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I spend a lot of time poking, prodding, and generally tormenting AI agents to see what makes them tick, and I've developed a keen eye for what’s genuinely useful and what’s merely shiny tech hype.

Recently, my curiosity led me to test ChatGPT's latest feature, Deep Research, and I have to admit – I’m genuinely impressed. But before we jump into why, let’s briefly unpack what exactly this feature is and how it works.

Deep Research is the brilliant librarian addict you always hoped to be paired up with in school. It can gather, analyze, and repackage huge amounts of information in useful and even fun ways. Unlike a typical quick Q&A session, Deep Research takes its time. That can mean anything from five minutes to, theoretically, a full half hour. It will then deliver detailed, trustworthy insights tailored precisely to your query.

I've spent a lot of time with it and genuinely think it's the best bit of ChatGPT right now. If you're unsure whether it's worth the hype, I've put together a handful of reasons you might want to stick a toe in Deep Research.

The perfect vacation

(Image credit: Pixabay)

I've spent more time than I like to think about scrolling through travel blogs, Reddit threads, and outdated TripAdvisor reviews just to plan a simple getaway. Planning vacations, especially if you want something beyond the standard tourist traps, is something Deep Research is quite good at. For a test, I asked the AI to "Plan a two-week trip to Portugal, emphasizing local culture, hidden gems, authentic cuisine, and avoiding crowds."

Deep Research’s response was genuinely impressive. After about 20 minutes, it came back with a carefully planned itinerary filled with interesting recommendations, like a quiet day exploring the historic fishing villages along Portugal’s Silver Coast and sampling fresh seafood in lesser-known local restaurants. It included thoughtful touches, such as attending a small-town festival celebrating traditional crafts, and practical logistics, such as ideal transport options and lodging suggestions outside major tourist hubs.

I gave it another go with, "What’s the best month to visit Costa Rica for wildlife viewing, especially if you’re hoping to see sea turtles?"

Again, Deep Research produced a thorough report. It neatly summarized the nesting and hatching seasons of various turtle species and described weather conditions and tourist patterns month by month. It provided useful tips about where and when to find volunteer opportunities with conservation projects.

Health help

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Deep Research can be a real boon if you've ever had that middle-of-the-night headache and discovered that, according to WebMD, it's a rare tropical disease.

Reliable online health information sometimes takes more than a little digging to work out which bits apply to your hypochondriac moment. Deep Research can personalize your answers while avoiding the more nonsensical suggestions like combatting viruses with crystals. The same goes for more lifestyle-related health queries. For instance, I asked Deep Research to "Investigate whether intermittent fasting has significant long-term health benefits and if it’s safe for everyone."

Instead of sensational headlines, Deep Research returned an extensive, measured overview of clinical studies and expert opinions. It outlined potential benefits like improved metabolism and weight loss. Still, it balanced it with thoughtful cautions about groups who should avoid fasting, such as pregnant women and people with certain chronic health conditions.

Hobbying

(Image credit: Netflix)

Taking on a new hobby can be exciting until you realize the first steps usually involve wading through conflicting advice on YouTube or outdated instructional articles. Here, Deep Research acts like your patient, knowledgeable guide.

I asked the AI to "Create a beginner’s guide for someone who wants to start baking bread from scratch, including common mistakes to avoid."

It took a while, around 15 minutes, to get the report. I presume this is because there was a massive glut of people writing about their experiences with baking in 2020.

Still, I eventually had an accessible yet comprehensive bread-baking guide that even included troubleshooting tips for issues like overly dense dough or uneven rising. It suggested easy starter recipes, explained the science behind yeast fermentation in simple terms, and even included advice on necessary equipment that wouldn’t cost too much.

Purchase power

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

The infinite ocean of online shopping choices can instantly overwhelm the most decisive person. I love the idea of a personal shopping guru who can show their work on what to buy.

So I started by asking Deep Research to, "Compare the top-rated robot vacuums under $300, considering user reviews, battery life, cleaning ability, and ease of maintenance."

Deep Research dove into the specs, scoured customer experiences, and filtered through the noise to deliver a report that helped. It laid out the differences between leading models with real clarity. Within minutes, I knew exactly which vacuum would keep my floors spotless without emptying my wallet. With Deep Research, you might finally get rid of much of that shopping stress.

Nerding out

(Image credit: Andrew_t8 / Pixabay)

We've all spiraled down internet rabbit holes chasing our curiosity, emerging bleary-eyed but fascinated hours later. Deep Research offers a much more efficient and satisfying way to scratch your intellectual itch. It's probably one of the best parts of ChatGPT.

For instance, I was thinking about early printing compared to today's flood of digital content, so I asked Deep Research to "Give an accessible but detailed overview of how the printing press influenced European society and culture in the 15th century."

After half an hour, Deep Research produced an engaging summary highlighting key historical events across the Renaissance and Reformation. It detailed how printed texts democratized knowledge, spurred literacy, and even reshaped politics and religion, all explained clearly enough to satisfy casual history buffs without overwhelming them.

I decided I wanted another flavor of nerdy fun on an intriguing subject, without totally grasping it. I requested that the AI "Simplify and explain quantum computing and its possible impacts in everyday life over the next decade."

After a surprisingly shorter time than the printing press request, ChatGPT had a report that could help me understand things like quantum bits and entanglement. It thoughtfully speculated on near-future applications like drug discovery, cybersecurity, and even predicting traffic patterns, basically delivering a compact TED Talk tailored just for me.

Now, of course, Deep Research isn’t without limitations. It can occasionally stumble, serving up overly confident but incorrect responses. Deep Research’s dependency on publicly available internet content means controversial or rapidly evolving topics may present challenges. But these shortcomings don’t overshadow the immense practical value and ease of use this feature offers

In a world increasingly overloaded with questionable information and digital noise, having a reliable, thorough, and easy-to-use tool like ChatGPT Deep Research genuinely feels like having a brilliant, ever-ready assistant waiting at your beck and call.

You might also like

• I can get answers from ChatGPT, but Deep Research gives me a whole dissertation I'll almost never need
• I tried Deep Research on ChatGPT, and it’s like a super smart but slightly absent-minded librarian from a children’s book
• OpenAI confirms 400 million weekly ChatGPT users - here's 5 great ways to use the world’s most popular AI chatbot

Samsung Music Frame: One-minute review

I love the idea of hiding a speaker in plain sight – in fact, I refuse to have bookshelf speakers because I really don’t like how they look on my, well, bookshelf and, despite offering great sound, I’m not too enthused by the design of the best wireless speakers either. Call me fussy, but when Samsung launched the Music Frame, it looked like something that would fit right into my home – playing my tunes and potentially showcasing my photography as well.

I’m impressed by how well built the Samsung Music Frame is, but weighing in at close to five kilos, I’m hesitant to wall mount it. Moreover, as a renter in Sydney, Australia, I’m not allowed to bore a hole in my wall, so I can’t really comment on how well it would perform with sound waves bouncing off a hard surface directly behind it. That said, Samsung thoughtfully provides a dampener in the box precisely for this purpose. It still looks lovely on its stand.

Changing the artwork is easy, but you have to have photos or images that would look good within a 8x8 inch square space – as a nature photographer who typically shoots in a 4:3 aspect ratio, it was hard to find one of my own prints to fit within the Music Frame.

To match its lovely design, Samsung has managed to make a speaker that fills a large room with sound. The Music Frame can get quite loud, much louder than the Ikea Symfonisk Picture Frame Wi-Fi speaker, with strong, expansive sound. And there are plenty of wireless streaming options to choose from, so it doesn’t have to be part of Samsung’s SmartThings ecosystem to work as a standalone speaker, but the app is necessary for the initial setup.

What it lacks is detailed and dynamic sound. While it’s just bassy enough for the average listener who isn’t too fussed about the soundstage to enjoy some tunes or pair with a Samsung The Frame TV, it will be a disappointment to anyone who cares about sound quality and wants to use it as a standalone speaker.

Also taking into consideration that the front panel isn’t a digital screen that would display, say, album art or double as a digital photo frame, I am struggling to justify its price.

There's no denying that the Samsung Music Frame has 'presence' (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar) Samsung Music Frame review: price & release date

• Made its debut at CES 2024; launched in April 2024
• List price: $399.99 / £399 / AU$699

The Samsung Music Frame isn’t brand new – it made its public debut at CES in January 2024, then was released to select markets in April that year. It became a bit more widely available later in 2024 and can be picked up for $399.99 / £399 / AU$699 at full price.

Samsung was offering a discount in some countries when the Music Frame launched and, since then, we have seen offers that make the speaker a little more affordable. For example, I’ve seen the price drop to as low as $150 in the US and AU$499 in Australia.

While you can display printed photos within the Music Frame, compatible acrylic panels can be ordered from select third parties for an additional cost, plus shipping, but note that you may need to keep the rear studs safe or source more to reattach the new artwork panel back into the Frame.

Samsung Music Frame review: specs Samsung Music Frame review: features

• SmartThings app required for setup
• Dolby Atmos support with two-channel output
• Built-in Q-Symphony support

The Music Frame’s feature set is quite impressive on paper, perhaps exactly what you want from a “lifestyle” product (as Samsung calls it) to widen its appeal. From plenty of wireless streaming options – including AirPlay 2 and Google Cast – to built-in voice assistant support for Alexa but, strangely, not Samsung’s own assistant Bixby, there's a lot going on here.

You can’t get things started without Samsung’s SmartThings app, though, and that requires you to create a Samsung account or use an existing one. Setup from there on in is very simple and I had no issues when using a Samsung phone or an iPhone – just following the onscreen steps will take you about 30 seconds to get going.

You’re also going to need the app to get the best sound setup too. You can play around with the seven-band equalizer in the Standard mode within the app, but if you opt for the Music or Adaptive Sound mode, you only get bass and treble controls.

Image 1 of 2

You need the SmartThings app for initial setup, whether on Andriod or iOS... (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)Image 2 of 2

..then choose the best options and settings for your use case (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

That done, you have the choice to pair the speaker with your phone or tablet via Bluetooth 5.2 or cast via the built-in Chromecast. iPhone or iPad users will immediately see AirPlay as an option when they open the Apple Music app, but you also get Spotify Connect and Tidal Connect support, all of which are better than using Bluetooth connectivity due to a slight lag that’s evident when using the SmartThings app as they pass control of streaming to the speaker itself rather than using the phone. Despite this tiny lag, I never experienced any connection dropout during my weeks-long testing, which probably says something about how well Samsung has executed the connectivity options.

There’s Dolby Atmos support too, although it comes with a major caveat: it’s received only via Wi-Fi – there’s no HDMI ARC/eARC port here and the optical input isn’t Atmos compatible – and works with only select Samsung TVs with a two-channel output. That means you can’t use this as a soundbar alternative, but you can set it up as an additional speaker for Samsung The Frame TV or the Samsung QN95D, even as a pair if you have the cash to spare for a second Music Frame.

Samsung's Adaptive Sound feature didn't work when there were power-tool noises just outside the window (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

Tap-to-Play is also available but, again, it only works with compatible Samsung phones. I had the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 during my testing, which is supposed to be compatible, but no amount of tapping anywhere on the Music Frame triggered the functionality. Another feature Samsung promises is on board is its AI-powered Adaptive Sound technology, which adjusts clarity and volume in real time to any changes in ambient sound and, once again, I didn’t notice any changes when a landscaper outside my window was using a power tool.

What I did enjoy, however, is playing music through both my Ikea Symfonisk Picture Frame and the Music Frame for bigger stereo sound. Thanks, AirPlay!

• Features score: 4 / 5

Samsung Music Frame review: sound quality

• Loud, room-filling sound
• Decently bassy, but lacks the meatiness offered by other brands
• Sound lacks detail and nuance

To match the impressive connectivity and streaming options, the Music Frame has a heck of a lot of power, although Samsung doesn’t reveal how much. However, the six drivers with built-in amplification in the Music Frame belt out a lot of volume. The first tune I played on the speaker immediately after setting it up – Gimme All Your Love by Alabama Shakes via Google Cast from the aforementioned Galaxy Z Flip 5 – it was LOUD with the volume set at level 17, enough to make me want to turn it down a notch. The louder it got, though, the muddier the audio sounded.

It looks like there are just two speakers in the rear of the Music Frame, but there are, in fact, six (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

Several music streaming apps, like Apple Music and Tidal, don’t have built-in volume controls and I found that, when using the Samsung phone’s controls, each incremental increase or decrease made a significant difference. It was a different experience when using an iPhone 13 Pro’s volume control (streaming via AirPlay 2), where the changes were smoother and more appealing.

Out of the box, the Music Frame offers decent bass but, compared to the 2024 Beats Pill Bluetooth speaker and the Ikea Symfonisk Picture Frame, it can sound airy (or tinny if you prefer) with the high-mid frequencies being the focus. You can adjust this via the bass control or the equalizer in the SmartThings app, but I struggled to find my sweet spot.

Pro Tip

I got the best sound using the Music mode within the SmartThings app, along with the SpaceFit Sound feature turned on.

The Music mode on the SmartThings app adds warmth to the music, while SpaceFit Sound uses the speaker’s built-in mic to analyze the room and adjust the sound accordingly. It will work wonders for the average listener by improving the vocals on a track, but it might still disappoint if you really care about good overall audio as it lacks detail. For example, Ellie King’s Ain’t Gonna Drown sounds good but not great as it doesn’t deliver the dynamic contrasts in her vocals. JJ Cale’s Magnolia sounds flat, lacking the wistfulness and melancholy I normally associate with it.

I accidentally also found out that there’s some muffling due to the front artwork panel. This happened when I was listening to KD Lang’s After The Gold Rush, and decided on a whim I would try to swap out the artwork while still playing. The track lacked depth but, once the front panel came off, it sounded better.

I like the look of the Samsung Music Frame (right), but prefer the audio quality of the Ikea Symfonisk Picture Frame (left) (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

Listening to Dolby Atmos tracks like M.I.A’s Marigold and Freddie Hubbard’s Weaver of Dreams is immersive, but I’ve experienced better from the Sonos Era 300, although Sonos is known for putting details front and center. This is exacerbated by the fact that, when playing a Dolby Atmos track, its volume level dips significantly – I had to bump up the volume by five levels to get the same effect when listening to other tracks. The best way to enjoy Dolby Atmos here would be to make it part of an existing setup, combining it with a soundbar.

As much as I appreciate its room-filling performance, I expected better overall sound quality from a premium wireless speaker that costs more than several of its competitors.

• Sound quality score: 3 / 5

The stand for the Samsung Music Frame is demure and not an eyesore (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar) Samsung Music Frame review: design

• Beautiful design with thin bezels and hidden controls
• Removable frame panel to change artwork, but cost of customization can add up
• Can be wall mounted, but the cable might be an eyesore

I might have been disappointed by the sound from the Music Frame, but I really love the design. It’s not as square as it appears, measuring 35cm along the base and stands 36cm high. It’s about 14cm thick and has a heft to it, tipping the scales at over 9lbs / 4.5kg. I’d be hesitant to wall-mount it as Samsung provides just the one screw for it to hang off, but its corners are sharp too. If it gets nudged off its perch for any reason – even if it’s on its stand – it can cause injury to toddlers and pets.

I love that stand, though – it’s easy to slip on but not remove (which is probably a good thing), and it doesn’t stand out, if you get my drift. So all your attention is on the actual Music Frame.

The thin black bezels surrounding the matte acrylic panel makes for a great aesthetic, but if you don’t like the dark border, Samsung will sell you white snap-on panels for an additional cost – although this is only available in select markets.

Image 1 of 2

Removing the art panel isn't difficult... (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)Image 2 of 2

..and it doesn't take much effort to change the print inside, if you have one that will fit (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

Removing the top panel to change the artwork isn’t difficult, but it requires a little elbow grease and best done by placing the speaker flat on its back. People with slim fingers will find it easy to get a grip on an edge, but I wish Samsung had included a pry tool to help those of us with sausage fingers. The panel is held in place by ball studs that fit into sockets on the black frame, and a removable plastic sheet on its rear allows you to change the artwork. While the panel measures 13x13 inches, only the central 8x8 inch cutout will showcase the artwork. Samsung says you can use 8x10 or 8x8 inch prints, but I suspect that using a print smaller than the actual size of the panel will give it room to slide around inside and look misaligned.

The Music Frame comes with a generic image pre-installed, but you’ll find an extra one in the box. I had hoped to use a print of one of my own photos, but none that I had handy would fit the frame. Samsung has partnered with some third parties to make custom acrylic panels that you can order and get shipped to you but, again, this customization will cost extra and you’ll need to bear the shipping cost too.

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You can barely see the indicator lights as they're practically hidden in the gap between the art panel and the frame (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)Image 2 of 3

You can use a SmartThings Dongle (middle port) here, but it needs to be purchased separately (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)Image 3 of 3

The visible part of the power cable is a light one, but it does have an adapter and a thicker cable (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

I asked Samsung why the front panel wasn’t a digital screen to use as a photo frame or at least display album art of the track being played, and I was told the cost would increase. I’m not entirely sold on this argument, but if we can have smart displays like the Amazon Echo Show 15, it’s doable and would likely broaden the appeal of the Music Frame. The Frame TV already has the ability to display digital wallpapers and I wish Samsung had figured out how to carry that over to the speaker too.

It’s important to note that the Music Frame will need to remain plugged into the mains to work, so you get a thin, kinda translucent cable in the box that will go into a small power brick connected to a thick black power cord. While I’m really not a fan of power bricks, I appreciate that the thin cable isn’t as noticeable as the one of the Ikea Symfonisk Picture Frame, and the heavy cable and adapter can be tucked away.

The physical controls, in the form of four buttons are hidden away on a rear edge, which makes them hard to see. They’re also extremely sensitive and even the lightest touch can change the volume, switch the mic on or off, or switch sources (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, optical). Plus, every time you press one, indicator lights that are also tucked away between panel and the frame light up. There is no play/pause option here, so you are left with using the app’s controls for that.

The back of the unit looks like it only has two speakers, but there are six hiding underneath, playing through two channels. Plus there are three ports: the optical input, a USB port for the SmartThings dongle to connect to an existing smart home setup, and the power input.

• Design score: 4.5 / 5

The Samsung Music Frame looks lovely no matter where you place it (Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar) Samsung Music Frame review: value

• Retails for a price higher than several premium big-brand wireless speakers
• You’d expect excellent performance at this price point
• Falls short against the competition in both price and performance

With a retail price of $399.99 / £399 / AU$699, the Samsung Music Frame doesn’t come cheap. When discounted, though, it might be worth considering, provided the offer available at the time of purchase undercuts the competition significantly.

That said, if you’re an audiophile or, at the very least, a discerning listener, you might well be disappointed by the lack of detail from the Music Frame. In comparison, the Ikea Symfonisk Picture Frame Wi-Fi Speaker with Sonos sound is only $199 / £179 / AU$249 and, while not as loud as its Samsung counterpart, offers a more balanced and dynamic soundstage that’s also bassier.

Even some of the other best wireless speakers that the Music Frame is contending with are cheaper at full price. In our Sonos Era 100 review, for example, we said you’d get sound quality with “lots of clarity and punch” for a list price of $249 / £249 / AU$399.

Perhaps if Samsung had added a digital screen with a SmartThings interface or even just made it into a digital photo frame, it might have been easier to justify the price. If the sound quality and functionality were to be improved, I think the second-generation Music Frame could likely give the likes of Sonos a run for its money.

• Value score: 2.5 / 5

Should you buy the Samsung Music Frame? Buy it if...

You want a wireless speaker for a small space

The Music Frame is a 2-in-1 device – you don’t need an additional picture frame for your memories, and you get a speaker too.

You own a Samsung The Frame TV

Setting it up as an additional speaker for a compatible Samsung TV will make the most of the Music Frame, offering you a more engaging home cinema experience.

Don't buy it if...

You’re an audio purist

If you’re after a speaker with excellent audio, you’ll need to forgo the good looks for a speaker that was made for a more dynamic soundstage.

You’re on a tight budget

It might be hard to recommend the Music Frame at its current retail price, but if you want a good speaker sans the frame, there are plenty of options that cost less.

Samsung Music Frame review: also consider

If you’re looking for alternatives to the Samsung Music Frame, the most similar ‘lifestyle’ or ‘arty’ product would be the Ikea Symfonisk Picture Frame Wi-Fi Speaker, which is still available at most Ikea stores around the world. However, if you’re after better wireless speakers, consider the two options listed below.

JBL Authentics 200
If it’s detailed sound you’re after, the JBL Authentics range is where you should be focusing. While there’s an expensive model that would be out of reach for most people, the Authentics 200 balances price, features and sound performance marvelously well. While it costs less than the Music Frame, it does have a rather retro boxy look that may not be to everyone’s liking.

Read our full JBL Authentics 200 review for more details

Sonos Era 100
For a smaller speaker that won’t look too out of place in most homes, consider the Sonos Era 100. It packs quite the mighty punch, though, with detailed sound and boosted bass, not to mention a plethora of sources available too. And it will cost you a lot less than the Samsung Music Frame too.

Read our in-depth Sonos Era 100 review to learn more

How I tested the Samsung Music Frame

• Listened to it nearly every day for six weeks in different rooms
• Used AirPlay 2 on an Apple iPhone 13 Pro and cast using the SmartThings app on a Samsung Galaxy Flip 5
• Predominantly streamed from Apple Music, but also tried Spotify and Tidal

(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

I’ve had the Samsung Music Frame in my apartment for about six weeks at the time of publication and, in that time, tested the speaker in various rooms, including an open-plan living and dining area. During this time, the Music Frame became my primary speaker, replacing the Ikea Symfonisk Picture Frame Wi-Fi Speaker. I also had the opportunity to compare the audio with two Bluetooth speakers – the 2024 Beats Pill and the JBL Charge 4.

While I predominantly listen to the blues, I played a wide variety of genres through the Music Frame, mostly via the Apple Music app on an iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5. I also briefly streamed via the Spotify and Tidal Android apps.

I tweaked the settings in the SmartThings app – both on iOS and Android – across various genres to see how the audio changed, and even tried various bass and treble adjustments.

While I tried out as many of the features as possible, I didn’t use the built-in Alexa support very much, and there were a few other things I wasn’t able to test due to the lack of additional hardware, namely the SmartThings Dongle and a compatible Samsung TV. And due to restrictions placed on wall-mounting it in my home, I wasn’t able to test how the Music Frame sounds when hung up against a wall. I did, however, prop it up against a wall (without its stand) to emulate wall-mounting as best as possible.

Read more about how we test

[First reviewed March 2025]

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Honor Pad V9 review: One-minute review

It’s hard not to view the Honor Pad V9 through the lens of its potential as a rival to the new base-model iPad (2025) – it came out just days before (for roughly the same price), has comparable specs, and half of the best Android tablets on the market are trying to take on Apple’s market-dominating juggernauts, anyway.

The more I used the Honor Pad for this review, the more I recognized its strengths – it takes the basic iPad principle, strips away the unnecessary extras, and adds in some useful productivity tools.

Take, for example, performance: instead of burdening its tablet with more processing power than you’d ever practically be able to use, Honor has given the Pad V9 a more restrained mid-range processor. But it’s compensated with twice the storage of the basic iPad, and more RAM. From my testing, using the device felt as smooth and snappy as anyone would need it to.

Software is another important thing to note. In the tablet space, Android used to struggle compared to iOS, but a lot has changed in the last few years, with plenty of similar productivity and multi-screen features between the two operating systems. What's more, instead of burdening the slate with a million first-party apps that you may or may not ever use, Honor has only added a few useful apps to the default Pad V9 package. Some of these proved pivotal to my experience, too.

Specifically, there's a suite of pre-installed Microsoft Office-like apps that each offer some useful functions, like the ability to convert your docs into PDFs (or other file formats), compile documents from various apps, and also mark up PDFs. Where was this technology when I was doing my degree?

The Pad V9 is a dab hand at entertainment, too: it has eight speakers, unlike the iPad’s two, and I found it great for streaming music or creating a surround-sound effect when streaming movies and TV shows. The display, while only using LCD tech, supports a 144Hz refresh rate and 2.8K resolution, which should sate spec-heads.

Most of my gripes with the Honor Pad V9 are pretty minor, and ones you can level at the vast majority of Android tablets: there’s no 3.5mm headphone jack, you can’t expand the storage, and there are some irritating software quirks – I’m talking specifically about the weird design of the quick settings menu, which is unduly cramped.

Like its Apple rival, I can see the Pad V9 being useful to students, or people who need a lightweight business companion and think a laptop is too bulky. It’s not as fully featured as it needs to be to be classed as a creativity powerhouse, and it’s a bit too advanced for those who want a simple on-the-go movie tool. That said, a few extras over the new base-model iPad mean it manages to beat Apple’s tablet at its own game (on paper, at least – we're currently in the process of reviewing the latter).

Honor Pad V9 review: price and availability

(Image credit: Future)

• Costs £399.99, but only on sale in limited regions
• Bundled with some accessories, depending on region

You can pick up the Honor Pad V9 for £399.99 (roughly $515, AU$820) in the UK. At the time of writing, it’s only on sale in a handful of European countries, as well as in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, though Honor does sell some tech in the US and Australia.

The device you get varies by country. In the UK, there’s only one variant on sale, which has 8GB RAM and 256GB storage, and you get a flip cover and stylus included in the box. Other countries have different combinations of storage, memory, and bundled accessories. So, in the interests of fairness, I’ve treated the tablet as independent of its accessories when weighing up its value.

At the time of writing, Honor's website (in the UK, at least) doesn't actually list any accessories to buy individually. So make sure you don't lose or break the ones you get in the box, because replacements may be hard to find.

The price roughly puts the slate in the mid-range of Android tablets, a fact reflected in its positioning in Honor’s line-up: it beats the Honor Pad 9 and Honor Pad X9, but doesn’t match the Honor MagicPad 2. For context, Apple’s new base-model iPad starts at $349 / £329/AU$599 for 128GB storage.

Its price marks the Honor Pad V9 as pretty good value for money when you consider its specs and features. It doesn’t quite veer right into ‘drop what you're doing and buy it now!’ territory, but if you find a deal that reduces its price tag by a healthy margin, I'd say it's a must-buy.

The Honor Pad V9 was announced at the global tech expo MWC 2025 in February 2025, and went on sale shortly afterwards.

• Value: 4 / 5

Honor Pad V9 review: specs

Here are the Honor Pad V9's specs at a glance:

Honor Pad V9 review: design

(Image credit: Future)

• Lightweight and easy to carry or hold
• USB-C port but no 3.5mm jack
• Camera bump creates some wobble

Honor hasn't shaken up the tablet world with the V9's design, but it echoes the premium cleanliness of iPads (and most other Android tablets on the market right now).

The dimensions of the Honor Pad V9 are 259.1 x 176.1 x 6.1mm – yes, it’s nice and thin, so it won’t take up much space in a backpack. It weighs 475g, so it’s pretty light, and I found it easy to hold for long periods of time (at least, the length of time it takes to watch a movie in bed).

You can pick up the tablet in gray or white, and as you can see in the images included throughout this review, my sample was a gray model.

(Image credit: Future)

When holding the tablet in landscape, the power button is on the left edge while the volume rocker is on the top-left corner. There’s a USB-C port on the right edge but no headphone jack to speak of. Holding the slate in this orientation means that the front-facing camera is in the top bar of the bezel, which I find to be the best positioning for video calls.

On the back are two circular mounds. One, which barely sticks up from the surface of the slate, houses the flash, while the second holds the camera lens. It doesn’t stick too far up, but it does mean the slate has a little wobble when put flat on a table.

As far as I can tell, the Honor Pad V9 doesn’t have an IP rating against dust or water ingress, so keep it protected.

You can get some extra use out of the Pad V9 with some accessories; the slate supports a keyboard folio and a stylus, the latter of which comes with its own features. As mentioned, though, I didn’t receive either, so didn’t test them, and can only see them on sale in some regions. In other regions, they come bundled with the tablet in various combinations – it’s a bit confusing, in all honesty. If you can’t pick up the keyboard or stylus in your region, it’s very possible that third-party equivalents will go on sale before too long.

• Design: 4 / 5

Honor Pad V9 review: display

(Image credit: Future)

• Large 11.5-inch display
• 1840 x 2800 resolution and 144Hz refresh rate
• Range of eye comfort overlays

The Honor Pad V9 is pretty big, as mid-range Android tablets go – don’t go taking that ‘9’ in the title to be its screen size. Instead, the display measures 11.5 inches diagonally.

The display has a 2800 x 1840 pixel count, which is billed by Honor as a 2.8K resolution, and it supports a refresh rate of up to 144Hz (though you'll struggle to find an app or game that supports such a high figure). I couldn’t find a figure on the max brightness but suffice it to say, it’s really bright.

The screen uses LCD tech so it’s not got the same contrast or sharpness that your phone (or a more premium tablet) may have, but this kind of display is easier to see in direct sunlight if you’re working, say, in a well-lit cafe or coffee shop. And Honor is clearly pulling out all the stops to ensure it’s still valid as a streaming device.

(Image credit: Future)

The brand touts that the screen supports DCI-P3 color gamut and 10-bit color (basically, it can show a wide range of colors, making videos look realistic) and it’s also certified by IMAX Enhanced. This basically means that it reaches a set of standards in the visual and audio departments to accurately play IMAX content – this is mostly available on Disney Plus, according to IMAX’s website, though Bravia Core, iQIYI, and Rakuten TV also have some such content.

Like most rivals, Honor offers a few screen modes to benefit eye comfort or battery life. These include eBook mode (which makes the display grayscale), eye comfort (which reduces the prevalence of blue colors), and Dark mode (you've probably used this before, and it's a decent battery-saving option).

• Display: 4.5 / 5

Honor Pad V9 review: software

(Image credit: Future)

• Android 15 with MagicOS 9.0 laid over the top
• Range of useful pre-baked working apps
• A few user interface quirks to be ironed out

The default software for the Honor Pad V9 is MagicOS 9.0 – that’s Honor’s own skin, which is based on Android 15, and while it’s largely a graphical overhaul of Android, it brings a few useful extras.

One of these is Honor Docs, a pre-installed suite of document processing apps that look near-identical to the Microsoft Office equivalents (and may actually be them). There are extra tools, too, like the ability to convert various documents to PDF and the aggregation of documents across your tablet into one place, no matter their file format.

If you’re buying the Pad V9 for productivity reasons, I can see these tools being a core part of your user experience, and it was pretty handy to have them pre-installed on the tablet. They'll be especially useful for students, or people who already own Honor tech, as docs will be shared between devices.

(Image credit: Future)

Android software used to be poorly implemented on tablets, but in 2025, that’s not the case, with useful features that make the most of the large display size. It's still not perfect, though.

Case in point, the quick-settings menu on the Pad V9, which is summoned when you swipe down from the top-right edge of the screen, is unnecessarily cramped and clustered. It makes it rather hard to use, and I don’t see a reason why it has to be shoved so far to the side. Hopefully, an update can fix this. You can see it in the image above, and I don't understand why it can't be a bit wider to use more of the empty screen space.

All tech companies tout ‘AI features’ nowadays, and Honor has a few too, like the ability to create meeting minutes from your notes, summarize documents, or automatically add typesetting. They’re pretty light-touch, but that’s how I like it, and Honor hasn’t staked the entire use case of its tablet on a few AI features.

• Software: 4 / 5

Honor Pad V9 review: performance and cameras

(Image credit: Future)

• MediaTek Dimensity 8350 Elite offers middling processing power
• 8GB RAM and 256GB storage (depending on region)
• Impressive octo-speaker offering

Powering the Honor Pad V9 is a MediaTek chipset called the Dimensity 8350 Elite. Despite the name, this is a mid-range chipset that we’ve seen in a few Oppo phones and tablets before.

Multi-core benchmark results attest to this: over multiple tests, I got an average score of 4409, while the best chipsets on phones and tablets right now reach up to 6000. That goes to show that this is a tablet designed more for streaming and working than intensive processing.

Most games I tested on the tablet ran just fine, but noticeably not as snappily or quick as tablets or phones running top chipsets. When graphical options were available, I didn’t push to the top graphics due to fear of how the slate would respond, and the same was true of framerate. So, the Pad V9 will be fine for gamers, but there are better options out there.

(Image credit: Future)

The slate has various memory configurations depending on where you live. In the UK, it’s on sale in a sole 256GB storage and 8GB RAM model, but the version I tested had 12GB RAM, and certain regions have models ranging from 128GB to 512GB storage. There’s no memory card slot, so you’ll have to stick to the storage of whichever variant you pick up.

I mentioned earlier that the tablet is IMAX Enhanced; that extends to the speakers too, with a whopping eight of them around the slate (on other tablets, you’re lucky to get four). They make movies and TV shows sound a little bit better, with audio spread out to the left and right as well as up and down (depending on the video you watch). However, the max volume isn’t exactly deafening – streaming a movie in bed was fine, but when I tried to put on some Netflix while I was cooking, I sometimes struggled to hear what was being said over the various cooking noises.

On the camera front, you’re looking at a 13MP rear camera and an 8MP front-facer. They’re fit for scanning documents, conducting video calls, and facial recognition, but you’re not exactly going to take artistic snaps with sensors like these. There was noticeable noise in darker areas of pictures (even fairly well-lit ones), and I couldn’t see a difference in images taken in portrait mode versus the standard mode.

• Performance: 3.5 / 5

Honor Pad V9 review: battery

(Image credit: Future)

• 10,100mAh battery will see you through multiple days of use
• 33W charging is slow for a battery of this size

The Honor Pad V9 packs a 10,100mAh battery, which is a sliver bigger than the ones seen on some comparably priced rivals.

Practically, this gets you about two days of heavy use before the tablet needs to be charged. In my testing period, which saw me replicate my usual tablet use (some word processing here, a movie night there, and a fair amount of music streaming), I reached about five days of charge before the slate needed powering up.

If there’s a slight disappointment with the Pad V9's battery, it’s the charging speed, which caps at 35W – on the global release of the slate, at least, though the Chinese version gets 66W. You’re looking at a charging time of several hours to fill that big battery, so remember to plug it in early if it needs a charge!

I found it easiest to charge the tablet up in dribs and drabs, so I could ensure it always had some charge, but never needed to part with it for an entire working day.

• Battery: 4/5

Should you buy the Honor Pad V9? Buy it if…

You're a student
If I'd bought the Honor Pad V9 when I was a student, I'd have saved hours of wrangling various apps and trying to use various features that the tablet can handle out the gate.View Deal

You like streaming movies and TV
Its display is good, but its speakers are great: the Honor Pad V9 is dependable for streaming entertainment.View Deal

You want an iPad, but running Android
Are you an Android fan who wants an iPad-like tablet? The Honor Pad V9 is one of your best picks, and it roughly matches its Apple rivals in price.View Deal

Don’t buy it if…

You need lots of storage space
While the Honor's 256GB built-in memory is extensive, that's all you'll get without relying on cloud space or external hard drives.View Deal

You like wired audio
There's no 3.5mm headphone jack on this tablet, so audiophiles will have to rely on USB-C converters, which can be annoying if you also want to charge the slate.View Deal

Also consider

Not convinced by the Honor Pad V9? Here are a few other options to consider:

iPad 11 (2025)
The natural rival, Apple's newest iPad will win fans simply by being an iOS device. But it's more expensive (when considering like-for-like storage), doesn't offer the same speaker quality, and will make you pay more for accessories. We've currently got the device in for review, so we'll have a full verdict on its quality soon.

Oppo Pad 3 Pro
For only a little bit more, you can get Oppo's new tablet, which boasts a more powerful chipset, a higher-res display, and faster charging.

Read our full Oppo Pad 3 Pro review

How I tested the Honor Pad V9

I tested the Honor Pad V9 by using it in lieu of my normal tablet (an iPad Pro from years ago) for several weeks, for all the tasks I normally use my iPad for.

This included typing up and editing documents, watching movies, playing games, and checking out the news. The model I tested had 12GB RAM and 256GB storage, and I used it without first-party accessories.

I've been reviewing products for TechRadar since early 2019, covering everything from tablets and smartphones to headphones, fitness trackers, and electric scooters.

Why you can trust TechRadar

☑️ 100s of smartphones reviewed
☑️ 15 years of product testing
☑️ Over 16,000 products reviewed in total
☑️ Nearly 200,000 hours testing tech

First reviewed March 2025

Sennheiser HD 505: two-minute review

The new Sennheiser HD 505is a refresh of one of the cornerstones of its model ranges: entry-level, open-backed, hard-wired over-ear headphones. This new design uses a variation on a proven transducer, and makes pragmatic choices where materials are concerned to produce a headphone that’s light, comfortable and built to last.

The Sennheiser HD 505 are fine-sounding headphones in many ways, too. The open-backed element of the design of these headphones allows them to sound open and expansive, and they’re organized and authoritative too.

Their tonal balance is just somehow correct, their frequency response is judicious and they have the sort of dynamic headroom that allows the changes in volume or intensity in your favorite recordings to be completely apparent.

They’re far from the last word in bass heft or punch, though – so despite the amount of low-frequency detail they reveal and the naturalistic way they have with rhythms and tempos, there’s no doubt some listeners will want more, bass-wise, than the HD 505 are prepared to give.

Those listeners are invited to check out other options among the best wired headphones – and notably the company’s own HD 600, which have been around long enough to be available at regular discounts that bring them very close to the price of the HD 505.

The rest of us, though, can just go ahead and marvel at how open, revealing and, yes, entertaining the HD 505 sound.

(Image credit: Future) Sennheiser HD 505 review: Price and release date

• Release date: February 10th 2025
• Price: $249 / £229 / AU$449

Obviously the HD 505 have had no time to become any more affordable, so they find themselves competing with the likes of Beyerdynamic (with its DT 900 Pro X) and Grado (with its SR325x). They also, rather unfortunately, find themselves competing with their HD 600 siblings, which have had plenty of time to come down from their £399 launch price to something much closer to HD 505 money…

Sennheiser HD 505 review: Specs

(Image credit: Future) Sennheiser HD 505 review: Features

• 38mm dynamic drivers
• 1.8m cable with 3.5mm/6.3mm termination
• 120Ω nominal impedance

Given that this is a fairly affordable pair of wired over-ear headphones, you shouldn’t really expect a whole host of features – and, sure enough, the HD 505 focus on the essentials. That doesn’t mean that those features aren’t entirely fit for purpose, though.

Sennheiser has drawn on the relatively long-serving 500-series transducer in an effort to maintain sonic transparency, but added a little low-end heft and substance. And the result, so it says, is that the 38mm dynamic driver design is now good for a frequency response of 12Hz - 39kHz – which in layman’s terms is ‘extremely deep’ to ‘very high indeed’.

A nominal impedance of 120Ω isn’t the most promising number you ever heard, but nevertheless the HD 505 won’t be difficult for all but the most weedy smartphone or laptop to drive.

And really, there’s only the cable left to discuss where ‘features’ are concerned. The left earcup is hard-wired with a 2.5mm jack that connects via a ‘twist and lock’ method that ensure it won't be yanked out.

At the other end of the 1.8m cable there’s a 3.5mm termination with a screw-on 6.3mm adapter supplied. It would have been nice to see a balanced cable as an option too, but I guess you can’t have everything…

• Features score: 4.5 / 5

(Image credit: Future) Sennheiser HD 505 review: Sound quality

• Detailed, dynamic and direct sound
• Spacious, organized presentation
• Will not satisfy bass-fanciers

The pluses, it’s fair to say, comfortably outweigh the minuses where the sound of the HD 505 is concerned. So while the deficiencies are not insignificant, it seems only polite with all the many things these Sennheiser cans get right.

Thanks in no small part to their open-backed configuration, the HD 505 are an expansive, wide-open listen – and they can control a soundstage just as confidently as they lay it out in the first place. Even in a recording with lots going on (Fela Kuti’s Colonial Mentality, for instance), the soundstage is properly defined and easy to follow.

Every element of the recording has a pocket of space to itself in which it can spread out and express itself, and the spaces in between are given the weighting and emphasis they deserve too.

They’re a fairly dynamic listen, too, able to put a lot of distance between the most contemplative and the most intense passages of a recording without sounding in any way stressed. They’re just as skilful when it comes to handling the dynamic aspects of harmonic variation, too – the moments of unaccompanied bass guitar during the Fela Kuti tune have their fluctuations described in eloquent fashion.

Tonality is pleasantly neutral, which allows the sound of a recording to take precedence over the sound of the headphones. Detail levels are high at every point of the frequency range – the top end is bright but substantial, and enjoys just as much variation as the swift, properly controlled bottom end.

In between, voices are given the space and the positivity to reveal the minutiae of their character and technique – a listen to Doechii’s Alligator Bites Never Heal lets you know the HD 505 are very adept indeed when it comes to allowing vocalists to properly express themselves.

The frequency range is handled with confidence, too – nothing is underrepresented, nothing is overstated, and the sweep from bottom to top and back again is smooth. But it’s at the bottom of the frequency range that the Sennheiser reveal themselves to be slightly less than the finished article.

The control of bass sounds is straight-edged and direct, so the headphones have no problem describing rhythms in a natural and unforced manner. Detail levels here, and tonal variation, are just as satisfying as they are elsewhere in the frequency range.

But there’s a definite lack of substance and weight to the bottom end, a bony and flimsy quality that is going to disappoint listeners who are used to (and probably expect) something approaching ‘punch’ from their new headphones. Certainly the Doechii album is done no favours whatsoever by this flyweight attitude.

• Sound quality score: 4 / 5

(Image credit: Future) Sennheiser HD 505 review: Design

• Covered memory foam at the contact points
• Steel mesh earcup coverings
• Concealed headband adjustment mechanism

There’s nothing especially luxurious about the Sennheiser HD 505 – they’re mostly made of plastic – but they’re built and finished to the sort of high standard the brand established ages ago.

Without the cable, they weigh just 237g, and allied to some nicely judged clamping force they prove a comfortable proposition even for longer listens. The amount of memory foam that makes up the inside of the headband (where it’s covered in synthetic leather) and the earpads (which are covered with synthetic velour) doesn’t do any harm in this respect, either.

The headband adjustment mechanism is concealed inside the headband itself, and operates with a sort of clicky positivity. The rear of the earcups is covered with a quantity of metal mesh, and carries some understated branding – but as design flourishes go, that’s going to have to do.

The details in the majority of the world are in a nice copper color – in China, there's a model with gold-colored details that certainly provides more bling.

• Design score: 4.5 / 5

(Image credit: Future) Sennheiser HD 505 review: Value

• Informative, entertaining but slightly lightweight sound
• Properly built and finished, although far from tactile
• Light and comfortable

In truth, the HD 505 aren’t much to look at, and they’re not exactly tactile either. This doesn’t mean that they’re not properly built, you understand, or that they won’t last for the long haul – and there’s always the cachet of that brand name to add to your the pride of ownership.

Add in the trim weight of the headphones and, even more so, the deftly accomplished sound they make, and there’s unarguable value for your money on offer here.

However, as I mentioned further up, you can get the Sennheiser HD 600, which are the 'step-up' versions of these headphones, for very close to the same price as these in the real world. So it's hard to say the HD 505 are the bargain of the century when the HD 600 might actually qualify for that moniker.

• Value score: 4 / 5

(Image credit: Future) Should I buy the Sennheiser HD 505? Buy them if…

You admire an open, rapid and informative sound
If this sort of money buys a more spacious sound, allied to such impressive detail levels and outright drive in a pair of headphones, I’ve yet to hear them.View Deal

You want a comfortable listen
A light (but appropriate) amount of clamping force, a relatively light weight, and well-padded headband and earcups all mean that the HD 505 are good for longer listening sessions.View Deal

Don't buy them if…

You like a bit of bass
To be fair, the HD 505 create varied, textured bass and properly control it in every circumstance. What they don’t do is punch with any sort of conviction.View Deal

You’re blessed with larger-than-average ears
A circumaural ear coupling is all well and good, but the HD 505 is on the tight side if you’ve even biggish ears…View Deal

You're in a shared space
Just because the HD 505 aren’t the leakiest open-backed headphone around, that doesn’t mean they should be worn in the office.View Deal

Sennheiser HD 505 review: Also consider

Sennheiser HD 600
You should keep an eye out for one of those occasions when the Sennheiser HD 600 dip down very close to HD 505 money – because it happens more often than you might think. They're excellent headphones for that price.View Deal

Grado SR325X
The Grado SR325X are a bit of an acquired taste where looks are concerned, but there’s no denying they’ve got it where it counts – and in a pretty big way. They're the same price as the Sennheiser HD 505, but have more of an on-ear fit, so if that's your preference, they're a great choice.View Deal

Beyerdynamic DT 900 Pro X
Notably cheaper than the HD 505 – if a rather more judicious, pseudo-studio emphasis sounds like your sort of thing, the Beyerdynamic DT 900 Pro X will work very nicely.View Deal

How I tested Sennheiser HD 505

• Connected to a FiiO M15S, to an Apple MacBook Pro and to a Naim Uniti Star
• With a lot of different types of music, from a number of different formats
• Alone, of course, because to do otherwise would be rude

‘Quiet time’ is necessary to listen to the Sennheiser HD 505, if for no other reason than they let a distracting amount of sound leak out of the back of their earcups, as all open-back cans do.

So I sat at my desk with them attached to my laptop and to my digital audio player (via its unbalanced output, tragically) and sat rather more comfortably with the headphones attached to a network streamer that also preamplified a turntable and a CD player.

So lots of different formats were available, as were lots of different types of music – and a week of this (on and off) was long enough to learn all there is to know about these headphones.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed: March 2025

Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G: two-minute review

Every lens comes with some kind of compromise, but Sony’s done well to disguise it on the FE 16mm F1.8 G. Yes, it lacks the versatility of a wide-angle zoom like the FE 16-35mm F2.8 GM II. But if you’re in the market for a super wide-angle prime with plenty of creative potential, it’s a real box-ticker.

You’ve got the 16mm focal length favored by architecture and landscape fans, plus a fast f/1.8 aperture to satisfy night-sky enthusiasts. You’ve got speedy autofocus and a good set of manual controls. Then you’ve got the dimensions: Sony has cleverly packaged the FE 16mm F1.8 G to make it a lens that’s easy to travel with. All at a price that’s firmly in the reasonable bracket.

Sony might be marketing its 16mm prime at your traditional wide-angle users, but that list makes it a compelling proposition for anyone keen to experiment with a wider field of view. So where’s the catch?

In the minor category, there are a couple of marks against the FE 16mm F1.8 G. To achieve its low weight and matching price, Sony has used a fair amount of plastic in the build. And while it’s a moisture-resistant lens, it doesn’t have full weather seals. But this isn’t a G Master lens. For the money, neither one of those factors should be a dealbreaker.

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What could be is the barrel distortion. While prime optics mean the FE 16mm F1.8 G can shoot sharp in the center at its widest aperture, detail drops off to softness in the corners. This is because of how much correction is taking place at the very edges of the frame. Shoot in RAW and you’ll need to compensate quite heavily, costing you sharpness in the stretched pixels.

While this reliance on lens corrections might not sit well with purists, Sony is not alone in leaving software to address optical imperfections. Nor is it an issue which only affects prime glass. It’s a growing trend among wide-angle lenses as a whole, as we found in our review of the Canon RF 15-35mm F2.8L IS USM. Sony’s own FE 16-35mm F2.8 GM II is guilty of it, too.

In reality, if you’re willing to live with some corner softness, the FE 16mm F1.8 G is an excellent super wide-angle prime for the price. Shooting at f/1.8 not only lets you make the most of the available light, but also allows you to play with defocused backgrounds when your subject is close to the lens.

It’s true that videographers and travel photographers will probably be better served by a 16-35mm zoom, even if that means accepting a slower maximum aperture. The Sony FE 16-35mm F2.8 GM II has the versatility to cover both wide angles and tighter 35mm street shots with edge-to-edge detail. For those who want get creative at 16mm, though, the FE 16mm F1.8 G isn’t far off the sweet spot.

Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G specs Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G: Design

• Compact and lightweight for a wide-angle prime
• Protected against dust and moisture
• Tactile focus and aperture control rings

It’s not a pancake prime, but Sony’s done some very clever packaging to keep the FE 16mm F1.8 G compact. By super wide-angle standards, this is about as small as they come with an f/1.8 aperture. It weighs in at a very manageable 10.7oz / 304g and measures just 73.8 x 75 mm (or roughly 3 inches on each axis). That makes it almost 10mm shorter than the Sony FE 20mm F1.8G.

Its lean build is achieved in part by use of plastic in the construction. The result is a barrel that doesn’t feel especially premium, but Sony hasn’t done a cheap job either. There’s no sense that corners have been cut here: the body is creak-free and the controls are nicely tactile. While you don’t get the weather seals of the G Master series, resistance against dust and moisture also adds to the sense of robustness.

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The overall impression is one of functionality. That extends to the controls, most of which are thoughtfully placed within a finger’s reach. This is an easy lens to feel your way around one-handed. A few touches help to elevate the user experience above that of a basic prime, too: you’ve got a switch which gives you the option of clicked or smooth aperture ring rotation, for example, plus a programmable function button.

Some users might like a little more weight to the manual focus ring, but the resistance of the aperture ring feels perfectly judged. Together with switches for focus mode and Iris Lock, the FE 16mm F1.8 G is a lovely lens to use. It paired neatly with a Sony A7C II body in testing for a convenient wide-angle shooting setup.

Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G: Performance

• Fixed ultra-wide 16mm focal length
• Fast f/1.8 maximum aperture
• Rapid autofocus with two linear motors

Frame up with the FE 16mm F1.8 G and you’ll instantly see just how wide a 16mm focal length really is. Whether you’re shooting buildings, interiors or landscapes, this is a lens designed to give you dramatic perspectives. And thanks to its wide maximum aperture, you can shoot those perspectives in a range of scenarios.

At f/1.8, this is pretty fast glass. Fast enough to capture sharp results in low lighting, whether that’s an evening street scene or a starry sky. Sony reckons the FE 16mm F1.8 G is a good option for astrophotography. Paired with a full-frame Sony E-mount camera, the 16mm’s light-gathering abilities certainly mean you can make the most of any available lumens.

The wide aperture also means you can play with a very shallow depth of field. The effect is strongest when shooting close-ups: with the right composition, you can draw a near subject into clear focus against a striking defocused background. This impression is enhanced by the fact that the wide field of view includes more of the backdrop than a standard macro lens.

Bokeh could be smoother and we did encounter some false color in blurred backgrounds. All the same, its close-focusing abilities add an additional string to the bow of Sony’s super wide-angle prime. It’s not a macro lens, but with a minimum focus distance of just 0.15m, the FE 16mm F1.8 G lets you get very close.

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It helps that the autofocus system is rapid in all conditions. Driven by dual linear motors, focusing response is pretty much instant. That’s just as true up close and in low light as it is when shooting big subjects in broad daylight. Paired with a Sony A7C II, the lens demonstrated a commendable hit rate, giving no reason to doubt that it would find its target.

All of that translates to video, too. It’s easy to see why Sony touts the FE 16mm F1.8 G as a lens with vlogging potential. Its ultra-wide focal length and close-focusing abilities are both well-suited to self-shot videography, allowing users to comfortably record themselves at arm’s length. The proportions of the lens itself also make it easy to wield when paired with a vlogging-first camera like the Sony ZV-E1.

Focus breathing is kept to a minimum: shift focus while recording and the field of view stays consistent enough for most eyes. If you have a compatible Sony body, you can use the breathing compensation function to eradicate it entirely by applying a slight crop. Shooting video with a 16:9 aspect ratio also crops out any softness in the corners from the application of distortion correction (see below).

Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G: sample images

Images shot with the Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G are broadly superb. As with most prime lenses, there’s a sweet spot in the aperture range that nets you edge-to-edge sharpness with no vignetting. That’s exactly what you’ll find at f/4.

Wide open at f/1.8, the story is a little bit different. There’s some minor vignetting evident in RAW stills, which can be addressed in post or reduced significantly by stopping down to f/2.8. That’s unless you want the effect to complement the wide-angle look, leading the eye to the center of the frame.

More problematic is barrel distortion. This isn’t a surprise for such a wide-angle prime, but the result is a loss of detail where correction stretches pixels in the corners. Whether this is applied in-camera to JPEG stills or in the edit for RAW files, the result is the same: softness at the far reaches of the frame.

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How much this loss of corner clarity is an issue will often come down to the composition. Naturally, the results of distortion correction are less noticeable when the area is defocused. In any case, you still get excellent center sharpness at f/1.8 and resolution remains decent across the frame up to f/11. Venture beyond that and you’ll find that sharpness drops off significantly, particularly as you approach f/22.

In stills captured facing into the sun, the FE 16mm F1.8 G displays a strong ability to deal with backlighting. There can be some washout at the widest apertures, but contrast is retained at f/4. The lens also keeps flaring under tight control and renders soft but attractive sunstars at narrower apertures.

Should you buy the Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G? Buy it if...

You want to shoot wide angles in different lights

Thanks to its fast maximum aperture, Sony’s super-wide prime has the light-gathering abilities to shoot sharp in dim conditions. It can handle the bright stuff too, with attractive sunstars and decent flaring control.

You want a wide-angle that’s easy to wield

Courtesy of a polycarbonate construction, the 16mm weighs in at a relatively light 304g. It’s also compact for a super wide-angle prime, making it a tidy choice for shooting both travel stills and video.

You want to experiment with soft backgrounds

Blurred backgrounds aren’t a speciality for wide-angle lenses, but its wide aperture and short minimum focus distance mean the FE 16mm F1.8 G can produce strikingly soft backdrops when shooting close to a subject.

Don't buy it if...

You need total sharpness across the frame

Center sharpness is good on the whole and strong at the center of the frame, but drops off heavily in the corners when shooting at wide apertures, resulting in softness and a loss of detail.

You want perfection out of the camera

Substantial barrel distortion is the trade-off for a compact design. In-camera correction takes care of this for JPEGs, but it needs to be fixed in post for RAW files, along with noticeable vignetting.

You want the versatility of a zoom

Prime optics might be brighter, but a fixed focal length is less versatile. Many users will find the Sony FE 16-35mm F2.8 GM II zoom lens a more flexible choice for travel and video.

How I tested the Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G

• Tested comprehensively for a week
• Paired with a Sony A7C II body
• Used in a range of conditions

Sony was only able to loan the FE 16mm F1.8 G to me for a seven-day period, during which time I shot with it extensively. Thankfully the weather was good during my time with it, so I was able to fully assess how it handles different lighting conditions, from bright backlighting to dimmer evening scenes.

As a 16mm would traditionally be considered a lens for shooting landscapes and architecture, I did both of those. But because Sony’s super wide-angle prime also boasts the defocusing potential of a fast maximum aperture, I also made sure to shoot up close with a range of subjects.

I used the lens with a Sony A7C II body. By shooting with it heavily over the course of a week, I was able to get a good understanding of the build quality and usability of the lens, particularly the feel of its focus and aperture rings.

• First reviewed March 2025

Full spoilers follow for The Wheel of Time season 2. Mild spoilers also follow for season 3's first three episodes.

I have a complicated relationship with The Wheel of Time's (TWoT) TV adaptation. The first season of Amazon's live-action series was terrific – indeed, I said it was everyone's next fantasy show obsession ahead of its April 2021 launch.

The Wheel of Time's second season was less impressive. Yes, it belatedly found its feet as it raced towards its thrilling finale, but it wasn't the epic second chapter I expected it to be. The so-called 'sophomore slump' was most certainly in effect.

So, thank goodness that, based on its three-episode premiere, The Wheel of Time season 3 is a magical return to form for a show whose future rests on its ability to prove that The Rings of Power isn't the only terrific high fantasy program in Amazon's TV arsenal.

Aes Sedai: civil war

Season 3 kicks off with an almighty and brutal scrap in The White Tower's central chamber (Image credit: Amazon MGM Studios)

One month has passed since Rand al'Thor (Josha Stradowski) was officially declared the Dragon Reborn in Falme. However, despite the defeat of Ishamael and his Seanchan allies, the Shadow looms larger than ever over The Wheel of Time's world.

To prepare for the forthcoming Last Battle, Rand, Moiraine (Rosamund Pike), and company need to divide and conquer once more. Cue our heroes splitting up to not only tackle the threat that the Dark One and his subordinates pose, but also acquire the knowledge, skills, and weapons to defeat them once and for all.

The Aes Sedai battle is an astoundingly cold-blooded and brave entry point to this season

Before those events are set in motion, there's the small matter of a civil war erupting among the Aes Sedai. Trouble has been brewing at the all-female magic wielders' stronghold in Tar Valon since the show began. And, like the merciless Thanedd Coup event in The Witcher season 3 on Netflix, episode 1 of TWoT's third entry is the stage for tensions boiling over.

The extended opening sequence of season 3's first episode is as incendiary as it is brutal (Image credit: Amazon MGM Studios)

Season 3, then, wastes no time throwing us into the thick of the action. Political infighting (there's still plenty of this once the dust settles on this bout, FYI) between The White Tower's various factions makes way for bloody, One Power-based warfare as those loyal to the Aes Sedai's leader Siuan Sanche (Sophie Okenedo), aka 'Mother', fight literal fire with fire against Liandrin (Kate Fleetwood) and her Black Ajah compatriots – i.e., the Aes Sedai who've now sided with the Dark One.

A microcosm of the wider war that'll eventually envelop TWoT's universe, it's an shockingly cold-blooded and brave reintroduction to one of the best Prime Video shows around. Nonetheless, I welcome any and all courageously creative entry points to new movies and shows or, the latter's case, new seasons, so consider me highly satisfied by this venture.

A dune prophecy

Rand (middle right) and Moiraine (second right) travel to the Aiel Waste in season 3 (Image credit: Amazon MGM Studios)

But the Prime Video show's primary heroes aren't side-lined for long. As the dust settles on the conflict within The White Tower's walls and before they part ways to cover as much ground as possible, Rand and company actually spent a significant – well, significant by TWoT's standards – amount of time together in episode 1.

It's a pleasing albeit temporary respite from the dangerous adventures they've embarked on and will soon undertake again. Not only that, it also serves as a reminder of the tight bonds – especially between The Two Rivers quintet of Rand, Egwene (Madeleine Madden), Perrin (Marcus Rutherford), Nynaeve (Zoe Robins), and Matt (Donal Finn) – that they forged before the show began and have been seriously tested since.

Season 3 sacrifices the frustratingly slow and meandering start of its forebear in favor of faster-paced storytelling

The lull between last season's finale and the beginning of season 3's questing doesn't disrupt the pacing, though.

Episode 1's explosive opening, plus the plot exposition dumps we thankfully receive through character conversations, which fill in the narrative gaps between seasons, season 3 hits the ground running. Sure, it might feel like we've skipped an episode, but I'm relieved that TWoT's latest chapter sacrifices the frustratingly slow and meandering start of its forebear in favor of faster-paced storytelling with perpetual forward momentum.

Matt, Nynaeve, Min (all pictured), and Elayne travel to Tanchico in the series' third entry (Image credit: Amazon MGM Studios)

That much is clear in how quickly Rand, Moiraine, Egwene, Lan (Daniel Henney), and Aviendha (Ayoola Smart) journey to and arrive at the Aiel Waste. A vast and mysterious desert region that's steeped in history and home to the Aiel people (they call it the Three-Fold Land, FYI), its introduction in episode 2 is testament to propel the story into darker, narratively absorbing, and enigmatic territory.

Three episodes in, I'd argue this storyline is the most interesting so far in season 3. That might be down to the unmistakable parallels between this particular plot, and Frank Herbert's Dune book series and its live-action movie franchise – the pair of which I adore. After all, TWoT and Dune tell the tale of a prophesized messiah who reluctantly embraces their so-called destiny by traveling to an unknown land and unites its quarrelling factions. Stark comparisons between Rand and Paul Atreides notwithstanding, the Aiel Waste storyline is also full of compelling melodrama and fantastical revelations that'll please new and old fans alike.

The dark arts

Lanfear's return – and the arrival of more Forsaken – means nowhere is safe for our heroes (Image credit: Amazon MGM Studios)

That doesn't mean season 3 prioritizes one storyline over its brethren. Rand's arc is particularly important – you know, what with him being the Dragon Reborn and all – but, aware of its overreliance and favoring of some plots over others last season, TWoT's latest installment takes a proactive approach to managing the time it spends between its multiple narratives.

Whether it's Perrin's cathartic albeit life-threatening return to The Two Rivers, Nynaeve and Elayne's (Ceara Coveney) appointment as Siuan's 'hounds' to track down the Black Ajah and The One Power-infused relics they stole from The White Tower, or Matt battling his inner demons, season 3 skilfully maneuvers between its various storylines with confidence. That was something its forebear lacked, so I'm glad this season doesn't suffer from the same issue.

Season 3 skilfully maneuvers between its various storylines with confidence

That said, I was vexed by season 3's penchant for dragging out problems that have affected certain characters since season 1's second half. Sure, only a month has elapsed in-universe, so it's understandable that traumatic events that impacted some heroes, such as Egwene's post-traumatic stress disorder from her Seanchan imprisonment and torture, and Matt's ongoing mental health issues, in season 2 would continue to afflict them.

However, plot threads like Nynaeve's ongoing struggles to channel the One Power are growing tiresome. True, this is dictated by the storylines and character arcs that comprise season 3, but it's frustrating that plot elements like this, which began in TWoT's first season, haven't been resolved yet, nor allow for much character evolution for individuals who sorely need it.

Season 3 makes more changes from the novels, such as a budding romance between Elayne and Aviendha, that might annoy some fans (Image credit: Amazon MGM Studios)

TWoT devotees are sure to be disgruntled by further deviations from what's depicted in Robert Jordan's beloved book series namesake as well.

Again, such diversions are determined by the story that showrunner Rafe Judkins wishes to tell. That'll be of scant consolation to fans of Jordan's literary works, though, who may bristle at changes like Matt not being part of Rand's Aiel Waste-bound party. However, some tweaks to the source materials, such as the budding romance between Elayne and Aviendha – an evolution of the close friendship they share in the novels – feels less intrusive.

The natural expansion of TWoT's world and the character that inhabit it in season 3 is handled with purposeful precision, too. The introduction of new locations like Tanchico, Rhuidean, and Andor upscale the size and scope of Amazon's adaptation. Meanwhile, the live-action debut of Andor's royal family – aka Elayne's relatives – and more of Lanfear's (Natasha O'Keeffe) fellow Forsaken, plus devoting of more screentime to characters with bit-part roles in season 2 like Aviendha and Siuan, raise the stakes and suggest I should be worried for more characters than just Rand and Moiraine this season.

My verdict

With The Wheel of Time season 3, Prime Video not only conjures up the show's best season yet, but also finally cements its position as one of the greatest Amazon TV Originals.

Like many of the characters that inhabit its world, it's a coming-of-age success story that proves TWoT has the style and substance – and, whisper it quietly, longevity – to go toe-to-toe with Amazon's Lord of the Rings prequel series.

It remains to be seen if a wider audience will be receptive to the Prime Video series' bleakest and most daunting season yet. After all, TWoT's future hinges on how its third chapter performs on one of the world's best streaming services. Based on the spellbinding effect that its three-episode premiere had on me, though, I'm confident it'll perform well enough to keep its storytelling wheel spinning for some time yet.

The Wheel of Time season 3 launches exclusively on Prime Video with a three-episode premiere on Thursday, March 13. New episodes air weekly.

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4): Two-minute review

How do you make the best MacBook, and arguably one of the best laptops on the market, better? You could redesign it, but that’s a move fraught with potential downsides; if the current design is popular, you risk disenfranchising fans. In that case, making small changes, especially under-the-hood ones, is probably the smart move, and it’s clearly Apple’s strategy.

The MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) is virtually indistinguishable from the M3 model. Apple has left the exquisite keyboard and responsive trackpad untouched, and the same goes for the brilliant Liquid Retina display. The 2.7lbs. weight is unchanged, and even the two Thunderbolt 4 ports are essentially the same. Visually, the only thing that's new is a new color option, and the Sky Blue finish is a subtle hue that can, depending on the light, look almost gray, but a second glance always reveals that pleasing almost pastel-like azure. It’s a color that should sell out fast.

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The other two significant changes are to the hardware. Replacing the FaceTime camera is the new 12MP Center Stage Camera. It’s an ultra-wide lens in a screen notch that can keep you in the frame during video calls, and it’s a nice-to-have though not earth-shattering update.

There’s also the M4 chip, which adds cores and performance over the M3 Apple silicon it replaces. Like the M3, this is a fast, efficient, 3-nanometer chip with plenty of headroom for AAA gaming, video editing, music creation and, of course, Apple Intelligence.

(Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)

From one perspective, the biggest upgrade might be in the value space. Apple doubled the base memory from 8GB of unified memory to 16GB while reducing the price to $999 / £999 / AU$1,699. That’s a shocking, and very welcome, turn of events. The best MacBook is now back to its pre–MacBook Air M3 price, and better value because of it.

It really is hard to find any fault with the MacBook Air 13-inch (M4). It’s lightweight, attractive, powerful, easy to use, and up for anything. I gamed, streamed video, browsed the web, answered email, texted friends, conducted FaceTime calls, edited video, practiced guitar, and wrote this review on it. I’m not concerned about the lack of design changes, and I like the new color, the Center Stage Camera, and especially the price. I would not be surprised to see the MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) rise to the very top of our best laptops list.

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) review: Price and availability

• Starts at $999 / £999 / AU$1,699
• Lower launch price than the discontinued M3 model
• M2 and M3 models no longer on the Apple Store, but M2 MacBooks can be found at third-party retailers

Rarely do I get to write about a price drop for a new product that arrives with feature enhancements. Usually, we get the same or sometimes a little less for the money. That is not the case with the MacBook Air 13-inch M4.

Even though Apple hasn't radically refreshed its best MacBook, the updates in performance, memory, and video conferencing, plus a new color, hit all the right notes – and when paired with a now $100 (in the US) lower price, they have me singing a happy tune.

Funnily enough, the first 3lb MacBook Air – the one that slid out of a manilla envelope in 2008 – cost $1,799. It would take a few years for it to hit that $999 sweet spot, which it maintained until recently.

(Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)

Sometimes that $999 got you a lower-end Intel Core I, but in the age of Apple silicon we’re getting great performance and efficiency at an excellent price.

The MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) comes in three base configurations. If you upgrade to the $1,199 / £1,199 model the GPU gets a bump from eight to 10 cores, and the storage doubles to 512GB. Go for the $1,499 / £1,499 / AU$2,399 top-tier model and the base unified memory is increased from 16GB to 24GB, and you can get up to 2TB of storage. Whichever option you go for, you can upgrade the RAM to 32GB.

It’s available in the new Sky Blue (like my 256GB review unit), Midnight, Starlight, and Silver. Apple has discontinued Space Gray (for now).

Apple unveiled the MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) on March 5, 2025, and the laptop starts shipping on March 12.

• Price score: 4.5/5

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) review: Specs

The Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) comes in three pre-configured options.

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) review: Design

• No major redesign
• Sky Blue is subtle but attractive
• Excellent construction, materials, keyboard, and trackpad

There are still some who mourn the passing of the original MacBook Air’s wedge design, the one that started at a more than half inch (1.61 cm) at one end and ended at 0.16 inches (4.064mm) at the other. That design remains so popular that the M1 model featuring it is still a top seller at Walmart.

I’ve moved on. The MacBook Air M4 is just 2.7lbs / 1.24kg, and at 11.97 x 8.46 x 0.44 inches / 30.41 x 21.5 x 1.13cm, is thinner than the OG MacBook Air was at its thickest point. This is a laptop that's built for your backpack and, yes, it’s light enough that you might forget it’s there.

Everything about the MacBook Air M4 feels premium. The 100% recycled aluminum enclosure is light but solid and has all the exacting tolerances Apple is known for. It’s a finely machined, eye-catching piece of hardware, and few laptops can match its elegance.

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The backlit keyboard is an absolute pleasure to type on, and has remarkable travel and response for such a thin design. It includes all your function keys and a multipurpose power / sleep / Touch ID button that’s useful for unlocking the MacBook Air and logging into various apps and services with your registered fingertips.

I do prefer the Microsoft Surface Laptop’s Windows Hello feature, which lets you log on using your face in much the way you do with Face ID on any of the best iPhones, although I don’t have to touch anything because I set the MacBook Air to unlock automatically with my Apple Watch.

While Apple hasn't redesigned the keyboard, there is one small change that you might not notice at first glance: the mute key now features a speaker icon with a line through it, which matches what you see on-screen when you press the key. It's a small but clarifying change.

(Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)

There’s ample room to rest your palms, and the glass-covered multi-touch trackpad is huge and responsive.

Ports and other elements are unchanged from the last two MacBook Air generations. There are two Thunderbolt 4 ports on the left side with up to 40GBps of throughput and which are capable of driving two external screens, even with the MacBook Air lid open. Next to those is the MagSafe charging port, and on the right side is the 3.5mm headphone jack.

The four-speaker stereo sound system is hidden in the hinge below the display. It can fill a room with bright, crisp audio, although it mostly lacks bass (the 15-inch model offers a 6-speaker sound system with force-cancelling sound woofers).

• Design score: 4.5/5

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) review: Display and Center Stage

With one exception, the 13-inch M4 MacBook Air’s display is identical to the last generation. It’s still a 13.6-inch Liquid Retina panel with 2560 x 1664 resolution and 500 nits of sustained brightness, which in my experience is viewable in direct sunlight, and support for one billion colors. It’s a fantastic display for everything from gaming to streaming to content creation.

There is a notch at the top for the camera, but most apps do not wrap around that cutout, and it’s not distracting on the desktop.

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The notch also contains the new 12MP Center Stage Camera. The idea here is that the lens is an ultra-wide camera, but for the purposes of video conferencing it crops to an undistorted rectangle. Then, as you move around, the frame moves around to keep you in the frame. If you like to get up and walk around, or people walk in and out of the video conversation, this can be tremendously useful, and it worked well for me as long as I didn't stray too far out of frame. If you need the camera to stay still (as I do when I use the 1080p camera to go on TV), you can easily turn Center Stage off.

(Image credit: Future)

Compared to Microsoft’s excellent Surface Laptop 7, the screen is missing one feature: touch. I used Surface laptops for years, and I did enjoy being able to touch and even draw on the display with a dedicated Bluetooth pen. Apple has steadfastly resisted introducing touch on its MacBook line – and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs didn’t think it made sense. If you require that kind of multipurpose device, you may want to consider the M4 iPad Pro 13-inch plus a Magic Keyboard.

• Display score: 4.5/5

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) review: macOS and Apple Intelligence

• macOS Sequoia is a rich, deep, and well-organized platform
• Everything is well integrated into Apple's wider ecosystem
• Apple Intelligence can be useful, but it's not yet compelling

With macOS Sequoia, Apple has built one of the most consistent and stable desktop platforms on the planet. It virtually never crashes, and it’s full of useful features.

The latest version is mostly a refinement of the platform, but if it’s been a while since you’ve upgraded you will notice feature enhancement like better widgets and window-management tools, the excellent new Passwords app, and audio transcription on Notes.

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What’s more, macOS makes excellent use of the M4’s power.

At one point I ran Garage Band, and I was pleased to discover that not only could I use the MacBook Air to tune my guitar, but it could also tell me if I was playing my chords correctly. I also used Pixelmator Pro image and video editor (now owned by Apple) to effortlessly apply complex masks.

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Of course, the big news on the software side is Apple Intelligence, Apple’s own brand of AI, which is supported by the M4’s 16-core neural engine.

It enables features like Image Playground, which lets you imagine wild scenes that can include representations of you and others from your Photos library. It’s good fun, but I still struggle to see the utility, and I wonder when Apple will offer a more open-range image-generation platform, one that enables me to describe a complex scene in a prompt and get a result. Most Windows laptops running Copilot can do this.

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Writing Tools, which is available in Apple's native text composition apps like Notes and Mail, is useful, especially if you struggle to write clear, cogent sentences. It's of limited utility to me.

Similarly, Siri got a few nice upgrades, like the ability to respond to text prompts and better handle broken speech patterns, but it's still unable to carry on longer conversations or learn anything about you, and you still can't use it to comprehensively control your MacBook. What’s worse is that promised updates to Siri that would have made it a more able competitor to ChatGPT and Gemini have failed to materialize. At least Siri can now tap into ChatGPT (if you allow it) for more complex queries.

Safari is an excellent browser, but I still find myself using Chrome.

• Software score: 4/5

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) review: Performance

• M4 has more CPU cores than the M3 that preceded it
• Ample power
• Decent but not massive performance upgrade
• Excellent platform and increasing Apple Intelligence capabilities

Benchmarks

Here’s how the MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) performed in our suite of benchmark tests:

Geekbench 6.2.2 Single-Core: 3679; Multi-Core: 14430
Geekbench Metal score (8-core GPU): 48515
Cinebench 2024 Single-core: 165; Multi-core: 652
Battery life (web surfing): 14 hours 51 minutes, and 59 seconds

For comparison, here’s how the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) performed in our suite of benchmark tests:

Geekbench 6.2.2 Single-Core: 3,148; Multi-Core: 11,893
Geekbench Metal score (10-core GPU): 49090
Cinebench 2024 Single-core: 141; Multi-core: 615

Ever since Apple switched from Intel to Apple silicon we’ve seen significant gains in performance and efficiency. The power of these lightweight laptops and the M-class chips can appear limitless, and all-day battery life is now usually a given.

Of course, the world has not stood still. Some Windows laptops are now arriving with the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite, and these ultraportables often nearly match Apple silicon for performance and battery life.

The M4 10-core CPU and 8-Core GPU backed by 16GB of unified memory inside my test system generally outperformed the X Elite on single-core scores but are now matched for multi-core performance.

These are just numbers of course, and I prefer to rely on real-world performance. In my tests, the MacBook Air 13 and its M4 chip handled everything I threw at it. It can be difficult to stress out the system – I played the AAA game Lies of Pi at maximum settings and it was smooth as butter, thanks no doubt in part to the new Game Mode that optimizes performance for gaming.

I highly recommend getting a controller (I use one designed for the Xbox), but regardless, the new MacBook Air offers a great gaming experience with thrilling, smooth graphics, and excellent sound.

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I often ran the game alongside multiple background apps, including Final Cut Pro. I had no trouble editing four 4K 30fps streams at once, but when I loaded up four 4K 120fps clips, I did notice some stuttering on video playback, although as this is not a considerably more expensive MacBook Pro, that doesn’t concern me.

I noticed in my benchmarking that the Metal Score on the MacBook Air M3 was slightly higher than that of the M4 system, but that’s because I had a 10-core GPU on the older MacBook and just an eight-core GPU on the new M4 system. You can, as I noted earlier in the price section, pay a bit more for the two extra cores. It’s worth noting, though, that the differences in performance between the M3 10 Core and M4 8-Core GPU were minimal.

The system supports WiFi 6e and Bluetooth 5.3, which is good, if not entirely forward-leaning – I'd like to see WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4.

• Performance score: 4.5/5

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) review: Battery life

• 14 hours battery life (web activities)
• Effectively lasts all day (mixed use)
• Charges to 50% in 90 minutes; 100% in three hours

Apple is promising up to 18 hours of battery life from the MacBook Air 13-inch (M4), which is mostly a test of how long the laptop can play 1080p video for; for comparison, Microsoft promises 20 hours from its Surface Laptop 7 for a similar task. The MacBook Air 13 M4’s real-world battery life numbers will vary significantly when performing a mix of sometimes CPU-intensive tasks.

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In my tests, which included playing games (which made the base of the laptop quite warm), editing video, opening multiple browser windows and streaming video, battery life came in around eight hours. That’s quite good for a hard day of work, and especially for such a thin and light laptop. In our Future Labs test, which is primarily web browsing, the MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) managed 14 hours, 51 minutes, which is about 30 minutes longer than the M3 but for slightly different tasks.

Overall, you're getting good, all-day battery life, but your experience will vary based on the tasks you perform.

After I drained the laptop to zero, I recharged it with the included 30W charger (the more expensive 24GB model comes with a 35W charger) and (matching Sky Blue) woven MagSafe charger to 50% in 90 minutes, and 100% in three-and-a-half hours.

• Battery score: 5/5

Should you buy the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4)? Buy it if...

You want the best ultraportable experience
The MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) might look the same as last year's model, but it's a definite upgrade – and that price makes it a winner.

You like your laptops thin and light
At 0.44 inches / 1.13cm thick and just 2.7lbs /1.24kg, the new 13-inch Air is a perfect backpack companion.

You need a good blend of power and efficiency
The MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) packs more than enough power for most users and you can bank on all-day battery life.

Don't buy it if...

You want a touchscreen
Apple may never introduce a touchscreen MacBook. For that, look to the Surface Laptop, or an iPad Pro paired with a Magic Keyboard.

You want more AI
Apple Intelligence is showing promise, but it still pales in comparison to what you'll find on some Windows Laptops with the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite.

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) review: Also consider

If our Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) review has you considering other options, here are two laptops to consider...

Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4)
The MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) is virtually the same as the 13-inch model in every aspect except size (and screen size), but the base model does start with two extra GPU cores. It also gets a price reduction compared to the M3 model, so if screen real estate matters to you, this is the MacBook Air to go for.

Check out our MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) review

Dell XPS 13 Plus
Its thin and light design, stunning OLED screen, great sound quality, and comfortable keyboard make this a premium Windows 11 laptop that in many ways rivals the MacBook Air. However, it’s prone to overheating, and the touch bar is divisive.

Read more: Dell XPS 13 Plus review

How I tested the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4)

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• I used the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) for five days
• I worked, played, listened, edited, and wrote this review on it
• I usually ran multiple apps at once

After receiving my MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) review unit I immediately unboxed it and began testing, and it did not leave my side for much of the next five days.

I ran benchmarks, installed multiple apps, and then began using it to edit images and video, play AAA games, listen to music, stream movies and shows, answer email, browse the web, and generate words and images with Apple Intelligence.

I've been reviewing technology for over 30 years, and I've tested everything from DOS-based word processors to Apple's Vision Pro. I've reviewed laptops of all stripes, including traditional clamshells and convertibles. I regularly work on macOS but also use the Windows platform almost every day – I like to keep my hands in all the ecosystems.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed March 2025

Apple Mac Studio (M3 Ultra): Two-minute review

Apple’s announcement of a new Mac Studio for 2025 took a lot of people by surprise. While many of us had assumed (correctly) that Apple was gearing up to announce new M4-powered MacBook Airs, few were expecting a new Mac Studio.

That’s understandable – by its very nature, the Mac Studio is a product that's aimed at a more niche market than a thin and light laptop. Mac Studio devices are powerful, professional-grade computers that offer a level of performance that was once only found in Mac Pro desktop PCs, but built into a stylish and compact body that looks like a super-sized (yet still small) Mac mini.

The latest Mac Studio continues that tradition. The design keeps the iconic (and technically impressive, considering the hardware) compact look of previous Mac Studios, with dimensions of 3.7 x 7.7 x 7.7 inches (9.5 x 19.7 x 19.7cm) and a weight starting at 6.1lbs / 2.74kg. It’s a device that would look at home in any modern office or studio, and its size means it can be easily installed, and moved, wherever and whenever you want.

You are, however, missing out on the modular and upgradable nature of desktop PCs. You won’t be able to swap out the GPU or increase the internal storage in a few year’s time – two upgrades which are relatively simple with traditional PCs.

That said, for many people one of the upsides of buying a Mac is that they don't need to fiddle around with internal components, and a lack of upgradability is a small price to pay for a compact device that's well-built and works dependably. And, depending on the configuration options you choose when buying your Mac Studio, it’s unlikely that you’ll need to upgrade for a long, long time.

The new Mac Studio comes with a choice of two chips – one that was expected, and one that has come as quite a surprise.

(Image credit: Future)

The base model of the new Mac Studio features the M4 Max chip – the same chip that debuted late last year in the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros. There’s no option to have the standard M4 or M4 Pro chips, which is in line with Apple’s pitching the Mac Studio at power users and professionals who need the very highest levels of performance. If your requirements (and budget – I’ll get to prices in a moment) are more modest, then the aforementioned MacBook Pros will be better picks; or if you want a desktop PC, then the brilliant Mac mini from last year will do the trick, and can be configured with either an M4 or M4 Pro chip.

According to Apple, the Mac Studio with M4 Max offers 1.6x faster image processing in Adobe Photoshop compared to the Mac Studio with M1 Max, and 2.1x faster code compilation in Xcode. Video transcoding in the Compressor app is claimed to be 1.2x faster, and video processing in Topaz Video AI 1.6x faster.

While any speed increase that makes workloads faster is welcome, those aren’t mind-blowing numbers, so most people using the now three-year-old Mac Studio (M1 Max) won’t feel any pressing need to upgrade to the M4 Max model, and that will be even more true for owners of the Mac Studio (M2 Max). Apple hasn’t supplied performance comparisons for that model, but you’d imagine the differences are even smaller. That said, you could argue that this speaks to the longevity of these devices, and the high price tag and lack of upgradability of the new Mac Studio becomes easier to swallow if it’s still going strong in 2028 and you have no need or desire to upgrade it.

As with previous M-class releases, the real leap in performance comes when comparing the Mac Studio with M4 Max to an Intel-based Mac, which Apple stopped producing in 2020 with the launch of the M1 chip.

Again according to Apple, you’re getting around 3x the performance with the Mac Studio M4 Max compared to a 27-inch iMac with an Intel Core i9 CPU, with Topaz Video AI processing seeing up to 5x faster video rendering. These are all vague performance promises by Apple, so take them with a grain of salt and refer instead to our benchmark tests below, where you'll be able to see just how well the new Mac Studio performs. Still, taking Apple’s claims as hints of the kind of performance the new Mac Studio is capable of suggests that people using Intel-based Macs will see the biggest benefit from upgrading.

Apple also surprised us by announcing an even more powerful Mac Studio, powered by the brand-new M3 Ultra chip. The reason why this is particularly surprising, and potentially confusing, is that the M3 Ultra is, as the name suggests, based on the previous generation M3 chip architecture, rather than the newer M4.

As with previous Ultra chips, the M3 Ultra is made up of two Max chips (in this case, two M3 Max chips), which are connected via an ultra-fast bridge to turn them into a single, extremely powerful, chip.

So, while you’re getting up to a 16-core CPU, 40-core GPU, 128GB unified memory, 546GB/s memory bandwidth, and 16-core Neural Engine with the M4 Max, the M3 Ultra offers up to a 32-core CPU, 80-core GPU, 512GB unified memory, 819GB/s memory bandwidth, and 32-core Neural Engine.

(Image credit: Future)

Essentially, even with previous-gen tech (the M3 Max was launched in October 2023), the M3 Ultra blows past the M4 Max. Apple hasn’t explained why it went with M3 rather than M4 as the base, though there have been suggestions that the M4 Max lacks the high-speed bridge (known as UltraFusion) needed to combine two of the chips into an M4 Ultra. However, we also heard similar rumors about the M3 Max, and that has been proven to be incorrect with the announcement of the M3 Ultra.

The M3 architecture has seen a few additions with the M3 Ultra, which makes it able to compete feature-wise with the M4 Max. The M3 Ultra now supports Thunderbolt 5 USB-C ports and speeds of up to 120Gbps, and supports up to 512GB of unified memory, both upgrades over the M3 Max.

So, currently, the most powerful Apple silicon is not an M4 chip, but an M3 chip, and that could be a bit confusing – as such, I’m pleased that Apple is being transparent about the M3 Ultra being based on M3 Max chips, rather than fudging the naming conventions to call it an M4 Ultra.

While the Mac Studio with M4 Max will offer performance that most people might not ever need, the M3 Ultra Mac Studio goes even further, promising to offer the kind of performance that will only be needed by large enterprises – think the likes of Pixar when it comes to 3D animation, rather than smaller businesses and individuals, for whom the M4 Max model will likely be more than enough.

Price will also be a factor here, as unsurprisingly these are expensive machines that are professional investments rather than something you’d buy on a whim. The Mac Studio with M4 Max starts at $1,999 / £2,099 / AU$3,499 while the Mac Studio with M3 Ultra starts at $3,999 / £4,199 / AU$6,999 – and these can all be configured to add more power (and cost).

Apple Mac Studio (M3 Ultra): Price and availability

• How much does it cost? M4 Max model starts at $1,999 / £2,099 / AU$3,499 
• What about the M3 Ultra? M3 Ultra model starts at $3,999 / £4,199 / AU$6,999
• When is it available? Available to pre-order now, ships March 12, 2025 

Apple announced the new Mac Studio on March 5, 2025, and opened preorders at the same time, with the compact PC going on sale on March 12, 2025 globally.

The base model of the new Mac Studio comes with an M4 Max chip featuring a 14-core CPU, 32-core GPU and 16-core Neural Engine, plus 36GB of unified memory and a 512GB SSD, and costs $1,999 / £2,099 / AU$3,499.

This is essentially the same starting price as the previous Apple Mac Studio (M2 Max, though there's a slight price increase for Australian buyers (the M2 Max model cost AU$3,299). It’s good to see launch prices remain the same in the US and UK, and the new Mac Studio remains a lot cheaper than the $6,999 / £7,199 / AU$11,999 Mac Pro, while offering a more compact design and similar, if not better, performance.

The more powerful M3 Ultra model of the new Mac Studio, meanwhile, starts at $3,999 / £4,199 / AU$6,999. That’s quite a leap, but the specs go some way to justify the high price (while also hopefully making it clear that this machine will be overkill for most people). You get the new M3 Ultra chip with a 28-core CPU, 60-core GPU, and 32-core Neural Engine, plus 96GB unified memory, and a 1TB SSD for storage.

As usual, you can configure the new Mac Studio before you buy, and considering that it’s basically impossible to upgrade the hardware within the machine, it’s important to make sure you take this opportunity to adjust the configuration to suit both your needs and your budget. Adding more powerful components does increase the price, sometimes considerably. The fully-maxed-out Mac Studio comes with an M3 Ultra chip with a 32-core CPU, 80-core GPU, and 32-core Neural Engine, 512GB unified memory and 16TB SSD – those are stunning specs, and they come with an equally stunning price tag of $14,099 / $14,299 / AU$22,149.

Of course, you don’t have to max out all of the specs, so you do have some flexibility; but make no mistake, any configuration of the Mac Studio is going to be extremely expensive. You need to see it as an investment for a business or creative professional. For individual users who want a great-performing compact PC, but don’t need nearly the power on offer with the Mac Studio, then I highly recommend the latest Mac mini, which comes with an M4 chip starting at $599 / £599 / AU$999, or with an M4 Pro starting at $1,399 / £1,399 / AU$2,199. In my view, the M4 Mac mini remains the best Mac Apple has ever made thanks its combination of price, performance, and an all-new design, but creative professionals looking for more power will likely need to choose between the Mac mini M4 Pro or the Mac Studio M4 Max, and in that case the price difference is smaller, though still substantial.

What about non-Mac alternatives? The fact is that there remains no real rival to the Mac Studio in the world of Windows PCs – no one else is making compact workstation PCs that offer professional-grade performance. However, if the size of the machine doesn’t matter, and you don’t mind doing a bit of tinkering, you could put together a workstation PC (or get someone to build it for you) that offers similar levels of performance for less money, although you'd miss out on the Mac Studio’s compact design and ease of use.

• Price: 3.5 / 5

Apple Mac Studio (M3 Ultra): Specs

Here are the specs for the Apple Mac Studio (M3 Ultra) at a glance.

Apple Mac Studio (M3 Ultra): Design

• Looks the same as previous models on the outside 
• Now comes with Thunderbolt 5 ports 
• M3 Ultra model is slightly heavier

Perhaps the biggest selling point of every generation of Mac Studio has been its design, and while the new Mac Studio doesn’t feature any major changes, that remains true.

It’s a testament to Apple’s designers and engineers – and to the power efficiency of M-class chips like the M4 Max and M3 Ultra, which enables Apple to put powerful hardware into compact designs without them overheating.

The latest Mac Studio is unmistakably an Apple product. Its compact dimensions of 3.7 x 7.7 x 7.7 inches / 9.5 x 19.7 x 19.7cm, with a weight starting at 6.1lbs / 2.74kg means it’s easy to find space for it on a desk, and you can hide it behind a monitor if you want, and it also means it’s easy to pick up and move if needed.

The silver body (you don’t get any fun color choices with the Mac Studio, this is all about professionalism) is sleek and minimalist, with a black Apple logo on the top. On the front of the Mac Studio are two USB-C ports (which if you get the model with the M3 Ultra will be Thunderbolt 5), alongside an SDXC memory card slot (always welcome for professional photographers) and a small white LED power light.

(Image credit: Future)

The rear of the Mac Studio features four Thunderbolt 5 USB-C ports, a 10Gb Ethernet port, two USB-A ports for legacy peripherals, a HDMI port and a headphone jack. Much of the rear is a grille-like vent that's used to expel hot air.

The most recent Mac mini got a major design overhaul to make it look more like the Mac Studio, and for the most part the new look was a triumph. However, Apple’s decision to place the Mac mini's power button on the underside of the device did frustrate some people, as you have to lift up the Mac mini to turn it on or off.

The good news is that Apple hasn’t seen fit to move the Mac Studio's power button to the underside of the device to match the new Mac mini – it’s still located on the rear of the Mac Studio on the left.

As someone who likes using big, ugly desktop PCs I’ve never had a problem with having a power button on the front of a device for easy access, and some people might find having the button hidden at the rear makes it a little awkward to reach. It does mean, though, that the Mac Studio’s front looks clean and minimalist, which many Apple fans will appreciate, and at least you don’t have to lift up the Mac Studio to reach the button. If you have other Apple devices, particularly the Studio Display, then the new Mac Studio will fit in brilliantly.

The Mac Studio is made with 30% recycled content, according to Apple, with 100% recycled aluminum used for the case, and doesn’t contain mercury or PVC. The packaging is also entirely fiber-based, and is part of the Apple 2030 project, which aims to make the company’s entire carbon footprint neutral by the end of the decade.

Overall, while some people might be clamoring for a bold redesign, the reason why the latest Mac Studio still looks identical to the first one launched back in 2022 is because, frankly, Apple nailed the design first time. It looks modern, and more stylish than any Windows-based compact PC; and with the Mac mini having recently been redesigned to look more like the Mac Studio, I think this look is going to stick around for a long time.

(Image credit: Future)

The one major drawback with the design is that it’s essentially impossible to open up the Mac Studio and upgrade or repair components. This might not come as a surprise to anyone familiar with Apple’s products, but it does impact the flexibility of the Mac Studio when compared to traditional tower desktop PCs, which are usually quite straightforward to upgrade. It also undermines Apple’s environmental credentials a little, though the company does offer an upgrade program whereby you can trade in your older Mac for money off the new model.

Also, despite the new Mac Studio coming with some of the latest and most powerful components on the market, Apple's designers have for some reason decided to stick with older wireless technology: Wi‑Fi 6E (802.11ax) and Bluetooth 5.3, which means you're missing out on the performance benefits of Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4.

While the wireless tech in a professional-grade workstation might not be at the top of most people's list of priorities (you'll likely be using an Ethernet cable for networking), it's still a bit of an odd omission considering the no-holds-barred design approach Apple has taken to the rest of the Mac Studio's design.

• Design: 4.5 / 5

Apple Mac Studio (M3 Ultra): Performance

• The M3 Ultra is now the most powerful chip Apple has ever made 
• It's likely to be overkill for most people 
• The new Mac Studio remains quiet even when under load 

When I learned that Apple was sending me the new Mac Studio with the M3 Ultra chip, I was both excited and apprehensive. Excited because I really wanted to see what such a powerful, even over-the-top, piece of silicon could do.

While the M4 Max chip is certainly no slouch, we’ve had the chance to see how it performs since the launch of last year’s MacBook Pros. However, the M3 Ultra, despite being based on the older M3 Max chip, is entirely uncharted territory, and has the potential to blow Apple's other chips out of the water when it comes to pure performance. The idea that I could play around with this ridiculously powerful hardware and try to push it as hard as possible got my nerd senses tingling.

So why was I also apprehensive? Mainly because how do you begin reviewing a hardware configuration that will be overkill for the needs of maybe 98% of our readers? No matter how good the M3 Ultra is (and I’ll get to just how good it is in a moment), for the vast majority of people I would still recommend they don’t buy it, and instead get the M4 Max model – and for most, the M4 Mac mini would be a much more sensible buy.

In some ways this is Apple’s problem – and it’s a good problem to have. Because its M-series chips have been so good, generational leaps can be less visible to mainstream customers. If you still use a Mac with an M1 or M2 chip there’s a good chance that it’ll still do almost everything you need it to. If not, then upgrading to an M4 Mac, such as the new MacBook Air or the Mac mini (sorry, I keep mentioning it, but I really love that little PC) is a much more affordable option that will keep you chugging along nicely. A smaller percentage of people who need more power for creative applications will find the M4 Max in the MacBook Pro or new Mac Studio more than enough; and if it isn’t enough power, then the M3 Ultra will be extremely welcome.

(Image credit: Future)

To be blunt, the number of people who will need the full power of the Mac Studio with M3 Ultra will be limited. But, if you do need an extremely powerful PC for rendering complex 3D models, animating feature-length films, or even developing and testing games, then the new Mac Studio with M3 Ultra will be a very attractive package indeed.

The Mac Studio Apple sent me to review comes with the highest-end M3 Ultra chip with a 32-core CPU (made up of 24 performance cores and eight efficiency ones), an 80-core GPU and a 32-core Neural Engine. It also has 256GB of unified memory, and a 4TB SSD. While it's not completely maxed out, this is an incredibly powerful bit of kit. The 256GB unified memory doesn’t just act like standard RAM in a PC, but is shared with the 80-core GPU, which means the Mac Studio I’m reviewing is an incredibly powerful device for graphic-intensive tasks. The fact that all this power is contained in a compact body that remains impressively quiet, even when under stress, is particularly impressive.

So it’ll come as no surprise to learn that for regular day-to-day tasks, the Mac Studio absolutely zips by, with macOS Sequoia and apps such as Photoshop running incredibly smoothly. Web browsing with Safari and Chrome, with multiple tabs open, certainly doesn't challenge the Mac Studio. Chrome might still be a memory hog, but with 256GB of the stuff you’re not going to miss a beat.

Even if you buy the Mac Studio in a less powerful configuration, the results will very likely be the same. Of course, you’re not buying an uber-powerful computer like the Mac Studio to browse the web and write up documents. The Mac Studio has been built to handle demanding creative tasks, and it’s here that it really excels.

Editing high-quality 4K footage in Adobe Premiere Pro was extremely quick and smooth, and I was able to scrub through the footage quickly to find points in the timeline, while previewing any changes I made instantly. The super-fast SSD meant that video files were loaded and complex projects saved very, very quickly (using the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test app, the SSD hit write speeds of 7,115.6 and read speeds of 5,799MB/s).

Even when working with large 4K video files and multi-scene projects (while browsing the web and writing up this review at the same time), I never felt like I was ever really pushing the Mac Studio (hence the apprehension I mentioned earlier), as I don’t have access to files and projects from professional movie studios, to pick a more demanding and likely use case for the new Mac Studio.

(Image credit: Future) Apple Mac Studio (M3 Ultra) benchmarks

Here's how the Apple Mac Studio (M3 Ultra) performed in our suite of industry-standard benchmarks and game tests.

Geekbench 6:
Single - 3,240
Multi - 28,485
Blackmagic Disk Speed Test:
Read: 5,799MB/s
Write: 7,115.6MB/s
Cinebench:
Single-core - 150
Multi-core - 3,015
GPU - 19,663

But what I could see is that the real value of the new Mac Studio is how it has the potential to speed up creative workflows. By helping you create, code, compile and more so much more quickly, it means projects can be completed more quickly. This could in turn reduce costs for large-scale businesses, and it also allows professionals to take on more clients. Even with the lowest memory configuration for the M3 Ultra model, 96GB, there is plenty of headroom to run multiple tasks at once, again potentially making a huge difference to productivity.

Throughout all my testing with the Mac Studio, it remained incredibly quiet – a welcome change from the desktop PCs I usually use, which have fans that like to whirr into life at the drop of a hat. During some particularly demanding benchmarks I did notice the top of the Mac Studio got very hot to touch, but it certainly wasn't alarming – and the fans remained all but silent. I also didn’t notice any instances of the M3 Ultra being throttled (a process in which components are deliberately slowed down to avoid overheating, which impacts performance), though again I was not using industry-level workloads. I really can’t imagine too many scenarios where the Mac Studio’s performance is not enough.

This is great news for people who need that performance, but it also underscores how it also won’t be for everyone, especially considering the price.

• Performance: 5 / 5

Should you buy the Apple Mac Studio (M3 Ultra)? Buy it if...

You want a compact productivity powerhouse
The small size combined with the incredible amount of power the M3 Ultra chip provides means the new Mac Studio really doesn’t have any competition.

You need professional-grade graphics power
The new Mac Studio, especially with the M3 Ultra chip, offers a level of performance, especially when it comes to graphics, that will seriously please demanding power users.

You have an Intel-based Mac Pro or iMac Pro
The biggest leap in performance is between the new Mac Studio and Intel-based Macs, so if you’re still using a device with Intel hardware, now might be the perfect time to upgrade.

Don't buy it if... 

You don’t need pro-grade performance
Even with the M4 Max model, the level of performance the Mac Studio offers is beyond what most individual creatives will need.

You’re on a budget
The Mac Studio is an expensive bit of tech, and while the design and performance justify the asking price, if you’re on a tight budget you may be better looking at more affordable options.

Upgradability is important
The compact chassis comes at a price: you’re not able to open up the Mac Studio and swap out components later on. If you want a computer that lets you upgrade and fix the hardware, then a traditional desktop PC will be a better choice.

Apple Mac Studio (M3 Ultra): Also consider

Mac mini (M4)
If you love the idea of getting a compact PC that's also powerful, but you don't need the raw performance of the Mac Studio, then the latest Mac mini is an absolutely fantastic choice, especially considering the price.

Read the full Mac mini (M4)

MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro/M4 Max)
Fancy a powerful Mac that you can use while traveling? Then the 16-inch MacBook Pro is a great choice, and if you go for the M4 Max model, you're going to get similar levels of performance as the M4 Max version of the Mac Studio.

Read the full MacBook Pro 16-inch M4 Max review

How I tested the Apple Mac Studio (M3 Ultra)

• I used the new Mac Studio for five days
• I ran multiple benchmarks
• I used the Mac Studio for editing raw 4K footage and high resolution photos, as well as other intensive tasks

I've been using the Mac Studio since our review sample came in, using it as my primary work computer. As well as using it to write this review on, and perform my regular day-to-day tasks, I used it for intensive workloads as well, including editing and exporting raw 4K video footage in Adobe Premiere Pro and photos in Photoshop, connected up to an Apple Studio Display monitor. I also ran our suite of synthetic benchmarks to help give me an overall view of the Mac Studio's performance. I've been reviewing Macs for TechRadar for the past decade, including the original Mac Studio, as well as a range of Windows-based creative workstations as well, and I've used my experience to help evaluate Apple's latest Mac Studio.

Read more about how we test

• First reviewed March 2025

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D: Two-minute review

So the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D has something of a high bar to clear given the strength of AMD's first Zen 5 3D V-Cache chip, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, but having spent a week testing this chip, I can say unequivocally that AMD has produced the best processor ever made for the consumer market.

Whether it's gaming, creating, or general productivity work, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D doesn't suffer from the same hang-ups that held its predecessor, the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, from completely dominating its competition among the previous generation of processors.

Like its predecessor, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D will sell for $699 / £699 / AU$1,349 when it goes on sale on March 12, 2025. This makes it the most expensive consumer processor on the market, so definitely be prepared to invest quite a bit for this chip, especially if you're upgrading from an Intel or AMD AM4 system. As an AM5 chip, you'll need to upgrade some major components, including motherboard and possibly RAM.

Unlike nearly all other X3D chips besides the 9800X3D and 9900X3D, however, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is fully overclockable thanks to AMD rearchitecting the way the 3D V-cache sits on the compute die, so there's a lot more that this chip can do that other X3D chips can't.

That includes beating out the current champ for the best gaming CPU, the 9800X3D, in most games while also offering substantially better general and creative performance thanks to twice as many processing cores.

That doesn't mean that the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D is flawless, as there are some things to caveat here (which I'll get into in more depth below), but as an overall package, you simply won't find a better CPU on the market right now that will let you do just about anything you want exceptionally well while still letting you run a more reasonable cooling solution. Just be prepared to pay a premium for all that performance.

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D: Price & availability

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

• How much will it cost? US MSRP is $699 / £699 / AU$1,349
• When is it available? It goes on sale on March 12, 2025
• Where is it available? It will be available in the US, UK, and Australia at launch

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D goes on sale March 12, 2025, for a US MSRP of $699 / £699 / AU$1,349 in the US, UK, and Australia, respectively, making it the most expensive processor on the market.

It comes in at the same price as its predecessor, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D when it launched, and costs $100 more than the Ryzen 9 9900X3D that launches on the same day.

This is also just over $200 more expensive than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D which has nearly the same level of gaming performance (and in some cases surpasses the 9950X3D), so if you are strictly looking for a gaming CPU, the 9800X3D might be the better value.

Compared to Intel's latest flagship processor, meanwhile, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is just over $100 more expensive than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, though that chip requires a whole new motherboard chipset if you're coming from an Intel LGA 1700 chip like the Intel Core i9-12900K, so it might represent a much larger investment overall.

• Value: 3.5 / 5

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D: Specs

• 128MB L3 Cache (96MB + 32MB)
• Fully overclockable
• Not all processing cores have access to 3D V-cache

Compared to the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, there don't seem to be too many changes spec wise, but there's a lot going on under the hood here.

First, the way the 3D V-cache is seated over the CCX for the 9950X3D differs considerably than with the 7950X3D, specifically that its seated underneath the processing die, rather than above it.

This means that the processing cores are now in 'direct' contact with the lid and cooling solution for the chip, allowing the 9950X3D to be fully overclocked, whereas the V-cache in the 7950X3D sat between the lid and the processing cores, making careful thermal design and limiting necessary and ruling out overclocking.

The 9950X3D does keep the same two-module split in its L3 cache as the 7950X3D, so that only one of the eight-core CCXs in the chip actually has access to the added V-cache (32MB + 64MB), while the other just has access to 32MB.

This had some benefit for more dedicated, directy access for individual cores in use more cache. In the last-gen, this honestly produced somewhat mixed results compared to the 7800X3D, which didn't split the V-cache up this way, leading ultimately to high levels of gaming performance for the 7800X3D.

Whatever issue there was with the 7950X3D looks to have been largely fixed with the 9950X3D, but some hiccups remains, which I'll get to in the performance section.

Beyond that, the 9950X3D has slightly higher base and boost clock speeds, as well as a 50W higher TDP, but its 170W TDP isn't completely unmanageable, especially next to Intel's competing chips.

• Specs: 4.5 / 5

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D: Performance

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

• Almost best-in-class gaming performance
• Strong overall performance

While the Ryzen 7 7800X3D was indisputably a better gaming chip than the Ryzen 9 7950X3D by the numbers, I was very curious going into my testing how this chip would fare against the 9800X3D, but I'm happy to report that not only is it better on the whole when it comes to gaming, it's a powerhouse for general computing and creative work as well, making it the best all-around processor on the market right now.

On the synthetic side, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D goes toe-to-toe with the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K in multi-core performance, coming within 2% of Intel's best on average, and chocking up a 10% stronger single-core result than the 285K.

Compared to its predecessor, the 7950X3D, the 9950X3D is about 15% faster in multi-core and single-core performance, while also barely edging out the Ryzen 9 9950X in multi-core performance.

Compared to the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, the eight-core difference between the two really shows up in the results, with the 9950X3D posting a 61% better multi-core performance, and a roughly 5% better single core score compared to the 9800X3D.

On the creative front, the 9950X3D outclasses Intel's best and anything else in the AMD Ryzen lineup that I've tested overall (we'll see how it fares against the 9900X3D once I've had a chance to test that chip), though it is worth noting that the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K is still the better processor for video editing work.

The AMD Ryzen X3D line is all about gaming though, and here, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D posts the best gaming performance of all the chips tested, with one caveat.

In the Total War: Warhammer III Mirrors of Madness benchmark, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D only scores a few fps higher than the non-X3D Ryzen 9 9950X (331 fps to 318 fps, respectively), while also scoring substantially lower than the 9800X3D's 506 fps in that same benchmark. That's a roughly 35% slower showing for the 9950X3D, and given its roughly where the non-X3D chip scored, it's clear that Total War: Warhammer III was running on one of those cores that didn't have access to the extra V-cache.

This is an issue with the Windows process scheduler that might be fixed in time so that games are run on the right cores to leverage the extra cache available, but that's not a guarantee the way it is with the 9800X3D, which gives all cores access to its added V-cache so there aren't similar issues.

It might be a fairly rare occurence, but if your favorite game does take advantage of the extra cache that you're paying a lot of money for, that could be an issue, and it might not be something you'll ever know unless you have a non-X3D 9950X handy to test the way I do.

With that in mind, if all you want is a gaming processor, and you really don't care about any of these other performance categories, you're probably going to be better served by the 9800X3D, as you will get guaranteed gaming performance increases, even if you don't get the same boost in other areas.

While that's a large caveat, it can't take away from the overall performance profile of this chip, which is just astounding pretty much across the board.

If you want the best processor on the market overall, this is it, even with its occasional blips, especially since it runs much cooler than Intel's chips and its power draw is much more acceptable for midrange PCs to manage.

• Performance: 4.5 / 5

Should you buy the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D?

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler) Buy the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D if...

You want spectacular performance no matter the workload
While gamers will be especially interested in this chip, it's real strength is that it's strong everywhere.

You want the best gaming performance
When using 3D V-cache, this processor's gaming chops are unbeatable.

Don't buy it if...

You want consistent top-tier gaming performance
When games run on one of this chip's 3D V-cache cores, you're going to get the best performance possible, but Windows might not assign a game to those cores, so you might miss out on this chip's signature feature.

You're on a budget
This chip is crazy expensive, so only buy it if you're flush with cash.

Also consider

AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
If you want consistent, top-tier gaming performance, the 9800X3D will get you performance nearly as good as this chip's, though more consistently.

Read the full AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D review

How I tested the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

• I spent several days with the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
• I used the chip as my main workstation processor and used my updated battery of benchmarks to measure its performance
• I used it for general productivity, creative, and gaming workloads

I spent about a week with the Ryzen 9 9950X3D as my main workstation CPU, where I ran basic computing workloads as well as extensive creative work, such as Adobe Photoshop.

I also spent as much time as I could gaming with the chip, including titles like Black Myth: Wukong and Civilization VII. I also used my updated suite of benchmark tools including industry standard utilities like Geekbench 6.2, Cyberpunk 2077, and PugetBench for Creators.

I've been reviewing components for TechRadar for three years now, including more than a dozen processor reviews in that time, so you can trust my testing process and recommendations if you're looking for the best processor for your needs and budget.

• First reviewed March 2025