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• Cambridge Audio unveils new Spira turntable
• Mid-range price tag; on sale immediately
• Range of connection options, but nothing too complex

If you've never used a record player before, they can seem quite complicated, which is why many of the best turntables are entry-level options targeted at relative novices — we all have to start somewhere, and that is good. Cambridge has just entered that esteemed line-up with its new Spira.

Banish the thought of something complicated and expensive (or '90s Cadbury chocolate bars, if you're of a certain vintage), such as Cambridge's own Audio Alva TT V2, fantastic though it is. This is an option designed to be easy to set up and use, though one you can build a hi-fi system around if you get hooked on vinyl, as Cambridge surely expects.

To that end, it's relatively affordable, at $499 / £329 (about AU$640). That's not quite as cheap as some of our entry-level favorites, like the Sony PS-LX310BT, but in the grand scheme of turntables it's very much at the lower end of things.

The Cambridge Spira is on sale right now, in five colors: black, white, green, orange or blue, which are the brand's go-to colors (its speakers take those hues — see the fantastic Cambridge L/R S), so you can match the Spira to other pieces of kit if you pick more up.

The Cambridge whi-Spiras of a good friend

(Image credit: Cambridge Audio)

One of the perks of the Cambridge Audio Spira is that it can connect to basically anything, perfect to slot into an existing set-up, whether you own expensive floor-standers or a single Bluetooth speaker.

That means it has a a built-in phono preamp, or connects via Bluetooth (CA doesn't mention any other connection options in its press release).

The Spira has a pre-fitted Audio-Technica cartridge on its aluminum tonearm, and apparently it's easy to replace if you decide to make an upgrade. The platter is steel and there's a wooden plinth to house the motor, designed to remove unwanted resonance.

Just looking at the pictures, you can see they're pretty simple, without extra dials or levers that could overwhelm a novice. There is an rpm speed dial, but that's basically it.

The minimalism might put off die-hard record player users, who know exactly what they want and have thousands to drop on the right kit. But for most people, this'll be a perfect jack-of-all-trades device that slots into whatever audio set-up you own.

Free samples, high-pressure pitches and $50,000 bills: An NPR investigation reveals how a network of mall skincare stores systematically targeted older adults and people with disabilities across the U.S..

For years, customers have complained of aggressive sales tactics and charges at mall skincare stores. NPR investigated the business that connects many of them.

Organized criminal rings target SNAP recipients because of the government program's outdated security features. But upgrading the tech costs money and states' SNAP budgets are getting squeezed.

(Image credit: Octavio Jones for NPR)

For many election cycles, civil rights groups and political parties have fanned out to monitor polling places, but the charged midterm environment has many organizations stepping up efforts this year.

(Image credit: Olivier Touron)

Kansas voters could send a Democrat to the Senate for the first time in nearly a century — and flip the governor's office back to Republican control, even in what could be a tough year for the GOP.

(Image credit: Stephen Fowler)

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy sits down with NPR to talks about the ongoing war in his country, Pope Leo has lung cancer, the Vatican announced, U.S. ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle resigns.

The hardest part of retail AI may soon be the part nobody puts in the demo.

A model can recommend a markdown, predict a stockout, adjust a picking route or identify a pattern in store traffic in milliseconds. But a retailer only gets value when that decision becomes an accurate action in the physical store. Whether it’s a price change or a sensor reading, it has to arrive promptly for it to be useful.

There is already a striking gap between AI ambition and execution. Deloitte's 2026 survey of 200 retail and consumer products executives found that 75% consider AI a top strategic priority, yet only 16.5% can quantify the return they are getting from it. Clearly, retailers believe in AI. The harder problem is turning isolated capabilities into something that works consistently across the business.

For physical retailers, the challenge does not end with models, data or software. AI-driven decisions have to pass through stores containing thousands of devices, existing networks and years of installed technology. In complex environments, the building itself can affect connectivity. As the number of connected endpoints grows, so does the importance of the wireless foundation carrying information across the store.

For CIOs and CTOs, that means the next constraint on AI may be something that has been underappreciated: whether the store estate underneath it can execute reliably at scale.

A store is not a cloud workload

Physical retail introduces conditions that software teams cannot abstract away. Stores have walls, metal shelving, refrigeration, back rooms, loading areas and legacy systems installed. They also have trading hours. Infrastructure changes that look simple on an architecture diagram can become expensive or disruptive when repeated across hundreds of sites.

Take inventory, for example. A forecasting model can improve a replenishment decision, but store-level execution may depend on shelf sensors, handheld devices, picking tools and accurate product information all exchanging data.

Computer vision, digital displays and environmental monitoring add further endpoints and a wider mix of data, from routine device updates and sensor readings to visual content and real-time operational data. These workloads place very different demands on the network.

Some require high bandwidth or low latency. Others involve large populations of battery-powered devices sending regular updates across difficult environments. Individually, none is necessarily a network problem. Collectively, they can become one.

If a pricing decision cannot reach every store quickly, a replenishment signal arrives too late or each new application requires another costly infrastructure layer, the retailer loses part of the value the technology was supposed to create.

One response is to add another gateway, controller or application layer for the next project. That can work for a pilot. Repeated often enough, though, every new device gains a separate integration path, security owner, management console and failure mode.

In difficult store environments, adding project-specific infrastructure to overcome coverage gaps can also change deployment economics. The technology works, but operating it becomes progressively harder.

The scaling problem appears after the pilot works

Retail technology teams are used to asking whether a new application meets its business case. AI adds another question: what happens to the infrastructure if the application succeeds?

A pilot may involve one store and a limited number of endpoints. Scale changes the economics. Coverage has to work throughout the building, updates must remain reliable during normal trading and security teams need a consistent way to onboard and manage devices. Operations teams also need clear ownership when something fails.

Connectivity should therefore be treated as an architectural choice, not a specification buried inside each procurement. The objective is not to replace every existing network or create one for every application, but to match workloads to the wireless layer best suited to their requirements while keeping the estate manageable.

Current designs may be adequate in some stores. In large or difficult formats, or where suitable retail IoT endpoints are growing quickly, an additional purpose-built wireless layer may be justified. The decision should be deliberate rather than inherited one project at a time.

Different workloads need different wireless foundations

The future-ready store is unlikely to depend on one network doing everything. It will more likely use a combination of connectivity layers, each supporting the workloads it suits best. Now, retailers should consider whether enterprise Wi-Fi should remain the de facto transport layer for every new category of connected device.

As electronic shelf label estates expand and retailers introduce more sensors and retail IoT applications, suitable workloads may be better served by a purpose-built wireless layer alongside the enterprise network.

This should not mean an isolated network for each use case, but a scalable, reusable connectivity layer able to support large device populations over time. Security belongs in the same conversation. Every endpoint needs consistent management, from trusted onboarding and credentials through to decommissioning.

Open standards remain important because they provide a more consistent foundation for future devices, applications and platforms. But openness alone is not the architecture. The decision is which workloads belong on which connectivity layer; standards help those layers remain manageable and adaptable.

The most successful retail AI programs will be judged by more than the quality of their predictions. As connected estates grow the test will be whether organizations can turn those predictions into dependable action across real stores.

Before approving the next AI pilot, retailers should ask what will their estate need if it succeeds, which workloads will grow, and should they all continue to be carried in the same way?

If success means more devices, richer data, more frequent updates or deployment across a much larger estate, the wireless architecture supporting those workloads has to be a central part of the AI strategy.

Retailers are not investing in AI tools or connectivity for their own sake. They want to protect margin, improve availability and make stores easier to operate. AI capability and AI scalability are different problems.

The objective should be an architecture in which new workloads can use the wireless layer best suited to them without forcing the estate to be rebuilt each time. The retailers that design for both will be in a much stronger position to turn ambition into reliable, repeatable execution.

We've featured the best AI chatbot for business.

This article was produced as part of TechRadar Pro Perspectives, our channel to feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today.

The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/pro/perspectives-how-to-submit

Pope Leo XIV had surgery on Tuesday to remove a cancerous growth in his lung, the Vatican announced.

A federal judge ruled late Tuesday that President Trump cannot ban news organizations from covering him at the White House because he does not like the nature of their coverage - at least, not until the matter goes to a formal trial.

(Image credit: Graeme Sloan)

Phone manufacturers are certainly feeling the pinch of the RAM and storage shortages. Apple recently increased prices across most of its products, the new Google Pixels received their own price hikes and now Samsung has joined in with price bumps across its Galaxy S26 lineup that launched earlier this year.

Thankfully, most Australian retailers have so far held off introducing most of the latter, and there are even some respectable deals on offer — Amazon has the 256GB base S26 discounted to just AU$1,127, for example, representing a 32% reduction from Samsung’s new pricing. If you’ve been considering upgrading your phone to a new flagship model, this is a prime opportunity to bag one for less.

Galaxy S26 (256GB): was $1649 now $1127
Costing less than Samsung’s new Galaxy S26 FE mid-ranger and Apple’s budget iPhone 17e, this deal gives you a true flagship Android handset, with triple-camera setup, 12GB of RAM and the full Galaxy AI suite. I did see this model dip below AU$1,000 in August, but given the price-increase we've seen since then, we think this discount is worth jumping on. Amazon has the Black, Cobalt Violet, Sky Blue and White colours available for this price, and you can also trade in your old phone for more savings.View Deal

Our Samsung Galaxy S26 review praised the bright AMOLED display, reliable cameras and long battery life. Storage options now also start at 256GB — up from the predecessor’s 128GB — and the screen size also increased from 6.2 inches to 6.3 inches, while retaining the same dimensions.

Those changes, plus the other improvements over the S25, meant the S26 came with a price increase from AU$1,399 to AU$1,549 at launch, and that has since gone up by another AU$100 to AU$1,649 earlier this month. That makes the 32% saving at Amazon all the more tempting.

One caveat that we should note about the base Galaxy S26 is that Aussies miss out on the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset found in the US model — locally, this model uses Samsung's own Exynos 2600 processor. Our colleagues over at Tom’s Guide, however, argue that the difference is marginal in their tests, so you likely won’t be able to tell the difference in most scenarios.

Our reviewer also noted the relatively slow 25W charging speed and the lack of full Qi2 wireless charging support, commenting that this phone is only worth buying when it’s on sale.

With this deal dropping the price by 32% vs the revised RRP, that latter sentiment has come true — and overall, the Galaxy S26 is still an easy recommendation despite those caveats, and is a solid entry-level flagship with the specs to back it up.

Samsung Galaxy price hikes

Having launched in March this year, Samsung’s 2026 S-series flagships have been out for a bit over 6 months and have even seen some generous discounts in major Australian sale events like EOFY and Prime Day. The brand has since increased the prices across the three Galaxy S26 handsets, ranging from AU$100 to AU$250, depending on the configuration as follows:

• Galaxy S26 256GB: was AU$1,549, now AU$1,649
• Galaxy S26 512GB: was AU$1,849, now AU$1,949
• Galaxy S26 Plus 256GB: was AU$1,849, now AU$1,949
• Galaxy S26 Plus 512GB: was AU$2,149, now AU$2,249
• Galaxy S26 Ultra 256GB: was AU$2,199, now AU$2,299
• Galaxy S26 Ultra 512GB: was AU$2,499, now AU$2,599
• Galaxy S26 Ultra 1TB: was AU$2,949, now $3,199

Samsung's recently released 2026 foldables and the Galaxy S26 FE so far haven’t seen price hikes (as of October 14), though most of them came with increases over their respective predecessors.

The HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701 is a powerful and expandable A4 office printer able to serve teams of up to ten coworkers. It ships with a reasonable amount of TerraJet toner and HP’s strongest ever security.

The specification sheet is strong too, with more memory and processor speed than your average print-only device and a top speed of 35ppm (pages per minute). It printed well, even on pretty thick card.

However, there’s no touchscreen on this US$730 (£590) device and I found the user interface frustrating, so read this in-depth review before you buy.

HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701: Design and build

(Image credit: Future)Specs

Type: color laser printer

Functions: Print only

Connectivity: USB, Wi-Fi, Ethernet

Data storage slots: USB Host  

Max print speed: 35ppm

Max paper size: Letter/A4

Print quality: 600x600dpi; 1200x1200dpi (enhanced)

Memory: 2GB

Apple AirPrint: yes

Consumables included: 4 cartridges (2,300 black or 2,000 color pages)

Dimensions/Weight: 421 x 427 x 297 mm (WxDxH)/36lb/16.3kg

HP’s Color LaserJet Enterprise 4000/X400 Series printers and multifunction devices replace the outgoing 400 Series and with their blue livery and crisp design, it’s certainly an aesthetic improvement.

The HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701dw is the base model in this Letter/A4-size range and it’s also the most compact. It’s reassuringly heavy at 36 pounds, yet small enough to share the desk in my home office without crowding me out. The dw at the end of the model name indicates that the printer I tested can auto-duplex and has Wi-Fi built in, but in other respects, variants on this model are the same, so I’ll dispense with the suffix going forward.

It looks much like the cheaper HP Color LaserJet Pro 4201 and I found the print quality to be comparable. But what the enterprise-level 4701 brings is a higher spec with a faster processor, more memory and security tough enough for big business. It’s more upgradeable because you can add not just one, like the Pro, but two optional paper trays. It also replaces the awkward rotary dial interface with a regular keypad.

The main paper drawer has a standard capacity of 250 sheets, but you can expand this by adding up to two high-capacity 550-sheet paper cassettes which cost around US$370 each. It's the kind of useful future-proofing that you don’t get with cheaper alternatives like the Brother HL-L3230CDW. There’s also a 50-sheet front-loading multi-media tray for envelopes or specialist paper.

HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701: Features & specifications

(Image credit: Future)

Being an Enterprise model means the HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701 has a higher spec than the Pro and a feature set geared toward heavier use. As such, this compact printer has a faster dual-core 1.4GHz processor and four times the RAM at 2GB. That doesn’t make it print any faster as both print engines achieve a rate of 35ppm, but it does enable a higher recommended duty cycle of up to 4,200 pages per month.

It also has stronger Wolf Pro Enterprise security. HP’s new post-quantum cryptography (PQC) protection should shield your printer from attack by quantum computers. It’s also more manageable as part of a fleet. There’s even a USB Host port, which I always find useful for printing without need of a device.

I’m happy to see the quirky rotary dial control of the Pro giving way to a normal push-button keypad for this Enterprise model, although I wouldn’t accuse either interface of being user-friendly.

HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701: Setup and operation

(Image credit: Future)

In my experience, HP printers are often the easiest to set up thanks to the inclusion of Bluetooth to connect your printer to your smartphone straight out of the box, but that’s not the case here. It took me rather longer to follow the on-printer prompts using the fiddly control panel.

And because of the added security, there is no default administrator password printed discretely on the printer. During setup, users have the option to create an admin password that meets HP‘s security requirements (minimum eight characters, including uppercase, lowercase, number, and special character).

If you skip this step during setup you’ll need to configure the password later through the printer's Embedded Web Server (EWS). It’s the kind of extra legwork you get with an enterprise printer instead of the much simpler home office model.

In daily operation, the HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701 is easier to use, thanks to its prompt first page out time and strong software support. The printer’s display is rather small, however, and given the premium price, it’s frustrating that there’s no touchscreen interface, like the one found on the significantly cheaper Xerox C320.

HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701: Performance

(Image credit: Future)

The HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701 prints quickly and consistently, turning out color and mono pages promptly and without any misprints or paper jams during the test. The FPOT (first page out time) is only 5.7 seconds, thanks to the extra onboard processing power and RAM, and the maximum print speed of 35ppm (or 33ppm if using A4 instead of Letter paper) in simplex mode is accurate.

It’s no faster on paper than competitors such as the Xerox C320, but it turns the paper quickly in duplex mode, making it slightly quicker with two-sided documents.

Black and white prints appear crisp and hard to fault. This is what laser printers do best and the HP delivers very professional-looking text on plain paper. Characters printed at the smallest point size remain crisp and legible under a magnifying glass.

When printing in color, I noticed a drop in contrast that can make photos look less detailed than the original. It’s a subtle complaint and the toner is bright enough to achieve vibrant results that look sharp enough when printing at ‘best’ image quality. The HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701 can print on a wide range of media, including quite heavy card up to a recommended 200 gm².

I got good results with card of 240gm². Often when you go to select your media type on a laser printer, you’re given four or five choices, but this one offers 33, proving its versatility.

HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701: Consumables

(Image credit: Future)

The HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701 prints with the company’s still quite new TerraJet toner formulation. This has the advantage of a lower melting point that reduces the energy needed to print by around 27%. The disadvantage is that it’s a tad more expensive than your average toner, but it’s also brighter so I think the energy saving and vibrant results are worth it.

It ships with a reasonable amount of toner in the four setup cartridges (enough for 2,300 black or 2,000 color pages) and high-capacity carts are available that will give you up to 9,000 black pages and 6,900 color. With HP’s black high-yield carts costing around US$252 (£239) the CPP (cost per page) is around 2.8 cents (2.1p) for mono, which is competitive.

Meanwhile, color pages cost around 5.6 cents (4.2p) per page, which is more expensive than rivals such as the Xerox C320. So, if you print at highest volume in color, this may not be the best solution for you.

HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701: Maintenance

Routine maintenance is minimal, with the printer monitoring its own long-life components and alerting the user when consumables or worn parts need replacing. And with the imaging drums incorporated into the disposable toner cartridges, you don’t need to clean or replace them. If you do notice deterioration in print quality, you can go to the printer’s Cleaning Page in the support tools menu and run a calibration or cleaning cycle.

HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701: Final verdictFutureFutureFutureFuture

The HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701 is a neat solution for a small workgroup in a shared office where security and print quality are key considerations, but I wouldn’t recommended it for home office use.

I had some teething problems setting up my unit and the lack of a touchscreen combined with the increased security makes it somewhat user-unfriendly. However, once networked into your office, it will print quickly, securely and cost effectively, in black and white. HP’s more expensive color TerraJet cartridges mean less competitive color printing.

With it’s quantum-resistant security software, powerful processing and optional upgrade accessories, this enterprise printer is well-aimed at the expanding business, especially one that prints predominantly in black and white.

For more top-performing units, I've tested out the best home printers and the best laser printers.

The HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701 is a powerful and expandable A4 office printer able to serve teams of up to ten coworkers. It ships with a reasonable amount of TerraJet toner and HP’s strongest ever security.

The specification sheet is strong too, with more memory and processor speed than your average print-only device and a top speed of 35ppm (pages per minute). It printed well, even on pretty thick card.

However, there’s no touchscreen on this US$730 (£590) device and I found the user interface frustrating, so read this in-depth review before you buy.

HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701: Design and build

(Image credit: Future)Specs

Type: color laser printer

Functions: Print only

Connectivity: USB, Wi-Fi, Ethernet

Data storage slots: USB Host  

Max print speed: 35ppm

Max paper size: Letter/A4

Print quality: 600x600dpi; 1200x1200dpi (enhanced)

Memory: 2GB

Apple AirPrint: yes

Consumables included: 4 cartridges (2,300 black or 2,000 color pages)

Dimensions/Weight: 421 x 427 x 297 mm (WxDxH)/36lb/16.3kg

HP’s Color LaserJet Enterprise 4000/X400 Series printers and multifunction devices replace the outgoing 400 Series and with their blue livery and crisp design, it’s certainly an aesthetic improvement.

The HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701dw is the base model in this Letter/A4-size range and it’s also the most compact. It’s reassuringly heavy at 36 pounds, yet small enough to share the desk in my home office without crowding me out. The dw at the end of the model name indicates that the printer I tested can auto-duplex and has Wi-Fi built in, but in other respects, variants on this model are the same, so I’ll dispense with the suffix going forward.

It looks much like the cheaper HP Color LaserJet Pro 4201 and I found the print quality to be comparable. But what the enterprise-level 4701 brings is a higher spec with a faster processor, more memory and security tough enough for big business. It’s more upgradeable because you can add not just one, like the Pro, but two optional paper trays. It also replaces the awkward rotary dial interface with a regular keypad.

The main paper drawer has a standard capacity of 250 sheets, but you can expand this by adding up to two high-capacity 550-sheet paper cassettes which cost around US$370 each. It's the kind of useful future-proofing that you don’t get with cheaper alternatives like the Brother HL-L3230CDW. There’s also a 50-sheet front-loading multi-media tray for envelopes or specialist paper.

HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701: Features & specifications

(Image credit: Future)

Being an Enterprise model means the HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701 has a higher spec than the Pro and a feature set geared toward heavier use. As such, this compact printer has a faster dual-core 1.4GHz processor and four times the RAM at 2GB. That doesn’t make it print any faster as both print engines achieve a rate of 35ppm, but it does enable a higher recommended duty cycle of up to 4,200 pages per month.

It also has stronger Wolf Pro Enterprise security. HP’s new post-quantum cryptography (PQC) protection should shield your printer from attack by quantum computers. It’s also more manageable as part of a fleet. There’s even a USB Host port, which I always find useful for printing without need of a device.

I’m happy to see the quirky rotary dial control of the Pro giving way to a normal push-button keypad for this Enterprise model, although I wouldn’t accuse either interface of being user-friendly.

HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701: Setup and operation

(Image credit: Future)

In my experience, HP printers are often the easiest to set up thanks to the inclusion of Bluetooth to connect your printer to your smartphone straight out of the box, but that’s not the case here. It took me rather longer to follow the on-printer prompts using the fiddly control panel.

And because of the added security, there is no default administrator password printed discretely on the printer. During setup, users have the option to create an admin password that meets HP‘s security requirements (minimum eight characters, including uppercase, lowercase, number, and special character).

If you skip this step during setup you’ll need to configure the password later through the printer's Embedded Web Server (EWS). It’s the kind of extra legwork you get with an enterprise printer instead of the much simpler home office model.

In daily operation, the HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701 is easier to use, thanks to its prompt first page out time and strong software support. The printer’s display is rather small, however, and given the premium price, it’s frustrating that there’s no touchscreen interface, like the one found on the significantly cheaper Xerox C320.

HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701: Performance

(Image credit: Future)

The HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701 prints quickly and consistently, turning out color and mono pages promptly and without any misprints or paper jams during the test. The FPOT (first page out time) is only 5.7 seconds, thanks to the extra onboard processing power and RAM, and the maximum print speed of 35ppm (or 33ppm if using A4 instead of Letter paper) in simplex mode is accurate.

It’s no faster on paper than competitors such as the Xerox C320, but it turns the paper quickly in duplex mode, making it slightly quicker with two-sided documents.

Black and white prints appear crisp and hard to fault. This is what laser printers do best and the HP delivers very professional-looking text on plain paper. Characters printed at the smallest point size remain crisp and legible under a magnifying glass.

When printing in color, I noticed a drop in contrast that can make photos look less detailed than the original. It’s a subtle complaint and the toner is bright enough to achieve vibrant results that look sharp enough when printing at ‘best’ image quality. The HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701 can print on a wide range of media, including quite heavy card up to a recommended 200 gm².

I got good results with card of 240gm². Often when you go to select your media type on a laser printer, you’re given four or five choices, but this one offers 33, proving its versatility.

HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701: Consumables

(Image credit: Future)

The HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701 prints with the company’s still quite new TerraJet toner formulation. This has the advantage of a lower melting point that reduces the energy needed to print by around 27%. The disadvantage is that it’s a tad more expensive than your average toner, but it’s also brighter so I think the energy saving and vibrant results are worth it.

It ships with a reasonable amount of toner in the four setup cartridges (enough for 2,300 black or 2,000 color pages) and high-capacity carts are available that will give you up to 9,000 black pages and 6,900 color. With HP’s black high-yield carts costing around US$252 (£239) the CPP (cost per page) is around 2.8 cents (2.1p) for mono, which is competitive.

Meanwhile, color pages cost around 5.6 cents (4.2p) per page, which is more expensive than rivals such as the Xerox C320. So, if you print at highest volume in color, this may not be the best solution for you.

HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701: Maintenance

Routine maintenance is minimal, with the printer monitoring its own long-life components and alerting the user when consumables or worn parts need replacing. And with the imaging drums incorporated into the disposable toner cartridges, you don’t need to clean or replace them. If you do notice deterioration in print quality, you can go to the printer’s Cleaning Page in the support tools menu and run a calibration or cleaning cycle.

HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701: Final verdictFutureFutureFutureFuture

The HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701 is a neat solution for a small workgroup in a shared office where security and print quality are key considerations, but I wouldn’t recommended it for home office use.

I had some teething problems setting up my unit and the lack of a touchscreen combined with the increased security makes it somewhat user-unfriendly. However, once networked into your office, it will print quickly, securely and cost effectively, in black and white. HP’s more expensive color TerraJet cartridges mean less competitive color printing.

With it’s quantum-resistant security software, powerful processing and optional upgrade accessories, this enterprise printer is well-aimed at the expanding business, especially one that prints predominantly in black and white.

For more top-performing units, I've tested out the best home printers and the best laser printers.

If you’ve either recently upgraded, or are considering upgrading to, one of the fastest NBN plans, then you’ll understandably want to make the most of the improved speeds. That’s where the best mesh Wi-Fi systems come in, as they’re designed to deal with dead zones and slow internet, to ensure you get top performance throughout your home.

If this sounds like you, then I should also point out that while you’re looking for a mesh system, future-proofing your network with Wi-Fi 7 can ensure your investment will be even more worthwhile, especially if you’re on an NBN 1000 — or even an ultra fast NBN 2000 — plan.

Fortunately you don’t need to look far, as our pick for the best Wi-Fi 7 mesh system, the TP-Link Deco BE65, is currently discounted for a limited time, with the 3-pack available for AU$798.50.

Deco BE65 (3-Pack): was $1149 now $798.5
Scoring a perfect 5 stars in our review for its strong Wi-Fi 7 performance, connectivity options, inclusions and competitive price, TP-Link’s Deco BE65 has rightly earned the spot as our best Wi-Fi 7 mesh system you can buy in Australia. We’ve seen the 3-pack cheaper in December 2025, but this 31% discount is nothing to scoff at. The 2-pack is also discounted to AU$689, and a single unit is available for AU$399.View Deal

AU$800 for some Wi-Fi routers may sound like a serious investment, but there's plenty here to justify the price tag. You're able to connect devices — think network attached storage (NAS) or desktop PCs, for example — directly to each of the units via four 2.5GbE wired ports to keep latency to a minimum.

The TP-Link Deco BE65 system also offers up to 11Gbps of total throughput, which is plenty enough bandwidth to handle multiple devices like computers, gaming consoles, TVs playing 4K video.

Also included in the BE65 are VPN support, parental controls and TP-Link’s HomeShield security and network management service.

There are more advanced features available via a subscription service (AU$4.99 per month or AU$29.99 per year) including advanced parental controls, although our reviewer found the free tier is already good enough for most households.

Why do I need a mesh Wi-Fi system?

A mesh Wi-Fi system helps cover a larger space compared to a standard router, using one or more satellite nodes (also known as extenders or points) to broaden your Wi-Fi coverage and get rid of weak spots. The idea is that you place them around your home, so that you get uninterrupted coverage as you move around.

Wi-Fi 7 meanwhile gives you more frequency bands — the common 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz, and a third 6Ghz — extra capacity for more connected devices, lower latency and more to ensure you maximise your NBN plan. The goal isn’t necessarily to improve speeds (although that is a certainly a benefit), but to ensure solid reliability and stability.

You will need Wi-Fi 7-compatible devices to take full advantage, however, and they are still few and far between as of 2026, but it’s a good bet for future-proofing. On the other hand, brands have started releasing Wi-Fi 8 networking gear, so you can expect to see Wi-Fi 7 equipment come down in price soon and make future-proofing slightly more affordable moving forward.

• Siri AI is coming to Apple TV 4K 2nd and 3rd Gen
• Free software update arriving later this year
• Update will be available in select countries and territories

While much of the attention on the new Apple TV 4K — now in its fourth generation — may focus on the sticker shock of the $299 / £299 / AU$449 price, it also brings some notable features. Siri AI offers a more robust personal assistant experience via the Siri Remote or the box's far-field microphones. It also has a faster processor to speed things up and supports four HomePod 2 or HomePod mini 2 speakers in a surround setup.

But if you were really hoping to use Siri AI on Apple’s streaming box, maybe to pull up recommendations friends might have suggested or to figure out whether a character is based on a real person, and you don’t want to spend the extra cash on an upgrade, I've got good news.

Alongside announcing the Apple TV 4K (4th generation), Apple has confirmed that Siri AI will arrive on older Apple TV models via a forthcoming software update. The release note reads, “Siri AI is available as a beta on Apple TV 4K (2nd generation or later), and is available at launch in the U.S., Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, and the UK in English.”

(Image credit: Jacob Krol/Future)

That means the AI-powered, more personalized Siri will arrive on the Apple TV 4K 2nd Gen, 3rd Gen, and the new 4th generation, which begins shipping on November 13, 2026. And since the newest model will launch with Siri AI, that might hint at when Apple will roll out the tvOS 27.2 software update to the other two models. As a reminder, the 2nd Gen shipped in 2021, and the 3rd Gen launched in 2022.

That’s excellent news, because the new Siri AI isn’t just better at basic tasks; it also brings broader knowledge and personal context. So whether it’s pulling up an album your best friend recommended weeks ago that you can’t quite remember, or trying to recount a specific episode you and a family member were up to, the assistant can tap into that info to answer the query.

I saw a few demos of that on the new Apple TV 4K, and even though these older models have less power under the hood, Apple hasn’t said that Siri AI’s features will be limited. So while they could be a hair or two slower, it should still be a strong experience.

If nothing else, it’s a free upgrade that gives you another way to interact with Apple TV and find content. Beyond the added personal queries, you can also get richer recommendations and suggestions when you ask Siri for content.

(Image credit: Apple TV 4K (2026))

Further, if, beyond Siri AI’s arrival with the Apple TV 4K 4th Gen, you were also enticed by the new Siri Remote, which adds a speaker to make a chirping sound when you’re trying to track it down, or the ability to use Precision Finding for exact directions on how to find the remote when it’s deep in couch cushions with a compatible iPhone, you can purchase the upgraded remote with UWB (ultra-wideband) and the speaker from Apple, and it works with previous-gen Apple TVs. Apple's already taking orders for the updated Siri Remote for $59 here, and it's on Amazon.com for the same price here.

So, with a free, forthcoming update for Apple TV 4K 2nd and 3rd Gen that’ll bring Siri AI to select areas, and the fact that you can get the Siri Remote for a price, these two additions will bring some new features and could very well make the Apple TV 4K feel fresh again.

We'll report back once Apple announces when this update will arrive, but for now all we know is that tvOS 27.2 is coming.

• Control Resonant composer Petri Alanko shares what game he would like to work on next
• He says he would "love to do a proper sci-fi score one day" and enjoys "emotional psycho-thrillers a lot"
• Alanko says he would pass on any "cute cartoon-like games" like My Little Pony

Petri Alanko, the composer for Remedy Entertainment's Control, Control Resonant, and Alan Wake 2, has revealed which genre of game he would love to work on next, but insisted that "cute games" are a hard pass.

In an interview with TechRadar Gaming, Alanko said that with "synth" being part of his musical arsenal, he would "love to do a proper sci-fi score one day," and shared his enthusiasm for thrillers.

"Just gimme a project and free hands, thank you," Alanko said. "I enjoy emotional psycho-thrillers a lot; they offer so much writing ground, but combining that with some other, say, sci-fi flavours, now that would be something I’d love."

As for what he's working on right now, the composer said he's moved on to another game soundtrack, which he couldn't reveal, and also the movie Häyhä, which is about a WW2 Finnish sharpshooter, Simo Häyhä (aka The White Death).

He explained that "scoring movies is relatively easy, really," as "you have the linear media unchanged in front of you," and compared to the average game, " you need only a handful of music for it."

"I certainly don’t want to look down on any film composer," Alanko added. "I know several of them, and they are very dear to me, but in some ways, I feel like that posse has it pretty easy in their line of work."

Alanko went on to share which genre of game he would absolutely avoid if offered the chance to compose music for, including cozy games, because they don't align with his personal tastes.

"One thing is sure: I’m not much good for a My Little Pony game," he said. "Or cute cartoon-like games. Or rally games. Nothing against them, but I don’t have that in me. I’m from a Northern faraway country, and I live with a forest behind my house, and Nordic Noir is more or less a code of conduct in my whereabouts (laughs), so that pretty much stamps my life with [a] 'psycho-thrillers ahoy' badge."

Elsewhere, Alanko suggested studios should value music more if they care about their games and avoid AI at all costs, saying, "Love your game, love your handiwork. Respect the client: the gamers, the fans, dammit."

• Ukrainian developers complete combat trials of airless wheels for ground robots
• New 3D-printed wheels eliminate inflation requirements for battlefield robotic vehicles
• Ukrainian wheel sets weigh between 32 and 56 kg

Ukrainian engineers have developed inflation-free wheels for unmanned ground vehicles, aiming to keep robotic platforms moving despite damage encountered during frontline operations.

The project brings together Print&Live UA, iSCALE 3D, and participating specialists, who have completed field evaluations and combat trials of the new wheel designs.

The airless wheel is produced using large-scale 3D printing technology, and it has a rounded tread, a closed profile, and a two-piece disc.

Lightweight construction addresses battlefield mobility risks

Its design increases the cross-country ability, energy efficiency, and maintainability of robotic equipment on the front line.

Conventional tyres can become unusable after encountering fragments, blast effects, rubble, barbed wire, or frozen terrain, immobilizing remotely operated vehicles.

Such failures can leave equipment exposed, while recovery operations may require personnel to approach locations where hostile fire remains a concern.

The Ukrainian design eliminates dependence on internal air pressure, allowing the wheel to retain its supporting function without inflation or routine pressure maintenance.

Its internal structure uses a digitally adaptable lattice made from durable elastomers and composite polymers.

Unlike designs with exposed cellular structures or flat running surfaces, the wheels feature enclosed construction and curved tread geometry.

The tyre is designed to limit the amount of dirt, stones and ice accumulating around the wheels during operation over difficult ground.

Their relatively low mass and rounded profile are also intended to limit ground contact and rolling resistance, potentially reducing the energy required for movement.

Print&Live estimates that the design could extend the operating distance of ground robotic vehicles by as much as 30% compared with foreign alternatives.

The complete wheel set weighs between 32 and 56 kg, compared with 88 to 144 kg for the cited foreign airless alternatives.

However, conventional pneumatic sets weigh about 30 to 72 kg, meaning the Ukrainian design does not necessarily outperform every traditional tyre on weight alone.

Reducing unsprung and rotating mass could nevertheless ease mechanical demands on the gearboxes and electric drive systems used by robotic platforms.

Digital customization and field repairs

The manufacturing approach allows engineers to adjust wheel stiffness, shock absorption and geometry digitally according to a robot's weight and operating requirements.

These adjustments can change product characteristics without requiring manufacturers to reorganize their production lines, potentially simplifying the development of specialized variants.

Field servicing is another consideration, with the patented two-piece rim allowing damaged tyres to be installed or replaced without conventional tyre-changing machinery.

The developers say this arrangement removes the need for specialized presses, potentially making repairs easier where workshop facilities and equipment are unavailable.

A complete set reportedly costs approximately €680, although the available information does not specify the precise configuration or replacement costs included in that price.

The project has passed its research and development phase, and production is already taking place in limited quantities for subsequent delivery to combat units.

Independent operational evidence will be needed to establish how the wheels perform under sustained use, repeated impacts and varying battlefield conditions.

Via Militarnyi (originally in Ukrainian)

ChatGPT has become remarkably good at making itself useful as a researcher, organizer, and assistant for many a tedious digital task. OpenAI has begun pushing ChatGPT further recently with its agents, which are able to navigate websites and apps on our behalf.

You can delegate ChatGPT agents for everything from comparison shopping to filling out forms and lining up travel itineraries. What's changing is how deeply those abilities are becoming integrated into ChatGPT, with greater access to personal information and more opportunities to complete complicated tasks with less direct supervision. OpenAI's new Dots is a good example.

The appeal is obvious, but the more ChatGPT can accomplish independently, the more important it becomes to consider what happens when it misunderstands its instructions. For instance, a few months ago, OpenAI's experimental AI agents managed to escape their restricted environments and compromise systems belonging to AI platform Hugging Face. According to OpenAI's own investigation, the agents were supposed to be completing cybersecurity tests, but instead discovered ways to access the internet and exploit security vulnerabilities, coordinating their efforts through an unauthorized message board. An independent investigation by METR found that roughly 1,200 agents exchanged more than 70,000 messages and files, with around 700 eventually participating in the attack on Hugging Face.

The AI agents bypassed restrictions and pursued objectives in ways their creators never intended. Some even appeared to recognize that their actions were unauthorized but continued because they believed doing so would help accomplish their goals. OpenAI has since acknowledged other troubling incidents, including 53 cases in which agents uploaded user-provided images to third-party image-hosting websites as unlisted links during research and evaluation activities. Agents may be pursuing legitimate objectives and just seeking ways around obstacles. But algorithms don't have ethics, so they might cross boundaries their developers expected them to respect. It's especially worrying given how much OpenAI wants ChatGPT to be part of our lives now.

When helpful becomes a hazard

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Imagine asking ChatGPT to review your finances and suggest ways to save money. With access to the necessary accounts, it can examine transactions, identify subscriptions, and recommend changes to your budget. But give an autonomous agent enough authority, and it could theoretically decide that transferring money, canceling a service, or modifying a payment arrangement is the most efficient way to accomplish the assignment.

The same problem applies to something as mundane as arranging a meeting. ChatGPT might prepare an invitation, only to include personal information you never intended to share. From the agent's perspective, the disclosure could seem like a perfectly reasonable way to provide useful context.

These are hypothetical examples, and ChatGPT has safeguards designed to prevent sensitive actions without appropriate authorization. Nevertheless, OpenAI has acknowledged the possibility and introduced protective measures like automated monitoring and restrictions on certain actions to ensure users approve of any major action by the model.

There is also the problem of prompt injection, where malicious instructions are hidden in benign text to manipulate an AI into doing something its user never requested. OpenAI has described how attackers can exploit the information agents encounter during legitimate tasks. An instruction buried in a seemingly ordinary webpage could attempt to persuade ChatGPT to disclose private information or take an unauthorized action.

The problem can arise anywhere. In Australia, an experimental OpenAI agent accessed government systems in unauthorized ways during internal training. It exploited a vulnerability in a government health statistics service to continue its work when initially stymied. OpenAI subsequently acknowledged the incident and apologized for both the unauthorized access and its handling of the notification.

The company's official account of the Australian incident makes clear that the activity occurred during testing rather than through an ordinary consumer ChatGPT session. Nevertheless, it shows how AI pursuing an apparently harmless research objective can end up crossing a security boundary.

Handing over the keys

ChatGPT's growing autonomy is part of a much larger industry obsession with personal AI agents. Meta is pursuing an even more ambitious vision with Muse. Mark Zuckerberg clearly believes people will welcome an AI assistant capable of handling large portions of their daily lives.

There is something slightly absurd about that ambition when ordinary consumers are struggling with grocery bills, housing costs, and the price of gas at the pump. An AI that can independently shop for you sounds considerably less revolutionary when your main concern is whether you can afford whatever it wants to buy on your behalf.

There are undoubtedly useful applications for this technology, especially when it comes to administrative work. But the industry's assumption that consumers want increasingly independent assistants deserves more scrutiny. Every additional permission increases the consequences of an error, and every automated action potentially removes another opportunity for someone to intervene.

Perhaps the most important capability an AI agent can develop is knowing when to stop. A genuinely useful assistant should recognize that being asked to organize someone's finances doesn't authorize moving their money, and arranging a meeting doesn't justify revealing confidential information. Sometimes the best response to an obstacle is to ask the user what to do next, even if that means completing the task takes a little longer. Without that friction, by the time something goes wrong, the assistant may already have done things in your name that you would never have allowed.

• Minisforum's MS-S1 MAX-P495 is on pre-order at $7,399 with 192GB of unified memory and a 2TB SSD
• CPU and NPU specs are similar to previous iterations: 16 cores, 32 threads with a boost in clock speeds of 100 MHz, in addition to increased NPU performance by 10% to 55 TOPS
• The real upgrade is memory: 192GB total, 160GB for the GPU, and about 7% more bandwidth, enough to fit a 284B-parameter MoE model on one box

Minisforum has opened orders for the MS-S1 MAX-P495, a 3.5-liter workstation built around AMD's Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 495, and its launch announcement leads with the processor: 16 Zen 5 cores and 32 threads, clocks of up to 5.2 GHz, and an NPU rated at up to 55 TOPS within a platform total of 131 TOPS.

The single configuration pairs 192GB of unified memory with a 2TB SSD, sells for $7,399 on pre-order, and is expected to begin shipping in mid-October 2026.

Those processor figures match AMD's own specification page; however, they are also the least consequential change in the machine: what actually separates the P495 from the MS-S1 MAX that Minisforum launched a year ago is the memory.

Similar cores, much larger memory pool

AMD introduced the Ryzen AI Max PRO 400 series in May 2026 as a refresh of the Strix Halo silicon in the 300 series, and the CPU side barely improves in performance. The PRO 495 keeps the 16-core, 32-thread Zen 5 layout of the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 that powered the original MS-S1 MAX. Its boost clock rises by 100 MHz, from the 5.1 GHz listed on Minisforum's spec sheet for the earlier model to 5.2 GHz.

The Radeon 8065S graphics keep 40 RDNA 3.5 compute units and gain 100 MHz to reach 3.0 GHz, and the NPU goes from 50 to 55 TOPS, a 10% uplift that nudges the platform rating from 126 TOPS to 131 TOPS.

All of these upgrades are mild compared to where AMD does the real work: the memory controller. The 400 series supports up to 192GB of LPDDR5X across a 256-bit interface, with up to 160GB assignable to the GPU, against 128GB and 96GB on the last-generation chip it replaces. Rated memory speed also rises from 8,000 to 8,533 MT/s, a roughly 7% increase that will probably matter more here than the clock-speed bumps on display.

Minisforum's own test results show where the extra capacity pays off: the company says a single unit ran DeepSeek V4 Flash, a 284-billion-parameter model, at Q4 quantization at about 12 tokens per second. Two units linked together ran Qwen3.5-397B at roughly 16 tokens per second, and a four-system cluster loaded the 380GB Q4_0 build of DeepSeek-R1 671B, though it gives no speed for that last result.

These parameter counts are larger, however, than the actual work involved. Both models use a mixture-of-experts (MoE) design, which lets them load only specific "experts" into memory when needed. DeepSeek V4 Flash activates about 13 billion of its 284 billion parameters for each token, per Nvidia's catalog entry, and Qwen3.5-397B activates about 17 billion, per its model card.

Memory capacity decides whether a model fits at all, while active parameters and bandwidth decide how fast it runs, which is how a box with roughly 273 GB/s of bandwidth manages double-digit speeds on models this large. That is also why the 192GB of RAM in play matters far more than the modest performance upgrade the MS-S1 MAX-P495's APU offers.

The $7,399 price it currently goes for is presented as 20% off a list price of $9,249 that nobody has paid yet, with the unit going on sale even in the preorder stage. This makes the standard MS-S1 MAX with 128GB arguably a better value for all but the most ardent of local AI users who can justify twice the cost for a 50% increase in memory.

The rest of the machine (sans the APU and memory) is identical to the original MS-S1 MAX, including the 320W internal power supply, the six-heat-pipe, dual-blower cooler, dual 10GbE, two 80Gbps USB4 v2 ports, and 2U rack support.

What changes here is that a single compact box can now hold models that previously needed two, and for developers and small teams that need 200-to-300-billion-parameter mixture-of-experts models kept on premises for privacy or latency, that is a meaningful shift. For anyone drawn in by the 16 cores and 55 TOPS that Minisforum chooses to headline with, the cheaper MS-S1 MAX delivers nearly the same power for about half the price.

• Counterpoint Research reports a 20% decline in smartphone shipments compared to this time last year
• That puts this period at the lowest level in 14 years
• The RAM crisis is largely to blame, but consumers may also be holding on to their phones for other reasons

This year seemingly hasn’t been a vintage one for phone companies. According to Counterpoint Research, global shipments are 20% lower this quarter than in the third quarter (Q3) of 2025, making this the lowest Q3 in 14 years.

You can probably guess the main reason for that, as the ongoing RAM crisis is both pushing up prices and leading to component shortages. That means disrupted shipments for phone manufacturers — causing some models to be in shorter supply — and higher prices for consumers, which can make the prospect of an upgrade less appealing or affordable.

Still, this 14-year low might not be purely down to the RAM crisis, as Counterpoint additionally claims that consumers are “holding on to their devices longer than expected.”

Now obviously, high prices could cause people to hold off on upgrading, but presumably the RAM crisis was factored into consumer behavior, so if people are holding onto their devices for longer than expected even with that factored in, then there might be something else at play too.

What could that be? The report doesn’t take a guess, but it might be that phones are simply less interesting or flawed than they once were. These days, even quite low-end phones are often highly capable, and run well for years — which wasn’t always the case.

At the high end, it’s increasingly hard for manufacturers to offer meaningful upgrades and differentiation when the best phones already have more power than most people need, along with superb screens and cameras.

Apple and Samsung are picking up market share

(Image credit: Counterpoint Research)

In any case, according to this report, Apple and Samsung seem the most resilient to these challenging times, with Samsung actually increasing its market share to 23%, despite a 3% decline in shipments compared to this period last year. That’s in large part apparently due to the success of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8.

Apple also grew its market share, rising to 22% despite also selling fewer phones than this time last year. It’s likely that the brand would have done even better had it shipped a base iPhone 18, rather than waiting until next year for that.

Other brands like Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo meanwhile saw sharp declines in shipments and a drop in market share alongside that, allowing Apple and Samsung to increase their own market shares in turn.

But across the whole industry it seems fewer phones are being sold — and while things might improve once the RAM crisis is over, they might not completely return to ‘normal’ if there are other reasons for this change in customer behavior, too.