🏆 Review Score: 5/5 – ‘Outstanding’

🏅 Editor’s Choice Award

✅ Pros:

• 🙏 You don’t need to choose between mechanical or analog switches anymore

• 🔧 It’s super easy to customize with everything you need at your fingertips

• 🕹️ Packed with all the latest gaming technology

• 🆕 Customization options unlock new ways to play

• 🌈 Amazing RGB lighting effects

❌ Cons:

• 🤷‍♂️ Styling won’t be for everyone

Amazon: Logitech G G512X

Logitech G: Logitech G G512 X

The Shortcut Review

The Logitech G512 X follows the innovative Logitech G Pro X2 Superstrike by delivering a game-changing experience for gamers who may be new to modular, custom keyboards, or are simply after the flexibility they offer.

The Logitech G G512 X comes in 75 and 98 key layouts, and is the first Logitech G keyboard that lets you hot swap between mechanical and analog switches. It means you don’t have to sacrifice the reliability and satisfying typing feel that mechanical switches provide for the responsiveness and speed of analog switches.

Using the keyboard’s feet, which also cleverly double up as keycap and switch pullers, you can swap out 39 mechanical switches with TMR (Tunnel Magnetoresistance) analog switches and enjoy per key actuation adjustments from 0.1mm to 4.0mm, Rapid Trigger support, multi-point action that lets you set two different inputs to the same key, and key priority (similar to Snap Tap).

Logitech G G512 X specs 🛠️

• Price: $179 (75 key layout), $199 (98 key layout); optional Palm Rest $39 (75 key layout), $45 (98 key layout)

• Colors: Black or White

• Key type: MX Mechanical Switches (Linear or Tactile), Gateron KS-20 Analog Switches

• Connection: Wired

• Release date: May 2, 2026

The keyboard comes with nine analog switches, which are smartly and securely stored at the top of the unit, along with five SAPP (second actuation pressure point) rings that let you feel some resistance before you activate a second action. It means you’ll never need to worry about losing switches, keycap pullers, or the accessories you need to customize the Logitech G G512 X. Everything you need is right there.

However, what elevates the Logitech G G512 X further is that it also offers true 8K polling, reporting, and processing, along with the most spectacular RGB lighting I’ve seen in quite some time. Combined with the optional palm rest, the new light bar delivers truly magical lighting effects that come alive at night.

The Logitech G G512 X excels in every area, then: it’s wonderful to type on, with a premium feel and pleasing sound signature thanks to the silicon gasket mount and mechanical switches. However, it also delivers cutting-edge, gaming-centric technology that so many desire, with analog triggers, rapid trigger functionality, and true 8K performance. The kicker, of course, is that you can customize it to suit your needs, and it’s effortless to do so. Read my full Logitech G G512 X review below.

A review unit was provided by Logitech G.

What I loved about the Logitech G G512 X ❤️

🙏 You don’t need to choose between mechanical or analog anymore. I’ve tried analog keyboards in the past, and while they’re fantastic to game on, they fall short with the overall typing experience. The Logitech G G512 X literally gives you the best of both worlds, as I set my ‘WASD’, Shift, Ctrl and Space keys to analog, and left everything else as mechanical.

🔧 A breeze to customize. With everything you need right at your fingertips, it’s super easy to customize the Logitech G G512 X. The storage system for the extra switches and SAPP rings is ingenious, as are the keyboard feet that act as keycap and switch pullers. Once you’ve made your changes, simply press the dedicated ‘Scan’ button at the top of the device and watch as the keyboard highlights and recognizes which keys are analog and mechanical.

🕹️ Armed with what gamers demand. The Logitech G G512 X isn’t a jack of trades but a master of none. Its incredible level of customizability means you can access every technology hardcore gamers desire, including rapid trigger and per-key actuation points. You can also enjoy 8K performance for the lowest latency possible, and the TMR analog sensors offer outstanding durability and response.

🆕 New ways to play. Thanks to the included SAPP rings and multi-point action keys, you can unlock new ways of playing your favorite games. A great example includes using a half-key press to walk and a full press to run. The SAPP rings make it easier to know when you’ve reached a certain actuation point, giving players more ways to customize how they play.

🎶 Remap keys. Using Logitech G’s software, G Hub, you can remap keys using ‘Key Control’, and switch between different layers. This allows you to assign complex macros, or even basic functionality like skipping a music track, to specific keys.

🌈 Light it up. The Logitech G G512 X sets a new standard for RGB lighting. It’s easy to take for granted that every keyboard can now perform its own custom light show, but the Logitech G G512 X takes things further with its bold new lightbar. With the optional palm rest, you can create some eye-catching effects that really stand out from the competition.

What I disliked about the Logitech G G512 X 💔

🤷‍♂️ The design admittedly isn’t for everyone. While I like the retro-futuristic styling of the Logitech G G512 X, especially in the white colorway, I don’t doubt it might put some people off. It can look a little toy-like, and doesn’t really blend into most setups, especially those that are going for a minimalist or clean look.

Should you buy the Logitech G G512 X? 🤔

Yes, if…

• ✅ You want a gaming keyboard which you can tailor to your needs.

• ✅ You want a great typing experience but don’t want to sacrifice gaming features.

• ✅ You’re after a gaming keyboard with all the latest technology.

No, if…

• ❌ You’d prefer a wireless gaming keyboard.

Subscribe now

Adam Vjestica is The Shortcut’s Senior Editor. Formerly TechRadar’s Gaming Hardware Editor, Adam has also worked at Nintendo of Europe as a Content Marketing Editor, where he helped launch the Nintendo Switch. Follow him on X @ItsMrProducts.

🏆 Review Score: 3.5/5 – ‘Good!’

✅ Pros:

• 💨 Graphene drivers aren’t usually included at this price range

• 🤝 Simultaneous Bluetooth audio lets you also take calls when gaming

• 🎤 The microphone is excellent for chatting with your teammates

• 🔋 The charging dock is a convenient addition

• 👏 Super easy to customize and make compatible with multiple devices

❌ Cons:

• 🤫 It doesn’t get loud enough

• 🤏 The soundstage is rather narrow

• 😖 The flip-to-mic mute mic is a bit of a pain to use

• 🎶 Not designed for listening to music

Amazon: RIG R8 Pro HS

Best Buy: RIG R8 Pro HS

The Shortcut Review

The Nacon RIG R8 Spectre Pro HS delivers in almost every aspect and redefines what you can expect from a gaming headset for under $200. It’s packed with features, including the option for simultaneous Bluetooth and gaming audio. It comes with a premium-feeling charging dock that has RGB lighting and means you’ll never run out of battery.

The Nacon RIG R8 Spectre Pro HS also has a full-bandwidth microphone with flip-to-mute and 40mm graphene drivers, which are often reserved for headsets in the $250 to $300+ range. Compare that with other options in this price range, and it’s hard to beat the RIG R8 Pro HS on paper.

• 🎧 Best Nacon RIG R8 Spectre Pro HS EQ settings: get the most out of the headset’s graphene drivers

However, what should be a home run for Nacon falls short in a few, hopefully fixable, ways. For starters, the headset simply isn’t loud enough. When playing The Last of Us 2 on PS5, I’d have loved for a bit more volume to really take advantage of the headset’s graphene drivers. Everything sounds detailed and clear, but it feels like it’s locked behind a needlessly low volume level.

Nacon RIG R8 Spectre Pro HS specs 🛠️

• Price: $179.99

• Drivers: 40mm graphene drivers

• Battery life: Around 60 hours

The headset has also been specifically tuned for first-person games. And while that will be fine for most people, it isn’t the best setup for music or media consumption. The flip side is that imaging is excellent, allowing you to pick out key audio cues. But I never felt that the soundstage was wide enough or expansive for an immersive experience, making things sound a little confined and narrow for my taste.

The headset’s microphone, as good as it is, is also let down by being too flimsy and feels rather cheap. The bendy boom arm can help you position it to your liking, but its flexible nature makes the flip-to-mic functionality slightly awkward.

Still, for $179.99, the Nacon RIG R8 Spectre Pro HS mostly succeeds. If you’re looking for a headset that ticks all the boxes bar noise cancelling, it’s a tempting option. Just be aware that there are few compromises that come with its competitive price. Read my full Nacon RIG R8 Spectre Pro HS review below.

A review unit was provided by Nacon.

What I loved about the Nacon RIG R8 Spectre Pro HS ❤️

💨 Graphene drivers. Graphene drivers are often reserved for more expensive headsets, as they deliver greater accuracy and less harmonic distortion. For games with multiple sound sources, it can be hard for traditional plastic diaphragms to keep up, but this isn’t the case for graphene drivers as they can deliver rapid, accurate vibrations while maintaining high fidelity. At this price point, Nacon’s decision to use graphene drivers is extremely pleasing.

🤝 Simultaneous Bluetooth audio. Like high-end headsets, the RIG R8 Spectre Pro HS lets you enjoy Bluetooth and game audio simultaneously, allowing you to scroll through TikTok while waiting for a match, or listen to your favorite podcast when you’re playing PowerWash Simulator.

📞 Take a call while gaming. You can also answer any incoming calls when connected to Bluetooth, and still hear your gaming audio. That’s not something we usually see and means you don’t have to stop gaming whenever your mum calls.

🔋 The charging dock is excellent. You never need to worry about your headset running out of battery (though it’s rated for 60 hours), as the docking station is super easy to use and looks great, too. With RGB lighting and a well-built magnetic fit, the RIG R8 Spectre Pro HS’s dock is a fantastic addition, and far superior to other docks I’ve tested like the Astro A50 X’s. It can also house the headset’s 2.4GHz USB-C receiver, or be simply used for charging.

🗣️ Crystal-clear mic. There was a time when gaming headsets were usually plagued by terrible microphone quality, but the introduction of full-bandwidth mics with 16-bit/48 kHz resolution is becoming the standard. The RIG R8 Spectre Pro HS is armed with an excellent mic, which can be positioned to pick up your voice easily, and lets you hear yourself clearly by adjusting the sidetone level.

💰 Competitively priced. For $179.99, Nacon’s new headset delivers premium features that many of its direct rivals miss out on. You’re getting graphene drivers, a full-bandwidth mic, a charging dock, and dual-wireless audio, and even extra benefits like multi-system switching if you purchase an additional USB-C adapter. It’s a fantastic value-proposition.

🎨 Customizable mod plates. You can personalize your headset via Nacon’s Snap+Lock Mod System, which lets pop off the plates on the earcups and easily switch them out with unique designs. The ear cushions can also be easily removed, making the Nacon RIG R8 Spectre Pro HS more customizable than many alternatives.

📱 Bluetooth app works well. You can change the EQ, update your headset, change the microphone gain, and adjust the sidetone using the RIG R-Pro Navigator app. It’s super easy to use and makes a nice change from needing to download another piece of software for PC or Mac.

What I disliked about the Nacon RIG R8 Spectre Pro HS 💔

🤷‍♂️ Not loud enough. At maximum volume on PS5 and PC, the Nacon RIG R8 Spectre Pro HS doesn’t get as loud as I’d like. Not every game is mastered the same, leading to some being noticeably quieter than others. You can improve the situation slightly by creating a custom EQ with boosted levels, but I still wish there was more headroom to play with.

🎧 Fairly narrow soundstage. Even though Nacon’s headset has been designed with 3D spatial audio in mind, I was never truly wowed by the soundstage, mainly because it never felt “wide” enough. Everything sounded as though it was confined within a narrow space inside my head, which I couldn’t rectify, even when creating a new EQ. There’s a chance this could improve with cloth earcups, but the headset would still need to deliver more volume.

🎤 Flimsy flip mic. The microphone on the RIG R8 Pro HS may sound fantastic, but its flip-to-mute feature is at odds with its bendable design. It bends all the way to the pivot point, which means when you try to flip it up or down, it isn’t as sturdy as I’d like and makes it harder to get past the resistance present when the mic is turned on and off.

🎶 Not designed for listening to music. The Nacon RIG R8 Spectre Pro HS has been custom-tuned for first-person shooters, which means it has a boosted upper mid-range to help pick out crucial audio cues. It means it isn’t the best headset for music listening, though listening to some of my favorite go-to tracks didn’t sound terrible by any means, especially after I created my own EQ setting.

Should you buy the Nacon RIG R8 Spectre Pro HS? 🤔

Yes, if…

• ✅ You want a feature-complete gaming headset that offers more than similarly priced rivals.

• ✅ You play a lot of games with friends and want a top-class microphone.

• ✅ You want to listen to Bluetooth audio while you game.

No, if…

• ❌ You like a headset that has lots of volume to spare.

• ❌ You want a headset that delivers a wide, expansive soundstage.

• ❌ You want a gaming headset that’s also tuned for music.

Subscribe now

Adam Vjestica is The Shortcut’s Senior Editor. Formerly TechRadar’s Gaming Hardware Editor, Adam has also worked at Nintendo of Europe as a Content Marketing Editor, where he helped launch the Nintendo Switch. Follow him on X @ItsMrProducts.

It’s been a year since I reviewed the ReMarkable Paper Pro, and a lot has changed since then. ReMarkable has dipped into smaller form factors with its new fan-favorite, the Paper Pro Move. At the same time, the Paper Pro went up in price by $50 and remains the same product I checked out last April: it’s super thin, it’s great for distraction-free writing, and it’s still really expensive.

Its whopping $629 price is what looms over the entire Paper Pro experience. It’s the single reason why I told folks not to buy it. If you get an iPad, you can open apps, watch videos, play games, and save hundreds of dollars, all while having the exact same functionality as the Paper Pro. But that conversation has changed… slightly.

ReMarkable has been hard at work making its highest-end E-Ink tablet more capable and a better value proposition than it was a year ago. Through a series of software updates, a lot of features have been added to the tablet since I last reviewed it, and after getting to use them all in my everyday routine, it’s safe to say that the Paper Pro is a much better value than it once was. It might not be a night-and-day difference, but if you were on the fence about getting one in 2026, it might actually be worth it this time.

Amazon: ReMarkable Paper Pro

Best Buy: ReMarkable Paper Pro

Biggest improvements I’ve noticed

Handwriting is a lot more useful

The ReMarkable Paper Pro is very handwriting-friendly as it is, and it’s always nice to be able to whip out the pen attached to my tablet to take a quick note during a meeting. But over time, it’s become not just a way to collect your thoughts, but to search for them and organize them, as well.

ReMarkable has built AI into the handwriting feature of the Paper Pro, allowing you to search for documents and notes you’ve taken without having to type on the screen. It draws on the same technologies used for converting your handwriting into text, which the Paper Pro has had for a while (so long as you subscribe to ReMarkable’s Connect subscription).

Over time, I’ve also found myself using the pen more frequently than before. Between journaling and jotting down random thoughts in my head, using the pen feels more like a natural extension of typing than it did previously. The two input methods work closer together than they ever have, bringing the note-taking performance of the Paper Pro near the level of a traditional tablet (y’know, besides the far superior E Ink display).

More compatible with productivity tools than ever before

When I was reviewing the Paper Pro, I downloaded the companion ReMarkable app to my Mac so I could see all of my notes and access them while I worked. Admittedly, the app needs some work (it’s somehow sluggish), but there’s a web app on the way that should resolve some of my woes with it.

Anyway, what drew me to it was how I could take all of my notes, write all of my reviews, and do all my journalistic duties on the Paper Pro, then open them on my chaotic laptop when I needed to. It’s a convenient productivity tool for that reason, on top of the fact you can just toss your documents over to Google Docs, Microsoft OneNote, or even Miro for developing storyboards and complex workflows.

You can also convert your notes from those other services and turn them into notebooks on the Paper Pro. That’s what I did with this editorial: I started it in Google Docs on my Mac, found it in my Google Drive on my Paper Pro, and converted it so I could keep writing on the tablet. This also works with OneDrive and Dropbox. Afterward, you can send it back to where it came from and see all your changes (in a separate document, of course, but it works nonetheless).

There’s also deeper integration with Slack for sending your handwritten notes off to colleagues. I haven’t used this feature much since, well, I try not to think about Slack when I’m writing on my Paper Pro. But if that’s something up your alley, you’ll be glad to know it’s here.

Easier to manage your files

ReMarkable has also made it easier to keep track of your files with better folder tools, tags, and more. It’s much harder not to keep your files organized at this point.

Performance has seen a big boost

I’d also like to mention that the Paper Pro has gotten remarkably (pun intended) faster and more responsive than it was when I first started using it. It’s never been slow for my usage, but I’ve noticed that pages turn quicker, files open faster, and writing handwritten notes feels a bit snappier with less latency.

There were also some features added to the mix that make using the tablet feel more natural, like auto-rotation based on how you’re holding it. It’s also easier to scroll through documents, secure your data, and share notes with colleagues by creating a link directly to them on the web.

Do these make the ReMarkable Paper Pro a better value?

Look, $629 for an E-Ink tablet is a lot of money, not to mention the money you need to spend on a keyboard folio and pen with an eraser. But it seems that ReMarkable knows this, hence its frantic push to roll out more features and make the experience more versatile and accessible.

I still use the Paper Pro the way I did a year ago: as a place to sit, relax, and write out long-form reviews and editorials where notifications and the temptation of social media can’t pry my attention. I can think clearly, get work done, and know that I can send my work anywhere I need to in order to get it out into the world.

Having a dedicated space to write has become a necessity to me in my workflow, which would make the Paper Pro worth every penny if I had bought it myself. For those who have yet to get one, though, the jury’s still out.

Some will appreciate all of the added features that ReMarkable has incorporated over the last year. The experience is truly better, faster, and more useful when you need it most. It’s also still a gorgeous gadget with a big 11.8-inch color screen, an aluminum 5.1mm body, two weeks of battery life, a bright backlight, and amazing accessories.

The conversation around ReMarkable and its mission to get folks to sit and focus on their writing, drawing, and note-taking continues to baffle some who find that versatility in other, multi-faceted gadgets like an iPad or traditional laptop. The Paper Pro remains something completely different, and if you’re willing to pay for it, you’ll get the best experience ReMarkable has shipped yet.

Just be ready to fork over more cash than you might be anticipating.

Buy the ReMarkable Paper Pro

Amazon: ReMarkable Paper Pro

Best Buy: ReMarkable Paper Pro

• Up next: Hands-on: TCL’s 2026 TVs are picking a fight with OLED – and its own RGB TV

Max Buondonno is an editor at The Shortcut and co-host of The Shortcut Live. He’s been reporting on the latest consumer technology since 2015, with his work featured on CNN Underscored, ZDNET, How-To Geek, XDA, TheStreet, and more. Follow him on X @LegendaryScoop and Instagram @LegendaryScoop.

• 📺 TCL QM8L brings Super Quanum Dot (SQD) Mini LED technology to the mainstream

• 🔆 Promises up to 6,000-nits of brightness across over 4,000 local dimming zones

• 💵 $2,499 65-inch model aggressively priced against OLED and RGB LED

• 🎮 4x HDMI 2.1 ports for up to 4K 144Hz gaming with VRR

• 🛜 Built-in Dolby Flexconnect lets you add a subwoofer and satellite speakers without a soundbar

• 📱new remote with a classier metal finish and added side buttons to change brightness

• 🗣️ Google Gemini makes controlling your TV more conversational

• 🤖 AI-generated animated backgrounds will be added to Google Gemini in the future

The TCL QM8L aims to bring SQD-Mini LED technology to mainstream 4K TVs. The TV’s 6,000-nits of brightness and 4,000 local dimming zones might pale in comparison to the TCL X11L’s 10,000-nit brightness and 20,000 local dimming zones introduced at CES 2026. However, the TCL QM8L is also certainly more affordable at $2,499 for a 65-inch model, while the smallest 75-inch TCL X11L costs $6,999.

While the rest of the TV industry is hedging its bets on RGB backlit TVs, TCL has doubled down on Mini LED technology. TCL is not only pushing newer Mini LED to be more cost-effective, but it’s also aggressively demonstrating that SQD-Mini LED technology is more colorful, contrasty, and handles motion better than RGB LED TVs and even OLED TVs.

I had almost an hour to test the TCL QM8L, watching both test footage comparing the TV against the brand-new Samsung S90H OLED and the LG C5H, the latter of which has inherited LG’s flagship 4-layer tandem OLED display. The Shortcut was also the first to play PS5 Pro games on the TCL QM8L. Spider-Man 2 looks like real-life thanks to the TCL QM8L’s dramatically brighter screen and improved motion rendering. Gamers will also love that this TV comes with four HDMI 2.1 ports ready for up to 4K 144Hz gaming with VRR.

I’ve come away fully impressed by just a taste of the TCL QM8L’s performance, and I can’t wait to get this TV in the lab for more extensive testing. The TCL QM8L is available to purchase now starting for $2,499 for a 65-inch model.

🔆 6,000-nits bright. You won’t have a problem watching the TCL QM8L even in the brightest room, thanks to its 6,000-nits of brightness spread across over 4,000 local dimming zones. That’s not nearly as bright as the 10,000-nits you can get from TCL’s flagship X11L, but all of the company’s top technologies have trickled down to this more affordable TV.

That includes the glare-eliminating WHVA 2.0 Ultra Panel that also improves contrast and widens color viewing angles. TCL also claims to have increased color depth with a new CSOT UltraColor Filter and an advanced color purity algorithm. These two things work together to eliminate color crosstalk that can be endemic to some RGB LED TVs.

📺 Better color than OLED. TCL didn’t hold back on comparing the QM8L against the top OLED TVs, including the LG C5H and Samsung S90H. The TCL QM8L consistently won out in shootout comparisons, displaying brighter highlights, more saturated colors, and surprisingly better black levels. OLED has been the king of contrast and colors, but the TCL QM8L has one me over with its superior picture quality.

🎮 Gaming ready. I played a ton of Spider-Man 2 and Ghost of Tsushima on the PS5 Pro before, but they had never looked better until I played them on the TCL QM8L. The incredible brightness of the TCL QM8L almost perfectly simulates a real sunny day in NYC as I was webslinging around in Spider-Man 2. Conversely, Ghost of Tsushima was perfectly moody and dark as I crept around in the shadows on the rainy plains of Iki Island.

🔌 4x HDMI 2.1. Whether I was zipping between buildings or charging around Japan on horseback, motion on the TCL QM8L looked incredibly smooth thanks to the TV’s maximum 4K 144Hz gaming refresh rate (consoles are still limited to 120Hz. Mercifully, all four of the TV’s HDMI 2.1 ports support 4K 144Hz gaming with auto-low-latency mode, VRR, and FreeSync Premium Pro. Sadly, there’s no G-Sync support, and that remains an exclusive feature on Samsung and LG OLED TVs.

🎬 Dolby Vision 2 Max. The TCL QM8L will be one of the first to support Dolby Vision 2 Max to squeeze the most contrast and color out of this TV’s 6000-nit bright screen. Arriving as an OTA update after the TV launches, Dolby Vision 2 Max is essentially an updated HDR format for TVs far brighter than the 1000-nit TVs Dolby Vision was originally designed for.

You should expect HDR scenes to get brighter. But at the same time, Bi-Directional Tone Mapping will prevent scenes from being blown out or grayed out and will retain the director’s original intent. Dolby Vision Max 2 also promises higher color depth, as TCL now targets 100% of the BT.2020 color spectrum.

🫰Top-tier for less. TCL has always delivered on value with lower prices, and the TCL QM8L follows suit. Even though this is a high-end TV, it starts at $2,499 for a 65-inch model and then up to $5,999 for the largest 98-inch display. Comparatively, a 65-inch Samsung S90H OLED TV costs about $200 more at $2,699. Also, up against one of LG’s top OLED evo TVs in 2026, the 77-inch LG C5H costs $3,699, while the 75-inch TCL QM8L is considerably more affordable at $2,999.

🛜 FlexConnect speaker ready. Dolby’s Flexconnect technology is built into the TCL QM8L, allowing you to easily add satellite speakers and a subwoofer. This is a huge change, as most wireless speakers and subwoofers require at least one HDMI-connected soundbar. With Flexconnect built in, you can skip buying a soundbar, especially if it doesn’t work with your aesthetic, and just add a subwoofer for more bass or a pair of rear satellite speakers for more spatial immersion.

📱 New remote. TCL has rolled out a new remote for its flagship models, and aside from the more premium metallic cover plate, the most notable addition is a pair of side buttons to adjust screen brightness. It might seem like an odd inclusion, but after even just looking at this 6,000-nit brightness TV, you’re definitely turning up and down the brightness regularly just because of how searingly bright the TCL QM8L is.

• Up next: Samsung R95H Micro RGB hands-on review: the next dimension of colors for 4K TVs

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Kevin Lee is The Shortcut’s Creative Director. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam.

• 💻 World’s most modular rugged PC: 6 user-replaceable areas, 5,760+ configurations

• ⚙️ First rugged PC with an optional 8GB discrete GPU

• 🔌 First rugged PC with up to 3 Ethernet ports – including a 10Gbps option

• 🔋 Up to 24 hours of battery life (with optional second battery)

• 🤖 Intel Core Ultra Series 2 vPro CPU with AI Boost – a first for the rugged category

• 📶 Wi-Fi 7, optional 5G up to 3.5Gbps, support for T-Mobile and Anterix added

• 💪 MIL-STD-810H certified, IP53 rated, 3-foot drop rating, magnesium alloy chassis

• 🏋️‍♂️ Starts at 4.66 lbs; ships with Windows 11 Pro

Picture a firefighter pulling up to a scene, laptop lid closed during the drive, needing GPS the moment the truck stops. Or a utility worker swapping out a barcode reader module on a five-year-old device rather than requisitioning a new machine. Or a Navy technician imaging a fleet of laptops over a 10Gbps Ethernet connection that didn’t exist two years ago. These are the people that Panasonic says it builds the ToughBook for – and with the new ToughBook 56, the company has delivered the most capable rugged laptop it has ever made.

And if that sounds like the opposite of everything Apple is doing with the MacBook Air, that’s because it is. Thin and light is a design philosophy. So is indestructible and infinitely configurable. The ToughBook 56 is the fullest expression of the second one.

The ToughBook 56 succeeds the ToughBook 55 – one of Panasonic’s best-selling rugged PCs ever – and arrives with more than 90 upgrades over its predecessor. That number sounds like marketing fluff until you start going through the list.

What even is a rugged laptop?

If you’ve never thought about this category before, you’re probably not a firefighter, a utility worker, or a Navy technician. But rugged laptops are a massive B2B segment, and the ToughBook line has been the dominant player in that space for 30 years. Panasonic’s pitch was simple: a standard laptop dies in the field. A ToughBook does not.

The original ToughBook concept started – and this is a great origin story – when British Petroleum came to Panasonic in the mid-90s and asked for a laptop that could survive an oil field with a CD-ROM drive built in. Panasonic said yes. That decision essentially created an entire product category. Three decades later, the customers are police officers, EMS workers, military personnel, utility crews, and anyone else whose office is outside the four walls of a building.

The ToughBook 56 is designed for all of them.

Modularity is the whole point

Here’s where the ToughBook 56 starts to feel genuinely innovative rather than just durable. The laptop ships with six user-replaceable modular areas – Panasonic calls the swappable components “xPAKs” – that let buyers configure the device like a set of very serious LEGOs.

Want a barcode reader on the left? Done. A 10Gbps Ethernet port? Also done. A second SSD? A Blu-ray drive? A contactless smart card reader? All of these slot in and out, and crucially, they can be added or swapped years after purchase. Most rugged users keep their devices three to five years – some organizations deploy them for over a decade – so the ability to upgrade a component without replacing the whole machine is a legitimate cost-saving proposition.

Panasonic claims 5,760 possible configurations across those six areas. Do the math yourself if you enjoy that kind of thing, but the point is that the ToughBook 56 can be an almost entirely different device depending on who’s buying it.

New to this generation is a brand new embedded security area – non-removable, but it frees up the other modular slots for additional combinations. This means, for the first time, a customer can have a contactless smart card reader and a second battery simultaneously. That’s a bigger deal than it sounds for agencies that require both.

This is the most connected rugged laptop ever made

The connectivity specs on the ToughBook 56 are where it earns its industry-first credentials. It’s the first rugged PC capable of running up to three Ethernet ports simultaneously – and the optional third port tops out at 10Gbps, which is ten times the speed of a standard gigabit connection. For IT administrators imaging thousands of units, that’s not a marginal improvement; it translates to hours of deployment time saved per cycle.

On the wireless side, the ToughBook 56 ships with Wi-Fi 7 as standard, with all three bands – 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz – enabled by default (a change from the previous model, which defaulted to 2.4GHz only and left some users puzzled by sluggish speeds). The optional 5G modem now supports T-Mobile and Anterix’s private cellular network in addition to the existing Verizon, AT&T, and FirstNet support. That last one matters for utilities and defense customers who are increasingly building private cellular infrastructure as a Wi-Fi alternative.

The GPS antenna was also quietly relocated – moved to the left side of the chassis so it sits over a plastic section rather than the magnesium alloy body when the lid is closed. This fixes a real-world problem: first responders who are required to drive with their laptop lid closed were waiting up to two minutes to reacquire GPS signal on the previous model. That’s not a software fix. It’s an engineering decision driven directly by how people actually use these machines in the field.

The performance story is legitimately interesting

The ToughBook 56 is the first device in the rugged category to run Intel’s Core Ultra Series 2 vPro processor with AI Boost – two generations ahead of what’s in the ToughBook 55. Options include the Core Ultra 5 235H (up to 5.0GHz, 14 cores) and the Core Ultra 7 265H (up to 5.3GHz, 16 cores). Both come with DDR5-5600MHz memory, up from slower DDR4 in the previous generation.

The headline spec, though, is the optional AMD Radeon Pro W7500M discrete GPU with 8GB of VRAM – double what competing rugged devices offer. Panasonic is targeting graphics-intensive field applications and AI inferencing workloads with this option. It adds roughly a pound to the weight and a 0.6-inch bump to the base (and notably does not work with vehicle docks), but for customers running visual inspection software, mapping tools, or edge AI applications, this is a meaningful upgrade.

Battery life with a single cell hits 12 hours; the optional second hot-swappable battery pushes that to 24 hours under MobileMark 30 testing conditions. Speakers are now rated at 98dB – loud enough to cut through highway noise or vehicle sirens – and the new custom-built fan uses copper heat pipes to more aggressively manage thermals under load.

Small things that will matter to actual users

There’s a 16:10 display now instead of 16:9 – a wider aspect ratio (in the vertical sense) that gives field workers more rows of data on screen without scrolling. The touchpad buttons have been recessed rather than flush-mounted, so users can locate them by touch in the dark. The power port door was redesigned from a hinge to a slide to survive the repeated opening and closing that kills doors on multi-year deployments. The handle was re-curved and treated with a material that stays cool in direct sunlight.

All of these changes came from customer feedback, according to Panasonic, and taken together they paint a picture of a company that is unusually rigorous about listening to how its products actually get used.

Who is the ToughBook 56 for?

The ToughBook 56 is for a very specific set of readers of The Shortcut. At 4.66 lbs with a magnesium alloy chassis and a full suite of enterprise security features, this is not the laptop you take to a coffee shop.

But here’s why it matters: the ToughBook 56 is a reminder that the laptop category is enormous, and most of the product launches you read about are designed for a relatively narrow slice of it. There are hundreds of thousands of people whose jobs require a computer that can get rained on, dropped, used in a moving vehicle, and connected to a private cellular network – and for those people, no MacBook Air will ever do the job. The ToughBook 56 is built specifically for them, and with this generation, it’s more capable than anything in the rugged category has ever been.

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• 📦 Amazon Ember Artline TVs are now available for preorder with a $899 55-inch and $1,099 model

• 📺 Features a matte 4K QLED panel with support for Dolby Vision and HDR10+

• 🛋️ Match the Room uses AI to help find art and photos that matches your room decor

• 🗣️ Command Alexa+ to start a movie at a specific scene

• ▶️ Alexa+ can also move your Prime Video shows and sports to another TV

At this point, the walls have completely closed around Samsung’s The Frame with competitors from Hisense’s Canvas TV and TCL NXTVision TVs – and now Amazon is getting into the game too with its Ember Aartline TVs. Today, two of Amazon’s Ember Artline TVs are available for preorder, including a 55-inch TV set that costs $899, and the 65-inch is priced at $1,099. They’re not as affordable as the 55-inch Hisense Canvas TV ($699) or even last year’s 55-inch Samsung The Frame TV ($799), but Amazon has priced its Ember Artline TVs competitively.

I got to go hands-on with the Amazon Ember Artline TV, and it impressed me from the get-go with its matte finish that hid glare even in direct sunlight on its display. Amazon also has a Match the Room feature that uses AI to analyze your decor and find artwork that matches it. Amazon’s impressive AI doesn’t stop there; Alexa+ can start a show at a specific scene for you and even move what you’re watching to a different TV.

📺 Impressive matte display. The Amazon Ember Artline TV impressed me from the moment I saw it in a sunny room, with no glare on the screen. That’s with sunlight beaming directly on the screen while Amazon demoed its features to me. It also helps that the TV has a bright and colorful 4K QLED screen that shines through even direct sunlight.

🛋️ Match the Room. Choosing between over 2,000 art pieces is a lot, and if you’re unsure of what will work best for your living space, you can have AI curate art and photos to match your decor. Amazon’s Match the Room uses AI to analyze your space to suggest art pieces and photos to match the aesthetics it recognizes. I tried the process, and it only took a few moments. After snapping no more than five photos, the AI selected a set of paintings and photos that complemented the room’s neutral, warm beige paint, gray tones, and natural wood accents.

🎨 Color options. As the Amazon Ember Artline TV is designed to display art and be part of your decor, you can personalize it with 10 different colors and material options at checkout. The variety of options includes Walnut, Ash, Teak, Black Oak, Matte White, Midnight Blue, Fig, Pale Gold, Graphite, and Silver. Don’t worry about getting tired or regretting your choice, either, as the frames are magnetic, allowing you to easily snap them off and replace them later.

🎬 Picture picture. Beyond showing artwork, Ember Artline TV delivers a great picture quality, which I would expect of any QLED TV today. Colors look vibrant, and contrast delivers smoky blacks. Thankfully, TV’s matte finish doesn’t wash away any of the picture quality at all. The TV also supports both Dolby Vision and HDR10+ to take the most of the headache of calibrating your TV out of the equation. Unfortunately, there isn’t any filmmaker or professional mode.

🗣️ Alexa+ flex. I’ve seen voice commands evolve over the last year to help you find shows from just a vague description and settle debates, but Alexa+ is the mightiest AI assistant I’ve used this year. During my demo, I could ask Alexa+ to start playing The Tomorrow War from the specific scene where Chris Pratt gets sucked into the future. Amazon told me this feature will only work for movies on Prime Video to start, but it plans to expand from there.

▶️ Move this. The Ember Artline also has another impressive trick where I can simply ask Alexa+ to move a show or sports game I’m watching to another TV anywhere in my home. It’s a fantastic feature if you want to continue watching a movie and move it to the kitchen while you wash dishes, and then back to the living room once you’re done. The Alexa+ “move this” feature will also work exclusively with Prime Video programs at launch.

• Up next: Samsung R95H Micro RGB hands-on review: the next dimension of colors for 4K TVs

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Kevin Lee is The Shortcut’s Creative Director. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam.

Rating: 4.5/5

✅ Pros

• 💎 Premium build with high-quality materials

• 🪶 Very comfortable

• 🛟 Extra lumbar support is perfect for dialing in the right position

• ❄️ Keeps you cool even after sitting for hours on end

• 👷 Easy to assemble

• 🎨 Multiple color options

❌ Cons

• 💰 Expensive

• 🤨 Neck pillow doesn’t offer the support you’d think

• 🛞 Restrictive gliding

The Shortcut review

Razer has been making some of the best gaming chairs you can buy for a number of years, and it absolutely cooked with the Iskur V2 Newgen. As the brand’s latest flagship gaming chair, it comes with a number of upgrades over the previous version that make it a compelling option for those who spend a lot of time sitting down in front of their computers. It’s been my primary chair at The Shortcut’s office for a few weeks, and it’s been a game-changer for my daily routine.

The Iskur V2 Newgen is sturdy, uses high-end materials, and offers all the adjustable support I need to stay comfortable while my boss has me chained to my desk (well, not literally, but figuratively for sure). You can tweak this thing to virtually every position you’d feel comfortable in, whether for typing all day or swinging through New York City streets in Marvel’s Spider-Man.

All of that luxury comes at a price. You can add the Iskur V2 Newgen to your set-up… for $649. That’s a beefy asking price for a chair, which might make it out of reach for some customers. But if you have the money to burn and you want one of the best gaming chairs on the market, the Iskur V2 Newgen is a fantastic addition to anyone’s set-up.

Razer: Iskur V2 Newgen

Review notes

💎 Luxury design that’s durable and comfortable. We love the shape and feel of Razer’s Iskur V2 and V2 X from a couple of years ago, and the V2 Newgen delivers the same great impression. It’s sculpted nearly perfectly to conform to your sitting position, the cushion’s large enough not to feel cramped, and there’s plenty of back support (more on that later). Razer’s next-generation EPU leather covers the entire chair that - at least according to the company - won’t peel over time and is 13x stronger than traditional PU leather. This is great for future-proofing to ensure the integrity of the chair over time, and while I haven’t had it nearly long enough to say whether it’s as strong as Razer says, I’ll take its word for it.

👷 Very easy to assemble. Razer designed the Iskur V2 Newgen in a way that make assembling it very straightforward. There are clear instructions in the box that give you a visual of each step, and most parts can be slotted into each other without requiring tools. It took me about 20 minutes to get it unboxed and set up in our office, which felt like no time at all.

🎨 Plenty of color options available. I like the classic Razer look with black leather and neon green accents, but the company also offers the Iskur V2 Newgen in a few other colors, including all black, Quartz (pink), and Light Gray. The arm rests and wheel base is painted black across all finishes, though, so you’ll have to be okay with customizing the leather alone to match your aesthetic.

❄️ Keeping you cooler than competitors. One of my favorite aspects of Razer’s material choice for the Iskur V2 Newgen is its ability to keep you cool. The leather and foam inside have high thermal effusivity, which basically means the chair stays cooler for way longer than normal leather chairs. This translates well into everyday life; after shooting an episode of The Shortcut Live, rigorously editing reviews and photos, and spending hours sending emails and signing NDAs, I’ll get a bit warm sitting in the chair but never uncomfortably warm. I’ve never had a leather chair keep me quite as cool as this, so for the gamers out there that run hot, this might be the chair for you.

🛟 Best lumbar support in the game? That’s the question I’ve been asking myself since I started using this chair because, boy oh boy, is it good. It uses Razer’s all-new HyperFlex Lumbar Support System that has a proprietary 360° swivel design, letting you adjust virtually every aspect of the chair to match how you want to be positioned perfectly. Dials and levers let you fine-tune the adjustments to support your back, tailbone, arms, and more, giving you complete control over the experience and making the chair your own. It’s more control than I’ve ever had on my office chair, control that I never realized I needed until now.

⏭️ Lean allll the way back. This chair supports reclining at 152 degrees. That’s really far backward, far enough where you’ll lose your balance before the chair ever will. I’ve demoed this to the guys at the office and a few friends that stopped by, and it’s kind of amazing how well the Iskur V2 Newgen is balanced. It won’t be sliding out from underneath you anytime soon, so feel free to lean back as much as you want.

🤨 The head pillow needs work. I can’t be the only one who thinks the neck pillow situation on this chair isn’t great. Its shape matches the shape of the top of the chair, sure, but… whose neck is this resting on? Look at how high it is! On top of it, even if you want to use it as a head pillow, there’s no support for your neck, so you’re constantly craning your neck forward. I eventually took it off, and it made the experience 100x better. I hope Razer works on it for the next version of the chair, or at least comes out with an alternative pillow I can attach.

🛞 Restrictive gliding. Maybe this isn’t as big a deal as I’m making it, but I do wish it was easier to glide around on the Iskur V2 Newgen. While it’s technically better for a gaming chair to stay in place most of the time, I like being able to scooch around in my office chair while I’m working, and this chair doesn’t make it that easy. The chair’s heavy to begin with, and the wheels feel like they have added friction to prevent gliding around at all. I couldn’t imagine operating this thing on carpet.

Should you buy the Razer Iskur V2 Newgen?

Yes, if…

• ✅ You want a gaming chair that’ll last for years on end

• ✅ You need top-notch lumbar support

• ✅ You run hot while gaming or working

No, if…

• ❌ You have a tighter budget (get the Razer Iskur V2 X Newgen)

• ❌ You prefer a mesh gaming chair (get the Razer Fujin)

• ❌ You don’t need all the crazy lumbar adjustments (get the Corsair TC100 Relaxed Gaming Chair)

Razer: Iskur V2 Newgen

Max Buondonno is an editor at The Shortcut and co-host of The Shortcut Live. He’s been reporting on the latest consumer technology since 2015, with his work featured on CNN Underscored, ZDNET, How-To Geek, XDA, TheStreet, and more. Follow him on X @LegendaryScoop and Instagram @LegendaryScoop.

• 📺 The R95H is Samsung’s new flagship Micro RGB TV

• 🌈 Micro RGBs replace the Mini LED backlight with tinier red, green, and blue LEDs

• 🚥 The individually colored backlight LEDs produce more accurate and deeper colors

• 🏆 The R95H gets all of Samsung’s flagship features, including a Glare-Free display, Art Mode, and optional Wireless One Connect support

• 🎮 Gaming ready with 4x HDMI 2.1, 165Hz refresh rate, VRR, and ALLM

🌈 Color comes to life. Not to be confused with the Micro LED TVs Samsung has been demonstrating at trade shows like CES 2026 for years, Micro RGBs employ essentially smaller backlight LEDs that emit red, green, and blue light rather than a purely white backlight. Micro LEDs use this color-matched backlight to produce more accurate colors, which Samsung claims will allow this 4K TV to reproduce 100% of the BT.2020 color gamut.

At first blush, I could see more shades within colors, like scarlet vs. crimson in a rose, on Samsung’s provided broll. The RGB backlight also revealed more shades of brown and red in the flare scene of the “1917” movie, which otherwise appeared mostly yellow on a regular Mini LED TV. I could also see more subtle shades of blue during the nighttime riverdance scene in “Sinners.”

🎑 Art Mode. The Samsung R95H Micro RGB is the second TV outside of the Samsung The Frame (Pro) TV to support Art Mode, following the Samsung S95H QD-OLED. The extra splash of color from this TV’s Micro RGB makes vibrant paintings really come to life. From verdant greens, azure blues, rosy reds, and smoky blacks, there’s just more color definition to appreciate.

🪩 Goodbye reflections. Samsung’s fantastic Glare-Free technology has also come to the Samsung R95H to truly eliminate glare and reflections. We didn’t get to experience this in a windowed room, but Samsung claims its Glare-Free technology will effectively diffuse even direct sunlight, preventing glare and reflections from showing up on the display.

🛜 Wireless One Connect Ready. The R95H is also the second Samsung’s second TV to support its new Wireless OneConnect Box, which adds four more HDMI 2.1 ports to the four wired ports on the back of the TV. That adds up to a total of eight HDMI 2.1 ports, giving you ultimate freedom and flexibility to add more consoles, gaming PCs, soundbars, and whatever else you want to this TV. Samsung still has yet to announce pricing for the optional Wireless OneConnect Box, but hopefully, it’ll be more affordable than a receiver.

🎞️ HDR10+ Advanced. The R95H will be one of Samsung’s first TVs to support HDR10+ Advanced. This new HDR format is essentially an updated HDR10+ format designed for higher-brightness TVs. You can expect improved tone mapping for deeper color and brightness gradation. Beyond that, HDR10+ Advanced can also utilize AI to add genre-based optimization, intelligent frame rate conversion, and adaptive gaming features.

🎮 RGB gaming. The Samsung R95H also comes fully gaming-ready with four HDMI 2.1 ports for the Xbox Series X/S, PS5 Pro, Nintendo Switch 2, and gaming PCs. Those same ports also support up to 165Hz refresh rates, VRR, and FreeSync Premium Pro. The only thing missing here for gamers is G-Sync support, which remains exclusive to OLED TVs like the Samsung S95H QD-OLED and Samsung S90H OLED.

As with other media, the RGB backlight on the R95H really brings colorful games to life, especially Hades II, where I could even see how the individual bricks in the background of the sewer level were shaded slightly differently. The Samsung R95H also made Mario Kart World feel so much more colorful by adding more vibrancy to every element, from Mario’s red cap to the greener grass.

• Up next: Samsung S90H OLED hands-on review: the new ultimate gaming 4K TV

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Kevin Lee is The Shortcut’s Creative Director. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam.

• 🎥 The Mission 1 Pro is GoPro’s new cinema camera with a 1-inch sensor and GP3 processor

• 🎞️ Shoots 8K30 and 4K120 open gate video as well as 50MP RAW photos

• 🐌 32x ultra-slow-motion mode records 1080p footage at 960fps

• 🌅 The larger sensor also features larger pixels for improved low-light capture

• ⚙️ GP3 processor supports 240 Mbps, 10-bit color, and a new GP-Log2 recording format

• 🧠 AI Neural Processor Unit automatically switches the camera between 13 Intelligent Capture Modes, letting you focus on creating what you want

• 🤿 Higher waterproofing rating for up to 66ft (20m)

• 🎙️ Four onboard microphones work together to cancel out noise

• 🎀 New accessories including a redesigned Media Mod and GoPro’s first Wireless Mic Kit

• 📅 The GoPro Mission 1 Pro and Mission 1 preorders begin May 21 and units ship May 28

• 🏷️ The GoPro Mission 1 Pro will cost $699 ($599 for subscribers) and is available to reserve now

• 🎥 The GoPro Mission 1 Pro ILS will arrive later this year in Q3 2026

The GoPro Mission 1 is the GoPro Hero camera you wish you could do more with, whether it be taking photos, recording high-res vlogs, or shooting a whole movie. The Mission 1 Pro delivers a fundamentally new level of cinema camera quality from GoPro thanks to its new 1-inch sensor and more powerful GP3 processor. With the new chipset, the Mission 1 Pro records up to 8K30 and 4K120 open gate video. You can still use it like an action cam, taking it underwater and shooting high-speed footage up to 960 fps at 1080p.

What’s most impressive is how it’s barely any larger than the GoPro Hero 13 Black, and yet it’s so much more capable. The new GP3 processor seems to have resolved many of the Hero camera’s issues, including battery life and heat. GoPro claims the Mission 1 Pro can record more than five hours of 1080p30 footage and more than three hours of 4K30 video on a single charge. That GP3 processor also includes an AI Neural Processor Unit that does the heavy lifting of automatically switching between 13 Capture Modes for things like face-tracking vlogging, or automatically adjusting color for underwater shooting.

The GoPro Mission 1 Pro is also joined by two other variants, including a Mission 1 ILS that lets you attach any Micro Four Thirds lens. Meanwhile, the GoPro Mission 1 should be a more affordable option that offers all the same specs and features, but lacks 8K30 open gate recording. GoPro has also greatly expanded its ecosystem of accessories, introducing a new Media Mod and even its first wireless microphone system. There are also new camera cages and even a Point-and-Shoot case you can wrap around the GoPro Mission 1 Pro to turn it into a dedicated photo camera.

Unfortunately, GoPro isn’t announcing pricing for the Mission 1 Pro camera, citing macroeconomic challenges. But the Mission 1 Pro will be available for preorder soon on May 21 and on shelves the following week, May 28.

🎞️ Cinema resolution. The GoPro Mission 1 Pro can record up to 8K at 30 fps and 4K at 120 fps. Like past GoPro cameras, the Mission 1 Pro records footage in open gate by utilizing the entire sensor to record footage in a 4:3 aspect ratio. This affords you more latitude to cut content for vertical or horizontal media. For stills, you can also use the GoPro Mission 1 Pro to capture 50MP RAW photos.

🚀 Need for speed. If you’re looking for more speed than resolution, the GoPro Mission 1 Pro can also capture 1080p at 960 fps. This 32x ultra-slow-motion mode records only 10 seconds of 16:9 footage at a time, but that translates into five minutes of frame-by-frame action. The GoPro Mission 1 Pro can also record in more slow-motion formats, including 8K60, 4K240, and 1080p480. There are also two open-gate slow-motion modes at 4K120 and 1440p240.

🌅 Opening up for more light. The GoPro Mission 1-inch sensor is considerably larger than the 1/1.9-inch sensor in the GoPro Hero 13 Black. The sensor pitch, or the literal size of each pixel, has also increased to 1.6µm. This allows every pixel on the image sensor to capture more light, and GoPro promises it can capture up to 14 stops of dynamic range. This sensor can also combine multiple pixels for an even more light-sensitive, albeit lower-resolution, Quad Bayer mode with a fused pixel size of 3.2µm. This is basically the same as how the iPhone downsamples its 48MP main sensor to produce 12MP photos with more dynamic range.

🧠 Smarter processor. The GoPro Mission 1 Pro also features a more powerful and efficient GP3 processor that extends battery life, runs cooler, and adds more recording capabilities. The GP3 processor supports a maximum recording bitrate of 240 Mbps and 10-bit color in the GP-Log2 format. You can also record videos in the hybrid HLG-HDR format, which automatically plays in HDR on compatible screens or SDR on older displays.

GoPro Mission 1 Pro ILS hands-on review

Ever wished you could put a telephoto lens on your GoPro? Well, that’s exactly what the Mission 1 Pro ILS was made for. Short for interchangeable lenses, the GoPro Mission 1 Pro 1 ILS swaps its standard wide-angle lens for an open Micro Four Thirds lens mount. The 1-inch sensor adds a roughly 3x crop factor to any lens, so a 15mm lens will be about 45mm equivalent on a full-frame camera. That means you could easily add a relatively short 100mm lens and suddenly have a 300mm telephoto for shooting subjects incredibly far away.

I also got to get my hands on the GoPro Mission 1 Pro ILS, and this has been my dream camera for years finally realized. It’s amazing to take the lens off this GoPro and then just look at the Mission 1 Pro ILS’ naked 1-inch image sensor. The only caveat here is that lenses don’t autofocus when mated to the Mission 1 Pro ILS, so you’ll have to rely on the camera’s focusing aids, including zoom and focus peaking. Otherwise, I can’t wait to put ridiculously long lenses on the GoPro Mission 1 Pro ILS

The GoPro Mission 1 Pro ILS costs $699 ($599 for GoPro Subscribers) and will be available by Q3 2026.

🎛️ Better than preset settings. GoPro also told us the GP3 processor is more intelligent, with an AI Neural Processor Unit, so it can now detect the type of content you’re shooting, switch between 13 Capture Modes, and make even more adjustments on top of that. While recording with the camera in front of me, it automatically selected Vlog mode, which set the camera angle to linear and enabled face tracking that impressively kept me centered in the frame, like Apple’s Center Stage on a FaceTime call. Alternatively, when shooting underwater footage, the camera will automatically adjust the color balance, saving you the step of adding a red/magenta filter.

🔋Fuller battery life. GoPro promises that the Mission 1 Pro offers the longest runtime thanks to its more efficient GP3 processor and a reformulated Enduro 2 battery. The Mission 1 camera will supposedly record more than five hours of 1080p30 and more than three hours of 4K30 video on a single charge. We didn’t have nearly enough time to test this during our two-hour hands-on with the Mission 1 camera, but we’ll test it soon in our upcoming review.

🤿 More durable than ever. Although GoPro is pitching the Mission 1 Pro as a cinema camera, it’s even more rugged than the GoPro Hero 13 Black. Even without any underwater housing, the Mission 1 Pro is waterproof up to 66ft (20m). The body of the camera also feels as sturdy as any GoPro Hero camera, which should help it withstand accidental drops. One new protection element is an added lens hood that wraps around the front of the camera lens.

📺 Larger OLED display. The GoPro Mission 1 also features a 14% larger OLED display compared to the Hero 13 Black. It also seems bright enough to see in the sun. GoPro didn’t disclose the display’s exact maximum brightness, but we had to lower it to 20-30% just to take a clear photo of the menus.

🎙️ Mics on mics. There are four microphones on the GoPro Mission 1 Pro: a stereo pair on the front of the camera, another on the back facing the shooter, and a side-mounted drain microphone. These microphones also work intelligently to cancel out noise, while 32-Bit Float audio recording helps prevent clipping. GoPro has also introduced a new Media Mod that adds three additional multi-pattern microphones that can work in conjunction with the GoPro’s four onboard mics. Beyond that, you can also pair two of GoPro’s brand-new wireless microphones for multi-channel commentary while recording content.

🎤 Wireless Mic System. GoPro has finally introduced a Wireless Mic System after five iterations of the DJI Mic and Mic Mini systems. The system includes two wireless mic transmitters that can pair directly to a GoPro Mission 1 camera over Bluetooth 5.3 or with an included receiver, which supports up to 24-bit/48kHz audio with Dynamic Noise Reduction and up to 150m wireless range. There’s also a second USB-C dongle that you can plug directly into a smartphone. Each mic offers 6.5 hours of runtime, plus two more full charges in the case.

GoPro Mission 1

GoPro also introduced a more basic GoPro Mission 1 camera that offers the same specs and features as the Mission 1 Pro, but it can only record 4K120 Open Frame and not 8K30. While recording 16:9 footage, the GoPro Mission 1 can still record 8K30, 4K120, and 1080p240 video. As a result, the GoPro Mission 1 is more affordable at $599 ($499 for GoPro subscribers).

⚙️ Redesigned Media Mod. GoPro also has a newly redesigned Media Mod that helps you build out the Mission 1 Pro as a full-on movie camera. It includes the previously mentioned multi-pattern microphones with eight pickup options. The Media Mod also expands the camera’s I/O suite with three 3.5mm ports (external mic, timecode line-in, and headset monitoring) and a micro-HDMI port for up to 4K60 video output or monitoring. My favorite thing about the new Media Mod is that it has a way faster quick-release that only requires you to press one button.

📸 Point-and-Shoot Grip. The last new accessory GoPro has made for the Mission 1 Pro is a camera case that basically turns it into a point-and-shoot camera. The accessory first includes a small cage that adds a secondary vertical mounting point. Then you can slip on additional plastic pieces that give the Mission 1 Pro a right-handed grip and a shutter button that’s more like a paddle. Unfortunately, this Point-and-Shoot Grip doesn’t include any additional controls or dials to help you set your exposure.

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Kevin Lee is The Shortcut’s Creative Director. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam.

🏆 Review Score: 5/5 – ‘Outstanding’

🏅 Editor’s Choice Award

✅ Pros:

• 🤗 Optical switches

• 🪶 Ridiculously light

• 👏 Delightful dongle

• 🔋 Brilliant battery life

• 🙏 Razer Synapse web is a blessing

• 👷🏻 Superb build quality

❌ Cons:

• 😖 The click noise

• 🤷‍♂️ Razer Synapse still sucks

• 🏋 The white version is a gram heavier

Walmart: Razer Viper V4 Pro

Razer: Viper V4 Pro

Best Buy: Razer Viper V4 Pro

Amazon: Razer Viper V4 Pro

The Shortcut Review

The Razer Viper V4 Pro may look like a minor revision over the excellent Viper V3 Pro, but it improves upon its predecessor in practically every aspect.

And while that’s largely to be expected from the latest revision of any device, the real comparison PC gamers will want to know is whether it’s better than the Logitech G Pro X2 Superstrike.

As the headline confidently suggests, the answer is yes. The Razer Viper V4 Pro nails every aspect you’d want from a top tier gaming mouse and surpasses the Superstrike in several departments.

• Razer Viper V4 Pro best settings: click to win with these Synapse tweaks

However, Logitech’s ingenious haptic inductive trigger system (HITS) may still give it an edge over Razer’s mouse, despite all of its many positives. For some, there’s simply no going back to a regular click.

But as brilliant as HITS is – and it really is, as I mentioned in my Logitech G Pro X2 Superstrike review – the Razer Viper V4 Pro usurps the previously crowned king of gaming mice overall.

First, it’s significantly lighter at 49-50 grams compared to 61 grams. That might sound like a negligible difference, but returning to the Superstrike after using the Viper V4 Pro for a week makes those 10 grams feel like 50. It’s genuinely surprising just how heavy the Superstrike now feels.

The Viper V4 Pro’s battery life is also phenomenal. Thanks to some clever new technology called Frame Sync, which I’ll explain in more detail below, I only charged it twice during my extensive testing, and that was when the battery had fallen just under 50%.

Razer Viper V4 Pro specs 🛠️

• Price: $159

• Connection: Razer Hyperspeed, USB-C wired

• Sensor: Razer Focus Pro Optical 50K Optical Sensor Gen-3

• Battery life: 180hr depending on usage conditions

• Weight: 49 grams (black version), 50 grams (white version)

• Colors: Black, White

Razer says the Viper V4 Pro will last around 180 hours at 1000Hz, and I don’t doubt that’s the case considering I was using it 8000Hz. The Logitech G Pro X2 Superstrike lasts around 90 hours, but it’s more like 30 hours once you’ve enabled Rapid Trigger, changed to a higher polling rate, and adjusted the haptics. The gap is sizeable.

An easy to overlook addition is the incredibly useful hemispherical dongle that comes with the Razer Viper V4 Pro. It can display useful information like your connection strength, battery level, current DPI, and polling rate, and can be customized to your liking. It’s a small touch, but goes beyond the usual indistinguishable dongle you stick into a USB port and forget about.

There’s even more to love about Razer’s new mouse, however. Throw in a dedicated DPI switch, superior skates for a smoother feel, incredibly low latency, a more reliable optical scroll wheel, rock-solid build quality, fantastic side buttons, and the best physical switches you can get in a mouse, and it’s easy to see why the Razer Viper V4 Pro has become my preferred choice. Oh, and it’s cheaper at $159 compared to $179.

However, there is one big, audible flaw that may make the Razer Viper V4 Pro a non-starter for some. And that’s the obnoxious click noise. This thing is loud.

The optical switches produce a distinct metallic-sounding noise every time you click that is bound to be polarizing. You won’t notice it while you’re wearing headphones, of course, but others around you definitely will. It makes the Razer Viper V4 Pro a no-go for the office, and even annoying if you’re just using it for general productivity. Compared to the Superstrike, which is practically silent, it takes some getting used to.

Fortunately, click noise aside, it’s the only real sticking point that may dissuade people from purchasing Razer’s new mouse. It’s truly a brilliant alternative to Logitech G’s excellent Superstrike, especially if you’ve tried HITS and didn’t like it. The Viper V4 Pro is likely to be one of the most popular mice for pros over the next few years and ultimately proves that the more competition there is in the PC gaming space, the better. Read my full Razer Viper V4 Pro review below.

A review unit was provided by Razer.

What I loved about the Razer Viper V4 Pro ❤️

🤗 Optical everywhere. The Razer Viper V4 Pro is armed with optical mouse switches, an optical scroll wheel, and an optical sensor. Essentially, optical offers faster response times than mechanical switches, which makes them ideal for competitive gaming.

🪶 Ridiculously light. At just 49 grams (though oddly, the white version I tested is one gram heavier), the Razer Viper V4 Pro is effortless to use. Its weight is also perfectly balanced, which means it should suit all grip types.

💨 Let’s glide. Mouse skates can make a dramatic difference to how a mouse feels when you’re moving it around, and often stock skates aren’t the best. That’s not the case with the Razer Viper V4 Pro, as the large mouse feet and skates around the sensor offer a smooth experience compared to other mice I’ve tested.

👏 Delightful dongle. Instead of your usual tiny little dongle that comes with most wireless devices, the Razer Viper V4 Pro includes a hemispherical dongle that houses a taller antenna to provide unwavering signal strength. It’s also weighty, meaning it won’t slide around your desk or be pulled back by a taunt cable. However, the highlight of the dongle is that can show various status indicators, such as connection strength, battery life, and polling rate, so you don’t need to open up any software.

🔋 Brilliant battery life. You’ll barely have to charge the Razer Viper V4 Pro, as it lasts for up to 180 hours depending on your settings. That’s a vast improvement over the Viper V3 Pro and leaves the Logitech G Pro X2 Superstrike’s battery in the dust. It’s all thanks to Razer’s Frame Sync, which aligns every sensor frame with your mouse’s scanning and USB polling cycle. This provides smarter power efficiency, as there’s no wasted sensor updates. Think of it like how G-Sync and FreeSync work, and you get the idea.

🙏 Razer Synapse web is a blessing. Razer’s Synapse software doesn’t have the best reputation, but thankfully you don’t even need to install it if you don’t want to. You can fine-tune your settings, update the Razer Viper V4 Pro and switch on-board profiles using Razer’s new web-based version of Synapse.

🧪 Synapse software has some nice features. Despite Synapse’s issues, Razer offers some genuinely useful features. ‘Rotation Tool’ lets you adjust your mouse orientation for horizontal swipes, ‘Dynamic Sensitivity’ gives you more control over your DPI setting, and you can even adjust the DPI by one-step increments.

🐭 Mouse grip tape included. If you’re a sweaty-palmed individual like me, mouse grip tape can help. Razer includes grip tape in the box, which is a nice added value as opposed to buying it separately.

👷🏻 Superb build quality. There’s no rattle, give or flex to the Razer Viper V4 Pro, despite its light frame. Every button feels satisfying to click, and the mouse feels incredibly durable and expertly built.

What I disliked about the Razer Viper V4 Pro 💔

😖 The click noise. The Razer Viper V4 Pro produces a distinctive metallic ping every time you click. It’s the first thing you notice about the mouse, and it’s bound to be polarizing. Some won’t care, especially if you wear a headset, but it’s the one element about the Razer Viper V4 Pro that feels like an oversight.

🤷‍♂️ Razer Synapse isn’t great. Even though you can use the web-based version of Razer Synapse to update and tweak the Razer Viper V4 Pro’s settings, those who download the full software suite will still have to deal with Synapse in full. While it’s not the system resource hog it once was, Synapse feels like its main purpose is to push needless bloatware, advertise new products, and get in the way.

🤔 Why is the white version heavier? It may only be a difference of a gram, but the white version of the Razer Viper V4 Pro is heavier than the black colorway. Only Razer knows why that is the case, but for someone who has a predominantly white setup, it feels like a weird punishment that the white Razer Viper V4 Pro is a gram heavier. Yes, I’m annoyed about a gram, okay?

Should you buy the Razer Viper V4 Pro? 🤔

Yes, if…

• ✅ You want a lightweight mouse that barely needs charging.

• ✅ You loved the Razer Viper V3 Pro and want to upgrade.

• ✅ You want the best mouse for esports games.

No, if…

• ❌ You can’t go back to a normal mouse click after using the Superstrike.

• ❌ You’re very sensitive to noise.

• ❌ You don’t really play competitive FPS games.

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Adam Vjestica is The Shortcut’s Senior Editor. Formerly TechRadar’s Gaming Hardware Editor, Adam has also worked at Nintendo of Europe as a Content Marketing Editor, where he helped launch the Nintendo Switch. Follow him on X @ItsMrProducts.

🏆 Rating: 4/5

✅ Pros

• 📸 Photo and video quality take a big leap over the previous generation

• 🔋 8 hours of battery life is a game-changer (2x as long as Gen 1)

• 🔊 Speaker quality is great for listening to music

• 🤖 Meta AI is very helpful

❌ Cons

• 📐 Chunkier design than traditional Ray-Ban sunglasses

• 🔥 They can get pretty warm with heavy usage

• 💰 Price can go way up depending on your configuration

Smart glasses are all the rage nowadays, and I finally understand why. A little while ago, I was sent a pair of the Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 smart glasses to test-drive, and I’ve officially ditched traditional sunglasses because of them.

Meta has seen great success with its Ray-Ban collaboration; the company’s smart glasses make up 82% of the entire smart glasses market, making them the most popular by a long stretch. The Meta Ray-Bans were the first to offer a package compelling enough to appeal to average consumers: you can talk to Meta AI through them, take pictures and videos, play music, take phone calls, and more, all in a pair of glasses that look barely thicker than a normal pair of shades. Plus, the price isn’t extraordinarily high.

These glasses have made their way onto a lot of folks’ faces, and after using them for several months, I’ve learned that it might be time for everyone to consider switching away from traditional spectacles. Here are five things that keep me glued to my Meta Ray-Bans more than I expected.

Amazon: Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 glasses

Best Buy: Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 glasses

1. Playing music without headphones

Okay… it’s probably not a great idea to buy the Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 because of this feature, but I’m obsessed with being able to play music that only I can hear without needing headphones. I love putting my shades on before walking to our New York City office, hearing them pair to my phone, then firing up Spotify to jam out on my stroll. Audio quality is surprisingly clear with a decent level of bass, and the speakers get loud enough not to get drowned out by the noisy streets of Manhattan.

It’s like having a pair of open-style headphones on you at all times. Of course, this is also convenient for hands-free phone calls and such, but as a huge music fan, being able to blast my playlist through my sunglasses is a luxury I never thought I needed.

2. Turn-by-turn directions

Some would say I’m a master of navigating the streets of NYC, while others (like my own girlfriend) will tell you I need a little help once in a while (read: a lot of help quite frequently). I generally follow directions on my Apple Watch, but if you fire up your favorite maps app and use audible directions, they’ll play over the speakers in the glasses and guide you on your journey. The Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses are technically better equipped for this since you get a little map detailing where to go, but I find my glasses telling me where to go perfectly adequate for not making the wrong turn.

3. Recording first-person videos

The most popular feature on Meta Ray-Ban glasses is the camera, which can be used to capture photos and videos from a first-person perspective. I don’t normally take a lot of photos with the glasses on, but I’ve certainly taken plenty of videos. At a country music festival in Florida last year, I used a pair of these glasses to record myself whacking around huge beach balls with the crowd. With my review unit, it’s been a lot of day-in-the-life videos of me walking around the best city in the world.

There’s something about being able to record what you’re seeing whenever you want, instantly, that makes this seemingly novel feature a genuinely useful tool. Whether it’s destined for social media or your own personal photo album, the videos you’ll capture with these glasses are unique and way too fun to experiment with. Plus, you can record in up to 3K resolution, so all of your memories will look sharper than on previous models.

4. Asking Meta AI about what’s around me

It almost feels like a secret superpower having a computer on your face that can give you information on what you’re looking at. There are a lot of historic buildings around New York City, in addition to all the random sculptures and exhibits that open on the streets and sidewalks. As much as I try to keep up with what’s going on, sometimes, you need someone to just explain it to you.

That’s where Meta AI comes in. You can look at something and say, “Hey Meta, what am I looking at?” It’ll then take a picture of what’s in front of you and give you insights into what it’s examining. Sometimes it doesn’t get it totally right, but that’s usually because I’m looking at what’s in front of me at a weird angle. If I look at the base of a church, for example, it doesn’t really know what to say about that. But if I look up where all the details are, Meta AI has no problem telling me more about St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

I’m encouraged to use this feature not just because it’s super convenient, but because of how responsive it is. Meta incorporated the Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 processor, which gives the glasses impressive processing power, delivering fast responses from Meta AI and making features like photo capturing feel effortless. Plus, its efficient even when handling heavy tasks. Speaking of which…

5. Battery life is finally good enough

The original version of Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses could only be used for 3-4 hours on a full charge. That changed exponentially with the second generation, which got upgraded with up to 8 hours of mixed use.

This makes a huge difference in how much you’re enticed to use a pair of smart glasses. No one wants to use them that much if they’re going to die quickly - then you’re just walking around with chunky glasses with no added functionality. But because these puppies can last for twice as long, it encourages me to listen to more music, take more pictures and videos, and ask Meta AI more questions while I’m out and about. Then, when they need to be recharged, I pop them back in the back and juice ‘em up.

Are they worth $379?

That’s how much my review pair of Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 glasses cost, with the Skyler frame and green-tinted sunglass lenses. That’s around $180 more than most folks are comfortable spending on a pair of high-end shades, so it’s definitely an investment no matter how you swing it.

But I think for some folks, spending the extra cash will be well worth it. For early adopters and those who want to start exploring the world of smart glasses, this is a great place to start. Meta and Ray-Ban have pulled off one of the first truly great pairs of smart glasses in existence, hence why you might see them more frequently in the world than you’d expect. Between the sleek design and actually-useful feature set, it’s the only pair of mainstream smart glasses that are worth recommending to virtually anyone.

Amazon: Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 glasses

Best Buy: Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 glasses

• Up next: Ecovacs Deebot X11 OmniCyclone review: a great robot vacuum with questionable smarts

Max Buondonno is an editor at The Shortcut and co-host of The Shortcut Live. He’s been reporting on the latest consumer technology since 2015, with his work featured on CNN Underscored, ZDNET, How-To Geek, XDA, TheStreet, and more. Follow him on X @LegendaryScoop and Instagram @LegendaryScoop.

🏆 Review score: 4 out of 5

✅ Pros

• 💅 GoPro styling makes this laptop stand out

• 💪 AMD Radeon 8060S integrated graphics outperforms a discrete Nvidia RTX 4050 GPU

• 🎮 Fantastic gaming performance at full resolution and ultra settings

• 🎬 100% DCI-P3 color-accurate factory-calibrated display

• 🔋 Solid battery life for hardcore usage and well over 10 hours for everyday tasks

❌ Cons

• 🤑 Incredibly high $2,999 price

• 🔅 Screen brightness limited to 500 nits

• 🐌 Slow 60Hz display

• 🖍️ Smart pen doesn’t attach to the laptop and requires a dedicated charger

• 🧳 Included cases are nice, but I would trade them for a lower price

BB: Asus ProArt PX13 GoPro - $2,999

The Shortcut Review

The Asus ProArt PX13 GoPro Edition has been one of the most thoroughly impressive laptops I’ve tested. Its AMD Radeon 8060S integrated graphics outpace another version of this 13-inch 2-in-1 laptop I tested previously, which was equipped with a discrete Nvidia RTX 4050 GPU. It’s wild how much better this GoPro Edition laptop is. Not only are all the benchmark scores higher, but I also saw over three times the battery life (up to 13 hours) on this new machine.

Unfortunately, the big but here is the $2,999 price. That’s much higher than the standard Asus ProArt PX13, which costs a much lower $1,799. For your $3K, you get some nice bundled extras, including two cases and a smart pen – but they all have their own flaws. The pen, for instance, doesn’t stow anywhere on the laptop and comes with a specialized charger. Meanwhile, the cases offer a nice way to carry your laptop with some GoPro gear, but I would happily swap these for a lower price.

The Asus ProArt PX13 GoPro Edition isn’t without other flaws. The 13-inch 2,800 x 1,800 screen is colorful and high-contrast, but it’s a bit too dim at 500 nits and only refreshes at a slow 60Hz. That last part seems odd, given that GoPro videos are so often shot at higher frame rates. There’s also in-depth GoPro editing software available on PC anymore.

Ultimately, don’t buy this GoPro Edition laptop purely for editing your GoPro videos. Buy it for its stylish homages to GoPro, the impressive performance, solid battery life, and hardy build quality.

Full Review

💅 GoPro styling. This laptop really should have been named the Asus GoPro Art, given its branding and how much of its design is GoPro-inspired. The screen lid features vertical grille lines just like the cooling lanes on the GoPro 13. Meanwhile, the laptop’s feet feature the same blue-speckled pattern as the GoPro 12. Even the keyboard backlight glows with a GoPro-inspired blue hue in case you missed the dedicated GoPro button on the keyboard’s function row. Branded products can really miss the mark, but I love how tastefully Asus has done it on the ProArt PX13, making this an eye-catching machine.

📲 That’s the GoPro app? For how much GoPro branding there is on this laptop, it surprisingly doesn’t come with any GoPro apps preloaded. Hitting the shortcut key first brings you to the Windows Store page to install the GoPro Player. Then the GoPro Player app only lets you edit your videos with a simple trimming tool. The HyperSmooth adjustments you can make are a little more in-depth, allowing you to change how much it crops your footage and corrects lens distortion.

This app isn’t anywhere as in-depth as the GoPro Quik app, which can auto-edit a video to music, complete with transitions, for you. As for why the GoPro Quik app just isn’t available on PC, unfortunately, desktop app support ended in 2024.

📈 Better than discrete graphics. AMD Strix Halo integrated graphics might seem like a downgrade from discrete Nvidia RTX 4050 graphics in the regular Asus ProArt PX13 – however, our benchmarks show it’s actually the opposite. The AMD Radeon 8060S graphics in this GoPro Edition laptop outperform the Nvidia RTX 4050 in every 3DMark test. What’s even more impressive is how the AMD Strix Halo holds its own against the brand-new Intel Panther Lake 12xe graphics in machines like the Asus ZenBook Duo and MSI Prestige 14 AI+ Flip.

🎮 Gaming-ready in a pinch. Equipped with the same impressive graphics powering the Asus ROG Flow Z13 and Framework Desktop, this laptop is ready to game at full resolution. The AMD Radeon 8060S graphics at the heart of the ProArt PX13 GoPro Edition are powerful enough to get us gaming at the laptop’s full 2,880 x 1,800 resolution with ultra-level graphics in both Battlefield 6 and Helldivers 2. That said, gaming on this creative-focused laptop is better done in stints, as the constant high-pitched fan noise gets tiring.

🖥️ OLED is nice but limited. The Asus ProArt PX13 GoPro features a colorful, high-contrast screen that achieves 100% DCI-P3 color coverage with factory calibration. It’s not 4K, but considering the 13-inch screen size, the 2,800 x 1,800 gives me more than sufficient sharpness for image and movie editing. The only thing lacking is that the screen brightness is limited to a maximum 500 nits, which can be hard to see even on an overcast day. The refresh rate is also limited to 60Hz, so it’s not ideal for editing high-speed footage or gaming.

🧳 Such a nice case, they came twice. Most laptops don’t ship with a case anymore, but the Asus ProArt PX13 GoPro Edition comes with not just one but two cases. The first one is a stylized cardboard box laptop that actually ships in. It features some GoPro straps to keep it shut, and the interior has pop-out foam you can remove to custom-fit any GoPro gear you have.

The second case is a hardshell bag with loops to attach an optional shoulder strap. The hardshell also has a bungee cord on the outside and a bunch of elastic straps inside, along with a sturdy laptop sleeve. The two cases are a nice inclusion, but they seem unnecessary to me, and only serve to justify the eye-watering $3K price.

🖊️ Asus Pen 3.0. Being a creator-oriented 2-in-1 laptop, this GoPro Edition laptop also comes bundled with the Asus Smart Pen 3.0. The pen has a nice, solid tip for sketching and note-taking, but it doesn’t attach anywhere on the laptop. You also can’t just plug the pen in to charge; instead, it comes with a wireless charging base that you’ll also have to carry around.

🔋 Workload battery life. Another area where AMD’s Strix Halo integrated graphics outperforms Nvidia’s discrete GPU is battery life. The Asus ProArt PX13 GoPro lasted more than three times longer in our video playback battery benchmark, with over 11 hours of runtime. In a more strenuous test, I edited a video for 6 hours and 33 minutes straight.

Should you buy the Asus ProArt PX13 GoPro Edition?

BB: Asus ProArt PX13 GoPro - $2,999

✅ Yes, if…

• 🕺 You want a stylish laptop that stands out from the crowd

• 💻 You want a high-performance laptop for video editing, gaming, and more

• 🔋 You need a machine that can last through a video edit and everyday work

❌ No, if…

• 🤑 $2,999 is too high a price

• ☀️ You mostly work in the field outside

• 🦥 You’re used to high refresh rate screens on a MacBook Pro, iPhone, or Android phones

• 🖥️ You’re expecting an in-depth GoPro video editing app on PC

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Kevin Lee is The Shortcut’s Creative Director. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam.

• 🪩 Glare-Free finish finally comes to second-rung flagship Samsung S90H OLED

• 🔆 15% higher brightness compared to last year’s Samsung S90F

• 🏇 165Hz Nvidia G-Sync Compatible straight out of the factory

• 🎮 VRR and AMD FreeSync support for consoles and AMD-powered PCs

• 🤏 Slim bezel design compared to the Samsung S95H’s unremovable Art Frame

• 📋 Improved menus for navigation and pop-up setting adjustments

83" Samsung S90H - $5,299

77" Samsung S90H - $3,699

65" Samsung S90H - $2,699

55" Samsung S90H - $1,999

48" Samsung S90H - $1,599

42" Samsung S90H - $1,399

The Samsung S90H OLED is officially my most anticipated 4K TV for gaming in 2026. This year, Samsung has finally deemed its second-place flagship OLED TV worthy of the Glare Free finish that’s been exclusive to the Samsung S95F and Samsung S95D until now. Another big reason I’m picking the Samsung S90H over the top flagship Samsung S95H QD-OLED is that it doesn’t have the same unremovable art frame, which would have just looked awkward floating around my TV while it’s standing on my entertainment center.

Now, being a second-string flagship does mean the Samsung S90H misses a few features, including displaying artwork from the Samsung Art Store. It also doesn’t support Samsung’s Wireless OneConnect Box, so you can’t make eight HDMI 2.1 connections with this TV unless you buy a receiver. But even with those disadvantages, the Samsung S90H is the gaming TV I’m most excited about this year.

🪩 Glare Free at last. Samsung’s Glare Free technology is finally trickling down to the S90H after being an S95-model exclusive feature for years. It lives up to its name, truly eliminating glare and reflections. You can see there are hardly any light reflections in spite of shooting these photos in a room with bright ceiling lights. The screen looks perfectly matte without graying out any of the true blacks.

📺 OLED HDR Pro. Samsung also claims the S90H is 15% brighter than last year’s S90F. It’s not as huge as the 35% brightness increase on the Samsung S95H OLED, but it should help highlights pop while also making this TV a better screen for brighter rooms.

🎮 ​​Ultimate Gaming Pack. The Samsung S90H OLED is the ultimate gaming 4K TV of 2026. It sports a native 165Hz refresh rate, supports VRR, AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, and ships with Nvidia G-Sync Compatible out of the factory. That last one is huge, as G-Sync has been an LG OLED exclusive for so many years. So you’ll really be able to enjoy true 165Hz gaming on this TV if you have a high-end PC gaming with an Nvidia RTX 5080 or Nvidia RTX 5090 that can handle 4K gaming that fast. Meanwhile, you’ll get VRR’s frame rate smoothing while playing consoles like the PS5 Pro and Nintendo Switch 2.

📐 Traditional design. Personally, I prefer the Samsung S90H OLED to the top flagship Samsung S95F QD-OLED simply because it doesn’t have the latter’s non-removable art frame design. The Samsung S90H simply has a thin bezel that’ll look better in my living room, since I’m not wall-mounting my TV. Unfortunately, the Samsung S90H isn’t as full-featured as the S95H, which can exclusively display Art Store artwork and supports Samsung’s optional Wireless OneConnect Box. Still, those are small sacrifices I’ll take when the Samsung S90H looks better standing on a TV stand in my living room.

📋 Better Menus. Samsung has also made small tweaks to its menus, making navigation a whole lot faster. Firstly, Home, Live, Game Hub, and other individual pages sit in tabs at the very top of the menu, allowing you to quickly switch between them. Menus also don’t seem to ever take up the whole screen anymore. I can easily go into All Settings like brightness, Live Translate, switch on AI Soccer Mode, or more, without blocking what I’m playing.

• Up next: Samsung’s 2026 QD-OLED 4K TVs and Frame sets start shipping today at these prices

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Kevin Lee is The Shortcut’s Creative Director. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam.

🏆 Review Score: 4/5 – ‘Great!’

✅ Pros:

• 🔫 Sound is tuned for competitive gaming

• 🤫 Superb active noise cancellation

• 😮 The microphone sounds phenomenal

• 🪶 Light as a feather and comfortable to wear

• 🛜 Lots of connectivity options

• 💥 Loud enough for most games

• 🤝 Simultaneous Bluetooth support is always a winner

❌ Cons:

• 💰 One of the most expensive gaming headsets

• 🧲 Attracts fingerprints like crazy

• 🪫 Battery life is rather short compared to rivals

• 🤷‍♂️ Sony’s spatial audio solution isn’t the best

• 😒 PC players have to deal with Sony’s Inzone software

Walmart: Sony Inzone H9 II

Best Buy: Sony Inzone H9 II

Amazon: Sony Inzone H9 II

The Shortcut Review

Sony has become synonymous with producing excellent headphones, with its XM line beloved by many. You’d think, then, that creating a pair of gaming headphones would be an easy task – yet frankly, that hasn’t been the case. At least until now.

• 🎧 Sony Inzone H9 II best EQ settings: get in the zone with these equalizer tweaks

The Sony Inzone H9 II is the best gaming headset yet from the Japanese electronics giant, taking many cues from the Sony XM6 headphones. While they don’t quite share the same sound signature, the Inzone H9 II headset benefits in several ways, specifically noise cancelling.

You won’t get any distracting hum from an air conditioner, whine from PC fans, or outside interference while wearing the Sony Inzone H9 II. The noise cancelling is excellent, though admittedly I haven’t been able to test them on a flight. Either way, I’m confident they’d pass the test.

One surprise that certainly isn’t borrowed from the Sony XM6 line is the Inzone H9 II’s top-class microphone. The headset has been created in partnership with the esports organization Fnatic, where communication is key during heated competitions. Thankfully, the microphone delivers in spades, offering crystal-clear clarity, brilliant noise suppression, and is freely adjustable so you can position it where you like.

Sony Inzone H9 II specs 🛠️

• Price: $349.99

• Colors: Black, White

• Driver size: 30mm

• Weight: 260g approx. without mic

• Battery life: 30 hours with ANC off

The Sony Inzone H9 II also doesn’t disappoint with its audio quality. It may only sport 30mm drivers, but they pack a punch and are fine-tuned for competitive games. I was acutely aware of opposing players’ positions, yet the audio was still rich and engaging to listen to.

Unfortunately, the biggest downside of the Sony Inzone H9 II is the price. At $349.99 (though you can often find it for less), it’s competing with the very best gaming headsets out there. And while it can go toe-to-toe in several aspects, other headsets we’ve tested like the Astro A50X, SteelSeries Nova Pro, or Audeze Maxwell, either deliver a few more features or better sound. Still, if noise cancelling is a priority, the Sony Inzone H9 II is a fine choice for gamers. Read my full Sony Inzone H9 II review below.

A review unit was provided by Sony.

What I loved about the Sony Inzone H9 II ❤️

🔫 Superb sound for competitive gaming. Even though I think the Astro A50X delivers a more exciting sound overall, the Sony Inzone H9 II – with a bit of tweaking – delivers a balanced and pleasing audio profile. Bass heads may crave a little more low-end, but the mids and treble were never too overpowering, and there were a few times where I could pinpoint an enemy in PUBG that was creeping up on my location. Imaging was excellent, but the closed-back design means they don’t provide the widest soundstage.

🤫 Best-in-class noise cancelling. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but the Sony Inzone H9 II noise cancelling tech is second to none. I couldn’t hear the usual fan noise from my PC or the outside road that sometimes bleeds through. It also didn’t create that uncomfortable, pressurized effect that can plague some noise cancelling headphones. There’s also a transparency or ambient mode, and the option to turn ANC off.

🎤 Exceptional microphone quality. The Sony Inzone H9 II was developed in collaboration with Fnatic, the leading esports organization. The fruits of that partnership are apparent in the headset’s excellent cardioid boom microphone, which is one of the best I’ve tested. It’s crystal clear, does a fantastic job of blocking out background noise, and can be positioned however you like thanks to the adjustable gooseneck design.

🪶 Super lightweight. You’ll barely feel the Sony Inzone H9 II when it’s on your head, thanks to its super lightweight design. It’s just 273 grams with the mic attached, and the unique ski-like headband, which looks simple but works well, distributes the weight evenly across your head without creating any pressure points. And the large earcups mean there’s plenty of room, even for those with big lugholes like me.

🤲 Earcups swivel to lie flat. If you like keeping your headset on but not on your head, it’s always nice when the earcups can swivel to lie flat. Pleasingly, the Sony Inzone H9 II review earcups can swivel either way, meaning you can wear them around your neck comfortably or lie them flat on a desk.

🔈 Loud enough for every game. The volume level can make or break many headsets I’ve tested, as some are simply too quiet. If there isn’t headroom to spare, I’ve found that some games like PUBG just aren’t loud enough. While I’d prefer a touch more volume, the Sony Inzone H9 II gets loud enough for my liking, and the noise cancelling means you’re also not vying with other sound sources.

👍 You can use them wired with noise cancelling. It’s always refreshing to see a pair of wireless headphones include a 3.5mm jack so they can be used wired. Sometimes wireless isn’t always the best option, despite its convenience, and the flexibility is welcome. It’s also nice that noise cancelling works in wired mode, which usually isn’t the case.

🤝 Simultaneous Bluetooth support. Being able to listen to a Bluetooth source and game audio simultaneously has become a must-have feature, especially at higher price points. The Sony Inzone H9 II thankfully includes this option, allowing you to watch some TikTok while you wait for your next match to load.

👏 Mic mute light and dedicated button. There’s nothing worse than realizing your mic isn’t muted and everyone has been listening in to your conversation. The Sony Inzone H9 II includes a nice big mute button on the top of the headset, but there’s also a visible red light that comes on near the microphone capsule. If the microphone is detached, an audio cue plays to let you know if you are muted or not.

What I disliked about the Sony Inzone H9 II 💔

🧲 Fingerprint magnet. The matte plastic used on the Sony Inzone H9 II headset may make it nice and light, but the black material is prone to picking up fingerprints, grease and grime. You’ll want to keep a soft cloth nearby if you’re someone who likes to keep their devices looking pristine.

👂 Spatial Audio sacrifices volume. Sony lets you create your own spatial audio profile by taking pictures of your ears (seriously) and following a few prompts. You’ll need to use the 360 Spatial Sound mobile and Sound Connect app to dial in your profile, but once you’re done it syncs with the Inzone PC app. Unfortunately, when using the spatial audio profile, the headset’s overall volume is noticeably reduced, so I kept it off.

🤔 Doesn’t work with Dolby Atmos or DTS Headphone:X. This was an odd one. The Sony Inzone H9 II is recognized as speakers, not headphones, by Windows 11. It meant I couldn’t enable Dolby Atmos or DTS Headphone:X, no matter how hard I tried. Funnily enough, I could change the spatial audio settings on the microphone, which obviously had no effect, but not the headset audio.

🤷‍♂️ Sony Inzone software isn’t the best. I didn’t like Sony’s Inzone software when I reviewed the first Sony Inzone H9 headset, and while it’s certainly improved, it’s still rather clunky. Thankfully, you only need it for PC, and any changes or EQs you make are saved to the headset itself. Other companies are moving to web-based software, too, removing the need for unnecessary program installs. Hopefully, Sony will follow suit.

🔋 Battery life is fine, but dwarfed by others. With ANC off, the Sony Inzone H9 II lasts around 30 hours. That’s more than enough for most gamers, but there are other headsets that can be used for far longer or come with dedicated charging docks for a similar, if not cheaper, price.

💰 Premium price tag. There’s no denying that the Sony Inzone H9 II headset is expensive. At $349.99, it’s keeping company with some of the most expensive gaming headsets on the market, but it doesn’t include quite as many thrills. Yes, the noise cancelling is a highlight, as is the brilliant microphone, but some may find the audio a little underwhelming for the price, along with the average battery life.

Should you buy the Sony Inzone H9 II? 🤔

Yes, if…

• ✅ You want a first-class noise cancelling gaming headset

• ✅ You chat a lot with friends or want a headset with a mic for work calls

• ✅ You play a lot of competitive multiplayer games and want an edge

No, if…

• ❌ You like a bass-heavy, exciting-sounding headset for single-player games

• ❌ You want a headset that lasts for days and days before it needs to be charged

• ❌ You’re don’t require active noise cancelling

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Adam Vjestica is The Shortcut’s Senior Editor. Formerly TechRadar’s Gaming Hardware Editor, Adam has also worked at Nintendo of Europe as a Content Marketing Editor, where he helped launch the Nintendo Switch. He also runs a retro gaming YouTube channel called Game on, boy! Follow him on X @ItsMrProducts.

• 🖼️ Samsung S95H QD-OLED features a new wall-mounted-focused FloatLayer design

• 🎑 Art Mode comes to one of Samsung’s QD-OLED TVs for the first time

• 🌉 Artwork looks almost 3D on the Samsung S95H because its so much brighter, colorful, and detailed

• 🔧Samsung promises its fixed the burn-in issue on OLEDs displaying static images

• 🔌 HDMI 2.1 relocated to the back of the TV as Samsung ditches the OneConnect Box

• 🛜 Optional Wireless OneConnect Box adds another four HDMI 2.1 ports for eight total devices

• 📏 Smaller range of available sizes: 55-, 65-, 77-, and 85-inches only

83" Samsung S95H - $6,499

77" Samsung S95H - $4,499

65" Samsung S95H - $3,399

55" Samsung S95H - $2,499

The Samsung S95H QD-OLED is the brand’s most different and experimental TV in years. It features a non-removable frame that makes it look more like an art piece, and it’s the first QD-OLED screen that sports Art Mode. Normally, static images displayed on an OLED screen for hours to days is a really bad idea, but Samsung claims it’s solved the burn-in issue, and I certainly hope it has. Artwork shown on the Samsung S95H QD-OLED looks almost three-dimensional because of how bright, colorful, and detailed it is. It blows The Frame Pro out of the water.

Beyond the artistry of the Samsung S95H’s new design, it might also be the most flexible 4K TV on the market that can support up to eight HDMI 2.1 devices. The TV has four built-in HDMI 2.1 ports, and it can add four more with an optional Wireless OneConnect Box. Samsung also claims the S95H is 35% brighter and has an improved color filter for even better picture quality. My favorite thing is that this TV also ships with G-Sync, finally taking the exclusive feature from LG TVs, allowing it to support variable frame rates on all platforms, including PS5 Pro, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch 2, as well as both AMD- and Nvidia-powered gaming PCs.

If you’re looking for a TV that can do it all, from showing background art, HDR movies, and fast-paced gaming, the Samsung S95H QD-OLED is a solid buy. Just make sure to wall-mount this TV, where it’ll look best.

📐 Floating design. The most controversial change Samsung has made to the S95H QD-OLED is its new FloatLayer design, which basically adds a non-removable frame all around the TV. This design should allow the TV’s art frame to sit flush against the wall, while the bezel of the screen extends slightly forward, making the display look like it’s floating. It’s an interesting design that zhuzhs up a wall-mounted TV for displaying art, which I’ll get into soon.

Personally, I’m torn on this new design. Scenes like this shot of Chicago are like staring through a floating window rather than at a TV. However, the frame really requires your TV to be perfectly flush against the wall. If there’s a larger gap at the bottom of the TV, it’ll make the TV appear more askew than it would without the frame. The other problem is that the non-removable frame looks like a thick bezel when the TV is attached to its standard TV stand, for anyone who doesn’t want to or can’t wall-mount.

I would have much preferred a Floating Design with a removable frame. Instead, there will be optional bezels – including brass, wood, and other finishes – that you can magnetically swap out for the standard gunmetal frame.

🎑 Art Mode. The real reason the Samsung S95H QD-OLED has its new floating design is that it now supports Art Mode. This is the first time Art Mode has been available on one of Samsung’s QD-OLED TVs, let alone on a TV outside the brand’s The Frame and The Frame Pro models. While the Samsung S95H features a different type of Glare-Free finish from The Frame series’ paper-like finish, artwork really pops on this QD-OLED screen.

Between the greater vibrancy of colors and the fact that every pixel is self-emissive, Art Mode on the Samsung S95H takes on a whole new dimension of realism. Samsung claims it has cracked burn-in prevention, allowing the S95H to display static images without distortion, but we’ll need to test this long-term to see if it really works.

👋 Goodbye OneConnect Box. One last colossal change for the Samsung S95H is that it no longer comes with a wired OneConnect Box, which has been included since the Samsung S95C. So, HDMI 2.1 ports are now on the back of the TV again.

🔌 8x HDMI 2.1. The (somewhat) good news is that the S95H supports Samsung’s new Wireless OneConnect Box, which adds four more HDMI 2.1 ports to the four wired ones on the back of the TV. That’s a total of eight HDMI 2.1 ports, way more than you’ll see on any other TV from any brand. You’ll have the most freedom and flexibility to add more consoles, gaming PCs, soundbars, and whatever else you want to this TV. Pricing on Samsung’s optional Wireless OneConnect Box has yet to be revealed, but as long as it is cheaper than a receiver, it’ll be a great upgrade for S95H owners.

🌇 Popping picture quality. Samsung promises the S95H is 35% brighter with up to 2,700-nits of brightness. If it’s true, that should help highlights to really pop off the screen compared to last year’s S95F, which I measured up to 2,200 nits of maximum brightness. Samsung also claims to have a more efficient color filter this year that prioritizes gradation over brightness on HDR tone-mapped content. I haven’t seen too much content on the S95H to confirm the latter claim, but it would certainly explain why Art Mode looks so much better on this QD-OLED TV vs even The Frame Pro.

🎮 165Hz VRR with any platform. The Samsung S95H might flaunt its art aesthetic, but this is still a gaming TV under the facade. The display supports a 165Hz refresh rate, auto low-latency, VRR, AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, and now ships with Nvidia G-Sync, which debuted on last year’s Samsung OLEDs as a late-year upgrade. That means you get smooth frame rates no matter if you’re playing on the PS5 Pro, Nintendo Switch 2, or an Nvidia-powered gaming PC.

🤖 Vision AI. Last year, Samsung went hard on adding AI to every aspect of its TVs, including Click to Search, AI karaoke, translated captions, and Copilot services – but it wasn’t very centralized. This time around, hitting the Vision AI button brings up a new splash screen that puts your watching in a smaller window, surfaces related content, suggests questions you might ask, and puts AI assistants like Copilot and Bixby in easy reach. You can also ask Bixby to find movies and shows based on a vague description in case you can’t remember the exact name of that thing where a child falls into a chocolate lake.

• Up next: Sony and TCL form a new Bravia Inc. TV company

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Kevin Lee is The Shortcut’s Creative Director. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam.

🏆 Review score: 4.5/5

🏅 Editor’s Choice Award

✅ Pros

• ⌨️ Smaller 75% wired keyboard leaves room for wide gaming mouse movements

• 🔑 Still enough shortcuts and function keys to make this keyboard practical for everyday use

• 🎚️ Per-key programmable actuation between 0.1mm and 3.5mm

• 🎯 8000Hz polling rate with Rapid Trigger and Speed Trigger for lag-free FPS gaming

• 🎵 Keys produce the same crisp and controlled sound anywhere on the keyboard

• 🌎 Web-based app requires no installation and works for all platforms

❌ Cons

• 🔌 Wired-only setup is limiting

• 💲$219 is expensive for a tournament gaming keyboard

The Shortcut Review

If $219 doesn’t sound like too much for one eSports gaming keyboard, the Asus ROG Falchion Ace 75 HE is a fine tournament-ready weapon. This gaming keyboard was designed to make input lag a thing of the past with Asus’ latest hall-effect switches and an 8,000Hz polling rate. The magnetic key switches in Asus ROG Falchion Ace 75 HE not only react faster than the mechanical switches in most gaming keyboards, but you can also program them to trigger commands at the slightest 0.1mm touch, a full 3.5mm press, or anywhere in between.

Magnetic keyswitches are just one of the Asus ROG Falchion Ace 75 HE’s many tricks. It’s also fully adjustable on the fly with a scroll wheel to set actuation at any moment and a touchbar to set volume, trigger playback controls, or any custom function you’d like. Lastly, it has both Rapid and Speed Triggers to make repeated keystrokes, like side-strafing, lag-free. Plus, its web-based app makes it easy to reprogram from any platform, including Macs and Chromebooks.

Add in the carrying case, and you can see why the Asus ROG Falchion Ace 75 HE was engineered to be the most convenient gaming keyboard for tournament play – even though it’s not wireless.

Full Review

📏 75% form factor. This 75% keyboard hits the gaming sweet spot for me. It’s compact enough that I have more space to whip around my gaming mouse. Meanwhile, there’s still a row of function keys on the right, including end, delete, and page up/down. It’s not nearly as compact and cut down as the Asus ROG Falchion Ace Ace HFX, which erases everything outside of the main keyboard keys. However, if you still plan to surf the web, write emails, or do anything outside of gaming, the Asus ROG Falchion Ace 75 HE is a fully functional keyboard for everyday use when I’m not gaming.

⌨️ Just my type. The Asus ROG Falchion Ace 75 HE comes with factory-lubed HFX V2 magnetic switches that also feel just right. They’re super stable and end with a thocky feel and sound. 32g of initial force also helps the keys provide just enough resistance to feel like you’re still pressing a real mechanical switch. Personally, though, I prefer the Asus ROG HFX V2X switch, as it has an even more stable square-shaped stem and an X-stabilizer. The good news is you can hotswap between switch types if you want to upgrade your keyboard from HFX V2 to HFX V2X switches later.

🧲 Magnetic key switches. No matter which switch you choose, they all feature Asus’ new ROG Hall Sensor, with a customizable actuation point on every key from 0.1mm to 3.5mm. You can also do this per key, so you could have your W-key trigger with the slightest touch, while the R-key requires a deeper or full press. This is the gaming keyboard for those who want to fine-tune the responsiveness of every key for competitive gaming. The only other thing I wish I could do with Asus’ magnetic keys is program two functions at different actuation points, as I can with keyboards from Logitech, Cooler Master, Corsair, and SteelSeries.

🎶Music to my ears. Impressively, the Asus ROG Falchion Ace 75 HE’s keys make the same sound whether you’re hitting CTRL all the way to the bottom-left or the H-key in the keyboard’s center. It sounds so acoustically consistent thanks to its six layers of PORON foam, silicone, and sound-absorbing materials. These materials don’t completely silence the keyboard; instead, they prevent unwanted resonance that would make it sound hollow. You get the same crisp, controlled sound from this keyboard, which goes to show the lengths Asus went to in perfecting its build quality.

🛞 Scroll wheel. Thankfully, you can also set your actuation point on the fly with the small jog wheel on the keyboard’s upper-right corner. It’s a great addition as you don’t have to dive into the settings every time, especially if you’re in the middle of an online match of Battlefield 6 or CSGO 2. You can also adjust your volume or use this jog wheel to scroll through webpages/documents. The keyboard also shows the adjustment level via a strip of LEDs at the top. I would have preferred a simple digit readout, but this goes better with the cyber-edgey design of this keyboard.

📲 Touch panel. The keyboard features an interactive touch panel that lets you tweak a variety of settings, including volume, media playback, keyboard lighting, and a pair of customizable commands. Like making actuation and volume adjustments, you can see your settings reflected on the LED display bar at the top of the keyboard.

🕹️ Rapid Trigger Flip Switch. The Asus ROG Falchion Ace 75 HE’s last unique control function is a rapid trigger flip switch at the very top-right corner of its frame. When flipped, this switches the keyboard to reset any key the instant you lift your finger off. This lets you input repeated actions more quickly, and you can layer a “Speed ​​Tap” mode on topgvy of it to prioritize directional press so you can side-strafe with zero delay.

🧳 Go-bag ready. Another thing that makes the Asus ROG Falchion Ace 75 HE tournament-ready is that it comes with a padded carry case. The case includes small divots for a key puller and the braided USB-C cable. The last thing included is a second CTRL keycap in case you want to replace the Microsoft Copilot keycap that comes preinstalled.

🔗 Gear Link. Thankfully, Asus has moved on to a new web-based Gear Link software to manage the Asus ROG Falchion Ace 75 HE. Not only does this save you the hassle of downloading Armory Crate anymore, but it also feels more responsive now that it isn’t managing your motherboard, CPU cooler, power supply, and every other piece of computing hardware Asus makes. Despite being a web app, Gear Link lets you configure every aspect of this keyboard, including trigger point, rapid trigger, RGB effects, macros, key assignment, and profiles. Also, because Gear Link is a web app, you can run it on any PC you have this keyboard plugged into, including Macs and Chromebooks.

🏆 Designed for tournament play. The Asus ROG Falchion Ace 75 HE isn’t wireless, and while that bugged me, it makes sense that it’s wired because it’s designed entirely for tournament play. You wouldn’t really want to use a wireless keyboard at a (wirelessly) noisy eSports event. The fact that it comes with a carrying case and its web-based app, which requires no installation, also makes it perfect for tournaments.

Should you buy the Asus ROG Falchion Ace 75 HE?

✅ Yes, if…

• 👾 You’re looking for a gaming keyboard that’s easy to carry and bring to events

• 🖱️ You’re constantly bumping your gaming mouse into a full-sized keyboard

• 😧 You hate the sound and feel of a hollow gaming keyboard

❌ No, if…

• ​​😌You want the freedom of a wireless gaming keyboard

• 🤑 $219 is too high a price for one gaming peripheral

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Kevin Lee is The Shortcut’s Creative Director. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam.

🏆 Rating: 4/5

✅ Pros

• 📐 Stand-out design with bold Glyph interface

• 📱 Gorgeous display that’s big and bright

• 🔋 All-day battery life with fast charging

• 🫧 Nothing OS is clean and organized

• 🤖 Essential Space can actually be useful

❌ Cons

• 📸 Camera quality needs improvement

• ⚡️ No wireless charging or MagSafe

• 📶 Not available at carrier stores

The Shortcut review

If you haven’t heard of Nothing before, it’s time to get educated. The company has been making design-forward products for over five years now, with its transparent earbuds and smartphones making waves in a debatably boring state of affairs for consumer technology. Nothing dares to try something different with every product it makes, and the $499 Phone (4a) Pro is among the most unique yet.

I’ve been testing this mid-range Android phone, and I’ve gotta be honest: it’s really good. The design is polarizing at first with its aluminum body and humongous plateau on the back, but it somehow works. I like how whimsical the Glyph interface is and the way its features feel like minigames in your favorite childhood video game. Performance and battery life are great for the price, and Nothing’s software remains clear of any unnecessary jank.

Can you find a phone with a better camera for $500? Sure, the Pixel 10a is sitting right there. How about one that runs iOS? Absolutely, Apple is happy to sell you the iPhone 17e. But is there any phone that comes close to how unique and valuable the Phone (4a) Pro is at this price? Definitely not, which is driving me to recommend it to almost everyone I meet.

Amazon: Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

Review notes

🎡 Welcome to Funky Town. Take one look at the Phone (4a) Pro, and you’ll say to yourself, “Huh… I didn’t know they made phones like this.” It’s an unorthodox design, even for Nothing: an aluminum unibody with a semi-transparent cut-out for the cameras and Glyph interface. Nowadays, every phone is some variant of a glass/plastic and metal sandwich, while this phone goes in a much funkier direction, which is very on-brand for the London-based company. I personally like the design, especially all the fun colors it ships in. (We got the boring silver model to review, but you can also get it in Pink and Black as well.)

⚪️ Glyph Matrix… (a) Series. Nothing took the Glyph Matrix from the flagship Phone (3), made it a bit bigger, and dropped the resolution down to 137 mini-LED dots, a stark change from the Phone (3)’s 489 mini-LEDs. It functions the same, with little easter eggs and games (although not as many as what Nothing’s flagship has), and you can use it as a gimmicky viewfinder for the camera. However, as whimsical and charming an unorthodox feature like this can be, the reduced resolution and utility of the Glyph Matrix couldn’t appeal to me the same way it did on the Phone (3). That being said, Nothing would be accused of having an identity crisis if it got rid of the Glyph interface at all, so I’m happy to see it’s made its return. I’d just like some more functionality next time.

⚡️ Aluminum body means no wireless charging. I’m personally a fan of having an aluminum phone, if only because it makes the device feel more premium than glass sometimes can. But it’s not without its faults. Wireless charging can’t travel through metal, and therefore doesn’t work on the Phone (4a) Pro. Is that a huge deal? Not really, but as a regular wireless charging user, I wish it was there. That being said, the aluminum design delights me nonetheless.

👀 The boldest phone for under $500. There’s no question that this is the phone you should buy if you want to stand out on a budget. There’s no other $500 phone on the market that looks quite as eye-catching as the Phone (4a) Pro. Plus, the aluminum won’t crack when you drop it, and it’s rated IP65 for water resistance. Not only is it a good value, but it dares to do something entirely different, which is nothing short of exciting for this category.

📺 A big, bright display. This screen is fantastic for the money you spend. At 6.83 inches, the Phone (4a) Pro gives you a lot of room for watching movies, playing games, and scrolling through social media. It’s a good-quality AMOLED panel with a sharp 2,800 x 1,260 resolution, and its 144Hz refresh rate keeps everything responsive and animations fluid. It also gets up to 5,000 nits bright which is… insane. That’s nearly twice as bright as most flagship phones, and while you’ll only see it in certain conditions when you’re watching HDR content, it’s still cool that Nothing includes it in a mid-ranger.

🔭 140x zoom helps the cameras stand out… The Phone (4a) Pro also stands out thanks to its camera system, which is stacked with features. The most notable is 140x zoom, the first for any smartphone (according to Nothing, anyway). That’s farther than you can go on the Pixel 10 Pro XL or Galaxy S26 Ultra, which is impressive for a budget phone. Are photos good at 140x? Absolutely not, but it’s a fun party trick.

📸 … but quality is another story. As for taking normal pictures, the Phone (4a) Pro can kick out decent results if you’re careful. The 50MP f/1.9 main camera is the best of the three on the back, with its ability to capture good lighting and detail in well-lit environments and even in the dark. The 50MP periscope telephoto lens is the driver behind 140x photos, and it can produce good pictures during the day, but tends to fall apart at night due to its tighter f/2.9 aperture. The 8MP ultra-wide camera is a pure afterthought, capturing some of the worst wide-angle pictures I’ve seen in a while, and if you want to take selfies, you’ll be better off with the main camera instead of the 32MP selfie shooter. Colors could also be a bit livelier across the sensors, and while you have a lot of tools to tweak colors and exposure before you tap the shutter button, it’s not enough to save it from lower-end hardware and software processing. If you want the best pictures on a budget phone, you’ll want something like the Pixel 10a which takes more life-like photos.

📹 Video struggles quite a bit. I don’t recommend this phone if you want to take a lot of videos. While it can technically shoot at up to 4K 30 fps, the quality itself is subpar, with a lot of artifacting and noticeable jumps when you switch between lenses. The only redeeming quality is the recording light on the back, which lights up red when you start filming. Beyond that, videos aren’t great and will need some edits if you want to share them.

🔋 Great battery life and speedy charging. The Phone (4a) Pro can effortlessly last a full day of mixed to heavy usage. The 5,080mAh battery inside the phone was able to keep up while I tested things like the camera, GPU, and how bright the screen could get in direct sunlight. At the end of day, I’d have around 20-30% left in the tank, which is enough of a cushion to help me feel comfortable using it as my main phone all day long. Some mid-range phones like the OnePlus 13R can last two days on a charge, but if all you need is a full day without any stress, this is a great phone for that. Plus, it recharges at 50W over USB-C, which juices the battery back to 50% in under 30 minutes every time.

📱 Nothing OS is clean and responsive. I’m happy to report that Nothing refuses to lose its ways when it comes to software. Nothing OS atop Android 16 is a delightful experience through and through, with the company’s quirky fonts and animations throughout that give vanilla Android a unique look without bogging things down. All of Nothing’s built-in apps give the phone a personality, and it doesn’t fall in the trap of customizing absolutely everything like Samsung’s One UI and OnePlus’ OxygenOS.

3️⃣ Just three years of upgrades. The only major downside is the software update. Nothing is committing to three years of major upgrades and six years of security updates, which is behind what a lot of manufacturers are doing nowadays. It’s not a huge deal since it’s a mid-range phone and will likely slow down faster than flagships, but it’d be nice to see 4+ years of major Android updates instead of just three.

🤖 Essential Space and AI are somewhat useful. I can never commit to using Nothing’s AI features, but that’s not because they aren’t good. Essential Space is a handy app (that has its own hardware key, by the way) for remembering things, analyzing screenshots, and surfacing what Essential Memory deems as important. You can now have all of this data backed up to the cloud, too, which is nice for those who might plan to stick to Nothing phones moving forward. I think I just fail to trust AI to remember things for me, because I want to try and remember them myself. But if you’re someone who needs a little help, this is a great feature for that.

⚙️ Snappy performance. Oh yeah, performance. It’s totally fine! The Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 chip offers enough punch to keep things feeling snappy, while the GPU performance has been noticeably increased over previous Nothing phones to deliver better gameplay. It’s paired with either 8GB or 12GB of RAM and up to 256GB of storage, giving you plenty of room to store your apps and photos over time.

📝 Tidbits:

• The fingerprint scanner is surprisingly accurate and snappy for a $500 phone.

• I like how loud the speakers get, but they don’t have a lot of depth or life otherwise.

• There’s a clear case in the box which is barely enough to protect the phone, but at least the unique design shines through.

Should you buy the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro?

Yes, if…

• ✅ You want your next phone to stand out

• ✅ You’re on a budget

• ✅ You want actually useful AI features

• ✅ You appreciate clean software

No, if…

• ❌ You need the best camera quality on a budget (get the Pixel 10a)

• ❌ You need wireless charging (get the Pixel 10a)

• ❌ You don’t want a giant phone (get the Pixel 10a)

• ❌ You need better battery life (get the OnePlus 13R)

Amazon: Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

Max Buondonno is an editor at The Shortcut and co-host of The Shortcut Live. He’s been reporting on the latest consumer technology since 2015, with his work featured on CNN Underscored, ZDNET, How-To Geek, XDA, TheStreet, and more. Follow him on X @LegendaryScoop and Instagram @LegendaryScoop.

🏆 Review Score: 4.5/5 – ‘Awesome!’

🏅 Editor’s Choice Award

✅ Pros:

• 😍 A wonderful typing experience

• 🤫 Astonishingly quiet

• 📏 Only a hair bigger than a standard TKL keyboard

• 🛜 Wired, Bluetooth, or 2.4 GHz support

• 🌈 Pleasing RGB lighting and customization options

• 🙏 No software installs required

• 💨 Speed tap, where it’s allowed

• 🔧 Hot-swappable switches

• 🔋 Incredible battery life

• 🤝 Works equally well on PC or macOS

• 💰 Competitively priced

❌ Cons:

• 😵‍💫 Muscle memory may lead to a few more mistypes

• 🤔 You need to learn a lot of commands

• 💡 Not technically a backlit keyboard

• 🫨 The media knob feels a little loose

Best Buy: Asus ROG Strix Morph 96

Newegg: Asus ROG Strix Morph 96

The Shortcut Review

Gaming keyboards come in various sizes, but the smaller you go, the more keys you have to sacrifice. The Asus ROG Strix Morph 96 flips the switch by including every single key found on a full-sized keyboard, but with a dramatically reduced footprint.

At only a few centimeters larger than most ten-keyless keyboards, the Asus ROG Strix Morph 96 gives you every key you’ll ever need, without dominating your desk space. It also provides a truly wonderful typing experience that’s near silent, making it ideal for those who want the benefits of a mechanical keyboard without being subjected to the cacophony of sound they often produce.

Asus ROG Strix Morph 96 specs 🛠️

• Price: $139.99

• Key type: ROG NX Snow V2 (linear)

• Connection: Wired, Bluetooth, 2.4 GHz

The Asus ROG Strix Morph 96 may be squeezed into a smaller form factor, but it doesn’t make any meaningful compromises. Yes, it takes a while to stop your muscle memory from kicking in, leading to a few more mistypes than I’m used to. But it’s a superb choice for gamers, with its low-profile keys, lockable Windows key, and unwavering wireless connection.

It’s also fantastic for productivity users, with full key compatibility with Windows and macOS – something I wish more keyboards included. You also get alluring RGB lighting, the choice of Bluetooth, 2.4 GHz wireless or wired, a dedicated media dial, and excellent battery life.

The trimmed-down design means you’ll be relying on various hotkey commands, which take some time to learn. But for a price of $139.99, the Asus ROG Strix Morph 96 is seriously hard to beat, even if the previously released Asus Strix Scope II 96 may tempt some when on sale. Read my full Asus ROG Strix Morph 96 review below.

A review unit was provided by Asus.

What I loved about the Asus ROG Strix Morph 96 ❤️

• 😍 A wonderful typing experience. Anyone who has typed on a mechanical keyboard will tell you just how much better it feels compared to a membrane one. Over the years, I’ve whittled away on everything from blue clicky switches to “thocky” browns and reds, but the Asus ROG NX Snow V2 linear key switches might be my new favorite. They’re a pleasure to type on, and even though they’re a linear switch (which means there’s no noticeable tactile bump) they don’t feel hollow or lifeless when pressed. The short actuation point also means you’re not wasting precious milliseconds pressing down, and I found counter-strafing in Counter-Strike 2 easier to pull off on the ROG Strix Morph 96 than on my usual Logitech Pro X TKL keyboard.

• 🤫 Astonishingly quiet. One of the biggest downsides of mechanical keyboards is just how loud they can be. It makes them a no-go for the office, or distracting if you’re a streamer. Thankfully, the Asus ROG Strix Morph 96 is a silent assassin, giving you all the benefits and feel of a high-end mechanical keyboard without the increase in decibels. The internal dampening Asus has used is excellent, and there’s no annoying “pings” or rattling when you’re writing an angry email reply.

• 🪨 Built like a tank. At just over a kg, the Asus ROG Strix Morph 96 has a reassuring heft to it. It also boasts rock-solid build quality, with no noticeable creaks, give or movement to the frame.

• 📏 Only a hair bigger than a standard TKL keyboard. If you’re a low sense mouse player and need as much space as possible, the Asus ROG Strix Morph 96 gives you all the benefits of a full-sized keyboard, at just a centimeter larger than most ten-keyless keyboards. Despite its compact design, the keys don’t feel cramped or needlessly bunched together.

• 💨 Speed tap, where it’s allowed. Even though the Asus ROG Strix Morph 96 isn’t a rapid trigger keyboard, it includes a feature called ‘Speed Tap’. It’s off by default and banned from certain games like Counter-Strike 2, but it’s a nice option to have. Speed Tap prioritizes the latest key press when pressing opposing directions such as A and D, which makes movement far more responsive.

• 🛜 Wired, Bluetooth, or 2.4 GHz support. You can choose from three connectivity options: wired, Bluetooth, or 2.4 GHz. This is great if you jump between a PC for gaming and a Mac for productivity, or simply prefer a wired connection instead of wireless. You can also save up to three Bluetooth connections.

• 🌈 Pleasing RGB lighting and customization options. The Asus ROG Strix Morph 96 has customizable RGB lighting, as you’d expect, but it uses it in clever ways. You can see how much battery life is remaining, and it also alerts you when a command has registered, such as turning Speed Tap on or off. It also comes with some extra transparent keycaps and has dual side RGB light bars.

• 🙏 No software installs required. Unlike so many peripherals, you don’t have to install any needless software to get the most out of Asus’s new keyboard. You can use the Gear Link web-based app in your browser, which is a fantastic pro-consumer move, with any changes saved to the keyboard itself.

• 🔧 Hot-swappable switches. If you want to tweak Asus’s new keyboard to your liking, you can. The ROG NX Snow V2 (linear) and ROG NX Storm V2 (clicky) mechanical switches are hot-swappable, and the ROG Strix Morph 96 is compatible with a wide range of Cherry-profile sets and other aftermarket keycaps. Modders will be very pleased.

• 🔋 Incredible battery life. You get a whopping 100 hours of battery life from Asus’s gaming keyboard with RGB using the 2.5 GHz dongle, and up to 590 hours if you’d rather turn it off. The battery life increases further in Bluetooth mode, with up to 750 hours with RGB off and 110 hours with RGB on.

• 🤝 Dedicated PC/Mac switch. If you jump between Windows and macOS, it’s annoying having to relearn how to copy and paste, as each operating system relies on different inputs. Thankfully, the ROG Strix Morph 96 has a clever PC/Mac key that changes the Windows and Alt keys to Option and Command, which means you don’t have to retrain your brain. The function keys (F1-F12) also switch to their corresponding macOS actions, such as Mission Control.

• 💰 Competitively priced. At around $20 cheaper than most comparable ten-keyless gaming keyboards, Asus has given the ROG Strix Morph 96 an extremely competitive price point. Again, this is a fully featured keyboard in a compact form factor, so a $139.99 price tag will be very appealing to many.

What I disliked about the Asus ROG Strix Morph 96 💔

• 😵‍💫 Muscle memory can lead to a few mistypes. The Asus ROG Strix Morph 96’s compact, space-saving layout means it takes some getting used to. I frequently found my fingers hovering over the number pad keys instead of the directional keys, and the smaller ‘Enter’ button was also easy to miss.

• 🤔 You need to learn a lot of commands. As there isn’t space for dedicated media keys aside from a multi-function dial and mode switch button, the Asus ROG Strix Morph 96 relies heavily on using the ‘Fn’ key and hotkey inputs. There’s a lot of labels strewn across the keyboard, so you’ll need to figure things out as you go and learn which inputs perform which commands.

• 💡 Not technically backlit. Even though the Asus ROG Strix Morph 96 has alluring RGB lighting, the keys themselves (aside from a few transparent ones that are included) don’t let light shine through. Instead, the area around the keys is lit up, which means it isn’t technically backlit like we expect.

• 🫨 The media knob feels a little loose. It might sound like a nitpick, but because the Asus ROG Strix Morph 96 is so sturdy and well-built, I couldn’t help but notice the media knob felt slightly looser than I’d like. There’s a bit of wobble to it, and I’d prefer more resistance when turned. There is some tactility, but a firmer-feeling wheel would have been appreciated.

• 🤷‍♂️ Not rapid trigger. Rapid trigger keyboards have become the gold standard for gamers, as they instantly reset the actuation point for faster and improved responsiveness. While ‘Speed Tap’ is a nice to have, its functionality is limited in games where it would be most impactful.

Should you buy the Asus ROG Strix Morph 96? 🤔

Yes, if…

• ✅ You want a mechanical keyboard that doesn’t annoy everyone around you.

• ✅ You want the benefits of a full-sized keyboard but in a compact package.

• ✅ You work across Windows and macOS.

No, if…

• ❌ You’re happy to sacrifice the number pad and other keys to save space.

• ❌ You work in a dimly lit environment and need a truly backlit keyboard.

• ❌ You need dedicated media controls and don’t want to use hotkeys.

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Adam Vjestica is The Shortcut’s Senior Editor. Formerly TechRadar’s Gaming Hardware Editor, Adam has also worked at Nintendo of Europe as a Content Marketing Editor, where he helped launch the Nintendo Switch. He also runs a retro gaming YouTube channel called Game on, boy! Follow him on X @ItsMrProducts.

🏆 Rating: 4.5/5

✅ Pros

• 🔊 Punchy sound quality with 15W driver

• 🎚️ Easy to fill a room with its volume

• 📐 Durable design

• 💡 Fun RGB lights that sync with your music

• 🔋 24-hour battery life

• 📺 Convenient screen for checking battery life

❌ Cons

• 🔈 Sound isn’t as full as other sub-$100 speakers

• 🎙️ No microphone for voice assistant or phone call support

The Shortcut review

I’ve been jamming out to all my favorite music with this little portable speaker from Soundcore, and it might be the one I recommend for anyone who needs a picnic or beach speaker this summer. The Boom Go 3i is a new $79 speaker from Anker’s sub-brand, Soundcore, and it does all the portable speaker stuff you want. Well, almost all of it.

Not only does it sound good and last for up to 24 hours on a charge, there are a bunch of RGB light strips across the front of it that sync to the beat of your music, lighting up the party in a way that most other portable speakers like this can’t. I’ve tested speakers that sound a bit fuller and offer richer details, but for the money you pay and the fun experience you get in exchange, the Boom Go 3i is a delightful addition to anyone’s jam session.

Amazon: Soundcore Boom Go 3i

Walmart: Soundcore Boom Go 3i

Review notes

🔊 Room-filling sound in the palm of your hand. The first time I fired up the Boom Go 3i, I was impressed with how loud it could get. For being such a small speaker, it could easily fill up my entire apartment and be heard from every room, all while being at around 70% volume. The 15W driver inside can pump out 92 dB at peak volume, which is impressive for a speaker of this size. It also doesn’t get too tinny or grainy at high volumes, something that a lot of other smaller speakers struggle with.

👊 Punchy bass and decent clarity. I was also impressed with the bass level on this speaker. I listened to a lot of hip-hop when I was testing it, from Logic’s Ultra 85 to J. Cole’s The Fall Off, and it had the right amount of thump that I was looking for. It’s not too overbearing where all you hear is bass, but it’ll certainly get the party started nonetheless. Clarity was also solid on the Boom Go 3i; mids and highs were easy to hear despite the thumping bass, which helped when listening to my country playlist and Frank Sinatra’s greatest hits.

🤏 It could use a little richness. If there was something I noticed that was missing from the sound profile, it was richness. While everything’s clear and easy to hear at high volumes, the sound isn’t that warm or fulfilling, although there’s only so much you can do with a driver of this size. Still, you might find yourself playing with the EQ settings to optimize the sound profile to something more desirable, which are luckily robust enough to tailor the sound you’re looking for.

📐 Durable design with a handy display. The Boom Go 3i is ready for your next adventure with its durable design that can survive stumbles onto floors, grass, rocky paths, and more. It’s certified IP68, so it’s safe against water and dust, and for convenience, there’s a side display that shows you how much battery life you have left. This is something I wish more Bluetooth speakers would include. I’m left guessing how much battery life is left on other speakers until I pair it with my phone and check the companion app, but the Boom Go 3i can show you with the tap of a button. It’s also handy for checking your charge since you can use the speaker as a portable charger for your phone.

💡 Light up the night. Another way this speaker stands out is the way it lights up. Soundcore incorporated a bunch of RGB light strips beneath the grille that can sync to the beat of the music you’re listening to. You can always turn them off if you want, but even in bright conditions like in sunny Manhattan on a spring day, you can still them - and they’re lit. It’s just more fun to have speakers that light up to the music you play, so I kept them on during my testing and don’t plan on turning them off anytime soon. You can also customize their appearance in the companion app, if you don’t like how they look out of the box.

🔋 24-hour battery life, if you’re careful. You can technically get up to 24 hours of music playback on the Boom Go 3i, but that takes some practice. You can’t use it at a higher volume than around 50% for an extended period of time, and you have to turn off the RGB lights. If you like to crank up your music and use the RGB lights, you’ll get around 10-12 hours of usage, which is more than enough to get through a day at the park. There’s even an Eco Mode that can extend usage to up to 40 hours, although I was never able to achieve that. Most speakers can’t last any more than 12 hours on a full charge, so the fact that there’s a way to double its endurance with a few settings tweaks is ideal for anyone who likes to party all night.

📝 Some bonus features, some missing ones. Soundcore threw in a few nice-to-have features on the Boom Go 3i, like Auracast support for pairing multiple Soundcore speakers together for a more immersive experience. There’s a built-in safety alarm you can trigger if you’re in trouble, and you can use Bluetooth via your phone to amplify your voice and announce over the speaker. One feature I missed was a microphone, which means you can’t use voice assistants or answer phone calls on this speaker. That being said, with everything else built into it, you might not even notice it isn’t there.

Should you buy the Soundcore Boom Go 3i?

Yes, if…

• ✅ You need a tiny speaker for the beach or park

• ✅ You want good battery life

• ✅ You want punchy sound with plenty of bass

• ✅ The RGB lights are calling your name (don’t blame you one bit)

No, if…

• ❌ You like using voice assistants through your speaker (get the Bose SoundLink Micro or Sony XB100)

• ❌ You want the richest sound for under $100 (get the JBL Grip)

Amazon: Soundcore Boom Go 3i

Walmart: Soundcore Boom Go 3i

Max Buondonno is an editor at The Shortcut and co-host of The Shortcut Live. He’s been reporting on the latest consumer technology since 2015, with his work featured on CNN Underscored, ZDNET, How-To Geek, XDA, TheStreet, and more. Follow him on X @LegendaryScoop and Instagram @LegendaryScoop.

🏆 Review score: 5 out of 5

🏅 Editor’s Choice Award

✅ Pros

• 🤑 Irresistible $189 price makes this speaker an impulse buy for Sonos newcomers and diehards

• 🔊 True stereo sound and punchy bass from a compact speaker unit

• 📻 Better with two speakers connected into a stereo pair

• 📲 Manual acoustic tuning with TruePlay on an iPhone

• 🛜 Bluetooth is handy for guests to quickly connect to the speaker

• 🎶 Lossless audio streaming over Wi-Fi

❌ Cons

• 🥁 Bass loses nuance while balancing low-mids notes with heavy bass

• 📵 TruePlay only works with iPhones, sorry Android users

• 💽 Turntables and other hardwired audio connections require a $19 dongle

Sonos Era 100 SL - $189

Best Buy: Sonos Era 100 SL - $189

Walmart: Sonos Era 100 SL - $189

Amazon: Sonos Era 100 SL - $189

The Shortcut Review

The $189 Sonos Era 100 SL is the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth speaker to buy if you’ve been on the fence about buying into Sonos’ ecosystem or just want to expand your already burgeoning system. This Speech Less version of the original Sonos Era 100 is $20 cheaper and only lacks the internal microphones that allowed the original smart speaker to auto-tune itself and listen to your voice commands. Aside from that, this speaker offers the same fantastic, true stereo sound experience and a surprising punch of bass from a compact speaker.

Although this isn’t a “true smart speaker” anymore, the Sonos Era 100 SL is still more intelligent than your average Bluetooth speaker. It still uses Wi-Fi and AirPlay 2 to stream Lossless music and connect with other Sonos speakers on your network. You can also fully control the speaker from the Sonos app, and you use TruePlay on an iPhone (sorry, Android users) to manually acoustically autotune the speaker to its surroundings.

For $189, the Sonos Era 100 SL is an impulse buy if you’ve been a little curious about Sonos speakers. It’s one of the cheapest ways to break into the system. If you’ve already bought into the Sonos ecosystem, the Era 100 SL is the perfect speaker to add a second stereo pair, extra rear surrounds for your home entertainment system, or another speaker for another room. And if you want a speaker you can take outside of home, check out the Sonos Play.

Full Review

🤑 Irresistible price. The $189 Sonos Era 100 SL is the speaker to get if you’ve been on the fence about joining the Sonos ecosystem. This sub-$200 price makes it more competitive against higher-priced options like the $299 Apple HomePod 2, and it delivers much better sound than the $219 Amazon Echo Studio. The Era 100 SL could be a great starting point for adding another Sonos speaker to create a stereo pair, or repurposing it as a rear surround speaker once you’ve picked up a Sonos soundbar. And if this ends up being the only Sonos speaker you buy, you won’t be out of pocket too much after spending just $189 – or possibly less this Black Friday.

📻 Stereo sound in one. The Sonos Era 100 SL packs true stereo sound and a decently sized midwoofer into a single speaker. The actual stereo separation isn’t huge, but the Era 100 SL’s two tweeters prevent vocals and instrumentals from being muddled when produced by a mono speaker. Rather, this speaker makes tracks sound clear and detailed, allowing me to really enjoy full-bodied and complex tracks like “Home” by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros.

🥁 Thumping bass. The Sonos Era 100 SL also produces surprisingly punchy bass for a speaker of its size. It produces that satisfying, vibrating bassline you want from songs like “...Not Like Us” and “Derezzed.” However, if you’re expecting nuance and impressive low-frequency depth, the Era 100 SL is slightly more disappointing. The speaker struggles to balance low-midrange and pure bass tones in songs with deeper vocals, such as Allie X’s “Black Eye.”

💃Two to tango. If you want even more stereo separation and immersive sound experience, pair the Era 100 SL with another Sonos speaker. I’ve been testing the Sonos Era 100 SL paired with an Era 100 for more than a week, and it’s been pure bliss. A single Era 100 SL produces clear, detailed sound, but with two, you can hear even more nuances as the speaker unit combines its stereo mix into a single larger channel.

🫢 Speech Less. Literally the only thing the Era 100 SL lacks over the regular Era 100 is a built-in microphone, which was used to make it “smart” and self-tune itself. That’s not a huge loss if you rarely use voice commands with your speaker or have an iPhone for TruePlay tuning. I see this as an even smaller loss, considering the Era 100 only supports Amazon Alexa or Sonos’ own smart assistant, and even then, it was only useful for basic playback controls.

📲 TruePlay with an iPhone. While the Sonos Era 100 SL doesn’t have microphones to listen and tune itself, you can use the iPhone to listen and manually optimize its output. All you need to start the process is to run the Sonos app on an iOS device. Simply go through the menus, and it takes less than 30 seconds, and you only need to repeat this process whenever you physically reposition the Sonos Era 100 SL.

The only wiggle you can’t get the TruePlay tuning on Android phones – hopefully Sonos will continue its streak of adding features after release, as it did for the Sonos Ace. Until then, Android users will be better served by the smarter Sonos Era 100. Alternatively, Denon’s latest family of Home speakers, which support Hi-Fi Bluetooth streaming and have a more platform-agnostic HEOS app.

🛜 Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. The Sonos Era 100 SL offers a flexible way to connect via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. Bluetooth is super handy if your friends or family want to quickly play a song on your speaker. Wi-Fi is really what you’ll want to use to play music on the Sonos Era 100 SL, as it’ll play lossless music from Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal at full quality.

🔌 USB-C for everything else. There’s also a USB-C port at the back of the Era 100 SL for line-in connections – though you’ll need an optional $19 dongle to make the connection. This port carries audio only, and it’s useful if you want to connect a record player or anything else with an AUX connector.

🗝️ Simple and clean. The Sonos Era 100 SL has the same exact design and speaker housing as the regular Sonos Era 100, and that’s a good thing. Its simple cylindrical shape and clean face don’t call much attention, allowing it to subtly blend in with the rest of your decor. It’s fairly compact, with 7.2 x 4.7 x 5.1-inch dimensions, so you can put this roughly coffee-can-sized speaker on small shelves or even the highest tier of a corner shelf.

Should you buy the Sonos Era 100 SL?

✅ Yes, if…

• 🤔 You’ve been on the fence about buying your first Sonos speaker

• 🎵 You want to hear true stereo sound and punchy bass for just $189

• 📻 You own a Sonos Era 100 or another Sonos speaker already

• 🤖 Smart speakers always listening worried you

❌ No, if…

• 🗣️ You’re looking for a smart speaker you can talk to (get the $199 Sonos Era 100 instead)

• 📵 You’re a full-time Android phone user (get the $299 Denon Home 200 instead)

• 🎒 You want a speaker that you can take outside with you (get the $299 Sonos Play instead)

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Kevin Lee is The Shortcut’s Creative Director. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam.