack-of-all-trades as opposed to a bona fide pro audio solution. For the fine line they tread, this is about as good as it gets.

(Image credit: Future)

• Value score: 5/5

Edifier MR5 review: scorecard

Comment

Rating

Features

Digital app control, customized sound profiles and many connection options, all housed alongside a tri-amped three-way driver system.

5/5

Sound quality

The Edifier MR5 perform astonishingly well in the upper ranges, the transient response is forgiving, and percussion three-dimensional.

4.5/5

Design

Plug-and-play speakers for all but the liveliest office rooms, and a breeze to tune up. Bronze-ish highlights elevate the otherwise-understated form.

4/5

Value

I’d be hard-pressed to find any reason to say these aren’t worth every penny they sell for.

5/5

Should you buy the Edifier MR5?Buy them if...

You want speakers that do everything
The Edifier MR5 pack a whole lot into a delightfully demure bookshelf-speaker package. From the glut of analogue inputs to the hi-res Bluetooth, and from the great neutral starting point to the colourful potential of their voice modes, these tick all the boxes for an all-in-one studio-room speaker set.

You’re looking for great sound on a budget
The Edifier MR5’s three-way driver system is nothing short of genius, making the absolute most of what is usually a limiting form factor. Though a little costlier than what many would consider the budget range, these are well worth the investment for leg-up monitors that’ll hold their own for a while.

Don't buy them if...

You hate apps
You don’t need to use the proprietary Edifier ConneX app to enjoy your MR5 speakers – but it helps! And some of us simply have less time for finicky app-based customisation than others.

You want room-filling sound
These are ideal nearfield monitors, and impressive when used as midfield monitors too. Fundamentally, though, they’re too small to do much with larger spaces.

Also consider

Edifier MR5

Edifier QR65

Kanto Ren

Price

$349.99 / £279.99 (approx AU$570)

$369.99 / £329.99 / AU$449

$599 / £599 (around AU$1,199)

Drivers

5" woofer, 3.75" mid driver, 1" silk dome tweeter

2.75" mid-low driver, 1.25" silk dome tweeter

5.25" woofer, 1" silk dome tweeter

Analogue connectivity

Dual XLR, dual TRS, RCA, 3.5mm aux; 3.5mm headphone out

RCA, sub out

RCA, 3.5mm aux, sub out

Digital connectivity

Bluetooth 6.0 (two devices), with LDAC support

Bluetooth 5.3, USB-A

Bluetooth 5.3 with AAC support, USB-C, optical (TOSLINK), HDMI ARC

Power

110W RMS

70W RMS

100W RMS

Frequency range

46Hz - 40kHz

55Hz - 40kHz

50Hz - 22kHz

Extras

1x 3.5mm to 3.5mm aux cable, 1x RCA to 3.5mm aux cable

1x 3.5mm to 3.5mm aux cable, 1x USB cable

Speaker wire

Edifier QR65
If you’ve a little more to spend and a little less space to spare, Edifier’s QR65 have you covered. These smaller desktop speakers are designed with wireless utility in mind, but play great as desk-bound AV speakers for whatever you’re up to.
See our full Edifier QR65 review

Kanto Ren
Kanto’s Ren speakers only bear so much in common with Edifier’s MR5, in that they’re powered, and they’re bookshelf format. But everything else that they are might be exactly what you’re looking for, if the MR5 doesn’t scratch your hi-fi itch; there’s subwoofer compatibility, digital inputs and some very musical voicings that make them great living-room listeners.
See our full Kanto Ren review

How I tested the Edifier MR5

• Tested for five weeks
• Used as monitor speakers in an attic office space,
• Serviced by a Universal Audio Volt 476 audio interface, and by Bluetooth connection
• Predominantly tested using Bandcamp, Spotify, local music files and Reaper sessions

The Edifier MR5 spent their time as the primary listening devices for my office studio setup, as nearfield studio monitors. During my time with them, I streamed music from Spotify and Bandcamp, as well as played music locally from my computer (both high-quality downloads, and works-in-progress on the digital audio workstation Reaper) – all via a Universal Audio Volt 476 interface. I also streamed music from my Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra smartphone, which also harboured the Edifier ConneX app for testing digital control.

First reviewed: October 2025

Read more about how we test at TechRadar

Nothing pains me more than facing continued disappointment at video game adaptations of The Lord of the Rings, but unfortunately, cozy Hobbit life simulator Tales of the Shire: A Lord of the Rings Game has me right back at rock bottom. It attempts to capture the world and lives of Tolkien’s halfling heroes, but instead posits a torturously slow and boring glimpse into the joys of such menial tasks as walking with slight urgency and inventory management.

Review info

Platform reviewed: Xbox Series S
Available on: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, PC
Release date: July 29, 2025

A wizard arrives precisely when he means to, but Tales of the Shire did not. Numerous delays plagued developer Wētā Workshop, resulting in its release being pushed back from Fall 2024 to Spring 2025, then to its ultimate release date in July 2025. Having played the demo, it was a wise choice; the Shire should be brimming with life, simple joys, and fellowship, and yet our earliest glimpses of the game in demos last year showed there was much room for improvement.

A wizard arrives precisely when he means to, but Tales of the Shire did not. Numerous delays plagued developer Wētā Workshop, resulting in its release being pushed back from Fall 2024 to Spring 2025, then to its ultimate release date in July 2025. Having played the demo, it was a wise choice; the Shire should be brimming with life, simple joys, and fellowship, and yet our earliest glimpses of the game in demos last year showed there was much room for improvement.

Sadly, reader, I must inform you that such improvements were not made. I finally got around to finishing the game a few months after its release, and it was genuinely quite draining to make my way through its watery plotlines, half-baked features, and flavorless characters. In fact, one of Tales of the Shire’s greatest achievements is that it somehow makes Gandalf seem bland for the little screen time he gets.

The part of me that really, really wanted this game to win has done the rounds of questioning how this happened, but honestly, it just feels like poor direction. Where Tales of the Shire should reward patience, it punishes efficiency and speed; where it should encourage creativity, it incentivizes shortcuts; and where it should be fun and light, it’s downright boring and forces you to trudge through fields to find near-invisible Butterfly Cup mushrooms for days on end just to feed them to your socially awkward neighbors.

I genuinely don’t enjoy poo-pooing creative endeavors, but Tales of the Shire is a disappointing step into the game development limelight for Wētā Workshop, and one has to wonder if they had the IP just lying around and fancied giving game design a go. It’s not without good ideas, but it certainly lacks heart and execution.

“Nary a squib, cracker or backarapper”

(Image credit: Weta Workshop)

The game opens with a familiar face: that of Gandalf towering over your custom character Hobbit on the roadside. He offers you a ride to your new home, Bywater, before ingraciously jet-setting off on his own travels around the Shire, leaving you to your fledgling journey. The tutorial sees you meeting most of the townsfolk, learning the ropes of Hobbit life through farming, foraging, fishing, and feeding neighbors to grow your reputation and the prosperity of Bywater.

The main plotline sees a small collective of local Hobbits band together on a mission to officially gain township for Bywater, a quest decorated by typical Hobbit foolery. The abstract and oft whimsical ways in which these Hobbits go about their problem-solving make for some enjoyable momentum to its credit. For example, when a very dated rulebook suggests that one condition for a township is a wolf's head hung over the town gate, they approach it with great confidence despite none of them ever actually having seen a wolf in the peaceful Shire. Using remnants of forgotten knowledge from elder townsfolk, they piece together a rather rough and ready fake ​​– which, of course, they later discover was entirely unnecessary​.

It’s small moments of nonsense and whimsy like these that I was so excited for, but unfortunately, they are few and far between in Tales of the Shire. Dialogue in the game is extensive, but at least half of the characters offer no depth or development beyond their archetypal roles. You’ve got the grumpy, weird fishing man, lovely elderly cooking lady, slightly dumb farmer, generic cute kid, and brassy bar owner. That’s no sin; the joy of Hobbits is their simplicity, but there’s little original content here that makes dialogue feel worthwhile, and the lack of any voice-overs really hammers home the lifelessness.

Cutscenes are also unhelped by frequent perspective bugs (Image credit: Weta Workshop)

It’s quite the achievement that Tales of the Shire even fails to make Gandalf seem interesting; sure, he offers some hijinks and at least a few salient moments, but it’s a shallow attempt at capturing the wise yet whimsical wizard. Oh, and don’t get me started on the pitiful attempt at recreating a Gandalf firework display, because that truly is a crime against the source material. Seriously, 5-10 peony fireworks and nary a squib, cracker, or backarapper? That should be considered criminal.

That being said, some characters feel more Hobbit-specific in their caricatures. I loved Hobson, Bywater’s bumbling tradesman who will try to fob off any junk he finds to locals, and Delphinium, the herbalist who lives in the shadow – and lingering grief – of her deceased mother. While I wouldn’t go as far as to call these better-rounded characters dynamic, they at least pack a bit more of the heart and depth needed to make me want to interact with them.

Befriending your neighbors is a pretty central part of the game, so you’ll need to put aside any feelings of apathy towards them and muck in to build your relationships. The main way of doing this is through shared meals, hosted at a variety of locations around Bywater and with different party sizes, to win their favor. On the day of a shared meal, you’ll receive in your letterbox a hint at their food preferences; any meals or flavors they’re craving, which can help to raise friendships quicker.

These are, for the most part, fine, and cooking is most definitely the most fun activity in Bywater. It’s pretty basic, although it does get more complex as the game progresses when new recipes and tools are unlocked; even so, it’s pretty easy to master.

Time goes by so slowly

(Image credit: Weta Workshop)

Your new home of Bywater, is an interesting backdrop for a cozy adventure. Thematically, it hits all the right notes; rolling hills, pastoral beauty, and relatively organic-feeling, and I must give it at least some credit for winning me over later in the game. Navigation is intentionally slow-paced; there’s no map overlay, so after pinning your destination or quest to follow in the map menu, you have to follow a series of bluebirds that perch along pathways to point you in the right direction. For the first few hours, it’s grating at best, unhelped by the abundance of dead ends, impassible objects, and steep slopes you can’t walk down, but over time, you learn the layout and shortcuts for yourself. It’s one of the best ways the game teaches you patience, and it reminded me of my own experience learning the lay of the land when my mother moved to the countryside.

The same can’t be said for the game’s wider pacing issues, however. Some days crawl by, and having run out of things to do, those days often ended with my Hobbit Peony waiting at her bedside for night to fall to start a new day. Other days see a litany of villager requests stuffing your mailbox in the morning, ready to send you on a chain of fetch quests that will often take you across all four corners of Bywater; it would be better if the game paced these out better, as I was able to blast through a majority of the main plotline by the end of my second season in the game.

Best bit: cooking up a storm

(Image credit: Weta Workshop)

While there’s room for improvement even in my favorite part of the game, I did enjoy cooking. The minigames themselves are relatively fun, but I particularly like how it gives shape to the day, particularly when you find you need to nip out to grab ingredients from across Bywater. These more purposeful, time-bound tasks made hosting a treat.

Another oddity in the game’s pacing is the guild feature, which comes into play relatively late in the main storyline progression. As part of Bywater’s quest for township, you create groups for each of the four main activities, and every day, the group leader will post new requests. You can pin up to 10 requests, which, once fulfilled, will gain you progression points towards group mastery. However, it comes in so late in the game that you feel incentivized to just grind through these to unlock perks like a bigger backpack and additional cooking stations, which feels contrary to the wider pacing.

Never mind the fact that, on top of this, there are a lot of bugs and optimization issues – or at least, there were in my Xbox playthrough, but from what I’ve seen online, these are still present months after release for many players.

Skipping around town for too long leads to frame rate drops, characters in the background of conversations stutter about the screen, and quests can sometimes bug out if you go to sleep mid-way through, making some days a mad panic to complete it all before the clock strikes midnight. My game also fatally crashed upwards of ten times during my time with it, requiring me to play my day from scratch – and you can imagine from my desperate desire to finish this game how frustrating it was to lose a full day’s work.

Home is where the existential crisis is

(Image credit: Weta Workshop)

There are some parts of Tales of the Shire I unabashedly enjoy, and chief among them is home decoration. You begin the game with a humble smial that, over time, unlocks and expands, but from the get-go, there’s a good amount of personality you can add to the rooms. You’ll receive furnishings and decor as gifts from neighbors as you go about your lives together, but you can also head to town to shop for more. Character creation isn’t quite as fun, but there are some really fun items in the mix and, if nothing else, their existence makes saving and spending money a little more worthwhile.

While you adventure and quest about Bywater, you can find fishing spots and plants to forage, as well as villagers to trade with. Some take your hard-earned cash for useful ingredients, seeds, and decor, while others will trade for their favorite ingredients. The early game makes this quite challenging; your only avenue for earning money is selling whatever you find or farm, and I quite enjoyed the grind. Unfortunately, the game scales weirdly, meaning it’s very easy past a certain point to rinse the local economy.

The chief culprit here is farming due to the perplexing choice to let vegetables grow out of season. You have to plant them at the correct time of year, and they’ll certainly bear fruit more quickly during those seasons, but as soon as you unlock more farm space and flowerbeds, you can easily abandon in-depth farming strategy and support your voracious appetite for home-cooked meals with easily farmed and watered vegetables.

(Image credit: Weta Workshop)

Of course, you’ll still need to forage and fish for more specific ingredients, but a fair amount of meals can be prepared with just farmed goods and purchased goods; the game could do with slightly higher stakes here, as it quickly became easy to cheese my way through.

It’s far harder to cheat your way to financial success with foraging or fishing, however. There are several designated fishing spots around the map, and while some do offer slightly rarer fish, most spots seem to generate the same species. Annoyingly, these aren’t stackable, and with a very limited 10-slot inventory space, you’ll probably find yourself heading to town to sell up your haul or back home to restock your pantry pretty often. This limitation makes some of the more rural fishing spots a real pain, but thankfully, you can pretty much ignore them without any real penalty.

The long and short of it is, almost everything I like about Tales of the Shire comes with a caveat, and it makes for an incredibly mixed bag experience. It certainly feels like, post demo, they had the opportunity to rework much of early reviewers’ criticism, but that was by and large ignored to the detriment of the end results.

Should you play Tales of the Shire?Play it if...

You always wanted to decorate your own smial
Home decoration is fulfilling from day one in Tales of the Shire, and the rate you receive furniture is pretty satisfying.

You like cooking sims
While cooking in the game is relatively simple, it’s quite fun to just potter about the kitchen and dash about Bywater to grab the necessary ingredients.

Don't play it if...

You want a game you can’t put down
On the contrary, you’ll want to put it down often. Maybe not forever, but often enough that you’ll need a backup game to play, because Tales of the Shire is both boring and buggy in places.

You’re a die-hard Lord of the Rings fan
Between Gandalf’s withering personality to the disappointing mundanity of Hobbit life, franchise fans will find the game rings hollow.View Deal

You want well-rounded simulation mechanics
From the weird pace of farming to the oft-painstaking fishing process, Tales of the Shire only delivers complexity in that nothing makes much sense.View Deal

Accessibility

There are some accessibility features, but not an all-encompassing selection. For example, you can change text size, adjust camera sensitivity, and toggle auto-assist features for both the camera and the cooking station gameplay, as well as difficulty. There’s controller support, but with limited remappable buttons, and a major oversight is the lack of a sprint toggle here. Add to this the lack of a mini-map, poor performance, and frequent crashes, and you have yet another mixed bag for Tales of the Shire.

(Image credit: Weta Workshop)How I reviewed Tales of the Shire: A Lord of the Rings Game

I played over 25 hours of Tales of the Shire on my Xbox Series S, completing the main storyline and quests and significantly progressing my villager relationships and guild quests. I played on my Sony KD-49XH8096 TV using Logitech Multimedia Z200 speakers and a standard Xbox wireless controller.

I used standard settings, comparing the experience to other popular farming and life sims like Stardew Valley, Disney Dreamlight Valley, and Palia, as well as indie titles like Coral Island.

First reviewed October 2025

Eptusmey 10.1-inch WiFi Digital Photo Frame: review

The Eptusmey 10.1-inch WiFi Digital Photo Frame is an affordable digital photo frame built on the Uhale platform. At 1280 x 800 pixels, it’s not the highest resolution photo frame on the market, but it’s capable of pretty credible sharpness and is far easier to use than other affordable frames I’ve tested.

I’ve used quite a few different digital photo frame apps now, and they vary widely from the full-featured, bespoke marketplace of the Netgear Meural Canvas II to Frameo, the third-party, one-size-fits-all app used by many digital photo frames, including the alternate version of this device. But there’s something novel about the Eptusmey’s user interface that I find particularly smooth and intuitive.

Setting up the frame is straightforward enough. Once you’ve selected its language and logged in to your Wi-Fi, you can start getting friends and family set up to send photos directly to the frame. Just download the Uhale app, scan the QR code, or enter the displayed code, and you’re good to go. You’re then ready to start selecting photos from your phone and firing them over.

If you’ve read many of my reviews of the best digital photo frames, you’ll know a pet peeve of mine is how some devices handle image orientation, often opting for a universal size that rarely fits every photo well. Instead, the Uhale app and Eptusmey photo frame allow you to scale images to fit and adjust the vertical or horizontal alignment to precisely frame the elements you choose. Being able to adjust this on a per-picture basis on the screen made it far easier to tweak specific images that didn’t look right, rather than having to delete and reupload them.

(Image credit: Future / Josh Russell)

Odd issues did crop up now and then, though. First, despite the fact that I could set the scaling and position of images in the app, this didn’t seem to be saved for the uploaded images, meaning I’d have to set it again once they were on the frame. I also found that while scrolling through my phone’s photo library, it was far too easy to accidentally drag and select a bunch of images or, worse, deselect all of the ones I’d already picked out.

While colors are decent, they’re not quite as vibrant as I’ve come to expect from the best digital photo frames. Hues are accurate – there aren’t necessarily any specific missteps in terms of the color profile – but the frame pulls its punches when it comes to saturation. Rhododendrons that are a fireworks display of pinks, oranges and yellows even on the relatively conservative screen of my iPhone 16 Pro look more pastel than I’d expect, making the overall effect much more subdued.

By contrast – if you’ll excuse the pun – black and white photography really pops. Capable of both impressive brightness and relatively deep blacks, the Eptusmey shows off monochrome shots with an expansive dynamic range. Whether it was displaying shots of lichen-covered cliffsides in the Scottish Highlands or neo-gothic buildings in Budapest, grayscale photos always looked both bold and bright.

(Image credit: Future / Josh Russell)

Despite the frame’s relatively meager 1280 x 800 resolution – hitting a pixel density of 149ppi – detail is also very decent. Whether it’s the individual hairs of a bumblebee’s fuzzy butt or the grains of sand clinging to a frog’s back, fine detail is crisply rendered. Unfortunately, though, the Eptusmey fares less well with images shot at shorter focal lengths. The iPhone 16 Pro’s artificial bokeh occasionally appeared over-sharpened, making those images look much weaker by comparison.

Another regrettable blind spot of the Eptusmey is how reflective its glass is. I tested this digital photo frame during a British autumn – I can barely remember the last time I even saw the sun, let alone had it shining on this frame. But, even so, this photo frame’s screen is swamped by reflections of our modestly lit testing space, meaning it’s not going to be a good choice for anywhere particularly bright or with a lot of furnishings to reflect.

Outside of the screen, the Eptusmey’s design is similarly mixed. In the plus column, its rear leg is very sturdy and makes switching orientation simple: pop it out and pop it back in rotated at 90 degrees, and you’re good to go. It also offers decent aesthetics, with the painted wood frame and modest white mount around the screen looking classy enough for a frame at this price range, and the two color options providing a decent choice to match the frame to your decor.

(Image credit: Future)

It’s not perfect, though, by any stretch. The mount is very plasticky to the touch – I’ve definitely been spoiled by the beautiful paper-like texture of the Aura Aspen here, though, so I won’t hold that too much against it.

Perhaps a more significant minus is the fact the paint on the exterior frame has started to wear off in a few places. Picking at the edge of the frame with my thumbnail, I was easily able to replicate this damage, which makes me worry a little about its durability.

OK, the Eptusmey 10.1-inch WiFi Digital Photo Frame definitely isn’t flawless: its colors are a little duller than they should be, while the screen shows up way too many reflections even under artificial light.

But this needs to be viewed in the context of its price: you can get it for as little as $55.99 / £49.99, putting it right down at the cheapest end of the market. Given the price, it’s impressive: not only is it surprisingly crisp, it makes it really easy to frame your photos and get them looking their best. It’s definitely worth a look if you want to save on a frame.

(Image credit: Future / Josh Russell)Eptusmey 10.1-inch WiFi Digital Photo Frame review: price & release date

The Eptusmey 10.1-inch WiFi Digital Photo Frame is available now and has a list price of £79.99. Cheap though this is, you can actually get it for even less if you shop around, with Amazon UK selling it from just £49.99. It’s also available from Amazon in the US for $55.99, although only the version compatible with the third-party Frameo app, which offers a great user experience but is different from that outlined in this review.

While the US market is restricted to the Black Oak Wood colorway tested here, those in the UK have more options available. You can pick up the White Oak Wood colorway for £49.99, the Walnut Wood colorway for £59.99 and the Black Oak Wood colorway for £79.99, giving you more options to ensure your frame complements your decor.

(Image credit: Future)Eptusmey 10.1-inch WiFi Digital Photo Frame review: specs

Dimensions

11.3 x 8.1 x 1 inches (287 x 206 x 25mm)

Display size

10.1-inch

Resolution

1280 x 800, 149.5 pixels per inch

Aspect Ratio

16:10

Touch Screen

Yes

Sound

Built-in speaker

Orientation

Portrait or landscape

Storage

32GB

Connectivity

Wi-Fi, USB, SD card

(Image credit: Future / Josh Russell)Should I buy the Eptusmey 10.1-inch WiFi Digital Photo Frame?

Attributes

Notes

Rating

Features

4/5

Design

Glass too reflective and wood easily scuffed

3.5/5

Performance

4/5

Value

5/5

Buy it if…

You want a super affordable digital photo frame
Available from as little as $55.99 / £49.99, the Eptusmey 10.1-inch WiFi Digital Photo Frame is nearly as affordable as our pick for the best budget digital photo frame, Aeezo Portrait 01, yet with a more premium feeling frame.

You love a simple user experience
Using the Eptusmey’s on-screen controls, bespoke app or even the third-party Frameo app with relevant versions makes it straightforward to transfer your shots and even allow your friends and family to do the same.

Don’t buy it if…

You love vibrant colors
While the Eptusmey’s doesn’t seem to make major missteps in the way it represents hues, it’s not quite vivid enough to be true to life, making your snaps feel a little undersaturated.

You want to use it in a bright room
There’s no anti-reflection coating on the Eptusmey’s display, meaning that it’s not great for bright spaces. Even without much direct light, it mirrors bright objects in the room far too readily.

Eptusmey 10.1-inch WiFi Digital Photo Frame review: also consider

Aura Walden

Aeezo Portrait 01

Pexar 11-inch Digital Picture Frame

Display size

10.1-inch

10.1-inch

11-inch

Resolution

1280 x 800, 149.5 pixels per inch

1280 x 800, 149.5 pixels per inch

2000 x 1200, 212 pixels per inch

Aspect Ratio

16:10

16:10

5:3

Touch Screen

Yes

Yes

Yes

Sound

Built-in speaker

Built-in speaker

Orientation

Portrait or landscape

Portrait or landscape

Portrait or landscape

Storage

32GB

32GB

32GB

Connectivity

Wi-Fi, USB, SD card

Wi-Fi, SD card, USB

Wi-Fi, SD card, USB-A, USB-C

Aeezo Portrait 01
One of the Eptusmey’s closest rivals in terms of cost, the Aeezo Portrait 01 offers decent image quality and an even better price. It’s built on the Frameo app like some versions of the Eptusmey, meaning you can trust it’ll be just as easy to use. We did criticize its build quality in our Aeezo Portrat 01 review, though, with its cheaper frame and stand drawing particular ire.

Pexar 11-inch Digital Picture Frame
OK, the Pexar 11-inch is a fair bit pricier than the Eptusmey, costing $169.99 / £149. But it also offers a whole load of things the latter doesn’t. That includes an impressive reflection-free screen, vibrant hues and one of the best pixel densities I’ve ever seen from a digital photo frame at 212-ppi for super crisp images. Read my full Pexar 11-inch Digital Picture Frame review.

How I tested the Eptusmey 10.1-inch WiFi Digital Photo Frame

• Tested it over two weeks
• Uploaded a wide variety of photos
• Tried it in multiple locations and orientations

I tested the Eptusmey 10.1-inch WiFi Digital Photo Frame over a period of several weeks. First, I set it up, then I used the Uhale app to transfer photos I’ve taken, making sure to split the balance between brightly colored shots and more subdued detail-focused ones. Next, I used the frame to tweak the cropping and alignment of photos.

I then tried using the frame in both horizontal and vertical orientations, as well as moving it to a variety of locations in my home and the TechRadar office to see how it coped with reflections and ambient light conditions.

I’m an experienced photographer, having taken more than 40,000 shots over the years on my Canon DSLR and iPhone 16 Pro. On top of this, I spent many years working in print publishing, meaning I know how to assess the nuances of how images can differ between the source device and the final product.

• First reviewed: October 2025
• Read more about how we test

RIG R5 Spear Pro HS: one-minute review

(Image credit: Future)

Quality gaming audio doesn’t have to cost the earth; something that Nacon’s RIG brand has proven time and again with some of the best PS5 headsets around. Now, its RIG R5 Spear Pro HS wired gaming headset has landed around the top end of the budget spectrum, and yes, it’s also a winner.

I’m usually wary of cheapish gaming headsets as there’s usually always at least one glaring weakness, even if other aspects impress. However, the R5 Spear Pro is a fantastic all-rounder, providing great build quality, a high level of comfort thanks to its plush ear cups, and superb audio for both gaming and listening to music.

I guess the one big ‘weakness’ here is that the R5 Spear Pro is a wired-only gaming headset, an advantage the aptly named SteelSeries Arctis Nova 3 Wireless would have over it, for example. That means you won’t be going wireless via 2.4GHz or Bluetooth. But the silver lining here is that the headset will work with any platform, device, or controller that has a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The R5 Spear Pro is advertised as a PlayStation-facing headset, compatible with PS5 and PS4, while also supporting the brand’s Tempest 3D audio profile. However, you can expect it to work just fine on Xbox Series X, Series S, Nintendo Switch 2, and others, given its simple wired connection.

I really have very little to complain about here, so expect a review on the shorter side. Some on-board features would’ve been nice, like mic muting or EQ switching, but what’s here is impressive for the price.

(Image credit: Future)RIG R5 Spear Pro HS: Price and availability

• List price: $69.99 / £69.99 (around AU$99)
• Available now in the UK and Europe; US release on November 1
• Comparable in price to the Epos H3 and Corsair HS50

The RIG R5 Spear Pro HS gaming headset is having a bit of a staggered release right now. It’s available in the UK and Europe now, but US folks will have to wait until November 1. It retails for $69.99 / £69.99 (around AU$99), and can be bought from Nacon’s website or regional stores.

It’s a pretty fair price tag for what you’re getting here, finding itself between the retail prices of the Epos H3 - our pick for the best wired gaming headset - and another budget banger in the Corsair HS50. Though at this price and sound quality, RIG might just knock Epos’s long-conquering headset off its throne.

RIG R5 Spear Pro HS: specs

Price

$69.99 / £69.99 (around AU$99)

Weight

0.74lbs / 0.34kg

Drivers

40mm graphene

Compatibility

PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Switch, Switch 2, PC

Connection type

Wired (3.5mm)

(Image credit: Future)RIG R5 Spear Pro HS: design and features

Out of the box, the R5 Spear Pro presents a seriously no-frills package. You’re getting the headset itself and a pair of PlayStation-branded mod plates for the ear cups’ exterior. More on those soon.

The headset doesn’t draw much attention to itself with a largely matte black finish. The RIG logo is emblazoned on top of the headband and mod plates, but it’s an otherwise low-key aesthetic. Which, hey, we definitely expect at this price point.

The headset, like other RIG products, is made from sturdy plastic that’s strongly resistant to wear and tear. RIG headsets are always impressively durable, and it’s a similar story here. It’s incredibly comfortable, too, with plush material for the headband and earcups resting nicely on your head without irritating over longer gaming sessions.

The headset naturally features a mic attached to the left earcup. It’s unfortunately not detachable, meaning you probably won’t be leaving the house with it, but it’s impressively flexible and easy to shape into a position that feels right for you.

The centerpiece of the R5 Spear Pro’s design, though, is its bespoke magnetic mod plates, which attach to the headset’s ear cups. As mentioned, the box contains a pair with the PlayStation logo slapped onto them, but you can buy other official designs separately. That includes one specifically designed for the EVO fighting game tournament.

RIG R5 Spear Pro HS: performance

The R5 Spear Pro simply provides brilliant, crisp audio for the price. When I got to testing by plugging it into my DualSense Wireless Controller for a Ghost of Yotei play session, I was immediately struck by the impressively layered audio that picked up on everything from the swaying breeze to distant clashes of swords.

Directional audio is brilliantly accurate, too, with audio flitting between left and right channels in an impressively immersive manner. The absorbing soundtrack of Tetris Effect Connected really came alive here, its audio-reactive gameplay really playing to the R5 Spear Pro HS’s strengths. Its 40mm graphene drivers, overall, provide pristine audio with little distortion even at higher volumes. I’d have preferred its bass register to be a little stronger, but it’s by no means underwhelming here.

Microphone quality is also solid. Not quite as impressive as with the RIG 900 Max HS’s crystal clear quality, but this one still more than gets the job done. It certainly works best on consoles, this flip-to-mute mic, as on my Windows PC I did have to wrestle a bit to get it to recognize the mic. However, using it while connected to a controller on PC solved that issue for me in the short term.

As mentioned, there isn’t much in terms of on-board functionality. The cable does have a volume slider, though it’s honestly a little stiff, and I ended up preferring using software settings on console and PC to adjust the headset’s audio.

(Image credit: Future)Should I buy the RIG R5 Spear Pro HS?Buy it if...

You want exceptional audio quality for less
It’s hard to find sound quality this good at this price point. While not the absolute cheapest budget-friendly headset out there, I feel the R5 Spear Pro HS comes in at a very reasonable price given its fantastic audio and strong build quality.

You play on a variety of platforms
Whether you’re on PlayStation, Xbox, or Switch consoles or PC, the R5 Spear Pro HS is an impressively versatile gaming headset, delivering stellar audio quality across all major platforms.

Don't buy it if...

You prefer having on-board buttons and features
Aside from its volume slider, there are no quick shortcuts or buttons on the headset itself. It doesn’t need many, to be fair, but it means you won’t have access to desirable features on other headsets like EQ profiles.

You want better customization
With no compatible companion software, the R5 Spear Pro HS is very much a case of ‘what you hear is what you get.’ Not a terrible thing in and of itself, as you can always rely on Dolby Atmos or Tempest 3D, but those after a more customizable audio experience won’t find it here.

RIG R5 Spear Pro HS: Also consider

Here are a couple more gaming headsets that come highly recommended if you’re not keen on the RIG R5 Spear Pro HS.

RIG R5 Spear Pro HS

Turtle Beach Atlas 200

SteelSeries Arctis Nova 3X Wireless

Price

$69.99 / £69.99 (around AU$99)

$59.99 / £49.99 (around AU$79)

$109.99 / £99.99 / AU$109.99

Weight

0.74lbs / 0.34kg

0.62lbs / 0.28kg

0.57lbs / 0.27kg

Drivers

40mm graphene

50mm Nanoclear

40mm Neodymium

Compatibility

PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Switch, Switch 2, PC

PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Switch, Switch 2, PC

PC, Xbox Series X (Xbox version only), PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android

Connection type

Wired (3.5mm)

Wired (3.5mm)

Bluetooth, 2.4GHz wireless (USB-C receiver)

Turtle Beach Atlas 200
A real budget powerhouse, once again providing shockingly good audio for the price. Throw in a comfy fit and a crystal clear mic, and this one just may tempt you away from the RIG R5 Spear Pro HS for good reason.

Read our full Turtle Beach Atlas 200 review

SteelSeries Arctis Nova 3X Wireless
One for consideration if you’re looking for wireless options instead, but want to keep costs down. The Arctis Nova 3X Wireless is a brilliant, cost-effective gaming headset that’s multiplatform-capable and has a lightweight build that remains comfortable for hours on end.

Read our full SteelSeries Arctis Nova 3X Wireless review

How I tested the RIG R5 Spear Pro HS

• Tested for two weeks
• Tested across PS5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC
• Compared to other RIG headsets like the RIG 900 Max HS

I tested the RIG R5 Spear Pro HS for two weeks for this review. While I mostly played games with the headset, I also used it for work purposes, as well as casually listening to music in my spare time.

I used the headset across all major platforms, including PS5, Xbox Series X Digital Edition, Nintendo Switch 2, and my gaming PC. For this review, I played titles including Ghost of Yotei, Final Fantasy 14 Online, Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, Tetris Effect Connected, PUBG Battlegrounds, and Tekken 8.

During testing, I went back and forth between the R5 Spear Pro HS and the pricier wireless offering, RIG 900 Max HS. I found audio quality to be largely identical across both products, though, as you might expect, build quality is better on the more expensive product, which also feels more durable thanks to its metallic, flexible headband and better materials used overall. Still, the R5 Spear Pro HS isn’t far off.

First reviewed October 2025

Read more about how we test

JBL Bar 1000MK2: Two minute review

The Bar 1000MK2 kit with wireless surround speakers, remote control, and accessory cables and mounts (subwoofer not shown) (Image credit: Future)

The JBL Bar 1000MK2 is designed to address a problem inherent to the discrete surround speakers that come with soundbar systems: what happens when you don’t have a suitable place to plug them in?

It’s a challenge the JBL Bar 1000MK2 addresses elegantly by using detachable, rechargeable surround speakers that can be placed almost anywhere — with or without power.

Along with its detachable surround speakers, this model goes beyond most of the best soundbars by including not one, but three dedicated HDMI inputs. It’s blistering with wireless connections, too, including AirPlay and Google Cast. The included 10-inch wireless sub completes the picture, turning the Bar 1000MK2 into a highly flexible home theater system.

It creates highly immersive, cinematic experiences that put you in the middle of the action, but it’s not without its flaws. Height channel effects, the hallmark of a great Dolby Atmos or DTS:X soundtrack, can be a little underwhelming, and dialogue isn’t quite as clear as other soundbars such as the Sonos Arc Ultra or Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar. Music quality can vary: modern recordings (especially those mixed as Dolby Atmos tracks) shine, but older material loses something on playback.

Still, all in, the JBL Bar 1000MK2 is a fun, powerful, and versatile addition to any TV setup.

JBL Bar 1000MK2 review: Price & release date

The Bar 1000MK2 uses the JBL One app for setup control, but most functions can be carried out using the included hardware remote (Image credit: Future)

• $1,199.95 / £899.99 (about AU$1,845)
• Released June 2025

JBL launched the Bar 1000MK2 in June 2025 in both the US and the UK. Additional countries are planned for October and beyond, but pricing for these markets has yet to be announced.

As an update to the Bar 1000, JBL has kept the main ingredients (the included sub, detachable surrounds, and three dedicated HDMI inputs), but has made some small changes to the components. Instead of five racetrack drivers and three tweeters on the main bar, there are now six racetracks and only two tweeters. The deleted tweeter might make a difference: it was centrally located, where it played a role in dialogue clarity.

The detachable surrounds have also been modified. Here again, JBL has swapped tweeters for full-range racetrack drivers. The surrounds can now be used in another room for remote TV listening, or as an alternative to the main bar and subwoofer in Night mode.

Curiously, JBL’s pricing creates different comparisons depending on where you live. In the US, it’s $200 more expensive than the Sonos Arc Ultra ($999) and Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar ($999), and yet, in the UK, all three products are priced alike at £899. The Bar 1000MK2's price has dropped in the US since launch, however, with it now widely available for $999.

Given that the Bar 1000MK2 comes with its own wireless subwoofer and surround speakers, which isn’t the case for Sonos or Bose, it may make more sense for buyers to compare it to similarly equipped products like Samsung’s HW-Q930F ($1,399) or LG’s S90TR ($1,199).

JBL Bar 1000MK2 review: Specs

Dimensions (W x H x D)

Soundbar: 33.6 x 2.0 x 5.0 inches; detachable surround speaker (each): 7.4 x 2.0 x 5.0 inches; subwoofer: 12.8 x 15.7 x 12.8 inches

Speaker channels

7.1.4

Connections:

1x HDMI out (with eARC), 3x HDMI 2.1 in, optical digital audio, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB-A

Dolby Atmos/DTS:X

Yes/Yes

Sub included

Yes

Rear speakers included

Yes

Features

AirPlay 2, Google Cast, HDMI 2.1, 4K 60Hz, HDR10+, and Dolby Vision pass-through, Tidal Connect, Spotify Connect, Dolby Atmos Music, Roon Ready, rear speaker broadcast mode, Night Listening mode, native integration of music services including Tidal, Qobuz, Amazon Music, and more

JBL Bar 1000MK2 review: FeaturesImage 1 of 5

The Bar 1000MK2 provides 3 HDMI inputs along with an HDMI output (with eARC); the fully wireless surround speakers dock into the soundbar's sides for charging and also have a USB-C port for power (Image credit: Future)Image 2 of 5

(Image credit: Future)Image 3 of 5

(Image credit: Future)Image 4 of 5

(Image credit: Future)Image 5 of 5

(Image credit: Future)

• Three dedicated HDMI inputs with 4K/HDR passthrough
• Bluetooth and Wi-Fi with comprehensive streaming support
• Fully wireless surround speakers that can be placed anywhere

JBL’s top-tier products have a reputation for being chock-full of features, and the Bar 1000MK2 is no exception. I’m thrilled when a soundbar offers even one HDMI input to compensate for the one it takes up on the TV. With three of these inputs, the Bar 1000MK2 doubles as an AV receiver alternative, letting you hook up multiple devices like Blu-ray players or game consoles.

I’m a little disappointed that the optical connection is strictly an alternative to the HDMI eARC port (you can’t use it as its own discrete input), and gamers should take note that the soundbar’s video passthrough is limited to a 60Hz refresh rate.

With both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, plus Apple AirPlay 2, Google Cast, Tidal Connect, and Spotify Connect, you can stream just about any music source to the Bar 1000MK2. Better yet, JBL lets you natively stream services like Tidal and Amazon Music from within the JBL One companion app, ensuring compatibility with Dolby Atmos Music tracks (when available). Longtime JBL fans should note that, unlike previous JBL soundbars, the Bar 1000MK2 isn’t compatible with Amazon Alexa for voice control or multiroom audio.

JBL remains the only soundbar maker that uses fully wireless surround speakers, which enable a huge range of placement options. New on the MK2 is the ability to use them as auxiliary TV speakers for listening in a different room, or as personal “night mode” speakers.

Wondering about what it’s like to use rechargeable speakers? Honestly, it’s pretty great. JBL estimates a single charge will get you about 10 hours of use, depending on your volume level. For me, that translated into two weeks between charges, watching about 1.5-2 hours of TV per day. And that included a three-hour continuous listening session where I put the system through a series of test clips and playlists.

I really appreciate that JBL includes wall-mounting hardware for both the main bar and the surrounds. And, cleverly, the mounts for the surrounds are designed for easy on-and-off placement to help with recharging. Finding a way to leave them plugged in via USB-C while wall-mounted, on the other hand, might prove tricky, and JBL doesn’t include chargers in the box.

• Features score: 5 / 5

JBL Bar 1000MK2 review: Performance

Both the soundbar and wireless surrounds (shown here docked on the soundbar for charging) feature upfiring Atmos speakers (Image credit: Future)

• Impressive surround sound
• Lackluster height channels and precision
• Slightly harsh music rendering

With a total of 10 drivers in the main soundbar, two drivers in each surround module, and a big, 10-inch cone on the down-firing subwoofer, the Bar 1000MK2 has all the ingredients needed for a full-throated home theater experience.

Whether you’ve got access to Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, or just good ol’ Dolby Digital 5.1, this soundbar does a great job of putting you in the middle of the action.

With the speaker’s PureVoice mode on (the default), I found dialogue clarity adequate, but not as crystal-clear as the Sonos Arc Ultra or Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar. It’s not a deal-breaker, but at this price, I expect top-notch dialogue quality.

JBL’s 7.1.4-channel system successfully decoded Dolby Atmos up to 9.1.6 and DTS:X at up to 7.1.4. There isn’t a lot of DTS:X content out there, but it’s nice to know the Bar 1000MK2 can handle it.

Those detachable, fully wireless surround speakers may look like toys, but they’re the real deal. Placing them on either end of my couch created an excellent sound field. During key moments in Ford v Ferrari, race cars could clearly be heard careening from my left to my right as they battled for dominance on (and sometimes off) the track.

Ideally, they should be placed just behind your listening position, but it’s not vital.

However, leaving the surround speakers attached to the main soundbar (where they recharge if you don’t want to use your own chargers) will give you much less immersive sound. The Bar 1000MK2 simply isn’t as adept at creating virtual surround and rear height effects from the front of your room. If you want a single bar that can do that, the Sonos Arc Ultra, Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar, and Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar Plus are better choices.

Image 1 of 3

The Bar 1000MK2 system's large, ported subwoofer features a downfiring 10-inch cone driver (Image credit: Future)Image 2 of 3

(Image credit: Future)Image 3 of 3

(Image credit: Future)

Despite its impressive overall performance, there are some specific weaknesses. Some soundtrack elements lack sufficient dynamic range. During the classic courtyard shootout scene from No Time To Die, when James Bond sits stoically as his Aston Martin gets riddled with bullets, the automatic gunfire ricochets all around the room, as it should. But the overhead church bells sound flat, and in the moments leading up to this scene, the car chase lacks presence and immediacy.

Similarly, even with the soundbar’s Atmos setting at max (the loudest you can push the height drivers), it was hard to hear the difference between surround and overhead effects.

I’ve reviewed a lot of single-speaker soundbars recently, and the Bar 1000MK2 reminded me that even the best of these units can’t compete with a dedicated subwoofer. Though the power and impact of this sub seem disproportionately low when compared to its size, the unit does what it needs to do. Of the available five subwoofer power levels, I found levels four and five to be plenty of punch for movies. For music, however, I needed to tone it down: levels one to three were more enjoyable.

Speaking of music, I’m sad to report that it’s an uneven aspect of the Bar 1000MK2’s performance. It seems that JBL hasn’t moved the needle much since it released the Bar 9.1 -- its first soundbar with wireless surrounds. Like that speaker, the Bar 1000MK2 has trouble with its midranges, and the highs have a tendency to get shouty and shrill, particularly at higher volumes.

On the bright side, the system is compatible with hi-res audio up to 24-bit/192kHz, and it seems to love tracks that have been produced in recent years. Modern recordings, especially those in Dolby Atmos Music, really shine. But older songs lose a lot. There are no EQ presets (e.g., Music, Movies, Sports, etc.); however, JBL does offer an equalizer in the JBL One app. Still, all my tweaking didn’t resolve the issue. Strangely, equalizer adjustments are universal; there’s no way to save your changes or apply different settings to each input.

Using the wireless speakers for portable TV audio (Broadcasting mode) is a clever idea. If you’ve ever grouped a Sonos kitchen speaker with a Sonos soundbar, it’s the same concept. And the wireless speakers have an impressive range. With the soundbar in my basement, I was still able to get a stable signal on our third floor.

You can even choose mono or stereo sound. Where the idea stumbles, somewhat, is that the speakers don’t have their own built-in volume control. Changing the volume on the main system affects that of the wireless speakers. You can make it slightly quieter or louder using the JBL One app’s three rear channel settings: low, medium, and high.

Quiet, personal listening (Night listening mode) works well, too, cutting sound from the main bar and sub and routing it all to the wireless speakers. In this mode, it’s the regular volume level that controls what you hear. I’m just a bit sad that JBL doesn’t offer the choice of mono/stereo in Night listening mode.

• Performance score: 3.5 / 5

JBL Bar 1000MK2 review: Design

The Bar 1000MK2 has a bright alphanumeric LED display for control feedback (Image credit: Future)

• Magnetic covers provide a finished look to both the bar and surrounds
• Ultra short height keeps it from obstructing your TV’s lower frame
• Lack of front-firing tweeters may diminish dialogue crispness

It’s impossible to overlook the Bar 1000MK2’s main design element: those detachable wireless surrounds. It’s unique, it’s clever, and it works. It may not be for everyone, but the flexibility of placement and the elimination of wires are a boon to those with awkward spaces.

With a utilitarian, black plastic body and plastic grille, the Bar 1000 MK2’s design won’t win any beauty contests. But if you’re of the opinion that soundbars should be heard, not seen, the 1000MK2 is a stunner.

As powerful soundbars go, the Bar 1000MK2 is remarkably compact, especially when you remove the wireless surround speakers. At just two inches tall, the MK2 is one of the shortest soundbars I’ve ever tested. Most folks won’t have to worry about it blocking the IR receiver (or screen) on their TVs.

A front-mounted alphanumeric display briefly comes to life to inform you of input changes, volume level, audio format (Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, etc.), and a wealth of other settings and alerts, which I find very helpful. I don’t like being forced to consult an app for these details (as is the case with many soundbars). It would be perfect if only you could adjust its brightness or disable it entirely.

The included magnetic end-caps aren’t a very elegant solution to the problem of how to hide the exposed charging contacts, but once installed, they do provide a very elegant finish to both the soundbar and the surrounds.

It’s harder to be enthusiastic about the included wireless subwoofer. At 15 inches tall and with a nearly 13-inch square footprint, it’s big, and that makes it harder to tuck away. You may be able to get away with placing objects on its flat top surface -- one of our cats decided it was the ideal spot for a nap and was surprisingly unfazed by the low-frequency rumbles, which I suppose is a quirky testament to the cabinet’s ability to dampen vibrations.

The soundbar’s top controls are basic in the extreme: Volume and input selection. If you’re using the speaker purely for TV audio, the sparse offering is fine. If you’re using it for music, it can feel limiting, especially the lack of muting, play/pause, and track skipping.

Good thing the Bar 1000MK2 ships with a remote. It covers all of those missing functions and then some. But I’m baffled by JBL’s decision to use icons instead of words to label buttons that control sub, surround, Atmos levels, and calibration. Curiously, this is only on the North American model. The European version gets English labels, even though that part of the world speaks many more languages than in Canada, the US, and Mexico.

Behind the front and top grilles on the main bar, JBL has installed six 1.7x3.1-inch racetrack drivers, two 1-inch tweeters, and two 2.75-inch up-firing full-range drivers.

It’s an unusual configuration: JBL uses the two tweeters as side beam drivers -- meaning they’re used to help with surround channels. It relies on the six racetrack drivers for the all-important center channel, which may explain why I found the Bar 1000MK2 less crisp on the dialogue front than other soundbars. Bose uses a central tweeter on the Smart Ultra Soundbar, and Sonos puts three front-firing tweeters on the Arc Ultra.

Each wireless surround has a 1.7x3.5-inch racetrack driver and a 2.75-inch, up-firing full-range driver.

• Design score: 4 / 5

JBL Bar 1000MK2 review: Setup & usability Image 1 of 3

Set up, adjustment, and music streaming app screens on the JBL One app (Image credit: Future)Image 2 of 3

(Image credit: Future)Image 3 of 3

(Image credit: Future)

• Easy setup and calibration
• Front display provides vital feedback
• JBL One app is simple and easy to use

Getting the Bar 1000MK2 set up is a snap. For basic use as a TV speaker, you can simply plug it into power and your TV’s HDMI (or optical) connection, plug in the subwoofer, and you’re done.

But it’s worth it to download the free and intuitive JBL One app. The app walks you through getting the soundbar connected to Wi-Fi – which takes less than one minute – after which you can access software updates and use streaming platforms like Apple AirPlay, Google Cast, Tidal Connect, and Spotify Connect.

There’s also native support for several streaming music services, including Tidal and Amazon Music, which helps to ensure you’re getting Dolby Atmos Music when available (Bluetooth, AirPlay, and Google Cast aren’t currently compatible with this format).

If you own more than one JBL Wi-Fi-based audio product, e.g., Charge 5 Wi-Fi, or one of the Authentics models, the app also lets you control these speakers individually or as groups.

Most of the time, you won’t need the app after the initial setup. Thanks to the built-in display, most tasks are easily performed with the remote. Exceptions to this are changing the EQ setting and switching to Night or Broadcast listening. You don’t need the app to perform the room calibration of the wireless surrounds, but it’s easier than using the remote and built-in display.

Calibration is very easy, and only involves two automated steps: a reading of the room with the surround speakers positioned where you normally sit, and another with the speakers placed in their regular positions off to the sides of your listening spot.

• Setup & usability score: 4.5 / 5

JBL Bar 1000MK2 review: Value

Following discounts, the Bar 1000MK2's US price matches all-in-one soundbars like the Sonos Arc Ultra and Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar (Image credit: Future)

• Good bang for the buck
• Dialogue, Atmos effects, and music could be stronger
• Incredibly versatile

Is the JBL Bar 1000MK2 a perfect soundbar? No, but for the price, it packs a feature set you simply won’t find anywhere else. Multiple HDMI inputs, full Wi-Fi streaming options, excellent cinematic surround sound, and of course, those funky detachable wireless speakers.

Its nearest direct competitors, the Samsung HW-Q930F ($1,399) and LG S90TR ($1,199), are, like the 1000MK2, priced just under each brand’s flagships.

TechRadar hasn’t reviewed these models, but if our experiences with their higher-end siblings (Samsung HW-Q990F and LG S95TR) are any indication, they’ll deliver better overall sound quality.

What they won’t give you is the Bar 1000MK2’s three HDMI inputs (they only have one), its fully wireless surround speakers (they have power cords), or the ability to use those speakers for remote/night listening.

• Value score: 4 / 5

Should I buy the JBL Bar 1000MK2?

Section

Notes

Score

Features

Three HDMI inputs, fully wireless surround speakers and extensive wireless streaming support

5 / 5

Performance

Good surround immersion but lackluster Atmos effects, dialogue clarity and music performance

3.5 / 5

Design

Detachable wireless surround speakers dock into soundbar; slim profile with large alphanumeric LED display

4 / 5

Setup & usability

Simple setup and calibration; feature-packed JBL One app, but most functions can be controlled with hardware remote

4.5 / 5

Value

Impressive features and versatility for price but performance could be stronger

4 / 5

Buy it if...

You want full cinematic surround sound at a reasonable price
Companies like Bose, Sonos, and Marshall don’t include subwoofers and surrounds with their soundbars. Adding them increases the price of a full home theater setup by up to 100% or more. The Bar 1000MK2 comes with everything you need.

You have an unusual TV room
Not everyone has conveniently located power outlets or even good spots to mount surround speakers. The Bar 1000MK2, with its compact and fully wireless surrounds, provides far more versatility of placement.

You own multiple video devices like game consoles, disc players, or streamers
With three dedicated HDMI inputs, the Bar 1000MK2 not only compensates for the HDMI port it occupies on your TV, it actually adds two more. For some, this will eliminate the need for a separate HDMI switcher.

Don't buy it if...

You need crystal-clear dialogue
The Bar 1000MK2 is generally very good for dialogue quality, but you’ll find that most of its competitors (Bose, Sony, Sonos, etc.) offer more clarity.

You don’t want to compromise on surround power
As convenient as the Bar 1000MK2’s fully wireless surrounds are, they aren’t as big or as powerful as those in similar all-in-one systems from Samsung or LG.

Music listening is just as important as movies and TV
The Bar 1000MK2 is perfectly competent as a music speaker, but it’s clear that it was designed primarily for movies and shows. There’s a slight harshness to the upper-mids and highs that detracts from some music (especially older recordings), though it can be quite thrilling as a Dolby Atmos Music system.

JBL Bar 1000MK2 review: Also consider

JBL Bar 1000MK2

Sonos Arc Ultra

Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar

LG S90TR

Price

$1,199.95 / £899.99 (about AU$1,845)

$999 / £999 / AU$1,799

$899 / £899 / AU$1499 

$1,199.99

Dimensions (w x h x d)

Soundbar: 33.6 x 2.0 x 5.0 inches; subwoofer: 12.8 x 15.7 x 12.8 inches; surround speaker: 5.0 x 7.4 x 2.0 inches

46.38 x 2.95 x 4.35 inches

41 x 2.3 x 4.2 inches

Soundbar: 49.2 x 2.5 x 5.3 inches; subwoofer: 7.9 x 16 x 15.9 inches; surround speaker: 3.9 x 6.9 x 4.7 inches

Speaker channels

9.1.4

9.1.4

5.1.2

7.1.3

Connections

HDMI out (with eARC), 3x HDMI 2.1 in, optical digital audio, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB-A

1HDMI with eARC, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth

HDMI eARC, digital optical, Ethernet, bass module, IR blaster, USB (service only), Bluetooth, Wi-Fi

HDMI out (with eARC), HDMI 2.1 in, optical digital audio, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB-A

Dolby Atmos/DTS:X

Yes/Yes

Yes/No

Yes/No

Yes/Yes

Sonos Arc Ultra

If you’re content to build a system starting with a single-speaker soundbar, the Sonos Arc Ultra costs a little less ($999 in the U.S.) and addresses both the dialogue clarity and music performance concerns on the JBL Bar 1000MK2. It offers impressive virtual surround sound, though it can’t match the power and immersion of an all-in-one system like the Bar 1000MK2.

Read our full Sonos Arc Ultra review

Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar

Bose's top all-in-one soundbar, like the Sonos Arc Ultra, costs $999 in the US and can be added on with optional wireless surround speakers and a subwoofer. It also has superior dialogue clarity and music performance compared to the JBL Bar 1000MK2.

Read our full Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar review

LG S90TR

If you don’t want to compromise on the full home theater experience, the LG S90TR is the same price ($1,199) and will likely deliver better dialogue and music, though with only one HDMI input and the need to plug its surrounds into power, it’s not as versatile as the Bar 1000MK2.

How I tested the JBL Bar 1000MK2

(Image credit: Future)

• Used JBL Bar 1000MK2 as main audio system for two weeks
• Tested in basement media room
• Main source was an Apple TV 4K, and streamed music from various apps

I spent two weeks with the JBL Bar 1000MK2 as my main audio system for watching movies, shows, and music in my basement media room. During that time, I ran through my usual battery of Dolby Atmos test clips from movies like No Time To Die, Ford v Ferrari, Mad Max: Fury Road, Dune, and Unbroken, paying special attention to details like dialogue clarity, surround sound, and height channel impact.

I streamed most content from an Apple TV 4K connected via an LG OLED TV, which fed the MK2 from its ARC output, but I also connected an Nvidia Shield TV to one of the MK2's HDMI inputs to test its passthrough capabilities.

For music, I used a variety of apps, including Apple Music, Tidal, Qobuz, and Amazon Music, listening to a wide range of genres and formats, like Dolby Atmos Music. Some were played from apps on the Apple TV 4K, while others were streamed wirelessly using AirPlay, Bluetooth and Google Cast.

Read more about how we test

• First reviewed: October 2025

DeerRun classic: One minute review

Using one of the best under-desk treadmills, otherwise known as walking pads, have become the easiest way to sneak movement into a workday, and the DeerRun Q1 Classic leans into that promise with a low price, zero assembly model with a relatively compact footprint. It’s built for steady walking rather than running, with a responsive remote and a deck that feels stable and lightly cushioned.

It’s not whisper-quiet and the companion app is basic, but if your goal is to add a few thousand steps while you edit docs or watch a webinar, this compact slab of motivation makes a convincing case for itself.

DeerRun classic review: Specifications

Component

DeerRun Q1 Classic

Speed range

0.6–3.8 mph

Dimensions

49 x 20 x 4.5 in (pad), belt ~39.4 x 15.4 in

Weight

~43 lb

Capacity

up to 300 lb

Controls

Handheld remote and Bluetooth via PitPat

Claimed noise

“Low noise” brushless motor, <45 dB (in my room it sounded higher)

Compatibility

PitPat Fitness App

DeerRun classic review: Price and availability

• $188 USD / £169 GBP / AU$413
• Very affordable
• Often on sale

DeerRun often discounts the Q1 Classic/Classic Pro family heavily; I’ve seen it listed at $188 in the US, with a stated 300 lb maximum user capacity and a 60-day risk-free trial plus one-year warranty. In the UK its Q1 Classic/Classic Pro walking pad is listed at £169 on DeerRun’s UK store and in Australia the same model is shown from AU$413 on DeerRun’s AU store.

Value is where the DeerRun Q1 Classic shines. For a sub-$200 walking pad with a decent-sized belt, a proper remote, and a one-year warranty, it’s outstanding value. There are slicker pads with folding frames, longer belts or quieter motors, but they typically cost a fair bit more. If your goal is to add 5–10k steps to your day while you work, you won’t find many better bargains right now.

• Value score: 5/5

DeerRun Q1 Classic review: Design

I’ve been using the DeerRun Q1 Classic in a spare-bedroom office with a big desk and a fairly wide gap underneath. I’m 5 foot 7 inches and weight around 60 kg, and the deck felt a comfortable size for steady walking while working. It ships in a single box and there’s no assembly – plug it in, pair the app, and you’re moving within minutes.

Getting the unit upstairs was the hardest part; it’s manageable but a bit hefty. First impressions were good: clean design, compact size, and a belt that feels well set up out of the box with no sticking or drift.

Day to day, it’s a smooth operator. The handheld remote is responsive, so nudging your pace up or down feels natural rather than jumpy. The deck has a hint of bounce without wobble, and even after longer sessions I didn’t notice excess heat or that telltale treadmill overclocking smell. Noise is where it falls short: it isn’t obnoxious, but I wouldn’t use it during calls. I could watch webinars, but I had to turn my volume up.

This is a walking pad first and foremost, rather than an at-work under-desk treadmill. With a top speed of 6.1 km/h, it’s designed for a brisk walk rather than a run. There’s no safety rail as standard, but you can buy one separately as an accessory, although if you’re just planning to walk on it, you shouldn’t need one.

Storage is straightforward. It doesn’t fold, and it’s a touch heavy to lug around, but I could tilt it against the wall behind a door, and its slim 4.5-inch profile barely ate into the room. If your sofa sits tall off the ground, you could slide it under; but mine is too low to fit the height of the pad.

The power cable is short, which may impact the layout of your workstation, and DeerRun charges extra for a longer lead – again, some cynics might feel nickel-and-dimed here. On a practical note for upstairs offices: running created enough vibration through my timber floorboards that items started migrating across my desk. The pad itself stayed composed; but as the minutes passed, more and more items started edging towards the edge of my desk before tumbling onto the floor. Shock absorption isn’t the best.

• Design score: 4/5

DeerRun Q1 Classic review: Features

(Image credit: Lily Canter)

Very basic. The PitPat app pairs quickly and offers simple programs but it’s not clear whether it can sync with apps like Strava. I couldn’t work out how to do this and found conflicting information online. Personally, I just used the remote to control the speed of the pad and promptly ignored the app after setup.

• Features score: 3/5

DeerRun Q1 Classic review: Performance

The build is pleasantly robust for the price. The deck feels stable, the belt runs true, and the top surface is grippy without being abrasive. You don’t get a fold-up rail or incline - this is a flat, under-desk pad - but there are transport wheels and it stands upright neatly.

Walking quality is the headline. The pad accelerates and decelerates smoothly, speed changes via the remote are measured rather than lurchy, and I didn’t experience belt stutter or drift once it bedded in. The deck has just enough give that longer stints don’t feel like you’re marching on plywood. On a solid ground-floor slab, it should be ideal; on suspended floorboards, plan for some transmitted vibration at higher cadences.

• Performance score: 4/5

Scorecard

Category

Comment

Score

Value

Outstanding for the price

5/5

Design

Solid and simple

4/5

Performance

Really good at what it does, but limited speed like many walking pads

4/5

Features

Lacking other than simple PitPat app

3/5

DeerRun Q1 Classic: Should I buy?Buy it if...

You're on a budget

Do you need a compact, inexpensive walking pad for a home office? The DeerRun is a solid choice.

You want to keep it simple

You’re happy using a 'stop-go' simple remote and don’t care about a fancy app.

You’re on the ground floor

Without good shock absorption, upstairs use might be noisy.

Don't buy it if...

You want true running speeds

This is not a running treadmill, and those that need a do-it-all device won't get that here.

You need whisper-quiet operation

Want to walk while in meetings, or early in the morning in a busy house? This isn't it.

Also consider

Mobvoi Home Walking Treadmill

Our best budget under desk treadmill, the Mobvoi is a great alternative if you want a simple walking pad to go the distance.

Read our full Mobvoi Home Walking Treadmill review

Lifespan TR1200-DT3

A more expensive walkingpad better suited for home offices, and our best overall.

Read our full Lifespan TR1200-DT3 review

How I tested

Used daily under a desk in a first-floor spare room, including long work sessions and webinar viewing. Assessed ease of setup, noise, stability, belt tracking, top speed, app pairing and day-to-day storage.

For the Bruce Springsteen faithful – and probably those who feel that way about Jeremy Allen White – today, October 24, 2025, has been a long time coming, as Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere is finally showing in movie theaters across the globe.

Now, for lack of a better analogy, the Boss has been the soundtrack of my life – well, for most of it – so I headed to a local AMC Theatre with Dolby Cinema in the great state of New Jersey for an opening-night preview screening.

I had a lot of feelings going in, especially since Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere isn’t like most biopics. But I wouldn’t even call it that, because it focuses on a very specific, short time in Springsteen’s career. Instead of portraying the many months spent on getting Born to Run just right or even Born in the U.S.A.’s release or Springteen’s rise to stratospheric stardom, it turns the spotlight onto one of his darker chapters – one that Springsteen became more open about in his memoir Born to Run and in Warren Zanes’s Deliver Me From Nowhere, which is the book that inspired this film.

So, let’s dive into it – and fair warning, I’ll have some mild spoilers ahead, though it’s kind of comical as this is based in reality, and we all know about Nebraska.

Inside Nebraska

Warning: some spoilers for Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere lie ahead.

(Image credit: 20th Century Studios)

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere is a lot better than I was expecting it to be. It’s a good film that’s more like a deep character study of a specific time in Bruce Springsteen’s life. It jumps from before, during, and a bit after the recording of Nebraska, giving a deep dive into his mental health – both Bruce’s and his family’s – and his upbringing. The latter is done through black-and-white flashbacks, which at times feel a bit out of place but do an excellent job of at least rooting the pain and depression.

It opens showing a glimpse into that upbringing, but soon ties the anxiety and rush of an encounter into the rush and thrill of performing Born to Run to close out The River Tour. This is our first glimpse, and one of the few, of the E Street Band during Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere.

I never really got comfortable believing Jeremy Allen White was entirely the embodiment of Bruce Springsteen, but he sure gives off the look of a rock star known for energetic performances. Maybe most importantly, Allen White doesn’t just do an imitative voice of the Boss but, in my opinion, does a lot more with body language and how he presents himself.

From there on out, we see the relationship between Jon Landau – played by Jeremy Strong – and Bruce unfold on screen, and it matches the real-life relationship. They were two friends forever, who clearly had each other’s backs, and Landau definitely does a masterclass in being an agent, manager, and friend – fighting for what the artist wants.

We see Bruce then settle into a rental in Colts Neck, dive deep into some reading, and eventually watch Terrence Malick’s 1973 film Badlands, which pushes him to research a bit more and eventually start on a track of songs dubbed Starkweather, which becomes Nebraska. Seeing this process depicted on the big screen, and the historic room with the orange shag carpet, is something of a bit of a holy grail. And Jeremy Allen White does get the singing voice pretty close, as well as the guitar playing, though there is a unique blending. I also need to give a shout to the audio quality in this Dolby Cinema theater, but also to the mixing team on Springsteen: Deliver From Nowhere, it is done excellently. And there are a few tracks where the singing shifts from Jeremy Allen White to Bruce Springsteen, and vice versa.

We also see Bruce go on a few dates with a character, Faye – who in reality is a composite, and we see that struggle as he runs away from fame and goes on some self-discovery, which in turn is himself feeling like an outsider in his own body.

The human story behind the music

(Image credit: 20th Century Studios)

Beyond the recordings, I think what really hit the most with me was the visual telling of Springsteen’s struggles with his own mental health and that of his father’s, and the repairing of their relationship. While it’s rooted in fact, director Scott Cooper certainly took some liberties here and sped up the timeline.

It’s rare, I think, for Bruce himself to be so open with showing, telling, and reliving this, and Jeremy Allen White really shines in these scenes – he depicts the feeling of an outsider in their own body perfectly, acting the build-up to a breakdown and a panic attack with realism. Allen White also shows the struggle of realizing something is up but not knowing how to seek help – remember this is in the 1980s, specifically 1982.

I think those are the most powerful moments, and even if the pacing could be slow at times, it lets these moments of the film really build up and be delivered with ample time. For those who have read Born to Run or maybe watched Springsteen on Broadway, I think this acts as a really nice introspective and deep dive into Nebraska.

Yes, it’s more niche than, say, Born to Run, Born in the U.S.A., or Springsteen’s other work, but it’s also the most raw, natural, and, in the end, more impactful. It’s an important aspect of how the Boss became the Boss, and while I had my doubts going in, the result is an impactful, good film that’s very deep, emotive, emotional, and ultimately a close character study.

(Image credit: 20th Century Studios)

Yes, it can be hard to get past the fact that Jeremy Allen White is not Bruce Springsteen, but thanks to the attention to detail, the physicality, and the close study, it’s believable – minus the looks.

Ultimately, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere explores the process of coming to terms with childhood trauma and the impacts of that, which can sit with you and become a theme of life as you move on. We’ve known Bruce’s family has had mental illness, and he's had his own demons; the art comes from that to a degree.

It may not hit every note perfectly, but I think fans will like it – it’s an honest, heavy, and deeply human look at Springsteen during arguably one of his darkest periods, one that still showcases the music-making process with just a taste of E Street Band greatness.

Ultimately, an antithesis of most biopics – a good thing.

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Smeg ECF03: one-minute review

The Smeg ECF03 is a stylish espresso machine that’s a significant upgrade from its predecessor, the Smeg ECF02. The key difference is a new cold-extraction feature, which takes around two minutes to produce smooth, sweet-tasting espresso that makes an ideal base for an iced americano, cappuccino, or cocktail.

Another important upgrade is the addition of a pressure gauge that helps you see if your espresso shot is properly extracted before it’s finished pouring. It’s surprising that this doesn’t show the exact pressure in bars, but it’s nevertheless a useful guide.

When you want to brew traditional hot espresso, the machine heats quickly, and its pump produces consistent pressure, so you get reliably well-extracted coffee once you’ve dialled in the grinder correctly. During my tests, the pump reached a maximum of 72dB, which isn’t as quiet as the noise-shielded BCC13, but it isn’t excessive.

Like all Smeg’s coffee machines, the ECF03 is controlled via a small set of buttons labelled with icons, which illuminate in different colors to show the machine’s status. Solid white means the machine is ready to brew hot, solid blue means it’s ready for cold-brewing. Flashing or orange lights mean the machine is either still heating or requires maintenance. You'll need to keep the manual handy for reference when you first start using it, but you'll soon learn what the different combinations signify.

(Image credit: Future)

The Smeg ECF03 is easy to maintain, and unlike most home espresso machines, it comes with a blank disc for backwashing the grouphead and water circuit. This makes it easy to clear out coffee oils and residue that might affect the taste of your drinks.

Overall, the ECF03 is an absolute pleasure to use, and during my testing, I found it difficult to fault. The only real drawback is the price, but it is justified by the quality and style. There’s a chance you can get a deal if you wait for the Black Friday sales, or if you’re not likely to use the cold-brew function, you could opt for the ECF02 instead.

Smeg ECF03: specifications

Name

Smeg ECF03

Type

Manual espresso machine

Dimensions (H x W x D)

14.3 x 8.1 x 11.6 inches / 36.4 x 20.5 x 29.5cm

Weight

24lb 11oz / 11.2kg

Water tank capacity

1.5qt / 1.4l

Steam wand

Yes, manual

Max pressure

15 bar

User profiles

1

Smeg ECF03: price and availability

• Only available in Europe at the time of writing (October 2025)
• Smeg ECF02, which lacks cold brew mode, costs considerably less

At the time of writing, the Smeg ECF03 is only available in Europe. It launched in the UK in September 2025 at a list price of £499.96. That works out at about $670 / AU$1,000, but official release dates and prices for the US and Australia have yet to be announced.

For comparison, the Smeg ECF02, which lacks a cold-brew function, has a list price of $600 / £399.95 / AU$699, but can sometimes be found at a significant discount. In the UK, for example, it's currently reduced to £299.95 in Smeg’s online store.

You’ll find today’s best deals on both machines below, with prices updated daily.

• Value score: 4.5/5

Smeg ECF03: design

• Chic 1950s-inspired design
• Well-made, solid-feeling accessories
• Cleverly concealed storage compartment

The ECF03 is part of Smeg’s line of 1950s-inspired appliances, with smooth curved lines, stainless steel accents, and a choice of glossy retro colors: pastel blue, cream (shown here), white, and black. It’s a new sibling for the Smeg ECF02, with the biggest difference being the ECF03's ability to brew cold-extracted espresso as well as hot.

It also has a slightly different shape, with convex sides rather than concave, and a gauge on the front that helps you see if you’ve achieved the optimum pressure for extracting a shot (a feature I always appreciate).

(Image credit: Future)

You’ll find a power switch on the left-hand side of the ECF03’s case, and its functions are controlled with a set of four buttons on the stainless steel top (for single shot, double shot, steam, and switching between hot and cold brewing).

The 58mm portafilter feels reassuringly solid in the hand, weighing about 240z / 676g with a basket fitted, and the tamper is a hefty 16z / 448g. This weight doesn’t just make it satisfying to use, it also helps you apply even pressure to produce an evenly compressed puck without fissures, resulting in more consistently extracted coffee.

(Image credit: Future)

Like all other Smeg espresso machines I’ve tested, the ECF03 comes with four filter baskets, including pressurized and single-walled options for single and double shots. Pressurized (double-walled) baskets are more forgiving if your technique isn’t quite perfect, producing reliably thick crema, while the single-walled baskets give you finer control over extraction.

The steam wand pivots out from the machine, with a good range of movement and an angle that’s ideal for creating a ‘whirlpool’ in your milk pitcher. It has a cool-touch silicone handle and is operated using a stainless steel knob on the machine’s right-hand side. Pull it towards you for steam, and push it away for hot water.

(Image credit: Future)

Pull out the drip tray and you’ll find a handy storage compartment, which holds the filter baskets you use less frequently, a stiff-bristled cleaning brush, a needle tool for clearing the steam wand if it becomes blocked, and a blank disc that you can place in the portafilter handle to backwash the machine using a cleaning tablet. That last item is a particularly nice addition that’s used daily in a commercial setting, but rarely included with home espresso machines.

The only item notable by its absence is a milk pitcher, which is a little surprising for an espresso machine in this price bracket.

• Design score: 5/5

Smeg ECF03: performance

• Brews consistently good hot and cold espresso
• Pressure gauge is useful, though the lack of numbers is surprising
• Easy to clean and care for

I found the ECF03 a joy to use, whether brewing hot or cold, and Smeg’s usual attention to detail and build quality are evident right from the start.

The machine’s water tank is robust, with a built-in handle that makes it easy and comfortable to carry. You’re given a water hardness testing strip so you can pick the correct water hardness setting to use (‘hard water’ is the default). Although no water filter is provided, compatible filters are available to buy from Smeg’s website, and they easily twist into place in the bottom of the tank.

(Image credit: Future)

The 58mm portafilter seems identical to the one supplied with the ECF02, which is fine with me; it’s excellent. The tamper, however, is a big upgrade. The base model ECF02 came with a plastic measuring scoop with a tamper on the end. It was fit for purpose, but its light weight meant it could be tricky to apply consistent pressure each time you used it. The ECF03’s tamper is much weightier, which gives it a more premium feeling and makes it easier to create a consistently well-formed puck.

As you’d expect from a premium home espresso machine, the ECF03 is an excellent performer. Once you’ve got your grinder dialled in, you can be confident that your shots will be perfectly extracted time after time. (If you’re in need of a grinder, the Smeg CGF03 matches the ECF03 in style and choice of colors.)

(Image credit: Future)

The ECF03’s pressure gauge is a particularly useful feature, letting you see whether your espresso is likely to be extracted properly before it’s finished pouring. However, it’s not labelled with the exact pressure in bars; instead, you just aim for the needle to be positioned in the black section marked on the dial. It’s a bit of a strange choice; there are markers around the edge of the dial, but no indication of what measurements they represent.

During brewing, the ECF03’s pump reached a maximum of 72dB, which is roughly equivalent to a vacuum cleaner. It’s noticeably noisier than the fully automatic Smeg BCC13, which has sound shielding and is QuietMark certified, but isn’t excessively loud and is about average for a manual espresso machine.

(Image credit: Future)

Most of the buttons on the machine’s top are labelled with icons, except for the one that switches between hot and cold brewing modes. When the machine is primed and ready to brew hot, the double-shot, single-shot, and steam buttons are all illuminated white. In cold-brewing mode, the first two are blue instead.

Cold-brewing is quick, taking around two minutes to extract a shot. Part of this time is taken up with an extended pre-infusion, which gives the ground coffee extra time to bloom. After that, the ECF03 will send pulses of cold water through the puck (in groups of three) until the shot is ready.

(Image credit: Future)

The result is a mellow-tasting and well-rounded drink that you can enjoy by itself or as the base of an iced americano. If you prefer chilled lattes or cappuccinos, take a look at the Smeg Mini Milk Frother, which matches the style of the ECF03 and can produce thick or thin cold foam.

Holding down one of the coffee-brewing buttons will let you customize its properties. If the buttons illuminate in orange or start to flash, it’s a sign that there’s a fault, or (more likely) it’s time for some routine maintenance.

(Image credit: Future)

The ECF03 is a piece of cake to clean and care for. You can keep the case and exterior of the milk wand looking pristine by wiping with a damp cloth. Purge the wand with a blast of steam after each use, and you’ll be unlikely to need the needle-like cleaning tool.

As I mentioned above, the inclusion of a blank disc is excellent when it’s time to give the machine’s grouphead and circuit a thorough clean to remove old coffee residue. To use it, insert the single-walled single-shot basket and place the disc in the bottom. Smeg doesn’t sell its own cleaning tablets, but you can use any detergent tabs recommended for home coffee machines. Press and hold the single and double shot buttons to pulse water through the machine, then empty the drip tray and repeat the process. For descaling, the company recommends its own-brand Anti-Kalk liquid.

(Image credit: Future)

The drip tray’s cup holder seems to resist scratches well (unlike some, which are easily scuffed by ceramic mugs), and the tray is nice and deep, so you’re unlikely to spill anything during emptying.

I’ve tested a lot of hot- and cold-brew espresso machines this year, but the Smeg ECF03 is easily one of the most refined. It’s a pleasure to use, looks great, and is extremely consistent. If your budget will stretch to it, you won’t be disappointed.

• Performance score: 5/5

Should you buy the Smeg ECF03Smeg ECF03 score card

Attribute

Notes

Score

Value

A premium espresso machine with a price tag to match, though it's justified by the design and build quality.

4.5/5

Design

Smeg's signature '50s style looks as chic as ever, and there are some significant upgrades from the ECF02.

5/5

Performance

Generates consistent pressure for reliably well-extracted hot and cold drinks, and is a piece of cake to clean and care for.

5/5

Buy it if

You want a showpiece for your kitchen

Smeg’s '50s-style appliances are real lookers, and the ECF03 is no exception. It’s a guaranteed conversation-starter when you have guests.View Deal

You have a generous budget

Smeg’s signature style comes at a price. Hot- and cold-brew espresso machines are available for less if you’re not particular about looks.View Deal

Don't buy it if

You’re not into cold brew

The Smeg ECF02 is an equally good-looking machine that heats fast and delivers consistent pressure, but costs considerably less.View Deal

Smeg ECF03: also consider

Smeg ECF02

If you don't care for cold brew, the ECF02 is an equally chic and more affordable alternative. You don't get the handy pressure gauge, though, and the base model has a less sturdy tamper than the ECF03.

Read our full Smeg ECF02 reviewView Deal

Smeg BCC13

If you like the sound of the ECF03 but want an espresso machine that will handle all the hard work for you, the BCC13 is a beautifully designed super-automatic machine that would look perfect on your kitchen counter.

Read our full Smeg BCC13 reviewView Deal

How I tested the Smeg ECF03

I used the Smeg ECF03 for two weeks in place of my usual Gaggia Classic espresso machine. I used it on the hard water setting, with fresh single-origin Honduran Swiss water decaf beans from a local coffee roaster, ground using my Sage Precision burr grinder.

I used the steam wand with full-fat dairy milk and barista oat milk, both of which were freshly bought and chilled.

I followed the directions in the instruction manual to set up and maintain the machine, and brewed a mix of single and double shots using both filter baskets, and used both the hot- and cold-brew options.

For more details, see how we test, review, and rate products at TechRadar.

First reviewed October 2025

It’s genuinely a shame that role-playing game The Outer Worlds 2 developer Obsidian Entertainment operates under the current Microsoft umbrella. This is a company that, in the past couple of years alone, has laid off an unimaginable number of workers, dramatically raised prices on its hardware and subscription models, and completed one of the most costly acquisitions in the medium’s history. That's all on top of cancelling a slew of games and shuttering studios.

It’s precisely this kind of overbearing capitalist mindset that The Outer Worlds 2 has a bone to pick with, and it’s left me with some pretty complicated feelings. On the one hand, the game’s critique of late-stage capitalism is scathing and steeped in the developer’s trademark wit. On the other, I can’t help but feel it all rings a little hollow when the target of said critiques is also the one funding and publishing The Outer Worlds 2.

Review info

Platform reviewed: Xbox Series X, PC
Available on: PS5, Xbox Series X, Series S, PC
Release date: October 29, 2025

Ultimately, Obsidian itself deserves praise for crafting yet another brilliant choice-driven role-playing game (RPG). Like Fallout: New Vegas, Pentiment, and Avowed before it, The Outer Worlds 2 provides an absorbing world to explore, chock-full of interesting characters and quests, and countless opportunities to make the most of your chosen build.

Skills in The Outer Worlds 2 aren’t just for bypassing doors or clearing speech checks; like in many of the best RPGs, some can genuinely open up the game in meaningful ways. The Observation skill, for example, is one I can’t do without. Especially not after it guided me to a secret room that revealed a quest to win the favor of a lucrative black market vendor. Even weapon-based skills like Guns or Science! (yes, that is how it’s formatted) are good for more than just shooting, and can be used to intimidate characters during dialog.

(Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)

One of my favorite things about The Outer Worlds 2, then, is that you actually won’t be able to solve every problem, bypass every lock in a single playthrough. You will have times where an NPC isn’t swayed by your charms, and then stumble upon a quest or avenue of progression that suits your skill set to a tee. It's an ever-so-satisfying gameplay experience.

This interplay between success and failure isn’t quite a perfect balance, however; across my playthrough, I did find that some skills and traits barred progress more than others (for example, Engineering is used to get past jammed doors much more frequently than the Hack or Lockpicking skills are in their respective fields).

There are also some pacing issues through the mid-game, especially as quests tend to stack up on themselves and enemies start having tedious amounts of health to all but the most gun-slinging of character builds.

Minor issues aside, I won’t soon forget my time in the hyper-capitalist nightmare that is the Arcadia system, and chances are I’ll be diving back in again with a completely different approach and ending in mind.

Shoot the moon

(Image credit: Microsoft)

In terms of background, The Outer Worlds 2 gives you a bit more to work with compared to its prequel, with your character being an established and respected agent of the Earth Directorate - a sort of task force that prides itself on the very idealistic and somewhat fantastical notion of bringing peace to the galaxy. Turns out, the Earth Directorate might not be very good at their jobs, though.

The opening mission, an infiltration of a space station run by a cultish sect known as the Protectorate, goes horribly wrong when a fellow agent double-crosses us, detonating the station and killing everyone on board save for ourselves and a previously injured squad member by the name of Niles Ibara.

Ten years on, you’re woken from an extended hibernation period by Niles, who informs you that the detonation has caused a rift in the fabric of space that threatens to destroy the entire system in an undetermined amount of time. It’s a race against the clock to track down the double-crossing agent and save the system of Arcadia from a grisly fate.

Your quest for justice (whatever form that may take based on your own choices throughout the game) isn’t one you’ll emerge from without someone’s blood on your hands. Like it or not, you will often have to side with one or two dubious factions in order to get your way. That could be the previously established Protectorate, or Auntie’s Choice - a mega corporation that’s the result of a hostile merger of the first game’s Auntie Cleo’s and Spacer’s Choice companies.

You won’t always like who you’re choosing to work for, but there is at least a good variety of dialog flavor to have your character respond in a way that suits your desired personality - whether that be good-natured or unfathomably cruel, or everything in between.

Choices, so many choices

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Like its prequel, The Outer Worlds 2’s explorable planets are smaller, individual biomes, as opposed to having one larger map a la Fallout: New Vegas. For this game, it’s an approach that really works. Each of the main planets has its own central conflict, even if most offer a general theme of Auntie’s Choice and the Protectorate battling it out for control.

Best bit

(Image credit: Microsoft)

The Outer Worlds 2 puts player choice first and foremost, in both build variety and choice-based decision making. The game is designed in a way that means you never quite know when your character’s particular skill set will come in handy, making exploration and experimentation almost always enjoyable.

Each map is smattered with characters to meet, side quests to take on, buildings to explore, and no shortage of secrets to unearth. Exploration really is the focal point of progress in The Outer Worlds 2. Combat is, of course, one way of getting things done. And in terms of feel and feedback, it’s a huge improvement over the first game, with satisfying gun play and plenty of weapon types - from stealthy knives and silenced pistols to ammo-hungry SMGs and energy weapons.

Personally, I preferred a more low-key approach to progressing through the game’s main missions. Problems can be solved with combat, sure, but as the game went on, a frustrating tendency to pad out enemy health bars often made such encounters a tedious affair.

As a result, I rolled a charismatic character able to pass speech checks to bypass combat wherever possible. Some points in Sneak and Observation also helped in stealthily getting through busy areas and finding secret routes. You absolutely can play a passive character in The Outer Worlds 2, and you’re more often than not rewarded for doing so.

(Image credit: Obsidian)

One piece of advice I have would be to think very carefully about your specializations while initially creating your character. Get comfortable with the idea that many choices and solutions will be locked off to you, as a trade-off for excelling in two or three areas instead. You’ll have one chance to respec after the tutorial section, but beyond that, no such option exists.

I like this change overall. Not being able to respec on a whim meant that I had to approach most scenarios with my chosen skill sets in mind. For me, this largely meant that going guns blazing was simply off the table. On the other hand, I can see indecisive players - or those who like to take a flexible approach based on the situation - may struggle with this. I certainly restarted the game a handful of times until I settled on skills that satisfied my preferences.

One returning feature from the first game that I really enjoy, though, is flaws. These are reactive, passive effects that you can accrue, and they’re essentially the game’s way of adding additional challenge to your playstyle. Flaws pop up if you adopt a certain way of playing enough. One is based on a hoarder mentality, lowering vendor prices but also reducing money you earn from selling.

Another flaw plays on indecisiveness, letting you only increase the level of skills with zero points, or ones you have the lowest total in, the upside being you’ll get one extra skill point to spend at each level up. Flaws are optional, but if you accept them, they’re with you for good, so think carefully about how useful you think they’ll be in the long run.

Horizon point

(Image credit: Microsoft)

I did find that The Outer Worlds 2 started to lose its luster as the campaign went on. It’s not the longest RPG out there, coming in at around 40-50 hours, but it’s definitely one that started to feel a bit formulaic. There’s only so many firefights to endure, air ducts to crawl through, or terminals to hack before the game starts to feel like it’s shown its entire hand. And it does so long before credits roll. It remains an enjoyable game throughout, but I definitely had the most fun solving the problems in the first major biome when it still felt fresh and vast.

That repetition does tend to hurt the game’s overall pacing, too. There are some nice surprises here and there; recruiting new companions for your squad is often something you’ll just stumble upon, rather than being outright told where you can pick them up. And digging into the depths of an installation or base to uncover a cool weapon or decision-making opportunity is always a satisfying reward. But such moments felt few and far between in the midst of trudging from township to outpost, ticking off various elements of busy work in the hopes of expanding my choices for the main quest.

What I can’t fault The Outer Worlds 2 on is its gorgeous visual style. It’s something I found really impressive about Avowed, and it’s much the same case here. Outdoor environments are awash with color and interesting landmarks, while interiors often feel cold and oppressive in the best way possible. While the soundtrack didn’t do much to move me, I did often find myself taking in the impressive amount of environmental detail on offer.

It’s a winner on the performance front, too, and I noticed only a handful of dips at 60fps across both Xbox Series X and PC. Load times can be uncomfortably long on occasion (exacerbated by reloading quick saves to try out alternate routes), but by and large the game’s performance is acceptable.

Should you play The Outer Worlds 2?

(Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)Play it if...

You want a massive Obsidian RPG to get stuck into
Obsidian remains one of the most talented developers in the business when it comes to level design, top-quality writing, and consequential decision-making. This is an unpredictable sci-fi adventure that - despite some pacing shortcomings - delivers a top-notch immersive experience. Definitely one of the best Xbox Series X games in recent years.

You want to think outside the box
If you enjoy solving problems in RPGs that don’t end in bloody shootouts, The Outer Worlds 2 is for you. Whether it’s through hacking, stealth, uncovering secrets, or convincing characters through charm and wit alone, there are plenty of opportunities to do so in this game.

You loved The Outer Worlds
The Outer Worlds 2 is a significantly better game than its prequel in almost every aspect. Gameplay options are much more robust, and there are always several ways of solving even the most basic quests. It builds upon everything the first game did well, and then some.

Don't play it if...

You don’t want to be locked into any given playstyle
The lack of a respec option past the intro means you need to pick a handful of skills to specialize in and stick with them. Spreading your skills too thin means you won’t be able to meet high skill check requirements later in the game. If you’re not keen on potentially being locked out of certain options, segments, or endings based on your choices, it might not be the game for you.

Accessibility

As is the case with many Xbox Game Studios titles, The Outer Worlds 2 offers a solid amount of accessibility options for gamers of all stripes. For starters, you can adjust motion blur and field of view to a granular degree, as well as apply subtitles to general, background, and audio log speech.

There are also two motion sickness modes for reducing on-screen motions to varying degrees. You can also adjust overall text size and HUD scaling, as well as apply colors and outlines to subtitles and their backgrounds.

How I reviewed The Outer Worlds 2

I played The Outer Worlds 2 for 40 hours across both my Xbox Series X Digital Edition and my gaming PC. I was able to transfer my save across both versions thanks to Xbox’s handy Play Anywhere feature. During my playthrough, I opted for a character capable of hacking and uncovering secrets via the Observation skill, with some points in Speech and Guns to get myself out of tight situations in a pinch.

I primarily played on console using the Razer Wolverine V3 Pro Xbox controller, on an LG CX OLED TV display. My audio device of choice here was the RIG R5 Spear Pro, a multiplatform wired gaming headset that delivered exceptional, immersive audio during my playthrough.

First reviewed October 2025

Apple AirPods Pro 3: Two-minute review

Apple's AirPods Pro 3 are doubtless the biggest earbuds release of the year – figuratively and in terms of the furore surrounding them, that is, rather than physically (they're nice and small, as it happens). They're still ice-white only, and they'll still prefer an iPhone, iPad or MacBook over an Android device any day of the week – yes, they'll work with Android, but you'll miss even some of the more commonplace perks if using them this way, such as device switching and a quick way of checking the battery.

So know this: I wrote the bulk of this review while using the AirPods Pro 3 with an iPhone 15 Pro Max, otherwise known as the oldest iPhone that is still able to support Apple Intelligence. Why is that important? Because without it you'd miss key perks such as Live Translation (one of the headline features) and personalized fitness insights, for example.

This time around you get five ear tips in the box, although Apple has performed some wizardry with the shape of the driver housing, so they should slip right into your ear and stay there without too much fuss – at least they did for me, and for several others on the TechRadar team. Are these some of the best earbuds on the market for fit and novel features (I will mention heart-rate monitoring; I will also go into Live Translation at length, later) then, as well as claiming the best in-ear active noise cancellation? Oh, without a doubt.

These particular AirPods have very few snafus, but it's my job to mention the small issues I had. My AirPods Pro 3 review sample has refused to acknowledge the existence of the iPhone 12 Pro Max I've tried to pair them with several times, on the grounds that said phone is a non-Apple Intelligence option, and performing a reset is now quite a bit more fiddly than it was previously. This is because the button on the back of the case is now gone. Instead, you have to double-tap the front of the case to do a factory reset, but without touching the front of the case while flipping the lid. If that sounds tricky, it is.

Also, there's still a slight stamina niggle for me. Don't get me wrong: Apple has improved the battery life here, claiming up to eight hours from the earbuds with ANC on, which is up from six hours for the AirPods Pro 2. But this, of course, is without Spatial Audio, heart-rate monitoring and a few other bells and whistles deployed (which you may not have checked before leaving the house, because without a dedicated app to click, some of these toggles feel buried away in your phone's settings). I found the battery life a bit lower than that in real life, at around 5.5 hours in my testing, so it's fine, rather than fantastic.

All of this aside, the AirPods Pro 3's sound is both zealous and head-turning (especially with dynamic head-tracking on), bringing your music to your ears with panache and, hang it all, joy. And let me be clear: these ice-white buds can do this thanks largely to the neatest near-silent ANC performance I've ever experienced using an iPhone source device. And that's worth this kind of money for your next long-haul flight – or heck, even your commute, as far as I'm concerned.

Apple AirPods Pro 3 review: Price and release date

(Image credit: Future)

• Released on September 9, 2025
• Priced $249 / £219 / AU$429
• Available in white or… white again

Both the inaugural AirPods Pro and the follow-up AirPods Pro 2 were priced at $249 / £249 / AU$399 when they first appeared, so the fact that AirPods Pro 3 came with a $249 price tag when they hit shelves on September 19 come as a surprise to nobody.

What is a touch odd is the quoted pricing in other regions, because the AirPods Pro 3 are priced £219 in the UK (I double-checked so you don't have to) and AU$429. So, while they're £30 cheaper in the UK, they're AU$30 more expensive in Australia. I don't make the rules…

On the one hand, plenty of the best wireless earbuds have risen in price in the last few years in line with inflation, but the fact that Apple made a point of hanging on at the same price as the original AirPods Pro from 2019 – in the US at least – and even reduced them in the UK, is quite surprising.

And the huge news is that because of this pricing, Apple's flagship earbuds might actually come in at the lower end of the premium earbuds market, depending on region. I know!

What of direct competition at this level? Their rivals are perhaps most pressingly the older AirPods Pro 2, which can now be yours for around $160 / £170 / AU$350, the Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 (which are a fair bit pricier, at $399 / £349 / AU$599), the Technics EAH-AZ100 which are $299 / £259 / AU$478 or perhaps the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen) for $299 / £299 / AU$450.

So you see, Apple has actually gone quite aggressive with the pricing here, when you look at it like that.

Apple AirPods Pro 3 review: Specs

Drivers

'Custom high-excursion' Apple driver with new multiport acoustic architecture and revised driver angle

Active noise cancellation

Yes

Battery life

8 hours (buds, ANC on); 6.5 hours (buds, heart rate sensor on); 24 hours (case)

Weight

5.6g (buds); 44g (case)

Connectivity

Bluetooth 5.3 (H2 chip)

Waterproofing

IP57

AirPods Pro 3 are on the right (AirPods Pro 2 on the left) (Image credit: Future)Apple AirPods Pro 3 review: Features

• Live Translation is really fun (once set up)
• Heart-rate monitoring
• Your fitness app may not support HRM natively

There are plenty of features here to get through, but I want to start on the one no other AirPods are getting any time soon: heart-rate monitoring. Simply by wearing them, that extra black little bar on the inside neck of the bud plus the built-in movement sensors can track 50 workout types with just AirPods Pro 3 – i.e., no Apple Watch needed – to give you a heart rate reading as long as you're wearing at least one earbud.

According to Apple: “AirPods Pro 3 introduce a custom photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor that shines invisible infrared light pulsed at 256 times per second to measure light absorption in blood flow.”

Believe it or not, this is actually a different solution to the one found in the also-ticker-taking (and also made by Apple) Beats Powerbeats Pro 2, launched in February 2025. You need to be wearing both earbuds to get a reading there, because when you do, a green LED light sensor in each earpiece pulses over 100 times per second, then measures the light reflected back to calculate how many times your heart is beating per minute. See?

I had heard that my heavy-rotation free Seven app (of 'seven-minute workout' fame – because lunchtime is rarely the full hour in journalism) would simply work with AirPods Pro 3's heart-rate monitoring in-app, but alas, it does not. In fact, at the time of writing, Apple hasn't published a full list of third-party fitness apps that support AirPods' heart-rate monitoring natively. But I still know that my heart-rate went up from its resting 60 BPM to 117 BPM during that short workout, because your reading can be found in the Health app – or you can simply ask Siri to tell you your heart rate whenever you like (once you've turned it on and sorted out the correct permissions within Siri) provided you've got the breath to speak.

Apple is clearly using the AirPods' newest trick to send you to its free Fitness app (or better still, its paid-for Fitness+ offering) because even in the free variant, 19 types of activity are clearly displayed with simple Apple Music integration, your AirPods icon in the top right, your choice of three 'workout buddy' voices for personalized encouragement using Apple Intelligence, and a little heart icon as if to scream 'heart-rate logging here folks – just get going!' I'm a little disappointed to see no aerial silks/hoop or pole dance activities listed here, Apple (both are hugely popular) but this review is about AirPods Pro 3 rather than the suite of offerings within Fitness, and AirPods' help in facilitating all of this data accumulation does add a lot of value to your purchase.

(Image credit: Apple)

Now, Live Translation: once you get it up and running, it's excellent. I say 'once you get it up and running' because there are various hoops you need to jump through and barriers to pass (and tricks I used) before it'll work properly. And you should do these when you first set up your AirPods if you'd like to get at it quick enough so that when the time comes, the poor bartender you're trying to converse with doesn't get cold feet and run away while you're telling them to hang on.

So, you need: your AirPods Pro 3 (the feature is also available on the AirPods 4 (ANC) and AirPods Pro 2); iPhone 15 Pro or later; iOS 26 or later; Apple Intelligence turned on; the Translate app downloaded (and the language modules you want downloaded) plus the latest AirPods Firmware version. In addition to this, I customized the iPhone Action button on my iPhone 15 Pro Max to start Live Translation – because I found it marginally quicker and more reliable than pressing both stems of my AirPods Pro 3. But do either of those things once you've got everything running and you'll feel like James Bond in Casino Royale, dropping in on the local gossip at the tables in Venice's Hotel Danieli.

Luckily, I have a Spanish-speaking other half to deploy. He spoke to me about his plans to play tennis that night until 10pm (see the left screen-grab, below). The English version of his Spanish prose was piped vocally into my ears with very little delay, as well as appearing on my iPhone as a transcript. It's remarkably good.

Elsewhere, Apple's fit and hearing tests are back (you do the first, before you can take the second) and very thorough they are too. Since I answered the hearing test honestly (stay with it; it's worth it), I cannot in good faith test the hearing aid help in action, because I don't require it. But what is very useful is Conversation Awareness, which you simply toggle on in the AirPods Pro tab of your iPhone's settings. Then, when you talk, your music volume is lowered and background noise is reduced so that you can easily converse.

It's worth noting that both of these features (Live Translation and Conversation Awareness) are not popular with some of the team, because they encourage you to wear your AirPods constantly – and some of us (myself included) find this rude. Perhaps in time the pet peeve of a friend or colleague refusing to remove their earbuds when talking to me will cease to annoy me, but I'm not so sure…

(Image credit: Future)

• Features score: 5 / 5

(Image credit: Future)Apple AirPods Pro 3 review: Sound quality

• Enjoyable, emotive audio with personalized spatial audio on
• Vocals nicely textured and three-dimensional
• Not the last word in detail and neutrality, but that's not the point

Please, please take Apple's excellent ANC performance in the AirPods Pro 3 as read – it's almost scarily good at sucking the noise out of your ears, but without the actual sucky, wind tunnel, nauseating effect you can sometimes get with similar levels of noise-nixing. I found toggling on Apple's 'Adaptive' audio less effective (it felt just a touch laggy at picking up low-level noise when I'd have liked the AirPods to cancel it) so I chose to keep noise-cancelling and conversation awareness on, at my desk. And it eased me into my day in a cocoon of silence that very little could breach.

Sonically, you can expect an expansive, exuberant soundstage that allows bass registers ample space to rumble with regimented clout. The detailed Spanish guitar intro of Daddy Yankee's Toy Hermoso is textured through the mids and feels as if the guitarist is by my left ear, but as the reggaeton beat comes in, it's a toe-tapping and head-nodding mix that has me dancing at my desk like I'm in a Cuban salsa club – especially with head-tracked spatial audio on.

Cueing up Rema's FUN, the intentionally warm and static-filled intro is faithfully relayed, and as the dynamics and speed of the track build, I'm once again dancing in my seat.

For neutrality and detail (that 'integrated hi-fi versus fun' debate), it's worth pointing out that you'll get a little more from both the Technics EAH-AZ100 and the Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 – think the breathy delivery of Taylor Swift's vocal in Elizabeth Taylor, which feels just slightly more human and detailed in the rival buds. But if you prioritize immersive, vigorous impact, I find the AirPods Pro 3 even better than the also-excellent Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen) – and that's not a statement I make lightly.

• Sound quality: 4.5 / 5

AirPods Pro 3 on the right – with no reset button! (Image credit: Future)Apple AirPods Pro 3 review: Design

• Vastly improved fit
• Loss of the case button is a misstep
• Could do with a dedicated app now

As mentioned (and pictured below), the AirPods Pro earpiece shape has been reworked this time around. The angle of the neck has been tweaked quite significantly and I'm a huge fan. Simply put, they fit well – and by that I mean securely, even when I shake my head – for me now, and that has never been the case with any AirPods until this iteration.

An IP57 rating means the buds are also dust resistant and waterproof to a depth of one meter for up to 30 minutes, which is noteworthy.

The case is a touch taller and wider but less deep now. The LED light is now undetectable when it's not on, which makes for a sleek look. Also sleeker but for me less helpful is the loss of the reset button on the back of the case. I say this because when upgrading my iPhone to a model that supports Apple Intelligence to test these earbuds, I found myself needing to reset the AirPods. And that's no longer as easy as it once was, because double-tapping the front of the case with the lid flipped, but not touching the front of the case (so that said case registers my tap attempts) isn't a simple maneuver.

My one minor gripe here concerns the supporting software – because software design is still a 'design' issue, for me.

Yes, you can pull down on the Control Center on your iPhone to see the basic AirPods bubble, at which point you can check your listening mode, conversation awareness status and spatial audio profile. Then, you can go into your AirPods Pro tab, in Settings, to check the current state of more general features such as the Hearing Health tab, call controls, head gestures, enabling charging case sounds, automatic ear detection to pause your music when you remove one, and so on.

But given that so many of AirPods Pro 3's newer features require extra taps and navigation to alternate apps (there's the Translate app for your language modules, the Health app to see your heart-rate data, the Fitness app to see that heart-rate increase as you exercise) I wonder whether at this point it might make sense to have one dedicated AirPods Pro 3 app to rule them all. I'm speculating, but I'd definitely like to try that, because the current solution will doubtless have you consulting Apple's support pages in an effort to find how – or more importantly, where – to toggle on what you need…

(Image credit: Future)

• Design score: 4.5 / 5

(Image credit: Future)Apple AirPods Pro 3 review: value

• The best ANC earbuds on the market for iPhone owners
• Not the most original choice… but the best

Popular taste doesn't always mean good taste, does it? And I say that as a fan of pop music. Value is also an odd thing to quantify, since whether or not these represent value for you will hone in on possibly three things. Firstly, do you want the best ANC for your iPhone? Because here, AirPods Pro 3 are doubtless the best noise-cancelling earbuds on the market – Apple said they're twice as good as AirPods Pro 2, and I can vouch for that claim.

Secondly, do you value the extra battery life offered here over the Pro 2 – even though it's far from the the best on the wider market. For reference, the Technics EAH-AZ100 (which we called "good rather than great for battery") can offer up to 12 hours from the buds on a single charge with no ANC deployed, while AirPods Pro 3 can only manage a maximum of 10 hours before needing to be charged.

And thirdly, how much do you want your earbuds to take your heart-rate and use that reading within workouts (yes, even vocally, thanks to Apple Intelligence's virtual buddies)?

It's worth noting that I think AirPods Pro 3 are also the best earbuds for small ears Apple has made, because of the newer fit – and I found myself loving the Live Translation feature at home (although it's not exclusive to the Pro 3), since my other half speaks Spanish.

So, I'll leave all of that with you. For me personally though (and putting my minor queries with the case and software support to one side) there's great value here.

• Value: 4.5 / 5

(Image credit: Future)Should I buy the Apple AirPods Pro 3?

Attributes

Notes

Rating

Features

Heart-rate monitoring and Live Translation add to an extensive suite of perks for newer iPhone owners

5/5

Sound quality

Zealous, powerful and immersive audio backed by excellent ANC

4.5/5

Design

The tweaked shape and repositioned neck on the driver housing is a huge hit

4.5/5

Value

Simply the best iPhone earbuds for ANC on the market – if not the longest-lasting

4.5/5

Buy them if…

You work out (or you care about heart health)
If you don't have a subscription already, Apple will prompt you to try out Fitness+ for free, but even if you stick with free workouts – or you just like asking Siri "what's my heart-rate" – it becomes a very useful tool, very quickly

You want bubble-of-silence ANC from your iPhone
Simply put, no other buds do it quite like this if your source device is an iPhone

You have bilingual friends and family
Ha! We can all understand your French, Spanish, German or Portuguese conversations now… 

Don’t buy them if…

You own an Android
It may go without saying, but for this money (and for the number of features that slip away for it) you'll be better served with a Bose, Technics or Bowers & Wilkins product.

You need long-haul flight stamina
The battery life isn't awful (and it is better than the AirPods Pro 2), but compared to rivals it can certainly be beaten – the Technics EAH-AZ100 last two hours longer on a single charge with no ANC, for instance.

You want Lossless audio support, LDAC or aptX
No dice here, friend. If you need Apple Music's Lossless support from an iPhone, AirPods Max do it (using the USB-C wire), but if you want aptX or Sony's higher-resolution Bluetooth audio codec (LDAC), look to the Cambridge Audio Melomania A100.

Apple AirPods Pro 3 review: Also consider

Apple AirPods Pro 3

Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen)

Technics EAH-AZ100

Cambridge Audio Melomania A100

Drivers

'Custom high-excursion' Apple driver with new multiport acoustic architecture

10mm

10mm free-edge dynamic

10mm Neodymium dynamic

Active noise cancellation

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Battery life

8 hours (buds, ANC on; 10 hours with ANC off); 6.5 hours (buds, heart rate sensor on); 24 hours (case)

6 hours (earbuds, ANC off; 4 hours with it on) case not specified

12 hours (earbuds, ANC off); 17 hours (charging case)

11 hours per charge; up to 39 hours with the case

Weight

5.6g per bud

7.7g per bud

5.9g per bud

4.7g per earbud

Connectivity

Bluetooth 5.3

Bluetooth 5.3 with aptX Lossless / Adaptive

Bluetooth 5.3 with LDAC and LC3 compatibility

5.4 with LDAC and aptX Lossless

Waterproofing

IP57 case and earbuds

IPX4 earbuds only

IPX4 earbuds only

IPX5 earbuds only

Technics EAH-AZ100
An option with slightly better stamina that also offers excellent sound quality and decent noise cancellation – plus LDAC higher-resolution Bluetooth support if you've got a Sony device. Here, you even get multi-point to three brand-agnostic devices (rather than the standard two) and the classy finish makes them nothing short of a joy to own – even though they won't take your heart-rate. Get the full picture in our Technics EAH-AZ100 review.

Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen)
They've got excellent streaming-service agnostic immersive audio profiles, wonderful ANC for Android phones as well as iPhones and a colorful look. Some may find the buds a touch big and there are no guided hearing tests, but if it's the best ANC and an Android phone companion you seek, you've found the best there is. See our full Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen) review for more.View Deal

Cambridge Audio Melomania A100
Cambridge Audio also offers a premium listen in its latest earbuds with good ANC. No heart-rate monitoring or Live Translation, of course, but if it's an integrated hi-fi listen you seek, add them to your list – and they'll last longer than the Bose option. Read more in our Cambridge Audio Melomania A100 review.

How I tested the Apple AirPods Pro 3

• Tested for three weeks
• Tested walking along Seaham beach, on a packed Eurostar train and at home

I used AirPods Pro 3 for three weeks while compiling this review, and my testing involved listening to podcasts and music, as well as watching streamed movies from various devices and streaming platforms – including Android and Apple sources.

I listened at home, during several sea-glass hunting walks in County Durham and on a busy train to Paris – and let me tell you, with these as both a musical companion and live translation tool, they eased my journey no end.

I've been testing audio products full-time since 2019, firstly over at our sister publication What Hi-Fi? as a staff writer (locked in our hi-fi testing facility for two years, I was), then as senior writer at TechRadar – and, since early 2024, audio editor.

My background as a professional dancer meant I was very interested in what AirPods Pro 3 made of my heart-rate and overall fitness (still got it, friends) and my seemingly insatiable need to move to music is what drives me to search for faithful timing, precision, clarity and good old fashioned fun in recorded audio.

• First reviewed October 2025.

• Read TechRadar's review guarantee
• Learn more specifically about how we test earbuds at TechRadar

SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite: one-minute review

If you’re someone who craves the best in gaming audio and the most performant gaming accessories, then the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite is the only wireless gaming headset you need to consider buying - it is the best I have ever tested, and probably the best gaming headset, period.

While its price tag means it’s more expensive than most of the best gaming consoles, if you’re someone who strives to build the most performant gaming setup, or someone who craves the highest-quality audio for gaming, then the Elite is for you - and boy does it prove to be worth it for that audience.

Its design and build are something I’ve never experienced before, and I simply have no complaints here. The headset is extremely robust with its all-metal frame, and is as comfortable to boot with its super plush leatherette ear pads. All controls and buttons are intuitively placed and a joy to use, with genuinely satisfying motions to the volume wheel and microphone.

(Image credit: Future/Rob Dwiar)

The feature set is even more impressive. First and foremost, it really is the first certified Hi-Res (96kHz/24bit) wireless gaming headset on the market, and it’s such a joy to use in all its premium quality audio goodness. This is in no small part provided by its 40mm carbon fiber drivers that are stretched over a brass surround ring inside each cup, and supported by a brilliant GameHub DAC unit, which also offers multiconnectivity and even multimedia play - simultaneously. The brilliant SteelSeries’ Infinity Power battery system returns, and the microphone is now dual-fold with a brilliant boom mic supported by a beamforming built-in mic – taking over automatically whenever the boom one is retracted.

The performance of the Elite is otherworldly when it comes to gaming audio. It’s rich and detailed, with zero harshness or muddiness, and only the best, most rounded and fulsome profiles being directed down your ears at all times. It is relentlessly good. Throw in the fact that you can make it your own audio-wise with the Sonar PC app, or the mobile Arctis App to change things on the fly, and it’s elevated further.

Whether you're looking for a PC gaming headset, PS5 headset, Xbox headset, or even a Nintendo Switch headset, this is the ultimate one to strive for, and one that all other premium gaming headsets should now be measured against. In a similar vein to how I described the Garmin MARQ Golfer (Gen 2) premium golf watch I reviewed recently, if you want to go once, go hard, go premium, and go big on a gaming headset, then this is the one.

(Image credit: Future/Rob Dwiar)SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite: price and availability

• List price: $599.99 / £599.99 / AU$1,349
• The most expensive gaming headset I’ve tested, and nearly twice the price of the Arctis Nova Pro Wireless
• Offers its own premium, audiophile-grade vision of value

There’s no denying that the SteelSeries Arctis Elite is expensive. At the above price, it’s more than a PlayStation 5 and not that far off a PlayStation 5 Pro either. You could also get two 512GB Xbox Series S consoles for the same price or almost three DualSense Edge controllers. Anyway, it’s expensive, but where does it sit in the market?

In terms of direct competitors at the price point, in the gaming headset market, there are basically none. SteelSeries’ own Arctis Nova Pro Wireless is generally my pick for a premium gaming headset with its $350 / £330 sticker price (though it is often discounted now) - but the Elite comes in at nearly twice the price of that now. Similarly, outside of the SteelSeries ecosystem, it’s also comfortably more than the likes of the audiophile-focused Audeze Maxwell and Beyerdynamic MMX 300 Pro, too.

To find direct competitors pricewise, you’re looking to the core audiophile headphone market and products like the Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2, Focal Bathys, and the Elite is still even more expensive than the Sennheiser HD 660S2 as well - and they all, of course, do not feature any gaming headset features or enhancements.

However, and hopefully this review shines light on all the reasons why, I genuinely believe that there is robust value in the Elite if you are the precise audience it is targeting. If you are that ultimate setup gamer, or an audiophile gamer who wants the best gaming audio money can buy above all else, then the Elite is absolutely for you, and you will see and hear the benefits and boosts.

(Image credit: Future/Rob Dwiar)SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite: specs

SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite

Price

$599.99 / £599.99 / AU$1,349

Weight

13.4oz / 380g

Drivers

40mm carbon fiber with brass surround

Compatibility

PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mac, Mobile

Connection type

Hi-Res wireless (2.4Ghz via dongle), Wired (audio jack), Bluetooth 5.3 + LE Audio

Battery life

Up to 60 hours (2 x fully-charged batteries), Infinite Power System

Features

Certified Hi-Res audio (96kHz/24-bit) ClearCast Gen 2.X - Retractable Boom Mic and Smart-Switching On-Ear Beamforming Microphone with AI noise rejecting, ANC, Omniplay GameHub (connect four devices simultaneously),

Software

SteelSeries GG/Sonar, SteelSeries Arctis Companion App (iOS & Android)

(Image credit: Future/Rob Dwiar)SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite: design and features

• Every part of the build is premium and of superb quality
• A host of first-ever premium features built into its DNA
• Two great colorways and a robust but comfortable build, epitomized by the metal frame

Starting off with the obvious, yes, this is another headset cut straight from the same SteelSeries Arctis Nova cloth as many others - at least, in terms of overall aesthetic, shape, and form. Which is fine - if it isn’t broken, why fix it? Instead, enhance it, as the Elite does, by offering a metal frame and hinges made of rolled steel and aluminum for starters.

However, elsewhere, literally every part of the Elite’s design and build looks and feels premium. This includes the volume wheel, which is incredibly satisfying to use, offering a lovely click with each notch you reach. The trademark retractable mic extends and rolls away with a new level of smoothness that I haven’t felt on any headset before, let alone a SteelSeries one, and the comfort of the plush leatherette earpads is something like never before, too.

It also comes in two distinct colorways, with the sage and gold combination being particularly striking and very evocative of the luxurious lifestyle device that SteelSeries is keen to describe the Elite as being. The other obsidian colorway is more familiar on a gaming headset, but the shine of the metalwork of the build gives it a chic edge. The dial on the accompanying GameHub DAC unit matches the gold or obsidian, respectively, of each colorway, too.

Ensuring we cover the necessities, on the left cup, we have the retractable bidirectional, 32KHz ClearCast Gen 2.X boom mic, the mic mute button, the power button (which also acts as the ANC and transparency mode button), the volume wheel (which can also be pressed in to remotely control the GameHub’s function), and audio jack port. On the right cup, we have the Bluetooth button (which controls media on your connected devices too, with a range of different presses) and the secondary beamforming mic, a ClearCast on-ear microphone, to be precise.

Both earcups have the swappable metal plates on the outside that SteelSeries fans will know and love, and they both hide something important, as they do on other headsets from the brand; on the right, it’s the replaceable battery, and on the left, it’s the USB-C port.

(Image credit: Future/Rob Dwiar)

As with Nova Pro headsets, the Elite comes with a DAC unit that connects to your device. The version with the Elite is called the GameHub with OmniPlay and is a beefed-up version of the ones that accompany the Pros, which still offers the way to charge your removable batteries and tinker with settings, but has a trick up its sleeve.

This time, you can connect to all types of consoles or platforms from this one unit, from PC to PlayStation, and from Switch to Xbox - on top of the added Bluetooth connectivity the headset has too. The result is that you can connect up and listen to the audio of four different sources all at the same time - hence the term, OmniPlay. And it really is magic.

Underneath the physical features is where the real magic lies, and one of the most unique things about the Elite, which makes it truly different among its peers. First and foremost are its brand-new drivers: custom-designed 40mm carbon fiber drivers with a brass surround ring. These offer a frequency response of 10-40,000Hz and are at the core of the Elite’s bona fide, certified Hi-Res (24-bit/96kHz) audio offering - a first in gaming headsets.

The ANC onboard is formed of a four-mic hybrid active noise cancellation that features a transparency mode, and complementing that is the mic’s AI noise rejection tech, which is also witchcraft, given how much noise it can block out when in chaotic environments like busy streets and when trains scream past. You’ve also got the brilliant multi-faceted Infinity Power system (two removable batteries, one of which can always be charging in the GameHub, while also offering a USB-C port for quick charging), so you’ll likely never run out of battery, and a convenient method of charging the headset. Plus, Bluetooth codec support is excellent, with the 5.3 version supporting LC3 and LC3+.

I think the only feature missing from such a premium headset package would be a hard case, or at least something more protective than the leatherette one included.

(Image credit: Future/Rob Dwiar)SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite: performance

• Simply the best gaming audio from a headset I have ever experienced
• Seamless and abundant connectivity, with a brilliant mic
• Brilliantly comfy and easy to use, and perfect for all other media

Where do I start? The SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite simply excels in every single audio manner, on every platform, and for every media and genre of game you can throw at it. That’s it, I could leave it there.

But I won’t, naturally. In practice, the audio is incredible on the Elite. I can immediately hear a difference from other sets I have to hand, like a SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7 or the also excellent Drop + Epos PC38X, and it’s almost certainly better than my Sennheiser HD 550 headphones, which I put above many gaming headsets.

Across all my testing on PC, console, and mobile, the Elite excelled. The world of Ghost of Yotei was alive through audio alone; the chaos of hectic scenes in the Battlefield 6 campaign on PS5 was incredibly bombastic and rich, without ever being muddy or boomy; and the details of Control and Frostpunk 2, to name but two, on PC were a sheer delight.

Technically, the Elite is fully unleashed as a PC gaming headset due to the PS5 and Xbox Series X, sadly, not being able to output at the highest res - though you’ll also need to manually change a setting or two in Windows to ensure your PC outputs in Hi-Res too. Given that Hi-Res edge that the Elite has on PC, it does leave me wondering whether it’s an equally wise investment for someone who exclusively games on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, or Nintendo Switch. It feels almost like a disservice to the headset - and the money you spent on it - to leave it tied to any single platform, and maybe more so a console that can’t unleash the full power of the Hi-Res headset.

(Image credit: Future/Rob Dwiar)

However, that really isn’t to say you’ll not be having an awesome, spectacular time on console, so don’t let that put you off either, especially if you’re an audiophile who plays on PS5, for example. As previously mentioned, I still had a breathtaking time on console with the Elite, so you’ll still have a super quality headset for console, and the Elite’s other premium qualities will make it shine.

Away from gaming, as a pair of bona fide enthusiast audiophile headphones, the Elite absolutely holds up. They certainly sound just as good as my Sennheiser HD 550s, and perhaps better, after testing them across a range of music and video. Basically, if you’re at all concerned about how the Elite transposes its gaming audio prowess to other media, don’t be. This was echoed by my time using the Elite out and about as a set of contenders for best headphones on walks or travel; the audio never failed to impress, and the ANC is impressive too.

As with other modern SteelSeries audio devices, you can get even more out of the Elite with the companion app on mobile to give you flexibility and customization options on the fly - great when playing on console. And on PC, you can tap into all the SteelSeries GG and Sonar have to offer to tailor the Elite even more acutely to your preferences if need be.

(Image credit: Future/Rob Dwiar)Should I buy the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite?Buy it if...

You want the absolute best gaming headset money can buy
Simply put, if you want the best of the best, then this is the headset to get, no matter your preferred platform; as close to perfection as you’ll get from build quality and feel, to audio quality and feature set.

You’re an audiophile gamer
If you are a gamer who prioritizes your audio, no matter what games you play or how you play them, and crave the highest audio quality money can buy, and you want to remain cord-free, then my advice is simple: buy the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite headset.

You want a single, premium solution for all your devices
If you’re looking for a total solution across your consoles, PC, and mobile devices, then the Elite can do it all and be your one, single awesome headset to service each and every one of them - in an exquisitely premium manner.

You want your gaming headset to also be a top pair of headphones
The Arctis Nova Elite headset shines as a pair of everyday headphones as well as for gaming. The ANC is a joy, the headset is supremely comfortable and robust, and you can change your audio preferences on the fly via your phone for music and podcasts, too.

Don't buy it if...

You play on console only and don’t need best-in-class features
If you only play on console and aren’t convinced you’ll be able to make the most of all the class-leading features and Hi-Res audio the Elite offers, then it’s likely not for you.

You’ve already got a quality mid or high-end headset and don’t crave Hi-Res audio
If you have already thrown a bit of cash at your gaming headset in the past few years, and are on the fence about needing Hi-Res audio, then you’re probably fine to skip the Elite - unless you crave one or more of its particular features. Otherwise, it’s an upgrade for a specific range of folk.

SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite: Also consider

If the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite is either not what you’re after or a bit rich for you, then here are two competitors that might hit the mark.

SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite

SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless

Audeze Maxwell

Price

$599.99 / £599.99 / AU$1,349

$379.99 / £329.99 / AU$735

$329 / £319 / about AU$450

Weight

13.4oz / 380g

9.5oz / 266g

17.3oz / 490g

Drivers

40mm carbon fiber with brass surround

40mm neodymium

90mm Planar Magnetic

Compatibility

PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mac, Mobile

Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mac, Mobile

Playstation or Xbox, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PC, Mac, Mobile

Connection type

Hi-Res wireless (2.4Ghz via dongle), Wired (audio jack), Bluetooth 5.3 (LE Audio, LC3, LC3+)

Wireless (2.4Ghz via dongle), Wired (USB-C), Bluetooth 5.3

Wireless (2.4Ghz via dongle), Wired (USB-C & audio jack), Bluetooth 5.3 (LC3plus /

LC3 / LDAC / AAC)

Battery life

Up to 60 hours (2 x fully-charged batteries), Infinite Power System

Up to 60 hours (2 x fully-charged batteries), Infinite Power System

80+ hours

Features

Certified Hi-Res audio (96kHz/24-bit), 40mm carbon fiber, brass ring surround drivers, ClearCast Gen 2.X - Retractable Boom Mic and Smart-Switching On-Ear Beamforming Microphone with AI noise rejecting, ANC, Omniplay GameHub (connect four devices simultaneously)

Companion App, 40mm Neodymium magnetic drivers, 360-degree spatial audio, retractable ClearCast 2.X mic

Detachable hypercardiod mic, beamforming mic with physical and AI reduction, FILTER™ Noise Reduction Technology, embedded Dolby Atmos license (Xbox),

Software

SteelSeries GG/Sonar (PC), SteelSeries Arctis Companion App (iOS & Android)

SteelSeries GG/Sonar (PC)

Audeze HQ (PC)

SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless
The closest competitor within SteelSeries' own impressive lineup, the Arctis Nova Pro is a fine choice for those looking for impressive audio and connectivity, while not spending as much money as the Elite demands. A super wireless headset, no matter your platform.

For more information, check out our full SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless reviewView Deal

Audeze Maxwell
Offering perhaps the closest wireless audiophile gaming headset experience to the Elite, Audeze’s Maxwell headset is a solid alternative. It still demands a sizable price of admission, but offers excellent audio from its planar magnetic drivers.

For more information, check out our full Audeze Maxwell reviewView Deal

(Image credit: Future/Rob Dwiar)How I tested the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite

• Tested almost daily for nearly five weeks for work, gaming, and on the go
• Used on PC and PS5 Pro on a wide variety of games, and work and home tasks
• Compared directly to a set of Sennheiser HD 550 headphones, as well as other gaming headsets

The SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite has been my daily gaming headset for work and play for around five weeks for review. I have integrated them into both my gaming PC and PS5 Pro setups, as well as used them out and about as a pair of audiophile headphones.

On my RTX 3090 gaming PC (a machine teamed with an Acer Predator X32QFS gaming monitor), where I was able to test the Hi-Res audio after changing a setting in Windows, I played a host of games, including the Titan Quest 2 Early Access build, Frostpunk 2, Control, and Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 3. I also used them extensively for work and video calls.

On console, I primarily tested the Elite with my PS5 Pro, but also with my office setup’s PS5 Slim for good measure. On PS5, I tested the Elite with almost my entire playthrough of Ghost of Yotei, as well as some of Death Stranding Director’s Cut, Battlefield 6, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (the PS5 version) and the Claws of Awaji expansion for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and for multiplayer testing I used the Elite for finishing a Ghost Recon: Breakpoint playthrough with my buddies as well as an Aliens: Fireteam Elite playthrough.

As well as using the Elite as headphones while on dog walks, I also tested them with music and entertainment. I used them as I normally would with the likes of Spotify and YouTube, but also hi-res audio providers like Tidal. During my testing, I was able to compare the Elite to my set of HD 550 headphones as an audiophile headphone reference point, as well as a Drop + Epos PC38X headset, and a SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7 headset.

First reviewed September-October 2025

Read more about how we test

Philips LatteGo 4400 Series: Two-minute review

The Philips LatteGo 4400 Series is a fully automatic bean-to-cup espresso machine that’s a great option for smaller households or anyone making their first venture into the world of one-touch coffee machines. It’s very similar to the LatteGo 5500 Series that my UK-based colleague, Cat Ellis, has previously reviewed, and just misses out on a few preset drink recipes.

Otherwise, the two machines adopt the exact same dimensions, meaning their bean hopper and water tanks are the same size at 275g and 1.8L respectively, and, as the name implies, the 4400 Series on review here also uses Philips’ LatteGo milk-foaming system. This sees a milk carafe clip onto a steam nozzle on the front of the machine, with the idea being that you fill it with just enough milk for your chosen drink(s) once it’s attached.

Given the two machines make coffee in the exact same way, you’d expect the review of the 4400 Series to read largely the same, then, wouldn’t you? Well, while I do agree with much of Cat’s review of the 5500 Series, and that the Philips espresso machine does produce good-tasting coffee, I picked up on a few niggles during my time using the 4400. These mainly relate to the LatteGo system and the steps required to brew a coffee. I’ll explain more about both in the performance section of this review.

Ultimately, the Philips 4400 LatteGo coffee machine is incredibly simple to use and offers everything you need to make a great coffee, whether it be a simple espresso or ristretto shot, a larger latte, cappuccino or even a few iced drinks.

As with the 5500 Series, the 4400 Series doesn’t offer cold coffee extraction. If you want to make an iced drink, you’ll need to add ice cubes to a glass or mug for the machine to then pour on a hot shot of espresso. This machine can’t make iced lattes, so if you do want a milk-based iced drink, you’ll need to make do with pouring cold milk directly into your glass or mug.

If you like cold coffee, then you may not like the flavor profile delivered by the 4400 Series, and, as Cat found in her review, once the ice melts it can make the coffee taste weaker. Personally, I enjoyed making iced drinks using the Philips 4400 Series, but it’s ultimately a matter of personal preference.

Furthermore, having previously reviewed the De’Longhi Magnifica Evo Next automatic espresso machine, I found myself preferring the taste of the coffee produced by the Philips machine instead, and I appreciated the smaller footprint it took up on my kitchen counter.

However, as a plant milk drinker, I did prefer the level of milk foam produced by the De’Longhi’s LatteCrema system compared to the LatteGo milk-foaming system used by the Philips machine.

Philips LatteGo 4400 Series: Price and availability

• List price $799.99 / £599.99 / AU$1,199
• Available globally
• Often discounted

The Philips LatteGo 4400 Series is available globally with a list price of $799.99 / £599.99 / AU$1,199. At the time of writing, however, I was able to find it discounted to £499.99 in the UK and below AU$1,000 in Australia.

The 4400 Series sits one step down from the flagship 5500 Series, offering 12 hot and cold drink recipes compared to the 20 options found on its higher-spec sibling.

Its list price places it in a similar category to the De’Longhi Magnifica Evo Next fully automatic coffee machine that I’ve previously reviewed.

The two machines are similarly specced, although the De’Longhi unit is much larger. The Philips 4400 Series would therefore be my recommendation if your kitchen is on the smaller side.

(Image credit: Future)

• Value score: 4 / 5

Philips LatteGo 4400 Series: Specs

Name

Philips LatteGo 4400 Series

Type

Fully automatic bean-to-cup espresso machine

Dimensions (W x H x D)

9.7 x 14.6 x 17in / 24.6 x 37.1 x 43.3cm

Weight

17.6lbs / 8kg

Water reservoir capacity

1.9qt / 1.8 liters

Milk frother

Yes (automatic)

Bars of pressure

15

User profiles

2 (plus guest)

Philips LatteGo 4400 Series: Design

(Image credit: Future)

• Compact, ideal for smaller kitchens
• Intuitive, button-based navigation
• Easy to clean and maintain but cleaning agents sold separately

The Philips LatteGo 4400 Series is a relatively compact bean-to-cup espresso machine, coming in at 9.7 inches / 24.6cm wide and 17 inches / 43.3cm long.

As a result, it makes placing it on a kitchen countertop quite easy, as it can be placed in a corner, for example and up against the wall, since the water tank slides out from the front. The brewing group head is accessed via the side behind the water tank, making maintenance just as simple.

The machine is controlled via a series of touch buttons on the front, which flank a 2.3-inch color display. A selection of popular coffee-based drinks have dedicated buttons on the front – including espresso, long black, cappuccino and flat white – while the remaining hot and cold drinks are accessed via a ‘More Drinks’ button.

You’ll also find a ‘Profile’ button on the front, which is used to cycle through two main profiles – Yellow and Blue – and a third guest profile to ensure your saved presets aren’t overridden.

The non-removable bean hopper is accessed at the top. All you need to do is remove the tinted plastic lid – by being tinted, it helps to prevent light from degrading the flavor of the beans – which is also airtight to maintain freshness. If you want to adjust grind settings, that’s done via a control dial set inside the bean hopper.

It’s not particularly large with a capacity up to 275g of beans, but this makes it a good option for single-person or couple households. Plus, the fact it’s airtight means you can leave beans in between uses and not worry about them spoiling, as opposed to pouring in just the right amount of beans for the drink you want to make.

As is the case with the De’Longhi Magnifica Evo Next I’ve previously reviewed, Philips says to only operate the grind adjustment whilst beans are being ground. It took me a little while to figure out how to actually use the dial, and after consulting the user manual, I realized you have to first press down on it before rotating.

There are 12 grind settings to choose from, with the halfway point setting 6 being the default. Philips says this should be ideal for most users, and recommends not adjusting it until you’ve made 100 to 150 drinks. I found during my review period that I did have to adjust to a finer setting – I settled on 4 – to achieve a thicker crema and a more flavorful coffee.

The Philips 4400’s LatteGo milk-frothing system comprises a small carafe that attaches to a steam nozzle on the front of the machine. It’s designed to be filled with just enough milk for whatever drink you want to make, as opposed to being stored in the fridge with leftover milk between uses. You can still store the milk in the fridge if you wish, but just note the lid isn’t airtight.

I liked the idea of this, but in reality I came across a couple of slight niggles.

(Image credit: Future)

The carafe has markings on the side for a single cappuccino, a single latte macchiato or two cappuccinos. I filled the carafe with oat milk to the line for the single cappuccino and poured one, and found it didn’t use all the milk.

Plus, when you’re selecting a coffee to make, you can adjust the volume of coffee and milk that goes in. If you adjust the volume of milk, for example, then you’ll need to ensure enough is in the carafe, making the markings somewhat redundant.

I’ll speak about it more in the performance section, but I also wasn’t overly happy with the level of (or lack of) milk foam produced by the system. Full-fat dairy milk did fare a lot better than plant milk during my tests though.

The Philips LatteGo 4400 Series does have some other design features that I found useful, including a deep grounds container bin and a decently sized drip tray. The machine will let you know when the ground container needs emptying, but this won’t be that regular since it’s capable of storing a good amount of waste.

Another positive I noticed was how well-packaged the machine was, and that Philips used predominantly recyclable cardboard.

One thing worth noting is that you aren’t supplied with any cleaning tablets or descaling solution. Having reviewed coffee machines from De’Longhi and Australian brand Sunbeam, both of which do supply some cleaning products with their machines, I had expected the same from Philips.

Cleaning tablets can be bought online from stores such as Amazon, but it’s an extra cost you’ll need to consider. While the AquaClean filter should last some time – it will cease working once 95 liters (around 625 coffees) of water has flowed through it – it will also be an additional expense to replace.

As long as you keep replacing the filters on time, then you won’t need to descale the machines for 5000 coffees – 8 filters worth. At $20 / £12 / AU$29 per filter, that’s about $160 / £96 / AU$232 to delay the need to descale, but slightly less if buying in bulk.

In comparison (depending on your water hardness), without the filters, you would typically need to descale up to about 10 times for 5000 cups, with the total cost around half of buying new filters.

Finally, another thing I noticed was when removing a sticker on the front of the machine referencing the fact it can make 12 different coffee-based drinks, it left some adhesive behind (the white part to the right of the coffee spout in the pictures).

(Image credit: Future)

• Design score: 4.5 / 5

Philips LatteGo 5500 Series review: Performance

• Great-tasting coffee with some grinder adjustment
• Good level of personalization
• LatteGo milk-foaming system not without fault

The Philips LatteGo 4400 Series is an incredibly easy espresso machine to use. Once you’ve got it set up – this involves testing your water for hardness and installing the supplied AquaClean filter if required – you’ll be brewing a coffee in seconds. The central color display provides information clearly, and buttons are logically laid out to navigate through menus and drinks to adjust settings.

There are 12 drinks to choose from:

• Espresso
• Coffee
• Long black
• Cappuccino
• Latte macchiato
• Caffè crema
• Caffè latte
• Ristretto
• Flat white
• Iced espresso
• Iced long black
• Iced coffee

Once you’ve selected a drink to make, a secondary screen allows you to adjust the strength and volume. In some cases, increasing the volume of coffee will mean the machine will have to grind beans twice, which can increase the speed you go through a bag. I increased the volume of my daily flat white from the default 80ml to 100ml, for example, and I had to wait for the machine to grind a second dose of beans before it was finished.

If you tweak the settings for a drink, whether it be strength or volume, the machine will save them for the next time. Each time you make an adjustment, it overrides the previous settings. If two people in the same household want the same drink but with different settings, I would recommend taking advantage of the two individual profiles to store personal drink preferences. Switching between profiles is simple thanks to a dedicated button on the front panel.

If there are more than two people in your home and each has their own preference, you’ll be better served by stepping up to the 5500 Series model, which has 4 profiles plus a separate guest profile.

The machine doesn’t provide feedback regarding grind size or whether it’s ideal for the beans you’ve used – something you will find on De’Longhi machines that have BeanAdapt technology such as the Rivelia – but you can manually adjust the grind setting to produce a well-extracted espresso. The default setting of 6 should be fine for most use cases, although I did find for the beans I used, the crema wasn’t as thick as I would like, and it dissipated relatively quickly. As mentioned previously, I was much happier with the result once I adjusted the grinder to setting 4 for a finer grind.

(Image credit: Future)

Where I experienced a bit more of an issue was when using the LatteGo milk-foaming system. Having read about it on the Philips website and in my colleague Cat’s review of the more feature-packed 5500 Series model, I was expecting great results from the company’s take on automatic milk frothing. I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the performance, although I think some leniency should be applied.

Firstly, the milk carafe is a little awkward to attach to the steam nozzle. Not frustratingly so, but it requires a more steady hand compared to the approach taken by De’Longhi, whose LatteCrema milk carafe easily inserts into a cutout on the front of its machines.

Secondly, there are markings on the side of the carafe to indicate how much is required for a particular drink. In practice, I found these to be inaccurate, and I always had some leftover milk in the carafe. Because the lid isn’t airtight, I had to pour this away if I knew I wasn’t going to have another coffee soon after the first.

Finally, despite using a barista-level brand of oat milk, which has a higher protein content to assist with producing a thicker foam, the milk pushed out into my coffee mug lacked any real resemblance to proper foam. It was certainly foamier than if I just poured milk from the carton, but when I compared the results to using my Nespresso Aeroccino 3 milk frother, it was a clear win for Nespresso. I also tested the LatteGo system with full-fat dairy milk and it did produce a much thicker foam.

(Image credit: Future)

Where I want to give some leniency is the fact that I wasn’t super satisfied with the results of the De’Longhi LatteCrema system when I reviewed the Magnifica Evo Next automatic coffee machine. I’ve yet to try similar systems from the likes of KitchenAid or Smeg, but I do wonder if the way they – creating steam and mixing with milk to aerate it – is that effective on the whole. In my mind, if you enjoy cafe-quality levels of milk foam, then you’ll be better served by an espresso machine with a steam wand.

I also experimented with iced drinks using the 4400 Series, although as Cat discovered in her review of the 5500 Series, the 4400 Series machine doesn’t actually produce cold coffee. Instead, you’re instructed to put ice cubes into a mug or glass, which then cools the coffee down. Philips does say water and coffee produced for iced drinks is “warm” rather than hot, so it will cool down quicker when poured over ice. I didn’t necessarily mind this approach, but it did make me wonder why there are iced drink recipes in the first place. I could just as easily place ice in a mug and run a regular espresso shot, rather than select iced espresso.

The 4400 Series only has three iced drink presets: iced espresso, iced coffee and iced long black. I like an iced latte and so poured cold milk into a glass with ice cubes and ran an iced espresso shot. For my tastes, the result was superb, and my partner enjoyed his iced long black. The 5500 Series does have a preset for iced latte, which pours cold milk via the LatteGo system.

(Image credit: Future)

Finally, the Philips 4400 LatteGo uses what the company calls SilentBrew technology to keep noise levels to a minimum. It’s also Quiet Mark certified, meaning it’s among the quietest in its product class. Knowing this, I assumed I’d hear near-silence from the machine during use, but in reality it was louder than I had expected. Using the Decibel X app on my iPhone and standing next to the machine, I recorded a measurement of 69dB when the machine was grinding beans and around 60dB when espresso was being poured. That’s louder than the KitchenAid KF8, which is also Quiet Mark certified. We recorded a measurement of 66dB when grinding and an average volume of just 44dB in our KitchenAid KF8 review.

• Performance score: 4.5 / 5

Should I buy the Philips LatteGo 4400 Series?Philips LatteGo 4400 Series scorecard

Attribute

Notes

Score

Value

Affordable and often discounted, although other great options can be picked up for less during sales.

4 / 5

Design

Compact size will suit most kitchens, easy to clean and intuitive interface

4.5 / 5

Performance

Great results across all drinks, just don’t set your expectations too high for the LatteGo system

4 / 5

Buy it if...

You have limited kitchen space

The Philips LatteGo 4400 is a compact, narrow machine and only needs side access to remove the water tank and brewing group head. You can push it into a corner no problem.

You’re new to automatic coffee machines

This machine is incredibly easy to master, with clear and intuitive drinks, menus and settings. You’ll be brewing coffee after coffee in no time.

Don't buy it if...

You have a large household

The 4400 Series only has 2 selectable profiles. If you have multiple coffee drinkers with different preferences, you’ll likely end up overriding each other’s settings.

You like cold-brewed coffee

While you can make good iced drinks with the 4400 Series, it doesn’t produce authentic cold-brew coffee. It also can’t make iced lattes.

Philips LatteGo 4400 Series: Also consider

If you're not sure that the Philips LatteGo 5500 Series is the right coffee maker for you, here are two other options for your consideration.

KitchenAid KF6

It’s a little bit more expensive, but the KitchenAid KF6 has the looks to back it up and it produces a superb shot of espresso. Plus, it’s incredibly easy to use.

Read our full KitchenAid KF6 review

Ninja Luxe Cafe

You’ll need more space in your kitchen to accommodate it, but this bean-to-cup machine from Ninja produces fantastic espresso and is packed with features, including grind size suggestion, weight-based dosage system and an automatic milk frother.

Read our full Ninja Luxe Cafe review

How I tested the Philips LatteGo 4400 Series

I tested the Philips LatteGo 4400 Series over a period of two weeks with some coffee beans from a local supermarket that I had used before. I tested the water hardness using the strip supplied in the box and fitted the water tank using the instructions provided.

I tested the LatteGo system of the 4400 Series coffee machine using fridge-cold full-fat dairy and a barista oat milk. I tested the machine's ability to produce a variety of hot and cold drinks.

For more details, see how we test, rate, and review products at TechRadar.

Turtle Beach Velocityone Race KD3: One-minute review

Previously a headset specialist, Turtle Beach has expanded into the more distant shores of sim peripherals lately and has had some especially impressive first forays into flight sim gear. The original VelocityOne direct drive bundle didn’t stick the landing quite as well over in the sim racing space, but this revised KD3 version addresses a lot of user feedback, and the result is simply our favourite budget-end direct drive bundle.

Both the wheelbase and pedals are equally at home on a desktop setup or installed on a racing seat, which is a smart move at this price point since the split of users who race one way or the other is far more even than at a higher price. Although there’s some plastic present on both the base of the pedals and the framework of the wheel, this doesn’t detract from what’s a solid and detailed driving sensation.

Torque weenies will be quick to point out the low 3.2Nm output from Turtle Beach’s direct drive motor, but in reality, it doesn’t feel weak to drive. There’s enough muscle here to make a car feel weighty, and to articulate a rear-end slip well enough for you to react to it.

(Image credit: Future)

Conversely, the wheel is the weak point of the whole bundle. The buttons are uninspiring and feel cheap to press, and while the magnetic shifters feel great, the visual design isn’t going to turn many heads.

But Turtle Beach has a plan: a rather excellent FR-X formula-style wheel unit, sold separately for $225 / £189. If you buy that wheel plus the base bundle, you’re still in competitive pricing territory with the Thrustmaster T598, Moza R3, and Nacon Revosim, and you’ll have arguably the best wheel out of the lot.

One question mark to consider before purchasing is that, since Turtle Beach is just getting started in the sim racing space, the product ecosystem is limited at present. There’s nothing to upgrade to higher up the pricing ladder, so if you wanted to swap in a better set of pedals one day, or affix that FR-X wheel to a motor with a higher torque output, you’re banking on Turtle Beach continuing to expand its range of gear. With that said, at this price, it’s well worth the gamble.

(Image credit: Future)Turtle Beach Velocityone Race KD3: Price and availability

• List price: $449.99 / £329.99 (around AU$690)
• Cheaper than both the Nacon Revosim and Thrustmaster T598
• Worth factoring in the $225 / £189 FR-X wheel upgrade

Truthfully, the price is what makes this bundle as exciting as it is. There’s been a lot of activity in and around the $500 / £500 direct drive bundle mark in 2025, but the build quality, sensation, and design of this one make it the best value of all. Turtle Beach has undercut Nacon’s Revosim, and the Thrustmaster T598 - two bundles that offer extraordinary value in their own right.

The tradeoffs to hit this pricing aren’t obvious or troublesome, either - a basic wheel with a mostly plastic construction, and a plastic pedal base. Most value-conscious sim racers can live with that in order to enjoy the considerable benefits.

The FR-X wheel is the jewel in Turtle Beach’s nascent ecosystem, and it’s a borderline-mandatory upgrade to this bundle, which unlocks mechanical switches, a great input layout, and a much more premium look and feel. It’s priced at $224.99 / £189.99, and you should add that amount to the price of this bundle unless $399.99 / £329.99 is the hard limit of your budget.

Turtle Beach Velocityone Race KD3: Specs

Weight

14.4lbs / 6.5kg

Peak torque

3.2Nm

Features

Magnetic shifters, adjustable angle, killswitch, rev display

Connection type

USB-A

Compatibility

Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC

Software

VelocityOne Tuner

Turtle Beach Velocityone Race KD3: Design and features

• Solid, adjustable pedals
• A lot of detail from just 3.2Nm
• Well-designed for desktop use, suitable for sim rigs too

Turtle Beach has clearly been paying attention to the feedback it garnered when it brought the first VelocityOne bundle to the sim racing market. This newest iteration looks more sophisticated and takes more of its design cues from the world of motorsport than gaming, allowing it to sit flush against the likes of Fanatec and Moza’s grown-up, serious-looking wheel bundles.

I’m a particular fan of the compact, no-nonsense motor design. It’s surprisingly small and neat, with a killswitch at the top and some additional buttons on the right-hand side, which add inputs for the three central buttons on an Xbox Wireless Controller.

The wheel mounts to the motor via a sturdy quick-release design, which doesn’t require any screwdrivers. Just pull the quick-release mechanism back towards you, then pull the wheel off. It feels secure and tight when the wheel’s affixed, and allows you to swap between two different wheel models easily – more on that below.

The supplied wheel is the weakest element of the bundle, but by no means is it unfit for purpose. It’s simply that there’s a plasticky feel to the upper and lower portions of the wheel, north and south of the texturized grips, and a rather basic finish quality. There are 20 total inputs to assign, the majority being simple face buttons, but there are two scroll wheels, reachable with the thumb while driving, for mapping to functions like traction control or engine mappings.

Is it a thing of beauty? Not particularly. But it deserves credit for a sensible ergonomic button layout, and for its size. Not many wheels at this end of the price bracket are full-size, and when you’re driving in titles that really benefit from a round wheel like EA Sports WRC, it’s a real benefit to have that full-size maneuverability.

(Image credit: Future)

There’s a two-pedal base supplied with this bundle, and although the brake doesn’t feature a load cell design with different elastomers that can be swapped in and out manually, you can still adjust the tension by twisting the spring housing.

Turtle Beach FR-X wheel

(Image credit: Future)

Available for $224.99 / £189.99, Turtle Beach’s formula-style FR-X wheel expands the company’s nascent racing ecosystem and… well, it’s just fantastic.

Everything about it, from the full-scale size, rubberized grips, to the mechanical buttons and aluminum dials, feels incredibly premium. It’s such a step up from the rather basic round wheel that’s bundled with the KD3 that I’d personally just add on this wheel’s price to the bundle and consider it mandatory.

That still keeps it in the realm of the Thrustmaster T598 and the Nacon Revosim, but offers you the additional value of having two wheel shapes to swap between when you play, say, a track racing sim and a rally title.

If the point needed labouring any more, it’s worth mentioning that the construction quality and layout are certainly on par with Fanatec wheels that sell for double the price. Well done, Turtle Beach.

Typically, you find that budget-end direct drive bundles offer less stamping resistance, since it’s the more experienced and serious sim racers who want the all-out leg workout of a GT car’s brake pedal resistance, and so it proves here. For my personal driving style, I found I was able to dial in enough tension in order to apply plenty of braking and find the sweet spot just before locking up. That’s the most important aspect. If you want your sim racing setup to feel exactly like a GT car, you’ll need a stiffer brake. If you just care about lapping quickly and consistently, Turtle Beach’s design works very well.

The plastic base that houses the pedals is another concession to this bundle hitting an affordable price point, and when compared to Thrustmaster’s very sturdy, all-metal pedal base construction for the T598, it does look and feel cheaper and offers less customization. However, it stays put admirably well on a variety of floor surfaces, making it pretty ideal if you prefer to race at your desktop rather than in a sim rig.

In fact, while both the pedals and wheelbase can be easily mounted to a racing seat, it’s during desktop use where their practical and sensible design really shines through. Take the desktop mounting clamp, for example: this is often an aspect of affordable direct drive bundles that feels like an afterthought, but here, one simple but sturdy part slots into the underside of the motor and lets you screw it into place, with minimal chances of your legs knocking into it. Simple as that.

It’s definitely worth noting here that while the supplied wheel feels quite basic, for $224.99 / £189.99, the FR-X wheel is an absurdly well-put-together formula-style wheel with loads of luxurious touches, and it really elevates the whole experience. See our boxout for more details on it.

Turtle Beach Velocityone Race KD3: Performance

• More torque than you’d expect
• A sturdy and detailed driving experience
• Comfortable layout

Sim racers love to talk… well, torque. The Nm output of a direct drive wheelbase is often cited as a crucial spec when someone’s weighing up their options, and on those terms, the 3.2Nm on offer from this model seems meager.

However, using torque output as a measure of how detailed or immersive a wheelbase can be is simply too reductive. The Thrustmaster T598, for example, has 5Nm on paper, but it’s capable of 100% torque overshoot and, in real terms, feels as powerful and resistant as any wheel I’ve tested.

It’s a similar story with this wheelbase. While it isn’t so powerful that I feared for my thumbs when I crashed, it’s got more than enough torque to articulate subtle weight transfer, traction loss, road rumble, and brake lockups. And yes, when you crash, it feels like you’re crashing.

(Image credit: Future)

If it lacks anywhere, it’s in how quickly it delivers those sensations. At times, particularly when racing lightweight vehicles like F1 25’s F1 cars or open wheelers in Automobilista 2, the front end feeling is slightly dull and imprecise. However, in road cars and GT vehicles that you’d find in Assetto Corsa Competizione or Assetto Corsa Evo, I noticed this far less.

In the end, that slightly dull delivery is another concession to price. Just like the stamping force on the brake, it takes you marginally out of the immersion of controlling a real vehicle, but has little to no impact on your lap times.

Elsewhere in performance terms, I love the spacing of the pedals, the size of the round wheel, and the articulation of the large aluminum magnetic shifters. That lets me compete in longer races without feeling fatigued, and having all the face buttons arranged within easy reach of my thumbs helps a lot, too.

(Image credit: Future)Should I buy the Turtle Beach Velocityone Race KD3?Buy it if…

You drive with a desktop setup, but might move to a rig
Desktop mounts seem to be a stumbling block for many bundles, at the budget end or otherwise, but Turtle Beach’s smart design makes it easy to clamp the motor to a desk, while the pedals stay put on any floor. That said, it’s equally at home mounted to a Playseat.

You’re feeling thrifty
This really is some incredible value Turtle Beach has crammed into one box, and if you can live with some high-plastic construction to the wheel and pedal base, there are few other tradeoffs.

You race rally and road
Spend the extra $225 / £190 for the magnificent FR-X wheel, and you’ve got a mini-modular setup with both a round wheel and a formula-style option, depending on the driving style you need.

Don’t buy it if…

You want to buy into a big ecosystem
Turtle Beach is just getting started in this vertical, so as yet, the future upgrade options are limited when compared to Fanatec’s range, for example.

You’re a torque snob
Only 3.2Nm? Surely you can barely feel the road? In reality, there’s plenty of power here, but if Nm is what counts to you, there are similarly priced rivals with higher output.

You’re a Gran Turismo fan
Bad news, Autumn Ring Mini aficionados – this one’s PC and Xbox-compatible, so your PS5 racing activities will need separate hardware – consider the Thrustmaster T598 instead.

Turtle Beach Velocityone Race KD3: Also consider

If the Turtle Beach Velocityone Race KD3 doesn’t bring you out of your shell, try these similar alternatives.

Turtle Beach Velocityone Race KD3

Thrustmaster T598

Nacon Revosim

Price

$449.99 / £329.99 (around AU$690)

$499.99 / £449.99 (around AU$899.99)

$799.99 / £699.99 (around AU$1435)

Weight

14.4lbs / 6.5kg

14.1lbs / 6.4kg

52.9lbs / 24kg

Peak torque

3.2Nm

5Nm

9Nm

Features

Magnetic shifters, adjustable angle, killswitch, rev display

Modular pedal base, detachable rim, 100% torque overshoot

Direct drive, customizable button covers, quick release wheel, two-pedal base, phone mount attachment

Connection type

USB-A

USB-A

USB-A

Compatibility

PC, Xbox Series X|S

PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, PC

PC

Thrustmaster T598
Thrustmaster does things differently than the competition with this industry-disrupting, axial drive wheel. Sure, the motor is massive and a strange shape, but it delivers an incredibly nuanced and powerful drive. Those who complain that its 5Nm torque output isn’t enough clearly haven’t driven one with the feedback strength maxed - it’s more than enough to snap your thumbs off.

The big consideration here is compatibility - if you’re a PC-only sim racer, then both are great options, but the Turtle Beach is Xbox-only on console while the T598 is PlayStation-only.

For more information, read our full Thrustmaster T598 review

Nacon Revosim
Priced higher than the others, Nacon’s Revosim does its best to justify the extra outlay with bombproof build quality and tons of extras, including a smartphone mount and several load cell configuration options for the brake, bundled in the box. The feeling is robust and detailed, but like the Turtle Beach wheel, the ecosystem is as yet very small, so there’s not much long-term upgrade or expansion potential.

For more information, read our full Nacon Revosim review

(Image credit: Future)How I tested the Turtle Beach Velocityone Race KD3

• Tested in F1 24, F1 25, Rennsport, ACC, and AC Evo
• One week of testing on a desktop
• Both the bundled KD3 wheel and FR-X wheel tested

Force feedback implementation and input schemes can vary from one title to another, so my testing process when a new bundle shows up at the door always involves a variety of games. And, indeed, a variety of vehicle types within them.

For the past week, I’ve been hotlapping in F1 24 and F1 25, obsessing over tire temps in Rennsport, whittling down the odd hundredth from my PBs in Assetto Corsa Competizione, and trying to ignore the low frame rates in Assetto Corsa Evo. In all titles, the KD3 feels powerful and just agile enough to convey the key info about the platform. Button mappings and default axis values all feel sensible, too.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed October 2025

MSI Cyborg 15: Two-minute review

The MSI Cyborg 15 is a budget gaming laptop with a basic spec, but one that should still suffice for enjoyable 1080p gaming.

I was pleasantly surprised by the elegance of its design, at least when compared to others in this sector. It’s not too thick or too bulky across any of its dimensions, although its weight hampers portability somewhat.

While not the most premium, the materials are of sufficient quality. Personally, I found the translucent accents did enough to add some aesthetic interest, too. However, it isn’t as well-made as the best gaming laptop models, with the display enclosure being a particular concern on this front, given the amount of flex it has.

All the salient ports for gamers are present and correct on the Cyborg 15. There are two USB-A ports and one USB-C port, as well as Ethernet, HDMI, and headset jacks. The placement of these ports might prove impractical for some gamers, though, depending on their setup; all but two are placed on the right-hand side, while there is none on the back.

(Image credit: Future)

As you might expect from the RTX 3050, my Cyborg 15 review unit couldn’t handle the AAA titles with high settings applied very well. Cyberpunk 2077 rendered at 30-40fps on average with the game’s Ray Tracing: Low preset selected, no matter what I did with the upscaling. Turning off Ray Tracing altogether didn’t result in any noticeable gains either.

Thankfully, the Cyborg 15 isn’t distractingly loud under load. It also remains admirably cool, with only the rear exceeding lukewarm temperatures – and even then, it’s still not too hot to touch.

The display is also very good, being sharp and vibrant enough for enjoying all kinds of content. It also staves off reflections quite well.

Better still is the keyboard on the Cyborg 15. It’s full-size, so it includes a number pad, yet the keys don’t feel cramped, which makes for easy typing. They also feel great to press, striking the ideal balance between clicky and dampening, while also offering a pleasing amount of travel.

However, the battery life of the Cyborg 15 is less impressive. It didn’t manage to break six hours when playing back a movie on a continuous loop, nor did it break an hour in PCMark’s gaming scenario battery test. Both of these results are at the lower end of the gaming laptop spectrum.

The competition is becoming evermore fierce at the budget end of this market, but the Cyborg 15 certainly sets out its stall with its eye-catchingly low price. You’ll have to settle for mediocre performance, but the Cyborg 15 is a solid pick for those looking to spend relatively little on a gaming laptop and still have a good time.

MSI Cyborg 15 review: Price & Availability

(Image credit: Future)

• Starting at $999 / £649 / AU$1799
• Available now in the US, UK and Australia

The Cyborg 15 is available now in the US, UK, and Australia, starting at $999 / £649 / AU$1799. My review model, the Cyborg 15 A13U, comes equipped with an Intel i5-13420H, an RTX 3050, 8GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage. All these components can be upgraded with costlier configurations.

This is a decent budget price for a gaming laptop. However, if you’re willing to spend about £150 more you could get the base model of the Acer Nitro V 15, which features an RTX 4050 – a significant upgrade over the RTX 3050.

Another great budget pick is the MSI Katana 15, which again packs a 4050 into its base model. It’s similarly priced to the Nitro, but features an i7 CPU rather than the i5 in the base models of both the Nitro and the Cyborg 15. It’s a great performer, which is why we think it’s currently one of the best budget gaming laptop options around.

• Value: 4.5 / 5

MSI Cyborg 15 review: SpecsMSI Cyborg 15 review configuration specs

Price

£649 / AU$1799 (about $870)

CPU

Intel Core i5-13420H (2.1GHz, 8 Cores)

GPU

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050, 6GB

RAM

8GB DDR5

Storage

512GB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD

Display

15.6" FHD (1920x1080), 144Hz, IPS-Level

Ports and Connectivity

2x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, 1x USB-C 3.2 Gen 1, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x RJ-45, 1x 3.5mm combo audio; Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2

Battery

53.5Wh

Dimensions

14 x 9.8 x 0.9in (359 x 250 x 23mm)

Weight

4.37lbs / 1.98kg

MSI Cyborg 15 review: Design

(Image credit: Future)

• Surprisingly slender
• Quite heavy
• Flimsy display enclosure

The Cyborg 15 might not push the boat out in terms of looks, but it’s surprisingly sleek for a gaming laptop, avoiding unsightly bulges and maintaining a relatively thin profile. This helps to make it more portable, although its substantial weight means you wouldn’t want to carry it around for long.

The chassis material feels smooth to the touch and has a subtle speckled finish. I also liked the transparent edges around the lid chassis, which adds interest and helps to lighten up the dourness tones of the body. However, MSI definitely missed a trick by failing to install LEDs behind these parts, as they would’ve been the perfect place for RGB effects to shine through.

On the whole, the Cyborg 15 feels well put together, with a relatively sturdy construction. The lid hinge is also pleasingly solid, offering a stable hold while being easy to operate. However, the lid itself has a considerable amount of flex, which is somewhat concerning.

The body materials aren’t the most premium, either, but they suffice. Thankfully, the keys feel more upmarket, thanks to their smooth, subtly textured finish. Their backlighting is also bright enough to make them clearly visible in dark environments.

(Image credit: Future)

There are a variety of useful shortcuts, including some unique options bound to the arrow keys. For instance, you can instantly adjust the fan speed with Fn+Up, and turn off the main display with Fn+Right. Meanwhile, Fn+Down brings up a static red crosshair in the middle of the screen, which is something I haven’t seen before and can only assume is there for some sort of calibration purpose.

Underneath you’ll find four feet in each corner, which are smaller and offer less ground clearance than those installed on many other gaming laptops. However, their small profile does at least help to maintain the overall sleekness of the Cyborg 15.

The port selection of the Cyborg 15 is reasonable, catering to most gamers’ needs. There are two USB-A ports and one USB-C, ideal for connecting peripherals. HDMI, RJ-45, and headset ports round out the rest.

Some may take issue with the distribution of these interfaces. Most are loaded on the right-hand side, save for one USB-A port and the headset jack, which are on the left. Meanwhile, no ports are to be found on the rear, not even the power connector. Of course, the practicality of this arrangement will depend on your setup, but personally I would’ve preferred a more even spread.

To tweak various settings, the Cyborg 15 comes preinstalled with the MSI Center app. From here you can install further modules, including one for adjusting fan speed and performance presets. The software proved reasonably stable during my time with it, and while the interface is a little buggy, it responds swiftly and is easy to navigate.

• Design: 4 / 5

MSI Cyborg 15 review: Performance

(Image credit: Future)

• Lackluster AAA performance
• Good display
• Excellent keyboard

MSI Cyborg 15 benchmarks

Geekbench 6 (Single Core): 2,394; (Multi Core): 10,165
Cinebench R23 (Single Core): 1,692; (Multi Core): 10,471
Cinebench R24 (Single Core): 100 (Multi Core): 601
Crossmark Overall: 1,576
3DMark Fire Strike: 10,675; Steel Nomad: 924; Solar Bay: 21,226; Speed Way: 1,071; Port Royal: 2,685
BlackMagicDisk Read: 4,475MB/s; Write: 3,124MB/s
Civilization VII (1080p, Medium): 203fps; (Max Resolution, High): 77fps; (Balanced Upscaling, Max Resolution, High): 86fps
Shadow of the Tomb Raider (1080p, Medium): 74fps; (Max Resolution, Highest): 63fps; (Balanced Upscaling, Max Resolution, Highest): 82fps
Total War: Warhammer III: Mirrors of Madness (1080p, Medium): 57fps; (Max Resolution, Ultra): 26fps
Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p, Medium): 48fps; (Max Resolution, Ultra): 34fps; (Balanced Upscaling, Max Resolution, Ultra): 51fps
F1 2024 (1080p, Medium): 113fps; (Max Resolution, Max Quality, No RT): 40fps; (Balanced Upscaling, Max Resolution, Max Quality with RT): 29fps

The performance of the Cyborg 15 isn’t anything spectacular. Given my review unit was equipped with an RTX 3050, this wasn’t exactly surprising, but it really is starting to feel its age at this point.

It didn’t handle Cyberpunk 2077 particularly well with the Ray Tracing: Low preset applied, with fps figures oscillating between the late 30s and early 40s. This was with DLSS upscaling enabled, and its various modes, from Auto to Balanced to Performance, seemed to make little difference.

My sessions were also blighted by frequent slowdowns when encountering busy scenes. Even dropping down to the Ultra preset, which disables Ray Tracing, failed to yield significantly better results.

As with virtually any gaming laptop, fan noise is certainly noticeable on the Cyborg 15. However, it's not loud enough to be distracting, and the best PC gaming headsets should provide sufficient isolation.

What’s more, the fans seemed to be doing a fine job, as temperatures never rose to uncomfortable levels during my time with the Cyborg 15. The keyboard became nothing more than lukewarm, while the rear, despite bearing the brunt of the highest temperatures, still remained touchable.

(Image credit: Future)

Another impressive aspect of the Cyborg 15 is its display. The 1080p resolution doesn’t feel stretched across its 15-inch real estate, rendering games and various interfaces sharply. Colors are vibrant, too, and reflections are kept at bay to a large extent.

The full-sized keyboard also feels great to use, thanks to the generous spacing of the keys, meaning it doesn’t feel cramped. This is all the more impressive given the fact that a number pad is included.

The keys are fit for gaming and typing equally, thanks to their tactile feel. They have more travel than you might expect from a gaming laptop keyboard, which yet remain light and easy to press. What’s more, they strike the perfect balance between being clicky and dampened, which makes them all the more satisfying to use. They even come close to rivaling the best gaming keyboard switches in this regard.

I also appreciated the wide Control key, as I usually struggle to hit this comfortably when gaming on other keyboards. It provided plenty of margin for error when trying to navigate towards it blindly with my little finger, which in turn made it much easier to hit consistently than I’m accustomed to, based on my experience with other keyboards.

The touchpad on the Cyborg 15 can get in the way when typing, though. It’s easy to accidentally click – let alone swipe – it with the palm of your thumb, thanks to how readily it actuates. Thankfully, it’s easily disabled with an Fn shortcut.

• Performance: 3.5 / 5

MSI Cyborg 15 review: Battery Life

(Image credit: Future)

• Poor battery life
• Reasonably quick to charge

The battery life of the Cyborg 15 is subpar. It lasted about five and a half hours during our movie playback test, which is easily beaten by many of its rivals. The Nitro V 15 Intel that I tested lasted about an hour longer.

It didn’t fare much better in the PCMark Gaming battery test, either. It didn’t manage an hour before giving up the ghost, again placing it towards the back of the pack. At least the Cyborg 15 is quick to recharge, taking just over two hours to get from empty to full.

• Battery Life: 3 / 5

Should I buy the MSI Cyborg 15?MSI Cyborg 15 Scorecard

Attributes

Notes

Rating

Value

Not many offer such quality for so little, but you will have to sacrifice spec for the best deals.

4.5 / 5

Design

The Cyborg 15 is pleasingly sleek and well-made, although the flimsy display is somewhat concerning.

4 / 5

Performance

The Cyborg 15 struggles to keep pace with modern AAA titles at the highest settings, so you'll need to dial those back a bit. The keyboard and display are great, though.

3.5 / 5

Battery Life

Towards the lower end of the sector in this regard. At least it’s quick to charge.

3 / 5

Total

The low price of the MSI Cyborg 15 certainly makes it tantalizing, especially when you consider the quality of the display and keyboard. But those after peak AAA performance will be disappointed.

3.75 / 5

Buy the MSI Cyborg 15 if...

You want a great keyboard
Whether you’re gaming or typing, the keyboard on the Cyborg 15 is always a joy to use.

You want to save money
The Cyborg 15 is very well priced for a gaming laptop, and its design and quality belie its budget cost.

Don't buy it if...

You want top-tier performance
My review unit, with its Intel i5 and RTX 3050, couldn’t handle demanding titles at the highest settings.

You want the best battery life
Most gaming laptops are wanting in this area, but the Cyborg 15 is among the worst on this front.

MSI Cyborg 15 review: Also Consider

Acer Nitro V 15 Intel
The Nitro V 15 is another great budget machine that punches above its weight. The review unit I had featured a 5060, therefore it's significantly more powerful – and expensive – than the Cyborg 15. However, it still comes in under a thousand pounds, which represents good value in the gaming laptop world.

Read our full Acer Nitro V 15 Intel review.

How I tested the MSI Cyborg 15

• Tested for several days
• Played games and ran benchmarks
• Plentiful gaming laptop experience

I tested the MSI Cyborg 15 for several days, during which time I used it for gaming, typing, and general browsing.

I played AAA titles such as Cyberpunk 2077, and ran our extensive series of benchmark tests, which covered all aspects of performance, from gaming and creative to AI and battery life.

I've reviewed plenty of gaming laptops in the past, ranging greatly in their spec, form factors, and pricing. I've also been PC gaming for over a decade, and have build my own machines in that time, so I'm well-positioned to know a great gaming laptop when I use one.

Read more about how we test

• First reviewed: October 2025

Razer Raiju V3 Pro: one-minute review

After roughly two weeks with the Razer Raiju V3 Pro, I can confidently say it’s one of the best PS5 controllers I’ve tested to date. While it’s arguable that the space doesn’t have all that many compelling third-party options - outside of the Victrix Pro BFG Reloaded at least - Razer’s controller nonetheless sets a new standard for PS5 pads.

It accomplishes this partly through its inclusion of tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) thumbsticks. That’s not as glamorous as it sounds - simply providing a highly drift resistant pair of sticks similar to Hall effect - but it’s an overdue inclusion among the best PS5 pads that significantly cheaper offerings on rival platforms have had for a number of years now. See the GameSir Tarantula Pro or 8BitDo Ultimate 2 for proof of that.

But that’s not the only reason to consider buying the Razer Raiju V3 Pro. Like with the Xbox-compatible Razer Wolverine V3 Pro, Razer’s own mouse click tech powers its remappable rear buttons, bumpers, and triggers, and they all feel so amazingly satisfying to press. As an esports-facing controller, rapid responsiveness for button presses is paramount, and the immediacy on offer here is simply excellent.

(Image credit: Future)

Aspects that I loved about the Wolverine V3 Pro are here on the Raiju. Razer has arguably the best trigger locks in the business, again leveraging that mouse clickiness for quick and satisfying results. The circular d-pad design remains one of my favorites, too, allowing for a heightened level of precision over traditional 4-way d-pads; truly a wonderful thing for the best fighting games, especially.

So far so good, then, and the inclusion of a carry case is a welcome one if you’re inclined to take your controller out with you to local tournaments or just to a buddy’s house. But I have to mark down the Raiju V3 Pro slightly in its overall build quality.

While still certainly on the higher end of PlayStation pads, it just doesn’t feel quite as premium as its Xbox counterpart. The face buttons, too - while still making use of tactile microswitches - don’t feel quite as satisfying or clicky as they do on the Wolverine V3 Pro. A shame, especially given that the Raiju is more expensive than the Wolverine in the US and the same price as it in the UK.

Razer Raiju V3 Pro: price and availability

• List price: $219.99 / £199.99 (around AU$339)
• Available now at Razer and select retailers
• Similarly priced to the Wolverine V3 Pro

The Razer Raiju V3 Pro is available to buy now for $219.99 / £199.99 (around AU$339). You can pick up the PS5-compatible controller from Razer’s own website, or stocking retailers in the US and UK. An Amazon listing is due to go live at a later date.

In terms of price, it falls in the same territory as other premium-adjacent PlayStation 5 controllers. For example, the DualSense Edge comes in at $199.99 / £199.99, while the Victrix Pro BFG Reloaded is available for $209.99 / £179.99.

But why are these controllers so expensive? Truthfully it usually comes down to two things. For one, they’re aimed at a specialist market - usually competitive gamers. Secondly, such gamepads typically come loaded with extra features like enhanced thumbsticks, trigger locks, remappable buttons, microswitches and more. There may or may not be a bit of a brand tax in the mix, too.

Razer Raiju V3 Pro: Specs

Price

$219.99 / £199.99 (around AU$339)

Weight

9.8oz / 279g

Dimensions

6.6 x 4.2 x 2.6in / 168 x 105 x 65mm

Compatibility

PS5, PC

Connection type

Wireless (2.4GHz), Wired (USB-C)

Battery life

Around 10 hours

(Image credit: Future)Razer Raiju V3 Pro: design and features

While a counterpart to the Wolverine V3 Pro, the Razer Raiju V3 Pro actually looks a lot more similar to the Wolverine V2 Pro from a few years back. It has the same general silhouette, albeit with an entirely matte black finish rather than a clean white. It’s a very unassuming look, with even the PlayStation face button iconography sharing the same black as the pad itself.

Expect a similar layout to that of the DualSense Wireless Controller, or indeed the DualSense Edge. Symmetrical thumbsticks, a central Home dashboard button, along with a large center (and functioning) touchpad with Options and Share buttons on either side. The triggers and bumpers are a bit of a departure, though, feeling more similar to that of the Xbox Wireless Controller.

Usual suspects aside, the feature set is practically identical to the Wolverine V3 Pro. Two claw grip bumpers (essentially secondary bumpers lodged next to the triggers) are joined by four remappable rear buttons situated behind the pad’s grips. There’s also a pair of two-way trigger lock switches at the top rear, and between those, switches for swapping between wired and wireless play, and PC and PS5 connectivity.

The textured grips feel wonderful, and let you get a firm, comfortable grasp of the controller during play. The remappable buttons are positioned so that your fingers rest conveniently on them, too.

It’s a very solidly built controller, overall. But a nagging feeling I had during testing was that it just doesn’t feel quite as nice as the Wolverine V3 Pro. For that Xbox controller, I found its build quality to be one of the highlights, feeling suitably weighty and well-built.

The Raiju V3 Pro is noticeably lighter, which isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, but materials used here just feel a touch less premium overall, from its chassis to its sticks and buttons. Plus, the fact the USB-C port juts outwardly is an awkward blemish on the controller’s looks. And it could also mean that cables beyond the one Razer has included might not fit.

(Image credit: Future)Razer Raiju V3 Pro: Performance

I at least can’t fault the Razer Raiju V3 Pro when it comes to gaming performance. Like its Xbox cousin, the Raiju provides a superb play experience especially in online multiplayer environments.

TMR sticks are a really welcome addition here. They achieve much the same as Hall effect by eliminating the risk of stick drift. However, they’re a lot closer to traditional analog sticks in feel, if that’s something you prefer. If you’re jumping over from a DualSense, you should feel right at home here, then, albeit the sticks on the Raiju are leagues ahead in durability.

Like the Wolverine V3 Pro, the Raiju is an exceptionally satisfying pad from a play perspective. The tactile immediacy of its buttons, d-pad, bumpers, and triggers (provided you’ve got those trigger locks enabled) just feels great in practice.

While I dabble in Fortnite and PUBG Battlegrounds, fighting games are my go-to competitive experience. And I’m as happy with the Raiju in this regard as I was with the Wolverine V3 Pro. The clicky, circular d-pad helps tremendously with rapid movement and motion-based inputs, whereas with traditional 4-way d-pads, it’s a lot easier to fumble commands or hit something you didn’t mean to. I’d genuinely love it if this circular design became the standard across most gamepads going forward; it just feels so nice in comparison.

In terms of battery life, it’s a similar story with the Raiju as it was with the Wolverine V3 Pro. I got around 10 hours out of the controller before it started to drop off and lose connection. Not brilliant, especially compared to the Victrix Pro BFG Reloaded and Revolution 5 Pro, but certainly a step up from the DualSense Edge’s 5-6 hours on average.

(Image credit: Future)Should I buy the Razer Raiju V3 Pro?Buy it if...

You want a more fulsome premium PS5 controller experience
The DualSense Edge is nice with all its PlayStation-centric features, but it doesn’t offer TMR sticks, claw grip bumpers, or the same tactile feeling. The Raiju addresses all of this, making for a more complete competitive-ready controller overall.

You play a lot of online multiplayer
Whether it’s shooters, fighting games, or otherwise, this controller is tailor-made for competitive play, and absolutely succeeds in delivering a satisfying, expertly responsive experience.

Don't buy it if...

You want to enjoy the DualSense’s bespoke features
You won’t be getting PlayStation’s haptic feedback or adaptive triggers here while playing on PS5 or for compatible PC titles. If you really want those extra layers of immersion or tactility, you should stick with a DualSense or DualSense Edge.

Razer Raiju V3 Pro: Also consider

If the Razer Raiju V3 Pro isn’t quite what you’re looking for, there are other premium controller options for PS5 you might want to consider instead.

Razer Raiju V3 Pro

Victrix Pro BFG Reloaded

DualSense Edge

Price

$219.99 / £199.99 (around AU$339)

$209.99 / £179.99 (around AU$322)

$199.99 / £199.99 / AU$399.95

Weight

9.8oz / 279g

9.3oz / 265g

11.4oz / 322g

Dimensions

6.6 x 4.2 x 2.6in / 168 x 105 x 65mm

6.3 x 4.1 x 2.4in / 160 x 105 x 60mm

6.3 x 4.2 x 2.6in / 160 x 106 x 66mm

Compatibility

PS5, PC

PS5, PS4, PC (Xbox version sold separately)

PS5, PC

Connection type

Wireless (2.4GHz), Wired (USB-C)

Wireless (2.4GHz), Wired (USB-C)

Wireless (PS5 native), Wired (USB-C)

Battery life

Around 10 hours

Around 20 hours

5-6 hours

Victrix Pro BFG Reloaded
An excellent premium PS5 controller with a unique selling point; the ability to swap out dedicated stick and button modules to your liking. This lets you adopt either symmetrical or asymmetrical stick layouts, for example. An included fightpad module is also excellent for fighting games.

Read our full Victrix Pro BFG Reloaded review

DualSense Edge
Not quite as impressive when compared to its immediate competition, but it does offer PlayStation’s unique haptic feedback and adaptive triggers. A pair of handy function buttons also let you swap button profiles on the fly, which is a nice touch.

Read our full DualSense Edge review

How I tested the Razer Raiju V3 Pro

• Tested for two weeks
• Played a range of PS5 and PC games
• Compared directly to its Xbox counterpart, the Razer Wolverine V3 Pro

I tested the Razer Raiju V3 Pro for around two weeks for this review. In that time, I played a handful of games across PS5 and PC - both single player and online multiplayer-focused. These include Monster Hunter Wilds, Fortnite, Final Fantasy 14 Online, Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, and the recently-released Ninja Gaiden 4.

I compared my experience with the Raiju to that of the Razer Wolverine V3 Pro. I certainly prefer that Xbox counterpart thanks to its more premium-feeling build quality. But overall, both are top performers when it comes to gaming proper, and I could easily recommend both depending on your platform of choice.

First reviewed October 2025

Read more about how we test

Leica M EV1: two-minute review

The Leica M EV1 concept is polarizing: strip out the optical rangefinder that Leica M cameras have been famed for for over 70 years, and replace it with an electronic viewfinder (EVF).

You'd think the whole experience of taking photos with the M EV1 would be wildly different – but in fact, in many ways it isn't.

Technically speaking, the Leica M EV1 shares many similarities with the Leica M11 / M11-P and Leica Q3 / Q3 43) – all use Leica's 60MP full-frame sensor, which delivers the most detailed photos among full-frame cameras.

Like a Leica Q3 / Q3 43 premium compact but with Leica's M mount, the new EV1 felt pretty intuitive to me straight away, as I've used other Leica M series and Leica Q series cameras extensively.

I can see the appeal for many Leica fans already in camp M EV1 – it has useful elements of Leica's Q series (minus autofocus, tilt screen and video recording), combined with the versatility of the Leica M mount and a wide choice of lenses. The best of both worlds, then.

The Leica M EV1 with Leica 35mm f1.4 Summilux-M Asph lens attached (Image credit: Tim Coleman)

On the plus side, the EVF offers focus peaking, which is an extremely useful visual aid for manual focusing; trust me, it will increase your percentage of sharp shots compared to being guided by Leica's optical rangefinder, at least when you're manually focusing in the moment, rather than sticking to a set focus distance as some street photographers do.

Build-wise, there's greater similarity with the M11 – not just the M mount and interchangeable lenses, but also the control layout and fixed rear screen, although I'd rather have more Q3 attributes in the design.

For me, the Q3’s tilt screen is super-useful – I generally find myself switching between the viewfinder and rear screen, and I enjoy waist-level shooting for street photography, for which a tilt screen is hugely useful.

That meant I used the 5.76m-dot viewfinder more often with the EV1, and thankfully it works a treat. Rangefinder-style cameras like the EV1 are fairly inconspicuous too, making them ideal for street photography.

The EVF has a slightly different profile to the optical rangefinder in other Leica M cameras, but the 2.95-inch fixed screen is the same as the M11's (Image credit: Tim Coleman)

All that said, as a package the M EV1 makes less sense. Sure, it costs less than the M11, but it costs more than the Q3, which is much more camera, with its built-in lens, autofocus, tilt screen and video recording. It's a natural comparison when you take the optical rangefinder out of the equation.

The M EV1 makes sense in some ways, especially if you already own multiple Leica lenses, but if you're starting out, or generally shoot with one or two lenses, it doesn't.

Beyond such considerations, though, I have to go with my gut, having used the camera extensively with the Leica 35mm f1.4 Summilux-M Asph lens for a week. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Yes, it feels slightly less organic than the M11, but if you don't mind an EVF then the EV1 feels like the new Leica M camera to go for.

The M EV1 is a compact and discreet rangefinder-style camera, making it ideal for reportage photography. (Image credit: Tim Coleman)Leica M EV1: price and release date

• Costs $8,995 / £6,840 (Australia price TBC) for the body only
• Additional leatherette hand grip costs $460 / £340
• Available from October 23, 2025

Price-wise, the Leica M EV1 sits in between the Leica M11 and Leica Q3, which makes sense because an EVF is cheaper to manufacture than an optical rangefinder.

Ultimately, the EV1's list price makes the Q3 / Q3 43 feel like much better value, especially if you're not going to be swapping lenses a lot. The Q3 is much the same camera, for less, with additional features – and you get a built-in lens.

With the EV1, you're paying for the luxury of being able to swap lenses, and every Leica lens costs in the thousands.

Personally, if I had a spare $14,000 / £12,000 for Leica camera gear, I'd rather pick up both the Leica Q3 and Leica Q3 43 over the EV1 with a lens such as the 35mm f/1.4 Summilux, which together cost the same as two Q3s.

There's no grip on the M EV1, but an additional leatherette hand grip is available separately (Image credit: Tim Coleman)Leica M EV1: specs

Video

N/A

Photo

60MP full-frame

Lens mount

Leica M

Autofocus

N/A – manual focus only

Screen

2.95-inch fixed touchscreen, 2.3m-dot

Viewfinder

5.76m-dot EVF

Weight

17oz / 484g (body, including battery)

Battery

244 shots (Leica BP-SCL7)

Leica M EV1: Design

• Compact rangefinder design
• 5.76m-dot EVF instead of an optical rangefinder
• Modest-size 2.95-inch fixed touchscreen

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The left side of the camera – there's no connections whatsoever (Image credit: Tim Coleman)

The obvious place to start when talking about the M EV1's design is its viewfinder, which is the same 5.76m-dot EVF found in the Leica Q3. It's also placed in the corner of the camera where the rangefinder traditionally sits, easily accessed with your right eye.

I was shooting with Leica's 35mm f/1.4 Summilux lens for this test, often wide open at f/1.4 where depth of field is really shallow, and getting sharp manual focus is historically a challenge with Leica M cameras. This changes somewhat with the M EV1.

Focus peaking is indeed supremely helpful for this manual focus-only camera, outlining the hard edges of your subject that's in focus – I had the camera set to red focus peaking, which in general is the color most easily seen.

Focus magnification gives you a closer look too, making it much easier to make fine adjustments. My ratio of in-focus shots has been much higher using the M EV1 than I would expect with a camera like the M11.

Even with an EVF, a manual focus-only camera will keep you on your toes. Here my reactions weren't up to speed – a mirrorless camera with subject detection autofocus would have nailed this photo (Image credit: Tim Coleman)

As a rangefinder-style camera, the EV1 is really compact, plus the shutter action is dampened for minimal vibration and noise, making for discreet picture taking.

The 2.95-inch rear screen feels a little on the small side, and being fixed it's less useful that a moveable screen, say a tilt or vari-angle type. The quality and feel of the display is top-drawer, though – with 2.3m dots it's packed with detail, and touch response feels smooth.

With the screen being less useful than I would like – I prefer the Q3's tilt screen – I leaned more into using the viewfinder, which is a lovely experience, even if traditionalists will turn their nose up at such a digital display.

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Like all high-end Leica M cameras, the EV1 is made in Germany and the body is fully metal – both aluminum and magnesium, with a leatherette finish. This is a classy bit of gear.

The style, profile and control layout of the EV1 are largely familiar – this feels like an M11, save for the omission of an ISO dial (which is a real shame) and of course that new type of viewfinder. I'm a fan of minimalist design, and thoroughly enjoyed shooting with the EV1.

Leica M EV1: Performance

• Same 60MP sensor as the M11 and Q3, with digital crops
• Manual focus only
• No video recording

If you want a detail-rich full-frame camera there are none better than those that use this 60MP sensor, as Leica's current crop of M cameras do, along with the Sony A7R V.

Leica offers two digital crop modes: 1.3x and 1.8x, with a reduced 36MP and 18MP resolution respectively. With the 35mm lens, those crops give a perspective equivalent to 45mm and 63mm lenses.

Burst-shooting top speeds are a modest 4.5fps. The buffer memory is rated to 3GB, which means you can shoot 15 full-size raw files or 100 JPEGs at that top speed before the camera slows up, assuming you're using a high-speed UHS-II SD card.

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The ISO sensitivity range starts at ISO 64 and tops out at ISO 50,000, so images taken in good light with the base ISO are particularly clean and crisp.

Leica uses the widely adopted DNG raw format, with a 14-bit output and a limited number of color profiles to choose from – I mainly stuck to standard profile, and made color edits to raw files afterwards.

Sticking with the Leica M ethos, the EV1 doesn't shoot video at all. For video recording with a Leica, you'll need to look to the Leica Q series.

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Following the Leica M11-P, the EV1 is equipped with content credentials, which is the most widely adopted industry standard for authenticating the origin of digital images. It does so through a secure digital label, holding details such as names, dates, and any edits made to an image’s metadata.

GPS geotagging data can also be added to images via the Leica Fotos app, which is available on the Apple store and Google Play store for iPhone and Android devices. It's also possible to wirelessly transfer images to your device from the M EV1 through the app, as well as remotely control the camera.

At the time of writing the EV1 isn't registered on the app as I've been using it prelaunch, but I have plenty of experience with the app, such as with the screen-less M11-D, and it's one of the more reliable and pain-free app experiences from leading camera brands.

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Battery life, I must say, is pretty poor by today's standards, rated up to 244 shots. It's little wonder given that the camera uses Leica's BP-SCL7 battery with its modest 1,800mAh capacity.

Still, the M EV1 isn't the kind of high-speed photography and video-making heavyweight with which users would quickly drain a battery. The photography process here is slow and considered, and as such I typically got through a whole day without needing to charge the battery (which is done via the USB-C port on the underside of the camera).

Leica M EV1: also consider

Leica Q3

If you're considering the M EV1, then you're probably already okay with using an EVF. And unless you already have a bunch of pricey Leica lenses, the Q3 and / or Q3 43 premium compacts feel like a wiser pick overall – you get the same 60MP sensor but also a built-in lens, the ability to switch to autofocus, a versatile tilt screen, and video recording. Oh, and both Q3 models cost much less.

See my Leica Q3 reviewView Deal

Leica M11

Design-wise there are two key differences between the M11 and M EV1; the viewfinder type – the M11 has an optical rangefinder, while the M EV1 has a 5.76m-dot electronic viewfinder – and the M11 features a handy ISO dial that's missing on the EV1. Besides that, the user experience and image quality are effectively the same. The EV1 costs less than the M11, though.

See our Leica M11 reviewView Deal

(Image credit: Tim Coleman)How I tested the Leica M EV1

• Leica loaned me the M EV1 for a week ahead of its launch
• I had one lens to test it with – the Leica 35mm f1.4 Summilux-M Asph
• I've used the M EV1 as an everyday camera, documenting the world around me

My experience with the Leica M EV1 was wonderfully simple. I had it close to hand for a whole week ahead of the global announcement, with the Leica 35mm f1.4 Summilux-M Asph lens attached to it the whole time.

I'm a fan of this lens for reportage photography, and naturally found myself documenting the world around me, mostly making use of the EVF and focus peaking to manually focus.

Of course, there's a decent range of Leica M lenses to choose from, making the most of the M EV1's design advantages over the Leica Q3 premium compact with its fixed lens.

• First reviewed: October 2025
• Read more about how we test

Fujifilm X-T30 III: two-minute review

Fujifilm has updated its beginner mirrorless camera for photographers with the new X-T30 III, which comes four years after the Fujifilm X-T30 II.

It launches alongside a tiny new XF 13-33mm f/3.5-6.3 OIS kit lens (that's a 20-50mm effective focal length) that's smaller and lighter than the 15-45mm, the previous kit lens packaged with Fujifilm’s low-cost cameras. The portable pair weigh just 17.7oz / 503g combined.

Going on appearances alone, very little has changed. There's now a film simulation dial in place of a shooting mode dial, much like on other recent Fujifilm cameras including the X-T50, with all 20 simulations available, and the ability to add film recipe shortcuts.

The X-T30 III is available in three colors; silver, charcoal and black (Image credit: Tim Coleman / Gareth Bevan)

Otherwise, the size, weight, profile and control layout are pretty much identical to the X-T30 II – this is a really small camera and lens combo that easily slips into a jacket pocket.

Headline features include the same 26MP sensor and current fifth-generation processor combo as used in the X-M5 and X-S20. This means the X-30 III sits below the pricer X-T50, which uses the latest 40MP stabilized sensor.

It has more in common with the slightly pricier X-S20, which with its in-body image stabilization, feels like a better pick. Otherwise, the specs are almost identical to those of the X-M5, which, with its viewfinder-less video-first design, costs less.

The notable change from the X-T30 II is that there's a film simulation dial rather than a shooting mode dial (Image credit: Tim Coleman / Gareth Bevan)

Despite its photography-friendly design, which also factors a built-in flash, the X-T30 III does in fact have the same video features as the compact X-M5, including 6K video with 10-bit color depth, 4K 60fps video and a vertical 9:16 short movie mode for social.

Personally, I think Fujifilm’s X-series range is getting a little crowded now, and would have liked to have seen the X-T30 III priced around 10% lower to help it to truly stand out for beginners.

However, it's still a compelling retro package – $1,150 / £1,000 / AU$1,950 for an attractive portable camera and lens with sharp 26MP stills and impressive 6K video is pretty respectable.

The X-T30 III is a tidy package with the 13-33mm lens attached (Image credit: Tim Coleman / Gareth Bevan)Fujifilm X-T30 III: price and release date

• Costs $999 / £829 / AU$1,679 body-only, or $1,149 / £999 / $1,949 with the 13-33mm lens
• Available in silver, black and charcoal
• Sales start on November 20, 2025

Designed for beginners, the X-T30 III is available from November 20 in silver, black and charcoal options, for a body-only price of $999 / £829 / AU$1,679, or with the new 13-33mm lens it costs $1,149 / £999 / $1,949.

The X-M5 remains the lowest-priced model in Fujifilm's range of X-mount cameras; the X-S20 is a fraction more, while the X-T50 is more again. Considering its features, I would prefer that the X-T30 III was around 10% cheaper in order for it to be more competitive.

I expect the silver model in particular to sell well. (Image credit: Tim Coleman / Gareth Bevan)Fujifilm X-T30 III: specs

Video

6K 30fps / 4K 60fps, 9:16 mode

Photo

26MP APS-C

Lens mount

Fujifilm X

Autofocus

Intelligent hybrid phase / contrast

Cont shooting

8fps (mechanical), 20fps (electronic), 30fps (electronic with 1.25x crop)

Screen

3-inch, 1.62m-dot tilt touchscreen

Viewfinder

2.36m-dot

Weight

13.3oz / 378g (incl battery and card)

Battery

NP-W126S (same type as in most of Fujifilm's current cameras), 425 shots

Fujifilm X-T30 III: Design

• Weights just 378g, same dimensions as the X-T30 II
• Film simulation dial in place of a shooting mode dial
• Built-in EVF, flash and tilt touchscreen

The X-T30 III is a tidy, compact retro package, especially with the new 13-33mm lens – the pair weigh less than most rival cameras without lens attached, and I easily slipped the combo into my jacket pocket when I wasn't using it. The camera is available in three colors and it certainly looks the part, especially in silver.

The pronounced thumb rest gives a decent grip, and I happily (and securely) held the camera with one hand in both horizontal and vertical formats.

There's a quick menu button conveniently placed on that thumb grip, but all too often I found myself pressing it unintentionally. It's not a big drama as you just have to exit the menu, but it's something to be aware of.

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The rear touchscreen is tilt only and not fully vari-angle, which means you won't be able to easily shoot selfies.

I'm personally fine with the tilt design, which is handy for waist-level viewing. Also, the positioning of the USB-C, micro HDMI and mic ports on the side would obstruct a flip around screen, when those ports are in use.

The 2.36m-dot EVF is clear enough for such a small camera – I regularly used it rather than the screen, and it will be particularly helpful on bright sunny days for photography.

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We now have a film simulation dial in place of a shooting mode dial - that's consistent with the latest models including the X-T50.

I can see the reasoning - quick access to color profiles and film recipes is great if you like to regularly experiment with different looks.

Personally, I switch exposure mode more often than color profiles, so I'm a bigger fan of the shooting mode dial which is sacrificed for film simulations.

In my limited time with the camera, I actually couldn't figure out how to switch to aperture priority - my default exposure setting - and so resorted to the new auto mode instead which selects shutter speed and aperture based on the scene. The X-T30 III certainly feels designed for beginners.

There's a built-in flash, one of only three current beginner models with such a feature. The GN7-rated (ISO 200) flash is handy to have for sure, especially at parties. You only tend to get a built-in flash in beginner cameras which aren't weather sealed, like the X-T30 III, because they usually compromise weather sealing.

Fujifilm X-T30 III: Performance

• New processor delivers 10% better battery life
• New Instax mode for instant photography fans
• Digital stabilization only

Packing Fujifilm's latest processor, the X-T30 III is a snappier camera than the X-T30 II. For example, 8fps (mechanical) and 20fps (electronic) burst shooting are sustained for 2x longer, for up to 173 JPEGs. That max speed can be upped to 30fps (electronic) with a 1.25x crop.

Fujifilm also says battery life is improved by 10% thanks to the new processor, for up to 425 shots.

Autofocus receives a boost, too, with Fujifilm's latest subject detection on board, which in addition to people can track animals, birds, cars, insects and more.

There's also a new Instax instant photography mode which can display mini, square and wide Instax formats for framing your shot, with direct wireless printing to Instax Link printers. I haven't used this mode yet, but it sounds like a great option for instant photography fans.

For me, the biggest sacrifice here versus a pricier model such as the X-T50, is in-body image stabilization. There's digital image stabilization only, which is certainly better than nothing, but does somewhat limit the possibilities for smooth handheld video footage. The same goes for creative slow-shutter-speed photography.

Fujifilm X-T30 III: image quality

• 26MP stills and film simulations
• 6k 30fps, 4k up to 60p, and 9:16 short video mode
• 10-bit color depth for video

I've only used the X-T30 III for two hours, but I know what its image quality potential is, having reviewed the X-S20 and X-M5, which both share the same sensor and processor.

Sure, pricier Fujifilm cameras such as the X-T50 and X-T5 boast Fujifilm's latest 40MP sensor for highly detailed photos, but the X-T30 III is no slouch, and still outshines other crop-sensor rivals for detail with its 26MP stills (and 14-bit 'RAF' format RAWs), such as the 20.9MP Nikon Z50 II, the 24MP Canon EOS R10 and the (older) 24MP Sony A6400.

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Having Fujifilm’s film simulations at your fingertips is handy, including customizable film recipes, even if that makes shooting-mode changes much more of a hassle. I've shot using various profiles in the galleries above and below, including Velvia (vivid), Reala Ace, Acros (monochrome) and others.

Video quality is excellent, too – 6.2K video and 4:2:2 10-bit color depth is excellent at this price point, even if in-body image stabilization is missing.

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What I'm yet to discover, given my limited time with the kit, is just how good the new 13-33mm lens is, at least versus the previous 15-45mm kit lens. This detail matters because most people will buy the camera with the new kit lens, and I'll share my thoughts after spending more time with the camera and lens pairing.

Fujifilm X-T30 III: also consider

Nikon Z50 II

Available for exactly the same price as the X-T30 III, the Z50 II is a versatile mirrorless camera with Nikon's latest Expeed 7 processor for flagship performance, superb subject-recognition autofocus, and improved video features. Its excellent ergonomics and vari-angle touchscreen make it an easy camera to travel and shoot with, while color profiles can be uploaded from Nikon's app, much like Fujifilm film recipes. With lower-resolution 20.9MP stills and 4K video, the Z50 II can't quite match the X-T30 III for detail.

See my Nikon Z50 II reviewView Deal

Fujifilm X-M5

Smaller, lighter and cheaper, the X-M5 features the same sensor and processor as the X-T30 III – which likewise means 26MP stills, 6.2K video, 9:16 short movies and film simulations. The major difference is that the X-M5 lacks a viewfinder and has a vari-angle screen, making it the better pick for video.

See our Fujifilm X-M5 reviewView Deal

(Image credit: Tim Coleman / Gareth Bevan)How I tested the Fujifilm X-T30 III

• I had just two hours with the X-T30 III and 13-33mm lens
• I took a walk through London's China Town
• I mainly took photos, using the various film simulations

I've used the X-T30 III with 13-33mm lens for just a couple of hours, shooting street photos and a handful of videos around London's China Town.

I already know what the X-T30 III’s image quality potential is, having reviewed the X-S20 and X-M5, which both share the same sensor and processor. The lens, though, is less of a known quantity.

I've shot using various film simulations, completely handheld during an overcast day in London. As with most cameras pre-launch, I could only view JPEGs, because the raw files aren't readable before launch in software such as Adobe Camera Raw.

• First reviewed: October 2025
• Read more about how we test

Review info

Platform reviewed: PC
Available on: PS5, Xbox Series X, Series S, PC
Release date: October 21, 2025

Jurassic World Evolution 3 is a beast of a management simulation game that allows you to manage your own prehistoric park. It’s by far the most creative entry in the series so far, offering you the ability to create your own buildings and scenery from scratch for the first time. The challenge mode, sandbox mode, and innovative campaign are crammed full of things to research and create, not to mention 70 different dinosaur species. But Jurassic World Evolution 3 also sometimes gets in its own way with systems that distract from, rather than deepen, your core objectives.

I should probably mention that I’m a bit of a park management games addict, particularly those developed by Frontier Games. Not only did I write our Planet Coaster 2 review, but I’ve poured a truly disgusting amount of time into some of their other games. My current play time on Planet Zoo totals 1,100 hours – or six and a half weeks solid – so even though I’m new to the Jurassic World Evolution franchise, I’ve invested probably more of my life in park sim games than is entirely good for me.

While Jurassic World Evolution 3 might not offer quite the same absurd open sandbox experience of its sister titles, it does offer far more satisfying and comprehensive management, bringing it far more in line with some of the best simulation games. I could always take or leave park management in the Planet Coaster and Planet Zoo games – which is why I often switched it off entirely. But in Jurassic World Evolution 3, management is much more in its genes.

At the heart of Evolution 3, there’s a really tight management loop. You hire scientists, send them on expeditions to harvest fossils, use them to extract the juicy dino DNA contained within, and then set them to work synthesizing any of the 70 species included in the game. You can then peruse the traits of the eggs this creates and decide which ones to hatch before incubating and releasing them into your chosen exhibit.

(Image credit: Frontier Developments)

Naturally, though, this is only half of the experience. Keen though the game is to stress that you’re running a sanctuary for all these saurians, they sure look a lot like zoos, and, as with any zoo, you have commercial considerations to take into account. You’ll create viewing galleries to allow your guests to spy on your cretaceous critters, tours to get them up close and personal, and amenities to make a fast buck keep them fed and watered.

Simple as this sounds, there’s way more layered on top of this. There’s dinosaur breeding to manage, research to conduct, and diseases to diagnose and treat. And unless you’re quick to tranquilize and return any carnivorous dinosaurs that break out to their pens, they’ll scarf down your guests – bringing a whole new meaning to the term ‘paleo diet’.

But it wouldn’t be Jurassic World if you couldn’t conduct crazy experiments that cross a line man was not meant to cross. Before synthesizing species of dinosaurs, you can tinker around with their DNA, adding traits that modify their appetite and thirst, ups their resilience, improve their sociability, or even improve their combat potential. And if that’s too vanilla for you, you can also research awful genetic chimeras, including the Indominus Rex, Indoraptor, and Spinoceratops.

On the campaign tail

(Image credit: Frontier Developments)

In fact, there are so many mechanics at play, I was glad the Campaign was there to hold my hand. It’s the first time I’ve found the Campaign mode of a management sim game to genuinely be unmissable, rather than something I can just dip my toes in. And there’s certainly plenty to get your teeth into here.

After the events of the Jurassic World franchise, you’re leading the Dinosaur Integration Network (DIN), an organisation dedicated to helping dinosaurs coexist alongside humanity. Conveniently, keeping the public safe from vicious man-eaters and helping endangered dinosaurs breed looks a lot like running a certain Jurassic-themed park, so you won’t find much of a tonal shift here.

While the campaign is structured across a series of parks around the world, you’ll work across them concurrently – although you’ll be moved on to new locations as you complete story objectives, as your international reputation improves, further objectives are unlocked in maps you’ve already visited. This feels far more dynamic an incentive to return to former parks than just improving a star rating: I genuinely felt like I was running a global network of sanctuaries that each impact one another, rather than just visiting isolated maps that I was done with the second I moved on to the next one.

(Image credit: Frontier Developments)

The voice acting is generally excellent. Jeff Goldblum is fantastic as always as Ian Malcolm, even if his lines largely are just arch variations on: ‘Welp, here we go again!’ And while I wouldn’t say the story throws that many curveballs, there are just enough elements like interfering corporate interests and human-supremacist saboteurs to add some bumps in the road.

Should you want a more focused test of your skills, Challenge mode provides a variety of scenarios for you to tackle. From containing vicious carnivores with limited fencing to pacifying grouchy giants without tweaking their genome, I found there was a decent variety of trials to help me flex my management muscles.

Jurassic Parks & Recreation

(Image credit: Frontier Developments)Best bit

(Image credit: Frontier Developments)

Zipping around in vehicles to vaccinate velociraptors, snap photos of protoceratops, or tranq raging tyrannosaurs never ceases to amuse me. Yes, you can automate this, but why would you let your artificial park employees have all the fun? Come on: let’s hop in this chopper and chase after some plodding sauropods.

Not everything in Jurassic World Evolution 3 is quite so high-stakes. There’s always the option to just kick back and enjoy the fun of creating your perfect park, whether in the campaign missions or in the dedicated sandbox mode. And this is where the game really shines: designing your dream habitats and getting up close and personal with the prehistoric beasts in them.

Part of the reason for this is that the creatures themselves are exquisite. Generally speaking, I found the graphics in Jurassic World Evolution 3 to be good, if unexceptional. On Ultra settings, the game ran at a smooth 60 fps on our Acer Predator Helios 300 laptop with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 GPU, but from a bird's eye view, it was pretty, but didn’t necessarily blow me away in the way I expected.

However, once you get down to the level where you’re face-to-face with your dinosaurs, the 3D models are beautifully detailed and animated, while raytracing gives lighting effects and shadows a literal glow up. At one point, I watched some sauropods wading across the shallows in front of a guest’s canoe, and the way they were silhouetted against the sun was spectacular. I just wish my parks had quite the same pop when viewed from an overhead perspective.

Fortunately, there are plenty of excuses to immerse yourself in your parks. You view everything from your guests’ perspectives, whether that’s viewing their perspective from ride cameras or walking around in the in-game Google Street View. But, on top of this, you can take the wheel of every vehicle in your park to deliver meds to your dinosaurs or mend fences when the inevitable happens and there’s a breakout.

There’s also the opportunity to channel your inner architect and create your own scenery. Frontier’s games have always been creatively anarchic: you have complete freedom to design whatever you want to decorate your parks and zoos, but the tools at your disposal were frequently chaotic, often requiring all kinds of botches and hard work to make bespoke scenery that looked truly organic.

Up until now, Jurassic World Evolution has been the exception to this rule, limiting you to prefabricated buildings and scenery items.

(Image credit: Frontier Developments)

Well, not anymore. In Jurassic World Evolution 3, Frontier has added the ability to create your own amenities and decorations from scratch, adding an enormous toybox of scenery parts for you to play with. From rock formations and fossils to gantries and girders, it enabled me to build up my own blueprints piece by piece, including aquatic coral reefs and a slightly wonky fountain centerpiece.

But while Jurassic World Evolution 3 has been learning elements from other games in Frontier’s fold, it’s also been refining them.

Path-placing mechanics are far more intelligent – I was able to quickly lay out straight routes and curving arcs simply by placing my cursor where I wanted it to go, rather than messing around with path angles. The part-scaling that was introduced in Planet Coaster 2 has been expanded here, allowing me to tweak the size of almost any model to achieve much more variety in my scenery design. And plants are now fully animated, swaying in the breeze and bending double during storms, making them feel far more alive.

In my opinion, there’s even more Jurassic World Evolution 3 could learn from its sister titles, though. Enclosures still aren’t as flexible as in Planet Zoo – guests really only interact with dinosaurs from set-pieces rather than marvelling over them from every viewpoint, and creature path-finding isn’t as sophisticated, making multi-height habitats impossible. And there’s no way to create raised paths, which makes multistory buildings and bridges over enclosures impossible, so maps are by necessity much flatter than I’d like. I’m not quite as free as I’d like to create sprawling, hyperrealistic dino parks, and that’s a shame.

Micromanageasaurus

(Image credit: Frontier Developments)

Fundamentally, there’s a reason for this more restrictive gameplay. Unlike some of its sister titles, Jurassic World Evolution 3 is a management sim first and a creative sandbox second. And while this often works to its favour, there are points in the campaign where I started to find its mechanics became as gargantuan and unwieldy as the genetic revenants I was managing.

Regularly, while playing Jurassic World Evolution 3, I’d have to drop what I was doing because my prehistoric pets weren’t happy with the flora on offer in their exhibits. With a single species of dinosaur in an enclosure, this is trivial to satisfy – you quickly paint in different kinds of cover, water, fiber, nuts, and fruit until the sliders representing their preferences are satisfied.

But add multiple species to a single exhibit – something that is not only encouraged but mandatory in some scenarios – and requirements quickly conflict. For example, my Apatosaurs love tall leafy plants and pasture, while my Lokiceratops, Houdini, wouldn’t stop perennially trying to break out of her prison until I’d provided ground fiber and a wetland. And this is all exacerbated by the fact that juvenile dinosaurs have different requirements from adults, meaning exhibiting even just two species together means you’ll often have four radically opposed needs to meet.

This is Houdini, the Lokiceratops. Her endless breakouts make her my nemesis. (Image credit: Frontier Developments)

Satisfying conflicting needs is a zero-sum game: painting in one removes another, and, as you seemingly can’t pin two different dinosaurs’ needs on screen at once, you’ll often come away happy that you’ve pleased one cretaceous critter only to discover the other is now sulking over the lack of swamps.

Even once you’ve reached an equilibrium, laying tours through exhibits will carve swathes through the undergrowth, meaning you need to repaint it all over again. Ultimately, I’d regularly find myself having to expand exhibit sizes after the fact, moving all my guest facilities in the process, just to ensure I could satisfy competing demands that were now impossible to meet within the existing space.

Balancing dinosaurs' needs can be painful – and not that rewarding. (Image credit: Frontier Developments)

Now, I’ll readily acknowledge the game has mechanisms to ameliorate some of these issues. Once you have unlocked enough dinosaur species, you can select pairings that align better with their requirements. And tweaking Houdini’s genome could have allowed me to make her more relaxed about her environmental requirements. However, these are tools you’ll only research later in a map playthrough, and in the interim, you’re left with a bunch of busywork that commits the cardinal sin in a management game: it’s just not that fun.

This is a real shame because many other tasks in the game are a real blast, and I loved releasing new monsters into my exhibits or building unique scenery. But if I’m going to be pulled away from these enjoyable tasks to fight fires, the mechanics should support me in dousing them permanently, not reignite the same one the second my back is turned.

Should you play Jurassic World Evolution 3?

(Image credit: Frontier Developments)Play it if…

You want an innovatively designed campaign
I love the way Jurassic World Evolution 3’s main campaign plays out as a series of concurrent maps that have further objectives unlocked as your reputation grows. It gives a much better reason to revisit older maps and makes it feel like a true international network of parks.

You like having a lot on your plate
Whether you’re managing expeditions, building exhibits, breeding dinosaurs, or trying to research monstrous genetic chimeras, there’s an almost dizzying amount you can do in this game.

You’re a Jurassic Park super-fan
From Jeff Goldblum’s sardonic quips to the various movie-mimicking designs, there are a lot of elements here that will give you that nostalgic buzz. If you don’t mutter ‘clever girl’ the first time your velociraptor busts out of its enclosure, you have far more self-control than I do.

Don’t play it if…

Micromanagement makes you Tyrannosaurus vexed
Everything you do in this game takes time to complete, while dinosaur needs are difficult to balance and feel a bit thankless at times. If you’re not a fan of having to wait for timers to count down or repeatedly tweaking things to balance sliders, you might want to give it a miss.

You just want Planet Zoo, but dinosaurs
Fundamentally, Jurassic World Evolution 3 is a management game and doesn’t offer as smart creature simulation as a game like Planet Zoo. If you just want to build a wholesome zoo packed with cute dinosaur interactions, it may not be for you.

You want a limitless creative sandbox
The new building elements Frontier has added here have definitely added some much-needed creativity. But you still may not find it offers quite the same creative freedom as some of the developer’s other games, so bear that in mind.

Accessibility

Jurassic World Evolution 3 has a good range of accessibility options. You can tweak the colors of both the UI and management views for Deuteranopia, Protonopia, Tritanopia, and high contrast. You can also switch on highlight mode for dinosaurs, tweak the highlight color according to these same profiles, and set the highlight distance.

On top of this, you can tweak the size and opacity of subtitles, set different colors for different speakers, and increase the scale of the HUD. There are also options to disable certain effects, allowing you to switch off camera shaking and flashing effects.

How I reviewed Jurassic World Evolution 3

I played Jurassic World Evolution 3 over the course of two weeks. Not only did I play my way through the campaign, but I also experimented with building my own park from scratch in Sandbox mode and explored the challenges available.

I reviewed the PC version, but I also tried it out on multiple platforms, including our Acer Predator Helios 300 gaming laptop and on my Steam Deck, to see how it fared on multiple devices. I also played it using a keyboard and mouse and using a PowerA Moga XP-Ultra multi-platform wireless controller to test out various control modes.

In terms of experience, not only have I been reviewing gaming hardware for around five years, but I've spent my whole life playing simulation games, dating right back to Theme Park on the PC. I've also played many of Frontier Developments' games to date, having played Planet Coaster and Planet Coaster 2 and clocked up a ridiculous 1,100 hours in Planet Zoo.

First reviewed: October 2025